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Travel

The heartbreak of museum fatigue 

   A renovation architect once explained to me that the heavy aching in your legs when traipsing through a museum is a real physical ailment known as “museum fatigue.” “It’s a physical reaction to not knowing where the end of the museum is.”  I have a particularly acute case in that my legs will grow heavy […]

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Travel

Nice at night and the soap box is in session 

   As a general rule on the road, Carol and I don’t engage strangers in conversation. I studiously avoid it; Carol merely doesn’t seek it out. In this, it is more or less the position we maintain at home. In the going on five years we’ve lived in our mobile home community, I still don’t know […]

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Travel

Nice: Or the things you do while waiting to board the next train

   Corresponding to what I like to do first when exploring a new location, Carol and I boarded the Ligne 1 tram just down from our hotel, and rode it to its terminus in each direction. The idea is to find something of interest along the way, and then ride back there to explore it in […]

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Travel

The new normal begins

The 10:34 to Marseilles The 14:57 to Nice    If this first rail trip is any indication, it might be that my previous experiences with Eurail already represent a bygone era.    The first clue was that the Marseille train lacked both a club car or even a beverage cart. Not that I had planned to pop […]

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A New Beginning

Reid being Reid

   Carol and I have been traveling together for two weeks now, and we’ve been having as wonderful a time as I’d expected. It’s when I think that everything is going great that I normally start to worry that something is about to reveal itself as terribly wrong. Carol calls it Reid being Reid.

   “I’m having a wonderful time,” Carol said to me, as we waited for our train to Nice. “I love these train rides.”

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solo sojourner

I hear good things about the salami here

   Jackpot! The car I chose for my two and-a half-hour ride to Nice is packed with Indian families and their squally children. They appeared to all be related and committed to catching up on every minute aspect of their lives since birth. The squally kids were left to fend for themselves.

   This happy coincidence was made possible by the lack of a first class car on the train (my congressman shall hear of this!). No matter though, I had a blog to write. I had also been fortunate enough to choose the sun side of the train, but the layer of dust on the window was sufficiently thick to provide a natural sunshade. I got to work.

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