Now it can be told. We skipped right past any sort of celebration of Thanksgiving Day, in Abu Dhabi, because we were hoping to pull together something in Paris two days later.
Yes, it is possible to buy a turkey in Paris, and to round up most of the ingredients necessary for the infamous “fixin’s” that […]

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Vacation days to burn before the end of the year, a low, late-autumn fare … the Salon des Vins des Vignerons Independants by noon of the first day.
So has our 2011 stay in Paris begun.
A valuable aspect of living in the UAE is proximity to places you might not get around to visiting, when living […]

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I am back in Abu Dhabi but still talking to people around me about Beirut and my three days there, which were jammed with enough events and anecdotes and revelations to have felt like three weeks.
Before we go any further, let’s link to a discussion that a Beirut-based blogger told me about, a discussion based […]

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I believe many of us like to think we’re glass-half-empty people. Doesn’t a sort of world-weariness make us seem, oh, more sophisticated? More realistic? Cock-eyed optimism … doesn’t the “cock-eyed” tell us all we need to know about optimists?
Certainly, in the news biz, where we document famine and pestilence and death and destruction, optimists are […]

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That’s what I’m calling it. A slump. Just a string of unfortunate results. Accidents, even.
I don’t actually look like that.
A little down period on the mugshot front. It began the other day. 2005, I think it was.

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I may have remarked upon this before: How casual most people in this country are about getting rid of their trash … anywhere they please.
Where do you dispose of wrappers, bags, papers, in the UAE? Out your window. Or at your feet.
You just drop it and forget about it.
This hit home for the umpteenth time […]

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Time for a list. We all love lists. Especially if they have a level of, oh, difficulty involved.
Ten ways in which a reasonable person would prefer being in Abu Dhabi of the United Arab Emirates over The City of Light, Gay Paree … blah blah blah.
Let’s count them down. Here we go.

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One of the simplest charms of Paris is the baguette. The ubiquitous pain Francaise. (Don’t you dare call it a bread stick!) And it is one of the little things I will miss most. As always.
Ah, the baguette! How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

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I thought the quote was: “When a man is tired of Paris he is tired of life.”
But upon closer inspection it appears that the line (attributed to Samuel Johnson) was … “When a man is tired of London he is tired of life …”
However, it still could apply to Paris because the quote continues with, […]

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OK, it wasn’t actually opera. Which is how we planned it. Opera requires lots of patience and an appreciation for le danse I will never develop.
We were more interested in seeing the inside of the Paris Opera house than seeing an opera staged at the building now sometimes known as the Palais Garnier. (Though the […]

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