How was your trip to France?

France is still profound, when you know where to look.

The style, the wit, the emotional wherewithal and confidence to dress from head to toe in red and enter a bar to 'take a drink' at 11 am in the small town of St. Germain Lembron for instance.

Rimbaud deplored Europe's "antique masonry" in the 1870's but would undoubtedly be pleased to wander the French countryside today. It's very likely Arthur would recognize the villages around his hometown were he able to see them.

Absinthe is available once again.

There's a real ferris wheel just outside the walls of old Avignon. If you buy a ticket at night you're likely to be the only rider, and the view as you dangle at the top of the great neon wheel of the Palais Papes is memorable. Whores turn tricks in white Renault mini-vans parked in the municipal parking lot across the street, sitting in the driver's seat with their skirts hiked up, watching for customers.

Montaigut-le-Blanc, a village near Clermont-Ferrand, remains the center from which all meaning  radiates and Nimes, a city much further south, has discovered the delicate balance between being Roman and being modern.

Cars are much more respectful of cyclist's--for the most part--than they are of other cars, which are, fortunately, mostly small and noxious as opposed to the large and noxious cars of America. The "D" roads are still best for seeing deep, dark France.

There's also as much to dislike in France as there is in America. Politicians seem doused in the same corporate perfume worn in the USofA, though the French, having been through all this many times before, know the score and so are less concerned, as it were, and regard their 'leaders' with amused indifference. "There is no solution because there is no problem", as a Frenchman said.  

It is good to be home however if only to walk to the post office, be sure of standing in the correct line, and retrieve mail in a native language.

And thanks for asking.