I'm back

I ended my holiday on 1415 on October 29, arriving at SFO airport. The questions I was asked at Immigration made me reflect on my trip:

• Where have you been for 23 days?
• Why did you go to each of these countries?
• How long were you at the job that gave you your Green Card?
• What are you doing now?
• How long have you been doing it for?
• Do you have any food in your luggage?
• Not even English tea?
• Are you going to vote for John McCain, and if not, why not? (no, not really)

Tasneem and I, 2 hours before my departure from Aix, to London

Jed, Alexis, Rob, Sahar, Colette and I went to the Glasshouse in Kew Gardens on the Monday night, just before my departure:

Ryan Air seatbacks. In order to save weight, and clean up costs, RyanAir is configured with no seat back pockets and overhead life jacket holders. The RyanAir staff still attempted to sell loterry tickets on board. But they allowed me to take my carry on on board with no quibbles.

A pain-au-chocolat, NOT a chocolate croissant. As I slowly ate mine on the Cours Mirabeau, the flavours of butter, melting delicate layered pastry and rich dark chocolate brought me back to 1981, where I had tried my first, fresh from Paris. Here is my personal league table of Pain-au-chocolats:

1. Paris

2. Pret-a-Manger, Heathrow airport (actually a chocolate croissant)

3. Aix-en-Provence (the one below)

4. Aix-en-Provence (Monoprix bakery)

100. Whole Foods, San Mateo, California (pain au chocolat sold as a "chocolate croissant", doughy, not flaky, not buttery, chocolate stops halfway through the pastry, etc)

The one below was purchased at Bechard, on the Cours Mirabeau, for 1 euro. Notice the smooth glazed, flaky top, and my thumb print as I tried to hold it:

Mushrooms in the market:

Canteloupe melon in the market. We bought one of these:

View from my sister's window:

Entire duck liver:

Brunch I cooked for my sister and myself (don't laugh): pasta, tofu, tomatoes, egg.

Aix at night:

Ealing, the town I grew up in. My Uncle still lives here, so does my friend Chris Dabrowski:

This is the train that took me to the airport

La foire d'Aix en Provence

My brother's appartment entrance. I left at 0620 on Tuesday Oct 28, and there were still stars in the sky. I think I woke up Alexis on my way out. The building used to be a convent, where you were sent if you were a bad girl. I'm not saying that Alexis is a bad :-)

Adnan's Audi A8. Felt like travelling First class when you were used to United Economy. If it were any bigger, it would have flight attendants...

A lone leaf on the streets of Aix on a Sunday morning:

Did I say that Aix was known for its fountains?

Daybreak over Hounslow. I decided to take a train to the airport, and save 17 GBP:

The US is accused of terrorism. Wonder whether the NYT will report it this way:

Frost over an Ealing park, seen on the way to the airport. I used to play football on fields this frosty, and come home with blue fingers:

Barclays has trademarked the phrase "Hole in the Wall" for use on its ATMs:

UA955, gunmetal grey like the clouds I was used to, growing up in England, but which I never saw on this trip. On the flight, I was seated next to Aza Raskin, who works for the Mozilla foundation. He's a serial entrepreneur, and founded Humanized and Songza. Please check out Songza, it's one of the coolest sites, with the most appealing interface I've seen for a long time. Mozilla is apparently launching Firefox for mobile, in much the same way as Opera has. The only difference is they will have a team of 10, with hundreds of community developers on the project, rather than a team of 500 like Opera does! The flight was uneventful, uncomfortable and extra long. But I was lucky to get to know Aza, and we talked for over 6 hours. He had plenty of tips on how to meet with Walt Mossberg, and how to grow a company. 

Speed dating

Not that much time to write, but here's an elevator pitch:

• Arrived in Aix-en-Provence at Tasneem's place on Thursday afternoon (after a long delay)
• We went to her classes, on British Civilisation and English Conversation on Friday (the theme of the class was "Speed Dating", and I was assigned to be Hillary Clinton - more on that story later!) (Poor Tasneem ended up having to be W)
• Tasneem invited her friend, neighbor and occasional English tutor (Carina) for dinner on Friday
• Today Walked around Aix en Provence as the city opened (photos below)
  
• More soon, we're off to have a pizza
• She lives above Shannon's Irish pub: they're rowdy until 5am unless you call the police (like the neighbour did once) or wear earplugs (like I did)

Shopping for the dinner party (76 Euros)
My lovely sister:
A church (somewhere)
heavy balcony above some kind of tribunal. The French take administration very seriously
Stone, blue skies, very "rustique"
On our walk, we crashed a wedding:
My first meal in Aix, cooked by my sister. Yummy
My ride over. I'll share the letter I wrote to Stellios and Andy later.
Style:
My sister's favourite bookshop, the "Book In Bar" that serves coffee and scruptious cakes (to your table) while you browse the New Yorker, Longman's Thesaurus or a wide selection of Obama books...
The Vietnamese restaurant below her appartment. The shutters shown are Carina's.

I was wearing a pale blue T Shirt. But no dog collar.
Dinner my sister cooked for Carina:

Note the cat on the roof:
Le Cours Mirabeau, main thoroughfare through Aix en Provence:

The Beach or Bust

The dentist and the Professor

It's about 0739, I woke up 2 hours later today, and feel conquered by the sun. I'm going to write first (to save precious bandwidth so that my father can listen to his Obama podcast) and illustrate later. [ed: Podcast over, illustration complete]

Yesterday started with a long run outside up John F Kennedy Avenue, and down Queen Mary Avenue, then down the hill again to my house. Here's my house as seen from the main road (look for the dark grey roof)

Next, made a trip to the hospital, here's a picture of my father (yes, he put the suit on especially for the photo, and the mac is there for effect too (no not really):

Some original artwork from my mum on the wall opposite: oil on wood.

We then had a lively discussion on marketing, and increasing revenue. I told him of my difficult experiences with Kaiser Permanente (yes, Dr Nyachoto, I hope you are reading this), and we agreed that the hospital is small enough to follow up and guide patients PROPERLY.

First, I hopped in the car and drove to the dentists' in Rose Hill. He works in a converted appartment in the middle of Rose Hill's commercial district:

There is only one Sale:

On the way back, I decided to take some backstreets behind the Rose Hill Plaza. And came to a dead-end. But hey, isn't this a nice place to get lost?

Eventually found my way back to the hospital. I had the following conversation with my father, as he dropped my at the University of Mauritius.

Dad: How much did the Dentist charge you?

Me: 700 Roupees ($23)

Dad: As much as that? (looks surprised)

Me: You mean you can do it at home for nothing? (he likes saying that when we go out to restaurants)

Dad: No, he charged you his  Foreigners Fee!

Me: Well how much should he charge?

Dad: He charges me Rs 200 ($7)

Me: Well you're his friend

Dad: But you're my son! I can't believe he did this to me!

Me: He didn't. I paid. And he's running a business.

Dad: What if you couldn't afford to pay?

Me: Then he should have charged me less. But I could. besides, what I would have paid in America is $120 (Rs 3600)

Dad: OK. 

(later)

Dad (quietly): I can't believe he did that...

Here's the University of Mauritius:

Well, only today, because of Student Elections.

The chanting was loud enough to sound like Paris, c.1968

Roukaya and I had lunch in the faculty dining hall (Panini for me, no garlic thank you) and then attended a lecture by Ellen Barker, Professor Emeritus of the LSE, on Religion, Diversity and Democracy.

No photos allowed, but some interesting points she made:

20% of people surveyed claim to be "spiritual and non-religious"
Families with no religious parents had children who didn't follow a religion
Families with two religious parents had children with a 50/50 chance of becoming religious
People over the age of 20 who had not changed of religion would never change their religion

Next, spent 2 hours in Roukaya's office, working, while she lectured. The view outside the window looked like this:

Sony's email started like this:

Hello Alam,

I don't want to spoil your holiday in Mauritius, but:

Had a wonderful meal at home with Mum and Dad (pumpkin, spinach, roti, sauteed potatoes) (sorry no photos, they asked me to take my camera to the restaurants)

then spent time on Skype with Vahe.

Went to bed 2 hours too late (midnight). Only 6 days left. And evenings are filling up fast....