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.