The Neutral Zone

Paris, France - We've returned to Europe for a three-week sojourn in France, Switzerland, and the UK. We're obviously very excited. We arrived in Paris Sunday around 11AM. Our approach to jet lag is akin to tearing the bandaid off quickly: We purposely sleep little if at all on our transatlantic flight (below is a photo of Hannah, trying not to sleep on the flight), consume copious amounts of caffeine after we land, slowly descend into irritability and mild delirium, and then collapse after staying up as late as we can on our first night in Europe. Our body's, overcome by shock from this maltreatment, eagerly accept a full night's sleep, even if it's offered at an hour that's entirely out of keeping with our normal schedule. Works like a charm.  After depositing our things at the hotel, we aimlessly wandered around Paris for a few hours before meeting up with Maggie, an acquaintance of Hannah's from work. Maggie took us to the wine bar Delicatessen where we ...

Paris, France - Dear reader, I am filing this report two weeks late. Please forgive my tardiness. H and I were in Paris the weekend of March 7. Before you scold us too harshly for travelling in the midst of coronavirus, keep in mind that the pandemic was not in full blossom at that time. H had traveled to NYC a week prior for work and, months ago, we decided that it would be more fun (and cheaper) if she flew from NYC to Paris, where we could spend the weekend traipsing in the City of Light. In any case, we seem to have avoided contracting coronavirus during these travels. The Flood In keeping with the general zeitgeist of catastrophe, the Siene was flooding while we there, though this was clearly not the most pressing crisis the government was dealing with at the time. The river had flooded over a lower roadway that runs along the bank and forced its closure, though it had fortunately not risen to the level of the upper bank and started flooding the city proper. Seine river. ...