France

Right now I’m sitting on a TGV that’s about to depart from Lyon back to Paris. It’s a quick two hour trip between boths stations. With comfortable seats, food/drink (hell, beer and wine are served on board!) and stations in the center of town — this high-speed stuff is definitely the way to travel. (Everyone’s voting for the California high speed rail ballot measure, right?) Becky arrives early tomorrow morning and I’ll head to the airport to pick her up…

I had a great weekend with my awesome cousins in DC. Hit up Ben’s Chili Bowl, a Sunset Rubdown show at the Black Cat, Newseum, a Nationals game, Eastern Market all in about 48 hours. I’m in Paris right now but will be on my way to Lyon later today and have two appointments for apartments this evening. Wish me luck!

Well guys, I’m off tomorrow. I’ll be visiting my cousins in Washington DC tomorrow through Sunday, and by Monday will be arriving in Paris. By Tuesday afternoon, I’ll be in Lyon, where Becky and I will start the beginning of our seven month sojourn. I’ll be continuing to blog for Salon’s Machinist, and freelance as much as possible while I’m abroad. Oh yeah, and I gotta finish that pesky book before the end of the year. I’ll be back before…

Becky and I are moving to Lyon next month. I leave Oakland in exactly six weeks (OMG! SIX WEEKS!) for a weekend trip to DC to visit my cousins and will go to France from there on September 21. So, who’s got leads on apartments in Lyon? We want something in the 3è (near Part-Dieu), have 500 euros max to spend and ideally would like the place to be furnished. We’d need it from October 1 2008 to May 1…

So after much speculation, discussions, and email exchanges with French bureaucrats, Becky and I are be going to be English Teaching Assistants in France, a program arranged through the French government. What does that mean? We’ll be working 12 hours a week for 28 weeks (October through April) to teach French high schoolers our native tongue, and améliora our French in the process. Did I mention that this includes all the baguettes and croissants we can eat — oh, and…

NYT: A new black consciousness is emerging in France, lately hastened by, of all things, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States. An article in Le Monde a few days ago described how Mr. Obama is “stirring up high hopes” among blacks here. Even seeing the word “noir” (“black”) in a French newspaper was an occasion for surprise until recently. Meanwhile, this past weekend, 60 cars were burned and some 50 young people scuffled with police and…

We had a six-hour flight from Tehran, braved Paris rush-hour traffic and made it to my aunt Firouzeh’s house in Issy-Les-Moulineaux. I’ll be spending two nights here (my parents four) before heading home to California for one night before I mosey on over to Austin for a week for the Science Literacy Project conference. So all of you who’ve been asking me when I’ll be back in Oakland, I wouldn’t count on seeing me until April 13.

The French business magazine Challenges is reporting that Orange will be selling the world’s first legally unlocked iPhone for somewhere around €999 (that’s about $1,400) later this year. Or €399 with a subscription, of which Apple gets a 30 percent revenue share. The iPhone apparently is going for $680 in grey markets in Thailand and about $400 – $600 on Craigslist. I unlocked my own for free.

I came across these delights on Paleo-Future: The Electric Train from Paris to Beijing Flying police Hearing the newspaper (aka “radio”) Cars of war (aka “tanks)

So Becky and I saw Sicko last night and it makes us (seriously) want to move to France. Our lack of EU citizenship, of course, makes this rather tricky. A little digging around the Internets turned up this, which is hopeful: A letter addressed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the press outlet designating the journalist as a permanent correspondent and specifying his duties and his salary. A minimum of €1,000 per month is required. The applicant must also…