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France

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-- Du 2012/01/31 au 2012/05/06
-- From Miami to the backoffice Draguignan, Var

Miami

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Davco RV-Storage in Miami, FL, USA

Retour en Europe

Well on January 30th the devil was introduced into the process of the trip from Miami to Paris. Due to bad weather in Toronto, abundant snow falls, the departure from Miami was delayed of approximately 1:30. Thus in Toronto I missed the connection to Paris. The following flight was towards Frankfurt which had also a delay of approximately 1:30 due to the queue to the de-icing area of planes before takeoff. In Frankfurt I also missed the connection to Paris. I expected the next flight envisaged at 15:50 on January 31st whose takeoff was on time. On January 7th I had bought a Miami-Paris flight via Toronto for a 10:40 duration of flight and for a 11:40 length of trip, actually the duration of the three flights was 13:10 and the total time 18 hours. Indeed I arrived in Paris about 16:10 at d+1 and at the Hotel Ibis in Courbevoie around 5 p.m. But never I was a shipwrecked man in the airports as well in Toronto as in Frankfurt the reception was organized and attentive. Moreover Air Canada offered a seat in business class on the Toronto-Frankfurt flight. The return in France was already full with unforeseen. While arriving at Courbevoie I stretch my legs while crossing the eponymous bridge to go and see again the Île-de-la-Jatte where I lived during exactly 30 years.

Paris

I remained five days in Paris in cold and snow as I had seldom undergone during the thirty years that I lived there. My diary was filled of appointment with old relations, shopping and visits of museums. The motivation of my return in France after four years of absence was the tenth birthday of my mother's death.
After more than six years I returned to the company where I worked the thirty last years of my occupation. I was accommodated cordially by my former secretary, Helene, who coached me during a morning to see and see again former colleagues. It was a great moment of human relations.

Musée du Quai Branly

I visited the Museum of the Branly Quay, museum of arts and civilizations of Africa, of Asia, of Oceania and Americas (non Western civilizations), also called museum of first arts. President Jacques Chirac had the initiative of it and inaugurated it on June 20th, 2006. "The museum complex contains several buildings, as well as a multimedia library and a garden. The museum's frontage facing onto quai Branly features very tall glass paneling which allows its interior gardens to be remarkably quiet only meters from the busy street in front of them". (Wikipedia) I show parts which impressed me the most.

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Slit gong, Malekula Island Figures from reliquaries ensemble

Musée Guimet

Another day I immersed myself in the museum of Asian arts called formerly Guimet museum. In the beginning it was composed with collections gathered by Emile Guimet. “Thereafter, it specializes in the Asian objects d'art and transfers its collections in the museum which it makes build in Paris and which is inaugurated in 1889. In 1927, the Guimet museum is attached to the Management of the museums of France and gathers other collections and legacy of private individuals. It is now one of the largest collection of Asian art out of Asia.” (Wikipedia). I present some significant parts.

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Seven cups, Qing dynastie 17th Nô mask, Edo era

Les Loges-Margueron, Aube, France

On February 4th I undertook a pilgrimage to the cradle of my family at Les Loges-Margueron. Weather was very cold and snowfalls occurred at daybreak. In way I stopped in Troyes where I was born and spent all my childhood and adolescence. It was a touching moment to see again the family house and my high school, what a lot of memories invaded me!  The village of Les Loges-Margueron is proud of the Chateau de Crogny converted into a forest high school. It has a population about 200 inhabitants. According to the habit of my family I drove a owner's trip in the village.

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Road covered with snow Family Bazin's tomb

Draguignan, Var, France

On February 5th I took a TGV train from Paris to Les Arcs-Draguignan where my brother expected me for a short stay in his villa “Les Rochilles”, time to make medical checkups of which he had established a precise planning for two weeks. All was held without hitch until a electrocardiogram during effort (stress) which drew the attention of the cardiologist discovering a congenital malformation of my coronaries with sténosantes plates. From that moment it was a sequence of appointments to carry out complementary examinations, scans, coronoscanner, angioplastie, scintiscanning etc I piled up the deadlines for three months from Draguignan to Fréjus and to Saint-Laurent-du-Var. Finally I learned that my physical constitution thanks to the joggings practiced during more than forty years on the quay of the Seine River, trekking in high mountains as well as climbing of six summits up to +6.000meters developed the cardiac muscle and arteries. Consequently it was neither convenient to pose a stent nor to practice a bridging of my coronaries, malformed and clogged. I thus recover the investment carried out during all these years. However I must supervise myself by carrying out echography during effort annually, bof! and I am compels to gulp down drugs during the remainder of my days, yes! and to avoid brutal efforts, as changing a wheel of my truck about 150kg weight, ah!

At the beginning of February a cold wave and a snowstorm fell down on the Var department causing some extensive damages, trees broken under the weight of snow and trees irremediably frozen particularly species of the Mediterranean climate, mimosa and bay-tree.

Villa Les Rochilles, 2012/02/01
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My sister-in-law's 72th birth day
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In alternation of medical checkups I took part modestly in the services of Les Rochilles by helping my brother. Mad of data processing ( IT ) he created a website for a hunting association of which he is the vice-president. he encouraged me to make mine evolved by putting it in accordance with the W3C standard. It had acquired the  Expression Web 4 software, successor of Frontpage by Microsoft which I had also used for my website. Frontpage had many owner's functionalities not taken again by Expression Web 4. Alas I used two of them, the photo gallery as well as the automatic insertion of Excel sheets. In addition W3C does not recommend the use of frame, base structure of my website. W3C separates the container and the contents from a Web page by the use of CSS3 sheets and Html5 language. The work of setting in conformity proved very long even impossible due to thousands of pages of my website. Consequently I chose a solution a minima. I preserved the structure and the design by introducing the CSS sheets and by removing the frame. This evolution relates to the future journeys as well as the two trips in progress into the USA and Canada for which the cohabitation of the pages with frame already published and the next pages without frame proves if not problematic at least not very elegant. Today it remained to solve the insertion of the Excel sheets for the Campsite-position page and the replacement of the gallery of Frontpage. This publication is thus partial. Finally TTQV 4 navigation software by Touratech has also a major change by becoming QuoVadis 6 of which I bought. I must install it and learn it before leaving at the end of May. Maps of South America work only with the new version.

This journey in France was planned for three weeks duration. It started with a chaotic way by plane and lasted four months with the discovery of heart problems finally non-crippling. Life is not a long quiet river, it is necessary to be versatile.

I should mention the welcome by my brother and my sister-in-law who were always attentive during the long uncertainty moments on standby of the medical results.