Category Archives: my stuff

A picture from Paris

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Saw lots of stuff in Paris today, including the Eiffel Tower.

Parlez vous Anglais?

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This is about the handiest French phrase I’ve used in Strasbourg yesterday and Paris today.  The usual answer is “a little” – but so far it’s working well for me.  I actually did 3 years of French. in high school, but I remember about 10 minutes of it.  Also I’ve got to remember  “oui” and “non”, “sil vous plait” and “merci” instead of “ja”, “nein”, “bitte” and “danke” from last week in Germany.  (oh, and “prost” – that got a decent workout last week).

I’m sure I could become quite accustomed to sitting outside a cafe drinking espresso, eating croissants and pastries and watching the world go by.

Anyway, here’s a couple of places I visited today.

Tomorrow, I’m off to the Louvre and Eiffel Tower.

Beer, beer and more beer

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I think I’ve drunk more beer this week in Germany than I would normally do in six months.  It’s just so good.  Something about Germany just forces you to drink enormous glasses of the stuff.

I’m near Stuttgart this week, for work.  Once I finish up tomorrow night, I’m taking a few days off before coming back home.  Might as well get a bit of sightseeing in on the company’s tab (well they paid the airfare to get here).

I got here on Saturday and met some colleagues for a trip to Tubingen for some dinner.  It was really quaint in the old part of the town, and dinner was good, involving of course sausages, sauerkraut and beer.

Took a walking tour in Stuttgart on Sunday, which included the treat of climbing about 300 steps to the top of the Stiftskirche, which is apparently only open for this a few days each year.

Finished the weekend off with another dinner, in Stuttgart, again involving a decent amount of beer, plus schnitzel.

Bangkok Red Shirts

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I’ve been thinking about the events of late in Bangkok with the Red Shirt protesters and the Thai government’s military response to them.  I spent a few days in Bangkok last September and it turns out where I stayed was pretty much in the middle of where all the shooting has been happening.  A few hundred metres down the road from the hotel is Lumpini Park, which was like this when I was there.

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Very pretty place, and full of locals doing their various activities – such as the mass aerobics session in my photo.

This is what was happening at Lumpini Park this week:

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I couldn’t even begin to imagine how terrible it would be to somewhere amongst this violence or even somewhere near it.  Damn frightening I’d expect.

Hopefully things will return quickly to normal in Bangkok.  Hopefully the Thai government won’t use its victory over the protesters as an excuse to crack down on dissent in any form.  Hopefully all the Thai people I met last year are all ok.

The big potato

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… or is it really a big turd?

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Its in the main street of Robertson, NSW – where I went today.  Its a lovely area … although I’m not sure the idea of having a big brown potato to highlight the area’s main agricultural product was all that well thought through.