Have Broom, Will Travel ... How I learned to love Halloween #ThrowbackThursday


October used to find me wishing I could be a witchy woman. But that flew out the window when I became a mother and the holiday wasn’t all about me anymore.

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5 Ways to feel like you’re in France when you don’t have the francs

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Are you Dreaming of France but finding yourself short of the francs you need to take you there? Ladies and Gentlemen, Mesdames et Messieurs, step right up and j oin my travel club and take a journey that won’t cost you a red hot centime. Because this is a trip you take in your mind. Okay, it ’ s not exactly there -there but if you can ’ t actually get to Paris or the Cote d ’ azur, it ’ s the next best thing.  Here ’ s five things to pack in your virtual valise to put you in a French  state of mind.  Substituting French words for English is a great starting point... Un: French Ambience Pretend you live on a charming street near the Eiffel Tower with the simple application of this artistically incorrect mural. How do you say cheesy in french? Or better yet, decorate your home with every  Eiffel tower you can find — never mind most self-respecting French citizens would likely prefer to leave the tour  Eiffel on the Champ de Mars  where  it belongs.  Deux: La mus
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Pretty French Postcards

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Pretty French Postcards My trip to France with Mindy in '89 was very different from my visit with my sister Nancy, sixteen years earlier, when I was twenty and she was just sixteen. When Mindy and I stayed in Paris, we stayed in a newish hôtel in the business district, an area called la Defense. Modern, comfortable, the kind of place that catered to business travelers. We could have been anywhere. Paris, France. Paris, Texas. New York City. What the hôtel lacked in character it made up for in amenities. A real front desk. A fax machine. A bar off the lobby. A bidet. The place that Nancy and I stayed at in the Pigalle had a fading painted number on the crumbling wall outside, a round black bell you pushed so the cranky old concierge, a French woman straight out of a novel, could open up and begrudgingly show you to your room, eyeing you suspiciously all the while. We barely knew what fax machines were in 1973 but if we had, our little no-name hôtel wouldn't have h
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Above Ground on the London Underground—Day 46: White City

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If it's Friday we must be back in London.   Every Friday I take a virtual walking tour ‘above ground’ on the London Underground. Using  my Tube guide & my fitbit® device, my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day roughly following along the Underground route, reporting back here on Fridays with my findings.  Here are the previous days . This is Day 46. Today we’re walking from the Ealing Broadway underground station to White City. The trek is 4.2 miles which should clock in at just about 10,000 steps.  Back in 1908, the area was transformed from Shepherd’s Bush farm land into the location for the Franco-British exhibition and the 1908 Summer Olympics. Called the white city because of the white cladding of the ornate exhibition buildings, the area was used for the Japan-British exhibition in 1910, the Latin-British exhibition in 1912, and finally the Anglo-American exhibition in 1914 when WWI put an end to it. After that the White City was left to fall into disrepair and ult
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