Des morceaux d'information


Où se trouve la Nouvelle-Aquitaine en France ?

 This past week's readings and wanderings have provided the following "bits and pieces" of information about the region in which I live: formerly known as Limousin, but now the larger Nouvelle Aquitaine:

 1) A test track has been identified in my region for the "Hyperloop", Elon Musk's (Pay Pal, Tesla, etc.) transport system technology that would take you in a vacuum tube pod from Limoges to Paris (almost 4 hours by car) in less than half an hour.

2) A hen retirement home is about to open; but of more interest to me is that an elephant orphanage is set to open in my region! Saw elephants in the wild in Kenya, and visited an elephant orphanage in Uganda. Would love to volunteer.

3) Volunteer opportunities may be possible with Emmaüs, the now secular charitable society started by "Abbé Pierre" that is active in homelessness, poverty reduction, and immigration issues, and has several offices within my region.

4) Metropolitan Museum of Art ("Met") in NYC is being challenged by the lovely town of St. Yrieix-la-Perche for the return of a 13th century bust of St. Yrieix (St. Aredius), encrusted with precious stones. Saint's bones are said to be contained in a copy of the bust, that's still in the town.

5) The Bayeux Tapestry, which depicts the Norman invasion of 1066 (and which Gary and I saw in Normandy), may be about to leave France for the first time in almost a thousand years, to go to the UK (location still TBD).

6) I drove past the Civaux nuclear power plant (I know what they look like, having lived not from from 3-Mile Island in PA), and wondered...so did some quick research: "France derives over 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy. This is due to a long-standing policy based on energy security. France is the world's largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation, and gains over EUR 3 billion per year from this."plan is to reduce reliance on nuclear over the next couple of decades.

A la prochaine --

Comments

  1. Kathie JFebruary 3, 2018 at 8:48 AM

    Good stuff! Did you know there is a proposal now being evaluated for an SCMaglev train (similar to Musk's hyperloop) between DC and Baltimore, one of the last 2 routes being discussed is thru (under) Greenbelt, where I live. Personally, I am opposed to this one. Can't comment on the one you mention.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ehpadinvestFebruary 4, 2019 at 2:49 PM

    J'ai lu votre message et je l'ai eu assez instructif. Je suis impressionné par les détails que vous avez partagés dans ce post et cela révèle à quel point vous comprenez bien ce sujet. Merci de partager cet article ici. investir dans une maison de retraite

    ReplyDelete
  3. Saunders & LeeMarch 28, 2020 at 9:27 AM

    Wow impressive blog you have shared informative information. as we provide business admin consultant Cambridgeshire at affordable prices. for more info visit our website.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Meeting of Cousins

Image
Gabriela Merlinsky and I -- Paulette Lee (née Merlin) -- are second cousins.  We share the same great-grandfather.  We connected through Facebook, as another first cousin of mine and his wife had recently made a trip to Argentina and knowing they had relatives there, looked them up and met some. Of course, we all shared the information. It turns out that while Gabriela is Argentinian and lives in Buenos Aires (married for 30 years, two children, husband is a professor of vocational education) her academic work -- she's a university sociology professor -- brings her to Tours, France about once a year for collaboration on a project concerning environmental social issues in Latin America. So, we made a plan to meet, since Tours is less than two hours from me by car, but I took the train -- very easy and inexpensive -- which was a little more than 2 hours.  She met me at the train station -- identifiable by her purple scarf -- and we went for lunch and a walk aroun
Read more

Finalement...à la fin...

Image
Sunrise view of Argenton rooftops from my back door. Every new day had its challenges. In the final analysis it was a "triple A" experience:  adventure , adaptation and, especially, the art . I'm leaving France after a year and a half and moving back to the U.S. to re-settle in a less lonely, less rural,  larger town where I'll be less culturally and language-challenged, and have more accessibility  to friends, grandson and activities.  However, I don't for a minute regret what I have learned, done, experienced or spent here, and I shall deeply miss the charm and beauty of France when I return to the banality of the U.S.  I'll also miss living in a country where the public good is considered and matters, where health care coverage is a given, where gun-toting isn't considered a "right",  and where quality of life carries more weight than capitalism.  Sadly, however, both countries bear the burden and wear the stain of bigotry and intolera
Read more

A Christmas in Ghent

Image
This Christmas (2018), I was invited to David and Marta's home in Everghem, a suburb of Ghent, Belgium. David is the brother of a friend (Nina) in Maryland, and I met him when he drove her and our mutual friend Kathie to see me here in France in August.  David is an American born in Germany with Australian citizenship, a lifelong street performer, and married to Marta who is Polish, and the mother of four adult children, three of whom live around Ghent, while the fourth -- Helena - lives with her husband and children in Denmark.  Yes, it was confusing! The food was mostly Polish, with some Belgian thrown in (that would be primarily the deep-fried potatoes, plus beer and chocolates); the languages were English, Dutch (the lingua franca of this area of Belgium) Polish, Danish (among Helena and her family), and probably some Flemish, German and French thrown in occasionally. Ghent ("Gan" in French, which is closer to the original Flemish for "conflue
Read more