Arrived in Paris at 8 am local time, 2 am NYC time (which is often when I go to bed - so you can imagine how much we didn't sleep on the plane - but paid extra on Air France for Premium Voyageur, and boy was it worth it!! 1 step down from Business at a fraction the cost - 10 steps up from Steerage! We love Air France).  Staggered onto RER to Gare ( Read more... )

Headed home today - so one last photo, of the little courtyard that led up to the roof (to the right), and into the sitting/dining/kitchen wing:


( Read more... )

Your comments on my previous post about our Mexican writing retreat (with 8 other people) made me laugh (where appropriate), feel happy, and generally enjoy having you all in my Virtual Salon here.

Here is a wonderful article about the guy here who made my magical rings, David Godinez.  (Backstory:  All my life I've wanted to wear massive rings - ( Read more... )

For the past week, Delia & I have been with friends in a perfect little jewel of a colonial town in Mexico.  We're in a huge glorious palazzo of an 18c house together on a writing retreat, and while I fear I have spent far too much of my time trying to raise funds and attract stations to our Witches of Lublin show for April, I have managed to ( Read more... )

So on my birthday last week Delia & I flew to Denver with Terri Windling, who was to be one of the 3 Guests of Honor at the Sirens Conference in Vail.  They loaded us all onto a bus to Vail, and I watched the land turn to mountains covered with pine trees, dotted with bright yellow-leaved aspens.  It just got more and more magic.  And my cell phone ( Read more... )

 As deliasherman  is unable to post regular travel updates owing to her Airbook not having the attachment to hook into the delightfully old-fashioned cable chez our host here (though she is composing them faithfully, and will post them when she can), it falls to me to inform you that:

We are happily installed in a swell friend's swell flat in Oriental Bay, with ( Read more... )

.....figuratively speaking, that is, as it is actually raining here in New Zealand, but I don't care.  Delia's eye is on the mend, and we are at the Waipoua Lodge, in the Northlands of the North Island,  which is as close to Paradise as I've been in a good long while.  Last night we took a guided walk in the Waipoua Forest, saw (by flashlight) many ( Read more... )

Oh, yeah - and one more thing:

8/26  A friend recommended these, and to our astonishment they seem to work! Homeopathic tablets from New Zealand, where everything's a long flight away... NO-JET-LAG(R) Feeling less awful on Day #3 in Australia than we did on our last trip to Europe . . . go figure! You take them on the plane at takeoff, landing, and ( Read more... )

We had a great time at Aussiecon, but our hotel charged crazy rates for WiFi, so only I used it - for organizational/administrative purposes, mainly - and  deliasherman 's updates are sitting on her laptop, waiting to upload when possible ( Read more... )

 As deliasherman  has just explained, we are packing for a week in Sydney (beginning Sept. 24) preceding a week in Melbourne, followed by 2 weeks in NZ, beginning in Christchurch, heading west to glaciers, then north to Wellington & Auckland (train trips! train trips!  yayyy!).

How's the weather likely to be?  What should we pack?

And what can we bring you?  I' ( Read more... )