Exploring

In front of Hotel de Ville with the Abbaye-aux-Hommes adjacent to it. "Hotel" in this case, does not mean "The Hotel of the City" as we initially thought, but simply the City Hall. And, the Abbaye-of-Men has an Abbaye of Women counterpart across the city,the two being founded by William the Conquerer and his wife Matilda, in the 11th century.

Part of being new to a place--although we are not that new anymore, with more than 7 months already--is getting to know your surroundings simply by walking. Walking a lot, and often with camera in hand, much to the exasperation of your husband who enjoys his walks camera-free. Apparently "recording the experience" alters the experience from him, so he would rather go without the flash and the clicks and the clacks. Can you tell he is a researcher? Apparently the "natural" state of the walk is no longer that, if we have to record it for posterity (or for the picture files where where, if they could, they would gather dust, but pixels and hard drives took care of that). But who wants to get into the philosophy of data gathering?

The long and short of it is that we are collecting pictures that do not see the light of day, and the "experience" I am recording so dutifully gets neglected anyway. So I am trying to be better and make us of this medium I actually started for this reason (even if no one else reads it:) At least by writing it down, I will imprint it into my own memory better. Yes, I do believe in that. I am teacher, and a humanities one, after all.