You’re heard the expression “cover-your-eyes awful” or something near to that? I understood the concept. I had never lived it. Until tonight … while watching the movie starring (and written by and directed by) Simon Helberg — Wolowitz, of TV’s successful Big Bang Theory. About halfway through We’ll Never Have Paris, I literally was covering […]

[Read more →]

Yes. I know. Tales of long/delayed/strange plane rides generally are of interest only to the people who suffer through them. But this one was particularly odd and exotic. Really. Trust me. How often have you flown over Greenland? Not just the tip of Greenland, like, 500 miles of it right in the middle?

[Read more →]

It was on October 16, 2009, that we arrived in Abu Dhabi. Five years ago today. It seems longer. Not in a bad way. More in a “hard to remember life before” kind of way. A rule of thumb, among expats, is that if you do five years out of your home country, you never […]

[Read more →]

Waited all of 10 days or so to buy the 19th Jack Reacher book, entitled Personal, which came out on September 2. When I got around to reading it … I was done on the second day. How does this version compare to the others?

[Read more →]

This week, The National celebrated the five-year anniversary of the Dubai Metro with a package of stories on the history and development of the system. In retrospect, it is hard to imagine what road traffic in that city would be like, without the rail lines that run parallel to major highways. Dubai already is nightmarish […]

[Read more →]

In journalism, we have a concept known as the “toe touch”. In brief, it means a reporter/writer making an appearance at the city/country he or she is writing about. It almost literally can be a toe touch. Off a plane, through passport control and customs, and right back to a waiting lounge for the next […]

[Read more →]

Flying to and from Europe, with Abu Dhabi at the start and finish, makes for some interesting evasive actions. On the way over last month, to Rome, we went mostly due east from the AUH, skirted Israel, then made a sudden move to the northwest, straight for Rome. Airlines that are flag carriers for the […]

[Read more →]

It had been more than 14 months since I had been in Paris, and the city continues to change, of course. Some good changes, some bad, some neutral/just different. Let’s look at 10, in list form.

[Read more →]

It was in August of 1944 that Paris was liberated by the Allies. In particular, by the 2nd Armored Division of the Free French government in exile, based in London. That was 70 years ago, and the event is being reexamined at the Carnavalet Museum, the official museum of the city of Paris, here in […]

[Read more →]

Already noted: We are in an unusual apartment, here on the edge of the Marais. Angels on the wall; a bathing area where a person cannot stand; low, skull-threatening beams throughout the washroom, a tiny toilet room. And perhaps the smallest elevator in Paris. Or in France.

[Read more →]