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#11
05-10-2016, 06:08 PM
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I'm still having trouble not just uploading to photobucket, but also signing in to them. I'd much rather post pictures now, until waiting until it's old news, but I guess I don't have much of a a choice at this point. As I said before, I will make all pictures available when I get home if anyone is interested. The previous night I had overslept after a long day of walking around and went out for a late supper. I didn't find out until too late that several restaurants did open Sunday night including Chez Paulo, but I had stopped at another placefirst. I noticed the 3 people sitting next to me were talking in English, so I said hello. Turns out the guy ( I think they were in their 50s) was from Ajaccio, his girlfreind was from Australia and the other woman was from Scotland. Well we got into a conversation of what brought me here and of course the subject of Alizee came up. I told them the story of MF discovering her; her falling upon hard times; then finding success again through dancing. This was the night I brought my kindle down to the waterfront to watch some Alizee videos , so I showed them to these people. The man from Ajaccio hadn't heard of her, but it was a long pleasent conversation about Alizee. The next day, was kind of an interesting last day in Ajaccio. I was able to rent a car. I drove up to a place we had talked about in the the forum. There was a palace in Paris that after a disastorous loss in a war to Russia, the Paris commune burnt the place down. So someone brought many of the stones from the palace to Ajaccio to build a chateau. Now the history intrigued me as well as the fact that it looked like there was a great view of Ajaccio from there. Now after leaving town and arriving to a point where you leave the main road to enter a road that zig zags up the mountain, I soon found myself on one of the worst rodes I've driven on. It must have been 5 miles of this. So I finally get to the top and I see the chateau is fenced in. Not a problem if you know what happened at the Triage Lavoire building. So I found a place where I could climb the fence and started walking around the periphery of this place, but then I heard a bunch of bells. These bells were attached to a bunch of goats that were headed in my direction. Now as bad as an obstacle as the road was, once I saw the horns on these goats, I knew there's nothing worse than a pissed off goat, so I climbed back over the fence. Well it turns out there was an inner fence and an outer fence surrounding this place. There was a small opening on the inner fence that all the goats struggled to get under and one they got inside, all they did was lay down. This allowed me to rescale the fence and continue on my way, but I soon realized that one of the reasons I wanted to come up here, which was the great view, was now spoiled by numerous trees that grew here over the years. It wasn't that much of a problem though. There were some spots on the way down that offered some spectacular views So I went back into Ajaccio. I wanted to have lunch at Chez Paulo,but as luck would have it, there was a building in a near by block that caught fire,forcing them to close. So I went to that bakery type of shop that Alizee had posted the picture of. Well it turns out this woman didn't speak a word of English and sounded like she didn't want a thing to do with English. I still bought a couple of things there which were very good. I then drove out towards the Blood Islands again. I tried to get to the spot where she's posted pictures before which is on the other side of the first hill, but that led me onto a dirt road again which came to a fork and on the fork which is I'm sure was the one to follow, it looks like they built up a little bit of a ramp, so you could only get past it with something like a jeep or of course on foot. There were also some people there walking up that trail and one of them kept giving me a snooty look so I think it I shouldn't have been there, at least in my car. I didn't have the time to pursue this quest on foot, so I headed back to traffic that was still heavy in Ajaccio, because of the fire. Last edited by Scruffydog777; 05-10-2016 at 06:11 PM.. 
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#12
05-10-2016, 07:47 PM
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Scruffydog,
I've been enjoying your vacation and am looking forward to seeing your photos. It's astounding that someone from Ajaccio had never heard of Alizee. I imagine she has been a major draw for tourists--at least in the early years--thus an asset to the city.
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#13
05-10-2016, 09:36 PM
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Sounds like a great trip. I would love to visit Ajjacio and walk the streets Liley walked. I thought she and Anily were still living with Jo. I think she depends on her Dad for stability and emotional support. i wonder what chez Jo looks like?
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#14
05-11-2016, 04:03 PM
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#15
05-11-2016, 06:51 PM
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This post is off topic. It concerns the next part of my trip to Brussels. One of the reasons I chose Brussels is because i wanted to in some small way, show my support after what happened here.
I originally wanted to go to the airport, because there were people from my airline who work there, but time and another huge reason, made that unobtainable. So I was still eager to do something and as I was walking around the city, I saw there was in front of the Hotel de Ville (city hall) a place where many other people had placed flowers, candles and signs of support. But it had rained this day and all the candles were out and all the flowers had turned to mush. So I decided instead to stop in at the nearest church and say some prayers for the victims. Well I came across a cathedral, so I walked up to it and a guy standing outside said it was closed for a private piano concert......Really????......I will send an e-mail to the pope.......jk. But today I did come across a church when I went on a bus tour of the city of Ghent and I was able to accomplish my mission. Another thing that happened to me yesterday, on the long walk to my hotel, I came across a homeless guy (Actually there were numerous homeless people around the city) who had a dog that very much resembled a dog I used to have which I take my nickname from.....Scruffy. So I always give something here and there to these people, but after passing by this guy, I turned around and gave him 10 euros and said please get the dog something decent to eat. As I was leaving, I noticed next to the dog, was a rectangular piece of I have no idea what, but I'm sure it was meant to be food for the dog and it looked more like a piece of plastic. Well I rounded the corner and I saw not far away, a bar that served food including burgers and I asked if I could get two burgers to go. I went back and gave the homeless guy one and I fed the other one to the dog. Now this dog had seemed completely lethargic up until then, but it really perked up after tasting the burger. I asked the guy where he was from and he said Slovakia. He said he had been here for a couple of years and times had been tough, but he hoped to have some work in a couple of weeks. Later on that night when I passed by, there was another homeless guy with him and the other guy had this and another dog, lying on top of his legs, with them on thier backs, as if he was using them as a blanket.
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#16
05-12-2016, 11:33 AM
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__________________
"a lesson not to rely upon our own powers, storing up food and wealth, but to get on with the task sent by God" (Hilary White: Ravens and Saints)
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#17
05-12-2016, 06:29 PM
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As far as today's installment.... This is another pretty much off topic again so avert your eyes at the proper moment. I arrived in Paris today. I went to the FNAC record store where the autograph session took place back in 2013 was it? I went here to buy 3 of the Les Enfoires dvds, mainly as a way of supporting that cause. I'll keep one. I'll give one to DannyMac to give to the Boston cultural society and then I'll give one to Marguerite who does the translations for me. Another reason I wanted to get them at this particular store is I wanted to thank one of the women who had helped us out so much during the autograph session. I wanted to get her a little gift if she was still working there. So I went in and looked all around and found this woman I was 90% sure was her. She was helping another customer. They were searching for something on the computer for him and I patiently waited by, but she seemed to get irratated I wouldn't go to someone else. Now if that other guy looked like Brad Pitt, I could understand her actions, but this was more like Jubba and I was standing there patiently; willing to wait how ever long it took, but she seemed to get more and more irratated, so I shelved that idea. By the way, the store pretty much looks like it did back then. Now we've discussed in here at certain times the French personality and what I think it the bad rap it's taken over the years. Now this woman's behaviour is probably typical of what I'd expect from the reputaion, but it's my experience that she is the exception. When I arrived at the Bastille metro station near my hotel, I found it was a maze of streets and the streets are not marked very well over here. So I asked a middle age woman if she knew where my hotel was. I had the reservation with the address and a little map. She tried to think hard of where it was. Couldn't figure it out, but took out her phone, called the hotel and got directions. By the way my phone wouldn't connect here. After checking into my hotel, I decided to go over to the area where the shootings took place a few months ago. I went to the Metro station and they had a system map mounted low on the wall so I had to kneel down to look at it. A young man I would say no older than 20 with a few piercings, came up to me and asked where I was looking to go. So first thing I think is what is this guy's angle? How much does he want, but no, he just told me the best way to get to where I was going was take this line here, then this line there. After seeing the theater where most of the killings took place, I then went further down the same road to a place that was about 100 yards from where that scene from Amelie took place where she was skipping stones on the canal. I saw several restaurants in the area, but couldn't figure out which one. Now I asked about 5 passerbys where it was, but none spoke English, but they were all pleasent about it. Then a good looking young woman came along. She spoke English very well. She said she lived in the area and we turned out having sort of long conversation. She told me she had lived in Egypt for a couple of years and told me about the culture of how they treat women and people in general in that part of the world. She explained to me how to get to some of the other places too. So I had 3 very nice experiences and 1 bad one and that is typical of what I find in France. A lot of good people who get their reputaions ruined by a few. So after that I went to the church to say some prayers for those victims and this is where anything to do with Alizee comes to an end, so I suggest anyone who doesn't want to view off topic, leave now. So I went into Notre Dame to just say some prayers for those victims. When I got in there, I noticed something new. They had a couple of glassed in areas with signs saying "confession dialogue". I hadn't been to confession in close to 40 years. One thing that kept me from going is I would've needed a hard drive the size of Mt Everest to list all my sins. Plus the catholic church, the more sins you have, the more pennance you have to do of saying prayers. I figured with my rap sheet, I'd be in there a month saying prayers. But this new "dialogue" thing had me interested. So I went in and luckily the priest spoke English very well. In fact, he had been a priest in Boston where I live back in the 1970s. I told him everything and I mean everything. I even told him I'd cuss in a manner that would make the devil blush. But it didn't phase him and in the end, I had my absolution. How long will that last??? But it was an intesting end to a very good trip.
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#18
05-13-2016, 10:45 AM
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Great stories Scruffy. Just makes me more interested in visiting these places in the future.
The bad expierence in the FNAC is probaly not normal for that woman. She works retail and the people she has to put up with can at times make you testy. I deal with the public all the time and I purposely go out of my way to be extremely nice and easy going when ever I interact with sales associates and restaurant workers.
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Last edited by ALS; 05-13-2016 at 10:48 AM..
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#19
05-13-2016, 04:46 PM
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