After the two busy days with Pamela and Kimberly, I took a recovery day. Also, I think I was still in a food coma when I woke up after the fantastic meal at Py-r.

I had a nice day reading and just enjoying some peaceful time. As active as I am, I have found that one needs to recharge the batteries once in a while to keep going.

As the readers are know, I took the time to write up the meal at Py-r. That took quite a while to be able to cover all the food we consumed. I had some trouble at times matching the pictures to the menu items on the list.

In the afternoon, I had a nice FaceTime chat with Tom. When I am in Alexandria, we have lunch every Wednesday. I have tried to keep up the context just switching to FaceTime. We had to move it to Thursday this week as I was doing things with Pamela and Kimberly.

Tom is the father of my goddaughter, Arianna. Arianna is getting married next week so I had to catch up with the family activity and what was going on with Arianna and her sisters and families. It is a nice way to stay connected while I am here.

I look back at my other travels and am amazed (but definitely pleased) at how communications have changed. Of course, when I lived in Italy as a child, I did not really communicate but I know it was all by letters. You might have been able to make a landline call but it was very complicated and expensive. When I went to university at Oxford, it was still letters (the old blue folding airmail paper) and landline calls which were easier but still relatively expensive. The next big time I was traveling for 3.5 months, I had a Blackberry and could send emails using the mobile networks of the countries I was visiting. I blogged on that trip as well (https://pwbworldtrip.wordpress.com) but had to write my blog at Internet cafes. When I was in Myanmar the country did not allow access to western mobile networks and limited access to the Internet so that was even more complicated.

Now, I use my iPhone as if I am in Alexandria. I can text, call, FaceTime whenever and wherever I want. It has definitely made the world more connected and allows seamless living of your life. This is true as well with ATMs and modern banking. I am old enough to remember Traveler Checks and how complicated it was to cash them at times. Also, with online banking, I can pay all my bills for maintaining my home in Alexandria without missing a beat.

I am not a huge supporter of social media but have definitely embraced it. I post daily on IG so my friends know what I am doing while here in Toulouse. Since that and Facebook are owned by Meta, each post is posted both places. I can blog easily as the apartment in Toulouse has Wifi.

In the evening, I joined the Run in Toulouse group. It is one of the things I enjoy and makes life in Toulouse fun. Tonight, I ran into a man I had met the last time I was here. He is originally from Rockville but has moved here for work. I think he is part of the group of scientists (he is an astrophysicist) who do not like the Trump policies on science and has moved outside the United States. I do find it interesting that the only time politics comes up is with Americans I meet here. The French do not usually discuss it.

Also, met a young man visiting from Scotland. I gave him some restaurant recommendations for his week stay here.