A Sad Day

My favorite bookstore is closing, boo hoo. Candida's World of Books was the best thing that ever happened to my neighborhood in Washington, DC. The shop opened right when I moved here and was only two blocks from my house. Candida herself loves travel, books, and languages, and her bookstore offered up dazzling quantities of each. Her bookshelves represent the entire globe divided by country, continent and isle. Instead of just carrying travel guides, she carries everything for any particular place: language guides, maps, literature that takes place in the country, literature in the original language, and top notch travel writing. For instance, I know no other bookshop in America that carries a Marshallese dictionary. It was the ultimate browsing bookstore and the place where I started planning all my trips.

In the 4 years that Candida's was open, she hosted two of my book signings. She was set to host another for Iceland and was always so encouraging to all the authors that came into her shop. I know I am not alone in regretting the end of such a perfect little store. Kinda makes me wonder about the state of independent bookstores everywhere, as well as the priority of travel.

So to all Washingtonians out there, get ye down to 14th & Q Streets, NW post-haste. Candida's selling off all of her fabulous merchandise; all things you'll be hard pressed to find elsewhere.

Here's a list of things that I bought yesterday:

- The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
- The Global Soul by Pico Iyer
- A Zoo in My Luggage by Gerald Durrell
- 501 Russian Verbs
- Eyewitness guide to French Cheese
- Map of Djibouti
- Map of Peru
- Map of Central Asia
- Learn to Speak Basque book & audio
- Chinese character-a-day calendar
- Spanish Dictionary

Paris, Paris

Thanks to all who sent in their Paris recommendations. I'm gonna give it another week to collect a few more, then I'll compile everything and send it out. Until then, here's the video clip of the 9 minute 43 second Louvre visit from the film Bande à Part by Jean Luc Goddard (1964).

My Favorite Scrabble Word

Tonight I won at Scrabble which doesn't really happen too often. I attribute my victory to the clever implementation of the two letter word ZO. According to some dictionaries (very few actually), a ZO is a hybrid animal of a domesticated yak and a female cow. It's more common spelling is DZO which makes more sense, given that it's a Tibetan words. Anyway, thank goodness for simplified Tibetan dipthong transliterations and triple letter squares.

Recommended Churches of Paris

Yesterday was my all-day lecture/seminar on Paris. There was a great audience--all very knowledgeable and very enthusiastic. Alas, in all my preparation I forgot to add my list of recommended churches--some famous, some less. Anyway, le voilà:

• Sainte-Chapelle, 1^st
• Sacré Coeur (inside!), 18^th
• Church of La Madeleine, 8^th
• Notre Dame de La Lorette, 9^th
• Saint-Sulpice, 6^th
• St Eustache, 1^st
• St. Leu St. Gilles, 3^rd
• St. Merri, 4^th
• Saint-Paul Saint-Louis, rue St. Antoine, 4^th
• St. Eugène and Ste. Cécile, 6 Rue St. Cecile, 9^th
• Saint Severin, 6^th

Of all of these, I must confess that the two churches I was most excited to see on this last trip were: St. Leu St. Gilles and Ste. Eugène and Ste. Cécile.

To those of you in attendance, thanks so much for coming and participating!

Paris Talk

Getting ready for next week's upcoming talk, The Insider's Tour of Paris, to be presented at The Smithsonian's Freer Gallery on Saturday, January 26th. I'm having a great time researching and reading all about Paris. Don't know if I qualify as an insider, but am glad for the opportunity to talk all day long about a city that I love. I'll be doing a series of four lectures, each about one hour long. As I'm writing my talks, I've been secretly plotting my next trip. See you there-AE

Field Trip to New York City

Went to Manhattan for my talk and book signing of Iceland. I love New York City, even in small, powerful doses like this most recent one-night stay. Thanks to the Icelandic Consul Magnus Gustavsson and everyone else who helped out! I sold out my books and have a few extra orders to fill.

Even better, I was welcomed into the secret hideout headquarters of Gawker Media down in Soho, where I met my fine editor Chris, and the dedicated associates of Gridskipper, Amanda and Hunter. Best of all, not unlike a Make-A-Wish Foundation dream come true, I got to meet and SHAKE HANDS with the epic Gawker commenter extraordinaire LOLCait. I did hope that some of his glittery wit would pass from his magic fingers into mine, but we shall find out in the coming weeks.

I took this picture as I was walking through Times Square and the sun was shining in my eyes so I had to keep looking down in the street. Walking through Times Square and being forced to look down was weird. Anyway, a week after New Year's and the gutter's still filled with big, easy-to-see-on-TV color confetti.

Despite all my meetings and big city business, I did manage 45 minutes of ME time in which I visited the NY public library and the Jack Kerouac exhibit and set eyes upon the ORIGINAL scroll manuscript of On the Road. My heart is still gathering it all in and stowing it away into meaningful memories, but it was all touching and emotional for me. To read Ti-Jean's little notebooks and feel like he would have been my best friend, if only we had crossed generations. I did notice one of his journal entries, where he writes, in pencil, "I hereby renounce all hipsters." I'll second that.

Happy 2008 and so on . . .

Back from Honduras and my, what a country. So much and so colorful. The sunshine did me a world of good. And the parrots, which I adore, were the best. Perhaps best of all is that for Christmas, my mother gave me a robotic parrot--a Blue Macaw that's Made in China and does my bidding, including singing, dancing, and repeating everything I say. Glad to be home really, with so much to do this year. Hopefully I'll include a few more highlights from this last trip, but for now, here's a list of things that bit/stung me: mosquitoes, horseflies, chiggers, jellyfish, little fish with teeth, an orange-fronted parrot and a Scarlet Macaw. A trip is only as memorable as the wounds it gives you, right?