18.6.11

What I Saw on My European Vacation

OK, now some off the wall stuff. First, plumbing...

A downspout from IJessenstein... making the ordinary into something visually appealing.


A comparison of street pissoirs from Amsterdam and Paris...



There are similar ones in Lyon... with English instructions, something about auto-cleansing every 20 minutes or something. I may have to check this out.

More plumbing... most toilets in France seem to have a dual action flush, depending on peeing or pooping, so to speak. The controls for such dual action are often nicely designed as part of the whole fixture. Here's one from our Paris hotel. I admit, I played around with these quite a bit... I'm so easily amused...


OK, onward and upward... for all you Hip Hoppers out there, here's your bedroom (from a storefront in Paris).


And here's me... one of the great trick photos of all time (tongue firmly in cheek).


An interesting URL for a company in Holland... weird, check out their website... the nav buttons are in English, but the general text is in Dutch.


Our hotel in Paris had a rather nice lounge area. Displayed was this old telephone (as a former telecom god, I was of course interested), and playing in the lounge was this classic jazz combo.



In Lyon, we went into Monoprix, a major department store and supermarket. We needed a few things, and I had to have this cereal... any box with a naked woman and the word "noir" gets my eye.


Of course I finally realized that noir in this context meant only dark chocolate, not some back alley mystery. But check the little digital readout at the bottom... all items in the Monoprix supermarket had these digital price markers... way cool! they can change prices immediately on any or all items from a central computer. Probably saw me fascinated with "noir" and quickly jacked the price 1E.

Concert posters get thrown up everywhere, and in multiples to attract the eye. Here's a couple I liked... nice to see ZZ Top still at it. Don't know what to say about the other one.



OK, now back to more social redeeming value tourism. Off to the museums today.

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