Trips to Paris not practical when you lived in Hull. I was 47 when I visited Paris for the 1st time, but had been there in imagination from adolescence, through my love of Hugo & Villon.
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My first trip to Paris was this year despite going to France nearly every year for over 30 years. I am 51. I loved it. Expensive, but I loved it.
sep 1, 2025, 2:04 pm • 3 0 • view
I feel more at home there than I ever will visiting London.
sep 1, 2025, 6:03 pm • 1 0 • view
It's so much easier for ppl in SE to go to France.
sep 1, 2025, 11:47 am • 3 0 • view
True. My school was in the SE.
sep 1, 2025, 12:03 pm • 2 0 • view
My first ever trip abroad was a graduation present when I was 22, to what was then still Soviet Union.
sep 1, 2025, 12:05 pm • 2 0 • view
Bcos of my PhD research, Russia was where I visited most until mid 1990s (for research, & as holiday job as guest-lecturer on Moscow-P'burg cruises). I went to France (Strasbourg) for 1st time (work conference) in 2003 at 38, Italy for 1st time at 40 in 2005.
sep 1, 2025, 12:07 pm • 2 0 • view
Wow, Soviet Union's a good one for a 1st trip. No chance I'm going anywhere near russia now.
sep 1, 2025, 12:22 pm • 2 0 • view
Yes, I wanted to see the Caucasus (trip incl a couple of days in Georgia) bcos was v keen on Lermontov. I also saw & fell for the history paintings I wanted to do PhD on. I was last in Russia in 1996. Cd sense the climate was changing. I was actually in L'grad/P'burg during the 1991 coup.
sep 1, 2025, 12:29 pm • 2 0 • view
russia fascinated me but now repulses me, utterly.
sep 1, 2025, 12:37 pm • 1 0 • view
I like the art & culture. The ppl I met in Gorbachev/Yeltsin era were fine. Politically, it's been a basket-case for centuries, & the window of opportunity offered after the fall of the Wall was bungled horribly.
sep 1, 2025, 12:42 pm • 2 0 • view
Ever since putin weasled his way in, it's been slowly ruined & now he wants to do the same to the rest of the planet it seems.
sep 1, 2025, 12:44 pm • 2 0 • view
Part of the background to it was the model of capitalism introduced in 1990s, creating the oligarchs.
sep 1, 2025, 12:47 pm • 1 0 • view
We have a group of vicious old people determined to burn everything to the ground before they drop dead.
sep 1, 2025, 1:01 pm • 2 0 • view