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Today we took a long city walk…

… and then a longer canal walk
through Georgetown, where
the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
cuts through Washington.

c&ocanalgeorgetown

UD stopped to pay her
respects to William O. Douglas,
an environmentalist who saved
the canal from people who
wanted to turn it into a
parkway. He was a Supreme
Court Justice too, as I’m
sure you know.

douglascanal

[Yes, it’s a creepy photo.
Only good one I could find.]

We saw many cormorants
in the trees, gazing at the
kayakers as if trying to decide
which ones to eat for lunch.

cormorant

During last Saturday’s walk,
we decided we’d eventually
like to divide our time between
an apartment in Cracow, on
or near the Rynek, and an
apartment in Key West.

Today we decided we’d
eventually like to divide our
time between an apartment
in Old Town Warsaw and an
apartment one block off the
Boulevard Saint Germain.

Margaret Soltan, October 3, 2009 7:43PM
Posted in: snapshots from home

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5 Responses to “Today we took a long city walk…”

  1. RJO Says:

    Phalacrocorax symposium:

    The common cormorant (or shag)
    Lays eggs inside a paper bag,
    You follow the idea, no doubt?
    It’s to keep the lightning out.

    But what these unobservant birds
    Have never thought of, is that herds
    Of wandering bears might come with buns
    And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.

  2. Polish Peter Says:

    I’d long thought that it would be nice to live in Old Town Warsaw, or perhaps around the "New Town" rynek just to the north, but then three years ago my wife and I were taken by friends to visit some of their friends who lived in an enormous old apartment with high ceilings in Kraków overlooking Plac Dominikański, and we immediately put that on our dream list, along with West Cork, Tuscany, and Bermuda.

  3. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Polish Peter: Mr UD explains: “My choice of Warsaw is not because it’s the most beautiful and charming place in Poland. I grew up in Old Town, in an apartment on ‘Crooked Circle.'”

    He used the Polish for Crooked Circle, but I can’t spell it…

  4. Polish Peter Says:

    Indeed, I know the street. This looks like a nice pad:
    http://www.travbuddy.com/Old-Town-Apartments-Krzywe-Kolo-Sky-v11155. Don’t get me wrong, I like Warsaw a lot. I’d keep Key West in the picture, though. Last November my wife and I took a walk in Lazienki Park at 3 PM. When darkness set in at 3:30, it had a real Hansel-and-Gretel feeling. Then the snow started…

  5. theprofessor Says:

    Cormorants are working their way rapidly up the list of nuisance birds around here. Their "you can’t hunt me–nyah, nyah, nyah!" attitude is awfully annoying.

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