Visit of Bruges (Bruggen) in Flanders (Belgium), close to Lille in France where I am passing part of the holidays.
Nice ancient city, Flamish-style architecture with a lot of canals, it is called the Venice of the North.
Bruges Photo album.

Couple of links about Bruges:
www.visit-bruges.com,
www.brugge.be/toerisme/en/

One day and a half in Paris. I visited my sister who moved there recently. We went to the Eiffel Tower which I never had the occasion to visit before.

The city has a few nice things to visit and the least you can say is that some of its inhabitants are faithful to their reputation! OK I admit it, like many people in France, I do not like Paris too much.

Paris photos.

One of the thing I find amazing in Southern California is how various the vegetation and climate can be within very short distances. One common thing, it is always very dry.
In this area more than anywhere else, it really looks like there is a different ecosystem, vegetation type on any single mountain slope, valley and canyon. The climate seems always to be hesitating between the mediterraneen type and desert arid type, and even a slight change in elevation, sun exposure, distance from the Pacific Ocean can result in dramatic changes.
Transition areas are always interesting, you can for instance see a cactus next to a pine.
On the picture, a pretty sharp transition between a forest-like vegetation and a desert. The difference between a north slope and a south slope of a mountain is pretty dramatic as well as the one between the summit of the mountain and the bottom of the valley. (This picture was taken in the San Jacinto Mountains)

For those among us who have to deal with the US immigration administration, I found this very informative site: US Immigration Headlines.
For the other ones, you don't know how lucky you are!

I found this on http://pasfolle.blogspot.com/ btw. Sorry that's in French.

Death Valley, California. Definitively one of the most impressive places I have seen so far in the US. As a matter of fact in the world. Some facts about the Death Valley:
The lowest point in North America (-282ft)
One of the hottest place on earth, the hottest temperature ever recorded in the world was 134 °F on July 10, 1913 in Furnace Creek, in the bottom of the death valley.
The biggest National Park in the continental US.

This really is the desert to its extreme. Very impressive rock formations, especially in Zabriskie point, a few sand dunes (not a very common thing in the American deserts), and lots of large open spaces. Of course the vegetation is very limited there, it is also one of the driest places on earth after all.

You can drive on this kind of roads (left side of the bottom picture) for hours without seeing any other soul. Speed limit 65mph, quite high for a road which is not a freeway. One curve just about every 15 minutes and the distance between two gas stations can be over 100miles. I have to get used again to those rotten L.A. freeways now.

I posted my pictures of the death valley at this link

For a change, I left my mountain bike home and I explored Sycamore Canyon by foot this morning. I took a few pictures that I posted at this link. There are a few nice views of Riverside and the valley from up there.

They are building another apartment complex right in front of the apartment. It has been going on for months now but it finally starts to look like something. I wonder if my view of mount Baldy is going to be altered once it is all done.

Looking at the close-up. it seems it is going to be yet another neo-Spanish architecture luxury apartment complex... They really seem to be all built using the same plans. No matter where you go in socal, you will always find one of those (including mine) preferably next to a freeway, the perfect location shall also include a McDonalds and a gas station across the street.
Well at least, sometime the color they use to paint the wall is different...

They try to name them differently too, but it looks like there is a very strict rule that says it must be named using a combination of the words canyon, springs, heights, highland, palm, sun, desert (going eastward) :-)! "Canyon Springs Heights Luxury apartment", the "palm canyon luxury apartment", "desert highland luxury apartment", etc...

Just installed Topo USA 4.0 from Delorme and this is a pretty cool software. You can generate standard topo maps for the whole US in a few mouse clicks. My favorite feature is the 3D maps generation in both shaded and real 3D format. Gives you a pretty good idea of the terrain relief. For instance, here is a shaded relief map of lake Perris in Perris California, just next to Riverside.

© 2002 DeLorme (www.delorme.com) Topo USA®

I have been searching and bookmarking hiking and mountainbiking sites for a while now but I just found this one which is well above average:
localhikes.com
Like on most hiking sites, you can find descriptions, lengths, hike times, driving directions and maps of the area for numerous trails... However, this one is the only free site I have seen so far that also shows the hike route on a topographic map, the elevation change chart, and even a few pictures of every trail. I which they had a little more hikes though.

This year, for the first time, I am putting christmas decoration in my home. It is not that I feel more into the holiday spirit now than last year but when I saw how cheap those things were, I could not resist to buy some. So here is the result, what $15 and 600 tiny bulbs very tastefuly disposed around my balcony rail can do:-)
Well this is not very easy to photograph but you got the idea.