Richard Flynn :: no comment

My flight from Los Angeles to Denver was delayed by more than ninety minutes and so when Elizabeth found me at the baggage carousel it was too late for us to do any of the activities she’d planned for us in Denver that afternoon. We went quickly to the family with whom she’d arranged for me to stay and then to the Fraternas’ house at the edge of the Auraria university campus in the centre of Denver.

The Fraternas’ house in Denver is within the parish building of a parish whose church is used both in the Latin rite (‘St Elizabeth of Hungary’s parish’) and the Byzantine rite (‘Sts Cyril and Methodius’ parish’)—one priest confusingly celebrates in both rites. Add to that the fact that the parish centre is called the ‘St Francis Centre’

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A comparison is often drawn between Seattle and San Francisco. On paper, it’s easy to see why this would be: here are two Pacific-coast cities which portray themselves to the outside world in a similar way, with a fairly affluent, smart, well-educated, and ‘liberal’ (in the U.S.-American social sense) population. They also both have a large tech industry: the San Francisco Bay Area is home to ‘Silicon Valley’, including many of the recent successful Web startups as well as industry giants like Google, Hewlett-Packard, and Apple; Seattle is home to many major tech companies, including Microsoft, Amazon.com, and, er, The Omni Group. While on paper the two cities seem to resemble one another to a great extent, my own experience suggests that the two cities

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My time in Southern California was certainly too short: there was a lot more which I could have seen. What I did see and do, though, I enjoyed; this was due in large part, I’m sure, to the beautiful weather. It was not nearly as stiflingly hot as it had been in Texas and Tucson, but instead temperatures got to about 85ºF absolutely maximum on the days I was there, which was mitigated by cooling oceanic breezes. The days in Los Angeles were bright and clear, with none of the infamous smog trapped in by the Hollywood Hills.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles should perhaps really be called the ‘town of Our Lady, Queen of the angels’¹, but now of course Our Lady has been largely written out of the town’s nomenclature and this massive city—the epitome of massive

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Quick, someone check in on France to see if there’s anyone there. My experience at the Grand Canyon suggests that there was some sort of French national excursion to northern Arizona. I’m not over-exaggerating when I say that three out of four tourists I encountered there were French (-speaking). It is possible that there is an alternative national outing to San Francisco, because I heard lots of French being spoken by tourists there, too.

The Grand Canyon, when you get there, is undoubtedly spectacular.¹ This enormous canyon has an average depth of a mile, with sheer red rock-faces giving way to rock stacks dotted throughout its middle. It is so large that the Colorado River is often barely visible from the rim of the canyon. While it was about 70ºF where I

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