“Cooking on inappropriate appliances” might be a useful “survival rough guide” -
toast on gas fires was a common one, and we did beans on the water heater (takes a long time!).
We had valve monoblocks to keep us warm so that helped.
No furniture though 
I seem to recall a book called “Alternative London” being around a lot in the 80s:
lots of advice on getting by in a city with almost no cash, how not to catch an STD, how to roll a joint - real early 80s inner city stuff!
I’ve no doubt many people have pottered around that area - Arles, Nimes, Avignon, Carpentras, the Camargue - Beaucaire is just up from Arles on the Rhone and has a very nice canal lined with restaurants. Not being normal, so it seemed, Mr Andreu found a hole in the wall of a medieval fortress, a steep walk up from where everyone else was. There was a small sign, he painted it himself, he had many talents besides drinking and cooking.
We were sent to this place by locals who advised that, on a good day, it was the best food for miles around. Looks can be deceiving. Being somewhat inconspicuous, we were given precise directions (past the cement factory, take a left, up the hill to the castle steps, stop, it’s behind you) and you’re there:
The only other patrons were some very stoic Americans who took the whole thing in their stride. They drank a lot of wine.
We find restaurant reviews usually as reliable as audio reviews, so most of the time we just ask the locals where they go. Usually works.
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Thanks for this ‘Lonely Planet’ like experience and tips.
Been around almost there before in the late summer festive season: Avignon and Chateau Neuf du Pape. Great for tourists, wine, history and culture. Something and enough for everyone.
Good memories are to be kept!
It is nice down there. My wife used to go dancing at the Avignon Festival. One popular spot was Uzes, the home of Haribo. We all enjoyed that. Uzes also has a magnificent cathedral, castle, other old stuff and the famous Pont du Gard Roman aqueduct, but Haribo was top of our list. When selling stuff, you have to know your audience.
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Small comment as a local of the home of Haribo! The name Haribo derives from Hans Riegel Bonn. The dude’s name and the location! Apparently the museum in Uzes was opened in 1996…
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Noted, but for whatever reason history took second place on our visit to a very large sweet shop.
So no sign of the AirLens yet? I was hoping that there would be a service station in North East France called Aire de Lens, unfortunately not.
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My iMac serves the ripped CDs in ALAC and purchased music files in FLAC (converted from DSD) ans AAC Apple Music store purchases. Also all movie purchases. All bundled in the iTunes library.
It serves as AirPlay or as BluOS server, for streaming to the NAD streamers and Apple TV unit.
that entire infra structure works flawless.
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Back on the straight and narrow, posts have largely dried up over the last few days. IWhat are these magical missing chips? Maybe someone has a source, or a stash. Meanwhile, I hear the latest thing from China after they’ve taken over hifi is a DIY balloon kit for checking up on your neighbours. Sounds a good idea and fun.
China certainly seems to be all over streaming gear.
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I’m afraid the Chinese balloon was spying from the sky above Boulder searching for an AirLens prototype. After it was struck, Amir is taking measurements of the parts fallen down into the ocean.
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What with all all the UFOs that have been shot down this weekend I think the Martians are very interested in the AL as well…
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Not sure what the cost ratio is between balloons and missiles?
I am thinking about Nena:
99 Luftballons, auf Ihrem Weg zum Horizont,
hielt man für UFOs aus dem All,
darum schickte ein General,
ne Fliegerstaffel hinterher …
99 Luftballons, die gibt‘s nicht mehr!
Hmmm, resemblance?!
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This is very, very funny. 
Oh yes, Früh Kölsch, it’s good. And like any neighboring cities (Köln-Düsseldorf) they have their rivalry.
Früh Kölsch tasted so good on a cold winter morning when the line Bus arrived at 7:19 AM in town, school started at 8:15 and the Früh Kölsch Kneipe (Cafe/bar) in the Schloßstraße was the only open facility to get some warmth and a beer (don’t remember, it might have been 2). The math teacher subtracted a point from the math test I had that day in school, because he smelled something „funny, like beer“ when I entered the classroom. I complained, as I felt it was the teachers business to judge my math performance and nothing else. They reported to the company paying for the Enginneering school. The „Meister“ called me in, listened to what I had to say and asked the school why I did not get the highest grade with honors for completing the Math test without failure while under influence of 2 beer. I thought that was hilarious and I was very happy working for my boss. Unthinkable today and I ask myself if every regulation we have is an improvement.
This story is as old as the song 99 Luftballons from Nena.
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Some of my best college exams were under the influence. OTOH I may not have been sober to remember the bad ones!
Electrical engineering major in college I found to be dead boring and hence something I wasn’t very good at. Hence high blood alcohol content at exams. (If I never saw another opamp or reams of dot- matrix printer output of spice plots and FETs etc it was heaven.) I wasn’t too bad—usually got B+ or A-. My secret weapon was that I could write papers on anything and write well—so I took lots of philosophy, history and humanities classes to keep my GPA around 3.8. Bonus: lots of girls in those classes.
The pinnacle of my bullsh*t writing was the ten page paper titled “Influence of Hegel’s philosophy on the design of the Brooklyn Bridge.” Got an A+; the prof even commented on the excellent BS.
Then for graduate school I settled on computer science. That was the ticket to sanity and prosperity leading to audiophillia. However, the EE training came in very handy for the niche profession I’m in—requiring knowing about reset synchronization in 5nm circuits or circuit topology in AI processors etc. And the bullsh*ttimg came in very handy when facing VPs at giant Silicon Valley high tech companies.
Not sure why I’m telling my life story, …
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Life stories are always worthy and admirable.
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So when is this magical Air Lens going to actually be available for beta and sales?
LOL, The thread here is going way of course. However, since your story reminded me of some of my college experiences I will relate one of my own. I am a retired physicist Ph.D. As an undergrad you could get a bachelor’s degree in physics either in the college of arts and science or in the engineering school. If you thought you were going to go to grad school it was recommended that you do the A&S college path so that you did your math courses in the math department as opposed to the applied math in the engineering school. This is what I did, however, it means you to take all of these liberal arts courses to meet the A&S degree requirements. All I wanted to do was physics and math.
Looking through the A&S course catalog I discovered there was two classes in the philosophy department on LOGIC! I quickly realized these courses were nothing more than Boolean algebra. I could that stuff in my sleep. I enrolled in the first course and one of the most comical ( at least to me ) classes of my undergrad education began. It turns out that the philosophy majors must take these two logic courses and they are clueless about Boolean algebra. The philosophy majors hated me. They figured they were going to pass this course because the test would be graded on a curve. Along come this SOB physics major who get 100 on every exam and destroys the curve. I felt sorry for them, but I could not resist the classes where I was sure of an A with little to no effort!
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Soon after PS Audio can secure a ready supply of parts for it. That’s the current holdup.