Electricity, Electronics and the Ex-pat

Yesterday the electricity est tombé en panne, i.e. broke down. Actually, it was simply a blown fuse, but it took awhile to fix because we could only find one of the two fuseboxes. It affected only the living room, allowing us to still cook, bathe with hot water and read in bed. But the internet connection is in the living room which meant no email and no Skype phonecalls. The experience demonstrated the importance of an electronic connection when you are abroad. After just one day without email, the inbox was full of "tried to reach you", "Why no answer" message titles.With Skype you feel like folks who live a continent away are next door. A blown fuse and a day without internet is trivial, but it caused me to imagine what it was like for the Ellis Island immigrants to leave their families far behind and out of touch.

And I learned a new word: fusible, meaning fuse, as opposed to fusil which is a shotgun. On the bus recently I passed a shop called Fusil d'occasion: used shotguns.