A favorite building in Rodez

This is one of my favorite buildings in Rodez. I like to call it our little Pyramide du Louvre.

I'm not sure if it is still being lit up in the evening like it was at the time I took this photo, though.

Signs of Aveyron in Paris

Whenever I go to Paris for work, I go to at least one café or restaurant.

And not always, but often, I see a sign of Aveyron there.

People say that there are more Aveyronnais living in Paris than in Aveyron, and I suspect that this is true.

Many of them work in the catering industry now, and some are major players.

Poverty forced their ancestors to leave their homeland, al pais.

They started as bougnats and worked their way up through the ranks of deliverymen for drink companies, then café workers, then managers, then owners...

I always feel a little at home when I see posters like this on the wall of a restaurant in la capitale.

A rare "wonders of nature" shot

(Somewhere near Espalion, Aveyron, June 2006)

This is one of my rare "wonders of nature" shots.

Enjoy it while you can.I'm not one for taking lengthy promenades, soaking up outdoorsy solitude, or closely examining flora and fauna.

This is one reason I needed to get away from my former blog, La France Profonde.

I was feeling like a bit of a fake. Sure, I live and work in Aveyron -- and I love the place. But not for the reasons that many do.

When I tell people exactly where our house is, they often wax eloquently about how easy it must be to take great hikes right from my own front door...or to go mountain biking! Right, mountain biking!

Honestly, I just prefer to geek away while enjoying the view...

Tangled up in blue

The church in Anglars, Aveyron, January 23, 2011

Blue is without a doubt my favorite color, and since putting up my nifty header with those nice blue shutters, I have felt like posting as many photos as possible that highlight this hue.

It's helped that we have had some of the greatest blue sky lately. It may have been -12° centigrade this morning where I live -- just over 10° Fahrenheit -- but it was also fabulously sunny.

After shopping a bit in my village and then the nearby village of Bertholène, the sun inspired me to take a drive off the Nationale 88 and onto some back roads. I ended up in a tiny place called Anglars, which happens to have a lovely little church.

I set off to photograph the church, but the star of the show turned out to be the sky.

Fresh photos: Views of my village

The door to the primary school my daughters went to

I have never really blogged much about the small town where I live.

Somehow the term "village" doesn't quite seem to apply, although some do use it. In fact, I just did.

Others call it a village dortoir, or bedroom community, which to me describes the place more aptly.

A road to somewhere that I take sometimes

The place is not without its charms, but it doesn't have an old town center as such, so it's difficult to capture its feel.

It's a great place for sporty mountain bikers, or hikers who spend hours marvelling about the wonders of the scrubby causse. But of course I'm not one of those.

Sheep safely grazing between old farms and housing developments

These photos were taken on my weekly trip to the recyling bins -- not a lot of village charm in that, is there?

Happy New Year; Happy New Blog

Photo courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau

I'm most excited to be wishing you all a happy and healthy 2011 from a new blogging space.

A little over a month ago, after letting my "expat" blog La France Profonde lie wordless and photoless for over two months, I realized I missed blogging.

Many of my close blogging buddies have been led down the Facebook/Twitter path, and I have followed. But as I started making an occasional post to La France Profonde in November and December, comments floated in.

And isn't it a lot more satisfying to get a comment on your blog than a Facebook notification, or a Twitter DM, RT, reply, or mention? It certainly is for me.

But I need a clean slate.

Since starting La France Profonde five years ago, I have begun to feel more and more disconnected from the image of myself as "An American in Aveyron," blogging primarily about a little-known, bucolic patch of France:

I am now French AND American.

I don't see much of Aveyron's lovely countryside since I spend all week in a modern school building in Bourran, Rodez's new, modern business area.

I go to Paris more often than I go to Millau.

And I have so many other subjects to write about: travel, music, teaching, books, social media, food...and why not the occasional "this is what's going on in my life" post that blogs were meant to be for?

I could, of course, do all of the above from La France Profonde, but I somehow don't want to denature its original purpose.

That's also why I'm not going to bid it adieu. Someday, if time and inclination allow, I may go back to blogging about Aveyron.

But for now, this is where I belong.