Where I'm at these days

Geel, Belgium, April 2012, as seen from a restaurant window

One of my daughters started a blog recently, and as I encourage her in this endeavor, I've been thinking about how I miss my blogging activity.

I'm everywhere but here these days.

I've been in the air and on the road a lot this school year: Budapest, Barcelona, Strasbourg, Paris, and twice to Belgium. And I may be leaving someplace out...oh yes, Normandy.

A colleague remarked to me the other day that "my suitcase was always ready." I suppose now that my daughters are older and I have some work-related and personal travel opportunities, I am willing to hop up and move whenever I can.

That is one reason I left my (very) mildly successful blog La France Profonde behind. I'm not so sure that was a good move as far as blogging rep, but writing about cows and villages just wasn't me anymore.

Yet I've had trouble investing this space, and it's not just a matter of time. 

I think it's a matter of identity. "An American in Aveyron," my subtitle for La France Profonde, gave me an anchor.

"A slightly frazzled 50-something dual national spending some of her time running around France, other European countries, and the USA; some of it studying for the Cambridge DELTA; some of it lolling around her house; a lot of it at work..." Hmmm....I don't think that will fit on my blog banner.

But as I told my daughter, "it doesn't take long to write a blog post."

So maybe I should start taking my own advice. 

Médecin, soigne-toi...

Back to Barcelona

(Inside the Sagrada Familia)

As part of my job the past three years, I have been lucky enough to take study trips with my students to Barcelona.

This year, as in 2010, we went to the Alimentaria professional trade fair, a major networking event for the international food and drink industry.

We stayed only one night, and had a free day after the fair. I took advantage of this time to visit the Sagrada Familia Basilica, which I had last visited in 1987 -- before it had become a basilica.

The interior is spectacular, but also so spankingly new that it made for a sharp contrast with my vague memories of my visit 25 years ago. I don't recall much, but it seems at that time it was a somewhat creepy, half-open space.

Do you remember anything about the Sagrada Familia during the 80s?

A certain fascination with train travel

I dropped someone off at the Rodez train station today.

Despite its modest proportions, I think the Gare de Rodez has quite a bit of charm to it.

But then again, I admit to a certain fascination with train travel.

I wish I did more of it.

Happy New (York) Year!

In 2011, every member of my immediate family went to New York City -- except me.

Boo-hoo-hoo.

In 2012, I have found myself admitting on a regular basis that I, as one of Aveyron's few American residents, have NEVER EVER been there...whereas both of my daughters, as well as my husband have. Did in 2011. Whatever.

The 2011 NYC frenzy spread through my family like a virus.

First my eldest daughter started to plan a trip there with her boyfriend for August 2011.

Then they invited my husband to join them for a week.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like I was NOT invited. But I would have had to give up precious time with my family in Olympia to go...so I didn't go. Haven't been. Whatever.

As a result, through a connection my eldest daughter made, my youngest daughter found a great internship there, which she carried out in December. So now she's been there too. Went in 2011. Whatever.

All of this explains our family New Year's greeting...which, despite the oh-so-American theme, has very little to do with me.

Boo-hoo-hoo.

Budapest 1

So, with no further ado, a little update on some of the excitement in my life.

I went to an Erasmus contact seminar in Budapest from November 30-December 4th. Actually, the conference ended on the 2nd, but I worked things out to get a bit of time in the city on my own over the weekend. I figure I won't be in Budapest every day.

First impressions? To me, Budapest was more sprawling and grandiose than I had expected.

(I hate to say that I didn't do much research before I left, or else I would have known that Budapest was sprawling and grandiose.)

There may be more to come on this subject.

International Relations

The campus of KHK Kempen, Geel, Belgium

My school year started out with an unforgettable experience: making an official visit to a college in the Antwerp area to set up an Erasmus partnership with the business school where I teach.

I am happy to announce that a student from my school will be attending the last semester of his third and final year at this friendly and professional establishment.

It was exciting and inspiring to see how another college system worked, and to meet enthusiastic and friendly professors and teachers.

I am truly lucky that my teaching job has expanded to include an element of international project coordination.

As for the non-professional details, I spent one night in the charming little village of Kasterlee...

...and a day and night in the friendly and lively city of Antwerp.

The past year has been a Belgium year for me: I went to a conference in Brussels in October 2010, back to Brussels with my family for Christmas 2010, and then on this trip.

I quite like the country: there's something cool about such a small place where, nonetheless, there is such diversity between the two main regions.

Of course, this diversity has caused the country some major political difficulties -- but I guess I can say this is not my problem when I'm travelling there!

Wordless Wednesday Number Who Knows?

Home again, home again?

View of Mt. Rainier as I waited in SeaTac for my flight to Frankfurt

The mountain "was out," as Pacific Northwesterners put it, for my departure from Olympia last Tuesday.

I was homeward bound again...or was I leaving home?

I have spent every summer in Olympia for 11 years now, and somehow those 5 to 6 week stays always seem like about half of my year.

This year, I'm experiencing something new: coming home alone. My husband and eldest daughter are travelling in New York City; my youngest daughter is enjoying the Côte d'Azur and Barcelona with friends.

I was not so happy about this state of affairs when I had to drag my tired self and lug two suitcases from Toulouse-Blagnac to Rodez, but settling in with no particular demands on my time has been nice.

It has, at least, given me time to toy with the idea of getting back to writing on this blog.

Back to Barcelona

View from inside the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

April was such a fun and exciting month for me that I thought I would be blogging constantly.

So many little trips! So many photos! So much to write about!

But also -- so much to do.

I'll have to spend May catching up.

My busy month of April all started with a one-night school trip to Barcelona with my second-year business school students.

Even though the trip was short, I (finally) actually got a feel for this city that so many of my friends love, as I mentioned in a previous post.

So many little trips...so many photos...so much to write about...it's a good thing I'm doing NaBloPoMo for May.

Alive, well, and not blogging at the moment

I just wanted to leave a quick update here. I have had three extremely busy weekends: a school trip to Barcelona, a one-night hop down to see Jennifer (Chez Loulou) the following weekend, and visitors from the US here for Easter weekend...lots of bloggable material, but no time to get it up and blogged!

Anyway, all is well and all is busy.

I hope you had a great Easter weekend!

Barcelona Magic 1

At this precise moment, I started to love Barcelona

There is nothing noteworthy about this photo. It's just a building in Barcelona, attractive but not particularly charming.

As I took it, I was sitting on a café patio below. With a colleague, we had just finished visiting the International Tourism Show with a group of 36 business school students, and we were free for the rest of the afternoon. As we left, said colleague invited me to join her for lunch with a few people she was meeting up with who live in the city.

I had had grand plans to "see stuff" during the afternoon. But my feet hurt. I had gotten up at 1:45 am, ridden a bus for 7 hours, and then tromped around a trade fair for 5 more.

Of course I said yes.

We ended up at a tiny, somewhat greasy-looking neighborhood tapas bar. "Authentic" would be the word.

We sat down, and time just stopped. I snapped this photo, and let Barcelona take over. The next 24 hours were sheer magic...

Pézenas discoveries: Door museum and La Dordîne

Daughter descending into the Pézenas door museum
March 4 2011

After spending just one night in Pézenas, I can hardly position myself to make a lot of recommendations about the place. But I can make a few, based on the few but wonderful things we did there.

Don't miss the funky Musée de la Porte. It's really more of a depot for old doors collected by a local association than a "museum" in the true sense. Information about the doors is relatively sparse, but the place has a mysteriously chaotic feel to it and is perfect for poking around.

Entry is free, but of course donations are gladly accepted to help the association keep up its work.

Anyway, I could show you plenty of other "Portes de Pézenas," both inside and outside the museum, but if you're curious you can take a look at my Pézenas set on Flickr.

Chambres d'hôte "La Dordîne"

When I think about it, our decision to stay in Pézenas was partly based on finding the website for La Dordîne. It's a guest house, or Chambres d'hôte, right in the old town on a quiet, pedestrian street.

We stayed in the Syrah room

The rooms are adorable and amazingly reasonable in price; and the breakfast, nearly 100% homemade by the charming hosts Véronique and Aurélien, is a real treat.

My photos are downloaded and uploaded, and I have devoted two blog posts to a single one-night trip.

It's now time to leave Pézenas behind, but getting this little impromptu getaway together definitely gave me impetus to plan some similar outings during the spring.

Perking up in Pézenas

Une porte de Pézenas, March 4, 2011

It's amazing what even one night away can do to boost my spirits -- especially at this time of year.

Friday I took the afternoon off, and with my youngest daughter we hit the open road to the enchanting medieval town of Pézenas in the Hérault department.

Unfortunately, the weather there was a bit cloudy and chilly, but the colors of the Languedoc still shone through.

Blues in Pézenas chased my blues away

Our original plan had been to spend Friday night in Montpellier, but while surfing the Internet for hotels last weekend, the idea hit me to spend the night somewhere smaller and quieter.

I didn't really even know how truly lovely Pézenas is...nor how full of tourists it must be in the late spring and summer.

Grey skies; blue shutters

There's something special about roaming around top French tourist spots off-season.

Virtually every building gave us a photo opp -- but we were the only ones taking pictures.

I've gotta get out of this place...

You know it's February when Rodez looks like this

My daughters just started two weeks of school holiday.

My students have one week of school holiday.

I have half a day off on Friday afternoon, and I am sure as hell going to make the best of it.

Mind you, this is not a complaint. Although my particular education job doesn't give me "les vacances scolaires," I have a generous vacation plus R.T.T. plan that will allow me to take much of the summer off and still have a few days left over here and there.

In other words, the amount of time off from work is not my point here.

The point is, when Rodez starts looking as it does above...I've got to get away! I've got to run away!

So this morning, I planned out a little one-night escapade with my youngest daughter to a nearby, yet sunnier clime.

I'm already looking forward to posting next week, when I should have much more of interest to say!

Wordless Wednesday

(Photo courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau)

Paris report

Good flight...very rainy and depressing weather in the morning upon arrival...spent 6 hours in an interesting and productive meeting...had un verre with a colleague afterwards...am staying in a halfway decent hotel in la rue des Acacias...am now going to find a decent bite to eat, and then will go to bed early...have to leave the hotel at 6-ish tomorrow morning to catch my plane home, and then to go straight to work....

Off to Paris for work

One of "my" corners of Paris, January, 2010

Three or four times a year, I fly from Rodez to Paris for work-related meetings.

This professional approach to going to "la capitale" has given me a very different vision of the City of Light.

Usually, I don't even spend the night.

My typical day "meeting in Paris day" moves seamlessly from my car to the airport to a plane to a bus to a quick walk to a windowless building to the RER to the airport to a plane and back to my car.

This week I am lucky; the grand business expense total made it actually cheaper for me to spend the night in a hotel and fly back the next day than to do the whole trip in one day.

So tomorrow evening I will get a tiny taste of Paris.

This is what I did today...

...and this is where I did it.

I am not much of a shopper, but my foray into the French winter sales was quite pleasant.

More on the subject to come!

Found luggage

Brussels International Airport, Dec. 25 2010

(All photos courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau)

As some of you may know, the four of us went to Brussels for Christmas.

The departure from Aveyron was an adventure in itself; an extremely chilly surprise snowfall had hit here on Christmas Eve, making us modify our plans for getting to Toulouse's Blagnac airport.

Rather than having a cozy little Christmas celebration at home and leaving for our 6:40 am flight in the middle of what promised to be an icy night, we decided to scrap celebrations and flee to the Blagnac Ibis hotel on Christmas Eve afternoon.

All Toulouse-Brussels flights had been cancelled on the 24th, so we also left not knowing if we would be spending Christmas Day in a cosmopolitan winter wonderland, or sadly driving back to Aveyron to open our presents.

You can imagine our joy when we got to the airport and found out our flight would be taking off with little delay.

We had four suitcases, including Charlotte's -- ironically, a carry-on -- which she didn't hesitate to check in along with ours.

When we got to Brussels, we noticed some rather large groups of suitcases neatly sitting about, but we did not feel concerned by this. After all, what could go wrong on a direct 90-minute flight?

The scene was not so alarming early in the day

To make a long story short -- because this could become a very long story -- two of our suitcases came through right away.

The third popped up, bereft of all labels and ID, an hour and a half later, giving us great hope for the little carry-on that could.

Three hours after that, we gave up on finding Charlotte's suitcase in this mess:

At this point, we figured it was time to move on

Fortunately, she was able to live off our clothing for our short stay.

And we kept things in perspective. During our 5 hours hanging out around the Brussels luggage carousels, we met travellers who had gone through much worse: some were spending their fourth day trying desperately to recuperate baggage in Brussels.

And for us, the good news is that her suitcase made it to Toulouse today and will be delivered to our doorstep tomorrow.

My lesson learned? If travelling in extreme winter weather, limit yourself to a carry-on -- and keep it with you at all times.