La France Profond
Time flies when you're having fun! My three weeks off are coming to an end and I will have to stick my head down and tail up and get cracking as I am only about 5 weeks away from coming home. I spent Christmas in Sarzana (La Spezia, Liguria) and left on the 29th to spend New Years with Vicky and her family in "France profonde" as she put it.
The train trip was an experience, Genova- Nice, Nice - Toulouse, Toulouse - Montauban - about 12 hours in total - the part of my brain that contains the little French I know got a mega workout, but it is always satisfying to be independent in a strange country.
Staying with Vic was a fantastic experience, her family lives just outside a village called Moncuq - which needs to be renamed Moncooky due to its unique mix of people, but all in all I think that is what makes the village so sweet. Everyone was lovely - if you want to see Vic's house the link to their website is http://domainelapeze.com/ . It was a tense week, a new cat
has been added to the mix of animals and not everyone (Lola the sausage dog who is apparently Hitler reincarnated) approves.
New Years Eve was spent at the house, we were still at the dinner table when the clock struck twelve, it was a nice relaxing New Years - good way to welcome 2006.
I came back to Sarzana on the 5th, and I took my first (and if can help it my last) night train and now trying to wind up to get back to work - I still need to go to Turin, Florence and Milan again and really need to write my paper for my February conference in Dublin. No rest for the wicked huh?
I hope that you are all well, Sarah you sound like you are having a fantastic time.
Vicky, happy birthday for the 8th
Brigid and Rhinannyn - I hope the papers are coming along well.
And JJ - start cleaning the house, I'll be home soon (he he)
xxx Ang
posted by Ang at 7:29 AM
3 Comments:
Hi Ang,
It was nice talking to you. BTW, the apartment is clean. I spent half a day cleaning it just before Delia's visit. I figure it will still be clean by the time you come home. LOL. Nothing much to tell ... oh, Delia and I just ate almost a kilo of cherries. PIGS! I miss you.
Vick, if you are reading, happy belated birthday.
Cheers,
J.J.
1/09/2006 4:01 AM
Aah, romantic French villages. That's the stuff.
Well, I survived Tropical Cyclone Clare, which was pretty exciting. Lots of wind and rain and trees and powerlines getting knocked down. Phone services were down fror about two days which meant we couldn't tell the rest of the world we were ok, and all internet, ATM and eftpos services were down. Karratha, where my brother lives, had it tougher: they had two days of red alert, which means they have to stay home. Most take it as an opportunity to have a party with friends. The bottle shop was doing very brisk trade at 10am apparently.
I went on my first Turtle Monitoring Tour last night. Saw plenty of tracks where 110kg Flat-backed turtles had heaved themselves up into the dunes to lay their eggs. No actual turtle sightings however. Might go again tonight. Is beautiful to walk along the beach at night with just the (near) full moon for light.
Feeling time slip away at an increasing pace: printed off my first draft of the dictionary yesterday, but still need to do lots of checking. The verbal and pronominal paradigms are far from complete. Oh well, will just have to see how far I get.
All the best for your continuing travels Ang: and yes, night trains are to be avoided like the plague. My German ex would *only* travel on night trains, and I *only* wanted to travel on day trains. Needless to say, she always won. Needless to say, I'll never take another night train as long as I have control over my travel plans!
1/11/2006 6:54 PM
And I'm even MORE in love with www.bom.gov.au! Cyclone maps and radars and everything!!
1/11/2006 6:55 PM
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