La France Profonde -- An American in Aveyron

New Year and New Blog

2011-01-01T11:19:00.002+01:00

I am leaving La France Profonde behind for now.

Read all about it here, along with my official New Year's wishes.

If you follow me on Google Reader or elsewhere, here is my new blog site:

The world from my windows

No grand réveillon for this gal

2010-12-31T18:24:00.003+01:00

"Le réveillon du 31" is all well and good, but I just can't be bothered with it

Is it my American side creeping back, is it age, or is it general party poopiness?

There must be some reason that this year, I am spending the much-made-of réveillon du St. Sylvestre at home more or less alone.

Sure, there will be my husband, a foie gras, a few stray scallops, and some glasses to wash in the morning. But this is a far cry from our French New Year's Eve parties of old.

To be honest, le réveillon has been weighing on me for the past five years or so.

It is a pain to plan.

It is expensive at a time when plenty of euros have just gone out the window for Christmas.

It is food-heavy at a time when most of France has already been feeding heavily.

And it's all over so horrifyingly late! I think the earliest we have ever gotten to sleep after a French New Year's Eve party was 3am. The latest was 6am -- and oops, I hosted that one.

As I write this, I'm sure many of my expat readers are anxiously awaiting the big night, and perhaps putting finishing touches on a fancy apéritif platter or checking that the Champagne is chilling nicely.

I truly wish you the best! But this year, I'm quite content with my cook-a-little, geek-a-little, sip-a-little, stay-at-home réveillon.

On. Vacation. Happy. Holidays.

2010-12-23T20:49:00.003+01:00

Rodez's little Champs-Elysées, decked out for Christmas 2007

First, HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!

I know many people work through the 24th of December, and even on the 25th.

But as a teacher, I have been sorely spoiled -- and working until 6pm this evening has made things seem, somehow, un-Christmasy to me.

I'm sure that will change tomorrow as I rush into gear to prepare a Christmas Eve meal...or as all four of us leave in a panic to approach an airport in a warmer climate.

One thing is sure: our Christmas will be atypical.

We are flying off on Christmas morning for a surprise European destination; the trip is the girls' -- and the family's -- main Christmas present.

Hopefully the weather will cooperate. For the moment, things are looking quite good, even if Aveyron is under an "alerte orange" for snow tomorrow.

To be continued, after the facts.

A Curious Christmas Coming

2010-12-18T18:06:00.004+01:00

The world from my window this evening

'Tis the season -- and a lot of comments are floating around about being in a Christmas panic.

It's interesting for me to note how I have simplified Christmas over the years. Of course, when the girls were little it was necessarily something of a production. I was working a lot less too, and usually had at least their full two weeks of vacances scolaires off -- and sometimes even more.

Now that I work more, and in fact have a full-time contract, I have more constraints. This year, for example, I have class until the evening of December 23rd. I was feeling sorry for myself about this fact until I thought about all of the people who must work on the 24th and, of course, on the 25th.

This year our family celebration will be very simple: our traditional meal of boudin blanc -- nothing could be easier to cook -- and just a few presents.

Early Christmas Day, I will be coming into a new (for me) form of contact with some of those "people who work on the 25th" because we will be flying away on a short trip very early on Christmas morning.

The destination is a secret for now as it is part of the girls' Christmas gift -- not that they are avid readers of my blog!

I think it will be most interesting to be travelling on Christmas-- one of those things one should maybe do once in a lifetime.

Have you ever travelled on Christmas Day -- plane, trains, hotels, the whole bit?

Five Random France Profonde Photos

2010-12-11T18:58:00.009+01:00

(Rodez by night; driving down la rue St. Cyrice)

La France Profonde has represented two main endeavors for me: writing and taking photos. Both have waned lately, partly because the number of photos that have piled up in my France Profonde file has become overwhelming.

I do have a Flickr account where some of my photos go, but have never kept up with that faithfully.

As I revive this blog, I hope to get back to posting more photos, perhaps in a random way like today.

(Escargot -- Photo courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau)

My husband is a crack photographer, and should be getting even crackier given the number of cameras and pieces of photo equipment he has been buying lately. The above photo, besides the nice snail lines, gives a fuzzy view of our deck and front yard.

(La Foire Expo de Rodez, September 2009)

It seems like every weekend there is something going on in Rodez, and unfortunately we don't get to that many of the events. Last year we did go to the major "Foire Expo" -- a big event that is only held every 10 years or some such.

I didn't realize it at the time, but it was the last event we went to on the Place du Foirail, which is now being transformed in order to make room for le Musée Soulages and other attractions. I wish I had taken photos of the destruction of the old exhibition halls, but Thierry and I have vowed to bring you some pics of the ongoing construction of the museum, which is scheduled to open in 2013.

(Irises in our front yard)

I tend to blog about Rodez because that is where I work, and I hold an enduring fascination for the city. But we don't live in Rodez; we live in a bedroom community called Gages. I never have much to say about it because since our daughters left the local primary schools, we don't feel that connected to the community, and it is not the most scenic village in the area.

That said, I spend most of my weekends at home, and it is nice to get away from "the city."

(A random blog award)

I truly did choose these photos in a random fashion, by flipping around my photo files with my eyes closed. This blog award picture came up, and reminded me of the days when I actually got behind in responding to blog awards, memes and so forth.

Remember being "tagged" for memes? Does that still take place in the blogosphere?

Those were fun times, but I don't really want to get into those activities anymore. Just this space, a few faithful friends and readers to comment on and comment to, one post a week...that seems like plenty for me for now.

Bon dimanche!

Various goings-on 1: Trip to Brussels

2010-12-05T09:26:00.008+01:00

Since deciding to revive this blog, I have realized I have a lot of catching up to do.

In fact, one of the reasons I have found this platform less relevant lately is that my life increasingly revolves around goings-on that aren't centered on the pastoral world of La France Profonde.

For example, the most exciting event of the school year so far has been my participation in a conference in Brussels about Erasmus internships. I was a conference speaker and everything, and ended up writing and editing, along with a team of three other Erasmus program coordinators from all over Europe, a "Joint European Commission Paper" about the future of the Erasmus internship program.

But that is probably of little interest to you, so back to "my trip to Brussels." Since I had gone there for work, it was only by the luck of plane schedules that I got an evening to go out to eat. I splurged at a famous old restaurant, founded in 1928, La Taverne du Passage:

The next morning, I had not even two hours to explore the city, and spent much of that time doing some intense chocolate shopping:

I had only been to Brussels once, on yet an even more perfunctory trip, and it left me with a very nice impression.

I had forgotten how drop-dead gorgeous La Grand-Place is; I didn't have good photography conditions, but it still left me stunned:

Also, outside of the modern Euro-bureau areas, the city seems to have plenty of funky, old-fashioned nooks and crannies that cry out for further exploration:

It's frustrating to go to a European capital -- THE European capital, in fact -- and have only a few hours to check it out. So I may be back in the near or not-so-near future.

Social Media Malaise, or I Miss Blogging

2010-11-28T10:11:00.003+01:00

Last night I was staring blankly at my various Twitter streams on Hootsuite, wondering where to get a conversation started and feeling guilty that I wasn't following up on all of the fabulous, pertinent, relevant, useful bits of information and cool websites that Über Teachers were spitting out.

I flipped over to Facebook, liked a few remarks so I liked them, but wasn't really sure what to do there.

The social media evening had started out with grand expectations; I had been planning on "settling into some quality online time." You can even see the proof of that intention here.

But I quickly became listless and hopelessly unproductive. Let's face it: I'm suddenly feeling tired of hanging out with the same old social networks. You can even see proof of that sentiment here.

So I decided to take a trip back in time to the blogosphere of my past. Google Reader had been a scary place for me for the past few months, a guilt-inducing reminder of all the blogs I'm not reading and, especially, that I'm not writing.

But my visit there wasn't so daunting. I noticed that a lot of my best blogging buddies were slowing down their blogging pace too. They may have even been staring blankly at Hootsuite as I stared blankly at Google Reader.

I didn't stare blankly for very long. I left some comments, even though I almost felt like an intruder doing so. I signed up for comment subscriptions, something I had previously written off as a waste of time.

The hour got late, but by the end of the evening I felt like I had actually "engaged" again in a way I don't do on Facebook or Twitter.

I miss blogging, and I think I will have to do something about that.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY 100!

2010-09-22T18:43:00.002+02:00

Wordless Wednesday 99

2010-08-18T18:46:00.000+02:00

Wordless Wednesday 98

2010-07-29T03:30:00.001+02:00

Alive and well in Olympia

2010-07-23T17:47:00.005+02:00

I thought this long summer break would be a time of intense online activity, and a time to revive this blog.

It may well be -- but not yet.

I have here for a week and a half, and have been doing anything and everything but using my favorite social networking sites.

Facebook has been serving as communications central for getting together with friends here; I've issued a few tweets, but haven't felt much desire to follow Twitter; I figure I'm going to have to clear my Google Reader when it gets to 1000 unread posts.

Replacing all of this are emails to my family back in France, connecting to my work email platform to check up on how my students are doing on their foreign internships, and some online work on the syllabi for my classes next year.

Of course, plenty of offline stuff is going on: seeing my family and friends, outings to restaurants and shows, reading, watching movies and baseball games...

It's summer and I think I needed a break from all of my routines. But I'm not gone forever.

I hope you are all enjoying your summer as much as I am. I will be back in touch.

Homeward Bound

2010-07-11T17:05:00.002+02:00

(Photo courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau)

Whether grey and gloomy, cool and misty, or warm and watery, Olympia is sounding awfully good to me right now...and I'll be there in little more than two days.

Wordless Wednesday 97

2010-07-07T19:06:00.002+02:00

While my conscience explodes: Bob Dylan in Carcassonne, June 28 2010

2010-07-03T14:10:00.015+02:00

Before writing a review of Monday's Bob Dylan concert in Carcassonne, I first felt like I needed to write a whole prologue to the experience: my personal journey into the labyrinthical world of Dylan's music, why I had never seen him in concert before, my expectations for the show, and so forth.

But I've decided to dive into the concert itself while it is fresh in my mind -- not that I'll be forgetting it any time soon.

THE VENUE

On face value, the Théâtre Jean Deschamps (Théâtre Antique) in Carcassonne would seem to be an extraordinary venue for a rock concert:

The medieval atmosphere combined with the drop-dead gorgeous weather boded well for a lively evening, but the setting didn't entirely hold its promises...

...as we will see when I write about the audience.

THE SETLIST

I had been following the setlists of Bob's European dates closely, so I knew what to expect -- sort of.

One of the fascinating aspects of the Never-Ending Tour, on which Dylan has played well over 2,000 shows all over the world since the late 1980s, is that every show is different.

Sure, there have been common points in the 2010 European leg that started on May 29 in Athens. But if I compare that setlist with the one performed in Carcassonne, only 6 songs are the same.

Seeing the great variety of material Dylan does on tour makes me wish I could have taken a few weeks off to follow the show, as some fans do. But I had one concert only, and here is its playlist:

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Just Like a Woman
The Levee's Gonna Break
Tangled up in Blue
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
Love Sick
Cold Irons Bound
Mr. Tambourine Man
Highway 61 Revisited
Not Dark Yet
Thunder on the Mountain
Ballad of a Thin Man

Encore:
15. Like a Rolling Stone
16. Jolene
17. Blowing in the Wind

This was just dandy with me. All I was really sure of going in was that Ballad of a Thin Man and Like a Rolling Stone had been part of the end of every recent concert; I was looking forward to that. For the rest, I was flexible.

I was also prepared, as I had taken the time to get to know all of the "recent" material (as in from about the past 20 years) that he had been performing -- an effort that I would highly recommend to anyone who decides to see a Dylan concert in the future.

THE PERFORMANCE

Dylan never ceases to surprise and amaze, and this concert was no exception. I knew all the songs, had checked out a few YouTube videos of previous dates, and, well, I know my Dylan fairly honorably. Yet all of this homework did not prepare me for the three main observations I drew from the show.

(Photo courtesy of Daphné Jouanneteau)

1. Forever young?

The concept of "for his age" ended up having absolutely no relevance to my evaluation of the concert.

This man not only rocks; he may be at the top of his form.

He cut a fine figure in his dark suit and white hat, and was clearly on stage to give an even finer concert. Assuring virtually non-stop vocals for nearly two hours while alternating between guitar, organ, and harmonica, his energy and showmanship were breathtaking.

Although Dylan didn't speak (directly) to the public except to introduce his band at the end, he certainly doesn't seem to be in a phase of erratic performances and diffidence.

He smiled repeatedly (and charmingly,) never slipped up, and made every song (with the possible exception of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," which was kind of tossed out) a show in itself.

The synergy with his excellent band was palpable, and the musical arrangements carefully crafted (unlike certain concerts decades back, ahem) while still leaving room for improvisation.

If you want further proof, take a look at this video of "Thunder on the Mountain" and "Ballad of a Thin Man."

2. Now everything's a little upside down...

Even if I knew and had grown to like the "recent" numbers that I thought I might hear, I was intrigued to find myself enjoying them as much, if not more, than the "oldies." The following songs were undoubtedly among the highlights of the evening:

The Levee's Gonna Break (Modern Times, 2006)

Cold Irons Bound (Time Out of Mind, 1997)

Not Dark Yet (Time Out of Mind, 1997)

Thunder on the Mountain (Modern Times, 2006)

Jolene (Together Through Life, 2009)

The Levee's Gonna Break and Thunder on the Mountain are unapologetic rock 'n' roll songs that work much better live than in their respectable studio versions -- as unapologetic rock 'n' roll songs should, I might add.

Jolene, performed at about twice the speed of the recording, kept the crowd on its feet and dancing during the encore.

Cold Irons Bound was one of Bobby's most impressive vocal performances of the evening, in my opinion topped only by Ballad of a Thin Man.

As far as slower numbers, Not Dark Yet moved me to tears. Interestingly, it was also one of the only songs in the main set to elicit an immediately enthusiastic reaction from the crowd.

It's not dark yet, but it's getting there...

(Photo courtesy of Daphné Jouanneteau)

3. Highways Revisited

I knew rule number one of Dylan concerts: don't expect to hear your favorite songs sounding like they did on the original albums, or on some old live CD (or LP) that you particularly cherish.

On Monday, I learned rule number two: expect to have your vision of certain songs changed forever.

In Carcassonne, Dylan slipped in a slightly eerie, processional version of "Mr. Tambourine Man," little-played in Europe 2010, and mixed in a bit of playful mockery of his 60s voice. It sure worked for me, and gave me a new take on a song I have grown weary of.

Just Like a Woman has never been one of my favorite Dylan tunes, but the current live performance is especially polished, and I ended up enjoying it more than personal favorites It's All Over Now, Baby Blue and Tangled Up in Blue.

The concert also made me acutely aware of the anthemic power of "Like a Rolling Stone." Of course I recognize its greatness, but I would easily put many Dylan songs on par with it.

Not so the lethargic Carcassonne audience, who after an hour and a half of treating the concert like a chamber music recital finally figured out they were at a rock concert when they heard "Once upon a time you dressed so fine..."

How does it feel...to know you've been sitting on your butts for 90 minutes rather than giving Bob Dylan his due?

(Photo courtesy of Daphné Jouanneteau)

THE AUDIENCE

To the Carcassonne Dylan audience: I wish you could stand inside my shoes...you'd know what a drag it was to see you.

I was most distressed by the public's unresponsiveness at this show; my daughter finally had to tell me to get a grip because I was ruining the concert I had so looked forward to. She was right, of course, but I was living in fear that Bob might calmly leave the stage earlier than planned.

That didn't happen, and he even went in for a three-song encore, which hadn't been the case at every Europe 2010 show. I'm not sure Carcassonne deserved it.

Was it me, was it France, was it Carcassonne?

Apparently it was Carcassonne, as a contributor to the bobdylan.com message board (re)assured me: You were unlucky. I went to all the French shows and this was definitely the dullest audience of all. You should have been in Bordeaux the day after, it was a different thing altogether, a young and very enthusiastic crowd and the show was really great.

Oh, perhaps I should have, but I was still delighted with the show overall.

The changing of the guards

One final word before I (finally) finish this lengthy post.

I was lucky enough to attend this concert with my 17-year-old daughter and a friend of hers, and they were appropriately awestruck. I certainly didn't have to drag them along either.

I did the math: this would be the equivalent of my being fascinated, in the 70s, with an artist over 50 years my senior who had started his or her career in the mid-1920s.

That would SO never have happened...but I was so much older then; they're younger than that now.

Wordless Wednesday 96

2010-06-30T20:05:00.001+02:00

Wordless Wednesday 95

2010-06-16T21:26:00.003+02:00

Good-bye to a weird corner of Rodez

2010-06-12T19:37:00.008+02:00

I must admit, and likely have admitted on this blog, that I'm one of those people who loves to stick her nose into derelict buildings, and who is quite fascinated by weird places like the one above.

If they're in the center of town, so much the better.

This little rundown yard right across from La Maison du Livre, Rodez's most popular bookstore, has intrigued me for years.

Are those rabbit cages in the back? Doors to an old W.C. on the left? Or were they?

Because yes, I am sad to say that this certainly hot piece of real estate is gone and being transformed into something...perhaps a clothes shop or a tea salon, both of which Rodez seems to abound in.

Why should I be sad? The place was an eyesore, and probably impossible to salvage. If I owned it or had inherited it, I certainly wouldn't have the energy to oversee the work necesarry to turn it into a charming town center house avec jardin.

I will miss pondering what it used to be, though.

Wordless Wednesday 94

2010-06-09T20:22:00.002+02:00

(Photo courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau)

Rodez really is a happening place!

2010-06-06T18:19:00.003+02:00

Rodez was buzzing last week with plans, gossip and Facebook discussions about the "Apéro Géant des Aveyronnais" that was held Thursday evening in the town center's Jardin du Foirail.

I won't attempt to report on the whole story with its political ins and outs, nor will I tell about the event because I decided not to go!

This was all for a good cause: I wanted to have plenty of energy to attend some of the forty-odd events organized on Friday and Saturday by the Conservatoire de musique for the 24 Heures Chopin.

My daughters went to the Apéro Géant, though, and thought it was just peachy. And I ended up attending about 7 of the "24 hours of Chopin," and was impressed by the turn-out and the organization involved.

Both events were huge successes, despite Midi Libre's attempt to turn a DWI arrest that took place hours after the Apéro (which finished at midnight) into some sort of news.

I like the fact that both happenings drew a wide range of age groups. Sure, the Chopin concerts weren't overrun with teenagers, but I would say there were at least some young people at all of the venues I went to.

To conclude, I really hate it when people say "nothing goes on in Rodez." Sure, if you want to go to jazz clubs every weekend or a new modern art exhibit every month, Rodez may not provide what you are looking for. But I sure can't keep up with everything that happens in our little capital city.

Wordless Wednesday 93

2010-06-02T20:29:00.001+02:00

(Photo courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau)

NaBloPoMo: An inglorious conclusion

2010-05-31T21:17:00.005+02:00

(Click on image to feel the pain of my abysmal evening, and no, this is not OUR declaration.)

My husband and I fill out our French taxes online and, normalement, we had until June the 10th to do so.

Then suddenly this afternoon, for a reason too confusing/personal/mundane/inane/all of the above, it became necessary for us to file online today -- as in this evening when I got home from work at nearly 7pm.

Consequently, I almost forgot to do this last NaBloPoMo post.

I will wax eloquently about my month of daily blogging at a later date...maybe June the 10th?

La fête des mères

2010-05-30T19:42:00.002+02:00

Leesa of News from France, who has got to be one of the nicest bloggers in the whole wide world, was kind enough to send me this photo for "La Fête des Mères."

Merci Leesa! Your thoughtfulness knows no bounds!

Of NaBloPoMo and feed readers

2010-05-29T18:12:00.003+02:00

Only three days to go.

This is my third NaBloPoMo, and although I haven't necessarily engendered a lot of comments, I have enjoyed the theme: "Looking Up." It led me on a treasure hunt through my photos, and I found quite a few where I had pointed my camera lens upwards.

Another advantage of participating, for me, is that it does get me back in touch with my blog and the blogosphere. During the month, I installed a new feed reader: Feed Demon. It's a desktop application and gets a little buggy if you don't use it regularly, but I find it more intuitive than Google Reader.

Then, through @chrisrat, I got onto something really fun: Feedly. This little toy swallows up your RSS feeds and spits them out into something that looks more like an online magazine than a bunch of files.

So, to sum up this rather rambling post, NaBloPoMo always brings me some new discoveries, and this time around has been no exception.

Looking up in Paris 3

2010-05-28T21:38:00.002+02:00

Same blue sky as yesterday's post, and the same great trip: April 2008 with my youngest daughter and two of her friends.

Looking up in Paris 2

2010-05-27T20:32:00.003+02:00

Apartments near the Eiffel Tower...wouldn't that be a nice place to live?

Wordless Wednesday 92

2010-05-26T20:15:00.002+02:00

Looking up in Paris 1

2010-05-25T19:58:00.002+02:00

One of the great things about my current professional situation is that I get to fly up to Paris for meetings three or four times a year.

My time in the capital city is always limited, and most of it is spent in a windowless conference room. But I always try to make the most of the business trip by stopping off at a café before and after my meeting.

My Back Pages 1

2010-05-24T21:28:00.004+02:00

For Music Monday, for NaBloPoMo, for Bob Dylan's birthday -- and because I need something to write about today -- I have decided to go back over some of my music-oriented post for my now-defunct blog And So Forth.

It was a heady bloggy time, when I was writing three blogs and posting about subjects as diverse as politics, music, the media, Aveyron, wine and cooking.

It was November 18, 2007, and I wrote this tribute to one of my favorite Bob Dylan albums:

"I have been trying all day to listen straight through Blood on the Tracks without too many interruptions. It's 7:30 PM and I'm practically halfway into "Shelter from the Storm," so I think I'm finally going to make it.

If not, I think I can do without 'Buckets of Rain.' It's one of the two songs on the album that doesn't do it for me, along with 'Meet Me in the Morning.'

Those two songs aside, though, I don't think I will ever tire of this album. Sometimes I think it's Bob Dylan's best. And I have to disagree with Jon Landau when he wrote in 1975:

'Blood on the Tracks will only sound like a great album for a while. Like most of Dylan, it is impermanent.'

So why does it ring so true 32 years later?"

I'm home...

2010-05-23T21:17:00.002+02:00

...from an absolutely lovely weekend. More about it later.

Off to Toulouse again

2010-05-22T07:38:00.003+02:00

This post will be photo-less, and barely more than an expanded version of my Facebook status update -- but at least I'm fulfilling my NaBloPoMo obligation.

Busy weekend ahead: my husband and I are off to Toulouse for the 25-year reunion of his engineering school class. A reception, visit of the school, dinner out, and Sunday picnic are on the program.

We'll be staying with friends and the weather is looking lovely - - even almost hot.

Fortunately I have Monday off so will be able to catch up with the usual weekend duties then.

Wishing you all a good weekend!

The F Word

2010-05-21T20:26:00.002+02:00

Theme Thursday: Pets

2010-05-20T20:16:00.004+02:00

THEN:

From left to right: Titine (2000-2008!), Cutie (I don't know, she was one in a series of second guinea pigs), and baby Blackboard (2005-2010.)

NOW:

Bunny Boy, born in 2009, acquired in 2010...a sweet, quiet dwarf rabbit.

He's all the pet I need for the moment.

Wordless Wednesday 91

2010-05-19T20:01:00.001+02:00

Looking up in Toulouse, suite et fin

2010-05-18T18:02:00.001+02:00

Looking up in Toulouse 3

2010-05-17T20:14:00.003+02:00

The paintings that adorn the covered passageway on the Place du Capitole in Toulouse are, in my opinion, a good example of the whole being more than the sum of its parts.

Halfway Lost in Google Image Search Land

2010-05-16T17:46:00.008+02:00

The relevance, or irrelevance, of this photo to today's post will be explained below.

Maybe it's the fun NaBloPoMo theme of "looking up" that has buoyed my efforts, but so far daily blogging hasn't been a chore at all.

Today I wanted to do a simple post of about four words, such as "Halfway through NaBloPoMo." Okay, that's three words, but who's counting besides myself?

But I decided to look for a photo because, well, I've almost always posted with photos. Such was the error of my ways (she writes an hour later.) Go find a good photo to illustrate the notion of "halfway."

Yep, I liked that one, but it was copyrighted and I generally live by those rules.

Then I got lost in Google Image Search Land.

"Halfway house." I hadn't thought about the notion for awhile. It conjured up some vague image of my parents telling me about some child of friends' of theirs who had gotten "mixed up with drugs."

Halfway is the name of a bike model, or a style of bike, or some such. Not that I really care, but there were sure a lot of photos of it messing up the efficiency of my Google Image Search.

Halfway, Oregon. Yes, fellow Pacific Northwesterners, there is a Halfway, Oregon. Did you know that? I didn't. Apparently it got darn cold there in 1948-1949. I would have liked to use a photo of this town for my post, but the one I found was copyrighted too.

An old menu from a restaurant called The Halfway House. Cool! The restaurant was in Seattle. Even cooler! There's a post about it on a way cool site called VintageSeattle.org. I just had to take a break to bookmark it so I can never look at it again.

A Ramones album called Halfway to Sanity. I could surely use this photo, and did:

But it didn't really illustrate anything I wished to convey in this post, and the word "halfway" didn't come out very well visually.

So, I went with the Wikipedia Media Commons photo of "Snowdon Mountain Railway No.2 climbing towards Halfway Station..." because I'm halfway through NaBloPoMo, and still chugging along.

Looking up in Toulouse 2

2010-05-15T19:41:00.004+02:00

As I was looking up over my cappuccino in this rather grand café on the Place du Capitole, a noisy and rude dispute was going on at the till. Something about the service being slow and a woman missing an appointment over it...the city police eventually showed up, but all was well by then.

Looking up in Toulouse...

2010-05-14T21:36:00.002+02:00

...this very day. Not the greatest light, but a great outing.

Theme Thursday: Mystery

2010-05-13T19:01:00.009+02:00

This is my first foray into Theme Thursday, which sounds like great fodder -- no, I meant to say "source of inspiration" -- for NaBloPoMo and future blogging as well.

Not being one to ponder the mysteries of life, what first came to my mind when I saw the theme was the mystery novel genre. I seldom read mystery or detective books, although tut-tut's clever take on the theme reminded me that in my childhood I read quite a few.

A few summers ago, my father suggested this series, and I read two or three:

Pleasant enough stuff, but nothing that drew me into the genre enough to want to discover new authors.

My second thought about "mystery," was, not surprisingly, music-related. The song "Mystery Dance" by Elvis Costello is not one of my favorites from his album "My Aim Is True," which otherwise I love dearly.

The image search for it led me into a strange time warp -- did that song really come out on a 45? The proof is in the picture.

Wordless Wednesday 90

2010-05-12T19:22:00.001+02:00

Looking up 7: Contrast

2010-05-11T20:11:00.003+02:00

Montepellier, 2006. I thought I was taking a picture of the buildings, but they turned out dark and almost gloomy compared to the splendid sky.

As I do this "looking up" theme for NaBloPoMo, I have been going through a lot of my photo files from trips and outings.

Generally here at La France Profonde I post about Aveyron; or if I travel, I just write up a post or two and never look back at the photos.

The result is that I have plenty of shots lurking around that will probably get online only if I get more involved in Flickr...but who really needs another social network?

Looking up 6: The one in which we see that "bakery+France" does not always equal "charming"

2010-05-10T20:31:00.002+02:00

One thing that is not looking up

2010-05-09T18:47:00.004+02:00

The world from my window, May 8, 2010

So I took you a photo to show you how depressing and gloomy the weather is here, and it doesn't actually look that bad.

But it is.

Pluie. Pluvieux. Averses isolées. Nombreuses averses. Pluvieux. Bruine. Petites pluies.

I have to hand it to the CityVox Rodez weather site.

They have plenty of vocabulary to tell us that we're in for more of the same, because "Pluie" was for today and the next six descriptions tell us what's coming up.

Last weekend, I kind of enjoyed the unseasonal weather, thinking it was nice not to have to be out breaking my back in the much-neglected yard. This weekend I felt the same way -- on Saturday. It practically put a song in my heart to think I wouldn't have to yank out a week all weekend.

I also kept telling myself that I had seen the weather forecast for next weekend, which will be a 4-day one for me to boot, and that it would be gardening weekend. Indeed, a few days ago, la météo for le weekend de l'Ascension was looking pretty darn good.

Things change.

Oh, and did I tell you we had a snowstorm on Tuesday evening?

Looking back at looking up 1

2010-05-08T18:45:00.002+02:00

If I'm going to get through NaBloPoMo, I think I will have to mine all available material. And lo and behold, I already have a few posts on this blog that correspond perfectly to the theme of "looking up."

For example, in December 2008 I was looking up at Notre Dame de Rodez and reflecting on how the weather at the top of her towers can actually be different than what pedestrians are walking through down below.

The title of that post -- and perhaps several others I've done -- was "Looking Up, Things Are." And that is something I have learned from blogging and carrying my camera around.

There is a whole world above my head that I had frankly never taken the time to examine before creating La France Profonde.

Looking up 5: A night at the theatre

2010-05-07T20:47:00.002+02:00

Looking up 4: Memories of trips past

2010-05-06T21:43:00.002+02:00

Wordless Wednesday 89

2010-05-05T20:31:00.004+02:00

Looking up 3: Flowers and a wink from opticians

2010-05-04T20:58:00.002+02:00

Opticians would be good at thinking about looking up, it seems to me.

I don't know if this eye-catching balcony in Colmar was set up by the opticians working below, or if it is just the balcony of the apartment above.

But I have to give the opticians some credit for the clever shop name: "Clin d'oeil" (wink -- but the expression includes the word "eye" in French.)

If you needed glasses, wouldn't you like to take a look into this store?

Looking up 2: taken in one funky place

2010-05-03T20:39:00.003+02:00

A memory from one of my more recent trips

Looking up 1: taken on the day I met a blogging friend who became a real friend

2010-05-02T15:18:00.003+02:00

A quick warning to anyone planning on following my NaBloPoMo foray this month: it's going to be all about photos.

The theme is "looking up." I realize that since I started blogging in December 2005 and, at the same time, taking a number of digital photos, I have become much more aware of things above me, and have taken many photos of them that have never worked their way into this blog. This is my chance to use them.

For some posts, such as today's, I'm going to try to entice you with a little clue that will make you wonder where, when and with whom...or else I will tell the story behind the photo.

It's going to be fun.

The tug of blogging

2010-05-01T09:16:00.002+02:00

I wonder if my blogging future is going to look like this: general sloth and non-involvement, with an occasional burst of activity thanks to NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month.)

I believe NaBloPoMo was originally November, but now this Ning group proposes a monthly theme for anyone who wants to latch on and try to post every day for a month.

I had no intention of getting into this for May, but this morning an email arrived announcing that the theme would be "look up." I signed up.

If anything, it will be a good chance to post some of the many photos I have accumulated of rooves, windows, shutters and the like!

See you for the next 31 days...

Olympia meets Rodez

2010-04-25T09:12:00.006+02:00

This year I was responsible for something major -- so major that three weeks later, I am still recovering.

If you are a regular reader, you know that my daughters participated for years in a summer musical comedy program, Kids at Play, based in my hometown of Olympia, Washington.

Last year when one of my daughters spent a year in Olympia, she sang with the chorus associated with the same program, Kids in Koncert.

As lazy as I have been about blogging lately, I can't seem to get up the gumption this morning to tell the long story of how Kids in Koncert and twenty parents and staff members ended up spending a week in Rodez. But they did, and I was the on-site coordinator for this cultural exchange.

It was frankly a huge job and, from what I hear from just about everybody involved, a great success.

Writing this much makes me want to write about the whole experience. But I think I'll take it day by day...

Wordless Wednesday 88

2010-04-21T20:54:00.002+02:00

Wordless Wednesday 87

2010-04-14T20:10:00.001+02:00

(Photo courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau)

Online light

2010-04-04T08:48:00.003+02:00

My online presence has been very light lately, but I did want to drop in and tell you what I have been up to.

My two worlds are meeting next week -- starting tomorrow -- when the youth choir Kids In Koncert, from my home town of Olympia, Washington, comes to spend a week here in Aveyron.

My youngest daughter sang with this choir during her year in Olympia, and this stay has been three years in the making and planning. I have been the main organizer, but my youngest daughter's high school, Le Lycée François d'Estaing, has done a lot as far as finding host families and helping with the program.

Anyway, the coming week (I'm taking it off work, needless to say) will be crazy but fun.

Just for information, the group will be doing a major concert at L'Eglise Saint Joseph L'Artisan in Onet-le-Château on Friday April 9th at 8:30 pm.

I will return...

Wordless Wednesday 86

2010-03-31T20:33:00.003+02:00

On the road

2010-03-21T13:11:00.012+01:00

Although I travel some for my job, it's usually by plane. And my daily life here in Aveyron doesn't leave me much time for hitting the open road.

Driving alone, heading somewhere in France without totally understanding how to get there, listening to MY choice of music at the volume I have chosen...these are rare and wonderful moments for me.

Usually, I have to make them happen. Last week I did. On Tuesday, I had to drive to Toulouse for a meeting that was going to end in the early afternoon. Rather than driving straight back to Rodez, I was able to work out my schedule to make a detour to see a good friend in Canal du Midi territory.

Driving along the freeway past Castelnaudary and Carcassonne in T-shirt weather, I was taken aback to see significant remnants of snow drifts on the side of the road. I knew that it had snowed a week earlier, but here in chilly Aveyron, our snow was long gone.

Even if it was a little crazy to take this detour for one afternoon and one night -- I was back at work the next morning (OK, late morning) -- the dose of sun and good cheer was just what I needed.

Wordless Wednesday 85

2010-03-17T20:38:00.003+01:00

Wordless Wednesday 84

2010-03-10T20:08:00.003+01:00

Chez Cécile et Aimé

2010-03-06T19:18:00.011+01:00

Friday evening atmosphere at Chez Cécile et Aimé
8 rue Oustry, Rodez/ 05-65-69-57-97

Back when I was writing my cooking blog, I imagined posting about local restaurants, either on Cuisine Quotidienne or here. I even toyed with the idea of trying to write real "restaurant reviews," but since Aveyron is a small place, I didn't want to get anybody's nose out of joint.

The result is a pile of untagged, but categorized, photos of local eateries. Since I don't plan to be writing anything resembling restaurant reviews in the near future, I thought I'd just share some of my favorite local restaurants with you in an informal, non-exhaustive fashion.

A spring "assiette" with smoked salmon, asparagus, and other goodies

There's not a lot on the Web about this funky and creative restaurant/salon de thé which has now been open for seven years in the Rodez town center. I did find a press article about its opening, and can say that the owners, sisters Florence and Isabelle Sabin, have been true to their ideals. Everything is homemade, and the menus change nicely with the seasons.

The restaurant is located in an old house, which is cozy and creatively decorated. You can eat in three rooms, and in the summer, on two different terrasses.

Okay, no one was dining outside on the day I took this picture, but at least it gives you an idea.

Chez Cécile et Aimé features homemade quiches, salads, desserts, and other dishes depending on the season and the inspiration of the chef who has worked for them for five years now. Prices are reasonable and "la maison" is open non-stop from 10:00 am until 6pm, serving late breakfast, lunch and mouth-watering goûters.

For a special dining experience, go on Friday evening -- the only day they are open for dinner. We often do.

Wordless Wednesday 83

2010-03-03T20:41:00.002+01:00

Wordless Wednesday 82

2010-02-24T20:39:00.001+01:00

Rekindling an old flame

2010-02-20T19:07:00.006+01:00

I used to be a newspaper lover. Now I can be one again, thanks to my recent purchase of a Kindle.

I'm not going to get into the "it's just wrong to read a book on one of those devices" debate; I'll save that for another post.

To me, the biggest advantage of my Kindle so far has been rediscovering the joy of reading the Sunday paper over a cup of coffee.

Of course, the same readers who will argue that a Kindle desecrates books might say the same about a Kindle and newspapers. But I can hear your arguments already, and I think I can shoot them all down.

1.) You live in France and are fluent in French; you should just read the French Sunday paper.

Been there, done that. I even subscribed to La Nouvelle République when we lived in Tours and I could get morning delivery. But I'm not interested in a daily paper anymore -- plus we can't get morning delivery where we live. So the Sunday paper is what I want, and for some reason -- maybe someone can tell me why -- French journaux de dimanche just aren't the same.

2.) Reading a newspaper on a Kindle doesn't compare to touching newsprint

Are you saying this like newsprint is a good thing? I can buy this type of argument for books, but I was never a big fan of unwieldy newspapers and newsprinty fingers to begin with. It's much easier for me to read a paper on the couch with my Kindle than to manage newspaper pages.

3.) It's stupid to pay a buck or two for a newspaper issue when you can read it free on the Internet.

It is rather interesting to be in the position of paying to get LESS information, but that's partly what it's all about for me.

I really can't bear newspaper websites. Besides the overwhelming barrage of information they toss out, they give me way too many extraneous choices.

A glance at today's New York Times already has my head spinning. Should I switch to the global edition? What is Times Reader 2.0? Would my life improve if I tried the New Times Skimmer? And why haven't I gotten around to personalizing my weather?

All that and I haven't even read a headline yet...which I may well never do because there's an intriguing video called "Stepping Out With the U.S. Men's Curling Team." That's worth a look. Should I tweet it? (No.) Use it in class? (Maybe, but it doesn't really fit into my schedule next week.) What would? Should I click over to the BBC?

Oh, and on the right there's something about The New York Times Wine Club. Sounds interesting. Forget the headlines. Maybe I should join the club...or drink a glass of wine...

In other words, I could spend hours on the New York Times website and, well, never really catch up with the news.

As for the price, I'm one of those old-fashioned types who feels newspaper-lovers need to chip in if we want to keep on reading quality journalism.

In conclusion, I think a Kindle is a nice investment for expats in particular, but you should be aware that for some reason, you will not get images with your purchases made outside the USA. But that's not a problem for my image-overloaded brain.

Wordless Wednesday 81

2010-02-17T20:09:00.005+01:00

(Photo courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau)

Amsterdam Five: Holidays must end as you know

2010-02-14T08:57:00.013+01:00

Six weeks later, and I am finally finishing my series about our trip to Amsterdam. Our last day actually included some real activity, since our plane for Toulouse didn't leave until 8:15 pm.

After enjoying the hotel buffet breakfast together -- the only time on the trip both girls managed to be up in time to take advantage of it -- we packed our bags, stored them at the hotel, and walked through the brisk cold to the Katten Kabinet, or Cat Cabinet.

I had really been looking forward to what sounded like a deliciously off-beat site: a huge house on the Herengracht dedicated to the memory of a cat.

"The Cat Cabinet was founded in commemoration of the red and frisky Tom Cat John Pierpont Morgan, the life-long companion and buddy of the museum's founder, Bob Meijer," explains the rudimentary website. For information, the cat lived from 1966-1983.

It was a fun and funky visit, but I expected a little more as far as feline-related works of art. We were also disappointed that much of the house was closed off to visitors. Let's just say we were expecting a little more, but definitely enjoyed the opportunity to pet some of the kitty residents that roam freely through the mansion:

Our next stop was another smaller museum, this one exhbiting handbags and purses. After the somewhat underwhelming Kat Kabinet, we weren't sure what to expect from the Tassenmuseum Hendrikj.

Before the visit, we were lured into the lovely coffee shop:

Lovely, cozy coffee shops such as this one were one of our favorite features in Amsterdam:

After our refreshments, we visited the museum which, to our delight, holds an astounding and well-curated collection of bags, wallets and luggage throughout the ages. I don't have any photos to share of this museum, but the website provides a good idea of what is on display.

All good things must come to an end, and after the handbag museum, we realized we were down to a few hours before having to walk back to the hotel and take the taxi to the airport.

It was about 4pm, the perfect time to eat a lunch/dinner/whatever in the city. We were lucky enough to stumble upon the Get toGether restaurant, a rather chic eatery connected to The Albus Grand Hotel:

Gazing in from the street, we couldn't quite believe the reasonable prices on the lunch menu. This light meal was perhaps the closest we got to typically Dutch restaurant food: delicious soups and sandwiches at a price that seemed unbelievable for a European capital.

For example, I savored the "creamy spinach soup with goat’s cheese and pieces of smoked chicken," a meal in itself, for only 4,50 euros.

I don't really want to go into detail about what followed: the last-minute souvenir shopping, the taxi trip to the airport, Starbucks in Schipol.

All of that went well, but it's not what I will recall years from now.

"Holidays must end as you know/All is memory taken home with me" (Nathalie Merchant)

Wordless Wednesday 80

2010-02-10T20:00:00.001+01:00

Don't be afraid of 1st grade!

2010-02-07T13:56:00.004+01:00

I took this photo a few Septembers back, and never got up the gumption to blog about it. After all, I am a teacher in France, even if I'm not part of the Education Nationale, and I don't want this blog to become a platform for ragging on the French school system.

But s'il vous please -- can you believe the theme of this magazine? "The first magazine to [help you] succeed in [the equivalent of] 1st grade"?

Among the colorful, eye-catching, pitches on this magazine's promotional poster was "Même pas peur!" -- "Not even afraid!" -- as if shaking in their little bottes would be the natural state of a French first grader (who has normally already been through three or four years of free public pre-school.)

I don't know if CP Champions is still in print, but I rather hope not.

WE did it!

2010-01-31T18:03:00.004+01:00

As I mentioned several times over the last month, I don't know what possessed me to do NaBloPoMo this January. There was a theme -- "best" -- which I thought might be fun to write about, but I don't think I ever even used the word.

But I did carry on. My conclusions are:

1.) It is probably good for anyone who wants to keep blogging to do NaBloPoMo once a year. It does get a certain momentum going, even if post quality can suffer.

2.) I don't think I would ever want to make La France Profonde a daily blog, but after a 31-day string of posts, getting back to posting twice a week seems feasible, if not straight out easy.

3. NaBloPoMo is best done with a few others. Of course one can find myriad "others" by going to the official site, but I was lucky enough to have two contacts just fall into place: longtime blogging (and now Facebook) buddy tut-tut from Inside the Shell, and Claudine from Good Things, whom I had run into in comments columns. Both of these ladies commented on every single post of mine, no matter how lame, and I did the same...not that THEY wrote any lame posts, of course!

The "best" thing about NaBloPoMo in my book is finishing it! Cheers!

Amsterdam Five: Day Three

2010-01-30T11:51:00.010+01:00

Monday December 28th was the most glorious of our days in Amsterdam weatherwise. It was sunny from dawn on, and with no biting wind.

Of course the sun rises late up there -- well past 9am at the time we were in the city -- so we had a hard time getting a move on in the morning -- I'm an early riser and found myself sleeping in until 9:15 through the whole trip. I don't think all four of us got moving until past 11, but Thierry went out earlier to take some photos in our "neighborhood," including the one above.

Well, now you know our main destination for the day. After a nice walk through neighborhoods we hadn't seen yet, a snack of waffles, and a short stroll through Vondelpark, we got to the Van Gogh museum... and almost decided to put off our visit until the next day. The lines appeared dreadfully long, and we feared a crowd inside.

We decided to see how the line was moving and, surprisingly, got in after only a 20-minute wait. And I'm not so sure where all of the people ended up going, because the exhibit halls were hardly packed:

Some of the crowd was in the gift shop, where my husband was tempted by these volumes, which represented the exhibition that was on at the time about Van Gogh's letters. Fortunately, I convinced my spouse that the 6-volume set would be a bit heavy in our suitcases.

After a leisurely visit in the museum, which I had already seen once but didn't remember that well, we walked around the Hoofstraat area, where many of Amsterdam's luxury shops are located.

We had dinner at an Italian restaurant that I would highly recommend: the Ristorante Saturnino. It's clearly a popular joint, and the waiters started all contacts by speaking Italian, which was a fun touch. Prices were reasonable, the atmosphere was jolly, and the upscale pasta and pizza absolutely delicious.

I'm starting to regret not taking pictures of our food...

(All photos except #2 courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau)

Now you're nowhere to be found

2010-01-29T20:37:00.003+01:00

Keep a fire burning in your eye
Pay attention to the open sky
You never know what will be coming down...

(From For a dancer by Jackson Browne; painting Chose sans nom by Pierre Soulages)

I must have thought you'd always be around

2010-01-28T20:19:00.001+01:00

I'm spending the evening cyber-managing communication about the death of a very close high school friend. This is not the post I wanted to write tonight.

Wordless Wednesday 79

2010-01-27T20:55:00.001+01:00

(Photo courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau)

Off to Paris

2010-01-26T04:56:00.003+01:00

I'm off to Paris for work today, which means getting up at 4:30 am and getting home at 10pm -- providing there are no plane delays! So this will be my semblance of a post for today...

Random Image 1

2010-01-25T20:03:00.005+01:00

As I started to tackle my last week of January's NaBloPoMo, I was totally lacking in inspiration. Then an idea popped into my head -- an idea that quickly became a concept, to paraphrase Woody Allen.

Like a lot of bloggers, I have accumulated endless files of photos that I had planned to use in some future post. I got the idea that it might be fun to pick a "random image" and write about it. So I closed my eyes and did my best to mouse my way to whatever photo came up.

I think I have already posted this pic at some point, but it was probably in my now-defunct cooking blog.

I had bought some bread in Rodez and was struck, rather negatively I must admit, by the advertising on the packaging. Was nothing sacred, not even French bread?

It was the first time I had seen this exact form of corporate communication. And I think that, at least in Aveyron, it was the last.

Amsterdam Four: A Night at the Ballet

2010-01-24T17:07:00.002+01:00

I usually don't embed YouTube videos on La France Profonde, but the version of the ballet Coppelia that we saw our second night in Amsterdam was so bubbly and colorful that I'm providing a view, in case anyone wants to chase winter blues away.

This outing was especially fun for a number of reasons. The girls had scoped out the idea of going to some sort of concert or other cultural show a few days before leaving, but since the whole trip was planned on the fly, I really wasn't sure we'd be able to see something so high quality on such short notice (as in buying tickets at the door.)

There were two performances of Coppelia on Sunday the 27th, and I found out by phone that the matinee was sold out, but that there were still tickets for the evening show. As I explained yesterday, we rushed to the theater to buy tickets in the morning, but they advised us to come back as students could get 10 euro seats at the box office right before the show.

I am always a little stressed out about showing up at events with no tickets, but this scheme was such a savings (we ended up getting great seats for four at an extremely affordable price.)

The Amsterdam muziektheater is lovely, quite modern, and extremely comfortable. Besides the production itself, there was a lot I liked about the experience. The three short acts were punctuated with fairly long intermissions, and a large choice of very nice food and drink was available during them -- once again, at non-prohibitive prices.

I don't know if this is more of a big-city thing, or a Dutch thing, or a ballet thing, but I found the longer intermissions with a chance to nibble on nice food and enjoy the ambiance very pleasant.

Also the show's starting time was right for me -- 7:15 pm. This may also allow for the longer intermissions that were provided.

All in all, it was a grand evening, and we were snug back in our hotel by 11pm.

Amsterdam Three: Day Two

2010-01-23T13:35:00.013+01:00

I'm finally back to my Amsterdam series, and only on Day Two of our trip! It's been a long time since I've put together multi-photo posts, and it takes a while. But here are a few selections from our second day.

We started off Sunday Dec. 27th with a beautiful but brisk walk to The Amsterdam Music Theater in hope of buying tickets for a ballet that evening. We were advised to come back and buy at the door before the show, as student prices are only ten euros under this system.

We didn't go for nothing, though, because it is an intriguing building both inside:

and outside:

(First three photos courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau)

Our main sightseeing activity, that afternoon, was going to the Foam photo museum. Before visiting the exhibits, we warmed up with delicious and reasonably-priced soups and sandwiches in the restaurant café:

From what I gather, this photography museum shows temporary exhibits only, and the main one going on was photos by Alexander Rodchenko. It gave an intriguing look at life in the Soviet Union during the 20s and 30s.

The Foam museum is in a larg former home along the Keizersgracht, and we all enjoyed the archicture of the building as well as the exhibit and the atmosphere:

Dinner was Indonesian, although we didn't go in for a large, expensive meal. Caught in a rainstorm at about 5:30pm, we ran into this restaurant and were lucky enough to get in. I didn't write down what we ate, but we all had one-bowl dishes that look very much like the one in their Internet advertisement photo: a great deal at just under 10 euros per person.

There is actually more to tell about this day as it included an evening out...but I can save that for another NaBloPoMo post!

A night at the opera

2010-01-22T20:43:00.004+01:00

I've always heard a lot about Mozart's The Magic Flute, and of course know the Queen of the Night's famous aria from the second act. But although I enjoy opera, and would like to enjoy it more through knowing more about it -- isn't that the only way?

I had never actually seen a production of La Flûte Enchantée, so I was attracted by the colorful posters all over Rodez for the production by l'Opéra Eclaté, and decided to buy a ticket at the door.

Although the show was far from sold out, I was quite impressed by the number of people willing to go to the Rodez Amphithéâtre to see an opera during the week.

The necessarily pared-down staging didn't make for an all-out spectacle, but the musical quality was quite strong, and I am happy to say I indulged in a "night at the opera" in my home town.

Out and about and oops

2010-01-22T07:06:00.005+01:00

It's not that I exactly forgot to post yesterday, I just forgot that the day's schedule wouldn't allow me to do so in the evening -- and it didn't even cross my mind in the morning.

Yesterday I got home from a cultural outing (photo and explanation to come...) past midnight, so even if I had mustered up the energy to write something yesterday, officially it would have been today already.

So, tant pis. I will chime this evening to make up for the "lost post."

Wordless Wednesday 78

2010-01-20T19:32:00.001+01:00

(Photo courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau)

NaBloPoMo -- over halfway through

2010-01-19T20:02:00.002+01:00

I hate to say it right out loud, and I am saying it out loud as I write, but NaBloPoMo has been a bit on the hellish side.

I have never had any desire for La France Profonde to become a DAILY blog, and find it a little frustrating that the (very) few good posts I have written this month get quickly covered up by slop like what I'm typing tonight.

But I will persevere -- we are more than halfway through!

Trouvez La France Profonde

2010-01-18T19:52:00.002+01:00

I've probably already blogged about how, along with the insane decision to participate in NaBloPoMo during one of my high-work-level, low-energy-level months, I also signed up for a type of collaborative online class called images4education.

One of our "tasks" has been to post a view from our window to Flickr. By chance, by choice, or because I posted mine late, my photo was selected for this mosaic that was sent out to the whole group.

Can you find the view from my window?

To A Taste of Garlic -- merci beaucoup!

2010-01-17T19:02:00.005+01:00

The screenshot for the review of my blog on "A Taste of Garlic"

This morning, I was thrilled to discover through a Google alert that Keith Eckstein had published a review of La France Profonde.

I'd recently become aware of a his most delightful blog where he reviews other blogs related to France: A Taste of Garlic. I think I first got onto his blogging concept when I learned that he had reviewed Living the Life in Saint Aignan, written by my longtime blogging buddy Ken Broadhurst.

If you're looking for France-related blogs, A Taste of Garlic is a gold mine. But read the review of La France Profonde first...

Merci Keith!

Amsterdam Two: Day One

2010-01-16T17:43:00.007+01:00

(Near our hotel in Amsterdam)

This week has been so wild that I am only now getting back to writing about our trip to Amsterdam.

Excuse me if I go into a little micro-detail here, but I've decided to do these posts partly for my family. Rather than writing a long email rundown about our trip, I thought it might be fun to write here and include photos.

First, below you can see our hotel. I would highly recommend the Hotel Mercure Arthur Frommer provided you can get a deal where you pay about 25% of the normal room price, as we did:

(Our hotel, clearly NOT on a very busy street!)

The price my travel agent found for us for three nights (two rooms a night) with breakfast included seemed highly reasonable, but I didn't know just what a great deal we were getting.

Imagine my surprise when we arrived and I saw that the posted price for one double room for one night was practically 300 euros, and breakfast 16 euros per person!

My knees were going a little weak until I remembered that we had prepaid our hotel, and I had papers to show for it. Each room had cost us about 80 euros a night, breakfast included. I had never bought a prepaid hotel package and may well look into this possibility again. It sure allowed us to have nice accomodations for a reasonable price.

This hotel has the advantage of being on a very quiet, residential street, yet only about a ten-minute walk in any direction from many of Amsterdam's major attractions. It is located on Noorderstraat, just south of the Prinsengracht canal.

Although it had been a tad bit challenging to leave Aveyron at 3:00 am to catch our early flight out of Toulouse, we were in Amsterdam by noon and that meant having a full first day.

As I like to do when I first get to a city, we spent our first day just walking around and getting our bearings. We were surrounded by beautiful views:

(Photo courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau, who deeply regretted not taking his mega-Pentax with him...)

I had been to Amsterdam just once before, in 1994, and didn't remember much; nor had I done much research before this trip. So I didn't really know what to expect in the restaurant department. Overall, we were pleased by the quality and reasonable prices of food and drink in the city.

I didn't do any food blogging as such, so no photos of our meals...but I will tell you where we had them. Our first evening's dinner was in the Castillo Tapas Bar and Steakhouse on the Reguliersdwarsstraat, which has plenty of reasonably-priced restaurants.

We all enjoyed being able to eat early, and on our first evening, we got back to the hotel just a little past 7pm! We all wanted to make up for the previous short night and to be able to hit the town running on the next day, Sunday, December 27th, which we figured would be pretty calm....

Not to be confused with...

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...Le Dîner des Cons , incidentally playing, and already sold out, at the Rodez Amphithéâtre on Feb. 23.

What a week!

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This week has been crazy. The weather has wreaked havoc on driving conditions, our bunny died, I have had several evening meetings. Basically, I'm feeling behind on everything.

And here I am doing NaBloPoMo PLUS I have signed up, rather insanely I must admit, for a 6-week EVO class called Images4Education that started Monday.

I don't even know what EVO stands for, but the class platform is on Ning -- I hardly understand what that is either, but I'm starting to navigate the Ning thing...

Image courtesy of Hallmark by the way. Click here if you want to buy a "What a Week sound button" -- whatever that is.

Wordless Wednesday 77

2010-01-13T20:22:00.002+01:00

(Photo courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau)

Good-bye Blacky

2010-01-12T19:54:00.004+01:00

Until today, my daily life in France included a sweet little dwarf rabbit that roamed free in our house like a cat.

At the ripe bunny age of five and a half, Blacky slipped away from us today. I am philosophical about the loss of pets, but I will still miss the pitter-patter of his paws, his funny antics, and his general presence.

For the first time for almost 10 years, we are left with no pet. (We had a series of guinea pigs from 2000-2008, including one who lived for eight years!)

Anyway, tonight my husband cried. I cried. My youngest daughter cried.

Then a bit later, she said "Wouldn't you like to have a dog?"

Amsterdam 1

2010-01-11T19:42:00.004+01:00

What Christmas present is suitable for teenage daughters who have, by their own admission, virtually everything?

A trip.

This year, rather than going overboard on packages (we still had a few), all four of us took off to the Dutch capital from December 26-29.

It was a crazy idea, in a way. Winter travel can be hell, and we had proof of that just a week and a half before our departure when a snowstorm shut down Paris airports and temporarily paralyzed the roads in our area. But I had checked out the weather report (read: plans were made at the last minute) and everything looked viable for the week between Christmas and New Year's. And it was.

Four full days, only three nights, but a rich experience for "the whole family" -- a family that had been separated for ten months during my youngest daughter's stay in the USA last year.

I have a lot to say about this trip, and am going to try to find the words this week to say it...

Weekend = gone

2010-01-10T20:26:00.001+01:00

toothpastefordinner.com

Sorry, I don't even have time to make a blog of mine, much less a graph...

Gla-gla-gla

2010-01-09T17:12:00.005+01:00

The world from my window today

The French expression for "Brrrrrr...." is "gla-gla-gla." It's an utterance I've never adopted -- would you want to say "gla-gla-gla" if you were freezing, as we are right now in Aveyron?

I was just wondering how other non-native French speakers feel about "gla-gla-gla." For me it somehow doesn't cut it.

Brrrrr...I do like snow, but there is something ominous about this cold snap and its fine flakes that are already starting to form drifts. As I write, half of our deck is totally visible; the other half has accumulated all of the snow. There's a chilly wind factor going on here -- a definite sign that this is not your typical peaceful snowfall.

Last night the snow stopped around midnight and it wasn't snowing in the morning, but the sky had that dull grey look to it that cold (that was a typo, but it is so Freudian, I'm keeping it!) me there was more to come. I was right. We will see what tomorrow brings!

Alerte orange

2010-01-08T18:59:00.009+01:00

Will my village look like this tomorrow morning...

...or like this?

With an "alerte orange" announced for a whole lot of French départements, I'm expecting plenty of snowy blogs this weekend. According to Météo France, the orange part of France below needs to be "very vigilant" about snow and black ice for at least the next 24 hours:

That's an awful lot of France, despite the tiny picture that I don't feel like resizing.

Say no more, say no more! If I'm lucky, I can blog about the snow all weekend!

What was I thinking?

2010-01-07T20:08:00.002+01:00

Six days into NaBloPoMo, and I almost forgot to post this evening.

What was I thinking when I signed up?

Being in the dead of winter, with my energy level at a corresponding low, this was no time to undertake unreasonably ambitious projects.

But I will hang in there, if only for her...and her...my partners in NaBloPoMo crime.

Wordless Wednesday 76

2010-01-06T19:47:00.002+01:00

Sidebar statement

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You know you're doing NaBloPoMo when you're reduced to writing a post about your blog sidebar. But I do have a few things to say on the matter, and that is what's going to get said this evening.

As part of whipping this blog back into shape, I have undertaken a major sidebar clean-up. Every blog that lay to the right of my posts got checked out, was deleted or kept, and sometimes recategorized. My main reason for deleting blogs was that they appeared to be inactive or, of course, shut down entirely. Some blogs fell into this category, but not as many as I thought.

Now I plan to start transferring links from my two defunct blogs, And So Forth and Cuisine Quotidienne. That may take some time, and in fact may well wait until February, when the NaBloPoMo marathon ends.

Oh yes, and the point of all this? It's that I'm never going back here again.

The lights come down in Rodez -- mais pas chez moi!

2010-01-04T19:07:00.005+01:00

(Christmas lights on the Avenue Victor Hugo, Rodez)

This evening my eldest daughter announced to me, quite morosely, that the Christmas lights in Rodez were being taken down.

Mais bien sûr! The French are pretty quick about removing their holiday decorations, although perhaps not as swift as Americans or the British who, from what I've been reading, seem to feel that "everything must go" no later than January the 2nd.

The situation is different in our house. We have made a conscious decision to keep the Christmas tree and other holiday decorations up until...late January.

Of course this means having an artificial tree -- something that, as a Pacific Northwesterner, I was originally loath to do. But the desire to keep Christmas cheer in our home after la rentrée de janvier won out a few years back.

Since the whole family loves Christmas lighting, I think we were right in our choice. This year, I was struck by all the Facebook updates and tweets from friends who were sad, even "depressed," about taking down their Christmas decorations.

At least we have found our solution to that problem. By the time we finally pack ours away, we are actually pretty sick of them!

A different vision of La France Profonde

2010-01-03T08:07:00.004+01:00

(Photo courtesy of Nick Terrett)

For years, I have subscribed to a Google alert, in English, for the term France Profonde. Often references have popped up that I have meant to blog about, but time goes by and I don't get to them.

But when I read here that the Wellesley, Massachusetts library was hosting a photo exhibit called La France Profonde, I decided I would definitely do a post. I even contacted the exhibitor, Nick Terrett, who sent me a few photos and links to his work.

Nick focuses on the Limousin region, which includes the departments of Corrèze, Creuse and the Haute Vienne. I know Corrèze well, and it has always seemed a little less profonde to me, France-wise, than Aveyron.

But Creuse is likely a better example of "deep France" than my area. Ranked 99th out of 100 in department population -- only Lozère, which neighbors Aveyron, has fewer residents -- it is indeed a pretty isolated place, and about as profonde as France gets:

(Photo courtesy of Nick Terrett)

Actually, the above shot appears to be in Corrèze, but you get the idea!

The article about Nick's exhibit states that "No region more clearly exemplifies La France Profonde than the Limousin.... Perhaps so, perhaps not. However, my purpose here is not to try to establish just where is the deepest, darkest corner of France, but simply to share Nick's photos and give his exhibit a little publicity.

Nick's photos of La France Profonde will be on display at the Wellesley Free Library, 530 Washington Street, Wellesley (MA) from Monday January 4th 2010 until Sunday January 31st 2010 during normal library hours.

Since you may not be making the trip, you can of course view Nick's photo album entitled La France Profonde online.

Four Years of La France Profonde

2010-01-02T09:15:00.000+01:00

With all of the activity of Christmas and our trip to Amsterdam squeezed in between Christmas and New Year's, I didn't even think of taking the time to recognize a milestone: the 4th anniversary of the creation of La France Profonde.

Those were heady times. Sure, some of the contacts I made in that first year had already been blogging for a while. I remember being so impressed that SHE had been showering the blogosphere with her genius since 2004 (!) But many of you, I think, had started around the same time or were to start during 2006.

My initial objective for this blog was simply to write about Aveyron. I imagined a near-journalistic, factual approach to the subject, and at one time even started doing some historical research about the area. I saw blogging as a ""publish and be read" activity, and didn't even know that comments would be left, contacts would be made, and friendships would be built as a result of this space.

Along the line, I created two other blogs, Cuisine Quotidienne and And So Forth. The former enjoyed mild success, but I have lost my cooking drive for the moment, and think if I do get it back, I will post about cooking here.

If truth be told, time for my two other blogs likely got funneled into Facebook and Twitter, which have been rich additions to my online life.

Over the past few months, I have lacked inspiration for keeping up even this blog, but have decided it is an important part of my life -- thus the injection of some NaBloPoMo mojo for January 2010!

And yes, expect a few ramblings about blogging and the future direction of La France Profonde during my marathon of 31 posts...any suggestions are welcome!

The traditional Happy New Year post

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First, let me wish you (any readers I have left) a grand 2010, full of good things in whatever size packages they come in!

Second, without making any huge proclamations about blogging New Year's Resolutions, I have taken the plunge of participating, for the second time, in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month.) Traditionally, NaBloPoMo is in November, but it is possible to sign up for any month.

What does one sign up for exactly? The commitment to posting once a day for the entire month.

Perhaps it was in the stars, but one of my best blogging buddies, who has also been a bit lacking in the blogging inspiration department, has signed up too.

Wish us luck!

Wordless Wednesday 75

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Happy Holidays to one and all

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Despite a desire to get back into the swing of blogging, Christmas activities are calling.

I'm just leaving this short post to wish you all a wonderful holiday season!