Travel Tuesday: Geel, Belgium

The market square, Geel, Belgium

Geel, Belgium, is an unassuming town in the Kempen district of Flanders. But I have a special relationship with it, as I am responsible for an Erasmus partnership with its university, Thomas More Kempen.

I have been there three times, and last spring, I was lucky enough to do a week of guest teaching there. The weather was excellent (as always when I go there!) and I took up the school's offer of a bike for the week to get back and forth from my hotel. What fun that was!

Geel market place statue

The market square has a striking statue, but I had some trouble finding information about the work on Internet. I ended up getting "informed" through an article about it on the American Conservative website, of all places. 

Apparently the statue would have something to do with "family values." 

Whatever. This definitely bears further research, but not tonight.

A peaceful park

I can't get enough of Flanders, and hope to return many times. 

Travel Tuesday: The National Gallery, Dublin

Looking up, a splendid sky 

Last July I went to Ireland for the first time. Well, at least I went to Dublin. 

I don't know if the Irish say "Oh, Dublin isn't really Ireland," the way the French say "Oh, Paris isn't really France." 

(Or Americans say "Oh, New York isn't really the USA." I think this list could go on and on.)

The Wintergarden café, conveniently located at the museum entrance

I spent 3 days there with my husband and Paris daughter Charlotte, then one day alone, as they set off to travel around what some people may think is "the real Ireland" -- and I had to get back to work.

Dublin was a fortuitous travel choice for us in July, since the weather was, truly, just so much lovelier than in the South of France at the same time! Sun, temperatures in the low-to-mid-70s, no need for jackets or rain gear...

(All of this is not a joke, as anyone who was in France for the "summer" of 2014 knows.)

A leisurely caffeine session before hitting the galleries

The weather was, in fact, so beautiful that we didn't do much of anything "indoorsy" those first three days. Strolling around Dublin and lounging in its parks took up most of our time.

But once the rest of my family was off driving on the left, I honed in on some of the indoor sites.

I highly recommend The National Gallery, although its Wintergarden Café was so striking that I have to admit I spent about half of my time there.

Well said, George

The National Gallery houses a deliciously compact collection of major European works -- although the museum is under construction and perhaps the total collection is not that compact.

I especially enjoyed discovering the many Irish artists that I had never heard of: 

Mary Swanzy, Paul Henry, and William Leech are just a few that I wrote down for further exploration...one of these days...

Travel Tuesday: Vista House

Vista House -- as fascinating as a rest stop can get

After nearly 25 years of life in France, I still feel right at home in Olympia, where I was born and raised.

But once I leave Washington's fine capital city, even for a day, I feel like a tourist in the USA.

Last summer, my mother and I took an overnight trip to Portland and the Columbia River Gorge. As you can see, we had the grandest weather possible, and I discovered a quirky historic roadside stop: Vista House.

Roll on Columbia, roll on...

As its name implies, Vista House offers a stunning view.. 

Built by Multonomah County as a rest stop in 1917, the octagonal "comfort station" lives on, financed in part by Oregon State and in part by FOVH, or Friends of Vista House.

A long renovation, completed in 2005, restored Vista House to its former glory

I found the building and its viewpoint pretty exciting to visit in 2014. 

I can only imagine what motorists who stopped there for the grand opening in 1918, just 5 years after the completion of the Columbia River Highway, must have felt.

A video illustrates the history of this intriguing site. 

Travel Tuesday: New York City and why I now go there

A few blocks up from my daughter's workplace

When I took a break from writing this blog in 2010, our daughters were both still ensconced in Aveyron. The eldest had started university right in Rodez, and the youngest was in the equivalent of her junior year of high school.

Through a breathtaking chain of events, after just one year of college, that youngest daughter has ended up living and working in Manhattan. She is well into her third year there, and there seems to be no turning back.

She's not in Kansas anymore.

Manhattan. Who would've thunk it? I am a Pacific Northwest gal with no New York-ish connections; I had never even set foot in New York City until a year and a half ago, when I first landed at JFK with something other than a layover in mind. 

A starkly impersonal address with a lot of "5s" in it punched into my cell phone. 

A humid yellow taxi with a grimy TV screen running the same commercials over and over. 

A "turnpike," whatever that is -- I still couldn't give you a precise definition.

I realized, arriving in New York City for the first time,  that I was really more of a foreigner there than in Paris.

Yet it so quickly felt like home.

Pieces of Paris 2 -- Galerie du Jeu de Paume

A quick view of the Jeu de Paume Gallery as we were waiting in line, until our daughter bought tickets with her iPhone

Despite a lazy morning and having to leave Paris a bit after 2pm on Sunday, we were able to squeeze in an exhibit at the Galerie du Jeu de Paume. 

Looking up from the entrance hall

I'm a bit ashamed that I hadn't been there since its impressionist museum days, and downright embarrassed to admit I was only very vaguely aware of its tranformation into a contemporary art gallery (in 1991...cringe...)

Sunday gallery visitors heading down to the bookshop 

This place has definitely been done up right. It was a grey day, but the open spaces were still flooded with light. 

I like the idea of inventing the possible, but we didn't have time to go to the video area. I guess we weren't able to invent that possibility.

What we did get to see was this exhibit, now transferred to the Jeu de Paume, of the American photographer Garry Winogrand. 

The Met site for the show explains: "While Winogrand is widely considered one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century, his overall body of work and influence on the field remain incompletely explored."

It has certainly been completely unexplored by me! I somehow had never heard of this most intriguing American photographer, and frankly didn't recognize any of his photos. But they were fascinating, depicting American life in New York, California and other regions in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

Another exhibit, another discovery...

Pieces of Paris 1

Paris was looking a bit on the bland side this morning, I'm afraid

One of the reasons I cast this blog aside 4 years back was that I felt my life was increasingly happening elsewhere than in Aveyron.

One of those elsewheres has been Paris.

Exquisite Sunday morning calm today near L'Eglise de la Madeleine

I started to go up, or as they say here in Aveyron, "monter à la capitale," for work in 2008. 

Just 3 or 4 times a year for meetings: sometimes with an overnight stay in a slightly ratty hotel; sometimes doing an exhausting round trip the same day, during which my biggest "Paris experience" was a quick glance of the Arc de Triomphe as I emerged from the RER, in great need of the morning's fourth coffee.  .

La grande roue, looking less than grand under grey skies

Then in autumn 2012, our eldest daughter moved there, giving me more occasions to reconnect with Paris...plus a place to stay, which is not to be spat upon! 

From the start of my expat experience in 1990 and until 2008, I used to sorely regret not getting to Paris that often -- maybe once every two years at best.

Since 2008, it would be safe to say I have gone up at least 25 times.

But they are always short stays, giving me the impression of experiencing Paris in bits and pieces....as I did this weekend, and as I will share with you this week.

Various goings-on 1: Trip to Brussels

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.

Wordless Wednesday 99

Alive and well in Olympia

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

(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 96

Looking up in Paris 3

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

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

Looking up in Paris 1

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.

Looking up 4: Memories of trips past