Welcome, readers, and happy 5,000-page-views day!
Yes, today I passed the milestone of 5,000 page views on my blog. Hooray! That’s not all that impressive for a 2-year-old blog, but I’m proud of it, and since probably about 500 of those come from the entire first year, I’m staying positive :P Who knows, I may even start getting big-headed and feel qualified to post some blogging tips on here soon. Haha.
Filed under Cooking, Crafts, Saturday Spotlight
Did you know Luxembourgish is a real language? I guess it says a lot about my blundering approach to travel that I didn’t even research what language they speak in our weekend destination; but aside from the fact that the official language is not French as I had assumed, doesn’t it seem like it should be called Luxembourgese or Luxemburger or something instead?
Whatever they choose to call their language, we got along fine without it: gesturing to your camera and pointing at yourselves tends to get the message across.
Filed under France
Remember how my room is really tiny, my kitchen has no facilities, and as a result I more or less confined myself to salads as my evening meal? Then remember how I posted about my cours de cuisine which was helping me break that habit and start cooking real food? Well, further to that, I thought it’d be nice to start posting about what I’ve been eating since arriving here. I’ve been making an effort to try to take advantage of French food, but my more pressing criteria are definitely budget (my weekly earnings quickly dropped from 51€ to 26€), speed (I prefer to spend as little time in that grubby communal kitchen as possible), and ease (more because of a lack of equipment than a lack of cooking skills, of course. Although I do lack both). So just so you know, any recipes you see on here in the near future will likely cost less than 3€ a person and be perfectly possible to produce using only a stove top and a toaster oven. That’s right, I don’t even have a microwave. Pity me.
Ok, so I'm new to food photography, but this looks appetising, right? Right?
My, my, I am doing well with these plays on Italian city names, aren’t I? Well, here goes: the final leg of the adventure, which doubled as one heck of a scenic route home. Although, travelling exclusively by land from Rome to Strasbourg, is there any other kind of route?
I know, cathedrals aren't my strong point. If anyone has any tips on photographing huge, ornate buildings, they're more than welcome.
Filed under France
PREVIOUSLY ON ‘A TRAIL OF BREADCRUMBS’…
Before the trouble began...
So our schedule was this: Saturday-Tuesday in Florence, Tuesday-Friday in Rome, overnight train to Milan to spend our Saturday urban camping before our overnight bus back to Strasbourg. We finished up Wednesday last time, where I hinted at a complication involving Nicole’s health following my own iffy spell: we hadn’t exactly been treating our bodies right, sightseeing and budget taking precedence over such trifles as, you know, nutrition and sustenance. But while a solid dinner and a good night’s sleep healed me up good and proper, Nicole woke feeling unwell. I’m sorry to say I brushed off her first complaints with a “You’ll be fine once we’re up and about,” but it was more than that: Nicole was ill for real, not just queasy.
Filed under France
That’s right, I did just reference Call of Duty in my post title. Why? Because I’m one heck of a BAMF, that’s why. And also because I actually did receive a care package, and I want to tell you about it. No, it’s not from either of my parents, actually: it’s from Jenny, a.k.a. Pearlswirl jewellery on Etsy (or ‘jewelry’ as she likes to spell it – silly Americans).
So I was still trying to bring my heart rate down to normal levels after my oral exam on ‘La crise moderne de la fin du XIX siècle’… when I stumbled through my door and found a small parcel sitting on my bed waiting for me. Aside from feeling weirded out by the fact that my room was different from how I’d left it (it happened again yesterday when I came home from another exam to find a smoke alarm installed on my ceiling); I was giddy with excitement too. Who doesn’t love getting mail? And when I recognised the handwriting and confirmed the sender by the return address, my heart did a little flip. This was going to be special. Continue reading
Filed under Crafts, Saturday Spotlight
Hi everybody! I know… This story really is ancient history now. It was my mum’s visit and then the end of term and then exam season and between all that my blogging mojo never emerged at the surface, so the thought of putting together a post worth reading was not exactly a realistic goal. And I’d much rather leave you all hanging than waste your time on a post not worth reading. But here I am, ready to keep ploughing through my Italy narration and onwards to Grant’s visit too… eventually.
This is what I have in store for you today: a gorgeous day in Pope-ville!
Filed under France
I’m sitting here in my room and I can just glimpse a sanguine sun dipping behind the still-winter trees, and I’m contemplating what to write this week’s Saturday Spotlight on. It’s Friday evening, but tomorrow I have a wine-tasting tour of Alsace so I’ll be scheduling this post to appear at some point on real Saturday. But, do you know, I still haven’t written in my blog about what courses I’m taking this semester?! C’est fou! It might not make for the most image-heavy or enlightening spotlight, but I’m looking forward to writing at least something about what exactly it is that I should be studying each time I sit down and write a blog post instead :P
I’m beginning to notice a pattern here: the further behind I get in writing my blog, the more random thoughts I come up with and just have to write about immediately. I have ideas for posts on a whole range of subjects, not least on languages which I’m becoming more and more enthusiastic about as time wears on; but for now I think I’ll hold them back.
I expect this was an old guard tower from the former city walls.
Filed under France
Hello, hello!
Today is a beautiful day, sun is shining, birds are singing, people are canoeing on the river outside my window, candy floss is whipping up on the branches of Strasbourg’s trees, and I saw 2012’s first wasp today. In short, I’m telling you what you already know: Spring is here!!!!!
Just a smattering of candy floss on this one, but I'll take it!
Filed under France, Saturday Spotlight
Roamward Bound 