Ouch! I’m sorry to be so… quiet lately. Martin and Zhisou, thank you for reminding me I used to have a blog!

Ewok is doing fine, she’s adorable: please-let-me-sleep-on-your-lap adorable, but I’m afraid we’re spoiling her – she does this thing of purring on your lap while you’re at the computer, and then either biting your wrist for fun either putting her paws on your face to get you to caress her… I must admit the latter makes me ‘awww’ and melt inside, but the biting thing is a bit annoying when you’re trying to fight 2 enemies at a time in WoW. Anyway, she gets us to cuddle and pet her every time, so that’s why I think we might be spoiling her!

And… Yep. World of Warcraft. I think I’m hooked. F started playing 2 months ago, and I… well I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about! I  had some time during my holidays and I’m really ashamed to tell you there was gorgeous weather outside and I just stayed inside, playing on the computer with a furry little purring ball on my lap — oh here she is again, now gnawing at my wristwatch. Isn’t she lovely?

Fortunately, the first half of my holidays was NOT spent in front of the computer: my parents came over to visit! They only stayed for 4 days and a half, but we enjoyed long walks around here, taking in the views and shooting many many pictures. They got to meet F’s parents and got along pretty well too – we visited Vannes, Carnac and a couple more really nice spots a bit north from here, sharing a delicious homemade picnic right by the sea, with no one else around except boats in the distance… It was amazing!

When I got back to work a week later, it felt like I was away from the office a while longer: it did me a lot of good to meet my family, this time on ‘my’ side of the border. They left happy to see I was doing fine – and yes, there was the dreaded ‘meet the parents’ moment for F! Of course he got out of it brilliantly, preparing oysters for my dad on Sunday for lunch, driving us around the beautiful coastal area, playing the good host over the weekend. Sadly, he had to work during the week so we didn’t see much of him during the other 2 days (parents arrived on Friday, left on Wednesday). The only thing my parents had to say? Well, nothing that would surprise me: he has to quit smoking! {sigh} As if I didn’t tell him so every time I see him light a cigarette…

So now I’m back to work and it’s hectic! Big things going on, lots of meetings, new planning method to get in place, changes in staff… Hopefully in around a month I’ll leave it all again, this time for a longer period of time: we’ve chosen to take some days off in October so we can travel to Spain!

And now… pictures!

Ewok on my computer chair - her preferred napping spot, either with me in it or not...

our picnic spot - right by the ocean!

Vannes - a gorgeous medieval center of town!

F & Dad about to eat some yummy mussels and fries!

*ugh* I know it’s taken me too long to come write here when wordpress asks me to log in…

it has been a way too long radio silence, mainly because my life became a whirlwind of activities, it’s been running on at a wild speed, not a moment to sit back and ponder about it all.

So… you can guess there are many many news to tell, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you everything tonight. Here I present you with the reason I’d rather spend the rest of my evening cuddling in bed: people, meet Ewok, my just-over-24h-ago-adopted kitten…

little ewok - adorable female kitty!

so… she’s why I want to spend my evening cuddling with… Carla!!

She’s not really excited nor happy to have a little buddy at home – it’s still a little intruder she doesn’t like the smell of. And she’s been, for the very first time since she’s living under my roof, mewling in sadness just a few minutes ago, while I was petting her… it just breaks my heart so see her like this! so Ewok will be happy in her little hut (the one carla didn’t even use… no matter how many toys or blankets I put inside to ‘bait’ her) while I cuddle in bed with that big and shy cat of mine!

Oh, other news: there’s another cat home also since last weekend – some awesome leopard, all dressed up in an iMac suit!

Yes, news because it’s been soooo long since I’ve told you anything!

These 2 months, my pearwood luggage has been ‘closed’, I’m guessing there are even cobwebs around here! I’ll sum up the reasons why in just 2 words: apartment hunt.

That search for an apartment with F has taken my life over for 2 months! Actually 1 month and a half – the last 2 weeks have been about setting everything up for our move – until we were able to choose AND get one we liked.

So you can imagine my free time was devoted to phone calls, visits, frustrated sighs, etc. Plus, if you add that I haven’t been able to drive for a month already, having lost my driving license and all – ‘lost’ as in ‘left it somewhere I don’t know’, not in ‘taken away by the authorities because I did something terribly wrong’ – plus the hassle it still is to get those papers back, a good 1000 km away from the people they issued it…

Anyway, you get the picture: frustrated because of all the ugly flats, annoying owners and bad timing, dependant again on public buses and a darling boyfriend, getting (over?)loaded with new responsibilities at work, then overwhelmed at the thought of moving out of the flat where I have lived on my own for the very 1st time (5 months of erasmus Flogsta-kitchen-sharing in Uppsala don’t really count here), procrastinating instead of packing boxes…

Today, you find me restless, surrounded (at last!) by those brown boxes, getting out of bed insomniac and trying to tell you I’ll miss you for the few days we’ll have to go without the internet!

Rest assured there’ll be pictures of the new place (cute place 2 minutes away from the beach!) and lots of stories about sharing ‘our’ space! I hope it will be easy enough, but we’ve already argued about where the TV and dining table should be… *sigh* that’s what a small living-room/kitchen gets you… Juggling furniture!

So, see you all later!

[this time I'll start with an apology: I am so sorry for all this silence around here. And for stretching this meme for so long... right now, I'm just so ashamed, I almost didn't even write this... which is why I haven't come back here for so long: the vicious circle of blog-silence - the longer you stay away from your blog, the less you feel you deserve to go back to it... ]

So, the meme started here, and the previous posts have the other 3 questions & answers…

4. Let’s say you were given the opportunity to travel through space and time and spend the day with anyone one person, who would you choose and why?

Before I came up with my answer, I had to really think about this. One of the first ideas was an important person in History… but which one? Then I realized it didn’t appeal to me to meet with a politician, a warrior, a ruler… But I found myself curious about how other kinds of people ‘ticked’: how did Dumas come up with the twists and turns of “The Three Musketeers”? what inspired Leonardo? how did Monet obtain his colours and brush strokes?

I guess I’d choose an artist or a scientist, someone deeply in touch with his or her muse, someone who’s given birth to something extraordinary and wonderful that we now admire and cherish or find extremely useful – just so I could get a glimpse of their genius. Again, I couldn’t decide which one: being so curious about so many things, it would be really hard to pick one genius in History, although the 3 mentioned above would make the top-10 list… Also add Pasteur, Lope de Vega, or just the inventor of the wheel… *sigh* SO many sparks of genius and beads of sweat to be witness to!

5. And to end these questions on an entirely deep and thought-provoking level would you rather wade through a pool of spaghetti or bathe in a tub of oatmeal?

This particular question was the easiest one: the tub of oatmeal of course!

What would be the point of a pool of spaghetti? Although I love pasta, it would be pretty tiring to try and swim in those curling slippery threads – I almost always add olive oil to my pasta, that’s why I imagine they would be slippery.

Whereas oatmeal… well, I don’t really like to eat oatmeal, at least didn’t like it the day I tried it… But I’m guessing it would exfoliate my skin pretty well!

*************

There you go, Abby, I really hope you’re not mad at me for letting it go unfinished for so long – it’s just that life has been pretty busy and I haven’t really found myself wanting to write lately. More on that in my next post!

[I saw this meme here at Abby's, and here are my questions #1 and #2]

3. If you had all possibilities available to you, what is your dream job?

This one required a bit more thought than it first seemed to me as I read Abby’s questions – of course, something I’d love to spend doing – but as I started to ponder, I realised I like to do *many* things, and not all of them have ‘related jobs’…

I don’t think there’s a dream job for me: I would have to know what the work is about, to find out if it’s really as I imagined it… This is because I may be enthusiastic and naïve about so many things I don’t really know, I tend to be disappointed later when I do experience how it actually is…

So I’ve come up with a short list of jobs I’d like to give a try:

• travel guides writer: I love visiting new places so much, I think this could be at least a very interesting job! Moreover, I could get to fill as many notebook pages as I feel like, jot down all my impressions and thoughts about everything I’d see and taste and experience… without feeling embarrassed or like a nerd. Oh and take pictures of course! – you should know F makes fun of me for taking half a dozen pictures of any place I like, and doesn’t really get the whole ‘planning before travelling’ I love to do: he’d rather wing it all the way… yeah, bit of a clash here, but I’m trying to make him see 1) it’s just *me* doing all the reading, and 2) it’ll save us time later when visiting and trying to decide what’s worth the walk or ticket fee – but I’m digressing…
• food critic: although I don’t know if I’d be any good, there’s something about being able to taste all sorts of food in all kinds of restaurants that appeals to the food-lover in me. Except that there are things I don’t eat, or digest well, or simply don’t like at all (read here: offal, lactose, cayenne pepper/chili-hot dishes, oysters, celery to name a few) – so I would be a picky food critic then!
• book proofreader: I love reading, and typos or spelling mistakes usually just pop out at me, so I guess I could be good at this work – except that I would only read books from the authors I like… and might let some down if I didn’t like them… hum, I’m guessing I could be a book critic too, or even a translator – I actually considered becoming a translator while in high-school, but soon changed my mind when I realized I didn’t want to stop learning about science completely, while I could always study foreign languages on the side.
• movie or tv series critic: I love watching movies and tv series as much as I love reading – I couldn’t live without one or the other! – so this sounds cool too. Besides, my memory does this trick of remembering *so many* film-related names, not only actors but also directors, music composers or screenplay writers, so it could be useful for once, not making me look like a nerd – again.

Hum… I’ve noticed a pattern here: almost all of these jobs would allow me to write down things all the time! I love handwriting and since I finished my studies I’ve missed it so much, I’d gladly incorporate it much more in my current job – except that there’s not much you can do in the aerospace industry away from a computer… – Oh, I also love notebooks and stationery, all paper-related products, so I could also satisfy my appetite for pretty papers & notebooks!

If you’re missing some sort of charity work, a job where I’d be able to help people in need… you’re right: I am glad to help people, I love feeling useful, but I am just so empathic that seeing people sad and suffering would just make me miserable, so I couldn’t be able to help them that much I guess – that is how I know I could never be a doctor, veterinary or such: hard to when I feel other people’s pain almost as my own! (Can’t even watch someone crying on the news without crying myself…)

********

That was question #3! Stay tuned for the last episodes…

for those of you wondering where’s the rest of the meme that started here, and which I answered here and here already, just wanted to tell you I haven’t forgotten about the interview!

I’ve been a little busy over the last few days, what with trying to drag F to look for potential new flats -he’s not in a hurry, unlike me, the impatient-don’t-want-to-miss-anything girl he’s quite annoyed with right now- with seeing some people and going for walks in the afternoon…

sorry I’m procrastinating Abby, I’ll post my other answers over the next week!

[If you missed my previous post, this meme started here for me, and question #1 along with instructions is here]

So, here goes question #2 – it was hard to decide, I tell you!

2. Seeing as you may have insider European knowledge which really is better Swiss chocolate or French cheese?

First I’d like to say I like all things chocolate (or almost) and cheese is one of my favourite foods… so you can imagine this was a bit of a conundrum!

As I may have ‘insider knowledge’ but am not a bit of an expert, I’ll just go with my guts and personal tastes here: I’ll say French cheese is better, but I’ll eat more quantities of Swiss chocolate. Please follow me if you want to know why…

Swiss chocolate is indeed pretty good, I am not going to say otherwise – even if Belgian chocolate is also good and seems to have less publicity overseas – but I mostly like black chocolate: milk is too sweet, white is not really chocolate, and although I sometimes eat it, it’s not something I really like.
So, one could say I really *really* like a third of the total chocolate possibilities.

How often can you eat chocolate? hum, my preferred time it’s right after a meal, with some coffee or without. Yes, I love the French ritual of eating a little slab of black chocolate along with your espresso after lunch – I don’t know where it comes from, but I just love it! Anyways, back to the ‘when’: apart from that, I might eat it right after getting up in the morning (very useful when, like me, you’re prone to dizziness due to an empty stomach in the morning), or at any time during the day, really – whenever I get a little craving, I just grab a little bite!

Chocolate has an important role in my everyday life, even if it is always (at least usually) in small quantities: I’ve never been able to eat a whole slab in a sitting, couldn’t imagine doing it… unless maybe it was some very very thin black chocolate filled with mint… *ehem* yes, I guess I could devour a box of ‘After Eight’ chocolates without even noticing… that’s why you’ll rarely find it in my pantry!

(Notice I haven’t been specific about the origin of the chocolate: it’s because the brands I usually eat are Swiss – so perfect for your question, you were right to say I may have insider knowledge after all! – I also eat a Belgian brand, pretty good too!)

Now to French cheese… or ‘cheeses’, as there are SO many different varieties! I am no expert in the different kinds of French cheese, but there are many many I love – some I just know I’ll love, even if I haven’t tasted them – and a few I don’t really like, even wrinkle my nose at.

I dislike stinky gooey cheeses: not only stinky, because there are many stinky I like; not only gooey because most of those are yummy on a fresh piece of bread… Just stinky and gooey – it’s weird I know, but most of the cheeses I dislike are like that! (I am not going to name them, wouldn’t want to discourage anyone -as if I had enough power or influence, but hey- or make anyone feel annoyed because of my own personal taste…) To follow the chocolate comparison, I’d say I like around 3/4 of the total of French cheeses – even if I haven’t tasted all the kinds available…

Cheese on some bread is my favorite breakfast of all: goat cheese with raspberry jam, some cured Spanish one over a drizzle of olive oil on the toasted bread… {yuummm} *that* is just Heaven for my taste buds! I also love the crunchiness of brown melted cheese over… well over whatever dish you want! And freshly grated cheese on my pasta dishes are a must.

Sadly, I am starting to think I’ll have to be strong so as not to fall into temptation and eat them sparingly, really sparingly: not only I have a quite sensitive level of bad cholesterol in my blood, but I am beginning to notice I have trouble digesting any food that contains lactose… It was hard to reduce my cheese intake because of cholesterol levels, but thinking I may need to take it off my diet completely due to lactose-intolerance just makes me shudder! I don’t think I will, I’ll probably eat some from time to time and then bear with the consequences – at least (let’s just hope!) it won’t be a strong allergy!

So there you go, I’d choose cheese over chocolate in terms of ‘quality’, but when it comes to health… Heck, let’s just put it this way: my heart would choose the cheese, my head chooses the chocolate!

Mmh, it’s not so bad after all – I’ll just cross my fingers so I don’t develop some kind of chocolate intolerance!

This is a cool meme that I’ve found over at Abby’s: basically, I answer 5 questions Abby has especially concocted for me, and if you so wish, I get to ask *you* 5 other questions!

Instructions go like this:
1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the
questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions. Be sure
you link back to the original post.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone
else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five
questions.

But as I haven’t been visited by my inspiration muse lately (also because some of Abby’s questions require much pondering) I will answer the 5 questions in batches – Today it’s time for #1. So…

{rolling of drums}

1. While you are obviously currently located in Europe, what country are you from and what country do you currently live in?  I know that is technically two questions, but I am just curious about your background.

OK, so get ready for a small ride – I haven’t stayed for very long in the same city yet! And I hope your curiosity will be satiated – I think I’ve talked too much but hey… you asked!

I was born almost 28 years ago in Spain, in a town around 200km North from Spain’s capital, Madrid. When I was 8, we (that is my parents, my little brother and I) moved to Madrid, where we stayed 4 years, until my dad got a job in Paris, France, that would take us there for a whole school year: I was 12 y.o. and didn’t know a word of French when we drove there in August. The school we attended was a Spanish one (that is 1h/day of French lessons), but my parents were adamant in that we didn’t listen or watch anything that wasn’t French radio or TV (the only exception was the movie theater: there was one a short walk away from home that only showed movies in their original language with French subtitles… oh the mess! obviously I didn’t speak or understand much English then either… I guess it only helped!) – by June, I was able to understand almost everything someone would say, if they said it slowly enough, in a correct grammar and ‘regular accent’. My, the South of France accent was a nightmare back then – and still is a little bit sometimes… :blush:

In June, it was back to Madrid, for a couple of years only: if the first half of our stay in Paris was spent mostly crying to be taken back to Spain, to my friends and school, the other half was spent enjoying many of the pleasures France and Paris have to offer: museums, gorgeous buildings and walks around the city, short trips to visit some of the most important gothic cathedrals of the North of France, etc. By June, I just didn’t want to go back to ‘boring’ Madrid! My parents had succeeded in planting the seed of traveling and discovering new places and cultures in me – as well as to have me tagged as ‘the French one’ back in my old school in Madrid…

… so 2 years later, my dream of going back to France came true: my dad got another position there, this time in Strasbourg, by the German border, and for 3 whole years! I was ecstatic, all the more so as I had become fluent in French in the meantime – reading, watching movies and spending a whole month with a French girl my age who didn’t speak a word of Spanish – so those years – highschool ones – were some of the best in my life so far.

Again, I didn’t want to come back to Spain afterwards, but my parents couldn’t afford for me to study abroad, so… Back to being ‘the special girl’ at University: I didn’t have the same background (highschool in Strasbourg was an international one so I followed France’s studying program, plus some Spanish literature and history courses) so I usually lacked some concepts… However, I had done many more laboratory hours than anyone in my class! Hey, when you’re following Chemistry studies, those hours help – a lot.

4 years later, I couldn’t stay put in Madrid any longer, and decided to taste some other region of Europe – Sweden it was! Uppsala, 70km North from Stockholm is a student town, a wonderful one at that too! I only spent 6 months there, from August to January, but it was enough to charge my ‘new cultures & people’ batteries for a while: I met so many different and interesting people there, it was amazing… While I don’t keep in touch very often with everyone, there are some that manage to poke me and get some news from me – Martin is even kind enough to open his home for me in no time from now!

After that 6-month-stint, I stayed in Madrid to finish my studies and start my working life. However, I always had the small hope to be able to live in France once again, this time for a long time as I wanted to work there too. And when I suffered a pretty bad heartbreak, I decided it was time to go and find that ticket to France, otherwise I might never take off! (By the way, it had been 3 1/2 years since I got back from Sweden).

It was one of those times. You know the ones: at first, you’re just feeling like crap, just want to get over it, get away from the memories, but don’t hold much hope. Then something comes up, you remember someone who might be able to help you. You brave your shyness and ask for that favour, the one that may or may not get you out of the mess…

The right time, the right moment – this job was waiting for *me*! I landed here in Saint Nazaire, on the West coast of France, around a year and 8 months ago: though at first there were difficult times, things are just turning out great!

So! To get back to your ‘background’ question – yes, bear with me, there’s one more thing I would like you to know (weren’t you curious? ^^): people often ask me where I am from – and it’s a difficult one to answer, as I don’t really feel from anywhere more specific than Spain: you see, something I haven’t said yet is that both my parents and thus my nearest family is from the South of Spain – Seville, to be precise – so all of my holidays have been spent over there, either in Seville, Malaga or Huelva. Moreover, I don’t have friends from my years in my birth town, and I don’t like Madrid enough to say I ‘come from’ there… I just answer with a ‘I lived in Madrid before, but all my family is from Seville’, as I feel sentimentally connected with that city.

Also, if you tell people that when 2 seconds ago they thought you were French with some foreign background, you’re in for a little while: I am often told I have no traceable accent when I speak French (so often I get tired of it… really…) and then I am usually asked if I’m ‘a *real* Spanish’… {sigh} Of course, it’s followed by ’so, how come you speak French like this?’
Then, they get the short story of all these -my!- more than a thousand words…. It sure gets you far in a conversation with people you just met!

I hope I didn’t overdo it…
I’m afraid I did, I got carried away! It’s just that all those trips have made me who I am today: someone who doesn’t need a geographical specific spot to feel at home, and someone who actually craves to feel like ‘a stranger’ wherever I go. Because I love discovering things, like all the ‘first times’ moving to a new place entails, am curious about *so many* things…
But I can’t bear having to make new friends from scratch – it’s so hard sometimes! – and tell your life story many times in a short period of time is tiring too. It is balanced by all the perks aforementioned, though.

I’ve had to keep this piece of news for myself for a little while, but now it’s time…

F & I have decided to move in together! I know many of you, if you’ve been following my rants around here, will be surprised to hear it – yes, I was pretty unhappy at times, not very confident on our ability to get this relationship working, as much from my unstable probably too needy at times mood, as from his apparent detachment and frivolous attitude towards us. But the argument and following serious conversation before my holidays’ departure was a turn-point: it allowed me to see I had to take care of myself (not only take care of him and his happiness), thus giving me the strength to *really* talk to F, to tell him clearly I wanted him in my life, but not in that childish ‘no worries, no problems, no drawbacks, only good times and smiles’ kind of relationship he seemed to want. Because there are always bad times, bad moods, times we don’t want to say ‘yes’, days we won’t feel like doing what the other one wants… and we need to manage those bad moments, not turn away and ignore them until they’re gone, the ostrich way.

For him, I now can see it changed something too: little by little, since I’ve come back, he’s been acting differently. It’s not very obvious, it took me a moment to see it, but it’s there: a more serious attitude, more unasked for sacrifices made in little everyday things, much more self-assurance towards me and us, as if he was sure he was doing what he really wanted to do. I no longer feel he’s with me because there’s nothing more interesting to do somewhere else, or that he’s going to leave as soon as he gets a phone call from a friend – I truly feel loved and cherished.

So, a couple of weeks ago, as I realized ‘we’ meant something for him too and that every time we argued, it always started because one of us wouldn’t stay overnight at the other one’s place… The light-bulb shone over my head: ‘hey, wouldn’t it be easier if we just lived in the same place…? as it seems we both want to spend as much time as possible together…’ I asked the tricky question, and was surprised to hear a ‘yes’ after a silence of only 3 seconds!

Believe me, I was scared to hear it was too soon, that he didn’t want to get at that stage yet, wanted to still enjoy his freedom living with friends – I was amazed to listen to him talk about where we should look for a flat, how should it be (we need a balcony for him to smoke so I don’t have to put up with the smoke all the time; we also need a fully equipped kitchen with an oven so I can cook at leisure), what range of rent prices should we look for… I guess he’d already given it a bit of thought – he’s never said so, but the fact that he had all those ideas in his head already makes me think he’d already considered it!

Why did I have to ‘keep it secret’? Because he wanted to tell his friends, and especially the friends he lives with, first – I don’t think any of them read this blog, but lots of them are on Facebook, so F asked me not to risk it… You can also imagine I was over-excited, impatient to get started – lots of things and paperwork to do – while he was much more relaxed, telling me we weren’t in a hurry and that he wanted to find a replacement for him at the house he’s sharing… Luckily we won’t have to wait until then – they’ll look for someone at the same time we’re looking for a new place – so next week I’ll start the ‘moving out’ machine by notifying my landlord, thus starting the 3 months period to find some place else… *our* place… Exciting!!

Last night, at F’s birthday party, I had a true moment of epiphany, concerning his closest friends – they are my friends too now, and I am HAPPY to say so.

I felt so grateful to know each of them, so happy they have come into my life and  brought their smiles, stories, personalities, tics, in a way that eases so much the feeling of being away from my country.

Most of them are very different from me, have experienced situations completely unfamiliar to me – heck, I’ve even thought I could never ‘click’ with some of them due to some annoying habits of theirs… but little by little, they have earned a place in my heart, they have managed to open my mind, broaden my views, and with their kindness, their disinterested welcome gestures, have helped me shed the ‘a stranger that is only accepted for being F’s girlfriend’ tag I had pinned on myself.

I mean, I almost burst into (joyful) tears last night looking at them, all sitting in a row in front of me, chatting, laughing, unaware I was doing a happy dance inside, thanking God for putting them on my path!

Also… Thank you guys!