A noter dans vos agendas...

Je viens de découvrir le site internet officiel d'un film qui sortira le 10 octobre :
http://www.unjoursurterre-lefilm.com/

Notez bien la date de sortie de ce film car à mon avis il vaudra vraiment la peine de payer une place de cinéma pour voir d'aussi belles images sur grand écran!

Greens Summer University in Quimper (23-26th August 2007)

Here comes a few pictures from where I was last week (I went there with Olivier and Léo from Wednesday till Sunday). I was there for my job (it was the summer university of the Green Party) but we also took a little time to walk around this beautiful city of Britanny...

Voici quelques photos de Quimper où j'étais la semaine dernière pour les Journées d'été des Verts...

Aqui vienen algunas fotos de la ciudad bretona Quimper donde estuve la semana pasada para asistir a la universidad de verano del partido de los Verdes...

http://jde.lesverts.fr/index.php?Bienvenue

My friend Claire in Bordeaux for a week-end (18-20 August 2007)

Very nice week-end! Unfortunately with only one sunny day (this is definitely a very bad summer) which we enjoyed in the Bassin d’Arcachon on the beach of the Pyla Dune.
On Sunday Claire walked around in the centre of Bordeaux (to check the changes: we studied together in Bordeaux 5 years ago). And on Monday, as I had to work, she went with Olivier and Léo to Toulouse, to the “Cité de l’Espace” (a museum and thematic park about space and aeronautics).






I hope she spent a nice week-end despite the weather, Léo’s whims and me being tired… At least I think she got along quite well with my sweet Olivier, which is good :-D (eh eh eh, friends’ opinions are important ;-)

Lot-et-Garonne, my current second home (with Bordeaux)

After my summer holidays, I went back to Agen to work with my parents so that we could spend a little time together and they could see where I live. They stayed one week, partly in Olivier’s house, partly in my flat in Bordeaux. Unfortunately the weather was quite bad, so we visited only the village of Clermont-Dessous (with its nice Templar church), the city of Nérac (where the French King Henri IV and his wife “la Reine Margot” used to live) and the Sauternes vineyards in the south of Bordeaux.
Here come some pictures so that you can have an idea of what Lot-et-Garonne looks like (I also put an extra photo from the Bonaguil castle which I visited a few months ago):

Holidays in Finland - Helsinki (3rd - 6th August)

After 10 days spent in the middle of nowhere (we were in an island in the Saimaa region), and before going back to France, we stopped 3 days in Helsinki (of course!). Almost nothing has changed since 2005 (but it’s quite strange to see so many tourists! It seems to be very fashionable to go to Finland now…). Esplanadi, Porthania, Café Engel, the railway station: everything is just the same (well, some shops have changed of course).

With Olivier, we decided to have a light sightseeing program and to visit the places we both didn’t know: Korkeasaari (the zoo), Kiasma (the modern art museum), the open-air museum of Seurasaari, and even Suomenlinna (I realized I knew only a part of it!). It was funny to discover Helsinki with renewed eyes!



During those 3 days, we also met Juan (who generously welcomed us in his flat) and his girlfriend Pirjo, and also Minna, my dear Finnish friend (Olivier was glad to meet a friend of mine who is vegetarian: be careful, they’re everywhere! ;-)
Unfortunately I couldn’t meet Fernando (he probably didn’t receive my message).



And finally, Vantaa airport again (I think I know this place by heart :-D) and flight back to France with a group of French tourists coming back from India (I found it suspect that so many French people would have chosen Finland for their summer destination ;-).

Now, back to Bordeaux for at least 4 months of intensive work :-(

Summer Holidays in Finland - the Lakes Region (23rd July – 2nd August)

Quite a well known destination for my summer holidays this year. But in a part I didn’t know (the Lakes Region) and in a season I had never experimented there.

Those 2 weeks were just GREAT!!! I was with my boyfriend Olivier, his son Léo, and part of his family (his parents, his brother with his wife and daughter). We stayed 10 days in their cottage near Savonlinna (a cute place with several red wooden buildings like the ones I’ve always dreamt of ;-).
The weather was quite nice almost all the time, so that we could go walking and picking berries and mushrooms, do canoe and sightseeing… Our program was more or less an alternance of excursions to some place and relaxing time in the cottage. And of course, each day ending with a good sauna and a bath in the lake J Just the holidays I needed!

We visited Savonlinna and its castle. Unfortunately we were there a week too late for the famous Opera festival (anyway, the tickets are quite expensive…). We went for a one-hour-cruise on the Saimaa Lake: all this water, it’s very impressive!
We also went for a day trip in the Eastern part of Finland, near the Russian border, to visit the Lapperantää fortress and to see the Imatra falls.

Our last excursion was dedicated to Punkaharju (a road in the middle of the water with lakes on both sides) and its museums: Lusto (forestry museum) and Retretti (the most famous art gallery in Finland).

As you can guess, this trip had a little nostalgic taste: I could eat Finish food again (pirakka, salmiakki, reindeer…) and I could remember some Finish words (after a few days, I felt almost like at home :-D).
We were very lucky because Olivier’s parents have Finnish friends there who invited us for dinner, first in a farm, then in a summer cottage: it was so nice and they were pretty happy to meet a French girl who had lived in Finland and who was fond of their country ;-)

Now that I’m back, what I miss the most is of course the sauna time before having dinner…

Ahhh, holidays…