Keep on truckin'

If there's one thing that will motivate me to get blogging, it's knowing that I have a backlog of posts to get through before a long-anticipated, VERY FUN THING happens. It's that time of year again, and I'm counting down to my annual trip back to Tours (well, not counting the time I went in March which I didn't blog about because I just hung out with my friends) for the big Vitiloire wine festival. But more on that coming up, first I need to tell you what other fun things I've been up to. And what better time to do it than an overcast Monday morning, when thanks to Pentecost, I don't have to get out of bed? The fun of Vitiloire is still to come, but that makes it already a very good week in my book.

So, a few weeks ago, Brussels had its annual Food Truck Festival - food? festival? Yep, I'm gonna want to check that out. Luckily, Shannon from Almost Bilingue, along with her husband, a friend and her ex-flatmate of the sadly defunct I Fly a Starship blog also wanted to discover the delights of the food truck festival. Shannon and I have been talking about meeting up since I moved to Brussels nearly a year ago (gasp), thus bringing me pretty close to Lille, where she lives, but there's never been a good time until now.

Blog relationships are a funny thing - it's strange to know so much about someone you've never met, and vice versa, and at the same time you're conscious of all the gaps in the story - some people don't blog about relationships, many about work, or their friends, or the mundane, everyday parts of life. So it can definitely be weird meeting someone you've known for years - nearly six years in this case - and seen through major life events - moving, marrying, changing jobs - all without ever meeting.

Shannon is in fact one of my oldest blog friends, since I think she first got on my radar via the old Assistants in France website, sometime in 2009 before I moved back here. That was during the year-and-a-half or so that I wasn't blogging, since the blog was, at first, mostly a way to let people back home know about my exciting adventures in Europe (most of whom no longer read this as far as I know), so there wasn't much point keeping it up when I was having less exciting adventures as a student and worker back in New Zealand.

So, six years ago I had not long moved back to Auckland from Wellington, and I was working full-time as a librarian (the first and only time in my life I've done that, despite that supposedly being my profession) while finishing up my second Masters degree at night. I was beginning to develop horrible RSI in my arm from spending all day and all night typing away on the computer, and contemplating whether or not to chuck in the 9 to 5 and move back to France to work as a language assistant after I'd finished my degree.

The other option would have been to move back to Wellington, to cover a former colleague's year-long maternity leave. It would have been a big pay rise, working with a nice team of people I already knew, and probably a good opportunity for career development. Plus I like Wellington, and at the time still had friends there from university, although most have moved away now. It was hard to know whether to pick that option - I pictured myself in a nice flat in central Wellington, sipping lattes in one of the many cafés (not really though, since I don't drink coffee) and barhopping through chic cocktail joints at night. Versus moving to France and trying to survive on the Côte d'Azur on 780€ a month while going back to teaching English, which I hated the first time round...

It was a tough choice, but in the end, I decided that if I didn't give it a go and see what happened heading back to Europe, I might fall into a settled-down life in New Zealand and it would never happen. I had to try and see where I ended up. The plan was always to try and parlay the seven months as a teaching assistant into a more permanent job in my chosen field, but even if I just ended up having a seven-month break in the South of France, that was worth experiencing, right?

The Assistants boards were a big part of ironing out the anxieties and uncertainties of taking this leap, and I remember in particular getting a lot of advice and reassurance from people who had already been there and done that, like Shannon, Ksam, Eyeleen and Jennie. I suppose these days new assistants just join groups on Facebook or follow people on Twitter, but I hope there's some resources out there for them, because even though I'd lived and travelled in Europe before, it was scary trying to figure out how to turn up halfway across the world, find somewhere to live in an expensive city on a tiny income, with zero help or communication from the new school I was meant to be starting work at within a few days of arriving.

Anyway, all this to say that Shannon and I go way back, a lot has changed in the last 6 years, and it was cool to finally meet her! I think there were no big surprises on my end at least, we hung out, ate good food, had some tasty cocktails, and had a good time! Since we were hanging out as a group and eating lots of yummy stuff, I probably didn't get the inside scoop on all the behind-the-blog gossip, so I have a good excuse to schedule a return visit to Lille some time :)

The Food Truck Festival was fun too. Lots of people and a fun atmosphere. My only complaint was that pretty much everywhere was serving full-meal sized portions, i.e. whole burgers or whatever, so it was hard to sample stuff from many places. Luckily Jules and I ended up going back the next day (since I went with Shannon on the Friday night before he got to Brussels) and spent really quite a long time there, plus we shared one of everything we got, so we ended up being able to try quite a few things.

The super-cute Chang Noi food truck (love the elephant) along with one of my favourite bites of the festival - that delicious spicy shrimp.

Jules enjoys a mid-day mojito, as you do

Time for some classy street cider-chugging. Strongbow FTW!

Hmm, not so sure about this?

Nope, it's all good!

Our other favourite snack, delicious Japanese fried chicken strips from the equally cute Peko Peko van.

Walking back from drinks with Shannon and crew on the Friday night, we came across an illuminated Grand Place - I've never seen it lit up like this at night before, really pretty!

MadamElla

This was my first French wedding, and I was interested to observe some of the differences to other weddings I’ve been to (not that many, actually). As you may know, all French weddings are secular, in accordance with the strict separation of Church and State (you’d think this would be enough to stop people protesting against gay marriage, but sadly no). You are free to have a religious ceremony if you like, but that won’t be recognized by the State. If you want to be legally married, you have to do it at the town hall with an official.

In this case, the official was the groom’s father, so obviously the ceremony was a bit different than your run-of-the-mill affair. But after the touching and funny speech, it was time for the legal elements. Unlike any Anglo wedding I’ve been to, the French ceremony includes a reading of the legal texts defining marriage and the spouses’ responsibilities. There was a lot of emphasis on Republican values – as in the values of secularism, liberté, égalité and fraternité of the French Republic, not as in promising to honour God and guns. A lot about having and bringing up children as well, although I suspect at least some of that was snuck in by the potential future grandpapa. The reading out of the full names, occupations and addresses of the spouses and witnesses was also more legalistic than I’m used to – although this provided some more comedy as Aurélien’s poor sister (who did a stellar job of providing the English translation of the speech, I must point out) had to struggle through some unfamiliar American street names. 

Legalities done (although not quite, since as I only discovered on Ella’s blog, the bride and groom were held up inside due to a paperwork snafu), it was back to the reception on foot in the rain. (I never actually made it into my heels until we got back to the garden party, thankfully enough as it turned out, since the little town hall was crammed with well-wishers and I had to stand for the marriage ceremony. Then I promptly sunk into the wet grass, but bravely kept my heels on for the vast majority of the evening nonetheless.) 

I was having too much fun catching up with the Lancelots and Mary Kay and family under a tree (for reasons of rainyness) to even notice that apparently beverages were not being consumed, but once I found the cocktail and snack tent, I didn’t stray too far from the yummy themed cocktails while chatting to blogfriends and many of Ella’s lovely friends from America and Aurélien’s French (and non-French) mates. (Surprisingly, my favourite was a cosmopolitan – I would have gone with the mojito if you’d told me I could only have one.)

Enjoying a cosmo with some of Ella's friends

This got me into a bit of trouble, however. As the afternoon wore on and the cocktails kept rolling, we were having a lovely discussion about poetry and other literary matters with a couple of Ella’s friends (genuine poets!) and a few of Aurélien’s friends. At some point, it was remarked upon that the punch bowls were getting a bit empty and we set ourselves the challenge of finishing the cocktails before moving on. Now, I did realize that things had emptied out a bit in the garden, but if there was a formal announcement that dinner was served, we missed it and, well, you just don’t issue a drinking challenge to a Kiwi chick. In my much younger days, I was known for such party tricks as “opening my throat” and pouring a specified amount of booze down in one. I once bested a 6-foot-something man built like a brick sh!thouse at a challenge which involved drinking half a bottle of peach schnapps (ugh) each in the shortest amount of time possible. Then I probably demonstrated how I can fit my whole fist (well, up to the knuckles) in my mouth. Because that’s how classy Gwan rolls. Or rolled, I don’t tend to engage in competitive drinking anymore, but you can probably still persuade me to put my fist in my mouth after a few beverages, if no-one has a camera handy.

Some of the cocktails in question

Long story short (actually, the above was more a case of making a short story long, and unnecessarily filled with embarrassing drinking stories from my youth), before too long the handful of others had also drifted away and only myself and one of Aurélien’s friends were left finishing up our cocktails in the tent.

I only realized that quite a bit of time had passed when I got a call from Ella’s phone asking where I was. I should have figured something was up when my jokey reply to "Where were you?" (I answered, "We were in the bushes", obvs) was met with an excited squeal and a "Who's 'we'?!?". But I really wasn’t expecting to walk into the dining tent a) to find that everyone was not only seated, but had *finished the first course* and b) to a round of applause from the assembled guests. Hugely awkward, especially since I didn’t even know where I was sitting so couldn’t flee to my seat as quickly as I’d have liked! The rest of the evening, I had people coming up and saying (hopefully at least half-jokingly) that they’d heard I’d been “otherwise engaged” in the bushes while they were tucking into their entrées. Cringe! The end result was that the young gentleman and myself kept well away from each other and any suspicious bushes for the rest of the evening…

This post is getting long already, so I’ll just say that the rest of the evening was fab. I’ve never seen a bride and groom actually boogie on down in their first dance instead of doing a sedate shuffle, and I did plenty of my own moving and shaking as well. (Seriously, I dread to think of the millions of photos probably floating around of me with what was uber-fluffy hair and probably more cleavage than anyone was comfortable with.) As well as being my first French wedding, this was also my first New York wedding, so I even got to participate in a Jewish chair dance (sorry, I’m sure there’s a proper name for that). I was right next to the bride and groom when the call went out, so ended up being the only girl to take a leg of the chair. Turns out that holding up a chair with a fully-grown man (even a slim one) is hard, so I drafted in a replacement man about halfway through and joined the circle of dancers instead.

It really was a fun evening, and I loved getting to chat with some awesome people (including meeting the lovely Grenobloise for the first time). All in all, it was a great party and félicitations to the happy couple! 

Balloons of good fortune (or something). Grenobloise and I were a tad concerned these might end up setting one of the tents on fire

Ella didn't specify, but I suspect this shot of yours truly is courtesy of Camille Collin

Does the hovering wizard claw of death shooting out of my chest remind you more of the Holy Spirit in Piero della Francesca's Baptism of Christ, or one of the chicken feet from Baba Yaga's hut? Discuss...

Either way, don't worry, I can tell from this photo I'm not trying to put a curse on anyone, this is a classic Gwan "here I am being funny" expression/gesture captured from the ages. The wizard claw is merely shooting out (attempted) witty rays. PS, talking of "witticisms", I have been dying to use this post title and secretly hoping the bride wouldn't get there first (selfishly!) It's not even that great!

Get her to the mairie on time!

For those who want to enjoy a meta-experience, you can read Ella’s version of these events here.

Unsurprisingly, for me the morning of Ella’s wedding began much more calmly than for the bride. I woke up reasonably early – in the bride’s bed, which was a first for me! – with plenty of time to wash my hair, grab breakfast from a local bakery and do my hair and makeup before chilling out and waiting for the rest of the guests who were also making their way out of town on the RER. When the rest of the girls arrived, they brought a wave of stressed energy and lively chatter with them which was slightly overwhelming at first, but with the addition of bubbly and the realization that *they* weren’t going to be holding up proceedings since the bride was running late, I soon got to know them and felt we clicked very well. Of course, Ella has great taste in friends!

A series of slightly frantic phone calls, asking for overnight bags to be packed and bubbly to be cracked alerted us that all wasn’t going quite so smoothly on Team Ella over at the hair salon. Deep breaths, a glass of champagne (although no Xanax) and a reminder that nothing starts without the bride were needed when Ella finally made it in the door, late and more than a little frazzled.

When Ella had first told me she planned on taking the RER to her wedding, dressed in her wedding dress and sipping champagne en route, I had imagined us commandeering an entire section of the train, clinking glasses while posing for photos and laughing at the stares of French people all agog to see a bride on the train. (Generally, the French will stare if you speak English on the RER, or wear a bright colour or go outside in 13° weather without a coat, so that part at least wasn’t much of a stretch.)

It was an Interesting Trip, but not a Very Bad Trip. (Photo stolen back from Ella's blog)

The reality wasn’t quite like that. I’d like to say that things went off like a military operation, but the main thing our journey had in common with one was the amount of running and shouting that went on. We were women on a mission, with no time for hesitation or stragglers. Problems with the ticket barriers were dealt with with ruthless efficiency; we were assigned buddies to make sure everyone made it on and off the various metro and RER trains, and instructions for each step of the journey were barked out in advance: “We are getting off at the next stop, turn left, right along the platform, up the stairs. GO GO GO!”

Schnell!

Piling on to the RER, our last connection, was an opportunity for a breather, or so you’d have thought. Visions of the nine of us sitting companionably beside each other splitting a bottle of bubbly were thwarted by the lack of free seats in the carriage, and specifically an aggressive man and his jungle of plants. Allow me to set the scene – there are bench seats on either side of the aisle, enough to fit three or maybe four people at a pinch on each bench. Multiply that by four (two facing each other on each side), and you have seating for 12-16 people. Ample, one would say. Except that there was one couple on one side of the aisle who, instead of putting all their fricking plants right next to them, put them all on the floor across the aisle, hence taking up space for said 12-16 people between the two of them.

 Now allegedly the guy did offer to move the plants before we got there, and allegedly (or, um, actually) Ella and I might have steamed in a bit later and expressed our displeasure with the situation in a vocal fashion, but that still doesn’t change the facts that 1) your plants shouldn’t have been all up in everyone else’s business to begin with and 2) you don’t shout at a stressed bride, dude. Still, Ella and I held our own (most of the art of French arguments can be reduced to “make a lot of random noises” – “eh oh, pfft, bah non, quoi”) although we continued to get evil looks from his direction for the rest of the train ride, not improved by the fact that we were all swigging straight from a bottle of wine. I think it’s safe to say, though, that the rest of the train were on our side, despite the Rowdy Anglo Factor being particularly high on this occasion.

The way I look like I'm popping out of Ella's suitcase amuses me

It wasn’t the way I pictured it, it wasn’t how Ella had pictured it either, but it was the most memorable wedding dash I’ve been involved in, and I was proud to be a part of it!

Party all the time, party all the time

Hello long-lost friends! It has been too long since my last blog post, although in my defense, not much blog-worthy has been going on. This doesn't mean I've been in winter hibernation (although I think everyone is ready for spring to bloody well be sprung) - there have been Fun Times Aplenty, but not really of the variety that make for a good blog post. Although I'm now going to run through them quickly anyway.

Sadly, my good friend Laura left Tours (and then she came back again a few weeks later for the weekend, but then left again for good). Such is the nature of expat life - people come and go and sometimes only stay for a short period of time (a year, in her case). On the upside, it means that expats are usually pretty open to meeting new people and making friends in a shorter time-frame than might be the norm (certainly for France!), but the downside is saying goodbye to your friends just as quickly. Of course these days it's much easier to stay in touch with things like facebook, and even though that's a poor substitute for real-life friendship, it does keep things ticking over in the hope that one day you might be able to reconnect with a handy network of people flung out all over the globe.

We hardly need an excuse, but of course people leaving also mean parties! I think Laura's leaving do was the week or so after I came back from Belgium, and we had a lovely evening consuming her left-over alcohol stocks (including too much of the aquavit I brought back from Norway for her - that stuff is lethal!), playing a game of Secret Santa where the prizes were all the little trinkets she hadn't managed to rehome or sell up to that point (I scored some tupperware and little serving dishes for dips or olives or what have you), and busting a groove to a dancing game on Xbox Live.

 This is hard to see, but I'm pretending to eat the box because it has "not for human consumption" written on it

Liz and Charlie. I wish I had their ways with scarves!

Liz, Philippa and Charlie

A couple of weeks after that, Cute Neighbour, who you may remember from my birthday party, invited me over to watch the rugby at his place. I'm not a rugby girl, but in any case he accidentally (?) invited me round 3 hours early, and we spent the time chatting about all sorts of things and it wasn't at all awkward. Pity he still has a German Girlfriend. The only downside was that he smoked so much I felt ill and had to shower when I got home! In return, the next week or the week after I invited him round to Liz's place for a cocktail evening, which turned into an all-nighter out on the town.

Me and Charlie

Me, Liz and Charlie

Gangstas

Me and Cute Neighbour. There is photographic evidence that I had my hand on his thigh for quite some time. Whoops!

Then Laura came back for the weekend last week, and we had a pretty restrained time of it by our standards. This included going out Friday and Saturday nights for a quiet couple of pints at the pub and having a couple of glasses of wine with lunch on Saturday though, so it probably still wasn't exactly what the doctor ordered.

Snapping a few selfies in the kitchen: no night is complete without it!

Also somewhere in here was the time we went out and Caroline and I ended up staying out until 7 am or so when the clubs closed and then I was lured back to her place for an 'after'. I did actually want to go home, but she guilt-tripped me into not letting her go off by herself with 4 blokes, so the night ended drinking gin smoothies (much, much better than I would have imagined) as the sun came up - until after 11 am, in fact!

That brings us to this weekend, which had all the makings of a classic: Saturday was the Fête des Vins de Borgeuil, Caro and Marcia wanted to watch the rugby on Saturday night, it was Philippa's birthday and St. Patrick's Day on Sunday, plus after the long winter break, the Formula One was finally back!

It was pretty rainy and miserable for the Fête des Vins, but that didn't stop us having a good time. How can you not have a good time at an event where you pay 2€ to buy a tasting glass (to keep) and then you can sample as much wine as you like? As well as the usual suspects, we were joined by a new friend Mel and her husband. In a Gwannel Sandiego first, I was emailed by Mel last week via the blog! I have met up with people, mostly in Paris, via the blog before, but this was the first time someone in Tours came across the blog and contacted me. It feels a bit weird - while I'm not silly enough to think it's not "out there" on the internet, I kind of don't think of it as something that people in Tours are going to be reading. But, that aside, we clicked really well, so it is great that it has brought us together. What was I saying at the beginning about expat life and making friends?

Liz and I stayed on at the Fête until nearly 7 pm, after everyone else had called it a day, which meant a bit of a mad rush when I got home to get showered and changed and redo my ruined nail polish (I need to learn it's never a good idea to try to rush doing your nails), while watching a replay of the F1 qualifying from the morning (it actually got rained off, but I still wanted to watch it again because there was a lot of action before that).

And then off to stand in the pub while the rugby was on. We were pretty late, but seeing that I stood with my back to the screen, I didn't care. Poor Scottish flower Caroline was a bit deflated by the result though, and ended up going home not much later. As for me, I stayed on until closing time (2 am) but considering we had started at the wine festival at 2 pm, I decided not to go out clubbing and probably got home around 3 (after quite some time of wandering around collectively trying to decide what to do/chatting in the street). I probably should have got some sleep, but I tried to stay awake to watch the F1 at 7. I actually did quite well, only falling asleep for the last half an hour or so, and then unfortunately waking up to get a glimpse of the podium ceremony, so I spoiled the result for myself. Oh well.

The Tours Goat has made an appearance on the blog before, but I had to take a snap of him all gussied up with balloons!

Wearing green (nail polish too) in honour of St. Patrick's Day - it was after midnight by this stage!Also, I want to know what's going on in the background with Charlie and some cute blokes... I was too busy watching the F1 (they ran the rest of it late because of the rain) to notice at the time.

So, fun times, even if writing about them all at once does make me feel like a bit of a drunken disgrace!

Gwan's Year in Review

So I wrote this entire post, which as (especially if you're a blogger) you will see took a REALLY long time, and then in an epic Blogger fail, somehow the entire content (which WAS saved), including the title and tags, got replaced with the text and photos from my last post about my birthday. And I couldn't get it back. Gutted. So I waited a few days, and here I am doing it all again. Sigh. So, it's a long one, but lie back and think of the hours it took to write... So I hereby present the inaugural edition of:

Gwan's Year in Review

 

It was the worst of times...

Getting the bad stuff over with first, once again this year has not been all sunshine. (And I partly mean that literally, given that I swear it rained from the end of March till July.) Of course, the big downer of the year was finding out, by mail, that my work contract was not being renewed, despite all assurances I'd had to the contrary, and just six weeks before the contract was due to expire. Looking back at the post I wrote at the time, I'd forgotten how many other little things seemed to go wrong at the same time. I also didn't really have a clue that, 9 months later, I'd still be doing nothing and literally wasting my life. In the interim, I've had periods of looking for and "looking for" work, with equal success. It's pretty hard to stay focused and positive when it seems that every day only takes you further away from the possibility of finding something else and even adapting back to having a "normal" life again. Sadly, I've also learnt that, of my 7 former colleagues, all except one have either been let go or moved on to other projects (if they were on permanent contracts). Apart from feeling bad for my colleagues, this also makes me feel that the 2 years I spent working on the project were just a complete waste of time (and money), especially since a lot of the work I did never even made it on to our website.

 

What's next?

There is a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel though. I have something in the works, which, if all goes to plan, will kick off next May. This will have to remain shrouded in mystery for the time being, since as we all know, there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip and the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley (or insert your own 21st century saying here). I will say that it'll be a major change, and I should know more in February but we will see...

It was the best of times...

On a more positive note, the year wasn't all doom and gloom. I've got to say, my best times have probably involved hanging out with friends and family. The year brought visits from my friends Rick and Greg and my sister, I met blogfriends Mary Kay and Ella and caught up with my old friend Alice in Le Mans. Close to home, I made jelly out of rosé wine, accidentally ate an eel and purposely ate some donkey (ass sausage!), shook my bon bon at the Fête de la Musique and the Guinguette, made an 80s-style photo story out of dying my hair, painted my nails a patriotic tricolour for Bastille Day, fought with French men, carved Halloween pumpkins for the very first time and drank a lot of wine.

But, maybe because it's fresh in my mind, I think the best of the year has got to be my triple birthday celebrations - one for every decade! I got to catch up with a lot of friends and family in London, had my first trip to (Euro)Disney followed by a blogger brunch in Paris and then capped off the whole thing by beating my Personal Best for champagne drinking here in Tours. It really was fabulous fun, and I'm so glad I did something (or three things) special for the occasion. After all, a girl doesn't turn 30 every year (but I might try it on again next year)!

Best trip abroad

Of course, travel is one of my favourite things and I never feel I've done enough or been to everywhere I want to go. But looking back, I actually have managed my fair share of globetrotting this year.

• I started my travels off early, with a January trip to York. Looking back, I see I referred to this as Business of Mystery and then never actually revealed the purpose of the visit. It was actually to attend an Open Day at the York University Centre for Medieval Studies, to meet with some of the staff and discuss the possibility of doing a PhD with them. While the facilities there were outstanding, and I had some very positive discussions with potential supervisors, as you can probably tell, I didn't end up moving to York and starting a PhD. I actually applied (and was accepted) to Bristol, but a combination of not having the money for it and not being 100% sure of my motivation led to me declining the place. Maybe one day though (this is not the news referred to above btw)...

• In February, I took a spontaneous trip to Barcelona. My primary motivation for the visit was going to watch the pre-season Formula One testing, which was great, but I also got a real kick out of just walking around the city and especially visiting the spectacular Sagrada Familia church (ceiling detail pictured above). The weather was also a real bonus - I think it got up to about 20 degrees, which was bliss considering just a couple of weeks before we had been hit by a cold snap which brought snow, temperatures down to -11° and partially froze the Loire river.

• The March Catastrophe naturally put the brakes on my travelling somewhat, but I did already have a short break booked to London for my sister's birthday. We took advantage of some gorgeous weather to check out Greenwich, including the Observatory and the Painted Hall, had a lovely dinner and a birthday knees-up with lots of champagne. I also stopped by Cambridge, where I managed not to kill my friend's baby, despite him making all kinds of snuffling noises which suggested he was gearing up to die just to spite me.

• After that, things were quiet on the international travelling front until I kicked off a very busy period in August. First up was a trip to Amsterdam on the 5€ Overnight Bus of Discomfort. Probably because of the horrible bus trip and 5.30 am arrival into Amsterdam, I was especially pissy for most of the trip - the Rijksmuseum was a particular disappointment - and didn't really end up having a brilliant time. However, I was very moved visiting Anne Frank's house and happy to eat some poffertjes!

• A few days later, I flew into North-West England and shortly thereafter, back out again to Norway with my Mum and Dad. We were lucky enough to get perfect weather for almost the whole trip, as we explored Oslo, including the Museum of Cultural History and the Munch Museum and took a drive up to Sunndalsora, where we explored some of the fjords and the Trollstigen, a road which boasts 11 hairpin bends as it climbs up 850 metres at a 9% gradient.

• Before heading back to France, I had another couple of days in Lancashire, plus we crossed over the windswept Pennines for a jaunt into Yorkshire in order to visit Haworth, home of the Brontë sisters.

• That was the last of my trips until late November, when I popped back over to London, as hitherto mentioned, to celebrate my birthday. As well as my birthday drinks, I visited the Courtauld Institute and the Wallace Collection, and explored a bit of the hidden history of London at Temple Church, the Museum of the Order of St. John and Sir John Soane's house.

And the winner is...

Victory has got to go to Norway. It was so amazingly, breathtakingly beautiful and it was lovely hanging out with my parents (even more so considering it wasn't in the same old Lancashire towns!) Norway is not a destination I probably would have picked off the top of my head, so I really went in without any preconceptions and was blown away by how gorgeous it was. I'd love to go back some day and see Bergen and the surrounding fjords, because I've heard good things.

Runner-up: Barcelona. I have wanted to go to Barcelona for a while, since everyone seems to like it, but the actual trip was very spur-of-the-moment and it was great to take off on a whim for some warm winter weather, F1, and beautiful sights.

What's next?

In a few weeks, I'm using up the air miles I earned flying from NZ to Milan back in 2009 before they expire, with a quick jaunt to Bologna and Padua. Basically, I only had enough for a one-way flight, so this was the only destination I could find where the return trip was also reasonably priced. But funnily enough, Padua just recently went on my wish list after seeing a documentary which included a trip to the amazing Scrovegni Chapel, so good timing!

Best day/overnight trip

We'll always have Paris...

Paris gets its own subcategory, because I feel like I've been there every two minutes lately.

• In reality, my first visit was a day on the way back from Barcelona in February, spent admiring Foucault's Pendulum and the graves of some famous (mostly) men at the Pantheon.

• In June, it was back up for a job interview (which I'm still a bit upset about, since I felt I prepared really well and would have been good at the job but just didn't do great at the interview). On this overnight trip, I did my best to kill myself on a footpath-less highway, saw a wonderful once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of leaves from the Très Belles Heures du Duc de Berry at the Louvre (pictured) and had a curious encounter with a possibly dodgy, but handsome, cop with Mary Kay.

• In August, I bookended my trip to Amsterdam with days in Paris either side. Beforehand, I communed with kings and queens at the Basilica St. Denis and on the way back, I explored the Marais, learnt about the history of Paris at the Musée Carnavalet, crashed a wedding and was shouted at by an old crone for sitting in her chair.

• I headed back again the next month for a day trip to catch up with my cousins and uncle who were over visiting from New Zealand. We ate frog's legs, strolled down the Champs Elysées and stood around outside the Louvre. I also had the pleasure of meeting up with blogfriend Ella and hanging out together in a dive bar with a welcoming crowd of locals and a little ratty man.

• Finally, it was back to Paris one last time for the aforementioned trip to Disneyland (well, this is strictly speaking Marne-la-Vallée, but if they can call it Disneyland Paris I'm counting it) and a blogger brunch hosted by the gracious Mary Kay, where I got to meet a lot of lovely blogging ladies and drink champagne in the naughty seats with Ella.

Touraine travels

I also made the most of having a discount card for the trains (up till October) to explore some more of the sights in my home region. It's easy sometimes to get blasé about the stuff on your doorstep, but it's worth remembering that people the world over dream of visiting the Loire Valley, and there definitely is a lot to see and do (and eat and drink)!

• As mentioned, March brought a trip from my good friend Rick. While we mostly just hung out around Tours, we did take a daytrip to the Château de Chenonceau, definitely one of the most stunning in the area. I was initially not too keen on the idea, since I'd already visited twice before, but I must say, we had a great time. We made our own fun by pulling out silly poses all over the château and gardens, and it was nice as well to see it in the spring (previous visits being in winter and late summer).

• In July, I headed to Loches, where I found the twin brother statue to one of Peter the Great which stands at the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, learnt all about the mysterious death of royal mistress Agnès Sorel, and climbed up a scary 36 metre-high 11th-century castle keep.

• Next up in July was a jaunt to Saumur and the nearby Fontevraud Abbey. I love my history, so I'd been itching to go to Fontevraud Abbey and see the tombs of Plantagenet kings and queens ever since I learnt the place existed. So it was perhaps a bit inevitable that I was somewhat disappointed with the visit. It was nice to see the tombs, but the rest of the abbey was fairly empty and the guided tour didn't really seem to bring the history alive for me. Still, the little I saw of Saumur seemed nice and I'd like to go back to see a bit more of the town (and taste some of its tasty sparkling wine) some time.

• My last trip for July was to Le Mans, to meet my friend Alice for the first time since early 2008. It took us a bit of purposeless wandering before we managed to find the Old Town, but I was pleasantly surprised when we did. A particular highlight was the chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Chevet in the cathedral, a beautiful bijou space with painted frescoes dating from the 14th C (pictured above).

• My last hurrah with my train discount card was a trip to Angers, to see its famous Tapestry of the Apocalypse. This was just incredible. I know tapestries can be dull sometimes - they're rarely the most vibrant or eye-grabbing objets d'art - but these are just packed full of amazing (and surreal) detail that captivate the attention despite the faded colours and dim lighting. I loved hearing all about their history and the significance of the different scenes, and then just spent a long time quietly contemplating them on my own (plus I think I took photos of every single panel at least once).

• My final daytrip of the year was a wine and cheese tasting fest in Saint-Maure-de-Touraine and Chinon. Chinon is probably my favourite of the small Touraine towns I've visited, and we managed to have fun despite getting rained on, being invited to spit on the floor of a barn, failing to find anywhere to eat lunch, starting a blood feud with a staff member at Couly-Dutheil and finding a spider in my hair.

And the winner is...

This is a tough category! I'll cheat a little bit and say that my favourite tourist experience was visiting the Apocalypse Tapestry, the Louvre exhibition was the best museumy experience, while my blog brunch and Chenonceau trip were extra-special for the good company.

So that was Gwan's 2012. 

I've got to say, going through my year (twice!) was a good exercise in showing myself that, even amidst hard times, I did manage to do some cool things, with some great people. And I'm lucky to live in a nice place, with enough money to get by and cheap wine on tap! Thanks to everyone who contributed to the good times of 2012 and here's hoping for a better 2013. Merry Christmas and cheers!