Gwan's Year in Review - 2013

Here goes, the second annual installment of my wrap-up of the year according to Gwan. I enjoyed reading through my report on 2012 again, and I know I'll have fun looking back through my 2013 experiences, even if it takes a really long time to put this together!

2013: A year of changes

So I managed to say a lot of positive things in last year's wrap-up, but it really was a year of disaster. I lost my job and spent the majority of the year unemployed and a bit depressed, which is no good in anyone's book. So I'm especially proud of myself that I managed to shake things off, pull myself together and get back into the working world. (PS I don't mean to imply that clinically depressed people just need to shake things off and pull themselves together.)

The turning-point came with a new job in Tours. Thank goodness I got it, because I think if an information job for an English-speaker had magically come up and I hadn't got it, it might just about have put the nail in the coffin of my hopes and dreams of ever getting back on the work horse. The unfortunate side-effect of getting the job, which I never discussed on the blog, was that I was actually meant to do an EVS volunteer project in Moldova, starting in May. Unfortunately, by the time the Tours job started in April, I still hadn't heard anything back about it. I think they finally contacted me about two weeks out from the start date - even if I hadn't gotten a job, it would obviously have been really difficult to pack everything up and move to Moldova within two weeks. I was pretty gutted to lose out on this opportunity in order to spend 5 months working in info management, but I think sticking with the job was definitely the grown-up, sensible thing to do, and I am really grateful that I was able to get my life back on track.

When I learned the contract in Tours wasn't going to be renewed, the race was on to find something else before I found myself back in the dark place of unemployment. After a few frantic weeks of scouring the web, online applications and surprise telephone interviews, an opportunity came through... All the way in a little country called Luxembourg across France's eastern border. 

I'm not going to say the move wasn't stressful. From touring a near-slum to accidentally insulting a secret real estate agent, figuring out where to live and how to move myself there on a serious time budget (and money budget) was tricky. Even after I found my new apartment, I got seriously delayed thanks to an airport strike, screamed at by my old estate agent and almost failed to hire a van. When I finally got to the new place, I had to start a new job while living without electricity for nearly a week, a phone for a couple of weeks and internet for about three weeks. I'm sort of tempted to move again, since I don't like where I live and it's a long commute every day, but I don't think I can face another move for a while!

I miss my friends in Tours a lot and don't love everything about my new life, but overall it's been a positive move. Again, I'm very happy to be working and I've been doing a pretty solid job settling in to Lux/Lorraine life.

And now on to the awards portion of the evening -

Best trip abroad

I seem to have some sort of travel amnesia. I think it's because I'm always eager to go to the next destination, so I tend to think that it's been aaaaaages since my last trip and I haven't been aaaanywhere in any given year. Au contraire, I've actually ventured beyond l'Hexagone on a number of occasions again this year.

• The year began with a mid-January pick-me-up trip to Italy. I had some airmiles to burn, and picked the destination of Bologna more-or-less at random based on how much a return flight would set me back (since I only had enough miles for one-way). I actually made my way straight to Padua, in order to fulfil a recently-acquired ambition of seeing Giotto's Scrovegni Chapel.

Source

This was one of the most amazing places I've seen in my life. The photos don't do it any justice. Definitely, definitely, if you get the chance, do go here. And even better if you go in the middle of winter and are as lucky as I was to be left all alone to contemplate it in peace for a full 40 minutes.

I also ate, drank, and took surreptitious photos of the devil and overt photos of flayed bodies in Bologna.

• January also brought the first of the year's trips to Belgium. I headed to Brussels for a free stay in a lovely hotel, price of admission two days of tests and interviews at the Important International Organisation (IIO).An interesting experience, at any rate!

I took advantage of the free trip in order to take a little side visit to Bruges, which was icy cold and quite pretty. There I fell in love with a Turkish rug, or rather the painting of one in van Eyck's Madonna of Canon van der Paele in the Groeningen Museum. 

• After that, it was back to gainful employment, so I didn't have a chance for any travels abroad until my July trip to Luxembourg to interview for my current position. Thinking that if things went badly I might never go back to Luxembourg again, I stayed overnight and had the time to wander around taking in the sights of Luxembourg on a particularly hot summer's day. I squeezed in a second quick trip in the middle of August, for a bit of stressful international house hunting, before obviously ending up spending 5-6 days a week here currently.

• More exciting than Luxembourg, in August I headed back to Belgium to meet up with my family and take a trip to Liège/Spa with my Dad to watch the Belgian Grand Prix. While the race (and the rest of the season) didn't pan out quite as I would have hoped, I'll never forget the high of seeing Lewis Hamilton get up to take pole at the last second of Q3 - a sentiment that was shared, it seemed, by the majority of the crowd at Eau Rouge. (Sorry to those of you who think that sentence might as well have been written in Japanese...) It was also great to spend some time with my Dad: I'm especially proud of our military-style logistical efficiency in getting to and from the circuit on the three days (no easy feat!)

We also got to briefly hang out together back in Brussels, including a bit of a naughty drunken singalong with my sister, which left me slightly the worse for wear the next day!

• In early September, my job in Tours was over and I got the chance for a proper holiday in Italy (via England) to unwind a bit before my big move. What can I can? The Sorrento/Naples/Amalfi Coast region is just gorgeous. I think Capri (pictured above) was the most beautiful, although Amalfi gives it a run for its money, and had a spectacular cathedral thrown in for good measure. Pompeii, of course, was the most historic, and it was great to supplement a trip to Pompeii with a visit to the Naples Archaeological Museum, which houses many of the original artefacts excavated from Pompeii and other sites.

• We had a few more days in England on the way back too, where I got to hang out with my family and the lovely Rick, which mostly consisted of roaming around the English countryside in the Sandiego family mobile karaoke machine (we also solve mysteries in our spare time), avoiding the rain and looking for Hadrian's Wall.

• I debated whether to put my daytrip to Trier in the "trip abroad" category, which probably shows I've become blasé about such things, given that I cross an international border on a daily basis. Germany is legitimately a different country though (last time I checked), so here it is. We popped across the border to visit the Karl Marx museum (utterly bereft of all things Marx, btw) and visit a true blue German Christmas market. Prost!

• For my last trip of the year, it was back to England again - that makes two trips to England, two to Belgium and two to Italy. Quite a strange year, travel-wise! I spent Christmas chez my lovely friend Liz in the South West, and then we scuttled off to London for my first New Year's Eve in the capital! (Blogposts to come...)

And the winner is...

For the second year running (last year, it was Norway), the family holiday takes it out for the best travel experience of the year. Great spending time with Mum and Dad, and this time round we got tans and limoncello thrown in to boot!

Best domestic trip

I didn't have quite as much free time on my hands as last year (at least from April onwards), although I did have more money of course! 

• Last year was a bumper year for châteaux, but I still managed to knock a few off this year too. A visit from my friend Amber gave us an excuse to check out Azay le Rideau and get to know a vintner in Villandry.

• One good thing about staying in Tours was that I got to claim my ticket to the wedding of the season, i.e. the wedding of the lovely Ella Coquine. In classic Ella style, not everything went smoothly as we raced across (and out of Paris) to get her to the mairie on time. Still, it was a beautiful, memorable, and most of all FUN occasion. Félicitations my dear & thank you for having me!

• I "profited", as the French would say, from being in the Ile de France to go to nearby Fontainebleau, which is worth the interminable walk from the train station with a hangover to see its magnificent interiors.

• At the end of May, my sister and co. came over to drink a lot of wine at the Vitiloire festival and visit Chinon. And we finally got some warm weather and sunshine!

• I had intended to get to some more Loire châteaux before the Metz move, but I only managed to add Villandry to the mix. It's right up there with the best though, especially the gorgeous gardens.

• In late October, I got to be reunited with some of my Tours friends in Dijon. We had dinner and karaoke with a potential con artist and actual stripper (this is a story you really have to read if you haven't already), and visited the beautiful Museum of Fine Arts. 

• Since I work there now, I'll count some Luxembourg excursions in the domestic category. I enjoyed their Christmas markets, took a trip to see the castle of Vianden (from the outside) and, back in France, also saw the castle of Rodemack (also from the outside).

• Rounding out the year, it was back to Tours and then Nantes for a two-stage birthday celebration in which I went too hard on Stage One (the "quiet night out") and was left a bit unenergetic for Stage Two ("big night in Nantes"). Still fun as ever, though. 

And the winner is...

For sheer craziness and the brilliant story that came out of it, the nod has got to go to Dijon. The city itself was perfectly nice, we had some good food, mostly good weather and the museum was fabulous, but just goes to show that sometimes it's all about the company you're with!

What's next?

As you know, my contract in Luxembourg has been extended for the whole of this year. This, theoretically, means I could move closer to work than Metz, but I'm still weighing up my options for a number of reasons. The last move wiped me out a bit financially and also was exhausting, so maybe not just yet. 

In travel terms, I'm off to Brussels again for a long weekend next week, so stay posted for that (plus my Christmas/New Year wrapup). And then ??? There is talk with the Tours girls of a February break somewhere, but there hasn't been any actual planning. I'm kind of caught between the need to get on it quickly to snap up good deals (especially if we're going by train) and the fact that my bank balance is a bit sad after the UK sales (I got some good stuff though!) I haven't got around to even thinking of summer holidays yet, but I'm sure I'll be on the road somewhere this year, you can't keep a wandering Gwan down!

Happy New Year to all!

Birthdayshambles

I was going to do nothing for my birthday - last year was a three city, two country extravaganza, but that was my thirtieth. Liz, however, was having none of this and proposed that my friends back in Tours chip in to buy me a train ticket back "home" to celebrate together. Somewhere in there, a side-trip to Nantes (yes, all the way on the other side of the country) got tacked on - mostly, I suspect, because that's where Liz's boyfriend lives, but I was fine to go with the flow.

So the plan was a quiet, tame night in Tours on Friday, followed by a big one in Nantes on the following night. I think you can all guess how that went down. The champagne was flowing at Liz's and we ended up at our familiar old haunts of the Pale and the Beer Academy, as we have so many times before. It was kind of bitter-sweet being back in Tours. It's not quite "where everybody knows my name", but there's something to be said for feeling like a regular instead of a tourist when you walk in somewhere. Of course, more than the pubs, I miss my mates though! They are some of the funnest girls you'll ever meet, very difficult to replace!

That is Liz's hand by the way!

Bubbles!

Basically, all my photos were a series of me with different random guys. I find the expression on the guy second from left priceless!

It's just unfocused drunk face, but I like the sort of innocent, young look I have going on here

Firstly: I like how the only people looking at the camera are the dudes in the background. Secondly: who is this man? Ignore the unflattering profile, and look at us having A Moment. I think he might be my soul mate and I missed it 

Look, he's even (presumably) laughing at something witty and hilarious I said. Unfortunately, he's only in these two photos and I have no idea who he is. Hence I'll die alone ;)

So, surprise, surprise, we ended up staying out all night, and the next day was a bit of a shambles. I woke up thinking I'd lost my phone, which I was pretty bummed out about, since it's an iphone my sister gave me and I've only had for about 3 months. Happy ending though, since it turned out Caro had it (for some reason). However, she couldn't let me know at first since I was with Liz, who had lost her entire handbag!

I was feeling a little under the weather, but not terrible, but Liz was dying. The plan had been for Liz and Mel to take a carpool to Nantes, with the rest of us driving in Philippa's car. 12 pm came round, and Liz was in no shape to turn up for the carpool, stranding poor Mel as well. Using GPS, Liz thought she tracked down her phone (and hence bag) to the Beer Academy, so that was the good news. The bad news was it's a club, so presumably wouldn't be opening till the evening. We decided to tell the rest of the girls (and Chris) to set off by car & Liz and I would take the train to Nantes later. In the end, there was still no response from the Beer Academy, so I left Liz feeling sorry for herself and took a train at 5 pm, getting to Nantes around 7.30.

By the time I turned up, my birthday champagne that Marion, my kiwi friend who now lives in Brittany, had brought for me had already been drunk (boo), but I suppose that's my fault for turning up late. After a couple more bottles while we got ready to go out (not very much of which was consumed by me, since I was still feeling slightly sorry for myself), with still no sign from Liz, we headed into town for dinner around 10 pm.

As anyone who's ever tried to eat late in France can tell you, this was a bad idea. There's really a very small window in which you can hope to be served. Before 7 = too early. You probably can find some food, but they'll probably spit in it since you're clearly an uncultured tourist oik. After 10 = nearly impossible. Granted, we were trying to get a table for 6 and every restaurant seemed to be busy, but I can't even tell you how many places we went into unsuccessfully. One particularly dickish restaurateur even refused to suggest any other restaurants that might serve us because "he couldn't guarantee any other restaurants used fresh produce". Dude, we're not coming back to your restaurant anyway, don't be a twat. Anyway, *finally* we managed to find a Moroccan place, where the service was chaotic but the food was okay, and most importantly, they let us eat there. Apparently, the guy on the next table to us spent the whole meal making fun of us all in French, but whatever, I couldn't hear him. Once again though people, some of us do speak more than one language.

To our great pleasure, we learned that Liz was on her way after all. She searched the Beer Academy from top to bottom for her handbag, but was defeated. Finally, with a heavy heart, she popped into the Pale, which is just around the corner. The barman there took one look at her and produced her handbag from behind the corner, with everything safe and sound. The question is how we all managed to leave the Pale at 2 am and go to the Beer Academy and none of us (Liz especially) ever noticed her handbag was missing? Bless her, even with a killer hangover, she got into her car and drove all the way to Nantes, turning up around 12.30 am to meet us in a pub. Not quite sure how she managed that!

From there, we went to a horrible club. It was soooooo crowded and unpleasant, you basically couldn't move at all. Since I was still not quite on top party form, I decided I couldn't cope with this place, and we all went home. Felt a bit bad since everyone had more or less been dragged to Nantes on my behalf and we saw basically nothing of the city, but I did say they could have stayed out without me.

Caro and Mario(n) in Nantes

Chris and Mel in Nantes

So the next day, basically we had time to get up, have some more girly chats while getting ready in the hotel, have lunch, and then it was time for my train back to the other side of France again. I think it was something like a 1400 km round trip for not a lot of Nantes time, but most importantly, I got to celebrate with some awesome people!

Punwatch

Birthday post to come this weekend hopefully. For now, I'm proud to announce I made my third ever pun in French today! (You can read all about my first pun here, my second pun sadly went unrecorded. Won't make that mistake again.)

I tried to say I had a blocked nose, but instead of saying "J'ai le nez bouché", I accidentally said "J'ai le nez bouchonné", which, as my colleague informed me, means "corked", as in wine. My punny response - "Ah, c'est du pif !" Pif being slang for both "red wine" and "nose". Okay, okay, still not very funny, but think of my French puns as like women preaching or dogs walking on their hind legs...

'Tis the season to be jolly

As I said last time, I wanted to be sure to check out a German Christmas market while I had the opportunity. So on Saturday, the Brit and I headed over to Trier, apparently the oldest city in Germany, which is just 45 minutes or so by train from Luxembourg. (And, by the way, a return ticket from Luxembourg cost less than 10€, whereas it would have cost something like 70€ from Metz! That doesn't include that I can travel between Lux and Metz for "free" with my monthly train pass, but still.)

The Porta Nigra, a Roman gate in Trier. Looking on Wikipedia, it looks better from the other side...

Town square in Trier

Hideous elephant. The "elephant parade" was going on around Luxembourg (and apparently Trier) since I visited in the summer until last month or something. Unfortunately, this one strayed from the herd

The Brit had actually suggested on our first date that we go to the Karl Marx museum sometime, so we decided to combine that with the market excursion. Marx was born in Trier, and the museum is in the house where he was born and lived for maybe a year or so. This tangential connection to Marx pretty much sums up the museum. It was informative (thank goodness for the free audio guide though, because all the written information was in German) but pretty much entirely devoid of any artefact that had even a passing connection to the man himself. There were a couple of reproductions in cases of things like newspapers he wrote for, but even those were few and far between. Bizarrely, there was an old Atari computer from the 80s in one room (we had an Atari growing up, but ours was the type that plugged in to the TV), although I couldn't tell you why.

We learned some interesting things though - who knew that Marx died stateless, having renounced his Prussian citizenship, or that two of his daughters and his son-in-law committed suicide (for unexplained reasons)? It also did a good job of mapping out the influence of his ideology on different thinkers and regimes around the world, in a pretty balanced way. You did kind of leave, however, thinking that there was not much there that you couldn't have got from reading a book or listening to a podcast.

Marx museum done with, it was time to look around the markets, sip glühwein and eat sausages. Which we duly did. The markets were nice, although very crowded. I feared for my coat with the amount of red wine served in tiny boots and cigarettes that were sloshing around the crowd. The atmostphere, however, stayed festive. We stayed until almost 9 pm, by which time people were definitely on the merry side, but I didn't spot anyone that seemed to be blind drunk. Judging by the conversations I could hear around us, most of the crowd were German, with a minority of French speakers, which I imagine is not the case for the bigger markets in places like Cologne or Munich. We spoke to the vendor in a sweet shop who told us that weekend, the first of the Christmas markets, was the biggest of the whole year for him, and I can believe it with the crowds there were. I must say, everyone we interacted with was very nice too, so much for stereotypes!

So, there are two reasons why I don't usually blog about "relationship" things. 1) Nothing to report, ever. 2) I'm naturally pessimistic about everything and I don't like talking about jobs/dates/moves etc. which I think won't end up working out. So yeah, turns out that was my last date with the Brit, so I should have stuck with the policy. Two days shy of my 31st birthday, I got an email this morning to say that he didn't think we should see each other any more because I don't want children. I guess that's appropriate enough, since it's surely a sign of getting old if men start running away because you *don't* want kids. I was kind of surprised, since I didn't think things were serious between us, but maybe that's the point. Before you feel too sorry for me, he called on Skype last night - presumably to break up - and I thought "I'm tired, do I have to answer that? He's not even my boyfriend..." Clearly I'm a selfish person who doesn't deserve to be in a relationship anyway.

Still, even if he wasn't the one, I'm a bit upset. We got on well, I liked him. It was just nice to have someone around for once, especially since I'm low on friends etc. here. This would have been my first birthday celebrated with someone since 2004, or 2003 if you count that I was actually on the other side of the world and a few months away from breaking up with my boyfriend in 2004. That's a long time. And it hurts a little to be confronted with the reality that you reach a certain age where things are just going to get harder, when obviously they haven't been easy up to this point either.

So I suppose my actual birthday is going to be lonely, but at least this weekend I will be back in Tours to drown my sorrows with my friends...

Christmas spirits

(I don't actually)

Officially, I think Christmas should start after my birthday. But it is in full swing in these parts, and I've got to say, I'm getting in to the Christmas spirit. It's hard not to when there are twinkling lights in (it seems) every tree, to light up the dark that otherwise arrives around 4 pm, it's proper cold and there's Germanic treats to warm your hands and stomachs on offer.

Germany, of course, is widely known for its Christmas markets, and quite a lot of the festive spirit rubs off on neighbouring parts such as Eastern France and Luxembourg. I haven't been to the Metz Christmas market yet, but the Luxembourgish version has a distinctly Germanic feel to it. You can gorge yourself silly on bratwurst, rösti, or speck (or fondue, waffles, chocolate...) while sipping glühwein served from novelty mugs, browsing the usual assortment of Christmassy tat and listening to live carols (on a Wednesday night, no less).

A Christmassy wonderland

The view from afar

Bit blurry, but you get the idea

I went along after work with some of my colleagues, and whether it was the company or the mulled wine, we had a lovely time. There were many laughs after Em and I bought "sneeballen" (which I assume is German for snowballs) - a dense shortbread-like ball (folded as though someone had scrunched it up like a ball of paper) covered with chocolate, caramel, nuts etc. It actually wasn't that good, but we got our money's worth in laughs trying to bite into the things. It was nearly impossible to get any purchase! Defeated by the balls...

Attacking the boules

Hot dog!

More mulled wine

Definitely a good idea to cheer up the winter season! And the atmosphere was great as well. A little secret about Luxembourg - due to the multiple languages spoken in the country anyway, plus the European institutions, the international banks and the thousands who pour across the borders to work every day - it's actually very cosmopolitan. I love walking around the markets and hearing people speak different languages (and being fairly sure most of them aren't tourists). I think this will not be my last Christmas market of the season, it would be a shame not to experience a German one being so close!

Two-month report

Well, a little bit late, but anyway...

Two months in to my Metz/Lux adventure, and I think I can say I've fallen on my feet pretty well. In a way, I'm a bit of an old hand at moving to new places now (I think my little self-profile blurb used to say something like I've lived in 9 cities in 5 countries, so now it's 10), but I was in Tours for a very long time by my standards, so of course it takes some adjustment to picking up and leaving all your friends and familiar surroundings.

There has been some positive progress on the friends front though. Everyone (at least those I interact with on a regular basis) at work has been really nice and welcoming, and a lot more social than my old work. I think it's largely down to the expat vibe. Even though the great majority of those I work with are French, a lot of them aren't from the region or have moved from Lorraine to Luxembourg, so they have a bit more of that good old open-minded expat outlook that can sometimes be lacking in our French amis. I went along to Friday night drinks last week (we only work Friday afternoons about once a month, so it's a tradition to go for a drink afterwards) and I've been out a couple of times with some of the girls from work as well. Tonight we're going to meet up for a raclette evening, yum yum. I also got to meet the lovely Andromeda of Blonde in France, so hopefully we can catch up again some time! I even (whisper) have been seeing someone (The Brit) for the past month or so...

The report is a bit more mixed in some other areas. I feel I'm doing well at work, although that's not hard because it is very easy. Bit depressing at times to be doing the same unchallenging stuff day in and day out (and with days up to 9 1/2 hours long, not counting lunch, that drags). But at least it's something. And it pays well. And... I just heard yesterday that my and my counterpart's contracts are being renewed for the whole of next year. A little stability? That calls for champaaaaaaaagne...

The commute is still going okay, although it is getting colder (we've had the first snow of the year, more on that later). I'm a bit worried down the track since I've heard a few horror stories about the trains descending into chaos over winter. It can definitely be wearing, especially the weeks where I have to do 40 hours in 4 1/2 days. The other night it was 9.45 pm by the time I'd eaten dinner. I'd only been home for 1 1/4 hours and by that time, it was time to go to bed. That's the worst part really, just having literally no time to do anything at all. It took me about 5 days to watch the Downton Abbey season finale since I only managed about 20 minutes a time before I had to go to sleep to get up again at 6 am. And then any administrative or other tasks have to be plotted out pretty carefully since everything's shut by the time I get home, and even telephoning from Luxembourg can be tricky (my cellphone bill last night was 30€, not that much, but huge compared to the 2-4€ I used to pay in Tours).

In a way, it's lucky I'm not home that much, because I live in a dank pit. Everything is covered with mould - I pulled out a pair of gloves the other day, they had some sort of orange mould growing on them. I grabbed a packet of breadcrumbs, it was just a block of mould. Worst of all, I unwrapped a theoretically sealed packet of Munchies I'd brought back from the UK with me, and had to wipe drops of moisture off the sweets before eating them. When it starts messing with my chocolate, things get serious! Between that and the depredations of Bob, it's demotivating trying to keep the place looking halfway decent, particularly when I'm only home (awake) for about 2 1/2 hours each day.

Even so, I've managed to explore a little bit of the Lorraine/Luxembourg region...

Protestant church on an island in the Moselle in Metz

View of the Moselle in Metz

There was no fricking way I was going in this church

The Luxembourg Philharmonic on a rainy evening

I had a lovely trip out to Rodemack, voted one of France's prettiest villages, with some work colleagues. We turned up too late to visit the castle, but still had a nice walk around the old ramparts and played a fun board game in a local pub

Church in Rodemack

Rodemack town walls. The middle arch is a reconstruction, the original having been blown up to allow the American troops in during WWII

Herb garden and medieval wall in Rodemack

I also took a trip up to Vianden with the Brit. This was my first time out of Luxembourg City, and it was nice to see a little bit of the countryside. As with Rodemack, we managed to miss actually going into the castle, but it was still a lovely little town. We had lunch in a Portuguese place - Luxembourg has a surprisingly large and active Portuguese community. I had a bifana sandwich which was very tasty, even though the photo on the menu made it look remarkably like a pair of shoes.

Luxembourg is so small that this cross-country trip is actually only about a 50 minute drive

In front of Vianden Castle

View of Vianden

Vianden Castle - it was apparently in ruins by the start of the 20th century, so it seems that much of it is a reconstruction

Vianden from the river

And as I said, we've already had the first snowfall of the year. I was pretty excited, although that might not last! It didn't stick in Metz, but it was properly snowing in Luxembourg and stuck around for most of the day.

Snowy fields from the train

In Luxembourg City

So two months down, and possibly many more to come...