Despite the nickname, Wexford was not particularly sunny when we visited recently. Like most part of Europe, it seemed to be mired in the unescapable winter chill, accompanied by frequent showers. The transition between sunny and rainy happened often and rapidly, making it singularly difficult to predict if we could go for a walk yet not be roasting under our winter coats and/or be drenched without a brolly.

Nonetheless, maybe I present, by photos, the County of Wexford that we saw, however briefly it may have been.

Continue reading »

I called it “mets”, with an emphasis on the T, but Frédéric duly corrected me – it’s “mess”. Whaaaaat? But why?

*Gallic shrug*

“That’s just how it is.”

So I did a little digging. The name had its (Celtic) origin in Mediomatrici, which was then shortened into Mettis, before finally settled on Metz. The T was certainly part of the pronounciation in the past. This changed during the period of German occupation of Metz between 1871 and 1918. Annexed to the German Empire, the occupiers’ guttural speech seemed to make the T more pronounced than ever. The unhappy people rebelled in their own little way by dropping the sound of the T and voilà – you’ve got “mess”! Obviously, the pronounciation persists to this day.

Continue reading »

When an opportunity presented itself for travel, I’m hardly one to refuse the chance to do so. I guess some of my go-go-go-travel attitude must have rubbed off Frédéric as he ambitiously planned for our trip to his cousin’s wedding to be flanked with day-trips to Nancy and Metz. I have friends who agreed that both cities are small enough to be visited as day-trips, and after visiting them, I am more of the opinion that they make good spots for weekend trips.

A TGV ride between Paris and Nancy takes approximately 1.5 hours and our early start means we arrived in Nancy just shy of 10am, affording us a day of exploration given we were also staying overnight in the city before heading off to Grosbliederstroff the next morning. We were lucky to have arrived on a sunny morning for what was to be a forecasted-to-be-cloudy-and-wet weekend. The day did progressively get glummier, but not before we saw the splendour of Place Stanislas in the full sunshine.

I am no historian so I won’t go into the birth and the development of the city, even if we did see the free exhibition of La Ville Révélée at the Palais du Gouvernement (daily except Monday, until 31 August) which looks at these aspects in details. The exhibition is part of the programme of Renaissance Nancy 2013, which has an interesting agenda that makes me want to stay longer so I can check them out.

Continue reading »

I thought I’d start easy on my 101 goals challenge – item number 75. I’m not doing it for the purpose of being able to boast how many of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites I’ve visited, but rather, I’m curious at which I have visited. Truth be told, as I don’t search for sites under this listing to visit in the first place, I have not even realise some of them are on it, until now! (The photo below is the only one I can find among thousands of my photos that marks the recognition of such site.)

As of today, there are 962 sites listed altogether, and my travels have brought me to 35 of them. Some of them have just been visited recently, i.e. during my blogging lifetime, and therefore have been written up (when I wasn’t being lazy about it), others were visited when I was (much) younger that I really had to think hard if I’ve been there or if I confused it with something else, e.g. I visited a palace in Vienna but was it on-the-list Schönbrunn or off-the-list Hofburg?

Continue reading »

Today marks another milestone in my life. The next steps are up to me to make them work, and a friend sagely advised that I should have some sort of anchor that I can focus on during this period of time. She is not wrong. It could be easy for me to drift if I don’t have goals to aim for, discipline to keep.

This is where Day Zero Project comes in. I can’t remember how I came across this a while ago (maybe after I drew up my previous list of 50 goals in 5 years?), and it has always been at the back of my mind to revisit the idea. I finally did, and this new list of medium-term goals was born. I will not be tracking them on DZP website though; just here, on this website itself.

Continue reading »

Vacation. Ideally, budget permitting, we’d like at least a couple of them per year. Luckily for us who live in France (and many parts of Europe), time is usually not an issue given the generous annual leave allowance that we get. Then came staycation following economic downturn where many opt to enjoy their break a little closer to home and hopefully need not spend as much by staying local. A few other portmanteaus cropped up quickly – foodcation, nudecation, etc – you get the idea. And now there’s oblication too.

Initially, I thought it refers to compulsory vacation time imposed on overworked folks given the risk of burnt out. Errr, no. Collins dictionary online has received suggestion to accept this new word as “[a] vacation that’s scheduled and/or planned to allow you to fulfil some obligations, like visiting friends or family”.

Oh my… it makes these visits sound like a real chore so I’m not sure where the “-cation” part comes in to play. Isn’t there a fun part normally, and perhaps some down time, to actually make it a vacation to look forward to? Maybe oblication should be swapped for oblivisit, or something a little less “yay holiday!”?

Continue reading »

I should probably also add to the title of the post: on a very wet and windy day.

Our time in Reykjavík was limited. The deal for return flights and 3 nights hotel stay translated to only 2.5 days for activities – a fact not communicated to us until weeks after we’ve paid for this little promo. Had we known, we would have rethink the trip, and likely did it quite differently. No time for to cry over spilled milk here. We would just make do the best we can, and that included taking organised excursions so we at least get a taste of what Iceland is like.

We ought to be smart enough to judge the weather forecast before we booked onto a tour, but as the 2 full days that we had were both predicted to have a bunch of mixed conditions, our brains short-circuited and we failed to notice that one day would be warmer than the other (thus higher probability of being a nicer day). We picked the wrong one to take in some of the best sites outside of the Icelandic capital.

Continue reading »

A few months back, I saw a travel deal to Reykjavík that was all too tempting. I managed to wrangle my friend LT to travel together with me, and since hotel was already part of the deal, suffice to say we didn’t do too much pre-trip research. Two days before departure, I had a quick root-around the cyberspace and did a couple of things: book our airport transfer and made a reservation at Dill Restaurant.

We left Paris for our long weekend break on a cloudy afternoon (oh it was bright above the clouds, of course), and were greeted with an even cloudier sky on arrival in Keflavík International Airport. I mentally went through my wardrobe option in my backpack and prayed I have not under-prepared for the trip. It was the end of April and I was banking on early spring weather (even I wasn’t delusional enough to think we’d get early summer weather), so I was probably alright. At worse, I’d just do some shopping.

Continue reading »

One of the best thing about living in Paris is the ease one escapes from Paris. Ownership of a private mean of transportation optional.

For someone who likes to travel, this is essential. Paris being a massive travel hub means I could either take the RER/Transilien to visit areas in Ile-de-France, the main rail services for trips around France and all its neighbouring countries (and then some), as well as flights to the rest of the world. I know, there are bus options to travel around Europe too, but I’d rather pay a wee bit more and shorten the travel time, given I don’t exactly have unlimited paid holiday to take.

And well have I been busy taking advantage of this in the last twelve months or what… February (as in 2 months ago) was the only month in which I stay put in entirety in Paris. If it hadn’t been a short month, who knows where I could have jaunted into? ;)

Continue reading »

I came across this series of videos today which is absolutely brilliant and inspiring! It makes me want to get out and away, but alas, without an income, it would be pretty hard to finance my travel-and-food habit. Plus, I like my job and the challenges that it brings, even if it’s keeping me a bit too busy to keep the Project 365 to be entirely up to date. (I’m working on it, I really am.)

I hope you enjoy these videos as much as I have, and that they give you some ideas of what to do next when you embark on new adventure(s). I sure have picked up a few things there. And here’s wishing you a good weekend ahead too. Like the majority a subset of the French population, I’m going to find myself enjoying the sun and sea of the French Riviera for the next few days. Will be back all re-charged before you know it. ;)

Updated: my friend was quick to point out not a majority of French goes to the riviera but the rich. Mind, I don’t have their kind of deep pockets. Luckily what I do have are Prem’s tickets and a host family!