Back from many narrow escapes from falling off cliffs while skiing.
In a nick of time to wish you all a great bout d'an! And while you wait for 2012, you can waste some time reflecting on how mine was... because my ego will always be larger than an average sized country.
2011 started with the most resolutions I ever make, that is to say a single one - to kick arse, as always.
Then there was tiramisu sharing, the eating bit having been in the old year. And back then a week of rain was terrible, little did I know that I'd have three months of it non-stop later on. But I was still happily making my little lunchboxes and documenting them along the way! The food didn't stop there either, there was also some homemade galette des rois.
In other random things, I was really into Alex Taylor's voice on the morning show on France Musique and week-ends spent skiing. I suppose my LJ's 8th birthday shows that I'm quite into LJing/blogging/rambling too. And my thesis. I started the "final" file back in January and I must say it's been changed quite a few times since then. One thing that hasn't changed is my dislike of SNCF and the way they treat the busiest regional line in France... although I do not have to take that train every day any longer, I still remember the ice we once had and how no one did anything about it. Because even though the ice and snow weren't as impressive as back in 2009, there was still some.
By the start of 2011 I had also given up completely on attempting to like any of Murakami's books. I made an attempt at keeping up with scanning and sorting through some old negatives and there was some Mini!Gali posted.
February brought its share of mimosa, a bit earlier than the usual. Thanks to wiki, I learnt that our mimosa isn't actually from the mimosa family at all... Moreover I learnt some very interesting things about myself from the Hello Kitty psychology test, or at least I think I learnt something, it was a bit confusing. Then it was time to discover that now they make spreadable cookies, so sugary and oily but heck! Not to end the fun there, I went to gain some knowledge at the Salon du Chocolat (2, 3). In non-chocolaty terms, it's actually quite easy to make marzipan roses.
Obviously eventually the February gastro-crève caught up with me. But that wasn't all that exiting. Remember when I tried making mantou or panda bread? Now that was fun! Or the cauliflower-fake-rice sushi! The flowers also! Remember all the flowers blooming, I definitely cannot link to all of them here. Let's not forget Linda thinking she's a cat and all that jazz. I blame it all on SuperMoon or whatever that was called. It definitely probably had an influence on the guy who said that Finns are the devil reincarnated because of the Moomin trolls! It definitely threw me off balance while I was running resulting in a very lovely skinned knee.
When it got warmer, or should I say hotter, I got into sprouting. Ah, I kind of miss the taste of sprouted quinoa! I also miss my dad's bbqing! But he's good at keeping fires in check, alas some others aren't and there was the first local forest fire in April. Watching Skins made me feel like I had always lived in a nice bubble and I was quite glad!
In terms of strange things, I missed mämmi in 2011. Crazy, isn't it? But I got a new toy in the shape of Zeiss Ikon from 1963. At work Easter provided some procrastinating opportunities, or rather the calculations linked to Easter. OM won Coupe de la Ligue and we went at sea to watch a regatta. Clearly that was more interesting than the royal wedding, as I said back then, if you want a good gossipy wedding - try the Monegasque one, full of crazy things there.
Eventually it was time to invade other countries, in this case it involved Germany and the city of Braunschweig. They have strange Happy Hippos there. I was a happy running monkey on local trails in the calanques at the time too. Or maybe I was just running away from vampire flowers because all sparkly things are evil, everyone knows that! Hills such as the col de la Gineste are evil too for runners but they can be easily conquered. Other evil things, apparently, include Kinder Eggs because they're so dangerous that Americans can't have them legally... so evil!
The tomato collection was starting to grow out really well by May. We had homegrown cherries too! And many other berries and some cucumbers because my parents rock at gardening. Have I mentioned the tomatoes? We also played tourist locally and visited the commercial port in Martigues where we heard all the details about how it works.
What had to happen happened and I started another round of 365 days of photos. While SNCF were still failing at being reliable and my love for certain neighbourhoods in Paris was the same. And while the riders at the Tour de France were suffering from constant rain, we had constant sunshine and very hot temperatures and I got a new toy in the shape of an M4/3 14-150mm lens. Then the Smena Symbol came along. Forgetting about the cameras for a second, there was a lot of cooing over Carolina especially those few times she actually went for a swim.
In July it's always TdF time and this year it involved the final stage in Paris (in huge part thanks to my sis) but beforehand there was a pretty awesome photo exhibition. The stage itself can be relived here and here and here and here and here and the riders finally hit the pavés and came back for another lap and some more.
By August it was really time to start thinking about everything to get done before moving back to Finland. Eventually the suitcase was ready - the art of moving to another countries with a suitcase and a backpack, I've mastered it. The next day it was time to discover the new 18sq.m. that now hold my life with a pretty cool elevator involved. That's about when the rain started, everything became about drying shoes and I met up with old friends and new comers to CS. In Helsinki I also got my old bike back and pimped it up a bit and cycled till December, a personal record! Then Matt from Where The Hell Is Matt came along and Helsinki peeps danced with him and danced some more.
Instead of carb loading I do protein and fat loading and then I run marathons before deciding that triathlons are the next thing to try for me. As I'm not getting any younger, the good thing is that many peeps seem to get better at triathlons the older they get! And birthdays mean Halloween and this year it was spent a little bit up north.
Also, have I mentioned the rain? Then the darkness started. At which point I came back to the habit of "Sunshine. Must. Go. Outside." just to get a glimpse of the sun every three weeks. Fog became quite a usual thing too. My first real snow came in Colorado though... and quite a bit of local beer in Denver. There was a bit of serious stuff there too such as presenting papers and visiting astrophysics departments.
December and still no snow but one day there was black ice and I'm clearly not good with cycling on black ice but the first Christmas cards came in and I sent plenty to peeps also and I'm one of those people who loves sending cards just as much as receiving some. The weird thing about winter is that I always start reading strange books, always! I guess I could blame it on the glögi except for the fact that I like mine without alcohol. Maybe it's all the running (and cycling and swimming). Or maybe it's just the knowledge that soon I will heading back south for a bit of sunshine and a Christmas tree.
And finally this year we had a huge amount of sunny skiing days! Could there be a better way of ending the year? Probably not!
|
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
