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Animal Collective
Last month I took Lila to La Grande Galerie de L’Evolution, which has its building on the grounds of Jardins des Plantes. I was dreading it because our visit to the Museum national d’Histoire naturelle a couple of years ago had failed to impress. So I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Grande Galerie, although still…
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The Bird
Something happened to me in Turkey. I got stalked by a bird. Every morning, we ate our breakfast at the hotel restaurant that overlooked the city. It was beautiful, and calming, especially since we always chose a table next to the huge bay windows. And every morning, the same bird was waiting for me. It…
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Underground Cisterns
Visiting the underground Cistern was met with extreme joy – mainly because it was 40°C outside, and losing a few degrees was a welcome respite. Dim orange light, carp fish swimming in the water, water dripping from the ceiling: dating back to the sixth century A.D., the underground cistern is about the size of two…
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Hagia Sophia
I don’t remember how we came up with Turkey; the country popped out of thin air, and the next thing I knew we had booked a hotel and a flight and had a guidebook ordered from Amazon in our postbox. Don’t all trips start like that, anyway? Not really knowing where to go, settling on an…
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Let Them Eat Cake
For those who are stuck in Paris this summer: I suggest an evening in Versailles to visit Les Grandes Eaux Nocturnes (Fountains Night Show), which takes place every Saturday night from… well, this Saturday (technically, 2 Saturdays ago) up to 7 September. I got tickets for Julien’s birthday and it was a great way to…
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And the Words; They Just Come Out of my Mouth
When Lila was 5 months old I’d go: “Can you say Mommy? Say Mommy…”“Wow, you really like your vegetables, don’t you?”“Can you turn over? Try to turn over…”“Ah, you’re awake! Coucou!”“Look at all that saliva, you must be teething!”“Time to change your diaper…”“Goodnight.” Now that Lila is 2.5 years old I say: “I’m not deaf.…
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2012
The year is hardly a month in and already it has been harsh – we celebrated the New Year with paracetamol and pajamas as we came down with the flu. What the hell, 2012? We’ve barely started and already we’re enemies? I’m thinking back on 2011. The year started in Saudi Arabia and ended in…
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Shaped by Songs
While I was pregnant I constantly listened to the Deftones’ White Pony. The album came out in 2000; I was still in Manila then, and I had the album on repeat every evening on my way home from work, and people in the MRT (metro) would stare at my hugely ridiculous headphones (stare if you…