April, let's go to Berlin

Hello all, since February blog's url changed and I've been away from the blog. But here I am and I'll put online a few things I've been doing during these past months.

April was our family trip to Berlin to visit our eldest daughter who's studying there. A must see in Berlin is the Charlottenburg Palace... or Schloss Charlottenburg. One sees it on the bus from Tegel airport to Berlin. We took the U-bahn to Sophie-Charlotte-Platz and walked along the Shoss Strasse to the palace. On the was we passed 2 groups of pétanque players... We visited the garden where you could take a very nice walk.

View Berlin in a larger map

Freezing cold in Vitry!

Winter arrived late but brutally... temperatures are way below zero here south of Paris, we're getting -6 or so. Last night we had a few snow flakes and I decided to take a small walk to the park behind our house. I'll admit it was quite difficult to take my gloves off in order to take a few pictures... It's rare that the pond would freeze that much... it maybe happened once in ten years!

just an old photo to see what it will look like this summer...

Jean Dujardin at the Golden Globes

Exciting times for French cinema as Jean Dujardin wins the Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical... great speech too as he received his Globe!!

Intouchables

My family and friends really loved "Intouchables", film with François Cluzet and Omar Sy. The film focuses on the relationship between Philip who is tetraplegic and Driss, a young man who just came out of prison. It's based on a real story.We found the film funny and touching, one that talks about disabilities - it's Philip's physical disability caused by an accident, but also Driss and his family and their difficulties as they face poor life conditions, a hard working mother who has no idea what her sons are up to - youths hanging out with the wrong persons, ending up in prison. Driss will attempt to "rescue" his little brother and try and put him in the right tracks. The film depicts what it can be like living in a poor French suburb when you're not white and you don't have parents strong enough to guide you through life.
Intouchables is also about music and love. Driss and Philip will find out that they have a lot in common as social barriers come down and the two protagonists become friends.
I highly recommend this film!

I'm back...

I'm back online with my new computer, a Sony Vaio, which I hope will be a good work companion. In December my Acer broke down and the screen went all black... yes even French computers go on strike when they work too much!!!

Best wishes to all for 2012!

Here comes 2012, and I would like to extend my sincere wishes to all, may this year be positive all and bring us all joy!
I think I will concentrate more on simple pleasures of life, be more caring about the family, enjoy being together and doing simple everyday activities. We hope to do some traveling and discover beautiful places and extraordinary people. But at the same time, this year should be about less about consumption and maybe think more about how to impact positively our community and our environment. As we can see in our everyday life the effects of mismanaging our planet - global warming, pollution and the list is long... We also see increasing poverty and injustice around us. We can do much better and we need to start in our home, doing small things. We’ll think about all that and try and figure out what tiny actions, as a family, we can do each day to contribute to a better world.

....Bonne Année 2012 !

Chewing Gum Art by Ben Wilson

Trash to Art... Ben Wilson is an amazing environmental artist who paints on discarded chewing gum in London. His aim is to make us conscious of our impact on the environment and his art calls upon us to care more about this environment! I love it!

A lot more can be seen here

SOLOMO? Yes that's at LeWeb'11, Paris

LeWeb'11 conference is closing today in Paris. So.Lo.Mo... Social.Local.Mobile is this year's them and how they envision today's web. Gathering more than 3500 entrepreneurs, startups, bloggers etc. from around 60 countries... we can have a peak through the videos they post on Youtube.

Why am I talking about LeWeb? Well my daughter is on the Amiando staff, their ticketing provider. She's finishing her internship there in Munich and came home just on time to be part of this great adventure! I'm expecting a few photos to post soon...

If you want a look at JESS3's live interpretation of LeWeb'11, click here

Eric Schmidt and Loic Le Meur - 56' video, explanation for SoLoMo



Here's Dennis Crowley, Foursquare



Funny song on SOLOMO by Jérôme Choain

Pamplemousses Garden - Birds

At Pamplemousses Garden one can see a large variety of birds and animals like deer, tortoise... and so many fish... but let's have a look at some of the birds...

Pamplemousses Garden - Flowers

I was having a look at my daughter's photos of Pamplemousses Botanical Garden in Mauritius and here are a few pictures of beautiful flowers...

On television...our favorite series

Autumn is a season where we tend to stay at home a little more, relaxing, enjoying a good book or a film or a game. We have opted for ADSL TV and our provider is Orange, the main French telephone operator. We currently have a package with TV+phone+internet. We added to this package a subscription to Orange Cinema Séries (12€ monthly) which adds a few interesting channels with recent series and films and which allows you to watch the programs on demand, very convenient indeed.
Anyway right now we are watching (just mum and dad) The Walking Dead, season 2, which is being aired from November 2011 on Orange Cinema Séries. The family enjoys M6 channel's The Good Wife and NCIS, TF1's channel Mentalist, France 2's series Castle. Then I must admit mum and girls like to watch Gilmore Girls from time to time, Malcolm in the Middle is a lot of fun for us! These are two old series but we just love the characters and it gives you a good laugh. This month we are also seeing a few John Ford westerns from Ciné Géant... which remind us of our 2007 trip to West USA, and this gorgeous visit of Monument Valley... So tonight let's take a hot chocolate and go for a film...

Let's travel into space

I'm currently working on a translation about space and figured that's what I would post about today... direct from Hubble site, amazing pictures:

Dust around a super giant

Source: Hubblesite.org

Crab Nebula

Source: Hubblesite.org

Multiple generation of stars

Source: Hubblesite.org

mysteries...

Source: Hubblesite.org

Cécile de France

A few words about Cécile de France  (born in Belgium July 7, 1975)

A few years ago we had fun watching Around the World in 80 Days... where Cécile is Monique La Roche artist and young adventurous lady who follows Phileas Fogg and Passepartout round the world. Today Cécile de France is a brilliant and wonderful actress.

A few films:
Marie Lelay in Clint Eastwood's film Hereafter.
2011 films are "A Kid with a Bike" and "A Butterfly Kiss"
Coming next "Talk Show" and "A Chinese Puzzle"...

A few photos

"A Kid with a Bike"... Young actor is Thomas Doret

In "The Singer" with Gérard Depardieu

Dal Makhani, ready to eat...

While I didn't stay in Munich long enough to see everything it had to offer, I transited through Hauptbahnhof train station almost everyday - my daughter and I stayed at Adagio Hotel for a few days and then she moved on to an apartment she shared with a musician in Laim. Anyway we went into a small ethnic shop in Hauptbahnhof  one day and decided to try some ready to serve Indian food.
As I opened my cupboard looking for some lunch, I found this Dal Makahni "Black Lentils in true Mughlai tradition"... Microwaved it and ended up eating this with some salad. It was a little spicy and main ingredients were black lentils and red kidney beans in it. Although it was warm and a good stew like of food, I would rather stick with my Mauritian lentils recipe that I love to eat as a thick soup.

Autumn on Appalachian Treks Website

I love autumn, strolling in the park, watching these gold and red leaves. It's so beautiful and it's a sight I never saw while in my little Mauritius island where we only have two seasons (but of course gorgeous flowers, sea etc., that's not the point.
Anyway walking with my kids when they were small as they would walk on the crunchy leaves in the forest or collect these beautiful leaves or chestnut pods. Simple treasures but yet such lovely memories. Rain or dull weather does not matter, autumn is a precious season. And I find Appalachian Treks website a beautiful place to take a look at autumn in the US, the site focuses on Tennessee, western Northern Carolina and southwest Virginia... I would love to visit.  Here's a screenshot of the website

Mini Pizzas...

I've decided to try making mini pizzas and they were just perfect as appetizers for a little dinner we had with some friends. In fact I didn't use pizza / bread dough but instead a pate brisée - shortcrust pastry. I made some tomato sauce that we call rougaille in Mauritius. Used a glass to make nice round mini pizzas, spread some tomato sauce, fried onion, sardines-pilchard and grated cheese.
One thing about sardines is that since I'm a child I've always loved eating sardines - usually with piment confi - small pickled chili! So simple and yet delicious!!!! Only problem as I was a kid is that I didn't know how to open the cans - at the time we needed a can opener and that was too hard for me... always had to rely on my mum to open my sardines can!

Chard Gratin Tonight

After last weekend's adventure at Ferme du Sart, I set out to use all the veggies collected... Washing was already a lot of work but I didn't give up. So here's what we enjoyed this week : chard soup with the green parts, leek and potatoes quiche, and today it's chard gratin with the white part of the veggie...

It's simple to prepare. After cleaning and taking out all the stringy part, I cooked it around ten minutes in boiling water. Then prepared a creamy bechamel where I added salt, pepper, nutmeg and grated emmental cheese, then mix the chard and the bechamel and cook everything in the oven until it's crispy and golden.