Latest Posts
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Day of the Lunar Eclipse or The Never-ending Day
Yesterday was a day out of time, a never-ending day, a day on which a full lunar eclipse could take place and it would seem entirely appropriate. It all began with me waking up for the first time in my new apartment, on the floor, with one hip asleep and my head aching and
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bureaucracy & home
Today we went to Nice to apply for our carte de sejours (the long term permit required to stay in France longer than our visas allow). It was a very institutional building with long line-ups of smelly people and not much air circulation. We were all successfully accepted however, so now we wait for about one month
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monaco
Today is the last day of February already! Spring is in the air! Today was warm and very windy with visible clouds of pollen blowing out of the cypress trees and causing a great deal of agony with the allergy sufferers. Last Sunday I went to Monaco with my Bulgarian friend and walked all over the
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a chapter on food
So far I have not spoken in detail about my French culinary experiences, so this post in dedicated to food. To begin, today I made my deposit for the apartment and placed my online order with Ikea; so it’s official, I am diving into creating my new home. Negotiating the rental agreement with the estate agency entirely in French
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the sculptor
I just came back upstairs from this Friday’s Place des Artistes show, and the artist was a wonderful gregarious woman named Ariane Maman who does small paintings, some with collage and some with images bearing a venus of willendorf flavour as well as potent sculptural pieces made of found objects. I love art that is made this way. Old pieces of
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my new home
After much deliberation and thinking myself blue, I have finally settled on a new home. I’ll write all the details this weekend, but suffice to say that I will be moving into a pretty little apartment in the old city centre just a few hundred feet from where I am now. It is completely unfurnished
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the Symposium
I was out for a walk this afternoon and just happened to spot in a store window a poster for the most amazing event….the 9th annual International Symposium of Aromatherapy and Medicinal Plants being held from March 16-18th here in Grasse!!!!! It will be held in the beautiful Palais de Congres. Suffice to say that
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Production and Picasso
Today is Sunday and in Grasse, it is raining. Spring has sprung it seems and the recent erratic weather- windy, rainy, sunny- reflects this shift in seasons. I saw buds appearing on the stubs of a hydrangea yesterday and the days that are sunny feel like early summer by Canadian standards. The trees are all
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house hunting update
This afternoon, I met the land lady for the little studio apartment near mine and got the tour. I found it to be very cute, but far too small, kind of dreary (with the big old windows looking at the side of the building 10 feet across the lane), and lacking a refrigerator. It would be fine
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Week two…dreaming in scent
Hello everyone, No I haven’t disappeared, I’m simply very tired and this being called jessica is feeling a bit saturated. Today is Monday, the beginning of our second week in school and with it came 10 more synthetic aromas to add to the 31 that we have already covered. (plus the 20 or so naturals) There will
A Perfumed Pilgrimage 