The small town I’ll be visiting soon is the Camarguais fishing village named Le Grau du Roi, literally, “the king’s bayou”. During the Crusades, its sister city to the north, fortified Aigues Mortes, was a royal port linked to Grau du Roi and the sea by canals built through the salty marshes. “Aigues” comes from the Latin aqua, a word you probably recognize, and “mortes” is the feminine plural form of the adjective mort: Dead Waters. At the end of the 16th century, the Rhone river flooded the Repausset marsh, forming a new entry from the sea that was used to build a permanent canal, causing Le Grau du Roi to gain in importance. This same canal still exists today.

Grau du Roi has since grown from being a major fishing port and viticultural area to also being a major tourism destination, as one of France’s well-known beach resort towns. While outside of France, it’s mainly included as part of the attractions of the Camargue region, within France, it’s rather well recognized on its own, which is one reason my company chose it as a destination this spring. It also continues to be the second most important fishing port on the French Mediterranean coast, the largest being the Grand port maritime de Marseille, and the largest in France at Boulogne-sur-Mer, in the Pas-de-Calais département. The most major contribution towards Grau du Roi’s tourism development came with the extension of the Nîmes – Grau du Roi railway line all the way to the fishing village, in 1909. The first part of the line was built in 1845.

While the marshes between Aigues Mortes and Grau du Roi are home to no fewer than 340 species of birds, the most iconic are their pink flamingoes! I’ll be taking that same railway line from Nîmes to Grau du Roi, and am very much looking forward to the sights along the way. France’s national railway company, the SNCF, also promotes tourism in the area, a ticket costing only a single euro. I’ll also have the opportunity to ride an even older means of transportation, and one that also represents Camargue: the Camargue horse. We’ll have a two-hour ride along the beach at sunset.

For more on visiting Grau du Roi, visit their Office de Tourisme’s website.

In France, companies with 50 employees or more are required to have a comité d’entreprise, CE, works council, which not only serves as an apolitical employee union (in addition to external, non-company-limited unions), but also organizes activities, outings, tours, voyages and such, all at discounted prices since they can negotiate group reductions. My company’s CE organizes national and international trips, most of them to large cities I’ve already visited, but this year they offered a 3-day trip to the Camargue region. I’ve been to the area in the past, but it was 15 years ago, and have often wanted to return. It was all finalized recently, and having bought my TGV tickets, it’s been bringing back a wave of travel memories in France!

Very, very long-time readers (I know of at least one *waves to Chris*) may recall that back in 1995, I started writing web pages about France, the French language, and cross-cultural issues. The web has changed so much since then, veering from backlash against personal pages (I fondly recall receiving emails in the 90s treating me as a madwoman for thinking I had any business writing about France as an individual and mere student of French, the horrors!), to an influx of “blogs” viewed with a mix of incomprehension and mild derision, to what’s now seen as so normal that the phrase “get your own blog” has entered our vocabulary and people enjoy random photos and videos of cats.

La roue tourne ! So it is that as I rememorated my travels in France, my 1995 writings also came to mind, and I realized that in all that turning of the wheel of Internet fortunes, a record of my past travels had fallen into the ether. I would like to do a series of posts while approaching the trip to Camargue, beginning with a look back at my travels in France that have preceded it.

1995
In the fall of 1994, I started my university studies as a double Russian (yes!) and music performance major. I finished a semester of Russian language and literature courses, then decided to focus on music performance. At the same time, I continued to be intrigued by the Internet: I had first gotten online several years earlier, as a mere pre-teen, via Prodigy and a local Freenet dialup that offered UNIX accounts. Those where the days of wheezing, beeping modems, BBS, and gopher. I had a thing for gopher, because you could connect to library collections across the world, in foreign languages – utterly fascinating for an up-and-coming language and literature nerd. In my forays into foreign libraries, I met people I got along with well enough to get into IRC.

Thus my first trip to France was born. I met students at a top telecoms engineering school (university level) in Brittany, got the wild teenage idea that I could up and go with cashiering money I’d earned, and so I did, in the summer of 1995. To make a very long story short, I landed in Paris, never really saw the inside of the city, and boarded a train for Lannion. Later I took trains to the opposite side of the country, Mulhouse, through Paris again, but only seeing its métro while moving from one train station to the next. The métro blew my countryside Oregonian mind. I had never even taken a public bus before! Later my hosts in Mulhouse showed me most of Alsace, as far north as Strasbourg, with hikes in the Vosges.

That fateful trip led directly to changing my major to French. I had studied it since the age of 10, stopping only for that first year of university, then fallen definitively in love with the country during my short visit. I changed my music major to a minor, threw myself into French studies, and loved every minute of it. My web presence reflected both: with Chris, the friend I waved at earlier, we ran our university’s web presence for the School of Music and especially our marching band. I also wrote pages on France, curated a list of links (back then this was something many people did), and also wrote personal entries from time to time, before “blogs” were a thing. Thoroughly enjoying my studies helped keep me at the top of my class, and so it was that I earned a scholarship and a spot as a direct exchange student for the final year of my BA.

1997-1998
Once again, I arrived in Paris but saw only the inside of a hotel in the middle of the night, waking up before dawn to catch a TGV to Lyon. I had met a French student there, whose family lived in the Ain, and with whom I got along very well. We all loved the outdoors, hiking, travelling, literature and language – it was a wonderful time. They drove me to Chamonix, Annecy, Bourg-en-Bresse, Gex, Ambérieu, Chambéry, Grenoble, Valence, and innumerable other villages, most of them in the Rhône valley. We went on hikes in the foothills of the Alps, and the mountains themselves. I’ll always remember taking the cable car up to the Aiguille du Midi, near Mont Blanc, and seeing the glacier. We would return some years in the future, and the glacier’s rapid disappearance was easily visible. My mother-not-quite-in-law also invited me on a week-long hike through all the peaks of the Swiss and French Jura mountains, where I took some of my favorite photos… with my old Nikon 35mm!

Our university also organized outings, my favorite being to the châteaux de la Loire. Not long afterwards, my adoptive host family drove me to southern France, passing through Marseille and Arles, and on to Nîmes. It was sensory overload – I had never seen so many incredible Roman ruins and stone castles in my life, and the countryside was simply stunning. To top it all off, my father-not-quite-in-law and I both enjoyed the same types of wines: strong reds and hefty whites, so he took us to dozens upon dozens of vineyards and filled the trunk of the family Volvo with 5-liter casks.

I saw Paris for the first time in the summer of 1998! Where Lyon was a lovely concentrate of fabric arts, cinema, and literature, Paris was everything.

In the fall of 1998, I joined my French partner, who had found a job earlier in the year in Helsinki, Finland. I did love Finland, but am focusing on France in this entry, so we’ll skip two years ahead!

April 2000
I had a job interview as a web designer for a startup in Sophia Antipolis. I flew from Helsinki to Nice, and still recall my first sensation on exiting the plane: “Wow, it smells wonderful here…!” I took the bus to Sophia, the very same bus I still commute in to this day. The interview went fine, but the position wasn’t very well-defined and all the interviewers were young and terrifically ambitious, so I politely declined. Like so many web startups of the early oughts, it skyrocketed for a year or two, then floundered into nothingness.

June 2008
I returned to Nice, working as a freelance translator and interpreter. I’ve visited innumerable villages in this southeastern corner of France, as well as in Provence. My favorites are the fortified hill cities so typical of this part of the world, and our sparse yet fragrant forests. When the spring and summer sun comes out after rainfall, you can smell what I now know is a lovely mixture of pine needles, wild lavender, thyme, and rosemary.

September 2002
Corsica requires a mention of its own! Like the Rhône region, the island reminded me of my home state as soon as I set foot in Ile-Rousse. Wild, rocky, mountainous and wooded, with wild boar and goats roaming the countryside, it felt like seeing what the French Riviera must have looked like before its wild coastline was tamed into an immense, unbroken city. (Travelling from Nice to Cannes, there is not much separation between towns.) It was also the site of a rocambolesque horseback ride in which I started out on a horse who had wanted to go to stable for the evening. He made his displeasure at the change in schedule known by flipping his ears back at the prospect of carrying me. After much nipping of other horses’ rear ends, going straight down steep hillsides rather than using switchbacks, and stopping to nibble Corsican greenery, his final mischief was to piss off a couple of red long-haired cows. The irritated bovines took their own revenge-nips at my horse’s behind, he reared, I grabbed on for dear life, his neck couldn’t hold me, and so he managed to set me down gently, feet in the air and helmeted head on the ground, my back against an ancient stone shepherd’s lean-to while the other riders gasped and laughed.

The digital age
I forget exactly when I got my first digital camera, but starting around 2004, most of my other travels have been photographed and put online, with a few older film photos scanned as well.

Growing up, it seemed wild just to imagine visiting European capitals, much less the joyful peregrinations I’ve had the good fortune to experience in reality. I’m very much looking forward to the upcoming Camargue trip since it has been so long since I’ve been elsewhere in France, other than this southeast corner and Paris. The southwest is one part of l’Hexagone that I still haven’t seen much of.

This morning I decided to try out an enticing hillside stairway that had long piqued my curiosity. Our weather hasn’t gotten much better; there was another strong risk of rain, so I only took my little handheld camera rather than my nicer Nikon. Still, it was quite interesting, and these photos will help me remember what to look for when I go back in safer weather with a proper camera!

I was surprised at how far up the path climbed! Other stairways I’ve taken in Nice have been shorter, but this one was a veritable hillside hike. It took a good twenty minutes to reach the top. As you can see, it’s maintained by the city, with rails, gutters, and even lights. When I looked back at what I’d climbed, my head spun a bit:

The view from Pessicart, the avenue at the top of the Maioun Grossa stairway, was quite beautiful. The first photo is looking east-northeast, and the second is to its right, looking straight east. The stark difference in lighting in the second photo is relatively true to life – those are black storm clouds over the hill on the right, while the morning sun was shining brightly through lighter clouds.

After a bit of exploration, I wended my way back down.

Like many places in the northern hemisphere this year, we have been having a very strange winter. Snow, sleet and hail not once, but at least four times, which for snow was never heard of before. Once is rare, twice almost never happens – four times?! Then there has been the rain. Endless, record-breaking rain. Several mudslides. I have a subscription to the Monaco-Monte Carlo opera again this season, and it’s been quite surprising to see so many train cancellations and warnings for mudslides. The earth here just isn’t able to soak up the quantities of water that have been dumped on it from the sky.

Thankfully, today the sun came out and even warmed us up a bit. I took the photo above this morning, after going to market.

Nice city center is getting a makeover: our mayor has made it historical, thus requiring buildings with façades in disrepair to be renovated. Along with the rain came a flurry of scaffolding, much of which is slowly giving way to newly-repainted buildings. It’s quite beautiful, can’t wait to see what all of them will look like once finished.

I’ve also been happy thanks to feedback from readers of Behind the Façades! It’s been read on at least three continents now, very exciting. For me the greatest reward in writing has always been to know that readers find something they relate to. Merci pour votre soutien !

I do still geek around the house! After 13 years of mediocre sound systems, I finally treated myself to a new amplifier, a Pioneer A-20-S. As my apartment is rather small, I don’t need anything more powerful than 50W, and once I plugged it in – to the same old speakers I’d had for 6 years – the clarity and range brought tears to my eyes. I grew up with a nice old amp, and studied music for decades, so hearing detail I hadn’t in my favorite songs, was wonderful.

The only drawback was that with just an amp, I had to play music through my PC, which, as quiet as it is, is not silent. I started out trying to see if the multimedia element of my Freebox V5 would work as a media center, but it truly is meant as a TV receiver: sound would only go out one port, and it required the remote control to work via on-screen menus. In other words, if I had it hooked up to my monitor, sound would go out the HDMI port, not any others. If I hooked it up to my stereo, I wasn’t able to use the box, since I couldn’t see what the remote was doing. So I packed it back up and began pondering how I could create a small, silent, economical media center.

Finally I remembered the Raspberry Pi, a minimal, yet powerful, board built for educational purposes. Sure enough, there were a few options for turning one into a media center. All I needed was a USB external hard drive, which after all these years, I still hadn’t bought. As luck would have it, the Fnac (a big home electronics, photography and book store here) had a “flash” sale on a very nice LaCie drive, so I picked it up and started planning the media center.

In the end, I have the setup you see here! Elements I already had were:
- A monitor. Mine can use multiple inputs, so I have my PC hooked up to its DVI port and the Raspberry Pi to its HDMI port. (The graphics on the little Pi are very impressive.)
- The Pioneer amp, and speakers. Since the amp can also use multiple inputs, I have my PC hooked up to its AUX and the Pi hooked up to its Network inputs.
- An Archos 43 internet tablet running Android. I hoped to be able to use it as a network interface so that I could play music without necessarily having to turn on the monitor, for instance.
- The Freebox, which has a WiFi transmitter (my Archos could connect to that) and 4 Ethernet ports. My PC is hooked up to one, the Pi to another, my laptop uses a third, and the fourth is still free.
- The USB 3.0 external hard drive, to hold my music library (FLAC files ripped from my CDs)
- Ethernet, HDMI, USB and micro-USB cables

Elements I purchased, downloaded, and set up:
- Raspberry Pi model B + basic white case + SD card with the Pi Debian port on it, just in case.
- USB 3.0 hub with its own power supply, since the Pi isn’t powerful enough to run the hard drive. This cost nearly as much as the Pi, since it’s a newer standard. It’s much faster than USB 2.0, however, so I didn’t mind – and we’re only talking twenty-odd euros!
- OpenELEC for the Raspberry Pi, on a separate SD card. This is the Open Embedded Linux Entertainment Center that runs XBMC, a clean, UPnP-enabled (networked) media center. Free. Took ten minutes to install, another fifteen to set up. Works like a charm.
- Yatse XBMC remote for my Android tablet.

You can see everything in the photo up at top! Clicking through to the Flickr photo will let you mouse over the photo and see specific notes, if curious. I’m delighted with it. The Yatse remote was as easy as knowing the XBMC instance’s IP address, and I can even turn my monitor off and view my music library from its interface. The Pi is completely silent, its sound very nearly as good as my PC’s. My PC has a nice Behringer USB interface that’s crystal clear, whereas the Pi is putting sound through its 3.5mm analog jack. I only have an old 3.5mm – RCA cable, so probably all I need to do is replace it with a better, gold-plated one and I’ll be fine. The Behringer interface doesn’t work on the Pi, unfortunately, but it’s nice to be able to switch sound inputs easily with the Pioneer amp’s remote, rather than having to plug in the PC or the Pi each time I change.

So there you have it! A minimalist media center, responsive and silent, as well as ecological since it uses very little power, all for 80-odd euros (Raspberry Pi + case + SD card + USB hub).

Au quotidien essentially means “daily life”, or “day-to-day”.

Last month, on my way to Monaco for another Sunday opera matinee, I noticed a new sign above the train station. It shows all the public transportation options available in Nice. In order, from left to right:
- Vélo Bleu, Nice’s bicycle share
- Auto Bleue, our electric car share, which is pretty great
- Lignes d’Azur bus, which serves the city of Nice and some nearby towns
- Conseil Général 06 (CG06) bus, a commuter bus programme that serves outlying cities in the département 06. I take one of these buses to and from work.
- Our city tram, also run by Lignes d’Azur
- TER PACA train, a regional one
- TGV. It and other trains can take you as far as Paris, London, and Moscow from Nice!
- Another that could be added, although it’s not really “public”, would be an airplane, for our International Airport – Nice.

And finally, for a bit of a glimpse into the past, here are keys I use regularly! The original is in the middle and dates from 1953, when our apartment building was built. The two others are brand new copies, although the blanks look quite old, and probably are; the locksmith I went to has been in our neighborhood for generations.

Regular visitors have likely noticed that I haven’t been posting as often as usual – there was good reason for it, as I had another project in the making! I’m very happy to announce that I founded my own micro-publishing house, named Editions Amnis, and one of our projects can now be found in print, whether on paper or for your favorite ebook reader!

While the book has an “official” summary, here on my blog I can say a bit more. Written as a novella (short novel), its main theme is relationships, and how different people – and furry beings – approach them. Some see them as definable; controllable. Others view them organically, giving them room to breathe and grow. Still others have no human concept of it, while still clearly having relationships, in this case involving furry tails, pointed ears, and purring. The book’s protagonist, Karin, navigates a flash point in her life that brings together past and present, throwing her childhood and young adult life into clearer perspective, although not one she would have sought out had she known the unvarnished truth ahead of time.

Naturally, the book is set on the French Riviera, although as readers here probably understand implicitly, “the Riviera” and “France” as definable entities (one stereotypical view of relationship to place) are not the focus.

Other books are in the works, though being a “micro” house, they’ll naturally come out on a relaxed schedule. There are Facebook and Google+ pages to follow if you’d like, updated about once or twice a month: Editions Amnis’ Facebook page, and on Google+.

As for the book, it’s available:
- as a trade paperback,
- in ePub format for your iBook device (iPad, iPhone, etc.), as well as for Kobo, Nook, and Aldiko e-readers,
- in Kindle format. For availability in Amazon stores in countries other than the US, search for ASIN B00B274FTC by copy-pasting that code (there are zeroes in it)
- and in other ebook formats: Palm Doc (PDB), PDF, RTF, HTML, LRF, and even plain text.

There’s also a free sample available: Behind the Facades – sample (PDF). Hope that readers enjoy!

The belated continuation of my December trip to Western Australia! Perth is home to the largest inner-city park in the world, Kings Park. I took two guided tours through it, both were wonderful: the first was the Indigenous Heritage Tour, with a Nyoongar guide, and the second was one of the free guided walks, with a volunteer (and non-aboriginal) guide. They both gave complementary information about the park’s and, by extension, Australia’s flora, although I was glad to have taken the indigenous tour first since it was more in-depth about things that the free walk only looked at momentarily.

The photo at top is of a boab tree, which is also known as the baobab. They mainly grow in northern Australia; this one and another were actually transplanted in the park. They don’t grow as well in the southern part of the country, we were told, because the wet and dry seasons aren’t clear-cut enough.

We were told that the most emblematic plant is the kangaroo paw:

…but the ones I most noticed were banksia, with their saw-tooth leaves, and zamia, a plant that dates back to prehistoric times:

My favorite part was when our Nyoongar guide, Greg Nannup, sat us down to tell a short version of the Dreamtime, when the land was created – in our case, Southwest Australia.

I wrote down what I remembered of the story afterwards. I’ve only studied Haudenosaunee, Northwest Native American, Scandinavian, and Greek creation myths (including for my Masters thesis, so not casually!), and have only occasionally read Australian Aboriginal, so this was the first time I had heard a Dreamtime story in real life. My recounting probably misses some things, in addition to how much shorter it was than a true telling of it would be. Much like Native American creation myths, our guide told us that Aboriginal creation myths are meant to be told over a period of several days, ceremonially. It’s also important to keep in mind that as oral traditions, they’re truly meant to be performed. Reading myths on paper/written down “takes them out of their context”, so to speak, something I can relate to personally having grown up with stories of my Oregon surroundings. As fascinating as our Internet age is, it’s good to keep in mind that there is also a grounded reality to which our own spoken stories, whether everyday or more, are fundamentally related. In the West we tend to see the written word as the final word, which is not the case in other cultures – the spoken word is an embodiment of spirit (which is still hinted at in our languages, as it is from the Latin spiritus, breath, and speaking is in fact using your body and breath to create).

Dreamtime – Creation: There was a time when all was not a dream, but it was not reality as we know it either. The Earth existed, but the sky lay heavily upon it, and so nothing could come into a reality existence.

But the time was coming when the sky would be lifted, and there would be a reality.

In the spirit world — for that was what it was — there were many types of spirits. Tree spirits, animal spirits, fish spirits, flower spirits… and also human spirits. A gathering was held — several, in fact [this is one area in which the story has been shortened] — in which it was debated and discussed and eventually decided who would watch over beings in reality; who would be the caretakers.

Tree spoke first: “We trees stay in one place. We cannot wander the land as a caretaker would need to do.” And the other spirits also spoke. It was decided that humans would be the caretakers, for they had abilities the others did not.

Tree spoke again: “You may use us as you wish, but never destroy us all.” In turn, animals and plants alike offered to protect and nourish their human caretakers in exchange for balance. All agreed: “never destroy us all.”

One day, the giant keeping down the sky became angry with his burden and lifted it. Reality now appeared beneath the sky.

The first two spirits to see it were First Woman and First Man, but they were not yet real. First Woman tentatively set her foot down: it became real, and her footprints are today the deeps in the Swan River, Derbarl Yerrigan. A long strand of her white hair also fell, and became the white sand beaches along the south of the river. First Woman understood she could not go completely into reality, for her true purpose was as a spirit.

Meanwhile, in this part-real, part-spirit world, First Man roamed the land. The last First Woman saw of him, he had been picking up small round things and eating them.

First Woman also roamed, creating hills and plains. In her travels she came across small white spirits: helpless children. She felt she needed to save them, so she picked them up and put them in her hair as she walked the land. Then she realized: the children’s true purpose was to be born as real humans. By picking them up, she was not allowing them to become real.

Then a terrible thought struck her: there was nothing she had crossed on the Earth to eat. There had only been these spirit children; millions and billions of them. First Man had been eating them…!

Now First Woman was really in a panic. The time of reality was also nearing. First Woman replaced as many spirit children as she could. But when reality became permanent, she had to leave, with some of the spirit children still in her white hair.

She flew to the skies with them, having no other choice. Now we see her hair as the Milky Way, and its stars are the spirit children who remained spirits.

   (The Milky Way near the Southern Cross, photo by Yuri Beletsky)

On the 14th of December, I boarded a flight that went from Nice to Milan and on to Doha, where I changed planes and flew to Perth, Western Australia. I arrived a day and a half after I left, in the evening. The gracious friend who hosted me fed me a lovely dinner of spicy vegetarian stew, and the next morning, we took a ferry from Perth to Rottnest Island, so named by a Dutch captain who mistook the local marsupial population of quokka for rats. The Aboriginal, Noongar name for the island is Wadjemup, meaning “place across the water”.

There were indeed quite a few of the hoppity, tea-nibbling pouch-holders on the island! We humans stayed in “villas” (cabins). The island is managed by the Australian government. Villas are given on a lottery basis, to ensure as much equality as possible in the distribution. Indeed, one of the nicest things about being on Rottnest is that in spite of its undeniably gorgeous setting, the people who visit it are down-to-earth. Cars are forbidden except for those used by island management, so everyone gets around by foot or bicycle.

Making the most of my jet lag, I borrowed a friend’s bike on my second morning, at around 5am, and rode around a good two-thirds of Rottnest. I didn’t make it to the farthest end, instead cutting across at the narrow western part, since the hills and jet lag had started to fatigue me on the 7-speed rental bike.

Later that day, my friend and I returned to Little Salmon Bay, where I had the treat of my life, snorkeling amongst tropical fish. I had my waterproof camera with me, so not only was I able to take photographs, I was also able to shoot video! I’ll leave you with a couple of my favorite photos, and a video I took with several different types of fish. The crackling you hear in it is from the seabed; I heard it as well.

These large, silver fish were everywhere, and swam in schools of a dozen to several dozens.

There were also seaweed and corals, stunning surroundings. Enjoy the fish as I saw them while swimming!

Belated due to traveling by air, land, and water (see above)! Here’s this year’s installment of the now-traditional meme I’ve done for three years: at the end of 2009, the end of 2010, and the end of 2011.

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before?
- Visited countries in the Middle East and in the southern hemisphere, neither of which I’d set foot in before. (More to come on those visits soon :) )
- Wore a significant amount of clothes that I’d sewn myself – before it had been one or two items, but in 2012, probably 20% of what I wore was handmade.
- Wrote a book – more to come on this soon as well!
- Voted in two presidential elections (dual citizenship): France and the US

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Normally I don’t make resolutions, so there weren’t any to keep from last year. However, this year I do have a resolution:
- Act from a place of inner peace.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not of a child, no.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My UO School of Music Dean (from when I attended, 1994-1997), in horrific circumstances: Anne Dhu McLucas. No one who knew her would ever have imagined such an ending for her vibrant, warm personality.

5. What countries did you visit?
Australia and Qatar, with an absolutely wonderful time with a friend and other friends made once in Australia.

6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?
Last year I answered “I’m at a place where I genuinely don’t feel I’m lacking anything important.” At this beginning of 2013, that sentiment has actually increased, for which I’m immensely grateful. I would hope that 2013 continues to build on friendships and peace.

7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
- My Christmas-New Year holidays in Australia, without a doubt.
- Visiting Villa Kerylos and Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Personal growth

9. What was your biggest failure?
Again… I didn’t manage to get my bathroom water damage repaired. This is a priority for 2013, really honestly seriously, heh.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
2012 was not so great in the illness department. Lots of flus and colds, as well as a couple of nasty infections. No injuries, however. I hope 2013 will be healthier!

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My media cabinet! It has been so nice to have a put-together living room, finally.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
In the two previous years, I answered that of my friends. This year, one friend in particular stood out: Sue in Perth, who so generously housed and fed me as well as showing me her part of the world. Thanks to her, I have warm and enjoyable memories for a lifetime.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
This goes together with the answer to 8, personal growth: this year I learned how (and most importantly, why) not to let others’ bad behavior get to me so much. So, no one in particular very much stands out in the negative, since I was able to move on from the consequences in good time.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Mortgage, travel, food, sewing patterns and fabric.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Visiting Australia, naturally!

16. What song will always remind you of 2012?
Chemical Brothers music and the theme to Downton Abbey.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Happier, which I honestly didn’t believe possible.
b) thinner or thicker? Same.
c) richer or poorer? Richer, again, though that’s still not saying much :)

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Playing my digital piano. I’ve been out of habit for so long that I still neglect it too much.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
I’m thinking about this and can’t come up with anything, just as last year.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
Hot. Very hot. 43°C/110°F hot. Meeting neat people and drinking stubbies (beer) in Toodyay, Western Australia. We had a great time!

21. Did you fall in love in 2012?
Stopped looking for it and enjoyed the friendships and love already surrounding me.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
“Downton Abbey” in spite of all its rose-colored upper-class faults.

23. What was the best book you read?
Do sewing patterns count? :) If so, definitely Vogue 8808 (this links to the dress I sewed from it).

24. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Nothing really stood out as memorable, although I did discover some new stuff, of course.

25. What did you want and get?
Meeting new friends and reconnecting with old.

26. What did you want and not get?
My stinking bathroom renovation ;)

27. What was your favorite film of this year?
The new Bond, “Skyfall”.

28. What did you do on your birthday?
Relaxed.

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Wow, 2012 was wonderfully satisfying as it was.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?
Independent and soul-searching; self-made

31. What kept you sane?
As last year, friends and creativity, Kanoko and Susu (my cats).

32. What political issue stirred you the most?
Voting in not one, but two presidential elections: France’s and the USA’s

33. Who did you miss?
Faraway friends

34. Who was the best new person you met?
Last year I answered “Sue! We need to meet IRL too :)” and this year we actually did meet!

35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012:
Taking the time to act with integrity towards my values and emotions is absolutely worth it.

36. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
This year is instrumental, no lyrics. Acid Brass: What Time Is Love?