You know that feeling you get when you learn a new word and then hear it like 20 times in the next week? It's amazing how much information passes us by on a daily basis that we do not process until there is an anchor to which we can attach meaning.
Many of you are probably not aware that today is the last day of National Infertility Awareness Week in the United States (April 24-30, 2016). Until this past year, I would have been right there with you. Infertility is a word that I most often associated with the private and painful struggles of a few close friends, but not one with which I could personally identify. That is not to say that I had any illusions of smooth sailing to motherhood. For no particular reason at all, for many years now, I have harbored a deep fear that I would struggle to get pregnant. I think many women feel this way, and are joyfully proven wrong. Not so for me. Perhaps the worst thing about struggling with infertility is that our society has collectively decided that it belongs in a class of taboo subjects. And so we don't talk about it. And I don't want to talk about it today, especially as a person who prefers to deal with personal issues quietly and move on. But at some point we have got to start leveling with each other and talking about the things that our parents and grandparents refused to discuss. So today, the last day of a national week devoted to raising awareness about infertility, it's time for me to suck it up and be honest about my own journey over the past year. Read on if you're up for it. If not, tune in next week when I return to a lighter topic like springtime in Paris ...
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And we are solidly back to feeling like it is February again. What a tease! Woke up today with the temperature at 34 F (2 C) feeling like 29 F (-2 C).
Let me recall that it is Wednesday, April 27 and will be May on Sunday. According to the Telegraph, "experts say the cold blast is being driven by a freak change in high-altitude wind direction leading to a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW)." I have no idea what that means, but I don't like it one bit. The long, dark, cold, rainy winter months in Paris are finally coming to an end. And it is absolutely glorious. This has been our third winter in Paris, and let me tell you, it does not get any easier to survive with so little sunshine from November to March. Now it's time to bring on the spring and summer picnic months!!
Although most of my posts here are about life in Paris outside of the office, occasionally I feel like I really should post an update about how I spend most of my time = working.
This past week, my team hosted a meeting for Agriculture Ministers from the OECD members and a number of partner countries. This event takes place every 5 to 6 years, so it's a huge meeting that we've been preparing for over a year. All went great, and now we're off the hook for another half-decade :) With Michael having just started a new job, he's not yet able to ask for days off of work. Which means that the occasional long weekends we've been able to take from time to time are on hold until further notice. So when Easter Monday rolled around this year at the end of March, which is a national holiday (thanks France), we jumped at the opportunity to get out of town for a few days. Our destination of choice: the beautiful coastal town of Honfleur in Normandy.
The weekend was a bit cold and rainy, but we managed to explore the town, including the 15th century Sainte-Catherine church (largest surviving wooden church in France), had a great meal at a small restaurant called L'Endroit, and took a day trip to another coastal town called Étretat, known for its white cliffs. I brought the eye candy with me. You can find many more photos from Honfleur and Étretat in my trip album here.
Our final stop of the trip was Bayeux, aka nerd heaven for me. Ever since I took a course on history of the English language during undergrad (favorite class ever, btw), I have wanted to see the Bayeux Tapestry. The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the story of William the Conqueror's victory over England in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings. William was Duke of Normandy, whose people had descended from Vikings from Scandinavia. The word for Norman is derived from Norseman; watch out for Rollo in Vikings, people. Anyway, after William invaded England, French became the official language of the nobility in England for the for the next 300 years. Thanks to this moment in time, over 10,000 French words were brought into the English language. The Bayeux Tapestry was commissioned several years after the invasion in the 1070s by William's half-brother, and survives to this day. It is over 230 feet long, and an extraordinary piece of history. |
AuthorBecause why not get married and move to Paris to really kick off your thirties? Archives
December 2016
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