Posts tagged with “Kashgar”

The Many Wonders of Provence

Thursday, 4 June, 2009

Calanque de Sormiou around Marseille

Calanque de Sormiou around Marseille

Et voila. After my previous post people might start thinking that the only good thing about France is it’s Art of Baguette! But I write today to bring light and understanding upon you all. There is also Provence, the jewel of France! When you first set your feet on the fairy ground a subtle sparkle of shiver goes through your entire body. Yes, nothing less.

So, in my three weeks here I went to many places; the Calanque of Marseille being one. The cristal clear water, the little creek, the sun, the mini beach… very nice! And then when tired of this awfull situation you can head back to the city of Marseille, have a salad or something with a glass of rosé on the Vieux Port and it’s many terraces. Wonderfull.

But to the request of some of my friends I also went to the village where I grew up to picture it a bit. This is Maussane les Alpilles ‘downtown’… On the right you have a specimen of a local villager buying cigarettes in the ‘Tabac’.
I spent about 10 years in this place, and I come back each year if I can. Life is definetly more “chill” here than in Montreal or China or the rest of France. The only other part of the world where I could accept to have a house later in my life would be the Caribean, maybe in Mexico around Qintana Roo or Yucatan. Yet it will be long before I settle anywhere, and first of all in a week I will be in China for the second time in my life, and in two weeks I will be on following the ancient path of the Silk Road all the way to Kashgar…

Maussanne Les AlpillesMaussanne les AlpillesJeanJean
Here is a little slideshow with more pictures from the region of Provence and Côte d’Azur, just click on it to have it bigger:

A Long Year Around the World

Thursday, 9 April, 2009

Chinese Turkestan

Good news! The Concordia International office just announced to Sabrina and me that we were accepted for the study exchange program next year. And what is great is that we can go together! But we were accepted only for half a year in Cairo, so they gave us some options to consider, and in the end we decided to go to Hong Kong first and Cairo second. Hong Kong then! Who would have known?

So next year is going to be a long year around the world. It will start in May in Norway, where I will visit my step family and the vikings, then I will drop by France to visit my own family, and then I will go to China in the beginning of June. There I will travel around the Kashgar region on the silk road for a good 2 months. That should give me plenty of time to discover the area [relatively] in depth. I now daydream about Kashgar and its surroundings, the mighty Pamir mountains, the Himalayas, the desert, the half buried 1000 years old fortresses where the caravans on the silk road would take refuge for the night, and the wild camels! And the Chinese government allowing I might get a glimpse at the Tibetan region of Qinghai, and maybe even Xiahe, which was closed last year.

And when I’ll be tired of moving around I’ll go to Hong Kong for a couple of months. Then it’ll be Christmas time and the 6 weeks vacations that comes with it, thus traveling again. And then the American University of Cairo for a semester, and finally back to Montreal July 2010… In short it is going to be similar to my first sabbatical year – 2005-2006 – when I traveled for a year in Latin America and New Zealand.