Le début de la fin

I can see the end of the internship approaching, together with reports deadlines and visio conferences. I am planning everything for the phd that should take place both in France(Creatis, Lyon) and in USA (Harvard, Boston). I would like to teach while in france, first because I love it. I've always helped people while studying, and I feel like that's just being fair to help someone that didn't get something when you might be in his shoes a few lesson later. There are also some more egoistic reasons : it will improve my communication skills (I've never experienced long term teaching to a group), and it will help me finish the month with something else but pasta while in France (france phd grants have nothing to do with american ones...).

So I am filling more and more paperworks, reports etc...

My parents came to visit in August, which was just a very very busy period. I managed to spend some time with them, but not as much as i would have wished. That was not such a big deal as they were exhausted by the previous month in France. We went to N.Y. and visited some nice museums, and did a cruise around Brooklyn, that was very nice.
I took tons of photographs. I guess that was also when I decided that I should definitely buy a bigger camera...

De Boston 2010

My parents spent the day visiting Boston, and we would go to a restaurant most evenings. That was very nice. The very last day, we have had some lobster at Nico's place, with most roommates but Giulia. We managed to speak some FranSpanGlish for everyone to follow bits of the discussion.

De Boston 2010

De Boston 2010

I have only been to a few parties lately, as I have tons of work, I spend some times some spanish people living in Allston, which are very nice. They actually live with a french girl that "has been through the french preparatory cycle", so she should be smart even though we did not manage to push the discussion further.

We are now having goodbye diners, Samman's was two weeks ago. He left to Germany to get a brand new visa and comes back in Harvard for his phd (just like I do). Valeria was also leaving and we cooked some Tartiflette for her. Well this is all about Boston : people come and go, but there is something special with the friends you make here: if you meet them after one or two years, you can be sure that you'll enjoy some nice time again !

Adi & Isabel proposed to swim some weeks, and i decided to move a bit, to reduce somehow the amount of cigarettes I smoke. That worked just fine, I could hardly breathe in the end of the session. Isabel could not join at this point as she was in N.Y. with her family. We then went to have a hot chocolate, that was... pretty good (but just not perfect), and spoke about how incoherent we both could be with the opposite gender until 12 am.

We went two weeks in a row to find the simming pool closed the second time. People who know me know that I would not let go in such situation, so we went to have a hot chocolate directly. But not just "a" hot chocolate. The best hot chocolate of Boston, which could even try to compete in the same category as the Valrhona hot chocolate (but let's be realistic : every one knows that no chocolate competes with Valrhona). Some very surprising coincidence happened there : the waiter happened to be the waiter from Café Royale, the place where I used to go to grab coffee in Allston ! He remembered me and was quite surprised to see me again.

The swimming pool closed for a few weeks, and Adi would be with her family when it would open again...

I have also been to the market with Amelia and Sebastian. We ate another Tartiflette on their balcony. Adi joined us and discovered this amazingly cheap and nice market, very close to her new apartment in north end. Sebastian plans on playing some poker on his roof soon, and I hope I'll have some time to join (serious poker games can be pretty long).

De Boston 2010

I have also been to a very nice classical music concert, in the Esplanade of Boston, just on the borders of the Charles river... I of course had some work to do, but working outside, with such great music playing is just very nice. Then I spent the night polishing a report.

Spending the night working was not such a great idea as I had to help Adi moving her stuff to her new apartment. We went there with Nico, without forgetting to buy some more or less useful presents. Among them was a Huge, Cheap, Ugly doormat (it was not Useless so it did not complain with Celine F.'s definition of a birthday present), that I guess we all like. She has an amazing place, in a very nice neighborhood. She has an access to the roof with an unbelievable view of Boston. This is definitely very nice. We ate some pizza and some pastries we bought with Nico in an italian shop that is supposed to bake the best of boston... well it was ok.