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On our way to Paris.

The French landscape through the TGV windows.

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I come from the region in France famous for its walnuts: “Noix de Grenoble”. I grew up harvesting them, our furniture is made with the wood and our house is surrounded by walnuts trees.

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School is about to break for summer vacation in France and walking by my old little primary school in my village when kids are about to say goodbye to their friends for the summer I realize how different my childhood was from my kids.

I lived in the same village, same house next to my maternal grand-parents for 20 years. I went to the village Primary school then to the next town Middle school (where all the kids from surrounding villages would go) then onto High school in the next bigger town (with a good chunk of the same friends) and finally College in Grenoble. But most of my friends follow the same pattern. There were no tearful good-byes at the end of the school year because none of my friends would not come back for the next school year or i wouldn’t start yet another year in another school in another country with another set of friends to meet.

No my childhood last day of school was not a mixture of happiness (yeah for summer vacation) and tear (saying good bye ‘for good’ to your BFF) and a plane to catch to see your family far away on another continent. My last day of school was pure happiness for the upcoming days of freedom which I would mostly spend with exactly the same kids I hanged out at school roaming the woods around, riding our bikes all day long and surrounded by my family (I did have a set of grand-parents in Italy that we would visit but it only involved long car ride).

Definitely a different childhood, not better not worse. And as we spend our summer in our house in a village only a couple kilometers from where I grew up I can still see my old childhood friends. They often ask me if my kids wouldn’t like a ‘normal’ life (aka stay put somewhere long term). But for my kids their life is normal, that’s what they are used to and the way their friends live too.

Not better, not worse

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Finally all under one roof.

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Playing mahjong.

They say lucky with love, unlucky with gambling. Well not sure what my hubby was doing that day but I won about 10 rounds 😉

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Summer vacation is like boot camp for Taitai.

That’s where we realize that dust comes back way faster than we ever anticipated, laundry basket are not bottomless and clothes do not magically get ironed/folded and put away no matter how hard you want it to happen.

But the old summer house, great weather, fresh air and nothing on the agenda is priceless nevertheless.

Ayi would only be the cherry on top of the cake…. Yet I don’t mind having only the cake without the cherry for a little while

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Following yesterday post.

Driving with the radio blasting “3eme Sexe” from Indochine (1985)…

I almost can remember hearing it 30 years ago from the back seat of my parents’ car on that same road (it was a 2-lane road at the time though).

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On my way to Grenoble and with the right radio station, it almost feels like I’m back in the 90s driving that same road to go to school every day.

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A year ago we were on our pre-visit in Beijing to look for an apartment to become our new home. Time flies pretty fast.

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I’m not following the Football World Cup but one cannot go on Facebook and not see the comments.

Apparently France played and won yesterday against Switzerland (5:2) which reminded me the first time I came upon the translation of cheering for a team (back in 2008 during the Beijing Olympic Games).

Version Originale:

Allez la France, Allez la France

Translated in English:

Go France Go, Go France Go

Meanwhile in China

加油法国 (Jia Yuo FaGuo) which translated literally mean “Add Oil France”.

Yep totally lost in translation 😉

The image id from Chineasy