My new mode of transportation

Hello everybody!

Because of my accident, I can't bike anymore for a while but... one of my colleagues gave me her electrical bike! It's really convenient, I don't have to pedal. And it is fun! Goeric fears that I will get used to it. Wait and see, my colleague wants to sell it ;-) Just kidding: I can't bring it back to Europe and it will not be as safe as here to bike in the streets of Ottignies.

Enjoy the movie (4MB) :-)

Marie-Catherine

PS: I still have to ride carefully, I cannot fall again on my injured leg. One can easily reach 30km/h with that bike!

"de Marneffe" family in California

Hi,

"Chose promise, chose due" ;-)

My family did a two week round-trip from Los Angeles, and of course stopped in Mountain View.

Goeric and I drove to Monterey on Thursday night to meet them there. On Friday we went to the aquarium: a nice world to discover! The first sardine factories were located in Monterey. However by fishing too much, they destroyed all the sardine schools... and it meant the end of a golden time. The old factories (known as the "Cannery Row") have been put to good use again: nice shops, restaurants and... the famous aquarium. In the afternoon, we walked around in Old Monterey and drove back to Mountain View via Santa Cruz. Because it started to rain very hard we didn't stop in Santa Cruz but we saw a beautiful rainbow (a full one)!

On Saturday we visited San Francisco: Lombard Street, Russian Hill, Chinatown. Quite a long day. The cable car museum is very interesting... And last but not least, a look at the Golden Gate Bridge by night!

On Sunday, we crossed the Bay and visited the USS Hornet in Alameda: an aircraft carrier which recovered the Apollo 11 space capsule after the first steps on the moon. She is one of the most decorated ships of the US Navy. Cub scouts can spend one night aboard: what a great camp place! We ate in Berkeley and then drove to the north of San Francisco to see the Golden Gate from the other side (Marin County). Perfect timing: we saw it at sunset!

On Monday the family met us on campus to see where we work. We visited the Hoover Tower together. In 1914, Herbert Hoover (a former President of the United States) founded the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB). By the end of the War, Herbert Hoover proposed applying the remaining funds to the extension of education in Belgium. This led to the Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF), where our fellowships come from! After a last lunch all together at Stanford, it was time for them to drive to Yosemite... and for us to go back to work.

Marie-Catherine & Goeric

Bad & good news

Hi everyone,

It has been a long time since the last post... Sorry about that!

My trip to Europe went not as I had planned: the plane from Chicago to Brussels had to turn back after take-off and we did an emergency landing. Hearing the captain say: "There is something wrong with the plane and I am not taking it over the Atlantic !", with people around you screaming and crying, has been a quite scary experience! I spent the night in the airport waiting for a new plane to come. I finally arrived in Zaventem on Tuesday evening (I was supposed to get there at 8am...). The conference in Tilburg was really interesting and my talk went well. I was glad to spend a week-end at home even if I had to fight hard with fatigue ;-)

I am now stuck at home with a sprained knee :-( I was hit by a car while biking home on Thursday evening. No flamenco, no biking, no climbing, no skiing for 3 weeks. Last week-end was a little bit difficult because of the pain but it's starting to get better now ;-)

And the good news then? Here it comes: my family came to visit us a week ago! They were in California for two weeks and spent one week-end with us... Pretty soon some pictures and a post about that!

Cheers,

Marie-Catherine