San Francisco Symphony

Hello,

Last week-end friends of Maureen had organized a picnic in Dolores Park before the free concert there by the San Francisco Symphony. It was great! Very warm though, so we almost stay the whole day carrying an umbrella to protect us against the sun ;-)
They began with Manuel de Falla (three dances from "The three-Cornered Hat"), followed by Tchaikovsky (Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Opus 23). Then Bernstein Overture to Candide: this was fabulous music in this surroundings! And they ended with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, with sounds effect for the cannons! As this work reflects "La Marseillaise" anthem, I checked this on Wikipedia and learned that "the composition reflects the French and Russian anthems of 1882, not 1812. From 1799 to 1815, France had no national anthem, and "La Marseillaise" was not restored until 1870. "God Save the Tsar" was not adopted as Russia's official anthem until 1833. This is probably a case of artistic license, with Tchaikovsky using musical themes that would have been familiar to his audience. :-)

Marie

Hawaii

Hello,

Almost a year ago I went to Hawaii with Virginie for 5 days. At that time I was thinking I would be back to Europe forever, and I knew I would never fly to Hawaii from there! So I needed to check it before leaving... We decided to go to Big Island which is the least Americanized island and the volcano there is still active. I had never visited a tropical country before: it is really beautiful. Virginie and I had a great time: snorkeling, swimming with turtles, hiking on the cold lava, seeing the macadamia nut trees! White sand beaches are situated on the eastern part of the island, whereas the western part is more volcanic: the sand is black, the vegetation more luxuriant, and there are the falls. The Volcano National Park is in the South: worth the detour, it's amazing. Take a look at the pictures!

Marie

Thank you!

Thanks to all of you who thought of me on my birthday!

Goéric was right: Beverly, my American mom, took me out for dinner in a nice seafood restaurant. We had fun and I taught her how Belgian people eat "moules et frites". And when I came back home, my friend Sylvie (who has a set of keys of my appartment) had set up a nice surprise, as you can see on the picture. She put inside the flowers from Goéric that the guy had left at the front door, as well as her present for me.
So even "alone" here, I had a great day on my birthday!

Marie

Happy Birthday from Europe !

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you, Marie,
Happy Birthday to yooouuuu ;-)

Hum hum ... so this is the first time (and let's hope also the last) I wish Marie-Catherine a happy birthday over the blog. She already organized a nice birthday party with some friends from Stanford on Sunday (she'll maybe write a post about that later). And I know that Beverly will take her out for dinner tonight!

Goeric (writing from Belgium)

Point Lobos with Tom and Lieven

Hi all,

Now that the blog is back, I can share what I have been doing during the past year. In May, Thomas came to California for a week. One day we went together with Lieven to Carmel and Point Lobos, stopping also at the San Carlos Borromeo Mission which is now a school (nice environment though!). On the way back we also stopped at Monterey to show Thomas the cannery row. Point Lobos is a small state park giving a good idea of what the coast there looks like. All the walks in this park are short (about 1,5km): at that time my leg wasn't in great shape yet, so that was pretty convenient for me!

Marie

Fourth of July in the air

Hi all,

Yes, the blog is back!

I spend a wonderful 4th of July yesterday with my friends Maureen and Cédric. Cédric will soon be a pilot, and his instructor proposed to make a night flight on the 4th of July to see the fireworks from above. What a night! We took off in Livermore, flew to Sacramento, then Napa and back to Livermore. We could see pretty well the two simultaneous fireworks of San Francisco.
Cédric is a great pilot, so everything went fine :-)
Take a look at the pictures. Yeah I know what you are thinking now and you are right: life is never boring in California!!

Marie