Winter in Geneva (Switzerland)

Winter travel has been a pain this year - it just took me 6 hours to get back from Paris (train ride is usually only 3 1/2 hours) and then, got to Geneva, and it is all covered in mushy snow and it is cold. It will freeze tonite (it is already below freezing!) so I can only imagine what mayhem it will be tomorrow morning. I know people rave about the snow and blah blah blah, I like it when I am in a chalet, by the fire having a glass of hot wine, not when I have to walk around town. This is 2nd and last winter in Geneva.

Book Recommendation: Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

This book is a page turner - and I learnt a thing or two about World War II (and trust me, being born and having spent most of my teenage years in a town deeply affected by the way, you really think that you have heard it all). The Vel' d'Hiv roundups are an episode of the past that the French can not be proud of (and I don't even think we are taught about it at school - I sure was not).

This is a book which is beautifully written and I encourage you to read it. If you do, please let me know your thoughts. Here is a synopsis of the book.

De Rosnay's U.S. debut fictionalizes the 1942 Paris roundups and deportations, in which thousands of Jewish families were arrested, held at the Vélodrome d'Hiver outside the city, then transported to Auschwitz. Forty-five-year-old Julia Jarmond, American by birth, moved to Paris when she was 20 and is married to the arrogant, unfaithful Bertrand Tézac, with whom she has an 11-year-old daughter. Julia writes for an American magazine and her editor assigns her to cover the 60th anniversary of the Vél' d'Hiv' roundups. Julia soon learns that the apartment she and Bertrand plan to move into was acquired by Bertrand's family when its Jewish occupants were dispossessed and deported 60 years before. She resolves to find out what happened to the former occupants: Wladyslaw and Rywka Starzynski, parents of 10-year-old Sarah and four-year-old Michel. The more Julia discovers—especially about Sarah, —the more she uncovers about Bertrand's family, about France and, finally, herself

2010 - here I come!

2009 sucked so much that I did not see the point of updating my blog on a regular basis, mainly because nothing really interesting happened, and I was feeling to lonely and depressed to actually want sharing my state of mind with the rest of the world (but my close friends did get the whole story for sure).

2010 will be different for sure. It has already started pretty well - I got to spend New Year's Eve with my boyfriend and part of New Year's Day. Ok I had to nuture a little hangover all the way back to Geneva but it was so worth it.

Then, I received confirmation of the date for my oath ceremony for my American citizenship and I am so excited about it. I will officially be an American citizen as of January 28th. For those who have known me for a little while now, you know how important this step is.

So I have decided that I will start updating this blog on a regular basis. Hope you will enjoy reading it!