Cambodia blog

Here's the blog I've started for Cambodia:

torievanscambodia.blogspot.com

Keep in touch!

Packing Up

I'm up before my alarm on a Wednesday morning, which never happens. It must be either eagerness to see another bright blue day in Paris, or moving anxiety. Probably the latter - One can't expect too many ungrey days around here. But yesterday was a tantalizing taste of spring, and lugging trunks of my stuff through the entrance of my building was a weird way to enjoy the leafy cobblestone courtyard on the first bright, warm day in awhile.

Courtyard chez moi

Mathieu left in January for Malaysia/Vietnam/Cambodia - based in Kuala Lumpur but moving around for meetings - and has been sending me snippets of information, like "it's humid" and "it's 95 degrees". He says Kuala Lumpur is like a modern Western city but Phnom Penh is nice and green. I'll find out for myself in just two more days (ahhh!)

I've spent my bachelorette weeks in Paris going to French classes, giving English lessons, packing suitcases and trunks, going to doctors and pharmacies, and otherwise just trying to cram in as much time as possible with friends. I went east to Strasbourg to visit Clementine, who I'd met in Egypt, and we spent a weekend biking everywhere in the cute little border town with Germany. Naturally, there was no shortage of beautiful wood-trimmed architecture or hearty food.

My cousin Erin visited me for a long weekend amid her semester abroad in London. We shivered through the city and checked off a lot of hotspots in Paris Bingo. While lunching on galettes in a small creperie in the Marais, I heard a familiar voice and looked up to see Romain Duris, a beloved French actor (L'Auberge Espagnole, L'Arnacoeur, Paris) who has played opposite Audrey Tautou, Vanessa Paradis, Juliette Binoche...I flipped out and tried to stop my gaze from constantly shooting over at him a few tables away. I got this very lame picture of him (below) with food in his mouth and his girlfriend raising her arm like she's bopping him on the head. Erin said that he looked more like a homeless guy than one of France's most famous actors. He was a bit on the grisly side (green shirt, in the center of the picture, toward the back - not that you can't already tell, right?)

Romain Duris having lunch with us

Last week Noellex (Noelle + Alex) came to visit, took me out around town, and were even super helpful with moving stuff. We went to the Agricultural Exposition and saw a lot of cows and horses, but none of the politicians who supposedly visited too. (Insert your own crack equating politicians to farm animals.)

Saturday was my going-away party at a new(ish) bar called The Workshop. True to its theme, there was ratty furniture in the basement - some armchairs with exposed springs and tables that collapsed and tossed our drinks (and at least one person) to the floor. But the ambiance was fun and the DJ funky, and lots of people came out to celebrate, reminisce and dance. Here's a silly collage my classmate Da Woon made:

Going-away soirée

Now I'm skipping class this morning to do more packing, cleaning, hauling of things, etc, before running to school for a farewell coffee with my classmates when they get out. Time to crawl out of bed and get back to business! As expected, it's cloudy and grey.

But somehow today it's charming.

New Year, New Move

What's the difference between 2012 and 2013, besides one little number? A ring and a new foreign stamp.

I rounded out the year pretty low-key, settling into Paris and my routine of morning French classes and afternoon tutoring. For Journées du Patrimoine (Heritage Days) in September, I arose before dawn (which is no small feat) and went with Mathieu and his mom to wait in line for the opening of the gates at the Presidential Palace. We took photos of the grandiose rooms full of stuffy chairs and saw where all the visitors slightly more important than us usually eat, sit, and make decisions. 

In October Mathieu and I spent a long weekend in Madrid with Pedro, who was a fabulous host the first day well into the night, until the next day when he busted his ankle. We hailed a cab, navigated sloppily to a hospital, found out we were in the infant and maternal ward, carried Pedro out in our (Mathieu's) arms, hailed another cab, found another hospital, and deposited Pedro in a waiting room chair. With various ID and medical cards in hand, Mathieu and I went to check him in. I had very little confidence in us, but Mathieu waltzed right up to the window and managed to communicate our situation from his muddled Spanish word bank. 

After maybe an hour, Pedro emerged in a wheelchair with a knee-high plaster cast. He had to hop on one leg toward the cab and search for open pharmacies (not easy to find on a Saturday afternoon) to get crutches and medication. The only thing the hospital seemed to equip him with, besides the cast, was a syringe for injecting himself in the stomach twice daily to prevent clotting - a concept that I have yet to swallow. Mathieu and I spent the next couple of days bringing breakfast and ice to Pedro at his perch on the couch, then abandoning him to have sangria in sunny courtyards and try to store up vitamin D before returning to Paris.

Back in Paris we got to be the hosts when Tess and Phil visited from London. We stuffed them with tons of French food - crepes, quiches, pastries, baguettes, cheese and raclette (below):

I've written a couple more articles for Girls' Guide to Paris and was also a guest on their radio show with the Overseas Radio Network. I come in five minutes into the track; the guest that sounds like a hearing-impaired child calling from within a submarine is me. 

In December I went home to Virginia for a nice long (5-week!) vacation. Mom had made a mountain of  good ole American chocolate chip cookies to greet me. I caught up with some friends in Virginia and New York, meeting Noelle's family, and barhopping in Santa costumes for Santacon with Theo, Jenn and Michael.

Following our 20-year streak, my family celebrated New Years and my grandparents' anniversary at the beach this year. On New Years Eve, as all 30-something of us were gathered around, Mathieu added to the tradition by stepping into the middle of everyone, making a brave speech, and bending down on one knee to propose. Everyone was totally surprised (except my parents who'd been tipped off!) and full of congrats for us. It was an emotional night but I forced myself to stay up for a bit of dancing until the first party poopers left. However it wasn't until 3 AM that my grandparents finally went to bed! They are an inspiration.

What followed was a slightly hectic week of trying to make arrangements for a wedding at the family reunion next year. After feeling like we'd made some progress and deserved a break, we got an unexpected call that set us off again. We had been eagerly keeping an ear out for opportunities on the Ohio River Bridge, a new project Mathieu's company Vinci just won. Then last week, reclined in a chair at the dentist's office in Lynchburg, VA, Mathieu answered an unidentified international call. He held his breath as a superior made polite banter then unleashed the proposal: to work on an airport expansion project in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We were given just the weekend to think about it, and the first morning back in France Mathieu reported to the office to accept. 

Before I could even sharpen my geography and pronunciation (I have to stop saying "koala" when I talk about Malaysia's capital city), our life for the next two years was already shifted to Asia. This Sunday he's off to Kuala Lumpur for a month-long mission, with planning meetings in Ho Chi Minh City and Phnom Penh within his first few days. He'll return in mid-February for a week to pack up, then he ships out to Phnom Penh, and I follow sometime after. I'm in a daze!

Now I embark on a new year that feels awfully like the last, which started with Mathieu asking me to PACS him and move to France. After only 5 articles, and 4 blog entries, it's already time for a new country. Time flies in Paris!

Canal Saint-Martin

After Boulogne Half-Marathon

Chateau de Vincennes