Most time on my hands..

Besiktas, Istanbul at sunset..

Just to keep someone happy(smiling)..and as I've got the most time on my hands..thought I'd update. Well chatted to Alex, and all seems to be going well with her and Egil in London. Though the research is progressing slowly so she says. She'll be going back to Sweden for the summer and Iceland. She reminded me to contact Rak in Iceland about possibly doing fieldwork there in the summer. Having nothing to lose I reined in my pride and asked her, just sent it out today, so if I get an answer will let you all know. My current status hasn't changed, wish I could say that I've been doing many wonderfully interesting things but sorry..life continues as usual. Found a small private research library which has a small interesting English collections-Pagan and Christian creeds..written in 1920's but it has some interesting articles..Happy to have found even that. Shane good luck with the phd..Aurore you must be doing some serious studying because you are never online (not complaining) just congratulating you..but now that Shane is studying as well -we all know how disciplined he is!!!! smiling. Helio, are you among the living!! Miss you and a bit worried so drop a line somewhere!

Gros Bisous to all of you..thankful to have my blog and taking photos to keep me sane...

Of course it gets read..

Just writing which is sometimes difficult!! So don't get huffy please thank you-I've enclosed a picture of a few friends and family. Congratulations, I can't say that I don't envy you because I do, I'm very happy for you though, don't ever doubt that you made the right choice. So has Aurore, I'm flabbergasted that they would pay you so much!!By the way Bergen liked the idea of my proposal now I just have to actually submit it, and they will be having a research topic that will study the laws soon, so thats good. However, I really don't know when or how I will do it, finding work has become a never ending pain in the ass! smiling hugely. I've been forced to defend why I haven't worked seriously in the past 6 years- by saying I was studying and traveling enriching myself- good isn't it.(laughing) but seriously I can't sleep at night sometimes worrying. So hopefully Helio is out there somewhere as well, unfortunately Helio you write in portugese and though I'm keen to learn latin, portugese..well..so can't keep up with your blog. I've put my blog on my cv, not sure if that is a good idea or not but to hell with it. The weather is springlike so it's great for the morale, sorry Shane you would love it.
This damn internet!!! doesn't work well, will upload the photo later.
Stay well all, and don't kill the blog-smiling..just needs a push start once in awhile.

PHD

Hello all, before I start the post proper I can't help but notice that it is now over a month since anyone other than Aurore and I have made a post, which makes me wonder if the blog is dead. I know that Aylin spends much time on her blog and Helio I suspect that you have a couple of blogs, so maybe if no-one is really keen on this one we could just log into individual blogs? I don't really mind either way, but I won't be posting again here unless I know that people will actually read it! Comments please.

Ok, after that minor gripe this post is just to announce that as of today I have become an official full time phd student! I am now enrolled and have my first consultation with my supervisor tomorrow to begin the real work. I now feel that I have made a major committment and am taking my studies seriously, after years of part-time study. I ended up getting a second supplementary scholarship for the duration of my studies, so my scholarships are just under $25000 tax free per year, and I will also work one or two days a fortnight, so financially being a struggling student shouldn't be too much of a struggle! Now we'll just see how the study goes, and staying on their backs to organise Alex as an external supervisor.

In other academic news I am now published in cyber-space! I've allowed the article I published last year to be available on-line through the journal's website, and those interested can see it here - http://home.vicnet.net.au/~medieval/jaema2/abstracts.html - scroll down to my abstract and then click on the link.

And so ends what may be the last post!

Paris and Normandy

I've been given the responsibility of writing the last post about Shane being in France while he is in the plane back to his too-far-away country. So many things done in one month! Taking advantage of Céline being away for a week end, we took over her apartment to spend two nice days in Paris. As we had free tickets we decided to go to Disneyland Paris to do something a bit different. We decided to avoid roller coasters after we tried one that Shane didn't really appreciate (would you guess that he can be whiter than usual?!). So we stuck to quiet attractions like Alice in Wonderland's labyrinth (look at the cheshire cat!) or the Phantom Manor. Unfortunately the queue was over an hour to the Peter Pan attraction so we didn't go. And after (only) six hours in the park we got sick of it and decided to go home!

On the following day we chose to do cultural stuff (at least French stuff!). And being very brave we went from Céline's apartement to Montmartre and the Sacré-Coeur on foot. But it was actually so close that it only took ten minutes to walk there..!














Then Shane had a very good idea: going on the Eiffel Tower at night time! I kept one main souvenir of this: a cold that is still lasting...yes, it's windy up there! (look at my hair, you'll understand!) And we went back to Paris one last time on Thursday the 1st of March to meet Florent. It was nice and a bit unexpected though he is often in Paris to see his girlfriend! He hasn't finished his thesis yet but is working on it. So we had lunch with him and fika and also went to the big second hand store cd we went to in June, as required by Shane! Better than June, this time we didn't spend one hour but ONLY 45 minutes and I bought one cd!Of course we did lots of other exciting things! We went to Evreux twice, a city existing since the Roman Period. It's thirty minutes away from my home. The first time we went there was to visit. We saw a roman wall still quite high (end of 3rd -beginning of 4th century!) and we went into the 11th century cathedral which was quite impressive! The second time we went there was not for the same reason: my false tooth had broken again and I had to go to the dentist to fix it. Unfortunately it doesn't look good at all now! (If you look at the previous photo closely enough you can see the missing bit!) We also went to Château-Gaillard, a place 20 minutes away from where I live. There are the ruins of a 12th century castle built by Richard the Lionheart. It looks very dramatic, don't you think?

And then, the last but not the least: my valentine's day present for Shane: don't worry, nothing cheeky will be shown here...unless I can find this photo of him in his leather suit... My present for him consisted in a historical and archaeological day trip across Normandy. We stopped at three different places: first we went to Saint-Clair-sur-Epte: there was not much to see there, but I thought that being where the 911 treaty was signed would be fun! After a two hour drive we arrived at the second step, the Jumièges abbey, burnt by the Vikings in 841. It took about one hundred years to start reparing it. Thank you William Longespee (duke of Normandy) but also William the Conqueror who consecrated a church there in 1067.

The third and last step was Caen: a castle and two abbeys! Unfortunately the women's abbey built by Mathilde (William the Conqueror's wife) was closed because we arrived quite late. But we've been able to see the castle which is in the center of the city and also the men's abbey in which William the Conqueror has been buried.

Here is a photo of the stele. Shane bought a postcard of it.

And now, back to the routine for six months. Studies, yes of course! And probably work. And then something even more exciting will happen on the 18th of September: I will fly to Australia! Until then...finishing my thesis...see you soon doudou...

Apology and Lyon

Firstly an apology - Aylin I was reading your post and in trying to leave a comment I seem to have erased your message... but how is that possible?? Can you retrieve it? I will now stick to doing only the most basic things when using the page in French! Terribly sorry about that but I will comment here - the photo of you is good with a lovely smile! Your new look is quite a departure but I think it works, although you look a bit pissed off in the photo on your blog!

Ok, now for the actual entry. We spent 6 days down in the region quite close to the Italian and Swiss borders, somewhere I had never been before, allowing me to maintain my desire to go to at least one new area everytime I leave Australia! We arrived in Lyon on Valentines day, having travelled the 500+ kilometres from Aurore's village in a combination of car, RER train and the fabulously fast but expensive TGV. Aurore's sister was away so we were lucky enough to have the use of her apartment for our three nights. We celebrated Valentines by going to a Lyonnaise restaurant - the local cuisine is big on offal but was surprisingly good and hearty, and also featured an interesting salad with a poached egg on top! The highlights of our time in Lyon were seeing the great art deco opera house, going to the incredibly gaudy basilica on a hill overlooking the city, seeing the film The Last King of Scotland (about Idi Amin, excellent, and Forest Whitaker actually deserved his academy award), seeing the two Roman theatres and the extensive remains behind them, and mostly visiting Vienne. About a 20 minute train ride from Lyon, this had been a major Roman and early medieval city, and has the most extensive Roman remains in France, certainly the most I have seen anywhere outside of Italy, as well as other delights such as an extant 5/6 century church! The town was full of little windy cobbled streets, dotted with Roman ruins, churches, and old buildings. I guess the big four Roman sites were the 13000 seat theatre which is still used, the fantastic temple of Augustus and Livia, the remains of the Forum, and the archaeological park/museum where you can wander amongst the remains of the former crafts area - see the photo of the toilets... I love the early medieval period, but when you look at Roman ruins you realise just what a backwards step it was in many ways, and how ordinary they were as builders!!

After Lyon we took a couple of trains to visit Aurore's mother, who really lives in a rural area - 2km from the house to the mail box! This meant there were lovely views and walks to be had (thankfully the weather was excellent), but little else. This was rectified by Aurore driving us to Cirque de Baume, an amazing natural cul de sac ringed by high cliffs and terminating in a very impressive multi level waterfall, with the water gushing out of the side of one of the cliffs.