Food

My Birthday in Paris and Yoyo Ma Concert, etc.

Published on November 27, 2022November 27, 2022 by RioLeave a comment

Last month, I celebrated my birthday in Paris with the hubs and some friends. We stayed at one of our friends’s very lovely apartment, which overlooks the Eiffel Tower. It was wonderful!!! I didn’t wanna leave the room with the view. 😀

We also saw Yoyo Ma at the Philharmonie de Paris. We booked the ticket early this year, and it was almost fully booked! We were still lucky to get seats third row from the stage, facing the front. Here is a video of some of snaps and video shorts I took during the mini-breaks in the concert.

The Philharmonie de Paris was majestic outside, but a bit disappointing inside. But I still had fun watching the concert. It was a birthday gift from my wonderful husband. We had a great time despite the noisy people in the audience violently coughing and sneezing all the time. It was so nerve-wrackingly distracting. I do not know how Yo-Yo Ma managed to keep his calm and cool throughout all the noise. And having said that, I think it will be the last time I will be watching him live. It was too distracting. But it was a real pleasure seeing him live in the flesh. Best birthday gift ever!

Lastly, a bit of update on the job hunt: before going on this trip, exactly a day before, actually, I received a very good news from one of the companies I have applied to. I started working two weeks after this trip. I was ecstatic!!! I have been on the job for two weeks now, and so far, I’m still not disappointed. It’s a great company, one of the biggest French IT Consulting companies, and my client is the biggest aviation company in Europe. Also, I’m working on their big data platform, doing Data Engineering until the end of this year. After that, I might go into another project, of which, I do not know yet. 🙂 I am quite happy. C’est fini, la tristesse.

Cheers, and have a good week ahead!

Fiesta Filipiniana in Le Triadou, France

Published on September 12, 2022December 24, 2022 by RioLeave a comment

My friends and I, together with the Philippine Honorary Consul to Occitanie, Jeffrey Cabuay, went on a trip to Le Triadou, in the South of France to attend a Filipiniana Festival and Art Exhibit. This is a Philippine Festival featuring a programme with Philippine folk dances, and folk songs. There was also an art exhibit, where my artist friends and I contributed some artworks.

The event was organized by the Filipino association, “Tanglaw” (Guiding Light), with members mostly living in Montpellier, France, and around the area.

It was very refreshing to see young people (Filipino students) being very active in the event. There were also some participants and guests from surrounding European countries. It was all very entertaining, relaxing and enjoyable. Even the variety of Filipino food being sold at lunch time were delicious! I had such a great time in this event.

Here are the watercolor artworks I have submitted for the exhibit:

You can get more information about them here:

https://springfugue.com/pahiyas

https://springfugue.com/gumamela

https://springfugue.com/paintings

Also mentioned in my vlog:

https://phinaymarket.com for shopping online Filipino items https://www.zazzle.com/store/springfugue for shopping my online Filipino themed artworks

Thanks for dropping by and have a good day! 🙂

Drawing Contest (Concours de dessin) by Art Tea Shop Toulouse

Published on February 18, 2022February 18, 2022 by RioLeave a comment

I was surprised and very flattered to be contacted by Art Tea Shop Toulouse for their Drawing Contest. They asked if they could use the photo I took of my watercolor artwork for their Drawing Contest’s flyers.

J’ai été surprise et très flattée d’être contactée par Art Tea Shop Toulouse pour leur concours de dessin. Ils m’ont demandé s’ils pouvaient utiliser pour les flyers de leur concours de dessin la photo de mon aquarelle que j’ai prise.

If you are interested to join, do visit their instagram page for details.

Si vous êtes interessés, consultez leur instagram pour plus de détails.

This artwork was totally not my best but I guess I captured the mood really well. My composition was not bad at all. And overall, everything in the photo looks quite nice! 🙂

Cette peinture n’est pas du tout ma meilleure, mais je crois que j’ai bien saisi l’ambiance. Ma composition n’était pas mauvaise du tout. Et dans l’ensemble, tout ce qui est sur la photo est très joli 🙂

By the way, they also have a nice restaurant / tea shop, where we had one of our monthly watercolor sessions two years ago.

À propos, ils ont aussi un joli restaurant/salon de thé, où on a fait l’une de nos sessions mensuelles de l’aquarelle l y a deux ans.

If you live around Toulouse, do drop by the Art Tea Shop. It’s a really nice brasserie and tea shop with warm, welcoming staff. The place is very cozy and quite original, they have good food and drinks, and they sell artworks from local artists, too. We totally had a good time there. I should go back one of these days. 🙂

Si vous habitez dans la région de Toulouse, ne manquez pas de vous rendre à l’Art Tea Shop. Il s’agit d’une brasserie et d’un salon de thé très sympathiques avec un personnel chaleureux et accueillant. L’endroit est très confortable et assez original, ils ont de la bonne nourriture et des boissons, et ils vendent des œuvres d’art d’artistes locaux, aussi. On a passé un très bon moment là-bas. Je devrais y retourner un de ces jours. 🙂

New Year Art Haul, Lunch Date, etc

Published on January 2, 2022 by RioLeave a comment

Hello, hello, lovely people! How’s the first few days of 2022, so far?

As for me, I feel like celebrating since I have just finished completing and passing all the exams (five in all, including the grueling Applied Maths Subjects) due this holiday. And I still have a week to rest a bit before my classes start again!

Anyway, the last day of the year, hubs and I had a chance to go on a date and eat out at a fancy two-Michelin star restaurant called, Py-r. The first time we went there was eight years ago. It didn’t have any Michelin star yet, but it was already quite good.

And just after the sumptuous lunch, we strolled around a bit to help digest all the food we ate. We passed by one of my favorite Art Supplies Shop, Rougier et Plé. I thought I’d check out if I could really get a 10% discount from my student card. And I did! Which is really very nice! If you’d like to see my haul, do check out my Youtube video:

Happy New Year, and thanks so much for dropping by! 🙂

Taking time, time, time…

Published on May 24, 2020May 24, 2020 by Rio2 Comments

Starting now, I have decided to blog both in French and in English so that I can practice more written French and not lose this skill during these times of non-exposure to written French.

Dès maintenant, j’ai decidé de faire mon blog en Français et en Anglais en même temps pour que je puisse pratiquer mon Français à l’écrit et pour que je ne perde pas cette compétence pendant cette période où mon occasion d’ecrire en Francais est bien limité.

What have you all been doing these days? As for me, since lockdown has ended here in our region in France, I have been able to visit some nice places close by. We are still limited to the distance we can travel, though.

Qu’avez-vous fait pendant ce temps? Moi, depuis la fin de la confinement ici dans notre région en France, j’ai visité quelques beaux endroits aux alentours. On peux déjà se deplacer mais la distance est encore limité.

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