I was recently at a Botanical Skincare and Art Retreat in Andalucia, Spain. I spent a full week with wonderful individuals. We were all together in a house on a hill at a place called, La Encina in El Collado, a village close to Alajar, a few hours from Sevilla.
We made organic and botanical skincare products from plants that we harvested ourselves. We also painted and printed plants on cloth and paper. We enjoyed a private Flamenco concert in a cozy pizza place. We visited a farm with sustainable, ecological products to make soap. We enjoyed good food every lunchtime and dinner time cooked by a private chef, who is always laughing, singing and dancing all the time.
It was one of the loveliest memories I will always cherish. It was so much fun, and such a beautiful experience in such a wonderful place. 🙂
Thanks for watching my video. Love and light – Rio
I spent a full week interacting with a small group of lovely people from different parts of the world — mostly from North America, and the UK. And I got to meet and chat and learn first-hand, up-close and personal some watercolor tricks from Harriet herself, who stayed with us in the same location.
First of all, the venue, Domaine d’En Naudet was lovely. The hosts, Nicolas and Sophie, are a lovely couple who own the estate. My spacious room was kept clean every day (very unusual in these parts, except in hotels), has huge windows and is conveniently located directly in front of the hall where we hold our daily (almost) watercolor sessions with Harriet.
Each meal (lunch and dinner) was specially prepared by a British chef (forgot to get his name) but he said he works only with uptrek (the event organizer), and that he has a food truck somewhere in Teyssode or Albi. I should look him up. He was really good. As for the wine, and the wine trip and dégustation, I was not so crazy about it, and really quite disappointed. Although, I appreciate that they are trying to promote local wines.
All in all, I had the most enriching experience and wonderful time painting and relaxing and walking around the neighboring village of Albi, which I had not seen in ten years! It was worth revisiting.
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.
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:
Every year, my artist friends and I would take a short road trip to a nearby village in the South of France for a plein air water color session and to chill.
I was very happy with our choice of location this year — the Plage des Chalets, which is the setting of the movie, “Betty Blue”, or “37.2° le matin” as it is known in France. I’ve heard it is also a location of one of Leonardo di Caprio’s movies, but I couldn’t seem to find which one it is. Let me know in the comments if you know which one.
Anyway, here is a short video of our trip to Plage des Chalets and the pink salt mine (yes, “pink”, that’s right!) of Le salin de l’île Saint-Martin. We had a lovely time there. Hope you enjoy watching! And if you did, please give the “like” and “subscribe” button a hit.
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