perigraphika

I planned a work trip to Paris months ago, thinking it would be something nice to look forward to at a dark, dull time of year. It turned out that it came at a point that I was especially busy (mostly with work), so I arrived already quite weary. I had a couple of free days to explore ahead of the conference, but the combination of a hard bed (my perennial issue!) and cold, damp weather with on-off sleety rain, meant I was a bit wiped out, a bit achy and not especially in the mood. HOWEVER, in-between some slightly grouchy patches, Paris still provided some magical moments. I'm currently halfway through a photography course and was missing a session while I was away, but serendipidously, it happened to be on architectural photography and it was a visit to Bristol Cathedral I was missing. So, the newly renovated Notre Dame made an appropriate substitute for my assignment! I also snapped some more modern architecture along the way ... ... and popped into Sacre Coeur, in part for a bi...

Inevitably, a week at a conference, staying in a huge concrete monstrosity of a conference hotel involves quite a bit of sitting in windowless rooms and drinking bad coffee. At least, though, on this trip those coffee breaks spilled out onto a sunny terrace under blue skies & overlooking the even bluer sparkling waters of the Adriatic. The conference was taking place in Cavtat, just down the wiggly Croatian coastline from Dubrovnik, and it was a gathering of around 250 lexicographers, most of them academics attached to universities across Europe, plus me, a jobbing lexicographer on commercial dictionaries feeling distinctly the odd one out, but still joining in enthusiastically with some of the nerdiest conversations imaginable. I did manage to arrive a day early to grab a free day in Dubrovnik before the conference kicked off. I took one of the handful of small boats that ply their trade between Cavtat and Dubrovnik, chatting to an Australian woman travelling around Europe on ...

I’m just back from a couple of weeks in Brussels, house-/cat-sitting for a friend in a lovely townhouse in the Ixelles area of the city, kept company by two friendly but undemanding cats, Ginger and Oreo. It wasn’t really a holiday per se, more of a break and a change of scene. I took my laptop, spent a bit of time working, some time exploring and some time just hanging out. The house very much reminded me of the house I lived in while au-pairing in Switzerland back when I finished university and exploring a European city on my own also reminded me of that time. That got me reflecting on what a different experience it is now. Instead of relying on my dog-eared copy of Let’s Go Europe 1990 and paper maps picked up from Tourist Offices, this trip was incredibly phone-dependent! Google maps got me everywhere, just finding my way around the streets of the city or checking the times of trains or buses to get out of town. The house was 5 minutes from a large park which gave way to an enorm...