Festival du Court Métrage and La Grande Station Jaude 2028

 The Festival du Court Métrage is the biggest international film festival dedicated to short films. It is held in February every year in Clermont-Ferrand, and is the second largest film festival after Cannes, in terms of audience and professional attendance. You’ve probably heard of the Cannes film festival, very famous for the artistically enlightened and ‘beautiful people.’  The main difference between the two is that the Festival du Court Métrage in Clermont is open to the public, and Cannes’ festival is by invitation only.  (That makes ours better, of course!)    

For the 40th anniversary of the festival this week, over 100,000 attendees and 3,500 industry professionals descended on Clermont Ferrand to view, show, or judge international short films, with this year’s highlighted country being Switzerland.
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Château de Murol – Dungeons and Dragons

Bonjour, mes amies ~ let’s leave the city for a bit and talk about medieval castles of strength and grandeur today!

At 3,400 feet above sea level, the Château de Murol is a fantastic journey into a medieval life.  We went on Christmas Eve and, being the only people in sight for miles around, the entire castle was our playground. And what a playground it is!

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WALK (at least) A MILE IN MY SHOES…

This is a pictorial of my day….wearing out my shoes. If you like Elvis, go ahead and hit “play” (music to read blogs by).  If you don’t (I don’t either), skip the tunes!

PLEASE- take your shoes off – and slip mine on!  Put yourself in my shoes!

I told Collette (oui, very French – the boss’ wife) that I would come visit her….and being an URBANITE without wheels, I decided to take the bus for my first time in France!

Moveit is a transportation/GPS app on my smartphone  that is designed to plot out your journey, either driving, walking, or on public transportation. WARNING! THIS APP DOESN’T KNOW ITS HEAD FROM A HOLE IN THE GROUND.

You know where this is going, don’t you??? Continue reading “WALK (at least) A MILE IN MY SHOES…”

Starry, Starry Night

Bonjour!  (Warning – lots of pictures in this post! Not quite “home movies,” but….)

Let’s talk about the Musee d’Orsay.   (Creating a little mood here – feel free to listen to Don McLean sing about Vincent Van Gogh in the background)

Think “Paris” and “Museum” and most people automatically think of the Louvre.

Freezing outside of the Louvre!

HOWEVER, the Musee d’Orsay is PHENOMINAL.  I love the building as much or more than the paintings inside!  Just across the river from the Louvre, the Orsay houses art created between 1848 and 1915. That’s a short amount of time, but it’s unique in that it has a brilliant collection from the Impressionists.

Queuing in the rain

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Julie, Julia and Mindy

My first – and maybe last – attempt at French baking.

I actually set off the fire alarm – didn’t even know we had one…

My cute little French hand-me-down Easy Bake oven is tiny.  It also apparently has one temperature, despite various numbers next to the knob!

Fortunately for YOU, we are learning our way around various restaurants and patisseries, so you won’t starve because of ME when you come!  Continue reading “Julie, Julia and Mindy”