And then came the very un-poetic Facebook. I slowly reconnected with my old French friends. Incredible! My friends! From France! From tiny villages of Provence! One of which was Magali Escapin. She was traveling in Australia for a long while trying to escape from certain aspects of the French mentality (just like me). Long story short, she loved Australia so much that she wanted to take her MBA in Melbourne. To do that, she had to get out of the country and take the GMAT. Turns out the most convenient pace to do that was where? In San Francisco. Well gosh darn it, what a coincidence!

And there she was, on my door step, 15 years after we saw each-other last. What a trip! She stayed in the city for about 2 months, so we had time to catch up, have a few lunches… and take some photos…

So, Magali… how is it being here in SF?

Yep, we got our groove back on.

And yep, we still like each-other.

Oh oh oh and the BEST part is… remember that old little ballet photo? She was there too! On the very left!

And guess what? Here we are, more than 20 years after that photo was taken…

… not too bad, no?

And to kick off the New Year… I’m not making resolutions because I know I will break them and I don’t like to be disappointed. Instead, I got a hair cut (well, before the New Year, but it still counts) to have a fresh look on myself. The new me will do all sorts of cool things that won’t even fit on a list…. I will let it unfold as it comes.

Off for the wonderful year of change that I’m hoping 2010 to be. Happy New Year everyone!

Cirque du Soleil is in town, presenting their new show OVO, which we’re going to see tomorrow night. I’m so excited! This time, the show is about bugs. I love bugs! Especially when they’re not around me.

As part of their presence in SF, they made a little dance you could learn – The Bug Dance – and “perform” with a bunch of people and performers on Union Square. Those of you who know me… you might not be surprised… I had to go!

And so while I couldn’t take pictures or videos while I was dancing with incredibly light hearted people, I took some shots in between groovy bug moves.

I got to meet… uhh… a bug. She was making lots of weird noises but was very cool.

Some other bugs had crazy lashes! I mean, check out the lashes!

And then came the frogs. Oh dear… those frogs are COOL! I can’t wait to see them bounce around in their “natural” habitat.

Oh wait, this frog is hungry! Ahhh! I like you, but I don’t want to be your meal!

Pheww, I’m intact. What can I say… I felt like a kid and had a lot of fun!

What could I do? Wear a cheese hat? Be a cow? Be milk? Sure all of those would have worked. But nope, I decided to be a cheese fairy. And what would a cheese fairy do? Bring cheese to people around her, which is exactly what I did. For the work festivities, I dressed up my little fresh chevres with a pumpkin gummy hat (and some spiders).

It made for a beautiful and colorful tray!

And for our friend’s party, well the fairy turned into an angel. That halo isn’t very fairly-like. A cheese angel, that works too, right?

(See those circles on my shirt? Yeah that’s my attempt to illustrate swiss cheese holes… not sure that worked out, but anyways, you get the point.)

I brought some more cheese for the fine palates I knew would be there. In my right hand is a goat brie and in my left, a Chaource, my two latest experiments.

What can I say, bringing creamy yumminess to people makes me really happy!

…ers.

It was a memorable experience we had at Harley Farms last weekend. We got to tour the farm, spend time with the goat, watch the mamas get milked, see how the cheese was made and savoured a delicious dinner with a group of like-minded people.

Photo by Kathy who took the tour and dinner with us

Note the glass of wine, while petting the goats… can’t get better than that!

Simply fantastic.

Excited and amused, I decide to show it to Justin, for grins and giggles… you know, to keep him up to date on French silliness. The video is totally tacky, it’s a total bling-bling parody. Check it out, it’s pretty funny!

After muscling through it until the end, we were like “who the heck is Helmut Fritz?”. And so we Google around and found this illustrated biography. It’s pretty much a video collage explaining the dude’s life. Really well done, actually. Check it out:

Did you really check it out? No, really, check it out…. especially at 0:39. Anything look familiar? Any flashbacks from October 07?? Who’s riding that Vespa???

It’s me!!! I mean, what are the chances?

They took the picture below, flipped it the other way, outlined the silhouette and pasted Helmut’s face on mine. Unbelievable!!

It doesn’t stop here… I’m also apparently riding across his official website as a clickable icon for more information on a contest that already happened.

Apparently Helmut’s designer views him as riding a Vespa, ok. Sticking a leg out, ok. With striped stockings? Hm, ok. And heels? Uh hmm, ok. With a big pointy orange helmet/hat?? Uh hmm, uhhh, really? I mean if they photoshopped the dude’s face on me, they were probably talented enough to cut off the hat and erase the heel off the boot. But no. Apparently, Helmut is a greedy, cross dressing, annoyed-at-everything, Vespa riding millionaire.
Should I get “credit” for this?

Thinking back to our adventure, aside from the dip in the hot springs, the best memory I have was to be in the sun and wear shorts (which is unusual for me), feeling the air caress my legs. It felt so good! I had to express it. Justin captured it.

Firefox users: if you want to make me stop walking, just press the ‘Esc’ key.

Found on Mashable.