Catching up

Autumn in Paris- yes, a few leaves do redden!

I've hardly had time to come up for air since my thesis defense last September. That said, it hasn't all been the in-over-my-head workload kind of stress. Only sometimes. In between, I enjoyed another classic autumn in Paris, complete with the (minimal) reddening of the leaves, another Nuit Blanche and Salon des Vins, and my 7th annual Expat Thanksgiving.

Another classic Nuit Blanche adventure outside Hôtel de Ville

Expat Thanksgiving Round 7 was a smashing success

But I hardly restricted myself to the confines of the périph (the beltway around Paris which separates the true Parisians from everyone else). There was the unseasonably hot weekend in late October that we spent out in Brittany, where I discovered that thatched-roof houses are not just a thing from a Disney movie.

Ah Bretagne, home of wonderful crêpes, thatched roof houses, sandy beaches, and Azad's sexy pose.

Then there was that nearly-20-hour layover in Warsaw on my flight home for Christmas-- way to check off country #28!

Warsaw, Poland. Totally worth the layover, even though the downpour did require me to scour the Christmas markets for a fresh pair of warm, dry, wool socks to survive the subsequent transAtlantic flight.

Of course, no trip back to the US is complete without a stop through New York, which this year included pre-noon cocktails (in my defense, it was 5pm in Paris! And so rainy outside...), the windows at Saks, and a showing of the 2014 Tony Award winner for Best Musical, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder.

Living it up on Christmas Eve in New York City

And we can't forget the third annual grown-up Christmas-Edition Cousins' Campout, which even came complete with a crowdfunding campaign to bring home Professor Flinghopper.

Crowdfunding campaign ad to bring home Professor Flinghopper

Cousins' Campout- Christmas 2014. Enough said.

2015 got off to a crazy start, minus a break for one last mulled wine of the season at the Champs-Elysées Christmas Market.

One last vin chaud (mulled wine) at the Champs-Elysées Christmas Market to start the new year right.

The rest of my time was split between running to meetings with the Pole Emploi (French Unemployment Agency) and the bureaucrats who decide whether I can stay in the country, sneaking into lab to continue working (and manage collaborators) while legally unemployed, and throwing together a fellowship application and a couple of presentations in an effort to sort out my future as a postdoc. It wasn't easy and it wasn't always pretty. Welcome to my life as a freshly minted PhD.