Ruben's birthday party

Ruben a deux ans!! Nous avons fait une belle fête avec Ananya, Nino & Jade, Theo & Isla, Tanisha, Aadit, Nora, Tiago, Kiran, Ren  et leurs parents pour célébrer cela.

Le temps était parfait pour le jardin et la piscine, quel bonheur. Nous étions un beau mélange de nationalités aussi: Inde, France, Italie, Japon, UK, US, Australie, Espagne, Bresil.

Et encore Gersende, Jerome et Jade.

Alice, Rakhi, et Ren.

Delhi in jan/ feb

In January/ February, we did some of our regular outings (Lodhi garden, the zoo), hosted a book club and a poker party at home (not on the same night), had our indian/ italian friends Rakhi and Marco show us how they prepare pasta, saw 'A thousand years of piece' ballet from Prejlocaj, discovered some great places in the city, in particular Mehrauli archeological park, experienced some really bad fog and pollution, and, most importantly, welcomed many visitors to Delhi!

Lodhi gardon in mid-january, already nicely warm.

Looking at the black bucks at the zoo.

Saying farewell to Shonali who was about to relocate to Hanoi, with Shalini and Rakhi. Our nice 'baby group' group is really coming to an end..

Watching cartoons with Nino..

 
Tour of Mehrauli archeological park, behind Qutub Minar. It is a beautiful and interesting place, with nice monuments from many different periods, from the 12th century to the 19th century.

 Jamali-Kamali tomb is particularly beautiful and delicately decorated.

Rajon ki baoli.

That day the weather was really nice but actually we had some really bad foggy/ polluted days in january. Beijing made headlines this winter, but a lot of the time the pollution was just as bad or almost as bad here as over there.
A difference is that the website reporting on real-time pollution levels in the city is government sponsored here: http://safar.tropmet.res.in/ ! It is not so nice to look at though when PM2.5 levels are above 400.

I continued working and travelled twice to Lucknow in January. Bad luck this time, for the second trip the objective was to meet with some high level officials in the Ministry of agriculture and we spent a lot of time waiting and finally not meeting up with them. Then, our plane back home came in late, could not take off because of the fog, and we had to spend an extra night in Lucknow. It could have been worse: we were 'lucky' enough to find a hotel available that night.

This winter, Ruben also started going to organized activities, first to a music class and then a book/ art class. The music class has been pretty disastrous; initially Ruben was trying to run away, after a few sessions he resigned himself and waited for the class to end, just a few times did he smile. The book/ art class has gone better, especially the painting activity.
Here with Nora.

 Domi came at the end of january. With her friend Nellie, she visited Agra - fourth time for her! - and they discovered Varanasi, which must have been quite an experience. She also of course spend a lot of time with Ruben.
I took Domi, Nellie, Eric and Ruben to Mehrauli archeological park over the week end, a very nice visit.

Nahni and Susan at home.

After Domi left, our friend Nathalie came for a day, which was a lovely surprise. In the midst of all her travelling, chance happened that she had to come to Gurgaon.We visited Humayun's tomb together, where Ruben had a great time.

Then my cousin Vincent and his girlfriend Laura came. It was great to see them here! 

The last time we had seen each other was in Paris last summer, here near the square des Batignolles. Quite a change of place!

Vincent and Laura did a nice tour, visiting Jodhpur, Udaipur, and finally Agra where they met up with my aunt and uncle Francoise and Herve. This is a nice way to organize family get-togethers.. But more on Francoise & Herve's stay later.

Last, F. Hollande also came to Delhi. This gave us a chance to actually see him, to discover the beautiful residence of the french ambassador, and to eat foie gras, smoked salmon / other delicacies and drink lots of wine.

The 'first lady' visited Tara, a NGO/ foster home I am working with. It was a great recognition for Pascal, the NGO founder and leader, and his team.

Finally, we spend a lot of time in February discussing our future. Sadly, Eric's company will relocate him in France by the end of May. We will very likely settle back down in Paris, although we are still exploring a few other options.

Kerala part 2

After Kochi/ the backwaters/ Munnar and the tea plantations, we moved back to the coast for the last few days of our trip in Kerala.
On the way from Munnar, we stopped at a bird sanctuary. No birds around as it was the middle of the day, but the hike was quite nice.

We then went to stay in a nice resort on the river Periyar, near to the sea.

There were nice cottages, good food, a peaceful and lovely garden and a mini iguana.

From there, we went and spent some time at Cherai beach. Ruben loved of course the sand, the water, jumping in the waves..
We also did a boat ride from the hotel, on the river and all the way down to the sea. On the way, there was a beautiful landscape of water, coconut trees, chinese fishing nets and colorful fishing boats.

Fishing boats.

And a lovely sunset as we came back.

We also visited also Athirapilly waterfalls, a good 2 hours drive (for 60 km distance, as usual). It was crowded but also very nice! The landscape was beautiful, and we found a quiet secluded spot to take a dip just a bit upstream to the waterfall. 

Ruben enjoying his freshwater dip.

An unidentified mammal was busy eating tree leaves above us..
We would have loved to explore the area further but the rangers asked us not to walk beyond that point as there might be dangerous animals ahead, elephants, snakes?

Back in our hotel, it was coconut harvesting time. Watching the farmer climb up and down the trees is beautiful and mesmerizing.

And, very kindly, he brought down a coconut especially for Ruben.

So for a summary of our stay in Kerala? Beautiful destination, nice food, loved the different landscapes, but we were happy to come back home.. Ruben slept horribly throughout and it was really difficult to manage.

To be fair, I should say that Ruben has been sleeping quite well for the past few months, even giving us some late 9.30 am wake-ups (hurrah), but he does not like so much sleeping when we are traveling unfortunately.