Anyway, just a quick update of these last weeks:

- I finally attended the “Journée d’appel à la Défense” at the Lycée Francais, it was just a nightmare, I was lost in the middle of more than 300 teenagers, suddenly realizing that I wasn’t one of them anymore, listening to some propaganda about how great it is to serve your country and how the army is changing your life for the best. And I even have to wake at 7am on a Saturday to listen to that… anyway, now I have my paper!

- I went to Vegas for the Shop.org conference, it was great to talk to people from the industry, but I realized that last year I enjoyed Vegas only because I was with plenty of good friends, but when you’re not there to party and have time to take a step back to look at the people in the street, it’s actually a pretty sad city… Pictures are here.

- We spent a week in Hawaii for our honeymoon, in Oahu and Maui, and it was great! Oahu (Waikiki and Honolulu) looks like Miami (too many buildings to be really heavenly) but Maui met my expectations: the beaches are gorgeous, it was amazing! We went boogie boarding, horseback riding, we attended a luau (and discovered the delicious Kalua Pork)… and we should have avoided going to the rainforest, because we ended up spending the night in a cottage in the middle of a banana farm, chasing geckoes out of the house and hoping that there would be no serial killer in the farm because there was nobody who could have helped us!! All in all, it was a great break, but I was happy to be back home: as always, I don’t like being away from home for too long, and I guess that one week is my limit. No trip around the world for me! Pictures are here.

- It was my birthday last Sunday, and I spent it in the plane, but I had lunch with the team this week in a French café (very nice) and yesterday we celebrated that at the restaurant with Audrey, David and his roommate. And then we attended the Santana concert in Mountain View, it was awesome! The guy is just a phenomenon, the atmosphere was great, we had a great time.

- Manue is coming here on Tuesday, I can’t wait, I start really missing my French friends, I want to spend a night discussing about the meaning of life, the definition of happiness, the goals that we should pursue… even if you wake up the morning after with exactly the same doubts.

- Finally, the crappy news, I lost $2700 on craigslist: I sent money to a landlord to book an apartment in NYC for Christmas, and the guy was a fraud and closed the account right after the money arrived, so basically I lost my $2700… I filed a police report but I don’t have much hope at this point, so I’m canceling the trip to NYC and my parents will visit me in SF instead… You can’t start to imagine how angry I am…

This is it,  talk to you soon guys!

I have worked like crazy these past few weeks but it seems that it will be slowing a bit down now. I am actually going to Vegas tomorrow for 3 days for the Shop.org conference, and I hope that I’ll manage to have some time in the evening for a bath in the Luxor’s swimming pool :-)… I feel that I really need some holidays now, fortunately Hawaii is not so far away (2 weeks!!!!) and I’m counting the days. These past few weeks I was really wondering: why didn’t I go into banking? I would do the same hours and be paid 3 times more… and then I read the news about the bankruptcy of Lehman, and I realized that I probably made a safer and more fun choice

Nothing much apart from that: Remy and I went to a fundraising event on Wednesday (the Director of my group is on the board of the association) for an association called Summer Search, which helps high school students in tough situations to go to college. It’s a very great project, and the event was amazing, at Villa Montalvo in Saratoga (a beautiful villa with an amazing park). Today we went to a BBQ at Annabelle’s place (which is gorgeous, in San Mateo) and that was again another “Melrose Place” moment, eating burgers around the pool (see pictures). Then we had dinner with Nicolas, his brother and his brother’s partners in SF: they’re both just absolutely handsome, it’s a real look for women

Remy is having his conference at Oracle World next Sunday, and he seems to be in a lot of stress: he is experiencing a weird pain below the ribs, and we even ended up at the hospital on Thursday night about that. After some blood tests, it seems that it has nothing to do with the liver, and it is just muscular or stress-related. I can understand the stress, it’s kind of a big deal to speak in front of so many experts, and I’m sure he’ll do great… Anyway, I can’t wait for this conference to be over and Remy and I to be in the plane for Hawaii

Talk to you when I’m back from Vegas guys!

It has a beautiful ceremony, like the ones you see on TV shows and that I dreamt of having: an intimate civil wedding on a little hill, with the sound of the ocean, and a beautiful sun… And obviously the perfect groom, which is by far the most important! Well, of course I would have preferred to have all my family and friends with me, but that would be for next year in the South of France: I just realized how great it is to have two weddings, since when it was over yesterday I just wanted to start again! Dinner was also delicious, at the Cliff House, facing the ocean (I never get bored of looking at the waves under any circumstances!), with great people (thanks guys for your presence!).

Pictures are here (thanks again Sébastien!), and I just hope to see all of you next year for the religious one!

Anyway, this week-end was a really good one: Remy and I went to Carmel-by-the-Sea, one of the most romantic places I’ve ever seen… Well, most of you know that sea and sunset are enough for me . We also slept in Clint Eastwood’s ranch… well, without Clint Eastwood, obviously! On Sunday, after driving through the beautiful natural reserve “17-mile drive”, we went to Monterrey, and I was a bit disappointed by the aquarium, which is supposed to be the best in the world, but I loved seeing big colorful jellies… All the pictures of the week end are here.

Anyway, the conclusion of this week-end on the coast is that I want to have a beach house, do yoga every Sunday morning after drinking fresh orange juice, and then going running on the beach… OK, you all understood that it wasn’t going to happen: so far, my traditional Sundays look more like 1) eating a lot of Nutella instead of drinking orange juice 2) watching lots of episodes of “The West Wing” lying on my sofa instead of running on the beach or practicing yoga… For sure, they won’t feature my life in “Lifestyle Magazine”

What else in my life… my acting classes are about to end, it was just great to work with such a good teacher/director, even if I still don’t feel that I will be shooting a movie with Brad Pitt anytime soon J. Remy is doing great: he has been selected to present a conference at Oracle World in September in SF, so he is delighted and also scared like hell.

Well, as you see, I’m becoming a bit boring (a friend of mine told me that it will be even worse when I’ll be married!) so what’s new in your life guys?

This blog was talking about Internet and Technology a few months ago, so I don’t want to get too cheesy here, but I really had everything like I have dreamed of: the proposal on the beach, then a suite at the Four Seasons (which was at least 3 times larger that my apartment, I could have lived in the bathroom!) with some rose petals on the bed, some champagne, and massages at the spa … I guess I love luxury, despite years of claiming that I’m a simple girl!

Apart from this big news, the smaller event of my week is that I started my acting classes in Stanford, and so far it’s been great, we’ve learnt how to shoot a commercial … I won’t be Monica Belluci anytime soon (or never for that matter) but I’m having a lot of fun!

On Monday we went sailing in the San Diego bay, and it was my first time: I was really good with the steering wheel, I’m definitely the daughter of a fisherman . Then we had dinner at an awesome restaurant and finally drank a lot in a karaoke bar…

Today we went to the San Diego zoo (not the one I went to the last time I visited San Diego, but the “Wild Animal Park”, which is a large park / breeding facility) and we went to a safari where we could feed some giraffes! Of course I loved it: most of you know how excited I get when there is a combination of animals and picture spots

All the pictures of my team and the giraffes are here. I definitely want to live on the beach someday; San Diego is pretty awesome for the “surfer style”…

Yesterday we spent the day in SF with Audrey, doing a lot of shopping . Pictures here. She cooked a delicious “poulet basquaise”, so now I’m obliged to try to reproduce her recipe  for Rémy… He’ll probably be very disappointed

And finally tomorrow I’m heading to San Diego for a 2-day offsite with my team, this is going to be fun, if we don’t get eaten alive by the nice sharks of the San Diego bay!

I know I look ridiculous with this hat, but I must say I like the picture anyway… My damn attraction for everything that I saw on American TV!!!

As you might have understood, I’m just back from France after my one-week trip. I spent a couple of days working at the eBay office in Paris to avoid losing too many days off (they are precious in the US!) so I saw everyone again: it is almost hard to imagine that the two offices are part of the same company, since the different sizes create completely different atmospheres. I must say that I enjoyed the traditional French breakfast in the cafeteria where everyone spends at least a few minutes in the morning to discuss with others around really good brioches

I presented my thesis on Thursday, got an A and a great proposal: my tutor told me that she thinks that I can get published, and that she would help me if I considered it. I am thinking about it; it is both a lot of work and a great opportunity.

On Thursday I attended the class gift ceremony and the last HEC party: I saw people that I haven’t seen in two years even if I deeply love them, it seems crazy… But during the party everything seemed exactly the same, it was so reassuring… I realize that it must be really hard for those, unlike me, who have spent this last year in HEC. For me, this week was just a nice remembrance of how it used to be; for them, it’s much more the end of something without a clear vision on the future. The graduation ceremony was really moving, especially our dean’s speech: this school really deserves its first rank in Europe, and for once (even if it is highly unusual for a French person!) I must say that I’m really proud to have had the privilege of attending such an institution. All the pictures (party + ceremony) are here.

But all this week I’ve been waiting for a “click”, that would make me think that I belong in my home country, and that this time in the US is just a nice experience. I’ve been looking for that in the many attentions of my mother, in the laughs of my friends, in the terraces of Parisian cafés… and I just couldn’t find it. Of course I miss my parents and friends, of course I miss French food and art de vivre, but I never felt that I belong there, whereas being in the US seems natural… I’ve heard the terrific question a thousand times this week: “why do you want to stay in the US?”… and I can’t manage to find a rational and therefore convincing answer to give to these people, so I always answer with the same passion that I had when I was 5 and told my mom that I wanted to live in the country of the big buildings; which automatically lead people to think that I watched TV too much and that I will go back to France when I’ll realize that living in the US is not an episode of 90210 every day. Well, I don’t want to ascertain things because you feel stupid when you change your mind despite what the proverb says, but I am *almost* sure that I’ll never feel delighted at the idea of coming back to France, and therefore will do everything I can to avoid it, even if it won’t be easy considering the visa mess in which I find myself!

Anyway, I finally took a plane back yesterday to go back to Rémy (who I missed so much this week, I am so sad that he couldn’t attend those moments with me) but since it is me, nothing could go easy: 6 planes landed at the same time in DC, so I spent 3 hours at Immigration and Customs, then I heard that my connection was delayed because of a thunderstorm in Richmond. 4 hours later my plane finally arrived but…. it had a technical problem: they couldn’t turn the computers on, and therefore couldn’t put fuel in the plane! I started to sleep on the floor of the airport (a few hours after having heard by my dean that I am part of the elite of the world, it’s somewhat ironic) and another 2 hours later, we finally boarded: useless to tell you that I am exhausted, especially after spending the entire day catching up with work emails!