#27 (Real) rock climbing and more

Life peek

What a week! Lots of new discoveries these last few days.

For the first time, I climbed my first crag with Robin and a few people we met at our local bouldering club. So far, we had only been climbing indoors — what a change! I do feel a lot more queasy than indoors, afraid to fall. I am also climbing a lot less efficiently as I spend precious minutes trying out tons of different holds before settling on one. On the opposite side, it is really liberating to be able to reach for any hold you want and decide to use it. The weather was also perfect. We arrived around 1PM and immediately removed jackets and sweaters. It was so sunny that it felt like the start of summer.

I also had my first car driving experience. I never learned to drive, but the region really demands it. So far, I just learned to start the car, and I finally realize how much coordination it requires! I'll try to get through my car driving lessons as fast as possible — let's see if I can manage to drive a car by the end of the year.

Read & Watched

The second week after our arrival in France, we subscribed to the big library in Aubenas. I love French-speaking libraries, as Belgium and France have a strong comics / graphic novels culture. We used to live next to a library, where we would go every two days to refresh our graphic novel storage. Our current library being 30 minutes from home, we now go every two weeks only. Nevertheless, I am happy to come back to this forgotten routine.

La maison de la plage (2019)

By Séverine Vidal and Victor L. Pinel

La maison de la plage — The house on the beach — is a beautiful graphic novel by Séverine Vidal (scenario) and Victor L. Pinel (drawings). It is really well structured and made me travel through time, with an old family house at its center. Pinel masterly uses lighting and colors in his drawings to create distinct atmospheres and give us a sense of time. At the end of the day, this graphic novel made me feel a lot of different emotions and I would highly recommend it.

Natsuko no Sake (1988)

By Akira Oze

Natsuko no Sake is my first manga in a while! It is a real love letter to the Japanese tradition of brewing sake. So far, I am only two volumes in — there are six volumes in total. I quite like it, but do feel like some of the content has aged a bit — "nice" characters being very sexist, saying inapproppriate things, and so on. I am also not completely taken by the main character whom I find a bit annoying. But the good part is that you learn a lot about sake and the traditions that surround it. I would recommend this series to people interested in learning more about sake in an entertaining way.

Dans la combi de Thomas Pesquet (2017)

By Marion Montaigne

In the same vibe as her other scientific vulgarization graphic novels, Montaigne does a great job explaining the astronaut life in Dans la combi de Thomas Pesquet. We quickly realize that being an astronaut is not as glamourous as we may think. Reading this book makes you feel like you are visiting the secret NASA backstage — worth it! ⊙