Auguri di Compleanno, Bon Anniversaire

Another year, a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer water down your pants. (Quote from the Mary Tyler Moore show). Birthdays are a funny thing for me, each year is different, different cities or continent, in all kinds of places. This year in Ottawa, though we are suppose to be in Spring now it is still cold and full of snow, however all this is set to change dramatically by Thursday when temperatures soar to 10C over night and a massive melt will start quickly, meaning floods, ah Spring in Ottawa.

I have many things to be thankful for on this Birthday, good health, good teeth, my dentist told me this week that for a man my age having all my teeth is remarkable. It seems that like 300 years ago most people in their fifties today have lost a large amount of teeth or are looking at dentures.

We have a nice home, friends, our dogs and each other. We still travel a lot, I have taken in my lifetime more trips to exotic, strange and foreign lands than anyone I know. I have seen 45% of the planet and have lived in many countries for extended part of my life. Going abroad for a few days does not appear on my chart. I have studied and learned foreign languages. I understand quite a few others and am not lost or put off by foreign cultures or mores when I travel.

I now work as a volunteer in two National Museums in Ottawa and I enjoy it immensely. Spending easily upwards of 50 hours a month doing volunteer work, it is like a second career and it is fun, something I always wanted to do and can now do. Not a bad life Maggie Muggins.

Here are some pictures of little me through the ages.

In Ville Saint-Laurent in our backyard in the little pool, I am about 5 yrs old with my little brother.

My first morning going to school, grade 1, on my own in Quebec City

On the train in Poland going from Warsaw to Krakow, 1998.

Italian Cooking School near Rome 2009

In Rome in 2013 at dinner at our friends house

With our Reesie in Rome in 2008 our first apartment on Via Asmara

 In Assisi in 2010

At dinner in Salzburg at the Sketch Bar, Hotel Bristol

With Nicky in Rome on Via dei Villini

On the old Via Latina, with one of the many old aqueducts, Rome

At the monastery of Pedralbes in Barcelona

 At Cap Sounion near Athens at sun down 2010

In the Silk Merchant Guild Hall in Valencia, Spain

Breakfast Italian style at the Hotel in Ragusa Ibla, Sicily  

On the Island of Capri

At the Festival in Salzburg the Karl Bohm Hall 

Infamous photo abroad the Azamara where I was mistaken for Karl Lagerfeld 

Café Bazar, Salzburg, my favourite café at Festival time.

The little wood house in which Mozart wrote his music, beautifully preserved in the garden of the Mozarteum in Salzburg

This for me is the most beautiful fountain in Rome, the Turtles fountain in the area of the Portico Ottavia and the old Ghetto

With Professor A. Testa on Easter Sunday in Rome 2010 

On Via Appia looking for Spartacus 

On board Air Transat going to Italy, a good airline 

Saint Andrew's Feast Day

Today is the Feast Day of the Patron Saint of Scotland, Saint Andrew.

It is also the 83th Birthday of my father. So Will and I went down to Montreal by train to have lunch with him at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel which sits on top of the Central Station in Montreal.

Winter scene around 11am near Alexandria, Ontario.

We had a lovely lunch, starting with a glass of Champagne, all the waiters know my Dad so we were well taken care of.  My father told Will stories of my childhood, I know those stories well, they are all connected to the hotel industry of which my father was part of for many decades. His favourites are the ones about the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City. The stories are 50 years old but still funny, of course they involve food and restaurants. Happy Birthday Dad!!!!

 They say we look alike

Le Chateau Frontenac, Quebec City

1662-2012, 350th Family Anniversary

On 18 August 1662 in Quebec City my ancestor Jean Philippe Lebel de Beaulieu arrived in Canada. He will join the French army regiments like Le Régiment de la Reine and the Régiment de la Franche Marine sent by the King Louis XIV, the Sun King to protect the borders of the French Empire in North America from the English south of Montreal. From humble beginning to today. We know that he was only 16 years old and illiterate, had come to New France to make a life for himself. Hired himself as a man-servant and worked for friends of  the Governor of New France, he then decided to join the regiments arriving from France. He saw quite a lot of action in what is today Vermont, Lake Champlain area and Albany, New York. He was then posted on the St-Lawrence river at Fort Chambly. Finally returning to Quebec City he received a deed of land and managed to triple his landholding. He will, later in life, do battle again in 1690 when Quebec City is attacked by Admiral Sir William Phipps, the English are quickly defeated. The rest is family history, of farms along the St-Lawrence river and of settlement.
We no longer have farms and are now all city dwellers, involved in different trades and the family now spans Canada and the USA. I wonder what our ancestor would think of such success.

I dedicate this popular musical piece of the 17th Century to his memory.



Malbrouque s'en va en guerre, referring to the Duke of Marlborough and the battle of Malpaquet 1709.
Who has not heard or learn this song in their childhood. I like this clip because it shows the uniform and flag of the regiment under which my ancestor served. There is one funny family trait we all share to this day, the Beaulieu nose. We all have the same nose it is quite funny at family gatherings, anyone looking at all of us would notice that family trait.

Time, Tanti Auguri a Me

Well today is another anniversary for me. So many things have happened in my life. From the period after the Second World War, before decolonization to the societal changes of the 1960's, the Vietnam War, man landing on the moon, meeting Will and starting our life together, my entry into the workforce when the typewriter was king, photocopying was still in its infancy, more recently the age of the computer and the internet and now the eve of my possible retirement in the next few years.

So much change in one life and all in a relatively short period of time. Not to mention all the countries I have visited either for work or vacation and lived in, so many different cultures, languages, beliefs, all complex with their own history, societies very different from Canada. Countries where even the food and eating habits have nothing to do with western habits. Rice, vegetables and fish or flat bread,olives, green onions and eggs or maize, corn, beans and root vegetables, diets where any milk products simply does not exist. Where fast food is not McDonalds but what ever the people locally enjoy and is common to all creating their own fast food or here in Italy the whole slow food movement. Had to get use to all these different, taste and diets, lucky me that I was able to enjoy them all without difficulty.
All the wonderful things I have seen and was able to get to appreciate in several continents, the people I met, many I had heard about or read about but never thought I would ever meet in person and more often than not in a private setting and getting to know their family.
I sometime feel like Ulysses, as the French saying goes, ''Heureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un beau voyage'', maybe this is what my life has been a long and interesting journey.

Lots of good things, blessings and a lot of good luck.