How it all started in 2006
This blog started back in 2006, inspired by a Manu Chao‘s Clandestino song and by the fact that I was trying to figure out life in Canada—or life, period—as a brand-new permanent resident.
I wrote my first posts in French. Then I switched to English—not because I was fluent, but because I wasn’t. Blogging in my second language felt like the best way to learn, adapt, and make sense of my new surroundings.
Remember the internet in 2006? No smartphones, no Instagram, and Facebook was still that new thing people were talking about.
Like many people, I wanted my own corner of the internet. Unlike many people, I never cared much about turning it into a business.
I experimented with layouts, broke things, fixed them, taught myself enough web design and SEO to be dangerous, and wrote about whatever caught my attention.
In 2007, I moved from Blogger to WordPress because I wanted more control over the site—and because breaking my own website had become a hobby.
Since then, life happened.
I settled in Canada, became a citizen, raised a multicultural kid, built a career, learned a few languages, took thousands of photos, spent months travelling with a backpack, and accumulated enough stories to keep this blog alive far longer than I ever expected.
And I kept writing through it all.
Not because I had a publishing schedule.
Not because it was good for my personal brand.
Just because I’m endlessly curious about how people live, what they believe, and why things are done differently from one place to the next.
What You’ll Find Here
Some stories start on the other side of the world.
Others start in a grocery store, on a city bus, at a family dinner, or while trying to understand a place that doesn’t quite work the way I expected.
Most begin with a simple question:
“Why do they do things this way here?”
Decoding Places
Cities, towns and destinations seen through everyday details rather than bucket lists and top-ten attractions.
People Around the World
Encounters, conversations and observations from different countries, cultures and ways of life.
Making Sense of Canada
One immigrant’s attempt to understand a country that still manages to surprise, confuse and occasionally impress her after more than two decades.
Life Unscripted
The stories that don’t fit neatly into a category: family, identity, getting older, unexpected detours, and everything else life throws at us.
Photo Essays
Because sometimes a camera explains a place better than words.
Still Here
Twenty years later, blogs are no longer fashionable, social media platforms come and go, and the internet looks very different.
This little corner of it is still around.
No listicles.
No productivity hacks.
No promises to change your life in five easy steps.
Just stories, photographs, cultural observations, and occasional attempts to make sense of a complicated world.
There are still stories to tell.
So here we are.
