Timeline
🇫🇷 January 14–19th. I went to visit my family in France, in a chalet somewhere in the Alps. We typically celebrate the winter holidays in January for logistics reasons.
⭐️ March 16th. A friend and I went to the Rutz restaurant in Berlin, a 3 Michelin Star restaurant — the first time for me dining in an establishment with more than a single star. It was obviously quite an incredible dinner, well remembered!
🇫🇷 March 21–26th. Just a few weeks later, I was back in France to celebrate some birthdays in the family, and enjoy the early spring in the French Alps.
🇧🇪 April 16–18th. I accompanied my partner on a work trip to Ghent, Belgium, for the second time. It’s such a beautiful city, especially as the weather starts clearing up.
🇳🇱 April 18–22th. Directly from Belgium, we traveled north to Delft, Netherlands to spend some time with my partner’s parent. Always a delight being back in Delft, it never gets old.
🇩🇪 May 10–12th. My best friend and I took a weekend trip to Hanover, Germany for their birthday. We walked extensively throughout the city, gorged ourselves with nice food and good beer, and had some well deserved quality time. Also, Hanover is a pretty city.
🇬🇷 May 21–23rd. I joined some dear friends in Athens, Greece for their birthday. First time for me in Athens, which I found a little overwhelming although quite pleasant. We had such incredible food there, most notably the best croissant I ever had at Overall Croissanterie (which says a lot).
🇫🇷 May 23–27th. I flew directly from Athens back to France to visit my family and spend some time at my parents.
🏴 June 20–22nd. Summer holidays with my partner! The first destination was Edinburgh, Scotland. We got so lucky with the weather, 20°C with clear sky and bright sun for 2 whole days. We did some sightseeing and ate some nice food, which was a great kick-off to the trip.
🇫🇴 June 23–30th. We have spent a whole week in the Faroe Islands, in the North Atlantic. Honestly I loved it so much I almost never came back. Life just felt so uncomplicated there, it was amazing. Food was nice, beer was outstanding, and the landscape is probably the best I’ve ever seen in my life. I can’t wait to go back.
🚶♀️ June 25th. That day marked 2 full years of walking over 5,000 steps (~3.8km) every day. Another year without missing a day!
🇳🇴 July 1–2nd. We finished our summer trip in Oslo, Norway. To be honest, it was a bit overwhelming after a full week in the calm and peaceful Faroe Islands. But Oslo was nice and pretty. We also got lucky with the weather. Nice closing destination for our trip overall.
🇫🇷 July 25–30th. Another trip to France to visit my family, at the peak of the summer season may I add. I’m not a fan of heat, but it’s always nice to spend some quality time with my parents and siblings.
📦 August 18th. I released the 70th version of a11y-dialog, version 8.1.0, with some improvements and bug fixes.
🐈⬛ September 9th. After a month of health complications, we said goodbye to Lilith, our precious British Shorthair, at the age of 12. She was the kindest and most gentle cat ever, had a wonderful life full of joy and cuddles, and loved us until the very end. May she rest in peace.
📍 September 12–15th. The first time around was such a blast, so a dear friend and I attended the second edition of the Geoguessr World Cup in Stockholm, Sweden which was just as good as the first time. Can’t wait for next year!
👋 Septempter 20th. After 2 enjoyable and fruitful year at cofenster, I decided to resign and pick up something new. I’m very proud of what we have accomplished over that time, and it was bittersweet leaving such an amazing team.
🇪🇪 September 25–30th. My partner and I visited Tallin, Estonia for a couple of days. Being the best preserved medieval old town in Europe, Tallin is quite a sight to behold. Despite the shaky weather, it was such a nice trip, in a gorgeous city.
👩⚕️ October 1st. I started as a VP of Engineering at Scilife, a company building a quality management system for the life and science industries. I’m happy to join my friend Roozbeh Farahbod there, as well as friendly and passionate team.
🌱 November 15th. This day marked 6 years without eating meat and 5 years without fish.
🇪🇸 December 1–5th. I went to Spain for work, somewhere in the hills south of Girona. It was the first time meeting people from Scilife and such a lovely get together. Despite the cold I brought back home, it was a great trip, with incredible weather for early December.
⭐️ December 2nd. The Scilife leadership team was invited to L'Aliança d'Anglès 1919, a Michelin Star restaurant near Girona. The restaurant opened just for us, which made for a precious experience, filled with delicious food, great wine and lovely company.
🇳🇱 December 20–24th. Last trip abroad for the year, back to the Netherlands to spend time with my partner and their parent. It was cold, rainy and windy, which made me regret taking my fall jacket instead of my winter coat with me.
⭐️ December 21st. To celebrate my partner’s birthday, we went to Tryptique, a Michelin Star restaurant (two in a month, I know!) near The Hague, Netherlands. Big yet lovely dinner in great company.
💻 December. I participated in Advent of Code again this year and managed to go relatively far, although there are certainly a lot of problems (especially in the later days) that I wasn’t able to solve. I’m also okay with that, and still had a lot of fun.
Some random stats
- ✈️ I have been to 11 countries this year, 13 if you could airport transfers (Belgium, Estonia, Faroe Islands, France, Germany, Greece Norway, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands + stops in Latvia and Switzerland).
- 🚶♀️ I have done an average of 6,900 steps per day over the year, or close to 2,000 kilometers in total — according to my health tracker (Samsung watch).
- 🏃♀️ I have picked up running over the summer and stopped again when winter came. I’ve ran a total of about 100+ kilometers across 30+ occasions.
- 💤 I slept a little over 8 hours a night on average (typically between midnight and 8am). Very happy with having a consistent and healthy sleep schedule.
- 📝 I wrote 5 articles this year (+ this one) — which is one more than last year. Certainly far from the 19 from 2022, but perhaps my writing time is behind me.
- 🇩🇪 I’m on a 2050+ days streak on Duolingo, and I’ve done over 350 German lessons this year.
Onto next year. :)