I've finally finished downloading and converting all the pictures from the wedding (more than 300 in total!).
That took me some time because I had to correct the exposure of some of the pictures, where the flash wasn't strong enough for example, or change the white balance to have a more natural skin tone, etc.

There are 2 sections so far: pictures at the city hall, in Mérignac, where the actual ceremony took place and pictures at the Château de Barbe, where the dinner was.
I'm still waiting for other people to send me their pictures, so that I can include them in a last section.

I'll never say it enough: that was such a great day, great party, great friends! Thanks to everyone for having made this day so beautiful for Alain and Clotilde.

I wish Eiko and I will have a great wedding ceremony and party too next year.

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I've just come back from my trip to Italy with Eiko: 5 days in Florence and 3 days in Milano.

My impression? Very quickly (more comments and pictures will come later!): Florence is indeed a beautiful city but unfortunately, it was full of tourists so it was kind of hard to take a break and enjoy the lovely streets of the old city, especially when they're full of cars, scooters and ambulances.

The architecture, the paintings and sculptures of the Renaissance are an absolute beauty though, so I think we will go again some time during the low season instead.

As for Milano, it didn't really start very well: our first minutes in Milano were troubled by the taxi driver who was supposed to take us to the hotel and who drove us around instead. When I noticed we were going through a street we had seen before, I told the guy and he immediately stopped that game and immediately took us to the hotel.
He discounted the fare of the ride compared to what was displayed but I suspect it was still above what the ride was really worth.

Another thing that really upset me: the service at the restaurant La Bruschetta (Piazza Beccaria 12, Milan). The restaurant was mentioned in the guidebook so we decided to give it a try but as soon as we got in, the guy pushed us outside (literally) and showed us a small sign through the window which said "if you don't have a reservation, we don't have a table". Lovely.
Well, we decided to give it a chance anyway (it was probably a good restaurant since it was so full) so I called the next day to reserve a table. Unfortunately, the service wasn't any better: as soon as the guy noticed I couldn't speak a proper Italian, he said "It's full. Bye" (in Italian, it was something like "Tutto complete. Ciao".
Great. I tried to tell him I wanted to reserve a table but he kept repeating that "Tutto complete. Ciao" two or three times.
I was simply amazed so I didn't try to go any further: the guy obviously didn't want to listen to me so I just hung up on him.

I'm wondering if a restaurant which is so bad to tourist can actually be good to local people.

Anyway, not everything was that bad in Milano: there are a lot of shops in this city of fashion, the train station allows you to go to Como lake or Bergamo (1h ride, when it's not late!), which are on the other hand lovely cities.
The Duomo in Milano is also unique and it is really worth visiting it (we were quite unlucky on that too, as the front side was all covered for restoration!), since it's built in gothic style. It is also one of the biggest catholic cathedral in the world.

Anyway, pictures will come in the next few days!

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I'm just back from my brother's wedding last weekend (well, a few days have passed since then, but that's what it took to recover!).

It went beautifully well: the weather was great (the only sunny day in almost 2 weeks!), the food was delightful and the chateau where the celebration took place was just wonderful.

I took more than 300 pictures, but the final version of the web page will only contain some of them. I'll take care of that page when I'm back in Japan and have more time to work on it.
In the meantime, here is a picture of the happy couple that I like very much.

As far as I am concerned, I landed in Florence (Firenze) in Italy today where Eiko and I will spend a few days to visit the museums and cathedrals, treasures of Italy.

As a side note, it's been a while since I've been to a country where I was not able to speak any word of the language. I found that even more frustrating than what I remembered from my dark days in Japan, especially since I can read most of the Italian, as it's very close to latin and therefore French...

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