I have received a few enquiries asking about my summer plans, specifically if I intend to go back to Switzerland to continue my Romansch studies.

During the summer of 2008 I will go visit the in-laws in Nova Scotia with my partner Mark. I use “in-laws” loosely, as we are not legally married. We will be there for a week in early June. Mark will have a significant zero-birthday later on in June and I plan to throw him the first of several parties while in Halifax and invite all his friends from down east. It is for this reason that I can’t possibly make it a surprise party, as I have no way of contacting all his friends from the Halifax-Dartmouth area. Thus, Mark knows about the party already and will lend me his address book.

The last three books I have read were all about the Halifax Explosion from 1917. Mark and I did visit the memorial bell tower during a Halifax trip in the summer of 2005, yet this time I would like to visit the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, where there is a permanent Explosion exhibit, and also go on a self-guided walking tour of the areas hardest hit by the Explosion. One of the books I read, The Town That Died: The True Story of the Greatest Man-Made Explosion Before Hiroshima by Michael J. Bird contains some of the most gruesome descriptions of facial and eye injuries caused by the exploding glass and shrapnel. I have a particular weakness for any description of eye injuries (and have fainted cold on numerous occasions when I have seen eye operations on TV) and had to put the book down for fear that I would collapse cold mid-page. 

We do plan to attend the Nationals in Orlando and we will have a roommate to make the hotel expense more affordable. 

Next summer I plan to pursue more language study. The Romansch course that I had been enrolled in for the past three summers will celebrate its fortieth anniversary this summer. However, the big celebrations will take place in the summer of 2009. The 2009 term will therefore be the 41st year of the course yet one will be able to say “Forty years ago, the first-ever Romansch course began”. I plan to enrol in level five or six during the summer of 2009.

There are two other minority languages I would like to study next summer and either before or after the Romansch course, I hope to take an introductory class in either Breton or Jèrriais, which is Jersey Norman French. The University of Rennes does offer an intensive summer course in Breton, while there are less-structured courses on the island of Jersey in Jèrriais. I have a year to decide which one of these languages to dip my toes into. And then of course there’s the cycling holiday I want to take in Corsica sometime, and pick up some Corsu (Corsican) along the way.