Faces to the Sun!

Today it felt like all the messins and messines were like hibernating animals, creeping out of their burrows for the first time in months, blinking their eyes against the bright sunlight, before finally stretching their legs and going to profite of the gorgeous day.

Personally, I've been the hibernating animal for the past two weeks or so. Last weekend was the first real time I'd had off since my busy vacation (which meant catching up on sleep!), combined with two busy weeks of school, and yesterday I spent under self-imposed house arrest to finish an important essay. Once my lesson plans were written this morning, after a glance outside to see the remarkably blue sky, I decided it was the perfect conditions for the first bike ride of 2011. I took my favorite route down along the Moselle, and then the canal that branches off from the river. People were out in droves, even more, it seemed, than on a nice Sunday afternoon in the spring or fall. Clearly, we're all in desperate need of some spirit-lifting rays!

Post bike ride, I still wasn't ready to hole up again. Instead, I took my camera and set out to capture some of the late-afternoon sun against my favorite monuments of Metz.

And now, on to a new week!