Having it all

Last night, Fabien and I returned to Turin on the late Eurostar from Rome, having spent our weekend there. I think once I actually start driving we will take the train less. Which is kinda sad because I like taking the train with him. We talk about lots of stuff, and we give and get each other's full attention, which is necessarily impossible when you talk and drive at the same time.

We talked about the French economy and why it has Europe's highest unemployment rate for young people between 18 and 25, and how the new CPE or Contrat Première Embauche will change anything. You can read about that here. We did a review of our life and career plans, and the directions we want to jointly pursue. We talked about our children and what we'd like to be able to provide them.

Without going into the entire argument about our kids, career or the CPE (I'll leave it to my qualified economists friends to do that!) I guess our discussion revolved around the idea of "having it all". Can you have both job security and high employment rates? Can you pursue a lucrative and challenging career and still have a fulfilling family life? I don't know all the answers, and neither does he. But it seems that our present plans strike some kind of balance in all this.

Essentially I think we started from the begining as being extremely lucky people, and I thank God for that.

Thanking God is something you can quite easily do in Rome. We saw lots of churches over this weekend, each one more lovely than the last. We actually attended a Papal Mass at St. Peter's Square - it was the ordination of new cardinals. And caught bits of the Rome Marathon (which was cool). Pictures to follow.

But now it's back to Monday!