30 days, 8 flights, 3 countries, 2 births, 1 exciting visitor, a very bad cold and some big news!

It is unbelievable that it has been almost a full month since I have written a blog post, and also oddly believable because so much has happened since then. The beginning of the month gave me one week of rest after a whirlwind trip of sightseeing in Paris, Rome and Geneva with Tiffany, and then I was off again to Vancouver to meet my brand new niece, Sadie. I loved the ten full days at home, and treasured painting and playing with Hannah, cuddling Sadie, squeezing as much as we could into 3 short days with my parents, meals with my in-laws, wine with the girlies, and as much sushi as I could ingest! I was also lucky enough to see my childhood friend become a mother and meet baby Willa who conventiently made her debut into the world on March 10th!

Leaving Vancouver (again) was hard, but I (unexpectedly) also missed life in Fontainbleau and was even (I still can't believe it) happy to see our tiny little musty Avon apartment. I think it was probably just the relief after the long flight :) Luckily, that night Mira arrived in Fontainebleau too after a 2-week jaunt in Israel with her family! For the next three days we stayed out of P's way as he madly studied for his 6 exams, and discovered some new and delicious areas of Paris that I had never seen before, and enjoyed the many "partner" activities in Fonty such as homemade lunch for 15, and a whirlwind visit to the Chateau!

We briefly celebrated the end of P's exams on Wednesday, March 9th and then made our way to Beauvais airport to catch our flight to Barcelona! I had found a cute little apartment for us in the L'Exiample district, which turned out to be pretty great and celebrated our very late arrival with a bottle of spanish wine! We spent the next few days exploring the sites. Sagrada Familia and the giant market in Las Ramblas were the highlights and we loved soaking in the sight of Gaudi's fantastic architecture, and tasting the insanely fresh seafood, tapas dishes and fruit that came straight from the market!

We also made sure to sample the local Sangria by the pitcher-full (deeeeelicious!) and homemade cava at Can Paixano and El Xampanyet -  two incredible (and PACKED) restaurants known for their cava and their ambience! Thank you to P's classmate for the recommendations! We said goodbye to Mira just before dawn on Saturday morning as she headed back home to Vancouver, and woke up at noon to a torrential downpour that lasted all day! We decided to make it a "museum" day, but soon realized that it was sunday and museums closed at 3pm! Instead we wandered through the gothic Cathedral, had another amazing meal at the market, and bought tickets to a Flamenco show at the famous (and gorgeous!) Palau de la Musica Catalana. We spent our last morning on top of Montjuic for a spectacular view of the city before finding our way back to the airport and home to Fonty.

Oh, I almost forgot about the exciting news! We heard that we will definitely be going on exchange in the third semester to the school's other campus in Singapore! We will be there for all of May and June. I am very excited for the sun, the heat and the food! In the meantime I have found us a very cool apartment, shared with another couple attending the school (from Greece), and complete with a guest bedroom, swimming pool, gym and a tennis court (This would be the time to visit, people!!)!  I am also working out the details for P2/P3 break as we have both decided that we are finished with travelling in big cities for now, and are looking into beach huts on tiny islands nearby for some good R&R. This definitely provides some distraction from the cold and rainy french weather and the near constant smell of mould in our apartment.. not to mention my thesis which hasn't been writing itself...

Until next time.. Ciao!

Eat, Eat, Love!

Last week was a blur of pasta, gelati and vespas! My best friend landed in Fontainebleau mid-way through the last blog post and together we shopped and roamed the streets of Paris and Verseilles before flying off to Rome!  we spent 3 crazy days sightseeing, roaming, and eating, and 3 wonderful nights at the best budget hotel I have ever stayed in: http://www.the-beehive.com/. Our daily itinerary basically sounded like this: 1) start with a delicious, homemade, organic and vegetarian breakfast at our amazing hotel; 2) metro to the centre of town and tour the sites; 3) take a million pictures of everything, not excluding the old guys dressed up as gladiators at the colosseum; 4) stop for cappucino and/or gelati; 5) wander the streets; 6) eat an obscene amount of pasta, cheese, and bread, taste the local wine, sample the rich desserts; 7) roll back to the hotel for a snooze.

 

We did surprisingly well given that we are both admittedly navigationally challenged, and any time we got lost, we just stopped for cappucino or gelati! All in all it was awesome! The definitive highlights of our time in Rome were: (Bacio gelati at) the Trevi fountain, (cappucino and orange tarts and) renting bikes in the Villa Borghese, and the sunset views (and tartine with cheese and honey) at the Spanish steps!

Riding bikes through the Villa Borghese!



 From Rome we flew to Geneva and were both incredibly impressed with the beauty of the city! Right on Lake Geneva, the views are amazing and with mountains on one side and water on the other, we felt like we were in an older, (prettier), Vancouver! Like in Rome, we walked all over Geneva and loved all of the art studios and character-filled shops and restaurants. We also spent a fabulously large amount of time lounging over cappucinos and chocolates on the sunny cafe patios in the old city! People-watching was an amazing passtime here as every person seemed to speak in a different language. The highlights of Geneva were: (you guessed it) the chocolates! the cheese!! and the curry!! We had the best Indian meal that I have had since before we left Canada and I was so incredibly satisfied after our meal that I glowed for days (maybe it was the curry-sweats?). Aloo gobi, chicken tikka, matar paneer, naan and GULAB JAMUN! (sigh). I still remember every bite :) On our first night we decided to go for the whole Swiss experience and went to a restaurant that specialised in Fondue! We walked into the restaurant and were hit first by the smell of the place (that's the cheese?!?) and then the price (40 suiss francs per person!) For a pot of hot cheese and stale bread! While it was a nice experience, our night ended with empty wallets and indigestion.

Our last stop was Annecey (back in France!) where we spent two lovely days with Tiff's friend and her family, which included an adorable 2 year-old boy and 6 month-old baby girl. It was nice to be in a home again and we were spoiled! B and her husband treated us to a homemade Raclette dinner! I was speechless! Heated cheese over potatoes, and meat - brilliant! The children were in bed and the wine was flowing! It was close to perfection. It was also this same night that I heard that my sister had just given birth to a little angel, Sadie Elizabeth Searchfield! It was heart-breaking to be so far away, but I was just so happy and relieved to hear that she had arrived!

The Colosseum!

The view from the Spanish Steps

After saying our goodbyes, Tiff and I headed back to Paris and parted ways. I boarded my train to Fonty and Tiff caught her flight to Toronto :( This was the hardest part, but we already have plans in the works for our 30th anniversary trip to keep us dreaming for another 10 years! (Tuscany here we come!)

brrrrrrrr....

Fontainebleau has reached a new low: -7 degrees, although the "feels like" temperature is -11! The pond on the chateau grounds is frozen and so are we as we walk the 30 minutes to town every day. Sometimes twice. As you can see, the ducks don't know what to do about it either.

Here are some pictures I took at the market on Sunday. We didn't last long because of the cold, but it was a beautiful market day!

Im happy to report that my best (and oldest!) friend landed in Paris today from Toronto and is here in Fontainebleau for a visit! In a couple of days we will be off to Rome and Geneva together celebrating our 20th year of friendship with pasta, pizza, fondue and wine!!  :)

A (multi-cultural) day in Paris

Yesterday I spent a wonderful day in Paris with some of the other partners! We did some sightseeing and wandered through the cathedral of Notre Dame and the Opera house. I was obsessed with the stained-glass windows and was very upset that I didn't bring our good camera (P thinks I will lose it! ..which to be perfectly honest is always a strong possibility). So these pictures are from my old and trusty 4 megapixel cannon from 2004 (if it ain't broke..!). The cathedral was definitely a highlight, but so was the fabulous Japanese restaurant we stopped in for lunch!! I didnt even realize how much I could miss a gyoza :) 

After a hearty and satisfying lunch, we set out on our predetermined quest to find "Tang Freres", a well-known asian grocery store in Paris, in order to stock up on some of the supplies that Fonty lacks, like rice noodles, sauces, spices, dumplings, and snacks! After a successful shop, we trained back to Fontainbleau just in time for the Heart of Europe dinner.

This whole week was Heart of Europe week! Bidding for national weeks happens months before, and the P3's (the class ahead of P) bid for the right to host a week celebrating their nation. This week the students from Germany, Switzerland, and Austria hosted a week celebrating thier cultures, of which the beergardens, chocolates and jagermeister were highlights! Each day there were different activities like a jagermeister competion, chocolate-tasting, movie night, and last night was the climax with an Octoberfest-themed dinner of sausages, bratwurst and mini kegs. Everyone got their own beer stein and danced to the music of a Bavarian band, with a very interestingly-dressed lead singer! (I think only AG and BG will get this reference, but remember the 65 year-old female lead singer of the band when we went to the bar in the trailer in PR? Picture her, but in a dirndl outfit.) Tomorrow night is the finale and is a Karnival-themed chateau party. Somehow I have to find a costume, but we will see about that...



Parlez-vous Francais?

So it was the first official week of classes and time has flown! P is already busy with more reading than he can possibly finish, group assignments, and career workshops while I have been busy joining clubs! Last week I joined the:

•  cooking club
• running club (don't laugh, im going to do it!)
• french conversation club
• girls movie night club
• shopping in paris club
• art and culture club
• yoga club
• wine and cheese club
• book club!

That should just about keep me busy for the next 4 months! In the last 5 days I have already  gone for a 4km run (anyone who knows me well knows that this is BIG news), started my french class on campus, started seriously working on my thesis (well, transcribing anyway..), went shopping in Paris for les soldes, and learned a new french recipe that I can easily make on two burners! (Poulet a la Basquaise - doesn't that sound fancy?! It's not, but it's goood!). I also went to the local market (in the centre of town every tues/fri/sun) and it was just awesome! Though it was brutally embarassing trying to speak french, I bought so much fresh produce, cheese and meat (and honey and pastries and kitchen things) that I could barely carry it all home!

Now with all of this club-joining and market-shopping and french-learning happening, you're probably wondering what P's opinion of all this is. He summed it up the other night after we got home from a FULL day of school (8am-7pm) and a dinner out with friends (until late!). He was telling me about all the readings and assignments he had to do over the next 2 days and just looked EXHAUSTED and I was starting to worry and feel guilty about all the fun I was having.. and then he ended his long-winded explaination with, "I love this!".

We have also made some slight but significant modifications to our life that have made living in little Avon a little more likeable. For instance, I learned the bus schedule and can now catch the bus to the main road in fontainebleau with little trouble (the bus only comes once or twice an hour so this is a big deal!), we have found a short-cut through the castle grounds so the walk to school is now only 30 minutes instead of 40 (baby steps), and I am now the proud owner of a french telephone number and bank account! One TINY hurdle left: we don't yet have a bank card to access our money, but I am staying positive (otherwise I will go completely crazy!) Once we have our chequebook, we can rent a car and I will be able to say au revoir to blisters and mud for the rest of the winter!

Our apartment is also growing on us. When we first moved in the dryer was broken in the building, and our apartment door (that opens into our bedroom) was located in the laundry room. So every day we had to pass through the laundry room that smelled like mould and wet dog and made our bedroom smell like that too. But now, after 2 weeks, the dryer has been fixed and the smell has returned to normal! Probably the best change of all is that I have learned that my microwave also doubles as a grill. So I have figured out how to cook fish and meat and I'm just so relieved! Only one thing left: because we are in the ground floor of this very old little building, we have a lot of spiders (les spidres, as I call them). P is deathly afraid of spiders so this has been really interesting, espeically after a run-in with Pierre (yes, I named one), on the couch!! As long as they remain out of sight, I think it'll be fine... :)

I've also learned some very interesting things about life here that I didn't know before, for instance, you can't buy 1% milk - the choices are full cream or half cream! Pair this with my daily baguette diet and I'm in trouble! (Good thing I joined the running club!) I shuddered through my first bowl of cereal that was more or less floating on top of the milk(!), but I think there might be something to whole milk, nutritionally, so i'll keep you updated. Another thing we are loving is the cafe culture! there is no such thing as take-away coffee because, as my french teacher says: "c'est fou!" (that's crazy!) Coffee is for sitting and enjoying and people-watching and reading the newspaper. P and I indulged in cafe life on sunday afternoon for about 3 hours and it was heaven! One thing I could live without: dog poo on the sidewalk. Everywhere. I read about it in blogs before I came and I'm writing about it now, because it's just wrong. I can't possibly enjoy the 30 minute walk to town because im constantly dodging shit! And the combination of big dogs and small sidewalks is treacherous.

Saturday night was our first Chateau party, and it didn't disappoint! Sponsored by one of the major Consulting companies that recruits at the school, there was free booze and great music all night (literally, the last bus home left the party at 6am), however with all the students (some hammered) and the free-for-all booze, it felt a lot like a frat party from our good old undergraduate days. Which was fine for the night - we felt like we were 21 again! Eeks, does that make me sound old?? crap.

This post is getting very long so I think it's time to go for now!

a bientot!

Fontainbleau/Avon and Orientation week

Our initial impressions of Fontainebleau have been very lovely, especially with the beautiful weather that we have had the past week. Cold air and sunny skies made for picturesque walks on the castle grounds and easy exploring through Fontainebleau. HOWEVER, about 4 days in, the romantic 40-minute strolls to campus along grassy trails have turned into 40-minutes of cursing and sloshing through rain and mud. After one heated conversation running to campus late, mud-covered and drenched ("I will never be able to wear heels!!"), and a long up-hill walk home from Carrefour in the rain with bags of groceries ("why aren't we in Singapoooore!"), we have since decided to rent a car for the semester. Sadly, deciding it doesn't make it so. We have encountered some slight roadblocks in terms accessing money and setting up a french bank account and mobile phones, but soon we will be on our feet! (and also hopefully a new set of wheels). 

Our first week has been busy! One thing I am really happy about is that the school has done a really great job connecting students and partners with the school community and so even before my first day of orientation, I had a coffee date with 5 of the other partners! It was such a relief to me to get to know the other "mba wives" and to see that we are all in the same boat, wondering what is in store for us this year, and what goals and plans we can make for ourselves along the way. Many are taking french courses, working in Paris or London, travelling back and forth from their home countries, pregnant or planning to be pregnant, planning new hobbies, and on and on. I'm happy to know that I will be in good company this year.

What else is really cool is that partners are welcomed on campus, and I have my own access badge, can take out books from the library and join the gym. On the first day of school, P and I both had orientations! We each got a package of information and our own designated handbooks (his a lot denser than mine!) and we were given campus tours. There was a welcome ceremony, complete with champagne, and lots of meeting and greeting. Each day we had our own schedule of activities. Mine centered around lengthy breakfast and lunch dates with partners, partners' clubs presentations and workshops about living in France while P had presentations by career services, faculty, group projects, and (yesterday) his first official class. Today he had an Outward Bound day from 8am to 6pm so I still havent seen him yet!  Im really curious about how the day went. I have dinner and a bottle of wine waiting for him like a good mba wife. On that note, I can't tell you how weird it is to be a "partner". It's a whole mental shift for me that started on the day that the woman at HSBC in Vancouver opened our Euro account. "What is your occupation?" she asked. "I'm a graduate student" I said. I watched as she filled in "Homemaker".

Not that I think being a homemaker is a bad thing, on the contrary, it is extremely valuable. I have just never thought of myself as one before, and I've also never dedicated a whole year to the job. Someone send me a recipe for making dinner on a hotplate before I fail at my new profession!

I am considering taking a french language class here (there is one offered on campus for partners) as Im realizing how much it is needed here! Luckily, Im not doing so bad, and if needed I can throw together a sentence that makes enough sense to be slightly understood. It would be nice to have some more confidence though, and be able to converse well. Yesterday, P and I had dinner together in town and parted ways so that he could attend a seminar and I could take the bus home. The problem was that I didnt know my way home on the bus and didn't realize how roundabout the route was! I couldn't for the life of me find a bus stop going in the direction of home! Realizing that I wouldnt make it unless I stopped to ask someone, I stumbled into a shop. It went like this:

Me: "S'il vous plait, parlez-vous anglais?"

Gruff looking man at the counter: "Non."

Me: "(crap). Oh, um, Ou est-ce que, uh, ou est la bus, i mean "boos" de Avon, a avon? oh dear."

Man: "Avon? la bas" (pointing across the street)

Me: "Oh great! Ligne C ou A?"

Man: "Oui."

Me: Oh. okay. S'il vous plait, i mean..

Man: "Merci?"

Me: "Merci!!!"

Since then I have been studying my french dictionary (thank you B and A!!) and practicing pronuncing new words (that I don't necessarily know the meanings of) while I'm cooking, or late at night when I'm still too jetlagged to sleep. P is for some reason jetlagged in a totally different way (up way too early in the morning, can't keep his eyes open at night).

Me: "Besoin. bes...oin!"

P: "what?"

Me: "what? nothing, why?"

P: "Do you need something?"

Me: "No, why? what are you talking about?"

P: "go to sleep."

:)

Nous sommes arrivees!

After a long and largely uneventful flight we have arrived in Fontainebleau! Preparing for the move went way too quickly and was way harder than any 14-hour flight with two stops and a layover in Reykjavik could have been. During our last week in Vancouver, we spent days hauling our belongings out of our apartment and into storage at my sisters' (thanks T!), hours packing and crying and packing again. I scrubbed the apartment clean for our tenant. I said my goodbyes. I watched Amelie. And then we were off.

I spent most of the flight reading Jullia Child's My Life in France, dreaming up different ways to fill this year with interesting things and planning exciting day trips with my Lonely Planet France. We landed at noon on January 6th, shuttled to the Gare de Lyon, and took the train to Fontainebleau with our 6 pieces of luggage in tow! BIG mistake. I will forever have the image of P pushing a gigantic luggage cart up to the train station platform burned into my memory! A, our new landlady, picked us up at the train station in a very tiny car and drove us and all of our things to our new apartment. It looked just like the pictures that she sent by emailing that I posted before, and is super cute and cozy. However, the kitchen makes me miss my old apartment desperately. Only a bar fridge and a hot plate! My dreams of learning the art of french cooking may have to be thrown out as I now realize that our meals will be limited to what I can make in a frying pan and a small soup pot. Please send me any good one-pot recipes you know!

We have both been recovering from jetlag slowly, with the help of copious amounts of cappucinos and cheese. Feeling better today, we spent the day sightseeing in Paris!! We walked through the market on rue de Mouffetard, found the Pantheon, discovered the latin quarter and gazed at the Centre Pompidou!