Road Trip!

Before P's second semester got underway and the workload too intense, we decided to take a little long weekend road trip to Lake Geneva! We packed up our Clio and set off for Lausanne! We breathed in the clean swiss air, drank the swiss beer, and glimpsed the swiss alps! Then we drove around the lake.

We came across this market, and stopped to contemplate the thought of the day...

Then we saw a castle and went inside.

There was some old furniture, and the graffitti signiture of Lord Byron.

 We continued driving around the lake, stopped in Evian for lunch (and also bought some bottled water!!) and came accross the tiny medeval town of Yvoire!

After a nice walk and some fabulous ice cream, we continued on to Geneva!

We spent a night and a day sightseeing, had some raclette, and then drove back to Fonty!

Help us choose an apartment!

This week I have made it my mission to solidify a beautiful apartment for us in Fontainebleau for when we return in September. I am now very informed about the price/quality discrepency here in Fonty and am not going to fall victim to it again! I have scoured the accomodation websites here and have narrowed it down to 2 choices:

Exhibit 1: A beautiful suite in Montigny-sur-Loing, that is in a 300 year-old restored barn on the site of a HUGE chateau. The garden and grounds are beautiful, and the property is right on the rivers' edge. The downsides are that it is in the middle of nowhere - we would even have to drive to get to a bakery! And it is a 25 minute drive to school on a windy road through the forest. There are 5 other suites in the building that may or may not be rented to others students. (So it could get verrrryyy quiet). Plus sides are that it is BEAUTIFUL and has a modern and fully stocked kitched! There is also a train station here that goes directly to Paris.

 

Exhibit 2: This next cottage is ADORABLE and is in Samoreau, which is a small suburb of Fonty and only a 10-15 minute drive from school. My favourite couple lives on the next property over, and apparently there is a delicious bakery right down the street. This property also has a private patio and grassy area, but it is small and quaint!

Additional Info: Both places are the same price, and require that we have a car. Please vote for your favourite asap as I will be emailing the landlord between now and 48 hours from now!!

 

Moi et toi

Now that we have been in France for almost three months, things seem to have gotten into a rhythm and feel more, for lack of a better word, normal. I no longer check the backs of all the groceries looking for the english side; french onion soup, french manicures, and french doors are just onion soup, manicures and doors; I can sing along to the two main french pop songs that play repeatedly on the radio. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLNr3_YNeJc and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1bY3lU4jj8 - tell me this guy doesn't look like an older french JT). I've also started teaching children's music classes in the school's family room (on thursdays I lead a circle time for 2 - 5 year olds, and on fridays I lead a mom and baby group!). It's super cute and I have even learned some of my favourite songs and rhymes in French, Spanish and Hungarian from the moms who participate. The club activities have continued, with the cooking club (more aptly called 'eating club') drawing 10-15 of us together every week, regular thursday night yoga classes, and french/english conversation exchange going strong. Here's a pic of us at the latest (masquerade) chateau party, and one of P sneaking nutella into our shopping cart at Carrefour. (He's gone through 5 mega-tubs in 2.5 months).




It seems kind of strange now that in 6 weeks we will be packing up and moving around the world. again. There's too little time left in Fontainebleau to learn how to run 10K, too little time to learn how to speak french, crepes are the only french dish I can make with any success, and my thesis? well...... I dont want to talk about it. The frustrating part is that i have just finished the administration duties of getting set up in France recently (phones, rent, insurance, car, bank account, visa), and now I'm having to figure it all out for Singapore! While I'm at it, I'm on the hunt for a nicer apartment in Fontainebleau for when we return in September, and will check out a gorgeous place in Montigny-sur-Loing on friday. In the meantime I'm salivating over our new place in Singapore.. especially the last picture:

Cleo!

Meet Cleo, our beautiful little Renault Clio who joined our family a little over a month ago! She is tiny but swift and though i can't drive her yet, she has been a lifesaver! She has made our commute to the school a DREAM at any time of day, and grocery shopping is a breeze! So back to this little problem of not being able to drive... I may have mentioned this earlier, that when we first arrived in Fonty I had a list of possible things for me to do in the year that included, but was not limited to: writing my thesis, learning how to speak french, learning the art of french cooking, spending more time doing art, writing a blog, running 10k, and learning how to drive a manual car. When we first got Cleo, I was super excited to start! P drove her out of her parking spot so that I wouldnt hit anyone, and then gave me my first basic lesson. I stalled three times and then we were moving! I switched into second gear and, too afraid to slow down and risk stalling again, I took a quick left hand turn and drove down our entire block very happy with myself. I stopped responsibly at the stop sign and waited for the other cars to go by. By this time, a black sports car revving his engine had pulled up behind me. It was my turn to go so I put the gas on and stalled. Then stalled again. And again! The driver behind me in the sports car strated revving his engine even harder and honking his horn so I got super flustered and after a few more unsuccessful tries, made P switch with me! As P got out of the car and walked around the back of it, the mean driver in the car behind us thought he was getting out of the car to fight or something and so he opened his door too! Then I got out and gave the driver the dirtiest look I could muster, and then walked to the passenger side. P thankfully drove us safely away! We drove to the empty Carrefour parking lot (everything is closed on sundays!) and I practiced driving around and around in circles, until once again I stalled 5 times in a row and the clutch started to smoke. Defeated, I made P drive us home and decided that I would never drive our little Cleo afterall. It took a few days and one more practice try to realize that the two times that I had stalled repeatedly, I had been trying to start the car in third gear! (which feels mysteriously similar to first gear!!). Realizing that it was a misjudgement by me and not my complete inability to function as a driver of a manual vehicle, I drove P all the way to school the next day with only one stall! So now that Cleo and I have a friendly relationship, I feel a little bit better, but I need a lot more practice to feel confident driving her around here! The streets are narrow, the drivers erratic, and the roundabouts are 3 lanes wide with giant trucks, buses, and a million other speedy little Clios in them! Because P is at school most hours of the day, he doesn't have the time to practice with me (and I think he prefers to be the sole driver anyway!) and so I have resigned to the fact that I may have to scratch this one goal off of my Fonty to-do list.

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!!  :)