weekend getaway

This weekend Mr. Mystery Guest (yes decided I like that nickname better!) and I ran away to Brittany for a long weekend. We had gone last February where we practically froze to death so this time we shot for the long Easter weekend. We were so lucky with the weather!! It was beautiful the entire weekend, not a cloud in the sky and between 15-20C the three days, amazing!

First stop was lunch, we went to a creperie that we had been to last time, by accident but managed to find it again. If anyone heads to the region of Paimpont, stop by Plelan-le-Grand and look for Bodo's Creperie - yum! We had to pray to the crepe gods for those, yum!

Afterwards we went back to Merlin's forest, we had explored last year but loved it so much it deserved a stop this year too. Ended up taking long walks up in the hills and admiring the views all afternoon. Then we headed towards Lorient were we managed to find a hotel room (not booking on the Saturday of a long weekend isn't easy!) and ate some more of some of the best crepes I've ever had (Creperie Saint-Nicolas in Lorient...)

The next morning we got up extra early to beat the crowds at Carnac, the French equivilant (or better) of Stonehenge. It was so impressive, miles and miles of stones all over the countryside. Some smallish and some weighing several tons, including burial mounds that are over 6,000 years old!!

Then we headed off to Auray for lunch, a cute little port town that Ben Franklin once sailed into.

After lunch we headed down the penninsula to the presqu'ile de Quiberon which is very rugged and unspoiled on the west side and crazy-touristy on the east. After laying in the sun wishing we had brought some towels or beach blankets I decided to put my little footsies in the water for a test, cold but oh-so-refreshing!

Then the next stop was Vannes where after finally finding a parking spot we decided it was a very cute town, especially with the sun out and tons of tulips all over. We took a walk around and then decided to grab (yes, surprise surprise) a crepe for a quick snack.

Before leaving Caen I contacted another blogger to see if she'd be interested in meeting up, being the wonderful Minnasotan that she is, she even offered to let us crash at her place Sunday night. We had a blast making dinner (bbq pizza - yum!!) and sitting around gabbing. Fun to finally meet someone face to face that you feel as though you already 'know' through their blog! Thanks again and come to Caen sometime Sam!

Monday morning we took off and following Sam's excellent advice we stopped off in Fougeres, just after Rennes. It was an amazing town, perfectly preserved castle and old town not a soul in sight! It was a nice change after all the crowds in the other towns. We walked around the ramparts and then headed for home.

It was a great 3-day weekend! It was so fun exploring a new region and with the weather and excellent company I had a fantastic time! Now its back to work tomorrow... makes me sad to be stuck inside all day with the weather so wonderful outside, but this escape was just what the doctor ordered :-)

i'm baaaack!

Well after many frusterating hours of trying to mooch off of protected wifis until we can get our own internet up and running I randomly got a connection! Its very weak and doesn't let me do many things at once but I do feel connected with the world once again :-) A happy camper I am.

So news from here, I'm all settled in to the new appt and I dig it! It is soooo peaceful and quiet, I can study, sleep and watch movies in peace. I'm slowly but surely catching up on my sleep, after 6 weeks of deprivation it will take a while but I'm feeling much much better! Plus the weather has turned beautiful again and it is 8:15pm and the sun is just now setting, I love this time of year!

Dartyman left for the weekend but will be back tomorrow, can't wait to show him the new pad all organized :-) Although my have to fight him for bath rights... I've gotten used to my little soak before bed ;-) and little is exactly it! I swear this tub was built for a midget (dwarf, vertically challenged person if you will...) and it has some sort of funky seat built in so its hard to get your whole body underwater unless you want to jam your backbone into the faucet...! But boy is it great to crawl into bed after semi-falling asleep in the tub - yes folks, life is good.

But have some work to do so I'm off, but not far! Connected to the world wide web once again, praise the gods! :-)

pick 'em up again

Yup... moving again, a last post before the crazyness begins. We're living among boxes right now, well mostly boxes, I still have a few more to finish this afternoon before work.

I picked up the keys to the new place today, over in the CROUS. Went upstairs and check them, they work no problem. Also changed the name on the mailbox, Mr. Postman must be very confused trying to follow me around!

It will be busy tomorrow but shouldn't be too horrible because since the new place is furnished we've broken down all the bookselves and furniture here to be stored at Dartyman's parents. So basically its just boxes of clothes, dishes, books etc to go up to the 3rd floor (sans elevator of course). The new place has its perks: most importantly it is quiet and we'll be able to sleep, there is also a small bathtub (!!!) and water and electricity are free. It does have me a little worried that we're going to kill eachother in a small space like that (30 m2) but I think with communication things can work out, plus there are 2 weeks of vacation starting Friday! I'm working again this year, doing a stage for junior high kids but it will be a nice change and the lessons are already prepared from last year :-) yippee!

I'm hoping we'll be able to mooch off of someone's wifi up there, otherwise you won't hear from me for a while until we can get internet up and running... hopefully as soon as possible, the addict that I am... :-)

spring forward!

Just a little reminder, it is daylight savings in France today (or rather it was last night). So be sure to spring your clocks forward today!

Since the US changed a few weeks ago we are now caught up on normal time differences, 9 hours for the West Coast.

Happy Sunday :-)

concert

Last night a bunch of us got together for some taco salad (!!!) at my house and then walked down to the concert hall Friends style. (there were 5 of us, Joey was MIA we decided... and apparently I'm Phoebe! humm...)

We were off to see Tété! I just adore that guy, he's so funny and has such great music. By the time he finished (there were 3 different performers) I was just knackered having only slept 4 hours the night before so Dartyman and I took off. Plus I enjoyed Tété so much I just wanted to end on that note, I would have bought the ticket only to see him, it was so worth it!!

In other news we found out that we can get the keys to the new appt Wednesday so we'll be moving Thursday! Anyone wanna carry boxes?? :-)

the sky is falling!

Last night there was a huge storm in Caen. We were hanging out after dinner and kept seeing these flashing lights and though are the police around? Is someone having a strobe party? Then I started hearing the boom of thunder... but the weird thing was there was no rain! It was quiet with just the occasional flash and then boom. We started commenting on how unusual that was when I said it won't last long this way, boy was I right! About 2 minutes later - whoosh!!! It started pelting down huge chunks of hail! Looking out our dining room window we saw this scene, cars covered with bigger-than-pea-sized hail chunks. Then the thunder got closer until it was so loud that the windows we were looking out of started vibrating and the doors rattled! Then about two seconds later we heard a car alarm go off, I can only assume that a window shattered and started the alarm! Thats how nuts it was.

Then all of a sudden it was finished and the storm moved on, but talk about bizarre!

I went into work today to give my Med students a final exam and there were only 2 there when arrived (out of 30) and said that the periph was at a standstill because most of the traffic lights in town still weren't working so everything was bottlenecking. So we waited for about 15 minutes for all the students to arrive and the exam to begin.

oui oui OUI!!!!!

So Dartyman and I had been talking about getting a Wii ever since we came back from the States where we played with my sister and her boyfriend. It is so much fun no matter how stupid it looks when you're just an onlooker :-)

But they are few and far between, hard to come by even on the internet where people are selling them for a fortune so we figured wait a bit to have more money and for them to be in stock. However today when doing a little window-licking at the FNAC and there were 3 just sitting there! So we looked at eachother and said "Oui?" and grabbed one as well as a Wiimote.

It is such a blast to play, we played tennis, baseball and bowling tonight and man my arm is sore! Because the speed at which you swing the wiimote translates into how hard your little dude swings the racket or bat you get really into it quickly! Wii fun! Plus you do some really lame plays on words with the Wii...

It is too bad that we ended up buying it today instead of yesterday because yesterday we had some friends over for a Housewarming and Unhousewarming Raclette party. It was such a blast though, tons of raclette and then banana/chocolate/ice cream crepes made on the same machine, of course with a little Apples to Apples after... too bad I forgot to take pictures!

falafels

On my way home today I stopped by the Falafel shop I had seen for over a year now, always wanted to try but just never did. But my stomach was rumbling and the idea of all the falafel and veggies made me stop in.

Not at all like the mad rush of falafel stands in the Marais (Paris) this one just had one older man and his son (?) working. They were very nice and I think very excited to have a customer in their empty restaurant. I placed my order, 1 falafel to go and waited for the homemade bread to be warmed and the chickpea balls to be fried. Then unexpectedly he gave me a half-full pita and told me that I was to make myself at home and fill it with whatever toppings I wanted! So I piled on red cabbage, marinated mushrooms, sliced beets as well as other unrecognizable veggies to finally top it all off with the mystery sauce blanche.

The owner was very chatty and wanted to know if it was my first time coming into the restaurant, if I'd tried falafels before etc. It was nice to have that little chit chat this time, he seemed genuinely curious and also very proud of his food "my homemade bread is the best, that is why people are always coming back" :-) I also liked it that the first question out of his mouth wasn't "where are you from?" I do live here now and its always nice when people seem aware of that, even if I do have an accent.

i'm your dartyman, that's what i am, i'm here to do whatever i can...

The big news around here is that Mystery Guest has found a part-time job!! (He's still a student and as a French student its not easy finding a part-time job.)

So as there was some discussion as to whether or not Mystery Guest is still a "guest" as we've moved in together, to end the debate he will henceforth be known to readers of this blog as:

DartyMan!

Yup, he found a job at Darty that he is very busy with but likes a lot. No work details of his job or mine on this blog but he said I could post this picture as I had a blast trying on his Darty shirt, what do you think? Is red my color?

I think the best part of this is that the first time we went to Darty while looking for a washing machine I pronounced the store à l'américaine and he understood me as "Let's go to dirty" so now I make the effort to at least pronounce the 't' :-)

letters from Iwo Jima

Last night after a beautiful Sunday drive in the Manche (seriously! not a cloud in the sky, no wind and a springy 16C!) Mystery Man and I headed off to the movies to catch Letters from Iwo Jima. I had been dying to see this movie ever since I saw Flags of our Fathers last fall. If you haven't already heard about these movies they are brillant films done by Clint Eastwood basically telling different sides to the same story.


In Flags of our Fathers we have only the American perspective of the battle of Iwo Jima from the few soldiers who raised the flag and the propoganda flurishing Stateside. In Letters from Iwo Jima, however, we have only the Japanese side of the story told by a few soldiers stationed on the island. It is a poetic and beautiful film, even more so by the subtle expression and emotion that comes through in the men's voices, especially the impressive Ken Watanabe. I would hate to know that this movie is released dubbed... And I would like to know how Clint Eastwood directed a movie only through the work of translators... impressive!


It is a captivating story that we don't often have these days, WWII story told by the "enemy." I felt that the key moment in the story is when the Japanese officer reads out a translation of a letter sent by an American boy's mother. Not only was it a moving letter, but you could see the realization by the Japanese soldiers listening (who had never even met an American before) that dispite all the speeches to the contrary - they were all the same. That is what hits you the hardest, dispite the vast cultural differences between those American and Japanese soldiers they had all left behind family and friends and were there fighting for their cause (or is it just their country's cause??).


I could never go off and fight in a war, that is one thing I know for sure.

(I don't really think it would be important to have seen Flags of our Fathers before seeing Letters from Iwo Jima, as they are complete films in themselves and seeing one before the other shouldn't make any difference...)

i'm around

There hasn't been much blogging around here... Not that things aren't busy, there's tons of stuff to do but running on low sleep doesn't give me the energy to be the usual chipper multi-tasker that you all know and love so much ;-)

Spring is very much in the air around here and I love it. Not that Winter made much of an appearance this year! But the days are getting longer, coats are getting lighter and people generally seem to be in a better mood. The weather is however, really sporadic! I left my house this morning to stop by the Friday market for some yummy salmon and fruit, when I left it was grey but no sign of rain (the seasoned Norman that I am did bring along an umbrella just in case though hehehe). On the way home the sky opened up and within 2 minutes there was a torrential downpour! I kid you not rivers running down street! and even with the umbrella I was soaked walking the few blocks home! So I changed and made my way to work at 12:00. Since then there has been non-stop sunshine and not a cloud in the sky... crazyness.

That does lead me to one of the things I do like about this appartment, the light. My old place was groundfloor and had zero direct light, but when I have my mornings free and the sun floods the kitchen here I almost give into my desire to curl up for a catnap in that square of sunshine. That is how I'm trying to find the glass half-full this month, finding the good things to enjoy until the end of March, starting with light light light! :-)

sidetracked

I enjoyed a beautiful morning of sleeping until 8:30 since the bakery is closed on Saturdays... I didn't lounge around too long in my pjs though because our drain got stopped up yesterday and there was a huge pile of dirty dishes waiting to be washed.

Since the drain-o needs to sit for a while I threw on some clothes and stopped by Monoprix to pick some up. On the way there I got a bit sidetracked by a sale sign in a shoe store window. They had tons of boots on sale and since I've been looking for some black leather boots for about a year and a half now I decided to stick my nose in and take a peek.

I caught the sight of some nice black Kickers (in my size!!! a monsterous 41), a bit clunky but not too much, solid and flat :-) I have never gotten used to wearing heels and the 'three-musketeer boots' which are in style don't do it for me at all. But these, oh they were so nice and comfortable that after a few minutes I decided to take them! Plus kickers are so sturdy and last forever, and at 50% off I couldn't resist...

So the moral of the story, you never know what you'll buy when you leave the house on a Saturday morning for some drain-o :-)

yum yum

Last night Miss A-C and Mr CJ came over for dinner, laughs and dessert. The plan was to stuff our faces while mocking the poor people trying their luck on the Nouvelle Star. Mr CJ made a fantastic pad thai and we all howled with laughter during some of the horrible attempts, as well as some of the impressive ones.

Then we whipped out the chocolate goodness that was dessert, Miss A-C's gooey brownies and my chocolate-chocolate-craisin cookies. It was heaven.

It was also wonderful to kick back and have laugh. Between the bad appt situation and losing my cell phone the stress level has been through the roof... but I hope things are looking up. We've given notice at this appt and wanted to move into a T2 (2room appt) at the CROUS (student residence) but the only thing they had avalible for now is a T1bis, which is an appt for two people but only 1 big room... so we'll have to make do for now, it would be nice not to kill eachother... But hey at least we're getting out of here and in a place where we can sleep!!! I also got a new sim card for my phone with the same number, which I was able to put into my old phone. I lost my new pretty phone but at least I've got the same number and am contactable once again!

stolen!

I'm having such a bad month, first the appartment situation (we decided to give notice and move, its just too much not sleeping and being cranky all the time!)

But then my phone was stolen out of my jacket pocket when my coat was hanging over the back of the chair I was sitting in!!! So mooching internet from friends which cuts in and out, no landline and now no cell... all those numbers lost plus my cute little phone and the fact that someone stole from me hurts like crazy. When the shit happens it happens all at once eh?? :-(

happy belated valentine's day!

I've been wanting to put a little Happy Valentine's Day out there for a little while but I was too lazy to find my camera and then I had trouble uploading the photo I wanted.

Mystery Man surprised me on Valentine's day with a beautiful long-stemed red rose! It smells so good and is still alive and looking amazing! It's been over one week and it has hardly started to wilt. It's those little things isn't it? Not a dozen roses but the simplicity of one beautiful one, crimson red and velvety.

In other news a few nights ago we caught Molière at the movies, I had read on other blogs that people really seemed to like it. I have to agree it was a really fun movie, reminded me of a Shakespeare in Love style of film, not a period piece exactly. There were a ton of references to his plays and unlike the Frenchies who read tons of stuff in high school I only read 1 play in college and saw a theater production of another. So I think I missed a lot of the references but it made me want to go and check out some of his stuff from the library!

new pad

Well we're pretty much all moved in over here... after living amongst boxes since Tuesday we now only have a few floating around :-) things are starting to take shape and now the decorating and organizing is fun instead of just a necessity.

The new place is great, its not too cold* and has lots of windows and light. The internet isn't up and running yet but for the moment we're able to mooch off of a friend's wifi who lives in the same building.

*The reason being we live above a bakery, which in Mystery Roomie's (still trying to find a good new name for him... suggestions?) eyes is heaven on Earth, living above a bakery, warm bread in the mornings.. ahhh. I think the ovens keep our appt above warmer which isn't a bad thing. The only bad thing is that when the bakery starts kicking into gear early in the morning! They must have their ovens in the basement and when they load up the little elevator to bring stuff up to the shop all we can hear is CREAK CREAK CREAK of ungreased chains then a loud BANG of the elevator arriving at its destination... at 6:45AM! This goes on for about 45 minutes and let me tell you, it wears quickly on the nerves!!! But today they're closed and I've never been happier :-) Something must be done, we're working on it, but the baker-lady has not been helpful "Well its been like this for 10 years and there's nothing I can do about it."

Big meanie.

packing packing...

Well things are now officially on a roll. We stopped by the new appartment to say hi (I know the people who live there now, thats how we found out about it). It's almost all emptied and I can already envision how we could put our stuff in there... ohh can't wait! To get going I had picked up a few boxes the other night and then today Mystery Guest (Mystery V?) and I stopped by Picard to grab some more.

So tonight it started... the packing, oh the packing. One of those avoidable things in life, I guess like taxes and death eh? Some wonderful friends have offered to help us move but alas it is up to me to do the boxes. I hate packing and since I'm not moving until Wednesday and have to work inbetween its also deciding what I'll be needing and what I should start packing right away. Blech.

concert

I decided I needed to get out of the house so when I called my best bud she suggested that we go to a concert at the new music hall in town, Le Cargo. It was free to the first 200 students and the hall itself was really nice. It was my first punk concert and I did have a good laugh, but the music just isn't my thing. My favorite part of the concert was watching all the crowd surfers!

Things are calming down a bit workwise, I started classes up again after the January exams and the second semester is starting off smoothly. But I have been busy trying to tie up ends to move, finding boxes and running around. We'll be moving on Wednesday so then there'll be a short hiatus in blogland just because I don't feel comfortable using working computers to blog. I never talk about work here not because I'm avoiding talking about anything negative but just because I'd prefer to leave that aspect of my life off the blog.

karina's stairs?

Things have been busy getting ready to move. We're going to be moving around the 14th/15th of February and as the appartment is going to be pretty bare we're doing the calculations of what Mystery Guest has got and what I've got... what we can borrow from his parents and what we buy.


So we've already bought a washing machine, this was a must have, especially since January my local lavomatique increased their prices and it costs me about 10E to do a wash and dry!!!! Nothing makes me miss the days of student housing at university like the price of laundry! Where a wash and dry were each $0.75! So this machine will pay for itself really fast!


Yesterday we tackled next on the list, a cuisiniere, on gas instead of electricity cause it cheaper and well cooks better! We thought we found a good used one but the hook up to the gas wasn't right. So we decided just to take the bottom of the line new one with the warranty etc. Afterwards we had a bit of time so we went to Leroy Merlin to check out what we could bricoler for a desk... I got a little distracted by these stairs! They are Karina Stairs!!!!! How funny is that??? I got a little too excited but at the same time I never see my name anywhere! Stateside or in France!

babel

Ok first and foremost, how are you supposed to pronounce this? I've heard conflicting pronuciations, is the "a" that of babel like "navel" or babel like "paddle"?

I went to go see a showing at the university tonight at the last minute because I had missed it in theaters and really wanted to see it.

It reminded me of Love Actually. You know how in Love Actually all these little well written stories are entertwined and end up coming together leaving you with a warm gooey feeling inside? Well Babel stories are also very well written and perfectly entertwined stories, however you leave with the feeling like slitting your throat might just be a good 'ol time comparetively.

It is one of those kinds of movies where you think, how could it get any worse? Oh... nevermind there it just did...

There were some very powerful moments and a few surprises (the best one being an unknown-to-me apperance of my favorite Mexican actor!) and overall it is very, almost poetic movie.

lots to do...

Busy busy around here and yet I find a million ways not to do all that I need to. Amazing how that works? All of a sudden I'm making real dinners and my appt is spick & span! I have to grade 200+ economic exams that my students took, do research for my thesis and start organizing my craploads of stuff.

Yeah, I don't think I've put this on my blog before, I try not to go too much into work related stuff or other personal details but I decided to move out of my appartment... Mystery Guest and I have decided to take over my friend's place when they move!! So all is moving along, a million little things to do even when moving across town. We can move in starting February 12th which is coming up soon! Lots of boxes to fill... ;-)

Send me off an email if you want my new address!

java

When I went stateside for Christmas I brought back lots of Starbucks coffee... Yum Yum. I even picked up a Pikes Place Blend which has the original Starbucks logo (yes, heaven forbid you can see the mermaid's nipples!)

My old coffee grinder back here in France died a year or so ago and I just couldn't break down and spend over 30E on a coffee grinder, so I'd just take my whole beans to Nat's house and mooch hers.

But great timing came! Mystery Guest's brother gave me a brand new coffee grinder for Christmas! I had already bought some pre-ground coffee (I know, shame shame) and I didn't want to lose all that wonderful Starbucks freshness just to try out my grinder while I still opened coffee... So I waited, and then today, oh no! No more pre-ground Carrefour coffee! What's a girl to do? Well... whip out the bad boy!













Hehe, no no not gettin' dirty here, just proud of the beautiful sleek black coffee grinder which now sits happily dirty with the grounds of Starbucks coffee.

That was a good cup of joe. :-)

calzone!

Momma Mia!

I just tried out a recipe I had seen a few weeks ago and Yum YUM!

I made it all basically as said in the recipe, including the dough (which was fun, I haven't baked much with yeast). I didn't put in any of the sausage just because I wanted to keep it all veggies and that was still good with lots of flavor. I think the only thing missing was that I didn't use enough mozzarella (I bought French mozz in balls and just sliced it up but didn't follow the recipe calling for a total of 1 1/4 cups) but it was still gooooood!

The recipe makes a lot, 4 big calzones so I had one for lunch and I'm sure will grab another for dinner tonight :-)

Was feeling so Suzy Homemaker with the dough rising and snow falling outside ;-)

il neige!

Yea!!! Whodda thunk, last Saturday it was 12C (low 50s F) and now its snowing! Yipppeee!!!!

From what I can see (my windows face the courtyard) it dosn't seem to be sticking except on my lovely poubelles but maybe it will later!!! yeah baby! snow!

so pretty :-)

treasure hunting!

This weekend like I said Mystery Guest, his brother and I went treasure hunting with his GPS. Its really fun because you have just random people hiding boxes (usually tupperware) in random locations just leaving a log book and the GPS coordinates, then its up to you to find it! The first one we tried to find was just 8km away but it took us 3 tries because it wasn't exactly where it was supposed to be, but here are the happy boys with their treasure :-)

Then we took off near La Hague (the western tip of Normandy) where there was supposed to be another one. We never did find it but the weather was unbeliveable, we really lucked out. If it hadn't been for the wind I never would have guessed it was January!

Here's a picture of me in the wind in my bad-ass hat!

fixed!

Well it looks (fingers crossed!) like Mystery Guest has fixed my computer and more! Turns out one of the thingys of RAM (memory) died and so I bought 2 new ones, actually adding RAM. The installation seems to be going ok so not only will my computer work again but it will be faster! How cool is that??

In other news there has been huge storms out in Normandy and around Europe, we're on the beach this weekend and the gusts of wind must be gale-force at least! Luckly there have been a few breaks with some sunshine so we were able to go out geocaching, pictures to come!

have not lost hope

Yesterday I was using my computer, just after publishing a blog post actually, and it up and died...

It's weird, I couldn't get it to turn on... it would make a whirring noise like it was going to but then give up and stay off. My Mystery Guest took a look with his magic computer hands and got it to turn back on and run all sorts of scans but when I used it on my own it died again. I have no idea what happened but I hope its not dead for good cause I think I might die!

So its been brought up to Mystery Guest's house and hopefully he'll be able to work his magic again... let us all pray...

first frost

Well thanks to global warming we've had an unbelievably mild winter here in Normandy, especially compared with the insane weather the Pacific Northwest is having. Normally we have the same climate but over there they've already had 2 snowstorms where things have been totally snowed in and a big windstorm which knocked out the power whereas we've had nothing but grey skies.


Where as this morning on my way to work I saw our first frost... yes folks that'd be January 15th! It was beautiful though walking to work this morning, the sun was just coming up and shining on the frost covered grass in front of our chateau. Yes that was briiiight and early this morning. I realized I must have been really out of it this morning when I saw that I had put my underwear on inside-out... Maybe that's a bit too much info for you but it sure made me giggle :-)

culinary experiences

Today was just a wide variety of tastebud madness! Started off all innocent with cereal and coffee just like any other day... But then things got wild and crazy when I got the fève in my part of the galette des rois this afternoon when Mystery Guest's family came for a belated Xmas celebration.















Then came even wilder times when everyone was invited around to Lawrence's house for dinner. He brought back a haggis - especially for us to try! Lucky us!!

No but it really wasn't that bad, usually when you eat something ... er... unidentifiable (ie random animal parts) the texture throws you and it doesn't sit well. But the haggis isn't bad, the texture is more that of a rice pilaf or something and is quite flavorful. That said I think that 1 haggis in a lifetime is enough for this American :-)

tome 7!

Yeah baby! I got an email from Amazon.co.uk saying that the new Harry Potter (last one!)should be released sometime in 2007! Two years ago when I got the 6th book I read it for 2 days straight. They don't have the date yet but the title is out, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows... shivers up me spine! How will it end? The wait oh the wait... but still oh yeah baby!!! Happy little dance!!

la rentree

Well after two blissfull weeks of sleeping in, or rather sleeping whenever it pleased me, it was back to the alarm today...

So hard to get motivated after Christmas vacation every year, the holidays are over, its still dark at 8am and my lessons seem to be fairly bareboned... So all you out there in cyberland wish me luck on this Moday morning! I need some encouragment!

xmas aux states

Well the whirlwind vacation is over, so as a little recap I thought I'd post some pictures!!

We flew into Seattle 2 weeks ago and my mom picked us up with my little sister and her boyfriend at the airport and then made the 2 hour trek home out to the Olympic Peninsula. The time spent there was very relaxing with little planned other than enjoying fires and the jacuzzi. We did however, plan a wonderful sushi dinner the 23rd to celebrate Mystery Guest's birthday! We also built an awesome gingerbread house to enter in a local competition, like our Norman design? :-)

Christmas eve dinner was a low-key event. I brought 2 kilos of raclette cheese with me so we scarfed that down leaving the Christmas presents for the following morning.

We were surprised with personalized Christmas stockings for everyone which were stuffed full when everyone rolled downstairs on Christmas morning. That afternoon Mystery Guest and I took advantage of the sunshine and went on a walk through the State Park before an early dinner of a beautiful bbqed turkey and other yummy things to eat (including mom's homemade bread! yum!)

On the 27th we all flew down to San Fran to spend a few days with my dad and step-mom. It was a jam-packed trip with visits to Google (where my dad works), Carmel /the Montery Bay Aquarium and SF. We also managed to fit in some shopping and came away with tons of jeans! yippe!!

Down in Carmel Mystery Guest even braved the cold temps to experience the Pacific Ocean for the first time! It was sunny and warm out but I'll believe him when he says the water was freezing :-)

We had a couple days left back in the Pacific NW where we celebrated New Years in style - some flutes of champagne in the jacuzzi - before flying out so we went on a quick day trip to Seattle. From what everyone said everything should be open downtown on the 1st of January but sadly it was only the big department stores. Even Pike Place Market was all closed up!! I've never seen it closed before but we still walked around and checked out the 1st Starbucks and got stocked up at the Levi's store.

It was a wonderful trip, it was good to be home and see my family again (after a year and a half!) but too short, especially with the jet lag!

Just thought I'd leave you francophiles with this licence plate which just cracked me up ;-)

karaoke channel

Yup it's 4am and I've been up for an hour already... ah jetlag!! I'm still exhausted but can't sleep so I curled up in front of my tv and decided to channel surf. My freebox has new tv channels as of January 1st (including TF1 and M6) but I found a new one that I was not expecting -

The Karaoke Channel!!!!!

I can see hours and hours of countless fun coming up! :-)

back home?

Well I've arrived safe and sound back home, home France that is. It has been a busy past 10 days and I have many pictures to post but right now my body clock is completely messed up and I'm running on very low energy so I just thought I'd share this picture of a bottle of wine Mystery Guest spotted, just for laughs :-)

'Night!