and the cat came back....

A few weeks ago Mystery Guest was awakened by a meow by the window, a orange neighbor kitty saw my open window and was trying to get into my appartment! He tried everything, going from window to window trying to poke his little head in!

I thought it was just a fluke, but then a few days later I saw the same cat wandering around the courtyard that my window looks out on.

The cat came back!

Yesterday I heard another meow and thought, oh no, the kitty is back - quick close the windows!

But when I looked outside there was a fluffy grey kitty curled up on my windowsill just quietly napping. I thought he would leave but he stayed there all day just relaxing outside my window. I'm not about to let random stray cats (even if they have a collar) into my nice clean flea-free appartment but it was kind of nice to have the company :-)

Someone help me before I turn into a crazy old knitting lady in her rocking chair surrounded by cats and bowls of milk!

crud

I finally got an sms from France Telecom saying that my new line is up and running and therefore should be getting my new Freebox (with phone, tv and internet!) soon! Thank God, afterall its only been two months!

So when I call my new phone line it rings but the actual phone dosn't ring in my house...

So I took of the plastic covering of the phone jack and look at all that crud! Ick Ick! I'm gonna clean it up and hopefully it was just a problem of dirt and the phone should work soon.

Here's to keeping your fingers crossed for me!

1 year!

My blog is 1 year old today!

Never thought I'd end up getting this addicted to it! I lost a bet but in the end I'm the one who actually updates the blog :-)

I realized that even though this blog is very public the reason I write isn't always to have it be public. I haven't kept a journal since 2001 and this blog has turned into my journal. It's so fun for me to be able to look back on old posts and remember random little funny moments, people and adventures.

Me? Nostalgic? Nahh.... ;-)

redemption

In order to redeem myself for the not-so-flattering picture of Mystery Guest from the other night I'm sharing my private collection of Mystery Guest photos :-)

Did I snag a stud or what??

uno nite

We've been playing lots of board games in the evenings, its really fun to get together a whole bunch of people and actually talk and laugh and kick some uno-bootie! Reminds me of family camping trips back when we didn't have dvds to watch etc... Here's a picture of Mystery Guest Card Shark himself as well as two friends from the other night when we went for the World Championship round of Uno!

Guess who won?? :-) hehe














But it was a great night because I also got a chance to see my new best friend:









I am also the champion multi-tasker! I was playing with her, playing Uno and teaching English! She kept giving me cards and I replied with thank you. Eventually she started repeating it back to me but with the most adorable accent! It came out something like pichu :-) sooo cute!

fishy?

On Thursday I had the pleasure of going with Mystery Guest and his buds to eat sushi :) I've been to this restaurant tons of times now and we even asked the guy if we could get a punch card, you know buy 10 dinners get one free? Yeah, well alas no... But I'm sure after this time he'll remember us...

As usual dinner was delish but of course when you get 7 or 8 childhood friends together things can get... well interesting! After slurping down some miso soup, and chomping on the cabbage salad we dug into the sushi platters. I always get the usual - Menu K (tee hee for Karina?) which is what you see in the picture. Yum yum!

After dinner we all got to talking and somehow (don't ask me!) there was a dare set up to see who could eat wasabi (the lovely green blob of spicy horseradish you see in the lower lefthand corner). I think the dare also involved skinnydipping in the midnight ocean once back home but I was not there to witness anything... so mums the word!





For your entertainment I couldn't resist putting up a short video of Mystery Guest's brother trying to gracefully eat the wasabi ;-)

Bon Appétit!

i won!

Mystery Guest plays the lotto online from time to time and yesterday there was a huge jackpot with Euro Millions to be won so I said I'll throw in 2€ for a ticket...

I won!!!

Ok. Ok. I admit that I didn't win the big jackpot but I won 23€ baby! Never had played the lotto before - must be beginners luck but I don't care I won!

Happy Dance.

floss...

Has anyone else noticed that there is a serious lack of flossing here? I remember trying to buy floss and only finding one kind! Seems like at home dentists are really big on flossing and there are a million different flavors and kinds to buy...

So Mystery Guest asked if he could try my floss (first time flossing at 25, people!!) and I was in the other room so I said go ahead.

Then I walked into the bathroom and saw him holding the floss in one hand trying to floss and the little box dangling out the side of his mouth... I guess for someone who has never flossed the little cutter thing isn't obvious.

new pad!

Well here is the promised video tour of my new pad ;)

grey...

What? Are we in November? What happened to my summer? In the space of a month we went from having a sweltering heat wave (38C) to this... cold, wet, grey (12C) weather. Blech.

I swear summer wasn't supposed to be over already! This better mean a beautiful fall otherwise someone up there is gonna get a piece of me ;-)

book review...

Well I seem to do movie reviews quite often but haven't really done any book reviews. I guess thats because during the school year I'm so busy that when I read its Bridget Jones or something light and fluffy to help me unwind before going to bed...

So when I got 400+ page book The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova as a Christmas present I didn't even attempt to try and start it. So this summer I thought well here's my chance.

I started it and couldn't put it down!

It was really good! If you liked fast-paced nature of the DaVinci Code but found it too fluffy try this book. It had a lot of historical background to Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) and a great story to go along with it.

There, thats my $0.02 :-)

parrriiiis

On Thursday morning I got up early and caught a train to Paris to go visit my friend Ambre who is in Paris for a few days from Reunion Island. We had a blast walking all over Paris! First we stopped in a yummy Japanese noodle restaurant that I used to go to when I lived there a few years ago. Then afterwards we walked down to the Musee d'Orsay because she had never been there (yes! teachers get in free baby!)

After that we walked over to the Marais to meet my friend Shannon who just moved there to get her keys as she works late. And then Starbucks baby!

Ambre left in the evening and then Shannon came back and we had a nice girly chat about boys, jobs etc, I miss having roomies! Thats so fun :-) The next morning we went to Breakfast in America for a gooooood brunch! It really is a good thing I don't live in Paris! I would be broke!













Here's a picture of the view from Shannon's place! Its awesome, a little loft in the heart of Paris! (granted there are 7 flights of stairs to climb....)

And here is Shannon infront of her door, she lives above a synagogue!

glasses...

Spent another fab day out in la Manche. Started out with a sushi lunch at the best sushi restaurant this side of the Mississippi ... er rather the Orne. Then we drove out to the smallest port in France, Diélette , which has a lovely but windy walk along the pier.










Afterwards we continued on to the lost bay near Cherbourg for a beautiful walk through the Jurassic Park ferns and old ruins...






















On the way back we stopped by Cherbourg to pick up Mystery Guest's new glasses. A poll is now in place : Do you prefer

Glasses #1 or










Glasses #2??









Casts your votes now!

And for your enjoyment...









me trying on glasses in the store... luuuurve the round frames!

walks

I've been out in La Manche for the last couple days having a pure vacation hanging out with Mystery Guest and the Fam.

Daily agenda you may ask?

Sleep.

Eat yummy homecooked food.

Email.

Go for a drive (hehe practicing my stick techniques... clutch, gas, brake baby).

Swim in the ocean.

Take a walk.

Sleep.

And the cycle repeats itself. I love it.

Been taking lots of pictures on our walks, the scenery here is so beautiful and untouched. Just thought I'd share with you a few pictures. :-)









Sunset

And a self-portrait of us watching it.

theatrical tours

Last night Mystery Guest and I went on a fantastic tour of Caen. Different from other city tours, this is actually a theatrical tour of the city. Starting at the tourist office with a brief 1-act play the guide then takes over and leads the group around the city. There are different stops with other 1-act plays telling different tales from different historical periods related to Caen. I had heard of this special summer-time only guided tour thanks to the beautiful Princess Virginie who's friend is an actress here in town.










It is such a different way to see a city that you are visiting, or even one that you live in. We wandered through streets that I had been down a million times but never knew behind-the-scenes stories. The actors were at the same time funny and powerful as they played their scene infront of ancient churches or monuments. With the costumes and the setting you were automatically transported back in history.

Very impressive.

So if you're around Caen either living here or passing through during the summer I'd highly recommend this tour :)

waiting...

Well found out yesterday that it will probably won't be until mid-August before I get my internet up and running at home... Bad timing! Right now I hang out outside one of the hotspots at the university since all the buildings are closed until August 15.

Sadly my battery only lasts about 1 hour and there aren't any plugs outside... So my new internet will arrive when it gets easier to use internet at the university... bad luck!

Oh well it could be worse, I should stop complaining, it is summer for heaven's sake! :-)

bagle time!

Now that I own a real freezer that can keep things frozen (yes! A miracle! Even ice cubes!) I ventured out in search of bagels after hearing from other ex-pats that they exist in the frozen variety at Picard. After a sweaty ride up a nice long hill (it was already 26C and humid at 10:00am according to the little city bulletin boards) I entered a frozen paradise, nice and refreshing after the ickyness outside.

I had never been in a Picard although I had often seen them from buses or from a car. It is a weird experience to walk into a store that only has cases of frozen items. It is so hospital-like and sterile.

But at the same time soooooo good!

I found what I was looking for 4 petit pains americains (bagels) for 2.30 euros! Not too shabby! They’ve got all sorts of everything frozen! I didn’t know you could freeze all those kind of things (corn on the cob, soup, filet mignon, sushi?!?) and for pretty reasonable prices. Some things were a bit of a stretch for me but maybe I’ll try them in the future… for the time being there was some raspberry sorbet on sale so I thought I’d try that as a nice summer treat.

melting...

It's HOT in France these days. I'm talking about hot hot. In past summers we'd get a week of hot, then it would break and thunderstorm, cool off for a while and then a week of hot etc... not this summer!

To give you an idea, I left home at 9:30 this morning and it was already 25C (my rough estimate, no contact withoutside world - ie internet, tv or radio - leaves me making my random guesses...) and now I'm giving a little squeal of joy each time the electric fan passes over me on its little rotation.

I could stay at home, where it is nice and cool due to the ground-floor location and little direct sunlight, but with nothing to do I end up leaving to go run errands or to steal internet from friends.

Maybe tomorrow I'll escape to the beach... this heat makes me sleepy and a nap on the beach is always a nice thing :-)

to bed or not to bed?

That is the question... :-)

When I moved into my new pad the only thing lacking furniture-wise was a bed. My old place had a loft built in and all that was needed was a matress. So I do have that.

But I think I want a bed. A real bed to get rid of the junkie/student appartment look. To store stuff under. To not sleep ontop of dust. To not have a cold winter draft...

The stores here trick you however! When I went price shopping when the tag said "lit" (bed) for only 59E it was not including the "sommier"(over 100E!!) So you could take home a nice big empty frame with nothing to hold up your matress!

Turns out in France they do things a bit different, there are no boxsprings, only this kind of wooden framing that you place inside your bed-frame. Different.

So as I've priced it so far, my cheapest option would run me about 180E without the price of delivery (don't know anyone around here with a truck! haha). Anyone out there seen anything cheaper?

summer road trip adventure

On Monday afternoon Mystery Guest came to Caen and Tuesday morning whisked me off on a road trip to the south of France!












We started off by a very long drive crossing the entire country in 38C+ heat , driving from Normandy to a tiiiiiny village lost in the hills near Lyon. Since we were heading down south Mystery Guest figured it was the time to stop by and visit his cousin and her boyfriend since it had been over a year since he’d seen them. It was so fun, they are really nice and we had a great time sitting in a courtyard of these oooold houses playing cards and chatting.









The region is amazingly beautiful, it reminds me a bit of home, many more hills than Normandy and the crisp scent pines was so familiar. Just driving around was heartwarming.













The next day we drove to the nearby town of Puy famous for its green lentils and a beautiful cathedral. We hiked all around the town and up “into the Virgin” as our hosts put it… ;-) It is a huge statue of the Virgin Mary perched on the peak of a hill overlooking the city, the view of the region made all those steps very worthwhile!










After lunch we left and continued our adventure crossing over into the Dordogne region where we stayed at a cute B&B in Sarlat. I had heard tons about this adorable village, and it was wroth it! The town is amazingly well preserved and as Mystery Guest said, "it's like being in a Medieval theme park" :-) The lady at the B&B recommended a fabulous restaurant for dinner where we made sure to take advantage of regional specialties, I had the dried ham, confit de canard, goat cheese and ile flottante for dessert (of course all accompanied by a local red wine! Yummy!)We hit the sack early after 2 days of long drives and were up early to go see some nearby towns.













The drives on the little roads were beautiful; I think this is one of the most beautiful regions of France that I’ve visited! There are so many hills and towns practically carved into them, facing winding rivers dotted with kayak tours… Just having the windows open, music playing and lively conversation made this trip fabulous.










In the afternoon we visited the caves of Lascaux, impressive! I had always thought that the drawings were much smaller but it is unbelievable that humans did such amazing things 17,000 years ago… it is a humbling experience.

The next day we were off back to Normandy. It was a long drive but there were some stunning sunflower fields to gaze out out the window…!










The couple days was a quick trip but so much fun! To just up and fly by the seat of your pants is the way to go…! Its funny how many inside jokes and tales are created on trips like these. From funny translations in roadside rest stops: “Trush, please put your periodic trimmings” (Trash for sanitary napkins etc…) or driving through towns with names like “Silly” or “Craponne” tee hee. I love it.