bike ride

Yesterday Mystery Guest and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and went on a bike ride out to the nearby lighthouse. It was one of those perfect days, one of the first summerlike times where you can feel the sun on your back and the ocean breeze in your hair (haha cheezy I know but so true!). It was about 6 or 7km out there and once we got there it was warm enough to lay down on those big rocks and take in the sunshine!We heard there is a geocache in the area but we with the directions we would a compass so we just scoped out the area and will be back soon to really search for it.

Beautiful no? You can see the town of Barfleur (and the recently restored church) in the distance.

I can't wait for summer!! Now if my memoire would just write itself...

Ca$h

Mystery Guest and I decided to go out on a Saturday night for a little date night, we went to go see Ca$h. It was really fun, reminded me a lot of Ocean's 11 - the same style, music and theme of big slick crooks. The story, however, was quite different and kept you wondering what would happen all the way through. I can tell you that I never would have guessed the end! Those are my favorite kinds of movies, the ones that keep you on edge and surprise you with the final scene :-)

spring flowers

the sun came out... and spring is in the air!

weekend at Etretat

Whew! It's been busy around here! It is April break but just like the last 4 years I've decided to work during my break. They have a program here run by the local government that buses in junior high kids for an English workshop. They ask teachers and assistants to run the different classes (and the pay is great!!) for either one or both weeks. I always sign up for both ;-) This year I'm teaching American Geography, it's usually pretty fun but tiring trying to motivate these kids. You have to try to have fun lesson plans since it is during their break, but not too fun or they tune out quickly... Anyway week 1 is done and only 4 days left of week 2!

To get a little change of scenery Mystery Guest and I drove up to a little village near Etretat where some friends of his live in a beautiful big house. They are great, so nice and fun to hang out with. The weather got a little better as the weekend went on but with their covered veranda you have the feeling you're outside but without the wind (and rain!). It really feels like a vacation with the jacuzzi and vegging on the sofa. Mystery Guest got to play on the computers too :-) I got to play with their little girl, she's going to turn 2 next month and is just adorable!
To thank them for inviting us I made some chocolate chip cookies and it was too cute when I watched the little one eat her first cookie. She eyed it with such suspicion - even when I told her it was a gâteau. In then end she scarfed it down though! I also made them some pancakes for Saturday brunch, seems like I've hit my audience when it comes to American food! I know Mystery Guest's family has already taken to my pancakes ;-) even with maple syrup! In the afternoon the weather cleared and we took a little walk down to the beach to work off all those calories!

It was beautiful down there, extreme low tide exposing all the seaweed covered rocks and you could see the sun setting in the distance and a huge rainstorm off in the horizon... Idyllic.

Here are the insanely steep steps you climb down to get to the beach. Mystery Guest is pointing to the geocache that we fixed, the other one we put there a few months ago but was misplaced so we had to go back and fix it :-)

news from la Manche...

I love this shot in the local newspaper where beau-père (on the left) the avid fisherman is clearly the new celebrity around these parts ;-)

spring pics

Spring has sprung the last couple days, ever since the snow went away. It feels so nice to have the sun toasting your shoulders and hear the birds chirping away... I walked around town to take a few pictures. The first one is of the back of the chateau de Caen where they have been restoring the ramparts.

Yesterday on the news it was fun to see the weather report, usually the country is divided in half, the top grey and rainy (according to the news!) and the south sunny, but today the north was bright and sunny and the south was nothing but thunderstorms! haha take that! :-)Wednesday evening some friends invited Mystery Guest and I out to the countryside. They are housesitting this beautiful old farm for a month while their friends are in Australia. Before dinner we walked around the property, met 2 of the 7 horses, all of the dogs and cats. Apparently their friends bought the property in 2001 when it was mostly in ruins and half of the house was hidden by the weeds, but now it is beautiful, all restored with that creamy white pierre de Caen.

They also added some cool things, in the barn there is an old cider press that still works but they added a table in the middle and benches around the trough so they can seat 15 people around 1 round table, too cool!! Plus these friends left some bottles of wine aside so we had some yummy bordeaux with our chili dinner and homemade cookies! That and a rousing game of Catan made for a great evening! Thanks guys ;-)

springtime in normandy

I spent the weekend out in La Manche chilling with Mystery Guest and enjoying some off and on spring sunshine. The weather had finally started to get nice and spring like warm on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday it was windy but we managed to squeeze a walk to the beach in in the late afternoon. It was beautiful as always out there. Today the weather was also very spring like and tempermental, going from sunny to rainy and sometimes hailing. But as we headed back to Caen tonight as we got closer we saw this huge menacing black cloud over the city. And as soon as we reached the city limits it started snowing like crazy!

That's a picture I took from my bedroom window, the snow was sticking on the ground and even on the road! It stopped and started the rest of the evening... crazy! I hope the trams are running ok tomorrow morning, I have a class to teach and I'm sure as hell not walking 45 minutes up there in the snow!! :-)

And then the same view Monday morning..

concentration... or lack thereof...

Sorry for that little April Fool's joke back there... tee hee, I thought I might get some of the bloggers but I never thought my family would believe me! You'd think they'd know me better than that and that I would call first instead of putting it up on my blog ;-) But anyway I was proud, it was my first very successful April Fool's prank as I can never get through them straight faced, I always crack at some point!

Other than that I'm just trying to make some headway on my second memoire... Yup that's right, each year of this masters program (2) I have to write a thesis. The first year you research and write in English and the second year you still research in English but write in French, talk about a muddle of vocab in your brain! Last year I barely made it through at the nick of time, this year I started off stronger and more motivated but its one of those times right now where I am seriously losing motivation. Talking with my advisor helped a lot yesterday so I'm hoping that feeling will stay with me! It just really takes the spirit out of you knowing that your written French isn't up to par and having that mental block between ideas and paper is so frusterating!

Anyway vent over, time to go read some more books...

big news!

I have big news for everyone out there!! Last night Mr. Mystery Guest popped the question!

I still can't believe it, it was just so romantic and perfect... so of course I said yes!

He came over to my house to pick me up for dinner and in his hand he had a beautiful bouquet of flowers so of course I went to the kitchen to get some water for them and when I put them in the vase I noticed a beautiful ring nestled in the center of one of the roses...!! Then he got down on one knee and I started bawling. Could hardly answer through the surprise and tears... I must have been really hot with puffy eyes! lol

Anyway lots to talk about now, but I've got to run to work, more updates to come!!! :-)


**update: hehe ohhhh I got you guys goooood! even Mystery Guest did a double take haha :-)nobody noticed the "empty" box?

ps. sorry mom!! ;-)

change your clocks!

Don't forget that in France we spring forward today and change our clocks!

jazzzz baby

Last night I went out with some friends to listen to some jazz. There is a little cafe/bar that tends to have free live jazz music every Friday night. Last time we went we had a little, er, miscommunication about the time so we missed it but this week no problem! It was great, the music was wonderful, the wine was cheap and delish (2.50e for a house red and it was gooood!) and the company was hilarious. We had some pretty entertaining conversations, most likely influenced by said cheap wine, and the best was when 3 of the Frenchies decided that I reminded them of Johanna...

Now, who is this Johanna?? I've heard people reference her to me before but never took the time to figure this out. Apparently there was a teenybopper show on in France in the early 90's which reminds me of Saved by the Bell and one of the characters is an American, Johanna.

So I could understand why the accent or something might give us something in common but when I looked up this video on YouTube I just don't see it! Sarah said that yes, take away the fabulous hair and there is a little something...

I'll let you decide for yourself:

praise be!

The day has finally arrived! The day all expats have been dreaming of... please spread this blessed word as far and wide as you possibly can!

Yes, oh yes, they are selling window screens at Lidl!!!

I'm off to stock up next week! Can't wait! :-)

Happy dance!

expensive groceries

In Le Monde yesterday it has finally been studied that food prices have gone up... uhh really??

"Ainsi, les pâtes alimentaires ont augmenté de 16 % en un an, les oeufs de 14 %, le lait de 12 %, le beurre de 10 %, la farine 10 %, le riz de 9 %, les fromages de 8 % et les yaourts de 7 %."

In the last year pasta has gone up 16%, eggs 14%, milk 12%, butter and flour 10%, rice 9%, cheese 8% and yogurt 7%.

I can tell you I've sure seen that difference in the last few years, its crazy how much these basic products are increasing and salaries are not.

And why is it that gas in Europe continues to increase despite the fall of the dollar? That one is what really gets you, 1 gallon of gas in France will cost you about $10 based on the euro/dollar exchange rate these days! Its a good time for Europeans to go to the States but a bad time for Americans to come travel around Europe that's for sure.

In other news I tried out a new scone recipe yesterday, yum! So light and fluffy they were dewwwishhhhious ;-)

colloque

Today I went to a conference organized by the English Research Department on campus. There was an honored guest this morning, Geoffrey Hill, considered by the majority of critics, to be among the most distinguished English poets of his generation.

After a wonderful introduction by one of my profs (a Geoffrey Hill scholor and translator of some of his poems!), Hill read some of his work.

It was amazing, the poetry is so complex and detailed but hearing it read outloud by this big Santa Claus man with a beautiful deep voice was unbelieveable.

It was one of those times where something that would seem to have been written by "old white men" comes alive and shake off the dust. Great experience.

bravo! bravo! BRAVO!

When was the last time we heard a real speech like this?? Excellent.

foodie

Mystery Guest went fishing last week and brought back this beautiful rainbow trout! It was 30cm long and went straight from the river to my plate! Lucky me he doesn't like fish :-) I decided to post about it partly to show him how cool his catch was and partly inspired by These Days in a French Life and "meet your meat" in March. I didn't really meet this fish while he was still alive but it was the first time I've ever had to cut a whole fish apart to cook it. (Thankfully Mystery Guest gutted the poor thing first, I'm not sure if I could handle doing that...) So I did my best and decided to steam it in the oven with some olive oil and sea salt. I didn't have time that day to eat it but the next day I cut up the meat into small chunks and mixed them with pasta, a little creme fraiche (straight from the market!) and lots and lots of lemon juice - YUM!

My other culinary challenge this week was an attempt to try to reproduce the AMAZING pizza we had in Venice. The difference with this pizza was the huge fluffy crust. This was not a dense, boring pizza crust, this was crusty on the outside, light and delicious on the inside... When I tried it in Venice I decided it had to be a focaccia dough that they used... so I turned to my wonderful cookbook and looked up their *best* recipe.

It was very simple to follow, the only problem was of course the waiting - as you would with all yeast breads and the very very sticky dough! But it rose beautifully and I let it cool for a bit while waiting for Mystery Guest and the pizza toppings.

Here is the finished product. I put the toppings on after the dough was already baked and just let them sit under the broiler for 5 minutes to get all melty and gooey.

I have to say for a 1st attempt this was very very close to what we had in Venice and delicious! I can't wait to try again soon :-)

Plus the cool thing is that it was way cheap to make, I'd say about 4euros for the whole pizza... just time consuming but hey what better way to procrastinate?

PACsed

Well Mystery Guest and I have taken that leap, we are now PACSed! We had dropped off all of the paperwork (birth certificates, certificates that we are not pacsed already, that we are not brother and sister etc...) and then we got a letter for our appointment.

So this morning we showed up at the Tribunal and the lady showed us everything, went over the paperwork, had us sign 2 things and we were done! 10 minutes, easy-peasy!

His mom surprised us with a lovely bouquet of flowers and took a couple pictures. Then we headed back to Caen because afterall it was a school day :-) Then this evening we headed out to a little dinner, at Buffalo Grill bien sur! Yum, I started with a little Sheriff Bubbly (ie Kir Royale) and then moved on to some ribs baby! Yum yum!

Here are a few pictures of the day.

(note to self: even if you want to look cute, wearing a skirt when the wind is blowing at 110km per hour is a baaaad idea!)

me on tv...

Wow 3 blog posts in one day! Guess that's what happens when you hole yourself up with the intention of studying all day! :-)

I volunteered to help represent the English Department at the Salon de l'Etudiant back in January and ended up on a *very* local TV station. They finally posted the clip, so for your viewing pleasure (and my shame...) here it is! I'm about 5 minutes into the clip...

Les Infos du 25 janvier 2008 - cityzen
Salon de l'étudiant et des métiers au Parc des Expositions de Caen, conférence sur les conséquences comportementales liées aux jeux vidéos à l'Université de Caen, lecture publique au Théâtre d'Hérouville St Clair

Mots-clés : tv télévision television télé caen hérouville cityzen citizen citysen citisen

Video de cityzentv

lazy venice recap

Ok, I made this instead :-)



Highlights:
-the best (and cheapest!) coffee I've ever had! duo cappuccini!
-helping a random lady out carrying some boxes on the vaporetto and learning that she works for a local museum, got us a behind the scenes tour!
-amazing pizza, am going to try to make my version at home. I think they used focaccia bread as a crust...
-ahhh the gondola, expensive but so worth it!


(the music used is "Escape from Venice" from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade... little Easter Egg there for you, there is a picture of the outside of the church (San Barnaba) where they find the knight's tomb in...!)

Venice Day 1

Ok ok I figured I should just sit down and write this otherwise I'd regret it later :-)

So after a long drive over to Beauvais we had extra time before the flight so we ducked into town to see the cathedral, too bad outside of downtown Beauvais is stinky! I swear we decided it smelled like a mix of old dog poo and cooked kidneys (that last part was added by Mystery Guest, I have never smelled kidneys cooking...). But anyway it was a nice cathedral and sure beat sitting around the airport for any longer than you have to!

The flight went so smoothly! The whole trip actually, it was as if it were perfectly timed just for us. We arrived in the airport outside of Venice and there was a bus waiting for our flight to take us downtown, we jumped on and 40 minutes later we were in Venice. The vaporetto line we needed to catch left from the bus stop and so we called our B&B and arranged for a pick up at our vaporetto stop Saint Stae 20 minutes later. While we stood infront of a church waiting for the pick-up you could see down little alleyways and in the quiet February night there was hardly a soul around. I really understood why Venice is such a sought after location for movies and the setting of books. The mystery, the fog and the low lights just all add to the atmosphere. It's great mid-week in the off season, like you've stepped back in time!

The man met us after we had only been waiting about 10 minutes and showed us to our cute little room, gave us directions to local restaurants and supermarkets and wished us a pleasant stay (in a mis-mash of Italian, French and random English). If you ever need a place in Venice let me know, this place was awesome and a great deal!

We decided to stay in after the traveling and head to bed early. It was so strange not to hear any cars or mopeds, just quiet, so quiet!