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!