more engraving

I'm attending a franco-german wedding next weekend, two great friends who already seem to have everything and didn't give out any lists... So yesterday I hit up Galeries LaFayette in Caen and managed to catch the end of the sales. I picked up 4 of these little glasses for a great price and then took them home to engrave them. As my friends plan to open a flower shop one day I thought something with flowers or plantes would be nice and came up with this wrap-around ivy pattern with a few little hearts, but nothing too cheesy.

I thought they'd make nice little verrines so I went to another store and picked up little mini... well actually they are sporks... because I couldn't decide if I wanted mini forks or spoons... its funny they remind me of lunches in elementary school except a metal version!

Then as a final touch I added their names and the date to the bottom of the cup. I wanted something that would remind them of their wedding but at the same time something they could use everyday. I hope they do!

Now what am I going to wear to this wedding next weekend?? Humm...

sleepy

Last night I decided to go to bed early so that I could get up early today to do all my errands... just as I crawled into bed with a good book my neighbor decided to have a party... I havn't had any noise problems yet but with his window open directly below mine I could hear their (loud) conversation as if it was in my bedroom!

I thought, ok I'll see if they finish up soon, I don't want to be the annoying neighbor. But when 1:30am came around and it didn't sound like it would be wrapping up anytime soon I headed downstairs. It took me 5 min of knocking at the door to get him to come to the door and before I could open my mouth he quickly apologized and said he would keep it down. I said I would really appreciate it as I live directly above and can hear everything.

Happy I went back to bed. But did they keep it down? Not even close... It wasn't even a big party, sounded more like a gathering of friends but something about how the noise carries it was sooooo annoying. They finally left around 3am and I fell asleep.

So today I had to wake up early to get a whole bunch of stuff done - including sending my 1st draft of Chapter 1 off to my advisor! I got it all done last night, but I'm so nervous to hear what she has to say... going take today off and then get back to work on it tomorrow :-) Chapter 2 and 3 here I come!

down under

My little sister went and got a job down under! She just moved on Sunday from San Diego to Melbourne work :-) I'm so excited for her, she never went on a study abroad experience and I think it is such an important and enriching time in your life.

So now the family is spread on 3 different continents with 3 very different time zones... ha!

What's also cool is that Mom decided that we should all spend Christmas together and have a travel adventure in Australia! So I was lucky enough to get a ticket using her miles and will be heading down to kangaroo land for the first time this December! I'm so excited I can't wait!

In other news I'm madly trying to work on my thesis. It's amazing, its so time consuming and I feel proud of myself when at the end of the afternoon I have ONE page written to show for it... That will have to speed up though if I want to finish on time! I gave myself the personal deadline of the end of August as I will defend it in October to go into the second year of my Masters (and September will be busy with work and going home for 2 and 1/2 weeks). So give me a little cheer if you can! :-)

ambulance

I'm sitting at my desk drinking my morning coffee and I just heard an ambulance go by. It reminded me of something I wanted to blog about last week while in Paris.

When I was at the fab katia&kyliemac picnic Natalie and I went in search of a breeze on the bridge. Trying to cross the street was crazy, there were tons of people out for the holiday traffic was really busy.

Then we heard an ambulance with its sirens blareing and backed up on the sidewalk. I then noticed this older man and his son wanting to cross and as the ambulance sped by he raised his fist and screamed at the ambulance "ta gueule!!! ta gueule!!!*" I just couldn't believe it! Who would scream at an ambulance? I mean I know the sirens are loud but seriously, they're out to save dying people!

Crazy Parisians!

*shut the @%&^$ up!

Harry Potter!

Well the little Amazon.fr stork delivered a very precious bundle! Sometime this morning Harry Potter arrived chez moi :-)

3 hours later I'm about half-way through already, and torn between wanting desparatly to know the end and wanting to savor it a bit longer..

So people don't tell me ANYTHING! I will be avoiding internet as much as possible until I finish :-) hehehe - should be soon!

bday present

A friend of mine celebrated her birthday this week, the actual day being Monday but the party last night. So I was busy making a little birthday present for her. I decided to take a champagne flute and engrave it, so I chose a little flower motif for the glass and then around the base I wrote "Joyeux Anniversaire 2007 Aurore" to make sure it was personalized :-)

I'm glad I remembered to take pictures, I always make people presents and then forget to take pictures! Plus its really hard to take pictures of engraved glass, trying to get the details etc...













Otherwise not much new the past few days, trying to motivate myself to get work done on my thesis... I did catch a movie yesterday, 2 Days in Paris. I really liked the beginning, I thought it was hilarious but the end, as Sam said, was a bit darker and I enjoyed it less.. I would still say its worth seeing though!

Ok going to stop messing around with blogs and Facebook and get to work!! :-)

shocked

This commercial just aired on TV... has anybody else seen it and been shocked? Didn't think French commercials could shock me anymore but wow...

Paris picnic!

I just got back from Paris, Natalie and I went for the fabulous Katia & Kyliemac Bastille Day picnic!

I arrived in Paris yesterday and after dropping my stuff off chez Kyliemac we all made our way over to the Invalides to have a big 'ol blogger picnic. It was roasty toasty in Paris yesterday but it was great in the sun meeting new people :-) I got to meet fun Paris (and out of towners) bloggers, as well as their friends/spouses etc.

We oooed and awwwed over the fireworks display and danced around with some real American sparklers while drinking pink champagne, good times!

This morning a group of us went out to Breakfast in America for some real American goodness (blueberry pancakes, eggs, bacon, hashbrowns and of course some bottomless joe, or jus de chaussettes) before caching the train back to Caen.

The sun's out and I think summer might finally be here!!

Oh, and a call out to all those with fabulous cameras who were snapping their little hearts out... I want copies!! Phuuuleaaase :-)

hahaha!

http://www.terre.tv/indexvod.php?case=1&ref=00151

You've got to check this out!!! :-)

Harry Potter!

I just got back from the movies, to see Harry Potter! It was great! I had forgotten a lot of things that happened during the 5th book (Order of the Phoenix) and as always they did an excellent job adapting the book to the big screen. Its hard to adapt such an imaginative story, with fantastic characters but I guess between the detailed discriptions of J.K. Rowling and the director's imagination they made something that is exactly what I had imagined as a reader. Can't wait to see it again in English :-) That's the nice thing, telling myself that I need to see it again for the change in language... riiiight...

And now my appetite is whet for the final book, coming out in just over a week! Ohhhh can't waiiiiit! Am going to go and pre-order my copy now! To think I wasn't a Harry Potter fan until my first summer in Caen when I was bored to tears with my library card in hand... haha

embuscades

The lovely Miss Benedicte is back for a week from Dubai where she's working in order to finish up her Masters presentation at the university here. We took advantage of her time here (and the sunny weather Saturday) to go have an embuscade on the terrace of the Tour Solidor, our old hang out.

I'll just leave you with a few pictures of our embuscades, the lovely garbage truck in the background and Miss Natalie who showed up after being given a rose from random bachelors roaming the streets... haha :-)

Medieval Festival

Every year for the first weekend of July there is a medieval festival in the town of Bayeux (famous for the Bayeux Tapestry, and spared for the most part from WWII bombings). It is an amazing festival, especially since it is centered around the medieval cathedral! Luckly for Mystery Guest and I it was the only sunny day in the last 6 weeks, somehow an outdoor festival is not nearly as fun in the pouring rain...

They've got tons of booths, some with demonstrations, some where you can participate, where you can buy things or drink some medieval beer (brewed the old fashioned way, not leftover ;-) haha)

This year they also had a medieval Japanese area, with a tea ceremony, demonstration of raku pottery and samourai fighting techniques. It reminded me of the Harvest Festival the Japanese students used to put on at my university at home.









Here is the Samourai's tent where the tea ceremony was held (sadly we missed it).













A lace-maker.












Friar Tuck.









And for 2e you could try your hand at archery :-) I came close to the bull's eye a few times, Mystery Guest got it once!

4th of July!

Last night we had an awesome 4th of July BBQ!!

With our excellent Grill-Man, Oscar manning our impromptu BBQ and a huge spread of food (potato salad, pasta salad, corn on the cob, baked beans, watermelon, hot dogs, hamburgers, chips/salsa/guac, veggie & dip etc...)

Dig in people!

We were all suprised that we had leftover food because of all the people that turned up but it was a great party! And to top it all off we had some amazing brownies (provided by the fabulous Anne-Celine) as well as cookies and apple crisp! Yum yum!

ca-che up!

Been a bit forgetful about blogging! Need to catch up!

Last Saturday Mystery Guest and I took a little drive around to go geocaching! There are several within a 15km radius of Caen and we were very proud of ourselves when we found 2 out of 3!

The first one was in a little village next to Caen, next to an 11th century church with plenty of cows around. :-) Then we found one next to the Pegasus Bridge and then tried to find the third in a natural park but I think someone must have moved it.

Found!!

summer?

Natalie and I have decided to put together a big 4th of July shindig here in Caen... we've come to the realization that we probably won't be able to have it outside as the weather has been less than summery the month of June! I mean honestly wearing sweaters inside? What is this? There's a huge heat wave in Greece and Turkey with temps of 50C and here its about 13C max! Grr...

But today I walked outside to collect payment on a translation and was surprised when my sweater was too hot... should I get my hopes up that tomorrow I can have a real 4th of July BBQ? Maybe that would be asking a lot...