Torie and Erik

Puzzling

2011-12-26T10:40:00.000+01:00

Part of our Christmas decorating this year (and in honour of their visit to Canada) involved dumping out a puzzle that was given to us by Mr. and Mrs. Tanaka last year.

1000 pieces. The fact that it's on the coffee table is added motivation to finish it.

We have now officially almost finished the 'easy' parts, aka all the parts that aren't just blue sky.

As I type this, Erik is down to the last 5 green pieces.

Wish us luck!

Also, any guesses as to what the puzzle is of? :)

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T10:37:00.001+01:00

Christmas Market

2011-12-18T19:48:00.001+01:00

On Saturday night we visted the marche de noel on the Champs Elysees with our friends Kareen, Pascale and Carmen.

We had a great time browsing through the stalls and sampling the different things to eat (Norwegian fire roasted salmon sandwich, waffles with Nutella, tartiflette and warm pretzels were the highlights) and drink. I don't think that Erik passed a vin chaud stand without stopping for a refill. That could explain why he was the only one still warm by the end of the night. (the long johns and down filled vest probably helped too!)

They had a real Santa perched in a sleigh high up in the air that moved across some wires to look like it was flying. He made a festive little speech to all of the spectators below.

It was a fun night, and really got us into the holiday spirit!

Vaux le Vicomte

2011-11-01T09:16:00.002+01:00

On Sunday we visited the castle Vaux le Vicomte. It's the castle that inspired Versailles, built for Fouquet, one of the king's finance ministers.

The castle is certainly less touristy than Versailles, and perhaps a bit less opulent, but made for a great day trip on a beautiful fall day.

We finished off the day with a delicious meal at our favorite Thai restaurant.

Look a new post!

2011-10-28T10:43:00.002+02:00

It's now the first school break of the year and Howard and Joan are here in Paris to visit us (and the city).

Here's what we've been up to:

Eating! We seem to be doing a lot of this :)

Kampaii! We had lunch at a Japaense restaurant on the rue St. Anne

We tried to visit the newly renovated Musee d'Orsay, but it was closed due to a strike. Our second choice museum, the Orangerie was also closed because it was Tuesday. Then it rained.

But Joan spotted this rainbow as we waited in line for the free exhibition at the Hotel de Ville, and the day suddenly got better (ice cream also helped!)

We finally made it into the Musee d'Orsay yesterday and had a great lunch in the museum's restaurant.

Chiliwack

2011-09-04T11:13:00.003+02:00

The last stop on our great British Columbian adventure was to Chiliwack to see our friends Alison and James, and their two year old son Cameron.

Apparently the thing to do in Chiliwack if you're not into farming is to go hiking, and James took us on a great walk through some old railroad tunnels.

Erik, James and Cameron had fun throwing rocks into the water, each seeing who could throw the biggest rock (James won).

Then we went up a mountain to have lunch in a little lodge before driving up a very windy road to a look out point overlooking many of the mountains in the non-Rocky Mountain mountain chain we were in (can't remember the name....)

The view was pretty spectacular.

Then we went out for a night on the town, continuing with our theme of eating far too much at each meal. We had some great appetizers on the patio of a restaurant in a downtown hotel before heading to a popular Italian restaurant for dinner.

Erik left the next day, and with James working Alison and I (and Cameron) were free to go shopping and then out for lunch. We ended that day with popsicles and a trip to the great splash pad near their house and sushi for dinner.

A very purple Cameron post-popsicle, pre-sprinkler

It was so great to see them, we hadn't spent any quality time with James since long before we moved to France, and I had only met Cameron briefly when my trip to Ottawa two years ago was delayed by the volcano. Wish they didn't live so far away!

Capilano Suspension Bridge

2011-08-29T14:11:00.002+02:00

On our last day in Vancouver we picked up our rental car and drove out to the Capilano Suspension Bridge.

This was probably the most touristy thing we did the entire trip, and I can't say it was worth the price for the amount of time we spent there, but it was still pretty cool. And stepping out on to that shaky bridge for the first time is pretty scary.

They also have a new Tree Walk open, with walkways attached to the rock face over looking the valley. Pretty cool, but way too crowded to be enjoyed properly.

Vancouver

2011-08-28T13:40:00.004+02:00

Next stop on our whirlwind tour of BC was a couple of days in the great city of Vancouver.

First order of business was lunch at Japadog, for some Japanese inspired street meat. Those hotdogs fueled our very long walk over the Granville St. bridge to Granville Island.

After looking around the craft and food markets we took the water taxi back and walked up through English Bay. If only Paris Plage could be more like that....

For dinner on our first night we did an Izakaya crawl. Izakaya are Japanese restaurants that serve small dishes traditionally eaten while drinking beer. To stretch out our stomachs between stops we walked around Coal Harbour to the Olympic Torch cauldron.

Day two started off with a bike ride around the sea wall of Stanely Park.

Then we went into the park and biked around Beaver Lake, where we stopped to eat the picnic we had picked up at the Whole Foods before starting (what a great grocery store!! I want one in Paris).

We spent the rest of the day wandering around Gastown and Chinatown, and had a delicious early dinner at Bao Bei a Chinese 'brasserie' in Chinatown.

Saltspring Part 3

2011-08-26T13:45:00.003+02:00

We happened to be on Saltspring during the full moon in August, so we signed up for a full moon kayak tour with Tracy and Ed. We had a great time paddling out to one of the private islands near Saltspring for tea and cookies, and on the way back we were able to see some phosphorescent plankton.

Erik and I also hiked up Mount Maxwell, the highest point on the island. We were rewarded with great views of Fulford Harbour, and of the other Gulf Islands.

We made it!

Western Canada Part 2--Saltspring

2011-08-24T19:11:00.005+02:00

The reason we planned this whole trip was to visit my grandma, who will be turning 90 years old this fall. She lives on Saltspring Island, a little gulf island off the coast of Victoria. My mom, my brother and I used to go out there every summer and I have great memories of the place, but hadn't been in far too long. It was great to be back.

My cousin Tracy, her husband Ed and their son Liam were also visiting which made things all the more exciting. We hadn't seen any of them since our wedding, and it was great to meet little Liam. He was too cute!

Turns out that Saltspring has three wineries. We visited all of them, and were pleasantly surprised by the wines.

Tracy and Ed had us over for dinner at their campsite one night. And there might have been smores another night... Yummy!

We drove out to Beddis Beach one morning when the tide was low so that we could walk around the point to bay where my grandparents used to live.

The tide pool that we used to poke our fingers into when we were kids was still there.

Tracy and I were looking for moonshells, but didn't find any. The scenery was lovely and hadn't changed and it made for a great walk.

To complete the walk down memory lane, we had ice cream at Glad's

And ate fish and chips at the Seaside Kitchen in Vesuvius, while watching the ferry head to Crofton.

But Saltspring isn't just ice cream and fish and chips! There is more to come, but it will have to wait for another post. Stay tuned!

Western Canada Part 1

2011-08-23T18:50:00.002+02:00

It's hard to know where to start with this trip. We were only gone for two weeks, but it felt like so much longer, in a good way.

The trip started off once again with separate flights for Erik and I. I had a longish layover in Toronto, and was happy to meet up with my friend Nancy for a quick bite to eat.

Erik was waiting for me at the airport in Vancouver, and after a quick stop at the hotel we went straight out for dinner. We were staying in Richmond, and it is apparently the place to go for good Chinese food, something we don't get much of here in Paris. I had a place lined up and we had a delicious meal where I ordered way too much food. It just all sounded so good!

Soup dumplings, dan dan noodles, hot and sour wonton soup and stir fried rice cake at Chen's Shanghai Noodle House.

The next day we were up bright and early to catch the ferry from Tsawwassen to Victoria to meet Steve and Yoshimi. We were so happy that we were able to connect with them on this trip.

We spent two days wandering around the city. We ate ice cream, visited the Legislative Buildings and walked through Beacon Hill Park.

Maybe they weren't so happy to see us?

And we finished it all off with an excellent dinner at Linda Birdsall's house, a family friend of Howard and Joan. It was the best meal we had in Victoria!

Erik did this drawing when he was 8 and gave it to Linda who still has it hanging in her house.

Guess Who's Here?

2011-08-04T10:30:00.002+02:00

Christy's here! (with her friend Meeta)

We've been busy eating...

and visiting the gardens at Versailles, among other things.

The sun finally came out!

Our Stuff

2011-08-03T10:17:00.002+02:00

Has arrived.

Things I've learned about international shipping:
1. It's not as simple as the shipping company makes it seem.

2. Ask about hidden costs up front. I was not pleasantly surprised when our shipment got transferred to the UK shipping agent (after having paid the Canadian company) and the welcome email included a list of possible additional expenses.

3. If you've been out of the country for more than a year, you will likely have to pay duty (duties?) on your goods. This whole fiasco delayed delivery by almost a month.

4. Make a detailed inventory of your goods, even if the shipping company says it's not necessary. Said detailed inventory would have been helpful when we had to come up with the exact value of our goods so that customs could calculate the duty we owed.

5. Another hidden cost not listed should have been 'reception of international calls on your cell phone in order to direct truck driver to your home'. Can't wait to see this month's bill!

6. Paris + big trucks + street construction = impossible. The delivery truck ended up parking a good three blocks away after deciding that it was too big to fit down our street. And this was after getting completely turned around trying to find our street due to the construction on the road that you kind of need to take to get here. Things you forget to mention when you don't actually drive... Also it was raining. Good thing we didn't have that much stuff!

Sevilla

2011-07-23T12:55:00.003+02:00

Here are some the few photos that I took during my trip to Sevilla. It was a beautiful city and we had the most lovely weather. Blue skies without a cloud in sight. A tropical 35 degrees most days, it was most manageable when sipping a cool drink in the shade. And there was lots of shade (cool drinks, too).

Beautiful tiled garden at the Art Gallery of Seville

Drinking tinto verano and eating tapas next to the river

The cathedral of Seville--third largest cathedral in the world!

We climbed to the top of the cathedral's tower and then had fun spotting the buildings with pools. Why didn't our hotel have one?

At the top of the cathedral tower. (can't figure out how to flip the photo around).

This huge waffle like structure was a big open plaza in the downtown. Very cool. We also had some very yummy tapas right beside it.

The float that carries the weeping Virgin Mary statue during Seville's Semana de Santas.

The famous weeping virgin Mary. She has a crystal tear on her cheek and many different robes she can be dressed in.

Did I mention that there was tapas?

2011-07-11T22:43:00.004+02:00

It's been awhile since I posted, but June and July have been a busy months and the nice weather that we've had makes it hard to stay inside behind the computer. I'm off to Seville on Thursday for a long weekend with a friend (forecast says 36 degrees!!).

In the meantime, be sure to check out Steve's blog and follow him on his walk from Edmontonto Vancouver. Gambaro Japan!

Picnic

2011-06-05T16:44:00.002+02:00

We just filed our taxes and are having our annual tax-paying blues (perfect way to end a five-day weekend), so it seems like an appropriate time to remember happier, carefree times and share some photos of the picnic we had yesterday with our friends Julie and Eileen.

We had hoped to go to beach at Toqueville (near Deauville in the north) for the day, but that didn't work out, and the next best thing was laying in the sun in the Bois de Boulogne. We had planned to rent a rowboat as well, but by the time we got out there we were too hungry to do anything but eat. We took the water taxi across to the little island on one of the lakes and found the perfect place to picnic, ignoring all the 'no picnicking' signs.

There were two peacocks roaming around to keep us company.

We lazed about for a couple of hours enjoying the sun and commenting on the constant stream of rowers that went past. It was a lovely afternoon, one that we will hopefully be repeating (with boats and a real camera) very soon and very often.

The Farm

2011-05-22T13:43:00.004+02:00

Last week was my field trip to a pedagogical farm with my class of 11 five year olds. Overnight trips are a common activity in French schools, and are called 'classe verte' or green class. It was basically like being at camp, the kids had fun, and we all returned exhausted and in need of a good shower.

The four days were jam packed of fun farm activities.

We met the pigs and piglets, and got out the hose to make them a mud bath.

We groomed the work horse who then took us on a carriage ride.

We took a walk through the forest to get to a stream.

Then we collected insects and other gross things from said strem (including a leech!)

We milked goats, and tasted the milk.

We played with the ducklings.

There was horse back (poney back?) riding.

We hung out with some cows.

We saw a HUGE turkey.

And the highlight, got to pet the baby bunnies.

It was a fun week, and the kids really got a lot of hands on time with the animals, which was pretty cool. I have spent some quality time this weekend on the couch enjoying the quiet, and am just about ready to see all these kids again tomorrow.

Toronto comes to us!

2011-05-09T15:07:00.002+02:00

Well, a little part of Toronto, anyway.

Our friends Kurt, Kim and Andy were in Paris for the first time over the weekend. We had a great time exploring Montmartre with them, and of course, eating. We had a lovely dinner on Saturday night at La Rotonde in Montparnasse, where the star of the meal was oysters, bien sur!

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T14:45:00.002+02:00

To both our moms, we hope that you are having a fantastic day, and we wish we could be spending it with you! Maybe it's time for another visit?

Lots of love!

Toronto 4

2011-05-04T14:41:00.002+02:00

Our last two days we got to spend lots of time with Christy, and she was lucky enough (and hungry enough) to come and have brunch at Sneaky Dee's. Brunch was good, but I still regret not having ordered nachos.

Erik's standard: Burro Favorito and a Ceasar. Breakfast of champions. Or grad students.

We walked off that meal through Queen West, an area that I enjoyed so much we went back again the next day to do some last minute shopping. We had cocktails and poutine in a nice sunny booth at some place on Bathurst, before madly rushing home to get ready for the wedding.

Saturday morning we had a great French brunch (something that doesn't exist in France. +1 Canada for finding a French solution to brunch) at Le Select, and by that point I was pretty sure that I wasn't ready to go back to Paris.

But Christy dropped me off at the airport, and one overnight flight later I was standing at the baggage claim at CDG trying to decide if I should be the polite Canadian or the pushy French and elbow my way to the front of the crowd so that I could actually see my bag when it came out. It finally arrived, and the RER got me home quickly, and the market was going, so I wandered sleepily through that before dragging myself to Easter brunch at a friends house.

And then Erik came home on Saturday, after having gone directly from Toronto to San Francisco for the week.

As much as I love Toronto, I certainly can't say that I'm unhappy here in Paris, especially now that the weather is starting to warm up. Paris is lovely in the springtime, and for now, this is our home, and it certainly is sweet.

Toronto, 3

2011-05-03T14:23:00.000+02:00

My family came down to visit us for a night, and we had a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant in Leslieville. A nice end to a day that had included a very cold walk down to the AGO only to discover that it is closed on Mondays.

We tried again the next day, and my mom and I spent a couple of hours admiring the Group of Sevens, and the David Blackwood exhibit of etchings, as well as the new architecture. What a beautiful space!

View out the back of the AGO

Mom, Rob and I had dim sum for lunch before they hit the road to head home. (+1 Canada for having good Chinese food)

We spent the remainder of the trip staying with Erik's cousin Christy, and her parents joined us for a yummy dinner at Terroni's (which has an upstairs now!).

No visit to Toronto would be complete without seeing Sharon and Harry and their girls, and Erik's grandma, who was looking pretty good for 90! We spent the day out there going through our stuff, and hanging out with the girls. Hard to believe Kristen was just 5 when we left. Harry made a great dinner (mixed grill! Our favorite!).

Toronto, 2

2011-05-02T14:02:00.000+02:00

I have to admit that I took very few photos on this trip. It was nice to just BE there, and to enjoy each moment. That was perhaps the best part of being back. Everything just felt normal. Everything made sense. People were nice. (+ 2 for Canada)

We rode the subway many times, and it was so BIG. And empty. And kind of slow. But the TTC employees were in general friendly, and very helpful, something that doesn't exist here. I'll give Toronto one point for actually having a subway, but France gets two points for having a system that actually works better than having a car. We spent a lot of time waiting for streetcars in Toronto, and were inconvenienced by not one, but two streetcar diversions which were a huge pain in the cold.

We went out for dinner with our friends Mark and Alyssa, and met their adorable little girl. It was so nice to reconnect with people that we haven't seen in ages. On the way home I took some pictures walking up Bathurst, and then of the park near where we used to live (you can just see the CN tower in the distance).

We went out for dinner another night with Katie and Ross, whose wedding we were in town for. Our friend Pam has just opened a restaurant called the Brockton General, and we had a nice meal there.

We also had a nice brunch with the rugby crowd and got to meet two of their newest additions: Fred and Jing's daughter Amira, and Tony and Agnes's daughter Isabella. Plus all their dogs (Erik would give Canada +1 for that). We also spent time with Roman and Hannah, and their kids Jazmine, Sebastian and Eva. (Canada gets +4 for having friends that we have a history with)

Score: 7 Canada, 2 France

Toronto

2011-05-01T11:22:00.002+02:00

For our Easter vacation this year we went to Toronto, for the first time in 3 years. I loved Toronto so much when we lived there, and I have to admit that I was apprehensive about returning, and worried that it would make me homesick for Canada. Let's just say that the novelty of France has worn off, and that the charms of France are sometimes not so charming. So let's keep score and see what country comes out on top!

For the first four days we stayed with our friends Nancy and Daryl and their two sweet girls Grace and Poppy.

Upon arriving at the house, Erik was thrilled to be handed a beer and sent downstairs to watch hockey. Oh, hockey, how I don't miss you (+1 for France).

We had a great time hanging out with the girls, and braving the freezing cold temperatures (+1 France) when we ventured out for coffee.

No trip to Canada could be complete without some Tim Horton's. (+1 Canada for the doughnuts)

Score: France 2, Canada 1

Some more highlights from Karina's visit

2011-04-07T13:36:00.002+02:00

Crepes!

Champagne at the top of the Eiffel Tower

Bajan Dinner (clockwise from the spinach): macaroni pie; rice and peas; fish cakes; fried 'flying' fish.

35

2011-04-03T13:25:00.002+02:00

Happy Birthday Erik!

The best (and easiest) chocolate cake:
200g chocolate
200g butter
250g sugar
5 eggs
1 tablespoon flour

Heat oven to 190C.

Melt the chocolate and the butter over a double boiler. Add sugar and let cool a bit.

Mix in the eggs one by one.

Stir in the sugar.

Pour into a buttered or papered cake pan/baking dish, and bake until just set, about 29 minutes in a square pan. The cake is best if you make it the night before.

A Good Cookie and a Good Book

2011-03-13T12:42:00.002+01:00

Last weekend I made Thunder Cookies. Erik came up with this idea for a cookie containing his five favorite cookie things: chocolate; Nutella; coconut; macadamia nuts and peanut butter. I finally got around to making them on Sunday, and we had finished the whole batch by Wednesday, they were that good. (Although next time I'll use hazelnuts instead of macadamia nuts. But don't tell Erik).

Thunder Cookies

*1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

*3/4 cup sugar

*1 egg

*1/2 cup Nutella

*1/2 tsp. baking soda

*1/2 tsp. baking powder

*1/4 tsp. salt

*1 tsp. vanilla extract

*1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

*1/4 cup coconut

*1/2 cup peanut butter chips

*1/2 cup chopped macadamia nuts

Instructions

*Preheat oven to 375°F.

*With an electric mixer, beat butter until creamy. Add in the sugar and beat until fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Add in the egg and beat until combined. Beat in the Nutella, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and vanilla until well combined.

*Beat in the flour and coconut until just combined. Stir in the peanut butter chips and chopped nuts by hand. Scoop dough by large tablespoons and form into balls. Place, about 2 inches apart, on a lightly greased baking sheet and bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until edges are crispy and center is still slightly soft. Remove from oven and cool 10 minutes on baking sheet. Finishing cooling on wire rack.

Also, we have recently discovered that French Nutella and Canadian Nutella are different! Not only does ours always come in glass jars, it also doesn't contain any hydrogenated palm oil. Just vegetable oil. Tastes different (better) too.

Now, to keep you company while you eat your cookies, I have to recommend the book I just finished. It's called The Help, by Kathyn Stockett, and I couldn't put it down. It's about two black maids and a white woman in Mississippi in the 60s who decide to write about what it's like to be the help. Fascinating.

Erik's New Chair

2011-03-05T20:19:00.001+01:00

Well, we finally got a chair. No, we never got around to re-upholstering the other one. We did buy an upholstery book though. Our friend Anja acquired a couch today, and since we drove the moving van, we adopted the matching chair. Anyway, the old skeleton chair will be going back onto the street, and Erik may never leave this spot again. Now you know where to find him.

We < 3 Budapest, part III

2011-02-26T14:32:00.004+01:00

Our third day was castle day. We took the funicular that was just a few minutes from our hotel. A quick ride up and we were enjoying more spectacular views of this amazing city.

We entered the palace grounds and looked around, enjoying the view. The palace now houses an art gallery, that we unfortunately didn't have the time to visit.

We are literally right above our hotel. Karina could see her room!

Still on the castle side, or Buda, we walked into the little town to visit the Matyas church. It had beautiful tile work on the roof, but unfortunately most of the interesting sights on the inside were being restored.

The fisherman's bastion is right next to the church, so we spent some time taking more photos, and enjoying the view.

We then did a little walk around the streets surrounding the church, before having lunch and heading to the Hungarian Wine Society to do a tasting. No photos of that, unfortunately, but it was a lot of fun, and we tasted some really delicious wines. We bought a couple of bottles, and enjoyed the walk down from the castle back to our hotel.

No time to rest, we moved on to St. Stephen's Basilica, on the Pest side, the same one we found on our first night. But today we were going inside!

What a spectacular church! I don't really know what to say except that it was really breathtaking. And there was a relic, someone's hand. What a treat. Again, I was reminded of St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. But I don't remember there being a relic there.

We continued our walk down Andrassy Utca, where there are many more beautiful buildings, and stopped at the Opera House.

We went into the lobby to take some photos, and had fun comparing it to the Paris Opera that we had just visited. We then headed just across the street to the Callas Cafe for tea and cake.

It was another beautiful cafe. I have to admit that we were absolutely wiped by this point, and had an early dinner and were planning on having an early night. We went out for more cake at another famous coffee house on Andrassy St, and during the walk home Erik had an unfortunate accident with his umbrella which resulted in us taking an unplanned taxi tour of Budapest first to the hospital, then to the eye clinic. Long story short, he is absolutely fine, and we couldn't believe how nice people were. And how many people spoke English.

Did I mention that we loved this city? :)

View from our hotel room

We < 3 Budapest, part II

2011-02-23T15:57:00.006+01:00

Second day in Budapest, and we're still in love.

Our day started off, as it would every day, with a trip across the chain bridge.

Obligatory stop for photos

We wandered down Vaci Utca, a pedestrian shopping street, admiring the architechture. One of the first things I noticed was that everything was so big! A lot of the city reminded me of St. Petersburg, from the huge ornate buildings in the downtown to the enormous apartment blocks we saw driving to and from the airport.

First stop of the day was the Central Market Hall, and we wandered the aisles admiring the produce, salami and paprika stands. Upstairs there were some food stalls, but it was still too early to eat, so we headed back across the Danube to look at the famous Gellert Baths (beautiful), and a small cave church (meh.).

What should I have for lunch?

Back to the market we headed straight for the now busy food stalls. Surrounded by a large group of Japanese tourists, we shared a table with both a French family and many locals. Karina and I enjoyed the local sausage, and Erik tried the stuffed paprika. We might have also had beer. It was all delicious.

And for dessert this pancake thing that was basically a Beavertail. Yummy!

Going to the Opera or going for a swim?

By now we were sufficiently tired, and headed back to the hotel to pick up our swimming stuff. It was time to experience a typical Hungarian bath! To get there we rode the Millennium Metro, the first metro line built on Continental Europe. Just a short trip, and we were standing in front of the Szechenyi Baths.

This was the most extensive series of indoor and outdoor baths I've ever seen! We started in the outside one, heated to 38 degrees it was nice and toasty. Eventually we realized that there was something going on inside too, and checked that out. A maze of rooms containing different pools of different temperature waters, saunas, and a very fun pool with current that pulled you around the pool, we tried them all. There was an outdoor lap pool, and an indoor one with an aquafit class going on. People of all ages and sizes were lounging and relaxing, there was even a chess game going on in the outdoor pool. It was just what we needed after a busy day!

Back downtown we had hot chocolate and beer at the famous Gerbeaud Cafe, which was beautiful inside.

Then we were off to dinner at Fulemule, and back home to rest up for day three.

We never got tired of this view!

We < 3 Budapest

2011-02-22T15:43:00.000+01:00

I don't know how anyone could not love this city. After a two hour delay leaving Paris, we arrived in Budapest in the early evening. It was getting dark, and the city was beautifully lit up, so it was pretty much impossible not to fall in love at first sight.

We walked across the famous Chain Bridge from our amazing hotel, Lanchid 19. You can see the hotel in the first picture, it's the one lit up on the left, below the Palace.

While searching for a place to have a snack and drink before dinner, we stumbled upon this beautiful Basilica, but I'll tell you more about that later.

We were further charmed by the incredibly low prices at our snack spot (good bottle of wine for the equivalent of 11euros), and had a delicious dinner at Dio, the kind of meal that we would never be able to afford in Paris. All for the reasonable price of about 30euros per person.

Less than 12 hours in and we were sold. And it really only got better...

Karina's Here!

2011-02-21T15:22:00.003+01:00

And we've been busy!

On Tuesday we decided to do a walk through Paris' ethnic neighbourhoods. This cityscape is the incredible view from the parc de Belleville. We also enjoyed an Indian lunch and some spice shopping in the Passage Brady near the Gare de l'est, and ended the tour in the somewhat sketchy area around Barbes. After nearly three hours of walking, we willed ourselves up the many, many stairs to Sacre Coeur, then wandered down the other side in search of a warm place to stop. Erik found us after work in a little cafe near the apartment that was rented by our families on our first Christmas in Paris.

It was a bit windy

So. Many. Stairs.

Always worth the climb

Wednesday was no less busy. We visited the Fragonnard Perfume museum/shop, and enjoyed the beautiful building inside, and the speedy guided visit. We had a mediocre lunch with a fantastic view at the top of Printemps before joining our afternoon tour of the Paris Garnier Opera.

We had a great guide who told the story behind this magnificent building in great detail.

Inside the auditorium, you can see the box that was used by the King, essentially some of the worst seats in the house. Back in the day, people didn't really care about what was being performed, they were more interested in seeing what everyone else was wearing, and who they were with.

The main foyer with its elaborate gold leaf details.

Looking out onto the boulevard de l'Opera from the Opera balcony.

One of my all time favorite views of Paris:

2011-02-21T15:17:00.000+01:00

Anyone know where this was taken?

Merry Christmas!

2011-01-25T19:07:00.006+01:00

Only one month late, here's how we spent Christmas in Barbados.

Dad found some lights to put up on the window and bush in front of their apartment. Kind of festive! There were actually quite a few houses decorated like the one at the top of this post.

On Christmas Eve we had a great dinner at Blakey's, right on the beach. The food was great, the rum punch was tasty and there was even live entertainment at one point.

Christmas morning we had breakfast at my parent's. Baked french toast, bacon and sausage, and champagne and orange juice. Although it was really too hot to enjoy that much food.

Next stop, Rockley Beach. Nothing says Christmas like turquoise waters, right?

It was the busiest we saw the beach the whole time!

A quick shower, and we were off to see Grandma. This is the house where she still lives, the same house my dad and his three sisters grew up in.

I think this shot was taken just before Grandma asked Rob when he would be settling down... :)

Then it was off to Angela's for a buffet/pot luck dinner with all the aunts and some cousins.

My aunties Angela and Elaine

We had a great time eating, then playing cards and dominoes. Finally it was time for the family shot, and all the kids were singing Christmas carols between shots. It was truly a Christmas to remember, and the whole trip was worth it just for that one day.

Rum!

2011-01-24T18:40:00.001+01:00

No trip to Barbados is complete without a visit to the Mount Gay Rum headquarters. I'm pretty sure this is one of the touristy things that I didn't do the last time I visited, when I was 8.

We met quite possibly the nicest security guard in the parking lot as we pulled in, but I'll let Rob share that story in the comments.

It was a pretty straightforward tour, with the perky and personable guide explaining the history of Mount Gay. Click the link for more info, but all you really need to know is that Mount Gay is the rum that invented rum. We got to see the bottling facilities, a promotional video, and then, of course, got to taste. First the regular Eclipse rum, then the reserve. No spitting bucket like you get at wineries, which was surprising because I doubt that most people are used to drinking rum straight like that. I think Erik was the only one of the four of us who really appreciated it.

Driving through Bridgetown on the way home, we had fun taking photos through the sunroof.

After some smooth driving manoeuvrings, Rob got us safely to a yummy roadside lunch place serving the standard chicken-macaroni pie-dirty rice meal.

No better place to recover from high-carb heaven than the beach.

We went to Pebble Beach this time, a slightly pebbly beach that has great waves, and lots of surfers. Good swimming, entertainment, a clean change hut and a truck in the parking lot that sells beer. What more could you ask for?

Welchman Hall Gully

2011-01-23T18:27:00.003+01:00

After visiting Harrison's Cave our next stop was a visit to Welchman Hall Gully.

Stepping out of the car in the parking lot we quickly realized that there were a lot of chickens around. We were particularly amused by the rooster perched on top of the phone booth.

The gully is basically a nature reserve full of many native species of plants. There's a path to follow through the gully that was formed when one of the caves collapsed. You could even see stalactites on some of the old cave walls at one point.

We were fascinated by this bamboo. We had never seen it growing in a tree formation like this.

There were lots of creepy crawlies on the ground. Had to watch your step!

A good view of the cave walls

I try out my Tarzan skills

We had a nice dinner at my parent's apartment that night, one of the few of the trip.

And then dad presented Rob and I with our signed copies of his book.

Good times!

Harrison's Cave

2011-01-19T21:35:00.001+01:00

The most touristy thing we did was probably visit Harrison's Cave. I think it was the only place where we really felt like there were a lot of tourists. Barbados is the only Caribbean island that is not a volcanic formation, and is actually made of coral. Water erosion through the limestone created the caves, and the calcium rich water forms stalactites and stalagmites in the process.

To visit the caves, you get on a little tram with a tour guide to take you deep into the depths of the caves.

It was basically raining inside, with water dripping constantly from the ceiling. Our tour guide wore a shower cap to protect her 'do.

Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to swim, although at 27 degrees inside the cave, it wouldn't have been unpleasant. Not quite cool enough for Champagne storage however....

Barbados

2011-01-18T21:19:00.005+01:00

Here's some long overdue highlights of the trip I'm still thinking about.

Erik's holding a coconut.

On one of the first days it rained pretty much the entire day. We got in the car, and dad drove us around the island. First stop, Bathsheba to check out the huge waves and the surfers.

Back in the car we drove up the the northern-most point of the island to check out the cliffs.

They were pretty impressive.

The next day the weather was much more cooperative, so we headed straight for Worthing Beach.

The water was very shallow, so you could swim right out to the boats.

It was very stressful.

Especially this part.

Relieved

2011-01-07T21:42:00.001+01:00

Here's a random shot for you:

We took this one shortly after finishing our sprint through JFK to make our connection between Barbados and Paris. Our flight turned out to be delayed long enough for Erik to have a pint, and for me to think that we'd lost the camera. After unpacking all of our carry on (while Erik enjoyed his beer) I of course found what I was looking for, and we took this shot just before getting in line with all the Frenchies boarding our flight.

To say that we were relieved on many levels is an understatement. My heart still starts racing when I think about that connection.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-06T21:29:00.002+01:00

A little belated, but best wishes for a happy new year to all our loyal readers!

Good Eats, Barbados Style

2011-01-02T18:47:00.006+01:00

There is so much to say about our trip, that I thought I'd start somewhere easy: food. We ate lots, and it was all delicious, but I have to admit I was mighty happy to eat fruit once we got home. Most fruits were out of season down there, and anything that isn't grown on the island is super expensive.

First up, the ubiquitos flying fish sandwich. The flying fish is the national fish of Barbados, and can be found in most tourist and local restaurants. We ate it most often fried in a sandwich, and it was delicious.

Here it is served with breadfruit fries.

And here is a cutter (the Bajan word for sandwich) from Cutters, near Crane Beach. Triple decker!

Banks is the beer of Barbados, and we enjoyed quite a bit of it though locals seemed to prefer Carib beer, from Trinidad.

We went out for Jamaican food one night, and had some fantastic jerk chicken.

There are many fish markets on the island, and Oistins is the largest one. Every night, stands open up serving grilled or fried fish fresh off the boats.

We waited a LONG time for our food to arrive, but when it did, it was delicious! (no photos, we were too hungry to worry about that!)

After visiting Harrison's Caves, we ate at a little shack across from a gully we were about to visit. The food was cheap, and delicious (you can see the fantastic macaroni pie that was served everywhere), and the view as specatcular.

Another staple of many meals was rum punch. I took it upon myself to sample many, and had quite a few good ones.

Christmas Eve at Blakey's

At Cutters, you can see the fresh nutmeg on top.

My favorites were from the Round House, Cutters, and the clubhouse on the golf course where we stayed. The formula is apparently 1 part sugar, 2 parts sour (lemon or lime juice), 3 parts water and 4 parts rum (mix of aged and white), finished with bitters, cherry and fresh nutmeg.

Here's a plateful of traditional food from the Brown Sugar restaurant's Christmas buffet lunch-clockwise from the top: roasted squash; beet salad; cormeal fritters; jug jug (kind of like refried beans); sweet potato pie; pepper pot (meat mixture in a peppery sauce); rice and peas and fried flying fish.

Of course I have to end the post with dessert! We didn't actually have it very often, and aside from a yummy piece of coconut pie at the Round House, I think this sad looking piece of banana bread was the only other dessert I ordered. It might look sad, but it was anything but! I shouldn't have said anything at the time, but as soon as I mentioned that this was the best banana bread I'd ever tasted, Rob and Erik were very eager to help me finish it.

And now I'm hungry! And I could sure go for a rum punch....

Barbados

2010-12-30T12:39:00.002+01:00

Well, we're back to good old grey Paris. We were worried about our connection through New York on Tuesday evening, as JFK had been closed for the two previous days due to the blizzard (we got stuck in the snow in both directions. What luck!). There was an American Airlines agent waiting for us when we got off the plane--our flight from Barbados was late arriving due to the backlog of flights trying to land--and he rushed us through customs and security. We got one back checked through but decided not to wait for the second, and sprinted through the airport--literally, we were puffing, Erik's shoes still untied from security--only to find out that our next flight was also delayed. Enough time for a drink, and then we sat on the runway on that plane for another hour before leaving. The good news is of course that we made the flight, we were worried that if we missed it we would be stuck for a couple of days, and the plus side of the delay was the the second bag made the flight too, a nice surprise to see it come round the baggage carrier at Roissy. One of the first bags, so I imagine it was one of the last ones on!

Anyway, it's always good to be home, although Erik and I think our apartment building could really benefit from a pool in the courtyard. And of course more sun to go with it. I still have lots to say about this trip, but in the mean time, I've posted some photos on Facebook for you to peruse.

Can't believe it's the end of the year already! Do I really have to go back to work on Monday?

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T05:00:00.001+01:00

Paradise

2010-12-23T13:04:00.002+01:00

After a couple of snowy hours in the Paris airport watching the snow come down, and two delays to our departure time we finally left Charles de Gaulle airport on our way to Barbados. 24 hours of traveling later (literally-Erik's alarm clock from the day before went off as we stood in line to clear customs in Bridgetown) all the snow was but a distant memory, and we very quickly found ourselves our way to the beach.

Not the best picture, but it is literally the next one on the camera after the snow.

It didn't take long for us to get used to this stress-free way of life, and begin wondering why we hadn't come down sooner.

We drove up to the most northern part of the island the other day and saw some impressive cliffs.

And then we spent some more time at the beach. The beaches are BEAUTIFUL, and I, the one who never thought I would enjoy a beach vacation, am literally in heaven. I've never seen water so turquoise, the beaches are clean, the people are friendly, and so far, the flying fish has been delicious.

Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season, we wish you were here!

Winter Wonderland

2010-12-08T15:45:00.002+01:00

It's been snowing A LOT here in Paris lately. In the five years that we've been here, I've never seen so much snow, and never so early in the season.

I took the first picture a couple of weeks ago when it first snowed. I was amazed at the amount that was on the ground. (can you even see it? I'm pretty sure I had to zoom to be able to see the white.)

Turns out that was nothing compared to what has come down today (the snow never sticks around). It started snowing around noon today, and it's still going strong.

These last two pictures we taken about two hours apart from our kitchen window, and you can really see how much it has piled up. The roads are a mess, and I had to laugh at the little screen in the metro that tells you about any service problems: this afternoon it was announcing that bus service was quite delayed. And like a good Parisian I battled the snow with shoes and an umbrella. Not quite ideal, but I made it home in one piece. Now I wonder how many people will be at the gym tonight?

Alex and Antonio's Visit

2010-11-28T19:36:00.002+01:00

We had two lovely Swiss house-guests this weekend.

Alex and Antonio arrived on Friday, and they brought snow with them. How kind! It snowed for about 20 minutes on Friday afternoon, and for about 10 minutes the scene outside my classroom window was a winter wonderland. Then, what little snow had stuck to the trees melted, and all that was left were freezing cold temperatures.

Their presence warmed things up, and we had a lovely dinner at Le Baratin on Friday, where Erik tasted 'les cervelles' for the first time.

On Saturday we wandered through the Christmas market at Nation, and admired the recently restored towers at the place du Trone.

After a yummy and spicy Chinese food lunch, Alex and I headed to the Petit Palais to see the Yves St Laurent exposition.

Unfortunately we were about three months too late. Luckily the permanent collection is free, so we wandered around that, and were happy to discover that there is a beautiful garden in the courtyard of the palais, and a cafe with a terrasse looking out, that we are already planning to visit when it warms up.

Then we walked through the crowded Christmas market on the Champs Elysees, and decided to warm up with hot chocolate at the famous Angelina. The line up to get in was literally out the door and around the corner, so we opted for the much quicker 'take out' version, which was really very good. (Karina, I think you should come visit so we can do a proper hot chocolate tasting....)

Back up to the Marais, we did some shopping before meeting up with Antonio for a drink at a cozy bar, and dinner at the Rendez-vous des Amis, a place we haven't been in a long time, and were happy to discover was still as good as we remembered.

This morning we marketed, then wandered along the canal St. Martin before escaping the cold in a cute little Irish pub. One that we were pretty sure was actually Irish! Then it was back to the Gare de l'est, so our guests could get their train back to Basel. As always it was great to see them, and I'm still trying to convince Alex that she should move back to Paris. The city is always more fun when she is here.

Smart Food

2010-11-28T00:22:00.003+01:00

We went out for dinner on Friday night at our new favorite restaurant, and Erik decided to try one of the few things left on his 'disgusting things that the French actually eat' list.

Can you guess what it was?

Giving Thanks

2010-11-21T15:27:00.002+01:00

We had a lovely American Thanksgiving dinner last night with some friends from the American School. Turkey (well, chicken) with all the trimmings. I made the pumpkin pie for dessert.

Didn't get a shot of the full plate, but there didn't seem to be a lot of scraps left for the dog.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Danke shun!

2010-11-02T21:05:00.002+01:00

It will be a good thing when I go back to work on Thursday, because all this holiday time has become a lot of baking/eating time.

I've been wanting to try this recipe for a couple of weeks now, and just haven't gotten around to it. A chance discovery of gros sel at the grocery store prompted me to start making pretzels at 6:00pm, instead of going to the gym.

I think I made the right choice.

We ate them for dessert (after leftovers of the meat hand), but that didn't stop us from polishing off four. They were so good. Just like the ones that I always get Erik to bring back from Germany.

Guten appetit!

Meat Hand

2010-10-31T19:00:00.002+01:00

We had a special Halloween themed dinner tonight.

Inspired by these two bloggers, I decided that we would be making meat hand for dinner.

It was delicious.

We gave it one thumb up.

I don't really know what to say, other than that it is meatloaf shaped into a hand and baked until delicious. Erik took the time to carefully craft finger nails and a wrist bone out of potato. It's definitely the weirdest thing that has ever come out of our kitchen, but I'm hoping it will become a Halloween tradition.

To accompany the hand, we roasted these cute little potimarron squash.

And we'll be eating this applesauce cake for dessert as soon as I finish this post. The icing is delicious, and the cake smells great, so I assume it will be a hit.

Edited to add that the cake was in fact delicious, and that it was well worth unwrapping the 12 squares of Kiri cheese to make the cream cheese icing. You should make it now!

Sunday at the Cemetary

2010-10-31T18:34:00.002+01:00

It's Halloween, and we live near Pere Lachaise, and we needed to walk off an exceptionally bad Chinese lunch.

You can't really tell from these photos, but the leaves are changing, and it was quite pretty. Not as impressive as the changing leaves in Canada I'm sure, but we'll take what we can get.

Last night we went out with Julia and her friend to Ave Maria, a Mexican bar near Oberkampf. They were having a Halloween party (or maybe a Day of the Dead party?), and there was a live mariachi band, and frozen margaritas. What more could we want?

Public service announcement: Daylight savings time ended here today, so for the rest of the week we are officially an hour less ahead of North America. It's not even 7 and it's already dark... :(

Louvred

2010-10-28T11:34:00.002+02:00

It's school holiday time for me, and I've decided to play Parisian tourist for the week. I have to admit I've been a bit lazy about it, and went to Ikea on Tuesday with Julia, which I doubt any self respecting tourist would do. But we needed wine glasses, and I was looking forward to a visit without the crowds, so that took care of Tuesday.

Ever since Steve and Yoshimi visited this summer and spoke so highly of their visit to one of the world's most famous museums, I've been wanting to go back. I haven't been to the Louvre in years, having been very quickly intimidated by it's size.

This time, again hoping to avoid crowds by going in the middle of the week (probably not possible during considering that it's a major tourist attraction on a school holiday) Julia and I fortified ourselves with lunch first on the rue St. Honore before braving the masses inside the Louvre.

Geared up with audio guides, we followed the masterpieces tour which took us to the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory, and of course the Mona Lisa. We also went through the Grande Gallerie to admire the paintings by da Vinci and Raphael, before spending a good moment admiring the Greek sculptures.

It was quite satisfying, and I felt very cultured, if also exhausted at the end of the visit. I would have also liked to do the French Collection tour, but at three hours, I thought I'd save that for the next visit.

Strike, Blogs and Recipes

2010-10-16T14:18:00.004+02:00

Steve jokinging-ly implied that we were too busy striking to blog, and while that's not exactly true, don't you wish you were in France right now? Tuesday was the official start to the 'unlimited' strike, but by Wednesday the metro had more or less returned to normal. I don't have any connections to get to work, just one long train ride, which means that I don't usually have any problems (knock on wood). Erik was however takes the RER B to work, and it always strikes first and the longest. It kept up the fun all week. My favorite slogan for this whole strike has been 'greve jusqu'a la retraite' which means strike until retirement. Fun. It will be interesting to see how this mess pans out, but until then, I think we can anticipate some more crowdy metro trains.

~~~

Speaking of Steve, he and Yosimi have recently moved to Canada, and Yoshimi has started her own blog over at yoshimiandsteve.blogspot.com. It's in Japanese and English, but Yoshimi takes great pictures, so you shouldn't have any trouble following along.

~~~

In other exciting news, life around here has been pretty straightforward. I've been cooking a lot on weekends, so instead of boring you any more with the mundane details of our daily lives, I thought I'd leave you with some links to the tasty stuff we've been eating.

I made this Pumpkin Olive Oil cake this morning to use up the pumpkin left from pie making last weekend. Yummy!

Along the same lines, I made this delicious Zucchini Cake a couple of weeks ago, and keep looking for excuses to make it again.

We had this mushroom lasagna for dinner last Sunday and it was a very satisfying meal, and we're looking forward to pulling the leftovers out of the freezer soon.

Happy cooking!

Chateauneuf du Pape and the Last Day in Avignon

2010-09-20T12:18:00.001+02:00

On our second last day we drove down to Chateauneuf du Pape to taste some of the more famous wines of the region. The town was charming, and well prepared for wine tourists. Armed with a map from the tourist office, we visited probably 7 or 8 different houses.

We took a break for a picnic lunch and visited the chateau neuf, which wasn't looking so new anymore.

We just couldn't escape from the great views!

So much wine!

Our last day in Avignon started at the local market where we decided to buy a picnic lunch to enjoy on the island across the Rhone.

Erik and I joined the locals for a glass of wine inside the market. Steve and Yoshimi thought that 11am was too early, but that didn't seem to be stopping anyone!

Boarding the water shuttle to take us to picnic land. It was HOT this day, and after lunch and a nap we wandered down to a little cafe on the edge of the water for cool drinks. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the musee du Palais enjoying religious art and sculpture. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant before racing to get our train back to Paris. After a nice nap on the train, we rolled into Gare de Lyon at 2am on a Sunday night, well after the end of the metro service. A full TGV full of people headed straight for the taxi queue, and there didn't seem to be any taxis. We ended up walking almost all the way home with our suitcases, it wasn't until we got close to the place de Nation that we were finally able to get a cab to stop for us. A very unpleasant end to our four wonderful days in the south of France.

Avignon: Ready for More?

2010-09-19T11:31:00.003+02:00

After leaving the charming village of Mirmande, we drove back down the Rhone river in search of castles. We stopped at these ruins, and had the pleasure of having them all to ourselves because we happened to arrive around lunch time.

It was quite a hike all the way to the top, and we were all wearing the wrong kind of footwear, but we were rewarded with incredible views of the valley.

The disadvantage of visiting over lunch time was that by the time we were done we were starving and couldn't find a restaurant that was open.

Did I mention that our rental car was a beamer? Driving wasn't such a chore after all :)

Back to School

2010-09-18T11:17:00.002+02:00

I've been back at school for two weeks now, and things are still going well. The kids are getting used to me, and to being back to school, which is a nice way of saying that they are perhaps not always as sweet as I initially thought. But I still have no complaints. I'm also enjoying my half days on Wednesdays, it's nice to have a bit of a break in the middle of the week, and certainly makes the week move along more quickly.

We've been out for dinner twice this week, on Tuesday with Julia and Thomas and again last night with Anja, who managed to sneak out for a quick dinner break at 9:30pm before going back to work. It's two weeks before Paris Fashion Week, and that means non-stop work for Anja as her employer gets ready for the show. We had a great little meal in a cute restaurant on rue Cherche Midi in Montparnasse, not far from where we used to live (our old neighbourhood was so pretty!). The waiter was charming, and we realized that it had been a while since we had a good, unpretentious meal, with good service, and great company. We hadn't seen Anja since before we went to Russia, so we had lots of catching up to do.

Hello September

2010-09-01T18:06:00.004+02:00

Summer, where did you go?

No pictures today, and I know I have to finish posting about our trip to Avignon, but my computer hard drive is too full for more photos, and I haven't had the time to shuffle things onto the portable hard drive yet. Plus, the lovely photos from hot, sunny Avignon will be so much better once we get back into the doldrums of our work routines, right?

Anyway, you can tell that the summer is over here in Paris. When we returned from Russia in the middle of August, the city was dead. I could go running and rarely have to stop at an intersection there were so few people. It was lovely. But ever since last weekend, slowly but surely people have been returning from whatever sunny spot they spent their holidays, and Paris is coming alive again. Kids running you over with their trotinettes, cars and people making running at any hour past 7am difficult (hence this blog post...:) ), restaurants and bakeries opening their doors again after a month of closure (well, that's one good thing). We got our income tax statement today, asking us to pay the balance, and I figure that's a sign that even the fonctionnaires have gone back to work. And it's getting dark sooner, around 9pm at the moment, and I'm already missing our long summer days. I'm already dreading the Sunday in October (or November? I should really look into that) when we'll turn the clocks back and get to leave for work in the pitch dark. I have never understood the logic of daylight savings. It's just depressing.

Yes, it's la rentree tomorrow for most public schools, and on Friday for me. Erik and I reluctantly dragged ourselves back to work last Thursday. I have to admit that I do like the familiarity of the routine and am looking forward to meeting my class in a couple of day, but I am already missing having a trip just around the corner to anticipate, and the luxury of not having to wear a watch or set the alarm clock at night.

I guess the summer has to end at some point so that we can actually appreciate what we did, but I'm still allowed to be grumpy about it, right?

And with that, I'm off for my run. No more excuses :) I'll try and get some photos up next week.

Annecy

2010-08-29T13:42:00.001+02:00

Somehow the text that I typed for this post never showed up, so here is a bit of an explanation, a little bit late.

Last weekend I was in Annecy for a reading workshop, a last minute decision, and a good way to get myself thinking about school again. The workshop was fine, but the highlight of the weekend was the city itself. I fell in love with Annecy the minute I saw the mountains from the window of the conference room. My hotel was right on one of the many canals, and I went for a lovely run around the lake where Annecy is situated. I wandered around the quaint old town on Saturday night, and from almost everywhere I could see the mountains. And everyone was so friendly! Anyway, all this to say that I am very much looking forward to going back with Erik to properly discover the town, and all the mountain-related activities that can be had.

Avignon

2010-08-27T13:00:00.000+02:00

Two hours and forty five minutes is all it takes to go from grey, rainy Paris, to hot, sunny Avignon.

View from the pont to the Palais des Papes

After stopping off at the hotel we followed the town ramparts around the city to the famous pont d'Avignon, or more accurately the Pont St. Benézet. Our admission ticket included entrance to the Palais des Papes on the same day, so we trekked over there to get started on the equally detailed audio tour.

The palace is immense, and by the time we made it through we were more than ready for the wine tasting that was being offered in the wine store in the basement of the palace (sometimes France really has it figured out).

We had dinner on a terrace in the courtyard of the Eglise St. Pierre. The food was so-so but the view was breathtaking.

The next day we picked up our rental car (free upgrade to a BMW! All of sudden everyone wanted to drive!) and drove up the Rhone valley to Chateaufneuf-sur-Isere to visit the tasting room at Jaboulet. Our host was incredibly enthusiastic, and definitely set the bar high for all our subsequent tastings (none of which were as enjoyable as our first--well, our very last in Chateauneuf du Pape was pretty good).

We had a great lunch by the river in a nearby town and then drove down to a tiny town called Mirmande, which we learned from the road signs was a ville perché , and it quite literally was perched on the side of a mountain.

At the top of the town there was an old church and a little cemetary, as well as fantastic views of the countryside.

We had an amazing dinner in the courtyard of our adorable hotel.

We weren't able to sign the guest book the next day when we left because the cat was napping.

The village of Mirmande, taken the from the car as we were leaving. You can see the church at the very top. It poured rain that morning, so we were glad we had explored the town the day before.

There's more to come, so stay tuned...

Final Day in Russia

2010-08-26T19:29:00.002+02:00

Our last day was very low key. It had finally started to cool off a tiny bit, but we were worn out from our intense week of visiting. So we took it easy wandering around the downtown, doing a little shopping, visiting a couple of parks, and having a nice lunch in the second floor cafe of the bookstore that is right on the corner of the main street.

The view was fantastic, and Julia and I had had enough beer to last us a while, so we decided it was time to try some Russian champagne. (side note: there were many, many moments when all we wanted to drink was a glass of water. It was so incredibly expensive--about 7 euros for a 25cl bottle of Vittel that we drank beer mostly out of principle)

For dessert we went back to the doughnut place where I restrained myself and only had three. We thought it was funny that Erik managed to get powdered sugar on his sunglasses.

We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting with one of Julia's old friends, at one of the bars that he owns in the city.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up some food for dinner, and to bring home. Check out the aisle of vodka! We found out as we went through the cash at 11:30pm that you can't buy vodka from large stores past 11pm. Oh well! That didn't seem to stop people from shopping though, we couldn't believe the amount of people that were lined up in the store with full carts that late at night.

And the next day were back in the blue van with Julia's grandma (who was also in love with their dog) headed for the airport.

So there you go, that's our trip to Russia in a nutshell.

Stay tuned for our trip to Avignon...photos uploading as we speak.
:)

A non-champagne reason to visit Reims

2010-08-25T10:43:00.001+02:00

Hot day, cool beer

2010-08-22T18:00:00.000+02:00

Climbing to new heights

2010-08-20T14:30:00.001+02:00

Karina, this one's for you....

2010-08-18T18:52:00.001+02:00

Please excuse the interruption to our regularly scheduled posting...

2010-08-17T23:39:00.003+02:00

....I'll get back to Russia in a couple of days.

In the mean time, Steve and Yoshimi arrived on Saturday, and we have been busy getting them acquainted with our new neighbourhood, and with Paris.

Today we did a walking tour from the Lonely Planet, through the covered shopping arcades in the 1st and 2nd arrondissements.

We stopped occasionally for refreshments, of course.

More Russia

2010-08-17T09:00:00.001+02:00

On our second last day we finally slowed down our pace. We knew we had to be at the immigration office around 2pm, so we spent the morning wandering around on one of the islands.

We got to see St Petersburg's one and only mosque up close.

It was beautiful.

We visited the Egyptian sphinxes on the edge of the river.

We saw Peter the Greats original house, the first house in St. Petersburg.

We saw the Military academy

and military ship Avrora

After finally successfully completing our immigration requirements, we celebrated by heading back to our neighbourhood to check out a new Irish bar, O'Briens.

It was there that we discovered the deliciousness of deep fried bread covered in garlic salt and cheese. We ordered two plates.

On the left you can see O'Briens, but more interestingly, the size of the apartment blocks that were everywhere.

After a late dinner at home, we dragged our exhausted selves back downtown to see the bridges open. Every night around 2am, the bridges that cross the river open up to allow shipping boats to pass.

The city was really very beautiful all lit up

And it was fun to watch the bridges open right up.

Peterhof

2010-08-16T09:00:00.005+02:00

On Sunday morning we joined the hoards of tourists at the hydrofoil docks to head to Peterhof, the tsars summer residence.

Our visit got off to a bad start with confusing ticketing rules on the hydrofoil. After a quick shot of vodka to calm some nerves frazzled by bad customer service and incredible heat, we set off to explore the opulent grounds of this summer palace.

After our experience at the Hermitage the previous day, we decided to skip the crowded Palace interior, and just appreciate the extensive grounds surrounding the palace. There were many fountains adorned with golden statues...

...and even some 'interactive' fountains that were quite popular on this sweltering day.

We weren't the only ones visiting the gardens that day! :)

We had a nice picnic by the river

and the boys fed the ducks before we headed back to the boat docks for our scheduled 5:15 last boat departure. Where we were greeted by about 200 other hot and tired tourists, all crowded around the boarding gate. Said boat arrived, and was quickly filled with about four tour groups that had not been waiting in 'line' (there wasn't really a line, but they weren't waiting anywhere near the boat). After the boat left, the yelling started, as impatient tourists asked the unresponsive employees when the next boat was, and if they would get on. We finally got on the third boat, and I have to say that while I highly recommend visiting Peterhof, I would strongly encourage visitors to consider alternate transportation. The service that we had at the hydrofoil company was so beyond poor that it was embarrassing.

Did I mention that it was hot?

To cool off we went back to the air conditioned Pushkin cafe, where Julia and I enjoyed their homemade cranberry juice.

Then we took the metro home--check out the old wood trim on the carriage.

I'm assuming we had another quiet dinner/evening at home, as I don't have any more photos from this day. We were wiped, and five days of not sleeping due to heat and noisy construction work were beginning to take their toll...

Day Four: L'Hermitage

2010-08-15T10:03:00.000+02:00

Once we made it downtown after our unfortunate immigration incident, we decided we deserved a treat. Julia and Thomas had been talking about these doughnuts since we arrived, and it seemed that this was going to be the moment to taste them.

They were delicious. Warm, sugary, light and greasy, we all left with smiles on our faces.

Full of energy, we hit the main cultural attraction of the city: the Hermitage

Unfortunately there was a bit of a line, and a lot of sun. Fortunately we have stoic husbands who volunteered to stand in line while us delicate ladies found some shade.

Once inside, we were rewarded with room after room of rich, elaborate, opulent art and design. The only drawbacks were the fact that half of the museum was unairconditioned, and that we had just stood in line for over an hour, so by the time we got inside, we were already tired and thirsty.

The inlaid wood floors were unbelieavable. Different in every room, and incredibly intricate.

I liked this hallway completely covered in frescoes

This was in the airconditioned side, where it turns out all the tour groups were. Here we saw Michealangelo's Madonna and Child, presented in a way similar to the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. Picture a large group of people crowed around a tiny painting, all trying to take a photo.

The exit from the galleries was this stairway lined with massive columns and stone statues.

When we left the gallery around 3:00 we had our first taste of truly hot temperatures. There was a hot wind, and the sun was baking, it must have easily been 40 degrees. Since we were hungry and thirsty, we headed to the Pushkin Cafe, a swanky refuge that served beer and food, and most importantly was air conditioned.

There were live musicians playing while we were there.

Julia had blinis with fish roe

We stayed as long as we could justify, and sufficiently cooled, set off again for the Peter and Paul cathedral across the river on one of the islands.

This church was inside a huge fortress right on the water. We visited an old prison, and walked around the grounds before going inside this beautiful church. There was a service going on at the time, and the chanting and peacefulness inside made it a magical place.

We headed back to our neighbourhood, stopping at a huge supermarket to stock up for dinner and our picnic lunch the next day. It was fun to see the aisles of smoke fish, smoke meat, vodka, and frozen pilminy. We ate dinner that night at the apartment, snacking on cold meats and herbs, and then cooking the fresh crayfish that we had picked up.

Day Three part 2

2010-08-14T11:00:00.000+02:00

After we finished at St. Isaacs, we headed across the street to the beautiful park (there are huge parks everywhere in the city) to visit the statue of __________________ (insert name of famous Russian that I have forgotten)

Then we headed home to prepare for our Russian BBQ (shashlik) in the forest across the street from the apartment. The meat had been marinating for over a day, and we loaded up and hiked to a small lake in the forest, apparently a prime shashlik spot.

The boys worked on the fire

Which was so much fun they almost didn't eat

Julia's mom was in love with their dog. We joked that she would miss the dog more than Julia.

This small fire was used to toast bread. And entertain the boys :)

Apparently Russian BBQ mandates that the ladies sit comfortably and be served by the men. No problem for us!

Thomas tending to the shashlik. This was a small metal box with a fire in the bottom, and the meat is put on skewers.

The sky at 10:30pm. It was a lovely day, and we had a great time wandering around the forest and checking out the lake.

Did we mention that Julia's mom and the dog really hit it off? :)

Day Three: Getting into the Swing of Things

2010-08-14T10:23:00.007+02:00

On our third day we got our first taste of Russian beaurocracy. Luckily we're getting used to random rules and expectations, but we hardly expected to have to deal with such things on our vacation.

To visit Russia as a non-Russian, you have to have a visa. We had an agency take care of our visa applications, due to the fact that we didn't have enormous amounts of time to spend at the Russian embassy, and well, we don't speak Russian. We completed the two page form asking us about any weapons training that we may have had, along with our last three employers, sent if off with a hefty fee and our passports and were rewarded with visas a couple of weeks later.

Turns out that once you arrive in Russia, you also have to declare your presence to the post office or immigration office. So, off we went to the post office to see what had to be done. The post office provided us with the forms, and told us that we actually had to hand them directly to the immigration office. The forms were double sided, in Russian, to be completed in Russian. So, Julia had some homework! After calling to make sure the immigration office was open on Saturday (two different people confirmed that yes, it was) we headed out there the next day to hand in our forms. Unfortunately the person we needed to deal with didn't work on the weekends, and wouldn't be there until Monday afternoon.

By Monday afternoon, this was all beginning to seem like a joke. We were only there for one week, yet were expected to spend the better part of that week filling out forms in Russian and photocopying all our important documents. Oh, and there was a fee, of course. You'll never guess how much. 6 rubles each, which in total for three people was about 30 centimes. We couldn't believe it. And the kicker was that we only needed this form in case we happened to get stopped by the police. Fun.

So, where was I?

Julia in front of her elementary school

This happy looking storefront was the post office on the right, and a bank on the left. We got a kick out of the fact that the postal agent who helped explain the immigration forms to us was wearing short shorts and weight lifting gloves.

Paperwork taken care of, we headed downtown to see some sights. First up was the church of the Spilled Blood.

This was my favorite of the whole trip. Not only did it look like a colourful cupcake from the outside, the entire inside was covered with intricate mosaics. I loved it. There was so much to look at, I could have stayed for much longer. But we had a busy day ahead of us!

On our way to lunch we decided to check out this church.

This turned out to be a great surprise. It's a German church, that was converted into a swimming pool in the 30s, then back into a church later on.

The basement under the old pool has been converted into a gallery space, and was covered with murals.

And the actual pool space (I think this was the deep end) was used for temporary exhibitions. Pretty cool.

Lunch was a great authentic Russian place that specialized in pilminy, a kind of meat filled ravioli. Covered in butter, and eaten with sour cream, they are delicious.

After lunch we visited St. Isaacs cathedral, which is the tallest Eastern Orthodox cathedral.

It was pretty big.

It was also pretty beautiful, with a very opulent interior.

The green and blue columns are made with single pieces of malachite and lapis.

You can also climb to the top of the cupola, which we did of course.

I'll leave you there for now, hard to believe that our day wasn't even finished! Stay tuned for part two...

It's Been Five Years....

2010-08-13T11:00:00.000+02:00

Today is our five year wedding anniversary!!

And we've been married for so long that I can no longer find the CD with all our wedding photos. I think we've moved too many times. It's here somewhere, but finding it would involve making the kind of mess that I'm trying to avoid in anticipation of the arrival of our house guests tomorrow. So, use your imaginations, and tap into your memory and remember how young and happy we looked on this day five years ago.

Plans for celebration include going to the gym and eating at home. How romantic!! There will probably be champagne. We tried making reservations at five different restaurants, and all of them were closed for their annual vacation, and quite frankly, we ate enough in Russia to last us another five years. We'll go out for a big fancy dinner in the fall when things have settled down around here, and when we can really appreciate the meal.

So, instead of photos, I'll leave you with the recipe for chocolate mousse that I'm making for dessert tonight. Enjoy!

Chocolate Mousse
Six to eight servings

Adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Knopf) by Julia Child.

I found the coffee flavour to be a bit strong when I made this the last time, so you might want to reduce the amount if you're not big coffee fans.

6 ounces (170g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
6 ounces (170g) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/4 cup (60ml) dark-brewed coffee
4 large eggs, separated
2/3 cup (170g), plus 1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons (30ml) dark rum
1 tablespoon (15ml) water
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Heat a saucepan one-third full with hot water, and melt together the chocolate, butter and coffee, stirring over the barely simmering water, until smooth. Remove from heat.

2. Fill a large bowl with ice water and set aside.

3. In a bowl large enough to nest securely on the saucepan of simmering water, whisk the yolks of the eggs with the 2/3 cup of sugar, rum, and water for about 3 minutes until the mixture is thick, like runny mayonnaise. (You can also use a handheld electric mixer.)

3. Remove from heat and place the bowl of whipped egg yolks within the bowl of ice water and beat until cool and thick, as shown in the photo above. Then fold the chocolate mixture into the egg yolks.

4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with the salt until frothy. Continue to beat until they start to hold their shape. Whip in the tablespoon of sugar and continue to beat until thick and shiny, but not completely stiff, then the vanilla.

5. Fold one-third of the beaten egg whites into the chocolate mixture, then fold in the remainder of the whites just until incorporated, but don't overdo it or the mousse will lose volume.

6. Transfer the mousse to a serving bowl or divide into serving dishes, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, until firm.

Storage: The mousse au chocolat can be refrigerated for up to 4 days.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

2010-08-13T10:00:00.005+02:00

Day Two in St. Petersburg

We started the day with a walk to the huge market near in our area. This is a shot of the apartment block where we were staying.

We took the metro into the centre of the town, and the touristing began! The city has many canals, and is right on the river, so Julia had organized a boat tour for all of us.

Julia with her mom and grandma

Our captain

It was great to be on the water in the heat were having. I took a TON of photos on this three hour boat cruise, and I won't bore you with all of them. Just a few :)

There might have been beer.

We cruised around the canals, then made it out onto the river and eventually all the way up to the gulf of Finland before turning around.

Bathing beauties.

It was a great way to get an idea of what was in store for the rest of our week, and also an easy way to see a lot without having to walk. St. Petersburg is a huge city, with lots of open spaces that reminded us of Canada. The only disadvantage was that we spent a huge part of our day walking from one spot to another, which might have been manageable had it not been ridiculously hot.

In front of the Hermitage.

We ended the day at a little outdoor cafe near the apartment, where we had beer and our first taste of shashlik, Russian barbequed meats. Delicious!

Let's Start at the Very Beginning....

2010-08-12T21:00:00.000+02:00

Welcome to Russia!

Our ride in from the airport

In the kitchen with Julia's mom, and Julia and Thomas' dog. Time to start eating!

Dinner. Russian meals are often made up of lots of small dishes, and everyone helps themselves. The dishes stay on the table for the whole meal, with additional dishes being brought out as needed.

Those little pastry things were deep fried and filled with ground beef. Yummy!

After dinner we went for a walk in the forest/park across the street from Julia's mom's apartment. Here we are checking out some books that were left on a bench.

Sneak Peak

2010-08-12T10:44:00.002+02:00

We're home!

After a week of trying to sleep in the sauna that was St. Pete's, we were happy to finally get some shut eye away from that heat wave. Enjoy these pictures while I deal with getting the 500+ we took off the camera.

St. Petersburg

2010-08-10T11:04:00.002+02:00

We're still here, sweating it out.

Take a look at this slideshow from the BBC. The last shot is St. Petersburg, and we definitely noticed the smog! It's hot!

Otherwise, we leave tomorrow, have seen many beautiful things and eaten large quantities of both meat and grease. Deep fried bread anyone?? :)

The Wedding that just keeps going....

2010-07-21T20:43:00.001+02:00

We got a copy of the photos that Yoshimi took while we were in Japan, and looking through them reminded us again how awesome that trip was. What a great time!

Clearly the smart thing to do with a keg of sake is try to carry it back to your room.

We spent a lovely afternoon shopping in the silver mine town of Omori while the more sporty of the bunch went on a hike.

I loved this water jug

And all good shopping trips end with cake, right? Thanks again, Joyce!

Stretching out after a run. Or maybe we're just posing? :)

The after-bike nama biru. So, so, so, good!

So full!! So delicious!!

Group shot at dinner at the awesome ryokan we went to after the bike ride
Breakfast

Erik B.C. (before coffee)

Weekend Wedding

2010-07-21T19:15:00.004+02:00

Last weekend we were invited to an out of town wedding. It was an over night wedding at a location with limited beds, but plentiful space, so our hosts suggested we camp. We had fun at the Decathlon buying camping gear, and are now proud owners of a '2 second' tent (takes slightly longer to take down, but is still pretty cool). It was a weekend of unknowns. A stranger picked us up at the end of the metro line, and drove us to an unknown location. Our unknown chauffeur turned out to be very friendly (and has a very cool-sounding job as a narcotics cop. I immediately asked if it was like on tv, thinking of the Wire), and the wedding was quite fun. The camping was COLD and hard (we'll be investing in an air mattress for next time) but all in all, it was a lovely weekend.

Obligatory photos:

That's our little green tent.

The apero Saturday afternoon outside the main hall

Dinner

The happy couple. So, it wasn't really a wedding, but more of a celebration of the fact that they are PACS, which is a kind of common-law marriage.

Par-tay! Erik and I were actually one of the first couples on the dance floor. Most of the French didn't get going until around 2:00 am, by which point I was ready for bed.

Sunday is croquet day, isn't it?

For Sunday lunch they had this crepe team come in.

So delicious! There were sweet crepes a volonté after, but my fingers were too sticky to get out the camera.

And of course no day in the sun is complete without a petanque tournament.

We arrived home on Sunday evening exhausted and sunburned. The good times took us until Tuesday to recover from. Now we want to rent a car and drive back out to the cute little town we drove through on the way there. If only we knew what it was called....

In which I become my mother....

2010-07-14T22:38:00.004+02:00

This chair came home with us today. We saw it on the street as we left this afternoon, and it was still there this evening. It was obviously waiting for us, so we brought in home.

We've ripped off all the stinky upholstery, and now it's in two pieces waiting for the next step. Did I mention that it reclines? Looks like I have a new summer project...

(Any upholstery tips would be greatly appreciated!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also, it's Bastille Day today, and we stumbled upon a display of military vehicles as we were coming out of the metro at Nation. Nothing like hanging out with a tank to make you feel patriotic!

Now I'm on a Roll

2010-07-10T16:40:00.003+02:00

I'm having a great time looking through these old photos. Aside from the awesome memories, I get a kick out of our clothes, and of course our hair. Here are some highlights from Japan, circa September 2005:

The vine bridges. I'm wearing those pants today, and Erik has on that exact outfit.

Erik performs a surprise guitar concert. Thanks Brother Steve!

Am I doing aerobics or the ebi-cani dance?

Baseball in Tokyo. Still a must-do activity for any visitor!

Seriously, who are these guys? :)

Then and Now

2010-07-10T16:30:00.002+02:00

This picture reminded me of a very similar one taken during our honeymoon, also after a long day of biking.

I think I can safely say that we both had a lot more hair back then.

Picnique

2010-07-10T15:50:00.003+02:00

A sunny Sunday in June found us trekking out to the town of Meudon just outside Paris where our friends Thomas and Julia live. They happen to live quite near to the Meudon forest, where we decided to have a lovely picnic and relaxing afternoon away from the heat and craziness of this city we love so much.

Erik and I found a little disposable bbq at the Monoprix, that was quite fun, if not so efficient.

The bbq master gets to work.

Julia and Thomas' dog Massiania joined in the fun.

Ahhh.....

No picnic is complete without a food-coma induced nap.

Some Random Photos from my Phone

2010-07-02T10:07:00.003+02:00

Just a few shots of various things we've been up to.

Ikea is not only for beer and meatballs (although it's amazing how much more fun it is when you start in the restaurant). We finally have a coffee table, and it makes all the difference. This room is finally starting to feel like a real room.
~~~

We stumbled across a real Japanese tonkatsu restaurant, right around the corner from our old apartment. Erik was in his element ordering sake in the wooden box, and ebi furai. Oishii!! The only things missing were Steve and Yoshimi.
~~~

A rare shot of both Erik and Thomas in suits. Well, Thomas wears his regularly, but it always seems to be an occasion when Erik does.
~~~

A hot day at the jardin des plantes, which I discovered is only a short bus ride from our house.

I liked this stegasaurus hiding in the bushes.

And I got a kick out of this one (wooly mammoth?) posed just across the street from the McDonalds. We've come so far....

25 bosses

2010-07-02T09:47:00.005+02:00

June, June, where did you go? It was a busy month, and we had something planned every single weekend. One of these weekends Pavel and Tatiana invited us to go hiking with them near Fountainbleau, on a route called the 25 bosses, or 25 'bumps'. It was a great trail literally over, under and through boulders up and down many little mountains. We didn't do all 25, but we did our fair share, and were constantly amazed at how beautiful it was and how much fun it was. We've been living in Paris for five years now, and have never done anything like it. Now we want to do it more often!

Our trusty guides

Can you see me?

And the perfect end to the day was the dinner that followed at their house. Delicious as always, it was the highlight of the month. Thank you Pavel and Tatiana!!

Other hightlights

2010-06-05T19:08:00.000+02:00

I can't say that any of these photos deserves it's own post, just some favorite moments from our trip:

Steve's awesome pizza: I don't think any visit with Steve is complete without him making pizza, the real Italian way. It might be a long process, but it's always good. This was our last meal together, and was also the day of desserts. It started with the cake shop that made the wedding cake, continued at the crepe truck parked outside the supermarket, and was rounded out by a delivery of sweets from Yoshimi's parents. This trip was a bit of a food fest.

Drinking Champagne on Steve and Yoshimi's beach. How lucky are they to live so close to the beach?

Karaoke. This was the best karaoke place ever. Free tambourines, and high tech equipment. And the videos were way less cheesy than most places. The highlights were the actual concert videos that came on for the Bon Jovi and Red Hot Chili Peppers songs that we chose. Karina was also a star at finding all the awesome 80s hits that we wanted to sing, but couldn't remember the names of.

The morning after the awesome ryokan night

2010-06-03T18:49:00.005+02:00

I ended the last post with a shot of the midnight snack, and coffee service, but before I get going on all of that, here's a shot of the private outdoor bath that we had in our room. We also used the public baths, which had sake that you could sip out of bamboo cups while you soaked. Perfect for recovering from a grueling bike ride!

Breakfast!

Here's the close up of everything: there was fish that we grilled ourselves, tofu with bonito flakes, the three small dishes in the front are seaweed salads, and the oval dish contains an 'onsen' egg, one that's cooked in water the temperature of the baths. There was also salad, grapefruit wedges, miso soup, rice, radishes, and croissant. And a glass of milk. Delicious!

After breakfast we went back to the room, and Karina had a quick nap, while the rest of us got going on making coffee.

There was a little machine for us to hand grind the beans, the the boiling water was poured into a copper pot, to then be poured in a thin stream through the filter. Fun.

This whole experience was so exhausting that we all fell asleep in the car on the way home, waking up just in time for lunch at a cute cafe in another small town down the coast from Maji. No surprise why we were sad to leave Japan!

Then we stopped to check out some windmills, and the waves. This is the life!

The Awesome Ryokan Experience

2010-06-02T19:00:00.009+02:00

The perfect reward for an great bike ride isn't just food.

It's food, plus a hot bath and an awesome-ly authentic Japanese ryokan experience.

The experience began really before we even got out of the car. The hostess was out in the parking lot helping to guide the car into the spot, and then she carried all our bags inside. Once we had checked in, we got to choose a yukata to wear during our stay.

Thank goodness Yoshimi was there to get us all dressed!

All dressed up, in one of the bedrooms

Dinner. Don't forget that we ate massive bowls of ramen two hours earlier.
This is a shot of what was on the table when we sat down.

The first course was an assortment of small bites. All delicious (although the cube shaped one had a bit of a bizarre texture)

Also delicious, but I think the bowl was the highlight.

Sashimi

Shimane beef grilled on our own personal hotplates

More fish, this one a particular kind that is only found in the sea of Japan

A rice ball filled with sea bream. Loved the dish it was served in.

Mini squid. Not so tasty, but again, pretty dish.

And just in case we were still hungry, the last course before dessert was miso soup and rice with pickles.

Green tea mousse.

After dinner the boys checked out the complimentary sake tasting bar,

While the ladies sipped tea

And one last check to make sure that we didn't go hungry: they left a midnight snack in the room when they set out the futons. We were way too full to even think about eating the onigiri that were inside the bamboo roll, and I'm still regretting that. On the left is the coffee set for the morning. More photos on that coming soon!

The Bike Ride

2010-06-01T09:23:00.005+02:00

Steve and Yoshimi had planned an extensive hike/bike for Thursday and Friday, ending up at a traditional ryokan.

We walked through small towns, and rice fields

The walk portion ended at this temple, where the rain and biking began (it always rains when we bike)

After a very steep ascent up the mountain, we spent the majority of the two hour ride coasting down hills and through more small sleepy towns.

And all great Steve style bike rides end, of course, with food.

At the Tanukuni-no-kuni restaurant we were rewarded with ENORMOUS bowls of ramen, steamed pork buns, and sweet sesame balls.

We spent that night at a beautiful ryokan in a nearby town. Stay tuned for details on that, and on the amazing dinner we had there just two hours after our ramen 'snack'.

Two Japans

2010-05-31T08:57:00.004+02:00

We're back in Paris. Eleven hours of naps, movies, and mediocre meals and we were back in France, buying warm baguette from the bakery and doing laundry. Do we really have to go back to work already?

I have literally just filled up the hard drive on my computer with all the photos from the trip, but for now, here are just two. We left Steve, Yoshimi and Karina in Izumo on Saturday morning, and landed two hours later in Tokyo. It felt pretty much like we'd arrived in another country.

Goodbye rice fields

Hello craziness~the famous Shibuya crossing in Tokyo, where you can cross in any direction, including diagonally.

Anyway, we had a great day in Tokyo with Pete, and by the time we rolled out of Ueno station on Sunday morning bound for Narita, we felt like we'd certainly made the most of our time in Japan. It's never long enough....

One day in Tokyo

2010-05-31T07:00:00.001+02:00

Our time was very limited in Tokyo on our last day, but Pete had prepared a full agenda.

It started with a barbeque at the Canadian Embassy. Perhaps not the most Japanese thing to do, but we'd had our fill of fish by this point, and who can say no to Alberta beef and Canadian beer in the gardens of the Ambassador's Residence?

It's been awhile since I last had a steak so large. Or so good! It certainly put puny French steaks to shame.

And of course more karaoke...

...and then drinks at some foreigner bar in Roppongi. By this point we were trying to decide if it would be wise to just stay up until we got on our plane, in an effort to fight jet lag. Luckily Erik had the sense to get us in a cab so we could have at least a couple of hours of sleep. Well, either sense, or the fact that he lost a contact lens and couldn't see anymore. In any case, it was a fun night.

Best Meal Ever!

2010-05-26T11:14:00.007+02:00

Here's the photo recap of the meal that we had at the Osawa's. A visit to Shimane is not complete without a stop at this restaurant, and we've been lucky to have come each time we've visited Steve.

Entrees

Sushi and Sashimi were waiting on each table, and stayed the entire meal. These were platters for four people.

Sake was served in wooden boxes, and was exceptionally delicious.

Tempura--my favorite dish

Salt baked fish

A special fish that is native to Shimane

Fish head with fish liver

A sort of pot pie with fish soup inside

Dessert--bean paste filled with red beans.

Howard and Mr. Osawa

Breakfast the next day

Happily Married!

2010-05-25T05:11:00.008+02:00

Shrine ceremony

Ring ceremony and reception

The celebration continued the next day with dinner and a stay at the Osawa's restaurant and ryokan

Joan and Karina practice bowing

Yesterday Karina, Yoshimi, Joyce and I did some shopping in the town of Omori, near the Iwami silver mine. Then we celebrated Joan's birthday with a delicious dinner at an Italian restaurant in the same town. We said goodbye to Walter, Joyce, Joan and Howard this morning, and I went for a much needed run along the water. It's been really windy lately, and the waves were crashing up against the road. I love the smell! Steve and Yoshimi's town is really charming, and after four days of solid eating and sitting the exercise was welcome. Today we're taking the day 'off', but we do have some fun things planned for the week ahead.

Technical Difficulties....

2010-05-24T15:56:00.002+02:00

Pictures are forthcoming, please stay tuned.

The wedding was great, Yoshimi was beautiful and Erik and Steve looked fantastic in their 'costumes'. We have been enjoying Japan intensely for the past couple of days. It's great to be back!

Konnichiwa!

2010-05-21T16:08:00.006+02:00

In case you were wondering, we have safely arrived here in Japan, after a pleasant surprise upgrade to Premium Economy on our long haul, and the usual Japanese efficiency that got us from one airport to the next, and then safely into Izumo.

The weather was tropical today, and it's been so great to see everyone. Hard to imagine that tomorrow is the big day!!

Steve and Yoshimi picked us up from the airport with sushi. Oishii!!

Karina tries out the massage chair

The view from Steve and Yoshimi's living room

Bento delivery to the lookout near Steve and Yoshimi's house

Looking out

View of the beach near their house

Itadekimasu!

The pre-wedding BBQ

And, check out this link. We were famous today!

Nouveautes

2010-05-01T19:00:00.002+02:00

The Workbench has returned to our living room. Hopefully it's only temporary. We spent today working on the apartment, and one of my projects required the workbench.

We put a shelf over the toilet. It was a pain to install, but we're happy with the result.

We also installed a much larger shelf in the kitchen, at the same height as the butcher block. It's great having the extra surface. We also finally hung the pot rack above.

The other big project was tacking the network cable around the doorways and baseboards to get to our tv in the front of the room. That was 100% Erik, and it is almost done. Already it's great not having the white cable all over the floor.

And these are the flowers I was surprised to find when I got home from the airport. Apparently someone missed me! :) It's great to be back, although my body is punishing me for taking ten days off from the gym. I haven't been this sore in ages!