The Visitors

Mom and Deb arrived bright and early Monday morning.

After getting them settled into their awesome apartment near rue Daguerre, we wandered around the neighbourhood, stopping for a nice lunch and continuing on through the cemetary.

They have been filling their days since with all sorts of touristy fun, and we were lucky enough to join them today, on this holy holiday of Ascension. We headed out to visit the chateau at Fountainebleau, enjoying a surprisingly quiet visit of the castle and gardens.

After a relaxing train ride back into Paris, we're just heading out to meet them for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, La Cerisaie.

To be continued....

My Adventure at the Farm

Last week I spent four days at a farm. With sixteen five year olds. And it was actually pretty fun!

Every year the five year old class goes on this trip, and usually the teacher takes her student teacher with her. But this year she didn't have one, so they asked me to join them, and I said yes.

As the trip approached, I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. When I told one of my tutoring families where I was going, she told me to get lots of sleep the night before we left. I began to think that I was more stressed about this trip than the kids were. I'd never spent more than six hours in a row with kids before, how was I going to deal with them 24hrs a day for four days straight?

This attractive picture was taken on the second last day. And I'm kind of smiling, right?

Monday morning, I arrived a the school to be greeted by a handful of kids running around the garden, with their little rolly suitcases lined up by the gate. As more and more kids arrived, they got more and more excited. Eventually we all loaded into the cars, and a couple of parents drove us to the train station at Montparnasse. We quickly got them settled on the train, and before I knew it, we were off. A one hour TGV ride brought us to Poitiers, where we had a very stressful 3 minutes to unload 16 kids and 18 suitcases. That done, we found our coach that would take us on the last leg of the journey, one more hour to the Centre de Plein Air de Lathus.

After the kids settled into the rooms, we were off to the farm, just a short walk away. The next three days were filled with activites like milking goats, riding ponies, fishing for tadpoles and making bread. The days passed quickly, with the time before dinner spent getting the kids cleaned up and into pyjamas, and the time after dinner spent trying to get them to sleep. Of the sixteen, only two had trouble getting to sleep, and well, luckily there were two of us.

Our bus picked us up on Thursday afternoon, and we loaded 16 tired and dirty kids and set off for the station.

I think the best part of the trip (aside from the fabulous weather that made me wonder how I can stand living in grey, grey Paris) was watching the kids see their parents for the first time as we got off the train.

And I slept for ten long hours on Thursday night. Thank goodness it was a holiday on Friday.

Weekend in Basel

The month of May here is France is basically one long weekend with a couple of work days thrown in. Last Friday was European Labour Day, so we took advantage of that to go to Basel to visit Alex. A couple of hours on the TGV is all it takes to leave a dreary, grey Paris and arrive in sunny Basel (we spent most of the trip sitting across from a very cranky woman who COULD NOT BELIEVE that the train was running late. She complained to the conductor that the train was not going fast enough, and then spent the whole trip huffing to herself. Lucky for us she got off at Strasbourg)

We spent Friday afternoon wandering around Basel, then we had a BBQ at Alex's and got to meet all of her friends. It was a lot of fun, and I sadly took a total of zero photos that night. Erik in particular had a blast, and as a result was feeling a little under the weather the next day for the outdoor activities we had planned.

Alex took us to a little town just outside of Basel to do a hike up a mountain, following a waterfall.

It was fun, although I apparently walked too fast.


We were treated to some spectacular views from the top, and Erik enjoyed the rest the hangover Whopper that he had bought before leaving.



The best part was that once at the top, you could rent scooters to zip down the mountain all the way to the bottom. Scary, but worth it. When else will I get the chance to scoot down a mountain?

We spent the rest of the day lounging around warming up (it rained all the way down the mountain) and had dinner Saturday night with one of Alex's friends. And that was that. Sunday morning we caught the train back to Paris, and sadly said goodbye to Alex, making her promise to come and visit us soon.

For Your Viewing Pleasure....

First of all, Karina is a way better photographer than I am, so the majority of these photos are taken by her. I will accept credit for any bad photo, and I place the blame entirely on our camera :).

Secondly, I've edited the 300+ photos we took between the two of us down to a manageable 75 for you to enjoy. If you want to see more, you'll have to visit :). Us, that is, not San Francisco. Although I highly recommend that you visit San Francisco too, if you haven't been in the last five minutes. In case you haven't heard, it's awesome. But there are a lot of homeless people, and they're much more aggressive than they are here. But don't let that stop you. The food is fantastic. Although you might feel slightly guilty enjoying it due to the high rate of homelessness. I should really stop typing now.... Go visit, enjoy photos, we loved it, etc!

Please, enjoy the show!

San Francisco

I know, this post has been a long time coming, but I just don't know where to start.

We had a fantastic time (well, I did, and so assume that Erik and Karina did too).

It was a wonderful week, one of those weeks that felt at the same time much longer than a week, and far too short.

Some highlights:
The food. Oh, the food. So good. And I live in Paris. I'd argue that the food was much better in San Francisco. I've never had so many fantastic meals in such a short period of time.

The people. Are people always so friendly? Maybe I was particularly sensitive to the friendliness which is such a contrast to the general crustiness of the French. I've never had people be so helpful, and genuinely (or so it seemed) happy to help.

Can we go back to the food again? You know how at French markets, it's generally frowned upon to touch anything? Let alone ask for a sample? Karina and I made the mistake of eating breakfast before going to the farmer's market at the Ferry Building (well, not much of a mistake because the breakfast was really good). Every single stall had samples. Some had signs that said that sampling was mandatory. Vendors would offer samples of other things after you'd already paid for your purchase. Amazing! And so good!

The wine. Surprisingly good. We found some really nice small producers in the Russian River valley, and had a great time driving around the area. Our favorite visits were Mill Creek and Benziger.


The sights. I couldn't get enough of the bridges. And I'm not even the engineer of the family. We drove over the Golden Gate on our way to and from Sonoma. And we had spectacular views of the Oakland Bridge from the rooftop bar of our hotel and from the Ferry Building. Alcatraz was fantastic. The cable and street cars were fun. Chinatown was delicious (am I talking about food again?) The ancient Redwoods at Armstrong National Park in Guerneville were amazing.

The shopping. Everything is on sale in the States!! Nothing is on sale in Paris! Need I say more?

Karina. Can't think of a better person to spend a week touristing with.

They're at it again.... (clickity click!)

Wine and Boats

Yesterday we were invited to a wine tasting being held on a peniche in the Seine. Docked right below the Eiffel Tower, the Maxim's boat was full of wine makers. Well, as full as a small boat can be, which was kind of nice because it meant we could taste everything in about two hours.

It was a bit of a more fancy pants affair than regular wine tastings, complete with a hostess, complimentary coat check, clean glasses and bread at each table, and a raffle. None of this deterred us, and we quickly got our sea legs and got tasting!

We started off with some nice Champagne before moving on to the more serious reds. We tasted some lovely Burgundies, some rich reds from Languedoc, some deliciously refreshing whites and roses from Provence, and even some sweet dessert wines. And perhaps the fact that we now have access to the cave encouraged us to buy slightly more than usual?

Oops?

It was a fun afternoon, in a great setting. Afterward we walked along the Seine towards the metro station, and took some photos.



A shot of the Line 6 metro heading from Bir Hakeim over the Seine towards Passy. Line 6 is my favorite line, it travels above ground for almost the entire line (Nation to Charles de Gaulle Etoile), and I ride it regularly to get either to the Nursery School in one direction, or out to the gym at Nation in the other. I never get tired of the view, and nothing gets your day started like the sight of the Eiffel Tower standing tall above the river.

And just because it's about a boat, here's a link to our current favorite song. Click through and watch at your own risk, the language isn't pretty, but it's pretty hilarious. I'm on a Boat

Paris by Mom

(you don't mind if I post these, do you mom? :) They're too good not to share)

A Rainy Day

Being the brave souls (Parisian souls?) that we are, we got out the umbrellas and carried on with our plan of walking around. We visited the memorial to murdered European Jews, a maze of rectangular concrete blocks of varying heights. Walking into the memorial, you quickly become disoriented in the forest of stark grey columns. We continued walking past the memorial to the famous Brandenburg Gates. We continued on, becoming wetter by the second, admiring the architecture around Pariser Platz, and in the area of Unter den Linden behind the gates.

By this point our feet (ok, my feet) were so cold and wet I could hardly feel them. We decided it was time for some indoors culture, and got on the subway to go back to Potsdamer Platz to visit the Nue National Gallerie, which houses a collection of 20th century European artists. And that’s when things started to go wrong. The Nue Gallerie is part of what is called the Kulturforum, an area consisting of three or four galleries that you can access with one ticket. Once we bought our tickets, we encountered the first problem: how to get into the gallery? We wandered around the main building before finally finding the entrance. Once we got into the gallery, we couldn’t find the paintings we were hoping to see. We were in a football field sized space housing an impressive collection of 15th century art, not exactly what we had been hoping for, and not exactly what we were in the mood for. We realize the gallery we want is in another building, and set off across the street only to discover that the permanent collection of the Nue Gallerie is closed for renovation. Ok, the guide book said there was a design exhibit back at the Kulturforum that sounded interesting, so back we go, only to discover that due to the delicate nature of the mainly pencil on paper collection, it isn’t on permanent display, and is therefore also closed.

We decided that we were clearly not destined to become cultured souls that afternoon, and settled ourselves comfortably in a brewery for lunch. Once we had warmed up, we set off for Tacheles. Tacheles is a vacant building completely covered in graffiti that has been taken over by artists. It is a building that I would never have entered normally, but I guess we were feeling particularly brave that afternoon, and we walked in and made it up the third floor to visit the artist’s studios (luckily we weren’t the only tourists there!). It was an interesting place, and the surrounding neighbourhood was really neat. We stopped into a bar carrying 100 different kinds of beer (don’t worry, we only tried two) before going back downtown.

Our next stop was the Philharmonie, where we got tickets for that evening’s concert. The cheapest tickets were actually on the stage, right behind the orchestra, and it was really neat to have a close up view of the musicians while they were playing, as well as being able to see the conductor’s face. It was an impressive show (concert?), the highlight being an amazing violin solo. Dinner afterwards was back at another location of Lutter & Wegner, this time I had sauerbraten, and Erik black pudding with apple strudel for dessert.

It was a great weekend, and we were sorry to say goodbye to Berlin the next day.

Touring Berlin

Our second day in Berlin started off with a great breakfast. The Germans really know how to start the day properly. A buffet consisting of fresh rolls, sliced meats and cheeses, a selection of muesli, yogurts, jams, fruit got the day off to a satisfying start.

Our fist stop of the day was the Winterfeldt market, probably not the best place to be when you’re still full from breakfast, but we had a good time looking through the stalls and drooling at all the displays of cheeses, meats, and pastries.

From there we headed up to the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie (museum chronicling the history of the wall). It was a bit hectic, with lots of information about the many ways that people escaped from East Berlin. It went on, and on, and on, and eventually our stomachs told us that it was time to find a place for lunch.

We chose a random café just down the street, Café Persil. The waitress didn’t speak English, but helpfully gave us the English menu that listed everything except the specials. After trying to decipher some of the specials, we decided to cross our fingers and hope for the best, ordering specials #2 and 5. We were lucky, because they were great! I had spaetzle with a creamy sauce and crispy fried onions with a side salad, and Erik had fried ham chop, fried potatoes and salad. A satisfying meal, and only 20€ including beer.

We continued on foot to the Judisches Museum, a beautifully designed building housing the history of the Jewish Culture. This museum was excellent, well organized, very interactive, and very interesting. The museum contains the Holocaust Memorial tower, an unheated space, completely enclosed save for a small opening near the top that lets in a sliver of light. It was a very powerful.

After all that, we were ready for a break, and went back to the hotel to change and get organized for dinner. Our dinner reservations were at Oderquelle, a restaurant that was quite different from our previous night’s dinner. It was a cozy space, more relaxed, and perhaps more authentic. Other diners seemed to be mostly German, which is always a good sign. Erik started with lentil soup, and I had some dry and unexciting ‘Swabian Ravioli.’ Main courses included fried duck breast with gnocchi and cabbage, and roast veal chop with parsnips and roast potatoes. All of it was lovely, although both the cabbage and the veal chop had a very strong cheese on them, which was a bit odd (especially on the meat?). We finished the meal with warm apple crumble with a Calvados crème fraiche. Very tasty.



After the meal, we walked through the neighbourhood, and chose a busy café for one last drink. On the train ride home, we were entertained by all the people that were drinking (we were two of the few people in our car without bottles in our hands). We prolonged the evening by stopping again at a café across from the hotel, before settling ourselves on the couches at our hotel bar.

Berlin baby, yeah!

Erik decided that his vacation would begin the minute he had his first German beer. After many Heinekens both at the airport and on the airplane, he was finally able to relax with a delicious German beer Friday night before dinner. You can imagine his priorities, when the first thing he checked at the hotel was the bar menu.

We landed at Berlin’s Tegel airport on Friday evening, and made it easily into the centre of the city. Our Holiday Inn Express was conveniently located close to Potsdamer Platz, and was another Hotwire find—three stars, and at $55 US a night, it was practically free. We dropped of our luggage, and headed straight out to wander around and have a drink before dinner.

We were a little surprised at the snow. I guess we live in a bit of a bubble here in Paris. We had checked the weather, but neither of us were really expecting there to be snow, and ice, actually ON the ground. When the weather says that it’s going to snow here in Paris, it actually means white coloured rain, and temperatures usually above zero.

We wandered around the Gendarmenmarkt, and found an outdoor patio, complete with heaters and blankets. We settled in to enjoy the atmosphere as our appetites got ready for dinner.

Dinner was at a restaurant called Lutter & Wegner. A restaurant we realized later was a chain, but would never have guessed based on the atmosphere, and most importantly, the food. We were given a nice table by the window, and started the meal with their strawberry punch, an odd combination of strawberries and sparkling wine, sort of like sangria, but not as nice. After fishing the final strawberries from our glasses, our entrees arrived, apple and lentil salad with sauerbraten for me, and Berlin style potato soup for Erik. My salad was delicious, a nice combination of textures and flavours, both salty, sweet and sour. Erik’s soup was the perfect thing for a cold night, great flavour, with big chunks of sausage.

I had weiner schnitzel with warm potato and cucumber salad for my main course. The schnitzel was huge, and perfectly fried with a nice crispy crust. The salad was also quite good, and the cucumbers were a surprisingly welcome ingredient. Erik enjoyed bratwurst with horseradish mashed potatoes, definitely the star of the meal. Incredibly flavourful sausages complimented by equally delicious potatoes.

For dessert we settled on a fried cake thing, whose name I can’t remember, served with vanilla ice cream and conserved plums. We had to wait twenty minutes for it to be prepared, but it was worth the wait. It was a not too sweet, and slightly crunchy, very satisfying way to end a wonderful meal.

After dinner we wandered happily past Checkpoint Charlie on the way back to the hotel, busily planning our agenda for the following day.

Walking Home

Name that bridge! Bonus points if you can also name the two buildings in the background.

Guess Where Erik Went

Sunday Photos

This is what greeted me when I got home from the gym this morning:

This eventually became a handle bar mustache before it finally disappeared.


The seven lemons that Erik used to make limoncello. Now we have seven skinless lemons living in our fridge. Any ideas of what we could do with them?

We had Erik's colleague Hiroshi and his family over for dinner last night. Erik got a good shoulder workout playing 'Spiderman' with the two kids.

Jeudi noir and another long week...

I don't know what it is, but I feel like I've been dragging my feet since we got back from Canada. I'm always tired, and I've been looking forward to the February holidays pretty much since our plane landed at Charles de Gaulle on January 4th. Maybe it's the unseasonably cold weather, combined with the seasonably grey and damp weather, maybe I'm getting too old to shake off jet-lag as easily as I used to.

Add a country wide fonctionnaire strike into the mix, and all I really want to do is stay in bed. Thursday was supposed to be another one of those strike days that bring the city to a standstill. However, now that I have a couple of those under my belt, I know that 'standstill' usually means that instead of waiting two minutes for a train, you might wait eight minutes. Or have to take a different combination of lines to get to your destination. Everyone tries to scare you with stories of stations not even being open, terrible gridlock, and people fighting over Ve'libs, but I (knock on wood) haven't ever been really stuck. And so I checked the RATP website on Wednesday night and found that my trains were predicted to be running 1 out of 2, and 3 out of 4, so I left the house a good forty minutes early just to be safe and arrived at school, oh, a good 35 minutes early. No delays. No one on the trains. All that the stupid strike on Thursday did stress me out and make me early for everything I had to be on time for. And then it made me late for the one thing I actually wanted to be on time for. Fajita night. Have I told you that Erik makes the best fajitas? It's the perfect way to end a marathon day.

Oh, and the fonctionnaire of the house worked from home, because his line of RER was actually not running. And for some reason he didn't make it to the manifestation.

Anyway, I guess this has been a long winded way of saying that it's been a long week, and now I'm sick and have spent most of today in bed. I'm not looking forward to going back to school on Tuesday, and I hope that the next two weeks fly by. I need some time off!

A New Toy

We bought a video camera. For professional purposes. Really. I'm planning on using it at the gym, but that didn't stop me from filming this little gem* about two seconds after I got the thing out of the box.

*This little gem will be embedded in this post just as soon as my computer dries off from the cup of tea that I dumped on it. Assuming that all is well once it dries off. If you can't wait, check it out here.

I don't even want to know when I last blogged. I just know it's been a long time. We've been busy, you know, traveling to Canada, celebrating Christmas and New Years, meeting friends' babies, then getting over jet lag and dealing with snow and life here in Paris.

I can't remember how I ever had time to blog more regularly.

And since we've been so busy since we got back, busy doing things that aren't particularly interesting (anyone want to hear about the fun that was my two-day BodyStep training last weekend? It started at 8am on Sunday. Good times), I'll thought I'd share with you two pictures of what we seem to do best. Or at least consistently.

Eat.


Oyako-don (Chicken and egg on rice)

This is a Japanese dish that we always enjoy in Japan, and that I tried to make very unsuccessfully once at home. Luckily Erik has a Japanese colleague at the lab, and he and his wife made a video for us on how to make this simple dish, complete with a shot of the all important timer that tells you just how long to let the egg cook before it's time to eat.

It was so oishii that we made it twice that week, and is now one of Erik's specialties. (A list that also includes risotto and fajitas so delicious they rival Sneaky Dees).


A hero sized sandwich

Next up is the sandwich Erik made for breakfast/lunch today. This kind of sandwich is his weekend specialty, best enjoyed after a weekend workout. Today's sandwich featured three kinds of meat--leftover roast chicken, sausage and duck pate. Plus cheese and condiments. And it was enjoyed while watching the Wire, a show that my brother got us hooked on, and anyone who hasn't seen it should absolutely check it out. It's great.

Other exciting things that have happened to us involve the purchase of a new tv stand/buffet, that we carried home ourselves from Ikea. The fun part about going to that store is trying to decide if what you're buying is worth spending 50euros on delivery for. Bed, yes. Tv stand, we didn't think so. Lets just say that manoevering 50lbs of Ikea cabinetry on a bus, train and then finally metro is a feat that makes 50euros seem like a steal.

So there you go. Life here in Paris is as glamorous as ever, the snow has melted and we are now dealing with a typical Parisian winter involving rain and gloom. Epiphany was celebrated in a shower of galettes, and my lucky husband found the feve in all three pies that he sampled. People are fleeing the city for ski holidays, and we're counting down the weeks (3) until our next holiday weekend in Berlin.

Bits and Bobs

And we thought the weather here in Paris was bad!!

Weren't we surprised to step off the plane last Sunday and have it be so cold here in France that it actually snowed! Erik got up to go to work on Monday, and I didn't believe him when he said there was snow on the ground. But there was, and a fair amount of the stuff. Weather across Europe has been unseasonably cold, with snow all the way down to the south of France, and even in Spain! Unfortunately there were no snow days, and business went on almost as usual, save for some weather related problems with the trains. Luckily Canada prepared us well, and Erik has been getting good use out of his boots, and me out of my down coat. I definitely miss central heating!



We've come a long way, baby!

Or have we? I thought it would be fun to try on my wedding dress while we were in Ottawa. Might have helped if I'd actually been wearing real clothes before hand, but here you go, morning hair, glasses and all. And Erik's shirt says: Clothes Make the Man, which is obviously not true, in his case. :)

Straight from the mouth of a four year old:

(in the middle of me reading a story that she obviously didn't find very interesting)

"Torie, you have a lot of hair!! I don't know how you sleep."

I told her it was like having a pillow attached to my head, but she wasn't buying it. Too funny.

This is too good to not blog about....

We're a bit worried about the cold.


Just out of Erik's mouth:
"It took me 26 years to find you, and 32 years to find this vest."

I'm such a lucky girl. And he's going to be so warm in Ottawa!