An Update on our SG Situation

Remeber that international cheque that Erik deposited in the middle of December? He was told it would take a week, and would be free....

Well, it just cleared last week, and was definetly not free at 40euros.

Erik is getting tips from his friends at work on how to best express his frustration at their incompetence. Apparently it is very French to say incredibly rude things in the politest way possible...I'll keep you posted.

My beef is that I no longer believe anything that they tell us. They lied about the cheque, and about how they were going to deal with the situation. Am I too trusting of a person to believe what I am told by someone who works in a bank?

Speaking of money, I also got my first pay stubs this month, and there are 19 different deductions on each of them. I can't really remember how many places my money went in Canada, but I have to say it's a lot less painful when you have no idea what any of the places are (some examples: A.G.S; AGFF T1; Retraite complementaire [complementary withdrawal? How nice of them to only take 3%...]; FNAL plafonne, to name a few). I guess I just have to 'trust' that my employers know what they are doing.

Ok, I have to admit that of the 19 deductions, about half of them are paid by the employer (I think...it just says 'charges patronales' and when I looked up 'patronales' I got a definition that implied either manager or employee).

A Brugge By Any Other Name Would Be As Beautiful....

Which is good, because the town that we visited is known by one name with many different spellings. The Lonely Planet lists it as Bruges (Brugge), the Michelin guide listed it as Brugge, and we saw it spelled Brugs on some city maps posted in the town.

We left on Saturday afternoon, after picking up our Peugot rental car from the Avis counter at Gare du Nord (we were helped by a woman who made it very clear that she hated her job). Pete was the lucky driver who got the first shift, and after a few hair-raising incidents getting out of Paris, he quickly got the hang of the standard transmission, the lack of signalling, and the lack of familiar road signs. We thought it was amusing that the posted speed limit on some of the French autoroutes was 130 km/h in good weather, and 110 km/h in bad weather.

The scenery was farmland, and both Erik and Pete were reminded of Alberta. There were many times when you could see incredibly far in either direction, it was just flat, green farms. Every once in awhile we'd see the spire of some old church poking up from the middle of a cluster of homes.

The drive took about 3 hours, and there were no border controls as we entered Belgium. In fact the building that was at the border was quite dilapidated, with broken windows and peeling paint. On the way out (on another highway) there wasn't any markings or buildings at all. We eventually started seeing signs in French, and assumed we were back in France.

It was dark when we got into town, but luckily the castle and the moat that we had t o cross to get into the city centre were well illuminated. The centre of the city is surrounded by a sort of moat (I'm sure they'd call it a canal, but it's much more fun the other way), and there was a drawbridge-esque bridge on the road leaing into the city. Of course the drawbridge was attached to a lovely old (small) Medieval Times-ish castle. A delightful first impression.

We checked into our discount hotel (comfotable except for the cauliflower smell in our room, and the 'automatic' shower that you had to turn on every 30 seconds. Think annoying sink tap that doesn't stay on long enough to wash your hands. But it's a shower. And they didn't make the timer any longer). After dinner (with beer, of course!) we took a walk around the city, and planned out what we were going to do the next day.

To Be Continued....( I should have pictures to share tomorrow, and they really make these posts more interesting, I think)

Thank Goodness We're Going to Belgium!

It was cold this morning when I woke up. Cold like the time we woke up and the window had blown open. Except the windows were all closed. The rads were lukewarm and the water coming out of the taps was a couple of degrees below body temperature. It was cold!

Now, I know as a Canadian, nothing short of icicles coming out of the taps should phase me. I do feel bad complaining about the cold here, when its double digits below back home. I should be used to this kind of thing. But let's be honest. I'm not. I'm the kind of Canadian that prefers the steamy hot summers to the icy cold winters. I don't like the cold. I don't like being cold. I don't like showering in cold places with cold water. And I'm always cold in the winter.

Apparently the hot water and heating in our building are broken, and wont be fixed until Monday. Happy week-end to you too!

Thank goodness we're going to Belgium!

Need a Vacation?

Come to Paris!

AirFrance is having a seat sale, but it ends today, so if you're interested, it could be a great impulse purchase! They have flights from Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto for under $600.

No, I'm not that lonely, but I am hoping that Alison will come and visit in the spring, so I was looking up flight prices to help her make up her mind. I also had my first free long distance conversation with Alison. Armed with our microphones and the internet, we used MSN to talk. Pretty cool! So all you technologically inclined people, dust off your microphones, and log onto MSN (or Skype - really, it's free), and we'll talk (about coming to Paris, of course!).

The Perfect Gift

So, yesterday we ran out of eye solution. Not the "oh, we should buy another bottle soon" kind of run out, but the kind when you take your contacts out and put them in the container and try to squirt some solution in and are greeted by a hiss of air. Not a drop of stuff in the house, and of course it's way too go looking for more on the streets of Paris. Some creative shuffling and squirting managed to produce enough to barely cover our two pairs of lenses, but today my top priority was finding more.

I had looked at the Monoprix yesterday while grocery shopping, and couldn't find anything remotely related to eyes (except for eyeshadow and mascara, of course!). Today I hit the pharmacie on the way home from work. Luckily they carried two kinds (do people not wear contacts here? There are at least 10 different kinds of solution in Canada). Of course they didn't carry our kind, so I bought the cheapest one. You'll never guess how much it costs. We used to buy the two pack of Alcon Opti-Free Express (they actually have a website!) at Shoppers for something like $18.00. Well, one bottle of Complete solution was 12euros. That's $16.84 Canadian dollars! For one bottle!

I guess I am now permanently on the look out for 'cheap' solution. If anyone has a sudden urge to send us a gift, or to come and visit bearing gifts, our eyes will be eternally grateful. We'll repay you in wine. And bread. And cheese.

Dress Code

As someone who insisted on wearing jogging suits (and onlyones from Cotton Ginny-remember them?) until grade 8, I am fascinated by what kids wear here in Paris.

I was surprised at the number of kids who showed up in 'casual' (that means typical North American wear) clothes at school today. I quickly learned that today was 'gymnastique' and they were therefore dressing appropriately. While on the playground yesterday, I did an informal visual survey of the 33 4 and 5 year olds that were outside. Of the 14 girls, 11 of them were wearing skirts. All 11 skirt wearing girls were also wearing some kind of stylish boots that were made of leather and involved an intricate zipper type closure. Of the remaining boys, all had curdurouy pants or jeans, except the lone Canadian who was wearing red jogging pants (my kind of kid!). I swear that one of the boys had a cashmere sweater on yesterday (over top of a button up shirt), and one of the girls has had a different jacket every day I've seen her (and each jacket is the type that you might wear over a party dress-but obviously my children's fashion knowledge is a bit flawed). If this is what kids wear to school, to play in the sand in, what do they wear when they get dressed up?

And it's not just the kids at this school. All the kids that I see around-on the metro, in the bakery, in the neighbourhood-are well dressed. There are no 'casual' days. Kids don't wear sneakers (but adults don't either). Or sweatshirts. Or jogging pants (too bad). I always thought these 'fancy' clothes were very uncomfortable (please note that I included blue jeans in the uncomfortable category when I was young, hence my extended jogging suit wearing period. I still feel that way, and am in fact wearing jogging pants right now), and I obviously felt very strongly about this as I have a few (not so fond--sorry mom!) memories of smocked dresses.

I guess all this fancy dressing explains why adult Parisians are usually so well dressed. It probably explains why I often feel fairly underdressed. It also explains why I don't leave the house in my jogging pants anymore (sigh...the good old days in TO, where I fit right in on Queen Street), and why I have an entire unpacked suitcase full of 'gym' clothes (well, that's mostly because I don't go to the gym anymore. But I plan to, really!).

I obviously have a lot to learn from these kids aside from French... (yes, they correct my French!) I wonder if anyone is interested in a English-fashion exchange?

Bad Customer Service Working for Me!

I stopped by our local Champion store on the way home today to pick up some things for dinner. In a daze, I completely forgot to weigh my produce. I got up to the cash, with a long line forming behind me (it's always busy around dinner time). The cashier tells me that I have to go weigh my stuff, and I try to pick up my basket, thinking I'll have to go back to the end of the line. But I forgot, this is France. The cashier indicated that I should go, and she would wait for me. So she sat there with half my stuff rung through while I went to weigh my veggies. When I was done, I walked right past all the people waiting in line, and happily bagged my own purchases.

I guess the service is only bad if you're not the one being served! :)

Erik's Best Day!!

So, after an exciting start of learning how to fold a shirt in 4 seconds, Erik and I set off to look at yet another apartment. We were feeling a little depressed about our options, especially after talking to our current landlord this morning, when we learned that we were out of here for sure on March 1st. That pretty much eliminated the first place that we liked. We had looked at today's place before, but it didn't have an oven or laundry, two things we decided were 'must haves'.

We were greeted by the landlady, who lives in the same building. She was very friendly and pleasant, and full of great things to say about her apartment (of course!). She had been working hard over the last month to re-wallpaper it in a bright yellow (not nearly as bad as I was expecting). She had bought two new armchairs for the living area, and the place basically looked clean and inviting. She was willing to split the cost of a small oven with us, and also showed us a solution to the laundry situation. When she and her husband were renovating the apartment initially, he had a laundry pipe installed in the bathroom. She thought it was a bad idea, because the bathroom is quite small, and there isn't really room for a large washer. So, they never installed a washing machine. But if we wanted to get one, the hook up is there waiting for us, and she didn't have a problem with that happening, so that was another bonus. This place is on the 6th floor (I think...), and has two rooms, which is nice. And it is available whenever we want! Our decision was made as soon as we saw the laundry hook up, and although we have yet to tell the other landlords, it is a relief to have found a place that is pretty much exactly what we want. The price is low enough that we can afford to buy a few things to get us settled (like a washing machine!), and the location at Montparnasse station is perfect for both of us. What a relief!

When we got back to our place, Erik finished setting up the 'wireless' network with our new router (unfortunately only Pete and I are able to enjoy this wire-free environment. But it does mean we can all use the internet at the same time)

To celebrate our two success', we took Pete out for moules frites. To the pleasant surprise of the boys, the pub that we went to was playing a rugby game, which we enjoyed for the first half before the bartender changed the channel to soccer. We quickly paid our bill and followed the seven other patrons who were also watching the game to another bar. I also learned that asking for mayonaise to go with our fries can also be interpreted in French as 'Baileys' which I did not dip my fries into, but enjoyed after the meal. Erik succeeded in getting the desired dipping sauce by asking for 'du mahhyo'. Apparently I was saying my a's incorrectly..

Our Sunday Morning

Two Dr's and a wireless router can actually be put to good use!

Watch this.

It's what we did this morning.

Erik has now volunteered to fold all laundry!

A Walking Tour of Paris

Pete is here, and to celebrate his first full day in Paris we thought we take him apartment hunting!
We looked at four places today, and it was quite an adventure.

It started with a metro ride to the Corvisart station in the 13e. The first two places we looked at were in the same building in the Butte aux Cailles area. The neighbourhood seemed quite sympa, and it's location on the RER line is perfect for Erik. The building had two studios, one of which we thought would be good (a real bed!). Only two downsides. First, and minor, is that it is the ground floor. This is good in the sense that there is a bit of a 'patio' right out the front door, but bad in that there is zero privacy (and no stairs to counteract my nutella crepe addiction!). The biggest problem is that it isn't available until April 1. Best case scenario is that we would be able to stay where we are for another month. Worst case is that we live in the hotel in Lozere. The worst case really isn't an option.

After that building we picked up Pete (who had made himself comfortable at a local cafe) and headed to the next building, in the 5e, close enough to the Jardin Luxembourg for me to be able to say that. There was some confusion as the landlord was late, and Erik and I, and another girl and her mother basically tried to figure out where the available studio was, with the help of a friendly tennant. The landlord eventually showed up, and although the building was beautiful and had a great view, the place was too small, had a sofa bed and no laundry. However, the other people looking at the place apparently had a 2 room apartment available in the heart of the Latin Quarter (right next to the Pantheon), so we went to look at that one too.

The last one had the best location. It was the closest to the RER, and the Pantheon, and the Jardin Luxembourg. Nice neighbourhood, and beautiful building. Also the priciest. Unfortunately the price didn't get us any luxury aside from a separate bedroom/study and living room. It also had a single bed and no oven, or laundry. And they wanted us to move in as soon as possible, and definetly no later than February 15. Not really an option.

We go tomorrow to look at the newly decorated (in yellow) apartment that we first looked at over the holidays. This place also has no oven or laundry. We're running out of options, and hopefully we'll be able to work something out with our current landlord. Although our money saving 'moving out of here as soon as possible' plan seems to keep getting postponed...

We finished the day by walking all the way home (stopping at a few cafes along the way of course). By the time we saw Sacre Coeur at the top of the hill, guiding us home, we were starved, and headed straight to the fondue restaurant. It was full, so we went right next door to an Indian restaurant. The food was delicious, although the service was less than memorable. A bit of a dissapointing end to an exciting day.

Oyster Plant

Update. Yup, I just posted two hours ago, but feel the need to update everyone. I was telling Erik about my school lunch today, and he jumped up in the middle of dinner to look up the word salsifi online (it's that need to consult the encyclopedia!). Probably something I should have done myself in the original post, but I'm really tired today, and am feeling a bit 'brain dead'.

So, I know all of you have been racking your brains trying to figure out what this veggie is, so I won't keep it from you any longer...

It's something known in English as 'oyster plant' (nope, still haven't heard of it). It got it's name apparently because it has a hint of oyster flavour (no, didn't taste the oyster, although I find it hard to identify an 'oyster' flavour; usually I just taste salt water and whatever toppings have been put on the thing). You can read the link for more detailed info...

On to other food related things: Our dinner tonight.

We had quite possibly the best pizza ever! (After our authentic pizza making experience, of course.) I always use the Canadian Living pizza dough recipe, usually from the cookbook, but the one online works too (I just skip the boiling water part in the online version. Use hot water. It works just as well). Since we've been here, I've also been adding about a teaspoon of herbes de provence to the flour mixture before adding the liquids. It adds a nice flavour to the crust. The toppings tonight were simple: bacon (left over from the parents visit. Don't worry, it's been in the freezer); tomato sauce; grated parmesan cheese (left over from the risotto); and mozzarella. The only mozzarella I could find at the grocery store here when I first made pizza was the round buffalo style. I wasn't sure what the result would be when we first tried it, but I don't think I will ever use anything else now. This is the best cheese to use on pizza, it gets really stringy, and has a nice mild taste. The parmesan cheese on top browned quite nicely, and it was the nicest looking pizza I've ever made. Again, pictures were taken, but are stuck on my phone. I've got some tasty looking welcome screens, though, whenever I open my phone :).

Alright. I think that's it for tonight. Erik is itching to use the internet, and I don't have much else to share. Pete arrives tomorrow, and is here for three weeks. We're looking forward to having him around.

Did I mention it was 11 degrees today?...

School Lunch

Today I was at the Nursery School all day. Part of my job involves staying and helping with lunch on Thursdays. I also get to eat. I thought I'd share with you what these little kids are eating for their dejeuner. (By the way, I still can't get past the fact that dejeuner means lunch, and diner means dinner here in France. In Canada, dejeuner is breakfast, lunch is called diner, and supper was souper. I guess the France version makes more sense, but I can't stop thinking that I'm always saying 'breakfast' when I talk about lunch).

It's a hot lunch program. The kids either go home, or stay and eat the lunch program meal. There were about 10 kids that stayed in the room I was in. I ate with the 4-5yr olds, and they set the tables, and served the food to their classmates. I was surprised that there weren't any spills!

The menu:
Entree--some kind of soup. They called it a potage, and I never did figure out exactly what was in it. I don't think the teachers knew either. It had a texture similar to a potato-based soup. It was quite nice.

Plat--a kind of veal roll. It was ground veal, in a log shape, with some other meat wrapped around it, with a gravy. Mashed potatoes, and a vegetable that I had never heard of before, salsifi. I don't think it translates; I asked the one teacher who actually speaks English as her first language, and she didn't think it had an 'English' name. It looked a bit like peices of white asparagus, and it had a slimy sauce on it. It was a bit sweet. I didn't find the vegetable sauce too appealing, but the meat was quite good, and well, potatoes are potatoes.

Dessert--yogurt and a creme caramel style dessert in a yogurt cup (pre-packaged). The creme caramel dessert was quite tasty, I'm going to look for them in the grocery store next time. The yogurt was interesting. I really haven't had much luck with yogurt over here. It was regular 'flavoured' yogurt, apparently without any artificial flavours or colours. The weird thing was that it looked like plain yogurt. All the flavours were white, and smooth. There wasn't any fruit in them, just some colourless flavour. It was quite strange.

The kids also get a snack in the morning and afternoon, and the weekly lunch menu is posted outside the school for the parents to see. One of the teachers couldn't believe one of the kids wasn't eating with two hands (using a knife and fork). She had to show him how to use the knife to slide food onto the fork. Quite amusing! Definetly not your typical North American style cafeteria meal! Not a sandwich in sight, and the kids seemed to enjoy it for the most part. Most of them didn't want any vegetables, but everyone had to try them. Other than that, most of the plates were clean.

On another note, I noticed that one of the 4yr olds had a Christian Dior ski jacket. I didn't even know that Dior made kids clothes! (no, I wasn't snooping at the kids labels, the jacket had "Dior" embroidered on the back in large letters.)

Tales from the Private School

Before I start this post, I'd just like to share the fact that someone is practising saxophone in our hallway. The walls are thin enough around here, did he really need to leave his apartment??!!

So, as I am serenaded, I thought I would share some anecdotes from my day of teaching today. I was at the private school, teaching French kids. The school is actually outside of Paris, in the fairly wealthy suburb of St. Cloud (one of my kids uses a LeSportsac purse as a LUNCH BAG!).

I have been talking about winter with my younger class (8-9 yr olds), which has been tough since it doesn't actually seem to snow around here. Luckily most of the kids go on skiing vacations in the Alps, so they are somewhat familiar with the joys of the white stuff. As a side note, the word toque is French Canadian. I tried that one with them, and got a lot of funny looks. We're sticking with hat. Anyway, the book I read today was A Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats, one of my favorites. Anyone who is unfamiliar with the book should go get it from the library. It's great. Anyway, it's about a little boy who wakes up to a city covered in snow. He goes outside and has fun in the snow, and tries to bring a snowball home in his pocket. Obviously, it melts, but that's ok, because he goes back outside to play again the next day with his friend. Pretty straightforward story. Well, my kids today could barely get past the first page. Here are the questions they asked:

"Why is the snow pink and purple?"

"Why are the buildings pink and purple?" These questions were followed by an quick discussion about 'artistic interpretation.' I would have thought little Parisian kids would have appreciated the art work a little more.

and my favorite...(I should mention that the little boy in the story is black)

"Why is it snowing in Africa?"


The other highlight of my day was when my Director saw a group of my older kids (13-14) on their way in from break and asked me if they had a bad attitude. Uh yeah! It's like pulling teeth to get these kids to do anything. They basically sit and draw for the whole two hours. I do the same lesson with another group of kids the same age on Saturday, and they are much more open to having a good time. Anyway, apparently the teacher I took over from had problems with these kids, and the teacher they had last year, so it was nice to know that it wasn't just me that was having a hard time. It's only my third class with these kids, and I did manage to get some smiles at the end, so I'm not too discouraged yet.

That's it. Tomorrow I'm back at the Nursery School for the full day. I'm looking forward to it. I'm reading the same story to them, so it will be interesting to see how they respond to it. I'll keep you posted. Literally.

Risotto Revisited...again!

Alright. Everyone seems to be enjoying our food posts, so as a treat, here's what we had for dinner tonight:
Yes, we still have risotto left! Erik and I can hardly believe it! It seems like every other time it's been made, there's barely enough left for lunches the next day. I'm not much of a leftover fan (but a big risotto fan), so I forced myself to use some creativity to fix up the risotto (again!). Nothings worse than heating up the same thing you've been eating for the past three days. It's ok for lunch (way better than a sandwich!), but generally leftovers don't cut it for dinner in my books. It was usually leftover nights when we found ourselves at Sneaky Dee's (sigh) in Toronto. I'll have to start working on my fajita recipe.

All right. Back to tonight. Chicken breasts stuffed with risotto, and roasted fennel, sweet potato, onion and carrot, with a spinach salad.

The chicken breasts are pretty straight-forward. The butcher here slices them apart like a book, so they're always easy to fill with goodies. Tonight I sprinkled them with herbs de Provence and a little pepper, and put about a tablespoon of rice in each. Closed them up with some toothpicks, then they got a milk bath, and a roll in some breadcrumbs. I browned them on the stove before putting them in the oven to cook all the way through. Easy.

The veggies were just as simple. Thought I'd try fennel tonight, it's something I've never cooked before, but have read that it is really nice when it's roasted. I chopped up all the veggies, tossed them with olive oil and some more herbs de provence, and they went in the oven at a fairly high heat (I'm not doing any conversions yet, I just figure that since the oven automatically sets itself to 230C, that 275 should be pretty hot. I haven't burned anything yet!). Half an hour later they were ready to go. They sat out while the chicken cooked, then I popped them back in for five minutes to reheat. A quick toss with some balsamic vinegar (thanks for the tip, Joan), and we were sitting down to a yummy meal.

I took pictures, again, with my cell phone. However Erik and I have just spent an hour trying to figure out how to get the software to work, and we're just getting frustrated. So, Samsung gets a big thumbs down for non-user friendly technology, and you'll just have to use your imagination to picture our meal tonight.

Creative Cooking

So, I was on my own for dinner tonight, Erik had to stay late so he could use some machine that he won't be able to use again for three weeks.

I've been wanting to make these risotto croquettes that I saw on a cooking show before we left Toronto for a long time, but there never seems to be enough risotto left, between dinner, then two lunches. But now that Erik buys his lunch, there was plenty left over for me to 'play' with. Now, you're probably asking yourself why I would want to change the delicious risotto that Erik made for us last night. It was fantastic, but don't most things taste better deep fried? (It's ok, I know the answer to that...)

Anyway, to make these suckers you take a spoonful of cold risotto, put a small piece of mozzarella in the centre, then roll it into a ball. The balls then get rolled in a breadcrumb and parmesan cheese mixture. Then I fried them. I had a small (ok, I'll be honest, large) oil spattering problem. There is oil on the floor and on all surfaces close by. I'm avoiding the clean up by writing this. Despite me standing two feet away from the stove, the little croquetts cooked up nice and golden brown.

They were quite delicious, crunchy on the outside, and creamy in the inside. My only complaint is that the cheese in the centre wasn't melty enough by the time I got around to eating them. I'll have to cook faster next time.

I did take a picture with my cell phone, and just installed all the software so that I should be able to upload the pictures, but of course, nothing is as easy as it seems (except for the croquettes!), and I have no idea how to work it. So you'll have to wait...

Safety First!

I was perusing the Canadian Embassy in France site to see if I could find some information regarding taxes, and I stumbled across this heartwarming article.

And I was just thinking the other day how safe Paris seemed!

Galettes, continued....

We went for dinner last night at Erik's supervisor's house. One of the FOUR (my kind of dinner party!) delicious desserts was a galette.

One of the guests was French, and she gave us (the rest of us were non-French. I think Russia was the country with the highest representation last night) a bit of a lesson on serving this delicious treat. So here goes....

The host slices the tart into equal pieces. Then the youngest guest has to go under the table and direct the host in serving the slices. Give that piece to John, that piece to Mary, etc. Then young guest returns to the table after the pie has been divied up, and everyone enjoys their dessert. Whoever finds the pea (or coin, or tile) gets to wear the crown and be the king (or queen) of the meal.

Only two people chose galette last night, and neither found the coin. Everyone decided that Erik should wear the crown and be king because he ate the most dessert. One piece of every pie. The hostess had made a cherry pie with frozen cherries from their garden; a banana-rum pie (my favorite!); an apple-fig-almond tart (a close second); and then of course there was the galette. They were all delicious!

The whole meal was really a treat! For appetizers there were three cured meats, a salami type sausage from Luxembourg; a cured ham; and a sweet Catalonian sausage. Very interesting. Our entree was mussels, clams and shrimp with leeks and carrots in a butter sauce. Delicous! For a main course there was a vat of chili! Not what you'd expect, but a nice change, and it was very good. The hostess had lived in the United States while she was in high school, and one of the things she learned while living with another family there was how to make chili. Next was the cheese course. There must have been about ten different kinds, all of them fantastic. The most interesting was a Swiss one, called tete de moine (head of the monk). It was a round of cheese with a hole in the centre so it could be placed on a special serving board with a cheese knife that you turned around to shave the cheese off the top of the round. If you click on the link, there are pictures, it's a bit hard to describe.

I have to say I'm a big fan of the cheese course. It's very satisfying. I have a huge sweet tooth, and I enjoy the cheese course almost as much as dessert. The problem I have is when you have both with the same meal. I always find it is too much (the "you're going to have to roll me home" feeling). I think my perfect meal would be an entree, then skip the main and go straight to the good stuff, cheese and sweets.

Last nights meal was finished off with an apperitif, of course. The host brought out a bottle of spirits that he had made in 1988! It was made by collecting herbs, then mixing them with a sugar syrup and alcohol and allowing it to ferment for 40 days. Apparently it used to be given to pregnant mothers to help their labour (what do you think, Joan? :)). It had an interesting flavour, kind of like a minty cough syrup (I was too full for my own glass, so I just tasted Erik's). It was a very interesting end to a delightful evening.

We spent the train ride back to Paris practising our French with the French post-doc from Erik's lab, and her Italian boyfriend. Apparently he prefers tiramisu made with amaretto (I had never heard of it made with that, only rum), and thinks that the best Italian wine is Barolo. He also had some strong opinions on authentic Italian pizza, but we'll just leave it at that.

Hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend! It has been lovely and sunny here the past two days, and the patios have been full of people pretending it's summer. We also learned the hard way that many food stores in our area aren't actually open on Sunday (or at least in the afternoons). We haven't been to the market here since before we had visitors, and I think for the month of December, they were open all day on Sundays in preparation for Christmas. It was like a ghost town when we set out today at 1:00. We managed to rustle up some ingredients, and Erik is in the kitchen making risotto as I write this. It smells delicious!

Moms are always right!

Well, I got two emails today, from two moms, both letting me know that they were pretty sure that Erik and I had only been married for five months.

Yes moms, you're right, apparently we're getting ahead of ourselves. I was most confused because I was sure that we had celebrated a five month anniversary in December, and sure enough I wrote about that in another blog entry. I guess it's the big numbers that people pay attention to....

Anyway, thanks for keeping us on track. You can look forward to the six month anniversary post closer to Valentines day...

It's Official!

I start my second job on Tuesday. What a relief! After a couple of weeks of waiting for my contract to be ready, it finally is, and it's time to start! This is the little kid job, and I'm super excited for it. The youngest kids will be two (yikes! Hope no one cries!) and the oldest are five. Mom brought me three resource books at Christmas that have been really helpful, and I've also been scouring the internet for other ideas. Any fond memories of activities you did at that age that you want to share? I'm going to do a winter theme for whats left of January, I think we'll start with snowmen because the other books I want still haven't been returned to the library. Thanks mom for the snowball activity, I'll have to give it a try.

Other things that are official:

• Erik and I have been married for six months now! We're practically an old married couple :). Time flies when you live in Paris.
  
• The sales have started! This is big news, folks, all (well, some) of the newpapers I saw on the train on Wednesday had "Les Soldes!" as their headline. January 11 until February 21 stores will be slashing their prices. Might be a good time for a winter getaway (did I mention it's been +5 for the past couple of days?) for all my shopping friends out there. I'm going to try and wait for the first pay cheque before checking them out. Note that I said try...

That's about it.

TGIF (for all you lucky people who don't have to work tomorrow...)

OK, one more thing

We were talking to Sharon last night, and she was wondering if we had gotten the message that she sent through the blog. Apparently there is a button somewhere that allows readers to send me a message? I didn't know this, and haven't been able to find it, nor have I seen Sharon's message. I know about the comment option at the bottom of posts, but I don't think that's what she was talking about.

So, does anyone else see this option? If you can, please feel free to offer me some insight, I'm still new to this whole blogging thing.

To be fair...

I feel that I have devoted a large amount of blog space complaining (validly, I think) about our bank. I thought I should share something positive (about France, not the bank).

When I went to get my work permit (which was really quite painless, despite me not having any idea what to do) I was told it would arrive at our house in two days. I thought I just wasn't understanding clearly, but they gave me a temporary permit, so I didn't really care how long it took. Well, those little blue work permits got slipped under our door today! Exactly two days after I applied for them. Does mail ever get delivered that fast back home?

Nice to know that some things are reliable.

Alright. Back to my day....

The Canadians come through in a pinch!

The two-day wire transfer from CIBC came through...in two days! Hard to believe! We're still waiting for that one week, well actually two, or maybe four week international cheque deposit from SG. Oh wait. Now they're saying that they don't actually have any record of that cheque being deposited. What kind of bank doesn't keep records????!!!

The cheque deposit may be free (that's still to be determined) but the cost of the wire transfer is worth it's weight in gold! Looks like we're going out for dinner tonight!

Pix

Hello!

I've posted a sampling of our holiday photos in an imagestation album, for your perusal.

I have to give credit to Joan and Steve for sharing their fabulous photos after my camera lept to its demise.

Enjoy!

More Fun with the French!

Today I set out bright and early to get my working permit from the Main D'Oeuvre Etrangere. The new location is quite close to our place, so it was a quick metro ride. The place opened at 9:00, and by the time I got there at 8:55 there was already a queue forming outside the closed doors. When we were let in (to a very nice office, I might add, complete with a logical numbering system, and comfortable waiting room), we all had to line up in front of the 'preaccueil' counter (pre-welcome). There was one man who sat there and basically went through everyone's dossiers before sending them away, or giving them a number. Not terribly efficient, but I guess it gets the job done. Anyway, he tells everyone to have their papers ready when they get up to the counter. I pull out my two letters and passport. Everyone else has these small filing cabinet sized folders full of what seemed like every peice of documentation they had ever gotten. By the time it was my turn, I had figured out that I probably didn't have enough stuff. Sure enough, I needed to have copies of all the pages in my passport, plus a self addressed stamped envelope.

So I headed back home, as I knew I had copies of my passport and envelopes. Turns out I only had a copy of the front page, and no local stamps, so I had to then go to the post office to get that all sorted out. I was back in line at the Main D'Oeuvre Etrangere by 10:00, and the line was growing. The gentleman at the counter had a great habit of just speaking loudly when someone obviously didn't understand what he was saying.

Twenty minutes later I had one of the coveted numbered tickets in my hand (243), and when the sign flashed 245, I went up and showed my ticket, assuming the agent had gotten the numbers wrong (silly me for assuming they had gotten something wrong!). I was the only one waiting for this desk (the Student desk, although I don't have a student visa), so it was obviously my turn. Our meeting started off well when he told me he had already called 243, where was I? This guy had literally just seen me at the preacceuil counter, and we had just walked around. When I was leaving, I realized that he just kept calling up new numbers, even though he was obviously much farther ahead than the numbers that the prewelcomer was giving out. Anyway, all my paperwork passed the test, and I am now allowed to work specific hours at both places, until a specific date. Hopefully that was the last hoop that I'll have to jump through for awhile!

On another, somewhat related, note, I got an email from my friend Alison, whose parents live in France. Her parents are also SG customers, and they have nicknamed the bank "Fermer en Generale" (Generally Closed). Seems appropriate. Erik also had a positive Canadian banking experience yesterday. He had to call CIBC to have money wired over here from his account, because we can't wait much longer for this international cheque to go through. He was so happy that the woman he talked to knew how to do her job! The money should be here in two days. What a relief!

Perhaps our standards are too high...

In my search for a place to live, I stumbled across this little gem.

Paris, Gare St. Lazare, furnished 10m² room, clean 6th floor, no lift, kitchen, no shower, public bath nearby, 300€/m + electricity.

Makes our handheld shower seem like a luxury!

Customer Service

Ahh, today is one of those days to compare, contrast, and appreciate that customer service is still alive and kicking in some (non-Parisian) corners of the world.

Before we left Toronto I went into the bank and asked them to change my account to a low-fee option as of December 1. When I noticed in December that I was still getting charged the regular rate, I sent them an email asking again to have it changed. This is the reply I found when I logged on to the account this morning:

Dear Ms. J:

We are happy that you have contacted us with your second request to change the account package. We apologize that we did not receive your initial request according to our e-mail history archives.

We have removed the Flat Fee Option Medium from your account effective immediately. Now your account will be charged service fees on a per-transaction basis.

You will receive a letter confirming this change in the mail.

For more information on the fees associated with your account, you may wish to visit:

www.royalbank.com/products/deposits/everyday_fnf.html

Since your initial request did not get processed, I have requested a service charge reversal request for the $6 monthly fee which was charged to your account on Deecember 8, 2005. The funds from the service charge will be put back into your account within the next few business days.

Thank you for your patience. We apologize for any inconvenience our delay in responding to your message may have caused. Please do not hesitate to contact us again through this message centre or by phone at 1-800-769-2555 if we may be of further assistance.

For detailed information on how to contact us by telephone from outside of North America, please visit:

www.royalbank.com/online/faqindex.html#Countries

Sincerely,

Jeffrey

Season's Greetings from RBC Royal Bank!

What a treat it was to know that in some places banking problems can be solved quickly and easily. I was so happy I sent a reply to Jeffrey thanking him for being so helpful.

Now its time for the contrast. Erik deposited an international cheque a couple of weeks ago, and was told that it would take a week, and would be free. Of course due to the past difficulties we've had with SG, Erik took the tellers buisness card, just in case. A week later, when the cheque still hasn't cleared, Erik gives her a call. Not surprisingly, she gave him someone elses card. And it doesn't take a week, it takes two. We're into week three now, waiting for this cheque, and again Erik makes the call to the bank. Wouldn't you know it, but they're closed on Mondays. Sigh.

My big job today was to get a work permit. I discovered last week that I actually need a permit to work, and to get this permit I need a letter from both of my employers stating the exact details of the job I will be doing. I then need to take these letters to the local DDTEFP (don't ask me what it means). I got one letter on Saturday, and the other one this morning, and was feeling quite confident that I'd be out of this whole mess by lunchtime. I had looked up the DDTEFP online, and gotten the address. I walk into the building around 12:30 and ask at the accueil (welcome) desk about a work permit. The gentleman hands me a green slip of paper that says 1) the office to get a work permit is actually at another location and 2) is only open from 9-11:00 daily. I should have been suspicious when things seemed too simple! It makes you wonder why they don't post the other address online if they have enough people coming to this location that they need to have it printed up on a special paper! Another sigh.

Anyway, other than that we are quickly adjusting to our life without visitors. I think today is the first day in awhile that I haven't had at least one full meal of cheese. I'm not sure yet if that is a good thing or a bad thing...

Erik and I shared a mini-galette for dessert. No tile in it, I guess when it's meant for one, they don't do it. Erik enjoyed it, but I found it to have too much pastry, and too little filling. I guess that's my sweet tooth talking :)

It was a beautiful day today (I think it was up to 6 degrees!), and Erik and I are now debating our housing options. We can have the one place we looked at if we want it (the one without an oven or laundry, but good location and nice building), or we can keep looking by exploring other agencies that will likely charge us a fee. What do you think we should do?

The Last Supper

Last night we had another 'Last Supper.' There have been many as people have been leaving, Karina's at Le Cercle, Howard and Joan's at l'Encrier, Steve managed to get a last supper and a last lunch (not surprising), but last nights was truly 'the last'. After a slow day, and a late lunch we ended up back at Le Cercle. My parents had just helped us carry over all the food from their house, and wanted to take back one of the bags that they had filled with stuff for us. We didn't want to bring the huge bag into the restaurant, and figured the Le Cercle would probably be quiet (it was) and close to home. I think we have officially adjusted to Parisian meal times, as it was 10:30 before we sat down, and probably almost an hour later by the time we started eating. The food was delicious, and we had a nice meal (topped off by the best creme brulee I've ever had. Mom and I were going to share, but we had to order another one when we finished the first, it was soo good! Nice and smooth, creamy, with a bit of orange flavour in it, and a nice thick layer of burnt sugar. Yummy!). It's been sad saying goodbye to everyone, but I know that our family has had a great time here, and we've enjoyed sharing Paris with them. The weather was appropriately grey and drizzly this morning as we said goodbye to my parents and closed up their house for the last time.

I'm sitting again at the table in our own apartment, surrounded by luggage. I still can't believe how much stuff we have, and the thought of unpacking it, only to have to pack it all up again in two months is not very encouraging. It took a total of 4 trips to get all our stuff over here from the parents place, and we had left three big suitcases here! C'est la vie, I suppose, and I'm sure we'll find somewhere to put it all.

I've got more pictures to share (Steve made us a copy of all of his), and I'll be updating past posts with the relevant pictures, so if you're interested, you might want to check back through the Holiday postings. I hope everyone is enjoying the last day of their holiday (for those of you who go back to work tomorrow) or their Sunday.

Take care,
Torie :)

Rodin

Today we visited the Rodin Museum. I have to say that this has been my favorite museum so far. It was absolutely beautiful! The pieces are housed in an old mansion, and the gardens are also open to visitors, and contain more sculptures, including the Thinker. It is just big enough so that I didn't feel overwhelmed by the amount of material, and was doable in an afternoon. It was interesting to see how he would use the same figure in different sculptures, and there were also many 'practice' pieces. It is amazing how someone can convey so much emotion in a solid material. And the size of many of the bronze statues is just remarkable! We finished our visit with drinks in the little cafe overlooking the garden. It was a delightful afternoon.

Steve went out to Lozere today to visit Erik at l'Ecole Polytechnique, and they have yet to return. On our way home from the museum we planned dinner (you really can't go for long without talking or thinking about food). We got of the metro at Place de Clichy and made our way up rue Lepic to buy food for the meal. It's always a good time going into these little shops, and we always end up with more food that we had set out for. It just all looks so good! I'm going down now to try some of the cheeses that we got. A nice fourme and a goats cheese studded with walnuts. Should be tasty!

Another Mystery Solved!

Last night we went out for sushi with Zoe. She is a Canadian friend of mine, but knows a lot more about French culture than I do. I asked her about the 'galettes' that we have been seeing in all the bakeries lately. They are puff pastry tarts filled with a variety of things, and there is usually a crown on top that someone could wear. Apparently there is some celebration coming up where you eat these cakes, but the interesting part is that there is a coin baked into the cakes, and whoever finds the coin wears the crown. A couple of nights ago Samir and Christy picked up dessert for us, and one of the desserts was a round cake, and they had gotten a gold crown with it. We figured it was a birthday cake or something. Howard had a peice the next day and was quite surprised to bite into a hard tile with his mouthful. We all thought that it was a mistake, and that it had somehow made it into the cake by accident. We even considered going into the store and showing them what we had found, as it was quite dangerous, biting down on something very hard. Wouldn't we have been surprised when they told us it was supposed to be there, and that Howard was the lucky one, and should have worn the crown!

We said goodbye to Christy this morning (who is hoping to get bumped off her flight so she can stay longer...fingers are crossed!), and we're glad to hear that Howard and Joan made it home safely.

Update:
It's always nice to know that people are reading the blog, and I got two emails about 'galettes'. Here's what they had to say:

Liane: did you know that they do that (galettes) in french canadian culture too? It's part of petit noel, that comes in January.

Joan: And here's what I found out about the cake in that beautiful French cookbook that you gave me last Christmas. They call it "Pithiviers" as it "originated in Pithiviers in the Loire Valley". They go on to say that it is traditionally served on the twelfth night, when it is known as "Galette Des Rois" and usually contains a bean that brings good luck to whomever finds it in their slice. No doubt the Dental Association of the Loire Valley region promotes this version of the recipe.

Thats it for now!

Au revoir!

This morning we said good bye to Howard and Joan. It's hard to believe that this visit is coming to an end. We have had such a good time having everyone here in Paris with us.



Yesterday was Steve's 28th birthday, and we celebrated by going to l'Encrier. The food was once again delicious (Howard's plate was cleaned except for the duck bone. The waiter thought this was quite funny), and it was a great time.


The fam went to the Louvre yesterday, and I had my first day of work at one of my jobs. It went well, but I need to come up with more fun things to do with older kids. And the younger group barely knew where Canada was! I'm going to have to squeeze some geography lessons in too!

Looks like today will be a slow one. We all got up early to say goodbye, then went back to sleep. It's now 2:00 and the boys are still in their PJs. Sometimes it's nice to have a slow day.

Hope everyone is well.

Take care,
Torie :)

Happy New Year!

We are happy to say the the Seafood Extravaganza was a success, and we enjoyed a delicious meal together. Then the 'kids' went to a party being thrown by a friend of Samirs, in an apartment with a fabulous view of the Eiffel Tower. We got there minutes before midnight, and had a good time until two small mishaps before we left (Christy's coat got a 'parting gift' and I almost lost my cell phone). After leaving we headed to a cafe for some hot drinks, only to find that the one cafe that was still open wasn't serving hot drinks anymore. Just cold ones. We made do.

After making it home safely, and setting Samir and Christy up on the pull out couch, I returned from the bathroom to discover that Erik and Steve had reverted back to their younger selves, and in fact broken the bed we were sleeping on. This was apparently the result of an elbow drop by the little brother. Sigh. All was fixed, and despite the party that was still going on in the apartment above us at 4 am we had a good nights sleep.

Today the parents are off to discover the Louvre. Our itinerary is yet to be determined.

Happy New Year to all!