Happy France-iversary to Us!

Yesterday, November 15 was the two-year mark of our lives in France.

And you know what, France was nice enough to get us a gift.

A lovely transit strike, that started on Wednesday.

But I have to say, that despite the hassles of extremely limited service, it hasn't really been too bad (ha ha, I say that now that I'm home on a Friday afternoon, with the heat on). On Wednesday morning I enjoyed a nice Velib ride up to St Lazare train station to catch one of the few trains that took me out to the American School, two hours early. On Thursday morning I squeezed my way onto the metro after a 25 minute wait, then walked from Passy to school. That evening I walked 40 minutes to the line 1 station at the Etoile to catch the train out to Nation so I could teach a fitness class. Luckily I didn't have to wait too long for the line 6 once I was done, and enjoyed a much needed seat on a quite empty train all the way home. And today I was lucky in the morning to catch both of my very crowded trains and make it to school early. On all of the way-overpacked trains I've been on the last couple of days, people have been generally pleasant, and even helpful. We're all in the same boat, I guess, and I'm sure none of us would choose to get sucked into a stampede of people while entering a train, or to spend our ride with our cheeks pressed up against the glass, praying that no one will get off or on at the next station.

And there is some consolation in knowing that despite the fact that I have spent more time walking and biking in the cold than I would normally do, I've also gotten to spend more time appreciating how beautiful this city was.

I biked all the way home from school today and as I cursed the cold and choked back exhaust, I couldn't help but appreciate the view as I crossed over the Seine. Eiffey on one side, the Statue of Liberty on the other, and calm river waters as far as the eye can see . A wrong turn took me through an interesting neighbourhood that we'll have to check out some day. Warmed my heart enough to get me home.

And so, here I am, feeling very at home in Paris, and also excited about the year to come. We still face all the same unknowns (dare I say that I'm getting used to not knowing what our plans are?) that we have for the last two years, but we're also getting quite used to our lives here, and feel more and more each day like we 'belong'. We handled the renewal of our cartes de sejour like pros, scowling for photos, lining up in the cold and leaving everything to the last minute. We are starting to forget what it was like to have more than 36 square metres of living space. We think it's incredibly strange to eat before 8:00 (and the one night we did, we both woke up starving in the middle of the night). And, I can't imagine life in a city that doesn't sell fresh bread and pastries at every street corner and wine at the grocery store.

So let me raise my (imaginary--it is after all 3:00 in the afternoon) glass of Beaujolais Nouveau (plus if I was to have a glass of wine right now, I'd want a good one, not the banana-y stuff we had last night) and toast our vie a Paris. Let's hope this third year is the best one yet.

Ve'lib

Paris has implemented a new system of bike rentals around the city. Every 300 metres or so you can find bike stations where you can pick up a bike and then drop it off when you arrive at your destination.

Erik and I have tried it out a couple of times this past week, and have had a lot of fun with it. Despite the fact that it can easily take upwards of five minutes at the one ticket machine for each bike that you rent which means that there's always a line up, the bikes are comfortable, easy to ride, and convenient. There are two stations near our place, however we're less familiar with the locations in the rest of the city, and have spent some time either on bikes, or on foot looking for a point to pick them up or drop them off.

Anyway, in an attempt to speed things up for ourselves, we decided to get the year long pass, which you can have loaded on to your metro card. This should mean that we'll just have to swipe our passes directly at the bike instead of queing at the machine for a ticket.

But, because this is France, nothing is as easy as it seems.

I logged onto the Ve'lib website yesterday to sign up online, and proceeded to happily fill in the boxes while thinking about how easy it was.

Until I got to the last step.

Where it asked me to then print off all the information I had entered and send it to them in the mail.

At least in 15 days I'll be able to ride away from all my frustrations on a shiny rental bike.

Happy Bastille Day

Of course there are still good times to be had here in Paris, and last Saturday was the Fete National, or what we like to call Bastille Day.

Instead of fighting the massive crowds at the Champ de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower to see the fireworks, we happily accepted an invitation to dine and drink on the roof of our friend Philippe's apartment in the 2e arrondissement.

After climbing up all seven flights of stairs, we then continued to climb, up a rickety ladder through an open skylight and onto the roof. Now, this wasn't any fancy terrasse, it was literally a roof, that was probably not designed for entertaining 30-odd people. But the views were fantatstic, and the trip to the bathroom an adventure after more than one glass of wine. The twins had cleverly rigged up three electric barbeques, threading the cords down through Philippe's window, and everyone enjoyed a bbq of sausages and brochettes. When it finally got dark around 10:30 the fireworks could be seen at the Eiffel tower, and afterward, when the sun set, we made ourselves comfortable, enjoying the view over the rooftops of this fabulous city.
The view



the way up





Seriously, I left my skinny arms in TO.


Sometimes I have too much fun trying to figure out the settings on the camera. I took a lot of blurry photos that night.

The token fireworks shots





maxing and relaxing

Bad, Bad, Banking

After having been here for for almost two years, you'd think I'd be used to all the 'quirks' that France has to offer in terms of service. But I was reminded today of one particular quirk, that irritates me to no end, mostly because it just doesn't make any sense.

So, here's the background: Bank machines in France do not accept deposits. They operate on a 'lets give you cash' only basis.

I often have cash that I need to deposit, and have gotten used to the fact that I have to actually go into the bank, wait in line, fill out a complicated form, speak to someone, etc, etc, all to do something that I know I could do in five minutes at a machine in Canada, but its ok, because I can buy wine with my groceries here. So I go into my friendly neighbourhood Tour Montparnasse branch of Societe Generale, and wait in line with my previously filled out form and envelope of cash, and when I finally get to the teller he looks at me and says: "oh, if you have money to deposit, you have to go see another teller. I don't take cash."

Right.

You're a bank.

Only one of the four tellers working accepts cash.

Let me repeat.

You're a BANK.

Clearly, I was wrong in thinking that banks were establishments that TOOK your money for you. Not only does our bank not provide machines to take our money, they also have employees that don't take money.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what else could they possibly be doing?

Sigh. At least the Monoprix had a Champagne special on today. Otherwise it would have been a really rotten day.

Zoe and Mark

A week ago today, we were happy to welcome a surprised Zoe and a scheming Mark back to Paris. Mark surprised Zoe with a trip to this beautiful city.

And because the trip itself wasn't enough of a surprise, he also proposed on Saturday night on Ile de la Cite.

We couldn't be happier for them!


Shortly after the proposal, enjoying a celebratory drink at St Michel


Canada Day dinner chez nous


Out for dinner at Ave Maria on Thursday night


One of our favorites...the happy meal of wines, Sangre de Torro


No night out in the 11th is complete without a trip to the scary bathroom bar. Erik and the girls display the complimentary beer Erik got as we left for the evening.


A chilly picnic on Friday night at Quai St Bernard


Watching the sunset


Tango dancing along the Seine

It's been a great week, and I have to say, I'm getting used to having Zoe back in Paris. Wish she could stay!

Extremes

We're home at last, and as much fun as we had in Toronto, I have to say it's good to be back. Despite the fact that we (Erik) had to carry our two suitcases up our seven flights of stairs and even though it was a frosty 12 degrees when we landed, and rain is forecast for the entire next week, if I can't be in Toronto, there's no other city I'd rather be.

Bring on the baguette!

10:30 pm

Trying to go to sleep now kind of feels like being sent to bed early as a kid and hearing all your friends outside still playing.

Daily life

It's been a slow month for posting, and I've just realized that I've only posted three times in all of May! Yikes! I guess it has been a fairly quiet month, one with a total of four long weekends (today is the last one), and one where Erik was pretty stressed for most of it, and therefore, not a whole lot of fun. Not that I can't entertain myself, but in an effort to save up for our trip to Canada, I've discovered that many days off + no money makes some things a lot less interesting.

Anyway, here's a recap of what we've been up to for the last couple of weeks:

• Erik went to Montreal for an interview with Concordia, which he thought went very well.
  
• Erik did his presentation for the permanent French position at his lab.
  
• I was offered a full time job at one of my schools, but then they changed their minds. Because I'm not French. That was a fun week.
  
• We got dressed up ('casual chic'--what does that tell you?) and went to a cocktail party at the swanky Hotel Crillon. It was a fundraiser for one of my schools, complete with a live auction where a signed guitar was sold for 3000 euros. Very fun. Plus, there was champagne.
  
• We went for apperos on one of the many bridges over the Seine. It's an event that gathers Parisians in one location every Thursday night in the summer for BYOsnacks and drinks. It was fun to see the tourists pushing through the crowds of us on the bridge, amidst bottles of wine and party mix, with looks of confusion on their faces.
  
• We went for dinner with Erik's aunt, uncle and cousin who were passing through Paris on a recent European trip that they took.
• Our good friend Alex has decided to accept a job transfer to Switzerland for next year. :(
• all the clocks on our blog are an hour behind, but I can't be bothered to fix them. We have a real clock in our bathroom with the same problem.
  
• I've been quite bad about bringing the camera with me, as I have absolutely no pictures of any of these things that we've done.
  

That's about it. I can't believe that it's almost June already, and that we leave for Canada SO SOON! We're a bit excited.

Birthday on the Orient Express

Yesterday was my birthday, and also the day that I had to say goodbye to Katie and Jen and head back to the (other) good life in Paris.

We had quite the train adventure getting from Cesky Krumlov, although most of the excitement was contained on the first train which not only had a broken horn, that blew for the entire two hour trip, but stopped for no apparent reason in the middle of nowhere, and we couldn't get the doors open. Luckily the Czechs are good at fixing broken trains, and about holding trains for you when you're late making your connections, and we arrived in Linz with enough time for Katie and Jen to catch their last train on to Salzburg, and for me to be thoroughly bored for six hours before hopping on my overnight Orient Express train home. No real excitement on the overnight train, aside from its name and the fact that I got free breakfast.

I rolled safely into Gare de l'Est at 10:30 this morning, and Erik was waiting for me, and as always, I was happy to be home. We spent the morning doing some of my favorite Parisian things like shopping at the organic market (which we should do more often), eating crepes and gelato and having lunch at the Marquise. Now Erik's making gigot d'agneau, and we're trying to decide how to best take advantage of the fantastic weather that we have.

That's all I've got for today. There's so much to say about my trip, and lots of photos to organize, so stay tuned...

Carte de Sejour

Nothing gets your day started like a healthy dose of French bureaucracy.

Today was the day that I got to go and do my medical (probably the third one that I've have for various non-medical reasons since we arrived. You'd think there'd be some centralized system to tell everyone that I've been vaccinated, have good teeth and can see). My appointment was scheduled for 9:30 am. When I showed up fifteen minutes early, there were probably about 75 people also waiting for medical exams.

Chairs were a hot commodity in that waiting room.

I waited in the first room for fifteen minutes before being herded into the next level of waiting. Where I waited for another thirty minutes.

Once things got started, I realized what the hold up was. The doctors (about four of them) were more interested in talking to each other than actually seeing people. The first screening was in a room with other people, and I literally stood in the middle of the room for five minutes twiddling my thumbs while the woman dealing with me had a loud conversation across the room with another doctor. Things ran a bit more smoothly after that, I got a chest x-ray, then a quick chat with a real doctor (who suggested homeopathy and qui gonn for my blood pressure, which was a lovely 170/110 this morning. I was certainly not relaxed).

When I finally got the letter saying I was ok, they inform me that I need to go and buy 220 euros worth of 'stamps' before I can get my card. They had a sent me a letter telling me this, but because they refuse to use my new last name, it got sent back to them. So, off I went on the next stage of this scavenger hunt. The stamps had to be purchased at a tabac across the street (seriously, I thought they were joking). Then I had to wait in another line to actually pick up the card. When I got the card, I asked the woman why they keep using my maiden name.

"Its according to your passport" she told me rudely.

Which I would hope it would be, but my maiden name isn't mentioned anywhere in my passport. Which I told them. She proceeds to flip through my file, and points out snarkely (is that a word?) "see, here you wrote your nom de jeune fille."

"Well, of course I did. It says to write your nom de jeune fille. " I replied.

At this point she got all huffy, and asked why I was so mad about it, which I wasn't. I was more curious as to why I would have a visa in a name that isn't on my passport. When she was tired of talking to me, she said "c'est termine. Bonne journee," and moved onto the next person.

So. I can work. I'm 220 euros poorer. And I have been reminded yet again about how poorly organized, unhelpful and downright unfriendly people here can be.

I do get to keep the chest x-ray though. Pretty cool, isn't it?

On a more positive note, today is Steve's 29th birthday. We're making Italian pizza (well, the boys are).

And here are some pictures of the boys in the new socks that they bought yesterday. Guess they didn't realize they would all be knee socks.

On the Menu

So, there's a theme to blogging this month. Any ideas? :)

Another week has flown by, and I can't believe we're seven days closer to Christmas. Seriously, I feel like I need at least another week or two before we head off for the Italian Christmas Fiesta. We finally put up some decorations, (love the gingerbread people, Karina) and bought some lights to hang around our window, so it's beginning to look a bit festive around here.

It was another pretty quiet Saturday for us. We've made the mistake of starting the third season of 24 last weekend, and have thus been glued to the computer all week, trying to get through the season before our houseguest arrives. The oven saga continued with Erik taking a trip out to some electronics store near Nation to pick up the fancy fuses we need to make the darn thing work. And work it does. After our afternoon gym session, we made the oven make up for the two weeks its had off.

On the menu tonight (recipes from the Williams Sonoma Paris cookbook):

Oeufs en cocotte--another stupidly easy French recipe. Take out ramekins (or cute little yogurt pots). Put a bit of butter in the bottom. Crack one or two eggs into the ramekin. Sprinkle chives on the egg. Drizzle cream. Cover with Parmesan and Gruyere. Put into dish filled with boiling water, and cook in the oven until the whites are set. Enjoy.

Roast Pork--the recipe had some name about the 'flavours of the sun' or something cheesy like that. It got off to a bad start at the grocery store, that has been under renovation for the past couple of months. Which usually isn't a problem, but now that it's Christmas there are tons are seasonal products to display, and they're changing things around daily, it's almost impossible to find things. So, I wasn't able to get ANY fresh herbs and had to use pre-chopped parsley, dried sage, and dried rosemary. The other problem is that when I use English recipes I have no idea what the French name is for the cut of meat, so I just bought what looked like a pork roast in the meat section (which had been moved and minimized since I was there last night). In the end I don't think the roast I chose had enough fat, plus it didn't really unroll, so we had to slice it in half a bit to smear the herbs, garlic and oil, before rolling it back up and roasting it. Easy enough, except that we realized once it was done that there was no salt in it, and we cooked it for too long, even though we halved the cooking time. Must get a meat thermometer. Hopefully the leftovers will make good sandwiches.

Flageolets--these are some kind of French bean (the legume, not the green been). Anyway, could only find the canned kind, tossed them with butter, garlic and parsley, and they were delicious.

Dessert--am waiting for Erik to get off the phone with Steve, who arrives at 5:30am Tuesday morning, so that we can go and get crepes.

*Erik has discovered that there are ten flights coming in from Asia between 5:30-5:45 that morning. Thats a lot of tired people looking for a way into the city. Not sure why we found that interesting.

More Good Eats

It's been another busy week, and again, I was surprised (and relieved!) when Friday rolled around yesterday.

Last weekend we headed out to Pavel and Tatiana's for a Russian meal. None of us really knew what to expect, except a lot of vodka. When we arrived, the table was set with three large salads (and I mean large, each salad could have served at least 10 people. There were eight of us). One was Pavel's famous layered herring salad which we'd had before, there was a pickled vegetable salad, and a potato-type salad. All were delicious, and were of course accompanied by vodka. Which actually wasn't that bad. And apparently the Russians drink their vodka with pickles, and Tatiana had made her own dill pickles witch were also delicious, and a surprisingly tasty partner to the drink. There were also little homemade buns stuffed with cabbage, hard boiled eggs and cheese, that are called pirogi. Last time we were there we had talked about pirogi, and how they were such an easy thing to cook when we were in university. Tatiana was very confused, and we learned why when she whipped these things out. Apparently the pirogi that we eat in Canada are actually called something else in Ukraine. The main course was meat baked with onions and cheese on top, and was also very good. For dessert we had a red berry semifreddo-type dessert, that was very refreshing. What an experience! There was so much food left over that Erik got to have it again for lunch the next day when Pavel invited everyone back to help finish the leftovers.

Here are some bad photos of the meal:

Tatiana, and the multi-layer herring salad. Pirogi in the basket on the right.


Bicher and Alex behind the two other salads. Note how much was left. This was after everyone had been served.


The aftermath. Pavel has a habit of carting out the digestifs after dinner, and last weekend was no exception. The Suze wasn't too popular though.

On Tuesday we saw the movie Babel. What a great movie. So interesting, neither of us could sleep that night because we kept thinking about it. Highly recommend it, and not just because Brad Pitt is in it. Parts of it also take place in Japan, and I spent much of the movie nudging Erik every time I heard a 'des-ka' or 'konichiwa'. We want to go back.

On Thursday we were woken up at 5:30am by the Braveheart soundtrack, and other surprisingly good tunes blaring from the apartment above. We waited it out for about thirty minutes before Erik decided to be an 'adult' and tell them to turn it down.

And last night, we had dinner at the other restaurant I had made reservations at. This place was right around the corner, but we seriously have to start making our reservations for a later time. I always say 8:00, because it seems kind of late for some reason. But realistically, neither of us get home until 7:00 on Fridays, and we usually eat dinner at 9:00 or 10:00 during the week, so I don't know. Anyway, of course we were the first people there, and it was so uncomfortably quiet until the place started filling up.

I have to say that this place was a bit of a disappointment. We were both seated on the same side of our table, which was odd, and it was right in the entry, which was kind of interesting because we could watch the bar, but we really felt like we were on display once we started eating. The food was nothing spectacular, and certainly not worth the amount we paid for it. We think it was our most expensive meal yet, by a couple of euros. We've come a long way from the 9 euro menus that we were eating in Montmartre when we first arrived, but we haven't come too far.

So, the food. I had warm artichoke salad for an entree and confit de canard for my plat. The salad was fine, and the duck was good, but it was served with sauteed potatoes that were burnt. Erik had foie gras to start, and it's hard to go wrong with that, and andouillettes as his main, but his potatoes were burnt too, and he ranked his cafeteria andouillette higher than this one*. For dessert I had the Grand Marnier souffle, which I actually didn't like that much, and Erik had a yummy chocolate mousse. The bread was good, and I regret not eating more of it.

Anyway the place was called Chez Dumonet and it is at 112 rue Cherche Midi. The food that was being served around us looked good, so eat at your own risk.

This weekend we have a date with Ina and her Paris cookbook. Steak with bernaise sauce; pear, endive and roquefort salad, and some dessert that doesn't involve the use of the oven. It broke again. We're off to the basement at BHV to look for another fuse. Plus, if we do get the oven fixed, I intend to buy some beaters (only 25 euros at Darty!) and do some baking. Wish me luck.

*For anyone who's interested, the first place goes to the Encrier; the cafeteria andouillette is number two and third place goes to the Raspail Vert.

Good Eats.

It's report card time again, which means that I have lots of time to update you on the goings on of our life.

We had a fantastic dinner last night at a restaurant recommended by one of the many Parisian blogs that I read.

The restaurant was Les Fils de la Ferme, and was surprisingly close to our house. We found the service to be a bit snooty, especially towards the end, but it certainly didn't affect our enjoyment. The amuse bouche was a foam of crushed peas and mint, which was a nice refreshing way to start the meal. For our entrees, we had risotto with carrots and caraway, and oeufs en cocotte with foie gras, both were delicious. Our main course consisted of lamb and daurade, which were both satisfying, and not too filling, which left us just enough room for the most important course of the meal. Erik had the chocolate dessert, which was a chocolate ganache with lychee sorbet. I had creme brulee with some kind of honey, which gave it a very earthy flavour. Very interesting, and very yummy.

We've got another selection lined up for next Friday, Chez Dumonet, which I'm sure we've walked past a zillion times on the way to our old standby Midi Vins, so it will be fun to try it out.

Plus, Erik is making beef bourguigon, which smells fantastic. He also thinks it would be fun to do an Erik/Ina challenge, a la Julie/Julia project. I can't complain, but I think I like cooking too much to sit on the sidelines too often.

Plus, we're being treated to an authentic Russian dinner tomorrow night at Pavel and Tatiana's. Erik has been preparing me with stories of vodka being served in large quantities. Hopefully we'll be able to make it home...

Erik just offered to write some report card comments for me (I declined, of course). Then wondered how Azizullah was doing...ahh memories of a life teaching in a system that didn't have holidays every six weeks. What torture.

Remeber this post?

November 15, 2005

Well, we're here!

Exhausted, and a little disoriented, but we made it to our place with our 200+ lbs of luggage.

First of all, let me recommend that you don't fly American Airlines. It really was a fine flight, but for some reason, flying through Chicago really didn't make any sense (we were going the wrong way...plus a long layover). And the food was quite possibly the worst I've ever had. It will just make the Parisian kind taste that much better!

Well, our apartment is pretty awesome. We have literally just walked in the door (after making 4 trips up in the ancient elevator--its just big enough for one person and a suitcase. We had four), and wanted to share the views that we have from our windows. They might not be the nicest views in Paris, but they're really the only ones we've seen yet, and we think they're pretty awesome (by the way, flying into the city was so dissapointing! We were hoping to see some of Paris, but the plane somehow managed to completly avoid it, and we got to see farmers fields instead).

So, here you go. Enjoy, know that we're here safe, and we'll write more as soon as we've eaten (or maybe tomorrow).

Take care,
E+T

*********************************
November 15, 2006
Hard to believe it's only been one year!

I feel like we've been here for so much longer, and I have to admit that I've fallen in love with this city.

Part of my excitement at reaching the one year mark is that it brings us that much closer to moving back to Canada and all the people and places that we miss, but I'm beginning to realize how much I'm going to miss Paris when we're gone.

I love seeing the Eiffel Tower sparkle every hour, I how every inch of this city is so beautiful, I love how good the food is, and I love how polite people *usually* are. I love that we live in a building that throws parties in the courtyard, and I love having school holidays every six weeks. I love that we have a cafe called the Time Machine on the corner of our street where we know everyone who works there, and they know us. I love that we have a long list of restaurants that we need to try. I love that we managed to find good restaurants, after the terrrible, terrible 10euro tourist menus that we were eating when we first got here. I love that people get dressed up for everything. I love that they're setting up a skating rink in front of the Tour Montparnasse, and I love that we can easily rely on public transit for almost all of our transportation needs. I love that you can order champagne with your meal and people don't think you're crazy. I love that we think that it's reasonable to drink Champagne on special (and not so special) occasions. I love that Erik is turning into a wine snob.

I could go on, but it doesn't change the fact that I think we're pretty happy here. It's been a long year, and it's probably been one of the hardest years of my life, but it makes me pretty proud to look back on everything that we've been through this year and realize that we're doing alright. Actually better than alright. We've spent more time together than we ever would have if we'd stayed in Toronto, and we still enjoy each others company. There's no one that I'd rather be in Paris with, and that makes it a dream come true.

(Please attribute any sappiness in this post to the Champagne that was ordered with dinner. My usual sarcastic self will be back in full force, probably tomorrow, after the field trip that I'm going on. Stay tuned...)