Ok so I have approximately 40 days to write 10 more posts and thus make it to '100 posts a year'.
I will try my best. On the 23rd of February it will be one year since I arrived in France! It has flown by, and now that I have a departure date in mind it seems to be going even faster.
For the sake of practicality and a good friend's wedding, I have decided to aim to return to NZ around the middle of September. Having spoken with my employer about this, she has decided that she won't need me this summer and thus my job will come to an end at the end of June. Good news I can keep the apartment til the end of August, bad news I will be out of an income.
Incidently, does anyone out there know of someone who is interested to coming to France to work as an au pair? I made a good impression and my employer thinks that Australasian girls might be the way to go from now on. I can absolutley recommend my family so if anyone is interested do email me: sofahuber@hotmail.com.
Suddenly there is a little bit of pressure to do, see and learn all the things I want to before my french sejourn is over. Today in french class we talked about the meaning of 'bonheur' (happiness) and we each had to recounta recent moment of happiness. Here is mine, sadly unaccompanied by the photos that I did take.
It is Sunday afternoon and temperatures are unseasonally mild. I don my raspberry coat and mint gloves and wander down the street to the bustop. The number 93 chugs slowly through the 16th arrondissment, past place Victor Hugo, down and around the Palais Chaillot, through the crowds around the Eiffel tower and finally by the impressive golden dome of the Invalides. I descend and take a narrow ruelle towards the heart of the 7th. The tiny rue récamier houses a modern art gallery and I spend a little time perusing before continuing my walk. I let the streets decide my direction, choosing the smallest and most interesting and always looking up. The most intersting things are found by looking up. Eventually I come to the cafe Flore and sit down in the small park opposite with my sketchbook. A little sunday afternoon people wathcing. Soon enough my sweet tooth leads me towards the Seine, past the Ladurée boutique. This sumptuous patisserie makes incredible goodies and I wait the obligitary 10 minutes in the queue to buy my lemon macaron. The paper bag matches my gloves and dusk falling I march quickly towards the water. Standing on pont Solférino the sky is streaky pink over the Notre Dame and Ile de la Cité, golden yellow towards the Grand Palais. At 6 the Eiffel tower begins to glitter and the Seine is reflecting all the colours of the sunset. The macaron crumbles perfectly on the outside and my mouth fills with perfect lemony goodness as I stand and love Paris.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
eating.
This is the time of the year when the French really like to eat well. Ok so christmas was the real pinnacle of the feasting but the flow-over period seems to be quite extended.
I saw this figure the other day: around 80% of all champagne produced in France is consumed between Christmas and New Year. Add to that foie gras and lobster and truffles and the incredible 'buche' (the traditional Christmas desert; steamed pudding cannot compare), I tell you what - je me suis régalée.
Anyway I was going to tell you about the Galette des Rois. The galette is like a pie in appearance, golden and glazed and full of promise. It's made of flakey pastry and filled with a sweet almond paste, it's good the first 2 times but after that a little stodgy. The galette is eaten on the 6th of January - epiphany - and then for several weeks after. Hidden inside each galette is a little figurine (a fève), and whoever finds this in their slice, becomes king or queen for the day and gets to wear the cardboard crown that came with the pie. Depending on how much you paid for you galette, you can find all kinds of things inside. Between home and grandma and invitiations to friends houses, I would say the kids have had a go at around a dozen galettes. Little A showed me a pocketful of his winnings (the kids wont eat left-over galette if the 'fève has already been found, I don't actually think they like it) and there was everything from a gilt camel to a ceramic baby Jesus. I just went to Wikipedia and aparently the tradition dates from the the time of Ancient rome when the Romans celebrated the god of saturn and used the hidden fève to elect the king of the celebrations.
There you go, you learn something new everyday, or at least I hope you do!
ciao
Monday, January 14, 2008
still here!
The grip on the blog is weak at present but I will persevere. I'm so glad that people enjoy reading it, and at the risk of being a cheeky monkey: I will accept donations towards fixing my computer! A new hard-drive is a little difficult to stretch to when there are still at least 4 countires to visit on my list before the return to NZ. For the meantime I will be blogging intermittantly and without photos sorry. I'm secretly hoping that there is an un-known Parisian reader out their who's in the process of upgrading to a new laptop and would so love to give me their old one... Michel are you out there?
The down-side of internet cafes is that one feels a little self-conscious when bursting into laughter. The guy next to me has already figured out that I am an english-speaker and wants to chat about the All Blacks; yes I KNOW that France beat us, thank you for the reminder.
Has been a full-on week, but I'm very happy to be busy again. On Wednesday the kids don't have school in the afternoon, and this weeks activity was to take them (and 12 friends) to see a very popular kids group in concert (French equivalent of the Wiggles). The CDs are a favourite of the kids, so I knew most of the words and we had a great time being choo choo trains and cowboys. Back at the house it was total chaos and i felt like a veritable superwoman having coordinated the shoes-coats-off-handwash-sitdown-eat-drink-handwash-play-nicely for fifteen little darlings. After 10 months of this job there is little that can phase me.
More soon when I will tell you about the Galette des Rois...ooo exciting....
The down-side of internet cafes is that one feels a little self-conscious when bursting into laughter. The guy next to me has already figured out that I am an english-speaker and wants to chat about the All Blacks; yes I KNOW that France beat us, thank you for the reminder.
Has been a full-on week, but I'm very happy to be busy again. On Wednesday the kids don't have school in the afternoon, and this weeks activity was to take them (and 12 friends) to see a very popular kids group in concert (French equivalent of the Wiggles). The CDs are a favourite of the kids, so I knew most of the words and we had a great time being choo choo trains and cowboys. Back at the house it was total chaos and i felt like a veritable superwoman having coordinated the shoes-coats-off-handwash-sitdown-eat-drink-handwash-play-nicely for fifteen little darlings. After 10 months of this job there is little that can phase me.
More soon when I will tell you about the Galette des Rois...ooo exciting....
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Happy New year!!
Hello everyone, well those of you who are still faithfully checking the ailing blog! It's nice to know that someone is out there bieng interested (or nosy!)
Sorry to be posting sans images for the moment. I probably won''t be reviving the dead computer anytime soon, so for now am posting from an internet cafe.
I had a really wonderfully restful time in Ireland. I was not blown away by the countryside or culture, but found the people to be very warm and welcoming and with a great sense of humour. The rolling hills were a refreshing green, kept that way by the incessant rain, and the beaches were wild the way I like them. I drank A LOT of tea, truly this is country which takes its tea-drinking seriously.
I was back in Paris for one short night, just enough time to sleep and re-pack, before taking the train to Lille. Lille is a middling-sized city an hour north of Paris (2h in a car) where my ex-neighbour is now living with her family. This family have been kind of like a second family to me during my time here so it is always a delight to see them. The 'kids' are all studying in Lille at present and have an enormous apartment not far from the centre. I and around 15 others arrived on the 30th to help with the preparations for the 'revéillon'. We baked pizzas and quiches for hours and i tried desperately to keep track of names...too many Guillaumes and Maries.
By the time the evening of the 31st arrived we numbered about 50 and the neighbours had already laid 3 complaints about the noise levels. There was a dance floor and DJ, and to my astonishment everyone know how to dance 'le rock'. I mean really knew how to dance, guys doing the inviting and all. So different to NZ party culture! True these youths had almost all come from well-to-do, Versailles-dwelling families (no not IN the castle) and the fact of knowing how to dance is quite the social indicator.
Thanks to my salsa-experience I was able to hold my own and so danced til 5 am when there was a scuffle ofr floor space and 50 or so of us did our best to sleep a little. I stayed til the 2nd, cleaning, playing pictionary (I think i have reached a milestone with my French in actually being capable of playing!) eating left-overs and checking out Lille.
Now back in Paris with a pile of paperwork to get ready for Mondays visit to the prefecture. Yes it is time to renew my permit and all going well Ill be allowed to keep working here for another six months. SO looking forward to Monday, which is also back to work day.
For now, home for soup and then off to the American Library of Paris (the Americans have a very strong presence here in Paris) where I will stock up for a blisfully lazy weekend.
ciao
Sorry to be posting sans images for the moment. I probably won''t be reviving the dead computer anytime soon, so for now am posting from an internet cafe.
I had a really wonderfully restful time in Ireland. I was not blown away by the countryside or culture, but found the people to be very warm and welcoming and with a great sense of humour. The rolling hills were a refreshing green, kept that way by the incessant rain, and the beaches were wild the way I like them. I drank A LOT of tea, truly this is country which takes its tea-drinking seriously.
I was back in Paris for one short night, just enough time to sleep and re-pack, before taking the train to Lille. Lille is a middling-sized city an hour north of Paris (2h in a car) where my ex-neighbour is now living with her family. This family have been kind of like a second family to me during my time here so it is always a delight to see them. The 'kids' are all studying in Lille at present and have an enormous apartment not far from the centre. I and around 15 others arrived on the 30th to help with the preparations for the 'revéillon'. We baked pizzas and quiches for hours and i tried desperately to keep track of names...too many Guillaumes and Maries.
By the time the evening of the 31st arrived we numbered about 50 and the neighbours had already laid 3 complaints about the noise levels. There was a dance floor and DJ, and to my astonishment everyone know how to dance 'le rock'. I mean really knew how to dance, guys doing the inviting and all. So different to NZ party culture! True these youths had almost all come from well-to-do, Versailles-dwelling families (no not IN the castle) and the fact of knowing how to dance is quite the social indicator.
Thanks to my salsa-experience I was able to hold my own and so danced til 5 am when there was a scuffle ofr floor space and 50 or so of us did our best to sleep a little. I stayed til the 2nd, cleaning, playing pictionary (I think i have reached a milestone with my French in actually being capable of playing!) eating left-overs and checking out Lille.
Now back in Paris with a pile of paperwork to get ready for Mondays visit to the prefecture. Yes it is time to renew my permit and all going well Ill be allowed to keep working here for another six months. SO looking forward to Monday, which is also back to work day.
For now, home for soup and then off to the American Library of Paris (the Americans have a very strong presence here in Paris) where I will stock up for a blisfully lazy weekend.
ciao
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
