This is not an illness. This is Tim Hortons withdraw.

Time : 9:09pm thats better..

Location : Kitchen counter

Weather : a really warm wind and the thermometer reads 15.1 C. nice.

Today as well was very relaxing. Took my time this morning/afternoon getting together and all. Then just hung out around the house. Not wanting to get sicker I took it very easy.
All day I had mini mishaps, as I usually do. Here is a quick recap of the most note worthy.


Night time down town



- I could not get the espresso machine to function for the life of me. :(

- While microwaving some milk for my tea, OPTIQUICK, which is the 40 second long quick heat, boiled it over / explode all over the microwave resulting in needing a full cleaning.
- Wanting to warm up a crepe, I OPTIQUICK-ed it, a poor deicison from the start. I turn around for one second and then find my crepe completely burned to a crisp right onto the revolving plate. I should have known better than to not use my own plate. Microwave cleaning number 2.


Town Square



Also, I am starting to think that this is not an illness, this is simply Tim Hortons withdrawl. It's been nearly a week since I've had any Tim's product. I miss it.

Come nearly evening, I ventured out for a quick walk around town to stretch my legs and get some air. Night had fallen half way through my walk and I tried out the slow shutter speed a couple times. Not getting great results I carried on.

 Upon returning home, I made a soup. Free style. I threw in some potatoes, a carrot, some shallots as well as some other things. It was of course, quite tasty.
Well, everyone is filtering home now.
I'll leave it at that.
Good night.



slow shutter speed



Oys-.



Right by my house

 Time : 10:59 pm oooh soo late...
Location : kitchen counter for once
Weather : windy, I can see a plant moving. Haven't been outside for hours though..

Today was off beat.
I planned on getting up at 9am and have a swift start to my day, but an unlucky snatch of sickness in the night had me up until 3am coughing my lungs out. I did not rise until 10:30am, and by the time I got myself put together it was already past 1pm.


I went for my leisurely stroll around the town. Took me about an hour. I took a couple photos here and there. I was hoping on being able to check out the little stores here so that I could take note of what they have to offer for future reference, but I had forgotten that "Nobody works in France" and all but the fresh vegetable and fruit store was closed. My second plan was to sit for a bit in a little cafe, sitting espresso and taking in the scenery, but the one cafe I found turned out to be more of an actual restaurant, so I passed.

The expression "Nobody works in France" is very true. Most businesses are open maybe a full nine to five, weekdays only, with one to two hours for lunch. The nine to five hours are iffy; I'd say give or take to your luck.


Do you know what kind of tree this is?



Also, the fresh fruit and vegetable stores. Back home we have grocery stores right? You have your produce, dairy, dry goods, and maybe a little hardware and miscellaneous goods, this being say a small grocery store or a "corner store". Yes, I have gone to a full grocery store, similar to a Superstore or Extra Foods, but primarily there are these fresh produce stores. These stores carry very fresh produce, pretty much straight off the farms. There is little processing involved. There is no packaging, no plastic and little trimming. Yesterday I saw a celery stalk that still had its leaves (!!!!!). My point exactly. Also, the stores carry local meats, canned goods, maybe spices and definitely wine. Keep in mind, everything is local. You see no brand named lettuce or the like.



Catching the ringing phone as I got home, Lou called me from her father's for lunch time. Yes, mid-afternoon lunch. Definitely my style for the day. Lou met me half way of the 3 minute walk, and caught me snapping photos. Alex, JB and Pierre were all hanging around; enjoying one's company and Philippe was busy in the kitchen when I arrived. 



All the homes are walled in. Just an example of it and how each yard varies by taste.



Philippe really loves cooking. He likes to try new things on a whim as well as mixing types of food. Alex says his best recipes are usually the simplest of ingredients that you would never think of using together. Needless to say I was looking forward to the meal.



The first dish was a risotto and beet mix. I was a little doubtful seeing as I am not a fan of beets, but it was indeed delicious. Following was more of an experience than a dish. Oysters. When they asked if I like oysters I said that I do. I LOVE eating those little smoked oysters out of the can, maybe on a cracker with some jelly. Here JB brings out a knife and Philippe puts a large bag on the table. Next thing I know they're cracking open LIVE oysters and we're slurping them down. I was not disgusted by the way that it slid down my throat before I had a chance to chew it, but the saltiness caught me a little off guard. These were not my little smoked oysters. After two I had had enough. Not that I didn't like them, but I knew that there were people who would treasure them more than I. People such as Alex. Once the slurping was all done with, the final dish was put on the table; baked salmon. Here the simplest of ingredients made for a delicious meal.

If you are in doubt, I will say again, this was for lunch.


French man holes?



A while later they packed up to go for a walk, and I headed back home. Still feeling quite ill with this nasty cough, I retired to my quarters for a couple hours, drifting in and out of sleep according to my breathing while attempting to watch an episode of Glee.

Slowly the day went by, and here I am. Don't fret. I was not bedridden. Just very fatigued.
As I still am, heading off to bed. Hopefully without contest to this cough.
Muah Muah
11:24 pm



En route to Philippe's



I saw a man playing an accordian in the streets today.

Time : 9:23pm
Location : sitting on my bed, as per the usual

fog in the morning

Weather : well I just came in from a walk, so I can tell you its brisk outside, and I am almost tempted to wear mittens..

Today was splendid.
Allisa taught me how the bus works here, and we went to Aix-en-Provence. Aix is pronounced 'ee-ks'. I am always saying 'ehh-ks'. I have a feeling it has to do with A. Anyways, it is a lovely town/city. I am not all together sure on if it is a large town or a small city. Either way, it is very nice. Just as everything else is here.
We stayed in the central down town area. When I think of Downtown, I think of Down Town Saskatoon where there are lots of trees, the buildings, still aren't really tall, but they're taller than the rest of city. Oh, and not to mention, the main water feature; the river.

panoramic of the back yard

Cathedrale Saint-Sauveur

Over here, things are a bit different. When you come to one of the squares, or more open areas that are full of little outdoor cafes with French waiters (lacking moustaches) there is usually a large tree or two. The cobblestone streets are not forgiving to tree growth, nor to women's stilettos. If you are not in a square, bathing in some rare sunlight, you are among the streets. They are jam packed with people. These people are of all ages. Young and old gather to shop, eat or pass through. Come to think of it, there really was not allot of people, it was simply an illusion. The cause of this illusion was the three to four story high buildings that were miscellaneous shops on the bottom and hopefully housing for the upper stories. Towering high above you, not much sunlight comes through. To add to the claustrophobia, the width between one side of the street and the other is between seven and ten meters, depending on if there is a sidewalk. On to the main water feature. By now you may notice a trend; a lack of natural surroundings perhaps? Well if you haven't, that's it. The water features are fountains. Quite uncommon back home, but here they are quite popular, and ass a refreshing bit to the atmosphere (haha).

a water feature

Allisa and I walked around for a couple hours, window shopping, actual shopping as I learned the area a bit. Something else to note, is that even though there are Streets and Avenues that in no way means that they go only north and south, and west to east. In fact, two streets that are parallel will usually end up intersecting each other. Try navigating through that.
I took note of which stores have chic clothing, where I can get it for not 100 Euros a piece, and other little shops. A key to never leaving a shop empty handed is to never enter one. But really. A tip: each store window will have a display where they show how much, on average, select pieces are. If you really like those boots but aren't interested in paying an arm and a leg, you have been warned.  It is also a time saver. I personally don't mind entering most shops regardless because then I can get an idea of what is in fashion for everyone.

Aix-en-Provence, downtown

We snagged the bus home, right in the middle of crunch time traffic. I really should have taken a photo of the mess. It was ridiculous.
Allisa went on one of her final weekend trips with a friend and Marie-Anne to Paris for a friend's birthday. Both plans made well in advance, so I spent the evening at Lou's father's where I finally got to meet him, Philippe, and her brother Pierre.
Once supper was over, Alex, who is turning out to be quite nice and very talkative towards me, which I appreciate, and Jean-Baptist aka JB, walked me home. It was a 5 minute walk and like I previously stated, brisk.
This here is a closing to my day.
My bed awaits. For tomorrow, I discover Luynes.
TaTa
9:55pm



No caption needed.



Du the avec du lait and milk



Front yard.



Time: 10:51pm ohhh its late..

Location : on my bed again

 

Weather : well, its night. but not too bad. Need a light sweater I suppose

  

Most of the back yard



On to today. Seeing as it was Remembrance Day today, once again Lou did not have school. Which is turning out to be great for my jet lag. I don’t believe that they call it Remembrance Day, but it is the same idea. Same holiday.





Niolon.



After a simple breakfast of bread and nutella. Yes, Nutella. It is a world wide thing. Actually, probably more European than North American. I will not get into that.. I went grocery shopping with Marie-Anne. Something odd about the super market; it was small. Superstore back at home still has France beat, for now. Also, everything came in packages. Like the butter: in a cardboard box. And the milk, well, you can buy it refrigerated and fresh, like most of us do back home, but I guess it really isn’t that popular. People like their milk off the shelf. And a contributing factor is probably the lack of milk drinkers in the family here. Also, some items, I found to be oddly pricey, while others were quite cheap. Maybe there was a sale on, or maybe it’s just different. I will have to keep an inquiry.



On the way home we stopped by a REAL BAKERY. Here it is an art. I would no longer call the Extra Foods bakery a real bakery.

Post grocery shopping, Allisa and I played allot of Post Office with Lou. It seems to be her favourite.

Very neat bridge.

Marseille

Niolon

A lovely lunch was prepared since Alex and her boyfriend are home for the weekend. We began with aperitifs outside on the patio, and then moved inside for the main meal. I quite enjoyed the little appetizers of anchovie stuffed olives, little crackers, picked garlic and nuts. The main course was some kind of meat dish with a tomato based sauce that we had on top of rice. Quite delicious. We followed with a vinaigrette salad and cheese on baguette. I have no idea what kind the first kind of cheese was that I tried, kind of tasted like Swiss, but it was much more firm and a little nuttier. The second was obviously Camembert. Which I am already developing quite a taste for.

After lunch Marie-Anne took Allisa, Lou and I to see the Mediterranean Sea. It was gorgeous. Where we went for a hike along was the Blue Coast; named after its blue waters. Very beautiful. And across the bay, a very large bay I will add, was Marseille. It is the second biggest city in all of France. It stretches all along the coast from the main sea all the way into the bay. Very beautiful area. We wandered back into the small fishing village of Niolon. Once again, a simply beautiful area. Houses of vary heights and levels due to the ragged terrain of the sea cliffs and rocks. Not a very wealthy town because of the fishermen’s trade, but to purchase a home here is very very expensive. Marie-Anne explained that in order to have a home here it is next to impossible. The properties are very much sought after and are only obtained through the family. Another interesting fact is how in the summer, it is not permitted to visit the village. The prime location for tourists to come and swim is the exact reason; they do not want the villagers to be disturbed by the huge crowds of people that come to refresh on the easy +40 degrees C days.

I will add that it was a quick 20-30 minute car ride to return home. This was even in the 17H00 traffic.

Once again us girls played, being world famous DJs and Superstars where Lou had no problem in all of a sudden turning the area into a mini Bistro. I quickly ordered `the usual` which was a tea with honey and milk. Lou can not get over the fact that I like milk and honey in my tea.

Supper was quite delicious; we melted some other kind of cheese and spread it over our potatoes and deli cuts. Very fine meal, and nicely finished with some yogurt.

Easily being 21H00, Lou retired to her room, as did us others. And here I am.

Quite a bit later, being drawn out by my extensive Facebook life.

I must sleep.

Good night!

11:10 pm



On the way to the Sea, you spy Marseille



We play house.



Looking out of a top story window



Location : on the couch, watching TV

Time : 10:52pm

Weather : well, it's night time. And a bit humid because itrained this morning and is yet to warm up..



Luckily today Lou didn't have school. I slept for almost 12 hours. And until 10am. Nobody wanted to wake me. I don't know why..

Anyways, we drove around a little, showing me the vilalge, which really isn't all that big, and before I knew it we were in Aix. I honestly didn't know we had left Luynes.



We just chilled around the house for the rest of the day.

Played ALOT of Post Office with Lou. Like ALOT. And some Laundromat. And some House. And Room mates. She is really imaginative, which makes it very fun.



Down the street. Notice the walls.



The town is really quite beautiful. I'll hopefully have the patience to upload some photos. I tried before, but it was taking wayyyy too long.



There's more people around now. Marie-Anne just got back with Lou's older sister; Alexandra along with Jean-..(I forget, aiya), her boyfriend.



I'm still getting used to this double cheek kiss thing. I constantly forget that its customary. haha, oh well.

Anyways, peopleare here, I gotta fly. I'll try the photos later...maybe

TaTa

11:04pm



The front of the house.



Toilet Room.

Time : 9:19pm


Date : 9th November 2010

Location : Sitting on my temporary bed in my temporary room in my semi temporary home.

Weather : Its nice inside, outside its dark. And a tad chilly. Around 8 degrees I think.

Today I landed in Paris. The flight was ok. Watched some movies, slept a bit. The guy beside me really wasn’t all too interesting. Apart from our brief “Hello, I see that I’m sitting next to you”s all he did was read the New York Times, and sit. I don’t believe he slept. And yes. There was a crying baby right near me. Again.

Paris airport reminded me of a space ship. I felt like I was inside one, it’s very domed and has a lot of glass. How descriptive.

Oh, also, I love airplane food. I had the most delicious chicken and penne in tomato sauce with the moistest brownie ever. I couldn’t even lick it off my spoon it was so moist and sticky. Something weird though; cubed carrots, possibly turnip, I am unsure, definitely peas and some red pepper, all in a kind of coleslaw vinaigrette. Those of you who know my Grandma Dawson’s coleslaw, yeah, thats what it was like. Right sauce, wrong veggies.

Speaking of peculiar food, so in the Paris airport, I wasn’t hungry until 10 minutes before my plane was to board (and they boarded 5 minutes early!!) I began to starve. I had had about three hours to get food, but I just wasn’t feelin’ it. Until then that is. So I chugged ‘er to the nearest lil fresh & natural food deli/café and grabbed a Monaco timbouli(?) Salad with some yogurt dressing on the side. It looked promising. So I try it without the dressing, and it tastes alright. Something was a little off though. I put on the dressing and keep eating. Still, something is off. I think to myself “This really tastes like smoked salmon.”. I decide to read the label to see what is actually in it, and I kid you not, right beside tomatoes : Smoked Salmon. Yummoh.

First View of the Mediterranean

I’d love to tell you all about the short flight from Paris to Marseille, and how wonderful it was. But I was asleep before we took off and woke up well into the descent only because my clogged sinuses were not allowing my ears to pop and I was in pain. Not to help the situation, the screaming toddler in front of me, who upon boarding the plane threw a fit that I can only assume went well into my nap over not getting to sit beside the window, was screaming again. I’m pretty sure children sound a lot meaner when they’re screaming in French.

But I did see the Mediterranean for the first time. It was reflecting the sun very well and blinded my freshly awoken eyes a teensy bit.

I finally met Marie-Anne. She gave me one of those Kiss-Kisses. One for each cheek. I felt so French. Then we drove back home, here.

Marseille is so beautiful. Well, the little that I saw. The trees here are SO GREEN and to contrast the color wheel there is red rock and cliffs. Luynes, the town that we live in, is pretty much still in Marseille. Comparable to Saskatoon and Martensville, only way more beautiful and lacking semi trucks.

I don’t even know how to describe the town, but I’ll give it a shot. Ok, I’m trying to think, but my descriptive gland seems to be not working. All I can think of is everything is orangey pink. And the houses kind of look like town houses, but they’re all separate. Ours is nice, cozy. Well actually, there are 4 bedrooms, an open living room – dining room – kitchen, 1 bathroom, 1 toilet room, and 1 bath and toilet room. The backyard has nice trees, there are a couple olive trees and I believe I saw some bamboo. Oh, and a pool.

Toilet room. Yes, I can sense curiosity a couple thousand miles away. Toilet room. That pretty much explains it. Just a little room and all it has is a toilet. I got up to make sure I didn’t miss anything and I didn’t. Pretty awesome eh?

Marie-Anne is very nice. She took a lot of care to make sure I knew where everything was and gave me a very good tour of the home before she left for work again. It sounds as of she’s done a bit of travelling, which I will be sure to ask her about soon.

Lou is well, she’s pretty awesome. She is 9 years old, and very much alive. Her, Alissa and I played a board game, and it ended up being quite interesting even though the game itself is ridiculously simple. And she likes Grey’s Anatomy, so we watched an episode of that then ran upstairs to play Post Office for about an hour.

Alissa is the other girl au-pair that came when I was unable to back in September. We haven’t talked much yet, but she gets along with Lou very well and is very pleasant. She’s from Germany.

Marie-Anne has two older children, Alexandra and Pierre, but they’re away at school. I do believe that they will be back for the weekend to meet me.

As you can tell, this wasn’t posted on the 9th. Marie-Anne showed me how to get the WIFI working here, but somehow I couldn’t get it. Oh well. I also couldn’t get the phone to work. I hope this trend isn’t all the rage.

Anyways, the three went out to the theatre tonight. They had offered to get me a ticket too, but I declined. If I sat down in a dark room I will konk right out.

Speaking of which, I’ve had minimal collective sleep in the last two days, so I think I am going to call it a night.



9:49 pm. There are 2 turtles in my room. And they are alive.



PS. An airbus has two rows of three seats. Whereas the plane from Saskatoon to Toronto had only 2. And the Toronto – Paris plane was 2 on each side then 4 in the middle.

Still balmy. No breeze.

Location : Toronto Airport, right by my terminal, which is wonderfully close to a Tim’s. I can smell the caffeine.

Time: 5:05pm.

Date : 8^th November 2010

Weather : a balmy room temperature with a slight breeze from an air vent. Perfect for typing if I do say so myself.

Greetings Blog readers! Guess who finally made a start to their journey! Right now I am sitting in the Toronto Airport, not a bad location. Except I can not for the life of me connect to the internet. And my backpack is wayyyyy too heavy for me to be getting up to ask someone for assistance any time soon. So here it is; one of the first of many to come, blog entries, written on Microsoft Word and saved for later. Just like the Boston Cream donut’s cream on my lovely scarf…

Thus far into this adventure today there isn’t much to recount. All I’ve really done is fly to Toronto. Which really wasn’t all that exciting.

Some of you who came to the airport this morning to wish me off and catch one last real life glimpse of me may be wondering about the crying baby I had to sit beside. As soon as we levelled out some thousand (maybe only hundreds?) feet in the air, we were both relatively quiet.. fast asleep.

Y’all may have heard a lil bit about my troubles and the French Consulate. Since I have nothing better to do right now, I’ll lay it down for ya;

            Way back in August when I first applied for my visa I was thinking it would come in the mail a short week or two after. That was not so. Not at all. I waited for three weeks until heading off to Toronto to visit them in person to fully submit my application. And do a little sight seeing with my Dad.

            Then the wait began.

            To be fair, I was missing some documents. Some had to be sent back to France to be signed, which took nearly a month to be returned to me, but I promptly had them sent away to Toronto in with double express envelopes (one to get my stuff to Toronto, and another within to get my Visa and passport back ASAP).

            I was expecting, again, too much of either the French Consulate or Canada Post, or both, or probably just the Consulate, and I started to worry. The total days of worry lasted from a Tuesday until Monday, when I got The E-Mail.

            Oh The E-Mail. When I saw that the Consulate had made an appearance in my inbox I was thrilled. One click later my world came crashing down and days of going in and out of my Stress Comas ensued.  What The E-Mail said that my visa had been approved, but the French language course I had to take (which is scheduled to begin in January 2011) was problematic since the date did not coincide with my November arrival in France. Please note that before slipping into a Stress Coma I fired off an email expressing my frustrations.

            See, nowhere on the French Embassy site does it specify that the dates have to coincide. Their defence was that they do state that they may need “any other additional documents” aka they just made themselves a HUGE loop hole that I can in no way argue.

            I began planning my life out for another couple months in Saskatoon. Started looking into getting more shifts for the next week at my two jobs, took a Food Safety course so I could get a better job.

            For some reason, on Thursday, I decided to check out the status of the Express envelope I had sent to the Consulate. The weirdest thing I discovered; the envelope had been processed the previous day in a Toronto post office.

            Becoming guarded for a hard let down, they had either sent my passport back, my visa (with my passport) or neither of the two.

            Waiting merely a day  with antici..     …pation, sure enough my visa came in the mail on Friday.

            And now, here I am. On my way.

            The only thing stressing my mind is the fact that I gotta hoist my backpack on again soon.

            For some reason I always remind myself of a pack mule…

            I mean.. a graceful and beautiful cat. Like Sheba. So majestic. 

            Tim Horton’s is calling me for one last coffee.

            Peace out Canada,

            Stay Classy.

5:35 pm. Still balmy. No breeze.

Toronto Airport at Sunset