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Monday 12 December, 2005

Vin Chaud

Filed under: Claire's Entries — claire @ 12:10 pm

I love Christmas in a cold climate, this will be my 4th. The xmas markets are up and running in Lille, the clustered wooden huts sell freshly cooked crepes, vin chaud and pain d’epice. I love mulled wine, gluwien, vin chaud, whatever you want to call it! I remember at the Germany xmas markets it came in mugs or glasses with the regions name on it and the year….it is ridiculous how many of those mugs we have. Instead of bar hopping we would xmas market hop with our friends! It was always steaming and somehow retained its full alcoholic content, if you weren’t careful before you even took a sip you could pass out on the fumes. We loved that wine so much that along with our friends we were holidaying with over xmas and the new year, we bought out the whole supply at the local store. For us it represented a European xmas, something so different and so very magical. But the magic is not in the bottle its in the atmosphere, we realized this when we all starting drinking it in our very well heated Austrian chalet, so up we all got and headed out side to stand around drinking it in the snow and the cold. The markets may not be as good here as in Germany, the vin chaud may come in plastic cups, but everywhere there is still that wonderful European Christmas magic. And if you know which chocolatier to go to, the vin chaud is superb and oh so elegantly served with complimentary tarte poire.

Friday 9 December, 2005

petite differences

Filed under: Claire's Entries — claire @ 8:22 pm

I just got home from spending the afternoon with Christine, its really lovely to have made such a good friend here. We walked home, after having a superb chocolate chaud(look above), arm in arm laughing as we both pulled different words out of our respective vocab hats trying to communicate effectively. We are both interested in discussing all the similarities and differences between our two cultures. Earlier in the day Christine accompanied me to the post office, where I have been everyday this week either sending packages and cards or picking up packages (thanks mum & Peta, you’ve made it feel like Xmas!). I was posting 20 something cards today and if I was in Australia, after buying the stamps, I would just head over to the bench and using the wet sponge made available, get on with it. But there are no such comforts at La Poste, nor bench space or pens on a chain to help get yourself sorted, so I normally just head home and use a clean wet sponge. But today I didn’t want to hold up my afternoon with Christine so I asked her how I could ask for a wet sponge or what ever it is the french use for such a situation. She looked at me blankly and said “we just lick them”! I said I would not be licking 22 stamps, I was not ending my life like Susan (you know from Seinfeld?)! When I explained Australia Post she could not believe that we had such luxuries made available to us! So next time you are at the post office bumping elbows with your neighbour at the narrow benches trying to get the pen on a chain to work or applying stamps whilst wrinkling your nose at the always grotty little sponge and wishing they changed them more frequently, be thankful for these luxuries. Who would of thought!

Wednesday 7 December, 2005

xmas plans?

Filed under: Claire's Entries — claire @ 4:33 pm

I haven’t posted as I’ve been a bit fed up with the computer. I’ve been on it trying to sort out accommodation over xmas and new years, it seems we’ve left things a bit late. Duh! We had decided to spend it with Sofia and Joey with a jaunt to Scotland in between xmas and New Year. They’re laying low after a recent trip to Cuba and in preparation for the arrival of their twins! So we found cheap passage to Angleterre, with the car, and with the prospect of spending fun times with our good friends, and as well visiting Bonnie Scotland, why were we both hesitant? It seems we are both worried with limited holidays and cash we aren’t going to see anywhere near all the places we want to before we head home. I know we are not here on an extended holiday but for Jims career and for the opportunity of living in France but we still want to make the most of seeing other parts of Europe that take our fancy while we can. So with that in mind we started exploring other options. The preferred choice was to still head to London but in between Xmas and New Year hop on one of the cheap flights out of London, easy jet, ryanair etc, for a mini break say in Poland or Bulgaria, Hungary or such. Yeah well every other Tom, Dick and Harriet had the same idea, so no luck there! So then we looked to flights out of Paris, unless we sold a kidney, not much luck there. We tried Brussels and no luck unless we were happy to arrive in these places at midnight and leave 2days later at 5am. So, hola, in the car for a 10hr drive down to Spain por favor! San Sebastian, Salamanca, Zargoza and then Barcelona for New Years!

Our past New Years Eves together have been spent in Italy, Bright(Victoria) and Paris. Bright wins for accommodation, food and weather. Verona for fireworks, atmosphere and location as nothing beats Italy and I’m sure it would of won food but everything was booked out so we grabbed pizza and vino(still great). The fireworks were truly spectacular, they didn’t just ascend but the whole amphitheatre was blanketed in them and afterwards those crazy Italians just kept at it until the morning. I remember being a tad nervous as I danced a jig trying to avoid what seemed like millions of those aggressive jumping jacks. Paris scores for the view, where we watched the fireworks from, near the Jardin des Tuileries, we could see La Tour Eiffel, Musee du Louvre, Musee d’Orsay, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe and the Palais Royal. I knew that was the spot I wanted to be standing in, each time we visit Paris I like to come out from the shopping area, underground near the Louvre, from a particular exit to be smacked in the face with that jaw dropping 360 deg vista.

But back to our plans or should I say lack of plans. I am having no luck finding accommodation in Barcelona, it seems the whole city is booked out. There are lovely looking apartments available but you have to book a minimum of 4nights which doesn’t suit us. I don’t know if we’ll get to Spain again so I want to see at least a few different places. If we had the time I would love to go to the village we lived in for a year when I was a child. I wonder if the school I attended is still there? I can still remember when it was hot they would take us to the orange fields for our lessons and we would sit in the shade of all the orange trees.

So Jim and I have decided that if a city as big as Barcelona, and it being in Spain and all, there are going to be millions of those party mad Spaniards and if every bed including every youth hostel is booked out……maybe we aren’t so keen. OK so we’re getting old and it looks like we’re not even going to try to hang on, in fact we’re going to give up. So today I will try and book accommodation in reverse order. We will start in Barcelona, wish me luck and I’ll let you know how we get on.

Friday 2 December, 2005

French TV

Filed under: Jim's Entries — jim @ 9:20 pm

I’ll be short and to the point here. French TV is crap! – commercial TV that is. Even the French say so themselves. The worst part is you come home from work wanting to veg out in front of the TV for half and hour or so and end up more stressesed than when you came home. This is because you end up channel flicking for the entire time in the vain effort that something vaguely interesting will materialise. Ninety percent of French TV involves a bunch of people sitting around a table talking crap for 3 hours. The other ten percent is dubbed American crap.

On the upside, the TV advertising system is really great. You get an extended ad break(around 5 min continuously) before your program, at the end and if the program is long, an intermssion. Much more relaxing than ads every 5-10 minutes like back home. The downside of this is that you have to pay for this system – and not cheaply : $150 euros TV tax per year! The ads are better than back home though they can be crap too.

There are so few regular programs worth watching (actually the one crap show that Claire has embraced is “Star Academy” – she claims it helps her French!) that we end up watching TV series like 24hrs and Lost. Tonight after dinner (which Claire is preparing right this moment) we find out whether Jack lives or dies. Will Tony and Michelle go on their date once they have stopped world war 3 and how will the President make any descisions with Lyn locked in the store room?

Thursday 1 December, 2005

a pinch and a punch…

Filed under: Claire's Entries — claire @ 9:47 am

We have a car which for the most part keeps guard out the front of our apartment. Jim cycles to work and as we live pretty much in the centre of town I can walk to everything I need. I’d love to say we jump in it every weekend and head to Spain but budget restraints, the fact we live here and aren’t on holidays means some weekends we just need to relax around Lille. I do drive the car from time to time but its not something I do without a second thought. Driving on the “wrong” side of the road is tricky. Well it’s not so much that I find that hard its that the drivers side is on the “wrong” side. Once when we were on holidays in the South I had driven to this little village not far from the gite we were stay at to do some shopping. The South of France kind of shopping where you take your litre container to the vin de cave and they fill it up with the local stuff which is only 2Euro but still great, you grab a melon from the lady who sells just melons which she grows and are flavoursome beyond belief because they are in season and you know it will be fabulous served with some pineau charente before you have the saucisse de canard. So as you can imagine Im pretty happy as I hope in the car looking forward to the drive back passing the miles of sunflower fields. Only problem is, as I’m about to start the car I note the absence of a steering wheel in front of me, I turn my head left, apparently its the shopping’s turn to drive, its sitting in the drivers seat. Having parked in the main street and being a small village it did not go unnoticed that I had to get out and walk around to the “right side” of the car. The locals laughed and called out who knows what, I just smiled and nodded. “Oui, Oui, Je suis anglaise”. Its not only the steering wheel I misplace but the gears, if conditions change suddenly my foot finds the brake but my left hand flys down only to find the door. Maybe that’s my best option, to bail out! I indicate when I want to wipe and wipe when I want to indicate………are you getting the picture?! One time when I was driving in Switzerland with a friend I told him I struggled a bit getting a sense of distance between the right of the car and the edge of the road and could he yell “gutter” if I was edging to close. We had to abandon conversation, it was impossible when so frequently interrupted. However he was good humoured so we perserved and I was doing ok by the time we got to Italy. Jim said he’d be happy to see the gutter, its the wavering to far the other side that bothers him!

Ok lets not panic here, really I am fine now! I promise!

And NO that is not our car! It was parked on our street, I took the photo on a Sunday and those people are just out from church. One look at that car and out goes thy will not judge!

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