Three Months in France March 31 – June 28, 2007

Today’s Photos

Ok, its the same start as every other day went to bed late, got up late (10am). The sun was out and it was a glorious morning. However, we didn’t get on the road until about 2pm/1400 hours. We were joined by Diane’s sister Monique and we were off to the city of Albi, about 1/2 hour away from where we are.

In Albi we were joined by Diane’s other sister Carole and her husband Jens and her son Sean. What can I say about Albi except that it is gorgeous! Many cobblestone streets with cute shops at every doorway and all the children’s clothes looks like something out of a Haute Couture Magazine.

We briefly walked around the city to meerly get a taste of its greatness. Francois and I would have to come back “sans” children in order to spend more time visiting it. However, what we did see was spectacular. The Catholic Cathedral, Sainte-Cécile was enormous, the pictures don’t do it justice. Apparently, it is the largest brick building in the world! It took two centuries to construct and was built around 1282 to 1480. The outside looks like a fortress and the inside looks like a museum of art – very grand and very ornate.

The surrounding area was full of eye candy as well. We saw one of the oldest bridges around still in use. It was called the Old Bridge it was built in 1035 out of stone and reinforced with brick later on. Really great pictures of that one. We wandered around through the downtown passing the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum had some ice cream and then proceeded to Carole’s home.

While waiting for dinner, Monique graciously invited me for a driving lesson. Hurray – somebody not afraid to drive with me! Well, after a few moments practicing gear shifting with the engine off, she took me on the road. I could see from the corner of my eye, her hand was tightly gripping the emergency break. Anyway, aside from stalling in the middle of an intersection and having old, French people honk at me, it went rather well. I can now shift from neutral to 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear. Merci Monique!! I don’t think i’m ready for the highway yet.

For dinner we had Diane’s spaghetti and a wonderful salad and plenty of wine. Not a typical Easter dinner mind you but its what we wanted to eat.

Blog you tomorrow!

Today’s Photos

We had a slow day getting up…again. I think I’m going to buy an alarm clock. However, when we did eventually get up, the kids and I spent some time in the backyard of the Gites before heading out to Lavaur. On the way there we stopped in on the small and somewhat deserted town of Ambres It was a wee town located on top of a hill and had absolutely nobody there, except us of course taking pictures here and there especially of the French Flag. It had a wonderful panoramic view of neighbouring areas. Can’t wait to visit them all.

After that we went on to Lavaur to pick up another cell phone for Diane, stop to have some ice cream, avoid the doggy poop on the sidewalk and then do some grocery shopping. Super day! Then we topped it off with an attempted swim in our pool. We attempted and found it to be too cold (18 deg. C) so we abandonded shortly after. The kids managed to amuse themselves around the pool for a bit before we headed off for a home cooked meal á la Diane.

Can’t wait for tomorrow’s Easter trip to Albi.

Today’s Photos

Hello all,

Today we decided to journey off to the city of Toulouse for the day. And our big adventure started off at the local big mall! Yippee…well, it wasn’t that big and they had quite a few stores I recognized – Fruits & Passion, Mexx, Sephora and a few I didn’t of course – petite boys, carfour, h & m (some store for Madonna’s clothes, I didn’t even know she was doing that). After spending 10 Euros on soy sauce and sweet chilli sauce and extra for a bit of pizza we took off to the nearest Office Depot. Yep, that’s right we’re really immersed in the French culture now. And it gets better because after that we went to McDonalds! Vive le France! Actually, we went to McDonalds to use the washroom and meet up with Monique (Diane’s sister). The good thing about being there was that the kids were trying to communicate in French to the other children in the play area so hooray for McDonald’s play area, it’s helping my kiddies speak more French.

Monique had the brilliant idea of going to an outdoor park that was not too far from her house and you can see from the photos that it was a really nice day and the park was fantastic. It had a skate park a dirt bike track, which all the kids actually ran up and down on and of course some play equipment. Liam and Emma burned off a lot of energy and we all had some fun.

After stopping for a drink at Monique’s house we then went back to our home for a quick bite to eat and then bed (for some of us). By that time it was actually 2030 hours (8:30pm) which I can’t believe we are eating this late but apparently that is the norm over here.

Anyway, great day today and I hope everyone reading this had a great day too.

Today’s photos

Well, we don’t really wish that, we just had a really bad day and night. Last night we were all pretty wired and couldn’t fall asleep until 3:00am or 0300 hours France time. The kids decided they didn’t like sleeping in their own beds and so in they came to our room and Diane’s. Liam, Francois and I were crowded into a bed that is smaller than a Queen bed, it was not very comfortable and not very restful. Yes, I know I should expect this with kids.

The morning started off with a humdinger as we got up around 9:30am 0930 hours. Francois’ laptop hard drive decided to not work anymore. So we went to Lavaur to find a computer store but of course by the time we get to the town its their lunch break…or should I say two to three hour siesta (I don’t think I’ll ever get used to shops closing down for a few hours in the afternoon). We did manage to find a mobile phone store that was open. Hurray for them! So we picked up a cell phone so Francois could spend a lovely afternoon talking to IBM France. They are coming on Friday to hopefully fix the problem.

I must add that we discovered a great shopping area while walking around different parts of Lavaur. One particular street, which was quite narrow, had shops (all closed of course) that looked really nice inside…I’m sure I would have bought something if they were open. I guess I’ll have to go back when they are open to give them my money.

We found another Catholic church along the way too. Gothic in design and smack dab in the middle of the commerce section. We also passed some very cool looking courtyard gardens behind some of the dwellings there. I’ve heard there are a lot of these around so I’ll have to venture inside one of them someday.

Ah yes, pictures! Well, we didn’t take much today and we are sad to say that the original photos of all our days past are now lost with his hard drive failure.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Photos from today

Today we got up around 10ish and some of us around noon. Since Francois was able to get comfortable with driving our manual transmission vehicle, we decided to take a drive to the nearby town of Lavaur. What a great place! It had lots of interesting architecture and really cute shops. We managed to find a cycle shop for Francois’ broken seat and a playground for the kids to spend some energy. Liam was even courageous enough to ask another child if he could borrow his toy (in french of course). Bravo Liam!

We stumbled across an amazing roman catholic church with massive doors that dates back to the 13th Century (pretty young for Europe I guess). The insides were going through some renovations but much of what was there looked like the original material. It had impressive stain glass windows and a towering pipe organ in the back. It had a dinstinct smell of someone’s musty cement basement.

Outside it was warm and Spring-like with many tulips and other flowers already in bloom and I can tell when the trees sprout leaves in Lavaur, it will be stunning just like a postcard. After some time in the town and our first fillup of Diesel or “gazole” as they call it here we went to the grocery store nearby. Wine and liquor in a grocery store – fantastic! They had so many different bottles of wine which cost less than a bottle of water here. Francois couldn’t resist and bought a .75 EURO bottle to see what it tasted like. We are not wine experts but that was pretty good! I’d buy it again for .75 EURO.

Tomorrow we’ll be going back to pick up Francois’ bike seat from the shop and hopefully take some more photos along the way. We saw some other neighbouring towns that looked like they had some old churches too, I hope we’ll be able to explore them as well. I also hope to have my first manual driving lesson tomorrow if the weather co-operates.

More tomorrow…

Can’t believe we’re actually here in France! So far, I love it! Francois’ aunt Monique picked us up with her really nice gang of friends and we headed off to our place in Giroussens. The drive was a little longer than I expected from Toulouse, but I was tired so it probably seemed longer than it was. Our little Peugot is so cute, and zippy and the kids and I were falling asleep while Monique drove us to our new home.

Our stunning country home greeted us with some twinkling christmas lights on the outside and the warm smell of roasted duck, potatoes and fresh bread on the inside. What a great treat to have on our first night in France. The kids were still excited about their luggage and all the goodies inside that they were too busy to sit down and eat. So we actually had a peaceful dinner with a most welcome glass of red French wine. mmmmmmm. Did I mention that I love France??

At about 11:00pm or 2300 hours in France we said goodbye to our relatives and their friends and we hit the sack with a vengeance. I can’t wait to eat again.

So the adventure begins, tomorrow morning.

Today has been a beautiful day and it will be hard to leave our lovely town. Emma had a great last day with her special buddy at ballet. Liam had a super last day of school. His class gave him a really nice card wishing him bon voyage and his teacher gave him a wonderful scrapbook for him to keep memories of his trip in.

The nicest suprise was when Benoit’s (Liam’s friend) mom invited Liam to spend the afternoon with Benoit and her. She took them out to a comic book store, to DQ and to Walmart to look at some toys. Then she invited Emma and Liam back to her house for supper and to play with Benoit and her sister. To top it all off, she drove them back to our house!

Yep, it will be very hard to leave this lovely town especially with friends like that! Thanks Lisa!

However, we’ll be back….in three months!

Soooo, much to do and soooo little time. I’m finding it hard to stay motivated to do my work at home when all I want to do is go already!



Well, lucky it isn’t time to go yet. I need at least one more day to finish up.

I really look forward to my first meal of wine and cheese! And of course brushing up on my French and perhaps a little German. I wonder how exausted we’ll be when we arrive or maybe we’ll be too wired to be tired. We’ll see!

If it were up to me, I’d be waiting at the airport right now but I still have a bit more work to do before we go.