Champagne Please!

As you may recall, I went to Champagne back in March with my friend Lee and had a fabulous time.  Ever since then I’ve wanted to take Nate back so he could see it as well.  And now that we’re in Paris and it’s only 45 minutes on the train from here to Champagne, we have a great opportunity to go.  So two Saturdays ago, Nate and I planned a day trip to Champagne.  We went back to Rachel, our informative tour guide who now feels more like a friend.  She took us back to Wafflart-Briet where Nate learned all the details around making champagne while of course drinking their delicious champagne.  We got a little tour around the champagne house, which sits in a cute little village of no more than 400 people called Sacy.  After a nice light lunch there and purchasing a case of their champagne (would have purchased more too but a case was probably the most reasonable to take back on the train with us) we were off to Casanove.  

Casanove is a slightly larger champagne house where you’re able to take a tour and see their production area.  This was also interesting as of course it’s on a much larger scale than Wafflart-Briet.  After our tour and of course tasting there, we were off to Pommery to see a well known large champagne house.  After arriving there and stepping inside, you could definitely feel that it was basically all about marketing.  The tour takes you down into the caves, which is kind of cool but you don’t see anything that has to do with how they actually produce their champagne.  Of course at the end of the tour you get what starts to feel like your reward in the form of a glass of champagne.  

To be honest I actually liked the small champagne house much better than the larger ones like Pommery.  But I felt like we had to go check it out just to see what it’s all about.  I must say though, they did have a lovely champagne bubble Christmas tree outside which was quite fun!

A lesson in History

This post is a few weeks overdue, my bad people but it's a free blog so you'll just have to wait.  Now finally getting around to it, wanted to share one of our recent weekend adventures to Normandy.  As an American who has always had interest in World War II history and having been to a number of different sites and museums in Europe, I thought it important to visit the D-Day beaches and see this location in history.

As per usual, we of course planned our trip with Stacey and Alex who joined us for the weekend in Normandy.  The train trip from Paris to the town of Bayeux was about 2 hours or so getting us in to Bayeux around 8:00 that night.  Stacey and Alex didn't arrive until much later so Cleaver and I had a nice dinner at this little bistro near our hotel and pretty much called it a night.  After all it was a long week of work and we had a fairly early start in the morning.

Any morning at a French B&B will begin with a nice spread of croissants, coffee, and other pastries and our place in Bayeux did not disappoint.  After the 4 of us had a nice French breakfast, the tour guide we hired for the day picked us up and off we go.  We had hired a tour guide for the full day tour which was definitely the way to go.  On the itinerary, Sainte-mère-église, Utah beach, Omaha beach, Pointe du Hoc, the American cemetery and he also took us to this little church that had a part in D-Day as well as it had been set up as a makeshift first aid post.  While taking us to these various sites our guide offered lots of history, stories, and explanations about the invasion, all of it quite interesting.

With so much information and so much that we saw that day, it's difficult to share everything but I'll mention a few highlights.  First the beaches, both Utah and Omaha.  Having read so much over the years, seeing movies, and then finally standing there on the beach looking at the cliffs and the water, hard to imagine what actually occurred there.  Very surreal to stand there and consider how many people died and the significance of the event on so many levels.  Looking at for example Pointe du Hoc and seeing all of the holes in the ground caused by pre invasion bombing, seeing the German bunkers and fortification, and imagining what it must have been like for the soldiers there, all made for a fascinating experience to be standing in that same location.

Pointe du Hoc

Also of interest was Sainte-mère-église where many of the paratroopers that were first on the ground landed and as we found out then made famous by the book and movie "The Longest Day".  Most famously the square and church which had a few paratroopers get their parachute caught on the roof and today they memorialize this with a "dummy" stuck on the side of the church.

Last stop of the day was the American cemetery with 9,387 graves and a memorial at one end of the site.  Similar to the rest of the day, very interesting and very surreal to walk these grounds, a very worthwhile experience and highly recommended to be sure.  Not just the cemetery, but the entire day.

American Cemetery

A few other notes from the weekend, the town of Bayeux is a very cute small French town.  We had a wonderful dinner on Saturday night and on Sunday spent some time walking around.  Like most towns in Europe there is a giant church which was quite impressive and we also discovered they have a museum with a 70 meter long tapestry made in 1070 to tell the the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England which was kind of neat.

After walking around the town for a bit, we started to make our way back to the train station and back to Paris after a very interesting weekend of history.

Thanksgiving in Paris

With Jacalyn & Rio and Robin & Dave

Since we moved to Paris we’ve made friends with a few other American couples.  So this year for Thanksgiving we decided we should do a proper dinner and all get together to celebrate the holiday.  Our proper dinner would be on the Saturday after Thanksgiving though since well, we still have to work on Thursday and Friday here.  We decided that we would do dinner at our house and then move to Robin and Dave’s house for dessert.  We’re about 15-20 minutes from each other and we figured that a walk in between dinner and dessert would be good.  And our neighbors seem to be quite sensitive to noise coming from our place (we’ve had 2 knocks on the door since we’ve moved in...yikes!) so we figured it would be good to not keep the party at our house late into the night.  

We got our turkey from the Thanksgiving Store.  Yes, there is a store called the Thanksgiving Store here in Paris.  It’s tiny but it’s made for expats just like us that miss certain things from home, like cheddar cheese, ranch dressing, etc.  It’s good to know it exists for those emergency cravings.  

Anyways, we had Robin and Dave and Jacalyn and Rio, our American friends, and Haakon and Emily, Nate’s friend from work and his wife, over to our house for dinner.  Emily is French and Haakon is Norwegian so we introduced them to this awesome American holiday.  Everyone pitched in bringing a dish and we had a delicious meal!!!  It truly felt like the actual Thanksgiving holiday, just here in Paris, stuffed bellies and all.

We have so much to be thankful for, it would be hard to name it all.  But we are especially thankful to have found such great friends here in Paris.  

And now it’s already December and Christmas is just around the corner!  We are heading home for a traditional Christmas.....I can’t wait!  It will be nice to spend our time with family and see some friends.  It’ll be a quick trip (as they always seem to be) since we are heading back to bring in the new year here in Paris.  Again, just so much to be thankful for!!!

Loving the Girls Weekend in Florence

After our girls weekend in Florence in April was such a success, we had to find a weekend to do it again and that turned out to be two weekends ago.  It was perfect being that it was almost 6 months after our first trip.  We were ready for more Italian food and wine, shopping and of course girl time!  So I met up with my Zurich friends Friday evening and we got up early on Saturday but this time it wasn’t for Prada but for some culture!!  That’s right, we decided to learn a little bit about the history of this very charming city.  So we took a guided 3 hour walking tour around the city and got lots of interesting information about the history of Florence, visited a few churches, learned a thing or two about a few paintings and got ourselves all sorts of culturized.

Now that the culture piece was done, it was time to start shopping!  I think people don’t realize just how much shopping there is in Florence but you definitely have lots to choose from.  We shopped until dinner, all finding something we couldn’t live without.  For me I found a pair of these Italian leather boots that I definitely can't live without.  :)  

We had a wonderful dinner, lovely wine and dessert, chatted and caught up.  Sunday was pretty much more of the same minus the culture piece and before we knew it, it was time to part ways and say goodbye to Florence.  

I think we have officially created a tradition now out of our little girls weekend in Florence and we’ll be aiming to do this twice a year.  Next up, March where I look forward to another relaxing weekend with the girls.

Florence really is such a charming city and I realize how much I love it more and more every time I go back!

Like Mr. Miyagi said....it's all about balance

Sure, you remember when he told Daniel "Better learn balance. Balance is key. Balance good, karate good. Everything good. Balance bad, better pack up, go home. Understand?"  Or when metaphorically telling Daniel that the balance lesson “not just karate only. Lesson for whole life. Whole life have a balance. Everything be better. Understand?” (btw, did he finish every sentence with the word understand? Somebody IMDB that for me) 

And then they cut out that part where he says this also applies to wine.  This they don’t tell you on IMDB but I’m pretty sure it’s true ‘cause we learned on our most recent adventure, the key to great wine is balance.  This according to Les, resident innkeeper and wine merchant in the town of Blaye in the heart of the Bordeaux wine region. 

But before we get that far down the rue de Chateau - May have mentioned before, but there seems to be significantly more interest from friends and family in visiting Paris than there was in Zurich.  Maybe it's because the first year went so quickly and people didn't have enough time to plan, maybe Zurich is not all that exciting (which is fair) or it could just be that Paris is Paris.  The latter being the most likely reason and don’t worry, none of these offend us.

Already having had a few visitors since our arrival in July, up next visiting us straight from the mean streets of Alamo, CA are the Lamson's!  Coming for a little over a week and bringing a new element in the form of their 2 year old son Ethan, were our friends Aaron and Kristine.  On tap - adventures around Paris, a few World Series games, and a trip to Bordeaux.  Oh, and Cleaver and I had to find time to work along the way as well, save for a National holiday here in France on November 1 plus a second "bonus day" that everyone gets here.  (They get a lot of these apparently.)

To start, arrival Friday by the Lamson's and a fairly casual first night out for dinner, kept it short because they were trying to adjust to the time change and Aaron and I had a little something called Game 2 of the World Series to watch that night.  Aaron being perhaps an even bigger fan than I, no way we miss this.  Watching the games here means watching the next day and trying to avoid the internet all day long at work so you don't find out who won.  It's not as fun as it sounds, but hey, when you love your team you do what you have to do. Game 2 =  Giants win!

Late start on Saturday and head out for some sightseeing, really did this for most of the weekend.  Paris is really walkable, things are not all that far apart which makes it easy to kill a day or a weekend just wandering the streets even with a 2 year old dans la stroller.  While wandering we gave them a taste or our normal life here, which consists of going to the market, fromagerie and boulangerie for the French tradition of Pain / Fromage / Vin (Bread / Cheese / Wine) - of which we eat and drink in copious amounts.  Especially cheese, oh is the cheese good.  All of the Lamson's including Ethan agree.  Happy hour was not just a weekend thing, this was the norm for the whole trip. And Sunday night Game 3 = Giants win!  

Go Giants!!!

Monday back to work, Cleaver off to Zurich for a one night work trip while the Lamson's venture out on their own.  Coming back together that night for a quick dinner and Game 4 of the World Series.  Trying so very hard to not find out the score all day proved a futile task as both my boss and another guy on my team who are Americans took it upon themselves to ruin the surprise.  So while thanks to these two clowns I knew the outcome, it still didn't diminish the fun.  Game 4 = Giants Sweep! Another World Series victory, just wow!  This also forced me to make "bad decisions" with Aaron after the victory whereby we head out on a school night to the local Scottish pub near our house to celebrate.  Let's just say good thing my calendar was clear Tuesday morning.  While I certainly missed the excitement of being in the city, glad to have Aaron and Ethan with me to watch and will always remember where I was given the unique situation.

Finally make it to Wednesday evening and a 4 day weekend (remember the holiday and bonus day) and head off to Bordeaux that evening via train.  Clearly this was very exciting for a 2 year old boy - and the adults of course enjoyed the ride with Pain / Fromage / Vin. I mean, what else are you going to do for 3 hours? Arriving late in the little town of Blaye we stayed at this excellent B&B type place where we were introduced to our hosts Clarissa and Les.  We had a large 3 bedroom apartment to stay in which was perfect for all of us.

Waking up on Thursday we had arranged a winery tour with Les which took us to Chateau Rousseau where we walked the vineyards, saw the operation complete with tanks named after the 7 dwarfs and a first taste of Bordeaux wine.  The few days in Blaye were quite nice, small village right on the Garonne river which is HUGE and has a really neat 17th century Citadel / Fortress overlooking the water.  We had a relaxing couple of days enjoying good food and of course good wine.  The weather left a little to be desired but didn't ruin our good time.

Back to Paris on Saturday afternoon and we planned a night out on the town.  We had a babysitter arranged which sort of worked out - eventually anyway - and enjoyed an evening out sans Ethan.  Last day was Sunday for more wandering and a trip to Jardin du Luxembourg which has a huge playground which Ethan seemed to really love.  Needed to get the boy out and run him a bit, spend some energy as opposed to running laps in our living room.

The week really felt like a vacation of sorts eventhough we did have to fit the work schedule in there.  Had a wonderful time with the Lamson's and had our first (but not our last) trip to Bordeaux.  As we have now seen a few different areas of France, starting to really appreciate the food, culture, and countryside.  Looking forward to the next adventure!

And Go Giants!

Making Croissants

Shortly after we found out we'd be moving to Paris, I got this idea in my head that I wanted to take a class to learn how to make croissants. I figure, I love a croissant, especially pain au chocolat, and how fun would it be to actually know how to make it! Well this weekend I finally got the time and chance to do that. People have told me that it's a very long process and a complicated one and that it's much easier to just go down to your local boulangerie and buy one there. But I didn't care. Even if I never make croissants on my own, I wanted to learn how I could if I wanted to.

So I recruited two of my girlfriends, Amy and Jacalyn, and Saturday morning we headed over to La Cuisine for our 3 hour lesson on making croissants.


Now we did learn that making croissants does indeed take a long time. There are multiple steps that require waiting for 30-60 minutes before moving on to the next.

Here we are making our dough

Then through the magic of having dough that was prepared earlier, we moved on to the step of adding the butter. It's all about getting a slab of butter and basically wrapping the dough in it and rolling it out. But to get the butter thin and ready, you have to pound it with the rolling pin.

Once you've got the butter combined with the dough, we are able to roll out the dough.

And create our croissants. We made three kinds. The regular croissant, pain au chocolate and croissant aux amandes (croissant filled with almond cream).

 

Here is my croissant aux amandes

And the pain au chocolat which are ready to rise and then bake

And yet more croissants

And then voilà!  Yummy croissants!

Now the question is if I'm actually going to make these on my own. I would like to try it just to see if I can do it. And imagine your very own kitchen smelling like a boulangerie! So perhaps one of these days, when I have a whole weekend free, I'll give it a shot. Until then, the boulangerie will continue to get my business....happily.

Oktoberfest Take 2

It’s that time of year again where the tents go up in Munich and it’s a crazy party for 2 weeks. After our lesson from attending Oktoberfest on opening day last year, we decided we’d take a day off work and go on a weekday. We headed to Munich a week ago on a Thursday after work and had our first beer in hand by 9:30pm. And wow did it taste good. I’ve been drinking mostly wine here in Paris and it made me forget how good beer can taste....especially when it’s German beer straight out of Germany. We had a delicious German meal that night and met up with our friends Stacey and Alex. They were with us for the craziness of last year so they were also ready for a more successful Oktoberfest. Alex surprised us saying that he did the impossible and at the very last second was able to get us a 4pm reservation on Friday in the Paulaner tent. I don’t know how he did it but it was great news!!! We now had a guaranteed spot in a tent.

This year we also decided to change it up and truly participate in all of the festivities.  That’s right, we decided that we needed a dirndl and lederhosen.  And that’s what we did on Friday morning....we went out and purchased ourselves a genuine Oktoberfest outfit.  Eventhough it was the last weekend of Oktoberfest, we were lucky enough to at least find something in our size.  We were now ready to head to the tents!!!!  We first went to the Augustiner tent and found a spot at a table quite easily.  We made friends with the people we sat next to and enjoyed a few liters of beer.  Before we knew it, it was time to head to Paulaner for our reservation.  We got our table for 10 (at that point there were only 4 of us), sat down and were immediately bombarded with people who wanted to be our new best friends.  Along with our Paulaner beer we enjoyed some delicious roasted chicken (almost as good as that fried chicken from Jazz Fest) and good ol’ German potato salad.  

Before we knew it people were on the benches dancing and we were having a great time singing along with the band.  There were a ton of drunk people (I know, shocking) and things were starting to get a bit crazy.  The tent was packed.  If people weren’t packed into tables then they were standing in any empty space.  It was all really fun but soon it got to be time to leave.  Afterall it had probably been almost 8 hours since we had arrived and that was plenty of time to be there.  

The next day we met up with my friend April who had run the Berlin Marathon the weekend before and was in Munich before heading back to San Francisco.  We headed to an outdoor market near Marienplatz which had a huge outdoor seating area in the middle of the market.  The weather was perfect and we found ourselves a spot at a table, ordered some beers, some sausages and enjoyed a wonderful afternoon hanging out.  Before we knew it, she was off to catch her plane and we met back up with Stacey and Alex and a few of their friends.  Had a nice dinner in Munich and said goodbye the next morning.  

So overall I’d say it was a successful Oktoberfest this year.  Lesson learned....attend Oktoberfest on a weekday.

Stockholm

It was another one of those weeks where I traveled to Zurich and Oslo for work and Nate was in Helsinki so we figured we’d take advantage of being in the Nordics and visit one of the cities up there for the weekend.  Since Nate is up there quite often, I asked him to pick the best one out of Helsinki, Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm.  He suggested Stockholm eventhough he said all of the cities would be great choices.  So after my travels to Zurich (which was strange and familiar all at the same time but felt so great being back) and Oslo, I was off to Stockholm Thursday evening.  I worked from our Stockholm office that Friday and met up with Nate Friday evening.  It was finally the weekend!

The weather was a bit chilly and rainy all weekend but we were off to make the best of it.  Friday night we explored a bit of the old town on Gamla stan, grabbed a drink and had dinner.  One thing about Stockholm, and the Nordics in general, is that speaking English is never a problem.  Everyone there knows English and they speak it very well.  So from that perspective, it was a bit of a language vacation for us as well.  

Right outside City Hall

Saturday we were up and off to City Hall for the tour.  Stockholm is the home of the Nobel prize awards ceremony. The ceremony takes place at Stockholm Concert Hall and the banquet takes place in City Hall.  While we were on the tour of City Hall we saw the giant hall, which they call the “Blue Room”, where they host the big banquet dinner.  We also saw the “Golden Hall” where the dancing takes place.  It was pretty cool to see and quite pretty both inside and out.  City Hall sits right on the water which makes for lovely views.

We were then headed back to Gamla stan to check out the Nobel Museum (pretty cool....it highlights all of the Nobel prize winners and talks about Mr. Alfred Nobel himself, the founder of the prize), Stockholm Cathedral and the Royal Palace.  We walked around, shopped and had dinner in a nice local neighborhood and before we knew it, were on a plane the next morning headed back to Paris.  

It was a quick but very pleasant weekend and was a good chance to get a feel for Stockholm, check it out and enjoy some Swedish meatballs.  I think it’s a beautiful city and it feels very “European” to me with the buildings and cobblestone streets.  Nate says I should join him back there again in February when I can get a true sense of winter in the Nordic region.  Uh, yeah....meet you there babe!

It's not a full vacation but….

Hey, we'll take it!  Taking 3 days off work while not quite as good as a whole week and definitely not as good as two, is still a very good thing given how busy things have been.  Two people who did take the whole week off to join us in Paris and the South of France were our friends Ehren and Julie coming from DC.  Julie having lived in Paris for a year herself was excited to be back and show us a few of her favorite places in town.  

Arriving early on Saturday morning and after getting a refresher nap in, we started out on a gorgeous afternoon to do one of everyone's favorite things to do in Paris - Go to a park with cheese, wine, and meats to sit in the sun and simply enjoy.  Meeting up with some of Julie's friends in the Jardin de Tuileries we spent several hours outside in the park before moving on to spend that evening sitting along Canal Saint Martin which was packed end to end with people given just how nice the weather was.  Literally the best weather all summer long.

Jardin des Tuileries

After a nice lazy Sunday Ehren and Julie left Paris on their own for a few nights in the South of France while we worked the first few days that week.  Cleaver and I left Paris Wednesday morning on the train to the town of Nimes where Ehren and Julie picked us up on our way to île de Porquerolles which is a little island town just off the coast.  On our way from Nimes we stopped in a medieval town of Arles for lunch.  We then headed to Hyeres on the coast where Porquerolles was a short 15 minute ferry ride away.  It's a small town with a nice little town square and several beaches you could reach easily en velo (or bike). 

île de Porquerolles

Our few days there were quite relaxing, starting with a breakfast we made in our hotel room, then renting bikes and heading out to the various beaches.  The first day we found this great little cove where we just sat and took in the scenery for a bit.  Leisurely we worked our way back to town by late afternoon for happy hour consisting of the usual bread, cheese, wine combination before heading out for dinner.

Looking out over the water

The island had maybe 15 or so different restaurants and given that we were there in the middle of the week post-vacation time in France it was all fairly empty which added to the relaxing feeling we had.  We enjoyed this lifestyle for a few days before heading back to Paris on Saturday morning.  I would be remiss without mentioning on this train ride back to Paris that we had probably the loudest screaming crying baby right next to us for the entire ride.  This was unpleasant.  Very unpleasant.  But let's not dwell on that and just move on.

Back in Paris Saturday night for one last outing before Ehren and Julie had to head back home on Sunday after a great week in France!

Mischief and Mayhem - Just a day in Burgundy

Well after all of the craziness going on in our lives these past few months, we finally had a day where we could go explore beyond Paris.  Louis was in town....a quick weekend stopover in Paris between work trips in Portugal and Geneva....and he had a request that we leave Paris and explore somewhere else.  After presenting a few options, we decided on Dijon and the region of Burgundy.  More specifically, we went to Beaune which is a small town about a 20 minute train ride from Dijon.  We did just a day trip although if we had it to do all over again, I think we’d be better off spending the night.  We headed out on the TGV early on Saturday morning and just a little over 2 hours later, we were in Beaune.  It was a chilly day but at least it wasn’t raining, which was good because our plan was to rent bikes and explore the wine region of Burgundy.  Our friends Stacey and Alex recommended a bike shop in Beaune and Cedric (the guy who worked at the shop) helped us out by not only renting us bikes but also giving us some great suggestions on where to go for both tastings and lunch.  We headed off on our bikes and shortly after leaving the small town, we found ourselves amidst the vineyards of Burgundy.  It was pretty amazing and surreal.  I mean here it was just a regular old Saturday and we were bike riding through Burgundy.  Amazing!

We just happened upon a small little winery called Mischief and Mayhem where the lady was from the UK and spent some time telling us a bit about the wine region.  The wines were only ok although Nate and I bought a courtesy bottle.  The strangest part at this winery was when this lady poured us the reds she told us that she wasn’t sure how long they had been open and if they would be any good since she hadn’t been in the tasting room for a while.  Umm, ok?  Perhaps she wasn’t interested in really selling wine and more interested in getting to her lunch (after all, the wineries all close from about 12:00 to 1:30/2:00 for lunch).  So yeah, as nice as she was, it didn’t leave a great impression.

We headed off to our lunch at a restaurant recommended by Cedric.  It was a very homey feel of a restaurant and very typical French food.  The meal was delicious and we met a fellow bike traveler visiting from Boston.  All in all, a very lovely lunch.

We were back on our bikes and ready to explore and find another winery.  We again just happened across this one winery that seemed interesting.  It was called Edmond Cornu & Fils.  A lady greeted us and took us down into the wine cellar where she proceeded to pour us a few tastings.  Now she didn’t speak any English but luckily Louis is French Canadian and therefore could help translate.  She spent quite a bit of time with us and the wines were fantastic...as evidenced by the 7 bottles we bought between the 3 of us.  And we would have bought more too but there was only so many we could fit into that empty backpack we brought along.  It was overall a great experience and she even gave us a special taste of their Corton Grand Cru.  We are all still kicking ourselves for not making room to buy a few bottles of this one.  

Nate & Louis learning all about the region from this sweet lady

In any case, we had a wonderful experience here and in fact spent so much time there that we needed to start heading back to the bike shop to return our bikes and catch our train back to Dijon and then Paris.  Again, it would have been great to have had more time....there is so much to explore!!  We were mainly in the Aloxe-Corton and Ladoix areas but the southern part of the region was highly recommended as well.  I think it will definitely be on our list of places to head back to.  All in all it was a brilliant day and one that I think we will all remember for a long time to come.

9-1

“9 -1-1 is a joke in your town” is a little shout out to those of you who appreciate some good old fashioned late 80’s militant rap which in this case may have also come complete with a giant clock.  What may also be a joke starting with “9-1” is the month of September, as in how can it possibly be September 1?  Been awhile since we contributed to the interwebs, kept meaning to for about the last 6 weeks, but what can I say, it’s been busy!

So what have we been up to? Um, well, more than just a nice little Saturday so to speak.  As most people by now know, at the beginning of July (yeah, like 2 months ago, I know) we left the friendly confines of Zurich, Switzerland and made the move to the big city of Paris.  As has been documented on this blog we loved our time in Switzerland but were faced with the choice to either come home to SF or move to Paris.  It wasn’t a difficult choice.

Having obtained the necessary paperwork, off we went and thus begins our past two months.  Start with the arrival at a new city / temporary apartment.  Nothing to really note regarding the temporary apartment, wasn’t bad by any means but not too exciting either, other than some creative engineering on the appliances (see stove from previous blog).

Finding this place to be nothing more than ok and obviously temporary, we then had our day of apartment searching with a person we worked with directly to get us set up.  A full day of looking at 8 different places and naturally the first one of the day was the one we liked the best.  We still could not move in for a few more weeks but at least got a place secured and could check that off the long list of things to do after a few rounds of back and forth with the property agent and owner, took some time but we got it done

Next up – Bank account.  This should be easy, open account, deposit money, get ATM cards, on line set up, and off you go.  Not so fast mon ami.  They make this process much more difficult than it needs to be by forcing you to come into the bank twice and receive codes via mail that may never arrive.  So this took about 4 weeks to do what should taken about 4 minutes.  But we’re set up, so moving on.

Work – since neither of us had any changes to our jobs, just simply working in a different office, this one was pretty straight forward.  Well except for me and the visa / transfer process.  I would tell you more but honestly, it was so painful I just can’t relive it.  Maybe sometime later on over a beer or two I can fill you in, but for now let’s just say we’re both settled in at our new offices and work is going along just fine now that we’re here.

Moving day – relatively painless getting into our new place on August 1, took all of our suitcases, got the keys, had the rest of our stuff from Zurich delivered and we’re in.  Still took a few weeks to get settled in, buy all the little things you always need when moving into a new place and finally as of about a week ago, starting to feel like home.

About a week after moving in we needed to take a week and go back to San Francisco and get our life there in order, meaning packing up our apartment and moving all our stuff into storage in SF.  This week in SF was great, very good to be home, but a very busy few days of packing, moving, property manager meeting and taking care of all that we could to keep things organized.  Our apartment in SF is now being rented by someone – so for those of you who stayed there the past year without us knowing because you got a key from somebody else – don’t go back.  Somebody else lives there now.  You have been warned.

Week in SF, make the trip back to Paris, back to work, work trip that week in late August blah blah blah and that friend is how two months goes by and we get to 9-1 without even realizing it. 

So one last question – when does summer vacation start?  Doh!

Paris

Well so far we are slowly getting settled into life here in Paris.  It’s now been about two weeks since we moved here.  We’re currently in temporary housing near the Saint Lazare train station.  It’s not the most exciting neighborhood but it is relatively close to our offices so that part is nice.  About a week ago, Nate and I spent the day with our home search consultant looking at apartments.  And when I say the day, I mean the full day.  We started at 10am and after looking at 8 different places, finished at about 6pm.  It was one exhausting day.  But the good news is that we found a place we liked, in an area that we think we’ll enjoy and that many people recommended.  We’re hoping all continues to go well and that we will sign the contract next week and get everything squared away for a move-in date of August 1.  Yay!!  We could not be more thrilled or excited to get settled into a permanent place and finally get comfortable here.  Our temporary accommodations are overall fine however there are a few things that just make it frustrating.  It’s small, for one, with no storage space.  So we’re pretty much living out of a suitcase with just one closet.  The bathroom is literally a part of the bedroom which is not ideal when one wants to sleep and the other is taking a shower right there in the room with you.  It’s a bit bizarre I must say.  And it makes this temporary place just not conducive for guests.  Oh and then the Parisians must love space saving appliances as we have a stove/oven/dishwasher all in one (see picture).  This also is a bit bizarre.  So in any case, while this place is most definitely sufficient, we cannot wait to get settled into our permanent place.

Is it a stove? Is it an oven? Is it a dishwasher?

Waiting for fireworks

I’ve also started settling in at the office.  The great news is that nothing about my actual job and the role itself changed.  So with all of the other change happening in our lives, it’s nice to have one thing that stays the same.  Everyone in my office has been extremely nice and welcoming.  It’s funny how they ask if I speak French and when I tell them no, I get this very concerned and confused look.  As if how could I survive here in France without speaking French.  I usually quickly follow it up with the fact that I’m currently trying to learn and that I really do want to speak French and that seems to make it all better.  

Speaking of the language, it is much different than being in Zurich from an English perspective.  In Zurich, English was no problem at all.  95% of the people you encountered all spoke English, and quite decent English at that.  Here in Paris it’s much different.  In just two weeks, I have had multiple occurrences where the person on the other side of the counter didn’t speak any English at all.  We managed to get by, of course, but it’s definitely a bit more challenging.  But that’s totally fine with me....I don’t expect by any means that they should be able to speak English for me.  I actually look at this as a great opportunity to learn French more quickly....hopefully!  Like I said, Nate and I both are really eager to learn the language here and are practicing as much as we can.  

Overall Nate and I are truly loving being in Paris.  We are definitely grateful that things worked out the way they did allowing us to move to this amazing city.  I think we’re going to be very very happy here!  I do love me a big city and although it took a few days to get back into “city” mode, I’m loving every second of it.  And what a great city it is!!  Yesterday was Bastille Day and one of the things they do to celebrate here in Paris is a fireworks show at the Eiffel Tower.  Nate and I spent the afternoon exploring a new neighborhood, Le Marais, and then at about 9:30 headed towards Place de la Concorde to get a spot to watch the show.  We waited for probably an hour but we couldn’t be happier.  I sat there just staring at the Eiffel Tower, all lit up, and kept telling myself that this is my new city.  Pretty amazing!!  Like I said, I think we’re going to be pretty darn happy here.

Happy Bastille Day!

Une pierre qui roule n'amasse pas mousse

They say, well somebody did anyway, that a rolling stone gathers no moss. I can safely say that in my life I have now lived in two places where I don't care how much you move around, your gonna grow some moss. Having lived in Eugene, Oregon and now finishing my time Zurich, Switzerland, these two place have one (and only one) single thing in common - Rain. And lots of it. I guess this expression also has something to do with metaphors about not doing one thing for too long or not allowing yourself to get into a rut. Clearly the past year for us has been a mostly "moss free" zone.

So as we close the 1st chapter on this European adventure and head on to l'herbe plus verte, we can safely say that our time in Zurich has never been dull and nothing short of special.

Here we are on July 4, 2012 of all dates packing up the last of our stuff, had our last days in our respective Zurich offices, turning in the keys to the apartment, and finalizing affairs in Zurich. We now turn the page to chapter 2 in Paris.

We have now said about a million times that we would have been more than happy to stay in Zurich because if you have read this blog at all over the past year you would know just how nice, clean, efficient, and amazing we think Switzerland is. It really is amazing. But that said, the opportunity to move to Paris presented itself and through choice, chance, or otherwise, we are very excited to make the change and discover what France's version of P-town is all about.

The village of Rapperswil from the ferry

Before moving on, we would be remiss not to recap the final few cheese fueled adventures in Switzerland. Let us start with a few weeks back on one of the first truly "summer" weather weekends of the year. And by summer, I mean hot and muggy, shorts 24 hours a day type weather. Having a lazy weekend with time to kill we decided to take the ferry ride down the lake from Zurich at the north end of "Zurich See" to the south part of the lake where you will find a little village called Rapperswil. For some reason we thought this boat ride would take about an hour and be the perfect little jaunt to the town where we could walk around a bit, find a drink and take in the scenery. However this zig-zag across and down the lake took more like 2 and a half hours. We figured we must have been on the wrong boat. Our bad, but at least it was warm and pleasant out on the water. Once we finally got to Rapperswil we did check out the little town, walk up to some pretty lookout point, and did find that drink outside on a plaza. Next to a McDonald's. Though a very charming one nonetheless. We took the train back to Zurich, like Domino's pizza - 30 minutes or less to get there.

That's the cheese advertising car,
three huge chunks of cheese on the top

Sunday was a nice day and we decided to take the short train ride to the town of Zug where the Tour de Suisse would be coming through around lunch time. This is a bicycle race that is a warm up to the Tour de France and I thought would be cool to see. We were waiting on the side of the road for a bit, it's almost like a parade with cars going by that are part of the race but actually just advertising. Then the actual racers come by in about 20 seconds followed by 37 cars with bikes attached to the top. It was fun but they do go by quickly. After that, we found a place for lunch before heading home.

Riders coming through!

The next weekend being our final weekend in Zurich was a nice relaxing Friday having dinner at home on our balcony before our friend Louis arrived on Saturday evening. Louis was coming in from Paris where he had been for work, en route to Germany for more work the following week and found a Saturday night in his schedule to stop by Zurich. He arrived a bit late in the evening on Saturday but that didn't stop us from having a late dinner out and hitting a few of our favorite spots one last time. INTERPOL laws prohibit us from disclosing what time we made it home that night. If I recall, it did rain at one point.

A short one night stay and Louis was off on Sunday to Berlin and we had to begin sorting and packing our stuff up anyway. It rained on Sunday which made for good packing weather. Oh by the way at this point I still had not received my French visa, so unclear how much longer I would need to stay in Zurich. But we knew that Cleaver would be leaving the following weekend regardless and the movers would be shipping our stuff that coming Friday. Time once again to be transitory for a bit which is not fun but what can you do. Price you pay for for being an international couple of mystery.

With the shippers coming on Friday morning, the Thursday before what do you know but I get the call that my Visa is ready to go! Sounds good right? One anticipated problem however, this required a trip to Geneva where the French consulate is located to actually pick up my Visa. One unanticipated problem, I got this call at 2:30 on Thursday afternoon that my appointment in Geneva would be Friday morning at 8:30 am. So - shut down at work, head home, scramble to complete the packing and hop the next train to Geneva. Only about 2 and half hours on the train so not too bad, but between the timing, train, staying in a hotel, and the train ride back on Friday, that's a lot for 30 minutes actually spent at the consulate. At least in Geneva it wasn't raining.

So fast forward a few days and here we are. Cleaver has been in Paris for a few nights already, I'm on the train (première classe est bonne!) to Paris with Zurich now in the rear view mirror. Sorry to leave but excited for what's ahead!

Has it been a year already?

Hard to believe that almost one year ago to the day, we moved to Zurich.  The assignment was for one year and man has this year flown by.  We tried to see and do as much as we could exploring Zurich, Switzerland and the rest of Europe.  And I’d have to say that we’ve done a pretty good job.  But Europe is a big place and there is just so much more to see.  I feel like it's just the tip of the iceberg.  So what I’m basically saying is that one year was not long enough to live in Europe and that’s why we’ve decided to stay at least one more year.  The only catch is that we weren’t able to stay in Zurich (there were some office space issues for me at Google) so we’re off to Paris!  I have basically localized here and will become a French employee at Google.  Eventhough I’m heading to the Google Paris office I will still be doing the same exact job as I have been doing all year.  I’ll just come off of assignment and become a local employee.  

Nate’s company continues to be extremely flexible with him and his job so he had no problem transferring to the Thomson Reuters Paris office as well.  In fact, they probably welcomed it since it’s most likely more expensive for them to employ him here in Switzerland.  In any case, they are flexible which really works out well for us.  

Here’s the situation, I now have my French visa and am moving to Paris on Saturday, June 30.  Just a week away!  Nate’s company is processing his French visa for him and was a little bit slower in the process.  Therefore Nate is just waiting on one more approval before he can go pick up his visa at the French Consulate in Geneva.  It’s possible that this could all happen next week, which would be great as Nate could then come out there with me.  But if not, I’m thinking he should only be a week behind me.  

And then once we get to Paris, the fun part of moving to a new country begins.  We will be in temporary housing for up to 60 days so will start looking for an apartment (luckily we have the help of a home search consultant), we need to get our residence visas, open a bank account, apply for a social security number, etc.  The fun doesn’t end.  We look forward to being settled so that we can start to fully enjoy Paris!

We are both extremely excited for this opportunity to live in and explore Paris and get to know it as a local.  We are sad to leave Zurich and would have been just as happy to stay here.  But I suppose things happen for a reason and now our European adventure continues in Paris.  

We have loved Zurich though and Switzerland in general.  As we may have mentioned in previous posts, you can’t beat the quality of life here.  Nate calls it the country club.  It’s clean, the air is fresh, everything is so organized and on time, the mountains are super close (Nate will definitely miss being just an hour away from skiing).....overall it’s an absolutely wonderful place to live.  Paris should be an interesting change.  For one thing, I keep hearing how the French hate the Americans and refuse to speak English.  The Google Paris office is definitely less International than Zurich so there will probably be less English and more French spoken among the cubes.  That’s ok though.  We are in it for the experience and are ready to immerse ourselves in everything French.  In fact, we have both already started Rosetta Stone.  Nate at least took some French in college where I’ve never had any classes in it.  We are hoping to get to a conversational level at the minimum and not embarrass ourselves.  We shall see.

In any case, Paris here we come!!!  Let the adventure continue!  

Auf Wiedersehen Zurich and Bonjour Paris!