Announcement

James and I are happy to announce...

There are lots of life changes happening for us. I hope to update more soon!

Kicking off 2014 in Venice

The end of 2013 was a great one! We were lucky enough to have my mom and some friends, Jen and Haylie, visit us. We spent a few days wandering around Paris and showing them the sights! It's always fun to see the city through a fresh perspective that is full of excitement and awe.

Enjoying hot wine in the Christmas Markets of Montmartre

It's also quite magical to share Paris with others during the Christmas season as the lights and decorations are impressive.

The ceiling in Galleries Lafayette

The Christmas Tree amidst all the glam

Some of the light displays at Printemps

After a few days in Paris, we then jetted off to Venice to ring in the new year!

We rented a wonderful apartment that was in a quiet area just off the path of the main action. We found the apartment through airbnb.com which I would highly recommend to anyone who wants to travel and have the option of staying somewhere a little more home-like than a hotel.

We arrived on the morning of New Year's Eve and spent some time wandering around the city.

Due to our SUPER early departure from Paris a nap was needed before we could go check out the night activity. Venice has a firework display in St. Marco Square but our apartment owner suggested seeing the fireworks from a different area as the square is known to be packed with 60,000+ people. 

We had a late lunch that consisted of pizza (when in Italy isn't it mandatory to have as the 1st official meal). For dinner we just did some snacks and cocktails. We attempted to walk to an area to see the fireworks but if anyone has been to Venice you may remember that getting "lost" is the name of the game. Therefore we never found a great perspective to see the fireworks due to buildings blocking our view. 

Our night wasn't as spectacular as I think we were hoping it would be but nevertheless ringing in the New Year is Venice was pretty amazing. 

The ladies getting festive with Carnival masks

In addition to seeing the big sights, like the Rialto Bridge, St. Marco Square, and The St. Mark Basilica, we had some great food, and really enjoyed our time wandering the streets of Venice and taking in this magical city!

On one of the Vaporettos (water buses)

The most amazing biscuit/cookie/peace of heaven that we made our daily breakfast treat with coffee

St. Mark's Square in the evening

St. Mark's Basilica

More of St. Marco Square

Gondala races perhaps? ;)

Rialto Bridge

Venice is how I pictured it to be and so much more! It was even more special to be able to share this experience and make memories with some of my favorite people!!!

Date night first

It is almost embarrassing to admit but in the 2+ years of living in France, I have never been to the movie theater! Back in the states I really enjoy going to the movies. I know it's expensive but the experience of seeing it on the big screen with a fountain diet coke and movie theater popcorn is the best!!!

Not long ago someone told us that the movie theater in our town plays the original version of some movies once or twice a week. We decided to look into it and quickly discovered that "The Butler" was playing and we decided to end this drought!

The movie was shown on a Monday night at 10:05p.m. That's rough when I had to wake up at 5:45a.m. the following morning, but I was up for the challenge!
We decided to go for a little stroll on our way to the theater.

The lady selling tickets was super friendly and had to tell us all about her daughters spending time in the US over the summer and how much they loved it (don't blame them)!

After browsing the small selection of snacks and refreshments (which does NOT include even a tenth of the selection in an average American theater), Our theater was open so we made our way in.

James and I were placing bets as to whether we would have the entire theater to ourselves. We ended up being 2 of the 4 people in attendance for the movie! I wanted to high 5 the others as it felt like we had some connection by being there watching a movie in English!
Here we are all settled in and ready to enjoy!

We both enjoyed the movie and it ended up having subtitles too, which was helpful for James as some of the accents were quite strong.
I hope to be able to have a date night like this again sometime soon!

***sorry for the low quality pics, the Iphone is all we had with to document this event :)

Thanksgiving recap

When we last left off discussing Thanksgiving I had found all of the ingredients. Fast forward to Friday evening and I tackled the 2 desserts (yes, I know that Thanksgiving was Thursday but on this side of the pond it was a regular ole work day). I made a pumpkin pie and the infamous salted caramel cheesecake. I think I finally was able to go to bed about 12:30 a.m. after waiting for both of them to be done baking.

Saturday morning consisted of making the caramel topping for the cheesecake and prepping other dishes. I knew that the beast of a turkey was going to consume the oven for the majority of the day so my plan was to have the green beans and stuffing ready to go in the oven after the turkey was "resting" (until researching cooking times, I didn't even know that this was a part of the whole roasting a turkey experience and that it needed to rest prior to serving).

The turkey, all 22 pounds of it, went into the oven about 1:30 p.m. This was a team effort as I was unable to lift it and get it into the small oven on my own. Once the turkey was in the oven I had a little down time. A short while before the turkey came out of the oven I peeled all of the potatoes and got them cooking.

My assistants, Maëlle and Audray

Making the mashed potatoes wearing my fabulous apron that Grandma made me this summer

The girls helped me out a bit and seemed to be pretty excited about the experience.  Our guests arrived just as the turkey was ready to come out of the oven. James and I attempted more than once to transfer the turkey to a platter and were unsuccessful(no fancy turkey pan and things to lift it out with). This made for a less than amazing presentation of the turkey but other than that everything turned out great.

Our simple table arrangement, using EVERY chair we own

The party of 7 that helped me to celebrate Thanksgiving in France

Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy and green bean casserole (no fancy serving platters in our house yet)

Dessert=pumpkin pie and salted caramel cheesecake

Enjoying the meal

Thankful for these 3 people!

Cousins

 

 

 

 It was the first time I have been responsible for cooking all of the items of the Thanksgiving meal. I was pretty anxious about figuring out the timing and it all turning out alright, so you can imagine my relief when it did. Doing all of the cooking definitely adds appreciation for all that my Mom and Grandma do for the holiday meals. I hope that James and the girls can one day experience a Thanksgiving in the states, until then I am happy to know I am capable of making it happen here too! It is also a bonus to have some leftovers to prolong the day for a little while (and have 2 large bags of turkey in the freezer).

Preparing for Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is one of my favorite holidays of the year. It includes spending time with family, sharing a good meal and relaxing. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, James and I decided to try and bring some of that experience to our home here in France.

The initial plan included my mom sending me many of the ingredients needed that are not easily found here. Due to unforeseen circumstances the connection we had with shipping is no longer available (I will discuss this very sad news in another post).

So that changed the game plan and required me to find most of what I needed here in France. The first step was determining the menu. I wanted to include most of the important items but wanted to try and keep it somewhat simple too. I decided that we would make a turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing, and green bean casserole (and we will add some french baguettes to the meal too). For dessert I plan to make a pumpkin pie and a cheesecake (because the Hus can't stand cinnamon)!

Next step, locate the ingredients. The items that are not available in the regular grocery store include: cream of mushroom soup, canned pumpkin, stuffing ingredients, pumpkin pie spice,  and chicken broth. My amazing mom got creative and sent me a large envelope including pumpkin pie spice, a cooking bag for the turkey, seasoning for the gravy and some stuffing.

There is an American store located in Paris and I had visited their website to get an idea of the items available.

After recovering from price shock I created the bare minimum list. The list included: canned pumpkin, mushroom soup and then I wanted some brown sugar (not available in regular stores here) and cream cheese frosting. The last 2 items were a requirement for some cookies I wanted to make to bring to work on Thanksgiving.

I arrived at the store and it was fun to see all of the brands and products so familiar back home. It was not so fun to see the price tags attached to these items.

Items that I purchased (all items were 4 Euros each with the exception of the frosting which was 6 Euros).

I polled a few people to ask how much they think the above items would cost in the states. The general consensus was between $10-15. So you can imagine the pain I felt when I handed over 30 Euros=$38!!!

Now with these items in hand the last thing to take care of was finding a turkey. The same American store sells them for 12.50 Euro/kg (about $80 for a 10 pound turkey) uh, no thank you! We ordered a turkey from the butcher that we usually go to but received a phone call last week stating that he was unable to locate one for us. James then proceeded to call a farm-they told him that the turkeys are usually not ready until December as they plan them for Christmas. After consulting my American co-workers it was suggested to call another grocery store that is often able to order them with a 1 week notice. James was able to do that last week and secured a 5 kg (10 pound) turkey that he could pick up on Tuesday (yesterday).

Yesterday arrived and he received a phone call stating that they were unable to provide a turkey that small and that the smallest turkey available was 10 kg (22 pounds). James called me and asked what I thought and I told him that my main concern was if our oven was large enough to accommodate it. We decided that he would go to the store and look at it and try and guess if it would fit, never-mind that we were going to have enough turkey for 18-20 people and there are only going to be 8 of us!!!

I arrived home yesterday and there was a VERY large turkey in the kitchen. We tested it and it fits in the oven (without much room to spare). So mission accomplished on locating all ingredients!

Sending a great big "HAPPY THANKSGIVING" to all of my family and friends. I hope you have a wonderful day tomorrow! I will be sharing pumpkin cookies with my American colleagues and having an adventure on Saturday as I try to create a Thanksgiving experience here. Wish me luck and if anyone wants to come on over we will have plenty of turkey to share!!!

Trying to make Turkey Day happen

Spending some time with family a few weeks ago and James shared with them that he thinks I should make a real Thanksgiving meal and try and celebrate here in France. I told him that I wasn’t sure that I could find the ingredients here and that I would have to think about what a traditional Thanksgiving meal is.
There is a store in Paris called “The Thanksgiving Store” and it is a grocery store for Americans. I decided to go on their website to see what supplies they have in store and get an idea of the cost. After about 30 seconds of looking I quickly determined that if we are going to have a Thanksgiving meal here in France and buy supplies here, it is going to cost a fortune!!! To give you an idea of the cost of items at the store, the small container of the pumpkin pie spice cost 9.90 Euros and a box of Lucky Charm cereal is 12 Euro, which is about $15 in American money. So my dear American friends and family next time you pour a bowl of your favorite cereal think of me and the fact that I would need to win the lottery to have that everyday. I also do not see whole turkeys in the store in France. We asked our butcher last week if he would be able to get us a full turkey. He is able to do so, we just need to place the order a week or two in advance.
So my mom has graciously agreed to send me some supplies from the states. I have an idea of what I want to make. I want to keep it simple but also make my fellow Americans proud and represent this beloved holiday well!
So please tell me what you think the perfect, simple Thanksgiving meal would include! I will need to finalize my list of items soon to ensure that I get the supplies in time to create this celebration. Of course I will be working on Thanksgiving AND Black Friday so the plan would be to celebrate on the Saturday following Thanksgiving.
I look forward to your suggestions and ideas!!!

Interview with “The Good Life France”

Prior to my time in MN I was asked if I would be interested in being interviewed for a website called “The Good Life France.” This website is a wealth of information! It has everything from the practical things one may want to know about France all the way to the fun things to do and see.
I find myself taking a look at the page often and as one of my go-to resources. So stop on over and give it a visit-and of course feel free to check out my interview too!!!
The Good Life France
Thank you to Janine and The Good Life France team for letting me be a part of your amazing work! I feel honored to be featured and for you sharing my story.
Hello and welcome to those of you stopping by for the first time. Thank you for visiting and feel free to stop over anytime!
P.S. If any other expats find me through “The Good Life France” I would love to connect and hear from you!

I am Fancy and I know it!

This post comes to you from the train on my way home from work. As  mentioned in my previous post about the generosity of others during my time in MN, this blogging in motion is made possible by dear friends.

In a conversation with one of my bff’s prior to my trip back to MN, I had told her that I was still somewhat struggling to meet people in France and find ways to connect and create a social circle here. I have some wonderful coworkers but outside of work I haven’t been able to find avenues to meet people (besides James as I also don’t expect him to find me my own friends). We had talked about how the blog was really a good outlet for me and maybe through the blog I would find others in France feeling the same. During our chat I told her that I spend so much time on the train everyday and it would be the perfect use of time to blog, however I was going to need to look into getting a lightweight mini computer to really make that something easy and practical. So one of my shopping tasks while in the states was to check out my options and specifically netbooks.

Fast forward a few weeks and I am having coffee with the above mentioned bff. At the end of our coffee date she told me that her and her husband would like to help make it possible for me to get a netbook. This should have come as no surprise as she is one of my biggest life cheerleaders, but this act of generosity literally brought me to tears.

Thank you will never be enough, and if the blog doesn’t help me find one single friend here in France I still know I have the most amazing friends on the other side of the pond!!

Tour de France in Chartres

***Reminder...giveaway is still open for a few more days! If you are interesting in joining the fun check out the previous post!!!

Yesterday the Tour de France came through Chartres so of course we had to go watch. The day consisted of time trials which I was told was actually a better way to watch the race in person as the cyclists are spaced out versus being in the large groups.

I have watch a little bit of the race on TV with James but in person it was amazing to see how fast they are actually moving! It's even more impressive that it was the 2nd to the last day and they still had the energy to be zooming past us!

We stood around the 1km to the finish mark for a while watching.

 

Waiting for the yellow jersey to finish the race!

 Here is a French favorite, Rolland, cruising by!

 The Polka Dot Jersey, Thomas Voeckler, had the crowd cheering.

 And last but not least, the yellow jersey! Winner=Bradley Wiggins.

 

They were very serious about supporting their riders! Where do you even find an outfit like this?

 

These guys kept the crowd entertained in between riders. 

 No need to guess where these guys are from, kangaroo and all!!!

 Maëlle got a chance to help raise money for research, every kilometer= 1 Euro! She did great, averaging pace at over 20 kilometers an hour!

 Always a champion in my book!!!