Posts Tagged ‘Living Abroad’

Well…it was supposed to rain this afternoon in the Cote d’Azur despite it being a beautiful morning, luckily the rain held off all day. No rain was perfect for us, since we decided to take a trip down to Cannes to see what was happening at this year’s Film Festival. Miss G wanted to see and hang at the beach today and the weather cooperated by giving us perfection!

Katherine made an awesome breakfast of scrambled eggs with red peppers, garlic, red onions, spinach, and ham. Miss G finished an entire “pain au chocolat” all herself, we got ready and headed for “la gare” enroute to Cannes.

After wandering around on “La Croisette” and checking out all the promotional billboards, beach restaurants, and people, we decided it was time for late afternoon lunch on the beach. There is nothing like an amazing afternoon of hot, sunny weather and having lunch on the beach! A bottle of Rose and two refreshing salads for us and “steak hache avec frites” for Miss G – a perfect day in Cannes I would say, yes?!?

Following lunch, we were off to find the carousel. Miss G LOVES the carousel. It’s a double-decker carousel in Cannes! We rode the Ferrari and spun around in the Tea Cup. As it was getting late in the day, the people attending the premieres were starting to come out. With barricades up, black cars, police, people in tuxedoes and sleek dresses were everywhere around us. We weren’t completely sure but we think we caught a glimpse of Matthew McConaughey. Also scheduled to attend today was Reese Witherspoon and Elijah Wood. There were probably quite a few “French” celebs; however, they are all “foreign” to us!

Click here for the slideshow to see our day in pictures!

Au revoir, mes amis!

It was somewhat of a happy and sad day, all in one. Miss G started school about a week and a half ago. Yep…she’s a big girl now..just ask her! In France, kids are eligible to start school at 2 years of age.

The fact that she knows quite a bit of French already (more than daddy), we wanted to continue her experience to the fullest and learn as much French as possible before we head to whatever the next destination will be. (I hear Asia might be asking for us to visit for a couple years?!?) Granted, that is still a couple years away so by then, G should be completely bilingual. With that being said…daddy will be in trouble! I had better find a French tutor in exchange for their practicing English with me. Thus far, I have been reluctant to pull the trigger on this one unlike Katherine, who has met a fabulous French woman with whom she exchanges linguistic notes/lessons.

Au revoir, mes amis!

Sitting around last weekend hanging with Miss G, I was able to capture this video of here answering the stereo remote. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quick enough to capture her “speaking” on the remote with her good friend, Olivia, and asking her to come over to play LEGOs. It was precious!

It’s kind of a “long” video (5 mins) BUT…we found it quite funny especially at the end. I mean, really…”is this what I do on the phone all the time?” She has to get it from somewhere and it certainly isn’t the local playground with other kids, right? Hahaha!

Au revoir, mes amis!

Upon waking and diaper change, Miss G informed Daddy boldly that today she would like to go “train”….

Guilliana really likes riding trains…which is wonderful since we live 3 blocks from a large train station and there are many wonderful towns and cities (and yes even countries) within an hour or so train ride. The fearless and always adventurous Miss G also gets horribly, viciously car sick (just like her mommy), so if it weren’t for our easy access to rail transport we probably wouldn’t be getting out too much while here!

So there we were with an eager little traveler and no idea where we might go. Bob had done a bit of reading about St. Raphael and its suburb Frejus in the Var region earlier in the week when we were looking for things to do during this week off together. So we headed to the train station and got our tickets to Frejus!

Wow, what a fantastic and incredibly scenic ride! I honestly had no idea that there were red rocks similar to those in Sedona Arizona. The homes, ports and beaches along the way were gorgeous and actually a bit different from the areas west of here where we have visited previously.

Upon arriving in Frejus we took a short walk and didn’t see very much. We decided to head back to the train platform to see when the next train would come by to take us the 5 minutes up the road back to St. Rapheal. We discovered that we would have to wait another 3 hours…well, let’s make the best of it! So we followed the signs to the center of town to look for a restaurant to have some lunch and generally check out the little town.

The town generally struck me as more “working class” and definitely medieval, although it didn’t have the same 13th century feel that the incredibly picturesque town of Valbonne does. After strolling down a few streets we discovered the town center all decked out for the holiday season, complete with carousel and food booths. As we didn’t want G to get all worked up before we had a chance to eat, we made a quick detour around the festivities.

We went down another few streets and found what looked like a lovely little place with a decent-looking menu and decided to go in. Well the food at Le P’Tit Encas was really very good, and very reasonably priced! The service was lovely and the entire experience was quite enjoyable.

After we finished our nice, long lunch we headed back into the town center to see what we could find for G to see and do before the next train arrived. Once we got in we saw the cutest thing…PONIES!! There were 4 of the cutest little Shetland ponies giving rides to the little ones. So I quickly got in line and had Bob take G around to the various displays and whatnot while I waited for her turn. Guilliana was quite amped up at this point due to her chocolate Sunday and half of my raspberry & pistachio ice cream with raspberry coulis. SUGAR HIGH!

Once it was her turn, Miss G got on that little guy and grabbed the reins like a pro, completely ready to start her ride. To be fair, Guilliana has a rocking horse in her room nearly as big as the Shetland…so this wasn’t exactly her first rodeo, so to speak! Although the ride wasn’t very long, and G didn’t really want to get off, we had to only a short time to make our train for the trip back home. With the 15 minutes we had left, we took a quick tour of the Medieval church in the town center, amazing! We also sampled our first vin chaud (hot wine…we enjoy this in the States as well, it’s usually called mulled wine), not too bad.

We headed to the train platform and boarded within a few minutes, found some excellent seats and settled in. The bright and sunny day quickly faded to a gorgeous sunset over the Mediterranean and then slipped into inky night as we arrived in Antibes. Our little ball of energy was nearly zapped out at this point and ready for dinner and an early bed time.
We live in an amazing place, in an incredibly beautiful part of the world. We are blessed to be able to experience all of this together as a family. Although our road has been anything but easy since arriving here, the struggles make us stronger and reinforce to me that there is nothing I can’t handle while my amazing husband and beautiful little girl are by my side.

Here is the day in pictures…

Slideshow – Miss G takes Frejus!


Au revoir, mes amis!

So…it’s the end of December 2011 and the weather this past week has been unbelievably awesome! This week has basically been about 16C (60F)! Wow, can’t complain for the last week of December.

We decided that we needed to go somewhere we have not been since moving to France. So…the decision was made to take the train to Cannes today and spend the day down at “La Croissette”.

We got Miss G all dressed up in one of her “new” outfits she received for Christmas. She looked soooo cute with her little Benetton boots and long sweater dress. We found few open restaurants right “on the beach” that we decided to enjoy lunch with a view of the sea. It was rough…NOT!

After lunch, we walked sea-side and enjoyed the sun and water-view. OH…and we even found a pay-to-use WC (water closet) that was self-washing once you finished your business! It was definitely better than some of the public restrooms we have encountered in the locale. Miss G rode the go-kart train a couple turns to finish off our incredible family day! It was back to the train station to head home!

Here is the day in pictures…

Slideshow – In Cannes with G


Au revoir, mes amis!

Pere Noel is has been a little bit of an elusive fellow to track down here in the French Riviera. Two Sunday’s ago we saw Santa while shopping at the “big” Carrefour Market and decided that we could wait one more week before getting Miss G a picture with Pere Noel! Also…influencing our decision was the fact that G wasn’t really dressed for the occasion. So, one week later on Dec. 19, we figured it was time to get pictures of Miss G with Santa.

After a 2 hrs struggle to get out the door in order to “beat the crowd”, we arrived at the Carrefour during the downtime of lunch hour (or “hours” here in France).

Much to our surprise (and still being 6 full days before Christmas) one Pere Noel decided he wasn’t going to work on Sunday. We aren’t the only ones in the store that day. There were lots of people especially ones with kids! The entire following week was tough to get out to a place to “find” Santa. We went all around Antibes to find a Santa 3 out of 5 evenings but had no luck. Really? Is Pere Noel that hard to find especially in the last week before Christmas?

On Friday, Dec. 23, we decided to try the local (and only) mall we know of near St. Laurent du Var called CAP3000. We scanned their website and discovered that Pere Noel would be in the mall and available for photos from 1000h-1900h. Perfect! We REALLY didn’t want to miss G’s opportunity with Santa.

We braced ourselves for what we thought was going to be a “zoo” of people but we were pleasantly surprised that not very many people were out despite most of the shops being open! And, after a bit of asking around, we were able to find Pere Noel for G’s photo opp. So…

Merry Christmas! Bon Fetes!

From all of us to ALL of you! Best wishes for 2012!

Au revoir, mes amis!

We would like to apologize to all of our followers. We are truly sorry for the lack of recent posts over the past 5-6 weeks. Yes, we are aware that we broke our promise of 1 new post a week. We’re REALLY sorry!

Unfortunately this is a result of a couple of extremely time-consuming challenges that have caught us completely off-guard. Suffice to say, we cannot get into the details but will eventually get back to writing about our adventures!

Please be patient. We’ll update everyone soon.

On a more exciting note with Christmas season upon us, we are definitely looking forward to our first “French” Christmas in France. Miss G definitely enjoyed decorating the Christmas tree last Sunday!

Au revoir, mes amis!

Two weeks ago on “holidays” (vacation for you North Americans), we were on our pre-flight departure to Rome where Miss G and I were having a discussion. She is at that age now where she is repeating everything mommy, daddy, and her Nounou say. (Well…looks like daddy better start paying CLOSE attention to what comes out of his mouth!)

G’s vocabulary is quite extensive now in both English & French. I will go so far as to say that Miss G understands way more French than daddy & I was taught French in school. (Good for G, sad for daddy!) In the video, it started out where I was trying to teach her how to say “OK” and after a couple of attempts to get the pronunciation right, I just decided to go with the flow…here is the end result and Miss G’s interpretation of “OK”.

Stay tuned for our Rome blog with amazing pics!

Au revoir, mes amis!

It truly is a sad day. Now living in France, I went to sleep last night and woke up this “grand” French morning to learn of Steve Job’s passing. Today did not starting out so “grand”.

Today’s, or yesterday’s, news reminds me of a conversation Katherine and I had in the not-so-distant past. Recently, a leader of the Canadian NDP political party, Jack Layton, resigned abruptly. Sadly within a month, he lost his battle with cancer. When Steve Jobs resigned from Apple, it felt eerily the same, like déjà vu. I remember saying to Katherine that this sounds all too familiar of Jack Layton’s story. I prayed the outcome would be different despite knowing Mr. Jobs past battling his health issues.

When Steve Jobs resigned from Apple, a few things really started to hit home although one in particular really stuck out. You see, Katherine and I now have a beautiful, one & a half year old daughter. She is the light of our lives and we love her to death! We hope that she will always have both of us around her for the majority of her life and, as long as we can control that, we will be.

I guess what I’m really getting at is the fact that when you really think about it, money isn’t everything in the world. Steve Jobs was incredibly successful to the point money wasn’t an issue. Sure, it can buy a person a few more years however, in the end, money cannot buy health. So if you are fortunate enough to live a long & healthy life, you are already rich beyond your imagination! Good health is the wealthiest thing you can be blessed with.

To Mr. Steve Jobs – thank you for being the visionary you were. You changed our world as we know it and have inspired many others to “think differently”. You were one of a kind. And…in classic Steve Jobs’ fashion, “Oh, and one more thing…”

Au revoir, mes amis.

We have been meaning to write a post on this for quite some time now. Back in March, we configured our site to use Google Analytics and we have watched the site’s metrics/statistics very closely since then. Eight months later, we’re fascinated by the information we are seeing from the regular/first time visitors.

Almost 40% of visitors find us directly and read our site with some sort of regularity. Judging from the search engines: Google, Bing, and Facebook, about 47% of site visitors find us through these channels. However, more interesting that the actual numbers here are the specific “search” terms that lead people to our site. We can understand some of them and why our site gets listed in the result set but others, we never would have guessed!

For instance, the “Top 5″ search terms (in order) that bring people to our site are:

1. interdean shipping
2. the little nell wedding deck
3. bobandkatherine.com
4. cathy kaveka hotel
5. getting married on top of aspen mountain

Some other interesting searches that have lead visitors to our site include:

1. dinner on “a sandbar” honeymoon
2. living abroad wth a job transfer
3. countries where you can get hulu
4. french law apartment uninhabitable
5. get married on top of aspen mountain
6. tempe town lake and running
7. juice box with a monkey on it
8. where to find prostitutes in antibes ( <- our personal fav)

Another intriguing facet that leads visitors to our site is the locations from which they come. As of October 2011, we now see people have come from 197 cities comprised from 28 different countries! That is amazing! Most of our visitors are friends and family keeping up with us from our home countries of the United States & Canada. It also now looks like we have picked up quite the following from France! However, we now have new regular visitors from Brazil, Australia, Singapore, Netherlands, Ireland, Malta, Sweden, Taiwan, and so many more. As each month passes, we are starting to see more and more regular visitors and we welcome you all. We hope you enjoy what you read and that we can at least entertain you for a small portion of your day. Also remember…regardless of the reason you find our site, feel free to contact us if you have any questions regarding our experiences that you may benefit from should find yourself on a similar path.

Lastly, as of this weekend, we have made a new commitment to you all and that is…to write at least one blog per week. Feel free to hold us to it if we don’t hold up our end of the bargain.

To everyone that visits, whether you follow our adventure regularly or you are looking for information from our experiences, we say “Thank you”!

Au revoir, mes amis!