We've arrived in Paris!!

After 15 weeks of living out of a suitcase, we have finally moved into our fantastic new home in Paris. YAY!! This also means that we have been reunited with 40 boxes worth of our stuff!


Here's Catherine hard at work unpacking the boxes. Everything was wrapped carefully with paper, hence the huge piles of it! I'm obviously just overseeing the operation :)

Catherine has started her work at the Embassy and is now having to put into practice all the french language skills she's learned. Where I've just finished the first term of my course and have started my exciting part time job at St Michael's Church.

Paris is very cold right now with some days having a high of 2 degrees! Eek! So I haven't been as trigger happy on the old camera, as my poor fingers try to avoid exposure to daylight/blizzard like conditions. But here's one just for you :)


This is from the Metro (underground train) station near my work/our church. You can see the pretty cool imitation 'London Eye' they have here, which is nicely lit up.

Here are a couple pictures from our last few days at the language school in Avignon.


A group game (so we weren't the only silly looking ones!) we played on our last night at the language school, which was lots of fun.



This was taken on on a day trip we took in the Provence region, close to where the British TV series 'A Year in Provence' was filmed. A couple of hours drive from our language school.

Paul

Life in Avignon

We have now been in Avignon for almost a week and a half. Well technically our language facility is in a little village called Morieres-les-Avignon, which is about 20min East of Avignon.


This is our home for the rest of the month

A kiwi based over here has kindly lent us his spare car, which has made life here much simpler. I picked up the car a week ago after he picked me up from the airport. I would call myself a rather confident man at the wheel, with many years experience and different types of vehicles under my belt. But the 45 minute drive to Catherine, was certainly an interesting one. Driving in a foreign part of the world, with the signs in different languages, different road rules, and the obvious biggy was having to drive on the other side of the road (and car!). Lets say it was a rather humbling experience for me, feeling like a school boy sitting his learners licence!


Our smooth 4 wheels

In the weekend we visited one of most visited historical sites in France, which happens to be in Avignon, 'le Palais des Papes' (for you english speakers that means 'the Palace of the Popes'). It's really interesting to find out more about the history of the country we will be living in for 3 years.


A great view of the Palace from the other side of the river. The city is surrounded by an impresive fortress, which you can see in front of the Palace.


The entrance to the Palace


The Palace was built in the 14th Century, so it's almost 700 years old! It's called le Palais des Papes because the Popes of the Catholic church were based here in Avignon for about a 100 years instead of Rome.



The view from the top.

We've both had our first dose of the French flu, so we've being going slower than usual. But otherwise in good form.

On the Move

Yes, we are on the move!

Today is our last day in the beautiful Villefranche. We have enjoyed our 2 months of warm weather here, especially since we have come from NZ's winter and are now going into winter here in Europe. And it's consistently been warmer than both NZ and England. So it's always been a bit of a laugh (for me!) to turn up to my course, in London, and tell them that I was swimming yesterday! Yes, how naughty of me - but it's only fair, as they hassle my accent - so I think that makes it even. :)

Here are some pictures of the view from our lovely apartment we've been in. It's closer to the beach than our last one. So when I've been a man of leisure, I've just walked 10 minutes to the beach!



It's been a while since posting as we obviously have limited access to internet, but I've also been away quite a lot. Since the last post I've had two trips to London, one for 8 days and another for 3 days. All of which have been for my course, which I'm thoroughly enjoying and have made some great friends already. So poor Catherine is left behind each time I journey to London, however she has been enjoying her language training.

We went to Menton a couple of weekends ago, which is where Katherine Mansfield lived for a while and wrote a couple of her works. The public transport is fantastic, as we travelled all the way there on a bus (which takes about an hour along the coast towards Italy) and it only cost 2 Euro return, each! :)

So here are some pictures of Menton.




Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you where we are on the move to!! We are going to another language school in Avignon, which is about an hour north of Marseille. We will be there for 1 month, and then we move to Paris on the first weekend of December.

Keep in touch :)
Paul

Back home in France :)

We arrived back to our familiar surroundings of Villefranche on Saturday night, after 2 weeks away. Several days in Geneva, and then last week in Bern. We were in Bern because Catherine had a course (in English!) to complete for her work.

Here are some photos of Bern.


A very cool 'Zytgloggeturm' (clock tower) in the middle of Bern


The Cathedral of St Vincent (The Munster) in the 'Old Town' of Bern

On Friday afternoon we had a little trip to a near by (50 minutes by train) village called Solothurn.







Besides following Catherine from country to country, I have been on my own adventures, where every Monday, for the last 4 weeks, I have had to be in London for my course. So the pattern is that I will fly out, from wherever we are in Europe, to London on Sunday and arrive back on the Tuesday. I am becoming very familiar with the lovely (& everything is orange) Easy Jet! :)

I'm going to London again this Friday, as I have a full on week of lectures (Friday-Friday!). But I'm really looking forward to it, except for the fact that I'll be away from Catherine for so long! :(

Catherine has started back at the 'Institut de Francais' again, and will be here (Villefranche) for a month.

Till next time,
Paul

Geneva & a bit of History

We've had a couple of exciting days in Geneva. Well, more for me than for Catherine, as she's had to work :)


Geneva's famous fountain


A typical street in Geneva

It's been great timing as I'm currently studying church history within my course, and conveniently Geneva is home to some pretty amazing history. I explored a museum that was dedicated to the Reformation & John Calvin (an interesting & important time in church history, in the 16th century).



This church is called the "Auditore de Calvin", built in the 15th century. It was a lecture hall for students following the teachings of John Calvin. John Knox (the founder of the Presbyterian church) preached here when he was a refugee in Geneva (in the mid 16th century).



Behind me is Saint Pierre Cathedral, it was built between 1150-1250!! This the church that John Calvin preached at, during the Reformation (mid 16th century).



On the 4th October 2008 a young married couple decided to visit this sight :)



A beautiful sight :)

I'm off to London tomorrow for my course, and Catherine is off to Bern for work.

Paul

Happy Birthday to Me!

It's amazing how cut off from the world you feel when you have no internet. That's pretty much been the case for us as we've been moving around Europe, after finishing our language training last week.

Today is my birthday and I'm celebrating it in Geneva! Catherine is here for work, so I've come along for the ride. The only disappointing thing is that she has to work today. So I'm going to venture out of our hotel to see the sights. They have this really cool deal for tourists, where you get a pass to travel on the public transport free during your stay in Geneva. So you can guess who's going to be my tour guide!

It's nice to have a day off after a wee bit of travel. I counted up I've been in 5 different Airports in UK & Europe over the last 2 weeks! I was in Villefranche (South of France) last Friday, London in the weekend, Paris on Tues & Wed, and Geneva today :)

I started my studies in London 2 weeks ago, hence my travels to London. I'm off there again this Sunday for class on Monday.

Ok, I better go as I realise this is too many words & not enough pictures! So I'm heading out to try and take a few pics for you.

Paul :)

A few Medieval Villages

Things are going well for both of us here in Villefranche. Language training has been pretty full on, so we come home exhausted most days, but we are really enjoying it. I can't believe we've got less than 2 weeks to go with our course here.

We had fantastic weekend & Monday, as the school had a break from classes and took us on a sightseeing trip.



On Sunday we visited the beautiful village of Eze (a view from the top of the village)


Eze village on top of the hill (taken from our boat trip last week)
a narrow winding street within Eze village


a very cool fortress village called St Paul de Vence we visited on Monday with our School


another medieval village we visited on Monday, called Tourettes-sur-Loup


the happy tourists


moi, posing with errr yes, a violet ice cream!

Our little boat trip

Last night we went on a cruise with our language training school. We had a great boat ride from the port at which we are staying, Villefranche, around to the coast to Monaco. The journey took about an hour and on the way we went past Bono's sea side batch (a rather large pink house!) in Eze sur Mer.



Our beautiful little village on the sea side, Villefranche.




Monaco with its super flash boats.

Au revoir for now,
Paul

Photos

I have finally sorted out the technical problem with adding our photos - so here are some photos that I've been meaning to add :)


Our luxurious seats/beds in business class on the way from NZ.



Our first weekend in France, where we explored Paris. The Arc de Triomphe (near the NZ Embassy!) and a local market.



The magnificent view from our apartment in Villefranche, where we are based for the next 3 weeks.



Our language training school in Villefranche.

Bonjour from the South of France

Bonjour,

Firstly I apologise for lack of photos, as we are experiencing technical difficulties - so hope to post some soon!

We arrived safely in Villefranche on Sunday evening on the TGV (the fast train!!). Villefranche is about 15 minutes East of Nice, towards Monaco :) Villefranche is a very beautiful town situated on a very steep hill side - making Wellington look like the flat plains of the Waikato!

The climate is a bit of a shock to the system, with it averaging about 28 degrees, and roughly 16 degrees at night time!!

On Monday we started our language training, which we'll be doing for the next month. It's full time 8:30am-5pm each day (Mon-Fri). We had a good start to the course yesterday with a test to see how competent we are with the French language. Obviously Catherine is quite handy, and I am, well... it's polite to say, a beginner.

Today (Tuesday) we've just finished a first proper day of teaching - my head is about to explode!! One of the biggest challenges is that we are not allowed to speak english all day!!

Very limited internet access here - so I better fly.

Be in touch,
Paul

Bonjour

We arrived safely in Paris yesterday morning, after a long but comfortable flight (thanks to Singapore Airlines Business Class!).

We had a busy day yesterday meeting Catherine's work colleagues, setting up a French bank account (which was a bizarre experience having to do it all through our trusty translator), and looking at a potential apartment for us to live in (on our return to Paris in December).

Today it's a beautiful sunny day outside with it apparently reaching 28 degrees! Tomorrow we catch the train to the South of France to begin our language training.

Paul

Welcome!!

It's taken some time, but I've now officially kicked off our blog. It's basically going to be a place where Catherine & I can journal about our journey & life in France.

We hope to post/write something regularly, so do come back here to see what we are up to. The date at the top of each post will let you know when it was written.

If you would like to be in touch, feel free to leave a comment or send an email (my address is pbmcintosh@gmail.com).

The Update:
Catherine's work has kindly put us up in an apartment for 5 nights before we leave, as our house & belongings have all been packed up. So we are currently living out of our suitcases in the apartment.



Here are some photos of our little house in Tawa - after all our belongings had been packed up, and we had cleaned the place!


For those of you that don't know, we depart this Thursday for France. So only 2 more sleeps in NZ for us (for a while!).

I'm hoping my writing skills will improve as the weeks & months go by - which will hopefully make this blog a little more interesting. However I promise to post plenty of photos here to make up for it! :)

Be in touch,
Paul