Merry Christmas!

The boys like the snow!

While the kids were in ski school, the oldies relaaaaaaaxed.

Louis on the magic carpet in ski school

 The snow is only an hour odd away, and we went up for a week for Christmas. The boys were in ski school every morning, and we just relaxed. It was a real holiday for everyone.
Santa came down on Christmas Eve on a stainless sled towed by a snow mobile. There were a load of skiers and kids holding lit flares leading him down the mountain.
They even had ice skating up there. After parking the car, we didn't touch it for a week.
Accommodation was in the middle of the village and close enough to the lifts. We were all in one room, which was big enough, and it even had a kitchen, nice for home cooked dinners.
The snow got a bit icy towards the end of the week. I planted it only twice, Marie a couple more.
This place was awesome!

And the afternoons were downhilling  on the luge.

Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat

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We work as a team to keep me and the turtle shiny.

Fun on the beach.

Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat is about 1/2 hours drive along the coast. As per normal, you would have no idea where one part of town starts and the other finishes. It's all one long band of buildings, apartments and a few houses. It's a tiny peninsula, one of the nicest in the region.

I got these, could you?

I could get used to living in this house.

Jumping the chain.

Me and my bro.

This is my square!

On the dodgems

Going through some old photos etc and found this gem.

My work

Where all the magic happens. My desk is after the trophy.

The building is a really modern one, with multi coloured steel grills in odd places over the windows. They don't serve any function except to brighten it up a bit. Recently we had guards in to make sure everyone parked within the lines in the right places. All the doors are now locked down with electromagnetic catches, so everyone has to walk the long way round to get in or out. They had a survey to find out how they can become a "cool site". There's a long way to go before that.

Joel, Laurent and Christian cracking another case.

Our place

The boys go flower picking on the balcony

Our spare room welcomes you with 200 open arms.

Sadly here in the Mexico city part, the car is king.

If you aim the camera up a bit you miss all the cars.

I borrowed a good camera from work. So here's a couple of more shots of our place. We fantasise about living in town, where all of the really good stuff happens, but it's not too bad out here either. The beach, with stones, is close. School is a k away. There's a nice path along the water and a few shops are close enough to walk for the daily things like bread or veggies.

The power of dumb

This weekend was two days, and I did two dumb things.

Don't worry, she'll be right!

Trick no. 1, went to the supermarket with the boys, on scooters and me on a bike. That's hard to herd them, and get things into the basket you know. At the f & v section, I looked for the weighing scales, and didn't see them. At the checkout, flustered, I asked it was ok, as it's queue was almost non existant, and I thought it must be just for small purchases. She scanned a couple of things, then got to the veggies, saying vous devez les peser! I said what? She says peser! And works out I'm a foreigner, says something like oh shit, and au secours, summoning some guy to show the guy who's not French how it's done. I asked if it's ok to leave my other groceries there, and yep that's ok. So we go over, with the boys plus scooters, and weigh all the different veggis to get the magic barcodes that are supposed to speed things up. Arriving back, there's a queue of 5 or 6 people all rubber necking to see who's the culprit, and the check out chick is just looking out the window. I realise now that no she can't cancel the sale halfway through. I sort of said sorry, and just got on with stuffing the now scanned items into my bike bags. Ignoring all the customers who must suffer is very French. For future note, the Geant Casino of Cros de Cagnes has the weighing machine hidden behind one of the columns.

Wine for lunch ruining my brain. Maybe it's age.

Trick no. 2 this afternoon, we were going out, and I'm flustered as normal, grabbing the car key, the blue bag with wallet and everthing else. Marie calls out, have you got house keys? I say yeah! Car key? Yeah! Then, oh wait! And a second later the door closes quite gently, so that I hope it didn't shut. My blue bag in fact does not have the house keys. I say, but you have yours don't you Marie? Uh no, that's why I asked if you had yours. Every time I go out, I usually double check this, as getting locked out is one of my worst fears. Then it sinks in. Why is France so hard? The front door key is the only crucial one, and can't be duplicated. It's Sunday, so getting the Real Estate to help is impossible. I ring next door's doorbell to see if I can climb across from their place. It wouldn't be the first 3-stories-up clamber for me. The bathroom door wouldn't open once, and luckily it's window is right next to the kitchen balcony. But the neighbours aren't home, so no spiderman solution.

Nice palace in Nice.

We head off for a drive and a walk, which lets us get over it. Who's place could we crash at? Marie suggests a hotel. The boys probably won't smell too much in their same clothes tomorrow. I'll take the morning off work. They'll probably smash the lock who knows when, and we'll just pay a big bill.

Meanwhile, our friends, who run an accommodation business, tell us about their locksmith and their experiences. They tell us they'll look to see if they have something to help, and will call back. They did! She dropped it off at our place. We got stuck in the traffic, while Ollie complained about being hungry the whole way home. The night's not looking good!

For ten minutes Marie tries, then I try, then Marie tries. Ollie says, you have the keys don't you? We have one more go after I remember that pulling the door back helps the striker thing budge... and it opens like magic. Lordy, it's just the best feeling in the world to realise you'll be sleeping in your own bed, dinner's 15 now only minutes away on the gas, and the boys won't be smelling as badly tomorrow.

Lyon

The museum of miniatures. They make sets for films.

When in Lyon... it's not the paddle pop lion

We spend a week in Lyon during the school holidays. It's my idea of real France, with the nice old buildings packed in between two rivers, public squares and good public transport. Day one, we scootered to the local very big park, and checked out the animals kept there. There's a great path along the river with a kids park, with enclosed pipe slippery slide that the boys just loved.

The old town in the centre - nice.

Louis' foot by Louis.

The Traboules, little alleys through buildings, were interesting. There's an old Roman amphitheatre. Tried a famous Andouillette, make from stomach and other odds, delicious for the first half, then the peculiar smell becomes overpowering. Got abused on the train for failing to make it on. I was trying to follow Marie and the kids, and got stuck in the doors. It took me about 1/2 an hour to agree with Marie, that yes he was making fun of me, then 2 more days to think of the perfect comeback.

Cinque Terre

Say cheese! Riet, Marie and the boys.

 When Riet visited, we all went to Cinque Terre, about 3 hours away on the coast. It's 5 towns on the water, at the base of a very steep hill. So they're pretty isolated. It is a National Park, very pretty.

This would be a good ad for gelato eh?

Normally the tourists walk between the towns (about 10kms to do them all). But after the rains, someone almost got killed by falling rocks. So the trail is mostly closed.

Portovenere

We jumped on a boat to got between them.



On the last day, we tried to push through by car. After a couple of hours of wiggling along clifftops, dirt road and half washed out roads, we got too scared and left.

Riomaggiore. Our bathroom arched over the alleyway.

Riet comes to visit

Bonson is about 1/2 an hour's drive.

Riet came to visit late October for about 10 days. The boys are going to miss her, as she payed them some attention, instead of the usual parents raving at them.

Bonson. The road is there to share: cafe in a parking spot.

Bonson: where you can work on your car.

She took it easy, getting over the jetlag, and taking some easy walks to the local village (well and truly wedged in surrounded by France's not so famous Beirut/Mexico city style appartment blocks. They don't make it into everyone's photos.)

She visited us in yankee land too.

Marie

The way to Marie can be tricky.

"I seen a few things a woman ain't sposed to see. I've been to paradise, but I've never been to me."
That is until today. Marie, at least, has been to Marie.

Marie is beautiful, pedestrianised, and surrounded by mountains.

Marie is about 45 minutes away. The way to Marie is very windy and one lane in places, but worth the effort (according to Marie). When we visited, they were having the celebration of Marie. I asked if we could pay up to join in, but the main man said don't worry, just help yourself. But Marie didn't feel comfortable freeloading, so we ended up leaving Marie hungry.

The band celebrating Marie

I suggested coming back for a weekend trip, as Marie is beautiful, but Marie didn't think the kids would enjoy staying for a whole whole weekend, even if there's lots of places you can walk all over Marie. Sadly, I don't think we'll visit Marie for a bit, until we get our next lot of visitors.



Lunch was down the street from Marie, and Marie was happier after a good feed, and a wine.

Jelena Danilo and Anna Maria

Ollie's gotten confident in the water.

On the rocks near our place.

Cagnes Sur Mer old town.

Marie's cousin Jelena came to stay, with her husband Danilo and one of their daughters Anna Maria. The boys love her, and everyone had a good time. After about 3 days, we could say a couple of words of Italian.

A couple more shots

Genoa. Probably good if you're loaded.

 They say less is more. Oh well, not on this blog. Here's a few snaps I forgot to throw in.

Typical town on Croatian coast.

On the coast

Ollie after the wind changed

Roadsign, Bosnia.

The way back home

River Krk National Park - a nice stop

Visovac monastery, or the Island of the Gentle Giant.

 Saw some more countryside. Got stopped by the cops for not having parkers on. That's a fine, but the smiling cop let us go. 

Zadar.

The jetty out the front of Teta Beba.

On the boat, giving Tiho a lesson in arm wrestling.

Stopped for lunch at a weird ski resort with Croatian flags everywhere, but we're still in Bosnia.

Crossed the border and stayed at Knin. Knin has fame as the capital of Serbian Krajina in Croatia. It's army got crushed by Croatia, with the unofficial help of the US, and official help of NATO, and ethnically cleansed in the process. Knin is an important junction in the country, and has important rail hub, and a little citadel. I was interested to have a look, but got outvoted by all, so we headed down to River Krk National Park for a swim and a bushwalk, a better choice. We've got a book called the Gentle Giant, which the boys love. The monastery on the island, Visovac, looks just like in the book. So we took a boat over to take a look, which the boys liked.

The historical city of Vicenza.

We got a call from Tiho. They were staying in Zadar, so we drove up, and stayed with Teta Beba. She's got every kind of flavoured brandy there is, and we tasted pear, cherry, and walnut, (not together) nice! She kindly put us in one of her rooms there. You can walk to a cafe, a couple of little shops, and it's 2m to jump in the sea. The boys hair started to go blonde.

Vicenza was next. Another pedestrianised, bike riddled tourist town that I'd kill to live in. Damn all these Italian towns banning cars, so jealous.

Finally we stopped in Genoa for the day. It's got a Cahill Expressway right along the whole length of it's waterway, heaps of parking, and we both didn't want to stay. It just felt dodgy. Nice old buildings, crazy skinny alleyways everywhere, a lovely central grand piazza.

Nice to be home again.