Upside down Christmas tree and houses

That's a funny concept, the upside down Christmas tree... that one could put in one's upside down house... A few years ago I visited Yosemite National Park but had not yet heard of the Upside Down House that is on display at Mono Basin Historical Society, Lee Vining - out of Tioga Pass.

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And this is WonderWorks an amusement park, there are three locations in the US

So here's an upside down Christmas tree!

QWIKI

So QWIKI is out and I find that it presents its search results in a dynamic way that does catch your attention. If the search quality is good, it could be a nice way to learn things – I would definitely use it on the iPad when I want to do some reading on some subject. And maybe it would be interesting for kids doing their research for school projects. However I find it just a little slow and you can't research all subjects… Let’s keep a look on its features!

QWIKI’s co-founders are Doug Imbruce CEO and Louis Monier CTO. Louis Monier is of French origin and got his Ph.D. in Mathematics and Computer Science at Orsay University, Paris, France. He’s the founder of Altavista. Did you notice the little accent when he talks? I heard him on CNN today.

Monet Exhibit 2010

Monet exhibit 2010 opened at the Grand Palais, Paris, in September 2010... last chance to see the exhibit is tonight! Claude Monet (1840-1926) has painted for some 60 years. One can go on a virtual visit of his works on the website created on this occasion "Monet2010". These are two screen captures of the website... The site can be visited in English, Spanish etc.

NRJ Music Awards tonight

We are watching the NRJ Music awards and Shakira opened the ceremony with her hit Loca... Usher and Shakira have just both received an award for international artists... advertisement is nearly finished, I'll go take a tea and watch the rest of the show.

Breakfast at our house

One can say that the French have a sweet tooth when it comes to breakfast. My family is no different. Breakfast is generally toast and jam - my husband loves blueberry jam (myrtilles), I prefer a little more acidity like plum or rhubarb. My daughters are happy with brioche or pain au chocolat. We are all cereal fans, mostly Quaker oats with dry fruits... have a look at the jam we have in the fridge this week... "mirabelle" is a small sweet yellow plus.

65% fruits with the Mirabelle (Plum) jam... miam...

TV series NCIS

It's NCIS night at our house every Friday. All four of us love this American television series. Unfortunately in France we are one season behind and we'll have episode 22 / season 7 tonight. My favorite characters are Abby and McGee (who has so much slimmed down this season!!!). But they're all great anyway!

Crafts - Recycle Bread Tag Monsters by Amanda

There are amazing craft sites out there. I saw just on "Crafts by Amanda" website an easy project that makes use of bread clips - recycle bread tag monsters. Since we have the same bread clips in France too, let's go make them...

Flood in Brazil and Australia...

I wanted to have a special thought about Brazilian and Australian people facing devastating floods. Could it be because of global warming? I found this interesting video on ABC News explaining that an excess of moisture in the air is contributing to torrential flooding rain like for instance in Australia, Sri Lanka or Brazil or to heavy snow like in New York last December.

Here's a video from youtube showing people being rescued in rescue baskets.

La France Face aux Français - political TV show

Tonight my daughter's class will be on France 2 TV set to watch a political show called "Face aux Français". Two French politicians are the main guests - this time Valérie Pécresse and Arnaud Montebourg. Pécresse is Minister for Higher Education and Research, she's close to Sarkozy. Montebourg is a left wing lawyer, member of the Parti Socialiste and supported the candidacy of Segolène Royal when she ran for President.

"Hereafter" with Matt Damon and Cécile de France

How about some cinema this week? We’re looking forward to see "Hereafter" which is coming out this week in France "Au-delà" starring Matt Damon and Cécile de France. Cécile de France, a Belgian actress, played in “Around the World in 80 Days” where I found her fresh and funny. This week she was on French television to present "Hereafter" and she looked real nice. 

Looking for movies with Matt Damon?

Vacation planning

We are now trying to find out where we will go on vacation next summer. A couple of suggestions have been made Norway – which according to some members of our family is a great place for salmon - and also Thailand. One thing we’ll bear in mind though is that with all the uncertainties that we encounter today when we want to travel (volcano, strike, flood etc.), we would very much want to buy our plane tickets from regular airlines and make sure the dates of travel may be changed.

Two travel forum I personally like are TripAdvisor (the English forum) and Voyage Forum which is francophone.
 

There is yet some thinking to do: Where? When: even if no one is yet sure when their holidays will be but one thing is sure, in France we do have a lot of holidays! And we count on the sun of course!!!

 

What a sunny day it was!

After such a grey and gloomy week, Sunday was the perfect sunny day for a long walk in the park. Our two daughters came along with their roller skates. We had a great day, some good air...  we didn't even have to wear our coats!!!! From our apartment in the center of Vitry, it's a short drive to the recreation area at Choisy le Roi where one can take a long walk along the artificial pond along the bicycle path.

So here's a few photos... and down there you'll find a map.

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Mauritian cakes

Since I'm going through my photos, let me show some of the cakes that we enjoy eating while in Mauritius... my daughter brought some (well the less perishable ones) when she came back from  her holidays.

Mauritius being a multicultural country, we enjoy food from various communities - Chinese, Indian, European etc. And it's great to live in such a country.

We have the napolitaine which is a shortbread biscuit recipe, it's composed of two round shaped biscuits that are stuck together with some red jelly and coated with pink frosting. Well one of them suffered during the trip. She also managed to bring 3 mangoes and a little bag of litchis. I can't describe the delicious smell of the litchis when we opened the paper bag it was in. And it tasted real good too, nothing compared to those we buy at the supermarket!

And  here's some Indian sweets, we call it milk cakes ("gato di lait" in creole)

The moolkoo is a salty crisp made of chickpea flour (I guess). On the top right side of the picture you can see "gato zoreilles" - ear cake - which is in the form of an ear obviously and is sweet and salty at the same time.

From Paris to Mauritius, from snow to sun

As everyone has heard in the news, here in Paris we don't usually get snow during winter... we get maybe 1 or 2 centimeters during a couple of days, everything will go wild, people will fall, cars will skip and airports will close. But since last 2 years, snow is coming more than a 2 cm fall. On the 19^th of December my eldest daughter had to take her plane to Mauritius to visit the family. When we woke up, snow had fallen, the roads were not clear and my husband had to take us to the nearest RER train station in Paris instead of driving to the airport. Roads were slippery and we would not have been able to make it to the airport which is only a 45 minutes drive from our home south of Paris (Roissy being in the north of Paris).

Anyway I went to the airport with my daughter, waited and waited and listened to all the announcements of delayed and of cancelled flights. There were two flights for Mauritius and one was cancelled. Finally she went in and managed to take off at 11 PM instead of 4 PM. But she was real lucky. Our neighbor said she was due to leave from Roissy for a destination in Africa but since they had to land in Bruxelles first, well since the airport was closed, their flight was cancelled. I think that night maybe less than 5 flights could take off as all flights to Europe had been cancelled and most other countries involving a stop in Europe.

So here’s some photos of that morning, and one showing how it looked like in my parents’ neighborhood in Mauritius. Lucky girl had a temperature change of more than 30 degrees. She’s now suntanned and full of energy for the rest of winter.

Street Art in Vitry, some more photos

Today I have decided to share some more street art photos we took in our town, Vitry (France).

This house stands opposite our music school. It has truly beautiful colors. One can read the message written : "L'art est dans l'air, inspire", which means "Art is in the air, breathe". Next to this building is a small house with a toucan.

This is what the house looked like before - it's a copy from Google Maps

 

Galette des Rois, Epiphany

We love the Galette des Rois! Normally on the occasion of Epiphany people will share this delicious puff pastry filled with frangipane in which a bean or a porcelain figurine is hidden. 
Guess who popped out of our Galette des Rois this year!!!!! Yes Homer Simpson himself... In our boulangeries here in France, the Galette des Rois is sold as from early December till right in the middle of January.
Besides the traditional frangipane galette, one can also buy apple or pear and chocolate galettes and other varieties as well. We much prefer the frangipane one. 

Since I didn't take a photo of the Galette itself, here's a link to France Monthly magazine page for the Galette recipe. 

Our new toy iPad

Recently iPad has been adopted by the whole family and is never far from our breakfast table! My husband and I use it to check emails, catch up with the news make and launch internet searches. The girls will use it for games and TV, cinema programs and so on. A positive point also we find the battery to last for a long time without having to charge it, it’s also light and fast.

Funny thing is my eldest daughter attends a business school in Paris and the assignment she's currently working on is to help a young French business to evaluate the market for apps in Germany, the UK and Spain. So apps are everywhere in my house these days!!!!  

Violence in Paris Metro

Just end of December two violent attacks took place in Paris metro stations that caught public’s attention: an 80 year old lady brutalized by a 14 year old boy who stole her handbag and a 27 year old woman brutally bumped into by a man who had just robbed another woman which made her fall down the stairs head first - she died in hospital. These two aggressions took place last week of December during the day. It’s a pity that we must constantly be on our guard.

Sword of Truth

Right now I can't stop reading Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series. I reached volume ten which is "Le fantome du souvenir" in French or "Phantom" in its original version. Richard Rahl is expected to lead D'Haran army against these beasts from the Imperial Order. Richard Rahl also has to find his wife Kahlan who no one remembers at all. I'll have to wait for March to get the French version of book 11.

Here in France we saw the first season of Legend of the Seeker on television. Even though the TV show doesn't match story told by the books, it's a good show with lots of action, you don't get bored at all.
 

Click here for Terry Goodkind's page at Amazon
 

Street Art in Vitry, France

Walking around in the main streets of Vitry, I’m happy to admire street art exhibits by street artists from different countries such as C215, PixelPancho, and Joseph Loughborough, Ben Slow. All this set up by Vitry Jam – on their site one can see the artwork by different artists and there is a “shop page”. The paintings are very often drawn on mail boxes or walls. 

Vitry is a town that can be easily reached coming from Paris - it's a 15 minutes bus ride from the metro Porte de Choisy or two train stations away from Bibliothèque François Mitterrand by RER C line. We also have a contemporary art museum called the MACVAL (website in English available).

 

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