Update coming soon

We promise.

Times have been crazy lately and we haven't had the motivation to write.

We will be providing a large update very shortly. We HAVE added photos though, check the flickr link on the right side of the page.

Apes 'n Ju

I finished it!

When April and I needed something to take up our time, we bought a puzzle at Carrefour. We decided upon a difficult-looking 1000-piece puzzle where the pieces were either blue, white, or green (for the most part).

April and I worked on it together the first night. And if you know anything about puzzles, you know that you always start with the border and work your way in, so that is what we did (easy peasy).

After the border was complete, April's frustration grew and grew and she decided to quit and read a book instead. So on I ventured to complete this mind-boggling difficult puzzle.

As the days passed, the puzzle slowly began to take shape, after many hours of concentration. One day when Katie came by, she wanted to work on the puzzle too, but was baffled by why we had bought a such a challenging one - "Why did you buy one whose colours are all the same?!". "We wanted a challenge." I replied.

More days passed and many mornings and late nights were spent, many headaches and frustrations were had, but the puzzle was complete. It is now sitting under this computer as I type, as a tabletop for all to see. I will take a photo one day. For now, you can just looking at the uncompleted version in the previous post.

Rain, Rain, Go Away......

So it's raining here AGAIN! I don't think they've ever experienced weather like they have since we got here. It's been rainy and cold and just plain gross. In fact, the town next to us (Antibes) with all the boats and stuff (see picture album of Antibes on flickr) got 15 cm of snow on Tuesday. THIS IS PRACTICALLY UNHEARD OF! No one had snow shovels to get rid of it and tonnes of boats were damaged. It was kinda funny cause we were on our way to Cannes (on the other side of Antibes from us in Nice) by train and we pulled up to the train station and Julie was like "Hey, Snow!" totally joking and thinking that it was just the rock-type dust stuff that we saw in Paris; but nope, the second you hit the train station it was 15 cm of snow. Then we got to the other side of Antibes and into Cannes and it was gone again, almost like it never happened.



So needless to say, because we are too cheap to buy an umbrella, we've been spending a lot of time indoors. Julie is attempting the most annoying 1000 piece puzzle of a beach, and I'm reading Merde Happens. If I knew how to knit, I would be at this point. Then maybe I could sell the finished products and make some money. That being said....

We still don't have jobs, but not because of a lack of trying. We've searched and posted and bothered lots of people, but because the economy is garbage, travelers that would normally be moving on and freeing up jobs, are staying put, and 3 million other people are competing for jobs on angloinfo- just about the only website that advertises for English speaking jobs in the area. We've even offered to babysit people's dogs, but every time we think we're going to have a visitor we get an email saying that they've decided to leave the dog for free with friends. So ya, still unemployed. If you happen to know of anyone in the area that could hook us up with jobs, please drop us a line!

And there you have it. An update about the lives of Apes n' Ju for the last week! So interesting I know!

Ca Ca Ca'Mea!

A friend of ours (working as a chef on a yacht here in Nice) named Justin, told us about this crazy restaurant north of San Remo, Italy that serves you a crazy amount of food, it's an old barn, etc.... he said everyone around here knows it as the fungi restaurant. We thought, okay this might be cool, so we googled fungi restaurant, mushroom restaurant, San Remo restaurants, and no luck! Finally after a few weeks of searching, we finally found it!! YAY us!


Reservations booked for 8pm we headed to San Remo to do some looking around. By 6pm, we were done looking and wondering what to do next. A drive up and up and up the mountain finally landed us at Ca'Mea, an old oil mill now operating as a restaurant- it was only 6:30m. So we got out, took some pictures, and thanks to Seabass' great Italian, got our reservations bumped up to 7pm.

There is no menu at all, you just kinda sit down and then they stuff your face for the next three hours. Already located at the table is a basket of bread, along with bread sticks (the little ones in the bags), a pitcher of sparkling water, and a bottle of their house wine. This is essentially bottomless depending how much bread and how much water/wine you'd like.

Then they start bringing the food.. This restaurant is known as the mushroom restaurant, so practically every dish has mushrooms (did I mention Julie doesn't like mushrooms?? She went for the ambiance rather than the food). The menu of the evening was as follows:

1. Steak tartar - essentially raw ground beef covered in olive oil, garlic, and basil (I tried a bit of it, but Julie chickened out). It didn't taste like much if you had a lot of bread with it.

2. A pile of cheese that they kind of just threw on your plate - it looked like cottage cheese but tasted like potato salad minus the potatoes. Julie tried it, but SURPRISE, she hated it. (Julie: "The taste lingered forever so I had to drink a whole glass of wine to cover it up - blegh!")

3. Mushroom omelette - no description necessary - Julie tried it, I ended up eating it for her

4. Cheese quiche - AMAZING! It was like mac and cheese without the noodles. Julie ATE it.

5. Scalloped potatoes covered in mushrooms - pretty decent - Julie ate the potatoes, I ate her mushrooms. Are we seeing a pattern here?

6. Then there was this crazy thing... raw vegetables (beets, tomatoes, celery, fennel, carrots, red peppers) and an anchovy-based mushroomy olive oil dip. The idea was to take the vegetable, dip it in the sauce, and then take a piece of bread under the veggie in case you spill! Pretty much a fondue, since it had a little candle underneath it to keep it toasty.

7. Next came a mushroom pasta dish - a mushroom cream sauce on tagliatella noodles. Nothing special.

8. With the pasta, some mushroom risotto, which was yummy! Again Julie actually ate this one.

This is where we took a good 20 minute break to let our stomachs settle. We had also gone through a bottle of wine, two pitchers of sparkling water, and a basket and a bit of bread. WHOA!

9. The main dish was to come next - we had a choice of 4 dishes (leg of lamb, lamb chops, breaded and fried mushrooms, and a t-bone steak). Since there were four of us, we got one of each and shared. SO MUCH FOOD! The leg of lamb was an actual entire leg of a lamb, the t-bone was 1kg (2.2 pounds), there were like 20 fried mushrooms (HUGE ONES), and 4 little lamb chops. Needless to say, we couldn't finish it all. The lamb chops tasted like dirty pork chops (blegh), the leg of lamb tasted like roast beef, the fried mushrooms were salty and yummy (not for Ju), and the t-bone was amazing (even though it was quite pink/red) - Julie ate a good portion of the steak! YEA YEA!

10. DESSERT!!!!! Tiramisu that came in a huge pot (resembled a toilet bowl, so they brought us a roll of toilet paper with it - funny!), and then berries with amazingly rich and creamy ice cream - so gooooood!

11. Don't forget, since we were in Italy, we got lemoncello and an Italian grappa - very strong indeed! They are designed to help digest your food and prevent flatulence (didn't so much work in that sense or so Julie, Seabass and Katie tell me hahaha! I was the only one without stomach issues at the end of this meal.) Anyways, they were both VERY strong and the old Italian ladies sitting next to us laughed every time I took a sip because of the faces I made, but when in Italy....

12. After our delightful desserts, we were served espresso to wake us up for the long drive home.

It was a flat price of 40 euros for the experience, and we were there for a good 3 hours. The restaurant was packed and it was splendid time!

Definitely a restaurant to go to! Even if you don't like Mushrooms, you'll enjoy the ambiance (or so the French would say)!

Shame on us

Big shame on us for not posting more.

We thought it best not to bore anyone with our lives hahaha.

But I guess there is lots to say.

Next post.

Pub Quiz

So if you do not know about the pub quiz, I shall explain. Every Thursday night since we got here (including the day we arrived), Julie, Katie, and I go to Ma Nolan's (an Irish pub in the port) to participate in the weekly pub quiz. Teams are comprised of four people (we call ourselves Canada plus un - the 'un' being the 4th person who decides to show up with us - often Katie's boyfriend). This week, however, there were five of us, so we made 2 teams at the suggestion of the server.

There are five different rounds, each comprising 10 questions:

1. The Picture Round - name the picture essentially (this week it was animal skeletons and you had to name the animal)
2. Current events and History - where watching the news helps
3. The Music Round - name the song title and artist of the 20 second intros they play
4. Science, Nature, and Geography - thank you CBC news
5. Sports and Arts - I don't know how they go together, but they do

Over the past 6 weeks, we've been all over the board - 11th, 13th, 7th, and once we tied for 1st and ended up in 3rd. This week we were out to beat the Frenchies. There was something we learned quickly about the Frenchies that play - they cheat - they bring in little atlases, they use their phones, etc. So we brought the iphone in to help us a bit - and help us it did.

We won this week... but not just first place... we also won second place, since we made two teams, and obviously wrote practically the same answers down.

First prize - a 100 euro bar tab to be used on food & drink (free dinner and drinks at next week's quiz)
Second prize - a 50 euro bar tab (to be used on see above)

The win was bittersweet - ya it was great to beat the Frenchies at their own game.. but we felt bad because we cheated. We promised ourselves that we would never cheat again and prove to them once again that we CAN be the best.

Until next week....

I miss meeks so much

Do you see why?

Still bored.

Had a nap. Still bored.

HAHAHA Suckers! Look at the snow in London.

And this is what it looks like TODAY in Nice!

Bored

We're bored.

We're stuck in the apartment again, while work gets done. Monday is was the broken door frame, which might have to be done again because the landlady doesn't like the trim. Today it's the water-damaged ceiling. What was suppose to be a "few hours" this morning and again this afternoon is turning out to be all day. The TV sucks, as Julie previously mentioned. We're caught up on all our shows on surfthechannel.com. We've applied for all the jobs advertised online. We've checked and rechecked our e-mail and facebook about 100 times each, and now we're bored.

Here's a picture to entertain you.

Static Cling at it's finest!

Now what to do to entertain ourselves?

French TV

You know, I wouldn't mind watching some shows on French television, but it seems that they are either English shows that have been dubbed (so they are just not the same) - i.e. "Free ends", known in the not-so-French accent to us as Friends - or just really awful shows to watch. So don't blame me if I haven't been too submersed in the French television scene.

What do we watch if we're bored? Well, we watch a lot of MTV and other music channels. This is mainly for two reasons:

1. MTV dubs its shows in French, but they don't mute the English in the background. Therefore if both April and I are watching it, I can listen to the French and April can listen to the English so we both know what's going on. And if you know MTV shows at all, it's very interesting to see how they translate "That girl ain't gon' hit it wit' my man!" or "It's MY sweet sixteen, so everything is my way and I want a Range Rover with a rare white unicorn in the back", etc. etc.
   
   
2. The music channels are mainly English songs, so we can try to keep up to date as to what type of music people are listening to over here (and hopefully in Canada too).

Right now, I am watching a show called "Chopé par les keufs" (Busted By the Cops)- there's a 21-year old guy getting arrested for peeing in public. Oh MTV, you rot my brain.

Monaco, the movie

Here is a short video that sums up our second trip to Monaco:

Couldn't visit in Canada, but when in Europe...

So a lovely friend of mine came to visit on Friday and Saturday, and it was superb (even though she was here for such a short time).

Tina Cinicolo, a friend who I haven't seen in a couple of years, and who was on the track team with me at Western (1st and 2nd years), was shadowing her chiropractor sister in Torino, Italy for three weeks. With Torino being only about 4 hours away, I thought what a great idea for T to come and visit me in France since everytime we've tried to hang out before, it has ended in shambles.

Unfortunately, there was a French train strike the day Tina was coming in from Italia.... which meant she was stuck in a small town called Ventimiglia at the French/Italian border. Luckily for her, there was a giant market there for her to occupy her during her 4 hour delay - clearly she benefitted since she bought a beautiful coat, pashmina, and a bag that seemed like a good idea at the time (turns out it wasn't).

Anyway, she finally made it to Nice around 5pm, so we had about 18 hours to hang out before she caught her train back to Italy - so short, but you make due with what you have. We had dinner at a cute little restaurant in the Flower Market - we got tiny chickens! Followed by a relaxing visit to a tea room where we sitting on cushions on the floor. Yum!

Up early the next day so to maximize our time, Apes and I took Tina up the castle hill so she could see Nice to its fullest. By the time we were done and got ourselves some much needed coffee, it was time for Tina to go back to her motherland - right on time too (by now the train strike was over, obvs).

It was great to see her, and hopefully we'll be reunited once again!

♪ Reunited and it feels so good ♪

Christmas trees, in France?

So on Wednesday once we returned from the north of France, we had a mission to get a Christmas tree. April's mother, Nancy, said it would be a shame if we did not have a tree. Knowing that we are tight on cash and that a Christmas tree wasn't so much in our budget, she told us that she would fund the effort. Thank you Nance!

So off we went to find a tree, and of course, all the accoutrements for a minimal price. We were in luck and soon we were home listening to fine music, and of course enjoying all the French have to offer - breads, cheeses, and wine (but keep in mind, not too much). Please enjoy, via video, the loveliness that is our tree:

It IS beginning to look a lot like Christmas at Apes' 'n Ju's place

We added many photos from our evening, if you take a look at the Flickr page (linked in the top right). Chances are, we upload photos faster than we write blog postings, so keep an eye up there if notice a change. In addition, comments are appreciated as much as possible - either on the blog postings, or on the photos themselves (through Flickr). If you do not have an account, just say you are posting under "anonymous" and then leave your name at the bottom so we know who it is (unless the whole point is that you don't want us to know). Keep in touch!

My Thoughts on Vimy Ridge

Apparently I don't post enough blog entries, so here are my thoughts on the Vimy Ridge adventure.

• Arras - COLD

• Taxis in Arras = Tourist rip off (30 Euros each way to go 10 minutes out of town, and this is the ONLY way to get there unless you want to walk the highway)

• Battlegrounds - LOTS and LOTS of gigantic crater shaped holes still in the ground. Totally wasn't expecting this, but they just left it the way it was and planted all sorts of tree amongst the now "natural" landscape.
  

Landscape at Vimy

• Explosives- a lot of the grounds are roped off because of undetonated explosives. Kinda scary.

• Vimy monument - gorgeous. Amazing view (even though it was cloudy and drizzling). Way too many names on it (it's kinda like the city of lost boys), makes you wonder where they ended up or if some of them were still alive after the war.
  

Vimy Monument

• Canadian Cemetery Number 2- not a lot of Canadians here, more British Soldiers. SOOO many of them don't have names, and those that do were our ages or younger. Took some really neat pictures of the headstones (although Ryan didn't like that I was walking on their graves).

Gravestone

• Overall feelings about the trip: Great experience, Nice to be "home" for a bit, Too cold in the North, Overnight trains are hopefully never happening again.

For more pictures click on the picture at the right of the screen (Album is titled November 11- Vimy Ridge & Arras)

Celebrating our heroes

April and I are off to the north of France to visit the memorial site at Vimy Ridge to celebrate Remembrance Day. We will come back hopefully enlightened and touched by what we will witness and share our experience with you all. We are taking the overnight train tonight, spend the day there tomorrow, and return on the overnight train Tuesday night.

As for now, we are off. Happy Remembrance Day to you all!

Mas photos

We added more photographs from our trip to Antibes, as well as photos of our dinner party (the setup was glorious), and some delightful shots of the pretty day we had today.

Click on the right to enjoy them - I know you do!

Here's a sample:

Part of the port in Antibes - when I say 'part', I actually mean like this is 1/100th of the boats

Let it rain..... but only when Apes 'n Ju are outside

So we thought we'd play it safe and just hang out at the apartment today, before our interviews at the pub tonight at 6:30. Stupid us. We hung out inside looking online to see what the most economical way to get to Vimy Ridge would be - turns out it would be by overnight trains. More on that at a later date.

So the weather was pretty nice all day - sunny, and although not overly warm, still nice. We, however, did not go outside. Research had to be done. It was kind of like trying to study for an exam in April when the weather is finally nice after months of snow, but you can't go enjoy it because you had to study. Well... only kind of like that, because it wasn't mandatory that we stay in.

Anyway........ to get to my point: when we finally left the apartment at 6pm, the rain started to come down (clearly after we had straightened our hair). UGH! Fortunately enough, I had a lovely pashmina to protect me. Hooray!

The interview was quick and painless. The job doesn't pay well... and they say we need a bicycle to work there if we want to get home late at night (since the tram only runs until 1:53am), and no one wants to walk past the train station late at night (AGREED). We figure we would buy bicycles off of the waitresses that were leaving. Who knows? He will call us tomorrow and let us know if we're hired. WEIRD!

The weather is supposed to be nice all weekend - so I am very very excited. We were thinking of going to Antibes or Cannes, just to check out what the big deal is and all (we've heard so many things). That just means that we'll have more photos to put up. We're limited to 100MB of photo uploads a month, unless I pay.... so I was thinking of getting a yearly subscription to do so... then there won't be so many people begging for more photos. I think this is a good idea.

Anywho, toodle-loo until the next time. Miss you all!

P.s. April has a fancy/shmancy interview on Monday in Monaco (again). It's for a secretary position for some big company (woo for her... *rolls eyes*). I like dirty bar jobs, okay?

Job prospect #1

So this Irish pub called McMahon's is hiring TWO people. April and I handed in our CVs without knowing this and we got a call a few hours later. Instead of calling back, we were moseying past the pub so we stopped in to talk to the monsieur. Turns out, he just needed a photocopy of our visas to prove that we were legal and he said he would call us tomorrow to set up a meeting with the manager. Strange enough, he asked what our zodiac signs were.... not important information, but funny nonetheless!

It's been raining here non-stop for a week (well, it stopped for a few hours on Sunday). There is rain predicted in the forecast for tomorrow... and Thursday.. hey and even Friday. We're surviving though - even if the bottom of our pants are constantly soakin'!

Depending on how this job situation goes, April, Ryan, and myself may be headed off to Normandy or Arras for Remembrance Day. What better way to remember than by being where it all happened to begin with? It would be an amazing trip indeed!

Time for sleep... or to watch election coverage - it's on every station here. But instead of it being non-biased, the European channels are all about Obama, and some even have his posters up in the background. Party!

Power outage - shocking!

Woke up this morning to no power. Luckily I pulled a Beth and lit the gas stove with a lighter (thanks mom)! I did, however, singe some hair off of my hand. Vive la France! We cooked eggs and boiled some water to make some sweet coffee with our amazing coffee press that we got on SALE!!

So all in all, the moral of this post is: don't be jealous of our gas stove.

Gas, it's in you to give

C'est pas classique!

So, every year for the past four years, the city of Nice puts on a weekend full of free concerts - free CLASSICAL concerts. These contain pieces from the opera, as well as the symphony. On Saturday afternoon, we attended one of these concerts with Katie and Seabass, and lucky for me - I made a movie of it!! YAY! Please enjoy the sights and sounds of the Nice Philharmonic Symphony! Sorry that I filmed kinda crooked for a bit:

♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫

I thought Chicago was the windy city

It was a beautiful day today, just a little windy, but we thought we'd enjoy it by heading down to the Promenade des Anglais - a long touristy path along the beach. I took this video - April didn't want to be in it though, so you won't see her. Sorry that my face looks so hideous in the freeze frame of the video below - but enjoy anyway!

My face - sorry; The view - not sorry

Who are you?

Hey Everyone,

We're just wondering who's stopping by to check out our blog. So if you would be so kind as to post a comment under this feed and let us know that you're reading it. In addition, if there's anything you want us to expand on, or post more of, do tell!! Your feedback is kindly appreciated! :)

Apes 'n Ju

And they say France has the highest number of accidents..... I wonder why?

So April and I have been wondering how long it would be before we saw a car accident here, since they all drive like CRAZY!!! Anyways, it finally happened, and it happened loudly and clearly outside of our building at 9am today. April describes the noise: "It sounded like a giant piece of metal falling from the sky and smashing into a million pieces on the ground." Case in point - LOUD.

Turns out there was a baby in the backseat of one of the vehicles that started crying (obviously), but the mom jumped out the car and grabbed the babe. Thankfully no one was hurt badly. The ambulance DID indeed come and take one of the drivers away, but I am sure they were okay - probably just shocked from it all.

Also, I didn't realize how rude drivers are here - trying to drive around the accident in every single way possible. Swerving around every which way, even cutting off the ambulance, just so that they can get where they need to go. For how relaxed they are about everything in this city, they are always stressed and rushed when driving. No wonder France's drivers are the worst in Europe!

Vive la France!

Hey we've got some time to waste, let's go to Monaco!

Today, April had a job interview for an au pair position in Monaco. Not wanting her to go to Monaco by herself, Katie and I went with her. While April was at her interview, I had no choice but to waste my time by wandering outside of the famous Monte Carlo casino. This was the perfect opportunity for my first video:

I know it wasn't too too exciting, but it proves that I was actually there. There was also a carnival/midway that was going on down by the port. Katie's boyfriend, Seabass, met up with us after April's interview and we all stopped and got baguette sandwiches for lunch and some churros for dessert from the carnival. It was exciting times.

The weather has been rainy the last couple of days - and it looks like it's going to stay that way for quite some time. But alas, it's better than what they're getting in London! Boo snow!

Productivity in France, does it exist?

I seriously don't know how anything gets done in this city. If you wish to do anything, you must make sure that there are no more than TWO ITEMS on your list per day, and that you have thoroughly researched EVERYTHING that is required before attempting the task. Then, when French office number one says "No, we can't do that without a water bill in your name", you must ignore them and head to office location number two. This process takes up most of the morning and/or afternoon (depending on when you choose to complete said task), which is why your 'to do' list must not have more than two items per day. If you even attempt to get more done, you will drive yourself MENTAL.

This, is our day in a nutshell. Our task? Getting a BUS PASS. That's right, just a card that allows us to ride the bus and tram without having to purchase a ticket each time. And we thought opening a bank account was going to be hard.

Our Pretty Little Bus Pass

Sometimes easy going & relaxed = difficult and HUGE pain in the butt.

Photos!!

So for those of you who don't have facebook, or prefer to see all the photos that we've taken thus far, we have added a slideshow to the right hand navigation of our blog. Just click on the photo and it will take you to our Photostream where you can browse our photos to see what we've been up to :)

Cheers!

The Great Apartment Hunt

Sunday we woke up bright and early to actually make breakfast and our appointment at noon. Due to the festivities the night before, our Aussie friend Bethany didn't quite make the 10:00am train to Aix-en-Provence that she was dead set on catching; so it was nice to have one last breakfast and refuse to eat Veggie Mite with her. After some tearful goodbyes (not really, in the backpacking world, it's more like see you in another country), we catch the tram to take a look at the apartment. With only one wrong turn we manage to find it, but being that this apartment wasn't in an area that we originally desired, we were both a little skeptical and set on being critical. We came, we saw, and we told the landlord that we'd call her the next day after we viewed the other apartment. The rest of Sunday was very uneventful, as most things are closed in the city....are we seeing a pattern here yet?

Monday rolls around and surprise, the markets aren't the only things that are closed. Again, for some reason, people don't like to work on Monday either. I think we have it completely wrong in North America. Here, we take 2+ hour lunch breaks and don't work Saturday, Sunday or Monday. How anything gets done is beyond me. So, we head into town to register with the Canadian Consulate (which is only open from 9-12, apparently they too have adopted the French way). Little did we know that this lady would be absolutely no help. Like the Government offices at home, she directs us to a website and tries to get us out of the office as quickly as possible. We do however manage to ask her about the area of town where our possible apartment is located, and are thrilled to find out that it is a safe, up and coming neighbourhood. From here we're off to the beach for a lunch of baguette, green pepper and grapes (healthy I know). Seeing as though we arrived at the beach a little before lunch, we were shocked to hear a massive gun shot go off and the birds take off just minutes after our arrival. It took us about two seconds to realize that this is what they do to alert the town that it's lunch, and that it wasn't actually a gun, but rather a cannon...go figure! Being that it was such a nice day, we spend our lunch hours sleeping under the warm sun on the rocky beach. Upon waking up, we both decided that the apartment we viewed was in fact bigger, cheaper and nicer than anything else we've read or heard about, so we decided to call the lady and tell her we'll take it. And this Ladies and Gentlemen is the part of the story where things head south. Upon telling her this she proceeds to tell us the GIGANTIC list of things she would like from us before our 6:30 pm meeting. Where to start we don't know, but we head to an insurance company to find out about renters insurance and then back to the hostel to figure everything else out. As we do this however, we get another call from the lady telling us that she herself tried to arrange insurance in case we didn't pay and was told that she was taking a massive risk by renting to us, and therefore, she needed a few days to think about it and that she'd understand if we found something else. Translation: You're young, foreign and don't yet have jobs, I don't want you. Well this sends us into a furry of anger where we proceed to email every person that has contacted us about an apartment whether we liked the deal or not, book an extra night in the hostel and cross our fingers that apartment lady ends up with an empty pad for what she's done to us.

Tuesday morning arrives and with a clearer head I wake up and decided that we've been misjudged and that I'm going to let this lady know so. So I type and type and type, being as friendly as I can, while at the same time letting this woman know that she's got us all wrong. When Julie wakes up, I show her my letter and off the email goes. 10 minutes later we get a text message that say "OK, you can have apartment, check e-mail for details". We receive the email and find a list of things that need to be gathered, but they are reasonable and we accept. Now the task of finding money. First and Last months rent are one thing, a two month damage deposit and rent for the rest of the month are another. First we try Julie's debit card, max it out. Then we set on the task of finding a bank that will cash advance our credit cards with no pin code. NONE, we checked them all! So, I text home and make the Fam find the code for my one credit card, max it out. The other card, well I'm out of luck with that one. The code won't be sent to my house for 7-10 days. Still a few hundred short and no money to eat, we try the toll free number on the back of our credit cards to see if they cave and give us our pins. Collect calls are blocked on the French phones. No Luck. So we use the cell phone. Finally Julie gets her debit card limit increased, but the brand new minutes on our cell phone are gone. Regardless, the increased limit allows us to go back to the bank and get the rest of the money we require. Next is a trip to an Internet cafe to get some paper work off the Internet and photocopy some stuff, and we're done...and tired. We meet our landlady, sign the papers...and we finally have an apartment! YEAH!!! At this point we head back to the hostel for one last night and some really good lasagna.

The next morning we move in, clean the apartment from top to bottom and meet our landlady to do our walk thru, take count of the things in the apartment and check for damage. It's then that we find out that the previous tenant was wanted by the police, refused to pay rent, broke down the door when he forgot his key..all in a weeks time. Now the anal-retentiveness of our landlady makes sense, we assure her this won't be us.

Thursday we head to Ma Nolan's for Trivia night again, only this time with the help of our Kiwi friend's old Yachting crew we are able to tie for 1st! YEAH! The tie breaker however is not so yeah! Julie has to guess Chuck Norris' birthday and is shocked to discover that he's 68 years old. Still with a four-way tie, we managed to pull off 3rd and win a 30 euro gift certificate.

Friday we head to a HUGE market in Italia and wander around looking like lost tourists. They have TONNES of stuff at this market, from scarves to clothes to pots and pans. Overwhelmed by everything, we walk away empty handed after looking around for a few hours. We then head to the Gelato place outside of the train station and get real Italian Gelato. SO GOOD! With twenty minutes until the train back home, we venture back into the food market and come out with Parmesan Cheese, Spicy Olives, and Stinky Sausage for Julie....all for 10 euros. Later that evening, we head to Wayne's...the backpackers' bar with our Yachting friends from the night before. This is the part of our trip where Julie and I discover just how old we are, as we determine that we'd rather be in a pub sipping drinks and talking to friends while sitting down, rather than in a bar listening to really loud live music and watching drunk girls dance on the tables that once served as a resting place for our beverages. We eventually head home, and with the Tram 22 minutes away, we decided to walk and get to our apartment just as the Tram is arriving.

Saturday we sleep in and wake up at 11:30 to the couple upstairs having the most heated argument of life. Screaming, yelling and baby crying, we were up for good at this point. So, we head to the Patisserie for Chocolate Croissants and meet up with Katie and Sebass to head the the Wal-Mart of France....Carrefour. We get hangers, a hair straightener, and a vase. Then, we decided to go to Italy for an authentic Pizza dinner. First however, we hit up McDonald's to get an app (cause the French don't eat dinner until 9pm) which consisted of a Chicken McNugget meal and Lemon Crunch Sundaes (which by the way are the BEST! If they are in Canada, go get one now..it's like Lemon meringue pie and ice cream all in one!)

Dinner was amazing - we went to a pizzeria in Dolce Accqua - a small town on the border of Italy and France. Thank you kindly to Sebass for driving! :) Crustino for an appetizer, followed by delightful pizza, and marvelous dessert. Let me not forget to mention the two young men sitting diagonal from us - one of which was wearing a woman's pink t-shirt (we believe an XXS) and the other wearing a pink trucker hat, with a shiny gold jacket. Photo to follow. Full and exhausted, we head home to sleep, not before setting the clocks back an hour for daily savings time!

This finally brings us to today - a very relaxed day indeed. So so nice! We hang around the apartment a little, walk outside and go to the giant market just outside our doorstep and buy 2kg of potatoes, grapes, and bananas - everything for under 5 euros! A couple chocolate croissants, and some more groceries later, we come home to relax for the rest of the day, do some cleaning and catch up on our blog. Amazing!

So from now on, the blogs will be much much shorter and more enjoyable to read than a huge long passage that people say they will "read later". Later just never comes. But to those of you who are like me, and don't like reading long articles, you're in for a treat! Until next time! - April

The Grand Entrance

So, our arrival to Nice was anything but elegant. Upon entering the Nice Train Station, we discovered that Katie had to work and we were on our own in this foreign city, with over 120 lbs of luggage each. Making best of the situation, we started to walk....and we walked, and we walked, and we walked in an attempt to find somewhere to stay. When walking didn't work, we stopped in front of a flashy casino and stole Internet from the cafe across the street (yeah iPhone!). The casino didn't like this too much, and I believe they thought we were trying to beg in front of their luxurious establishment, but all they really did was stand outside and stare us down. Anyways I digress, we found a hostel a few blocks away and started to walk again. Finally finding the hostel we discovered that it was 3 stories up in a country that doesn't believe in elevators. 120 lbs of luggage up 3 flights of stairs? No way, we opted to walk some more. Down to Old Nice to City hall, back up again...and I believe this is the part in the story where both our bags break. Now seeing as all that broke was the clip that attaches both our giant bags together, combined with the fact that they are insured for 10 years, this really shouldn't have been that big of a deal; but we were tired (no good sleep for over 48 hours) and hot (wearing jeans and sweatshirts in 23*c weather) and I think we both almost ended up in tears. More determined than ever we found an Internet cafe, drinks and booked a hostel in the mountains. To get there it only took a Tram ride, followed by a shuttle (that we only caught by like 2 minutes, otherwise we would have had to wait 6 hours for the next one, stupid shuttle hours care of the hostel). Once there, we showered and slept. Next stop in our journey was a visit to Katie's and dinner at an Irish Pub called Ma Nolans where we ate cheese burgers (very French I know) and played Thursday night trivia. In case you wanted to know, our team didn't win; there are definitely some hardcore players present at this game.

Friday we managed to miss breakfast cause we slept in til almost noon, which kinda messes up any plans you may have for the next 2 hours cause everything in this city, make that CONTINENT, closes from noon until whenever they feel like opening again. We did manage to find a grocery store, however, that was open! Amazing.... So, armed with a baguette, grapes and some nasty green tea drink that tasted more like floor cleaner, we were off to the beach. Stones or not, the beach is wonderful. The view of all the topless women and speedo-wearing men was not much to look at, but it was wonderful just to be able to relax for a bit. All good things, unfortunately, must come to an end, and before you know it we were off to get our phone number and a place to live. The phone part was easy, the apartment part - not so much. With probably 100 Immobiliers (real estate offices) in this city, only a handful rent furnished apartments; so one after another were told to keep walking. Finally we managed to book an appointment to see a little studio in Old Nice, but neither one of us were hopeful.

With doubt in our minds, we headed back to the hostel and proceeded to post an ad on angloinfo.com (an Anglophone website for those traveling to countries where English may not be the first language). Before you know it, we received an e-mail from a woman letting us know she had an apartment for rent in downtown Nice that included wireless Internet, and free international phone calls - oh wow - this sounds too good to be true. After having exchanged e-mails with this woman, it was agreed that we would meet to see the apartment at noon on Sunday.

Saturday after an uneventful day, we celebrated the 23rd birthday of our new Aussie friend, Bethany. Accompanied by cake, candles, and all, the entire hostel joined in singing happy birthday while Bethany was so embarrassed, she blew out the candles before the song was over. BOO! We met some more friends that evening, including many more Australians (one which was 19, newly married and traveling without husband), a Kiwi, a handful of Americans, and a couple of Canucks. It was a gloriously fun time indeed!

Next - SUNDAY.... we're getting closer at catching up. Only 6 more days to write about!

We have an apartment!

I just want to let everyone know that as of Wednesday morning we will have moved into our new apartment in Nice. It is time for bed now, but once we settle in and get everything together, we will write a longer post detailing our time in Nice so far. Sorry we haven't been on the ball about this whole thing - but not having a place to live and looking around a foreign city with crazy Frogs can really make you stress out a bit.

More tomorrow, I promise. ♥

The adventure begins... Paris

So it has been five days already since we have landed on the continent known to all as Europe. We flew out of Toronto on Tuesday night (7PM ET) and arrived in Paris Wednesday morning at 10AM (Paris time), where our journey, and thus our blog, begins.

The weather was rainy in the City of Lights, but the temperature was warm, so weren't going to complain. After all, we just enjoyed a first class trip overseas where we were fed copious amounts of food and alcohol. Speaking of which, let me tell you a little bit about our flight:

When you fly first class (or Club Class as it was with Air Transat), they treat you pretty darn well. We were welcomed on board with a glass of champagne, followed by a snack-sized mixture of nuts and cracker-ish type foods. Needless to say, they were good. We then had a pre-dinner Heineken, only to be followed by our gourmet dinner - side salad, brie and crackers, a dinner roll, the main pasta dish, a glass of wine, and a delightful cream dessert - made by President's Choice. Wine, coffee, and tea were the after meal beverages to choose from. A couple hours later, they brought us breakfast - a mixture of fruits from strawberry, melon, and pineapple, with a muffin and glass of orange juice. Did I mention that they also had dessert wine between dinner and breakfast? Guess I didn't - but they did. First time I had tried ice wine... interesting to say the least. They finished up the flight by giving us a hot towel (I thought that only happened in the movies, so I did what Adam Sandler did in The Wedding Singer and just wore it like a bib as a joke). It was delightful though.

Cheers!

So there was my aside about the flight to Paris. On to the actual day we spent in Paris:

Having not slept one wink on the plane, I was a little disheveled, but still able to understand and speak French, which meant I was able to get myself, April, and Ryan all day passes for the Paris transit system - only 18 euros each.... worth it though. We found the right train to get on to take us into the city and right to the train station where our train would be leaving from (9 hours later). Did you know that it is difficult to carry around two giant suitcases full of clothing? Well, it is, especially when all of the buildings in France are old and do not believe in elevators, and the majority of escalators were out of service. Ryan got to help out April a lot in lifting her luggage - thank you by the way!

We finally found the luggage storage section of the train station, and scoured around to find exact change to pay for two lockers (9,50 euros per locker - that's a lot of change). Anyway, after buying a couple of bottles of water, we were good to go. Suitcases and backpacks shoved in and stored away, we went off to explore Paris (i.e. waste time until our train left that night at 9:17). First things first, we needed to buy our tickets for the train. Using my superb French skills, I got all three of us youth discount cards for the French rail system, as well as the cheap tickets on the overnight train to Nice. Kudos me! We then had another 7 hours to kill, so we went out on the transit system - a little confusing might I add.

We found our way around after wandering the streets for an hour and visited the Eiffel Tower, literally visited it - said hi, walked underneath it and left. Our legs were pretty tired to say the least. A walk along the Seine led us to have more tired legs, so we hopped back on the subway to Notre Dame. Goodness gracious - it was free to go in! That's my kind of sight-seeing, easy on the wallet. Anyway, we manoeuvred our way through the crowds and saw the pretty basilica and all its glory. We looked for Quasimodo, but had no luck finding him. We decided we'd had enough gay Paris (pa-ree) for the day, and so we went back on the subway to the train station to hang out there for a few hours. You may think that we're crazy to have done that, but if you didn't have any sleep in 30 hours, you would have agreed and done the same thing.

Back at the station, we got our photos taken in a photo booth for our youth cards (4 euros for 4 photos - a little much) - but it needed to be done. Cold and tired, we hit up a restaurant in the train station and ate some delightful sandwiches with orangina and a fruity tart for dessert. It was good considering we hadn't eaten all day. Alright, so we're finished our food and we're warm finally that we're inside - what do we do now? We have a lot of time to waste still. Well, we got coffee from a different restaurant so we didn't fall asleep. You talk in French, you do your best, but then the waiter still talks to you in English - whatever, you tried.

The coffee was over - now it was time to pay and go to the bathroom. 50 cents later, we're peeing in a beautiful bathroom with attendants and fancy sinks, etc. That's what it is everywhere - you have to pay to pee. Understandable considering it's tourist central and their water resources may be just a tad more scarce than ours and all. But it can be such a hassle! :(

We then got our luggage out of the locker and waited around on some benches with our tickets for the next hour and a half trying desperately to keep our eyes open. Sooooooooo tired.

But as you may have guessed, the train came and on we got - luggage and all - FINALLY!!

Next post - Nice, the first few days.