I hope you still don't think I'm unemployed...

So for those of you whom I haven't talked to in a long while, I am going to give you a brief update of my job situation.

January - I began a 6 week contract with a marketing/lead generation company where I was working 35 hours a week from home - making calls to the US and Europe, trying to arrange meetings. Not the best job in the world, but I earned a good chunk of change. Still working my 6 week contract, I ventured out and applied for another position where I would work from home again - this time, being a website administrator adding local events and activities to a family-based website (working when I want and for how long I want - not too shabby).

Mid-February - contract ends and I am left with my 1 part time position. This works out well since we are headed off on a 2 week trip. I will find a job when I get back.

March - Back in action and on the search for a new job. Still living off what I made from my previous position, I am set for a little while longer. End of the month rolls around and I e-mail a woman at the Inspection Académique and ask if there are any English teaching positions available. Luckily, there were!

April - Go in for my interview (which was more of a test.... to test my ENGLISH). Needless to say, I passed and get a call the next day to see if I can start on Monday.

So there you go folks... I am now an English teacher - teaching children from the ages of 6-12 years, while still maintaining my second job working for the family web site.

Did I mention that I get Wednesdays off AND get paid for holidays? And ummm well France has a lot of holidays: April 20-May 1, May 8, May 21, June 1. I've had some free time.

Pixie Reunion

So our little friend Pixie (remember her from Christmas?) came to visit us again for a week while her family went to England. In exchange for us babysitting, we got a sweet little convertible for the week. YEAH having a car again, boo that this city was NOT meant for cars. Trying to find parking here is like trying to win the lottery! Frequently Julie had to get up as I was leaving for work to move the car out of the no parking zone were we left it the night before. Why did Julie have to do this if April was already up you ask? Did I happen to mention that thanks to the lovely MTO my license expired on my birthday (after only 2 years)? So April was not driving anywhere, oh except for that one time up in the mountains at 10:00pm....hey we had a convertible, you would have done it too!

Julie & April Driving

Traffic at 3:30pm on a Friday!

Having a car meant we got to go to Monaco via the middle road and the high road, both of which are winding, at the edge of a cliff, and have speed limits of 90 km/h! hahahah Vive la France! We also hit up the French coast on the way to St. Tropez, and went to San Remo & Dolce Acqua, Italy with a friend of Julie's from back home. The weather was not quite warm at this point (it was just the beginning of April after all), but that didn't stop us from driving with the top down at all times. I might have acquired a cold.

K, so it was a little warm this day!

Oh and Pixie knew who we were and where she was this time, which meant we didn't need the leash, which of course avoided a lot of headaches- for Pixie that is.

In France, you never know where you are

- just where you aren't!

How's that for a view?

Hey Amber, thanks for the car! Can we borrow it again for our Euro trip? You, Loulou, Sophie, and Pixie can come too! 5 1/2's company right?

24's better than 23!

So I had a birthday and despite my protests, turned 24!
(apparently it HAS to work this way!)

My lovely family made sure I was well taken care in the present department.


And to celebrate the day, I worked and then a group of us hit up La Voglia for a little Italian birthday dinner.

This is what it looked like:

Julie and I heading out for the evening.

Getting some money!






Birthday Celebration Attendants!
(Ryan, Julie, Me, Katie, Seabass)

Props to Ryan for finishing that entire pasta dish on his own!

Thanks to everyone for a great night!

Pork and Cheese

Finally, here I go with a post about our lovely voyage to Portugal....

Portugal was added to the list of places to travel to, because well, it's Portugal, it's amazing, I'm Portuguese, AND my cousin was getting married so my entire family would be coming over from Canada - YAY FOR REUNIONS!

We arrived in Porto, Portugal (in the north for those of you who don't know) Thursday evening and we were picked up by my sister Nicki and my cousin Luisa! HIIIIIII!!! Out for dinner (10pm style in Portugal - they eat late), and were overcome with what we ordered. The name of the dish/sandwich thing is called a Francesinha. OMG. This photo speaks for itself:

Francesinha (meaning Little French Girl in Portuguese) is a Portuguese sandwich originally from Porto, made with bread, wet-cured ham, linguiça, fresh sausage like chipolata, steak or roast meat and covered with molten cheese and a hot thick tomato and beer sauce

So anyway, moving on from the crazy meat-filled sandwich... we spent the next day touring around the city of Braga where my uncle and aunt live, realizing that Portuguese men are by far the worst cat-callers in all of Europe (that we encountered thus far). The three of us were standing on a street corner waiting for the light to change and a car was driving past us... the man driving looked over at us, called out something and then pressed his horn. If only a blog could portray what his horn sounded like... but let me try anyway. It began with a horse neighing, followed by one of those "hey good-lookin'" whistles. Some people! We were also referred to as supermodels, and had many a man hiss our way. My heritage :) Hahaha.

Aside from the cat-calling, the town was really different from anything we'd seen so far on our trip. The ceramic tile mosaics on all the buildings were really cool, and the hospital looked awesome! See below:

Who would have thought that a hospital could look so cool!?

Moving along... the day ended with Apes and Steph heading to Porto for the rest of their stay while I stayed with my family for the wedding the next day. YIPEE!

The wedding was gorgeous, let me just say, in an old church in Porto, then followed by the reception at a Port Wine vineyard - so pretty! Welcomed with a glass of port wine, we were then fed from 4pm until the wee hours of the morning. Once 3:30am came around, I was ready to call it a night, and out comes another feast - caldo verde soup and entire BBQ buffet - WHAT!? I guess they sure know how to do it in Portugal! :)

Port wine storage - our entrance to the reception


Little Joao (cutest kid ever)


Inside at the reception

The next day was calm and relaxing - just spending some nice time with my family and feasting on the leftovers from the wedding. What was originally going to be a small luncheon, turned out to be a feast with 17 of us! Amazing though!

On Monday, my immediate family plus Abe, and my aunt and uncle, all piled into two cars and drove up into the mountains to Parafita - the village (more like the hamlet) where my father was born and raised. How amazing was this!? It was almost like stepping back in time to a quiet old village where animals (cows, chickens, etc.) were free to roam the cobblestone streets - trust me, there were some cow patties along the way hahaha. I got to see the house where my dad grew up (which is now a getaway place for my aunt and uncle's family - cottagesque).

The house my dad grew up in (Parafita, Portugal)


The streets of the village - can you see the cow poop?


My family with the gorgeous view from the house

For the afternoon, we were invited over to my dad's cousin's house (in the village 5 min up the road known as Friaes). What an experience this was!! Remember how I was mentioning stepping back in time before? This time it was more unreal! We walked into the kitchen/dining room which was not accessible from the main house, but in a separate section to itself. In the open fireplace (yes, open in the middle of the kitchen), there were 3 cauldrons cooking in the flame! So cool! Lunch wasn't going to be ready for a little bit, so my sister and my mom went exploring in the village - watch out for the poop! Chickens and cats were all over place hahaha. Roosters having a crowing competition, you know, typical village stuff.

I told you the fire was open in the kitchen

Some more people arrived for this incredible feast and the food was ready to be served. Let me just mention now that EVERYTHING that was served was homemade/homegrown - including the chicken, goat, pork, etc. This meal was ludicrously filling - homemade chicken soup, bread, wine, potatoes, goat, chicken, chorizo, sausages, rapini, AND the amazing desserts (yes, plural). I could not believe how much food this woman had made! She truly is a wonder chef!

From L to R: The 3 sistas with the Wonder Chef, Maria!

After the meal, it was time to explore some more. We had heard some baa-ing and realized that they had baby goats living in a little room under the kitchen. So when Maria came out to feed them, we were so excited and out came the camera. The exact same thing occurred when we discovered that they had lambs too!! Best experience ever!

Maria had a little lamb


And a little goat!

After this exquisite feast, we said our goodbyes and piled back in the cars to head back to Braga for the night. We all had a calm relaxing evening trying to digest the food we consumed that day, and I got ready to head to the airport the next morning.

Mom had brought me an entire case of PC white cheddar macaroni and cheese to bring back to France, but I had no room in my luggage! I ended up taking the powder back with me and leaving the boxes of noodles! And I also got a lovely homemade chorizo to bring back too :) SO GOOD! I can't wait to visit again :)

Czech Czech Czech, Czech it out!

WOW.... so you wanna know what happened 2 months ago in Prague eh? Let me look at the pictures to refresh my memory...actually.

Ah yes... So we hear that if you hop on a certain city "tram", which we can catch right outside our door step, that you can see the sites of Prague without paying for a tour. Get on said bus, tour around, arrive at castle. So we tour around this castle, seeing all the sites and then Steph decides she wants to see the bone church. Well, there is nothing ANYWHERE about this church, but we see a wall off in the distance that appears to be made out of human skulls (thanks to an amazing view from the castle) and we head in that direction. After finding said wall, which is encased in a courtyard at the old Riding Academy, (which doesn't open until April- this is February remember) and unsuccessfully trying to talk the guard lady into letting us in, we head back to the apartment to find food.

Side note: the bone castle is actually outside of Prague..but what fun would it be to look up that information BEFORE your trip?

I've learned it's better not to ask

After lunch, we head out to see a famous bridge with a name I don't remember...which like everything else in Europe, is under construction in preparation for Tourist season (Another side note: doesn't this sound like a type of hunting season, similar to fishing or deer season, where you catch a tourist? I think so). Next is some souvenir shopping, a stop at Starbucks, and a clock. A clock that everyone is standing in front of in anticipation of the coming hour marker. The hour arrives and- there is absolutely nothing I can say here that will describe what we saw. It literally left us all going "What was that? Was that all? Can I have those 3 minutes of my life back?" Oh well, we had Starbucks, so off we go to explore some more. We head down a fancy shopping street, with stores that I will NEVER be able to afford, that eventually leads us to the Old Jewish Quarter (I'm going to pause here, and allow YOU to come up with the jokes). Anyways, once here we realize that they try and charge you an arm and a leg to see the sites (again, pause)...including the cemetery. So instead, we walk around the outer wall of the cemetery, poke the camera thru the tiny window, take some pictures, and voila it's almost like you're inside. Some other funny things also happened on this little journey around the cemetery...like me falling off the curb, and walking in a particular way....but again, I probably shouldn't mention it for sensitivities sake, altho I apparently wasn't being too sensitive at the time I did it. OOPS. Confused yet? I know I am. But if you were there, those last sentences will make you chuckle.

Moving on.

Off to Wenceslas Square we go. Take some pictures, do a little shopping in stores we can actually afford, and then head back to the apartment to make dinner and get some shut eye before our flight back to England the next day.

Where shopping takes place in Prague!

And that ladies and gents is Prague, Czech Republic...only 2 months late!

MIA - Paper planes

Look Look Look who it is?

I know I know, I've been MIA for awhile, but I just haven't been in the mood to sit and type on a computer when the weather is so nice. This mood has apparently rubbed off on Julie as well/her computer just plan sucks these days.

Piece de merde

As some of you may know, we've been to Italy recently and seen/done some really exciting things. We've also been designing a website for a local restaurant here in Nice, and sitting on the beach during our spare time. Unfortunately right now, this website and two others that are in the works take precedence over blogging, but have no fear, if Julie's computer decides to start cooperating (or if anyone has keycodes for Mac Adobe CS4 programs) this should be done in no time- bah hahaha. Until then, look forward to hearing about the rest of our stay in Prague, Portugal, Italy and about the other random things we've been up to for the last 8 weeks (oops- has it really been that long?).

In other news, I have a REALLY sore throat. I think I'm dying because of it. It sucks. The end.