Memories of the beautiful Besançon weather!

Today the beautiful weather streak has come to an end. Rain has been announced for the rest of the week. I made sure to take a lot of pictures of Besançon while the weather was nice. I'm posting these in order to feel better about the shitty weather outside.

Return from Provence!

Bonjour everyone!
We're back from our short trip to Provence! We managed to have a great time with a limited budget. I didn't get to do my wine tour which had a minimum price tag of 55€ yikes! But I did buy a bottle of wine from the vineyards of Aix-en-Provence! We had beautiful weather and even spent a little time at the beach! People were tanning and everything...I should have thought to bring my bathing suit! Oh well.
Among the sites we visited:

Avignon, the former domain of the Popes during the 14th century, a beautiful mid-evil city.The Pope Palace

Aix-en-Provence- known for the artist Cezanne who lived and worked there.

Les Baux de Provence - deemed the most beautiful village of France because it is placed on top of a mountain.
Cassis - a small touristic village au bord of the Mediterranean, a mini Cannes.
La Ciotat - another pretty town on the Mediterranean.
Les Calanques - A valley of limestone that lines the Mediterranean. We took a short hike around.
And Le Moulin de Daudet:

We spent two nights in a hotel chain inside a industrial area which wasn't anything special but the third night we spent in the countryside in a small hotel owned by an old couple outside of Marseilles. We were hesitant about it at first but it turned out to be very quaint and provincial. At night I left the shutters open to listen to the frogs and the cicadas.

Voilà a short résumé of our trip. In a week we'll be leaving for Paris! I can't wait :)

My Dream Voyage

As someone who has caught the travel bug years ago, I'm always searching travel sites for the best deals on vacation packages anywhere in the world. I have one destination in mind that I always hope to find a great deal for: Cairo, Egypt!
Since I have soo much vacation time and I'm technically not that far away, I could plan a trip to my dream destination. Only one problem: Not enough money!
Every "deal" that I've come across is at least 900€ which I guess is not too expensive but for my small monthly assistant salary of 780€, this trip would cost more than what I make in a whole month.
I've never been to Africa and I would love to go to another continent that is not Europe or North America. I want to see something completely different.
However, there is a risk in traveling to this country There have been several terrorist attacks and a kidnapping incident that took place last September. But there are soo many tourists that I think the likelihood of anything happening would be rather low.

So maybe eventually I will make it to my dream destination to see the Pyramids, the Nile, the ancient hieroglyphics, and the Sphinx; but for now, my travels within France are suiting me just fine.

I'm curious to know from those who read my blog, what is your dream destination?

Image taken from this site.

15 jours de vacances!!

Finally! After counting down the days and rushing through countless badly prepared lesson plans, the day finally arrived: Saturday, April 18th! The first day of April vacation! I spoke with one of my friends from home today and told her that I was on vacation starting today. Her reaction: "Again! You're always one vacation!" And it's true. We had 5 weeks in between the winter vacation and this spring vacation which isn't a lot at all. Before that, we had about 7 weeks in between Christmas vacation and February vacation. My friend is right, we really are always on vacation. But hey, I'm not complaining.

So here's the agenda:

April 20 -23: Spend a few days in Provence visiting Avignon, Aix-en-Provence and a few villages along the Mediterranean. (This was a last minute plan!)

April 27 - May 1: Babysitting and making mucho mulh-la for Paris!

May 2 - 4: Weekend in Paris!!

I'm really happy to being doing a little traveling and not staying in my unfriendly apartment building for 2 weeks. Hopefully the weather will be nice!

Note: I need to update my blog my often and think of taking pictures everytime I cook something new!

Bonnes vacances à tous!

Happy Easter everyone!

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Easter and leave you with this cute picture:


Image taken from this site.

Beautiful Spring Weather!

Today we had the most amazing weather in France! It was 22° degrees (72° F!) with blue skies and sun! Because I'm excited about my trip to Paris next month and because I didn't take any pictures today, here are some of my best photos of Paris in spring.

Ahhh Paree! :)

I hope that the weather next month will be exactly the same as it is in these photos!

Jobs Jobs Jobs!

In addition to freaking out about paying taxes in two countries, now I need to start applying to jobs for the fall. I've already sent out a few applications in the US; one in Washington D.C. and the other in New York City. Thanks to Christophe's editing skills, I'll soon be sending out my French cover letters and CVs to French employers. I'm going to apply for a few English lecturer jobs at some Universities around the Paris area. Also in Paris I'm applying for a few manager positions in some Anglophone companies. In case you haven't heard of this great site for English speakers in Paris, I'll put it up here: FUSAC.FR. I've been religiously looking at the employment section of this site to apply for most of the jobs that are posted. Unfortunately they all ask for working papers which I don't technically have (yet) but there might be a way around that.

In any case, I'm very stressed. Thankfully there is spring vacation coming up in two weeks! I love the French education system. :)

And it's the weekend! :)