First week off...

Haven't been documenting too much of my first full week of work with the kids (because it can be gravely dissapointing and would not result in a very interesting post) but here are the few moments I'll share.

After whipping out my "mommy finger" and stank face because my patience was gone, I dragged the 5 year old to the library. Thankfully he was happy once we got there and I even found a Gansta Granny.

Kids are the pickiest eaters and its frustrating this foodie. I seized the opportunity to make my own pizza and doctored it up with goodies. Yum!

Wednesday morning we took the boys and two friends to the museum to see a dinosaur exhibit. Turns out we had to wake up at the crack of dawn to get there on time. Welp, I was exhausted, I mean am exhausted, but I got to see a beautiful sunrise!

Now I'm off to Ireland in a few hours!! Stay tuned in about 1 week I'll begin the process of posting again. All things green and Irish coming soon!

Fermes de Gally- PUMPKINS!

All over Facebook and Instagram are photos of people at the pumpkin patch and enjoying pumpkin yummies. Well, Paris has one farm and it just so happens to have a couple of bins of pumpkins. I was stoked!!

With my host mom and kids, we walked around this cool farm picking vegetables and fruits and finally picking out our prized pumpkins to carve. It was great!

Unloaded our wheel barrow of goodies and went home to carve!

I roasted some cinnamon sugar seeds and made some pumpkin puree (eventually muffins) out of the guts. So yum! Overjoyed that my host family actually celebrates Fall and pumpkin-season!

Some randomness over the week

 I saw this metro sign and had a huge wave of "I-miss-American-TV-and-humor" wash over me. So...my night consisted of Jimmy Fallon and Ellen's YouTube channel and chocolate leftover from Belgium. :)

 As if this kid needs more sugar....

 A clementine was kind enough to remind me that France sucks at Fall and Halloween since there are no pumpkin patches here. Although, rumor has it that my host family knows of one nearby!? 

 Fog is setting in! Yay!! Plus it was 3* celsius the other morning. We jumped from Summer to Winter!

 I started the Harry Potter series! Two days later and I'm nearly through with the second book. Love it!

Paris is a shoe murderer!!! My green TOMS are currently held together by super glue and my (well, Jaycee's) combat boots are in need of some major super glue TLC. As a result, I jumped on the deadly website known as Amazon.fr and bought some ankle rain boots. Bye, bye euros... 

If you want to send a care package, please send the following:

Dental Floss (French dentist's do not see the importance of flossing regularly)

Fuzzy socks because I brought zero

Sweats for the cold and rainy days since I brought none

Scarves because 3* Celsius is flipping cold and I brought zero

Hats because my ears burn from the cold and I brought one

BBQ sauce

Canned pumpkin (one can is 4.70 euros WHICH IS CHEAP?!?)

Raisin Bran Crunch

Gloves for my freezing little filanges

Shoes that won't fall apart from walking 10 miles a day in them

 ADDRESS:
JuliaAnne Cook
12 Rue de la Source
92310 Sevres, France

Much appreciated! ;)

First vacation!

In France, the kids get essentially four different spring breaks: October, December, February, and May. PLUS they are 2-week long breaks. So nice!

SO today marks the first day of vacation for the kids. (For me, it's basically one week of travel time and one week of 24-hour work days....) Even though it is Saturday and it's my day off, I agreed to take my 13 year old with me to the mall to go shopping and meet up with my friends. It was really fun! Not only are my friends crazy, but they are naturally hilarious so Julie had a really good time. Definitely scored some major "cool" points in the tweenage department. I even got asked to be the chaperone to see the latest Maze Runner movie for her and her friends. I'm so cool.

We hunted for socks and gloves through Beaugrenelle, Paris' newest mall. Ending up in H&M (as always) we got what we were looking for. Then somehow we found ourselves taking laps around the Marks and Spencer grocery store. It's an English store with amazing food and the one place in France that you can sit and listen to people speaking English with killer accents. Paradise, no? Julie and I decided that it is the English equivalent of Target since FRANCE IS LAME AND DOESN'T HAVE TARGET. *Fuming*

Any how.... We did more food shopping than clothes shopping today, and it was great! I love that store. It even had almond milk. I was basically doing cartwheels through the aisles because I was so happy. Tears were on the verge of being spilled! I have never eaten so much dairy in my life than I have in these two months. My intestines cry some days. (Don't worry, no further details on that matter).... So in celebration, I bought some delicious sounding cereal and a carton of almond milk and am looking forward to waking up and eating a fat bowl of cereal before church! Agh I'm just so happy. Easy to please!

A few laps later around the store and having found zero pumpkin related items, we walked out with cereals, almond milk, lunch sandwiches, the best flipping key lime yogurt on the face of this earth, discounted chocolate caramel krispy bites, and future plans to return. Weekly.

Then a quick stop over at the miniature Lady Liberty which is surrounded by built-in workout equipment and an attempt at doing a pull-up rounded off our adventures. On the way to the metro, however, Julie and I found a Starbucks and, since Pumpkin Spice is Julie's favorite thing on earth, she stopped to get a PSLatte and pretended to be an American ordering her drink and giving the name Moaning Myrtle to the confused barista. It was hilarious. He didn't get the Harry Potter reference and wrote "Moly" on her cup. Good times with a 13 year old :) Look, it's Julie and Julia!!!

Fabulous day. And to really top it off, Julie and I came home, made a pumpkin cobbler which I have yet to taste, and sushi for dinner! Yasssssss. I'm a happy camper today. I even attempted to watch the Rugby World Cup with the family but, after cringing at every play, I decided to come upstairs and blog. They gave me this nifty face paint stick but I put the French flag sideways on my face. They told me to just tilt my head hahahaha It's exhausting having fun...

Brussels, Belgium

My first out-of-France adventure!
It started with a 5 hour bus ride from Paris to Lille and then a short ways later to Brussels. I must say, the bus ride to and from the city were definitely a highlight of the long weekend. The countryside in the North of France and Belgium were beautiful! I've been stuck in a city for too long. The greens were much more vibrant, the sky was bluer, and the horses and cows were so cute grazing in their fields.

It started with a 5 hour bus ride from Paris to Lille and then a short ways later to Brussels. I must say, the bus ride to and from the city were definitely a highlight of the long weekend. The countryside in the North of France and Belgium were beautiful! I've been stuck in a city for too long. The greens were much more vibrant, the sky was bluer, and the horses and cows were so cute grazing in their fields.

 My 5-hour bus rides were lacking a bit. In my family, a bag full of Trader Joe's snacks is a necessity on any road trip. Even if the road trip is 30 minutes long, snacks are still a must!

 It's like 2 feet tall people.

My favorite part of the scenery, though, was seeing the stark contrasts of "old" and "new" literally situated next to each other. In a huge green field of crops, there would be a traditional red brick farmhouse with its pointed roof and just next to it would be a huge manufacturing plant or warehouse of some kind. Even as we moved closer to a little city, the modern houses would be next to the old farm houses, one right after the other, like Europe couldn't quite make up it's mind on whether to move forward in time or keep it's roots planted in the past. And that is exactly what Brussels is like.

Old mixed in with the new. It's a "mash-up" city. Not one I particularly loved, but still fun for a weekend. I've never been somewhere where the term "melting pot" was so applicable. The roads were all cobblestone and down every street you would see ancient buildings and extremely weathered cathedrals sitting next to new apartments or stores. (I mean "new" as in built within the last 50 years. Nothing was actually "new-new". It was quite dirty.) Every nationality could be found. Belgium is such a mixed up country that they don't even have a national language. It's both Flemish and French but everyone knows English. A weird, weird city.

 Narnia in Belgium. The lampost? See it?

The weather held up for Emily and I; overcast on Saturday and sunny on Sunday. (haha. Sunny...on "Sun"day.) Any how.... The architecture was awesome, though. Gothic styled buildings really differentiate Brussels from any other city. And Manneken Pis. It's a 2-foot tall statue of a boy peeing out water. Apparently, it originated as a water fountain because the Belgians have a funny sense of humor, and then it just evolved into this famous spectacle. Gotta admit, it was pretty funny.

Saturday night I arrived at the (super sketchy) train station in Brussels called Gare du Midi Zuidstation. I then attempted my 40 minute walk to my Couch Surfing host's flat in the Ixelles district. I got super lost. I had no phone service. But I made do! I walked from bus stop to bus stop looking at each of the maps and aiming/trying to aim in the right direction. After asking some locals where the heck I was going and making friends with Canadians who had data on their phones, I made it. Phew! Plus, haing stayed 50 ft from the city's best fry place, I had to get fries that night. Frit Flagey with it's plethora of homemade sauces basically changed my life.

My first time Couch Surfing was awesome! My host's name was Lewis North from England. He has an awesome accent and can play the guitar and sing like nobody's business. He is new to Brussels as he is doing an internship at the Parliament so his tour guiding abilities was basically discovering the city with us. (50% of Brussel's population: Expats.) He lives in a flat/apartment with three other roommates and they had a spare room to share. Emily and I lucked out! Barbara, the owner of the flat, is from France and she was super funny. She shared lot's of good places to explore and things to try. She even lent us a map that revealed where the best place to get 4 euro Chinese food was. It was boooomb Chinese food. Doused that plate in Sriracha and indulged.

Saturday morning I went to Atomium as my first land mark tour. Basically, it is simply what Belgium has to show for the World Fair way back when. A giant atom structure that you can pay to go up in...seen it. Checked that off the list....

Then we walked, Lewis read the map for us, we looked at the buildings, found some authentic Belgian waffles to eat, walked around some more, got another Belgian waffle to eat, went to a chocolate store to stock up on Belgian chocolates, then made our way back to the flat. Earlier that day, we had run into a friend of Lewis' who is also an intern at the Parliament and her friend from Poland was there for the weekend visiting. They. Were. Hilarious. They invited us all out that night and, wanting to see Brussels like the natives, Emily and I were in for the ride!

I can now say I have been to my first bar! And it was in Belgium! Actually, it was more like a restaurant that simply had a bar. Nothing crazy or exciting. It was even candle lit hahahaha. I enjoyed a nice Schweppes Agrum while Emily had a good old fashioned Coca-Cola and my new friends had some specialty fruit wine or whatever. Kinga, the girl visiting from Poland, was hysterical. She was still learning English, although she could speak like 5 other languages, so trying to decipher her stories had us nearly crying from laughing so hard. And whenever Lewis would talk in his killer British accent, she would smile and nod and then say, "I have no idea what you're saying. I can't even understand you!" Anna, Lewis' friend, was also hilarious, although it was probably because Kinga was telling all her embarrassing stories.

"Who cares. I'm Romanian!" "There's so many things to steal."

Two jokes that only would be understood had you been there too. I just want to remember them for my future book :) After we left the bar, we rode the bus back home and hoped Frit Flagey would still be open so we could get more fries. It was! Lewis was by far the most excited. And he wasn't even drunk- he was just excited!

Then Sunday morning, Emily and I went and walked around the outdoor market right outside on Place Flagey and took lot's of pictures. A nice way to wrap up the trip. Then I got on my bus and headed on home to Paris. I must say, I prefer Paris over Brussels by far. The whole city was pretty dirty and super sketchy unless you were on the three touristy streets. The balance of the city was very off. Too random and aside from the Grand Place square, I wasn't too impressed. ALTHOUGH- I was highly impressed with the food. Some amazing food! In fact, I didn't eat a proper meal the entire time I was there, aside from the Chinese food for lunch on Saturday. Basically snacked on waffles and fries instead of having meals.

Anywho, it was a fun weekend. I probably won't go out of my way to visit Brussels again, but at least I can say I've been to Belgium.

 

 In Belgium, people drink a glass of champagne with every meal, including breakfast.

 

And despite my fatigue, I had to stop by the Grape Festival in Montmartre before the night was over! Straight off the bus, I met Hannah at the top of Paris's only mountain. Thought I was going to die by the time I climbed the 2,0000000000000 stairs to the top. Because of my lack of food intake that day, I made my first Starbucks purchase in France and bought a veggie wrap. Expensive but worth it!