Dear Greek Salad,

Can we please hang out all summer?

I'd like that very much.

love,

Emily

Our dinner last night (plus fresh baguette & melon for dessert.)  I love summer.

E & me {la plage}

 Last week in E & me we got all summery at the sidewalk café.

This week? 
Allons à la plage !

Our beaches are quite similar, n'est-ce pas?

Sand, beautiful blue water, mountains in the background.

I think the main difference can be measured in degrees.

As you can see in Erin's photo,

the Pacific Ocean is lovely. 

Lovely but {as I know from experience} freezing cold.

As for the Lac d'Annecy, it's not exactly warm,

but you know what?

Yesterday it was 35 degrees Celsius here.  

Too.  Darn.  Hot.

After a very long day of teaching 

very sluggish students 

in my very hot classroom,

I couldn't wait to get into that cool clear water.

Which is exactly what I did about 2.5 seconds

after snapping this photo.

Annecy 2018?

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, 

but Annecy is a candidate city

 for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

It's up against Munich {Germany} & Pyeong Chang {South Korea}.

The decision on who will host the games
will be made in just over a week,

on July 6th.  

So cross your fingers...or not
{depending on your opinion of the pros & cons 
of hosting such a huge event},
sit back, relax
& enjoy the latest promotional video of Annecy in all its splendor.

Carte-postale-sport par annecy-2018

Les Scènes du Week-end {15} {OK, we skipped number 14, but who's counting?}

The first weekend of summer?

It was pretty great.

Saturday involved home-made smoothies, 

a trip to the marché

& an evening out at a jazz concert accompanied by fireworks 

{even more exciting than it sounds!}

Sunday meant a hike to a beautiful lake near Chamonix,

a picnic lunch,

amazing views of Mont Blanc

& a relaxing afternoon at the thermal baths.

Aaaahhhh.

Summer 2011, 

I have a good feeling about you.

blueberries + raspberries + banana + OJ + yogurt + fancy new blender = YUM

sunhats at the market

waiting in line to buy baguette

scenery at the start of our hike Sunday morning

Mont Blanc + field + blue skies = swoon

colourful bee hives we saw on the way up to the lake

our destination, Le Lac Vert, with Mont Blanc in the background

seeing this snake swimming in the lake was pretty exciting

Donkeys + chalets + mountains?  Yes please.

The thermal baths where we soaked for a couple hours after our hike.

Frenglish: Emotional Pulsations

Are you still enjoying all the

T-shirt Frenglish 

that seems to be everywhere these days?

Hope so, because I have another excellent specimen 

for you aujourd'hui.

I think it's good they added the butterflies.

Otherwise it might have been a bit plain, non?

E & me {café}

C'est l’été !

So for this week's E & me post, let's celebrate 

with one of the best things about summer:

sitting outside at a café drinking something cool & delightful.

Annecy has many a lovely café, but no big-name coffee chains.

All the cafés in town are unique, authentique  

& filled with a very French vibe. 

That being said,

there is one reason I envy Erin & her neighbourhood Starbucks.

We may have cobblestones, 

but she has chai tea lattes.

La Fête de la Musique

It's the first day of summer!

And in France that means it's

La Fête de la Musique,

a fabulous, free event to celebrate music & the summer solstice.

You can read more about it on the official website here

or on a fellow expat's blog over here.

So fun!

Happy {day after} Father's Day, Dad!

It's late here 

& my computer is being grumpy & refusing to upload my latest photos.

Le sigh.

So it looks like you'll have to wait a day or two for 

"Les Scènes du Week-end".

In the meantime, here's a nice photo of my dad 

in honour of Father's Day yesterday.

Take it away, Dad!

Don't let him convince you that's his car.  It was part of some fancy rally through the French Alps that we happened upon when my parents were here visiting in 2008.

E & me {classroom}

It's week three of E & me!  

{What's with all the unintentional cheesy rhymes on this blog lately??}

This week we're showing you our classrooms.

Obviously Erin's class is much more colourful & charming  

than the room where I teach anglais...

 ... but I have a huge flat-screen TV.  

Score!

They just delivered & installed it last week.

While taking this picture for my blog, I was a teeny bit worried 

that somebody would walk past,

see me with my camera

& figure I was taking photographic evidence 

of the massiveness of the télé

to show my thug friends in order to convince them it was worth

breaking in & stealing the TV in the middle of the night.

I don't think anyone noticed my sneaky photo-taking,

but fingers crossed my next post isn't from la prison!

Les Scènes du Week-end {13}

It turns out you can fit in a whole lot of fun things  

during a long weekend in London.

My head is still spinning 

from all the crowds, traffic & packed-to-the-gills rides on the Tube.

{Looks like someone has gotten used to the quiet life in les Alpes, non?}

In addition to the hustle & bustle of such a big city, 

I'm sure the fact we had to get up at 4:30 this morning {!!!}

 in order to get to Gatwick in time for our way-too-early flight home 

{merci, easyJet} 

is part of the reason I have about as much energy 

as a soggy order of fish & chips at the moment.

So, without further ado, here are the 

très British scenes from last weekend!

Putney High Street near our friends' flat

Words to live by!

View of The Thames (& blue sky!) from Putney Bridge

Look at alllll those English books!

In-between rain showers at Green Park.

Buckingham Palace & THAT balcony!!!

Lovely London Eye

My favourite Tube Station by far.

English breakfast bliss.

Camden Market on Sunday afternoon.

London calling!

 We're heading off to London tonight for a long weekend 

of visiting friends, 

having full English breakfast,

reading The Guardian,

drinking a pint at the pub,

& going undie shopping at Marks & Spencer.

And, judging from the weather forecast,

perhaps hiding out in a museum or two.

I'll be back on Monday for a "très British"" version of

"Les Scènes du Week-end".

Cheerio!

E & me {fruitbowl}

It's week two of our new E & me photo project, whee!

Erin's strawberries?  They're from California.  

My cerises?  They were hand-picked by yours truly 

near my parents-in-law's house last weekend.

Life is unfair, n'est-ce pas, Erin?

Frenglish: Vintages Review

Hooray!

More summer T-shirt Frenglish...

 

Music is good, yes.

But putting an "s" on an adjective?  

That, as I am constantly telling my students, is not good.

Not at all.

Les Scènes du Week-end {12}

It's been an eventful spring for my nephew Martin.

His first birthday was a few months ago

& this past Saturday was his baptism.

The weather was delightful,

Martin was in a great mood,

there was lots of family

& plenty of good food.

{I didn't mean for that to rhyme, but you know what?

I'm just going to go with it!}

the church where the baptism took place

inside the church

as you can see, Martin was quite keen on the whole baptism thing

Juliette & I outside the church

speaking of Juliette, she did a great job of taking our photo, non?

a "piece montée", a fancy-dancy French cake for special occasions

catnap

my feet in my parents-in-law's pool

home-made pizza for dinner Sunday night

E & me {teatime}

Yay! Today kicks off the first edition of E & me,  

a weekly photo project 

that Erin and I have been planning for a while now. 

Each Wednesday we'll share a photo 

of some common aspect of our lives. 

We'll take a peek at a snippet of my life in France, hers in Canada... 

& see how they're the same and different. 

Join us?