Back to France ... please?!

Tres bien!
Originally uploaded by sockmonkey75.

Oh how I wish I was back in France right now ... (sigh)

I thought I'd be fine coming back to the day job - but nope. It's totally sucked. I think it's just that I really want out of here! I've had enough of working for other people, so it's time to really get going with my business. I've had it up and running for awhile, but haven't been actively promoting and marketing it, so that's it, the time has come!!

I guess the main reason why things have sort of stalled for the business is because my website hasn't been completed yet. I was working with a woman who was putting it all together for me, but she's been majorly slacking with it. I gave her a deadline of TODAY to get it done ... we'll see what happens. I just really hope that I don't have to cancel our agreement and start from scratch with a different website designer (but this is starting to look like it might be a possibility ... let's just say that this person I'm currently working with was supposed to have my site done in JUNE). I just hope she makes the deadline - I just want my site up so I can get going!! :)

So anyhoo, as I was saying, I'd really much rather just be back in France - not worrying about hating my day job and dealing with my website person ... I can't even believe that we've been back for over a week already (sigh). I gotta get back there, a.s.a.p!!

Back to reality (sigh)

Well, I'm back from France already (sigh). The trip definitely wasn't long enough, but it was still great nonetheless! It was a fun week, indeed.

Our trip there was a bit lengthy - from the time that Dan & I left our place to go to the airport here in Vancouver until the time that we arrived at the villa in southern France, we spent a total of 23 hours in transit. Yikes! But it was well worth it. :)

We did a lot during the week - saw lots of cool sites, ate lots of awesome food (mmmm!), and drank loads of Belgian beer. It was great! We went to Pont du Gard, Uzes, Avignon, St Remy and Les Beaux. The aquaduct at Pont du Gard was pretty crazy - those Romans were some pretty smart cookies, I tell ya.

After our time in the south we headed to Paris for our last 2 nights before flying home from CDG airport (which, by the way, is the most ghetto airport I've ever seen! We were totally shocked). We stayed at the same little hotel that we had stayed in during our very first trip to Paris (back in 2001). I'm happy to say that the hotel has actually improved! It's a budget hotel (46 euros per night with private shower) so it's not like we were expecting much, but it was more than we had expected. It was much more "budget" the last time we were there.

We met up with Selmer and Maaike on Friday night (Oct 20), just outside the main entrance of the Louvre. Bart & Ilona were originally supposed to meet up with us too, but they weren't able to make it - it was too bad, we definitely missed them. :( Whenever Dan & I are in Paris we like to go for yummy poutine at the Canadian pub (it's hard to get poutine in Vancouver! It's a Quebec thing) - so we went there straight away. It was yummy, of course. Went to a very smoky pub afterwards, parked ourselves and sat there for the rest of the evening. Dan & I had a fun walk back to the hotel afterwards - we were snap happy with the camera, so we have some fun pics. :)

Saturday was reserved for shopping. Dan & I were all over the place, checking out our favourite Parisian haunts. Somehow we managed to not buy anything at all! I was kinda surprised, but nope, we just weren't in spending-mode. But at least we walked around a lot, so that was nice. Later in the afternoon we met up with Angie, Wayne, Sophie, Selmer & Maaike. Angie & Wayne were in need of a Starbucks fix, so that was our first stop. Hung out at the Jardin des Tuileries for a bit and then headed over to the Latin Quarter for some drinks. Sophie was being a bit more high-maintenance than usual, so that kinda got Angie in a bad mood - but in the end, all was good. :) Paris has definitely become our home-away-from-home - we love it.

Sunday it was time to come home. After slightly breaking the law (eep!), Dan & I made our way back to the airport for our flight home. I'm glad that we've flown to/from Europe enough times now that we know how to avoid jet lag - so we were good going both ways - no jetlag whatsoever! (well, I was hungry for dinner on Monday at 9am home time - 6pm France time - but other than that, I was fine)

It was a nice trip. The south was GREAT! Can't wait 'til next time. :)

(I'll post some pics later)

Time for Europe!

Only 1 more sleep in my own bed until we're off to Europe! Yep, we fly out tomorrow afternoon - Kimberly is being kind enough to give us a lift to the airport, so that's nice (much nicer than taking a cab, for sure!).

I'm only working at the day job for a half-day today - I'm going to take off around 11:30am. I need to go home, do laundry and get some stuff packed. I always leave packing far too late, and then I always get a bit flustered ... I'm trying to avoid that this time - so if all goes well, most of my packing will be done this afternoon. When Dan gets home from work we need to run around a bit and pick a few things up (plus, I have apple crumble/crisp on my mind so we might have to go for that - tee hee!). And hopefully tonight we can just relax a bit, and watch a couple of shows that I taped for us last night (Survivor and Supernatural, in case you're wondering). That would be nice ... just hang out on the couch, order in a pizza ...

I haven't really thought about the trip too much. I'm not sure why - maybe I've just been too busy? Or maybe I don't really get excited about Euro-trips anymore until I'm actually on the plane and we're almost there? The flight does always suck, that's for sure.

Anyhoo, it is going to be awfully strange not having internet access for a week - I hope I can survive!!

Well, stay tuned for pics - they'll pop up here sometime during the week of the 23rd, most likely. Au revoir! :)

Too many birthdays

I haven't been posting much lately because not much has been happening in my world. Well, nothing overly exciting, anyway. What have I been up to? I don't even know, let me think on that for a sec ...

Well, it was Dan's birthday last Friday. The big 3-5, if you can believe it! He so doesn't seem that old - he's more like 25. When I think about it, all of our good friends seem way younger than they are - we're definitely a young bunch. We're all very immature. :P

As many of our friends birthdays fall in September/October, we decided to have one big b-day bash to celebrate all the Fall baby birthdays (Marcie, Dan, Anthony, Darren & Bob). That party was on Saturday night, at Marcie & Anthony's - I don't have many pics with me right now (I'm at work) but I'll post the one that I happen to have here (of Miss Kimberly and moi):

What else is going on? Angie, Wayne & Sophie are in Paris! I got a call from Angie yesterday - they arrived safe n' sound on Sunday. Sophie was apparently a very good girl on the airplane ride. :) Dan & I fly to Paris in 11 days and then hop on a train to Avignon right away, where they'll pick us up. I've been a bit disappointed lately, as Bart & Ilona aren't meeting us in Paris (at the end of our trip) anymore - how very, very disappointing. We were really looking forward to seeing them. :(