Nous Aimons Assez Annecy

Oh the joy of Annecy!!!  This place truly is wonderfully beautiful!  Everyone goes on about it, so I thought it must be a bit over rated.  But no!  It is a stunner!  I want to go again a soon as I can!  It’s an old French town, kept really nicely and referred to as the ‘French version on Venice’.  However getting to Annecy proved to be somewhat difficult!

A group of us went in two cars, Caitlin and I following the car in front of Chiara and two German girls).  We got continually lost in Geneva trying to take roads that would avoid the toll roads (which took the same amount of time that it would have to go to Annecy and come back again).  Then our friends in the other car had an accident, crashing into the side a car passing them.  It was all one big palaver!  We did continue you on to our destination in the end though.  Taking the toll roads!

This photo does do the car view justice……….

Blinding ourselves coming out of the dark tunnels………

Finally!!!!  A sign for Annecy……………..........

My first encounter with the town was the Chateau……..

 

Rooftops…………………..................................

The waterways………..

There was a market in one of the streets.  I am going to assume that it was a pig market.  As there were cooked pigs head on one stall, pig products on another and even a pen of live donkey sized pigs!

Piggy piggy...oink oink………...........

 

Another ornate church………

 

Not only is Annecy beautiful, it is great fro shopping!!!  I was struggling to find decent Christmas presents before I found the gold mine of French shops that exists in this town!  Need to go back just finish shopping.

A little taster of one of my favorite places……

I will now become one of those people who are always gushing about how wonderful Annecy it.  At least i now know hat it is NOT overrated!

Je me rendrai à nouveau!

Thinking Walks

In the past couple of weeks I have taken a fair few walks to get out of the house.  It’s a good way to think, about bi decisions perhaps, but also a chance to enjoy the fresh air and beautiful view!  I will miss not being able to walk out the door and be in a gorgeous landscape strait away.   I’ll to fin some new places to stroll. 

I know I have probably bored you to death with photos from my walks, but get used to it, because I have more!!!  I am just going to share some of my favorites with you.

The colour of the landscape suddenly changed in a week…….

10 Points if you see the cat……............

Another flower photo from my favorite garden……..

Wood wall……….....................................

Andy Goldsworthy would love this……............

You can hear a continuous ringing of bells walking down this lane.  If I were a sheep in this bell ringers flock I would have run up the mountain a long time ago.

The bell ringer……………

I actually didn’t get very far on this particular walk…I just wanted a good view to read in.

Moi et beau vue………………….

On another walk leaving Echenevex………………

My favorite path to the source (which I’m pretty sure is flooded right now)…

Walking down a road I had yet to explore my nose detected a smell I knew well!

Fermenting apples in the gutter………. 

It reminded me of the homey smell I loved that surrounded the Brewery I worked at last year.

My final walk in the area led me to the following sign……....

I got stupidly excited of course!

I was inundated with cows on this walk………..

Shame this signs warning was after cow city………

This is for my fellow Jane Austen fans……..

Picture the field at dawn, a lot of mist and a little bridge crossing the dip…ring a bell?  Keria knightly ‘Pride and Prejudice’?  No?  Just me and my obsessive mind perhaps.

Bonsoir

 

I'm Being A Good Girl Mum!

I feel the need to provide evidence for my mum that I am actually going to institute.  I may not always be able to get there (when you work on other peoples time it can get too late in the day to go) but I do go when I can.  Therefore this post is dedicated to her and my journey to the Institute building of Religion!

Being car-less during the week means that the lovely Caitlin very kindly (because she’s a ledge) drives all the way out to Echenevex to pick me up, then drives back on herself to take us to our first destination of the journey.  We park at the Geneva chapel (because it’s FREEEEEE!!!) then walk through the MASSIVE ‘Balexet’ shopping center. The first time we did this we got absolutely lost because we apparently kept asking for directions to a train instead of a tram?  Who new you could get misunderstood in a foreign land?!  When we did get on the right route (thankfully Caitlin had been brushing up on her French directions the day before) I made the most delightful discovery!!!!!

My eyes were filled with stars………

Can you believe that I would stumble across this beaut?!  I’ll go to institute each week just so I can look longingly at this fragrance filled wonderland.

Anyway, we get to the tram stop and buy a ticket, I have to ask Catlin each week, ‘which button do I press?’, she pats me like a child.

Always confused……........................

We get on the tram at Balexert (I will spell this about 5 different ways)…..

Then jump of at Pont-d’Arve……………

 

Finally we arrive at the institute building all in one piece.............

There is a French class (which I avoid obviously) and an English class run by the missionary couple, the Chatterley’s.  They are amazing people!!!!

That is my little institute bit…for you Cazza!

Bises!

Cheesy Walks With Caitlin

I haven’t actually had a cheesy walk with Caitlin.  I just wanted to tell you about my cheese fest and the events following from mid October to my ‘holiday’ week with Caitlin.  We had some fun times and interesting conversations.

Nobody likes to be stereotyped, right?  Especially the French, you pick them up on something they have done that’s typically French and the excuses start flowing.  So why do I regularly see a man wearing a stripped T-shirt and beret riding his bike down a lane with a baguette in one hand and a cigarette in the other, smelling of onions and wine?!  Typical! The English hatred towards the French has started to rear its ugly head from within me the past couple of weeks…not good!  I’ll just say now that the French lessons are still happening, ever so slowly!  Feel free to test me when I am home, you’ll get a reply of one of two phases I always use, yes, I have added another phrase to my limited French vocabulary!

First check out what I was persuaded to eat for dinner one night…………….

It had been my host Dad’s birthday that week and the mum had bought a ton of really nice expensive cheese from a special shop in Fernery (the very same shop that the French prime minister gets his cheese from apparently).  They told me to sit down one night and partake in the goodness of theses cheeses!  My family would have been rather excited if they were there, sadly I had to suffer the joy alone!  Haha!  I will be bringing some back home though.  Bacon and brie baguettes Helen!!!

A couple of days later, after the family has left for Paris for a week, I have Caitlin and Chiara over for a little sleep over.  It was a proper girls sleepover with face masks and brownies!  We watched ‘The Nanny Diary’s’ ironically.  The main characters situation was far too similar to my own for my liking!  Apart from the lack of a ‘Harved Hottie’, that might actually be appreciated.  Anyway, Chiara came out with us to church the next day, which was again rather cool!  There have been an unbelievable amount of missionary opportunities whilst I’ve been here.  Caitlin and me jump on them every time one comes by!  That afternoon Caitlin had to teach a primary lesson in the Geneva Ward so Chiara and me went for a walk through the center of Geneva.

This sparkly ground baffled me for a while………….......

Turns out it was chinks of mirror in the pavement. I was not prepared for a walk through the city in my Sunday cloths, hence these shoes were trashed and had to be chucked that night.

This is one of the trams that runs through Geneva………

It’s what I use to get to institute each week.  People are ever so slightly scared that one will ram into the side of you whilst driving.

The city sprawl…………….

 

We finally found something interesting to visit………

It was gorgeous inside, full of beautiful painted windows with the light of the sun shining through them.

To give you a feel of the place here’s some photos…….

For the rest of my ‘holiday ’ I shared a bed with Caitlin all week.  She had to work all week and I had nothing better to do, so I helped her out.  It was really just an excuse to hangout with her, but I did get paid for doing so!  Score!!!  Looking after three boys all day can make you go a bit loopy though.  Especially when one of them gets particularly egotistical!  Whilst reading to one of the boys and Caitlin (as she cooked) we received the following notes after several interruptions of the same nature.

Have you started reading?............

 

 

Apparently we were reading to loud?  Haha!  It was cracking me up, but the kid just couldn’t get it into his head that just because he wanted to read in his room, it doesn’t mean that the rest of the hose has to be silent.  He wouldn’t even compromise by moving into a different room where he wouldn’t hear us.  You can guess that when the kid did come to claim ‘his’ book back I refused, because he was so rude, and he now refuses to acknowledge my existence when I am round.  Lesson learnt…read harry potter so loud that even the students at Hogwarts surrounded by there magic force field of protection can hear you!

As the week wore on we just wanted to have fun.  A lot of late night chats and falling asleep during movies filled our evenings.  Then there was a little bit of prep for Halloween!

Pumpkin eyes………….

Caitlin’s host mum is Amazing!!!  Both the parents work for the U.N. and have lived in places all over the world.  The mum is on the humanitarian side of things, where she is getting some major projects on the move.  She travels everywhere, as do her colleagues I guess because one day she brought home some fruit from Thailand that she had got from a charity thing at work.  Caitlin and I delved into them naturally.

Nameless spiky fruit………….

 The one Caitlin destroyed……….

The fruit was delicious!  A random highlight of the week!

More in a minute!

The First Two Advetures to the Land of Swiss

Back in the very beginning of October (the 7^th October to be precise, and before I my phone somehow wiped a load of photos off itself), I had my first rare free day off during the week.  A friend from French class called Lejla, (who lives 5 minutes away from me in Gex) and I decided to start the tour of ‘Lac Leman’.

A post card of the lake…………..

The postcard pretty much shows the mountain range that I can see fro my house.   Cool huh!?  Lejla and I made a pact that we are going to visit every place around the lake (not that she is going to be able to fulfill the pact, as she’s going back home in December to continue with study’s, I will brave the rest of the tour myself!!).  We ticked off three places that day though.  It was inevitably going to be a good a good day because we saw this amazing rainbow as we set off on our journey.

No pot of gold though…………….....

Our first stop was an information center in Dionne.  We came out with a ton of maps and leaflets about places to visit, which now clutter my junk draw.  We stopped in Coppet for a little wonder.

Praise the flag………………………......

It was a cold, wet and windy day, perfect for the swan……………. 

We then drove on to Nyon, which would be the main destination of the day!  It’s a big old town, which the Romans left some remains of their time there. 

My artsy photo for the day of the town itself………… 

We set out to find some food first though.  But thirst got to me first however……..

 

I am determined to get in my board shorts one day and take a dip in one of these.  They are everywhere!  Searching for food turned out to be a bit expensive.

When we did find food we could kind of afford, it was delicious……………….

The guy behind me helped the waitress translate what we wanted as our French was pretty bad after only a month of lessons.  The man wasn’t there however to help out with the water situation.  Always order natural water!!!  Tap water!!!  It will be the most expensive bottle of water I have ever paid for!  4.50 Swiss Francs!  Why did it have to cost that much?  It’s not like I was paying them to climb the nearest mountain and find a natural spring for me to drink from.  I could have done that myself!

The chateau with the most amazing view……….

 

Yes, that view includes moi……..

 

The actual view……………..

 

I even picked out my cosy little home (the one with the hangers)……………….

My new friend………………..

Charge me up………………….. 

I did not realize these electric car charge stations actually existed!!  Why in this random town in Switzerland too? But they are already unused!  Huh!

After wondering around Nyon all afternoon, we ended the day back in Dionne purchasing some delightful French macaroons.

These would make good Christmas present’s I f I knew I wasn’t likely to eat them all first…………

We got a ton of different flavors and ate them as we took a walk around the lake in Dionne!

 A perfect finish to a leisurely day!

As it would happen, the following weekend I went to Nyon again with a small group.  Caitlin, Victoria and myself picked up Elisabeth (who lives in Nyon) and wondered the town.  We met a friend of Elisabeth’s while we were wondering who joined us for the evening.

Victoria, Caitlin and Elisabeth………..

We discovered this wall…………….

 

It’s amazing!  It depicts what a roman building that was once there would have looked like.  We later ate some more crêpes, which seems to be the thing to eat in Nyon now.  However we didn’t want to end the night so had a big sleep over at Catlin’s (where I gushed about my love for LUSH all night!), which meant that Victoria came to church with us, which was cool.  We continued to hang out at Caitlin’s the next day, watching films and skyping family.

So all in all a good weekend me thinks!