Summer Vistors

Summer's almost over! Tomorrow is Labour Day so I'm thinking of all my teacher friends back at home... bon courage !

We have been lucky enough to have quite a few visitors come see us in Gap this summer. First up was Andrea alllll the way from Galiano Island. She and I used to teach together at JLS College in Vancouver. She was on a whirlwind trip to France, Italy, and Scotland and managed to arrive in Lyon just in time to meet me for the Leonard Cohen concert. I have never swooned so much in my life! It was beyond fantastic.

The next day we hopped on the train from Lyon to Gap. It takes about three hours to get from one place to the other, and the clickity-clack of the train was all too much for poor jet-lagged Andrea.

Once back in Gap, I was thrilled to show Andrea around my new 'hood. Here we are enjoying the view from chez moi:


François and I also took her to our favourite swimming hole about 45 minutes from Gap, complete with lovely cool fresh water and a stone bridge built by the Romans way back when!


Our second set of visitors were François' sister, Delphine, and brother-in-law, Eloi. They arrived for the Bastille Day long weekend, which we kicked off with a group picnic at Les Gorges de la Méouge, the aforementioned favourite swimming spot. Picnics are always yummy fun, especially in France... with a bottle of rosé!




Later that weekend, Andrea continued on her way towards the south of France and Italy, while we stayed local and rented a boat on the Lac de Serre-Ponçon, which is a huge lake near Gap. It was created when they built what turned out to be Europe's second largest dam back in the 1950s. Artifical or not, it's still a beautiful spot and it was so fun to be out on the water on a beautiful summer day!

Click on the link below to see more photos of our
afternoon out on the lake:

Lac de Serre-Ponçon

Moving right along, our most recent visitors were the lovely Florine, Alice, and Emie from Lyon, who came to see us in mid-August. What you need to know: Florine and Alice are sisters who spent a lot of time with Francois and his family while they were growing up, due to the fact that their parents were/are good friends. (Despite this, the girls seem to be pretty much normal! Hee hee...) As for Emie, she is Florine's brand-new daughter (only 3 months old!) and was definitely the star of their visit to Gap.


We had a lot of fun drinking tea and playing with Emie at the apartment, having picnics in the park,

and going out for gelato in the evenings.

It was nice for me to have a good dose of "girl time"... and while François was at work, the girls kept me entertained with stories of how much of a goofy, nerdy kid he was (not much has changed, apparently!)

To see more photos from the girls' visit, click here:

Al, Emie, Flo à Gap

So now you are all up-to-date with the summer visitors to 14, rue de France. Next up to check into the guest room? My Mom and Dad! That's right, my parents arrive in France on September 12th for a three-week visit. I am so excited to see them over here, introduce them to Francois' family, and be tour guide extraordinaire !

Week-end de 15 août

I'm starting to wonder if the French even have ordinary, normal two-day weekends. It seems like we are constantly burdened with long weekends. What a bore, non ? Earlier this month was no exception. August 15th is Assumption (which, according to Wikipedia, is "important to many Catholics as the day that Mary was received into Heaven" - don't worry, I didn't know either...), so François had the day off (along with everybody else). We hit the road (along with everybody else!) and went to spend the weekend in Malaucène, a village about two hours from Gap. Why Malaucène? Well, Nicolas (FQ's brother) and his wife Stéphanie, along with Arthur (FQ's nephew/godson) are currently renting a house there for a couple weeks of summer vacation. Most of the time, they live in New York City (you'll remember that FQ and I spent a week in NYC chez eux back in March). You can imagine the view from their apartment in Manhattan is just a little different from the view from the maison de vacances :

If you're wondering what that bump in the middle of the photo is, you're not alone. Apparently, it's the remmenants of an old fort. Nowadays there's a chapel up there, a few olive trees, and a beautiful view of the village:

The house Nicolas and Stéphanie rented is the one just to the left of the centre of the photo (can you spot the white parasol?)

Of course we never get tired of taking the classic "long-arm" self-portraits whenever there's a nice view to be had:

And please note how my new shortish French haircut goes well with the French scenery:

And how cute FQ is in his new stripy sweater:

Speaking of cute, here is FQ's nephew/godson Arthur, who turns four next month. I love the moustache de lait !

OK, enough French cuteness! Back to the long weekend recap: we had a lovely time doing not much at all, French-style. In the mornings, we wandered into the village to buy croissants and newspapers, came back, ate breakfast, read the paper, played Lego with Arthur, opened a beer as soon as the village church bells told us it was noon, ate lunch, took a walk, took a nap, had apéritif, BBQed something for dinner, drank some wine, chatted, went to bed. Ahhhhh.

You can see all the photos from the long weekend by clicking here:

Weekend du 15 août

Reporting live from the French Alps to Bejing, this is François Quairel!

Wow, it's been a while since I last posted. This blog seems to be taking on a bit of a sporty theme... first Le Tour de France, and now Les Jeux Olympiques !

As you know, François is a journalist at Alpes 1, the local radio station in Gap. And he's crazy about his job and the profession of journalism as a whole. Crazy enough to get up many mornings at the crack of dawn to do the a.m. news broadcasts at the radio. And even crazy enough to wake up at 3:15 a.m. to go cover a special news story. Yes, 3:15. In. The. Morning.

"Why??!" you ask?

Well, there is a French swimmer called Alain Bernard who comes from Châteauvieux, a little village of 450 people close to Gap. At least 150 of those villagers are just as crazy as François, because they chose to get up in the middle of the night to watch Alain Bernard swim in the Men's 100m freestyle event. Which, with the time difference between here and China, took place at 4:45 a.m. French time. It must have been a very festive atmosphere there in la salle des fêtes (the community centre) with a big-screen TV set up and champagne bottles at the ready. Alain Bernard's parents and relatives were there, along with the village mayor and other folks. The swimmers started the race and the atmosphere was tense. Everybody clenched their fists and cheered on their hometown boy. And then somebody stepped on a cable and the TV image went blank. Zip. Zero. Rien.

(Note: that "somebody" is not me! I was, of course, home fast asleep during all this. My retelling of the story is thanks to FQ and the news report he filed.)

Can you imagine the panic? The disappointment? The desperation?

Luckily somebody had brought a radio, so they tuned it in just in time to hear that Alain Bernard had won the gold metal. Champagne all around!

Anyway, it sounds like it was all very exciting and FQ's report for the AFP (Associated French Press) was sent straight to Bejing. He has since received congratulations on his reporting from the AFP, their team of reporters in Bejing, and (most exciting of all!) François was on national TV as part of a news report on the whole hullabaloo. Whee!

To read the report FQ filed for the AFP (en français, bien sûr), click here.

To see the video on the LCI website (basically, the equivalent of French CNN), click here! And keep your eye out for the cute French reporter in the red shirt! (Dave and Ange, are you loving the Stanford plug?)