Two Months Later

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It's been about two months now since we came back to France after a five years break and moved to Bordeaux. The beginning was a little rocky I must admit, the apartment we originally were supposed to live in turned out to be a horrible mess, we ended up staying in a hotel for one week before found the place that we now live in, I learned that my employment would be a lot trickier than I first thought, I seemed to have forgotten most of my French and even the simpliest conversations caused me headaches, my rheumathism was kicking my butt 10-0, we still hadn't found someone to rent our flat in Poland, there was a lot of paper work to sort out from getting married (some in Finland, some in France) and well, the list is endless!

One leisurely Sunday in town.

These perfectly formed little passages got my heart going...

Omelette & bananabread brunch.

One of those quilty moments... But hey, when in France, eh?

Banana bread.

Slowly getting some exercising done after an unfairly long break!

Now, we're at the beginning of October and we've settled in. I speak French rather well, some could even say almost fluently, I've sorted my CV in French and have my fingers and toes crossed it'll bring me results sooner than later on my job hunt (so far, staying optimistic, we'll see how I'm doing in my next catch up post). So far I've been sending an English version of my CV to companies (where the job advert has been in English) as well as a French language version of the original and was wondering why it resulted in zero hits or interviews so far. Back home I had been told my CV was good and although I knew it must have been slightly out of date when it comes to its' format, I was surprised when I heard the feedback from a French connection lately.

After the games there's normally a social mixer at the VIP area of the ice rink, this is where the players go greet the sponsors and other people involved with the club. It's normal for wives and girlfriends (and even babies!) to tag along in this post game gathering and socialize. So that's what I was doing the other week when I came accross someone that works closely with the team as a sponsor. I got offered help with my CV as well as help sending it over to some potentially interested companies and so on. Later on the week I met up with this contact to go over my CV and I was then really surprised when I saw how the French CVs were expected to look like. For instance, if you had no picture on your CV, you would automatically have something shady about you and nobody would give a second look at your resume despite what experience you had listed there. After a one hour session I went back home and completely re-did my resume. No wonder I didn't hear back from anyone before! Now, thanks to this great network the team has, I might stand a chance on the job market ;)
 
Besides the massive work on my CV, I've fixed my passport and other documents that needed sorting out after getting married, I've gotten some sports back to my weekly routine which has helped with my rheumatism as well, I feel at home in our apartment and the town, I've made friends with pretty amazing people, ice hockey season has kicked off nicely, I've done some things outside my comfort zone (I went to a spinning class in a pool, in a one piece swimming suit for starters, let me just say, yey me!) and a lot more. In addition, I've been spending some time in the kitchen, baked my first banana bread, created a new recipe for healthy breakfast pancakes and well, perhaps one of the coolest things, discovered how to make a healthier version of Snickers at home (this deserves a hooray I think)! I'll put the recipies up here if anyone is interested in healthier goodies :) In the meanwhile, a few pics from here and there!

Paris <3 Had to take one quick snapshot while on my way to the Finnish embassy to fix my passport.

Does this really need a caption?

Salad with chevre.

A little reading corner at our home.

Have a lovely mid-week!

A Hello From France!

One and half months of silence does the trick, you start feeling like perhaps it's time to come and give an update on how things are rolling! I've not been silent on purpose, it's just that after the "holidays" all my time went to work, preparing for the wedding and preparing for the move. And now, suddenly it's already middle of August and the summer's about to be over.

Walk by the water in Bordeaux.

A glass of rosé and chevre salad.

It's been a very lovely, but an extremely stressful summer where there hasn't been any breaks to take a pause and just relax. After all the wedding preparations and a wedding of my dreams, we were immediately dropped out of our wedding bubble to planning the move. In the meanwhile I was still working normal days and took only a break when we actually took the road to drive to France.

From our Sunday stroll by the sea.

We've now been in France for little over two weeks and it's taken some time to get used to the new surroundings and being back here. I had somewhat high expectations of feeling relaxed after our arrival but it seems to take some time to get to that place.

The city is great though, it really does indeed look like a relaxed Paris in here, like they say. I've met some friendly people so far, which is always a bonus. I'm really looking forward to September already, when the French come back from their holidays and the neighbourhood as well as the city wakes up. August gives the town a little zombie like vibes, not so much in the city centre which is full of tourists but in the surroundings as all the small shops and bakeries are closed for the holiday period.

The other reason for looking forward to September is that by then I'll likely be more integrated here and can find my way around more easily. As an impatient person, I'd like to fix the house, my hobbies and my work to a place that feels comfortable to me, rather sooner than later.

A couple details in our home.

My current work comes to its' end by end of October which means I'm looking for new opportunities at the moment. It being August means it's quiet in the job market too and I'll have to wait with my signing up to language school for a little while as well. I understand French well but still need some refreshing on my vocabulary and writing.

Our home from the outside. A very boheme garden in front ;) But with a little work we'll have a lovely terrace to enjoy morning coffees at!

 I'll put up a whole post about the wedding, once we get our wedding pictures from the photographer. All I can say is, the day and the weekend was simply amazing and I wish I could go back in time and re-live it all over again. We had all our photo booth pictures from the wedding framed and everytime I pass that collage I can't help but smile :) They don't call it "the best day of your life" without a reason ;)

Time to start cooking now as hubby's coming back from practise! I'll start posting some recipies again soon (that was one of the main points of this blog anyway...) as I'll be cooking more in our new place.

Wishing you a great week!

Marianne