More Stupid French People

Seven or 8 months ago, our downstairs neighbour knocked on our door complaining of water leaking through their bathroom light fitting. They seemed to think the water was coming from our bathroom and with a little investigation we agreed they were right. We got a plumber in and he 'fixed' the problem. A few weeks later it was leaking again.

Since then we've had numerous plumbers and architects and engineers and building officials come by to look at the problem. After many, many discussions they determined the water was coming from our shower. Really? That took us 5 minutes to work out.

Next came the endless discussions about who should pay to fix the problem. In Australia, structural or building maintenance is taken care of by the landlord (as far as I'm aware) and I would think that would be the case here but my landlord insisted that I should have to pay. I gave him my 'that's bloody ridiculous' argument and eventually he saw it my way and he paid for all the plumbers, who did nothing anyway.

A few months passed and they poor sucker who lives below me brought me a billion documents to sign so my insurance company would pay for the damages. I still think it shouldn't be my insurance who pays but whatever, the insurance companies can fight it out amongst themselves.

More months pass and today 6 more people came to look at the problem. They want to pull the shower apart to find the leak. Of course, I agreed to the work because I know it's coming from the shower. They'll be back next week to pull it apart and check it out.

The stupid architect guy thinks the problem stems from the fact that there isn't enough ventilation in the bathroom. Now while there may not be enough air passing through, it's pretty obvious that is not the cause of water gushing into my neighbours apartment. He insists it is and we need to cut of 3cm at the bottom of the bathroom door. What an idiot. Does he have a brain or what? I keep the bathroom door open 99% of the time anyway, including when I have a shower, so making a huge gap in the door won't solve anything.

He wouldn't listen to me and is going to send someone to chop off the bottom of the door. I'm pretty sure my landlord won't approve of that and neither will I so I won't be letting that guy inside my house. They can do that after I leave if they want but not while I'm here.

We'll see what happens next Monday when they come back and if they ever decide to actually fix the bloody pipe. I just feel sorry for my neighbour. He's been so patient. I would have moved out already if it had been me.

Qumana vs Live Writer

I've been using Qumana to write my blog posts for the last 9 months or so and it has been fantastic. It saves me so much time when blogging, especially seeing I have more than one blog. I can create posts offline and then publish and then start writing the next post for the next blog without having to login to each site. It has been a real time saver. Plus it's free!

It does have a few bugs though. I would find that if I closed Qumana and then later tried to open it again, it wouldn't open. I'd have to go into the Task Manager and stop the process, which would still be running. This was a small problem which was overcome by not closing the program!

After getting my new computer a couple of weeks ago, which runs on the Windows Vista operating system, I installed Qumana and it was working perfectly. Then 2 days ago it crashed and it wouldn't open again. I tried rebooting, uninstalling, reinstalling but no luck. I suspect it's a Java related problem. It just won't start up. So I had to find an alternative.

I looked at quite a few editors and BlogJet was looking like the way to go but $40 seems a little pricey when there are so many other free blog editors. Then I came across MS Live Writer. Live Writer is free and gets good reviews and so here I am writing my first blog post with my new blogging editor.

Setting up a blog is easy, as with Qumana, and was ready to write within minutes. The best thing so far is that it uses the blogs CSS file so I can see exactly how the post will look. Plus it is faster. I had problems with Qumana where I would type faster than it would recognise what I had done and I'd have to wait for it to catch up to me. That was kind of strange. I don't have that problem now.

Another little thing I like about Live Writer is when highlighting something to create a link. If you try to highlight a word in Qumana by double clicking it it would also pick up the comma or full stop which followed it. That constantly bugged me. That's not an issue with Live Writer.

One negative with Live Writer is that it doesn't detect when I have copied a link. So when I go to insert a link I have to paste it into the dialog box whereas with Qumana it would automatically insert it, making linking easy.

Let's hope all goes well when I publish. Fingers crossed...

Update: Success, it posted, yay!

Another thing worth mentioning is that Qumana used to put an extra line between paragraphs with Blogger. I couldn't figure out why. That problem is no longer, yay again!

Open Office

I wrote yesterday about how I couldn't get the spell checker to work after installing Open Office on my new computer. Obviously, with it being open source software it doesn't come with everything pre-installed so I had to download the relevant files and install them myself. This took virtually no time and now there is no chance of me posting articles with misspellings in them. Not that I would ever spell words like colour or organise as color or organize but typos can happen (fairly regularly with me!).

So special thanks to the very kind people who pointed me to the Australian English (Kelvin version) dictionary files.

Soma Out of the Nouvelle Star

Finally Soma got voted out of the Nouvelle Star. I thought he was going to be one of the best performers when I saw him at the auditions but it was all downhill from there. I can't believe he got as far as he did.

So I did the weekly wrap up over at my Nouvelle Star blog or you can visit the individual blogs to see the performances of each of the contestants.

So you can watch and listen to Tigane sing Elton John's Your Song, Raphaelle singing Hurt by Christina Aguilera, Julie singing some boring French crap, Soma singing completely off key to Walking Away by Craig David, Pierre in an unusal performance of Grace Kelly, Gaetane attempting to sing Ironic by Alanis Morissette, and Julien in another great performance with Moi Lolita.

New Laptop

I spent last weekend in London. I desperately needed to buy a new computer and seeing I couldn't stand the thought of using a French keyboard, I headed north to pick up a middle of the range laptop. Not that I really like the English keyboard either but at least it's similar to the one I'm used to. I set it to the international keyboard setting anyway so I think it's ok.

I really wanted to get the latest and greatest computer but at 2000 pounds, that was a bit over my budget. In the end I went with an Acer laptop with 17 inch screen, 1.6 GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, and who knows what else, for 700 pounds. It's not the best on the market, by any means, but it is significantly better than what I was using. The increase in speed in incredible and so is the LCD screen.

The first thing I had to do was set up a network so Ferbent can use the old computer at the same time as I use mine. It took me ages to figure out how to do but in the end it was very simple. Here are the steps for adding a computer to an existing network using the Livebox and internal Wi-Fi. This is really just for my reference because I think I'll buy another computer in the next month or so for Ferbent. The old has so many problems and he's helping me with my marketing efforts and he needs a new computer to be more productive.

Full instructions with screenshots can be found at Orange.

1. Push the little button on the bottom of the Livebox, next to the connection for the electricity. The opens up the network to allow you to connect the new computer.


2. On the new computer click Start - Connect.


3. Select the number of the Livebox (which is written on the bottom of the Livebox.


4. Enter the WEP password which can also be found on the bottom of the Livebox.


5. Wait a few seconds and the connection is made.

Yay, that was easy. Now if only I can figure out how to set up the wireless connection to the printer...

Oh, and it doesn't come with Microsoft Office so I downloaded the open source package Open Office. It was recommended by someone but the spell checker on the Word type program doesn't work :( That's the whole reason I wanted it. Don't tell me I'll actually have to fork out cash for Word and Excel? I wish Qumana came with a spell checker (with Australian English) then I could live with Open Writer. Although I prefer to check my grammar too before posting. Looks like Word it is.

Translate English to French

I created blogs for each of the contestants for this year's Nouvelle Star and so had no choice but to write them in French. I don't have the time or inclination to sit around trying to write in a language other than my own so I used Google Translate to translate what I wrote into French.

I have to say Google Translate works really well, much better than other free online translators which I've used. It wasn't perfect of course, it translated fan to ventilateur rather than, well, fan, and it changed Dove, the guy from the Nouvelle Star to la Colombe. At least I've learnt a new word in French. The bird, dove, is une colombe. Great, that should come in handy.

So next time I have to write a letter in French I'll just write it in English first and then throw it through the translator and cross my fingers.

Alex Out of La Nouvelle Star

Another episode of La Nouvelle Star is over. I quite enjoy blogging it live and I picked straight away that Alex would be the one to go out. I don't think there was much doubt about it - he was crap.

Julien and Pierre are still going strong, as is Gaetane. Soma was rubbish again, although marginally better than last week, but was pulled through by his numerous fans, again. Raphaelle and Julie only just made it through. I wasn't surprised about Julie, she should be out next week but I thought Raphaelle did alright. So that leaves Tigane who did a horrid version of U2's One.

My prediction for next week is either Julie or Raphaelle to be out.

Take the Tram in Paris

Today was a public holiday in France so, seeing the gym was closed, we decided to go for a long walk around Paris. We live around 30 minutes from Parc Andre Citroen so we headed there.

Just next to the park is the last stop of the new Paris Tramway so we thought we'd hop on that instead and see where it took us. Before we even headed off it was full and by the time we got to Cite Universite we were packed in like sardines. Thankfully most people got off there or at the Stade Charlety where there was a political event going on. Why am I not surprised that when Parisiens have the day off they choose to run around shouting things like 'Stop Sarko' and 'Les jeaunes pour Segolene'!

A few stops later we were at the end of the line in the 13th. Boy am I glad I don't live there! All you'll find there is row after row of massive apartment blocks or ghettos, as I prefer to call them. What a hell hole.

A fairly short walk, 20 minutes or so, took us to the Jardin des Plantes. I read recently that the Mayor of Paris had changed the law to allow people to sit on the grass areas in Paris' parks. That is clearly not the case because I saw at least 6 people working there running around with whistles telling people to get off the lawn. Nice.

After picking up some Greek food from my favourite Greek deli 'Le Piree' in the 6th we then ate what we bought in the park behind Notre Dame overlooking Ile St Louis.

I wasn't feeling too well due to the level of pollin around and the constant sneezing and eye watering finally got to me so we headed home - by metro. I never had allergy problems in Australia but both last year and this year it has been a serious problem.

I would add some photos to this post but I forgot to take my camera comme d'habitude.

Chansons Francaise | Nouvelle Star

The theme for last night's episode of la Nouvelle Star was 'Chansons Francaises'. So all the contestants had to sing a French song. Obviously they all chose well known French songs but, not being French and not having lived here for very long, I didn't know any of them. I don't think I even recognised one of the songs. So all I could do to judge the performanes was to judge their vocals and presentation.

Canelle was up first and was ordinary as usual. I expected her to be out before the show even started because she didn't even belong in the top 10 let alone make it to the final 8. So yep, she got the least votes and is out of the competition, probably never to be heard from again.

Pierre Darmon was up next. I think he has a great voice and even though I didn't know the song, he was fantastic. I love this guy. He got a red from Dove becuase he felt Pierre doesn't sing with enough emotion but I think that was unfair. I can see Pierre getting better and better as the weeks go along. Pierre came in at 6 after the voting which was a shock for me. I don't think it helps to be one of the first singers.

Alex was his usual funky self. He sang a song by Yannick Noah. I still can't believe Yannick Noah is a famous singer in this country as I'd only ever known him as a tennis player but whatever... Alex sang and performed well but he wasn't outstanding. Alex was voted in at number 5 so that confirms his mediocre status. I'm sure he can do better but will he?

Raphaelle sang an old French song which showed off her beautiful voice. She sings well but is lacking character or personality. I think she'll continue for another week or two but I can't see her winning the comp. Raphaelle got plenty of votes and came in second. She deserved that I think.

Next up was Julie who sang Si Seulement Je Pouvais Lui Manquer. She was great. She did so much better than last week and thankfully the judges and public thought so too. Julie was voted in at number 4. I thought she did better than Raphaelle but 4 out of 9 isn't too bad.

Popular boy Tigane sang J'en Reve Encore. Everyone loves him - except me that is. Yeah, he sings well but he's just not appealing to me. I don't see what he has that is unique. He got the most last night and looks like he'll be safe for a while.

Poor Soma. He started out with such promise and now he's way over his head. He made an attempt at singing Mon Pays by Faudel but he can't sing for shit. As Marianne said, the only reason he's still in the comp is that the young girls who do most of the voting think he's cute. I really thought he was in with a chance when I saw him at the casting but unless he can make some radical changes, he's going to be out soon. He just made it to the next round.

The brilliant Julien Dore sang Comme d'Habitude. He was fantastic last night. I loved his performance. I can't decide who I'd prefer to win, Julien or Pierre but they are both great in my opinion. Julien was voted through at number 3. I thought he would have been first but maybe his style isn't to everone's liking.

Last to perform was Gaetane singing Au Cafe Des Delices originally by Patrick Bruel. I didn't like her performance at all but was surprised that she only just made it through to the next round, coming in number 7 out of 9.

My prediction for next week is that Soma or Alex will be out.

Nouvelle Star | Videos | Interviews

I've been watching all the videos of the Nouvelle Star contestants on You Tube. I thought TV shows were removed from You Tube but there are heaps of Nouvelle Star videos available to watch.

You can check out the videos of some of the contestants including the castings, auditions, and all of the recent live shows from Baltard.

Alex seems to be a pretty fun and easy going guy who can sing reasonably well but I don't think he'll have the support to win the Nouvelle Star.

Gaetane is very, very popular but I can't work out why. She'll probably be one of the last remaining contestants.

Raphaelle isn't a bad singer but is just so damn boring. Hopefully she'll get better because I quite like her.

Tigane is even less interesting than Raphaelle but the judges love him. I don't think he sings that well and his accent needs a lot of work when singing in English.

Still more videos to come then it'll be time for the next round.

My Carte Vitale

Quite by surprise today, I got a letter in the mail from the Assurance Maladie stating that I have been added to Ferbent's Carte Vitale health card. So I can finally go to the doctor if I need to without having to worry about paying the full cost.

I originally applied for a carte vitale about a 8 months ago when I received my temporary carte de sejour. I had to fill in some forms and prove I was married to my husband who was employed in France. They then needed to see his carte vitale which he was still waiting for.

When his carte vitale finally arrived I wrote back to Assurance Maladie with a copy of the carte vitale but then they needed my carte de sejour, not the temporary one I had shown them.

So I'd kind of forgotten about the whole thing. I then stumbled upon my 'dossier' the other day so I thought I'd send it back with a copy of my carte de sejour (which I received in February). I didn't even send a covering letter, I just put all the documents in an envelope and that was it.

It turns out that was enough so if I get hit by a bus tomorrow it won't cost me a fortune!

I wonder if they'll reimbourse me for when I went to the dentist last year? Probably not but it's worth a try. I'll send off the documents tomorrow and see what happens.

Nouvelle Star | Ilyes Out

Ilyes is out of the running for the Nouvelle Star 2007. He didn't really deserve to continue so I think the voting public got it right this time.

I've added videos and interviews for 4 of the contestants which you can check out if you're interested.

Canelle makes a slightly better performance than last week, as did Soma. I thought Julie did well singing in Spanish but she made it through by only 17 votes.

Videos for the rest are still to come.

Cologne | Germany | Photos

I completely forgot to post my Cologne photos from my recent trip to Germany (which is not so recent now) so here they are:

I'm not a fan of Gothic architechture but the Cologne Cathedral is pretty impressive although clearly in need of a good clean.



Most of Cologne was destroyed during the war so a lot of the architecture is from the 1950s. This of course translates to a very ugly city. However, there are some character buildings along the river.



Yes, this is a photo of a building with an icecream cone on top of it. I don't know what those Germans are up to here:



Ferbent doesn't seem to be too happy about the cold weather:



They like to ride their bikes a lot in Cologne which is great:



That's it for Cologne, there wasn't much to see but I had a great time anyway. I'm looking forward to my next trip to Germany.

Wonder Cooker

A quick update on the Wonder Cooker which I've been promoting for a few weeks.

I had my doubts about whether people would be interested in this kind of thing and more to the point, whether people actually buy As Seen on TV products but in fact, it sells really, really well. My conversion rate is around 5% which is great. Well, I think it's great. Other affiliate programs I work with only convert at around 1 to 2% so needless to say I'm pretty happy with the Wonder Cooker.

The only reason I'm not looking at retirement any time soon is that I'm not getting enough volume. People just aren't searching for the Wonder Cooker. Maybe it's only a new product or it isn't being promoted on TV at the moment; I'm not sure. So I'm only getting around 1 sale per day. Yeah, I won't be going on a 5 star holiday anytime soon.

This has motivated me to try promoting other As Seen on TV products. As soon as I finish with the Nouvelle Star campaign I'll be working on promoting other products like with my One Cooker website.

La Nouvelle Star

I'm not that interested in reality TV shows, especially French ones but I have been following the Nouvelle Star with mild interest. Actually my interest in this show is more from a marketing persepective than anything else as I'm interested in the possible money making opportunites it presents.

I know that in the US, American Idol is hugely popular and many marketers do really well promoting the last 10 contestants and especially the winner. They do arbitrage or CPA offers around ringtone or cd offers. So I thought I'd give it a go here with the Nouvelle Star 2007. Naturally the demand won't be as high here as in the US but I won't know exactly until I try.

So my pick to win La Nouvelle Star is Pierre Darmon. He's one of the more experienced singers, has a great voice and is well liked by both the jury and the public. The most unique and talented singer and talented is Julien Dore. I think he's great and the jury loves him but I don't think he'll win. He's a bit too alternative for the voting public I'd suggest.

As for the girls there is Gaetane, who is pretty useless but seems to be popular because she's pretty, if you like the look of French girls that is. Canelle is even more useless than Gaetane but someone managed to get through to the final 10. She doesn't deserve to be there but anyway, that's how they voted. Raphaelle seems nice and has a pretty good voice but I don't think she'll win. She might make it to the top 5 but she's a bit too plain Jane to win. My favourite of the girls is Julie. She's pretty cool and can sing well and I think she's popular so she could go far.

The rest of the line up includes Alex who was saved by the jury at the last minute. He definitely deserved to get through. Soma is hugely popular with the girls. He can sing well but his performances so far have been utter crap. Hopefully he'll improve this week as he could win if he gets it together. Tigane is pretty boring if you ask me but the jury seems to like him. That leaves Ilyes who again is pretty popular with the girls but he's a bit limited in his abilites so probably won't win.

So they are my predictions, we'll see if I get close. I'm still working on getting the sites up and running and will start the AdWords campaign in a couple of weeks.

The Wonder Cooker

I haven't had too much success in the past using Google Adwords with affiliate marketing but I'm giving it another go. In the past I have managed to break even and that's about it. I've got a bit more information now so hopefully I'll be able to do better this time.

As seen on TV products seem to be doing well at the moment so I'm trying to sell the Wonder Cooker. The landing page goes something like this:

If you’re anything like me, you want to prepare healthy, tasty meals for your family but it just doesn’t happen often enough. You know fast food is bad for you but you lead such a busy life that you simply don’t have time to cook. You want to be sure your children are eating the required servings of vegetables every day but it’s hard to find recipes they love. You want to prepare gourmet meals for your family and friends but you don’t know how. When you do finally get the time to cook you’re then left with a massive pile of dishes to wash. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be so difficult.

Then it goes on about the benefits etc. Writing sales copy isn't really my thing so we'll see how it goes. I've just got the write the ad and then wait for the results. My first goal is to break even and then try to drop my bids to less than 10 cents per click. I'm looking for a 1:2 or 1:3 return on investment so wish me luck

Natural Fashion | Review

Do you ever do something without thinking too much about it, thinking all is going well, that you're doing the right thing, only for it to turn into a complete nightmare? That seems to happen to me quite a lot.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been dealing with a wholesaler of organic cotton clothing in Australia. They asked me to review one of their t-shirts and I agreed. They then wanted to advertise on my site, great I thought, so they paid me for 3 months advertising and I put up their banner ad. Then they wanted me to exclusively sell their organic cotton toys through my site. Great again. Then they wanted me to exclusively sell all their products through my site. What more could I have asked for. I was to get 10% on all sales. While I didn't expect to make loads of money through them, it would have added a couple of hundred dollars a month to my income, which would have grown over the next couple of years.

So I wrote a couple of posts about them, one of which got picked up by Treehugger, the number one 'green' site. That was great exposure and great to get a link from a PR 7 website. Things were going really well, too well.

So then I wrote the Natural Fashion review. This is where the not thinking too much part comes in. I cover the item one point at a time. I mention the quality of the fabric, how it washed, how it ironed, that kind of thing. Then I mentioned that I didn't really like the colour. It's that natural, undyed colour which probably only suits half the population. It doesn't suit me and I said so. I then mentioned the crappy, old fashioned designs. I tried to be nice about it and did mention that not all the designs were rubbish but I was in trouble.

When the idiots people at Natural Fashion found out they went crazy. Demanding to know how I was going to sell their products with such a negative review. Good point. The problem is I wrote what I thought was right. I don't like their crappy website and their crappy clothes. Sure the organic toys are pretty cute as are the children's clothes but the women's stuff is just rubbish. Who in their right mind would wear those dresses? If you want to see them just search for natural fashion in Australia. I won't waste a link to them.

I said it wasn't that bad, it was just the review of one top after all, it wasn't a sales page. I agreed to add a few more positive points but not to change what I wrote. They emailed me analysing each paragraph, highlighting all the negative things I said. That was a shock. I was pretty pissed off by their attitude. I tell you they pissed off the wrong person. My website ranks much better than theirs so I can write whatever I like about them and loads of people will read about it.

So naturally, I updated the post with everything they said to me. That sure made them angry, if they weren't before. They then demanded I remove all the images and logos about their site, including the banner ad they had paid for, that I remove all links to their site (meaning they would lose all traffic I was sending them; yes they are stupid), and that I remove all mention of their trademarked name, Natural Fashion.

That last point is pretty ridiculous and there's no way I'll be doing that. Why should I? I didn't go to all that trouble to just have to remove the post. Plus I want my visitors to see how stupid those people are - Renata and Doug Giles that is. I'll mention their name just in case they have a Google alert set up for themselves, I'm sure they'd be happy to read this ;)

The brilliant thing is now if you search for natural fashion in google.com.au, the second listing is my review post. So most people searching for them and see all the crap I wrote about them. Don't you just love blogs? With a bit of luck this post will show up too :)

So yeah, I probably lost a bit of money but who cares; there are other organic clothing suppliers around. The last thing I need is to work with morons like those at Natural Fashion.

Sergi Lopez | Non Solum

Sergi Lopez is one of my favourite actors. I've seen him in loads of movies and will go to see a movie just because he is in it. So when I heard that he was doing a play in Paris I bought tickets immediately.

The play is called Non Solum and is playing at the Theatre du Rond Point on the Champs Elysees. It's one a one man show and a 'comedy'. That's in quotes because I didn't laugh once. Bloody hell, what a load of crap. Honestly, I've never seen such rubbish in all my life.

The theatre seats 750 people and I'd be surprised if there were more than 200 there. I know I'm not the only one who wasn't impressed because I saw 3 people sleeping. I wish I had been lucky enough to have fallen asleep. From the moment it started I was just waiting for it to end. I thought about getting up and leaving but to do that about 10 people would have had to stand up and seeing we were near the front Sergi would have seen for sure. I couldn't do it. So I sat there, counting down the minutes.

It didn't help that he has such a strong Spanish/Catalan accent. I've never had any problems understanding him in his movies. Maybe he redoes his lines in a studio or has a voice coach or something. He was a bit tough to understand at times. I feel sorry for poor Ferbent who doesn't speak much French; I don't think he understood anything.

As for the theatre itself, it was clearly built for short, thin French people. Ferbent's knees touched the seat in front of him and mine almost did. I don't know how tall people managed. The width of the seats was pretty uncomfortable for both of us too. Admittedly, I'm not the skinniest person around but Ferbent is pretty slim and the seat was a tight fit for him too.

This is just another crappy event to add to my list of crappy outings in France.

• French Formula 1 - Magny Cours. Don't even think about going to this event. The facilities are filthy, it was poorly organised, the food was way overpriced (4 euros for a bottle of water), and the traffic a nightmare; unless of course you don't mind waiting 3 hours to get out of that hell hole.
• Juanes at the Zenith. The music was great but the Zenith was a nightmare. I reckon it was 50 degrees in there. No air conditioning at all. I just about passed out. Nightmare!
• Paris Open - Tennis. I've been to the Paris Open twice and I'm pretty sure I'll never go again. It was super boring. The most annoying this was the security guards who thought they had the power to do as they chose. I went out after the first match and the buggers wouldn't let me in again. Said I was supposed to have gotten a stamp on the way out. What am I a mind reader? No one said anything when I left. There were no signs. The guy insisted I had to buy another ticket. What a joke! I made a huge fuss but to no avail. 5 minutes later two guys couldn't get back in either. I then joined them in yelling at the head security guy and eventually he caved in. Complete wankers working there.

The next event for me will be le Cirque de Soleil - Alegria. I saw them once in Perth. I had free tickets which always makes an event more enjoyable. Later this year I'm going to see Gad Elmaleh, another favourite actor/comedian of mine. He is so funny and very, very, charming but I don't know if I'll understand him that well. He speaks super fast and uses a lot of slang. Ferbent definitely won't understand much. I'll have to go anyway. I can't miss seeing him in the flesh.

No more Sergi Lopez for me though. I think I'm over him.

Ich Bin Ein Berliner

The first thing I noticed upon arriving in Germany was how big the people are. Not only big but huge! Very tall and very fat and no wonder, they eat constantly. Not that I have anything against fat people, I happily consider myself to be one, but it was a definite (and pleasant) change from the short, skinny French who eat half a sandwich and claim to be stuffed.

The French claim to love their food and eat a lot but that's rubbish. I was at a restaurant the other day and the girl next to me was telling her friend how large her meal was and that she couldn't possibly take another bite. All this after having eaten 4 tiny falafel balls and half a pita bread.

In Cologne, and I imagine most of Germany, bakeries seem to be the place to be. From morning until night, there is a queue out the door and tables inside with people happily munching away. Every morning the bakeries were full of wall to wall Berliners (doughnuts), massive loaves of bread (for less the 2 euros), and huge slices of fresh, creamy cakes. Plus there were a few sandwiches and pretzels thrown in. By around 7pm, the bakeries had no food left. None at all! I was shocked.

Every second person walking down the street was eating something so it looks like eating it Germany's favourite past time. Ferbent loves to eat too and loved Cologne. I enjoyed Cologne but hate Ferbent as he eats like I've never seen anyone eat and remains slim.

Of course I had to do as the Germans do, when in Rome Cologne and all, so for breakfast I would have a small salad sandwich in Turkish bread (thanks no doubt to the many Turkish immigrants in Germany). Mid morning was time for a Berliner. Lunch was a huge cone thing packed with hot chips topped with tzatziki (Cologne is so multicultural) from one of the shops who sell nothing but chips (my kind of place). After noon tea was cake time. By dinner time I was pretty stuffed so didn't eat too much. That was pretty much my diet during the 6 days I spent in Cologne. Yeah, healthy, I know. Surprisingly, I lost almost 2 kilos while there but no doubt if I lived there long term I'd probably double in size and have a heart attack.

"Ich bin ein Berliner" is the famous quote by John F Kennedy which translates to "I am a doughnut". Every time I saw the Berliners I thought of that and laughed. However, as it turns out, in Berlin, jam doughnuts are not known as Berliners and so he was right to say Ich bin ein Berliner but it makes me laugh anyway.

Getting a French Drivers Licence

I managed to make it to the Prefecture 10 minutes before it opened and was 16th in line, so only a short wait before I got to speak to someone. My carte de sejour was supposed to have been printed on the 30th October 2006, after applying in June, and it possibly was but I never received it. So I have ordered a new one and I should receive it next week.

They also extended my temporary carte de sejour, for a second time, so no problems there. I don't think it really needed to be extended anyway. Last time it had already been expired for a month before I went to get it extended so I don't think they care too much. It's only a temporary piece of paper valid until the real carte de sejour is printed.

As for getting a French drivers licence, that will be easy. All I need is to show my:

• passport


• current Australian drivers licence


• carte de sejour

They will do a straight swap so I don't need to fill out any forms or take a test, she will print it on the spot for me. Who would have thought that it could be so easy? Of course, there is a problem. They will only accept the carte de sejour which hasn't been printed yet. My drivers licence expires on the 7th March so that means I must exchange it before then.

Obviously I should have gone back to the Prefecture in November when I didn't receive the carte de sejour because they had told me that it was on its way. Fingers crossed that it arrives in time and I can get my French licence.