Upcoming Trips

I'm not really interested in the European tradition of taking one month off a year to go sit on the beach somewhere. For starters, I can't take one month off from work. I work for myself and my marketing campaigns need fairly constant monitoring. I can take a few days off or even a week but a month is out of the question.

Secondly, I can't think of anything worse than sitting on a beach or visiting just one place for a month. How boring! I like to visit cities where I can walk around the old streets, visiting cafes and little shops, learning about the history of the city and the people. That's my idea of a holiday and that's why I like to live in Europe.

Three or 4 days is generally enough to visit one city although a week is better for great cities like Rome or Sydney and a lifetime is possibly not enough for the best city of them all - Paris. So over the next couple of months I have booked a few short city trips. I took advantage of the discount tickets on offer on the new TGV Est and have tickets for:

• Luxembourg
• Strasbourg
• Stuttgart

Then I'm supposed to be going back to Australia for a visit but I haven't booked that as I really don't want to go. My parents have offered me their frequent flyer points to book the trip so it's not going to cost me anything so I can't use lack of funds as a reason not to go. I suppose if I got a job I wouldn't be able to take time off. Do I really want to take that drastic action?

Quick Trip to Milan

Did I mention that Ferbent has gone away? Well, not permanently of course. He's in Albania visiting his mother. He wants to get a visa for her to come here to live but, being Albania, it's not easy. He has been gone for more than a month. Who knows when he'll be back. Hopefully in time for our trip to Luxembourg next month.

Before he went to Albania we spent a few days together in Milan. We've got some friends there which explains why I've been to Milan at least 5 times. There can't be any other explanation as it's one of the crappiest cities in the world.

Milan has the worst weather ever. In summer it gets extremely hot and extremely humid. I'm from Perth which is a very hot city but it's generally very dry. It's the humidity which I can't stand. We briefly considered living in Milan before moving permanently to France and I'm so glad we didn't do it. It would have been a nightmare.

Reasons to never visit Milan:

1. It's too hot.
2. It's too humid.
3. Milan is expensive (not when compared to Paris though).
4. The pollution is a nightmare.
5. There are no trees anywhere. Like nowhere!
6. There only seems to be 2 parks in the entire city.
7. There are no places to sit down. So forget about sitting down in Piazza Duomo or any piazza or street or wherever.
8. My friends are too cheap to eat out even though you can get pizza for €5.

Reasons to visit Milan:

1. Great shopping.
2. Great ice cream.

Well, the shopping isn't better than any other big city, it's just different and you can obviously get great ice cream anywhere in Italy. So don't bother visiting Milan.

I had to put all these reasons in writing so I remember to never ever go to Milan again, no matter who I know there.

Typical French Men?

I was pretty bored at the gym last night so when some short French guy headed over and started gossiping with the couple next to me, I didn't hesitate to turn down my iPod and eavesdrop on their conversation. It's not a good thing to do, I know, but anyway...

So first of he starts going on about Facebook and how great it is. That's the first sign that there's something wrong with this guy. Facebook is a complete waste of time. (Ok, I admit I do have a profile and login every day but it's still crap! Oh and you can add me to your friends list if you like, hehe).

Then short French guy starts going on about how he has to work out for 2.5 to 3 hours a day because he gains weight so easily and he couldn't think of anything worse than to be fat. Tall French guy responds by saying that when his wife gains 2 kilos she completely freaks out as it really 'shows' on her. Yeah, she's about 180cm and very thin so 2 kilos will definitely make her look chubby!!

Next these 2 idiot guys start going on about how all women start to lose their looks after 23. They were completely serious. Then tall French guy turns to 25 year old wife and says, 'but not you honey'. He's got to be close to 40 so I can really see that marriage lasting.

It makes me wonder what these guys think of women like me. I'm 33 and more than chubby. They must think I'm repulsive. Although I did catch short French guy checking me out the other day so who knows.

This is the image I have of the typical French man. Obsessed about his appearance and that of his girlfriend/wife. Being overweight shows a lack of discipline or interest in life or I don't know what. I read something once that French men like to go out with curvy women, just not in public. Nice!

New Machines at the Club Med Gym

I paid around €1000 for my gym membership (for 1 year) and even though it's a lot of money I really think it was well worth it. It gives me access to 22 gyms around Paris but I've only ever been to the one, in the 16th. It's quite a large gym with a swimming pool, 3 aerobics areas, a huge cardio area, 2 weights areas, and one spot for stretching or doing ab exercises.

There have been a couple of little upgrades while I've been there (8 months) but a couple of weeks ago they changed ALL the machines for new ones. So new cardio machines and new weight machines. The cardio machines have individual TV's with around 20 channels which you can listen to with headphones.

Although I was quite used to the old machines and there is less variety now, I'm pretty impressed with the new ones. There were always big screen TV's around but they were all on the one channel and there was no sound. I use my iPod when working out but having a bit of TV to watch makes the time go that little bit faster, which is important when you're virtually the same exercise day in day out. Of course, neither the iPod nor the TV is as entertaining as watching the most attractive guy I've ever seen if my life working out! Hehe. Oops, now you my real motivation for going to the gym every day!

Nice Young Plumber Boy

I just had a very nice young French boy stop by to fix my leaking shower. He did put a big hole in the tiles and the wall but at least he found the problem. Water is leaking through the tiles or the grout or something so it will have to be retiled or grouted or whatever. He put some silicone around and now it's up to the building syndicate to send someone to do the tiles.

So it took them (Century 21) more than 6 months to send someone to open up the shower to find the problem. I wonder how long it will take them to send someone to actually fix it? Another 6 months? I won't hold my breath.

I had a bit of water leaking from my hot water system and the very kind plumber boy replaced the broken part and fixed it for me free of charge. It's amazing what happens when you smile nicely at a young boy! You should have seen his face light up when I said how much I loved France. So sweet!

More Dirty French People

When the plumbers were here earlier, they asked if it was just one person here taking showers. I said there were two of us and they responded so that's 2 showers per day. I corrected them saying that's 4 showers per day seeing we each take 2 showers, one in the morning and one in the evening. You should have seen the shock on their faces. Like only complete lunatics would take 2 showers per day.

They guy we stayed with in Italy only takes one shower per day and I read that this is fairly common but I can't understand it at all. You've got to have a shower in the morning, you just have to. There is no way I would leave the house without having had a shower, not even just to go to the boulangerie.

Obviously if I go to the gym I'm going to have a second shower but even if I haven't been sweating like a pig doing cardio, I would feel so dirty if I didn't shower. How could you spend time in the filthy, disgusting metro and not shower afterwards. Even just being out in this highly polluted city, I'd want to shower before bed.

Of course I wasn't surprised when these guys were shocked as I know very well that the French rarely wash their hands, let alone shower often. I wash my hand on arriving at the gym, because I've been in the metro, and I wash my hands before I leave, because I've been touching the machines. While I'm in there, washing with soap, I generally see 2 or 3 women leave the toilets without even getting close to the hand basins. So they go to the toilet, don't wash their hands, and then use the gym machines and whatever else. Ferbent confirms the men are the same. What's wrong with these people?

I was very pleased to see that wasn't the case during my recent trip to London. I used the very busy public toilets in one of the department stores and saw every single person wash their hands afterwards. I never would have thought the English were so much cleaner than the French but there you go!

When Will The Nouvelle Star End?

I spent last week in Italy so missed the last episode of the Nouvelle Star. The only reason I'm following it is due to the project I'm working on and while I am making money (not much), it is so boring, it's killing me.

I've been blogging about all the shows, putting up YouTube vidoes on each of the blogs, commenting on other blogs, participating in forums, all for less than $100 so far. My hourly rate is extremely low on this project. Unless things really pick up in the next couple of weeks, I won't be taking on something like this next year.

At least I'm ranking number 1 in google.com for Julien Dore although I'm not doing quite so well in google.fr. My only hope of making a decent amount of money is if Julien wins as I'm not ranking that well for the other contestants. I'm generally on the second or thrid page of the SERPS.

I just hope the show will end soon so I can go back to my regular work. I think there's only a couple of weeks to go. Fingers crossed Julien wins and I rake in the money!

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.