Moving yet again !

So we are moving again. Yilmaz made the comment the other day that ever since I came to France we move all the time! Which is true, but it's not my fault that we move all the time. We are moving this time after having problems with our landlord, sometimes those darn Turks ! But we are not moving that far away, we are literally about 5 apartment buildings down, so at least we won't have to get acquainted to a new city. Also, I know most of my neighbors since they are my husband's cousins.

Anyway, we have enough boxes, I just have to get inspired to pack, move and then unpack, it is going to be so much fun.

 

 And now a small glimpse inside our new 4-bedroom apartment with balcony ! 

a kitchen with a slightly smaller pantry

 Who wants to visit ?

Picture of the Week : The Circus has come to town

The weather has been really great here between 70's and 80's so Yilmaz and I have gone to the big park a number of times for a picnic or tea time. But, lately we have gone to the small park next to our apartment to drink our afternoon/evening tea. One day we noticed a bunch of red vans and sure enough it was the circus !

 We have only seen llamas, ponies and horses for the moment. I am pretty sure they have hid the tigers and lions, I mean I wouldn't want to run into one of those in the middle of the street ! haha !

We aren't sure if we are going to go, I saw the circus when I was little and Yilmaz doesn't seem that interested except to try to feed the horses through the fence.

Have you gone to a circus in France ?

Presidential Elections in France : François Hollande

Here is a video with François Hollande visiting the suburbs, specifically the area where I live. It seems like Hollande has really made a mark on the foreigners and immigrants. He is all about change, something that sounds like Obama. His logo is "Changement, C'est maintenant","Change is now"

It's Beginning to Look alot like

Christmas!

So there were lights and trees up before Thanksgiving, but I decided to hold off just as we do in America.

Our Christmas tree isn't up yet, but here is one that I saw in the mall next to our house.

A little blurry, but I was in a rush to get and out of Carrefour aka. French Walmart.

Spotted Post-It War 2

 Surprisingly my blog gets a lot of traffic thanks to the post-it war, so I decided to join in on the post-it war.

Thanks to my friend, Allison, she sent me a pack of post-its! I was going to do a multi-color one but I didn't have enough time.

My husband was like "wow are house is just like the building at the Stade de France!" There is a train on one of the buildings, I just have never had the chance to take a picture.

Pulled Over

Don't worry, I was not pulled over, I don't even own a car but neither did this guy !

I wish I had a photo to prove that it was true, but I got nothing. So picture this, a guy around 20 on a 4-wheeler trying to pop a wheelie, while the motorcycle cops arepulling him over. This pop-a wheelie is a trend on our street, the dirt bikes go flying up in down day and night. I can never figure out why they do this. Does this really attract and impress  girls ?

Anyway back to the story, I wish I was withing hearing distance to hear how this guy explain to the police what he was doing. Because I am pretty sure they thought the guy was load of crap (excuse my language) !

After about 20 minutes and checking papers, the police decided to search his "car". They were probably looking for drugs, our area doesn't have the best reputation. Obviously they didn't have much luck, I mean where are you going to hide drugs on a four-wheeler?

They told him to go home and walk the bike back on the sidewalk.

Yeah the kid went 500 yards, made sure the police were gone and went right back to doing what he wasn't supposed to. What an idiot !

Flowers Everywhere

Every single time I leave our apartment, I pass these flowers and I think about how pretty they would be in our kitchen.

I really just want to get a pair of scissors and cut away.

  

But because they do not belong to me, I have decided to just walk by them as much as possible and maybe one day I will get the courage to cut away.

Just Hanging Out

Every Friday and Sunday morning when I go to the market (marché), I walk past what seems to me a strange phenomenon : snails on a fence. I am not just talking about one. I am talking about a dozen or so on each post.

I pointed it out the first time I saw them to my husband, but he didn't find it as cool as I did and he wouldn't let me take a picture. So last week, I decided to walk by the same place and saw the snails hanging out again. I got my camera out and took a picture just as a woman walked past and she had the same look on her face as my husband ded. Kind of like a "why is the girl taking a picture of a fence" and she walked away too fast for me to explain "Oh, je prends un photo de l'escargot!" (translation - I am taking a picture of the snails).

I found it odd, because I always thought that snails slept or hung out on trees or bushes, not attached to some fence.

Maybe they are on the fence because it's green?

Also, I have never found another snail hangout like this one. Maybe they are too afraid to be out in bird eyes view because they know that the French like to eat them, haha.

Have you ever ate snails? and what did you think?

New Changes in our Apartment

Our apartment experienced a change while I was in Turkey; my husband decided to wallpaper two of our rooms. He also painted the kitchen, but I don't have a picture of it.

Isn't it pretty?

We are renovating the apartment for our house guests who will be here in September and December. We are trying to make it more our place, because the landlord didn't make it feel homey enough before we moved in. We have started adding those touches, such as the Galatsaray football or soccer team poster you see on the wall.

And the real friendship between Turkey and America

Or the curtains I made

Next project is going to redo the windows, because they are really old (from 1960) and don't close well. But they will have to be put on hold for sometime, as we don't have the money for the renovation or the landlord's approval.

Here is a hint!

from this picture

These spots aren't all that important, France has bigger issues than black spots on the ground in suburbs. But I find the stories or the sightings interesting.

The picture below was once such sighting witnessed at 4 in the morning (more about this in the answer post) just two weeks after moving into our new apartment.

Keep your guesses coming!

Have you figured it out yet?

Park

We have been very lucky with Aulnay Sous Bois since we moved there in November.

We have a 10-minute walk or 2-minute bus ride to the train station and mall/Carrefour, a 5-minute walk to the Chinese grocery store and boulangerie and a 5-minute walk to a huge park.

When I say huge, it is really huge! It goes from Aulnay Sous Bois all the way to Charles De Gaulle Airport.

this is just 1/4 of the parc!

even contemporary art in the park!

the lake!

And it's a great place to go for a picnic. You can check out the park when you are the train going or coming from the airport CDG, look left and right at the Villepinte stop. Or make a quick stop as you are passing through, fresh air never killed anyone!

Sunrise / Sunset

How many of you just broke out in to song, "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof?

Here are a few shots of sunrise and sunset in Paris/Aulnay Sous Bois.
Enjoy!