cuisine réunionnaise

If you feel like having some reunionan (made up this word) food, I mean, food from l'Ile de la Réunion, there is a restaurant in Toulouse : Les Mascareignes.

The owners are family with one of my collegue and she is the sister from the singer of Emile and Image, a famous french music band from the 80's. The restaurant have been visited by several famous people. You can see pictures from their evening in the restaurant on one wall. For example, there is one with JJ Goldman. So, if you're lucky, you might have dinner with several celebrities.
Anyway, the food is fairly good and it really reminds us of our wonderful honeymoon on the island. I would recommend you try the Planteur as apetizer, samoussas, vanilla gambas, banana-tatin-pie, and definitely their banana-rhum as a digestif ! This is a must-try !

Feel hungry now ? ;-)

Week-end pépére

which means, we had one of our first free week-end since we moved in Toulouse, and it was all relaxing, peaceful and lovely...

Major accomplishment : a nice 2-hours walk in the forest near Le Burgaud (North-West of Toulouse). We were kind of surprised to notice a different aspect between the forests in Normandy and those here. Here around Toulouse, we have smaller forests, smaller trees, dryer soils. The trees were mainly oaktrees which implies there must be a lot of squirrels, but we have'nt seen any, though probably heard some !
There were supposed to be also wild boars and roe-deers but we could only see resembling footprints.
There were also lots of brambles with excellent blackberries which we tasted on our way.
Only one regret, there were way too many insects flying unpleasantly nearby our ears and eyes... maybe they're less annoying another time of year...

We also practiced our english over the week-end with our "Friends" (Monica, Rachel, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe and Ross) ;-)

Looking for a house

We made a first step forward in the process of buying a house. We paid a visit to the real estate agent in Castelginest (where we live) to get a clearer idea of what we could afford. We had an estimation of how much the banks could lend.
I must admit we've been cold-showered... With the real-estate-market this high, we definitely can't afford the house of our dreams. Gone the swimmingpool... But let see the good side of it, we won't argue who'se going to mow the lawn !!!
Anyway, we have an appointment to visit a house on wednesday, we'll see...

Happy Birthday !

Today is Quentin's birthday. He's now two-year-old and he is my Godson.
We should have seen him and his parents of course this week but there had been a problem and they had to rush home from their vacation.
It's a shame, kids grow up so fast and we can't see each other much cause of distance and timetables... Anyway, I bought him a little radio-controlled car for his age. I hope he likes it.
Just need to mail it before he's 3 !!

3-0

Now I realise we're getting older. Seb just got his thirties this week-end, 30, like it used to be the elders !! Fortunately, I have two more years to get used to mine !!

Special Thoughts

Today, I have a special thought towards our friends travelling to San Francisco, one-way.
I wish you a nice flight and a good installation in San Francisco !!
And I promise we'll be visiting you !!

Week-end in Perigord Noir

This week-end, we went to see friends and their little boy on vacation near Sarlat in the Black Perigord. We drove there by motorbike, it took us about 3 hours. We went from Toulouse to Cahors on the road N20. We then joined Sarlat through a little departemental road. We crossed the rivers Garonne, Tarn, Lot and finally Dordogne (people were having a bath in the river), driving in semi-mountains roads in perfect weather conditions. Wonderful ride !

The landscape there is beautiful.The houses kept their initial building type with flat yellow rocks, often having a little squared tower on the side and walnut trees around.
A lot of those houses have been restored lately. So the whole thing looks very clean with ancient style. There are also several prehistorical sites but we didn't have time to visit them.
Another specificity of the region is the local food. And that we tasted !
Gesiers, cou farci, magret de canard, foie gras, confit de canard with pommes de terre perigourdines (potatoes fried in goose fat). All those dishes based on ducks and gooses. Yummy !!! Not light but so good.

The lodging our friends were staying in has been restored since 1976. We saw pictures, they really started with a pile of stones invaded with the vegetation. I have always been fascinated with what some people manage to do considering where they start from !!

Last, but not least wonder of the week-end was our friends' 18-month old son.
He's not yet speaking (I should say not with proper words) but he is understanding E-VE-RY-THING ! I'm really amazed on how the learning of the language happens. And how communication happens without the help of proper words... Not only he understands what we are saying but he exactly knows how to express his wills and feelings.
I imagine the explorers who learned the language of some forgotten tribes have had to go through all this again... Our advanced languages (french, english, german, latin even...) are finally quite similar in structure, so, when you learn a new language at school, you already have a reference and that probably make it easier... But when you start learning your first language, you have no such reference... Impressive job for a 18-month-old kid !!

Mr & Mrs Smith

This movie was a really really good surprise.
I recommend it to everyone !
Of course, there is a lot of shooting and bombing and so on, and that will please those who like action movies but there is another subject behind this which I like much better : how these two people live together as a couple. Full of humor. Two really good actors and good-looking !!

what's up ?

So basically, here's what happened since :
We had planned to move outside Paris with my husband Sebastien, so we took the opportunity when it happened.
There was a cut-off in Sun and they were looking for volonteers. We thought that this was a sign, it was time to hit the road again. So I volonteered.
I didn't think I would be that torn by this decision. I had 5 wonderful years in Sun, I loved my job and I had nothing planned for the future.
The decision was according to our willing, but I had forgotten how difficult it is to break up with what you're comfortable with...
Anyway, I found the job in Toulouse and moved over there in late January. Sebastien was staying in Paris, waiting for the trial period to finish up (3 months). I had one month housing in a hotel. And I must say, this was a horrible period.
I felt terribly alone. I knew nobody in Toulouse and I was too depressed to make contact anyway...
After the first month, I moved in with Florence to share her apartment. I met her through a web site that help people find roomates. It is usually for the use of students but I found it useful for me !! I may say more of this in a next article.
From the moment I moved in with her, everything started to get better, especially for the mood !! We got on very well and it was a real pleasure to have someone to talk to on evenings.
I found out, I didn't like lonelyness much !!
I started to feel happy in Toulouse, the weather improved, I had a new karate club and I was smiling back to life !
Sebastien joined me and we moved in Toulouse together by the end of May.
And we must admit, we don't regret anything !!

Catching up with blogging

It's been such a long time and so many things happened since...

The reason why I have not been blogging for a while is because it feels really weird to me expressing feelings and mood to the entire planet...
I first thought of letting my friends know about this blog so that they can add comments to mine and they can keep contact with me this way, but then you might say things too personal to be shared or finally say nothing personal, loosing the interest of the blog...
Saying this, if none would read it, why write it ?!!
Anyway, I'm back online, which probably means I will share this ! ;-)

So see you soon !