Rollin' With The Homies

Hangin' with the Housemates

Rollin' with the Homies

Chillin' with the Crew

Kickin' it with the Flatmates

the family photo
on our street (Rue du Vieux Cimetière)
a true "auberge español" set-up this year:
we all represent different countries! (and, sort-of, different languages)

however you spin it,
there's no use denying it,
the people I live with are a big part of my life.

so this post is dedicated to my homies.
we've made a great group this year
sharing living space isn't always the easiest...
but we've made it through :)
and are actually friends, so that says a lot

the guys by our front door

Who's in da House??
Meet the 2009-2010 residents of 9 Rue du Vieux Cimetière

Tina
Representing: Seattle, United States
Aliases: Teen Wolf, Wolfy, Percy Pig, "Grand-mère"
You'll find her either: Obsessively cleaning the kitchen, sitting on her windowsill, getting into cars with strangers, waking up Dani, at the beach, or dancing...somewhere, anywhere

such a little housewife. sometimes.
one time, we got "attacked" by a burnt cork. random times.

Dani
Better known as: Dani Bear
Representing: Malaga, Spain
You'll find him either: Making fabulous Spanish tortillas, playing online (free) poker, taking a nap, teaching Tina to speak Spanish, riding the bus, or contemplating why the heck he's in France to study English language (in French)

Everybody's favorite Spaniard, sitting on my windowsill

Spanish "tortilla," a thing of beauty...basically a giant fried potato and egg delicious creation

on est où là? HYERES!

brighter flash than expected, apparently. haha

Austin
AKA: Au-steeeeeen!
Representing: London, England
You'll find him either: eating porridge, incorporating tea and/or butter into his day, scheming up a practical joke, dreaming about rugby, calling "safety", or being pensive in a tree

Showing off his mad dancing skills.

Austin dominated at our Spanish New Year party, where we made like the Spaniards and ate 12 grapes at our you-tube-re-created New Year clock-chiming. Our grapes were amazingly enormous, making it all just very hilarious.

Time for the beach, yeah?!

Emmanuelle
Or you can call her: Emma, Ma Petite-Fille
Representing: Marseille, France
You'll find her either: anything as long as it's not doing the dishes (haaahaaa), talking to her cherie, watching downloaded Japanese cartoons, or adding more sugar to her tea

on the dancefloor

at the Saturday market


We've had a good year together. A few hiccups along the way, as always comes with sharing housing, but nothing too major. And now, Austin's officially back to England and we're in another time of transition. With only 4 weeks left (for the remaining 3), we're livin' it up while we're still here! The 4 of us had a "family" beach trip, a Saturday market outing, one final dinner all together, and a send-off French-style breakfast for Austin.


Spanish New Year party way back in January

Classic.

Last weekend's "family outing" to the Saturday market

this is the restaurant right by our house, just walk up 30 seconds

(straight then veer left, where the person is) and you're practically at our front door)

cork attack.

What else can I say? With 4 people from 4 cultures all under one roof, speaking multiple languages, we've all shared and learned lots. awww. Sentimental moment.

A Lesson in Trusting Strangers

Why It Pays to Trust in Humanity
(Generally Speaking)

I made some new friends! Let me tell you about Raymond and Christine. They are super nice. They are an adventurous, fun-loving married couple from the area. They've lived in Hyères since the 70's. They love hiking, snorkling, bird watching, bike riding, and sailing. Needless to say, we've got lots in common. And they've got plenty of time to do what they love, since they're recently (?) retired.

So how'd we meet? Funny story, actually.

One day, I walked to the beach. Now, the main (closest/biggest) beach in my town is 20 mins by bus, which figures to be a good hour (you're walking with a purpose) to hour& 1/2 on foot (either you're enjoying the scenery or you've got flip flops on, or both.) So I'd walked there, enjoyed some time sunning/swimming/watching hot volley-ball players/etc, you know, typical beachy things... and I still had energy (and time on my hands) to have an evening stroll back up to town.

So on my way back, after about a 1/2 hr of walking, a car pulls over and the man asks me if I'd like a ride. (Have I mentioned that hitchhiking is more common/seems less risky here? Well, I don't know, maybe I'm just crazy, but anyway...) I figured it was nice of him to stop (even though I wasn't actually hitch hiking, I was just walking), and I decided to get in the car.

"WOAH WOAH WOAH!!! HOLD UP!" Is what you might be thinking about now. "Tina, you got into a strange car with a stranger? Have you not SEEN The Lovely Bones?" And to that, my response is, "Well, he didn't strike me as the killer-type. And, no, I hadn't seen that movie yet at the time."

Ok ok, so I lived to tell the tale, so don't even worry about it! I'm not advising the young (or maybe just young at heart) readers out there to hop into cars with strangers. It just worked out well for me this one time, and I'm just recounting the story.

I explain to Raymond what I'm up to here in Hyères, working at the schools and all, and he tells me about himself and his (so-called) wife. (I mean, at the time, I didn't know...he could've been lying!) Well, he wasn't lying. He said they'd be going out on the boat tomorrow, and if it was alright with Christine, maybe I could come with them; he'd give me a call. Heck! Why not?! (I mean other than the whole "stranger danger" concern...)

And it all worked out great! He swung by the next morning to pick me up, we headed to their house, where I met Christine (yes, his wife really does exist) and the neighbor boy, and we all drove out to the port to the boat!

And what's so cool is I've never been on a sailboat, and it's totally on my list of things I wanna do before I die! Check that baby off the list.

12-yr old at the helm. No worries, he's a natural. They even let ME steer the boat too. :)

We sailed out to Poquerolles, had some lunch on the boat, then walked around the island a bit. It was a delightful afternoon :) Getting home was a bit rocky...ummm...let's just say I'm a nervous sailor when big waves become a part of the picture. haha I was holding on for dear life! I thought we were going to capsize! Meanwhile, as I'm stressing out, the 12 yr old's at the helm and Raymond's kickin' back sippin on a cold one (just to give you a more objective idea of the gravity of the situation...) Obviously, we were not in danger. I'm just not used to being on boats that lean sideways!

Yeah, I live here. Pinch me.

BBQs in France? They DO happen!

*****BBQ in La Londe*****

Despite what you might already know (or think you know) about French cuisine... yes, BBQ's in France DO happen! (Or maybe you already knew.) Well, in any case, they do it a little different over here from how we do back home, but still, who doesn't like gathering together w/ a bunch of friends to have a big meal outside?

Normally, we eat dinner later over here than back in the states. I'm talking 8, 8:30-ish, but often when I'm home w/ my Spanish roomie we don't eat until even later (sometimes 9, 9:30+).

Mergez sausages for dinner, like a spicy hotdog. With baguette chunks used for "buns." Not exactly the burger patty/hot dog combo like often in the US, but delicious just the same :)
And can I just take this opportunity to point out that normal yellow mustard does not exist over here? You don't believe me? It's true! Luckily I have loving parents who send me packages of all the essentials so I've got some at my apt. ;)

Everybody gather 'round the grill! It's where all the action is.

Nikki and I made AWESOME peanut butter jelly cookies to contribute to the festivities and "learn up" these Frenchies on a lil' food culture from our neck of the woods. Most French people haven't learned to appreciate PB like we do back at home.
Too bad for them! More for me!

Party time! For the French, this means sitting around talking. For the anglophones (me, Nikki, and Tessa) this means dancing around like loonies.

Mmmmmmm love me some BBQ!

Birthday the French Way

The Town Hall building in Hyères

Alright, so speedy blog catch-up post #3 is a quickie about the last week in April, where 2 important events occurred: #1. My birthday. #2. Laura leaving.

"The Big 23"

To celebrate my birthday, I went out to dinner in my town with Tessa, Laura, and Austin. We had a really lovely meal. It's amazing too -- I can count on one hand how many times I've eaten out in my town this whole year! So it was nice to go out and have some local French cuisine (good luck trying to find anything else...heh). We took our time and enjoyed dinner outside on the patio area, with outdoor mood lighting and everything.

And we shared Bonafi pie, a stroke of culinary wizardry we can chalk up to our friends over in England. Bananas, whipped cream, chocolate, graham-crackery crust...why didn't I know of this sooner?

Other bday happenings:
-Taught 2 classes and brought them candy (apparently, well - of course - the other kids heard about it and were expecting candy the next day for them as well...whoops).
-Went to a nice little beach in my town during the afternoon with Tessa and went for my first swim of the spring! (Have since been countless other times)

"Bye, Bye Laura"

Got a taste of restaurant food in our town for my bday, and we were on a roll! So, to celebrate the great year we 3 "muskateers" have had and to say goodbye to Laura, we went out to dinner in the big square right by our apts. We splurged and went for the med-priced meals :) with a starter, main dish, cheese, and dessert. Did I mention the apero's and bottle of wine? ;) (Hey, we're in France afterall!)

One last tour of the town together after dinner, hanging on palm trees...

...and doing the splits in the center of town. Girls being crazy girls... what do you expect?

And then, time to pack up and move out! Bye bye Laura and bye bye girls' apartment! Tessa stayed an extra month in Toulon, and I've been goin' it alone in Hyères (well, luckily I've still got great roommates and some other friends around, so not totally alone).

2 euros to St Tropez

St Tropez
...

...Takin' it easy...

A friend who I know from high school, Maura, has spent the year up in Paris. One of her lifelong dreams, apparently, is to spend time in the south of France. In April, I found myself in the position of turning dreams into reality! And while she was visiting, we headed over to St. Tropez for the day. Only 2 euros for the bus. Smokin' deal.

And here we are. Livin' it up like the rich and famous do. St Tropez style.

St Tropez has a bit of a reputation as a rich ppl's playground, with a port full amazing yachts and million-euro mansions lining the surrounding seas, I'd say the glam definitely does exist.

It's quite a small town, for one with such a big name, and wasn't quite as fancy as I was expecting... cute, with your classic old-european windy streets... the sidewalks just weren't made of gold and diamonds as I had somehow imagined. However, I was certainly not disappointed.

A boat ride and ice cream cones, definitely feels like vacation!

Night out in Aix

You may or may not have been wondering,
"What has Tina been up to lately?" And to that I reply:

Lots of things! But out of the many things I have been doing, one thing I have NOT done for a long time is upload photos, which mean my blog action has been going through a dry spell.

UNTIL NOW! waahaahaa! I'll keep the chit-chat to a minimum and throw some pix up to give you the quick-and-dirty version of what's been goin' on the past month!

Blog Post Number One of the "catch-up" series:

Night out in Aix-en-Provence

Here's me and my friend Renaud who's got an apt in Aix (pronounced like the letter "X") b/c he's doing an internship over there. It's about an hour by bus, no biggie, so we went over to see his place and have a night out on the town!

Here's me and another friend, Julian, who rode the bus over with me.

And another friend, Seb. As you can see in the background, there were tons and tons of people out -- Aix has lots of university students, and everybody met up in the streets all around town thanks to a facebook event posting.

Me and the guys. And yes, people here really do wear lots of black.