Party at Marianne and Mikko's!

Tonight is party night, as Mikko and Marianne kindly enough invited us to “faire la fete” at their lovely house overlooking Nice this evening. After the normal Saturday morning activities (getting up rather late, having a late breakfast, heading downtown for shopping at the local market etc.), we jumped in the car and drove down to Nice (figuring to catch a film and do a bit of shopping before joining the fun).

Not for the first time, we realised that taking the train is a much easier way to get into Nice than driving, as we were stuck in traffic first on the promenade, then on avenue de France and finally on Rue Victor Hugo. And of course it was mission impossible to find parking in the street, so we ended up parking at the Nice Etoile shopping centre car park (and paying about 3 euros/hour for it – bloody daylight robbery if you ask me!). But we spent a nice enough evening, first seeing a French film called Le Bal des actresses (a pretty funny mockumentary about French actresses and their challenges – I especially enjoyed Karin Viard trying to go Hollywood with a VERY French accent...) and then doing a bit of shopping.

We arrived at the party fashionably late, said hi to everybody (Nathalie, Pete, Anne and little Jasmine had already arrived) and then dug into the tasty food (fajitas, tacos, yummie....). I was pretty impressed by the fact that Mikko had done a lot of the cooking (confirmed by Marianne) – especially considering that the meal even contained some vegetables. Now that’s making an effort ;-) Sami eventually arrived as well - we were already gotten a bit worried by his absence. I suppose he had been chasing his flat mate (a rather cunning and stealthy mouse) around the flat all evening or something ;-). He then spent the rest of the evening talking me and Mathilde out of visiting Karunki next summer (we’re planning a bit of a road tip up north, and figured a stop at Karunki is an absolute must after all the good things we’ve heard about the place). But in a most entertaining manner, as usual ;-)

Several beers and a couple of shots of Laphroig (ah, that Scottish nectar of life) later, it was time to stumble back to the car and head back home (thankfully, with Mathilde at the steering wheel). Thanks to Mikko and Marianne for another great party! We’ll be there for the sauna-warming party ;-)

A windy day on the Cote d'Azur

After a dodgy Saturday, weatherwise, we were happy to see that the sky was blue and the sun was shining again. So we figured it was time for one of our favourite activities, hiking. We decided to go for a coastal walk, since the temperature can be a bit chilly away from the coast this time of the year. So we picked a walk starting at the Pointe de Cabbe (located between Monaco and Roquebrune), following the coastline and then climning up the village of Roquebrune, with its castle.

Well, that was the plan anyway. When we got down to the beach, we saw the huge waves, washing all over the sand, and got doubtful. Adventurously, we rushed along the beach, towards the beginning of the footpath, braving the assault of the waves. But in the end, we figured it might be prudent to pick another walk this time.

So we jumped back into the car and chose a walk near La Turbie instead, Le Circuit de la Forna. We parked the car at the village, and set off. Everything looked great – the sky was still blue in spite of a couple of slightly ominous-looking clouds in the sky. No complaints about the views either, back towards La Turbie with La Trophee de’Auguste (yes, that would be Augustus as in the Roman emperor), and towards the snow-covered peaks of Mercantour. But alas, just as we got going, our stomachs, which had been feeling a bit dodgy since last night, started acting up. So after some deliberation, we decided to abort this walk as well – better safe than sorry, right?

So back we headed, to La Turbie. But we figured it would be a real pity to have driven all this way without doing anything useful, so we decided to at least have a drink in the local bar. And what a great day for a beer on the terrace it was… It once more made me reflect on the fact that we're quite lucky to live in this part of the world.

Oh, and incidentally, both Sandra and Steph were confined to their beds, so I reckon we all caught a little something at the restaurant yesterday… And, after checking out the news on the web, we realised that the winds had hit our own dear Cagnes-sur-Mer pretty bad as well...

Lunch at La Gaude

Our good friends Sandra and Stephane (who work with Mathilde in that renowned teaching establishment known as the CIV) are in the important process of evaluating various restaurants, for a very important event indeed – the baptism of their little Clelia. So we were happy enough to support this important mission, and join them for a lunch at restaurant located by the nearby village La Gaude.

The place was convivial enough, with a typically chatty waiter, with a real southern accent. My only complaint about him would be that he thought I was Scandinavian (of course, as everybody knows, Finland is not part of Scandinavia, although it is part of Fennoscandia. A small, but significant, distinction).The menu looked promising as well, with a 4-course, Italian style meal (meaning, starter, pasta, main course and desert), for a most reasonable price of 26 Euros. Things started well with some tasty charcuterie, followed by some nice home-made ravioli. And the proportions were generous indeed – even I was starting to suspect I might struggle to finish the meal... No complaints about the main course either – rabbit with some potatoes, followed by a tiramisu. I guess it wasn’t the most original or sophisticated cuisine, but I enjoyed it anyway. And as always with Sandra and Steph, we had a great time. And Clelia just keeps getting cuter and cuter ;-)

After the meal, we decided to burn off some calories, so walked up to the village and do some exploration. We’ve been to La Gaude a couple of times already, but only to catch a film, so this was our first visit at daytime. It’s a typically pretty Provencal village, with a nice, residential feel (there are more picturesque villages for the tourists). It’s actually a pretty old village, the first mention of the place dating back to around the year 1000. We checked out the cemetery and the church, but missed the 14th century castle (probably since it’s apparently actually located in the neighbouring village of Saint-Jeannet).

Back in the UK

Time for my regular trip to lovely Southwood again… I must say I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this one – this time of the year is really when I think the Cote d’Azur is relatively speaking one of the best places in Europe to be (with the weather on the coast typically being very mild, with temperatures approaching those of the Finnish summer when the sun is shining, but with ski resorts just an hours driver away…). On the other hand, it’s nice to see friends and collegues every once in a while, and to visit some of the old haunts (=pubs) again…

My flight to London Heathrow was once more without incident and even ahead of schedule! Seems to me that Heathrow is working pretty well these days – maybe things run a bit more smoothly with Terminal 5 up and running? (or then again, maybe I’m just being lucky). My taxi driver had accidentally gone to Terminal 5, so my journey into the office took a bit longer than expected. This combined with the normal catching-up on office gossip, etc. meant that my first day at the office wasn’t all that productive. I also met the new guy in the team, David, who’s joined us from the other side of the English Channel, from Paris. So that will give me the opportunity to practice my French even more, then ;-) Monday night I joined the badmington club curry night – I suppose you could say I was making a guest appearance as an ex-member. A lot of changes have obviously taken place over the last couple of years – the only 2 guys I knew where Sinhung and Xiangdong. Anyway, the curry was good, and it’s always night to meet new people ;-)

Tuesday was London night – have to do one of those on every visit. The plan was to meet up with Chie and Geoffrey in Faringdon road, near Liverpool Street station. Lauri, an old team-mate who has transferred back to Finland, also came along (he had also come to Southwood for the week, to provide some support), came along as well. During the train journey, he entertained me and Sinhung with stories about what life in Oulu feels like after a couple of years abroad (sounds like he’s suffering a bit from reverse cultural shock – I can fully understand it as it hits me after about a week in Finland…). Apparently he had forgotten just how little people speak in Finland ;-). As our stomachs were grumbling, and our rendez-vous in Faringdon road wasn’t until 8 o’clock, we decided to have dinner first. We opted for a Chinese-Japanese restaurant near South Bank called Ping Pong, where we had a tasty meal of Dim Sum (with some wasabi-flavoured peanuts and sake for a bit of Japanese touch).
We then took the tube to Faringdon road – quite an operation which took as over half an hour. We eventually found the bar as well, where we met up with David, and ordered pints while we waited for Chie and Geoff. Actually the occasion was the birthday party of an ex-collegue of Chie’s - which we kind of gate-crashed. Not a bad idea – seems Chie has a lot of female collegues, which balanced out the male engineer bias of our group. We had a very good time indeed, just like in the “old days”, having shots, catching up on old times etc. David seemed to be a bit shell-shocked by Sinhung on overdrive, but seemed to be enjoying himself as well…

For Wednesday eve, the team curry was scheduled in, as Blue Tiger in Fleet has a special offer which is difficult to refuse - £11.95 for a started, main dish, side dish and rice/naan. Before the dinner, though, we had a team sauna at the office (I think a sauna for the employees should be mandatory in all companies). David seemed to think we were all mad again – hopefully he won’t resign straight away. And of course we had a pre-curry beer at the Oatsheaf – all part of a tradition. The curry was good – and David impressed us all by having a Vindaloo, and didn’t even seem to suffer (well, I tried his dish, and to be honest, it was more madras than vindaloo….). Cliff was kind enough to shuttle me back to Guildford after the meal, to Hotel Whitaker’s (that would be Phil’s flat, yes).

Of course, no trip to the UK is complete with a pub quiz in Guildford, so Thursday night was reserved for this important activity. Before the quiz, I went to Sainsbury’s to buy some British “culinary delights” (crumpets, cheese cake kits and flavoured teas), and then had dinner with Adrian (who’s off travelling to South Americ – lucky bastard) at a nice Californian restaurant in the town centre. These necessities out of the way, I headed down to the pub quiz venue, which is the George Abbot these days. The normal stalwarts; Phil, Nick and Maxime, showed up (Stephane would of course normally be present, but has made the strange decision to immigrate to San Diego – I mean how could California possibly measure up to Guildford – too hot there right?). Lauri also joined us, only slightly worried about all the booze he had just bought and stuffed in his car (kind of typically Finnish – the shopping list his friends had given him included 1 bag of toffees and 15 bottles of Whisky ;-). We did OK, marking 32 points out of 40 – but not enough to snatch a top 3 spot though. We decided we’d to celebrate our near-success in Fahrenheit 55, though (and there I was thinking I would finally succeed in spending a Fahrenheit-free week in the UK – well I came close).

Shopping & dining in Nice

Both Mikko and Sami were back on the Cote d’Azur, after their respective xmas holidays in Finland, so we decided it was time to welcome the arrival of 2009 with a dinner in Nice (although the year could’ve started a bit better, I s’ppose, with the financial crisis, fighting in Gaza etc…). We decided to head into Nice in the afternoon, to take advantage of the “statutory after Christmas sales” (what I mean by that is that in France, shops are only allowed to have sales between certain dates set by the authorities – they really do have regulations about everything in this country!).

The atmosphere in Nice could be described as tense, as some demonstrations about the fighting in Gaza were planned, so I finally got to see the notorious CRS (the French riot police, who are neither famous for their subtlety nor friendliness) – they certainly seemed like a pretty grim lot. Anyway, we kept a low profile and sneaked into H & M. After an efficient shopping session, we headed down to the cinema to watch “Slumdog Millionaire”, the latest flick from Danny Boyle. We really enjoyed the film – his best since Trainspotting, I reckon.

We then headed for our rendez-vous with Sami, Mikko and Marianne at the Luna Rossa, an Italian restaurant we’d wanted to try out for quite some time. Unfortunately, due to typically poor planning, nobody had booked a table, which meant the only option was a table on the terrace (which is a wee bit too cold this time of the year, even considering the fact that it’s covered and that this is the Cote d’Azur…). Thankfully we fond another cozy Italian restaurant, called Caffé Bianco, just a couple of blocks away. We ate well, drank well, and had many laughs – the smell of the sewers that assaulted us every now and then only put us off slightly ;-) Unfortunately, our friends at SNCF (the French national railroad company) were on strike as usual, which meant the last train was rather early (so no post-dinner drinks this time).

Skiing on the Cote d'Azur

Since we didn’t manage to go skiing last weekend, we were determined to go this time, especially since the conditions are excellent (loads of snow, clear blue skies, sunshine….). Some colleagues of Mathilde from CIV were going to Auron, so we decided to make our way there as well.

We set off at a reasonable time of 8:30, and were happy to find the roads pretty clear of traffic. The drive to Auron is in itself pretty spectacular, following first the Var valley, and then the dramatic Tinee valley, with its imposing cliffs. We quickly parked the car, and then rented the gear. We arrived in Auron just after 10, and figured we were well set for a day of skiing. But alas, things did not start well, with slow & chaotic service at the gear rental shop, and a looong wait for the lift up to the station. And things didn’t improve much, as we finally got ready to start skiing – as I dropped my skis in the snow, one of the bindings came off! Fortunately, there was a “ski binding repair station” conveniently located just next to the slope. Apparently the staff is no longer allowed to fix the bindings – for fear of being taken to court in case they make a mistake. Eh? This is France, not the US of A! Anyway, I eventually managed to get the binding fixed using the typical software engineers approach to a problem (randomly/blindly try various “fix candidates” until one works – or at least seems to work ;-). Unfortunately, by the time I was finished, Stephane called us – time for lunch!

So we skied down the slope, an easy blue, to get in to the rhythm of things, and made our way to the restaurant, where we met the gang (Stephane, Ann-Sophie, Christophe and their kids). We pretty much all had a tartiflette (except for me, who had one and a half ;-) – a pretty good choice I must say, even though it was a bit liquid for a tartiflette (let’s say a fondue-tartiflette hybrid). A coffee later, and we were ready to hit the slopes again. We were rather keen to set off, as we only had about 2 hours left for skiing. Well, we made the best of those two hours, doing a couple of long, very enjoyable runs on the sunny side of the mountain, in truly perfect conditions. It felt a pity we had to leave so early, but other obligations called… And at least this way, the roads back were clear, as well.

For the evening, I was given the opportunity to finally visit Mathilde’s school, the CIV – Centre International de Valbonne, which I had heard so much about. As the name implies, it’s an international school, and a massive one at that. The occasion was the 30th anniversary of the CIV – and I have to say I was pretty impressed with the party they put up. There was live music (courtesy of CIV students, but hey, they sang a lot better than me!), a big buffet (I especially liked the galette de roi(s) we had for desert) as well as free wine and champagne! Good thing Stephane had kindly offered to drive us ;-) We got back home pretty early (since Sandra & Stephane had brought there little girl Clelia along).

That’s a good thing, since I the plan was to go skiing on Sunday as well (this time with Pete and Sami, the Finnish lads), which inevitably means getting up at an ungodly hour… Anyway, I got up as planned 7:30 sharp, jumped in the car, and drove down to Nice to pick up Sami. Unfortunately, I was greeted by a nasty surprise in the form of big traffic jams (the Prom’ was closed due to the Nice 10km classic race). We eventually got underway for Auron at about 9 o’clock. Thankfully, the traffic was pretty good this time, but due to some difficulties in finding a place to park meant we didn’t get to start skiing much earlier than the day before…

The conditions were just as good as the day before, so we really had a great time. Pete eventually joined us, and took us down a black run. I’m happy to report I survived (obviously, since I’m writing this blog!), and didn’t even fall over once - and I even enjoyed it ;-) We then headed back to the station to meet up with Pete’s wife Anne and a couple of other ladies – but had time to do a bit of off-piste/powder snow first. I survived this adrenaline-filling experience as well – more by chance than design it must be said. Sami had a moment of fear as he barely avoid a collision with – to quote him – “120 kg of human mass bearing down upon him” (I was a bit hurt by his estimate of 120 kg). We then joined the girls for a few more ski runs. There was still a bit of last-minute drama in store for us, as the last ski lift we took ground to a halt for about 20 minutes (some idiots tried to jump the queue and ended up stuck underneath the ski chair behind us). We finished a most satisfactory day of skiing drinking vin chauds down in the village – and then it was time to hit the road back home.

Aix-en-Provence

It felt nice to be back on the Cote d’Azur, after our two weeks “up north”. The weather was thankfully back to normal, with blue skies and plenty of sun! We had hoped to do a bit of skiing this weekend, with the plentiful snow and all, but unfortunately we had both caught a bit of a cold during the holidays, and decided to give the skiing a miss this time. But with the beautiful weather, we decided we had to make the best of it anyway, and decided upon visiting Aix-en-Provence, after some deliberation.

Aix-en-Provence is a city brimming with history, Founded by the Romans 123 BC, it was made the capital of Provence during the 12th century. The city reached its zenith under the enlightened good king Rene, during the 15th century. These days it’s famous as a university town, very popular with international students, which is reflected by the existence of a large amount of bars and cafes all around town.

Having parked our car, we started our tour on Cours Mirabeau, the finest street in Aix, apparently. And a fine street it is, with its fountains, and lined with fancy shops and cosy (and perhaps slightly over-priced?) cafes and restaurants. From there we walked past the statue of Good King Rene, through the old town, towards our destination – Paul Cezanne’s house. The famous post-impressionist (that’s something I got from my trusty old Lonely Planet, I must admit that I in my ignorance always thought we was an impressionist) was born, lived and died around Aix-en-Provence. Unfortunately our 10 minute uphill walk was without reward – the museum was unfortunately closed. So back we headed to the town centre, where we spent a good hour walking around the quiet streets of Aix. We liked the place – Aix gives the impression of a tidy, prosperous and refined place, quite unlike the chaotic and noisy Nice, and nearby Marseilles. It kind of has a character of its own, with its tree-lined avenues (a friend of mine who used to live there tells me the trees are quite useful, since they provide some welcome shade in the summer heat) and numerous fountains, for which Aix is famous.

We had a look inside the imposing Cathdedral-St-Saveour, which quite unusually for the region, was built in the Gothic style (a lot of the churches on the Cote d’Azur are at least more Baroque). Unfortunately it seems that the artistic highlight in the church, The Burning Bush, can only be viewed as part of a group. By now are stomachs were growling, so we started hunting for an open restaurant. We ended up in a nice enough place on Cour Mirabeau, and even found a table outside in the sun. As we basked in the sunshine, enjoying the food, we once more reflected on how fortunate we are, living in this corner of the world (not many places in Europe where you can enjoy lunch on a terrace in January…).

Having finished our lunch, we thought a bit of a hike would be nice, to burn off those calories. So we popped into the tourist information centre, where we got some good advice. Off we set again, in the car, driving through the Axois charming hinterland to the dam of Bimont. And what a lovely spot it was, with with the nearby hills and the bright blue sky providing a dramatic background for the crystalline lake Birmont. We spent a very relaxing hour or so, crossing the lake on the dam, and walking around the well-marked footpaths on the other side.

A bit disappointed about having to head back, but revitalised by the hike, we got back in the car and drove back towards the motorway. We did make a short stop in one of the small villages on the way, Vauvenargues. We got out of our car, crossed the typical Provencal village on foot and headed for the local chateau. We were greeted by a rather interesting sign, which informed us that “the castle is closed, the museum is in Paris”. I take it they don’t like tourists and/or Parisians too much around here… ;-) Kind of an amusing end for a great Sunday!

One more christmas/new year dinner

My parents spent a nice Christmas cruising around the Red sea (and visiting the valley of the kings, Giza and Petra in the process), but came back to Antibes for new year, joined by our good friend Gunveig and another Swedish-speaking Finn from Pargas who had also decided to emigrate to Sweden, called Eva (she’s another example of the “Swedish speaking Finn duck pond phenomena”, which quite rightly implies that there are about 2 degrees of separatation between your 2 average Swedish speaking Finns – the ducks in the context of this expression).

Anyway, the visitors from Sweden were still in the neighbourhood, so we setup a dinner rendez-vous for tonight. The gang arrived around 6 o’clock at our humble about, having completed the St-Paul-de-Vence/Fondation Maeght leg of the Standard Obligatory Cote d’Azur Cultural Tour, for an aperitif. For the occasion we select a bottle of rose from Mathilde’s dad’s neighbour (who has some vineyards) – and it did go down well indeed. And of course the last set of Christmas presents were exchanged...

After the apero we hiked up to Haut-de-Cagnes (well, the oldies took the car), for the restaurant. We had optimistically opted on not booking a table, since we figured it would be easy to get one this early (and what with financial crises and all, we figured people would be saving on their restaurant budget). But alas, we were once more mistaken, turned out a lot of restaurants were either closed or fully booked. Thankfully we got a table at Entre Cour et Jardin, which is anyway one of our favourite restaurants. And we were not disappointed – the food, wine and service (by Pierre, a.k.a. medieval spider man, waiter of the year) were all top-notch, as always. A couple of hours later we happily walked back home – good with a bit of exercise to burn off that dessert...

New Year's Eve

Time to celebrate the arrival of 2009! We had been kindly invited to celebrate the occasion at Isabelle’s parents place near Nantes, in the small and charming village of Catiho. So morning of New Year’s Eve, we jumped on the TGV at Angers, and barely a blink of an eye later (the TGV is THAT fast), we arrived at Nantes, where Isabelle was waiting for us (she had arrived just 20 minutes earlier).

We met her in the local café, and had some fake cappuccinos (what I mean by that is that it seemed like a normal coffee with milk to me – except that they charged the cappuccino price i.e. double for it), whilst waiting for our ride down to Catiho. About an hour later we arrived in the rural idyll of “nearly Brittany” - Isabelle keeps insisting her parents live in Brittany, whilst technically speaking they are actually located in Loire-Atlantique, which is in the Pays de Loire region. But let’s not get bogged down in technicalities ;-).

I was happy to see Isa’s mum & dad again – I get along just great with them (especially with his dad, since we had a bottle of 16 year old Lagavulin’s single malt together on Isa’s 30th birthday at this very same farm – oh the good old days, eh…?), and also to reacquaint myself with the farm (it had definitely changed since the last time – when it was a bit of a work in progress). We eagerly dug into the delicious Couscous and Tagine (apparently an authentic recipy Isa'd dad had learnt from his Moroccan brother-in-law) that had been prepared for lunch - I was positively starving by now.

The afternoon was spent leisurely preparing the evening (setting up the karaoke, inflating balloons, drinking beer), watching the “legendary” movie Brice de Nice (yes it is set in Nice, and no it’s not actually a classic - but we did have a fair few laughs), and waiting for the other invitees – which included our good friends Flore, Christian and Stephane (whom we’d of course seen but a few days earlier - I could already see the headache coming). Isa’s brother Arnaud came with his family as well (including their little daughter who's grown up a fair bit since the last time I've seen her), as well as his sister-in-law’s sister’s family (hope I got that right?).

In the evening things got well on the way with a dinner of yet more couscous and tagine (during which I did my best dragon imitation - turned out that sauce I drowned the couscous with really was rather hot...), with generous volumes of wine, champagne and beer (so, a typical French feast then). The festivities culminated in French karaoke – hurray (note the lack of exclamation mark - my singing is nearly as bad as my dancing). I’m actually rather happy the music was French – at least it gave me an excuse to sing poorly. But anyway, everybody, including me, had a great time. And I even found another bottle of 16 year old Lagavulin towards the end of the evening - which meant Isa had to go and fetch her dad (I would have felt like a criminal, had I drank it alone). I was even sober enough to appreciate the taste of this divine Scottish delicacy (the first glass of it, anyway...). But I have to admit getting into bed was a rather challenging task at the end of it all…

The next day started off rather slowly, and not surprisingly with me moaning about a sore head. But we did manage to summon up the energy to have a walk around the village. The hike in the icy wind certainly helped to clear the head, and of course it was nice to get to see a bit in the countryside as well. After another couscous/tagine lunch (followed by a galette de roi – a French speciality that's normally eaten on Epiphamy - so we cheated a bit), it was time to head off… Since us as well as Flore and Christian had a fair bit of time on our hands before our train and plane respectively, Isa kindly took us for a brief visit to a nice seaside town called St-Marc-sur-something (Mer?). We headed down the Hulot Beach (as in the funny French chap, played by Jacques Tati, who went to the Cote d’Azur on holiday), from where we took a walk along the coastline – once again assaulted by the icy Breton wind (I’m really turning into a real big girl’s blouse here in the South, eh…?).

We then desperately hunted for an open bar/café, any place where we could get a warm drink, but in wain (obviously we weren’t the only ones recovering from the New Year’s Eve festivities…). Since there were none, we drove on to St-Nazaire, which is a decent-sized town on the way to Nantes – but alas, we had no more luck there. And by then it was time to drop Flore & Christian off at the airport, and for us to head to Nantes train station, to catch our night train back to Antibes.

A big thanks to Isabelle and her family for organising a memorable New Year’s eve for everybody!