Here's to us!


Our 2nd anniversary is next week so i thought I'd make a collage highlighting all our "couple" moments captured on film.
Here's to many many more!! xx
(hint: click on the image to make it bigger)
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The people have arrived!

Okay so I'm totally feeling different about living here.. in a good way.. Since we've been in Belle Plagne it's been sort of a ghost town because when we arrived the season hadn't started.. But this week gradually more and more people have been turning up and then today, people have arrived by the busload! I guess because it's Saturday the official pilgrimage up here has begun until Christmas. I took a walk down to the grocery to buy some things this evening, and it was so nice listening to the different languages being spoken around me in the store. kinda of makes you feel like the outsider, but in a good way because even through the language barrier we are all interacting. maybe not completely fluently but it's enough to know I can get by with the limited French I've learned. It's also nice to get caught up in the "I'm on a holiday" enthusiasm that everyone in the town centre seems to have. Generally families are here only for the week so their apparent joy of being on vacation is quite contagious. Makes you want to smile and chill out too. Not that my life is stressful up here, but anyway :)
In one of my most recent posts I said that I wasn't feeling the Christmasey Spirit?!
Well the town is trying it's best so I'm happy with that :) xx










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Five minutes of Ski time














before I started.. note the smile ---->

yay I got my skis today! One of the girls John works with generously gave me her ski rental pass for the season, because she had brought her own snowboard with her. So, this morning I went down and borrowed my ski equipment that is mine until April! J finished work early so we decided to go down the mountain.. This is the moment where I remind you that until today I have only ever skied (skiied??) once before & it was only for a couple of hours.. Okay now flash forward to us going down the mountain.. get the picture?? (if only I had) anyway J took me to a "really easy part" (didn't look that easy to me, but then again doubt if I could tell one slope from another!) and we started down. I think in total I managed to ski 5-7 minutes before toppling over. Hit my head and smacked my arm against the ice. J was on his snowboard down a ways from me so of course the waterworks started. (Come on it did hurt & how would you feel when you've fallen over in the middle of the piste and everyone else is whizzing past AND you can't get out of the way because your skis are spread eagle) The whole thing was a dumb idea because I have been wearing a helmet when skiing, but didn't today. I just got excited to finally have skis that I got a little carried away. won't do it again until I have proper lessons! Anyway, made J help me up, took off my skiis and then I huffed and puffed back up the hill towards the house. Now, other than a sore arm and wounded pride I'm fine.. but suffice it to say that was the extent of my afternoon of skiing, yep all 5 whole minutes of it!! :P

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Pre- Christmas Musings

Christmas is next week! How did it get here so fast?? It's like this every year. A lot of pre-season hype and then it's gone!

I admit this past week I've been feeling a little sorry for myself. sorry that I'm up in a remote town in the French Alps and haven't really felt the "Christmas spirit" that you almost have to feel when living in the States.. (We Americans do everything bigger than everyone else :) Although growing up my family chose to celebrate Hanukkah instead of Christmas, my mom would still put up the nativity set and decorations early in the month and then become the mom who was always baking delicious winter surprises for us to eat.
(how much fudge can you sneak out of the fridge before mom notices it's gone?? ;)

Oh, and then there was our Secret Santa gift swap with the cousins (which would almost always become an all-out fight to get the best presents) and our traditional Christmas Eve- Miracle on 34th Street, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, White Christmas & It's a Wonderful Life movie marathon. (It's tradition!)
Granted last year I was still not home but rather in Sydney celebrating Christmas IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SUMMER (hey, at least we managed to crank the air conditioning in the flat so it felt more like winter), I still get a bit nostalgic for the Christmases Long Past.. Then yesterday afternoon, I looked out my window and gave myself a much needed reality check/kick in the pants! I'm living in an amazingly beautiful ski resort in the French Alps!! I'm with John and have met some really great friends! I'm learning to ski and speak french (harder than you'd think) and THIS IS THE VIEW FROM MY WINDOW!


































It's so typical. Rather than focusing on what I so fortunately have at my fingertips, I instead start whinging about what I feel I'm missing out on. It's like having straight hair and wishing you had curls, or curly hair wishing you had straight. (I fall into the former category! Always wanted curls!) Are we ever satisfied? So what if I can't be "home" for the holidays; home is wherever I make it! I think this self-reflection before Christmas is a good thing. It has reset my priorities and made me once again realise how much I have to be thankful for. And that to me should be what Christmas is all about! Being thankful for our lives, families, circumstances and friends.. rather than focusing on what we think we're missing :)

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Culinary inspiration strikes again!

So last night I went out with the girls, consumed way too much alcohol and needless to say woke up this morning feeling less than stellar.. (oh and kudos to the guys who were using a power drill at 8 AM THIS MORNING in the room next to mine! don't want to know why on earth they needed to use one at that ungodly hour! FYI = not a nice way to wake up, very hungover and fearing that a drill is coming through your wall at any moment!)

anyway this afternoon walked down to Spar to pick up something to eat as nothing I had in my cupboards would suffice. You know the next day munchies where you feel like eating anything and everything. I wish I could say I pull out the carrot sticks and hummus, but that would be a lie.. It's usually greasy and I-know-I-shouldn't-be-eating-this-but-it-tastes-so-good food I crave.. cheese toasties, jalapeno poppers (which by the way are freakin amazing!), mozzarella cheesey sticks oh and once randomly I craved a rare steak the whole day..
yeah i know I'm weird :)

so I made this great meal when I got home. I bought a tub of couscous, a carton of eggs and some spicy chorizo sausage. Dumped the couscous into the frying pan, chopped up and added the chorizo and then cracked two eggs over the whole thing and stirred it all up. Five minutes later I had the perfect hangover cure and it tasted gooood!

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"I love you.... if only customs would believe me!"


So John and I had a talk today... I mean he walked in from a massive shift at work after only sleeping four hours the night before & I started crying.. He's working his ass off and I start crying! But the truth is I am so tired of how hard immigration makes it to live as a couple together without being married. With him being British and with me being an American it makes it next to impossible to live in the same place and hold work rights. If you are part of such a partnership you know what we're going through! useless immigration representatives, stacks of paperwork that contradicts itself... the bulls#*t goes on and on! (we looked into getting a defacto visa to England and the application states not only do you have to have legitimate proof you've been living together as a couple for two years, ie photos, leases, bank account documents, but then they dare ask that you both show how much money you make a month at your job. why hello!!! if i was living with John in the same country like I am now well then how would i be working to make that monthly sum?? YOU DON'T ALLOW ME WORK RIGHTS) urgg!

In Australia it was so much easier because we both could freely work, but in England and the EU my right to work is nonexistant. (It seems Americans aren't too popular over here.. hmmm, i wonder why??) The same would apply for J if we chose to move to the States tomorrow; he wouldn't be able to work or even stay in the country more than 3 months. It's so not fair! We are seriously in love with one another and want to spend our lives together but it's not fair that the only way immigration will let us be is if we enter into a "marriage on paper". I want to get married when we have enough money to have both our families at the wedding, and enough to make it a special day for both of us.. Not a tacky ceremony at the "chapel o' love" because "it's all we can afford"..

anyway we had a serious "future talk" and it left me feeling much better about the whole thing. sorry for my ranting sometimes i wonder if the whole world is as crazy as my own personal one!! Immigration and customs do my head in!!!

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Prague, Czech Republic


The story of our trip to Prague which almost didn't happen!

Background story:
I was left alone in Broome, Western Australia in September of this year because John's time had run out on his working visa and he had to leave the country immediately. It was decided that he would go back to wait for me in London while I stayed to pack up our life in Broome, sell our vehicles and sort out everything related to moving. Our leaving came as a big shock to both of us because we had been waiting over 9 months for our residency visa to come through and had thought it would be granted before we ran out of time on our current visas. This did not happen and we were left having to pack and move. So, because of all the stress and pressure put on to my shoulders John surprised me with a holiday in Prague when I arrived in London..

October 12, 2009

The morning came and we packed a small bag and got ready to leave for the airport to check-in for our flight for Prague which was leaving later that afternoon. J went online to check the booking and realised that he had mistakenly booked one-way return tickets from Prague back to England and not a flight to get to Prague! So basically we didn't have a flight to catch!! After spending an hour on the phone with the airline carrier, trying unsuccessfully to change our flight, we sat down and decided what we would do.. We chose to book another night at the Park Inn in Hyde Park and pay for flights to Prague for the following day. It would only allow us one full day and two 1/2 days in the city but since we already had return flights we thought it would be a fun trip regardless. This actually turned out well, because we were able to relax in London for another day and ended up spending the afternoon in Chelsea.

October 13

Finally on our way! We flew EasyJet and arrived in Prague at 4pm. The weather was in one word COLD!!! but after we checked into the hotel we bundled up and went out to do some exploring. We walked to the iconic Charles bridge which dates back from the 14th century, and is Prague's most celebrated structure. Unfortunately construction was taking place so one side of the bridge was covered in white tarps, but we were still able to walk across. After that we meandered slowly through the winding alleys of Old Town until we reached the square. The view from the middle of the square was unbelievable! The sun was setting and the light was beautiful. I will forever remember how it looked as it made me stop and stare in awe.
Old Town Square

After the sun had set we started looking for a place where we had been recommended to dine, and ended up walking around in circles for an hour and a half until we finally just gave up and walked into the nearest restaurant. Our waiter hardly spoke english but it ended up being a charming place and a jazz band played in the corner while we ate. A common staple in Czech food is sauerkraut and potato and bread dumplings. I preferred the potato dumplings over the bread. yum! After dinner we walked back to the Charles Bridge and went up into a tower that overlooked the river. It was about 12 flights of stairs till we reached the top! The photo below shows the Prague Castle in the distance.



October 14
This was our only full day to explore Prague so I made sure we were out of the hotel by 10 am. Not a very early start but early enough :) We started our day by walking back through Old Town Square and taking an elevator up to the top of the Astronomical Tower for panoramic views of the city. It was windy at the top but definitely worth the trip up. Next tourist stop was The Old Jewish Cemetery where we stood in line only to find out, when we reached the front, that they didn't take credit cards. After what seemed likes ages we finally found an atm machine and went back to purchase our entrance tickets.



Jewish Cemetery

It has been estimated that there are approximately 12,000 tombstones presently visible and there may be as many as 100,000 burials in all. When the cemetery ran out of space and purchasing extra land was impossible, more layers of soil were placed on the existing graves, the old tombstones taken out and placed upon the new layer of soil. This explains why the tombstones in the cemetery are placed so closely to each other and has resulted in the cemetery having 12 layers of graves! It was a very thought provoking tour and we both left feeling somber.



After the Jewish Cemetery we crossed to the other side of the Charles bridge to view the Prague Castle. John and I shot bows and arrows up in the archery tower and I was a better shot! This was a very action-packed day as we tried to see as much as we could before it got dark. We were able to tour St. Vitus Cathedral and the Jewish museum and walked through Wenceslas Square. Next time I think we'll take more time to explore bars and restaurants and take it a little bit easier. We ended up finding an amazing place to eat when we stumbled in through a door thinking it was something else. The food was tasty and the room was cozy with a lit fire and big candlesticks placed on the wooden tables.



October 15
We left Prague this morning and as our driver took us to the airport it started to snow! This was an incredibly romantic trip and I am such a lucky girl! Prague is a beautiful place & we will definitely want to visit again in the future and spend a bit more time here.

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A few of my favourite things



Okay, I admit it.. I am hooked on facebook. I check it way too often and update my profile weekly.. YET... I love it for the ease in which I am able to stay connected with my family, friends, and co-workers. I love that I can post photos and share where I've been and what I am doing. I love friends' status updates. It lets me keep up with their lives even though we are too far apart to catch up face-to-face.




The love of my life (besides John, my family and friends) is traveling! I love being in airports because I know I will soon be off to a new destination. I love the people you meet in transit and the stories you learn from them, the gossip magazines you shamelessly devour, the feeling of anticipation just before the plane takes off. Traveling is my vice. It started when Mom took Jess and I abroad for our 18th birthday. We had never before been overseas and I remember how big the world felt and how excited we were to explore it. Many many flights since that first time and I have come to discover the world is not such a big place as I once thought it. These days flight paths stretch across to nearly every remote region of the world, and each year airline carriers compete to offer more direct routes to exotic destinations for a budget price.

I believe travel is one of the most important educations you can give yourself; it is an education learnt outside of classroom walls. I believe so strongly that when you step out of your comfort zone bubble and step in to a culture altogether foreign and unknown you are confronted with a choice to learn more about who you are as a individual and how your character measures up in the world. Liberties and freedoms bestowed at birth, accepted without challenge, have been left in your own country's borders and you have a choice to either reach out with zest to accept and pro-actively embrace the bones of the foreign culture, (aka what they eat, how they interact, how they speak) or to reject their way of life and board a flight home..


My reading glasses!
I started having eye troubles at the beginning of this year. My eyes would just get tired very easily when I started reading and I often wouldn't make it through a chapter without putting the book down. Also I couldn't see to read the television channels, so one afternoon John and I took a trip down to SpecSavers when we were staying in Cornwall. I took a thorough eye exam and was diagnosed with slight astigmatism. This simply means my eyes curve light differently because they are not as spherical as they should be. Anyway these glasses have, sorry for this awful pun, made my life a lot clearer! They are for "focused tasks" and I use them quite often.

I am absolutely in love with my Samsung camera! This wb500 model is amazing! John and I splurged and bought ourselves this camera in London before our trip to Prague, and I am so glad we did. The 10x zoom comes in handy for long distance shots and when mounted on a tripod the night setting provides for extraordinary photos. I love taking it with us on trips and also using it on a day to day basis. The memories it has captured have been absolutely priceless.



One day in my house I will have a library! Growing up, my mother taught me and my twin sister how to read and from then on we always had a book by our nose. I remember coming home from the library with maxed out library cards, taking a book to bed and the excitement of staying up all night under the covers eager to see how the book ended. Reading was a passion for me, not a chore, and I poured through Nancy Drew mysteries, the Bobbsey twins, and of course the Boxcar kids. These days my taste in books has changed, but my passion for them has not. My most recent reads have been: Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, Birdsong by Sebastion Faulks, and An Unnofficial Rose by Iris Murdoch.

Having lived in Australia and England, I have come to love a good cup of tea. Surprisingly, I don't particularly care for English breakfast, preferring instead chamomile and peppermint. This custom of having "tea breaks" is foreign in the States, but since I never liked coffee this habit suits me fine! I had my first cup of tea flying from Los Angeles to Sydney on board Qantas. The stewardess thought I was a bit strange drinking it without milk or sugar. Then when I had my internship at the PRIA, in Sydney, it became customary for a morning tea and then an afternoon tea break so I would make my way into the kitchen and chat with the girls while the kettle boiled.

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this Girl is back online!





Yay! I'm back online. This week I moved out of the hotel and into my own apartment which of course does not have wi-fi. Hopefully this Saturday they will get around to installing a box. Sure would make my life a lot easier. I didn't realize how much I've come to depend on having internet in my life until I had it no longer :) I've realized, however, it is a good thing to go without comforts such as internet for a bit, as it makes you doubly appreciate this little creature comfort when you get it back! (My heart goes out to my mom who's having to endure dial-up for the next few weeks! :)

Anyway, a lot has happened in the last week. I'm getting terribly excited for this Saturday as it is officially the first day of the winter ski season! The town and bars open and most of the ski lifts do as well. I'm placing myself in ski school and will be relegated to the beginner's bunny slope. Slope! It's hardly more than a bump in an otherwise flat snow field. lol can't wait!
J's taking up snowboarding this year so he'll be joining me for the first few weeks on the green slopes. I'm planning to head back to Chamonix next week to visit friends and then hopefully travel on to Paris to get a new passport from the US Embassy there! Oh did I mention I lost my passport?? Such a novice thing to do! I brought it with me into a bar to use it to fill out some forms online and then ended up leaving the entire folder on the chair! Bloody hell it has been such an inconvenience! Anyway I have to take a trip and get a new one made..

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Belle Plagne






So I've moved again! I'm feeling like quite a gypsy these days. The reason behind the move is that after John finished training in Chamonix, the executive chef offered him the position as head chef of Esprit's flagship 4 star ski resort. A big promotion as no one in the training program has ever been offered the position! The only catch was that Belle Plagne was located three hours outside of Chamonix. The pay would be tripled and I was welcome to stay.. so after much deliberation we decided to accept the offer and move up here for the ski season. What a beautiful place it is! Unlike Chamonix, Belle Plagne is located at the top of a mountain and has a much higher altitude. The road up goes around 21 hairpin turns and some of the turns take you to the mountain's edge. Quite scary when you're driving on the ice in the dark! We have been here for five days and just moved in to my new apartment today. The town is still quiet as the ski season does not start officially until the 12th. I went out with John a couple of nights ago and took these photos of the town with a tripod. how beautiful it was with the snow glittering and the moon shining down through the clouds!

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