Adam Hills

Montreal seems to love a good festival - they host a jazz festival, a F1 Grand Prix, winter festivals etc, etc.  One of it's most famous festivals is the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival.  It goes for a whole month each July and there is everything from small, intimate shows through to massive gala nights that end up being televised later in the year.  Of course there are shows in French and English!

While I'm still on the search for a young person to baby sit for us, one of Fanta Pants' colleagues kindly looked after the kids so we could go and see a familiar face.

We've loved Australian comedian Adam Hills for a long time and we'd watch Spicks and Specks religiously so of course we were excited to see him perform live.  Of course he doesn't have nearly the same following in Montreal as he does at home so it was a pretty small and intimate venue in the gritty Plateau borough.  The venue reminded me of somewhere you'd go at uni... the smell of stale beer, ripped posters and the foyer was full of mismatched second hand couches.

Adam Hills is a very intelligent funny guy and we really enjoyed the show.  His music knowledge was evident when he sung the Canadian national anthem to "Summer of '69" by Brian Adams and then the German national anthem to "99 Luftballons" by Nena!!!  (that one was for you Sushicat!!).

Part of his show involved getting various audience members to do sit ups and push ups.  I really found that part naff.  Watching a group of random guys do 100 reps wasn't very funny.  It seemed like a cop out not having to prepare jokes for that section of the show which was only an hour long...  Having said that we did have a good laugh and it was a lovely night out.  Now to find a regular babysitter so we can do this more often!!

xx

Les Jeux Olympiques

Wow!  How good was the Olympic opening ceremony?!  By far the best bit for the little people in this house was when Mr Bean pressed "the fart button"!  (I'm so over toilet humour...).  I thought the lighting of the cauldron was amazing.

There has been talk of the Olympics here but nothing like the build up we're used to in Australia.  I'm not sure if it's because Canada is stronger in the winter games or as someone described to me "Quebec doesn't have a team competing!".  Having said that there is a strong medal chance in Quebecois diver Alex Despatie.

In any case we'll be watching!  We actually very lucky to be able to swap between Canadian and American coverage depending on what's better.  It's only been a day but already it's very handy going between the two.  (Being only 1.5 hours from the US border we get a lot of American TV!).  Fingers crossed we'll get to see a few Aussies compete and hopefully win some medals...

xx

Pre rolled...

I've whinged before about not being able to find familiar products here in Canada but I'm very happy to report that I can cross one product off that list!

Pre rolled sheets of puff pastry!  Yippee!  Hooray!  Albeit, this pre rolled puff pastry isn't what I'm used to and it actually comes rolled into tubes which you need to defrost before time.  While this is a bit of a pain, not having to "roll my own" is a very good thing!

There was so much less mess and flour everywhere this afternoon when Little Miss D and I made our yummy chicken turnovers!

On to the next search - a babysitter!  I've cast my net wide and so I'm pretty confident we'll find someone soon.

xx

Welcome home...

We're back home and I'm happy to report that the flight home was much more successful than the flight there.

This is what I (and every other passenger around us) like to see on a flight... a sleeping child!

Air France was really lovely and earns big points from us for amazing food (who thought plane food would be amazing!) and excellent staff.  A very nifty feature during take off and landing was an external view of plane from the tail.

We were welcomed home with some intense Montreal weather.  The air was thick and heavy with humidity and by golly it was hot - yesterday got to 39 on the humidex scale!  Gross!  Then the thunder and lightening began in the late afternoon.  Poor Little Miss D was terrified!

Just as I was pulling the steak for dinner out of the fridge, the power went off!  Apparently summer time power outages due to electrical storms are not uncommon.  Luckily the tasty little pizza place in the village still had power so we had a pizza picnic by the front window and all Baby A's toys!

Thank goodness for daylight saving!  There was plenty of evening light for us to eat!

xx

Disneyland Paris

Where else in Paris do you take a little boy for his 6th birthday?  Well it's not a museum or a chateau but Disneyland!!!

It was a busy day but we all had a great time!  Despite having to line up for ages for some rides, the kids (and us) really enjoyed ourselves.

Theme parks, queues and prams really don't mix well so Fanta Pants and I played tag team for a bit!  We have a pipe dream of a big Florida Disney trip when we don't need a pram any more and Baby A can really enjoy the whole thing.

The biggest downside of the day was the smoking.  People smoking everywhere.  All over their own children, all over everyone else's children.  It was gross.  Apparently Disneyland Paris is smoke free but it clearly wasn't observed and far from being enforced there were staff members whose sole job was to sweep up cigarette butts.

The smoking in France is really bad - shocking even.  Maybe it's better than it was but surely it's time they realise what they're doing to themselves...

xx

Divers...

When wandering around Paris you see some amazingly beautiful parks and gardens but it isn't until you see gardeners cutting the grass by hand with scissors and teams of six men working through flower beds that you really realise how much hard work and money is put into maintaining it all.  It's worth it though!

The French also take their food pretty seriously.  Check out this meal we saw at the reptile enclosure at the Menagerie at the Jardins des Plantes.  This impressive looking salad of endive, beetroot, grated carrot and olives was for some turtles!  I just love how carefully the meal as been arranged!

Not only does Paris have very well used bikes for hire, it also has electric cars for hire.  I don't have the full story but it appears that once you've registered with an account you can take a car when you need one and then return them to charge for the next person.  I'm not sure if you need to book or if you can take them at will but it's a great idea in a big city!

xx

Paris for kids

There is of course a Paris for everybody on every budget and we've only just scratched the surface of what's available for children.

Where possible, we've tried to avoid the massive crowds (although the trip to the Eiffel Tour felt like every visitor in the whole city had converged at the same time!).

A real highlight for Action Boy was the sailing boats in the Luxembourg Gardens.  For only 2 euro, you get your own boat to sail around for half an hour.  The surrounds are so beautiful and the kids have a blast chasing their boats from one side of the pond to the other.  (Although Little Miss D soon tired of this and preferred to watch the ducks!).

It was a hot day and Action Boy ended up very hot and sweaty.  It appears the approach to sun protection in Paris seems to be the same as in Canada - non existent.  A hot day just means it's a great excuse to work on your tan.  Not a hat in sight!

There are many carousels in Paris and we've hit up a few with my favourite one being at Troccadero overlooking the Eiffel Tour.

Animal themed carousel at the Jardins des Plantes

xx

What I've noticed...

If the names of my eldest son and cats are anything to go by, I'm pretty sure you all know that I love the French language, France and all things French.  Of course visiting France makes up a large part of the amour.  This visit is the sixth time I've been here including a 12 month stint living with an amazing host family between finishing high school and starting university.

It's been 18 years since my first trip here (OMG!!?  How is that possible?  I can't believe I'm old enough say that!) and each time I notice how things have changed - sometime for the good and sometimes the not so good.  For example the last time we were here in 2007 it really struck me how globalisation had kicked in and homogenised some things had become, especially shopping.

Action Boy and Fanta Pants at the Eiffel Tour in 2007

This time around I've noticed a massive improvement in the cleanliness and availability of toilets!  It sounds silly but French public toilets used to be quite revolting.  This trip we haven't been caught short on toilet paper and there has always been hand soap available.  A decent loo is important when travelling with small children and you have a bladder the size of a pea!  (pardon the pun...).


Another noticeable evolution is the use of English - both written and spoken.  English is everywhere.  Products, shops and slogans are all in blatant English.  The Quebecois tongue troopers would be going bananas handing out infringements for violations!  For example for lunch today we had a wrap poulet from the daily monoprix (a little supermarket).  You can even watch TV programmes in English in prime time on the number one TV channel!  I'm sure this is a massive concern for the Academie Francaise who are the keepers of the French language here.  I guess an increase in the use of English goes hand in hand with the homogenisation of the shopping.


The French seem to be totally behind preservative and colour free food, especially in food targeted towards children.  Yippee!  Packages proudly display "no palm oil" and so much is organic.  Fingers crossed Canada will get on this bandwagon across the board soon!!


Finally I never cease to be impressed with how stylish Paris and Parisians are!  There is an effortless, natural style which is enviable...

xx

Le chevalier

Luckily for Action Boy it's not all chateaux in the Loire valley.  There are plenty of activities geared towards kids and despite quite a bit of rain we managed to fit in a few.

We found very interesting troglodyte caves which were partially recreated to how they would have been when they were lasted lived in around a hundred years ago.  It would have been a horribly hard life living in a small, damp cave.

Little Miss D was in furry animal heaven with many cute rabbits, chickens, geese and goats to chat to in the little farm yard.

Despite a rocky start on the flight over, Baby A has been a trooper and will eventually go to sleep in the pram or baby backpack when we're out and about.  However he does find it hard to "switch off" and like any younger sibling, never wants to miss out on anything!

Frenchmen playing the accordion on a cobblestone street is obviously frightening for small boys and so you have sprint away after throwing a coin or two into his hat!

Chinon

 A real hit with Action Boy were the games and activities set up at a 10th century fortress in Montbazon.  These games were great and lots of fun to play (the shelter was also great with the heavy rain!).  The kids also made little leather money pouches which have not left their necks in nearly a week!

Of course the most fun game was the jousting horse!  Nice work Nifty!  The weather was really quite terrible on this day but it did mean there wasn't a crowd so we weren't cramped at all and we were able to take our time!

After passing all the "tests" to become a knight, Action Boy and Little Miss D were knighted Chevaliers de la Fortresse du Falcon Noir.  The serious face must be because of the real sword on his shoulder - afterwards he was thrilled.

Little Miss D was most impressed with the geese and the white baby goat who followed us around...

xx

Coucou!

Hello again!  We're still in France but now have WiFi so here's a little update!

Nifty and Pearl joined us for a lovely week in a 16th Century farm house in the Loire Valley.  This place was delightful - well located, so charming and lots of room for the kids to run around.  From this gorgeous old house we pottered around visiting some of the amazing chateaux and other attractions the region has to offer.  Little Miss D particularly enjoyed discovering the many cute, furry animals in the region but poor Action Boy really had had enough of the chateaux!

Picnic outside Villandry

Villandry

Most of the chateaux have fantastic grounds and gardens which were stunning to look at and fantastic for the kids to run around.  Although they did struggle to understand why they wouldn't be allowed to run through the manicured potager gardens!!

Four types of love garden @ Villandry

Somehow there always seems to be someone selling ice-cream at these places which the children are very pleased about.  Action Boy is earning a small fortune by practising his French ordering ice-creams and croissants.  (He gets 1 euro for each order!).

Coordinated ice-cream and outfit!

xx

Bonjour!

Notice it's justBonjour and not Bonjour/Hi! You see we're in France! Yippee! Hooray! We're on holiday! It's amazing being only a six hour flight from Europe. Although I'd hope that a short flight meant the children would be beautifully behaved but I was a bit deluded! All was forgiven when everyone slept in the next morning! Fanta Pants and I got a 10 hour sleep! Amazing! Internet access is a bit limited at the moment so I'll post photos of what we're up to in the coming days! A bientot! Xx

Je me souviens

You see the phrase je me souviens everywhere in Quebec.  Most prominently it's the slogan on car number plates.  We also saw it written in the grass at the Citadelle in Quebec City over the weekend and it means I remember.  It was explained to us by our guide that it is a reminder to people of Quebec to not forget their heritage, history and of course language.

Quebecois history is complicated to an outsider and over the past 400 years control seems to have flip flopped between the French and the English but somehow this French speaking province joined the Canadian federation but managed to keep it's language intact.

A very interesting example of the flip flopping control is the Citadelle which was a fort initially built by the French then the English took control and today it is home to the only French speaking regiment in the Canadian army.  I guess that explains the beefeater outfits!

Their mascot is a lovely white goat with gold painted ears.  This little guy was by far the highlight for Little Miss D!  Action Boy was more impressed with the weaponry and exploding canons we saw during the tour!  By chance we happened timed our visit with their annual Canada Day parade complete with marching band!

xx

Celine Dion

I have been a proud Celine Dion fan from way back - especially the French stuff.  I'm even prone to subjecting my family to it from time to time.  She is one of Quebec's biggest exports and there has been a bit of talk about her at the moment as she's releasing two albums later in the year.  Even on the CBC radio this morning the presenters were discussing that no one actually admits to being a Celine Dion fan but she sells millions of records and has a sell out show in Las Vegas.  Everyone is obviously listening in the closet...

When CD tours with these new albums I'll be a noddy going to the concert alone (unless I can convince someone to admit to liking her enough to buy a ticket!).  She's known for putting on a good show and I'm sure she'd go all out in her home town.

For those of you interested, this is the new French single... I think it's lovely!

xx

Quebec City

Quebec City is a gorgeous small old city about 3.5 hours drive from here and it was certainly well worth the visit.

It is the provincial capital and easily makes you think of Europe.  Quebec is the only walled city north of Mexico and it is jammed packed with reminders of it's history which is full of battles between the French and the English.

Quebec is very touristy but beautifully maintained and perfect for walking around (and when you tire of walking there is a funicular!).  We were there over the Canada Day long weekend which meant there wasn't anything "official" going on to celebrate but there was a lot of people around and lots of street performers. (Quebec celebrated it's "national" day last weekend?!?).  It was so nice to get away and plug more holes in our understanding of Quebecois history!

xx

Dress ups!

We've just spent a lovely couple of days in Quebec City and one of the highlights for the kids was the dress up session at the Museum of Civilisation.  

This place was amazing!  There was a big room full of beautifully made fairy tale dress ups with all the accessories.  The kids were free to roam around, change outfits and then act out the story with amazing props.

The cauldron had lots of nasty ingredients like dragon wings, rats and snakes to make terrible potions.

While there were lots of princess and fairy outfits, Little Miss D was more taken with the animal costumes.  By far, Action Boy's favourite was the jousting!  This activity was so well designed and the kids had a ball.  Each jouster had to kill the six headed dragon by stabbing it in each of its six hearts and when all the hearts were extinguished, there was the roar of the crowd!

Unfortunately we didn't get to look at the rest of the museum because the power went out due to a thunderstorm!  It was a tricky situation - rain and thunder outside, no power or lights inside!  Luckily by the time we got back to our hotel the power was back!

xx