Before a teacher, now a student

It has been soon one month since I started in my new job here in France. It surely is different to be a nanny for one or two children compared to being a teacher for 11-40 children. I do miss my students and my colleagues back in the preschool but I have to say I can enjoy my life with the current job more. I have much less stress for looking after (mostly) only one child, for having no need to wonder what kind of ways I should use to teach mathematics or reading, and for having absolutely no need of thinking of my job at home or taking any work home. Besides, now I can offer more time and closeness to all the kids I am in charge of.

Most of my working days start in the afternoon when I pick up the 3-year-old boy from the school after 4 pm. (Yes, I have no more need to sleep early and wake up early, which gives a chance to spend more time with H in the evenings.) After the school the kid likes to be a lot in the parks, so we mostly go home around 6 o'clock just to cook and start eating before the parents come home. And usually the parents also pick up the 1-year-old little sister from the nursery, so I really am mostly in charge of the big brother only. Sometimes if the parents cannot make it on time, I will also pick up the sister and start feeding both of the kids before their parents arrive. Cooking food and simultaneously watching after two little kids is one of the biggest challenges I have in this job. On day I needed to get the kids to bed, too. Feeding and bathing them went surprisingly smoothly (since the little sister is easily cranky if tired) but getting them to fall asleep was a bit more difficult. I had been told beforehand that they first let the girl fall asleep and then they put the big brother to bed because otherwise the kids like to play together in the common room. But the little sister didn't stay quietly laying in bed if I was not with her, and if I let the brother to be alone outside the room, he started to cry after the parents. Eventually, I took the boy and hold the sobbing child in my lap while watching the sister trying to fall asleep. I sang many kid songs both in English and in Finnish, also to prevent the kids from speaking or playing together. After half an hour the sister fell asleep and I read books and washed dishes with the brother and then somehow managed to convince him to go to bed even though the parents had not come yet. All in all, I was quite happy how smoothly the first full evening with them went.

This is what I see every day when I head home from work.

The boy doesn't still often understand what I am saying because I have decided to use only English with him. There has been a couple of times when I was very close to explaining something in French (because of a more difficult situation) but I could still avoid it. But I can already see some progress after just four weeks. I am happy he now understands the words "mommy" and "daddy" since he couldn't really get it on the first days when I told that they come soon. And he likes to repeat things since the first week, as well. Yesterday was the first time he replies to me straight in English by saying "yes" in stead of "oui". I was so happy! On Wednesdays we get to practice his language more because I work full day from 8:30 am until 7 pm.

One day we went to see a puppet show with another boy who also has a nanny speaking English. We met them once in the park and right away we thought it would be fun to have play dates for the boys and we have met them a few times afterwards. The boys get along well and I like talking to the other nanny. It's almost like having a colleague and besides, we are almost in the same kind of life situation.

This mölkky box is used as a toy box in a tennis club where "my kid" started
this week. French people really like playing the Finnish game Mölkky.

So my life is very different now than it was last spring. I also have more time of my own outside work, too, which has made it possible to try to find more social life and hobbies. This week I became a student again! I wanted to get some new motivation for learning Vietnamese and tried to find a course or a teacher for me. Finding a course would have been maybe better since it's also more social but it was easier to find a private tutor. On Tuesday morning I took a tram to the 13th district of Paris where I spent one hour with a Vietnamese person who luckily speaks English. I hope I get some more courage to use the language and also to develop my pronunciation and vocabulary. I'm looking forward to the next Tuesday.

I got to be a student also for a second time during this week. I had talked with H already for a longer time that we should go to some dance lessons. He wanted to take West coast swing classes so we finally googled where to find swing dance in Paris. Yesterday evening we met at Intensive Danse where they were supposed to have teaching for swing and Lindy hop before a free dancing night. The lesson was only about Lindy hop but we enjoyed it very much! The music and the dance moves made me feel like being in an old movie or something. We hope that the small amount of participants doesn't prevent the evenings continuing in the future. The teacher was very nice as well, and Thursday is perfect for us since neither of us has any other plans for it nor do we have to wake up early on the next morning. And boy, it felt good to dance and be on a dance class again! It's fun to learn something new!

I got more active on the web page Conversation exchange again, as well. I think I have more time and energy to meet new people and practice languages. Possibly I'll find new friends from there. I have to say that I finally start to be a bit excited about my life in France. I'm finding my own things here and everything seems more enjoyable than some time ago. (I still don't see myself living here for years and years. But let's say that I might be okay staying until the next summer...)

One part of my life is to go once or twice a week to throw back all
the balls that fly over the fence from the school yard next to our garden.

We have been married for over a month with H now.
The below drawings show how each of us pictured our wedding.

Wedding & Honeymoon

Like last year, I spent most of my summer vacation at home in Finland. I flew there right after Bastille Day and stayed with my family for over 5 weeks. Close people, nature and familiar ways to do things just always helps resting one's mind. Not to mention a COOLER WEATHER. Oh dear, I was so happy that (even though the temperature in Finland also reached up to 30 at times) I could escape France before the next over 30 degrees wave hit it, that time reaching even 40 degrees...

My vacation was actually quite busy since I spent many days preparing for one of the biggest days of my life: my own wedding. Living abroad, it was hard to do certain preparations before returning to Finland, so I met people, visited places, made some decoration and program etc etc. But I was happy to be busy with that. And it was all worth it since the day went so smoothly, happily, amazingly, wonderfully, lovingly and all the other possible positive adjectives added to this list! The happiest day of my life! And I got to share it all with many wonderful people of my life and my now-husband H's life, and actually saw many of them after a looong time. Just absolutely awesome!

The happy couple

After the wedding I spent a few days with H's family who came to Finland all the way from Vietnam. And a couple of days after they returned to Asia, we also traveled back to France where we already had a common home since H moved all of his stuff to my new home before coming to Finland some weeks behind me. I was happily surprised by seeing that our garden had got some greenness after the hot and dry seasons. H sent me a pic in August of yellow grass, cut down bushes and a tree that had dropped its leaves. I saw for the first time in my life that a tree makes leaves two times in one year. But I'm so happy for it. Maybe we'll get the autumn colors this year after all.

Our dry yard in early August...

A second spring!

We spent only one night in France and then packed our bags again since a honeymoon in Spain was waiting for us! It was not maybe the most comfortable option to travel there by an over-night bus that took 10 hours but it for sure was the cheapest: around 30€ each. Our bus got stopped at the boarder of France and Spain and the guards kept us there for 45 minutes before they took two customers away and let us cross the bridge. We arrived to San Sebastian bus station after 8 am.

After dropping our bags to Hotel Monte Ulia (which ended up to be quite far for walking with suitcases), we thought it's good to explore the old town hill in the centre when we are not exhausted by walking yet. On the way we saw Koruko Andre Mariaren church and as an interesting detail from the church I say that the main entrance - and actually the only visible entrance - was on the side of the church when looked from the inside. Usually churches have the biggest door at the end of the central corridor of the church. After a quick visit indoors in the Koruko Andre Mariaren, we started climbing. We wanted to go to the Jesus statue we saw from the downtown but we were not quite sure always which way to go, even when we checked the street signs or from Google Maps. That's because there was no mention of anything close to "Jesus" or "Messiah" or such. Everywhere was written only Bateria this or Bateria that. Well, we did find our way and the view from top of the hill was amazing! Ocean on one side, while the side was bays with beaches, old beautiful buildings and hills/mountains as the background for all the land. One of the coolest landscapes I've seen!

Koruko Andre Mariaren. The statue in the high is San
Sebastian whose body was pierced by arrows.

Climbing uphills

From the top of the Eastern hill of the bay.

On the way down we saw that the aquarium of San Sebastian is located also nearby and checked that before the lunch. Disappointingly, it first seemed that the place is more of a museum of marine than an aquarium with living sea creatures but behind the first part there were also several interesting fish. The coolest part was the one big pool that was a place for smaller fish, sharks and rays, and one could see it well from a 360 walk-through pipe. And as an honourable mention, the small "worms" that look like Hattifattners (hattivatit) from Moomins.

One of us saw these as delicious. You may guess who.

How many fish can you find?

We had heard already in Finland that San Sebastian is famous for pintxos, small snacks that one can have either for a snack, starter or combining several of them, it can be also a full meal. Pintxos are like Spanish tapas in general but all the pintxos are built on top of a piece of bread. So when we headed back to the busiest streets after the aquarium, we thought of trying those (also because most of the restaurants were super full of people and the only place with a table for us was serving only pintxos). Pretty good stuff, I have to say, even though many pintxos have raw fish or sea food or something else that is not to my taste. But I still found very good meat and cheese pintxos. And only 2€ each.

Our lunch pintxo bar.

One random pintxo bar among many in the city.

In the afternoon it was time to go to the beach. San Sebastian has two beaches, one that is more for swimming and boats and one that is good for surfing since the waves are higher on that side. We started with the bigger beach with the calmer waves and a nice view to the island located in the middle of the bay. The water was not cold and one could stay there for a long time. (Also the air was somewhere between 20-25 degrees, so a perfect weather for swimming.) In the evening we tried to find a nice restaurant near our hotel but that was not so easy. According to Google Maps, there were only a few restaurants within a kilometer and only of them was open on Sunday evening. And that one opened at 8:30 pm. Hmm, Spanish people really eat even later than the French... Without having many options, we walked to Zelai Txiki after 8 and that ended up to be a fancier place. The terrace with a wonderful view was accessible only if you had done a reservation and the prices were not the cheapest either. However, very tasty food, amazingly delicious desserts and a very nice and interactive staff was surely worth of experiencing! So if you are not traveling to San Sebastian with a minimal budget, we absolutely recommend this place.

I have never had as good fish portion as this.
I just loved the sauce they served with the fish and vegetables!

Great cheesecake and both of ours favorite food from
San Sebastian: pastel vasco (gateau Basque in French).
Aaaaamazing!!

On the next morning we rented bikes from our hotel and cycle through the center and along the beach to Miramar Palace that was not actually worth of visiting. The palace looked like a bigger mansion and we couldn't even get inside much and also the garden was somewhat boring. The best thing was the view to the bay again. From the palace it was easy to continue following the seaside and we decided to go to the Western side hill of the bay, knowing that there is a small amusement park on the top. We took an old cable car to save our legs from climbing uphills and the view towards the city was even better better than from the Eastern hill from the Jesus statue. Ah, we chose a great place for our honeymoon! And we also took a couple of rides since they didn't cost more than a few euros. In the amusement park we paid attention to the signs that told the opening hours of each ride and started to wonder weather the staff would actually have a siesta from 14 to 16 or even 17 o'clock. Eventually we left the hill a bit before 2, so we don't know what happened in the park within those hours. But based on the next days' experiences, I believe they really shut everything down for 3 hours in the middle of the day. This whole siesta thing is something almost unbelievable to someone who has never experienced such. The evening we spent leisurely trying the other beach. The big waves were awesome and fun but the swimming area was quite limited due to the big amount of different level surfers.

From Miramar Palace that is now partly used
as a university.

An old "train car" that took us uphills.

This hill offered even a nicer view over the bay and the
city than the other side.

You can nowhere else have a boat ride
with such a great view!

For the third day we took it easier and chose only one destination to visit: the science museum Eureka. The place was a bit further from the downtown and away from everything else but it was quite interesting with many different areas. There was a small aquarium, human body section with actual human body parts, electricity area, mechanics section, a room where one could try physical challenges to jump, stretch, react etc. Hours passed by quickly and we got hungry but had to still take a bus to the center because there was nothing nearby Eureka. We found a nice restaurant called Yellow Deli and needing for something fresh, both I and H ordered salads. We fell in love with the restaurant. The food was good and fresh, the Irish music very cheerful and the staff didn't seem like staff. They were just a group of people enjoying doing what they did. A very home-like atmosphere and the people working there had even time to talk with us a bit. The service was different from any other restaurant and we were just feeling so happy and peaceful. Also the design of the restaurant and the way they had decorated even their menus was fun and kind of hippie-like in our opinion. Could nothing but enjoy the experience.

There are so many blood veins in our head!

The scariest looking turtle I have ever seen: alligator snapping turtle.
Notice also the claws that it had in all of its feet.

Our fourth day we started by going to the beach again, having a picnic lunch there. We left all our valuables at the hotel so that we could even go swimming together without worrying someone stealing something else than our food. H is a huge fan of sea food and since we were visiting a seaside town, we had to find some nice octopus, squid and oysters for him to try. I actually dared to try some squid from him and have to say that the structure was not as I expected it to be. Positively surprised but I only wanted to try the shell part, not the strange-looking body. Nearby the restaurant there happened to be a cinema and on an impulse we decided to try Spanish cinema. And the movie we chose: Andry Birds 2. Haha, also the ticket seller noted to us that it's in Spanish but we thought we might enjoy it after all, or at least see out of interest how well we can follow the plot without understanding the spoken lines. There were only adults in the audience so it definitely is not meant only for kids and we did laugh. Many times. Go and see it yourself so that you would understand. It's really fun. Later we went to a small bar to order some oysters for H so that he gets to try all he wanted to.

We started our last day in Spain by going to Yellow Deli restaurant again. On that day we had a better talk with the staff there and they explained a bit of the background for the restaurant chain that is located in a few countries. It is run by a community of Christian people who see it more as a hobby than a work. For desserts we thought of eating some churros with chocolate. Don't go to a fast food restaurant to eat those, just as a hint. The proper cafe churros I had in Madrid last year were a lot better. Nearby our lunch places there was the last interesting-seeming museum for us. San Telmo museum which tells about the history of San Sebastian and also had a big exhibition about robots. I think the best thing for H there was when he got to play the original Megaman.

The five days in San Sebastian were all in all awesome! It was relaxing, exciting, entertaining, refreshing and adventurous. The city seemed to be built for a bit richer people within the few kilometers from the center (based on how most of the houses looked like), the landscapes were amazing, people were friendly and open and the Basque language really is very different from Spanish. Many places had signs written in those two languages. The only challenging part of the trip were the siesta times when restaurants, shops and other places closed for hours in the afternoon. Good luck finding a place for a late lunch or afternoon activities.

Basque language vs Spanish language

Once more a pintxo picture

On our way home we had time to have a small walk
from France to Spain.

Bastille Day's fireworks @ Eiffel Tower

A wonderful summer starts to be over and it's time for me to get back to my blog in France, as well. Let me finally tell you about the experience I had already 1,5 months ago before I flew to Finland. July 14th, Bastille Day - the French national day.

Last year I saw the big fireworks show of Eiffel only for afar from a street corner of my previous home and decided already that time that if I'll be in Paris in July 2019, I would go to see it properly. We got a taste of French national day show already in Gentilly, our current location a tiny bit outside Paris, on the 13th of July when I, H and his friends spent the evening together. Even though Gentilly is not a big city compared to its surrounding areas, the fireworks flew to the sky for 15 minutes. The show was quite nice (though the background music was hardly audible) but I completely forgot about that when I experienced the show on the next day in the middle of the capital.

We knew that the Champ de Mars park in front of Eiffel Tower would be more than full of people by evening so I and H went to reserve a place from there already hours before the actual show time. We arrived around 6 pm to the security check of the enclosure that included the whole Champ de Mars and noticed that it was difficult to find place for a picnic mat even at that time anymore. Luckily we found a small area next to a path that was enough for us who were still waiting for a few people to join us. Eventually others found other spots to enjoy the evening and I spent 4 hours with H playing games, eating our snacks and watching the park getting always fuller and fuller of human mass before the national day show started with a classical concert at 10 pm.

Champ de Mars around 6 pm.

Around the sun set time. The tower gets sparkles
for 5 minutes each exact hour.

The feeling during the concert was already quite memorable but the firework show was something indescribable! It was not only one of the biggest fireworks that I have seen but they also used music and the Eiffel Tower's shape in an awesome way! Waiting for hours among thousands of people was totally worth of the experience! If you ever happen to be in Paris on Bastille Day, it's my advise to use half a day for getting a nice spot to see that.

As from any huge happening, you can surely imagine what it was like to leave the place after the show finished around midnight. Or maybe you cannot even imagine. So lots of population to every direction across the width of the big roads... There was no hope of getting the closest metros nor city bikes so we walked a few kilometers to rerB train and luckily managed to catch the last train of the night.