The start of a new life in France

It has been very hot and dry in France for the last month or so. The extreme heats at the end of June didn't stop the everyday life here but surely it affected to how people spent their days. For example at our school that is small and without air condition or openable windows, we tried to spend as little time indoors as possible. Of course it was not that easy to go out with the small children either because we had to make sure that they stayed in the shadows and not getting overly exhausted. On the hottest week our headmaster informed the parents that the children should stay at home if possible so we got way less than half of the students coming to school. That enabled us to go also to a nearby grocery store to buy ice-cream to everyone one day and easier to change the place if it got too hot either in the classrooms or in the parks. But anyway, we survived all the way until the end of the school year last Friday. Unbelievable, I actually worked at that preschool for 1,5 years in total! I wouldn't have thought of that last year when I started there and I came home crying because it felt so intense for me...

We walked a bit further to a bigger park with the whole school
and the kids enjoyed watching some ducks, too.
"One little duck went out one day, over the hills and far away.."

However, last Friday I needed to say goodbyes to everyone at our school. As I told before, I am going to change my job. Even though I am happy that I don't need to travel for 2 hours every day nor have the certain struggles I had there, it was sad to give the final thanks, hugs and smiles to my kids and my lovely colleagues. Most of my kids like being close to an adult and give random hugs but normally they are a bit shy to do that in front of everyone. But when I asked my whole class to come and hug me on the last day, they all ran to give a huge group hug. One of the sweetest moments during my career! After taking my ukulele from the school and leaving my key to an assistant, I went to still have a dinner together with the other full-time teacher that I became close with during the school year.

Japanese food with my colleague

I got some chocolate from the parents of my kids.

Other gifts I got from the families and my colleagues.

So... I'm on a vacation now! Yaaay, it is so nice that I don't need to wake up at 6 am anymore! And I don't need to wake up for my flat mates anymore either. I also mentioned before that I am changing my apartment here, as well. Telling about my new place took some time but I am happy to say that I have been living in a small flat a bit outside Paris for a month already. By a coincidence a table tennis friend of H was renting out a flat in Gentilly, just a few hundred meters from the busy Paris, and I got to start moving my stuff from the beginning of June. I took a round or two always on my free days and managed to carry all of my things by trams and buses within June, and I left my keys to the apartment in the Asian district and said bye to my landlady and her two children.

The highway surrounding Paris and behind my previous place.
Living in a high building offered a nice view though...

The new home in Gentilly is located in a peaceful area (even though as said, the boarder of Paris is only a few hundred meters away) and the house is very peaceful, too. Being very lucky, the apartment is located on the ground floor, giving the chance to access the small back yard that only the 3 ground-floor apartments' inhabitants can use. There are also more parks and way less people in the surroundings that I had in the previous place, so I couldn't be happier for this change!

Celebrating signing the renting papers with the new landlord.
On the background the lovely backyard.

In Gentilly

This wine selling building in located almost on the opposite
of our building on the new home street.

These 1€ lamps that work with small solar panels
actually work pretty well. I am surprised!

For some reason there are Angry Birds painted on the road
when I walk to a bigger supermarket from the new home.

The pig is painted on the car road for cars to bump into it...

What it comes to getting a new job, I have been applying, refusing offers, getting disappointed by the declining decisions after being told to be perfect for the position, applying more, have interviews on Skype and on the spot... And finally I got my answer and made my decision yesterday after one company told that they would hire me if I agreed. I will start as a nanny to a French family with two small children that don't speak or understand any English yet. Haha, that will be an interesting experience to see how long it will take for the children to feel comfortable around me (who speaks "gibberish"), how long it will take for them to understand me and whether they start speaking some English at some point, too.

On the way to one of the interviews...

...and to another interview.

All in all: I have a new home and a new job going to start after the summer. Next week I will fly to Finland to enjoy my summer close to my family and friends and all other things I miss from Finland. There is still some preparation to do for that too... With the following photos I want to wish happy summer to everyone! :)

I went to test the dancing next to Seine also this year.
That's a great and free place to go dancing in Paris. 

Happened to pass by a street where they were filming a movie.

On my first day of vacation I went to Montmartre with H.
I really like the artistic atmosphere there.

Fountainebleau, fête de l'école & Finnish church

Wow, I have been so busy during the last times that I have not even given thoughts to my blog. My future plans in France are getting clearer and I have already got some stress out of my mind but I am still waiting for some answers before even booking tickets to Finland for my summer. But I will open those things on my next update. Now I want to share my experiences I had on the Ascension Day in Fountainebleau and a week ago Saturday at our school party.

Chateau de Fountainebleau

The Ascension Day was a bank holiday also in France (and consequently our school was close also on the following Friday and Saturday which meant that I worked only on 2 days during that week). I decided with H to go and explore Fountainebleau which is located about 50 km from Paris. The place is famous for its castle that reminds of Versailles but is a bit smaller and for sure also less crowded - though it was still popular among visitors. The whole area of Fountainebleau is surronded by kilometers of nature and also the town seemed a nice peaceful place. Also the castle had parks and forests around it so we had taken picnic stuff with us to enjoy it afterwards.

The castle was utilized for example by Napoleon and its bedrooms, hallways, dishes, furnitures and basically everything were glamorous. I think the following photos tell something about that.

The room of Napoleon's wife

The Diana Gallery is 80 m long.

The throne room

Cabriole and a huge park

After a couple of hours walking through the big castle we took our bags from the locker and enjoyed the greenery around the beautiful building. We noticed a cute horse carriage and thought of taking a little ride. Luckily the little drizzle happened to come down when we were comfortably sitting under the roof of the cabriole so that we could go and find a spot to place the picnic blanket after a tour. Ahhh, it made so good to travel somewhere outside of Paris region and sit under fresh trees!

There were quite some birds and, as a surprise, some carps
fighting for the food that visitors threw for them.

So straight lines, so much of nature...

Fête de l'école

The school year in France continues for two more weeks but we had our end of the year party of our school last Saturday. Because we have even more students this year than last year, our premises were too small to organize the party at the school. The headmaster had rented a bigger room for us and our staff gathered there early in the morning to decorate the place and set everything up before the families arrived. The atmosphere was great with fun music, lot of talking, games, shows of each class and lots of food that the families brought there. I am proud of my class how well they handled their nerves even in front of dozens of parents when singing and talking. In the party I got for the first time some parents asking if I am still continuing at our school next year. I had to tell that unfortunately I won't be. I will miss my class for sure after these two weeks are over...

Finnish church service

There are maybe some hundreds of Finns living in Paris area so there are also church services in Finnish. Not every week but as I learned last week, the pastor comes four times a year. I have for my whole time in Paris wanted to go and check how a Finnish church service is like. Last weekend I finally was able to go, right after the school party. Exceptionally the service was hold on Saturday and not Sunday and since there is no physical Finnish church in Paris, the service was in the Danish church. Even though the gillets jaunes (yellow vests) are still continuing their weekly protests, the metro stations were still open also in Champs Elysees (at least that time of the afternoon). There were quite few Finns arriving there this time, due to the facts that Saturday is more difficult (because of the hobbies and gillets jaunes), the weather was nice after a longer cool period and that especially the last Saturdays of the school year are full of end of the year parties. So including the pastor who flew from Italy, we were six plus one new-born baby.

Ice hockey world championships

IIHF world championships

Honestly speaking, ice hockey is one of the few sports that Finland is able to shine at and compete at the top of the world. Maybe that's why even Finns who don't normally follow much of sport competition - like me - get excited to follow the yearly ice hockey championships in May. Well, my supporting is usually limited in the last games of the tournament. At least this year. I tried to watch the playoff match when Finland fought against Sweden (our worst enemy) but I was unable to find a working way to watch it from my laptop. Therefore, when Finland magically won the game, I decided that I need to find a public bar or such that shows the semifinals and finals in Paris. I asked for an advice from other Finns living in Paris and found out that there were at least two Canadian pubs that show all the games of the tournament.

Last Saturday I rushed back to Paris after my work and reached one of the pubs, The Moose, a bit before the Finland started to play against Russia. H joined me to support the best team. The big pub was quite empty at that time of the afternoon but I noticed a few other Finns sitting in a corner. We couldn't join them because they were in the dining area and we only had drinks. But during the game we started to hear very loud cheering from another corner always when Leijonat (the team of Finland) was doing something. So, for the last third we joined a group of seven other Finns who had a very lively way to cheer for their owns. After an exciting game, Finland beat Russia 1-0 and we very so excited that Finland was going to play in the finals on the next day. We agreed to meet in The Great Canadian, the other Canadian pub on Sunday.

At The Moose we watched a small screen while sitting at the bar table.
Until we changed to a bigger screen with sounds and Finns in front of it.

After the semifinals game we headed for Vietnamese food.
My tofu noodle dish was big and yummy. It's always a pleasure
to eat at Pho 1/Pho 13!

 I found it very amusing that we were going to a Canadian pub to see when Finland was playing against Canada to compete for the championship, and even more amusing it became when I realized during the evening that almost the whole bar was full of Finns! And even further amusing when they played some Finnish songs in the bar before the game began - and not just any Finnish songs but songs that we play to support our national team usually: Poika saunoo, Den glider in, Darude's Sandstorm... I am not exaggerating at all if I say that there were at least more than 50 Finnish people there. It was hard to estimate how many we were because I couldn't see the whole pub at once but anyway it felt like being in Finland since seemingly the whole bar celebrated after every goal that Leijonat made. Finnish flags, ice hockey shirts, blue and white clothes... Who cares about the few Canadian flags hanging as a decoration in the pub. Especially after the victory of Finland! The pub played all kind of celebration songs for Finland, many of which were in Finnish too. Finland is the champion!! Hyvä Leijonat!

Other stuff from my recent life

Which movie should we watch..?

So even though both I and H had prejudice toward the movie Detective Pikachu, out of interest we eventually decided to go and see that. The prejudice was not far from the truth. From the first moment that I saw pokemons among real actors, I didn't feel it worked well. That was just so wrong... The movie had also plenty of inconsistencies (even when you take into account the strange settings), so it didn't get many stars from us.

Yesterday evening we got a better experience. We thought of cycling through the city of Paris, staring from the Southern boarder from my place, crossing the Seine river and continuing toward the Northern boarder. Because we didn't use Google Maps, because we had to stop to park our bikes sometimes (since one can use them only 30 minutes in a row) and because the streets are curvy, we didn't end up to the highway within an hour. But actually we ended up to a great place where we had dinner in a Turkish restaurant. Labranda is the best Turkish restaurant I've ever been to (perhaps with the exception of the restaurants during my visit in Istanbul) and one of the best restaurants in Paris, too! The food was good quality and very tasty and the staff friendly and fun. Even the prices were not that high. I absolutely recommend it to anyone who happens to be in the 10th district in Paris.

I forgot to take photos of the Turkish food we ate but
go and try it yourself if you are nearby ever.

Another great finding has been a new small Asian market in my area that sells Japanese and Korean food. Unfortunately (to me) most of its products are Korean and the Japanese stuff is more expensive. But oh boy, I had to buy Calpis water that I saw inside its fridge. I miss drinking Calpis and even though this store only sells Calpis water, I'm happy to enjoy that taste again.

The Japanese products use Finnish characters to sell them.. Hmm...

What I miss from Finland in France

My main address has been in Paris for almost 1,5 years by this time. Living in a city of over 2 million people is surely different from what I'm used to in Finland. Nevertheless, travelling and living abroad also before has made it easier for me to integrate into the life here. Yet, there are certain things I wish I could have here and things I am always looking forward to when I visit Finland. (I actually traveled there during the last school holiday at the end of April. One week in my own home land made so good!)

1) My social connections

Of course anyone who moves abroad is going to miss their families and friends back at home. I have made some friends and I'm not feeling lonely here (having 40 kids around me all day long, H to meet often and hardly much of free time to worry about this anyway), but most of my dearest people are still back in Finland. Luckily, it is easy to call in Skype or WhatsApp, even to Sunday services of my home church.

2) Forest and nature

Having nature basically everywhere in Finland is one of its best sides. Also my home town that is one of the biggest cities in the country, gives so many peaceful and refreshing nature places all around. My parents happen to live in a nice area almost next to a lake and forest, so spending several days there would make anyone forget their stress, I say. In France I can go to a park - that is more or less full of people - by a metro. That's not my idea of a relaxing nature. Another option is to go to a forest. I love that! But I would need to travel for over an hour by a train and that's why I hardly do it. (Though, I think I should do it more often. It's totally worth it.)

And talking about the nature, I also have to mention about the climate. There are a lot of times during the year when the weather is almost the same in France and in Finland, mostly just a few degrees warmer here. But even though I do enjoy sunshine and warm days, there are times that I wish I had the Finnish weather here. Firstly, having a REAL winter with more snow than just a dirty 2-centimeter layer on the roads and parks for a couple of days. Secondly, the summer is getting uncomfortably hot sooner and more often than in my home country. Travelling in trams and trains full of people or working in a small school are not pleasant at those times. Luckily, I am going to travel to Finland for the hottest time again.

Enjoying the sunset next to a big lake in my home town center area.

Having this almost at your back yard.
How could you not feel peaceful?

3) More peaceful public places

Having nature nearby is important for me but honestly speaking I wouldn't mind having a little bit less people also on the roads of the city itself. Especially during the rush hours it is not so comfortable to walk among a huge crowd, also because there are way more pickpockets here. (Luckily I have never been a victim of them but once my friend almost ended up losing her wallet in the metro station stairs and once I overheard an American tourist calling his bank to cancel his card that was just stolen a few minutes before.) Equally, I don't fancy squeezing myself to a tram that is chockablock when I am returning home after a long day at work. Even though I live(d) in one of the biggest "cities" in Finland and I used to think that there are quite some people there, its streets looked so empty during my visit now that I am used to a quite different level of throng.

4) Food

Surely, Paris offers a lot of options for eating and French cuisine is somewhat famous around the world. Yet, it cannot satisfy all my desires. Believe it or not, the first thing I have to mention is bread. The country known for its baguettes has left me wondering how Finland can offer so much more versatile scale of breads at markets. Even what it comes to baguettes themselves. In Finland I can find plain baguettes, multi-grain baguettes, cheese baguettes, garlic baguettes... Whereas the markets and bakeries in France offer so often mostly white baguette, white baguette and white baguette. My solutions to survive here are bringing bread from my Finland visits, bake it myself and buy the best bread that I have found here: Lidl's nut bread.

There are also other foods that I sometimes wish that I really had here. For example, ice-creams can be found only in one liter boxes or boxes of four or more cornets. Single ice-creams are hard to find. What do French people do on a warm day when they want to just get one cornet and not to carry a full box that will melt before they are able to destroy its inner? Well, I guess they go to a cafe or kiosk then. That's what French people are good at, after all. Sitting for hours in cafes and restaurants.

I still have some Finnish bread in the freezer here.

5) Communicating without language problems

I mostly communicate in English here: I speak English at work with the kids and my teacher colleagues and I use it also most of the time when meeting friends. But as you might expect, there are many people here who don't speak English still. Also at my work in the bilingual school I face these persons. I do speak more French than a year ago and many times I manage to say enough to be understood, but I am nowhere near to have long conversations completely in French. Google Translate is still a good friend of mine to ensure that I can express a longer thing. Even if I cannot use Finnish, I wish English would be enough sometimes. And when I am tired, there are some Finnish words slipping even into my English language accidentally...

And the problem with the language is not limited only in the conversations. Buying things at stores might be a challenge if you want to know more precisely what the products are made of or for what use they are. Also when I have to take care of some stuff and fill in documents and such, Google Translate is not always even enough. Sometimes I need extra help from people, like H or my landlady who is always helpful.

Last week was the deadline to fill in my tax information about last year.
Oh dear, it would have been a real head-ache without my landlady!

6) More understandable bureaucracy

Ahhh, what more do I need to say about this!? I don't get it how France has managed to do everything so complicated and difficult and how long everything can take. Getting an insurance card, moving, contacting the services, applying for something.... I have only experienced some on my own but I have heard so many more stories. And of course there is this extra difficulty for me that everything is in French. Again, I'm lucky to have helpful people around me to explain and translate stuff. It is so difficult to find clear explanation in English (or Finnish) about many things in France from the internet.

Changes in my life

So... There are some things that I wish I had here in France - also other than the ones listed above - but somehow I have managed to live here for these 1,5 years. And it looks like there will be at least half a year more to come. But my life won't continue as the same. There are going to be some bigger changes for the next semester since I am changing both my job and my residence. I don't know yet for sure where I will move to or where and what I will do for my work but the process is going on and the plans are becoming more and more clear. At the moment I am very trustful to find another good job among children and I hope to find a nice apartment a bit outside Paris, as well. I just have to prepare all the documents about me working and earning money at the moment, me already living in Paris, who would guarantee my rent etc etc. Wish me luck!

Fire in Notre Dame

Monday was very normal for me - with a six o'clock wake up, long day at work and getting back home around 7 pm - until H sent me a message that the cathedral of Notre Dame is burning. At first I was not sure if that was true and what kind of a fire, but after a quick googling and reading news and seeing videos, it was a shock. Such a beautiful and historical building and such huge flames all around the roof. I was at home in the Southern boarder of Paris and our windows are also toward South, so we couldn't see even the smoke above the city. We just kept reading news from around the world of what has happened and is still happening...

https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/notre-dame-fire/index.html?fbclid=IwAR1_wLH4jQWYSd64hXHX2kA9RUzzpnvyeaUFuqtBOdeTeJOGIgDfdTmz7cY

Sky News' photo of the fire.

On Tuesday evening I was about to meet H in the center anyway, so we decided to go and see the damage with our own eyes. The train didn't stop at Notre Dame's station so we walked from the previous one. The riverbank was full of people, emergency vehicles, cameras and reporters. The closest bridges to the island in the middle of the river were closed, so we pushed ourselves through the mass and found a way to go down right to the river. The cathedral's stone structures were quite the same as before but all the roof was gone. The scaffolding that had been used in the reconstruction was standing by itself without the support. Later we saw some people walking on the top of Notre Dame with bright flash lights examining what the situation there is now.

Some people had brought flowers along the river.
From the front the cathedral looked like before.

From the side or behind you could see that all the wooden parts were gone
and only the stone was still there.

Here as a comparison photo I took 1,5 weeks ago when the roof was still there.
The biggest visible change is the loss of the high spire.

The news about Notre Dame has shaken the whole world. The French president Emmanuel Macron established fundraising to repair Notre Dame and said that the cathedral would be rebuilt in five years. We will see if that is possible but at least the repair fund has already reached a billion euros within these two days.

Going around the sights of Paris with my friend

It has been an exceptionally long time since I seriously wrote here something. But during the last weekend I went around a lot! That is thanks to my lovely friend who came from Spain to visit Paris for a long weekend. She stayed at our place which meant also later evenings for me, but at the same time made it easier to go around Paris together. After my work on Saturday, I headed to Luxembourg park where I met with my friend already for the third time during her au pair year in Europe. We bought rose-shaped ice-creams near Pantheon and started a busy sight-seeing  weekend.

They say that a picture says more than a thousand words, so I let the photos be the main part of this blog text.

(Anteeksi, olen viime aikoina jättänyt kirjoittamatta suomeksi. Ajan puute tai laiskuus rajoittaa ajatusten jakamista kahdella eri kielellä. Jos jostakusta tuntuu, että olisi mukava lukea edelleen suomeksi, niin saatte antaa vapaasti palautetta ja voin sen yhä tehdä.)

This church looks very small in reality because of the fact
that it is located next to the huge Pantheon.

Notre Dame

The first real sights we went to see together were the river Seine and Notre Dame cathedral.

The line to enter Notre Dame was very long
but it moved fast, as well.

The inside of Notre Dame is not much different
from any other church.

Louvre

Some big sights in Paris are open on the first Sunday of the month only during the winter time (November-March) but Louvre offers an alternative chance to see its art for free in the Saturday evenings during the summer. So at 6 pm we joined a long line that was squirming in front of the pyramid and then continuing across the yard. After a half an hour we got inside and headed to the most famous wing (that I and H have tried to avoid until now). But it was not too busy to go freely around.

Liberty leading the people by Eugene Delacroix.

What could be this room with many people but empty walls..?

The whole room was of course given to this lady.

Venus de Milo

We wanted to see the Egyptian part of Louvre
which ended up to be quite interesting.

This was almost like being in a store:
"Which coffin would you like to buy?"

A harp from hundreds of years ago before Christ.

We got amused for seeing theses cute little frogs.

Eiffel tower & Arc de Triomphe

On Sunday we left to see more of the famous attractions, starting from the most famous one.

It always amazes me how French gardens
have even the tree tops cut completely straight.

Arc de Triomphe

Names of generals who died in the wars defending France.

We walked 200 steps to the top of the structure.

The view over Paris from Arc de Triomphe.

...and towards Eiffel tower.

...and to Champs-Elysees and Sacre Coeur.

Macarons, Pompidou, Eglise Saint-Eustache

My friend wanted to visit the original macaron
cookies store along Champs-Elysees.

The colors of these!
Price: 2,10€ per each when not in a nice box.

Art in Pompidou, the museum of modern art.

"My flower bed" by Yeyoi Kusama @ Pompidou. 

Saint-Esutache church next to Les Halles station. It is huge.

Montmartre and a latin bar

In the early evening we traveled to the Northern Paris, to Montmartre hill. There we admired the Sacre Coeur church, the lovely and lively streets and the view to the city. Afterwards we returned to have a dinner at the very centre and had bad luck choosing a restaurant. The 3-dish menu was 15€ but we were not satisfied with the quality of the food nor with the service. Next time we will surely remember to check the review from Google maps. That's because this restaurant had got only 1,9/5 stars from other customers. Later we decided to stop by in a small latin bar to enjoy the music and dance a bit. Eventually that made us to forget our tired minds and legs completely and we really wished that we wouldn't have needed to wake up at 6 in the next morning. The small place made everyone to be one group enjoying the fun atmosphere together and all those strangers we met, were also sad we had to leave early. That became a place I hope to visit again.

There are quite some street art in Montmartre.
This elder gentleman looked so French to us.

My rabbit was okay but my starter crepe was very dry
and my friend's onion soup terrible, too.