No Such Thing as Time

Half-term break is usually bittersweet for me… I enjoy (and desperately need) the time off… but about three and a half days in I usually become incredibly bored, since I don’t usually have a lot to do, given I have like four friends over here.

This time, I chose to spend the entire week in France with my love, which has been really awesome, but during the day while he is busy at work I am pretty much just as bored (if not more) than I would be back in London.

But fear not, loyal blog followers, I do still have some exciting anecdotes/ tidbits to share with you this week!

1. I flew into Geneva this time, rather than Lyon (which is where I usually fly when I’m coming to visit Robert) so we spent the night in Switzerland which brings my grand total of countries visited to a whopping nine… (OK it could be better, but how many countries have YOU been to?) Naturally we also UNESCed and TentESCed while we were there. We visited Le Chaux-de-Fonds/ Le Locle, Watchmaking Town Planning… because you know how the Swiss love their watches! We went to a Watch museum and it was actually way more interesting than I thought it would be because it wasn’t all about watches, it was about all the different methods of time-keeping, including back in ancient times when all they had to use for time-keeping was the sun (which, let’s face it, isn’t REALLY all the accurate… I mean, a year isn’t ACTUALLY 365 days… and the sun rises and sets at different times depending on the position of the earth relative to the sun! It’s just silly! Our tentESC was La Maison blanche (or the “White House”) which was designed and built by Swiss architect Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (aka Le Corbusier) in 1912 for his parents. It was so nice, I kept telling Robert I want to live there!      Me, being a clock.     Ridiculous…  
2. Still Swiss news but just so awesome it needs its own segment: Round Potato-y Cheesy Yumminess (that’s what I call it, at least)… It is sooooooo gooooooood.   
3. On Monday night, back in Grenoble, we met up for drinks with Rob’s colleagues Fabrizia and Jeeves (not his full name) and had a really awesome time! Jeeves just recently moved to Grenoble and Fabrizia actually lives in London, so now Rob and I have a dinner invite next time he is in town!
4. Rob and I decided we needed a bit of a project to finish out the rest of 2015, so our new goal is to watch all the Marvel Cinematic Universe films and TV shows in order between now and the end of the year. Obviously we will have to watch some separately, but in the meantime we have been enjoying getting to watch them together. We usually make dinner when Rob gets home from work and then we watch the film while sitting on the couch eating our food. It has been so nice to do something like this together 🙂 We have also decided that I get to pick the next series or collection of films we watch together so I am taking suggestions! Leave them in the comments, si vous plais!
5. My dear, sweet, Robert, aka the love of my life, who I love so very much, has the MOST ANNOYING HABIT EVER of waking up in the middle of the night to finish up some work (because he likes to come to bed with me and that’s cute so we can’t fault him for that). No, what we CAN fault him for is setting thirteen different alarms to wake him up, but of course he doesn’t get out of bed for like an hour and he keeps hitting snooze so all twenty-nine alarms just keep going off at all the ungodly hours of the night. And then he comes back to bed but has to go to work in the morning so he sets another fifty-six alarms to wake him up in the morning and continues to hit snooze so all ninety-three alarms continue to go off for three hours and I can’t get any sleep. And every time I go to reach for the phone (even though he is dead asleep) he grabs in and pulls it away from me and hits snooze for the six hundred and eleventh time so I can’t turn it off! This continues approximately four thousand and eighty-two more times until he finally wake up on his own accord because, technically speaking, he can go into work whenever he wants. WHY DOES HE TORTURE ME SO!? I’M ON HOLIDAYS! Moral of the story: Rob has been forbidden to place his phone anywhere near him from now on so he’ll need to actually get out of bed to turn the alarm off. I’ll be sure to keep you posted on any progress.
6. While Rob has been at work this week I’ve spent a lot of time on Pinterest looking at recipes which, realistically, I will never make if I don’t give myself a reason to do so. Some are dessert type things and some are snacks and some are full on meals. I’ve decided (a bit early) that my resolution for 2016 is going to be to make a lot of these recipes! I haven’t decided if my goal to make a new one will be weekly or bi-weekly, I first have to decide how content I would be with the potential failure of this overly-ambitious (for me) goal… fortunately I’ve still got time to figure it out. If you’d like to see some of my PPP (Potential Pinterest Projects), then click here! I imagine this may launch my career as a renowned food blogger an I will be the next Julie Powell. Then, they will make a movie about me and I will be rich and famous!
7. Yesterday (Friday) Rob took me to work with him! It was very cool and I learned all about his instrument and I got to see his office, and an actual real-life laser, and I was tested in case I was radioactive and it was fantastic! Naturally the most exciting part though, was when I got to don this very fetching lab coat and safety glasses…    Visitor #1!
8. Today is my last full day, since I fly home tomorrow to see Gavin DeGraw in concert! It’s been a very lazy day, made up of sleeping in until 11, orange juice, pan aux chocolat, watching Agents of SHIELD on Netflix, and napping for two hours despite sleeping until 11… I imagine there will be some cleaning involved later, but for now I am enjoying being lazy with my love!
9. Related to #6, Robert and I have been doing a lot of cooking together! The other night I made tomato/avocado/cheese melts for us to eat (this recipe had us use mayo on the toast but apparently proper mayo doesn’t exist in France so we used aioli instead and it was amazing!). Last night we made steak with a peppercorn sauce which Rob made from scratch, and he taught me to make his famous sautéed carrots, and they were so incredible that I’m sure I’ll be making them again… probably this week back in London! 

Thanks to Rob for taking most of the photos for me, as per usual!

Stay tuned…

-Moose ❤ ❤

October 31, 2015 by henzem Leave a comment

Honey, I’m Good

Dear friends… I feel this [semi-political… Or at least politically inspired] post is necessary. Apologies if it is slightly disjointed…

Sorry non-Canadian friends… It’s doesn’t really apply to you. But just so you know, we recently elected Justin Trudeau, son of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, as our new Prime Minister and Facebook is freaking the [F-word] out. 

Hate. Is. A. Choice. Don’t do it!

Seriously people, why is everyone hating on Justin Trudeau? I don’t get it!

I mean, I know that last time Canada trusted a Justin, well, Justin Bieber happened… But let it go, fellow Canucks. Or rather, fellow Albertans!

I understand that maybe you don’t agree with his platform and maybe you think some of his choices are stupid. But did you agree with everything Stephen Harper said and did? And the difference here is that [in my humble opinion] Stephen Harper actually proved that his choices were not good for the majority of Canadians. Because he actually had a chance to do so before I formed my opinion. 

It’s no secret that I voted for the Liberals because I agree with a lot of what they are about. If you know me, think of who I am as a person: a teacher, a diabetic, etc. I understand that you and I may not have the same values and that is why [if you voted] I’m sure you did not vote for the same party that I voted for.

But OH MY GOODESS GIVE THE MAN A CHANCE INSTEAD OF ASSUMING FROM THE BEGINNING THAT HE IS GOING TO RUIN THE COUNTRY!

I’m not saying he is going to fix everything. I’m also not saying that he WON’T ruin the country (although I seriously doubt it). But at least I’m not 100% convinced that Canada is doomed, because God forbid we’ve elected the second youngest Canadian Prime Minister ever. 

Maybe this is because I’m a teacher, but I think the fact that he is young will be beneficial. Just because he is open minded, doesn’t mean that he’s naive or immature. 

I’m not even asking you to like him or to agree with what he is saying. But can we all maybe agree to stop posting such negative things about him on Facebook and other social media? It actually says more about you than it does about him, in my eyes, and it’s not very flattering.

And while I’m at it… Let’s quit hating on Obama too. I’m sick of all the hating. 

Stay tuned…

-Moose ❤ ❤

October 24, 2015October 24, 2015 by henzem Leave a comment

My Heart Will Go On

So before I start I’d like to point out that the reason I didn’t post about the Wakey!Wakey! concert last weekend like I said I would, wasn’t because I was lazy and didn’t write it, but because WordPress has taken to hating me when I post from my phone and it deleted everything I’d written and I was too annoyed to write it all out again. But it was awesome, for the record.
So anyway, last weekend I when to Manchiverpool, which is my awesome amalgamation for Manchester and Liverpool, to watch the England vs. Uruguay Rugby World Cup game with Robert.

I arrived in Liverpool on Saturday around noon, and I was supposed to meet up with Robert but instead his first flight was delayed and so he missed his second flight and didn’t arrive at Manchester airport until 5pm (after three flights… adding to his ridiculous total of flights for 2015)… so naturally I was totally heartbroken and had to check into our hotel and have a nap in a super comfy bed and enjoy a relaxing bubble bath and catch up on some Grey’s Anatomy because the wifi at the hotel was superb. It was a really difficult time.

But in all seriousness I was really sad that Rob missed his second flight so I was very happy when we both managed to arrive at Manchester Piccadilly station within only three minutes of each other, so I didn’t have to go too long without seeing him (the “long distance” part of long distance relationships sucks).

We walked from the train station to Manchester City Stadium (which is a.k.a. Etihad Stadium… I won’t go into why. It’s boring) with trillions of other people. When we arrived at the stadium we were forced to wait in a queue with zillions of people and I was afraid we were going to miss the national anthems (because that’s one of my favourite parts, and I actually know the British national anthem… because we also sing it in Canada sometimes) but we didn’t, and we even had time to get a few ciders and some food! Long live The Queen!

 

   

  
The rugby match was awesome. Rob and I bet on what the final score would be. We both knew England would win by a landslide but it turns out that I had a little too much faith in Uruguay and so the result of our little wager is that I now owe Robert something, which has yet to be determined. Stay tuned for more information.

  
A random photo Robert took of me on the train journey back to Liverpool!

On Sunday we UNESCed, because Liverpool is a World Heritage Site under the criteria of Interchange of Values, Testimony to Cultural Tradition, and Significance in Human History. In all honesty, I can say that Liverpool is probably one of my favourite UNESCs, not necessarily because it’s beautiful like Waterton or Albi, but because the history is so rich and interesting.

   
    
 Anyone who knows me very well knows that I have a very irrational fear of icebergs. Don’t ask me why, I don’t even really know… but this fear is made even more hilarious by my fascination with the R.M.S. Titanic, which, as I’m sure you know, struck an iceberg in April of 1912 and sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in two hours and forty minutes (which I thought was really fast until I visited Liverpool and found out that the Lusitania sank in eighteen minutes…)

   
  
So Robert and I when to the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool and found out all about ships which have/had some significant connection with Liverpool, and it was really cool and very interesting. They even had an entire section dedicated to the Titanic! I highly recommend visiting Liverpool if you ever have the chance.

  
But obviously, one of the most interesting things I learned whilst visiting the Merseyside Maritime Museum, is that Liverpudlians don’t know the Canadian national anthem (Which I’m sure you have gathered, I take great offence to, given that I know the British national anthem off by heart!).

  
We also visited the Museum of Liverpool which I didn’t find as interesting, but they did have a performance going on in the lobby featuring a charming quintet of adorable old men singing sea shanties. It was awesome, but they didn’t sing Tell Me Ma while we were there so, admittedly, I was a little disappointed.

  
After museuming and forcing Robert to get an ice cream in the cold*, we went to see The Martian at the cinema, which I do recommend seeing, despite my belief that it is a bit longer than I’m willing to allocate to sitting in a chair and staring at a massive screen showing images of outer space (I also have an irrational fear of outer space).

Then we went for dinner and I had the most amazing salad I’ve ever eaten (in Great Britain) and some really tasty caipirinhas and piña coladas, and then we went back to our adorable hotel and went to bed!

On Monday, Rob had to leave early to catch his flight back to France so I got the comfy bed to myself again for another few hours and it was really tough.

The rest of the week was filled with craziness including, but not limited to:

1. Me getting punched in the face by a twelve year old

2. My boss announcing he has resigned and will be leaving at Christmastime (we are all really bummed about this 😦 )

3. Dinner with Rachelle ❤ ❤

4. My coworker agreeing to pay me £5 to take the minutes at the weekly key working meeting

5. Did I mention I got punched in the face by a twelve year old? Teaching, never a dull moment

Big thanks to Rob for taking most of the photos! ❤ ❤

Stay tuned…

-Moose ❤ ❤

*Note: When I say cold, I mean by British standards, not Canadian)

October 17, 2015October 17, 2015 by henzem Leave a comment

I’m Gonna Try

Last weekend Rob and I went to Leeds to watch the Canada vs. Italy Rugby World Cup game! I’m not a huge sports fan but it was genuinely a really fun weekend and I want to tell you all about it!

So Friday after work I booked it to London Kings X train station where I boarded a two hour and eighteen minute train to Leeds, where I then caught another twenty minute train to Bradford where Robert was waiting for me on the platform.

Saturday morning we got up early to make our way to Leeds because we knew that if we waited too long then there would be ten zillion people on the train and I didn’t want to deal with those kinds of crowds if at all avoidable.

On our way into Leeds we stopped at Gregg’s for breakfast, which was my first time ever having Gregg’s, despite it being a large British chain. I had a bacon and sausage baguette and it was delicious.

We got to Leeds and killed a bit of time before queuing to catch the shuttle to the stadium where the game was being held. Fortunately, we also queued for this early enough that we didn’t have to wait for a ridiculously long time… as we drove off in the shuttle bus, we saw that the line to catch the bus had literally quintupled in size since when got on the bus.

So before going to the game I’d done some research so I had some idea of what was going on, but I had to have Robert explain it to me as the game went on because I’ve never in my life seen a game of Rugby and even with reading all the rules before hand I still couldn’t recall everything. I’m not going to bother explaining exactly what occurs in a rugby game for those of you who don’t know, because a) many of my readers probably know a little bit about rugby already and so that would be boring, and b) If you DON’T know about rugby, you can easily just click here and read the Wikipedia article, like I did.

The game itself was so intense. Canada played amazingly! We started off the game with a ten point lead but by the end we lost by a measly two points. There was even one point in the game when Canada went for a Try and I was certain we were going to win but then they called on the almighty gods of rugby and used some fancy replay thing which they refer to as “TMO” and decided that the Try didn’t count and so I very nearly cried my eyes out.

 I converted Rob and made him be Canadian for the day!

After the game we walked down near the field and as we were walking down, we bumped into Richard Thorpe, one of the squad members for the Canada team, who naturally Rob used to play rugby with before his back injury, because my boyfriend is awesome like that. So Richard invited us to spend the evening with him and his friends (and when I say friends I mean his girlfriend and two other friends) and his friends (and when I say friends I mean the other members of the Canada rugby squad… yeah, that’s right, we hung out with them).

We went for drinks, and curry (which, as it turns out, I love… save for the extreme spiciness which I’m sure I will eventually get used to) and then we got VIP bracelets to go and watch the England vs . Wales Rugby World Cup game on a big screen TV, which, disappointingly, England also lost, despite playing an amazing game!

Then we went for another drink, caught our train back to Bradford, failed to find food to eat, so we just went to sleep instead.

 Robert and Richard Thorpe!

The next day, on our way back to London, our train was delayed by an hour and a half so I get a 10% refund on my tickets! Score!

It was an awesome weekend all around! More excitingness coming up as next weekend Rob and I will be heading to Manchester to watch England play against Uruguay in another Rugby World Cup game!

(I’ll also write my next post on the Wakey!Wakey! concert I went to this week!)

Stay tuned…

-Moose ❤ ❤

October 3, 2015October 3, 2015 by henzem Leave a comment