Chez EuroResidence. the recipé book.

A few days ago I received an invintation on facebook to contribute to the EuroResidence cook book. For those of you who are unaware EuroResidence is the Student Residence where I am living whilst I am in France. The building is 5 storys, 70's looking, run down and can described as being as the most basic residence possible. The apartments come with a sink, 2 hot plates and a fridge.. and thats about it.. If you want anything else in your kitchen you have to buy it yourself...

Being the very friendly communal bunch we are, it has become quite the popular thing to have group dinners.. and invite some people around.. the host can cook their countries traditional dish, try something french or even just heat up some 2 minute noodles. The choice is theirs! From the success of these dinners some of the girls in the residence decided to creat a recipé book with everyones favourite recipes from their time in euroresidence.

After having cooked a few times for assorted guest I pondered about what to contribute to the book.. what would open people's eye lids, spark up fun memories or even make their mouths water.. then I thought.. the success to every meal in euroresidence is not the food, its ingredients, nor the exoticness of the dish.. Its the people and environment which make it soo fun and enjoyable.. So i propose this as my recipe for a successful EuroRes dinner..

Preparation

Tell people atleast one day before the dinner, ensuring that they're free for the evening.

Invite only 4 people to begin with, knowing that the word would spread and you will actually have to cater for 10. Try to avoid discussing the dinner on facebook or you will need to cater for 50.

Rush to Carrefour (the hypermarket across the road) during your lunch break to get all the forgotten ingredients

Outensils

2 rusty hot plates

1 blunt knife

1 wooden spoon

4 mugs (to be used for cooking, water and probably also drinking wine)

Ingredients

-3 wrongly translated ingredients

-1 ltr of lukewarm clay filled tap water

-2 pinches of sal

-2 euro bottle of wine (3 euros if its a special occasion)

-100g of raped chesse (wrong I know..)

-Every carrefour discount or 1 brand item you can find (because generic brands rock)

-Keep in mind most of your ingredients will probably be found in the exotic isle at carrefour and will be 4 times the cost of what you would pay in your home country..

-1 flan desert from the discount bin

Directions

Bring clay filled water to the boil, keeping an eye on all electronic equipment being used incase of a trip in electricity.

Constantly stir all your ingredients, dont trust the teflon layer on your 2 euro frypans.

Open up a bottle of wine, poor half of it on whatever it is your cooking whilst drinking the other half.

Experiment, after realising you dont have all the ingredient or finding-out carrefour doesn't stock the ingredient.

Serving Suggestions

Serve dinner on every plate, bowl or mug you have in your apartment, trying to serve equally to all guests playing favourism to nooone. Place dishes on the laps of your guest due to the lack of table. Sprinkle each dish with desired amount of râped cheese. Serve a chilled rosé in the coffee mugs..

Enjoy!

Follow the recipe carefully for the perfect EuroResidence dinner.. heres a few other tips..

- Act cool when your neighbour knocks on your door and feels upside that you didnt invite him/her, think quick and try and create a good excuse..

- Conversations about your dislike for your studies always sparks up a good conversation

- As you did the cooking, stay seated after dinner, waiting tentively for your guest to offer to wash up

- Paper towel makes clean up 10 times easier

- Wash dished quickly after the 1st course so you can use them straight after for the desert.

- Have fun!

what really happens to those toiletries?

So I am packing my bag for my weekend away to dublin.. I go for my toilettries to see what is acceptable to take on the plane.. As I am too poor and stingy to pay for chekecked luggage. I search for anything under 100 mls so I can put it in my hand luggage.. what do i find... not much at all really!

I ask myself is it a big plan by the big multi-national companies like unilever to produce products that are 120mls?! Making people attempt to take them onto a flight only having them taken away as they are too big. And also.. what really does happen to all those liquids kept behind at the airports..?? I myself have had to throw away bottles of newly bought toiletry products, creams.. and yes even honey..

But i do suppose thats just one of the obstacles you deal with when you try and fly on the cheap side. I suppose it goes along nicely with unreserved seating, no inflight entertainment and tiny little airports.. not to mention the fact that it takes an hour and a half to get to the bloody tin-shed airport to which it is only possible to get to by a 13 euro bus which is.. yes.. owned by the airline company.. And then ofcourse the bus arrives 2 hours before the flight so you have plenty of time to wait around the small and crusty airports and spend your money in the one overpriced café or dutyfree store...

So is there really this thing called low cost travel? Or is it just this ideal in our head that we can just pop over to countries and far-away cities for the weekend.. If we spend hours on end on ryanair and skyscanner.com. I mean its not a bad concept. I enjoy the fact that I am able to pop over to dublin for a friends birthday but after a tram ride to trainstation, a 2 hour train, taking the metro and changing lines twice, taking a 1 and a half bus to the airport, checking in 2 hours late, boarding an hour flight then jumping on whatever transport it is that takes me to dublin city.. I ask myself surely there is a better way...

Low cost travel can be a great thing.. taking people to places where they probably could never afford to go before. I remember flying with airasia once whose slogan was 'now everyone can fly'.. or something along those lines.. More and more people are travelling around and the world is becoming a smaller place.. BLAH BLAH.. as i have heard this a million times before in my international relations lectures, development lectures and globalisation lectures. We get the point already...

So low cost areline may be a low cost flight.. however everything else concerning it doesn't seem to be soo 'low cost'.. And I dont really think the cost of time, convenience, dignity and comfort can be considered as low cost at all..

So as I squeeze my shower gel, shampoo and face wash into my travel friendly bottles and then try and fit them into a littre sized transparent zip-lock bag I ask myself many of the questions posed above.. I also curse ryanair for putting me in this predicament.. but really can I really think so badly of something which is taking me and 5 friends to dublin for an awesome and eventful weekend-away?? Well I think I can....! after all its just one of the costs I pay..

What the???

Oui! Some more of those loud and waky australians in Champagne

Papiers/Paper et Moi

Its what people destroy rainforests for, its what we walk for, and its even what we whipe our backsides with..

PAPER.. its a very important thing, and reading this story you'll discover why..

After using so much of it, and having it feel my desk and life over the past year I felt it only right to dedicate a blog to PAPER..

Yes we take it for granted, but I ask you. Stop for a second and think of your life with out paper. We use it to write reminders, to read novels, papers, magazines, to send letters, to receive receipts of purchases and to write our notes in class. We even use it to purchase essential and not so essential items from one of those most important forms of PAPER we call cash. We also use PAPER to feel out official documents and to put that magical little squigly line, resembling our names to which the date often follows.

Moving to france required a lot of paper. The first piece of paper I strived for before making the move to france was the studend visa. however to receive this paper required many other different papers for example

- letter from my australian university

- letter from my france university

- statement from my bank

- Police criminal history cheque (which required an application form for that)

- Adequate insurace policy

- Complete travel and flight itinerary

- Copy of Birth Certificate

- Proof of housing in France

And of course there was the visa application form which I had to write twice, both times identically and I had to include two passport photos. And not forgetting the piece of paper with my credit card details so they could charge me that 100 euros for giving me that little piece of paper.

After 6 weeks of stress, waiting for my visa, with no reply from the french embassy in visa I finally received my visa, in my passport 2 weeks before leaving the country. Oh I felt a huge sigh of relief that day I received that package with my visa inside.. So you would think after this I should be good when it comes to france and PAPERS, However there's more.. You see the visa gets me into the country and to stay there is another story..

In order stay in France I had to apply for a titre de sejour (title to stay) this is what i called THE PAPER, and once i received this my dealings with immigration would be over, however the beaucracry kept on coming and more papers were required.

About the 3rd day after arriving into france I was bombarded with more papers. It was an excursion day with the school. And no it wasn't one of those fun, exciting excursions where you travel for an hour on the bus and spend the day taking photos of each other infront of new and exciting places you didn't even no existed... this excursion was to the bank, to the insurance agency and to the housing group.. In these places I opened a bank account and applied for a credit card, I got an insurance policy and I signed my lease.. PAPER PAPER PAPER PAPER!!!!!

Yes the PAPER story continues.. When I arrived in france the ever so friendly and lovely head on international relations at the school told me I had to pay 195 euros in order to get social security in france so I could get my title of stay. With no other option I payed this 195 euros even though i have already payed 1000 australian dollars for comprehensive travel insurance for the year (which I am still yet to use). Once I received the receipt of the Social Security I started my application for my title of stay. This also required me sending

- A copy of my passport

- A copy of my visa

- The receipt of Social Security

- Letter of acceptance to the French University

- Letter from my residence in France

- Copy of my Birth Certificate

- 4 passport photos

I had to take all these items and put them in an envelope, on this envelope I had to put a stamp, and it wasnt just any stamp its was a 55 euros stamp! yes probably one of the most expensive stamps I have ever bought and the stamp itself still look like it costs 1 euro. So even though this stamp was worth 55 euros. I still couldnt use it to mail this envelope. I had to hand deliver it to the immigration office.. Strange I know but thats france..

So a few weeks later and I received a letter in the post.. yet another piece of PAPER which had a photo of myself attached to it and was a titled as a temporary title of stay.. Which would expire in a months time. Whilst I had this temporary title I would have to wait till I receive a letter from the doctor with a time for an appointment so that I could go for a check up so that the french could deem me healthy enough to stay in their country. Which was really quite adsurb considering that my appointment was 2 months after I arrived, so any diseases that i could of had would be well and truely spread by the time of the appointment.

So after waiting for my letter, and going to the appointment where I was given a clear bill of health I received a piece of PAPER from the doctor to give to the immigration office deaming me safe and healthy to live in France. So I took this paper to the great imigration and some weeks later I received yet another piece of PAPER informing me that my title of stay was ready and I could pick it up from immigration.

So I know walk around with my title of stay in my wallet.. its not a big document, only a bit bigger that my credit card.. it feels my card nicely next to all the other cards I have received due to my stay in france..

- Ecole Student ID

- State Student ID

- Twisto Tram Card

- SUAPS Gym Card

- SNCF 12-25 card

- Carefour Carte de fidelité

- French BNP Paribas Visa Card

- CROUS Moneo Card

- SMENO Soical Security Cards...

I gues I am going to have to dedicate another blog later on to plastic.. but really I think its just a harder, fancier version/ replacement of paper anyway..

So to all those people who try an go paperless.. write their notes on the computer, send email not letters, receive online statements and get train tickets smsed to their mobile.. I say great job.. but really can we really live with out PAPER... i know I cant..

Under the Norman Sun???

Contrary to popular belief there is a sun in Normandy. It tends to make an appearance everyday however nobody really knows when and for how long. I find myself waking up in the morning to rain, only to leave the house wearing 5 layers of clothing and an umbrella in hand and seeing a clear blue sky... Yes its pretty unpredictable the weather in Normandy... But then again everything is unpredictable...

I go to class in the morning or in the afternoon to find its been cancelled, I go to the tram stop in the evening to go into town to find that there is an unforseen strike or technically detail.. everytime somebody says they're sorry, but as it happens so often the sincerety just goes away and their apologies become as mechanated as electronic sign at the tram stop. Flashin Due to unforseen tram malfunctioning the trams will not be running. We apologies for the inconvenience.

However, not matter how annoyed I get with France, its bureaucracy and its lack of organisation, just like the weather, there always seems to be just that moment of sunshine that gets me through the day. In the beginning I would find myself cursing France everyday, for one of many reasons.. the way I have to lign up for 10 minutes at the supermarket and then pack my bags myself or also for the way I have to walk 15 minutes to get tokens for a washing machine thats 10 meters away from my apartment. Yes! there are many things that get to me about this country but I always find something that makes love it. Its the country I love to hate, but hate to hate.. No matter what happens in the day I aways find that moment of sunshine, the moments where I manage to have my first phone conversation in french, the days when I arrive at the tram stop to find that the tram arrives seconds later, the times when I walk home from school to find its hard rubbish day and I take home numerous furniture not needed by the neighbouring offices. There's also the days where I come home from a blissening headache from listening to french all day and I find english speaking friends with food to share and ears to listen...

The sunshine in caen isa rare and wonderful occurance that should be taken advantage of when it comes by.. but unfortunately it's impossible to know when that sun will shine.. and when it does shine.. it doesn't last forever.. as there's always those Norman Clouds waiting to cover the sky and take that sun away..

And just like there's the day that I wake up to rain, there's also that day where I wake up to sunshine. Only to find myself with a cold and wet walk home..

The Norman Clouds

Hello and welcome to my new blog.. A spin off to my old blog which seems to have withered away quite a few months ago. When i first decided to blog I pictured myself doing it all the time, spending my nights writing on it and putting up photos for my friends to see and feel jelous over. After a few blogs I gave up. Perhaps I was enjoying my time to much and didn't care so much about informing others about my every moment and my thoughts at the time. Now with everything I do, I feel as though I want to share it. So thats the reason for my new blog. As for my old one.. we can just leave that one lost.. This will be all new.

So what exactly happens under the Norman Clouds? You ask.. Well just read the blog and you will find out..