The Flat

A lovely old (established 1820) sweet shop.
Our long awaited new sofa.......and strawberry tarts for coffee.

Oh, we miss our flat already!  We don't know when we will be there again, need to book flights for some time in January or February.

The weather was HORRIBLE, thunder, lightning, torrential rain.......  However we "koste oss" as they say in Norwegian (enjoyed ourselves, had a good time).  Our new sofa and armchair arrived and this time they are the right colour!  We had to assemble the sofa, can you believe it?  Jarle has vowed that this is the last time we buy anything from IKEA.....

We bought two lovely drawer units for the living room and a couple of cushions for the (huge) new sofa.  Very cosy.  

The old town in Nice is lovely to wander around in, with loads of restaurants (mostly Italian) and cute shops.  The market is great too.  

Thanksgiving.......

So the children are off school tomorrow and Friday because it is Thanksgiving.  

Ben is going to be spending the weekend in Paris with his Dad. Me, Mia and Jarle are off to our lovely flat in Antibes.  Expecting nice weather????  Snow there apparently.  Probably the first time in 100 years or something.  C'est la vie.

Det snør......

Brisk walk in the snow to feed the ducks......Mia's tooth fell out!

Friday Tour - Musee de Louvre

Today our tour guide Jacques took us around the Richelieu wing of the Louvre Museum.  This is the newest part of the building (19th century) and in fact was only connected to the rest of the building with the glass pyramid about 20 years ago.

We started in the courtyard which is covered over with glass so is inside now.  Here there was 4 great statues of men and horses which used to stand at Place de la Concorde (there are now copies of them there!) the originals being too precious to stand outside in all weathers any longer.  Even earlier they had been in the grounds of a royal castle at Marly which is no longer there.

We toured the collection of Mesopotamia artefacts dating from about 3000 BC.......  The first ever written code of laws is on display there!

Then we saw some very precious French pieces which had been saved from various churches around France.  Saved because the Revolutionaries would have destroyed them if the priests and other people of the church had not managed to rescue them.  This included the coronation sword which was used to "crown" every King of France from the 1200's and the only remaining royal sceptre. 

Then coming right up to the 19th century we saw the only remaining state rooms of the Napoleonic era (Napoleon the 3rd).  I know that the royals (and then Napoleon) used to live in the Tuileries palace and I always wondered where it was and today I discovered that it in fact burnt down.  The fire was deliberate......and was stopped where the building meets the Louvre (phew) so some rooms were saved from the Napoleon 3rd time.  Overly lavish, over the top Victorian style.  Very cute "conversation" chairs though.....

Coffee morning and field trip

Mia and her friend Mackenzie
A triceratops, apparently!

 
Yesterday morning I went to a coffee morning hosted by an ASP mum who lives nearby.  I met a few new people which was lovely but I do have a different feeling about meeting new people now because I know we are leaving at the end of the school year.  There doesn't seem much point in getting to know new people now only to say goodbye in a few months......

I was asked to go along on the 2nd grade field trip today.  Woke up feeling really rough this morning as I have a cold and my head is stuffed, but I had said I would go as a parent "helper" so I took a couple of lemsip and set off.  We visited the skeleton/fossil museum at the Jardin des Plantes.  The kids have been studying dinosaurs........

Le Bon Marche

At last I know what the Bon Marche is!  It is also an experession meaning "a good buy"  or "a bargain" but it is in fact the worlds first ever department store.  It opened around 1860 and was unique in the world at the time.  The first place ever where customers could walk around freely looking at the products.  The first place to have sales, offer delivery, accept returned items.  Quite an enterprising man who created it.  I have forgotten his name......

Anyway, other department stores followed including Harrods in London and Macys and Bloomingdales in New York.  BUT this one was the first.....  (Now owned by the huge Louis Vuiton corporation)

Anyway, it was our guided tour on Friday and we also visited two churches and the Maillol museum.  Next time it's the Louvre.

Watch this space.

Forgot

to put in a picture of our new kitchen at the red house (which I am really pleased with by the way)..........

Day off

Today is Remembrance Day and a public holiday in France, so no school or work.  Ben met his friend Rodrigo at La Defense and went to see the new Bond film.  So Jarle, Mia and I took the metro to the Champs Elysee to join the tourists.  We had lunch in the famous La Duree then did a little bit of shopping and walked to the English bookshop on Rue Rivoli.

Friday tomorrow

Yesterday I strolled (dodging Japanese tourists, beggars and a general assortment of people from all walks of life, including a woman with purple hair and matching thigh high purple suede boots who seemed to be in every shop I went into!) down and up the Champs Elysee.  I also enjoyed a coffee with Lotta in La Duree.  We found a lovely enchanted forest fairy ice land type "bar" at the back of the ground floor and had the place to ourselves.  

So tomorrow I am off to Stavanger (ON MY OWN!!!!) to check on the kitchen, put everything into the new cupboards and buy new pans that will work on our new induction hob.  This will involve surreptitiously wandering around kitchen supply shops with a magnet.....

Wish me luck!!

Antibes

Taking the sea route into town.  Snow on the Alps.

Whales at Marineland, in the rain.
We are back from one week visiting our new flat in Antibes.  The weather was lovely when we arrived (with only two folding chairs to sit on and two mattresses and two inflatable beds!) and we enjoyed breakfast on the terrace.  The kitchen is almost finished, minus washing machine (rather inconvenient as I had deliberately not packed enough clothes for the whole week so that we could try out the new machine) and granite worktop.  However, Ikea delivered on time as promised but unfortunately the sofa and chair were the wrong colour!  A really horrible mustard colour when we wanted a lovely dark brown......  The poor delivery men had to carry it back down the two flights of stairs as the lift is not working yet.  After a conversation with a stroppy woman from Ikea they agreed to order a new set for us.  It will hopefully be available for delivery for the Thanksgiving weekend when we go down next.

So apart from that, me and the kids enjoyed a day at Marineland while Jarle flew back to Paris for a meeting.  Then it started to rain, and boy did it rain?  We were dressed for a lovely sunny day and had to buy two umbrellas and take the bus instead of walking and STILL got soaked.  It rained a lot from then onwards.  

We did manage to buy lovely garden furniture, a table and six chairs and a sofa group with table for the terrace but which we used inside for the moment.