FranceBlog in English

Daddy had a wish. A carshow was on the list. After a long time without a carshow it was great timing, that the AVIGNON MOTOR FESTIVAL took place in Avignon. Every year thousands of cars and motorbikes are shown. My family supports my car enthusiasm. Of course Avignon has much more to offer, the Pont du Gard, the popes palace and the medieval city. Beautiful town. Beautiful day, mild temperatures and lots of sun with lots of wind. That was a problem today.
             
The carshow was at the Exposition Area near the Airport. Some parts were also outside. Many nice, beautiful cars were outside but now covered with dust. The wind was blowing strong and the dust was coming into every single corner. Our hair looked grey.
         
But all these VWs, Renault, Peugeot, Ford, Porsche, Ferrari, Bugatti… they were still looking beautiful.
Even in the Exhibition Halls the dust was blown in. Renault Alpines, Formula cars were dusty.
At the outside areas we also heard a well known noise. The noise of a 2-Cylinder 2 Stroke Trabant engine. Yeah, unbelievable, there was a Trabant 601 S in green.
All the other cars were good old known cars like Porsche 914, Talbot Matra, Simca, Citroen DS and many more.
        
Motorbikes were also shown and on the outside track a Show was taking place every hour. Stuntdriver. Driving on the rearwheel, frontwheel.. Amazing what those guys did. Jonathan of course likes the Burnouts most (like me).
       
Even dragster Bikes and cars where there. The sound was amazing. Our baby definitely got goosebumps 🙂
In the mainhall A was the major exhibition theme the BUGATTI cars. From those very old race Bugattis to the latest Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4. 1001HP, 407km/h. Unbelievable and unreachable.
        
A friend from work also came. Jerome with his brother and wife. Unfortunately we were ready to go when he came, because after almost 3 hours cars and strong, dusty wind the kids were exhausted.
So we drove home. I took many many pictures and you can see some of them here: http://fotoalbum.web.de/gast/bigmek/AMF2009
Video is available on Youtube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74C54FHNSyc

A bientot

The 4 2/3 Engelkahles

It is amazing. Exactly 5 years ago Jonathan was born. Now he is going to Ecole Maternelle and he learns english and french, number, the alphabet and much more. He is little big man now. This is his second birthday in france. Once more we have gorgeous, sunny day with more than 20C (68F). We just prepared some waffles. Fabian and Jonathan are playing with the presents (Playmobil, Cars and more), At school he already had a small party today. The big party will be Saturday in one week. Was no other date possible for his friends. Anyway, he is happy.

A bientot

The 4 2/3 Engelkahles

Time flies by. It is already more than half a year ago that we went to the Aquarium in Le Grau du Roi. It is a smaller Aquarium but nice. Usually the new extensio a bigger Shark Tank should be opened already. But sometimes things are a little slower here in france. The Webpage was also not very helpful, so we jumped into our Jumpy, lowered the windows and drove through the wonderful area to Le Grau du Roi. Mild temperatures, warm sand at the beach (the water was still only 13-15C / 55F-60F). Perfect for the Aquarium anyway. The kids also like the „old“ stlye. „old“ Friends like Nemo, turtels and of course sharks. We love sharks. They look mysterious and beautiful. We could watch them for hours. It is a pitty that people always think that sharks are dangerous. Of course they kill a few people each year, but that is countable with two hands or so. We kill millions of sharks each year for soup, fun and horny people that think a shark fin makes them last longer .. Yeah sure
I hope we can stop that one day.

We can’t wait to see the new exhibition now opening (maybe) end of April. We will be back then. More sharks to see then.

Back at home we played a bit Pirates of the mediteranean.

A bientot

The 4 2/3 Engelkahles

It is so unbelievable wonderful here in the department l’Herault. Temperatures above 20C (68F), blue sky…Wonderful. The bees also enjoy this spring. Thousands of them are at work now. Wintertime is over. So I took some pictures of the blooming trees and flowers. I catched a bee at a tree with my Camera here at our apartment.

It is spring here in the south of france. We enjoy this wonderful weather as long as we can. One day we have to go back to germany and we are back to normal. This winter is pretty long and strong in germany, so this mild weather is unbelievable.
          
After a few new administrative issues with our Carte Grise for the car (we needed another document that tells that Dagmar is living with me in the same apartment. It is not common in france, that couples have two different familynames !! Keep that in mind when you think about moving there), we finally entered our weekend.
It is breathtaking when you wake up in the morning and you see the blue sky, feel the warm air and the sun is hot.
         
We had to clean up the kitchen (we had a „little“ Ant problem, hundreds were walking through, not anymore, thanks to a Antkiller).
This sunday Dagmar went with Ute to the market in Maugio and she bought some Croissants, Pain au Chocolat, fresh Strawberries.
The breakfast was relaxed.
           
We decided to go to the Zoo in Montpellier. It is free of charge (only the amazonas house is with admission). A great thing for the kids and us. Our last attempt a few weeks ago went wrong, because all parking was closed due to a Handball event. This time we had enough parking and a sunny, warm sunday. A little above 20C (70F). Warm enough for me and the kids to wear not just T-Shirt but also Shorts. Of course it was warm enough. The people in the south of france of course have a different temperature feeling than we have. We saw some people running in wintercoats. Even a kid was running in the zoo with a snowsuit. Hello ? It was 20C and not -2C. I felt a little bit like a Alien.
         
Whatever. The kids enjoyed the walk with us through the zoo and many animals were relaxing in the sun as well.
In the evening we finished our sunday with a delicious Dinner at the La Lucques Restaurant here in Baillargues at our Hotel.
We have been there a few times already. They have a new Menu now for Spring 2009 and it was delicious. More than delicious.Beef for Daddy and Salmon for Mum. The kids had Steak Haché with fries.
I can’t tell it in words, even the entree was breathtaking.
Savoir vivre.

A bientot

The 4 2/3 Engelkahles

I am a TWITTER now…Does that make sense ? Who knows… http://twitter.com/bigmek

I am lazy on this BLOG so far. Most of my updates are happening on http://france.bigmek.de and https://fblog.bigmek.de But on one day, when our france trip is over I will switch to this BLOG. So stay tuned and be hppy. I am as you can see on the Picture 🙂

A bientot BIGMEK

My good old friend and former colleague (retired) Christian invited us, Anu and Antti to a sailing trip. Christian has a 6.4m long sailboat in the harbour of Carnon. Small but safe. Usually he sails with bigger boats Regattas (pretty successfull) and he sails ships to other locations. Very exciting life. Exciting places all around the world.

         
Now he wanted to takes us to a ride. My last time was in 2000 with him. That was already great.  
The kids were already happy about this trip.
The weather was not as warm and sunny was the day before was, but still mild with temperatures between 14-16C and a little windy. We need wind 🙂 We picked up Anu and Antti (from Finland) with our Jumpy and drove to Carnon. There we met Christian, his girlfriend Lo-Ann and another friend of her.
Since only six persons can be on the boat we split into two groups. Our little family was first. The kids got a lifevest and a big smile. Christian also showed them how to handle the rudder and off we sailed. Nobody turned green or yellow, nobody was sea sick. We had some nice waves, but it was not that bad. Fabi was so excited that he now planned he wanted to get a sailing license one day.
Since I was the heaviest on the boat I had to change sites on the boat.
After one hour we came back and the others went on a little cruise. Meanwhile we walked a bit and had some coffee, hot chocolate and Crepes.
There was also a Ice Skating ring, pretty crazy since here are usually no temperatures below 0C in the day. But lots of people enjoyed it.
After one hour the others came back and we had some more coffee, chocolate…
We will not forget this beautiful day.
You can enjoy some pictures here: http://fotoalbum.web.de/gast/bigmek/Carnon_Sailing_2009

The 4 2/3 Engelkahles

With some friends and my family we celebrated my second last birthday with a 3 in front. It was 22C and I had my shorts on (my first birthday where I did that, and I was not drunk).Dagmar cooked a delicious asian dinner and the kids helped BBQing. Anu, Antti, Christian, Lo-Ann and my family made it a funny evening. Party on….