FranceBlog in English

It is christmastime. Well, not a lot christmaslike here in the south of france. We still have pretty mild temperatures and just a few Christmas lights and signs are present. In the stores we have a lot now. But in germany in starts many weeks earlier. But maybe we will have also a green christmas like in germany. No snow probably here 🙂

Daggie and the kids used the schoolfree wednesday to build some gingerbread houses. With some selfmade caramelised sugar they put the parts together. Some Smarties and gummibears were used to put some color on it. See it yourself. Your Engelkahles

We don’t have a horse of course, but we know where we can find a horse. Sunday was very nice, sunny and mild. So we decided to use our bicycles and drive to the white horse. It is just a few miles away and we enjoyed the ride. The kids love it. We took some apples and feeded the horse.

Have fun

The 4 1/3 Engelkahles

It is sunny today, but cold. Well, cold for the south of france. I had to scratch the ice from the windshield this morning. It was around 0C / -1C. So during the day it should be 10C again, but it is rather cold for this area…But it won’t last that long, usually…

A bientot

Ok, I am talking about Elfes not the ELF gasstations. It is christmastime. I was browsing through the internet and found a well known Page, again. http://www.jibjab.com . JibJab was popular over night in 2004 during the US elections. They are producing, developing interactive Movies etc. They are just great. Together with OfficeMax they have launched Elf yourself. See http://www.elfyourself.com

That site is funny. You can upload your own pictures of your face or from friends, family. The software will use just the face. You can arrange it and at the end, up to 5 faces can be uploaded and they appear on some elf bodies. You can choose different dancing themes and watch the movie. It is just great, we were laughing like crazy.

See a pic:

Of course the try out is free. You can also download the movie for money, send postcards and so on. Go there and have fun.

A bientot

The 4 1/3 Engelkahles

It was time again. The third Thursday each Year in November is Beaujolais Day. A tradition not only in france, nowadays all around the world. Specially treated to be ready to drink in the same year the grapes were picked this Beaujolais hit the road this November 20th again. Everywhere parties. As well at work. I also bought some Beaujolais Nouveau. Very tasty. I like it. 

PROST

The past weeks we were not very happy with the weather. It was wet and not very comfy. It was not cold, but not that nice. The kids had to play more often inside. I also took them with me to work. That was fun, they really likes it and enjoyed being with me. They saw the big machines, where I work, met my colleagues. While I was working they were drawing lots of pictures for me. Now the school holidays are over and the weather is a little better. Sometimes a little shower but not too bad, nild temperatures at least.

So what am I doing on the weekend ? Roaarrr, roarrr.. yes watching cars. Looks like I can’t live with cars, race cars. So I took Jonathan (Fabian wanted to stay home with Dagmar) and we drove to a Rallye north of Montpellier. Not that far away. It was the Criteriurm des Cevennes. The 51st Rallye. Very popular. See http://www.cevennes2008.com

It is a Rallye that is happening for 3 days. No entrance fee. But you have to walk a while to get to the good spots along the road. The Cevennes are Hills/Mountains north of Montpellier. Wonderful scenery, winding roads, old little towns. So I drove in the little Clio through some very beautiful areas/towns (Pic Saint Loup, Laroque, Ganges) up to Sumene. I had to walk about 1 mile uphill with Jonathan to the Finishing area of this Rallye stage. Of course I could have walked a little closer to the nice U-turn spots, but it was too dangerous with my little Jonathan. So I stayed at the Finish Line where the cars came around a corner to a straight. Pretty fast and loud.
So far I have only watched Rallye on TV or played it on the Playstation. What a nice experience that was. So close to the race. Cars starting froma little Peugeot, Citroen C2 to a roaring Porsche 911, Subaru WRX, Lotus Exige and so on.

We had a lot of fun. The trip back home in the little Clio through some curves was not that exciting, but very scenic.
Fabian and Dagmar watched the Video I took from the Rallye Video (22MB, 768×576 WMV)

Yeah the south of france is very nice, lots of different things to do.

Official footage is available at: http://www.ffsa.tv a video from the inside of a Rallye car is here: http://www.cevennes2008.com/ES3Cevennes2008.mp4 

A bientot

 The 4 1/4 Engelkahles

School holidays, Vacation, Friends visiting, Family visiting, weekend is close. How fast time goes by is crazy. Last year, November 1st 2007 we started the „adventure“ France. Getting used to the new job, colleagues, finding new friends, school, french, english. Amazing how it worked out so far. One year in the south of france. Of course with some ups and downs but overall a great experience.

Our friends Beate & Alex with Kids were visiting us for a week. The weather was nice with 24C and sun at the beach and bad with wind and rain and only 10C. But much better than snow and icecold temperatures. Dagmar’s sister Kerstin & Family was also visiting us. They stayed in Narbonne-Plage and stopped by one day. We also visited them. It was nice for the kids to meet friends and family again. We all together enjoyed it. Now we go to the final weeks of the year. Beaujolais Primeur vine will come soon and christmas is close. 2008 will finish and let’s see what 2009 brings. The adventure continues. While I am writing I am listening to the new ACDC – Black Ice CD. Fantastic Rock…

A bientot mes amis – The Engelkahles

Wow, how time goes by. My first year in france is almost over. October…

The Kids are feeling very comfortable and happy now in france and in the school. Daggie and I enjoy the weekends with the kids. Last weekend we had some fun at a fun playground for kids and adults. It was a area where lots of trees are connected together with ropes, nets, logs… You wear a harness and connect carabiners to safety ropes and climb up in the trees. At the beginning Jonathan was not very happy. But after he finished the beginner trial he was not going away 🙂
Fabian was also busy climbing in the trees, he also climbed higher than I did. It was very exhausting but also a lot of fun, we will definitely go back there.

Today was a normal working day. Well, that changed at noon. It started to rain a lot. It was pooring down. October is usually the wet month here in Montpellier. The first weeks in October were pretty dry,

so it had to start one day. That was today. It was raining a lot. After work we said goodbye to Clive and Karen. Clive is a colleague from the UK and he helped and tought me a lot. After that I tried to go home as fast as possible. Unfortunately it was busy everywhere. Highway was blocked and small roads had also huge traffic jams. All because of the rain. It was flooding the small river beds and also the big ones. Small creeks or rivers turned to huge rivers and little lakes. The Roads where flooded at some places at blocked by the police. My little road from Maugio to Baillargues was also flooded and some cars have missed the road and dropped down the small shoulders on the roads. After one hour (usually 20 minutes) I was back home. In Stuttgart it usually does not rain that heavy, but the results of snow in Stuttgart and heavy rain in Montpellier are similar. Accidents, blocked roads and long travel time.
The Kids took some pictures of the heavy rain. Take a look and enjoy

A Bientot

– The Engelkahles

Hola. Together with my little family we drove in the little Renault Clio from Baillargues to Montmelo in Spain. Circiut de Catalunya. Famous Race  Track. 30km / 20 miles east of Barcelona. This weeken was the DTM Race ( www.dtm.de ) , this is the German Touring Car Championship. Since Fabian wanted to go to the race itself this year, not the qualifying, I bought tickets for the best seats and Paddock entry.
Well, the weatherforecast was bad since days. Rain, Thunder… 80 percent probability of rain. But today we had lots of luck. The clouds were blown away and the rain was coming down at the pyrenees. The trip to the race track was beautiful. Blue sky, sunny weather, beautiful sightseeing. The first time for us to drive to Spain. The little Clio was very economic again. Only 5.5L / 100km, 42.7MPG. The gasprices in spain are also low. Only 1.16 Euro for a liter. In France it is between 1.35 and 1.51 Euro.

Thanks to some earplugs, the kids, Dagmar and I enjoyed the race. We went to the pit with our tickets, saw some livebands and smelled the tires and gas. Our seating was directly at the Finishing line, so we had a very good view to the track and the pit.Paul di Resta (Mercedes) won , second was Timo Scheider (Audi) and third was Bernd Schneider (Mercedes).
Dagmar enjoyed her first carrace and Fabi and Jona enjoyed it as well. They already went to some races 🙂

Pictures are here: http://bigmek.de/dtm2008/DTMcc2008.swf 
Video from the race (54MB , 768×576 Pixel): http://bigmek.de/dtm2008/DTM_Circuit2008med.wmv

Video is coming soon. A bientot