Jemma's Chantilly triathlon

Beautiful Chantilly Castle set up for the triathlon

Even a cold and drizzly day didn't scare off Jemma and her devoted entourage from this epic event. Sadly Mark had to bail out of his triathlon event due to a bike wipeout the weekend before.

Jemma in a wetsuit ready for her swim with Pippa

Jemma successfully swam through the giant carp and even larger teenage boys in her first open water triathlon. The muddy trail and stripped gears unfortunately ended her ride and race before the finish. Good timing, however, because Granny would have missed her train back to London! Chantilly is definitely worth another visit, perhaps on a sunnier day!

Pippa and Granny trying to stay dry

Jemma coming out of the woods on the first bike lap

More action shots available at Mark's Google+ album

Settling In

Our local bistro on congé

I cannot believe it has been just 2 weeks since we've arrived. I feel like we have done so much, yet have only scratched the surface of discovery of this spectacular city. It has been a busy couple of weeks as I have been feverishly nesting and trying to get us all feeling settled and comfortable in our new abode. Arriving during the month of August has been for the most part advantageous. As most Parisians are away (pour le Congé) and thus many shops and restaurants are closed, we have been able to get to know the city in a more quiet and relaxed setting. It is a strange dimension, however, because we are trying to set up our life in a place that has previously been a holiday destination.

Camembert, pain au chocolat and baguettes have quickly become our breakfast routine. However, we were all strangely comforted by the recent purchase of a rice cooker and chopsticks. And the thrill of discovering the local Chinatown (or more accurately Vietnamese-town) is a direct bus ride from our house. The RATP (Paris' TTC/Tube) mobile app and Velib bikes and trottinettes (scooters) have become our most coveted transport methods.

Yesterday we visited a couple of private tennis clubs for me to join. Tennis Club de Paris seems the winner as it offers everything I am looking for in a club setting. Hey, if it's good enough for Tsonga, Simon and Mauresmo, it's good enough for me!

Philippe, Dawn, Lucas & Maya + us

We've already had visitors come and help us tour around the city and get to know even more restaurants, parks and shops. First, the Lacamp Family in keeping with their tradition of being our first visitors wherever we have moved: California, Toronto and now Paris. Charlyn, who came with our bunny and a well researched list of restaurants and shopping to explore. Next week, Jessica (Mark's mom) will be visiting and hopefully testing out our new sofa bed - or what is known to many Europeans as "le clic clac".

Here are some latest pics. I'm curious to see how many pictures we can take that don't have the Tour Eiffel in the background!

https://plus.google.com/u/1/photos/113764481965364247361/albums/5910123277742935985

Hope all of you are well and we look forward to having you all visit soon.

Leaving and arriving

The lead-up to our July 31 departure was absolutely crazy.

We sold our business on June 24 and I conducted a 4 week handover to the new owners. We finally found renters for the house in early July, but they needed us to install hardwood floors in the top floor because of allergies. Our basement flooded with sewage on July 8 requiring 4 weeks of repairs.  We packed and moved tons of stuff into storage.  I sold our car the morning of our flight, spending quality time with the buyer at the bank and Ministry of Transportation.

We had numerous farewell lunches, dinners, parties, and tennis games with friends and family, and hosted one final party two nights before our flight, eating take-out and watching the kids play hide-and-seek among the full packing boxes. 

Everything seemed to magically come together and align at the very last moment before our flight, but it was slightly stressful and emotional.

Our FBI operations transport

We had 15 bags, carry-on and a cat (the rabbit is flying separately with Shirley's sister). I am normally pretty self-reliant (read: stingy) when it comes to luggage and hate to pay others to transport my bags, but this was a special exception. We hired a black limo "van" to take us to the airport and a porter to transfer the bags the 50 ft. to check-in.

Too many bags to lift by myself

Everything went smoothly with checking in the extra luggage and a cat, though not without a certain level of astonishment from the check-in staff at what we were bringing. Going through security was fun when we realized we had to take our terrified cat out of her carrier and carry her through the scanner as she clawed her way up my neck.

On the flight, we were instructed by the vet to syringe water into the cat's mouth and administer a few drops of a black molasses-like substance to calm her. She didn't like either and fought me the whole way. A couple of times during the flight I tried to do this and Katu ended up looking like a drowned rat covered in water and black molasses, with very little of it inside her.

Farewell to Grey Road

The Paris airport did not have porters, so we managed to load 15 suitcases, carry-on bags and a cat onto 5 luggage trolleys (Pippa had 1 and I had 2) and crawled our way to customs to declare our household goods for arrival.  We had prepared endless forms, I had been to the French consulate in Toronto, and Shirley had been to the Canadian food inspection agency (which, strangely, handles the export and import of pets) to get everything prepared for entry to France.  We were ready for this.

As we pulled up to the customs area, there was no-one there.  We waited for a while, and then finally I went into the back office to find someone. I gingerly knocked on a door and interrupted 5 customs agents deep in conversation and said in my best French "we're moving to Paris ..... and we have a cat...." (thinking that the mention of the cat would cause pandemonium and an instant unsheathing of their holstered weapons).

There was a deep sigh from the group of agents as they all looked at each other, and then clearly the most junior of them slowly got up and followed me outside the office to our camel train of luggage. He took a cursory look at one of the sheaf of papers I showed him, as an afterthought looked into the cat carrier to see that the animal was real, and with a "bienvenue en France", waived us through.

We had arranged for a van to meet us in Paris and had an easy trip to our new home. We were exhausted but elated to finally be here. After all the stress and anxiety of the preparation and travel, we could finally enjoy the fruits of our labour.  Let the fun begin.

Here at last

We're here. In Paris. At last.

After a year of planning, chaos and stress, our move to Paris has finally happened. We are settling into our new home (Shirley is nesting), and starting to enjoy the many delights of the city.

The house we are renting, La Maison Bleue, is in the quiet one-way rue Santos Dumont in the south 15th arrondissment.  Only built a few years ago, the house is very modern with lots of glass, steel and slate. Although the footprint is small (approximately 20' x 40' on each floor), it feels bigger because of the open plan design with split levels and plenty of light streaming in from many windows.

Main floor sitting room and kitchen

Top floor master suite

La Maison Bleue

The fully furnished house has 3 bedrooms, 2 sitting rooms, a basement movie theatre and a garage. High on our list of things to do is to convert the second sitting room into a comfortable guest room for the many friends and family visitors we are hoping to see over the coming 2 years.

We plan to use this blog to share stories and photos of some of the fun things about our lives here with friends and family. So please subscribe to get regular updates, come back often and comment or ask questions.