Finding the anwsers

I am having a day off, so I have been cleaning the whole morning. Now sitting on the sofa, relaxing with cup of coffee. I will need to find good iced coffee recipes - it's starting to be really hot during daytime here and hot coffee doesn't sound that good anymore. Except early mornings and in the cool office.

Source: Lifequeen

We will have finally a fixing guy coming to take some measures for the new bathroom sink as the old one has fissures all over - it's been like that for 6 months or so.. and he will fix the bedroom's wardrobe as the sliding doors are broken... it was broken when I moved here! And it's been 3 years in  Avignon. Yeah, this is how the fixings works here. If you want something to happend, do it yourself and pay it or if you want the owner to pay it then you'll wait.


And later this afternoon I will go back to the stables. The place I visited was amazing!
What I mean with amazing is that the people there were so nice, I felt really good talking with everyone.
The place itself was still on the construction phase, the horses have paddocks but still they are making the boxes. There is a small track where to ride, loads of forests and paths to discover and also possibility to take the horses to swim.

And tomorrow back to work. What leads me to the questions some of you asked... Prepare yourself for a long story!

So Anna V  asked what it was like trying to find a job in a different country and what kind of work it is what I do here.

Let me tell you, the process of finding job in France was really painful, I never thought it would be that HARD. Before moving to France, I was working at Nokia, for the internal communication team for 6 years (from trainee to communication specialist). At some point, I got enough (about the job,the people and fights between some certain people) and applied for a executive assistant job for one of the CEO's of Nokia.

 It was really cool job, but it was only a short term (less than one year) as it was replacement for another person on a sickleave. After that, as I had already created connections to the other departments in the Headquarters so I did continue in the legal department as legal assistant. I had many short term contracts and I wanted to have something permanent, so I was looking for another job in Nokia or elsewhere.

Nokia HQ, I had an office on the round side of the building.

In this point, I knew that the assistant/ secretary job was what I like to do so I started to search for a school where to do a secretary degree. I applied for a Helsinki Chamber of Commerce as they have degrees for professionals. Normally they ask at least 4 years experience in the profession to be accepted in, but I had only 1 year in that point. I proved that I was capable of doing it, so I got in. Then I just needed to find a perfect assistant job to accomplish the studies.

After a while, I found a new job at Nokia Siemens Neworks (joint venture of Nokia Networks and Siemens). I needed to have long term contract for the school, as I needed to accomplish the school tasks at work and I had lessons only twice a month.

So basically, I was working through the school. From 25 people, there was 2 of us who gratuaded from the first shot - I don't know what happened to the others. All the rest where assistants on the job for 10-15 years, so I don't know how comes they didn't get it done.  I was scared that I'll screw up everything but it went fine. I got a permanent job  at NSN but I made my decision not long after I gratuaded that I will move to France. I was pretty sad to leave all this behind, all the people I've known forever.

My portfolio of the degree

I really thought that I would find a job easily here, which was completely wrong idea. I didn't think that the level of spoken english in southern France is almost zero. For the first time of my life, I had to start from the bottom - my first job was cleaning job. I'm forever grateful to L who hired me even I didn't speak good french. I had nice co-workers, but I was mainly doing nicer jobs with the boss.

Thanks to my mom, I learned how do a good cleaning, so I never had the problem to do the job. I actually liked it as it wasn't bad stuff like restaurants or so. I cleaned really nice luxury homes and holidays villas. Until the day came that we accepted to clean an apartment that was still on construction and really in bad condition. I had working accident, and now I had a tendinitis that comes if I force too much my hand (on the wrist), even opening faucet can be painful. So I was on a long sickleave, doing nothing for 2 months.

So after sickleave and all, I asked L to fire me because first of all, I felt really bad for my boss that he needs to keep me even I can't do the job and the second reason, my doctor told me I can't do any physical job because of the wrist.  So I was back to zero. I tried one day working in a restaurant, just to see that it really isn't for me EVER. It was disgusting, and my whole body did ache after that day. I did quit.

I started to search secretary work, it took long but now I have a dream job considering the situation. I work as a bilingual assistant in a tiny french tehnology company, on my business card it says "Office Manager" as I do actually everything. Paper works (phew, it's hard in french!), we speak english with the guys at work (rare to find a english speaking people in here!!), I do accounting, communication and the latest is that I need to design logos, brochures etc for the company. So as we now speak, I am learning to use Illustrator at the work.

I like my job, even for now it's only 24hours/week. So that leaves me 2 days free on the week plus weekends. I am waiting for the day my boss can hire me as full time employee.


Ella asked, do I want to make a career here.

I don't really know what to answer to this. I have been working last 10 years of my life already,so this is my "career". I hope someday to have full time job, earn enough to live the life I want but nothing more. I've never been work centered, meaning I don't want my life to be only work and work. I work so I can afford the lifestyle I like. I work to have free time and do things we enjoy. I love holidays and free time from work. If I would win a big money from the lottery, I wouldn't work anymore. But I don't even play lottery he he.

Work trip to Amsterdam in 2011

This story leads me to the rest of the questions. 


Ella asked me (in finnish) that is the life in France hard, can I speak good french, did I speak french before coming here and what language we speak with R.

Yes, Yes,No and French.

So yes it is hard in France - why? Because I am missing my family much, I miss the easy things like speaking finnish, the finnish food, my friends, and having a finnish speaking job. Belive it or not, it is tiring to think,speak and live in french and english all the time.

I think I can speak good french. When I moved here, back then I really was stupid and thought that of course I speak french! But no, I could say my name in french and plus I was too timid to even try to use it. After 6 month of language school at the university and help from R's mom who is a french/english teacher, I got hold on the language.

The situation is now that I can live my life here, I work, speak, write and read in french.
I have friends that speaks only french. I manage doing everything by myself.  I am proud of myself!

Some people will catch a foreign accent when I speak, some people not. Some people get surprised when they learn I'm NOT french.

For us, me and Raph, we started from english and gradually changed to french. It was hard for both of us to change to french, as we used english on daily basis for so many years. We've been together for 6 years and from that we have been speaking french only few. Now it's french or sometimes frenglish.



Laura in Seattle asked if we have considered living in Finland for few years.


Um, I did dream about it. A lot.
Because it felt so hard and unfair to me that I need to go through quite many shitty things just because of our relationship. But it wouldn't be fair to R either to start from zero now, as we have it working this good here in France. But then when I think again, I don't want to move away from France - I like it here! Despite all the things I complain about here in my blog, I am living a happy life in France. Why not someday live in Finland again, never know what life brings. Summer cottage in Finland would be nice.


The last question is from Sara Louise, a fellow foreigner living in Provence: What's your favorite restaurant in Avignon? 


Now I will be embarrased, but I don't even know that many good restaurants in Avignon.

I like a lot  "Le Synopsis" at Rue de Teinturiers as they make the best pizza in town! But as we decided few months ago that we shouldn't eat pizzas and burgers that often, we haven't been there either. Next time I want to try a restaurant in Rochefort du Gard called Legend's Valley. They seem to have pretty good hamburgers, yummy! And nice jam sessions too.

The rest, I don't know really. If you know good places, let me know! We usually eat at home and then go out for drinks, so I like actually places like Pub Z, l’Halogène, Red Sky for the jam session, O'neills Irish pub.. I can mention Ginette et Marcel too as it is cozy place to have tartine or coffee.

Now you know little bit more about me and my life before and after moving to Avignon!
If you have more questions, let me know.


Have a nice week, friends!

From the market.

There are rare moments in life when you are touched with so much love
that you begin to realize how beautiful life really is.
 

Thank you for the sweet comments you left lately.

I appreciate every single word you said, I am glad to know that this world is full of amazing people like you.

The words did gave me courage to continue, to try harder to be a good friend with the ones I already know.

And I realised that I need to work harder to reach my dreams. 

One of my biggest dream is still to continue my riding hobby, so I posted an announcement to a special forum, to find a leasing horse for me. And maybe I got lucky, I will go soon to see this new stable where I could start riding again.

 Smile and the world smiles with you.

Have a nice week and I will come back soon with the answers to the questions!

Our story.

Like I promised, I would answer the questions you lovely people would ask. Annie, one of my favourite bloggers, whom I would love to meet as a person, gorgeous photographer from Australia asked me this

I love your photography Sini, I'd love to see more photos of your homes in Finland and France :) As for questions - tell us your story! :) How did you and your love meet? ;)

 I once read, that in order to being creative, is best to shut down tv and listen Bach.
I took my notebook,pen and listened the most beautiful songs he made.
And I started to write our story.

 On 2006, I was still recovering my accident. I was living in Tampere( 200km away from the capital where my parents lives), trying to continue with my studies to be a carpenter. I had so little time left from getting the degree. I had to drop out school once already, I was too weak to do the works due the accident. On one evening on december 2005, I was riding my leasing horse when I fell badly down to icy dirt. My sister took me to the ER, and from there I was transfered to the neurological hospital where the MRI showed that I had a broken neck. I still can't think of that time without tears coming to my eyes. It was hard time, and on 2006 I was just starting to recover from it. I never finished the school.

I spend quite much time on computer since I was continuously on sickleaves due the pains I had, I was surfing on internet and on my favourite site on that time, myspace. I never thought about nothing more about the website than it was to chat with friends and listen music. One day, I came across of this young,handsome french guy's profile. I saw he was in a band called Flint(after that it was changed to be Everlyn and they have stopped playing). He was the leadsinger and the bassist, so I went to check their music too. He had really nice voice, and I don't know what went into me but I sent him a message and added him as a friend. 

Kind of weird, right? Little did I know, what would come from that.

We started sending messages there, time to time, until it was daily. He was so nice, I felt good while talking to him, and did I mention, he was really handsome. The time passed, I felt like I was falling in love with this guy. 

Wait, what? 

Falling in love, through INTERNET. Like I lost the last sane piece from my mind. But that is how I felt, and maybe so did he. 

The chatting on msn changed to text messages and phone calls. Even I left to have holidays in Cyprus with my best friend that summer, we kept the contact all the time. My friend was teasing me about that.

I had my holidays, and Raphaël was still about to have his on August, but he didn't have any plans. 

I proposed that he could come and visit Finland, and he actually said yes and booked the flights!

People around me(and for him too) kept telling that what if the guy is a creep. A pervert or something. I was scared, yes, but I didn't want to hear that. I wanted to belive that his is the same sweet person I already knew.

So after 3 months of daily talkings, he took the plane to Finland. I was so nervous all the time, never been that nervous in my whole life. I was standing at the airport, alone, wondering what will happend. 

Would he be the same? What if he didn't like me? What if I didn't like of him? The questions without answers.

Until I saw him standing there.

I was in love. I was speechless. He stayed with me for one week, I was speechless almost the whole time. 

(We just were thinking about the week few days ago and he told me it was awful because I kept on staring at him and didn't talk he he)

After the week together, I was exhausted because of the stress, relived that it was like we thought. Perfect.

I had to wait another 3 months before I could travel to see him. Did I mention, he met my parents the first night he came to Finland? As we stayed (for precaution, I guess) at my parents house near Helsinki. Must have been awful to meet the parents at the same time.. poor him.

And I met his family the first time I went to France.

I knew I couldn't live without him, my heart was aching everytime we said goodbye at the airports. I was crying, like my world would collapse. That is what made me to do the decision, I would move to France. 

It took us 3 years long-distance relationship before I moved, I finished my studies on the secretary and did quit my 8 year (love and hate) work relationship with Nokia. I never finished my studies on the carpenter, as I never got my neck back together. Literally, it is still broken. It failed to heal, leaving 2 broken bones in my neck. 

On January 2009, I said goodbye to my family, to my friends. And I moved 3000km alone, to be with my love.

It's been 6 years together, I wouldn't change a thing. Maybe someday we will get married and have kids, who knows (R please don't freak out, ha ha) 

This is the true story how I met my soulmate. 

back in the days

It's the 3rd day that Raphaël is away from home. I haven't felt this lonely for a long time.He left thursday night to Vendée, to the other side of France for fête familial, family gathering.
I didn't want to go this time, not the right timing with money and all, as I was just in Finland not long time ago.

Long story short, this is the 3rd day alone. He is coming back tomorrow night, finally. And I miss him.

As the days goes by, I realise how the life would be without Raph and the fact of living alone in
foreign country. I don't have any close friends. I have friends that I've met through Raph,
they are super nice but it's not that kind of friends that we would see when R is not around.

Then I have friends from the university, and friends of friends..more like acquaintance. Someone to say hello to, ask how are you and that's it.
Except for Helena, my swedish friend, but she lives in Lyon (over 200km away from Avignon).
I wish we could live more close like we used to.

It is hard to make friends in foreign country, the best way would be to have a hobby and find people who share the same interest. Or go to student events, couchsurfing meetings or find friends from internet. 

Why I haven't done that, you might ask. Well.. how to put this.. I'm VERY shy. If I can speak finnish, it's alright. I'm not shy in finnish. But when it comes to making friends in french or english,something's just holding me back. It doesn't feel as natural as speaking finnish. 

I know it's not only the language, but only the ones who have been in a situation that you are the only
one who isn't native english/french/otherlanguage speaking person, it feels like you are the only stranger in the crowd.

So more than ever again, I miss Finland. Without R in my life, I would move back to Finland.
I thought I would stay, but this weekend made me realise that I wouldn't have anything here without R.

I am sorry to burden all you with the problems here in blog, but this is my blog, my life and what is happening now. 

I went through old photos, with friends and family. 

I have friends, I just wish I could spend more time with them.

My sister is definetly one of my best friends.

I can't wait to have her here in July, please send good wibes to her

as she inured her knee lately and will have operation. I have fingers and toes crossed that she will be able to travel on July and come here!

my mama is a friend of mine.

and my dad too.

with Mél,Toma and Sév.

(don't mind Toma, he's always like that)

and Gui,Alex,Rémy and Lucie.

So what to do at home when you are alone? Actually you can do what ever you feel like, everything you would do with a friend too!
Go to the movies, have a coffee on the terrace, anything. But as I'm still short with the money, I didn't want to spend too much this weekend.

So I made a movie marathon at home, I watched Pretty woman (never seen before, he he it was about the time!) Sweet november and it was bad - even Keanu Reeves was bad! 2 last episodes of Grey's anatomy (and I cried a LOT), Ghost (Patric Swazey never fails) and started watching Gone with the wind with Clark Gable, I loved that when I was kid.

I wanted so badly be dressed like the girls in the film, so I tried to re-create the dressed by adding all my dresses in layers, I loaned my mom's summer hat and put string around it, trying to look like Scarlett.
I have pictures of me dressing up, next time I need to find the prints from my parents house, hee hee.

 

 

Yesterday I went to the supermarket to get dirt, so I can change the dirt to the plants today and put basil and pepper to grow, if the seeds aren't too old. I have all plants up the the highest places of the apartment, so Léonie wouldn't eat these. When I was in Finland, she ate one of the plants and got really sick.

Do you have any tricks how to prevent cats eating plants, or what kind of plants would be ok to have (not dangerous, and maybe won't attract cats)?

Cactus? 

I'm sure léonie would try it at least once he he.

And last but not least, 

my best friend.

This was taken in 2006, the first time we met in person.

I will tell the story next time, it's not a normal story where the boy meets the girl one night out.

It's a story about a boy who travels 3000km to meet the girl.

What Y O U would like to know ?

Hello all! 

I had a bit cheezy idea, would you be interested to learn more about living abroad, me, about my home country Finland or France/Avignon? Or anything about the life we are living?

I promise to answer [almost] any question as I haven't shared THAT much with you as I thought.

Bring it on! 
Unless none of you ask anything and this will just be an embarrasing attempt to create Q&A, haha.

source we heart it

Leave a comment or send me email
 bonsbaisersdefrance at gmail.com

Spending days outside - roadtrip to Cassis

 This past weekend, we drove to the Mediterranean coast. Direction to Cassis, less than 2 hours away from home, we drove to the one of the most beautiful places in France, les calanques. 

If you have been to Marseille, or La Ciotat, you must have seen also the calanques. It's white stones, turquoise 

 water and great views attract tourists from all over the world. 

We drove to the center of Cassis, trying to find free parking place. We we finally found place where to park, free and not that far from the road that will descend to the bay area. After 20minutes, we were at the first harbour, La Calanque de Port Miou (the first one in the map on right). We stopped to take few pictures of the boats and then continued towards Port-Pin.

Altogether the walking until Port-Pin was about 40minutes. And guess who left the swimming suite at home? Both of us. We had checked the forecast that morning, and it was showing only 23 celsius, cloudy and little bit of wind - so we didn't think it would be warm enough to swim in the sea. And how wrong we were! The heat got until 30 celsius, no wind and no clouds! And we just sat there on the rocks looking how all the rest of the people were swimming.. ouch. From now on, if we make any trips at summer time, I'll have my bikinis with me.

We sat on the rocks, had picnic, took sun and then had a walk until the end of the Port-Pin. 

We spend whole day there, and when we walked back to the car - we were so tired from the walking, sun and dehydraded (even we had water with us). At home, I just fell asleep.

Port-Pin

Sunday morning, we were getting ready for the fishing trip with F&C. 

We drove to the Gard department, and spend the day fishing, taking sun and having fun.

This time, I did take my bikinis with me and went swimming on the river for the first time this year!

The result of this trip was 1,4kg fish (it was F who got it) and sunburns. 

Note to self: buy sunscreen! 

The river

How was your weekend?

I made it.

source: we heart it

For a month or so, I have tried to do sports 3 times a week. For a lazy couchpotato like me, it is a huge thing.

I never loved jogging, but since it is one of the best  way to lose few extras and cheapest sports to do, I decided to do minimum one jogging per week.

You just need good shoes, and you are ready to go. 

The first few times, I was able to do only 20-25mins (maybe 3Km), then last saturday we decided to go for 6km.

Do you time your jogging? I would like to know, compared to others that if I am slow, or really slow ;)

First time we made 6Km with 46mins.

Then yesterday, I went alone, with the best playlist of sportive music pumping more energy on my muscles, I did finish the 6km in 40mins!

So not only that I am able to really do 6K, I made it 5 mins faster than just few days earlier. 

Oh boy, I was tired! and since I had free day from work, I did do cleaning at home after jogging and went to the center of Avignon and 

walked around 2 hours there!

No wonder that at 5pm I fell asleep, and rest of the evening I was tired. 

We had drinks with friends after R finished work, few glasses of wine and I barely could keep my eyes open.

Late night dinner, little bit of tv and sleep.

Just to wake up early today for work, with aching muscles and feeling like crawling back to bed.

Just to realise, tomorrow we are going to jogging, again.

Sunday lists.

Many lovely days.

May has started with really nice weather, it feels like summer is about to start. 

This month is full of free days from work, in France there are so many jours féries, national or religious holidays, and it feels like all these are in end of April and May. This past week, I had 2 extra days off, next week too. And in few weeks, again one day off.

I won't complain!

In Finland, maybe in other countries too, on 13.5 will be Mother's day. 

I got my mom a gift already, she will have also her birthday just after the Mother's day.

I feel sad not to be there, I already missed my dad's 60 birthday and now I won't be there for my mom's 60 birthday either. So, instead of traveling there, I will send few surprise gifts and greetings for her.

I found lately few nice blogs, what I would like to share with you.

Our Crazy Ever After. 

Lauren is also having a super cool giveaway, a blog design for bloggers who have less than 100 followers. Have a look if you are interested! 

Cheeky Cheeky

Carmen's blog is super funny! Her posts makes me giggle.

Natural Health at Home

Love these healthy recipes.

Shades of Gray

Have a look Amira's blog! She is funny, really good writer and 

her blog is full of adorable photos.

I have also new music addictions.

Santigold - Disparate Youth
Sia - Breathe me
Breakbot - Baby I'm yours
Breakbot - Make you mine
Lykke Li - I follow river (the Magician remix)
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Home
Bon Iver - Flume
Bon Iver - Skinny Love

 And for Android users, I have been searching the best photo & editing apps to use and here are my favourites!

And the best of this, all these were free and I haven't used single euro for any application.

Taking photos and editing:

Instagram, of course.

FxCamera

 Camera FV-5

MagicHour

Pixlr-o-matic

More editing:

Labelbox - for labels!

Sketch n draw - to add text and drawings to your photos

Skitch - add texts 

Photo Grid - to combine photos together

Other stuff:

Skyscanner - find the best prices for flights all over the world

Spotify - I have the paying version so I can have all music even I'm offline

HeiaDroid - to keep tracking my sports

Soundhoud - to find the title for cool song I hear from radio

Our Groceries - to have shopping list with me and it's shared with R so we both can add stuff to the list

TuneIn Radio - listen all radio channels all over the world. This is genious, I can listen Finnish radio stations!!

1Weather - to keep up to date with the coming weather

I hope your weekend has been great, I will have 2 more days off and I will profit these with enough sleep, listening addicting music and having fun. I saw yesterday one dear friend H as she and her boyfriend were passing by Avignon. Too bad she lives in Lyon as it would be nice to see more often.

And I will try to read my first really long book in french. I keep felling asleep, hehe. I usually read all books in english, but since the library didn't have any interesting book I had to try and find something in french.

Enjoy the sunshine!