Airbus Sporting Games

This past weekend we stayed in town because Airbus had their Sporting Games (like company Olympics) and this was the first year they invited Airbus Americas to participate so there were 4 people from Wichita that got to come as well as 5 people from the other locations within the US. So we spent the weekend watching them compete and then showing some of them around Toulouse. 

Saturday
This is my second attempt at writing this paragraph. I had a whole page written out about our day and then I was proof reading it and somehow managed to delete it. So this time it's the condensed version--sorry guys!  We headed up to Blagnac (the town where Cam works) to check out the different events going on. We found out that two of Cam's co-workers would be competing at the same sporting complex.  Rob was in the running events (he is also the guy who was here just about a month ago! He got to come back--this time he was by himself though--his wife Sara didn't get to come).  Another coworker of Cam's competed in the rugby matches (Ryan).  We were able to watch several of the events and had a great time. The weather was cool and cloudy in the morning but by the afternoon it warmed up and was PERFECT. Rob's running event in the afternoon was a trail run and the park it was in was AWESOME.  Cam and I had such a good time being out of the city for an afternoon and breathing some fresh air--it was heavenly!  We will be going back to the park soon!  After all the sporting events were done we headed back to the complex we started at to watch a soccer game between upper management vs. employees (or so we were told-didn't know anyone so we didn't really care!) We were able to meet up with the rest of the Wichita crew as well as meet the other people from the US. Everyone was very friendly and we had a great time talking to everyone (in English!). By the time we got home from the soccer game we were wiped!  We ate dinner and headed to bed!   
Sunday

We spent the morning working on stuff around here at the hotel and then we met up with the US guys to check out Toulouse.  We spent several hours walking around showing them the different stuff that Toulouse has to offer. We saw one of the big churches, the Garonne river, the parks, and the Capitole area.  By the time we made it back to the Capitole area we were all ready to sit for a few minutes so we stopped and had some drinks/snacks.  I had my first crepe since we have been here! I got mine with chocolate in it and it was pretty good!  After the crepe we decided that some of the guys needed to try the ice cream shop that makes the ice cream into a flower shape so we went there and I had some ice cream too (when in France, right? I had to--I really didn't have a choice!!! ;) )  After hanging out there for a while we went to dinner and we ate at the steak and fries place.  They only have one thing on the menu-steak and fries.  Your choices include what you would like to drink and how you would like your steak cooked.  I think everyone enjoyed it--everyone had an empty plate and then had some more dessert so I would guess they liked it! :)  After dinner (which didn't get over until 9:45 pm) it was time for everyone to head back to the hotel--they were staying Blagnac--and we determined that they had spent almost 70 Euros on taxi fare to come to Toulouse so Cam piled everyone into the work car he has (which actually fits 7 people!)  and took them home.  I stayed here because I would have been the 8th person and there was no reason fo me to go with them.  By the time Cam got home it was almost 11 and he had to work today so we called it a night.

Monday

Today I have been trying to catch up on emails and uploading pictures and laundry.  I had a blast this weekend but we went nonstop basically so now it's just playing catch up which is fine by me! I am taking a creative break from my laundry right now to type this so I better get back to it!

A few things I'm thankful for:

1.  Beautiful weather and good company this past weekend.
2. Lipton Diet Peach Ice Tea which I am currently drinking and it's tasty.
3. Having a grocery store right next door so I can go get stuff for dinner this afternoon.
4. Knowing people at home are thinking about us
5. Thoughtful people (we have been blessed with some awesome people in our lives!)

I'm keeping it short today so I can load some pics and get back to laundry but we hope you all have a fantastic week!

                                              Cam at the track for the first running event...

                                                        Ready to watch some running!

                                                           FRESH AIR at the park! Yay!

                                       Cam's sweet "mini van" :-) This baby fits 7 people!

                                            Cam with some of his co-workers from Wichita....

 When we were walking through the park yesterday we saw this. This lady was WALKING HER CAT. I am not kidding at all.  The cat listened to her every command!!!!  I told Cam if he can train a cat like that he can get one!!

                                                                   Chocolate crepe!

                       The inside was vanilla and the petals were chocolate chip- YUM is all I can say!

                                  The US crew (most of them anyway!) in front of the Capitole!

Hope you all have a great week!

J

Going to the Doctor

Unfortunately I had to go to the Doctor,and since it was a unique experience I figured I would let you know about it.  Jenn and I went to the beach what was two weeks ago now and had a good time!  We both got nibbled on by something, produced something similar to what a mosquito bite would be.  I got one on my hand, between my thumb's knuckle and wrist.  It was normal on Monday but Tuesday morning had become very red and swollen. I figured I would wait it out and see what happened and see if it would heal itself.  By thursday it was really getting painful and looking pretty bad so I headed down to the onsite nurse at work to see what she thought.  She said I need to go to the Doctor. 
     One of my Coworkers recommended a doctor that spoke good english so I gave her a call. Her secretary didn't speak english so I passed the phone off to my other coworker to setup an appointment.  The earliest appointment she had was the next week and we didn't want to wait the weekend to see what was going to happen, so I decided to go to the open clinic on that Friday morning.  When I got to the office, the secretary was in a small hall that had 3 or 4 doors, each with a different doctor's name on them.  I found the one I needed and went through it to a small 8-10 seats waiting room were there were three other women and a door.  After what seemed like an eternity, I think it was around 2 hours to get the three women through, the doc came and I knew it was my turn. As I entered her office it had a formal desk area like you would see in an office where we sat. the rest of the room was one of the examining chairs(like most doctor offices have).  We sat and I showed her my bite, she confirmed it was infected and she was rather concerned about it because it was coming up my arm. She had me move over the the examining chair and take my shirt off.  She inspected my arm real quick, pushed in my armpit and checked my lymph nodes. She then had me put my shirt back on and head over to her desk again where she wrote me a prescription for amoxi and an anti inflamitory and a topical disenfectant spray.  That didn't take long and I paid her and was on my way. 
      The interesting thing was how quick I was in there and the lack of service.  I had a similar infection not to long ago in the states and it was significantly different. First, the nurse comes and gets you in the US and gets your weight, takes your temp and blood pressure, ect., none of which was even done for me. The last time I had such an infection, they went ahead and swabbed it for MRSA, which she didn't.  I also recieved an injection of antibiotics wereas she didn't even mention an antibiotic shot.  The other thing that kinda surprised me is the lack of sanitation. Maybe I missed her washing her hands somewhere along the line, but I'm pretty sure I didn't.  She went straight from helping the person before me, to me, to looking at my infected hand, to pushing in my armpit, to writing my perscription, to dealing with my money to helping the next person. It was a small office with personal belongings and products piled on every ledge(lack of storage space?).  It was very different from what I'm used to in the US. The other interesting part was the payment. You have to pay the Doctor, and she only took cash.  Luckily my coworker warned me of this. It was 23 Euros for the visit!
    I was off to the pharmacie to get my scripts filled.  In france, the only place to get any sort of medication, vitamins, ect is at the pharmacie, and they are always seperate from any other store. I was able to communicate fairly easy with the lady at the pharmacie to get my meds. They came out to be a whopping 40 some Euros! Not bad. 
    I started the amoxi that day(friday) at lunch.  It was fairly painful at this point.  By saturday, my enitre had hand had swollen up and was huge. This lasted till around Monday or Tuesday when the swelling went down and the pain slowed as well.  It leaked fluid Monday, tuesday and wednesday so I had to keep it covered. By thursday, yesterday, all the swelling was gone and it was down to looking like I had some sort of wound that was healing and no pain. 
     It was an interesting experience. I got the stuff I needed but have a major appreciation for the care we have at home as well as new look at what they do.  Some of it probably isn't necessary, but I would take it any day over what they do here.  The prices at home are significantly higher but also is the care in my opinion. It just seemed like the health care technology is a little behind ours over here.  After talking with my coworkers a little, the government spends a ton of money subsidizing the doctors visits and the perscriptions and the Doctor did mention that things were to a very strict system in France when she was explaining the payment and script processes.  I found it very interesting the large difference in care.

Cameron

How can it be Thursday already???

Oh my word.  I can not believe it's Thursday already (and 3 pm at that!) I feel like I have written that a lot the last few weeks but dang!  The time here is FLYIN' by.  The last few days have been busy with errands, grocery shopping, chatting with family, and catching up on emails.  We are planning on staying around Toulouse this weekend and checking some stuff out around here (the weather is supposed to be awesome!). 

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

Shopping, errands, grocery store, more errands, chatting with family, and catching on up emails.  I guess that's where my week went! ;)

Tomorrow we have dinner plans with another American family that is here for work as well.  We will be going to their house for dinner and it should be fun to get out of the hotel and speak English for a few hours! Yay!!  They are here working for Spirit Aerosystems and will be here for a few more YEARS. Yikes.  That makes me very thankful we are only here for three months.  I think I would waste away without Mac'N'Cheese after that long!!  (I do have some here though so I will make it the three months--Melinda sent some for me!  One of the quickest ways to my heart--that's for sure ;)  Anyways--that will be fun!  They have three small children and I think the wife stays home with them (his name is Derek and I don't remember hers off the top of my head--I will need to double check before tomorrow!)

We got to chat with Kerry and Melinda and Grandpa Doc last night and we were chatting about what our place looks like and Melinda said I should post some pics on here--I took some when we first got here but didn't think about posting them on here!  So I thought since there isn't much going on for this post that would be a perfect plan!  So I will add those down below! 

A random thought for the day: I think I will start posting about all the things we are thankful for (and gaining a new appreciation for) while being over here so we can look back on this in a few years and smile.      

Today I am thankful for:

1. My washer and dryer back home (Laundry is crazy expensive here so I am saving us money by handwashing all our clothes--I don't mind it that much but it just takes so long!  It will be convienent for me to throw a whole load in when we get back!)

2.French bread and cheese. It's AMAZING.  Tonight we are eating grilled cheese and tomato soup which is quickly becoming one of our favorite meals here!

3. The price of a 1.5 L water bottle here is .18 cents.  You read that right- 18 CENTS! We get a whole 6 pack of water for just a little over a dollar! Back home it's over a dollar for ONE bottle!

4. Airbus.  Without Cam working for Airbus, we would not have this opportunity.  Airbus takes very good care of it's employees and their families.  We don't have to pay for our hotel or rental car while we are here--that's a true blessing.  

5. Our Families and our friends.  We have a tremendous support system at home and we can't thank you guys enough for chatting with us, thinking about us, emailing us, and helping out with stuff while we are gone.  Thank you doesn't even cover it. 

6. My iPad.  (Again---it's not for the reason you probably think!  Not for the actual material item itself but the purpose it serves!)  We have logged some serious hours on it between Skype and FaceTime which enables us to communicate with you all back home!  I have also been watching a few movies on it which is fun on a rainy afternoon! ;)

7. Our hotel room.  Although it is small it is a roof over our head and we have a place to store food.  There are lots of homeless people here in Toulouse and everytime we get back to the hotel I am thankful for the shelter it provides and that we are able to have food in our pantry.   

8. Housekeeping.  Although I don't mind doing chores at home it is like a vacation to not have to scrub the toilet!  Plus we don't have to buy cleaning supplies, etc.  

9.  My Sweatpants.  Although they are not getting much attention over here you better bet when I get home you all will be seeing sweatpants all the time! (Not that you didn't before--but you know what I mean! :)  That being said it has been fun (most days!) to dress up a little more over here--makes me feel a little more girly than oversized black sweatpants!

10.  Cammy C.  Obviously without him I wouldn't be here (at least not for three months, etc.) but he goes to work everyday and I get to stay here at the hotel.  I don't really know how to put my thoughts into words for stuff like this so I will leave it at I am very blessed he is in my life.

On to the pictures! (Not every post will be 10 things long--the more I started thinking about it the more stuff kept coming to my mind!)

 The lighting is a little dark but this is our living room area :)

 This picture is taken from the other end of the living room looking towards the kitchen...

 This is our little kitchen nook which has two stove tops, a small fridge, and a small dishwasher.  The picture cuts it off halfway but I didn't want to post two pictures of the same thing :)

 This is the shower room which has the sink and the shower...it's a little different here because they don't have the toilet in the same room--so you have to use the restroom and then go here to wash your hands....

 This is our bedroom--it has a good sized closet which holds all our clothes just fine and the bed. 

 This is a look out of the bedroom window into the alley-way.  The architecture here is phenomenal.  I could walk around and stare at the buildings all day! 

Handwashing our clothes in the bathoom tub--hadn't ever done anything like it before so I wanted to capture it on film so I can look back on it :)

Here's Cammy C on our couch...

   This is looking from the inside of our hallway towards the door that leads out.  The first door on the right is the room where the shower and sink is.  Then there is a second door on the right side which is where the toilet is.  Then on the left side there is a closet where we keep our shoes and jackets.

It is harder to tell in this picture but on the left side before you get the closet there is an opening where you go to get the kitchen/living room and straight back from where I'm standing is our bedroom. 

Anyways...thought it would be nice to share those with you all :)  I better let you all go because I have to start thinking about making my grilled cheese (which sounds so good today--it's cool and rainy here) so we hope you all have a great Thursday!! 

Love,
J 

Beach Weekend!

Happy Monday!

I hope you are all having a great start to your Monday!  We are well into our day over here and I thought I would take a few minutes to catch up on our weekend :) 

Thursday & Friday

Thursday and Friday went so fast I don't even really remember it!  On Friday we went to the big mall over by where Cam works in a town called Blagnac.  Before we made it to the mall though we drove around the Airbus complex a little bit and Cam pointed out different buildings and things like that.  It was very cool to have him tell me about what he does there and a little bit about the airplanes there.  We decided to wait on the actual Airbus tour until his parents get here because we can do a more private family tour.  After Airbus we made it to the mall where we shopped for a little while before deciding it was time to head home for dinner.  We didn't do very much on Friday night because we were getting ready for our weekend trip to the beach!!

Saturday & Sunday

We drove down to the beach on Saturday morning and it took us over 2 and a half hours because there was a ton of traffic! (Usually I think it is only about  a 2 1/2 hour drive).  But we finally made it to the town of Sete!  We found the hotel where we were staying and then decided since we couldn't check in until 3 pm we would head to the beach. We drove about 10 minutes from the hotel and found an awesome beach!  We stayed on the beach until almost dinner time when we went and checked in to the hotel.  We decided to go back to the beach again after we checked in.  I absolutely LOVE the beach--it is one of my favorite places and Cam and I had such a good time just relaxing and getting some sun on our face!  It was about 80 degrees with a light breeze which made for perfect laying out weather!  The actual water (The Mediterranean!!) was pretty chilly so I only went in up to my waist and Cam went in up to his knees!  One of the interesting things about this beach was the poplulation.  It was generally older people who were so tan they looked like leather couches.  Almost all of the older women were topless as well.  It was way different than back home but we just minded our own business and enjoyed the weather!   We fit in with our age group though--most of the younger girls wore their tops (myself included!) and the younger guys wore bathing suit shorts (like board shorts) so Cam fit in as well!  We ended up eating lunch and dinner at the same place on the beach where we got some delicious panini's!! SO good! It was sunset by the time we were heading back to the hotel which was amazing!!  I will include a pic below!

Sunday morning we ate breakfast at the hotel (also yummy-croissants!) and then headed back out to the beach.  The weather was different--almost no sun because the sky was hazy/cloudy.  The lady at the hotel had a special name for it and it meant that the clouds were coming in from the water and that it probably wouldn't clear up.  We didn't mind though and we were on the beach by 9 am! Since it was cooler out we didn't lay out as much as we did just hang out.  We just enjoyed being on the beach and playing in the sand and listening to the waves.  We ended up getting lunch again at the panini place (three times! whoops!) and then headed home.  As we were driving out we ended up in the middle of a VW "Slug Bug" parade so we followed them on our way out of town.  We laughed almost the first 30 minutes of our drive home following the VW parade!  Cam kept cracking jokes about if he accidentally ran into the back of one if it would be the same as "smashing a bug?"...needless to say the first part of our drive went by pretty quick!  There was no where near the amount of traffic on the way home so we made good time!  We planned it to where we got home with enough time to still get stuff done so we worked on some stuff and were able to talk to our parents (all of them!) So that was a perfect way to end an awesome weekend!!  We hope you all had a great weekend too!  We heard the weather back home was pretty nice! :)

                                                      Cam in the water for the first time!!

                                                             I could live on the beach.

                                                        Cam with one of his panini's!

                                                                Perfection...

          While on this trip we have been taking some "jumping" pictures for fun...here's one of Cam's!

                                                        The sunset was breathtaking!

Proof I was in the water too! I went up to my waist but that was it- Some people went all the way out to the buoys and swam for fun! No way! Too cold...

                                                  A little part of the Slug Bug parade!

We had a fantastic time at the beach and feel very fotunate that we were able to go!  We plan on staying closer to town this week and weekend.  Probably do some more shopping and maybe a day trip--we will see though!  Half of the fun is playing it by ear!

We hope you all have a fantastic week! 

Love,
Jen and Cam

Halfway through another week already?!

Wow!  It's Wednesday already and we are halfway through another week here!  I'm going to try and go to a little different format from now on--somedays I don't have much to write about and others I have a lot.  I will try to post at least two times a week and make it more of a general summary.  If we go on a weekend trip though I will try my best to update quickly with pictures :) 

Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday

So this week has been a "taking care of business" week if you will between Cam going to work and me keeping up with the chores around here.  The last few nights we have stayed busy by going to the grocery store and Facetiming with family back home.  Today (Wednesday) I did my first long solo trek through the shopping part of Toulouse.  I have been staying pretty close to the hotel the last week or so but today I ventured out a ways!  I was gone for a little over an hour and I had a blast getting out of the room!  It was beautiful outside and it was fun to walk through the shops and hear people talking.  Now I had no idea what they were saying, but it was fun to just listen :)  Tonight's agenda is dinner, working out, and opening a package we received today!  Melinda sent us a care package that we have been tracking and I got the phone call at 8:30 am this morning that it was here and I needed to come sign for it!  :)  I have been very good and haven't opened it yet so I could wait for Cam to get home.  And that's been hard!  But it is giving him something to look forward too as well today! 

The plans for the rest of the week are to continue exploring throughout the day and keeping up with laundry and chores for me.  Cam has to work this week--his normal schedule.  He didn't get Monday off for Labor Day, but he gets to take a day whenever he wants so that works out.  We are running out of weather to go to the beach before it gets too cold so I think we are going to try and go to the beach this weekend.  We won't leave until Saturday most likely and then we are thinking about staying through Sunday.  We wish we could have some of the weather from back home though--100 degrees would be perfect for the beach!  I think we are going to have a high of 79 degrees which means we won't be swimming much but we will at least put our feet in the water!  

That catches us up to the present time which is 3:05 pm here.  I think I will go grab a snack and put some laundry away before Cam gets home. We hope you all are having a super week! 

Love,
Jen and Cam

Carcassonne, France

Well we made it through our third weekend here and our first road trip!  Yesterday it was soooo cold that we decided to stay here and run some errands in town and then chill.  Today we went to Carcassonne!  It was still super cold--we both wore our jackets and I broke out my boots but we had a great first trip! 

Saturday
Not much to report on yesterday--stayed in town and ran some errands and took care of some business.  :)

Sunday!
It was super cold and windy but we had a great trip out to the town of Carcassonne.  We left this morning a little after 8 am and headed southeast (east ish).  We drove on a toll road for the majority of the way and then had to navigate our way through town.  We were going to check out the castle/fortress that they are known for but there was also a market going on so we had to park a couple of streets away.  We enjoyed the extra walking time though because we didn't get to do much this week for exercise.  We ended up walking to the castle and spent a few hours looking around.  It was awesome! They also had a bunch of shops within the castle so we took our time and walked through most of those.  We stopped for lunch at a panini place and chowed down on a "Jambon and Fromage" panini which is ham and cheese-it was pretty good because it was nice and hot!  We took a ton of pictures and I will add a few of them under this post! After a few hours in the cold wind and once around the entire place we decided we were ready to head for home again so we did. I just finished uploading all the pictures and then I think it is nap time!  It is still cold and windy outside as well as cloudy so we will probably just hang out for the rest of the evening--we hope you all have a great weekend!! 

Cam in front of the Fortress in Carcassonne, France.

                                           Me in front of the Fortress in Carcassonne, France.

 Both of us in front of the castle--it's hard to take pictures of ourselves so we took turns--for the most part of our trip we will probably have individual pictures...

Cause I can...


                                     
 Cammy C!



                                     


We tried to take some to show you all how BIG this place is--this shows it pretty well! This is like a fourth of the place!

Same pic but me this time!

We hope you all have a great Sunday!

J

Notes from Cameron:

Just a couple side notes about the fortress for the nerds. It was a double walled fotress with everything needed to live for extended periods of time within it(I believe I read somewhere that it survived an entire war without being infiltrated) It was built on a hill side so one side it was a pretty good slope down, but the other side they had a dry mote, I would just consider it a kill area.  All of the vertical slits you can kinda see in some of the pictures are shooting positions.  They get wider as they go into the wall so the shooters can shoot different angles without being exposed.  I thought it was all pretty neat and kept thinking of the past uses of the place and what it would've been like to be a citizen of the fort.  The masonry was amazing, and they did a heck of a job because it still looks good and original today.  Not only did it appear to function very well but it also was very beautiful.  One thing that did make me kinda sad is the lack of appreciation for what it is.  There was trash all over.  I even saw a fresh diaper in one of the shooting slits, and grafiti on every informative sign.  Most of the time I don't really enjoy man-made sights as much, but this is one I wouldn't mind seeing again.  Hopefully next weekend we can make it to the mountains or beach!

Bye Bye Now.
Cameron