hello

Hey,
for a long time I've been wanting to write just one quick little message in english. I know quite a few of you enjoy english almost as much as I do (that's a lot!) and the rest of you can come back next week and it'll all be back to normal ;-)
So there's no real reason to this message apart from saying hi, and trying to not slip into dormant blog mode!

Spring is upon us, yay!!
So we're basically getting sunshine everyday, really warm in the afternoons. At the weekend I bought a pair of 2nd hand rollerblades so I can blade to work everyday, and Charlotte got back into biking. Christchurch is definitely fantastic for that.

We've been enjoying our awesome countryside quite a lot with trips to Taylor's mistakes, just outside of Christchurch:

(That's Charlotte's colleagues below, Anna and Andie.)

Above: this place is the only rocky shore around Christchurch since all the rest is basically sandy beach. So I've decided to make this our fishing spot for when we go fishing later on in the spring.

We also had a sweet day in Akaroa (the French settlement 1 hour's drive from chch):

It was hard work to get to that look out: 1 hour on a gravel road! That's pretty much equivalent to a 5.0 earthquake for 60 minutes!

You know how New Zealand has 40 million sheep? Well, it's lambing season at the moment, so there's basically like 60 million lambs right now! Even I am like: Oh, how cute!!!

All cuteness aside, what's new with us?

We've moved back to our appartment. We were quite sad to leave the very comfortable 3-bedroom house that we stayed in for 7 weeks, but after a few days, and with the weather being real nice, we're quite happy to be back;

We're planning a whole lot of travelling at the moment: Auckland, then Wellington, then Hawaï for me, then round New Zealand with Mourad, then Wellington again... super excited!!
And...and...we've just decided on travelling to Samoa in February, then to Malaysia, then to Paris, final destination...Estimated day of arrival: 25th of February ;-)

Oh, and as far as earthquakes are concerned: all it getting back to normal, apart from work being very slow and equipment taking forever to be fixed! Also, the best cheese shop in Chch, Cheesemongers, a fine importer of Tome de Brebis (!) was so damaged that they had to destroy the building. This is very sad!!!
We all think we're geophysicists by now. Everytime there's an aftershock (that's several times a day everyday) we all try to guesstimate its magnitude on the richter scale, depth and location!
Check out the website www.geonet.org.nz, it's quite interesting.

On a side note, the prime minister of New Zealand, John Key, is coming to inaugurate our building tomorrow.

That's all folks :-)

Clem

Comments

[Lulu]

Quite excited to see you back...are you still worgking on your post doc by the way? :))
Enjoy, enjoy and this is my new address (for the around the world post cardS)73 rue Louis Blanc still in the 6 !!!!
Do not even thing eating this little cutty..
Take care, miss U (sometimes:))

[stephthewhite]

60 millions d'agneaux , celà fait 240 millions de pattes , et surtout 120 millions de gigots...(legs of mutton !!!)MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!
YOU KNOW WHAT..????...I'M HAPPY

[mourad]

C'est dans ces moments là que notre Jacques Toubon (on verra qui s'en souvient???) nous manque, notamment lorsqu'il disait que les français s'anglicisent et qu'il fallait retrouver l'usage du vrai "françois"...
Vous voulez la faire en anglais, très bien, ça montre que vous êtes intégrés...mais pas totalement, qd vous aurez écris une page en maori, on pourra dire que votre intégration est complète.
(perso, je commence à m'y connaitre en terme d'intégration!!!nous sommes dans un pays très pédagogue en la matière...)

PS:pour info, pendant que vous êtes au bout du monde, nous on manifeste pour vos retraites...vous devez à peu près 3 trimestres de cotisation par manifestant...ne vous inquiétez pas la reconnaissance de dette vous sera remis à votre retour