International experience---FOOD

I am truly grateful for the opportunity to move here to France, especially Manosque. Matt works with ITER, a nuclear fusion project that involves the European Union, US, Japan, India, China, Russia, and Korea.  As a result of the project there are many people living here with various cultural backgrounds. We have met friends from Algeria, Tunisia, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Holland, Germany, Belgium, England, Ireland, Scotland, Russia, China, Japan, India, Mexico, Argentina, and Kyrgyzstan! I'm sure there are many more but these are the ones I know of personally. The other joy in this journey learning about the various cultures associated with where all of my friends come from; which includes food, religion and other social customs. All of this has been a great learning experience for me. I'd love to highlight today, the food!
I've learned how to make a number of things while living here such as:

Traditional couscous with chicken. A meal the provincial people have adopted from Morroco, Paella: adopted from Spain, Raclette: a meal served in the winter time, the tradition of serving a variety of cheese after dinner, before dessert, Hungarian dishes, Turkish, and much much more! I need to document these experiences with a camera...Anyway, most recently we had dinner with my friend Aiperi again and her friend Aynur. Aiperi is from Kyrgystan and her friend is from Uzbekistan. They cooked us a traditional meal from their countries. I was so happy to arrive early and learn how they prepared the meal. Loved it! 

manty (not sure how to spell in their native tongue)

mimosa salad with crab, sardines, carrots and other stuff...can't recall.

eggplant with dill, tomato, and garlic

fried bread

La Camargue

There is a beautiful wetland just west of Marseilles called The Camargue (Plaine de la Camargue). You can find salt marshes, lakes, pastures, and sand dunes covering a vast 346,000 acres. I love this area and have been twice not only to see the landscape but to see the wild life. There are a number of beautiful WHITE horses, bulls, birds and Flamingos.

The reason for our second trip was to see the Flamingos. My friend Aiperi and her friend Aynur wanted to go and see the Flamingos while they were here to breed. So, we piled in the car and drove about two hours to check them out.

Here are some pictures from the day.

aiperi, emilie, seneca and i

this photo is really funny. the birds on the right are doing there mating dance while the ladies on the left sleep...:)

see the large birds in the trees?

the beach at stes. maries de la mer

aynur was doing much of the photgraphy...

A few random things this month

some good friends of our here. we get together frequently with our kids.

seneca's little buddy emilie

our cute baby

in our church we have a woman's organization called "Relief Society". this woman's organization was established 17, March 1842. each year we celebrate this great organization. these are the ladies here in our local branch.

while living here we've met quite of few ladies from ireland. they invited seneca and i to a great! st. patrick's day party! i love the spirit!

these are our hungarian friends. this is a funny picture because the boys were coloring all over seneca and she did not like it! :)

so seneca has no desire to wear panties and use the potty, BUT she loves to play with them. one day matt came home from work and she said "daddy, do you want to play with my panties?" and matt said...NO! :)

We're going to the Zoo Zoo Zoo, How about You You You

We went to La Barben Zoo this past weekend and had a wonderful time! It was a small quaint Zoo with cool animals, a large playground and lot's of picnic tables! Loved it! Here are some fun pictures.

Love that these monkeys were picking at each other.

Here is my monkey!

This is Chateau de La Barben! Absolutely beautiful!

Picture of the garden at the Chateau

C'est tout!

Little Weekend Get-Away!

We headed to Nice this past weekend to attend a church meeting for all the members living in Southern Provence. After the meeting on Sunday we decided to explore a few places before returning home on Monday.

our little road trip

After our meeting in Nice we headed to Menton, France which is on the border of France and Italy. They were having a citrus festival!

By the time we arrived we missed the parade and other festive activities but we enjoyed walking around the town.

everything here is made out of oranges and lemons...(except for the statue :))

LOVE the mimosas

seneca loved playing with the confetti on the ground.

what a babe!

From here we decided to head West towards Monaco/Monte Carlo to Eze.

eze at night...can't see much!

bubble bath at the hotel....she LOVED this!

View from out hotel

exploring the centre ville of eze

view from the top of the gardens

 After Eze, we started to head home. We decided to go a different way than we normally do to explore other areas of Provence. We drove through Grasse. Unfortunately, we didn't get out because Seneca was asleep.

Afterward we stopped for lunch in Draguignan. We thought we'd walk around...but we didn't.  We ate and then left again!

It was a beautiful road trip...quick, but fun! The best is this:

Enjoy!