Recycling day

Every Tuesday afternoon over the past 6 months I see the recycling for cardboard boxes being picked up. Unfortunately, until today I have either never had my camera, or had my camera but it had no battery, or my bus arrived leaving me no time to take the photo, but today my friends is your lucky day. As usual I walk toward the bus stop near my school Alain and I waited. I didn't even need to take the bus, but I waited for that recycling to be picked up on that corner. To be honest I felt kind of silly waiting there not taking any of the buses and camera ready, but I feel that all those funny stares are worth it. You all had to know about the state of the art recycling system they have installed here in Laval. Now, it's great, kid friendly, eco-friendly (it's very green), provides jobs, and beautiful scenery. Ok are you ready?

Here it is! Can you see it?

how about now?

now you can!

Isn't it great? I love it when I heard that clicking coming down the pavement. I say to myself, oh it must be recycling day. I love to see the horse, kid friendly, and they aren't driving some huge truck, so it’s eco-friendly, and it provides at least 8 jobs and really 9 if you include the horse, and the beautiful scenery. Now lil Yve, would you rather see a horse pick up you’re recycling or some nasty old smelly truck? I know I prefer the horse. lol I think they should start installing this within the U.S. ASAP.

My new backpack

My new backpack! I got this in Madrid and it's comes in handy so much. What do you think? Do I look like a real backpacker now?

3/10 Mont-Saint-Michel

It's the coolest looking city ever, completely surrounded by marsh and water, and the actually abbey is beautiful and the view of the ocean and the surrounding coast is amazing. If you are ever in the Normandy region of France you must go here, it's about a 2 hour 30 min ride from Paris, followed by an hour bus ride. But from Laval it's only a 40 min train ride. It's probably best to go in the summer but clearly that tourist season, but you don't want to go in the middle of winter because it will just be too cold and windy. So you have to get there during the right time, not in the middle of winter because it's too cold but not in the middle of summer because there would be too many tourists and this now brings me to the Asian invasion. Now one of my friends told me to definitely go if I had the chance, and then she said, “Oh there were a ton of Asians.” and boy was she right. Hundreds and hundreds, I would say that about 70% of the people on the island were Asian. And I’m pretty sure I was related to at least 2 or 3 of them. They must ship them in from the Far East by the boat load. 

Kind of cold and windy at the top!

You can walk to this island when it's low tide but only with a tour guide cause there is quicksand.

3/9 Happy Birthday Gmere

Happy Birthday Grandmere!

3/4-3/7 Strasbourg

Strasbourg
What a lovely city! It's located in the east of France about a few miles from the German border and is home to the European Parliament. Super cute city and naturally they have a river running through it so quite typical French as well. Here are some pictures from the vacation to Strasbourg.

One day we took a boat ride through the city, very cool, got to see all the sights by boat. That's the boat we went on.

Here are some pictures of the cathedral, isn't huge. We always used it as our landmark whenever we got lost, we would be like, “ok look for the really big church.” And it came in handy a few times.

OK I have never seen so many Swans in a city before, I'm talking hundreds and hundreds of swans and I'm not exaggerating. It's a true story I promise, look, here are all the photos but they really don't do it justice. I swear whenever I turned a corner there would be a swan, and they are really not all that beautiful looking, kind of scary. So these photos are of a little pond/ lake that we ran into and look hundreds and there are two structure things of metal swans.



Also in Strasbourg, there is the best sandwich I ever had in France and I wish I would have taken a photo but it was so yummy. Ok so this sandwich, it had slices of rare roast beast, lettuce, hard boiled eggs and this spread, it was a mayo base but hints of mustard in it and it was on this French bread, not a typical baguette but more of a softer sweet kind of bread. Soooo yummy-o! It is actually really common to have slices of a hard boiled egg on a sandwich, and if you know anything about me I love eggs and especially hard boiled eggs. My dad would always (and still does) yell at me for picking the eggs out for myself when it was my turn to get some salad, and grandmere knows how much I love them so she always puts them in the salad when she makes them. So I think this is something that I’m going to try and start in the US. It's not an egg salad sandwich, which I know you are all thinking, but it’s more like another topping, like a tomato or lettuce. But anyways I would travel all the way back to Strasbourg just for this sandwich. And get this, the name of the restaurant was called Jeannette et les Cycleux... So TJ, I went to your restaurant here in France. So I don't have a picture of the sandwich but here is the picture of the restaurant.

3/2 Paris

Paris:
I was in Paris for a few days and I got to see more sights. I think I've seen pretty much seen all the sights there is to see in Paris but still every time I'm there it's hard not to be amazed with all the culture and beautiful architecture that surrounds you. Here are some of my favorite places:

This is the "I Love You" wall, it has I love you in over 300 languages. Can you find it in English or French?

 French... Can you see it? It's "Je t'aime"

Now in English?

Gmere I found your street!

Mom one day we went out for lunch and I got the beef bourguignon and it wasn't nearly as good as yours! Here I took a picture, what do you think? I know, it’s was kind of funny they server it with pasta but it was really delicious.

More Disney pics

Sorry I couldn't figure out how to add more pictures to the first Disney blog.

Disney pics

More Pictures from EURO-DISNEY:

3/1 EURO-DISNEY

Oh boy do the French really love their vacations. I mean every time I turn a corner I feel like I'm on another break from school. This particular vacation is known as the skiing vacation here in France. That's not the technical term but that’s what all French families do during this vacation. If I had my board and my snowboard gear I would've head over to the Alps and joined them all. But I’m telling you that's the cool place to be during this winter vacation.
Now instead of going to the Alps I did something just as cool, I went to Euro-Disney. Best decision ever. It was so fun, although when I was heading down Main Street USA, which is just outside of Paris, France I couldn't help but question why the castle was pink. I kept thinking is the one in Florida pink, cause I'm pretty sure it's not, doesn't it just look like a normal princess castle? Doesn't Cinderella live there? Well it turns out the castle here in France is Aurora's castle, hence the color pink. But as far as the park goes, it's just like the park in Orlando, not as big but still tons of rides: Thunder Mountain, it’s a Small World, Swiss Family Robinson tree house, Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and the Haunted House. I had a blast and can't wait to go back. I know my little cousins Timmy and Yve would’ve loved it just as much as I did. Now I'm sure you'll all wondering about Mickey and yes he is fluent in French but still has that great sweet, squeaky, charming voice. Timmy and Debbie the next time you guys come to France you have to stop in Euro-Disney. You guys would enjoy it so much. I think 2 days at the park is just enough time to see everything.

Here are the pics from Disney