Back at home

Hum home sweet home... :) Glad to go and glad to come back for sure ! But we all got a cold in France and being sick with jetlag is not a good combinaison especially for a little one of 2 months and a half ...

Anyway we had a very cool trip here some pictures for you to enjoy

Cute view of Kaysersberg

Showing my Rose Red beret in Strasbourg

Cathedral of Strasbourg

Freiburg in Germany

Of course I did knit with my daughter help !

Kaysersberg again



I will need some more time to update my blog with my knitting project, I am really busy with my 3 months old and all my Christmas knitting but I will try to do as fast as possible.

Happy Monday everyone!

Good bye Canada

at least for 3 weeks ! We are leaving today for 3 weeks in France. It's the first time that N. is back to his country since he leave in January 2009. The funny thing is that he came here single and he comes back less than 2 years later with a "wife and kid" (I know we are not married already but with a kid it's almost the same).

Paris here we come !!!

travel contest

Little contest to travel around the world...

I just suggest you to participate in a contest that can makes you fly around the world to a dream destination with 7 of your friends...tempting no ?

I personnaly choose India as my dream destination, what's yours ?

Travelalerts.ca

Travel to Riviera Maya part 2

Umm looking to these pictures makes me wanna quit everything and get back to Mexico !!! We had such a wonderful time over there and I wish we can go back soon enough...

I wanted to share some more pictures with you about what we can see over there and leave for a moment in my memories of sun, sea, farniente....


I told you we went to Tulum but we all saw some pictures of Mayan ruins one day or another so I decide to introduce what we did after visiting Tulum ruins. We hire a tour with Mayan Xtreme adventures and we had 3 activities in the afternoon : flying in the sky over the rain forest in a canopy,

let our self go down from the sky using ropes and rappel techniques and finally swimming in a cenote (pure water that is found underground in Yucatan peninsula).

On the Hotel site we had the chance to see a lot of wildlife including those swans.

What I miss the most is the ocean and the sound of the waves on the beach... watching boat, go for a little swim and dreaming all day long in front of it...

But back to real life, we needed to head back home and we found out snow and a little surprise : my mom had decorate our christmas tree in our apartment and now we are sure our neighbour think that we are crazy since we had automatics lights on our tree since October 15Th... LOL

I hope that I will be able to travel again soon and next time I will bring knitting and find a LYS to buy local yarn too... !!!

Travel to Riviera Maya part 1

Hello !, here as promise, my pictures from my latest trip to Riviera Maya, Mexico in October...We had wonderful time and meet great people and we have a party we them tomorow night, that will be a lot of fun seing them again !!! No knitting trip, I had to rest from that too, but I will bring at least a little project on my next trip because my fingers were itching too much back home, I play with my yarn and pattern before to go to bed and I was exhausted... ;)


We left on October 9th from Montreal in the early morning so we could go to the beach on our first day out there. Here is a quick shot over Florida on our way to Mexico...

Riviera Maya is well known from tourist from all over the world and it's about 45 minutes from Cancun airport. Our hotel was Iberostar Paraiso Beach and we really really enjoyed the resort. We even consider going back next year for our wedding. Needless to say that it's a 5 stars hotel and it was so cool. Huge resort, a lot of walk but we enjoyed to walk to go to the beach and coming back to our room was a pleasure and we used to go the pool after the sea to take another drink in the pool.

We were very pale when we arrived in Mexico but we worked hard on that and now everybody seems so white to us back at home... lol !

Finally arrived at the hotel at 14h30 and we immediatly went to change in bathing suit and run to see the sea !! It was so cool finally being there after daydreaming about this travel for months !!!! I ran into it and finally felt in "vacation" and that last for 3 weeks.

Then we spent our time between having fun, meeting new friends, take cool colored drinks and enjoy the sun and the sea...

There are a lot more to say and must talk to you about our little aventure to Tulum Mayan site, that was awesome, stay tuned for part 2 soon enough !

Tuesday's travelling

You all know my great interest in travelling all around the world and since I am looking to do 2 trips 'til the end of the year I thought about making a weekly chronicle about cities in the world that I would like to see one day or another...

Today to inaugurate the whole thing I will talk to you about Colmar, France which I will visit in December. If you follow the "Tour de France" they just went through the city a few days ago and it's a beautiful city.

Colmar by night

Colmar is in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace (northeastern France). It is situated along the Alsatian Wine Route and considers itself to be the "Capital of Alsatian Wine"

Along the Alsatian Wine Route...

Colmar have a great history as in Alsace they are right next to Germany and Sweden. It was firth founded in the 9th century. It was granted the status of free imperial city of the Holy Roman empire in 1226. Then during the "Thirty Years'War", in 1632 the city was taken by Sewden armies and they helds the city for 2 years. In 1697, under LouisXIV the city was then conquered by France. In 1871 another annexion, after the Franco-Prussian War, Alsace is now part of the newly form German Empire. And finally it's returned to France after World War I in 1945.

Little Venice

Colmar is 64 kilometer from Strasbourg (which I will talk about in another chronicle) and directly to the east of the Vosge moutain. The secret of region for wine it's the perfect climate they have...about 550mm of annual precipitation, the driest city in France.

I will keep some interest point to talk about when I will be back from the city myself... ;)

View Larger Map

Spain part 4 : Barcelona

Yes it is the last city of my trip to Spain last month... it's now a month ago that I came back to real life and I miss the time I spent over there so much and my BF much more...

(Talking about BF, it's our 7th year anniversary on today ! Love you baby... xoxox)

Okay here about Barcelona : we rent an hotel room just next to the ocean, it was pretty fun to walk by the ocean. We had great temperature again, but we feel in the air it was closer to fall as the night were cold. An interesting point is that the other city where all about Picasso and Barcelona is all about Gaudi. It was refreshing to see another artist work. His masterchief (still incomplete) is the Sagrada familia Church. We can talk about a very long contruction time... it all began in 1882. Gaudi works on the church design and construction for over 40 years and he spent the final 15 years of his life only working on it. The church is planned to be done in 2026 (yes 144 years to achieve it) 100 years after Gaudi's death. It only have stopped aroung 1926 during Spanish civil war and the architects worked really hard to respect Gaudi original design even though some of his worked have been destroyed by Catalan anarchists.

The Church will have a total of 18 towers representing the 12 Apostles, the Four Evangelist, Virgin Mary and tallest one Jesus Christ. Really this Church worth the sight !

After we also visited another Gaudi creation : Park Güell. I was a bit tired to walk a lot in the park but it was beautiful. Sculptures, trees and flowers everywhere.

Casa Baltiò (also Gaudi's work)

The arena where the Corrida is held in Barcelona

So here we are at the end of my superb trip in Spain with my BF. Already a month ago, I cannot believe how fast time is flying these days. Hopefully the fastest the time pass, the close I am to be with my BF again !

Knitting now : I cast on for a new treat yesterday and it's SO much fun I can't stop knitting on this. Have to say I waited so long to order the yarn I am pretty excited just by playing with it and it holds his promesses.

I'm talking about Lady Eleanor from Scarf Style I received for my birthday and Noro Silk Garden yarn in color 272. I made it only 6 square wide instead of 7.

Yes green again but at least it's not ONLY green... ;)

I have already 2 skeins knitted and I bought 8. I will see after 4 if I'll order more (Noro yarn are again on sale on Yarn and fiber cie website this website).

Spain part 3 and a little knit

Yes I am quite late in my travel description I know... :) Since it's not a month I'm back it's still ok to talk about it again.

Location number in our travel in Spain : Madrid. Such a beautiful city... I can close my eyes and think about it for a very long time. Madrid is really a cool city to visit by foot, we rent an appartment about 5 minutes of walk away from Plaza Mayor, one of the greatest attraction or Madrid. That was fun not being in another hotel but in a place that feels a little more like home and provided an internet access as well.

We use all the bit of spanish we knew to be understood and ask our way around. The best tool we had was the Lonely Planet guide for Madrid, for sure wherever I may go in the future I will definitly get one of those ! They are small, handy and very useful to find interests points, a good restaurant or habits of the locals (like what time to go to restaurant or where to go depending on day or time).

We are such experts at reading the map that we kept on getting lost around the town and discovering some amazing stuff but not really the stuff we were heading to. The best one is when we were trying to go to Plaza Mayor on the first day. We turned on left instead of right on the "main street" and we walked the other side for like 20 minutes and then we kind of realize that we were not exactly going in the right direction and we had to pratice our spanish a bit. If you had seen the look on her face when we asked her for direction. She probably thinked, what are those crazy tourists... Finally we gave up on walking that time and took a little taxi ride to Plaza Mayor...

Here a picture of me on the morning to Plaza Mayor

Then we walked and walked to look at all the lovely building and statues. We also went to Museo del Prado to look at some major painting of Picasso and some cool statues again. And to Museo del Reina Sophia (or something like that, have to check for the right name) anyway to my Museum with a major painting : Guernica, totally crazy this painting is so much for their culture in Spain.

Another focal point is the Palacio

The inner court ...

The outside and his park

Another thing we think was funny, on the last night in Madrid we head out of restaurant around 1 o'clock in the morning and there was people everywhere !!! Kiddo with their parents, tourist, couple, bunch of friends, it's was a long week end and evrybody was out in the middle or the night in the streets. So strange for us but it was really fun to see it !

Here a pic of the crowd and the cool building (a theater)

But the thing I miss the most about Madrid is my BF, Mr. Wonderful !

Here the knit part... yesterday I was looking for stash busting project and found the Vine lace baby hat on Knitting daily.

Here the little cutie ...

Specs.

Pattern : Vine lace baby hat on Knitting daily by Interweave knit

Needles : 3.5mm Bamboo DPN

Size : 3-6 months

Yarn about 0.15 skein of Noro Kureyon Sock in color S150 (left over from my Pomotamus socks)

I only have to wash it and block, but I can of like the look of it just the way it is...

Note : I did not make this hat for any other reasons that the pattern is tooooo cute !!! and I will have enough yarn left to make matching booties in the next few days to use the yarn. I also made a commitment to myself try to use my leftovre of sock yarn as soon as possible. I will be enough unisex to be use for my future baby maybe... who knows... The pattern is easy and fun to knit, just have to pay attention to YO because I missed some and have to rip 2 rows, that was not fun with Noro sock yarn... but I do survive and love the result. Unfortunatly I have no baby to model so I use yarn, my only baby for now after all.

Good night for now and stay tuned for last city visited : Barcelona and for sure more knit !

Spain part 2 and a right sleeve !

Hello !

Now let's talk about our second stop in Spain : Marbella, one of the cutest beach resort city I have seen. Life seems to be cool and relax in that place of the globe and I feel like I would stay there for all the sunny season ! We spent 3 days in Marbella including transportation by bus from and to Malaga for our connection to other destinations.

Marbella is a city of around 115 000 inhabitant. Like in the rest of Spain, economy is hard for tourism related industry and there are a lot of empty restaurant at night. But the terrasses were almost all full in the Old city where we were lodging. The motto of the city is "A way of life" and I can tell that I can adjust to that life for sure ! It's kind of the "St-Tropez" of la Costa del Sol in Spain. There are plenty of artist and rich people who crossed those streets. Back to Orange Square, or "La Plaza de los Naranjos", as it is called in Spanish, expect to meet with stately buildings, small shops, art galleries, bars and bistros and is a hub of activity day and night.

You can also take a walk on the Avenida del Mar where you can find classy restaurant, bar, and concrete skycraper just a few step away from the sea. Marbella coastline is 26km long. We tried some restaurants with the most delicious seafood at night for dinner and fabulous tapas for the lunch (to be enjoyed with a cold beer).

The beach is perfect and here you can see me in the water (really cold!)

Night at the restaurant

The sand alligator

Truly, I wish I could go back soon in this beautiful place and spend a lot of time sleeping under the sun, shoping in the shop all around and enjoy good meal everynight !

Now about knitting...

I have finish my right sleeve, yay for me ! I did not spend that much time on knitting this week, first week back to work is always a bit crazy and everyone is asking about the travel and want to go lunch with you and since you can't say no you finish by spending way too much time at lunch and you have to finish your day later... ouf. Viva la vida loca ! It's fun to be appreciate at work but it's a lot of work too ! haha !

I still enjoy the pattern a lot, the yarn and the combinaison of both seems to work great. Size is good. I am really proud of this work, all thoses littles stitches all together to form a sweater that's so cool. I love knitting ! As I lengthened the body, I am doing the same with the sleeve. I only have some trouble with my imagination to imagine all those part combining for the yoke... we'll see soon.

Look at the beast it is closer and closer to be a sweater now ! With a second sleeve it will be better for sure, so back to work on it !