How Bizarre!

As we search for an apartment in France, I find this song on repeat in my head... and oooo baby, it's making me crazy!

In the US, when you rent an apartment, it (as far as I have ever seen) comes with standard appliances. Yes, you may opt to add a dishwasher/washer/dryer and sometimes, on rare occasions, you may need to get a refrigerator but most other appliances come standard. In fact, nice apartment buildings now come standard with dishwashers/washers/dryers and even workout facilities! Our last apartment building in Jersey City had all of that (NOT TO MENTION a pool, a sauna, and a full volleyball court).

Well, here it is not the case. The apartments come with some counter space and a few cabinets and that's it. You need to buy everything! So it is very weird to walk in a kitchen and see it completely bare. Or, we go and visit a place that people are still living in and when we ask what comes with it.... nothing. They have provided all their own appliances. I can not seem to get over this.

Upon walking into these kitchens, I get this big grin creeping across my face every time. It doesn't cease to amuse me... this whole naked kitchen business. I guess it is a good way for the owners to keep the renters in the apartments. I am already dreading moving out of the apartment I haven't even moved into yet, because I am imagining unhooking all these appliances and lugging them to our next destination.

Is the whole appliances included concept unique to America? Before I was asking, "Does it have stainless appliances?" Now, I am asking, "Does it have a stove?"

Regardless, I am excited to hopefully have a place very soon. I have been nomadic in recent months and am looking forward to getting an apartment and all the fun that comes with that. Especially now, while I am taking my French lessons and not working, it is the perfect time to enjoy making the apartment feel like a home. I am excited to decorate, to unpack my suitcases, and mostly, (big sigh of relief) to cook!!!!!!

I have lost weight without having a kitchen (my pants are all falling off) so some good has come out of it, but I so miss cooking. I miss my plates, my pots, my pans, my blenders and mixers, my muffin trays, and having food around me when I'm hungry. I miss being surrounded by freshly baked muffins. I miss trying new recipes and cooking our favorites, too. I miss being able to sit at the table with my man enjoying a meal together while we watch our favorite shows. Mmmm.... I'm getting hungry just thinking about it!

In the meantime, I have compiled a list of so many recipes I can't wait to cook! I sent my mom these recipes and she said, "Wow, you must really have nothing to do!" I have been perusing cooking sites, other blogs, and reading the food section of the New York Times online. As soon as I try these recipes and am satisfied with them, I'll be sure to share them with all of you!

Until then, the search for a naked apartment continues...


*P.S. I have included pictures of what I want to eat right now!!!

Vanilla cake with chocolate chips inside, topped with chocolate frosting and strawberries.

Chocolate chip cookies with jumbo chocolate chunks!

Veggies with a lot of spices over fish AND roasted over pasta!

lemon poppyseed muffins

coconut curry chickpea soup mmmm my favorite!

Does anyone have any favorite recipes they want to send me?  E-mail me: kaylanreaboold@gmail.com :)

Eurockeennes

This summer Belfort will come alive for the first few days of July when the Eurockeennes music festival arrives. Boy, am I excited!

Who wants to come visit!?

Tour de France: Paris

My love and I had a great weekend in Paris. It is a very romantic city, contrary to the hustle and bustle of NYC. I feel so blessed to have been able to go there and to enjoy wonderful sights, good food, and a truly magnificent time with my man. Merci!!!

                ...weekend in pictures :)

We took silly pictures.

and visited extravagant stores.

We rode bikes around the city.

and shared a sweet snack while sitting in front of the Eiffel Tower.

We saw Notre Dame.

and took pictures so we wouldn't forget.

We felt overwhelmed with all the beauty.

and in love with all the love at "Le Mur des Je t’aime" (where the words 'I love you' are written in over 300 languages)!

We visited Montmartre where the scene was out of a movie, complete with a man serenading us with his harp.

We got caught in the rain.

So we found some shelter and ate delicious crepes (mine with chocolate and banana).

We visited large, famous streets.

and small, quaint streets and took pictures of each other taking pictures.

We dined outside at a cute restaurant and enjoyed french food.

 

 

where I had candied croutons for the first time (and loved them)!

Come back tomorrow and see the pictures from my love's iPhone :) I think I'll combine his videos to make a video version of our trip to Paris, too!

                         See you soon, friends! :)

Flashback: NYC Love

Disclaimer: I did not find my love on the personal ads of craigslist, but I do thank craigslist for bringing us together.

It is true that I met my love in Brooklyn and... indirectly, I met him through craiglist! And, I think I will tell you all about it... it's not as creepy as it sounds.

I was living and working way out in Suffolk County Long Island. My company could have placed me anywhere in the country (because I agreed to that), but luckily, they placed me on the East Coast. I was happy about this arrangement because it was relatively close to home (in NJ) and because I had family in NY that I was never as close to as I'd hoped to be. I was living by myself in a one bedroom apartment. I had a Trader Joe's down the street. I had a membership to NYSC. I was pretty content until one day three months after finally moving and settling into my apartment, I got a promotion! Woo! This promotion meant that I would relocate to Seaford, NY which is in Nassau County and much closer to the city. I had always wanted to live in the city, and I knew this was my opportunity.

I was planning on moving to Queens because it is essentially part of Long Island. I was looking in Queens for a one bedroom and seriously having no luck. I lived in a really cute house in college, my previous apartment in Long Island, although small, had tile floors and granite counter tops... so I, admittedly, was a bit spoiled. My budget and my taste were not coinciding. I had spent days in Queens looking at apartments and countless hours on the internet searching, too. I was beginning to lose hope.

One weekend I was at home in NJ visiting my parents and there was a snow storm. We were watching the news and they showed Bedford Ave. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The hipsters were helping one another shovel and open their stores and cute cafes and a light bulb went off in my head. Duh! Brooklyn! Why hadn't I thought of that sooner? Sure, the commute was a little bit longer, but it would so be worth it.

I started looking at rent prices and was outraged at how expensive it was. I was thinking this plan wouldn't work out either. Until one day, I was clicking around on craigslist and found a link for rooms and shares and that is where I saw pictures of a building I didn't think could be real. I decided to call anyway. The next day I was driving to Brooklyn and giving a deposit for the most beautiful apartment. There was a little bit of drama with the sketchy broker (this is a happy story so I'll leave all that out), but in about a week, I was moving into my brand new, never before lived in, 5 bedroom duplex penthouse apartment with views of the Williamsburg Bridge, the Lower East Side, and the Empire State Building. The apartment had hardwood floors throughout, 2 full bathrooms, 3 balconies, and 1 massive terrace. It had an Italian kitchen with an island, marble counter tops, stainless steel appliances, a dishwasher, a washer machine and a dryer. The building had a gym open 24/7! I was over the moon. I had four new roommates, too!

As you can imagine, that's where my love comes in... it was not love at first sight. It wasn't a romantic dream from the get-go, but it didn't take long for me to know...

We signed the lease, divvied up the rent between us, and then went about deciding on room assignments. My love was the last person to respond to the broker's ad on craigslist so it was only fair that he had last choice. We had already agreed on who would be in each room before he arrived. He tells the story differently, but I swear, I'm sticking to the facts (wink wink) when I tell it my way!

My love wanted my room. I can't blame him. I had a private balcony, a big bedroom, and a great big window. He said the broker had told him that would be his room. I explained to him that I had already decided on this room and the other roommates agreed. I explained to him that I had a Queen-sized bed already and I didn't think it would fit in the room we intended to be his. He had just arrived in the USA so his accent was thicker than I can imagine now but he said, "Ze bed is ze problem? I will buy you a bed." I assured him that I was fine with the bed I already had, and I wouldn't budge. He was to take the room downstairs or we'd find someone who would. After a little arguing between the other guys and him, he agreed to taking the downstairs room (which really had a much nicer view, a bigger closet, and was downstairs where the bathrooms were).

So, as you can see, I wasn't too enthused with having him in the apartment. However, he ended up being a really nice guy when it came down to the whole moving in thing. We were constantly taking trips to IKEA, moving furniture, putting furniture together, etc. I am not too handy, and he was super helpful. We started to really bond while spending our evenings making dinner together, putting furniture together, arranging our rooms, then rearranging our rooms trying to get everything just right. We would go out together (with our other roommates) on the weekends, and I just quickly started to really like love him.

                                                  .....And, I still do (but WAY more)!


We will always have love in our hearts for NYC, because it's where our love story began. We didn't do too many touristy things while living in NY but when friends visited or when we had some extra time, we did our best to do that kind of stuff. (I've previously posted about our trips to the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Central Park. We also went to see the tree lit up at Rockefeller Center in December and with his brother and friend to Times Square - which New Yorkers actually loathe - See below!)

it's his big brother visiting from France!

his brother and friend

3 french men in NYC!

Everyday isn't a fairytale, but no one can put a smile on my face as fast as he can. They say you know you really love someone when you love them for all of them - when you love them even with their flaws - and that's how I feel about him. It's mektoub.

Off to Paris!

Ciao Friends!

I have two more hours of French lessons, and then I'm off to Paris with my love for the weekend.

This will be a great opportunity to practice my French. It will also be a great opportunity to drink espresso at a cafe like in the movies! :) The weather is supposed to be beautiful! It's been over 60 degrees the past two days, and (inch'allah) it will continue into the weekend!

I have been to Paris once before with my sister, but it wasn't exactly the most positive experience. First, it was FREEZING cold. Second, we stayed in the sketchiest hostel in the dirtiest part of Paris. Why we didn't run out of there upon entering is beyond fathomable to me now...!? What were we thinking? We didn't have any hot water. Our beds were chained to the floor. What class!

However, it wasn't all bad. We saw many great sights (including the Eiffel Tower), we ate great food, drank good wine, and danced the night away at a swanky club. I am looking forward to doing all of that again but this time in a nice hotel, with a little bit of French knowledge and a handsome French man at my side.

Au revoir for now! Have a great weekend! Come back and see my post about Paris next week!

                                                                               Bisous!
                                                                               Kaylan

MacBook Pro and its Cons.

I love my MacBook Pro. It seriously rocks. I take it everywhere with me. It's fast. It's user-friendly (once you get the hang of it). I don't have to worry about viruses like I did with my Dell. In college, I think I spent more time waiting for my computer to be fixed and dealing with computer issues than I did actually using my computer. That is no longer my issue now that I made the switch to a Mac. However, that has started a whole new issue for me...

My love and I both love our MacBooks. A traditional weeknight or weekend morning consists of us sitting on our separate MacBooks, sometimes with our headphones on. We like to catch up on our shows, watch the news, and watch clips of videos that interest us. We usually each have one hand on our MacBook and we hold hands with the free hand. So, it's not totally without affection that we're in bed like this, but it's starting to get on my nerves. If we don't both have our computers, then it's one computer between the two of us, and we're searching the Internet or watching TV together. Why is it that we automatically bring our computers to bed with us? I'm kind of missing those massive desktops we had in the past!

I think in the past, people went to bed with their books and newspapers, and now modern technology is changing this picture and it's Nooks, iPads, and laptops. Call me a hopeless romantic but after a long day of sitting in front of a computer, why do we spend our time together in front of our computers? I would love to come home and talk or cuddle or watch a movie on the television. It has become instinctive for us to take our computers to bed, and I want it to stop! I think I will make a rule - no computers after 10pm.

Does anyone else have this problem?

                                           P.S. Darling, I'm serious about this rule.

Spring is.. springing!

Spring hasn't completely sprung, but I can tell that it's getting close.

Today is sunny, warm and beautiful. I love these optimistic days, because I always find that people, like dormant animals, begin emerging from their homes. The streets seem to be bustling with energy. Especially in a quiet town like this one, it's nice to see some life!

And, because Spring is here and almost in full swing, I need to start eating lighter meals. It's easy, especially in France, to carb overload. I am so looking forward to moving into our apartment and being able to make my own meals, but until then, I will have to make do. C'est la vie! (It's life!)

My favorite quick and easy meal to make is a salad. I have found that what the French consider a "traditional" salad is very different from what I am accustomed to back home. However, no matter what kind of salad - you cannot go wrong with a salad. You can basically throw anything you have onto a plate and call it a salad. I enjoy playing with flavors and mixing fruits and veggies together in my salads.

This salad was super delicious! My mom inspired me with a recipe she'd sent me this morning to add mango to my salad. I didn't have all the ingredients she sent me but I made my own creation in the meantime! Try it, too! It's simple: lettuce (of your choice), tomato, avocado, mango, walnuts, and mint (adds such a nice burst of flavor!!) with my go-to vinaigrette (olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, salt and pepper).  Mmmmm!!!

What are your favorite ingredients to add to salads?

Tour de France: Mulhouse

Saturday afternoon my love and I took a short road trip to nearby Mulhouse. The downtown area not only has Zara, H&M, traditional French stores, but it also has 2 Subways!! Unfortunately, we had just eaten lunch followed by delicious Belgian waffles (mine with chocolate chips inside and his with Nutella on top) so we didn't get Subway. However, now that I know where to find a Subway and that I can hit Zara while I'm there, I'll definitely be back to Mulhouse very soon!

The sun was shining and the downtown was full of Spring-hopefuls like myself (although our actual reason for traveling to Mulhouse was to find me a warmer jacket!! :( booo!)

It was a very nice day, and I look forward to many more just like that (especially when I get gifts!!!). Kidding! Seriously though, being alone together is a gift in itself! I do enjoy all the time we have been spending with his family. Everyone is so nice to me, and I love getting to know them but I feel like our time together... alone... is very limited. I guess what is better about living this way is that we really get a chance to cherish the few moments we have alone together. We are more in love than ever these days. Sometimes I need to pinch myself! My heart is full, and I am happy.

before purchasing the warmer jacket - in my Zara Spring jacket that I just love!

me in my warmer jacket!

Be Grateful.

With all that is happening in this Crazy World, I think we should all take a moment to be grateful for what we do have... whoever said the grass is always greener on the other side hasn't seen this terribly devastating earthquake in Japan or the chaos that is an earthquake followed by sickness in Haiti or the mayhem in Libya or the political uproar that has been tainting Egypt this year. Whoever said that hasn't been to countries where food and/or water are scarce or to countries where education is a privilege and not a right. Whoever says that should walk a mile in someone else's shoes - perhaps even a someone who doesn't have shoes. I think it is about time we start being grateful for all the things we do have, because... maybe, just maybe... the grass isn't always greener on the other side...

                                                                xoxo Kaylan

Tour de France: Belfort

Train Station by night - Directly across from the Best Western Hotel Belfort, the beautiful and accommodating hotel which I am currently calling home or la maison

Lion of Belfort - made by the same sculptor that did the Statue of Liberty. 

View from the Fort at the top of Belfort (where the Lion of Belfort is located)

My first stop on my Tour de France is obviously Belfort because that's where I'm living; and I had to put my pile of suitcases somewhere! Belfort is a quaint town that is full of colors and rain. It rains a lot here, and when it's not raining, it's cloudy. However, I will say that this week, we were blessed with a few very sunny days that gave me the slightest glimpse of hope as to what Belfort will be like when it is Spring! The people were out on the streets and everyone was smiling. I couldn't tell you what they were saying, but by all the energy and the buzz, I could tell they were just as happy to see the sun as I was.


To be fair, it is a different lifestyle than I am used to so in my critiques, it is only the opinion of an outsider that grew up in a foreign culture. However, I must say that a few things are quite strange here. See below...

1. On Monday, I ventured out on the town only to find that the stores would not open until 2pm (I wonder what they do all morning).
2. Nothing (except for maybe 2 pizza places which are open until 10pm and a few kebab restaurants) is open after 8pm (I wonder how they make money). Don't say they see that they are losing out on so much business? I am not the only one crawling the streets at 8:30 looking for a place to get some food! I grew up where food stores are open 24/7 and pizza places are open until 2am. It is so strange to walk the streets and see every business closed. As I sat at the front desk of the hotel, I heard all of the guests checking in asking what restaurants were open, and the receptionist could give them only 2 options: pizza or kebab. Most opted to wait for the wonderful breakfast put on at the hotel! I see a business opportunity in Belfort... open a restaurant with many options and keep it open until midnight!
3. The last train stops at 7pm (I guess it's good for the hotel business).
4. I wonder if school is mandatory. I see kids walking around all day long.

Well, I think that's all I can think of for now, but I am sure there is plenty more where that came from... next stop on my Tour de France... still to be determined.

Until then, au revoir et a bientot! Bisous!

Back in Action!

I have neglected to blog for over three months now because life has been a bit crazy (hence the title of the blog). Let me catch you up!

Thanks to the wonderful and beautiful Katherine's hookup, my love and I rang in the New Year in high style at a swanky loft party in midtown NYC. I loved the chance to dress up, and I love seeing my man looking as handsome as ever in his suit, vest, and tie! He cleans up well! Unfortunately, I have ZERO pictures to share because we were having such a great time!

My wish for the New Year was simple: bliss. Maybe it's not logical or practical but I have been hoping and praying for a year that would be simple, painless, and blissfully happy. Last year, although full of many great memories, was a bit of a disaster. I was robbed. I moved twice. I changed my job's location yet again. I could go on... but on the positive, I was blessed with good health as was my family. I met the love of my life. My true friends became clear to me. Personally, I grew stronger.

Fast forward to March 2011 and I'm living in France. I am excited for what the future will bring. I will be sure to be a better blogger so I can keep my friends and family in the states in the know. By reading my blog, you can come on this journey with me as I stop wishing for bliss and start creating it.