WE ARE BACK BABY

Bread in France

Bread and Pastries in France

Heart shaped bread
for Valentine's Day.

Gallette des Rois

In France, bakeries are everywhere.  When you are in a bakery, it seems like the actual stores is made of bread, as there's so much bread everywhere.  Although you can purchase bread in a supermarket, you really want to go to a bakery, as the bread is amazing.  Bread is not that expensive in France. For instance, a baguette costs 85 centimes.



Severin's birthday cake (with family)

It wouldn't be fair, but I could
post photo after photo of our
favorite desserts.

All bakeries sell different types of bread and pasteries.  Recently, we purchased a dessert that I like to call "chocolate delight."  Is was amazing.  My favorite pastry or dessert is called l'africain, while Dorian loves anything with chocolate.bakeries

Mmmm, Mmmm, goodness!

Pain au Chocolat

I usually go to a bakery while walking home from school, as they are all within walking distance from our apartment.

I posted a short video and photos of the various bakeries within a short walk from our apartment, below.      
                     



We purchase baguettes here

while walking home from school.

We actually go to this bakery for

their chocolate.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

This bakery has amazing Pain D'epices

Dorian LOVES
the chocolate bread we get here.

Television in France

In the mornings, we sometimes
watch music videos.

The difference between French television and American television is that French TV takes American shows and then records all of the voices in French.  Although we do watch some shows in French, including each morning, we watch the "top 10"music videos for the day, we found a way to turn some of the shows into the original English language.  When we miss home the most, we watch TV in English.



French TV is in, well, French

In France, we have found that only Disney and Disney+1 are the same types of channels as we have in the States.  All of the rest of the stations, like W9 and M6 are French and only have a few shows that are made or produced for American television.  I am happy to say that they show Clone Wars, Sponge Bob, Shake It Up, Good Luck Charlie and Mickey Mouse.  It is too bad that they only have old shows, but is is good to see American TV.



We can change some shows from
VF to VO.

When we go to the movies, we sometimes watch the film in "VO" or "VF."  VO means "Version Original" and VF means "Version Francaise."  Sometimes there are subtitles in French, or in English.

We do rent movies from a place called Video Futur and we turn the movies into VO so we can watch in English.  We tried to use NetFlix in France, but it is blocked.  We also tried to watch online versions of NBC, ABC and CBS, but the shows are blocked on the Internet.

See you!
Dorian


The Lille Tram

The Lille Tram




Map of the stops around Lille



The Tram approaches

The tram always has a BUNCH of people on it but only when school is done because the high school kids always take the tram. We can see the tram from our apartment deck but also Friday afternoon has the most people of all.







Standing next to
the Metro map

The tram travels all over Lille and the area, including from Lille Flandres to Roubaix and Tourcquoing.

We travel in Lille when we can so we normally go to Lille Flandres but we also take a train in Lille Europe.
To travel, you need a zap ticket. For two stops, it costs 70 centimes. A regular ticket is 1,40 euros.

My most memorable tram ride was when we took the tram to the end of the tracks when it was raining and we had nothing to do. It was a fun ride.



Watching a tram fly by

To learn more about the Lille tram, visit:

• http://uk.transpole.fr/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lille_tramway

Purchasing tickets from the machine






Have great travels!

Severin & Dorian

All the countries we’re going to visit in 2012!

2Blog: All the countries we're going to visit in 2012!

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Oh, the Places We'll Go in 2012!

We’re planning on visiting 12 different countries in 2012. The countries include: France, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, England, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, the United States, and (drumroll) Bosnia & Herzegovina! And hopefully we can go to Austrian Alps.  (For those of you counting: there are only 11 listed, so stay tuned!)

The country I am looking forward to visiting is Switzerland because we’re going to go hiking, plus we will visit my "Swiss Grandparents," Eddie and Ruth.

We also have some special visitors that will travel with us to a few countries.  My dad is visiting from home for two months, and will visit Spain, Switzerland, France and Italy.  My cousins, Connor and Dillon, will travel in Belgium and through France with my family.  And, we hope to visit some of my mom's students when we travel through Spain. 

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Can't wait to visit
Leelanau County!

There are many amazing things to do in each country, however, I look forward to exploring each area with my family, looking at the sights, and hiking through all of the villages.  

With all of the travelling through Europe, I most look forward to visiting our land in Michigan this summer.   ------------------------------>

See you soon,

Severin & Dorian

February 15, 2012. Lille, France.


Well, Wednesday in France...

Wednesday is a time to celebrate that you don't have school and a time to make up for art, any sport, music or any other things you don't have at a French school.


One fun fact is the law that the primary school is off on Wednesday changed in 2007.


On Wednesday Sev does art in the morning, we both do gymnastics at noon and Sev also does guitar from 5:00 to 6:00 in the evening.


This is what we do at school - we write, we do a tiny bit of art, we write, we write (WOW! We write alot!) we do some gym, some theater, write about math, some English.  We also walk to school.  We come home for lunch for an hour and a half. We usually go home by ourselves because our mom can't pick us up.  In France they have a big lunch instead of our big dinner so that's why we can go home for lunch.

Severin & Dorian

Valentine's Day 2012

This the first test to see how Blogger works.  We can add text, photos and videos.  

It is the goal of the 2BrosInTheWorld to update everyone on the travels in and around Europe.

Yesterday, it was Valentine's Day.  We picked up our father from the airport, had a great dinner and have started to live life in France.

Je t'aime

I would love to have a mustache like this!