Monthly Archive for March, 2007

We got our caaaaar!!!

Published
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Tryphoon
on March 7, 2007
in Californication
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After a long day of phone calls yesterday and stress and other things, Sarah has secured the car and its delivery at our local bank today (isn’t it fantastic?)

The result? The Nissan Murano SL is ours! Insurance is paid (it even seems I am insured to drive it) and Sarah finally has her “Yummy Mummy” car!

We so love it that once Thia was in bed, we (sad people) both had to go back to the car and try all the its gadgets. It seems to be a breeze to drive, the built-in sound system is a Bose and sounds great and Thia has enough space at the back to run a marathon! What else can we possibly ask for?

We are happy puppies (especially Sarah who has now said goodbye to our rental car nicknamed “The Tank”)!

They killed Captain America!!!

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Tryphoon
on March 7, 2007
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Can you believe this?

I have been here for a mere month and one of the long standing American figure is sent ad patres!

Well, let me rewind a bit. New place, new rules… Part of our routine at the office is to go every Wednesday to the local comics book shop and buy our load of super heroes adventures for the week.

The place is entertaining, packed with grown ups (where where I grew up, kids would buy Strange, Spidey and the rest), most of them talking shops while patiently queuing to pay for their 5-10 comics, wrapped in a brown paper bag, often joined by a pack of transparent protectors for potential future collectible value. As we are in the middle of Hollywood (the place we make movies, not the various neighborhoods of LA), this place seems as well to be a good gossip zone as everybody seems to be discussing the next project they are working on.

So, this week ,the shop seemed to be a bit more packed than usual (I might be wrong) and several people seemed to be disappointed as they couldn’t get their hand on one of the latest release of some sort.

It is only after having reached the office back and received a couple of news update that I understood that Captain America WAS DEAD!!! USA Today was talking about it, Howard Stern was talking about it. Everybody seems to have been touched by the death of the guy with the big shield and the star on it… Stunt from the publisher or not, the issue is sold out and eBay is going to be the only place to find issue 25 of Civil War soon! :)

Now, could this happen in France? What would happen if Super Dupont was shot by a Baguette in the head? Could Asterix be killed by Ceasar? Or would we then simply lose our identity and gallic charm altogether?

Bof, bof bof is the only thing I can think of…

Sarah is a legal driver

Published
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Tryphoon
on March 6, 2007
in Californication
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Great news… Today, Sarah passed her driver’s license test… Well, the US one… :)

So now Sarah is a genuine, official, legal alien Californian driver! Congratulations!

This adds as well the ability for us to purchase our car and get it hopefully by tomorrow (which is funnily enough the last day of our car rental as well). Oh, not mentioning the fact that we can get this new car insured as well, which we will need if we look at the way some of the guys drive here! No wonder, as I was told that you only need 5-6 lessons before you can get your license!

At the same time she passed her test, Sarah collected my Social Security card (a simple piece of paper, nothing big) which means that I am next in the driving school lane. God help us!

We have received our sofas

Published
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Tryphoon
on March 5, 2007
in Californication
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I can’t seem to remember if I already mentioned this, but a couple of weeks ago, we ordered a set of sofas for our Eilinita home. Not that we don’t like our old sofa from London any longer, but the main issue is that it would have looked like a kid’s toy in the middle of our new living room, simply due to habitat size differences between London and California…

The whole ordering process was an experience in itself. We first had to drive to the the middle of nowhere (if there is a nowhere in LA), far beyond any place we visited so far. We then met with the sofa company owner, Mr “one eye” Pablo Carpio. Great character telling us that he can create almost anything… We then gave him the pictures of the Selfridges catalog (or was it Peter Jones) and after a short pause, he announced us a price that we simply couldn’t believe (beating Ikea pricing to death).

The next step was for Sarah to try to give Pablo the size of the sofa, while I was trying to catch Thia running between a fish tank and several sofas.

We European tend to use centimeters (vs. inches) and the poor guy had a brief moment of panic when we gave him the size… Once we realised that we had to divide everything by 2.54 to make it match his standard unit system, things changed rapidly and agreement was reached!!! Down-payment was made and delivery date discussed.

So there they are, less than 2 weeks later, with our tailored made, hand made, home delivered by Mr Pablo himself fantastic sofas.

The man took great pride in his work but we must admit that he really can. The work is impeccable, the quality of the finish is stunning and the comfort of the sofas beats anything I put my delicate bum on… All we need now is the rest of the furniture and our new TV to be moved into our new palace (HD cable TV was installed at the same time that sofas were delivered).

Thanks to Mr Pablo for the quality of the service and thanks to Yvonne for the tip…

Life just got upgraded to 3.0

Published
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Tryphoon
on March 4, 2007
in Tryphoon
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We’ve made it! We are state side! For those who follow us on this site little brother, “Californication”, you know all about it and almost everything that has happened to us since we arrived here!

Life here is great so far and I am welcoming the change from “Toilet City”…

I must however admit that the last month has been pretty intense, both physically and emotionally.

Leaving London has been much harder than I would have ever expected (well, I should have guessed, after 8 years over there) and even the great weather, the beach and all the new things here don’t prevent me of missing my old friends (especially my little brother over there, Jef) and my old habits (My local pub, the Frog, my buddies at night at Smollys and the walks in the various parks with Thia, the 606, Fulham & Chelsea).

A new life, a change is always hard but this one seems to have been harder than for life 1.0 (Paris) and life 2.0 (London)…

It is however for the god cause, or at least I like to think it is. Thia can have a garden, Sarah can stay at home, look after the family and enjoy the sun and I hope that career wise, this will pay in the long run.

But right now, I feel a bit lonely, despite all the good efforts made by everybody around me/us… It’ll pass with time (and with a driver’s license) I am sure!

So here we are, trying to adapt to the new lifestyle, the new places and the new faces, finally finding time to check back in here, while heavily blogging on the other part of the site to keep friends and family up to date!

Please stay tuned and be patient

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