GO AUSTRALIA!!

Plenty more to come (rugby, camping, climbing, gorges, climbing mountains with Ma and Pa Steggles, etc etc.....)

Karaoke Biarritz

Renu - How could we pass through another country without doing karaoke! Nathan 'wowed' the audience with Madonna's 'Material Girl'. The karaoke host (male) was trying hard to pick Nathan up - he was very disappointed when he realised I was his wife!




Nathan - What can I say, as Spearhead says "everyone deserves music, sweet music" and that night everyone got their just desserts. Notice the look of fear in my face; if you knew that you sounded that bad, you'd be afraid too, very afraid!
Renu - And I drew the short straw and had to sing in French 'Tout le bonheur du monde' - it was tres difficile!! But I then backed up with a rendition of 'Call me' with Sandrine (our french teacher) which won many accolades (bien sur) and free tickets to our next destination - a Biarritz nightclub...... (we returned home at about 5am, I was a very bad student the next day in french class - but it was ok because I was partying with the teacher - yay!).
In the photo below you will see Daniel from Texas (Hi Daniel! Are you a spy? We think you are way too calm all the time. How did you go with the rest of the course?), Friend of Sandrine, Sandrine (our french teacher) and the best singer/entertainer on the planet, moi!
Nathan - I think it's only fair if you teach someone a song in French, then you take them drinking and sing it with them in a Karaoke bar - and that's what Sandrine did! We also learnt a Yanik Noah song in class AUSTRALIANS; can you believe Yanik Noah is a doped out famous French singer now and not a bad one at that. Unfortunately we couldn't find that one to sing as well.
A note for travellers - When a French person ie. SANDRINE asks you what is under the Scotsmen's kilts at the next table, don't tell them/her. She will not only lift the kilts to make sure (and believe me it's as bad as you think), she will also repeat the offense if her friend (middle in photo above) had missed it!!!! Lucky for us the Scots are a proud breed:) and we lived to tell the tale. Sandrine; we've heard of boys lifting girls skirts but its not meant to be the other way around - Only in Biarritz.

Xavier Rudd in Biarritz

We missed him playing in Aus because of work, but now we don't work :) - so we wandered down to the beach in Biarritz to the Rip Curl Surf Concert. Il etait fantastique!! (and we are enjoying our early retirement)

Surfing Biarritz

My surf teacher agreed heartily with Nathan - 'never teach surfing to your partner'
So I can officially surf now - all I needed was french men saying 'look the sky, look the sky, now stand up, tres bien!'
And I was always the last out of the water - cowabunga!

Notre famille a Biarritz

Here is our host family in Biarritz. We lived with them for 2 weeks and they made us a part of their family. We were so lucky to meet such wonderful people. We had long conversations at the dinner table, went bowling and to the movies with them and all the time they only spoke French, (we should have given them our course fees :) (just joking Sandrine d'Aubergine!). They were fantastic - very open minded and fun.

For those who don't know, we did a french and surf course for 2 weeks as soon as we arrived in France and stayed with a french host family the entire time. We would strongly recommend this experience to everyone - really once in a lifetime!! For us we were lucky to meet the people we did. Sandrine our crazy funny teacher/friend (see other post for antics), our family and all our other classmates, friends of teachers, friends of Karaoke goers etc., but even if you were unlucky with the people you met, it would still be a great time:)

Katia (host mum) is an artist and her very cool artworks are all around the house. Andre (host father) is very bright and chatty with the characteristic Parisian accent and thousand mile an hour pace. Anais (daughter) is really fun and at the moment is learning Japanese at uni in Bordeaux and engaged to be married next year. Mikhael (son) is studying law which is a smarter choice than bowling (just kidding he beat Nathan at least!). Alexia (daughter) is bubbly too and we had a great time chatting away but unfortunately did not get to talk much because we think she was working night shift work (or partying very hard every single night). What to say, Katia's mum and all the family even those who only spoke Spanish were so friendly and welcoming, we were really sad to leave. But hopefully we will all meet again some day.... (despite Katia's fear of water and Andre's fear of flying).

ये हमारा french family है। हम इनके साथ र्किठे ठे थो हफ्ते के लीये। ये बहुत अच्छे लोग हैं। हम बहुत बाथ करते ठे french मे। हम french school करते ठे रोज ओर फिर हम इनके साथ खाना करते ठे और बहुत बाते।

Beautiful view from our window - very peaceful