Here’s my big hello from Amiens, France! We’ve been here for a week now, and things have been pretty interesting/exhausting/exciting. I’ve been dying to tell you about it.

First of all, this city is pretty awesome. It’s a lot smaller than Angers (where we use to live in France), and it has quite a different look and feel to it. For starters, every building seems to be brick instead of the typical white buildings that France seems to love so much. I’m not sure if it’s because we’re in a different region or because there was so much damage done during the wars, but it certainly makes the city seem much tougher, even though it’s probably not (because a city can’t really be tough, right?). There’s quite a few canals and the it seems like there are so many things to see and do.

More from our time in Amiens: Cathédrale d’Amiens / La Cathédrale en Couleurs / La Grande Rederie / Les Hortillonages

So far we’ve managed to check out the exterior of the cathedral, which is apparently twice the size of Notre Dame in Paris, but we have yet to venture inside. We’ve also gone to several restaurants in town – some good, some not that great – and we’ve located the central pedestrian shopping district. Of course, we’ve also had to determine where the best grocery shopping was, and I’ve done some research as to where the markets are held. There are several markets, one covered, and they’re all located right near the rink.

Marc’s team found us a little 2 bedroom house to live in with an awesome kitchen (and a dishwasher!!), but even though I know it’s going to be a great place to live in the end, it’s been a bit of a nightmare from the beginning. We’ve had a bit of a bug problem that we’re still in the process of dealing with, and the house was really not prepared for renters – meaning it was considerably dirty and, even for a furnished apartment, it was loaded with “stuff”. So we’ve been staying at a hotel on and off for the past week, and we’ve been busy cleaning things out, making the house live-able and stocking up on things we need for the season.

I’m hoping we can have everything sorted out by the end of the week, so we can get settled into our new home and really explore Amiens. In the meantime, I’m pretty grateful that the hotel has free wi-fi because our house won’t have it for at least a few more days. There’s always a bright side.