Wow! What an intense couple of weeks! Yes you read this well… we went all the way to the other side of the world visiting our families (who some hasn’t seen us in years) for just 2 weeks (it actually came down to 12 days).
We planned our trip to France back in August 2018 for a flight in March 2019. We knew that by March, we would have changed home, changed work and therefore it wasn’t safe to go ahead and book more then a couple of weeks (starting a new job and having 3 weeks off planned doesn’t look great, but 2 is manageable). What I didn’t know is that by booking so far in advance and getting a really REALLY good deal on flight tickets, those prices doesn’t let you change your flight if you wanted to.
So between August 2018 and March 2019 what happened? We moved back to Cairns which you can find the article about it here: https://journeytofreedomsailing.com/2018/12/21/driving-back-to-cairns/
And that will explain our move, our intention behind it and how we managed to drive 1700km from Sunny Coast to FNQ in 2 separate cars and a baby on board.
Getting our life back again in Cairns, Fred started work and we found out that he was able to take 3 weeks off for our France trip, what did I do? I went to Flight Centre hoping to have our trip to France extended by a week. Terrible news… Singapore Airlines as much as they have fantastic deals when booked in advance, they are very strict and they would not let us change anything. We would have had to book complete new flight tickets at todays price, over $3000 for the 3 of us. NO WAY!… So sad for us and our families, but that was going to blow our budget big time!
France I love you…
What an amazing 2 weeks!
I can’t believe sometimes what I left behind me. So much beauty and history. No wonder people are surprised we left. Amazing sceneries and architectures, you can’t find anywhere else, wonders known and loved world wide.
Our parents thankfully live 10 minutes a part on the beautiful French Riviera. We then have family a little bit allover but we based our trip in the South of France at our parents and then moved around to visit the wider family and friends. Our main purpose of that trip during March (not the best time to travel to France, if you don’t like the cold) was my mothers 60th birthday… Yay! So we had family from Germany coming down as well for the big lunch (my mother is German).
We had a great time walking the coast in Cannes, Le Trayas and all different little marinas to watch the boats (little marinas… yeah, right! boats were amazing and the marinas far from being small. Sailing and/or yachting is a big thing in the Mediterranean). We loved looking at boats and probably visited 4 marinas during our trip. Sadly no pictures were taken when there… Hmmm! I really need to get more pictures of what we do and see, I am so bad, and Fred is even worse… Hahaha!
Restaurants after restaurants, good food and wine all the way, some amazing home cooking that we enjoyed all together with our families. It was such a great time. Short, but so good!
What are the meals we had to have while in France:
Tartare de Boeuf – One of my favourite! It’s a cold raw beef dish spiced up and usually served with french fries… Oh My God!
Paella – As much as it is not French, remember, we are on the French Riviera, the Mediterranean food has a culture that goes from Spain to Greece, to Turkey… It is a very wide culture.
Cassoulet – A popular French dish from the area of Carcassonne, South east France, made of white beans, 3 different pieces of pork, a piece of duck, all cooked in duck fat. It takes 2 days to create this dish, it’s an absolutely wonderful homy dish, very filling and very tasteful. Yummy!!!
Whole grilled fish – We have some amazing fish, I would not even know how to begin. The translation also is a little hard for me, as these fishes are from the Mediterranean, I know them only from France, therefore only in French. I love the simplicity it is cooked with lemon, tomato, herbs… And the fish has so much flavour.
Mussels in Mediterranean Tomato sauce – Another great and easy dish to execute but so flavoursome. Onion, garlic, fresh tomato, white wine, parsley… Another one of my favourite! Served with French fries.
French BBQ, cheeses and cured meats – The list goes on to all the food we ate, not even to mention all the wine we went through. France has such amazing produces, it is paradise for the foodie ones, like me.
… But you can seriously piss me off!
I remembered now why I left this beautiful country. Because of the people. They are all so stressed and always in a hurry to get anywhere. That’s just one of the reasons why we left for Australia, but this is not the place to talk about this.
We hired a car to make it easier moving from one family to another whenever we wanted. First day, Fred drives. After that day, I said to him I would not take the steering wheel for the rest of the trip. Why? People are crazy on the road. It’s already hard enough as it is to find your way around little one way streets, then you also have dum drivers literally driving in your car and being pissed off at you because you are too slow (and we were not slow). Anyway, just one little downside I guess!
Fly me to the moon
Singapore Airlines has a fantastic service. So so good with kids. My little man was small enough to fit in a bassinet, that was really handy, even though as soon as there are turbulences, you have to get the baby out and strapped back onto you, baby sleeping or not, so be prepared to have a crying baby because you wake him up. But William was such a good baby. We had so much fun in the planes and airports. It was always only towards the end of the trip to and from France when we were all tired that it started to be harder, that is to be expected.
Our trip was:
Cairns – Brisbane (2 hour flight)
Brisbane – Singapore (8 hour flight)
Singapore – Frankfurt (11 hour flight)
Frankfurt – Nice (1 hour flight)
We did have the option of flying Emirates through Dubai, we did that in the past, before having William, it was good and not so good. Yes you gain on time, you have one less stopover, and that might be something that you would consider better because you can handle long flights. But I didn’t have such a great experience with that flight, because I get bad legs, restless and sore. So we decided, and especially with William, to have more stopovers so we could walk around in airports.
Thank you for the oils I used
I also used supplements this time and my oils. My trip was so much more enjoyable, thanks to them. For restless legs, I took Gingko and started just with one tablet a day a few days prior departing. I literally had no issues with my legs all the way. I am not mentioning the use of contention socks that are super tight, that’s totally common sense and I use them on every long flight.
The oils I used on William:
Balance blend – throughout the whole trip, to help him stay grounded.
Lavender Peace blend – a great calming blend I also use, just before sleep time.
OnGuard blend – That’s a protective blend I started to use on him and myself, whenever we walk out of the house, to protect us from potential viruses and other bugs out there.
I then also had a variety of oils with me as I use them all the time in many different ways. So it was normal to take them with me:
Citrus oils – I use them in water all the time, first for flavouring but then also for the great benefits of ingesting these oils. It helps in supporting the immune system, having a healthy respiratory system, to obtain antioxidants, to aid the digestive system.
Peppermint – it helps calm any head tensions, just by massaging my head with it. It also helps keep the body temperature down, when I start to get warm.
Ice Blue – for any aches and pains, especially the lower back after sitting for so long in the plane, it eases off the pain with a hot feeling to the area, like tiger balm.
Women blend or elevation blend – for throughout the day, to help me go through any emotional moments I was going through and there were a lot.
Clary Sage – to ease the pain in lower abdomen… no need to explain why?!
All in all, we had a ball! Just loved our trip, and William got to meet his family. Short but sweet and coming back with great memories. Promises I made in the past and I trust my words this time better now since we have a baby, I want him to see his family more often, we will be travelling back to France sooner then later. A promise a keep not just for me and Fred but for our little man William.
Journey to Freedom Sailing 