[A signed lease.]
[More celebration of our signed lease.]
[Ferney at night.]We signed our lease yesterday! It is official, we will be moving to Thoiry on April 17th. Our landlord was nice enough to drive into Ferney last night for us to sign our lease at a cafe rather than forcing us to tempt the fate of the "Y" bus to make it into Thoiry at a reasonable hour. I apologize for the lack of posts lately - it's been a busy time and believe you me, despite my camera's best attempts at thwarting my efforts I've been able to document much of it. I promise I will catch up on posts soon...
But what is this you say?
"You transgress!"
Right, sorry. On to St. Patty's Day!!!
[Yours for 6,20 € a pop!] 
[Even the French are a little Irish today...well, the ones at least who knew it was St. Patty's Day...]
[A Kilkenny for Ang.]For all of my Kuperstein and Duggan relatives who were afraid that Dan and I would miss the opportunity to celebrate our Irish heritage on St. Patty's Day while in France, fear not - an irish bar around the corner from us called Paddy's Pub solved that problem! There was Guiness, big green hats, an irish band in an outdoor tent, and drool-worthy Guiness Beef Stew. We unfortunately could not wear our matching green "Duggan" polo shirts to commemorate the date, as we were afraid that our landlord might change his mind about renting to us if we showed up as twinsies. That doesn't mean we won't make other opportunities to rock out in them though.
This week we've been hard at work checking out apartments in Thoiry, and thanks to the unseasonably cold weather (20's - 30's), tardiness/absence of the "Y" bus, and high winds (40 mph) I am now feeling under the weather...again. Ugh. Dan has ordered me to catch a break, but the forces that be aren't allowing my immune system to comply. We have had a lot of fun though going into different places and seeing what french rentals have to offer. So far we've seen 6 places - of which 4 have been really old and lovely, one looked like a converted garage, 2 offered coffee after the tour (one of which lasted for 3 hours), and one was a converted windmill with a natural waterfall running down the side of the building (see last picture above). Some have been furnished with 300 year old antiques, all but one have had the toilet in a different room than the shower (customary here), 2 have had caves, 1 has had a moat, 1 had a Great Gatsby looking back yard for lawn parties, and two would come completely unfurnished i.e. no fridge, stove or light fixtures. We've been mulling things over for a bit and I think we've come to a decision, but I won't ruin any surprises or jinx anything yet, because just because we've decided that we like one better than the rest doesn't mean it's still available. Fingers and toes crossed!!! 
[Cowbells.]
I think it's safe to say that Thoiry is the most gorgeous place I've ever been to. Ever. I expected Hansel and Gretal to come skipping down the little main road to meet their fate at that scary old lady's house in the woods. Thoiry is a little mountain village in the Jura Mountains, and I'm counting down the days until we can go back on Sunday. We had a wonderful Valentine's Day shopping the market, meeting up with friends, eating pan au chocolate and apartment hunting. We also had some lunch with said friends who are fortunate enough to live in this too-adorable-for-words-town for a little lunch at their beautfiul apartment (in a 300+ year old farmhouse!). We looked at 2 places to possibly rent in Thoiry, both of which were completely beautiful. One came with a garden, a moat and a cave. Yes, a cave. I'd rather leave it super cool and have all of you thinking we could possibly have a cave in France as an amenity of our future possible lease, however this actually translates in English to "cellar." Psha. I don't speak French yet so I'm happy to refer to it as our maybe-soon-to-be-cave. The second place we went to visit was a defiinite change from what I'm used to in terms apartment hunting in that it turned into a three hour soiree with our hostest with mostest. She showed us the apartment (which was above her beautiful home full of beautiful antiques), and then offered the four of us coffee and galette, and stories abounded! As we found ourselves still talking to this older French woman as we appraoched hour three and were standing almost completely in the dark, we took our leave and made our way back to the car. We had such a wonderful day and I hope it works out that we end up finding a place in Thoiry - fingers crossed!