Our Family’s (2nd) Year in the South of France

Traveling to Europe with a family of 4 is not cheap under any circumstances, but the last week of August is particularly “tres cher”. And when you’re trying to do something as unusual as not coming back within a couple of weeks, it apparently gets even more complicated.

Denise saved us again with a link to a great source for one-way flights that actually cost half the price of a round-trip ticket – instead of twice the price like you are charged when you call the airline directly. You need to fax over an authorization to buy a one-way ticket (odd?) but for the price I’ll happily dust off the old fax machine and dig out a pen.

So in our village, the street address is just “Le Village”.  No number.  No actual street name.

The mailman knows all the names of the people on the route.  Just like the Rural Route system at my grandparent’s farm.

The funny part is that the “mairie” is working on assigning names and numbers in the village,  but it’s been going on for 2 years and isn’t done yet.

To apply for a French visa, they ask you to write a “letter of motivation”. Here is how it’s described on the Consulate General of France in San Francisco web site:

• A motivation letter from applicant certifying that she/he will not have any paid activity in France and explaining the purpose of the stay

It seems simple, but JM spent almost all afternoon writing his letter in French, during which he frequently referenced the big French-English dictionary and the “Petit Larousse” (which is actually one of the biggest books in the house – I am genuinely frighted by the idea of the “Grand Larousse”).

Here’s how Google translated his letter from French to English.

I have done with your services dated July 20, 2010 for a visa for France, mention long stay.

I certify, <JM’s info removed> and carrying on the profession of electronics engineer, said he holds a Canadian passport.

The purpose of my trip is a cultural holiday and tourism. I am indeed fascinated by the history and French culture and would like to compare my knowledge discovery in situ of France.

I plan to visit several historical sites in southern France, especially in Provence, as Orange, Avignon, Nime, Arles, Vaison-la-Romaine and many others, and the issuance of a visa de long I would stay this project dear to my heart.

My passion for history and French culture is longstanding. My children are both bilingual and converse in French. Through our cultural tour in France, I want to increase their affinity for the language and their knowledge of French culture.

In addition, my wife, <my personal info removed> wants to learn French through total immersion during our stay.

Also, thank you for a favorable response to my request and in anticipation of your reply, I beg you to accept, Mr. Consul, my respectful greetings.

I love how this sounds in the translation – just like something out of the Three Musketeers. My letter, in English of course, had less than half the words and only a “sincerely” to close.  Hopefully they don’t bounce me for lack of eloquence.

I send you, dear reader, my respectful greetings and fondly hope to write to you again in the very near future with the glad tidings that our petition for a visa has been approved.

Having a signed house rental contract now moves everything forward.  With an address we can apply for our visa, register for school, and tell our parents where they can come and visit us.

Registering for school is done through the town hall of the village. They have a very nice web site with the email of the town hall, so JM sent an inquiry.  We immediately got a response with an apology that our village doesn’t have a school, but they would go to school in the next village and gave us the phone number of that school.  JM called the school and the lady who picked up the phone was incredibly helpful, took the kids names and info and told us we had our place reserved.  We need to show up a few days before with immunization forms.  Very simple! (Knock wood. Or is it rap wood?)

That felt good.  Then 10 minutes later the town hall emailed us back to introduce us to the mayor of the village and give us his cell phone number – in case we had any questions.

I feel welcome already.

It was a very strange experience to sign my name to a contract written in a language I don’t understand. Of course, the fluent husband is quite helpful.

Here’s the interesting part:  Even though the contract was in French, I felt like it was actually easier to understand than any other contract I’ve signed. There wasn’t any “fine print”.  It was a four-page document in a reasonable sized font with lots of white space. I felt much more confident in signing my name to that in French then any of the English contracts I’ve signed:  especially credit card applications, mortgage papers, and (worst of all) anything related to health care.

So another big thing down – we have our house all lined up.  We can arrive anytime after August 26th.  It is in the Drome area of Provence, a region known for medieval castles.  JM is excited about the history, and I’m thrilled that we are walking distance from croissants and have reliable internet access.

So the “where” came down to this choice:

• 2-bedroom apartment in Biot right outside the medieval village
• House in a small village in the Drome Provencale area

We were torn.  After our trip to Nice, the idea of living in a medieval village seemed so romantic and extremely different than our lives. Plus we had it in our head that we wanted to be close to Nice as a very easy place to travel from. Drome seemed a bit like the middle of nowhere when we first looked at the map.

On the flip side, I’m pretty much at the “two adults/two toilets” stage in my life, medieval villages are not known for their reliable internet access, and there seemed to be absolutely NO place for little children to play.  There were no parks, and the few squares seemed to all have signs saying you couldn’t play ball.

JM was originally very negative about the house in the small village – and I will say that my biggest concern was that he would be bored. For me every step outside the house will be an adventure in communication, but I couldn’t quite picture his life there.

Here is the picture that changed his mind:

Every purple dot is a medieval town and he plans to visit them all.

Decision made.  We are headed to Drome Provencal.

JM and I spent last week in the south of France scoping for places to live.  Grandmaman and Grandpapa came down from Canada to stay with the kids while we were gone.

Love it here!! The people were lovely, the area was absolutely beautiful. We scoped out a ton of small towns outside of Nice:  Vence, Grasse, Valbonne, Draguignan, Callas, Le Muy, Brignoles, Biot, Sait-Paul, Saint-Jeannet, Gattieres plus a bunch more.

Our short list is Biot and Vence.  We love the idea of life in a walled medieval village. Walk the girls to school in the morning, go pick up a paper and a coffee, read and watch the people – all surrounded by buildings that are hundreds of years old.

The next step is to look for a place to live, but the trip was really valuable.  We learned a few important lessons:

• Buy car rental insurance: The roads are narrow and rocky.  Every car we saw had a major scratch or dent – including ours by the end of the trip.  🙁
• Kindle whispernet works in France: Whew!  Huge relief. I was worried about my source of books while we were gone.
• Start French conversations with “J’ai une question”: It’s a phrase that is easy to pronounce for an English-speaker, and it sets the stage that the forthcoming conversation will require effort.  People would be more likely to focus and make an effort, then speak more slowly when they reply.
• Distances are short: Looking at the map we’d ruled out places like Grasse as being too far away, but everything is pretty close together.
• The Nice airport cafeteria is excellent: We had some amazing meals there – very helpful staff also.
• JM has a strong French-Canadian accent: Everyone we met commented on it within 3 or 4 sentences.

It was pretty clear that if we were going to take this sabbatical, we had to set a date on the calendar and then just go. Picking the date was easy.  The school our kids attend has two campuses – one for nursery through kindergarten.  Another for grade 1 and higher.

The girls are one grade apart (one of the real benefits of the otherwise ABSURD decision to have them so close together) so the year that we would have a two-campus drop-off seemed like the perfect year to be gone.  So the date was set:  September 2010.

But it was still just a dream.  We had no idea how anything worked. We had heard so much about the agony of dealing with infamous French bureaucracy and we just had no idea where to start.

One of my first clients when I started consulting was married to a professor, and she had been on sabbatical with him several times.  I bought her a coffee and picked her brain and got a ton of ideas from her.  Her first sabbatical was when her daughter was in Grade 1 and she did a 8-month stint in Paris.  She had her kids full time and was launching a company in the US while she was gone. But she was so enthusiastic about how great that trip was it for their family, that the excitement rubbed off.

She shared her wisdom about a lot of things – schools, friends, work, healthcare, etc.  And just made it seem so possible.   That was the point that the trip became real to me.  As we’ve figured out stuff for ourselves, we’re actually not going to end up doing a lot of the things she suggested, but just knowing that she made it work gave me faith.  Thanks Denise!!!