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

Whenever you travel, but especially when you travel with kids, dealing with basic bodily functions can be an adventure. I do know many of the rules of going potty on the road:

• Never pass up the opportunity to use a restroom that is there and available, even if you just went 15 minutes ago
• If you’re squeamish about turkish toilets (I confess, I still am no matter how many times I tell myself that it’s much more hygenic) look for the handicap stall which always has a proper seat
• In a pinch, McDonald’s has free and (usually) reasonably clean toilets

But this one was new to me:

Unusual toilet paper location

No, this picture does not mean that they have placed an extra sign in the stall to assure you that you are indeed in the ladies room – just in case panic strikes at the thought you might be in the wrong location right at the moment of peak indignity.

In fact, the toilet paper is OUTSIDE of the restroom – ABOVE EYE LEVEL!!! It is likely obvious from the fact that I’m posting this picture, but this small but very, very important detail escaped me until after the time when it would have been useful.

New rule:  Scout all around the perimeter before entering any public toilet.

One of the biggest challenges when planning a year-long trip is figuring out what you’re going to bring with you.  We limited ourselves to what we could bring on the plane.  We checked 4 bags that were exactly 50 pounds plus a carry-on each.

One thing that got cut from the list was toys.  The girls each had their kid-sized backpacks and were allowed to fill those with whatever they wanted, but that was it.  All books, art supplies, stuffed animals, magnets, dolls, and other playthings had to fit in that one bag. We hoped this trip would be a good exercise in living with less stuff, and we definitely have less toys.

The children have not suffered.  The house we’re renting came with a stash of toys, and an amazing neighbour from the village lent us a stash of her daughters’ Playmobils one really rainy day.

They’re also being creative.  They learn about living in an earth-friendly way at school, so have decided to “reuse” as much of our garbage as I will let them keep. They have a box full of old bottles, boxes, toilet paper tubes, egg cartons, and more. Yesterday they made this creation:

The Garbage Castle

It’s hard to see in the picture, but their garbage castle has towers, ramparts, a stable for the horses, and even a drawbridge!

I did plan to pick up a few small things for them here, so I’m always on the lookout for small, affordable, interesting and time consuming toys. I found this in the museum gift store at Les Baux-de-Provence that seemed like it would be good.

Paper Castle Kit

It looked like a fun project for the girls to do. In reality it turned into a time-consuming project for ME. There were 93 separate pieces that had to be cut out with scissors, the paper was heavy, the glue didn’t stick, and the tape we had was not good. And it took even longer because of all the “help” the girls gave me.

Paper Castle Finished

But I’m proud of my castle, and I will partager (share) it with the kids now that I’m done.

This may be a very short post, but I’ve had a lot of questions about the impact of the protests in France on our trip. Short answer – NONE (almost).

We haven’t seen any violence, run out of gas, or gotten stuck in traffic because of a protest. None of the businesses we frequent have closed and we don’t use public transportation on a daily basis so don’t notice when the trains stop. We don’t have a TV or a radio or get the paper except occasionally, so we don’t hear that much about what is going on unless we go looking for it.

We have talked to a few people here about what they think of the strikes, and that’s been really interesting. One of the goals of this trip is to be exposed to a completely different point of view, and certainly the protests have facilitated those conversations. It has inspired JM and I to think more about our own views and the balance between wanting a social safety net (we’re Canadians, we like that!) and not really believing that government is a solution (we live in Calfornia, enough said).

The “almost” part is because of two things:

1. We’ve canceled our trip to Paris: We had planned to take the TGV (high-speed french train) to Paris for the fall break, because Z is very disappointed that she hasn’t seen the Eiffel Tower yet viagra a bas prix. But we aren’t excited about getting stuck at a train station, so have decided to delay that trip until later in the year.  Instead we’ll head south and explore Provence with the kids.  We’ve been flipping through the Routard Provence looking for all the “family-friendly” icons and I’m even more excited than if we’d gone to Paris.
2. The teachers strike: So far L’s teacher has taken two strike days and Z’s teacher has taken four days. (One thing we learned is that you don’t get paid when you go on strike in France, so it is sometimes an individual choice to strike or not.)  But the teachers are very considerate about how they strike.  You get several days notice, and there is always an option to put your kid in an alternate program for the day. One day Z was put in L’s class, which was a huge treat for her.

As you can tell, neither of these things are real hardships, and it gives us something to talk about.

It’s a cold and miserable day here in Provence. The mistral, the wind made famous by Peter Mayle, is blowing.

I stopped to get gas after dropping off the girls at school today.  This is always a bit of an adventure since our local  gas station has pumps that don’t like any of my credit cards – even the local one from France. Once again my card magically worked after failing six or seven or twelve times.

(Paranoid Thought:  Does choosing the “English” button make it fail? Is this a subtle way they torment people who don’t speak French? Easier for me to believe that then the more obvious conclusion that I simply lack the proper skill to put a credit card into a gas pump.)

Just as it started to fill up, I realized the car at the pump beside me was ROLLING AWAY.  The mistral was strong enough that it was making the car move.  The driver was grabbing at the gas-cap-door-thingy to try and stop the car while speaking very excited, very fast French. Even I could figure out that she needed some help.

I will confess that my first thought was “Dang, I just got this pump to work. If I stop now will I ever get gas?” before doing the right thing and running over to push the runaway car back into place.

I will ALWAYS check my own parking brake from now on!

We have been introduced to Guignol, a French puppet from the early 1800s. Guignol’s founder was a dentist who made his money by selling pain relievers to people who had their teeth pulled – the teeth pulling itself was free.  Talk about misaligned economic incentives!

A Guignol puppet show was playing in one of the local villages, so we took the girls and went to check it out. It was a traveling show with two people – one puppeteer and one other person who took the tickets and sold stuff at intermission. Apparently they visit more than 50 villages a year to do the show. They set up their tent, put up some posters, and the show was ready.

The kids loved the show.  Most of the humor seemed to come from using words wrong. For example, Guignol the puppet was going to visit Madam Le Barrone, but he said “Let’s go see Madame Champignon” (french for mushroom) and the kids would yell “NON! Madame LE BARRONE!!”  He’d do that over and over and over.  The kids never got tired of the joke.

The Famous Guignol

By the end of the show all the kids were so into it that they’d run up to the stage to point out what direction to look for a missing puppet. It was very loud but pretty fun.  I followed most of the plot, which was very simple.  I even caught one of the jokes when Guignol was leaving: “Au revoir. “A demain.” “A de-pied.” (Good-bye. Until tomorrow – but “main” also means hand. A de-pied is nonsense, but pied means foot.)

It was a charming little play for the most part, but then Guignol, our play’s hero, came out with a HUGE stick and started beating the crap out of the bad guy. The bad puppet spent the rest of the show lying there like he was dead.

Apparently 200-year old french puppets aren’t politically correct about violent behavior.

Since Z commented the other day that I had a “gros bedon” (fat belly), I decided that I couldn’t spend all my days drinking wine, eating cheese and sampling the saucissons secs (the excellent dry pork sausages – much better than it sounds). So today, I went out for a 5km run, despite a strong wind and the clouds promising rain.

The always reliable Murphy’s Law chose this opportunity to enact itself. When I was furthest away from home the rain started raining.  I didn’t really care because I was running and a little water wouldn’t hurt.

However, on my way back, and as the rain had effectively stopped, a car drove by and stopped besides me.  The lady in the car rolled down her window and said “Voulez-vous que je vous reconduisent à votre maison?” (Would you like a ride back to your home?).

Perhaps this is part South-of-France culture, or perhaps this is part small-town culture, but I was frankly not expecting that a lady driving her car offers a ride home to a dirty looking and wet stranger running on the road…

France is usually not known for entrepreneurship.  The 35 hour work week and hopes for a safe government job are the more typical stereotypes.  Coming from entrepreneurial Silicon Valley, the last thing I expected to meet in the Provençal countryside are fellow entrepreneurs.  Of course I should have known better.

There is a recession in France, just like everywhere else.  New grads coming out of school can’t find jobs, just like everywhere else.  So they’re making opportunities for themselves.

You may recall Diane’s earlier post regarding Ivan Des Pizzas, the owner, operator and chef of the local pizza truck. Ivan has all the traits of a true entrepreneur, truly dedicated to his business.  His pizza truck visits a different village seven days a week, showing up at around 4:30pm until business stops at around 10pm or so. Judging by how busy he is, his business is thriving.

I bought two pizzas from Ivan the other day and asked him when he planned to expand his great operation to America.  His reply:  “I would love to, but it’s a long drive for my truck.”

Introducing Vegetable Luc

School is off in France on Wednesdays.  We like to use those days to take the girls and check out the area.  We visited a nearby fortified medieval town, built in the 11^th century.  We saw many cool things, including an old church that had entombed some prominent nobles who passed away in 1650.  But to the girls, the highlight was meeting Luc at the “lavoir du village” – the town’s main fountain where in times past, people came to wash their clothes. Luc was there, with a large bag of tasty yellow beans that he had just picked.

We started chatting, and of course, recognizing my French Canadian accent, he told me how he wanted to visit Montreal one of these days.  But soon, his entrepreneurial instincts kicked in, and he offered to sell me a kilo of his yellow beans. Once I showed interest, he then mentioned his super sweet and tasty pastèques (watermelons).  The girls picked up on that, so for a few Euros, we got a kilo of beans and half a watermelon.

But Luc’s entrepreneurial instinct didn’t stop there.  He gave me his cell phone number, just in case we’d want freshly delivered vegetables every week – he’s only a phone call away.

Diane mentioned in a previous post that our kids can’t take lunch to school. However, lunch is provided if you pay for it.  Here is last week’s menu at the cantine (pronounced like canteen):

Tuesday: Lentil salad with shallots, veal “‘paupiette”, rice, cheese, seasonal fruits

A few observations:

1. Every meal is at least a four course meal
2. There is emphasis on marrying a variety of tastes, and an obvious effort is put into making the meals wholesome, well-balanced and nutritious
3. The kids love it even though it’s NOT hot dogs or mac and cheese
4. This costs only 2.20 Euros per meal (about $3)
5. The school lunch break is  1 ½  hours long

L was telling me about her lunch on Monday, with a huge smile on her face while rubbing her belly:  “C’était vraiment bon et j’en ai demandé trois fois!” (It was really good and so I asked for three servings!).  Need I say more?

I was listening to a radio interview with a dietitian the other day.  The topic was school canteens, and the quality of the food being served there.

The dietitian on the radio had quite a different perspective than I have.  To start, he was concerned that meal quality was going downhill at an alarming rate, and wanted to petition the local government to tighten the quality standards.  But then, he said something that summarizes it all. “Nutritious food choices and good taste are learned at a young age.  It is therefore important for schools to properly develop children’s taste buds by serving consistently high quality and nutritious meals at the canteen.”

Everyone knows that food is a serious matter in France.  We didn’t realize it would be part of the school curriculum though.

Personally, I wish I could eat at the school canteen myself!

This afternoon we were sitting in the kitchen having a snack. I glanced out the window and this is what I saw:

View from the kitchen window

There was a TANK parked in our driveway!!!  A REAL TANK!!!

I will confess that the first thought that crossed my mind was that I needed to pay more attention to the news. Then I realized that there was a bag over the big gun-thing so figured at worst we were being invaded by someone dumb.

The tank stayed there for quite a while.  We could see 3 people in the tank – two poking their heads out the top and you could just see the driver’s googles in the front.  They all waved at the girls, so we were confident that nothing violent was happening, but still didn’t get why a tank would be in our quiet little village. There appeared to be much consulting of various documents, so our next theory was that they were very, very badly lost.

About five minutes later, the scene changed to this:

A second tank drove by, this time coming from the direction of the village and going the other way.  They stopped for a while and chatted, SERIOUSLY blocking traffic for a few minutes, then the second tank left.

After another 10 or 15 minutes the first tank moved out of the driveway. That’s when we learned that tanks do not have a eco-friendly carbon footprint.

Tank exhaust

A little while later we headed into the village.  It was a beautiful day and we wanted to explore.  When we got to the village the tank was stopped there, but now it was accompanied by some kind of jeep.

Luckily the soldiers were moving back and forth, so JM managed to talk to one of the them.  They were taking some kind of exam. I guess tank drivers in France have to know how to navigate through tiny village streets (unlike me).

It was an interesting afternoon.  Not the kind of thing that would have happened in Silicon Valley, or Saskatchewan, or  anywhere else we’ve lived.

When we first got to France, JM did all the driving. It was an extra cost to get another driver on the rental car, and I wanted a chance to review my “road French” before I got behind the wheel.  But we bought a car and now I’m a Provence driver.

My first driving trip was to take the rental car back to Valence. JM drove the rental car with the girls and I followed in our recently purchased car.  (Not a “new” car, it’s a very old car that we bought cheap and will sell cheap when we leave.)

Every new experience is a bit of an adventure, and this one started with the simple task of buying gas. Should be easy, right? But for some reason the pump refused both of my US credit cards and my new french “blue card” multiple times before magically accepting the blue card. The trick was to put the card in and leave it, enter the PIN, wait the correct amount of time, take the card out, and then start pumping gas.  It must be done in EXACTLY that order or the pump scolds you in a wide variety of languages. Not sure if the inappropriate words I muttered while entering the PIN were required, but now that I have a system that works I’m going to do exactly the same thing every time.

So fully fueled, we headed to the autoroute. It’s a toll road so I followed JM as he took a ticket an went through the gate. Then I took my ticket, the arm lifted, I started to drive through, and the arm came crashing down on the hood of the car. JM is waiting on the other side, the light is green but I can’t get through, the machine won’t give me another ticket, and the guy behind me is starting to honk (not useful, sir!). I was about to start sweating (o.k. sobbing) when a lady in an orange vest came and talked to me in french. I did my best to communicate “C’est ferme! Je ne sais pas pourquoi.” which didn’t really do anything except convince the woman that talking to me wasn’t useful, but she gave the arm a big tug and I was through.

One thing that is very cool about France – the speed traps are listed in Google maps driving directions:

So now I’m a driver.  But I have a confession to make.  The shortest route to school is through our village. But the street through the village is very narrow with stone houses or rock walls on either side, a sharp turn, and lots of dogs. I’m nervous about the etiquette and practical reality of meeting another car. So I drive the girls to school the long way around to avoid it. But I’d rather blog about that then have JM tell everyone about the time that I ruined our car by dropping two wheels off the side of a narrow road with a deep concrete ditch.

Maybe with time I’ll get more confident and even start to drive like the insane French who pass each other at crazy speeds with big trucks coming straight at them, but for now we leave for school 10 minutes early when Mama drives.