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

There is no clothes dryer in our house in France. I am told that this is pretty common across most of Europe and that it is very good for the environment. What we do have is a clothesline and some clothespins.

Turns out that there is actually a bit of skill to using a clothesline. It looks easy, but the first time I put clothes out they blew into the blackberry bushes.  They dried nicely, but it was a tough job to get them out without snags. The second time I got a nasty clothespin pinch. The next time the clothespin made a spot in my favorite t-shirt creating an unfortunate cloth nipple.

Sunny days are good laundry days.

Z's Hello Kitty Drying on the Line

The BBQ is also different. You heat up briquettes in this silver bucket thing, then spread out the coals on the stone part of the BBQ when they’re hot, just below the chimney. There is a grill you put over that to cook the food.

JM BBQing

Check out what’s above JM’s head in the picture. Do you see the grapes?  We can snack on grapes hanging above our heads while we stand around waiting for the food to cook.  Natural, organic and zero-effort appetizers. Yumm.

Mostly I think that traveling with the kids is great. They experience the world in a whole different way, which gives a completely different travel experience. On our last visit to a medieval village, JM and I were looking at this interesting church  which was half really old and half super-duper-amazingly-incredibly old. Meanwhile the girls were completely fascinated by the pigeons living in the church steeple. It was fun to watch them watch the pigeons.

Church or pigeons? Depends how old you are.

Then there are those OTHER TIMES.

When we first arrived we rented a car at the Lyon airport that was big enough for all our year-away luggage – and it was expensive. Once we were settled we decided to do a quick trip to return that car to Lyon, then take the train back to Valence where we could rent a smaller, cheaper car until we could buy something. The girls LOVE trains. This would be a fun family outing. We grabbed the girl’s doudous (stuffed animals) and the DSes and headed out.  There was a TGV (French high-speed train) leaving Lyon at 11:30, so we left at 8:30 to give ourselves extra time. Fun day with trains and kids, here we come.

We did hit a bit of traffic on the way to Lyon, so used up the extra time, but were still in good shape.  But then the vomiting began. We immediately formed a new electronics rule – NO DSes IN THE CAR!

Vomiting when you have a barf bag is really no big deal. You fold up the bag, toss it, wash your face (brush if you’re lucky) and almost nobody notices. Vomiting without a barf bag a VERY different matter.  So I always travel with a barf bag.

But not that day.  That day I didn’t have the barf bag. Didn’t have a change of clothes. Didn’t have any rags, paper towels or Kleenex.  Didn’t even have a bottle of water. I just had a pukey child with pukey clothes in a pukey booster seat with a pukey doudou.

We got most of the mess cleaned up – enough to keep going to the airport. I put Z in my sweater which was a sort-of dress for her, put all the vomitty stuff in the backpack, and we made it to the train just in time.

First TGV ride.

JM had arranged to pick up the new rental car at the “Valence TGV station”. We got to Valence and grabbed lunch, then found the Avis counter at the train station to pick up the car.  But apparently the TGV we were on didn’t go to the Valence TGV station, it went to the Valence Ville station. We had to grab another train – leaving in 2 minutes of course, so we had to rush the girls through another train station – to get to where our rental car actually was.

We finally got the new rental car and were less than an hour away from the house. Then we hit THE TRAFFIC JAM.  It took us two hours to travel 10 kms (6 miles)!!!  And remember that new NO DSes IN THE CAR RULE? It didn’t last for more than 3 hours.  The kids needed something to keep them busy while we sat on the road doing absolutely nothing viagra chez pfizer.

Traffic Jam on the A7.

It turned out a paper truck had turned over on the freeway.

Paper that caused the traffic jam – cleaned up by the time we drove by.

We did get home that day – very late, very hungry, and very smelly. We will get better at this. To start, the car now has a stock of barf bags ready to go for next time.

The pinnacle of success in my French-speaking life so far was Grade 9. I wrote and starred in our French class video “La Mort de Marie Antoinette” (The Death of Marie Antoinette).  There was very little dialogue in the production.  The real highlight was the shot of the biology rat running along the top of a table with our rendition of a Paris cityscape taped to it. I flubbed the final dramatic line “Je suis ce que je suis. Je ne suis pas désolé pour ce que j’ai fait.“ (I am what I am.  I am not sorry for what I have done) by substituting the words “des écoles” (some schools) for the word “désolé” (sorry). But since none of the parents or students who watched the film spoke French either, it was considered a triumph.

Later that same year, I participated in a program at the local University where high school students attended special classes for a week to expose them to the college experience. I ended up in the French class. It was AWFUL. It was my first actual experience with people speaking French fluently, and I didn’t understand a word the entire time. My ability to comment that the table was black and the weather was cold was not the least bit useful or relevant. I was so miserable I skipped the last two days of the class, which was probably the most realistic part of the “University experience” they were trying to show us.

That summer my family moved to a new town and I had a new school. The town had an immersion program, so I imagined French class there would be a repeat of the hell I’d just been through. I knew I would doom myself to never landing a good government job, but I felt I could live with that consequence. I opted to take shorthand instead of French – in retrospect a clearly bad life choice.

French had no place in my life for the next 8 years except occasionally having to flip over boxes of stuff to find the English side. (I still instinctively do that, and it takes me a couple of flips before I realize there isn’t any English.)

It was in graduate school that I met the first people in my life whose mother tongue was not English. It was a huge eye-opener for me. One of those people was a French-Canadian that had gone to high school with JM. We were introduced and French re-entered my life.

The friends who introduced us moved to France the next year to study and I took my first trip to Europe to visit them. I brought my French-English dictionary and I was determined to communicate. One afternoon I decided to buy a t-shirt as a gift for JM and I was determined to do it in French instead of finding the store with the “we speak English” sign. I spent 30 minutes  formulating various translations of the the transaction and practicing what I was going to say in my head. When I finally got up the courage to go into the store and make my request, the response from the lady helping me was “medium or large?”.  I was devastated.

With time, I did make some progress. JM and I vacationed in Quebec about 12 years ago – before kids. It was a really beautiful trip. He did all the talking of course, but one night after a glass of wine I got up the courage to ask for something by myself. I was thrilled when I actually received the cup of mint tea I had ordered. A small win, but it instilled confidence that I might be able to communicate. Maybe.  Someday.

Since then my exposure to French has increased. JM has consistently spoken French to the girls since they were born, so I have heard the language at home every day for the past six years. We have filled the house with french books and DVDs so I’ve expanded my vocabulary to include animal words, letters of the alphabet, and other important kid language.  It’s helped some. Twelve years ago when we traveled to Quebec I didn’t understand anything anyone said to me ever. Last year I occasionally understood what was going on about five minutes after the fact.

In summary, a lifetime of exposure to French, and I still can’t speak the language. Yes, that embarrasses me. But I moved to France, I have Rosetta Stone to help me, and an entire country of people (including 3 in my house) who speak the language to practice on. It’s just to do it – and to get over the embarrassment of sounding like a pre-schooler with a serious speech impediment.

We went to the farmer’s market today.  The fruit lady recommended the melons. We said we’d take one, and before selecting one she asked “Will you eat it today or tomorrow?”

Hello World!  This is JM’s first post.

France is famous for its bureaucracy.  But we’ve discovered that the natives are aware of this, they help each other simplify things, take short-cuts and make their lives more enjoyable in spite of it. Indeed, we’ve seen that this part of Provence is about the community and helping each other out.  This “community approach” here in the village has become quite apparent during our first hectic week, when many people went out of their ways to help us get settled.

Case in point:  We tried getting cell phones a couple of days ago.  The lady at the store was very friendly and helpful at explaining the variety of phone plans in their intricate levels of details.  However, we hit a snag.  In order to have an affordable plan, it needed a contract, which needed a bank account.  But getting a bank account in France requires a utility bill under our name which, of course, we don’t have since we are “seasonal” renters.

Coming to the rescue is our friendly neighborhood village Mayor!  I saw him last Sunday at the local café and I explained our bank account dilemma.  His reply:  “Let me talk to the local bank manager, first thing Monday morning, and see what I can do”.  The bank was closed on Monday, but the Mayor was going to see the bank manager socially.

Monday morning, 11am.  Someone knocks at our door.  The Mayor shows up, with a smile and a formal letter in hand complete with the official seal of the village.  The letter states that we are residing in the village and have the full rights of a local resident.  Problem solved!  When we went to the bank the next day, we were welcomed immediately and had an account that day.

Merci Monsieur le Maire!  (Thank you Mr. Mayor!)

We spend a lot of time at our village cafe. It’s about a 4 minute walk from the house (8 if we have to stop while the girls run up and down the old stone steps a couple of times).

Old stone steps in the village

The cafe is a general store with some basics like laundry detergent. They serve coffee and have newspapers. They are a restaurant. And they’re the source of news, information, and advice. This morning we learned that sanglier hunting season has started (sanglier are the wild boar that Obelix always eats in the Asterix books) and we need to be careful when we drive since they run out on the road unexpectedly. The cafe guy had already hit four so far.

One of the things we LOVE about the cafe is they have a playground. JM and I can take our excellent coffee and sit at the last table and watch the girls play.  A relaxing way to spend a morning.

View from "our" table at the village cafe

We have had dinner at the village cafe once.  It’s not completely convenient because they start food service at 7:30 and the kids’ bedtime is usually at 8, but there are three nights a week that aren’t school nights (no school on Wednesday) so there are times it can work, and the cafe is very good about serving us quickly.

The difference between the food in our village in France and the very small towns we’ve been to America is striking. In America we’d expect fries, hamburgers, chicken fingers, and pasta.  Here we had foie gras, salad with “chevre chaud” (warm goat cheese), the most amazing rice I have had in my life, and perfectly seasoned grilled fish (served with the head on – your food does NOT look at you in rural Canada!).

I have left the most important aspect of the village cafe until last – the bread. Our cafe is not a bakery, but you can pre-order bread the day before. This is a very serious thing. When we first got here the “good” bakery was closed for a vacation, and they warned us repeatedly that the backup bread was not as good.  The whole village was quite relieved when the “good” bakery opened up again.

They have a paper-based tracking system with the names of the regulars typed up with their usual order for each day of the week. If you are not on the list, you can place your order and they write it in by hand. You can change your order each day – more baguette or add a croissant or pain au chocolat.  We will know we’ve been accepted in the village when we make the “permanent” bread list instead of being written in as a special case.

Our Saturday bread order

Apparently it will rain tomorrow. According to the local gentleman that walked with us to our morning coffee, when the clouds “ça fait des mouton” (make sheep-shapes) it’s a sure sign of rain.

The gentleman in question was wearing one of those string ties that you find in the southwest of the United States along with a thin white cotton muscle shirt. Just saying.

The first day of school is so important here that it has its own word – la rentrée.

For us, it was a pretty normal first day of school.  A few tears that went away as soon as mom and dad were around the corner, new friends to play with, new teachers to meet, and new pickup and drop-off routines. The principle of the school speaks English, although neither of the girls’ teachers do.

We met the “other” California family, who have a daughter in Z’s class. The visitor information in the village had told us about them and they got it all right – names, where they were from, ages of kids, etc. They invited us to their apartment for lunch and we were all automatically friends – the joy of all being “odd” in the same way.

When we got home  we checked the backpacks as usual. I had read about the “Cahier de liaison“, the book that is used to communicate what is going on at the school and there it was. I could see something pasted in the book, so I was ready to see my child’s first French school project.  Here is what was in the book:

"Tuesday, September 7th there will be a strike..."

My child’s first school project, which she cut out and glued into the book herself, is a note saying that there will be a strike!!!

We had of course heard all about the famous French strikes. In fact, I have been in Paris four times in my life and four times I have not been able to visit the Louvre because the staff was on “grève” – so it’s one of the French words I know very well. We were very pleased to find out we would have lots of notice, and were also pleased that there was an option to send our kids to a special free daycare provided by the town. What a friendly and unimposing strike!

A few things did surprise me about school:

• There is no school on Wednesday – It’s a 4-day school week with a break in the middle.
• You cannot send lunch to school – You have the option to either pick up your kid for the 1 1/2 hour lunch break, or buy a lunch which is organized by the mairie (the town hall). The lunch is very nice – just 2 euros and has a couple of courses. But if you want to make a sandwich it’s not an option because the school closes over lunch.
• It is “highly recommended” that you buy insurance – Our kids are now insured, I believe in case they burn something down, I’m not exactly sure. But it’s not expensive – less than 10 euros each for the year.
• There is a bus – We haven’t taken it yet, but all the info is on the web site and I’m looking forward to a nice 5 minute walk to school to drop the kids off and then have a coffee at the cafe in the village before coming home.

I was horrified when I first heard that restaurants in France don’t do takeout. One of the truly great amenities of life in California is that almost any restaurant will let you pick up food to go. We were completely unaware of this amazing phenomenon before we had kids. But take-out became a regular event at our house when the girls were little and it was hard to buy the food, let alone cook it. We formed a bad habit that won’t be easy to break.

It turns out all is not lost. Our village in Provence has Ivan Des Pizza, the pizza truck.  They drive to a different village each night, parking the truck in the village square and cooking the pizza in the truck. He comes to our village on Wednesday and parks about a five minute walk from our house.

A Lovely Walk to Get Pizza

Ivan is the owner and chef.  The name is a play on words. In French “Ivan” sounds like “il vend” which translates to “he sells”.  So when you say “Ivan des Pizza” in French it sounds like “He sells pizza”.

Ivan is a character. He is young – probably 21 or 22 since he graduated from high school 3 years ago.  He started his business earlier this year. The name was inspired from being teased about being called Ivan in school. So he turned that around and used that experience to make it work for him. Gotta love it!

The Village Pizza Truck

Ivan is happy to share his views. Of course he realized immediately that JM was Canadian (I do hope one day my French is good enough I can recognize the accent too!) but we told him we were living in California and the first thing he wanted to know was if Schwarzenegger was still governor. He’d seen him do a part in a recent Sylvester Stallone movie and assumed you couldn’t be governor AND act in a movie. We clarified that for him.

He’s never been to the US or Canada, but he’d love to travel there one day. His thinks that the houses look very flimsy – which considering everything here is built out of rock and a lot of it has been around for centuries, is probably true.

He was curious about how a Canadian family from California ended up in this particular village.  Turns out he’s lived about 20 miles from here his whole life and but he didn’t know our village existed until he started his pizza business.

We are looking forward to seeing a LOT more of Ivan and eating more of his excellent pizza acheter viagra 50 milligrams.

UPDATE:  Turns out we were mis-informed about takeout in France. While it is certainly not as common as it is in America, you can get plat à emporter from many of the more casual restaurants.

Both L and Z really like the money in France.  They think it’s pretty and like all the different colors – just like Junior Monopoly. They asked why American money is all the same.  I don’t know the answer.  Anybody?

They went to the “downtown” of our village with JM to see if the ice cream place was open – of course it was the one day of the week that it’s closed down. But they got to explore some very cool medieval architecture, narrow twisty roads, saw a horse and rider go by, and play on the playground.  What did they like the best?  The Grasshopper!!!

Grasshopper in Provence

They went to a neighboring village and there they saw their first castle of the trip – where they also did find ice cream. That was cool for them, although they got there 20 minutes before it closed so didn’t get to go inside.  But they had their ice cream so they were o.k. with that.

The First Castle of the Trip

My children are impressed with the oddest things.  I will embrace it as “the wonder of a child”.