...in the shadow of Saint-Sauveur

Zucchini Mille-feuille Recipe Challenge

2011-07-22T13:06:00.005+02:00

Ok, so our landlady has a surplus of zucchini, and stocked our fridge for us. This much extra squash made me want to get creative, so I decided to make something I would call "zucchini mille-feuille"--inspired by a mille-feuille pastry, because, hey, I love things that resemble pastries, even just in name.

I'm really pleased with this recipe, because I think it has a lot of potential. The zucchini is sliced so thin that it doesn't have to be pre-cooked, saving TON of time. It's possible to make a white sauce with a really small amount of butter once you get good at it, so you can cut some calories in that department. With about 15 mins baking time, and about 15 mins prep time, this is a really easy side dish. AND it eats up the masses of zucchini everyone with a home garden has these days.

BUT...I think the recipe could use some extra magic. So, here's the "challenge"--suggest a change to the recipe that would add no more than 5 minutes prep time and no more than 3 extra ingredients, preferably pantry staples. The goal is to come up with something more closely resembling a mille-feuille. If you can add protein to make this a main dish instead of a side, kudos.

Here's a picture of some leftover mille-feuille, pre microwave...next to a slice of zucchini moussaka, made exactly the same way but with spiced ground beef moussaka filling instead of the white sauce for most of the layers. This recipe can multi-task.

It looks a lot prettier when it's hot, since the layers slide a little and you can see how delicate the zucchini ribbons are.

Here's the recipe (serves 4...you should double or triple this for a full-sized baking dish):

Ingredients:

3-4 smallish zucchini (if you have giant ones, slice them in half before ribboning so they fit through your veggie peeler)

3 Tbsp butter

3 Tbsp flour

1.5 cups milk

1/2 cup grated cheese (I used emmenthal, but mozzarella or comte would also be tasty)

A few Tbsp grated parmesan

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

(Pre-heat oven if you're into that kind of thing--about 350 should do the trick. Our oven is small enough that we can just flip it on at the end and it's ready to go in about a minute.)

1. With a veggie peeler, slice the zucchini long-ways so you have a giant pile of zucchini ribbons.

2. Make a white sauce: Melt the butter in a saucepan on medium heat. dump in the flour, whisk frantically, pour the milk in little by little, continue to whisk frantically. Let thicken a bit.

3. Mix 1/2 cup grated cheese into sauce, add salt and pepper to taste.

4. In a small casserole dish (mine was 5x8), alternate layers of sauce and zucchini slices. I did a double thickness of zucchini slices for every zucchini layer because they're SO thin.

5. Finish with a layer of sauce and sprinkle on parmesan (grana padano would be good too).

6. Bake at 350 until it's golden brown and bubbly. Let it set for a minute or two and then serve in slices, like a mille-feuille!

...And we're back, with another Tour de France installment

2011-07-08T16:24:00.003+02:00

So, it's been a reeeeeally long time since I've gotten around to blogging. We've been:

-Taking LOTS of naps (well, just me),

-Finishing up schoolwork (Josh still has a thesis to write; I defended mine a few weeks ago),

-Trying to beat the heat (100+ degree days around here),

-Visiting the lavender fields:

...where Josh saw his middle aged doppelganger:

And trying to get ready for the arrival of Bout'Chouette:

We're re-arranging the apartment to maximize the coolest spaces and make room for the baby's stuff. And boy, for someone so little, she's got a lot of stuff.

We've also re-initiated our culinary Tour de France with a DELICIOUS cheese from Pays Basque, the Basque country in the Western Pyrenees, on the border with Spain.

The French Basque region isn't militantly separatist like the Spanish region, but apparently their food is as good. This cheese, ossau-iraty (from a region with the same name), made us really sad that our sejour in France is coming to an end, so let us know if you've seen it in the states. It's a sheep's milk cheese (one of only two with "AOC" status in France, according to Wikipedia) with a firm and smooth texture and a great salty tang.

I've definitely missed indulging in cheese this year, since unpasteurized cheeses and a lot of goat cheeses aren't considered safe for pregnant women. Also not safe for pregnant women here is any uncooked produce you didn't wash yourself, with vinegar, because of the risk of toxoplasmosis. Oh, and sausages, smoked salmon, paté, terrines....and basically all the best food around. Not to mention all the wine I'm missing out on. Even though this ossau-iraty was a great find, I'm looking forward to popping this baby out and being able to eat fresh goat cheese again.

Bonheur au jardin

2011-05-12T15:12:00.001+02:00

We have bien aimé having a garden this year. Josh's mom planted it with him while she was visiting in March and it's been a joy (and great study break) to watch things bloom--things planted AND things springing up as a surprise!

We have carefully tended the strawberries, lettuce, and mint, and pansies...

And been surprised by wild onions, wild grape hyacinth, and a whole bunch of other plants we haven't identified.

And then our driveway is lined with poppies, irises, and other wildflowers:

Lots of things growing around here this spring!

Patio Umbrella!

2011-04-19T13:30:00.003+02:00

After:

Before:

Fille ou Garçon?

2011-04-06T20:19:00.004+02:00

So, time to come clean. We found out Bout'Chou's gender and we're having a...

Petite Fille!

I made my first purchase for her yesterday: how could I resist a pink and purple bib that says "bout'chou" on it?!? I gave it to Josh when we got in the car afterward and he held it the whole way home--baby girl is going to have daddy wrapped around her pudgy fingers faster than you can say "macaron." The funny thing is, now that we've got the idea of a girl swimmin' around in there, bout'chou seems like too masculine of a name...so she's turned back into "the baby" or "bout de chouette" which means nothing (well, literally translated it means "little piece of owl") but it does sound more girly.

As much as I wanted a girl, I was a little bit in shock after the sonogram. I was so convinced there was a boy in there. The sonographer had to point everything out in very explicit detail before I would believe that the baby wasn't "packing heat." This girlygirl will be the FIRST ONE in FIVE GENERATIONS born into my husband's family. We all thought it was statistically impossible that we could have a child without a y chromosome. In fact, Josh's mom and future sister in law both cried when we told them the news. (For our sister in law, this means there's hope!)

And how did Josh take the news? He had originally decided not to find out...so I was going to keep Bout de Chouette's gender a secret. And I did, for three days. And then, we were heading back to the US for a wedding, and in line at airport security:

Me (muttering to myself): Ow, she just kicked me right in the intestines.

Josh: WHAT did you just say?

Me: Um...the baby just kicked me in the intestines?

Josh: No, WHAT did you just say?

Me: oh, um...did you hear that?

Josh: WE'RE HAVING A GIRL?!?!?!? (tries to pick me up and jump up and down at the same time)

Airport Security Person: NEXT.

He was absolutely ecstatic. (Josh, not the airport security person.) He told the woman sitting next to us on the plane, "We're having a baby girl!" and had a dopey, adorable smile on his face for about five hours. He's going to be one happy daddy.

Cultural Differences: the good with the bad

2011-04-03T13:12:00.010+02:00

So: I think the way your prior education prepares you for various cultural differences makes a BIG difference in where you will place them on the scale from enchanting to these-people-are-crazy. For example, French people smoke a lot. Everyone knows this. You come to France, and someone at the table next to you is puffing gauloises in your direction, and you think, "Oh, the French. How...French." You go to a party and everyone gives you the bises, that two-cheek kiss-kiss, and you feel exotic, sophisticated, and chic, because the bises fit into your pre-conceived notion of what it means to be French.

But sometimes you don't know about a custom until you find out you've transgressed some social rule. I do not like learning this way. I've recently discovered that "excuse me" is not a polite way to start a conversation here unless accompanied with "hello." I found this out after I started to notice I was getting evil looks from people I stopped to ask for help or information. Last week I went into a shop to ask their hours, and the conversation went like this:

Me: Excuse me, what time--

Shop girl: HELLO.

Me (nodding confusedly): Yes, what time--

Shop girl: HELLO.

Me: Yes, what time--

Shop girl: HELLO.

Me: WHAT TIME DO YOU CLOSE TODAY?

The shop girl and other customers were rolling their eyes and shaking their heads, and a post-game analysis with Josh sorted it out: I was supposed to start with, "Hello excuse me," or "Excuse me hello," but not just, "Excuse me." The thing that stinks is that the better you get in a foreign language, the less people are accepting of this kind of mistake. A researcher gave a presentation on this phenomenon at a conference for language teachers I attended last summer, and it was like bells started ringing in my head and fireworks exploded in my brain when she explained it. Because it is SO TRUE: the better your French (or Spanish, or American) accent, the more you seem like "one of us," and the more surprised (and offended) we are when you don't follow our social rules. But if you have a heinous accent and are fumbling for words like "hello," and "thank you," people generally put aside their ideas of how the conversation should go (did you remember to say please?) and focus on just understanding what on earth you're trying to say.

But back to my point. It can be REALLY FRUSTRATING to have to learn by getting it wrong. Example: yesterday I went, for the first time, to one of Josh's ultimate frisbee tournaments. We pulled up at the crack of dawn to the team's meeting spot here in Aix to pack more people into the car and caravan to Nîmes, where the tournament was going to take place. I was coccooned in my seat with bags of snacks and other gear for the day, and munching happily on my breakfast. So, I stayed put (as did M, another American rider who we'd already picked up), the car was packed with more people, and we left. And as we were pulling out, someone mentioned that it had been rude of us to stay in the car instead of getting out to give everyone their good morning bises.

This rankled us. We're going to spend all weekend with you engaged in (or watching you play) a team sport, which is a significant amount of quality time, and politeness dictates that instead of a smile and a wave, we begin the weekend by extracting ourselves from the car in order to kiss you all? How much of me do you people want?!?!

I think the problem is that most adults have confidence in their abilities to act logically. So when you are faced with a small problem to solve (stay in car vs. get out and kiss people), you do what is logical to you, and you think nothing of it. And then, when you find out that you were expected to act otherwise, since you had determined what to do using your well-functioning logic, it makes the French course of action seem illogical. It leaves you thinking everyone around you is crazy for wanting you to kiss them good morning, file reams of paperwork, or say "hello" before you say "excuse me."

Luckily, Josh's frisbee team thinks of M and I as "the clueless Americans," a notion of which I do not plan to disabuse them. So even though they thought we were being rude (and we thought they were crazy), they also thought it was funny.

M and my annoyance at the French bises was exacerbated when we got to the tournament. The team got into their pre-game huddle, where we knew Josh was going to lay out his plan for beating their first opponents, Discobol. Last year Josh's team, T-R'Aix, beat Discobol by a hair, and this tournament, Discobol was gunning to take them out. So, Josh circled everyone up and began his pre-match pep talk and strategy briefing...and was promptly interrupted by a member of KLB, a "friendly" team, who sauntered onto the field to say hello. They were playing later in the day, so they'd be rooting for T-R'Aix during the first game, and their arrival occasioned the bises. Which means, as Josh tried valiantly to rally his team, first one, and then another of KLB's players walked around his huddle, pulling out each T-R'Aix player in turn to give them two kisses. Their focus was blown. Finally Josh stopped an approaching KLB player in his tracks and told him to stay away until the huddle was over, but the damage was done. T-R'Aix lost the first game in overtime and the defeat weighed down on them for the rest of the day. I'm waiting now to hear from Josh how today's matches went, but T-R'Aix had gotten off on the wrong foot.

As KLB's captain actually walked THROUGH THE HUDDLE to give those $%#& bises, I caught M's eye and mouthed, "I WANT TO GO HOME." Sometimes I just can't take this culture. But the bad comes along with some nice surprises--not least of which is how they treat pregnant women in France. We knew that historically, France has been very pro-reproduction because of a low-population crisis after WWII. We didn't know that we're going to be getting a nice little payment from the government to help buy baby gear. Or that a body pillow for my pregnancy-related backaches will be covered by our insurance. But apparently pregnant women themselves are given really cushy treatment. I had my first experience with this today. The grocery store was packed, and I joined the back of a verrrrrry long line at the "priority" (handicapped or pregnant) register. I wondered why non-priority clients were in the line, but I also didn't expect what happened next: I was ushered all the way up to the front, even past a woman with a baby who was only buying three boxes of granola bars. I tried to make her go before me (I had a giant basket of stuff) and everyone insisted: pregnant girl goes first.

It was nice to get special treatment...but I still thought everyone was crazy. I wonder, when I get back to the US, will I have reverse culture shock and think all the Americans are crazy? Probably, but hopefully I'll be able to take the bad with the good, eat cupcakes, and be happy.

Eavesdropping on Myself

2011-03-03T08:46:00.004+01:00

Ok, so everybody knows this: one of the funny things about being married is realizing how different from you your spouse is. Josh and I were really close friends for...I dunno, maybe six years? before we started dating, and I would have told you we were two peas in a pod. And now, after being married for three years...sometimes I wonder if we're even the same species. Case in point: decision making. When we have a big decision to make, Josh spends a lot of time (like, hours) staring at the floor, occasionally sighing. I assume there's some thinking going on in there. I, on the other hand, never know quite what I think until I happen to overhear myself say it to someone.

Right now, we're in the process of trying to figure out where we belong for the next few years. We're weighing career questions--who will work on which degree, and when?--as well as personal ones, like, can we manage for me to stay home with Bout'Chou for a while, and on which continent should that home be? I've been really glad to have people around that will let me talk things through, so I can listen in and figure out what I want. I overheard a very enlightening conversation with my friends Anita and Neil yesterday: I told them I felt like after three years in France, I needed to go back to the States for a break, and when Neil asked why, I heard myself answer, "to heal."

It was an odd thing to say, but hearing it made me realize that it's true. When we up and moved here, I had been to France only twice, both times as a non-French-speaking tourist; I spoke no French, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I feel like it's been three years of bobbing in waves, trying to keep my head above water. I'd really like to go home and come back with a rowboat. Or at least a life preserver.

I'm not sure what this "life preserver" would look like. I'm kindof hoping that if we spend a few years in the States, I'll get a chance to start desperately missing my life here in Aix. Then I'll spend those years planning and scheming about what it will be like when we come back, and when we DO return to l'Hexagone, I will have years of "the best-laid schemes" preparing me for it. I think this would help.

Regardless, eavesdropping on my subconscious has made it pretty clear that right now, I want to be Stateside. I'm writing this over the remains of my breakfast, a French clafoutis garnished with one of my carefully hoarded Reese's peanut butter cups. I dreamed about peanut butter ice cream last night (no, I am not kidding), and a Reese's was the closest thing I could get.

The dream might have been inspired by Josh's arrival from a week-long trip to the States, and the joy of watching him open his suitcase and pull out jars of Jif, Burt's Bees toothpaste, reasonably priced dental floss, almond extract, and other comforts of home. Without thinking, I spotted the Whole Foods receipt in his bag and stuck it in a frame we have sitting on the green "boot bench" in the kitchen. And then as I realized what I was doing, I started to cry. Seriously? I'm framing a receipt from Whole Foods? What kind of crazy is this? And then I cried even harder as I realized it's the pregnant-and-homesick kind. I think it's time to go home.

2011-02-25T17:54:00.008+01:00

So, I don't know if I've ever mentioned that the last tenant of our apartment was an interior decorator. Our landlady has dropped some hints that she'd like us to do a bit more with the place than we have--including selling our washing machine and getting a new one so it fits in the bathroom instead of the kitchen, where it "disrupts the aesthetic." But our landlady is 83, shuffles around the property in slippers, and brought me paper towels once as a gift, so I'm not too worried about her judging my lack of decorating skills.

What I AM worried about is not enjoying our terrace to the absolute maximum potential. The last tenants used it like an outdoor living/dining room:

So, along with a few lawn chairs and a bazillion gorgeous potted plants, we needed a picnic table. I could have gotten a nice teak one like Mr. I-Made-The-Apartment-So-Much-Cooler-Than-You-Do had, and I would have. Well, I would have if I had found one on craigslist (actually the french version, www.leboncoin.fr) for forty bucks. Instead, I found this:

Covered in dirt and rust? No problem! I'll throw a tablecloth over it. It'll just get killed by peacocks anyway, and I couldn't dump disinfectant on wood like I can on plastic. I was super excited when "Sandra" called me back to say I could have the table...not so pumped when she gave me directions to her home...in a campground.

But it's been in the sixties, I want to start eating all meals outside, and I am not paying 200 bucks for a table and chairs at a store when I can get one for 40 from a trailer park. Because I am just that kind of girl.

Josh wasn't home, so I emailed him:

hey, just in case i get murdered by crazy people, after class today i'm going to the camping/trailer park "lou soleil" in carry-le-rouet to buy something off le bon coin from someone called "sandra."

Love ya!

His response:

Umm.... What is worth your life to buy in a trailer park?

Now, to do justice to trailer parks, I would have considered the possibility that this was a trap to lure in unsuspecting young women for some kind of depraved butchery no matter where these people lived. And you'd think the fact that Sandra was a female and clearly my age would have reassured me, but no. I was raised to always consider the possibility that I could be brutally murdered, and I do.

Unfortunately, I was not raised to always consider the possibility that my GPS does not actually work, probably because GPS hadn't been invented yet when I was being raised. Halfway to Carry-le-Rouet, or so I thought, I realized that the GPS screen was frozen and I had driven half an hour too far. This would be a good time to mention that we call our GPS Ms. Fairweather because she only works when the going is good and when we don't actually need GPS. We keep a map on hand. I pulled it out, and yay, the best way to get to Carry-le-Rouet was to drive back along the coast.

Now, since I was driving, I didn't take any pictures. These are shots I took of other times we were driving along similar stretches of coastline around here.

Something about driving through little beach towns with a warm sea breeze blowing in the windows just made my heart feel about three pounds lighter. Bout'Chou and I had some bonding time, since this was one of our first outings together, and I decided I needed to stop and get him an ice cream cone and eat it for him on the beach.

But first: the table. Turned out the "trailer park" was a gated community with italianate sculptures and a fountain in the visitors' parking lot. And it overlooked a beach. And had carefully manicured landscaping. The trailers were pretty much just trailers, though--some people were even just living in tents. And Sandra's family was really nice, and since the table was sitting in their yard all ready to be loaded into my car, they had no chance to lock me in the basement. In fact, they might be some of the friendliest people I've met here. I felt like I'd stepped into Wisconsin or Michigan or somewhere where people smile at strangers and load a picnic table into a girl's car for her. As Fabrice (Sandra's boyfriend) let me out of the community's pillared and cupid-sculptured gate, he even said, "See ya later!" instead of "Goodbye."

Since I'd overshot Carry-le-Rouet, I didn't have time to stop and find parking so I could feed Bout'Chou ice cream and walk on the beach. But then, I passed a grocery store...where I ran in and bought a box of ice cream cones (like drumsticks...but they come in about 10 flavors here. I got coffee). So Bout'Chou and I had an ice cream cone as we drove home, past the cute little beach towns and through the hills.

Now I just have to set up the furniture. But first, I think I'm going to call my old doctor in the US and make sure I've had my tetanus booster.

Goodbye, Uncle Fan

2011-02-21T18:27:00.004+01:00

When we moved into our last apartment, our biggest worry was ventilation (this was before we knew about the termites and cockroaches). There was only one window/door, and it wasn't in the bedroom. We needed a fan to channel fresh air into our underground sleeping quarters so that if we died from carbon monoxide poisoning, no one could tell me, "Well, it was your own fault." Nervous about finding a fan in Aix in February, I bought the first one I came across (cue wavy visual effect and "flashback" harp music).

It was in a discount electronics store, and when I asked if they had any fans, they pulled one out of the back that seriously looked like it had been in use in a back office five minutes before, and someone had just stuck a pricetag on it. I was skeptical enough to make them plug it in to prove it worked, but paranoid enough about our oxygen supply to take it home despite the wobbly base and clearly inferior materials/construction.

A few months later, he had been christened "Uncle Fan" in honor of a great-uncle of Josh's that used to fall down on purpose to try to collect insurance money for his injuries. He really did fall over in the slightest breeze, which is a bad thing for a fan. Every time we turned around and found him lying on the ground, Josh would say, "Uncle FAN!" in the same exasperated tone. His personality was a bit like R2D2 with major learning disabilities. I loved him. He might have been a tripping hazard, but he kept us breathing at night. And he was really cute.

But when we moved to the current chez nous, I couldn't justify keeping a suicidal fan in the corner of our tiny kitchen, so Josh finally won a very long-standing battle and got permission put Uncle Fan out to pasture, along with a board I'd been saving "just in case."

You can see he's once more without his face plate. He always had trouble keeping it on. But I toted it along behind as Josh carried him off into the sunset, and lovingly attached it as he settled himself down in the corner of the dumpster.

Man, I really hate goodbyes.

Weekend Redecoration

2011-02-19T18:35:00.005+01:00

A few weeks ago, Josh was gone Saturday and Sunday for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Lyon, about 4 hours away. I was pretty cranky about being left alone and barfy for a weekend, so I decided to give myself a fun project. So, I decided to redecorate the apartment and make a mini video documentary, like my own HGTV show!

About 30 seconds into the first video segment, I was interrupted by peacocks, and then I decided I sounded stupid. So, it went back to being a photo documentary. First project: repaint our hideous green "boot bench," shown above. I got this from the ridiculously overpriced second hand furniture shop downtown a loooong while ago, and had been meaning to repaint it ever since. A "weekend redecoration" was the motivation I needed, and it turned out really well! It was technically too cold to be painting (mid-thirties) so the paint congealed a bit, but that left this awesome striated pattern that looks like wood grain:

I didn't get a "before" shot of the corner of the kitchen where this guy lives, but you can look at the "after" and imagine it's back to that retina-blinding seafoam, no picture hung above it, and covered in clutter.

The clutter is now being kept down to fruit, candles, and bottles of wine.

I decided to give myself a budget that was equivalent to what I thought Josh would spend on a Frisbee tournament--gas, food, entry fees, etc. Luckily I didn't ask him beforehand how much this actually was, because for the Lyon tournament, he spent WAY less than the 50 euros I earmarked for my decorating supplies. Still, I figured 50 euros was a reasonable amount to spend decorating an apartment where we might only live for part of a year.

The other room I attacked was the living room, and all I did there was buy a new trashcan, which isn't worth showing, and put up two paintings. That was the big project of the weekend: doing the paintings! The one over the couch took me most of a day. Here's the before (pretty boring, right?):

And here's the "after":

Josh doesn't like the painting--he thinks it looks unfinished. I keep telling him it's not any worse than bad modern art you can get at Target. That's my decorating standard--it's OK to use/display something I made myself as long as I could buy something worse/tackier/uglier in a store.

Josh did, however, really like the other painting in the room, which I did in about 5 minutes on the back of the sheet of paper that came inside the frame. With a stick. A visiting artist who did a workshop with kids at one of my schools last year taught them to paint with sticks instead of brushes for a cool look, and I like the way it turned out. Again, here's the before:

And here's the after:

I kinda need to reorganize the shelves there, too.

The redecoration fulfilled its purpose of keeping me busy until Josh got home. Unfortunately, it also kept me too busy to do any of the dishes that piled up...I saved them up to do as soon as I finished everything else, but as soon as I hung the last picture, I was attacked by the vomitmonster...and Josh came home to a redecorated but very messy house. Sparking a huge fight (for us. our huge fights are actually really lame... maybe 60% us staring off into space trying to think of what to say, 30% laying out logical arguments the other person can agree with, and only 10% mean and underhanded jabs at the other person's feelings/character/habits. We will never have our own reality TV show.) So, the intended "surprise redecoration" did not get the excited "I can't believe it"s and enthusiasm you see during the "big reveals" at the end of Trading Spaces, but I had fun doing it, and that was really the point.

FAQs

2011-01-21T12:34:00.003+01:00

Since I am feeling slightly less vomity today, I’m going to try to answer some of the questions we’ve been getting repeatedly. Don’t know how useful this will be, since I can’t tell people, “please refer to my blog” when they ask baby’s gender/due date/immigration status, but it’s a start.

So, here goes:

FAQ #1: Due date

July 25^th by American standards; August 1^st in France. My doctor doesn’t know why France keeps those buns in the oven for an extra week (she doesn’t know any other countries that do). We’re American at heart, so starting July 25, we will be doing anything we can to convince Bout'chou that he's done baking. Suggestions welcome.

FAQ #2: What (who) is “Bout’chou”?

It’s actually “bout de chou,” French for “little bit of cabbage.” It’s a term of endearment, like “sweetie pie” or “pumpkin,” and appropriate for a baby whose last name does, in fact, mean “cabbage.” Bout’chou is pronounced enough like “boot-shoe” to make my mother VERY confused, at first, about our level of enthusiasm for becoming parents.

FAQ #3 Where will Bout’chou be born?

France. We don’t have health insurance in the U.S., and paying out-of-pocket is not an attractive option. Plus, here a pregnancy is 100% covered (although you pay to use the TV in the hospital room), average healthy-delivery hospital stay is 4-5 days, and apparently hospital food is fairly edible. It was a no-brainer.

FAQ #4 Will Bout’chou be a French citizen?

Probably not. A baby born to foreign parents on French soil can become a citizen between the ages of 13 and 18 if he/she has lived in France for at least five years. Will we log 5 years before Bout’chou turns 18? I don’t know! See FAQ #5.

FAQ #5 Are we staying in France once Bout’chou arrives?

We don’t know! The whole time we’ve been here, Josh has applied for things back in the US, just in case a great opportunity were to open up. This year, he applied for PhD programs (to start Fall 2011), and if he gets a great offer, well…I don’t think we’d turn it down. (That would most likely put us in PA or Maryland.) I think I’m ready to not be an expatriate for a while. But if none of our stateside opportunities look better than keeping our jobs and continuing our studies here, then we’d stick around. And even if we go back to the US, we’d be interested in returning to France some day. Maybe.

FAQ #6 Are we going to find out Bout’chou’s gender?

Yes. I think we'll find out in March, but I don’t have the heart to even HOPE this is a girl, let alone believe an iffy sonogram promising me a petite fille. We already refer to Bout’chou as “him.” I just couldn’t take the disappointment otherwise. Feel free to tell him some day that I wished he was a daughter.

FAQ #7 Have we picked out names?

Yes, multiple times. It seems to go like this: I fall in love with a name that Josh hates. I suggest the name often enough that Josh grows to like it. We agree on the name. We announce to friends and family that this will be baby’s name. I decide I hate it.

This is the standard procedure for boys’ names. We’ve had a girl’s name picked out from day 1, which is further proof that Bout’chou is going to be a boy.

FAQ #8 If God is benevolent, why is there suffering in the world?

OK, so this isn’t one people are asking when they find out we’re having a baby. But it IS a frequently asked question. Strangely enough, even though I’ve had some pretty lousy things happen in my life, it isn’t a question I’ve personally grappled with. Until now. I am NOT COOL with these crazy pregnancy symptoms. Debilitating nausea? Splitting headaches? And in 6 months, I’m going to have to do WHAT?!?!?! This is not reasonable; I’m trying to do something good here, bring a new life into the world, one I’ll care for and teach to be a positively contributing member of society, someone who will give money to charity and help old ladies cross the street. And I get repaid by throwing up every time someone in my presence mentions stir-fry? I don't see the point. Maybe all the other tough situations I’ve been through were a lot tougher than this one, tough enough that I needed to believe that my suffering was for a good reason, and so I managed to find that silver lining. Or maybe I just feel particularly screwed over by the universe on this one. And that whole story about why women suffer pain in childbirth? Do I really believe that? I can’t go more than 15 minutes without a Maalox because of original sin?

I don’t like to blog about “religious” questions because I MUCH prefer that kind of conversation to be a conversation, not a monologue, and it’s hard for a blog to be more than one-sided. I guess I brought it up here because I feel like so much of talking about pregnancy is squealing over cute onesies and not discussing the real hurdles—and triumphs—that life is throwing at us through this new experience. I probably won’t follow up with more theological musings, but I want to be honest with myself (and cyber-world) and say that this is not all hearts and giggles and vomiting. Not that I think asking myself these questions will be bad—it seems to me that questioning your faith is a great way to learn and grow, a way to move from “I believe this because I don’t have a reason not to” to “I believe this because I think it’s true.” In the future, I’ll probably stick to frivolous things in this frivolous (and public) forum. As I announce the “basic info” about my pregnancy, though, it seemed somehow appropriate to also make the announcement that I (and we, as a family) hope to spend these 9 months growing in ways other than my waistline, and hope to grapple with things bigger than dirty diapers. Although I hear those can be pretty scary.

Messages of Hope

2010-12-14T19:38:00.009+01:00

I am NOT KIDDING; before Christmas I actually heard someone on the classical radio station say (in French), "To create a message of hope, you have to start from a place of negativity." True, but oh, so very French.

I hope YOUR holiday season had the more conventional kind of American well-wishes, the kind that don't pre-suppose any prior state of negativity. We, unfortunately, mostly had the French kind. And there's the reason I haven't been blogging in so long--I've been caught up in the circumstances that provide the appropriate negative context for a message of hope to emerge. They are:

1. The electric company made a mistake, thought we didn't live here, and cut our power off. It took a week to get it reconnected (in below freezing temperatures). Message of hope: neighbors ran an extension cord from their house to ours to power our heater and a lamp. There are kind people here.

2. A small landslide took out our water for almost a week. Message of hope: A new friendship (with another ex-pat who has a functional shower) got enough quality time to grow a little.

3. Our internet died, repeatedly, and we were disconnected for long periods of time from the rest of the world (including my mom, while I was sick, and needed someone to whine to that was long-distance so they couldn't smack me). Message of hope: while calling our internet service provider, one of our great nemeses, I just so happened to get a customer service representative who had lived in Seattle for a year to do an internship. He decided he was going to give us "American Customer Service." But we weren't guaranteed that we would get him when we called back (since our internet liked to work while we were on the phone with tech support and then die when we hung up). So what did this guy do? Started calling us every other day to see if our internet still worked. Which meant we didn't pay for the calls, we were guaranteed no hold time, expedited service (since he knew all the problems already), and now we're his facebook friends. Anybody need to hire someone who speaks French and English and has a degree in international business? He'd love to come back and work in the US again, and boy does he have some mad customer service skillz.

And the last of my reasons for not blogging / excuses-to-complain-about-my-life-thinly-disguised-as-messages-of-hope: 2 months of vomiting. Actually, that one's pretty valid as a message of hope. This hope will be materializing towards the end of July 2011. Hopefully he/she doesn't look quite so much like an alien by then.

Dogjà Vu

2010-11-22T12:14:00.005+01:00

Yesterday we went on a walk in the hills around our maisonette. St. Victoire was lookin' pretty spectacular:

About a third of the way through the walk, we met two dogs, who followed us and chased anything we would throw (well, one chased anything we would throw, and the other kept trying to get the first one to wrestle). I guess being so friendly with strange dogs was a mistake, because...

They followed us home.

And the black lab ran out on the roof to chase peacocks.

And then our visitors waited outside the door, hoping we'd let them come in and play.

Is the universe trying to send us a message? And if so, is it A) adopt a dog or B) don't talk to strangers' pets?

Animalia

2010-11-17T22:36:00.006+01:00

This morning I opened up the giant shutter that covers our glass "french doors" and saw two visitors relaxing on our terrace:
I stepped outside to shoo them away (because I'm getting sick of finding peacock droppings on my porch) and realized we weren't alone.

Another one on the roof, and another one in the tree.

I was glad I hadn't seen The Birds lately. It was creepy enough as it was.

Josh had gone on a looooong morning walk in the hills, and when he came back, he wasn't alone-- pup fantastic had followed him for about an hour. Upon arriving chez nous, said pup ran onto the roof--the ROOF, mind you--to chase away the peacocks. Very nice first impression, pup.

We considered letting him stay with us long-term, since his collar was raggedy and had no tags. And then when we went inside and he sat in front of the door crying for ten minutes, we REALLY considered keeping him.

I decided that if he stuck around until we left for work, he was ours. But he took off, probably after another peacock, or to exchange insults with the neighbor's dachsund. And I know that our lifestyle is nowhere near pet-friendly, but I still had a jab of disappointment when we got back home at the end of the day and he wasn't sitting on our doorstep. Somehow between linguistics class and coffee break I had started daydreaming about a certain pair of floppy ears...

Another Castle Weekend

2010-11-01T11:18:00.015+01:00

Our daily life here is definitely more of a grind than it was in the US, but it’s punctuated by almost magical moments that make me wonder if living in Europe might just be worth the hassle, the emotional trauma, and the reams of paperwork.

Our weekend in the Cevennes was one of those moments.

We’ve just started going to an English-language church, [iccp], the only church I know of with punctuation featured in its name. That’s not the only selling point—we’ve really enjoyed getting to know a whole group of other ex-pats. Plus, we showed up just in time to go along on their bi-annual castle trip. An elderly French nobleman, Monsieur de Cazenove, who still lives in his ancestral chateau, invites the entire church to come hang out at his place for a weekend twice a year. It started years back when he knew somebody who knew somebody, and it’s turned into a pretty clutch tradition. Apparently he likes it, too, and I had a good time chatting with him in his study about the history of the house and his family.

Turns out, the castle used to just be a rather large farmhouse, which his grandfather bought in the 1880s and reconstructed to look like a castle.

(Check out where M. de Cazenove stores his plastic lawn chairs.)

On first glance, the chateau seems like it’s from the 1400s, but inside its got all the amenities of an upper class residence from the late 19^th century—complete with dumbwaiter in the dining room, connecting to the big kitchen/laundry area below.

The chateau felt both like a castle from a fairy tale, and like my grandma’s house. The palatial living room had medieval-style antiques alongside 1970s velour recliners with the newspaper and TV remote carefully placed within arm’s reach.

Usually when you visit a historical site, all that’s left is the shell—walls and ceilings, and maybe some paintings. If you’re lucky, there will be furniture that fits the time period, giving you some idea about what it used to look like. If you’re really lucky, there will be re-enacters, like the Chateau de la Barben, or even wax figures, like Warwick Castle in England, one of the best sightseeing events of my childhood.

This castle trip was even better. Not only did we get to stay in the castle, but we got to stay there with a group of people. It was amazing to watch everyone fall into what must be traditional “castle” behavior. During the day, all of the “able bodied” (or more adventurous) went off on a hike, leaving the women behind to putter around the kitchen and look after the kids. It felt as if they’d all gone off to work in the fields and stables. Then, everyone met up again in the huge “feasting hall” for dinner. We were all wearing jeans and fleeces, but our group dynamic was right out of the middle ages.

Even the social hierarchy was like that in a castle. The older couples and families with children were assigned bedrooms, and all the single girls—maybe I should call them “damsels”—had quarters together.

I kindof wished I'd been in the damsel's chamber, but Josh and I had the distinction of being a married couple, so we had our own room. We got an air mattress in the octagonal “smoking room” off the great hall—a relic of the 19^th and not the 15^th century, but intriguing nonetheless with exotic Indian muslin on the walls. It was so cool to have a little corner of a castle that we could call “home,” even if just for a weekend!

It reminded me of what the tour guide had said at Versailles: that courtiers would do anything to get even a broom closet assigned to them, so that they could “live” in the king’s palace with him. I’ve gotta admit, even the broom closet here was bigger than the room I had in Manhattan.

I, being able-bodied, should have been hiking during the day, but I chose to stay back and explore the castle. I don’t think Monsieur de Cazenove has thrown out anything that was purchased since his great-grandparents moved in, and there were antique treasures around every corner.

I ventured up to the attic, where drips from a leaky roof were caught by old chamber pots, and a trunk held generations of hand-me-downs.

I felt a little guilty that I was there instead of my friend J.B., who would have had some kind of fit from the bliss of it all, but I tried to enjoy it enough for the two of us, and take lots of pictures.

But how do you adequately enjoy something that seems too magical to be real?

Coming back downstairs, the kids had given up their hunt for treasures outside in the castle grounds...

...and were playing cache-cache (hide-and-go-seek). I wondered if one of them would hide in a wardrobe and end up in Narnia. Then I wondered if we already were as close as we could get. This impression was heightened when one of the little girls asked if I wanted to go see the stone table.

How do you come back to reality after a weekend like that? Not that the rest of our life feels that much like reality...

Steeeeeeerike ... 3? 7? We've lost count.

2010-10-28T11:22:00.009+02:00

The Phillies may be done for the year, but it's still grève (strike) season here in France. The port of Marseille is blocked by the striking dockworkers, which means no deliveries of gas. I waited in line more than half an hour last week at a service station...and I was lucky to find one that had anything to sell.

Somehow the airport managed to stay open, and our visitors from London were able to arrive and depart, no problem. We spent a great day hiking along the cliffs overlooking the sea...
...where we could also see the oil tankers waiting for the port to open up again. They're there along the horizon.
Another stop on our "France on Strike" tour was the university, barricaded to protest...um...something. I'm not sure if we're on strike over retirement age or education reform.

What I DO know is that, as a teacher, striking is a personal choice, until the students barricade the school and you can't get in. My 6th and 7th graders aren't going that far, although a few of them did try to convince me that a strike is actually an official day off, and if you want to go to the protest, you can, but you DEFINITELY don't need to come to school. Sorry, guys. I'm not THAT out to lunch.

But back to our weekend visitors, and the baseball metaphor: we had a fun "France on Strike" activity planned. According to Josh (because I wouldn't know), strikes are noted in baseball stats with the letter "K." So, we decided to buy a bunch of canvases and put a "K" up on the wall each time there's a strike that affects us in some way. Between the time when we decided to do this and the time we finally got around to doing the paintings, we'd lost count of how many strikes there had been. So we just did five and called it even.

Now I need to figure out how to get them to hang straight. Any tips on hanging canvases?

By the way, the olive tree "K" is Josh's masterpiece. He's really digging les oliviers, which is a convenient fascination, since they're everywhere. We've even got one on the terrace, where we did our "Painting in Provence" afternoon.

We are LOVING our terrace. Yesterday we hung out there after work, drinking tea, skyping Josh's mom, and watching an episode of the office. The terrace was also VERY useful on Monday evening, when our electricity decided to join in the spirit of the grève. We turned on the stove to cook our friends one last dinner-en-provence before taking them to the airport, and POP, we blew the kitchen fuse. And, it was one of those old fashioned ones that actually has to be replaced. No way THAT was going to happen until the next day, so we whipped the burners out of the way cool custom-designed-oven/butcherblock thing and set them up on the bar outside. It was a bit cold standing out there in the starlight stirring greenbeans, but dinner still got cooked and the house didn't smell like pork chops afterward, so we might make the "outdoor kitchen" a more frequent occurrence.

En tout cas, the painting-on-the-terrace will definitely be repeated: there's another huge strike planned for November 6th, which just so happens to be the day we're heading in to Paris for a friend's wedding. Something tells me we're going to get some more wall art out of this one.

Alps Camping Fail

2010-10-18T10:38:00.005+02:00

A few weekends ago we decided it was finally time to use the tent we'd lugged across the Atlantic. We also decided to take a break from all the stress of moving (including constructing an entire apartment-full of Ikea furniture) and go on a little romantic weekend vacation. We drove up to the French Alps, hoping to see some fall foliage.

Apparently it was too early for fall foliage.

Josh had researched great hikes/camping spots in the Parc National des Ecrins, so we set off up the mountain to find a place to bivouac for the night.

We had forgotten something about the Alps: they're really, really steep. Which means there are no flat parts to camp in--at least not within a three hour hike of where we started. And we'd spent an hour going the wrong way, which meant we weren't going to get anywhere campable before dark. So we turned around to head back down the mountain, and I had a panic attack. Turns out I'm more afraid of heights than I had realized.

I don't have any trailside pictures of the steep part. I was too busy trying not to die.

After Josh (who had to wear both backpacks) finally coaxed me down off the mountain, we debated what to do. I was in favor of paying a campground to let us stay there, legally. Josh was in favor of finding a hidden spot to set up the tent in someone's back yard. I had visions of being woken up in the middle of the night by some ancient disgruntled farmer, threatening us with some kind of garden implement and refusing to call his dogs off. We explored the valley for a couple of hours until we found a spot that seemed remote enough that we wouldn't get caught for illegal camping. It still had me worried.

We set up the tent. We climbed inside. And then Josh realized he wasn't feeling too well.

Three hours later we were back in our apartment, snuggled in our new Ikea bed and stargazing out our bedroom window.

New Place

2010-10-17T14:46:00.005+02:00

Still no internet in the new apartment, but this poor blog is languishing. So, I’ll give a quick update of life in the Krauthaus.

The car is back from the shop after a new alternateur (luckily covered by the dealer) and we’ve begun our research into French lemon laws. Gee, the things you never thought you’d end up learning about.

Our apartment is faring much better. In fact, it’s not really an apartment—the lease calls it a maisonette, which I suppose translates as “cottage.” Apart from a ghastly sulfur odor that wafts up out of old pipes around here, and the fact that we’ve run into walls, trees, and rocks trying to squeeze in and out of our tiny parking berth, we’re really happy with the new place. Here are some “before” photos, taken while the old tenants were moving out. Once we’ve finished unpacking and decorating I’ll do another virtual tour.

Here’s the kitchen, with that infamous custom-made oven/butcherblock...thanks to everyone who convinced me via facebook to buy it from the last tenants!

The bedroom has custom storage cabinets, too, and a gorgeous view out over the valley.

There’s also a den/guestroom/office, and our favorite part: the terrace!

Complete with a bar!

Too bad it’s gotten too cold for outdoor parties.

We’re also enjoying the peace and quiet of the countryside. No loud music! No people smoking outside our windows! But we do have one new neighborly annoyance. Listen to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie8TrwY1nHA

Peacocks. The people next door keep them as pets.

Apparently there was one digging around in our garden the other day; dirt was scattered everywhere and there were telltale feathers:

And a few days ago I woke up and looked out the window to find a peahen watching me from her perch on the next rooftop. Our landlord says we should chase them away, but I’m not sure the nuisance could possibly outweigh the novelty. Peacocks! Oh lala.

Saturday Guessing Game

2010-09-25T22:41:00.003+02:00

Guess what we spent our Saturday doing?

Getting the car towed.

Not sure yet what's up... but hoping the French lemon laws are user-friendly.

And while we we're asking difficult questions, see if you know what Josh's favorite color is:

You wouldn't know it's green, would you?

Castle Weekend

2010-09-24T15:38:00.006+02:00

Last weekend, a friend from our university days stopped by Aix on a trip around Europe. Her request? To see a castle.

I'd seen signs for "Chateau de la Barben" and it seemed like the most castle-y castle around. Most of the "chateaux" in our region are either grand country houses or primitive-looking ruins. But this one had a good combination of medieval fortification outside and luxury living inside.

The gardens aren't open to visitors, but we could peer down into them as we climbed up to the gates. Since it was le jour du patrimoine, a special holiday celebrating historical sites, there was classical music floating down from speakers set up in the castle courtyard. In the area for tourists to picnic, we ran into a few people that seemed to be visiting from another time instead of another place.
It turned out that the castle was peopled by historical re-enacters for the day. But instead of taking their jobs too seriously, they were all just enjoying the castle like we were. It seemed like a few of the women had just used the day as a playdate, and lounged around the lady of the castle's private salon while their kids played with dolls, ribbons, and puppies.

The kids seemed to be enjoying themselves too--not least because they were given ice cream at the castle's snack shop.

Pretty dresses, an enchanted castle, and an ice cream cone? Sign me up.

Downstairs in the castle kitchen, two women in kirtles and bodices were whipping up a medieval feast in the castle's giant old fireplace/stove/oven.

They had to pause shoving cloves of garlic into one of the largest sides of meat I've ever seen and stirring vegetables in pans set among the coals to wipe their hands off on their voluminous aprons and answer the castle's phone. Chateau de la Barben is in business as a bed and breakfast and this weekend, overnight guests were sharing a feast with the re-enacters.

Hopefully they weren't sharing a bathroom, too.

We finished up the afternoon with a stroll around the castle grounds. The castle is in a tiny swath of deciduous forest (most of what we've got here is scruffy pine groves) and it was lovely to walk around and listen to the birds chirp and the stream gurgle.

And it was the first time we've visited an attraction formerly inaccessible to us due to lack of vehicle! Now that we're car owners we can get to these lesser known, out-of-the-way gems. Well, most of the time. The next day when we went to drive to a coastal town so our friend could see the Mediterranean, the car was dead. After a new battery (and a lot of scrambling around to find out who we know that has jumper cables), we're vehiculé ("vehicled") once more. Just in time for this weekend's destination: a new apartment! Yup, the bugs have won, and we're getting out of here. I'll show pictures once we've signed the lease. This new place seems pretty sweet and I don't want to jinx it. Stay tuned!

Blame Teddy

2010-09-06T00:03:00.005+02:00

I'm up studying for an as-yet-unscheduled exam that is supposed to happen some time this week or last week. Thanks, French university system, I LOVE studying for exams without knowing when they'll take place.

ANYWAY, I hate to admit it, but I was doing some research on Wikipedia, and I came across this old campaign poster. I noticed something: apparently in 1906, pollution was a GOOD thing. Check out the factories in the upper right-hand corner.

Incidentally, I used to think Teddy Roosevelt was awesome, probably from a visit to his home, Sagamore Hill, when I was a kid, as well as a lifelong appreciation of impressive moustaches. After studying history from a hispanophone perspective, I would say that I have rather strong feelings to the contrary. Not only did he shoot lots of cool wild animals, but Good ol' Teddy caused a lot of problems for the rest of the western hemisphere in the name of making money for the US. AND some of those problems spawned the literary movement I'm supposed to be studying right now. Thanks, Teddy. If it weren't for you, a bunch of animals in Africa might not be endangered, and I could be watching season 5 of The Office right now instead of hitting the books. Or Wikipedia. Whatever.

Laguna Matata

2010-09-02T18:29:00.003+02:00

We're car owners! This morning we purchased our first "grown-up car," aka the first car that our parents didn't help us pick out. Which means our brothers helped. We spent hours on the phone with Josh's brother, who is an amateur mechanic and gave us a crash course in car buying, and my brother, who is luckily addicted to Top Gear and has an encyclopedic knowledge of European car models. They both gave seals of approvals to our very glamorous...station wagon.

We feel pretty good about ourselves--making a major first-time purchase is pretty scary for non-risk-takers like us anyway, and we did it all in a foreign country where we were just learning words like disque (break pad) and break (station wagon). Hopefully our new Renault Laguna will live up to my brother's enthusiastic recommendation. After all the stresses we've had with other major decisions here (our disastrously bug-infested apartment, for example) we're expecting something to go wrong with our car...but trying not to worry about it. Laguna matata! And one major worry WAS lifted away by this car purchase: I don't have to learn to drive stick! I think we found the only automatic car for sale in Provence. For the first time since touching down in Europe, I can drive myself somewhere! I feel like a person again.

So, how did we celebrate finally having a car after 2 years of taking buses to the grocery store and not going to the beach that's only 30 minutes away because you need your own vehicle to get there? Well, in the best way we knew how: by accidentally putting gas in the diesel car our friend lent us to go pick up our new "Renaultcerous." So, we spent the afternoon making calls from the side of the road, trying to find a tow truck (remorqueur) and a garage that would do the procedure to flush the gas out of the little violet Clio's system. Beach trips, grocery store runs, and being everyone's airport taxi will have to wait until tomorrow. But hey, laguna matata--no worries!

I wonder...

2010-07-25T23:12:00.004+02:00

This evening Josh said to me:

"Today I went swimming in my underwear. People looked at me funny, but I think it was because of my hat."

If we were in France, he would have been right. If we were in the US...not so much. But where does Spain stand on the swimming in underwear vs. floppy sunhat opinion spectrum? This is something they have neglected to discuss in my "Spanish Culture" class. But we do have class again tomorrow; maybe I'll bring it up.

Update: I DID ask the culture professor about it. She said a hat was normal for summer, and then burst out laughing when I mentioned that Josh had gone swimming in his calzoncillos. Case closed.

La universidad

2010-07-22T22:08:00.010+02:00

One thing I am L.O.V.I.N.G. about my summer is how beautiful the buildings are. Salamanca is, to put it simply, the Spanish version of Hogwarts.

The University was founded right around the same time as Oxford (where they filmed a bunch of the Harry Potter scenes), i.e., a really really long time ago. I've had class once a week in the original campus building, which means they take away those red velvet "this is not for you" ropes and let us sit on the historic benches while we fan ourselves madly (there's a reason fans are a classic souvenir from Spain) and try to pay attention to whomever is giving that week's lecture.

As you walk through the university district in town, you'll see what looks like medieval graffiti all over walls, always in shades of red.

This is because, for centuries, when someone sucessfully defends their doctoral thesis, their buddies kill a bull to have a feast, and use its blood to mix up a special kind of paint. Then they paint the newly "doctored" student's name, and sometimes thesis title, up on one of the walls of the school. The tradition is still alive today, although I'm not sure if bull's blood is still involved. Graduated doctoral students' names are painted up next to a symbol for "victory."

I have class in this building, too, every day. Wandering around during breaks, I feel like I've stumbled onto the scene of Romeo and Juliet or, of course, Harry Potter. Sometimes I want to hang out the bathroom window and ask "wherefore art thou, Romeo?"

But the similarity to Harry Potter stops with the buildings. Here are students in the courtyard getting registered for classes: no sorting hat in sight.

Back in our classroom, things aren't quite as romantic either, although we have two walls of gorgeous deep-set windows. I realized where a window seat may have come from: the walls are so thick that to set in a window, you have to carve out an alcove.

Even if things are a bit more modern (i.e., unromantic) in our classroom, I wouldn't want to sit on the benches from the early days of the university.

And looking out the window is always an option. We're right across the plaza from Salamanca's cathedral.

Well...back to work!

Cuatro gatos

2010-07-20T16:03:00.005+02:00

Josh had his first day of Spanish classes today, and now he's sprawled out on my bed quizzing me on the cool phrases he learned in class. One of his favorites: "There are four cats"--there isn't anybody here.
Could describe this street corner my class converged upon yesterday during our "city visit." (The gato número cuatro is a little hard to spot.) My camera's on the fritz--not sure what's up with the dark stripe across the tops of all my shots. Might have to splurge and get a new one--anybody in love with their camera enough to recommend we get the same model? I just want a little point-and-shoot. I think I'm going to go camera-shopping on Saturday.

La vida aquí

2010-07-19T23:02:00.005+02:00

I just took the cross-town bus home from Josh's apartment (I got "free" dorm housing, he found a sublet for the month). And I passed the bilboard with a digital clock/thermometer on it and sighed with relief, because it's only 35 degrees out. It's finally cooled off a bit. How nice. 35 degrees celcius, for anyone who thinks in farenheit, is a whopping 95. About fifteen degrees cooler than it was this afternoon, when we got dragged around to see a bunch of old renaissance palaces. But I'm not complaining.

Really, I'm not. I might hazard a bet that this is one of the most fun summers I've had since I went to essay-writing camp when I was 14. I really don't know what to do with myself when I'm not staring out a window wishing class were over. I currently have 7 hours a day in which I can stare out the window wishing class were over, although this is not generally how I'm spending my time. The classes are pretty interesting (some more so, some less so) and I'm REALLY getting a kick out of being in a room full of other language teachers. Especially when they get into shushing fights, because the people that were being shushed two minutes ago are now annoyed with the shushers, who have given up shushing and started talking to their neighbors (not even bothering to whisper), and then finally someone gets mad enough to yell at someone and say that they can't hear the professor, who is looking mildly bewildered at the fact that a room full of adults can't manage to raise their hands to ask a question. This has only happened a handful of times, though--I'd say less than 20.

Ok, so I'm tired, because it's 11:30 and it's still too hot to go to bed, and so I'm getting cranky. But I'm really enjoying my classes, the best one by far being the class where we're figuring out how to look at a Latin word and explain how two millennia of people mispronouncing it gave us the Spanish word we have today. For example, someone hanging out on the Iberian peninsula around 200 a.d. couldn't say the sound made by "f" and "l" together, and their mispronunciation gave us the "y" sound at the beginning of the word "llama," which the Romans called "flamma." If you know me, you can imagine how much I am enjoying this. It's nothing like the academic glee I feel for 8th/9th century norse invaders (aka vikings) but I'm definitely having a good time. And I really do like my classmates. After two years of having to surmount cultural differences just to be able to chit-chat happily with the person beside me in class, I am SO HAPPY to be in a giant group of Americans. Can I just say how great Americans can be?

It's also just cool to be in Spain again. The first time I ever "lived" abroad was when I studied in Madrid for a semester, and even the things I completely forgot about or never knew about, I still feel like they're a little familiar. Like people pushing you to get past instead of asking you to move, or the juice boxes of wine in the grocery store.

This weekend we had a mandatory field trip to Segovia, a town about 2 hours away.

I had been there before, and remembered the Roman aqueduct:

And the castle:

And was not at all surprised by the random old man trying to pick up any of us he could while we were standing around trying to listen to our professor lecture on the aqueduct's history. Here he is hitting on my friend Erin.

(Check out how cool his belt is. People here are much crazier dressers than in France.)

Hm, it's 11:40 and one thing I had totally forgotten about Spain is how late people go to bed. It's just too hot to do anything between 1 and 7 pm, and the sun doesn't set until 10:30. People are just waking up about now. Sounds like there's a fiesta in the dorm courtyard. Do I try to sleep in spite of the racket or go join the party? Eh, when in Rome. . . besides, it's too hot to close my window, so I don't think sleeping stands a chance.

¡Adivina!

2010-07-06T19:25:00.002+02:00

Where would you guess we are if I told you the yogurt aisle has diminished in quality and been joined by...

A ham aisle, including such delicacies as meat-laced pork fat?

I bit into an egg roll the other day and instead of cabbage and shrimp it was stuffed with ham and cheese.

For those who prefer "fruits of the sea," this octopus looks like he’d like to end up on your table...at any rate, I think he’s trying to escape from the freezer case.

Still need a hint about where we are? This is what we were doing last Saturday night.

We’re here for this summer so I can start working on my masters at the university here.

First task: find out if masters is written “masters” or “master’s.”

Second task: stop strolling around town and drinking sangria and hit the books!

¡Hasta pronto!

Samedi

2010-06-12T23:53:00.007+02:00

Today we played hard. It was the birthday of some friends in Marseille who have an AMAZING rooftop deck with views over the sailboat-filled old port, the medieval fortresses guarding it, and the islands in the Mediterranean. We baked ourselves in the sunshine and "partied hard" which in this case meant eating about a zillion kinds of pork sausage. If Josh doesn't wake up with a stomach ache it will be a MIRACLE.

I was proud of myself and my humble offering to the party fare; this was one of the first times I've decided entirely what to cook based on "what looks good" at the market. I made a basic crust-and-fruit tart with "pêches de vigne" -- very fruity, fragrant peaches (David Lebovitz calls them a cross between peaches and raspberries), and sprinkled it with dried lavender. In the 45 seconds it took me to buy lavender at the dried herbs stand, I think the little old man working there gave me eight or nine other suggestions for how to use lavender in cooking (put it in tea. put it in pasta. put it on meats.) and then tried to sell me three or four other kinds of herbs. Desolée, monsieur. You've got me stocked up on enough herbes de provence to last me for at least another two months.

For the tart, I used Smitten Kitchen's amazing basic apple tart recipe, and I don't have any pictures but I was really proud of the finished result. I made some lemon-lavender syrop at the same time by tossing in some of the lavender as I heated up a simple syrup for lemonade. Flavored syrop are really big here, and you can get all different kinds (our favorites are peach and almond). People add them to water, seltzer, or even beer (a demi-pêche--beer with peach syrup--is SO good on a hot day). I stuck the syrup and lemon juice combo in a bottle in the fridge to be watered down into lemonade on a per-glass basis, and it's saving me space for an extra bottle of sparkling mineral water, my newest obsession. Even with some sugar syrup splashed in, it's got less fat than a yogurt.

So with my home-made syrop in the fridge and my tart in the bellies of the nice people at the party today, I'm feeling pretty good about my samedi. I also had a first: my first bises while blowing my nose. The standard greeting at any social event here is the bises, the two-cheek kiss-kiss. When I lived in Spain, I had no problem with the kiss-kiss but for some reason, here it drives me nuts. I never know when it's appropriate or not, so I always stand around looking awkward when it's time to say goodbye or be introduced. I feel like my personal space is being invaded and the person giving me the bises is probably giving me some kind of virus simultaneously. And now that I wear glasses, if I bises somebody who has them too, our glasses clink, which is mildly unpleasant. None of this ever bothered me in Spain. Maybe it's because Spanish speakers just seem so much warmer to me that I don't mind being drawn in and touched and connected with. Doing the bises here in France seems to be contrary to the way I'm treated the rest of the time. Lean in for a quick cheek-cheek and then back away to a safe emotional distance. This is, of course, a huge generalization and there are cold Spanish speakers and very warm and open French people. But still, at the party this afternoon (where maybe 80% of attendees were from somewhere in the hispanophone universe), it just wasn't weird to be bised. Not even really by the host, who came over and bised me while I was blowing my nose--as in, tissue held to face during the entire interaction.

Josh is brushing his teeth which is the sign that my samedi is over. Oh dear...just realized I never did the dishes from today's culinary exertions. Guess my day will last just a little while longer, then.

Bonne nuit!

That's What It's All About (+ Tour de France cancellation notice)

2010-06-08T17:58:00.025+02:00

One of my (barely English-speaking) co-workers confessed to me today that she's now blowing off steam while stuck in traffic by singing the hokey pokey at the top of her lungs (plus gestures). She bought a CD with the "Okeee Pokeee," "Five little Monkeys" and the peanut-butter-jelly song for her class, but she's definitely going to be listening to it over the summer.

In other news, our Tour de France has been canceled (not the real Tour de France, the one Josh and I were doing as we ate our way through the country's cheeses). I was starting to put on les kilos and I wasn't going to be able to wear my summer clothes if I didn't back off the fromage! The other reason is that we hit a bunch of cheesy duds. Sortof lackluster brie-like cheeses. This one was so mediocre we spent almost no time talking about it. Instead, we worked out the minimum number of measurements we could take from what remained of the cheese and still be able to calculate what percentage we had already eaten.

I think we settled on knowing the circumference and one angle. We had switched to picking our cheeses up at the convenience store instead of the farmers market and we got our due (the brillat savarin came from a convenience store but apparently that was the exception to the rule). I think I also let myself get wooed into buying crappy cheeses by their pretty packaging.

So, our Tour de France is over, but we did have another culinary concours, the Picard Challenge, for which we ate only frozen tv dinners for a week just to see if we could do it. But I will report back on that once I have done some studying for my exams.

Oh dear

2010-05-24T11:54:00.004+02:00

Just got back from the market, where a busker had set up a microphone and an amp with a backup tape. He reminded me of a young teenager I once saw busking on the subway in NYC--his exquisite, well-trained voice floated through the subway car with, "When I fall in love, it will be forever. . ." and I reached for my wallet, but then zipped my purse right back up again when he continued with, "When I never fall in love. . . la-la laaaa la-la, la-la-la. . ." Dude. If you're going to sing in public, learn the words.

This guy was singing something in French as I arrived and started picking up zucchini and carrots, and I was really impressed with his honey-smooth baritone. And then his backup tape changed songs and he began a rousing rendition of "You've Got a Friend on Me." Oh dear. Oh, dear.

...et bien sûr!

2010-05-17T12:57:00.004+02:00

Lest you think that the people of Cannes have enough glamour in their lives that they aren't interested in Miss Monroe:

Here she is on the sign of a beach restaurant:

Here are 3-D Marilyn portraits gracing the wall of a café where we (and many lanyard-wearing festivalgoers) got a snack:
The artist painted these portraits and then added real bijoux--the top Marilyn has earrings and a necklace stuck on to the canvas and the bottom Marilyn's collier is made from a vintage rhinestone brooch. The top Marilyn also seemed to have some problem with her lips. We think they were put on crooked.

And in case you're only driving by the outskirts of Cannes but still need your Marilyn fix, here's a giant mural:

We also popped into a store ("Bathroom Graffiti") with an entire Marilyn section: espresso mug sets, Marilyn's-lips sofas, makeup bags and I think I lost track after that.

Yes we Cannes

2010-05-17T00:22:00.006+02:00

Our friends David and Jessica were here visiting this week and Jessica wanted to see Cannes during the film festival. So off we went, she and I, to get our fill of glamour.

Cannes is, a la base, a little seaside town-turned-festival city. The old town (including castle) perches on top of a peninsula that juts out into the sea beside a little port.

On the other side of the port is the main festival pavilion—location of the official red carpet.

Then stretching along the beach is the town: a mix of fancy hotels, like the “Hotel Splendid”:

And of course the Ritz-Carlton, where lots of les stars stay, apparently.

Did we bump into any of the famous people who were at the film festival (Woody Allen, Cate Blanchett, Tim Burton. . .)? Nope, not unless you count George and Brad.

We determined pretty quickly that the celebrities only come out at night. I pointed out to Jessica that this was like cockroaches. I had bugs on the brain with the whole termite/scorpion/cockroach/landlord-not-concerned-enough-about-it situation. Anyway, I don’t blame them (the celebrities); there are tourists everywhere and they would get swamped, plus, I think they’re there to promote their films to other industry people and go to official events, not party. Aside from the gawking tourists, the atmosphere of the festival was just like that of a big convention for any industry—people in business clothes coming and going and grabbing business lunches and talking on cell phones. We could tell who was connected to the festival because they all had lanyards with ID cards on them and a “we’re doing important work” look in their eyes. As opposed to the people not connected to the festival, who had a “we’re hoping we run into George Clooney” look in their eyes.

There’s no way for someone unconnected to the festival to get into the films short of begging, which dozens of people were doing in front of the theatre, holding up signs pleading for tickets. As far as I can tell, though, the other movie theatres in town show a different selection that is still loosely affiliated with the festival. We started to walk to one of these other theatres, where a French friend had told us we would be able to see a film for free (!) and people associated with it would probably be there (actors, directors, etc.). On the way to the theatre, we ended up roaming around the old city, and stopped at the castle on a hill, and decided that the town was too interesting to spend half of our remaining 4 hours sitting cooped up in a theatre. So we walked back through town, along the main (shopping) street.

It was a pretty weird mix of shops—the normal “high-street” brands (like Zara and Mango) peppered with pretty high-end retailers. Nothing über-fancy, though. I think that stuff is carefully tucked away from gawking tourists. We DID find a second-hand shop with red-carpet-worthy duds—and oh, how I love this dress.

I would wear it if I were going to make a red-carpet entrance. Although it’s probably out of the budget of a humble English teacher—the frock hanging next to it was Lanvin and I think the shoes were some equally haute marque.

After strolling around town a bit and getting caught in a rain shower (luckily we’d brought umbrellas, thank you MeteoFrance for being right for once in your weather predictions) we went past the festival pavilion again. . .

And saw everyone set up to photograph the stars as they arrived for the evening’s events. I think those are all photographers (or at least very determined and devoted fans) under those umbrellas.

Earlier in the day we’d seen the ranks of ladders set up for strategic picture-taking.

I think the “real” photographers with press passes get to go into a special cordoned-off area. We waited and watched for a while perched on a wall across the street. I think we were just too early for anyone in evening wear, although we saw some people not dressed like celebrities coming in and out.

But we had to catch our bus, and the two hours of sitting were still not enough to erase the fatigue of a full day of walking. So, tired, damp, and chilly, we got home to our unglamorous but warm apartment with a husband waiting for each of us. After pretending that we’d seen Russell Crowe, we fessed up that all we’d seen was the town and lots and lots of people with lanyards. The celebrities only come out at night, I told Josh. “Oh,” he said, “like cockroaches.”

Les Macarons

2010-05-10T22:35:00.004+02:00

If you’re a connoisseur of French culture, you’re probably wondering why I haven’t ever mentioned macarons. Or you may be wondering what macarons are. For those in the second group, a macaron is a VERY distant cousin to the American “macaroon”—they’re both made with a base of almonds (or coconut, for the American version) instead of flour, and they’re both made without a leavening agent—but as far as I know, the similarities stop there.

I am not at all qualified to be explaining macarons. They have a following that makes twi-hards and trekkies look apathetic. There are blogs upon blogs and books upon books dedicated to them. When it comes to macarons, I’m pretty much just a casual observer. A friend of mine who actually knows how to make these incredibly tricky gourmandises says that there’s a special technique to whip the batter (almond flour, sugar, and egg whites) into the fluff that gets baked and hardens into the macaron shell. Two macaron cookies are then sandwiched together like a gorgeous hamburger and filled with buttercream, ganache, fruit jam, or even special surprises, like a whole (pitted) cherry. Wikipedia says that this stereotypical macaron is actually the Parisian version, created by the pâtisserie Ladurée in the early 1900s. This makes sense, because at the artisanal foodmarket here in Aix, I’ve seen rustic cookies looking much more like American macaroons than Ladurée’s creations.

So, did I discover macarons in a pastry shop here in France? Nope, I first had one in the kitchen of Josh’s neighbor Mrs. L. We went over to say goodbye to their family before we left for France in 2008, and sat at Mrs. L’s kitchen counter and sampled some of the delicacies she was in the process of whipping up that day. Chief amongst them was an Ispahan macaron, a marriage of raspberry, rose, and lychee with fresh berries tucked into the rich buttercream and cubes of some magical sugary substance that I cannot even hope to describe. Mrs. L showed us the inspiration on Pierre Hermé’s website, and I kindof nodded and mmmmm-ed, oblivious to the privilege I was experiencing.

It turns out that Pierre Hermé is rivalling Ladurée for recognition as the top macaronerie in the WORLD, and Mrs. L had managed to re-create a Pierre Hermé concoction in her kitchen in Pennsylvania. The magnitude of this didn’t start to dawn on me until we got to France and I got around to shelling out 75 centimes for a macaron at a bakery and it didn’t even hold a CANDLE to Mrs. L’s. I started doing some research, reading Paris Breakfasts (a macaron lover’s paradise of a blog) and asking des françaises in-the-know for their opinions. It finally boiled down to one thing: I was going to have to do some in-person experimentation.

So, when my family came over to visit last April and we went to Paris, on the itinerary was a macaron taste test. We stopped by Ladurée and Pierre Hermé and made some purchases, and then took them to the Luxembourg Gardens to get down to business.

From Pierre Hermé, we had pistachio-cherry, vanilla-olive oil, jasmine, blood-orange cointreau, passionfruit-milk chocolate, and rose-grapefruit (I think. . . it was a lot of sugar and my memory is a bit blurry).

From Ladurée, we had. . . I think green tea, coffee, caramel au beurre salé, and rose. And oh, the experience. The shell is craquant and makes a little pop as your teeth break through it, and the inside is creamy and rich. And then there were surprises, like the cherry inside this pistachio-griotte macaron.

Winner of the macaron challenge: Ladurée’s rose-flavored macaron. Ladurée’s flavors were simple but amazingly intense.

The Pierre Hermé flavors were more fun but a bit weird (you can tell from their store front that they’re all about pushing the envelope):

Because we were going for mini-macarons, we didn’t buy one of the full-sized ispahan creations from PH. We DID, however, get an ispahan croissant. De-li-cieux. It was filled with a raspberry-rose paste with candied rose petals sprinkled on top. We ate (worshipped) it on the TGV back to Aix.

A Lovely Day in Venelles

2010-05-04T18:06:00.006+02:00

Today was one of those delicious blustery days when your umbrella blows inside out more than once but it's not so cold that you hate your life. After I take the bus to Venelles (about 20 minutes), I walk up a steeeeeep hill to my first school of the day, perched on up in Venelles La Haut, the medieval hilltop town, or village perché. I teach one class at the école on top of the hill and then walk back down to the newer part of town. On my walk back down, the view of the valley is amazing. I can see the Alps off in the distance when the weather's clear--here's where they should be.

No snow-capped peaks today. Even Mt. Sainte-Victoire was hidden by clouds, and the fields in that direction were veiled in a filmy mist.I love to look into this house's garden as I walk past. They have a little orchard and a fish pond, but it's not very well laid out--gives the feeling of a constricted jumble. Still, it was cool to watch spring creep up on it.

Around the corner, Spring is starting to give way to summer. The blossoms are saying their goodbyes.You can tell Venelles is a pretty ritzy bedroom community of Aix. Some of the crosswalks are made of marble paving stones!

I poked my nose into the grocery store to pick up lunch--I'd left my carefully packed pique-nique at home. After I came out, the storm had cleared up and Il faisait beau. Sainte-Victoire was peeking back through the clouds.
Venelles seems like a great place to live. I wish we could afford the rent here! There are mostly just houses for families, not much for a young pair of americains who miss their backyards but don't want a whole maison. There are apartments, but they're for families or retirees. The complex by my second school even has a daycare connected to the building! And you barely walk out your front door and you're by the biblotheque. I missed a class this week because my 1st grade (CE1, as they're called here) took a stroll over to the library with their teacher.
The way from the bibliotheque down to the next school is almost as nice as the walk down the hill. There are tree-lined streets with little townhouses that seem to be going for quality, not quantity. They look well-built, and snuggle in sweet little walled and gated gardens. No "contiguous lawn" democracy in France--here, the liberté, égalité and fraternité is maintained by strong fences to make good neighbors. Not so sure how well that's working for them.
Friendly as neighbors or not, these houses have become my new "dream homes": they're small, but they have yards and garages (that's important) and are close to shops and bakeries and civilization. Venelles has a concert series, an exhibition space, and a giant park with walking and biking trails. It really feels like a "town" and not a suburb.

My students walk to school and go home for lunch (remember, lunch break is 2 hours). If their parents work, they stay and eat at the cantine and play in the cour. One thing that all of the schools I've worked in have in common is la cour, a big enclosed schoolyard. Usually you have to cross the cour to get to the cafeteria, the music classroom, or the computer lab. Two of the schools I've worked in were actually built as a loose chain of classrooms with the cour in the center--when you're in a Mediterranean climate, it's not a problem to have to go outside to get from one classroom to the next. Here's a picture of École Marcel Pagnol, the school by the library--the kids play outside or in the indoor/outdoor space between the two wings of the building.
Can you tell how many of the little girls are wearing leather boots? I'm telling you, it's a fashion must-have around here.

To end our lovely school day, Marlin (the German assistant) and I found out that our last few classes were canceled for an assembly. So we wandered around town (I had never seen the main street, so Marlin took me there en voiture) and then into Aix where we had le goûter--an after-school snack. Normally parents meet their kids at the school gate with a pain au chocolat or some baguette with nutella. Marlin and I found a little bakery/coffee shop and had tea and hot chocolate and quiche...
But after chatting for an hour with a pastry case staring at us, we melted and split a tropezienne, a pastry so amazing I'm not even going to describe it. I'll just give you the recipe.
Comme c'est belle, la vie. Life is beautiful sometimes, non?

Au Boulot!

2010-05-02T21:00:00.003+02:00

Exams are coming up in a few weeks and Josh and I both have beaucoup du boulot--tons of work. Not much more than should be expected for people both in school and working, but since it's the first time we've tried this, it's a bit overwhelming. I pulled an all-nighter last Thursday to finish a paper and my college roommate sent me this:

Hear, hear! Makes me want to toss the books and go get ice cream!

Muguets du Printemps

2010-05-01T23:09:00.006+02:00

Spring is here! Sortof! The trees have all flowered and then leaved (grown leaves?) but it's still kinda cold and rainy. What happened to this being the south of France!?!?! One particularly nice aspect of the rain (aside from how gorgeous a cloudy sky looks over the hills) is that the rain chases away the droves of smokers who hang out on the doorstep of our apartment building. Our alley is just wide enough to count as a "place" (pronounced "plahss," the french equivalent of an open square or plaza), and everyone working in the neighboring shops seems to come here for their smoking break. And since our building has the most sit-able doorstep. . . we get a lot of second-hand smoke. Josh is especially not-cool with breathing in chemicals, so I wasn't surprised the other day when I stuck my head out for something and the smokers jumped up and asked if they were bothering me. But I WAS surprised when they added, "Is that your husband who lives here with you?" "Yes...pour quoi?" I hoped Josh hadn't pissed off this particular group of loiters--they looked like up-to-no-good teenage punks. "Because he's a really nice guy! He let us ride his bike!" Josh told me later he had gotten them to lend him a hand while he was changing a bike tire and they'd struck up a friendship. The last time we saw them take their smoking break (they've moved up the alley, I guess Josh did mention he's not cool with breathing tar), Josh even called them over to try some banana bread. "It's our job to be good cultural ambassadors," I told them. "We want everyone to know that Americans eat stuff other than hamburgers."

So, anyway, Spring is here, and today was May 1st, which is Labor Day here. For some reason, on May 1st everyone gives each other lily-of-the-valley, which I think is really cool. Unfortunately for the flower, its french name is muguet, (moo-GAY) which is just not as pretty as its American name, but it's still hugely popular here. I think the story goes that some fair maid gave a spring to her knight-in-shining-armor before a tournament and it became a good luck symbol...but what it has to do with May 1st is beyond me. It's a flower with a soft spot in my heart from being the favorite of my dear old great-great-aunt Kitty, and the name of one of my little cousins, and I was excited to see it pop up everywhere on May 1st last year. We were in Paris with my family, and I snapped a shot of the window of the Ladurée patisserie, one of the nicest in the city of lights:
(I just love that little box with the bouquet on it in the lower left-hand corner! so cute! so french!)

I thought about buying myself a sprig of muguet at the market this morning--I'm not french enough yet to think of getting it for someone else. After spending WAY too much on broccoli and splurging on a barquette of gorgeous local strawberries, though, I decided it was an unnecessary expense. I could have gotten a potted lily-of-the-valley, too (how cool is THAT?) but our ivy is hanging on by a tendril and I didn't want to kill something I got because it reminds me of Aunt Kitty. So I contented myself with the lovely springtime purchases of picture-perfect strawberries and a fresh local goat cheese:

Mmmm... made for a good samedi brunch.

I LOVE getting our fruits and veggies from farmers with dirt still under their fingernails. Tonight's dinner was another market offering, summery courgettes farcis. As we were sitting down to eat it, we were interrupted by someone outside yelling, "Hey, Uncle Sam!" Seriously. We went over and opened the curtain, and it was the punky teenage loiterers. "Sorry," they said. "We couldn't think of something else to call you." And then they handed us a spring of lily-of-the-valley and thanked us again for the banana bread.

I love my life some times.

Uncle Josh wants YOU to be kind to your neighbors!

Café Therapy

2010-04-27T19:16:00.003+02:00

Today while we were eating breakfast, a cockroach sauntered--sauntered! across the kitchen floor. He changed his tune when Josh started thwacking at him with a bottle but it was too late. My peace of mind was tuée.

But, nothing to calm a girl down like a nice cup of jasmine tea and some cheery music. After an afternoon of cockroach battling, I walked up the street to my favorite bar/coffee shop, which I can't help loving for it's great vibe even though the owner is really rude and mean.

I sat at a table in the shade of the horloge, the iconic Aixoise clock tower, and sipped my tea and did homework (and sudoku...). And then, a young guy with a guitar and an amp set himself up and played some fantastic late-teens/early-twenties style jazz. It was just what I would have picked if I were making a movie of myself sitting in a café feeling happy. So soon the music did its magic and I was smiling and wishing I could take a picture...and then I remembered the magic of my macbook and here you go:

It's really disorienting to look at it, since it's a mirror image! The building straight ahead is the library and post office, and the town hall is on the left.

What we love (and what shocks us)

2010-04-22T19:55:00.004+02:00

I LOVE hearing French people tell me about their vacations to the US. I spend so much time musing over the quirky things about French culture that I like to get the reverse viewpoint. So, back at school after spring break (two weeks!), one of the third graders came up to me in complete raptures to gush about his trip to New York. His highlights: eating a hotdog from a street vendor, and the Phantom of the Opera marquee. He didn’t see the show, but there was something about the image of the mask he found intriguing. His mom did take him to see Mary Poppins on Broadway (a smarter choice for an eight year old boy), and we had a good time discussing how cool the set was—it was funny to find myself reminiscing about New York with a French third grader. The American cultural quirk he found the most interesting? “Instead of asking for the toilet, we had to say something about a bathroom.” Yeah, just like the British, the French think we’re weird for using euphemisms to talk about...um...restrooms.

On Tuesday, somehow the conversation in the teachers’ lounge turned to visits to the US, and the CP (Kindergarten) teacher had been to the states a few times to visit a cousin. “I liked Virginia,” she told me, “But the people there seemed a bit prude.” I figured she must be talking about that stereotype of wearing skirts to football games and going jogging in pearls. On further questioning, though, this was her culture shock: “Oh, well, you know, I was just eightteen, and my cousin told me we absolutely had to put clothes on in the morning. My sister and I couldn’t stay in our bras and underwear for breakfast. She said, ‘I’m sorry, but we get dressed here.'” I assured my co-worker that we tend to get dressed in the morning in other parts of the US, too, and that she had definitely played her part to contribute to American stereotypes about the French. I wonder what the conversation had been like between her cousin and her cousin’s new American husband before they put a stop to their visitors' morning...Frenchness.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how many people want to tell me all about their favorite US vacations when they find out I’m an americaine. Last Monday the guy sitting beside me in class had some questions about my life as a foreign student, since he wants to do the same thing, but reverse: it’s his dream to study in the US. He wanted to know if I go into Marseille much (it’s our nearest big city) and I said I would, but I don’t know what to do there, and did he have any suggestions? He looked a bit stumped. “Man,” he said, “I’m just a 20-year-old guy. I have no idea what to tell you to go do.” I’m not sure if the fact that he was a 20-year-old-guy meant he thought his experiences limited or just completely unlike anything that could possibly appeal to me. I flatter myself it was the former.

I asked him why he wanted to live aux États-Unis and he was once more unable to express his interest. “Is it the culture?” I asked him, “The people?” “Nooo.....” he answered thoughfully... “It’s that, well...here, in France, we have McDonalds, and we have Quick,” (crappy McDonald’s knock-off) “and in the US, you have McDonalds, and right next to it, you have...what’s it called? Yeah, Wendy’s! And then Jack in the Box, and In and Out... It’s amazing.” I enjoyed basking in his effervescent bliss at the idea of la vie americaine, even if it isn’t the part of being from the US that I’m most proud of or most miss.

I guess I could figure out what that is by looking at what I brag about the most when talking about my patrie. And that would have to be our amazing return policies. The average amount of time you have to return something to a store here? Fifteen days. That is one day over two weeks, and about seventy five days under the three months you get at a place like the GAP... and a bazillion days under the limitless returns at Bed Bath and Beyond, who ALSO TAKE THEIR COMPETITORS COUPONS. Half the time here we can’t even get the in-store specials marked “reduction taken at register.”

But, no, I wanted to talk about French people’s perceptions of the US, not how much I miss American shopping. Actually, two French women I know who are my mom’s age told me about visits to the US made when they were teenagers and how shocked they were by “les grandes surfaces”—basically, our grocery stores, or department stores, or stores like Target. That didn’t exist here 30 years ago—people went from shop to shop to get their groceries, and Josh and I could do that now if we didn’t feel so much more comfortable going to Monoprix where we can get our milk, printer paper and cleaning products in one fell swoop (in fact, I need to finish this and go get milk before they close). One of the women said she was just completely overwhelmed by seeing so many things in one place, with loud music playing, and the other had a much funnier shock (she's the one who wasn’t thrilled with the whole “clothes” thing). She said she didn’t even bother going in while her cousin did her shopping, and instead, she and her sister had plunked themselves down on a bench for two hours and watched everyone coming in and out of the grocery store. Now it was my turn to be shocked...I didn’t think Americans were all that interesting. “We couldn’t get over it,” she said, “Our jaws were just hanging open. In France, if you’re going to go out to the store, you’re careful about what you wear. And there, there were adult women, out in public, wearing shorts...and tank tops.”

Um... I guess when I get back from Monoprix I'm rotating the tank tops to the back of my closet. Or not. Sometimes I just can't let go of my identity as an American, and, you know, people seem to be OK with that--especially when part of that American-ness means bringing in a loaf of Josh's homemade banana bread. As they were passing it around the lunch table in the teachers lounge, someone turned to me and said, "you know, I know an americaine, and once she served a cake made with carrots." My new resolution: make them my mom's zucchini bread. This is gonna BLOW THEIR MINDS.

This Morning's Excitement

2010-04-17T15:49:00.004+02:00

Josh spent the morning tutoring and I had plans to get a lot done chez nous. But when I dropped my pile of laundry in front of the washing machine to start sorting through it. . .a scorpion crawled out. And then after being whacked with a waterbottle, I think he was just as scared as I was and started running around in circles before hiding deep in the pile of laundry. So, I spent the rest of the morning perched on a chair keeping guard to make sure he didn't make a break for it and hide somewhere else in the house.

When Josh got home, it took him about 45 seconds to sort through the pile of laundry and find the little guy lurking in a pair of underwear. He scooped him up in some tupperware and then after lunch we walked around outside until we found a place that seemed like a suitable scorpion habitat. Hopefully he won't make his way back into our laundry basket any time soon.

Sainte Victoire Study Break

2010-04-16T10:39:00.005+02:00

We're on the last week-day of our last major vacation of the 2009/2010 school year--two weeks off simultaneously from work and school. We had fabulous plans--Avignon! Camping! The beach!--but the most exciting thing we'd done was relocate to a café for the afternoon and do homework in the sunshine. Well, that was the most exciting thing "travel-wise"--I had an interview (and got hired!) with a tutoring company -- entire process exclusively in French, and I felt like it went just as well as any interview I've ever had in the US. Maybe better, since I had to think a bit more before I could say anything. That was a bit exhilarating... but it certainly wasn't a weekend getaway to Avignon.

BUT, we have the good fortune of having some really awesome co-workers, and yesterday one of the English teachers at Josh's school invited us along on a picnic with his family. Three adorable little girls (speaking French, which majorly ups their cuteness quotient) + sparkling lemonade and Bonne Maman chocolate muffins (Entenmanns: these make you look like cardboard. sorry) plus some really pretty views of Mount Sainte-Victoire. It was a lovely afternoon.

The girls were very interested in using my camera: here's a portrait the three-year-old took of her five-year-old sister...
...who then surveyed the landscape very seriously when it was her turn to use the camera. She announced, "Je vais prendre une foto de . . . cette rocher" (that boulder).

I like the olive grove you can see in the background--little silvery tree-bushes.

And then the final excitement of the day: wild asparagus.

And now back to Jean Jacques Rousseau (for Josh) and Argentine cultural history (for me) before we run out of vacation and have to buckle down for exams.

Tour de France: Stop Deux

2010-04-09T23:05:00.005+02:00

So, we had no sooner announced our Tour de France when we just got too busy to worry about cheese. Seriously. There were weeks when the only thing in our fridge was the remainder of a bag of parmesan. (Well, the only cheese. I don't think we can go 24 hours without some kind of yogurt.) Too busy to eat cheese?!?!?! Yeah, it's sad.

But today we're back on track with this lovely, creamy fromage from Burgundy. For anyone just joining us, Josh and I have been doing some armchair traveling--or plutôt kitchen table traveling--by eating our way around the cheeses of France. Today's cheese is a brillat savarin, a sort of upscale version of brie.

I think I cheated by getting this brand, Reflets de France--it's a ginormous company that specializes in producing "authentic local products" from all over France. If you think to yourself, "hey, I'd like to get some __________, the typical dish of _________ region," chances are, you'll find some from Reflets de France, sold in your grocery store. Why do I feel like it's cheating? Well, there's just something not-so-local about a national chain. Plus, I feel like I should do a bit more of the research on my own to find out what the regional specialties are across France--walking into the grocery store and seeing them all catalogued in the same yellow labels is just too easy.

But back to this cheese.

It was really creamy--almost like a brie crossed with whipped cream. Apparently it can be hard to match a brie to red wine because the mushroomy flavor of the brie will bring out the tannins in the wine and make it taste sour. Lucky for us, instead of our standby bottle of two-euro-fifty bordeaux, we had popped open a bottle of hard cider made by Josh's brother--brewed with clementines and I think pomegranate (right, Ben?) and the PERFECT accompaniment for this cheese. Wikipedia, my go-to sommelier, also recommends champagne.

And now that we've discussed the cheese, time to talk about the region. All I knew about Burgundy before is that it's a color and the home of the Burgundians of Nibelungenlied fame. Not particularly useful bits of knowledge--oh, and beef bourguignon, brought to our fair shores by Julia Child.

And since today's Tour de France stop and subsequent internet research, I know. . . not much more. Sounds like Burgundy has had great wines and a really complicated and tangled history. SO, Burgundy: good wine. Also home to Dijon, where the mustard comes from. Probably has lots of chateaux, but I didn't find many pictures. All in all, I would say the informational aspect of today's Tour de France stop is sadly lacking. Fortunately, the cheese aspect is great.

Marilyn Report

2010-03-29T15:07:00.002+02:00

Today's Marilyn sightings: two wall clocks and a jewelry holder, a few wall canvases and a t-shirt. Also saw a baby onesie printed with the classic Warhol Marilyn...but with a baby girl's picture instead of Miss Monroe's.

La lutte

2010-03-29T00:14:00.006+02:00

I'm starting to notice "theme words" that keep popping up. The pattern seems to be that I hear or read a word, wonder what it means, and then keep noticing it over and over again, until I finally ask or figure out what it means. The current theme word: pourri. Rotten.

I first started noticing this word pop into conversations as I asked anyone who seemed to be older and wiser if they've had experience with termites. I told a colleague at work that we suspected an infestation. No, she said, you would see holes in your poutres, your ceiling beams.

Check.

You don't have termites, she said, you would see dust sprinkling down.

Check. We had to move our kitchen table so we wouldn't get dust in our food.

We weren't 100% sure, though, so we didn't want to say anything to the landlord. It just seems like we're always complaining (you know, what with the salt growing on the walls, the humidity in the basement, the recessed light that fell out of the ceiling, the leak in the kitchen sink that saturated the floorboards, and the trick toilet seat that falls off if you lean to one side...). But then, around midnight last week, we heard a creaking noise coming from the ceiling. We thought it was collapsing, until some research (google, I love you) clued us in that termites can make noise. LOUD noise. It sounded like some kind of animal (a four-legged one) was scrabbling around inside the poutre.

Then, to seal the deal, we managed to catch one of the "ants" that had been falling out of our ceiling since we moved in and get a good look. No ant-like waist between thorax and abdomen? Straight antenna?

Check.

Fast forward to today. We spent all afternoon spray-injecting poison into termite holes in the rafters and painting on termite treatment. One of the only things that freaks me out as much as bugs is toxic chemicals. I tried to make sure Josh wore "safety goggles" but he kept taking them off when I wasn't looking.

The whole thing was pretty depressing. I know from my extensive internet research that just treating the outside of the wood won't do anything to the termites on the inside, but this is what our landlord asked us to do as the first step (well, he actually said he would do it, and then Josh volunteered to do it ourselves, for which he is majorly in the doghouse). This reminds me of infamous backfiring medieval warfare tactics. Like the French king with a superior army of mounted knights, who lost a battle because there were so many of them that they didn't have room to maneuver their horses. We've painted the outside of the beams, essentially laying siege to the termites inside--you're trapped in there and you'll get poisoned if you try to come out. And just like a medieval siege, they'll eat everything they've got in there before venturing to the outside. Except once they finally venture to the outside and get killed by the termite spray, our beams will be eaten through, and the apartment upstairs will fall in on us, and we'll both have lost the battle, us and the termites.

Or maybe I'm being a bit too pessimistic.

_______________

On a completely unrelated note, the weather here is getting nicer, and our nextdoor neighbor decided to take out his motorcycles, I guess to tune them up, for the first time this season. He had more than ten (I didn't bother to count) and two of them had sidecars.

Sophisticated French Lunch

2010-03-20T14:51:00.003+01:00

Josh is away again playing in a frisbee tournament for the weekend. My goal: to do all the laundry (about 5 loads), mop the floor, do my homework, and eat something other than yogurt and nutella, which wouldn't even get the dignity of being a nutella sandwich, since we still haven't found a good baguette anywhere near our new apartment. So far I've succeeded: we had some leftover french onion soup in the fridge....but f.o.s. needs those giant cheese-covered croutons. How do you eat it without baguette?

Answer: goldfish crackers.

I originally just brought goldfish back to France to give to my students (it was one of our vocab words this fall). But I feel like the more we see of the world, the more we can appreciate some previously-overlooked good things from the US. Taking away their context helps us see them "outside the box." Here, goldfish aren't just a kids' snack...they're a delightful cheesy cracker perfect with a sweet muscat wine for a pre-dinner aperitif. And what could better accompany them than a sweet-and-savory tomato dip? Mmmmmmm, goldfish and ketchup.

Actually, I think I'd stick with sundried tomato tapenade for any goldfish dipping, but Josh had ketchup on his pre-tournament scrambled eggs this morning and it was looking pretty delectable.

Alright, I've gotta go to the grocery store and throw all this laundry in a dryer somewhere.... five loads is just WAY to much to hang dry in our apartment. No more blogging and back to work. And by work I may or may not mean trying to make savoury carrot panna cotta, which we got last night at a restaurant in our neighborhood and want to marry. I mean make ourselves some time.

Pause plaint: Complaining break

2010-03-16T20:43:00.003+01:00

I would like to take a moment to complain.

Our beautiful new apartment has:

termites eating the exposed ceiling beams (noisily: did you know termites can make a crunching sound?)

mosquitoes (yes, in March)

high humidity, causing salt to crystallize on walls

sewage smell coming up through plumbing

dust crumbling off the exposed-stone walls and ceiling of the bedroom

a scorpion (now dead, thanks to my very brave friend Lynn)

not enough windows.

Let me add to my complaint. The customer service representative I talked to on the phone today had:

an extremely thick Corsican accent.

Now let me force myself to see the bright side:

Once you finally forget that you're paying 50 cents a minute to call customer service, because instead of being free, it's charged at a HIGHER rate to get help over the phone in France, and once you figure out what the customer service representative is actually saying, a Corsican accent is really cute. It sounds a bit like someone trying to speak French and eat marbles at the same time. I think I will learn to talk like that and see if people think I'm Corsican. Then I will go there and go to the beach. I hear it's beautiful.

And I really love our new apartment. That's the reason it pains me when it seems like it’s going to fall apart. It’s got gorgeous pickled-pine parquet floors, it’s all recently re-painted and re-tiled, brand new appliances (including a WASHING MACHINE), the bathroom vanity is adorable, all fresh and modern looking…we don’t have to climb up onto a ledge to get into the shower, we have a REAL BED, not a loft, with a brand new mattress...

And it's. . . get this. . . two rooms. I am not kidding. Sometimes I go into the bedroom and just kindof look around in awe and wonder if I'm dreaming. A real bedroom. And I no longer lie awake at night with Josh's elbow in my ribs, wishing we weren’t sleeping in a bed just a bit bigger than a twin-sized. It’s just that now I lie awake wondering if the ceiling is going to collapse.

Breakfast for Appetizers and Appetizers for Breakfast

2010-03-06T15:08:00.007+01:00

I haven't been blogging because I've been . . . not here. I went back to the US for a couple of months to be with my family for awhile, but now I'm back, in a new apartment (pictures to follow), studying my brains out (well, really procrastinating my brains out) and cooking up a storm. This week I've made three versions of my new favorite recipe: Savoury cake.

Savoury cake!?!? yup, it's a really popular aperitif, or "shnick-shnack," as my mother in law would describe something served at a coffee table with a pre-dinner cocktail. If you're invited over for dinner around here, the pre-dinner spread is likely to include:
salted nuts
olives
thinly sliced sausages
thin crispy breadsticks

we've also been served something called "paté en croûte" which is translated as "paté in crust." That's exactly what it is--basically, a loaf pan with a pie crust tucked inside, filled with paté and baked, and then sliced like bread. SO GOOD. But so bad for you.

There are also French appetizer items that seem to veer into the world of breakfast foods. At one dinner in Paris last week, we were served, as an appetizer, poached eggs over toast and sautéed mushrooms with bordelaise sauce. Breakfast for appetizers? Weird, but delicious.

And then there's the world of appetizer flavors in non-appetizer packages: herbed or cheese crackers that are really the texture of shortbread or chocolate chip cookies and vegetable crumbles, even molten broccoli cake with a center of melted cheese sauce.

And then there's cake salé, savory cake: your basic cake recipe, hold the sugar, and add omelet ingredients. Voilà, a cross between a cracker and an omelet. Perfect for French appetizers or American breakfast.

So, here's my basic recipe:

Preheat oven to 350. Grease loaf pan.

Sift together in a bowl:
2 cups of flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

Add 5 eggs (remember, this is breakfast for a week) and 2 tablespoons olive oil (or canola). Mix until it's a uniform batter.

Add "toppings":
2/3 cup cheese
1 1/2 cups something else (veggies, diced ham, bacon, etc.)

Stir, pour in loaf pan and bake for 45 minutes. Let cool, slice generously, and enjoy as a snack, breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, appetizer. . . it's a pretty versatile dish.

So far I've made ham and green olive (the classic provençal version), bacon and mushroom (the classic hobbit version) and spinach, goat cheese, herbs and tomato. That's my favorite so far. I used tomato concentrate in a tube (try the Italian aisle of the grocery store) and swirled it in for a marbled effect that didn't work as well as I hoped but is still yummy.

I know my love affair with this recipe is too passionate to last very long, but I'm not sure what can take the place of savoury cake in my pantry and fridge. It takes about 10 minutes to prep, needs no supervision while baking. I can throw a piece in a baggie and have breakfast-to-go; I can keep it in my backpack (being careful not to squish it) for an after-school snack before work, we can eat it for a quick no-dishes-necessary lunch... plus, packed full of spinach, or made with 3 eggs and 4 egg whites...it's a pretty healthy way to get some protein (and we'd eat that much cheese anyway). Are you daring enough to try a cake that isn't for dessert? Let me know if you manage to break free of your coffee cake ideals and fall in love with this breakfast bad boy.

More cheese

2009-11-22T11:44:00.003+01:00

Hm, I think I will procrastinate cleaning the bathroom and reading El Burlador de Sevilla by writing another blog post.

The lanquetot has stunked up our fridge to the point that anything that was refridgerated for more than 30 minutes smells like lanquetot. This is not bad. It just means, according to the French, that the lanquetot has "character." And character, chez les fromages, is a positive attribute.

So, when I pulled out my lunch at work the other day and someone across the room said, "Wow, I can smell that cheese you're eating," no one was surprised when I told them that there was no cheese in my lunch, this particular cheese had only sat next to my lunch. I told them about our plan to eat our way around the country's dairy products and that started a delightful conversation about everyone's stinky cheese preferences. "Oh, you should try such-and such! I'll bring you a sliver." "Oh, no, don't give her that, it would be mean to give that to a foreigner." And then another teacher, who is a young mother, sighed and confessed that she loves cheese so much that it was the only thing she missed while she was pregnant with her daughter (you can't eat cheese made from raw milk when you're pregnant because of the listeria risk). In fact, she admitted sheepishly, when she had just given birth and they put the squirmy newborn on her chest, she looked at the baby and sighed, "I can eat goat cheese again!"

I am falling in love with this country.

About that dog museum...

2009-11-22T11:33:00.005+01:00

I just finished another chunk of the lanquetot cheese, and in thinking about the town of Lanquetot, I got to thinking about the dog museum, and then the time my stepsister Claire and I went to a dog collar museum, just because the idea sounded so bizarre. Not even a dog museum. A museum for dog collars.

We were visiting Leeds Castle in England (pictured above) on a family trip and saw that the Dog Collar Museum was on the grounds, so we took a detour there. It was actually pretty cool, for as weird as it was. Some cool medieval and renaissance jeweled collars for noblemen's hounds...I'm not quite sure why this is the only picture I took:

But then again, why did I even take this one?

Tour de France

2009-11-14T22:25:00.005+01:00

So, since Josh and I were in the States this summer during the Tour de France, we've decided to do our own version. Every week we're going to get a cheese from a different part of l'hexagone (as la France is known, thanks to its shape) and document it. This week's cheese is Lanquetot, a sort of camembert from a town in Normandy with the same name. From what I found on the internet, the town only has about 1,200 inhabitants. And a dog museum.

Not only did it win a medaille d'argent (silver medal) at some kind of cheese contest, but it's appelation d'origine controlée, which is some kind of certification authentic local products get, but I'm not sure what it actually means. I guess I should find that out.

And the cheese itself--it's pretty good. Creamy, slightly thicker than a brie, but sweeter and less earthy. Should go well with the quince I've been poaching all afternoon. I got two quinces at the market to make this recipe, but one turned out to be full of some kind of bug egg. This is the second produce fail this weekend; we got salad from our salad lady at the market and it was full of aphids. I ran it through the salad spinner again and again for about 20 minutes and those little guys were still swimming around in the water every time I washed the lettuce. UGH. I think we find something alive in our salad at least one out of three times that we get it from her. Next time we go to the market, we're going to stand in the middle and yell "OK, Who uses pesticides!?!?!?" and whoever raises their hand is going to get all our business for awhile.

But I digress.

Back to the Tour of France. You may worry about our cholesterol, but don't forget those cool bikes we got. Today Josh took his on the bus, and the bus driver went wild. Turns out he, too, has a folding bike. He talked to Josh about his bike the whole ride (there was only one other person on the bus) and then when Josh got off. . . the bus driver made him pose with his bike, next to the bus, for a picture. We live a magical life.

Lanquetot - Noblesse oblige
envoyé par pubard3. -

Notice

2009-11-13T18:55:00.003+01:00

Notice:
If it's possible, it's already done.
If it's impossible, we'll start right away.
If it'll take a miracle, expect a slight delay.

This was on the wall (in French, of course) in an office I had to visit today at the University. I'd filed my fiche pedagogique wrong, which means I wasn't appropriately registered for classes.

Now, this sign may be cute and funny, but if you've been paying attention around here, you know that there's more to it than that. You know that here in the south of France, if it's possible, they'll tell you it's not, just so you leave them alone. If it's possible, it probably won't happen anyway, so you may as well give up and take a pause café. And miracles--we haven't seen those since before the French Revolution. We've got laïcité, remember? No religion involved in the public sphere.

I pondered over the paradox of this sign while the secretary looked hopelessly at my fiche pedagogique, then at her computer screen, and then back at the fiche. "It's not going to let me register you," she sighed. "You need to get a derrogation to be allowed to take this class."

Ah, I pointed out. I know. My derrogation was stapled to my fiche. She shuffled through my papers to find it and sighed again. "It's not the right kind."

And then, the miracle happened. She stapled everything back together and told me, "I'll take care of it."

Well, maybe I should call it a tentative miracle--as the sign says, miracles do take a slight delay, and so maybe I should wait a month to see if this one has really come through or not. In the meantime, it's Friday, which is a small miracle of its own.

Joyeux vendredi!

The Gorges were Gorgeous

2009-11-09T11:47:00.007+01:00

NO, SLu, I will NOT put up pictures of my awful haircut, but I will make it up to you by posting pictures of our latest adventure in the Provençal countryside: public restroom hunting around the Gorges du Verdon, the French Grand Canyon.

Good friends came to visit us and Josh explained to them the fundamental paradox of French culture: we will pay a third of our salary in taxes so that everyone can have health care, because we believe in solidarity. But our bathrooms are for customers only.

Most of the other hikers were pretty comfortable using the "green room" as my mom calls it. This was not surprising, since the last time we went hiking (on cliffs over the Mediterranean), we saw a few people decide to cool off with a dip in the sea. . . au naturale. What they say about French beaches? It's all true.

But back to the Gorges--we had a great time driving around the perimeter, and crossing the canyon at one point on a bridge being used for... bungee jumping!

It was a long way down.No, we didn't try it. Instead, we drove into the little medieval village of Trigance... with a public restroom! Yay! Mission accomplished.
Trigance was crowned by the third (and final) castle of the day. The first we had passed somewhere around Allemagne-en-Provence (Germany in Provence--weird name for a town that looked exactly like every other Provençal town).
The second castle was in the town of Aiguines, on a hill overlooking the lake made by the river Verdon after it leaves the canyon.
Yup, that's a soccer field in front of the castle there. After all the driving around, we finally found a good jumping-off point for a hike: "Point Sublime"--the name was promising.
Turned out we were not actually at Point Sublime, but instead about 900 feet below it in the bottom of the canyon.
It was, however, a fortunate mistake. The bottom of the canyon was cool and shadowy and we got to see the rock features close-up.
It was a great way to spend a fall weekend!

Revenge of the Euromullet

2009-11-07T12:02:00.004+01:00

Sounds like a bad B-movie, doesn’t it? When I studied abroad in Spain, I made the mistake of going to the hippest, trendiest barrio (neighborhood) to get my hair cut (at the uber trendy salon in the basement of Mercado Fuencarral), and telling the girl “just do something stylish.” I walked out with the same mullet that the girl before me had gotten, and I was pretty sure the girl sitting down in the chair as I paid my bill was also going to leave with those same awful layers. . .

Anyway, my euromullet grew out, and in the meantime, more people than ever stopped me to ask for directions, thinking I was a real madrileña. All in all, the euromullet was a good cultural experience.

And now it’s back.

Quick parenthesis: unlike people I know who have a great unique style—like my rockin’ hipster brother Steve, who will wear pretty much anything as long as no one else is wearing it—I just want to blend in. Not that, if given the choice between the ability to fly and the ability to become invisible, I would pass on flight, but I don’t like to stick out too much. So, to go down to the university here, I’ve stopped wearing colors (unless it’s one colored article of clothing and everything else I’m wearing is black or brown), and majorly upped the beige, black and grey content of my wardrobe, because that's what everyone else does. No joke--one day I sat in a class with about 40 people and counted how many of them were wearing a color other than brown, grey, or black. Seven. Seven people were wearing colors.

So once I had the no-colors thing down, all I needed was a trendy haircut. (And a scarf, but I still haven’t found one that I like.) I realize I sound completely superficial and trend-focused, but I hadn't gotten my hair cut in two years and it was so bad my mom was dropping hints like, "So, how do you like your hair these days?" when we talked on skype. So, when I had last Tuesday off, I meandered around town to choose a salon. I settled on “The New York Salon,” decorated with giant canvases of taxicabs and the Empire State Building (and of course, Marilyn Monroe), since they offer a good student discount. And massage chairs at the hair-washing sinks.

My conversation with the stylist was rather illuminating. Not only did I learn quite a bit about her self esteem as I watched her check herself out in the mirror the entire time she cut my hair, but I discovered one more reason the French have such a reputation for being stylish: it takes FOUR YEARS to get certified to cut hair here. And it showed: I got a gorgeous, trendy haircut. And then I asked her to make the layers an inch shorter. And then, as Marilyn Monroe smirked at me from above, I walked out with another euromullet. But that’s okay. It will grow out. And I really, really liked those massage chairs. . .

Rijstpap, Vanillesmaak

2009-10-20T22:20:00.002+02:00

Nope, it's not the refrain of a Regina Spektor song. It's the Dutch food product of the day!

Earlier in the year, Josh and I decided we would learn Old English for something fun to do in the evenings. We found a great online tutorial. . . but we haven't had much time to devote to such luxuries lately.

However, we can always spare a minute over the dinner table to read our food product labels in Dutch. Many big-brand (or off-brand) foods here are labeled in Dutch (which the French call "Neerlandais") and French, I guess because they're marketed in Belgium. So Josh and I get our Germanic-language fix by reading the labels to each other and making the other person guess what the words mean. Want to play? Here you go:

What's in the box of apelsaap?

And what am I eating when I take a spoonful of rijstpap, vanillesmaak?

Answers to follow.

2009-10-13T21:08:00.002+02:00

I am once more addicted to caffeine, there is a van blocking the alley, and Philippe wants me to run away with him. It’s been an annoying 48 hours.

I am too tired to do my job, too tired to go to all my classes, too tired to schedule all the tests the doctor ordered to figure out why I am so tired. A major contributor is definitely all the extra brain work required to speak French all day. I had eight hours of class yesterday with a half hour break. I took notes, in languages I don’t speak, for eight hours. I think the caffeine addiction is self-evident.

What is NOT self-evident is why there is a van blocking our alley. There are four or five apartment buildings whose doors open onto our tiny impasse and one of the apartments in one of the buildings is being renovated. Normally the alley is barred off from the street by metal posts, but the artisans (the laudatory French term for what we would call tradesmen) have convinced the owner of the art gallery next door to lend them the key to the locks keeping these posts in place. Their pretext is that they need to unload materials, but it turns out they just don’t want to pay for parking somewhere else. So any time you want to leave the alley or come back, you have to shout until someone hears you and comes and moves the vehicle to let you through.

I came home from my 8 hours of class yesterday, and I was, to put it mildly, not in a good mood. And there was a van in my way. And I shouted and shouted and no one came. And then, to add insult to injury, two very skinny college-aged French boys also living in the impasse managed to squeeze between the van and the alley wall. I did not fit. I was not pleased.

I knew the owner of the art gallery was somehow implicated, but he wasn’t there. He’d left his number on the door so I called and left a message that I thought was both scalding but also appropriately formal, asking him to please do something about the situation with the van. Before he called me back, though, one of the skinny college boys who had managed to squeeze through the breach found me a workman, who moved the van so I could get in, and then put it right back again.

After Josh too had gotten someone to uncork the alley for him and come home, I got a call back from the gallery owner. He suggested I stop by and he could explain the whole thing to me. I felt a bit chagrined. I was safely home again, and my anger had subsided quite a bit once I’d had a chance to visit the bathroom and put down my backpack. But I’ve read too many Anne of Green Gables books, in which leaving a nasty message for an unknown neighbor is always the first step to a beautiful friendship. So I went around the corner (managing to squeeze past the van, which was an inch further away from the wall this time) and met Philippe.

I started by apologizing for yelling at his voice mail. No problem, he said. I like being yelled at by women. This did not bode well. I apologized for being a bad example of American pissed-offedness, and, insisting I sit down and offering me a coffee or a coke, he waltzed me off on a conversation about cultural stereotypes. After about five minutes, for some reason I used the word “we” to refer to Josh and I. Oh, he said, you have a roommate. I’m married, I told him. 79 percent of French women have affairs, he responded. Ah, I said. Did I mention I’m Amish?

It was one of those conversations you just can’t seem to end, even though it’s strewn with suggestions that you leave your husband and run away to the Luberon with a French man who was in a movie playing Burt Lancaster’s younger self before you were even born. This does not happen in Anne of Green Gables books. Finally Josh popped in to see what had happened to me. I’d say the conversation cleaned up from there, but Philippe diverted his energies into trying to sell us a work of art. Any work of art. He seemed to think we’d be most interested in a nude. He also played my message for Josh, and they both laughed at how bad my French was. I thought you were Chinese! Philippe exclaims. I laugh too, but only because I'm really, really embarrassed.

But the van, you say, what about the van? Well, Philippe agreed that they shouldn’t use our alley as their parking lot, but it’s not his key to withhold—he’d borrowed it from the Mairie (town hall). I have to lodge a complaint with them. Considering what happened the last time I lodged a complaint at the Mairie—that is to say, nothing—I think I’ll save my breath. I’m going to need it to yell for the workmen to move the van again.

MacDo

2009-10-10T19:15:00.004+02:00

So, apparently France is in world-wide news over a McDonalds going into the food court at the Louvre. This makes me reflect on my own relationship with McDonalds in France (cue harp music and wavy-effect on screen as we go into a flashback). . .

It's the first week of January in 2004, and it's my first time in France (visiting Josh, incidentally, who was studying abroad there at the time and also had no plans to become my husband, which he would at a later date). Josh has sent me off on my own to accomplish something or other while he meets up with me later. I have to find the bathroom while in a shopping mall, and I seize upon a shop girl who speaks English to give me directions. Which are completely comprehensible, except the store she's telling me is next to the bathrooms: MAGdunnelle (emphasis on first syllable). I think she's telling me that the bathrooms are diagonal to something (that's the closest word I can think of to the sounds she's making). When I realized she was talking about my old friend Mickey-D's, where I attended many a birthday party before the age of 5, I experienced one of those "eureka" moments where you can almost see the lightbulb above your own head. This classic piece of Americanism didn't belong to me, an American. It is not an American consulate; it's a business, and by setting up shop in France, McD's now belongs just as much to the French as it does to me. And the French are free to come up with their own weird pronunciations and nicknames for it. The forces of globalization don't just mean my culture is imposed on someone else. They also mean that my culture is taken from me and altered in ways I can't control.

Incidentally, that very same shopping mall was the place where I stepped into the pudding aisle of a grocery store and began my still-passionate love affair with creamy French desserts. (I think coup de foudre--lightning bolt--is how you say "love at first sight" in French.)

But back to the McDonalds at the Louvre controversy. I recommend reading the article if you are interested in France and/or globalization. The article's main point was that the French aren't upset about the Louvre being "desecrated," it's the rest of the world that doesn't see how Ronald and French culture are compatible. Here in France, McD's has done their insidious marketing well. Even the food critic who inspired the "bad guy" in Ratatouille refused to be upset about McD's new home in the Louvre's food court. I can picture him being interviewed about it, smoking, wearing a scarf, and giving the classic French shrug of apathy . . . "Bof. Magdunnelle eez no worse zan ze 'orribul fast food already zere." And, you know, McDonalds does do a pretty good job of coming up with French-appropriate recipes. Alpine-style cheeseburger? Chestnut crumble ice cream sundae? Sounds good to me. If the French want Grimace and the Hamburgler and that red-headed clown, should the rest of us be upset about it? And if we are, will we have to give back fondue? Will the Belgians want their waffles back?

La rentrée

2009-10-01T17:20:00.005+02:00

Josh and I get really excited about how great our health care is here. Just the other day, he showed me the part of Sicko in which Michael Moore interviews French people about their government-run medical system. He talked to American expats in Paris who had nothing but praise for their sécurité sociale, or "Secu" as we lovingly call it. I’ve gotta say, it’s pretty great. I can usually get an appointment with my doctor in a matter of hours. (I called a few mornings ago around 9:30 am to get a checkup appointment and they had me in at 2:15 that afternoon.) There’s almost no paperwork to fill out at the doctor’s, you get care first and deal with insurance afterward. Minimal paperwork. Pretty much everything is covered. I needed tests (for nothing serious) and they were done the next morning, with the results in that afternoon. A month’s supply of medicine cost me. . . 37 cents. I pay, per month, just a bit more than what I paid in the US for catastrophic insurance with a $1,000 deductible.

Now, the point of telling you this is NOT to cast light on the current debate in the US over government-run healthcare. It’s to cast light on how RIDICULOUSLY STUPID so many other things are in France. Seriously, if they can get it so right with healthcare, why did it take us three months to get internet when we moved here? And, once more, Josh is on the phone with the internet provider. He just got a USB key so he can access the internet from anywhere in town, good for someone who meets people in cafés for English tutoring and wants to use youtube. Of course, the USB key works with a password. Of course, SFR (the internet company) hasn’t sent that password. Of course, they’re not going to. About 20 minutes ago I heard him getting mad on the phone with SFR and asking to speak with a supervisor. He’s been on hold ever since.

It’s a good thing our health care is so good and we can buy wine for the same price as soda, because we’re going to have REALLY HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE in not too long.

My biggest worry right now, au niveau administratif, is la rentrée – back to school. Let me tell you what back-to-school is like at a French university. I’ll give you a timeline.

Sometime in August:

The official start date of the Fall semester is announced (Sept. 25) Course lists/schedules are not yet posted.

Sept. 18:

Course lists/schedules are not yet posted.

Sept. 24:

Course lists/schedules are not yet posted.

I go to my orientation. The woman speaks extremely rapidly and mumbles. I understand almost nothing. She hands out some of the schedule. We have to get the rest of the schedule from the department secretary, who is only in the office from 9-10 am and from 10:30-11 am.

Sept. 25:

I try to go get the schedule. There is beaucoup du monde (a ton of people) in the hallway. The secretary brings us into the office one at a time to hand us the schedule. One at a time. On the door there is a sign saying, “WE WILL NOT GIVE YOU YOUR SCHEDULE BEFORE ORIENTATION ON SEPT 24^TH.” I wait my turn to go in. I have a question about my electives. A secretary tries to answer. The electives are not on the schedule. There is a master list of all electives in all departments. I have to go to another office. Then I have to write down the electives I might want, and go to the department offering each elective to get the schedule for each course. While she is explaining this to me, she and her colleague get in a screaming fight over who should answer the phone. “I’m helping this girl,” she says. “I’ll answer the phone when I’m done.” They are clearly stressed out.

Sept. 25^th afternoon:

Josh has found me outside my department office, the second third of my schedule in hand. All I need is the electives, now. That final missing piece. The rest of the treasure map. There is an “electives fair” in the courtyard so we head outside. Each department has a spot at one of the folding tables set up around the perimeter of the courtyard. Students wait in line to get the schedules for all the different electives they want. This saves us from going around to all the offices, all of which are open during different hours, closing frequently for coffee breaks. I look at my degree requirements and decide to wait and take an elective next semester. I don’t pick up any schedules. I realize later that I actually DO need an elective this semester. I have to go to all the offices. Josh didn’t fare any better. He waited in line for the electives he wants to take, but the departments still don’t know what times those courses will be offered. Classes start on Monday.

Sept 28^th morning:

I have made it through two hours of Spanish classes, 75% of which were conducted in French. When the professors speak Spanish, they’re very slow and deliberate and repeat themselves often, using synonyms. Now I know why French people have the reputation of being bad at foreign languages. I go to the office where you pick up the master list of electives, only it turns out. . . it hasn’t been published yet. Not for 3^rd year students, just for 1^st and 2^nd years. I ask the woman working in the office how I’m supposed to not miss my classes if the schedule isn’t available yet. She tells me she doesn’t know. Josh goes to class. His professor doesn’t.

Sept. 30^th:

My class today is taught by the woman from orientation. I can barely understand her French. She only speaks in Spanish about 5% of the time. Everyone takes furious notes except me. I try not to cry. Meanwhile, Josh’s department has re-done their schedule. Most of his classes now overlap by at least an hour.

Oct. 1^st:

Today I miss classes to take an hour-long bus to Marseille to sign more papers for work. I’m going to be teaching English in an elementary school again. I get up early to get my papers ready—social security info, birth certificate, RIB (bank info sheet). I remember last year when my friend Julia got her RIB hostilely rejected because she had torn it off the sheet instead of cutting it with scissors. My last RIB has been torn off the sheet, too. Oh, well, by the time they open my file I’ll be an hour away by bus.

I get up early and walk through town as the farmers’ market is being set up and the streets are still glistening from an early-morning spray-down. I take the bus to Marseille and walk to the Inspection Academique. The secretary at the front desk ignores me, more intent on looking for a box of ink cartriges she’s stashed somewhere. I’m supposed to wait until she finishes her current task and then she’ll give me her full attention. I don’t care. I’m American. I interrupt and ask where the assistants are meeting. When I get there, they say, “Oh, wait, you already signed those papers. You can go home again, sorry.”

I was not at all surprised by this. It was exactly what I had expected would happen. I stick around to get a copy of a paystub from last year that never came. I’m directed to a woman who takes me up to her office, squeezing with me into a two-person elevator that already has an occupant. Her office is full of pictures of foreign places. She frantically ruffles through files and then searches through her computer. She looks at me with sad and frightened eyes and tells me that the woman at their office in charge of paperwork for Language Assistants--the same woman with the aversion to torn edges--retired without training anyone to do her job. I feel so sorry for this woman in front of me, drowning in the avalanche of French bureaucracy while I complain that my feet are cold.

On the bus ride home, I feel another tension headache coming on. This makes me think of my great health insurance. I remind myself that I’m going to get a free pair of glasses. Cute French ones, and my insurance will pay for them, with almost no paperwork to fill out. I feel better. Sortof.

Happy Thoughts

2009-10-01T15:46:00.002+02:00

School has started, and with it, tension headaches. I'll complain later, but now it's time to dwell on the positive. SO:

Happy thoughts of the day:

Apple-Litchi soda from Monoprix.

A huge English-language section in our town library (and Salman Rushdie's new book was FINALLY there!).

The bank teller taking 10 minutes to teach me to make deposits at a French ATM.

Finding a bookstore/café with iced coffee (yes, ice cubes!) plus all the books of the twilight saga.

Flintstones gummy vitamins instead of the gross adult ones.

Josh being willing to walk (downhill) to school to pick up my bike for me when I didn't feel like riding it home (uphill).

Chocolate Brioche.

. . . Ok, I feel better now.

Venelles, and smells

2009-09-23T10:49:00.006+02:00

Last weekend we decided to do some exploring. My teaching post for this school year is in a town called Venelles, which is only 11 minutes away by car, according to google maps. So we figured, why not see if we can bike it?

Me + biking is, I should note, a somewhat surprising combination. I am extremely maladroite and shun most physical activity. Josh convinced me to get a bike. . . and now he's trying to convince me to ride it instead of walk alongside it. Which I did, for about half of our trip to Venelles. It turns out that to get from Aix to pretty much anywhere north of the city, you have to go up a huge hill. The local Gauls (pre-Roman inhabitants of France) lived at the top of the hill (the Plateau d'Entremont) and they definitely had a great view:

But they weren't trying to ride a bike up the hill, in traffic. You see, it turns out that all the roads between here and Venelles are pretty major thoroughfares. They're also lined with the plane trees that Napoleon planted to keep his troops marching in the shade as they moved around the country. This basically means that as I wobble along the shoulder of the road, I could either fall to the left and get hit by a car, or fall to the right and run into a tree. Strangely I find the trees comforting. The idea of crashing into one of these beautiful old trunks has a nice earthy warmth to it.

Well, we finally made it to Venelles, and it's a cute town.
There's a sign just outside town that marks Venelles as a "ville fleurie," which I guess means they have a lot of flowers. We didn't see many flowers, but we did spot grape vines hanging over fences:
These days I keep catching whiffs of a smell that's like a cross between wine, vinegar, and grape juice. And here's the cuplrit:

Crushed grapes rotting underfoot.

"Pardonez-moi, Monsieur le chien, savez-vous ou est le centre ville?"

Happy Birthday, Roi René!

2009-09-21T14:13:00.007+02:00

Aix-en-Provence has two favorite sons: Paul Cezanne and Roi René, known as "Good King René." They've been immortalized in bronze and stone and anchor either end of the Cours Mirabeau. Here's Cezanne (and Josh's grandmother--Hi, Mom-mom!):

. . . and here's Roi René:

This year marks the 600th anniversary of Roi René's birth, and even though his birthday is long past (it was in January), our annual culture weekend focused on him this year. 600 years is a big deal.

Roi René did all kinds of great things for Aix, back in the day when Provence was an independent and autonomous "county"-- land ruled by a count. Roi René wasn't actually king of Provence, though he hung out here quite a bit. His title of King came because he was King of Naples (including Sicily), Jerusalem, and somewhere else that I can't remember. This was a time when the European nobility passed around territories like they were Pokemon cards. René had lands all around the Mediterranean and brought the Italian Renaissa

nce to the south of France, along with either A) a special kind of grape or B) all grapes. Sorry I can't be more specific, it's hard to know what's going on when it's all happening in French.

But you'll see that Roi René is holding a bunch of grapes in his sculpture.

This weekend the town celebrated his birthday. You could pay two euros for a piece of birthday gallette down on the Cours Mirabeau:

The women serving the cake were decked out in traditional provençal fabrics.

They weren't the only ones dressed up. (The building in the background of this picture is where I went to school last year.)

The streets were full of booths with information about Aix during the time of Roi René. A sculptor was exhibiting some of his work, including this in-progress bust of Roi René's wife Jeanne.

One presentation showed old maps of Aix. I like this one from the 1400s; you can see the cathedral just inside the north gate. The area outlined in yellow is the oldest part of the town; that's where we live!

Big chunks of the town wall are still intact today, and they've been incorporated into houses and buildings like the one housing the authorized mac dealership. I like knowing that we live just inside the walls; it makes me feel connected to the town's history. And here's a great connection: turns out that the door across the alley from us is the oldest door in Aix!

We came home before all the culture-day festivities were over, and as we were sitting on the couch checking facebook, we heard the amplified voice of a tour guide in our alley.

She was telling a group that this door dates from 1480 and was part of a mansion that once stood here. I guess she means it's the original wooden door that's the oldest, because in a town this old, there must be a doorframe still around that comes from an earlier date . . . I'll have to do some research.

I'm glad we didn't sleep through culture weekend again this year (we were still really, REALLY jet lagged last year). The town looked beautiful in the post-rain afternoon sunlight, and it was fun to stroll around and enjoy it like a tourist instead of a commuter on the way to the bus station.

Twilight Nerd Moment Here

2009-09-14T12:13:00.010+02:00

So, I apologize, but I’m about to have a nerd moment here. Or would you consider this a geek moment? Anyway, if you’re judgmental, stop reading and just look at the pictures.

A week before we left the US I took a box of books to the Paperback Exchange on Jonestown Road in Harrisburg to pick up some picture books for teaching here in France. I had a bit of extra store credit so I decided to treat myself to something for the plane ride. Well, I’d been wondering about this Twilight series . . . 24 hours later I was hooked. A huge chunk of the second book takes place in a town in Italy called Volterra. I assumed it was fictitious until I started thinking, boy, that name sounds familiar. . . and then I realized I’ve been there!

That's my brother taking a picture of Volterra. (Many of these are actually shots he took . . . thanks, Steve.) We stopped there on our family trip to Italy last April. This is pretty much the iconic shot of Volterra, so I'm thinking that round tower just might be the round tower referenced in the book. I suppose I could do some research but I'm not going to be that nerdy today.
I don't have many pictures of Volterra because A) I was chasing Steve, who decided to take off on his own and didn't have a cell phone, and B) I didn't know that Volterra was the vampire "royal city." Why wasn't that in my guidebook somewhere?!?!

Not only did Steve lose my family in Volterra, but he then lost me. Or rather, I lost him. And then I was just lost. Lost in a city of vampires. I ended up alone, at dusk, in a park. . .

At the bottom of the park was this old fountain. . . very vampire-y, isn't it?

The name and history of Volterra fit the story well, but San Gimignano had much more of the feeling I would imagine for the town (could just be because a lot more of the medieval architecture there is preserved). The picture in the front of New Moon (and the first picture of this blog post) is actually one of the gates of San Gimignano. This is the inside of that gate:

Here's the town square of San Gimignano--exactly what I'd imagine for the Volterra in the book:
But to be fair, the piazza in Volterra looked a lot like this, too (I had to check to see which town this picture was taken in). In fact, most towns in this part of Tuscany look pretty much the same. Here's the only shot I have of the main Piazza in Volterra:
And just as important to Twilight readers as the piazza is that tiny, shadowy side street. . . here's one in S.G.:

It might as well be Siena or another city from the same period. . . they all look a lot alike!

This is in a museum in S.G. that I was too cheap to pay for. Steve took the picture on his way up one of the towers. S.G. is famous for its medieval towers. But back to Volterra.

I think this is a distance shot of the town square of Volterra (the place where that pivotal scene takes place) but I'm not sure because I was so hopelessly lost wandering around the town. I ended up at another round tower . . . this one part of a prison still in use today:

Now that I think about being lost and wandering around outside a prison, alone, as it was getting dark, I realize that Volterra was suitably spooky, even without any vampires.

. . . And We're Back!

2009-09-12T16:01:00.002+02:00

We're back in Aix after a summer of visiting our friends and families in the US. We left PA on Thursday. . .clearly the dog didn't want us to go:

Oh, and yup, that's a folding bike in the picture. Our new plan for around-town (and close outside town) transport. We got folding ones since they'll fit in the apartment and on airplanes better. And, of course, they're both orange.

Walk Home

2009-06-20T22:26:00.018+02:00

So after complaining about my boring old walk home, I thought I'd illustrate it--at least the pretty part.

From the bus station, I walk behind a bunch of modern apartment buildings, then up through my ritzy shopping plaza (sorry, no pictures) and around the Rotonde.

Today we're taking a quick detour down the Cours Mirabeau, the main drag. On one side, we have old mansions.

On the other side, cafés.

And down the middle of the street are old fountains. I've heard that there was some law that they couldn't be blocked or destroyed because shepherds used them as they brought their flocks through during seasonal migrations. Now the only ones drinking out of them are puppies and pigeons. Several are thermal sources and grow plants year round!

Here we are at Monoprix, a department and grocery store. Tonight's dinner: frozen moussaka and salad, both found in the Monoprix basement. We'll also pick up a box of honey nut cheerios, which are just honey wheat cheerios here.

After we leave Monoprix and the Cours Mirabeau, we're on single-lane pedestrian streets. This means we are more likely to get run over by cars and/or motor scooters.

We'll meander past the house that found a way to compensate for the fact that the street cut through the corner of the property. It's next to the Natural History Museum.

By the way, we just walked past the store "L'Occitan en Provence." It's really from Provence. So is this great jewelry store, Saoya en Provence. Josh got my Christmas present there this year, and my brother bought his fiancée something there, too.

As we walk up the street, let's try to peek in open doors of old mansions. This one, which we've nicknamed "the puffy door" is always closed.

But sometimes the Aix-en-Provence city history museum is open.

We'll pass the boulangerie and try to ignore the tartes in the window.

My feet are getting tired! Now you see why I like to change my route--this is a long walk. Once we see the clock tower of town hall, we know we're getting close, though.

We go under the clock tower's arch:

And then we're on my street. Pretty soon we're at the place in front of the cathedral.

And then. . . Home!

Detours

2009-06-18T10:32:00.007+02:00

Detours always tempt me on the walk home. The walk home (uphill) seems shorter if I'm passing new things as I go. Plus, now that it's hot, I take as many detours through air-conditioned stores as I can, or I alter my path to stay in the shade as long as possible. I think this drives Josh nuts.

Today's detour turned into an errand, (buying handmade soaps at the market) and then led me past my favorite street musician. Here's a video I took of him playing by town hall and the library (and the dreaming cat store). You'll note at the end of the video he realizes I'm recording him. Today I made up for it and doubled the contents of his coffee can, so I think we're friends again.

By the way, on one of my recent side trips into air conditioning, I came across Marylin Monroe votive candles at this store, which also features her on a coffee table:

Our Apartment

2009-06-14T18:37:00.004+02:00

I can't really type because I sliced open a finger on a can of haricots verts, but before I put my finger out of action, I made this collage of photos taken in our apartment. I don't know why it keeps uploading without the yellow. Maybe our apartment has been doing drugs while we've been at work.

Dogs, Babies, and Dreaming Cats

2009-06-01T18:35:00.000+02:00

The weather here is BEEEE-yu-tee-ful and the sunlight on the ochre-colored buildings is gorgeous. Everyone is out enjoying the sunshine as usual. Lots of dogs and babies here in Aix. LOTS OF DOGS AND BABIES. On my walk down to town center the other day, I spent most of the time behind a man walking three little dogs. They were all about the same size and wagged their tails and bounced along together like some kind of circus act or cheerleading squad. On our way down toward the post office, we passed at least four or five toddlers in strollers--all of whom turned around to watch the dogs go by.

Here he goes. . .

And here's a better shot.

He's walking past a great little gift shop, Le Chat Rêveur, The Dreaming Cat. Yes, that's a goat in the window.

Le Chat Rêveur sells fun things like post cards and funny placemats and clocks and whiteboards, all with little comics and slogans that seem much funnier in French than they would in English. I always want to buy people presents there, but I can never pick just one thing to get.

2009-05-31T15:27:00.001+02:00

Our academic year is coming to a close, and I still haven't written about it! Time to remedy that.

So, both Josh and I taught English in the public school system, and both of us studied on the side. I enrolled in French classes at an institute run by L'Univérsité Paul Cezanne. It was a quick stroll across the street each morning to this old mansion from the 1600's.

Like most other buildings in Aix, the school is a weird mixture of "old and beautiful," "old and decrepit," "new and institutional-looking," and "new and still somewhat charming."

For example, I had phonetics class every Monday morning in what might have been an old bedroom or sitting room.

On one side of the room we have a gilt-framed mirror above a marble fireplace. On the other, a white board:

Check out the french doors to the left of the white board. They're everywhere here, and they usually have these cool latches:

Our first week here, I bought a copy of "Raison et Sentiment," the French translation of Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. It was a bit surreal reading a story set in the 18th century and then walking over to sit in a building to match.

All this Jane Austen-ness makes me think of my friend Amanda, although I can't quite remember why. The room next to the phonetics classroom is what I would design for her if she were moving back in time to the late 1700's:

The old mansions here are called hôtels particuliers, "individual hotels." The hôtels particuliers are usually arranged around a central courtyard, perfect for standing around enjoying the sunshine during one of the many pauses cafés, coffee breaks, in the school day. The courtyard of the institute has my favorite fountain in all of Aix:

I'll be a little sad next year to move down to the "Fac de Lettres," the liberal arts branch of the University housed in rather utilitarian looking buildings. Although I'm still not sure if I got in or not! Maybe I'll be back, day-dreamily staring at the old plaster mouldings of the institute's ceilings again next year. On va voir!

More Treasures from the Market

2009-05-24T22:45:00.001+02:00

I'm supposed to be planning classes for tomorrow morning, and my eyelids are drooping. So, I will take this opportunity to make a bad decision and not do my work right now. Instead, I will show you this picture I took in the market today.
Quail eggs. Aren't they beautiful? Click on the picture so it opens in a new window and you can see them up close.

We've Got the Beet

2009-05-24T12:37:00.000+02:00

This morning I traipsed down to the market to indulge my latest obsession: beets. I had read this New York Times article extolling their nutritional virtues when I found myself standing in front of a giant pile of cooked beets in the market one day. Their skins were drooping off, exposing deep ruby flesh that gleamed in the sun and looked strange heaped among the firm, self-sufficient peppers, onions, and potatoes. It seemed like some kind of health code violation to have a pile of cooked vegetables sitting out on the lid of a wooden crate.

As I pondered the beets, a little old lady came up at my elbow and softly asked the shopkeeper for "the usual." As she waited for her selected beet to be tied up in plastic, I asked her how she planned to prepare it. After a quick beet tutorial, she added, "They're very good. She makes them herself." I looked at the woman behind the stall. She looked like my mom. I figured it was inevitable, and bought one.

My love for my beet started as I began to cut it up. Have you ever tried cutting a fresh cooked beet? The knife slips through it. I tossed my little gem-like cubes of beet with canned corn and added a few chopped up slices of ham. A splash of mustard vinaigrette and I had a decent-looking salad. The next day the juice from the beets had turned the entire salad hot pink. It looked like something from the 1960's and tasted delicious. The cool sweetness of the beet and corn was scrumptious against the ham and the tang of the mustard dressing.

These babies are a little on the pricey side, so I don’t get them that often (actually, it’s more because I’m too lazy to wake up early to go to the market). It keeps them special, though. Today’s beet is going in with corn, mustard dressing, and fresh grated carrots. Mmmmmm. In fact, I was so excited about the beet before this one, I was moved to poetry:

A beet! A beet! A tasty treat!
Its flesh is cool, its flesh is sweet.
Its ruby juice: an artistic feat,
And nutrients keep you on your feet.
A beet! A beet! A tasty treat!

When my brother Dave was here, admiration for this jewel of a vegetable moved him to song:

We’ve got the beet,
We’ve got the beet,
We’ve got the beet, yeah,
We’ve got the beet!

You probably think we're crazy. I'm not going to argue with you. But I still recommend you try fresh beets as soon as you get a chance.

Old Buildings, New Buildings

2009-05-20T10:52:00.000+02:00

Whew, finally some time to relax! (sortof.) The past month has been a whirlwind of craziness, grace à 30+hours spent driving around Europe with my family, followed by exams for my French program. It's that classic end-of-the-year paradox: piles of work, and suddenly the weather is so nice that nothing else seems to matter.

My 6:00 walk home from the bus stop after work is no longer in the dark, so I get a lot more time to look at things around Aix. A few days ago as I passed by the "Official Mac Reseller" I noticed that along with the high-tech apple decor, the building also sported arrow slits:

I think it might have been part of the old town wall, if not some other kind of medieval fortification.

Part of me loves being surrounded by medieval buildings, and another part of me is sick of places having a thousand years worth of dirt. No matter what we do to keep our apartment clean (which isn't much, I'll admit), I know that there's no real cure for the crumbly walls and pervasive feeling of "charm" (i.e., decrepitness). It's not as if it wouldn't pass safety inspections; I'm just getting sick of details like mismatched fixtures and slightly broken cabinet doors.

As my bus home from work wound through the medieval, castle-guarded town of Meyrargues yesterday, we passed a standard-issue modern building made all of glass and concrete nestled in among the violet-shuttered stone and stucco provençal houses. I actually held my breath for a second thinking about how beautiful it seemed to me. Something tells me I'm ready to spend some time in the States again.

Mon Frère, il est venu!

2009-04-10T10:58:00.000+02:00

My brother David arrived last night just as I was dropping the rest of the baby asparagus into the sauté pan for dinner and mixing chèvre into the béchamel. I greeted him at the door and shoved a piece of the goat cheese into his mouth: "Welcome to France!" (It was really good goat cheese.)

I had gone to the daily farmer's market during a break in my classes to pick up ingredients for dinner, and it was such a beautiful market day here in Aix. The sky had lots of fluffy clouds rolling around, giving enticing shades and variation to the strong, clear Provençal light. The vegetables and fruits were gorgeous under red and yellow umbrellas. The stand where I bought the asparagus had three kinds: baby asparagus, which was a range between what you'd usually see in the US and skinny little asparagus twigs, regular French asparagus, which had the circumference of a dime, and huge goliath asparagus, the same height, but the diameter of a half dollar! Whoa! Wish I'd had my camera.

The trip to the market was just one more reminder that I love it here: the smells, colors, foods, and weather, the sunlight on the yellow stone buildings, the daily challenge of having no clue what people are saying to me as I try to accomplish the most mundane tasks. I'm excited to share it with a visitor!

Empanadas (see other blog)

2009-04-06T17:42:00.000+02:00

So, I want to take a second to "announce" the launch of my other blog. . . the one that's not just for fun. After I worked on a Spanish grammar textbook for kids last year, the publisher asked me to keep a blog with content related to the book, hispanophone culture, and language learning in general. If you're a language-minded person, or interested in classical education, stop on by and throw in your two cents.

Au Revoir Pudding, Bonjour Vacherin

2009-04-03T22:35:00.000+02:00

Yesterday Mr. Walker finally came to fix the small freezer compartment of our fridge. Hooray! I’ll taste ice again! I’ll be able to buy prepackaged frozen foods again! And best of all, vacherin! Pudding, adieu.

Vacherin was one of the desserts presented to us at Madame le Consul’s dinner for American language assistants back in October. I’ve been craving it ever since. A sort of tart made of meringue, whipped cream, and berry sorbet, it’s light and delicious and wonderful. I would say that of all the French foods I have lusted after, vacherin takes the cake. The list of things I’ve eaten because they were sortof like vacherin and I thought they might take the edge of the craving is a rather long one (raspberry sugar-water. frozen raspberries. a wilted and unhappy raspberry charlotte). I’ve seen a store-brand boxed version of my darling taunting me from the frozen foods case of the Spar mini-market on the corner, but since first it wouldn’t have fit in our very frosty freezer, and then we had a completely frosted-full freezer that would accept nothing, buying a giant frozen cake was out of the question. We considered getting one when we had company to help us eat it quickly, but Spar closes at eight. We usually tell guests to come at 7:30, but dinner takes a bit longer to get on the table. What would become of a vacherin in the 45 minutes between leaving the store freezer case and arriving on our table? I shudder to think.

But, today, we had a completely empty freezer, big enough to fit the boxed vacherins I’ve been eying. Spar had none in stock, but that’s alright: it was the day of our Carrefour pilgrimage. Carrefour is about 30 minutes away, and Josh was sure that a frozen dessert wouldn't make it back in one piece, but I decided it was worth a try. However, when I got to the vacherin section . . . empty. I think the cases had malfunctioned and their contents had been tossed.

I almost accepted defeat, but was saved by vacherin flavored drumstick cones. Sitting near raspberry-peach, mint-chocolate, and chocolate pistachio, they called to me and I answered. (Okay, I’m getting ridiculous here, but I’m still on a sugar high.) We opened the box on the way home and Josh was right. . . Carrefour was too far away. They were never going to make it. I had to eat two.

They were worth every wave of sugar-induced nausea I experienced afterward. The top was raspberry sorbet (so light it was almost frothy) swirled with whipped cream and topped with meringue pieces. Underneath that was the traditional vanilla ice cream in a chocolate-lined cone, but this time with a core of raspberry sauce.

I am SO glad to have our freezer working again. . . even if nothing makes it home to reside there. Tant pis!

By the way, in the grocery store I had another Marilyn Monroe spotting. This time she was on a purse.

La Belle-Mère

2009-03-17T22:41:00.000+01:00

Our noisy neighbors are playing a loud techno version of the "Imperial March" from Star Wars. I kindof want to go over and yell at them. Or join their party. Which to choose?

Anyway:
We're currently hosting a visit from our (my) "belle-mère," which means "beautiful mother" and is French for both mother-in-law and stepmother. It gets a little confusing when someone discusses both parties at the same time, but in general, it's a rather lovely way of putting it.

So, avec ma belle-mère and my belle-grandmother, it's a whirlwind of cafés, pastries, museums, and cute little shops. Fun to have them, and also to have the "home comforts" they brought in their suitcases. The peanut butter was almost immediately turned into the flourless peanut butter cookies from my new favorite reading material, the great foodie blog "Everybody Likes Sandwiches." The cookies made me late for school (I started making them at 7:50 as breakfast before an 8:00 am class) but were worth every peanut-buttery bite.

Donc, je vais dormir (off to bed) because these two "belle" ladies have worn me out. Too much sight seeing! Too many glasses of rosé! Bonne nuit!

Fun Chez Kraut

2009-03-06T23:09:00.001+01:00

Julia: Here we are, on a Friday night, learning Old English . . . You sure know how to show a girl a good time.

Josh: I'm letting you hold the computer.

Back to Winifred

2009-03-05T11:32:00.001+01:00

I finished the book "Perfume from Provence" and want to apologize to Winifred for the insensitivity of my earlier critique. After the last pages of the book, where she switches from describing the joys of watching peasants flirt with each other during olive harvest to confessing her loneliness after the death of her husband, I suddenly feel very protective of her. And with that comes willingness to overlook her notions of Anglo-Saxon superiority. But should it? Should she be let off the hook for being insensitive in one area, just because she's suffered in a another? Or should she still be harshly criticized for her un-p.c. views? And does it even matter, since she's dead now?

I'm going to go do laundry.

Books and Jackhammers

2009-03-04T17:44:00.000+01:00

Right now I’m on winter break, not to be confused with Christmas break or spring break, each 2 weeks long. I took advantage of my free time yesterday to head down to the big public bibliothèque. Josh and I found a glass-encased silent reading room inside the library's spacious main hall. Perfect. After promising the room’s guardian that we were there to study and not to chat, we sat down at a massive old wooden table with a green leather top to get some work done.

We went to the library both for the study-inducing ambiance, and to get away from our neighbors, who are renovating their apartment. Apparently the instrument of choice for construction here is a jackhammer. Not so study-inducing.

While at the library, I picked up a book titled “Aix-en-Provence, hier & aujourd’hui,” yesterday and today. I love old photographs and many of the pictures in the book are from before the American Civil War. How cool! The old pictures were set alongside recent shots of the same places. When we got home, we plunked down on the couch right away and flipped the book open . . . only to discover that in spite of all the jackhammer noises we’ve been hearing, there were only a handful of pictures in which we could see any change from the 1850’s to the present. The only developments were that the roads are now paved and some shop signs are different.

While in the library, I also swung by the English-language section and found a book called “Perfume from Provence,” written by an English noblewoman who moved here in the 1930’s to escape the collapsing British pound. It’s pretty much the same as reading a book by Peter Mayle, but the author is a little bit ethnocentric and classist. Sorry, Winifred, but your workmen can't possibly be "little more than children." She spends less time than Mayle does in detailing the horrors of having a house renovated in a land where people take two hour lunch breaks, but she complains a bit more. By the second chapter, while still really liking the book, I found myself wanting to say to her, “Stop complaining! You chose to live here! If you want telephone service, go back to Hertfordshire!”

It was a good lesson for me, since I spend a lot of time complaining and exasperated, and if I really don’t like it here, I could always go home. But we chose to move here and we’re glad of our choice. I was glad even this morning, as the next-door destruction (I mean construction) was again going full-swing, and this time, without announcing their intentions, they cut off our water.

Le Printemps est arrivé!

2009-03-01T20:00:00.000+01:00

Spring is here! The thermometer hit 16 Celsius yesterday and a friend and I walked up to Cezanne’s atelier. By the time we reached the workshop on the steeeeeep hill north of the city, I was wearing a tee shirt. The birds were singin’ and the sky was blue. I waited by a rustling bush long enough to see a rouge gorge, the first French bird I’ve seen in person other than a pigeon or magpie (I saw, from a bus window, some kind of grand heron wading in a puddle a few weeks ago, but that doesn’t count).

Friday we also had evidence of spring. We went to a local park to enjoy the sunshine and there were daffodils and pansies in bloom. I retired my winter coat . . . hopefully it can stay out of commission for the rest of the year as it’s in dire need of a dry cleaning.

The park is a "jardin à la Française," classic French gardens in front of an old mini-chateau. Now the house is an art gallery, and the park is a great place to enjoy le soleil or a pain au chocolat. These pictures are actually from a park visit in September--imagine pansies beside the walks now.

Walking Around

2009-02-27T21:28:00.000+01:00

Just a few photos from this afternoon's stroll around town.

The Cathedral.

An angry-looking fountain in front of the old Archbishop's palace. Does he just have moss in his eyes? Or is he really mechant?

Can you see in this guy's window? It looks like he got the interior decorator who did Versailles. That moulding is probably from the same era, give or take a hundred years. I like to study the moulding around ceiling edges here and try to figure out where rooms were truncated to make smaller apartments, or where chandeliers would have been hanging. More about that later. . .

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

2009-02-26T19:31:00.000+01:00

Nope, it’s not another post about Marilyn—it’s about my President’s Day lesson at the École Primaire where I teach English to kids in levels CP-CM2 (1st-5th grade). Every week I have to come up with a lesson on “Anglophone Culture.” The catch is that I can only introduce a handful of new words or phrases each week, so I mostly need to use what the kids already know.

So how do you celebrate President’s Day with only a beginner’s knowledge of the English language? By serenading Abraham Lincoln and George Washington with Happy Birthday, of course. And what do you do when they’re not there in person? This:

Two kids in each class volunteered to portray our great Presidents so we could sing to them. Seeing a seven year old's body with George Washington's head was even funnier than this picture of me as Abraham Lincoln (and not creepy, which I can't really say about myself here). The kids also got to practice saying "Thank you" as we showed our appreciation to Abe and George for being honest and doing good things for our country. Maybe it's just homesickness, but I actually got a little teary shaking Abraham Lincoln's hand and telling him "Thank you, Mr. President," even if it was just a mask worn by an eight year old girl.

The Oriental Express

2009-02-26T04:05:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time, about a hundred yards down the street from our apartment, sandwiched between tourist shops and expensive salons, there was a store which sold oriental rugs. The store was fronted by large glass windows on which half a dozen cheap paper signs were taped advertising sale prices, each outbidding the other in obnoxiously colorful, bubble-shaped numerals. Inside, one perceived the majestic carpets draped lazily over humps of unidentifiable furniture, one on top of the other, seemingly in conversation. The showroom extended all the way to the back of the store where, behind the lone supporting column, slightly to the left, a small but tidy desk supported a single flat screen computer monitor and a small lamp.

These elements were worth noting since they were often the store’s only occupants. In five months of passing the rug shop, which bore no name, posted no business hours, and had no phone number, I saw one customer. One customer, one time, who seemed determined not to lean too closely toward any of the wares lest he look interested in an actual purchase. There was, of course, the owner, whose face was most often turned intently downward as he concentrated on some invisible puzzle between the lamp and the computer screen. Occasionally he would be on the phone, but most of the time he simply sat motionless at his desk, a quiet sentry over the sleeping rugs. I don’t know why, but I imagined that he was Turkish, as I imagined the rugs were, and that one might even be expected to speak Turkish upon entering the store. Most of all though, I sensed through the glass that these rugs missed their mother country, and were spoiling in a foreign land where no one knew their worth, where their only spokesperson was a pack of sale signs from the two-Euro store.

The store was a sorry spectacle, one was forced to conclude. But after a few months of sharing Aix-en-Provence with Oriental Rugs Anonymous, I was anything but sympathetic.

It all started with a sign. TAPIS ORIENTALES: GRANDE VENTE AUJOURD’HUI ET DIMANCHE– PLUS DE 60 a 70 % DE REDUCTION. (Oriental rugs: Grand Sale Today and Sunday...) Three feet by four, perhaps, with a blue background and loud white lettering—taped somewhat audaciously to the pole of a “One Way” sign near the Hotel de Ville. Continuing up the street toward our apartment, I soon glanced another identical sign,just outside the rug shop. Normal, it was their sale, after all. One hundred yards later, a third sign appeared, this one at eye-level, frantically tied to the old lamppost in our square. Bright orange. The kind of orange one needs to avoid a hunting accident. This was becoming somewhat insistent, I thought, but figured that the weekend must have been an important turning point for the store to move stock.

That Monday the sign in our square still hung securely to the lamppost, its tidings of the weekend’s bargains defiant in the face of the new week. I soon learned that the rug shop only considered time an ally, and never an adversary. By Wednesday afternoon I was passing dozens of cars whose windshield wipers were dutifully holding onto flyers for the previous weekend’s sale. These flyers would disappear and reappear over the next few months, and nary a street in Aix-en-Provence was spared as far as I could tell. The orange placards took up more and more offensive positions in town, as well. The road leading from the bus terminals to centreville had been completely overrun; one could not help being reminded of the rug shop’s outrageous sales no matter if one was trying to enter the city or to flee.

Soon, the store had revamped for another major push, and so at least half of the posters and flyers were advertising deals yet to come at the same time as their predecessors continued their campaigns for the glorious prices that had been. My customer count still stood at one person despite multiple daily observations, however, and I was growing more and more impatient with each daring attempt the rug shop made at increased visibility. I had started to see signs 30 kilometers away in Marseille.

For the second sale, flyer production seemed to hit a peak. Aix’s municipal parking officers could have easily lost their jobs if their superiors had seen the efficiency that was actually possible by a determined force of windshield apostles. At one point I spotted a min-van on the highway with a TAPIS ORIENTALES flyer clinging furiously to its rear-wiper blade like a hyena that had locked onto a frantic wildebeest. That that particular bite was not the fatal one did not so much matter: there would be others that would pick up the trail. They came at night, anyway.

One of the most maddening aspects of this experience was the utter openness with which the rug shop had perpetrated its campaign. A simple calculation would have quickly led one to the conclusion that if every store in Aix employed a similar poster-flyer campaign, we would quickly have become the most ridiculous looking city in the world. France even spends money to maintain public bulletin boards for just these types of reasons. Furthermore, sales are strictly regulated in France. A store cannot simply slash its prices, claim to sell, or actually sell at a loss whenever it wants to. There are rules and seasons for sales, imposed by the government... Hadn’t the police seen these posters? Or the mayor? Or the trash men!?

This past Sunday new posters went up around the Hotel de Ville once more. DESTOCKAGE TOTAL...AUJOURD’HUI SEULEMENT (Today only!)...and more mind-blowing numbers and percentages-off their already mystical prices. At one point the rug shop had actually just gone ahead and put one their carpets outside the store with a sign on it showing the calculation of what 70% off actually came to. I think the rug, about the size of an average bath towel, still cost two hundred forty Euros—which, after it had been outside decorating the sidewalk for weeks, seemed a little steep to me. In any event, I had a minor flip-out when I saw the new signs going up this past weekend. I am not proud, but I actually did kick the first sign I saw. I should say, and Julia can attest to this, that it was a light kick—my equivalent of throwing a shoe at someone instead of, say, shooting them—but it was not altogether without disgust.

And then it happened.

I was walking home from class on Monday and I reached the place where I normally made my “observation” of the rug shop’s business. With each passing view of the store’s empty showroom over the past few months, I had at least experienced a modest shot of schadenfreude—which just goes to show how deep and mature this whole experience had been making me—but Monday, oh Monday was very different.

I was actually ready to walk right by the rug shop without glancing inside when somehow my peripheral vision picked up some subtle incongruity in the fuzzy background off to my left side. My eyes were riveted to the street, as usual, which is, by the way, why I have gone five months and three weeks without stepping in a single piece of dog poop. However, at that moment my subconscious needed only a split second to assemble some very alarming data into a full-fledged reflex that wrenched my head to the left:

Empty. The store was empty. Not the usual empty, either. There were no carpets. There were no signs. There was no desk, no computer, no lamp, no Turk. The space looked as if construction had just finished that morning and it would be ready to accommodate its first lessee in the coming week. I managed a small and ungraceful hop of delight. I took my bearings, and tried to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. The chic visagiste to the right, the postcards stands to the left—yes—this was it—the rug shop—no—the not-rug shop—the rug shop was no more!

I will not assume full credit for the store’s demise, of course. I did kick the sign, I know, but certainly other forces—market ones, for example—probably played some role. The important thing is that the rugs have left the city, and left it for good from what I can tell. They have perhaps migrated again, quietly alighting on some unsuspecting showroom floor behind an normal looking storefront in some far away city. They will try, for a while maybe, to find homes willing to pay retail. But it won’t be long. I tell you, it won’t be long before the signs. It won’t be long before the flyers.