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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!