The Ericksons in France

Le Fin

2007-04-01T22:37:00.000-07:00

My concerns about the availability of taxis in Madrid at 4am on a Sunday morning were unfounded. I had read that Madrid's night-life didn't get rolling until 10pm or so, and generally continued well into the following morning -- I can now report seeing it in person. Madrid is busier at 4am than Seattle at 7pm. Unbelievable.

I made my flight with time to spare and arrived in Paris at bit after 8am. So how to spend my last day in town?

I set out for Breakfast in America (BIA), an institution so far as my family and I are concerned, and passed two hours or more, sitting at the counter enjoying delicacies I hope I will never again take for granted -- an omelette with salsa and cheddar, home-fries, wheat toast and drip coffee. Most of all, I enjoyed the company of the wait staff and clientel. At the beginning of this trip, I had a strong sense that Providence was moving to ensure that I received an answer to every problem which arose -- I have the same feeling here at the end: throughout this week, I have enjoyed countless small opportunities to mark the end of this experience, and discuss / reflect on the meaning I've found. The time spent at BIA was but one example.

Taking leave of the friendly folks at BIA (no tears this time, thankfully), I wandered the streets of Paris for a few hours, winding up sitting on a bench on a bridge with a wonderful view of the city. I must have sat for twenty minutes or more, enjoying the vista.

As I sat, I marveled at the beauty of Paris -- put simply, it is very, very pretty, charming, graceful, stylish, etc. I felt a deep melancholy to be leaving it, and wondered if / when I'd ever see it's skyline again. At the same time, I experienced a very strong realization that I am a stranger to this place and always will be. I love Paris, but I am not "of" it. I do not belong here, and I am sure that even if I were to live here for decades, it would never be my "home" in the way that Seattle is. The overheard voices of passers by, speaking French, German, Italian, only deepened my sense of being "foreign" to this place, and sharpened my anticipation of getting home to my city, my people, my country.

I stood and with a spring in my step, set out for my car to begin the drive to the airport. On my way, I glimpsed the Pompidou Centre, the home of France's modern art collections -- it being the first Sunday of the month, admission was free, so I spent a couple of hours wandering the galleries. Here again, another moment to contemplate the joys and growth I've experienced during the past few months -- how long will it be before I amble through an art museum and see Picasso after Matisse after Pollack after etc. etc.?

I finally reached the Sheraton at Charles de Gaulle, took a nap, ate dinner and re-packed my bags for the third time. I read, watched a movie, called home and despite my nap, slept like a log. It's morning now, and in an hour or so, I'll take an elevator down four floors and step right out into the terminal... and if the stewardess greets me in an American accent as I board the plane, I'll already be 80% of the way home.

+++++++++++++++++++

Friends, thanks for reading this blog. I have enjoyed writing it more than you can imagine and I've been gratified by all the comments I've received. I confess there have been more than a few times when I've checked the "site-meter" to see how many people had visited the site lately -- the answers never failed to amaze and delight me, and on many days it gave me a much needed lift.

Thanks too for all of you who have supported Ceil, Miles, Lee and I in making this journey... so many people at Boeing, The Seattle Foundation, Assumption-St. Bridget School, not to mention all the folks on this side of the Atlantic, have made this thing possible. My family and I have been changed by this experience, and the realization of how much support and love we enjoy in the world.

Blessings to each of you. Look for one more post in a couple of weeks, perhaps with a link to another blog documenting my next "adventure".

Peace.

Advanced Tourism – You got game?

2007-03-31T14:10:00.000-07:00

Let’s say you’ve been living in, oh I don’t know… pick a country: ok, France… And let’s further say that you’re feeling a bit proud of yourself for cutting it – for learning not to step in dog poop, figuring out how to order one of something and get only one, and for knowing the French word for ‘very-aggressive-bug-like-a-hornet-but-much-bigger.’

Fine. Good for you.

But do you really think you’ve got things sorted out it? Hmmmm… well, let’s find out. Here’s a quick three-question exam – think of it as a pop quiz during the last week of class.

Readers are invited to play along – all the instructions you’ll need to recreate the “real life” examination are included below.

Task #1: “But officer…”
The setup:
First, believe that when it comes to speeding in France, 170 kph is the “magic number”: if the cops clock you doing over 170 kph they take your license and car keys, on the spot, you get to call someone for a ride home. Less than 170 kph and you pay some cash and off-you-go.

Next, go for a long-ish drive… say from Issoudun to Strasbourg – about 6 hours driving time. Drive very, very fast. Whether on the highway (speed limit: 130 kph) or country roads (speed limit: 90 kph), set your cruise control to 155 kph. (Its okay – the magic number is 170.)

Finally, get stopped by a motor-cycle cop on one of the country roads five hours from home. Follow the officer’s stern gestures closely, and pull your car to the shoulder. Get out of the car.

The catch:
First, you and the cop are wearing the same coat (awwwkward!).

Second, it turns out that the magic number is really 40 – as in: don’t go more than 40 kph over the speed limit. Thus, on the highway, where the speed limit is 130 kph, 170 kph is to be avoided. However, if you're on the country roads, where the speed limit is 90 kph, well... 155 kph is going to get you into trouble.

The challenge:
Follow the officer’s instructions and hand him your license and car keys. Now get them back.

Scoring:
Points will be deducted for wetting your pants. Crying is not allowed, though certain level of whining will be excused. Extra credit will be given if you are able to work Seattle SuperSonics basketball into your conversation with the cop.

Task #2: “The Madrid shuffle”
The setup:
First, go for a long walk on a rainy afternoon in a country where you don’t speak the language. Spain will do. Walk and walk and walk some more. Do not stop walking until you’ve developed a deeply painful chaffing condition between your thighs and sweaty hangy-down bits. (Ladies, ask a male friend to demonstrate.)

If you are able to walk with your feet less than shoulder width apart, you have not achieved the appropriate level of discomfort. Readiness to proceed will be demonstrated by the subject adopting a ridiculous John-Wayne-eseque, bow-legged stride in order to spare his hangy-down bits from contact with his inner thighs.

The catch:
You’ve learned from hard experience (cf Nagoya, Japan 1994) that the only cure comes with a liberal application of petroleum jelly (such as Vaseline) to the aforementioned tender region.

Second, you’re wearing the brightest blue ski-jacket seen in Spain since the Inquisition.

The challenge:
Go into a pharmacy and ask for Vaseline using only sign language and pantomime.

Scoring:
Bonus points are awarded if you select a young, attractive lady-pharmacist. Additional points granted based on number of other patrons looking on.

Task #3: “Escape from Madrid”
The setup:
Plan a one-day weekend excursion to a foreign city in which 8am is considered an “ungodly hour” and business is generally not conducted on Sundays. Book your return flight for 5:45 on Sunday.

The catch:
On Saturday night discover that your ticket is for 5:45am, not pm. Your plane leaves in six hours. The clerk at the hotel desk is not optimistic about the prospects of catching a cab at 4am, but promises to work on it. There are no other public transportation options available.

Scoring:
Degree of difficulty points are awarded if, as you walk away, you hear the hotel clerk giggling with a young-lady who has been hanging around the lobby waiting for him to get off work and take her dancing.

++++++++++

Answer Key: While there are many solutions to these tasks, here’s how your correspondent fared.

Task #1: “But officer…”
The play:
After a severe tongue-lashing by the cop (reflective sunglasses and all), I meekly pointed out that I was a lonely guy, a million miles from home who didn’t know a soul in France, and after all, I was leaving in a week, and couldn’t he go easy on me. (At least that’s what I wanted to say. Given my French it probably came out as “Big white man go fly home very quick quick soon Seattle United States wife kids home week soon next.”)

The cop shook his head and said, in effect, tough merde. On the other hand, he clearly didn't want me hanging around his station-house for days on end. What do to? He muttered to himself, lectured me, and paced up and down.

I suggested he cite me for a lesser offence, like driving 130 kph in a 90 kph zone. He put his hand up indicating he was offended by my proposal. He talked at me for five more minutes, shuffled through some three-ring binders in his saddle-bags and fingered my passport as if it might be a counterfeit.

After a long pause, he had an idea: what if, he said, he cited me for a lesser offence, like driving 130 kph in a 90 kph zone. I put my hand up indicating I was offended by his proposal, but quickly completed the gesture by pulling out my wallet and inviting him to help himself to as much cash as he pleased.

With a license, keys and ticket for 130 kph in my hand, and 90 less euros in my wallet, I thanked the officer and started back to the car, anxious to get away before I wet my pants. “Seattle, eh?” the officer called out. “How are Les SuperSonics doing this year?” Had he asked me to speak on the economic ramifications of the Homestead Act I might have been better prepared. But thankfully, I knew that as hell has not frozen over, I could confidently reply that the Sonics were losing a lot of games and the owners were thinking about moving the team out of town. The cop nodded thoughtfully and then explained his deep preference for the San Antonio Spurs. “A very good team,” I agreed.

Final Score: 115 points.

Task #2: “Madrid Shuffle”
The play:
After scouring the shelves of the pharmacy, hoping against all hope that I would recognize Vaseline and not have to ask for it at the counter, I got on line at the counter. The beautiful young lady behind the counter waited on two other customers, and when it was my turn, she looked past me and invited the person behind me in line to step forward. Deeply confused, I turned around a bit, and two other people slipped in front of me in the queue.

My face feeling almost as hot and red as my groin, I hobbled out of the store, legs wide, stepping gingerly.

Final Score: -25 points.

Task #3: “Escape from Madrid”
The play:
I’m not sure yet, but if I have to walk to the airport I’ll need to a) get creative about topical ointment applications, and b) leave soon.

Final Score: stay tuned…

As it began, so it ends

2007-03-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

An astute reader (or someone with a great deal of time on their hands) will recall that the first entry in this blog was entitled, “My God! What have I done?”

As this six-, no wait, eight-month adventure draws to a close, it’s fitting that I end on a similar note.

To wit:
Today was my last day of work in France.
Today was also my last day of work at Boeing.

These changes came about almost as quickly as our initial decision to come to France for six months.

After considering a career move for many, many years, something “clicked” during the past few months and I realized that the time had come. I spoke with Ceil and as ever, received her unwavering support.

Work with the French firm has been a bit slow of late, and I dropped a few hints about feeling homesick, etc. When the Boeing manager responsible for my project came to town a couple of weeks ago, I shared my career decision with her. The next day, she and I had a talk with the folks at the supplier and we decided that I’d leave at the end of the next week. My lips to God’s ear… and suddenly I’m packing bags.

As all this was unfolding, so too was the universe conspiring to undo my plan for taking six months off and growing a beard. I mentioned my decision to leave Boeing to a couple of friends, one of whom works for a small consulting firm which I admire very much. That conversation led to an email exchange with the firm’s managing partner. The firm's HR department was engaged and a resume was hastily updated and emailed; telephone interviews were scheduled, missed due to time-zone miscalculations by your correspondent, and then finally consummated. In the end, I was offered and accepted a position with this company.

The decision to leave Boeing has been sinking in slowly: my erstwhile boss in Seattle was unsurprised and very supportive – when my tenure in France was extended, they brought on a replacement -- that call took less than ten minutes; the Human Resources department was very helpful – “go to the website and click ‘resign’.” -- no call involved there; the on-line resignation process was surreal in it’s simplicity and lack of ceremony – “please take a few moments to complete this survey and help us better serve future employees…on a scale of one to five, how would you rate…?” Seventeen years and the exit takes about as many minutes.

The occasion of my departure from the supplier has been marked by a far more satisfying series of ceremonies and small speeches back and forth – a champagne toast with the committee of directors, drinks with the Boeing team, drinks with the supplier team, dinner and yet more drinks with one of the folks I’ve worked with most closely, and finally, today, a tearful series of handshakes and hugs as I took my leave.

I was surprised, touched and deeply satisfied by the depth of melancholy I felt, and the displays of affection I received. Given the many moments of frustration I’ve experienced during this assignment, I had not expected to need to pull to the side of the road for a good cry as I left for the last time.

And so now begins the journey home.

I’m flying to Madrid tomorrow morning for a previously planned one-day visit. My flight leaves at 8am, and though I thought to drive up from Issoudun early in the morning, the emotion of the day left me exhausted and longing for a night in a different place – so I’ve taken a room in a mid-range Paris hotel. I’ll spend Saturday in Madrid, returning to Paris on Sunday evening before catching an 11:45am flight to the US. Estimated time of arrival in Seattle is 6:45pm Monday April 2.

Sitting here in this tiny room, I feel peaceful and calm – the afterglow of today’s tears, the dawning realization that I’ve let go of a big piece of my self-identity, and the anticipation of holding my wife and kids in my arms… all these things are swirling around me. And yet, I feel still and at ease. And the little voice, “My God, what have I done?” seems far, far away.

Peace be with you.

Phil and Andy in Portugal

2007-03-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

I'm not a hunter, but I bet there's an expression to describe a situation in which one sits in a duck-blind waiting for a shot, and when five or six excellent targets suddenly present themselves you're so stunned that you never pull the trigger.

Whatever that is, I've got it vis-a-vis writing about the five days Phil Crean and I spent in Portugal. We had an absolute blast; lots of funny, stupid adventures, and I'll be darned if I can put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and write about them.

So here... Here's an account of our week, with lots of pictures to fill up the space. Maybe my mojo will come as I go!

Day 0: Lisbon. Since all the cheap flights from Paris to Lisbon arrive late at night, I flew in a day ahead of Phil. I stayed in a very inexpensive hotel featuring rubberized sheets and a bathroom separated from the bedroom by a sliding patio door. Ate dinner at a friendly restaurant, with friendly waiters, friendly wine, and friendly grilled sardines. Yum...

Day 1: Still Lisbon. Phil's flight landed at 2pm, so I spent the morning wandering around town. Not speaking a lick of Portuguese, I was reduced to ordering what I could point to.

After an eclectic breakfast, I boarded the OpenTour double-decker bus, sending a silent prayer for Ceil's forgiveness. I dismissed these bus-tours as hopelessly toursity and un-cool many months ago. Now, they're my first stop in a new town. And maybe they are uncool, because I had the whole bus to myself...

Got to the airport in plenty of time to meet Phil: a sight for sore eyes if ever there was one.

We taxied back into town, checked into a much nicer hotel and set out for a spot of lunch. Being an old-hand at Portuguese dining, I took Phil to the place where I ate breakfast, and impressed him with my knowledgeable pointing. Then we walked all over town, climbing to the top of several steep hills -- a past-time which we'd enjoy throughout the rest of our trip.

Before our trip, I had told Phil that I wanted to hear live music while in Portugal. So, when we set out for dinner we headed to a neighborhood renowned for it's fado bars. We were dismayed by the "greeters" standing on the sidewalk in front of each restaurant, brandishing menus in seven languages and urging tourists to come inside.

We selected a place that seemed a bit more authentic, not having a pusher stationed out front. Alas, no sooner had my hand touched the door, than the "greeter" appeared from around the corner, having finished his smoke-break. "Excellent choice, sirs!", he said, a hand on my back as we walked in. The greeter hailed the maitre-d (boasting of his sales prowess, no doubt) and we were shown to a table.

The place turned out to be every bit as touristy as we had hoped it wouldn't be, but we had fun.

Waiters in Portugal place delicious-looking appetizers on your table soon after handing you the menu, but before taking your order -- cheeses, grilled sardines, mussels, smoked meats. They also put out a basket of bread and small plate of various spreads. It's a lovely, un-requested tableau, but the deal is, as soon as you touch one of the plates, it goes right onto your bill!

The guide-book describes fado as 'Portuguese blues', but since it tends to be performed by sultry women in expensive evening gowns, backed by effeminate, dour young men playing undersized guitars, I hesitate to call it "blues". The woman performing at this particular restaurant may have been quite famous at one point, but she seemed to be on the back-side of her career. She sang four numbers, each quite passionate and sincere, while strolling around the six or so tables of the restaurant. The party of five (Germans? Czechs?) next to our table continued their conversation throughout her performance. Her strategy for coping with this distraction was to walk over close to the table, and sing directly to them. They were undaunted, simply raising their voices to make themselves heard.

After the lady finished her set, the maitre-de performed a few of numbers, losing his voice during the second and finishing in a fit of coughing, waving his hand about, as if carrying the tune manually. While the poor man sang / choked his tunes, the 'headliner' lady worked the room, going from table to table with a sample of her CD which happened to be on sale that night for a low, low price. When she reached our table, I demurred, complimenting her singing, but declining to make a purchase. She left the disc on our table, promising to return later -- seemingly confident that the picture of her staring up at me from the jewel case would tug at my heart- / purse-strings. No sale, sweetie.

After pushing her wares, she got back up and sang a few more songs. They may have been different songs, but your correspondent isn't sure. After finishing her second set, she introduced an older woman who had been sitting at a table right in front -- the one person in the room giving the singers her undivided attention. This lady, perhaps a sister, or cousin, or friend (given her age, I didn't cast her as a protege) sang a few songs of her own. She out-did the maitre-de in so much as she kept her voice through the whole set. Alas, she forgot the words during one song and stumbled around for a while, despite the best efforts of the 'headliner' lady and the guitar player to cue her -- I was even muttering hints to her by the end.

Through all these antics, dinner was served and it was utterly terrible-- the only bad meal I ate all week. I had read that dried cod is a staple in Portugal, and that a Portuguese cook can prepare it every day for a year and not repeat the same recipe. I think, unfortunately, the day I ordered it the recipe involved wrapping the fish in a brown paper bag before frying it in recycled motor oil for forty or fifty minutes. The portions being huge, and my arms being long, I was able to poach plenty of food off Phil's plate, and thus did not go hungry (thanks be to God).

Day 2: Lisbon to Sintra and back. We got an early start on Wednesday and took a train out to a village which was once the summer-home of the Portuguese royals. The big attraction in town, a former monastery was, naturally, closed on Wednesdays, so we set off in search of the second attraction -- the ruins of a Moorish castle, constructed in "the year dot" as my friend Jeremy used to say.

The Moors, being defensively minded, situated their fort atop a steep hill (read: small mountain), so Phil and I had quite a climb. I felt pretty good despite the exertions, but when we reached the top and the guard asked us for the tickets we should have purchased about half-way up the climb, I must've gotten a look about me. Phil volunteered to go back down for the tickets, and I volunteered to hold his back-pack for him, and conduct research into which park bench offered the most shade. Phil's a good friend.

The view from the ruins was spectacular, worth the walk.

Day 3: Coimbra or bust. We rented a car on Thursday and set out North. Seven of the top ten sights of Portugal (according to our Lonely Planet guidebook) were convenient to our route, so we decided to make a leisurely trip, spending a night along the way before finishing with a couple of days in Porto.

Our first stop was in a small town, with a big church and a bigger monastery.
Our second stop was in a different small town with a slightly bigger church, but smaller monastery.
At the third town, we didn't even get out of the car, rolling past the church, snapping pictures through the window and eschewing the monastery all-together.
We arrived in Coimbra much earlier than expected.

For Phil, I think the highlight of the trip came while we were checking in to Hotel Tivoli in Coimbra: while Phil was engaged with the hotel clerk arranging for our rooms, I sidled up to a young, doe-eyed, Iberian beauty sitting under a sign saying "Concierge".

"Fala ingles?," I asked. ("Do you speak English?") Her eyes grew wide and she went pale, then beet red -- perhaps she may have been embarrassed by my feeble attempt at Portuguese, or maybe intimidated by my size and bright blue ski-coat; perhaps she was drawn to me on a very base, physical level and she felt a mixture of shame and lust; and then again, maybe she didn't speak much English... anyway, I've seen the same look from my computer before, and I usually have to re-boot it before I can get much further.

"A leetle..", she squeaked.

"Great!", I fairly shouted, confident that she was digging me. "What do you recommend my friend and I do while we're in town?"

Years from now historians will debate the line of thinking which led to this young woman's response:

"Do you like dancing?", she asked.

Hmmm... This is a very attractive 22-year old woman. I, on the other hand am forty pushing fifty and the only reason I'm not self conscious about the frayed collar of my shirt is that I know it's hidden from view by my jowls. And she's asking me if I like dancing. Hmmm... Being quick, I had a ready reply.

"Oh yes, I am an excellent dancer" I said. (At that moment, nine thousand miles away, my wife did a spit-take for reasons unbeknownst to her.)

I don't really remember much of the conversation after that. I think Phil fell to the floor giggling. The girl may have turned to her colleague for support, or perhaps he intervened, fearful of where the discussion was headed. Either way, we never ascertained the location, or even existence of, dance clubs in Coimbra.

I asked about restaurants or bars we should go to. "There will be a blues festival in town next week" she said. "Cool. Where should we eat tonight?", I asked. She turned to her colleague again, or perhaps he intervened, doubting whether she was up to the task. Again, we never actually ascertained the location of any restaurant in the metropolitan area.

In the end, Phil and I found our rooms, dropped off our bags and headed out for a walk about town, all the while repeating to each other, "Yes, I am an excellent dancer."

Day 4: The long way to Porto. Having had our fill of smallish towns with oversized churches, we turned east the next morning, and drove across the breadth of Portugal to the border with Spain. We passed through a beautiful national park, breathtaking despite having been clear-cut during the not too distant past.

We stopped in a very small town and ordered lunch at a wonderful little restaurant. We studied the menu carefully and selected two items based largely on their placement on the menu ("The third item is always safe," I intoned) and imagined similarities to words we knew in French, English and New Zealandish. The food arrived quickly and the first dish was lovely. It was goat, but it was lovely. (Seriously, we looked it up. I nibbled on the little goat-ribbies. Terrific.)

The second dish arrived and I immediately had a flash-back to my experience with andouillette -- a French sausage made from pig innards. The aroma was... distinct. But this wasn't a sausage -- it looked more like a stuffed pepper or scooped out squash, though it was too tough to be a vegetable.

I picked at the stuffing, nibbling a bit. It wasn't too bad. I thought to tell Phil the andouillette story, but he had a greenish hue about him, so I held my tongue.

"Not too bad", I said, picking a bit of meat-ish looking stuff out of the middle of the stuffed... orb. I made another attempt to dissect... I mean cut the casing. My knife slipped and a hunk of meat rolled down my shirt leaving an oily and indelible trail. A souvenir of our meal.

"Listen," Phil said, "I'm going to the bathroom. Would you please figure out a way to get rid of this by the time I come back?"

Right.

He rushed from the table, a napkin pressed to his face. I hailed the waitress and explained that we were quite full. I explained this in French and English mind you. Lord knows what she made of my words, but she took the plates away.

Phil was much refreshed when he returned. We ate a wonderful desert, sipped an espresso, and made our way out of town.

Days Four and Five. Oh, boy, Oporto. Porto is Portugal's second-city, and the world-capital or Port wine. Port wine is good. We like Port wine.

Our goals for the two-days in Porto were, 1) to drink Port wine (mission accomplished), 2) To avoid excessively long walks up steep hills (mixed success), and 3) to see a professional soccer match.

We had read that FC Porto would be playing Sporting Lisboa, "a classic match" according to our barman and port-pusher at the hotel. "Sold out, though. No chance for tickets." What if we go out to the stadium -- would there be guys scalping tickets? "Yeah, but you'll have to pay money." Okay with us, as we didn't have any goats or other currency at hand.

We took a taxi to the stadium. "Game's sold out" said the taxi driver. Can we buy tickets on the street, we asked. "Yeah, but they want money." Weird system. Too bad we ate the goat.

Sure enough, no sooner did we climb out of the taxi, than we were approached by a seedy guy with a handful of tickets. Phil is a shrewed business man, and experienced at negotiating multi-million dollar sales with seedy guys around the world. So naturally, I did all the talking.

"How much?", I asked.

"Forty euros or fifty euros" he said, pointing to a map of the stadium printed on the back of the ticket. "Forty behind the goals, fifty for mid-field."

"Mid-field for forty," I proposed.

"No way. Fifty," he replied.

"No thanks, then." I said. "C'mon, Phil."

We turned and walked away, listening for the guy to come chasing after us... any second now, he'll call out... any minute...

We walked quite a ways before I acknowledged that my tactics had not paid off. Phil suggested he take charge of future negotiations.

"How much?" Phil asked the next guy.

"Fifty," he said. "Good seats!", pointing to the upper deck on the map on the reverse of the tickets.

"Forty," Phil said.

"No. Fifty."

"Ok," said Phil, reaching for his wallet.

A master at work.

Turns out the seats were in the upper deck but in the corner of the field. Surely an honest pointing mistake on the part of our salesman. Being a pointer myself, I understand the challenge.

Flush with accomplishment ("We're going to the game!") and relatively certain the tickets weren't forgeries, we returned to town and for another long walk and a few gratuitous hill climbs.

This being Saturday and the final day of the Six Nations rugby tournament, we set out towards Ryan's Bar, listed as the only Irish pub in town. It was closed. Egad, what kind of Irish pub closes on rugby Saturday, we wondered. Then Phil realized it was St. Patrick's day to boot. We considered calling the police... surely the proprietors were being held hostage somewhere... why wasn't the place open.

We resigned ourselves to watching the game in the hotel bar, and proudly waving our tickets at the barman. ("You paid money?" he asked, incredulously.) The matches were good, but so too was it very sunny and before too long we decided our time would be better spent out-of-doors. We went for another walk, this time touring the port wineries along the south shore of the river.

We retired to our rooms for a pre-match nap, awoke refreshed, and boarded the metro for a twenty minute ride to the stadium.

The match was terrific. We arrived alongside with the fans of the visiting club who were ushered into the stadium under the watchful eye of about two-hundred fully armored riot police. Our seats, in the corner of the upper deck, afforded a great view of the field, and better still, the visiting fans section.

The match was a nerve-wracking, low-scoring affair. The guy sitting next to me nearly put my eye out, as he waved his arms in disgust at some miscue by an FC Porto mid-fielder. Maybe I was cramping his style, because during the second half, me moved and sat in the aisle.

In the end, the home-team lost 1-0. The home-fans, fed up with the un-ending taunting they had endured from the three hundred or so visiting fans, leaned over the railing separating the two groups, gesturing, shouting and presumably casting aspersions on their parentage. A good time was had by all.

Phil and I ate dinner after the match, finally mastering the Portueguese habit of dining after 10pm. We ate omlettes in a smokey cafe and listen to a younger, more energetic woman sing what I assume was fado, albeit a more upbeat and perky version... pop-fado perhaps.

Day Six: Home again, home again, jiggidy-jig: We rose early and Sunday and set a land-speed record, mini-van classification- for the Porto to Lisbon run. I had just enough time to turn in the rental car, my cel phone still therein, and dash off to my plane. It was tough saying good-bye to Phil. His visit was a much needed respite and reminder of home.

Phil caught a later flight to Paris, and by all accounts had an uneventful trip home.

My journey was also uneventful, but the kicker came on Monday morning when, after six days in the sunny climes of Portugal, I awoke to snow and freezing rain in central France.

I miss Porto.

And Phil.

And home.

Hope you're all well.

Papa needs a new... Winter coat

2007-03-10T23:24:00.000-08:00

For many weeks now, I’ve been self-conscious about the winter-coat I wear. By American standards, it’s a typical ski-jacket. It’s blue with grey highlights, a removable hood, lots of pockets, etc. Ceil bought it for me last year, and it’s been a fine jacket – keeps me warm, dry, etc.

But on the streets of Paris, it seems to elicit stares from passersby.

Not out-and-out finger-pointing-“Look at that guy, Jean-Claude!”, mind you – but rather, stolen glances. I see someone looking at me, I meet their gaze and they quickly look away.

Ok, I’ve thought, so maybe people are looking at me because I’m taller than most Parisians. I am, after all, the largest mammal a pedestrian is likely to encounter on the streets of Paris. Or perhaps people over hear my outrageous attempts at French, and cannot help but stare at the learning-disabled, speech-impeded, growth-hormone-malfunctioning foreigner.

Whatever. I get that in the States, sometimes.

But no. It's the coat they're looking at. I'm sure of it:

Firstly, when I go out without the coat (which I’ve been trying to do more and more, mind you) I don’t get the same looks. Occasionally, people even approach me to ask me God knows what (Directions? Cigarettes? Advice on retirement planning?) – they assume I am French... until I open my mouth and reveal myself as a learning-disabled, speech-impeded, growth-hormone-malfunctioning foreigner.

Secondly, everyone else wears leather or wool overcoats – blacks, dark greys, and browns. No one is wearing a synthetic, royal blue parka, looking for all the world like he just stepped off the ski slopes.

No one, I realized yesterday, except Les Gendarmes! The cops! They wear coats which are exactly the same blue, with identical highlights!

That’s it! People on the street see me in my Gendarme-blue and initially think I’m a cop – a cop, mind you, with an American wife and kids in tow; or a cop slouching on the subway listening to his iPod. No wonder they stare!

I’m in Paris again this weekend, and the weather has been fair: clear skies, cool, but not cold. Not shirt-sleeve weather, mind you, but I’m toughing it out, leaving my coat in the hotel. What’s the worst that’ll happen? I’ll get to write a post about French cures for pneumonia…

Art Appreciation

2007-02-28T13:44:00.000-08:00

I took the train to Paris last weekend, fully conscious that before too long, such a journey will cost more than $23 and take longer than 2 hours.

When a friend asked me about my plans for Paris, I listed the following activities: visit English-language bookstores, watch the Six Nations Rugby tournament in an Irish pub, dine at Breakfast in America, enjoy some Chinese food and/or sushi, and visit the Musee D'Orsay. The friend suggested that I was looking for a very American weekend, and suggested I find more Parisian pursuits.

Yes, well, Paris is fine, I replied, but I'm longing for home, and Paris offers more Americana than any other place I can get to by train, so there... And plus, I am planning to visit the Musee D'Orsay. So there, again...

It was a great weekend -- in the words of our Commander-in-Chief: mission accomplished. Bought three new books, watched two and a half rugby matches, shared pitchers of beer with a party of Welsh-men in town for their team's match against France, enjoyed a fine breakfast featuring un-French delicacies such as crisp bacon, buttered toast and salsa... and I visited the Musee D'Orsay.

And, I freely confess, the Musee was the highlight of the weekend.

The D'Orsay is dedicated to art from the second half of the nineteenth- and the early decades of the twentieth century, and is housed in a former train-station. I arrived early, and went directly to the fifth floor galleries to see the most famous Impressionists: Monet, Manet, Whistler, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, etc.

(As will soon become apparent, despite having attended an Art History class in college, I have never studied Art History. For those who have, I beg your forgiveness, if for example, Van Gogh is not an Impressionist. And if he was, then hang around a bit, because I'm sure to make some egregious errors shortly.)

On my way in I had rented an audio-guide, and also purchased a museum catalog. Thus armed, I stumbled past various master-pieces, audio-guide pressed to one ear, struggling to open the catalog to the appropriate page with my free hand. My mind was everywhere but on the paintings, so after thirty-minutes, I stuffed the book in my pocket, and dispensed with the audio-guide unless I saw something especially curious or intriguing.

And I had a terrific time. To use some hi-falutin' words, I interacted with the art directly. If a piece caught my eye, I stood there, absorbing it, observing the emotions I felt, noticing my "impression" of each painting (get it? "Impressionism"? I didn't either.) .

A painting by Leon Frederic entitled Les Ages de L'Ouvrier (The Ages of The Workman) put me in mind of my kids' school in Seattle -- the chaos of small children, the parallel societies of kids and parents, the sense that 99% percent of the kids will grow up to be doctors/lawyers/indian chiefs, just like their parents.

A canvas by Cuno Amiet called Paysage de Niege (Landscape of Snow) made me think about the way it feels to go to work lately.

And many other paintings made me miss my wife in a very specific way.

And then there was this rather famous painting by Edouard Manet called Dejeuner sur l'herbe (Lunch on the grass).

Ok, so let's talk about this painting.

I recognized it immediately, and knowing that this is universally recognized as a masterpiece, I did my best to absorb and appreciate it. Yes, it's a bit weird -- the ladies are nude, the guys aren't; and what the heck are those hats the men are wearing? But ok, I'm absorbing, I'm absorbing, I'm open to art, I'm open...

Step two: listen to the audio guide. The narrator explained that this painting caused a tremendous scandal when it was first shown, what with the ladies being nude and the guys wearing weird hats; then the guide described how Manet's technique was a departure, especially in his lack of attention to perspective -- the lady in the background doesn't look like she's in the background.

Ok, I'm absorbing... I'm noticing...

Yeah... nothin'... sorry, I'm not getting it.

The one lady is looking right at me -- that's pretty amazing -- as if she's inviting... no, daring me to join the group (sorry, left my funky hat in the car). But the guy on her left -- what's he looking at? Why is the guy on the right holding his hand that way?

Weird.

Ok, Next picture. Let's find another one that reminds me of Ceil.

As luck would have it, one of the books I picked up at the English-language bookstore tells "the rest of the story" about Dejeuner sur l'herbe. Here's what I learned:

Manet created this painting specifically to provoke the art "establishment" of his day which disdained any canvas not depicting a scene from antiquity, or illustrating a scene from the Bible. While nudes were a common subject for painters, they were idealized visions of loveliness and feminine proportion -- devoid erotic overtones and/or love-handles.

As for the strange pose -- turns out Manet purposefully cribbed that from a famous etching the "cognoscenti" would surely recognize.

This painting was a thoughtfully conceived thumb in the eye of the authorities -- Manet took something they revered (reproducing figures from a well-known classic) but juxtaposed it with things they'd find scandalous (a realistic depiction of a nude woman, men dressed in modern clothing) and painted in a style that would offend them (little attention to gradients of color, little care for perspective, no effort to hide or obscure brush-strokes).

Ok, so now I love this painting. Sticking it to the man! Yeah, baby! Go Edouard! Go Edouard! That'll show 'em!

So here's my question, though, to those of you who paid attention during Introduction to Art History: am I supposed to know all this stuff before I see the painting? And if so, what about the thousands of other paintings I haven't (and won't ever) read about... can I ever truly understand and appreciate those paintings simply by standing in front of them?

In the end, I guess, the paintings I saw that day "worked": I was moved -- I felt wistful, I felt heroic, I felt humble, I felt very, very horny. Maybe that's enough. But after reading up on Dejeuner sur l'herbe I'm beginning to think that an audio guide and a catalog aren't nearly enough preparation for visiting Musee D'Orsay.

Peace.

Not feeling the love...

2007-02-25T12:47:00.001-08:00

There are many things I like about France... or more specifically, things I like about living in France. More about the distinction some other time.

But there are a few things I absolutely detest, and would change in a minute if I could... and at the top of that list is motor scooters without mufflers.

You must be eighteen to get a driver's license in France. You can, however, drive a scooter from age 14, provided the scooter's engine is less than 80cc. (I'm not a gear-head, but my sense is that in the US, such motors are reserved for the pre-school moto-cross set.) So French teenagers do whatever they can to soup up their tiny, tinny little bikes -- and the first step is ripping off the muffler.

As a result, I sit here in my room, with the window slightly ajar, and hear a local Peter-Fonda-wannabe from 3/4-miles away. At that distance, the bike sounds like a leaf-blower. As it gets closer, the sound becomes that of a chain-saw. And when the Monsieur Speed Racer careens down my street, it sounds like someone cutting up a steel drum on a band-saw. The pitch and timbre seek out key spots in my neck and back, and my shoulders hunch up my ears. Que Quasi Modo: "The bells! The bells!"

The weather has taken a turn towards spring lately. I welcomed this at first -- but on the first sunny day, I realized that I'd just as soon keep the rain, if it would keep the teen-chapter of Heck's Angels at bay. Alas, the sunshine continues, unabated. And given the way the same kids pass round and round the town on their scooters, popping wheelies, and accelerating / braking suddenly to induce skids or slides, I can only conclude that the nightlife here is as boring for them as it is for me.

But tough crap for them, damnit. I'm sick of the noise. Someone's got to put an end to this!

There's a music shop in town... I wonder if I can buy a length of piano wire?

Taking one for the blog: Tete a veau

2007-02-16T04:13:00.000-08:00

There aren't many options for dinner in Issoudun, France. There's a Chinese restaurant, a pizza place, a few up-scale joints with linen tablecloths and crystal water glasses. And there's Cafe Paix (Cafe Peace) -- the only joint in town that's open six nights a week (not Sundays) and serves food continuously from 11a to 10p (most places don't open for dinner until 7pm).

The staff at Cafe Paix are great. All three of them. I eat there about every other night -- they greet me when I come in, we shake hands, I sit at my usual table, the waitress hands me a menu and then giggles as I order in French. Generally, I have an omelet or croque madame (a toasted ham and cheese sandwich with a sunny-side-up egg on top). I don't really need to look at the menu, but she hands it to me anyway, so I page through it. All three pages.

It's the menu's middle page, though, that always catches my eye. Menu Terroir it says -- menu of the local soil. There are three courses: tete a veau, porc au lentils vert, et cafe gourmand. So let's see, starting at the bottom: cafe gourmand -- coffee for the guy who likes to eat a lot -- usually its a cup of coffee and a selection of three or four small desserts; porc au lentils vert -- pork with green lentils -- I like pork, I like lentils; but then comes tete a veau -- head of a calf. Hmmm...

Finally, after three weeks of flipping past menu terroir I surprised the waitress (and myself) and ordered it. How bad, I figured, could tete a veau be? It's probably a stew made from the meaty bits around the head. My grandma Minnie probably ate tete a veau back on the farm. Who am I to get all prissy? Bring it on.

Ok. Bad idea. If Grandma Minnie ate tete a veau, then she was a better man than I am.

The waitress brought the plate out with an odd expression on her face: a bit of "yech, I can't believe I have to carry a plateful of this stuff", a hint of "I wouldn't want to eat this", and a healthy amount of "damn, why didn't I bring my video camera to work today -- I'm going to want a tape of this guys face when I set this down..."

She set it down. On the plate was a small pile... no, a large pile, of chunks... chunks of... hmmm... what is that? I found a couple of "meat-looking" pieces and ate those. Not bad. Except for the skin on one side. Kind of chewy. I poked around with my fork -- no more meat-looking bits; the rest looked to be pure fat. I tried a bit. Nope -- too chewy to be fat. Hmm... what is this stuff?

Curious, I began to spread the bits out, trying to associate each chunk with the head of a calf. I can't be certain, but I believe I found: upper lip, edge of nostril and tip of the chin. And a bowl of vinegrette.

I pushed the bits back into a pile, and called it quits, proud that I had at least eaten a few bites.

The owner came over to clear the plate (was the waitress behind the bar laughing? Gagging?). He made big show, grinning broadly and asking in French, it wasn't prepared well? You want me to tell the guy to make it over again?

No, no, I laughed -- the problem is with me... the head of the veal is excellent, I'm sure.

You don't like French food?, he asked. No, I replied, it's great.

Escargot?, he said. Love 'em, I answered.

Andouillette? Big fan, I lied.

Fois gras? I've got some in my pocket right now.

But not tete a veau? I have my frontiers, I said (and I don't know how to say "limits" in French).

So, now this is our schtick . I arrive at the restaurant, and he calls to the kitchen, "Ready with the tete a veau!" Or sometimes he'll call out, "Monseuir, we're fresh out of tete a veau, can I bring you the head of something else?" Occasionally, I beat him to the punch,, asking, "How's the tete a veau tonight?" He replies, "We still have some left from the last time you ate it."

And indeed, it was the last time I'll eat tete a veau.

Do not click on this... this is gross!

.

Sick in St. Emillion

2007-02-12T01:02:00.000-08:00

Since Ceil and the kids left, it's been my goal to travel each weekend -- primarily by car, through I hope to fly to some more exotic locales before too long.

On Wednesday, though, I could feel a cold coming on. By Friday morning I was pretty sure I had a low-grade fever. I lay in bed, as if stapled to the sheets, unable to rouse myself and go to work. My brain swam with small decisions: shall I pack and check out or tell them I'll stay through the weekend; if I check out, where will I go; how far am I willing to drive, given how crappy I feel.

I decided to stay put, reserve the room for the weekend and get better.

Then I stood up, threw all my stuff into my suitcase and checked out. It's good that my body and I get together for conversations now and again, but consensus is tough to come by.

During lunch, I reviewed my guide-books and decided to drive to St. Emillion -- about 4 hours away, just east of Bordeaux. St. Emillion is famous for wine. I'm famous for whining. So let's go.

I left town after lunch, pulled off to the side of the road at 4pm for a teleconference with folks in Seattle, and arrived in St. Emillion by 6pm. It's a charming, medieval village, surrounded on all sides by vineyards. One of the guide-books said there is one wine-shop for every eight residents in St. Emillion -- clearly, the place is designed to sell wine to tourists.

Having popped cold pills during the drive, I felt numb and dim-witted, but also hungry and anxious for a walk. The town is small and the cobblestone streets are narrow and steep. Most of the shops seemed to be closed for the season, and even on a Friday night there were few restaurants open. I found a likely looking place, though, and took a table near a large group of women out for a night on the town. (Later I realized that all the ladies were seated for dinner, while their husbands were standing in the bar. The husbands later filled out, en masse, waving and blowing kisses, headed for other bars, no doubt. Looked like fun.)

A few glasses of wine with dinner, and a couple of aspirin, and I collapsed into bed.

I was up early the next morning, enjoyed breakfast at the hotel: croissants, jam, coffee and orange juice. I hardly miss the eggs anymore. I set out for a walk about town, stopping at the Tourist Office and buying a ticket for a tour of the "catacombs" under the city. While I waited for the tour to begin, I climbed to the top of the near-by bell tower -- whacking my head hard at one point. Medieval French monks were a diminutive lot.

I climbed down from the tower and joined the group milling about outside L'office de Tourisme. It wasn't clear who the tour-guide was, but everyone was in high spirits, greeting each other and laughing. A few more folks showed up and we set off. When we were three blocks away, the bell in the tower struck 10:30am -- which seemed odd. This meant that the tour had left seven minutes early -- not a very French thing to do. Something was amiss.

So, having hung at the back of the group, I hustled up and tapped a guy on the shoulder. In French, I asked, Is this the tour? His answer: Yes, no, kind of, does anyone else speak English, who are you, anyway?

It soon became clear that I had fallen in with a bunch of folks who were indeed on an organized walk of some sort, but it wasn't the tour of the catacombs. I sprinted back to the Office de Tourisme.

My tour had yet to leave -- and when it did, it was only the tour-guide, myself and another couple. The tour-guide spoke a little English, but his French sounded weird. I could follow what he was saying, kind of, but I didn't recognize too many words. This must be the local accent, I decided.

At one point, the guy began to do his schpeil in halting English -- I shushed him, saying "Don't worry about it... French is fine." I turned to the couple on the tour and explained, in French, that my French was very poor, to which the woman replied, in English: I don't understand you. I took this to mean that my French was indeed very poor, and she couldn't make out what I was saying. But as she kept speaking to me I soon realized she was Spanish... and indeed, the strangely accented French the tour-guide was using was his crappy Spanish.

The lady spoke more English than the tour guide, and I spoke more French than the lady did, so the tour quickly became a collaborative effort. We'd pause to look at the sights, ask questions, nod at the answer and then turn to one another and say, "I have no idea. I'm pretty sure this is really old, though."

After the tour, I bid the Spaniards good-bye and set out to taste some wine.

I'll ask your indulgence at this point, because I'm going to skip past the wine-buying. Suffice it to say that I spent way more than I planned and more than we can afford and I'm still wracked with guilt and buyer's remorse. I'm also looking forward to having some really top-notch French wine to drink when I get home.

I ate lunch across the street from one of the wine shops -- the wine merchants showed up soon after I did, and sent a glass of wine over to me (a sure sign that I had thrilled them with my purchase). And then my fever caught up with me, so I retreated to the room for the rest of the day. I staggered out for dinner around 9pm-- sitting next to another solo-diner -- and then staggered back to the hotel room, plagued by feverish thoughts of Ceil's reaction to seeing my wine purchases on the on-line banking statement.

The same guy turned up at the hotel breakfast the next morning, and we laughed about seeing each other again. Turns out he's a photographer in town for some pictures to accompany a magazine article. The woman writing the article turned up a breakfast and we had a nice chat.

I climbed back in the car, took a few turns through the vineyards on my way out of town and typed "Issoudun" into the car's GPS system -- and then spent the next four hours steering to follow the pink line on the GPS display. Odd that the system took me home via a different route than I used on the trip out -- but it was a terrific drive on windy country roads.

And so now, back "home" in my dormitory room. Still under the weather, feeling crummy... but already thinking about next weekend.

Name the Memorial – a game for ignorant tourists

2007-02-03T10:57:00.000-08:00

France has a lot of statues.

Maybe we have them in Seattle, and I simply over-look them, but it’s nothing like what they have here. I say statues mind you, but that’s just the start of it. There are arcs and obelisks, friezes and facades, tombs and topiary, plaques and corner-stones. Even the smallest town usually has something or someone made of marble, bronze or granite standing watch over the town square.

Generally, there are words indicating the name of the person, or the event being commemorated. Generally, too, these words are in French, the names are un-familiar and the events are not addressed (or not addressed memorably) in US public school history curriculums.

Thus, these installations take on an air of mystery: someone thought enough of this guy to build a statue. And someone else thought enough of the statue to put it up on a huge pedestal. And to this day, someone thinks enough of the statue to clean in now and again, plant flowers around it, etc. But who is this guy?

Hence the game – Name the Memorial. It’s simple really – let’s play a multiple choice version of the game, but once you get the hang of it, go free-form and come up with your own answers.

______________________________________________________

This figure is:

a. An angelic soccer player protesting a referee’s call of “off-sides” during a mythic match in biblical sports history.

b. An angelic representation of a French laborer, reacting to the proposal that France revert to a forty-hour work-week.

c. An angelic representative of the Lord, our God, urging French soldiers to take up arms and stab, shoot, kill, maim, maul, and pillage someone… anyone… just don’t surrender, okay?

________________________________________________________

This figure is:

a. A French soldier, turning towards the on-rushing armies of Prussia and saying, “The French soldiers? They went THAT way! Go get ‘em!”

b. A French sailor, who after a long night at the café is telling his comrades, “No, no, I think we parked the boat over THERE… near the water.”

c. A French corsair, leading a raiding party onto enemy shores, crying, “C’mon lads, they store their best cheeses up THERE.”

________________________________________________________

This figure is:

a. The inventor of the upholstered armchair

b. The inventor of the napping in an upholstered armchair.

c. The inventor of the “come sit on my knee and tell me what you want for Christmas” (who was shamelessly ripped-off by that German St. Nicholas).

_______________________________________________________

This figure is:

a. Indicating the dimensions of the perfect baguette: “This thick, and this long.”

b. Indicating the Napoleonic ideal of paternal discipline: “Grasp the child by the back of the neck, lift them aloft, and slap their behind.”

c. Indicating to his chambermaid: “Please do not discuss the details of my anatomy with my potential bride; but if you must, please do me a favor and exaggerate a bit.”

_______________________________________________

This figure is:

a. The founder of a university in Paris. Students touch his foot for good luck on their exams!

b. The founder of a high-fashion shoe manufacturer in Paris. Designers touch his foot and pledge their commitment to his standards of craftsmanship!

c. The founder of a society in Paris dedicated to combining foot fetishism and pedophilia. Out of town parents pose their kids for pictures because they have no idea!

_______________________________________________________

This figure is:

a. A memorial to the brave under-sea divers who perished before science learned that making wet-suits from stone and steel cables was a bad idea.

b. A French rip-off of the DC Comics character “Thing”. In France he’s called “Le Thing”. Totally different.

c. A gambler, behind in his payments to the French mob, waiting to catch a one-way boat ride out of Monaco

Alone in Beaune

2007-02-03T10:47:00.000-08:00

Traveling alone is going to take some getting used to.

On the plus side: I awoke this morning, showered, dressed and was out the door. No negotiating, waiting, hurrying, forgetting and back-tracking. Up and out.

On the negative side: Once I got out the door I felt lost and apathetic.

That’s not entirely true, but close. As I left the hotel, I asked whether there was free parking available for hotel guests. The woman explained that there was a lot near-by. “Where did you park last night,” she asked. “Around the corner,” I replied. Her eyebrows launched up towards her hairline and she (literally) exclaimed: “Today is Saturday – market day – and you’re parked in the middle of the market! You better move your car! Fast!”

I played it cool, but there was a spring in my step as I walked towards the car. Thankfully, my car had not been towed; I was not blocked in; merchants were setting up on either side, but getting the car out would be no problem.

As I went to the car, I said to one of the merchants, “That’s my car. I drive away now. Sorry.”

He smiled and nodded his head and began speaking rapidly. I felt an instant of gratification: clearly my declaration to him was intelligible because he was addressing me as if I spoke French fluently. This pride quickly gave way to panic: I had utterly no idea what he was saying.

Context is my crutch in these situations – I winnow down the list of topics a person might or would be raising at a given moment – but in this instance, I had few clues. The guy was smiling, but his tone had an edge to it. He shrugged (which usually indicates “such is life”) but I thought I recognized the words “it’s written on the signs – Market on Saturday.”

I retreated with a flurry of “yes”, “no”, “I agree”, “Sorry” – but the merchant carried on, walking with me towards the car. At this point, I began off-loading French vocabulary willy-nilly, like a balloonist jettisoning his equipment in hopes of regaining altitude: “Yes, but of course”, “But no”, “then…”, “because…”, “chicken cooked in red wine”, “on the right”, “no-smoking to-go please”.

Perhaps this stumped him, or raised the possibility that I was a crazy person. The conversation ended with smiles and nods on both sides. I drove away and parked in another lot. There was a ticket for thirty-five euros on my windshield.

The rest of the day was tedious by comparison.

I walked around town for a couple of hours, had a coffee and croissant in a friendly bistro, walked back to my room to get a pen and a notebook to make notes on the wines I was planning to taste, relaxed in the room for a bit, went to a wine-tasting cave where I had to buy a pen and a notebook (having left mine in the room), tasted ten different wines (spitting each time), crossed the street to another cave and tasted the same wines again (not kidding – the two caves are part of the same outfit), walked some more, visited a church, ate lunch, bought a thirty-five euro cashier’s check to pay the parking ticket, visited a different church, went back to the room, napped, walked around town some more, shopped for souvenirs, visited an old castle in town, bought post-cards, walked back to the car to drop off the stuff I bought, walked to the hotel, asked about internet access, and climbed the ¾-kilometer spiral staircase to my room.

That’s what today felt like: a run-on sentence.

I called Ceil during one of the walks – she and the kids are having fun in NY, but when I hung up, I realized that I’ve got the easy end of this deal – no jet-lagged little girls waking me at 3:30am, or slothful pre-teenage boys refusing to get out of pajamas before dinner-time.

And yet, and yet… my day was pretty empty without them.

My dinner with Andre (e.g. alone)

2007-02-03T10:25:00.000-08:00

Ok, look: nobody move, ok? Let’ all just sit here for a moment, very still. Deep breaths. Maybe undo my belt a notch, okay? Don’t panic… I’m too weary to pose a threat. Can we just be quiet for a few minutes? Ugh. Deep breaths.

I’ve just gorged myself (go ahead and look it up… I did, and the definition is apt) at dinner here in Beaune. Two eggs, poached in beef stew and served on toast, followed by coq au vin with a potato side prepared by an angelic sous-chef, a cheese plate, and a dessert which I cannot describe except to say that it involved vanilla ice cream in all of its elemental forms (earth, wind, fire, water…).

And a bottle of really good red wine.

I thought I might need to bring left-over wine back to my room, so throughout dinner, I mulled over my limited French vocabulary for the necessary words, searching for a series of declarative, present-tense, and plural (so as to be gender-neutral) constructions which would not require me to roll an ‘r’ or risk projecting spittle into the face of my waitress. I came up with bupkis, so in the end, I finished the bottle. I must learn more French.

Okay… I’ve got to pace a bit. Wait here. Oh, lordy…

Alright. Belching helps. Sorry about that, but it does. I think taking my shoes off would also help, but I’m not up to it just now. Give me another few minutes.

I’ve checked into a 12th century Abby which was converted into a hotel sometime after the 12th century. The street out front is about seven feet wide, and the hotel is marked by a sign affixed high on one wall. There’s another sign on the street with an arrow pointing towards the opposite wall. Following the arrow on the street-level sign, one approaches an official-seeming door which is locked. There are some door-bells with French-sounding names posted… none of them involving the words “hotel”, “Abby” or “helpless-Americans-push-this-button”. One is well-advised to stagger back a few steps and turn two or three circles in the middle of the street.

On the opposite side of the street, under the wall-mounted sign, there is what appears to be an old carriage-house door – very wide, but exceedingly low – perhaps 5’ tall. The windows in the top of the door let onto what is obviously a restaurant or wine cellar. It would appear, at this point, that I am looking through the basement window. But where is the door?

Back-track a bit and peek around the corner. Have I arrived at the back of the hotel? And if so, why put two (contradicting) signs here? No, I’m in the right place. There must be another door. What would Harry Potter do? Touch the right cobblestones in a secret sequence?

Hmmm…

Ah! Look, there’s a door! a few more paces down the road (alley). There’s the name of the hotel on yet another sign, and voila…

Oops: the door is locked.

We’ll it’s late: 7:45pm. Perhaps they turn in early. Or maybe they’ve gone out of business.

No… wait… see? a big round button to push! A door-bell. And hear that? A vigorous and satisfying ring from somewhere up above. Now we’re getting somewhere! I see a stone, spiral stair-case through the window of this door… any minute now, some gentle, elderly hotel-keeper will descend these steps and welcome me. Any minute…. Hmmm… well, they’re stone steps, so you wouldn’t hear her / him coming. Any minute.

Hmmmm. No.

Okay. Tell you what: let’s go back to the car. We’ll drive out of town, turn-around, and try this again.

Suddenly the low door / window onto the cellar (5’ is an exaggeration—4’6”) opens and a petite, young Frenchwoman says, “Allo? Was that you ringing my bell?”

The sudden confluence of bawdy and flirtatious opening lines, and one’s truly limited ability to achieve any level of innuendo en francais is deeply frustrating. At this point, one is well-advised to stagger back a few steps and turn two or three circles in the middle of the street.

“Yes…or… no…umm… oui… c’est moi…je suis une peu perdu…”

Try not to whack your head on the door frame as you follow her down the steps, through the wondrously low door (3’10” at most).

Having finally found the front desk, the rest of my check-in process goes smoothly. Room for one (easier to find and cheaper than a room for four). Will I eat breakfast at the hotel tomorrow? No. Will I eat dinner there on either night? What do you recommend? Well, the food is good hear. Really? Yes. Okay – I’ll eat here tonight.

“I’ll show you to your room now”, she says. What’s the French word for bell, I wonder? Damnit… too many straight lines slipping past me.

We climb the same spiral stone staircase…my room is on the deuxesieme etage -- the second floor, though, in France, they begin counting at zero, so the second floor is really the third floor. And besides which, the front desk is in the cellar, so we’ve got to climb about seven stories. Or so it seems.

“No, I can manage the luggage”, I say, hoping that she cannot hear my wheezing.

"I’ll be down for dinner in fifteen or twenty minutes," I tell her…. Right after I do whatever debonair and sophisticated travelers do in their hotel rooms right after they climb to a room atop the bell-tower. Vomiting comes to mind.

I lay on the bed. I fiddle with the tv – same old story: two channels and nothing on. Boy, that stone-wall looks old. Nice desk over there. I’ll need to scounge a chair, though. Check out the bathroom. Lie on the bed.

Okay…. That should do it… I won’t look too pathetic if I head downstairs now.

Back to the front desk. The hotel-keeper-lady is also the matiré-de for the restaurant. And the waitress / wine-steward / bus-boy. She recommends the less expensive of two red wines I’m considering – that’s a good sign. I accept the recommendation, and we’re underway.

Two hours later, I can barely move.

I appropriate a chair I found in the hall outside my room. I had considered carrying one up from the dining room, but cooler heads prevailed. The desk is warped, and my laptop wobbles to and fro as I type.

Ugh. Give me a second to attempt the shoes. I’m beginning to see the wisdom in my son’s practice of never tying the laces of his sneakers. Note to self…

Not sure what tomorrow holds, but Beaune is the “capital” of the Burgundy region of France, so the forecast calls for red wine followed by an afternoon nap, and maybe a bit more wine later in the day.

But at this point, any thought of ever eating or drinking again makes me woozy.

Night, all.

Ceil and the kids head home

2007-02-01T23:25:00.000-08:00

Having taken the “scenic route” to the airport, we returned to Paris on Wednesday for lunch and a bit of last minute souvenir shopping. We spent the night at an Ibis Hotel (“ibis” being French for “Motel 6”) near the airport, suffering through a terrible dinner in the hotel restaurant. Bad food is a fact of life throughout the world… but it seems like an especially egregious sin so close to Paris!

It was a sleepless night for Miles and Lee – Miles because he was so excited by the prospect of returning home; Lee because she was not looking forward to the security check at the airport: “They might arrest us.” No, they won’t Lee. “Well, they might yell at us.” I think they’re pretty nice people, Lee. “Well, the line will be long.” Hmmm… yes, but is that any reason for you to be throwing up at 2am?

Morning came too quickly. We loaded the car, struggled with the gate at the hotel-parking lot (a bad omen, so far as Lee was concerned), and made our way to Terminal Two. Thankfully, the drop-off area was deserted, and I left the car and walked Ceil and the kids (and their luggage) all the way to the check-in.

The goodbyes were quick, and tear-less, though on my end, they didn’t begin to sink until 30 or 40 minutes later when I found myself stuck in traffic and suddenly conscious of the utter silence from the back seat of the car.

I stopped in Orleans on my way back to Issoudun. I shopped for a small duffel bag and a chicken sandwich (sold in two different stores – how quaint and un-American), and ruminated on how grouchy and stand-off-ish the citizens of Orleans seemed. Even then, it occurred to me that I was only noticing this because I was not insulated and distracted within my own little troupe of Americans. It was a melancholy notion.

Ceil called and left a message last night – she and the kids have arrived at her mother’s house in East Northport. The trip went well… though that was Ceil’s impression. I’ll later and confirm that with Lee.

Peace.

Breaking Camp

2007-01-25T12:36:00.000-08:00

It's Thursday night and we're in full-steam-ahead packing mode. (Note: In this instance, I use "we", to indicate that Ceil is working diligently, moving from room to room with purpose and intensity; I'm carrying items from one place to another with no apparent plan or design; Lee is following Ceil, pulling items out of suitcases and complaining, "But I'll need this on the plane!"; and Miles is sitting near the fireplace, saying, "We don't need to bring this home, do we?... okay if I burn it?")

We had a terrific snow-storm on Tuesday night which scotched our plans for a farewell dinner with my team-mates from work. The movers, previously scheduled to arrive on Wednesday morning, called and asked if they might come on Tuesday night instead, lest the advancing glaciers prevent them from making it back to Paris on Wednesday. This put us into high-gear as we gathered all the things we didn't care to carry on the plane. (Note: In this instance, I use "we" to indicate Ceil had to cope with this crisis alone, as I was creeping home in my car, wending my way between jack-knifed tractor trailers and ridiculously cautious French drivers who could have made it home faster if they walked.)

Come Wednesday, the snow subsided, but the weather was still foul, and the roads icy, so we all stayed home... until the afternoon when Lee finally succeeded in cajoling Ceil to take her and a few friends to the public pool in Chateauroux. Miles and I remained at home, doing our best to work through the inventory of frozen goods, pastas, and cheeses which still cluttered the cupboards.

And so now it's Thursday. All that's left is to pack our clothes and empty out the kitchen. Ceil and the kids are down to a suitcase each. And a backpack each. And also a brief-case for the computer. And Ceil's purse. Oh, and Lee got a purse today, too. Dropping them off at DeGaulle next Thursday will be interesting.

We'll have dinner with Jerome and Anne Marie tomorrow night (in addition to the usual hostess gifts, we'll also be bringing a collection of surplus canned goods, baking supplies, and the remnants of our liquor cabinet.) And then we'll check-out on Saturday morning, settling our account with Madame Chautard and bidding farewell to what in all likelihood will be the last eighteenth century farmhouse we'll ever occupy.

We'll spend the weekend along the northern coast of France, finishing with a visit to the beaches of Normandy on Wednesday, before heading to Paris our Thursday flight home. (Note: when I say "our", I mean "their" and I get a lump in my throat thinking about it, so enough said.)

I have yet to figure out where I'll stay once Ceil and the kids leave. There's a monastery in Issoudun which rents out rooms -- I hear they're clean, quiet and inexpensive. I'll try that for a week or so and if necessary, retreat to the comforts of a local hotel. If nothing else, moving to Issoudun will cut my commute by 30minutes each way. Who knows, maybe I'll walk to work. (Stop laughing. I'm serious.... really.)

Thanks for your comments and emails. Love to all.

A whirlwind homecoming… and a change in plans

2007-01-23T06:16:00.000-08:00

I flew home to Seattle last week – a few days of meetings, workshops and dropping in on colleagues and bosses (“Remember me?”). I still have not sorted out the mixture of emotions I felt viewing my neighborhood as the plane banked into its final approach: a sudden and intense homesickness, a regret to lose the “special-ness” of living in a foreign land, frustration that I would not yet be sleeping in “my” house, anticipation of seeing family, friends, and favorite restaurants. All these thoughts jumbled together in my head and I stumbled through customs and the baggage claim in a daze.

After visiting my parents for an hour or so (my mother’s hair had grown in nicely, though it would all fall out again before I left town), I decamped to Phil and Cora’s, dear friends who would host me for most of my stay. I enjoyed a weekend of dinners out, unannounced visits to friends, and uneven sleep patterns.

One of my first stops (I’m only slightly embarrassed to say) was to see our cat, which has been living with friends while we’ve been away. Our re-union was not the tearful, Hallmark Greeting Card scene I had envisioned. Indeed, Blacktop clawed me quite severely when she was placed in my lap. I won’t describe all my pathetic entreaties to her, but I confess to crawling around under the dining room table, as Blacktop stayed just out of reach, studiously avoiding eye-contact. It was suggested that she remembered me and was expressing her anger… so too was it suggested that cats don’t have such mental faculties, and I simply seemed to be an imposing stranger. Not sure which explanation is more comforting – perhaps we’ll find a family-feline therapist to sort it all out during the coming weeks.

It was a roller-coaster week at work. The big event came when the supplier I’ve been supporting made a request to have me stay with them for three more months. I discussed it with Ceil, and we agreed that I would stay in France while she and the kids return home as previously planned. This decision increased my inner-machinations exponentially – relief at being able to see my work through to the end, remorse at being away from the kids, excitement at the chance to see more of Europe, guilt over asking Ceil to be a single-parent while I indulged my professional urges, pride that the supplier valued my help enough to pay my way… on and on. Suddenly, what had been a quick preview of homecoming became lungful of air, gasped before diving back under salty waves.

More meetings at work, shopping for souvenirs of Seattle for the kids to distribute to friends and teachers. I spent two nights with Rick and Kerry, relishing home-cooked meals and the familiar chatter of kids declining to do homework, chores, personal grooming (no, wait, strike that last bit – their kids are very well groomed). The “boys” got together for a night of Poker, telling of old jokes and giving our money (as ever) to Richard Wedgwood Slim Shumway. I made it my business to sit very still the following day – all the better to absorb the ease and well being I felt amongst friends… and also because I was more than a bit hung-over.

Sunday came, more football, sans Seahawks, and then, suddenly, I’m on a plane. The flight back is a blur (I’m told that I slept soundly), the passage through Copenhagen, gathering bags at DeGaulle in Paris, staggering to the rental car and then a zombie-like drive home to Arthon. I was greeted by the sight of Miles and Lee sitting up in the bed room window, waiting for the headlights to appear at the end of the drive-way.

My thoughts and emotions are still jumbled – I’m glad to be staying on, sad to say good-bye to the family. But for that moment, though, standing in the door-way, kissing my family hello, things were clear… blessedly, blessedly clear: I’m home.

2 Million Ordinary Heroes

2007-01-08T11:38:00.000-08:00

Two million and one.

Jan. 2... Nice to Arthon

2007-01-04T20:12:00.000-08:00

Closer and closer to home
On the day after New Year's, we packed up the kids and made the 8 and a half hour drive from Nice to our house in Arthon. The kids, by now used to the long car trips, did great, and the trip was very easy.

The house was dark and cold when we arrived, and all of our things were still packed away in the chateau (recall that one reason for our vacation was that our landlord had a pre-existing booking for other folks to use the place during the week of Xmas -- so we had to move all of our belongings out and pull up stakes for a week or so). But we were each thrilled to be back -- we've grown quite attached to this old place.

Recap of Nice
Our stay in Nice was a great finish to our holiday. We struck a good balance between indulging the adults' desire to visit a variety of museums, sites and restaurants, with the kids' wishes to re-visit the same pizza restaurant for every meal and have at least three slap-fights a day.

Our day-trip to Cannes was a terrific success. We met Ceil's friends Annie and Gerald at their weekend place -- a lovely three bedroom apartment a few blocks off the water. The conversation was not easy, but we muddled through: for example, I think Gerald explained that they manage to cover all their annual expenses for the house simply by renting it out during the Cannes film festival. Apparently life in Cannes is turned upside down for 15 days each May and the prudent thing to do is to pull up stakes, live somewhere else of a couple of weeks, and charge Ben Affleck $20,000 to use your place.

Annie and Gerald took us for a drive in the mountains around Cannes where we took some Mimosa cuttings (I was hoping for the champagne and orange-juice cocktail, but in this context, Mimosa refers to a flowering tree which blankets the hills with delicate yellow blossoms early each spring). Keeping with the theme of fragrance, we then visited the town of Grasse, a center for the manufacture of perfumes, soaps and 'smell-well' products.

We took a drive to Monaco the following day. It's only 30 minutes or so from Nice, but we took the scenic route, hugging the coast-line and eschewing the highway, so it took a bit longer. Monaco was lovely, but so were the three or four other towns we passed through along the way. So what makes Monaco a fixture in my imagination, while I've never even heard of (nor can I recall) the other towns? It must be their monarchy and all the stories of Princess Grace, Prince Albert; it must be the casinos and images of tuxedo clad spies playing baccarat; it must be the elegant food served in glamorous water-front settings. Surely these are the things which drew me to Monaco.

Well, surely or not, we managed to avoid each of the above during our five-hour stay, focusing instead on the local aquarium, a run down Italian restaurant on a back alley, and a tour of public parking garages as we searched for a spot, and later, our car. Joking aside, it was a great visit, though if I ever decide to vacation here, I'll stay down the coast in one of the other towns we passed through. On the way home from Monaco, we swung through Vallaurus to explore a few of the shops selling the porcelain the region is known for (known to who, I wonder?).

We had an uneventful New Year's Eve, staying in and devouring a feast purchased from Picard, a French purveyor of all manner of yummy stuff, frozen and ready for your microwave (see previous post). We watched a few DVD's, occasionally making half-hearted entreaties to the kids: c'mon, let's go down to the water and watch the fire-works at mid-night. Their responses were not half-hearted: no, leave us alone, we want to go to sleep.

We finally got to spend some time exploring Nice itself during New Year's day. Like so many places we've visited over here, the city is in the midst of a huge construction project, installing a new subway / train system. C'mon, Seattle, if Nice can do it, what's holding us back? During a walk on the beach, we ran into some other Americans -- from Sammamish, WA, actually, quite close to Seattle. Kids the same age as ours, husband works at Boeing -- egads, we've bumped into a cookie-cutter copy of ourselves 9,000 miles from home. Ahh, but the key difference: these poor folks are cramming London, Rome, Florence, Nice and Paris into a two-week vacation before rushing home, while we on the other hand get to take our time before making our way back to Arthon. And our neighbors. The cows. Hmmmm...

We checked out of our place on Jan. 2, snapping a few photos on our way out.

What's next?
With our holiday vacation behind us, our thoughts are turning to our next home-coming... to Seattle. We've booked our tickets -- we leave France on Feb 2, spend four days in NYC to catch up with Ceil and her brothers, landing in Seattle late on Feb 6. We're, each of us, far more excited about coming home than we are sad about leaving. I suspect the last few weeks will go slowly.

But first, a few more trips and tours: this weekend we'll fulfill our promise to Miles and celebrate his birthday in Paris. I'm booked to fly back to Seattle for some meetings in mid-January -- I'll be in town for a week, before flying back to wrap up the work here. If at all possible, I still hold out hope that we can make a flying tour of the Burgundy region -- I've got a handle on what "Bordeaux" means in terms of red wines, but "Burgundy" is still a mystery. And we've planned one last, long drive on our way out of France to visit Brittany and Normandy for a few days before boarding our flight.

A photo-essay: Picard Frozen Food Store

2007-01-04T20:11:00.000-08:00

Though it looks like the sign says "Picard... A Place for Surgeries", a more accurate translation is: "Picard... A Really Neat Store That Sells All Sorts of Cool Frozen Foods and If They Open One in Seattle, Trader Joe's and Costco Will Be in Trouble"Through the front door...
Grab a cart... maybe Lee shouldn't be in charge?
Nothing but freezer chests...
...labeled and arranged in the order of your five-course meal:
The soups...
The potato products...
The meats... there are other parts to a five-course meal, but these are the three food-groups I focus on.
Photos and prices displayed above the case -- and more photos on all the products. Ceil examines a variety pack of petit-fours.
Shrimp or scallops in olive oil with garlic... in the back, scary fish-sticks
You choose: snails stuffed with green stuff or mussels stuffed with green stuff. How can you lose?
Grilled eggplant or a variety pack?
Shrimp anyone? Nothing from Odyssey Seafoods here... wonder if they need a local sales rep.
Duck legs, stuffed with fois gras. The French know how to live.
A moment of doubt: Andy, I think we've bought enough. No way, francais.Not a nice thing to say about green beans, but wrapping them in bacon helps
Miles and Lee double-checking that we've covered the dessert aisle closely enough.
The cart is looking good... note the Chocolate Fudge Volcano Cakes: a taste sensation AND second degree burns on the roof of your mouth! Yummm...
On line to check out. Note the woman digging through her wallet -- the French are zealots for exact change. Go on, lady, take another twenty minutes... I'm sure you've got the thirty-seven cents in there somewhere... we'll wait.
And the best part... making the kids carry the booty home! I'm every bit as mean as they say I am.

Dec. 28... Barcelona to Nice

2007-01-01T01:14:00.000-08:00

“Home” to France

I’m delighted to discover that after a week in Spain, I feel relief to be back in France, and once again able to walk into restaurants and shops, confident that I can make myself understood. Progress!

We’re staying in Nice through the New Year holiday, and truth be told, almost everyone I’m likely to come into contact with speaks excellent English. The advent of EasyJet and RyanAir have made the south of France an easy weekend get-away for even the most budget conscious Brits. While I groused at Ceil for ordering crepes in English last night (Me: “C’mon, Ceil -- use your French!” She: “I tried, but the look on the lady’s face made me think I was hurting her.”) most of the shopkeepers don't let us get very far in French.

Nice is a lovely little city… twenty or thirty blocks of trendy restaurants, high-end designer shops and three- and four-star hotels. It’s too cool to swim, but walking along the beach is terrific. Note: the beach itself is a touch disappointing – very coarse sand and stones. I was expecting something a bit more… Caribbean, I guess.) There are casinos and high-rise hotels along the water-front, and the Christmas ice-rink and ferris wheel will be up through the first week of the year.

We’ve rented an apartment for the weekend… this has been a terrific discovery for us: less expensive and more comfortable than a hotel. Making the reservation requires a bit more work on the front-end, searching the web, emailing the owner, sorting out how to pay the deposit, etc. but aside from those small hassles, I’m convinced this is the only way to travel, especially with grouchy kids in tow.

This afternoon we’ll head over and explore Cannes – maybe that’s where I’ll discover the glamor I was anticipating – and visit Annie, a woman Ceil befriended during aerobics class. Annie and Ceil get together for lunch once or twice a week, ostensibly to practice conversation skills in English and French. Annie has a vacation house in Cannes, and we’re meeting her for lunch.

On the way home this afternoon we’ll stop in Boit, a town known for it’s glass-blowing. Miles has heard that glass blowing can be very dangerous, and he carries high hopes that we’ll see someone burned or disfigured. Morbid, yes, but if that’s what it takes to get our budding-teenager on-board with our tourist agenda, then I’m not too proud to play it up. (Me: “… and so, anyway, Miles, ever since the accident, Dale Chihully has a huge hunk of colored glass stuck behind where is left eye used to be, and if you pull off his eye-patch and shine a flashlight in his mouth, a beam of blue-green light shines out of his eye-socket.” He: “Cool! Can we go there again tomorrow!”)

Barcelona Travelogue: Day 5, Dec. 27

2007-01-01T01:11:00.000-08:00

Day 5, Dec. 27: Tourists, at last

We got an early start on our last full day in Spain, determined to see as many of the sights as possible, now that the holiday was over and places were open again.

We began at La Sagrada Familia, an ever-under-construction church which has become Barcelona’s most recognizable land-mark. Work began on the church in 1870 and with luck, it should be complete within 25 or 30 years. The architect, Antonio Gaudi, devoted the later portion of his life to this project, and his design is at once strange and breath-taking. Gaudi emphasizes natural, organic forms – the interior of the church seems to be a grove of tall, tall trees; the spires put me in mind of coral and sponges; and the symbolism is pervasive and striking – for example: eighteen bell towers: twelve for the apostles, four for authors of the Gospels, one for Mary and one for Christ.

I was especially struck by the challenge of maintaining the design and managing the work over the course of 150+ years. Construction has been financed solely through donations from the parish and visitors to the site – this meant that work was halted periodically during the early years of the last century; now, however, the coffers are filled by the admission fees and donations left by tourists like myself, and work is paced only by the difficulty in finding stone of the right character and craftsmen of appropriate skill.

After doing our part to support work on La Sagrada by spending untold hundreds of Euros at the gift shop, we took the metro to the old-Barcelona and toured a museum devoted to Picasso. It was great, but I had been so moved by La Sagrada that I was not up to the task of absorbing these smaller master-pieces.

Tapas for lunch, followed by mugs of xocolata (sp?) – essentially small bowls of chocolate sauce, served piping hot… deliriously decadent. I really, really like Spain.

We finished the day with a walk through the Barcelona Zoo, turning the reigns over to the kids at long last (so far as they were concerned). I was surprised to discover a dolphin-show in what was otherwise a small and (for me, slightly depressing) zoo.

For dinner, a final feast of tapas, this time at a restaurant which from the exterior seemed to be an upscale and happening, but turned out to be a high-volume, eat-it-and-beat-it place similar to Blue C Sushi back home in Seattle. After five months of trying to slow down and eat our meals at a pace similar to our French hosts (two-hour lunch, three-hour dinner), eating-it-and-beating-it was a welcome respite, so we did.

The next morning, we were up at the crack of late-morning, packing, throwing our bags into our double-parked car, stocking up on churros for the road, and heading “home” to France.

Barcelona Travelogue: Day 4, Dec. 26

2007-01-01T01:10:00.000-08:00

Day 4, Dec. 26: Boxing Day at the Aquarium
The day after Christmas is also a holiday in Spain, but the subways were running, and we walked along the water-front and took a cable-car ride over the harbor.

After dipping our toes in the Mediterranean for the first time, we toured the Barcelona aquarium – a nice enough facility, but the admission fee raised my expectations a bit higher than the displays could support.

I was feeling under the weather, so we hailed a taxi and retreated to the apartment for the afternoon. I rallied at dinner time (as is my way), and we took the kids on another forced march through an as yet unexplored neighborhood. The kids were especially mutinous, egging each other on to ever greater acts of insolence and whiny-ness. When we finally found a promising restaurant, we had to duck-walk Lee through the door and to our table.

But what a meal it turned out to be: we had stumbled on a neighborhood joint and although it was relatively empty when we went in, it filled up quickly and by 9:15pm (dinner hour in Barcelona) the atmosphere was raucous and festive. The menu was completely un-intelligible to us, but we managed to secure spaghetti for the kids, and a pitcher of sangria for Ceil and I (delicious!), and having covered the basics, we were free to risk some random selections off what seemed to be the appetizer menu. We wound up each four huge plates of food: two salads with wonderful and strange dressings, punctuated with hunks of raw fish; a platter of grilled vegetables, some of which we recognized; and a plate of tomatoes, peppers and a mild cheese topped with delicious anchovies and smothered in olive oil.

Barcelona Travelogue: Day 3, Dec. 25

2007-01-01T01:08:00.000-08:00

Day 3, Dec. 25: Feliz Navidad

We gathered around our diminutive tree and opened our presents. Ceil’s mother Monica sent a terrific care package with gifts for each of us; Ceil had purchased several small gifts for each of the kids (a DVD each, ball point pens, coffee mugs, and ice scrapers all around).

I took a walk around the neighborhood and was pleased to discover a couple of bakeries and a liquor store open despite the holiday. This gave rise to ruminations on which types of stores stay open all the time in various countries and how that reflects on the national character – surely, in the US, it would not be difficult to buy a tank of gas on Christmas morning; in France the bakeries would be open; Spain would have the bakeries and add in a shop or two for spirits. I like Spain.

One of the shops I found sold churros – fried extrusions of sugary-dough, with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top. I really like Spain.

We spent the better part of the day hunkered down watching the new DVDs, reading, and devouring / re-stocking our meager buffet.

Barcelona Travelogue: Day 2, Dec. 24

2007-01-01T01:06:00.000-08:00

Day 2, Dec 24: Get on the Bus, Gus

The day broke clear and sunny, but we were caught off-guard by the chilly temperature. After a short walk and a stop by Starbuck’s (far more common in Barcelona than Paris, Rome or Florence), we boarded a double-decker tour-bus for a more structured and elucidating tour of town than the one we had given ourselves last night. The kids complained of the cold weather, pointing out what they assured us were their symptoms of frostbite and hypothermia. We alternated between the views afforded by the open-air upper deck, and the warmth of the lower level of the bus.

The bus tour lasted about 3 hours, and as ever, it offered a great way to get a sense of the city and the places we wanted to visit.

Given that it was Christmas Eve, we were concerned that we might not find restaurants open for the following day or two, so Ceil, Lee and I made an outing to a small grocery store.

Later, we forced the kids on long march which ended, happily enough at a terrific restaurant – we arrived at 8pm (an early dinner by Catalan standards), and although the maitre de decried our lack of a reservation, she took pity on us, and found a small table in the corner. Again, we shared several plates of tapas, a jug of wine, and two main plates ordered mainly in hopes of getting the kids to eat the side dishes.

After dinner we returned home and cuddled under the blankets. Miles was showing signs of the flu, so we resolved to stay put the following day. I went for a walk later and found a two-foot tall Christmas tree, complete we lights and decorations, for sale at a market doing a brisk trade in last minute poinsettias and wreaths. Lee was under whelmed by my purchase, but Ceil seemed pleased.

Barcelona Travelogue - Day 1, Dec. 23

2007-01-01T01:03:00.000-08:00

Ceil and I have a running debate about the intention and character of this blog: I assert that no one really cares where we ate lunch, or how many museums we saw – instead, folks want to hear funny stories and self-deprecating anecdotes about our personal experiences and discoveries; Ceil is confident that folks are indeed interested in hearing about the things we’ve seen, the places we’ve gone, the food we’ve eaten.

And the answer, as always, is probably yes, and…

So here’s my take on a travelogue review of our time in Barcelona:

Day 1, Dec. 23: Drive South

It’s a 7-½ hour drive from Chateauroux to Barcelona, and despite our fears, the kids held up surprisingly well. It was great to watch the landscape change as we moved from Central France to the Mediterranean, though we were fog-bound for at least three hours of the trip.

The GPS system offers little assistance once we leave France, so we had to resort to following maps and directions printed from the Internet. A polite way to describe our arrival into Barcelona might be: a thorough tour of the various neighborhoods and ghettos on the outskirts of town, followed by a fascinating, adrenaline-pumping introduction to the driving habits and traffic laws of down-town Barcelona.

Found our place, unpacked and stumbled out in search of dinner. We were rewarded with the discovery of a small restaurant serving tapas – a staple for the remainder of our visit.

Merry Christmas from Barcelona

2006-12-25T01:47:00.000-08:00

To all our friends and family,

We're having a wonderful holiday and celebrating it so far from home has been a powerful reminder of how much we miss each of you, and how much you mean to each of us.

From our family to yours, have a merry Christmas.

Love,

Andy, Ceil, Miles and Lee

Things I'll Miss About France... vol. 2

2006-12-21T21:23:00.000-08:00

Wild Boar
These creatures have captured our imagination during the past few months. We've heard about them, been warned to stay away from them; we see hunters with large packs of dogs going after them this weekend, and every few days we hear about someone hitting a boar while driving; we've seen photos of them, and toured a castle with a huge room filled with stuffed boar, boars' heads, and boars' tusks.

And yet, we've only caught fleeting glimpses of them 'in the wild'. The boars have become mythic creatures for us... we're confident they exist, and long to see them, but we'd sure like to get a good look at one.

The district we live in is mostly farm-land, interspersed with forests and national forests, so we see lots of wildlife. Deer are so common that we only comment on them if they're gathered in a heard of twenty or more; foxes dart across the road almost every night; rabbits, mice and muskrats... yawn; and cows -- Lee likes to roll down the window and shout out to the cows, in their native tongue, as we drive past ("BONJOUR VACHE!!!"), so they still warrant our attention, but they're no longer novel.

But the boar... when we're in the car at night all four of us peer into the darkness intently, hoping to catch a glimpse of these creatures.

We saw a pack of them (a herd? a gaggle?) one night, but it was 2am and by the time I awoke the others, most of the boar had disappeared into the brush beside the road.

Two nights ago, I saw some cars pulled to the side of the road -- one had just hit a boar, and the creature (think "garbage can with hair" and you'll have a good sense of the size and shape) was lying, dead, on the shoulder. I didn't stop (what would I say?) but when I got home, the kids DEMANDED that we all pile in the car and return to the scene of the accident in hopes of seeing the creature more closely. Alas, by the time we got there, the carnage had been cleared and the cars were gone.

Earlier this week, my co-worker Jason was driving home on an especially foggy evening and saw a car actually hit a boar. The car was driving abreast of Jason on a two-lane section of highway, and Jason says he glimpsed the boar about half-a-second before it's demise. The other driver did not see the boar and hit it full-on at about 70mph. The damage to her car was extreme -- Jason described the front-end as being crushed, and indented as far back as the engine block. The airbags deployed and the driver, while un-injured, was understandably unnerved.

So we K NOW they're out there, but damnit, when will we get to see some? This sense of anticipation and wonder has enlivened my daily commute, and added a sense of purpose and excitement to any trips in the car after dark. I'll be sad to lose this sense of wonder and expectation as I climb into my car each night.

Cheers.

A Post by Ceil: Free Wednesdays

2006-12-21T12:41:00.000-08:00

I have definitely embraced the weekend day in the middle of the week. It typically starts Tuesday night with a gin and tonic and than expands to Wednesday morning when Andy and Miles get up and go to school and work and Lee and I sleep in. This morning we enjoyed a leisurely morning at home. It started out with both of us sitting in the living room around a beautiful fire that Andy built before he left for work. We did a little emailing and a little game playing on the computer and progressed to what should we have for breakfast. Lee’s immediate response was crepes. Well we didn’t have a crepes mix so we headed to the internet to get a crepes recipe and than headed to the conversion tables to translate into the metric system. Next we went into the kitchen to check for ingredients and had everything except butter. Hard to believe that there is no butter in this house but we have been trying to clean out the fridge and not replace things and the butter was consumed earlier in the week and not replenished. But Wednesday morning crepes are special and we needed butter.

We ,or rather I, got dressed and Lee got wrapped up in a blanket and we headed to the local Vival in Arthon – the friendly little grocery store smaller than most of the small grocery stores in New York City but big enough to know that butter was only a few blocks away. We melted our butter and whisked it into our flour, milk, salt and egg mixture. The recipe recommended you let the batter sit for an hour but we had no interest in that recommendation. We got our small pan and cooked up crepes.

The first crepe got a low review from Lee – it needs to be cooked more. With a little practice and focused attention to the amount of batter being poured into the pan we achieved thin and even crepes. Lee was off with the jelly (the Nutella has been gone for a few days and no plans to replace it until after Christmas) and the plate of fresh cooked crepes.

We will head into Chateauroux at noon to pick up Miles from school and head home for some cleaning, packaging and relaxing by the fire.

Things I'll Miss About France... vol. 1

2006-12-20T20:52:00.000-08:00

Driving in France:

1) Stay to the right. When driving on the highway in the US, I tend to put myself in the left-most lane and go like heck... which usually lasts thirty seconds before I run up against some bobo noodling along at 62mph on a 65mph speedway in the left-most lane. This does not happen in France. In the first instance, I and all drivers are expected to remain in the right-most lane. If you are in the middle (of three) lanes, it's only because you are passing someone going slower than you in the right-most lane. While out of the right-most lane, therefore, you will have your blinker on, indicating that you are passing. Even if one suspects they will pass every car ahead of them for the next 20km, one returns to the right-lane in between passing.

And what about the left-most lane (on a three-lane highway)? Again, it is well understood that only BMW 700-series and high-end Mercedes doing over 150mph will enter that lane. If I, with my stodgy Citroen C5, wander that far to the left to pass a passer, for example, it's no problem... but I am not to be surprised when a $65,000 sedan comes flying up behind me, flashing their high-beams and reminding me to stay to the right.

2) Identify the newcomers. Any driver who has held their license for less than two years must affix a sign to the back of their car... literally, a 'scarlet letter'... a capital A in bold red, indicating that they are an apprentice. Mind you, in order to even apply for your driver's license in France, you must be eighteen, and complete something close to 120 classroom hours, and score 95% or better on an hour-long exam. It is not easy to get a license. And once you do, you will be publicly identified as a newbie for two years.

(Having already earned my driver's license) this seems like an excellent system to me. If you come up on someone driving excessively cautiously, and you see the "A", you cut them some slack. If a cop comes up on some and sees them breaking the law, if there's an "A" on the car, their subject to bigger fines and loss of their license.

3) Traffic circles and round-abouts. While they do have traffic lights in France, they're only used at small intersections in the heart of town. Any time three or more truly busy or high-volume streets intersect, they install a round-about. Although initially intimidating (not as bad as some of the really big, multi-lane jobs in London or Paris), I've come to appreciate the fact that I rarely have to stop on my way home... I slow down a bit, and wait for my chance to "jump on the merry-go-round", but it's slow, on, circle, off and go. Ironically, in my neighborhood back home, traffic circles are designed to slow traffic. Over here, they keep things moving.

On the other hand...
1) No shoulders on most of the roads.

2) 50cc scooters... and cars share the road, despite not being able to achieve the speed limit.

3) Well-organized speed traps. There are two kinds of radar-based speed traps: automated installations which measure your speed, and if you're in violation, snap a photo and mail the ticket to your house. Ironically, these installations are clearly marked by large signs announcing their presence about 100 meters ahead of time. At first, this seemed strange -- kind of undermines the ability to catch speeders, no? It's begun to make sense though, as I've noticed that I (as does everyone) automatically slow down when I see these big signs. The point is not to send out dozens of tickets, but rather, to get folks to slow down.

The other kind of speed trap, though, does hand out dozens of tickets. A platoon of cops stake out a stretch of road. One guy, armed with a radar gun stands on the shoulder, far away from the cop cars, so he's very hard to see. He pings the cars as they approach him, and shouts over his shoulder to his comrades, "Take this one... leave this one... take this one." And here's the thing: they stop everyone who is speeding. They'll wave cars over to the side of the road and queue them up, waiting for the cops writing the tickets to get to them. I've seen (and waited in) a line of twelve cars idling at the side of the road, waiting for the cops to get to me and write the ticket. This is a completely different approach than the loan Highway Patrol man in a Ford Crown Victoria, parking along the median and picking off one speeder at a time. So many folks are speeding, it often seems like a lottery as to which motorist the cop will stop. Not in France: if you're speeding, and the cops are watching, you get nailed.

Recommended radio... 'This American Life'

2006-12-20T12:09:00.000-08:00

One of my great joys while in France has been to down-load English language podcasts onto my iPod and listen to them in the car while driving to and fro. I get "NPRs Most Emailed Stories" and fast forward through them, swearing that I ever listened to what now seems like patently whiny and self-serving drivel. I enjoy excerpts from "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer", especially the segments with David Brooks and Mark Sheilds. And NPRs "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" is a favorite of the kids, and a somewhat effective way to stay caught up on the news.

But my favorite is "This American Life", a radio magazine produced by WBEZ in Chicago and hosted by Ira Glass. It's a great place for humor, satire, and commentary.

Last weeks show was the most powerful hour of radio I can recall, and I recommend you listen to it. The title is "Shouting Across the Divide" and it offers two stories examining communication (or lack thereof) between our nation and members of the Islamic world. Please consider making time in your day to listen to these stories. http://www.thislife.org/

Plans for coming home

2006-12-19T19:55:00.000-08:00

Setting a date:
It's 99% certain that my last day of work in France will be Friday, Jan 26th. We're planning to travel to Brittany, Normandy and London before flying from Paris to NY. We'll fix it so that we get three or four nights in NY to catch up with friends and family there, before returning to Seattle. My best guess at this point says we'll arrive home on Feb. 10th.

Prepping to Pack:
When we rented this house, Mdm. Chautard explained that she'd love to have long-term tenants, especially during the low-season, but that she had already booked another family to stay in the house during the week of Christmas. So this week we're packing up all of our stuff and preparing to move out. Mdm. Chautard has graciously offered to let us store our stuff in the Chateau while we travel.

Although this is a hassle, especially for Ceil who winds up doing most of the work on this front, in the end, I think it'll be a good think. A rehearsal, if you will, for our actual return.

Although we did not avail ourselves of my company's offer to ship things over here, we will surely ship stuff home... partly because we've accumulated a certain amount of stuff (e.g. wine and... ummm... hmm... well, I think the kids have some things... hmm... and the wine, I guess) and also because we don't want to schlep all our goods around during our last week of traveling.

Christmas and New Years Plans
On Saturday, we'll check out of the house and move our belongings to the Chateau before making the seven hour drive to Barcelona, Spain where we've rented an apartment for five nights.

On Thursday, Dec. 28th, we'll get back in the car and make another 7-ish hour drive to Nice, France where we've booked another apartment through the New Year's holiday.

It turns out that there are hundreds of properties available for short-term rent throughout Spain and southern France. With the advent of RyanAir and EasyJet, Europe's answer to SouthWest, there's been an explosion in the number of folks able to purchase weekend homes, and plan brief get-aways from the UK, Germany, etc. to the warmer climes of the Mediterranean. A secondary effect has been lots of Brits buying places and looking to rent them while they're not using them, and of course, locals in places like Barcelona buying properties and leasing them out on a weekly or weekend(ly) basis.

For us, apartment living is an attractive alternative to setting up in a hotel. There tends to be a bit more room, a chance to close a door and get some distance from the kids and whatever chaos they're plotting; having a kitchen makes meal planning easier and less expensive (though I'm hell-bent on eating tapas and paella three times a day while we're in Spain, and conducting deep research in bouillabaisse while in Nice).

How will Santa Find Us?
He won't, so start lowering your expectations immediately. Plus, with Santa's hernia, he cannot carry very many things, or very heavy things to France. How heavy? Oh, I don't know -- say, anything too big or bulky to ship from France to the US -- how's that?

+++++++++++++

More to follow. Peace to all.

French women don't get fat... but American men...

2006-12-11T11:18:00.000-08:00

Aside from the the never-ending stream of emails soliciting my advice on healing the divide between Post-Enlightenment Western Modernity and Fundamentalist Islam (a word to GW43@potus.gov and Benny16@vatcity.it - fellas, if you're not going to follow my advice, please stop asking for it!), the most common questions I hear involve my body: what shape it's in, how's my waist line, am I still looking as fine as I did the day I boarded Air France 007?

I want you all to breathe a collective sigh of relief -- despite five months in France, I am every bit as buff as the last time you saw me. Same wash-board (gentle cycle) stomach; same big-gun (.22 caliber) arms; still able to crush a walnut (cupcake) between my thighs.

So, you're asking, how have I stayed so fit, despite indulging myself in all the gastronomic delights Central France has to offer?

God only knows.

I have eaten like a pig: c-o-c-h-o-n, pig. I have yet to let a bottle of wine, plate of cheese, or side-board table of desserts pass by me unmolested. I have defended my spot on the couch, fending off all pretenders to my throne. My running shoes dried out from that rainy day back in August, and have not been put in harm's way since.

In short, I have done everything in my power to add 35 lbs. to my already Ruben-esque frame, and yet I can still slip into my trousers each morning without the aide of winches, come-alongs or hydraulic rams.

So what gives? Does my experience lend credence to the recent best-sellers regarding French women's resistance to weight-gain?

Who's to say? Let's review today's ingestions and see what we conclude.

Breakfast: two pain-au-chocolate (i.e. a pastry made from the same dough as a croissant, but containing a modest amount of semi-sweet chocolate) and an espresso.

Morning snack: none

Lunch: huge. I attended a catered luncheon at work and the fare is representative of a typical meal : a cold plate whereupon I found/devoured 1/2 roasted chicken breast, one slice of roasted pork, a slice of a salmon terrine, a thin slice of quiche lorraine, two pickles and a dollop of mayonaise. After the main plate, we passed the cheese (so to speak), and then a basket of fruit. Beverages included bottled water, medium bodied red-wine (two small glasses) and coffee.

Afternoon snack: none

Dinner: also huge. Ceil found a shop which approximates Trader Joe's, and we gorged ourselves on frozen delicacies, reheated in our oven: calamari rings, shimps, sweet and sour chicken and spinach canneloni.

Dessert: half of a chocolate pastry and a glass of red wine.

In short, I ate about 245,000 calories today... and this is typical. So why have I not ballooned?

My guesses:

1) no trans-fats: chips, crackers or bread baked more than 24 hours ago simply do not show up on the table!
2) no between-meal snacks: there are snack machines at work but I've yet to see anyone use them... and I won't be the first.
2) red-wine: sometimes in moderation
3) coffee: espresso is served after every meal... even late dinners.
4) an office on the second floor: can sixteen steps make a difference?
5) no television: sigh. Wonder how my NY Giants are doing?

What lessons will I take home?
1) kill the television: this time, I mean it
2) yes to the bagels, but no to the chips
3) yes to the red wine: what did you expect me to say?
4) find excuses to walk around at work: Store my stapler and paper clips on the third floor and the photo-copier in the basement

Here endeth this week's PSA.

Be well.

Catching up on posts: Ceil's Re-cap of our Italy Trip

2006-12-07T12:21:00.000-08:00

At this point, I am probably considered a guest writer since I haven’t been very regular in my contributions to the blog. Nonetheless, I thought I would catch you up our trip to Italy since it hasn't had much coverage yet.

Italy was wonderful and we dragged the kids around and saw a lot. Yes, I do mean dragged. What crazy kid wants to sit in a hotel room when there is so much too see? I have two of them. We weren’t even staying in expensive hotels, we had the basics; beds, bathroom and t.v. with one station in English which was a sports station. They didn’t even show soccer-- it was usually a pool tournament. There was wifi in the Florence hotel so that was a major bonus for Miles. We left him home alone a few times by the end of the trip.

We arrived Wednesday night and checked into our hotel after a taxi ride from the rail station to the Jewish Ghetto. The cab ride was a little more intense than a NYC cab ride. I think in NY they drive faster and change lanes and cut off other taxis more but in Rome the intensity is all about the narrow streets, the number of other cars that are trying to fit on the street, the pedestrians that are oblivious of the cars (more so than New Yorkers), and thousands upon thousands of scooters driving wherever they please.

That night we went on a neighborhood walking tour looking for the best gelato place and also a restaurant to have dinner. It was 75 degrees in Rome, much warmer than I expected. I can’t imagine what it is like in the summer when it is the height of tourist season. All the guide books talk about the heat and the crowds in the summer and I thought it was hot and crowded in October.

We ate at a nice restaurant and the kids enjoyed their first Italian meal with a primo (first course) pasta and secondo (second course) pizza and we found a tasty gelato store nearby. Day one we spent in Ancient Rome, starting at Michelangelo’s Campidoglio, Roman Forum, and Colosseum. We stopped for a late lunch more pizza and pasta and then the kids and Andy went on a city walking tour back to the hotel while I walked around more stopping at the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Piazza Campo de Fiori.

Day two was the Vatican St. Peter’s Basilica and the climb to Michelangelo’s Dome and wandering around awestruck in the Basilica. Stopped for lunch than head to the Vatican Museums with a focus on the Sistine Chapel. Day three Andy and Lee went back to the Vatican and Miles and I did more walking around the Pantheon and that part of town – Trevi Fountain, etc.

The next day was more walking around in the morning and we caught a train to Florence in the afternoon. More churches and museums in Florence. In the Uffizi, Miles was heard to say, “Oh, and look, yet another picture of Mary and the baby Jesus!" We toured the Uffizi and enjoyed the exhibit on Leonardo da Vinci. The next day we went to the Galleria dell’Accademia and saw Michelanglo’s David. We climbed the dome at Il Duomo as well as the bell tower and did lots more walking and shopping in Florence and amazing food was had by all. I visited Santa Croce and will have to go back and visit because the altar was being renovated and was covered in scaffolding.

The kids weren’t fully committed to all the walking, churches and museums but we went and we saw everything, even if it was at a speedy rabbit’s pace. No tour groups for us, I would try and hear some tidbits from the American tour guides as I walked past and that worked well for me.

Escape from Paris: Guest Blogger - Adam Gavin

2006-12-04T10:23:00.000-08:00

We were very sad to see the Gavins leave last week. I've related the story of our Thanksgiving weekend, and the Gavins brush with rioting firemen while making their way through Paris on the way to Chateauroux. Surely, their final days in Paris would be uneventful!? Au contraire mon frere.... Adam's email follows:

Andy,

Even though our trip back had some unexpected stops along the way, we are safe at home.

First of all, we took the Roissybus to the airport at 7:45a which would get us there 2.5 hours before boarding. We were tooling down the freeway when all of a sudden another driver began honking and waving and almost forcing the bus to the side of the road.

The bus driver got out and began screaming at the other driver -- but it turned out we had smoke billowing out of the back of the bus and the guy was trying to aid us.

Being French, the driver got back in and we continued on for a few more miles. In the words of Napoleon: what's the big deal about a little snow in St. Petersberg this time of year? Let's press on!

But soon the driver had to pull over again; maybe it was the smoke or maybe he had to get to a bus drivers' riot. Either way, we were all stuck on the side of the freeway (side being questionable since he didn’t get all four wheels off the road) waiting for another bus to pick us up AND the French Gendarme to escort us to the other bus when it came.

The French on the bus were fine with the waiting for the other bus, but when they were told that we had to wait for the police, you would have thought that the driver told them that Zidane played soccer like a poodle. They were so pissed and dismissive of the cops showing up anytime soon.

At this point, Maureen was getting agitated at me (for saving 20 euro by not scheduling a personal shuttle to the airport) and concerned thinking we were going to have to call you to come pick us up. Nevertheless, the next bus came along with the police and we were on our way.
One last thing before I go. We had our own “Hamburger” moment. We were in a restaurant in Paris having dinner. We asked the waitress for a bottle of water. She looked at me quizzically and I repeated myself a number of times, including saying aqua. Finally she said “Oh, wa-TER”. When we looked at each other and just laughed.

Thanks to the Ericksons for making our trip so special.

Adam

Our own Thanksgiving... avec les Gavins et foie gras

2006-12-03T13:22:00.001-08:00

Having heard from Dan and his clan, I thought I'd describe our Thanksgiving. As our friends Adam and Maureen were in town, we decided to make a weekend of it.

On Thursday (Thanksgiving) we drove two hours south from Chateauroux to the Dordogne region. Our first stop was the caves at Lascaux, the site of the famous pre-historic paintings.

The tour guide led us down some stairs to an ante-chamber where he launched into his introductory talk, in French, naturally. I couldn't understand a word he said, but as with many situations, context offers plenty of clues on content. "Blah, blah, blah le blah avec le blah et après, le blah...", if said while pointing to a large map and moving one's finger along a bold, squiggly line annotated with directional arrows probably means: "We are here right now, and in a few minutes we're going to walk down this path and into the cave." (Clearly, there are other possibilities - "Once we're in the cave, stay on this side of the line, lest ye anger the rabid bats who live on the other side..." being one example.) I bent down to whisper my translation for the kids.

The guy continued, and for the most part, I (think I) got the gist of what he was saying. He'd say, "blah blah les blah sur la blah", while pointing to a model of a stalagmite, and I would translate, "Watch out you don't hit your head on the pointy rock things hanging down from the ceiling."

I confess that I occasionally had to riff a bit, fabricating comments to fill in the bits when the tour guide wasn't pointing to something: "And so the cave people probably had to walk to this site, because in those days the bus service didn't come this far out of town." Etc.

After his introductory schpeil, he asked if there were questions. None. He then said to us, in pretty good English, "What about you (mouth-breathing) folks in the back? Shall I repeat the highlights in English?" I think Adam was nodding yes, but I gave him a nudge and said, "Non, nous comprendons."

He gave us a few minutes to look at the displays, during which time I did in fact, ask him a couple of questions, just to verify some of the bits I wasn't sure about. "You weren't talking about rabid bats back there, were you?" My debrief uncovered a few translation errors which I duly conveyed to the Gavins.

And so after another semi-intelligible presentation in second ante-chamber, we finally entered the cave. And it was amazing. Absolutely stunning. You gotta go see it. Most of the figures are bison, bears, deer and horses. Some of the images are five meters across, and they are unbelievably subtle and powerful. And, by the way, they are painted on the ceiling of the cave which is like twelve or fifteen feet up. To heck with their artistic prowess... how did these rock-knocking ancients build the scaffolding?

But here's the thing: the paintings you see on the wall are not the originals. In fact, if I understood the guy right (3 chances in 5), we were not even seeing the original walls of the cave. The whole thing had been re-built, with faux walls and ceiling hanging within the original space. They did this to protect the original paintings which were not holding up to the daylight, atmosphere, Diet Coke spills, etc. which came with the visitors.

Now, it may be that I've got this all wrong, and that what you see inside the cave is a reproduction of a different cave. I mean, think about it: in order to support all these erstatz walls and ceilings, you'd have to drill some big holes into the original surfaces, and that would surely mess with the paintings worse that the Bubblicious vapors brought in by the tourists. I tried to ask the guy for clarification on this, but in so doing, discovered the frontier of his English and confirmed that I was well beyond my capabilities in French. I guess I could look it up but, but why start worrying about accuracy at this late date?

One final Cliff-Clavin-esque story from the caves. We got to a narrow spot in the cave and the tour guide pointed to five smallish horses painted high on the wall. He asked if there was anyone from England on the tour. One girl (who turned out to be from New Jersey...???) raised her hand. So the guy turned to ME and says, "You translate this one for her, okay?" Ummm.... Uhhh... Twenty French tourists, not to mention my friends and family, turned and stared at me. "Oui. D'accord. Pas problem. (Gulp.)"

And he launched into a speech about the five horses, saying, "Blah blah comme blah alors blah blah LES BEATLES blah blah et blah GEORGE HARRISON blah blah blah HARD DAYS NIGHT...blah blah blah LES BEATLES."

I had not a clue what he was saying. There were FIVE horses, not four, so my mind started racing to come up with the name of the "fifth Beatle" - the drummer guy they had before Ringo. And why he referred to one of the horses as George Harrison, without naming the remaining Fab Three was not clear. I was stumped.

Nevertheless, I turned to the girl, who clearly wanted nothing to do with me or any of the other folks who were now staring expectantly, and I said, "They call these paintings the Beatles because there's four of them, and then there's a fifth one, kind of like that other guy who was almost in the Beatles."

At this point, two things become readily apparent: 1) the girl for whom I was translating was not sure who or what the Beatles were, and 2) the tour guide spoke English well enough to know that I had flubbed the whole thing... at which point he gave his talk over again in English, begging two questions: 1) (in my mind) why did he ask for my help translating, and 2) (in the girls mind) why are these people pointing at horses and talking about beatles?

(The tour guide was pointing to the five horses and saying that anyone who had seen the Beatles movie Hard Day's Night, might remember a scene in which George Harrison sits at a desk in an office, with a reproduction of these five horses hanging on the wall behind him. This in turn gave rise to a final question: "Who the h- cares?")

We left the caves and drove a few more kilos to our destination for the night, in Sarlat. We checked into the local Best Western, a hotel chain, I must add, which bears no resemblance to its eponymous counter-part in the US. If you go to a French town and want to stay in nicely restored, charming, well-appointed and moderately expensive hotel, look for Best Western. (The Gavins report a similar through-the-looking-glass situation in England where Holiday Inns are very fine, high-end destinations).

We spent a lovely evening walking around the medevial center of town, now given over to fashionable shops and restaurants. We found a restaurant that seemed to suit our price range, and more importantly, looked capable of containing the eight of us, and we sat down to dinner. We had a terrific time. The Dorgogne is know mainly as the source of most of France's foie gras, and I ordered what amounted to the "foie gras lover's special". It was heavenly.

(N.B.: I'm skipping quite a bit here, and for the remainder of this post, please know that when I say, "we found a restaurant and sat down to eat", I'm sparing you the tedium of hour-long negotiations with the kids: "There's a KFC. Why can't we go there?" I'm also sparing you the ennui of helping the kids order: "What do you want?" "What do they have?" "They have ham, steak, omelets or chicken." "I don't like any of those things." "Okay, so what do you like?" "I don't know. What do they have?")

We arose early the next morning and walked the town again before setting off towards Bordeaux. We made a few stops along the way: La Roque-Gageac, a heart-achingly picturesque little town built, literally, into the sheer face of a 400' tall cliff; Castlenord, a no-kidding-around castle, complete with trebuchets and a really cool flag on top; and lastly, Beynac et Cazenac, a slightly larger town incorporating the best features of the previous two stops.

We ate lunch in Beynac et Cazenac, and following the lead of other patrons, we ordered family-style -- a tremendous innovation given the decision-challenged junior-set within our company. The food was great and the staff went out of their way to accommodate the kids. Sated, we set off for a two hour drive east to Bordeaux, arriving well after sunset.

Upon checking in, I discovered that I had booked us for the wrong nights. I took umbrage at the tone / demeanor of the receptionist at the hotel, and after many months of watching French people engage in seemingly heated shouting matches with clerks and shop-keepers, I tried my hand at raising my voice and demanding recompense. There was no getting out of the extra night I had booked us for, but in the end, after a bit of arm-waving (literally) I got the same cheap rate for the night I had not booked. In return, I agreed to fill out the silly forms the receptionist demanded I complete, although I listed the other travelers in my party as Shawn Kemp, Paul Voelker, Gustav Mahler, Tonya Harding, and JoJo-The-Dog-Faced-Boy. I felt vindicated, but adrenaline swirled through my blood for the rest of the night.

On Saturday, we visited St. Andre's Cathedral (despite my first name, no special welcome was in the offing for your correspondent), a museum and the main shopping district. We ate lunch in a great little café (see note, supra.), and split up for the afternoon. The girls got Lee's ears pierced (a long awaited ceremony commemorating her ninth birthday) and bought shoes; the boys shopped for wine (separate post to follow). All were successful and Bordeaux's economy surly felt an unexpected surge of off-season revenue.

On Sunday we drove home to Chateauroux, taking an indirect route through Poitiers. I recommend Poitiers highly. It's absolutely charming, though like most French towns it is absolutely deserted on Sunday. With no other options, we gave in to the kids demands and ate lunch at McDonald's. Being the group's self-appointed (not to mention self-righteous) translator, I was the intermediary between Joey, Miles, Katherine, Lee, Ceil, Adam and Maureen and the staff of the Poitiers McDonalds. I was not prepared to order with sufficient specificity (e.g. extra pickles, no mayo, etc.), nor was I able to pronounce complex French phrases like "McNuggets" - and in the end, all went away feeling frustrated and ill-used.

We finally staggered home around 4pm, played a quick game of Petanque (separate post to follow) and collapsed.

Alas, the Gavins were off early the following morning. For those of you who enjoyed the story of their arrival in Paris, the story of their departure is equally amusing (separate post to follow), but the gist is that they arrived home safe and sound.

With visits from my family and the Gavins behind us, we have turned our attention to plans for our holiday trip to Spain. In the mean time though, we're going to relish a very quiet and sedentary weekend or two in our home-away-from home.

Thanks for reading. Love to all.

Thanksgiving in France (a guest posting by Dan F)

2006-11-30T10:32:00.000-08:00

My friend Dan is leading a team, similar to the one I am part of, at a company near Bordeaux, France. He and his wife Trish, being braver than Ceil and I, are home-schooling their three children (so... braver on at least two counts). Dan sent this note along describing their Thanksgiving celebration. I thought you might enjoy it...

We celebrated Thanksgiving this past weekend and as you can imagine, it was a bit tougher to put together the traditional meal in a foreign country. With some perseverance and a bit of luck, we managed to do it though. This year we celebrated the event on Saturday, since both Thursday and Friday were work-days in France. We invited our landlords to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast. They are from England and we had a great time explaining to them what Thanksgiving was all about. We even had the boys do some research on the first feast as part of their school work and write a report to give to our guests.

The first part was getting the turkey…not as easy as it sounds. We started a couple of weeks ago calling butchers to reserve the bird. No luck…turkey is not available here until Christmas time. After many attempts, one of the people in the office here was able to arrange a special order from her hotel chef. The chef had to drive 30 miles each way to get the bird and we made a special trip north to pick it up on Friday. With the special order, tip, etc, the bird was about 70 Euros (about $85) and weighed somewhere around 15 pounds. Trish cooked home-made stuffing with French bread, spices and toasting it in the oven. All in all, it turned out very well.

The next part was the dessert. Trish made an apple pie, but we wanted pumpkin as well. No luck finding pumpkins in the local stores, but when we mentioned our dilemma to Ruth and Ken (our landlords), they said that their neighbor had a pumpkin on their doorstep. When they asked about it, their neighbor gave it to us for our dessert.

The rest of the meal was much easier…and we enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings.

I write then next part knowing that you have had miserable weather for the past few weeks [in Seattle]. On Sunday, the weather turned from windy and rainy to warm and sunny. It was mid-60's with a nice breeze coming from the SE. We decided to go a local island called Ile de Oleron which is about 10 miles from where we live. We it the beach, played in the sand and flew a kite. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the fresh air.

I hope that you are doing well, that you enjoyed your Thanksgiving and that you are smoothly gearing up for the Christmas season.

Take care,

Dan

Martha and Betty Leave, the Gavins Arrive

2006-11-22T22:50:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, I drove my mother and sister to the airport -- a close-run thing, given the unexpected (by noone but me) traffic around Paris. But we got there with many minutes to spare, and I found a parking spot (on the side-walk) and the ladies got checked-in quickly. By all accounts, it was a long journey home, but they arrived safe and sound, warmed by memories of Miles and Lee.

Miles and Lee, meanwhile, spent the day whipping themselves into a frenzy of anticipation: THE GAVINS ARE COMING TONIGHT!! Indeed, our friends Adam, Maureen and their kids Joey and Katherine, arrived in Chateauroux at 7pm for a five day stay.

The Gavins flew in a week or more ago, and having spent a few days in Paris, they decamped to London for five nights. They traveled from London to Chateauroux yesterday, and we will all leave today for a long-weekend in Boredeaux. (They have wine there? I'm shocked...)

It was great to see the Gavins at the train station. Clearly, it had been a long day for them, but as clearly, they have enjoyed their vacation, and the kids jumped about, twitching with tics of joy at being re-united. We took them back to our place in Arthon (they thought the journey ended in Chateauroux... ha!) and had a great dinner, debriefing each other on the events of the past four months.

+++++++++

Just to relate one scene from the Gavin's journey from London to Chateauroux:

The EuroStar train from London arrives at Gare Nord in Paris. The train to Chateauroux leaves from Gare Austerlitz -- across town, but an easy, 10 minute cab ride. On most days.

Adam, Maureen and the kids have about 1 hour to make the connection. They catch a cab, the driver speaks no English, and for that matter, very little French, but by pointing at maps, guidebooks, and railway time-tables, Adam makes himself understood. The cabbie sets out towards Austerlitz.

But the traffic is terrible. Gridlock. Lots of police cars squeezing past, up on the curb in some cases, all heading in the same direction. Even the guys on scooters, who normally drive between the lanes imperiously, and seemingly, imperviously, have come to a stop.

The cab moves forward a bit, and then stops; then forward a bit, and stops. The cab driver, gesturing wildly, speaking unintelligibly, makes himself understood -- "This is not the usual Paris rush-hour... we may not make your train... sell me your wife and children...name a price."

After 30 minutes, the Gavins have covered about 5km of the 7km journey -- they've packed light enough that walking the rest of the way is an option, but their sense of Parisian geography is dicey... do they take a chance and head-out on foot? Dare they stay with the cab any longer? Decision time.

Man-of-action, Adam tells his clan, "All right, we're walking." (I can only imagine the look of incomprehension and indignation from Joey at this point... "let me get this straight: we're abandoning a perfectly functioning automobile to walk for 2km? I'm reading here... I've got my Gameboy going... you want me to do what?")

Dolling out pearls of encouragement to his kids, and waggling his two fingers at the cab driver to indicate "proceed on foot", Adam makes himself understood (alas, in the cabbie's country of origin, this gesture means, "That's a fair price, I accept your offer, you may have my wife and children; do you want them now or shall I bring them around?"). Train leaves in 25 minutes.

And so our heroes set out. They march past three blocks of immobile traffic, push through crowds of people on the sidewalk, ignoring "walk / don't-walk" signs (as is the way in Paris).

It's important to your correspondent that you have a clear mental image here -- a small caravan of Gavins, heads-down, suitcases in tow, Adam in the lead, Maureen and Katherine close behind with looks of concern, Joey lagging slightly, his head swiveling in search of bookstores and/or places to eat. Adam will not be denied -- he's squeezing past folks, "s'cuse me, s'cuse me, out of the g-dd--m way-Frenchie! Joey, keep up! Katherine, stop crying! C'mon!" Train leaves in 15 minutes.

And suddenly, they burst through the crowd and find themselves in a patch of open ground -- daylight! Thrilled, they break into a ragged sprint... "we're gonna make it!" Train leaves in 10 minutes.

I can only imagine the next few moments, and unburdened by actual facts, I'll weave a tableau largely based on how I hope it happened:

Joey, still on the lookout for a mid-day crepe or maybe a fresh baguette, notices a phalanx of policemen, dressed in riot-gear, arrayed on their right... "Hey, dad..."

Katherine, deeply concerned about their fate, should they miss the train, notices a rather large and unruly crowd on their left: a crowd of folks busily building a pile of trash and wooden pallets, some of whom are carrying bottles with rags hanging out the top... "Hey, dad, what are those..."

Maureen, still a bit unsettled by the looks she was getting from the cab-driver, and curious about what Adam and the cabbie were negotiating, notices the cops and the rioters simultaneously... "Holy s--t, Adam, you've lead us into the middle of..."

And Adam, spying the clock atop the train station, less than 100 yards away, is filled with hope... "We're gonna make it..." The train leaves in eight minutes.

All four realizations come crashing together in the collective Gavin-mind, and as one, they form-up, tightening their ranks, and in a stunningly graceful, swift parade ground maneuver, they wheel right, facing the riot police -- the last obstacle between them and the train (and, I might note, the closest protection from the rapidly forming riot on their left). Adam and Joey in the fore, heads lowered, Katherine and Maureen close behind, like half-backs following lead-blockers through the line -- they form a family-sized flying wedge and put on speed, surging towards the line of shield-and-baton-wielding, visor-and-helmet-wearing riot police.

The police commander is stunned. He came out today, expecting to face unruly Parisians -- but he now faces a more formidable foe, a foe bread of sturdy mid-Western US stock, a foe unified by a common goal, a foe unwavering in their commitment... in short, a foe which will stop at nothing until they reach their objective. He was not expecting this.

The police commander opens his command manual to page one, and reads aloud to his charges: "Surrender! Run away! Hide! We give up!" (Not sure how many pages there are in the commander's manual -- tomes on French military strategy tend to be slim.)

And so the police line parts, the Gavins pass through, triumphant. Flush with adrenaline, they make the last two blocks in record time... arriving with time to spare. (Joey: "Can we get a snack to eat on the train?")

Unbeknownst to Adam et al, in their wake, the rioters are also suffering a crisis of confidence. "Mon dieu! Did you see that, Jacques? Those four folks were crazed! What the heck can we do that compares with that? Maybe we should call this thing off... oh, hey, look, a cafe serving that smelly cheese I like... c'mon, let's go... yes, now... I'm hungry! It's lunch time anyway: you can't riot during the lunch hour." The mob, chastened by the example of the Gavins, dissolves in moments.

And, thus, the Gavins set out on the final leg of their journey to Chateauroux.

And if you don't believe it, click here. It turns out that the Gavins had gotten between the cops and a group of 10,000 French firemen -- on-strike, demanding a pay-raise, retirement with benefits at 55, and a dramatic reduction in the amount of open-flames and smoke in their work-place.

++++++++

All for now... we're off to Sarlat-le-caneda and then on to Bordeaux. Back on Sunday with pictures, hang-overs and more tall tales. Peace.

Martha and Betty Arrive

2006-11-13T12:54:00.000-08:00

My mother and sister arrived on Friday for a 10 day visit. I wanted to go to the office on Friday, so Ceil and the kids went ahead to meet our visitors at the airport. We'd rented a van for the month -- affording us more space to transport our guests -- but alas, no GPS. Ceil did a fine job using directions from Mappy.com, fine that is, until the last little bit. Lee was calling me on the cel phone periodically throughout the journey:

"We're almost there, Dad. Mom is fine."

"We're getting close, Daddy, I can see the airplanes. Mom is okay."

"DADDY, WE'RE LOST!... COME FIND US... yes, Mom's okay, BUT I'M NOT!!!"

All was well in the end... Ceil found the terminal and she and the kids met Betty and Martha right as they entered the terminal. They had a quick rest for pictures and then back into the van to battle rush-hour traffic into down-town Paris. Ceil and Betty reported that the drive was VERY frustrating, but that Martha, ensconsed in the back of the van with her grand-children seemed utterly content.

After checking into the motel, Martha turned in for a late nap which became an early bedtime. The rest of us connected with our friend Camille who is spending her junior year in Gonzaga's Paris program.

We spent the next day in and around the Louvre. Not sure of Martha's stamina, we brought a wheel chair along, and right away, it paid dividends, as the security guards escorted us to the head of the line waiting to enter the museum. Miles and Lee took turns pushing Grandma. Although there were a couple of near-misses, rumors that Miles bounced Martha down some steps are wild exaggerations. Or so Miles assures me.

More naps in the afternoon followed by dinner with Camille (Japanese food) and a walk through the Latin quarter for freshly-made crepes. I was pleased to make it back to the room in time to watch the second half of the New Zealand vs. France rugby match, which the All Blacks won handily.

We we're up early (by Betty and Martha standards) the next day. Ceil, Miles and Martha took a couple of hours in the D'Orsay museum. Martha felt perfectly strong enough to walk, but Miles had no intention of waiting on lines and INSISTED that she get back in her chair.

Lee, Betty and I took a driving tour through Paris, in search of Diddl paraphernalia, to pass the time.

It was a long drive home. There's a post in the offing about French White Trash -- rest-stops are a great place for viewing the phenomenon. Give me a few days to pull my thoughts together.

We got into town late, but not too late for a tour of the place and some take-out pizza.

Thanks to all who have said prayers for Martha and Betty during their trip -- they arrived safe and sound, with luggage intact, and no hassles from security along the way.

Peace.

Ok... I think we're up and running

2006-11-04T23:48:00.000-08:00

As fate would have it, we cut our Italy vacation short to rush home and... sit in the dark.

Around 8pm Friday night, the power cut out. Thankfully, Ceil had stashed some matches and candles, and I had exercised enough foresight to empty several bottles of wine, so we had ready-made candle holders. The kids we're a bit anxious, but I re-assured them that we had plenty of candles, and that I was capable of creating more candle holders quite rapidly.

The gas cook top continued to work, so instead of roasting potatoes, we pan-fried them. We cooked up a kilo or two of mussels, and hauled ice cream out of the freezer. We gorged ourselves by candlelight. Ceil led the kids in a few hands of cards, while I double-checked the supply of candle-holders.

The blackout gave us an excuse tp try out one of the fireplaces in our house. The landlord has several cords of firewood stacked behind the barn. After a few trips to the woodpile, and a setting light to a week's worth of the International Herald Tribune, we had a roaring fire. We kept it going most of the night, and re-lit it early the next day. It was very therapeutic. And we're really prepared for the next outage, having set aside several new candle-holders.

On Saturday afternoon, we managed to call the house-keeper -- a lovely woman with less English than I have French. It's hard enough to communicate in person, but speaking with her over the phone feels like playing charades in a very dark room. I seemed to get my point across, however, and she drove out to meet us.

Turns out it was not a general power failure, or wild-cat strike by the local utility workers -- the problem was limited to our house. Apparently, we were running too many appliances (and laptop computers) simultaneously, and managed to trip the main fuse for the property. Madame Gerrard showed us the fuse box (about 40 yards down the drive-way), and we re-set it.

As I walked back to the house to see if the lights were back on, I heard some terrifying shrieks through the windows -- I feared the worst: some accident involving a child catching on fire, or worse, one of my laptops being broken. But not to worry: the sound I heard was Miles celebrating our return to the 20th century -- running through the house, hooting and flipping switches on and off.

So, we're back on the grid: Internet, electricity, running water. All the comforts of home... except the ability to pick-up the phone and speak to someone in English... sigh.

Miss you folks.

Oops! I spoke too soon...

2006-11-04T05:27:00.000-08:00

We have no electricity!

We were thrilled to have the internet up and running this morning, but at this point, we'd settle for the ability to heat our house and refrigerate our food! Not sure what the problem is, who I'd call, or how I'd make myself understood... but we've got a fireplace and plenty of ice cream to get through before it melts. What goes good with ice cream? Red wine. Thankfully, we've got plenty of that.

More to follow once the power comes back and I can re-charge my laptop.

Hosanna! Internet access in Arthon, France

2006-11-02T18:11:00.000-08:00

We are (finally) on-line!

Just got back from our tour of Rome and Florence -- flight was delayed, four hour drive from the airport, nearly slammed into a pack of wild boar on the road into town, staggered through the door at 3am... and still had to check if our Internet issue was resolved during our sojourn...

... and, mirabile dictu, it was!

More to follow in the coming days -- for now, I predict a decline in sales at the Chateauroux McDonald's, as we will no longer be using their free wi-fi hotspot.

Travelers, yes. Vacationers, not so much

2006-10-31T07:46:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday we drove to Beauvais airport, north of Paris, and caught a RyanAir flight to Rome to begin a 10-day vacation in Italy. Our initial plan to stay a couple of nights in Rome, Florence, and Venice, with a side-trip to Pisa on the way back to Rome seemed peripatetic and overly ambitious, so we had scaled back and decided to divide our time between Rome and Florence.

With the advantage of hindsight, the initial plan was better. The kids have been willing (to a point) to walk all over a new city, provided the sights along the way are compelling. But after a couple of days in Rome, they were jaded to the notion that a building might have been constructed before Christ walked the earth; it became tougher and tougher to forestall outright mutiny each afternoon.

The situation in Florence was eased and complicated by the availability of internet in the hotel room (a first on our journeys – perhaps my Grandmother, during her life-time, came to take in-door plumbing for granted; I, on the other hand, had forgotten what a blessing it is to be able to connect the to web, and place a telephone call without the assistance of others.) The kids’ morale improved, but so did their determination to remain in the room, arguing over time on the laptop, instead of walking out to marvel at the ancient splendors of Michelangelo, Donatello, etc. By yesterday, they were immune to all cajoling, hectoring, threats and bribes… Mom, we’ve had gelato twice a day for a week now… why can’t we stay in the room?

Last night Ceil and I took a command decision and re-scheduled our flight back to Paris for Thursday, rather than Saturday. Miles and Lee responded with howls of protest – we like it here, France is boring – a keen observer, though, would translate this as: we have internet here and you’re going to make us go to school if we go back to France. Ton pei. I, for one, will be glad to get back to our rustic abode outside of Arthon, and I will be glad to be home in time for market-day.

Goin' down to Geneva... to get my passport stamped

2006-10-29T22:33:00.000-08:00

So if you want to work in France for six months, you'll need to get a visa... but that itself can take four months or more, so if you're in a pinch, go ahead, hop on the plane and head over... just make sure you leave the country every 90-days so as to maintain a visitor or tourist status. Apparently you can keep this up for quite some time -- extending your visitor status for six months or more.

My first 90 days ended quite unexpectedly last week.("Hi, I'm here to teach your company about planning, organization, and the importance of maintaining rigorous schedules... oh, wait, holy crap! I've got to leave the country... excuse me.") No problem, I thought, we're going to Italy at the end of the month. Au contraire mon frere -- it turns out that you need to leave the European Union, not just the country -- so we needed to find another destination for a quick get-away.

Where to go... where to go... A quick scan of the map reminded me that I am clueless about the European Union, who's in and who's not, so I began asking around... Switzerland was the unanimous reply -- get thee to Geneva for a day or two. Alrighty then.

Geneva is about five hours away by car; 4:15 if you're willing to violate the speed limits egregiously -- something which is quite rare in France. The fines for speeding escalate exponentially, culminating with the loss of license at offense number four -- which explains why so may folks are happy to drive 25-horsepower Renaults from 1972. I was only too happy to flout the traffic laws, and we careened down country roads and high-ways alike at break-neck speeds, blasting our way through the iPod's playlists once, then twice before we finally arrived.

First thing we noticed was that the GPS navigation system in our car does not cover Switzerland; the next thing we noticed was that we've become utterly dependent on the GPS navigation system in our car. Over the past months, I've been only too content to type in the address of our destinations, and then "follow the pink line" super-imposed on the map displayed on the dashboard. Now, suddenly, there was no pink line... in fact, the map was ominously blank... I confess to having a few moments of cognitive dissonance as I tried to reconcile the blank screen with the physical reality of the country-side we were driving through. Part of my brain wanted to see blank country-side to match the blank expanse on the map!

My atavistic male navigation skills kicked in rather quickly, and in rapid succession, I made three wrong turns, swore at each of my children in succession, and decided that instead of asking for directions, I would follow a city bus displaying an advertisement for fabulous lingerie and the 21 year old girls who wear it.

We found the border crossing and despite the guards best efforts to wave us through without so much as a glance at our passports, we demonstrated enough confusion and lack of a second language that he directed us to the side of the road and pointed to the office of his supervisor. Now we're getting somewhere, I thought... surely this guy will stamp our passports.

No. The guy behind the counter asked us if we were carrying any chemical weapons, plans for Iranian nuclear reactors or quantities of low-quality American milk chocolate, and sent us away.

We eventually made our way downtown, found a place to park, and set about the task of passing an afternoon and evening in a new city. Geneva is a lovely place -- if you've been to New York, think Park Avenue and the upper east side, and you'll have a sense of the place. Blocks and blocks of high-end shops and high-end people to shop in them. The side-walks were crowded with very well-dressed and attractive folks, all of them, seemingly, loaded down with dozens of boxes and shopping bags.

We had a wonderful and wonderfully expensive lunch -- naturally, this being the gateway to Bavaria, the children insisted on pasta, pizza and gelato for lunch. Afterwards, I headed off in search of a hotel while Ceil and the kids went to see what damage they could do to our credit report.

Coming to a city without any sort of plan, let alone hotel reservations, was a new experience for me, but it turned out remarkably well. At the second inn I visited, the ladies at the desk were only too happy to rent me a room with four beds for 195 Swiss francs per night.

I find it's easier if I research the exchange rate after a trip -- in my mind, 195 sf was a bargain for one large room with a twin bed and a set of rickety bunk-beds... and we had our own bathroom -- a luxury not afforded to most of the other guests. (As you will have suspected, 195 Swiss francs is worth about $250 US dollars, so the accommodations were a bit dear, as it turns out.)

Having eaten lunch like kings, we decided to pass on dinner (surely a sign that the end-times are upon us), and after a walk, settled in for an evening of bickering, recrimination and airing of intrafamilial grievances.

The next morning couldn't come soon enough, for my tastes, and I was out for a pre-dawn walk before the rest of the troops were up. Again, I was struck by the beauty (and wealth) of Geneva. The litter was quite atrocious, but by the time I finished my walk, a small army of municipal workers in miniaturized street sweepers was out in force.

We had another Laurel-and-Hardy-esque moment on the way out of town: I had parked in a public garage about 10 minutes north of the hotel, and having told Ceil to pack up the kids while I went for the car (how much longer will she let me get away with that?) I started off. I was flummoxed though, to discover that the machine where you pay for the parking would not accept credit cards, and I had no currency, Swiss or otherwise. So I reversed course in search of a cash machine... finally finding one after re-tracing my steps back to and beyond the hotel. Being Geneva, the machine dispensed 100 franc notes!

I found my family encamped by the side of the street as I doubled back (again) towards the garage. Ceil was not interested in waiting there amidst our luggage, so we decided to walk together and carry our gear. (The photo to the left depicts a key moment in our discussion, with Lee making an impassioned plea for a new plan involving mechanized transportation, and Miles contemplating applying for adoption by another family with stronger logistical skills.)

So we marched off, stopping every thirty yards as Lee wailed, gnashed teeth and flailed her arms.

When we got back to the car park, naturally, the machine would not accept any bill larger than a 20... pissed, I decided we'd get in the car and crash through any barricades blocking our exit. As it happens, there were no barricades, but there was a very friendly guy in a kiosk who was only too happy to let us pay by credit card. The whole circus had been for naught.

For whatever reason, I was possesed by the urge to spend the 100 franc note before leaving town -- the only place open early on Sunday was the local Starbucks-- a happy coincidence. Again, we gorged ourselves, and reveled in conversation with some other American families we met while waiting on line.

And finally, around 12pm, we were off. Again, crossing from Switzerland to France we had to make every effort to arouse the suspicion of the border gaurds who would much rather have waved us through without so much as glancing at our papers. The guy behind the counter had to rummage around in his drawer to find a stamp for our passports ("They still use those?") -- but in the end, we were successful.

Anyway, the experience confirmed our hypothesis that the first visit to a new city is gauranteed to be a touch stressful and dysfunctional... and that future visits go more smoothy. Here's looking forward to our next trip to Geneva!

Peace.

Ceil Entry #1: ZooParc de Beauval

2006-10-20T04:36:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. I know you have all been enjoying Andy’s wonderful stories but I thought it was time to catch you up on some of the fun things we have been doing that haven’t made the blog to date. It may be because Andy has had to work and wasn’t able to experience some of these adventures.

So going back to August 30th the week before school started Miles, Lee and I spent the day at ZooParc de Beauval. At the time we were living in Bourges and it was about an hour drive northwest. We spent about 7 hours at the zoo that day. The kids were in charge and enjoyed telling me where we were going. They also loved being photographers for the day – nothing better than having complete control of the camera.

We saw some animals we have never seen before – white lions and tigers, koalas and okapi, as well as old favorites – elephants, giraffes, orangutans, gorillas. And great fun was had at the family farm. We made two visits and our second visit included popcorn so we could feed the goats, or rather the goats could stampede the kids and devour the popcorn.
One of Miles’ memories is watching 4 gorillas race around their habitat beating their chests and giving their king of the jungle roar (or whatever it is that gorillas do). Lee enjoyed watching the red pandas walk along the log. We rarely see the red pandas when we go to the zoo at home.

The zoo was beautiful and had lots of animals but the habitats were not as large or as natural as the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.

Ceil Entry #2: Bourges

2006-10-20T04:35:00.001-07:00

The kids and I spent a lot of time in the cathedral in Bourges. Our first few days in Bourges it was easy for me to guide the kids to the cathedral on our walks. But they soon began to recognize landmarks and knew I was taking them out of the way of our intended destination just so we could spend a little more time in the cathedral. It is a beautiful cathedral not as large as Notre Dame but similar in design and vivid stained glass windows and the best thing about it is that we were sometimes the only people there. Ok maybe we were not the only people in the cathedral, but rarely was there more than 20 people, compared to the thousands that were part of our Notre Dame experience. I felt this was like my own personal cathedral.

We also went on “Le Petit Train” that Andy dissed in an earlier post. We enjoyed the city driving tour with our English headset for translation of the history of the town and buildings. We chose to do this on Monday afternoon the day after we arrived in France and the jet lag got to us a little and we all started to fall asleep during the end of the tour.

Other memories of Bourges include buying a soccer ball and playing soccer in the park. Our first trip to the park, we were the only ones there. Looking back I now realize that it was 1:00pm and everyone else was home eating lunch but in our American way we had eaten lunch in 20 minutes and had walked to the park to play. Miles and Lee had fun playing with each other that day. On our second trip to the park to play soccer we went later in the afternoon and there were a group of boys playing soccer. They saw Miles (and his new soccer ball) and invited him to play. There wasn’t too much of a language barrier once they started playing.

I just asked Lee what she remembered about Bourges and she said, “We always walked everywhere.” Her next memory was of her favorite restaurant La Scala and luckily there is also one in Chateauroux. We went often when we first arrived in Chateauroux, so much so that they started to not charge for her meal of plain pasta. Now we have expanded our favorite restaurants and also go home or pack a lunch as often as possible.

Ceil Entry #3: Chateau Visits

2006-10-20T04:35:00.000-07:00

Weekends that have not been spent in Paris are usually spent exploring chateaus and small country towns (or going to school and birthday parties). Our first trip was to Parc & Chateau de Valencay http://www.chateau-valencay.com/. Being the first castle tour you would think there would be great excitement but the kids were not too interested in the audio/walking tour of the castle. But after a heart to heart talk they had a change of mind (there was probably some bribery involved about no more pain au chocolate) and grudging followed us. They weren’t too impressed by the elegant decorations, the story of Talleyrand life and his political connections to Napoleon or the magnificent paintings but by the time we hit the kitchens and wine cellar they perked up a little. After the inside tour we went outside and visited the Children’s Farm and fed the goats – not popcorn this time but real goat food out of a machine. There were also turkeys that were very happy to pose for pictures.

We had a picnic lunch in the park and a peacock enjoyed most of Lee’s lunch that she generously shared with him. After lunch we played on the playground and tested our skills in the maze. Napoleon’s Great Maze was large and complicated and at certain points they had questions and a keypad to enter the answer and unlock the door so you could continue to the end of the maze. They had the questions translated into English but you needed to know the answer in French for the door to open. This was ok when the answer was a numeric date but a little more challenging when you could not remember how to say sea in French. But they had the default push here button that automatically opened the door. Andy and Lee were ahead of Miles and I and they reached the end of the maze first. The end of the maze ended in a look out point where you could watch all the other maze goers attempt to reach their goal. Andy and Lee pointed and laughed at us but didn’t give away any clues. We reached the end without any help. By the end of the day the kids said they had a fun day and were looking forward to the next castle visit.

Our next castle was Chenonceau http://www.chenonceau.com/. This castle is a little more impressive than Valencay as it expands across the Cher River. Again amazing furniture, tapestries, and paintings. The gallery, the long room that extends over the river was beautiful. Looking out the windows we saw fish in the river and several canoes and kyacks. Outside the Chateau are two huge gardens and another maze. This maze was simple in comparison to the maze at Valencay and the race to the end took about 30 seconds.

Chambord http://www.chambord.org/ was next. Chambord’s highlight was the double helix open staircase where those going up never meet those coming down. They also said it was large enough for horses to go up and down. The rooms were large and drafty and it did not look like a comfortable place to live in. Miles favorite room was the room with all the deer antlers and the look out hut that looked like a loft bed/room. We also toured the 2,500 acres of the national wildlife reserve. The tour was all in French but enjoyable nonetheless. We didn’t see enough wildlife. Saw deer at a distance but didn’t see any boars.

Most recently was Chateau of Cheverny http://www.chateau-cheverny.fr/. Readers of Tin Tin may be familiar with this Chateau. Miles tells me that this is the house that Captain Haddock lives in, Chateau of Moulinsart, in the Tin Tin stories. This chateau isn’t as large as the others but is the most richly furnished and the most home like.

Ceil Entry #4: First Weekend in Paris

2006-10-20T04:34:00.000-07:00

We have been to Paris three times so far. I must say that I loved L’Open Tour and highly recommend it as an introduction to the sights of the city. Our hotel was right on one of the loops so we used the tour bus as our main mode of transportation.

Saturday, our first full weekend in France we woke up early and walked (yes we made the kids walk 4 blocks) to the train station and caught a train to Paris. It was about a two hour train ride and our first stop happened to be McDonald’s right across the street. Very kid friendly food to set a positive tone for the weekend. I keep asking myself where is the French food. We checked into our hotel which was near the train station and got ready to explore Paris. We stopped at the front desk and got directions to the metro and headed out – yes more walking. The metro is clean and very easy to use. Interesting to compare it to NYC especially since we were just there the week before Paris. Some world travelers Seattle, NYC and Paris all in the same month.

Our first stop was shopping – this was Andy’s desire. We went to Galleries Lafayette and he went to the Men’s level and I took the kids to the children’s clothing because Lee of course just had to buy something – it doesn’t matter where we are or what store it is she can always find something that she must have. We looked at beautiful winter coats for $250 - $350 euros and we really enjoyed looking at them but we bought a small Tweety Bird key chain and she was happy. Andy wasn’t successful in his shopping efforts, just not ready to pull the trigger and buy anything. We left the amazing shopping center – 8 floors of stuff and headed back outside to walk. Everywhere we turned we saw L’Open Tour Buses – double decker tour buses. Andy hates tour buses and I love tour buses. We stopped to have lunch in a French café and I had a French meal pate and duck salad it was yummy and this restaurant just happened to be across the street from the L’Open Tour Bus offices. It was our destiny. We decided it was time to jump on a tour bus and see as much of Paris as we could from the top deck. Lots of sitting and no walking who in the Erickson family wouldn’t be happy. I loved it, there was so much to see and it is nothing like I have every seen before. We pull around the corner and there is the Louvre. Place de Concord was amazing and driving down the Champs de Elysees was amazing as well. Of course we drove around the Eiffel Tower too. We spent the afternoon on the tour bus and conveniently one of the loops had a stop near our hotel. We went back to our room to refresh and regroup and headed back out for dinner. We jumped on the subway and made our way back to the Eiffel Tower. We found a café to have dinner and than walked to the Eiffel Tower to see it all lite up at night. The lines were long and we knew we were going to be back so we decided not to stand on line and go up. Instead we called Andy’s mom and dad but they were home so we left them a message and than we talked to my mom. We jumped on the subway and went home and to build up our energy to do more the next day.

Sunday was our trip to Notre Dame and my personal sickness experience that we often joke about. Every corner seems to have a pharmacy, bus stop and café and Lee is always saying this is where you got sick. We also visited an English bookstore, where we had no problem spending money.

Ceil Entry #5: Second Weekend in Paris

2006-10-20T04:33:00.000-07:00

The Boeing team came to dinner Friday night and we had a late night party and hence got a late start Saturday morning. Our first task was to drive to the airport and exchange Andy’s rental car. By the time we accomplished this and had a fun city driving tour to get to our hotel it was late afternoon. We checked into the hotel and headed out to find food. We had a great lunch at a sidewalk café and talked about the plan for the rest of the day and night. There wasn’t much support for walking and exploring so I was ready to send the family back to the hotel and set off on my own. Somehow Lee ended up with me and we started our walk and just next to the hotel was a kids mall, toy stores galore. She went into shopping mode and we didn’t make it much further. After her shopping adventure she wanted to go back to the hotel. I was close to being alone. Upon returning to the hotel room and Miles seeing what Lee had he was interested in going shopping too. I finally got a little walk in and headed back to the hotel to see what the plans for dinner were. The family plan was go to Pasta Papa and eat what else but Italian. I will admit that the pasta was amazing but I am still left thinking where is the French food? That night we stayed in the neighborhood and went on a night time walk.

Sunday we had breakfast at Starbucks, it was just like home. After breakfast we went on a boat tour. I will have to find my brochure to check my facts but there are lots of bridges in Paris and we got pictures to prove it. Also interesting to see the sights from a boat vs. a tour bus. After the boat tour we walked along the Seine and looked at all the artists and their work on our way to yes eat again. Lunch was at a typical French café along the Seine. After lunch we continued on our walk and went to the Louvre but didn’t go in and found our way back to one of the English bookstores. Made more purchases but not as many as our first visit. We stopped for an afternoon treat and coffee for the coffee drinker in the family and than headed to the car for more city driving tour on our way home.

Ceil Entry #6: Third Weekend in Paris Weekend

2006-10-20T04:30:00.000-07:00

Bruce and Katie Pieper are coming to town of course we will come to Paris to meet you for dinner. I really don’t need a reason to go to Paris but this is a good one. The Van Avery’s, the other American family here, were also planning to go to Paris this weekend to celebrate their youngest daughter, Taylor’s, birthday. Jen took on the task of finding hotel accommodations for four adults and five kids at a time when there were many things going on in Paris that weekend – car show, fashion shows etc. But she was successful and Jen and I took the kids out of school after lunch and caught a 3:00 train to Paris. The train was very crowded and we weren’t able to find a private compartment but we did find 7 seats close together. Everyone got settled and we were on our way. At the third stop a woman got on and came up to me and said that I was in her seat. Between some of my French and some of her English I learned that we were in reserved seats. I got up and found a seat in the next car and watched as people got on at the next stop but for whatever reasons no one else came to claim the seats that the kids were in. Once in Paris we jumped on the subway and headed to the hotel. We checked in and got settled and thought about waiting for Andy and Eric who decided to drive up after work. We didn’t wait too long before making the decision that they can call find out where we are and meet up with us. We went back to the subway and got off at the Place de la Concorde. This is a great subway station, recommended by Sarah Wirz, and it is everything she said it would be. You can see the Eiffel Tower, Champs-Elysees, Jardin des Tuileries and the Louvre. We started our walking adventure to the Eiffel Tower. Yes this might have been a little adventurous with 5 children but we were successful. We found a sidewalk café to have dinner. The appetizer was milkshakes for the kids and red wine for the adults. I was hoping that we didn’t have much further to go and to my surprise we were only two blocks away so a very quick walk after dinner. By this time we had spoken to the husbands and they were still in traffic and it didn’t look like there was much hope of them making it to the Eiffel Tower. Andy will have to do a blog entry to do justice to his experiences that night.

Jen took lots of pictures because my camera was with Andy. There was no line and we went right up to the ticket window and purchased tickets to go all the way to the top. We stopped at the first stage and enjoyed the view but were very excited to get to the top. The views were amazing and enjoyed by all. We called the dads and said hello from the top of the Eiffel Tower and were sad they couldn’t be there. It was time to head home we caught a subway and got to the hotel right at midnight when Taylor turned 8. Saturday Lee spent the day with the Van Avery’s and went on the L’Open Tour. Miles, Andy and I went to the Louvre. We saw all the famous pieces, Winged Victory, Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and many of the French paintings. Andy was in a creative mood and was giving the behind the scenes stories of the paintings to Miles. There was lots of laughter. We also saw Napoleon’s crown, Louis XIV rooms and history of the Louvre. Miles is interested in going back to see the Egyptian art. He is also interested in going to Musee D’Orsay, which is one of my top see items.

After the Louvre, more walking around, eating at a sidewalk café and another visit to Galleries Lafayette. And yes we purchased a movie and gourmet treats to bring home to the Van Avery’s who were going to watch the kids so we could go meet Bruce and Katie. We went to dinner with Bruce and Katie and Katie’s cousin Mary and her husband Christian. We were a little late and Bruce and Katie were a little late but we all made it. We had amazing French food and champagne, white wine and red wine. There wasn’t enough time to talk about everything but we were very happy to see them. Bruce and Katie were on their way back to Seattle after their biking backroads trip through Italy. I was a little sad that I wasn’t getting on a plane and going to Seattle the next day but moved though it.

We jumped in a cab and retrieved our children and went to bed. Sunday we went to the Arc de Triumphe and hiked up many stairs. I know I could never survive the bike trip Bruce and Katie went on, because I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it to the top of the Arc de Triumphe. Miles kept saying we’re almost there and psychologically I was done but the stairs kept coming. I need to work a little harder in my aerobics class…

Lots of pictures, lunch at a sidewalk café, drive down the Champs Elysees and visit yet another English bookstore, have an afternoon treat, watch the filming of a dance video at Place de la Concorde and more driving around Paris on our way home.

Sorry for the quick overview of weekend number but I am running out of time and need to get this posted. I will write again soon.

The Year of Eating Promiscuously

2006-10-06T03:03:00.000-07:00

Among the best bits of advice I’ve received since arriving in France is, “try the plat du jour”. Almost every restaurant has a small chalkboard by the door listing “the plate of the day”, and often there are a couple of choices. Entrée du jour; plat du jour; dessert du jour.

I’ve tried to abide by this adage – Qu’est-que c’est le plat du jour, I’ll ask. The rapid fire response is usually lost on me: blah, blah, le blah, blah de beouf, blah, blah avec frites. All I got was “beef” and “with fries” – but how bad could it be? (Well, pretty bad, if I put my mind to it, but it’s unlikely that stewed beef brains in pureed ochre with fries” would be a big seller, so I set my suspicions aside.) Voila, c’est le plat du jour pour moi. Merci.

And I’ve rarely been disappointed. There was one incident involving some strange sausage: andouillette sounded to me like andouille sausage back-home, but having eaten both, I suspect this is a coincidence. The andouillette I had was indeed a sausage, but the casing was obviously recently removed from some animal’s digestive tract, and the coarsely chopped meat it contained had a certain “wang” to it which whispered “kidneys” and “tripe” in the back of my mind and pit of my stomach. The frites were excellent, though, and I cleaned my plate.

But such misadventures have been rare: usually, the plat du jour is a savory cut of pork roast, or a grilled steak from some lesser region of the cow.

I know other folks who prefer to order a la carte – off the menu – and purposefully pick the item which they understand the least: I admire these souls, and will take such risks myself, but only at a Chinese restaurant when known quantities such as beef & broccoli or fried rice will be there as fall-backs should the unintelligible item also prove to be indigestible as well.

I’ve enjoyed exploring the dozens of patés for sale at even the modest modest grocery store; foie gras is a delight, despite my clear understanding of it’s true nature (if you have to ask, don’t); I’ve even brought home seafood, despite the fact that the nearest salt water is at least a day’s drive away.

But, dear readers, I regret to admit that I was undone by my cavalier attitude this past Tuesday night, and I’ve had plenty of time to contemplate the pro’s and con’s (and con’s, and con’s) of this approach, during my hourly sojourns to la toilette during the past 48 hours:

The story begins with an incongruous sign posted by the side of the road on my drive home: Pizza, Tuesdays, 6pm. No restaurant name, no phone number, no date– just the simple announcement that pizza will be available somewhere on Tuesday night at 6pm. Hmmm…

A few weeks passed, before I noticed a woman walking down the street in Arthon carrying three pizzas; a bit further on, I discover her source – a small panel truck parked in the town square: PIZZA written on the side. Hey, I thought, it must be Tuesday.

And I was smitten with this idea – let’s have pizza on Tuesday!! “Where,” asked Ceil. At the panel truck parked in the town square! “Sounds…. Umm… great, dear.”

So I counted the days, until Tuesday. Ceil was the last one home so I called and asked that she pick up the goods as she passed through town. She arrived at 6:30p empty handed – our pizzas would be ready at 8:15pm she explained. Wow, I thought, this must be a popular spot – this is gonna great! We scrambled to feed the kids something, while we waited for our dinner.

By 8:30p, Ceil had gone back into town and returned with two pies.

First, let me say that when you order a four cheese pizza in France, the cheeses are readily recognizable from their melted shapes – there’s brie, blue cheese, goat cheese and… hmm.. I’ll guess mozzarella. I would have expected Parmesan or Romano to get the nod, but it’s France, and there you go.

Second, let me also say that the rumors you’ve heard of Frenchmen cracking a raw egg into the middle of pizzas just before serving them are TRUE. Ok, ok… Deep breath…I’m being open minded… trying new things… trying new things… (but c’mon, who was the first guy who thought “I know what this needs: a raw egg!” How would that even come up?)

So we sat down to eat… and it wasn’t bad. Anything served piping hot on freshly baked crust is going to taste okay, and this was better still. In addition to the four cheese pizza, Ceil had ordered ground-beef and onions on the second pizza (an instance, I’m sure, of the palsy which overcomes one when faced with an unintelligible menu and the expectant glare of a guy standing behind a counter).

My woes began late that night… after several trips to the loo, I wandered downstairs for a bottle of water. Opening the fridge, I got a nose-full of the leftover pizza – and I went reeling back to the john for another round. Ugh.

I’ll fast forward and say that I’ve now lost two days of work as a result of my adventurous eating, and I’m sorely concerned about my ability to get back on the horse. Even the simplest restaurant fare sounds unappealing at the moment, and given the housekeeping standards in my own kitchen, I can’t see eating-in either.

It’s getting late… but tonight the only plat du jour for me is a banana and a glass of tepid water.

Ugh.

An update on the kids and school

2006-10-05T08:39:00.000-07:00

Lee and Miles continue to do well in school – or rather, we have no clue about how the kids are doing in school, and we continue to assume everything is fine.

That’s not true, exactly.

Ceil had a terrific visit with some of Miles’ teachers a couple of weeks ago. We learned that the kids in each grade are ranked, top to bottom, at the end of the school year, and this ranking determines which classroom they will attend the following year. A kid in the “A” class is at the bottom of the list; the ambitious over-achievers are rounded up in the “E” class.

Miles is enrolled in the “E” class. (Sorry, I should have warned you before saying that. I too did a spit-take when I heard that – I’ll give you a minute to clean off your computer screen.)

This made sense at the time, as the “E” class spends more time working on foreign languages, world history, etc. The principal rightly assumed that a non-French-speaking kid would have a better chance in this environment. And I think Miles is doing fine, though this casts his stories about the outrageous perfectionism of his classmates and teachers in a different light.

During Ceil’s meetings with the teachers, it was agreed that although he did not score well on the start-of-the-year tests (which, Miles hastens to add, were in French! No excuses, kid) he would stay with his classmates. While the class studies English, he goes to the library to study French with one or two other kids. The school has just hired an intern from Pennsylvania, and she’s going to do some additional work with Miles, and help him keep up academically. But, we all agreed, the main goal of this affair is for Miles to learn French – and if he falls behind in other topics, so be it. We’ll sort that out when we get home.

Ceil had a meeting with Lee’s teachers yesterday afternoon, and made a similar discovery. Because French schools assign kids based on the year (and not the month) of their birth, Lee has been attending the equivalent of fourth grade – not, as we had assumed, third grade. This was a cause for relief on the part of Lee’s teacher, who has been concerned about Lee’s performance in mathematics: “oh, so that’s why she can’t do linear algebra with the rest of the kids.”

Ceil and the teachers agreed that Lee would continue in the current classroom, and begin studying French with a teacher at a different school for one hour each afternoon. This gave be pause, as it threatens to complicate Ceil’s day even further.

Ceil is forever shuttling back and fourth between the two schools to pickup the kids for lunch (some days with her, some days at the canteen), after school (different times each day of the week) or if a teacher at Miles’ school calls in sick (no substitutes). Our house is simply too far away to justify making the trip home after dropping the kids off, so Ceil and the kids are often at loose-ends, needing to kill two or three hours in town before returning to school. Ceil made a break through a couple of weeks ago when she found a gym to join, and a pool with ‘open swim’ each morning – but this new requirement to take Lee across town for an hour each afternoon seems to exacerbate the situation.

So we’ll give it a shot. Despite her nightly hystrionics (“I don’t want to go to school – I can’t understand my teacher and she has bad breath!”), Lee is quite happy at the end of the school day and has made many friends. This weekend, in fact, she’s off to her first birthday party at the local McDonalds… and kudo’s to me for making the RSVP call to the other kid’s parents entirely in French.

Ok; time to run. Miles just handed me a form I need to translate, sign, and return. I think it’s a request for a meeting with the math teacher; or it maybe a permission-slip for a field trip to the gonorrhea clinic. Hmmmm…

Apres le pleuvoir, le deluge

2006-10-05T08:37:00.000-07:00

After the rains, the flood

I miss the rains that fall in Seattle at this time of year – the soft, misty, drizzle in which one (theoretically at least) can go for long walks without getting soaked. By contrast, the rain squalls which sweep across this region in Central France release huge, thick, weighty drops of rain – think water balloons and you’re on the right track.

A few weekends ago, we had a particularly stormy day, and I was utterly drenched after a thirty yard dash from the cover of an awning outside a store, across the parking lot to my car – and I want to emphasize this: drenched. As in, “Perhaps I’ll go back into the store, purchase some bath towels and a robe and wait this sucker out.”

The next morning, we were surprised (being city-folk) to see that the level of the creek running through the field behind our house had risen quite a bit. What had been a meandering stream, five to ten feet wide and less than a foot deep in most spots, was now showing more ambition – small rapids, foam, and enough strength that when Miles slipped in the mud, I rushed quickly from my seat in the back yard (leaving behind an excellent Bordeaux and a hunk of foie gras) to help him to his feet, lest we be swept downstream.

After we extricated Miles from the muck, we stood by the river discussing the level of the water. I sagely pointed to a few places along the bank and trunks of trees and said, “See kids, sometimes the water gets even higher.” Call me Huck Finn or The Riverman.

Fast forward two weeks to Monday night when the rains began to fall again – it being dark, we could not see the sheets of water falling outside our window, but the sound of the drops on the tile roof was enough to keep Miles and I awake. The rains were still falling when we drove to school / work in the morning, and though there are no windows in the factory where I work, we could hear the wind and rain through the roof. At lunch, a party of six bundled up and head out to “Mama’s Place” – a short-drive away. When they returned, soaked to the skin, it seemed just as likely that they had sailed round Cape Horn in an open skiff.

Later that afternoon, I met Miles after school and as we drove home we saw many cars parked by the side of the road in the forest surrounding our town (Arthon). A couple of guys walking along the road with large baskets, and concluded that they were hunting for mushrooms – a very popular past-time in this area; conditions must have been excellent, because there were dozens more cars by the roadside.

We were also struck by the standing water covering many fields and pastures on the way home – what had been newly tilled soil just the day before, now looked like a rectangular reservoir. I enjoy guessing what the farmers are planting and harvesting as we drive past them in their tractors – but the sight of all this water made the game more complicated: soybeans, winter wheat, Chilean Sea Bass…?

But none of this prepared us for the sight which awaited us as we pulled up in front of our house. The small creek with occasional ambitions at river-hood had swelled to well over two hundred yards wide and now covered the entirety of the pasture behind our house. The smallish rapids we had seen a few weeks ago were now the real thing, threatening to over-take a dilapidated foot bridge which crosses the stream at one point. Think “National Geographic documentary of the first kayakers in the foot-hills of the Himalayans” and you’ll be getting close.

Before

After
Miles was strangely energized and excited by the transformation – and Lee, upon her arrival, was positively hysterical. She ran from one side of the house to the other, alternating between improvised dances of glee and fearful shrieks about the prospect of our house being washed away. I assured her that the house was still forty feet or more above the water-level and we were in no danger – but perhaps my credibility in area of hydrography and water-sheds had slipped a bit.

I too, was struck by the change. We enjoy a bucolic view from our kitchen window and I gaze out at the meadow, trees, birds, etc. as I wash the dishes. (Or at least, I enjoyed it the one time I washed the dishes, but I digress.) Last night though, all evidence of the pasture was gone, and in its place, a wide, fast-flowing river of brownish water, carrying small pieces of debris. Truly, if you came to visit and arrived last night, you might have said, “Wow, what a great spot! I’ve always wanted to live near a body of water. Do you do any fishing?” We had gone from Irish Highlands to Mississippi Delta overnight.

The rain let up before sunset, and the sounds from the roof were replaced by a mild roar from the rapids. I listened to the sounds well into the night, trying to imagine the sheer weight of the water moving past, and estimating how wide an area might be draining into this one creek – where does the water go? What happens to all the wildlife in the fields? What about the cows? Would Anderson Cooper be stopping by with a CNN camera crew? Would the President of France make a fly-by in Air Force Une (a picture of a thumb painted on the tail to avoid confusion with Air Force Deux)? Maybe Lee was on to something – perhaps I should bring a few of our belongings upstairs?

It’s morning now, and as I write this, the sun has yet to rise, but from the kitchen window, the sound of rushing water continues, unabated. I wonder if the library has any translations of Mark Twain?

Peace.

The EIF Interview – Miles Erickson

2006-09-24T09:47:00.000-07:00

Miles Erickson, 11-years old traveler, humorist, reader, Lego-Builder and occasional bather, recently agreed to sit down with ‘Ericksons-in-France’ for a rare interview. We caught up to him in his chateau in rural France, outside the village of Arthon.

EIF: Thanks for sitting down with us. It’s great to be here.
Miles: Yeah, well, ok, I guess. Am I getting paid for this or what?

EIF: Well, uhh, no, not really. Were you expecting to get paid?
Miles: Hey, man, I need 4 more euros to buy that thing I saw in Paris last weekend.

EIF: Umm… ok, I guess we can talk about it. How about we get started with the interview?
Miles: Oh yeah, “we’ll talk about it” – like I haven’t heard that before. Whatever. Fine. Go ahead.

EIF: Great. Ok, so, how long have you been in France?
Miles: Maybe a month or so.

EIF: Have you been enjoying France?
Miles: Yes, I have, so far… but, I don’t know… maybe it’s going to get harder. At school, people are always coming up to me, talking to me in French, and I have no idea what they’re saying.

EIF: Let’s talk about school. What’s it like?
Miles: Well, it’s different from my school in Seattle. We have to go to a different room for each class. The classes last an hour. We carry all of our books with us, everywhere we go. We don’t leave anything at school or in our desks, so my backpack is pretty heavy.

EIF: How do you like the teachers?
Miles: Some I like more than others. Some haven’t got it through their heads that I speak English, and some are sort of mean. For instance, when I’m not doing something, they come up to me and start talking at me in French. It’s weird because everyone else in the class is staring and the teacher is making mean faces. That happened a lot during my first week, but not too much anymore.

EIF: Have you made any friends yet?
Miles: Yeah. A lot of people in my class help me. They show me where the classes are if I get lost; they teach me French; in class, if I don’t know what we’re doing, they help me get the right books out and stuff.

EIF: Are you learning French?
Miles. Sort of… I know how to say what my name is, and I know colors and numbers and days of the week and stuff. I have a piece of paper I carry with me that has some of the important things I might need to say. Each week, while the rest of my class is studying English, I go to the library and work with a guy who’s teaching me French. One way or another, my classmates and I are going to be able to talk to each other someday.

EIF: Do you get recess?
Miles: It’s not really recess. Each class lasts an hour, so you take two classes in the morning and then you get a fifteen minute break. Then two more classes and it’s lunch – which lasts TWO HOURS! Then, in the afternoon, it depends: some days I have one class, on Fridays I have two classes after lunch, so I don’t get out until 4:45pm. Most days I get out at 1:45pm or 3:30p. But every Wednesday, I get out at 12pm and every other Monday I get out at noon too. It seems like I’m not going to school very much, but the bad part is that it starts so early. You have to be in your seat at 7:55am, so you need to get there at 7:45am or so. The other bad part is that you're not allowed to go to the bathroom or to get a drink of water during class, so if you have to go, you have to wait for like, two hours, until it’s break time.

EIF: So what do you and your friends do during the breaks?
Miles: Well, we play some games. I brought my wallet with me, and the kids like to look at my Starbucks card and my library card. They really like to look at a one dollar bill I have in my wallet. When I show them the dollar they all say, “ooooohhh” like it’s a big deal. Then they tell other kids, and they all come up to me now and say, “doll-air? You…. Have…a… Doll---Air?” So I take out my wallet to show them, but then they say, “oooh, no, no” and wave their hands around. I think they’re trying to warn me that the teacher might confiscate it or something.

EIF: So are the teachers really tough?
Miles: Not too bad. But, like, if you forget a book or something, even if it’s not important, they’re like “Ooh, you’re in trouble” (except, in French) and then they take you to the office. The people in the office ask you a bunch of questions, like “Why did you forget your book? Where is it?” Then they call your mom or dad and say, “Your kid forgot his book and you need to bring it here.”

EIF: Has that happened to you yet?
Miles: No. But I forgot my lunch card last week. Luckily Mom noticed it and brought it to school before lunch.

EIF: Tell me about lunch.
Miles: The lunches are really great. The cafeteria is like a high-class restaurant (except you have a tray and you have to wait on line). The food is so good. There’s always a salad, bread and fruit, and some sort of meat or chicken or fish. They also have rice or potatoes. On Thursdays, there’s also a dessert which is good – a small pastry or something. Tasty!

EIF: Do you have to pay money?
Miles: No. You have a card that you have to scan at a machine, and it says, “Miles Erickson – accepted.” Except it says it in French.

EIF: Do they have Phys-Ed at your school?
Miles: No, but we have PE twice a week. We have two places we go – one is a nice gym, not as big as the one at home, but still pretty big. And then there’s another place we have to walk to – it’s a track with two soccer goals and some basket ball hoops in the middle. PE lasts two hours. They make us run laps for ten minutes and then stretch and rest for a while, and then run again for another ten minutes. On Fridays we pretty much run the whole time. On Tuesdays we run for a while and then play basketball or soccer. It seems like each time we have PE outside it rains and each time we’re inside the gym it’s sunny.

EIF: What do you do when you’re not at school?
Miles: Well, the house we live in doesn’t have internet, so I can’t really go on the computer very much. We’re going to get internet in a week or so… that’ll be good. We don’t have television either, so I read or I go outside. There’s a swing-set in the front of the house. There’s a creek in our backyard and my sister and I go down there sometimes. During the middle of the day we go lizard hunting.

EIF: Lizard hunting?
Miles: Yeah, there are these little brown lizards that climb on the outside of the house. They like the sun. They’re hard to catch – they’re really fast and they hide in cracks or holes in the wall. Right when you get close, they run away and hide. So far, we’ve only caught one. We let it go after a while.

EIF: What’s been your favorite part of your trip so far?
Miles: We’ve been to Paris twice, and we’re going again next weekend. That’s been fun. I like going to this English bookstore called Shakespeare’s. They have chapter books and comic books too. So far, I’ve bought a lot of Tin-tin and Asterisk & Obelisk books. I also bought a book called ‘Treasure Island’ and an Artemis Fowl book.

EIF: What else have you done in Paris?
Miles: We’ve gone to the Eiffel Tower, but we haven’t gone to the top yet. We’re going to do that next weekend, I think. They have these lines, and the sign says, “If you’re here, you’ll have to wait, like, two hours.” But we’re going to try it next time.
The hotels have been pretty good. The first time we had a good hotel, but we had to walk to the subway to go anywhere. That wasn’t fun – even though the subways in Paris are like three times nicer than the subways in New York City. The hotel we stayed at last time was cool – it was right next to a place my sister and I called “toy world”: it was all these shops with stuff for kids. They had a Lego store, figurines, radio-controlled planes and cars, stuffed animals. It was also close to a restaurant called “Pasta Papa” where they have, like, every kind of pasta in the world. The pasta I got looked like tennis racquets. Oh, and also, there was a Starbucks and a Hard Rock Café near that hotel.

EIF: What’s been the most surprising thing about France?
Miles: Well, there are lots of naked people.

EIF: What!?
Miles: No, I mean, like, lots of statues and they’re all of naked people. It’s sort of weird.
Another thing that’s weird is that all the stores and shops close at lunch-time. All the shop keepers and people close the stores and go to lunch. It’s kind of like the people who own the stores plan the day for the people who work there, and not for the people who shop there. If you want to do some shopping or something during your lunch break, you can’t because all the stores are closed!

EIF: What do you miss about Seattle?
Miles: My friends! I miss waking up for school later – I have to get up at 7am here. I miss my cat. That’s about it… oh, wait: I miss going to school in English!

EIF: How’s your family doing?
Miles: Well, my sister – not so good. She cries a lot and doesn’t want to go to school in the morning, even though her school starts an hour later than mine, which is totally lucky.
My mom is pretty good. My dad is pretty good. And I’m pretty good.

EIF: Thanks for talking with us, Miles.
Miles: Ok, so do I get paid or what?

EIF: I’m still thinking about it.
Miles: Whatever.

French Vocabularly Lesson #129: "En Greve"

2006-09-16T22:56:00.000-07:00

Repeat after me, class: Je suis en greve.... I am on strike.

Good. Ok, class, now follow me -- we're going to stand out in front of the school, shouting insults at the principals office and drinking wine. This is an imporant part of your training to become a worker in a French factory.

+++++++++

The big news this week was that the hourly folks at the company I'm supporting went out on strike. This was a bit confusing -- their annual contract is not up until the end of the year, so what gives?

I've since learned that labor unions operate much differently over here -- there is much more control at the local level (e.g. much less control), and folks can walk out any time, over any issue. Your buddy got written up for being late to work? No problem: tell the guys to put down their tools until management apologizes. Don't like the way your manager talked to your team during today's crew meeting? Easy-peasy: go invite the rest of the lads to stand in the parking lot until the manager grovels a bit.

Most of these actions only last a few hours, or at most, a day or two.

This was a bit different... or so it seemed.

A few weeks ago, seven or eight guys from the Prototype Shop met with their manager to ask why they had not received the cash bonuses that Assembly Shop guys were given last month. (I wish to all heaven that I knew how much money we're talking about here -- I think the bonuses in question were on the order of $150 per person. Small potatoes.)

I'm not sure what the manager said, but the Prototype guys weren't satisfied, so they de-camped to a spot across the street, painted a few banners ("Honey, have you seen the sheets from the guest room?") and set up a card-table and barbeque. Each morning for a couple of weeks, I'd drive past these guys, my windows up and radio blaring, and give them a friendly wave (like some nobleman, deigning to acknowledge the unwashed masses while passing through town in his coach-and-four.) Weird, I thought.

So I was quite surprised last Tuesday to walk out at lunch time and discover that the small troupe had grown to over two hundred, and they were standing in the road, milling about, slowing traffic, etc.

It turns out that the Assembly guys got to talking with the Prototype guys, and realized that altough they had received bonuses, they had not received the salary increase that the Prototype team was given back in January. I assume they did some quick calculation and realized, a) the company is in a tough spot right now -- way behind schedule with some critical orders yet to be processed, and b) the weather is excellent and c) italian sausages and boxed wine are on sale at the supermarket across the street...

You do the math: they had no choice but to join their proletarian brothers at the barricades. (Please que the soundtrack to Les Miserables.)

At frist, we were told that the strike would not last long... a day or two. But it was a problem, since the stikers were blocking access to all the gates -- thus, although there were a few non-union workers still inside building seats, they could neither deliver them or receive parts for the next batch.

The strike continued through the week -- at first, the company refused to negotiate. The head guy was out of town (as he often is), and it seemed to me like the managers left behind were reluctant to take action. But as the week wore on, things became more intense.

On Wednesday, the strikers stacked wooden pallets in front of the gates, and built a fire in one of the drive-ways. We could drive past, but only if you were willing to nudge folks out of the way.

On Thursday, about 150 strikers occupied the lobby of the administration building, whistling, shouting and using a bullhorn to make a general racket. Late in the day, the managers had to call in the cops to keep peace while the non-union workers (and folks who had crossed the line) left the premises. Apparently, there had been one incident in which a contract laborer got roughed up.

On Friday, they were back, and bolder, occupying a few conference rooms, and over-turning chairs and tables. They had painted slogans on the road leading to the Admin Building, and replaced the company flag with their own. Our team got a phone call at 6pm saying, "Time to go... the cops are here and you need to leave now."

One aside: on Friday afternoon, I spoke with Francois who is the number two guy at the company. I expressed sympathy for his situation, and asked if there was anything the our team could do to help. He replied in his good, but not perfect, English, "No, but I want to make sure you are safe... some of the strikers are very... very... ummm..." He hesitated and I began offering words: passionate? angry? frustrated? "No," he replied, "Drunk."

On Monday, things were even worse. The strikers occupied the admin building at the end of the day, this time bringing their BBQ and boxes of wine inside. Later that night, I'm told, they physically blocked Francois from leaving the building, in effect, holding him and three other directors hostage until about mid-night.

So where are the cops in all this? The strikers are trespassing, vandalizing company property, holding people against their will, for Pete's sake! Also, I learned from the Airbus guys, it's illegal for strikers to block access to the factory. So what the heck? Bring on the gendarmes!

On Tuesday, the managers decided to close the company before things got totally out of hand. Our team set up shop in a local conference center / monastary, and took advantage of the time to re-set our plans and do a bit of team building. Eric (the boss) would get updates a few times a day, and brief us on the latest developments.

During Wednesday and Thursday, there were legal hearings -- the company suing the union for breach of contract and illegal acts preventing the operation of the buisness. The union counter-sued, claiming that by closing the facility, they were denying their members the right to go back to work (!!!!!!).

Being American, I was shocked when I heard that the courts ruled against the company on all counts -- and ordered them to resume operations. When the company requested support from the local police, they were told to take it up with a different judge... which they did on Thursday.

So on Friday, the gendarmes were on-site, and the company called the truckers in and cleared the piles of stuff blocking the gates. We were asked to stay away, but I'm told that things went okay -- it was raining, so maybe the strikers had poor turn-out; also, it was early in the day, so folks were not yet drunk enough to tangle with semi-trailers.

By the end of the day, the team was back in our offices -- the strikers still outside, but operations were underway. We gathered at my house for a BBQ / boxed wine festival of our own that night, and Eric had a call around 11pm saying that the strike was over. Still not sure of the terms, but we're back to work on Monday.

I imagine, though, that the problems are just beginning. Post-strike emotions will run high, with reprisals and recriminations against those who crossed the line. The management team is not especially assertive during normal operations, and I fear for what might take place, performance-wise, during the coming weeks.

Stay tuned.

Le mort de les frelons... and other news

2006-09-15T06:26:00.000-07:00

Folks,

This will be the briefest update imaginable -- the battery on my PC is about to die, and I don't have my g--d--- power adapter with me.

Les Frelons -- are dead. Despite my plans to do the job myself, Ceil mentioned the yellow-jackets to the "housekeeper" at the "castle" which casts it's shadow over our little cottage -- and she said we absolutely, no kidding around, needed to call the Fire Department -- and indeed, she called them herself.

I'll save the full version of the story for later, but rest assured that they did the job with no problems and the threat has passed.

Les Enfants and L'Ecole -- are great. Miles and Lee are enjoying their school experiences. Night-times are stressful for Ceil and I, though. It's tough enough to read Miles' handwriting in his assignment book, but when he is mis-spelling in a foreign language, it's too much! Also, the French are zealots for paperwork -- I'm not sure what the teachers say to the kids, but they come home with the fear of God in them: "Mom, you have GOT TO GET THE HEALTH INSURANCE FORM TURNED IN!!!" Interesting.

Le Maison -- is ok. Ceil is casting about for a different house which might be a bit smaller and less rustic. I like the place where we are, but it's not cozy and the drive to work is a chore.

Le Grand Tours -- continue. We've gotten into the habit of visiting one or two sites each Sunday. So long as we keep the duration short, and the pace high, the kids are great.

Paris et le return -- we're heading back for another visit to Paris this weekend. Stay tuned.

Greve -- the French word for "strike". The company I'm supporting has had a nasty labor stoppage this week, with the striking workers periodically occupying the headquarters building and even barricading some of the directors in their offices one night. The members of our team are all safe -- the company closed it's doors on Monday and we de-camped to an off-site location for the duration. We think we'll be back on-site later today.

Ok... sorry to blurt all this out. Hope you're all well. XXOOO

A message from Ceil: WE HAVE NO INTERNET!

2006-09-11T06:15:00.000-07:00

Ceil asked me to relay the following message:

Dear friends,

I love and miss all of you very much. I want nothing more than to send you emails, do my own blog entries, and, I don't know, maybe do a bit of on-line banking from time to time.

Alas, my husband, entertaining agrarian fantasies, has set us up in a house located just south of the middle of nowhere.

As a result -- we have no internet connection, and the cel phone reception is unreliable.

I have taken to parking near the local McDonalds once per day and mooching off their free Wi-Fi service. I've figured out the technical aspects of this operation, but this has done nothing to make it any less pathetic.

Please continue to send me your emails; if you need a speedy response, email Andy at his work address.

Thanks for your patience. We miss you!

- Ceil

La Nuit de les Frelons

2006-09-11T02:03:00.000-07:00

A few nights back, the Erickson family was comfortably ensconced in our “drawing room”, when Miles pointed out some surprisingly large bumble-bee looking creatures mingling with the moths gathered at the French doors.

“Dad,” he said, “Look at those surprisingly large bumble-bee looking creatures mingling with the moths gathered at the French doors!”

Maybe that’s not what he said.

I think, in fact, he said, “Sweet Jesus, Dad! What the hell are those things?!? Damnit, this place freaks me out! When can we go home?!”

Indeed, these insects were startling – three times larger than any bee I’ve ever seen. Look at your thumb for a second. Now imagine a ¾ pound pre-historic looking winged beast, clad in black and yellow, swooping down and biting it off. That’s what I thought of, anyway.

But windows were closed, Lee was arguing that she didn’t really need to attend the third grade after all, and soon the bees were out of sight and out of mind.

On Friday, our friends Eric and Jen VanAvery came over for dinner. We had just sat down to eat (at the very French hour of 9:30pm), when Eric realized he had left his wine glass out on the patio table. He excused himself, returning a moment later with a wild look in his eyes. “Sweet Jesus, Erickson, you’ve got bugs the size of crows flying around out there. One of them nearly took my head off!”

Hmmm…

But the windows were closed (we double-checked, this time), and dinner was served, and soon the bees were out of sight and out of mind.

Come to last night, when we hosted our first true “dinner party” in the new house. (Dinner with the VanAvery’s, they being every bit as American and culture-shocked as we are, did not count as ‘entertaining’ – therapy, refuge-taking, yes – but not ‘hosting’ per se.) We were joined by our friends Jerome and Anne Marie, their daughter Jade and her boyfriend Jules, and later, by Philippe and Francoise Nallet.

My new barbeque is nothing like the one I’m used to back home, and French charcoal is quite different – so nightfall found the three men standing in the backyard, coaxing the coals to life. It was well-and-truly dark by the time the meat was on the grill, so I asked Ceil to turn on the light above the back door.

Some time had passed when I looked up and noticed the bees flying around the porch light. Philippe must have noticed them too because he exclaimed something in French – I’m not sure what it was, but from the tone, I’d guessing he said, “Sweet Jesus, you crazy American, don’t you know what those things are!?”

I said, quite casually, “Oh yes, those. We saw a few of them the other night.” Sensing Philippe and Jerome’s concern, I swallowed and added, “but there’re a quite a few more of this evening.”

Jerome is the epitome of measured-response and understatement – engineer, pilot, and husband of a Corsican fire-brand. So I was concerned when he said in his inimitable accent, “Oh, yes, Andy. These creatures are very dangerous. They are, how do you say, rather aggressive. You have them in the States, no?”

Maybe in the States – like in the Everglades – but not in Seattle.

Philippe explained that they are called “frelons” – similar to yellow-jackets, I guess. He said we needed to be very careful – “It’s important to find the nest tomorrow, and call the fire department for help in handling it. These are very bad.”

Gulp. Ok… so, we’re cooking… we’re cooking.

The women-folk, meanwhile, were absorbed indoors, Ceil wrestling the cap off a fresh bottle of gin, while leading a trans-national dialogue on the shortcomings of middle-aged, white men.

So, we’re still cooking, we’re cooking – maybe lamb doesn’t need to be medium after all – rare is good too.

The swarm around the porch light was growing, and now there were dozens of bees pressing their noses (do they have noses? fangs, perhaps) against the back door of the house. Clearly, we could not enter the house that way! But how to get out of the back yard? It’s well-fenced and the gates are all padlocked!

Miles, standing by, was beginning to regret his decision to hang out with the “men”, as we were all beginning to laugh a bit too much, a bit too nervously.

We shouted towards the house: “Ceil, can you hear me?”

“CEIL! Come to the side of the house!!”

No answer.

“CEIL!!! Hello CEIL!”

And, sure enough, she walked right up to the back door, popped it open and began to say, “Quit yer yapping! We’re trying to have a conversation!” – but she only got about half a syllable out before recoiling in horror at the bees swarming before her. She slammed the door, and began doing an odd dance, trying to avoid the bees now buzzing around the living room.

“Come to the side of the house!” we yelled.

“Sweet, Jesus, there are bees swarming around the back door!” she shouted back. “You better meet me at the side of the house!”

Good idea.

So Philippe and I, leaving Jerome at the grill to tend the last of the lamb chops, went to the side of the house and arranged lawn chairs so that we might climb over the fence. The women arrived. (Lee, shining a flashlight in my eyes, asked, “Dad, did you know that there are bees at the back door and some of them are in the house!?” Thanks honey.) We began passing the cooked meat, wine bottles, etc. over the fence.

Miles climbed over – he’s quite spry and agile when properly motivated. Jerome called out, suggesting that lamb tartar is really quite good, and that the remaining chops were plenty cooked. We pulled them off the fire, and took turns climbing over the locked gate.

What was the name of the US Ambassador to Vietnam back in ‘75 – the last guy to get on the choppers during the Fall of Saigon? That was me last night – gallant to the last, making sure my guests were safe, before tending to my needs. (“Sweet Jesus, move your French asses! Those things are coming to get me!”)

We reconvened in the foyer – all a bit sweaty and anxious. “Gee, honey… umm… why don’t we sit down and eat? Heh… heh…”

Jerome said, “Andy, you must take care of the ones in the living room, no?”

Actually, I thought, we should begin looking for a different house. Like, tonight.

“You’re right, Jerome, we should go do that.”

(I don’t know what the French equivalent is, but I bet Jerome thought to himself, “Who’s this ‘we’ you’re talking about, white man?”)

I grabbed a dust mop from the closet, and Jerome and I went into the living room. (I think Phillipe was phoning his lawyer.) We turned on the light, and the bees (seven in all, maybe more) began to land on the ceilings and the chandelier. The ceilings are very high, but with the help of the mop, I could just reach high enough– twisting the mop back and fourth to squish the first bee.

I released the pressure on the mop – but did not see the bug guts smeared across the wall – crap! I tapped the mop on the ground, and sure enough, the bee fell out, a bit dusty, but none the worse for wear. I applied a coup de grace with my right foot.

Having mastered the technique, Jerome and I found a rhythm – he playing Sancho Pancho to my Don Quixote: I trapped the bees up high and stunned them before bringing them to the floor for a rendezvous with my size 13’s – Jerome followed in behind collecting the carcasses in a dust-pan.

In five minutes, we had dispatched our foes, and we displayed the dustbin, filled with our trophies, to the women and children.

Dinner was terrific – the wine and adrenaline combined to raise our spirits. We talked about all manner of things, lingering over our meal until nearly 11pm.

As we bid our guests farewell, Jerome pointed to the window and said, “Andy, I made, beneath the window, a tombe – this is the word, yes? – a tomb for les frelons – you will see it in the morning.”

Sure enough, Jerome had made a small pile of stones over the dead bees – though when I looked this morning, I think some might have made a full recovery and flown away.

This afternoon I found the nest – a hollow tree not far from the yard. Not sure I’m up to the task of talking to the fire department, though. (What would I say? Do they really get involved in this kind of thing? Would I recognize it if someone called me a “wussy” in French?) I think I’ll stop by Brico Marché (aka Home Depot) and see if they have some spray cans or shoulder-launched missiles I can use.

The end ?