Katrina news in french

There is a radio station here that is the equivalent of National Public Radio and Paul listens to it while driving to work. They were reporting the news of Hurricane Katrina when suddenly he found himself easily understanding the French being spoken. It was a bit slower and clearer and he had no trouble understanding what was being said. The person speaking this way was a French professor from Mississippi State - so it was french with a bit of southern drawl! Funny thing though, Paul wasn't the only one who found this french easy to understand. We had some American friends over for dinner last night and they said that they heard the same broadcast and had the same exact reaction (even though they are from New Jersey).

We continue to watch CNN coverage of the hurricane aftermath and read what we can on the internet. Paul spoke with his sister last night and the family is all doing well. They are in Baton Rouge at this time and have not been back to New Orleans. We continue to keep them all in our prayers.

one-euro wine 

How cheap is cheap?

Wine is so inexpensive here. I was used to paying a lot of money for a good bottle of wine so I've been quite skeptical about buying wine for so little money. The local wines here are Cote du Rhone (made just south of here) and Beajolais (made just north of here). Those are the ones that are the cheapest and are very good red wines. We have been paying around 2.80 euros for a particular bottle that we like. The other day I was in a store and saw a bottle of wine for 1 euro. That is less than you pay for a small bottle of water! So what did I have to lose? I bought it. We brought it home, opened it, tasted and thought it was pretty bad. We only had one glass and I threw the rest out - but that was foolish, I could have used it for cooking.

So how much do you have to pay to get a decent bottle of wine? One euro is too low, but 2.80 is acceptable. What is the break-even point? We are still experimenting and will let you know!

 

Hurricane Katrina

Our thoughts and prayers are with our friends and family back home in LaLou.

We catch the news on CNN and the internet (thanks to our friend John who has found the best sites for us!) but please keep up informed with calls and emails if possible.

We love you and miss you all.

I took this as I peeked inside an apartment buidling on the river. 

TV schedule

There are only a couple of English-speaking TV stations that we get with our cable subscription. One of those is CNN. We saw that Larry King interviewed Lance Armstrong but we didn't watch it when it first aired. As you might expect, it's big news here about his EPO results from 1999. So we got on the web and checked out the CNN schedule to see when it would re-air. As best we could tell, it was 2:00 am (yes, that's right, 2 in the morning) on Sunday. So at 2:00 am I woke up to watch the show only to see Pamela Anderson on Larry King. I hate when that happens. So I went back to bed hoping that I just had misread the schedule.

On Sunday morning I checked the schedule again and observed that the rebroadcast would be at 12:30 (just after noon) on Sunday. So we got up, went to church, came home, ate breakfast then to kill some time, we went to the market and just walking around taking pictures. We arrived back at the apartment at exactly 12:30 to see the ending credits of Larry King live interviewing Lance Armstrong. Arghhhh.

So, back to the CNN website.... I THINK that I can catch this show at 2:00 am tonight (or morning, or whatever). So anyway, enjoy the pictures I took.

the chamber of commerce 

things are looking up 

32 steps 

Which floor are we on anyway?

There are 32 steps from the ground floor up to our apartment on the 1st floor (what would be the 2nd floor back home). There is a small elevator that fits about 2 people (or one person with a suitcase) but it is slow so we rarely use it. If you push the button labeled "1" on the elevator control panel, you go to the floor above us. For our floor we push "ES" instead. I haven't figured out what that stands for. (some help here!) "RC" stands for rez de chaussee which means ground floor.

which button to push?

In this buiding is the doctor's office... and lots of apartments 

Not the Medical Center

Paul had to go to the doctor today to renew a prescription. He called and asked if I would like to go along, meet the doctor, then go have lunch. His real motive was that he had forgotten the papers that he needed and wanted me to take them to him at the doctor’s office. So I did.

The office was not in a medical clinic or any type of building that resembled a doctor’s office. On one of the many apartment building doors, there was a simple gold sign that indicated that a doctor’s office was inside. We went in, and it didn’t look different from our own apartment building. We went into the office and there was a reception desk but nobody was sitting behind it. We just simply went into the waiting room and sat down. When it was Paul’s turn, the doctor himself came and got him. There was nobody else in the office so when the appointment was over, it was the doctor who took the money, wrote the receipt and said goodbye to us and hello to the next patient.

This particular doctor was recommended by the company doctor where Paul works in Solaize (population 2288). During the exam, the doc asked Paul if he had ever met the mayor of the town of Solaize. Paul said ‘non’ and then the doc extended his hand and said, ‘glad to meet you’.

the door to the doc 

in the waiting room 

The daily ritual 

Morning coffee routine at work

Paul says:
Every morning at around 9:15 a ringleader-type guy comes around to the offices and says, "cafe?" and thats the signal for everyone to gather at the top of the stairs. When the last person in the group arrives they go get their cafe. They go to a room with a coffee machine and everyone takes turns buying for everyone else in the group. You have to be prepared with a pocketfull of change because the machine only takes coins.

The 'cadres', as they are called (exempt employees) have their special place at the stand-up coffee bar using 3 small round tables and the others (hourly employees) generally sit in chairs around a big table (and arrive about 15 minutes later). All cadres have already greeted each other for the day, but the hourly people have to do the French greeting ritual with the cadres. The women kiss the other women and the other men. The men kiss the other women but shake hands with the men.

The topic of discussion on Friday is everyone's plans for the upcoming weekend. The topic on Monday is what everyone did on the weekend. During the rest of the week, topics of discussion are the weather, news, and sports of the day.

After about 15 minutes into the coffee break as the conversation reaches a lull, one particular man with a deep voice says, "bon". Without fail, that is the signal to return to work.

That's morning coffee!

smokin' 

Mmmm Mmmm

It was pouring down raining Sunday, the day we planned to barbeque in the park. I was determined that we would still go. I had everything ready so we donned raincoats and brought our umbrellas along with all the barbeque gear and headed out to a big park north of town. I really didn't know where else we could start a fire and make lots of smoke. Thankfully, on the day that the weather was really bad, we were just about the only people in the park. We set everything up and started cooking. It was pretty exciting.... knowing we would be eating real barbeque in a couple of hours.

As we were packing up to leave, a police car stopped in front of our "camp" and told us that it was illegal to barbeque in the park. Darn.

photos from the big event are here

assembling the new barbeque pit 

For the love of Barbeque

Harry brought us some mesquite chips so that we could have a taste of home here in the middle of France. Only problem was, we didin't have a barbeque pit. So we set out to find the perfect pit. Since we had to take the car, we decided to first look at the megastores on the outskirts of town. We were looking for a small, portable, cheap pit like you would find in Walgreens or Walmart for less than 10 bucks. Ha... what a dream. What we found instead was interesting. I guess since we were shopping in the suburbs, the pits for sale were the really big things (like we have at home) where you can hook up a gas tank. Obviously not what we had in mind. We went over to the camping section of the stores and found exactly the kind of thing we were looking for, only YOU HAD TO PLUG IT IN. It was some kind of electric thing. We thought maybe we should buy a tent to see if it came with an electrical socket. Some things we just can't find an explanation for! So anyway, we didn't find what we wanted so we travelled back into the city and decided to look at the mall in town.

In the camping section there were 2 choices. One was a square portable pit and the other was round. The round one was the only one of its kind left and was on a high shelf, the box was falling apart, and it had been marked down from (ouch) 60 euros to 30 euros. We managed to get it into the shopping basket and took it over to the checkout lady to pay for it. She didn't quite know how to handle the markdown so she made a phone call to someone. She then told us she would charge us full price and then we could go over to customer service and get a refund. So that's what we did.

We went to Customer Service and the guy there didn't quite know how to handle the situation so he had a conference with someone else in the booth. Then he got on the phone and called someone. After that, he was attempting to find a barcode in a book when someone that looked like his boss walked up. They discussed the situation and the boss got on the phone to call someone. At this point I looked over at Paul and I noticed that he was counting with his fingers the number of conferences that were taking place over this purchase/refund. It was 5. As they were continuing to work the problem, the boss decided to call another person. Now we are up to 6 conferences. I figured we would be there a long time, so I decided to try and get the pieces of the pit back into the box that was falling apart and out came the bowl part of the pit, in pieces! At that point, Paul told the guy... "cancel everyting". The store guy looked so relieved - he smiled at us and if to say.... "A cancellation I can handle.... a partial refund... no can do."

We got our money back and then went back inside and bought the square pit.

view from the very top 

Kate and Harry's excellent adventure

It was the last day here for Kate before returning to the states and then starting her senior year at college. With Harry here, they decided to spend the day exploring the city and being a tourist. They went to the market and walked around to a lot of the more interesting sights. They climbed the hill just north of the city and went up into the tower of the church that is on the hill. Harry took some awesome pictures. They returned home just in time for the Friday night routine of Mass and Pizza. Then they went out for the night. At the end of a long evening, they saw that there was the typical game of Petanque going on in the park across the street. Often we see little old men smoking, drinking, talking, and playing a friendly game of what we call Boucce Ball. At that hour, it was young people playing and Kate had set as one of her goals for this trip - to play Petanque in the park - so they asked these guys if they could play. They said it was a very fun and interesting time as they learned the rules and had some interesting discussions with them. They discussed socialism vs. communism, public education vs. private education, and the differences between higher education in the US and France. Kate and Harry came home late and Kate spent the remainder of her time packing for an early morning flight the next day.

sights in Lyon 

Hello Harry 

The long-awaited arrival of Harry

Jeff's classmate and a good friend of both Jeff and Kate is going to study abroad in Rome next semester. On his way, he decided to stop and pay us a visit (and bring me some mesquite chips for barbeque!). He flew to Paris and arrived just before Kate would be passing through Paris on her return trip from Glasgow. They were going to both ride the train together to Lyon. Plans were to meet at the station at a given location at a specific time. Problem was, they never saw each other and so Kate took the train home and left poor Harry in the station where he tried to spend the night. But at 1:00 am, they had to clean the station and so they kicked him out for a few hours and he hung out with the bums and homeless on the streets of Paris. (WE are SO sorry, Harry!) But he was lucky enough to catch the 6:00 am train because the ticket office accidently opened up a few minutes earlier than normal. We knew he was arriving around 8:00 am but weren't sure which train station he would select to depart so Kate and I each positioned ourselves at the two stations and with cell phones in hand waited to see where Harry would end up. I won! He got off the train at my station.

I was shocked to see him with only a backpack containing a full semester's necessities. And a big part of his load was my mesquite chips! We will be having barbeque tomorrow. Got to buy a pit first.

Lots of fleas at the Paris flea market 

Paris, part 3

DAYS 2 and 3
We had to put Jeff in a cab to get to the airport because the concierge at the hotel said that it was a holiday and he wouldn't trust that the busses were all running. We knew he could not get there because the metro stop that kicked us off the train was the line that he had to take to the airport and we knew he couldn't get to the airport from the hotel on the metro. He was flying British Airways and we were worried about his flight since the caterers were on strike. He got to fly but they were not serving any food at all on the flight. He was given a food voucher and told to go find his own food.

Kate left the hotel at the same wee hour of the morning because she was taking a short trip to Scotland to visit her old (former) dance teachers from school. She was flying from a different airport and Paul accompanied her on the metro. I got to sleep in.

After they were off, we decided that we would only attempt two activities for the day. The prior day was a little too much fun. So my choice for the morning activity was the famous Paris flea market. It was really a nice stroll through the stalls to see all the stuff for sale. The crowds were small because of the holiday, but it also resulted in some of the stalls being closed. We were pretty impressed by the amount of silver for sale and also crystal chandeliers. There was an abundance of those.

In the afternoon we went to Sacre Coeur. Its a church high on a hill, so we had a long climb but there were no lines or admission fees (as it should be..... it's a church!) We were pretty impressed.

Dinner was at a restaurant in the vacinity of the hotel. Best mussels ever!!

DAY 3
We had to switch hotels because Paul was on a business trip and it was a hotel reserved by the company. Surprisingly, they let us check in early and so then we were off to explore. We visited the Orsay museum to see impressionist painings and did a lot of just walking around looking at the sights. Dinner was at a "creole" restaurant and Paul had Chicken Fricasee and it came with a side of Red Beans and Rice. He said it had a somewhat of a curry flavor. Boudin was also on the menu but we passed on that. I had a shrimp salad.

DAY 4
Paul was off to Potiers to meet with a customer and I headed home. It was such a good feeling being back to familiar (ha) sights. People are just nicer here and not so much in a hurry.

August trip to Paris 

Paris, part 1

We just returned from our trip to Paris to send Jeff back to the states. It was poor planning on my part to schedule his flight from Paris so early in the morning. It takes at least 2 hours to get to Paris and since the trains don’t start running until later, Jeff had to be in Paris the night before. Paul didn’t have to work on Monday because it was a holiday, and he had to be in Paris on Tuesday night for a business trip, so it all worked out well. But it is so good to be back.

DAY 1 – The bizarre happenings

We arrived in Paris around 10 and were lucky enough to check into our hotel right away. We dropped off our bags and headed out. About 20 minutes later, as we were walking down the street, we had our first bizarre happening. Kate and I were walking side-by-side behind Jeff and Paul. Kate was near the street and an older lady approached us and grabbed Kate by the neck to choke her. Kate said, “What the f---?” and the lady let go before Kate had a chance to punch her. (She said she had her arm raised to hit her.) I was so shocked by it all, I just stood there! Nobody was hurt, but we had our eyes opened immediately. Bonjour! Welcome to Paris.

We grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed over to the Latin Quarter. As we were walking down the street, in our standard formation….. I heard a squeal and a small crash as though there had been a fender-bender on the street to my left. I turned to look to see what happened and a police car came crashing onto the sidewalk where we were. If we had been just 2 paces ahead of where we were, we would have been showered with glass.

This happened about an hour after the first incident. We had to stop and have a beer.

after the accident  

we were walking down this sidewalk and the glass shattered right in front of us

the wreck, encore

taking a break at Luxembourg gardens, notice the color of the plantings

the flowers at Luxembourg gardens - purple and gold everywhere, go tigers!

Paris, part 2

Still Day 1

Then it was onto view some sights. It was rainy and cold and we stood in lots of lines. We rode the metro a lot and I came to the conclusion that I had not seen Paris, only the Metro underground and the backs of people’s heads.

Jeff wanted to go up in the Eiffel Tower so we headed over there. We stood in line to get on the elevators for almost 2 hours. Was it worth it? I would say no. It was windy, rainy and cold. Paul and I paid to go to the top but when we got to the second level (and we were pretty miserable and cold), we opted to stay inside, grab a bite to eat and have a drink. Had we known that the ride to the very top was inside of a glass elevator and you never do get out of it, we may have gone. The crowds were huge and the elevators were packing people in like sardines. OK, so we can say we went to the Eiffel tower and went up in it. Check that one off the list.

After we left the tower, it was late at night and we were starved. Finding a place to eat in Paris (or France, for that matter) on a Sunday in August – the month when EVERYONE is on vacation – is a real challenge. One of the metro lines was closed, so we were on our way home and they stopped the train at some random station and told everyone to get off. When we asked a metro person what to do, she said go find a bus and ride that. OK…

So it was REALLY late and we spotted a McDonalds. We got take-out, bought a bottle of wine at a small grocery store, and brought it to our room to eat. Exhausted after Day 1.

(to see more photos, click here)

too bad Kate didn't have any form of school ID

The Eiffel Tower, before the excursion to go up in it