...continuation of trip...

Here I am reporting again, this time from Tours, the city where we will be staying for 2 nights. We are still in the northwestern part of france as we go around the country counterclockwise.

We went to see the D-Day memorial and Normandy beaches - something I had little interest in viewing but it turned out to be worth the trip. We saw a film telling the story of D-Day with only pictures and music. There were many before and after images of French cities - before they were bombed, beautiful and full of life - and then after... completely destroyed. I couldn't help draw the analogy to New Orleans - devasted by hurricane Katrina and it seeming that it could never recover. But if these French cities endured the bombing and destruction and then rebuilt better and stronger, then surely Nezw Orleans can do the same.

Along the Normandy beaches it was windy and cold and I could feel myself getting sick (I really could) as I breathed in that damp air so I am now suffering from my infamous hacking-cough, stuffy-nose illness that I seem to get every couple of years. yuck. so yesterday was more of a travel day and I got to relax on the bus.

Today we tour the chateaus on the Loire. Paul and I visited the area in 1984 so I am looking forward to seeing it again.

Check out a few more pictures.
At these hotels I have to buy time to use the computers and they are idiot-proof or hacker-proof, depending on how you look at it..; but I can only upload ONE PICTURE AT A TIME).

From Paris

After a few days in Paris I have finally figured out a way to post to my blog. I had to buy a card from the front desk for big bucks, er, big euros, and use the computer in the lobby which is so very slow.

Anyway, Gin and I played mega tourist by going to the Musee d'Orsay to see all the impressionist paintings. We climbed Montmarte to see Sacre Coeur (again for me)
and lots of other museums.

I got a theory about the Louvre and the French.... you see, the Louvre has zillions of religious paintings... and thats no exaggeration. And the French aren't exactly religious people from what I can tell. So they probably stripped all this stuff from churches during the revolution and then didn't want it in their homes. It was probably headed for the dumpster when someone came up with the scam...

Let's collect all the stuff.. put in in a museum with a few good pieces of art and charge stupid Americans and Japanese lots of money to come here and see this junk.

We saw the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, and the Venus de Milo in about the first 5 minutes that we were there. Then there were endless halls of cherubs and saints and just 'holy art'. If you went to Catholic school, the other things they do with these paintings is make HOLY CARDS. We got those from the nuns every time we did something good. Kinda like a gold star...

Anyway... another cool thing we did was climb the steps to the top of the Arc de Triumph, all 284 of them!

We travelled in the subway a lot and are real pros at getting around. Only took the train in the wrong direction once and that was only because we heard the train and ran to catch it before it left only to find out after boarding that we forgot to check the sign to see where it was going.

OK... so today it is on to Rouen (roo-angh) and then to Caen.

Trying to post pictures... check here.

welcome! 

Clear Lake woman evacuates to France

A Clear Lake woman, in an attempt to flee the approaching hurricane Rita has hopped aboard an Air France jet destined to Paris, then on to Lyon.
....sensational yes, true yes... but here is the real story...

My friend Ginny and I began planninig a trip around France when we first learned of our move abroad. It just happened that the timing of this trip is good - or bad - depending on how you look at it. She departed on the day that evacuation began for the Clear Lake area.

She arrived today and we plan to catch the TGV to Paris to enjoy a few days hanging out there until the tour actually starts on Monday evening. I will probably not post while I am gone unless I can find an Internet cafe to occasionally update the blog. Or else you may be reading "Paul posts" every now and then.

I will continue to journal the old fashioned way - yeah, paper and pen.

A Bientot!

click here for story

what will happen? 

Change in plans for the kiddo

fool·har·dy (fūl'här'dē) adj., -di·er, -di·est.

Unwisely bold or venturesome; rash. See synonyms at reckless.

[Middle English folhardi, from Old French fol hardi : fol, fool; see fool + hardi, bold; see hardy1.]
fool'har'di·ly adv.
fool'har'di·ness n.

UPDATE
Jack has decided to drive to Austin to stay with friends there. His roommate may have had some influence in his decision. Stay tuned....

Houston, We have a problem.

Houston Chronicle:
As Hurricane Rita chugged toward the Gulf Coast as a Category 4 storm today, Houston's mayor ordered residents living in vulnerable areas such as Clear Lake to evacuate, asked employers to let off non-essential workers and suggested schools cancel classes.

I talked to Kay and Dad today, and my sister Lisa too... our oldest kiddo Jack will try to make it to Lisa's house. A nice home-cooked meal from relatives in the area would probably be welcomed by Jack and appreciated by his mom!

His apartment is on the 3rd floor in Clear Lake... good news is - it won't flood... bad news is - he may not have a roof when he gets back.

just over the mountains into italy 

Words spoken and unspoken

(...by Paul ...)
When I asked my French teacher how long it will take to learn French, his response was that your brain has to be ‘rewired’ – associations and connections need to work without thinking and that takes time. I was thrown for a loop last week when I had to go to Turin, Italy. As soon as I walked off the train the feeling was overwhelming – here we go again being in a foreign country full of strange sounds and not being able to communicate. I got in a taxi and told the guy one word “Novotel”. Fortunately he spoke a little bit of English and off we went. It was an interesting albeit broken conversation en route with each of us searching for words and thoughts that would make sense to the other.

The meeting at the plant the next day was quite a cacophony as there were people from Germany, Belgium, England, and Spain. It was really interesting listening to the Spanish guy speaking French. I can just imagine what he thinks of my French. English was the only language in common and needless to say I wasn’t disappointed when we decided to conduct the meeting in English.

It’s amazing when things from the past pop back up unexpectedly. During the plant tour the operator told me that his group was using a product I worked on several years ago in Houston. He really liked it. But then he made a strange comment about how the product worked that was the opposite of what we had seen. I didn’t say a word but he looked at me and said, “We need to talk after the tour.” I asked him what he meant and all he said was, “your eyes are speaking.”

It was a long ride home on the train. Turin is just a short hop over the Alps from Lyon but to fly there you have to go through Paris. I chose instead to take the TGV “fast train” which takes about 4 hours (the regular train takes over 7 hours). I was a beautiful ride through the mountains including a long tunnel that took 13 minutes to pass through. Plenty of time to study more vocabulary words.

Rita, Go Away!

All of the talk on this side of the pond is about Global Warming. Take the time to read this article in the St. Petersburg Times. I found it from following links on the AccuWeather Web site.

The Natural Order of Things?

here we go again 

party animals... encore!

With no plans, parties, dinners, or other such invitations on the calendar, we were going to just hang out and nest on Saturday night. Since Paul had gotten home late from his business trip to Turin, we missed our Friday night pizza and so if we felt like going to get pizza, that would have been an option. But…. party animals that we are…. the phone rang around 3:00 on Saturday with an invitation for dinner that night. I find it so fascinating how “impromptu” everyone seems to be!

We were invited to the home of a friend of a friend… this gets complicated… my best-est friend Ginny has a friend who once lived in Lyon – she has lived all over the world, actually, but she had friends who still live here. She told them that we were here and she called to tell me that she gave her friends our phone number. So… friends of a friend of a friend called to invite us for dinner around 8:30.

Their home was in the same town where we have our other French friends, so the likelihood of getting lost again was a bit reduced. The only problem was that this home had no address, exactly… no house number. Just a street name. We didn’t quite understand how that worked until we got there and the house went on and on and on… all down this one street! OK… so we found it. Yay! And… we were on time!!

We were promptly introduced to everyone… and all French names that don’t sound familiar to my ears…. It’s REALLY hard to remember names when you have no frame of reference…. So like… you meet a new person name Joe, and it’s easy to remember NewJoe’s name because you probably know lots of Joes. But when you hear a French name and can barely re-pronounce it, much less try to spell it… well, remembering it is REALLY REALLY difficult.

So with our truly bad French, we found ourselves in the company of 6 gracious people of whom only 2.5 spoke English. We weren’t expecting them to talk English to us all night, but when invited, I did mention that maybe it’s too early to have us over for dinner when our French is lacking. Our host said, “No, if we don’t do it now, we will put it off and never have you over!” Well, it was a wonderful evening for us. They may have thought we were exceptionally boring since we didn’t do much speaking once they all got to speaking French at a rapid-fire pace.

We had a wonderful dinner and then we eventually said our goodbyes and headed back home. I’ve yet to write a Thank-you because I’ve debated a million times in my head whether to write it in very bad French or better English. Paul has a French tutoring lesson… he said he will ask his tutor to help him!

learning about the city 

Saturday - out and about

European Heritage Days - 17th and 18th September 2005
The doors and gates of Lyon’s heritage and that of its neighbouring urban districts will be opened especially for you.

Come and see these fine treasures of the past!

On the national theme of “I love my heritage”, you are invited to visit the museums, buildings, historical and archaeological sites, parks and gardens in your city…

With two thousand years of ever-changing history, with periods of magnificence and periods of turmoil, the metropolis of Lyon abounds with architectural evidence of its past, certain examples of which will only be open to the public during this weekend, so do not hesitate one single second!


So... after the Bagel Shop on Saturday, we decided to go up to the Croix-Rouse section - a section that is up on the hill just northeast of town. But what we had forgotten that this weekend was “European Heritage Days“ It is a weekend that happens once a year to allow the public to tour all the buildings free of charge. We “stumbled” upon the Mairie (or city hall) open-house and decided to go inside and take a look. The tour guy was SO nice. He immediately could tell that we weren’t French and started asking us lots of questions about if we were tourists, then how long we had been here, etc. He really went out of his way to show us around. We are always amazed at how nice everyone is over here. Any stereotypes out there of the French being rude, distant, or aloof are just downright false. We have seen none of that (except maybe by grocery store workers!)

In this particular Mairie, they had a lot of posterboards that detailed the history of the city. Very fascinating. Also inside was a wedding chapel - since all weddings here must be done by the civil authority and then also, if you want, … by the church. So these are some pictures taken inside.

After looking around there, we walked over to the market. It’s always fun and interesting going through the market on the weekend because you never know what you will find and talking to the vendors is a great way to practice French.

On this day I found a coffee vendor. He had lots and lots of bags of coffee from all over the world. I wanted to buy some but didn’t know what was good so I asked the vendor to recommend something. As we were talking to him, as usual, we were asked where we were from. He told us that he had spent 6 days in New York and all he could remember was that the coffee there was terrible! “jus de chaussette” or literally translated into “sock juice”.

And speaking of not knowing what you might find at the market, there were mattresses for sale on the street as well.

good food 

A taste of America

We were really craving some American food. Paul was on a business trip this week to Paris and then to Turin in Italy and I was "on my own" for food. There is a McDonalds not too far from our apartment and I decided to break down and have a Big Mac. After my French class on Thursday I stopped into McDo (pronounced Mic-Doe) and splurged 5.80 euro for the Big Mac (no fries, no Coke... just the burger). Well, other than it tasting familiar, it was pretty bad... the lettuce was wilted and old... and well... just not up to the McDonalds standard.

So on Saturday morning, still craving something American... we went on a quest to find more American-tasting food. There is a restaurant that serves bagels and also sells American products like Oreos and CoCo-Puffs. We ate there and it was SO good. Funny though, the bagel "meal" comes with a bagel, a beverage, and a 'side'. The side is either.... tortilla chips with a blob of queso... a pickle... or cole slaw...

Ugggght.... What is wrong with simply a bagel, cream cheese and a cup of coffee????

It was a pretty interesting place. On the speakers was not music, but a tape of old American commericals... like for Alka-Seltzer, Alpha-Bits, etc. etc. And the shelves in the place were stocked with American products. It was comforting to know that I could indeed find Crisco in France. I didn't look at the price though. They also sold POP TARTS. I love those things ... but they only had the frosted ones. I like them plain. They had a wide assortment of Campbell soups too. Paul asked why they would sell Campbells soup, but I know from trying to cook American recipes that many American dishes use Campbells soup... and I've had to eliminate them from my repetoire because you just can't find them in the stores. They also sold Tabasco sauce, Paul Prudhomme products, Old Bay Seasoning, BEN AND JERRY"S ICE CREAM, and many other products that I guessed were wanted by Yankees... cape cod stuff... I didn't recognize any of it.

where are you? 

"Ou est... ?"

It’s pretty interesting how real men don’t mind asking for directions here. And nobody else minds asking either. This morning as I was returning from the market, I saw a car that was sitting in the regular lane of traffic and talking to someone on the street who was obviously giving directions, with all the arm waving and pointing. The cars behind this lost soul were just sitting there patiently as though this was an everyday occurrence (and I guess it is).

I get asked for help pretty often but a few incidences stand out in my mind. Clearly I am of no help to most anyone who asks… I don’t speak French very well and I don’t know where many things are. When Kate was here, she came up with the idea of telling them that I don’t speak French well, but that I do in fact live in the city. So I try that…. seems all that does is make them have higher expectations and causes me more embarrassment.

The first time I got asked, it was by a Japanese girl and honestly, her French was no better than mine! The place that she was trying to find was on the very street where we were standing. She had a paper with the address printed, so we didn’t need to talk much. But I really didn’t help her. I later found out why nothing made sense and we couldn’t find the place. Here, unlike in the US, street numbers on one side of the street are TOTALLY UNRELATED to the numbers on the other side. OK, so if I’m driving in my old neighborhood and looking for 3606 and find a house with 3555, I can deduce a few things… first… that the house I’m looking for is on the other side of the street (because this number is odd) and second… that I just need to look a bit farther down the street. Not so here….on one side of the street we find 153 and on the other side directly across from 153 we find 475. Ok, so next time someone asks me, I will know.

Another time I got asked was just yesterday. A young woman asked me if I knew where the Leader Price grocery store was. (I must look like I don’t speak French)…. her French was worse than mine… if you can imagine… and she had a sort of German accent so I figured she would know English… so I asked her. She was relieved to know that I actually could speak to her and help her… and I did. I felt pretty good about it too.

winners 

Ya Hoo!

On the way home from work the other night, Paul noticed that the subway to Gerland was packed… abnormally so. There were even these guys that they call “subway packers” at the stations… it is actually their job to get as many people as possible in the cars. Then he noticed that many people were wearing Olympic Lyonaise (OL) jerseys and their red-white-blue scarves. Then it clicked – he had heard something on the radio about a game with Real Madrid (who are the New York Yankees of European soccer – buying all the best players). OL has won the French championship for 3 years running. Needless to say, it was a big game.

AND LYON WON!
(I’m trying very hard to sound excited… can’t you tell?)

the 3-lane one-way street 

French driving

There is a hall/meeting place between my French school and our apartment. On my way home I noticed that there was a lot of activity around the hall - big busses and lots of security. Must be having a concert or something… I thought.

After dinner, we often walk over to the patisserie (one of the few that stays open late at night) and we get a treat. We walk down the busy street that goes in front of the apartment. This street is 3 car lanes and a bike lane – all one way – in the direction of the rivers. As we were traveling in that same direction, a car pulled to the curb into the bike lane on their right (near us) and a young girl called out, “Excusez-moi”. We went over to the car and she asked if we knew how to get to the Bosche (this hall place). Paul immediately said, “oui”.

Giving someone directions... hmm. I chuckled to myself and stood back to see how this would play out….. I wondered if he could actually explain to her how to get to this place since she had just passed up the other one way street that would take her directly there. It was not only a test of Paul’s French, but also a test of his traffic maneuvering. The first thing he told them was the name of the street that they SHOULD have taken (which was one block behind them). I quickly pitched in and pointed to the street that they missed. So as Paul was explaining how to get to the hall from the ‘back’ way, their light turned green…. (they were in the rightmost lane….remember) and they raced ahead of the traffic to take a left hand turn from the rightmost bike lane, across 3 lanes of cars! Horns started blaring… people started yelling…. and I sure hope they made it to their destination safely. Seeing that sort of thing is pretty common… and that’s why I haven’t yet once driven our new car.

at the patisserie

 

Back to school for me

I’m taking a French class and it's pretty interesting. The class is made up of 8 students.

· Me, the oldest in the class and probably the second best student in the class.

· A young Russian girl who is really good with her French, probably doesn’t belong in the beginner class, she even complained, but they won’t move her. She knows a tiny bit of English.

· A girl from The Netherlands. She actually seems clueless. I think she is lost most of the time.

· A girl from Chili who is also good with French, but has a TERRIBLE accent. The teacher is constantly working with her. She thinks she should be moved too but with her terrible pronunciation, I doubt it will happen. She knows quite a bit of English too and she speaks it better than she does French.

· Two Japanese girls. They seem really smart but they just can’t make those French sounds. I feel sorry for them.

· A girl from (I think) Italy. She is really nice but she said that she has never studied French before!

· And the most interesting…. I talk to her a lot. She is a high school student from India. Her English is excellent. She is living with a French family and going to school here in France. She got “exchanged” for the son of the French family – he is currently studying in India. Here is the interesting part… she goes to a French school in the morning and comes to the French language place in the afternoon. Note… she is in a beginner French class… she said she is clueless as to what is going on in school in the morning. As a result of her studying for one year in a French school, she will have to repeat the grade when she gets back to India – but she is OK with that. She said that if she had chosen to study in the US, she would not have had to repeat. I’m not sure if it’s because her English is so good or there is some other reason. Anyway…. She was telling me about the family with whom she is staying. They are very strict with her. She must be in her room at 9:00 p.m. and lights out at 10:00. She has permission to stay up later if she has homework but she said that right now she couldn’t do the homework even if she tried. She has no idea what is going on in her French school. She also said that the family has NO TV. I asked her if she had any idea about what is going on in the world. She said no. Oh, and they let her use the internet for 30 minutes a day.

Pretty interesting…..

Come on in. 

Party party party

“Don’t talk to me tomorrow, I’m all talked out.” is what Paul said to me last Saturday night as we walked home from a dinner party.

The weekend of talk started on Friday night when we met our friends for dinner at a small restaurant near their apartment. I guess most of the French had not yet returned from summer vacations, or else weren’t yet ready to spend a Friday night out, so we had the entire restaurant to ourselves. There was nobody else in the place when we got there and nobody else came to the restaurant all night. That was a good thing… we could behave like Americans… we could talk with loud voices…. we could just be ourselves. We also had the opportunity to speak our mumbled French with the owner of the restaurant and learn about him. It was a very nice, talkative evening. And on top of that, the food was outstanding and the price was moderate. (And incidentally, a week later when we walked by the restaurant at about the same time, the place was jam packed.)

The next morning, on Saturday, we got the call inviting us to spend Saturday afternoon at the home of our French friends. We had a nice lunch and great conversation with them (in English) until about 6:00 pm. We headed home, had a few minutes to relax, change clothes, and make a guacamole dip to bring to the next social event on our busy calendar – a dinner party at the home of some American friends. We stayed there until around midnight and walked home exhausted.

That was last weekend. This weekend, we looked forward to a simple, quiet weekend with only one social event on our calendar – that was to have the French friends over for a Saturday afternoon lunch at our place. It was a very nice visit with conversations in both English and French (but mostly English). Just before they arrived though, we got a call from our American friends telling us about a party at Mark’s place that night, and we should call Mark to let him know we were going to be there. I did that. Our French friends left around 6:00 or so and again we had a few minutes to relax, change clothes, and prepare some homemade chocolate chip cookies to bring to the party. It was a fun party… more on that later…. I’m just too talked out right now!

You can take the kid out of NO...

We are becoming "party animals". More on that later... but last night we were invited to the flat of a new friend we met back when Kate was still here. When we first met him, we learned that he is from "up north" but went to school at Tulane and then stayed in New Orelans to work. We had a lot of fun talking with him, comparing notes on the Crescent city, the bars, Mardi Gras, and everything that makes New Orleans unique.

So last night this new friend was having a party and we arrived at the correct apartment building but soon realized that I had not written down the instructions clearly as to the exact apartment. We then found ourselves walking around the stairwell searching for the correct location of this party. So... Paul called our host, told him of our plight, and said ..... "So.... where y'at? " I cringed when I heard such speak, but soon realized that our host would likely not think much of it since he had lived in New Orleans for so long. Later in the evening, after a few glasses of wine, I asked him if he had noticed what Paul had asked him in the phone call. He said he did, and hoped that Paul noticed that without skipping a beat, he told Paul where he was at!

what happened to fifi? 

French news

I was just watching the news on one of the French channels. They showed the latest news on New Orleans for about minute. Following the brief update, there was a long segment on what is happening to all the animals that have been rescued. They showed an animal shelter of some sort and the people who have been caring for the animals. It was a very touching story but I had to laugh.... in a country where you can't walk around the block without "watching your step", it is no wonder that the news of the day was about what happened to all those lost dogs!

 

faire la bise

When I was riding home on the train/tram yesterday from school-supply shopping, I noticed something interesting. The train travels through an area with a few colleges so there are a lot of college-age kids riding this thing. So as I was sitting there, three young men boarded the train at the middle of the car where the door was located. A young woman was sitting at the rear of the train car and after the train took off and before the guys even had a chance to see her, she rose from her seat (1/2 car away) and walked up to them and did the French kissey thing. La bise. She kissed the first one on the right, then the left. She said, “ca va?” to the second one and did the same. She said, ‘bonjour’ to the third guy, kissed him, and then went back to her seat. That was it.

They never spoke again, they never looked at each other again, they all went their own way.

I find this all so fascinating, but so confusing.

National Geographic - October 2004 issue

Gone With the Water

The Louisiana bayou, hardest working marsh in America, is in big trouble—with dire consequences for residents, the nearby city of New Orleans, and seafood lovers everywhere.

read it here:
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/index.html

signs like this one are all over town 

La rentrée scolaire

It’s “back to school” time, or la rentre scolaire, as it is called here. Stores have been selling school supplies for quite a while now and each time Paul and I went to the store, I felt like a naughty child sneaking away to gaze the aisles of pens, pencils, crayons, notebooks, paper, and all of the wonderful things that occupy shelf space in the stores at this time of the year. So now that all the moms aren’t crowding the aisles and the children are all in school, I looked forward to having the opportunity to check out French school supplies.

I went to the largest store I have found here, Auchan. It’s even bigger than the biggest Walmart. I had to take a train/tram to get there but it was well worth the effort. I soon found myself in the school supply department….. first there were erasers…. hundreds of them… and these weren’t the little playful erasers in the shapes of fruit and flowers and dinosaurs.. these were serious erasers. My first thought…. those French kids must make a whole lot of mistakes! But I was struck by how well designed the erasers were. What style! Then it was on to the pencil section. No standard No. 2 yellow pencils down these aisles. They were the kind you find in the art stores… a number and a letter– like 9B, 8B, 7B, 6B, 5B, 4B, 3B, 2B, B, HB, F, etc. and I quickly realized why there were so many erasers… these pencils have no handy-dandy eraser at the top.

Too bad I couldn’t take notes… I found those error correction tools and laughed to myself at the catchy name for them… but now I can’t remember what they were called. So then it was on to the pen aisle. Thousands of pens… all fountain pens – or rather, cartridge pens - every color and style and all really cool. They even had disposable cartridge pens for 1.50 euros (came with a spare cartridge). Even those had a really catchy name that I have since forgotten.

I began to wonder where the ball-point pens were when I spotted the familiar labels… BIC, Papermate, Pilot, etc. What a disappointment. If I wanted a ball-point pen, it would have to be made in America. Then I checked out the notebooks and papers. No having to choose between “college ruled” or notebook paper. No lines – instead, it was all graph paper. I knew that, but I thought I might see something labeled, “papier americain”.

I didn’t buy any school supplies. I didn’t need any. Not this year, anyway.

view from the kitchen window 

Not the trains

“We aren’t in Texas anymore.” was the first thing that came to my mind when Paul told me that his co-workers wanted to know my first impressions of France. Everything was different… obviously things looked different … but also the smells were different… and the most surprising thing of all was that the sounds were all so different. There was immediately a new language with strange voice inflections as well as words.

Just in the apartment, the floors creaked louder than I could have ever imagined on these hundred year-old hardwood planks. And when someone in the building turns on the water, the pipe just outside the kitchen window makes a loud water-rushing noise. There are delivery trucks and street-sweepers... and a very unusual sound is one of an opened water hydrant gushing water out onto the street to clean it. Here, the sirens sound different for both the police and the fire trucks – we have a fire station about 3 blocks away.

Every morning, pigeons are scrounging for food just outside the kitchen window. They coo a lot. I don’t quite know how food gets out onto the roof, but they seem to find something... or else they just like to hang out there.

But the most frightening sound of all is one that I have now gotten used to. During my first week here, I heard a really, really loud sound of breaking glass that lasted for about 5-10 seconds. It was so loud that it scared me as I rushed to my front window to see what was happening. To my surprise, the big green glass-recycling bin was being emptied into a dump truck and what I was hearing was the sound of thousands of glass bottles falling, and possibly breaking, as they fell into the truck. They come every Friday to empty it. I now look forward to their coming!

See more photos.

emptying the "green monster" 

Good point!

Just heard on the BBC: (something like...)

"If you think you saw a lot of looting in New Orleans, you haven't seen anything - just wait until that money gets into the hands of Louisiana politicians!"

Got to love those Brits.

Oh my goodness!

Today begins day one of more French classes for both of us. I went this morning to take a placement exam and then have petit déjuner (breakfast) with my classmates. It looks like there are 3 of us Americans in the group of new students. One man is from DC and another from la californie. Too bad that this California guy is giving Californians and Americans a bad rap! I sat next to him at breakfast and listened to him go on and on about how bad his accommodations are with a family who has opened their home to him. He is complaining :

1. that they live too far away from the school – what he doesn’t understand is that the school is located in the “business district” and that the farther away you live, the nicer your house is…. I think it works that way in California, doesn’t it?? Who lives in central LA??

2. that there are no window screens and therefore bugs are coming into his room – I don’t think they “do” window screens here… we don’t have any and I haven’t seen any yet in other places… and besides… there are hardly any bugs! I’m pretty shocked by that coming from the gulf coast and living with cockroaches, mosquitoes, fire ants, cicadas and who knows what else! What’s the deal? California doesn’t have bugs? In the three months I have been here, I have seen about 5 mosquitoes and a few moths.

3. that the family doesn’t really house him in their living quarters – they have given him an apartment-style room in their basement - what a luxury…. and after hearing the American students complain last summer about having to live with the family, I think he has the better deal!

Anyway… I’m venting… sorry.

a pleasant visit on Saturday

The phone rang Saturday around 10:00 am. It was from a French couple we met when we were invited to the country-music festival in Crappone at the end of July. We had exchanged phone numbers and email addresses with the intention of getting together again in the future. I was embarrassed to call them because my French had not gotten any better since the last time we were together and they were kind enough to speak English to us when we first met them. I was also unsure about their plans during August when the entire population of france seems to be somewhere other than france.

So the call was to invite us over to their house…. for lunch… that day! I couldn’t say no – I didn’t really want to say no, but we had just started our day after a late night out the night before and we had many errands to run. So I said ok…. we would be there at 12:30. Now… I wasn’t sure if 12:30 meant French time or American time… Americans, for the most part, love promptness in comparison to the French where time is more fluid. But it didn’t matter because we didn’t even walk out the door until 12:10 and Paul took a wrong turn on the way there….. I think we arrived about an hour late.

Their house is in the suburbs and is very nice with beautiful gardens and a pool. They told us to bring our swimsuits but in the rush to get out of the apartment we decided that finding them would take more time than we had. And when we got there they said it was ok – they thought it was too hot to swim (it wasn’t really not - not Houston hot). We sat around and talked about the hurricane (and took out the maps of Louisiana) and had a lot of interesting discussions about New Orleans and the city and its location and the people.

Their house furnished they way I would have expected a French house to look. I have been surprised at how most stores sell only very modern furnishings so I was under the impression that traditional French style was found only in magazines!

We had a very nice simple lunch with the traditional cheese after the meal and before a fruit salad dessert with coffee – the kind you can stand a spoon in. Our host loves all kinds of music, particularly American music, and he played for us one of his Cajun albums! The lyrics were, of course, in French and he laughed at how hard they were to understand. We had a great time visiting with them. Just before we left, he took us to see his wine cellar. I tried to do a mental count of bottles. He had all these compartments for (I guess) different categories of wine. There must have been 2-300 bottles down there! He gave us a couple of bottles to compare because one bottle came directly from the vineyard where it was bottled and the other bottle was one he bottled himself after purchasing only the wine from the vineyard. Geez… you think we will be able to tell? I’ll report later. We said goodbye with a promise to have them over soon for Tex-Mex.

ceiling in the basilica 

Roman Ampitheatre 

A trip to see the ruins

My American friend and I decided to go to the The Museum of Gallo-Roman civilization on the day it was open free to the public. It wasn’t so much that we didn’t want to pay the ~4 bucks, its was more that we could just ‘breeze’ in without the hassle of having to purchase a ticket with usually involves speaking French and dealing with the multitude of Euro coins and bills.

Before we went to the museum, we had to get there by going up to the top Fourvière Hill where this museum was located. There is a trolley type car that you can take to go up the hill and that in itself is interesting and fun. We first stopped at the Notre Dame Basicala located at the top of the hill. Beautiful church and rather new in European time.

Then it was on to the museum. Too bad I couldn’t read Latin, because this is a great place to practice! The museum was full of artifacts and architectural pieces found on Fourviere Hill in Lyon. I think I read somewhere that they found this stuff by accident when they were digging to build apartments.

Here is some official history:

“The second town of the Roman Empire after Rome, Lugdunum (the old name of Lyon) was proclaimed the capital of the three Gauls by the Emperor Augustus. The Romans built a theatre, a forum, temples, the shrine which is said to be to Cybèle, baths, aqueducts and comfortable houses. On the slopes of the Croix Rousse the Amphithéâtre des 3 Gaules became the political centre, where every year representatives of 60 tribes from three provinces met.”
-From Yahoo Travel

The museum doesn’t allow pictures so I have none but you can see the museum here.

I wanted to stay longer and see more of the museum – well worth a visit – so I plan to go back at another time.

We walked around the ruins after seeing the exhibits. This is the place (in the amphitheatre) where they have summer concerts and we attended the “Night of Soul” concert that was just awesome. The setting for any concert is great and at that particular concert, the music was awesome too.

The way home was by foot along a very narrow road. I found the buildings to be very old and charming. I shot a few pictures when I wasn’t watching out for the cars.

See photos here.

 

La.... our home state

We are here, thousands of miles away from family and friends in New Orleans and all the Gulf Coast, watching WWL on the Internet and CNN coverage on TV and simply can't believe what we are seeing.

We are angry and hurt at the lack of federal relief effort.

Where did they get this FEMA guy named Mike Brown??

Oh, one other thing.... a french radio station here put out an email to the American club here looking to interview anyone around here with ties to New Orleans..... Paul (born and raised in NO) said, "nah, I don't think I want to do that". 15 minutes of fame, lost.

 

Tex Mex dinner

You may have caught the mention of having friends over for dinner the other night. We fixed a Tex-Mex dinner of fajitas with our precious, authentic, mesquite-smoked barbeque.

These had to be really special friends, you might say, and yeah, they are our good (only) English-speaking, American friends.

So the meat was authentic but the “hunting and gathering” resulted in the following ingredients:

FLOUR TORTILLAS: the package says “Tortillas Mexicaines pour Fajitas Buritos and Enchiladas” made in Saveurs. On the back of the package, the history of the tortilla is explained in detail – but I didn’t read it – print too small, didn’t want to work that hard to translate, and really didn’t care about the history of the tortilla

CHEESE: no cheddar or monterey jack cheese here but a dutch cheese called Minolette is close – same yellowey color and same texture, kinda same taste but very very smelly

AVACADOS: very authentic and worth 1.30 euros each but finding just the right degree of ripeness was tricky – actually had to throw one out

BEANS: well, you know the story… I cooked these before and had them squirreled away in the freezer

SOUR CREAM: none of that here but the imposter is Crème Fraisce. It’s kinda sweet but mixed with all the other stuff, you don’t notice

TOMATOES: no problem, the real deal, and very tasty

LETTUCE: no iceburg lettuce here, but the right part of the leafy stuff can pass for iceburg

PICANTE SAUCE: …. Interesting…. They sell something here (and not easy to find) called “Salsa Heaven”. Never mind the name… you can imagine that it’s more like “Salsa Earth” but I used it as a base and made my own sauce.

JALEPENOS: no such thing anywhere (that I have found – and I have looked) but I did buy a jar of Piments Vert (green peppers) but no indication of what kind of green peppers they are… but they are long and skinny. They don’t taste hot right away – but hit you much later (an interesting after-wallop).

CILANTRO: I was worried about finding cilantro over here so I actually went to Berings and bought some cilantro seeds to bring with me. But it has been somewhat easy to find at the supermarkets but 10 sprigs cost about 2 euros. At the market on Sunday we found a huge bunch for one euro. (score!)

And PICO de GALLO: made from all the ingredients…

Mmmmm c’est bon!
No margaritas.... way too much hunting and gathering to try that!