No, there wasn’t a Thanksgiving holiday in France; we both worked Thursday and Friday. But we did celebrate Thanksgiving on the following Sunday. We visited the home of another American couple, Gerry and Amy with young son Benjamin, who invited us and 2 other couples (both American women with French husbands, each with 2 kids) for dinner. It had snowed the night before, enough to make the ground white before melting by the afternoon. But Gerry and his son had used every scrap of snow in their yard to build a snowman over 5 feet tall.
We had a full Thanksgiving spread with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, creamed corn, mashed sweet potatoes, cranberries, bread, and for dessert pumpkin and sweet potato pie. The turkey was cooked by one of the Frenchman (he went to college in Texas for several years). He had reserved a turkey at a local shop, but when he went to get it in the morning the owner didn’t have the turkey. He then spent the morning driving around to each of the stores in the area until he found one that had turkey pieces: 4 legs, 3 wings, and 2 breasts. We were impressed that he went to so much effort. The mutant Maddenesque turkey tasted great.
We brought bread and wine as our contribution. Standing in front of the huge wine area at the store (seriously, wine typically takes up both sides of a full grocery aisle) we suffered selection crisis and picked something mid-priced with a nice label. To our relief, one of the Frenchman gushed over a bottle we picked.
We had a great time at dinner, both of us miss American food. Our social network is growing, activities are increasing, and contentment is settling in. All good signs that we may survive the rest of our stay.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Minutiae
Life is beginning to settle down for us. We’ve gotten over most of the frustrations and learned to accept the annoyances that refuse to submit.
We are still waiting for our official visa papers to come back from the “Prefecture”. This has been a long process. I arrived last July on a “business trip”, which is permitted for up to 3 months. We submitted paperwork with passport photos here in France, then visited the French embassy in Chicago where we submitted more forms and photos and received a temporary 3 month visa, then signed more forms and provided more photos when back in France; then they lost Shereen’s paperwork so we took more photos and resigned the form, and then the form was signed in blue ink rather than the required black. Now everything seems to be inline, but we are approaching 3 months without our visas yet. We were told we will receive the visas before we leave for Christmas, increasing the odds we will be able to get back into France without too much trouble.
Grocery shopping has become a weekly activity for us. The bland French food has cultivated our food obsession; high on our list of things to do while in the US over Christmas is to visit Thai and Mexican restaurants. Even the food at Thai restaurants here has no kick. For groceries, we typically visit the large stores nearby, Intermarche or Auchan. By the way, the stores here have figured out how to prevent shoppers from leaving carts scattered in the parking lot. The carts are chained together in their corral and to release them you insert a one Euro coin into the cart. The coin is captured in the cart while you shop and is not released until you connect it back to the chain in the cart corral. The chain pushes the coin out and you are on your way. A somewhat ingenious way to keep the carts in their corral.
We have joined a tennis club. The girls play on Thursdays and the guys play on Fridays. We arranged to visit for the first time on a Friday (with the help of Monique) and were welcomed by a few women (they seem eager to have Shereen join since there are only a few girls). They spoke mostly French, so we smiled and nodded, able to understand bits and pieces. Once they realized we weren’t following very well we transitioned to half-French, half-English to communicate. The gym had only one court, so it was more of a practice for a few hours. About 8 guys would rotate on and off, going through basic hitting and progressing to serving. Most of them were good players and could really smoke the ball. This was the first time I’ve played with someone who could hit hard; I didn’t embarrass myself, but in a straight up game I would have trouble getting many points off these players. We will also be able to reserve court time so that Shereen and I can play one-on-one. This will be a great way to improve our tennis skills, and also integrate better into the culture since we will be forced to speak more French.
Shereen has been teaching English at a local language instruction business for several weeks. We’re not sure if she will be able to continue. There has been confusion over if her visa will allow her to work; the company lawyer is pursuing this further since he thinks she should be able to. Regardless this has given Shereen something to do; she enjoys preparing lessons and working with the students. All in English, which is great, since she was frustrated with French. Even if she isn’t allowed to work, we are hoping she has made enough contacts to continue tutoring on her own.
In addition to tennis, I have joined the Thursday night gym. Last week we played basketball and indoor soccer. Shereen participates in classes at the gym about 3 times a week and I have started doing her Billy Blanks exercise DVD’s at the apartment (yes, I feel ridiculous, but they work!). So we are finally getting a decent amount of exercise.
While walking through downtown Orleans, we passed a store that had shirts with the Franklin & Marshall College logo. This was intriguing since this is a Division III college in Lancaster that my dad had graduated from. The store was closed, but through the window I could read a brochure in English that described F&M as a bastion of free thinking, where Martin Luther King Jr spoke and great minds came to learn. Then there was something about French students visiting, I couldn’t read when or why, but apparently there is a French connection with F&M that is strong enough to sprout a store in Orleans to commemorate this institution. The world always surprises.
On occasion I have been car pooling to work. This usually means that I return home late, around 10 or 11 pm. On one of these late night drives in my bosses Toyota Prius (they are rare and difficult to get here) a large, white, slow-moving bird flapped low across the road in front of us. We were moving far too fast and the bird far too slow to avoid a collision. Apparently this was an owl on the hunt for mice. There are boar and deer that make convenient car targets as well, but fortunately we have not been on mark yet.
This week the Christmas market opens in Orleans and continues through the end of December. Several plazas throughout town will be filled with vendors. I’m told they serve spiced, hot wine. More details to come after we experience this.
We are still waiting for our official visa papers to come back from the “Prefecture”. This has been a long process. I arrived last July on a “business trip”, which is permitted for up to 3 months. We submitted paperwork with passport photos here in France, then visited the French embassy in Chicago where we submitted more forms and photos and received a temporary 3 month visa, then signed more forms and provided more photos when back in France; then they lost Shereen’s paperwork so we took more photos and resigned the form, and then the form was signed in blue ink rather than the required black. Now everything seems to be inline, but we are approaching 3 months without our visas yet. We were told we will receive the visas before we leave for Christmas, increasing the odds we will be able to get back into France without too much trouble.
Grocery shopping has become a weekly activity for us. The bland French food has cultivated our food obsession; high on our list of things to do while in the US over Christmas is to visit Thai and Mexican restaurants. Even the food at Thai restaurants here has no kick. For groceries, we typically visit the large stores nearby, Intermarche or Auchan. By the way, the stores here have figured out how to prevent shoppers from leaving carts scattered in the parking lot. The carts are chained together in their corral and to release them you insert a one Euro coin into the cart. The coin is captured in the cart while you shop and is not released until you connect it back to the chain in the cart corral. The chain pushes the coin out and you are on your way. A somewhat ingenious way to keep the carts in their corral.
We have joined a tennis club. The girls play on Thursdays and the guys play on Fridays. We arranged to visit for the first time on a Friday (with the help of Monique) and were welcomed by a few women (they seem eager to have Shereen join since there are only a few girls). They spoke mostly French, so we smiled and nodded, able to understand bits and pieces. Once they realized we weren’t following very well we transitioned to half-French, half-English to communicate. The gym had only one court, so it was more of a practice for a few hours. About 8 guys would rotate on and off, going through basic hitting and progressing to serving. Most of them were good players and could really smoke the ball. This was the first time I’ve played with someone who could hit hard; I didn’t embarrass myself, but in a straight up game I would have trouble getting many points off these players. We will also be able to reserve court time so that Shereen and I can play one-on-one. This will be a great way to improve our tennis skills, and also integrate better into the culture since we will be forced to speak more French.
Shereen has been teaching English at a local language instruction business for several weeks. We’re not sure if she will be able to continue. There has been confusion over if her visa will allow her to work; the company lawyer is pursuing this further since he thinks she should be able to. Regardless this has given Shereen something to do; she enjoys preparing lessons and working with the students. All in English, which is great, since she was frustrated with French. Even if she isn’t allowed to work, we are hoping she has made enough contacts to continue tutoring on her own.
In addition to tennis, I have joined the Thursday night gym. Last week we played basketball and indoor soccer. Shereen participates in classes at the gym about 3 times a week and I have started doing her Billy Blanks exercise DVD’s at the apartment (yes, I feel ridiculous, but they work!). So we are finally getting a decent amount of exercise.
While walking through downtown Orleans, we passed a store that had shirts with the Franklin & Marshall College logo. This was intriguing since this is a Division III college in Lancaster that my dad had graduated from. The store was closed, but through the window I could read a brochure in English that described F&M as a bastion of free thinking, where Martin Luther King Jr spoke and great minds came to learn. Then there was something about French students visiting, I couldn’t read when or why, but apparently there is a French connection with F&M that is strong enough to sprout a store in Orleans to commemorate this institution. The world always surprises.
On occasion I have been car pooling to work. This usually means that I return home late, around 10 or 11 pm. On one of these late night drives in my bosses Toyota Prius (they are rare and difficult to get here) a large, white, slow-moving bird flapped low across the road in front of us. We were moving far too fast and the bird far too slow to avoid a collision. Apparently this was an owl on the hunt for mice. There are boar and deer that make convenient car targets as well, but fortunately we have not been on mark yet.
This week the Christmas market opens in Orleans and continues through the end of December. Several plazas throughout town will be filled with vendors. I’m told they serve spiced, hot wine. More details to come after we experience this.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Barcelona
For our last travel hurrah of the year we visited Barcelona over the past 4 days. Tuesday was a holiday in France and I was given Monday off as well. This gave us time to make the 9 hour drive to Barcelona.
We have grudgingly adjusted our travel pattern since the campsites are closed. We broke up our drive toward Spain by stopping after 5 hours in Toulouse Friday night, and then drove the remainder Saturday. I had purchased tickets to a musical event Saturday night. My intention was to buy tickets to the Palau Theater, a classic building that is a site in and of itself. But not being careful enough while clicking on the website I ended up buying tickets to a show at the Petit Palau, a modern theater in the basement of the Palau. Oh well, I decided against buying another set of tickets.
Having dinner before we took the metro to the theater, we very much enjoyed the speedy Spanish service. After putting up with French waiters ignoring us for minutes on end, we were amused by the plates disappearing from our table as soon as we cleared them. The metro is exceptional and we were able to quickly get within a block of the theater. The show was on a small stage, 7 musicians (pianist, 2 guitarists, drummer, 3 violinists) arranged facing the audience with a small dance floor in front. Called an Operay Flamenco, the show combined opera singing with flamenco dancing. Two flamenco dancers and two opera singers alternated on stage, alone and in various combinations. Despite the language barrier it was quite enjoyable and I had to try my flamenco steps later on the walk home to Shereen’s great amusement.
On Saturday we took a walking tour of the neighborhood where Picasso grew up and spent a part of his career. We stopped at Els Quatro Gats (The Four Cats), a bar where he spent time, a mural that is his only outdoor exhibit in the city and the streets where he lived and had a workshop. The tour ended at a museum with a nice collection of his early work. Yes, Picasso was an exceptional painter of more traditional scenes in his early career. I don’t “get” all of his later work, and still prefer Dali to Picasso, but there is no doubt that his early work created a foundation of credibility from which he could create cubism.
In the afternoon we visited Sagrada Familia, a massive church initially designed by Gaudi that has been under construction for over 100 years and is not expected to be complete for at least another 50. I knew nothing of Gaudi before our visit, but after gained a tremendous respect for his work. We have seen more European churches than I can count, but even in its unfinished state the Sagrada Familia is the most impressive (including St Peter’s in Rome), both for the architectural design and the artistic details. Gaudi not only drew the sketches for his buildings, he also worked out the engineering details, using ingenious techniques including the “inverted model”. The inverted model of a building design was created by drawing the floor plan on a board, elevating and inverting the board, and hanging rope from the board with bags of shot to imitate the weight of the building. The rope would form catenary arches with tension stresses. These tension stresses were identical to the compressive stress in a building. Gaudi would take pictures of the model and invert them so that the building was now right side up. The catenary arch is self-supporting and does not require buttresses. The model enabled Gaudi to work out complicated geometries without using complex mathematics.
There are two main facades on the church, one called the Nativity, the other the Passion. The Nativity was completed while Gaudi was still alive and is an intricate splash of stone showing Biblical scenes and nature. I preferred the simpler Passion displaying scenes surrounding the crucifixion. The story of the Passion weaves in a reverse S-shape as blocky, stylized statues that appear unfinished show successive scenes. Near the scene of Judas kissing Jesus is a magic square, a grid of numbers, 4 high and 4 wide. The grid contains 4 number combinations that add to 33, the age when Christ was crucified. The scene showing the soldier piercing Jesus with a spear is a knight on a horse with his spear stabbing the side of the church.
Inside tourists are confined to walking around the main hall of the church; the center is piled high with multiple stacks of stone among which are scattered the work benches and tools. Unfortunately the craftsmen were not working while we were there. The interior is meant to mimic a forest. The columns rise a few stories and then branch into several smaller columns that angle upward like tree branches, disappearing near large windows at the ceiling. The effect is similar to light filtering through leaves. The columns are designed with different types of stone depending on the loads they support: the gray central columns are the strongest stone available, next are less robust red columns, and the smallest are a pale yellow stone. As in a forest with many types of trees, the columns are of different stone.
We were able to take the lift up inside one of the towers. The tallest towers have not been built yet, but the ones representing the apostles stand already. Exiting the lift we were funneled between narrow stone passageways, emerging on a narrow stone walkway high above the ground between two towers. Not a good place for those with a fear of heights. We chose to descend via the stairs, which spiraled down first around a large central opening, then in a tight spiral with no inner guard rail. There were numerous openings in the stone as we dropped from which to view the colorful fruit topping neighboring towers, the tiny people far below, and the construction scaffolding ensconcing the church.
The next day we visited another Gaudi building, Casa Mila. Having distaste for straight lines, his work is curvy, from the façade to the architectural structure. The displays gave a good explanation of how Gaudi used nature to dictate his designs. The numerous chimneys on the roof march as helmeted soldiers over the undulating surface around two large atriums.
For lunch we munched on tapas, typical of the area, small portions of meat or vegetables on bread. We sampled the cod and mussels. In stark contrast from the gentile French, the Spanish waitress barked at us to quickly choose something to drink. Amusingly two British women at a neighboring table were as frightened by the waitress as we were. We laughed while waiting for the food, but I actually prefer the up-tempo style of service; waiting for the more polite is a bit boring.
The restaurant was on La Rambla, a classic street that is the heartbeat of Barcelona. Two narrow one way streets are separated by a large pedestrian walkway crowded with starving actors in outlandish costumes performing for a few cents, a cacophony of caged birds, rabbits, and turtles for sale as pets, flowers of all types for sale, and starving artists displaying works and painting passersby. Midway down we turned off the street into a large market. Immediately we were drawn in by a colorful fruit stand with smoothies of all varieties and shades, and were soon sucking down mango and banana. A chocolate display was also too good to pass; purchased were samples of chocolate covered nuts and white chocolate “hedgehogs” with black chocolate spines. We emerged back in the mass of humanity that is La Rambla and continued walking to the harbor. Here we lay on the sloping boardwalk in the sun as the sea gulls chased bread crumbs and the boats rocked on the sea.
After a walk through the large modern mall on the harbor, we jumped on the metro to visit Park Guell, another Gaudi invention, a failed attempt at an upscale gated community that is now a public park. This park showcases a Gaudi favorite: using broken ceramics to create colorful patterns on walls, benches, and creatures. We entered the park from the side entrance and walked up to a great overlook of the city. Atop a pile of stone adorned with three simple crosses we could see Sagrada Familia backed by the sea and the sprawling city. From here we meandered down to the famous terrace surrounded by a curving bench covered in broken ceramic. The bench was full of people (we had to look hard to find a place) simply relaxing. No more than a large open sandy space surrounded by this unique bench, overlooked by a forested hillside. We stayed for nearly an hour watching a boy hide bread crumbs from the sea gulls under a pile of stones, a young couple fawn over their child (the woman with a video camera, the guy with a camera to cover every detail), a woman drawing the tile pattern on a small notebook, and the various positions of sleep. Leaving the terrace we stepped down to the columns supporting the terrace. Then down a few flights of stairs, past a large iguana covered in colorful ceramic, to the main entrance of the park.
We ended our day back on La Rambla, dining in cheap quantity on falafel, lamb, and bread. While eating we enjoyed watching a talented man bouncing and balancing a soccer ball for the crowd. Another way to make a buck. I wonder if he is an accountant by day. We enjoyed wandering down the street one more time, soaking in the activity.
I enjoyed big, boisterous Barcelona immensely; believe it or not Shereen thought it was too busy. Guess she is a small town girl after all.
We have grudgingly adjusted our travel pattern since the campsites are closed. We broke up our drive toward Spain by stopping after 5 hours in Toulouse Friday night, and then drove the remainder Saturday. I had purchased tickets to a musical event Saturday night. My intention was to buy tickets to the Palau Theater, a classic building that is a site in and of itself. But not being careful enough while clicking on the website I ended up buying tickets to a show at the Petit Palau, a modern theater in the basement of the Palau. Oh well, I decided against buying another set of tickets.
Having dinner before we took the metro to the theater, we very much enjoyed the speedy Spanish service. After putting up with French waiters ignoring us for minutes on end, we were amused by the plates disappearing from our table as soon as we cleared them. The metro is exceptional and we were able to quickly get within a block of the theater. The show was on a small stage, 7 musicians (pianist, 2 guitarists, drummer, 3 violinists) arranged facing the audience with a small dance floor in front. Called an Operay Flamenco, the show combined opera singing with flamenco dancing. Two flamenco dancers and two opera singers alternated on stage, alone and in various combinations. Despite the language barrier it was quite enjoyable and I had to try my flamenco steps later on the walk home to Shereen’s great amusement.
On Saturday we took a walking tour of the neighborhood where Picasso grew up and spent a part of his career. We stopped at Els Quatro Gats (The Four Cats), a bar where he spent time, a mural that is his only outdoor exhibit in the city and the streets where he lived and had a workshop. The tour ended at a museum with a nice collection of his early work. Yes, Picasso was an exceptional painter of more traditional scenes in his early career. I don’t “get” all of his later work, and still prefer Dali to Picasso, but there is no doubt that his early work created a foundation of credibility from which he could create cubism.
In the afternoon we visited Sagrada Familia, a massive church initially designed by Gaudi that has been under construction for over 100 years and is not expected to be complete for at least another 50. I knew nothing of Gaudi before our visit, but after gained a tremendous respect for his work. We have seen more European churches than I can count, but even in its unfinished state the Sagrada Familia is the most impressive (including St Peter’s in Rome), both for the architectural design and the artistic details. Gaudi not only drew the sketches for his buildings, he also worked out the engineering details, using ingenious techniques including the “inverted model”. The inverted model of a building design was created by drawing the floor plan on a board, elevating and inverting the board, and hanging rope from the board with bags of shot to imitate the weight of the building. The rope would form catenary arches with tension stresses. These tension stresses were identical to the compressive stress in a building. Gaudi would take pictures of the model and invert them so that the building was now right side up. The catenary arch is self-supporting and does not require buttresses. The model enabled Gaudi to work out complicated geometries without using complex mathematics.
There are two main facades on the church, one called the Nativity, the other the Passion. The Nativity was completed while Gaudi was still alive and is an intricate splash of stone showing Biblical scenes and nature. I preferred the simpler Passion displaying scenes surrounding the crucifixion. The story of the Passion weaves in a reverse S-shape as blocky, stylized statues that appear unfinished show successive scenes. Near the scene of Judas kissing Jesus is a magic square, a grid of numbers, 4 high and 4 wide. The grid contains 4 number combinations that add to 33, the age when Christ was crucified. The scene showing the soldier piercing Jesus with a spear is a knight on a horse with his spear stabbing the side of the church.
Inside tourists are confined to walking around the main hall of the church; the center is piled high with multiple stacks of stone among which are scattered the work benches and tools. Unfortunately the craftsmen were not working while we were there. The interior is meant to mimic a forest. The columns rise a few stories and then branch into several smaller columns that angle upward like tree branches, disappearing near large windows at the ceiling. The effect is similar to light filtering through leaves. The columns are designed with different types of stone depending on the loads they support: the gray central columns are the strongest stone available, next are less robust red columns, and the smallest are a pale yellow stone. As in a forest with many types of trees, the columns are of different stone.
We were able to take the lift up inside one of the towers. The tallest towers have not been built yet, but the ones representing the apostles stand already. Exiting the lift we were funneled between narrow stone passageways, emerging on a narrow stone walkway high above the ground between two towers. Not a good place for those with a fear of heights. We chose to descend via the stairs, which spiraled down first around a large central opening, then in a tight spiral with no inner guard rail. There were numerous openings in the stone as we dropped from which to view the colorful fruit topping neighboring towers, the tiny people far below, and the construction scaffolding ensconcing the church.
The next day we visited another Gaudi building, Casa Mila. Having distaste for straight lines, his work is curvy, from the façade to the architectural structure. The displays gave a good explanation of how Gaudi used nature to dictate his designs. The numerous chimneys on the roof march as helmeted soldiers over the undulating surface around two large atriums.
For lunch we munched on tapas, typical of the area, small portions of meat or vegetables on bread. We sampled the cod and mussels. In stark contrast from the gentile French, the Spanish waitress barked at us to quickly choose something to drink. Amusingly two British women at a neighboring table were as frightened by the waitress as we were. We laughed while waiting for the food, but I actually prefer the up-tempo style of service; waiting for the more polite is a bit boring.
The restaurant was on La Rambla, a classic street that is the heartbeat of Barcelona. Two narrow one way streets are separated by a large pedestrian walkway crowded with starving actors in outlandish costumes performing for a few cents, a cacophony of caged birds, rabbits, and turtles for sale as pets, flowers of all types for sale, and starving artists displaying works and painting passersby. Midway down we turned off the street into a large market. Immediately we were drawn in by a colorful fruit stand with smoothies of all varieties and shades, and were soon sucking down mango and banana. A chocolate display was also too good to pass; purchased were samples of chocolate covered nuts and white chocolate “hedgehogs” with black chocolate spines. We emerged back in the mass of humanity that is La Rambla and continued walking to the harbor. Here we lay on the sloping boardwalk in the sun as the sea gulls chased bread crumbs and the boats rocked on the sea.
After a walk through the large modern mall on the harbor, we jumped on the metro to visit Park Guell, another Gaudi invention, a failed attempt at an upscale gated community that is now a public park. This park showcases a Gaudi favorite: using broken ceramics to create colorful patterns on walls, benches, and creatures. We entered the park from the side entrance and walked up to a great overlook of the city. Atop a pile of stone adorned with three simple crosses we could see Sagrada Familia backed by the sea and the sprawling city. From here we meandered down to the famous terrace surrounded by a curving bench covered in broken ceramic. The bench was full of people (we had to look hard to find a place) simply relaxing. No more than a large open sandy space surrounded by this unique bench, overlooked by a forested hillside. We stayed for nearly an hour watching a boy hide bread crumbs from the sea gulls under a pile of stones, a young couple fawn over their child (the woman with a video camera, the guy with a camera to cover every detail), a woman drawing the tile pattern on a small notebook, and the various positions of sleep. Leaving the terrace we stepped down to the columns supporting the terrace. Then down a few flights of stairs, past a large iguana covered in colorful ceramic, to the main entrance of the park.
We ended our day back on La Rambla, dining in cheap quantity on falafel, lamb, and bread. While eating we enjoyed watching a talented man bouncing and balancing a soccer ball for the crowd. Another way to make a buck. I wonder if he is an accountant by day. We enjoyed wandering down the street one more time, soaking in the activity.
I enjoyed big, boisterous Barcelona immensely; believe it or not Shereen thought it was too busy. Guess she is a small town girl after all.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Bruges
After traipsing France from top to bottom, Shereen and I ventured across the border to Belgium for a 3 day weekend (over a week ago as I write this). Specifically our destination was the town of Bruges, an idyllic, well preserved, medieval town, sometimes referred to as the “Venice of Belgium” due to its canals, but this being the ONLY similarity with the Italian city (and not a very good one at that, so forget the Venice analogy, Bruges is NOTHING like Venice). I’m also writing this after having watched the movie “In Bruges”, a non-classic with Colin Farrell as a hit-man stuck in Bruges. Since the plot and dialogue is terrible, the only redeemable feature of the movie is that it covers all of the key tourist sites in the city. If I didn’t know better I would think that the Bruges tourism organization funded the movie in exchange for using the film as a vehicle to advertise the city.
It was interesting driving through the checkpoint at the country border. Vacant toll booths served as a chokepoint at this vestige from before the European Union was formed. I’m not sure if they’ve kept the checkpoint due to lack of funds to tear it down or as a contingency in case the Union collapses and the need for border control returns. Our hotel was north of Bruges, in a town called Blankenberge, along the coast, with the beach running up to the door. This would have been a fantastic place in the summer, but with rain most of the weekend, the beach was no more than a nice visual.
We arrived on Friday afternoon and were able to drive into Bruges for the evening. This is the one city in Europe that has cheap parking: 2.50 Euro for the entire day at the train station, which is a short walk from the town center. The city is a medieval combination of cobblestone streets and stone buildings. Interesting despite the rain falling on our umbrellas. Our one mission was to locate the chocolate shops. Bruges is famous for pralines and chocolate chefs who concoct unique flavor combinations. We bought samples in two shops by pointing out the pieces of interest behind the glass counter. In addition to the various varieties with mint, nuts, and fruits, there were unique combinations with vodka and other exotic ingredients. Since we were a bit cold, a bit wet, and very hungry, when we saw a Pizza Hut in the square we were sucked in. Nothing like thick American pan pizza on a dreary evening.
The next day we walked in the rain through most of Bruges. First to the Gruuthuse museum (nice building, boring museum), next stopping at a small café for waffles with cream, strawberries, and cherries washed down with hot chocolate, then to a tour of the De Halve Maan brewery (tour in English, great rooftop view of the city, glass of beer included). We passed through the church in the afternoon which contains a Michelangelo statue of Mary then proceeded to climb the bell tower (the one described in Longfellow’s poem “The Belfry of Bruges”). Squeezing by those descending, we ascended the spiraling staircase, passing a glass pane in a door behind which a musician was playing the bells. At the top we were able to get a clear view of the mechanics that made the bells sing: a complicated web of cables and rods connected to the keys being played a few floors below. The area was cramped and we were within a foot of a large bell; fortunately the bell was not part of the music or we likely would have been deafened. It was still raining when we got back to the ground so we decided against taking a boat ride on the canal. The other major sites in Bruges are art museums, but having seen enough for our taste at the Louvre we stopped at the chocolate museum. And then ended our day with a dinner of mussels and fries under the awning of an outdoor café on the square beneath the bell tower. We definitely enjoyed the cuisine in Bruges better than in France: real Belgian waffles, real American pizza, Belgian beer, fresh mussels, thick-cut fries, and unique chocolate. We would go back just for the food! Despite the rain and cold we thoroughly enjoyed Bruges.
It was interesting driving through the checkpoint at the country border. Vacant toll booths served as a chokepoint at this vestige from before the European Union was formed. I’m not sure if they’ve kept the checkpoint due to lack of funds to tear it down or as a contingency in case the Union collapses and the need for border control returns. Our hotel was north of Bruges, in a town called Blankenberge, along the coast, with the beach running up to the door. This would have been a fantastic place in the summer, but with rain most of the weekend, the beach was no more than a nice visual.
We arrived on Friday afternoon and were able to drive into Bruges for the evening. This is the one city in Europe that has cheap parking: 2.50 Euro for the entire day at the train station, which is a short walk from the town center. The city is a medieval combination of cobblestone streets and stone buildings. Interesting despite the rain falling on our umbrellas. Our one mission was to locate the chocolate shops. Bruges is famous for pralines and chocolate chefs who concoct unique flavor combinations. We bought samples in two shops by pointing out the pieces of interest behind the glass counter. In addition to the various varieties with mint, nuts, and fruits, there were unique combinations with vodka and other exotic ingredients. Since we were a bit cold, a bit wet, and very hungry, when we saw a Pizza Hut in the square we were sucked in. Nothing like thick American pan pizza on a dreary evening.
The next day we walked in the rain through most of Bruges. First to the Gruuthuse museum (nice building, boring museum), next stopping at a small café for waffles with cream, strawberries, and cherries washed down with hot chocolate, then to a tour of the De Halve Maan brewery (tour in English, great rooftop view of the city, glass of beer included). We passed through the church in the afternoon which contains a Michelangelo statue of Mary then proceeded to climb the bell tower (the one described in Longfellow’s poem “The Belfry of Bruges”). Squeezing by those descending, we ascended the spiraling staircase, passing a glass pane in a door behind which a musician was playing the bells. At the top we were able to get a clear view of the mechanics that made the bells sing: a complicated web of cables and rods connected to the keys being played a few floors below. The area was cramped and we were within a foot of a large bell; fortunately the bell was not part of the music or we likely would have been deafened. It was still raining when we got back to the ground so we decided against taking a boat ride on the canal. The other major sites in Bruges are art museums, but having seen enough for our taste at the Louvre we stopped at the chocolate museum. And then ended our day with a dinner of mussels and fries under the awning of an outdoor café on the square beneath the bell tower. We definitely enjoyed the cuisine in Bruges better than in France: real Belgian waffles, real American pizza, Belgian beer, fresh mussels, thick-cut fries, and unique chocolate. We would go back just for the food! Despite the rain and cold we thoroughly enjoyed Bruges.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Hi from Shereen
Hi Guys!!
It's me, Shereen!! Remember me? I know it has been a while, so I decided to come on here to say hi and give you my views on what is going on.
It has been two months since I have been in France. Let’s see, first impression of France wasn’t the greatest. The weather wasn’t helping at all. The first couple of days were very cloudy and cold. On our way home from the airport Shawn and I stopped at a restaurant. As soon as we walked in I realized that the French aren’t as sanitary as Americans. The cups has soap residue and utensils are in a basket for everyone to touch and grab. Also, the food here is, what can I say, DISGUSTING ugh… How can people eat like this? You always hear about French cuisine this, French cuisine that; well let me tell you about French cuisine it is GROSS. The French managed to create some sort of gravy for everything; fish, chicken, beans, you name it they have gravy for it.
So, how have I been spending my time here in France? Shawn’s company was suppose to provide us with a furnished apartment, but for some reason they couldn’t. Luckily for me I get to shop for furniture and spend the company’s money. Ha ha. You would think it is fun to spend when it is not your money, well not really. They gave us an okay budget in Euro that won’t take you far here in Europe. Everything is very expensive. Julie, Shawn’s boss’s wife, suggested I buy used furniture since the budget is tight. I love those used furniture shops. I have been having so much fun shopping for furniture and measuring pieces and parts. Since I am buying used furniture I decided to go for the mismatch look. So nothing in my apartment will match. I will post up pictures as soon as I furnish the place. Also, I was able to order kitchen cabinets all by myself. I know you must be thinking why on earth is she buying kitchen cabinets for an apartment? Let me explain, apartments in France come with nothing besides a toilet, bathtub, and 2 sinks; one in the bathroom and one in the kitchen. No fridge, stove, oven, or dishwasher… NADA.
I finished shopping for furniture and nothing arrived for a month. Julie gave us a TV. French TV is so American. I get to watch shows like Law and Order, Medium, Without a Trace, etc. and movies like the Rock, Finding Nemo. There is a little problem though, EVERYTHING IS IN FRENCH.. AHHHHH. It is amazing how the French are all about American culture, and how dare they take American movies and talk over it in French? WHATEVER!!!
Living in France can be a little frustrating. Everything here is very slow; so slow that nothing gets done. I waited for internet service at my apartment for a month and 2 weeks. It is so hard to live in a country where I don’t speak the language and not being able to contact with family and friends is a killer. Shawn ordered the internet service 2 weeks before I moved here. People here keep telling us that all internet providers in France are bad at customer service.
You always hear people say the French don’t like Americans, or they are rude. So far I found them to be very nice and friendly. They try really hard to communicate in with us in English. However, I think the older French generations are a bit rude. Take our neighbor for an example; he is this old guy who has nothing better to do then to tell me what I need to do. I keep telling him I DON’T UNDERSTAND, he doesn’t seem to care, he doesn’t even try to speak slowly for me to try to understand. I just have to think “what would Jesus do?”: SPEAK FRENCH.
I am starting to like it here. I am learning patience. I am making friends here and there. I am taking French lessons 2-3 times a week. I try to go to the gym 2-3 times a week. It is hard for me to go to the gym here as often as I used to back in the US because I miss Lifetime, the people, the trainers.
Thanks for reading.. Hopefully I’ll post something again here in another 2 months. Just kidding.. I'll try to post sooner than later.
MISS YOU!!Friday, October 24, 2008
Exercise
The one thing that has gone right for Shereen while in France is finding a decent gym to work out in. She has been going to classes 2 to 3 times a week. Apparently word has gotten out that there is an American at the gym, since she seems to be quite popular, even with those who babble in French to her. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get into a regular exercise routine, and the past 2 weeks have discovered just how out of shape I have become. One of the sales interns at work mentioned that he was playing basketball at a gym in Sully and invited me to join him. Last Tuesday I went after work for the 2 hour training session. I was quite impressed. Most of the time we ran drills, led by a coach who really knew basketball (yes, I could tell even though he was speaking French). The high schools don't have organized sports like in the US, so the towns have their own teams that high schoolers and others join. The training session was prep for the Sully team that will compete against surrounding towns through the winter. Well, to say the least, my legs have lost some spring. I was able to gut it out and stay with the others for the evening, but was basically incapacited for the next week.
I worked late the next Tuesday and wasn't able to play. But on Thursday I joined the American we met a few weeks ago, who is here for a one year assignment, at a voluntary gym night. They have a trainer who leads the group in a variety of sports, including handball and basketball. This week we played team handball, a sport I was interested in learning. You may have seen this sport in the Olympics, France won the gold medal this year. I had a great time. It was easy to pick up and the flow of the sport has similarities to basketball and hockey. Once Shereen and I get our medical certificates, which allow us to participate in these formal activities, I plan to pay the fee to become a regular part of the group.
I worked late the next Tuesday and wasn't able to play. But on Thursday I joined the American we met a few weeks ago, who is here for a one year assignment, at a voluntary gym night. They have a trainer who leads the group in a variety of sports, including handball and basketball. This week we played team handball, a sport I was interested in learning. You may have seen this sport in the Olympics, France won the gold medal this year. I had a great time. It was easy to pick up and the flow of the sport has similarities to basketball and hockey. Once Shereen and I get our medical certificates, which allow us to participate in these formal activities, I plan to pay the fee to become a regular part of the group.
Bre'r Rabbit
There is a great market within a short walk of our apartment, along the river in Orleans. Each Saturday morning the local farmers bring their goods, mostly fruits and veggies, with a few stands for meat. This past Saturday our perusal of displays was cut short when Shereen noticed a random furry friend in an odd place. As I've said before, there is an emphasis on freshness, and meat is displayed in a manner to indicate "this was killed not more than 10 minutes ago". Well, on the corner of a table with harmless beans, beets, and berries, near where the farmer was haggling with a customer, was a fuzzy bunny, dead for no apparent reason. There was no other meat on his table. Maybe his statement was "this produce is so fresh I fought off this rabbit to bring it to you this morning". Regardless, Shereen was disgusted enough that we left immediately, without buying anything. Later we visited Auchan, where at least the live crabs on ice aren't cute, but at least somewhat humorous, and there are no dead, fuzzy bunnies in random places.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Dordogne
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2172111&l=95cba&id=15616369
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2172113&l=52d8a&id=15616369
Our weekend excursion was to the Dordogne region in southwest France. Inland, east of Bordeaux, this area is most famous for prehistoric cave paintings and foie gras.
Now that we are well into October, the majority of campsites are closed. But since I didn’t bother to investigate this prior to departing on Friday, we barged ahead with tent in tow. Sleeping arrangements turned out to be a park near to a soccer field where yelling players and passersby kept us up most of the night on Friday, and a closed campsite where the guy at the desk agreed to let us stay for one night on Saturday (we were the only ones on the site and I still don’t know why the door to the reception was open). Needless to say we were glad to find places each night to setup the tent and avoid sleeping in the car again.
The lack of camping availability for the next several months could put a crimp in our traveling. Going from 12 Euro a night camping to 100 Euro a night hoteling is a significant budget crusher. We’ll definitely look for a more cost efficient option. Although in the few months here we have covered a good part of France: Paris, French Riviera, Provence, Dordogne, Normandy, and Loire castles. Suppose it’s not too unreasonable to slow down the travel pace a bit…
On Saturday morning we visited the village market in Sarlat. The markets rotate among the towns with each having its own on a different day. The one in Sarlat is quite impressive, even for a non-shopper like myself. The streets are closed for the market, which occupied the entire downtown, and was packed with shoppers and vendors selling various cheeses, butchered animals (the emphasis is on fresh, it is common to see the eyeballs left on a skinned rabbit or a few feathers and beak on a chicken; side note: in the grocery store in Orleans we were amused by a pile of crabs on ice on a flat table that groggily moved claws and blew air bubbles from their mouths, the ice chilled them sufficiently so they weren’t able to navigate from the table), spices, wood carvings (a unique item was a frog with spikes on its back and a wooden pole in its mouth, when the rod was rubbed across the spikes it sounded like a frog croaking), and of course, foie gras.
Foie gras is goose or duck liver that is extra fatty due to the fowl being force fed. There are many farms in the Dordogne area where geese are raised to produce foie gras. Tourists have the option to visit one of these and observe the feeding, but we decided watching a farmer hold the head of goose back and force open its beak with a funnel while corn streamed down its throat was not our idea of a good time.
In the afternoon we drove to a canoe rental and began a scenic ride past forested hills interspersed with white cliffs, occasional towns cut into the rock walls and castles perched on hilltops. The weather was perfect, I almost got a sunburn. We were in the canoe about 3 hours, stopping to pull the canoe out of the river at a cute, one street town in a cliff and then ending at a similar town overlooked by a castle on the cliff with the houses clustered and clinging to the rocks around it. We had over an hour to wait until the van would pick us up to return to the car. Shereen was more interested in sitting after a less than relaxing night, so I explored on my own, climbing to the scenic overlook on a very steep path through town past the castle. I found a place to buy an ice cream cone at the top (we only found ice cream bars and vanilla cones at the river level), purchased a raspberry one, and hustled down the hill reaching Shereen before the melting rouge reached my hand.
Then it was on to the closed campsite for the night. Ended up being a great place to stay; we setup a few feet from the river with only the sound of birds and water.
The next day we visited a cave painting site at Lascaux, location of the most famous cave paintings in the world. Actually we stopped at “Lascaux II”, the actual cave (Lascaux I) was closed in the 60’s after the paintings were damaged due to tourist’s breath that reacted with the limestone and an exact replica was created out of concrete with the cave paintings recreated using the same pigments and techniques accurate to within a few millimeters. Our guide was a humorous Frenchman who made us wish our one hour in the concrete duplicate lasted longer. Interesting that they have found evidence of scaffolding that was used to elevate the painters near to the ceiling. The lower portion of the cave was clay, which is not a suitable canvas, so the artists built scaffolding to reach the limestone. They still don’t know why the paintings were created; the caves weren’t used as homes since they are cold and damp, there’s inadequate ventilation for fires, and nice animals like bears spent time in them. There was an obvious pattern in the layout of several of the paintings and the contours of the walls were used to define the horns, bellies, backs, and walking paths of the bulls and horses.
After this we stopped at a medieval town that was carved into the rock face of a cliff. At a time when enemies could come unexpectedly, this town was protected by a narrow rock path with a drawbridge spanning a gap, overlooked by holes carved in the rock for sentries. In the distance were lookout caves that were used to relay signals when strangers approached. The town would have been quite secure since the only way to reach it was by the path, or by scaling or descending the rock. The slice cut from the rock for the living area was huge, with different sections for a church (with a curved roof to improve acoustics and a notch for a bell in the cliff), butcher (with large basins in the rock floor for blood and guts), blacksmith, and living areas. A stone walkway led to a ledge where trebuchet style weapons would launch projectiles at ships on the nearby river.
That was the last stop of our Dordogne experience. There are several caves with cave paintings in the area; another that looked interesting we arrived too late since they only allow 12 visitors at a time to prevent damage. And we missed the drama of seeing a goose getting its gullet stuffed…
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2172113&l=52d8a&id=15616369
Our weekend excursion was to the Dordogne region in southwest France. Inland, east of Bordeaux, this area is most famous for prehistoric cave paintings and foie gras.
Now that we are well into October, the majority of campsites are closed. But since I didn’t bother to investigate this prior to departing on Friday, we barged ahead with tent in tow. Sleeping arrangements turned out to be a park near to a soccer field where yelling players and passersby kept us up most of the night on Friday, and a closed campsite where the guy at the desk agreed to let us stay for one night on Saturday (we were the only ones on the site and I still don’t know why the door to the reception was open). Needless to say we were glad to find places each night to setup the tent and avoid sleeping in the car again.
The lack of camping availability for the next several months could put a crimp in our traveling. Going from 12 Euro a night camping to 100 Euro a night hoteling is a significant budget crusher. We’ll definitely look for a more cost efficient option. Although in the few months here we have covered a good part of France: Paris, French Riviera, Provence, Dordogne, Normandy, and Loire castles. Suppose it’s not too unreasonable to slow down the travel pace a bit…
On Saturday morning we visited the village market in Sarlat. The markets rotate among the towns with each having its own on a different day. The one in Sarlat is quite impressive, even for a non-shopper like myself. The streets are closed for the market, which occupied the entire downtown, and was packed with shoppers and vendors selling various cheeses, butchered animals (the emphasis is on fresh, it is common to see the eyeballs left on a skinned rabbit or a few feathers and beak on a chicken; side note: in the grocery store in Orleans we were amused by a pile of crabs on ice on a flat table that groggily moved claws and blew air bubbles from their mouths, the ice chilled them sufficiently so they weren’t able to navigate from the table), spices, wood carvings (a unique item was a frog with spikes on its back and a wooden pole in its mouth, when the rod was rubbed across the spikes it sounded like a frog croaking), and of course, foie gras.
Foie gras is goose or duck liver that is extra fatty due to the fowl being force fed. There are many farms in the Dordogne area where geese are raised to produce foie gras. Tourists have the option to visit one of these and observe the feeding, but we decided watching a farmer hold the head of goose back and force open its beak with a funnel while corn streamed down its throat was not our idea of a good time.
In the afternoon we drove to a canoe rental and began a scenic ride past forested hills interspersed with white cliffs, occasional towns cut into the rock walls and castles perched on hilltops. The weather was perfect, I almost got a sunburn. We were in the canoe about 3 hours, stopping to pull the canoe out of the river at a cute, one street town in a cliff and then ending at a similar town overlooked by a castle on the cliff with the houses clustered and clinging to the rocks around it. We had over an hour to wait until the van would pick us up to return to the car. Shereen was more interested in sitting after a less than relaxing night, so I explored on my own, climbing to the scenic overlook on a very steep path through town past the castle. I found a place to buy an ice cream cone at the top (we only found ice cream bars and vanilla cones at the river level), purchased a raspberry one, and hustled down the hill reaching Shereen before the melting rouge reached my hand.
Then it was on to the closed campsite for the night. Ended up being a great place to stay; we setup a few feet from the river with only the sound of birds and water.
The next day we visited a cave painting site at Lascaux, location of the most famous cave paintings in the world. Actually we stopped at “Lascaux II”, the actual cave (Lascaux I) was closed in the 60’s after the paintings were damaged due to tourist’s breath that reacted with the limestone and an exact replica was created out of concrete with the cave paintings recreated using the same pigments and techniques accurate to within a few millimeters. Our guide was a humorous Frenchman who made us wish our one hour in the concrete duplicate lasted longer. Interesting that they have found evidence of scaffolding that was used to elevate the painters near to the ceiling. The lower portion of the cave was clay, which is not a suitable canvas, so the artists built scaffolding to reach the limestone. They still don’t know why the paintings were created; the caves weren’t used as homes since they are cold and damp, there’s inadequate ventilation for fires, and nice animals like bears spent time in them. There was an obvious pattern in the layout of several of the paintings and the contours of the walls were used to define the horns, bellies, backs, and walking paths of the bulls and horses.
After this we stopped at a medieval town that was carved into the rock face of a cliff. At a time when enemies could come unexpectedly, this town was protected by a narrow rock path with a drawbridge spanning a gap, overlooked by holes carved in the rock for sentries. In the distance were lookout caves that were used to relay signals when strangers approached. The town would have been quite secure since the only way to reach it was by the path, or by scaling or descending the rock. The slice cut from the rock for the living area was huge, with different sections for a church (with a curved roof to improve acoustics and a notch for a bell in the cliff), butcher (with large basins in the rock floor for blood and guts), blacksmith, and living areas. A stone walkway led to a ledge where trebuchet style weapons would launch projectiles at ships on the nearby river.
That was the last stop of our Dordogne experience. There are several caves with cave paintings in the area; another that looked interesting we arrived too late since they only allow 12 visitors at a time to prevent damage. And we missed the drama of seeing a goose getting its gullet stuffed…
Comment votre Français?
Getting better, thank you. While still not able to carry a conversation, Shereen and I are making significant progress in understanding French. While still not completely clear on all the grammar, the biggest issue is lack of vocabulary. Very quickly we get outside of our scope. Most French speak too quickly for me to follow, but I can pick up a few words. Just being able to differentiate sounds into words has been a big step. At my last lesson I found myself comprehending most of what Isabelle was saying, and could respond haltingly for the most part, but I’m still searching for words and confusing the grammar. Regardless, I now can see myself conversing in French by next year, if only at a basic level.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Provence
Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2170455&l=48833&id=15616369
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2170457&l=3c127&id=15616369
Continuing our weekend excursions, this past weekend we traveled south, spending about 6 hours in the car to reach the Provence region of France.
As usual, I had difficulty getting out of work early, so we didn’t leave Sully until near 6 pm on Friday. The plan was to drive several hours and then look for a place to camp. Unfortunately we didn’t start looking for a camp site soon enough. Using our camping map we located addresses for sites and used the GPS to navigate to them, but a misspelled address and a few wrong turns brought us to the site after the gates closed at 10 pm. We drove around for an hour and a half looking for a site that wasn’t gated, but not finding any we pulled into the parking lot of a school and bunkered down for a night in the car. It was chilly outside, got into the low 40’s overnight, but we cocooned in our sleeping bags with the front seats reclined and slept relatively well. I was expecting a policeman to knock on our window at some point during the night, but fortunately we were left alone.
The next morning we started driving early to avoid any legal violations. Our first stop was the town of Avignon, famous as the home of the Catholic Church when a French pope decided to relocate. We found a camp site directly across the Rhone within walking distance from the town. We biked across the bridge and then walked around the town. Avignon still has the protective walls surrounding it, giving it a decidedly medieval look. The major attractions were the Palais de Papes (Palace of the Popes), an elevated park with scenic views of the river and city, and stone arch bridge that had been the only bridge across the Rhone until it was partially destroyed by a flood in the Middle Ages and then there was no bridge for hundreds of years. We meandered around town for a few hours, having lunch at a nice, walk-up café.
We then drove a few minutes to the remains of a castle at Le Baux. This was located in the hills, perched above sheer cliffs. At one time the residents of Le Baux controlled the area from this strategic perch. The remains of the fortress were very impressive. Most of it had been destroyed after a battle, but we could climb to the top of a tower, see the honeycombed wall of the huge dovecote where pigeons were raised for food and communication, a large cistern, and the outlines of the huge halls and rooms that housed the residents. There were also full size replicas of a trebuchet and several smaller catapult type weapons.
The infamous “Mistral wind” was blowing strong throughout the day. We literally had to lean into the wind while on Le Baux for balance. The tourist shops surrounding the castle all seemed to contain items with images of cicadas. It was too cold and windy for cicadas while we were there, but I would assume during the summer the sound of their rubbing wings prevails.
Leaving here we traveled to Pont du Guard, a huge Roman aqueduct crossing a nearby river. The Roman arches are the largest anywhere resulting in the second highest Roman structure still standing (the top of the aqueduct is only a few feet shorter than the Coliseum in Rome).
That was enough for one day, so we bought dinner at Auchan (local Walmart style store), and bunkered down for a cold night. Not having properly staked the tent before we left, the mistral wind had blown it several feet, but one of our neighbors had dragged it back and used our bike rack to hold it in place.
The next day we drove to Arles, another Roman town with its own arena and theater. The Roman arena is where bull fights are held during the summer. Interesting that this structure has been in use for nearly 2,000 years. The church in Arles had an intriguing façade, with sculpture of the Christ and the apostles, along with the saved and the damned walking in hellfire. Christ was surrounded by Luke (represented as an ox), Mark (winged lion), Matthew (winged man), and John (eagle).
The weather was chilly, so we didn’t stay too long before driving to a scenic loop in the mountains. Lunch was at one of the small towns in the hills, surrounded by vast fields of grapevines. There were numerous bikers on the road as we circled higher and the views of the valley and mountains were fabulous. After that we were on the road back home.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2170455&l=48833&id=15616369
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2170457&l=3c127&id=15616369
Continuing our weekend excursions, this past weekend we traveled south, spending about 6 hours in the car to reach the Provence region of France.
As usual, I had difficulty getting out of work early, so we didn’t leave Sully until near 6 pm on Friday. The plan was to drive several hours and then look for a place to camp. Unfortunately we didn’t start looking for a camp site soon enough. Using our camping map we located addresses for sites and used the GPS to navigate to them, but a misspelled address and a few wrong turns brought us to the site after the gates closed at 10 pm. We drove around for an hour and a half looking for a site that wasn’t gated, but not finding any we pulled into the parking lot of a school and bunkered down for a night in the car. It was chilly outside, got into the low 40’s overnight, but we cocooned in our sleeping bags with the front seats reclined and slept relatively well. I was expecting a policeman to knock on our window at some point during the night, but fortunately we were left alone.
The next morning we started driving early to avoid any legal violations. Our first stop was the town of Avignon, famous as the home of the Catholic Church when a French pope decided to relocate. We found a camp site directly across the Rhone within walking distance from the town. We biked across the bridge and then walked around the town. Avignon still has the protective walls surrounding it, giving it a decidedly medieval look. The major attractions were the Palais de Papes (Palace of the Popes), an elevated park with scenic views of the river and city, and stone arch bridge that had been the only bridge across the Rhone until it was partially destroyed by a flood in the Middle Ages and then there was no bridge for hundreds of years. We meandered around town for a few hours, having lunch at a nice, walk-up café.
We then drove a few minutes to the remains of a castle at Le Baux. This was located in the hills, perched above sheer cliffs. At one time the residents of Le Baux controlled the area from this strategic perch. The remains of the fortress were very impressive. Most of it had been destroyed after a battle, but we could climb to the top of a tower, see the honeycombed wall of the huge dovecote where pigeons were raised for food and communication, a large cistern, and the outlines of the huge halls and rooms that housed the residents. There were also full size replicas of a trebuchet and several smaller catapult type weapons.
The infamous “Mistral wind” was blowing strong throughout the day. We literally had to lean into the wind while on Le Baux for balance. The tourist shops surrounding the castle all seemed to contain items with images of cicadas. It was too cold and windy for cicadas while we were there, but I would assume during the summer the sound of their rubbing wings prevails.
Leaving here we traveled to Pont du Guard, a huge Roman aqueduct crossing a nearby river. The Roman arches are the largest anywhere resulting in the second highest Roman structure still standing (the top of the aqueduct is only a few feet shorter than the Coliseum in Rome).
That was enough for one day, so we bought dinner at Auchan (local Walmart style store), and bunkered down for a cold night. Not having properly staked the tent before we left, the mistral wind had blown it several feet, but one of our neighbors had dragged it back and used our bike rack to hold it in place.
The next day we drove to Arles, another Roman town with its own arena and theater. The Roman arena is where bull fights are held during the summer. Interesting that this structure has been in use for nearly 2,000 years. The church in Arles had an intriguing façade, with sculpture of the Christ and the apostles, along with the saved and the damned walking in hellfire. Christ was surrounded by Luke (represented as an ox), Mark (winged lion), Matthew (winged man), and John (eagle).
The weather was chilly, so we didn’t stay too long before driving to a scenic loop in the mountains. Lunch was at one of the small towns in the hills, surrounded by vast fields of grapevines. There were numerous bikers on the road as we circled higher and the views of the valley and mountains were fabulous. After that we were on the road back home.
How to Miss an International Flight or Metro Confusion
A couple of weeks ago Shereen and I were scheduled to fly to Chicago to complete the Visa paperwork for our stay in France. Our travel to and from the airport was less than ideal, to say the least. The good news is that we had a great time in Chicago and there was no problem with the Visa application. But that diverts from the story.
From Orleans it is about an hour and a half to the airport, without traffic. With traffic this can easily double. Someone told me that a good way to get to the airport was to drive to a metro station outside of Paris and then take the metro to the airport. The idea being to avoid any traffic jams in Paris.
Our flight was leaving at 10:20 am on Saturday. We were on the road before 6. After this a series of small time losses at each link in our journey added too much time. We lost a few minutes driving around to find parking at the metro station. Then several minutes dragging our bags up stairs, across the metro line, down the walkway, up stairs again, back across the line (we didn’t need to cross in the first place), finally finding a ticket machine. Then onto the train for a longer ride than we expected: about 90 minutes to the airport.
And before we reached the final stop we were burned by the quirks of train travel in Europe. When you enter a train no one checks your ticket, you could sit down without any ticket and no one would stop you. But there are random checks where the ticket-checkers walk through the train. You might get lucky and they don’t check, or if they do, and you don’t have a ticket, they charge many times what the normal ticket was. Well, I didn’t read the ticket machine properly, so we had tickets that took us only to the center of Paris, not to the airport on the north side. One stop before we were to get off the uniformed officer came through and informed us we would need to pay extra. What was normally a 7 Euro ticket would now cost 25 Euros. At least he had a portable credit card machine so we could pay right there.
Then off the train into the airport. It was now about 9 am. I had ordered our tickets through Northwest, but hadn’t looked closely at the flight, which was actually going to be a KLM flight. Thinking Northwest, we walked up to an agent guarding the entry to check-in. She said that the Northwest line didn’t open until 9:15. So we waited. If I had been thinking, I should have know something wasn’t right, since on international flights you need to check-in one hour before the flight. Well, after walking up to the security questioners, they sent us to the KLM desk, which was a short walk down the aisle. By the time we got through the questioners again, it was after 9:30 and the agent informed us the flight was closed.
After a few minutes of consternation they offered to put us on a flight later that day for free if we could prove we were in the airport before 9:20. Fortunately we had talked to the agent who told us to wait until 9:15, so she remembered us and was nice enough to state our case. So we were put on a Northwest flight leaving 4 hours later, which had much better movie service than the KLM flights.
When we returned from Chicago we had to retrace our steps through the metro. Unfortunately our flight arrived during rush hour. Believe me; you do NOT want to be dragging large, heavy bags through the Paris metro with thousands of workers rushing to get home. It was shear chaos. We blocked narrow walkways, struggled to climb stairs as people pushed past, and were confused about which connection we needed. After several minutes of frustration we determined we would need to ride one train, and then take another to where we parked the car. We didn’t understand well enough and the first train ended up stopping in the center of Paris. The whole train emptied and a mass of people packed in. They looked at us strangely and a few said something in French. We knew they were asking where we were going, I said the station, and somehow they communicated we needed to get off this train. People were packed shoulder to shoulder, but a few stepped off the train and stood at the door to ensure it wouldn’t leave, the rest passed our bags over their heads and Shereen and I squeezed through the rest. We now had to drag our bags through more crowds, up more steps, and squeeze onto another train. At one point were packed in tightly with sweating neighbors leaning on one another as the train rocked. After what seemed like hours later we arrived at the car, vowing never to take the metro to the airport, or use the metro during rush hour.
From Orleans it is about an hour and a half to the airport, without traffic. With traffic this can easily double. Someone told me that a good way to get to the airport was to drive to a metro station outside of Paris and then take the metro to the airport. The idea being to avoid any traffic jams in Paris.
Our flight was leaving at 10:20 am on Saturday. We were on the road before 6. After this a series of small time losses at each link in our journey added too much time. We lost a few minutes driving around to find parking at the metro station. Then several minutes dragging our bags up stairs, across the metro line, down the walkway, up stairs again, back across the line (we didn’t need to cross in the first place), finally finding a ticket machine. Then onto the train for a longer ride than we expected: about 90 minutes to the airport.
And before we reached the final stop we were burned by the quirks of train travel in Europe. When you enter a train no one checks your ticket, you could sit down without any ticket and no one would stop you. But there are random checks where the ticket-checkers walk through the train. You might get lucky and they don’t check, or if they do, and you don’t have a ticket, they charge many times what the normal ticket was. Well, I didn’t read the ticket machine properly, so we had tickets that took us only to the center of Paris, not to the airport on the north side. One stop before we were to get off the uniformed officer came through and informed us we would need to pay extra. What was normally a 7 Euro ticket would now cost 25 Euros. At least he had a portable credit card machine so we could pay right there.
Then off the train into the airport. It was now about 9 am. I had ordered our tickets through Northwest, but hadn’t looked closely at the flight, which was actually going to be a KLM flight. Thinking Northwest, we walked up to an agent guarding the entry to check-in. She said that the Northwest line didn’t open until 9:15. So we waited. If I had been thinking, I should have know something wasn’t right, since on international flights you need to check-in one hour before the flight. Well, after walking up to the security questioners, they sent us to the KLM desk, which was a short walk down the aisle. By the time we got through the questioners again, it was after 9:30 and the agent informed us the flight was closed.
After a few minutes of consternation they offered to put us on a flight later that day for free if we could prove we were in the airport before 9:20. Fortunately we had talked to the agent who told us to wait until 9:15, so she remembered us and was nice enough to state our case. So we were put on a Northwest flight leaving 4 hours later, which had much better movie service than the KLM flights.
When we returned from Chicago we had to retrace our steps through the metro. Unfortunately our flight arrived during rush hour. Believe me; you do NOT want to be dragging large, heavy bags through the Paris metro with thousands of workers rushing to get home. It was shear chaos. We blocked narrow walkways, struggled to climb stairs as people pushed past, and were confused about which connection we needed. After several minutes of frustration we determined we would need to ride one train, and then take another to where we parked the car. We didn’t understand well enough and the first train ended up stopping in the center of Paris. The whole train emptied and a mass of people packed in. They looked at us strangely and a few said something in French. We knew they were asking where we were going, I said the station, and somehow they communicated we needed to get off this train. People were packed shoulder to shoulder, but a few stepped off the train and stood at the door to ensure it wouldn’t leave, the rest passed our bags over their heads and Shereen and I squeezed through the rest. We now had to drag our bags through more crowds, up more steps, and squeeze onto another train. At one point were packed in tightly with sweating neighbors leaning on one another as the train rocked. After what seemed like hours later we arrived at the car, vowing never to take the metro to the airport, or use the metro during rush hour.
Paris
Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2170297&l=9589f&id=15616369
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2170298&l=4ad84&id=15616369
To celebrate our one year anniversary we decided to spend a weekend in Paris (obvious choice).
We arrived late on Friday, checked into the hotel, and walked 20 minutes to see the Eiffel tower. The tower is lit up at night and is quite impressive. There were hundreds of others straggling and meandering beneath its spreading feet.
Saturday morning we got up early to get in line to ascend the Eiffel tower. We bumped into a student from a Canadian university, who seemed a bit too eager for conversation. He found us in line, in the elevator, on the first level, at the top, and in the elevator on the way down. By this time he was giving me his email address and saying he would be looking for a job in a few months. I think he was lonely traveling by himself…
From the top of the tower we noticed a large crowd gathered in a plaza about a mile away. Someone mentioned that the pope was in Paris and had attracted the crowd. We descended to take the metro to the shopping district. Shereen was keen on finding the Louis Vutton store. Exiting the metro we walked through the streets, stopping in some ridiculously pricey jewelry stores. It must have been obvious we couldn’t afford any of this stuff, the salespeople barely said hello before going back to their own chitchat.
Not finding what she was looking for, we walked to the Champs-Elysees, and found a huge Louis Vutton store. I’ve never seen anything like. The place was packed, with customers and salespeople. I have a feeling this one store makes a significant portion of the companies sales. Combining the foot traffic with the price tags would make for some hefty revenue…
Walking a bit further we approached the Arc de Triomphe, which is well protected by a whirling, multiple lane traffic circle fed by 12 streets converging on this one point. Not seeing the underground tunnel until later, we ran like confused puppies through the traffic chaos to reach the Arc. We didn’t stay long, hopping on the metro to visit the city center.
We walked along the river before stopping to the Saint Chappelle church. This is a superb church with a lower level for the peasants and an upper level for the aristocracy so they never have to see one another. We were fortunate to time our visit when an English tour started so we were able to learn the details of the church. The upper level has walls made of stained glass that stretch several stories vertically. The glass displays stories from the Bible and the Middle Ages, starting with Genesis and Exodus and working around until the last panel shows the story of how the relics (crown of thorns, etc.) were found. Quite an impressive sight, especially with the sunlight glowing through. The glass is divided into smaller panels, each panel showing a story, so there are hundreds of individual stories including Cain clubbing Abel, the burning bush, Noah’s ark, and many less well known stories. The glass had been removed and replaced several times to protect during conflicts and there were a few errors in the order it was replaced. An example was one medieval battle scene showed the soldiers fighting on horses, then the king sending them out, then the soldiers riding to battle.
After this we were exhausted so hopped on the Metro back to the hotel. In the mood for Thai, we were turned away at the first place we stopped since we didn’t have a reservation and the few tables were packed with diners shoulder to shoulder. We found an Asian place down the street that wasn’t as busy.
The next day we visited the Louvre. I had been here several weeks ago by myself, on the first Sunday of the month when it is free and packed. Now that I understood the layout better, Shereen and I were able to walk directly to the most interesting items and eliminate traipsing all over this immense museum. The Mona Lisa is a bit of a disappointment, alone on a large wall, behind glass, with a rope perimeter keeping you over 20 feet away, 4 guards nearby, and hordes of people crowding around. The Venus de Milo is impressive, but my favorite statue is the Winged Victory of Samothrace. The large format French paintings are inspiring as well, including Delacroix’s “Liberty leading the people”. Shereen’s favorite was the Napoleon apartments, directed lavishly with rich couches and elaborate chandeliers. The Louvre is monstrous and we spent about 5 hours meandering without seeing everything.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2170297&l=9589f&id=15616369
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2170298&l=4ad84&id=15616369
To celebrate our one year anniversary we decided to spend a weekend in Paris (obvious choice).
We arrived late on Friday, checked into the hotel, and walked 20 minutes to see the Eiffel tower. The tower is lit up at night and is quite impressive. There were hundreds of others straggling and meandering beneath its spreading feet.
Saturday morning we got up early to get in line to ascend the Eiffel tower. We bumped into a student from a Canadian university, who seemed a bit too eager for conversation. He found us in line, in the elevator, on the first level, at the top, and in the elevator on the way down. By this time he was giving me his email address and saying he would be looking for a job in a few months. I think he was lonely traveling by himself…
From the top of the tower we noticed a large crowd gathered in a plaza about a mile away. Someone mentioned that the pope was in Paris and had attracted the crowd. We descended to take the metro to the shopping district. Shereen was keen on finding the Louis Vutton store. Exiting the metro we walked through the streets, stopping in some ridiculously pricey jewelry stores. It must have been obvious we couldn’t afford any of this stuff, the salespeople barely said hello before going back to their own chitchat.
Not finding what she was looking for, we walked to the Champs-Elysees, and found a huge Louis Vutton store. I’ve never seen anything like. The place was packed, with customers and salespeople. I have a feeling this one store makes a significant portion of the companies sales. Combining the foot traffic with the price tags would make for some hefty revenue…
Walking a bit further we approached the Arc de Triomphe, which is well protected by a whirling, multiple lane traffic circle fed by 12 streets converging on this one point. Not seeing the underground tunnel until later, we ran like confused puppies through the traffic chaos to reach the Arc. We didn’t stay long, hopping on the metro to visit the city center.
We walked along the river before stopping to the Saint Chappelle church. This is a superb church with a lower level for the peasants and an upper level for the aristocracy so they never have to see one another. We were fortunate to time our visit when an English tour started so we were able to learn the details of the church. The upper level has walls made of stained glass that stretch several stories vertically. The glass displays stories from the Bible and the Middle Ages, starting with Genesis and Exodus and working around until the last panel shows the story of how the relics (crown of thorns, etc.) were found. Quite an impressive sight, especially with the sunlight glowing through. The glass is divided into smaller panels, each panel showing a story, so there are hundreds of individual stories including Cain clubbing Abel, the burning bush, Noah’s ark, and many less well known stories. The glass had been removed and replaced several times to protect during conflicts and there were a few errors in the order it was replaced. An example was one medieval battle scene showed the soldiers fighting on horses, then the king sending them out, then the soldiers riding to battle.
After this we were exhausted so hopped on the Metro back to the hotel. In the mood for Thai, we were turned away at the first place we stopped since we didn’t have a reservation and the few tables were packed with diners shoulder to shoulder. We found an Asian place down the street that wasn’t as busy.
The next day we visited the Louvre. I had been here several weeks ago by myself, on the first Sunday of the month when it is free and packed. Now that I understood the layout better, Shereen and I were able to walk directly to the most interesting items and eliminate traipsing all over this immense museum. The Mona Lisa is a bit of a disappointment, alone on a large wall, behind glass, with a rope perimeter keeping you over 20 feet away, 4 guards nearby, and hordes of people crowding around. The Venus de Milo is impressive, but my favorite statue is the Winged Victory of Samothrace. The large format French paintings are inspiring as well, including Delacroix’s “Liberty leading the people”. Shereen’s favorite was the Napoleon apartments, directed lavishly with rich couches and elaborate chandeliers. The Louvre is monstrous and we spent about 5 hours meandering without seeing everything.
Connection
Well, now that we are a few weeks beyond our Orange debacle I suppose we can laugh. But to update you on what happened to finally get service setup, we’ll go back to where we were waiting for the second technician to show up.
This time Monique had given her number to them so they could call if there were any issues. Our time slot was in the middle of the day, so I stayed home from work to sit in the car by the gate. Well this time we weren’t seeing anyone so we called Monique. She called Orange and the response was that the technician couldn’t find the apartment so he had called our apartment phone, WHICH HE WAS COMING TO FIX!!! For whatever reason he couldn’t turn around and come back, so we were stuck again. This was reaching crisis mode as Shereen was now very frustrated. Monique decided to put the pressure on Orange. ArvinMeritor does business with Orange, so she solicited the assistance of our IT rep to find a management contact at Orange. I’m not sure everything she said, but apparently she said I was a VIP and the ArvinMeritor would reconsider doing business with Orange unless the situation was resolved. Well, within 2 days we had a technician at our apartment. After 45 minutes of poking around in the wiring we were in business. We couldn’t communicate with the tech very well, but there was some problem with their system. Anyway after over a month of delay and grief we were now connected to the world!
This time Monique had given her number to them so they could call if there were any issues. Our time slot was in the middle of the day, so I stayed home from work to sit in the car by the gate. Well this time we weren’t seeing anyone so we called Monique. She called Orange and the response was that the technician couldn’t find the apartment so he had called our apartment phone, WHICH HE WAS COMING TO FIX!!! For whatever reason he couldn’t turn around and come back, so we were stuck again. This was reaching crisis mode as Shereen was now very frustrated. Monique decided to put the pressure on Orange. ArvinMeritor does business with Orange, so she solicited the assistance of our IT rep to find a management contact at Orange. I’m not sure everything she said, but apparently she said I was a VIP and the ArvinMeritor would reconsider doing business with Orange unless the situation was resolved. Well, within 2 days we had a technician at our apartment. After 45 minutes of poking around in the wiring we were in business. We couldn’t communicate with the tech very well, but there was some problem with their system. Anyway after over a month of delay and grief we were now connected to the world!
Orange!
The past few weeks have been somewhat of a struggle since the primary communication portal we were counting on, internet and local phone service, still does not work. This leaves Shereen feeling isolated during the day, with only unsatisfactory trips to McDonalds for internet. Fortunately we now have a cell phone from work that we can use for local calls. At least we are now able to keep in touch. We had canceled both of our US cell phones, and once Shereen’s expired over a week ago, it was nearly impossible to get in contact during the day.
We signed up with Orange to provide internet/telephone service over 5 weeks ago. Normally it takes about 15 days to setup. We are discovering that customer service at the previous national France Telecom, but recently privatized Orange is abysmal. Which, unfortunately, seems to be typical of most French services. Multiple calls to Orange have produced responses that the line is established and should work. We have received the appropriate hardware in the mail (so named “Livebox” that despite its moniker plays dead). But our daily attempts to connect produce no more than the mocking “flashing 4 times per second” of the ADSL light indicating the line is not active.
Two weeks ago, with the assistance of the charming Monique, we called Orange to schedule a service call, with the earliest appointment being a week later, last Wednesday. We gritted our teeth and impatiently waited for the promised time of 8 AM to arrive. I stood at the gate to our apartment complex just to make sure there would be no issues with the intercom system (our name has not been added to the digital directory next to the apartment number yet). Well, no one came. Shereen used a pay phone to call a secretary at work, who called Orange. The answer came back that our appointment had not been confirmed. This was a shock, our hopes of connection were dashed. I had been with Monique when we scheduled the appointment and there was no mention of a confirmation. She was surprised as well after learning of this later.
After weighing the options (canceling Orange for a competitor, setting up a cable line) we decided that our best chance of establishing a connection would be to setup another service call with Orange. The earliest appointment is, once again, a week later on this Tuesday. So we wait and stew. My suspicion is that Orange has connected a neighboring apartment; that being the reason they believe the connection is active but we can’t get a signal. We shall see. I asked if threatening to cancel would produce a more timely response, but the locals indicated this would not change the situation.
We signed up with Orange to provide internet/telephone service over 5 weeks ago. Normally it takes about 15 days to setup. We are discovering that customer service at the previous national France Telecom, but recently privatized Orange is abysmal. Which, unfortunately, seems to be typical of most French services. Multiple calls to Orange have produced responses that the line is established and should work. We have received the appropriate hardware in the mail (so named “Livebox” that despite its moniker plays dead). But our daily attempts to connect produce no more than the mocking “flashing 4 times per second” of the ADSL light indicating the line is not active.
Two weeks ago, with the assistance of the charming Monique, we called Orange to schedule a service call, with the earliest appointment being a week later, last Wednesday. We gritted our teeth and impatiently waited for the promised time of 8 AM to arrive. I stood at the gate to our apartment complex just to make sure there would be no issues with the intercom system (our name has not been added to the digital directory next to the apartment number yet). Well, no one came. Shereen used a pay phone to call a secretary at work, who called Orange. The answer came back that our appointment had not been confirmed. This was a shock, our hopes of connection were dashed. I had been with Monique when we scheduled the appointment and there was no mention of a confirmation. She was surprised as well after learning of this later.
After weighing the options (canceling Orange for a competitor, setting up a cable line) we decided that our best chance of establishing a connection would be to setup another service call with Orange. The earliest appointment is, once again, a week later on this Tuesday. So we wait and stew. My suspicion is that Orange has connected a neighboring apartment; that being the reason they believe the connection is active but we can’t get a signal. We shall see. I asked if threatening to cancel would produce a more timely response, but the locals indicated this would not change the situation.
Nice
Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2168981&l=e8d94&id=15616369
As advertised, a couple of weeks ago we traveled to the French Riviera, the area along the Mediterranean coast of French, just west of the border with Italy. We were armed with a map, from the Orleans tourist information center, showing camping sites in France. Our plan was to drive as far as we could on Friday, then use the map and GPS to find a campsite. From Orleans to Nice is nearly a 9 hour drive, so we were planning to leave in good time on Friday, but didn’t get started until after 5:30 pm.
Although the roads in France are nice, the toll roads are a bit pricey. One way our total tolls approached 50 Euros. So for the round trip we paid about $150 in tolls. Good thing we were camping and not staying in a posh hotel.
By about 10:30 we had driven as far as we could stand and began looking for a campsite. Using the addresses listed on the map, the GPS got us close, and then we followed signs to the camps. We found a small one that we drove into, not seeing anyone to pay, and found an open grassy area to setup the tent. There were several car campers nearby as we setup the tent in the dark. In the morning we were able to see the neighbors. The campers were relics, with mostly older couples camping in style: tables with tablecloths and flower centerpieces, clothes drying on the line, and stoves cooking breakfast. We looked very rookie as we gobbled our bread and fruit as we hurried to pack and get on the road. As we loaded up, a woman walked up. She was the “owner” of the site and asked for payment, in acceptable English, and pointed out the showers and shop we had passed on the way in. For one night: 11.40 Euro.
There was still a long drive to reach Nice. Once we were close we began looking for another campsite and found a more professional version than our previous night’s stay. I’m still not exactly sure which town we were in, it was one of the small ones on the coast south of Nice, about a 40 minute bike ride from Nice as we were to find later. This was a gated site, with well marked sites for tents and campers, showers, and ping pong tables. For one night: 25 Euro. After setting up the tent and leaving the car, we headed for the beach. Similar to Italy, the beach is small stones, which my bare feet protest loudly when subjected to. We can confirm that the beaches were full of Europeans with a more liberal opinion of what minimal beach attire is. It was strange to see liberated mothers cavorting with their children on the beach. Not to say that this was the standard, I would guess that only 1/3 diverted from what Americans consider “normal” attire.
In the evening we drove to Nice, a few minutes away. Parking in a garage, we walked to downtown. There were hundreds of people on the street. During the course of the evening we passed a group of young break dancers surrounded by a crowd (there was an overweight college tourist goofing by pretending to break dance in the circle to the amusement of all, while the pros responded with real moves, including a headstand spin), an amateur magician practicing rope knot tricks for a small audience, a spray paint artist creating nature scenes as we watched, a tall, thin, tackily dressed Michael Jackson impersonator who was dancing to his songs blaring on a small boom box, and a talented pianist in the center of a square banging out classical to a large audience in a manner that even a non-musician like myself could appreciate (the stand-up piano had wheels on the back that would have been used to move it).
Following our usual drill, we consulted Rick Steves for a nearby restaurant, but unfortunately since this was still the holiday season, the first 3 we tried were closed (the owners had shut down for several weeks while they vacationed). We ended up at another one his suggestions, an extremely popular outdoor place where we ordered food from a window and ate at picnic tables on the square: pizza and the ever present “frites” at a reasonable price. Not so romantic, but surrounded by local flavor at the crowded tables. For dessert we looked for a gelato stand. Entering a large square it was easy to see why Steves recommended the gelato place we were looking for. The locals swarmed around it, while on the opposite side of the square, a smaller competitor had almost no customers. Walking by with our fruity cones I noticed that his prices were about 50 cents cheaper; insufficient, apparently, to coax the locals into buying an inferior product.
The next day we decided to ride our bikes back to Nice to explore in daylight (and eat lunch at a Thai restaurant Shereen had spotted the day before). After some uncertainty we were able to navigate the bike path along the beach to the boardwalk in Nice. At the north end of town we climbed the cliff to what was once a castle overlooking the bay. The castle is gone, but there is a large park, with great view of Nice to the south and Monaco to the north. Yes, there were multiple HUGE yachts in the port of Monaco. We stopped for Thai for lunch and I can report that the Pad Thai was very inferior to the Michigan version (no kick, bland flavor). With the long drive ahead of us, we left early in the afternoon.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2168981&l=e8d94&id=15616369
As advertised, a couple of weeks ago we traveled to the French Riviera, the area along the Mediterranean coast of French, just west of the border with Italy. We were armed with a map, from the Orleans tourist information center, showing camping sites in France. Our plan was to drive as far as we could on Friday, then use the map and GPS to find a campsite. From Orleans to Nice is nearly a 9 hour drive, so we were planning to leave in good time on Friday, but didn’t get started until after 5:30 pm.
Although the roads in France are nice, the toll roads are a bit pricey. One way our total tolls approached 50 Euros. So for the round trip we paid about $150 in tolls. Good thing we were camping and not staying in a posh hotel.
By about 10:30 we had driven as far as we could stand and began looking for a campsite. Using the addresses listed on the map, the GPS got us close, and then we followed signs to the camps. We found a small one that we drove into, not seeing anyone to pay, and found an open grassy area to setup the tent. There were several car campers nearby as we setup the tent in the dark. In the morning we were able to see the neighbors. The campers were relics, with mostly older couples camping in style: tables with tablecloths and flower centerpieces, clothes drying on the line, and stoves cooking breakfast. We looked very rookie as we gobbled our bread and fruit as we hurried to pack and get on the road. As we loaded up, a woman walked up. She was the “owner” of the site and asked for payment, in acceptable English, and pointed out the showers and shop we had passed on the way in. For one night: 11.40 Euro.
There was still a long drive to reach Nice. Once we were close we began looking for another campsite and found a more professional version than our previous night’s stay. I’m still not exactly sure which town we were in, it was one of the small ones on the coast south of Nice, about a 40 minute bike ride from Nice as we were to find later. This was a gated site, with well marked sites for tents and campers, showers, and ping pong tables. For one night: 25 Euro. After setting up the tent and leaving the car, we headed for the beach. Similar to Italy, the beach is small stones, which my bare feet protest loudly when subjected to. We can confirm that the beaches were full of Europeans with a more liberal opinion of what minimal beach attire is. It was strange to see liberated mothers cavorting with their children on the beach. Not to say that this was the standard, I would guess that only 1/3 diverted from what Americans consider “normal” attire.
In the evening we drove to Nice, a few minutes away. Parking in a garage, we walked to downtown. There were hundreds of people on the street. During the course of the evening we passed a group of young break dancers surrounded by a crowd (there was an overweight college tourist goofing by pretending to break dance in the circle to the amusement of all, while the pros responded with real moves, including a headstand spin), an amateur magician practicing rope knot tricks for a small audience, a spray paint artist creating nature scenes as we watched, a tall, thin, tackily dressed Michael Jackson impersonator who was dancing to his songs blaring on a small boom box, and a talented pianist in the center of a square banging out classical to a large audience in a manner that even a non-musician like myself could appreciate (the stand-up piano had wheels on the back that would have been used to move it).
Following our usual drill, we consulted Rick Steves for a nearby restaurant, but unfortunately since this was still the holiday season, the first 3 we tried were closed (the owners had shut down for several weeks while they vacationed). We ended up at another one his suggestions, an extremely popular outdoor place where we ordered food from a window and ate at picnic tables on the square: pizza and the ever present “frites” at a reasonable price. Not so romantic, but surrounded by local flavor at the crowded tables. For dessert we looked for a gelato stand. Entering a large square it was easy to see why Steves recommended the gelato place we were looking for. The locals swarmed around it, while on the opposite side of the square, a smaller competitor had almost no customers. Walking by with our fruity cones I noticed that his prices were about 50 cents cheaper; insufficient, apparently, to coax the locals into buying an inferior product.
The next day we decided to ride our bikes back to Nice to explore in daylight (and eat lunch at a Thai restaurant Shereen had spotted the day before). After some uncertainty we were able to navigate the bike path along the beach to the boardwalk in Nice. At the north end of town we climbed the cliff to what was once a castle overlooking the bay. The castle is gone, but there is a large park, with great view of Nice to the south and Monaco to the north. Yes, there were multiple HUGE yachts in the port of Monaco. We stopped for Thai for lunch and I can report that the Pad Thai was very inferior to the Michigan version (no kick, bland flavor). With the long drive ahead of us, we left early in the afternoon.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Hiatus
You may have noticed a gap since I last posted. The last few weeks have been difficult as we struggled with an internet provider, Orange, to get service setup at our apartment. We had been counting on the internet to allow Shereen to keep in contact with the US. Belive me, a lonely and isolated Shereen is no fun at all! I'll just say it was a very difficult month for the both of us. Fortunately, as of last Thursday, and after many snafus (the gory details to be written soon) we now have internet!
Also, in response to valid criticism that this blog is blander than dry toast, we'll post pics to spice it up. I'll try to add pics from past posts, so you may want to look back once I get my act together.
Also, in response to valid criticism that this blog is blander than dry toast, we'll post pics to spice it up. I'll try to add pics from past posts, so you may want to look back once I get my act together.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Living
Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2168980&l=43456&id=15616369
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2168979&l=e7cbb&id=15616369
A bit over one week ago, Shereen and I left the US, final destination Orleans, France. The last several days we have lived in our apartment in Orleans, adjusted to jet lag, and made liberal use of the GPS to navigate the stores in the area. Last Tuesday we picked up the company lease car we will use for the next year: a brand new VW Golf. A much nicer car than the Cavaliers we ditched in the US! Fortunately it’s an automatic, so Shereen is free to roam, which she has taken full advantage of. On several days she has dropped me at work and taken the car to explore during the day. Last week this included a trip to the nearest Ikea (not very near, there are several Ikea stores around Paris). Unfortunately the Ikea’s here are not as nice as the ones in the US and we decided to purchase furniture for the apartment elsewhere.
As I mentioned before, the apartment is unfurnished, which means it is virtually bare. So the first priority is getting some semblance of furniture. Working within the budget we were given, Shereen has done a great job of almost filling the apartment with purchases at But and a local used furniture store. It will take a few weeks for the kitchen cabinets to be delivered, but we should have a dining table and chairs, china cabinet, 2 sofas, bookshelf, entertainment cabinet, dresser, and wardrobe by the end of the week. The container with our stuff from the US arrived this Monday; we are in the middle of unpacking everything. We have been given several items by my American boss, Matt (he is actually 2 steps up, I have a French direct manager), including rugs, lamps, and a small table.
The one major aggravation is that we have not been successful in setting up internet access yet. We received the “Livebox” (modem) last week, but we’re not sure if we are doing something wrong or if the phone line has not been activated yet. Unfortunately my office contacts who could call the company have been in Germany the past few days. We hope to clear this up soon.
We have had some success finding food to Shereen’s liking at the local stores. She dislikes French food, so we have minimized visits to French restaurants and had dinners at Asian, Algerian, and Arabic restaurants. There is a nice store that sells exclusively frozen food near our apartment. The milk at the store comes in small bottles that are stored at room temperature. Only after opening does the milk need to be stored in a refrigerator. We guessed wrong with our first milk purchased and bought whole milk in a red bottle. With advice, we now know to pick the milk in the blue bottle if we want something closer to skim.
On Saturday we stopped at Matt and Julie’s house (they have been living in Orleans since last December). We were planning to just pick up a few items, including a toaster and coffee maker, but ended up staying the entire morning. They have two small children, a 3 year old boy and a 20 month old girl. We had an interesting time building a track for their toy train while the Olympics played on the Slingbox. I’ve been getting all my Olympics news from the internet, so it was nice to see some events live. In the afternoon they escorted us to some nearby stores.
At the third store, the boy was getting tired and obstinate. At one point Shereen and I were left alone with him as he began a fit. We stood helplessly for a few minutes as he stretched face down on the tiles screaming in the middle of a store about the size of Walmart, a Walmart crowded with shoppers. An older Frenchman pushing a cart stopped and spoke French to the kid. Hearing something strange he put his head up to see and then back down to continue screaming. The man smiled at us and moved on. Next a mother and her young son came by and tried to help. She bent down and actually grabbed the kid to help him up. This produced no change in the situation. Then the French kid grabbed him by the arms to help him up. I thought this might guilt him into behaving, but only briefly did the screams stop. After this nice French lady gave up, I grabbed him off the floor and we began walking to another area, hoping that Matt and Julie would come to our rescue soon. The kid is screaming loud enough to reach all corners of the store, I’m looking sheepish, and all the French are turning to look with disgust. Not the favorite moment of my day! Fortunately Matt came around the corner soon and he quieted down once back in his dad’s arms.
On Sunday we drove southwest toward Tours and visited 3 chateaus (castles). The Loire region of France has many castles; one could easily spend a year visiting nothing but castles. We visited 3 of the more famous: Chenonceau, Cheverny, and Chambord. These are very different castles, but impressive in their own way. Chenonceau is built over a river and was home to queens and mistresses during its heyday. The castle was given as a gift to Diane de Poitiers, one of Henry II’s mistresses. After Henry II died, his jealous widow Catherine de Medici forced Diane out into another chateau, moved in herself, and became famous for the huge parties that she would hold here. This is a very impressive place, both in architecture and the story behind the chateau. Cheverny is more of a large mansion than a castle. It is still owned by the family that built it hundreds of years ago, and was lived in until 20 years ago. The rooms are fully decorated and have the almost lived in feel. After Chenonceau, we were not too impressed and passed quickly through. Chambord is a monstrous place, fitting exactly my mental image of a castle. It was built as hunting palace and is surrounded by huge grounds for hunting deer and boar. The large rooms are located in a cross pattern around a massive spiral, stone staircase that goes up 4 stories. There are over 300 fireplaces in Chambord, but it has a distinctively cold feel: large rooms made of stone, with high ceilings. Big enough to house an army.
I had another French lesson today that went very well. I’m far from being able to speak French, but at least seem to be retaining what little I’ve been taught so far. On Thursday Shereen and I have a 3 hour “orientation” where we will learn about French culture and have a chance to speak English. We hope to find out more about the opportunity for Shereen to work at the language center after this orientation. I brought it up again today and Isabelle seemed enthusiastic about having Shereen assist.
This weekend I think we will visit the French Riviera. Shereen is a fan of sun and the beach, of which the Riviera has plenty. It is about a 6 hour drive, which we plan to do on Friday, and then camp overnight through Sunday. We picked up information on campsites at the tourist information center in Orleans and I have found a few nice websites for camping also. Apparently campsites in Europe are very nice, usually with hot showers and camp stores. We shall see…
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2168980&l=43456&id=15616369
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2168979&l=e7cbb&id=15616369
A bit over one week ago, Shereen and I left the US, final destination Orleans, France. The last several days we have lived in our apartment in Orleans, adjusted to jet lag, and made liberal use of the GPS to navigate the stores in the area. Last Tuesday we picked up the company lease car we will use for the next year: a brand new VW Golf. A much nicer car than the Cavaliers we ditched in the US! Fortunately it’s an automatic, so Shereen is free to roam, which she has taken full advantage of. On several days she has dropped me at work and taken the car to explore during the day. Last week this included a trip to the nearest Ikea (not very near, there are several Ikea stores around Paris). Unfortunately the Ikea’s here are not as nice as the ones in the US and we decided to purchase furniture for the apartment elsewhere.
As I mentioned before, the apartment is unfurnished, which means it is virtually bare. So the first priority is getting some semblance of furniture. Working within the budget we were given, Shereen has done a great job of almost filling the apartment with purchases at But and a local used furniture store. It will take a few weeks for the kitchen cabinets to be delivered, but we should have a dining table and chairs, china cabinet, 2 sofas, bookshelf, entertainment cabinet, dresser, and wardrobe by the end of the week. The container with our stuff from the US arrived this Monday; we are in the middle of unpacking everything. We have been given several items by my American boss, Matt (he is actually 2 steps up, I have a French direct manager), including rugs, lamps, and a small table.
The one major aggravation is that we have not been successful in setting up internet access yet. We received the “Livebox” (modem) last week, but we’re not sure if we are doing something wrong or if the phone line has not been activated yet. Unfortunately my office contacts who could call the company have been in Germany the past few days. We hope to clear this up soon.
We have had some success finding food to Shereen’s liking at the local stores. She dislikes French food, so we have minimized visits to French restaurants and had dinners at Asian, Algerian, and Arabic restaurants. There is a nice store that sells exclusively frozen food near our apartment. The milk at the store comes in small bottles that are stored at room temperature. Only after opening does the milk need to be stored in a refrigerator. We guessed wrong with our first milk purchased and bought whole milk in a red bottle. With advice, we now know to pick the milk in the blue bottle if we want something closer to skim.
On Saturday we stopped at Matt and Julie’s house (they have been living in Orleans since last December). We were planning to just pick up a few items, including a toaster and coffee maker, but ended up staying the entire morning. They have two small children, a 3 year old boy and a 20 month old girl. We had an interesting time building a track for their toy train while the Olympics played on the Slingbox. I’ve been getting all my Olympics news from the internet, so it was nice to see some events live. In the afternoon they escorted us to some nearby stores.
At the third store, the boy was getting tired and obstinate. At one point Shereen and I were left alone with him as he began a fit. We stood helplessly for a few minutes as he stretched face down on the tiles screaming in the middle of a store about the size of Walmart, a Walmart crowded with shoppers. An older Frenchman pushing a cart stopped and spoke French to the kid. Hearing something strange he put his head up to see and then back down to continue screaming. The man smiled at us and moved on. Next a mother and her young son came by and tried to help. She bent down and actually grabbed the kid to help him up. This produced no change in the situation. Then the French kid grabbed him by the arms to help him up. I thought this might guilt him into behaving, but only briefly did the screams stop. After this nice French lady gave up, I grabbed him off the floor and we began walking to another area, hoping that Matt and Julie would come to our rescue soon. The kid is screaming loud enough to reach all corners of the store, I’m looking sheepish, and all the French are turning to look with disgust. Not the favorite moment of my day! Fortunately Matt came around the corner soon and he quieted down once back in his dad’s arms.
On Sunday we drove southwest toward Tours and visited 3 chateaus (castles). The Loire region of France has many castles; one could easily spend a year visiting nothing but castles. We visited 3 of the more famous: Chenonceau, Cheverny, and Chambord. These are very different castles, but impressive in their own way. Chenonceau is built over a river and was home to queens and mistresses during its heyday. The castle was given as a gift to Diane de Poitiers, one of Henry II’s mistresses. After Henry II died, his jealous widow Catherine de Medici forced Diane out into another chateau, moved in herself, and became famous for the huge parties that she would hold here. This is a very impressive place, both in architecture and the story behind the chateau. Cheverny is more of a large mansion than a castle. It is still owned by the family that built it hundreds of years ago, and was lived in until 20 years ago. The rooms are fully decorated and have the almost lived in feel. After Chenonceau, we were not too impressed and passed quickly through. Chambord is a monstrous place, fitting exactly my mental image of a castle. It was built as hunting palace and is surrounded by huge grounds for hunting deer and boar. The large rooms are located in a cross pattern around a massive spiral, stone staircase that goes up 4 stories. There are over 300 fireplaces in Chambord, but it has a distinctively cold feel: large rooms made of stone, with high ceilings. Big enough to house an army.
I had another French lesson today that went very well. I’m far from being able to speak French, but at least seem to be retaining what little I’ve been taught so far. On Thursday Shereen and I have a 3 hour “orientation” where we will learn about French culture and have a chance to speak English. We hope to find out more about the opportunity for Shereen to work at the language center after this orientation. I brought it up again today and Isabelle seemed enthusiastic about having Shereen assist.
This weekend I think we will visit the French Riviera. Shereen is a fan of sun and the beach, of which the Riviera has plenty. It is about a 6 hour drive, which we plan to do on Friday, and then camp overnight through Sunday. We picked up information on campsites at the tourist information center in Orleans and I have found a few nice websites for camping also. Apparently campsites in Europe are very nice, usually with hot showers and camp stores. We shall see…
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Going to work...
What does a “financial analyst” do? I’ll try to answer that and give you a feel for the flavor and character of the office here in Sully.
The value driver in any manufacturing business is operations (manufacturing): a company functions to produce a particular product. More fundamentally the idea that led to this operation is the true value driver, typically coming out of engineering/research work. Once you have these, the remainder of a company’s internal functions are designed to support and expedite manufacturing. Finance falls into this category (even in the banking industry where the “product” is finance, you could look at the bank as a support industry for businesses that manufacture products). Finance is related to accounting. Accounting is a categorization function. To understand how a business is performing, the various costs and revenues must be put into “buckets” to allow a human to understand it. Accounting is the framework that determines what dollar value goes into which bucket.
Finance uses the tools of accounting (balance sheet, income statement, etc.) but leaves the generation of these tools to the accountant. Finance is first focused on understanding how a business is running (revenue, profits) and second on where to acquire the money required to fund new projects. Using the tools generated by accounting, the financial analyst attempts to understand where a business is functioning well and where it needs improvement. In any large company there are too many moving pieces to allow for easy understanding. The layers of management between the shop floor and the office, combined with geographic distance make it very difficult to “see” where the problems are. Much of business is about “seeing” what is going on when you are not physically present. It is human nature to make ourselves look good, so it is not as simple as just asking the appropriate operations manager. Although firsthand input is always valuable, data that is more objective is necessary. Hard numbers eliminate the weight of personality and exposes who is truly performing. Step one for the financial analyst is to review the accounting statements and process the data in a way that exposes the true story. This means preparing spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations that tell the correct story in a way that brings focus to the areas that need attention.
Each year the finance team leads a company wide planning process to project sales and profits for the next year. This forecast is then used to evaluate how well a business performs. Each month, on a less extensive scale, the forecast is updated to account for changing conditions, both internal and external. The monthly numbers provide a high level snapshot of performance. It is the job of the analyst to understand the numbers and identify specific actions needed to improve. Once the business performance is understood, the decisions on how to allocate capital can be made. This includes strategic decisions on how much to spend on projects and where the money will come from (cash, loans, sale of stock, etc.).
Now that I’ve talked in generality, what do I do specifically? In Detroit I supported the Light Vehicle Systems (LVS) business. My primary project was to improve the collection of money from customers. As in any industry, not everyone pays on time. This was a learning experience for me, since I had minimal background in this area. In addition, I supported the capital spending decision process. This included reviewing projects submitted for approval and joining the management review meetings. This was an exceptional chance to see how spending decisions are made, as I was sitting in the same room as the President and VP of Finance. The monthly consolidation of the business results came through our department and I assisted with running standard reports. The remainder of my time was spent on ad hoc projects, for example, one was to analyze the individual business units to determine the return on invested capital.
In Sully, I will still be involved in the capital spending process, but at one step sooner in the progression. The last few weeks my time was fully devoted to the annual planning for next year’s forecast. Going forward I will be given a process improvement project similar to the one in Detroit to improve collections, but that is yet to be defined. Beyond that, I have set a personal goal to improve communication with the corporate office back in Detroit. There are many areas for improvement in ArvinMeritor and communication between the geographic regions is a significant one.
Sitting in Sully are five members of the finance team: the VP of Finance for our Body Systems group (an American who worked at Chrysler in finance for many years), my direct manager (a Frenchman with a prodigious memory for history and culture), and two other analysts (also Frenchman, about my age) who report to my manager. Finance is renowned for requiring long hours on the job and my manager and the VP have no qualms with grinding out 16 hour days for weeks, as we did to complete the forecast (forget what you’ve heard about 35 hours workweeks, that’s only for hourly workers, the salaried French can work long hours, but are required to have at least one day off every 10 days). The interpersonal dynamic is very intriguing within the office. A well respected Englishman had been the VP of Finance, but left within the last year. His name comes up periodically, always in a reverential manner as the locals mention something he would say or the way he did things. The new VP has this going against him. He is extremely intelligent, but I can see he is working uphill to build camaraderie with the group.
My manager is a particularly fascinating individual. He speaks excellent English, but at a much slower pace than we are used to. The first night I was in France we went to dinner together and I enjoyed watching him interact with the waiter on the wine and food selections. I haven’t had a long conversation with him about history, but I’m told he knows it all when it comes to France. He is more open to outside ideas than most Frenchman; we guess this comes from his having worked for several years in the US. Early in his career he worked as a manufacturing engineer before transferring to finance. A discussion we had recently exposed this background. To tackle the issue he started using similar triangles. No need to worry about what that means, suffice it to say that similar triangles are a tool more relevant to engineering, and is not a method I would expect in the toolbox of someone with a strictly finance background. As with most of the French I’ve worked with the level of urgency I am used to working with is not there. He allows things to develop at a much slower pace. The other two analysts are very courteous. I have had difficulty discerning what their career aspirations are. They have both been working here for several years and I can see they are somewhat bored with their jobs. We have developed a good relationship; I discovered that they really did not like my American counterpart who left a few weeks ago. I have been complemented that I speak without much of an American accent (basically I speak slowly and avoid using slang); whereas my coworker made no effort to adjust his speaking patterns for the locals. This was not appreciated.
There are several other non-native employees, including the General Manager. The GM is an extreme extrovert; you can see his energy level shoot through the roof anytime someone approaches him. I believe he is originally from Turkey, but he speaks English with expressions that come across well in any culture. I was impressed on my last flight to the US both he and another VP were sitting in coach, and as always he was smiling about it.
Overall an absorbing place to work!
The value driver in any manufacturing business is operations (manufacturing): a company functions to produce a particular product. More fundamentally the idea that led to this operation is the true value driver, typically coming out of engineering/research work. Once you have these, the remainder of a company’s internal functions are designed to support and expedite manufacturing. Finance falls into this category (even in the banking industry where the “product” is finance, you could look at the bank as a support industry for businesses that manufacture products). Finance is related to accounting. Accounting is a categorization function. To understand how a business is performing, the various costs and revenues must be put into “buckets” to allow a human to understand it. Accounting is the framework that determines what dollar value goes into which bucket.
Finance uses the tools of accounting (balance sheet, income statement, etc.) but leaves the generation of these tools to the accountant. Finance is first focused on understanding how a business is running (revenue, profits) and second on where to acquire the money required to fund new projects. Using the tools generated by accounting, the financial analyst attempts to understand where a business is functioning well and where it needs improvement. In any large company there are too many moving pieces to allow for easy understanding. The layers of management between the shop floor and the office, combined with geographic distance make it very difficult to “see” where the problems are. Much of business is about “seeing” what is going on when you are not physically present. It is human nature to make ourselves look good, so it is not as simple as just asking the appropriate operations manager. Although firsthand input is always valuable, data that is more objective is necessary. Hard numbers eliminate the weight of personality and exposes who is truly performing. Step one for the financial analyst is to review the accounting statements and process the data in a way that exposes the true story. This means preparing spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations that tell the correct story in a way that brings focus to the areas that need attention.
Each year the finance team leads a company wide planning process to project sales and profits for the next year. This forecast is then used to evaluate how well a business performs. Each month, on a less extensive scale, the forecast is updated to account for changing conditions, both internal and external. The monthly numbers provide a high level snapshot of performance. It is the job of the analyst to understand the numbers and identify specific actions needed to improve. Once the business performance is understood, the decisions on how to allocate capital can be made. This includes strategic decisions on how much to spend on projects and where the money will come from (cash, loans, sale of stock, etc.).
Now that I’ve talked in generality, what do I do specifically? In Detroit I supported the Light Vehicle Systems (LVS) business. My primary project was to improve the collection of money from customers. As in any industry, not everyone pays on time. This was a learning experience for me, since I had minimal background in this area. In addition, I supported the capital spending decision process. This included reviewing projects submitted for approval and joining the management review meetings. This was an exceptional chance to see how spending decisions are made, as I was sitting in the same room as the President and VP of Finance. The monthly consolidation of the business results came through our department and I assisted with running standard reports. The remainder of my time was spent on ad hoc projects, for example, one was to analyze the individual business units to determine the return on invested capital.
In Sully, I will still be involved in the capital spending process, but at one step sooner in the progression. The last few weeks my time was fully devoted to the annual planning for next year’s forecast. Going forward I will be given a process improvement project similar to the one in Detroit to improve collections, but that is yet to be defined. Beyond that, I have set a personal goal to improve communication with the corporate office back in Detroit. There are many areas for improvement in ArvinMeritor and communication between the geographic regions is a significant one.
Sitting in Sully are five members of the finance team: the VP of Finance for our Body Systems group (an American who worked at Chrysler in finance for many years), my direct manager (a Frenchman with a prodigious memory for history and culture), and two other analysts (also Frenchman, about my age) who report to my manager. Finance is renowned for requiring long hours on the job and my manager and the VP have no qualms with grinding out 16 hour days for weeks, as we did to complete the forecast (forget what you’ve heard about 35 hours workweeks, that’s only for hourly workers, the salaried French can work long hours, but are required to have at least one day off every 10 days). The interpersonal dynamic is very intriguing within the office. A well respected Englishman had been the VP of Finance, but left within the last year. His name comes up periodically, always in a reverential manner as the locals mention something he would say or the way he did things. The new VP has this going against him. He is extremely intelligent, but I can see he is working uphill to build camaraderie with the group.
My manager is a particularly fascinating individual. He speaks excellent English, but at a much slower pace than we are used to. The first night I was in France we went to dinner together and I enjoyed watching him interact with the waiter on the wine and food selections. I haven’t had a long conversation with him about history, but I’m told he knows it all when it comes to France. He is more open to outside ideas than most Frenchman; we guess this comes from his having worked for several years in the US. Early in his career he worked as a manufacturing engineer before transferring to finance. A discussion we had recently exposed this background. To tackle the issue he started using similar triangles. No need to worry about what that means, suffice it to say that similar triangles are a tool more relevant to engineering, and is not a method I would expect in the toolbox of someone with a strictly finance background. As with most of the French I’ve worked with the level of urgency I am used to working with is not there. He allows things to develop at a much slower pace. The other two analysts are very courteous. I have had difficulty discerning what their career aspirations are. They have both been working here for several years and I can see they are somewhat bored with their jobs. We have developed a good relationship; I discovered that they really did not like my American counterpart who left a few weeks ago. I have been complemented that I speak without much of an American accent (basically I speak slowly and avoid using slang); whereas my coworker made no effort to adjust his speaking patterns for the locals. This was not appreciated.
There are several other non-native employees, including the General Manager. The GM is an extreme extrovert; you can see his energy level shoot through the roof anytime someone approaches him. I believe he is originally from Turkey, but he speaks English with expressions that come across well in any culture. I was impressed on my last flight to the US both he and another VP were sitting in coach, and as always he was smiling about it.
Overall an absorbing place to work!
Domestique
The last few days we are making progress on becoming domesticated in Orleans. Thursday I received the keys to our apartment, after spending an hour with an inspector going over every inch of the rooms. Two of the women in the HR department at ArvinMeritor, Monique and Tekfa (Monique is older and has lived in Sully for some time, she has a picture on her desk of the bridge in Sully after it was destroyed by ice in the river in the 80’s, Tekfa is an intern of Algerian descent who was born in Verizon) were kind enough to accompany me and act as interpreters. At the gate we met an older lady who handed me a large set of keys: 3 copies of the key for our door and the car park, 3 for the mailbox, 3 for the “poubelle” (trash cans) and “velo” park (bicycles), 3 electronic keys for the door to the building, and an electronic opener for the front gate and car park gate. In a minute the inspector joined us, so we made a party of five. The apartment building is very 21st century: the lights in the stairwells are triggered by motion detectors or turn off after a few minutes if a switch is used, the gates are automated, the door to the building greets you in French after recognizing the electronic key, and there is a video screen in the room showing callers at the building door. The only complaint I’ve discovered so far is the place we have been allocated in the car park. Typically European the car park is in the basement and there is no more room than necessary for maneuvering a car. Our place is at the very back of the car park, through a narrow opening with 3 concrete corners grasping at your bumpers. It is easy to pull into the spot, but backing out is not fun. I was able to back through the narrow gap and into an empty spot to turn around. So far I haven’t been there when the car park is full; I’m not sure what we will do in that case. It would be difficult to turn the car around, so we may need to back all of the way to the door. Doable, but challenging.
As I mentioned before, the apartment is virtually empty. The kitchen is a bare room, excepting a small sink against the wall. Everything will need to be purchased, including some sort of cabinets and counters. There is also a toilet (ensconced in its own private room as is the European custom), shower/tub, bathroom sink, towel drier, and heaters in each room. That is it. I was given a budget of 5,100 Euro to purchase what we need, certainly not an extravagant amount. On Friday I was escorted to a local home goods store (called But, pronounced “boot”, there marketing people will need to work on the name if they decide to compete with Home Depot in the US) by Tekfa. I had permission from Shereen to purchase appliances and a mattress. Fortunately the salesman at But had gone to school with Tekfa, so he was able to deduct a large discount when we finished. We progressed from refrigerators to stoves to “micro-ondes” (literally microwave) to clothes washers and driers to mattresses. At each the salesman would give his spiel, pointing out the model he would recommend, and Tekfa would translate while also mixing in her suggestions. I tried my best to scan the prices and identify the high and low end. Having done zero research on European brand quality, my decision was highly dependent on their input and price. We selected items that seemed to be mid-grade, as far as I could tell. Tekfa seemed enthusiastic about the choices, so I think we did OK. The refrigerator is actually quite large, comparable to one in the US. The stove is a bit smaller and has a uniquely European hinged metallic cover that hides the burners when not in use. The microwave and clothes washer are very similar to American ones. Since the apartment does not have an exhaust vent, the clothes drier has a bottle that captures moisture and must be emptied periodically. The mattresses seem to be comfortable; I didn’t see any pillow tops, they are not as thick as in the US, or as large. I only picked one, since if Shereen doesn’t like it she can pick another and our guests will have the privilege of trying this one out. The grand total for this came to 2,004 Euro (that would be roughly $3,200), including a discount of 328 Euro. Better than I was expecting. I’m feeling a bit more comfortable about being able to furnish the apartment with the remaining amount. Still quite a bit to purchase, but the most expensive pieces are behind us.
The appliances should be delivered next week; we will set a date today. Once the mattress arrives, I plan to move in to the apartment. An evening trip to Auchan (equivalent to Wal-Mart, another local store similar is Carrefour, both are reasons why Wal-Mart has failed to penetrate the French market) landed me a shower curtain and rod. The colors are terrible, white curtain with sea green shells and bright blue rings, but the other choices were worse. It will do until Shereen decides she can’t stand it.
So the apartment is well on its way. The leased car we will use has arrived, but I am waiting for the secretary to return from vacation to complete the transfer. I expect when Shereen arrives in a few weeks it will not take long at all to button things up.
As I mentioned before, the apartment is virtually empty. The kitchen is a bare room, excepting a small sink against the wall. Everything will need to be purchased, including some sort of cabinets and counters. There is also a toilet (ensconced in its own private room as is the European custom), shower/tub, bathroom sink, towel drier, and heaters in each room. That is it. I was given a budget of 5,100 Euro to purchase what we need, certainly not an extravagant amount. On Friday I was escorted to a local home goods store (called But, pronounced “boot”, there marketing people will need to work on the name if they decide to compete with Home Depot in the US) by Tekfa. I had permission from Shereen to purchase appliances and a mattress. Fortunately the salesman at But had gone to school with Tekfa, so he was able to deduct a large discount when we finished. We progressed from refrigerators to stoves to “micro-ondes” (literally microwave) to clothes washers and driers to mattresses. At each the salesman would give his spiel, pointing out the model he would recommend, and Tekfa would translate while also mixing in her suggestions. I tried my best to scan the prices and identify the high and low end. Having done zero research on European brand quality, my decision was highly dependent on their input and price. We selected items that seemed to be mid-grade, as far as I could tell. Tekfa seemed enthusiastic about the choices, so I think we did OK. The refrigerator is actually quite large, comparable to one in the US. The stove is a bit smaller and has a uniquely European hinged metallic cover that hides the burners when not in use. The microwave and clothes washer are very similar to American ones. Since the apartment does not have an exhaust vent, the clothes drier has a bottle that captures moisture and must be emptied periodically. The mattresses seem to be comfortable; I didn’t see any pillow tops, they are not as thick as in the US, or as large. I only picked one, since if Shereen doesn’t like it she can pick another and our guests will have the privilege of trying this one out. The grand total for this came to 2,004 Euro (that would be roughly $3,200), including a discount of 328 Euro. Better than I was expecting. I’m feeling a bit more comfortable about being able to furnish the apartment with the remaining amount. Still quite a bit to purchase, but the most expensive pieces are behind us.
The appliances should be delivered next week; we will set a date today. Once the mattress arrives, I plan to move in to the apartment. An evening trip to Auchan (equivalent to Wal-Mart, another local store similar is Carrefour, both are reasons why Wal-Mart has failed to penetrate the French market) landed me a shower curtain and rod. The colors are terrible, white curtain with sea green shells and bright blue rings, but the other choices were worse. It will do until Shereen decides she can’t stand it.
So the apartment is well on its way. The leased car we will use has arrived, but I am waiting for the secretary to return from vacation to complete the transfer. I expect when Shereen arrives in a few weeks it will not take long at all to button things up.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Why France ?!?
Since I don’t have much touristy news to share (spent the last two weekends traveling to and from the US), thought I would write a few comments on why I am in France. Let’s start with a little background on ArvinMeritor, the company I have been working for since last June.
The somewhat clunky name for the business is a result of a misguided merger in 2000 between companies named Arvin and Meritor. Arvin produced light vehicle (light vehicle meaning cars like you drive everyday versus heavy, or commercial vehicles like tractor trailers) components, primarily exhaust related, but also including sunroofs, springs, and shocks. Arvin’s genesis goes back to 1919; you can read a bit more about its evolution at http://www.arvinmeritor.com/about/history.asp. Meritor focused on commercial vehicle parts, such as axles, transmissions, and brakes, but also had light vehicle business in door modules, window regulators, and steel wheels. Meritor was initially a division of Rockwell and was spun off as an independent company in 1997. Aggressive management at Meritor, with the erroneous concept that any growth is good growth, pursued the merger with Arvin a few years later. The idea was that there would be synergies between the light and commercial businesses that could be leveraged to increase profits. In reality there was very little success transferring tangible benefits between the businesses. For example, one would think that knowledge of how to manufacture commercial vehicle brakes could be used to enter the light vehicle brake market, but due to a lack of management cohesion and the dramatic differences between building brakes for large and small vehicles, this never occurred. You could apply this example to each of the other products manufactured by ArvinMeritor. Basically the product line remained separated; the only benefit was combining corporate overhead functions. A basic business principle is that for a company to achieve maximum efficiency (therefore maximizing profits) it must focus on a few things rather than dabbling in many. The broad product line distracted senior management from setting a productive strategic direction.
This past May management announced their intention to spin off the light vehicle business into a standalone company, called Arvin Innovation (about $2 billion in sales). The commercial vehicle business (about $4 billion in sales) would retain the name ArvinMeritor. A significant amount of work is already under way to complete this; the stated goal is to complete the spin within twelve months of the announcement. I will be joining the Arvin Innovation. From a long-term perspective this a good move, the separate companies will be better able to focus on what they do best and investors will be able to choose to buy stock in either a light or commercial vehicle business. In the short-term, particularly considering the current wariness of banks to lend money and the downturn in light vehicle sales, this is a very risky maneuver. Innovation will need to generate sufficient cash flow to maintain the ability to invest in new development and meet financing payments, without the benefit of having a large partner to absorb any hiccups.
One of the reasons why management believes Innovation can succeed is the remarkable global diversity of the business (we’re getting closer to why I am in France). The majority of Innovations products are manufactured outside of the US and new facilities are going up in India and Romania to further lend international weight. The largest sites are located in France, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, China, Mexico, and Brazil.
Now, who can tell me which countries are different from the others in this list? France and Germany are remnants of the period prior to the current globalization of manufacturing. We have the opportunity to witness a great leveling of living standards across the globe as other countries are rising toward the level of the US. In my opinion a fantastic time to be alive, we are seeing something that will be a closed issue within a few generations. Right now there are industries entering countries that have never manufactured the product of that industry. The challenges of producing a component new to a geographic region are complex. Differences between countries, such as cultural expectations (the flexibility and aggressiveness of US workers versus the unfocused and rigid French), and historical conflicts (try asking plant workers in the Czech Republic to cooperate with German engineers) create unique opportunities. Not to mention the roadblocks caused by governments that must be worked around.
At dinner with coworkers a few weeks ago, I asked “What language would be the language of business if the US was not the dominant world economy?” My Czech colleague, who speaks English, Czech, French, German, Russian, and Slovak well, provided a typically flippant response: “English, because it is easiest” and proceeded to point out the difficulties of the Czech and French languages. He may have a point, I am certainly no language expert, but I am not so sure. My unscientific opinion is that if there was another country that dominated economically, the language of that country would be the language of business. Or, if there was no clear world leader, there would be a mishmash of communication without a “language of business”. Considering how strong the ethnic biases are in Europe and Asia this could have been chaos. Maybe I am wrong, and the fact that the British Empire spread English to so many corners of the globe would make this the default communication medium. But it is interesting to think how much more difficult it would be to conduct business without an agreed language.
France and Germany are no longer desirable locations for manufacturing. Not only because they are fully developed with high standards of living, but in some ways the more important cause is the restrictiveness of government regulation. Leaning more toward socialism, both of these countries have instituted rigid rules intended to protect workers and prevent companies from cutting employees. The required severance packages are so exorbitant that companies consider maintaining a production site that is no longer profitable just to avoid paying the large cost of letting go the employees. This also works the other way, when an employee decides to leave a job he must announce this several months in advance (versus two weeks in the US), significantly reducing the mobility of the workforce. Then there are the rigid safety standards; a good idea on first look, but too costly for the benefit achieved. Couple all of this with high taxes, and there is more to the movement of manufacturing to Asia and Eastern Europe than simply lower wage rates. In many cases the lower wages are cancelled out by a lower level of education and therefore lower productivity. If allowed to compete on a level playing field, the well educated German would fare better against his Low Cost Country counterparts.
So, why am I in France? Innovation has three manufacturing plants and an administrative office in France. Going back to its time as a division of Rockwell, there was an office in Paris for the business that produced window regulators and door modules. Over time this grew to the current sites, with the administrative office joining one of the plants in the tiny town of Sully-sur-Loire (the Loire river runs by the town, “Sully by the Loire”). Located in the Loiret region of central France, a beautiful area of farms and forests, the office seems out of place. Well chosen if you intend to keep a low profile.
The Sully office is the headquarters for the largest of Innovations business groups. After spending one year in an assignment in business group finance in Detroit for the light vehicle segment, I will spend the next year a bit closer to the product, but in a similar financial analyst role. I am part of the Body Systems group, which produces sunroofs, window regulators, door modules, and door latches. I am looking forward to having a closer view to how industry globalization works and to learn how a Fortune 500 company is split apart.
The somewhat clunky name for the business is a result of a misguided merger in 2000 between companies named Arvin and Meritor. Arvin produced light vehicle (light vehicle meaning cars like you drive everyday versus heavy, or commercial vehicles like tractor trailers) components, primarily exhaust related, but also including sunroofs, springs, and shocks. Arvin’s genesis goes back to 1919; you can read a bit more about its evolution at http://www.arvinmeritor.com/about/history.asp. Meritor focused on commercial vehicle parts, such as axles, transmissions, and brakes, but also had light vehicle business in door modules, window regulators, and steel wheels. Meritor was initially a division of Rockwell and was spun off as an independent company in 1997. Aggressive management at Meritor, with the erroneous concept that any growth is good growth, pursued the merger with Arvin a few years later. The idea was that there would be synergies between the light and commercial businesses that could be leveraged to increase profits. In reality there was very little success transferring tangible benefits between the businesses. For example, one would think that knowledge of how to manufacture commercial vehicle brakes could be used to enter the light vehicle brake market, but due to a lack of management cohesion and the dramatic differences between building brakes for large and small vehicles, this never occurred. You could apply this example to each of the other products manufactured by ArvinMeritor. Basically the product line remained separated; the only benefit was combining corporate overhead functions. A basic business principle is that for a company to achieve maximum efficiency (therefore maximizing profits) it must focus on a few things rather than dabbling in many. The broad product line distracted senior management from setting a productive strategic direction.
This past May management announced their intention to spin off the light vehicle business into a standalone company, called Arvin Innovation (about $2 billion in sales). The commercial vehicle business (about $4 billion in sales) would retain the name ArvinMeritor. A significant amount of work is already under way to complete this; the stated goal is to complete the spin within twelve months of the announcement. I will be joining the Arvin Innovation. From a long-term perspective this a good move, the separate companies will be better able to focus on what they do best and investors will be able to choose to buy stock in either a light or commercial vehicle business. In the short-term, particularly considering the current wariness of banks to lend money and the downturn in light vehicle sales, this is a very risky maneuver. Innovation will need to generate sufficient cash flow to maintain the ability to invest in new development and meet financing payments, without the benefit of having a large partner to absorb any hiccups.
One of the reasons why management believes Innovation can succeed is the remarkable global diversity of the business (we’re getting closer to why I am in France). The majority of Innovations products are manufactured outside of the US and new facilities are going up in India and Romania to further lend international weight. The largest sites are located in France, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, China, Mexico, and Brazil.
Now, who can tell me which countries are different from the others in this list? France and Germany are remnants of the period prior to the current globalization of manufacturing. We have the opportunity to witness a great leveling of living standards across the globe as other countries are rising toward the level of the US. In my opinion a fantastic time to be alive, we are seeing something that will be a closed issue within a few generations. Right now there are industries entering countries that have never manufactured the product of that industry. The challenges of producing a component new to a geographic region are complex. Differences between countries, such as cultural expectations (the flexibility and aggressiveness of US workers versus the unfocused and rigid French), and historical conflicts (try asking plant workers in the Czech Republic to cooperate with German engineers) create unique opportunities. Not to mention the roadblocks caused by governments that must be worked around.
At dinner with coworkers a few weeks ago, I asked “What language would be the language of business if the US was not the dominant world economy?” My Czech colleague, who speaks English, Czech, French, German, Russian, and Slovak well, provided a typically flippant response: “English, because it is easiest” and proceeded to point out the difficulties of the Czech and French languages. He may have a point, I am certainly no language expert, but I am not so sure. My unscientific opinion is that if there was another country that dominated economically, the language of that country would be the language of business. Or, if there was no clear world leader, there would be a mishmash of communication without a “language of business”. Considering how strong the ethnic biases are in Europe and Asia this could have been chaos. Maybe I am wrong, and the fact that the British Empire spread English to so many corners of the globe would make this the default communication medium. But it is interesting to think how much more difficult it would be to conduct business without an agreed language.
France and Germany are no longer desirable locations for manufacturing. Not only because they are fully developed with high standards of living, but in some ways the more important cause is the restrictiveness of government regulation. Leaning more toward socialism, both of these countries have instituted rigid rules intended to protect workers and prevent companies from cutting employees. The required severance packages are so exorbitant that companies consider maintaining a production site that is no longer profitable just to avoid paying the large cost of letting go the employees. This also works the other way, when an employee decides to leave a job he must announce this several months in advance (versus two weeks in the US), significantly reducing the mobility of the workforce. Then there are the rigid safety standards; a good idea on first look, but too costly for the benefit achieved. Couple all of this with high taxes, and there is more to the movement of manufacturing to Asia and Eastern Europe than simply lower wage rates. In many cases the lower wages are cancelled out by a lower level of education and therefore lower productivity. If allowed to compete on a level playing field, the well educated German would fare better against his Low Cost Country counterparts.
So, why am I in France? Innovation has three manufacturing plants and an administrative office in France. Going back to its time as a division of Rockwell, there was an office in Paris for the business that produced window regulators and door modules. Over time this grew to the current sites, with the administrative office joining one of the plants in the tiny town of Sully-sur-Loire (the Loire river runs by the town, “Sully by the Loire”). Located in the Loiret region of central France, a beautiful area of farms and forests, the office seems out of place. Well chosen if you intend to keep a low profile.
The Sully office is the headquarters for the largest of Innovations business groups. After spending one year in an assignment in business group finance in Detroit for the light vehicle segment, I will spend the next year a bit closer to the product, but in a similar financial analyst role. I am part of the Body Systems group, which produces sunroofs, window regulators, door modules, and door latches. I am looking forward to having a closer view to how industry globalization works and to learn how a Fortune 500 company is split apart.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Le Tour! or The Long Buildup to a Few Minutes of Spectating
Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2004878&l=8e38b&id=1173293194
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2004880&l=d30aa&id=1173293194
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2004882&l=83810&id=1173293194
Once I learned that I would be in France during the month of July I began to make plans to see one of the world’s great sporting events: The Tour de France. For the uninitiated the Tour is a bicycle race that lasts 3 weeks, traveling throughout France, and is known as the premier test of physical endurance in any sport. Each day, or stage, is a bike race unto itself with different specialists vying for their chance to win. The flat stages showcase the powerfully built sprinters, the mountain stages in the Pyrenees and French Alps are lead by the lean and light climbers, while only the best riders have hopes of capturing the overall Tour win in the General Classification (GC). What sets the Tour apart from other races is the long and grueling climbs through the mountains. These climbs are categorized by their length and steepness: a 5 is the lowest category, a relatively short and shallow mountain, a 1 is the second to highest, extremely steep and long, and above a 1 is the dreaded Hors Categorie (HC), which means “beyond category”, so steep and long it is beyond mere mortals to attempt.
Fortunately this past Sunday was the first mountain stage of this year’s Tour. The mountains are where the action occurs, the top contenders for the GC begin to attack and put large chunks of time between themselves and lesser riders. Also, the mountains are better for spectating simply because the riders are moving slower and are more spread out as they climb. Yesterday’s stage traveled from Toulouse to Bagneres-de-Bigorre, including two category 1 climbs, the second of which, up the Col d’Aspin appeared to be a prime place to watch the race. This was the first stage in the Pyrenees between France and Spain.
Once again my travel plans were somewhat unrefined. I was disappointed to learn that none of my coworkers had an interest in seeing the Tour; I would be on my own to figure this out. I was able to find some info on the web, including this humorous write-up (http://gearchangeup4.blogspot.com/2006/07/brit-what-happened-at-tour-de-france.html) by a Brit who followed the Tour the year Floyd Landis “won”. I knew that I would be camping somewhere along the race route, so decided the best plan was to get to Bagneres-de-Bigorre and then use the GPS to travel to Arreu, the town at the base of the climb up the Col d’Aspin. My assumption, which proved to be correct, that in the mountains there would be few roads between towns, so that I was sure to be on the road of the Tour stage. I had food to get me through the weekend, a sleeping bag (a tent didn’t fit in my luggage), and my suitcase full of clothes. Besides a map of the stage, including the times when riders were expected to be at checkpoints, that was the limit of my planning.
The drive to Bagneres-de-Bigorre took over 6 hours and I arrived in a steady rain on Saturday about 5 pm. Climbing out of the town up the side of the mountain I was forced to shift to first gear on the hairpin turns. These were the curves the riders would descend the next day. All that I knew is that I wanted to camp somewhere on the other side of the mountain, along the road the riders would be ascending. Nearing the top I could not believe the way campers were parked at the side of the road with their wheels not more than a couple feet from steep drops. I was beginning to think that I would spend the night in such a precarious position. Fortunately when I reached the peak, the spine of the mountain opened up into a clearing where hundreds of cars and campers were parked along the slope. Interestingly in socialist France, capitalism was alive and well at the peak of the Col d’Aspin, for only 5 Euro I was allowed to drive my car along the hill and park in the grass. The rain was still heavy, so those with tents were hurrying to setup. Not having the luxury of a tent, I knew that I would be spending the night in my Renault Laguna. A fairly roomy car, I was glad that I had not asked for a small car at the rental. Not so good was my choice of parking locations. The car was clinging to a rather steep slope, so steep that when I reclined the passenger seat and spread my sleeping bag out, gravity persuaded my body to nestle in the crack between the seat and the door. After a few machinations with the sleeping bag I was able to add sufficient padding to prevent hard plastic from leaving imprints in my body.
The rain was severe enough that I scratched plans to roam the area. I had meant to bring a rain coat along from the US, but in the hurry to leave I made a poor trade for a tiny umbrella that barely covered my head. It would be uncomfortable, without the added discomfort of being wet. The revelry from the other spectators was dampened as well, I could hear drunken singing at a nearby campsite, but most were bunkered down in their tents. That night it continued to rain hard and the wind rocked my car as the gusts roared over the Col. It was very cold too, and I ducked my head into my sleeping bag to stay warm. I had visions of myself standing in the rain during the race struggling to stay dry under my tiny umbrella with a garbage bag improvising as a rain coat (I had remembered the bag in my luggage at some point and decided that if worst came to worst I would layer up with clothes, tear holes in the garbage bag, and tough it out). Not sure how much I actually slept, but suffice it to say that when I woke up for good at 6 am I would have gladly traded this night for one crammed in coach class on an international flight between two fat men! But the anticipation of the Tour made me quickly forget this.
The rain had stopped in the morning, but it was still very cold, probably in the upper 30’s or low 40’s. Sticking with my plan from the night, I layered up with 5 T-shirts and 2 long sleeve shirts. I would have loved to have had a more thermally appropriate hat than a baseball hat, but there wasn’t much of a breeze, so I actually felt fairly comfortable. I loaded my bag with food and water (stuffed the garbage bag in just in case) and literally fell out of the car to begin exploring. The mountains were shrouded in a low cloud, with only hints of the vaunted steepness of the Pyrenees.
Reaching the road and beginning to drop down into the valley I crossed paths with the fans painting their favorites names on the road. For almost the entire climb up the Col there would a bike riders name on the road, each rider seemed to have his own fan section where his letters were spread across the pavement for several hundred yards. There were already amateur cyclists ascending and descending the stage route. It is common for enthusiasts to follow the Tour and ride the climbs while the road is closed to cars before the race. These were bikers of all stripes, from the wannabe pros decked out in full regalia, to the slackers riding a mountain bike with sneakers, and every shape and size in between. As I was learning, watching a Tour stage is more about the prelude than the actual race. There was a LONG time to wait before the riders would arrive at about 5 pm.
Since I didn’t have a bike, I kept hiking down the mountain. Within a kilometer of the peak I found the place that was to be where I watched the race. The road twisted below into a series of 8% grade hairpins, then stretched out in a long straightaway, before snaking around the side of a hill and disappearing. I could see the road at 6 different locations, maximizing the amount of time I could see the riders. Usually you don’t see them until they are right onto top of you, so this was a great place to be. The road was narrow, leaving little room for spectators, so I decided to make sure I was back at this spot by noon to make sure I had a place. Walking down the peak for a few more kilometers I had a good taste of what the riders would experience. The amateurs continued to fly down the road, or struggle up it, in increasing numbers. There was almost a continual procession of riders going in one direction or the other. The crazies were there in full force, most sporting their home country’s flag (yes, I did not represent very well, I forgot to bring a US flag).
Back at my spectating location, a few meters more than 1 kilometer from the peak, I settled in to wait. The side of the road was already filling up and the amateurs were flying fast and furious or slow and haggard on their bikes. The French are not the friendliest of people, they make little effort to speak English even if they know how, so I was glad when a Spaniard from Catalonia parked near me, and a short time later a German from Berlin leaned his bike against the fence post guarding the cliff. These were to be my Tour “buddies”, the Spaniard kidded me about being a Tour virgin. Both had seen the Tour before and were quite glad to practice their English as we waited for the riders. Compared to them, and most of the other fans, I was better dressed for the weather. It was still cold and would remain so throughout the day. Since many of the watchers had biked up all or a portion of the Col, they were dressed in shorts and thin shirts, including my Spanish and German acquaintances. All were obviously cold. {One story I initially forgot to include: The German had spent time in Montreal recently. Rather than waving the banner of his home country, he had purchased a Canadian flag and enthusiastically waved it as assuredly the only German with a Canadian flag on that day}
The first indication that race is approaching is the “Caravan”. This is a long chain of floats advertising whichever company pays for the privilege, with models perched inside whipping free stuff at the fans as fast as they can. This is actually quite exciting. You holler and grab at whatever you can, the hot chocolate and real bike jersey were big favorites, while trying to avoid being bruised by a flying package. The floats drive fast up the narrow road, amazing that none of us was hit as we squeezed in to grab the freebies. At least it kept us warm as we surged back and forth toward the next float. This lasts for a LONG time, I didn’t time it, but possibly an hour of floats passed by. Capitalism rules!
Once the Caravan had passed I could feel the anticipation build, the Peleton would not be far away! (The Peleton is the term used for the main body of bike riders). The first indication the race has approached is the noise of helicopters. There are three following the riders, one close to the ground following the leader, a second a bit further back and higher, and a third higher still circling for wide angle TV shots. I could not interpret the French announcers on the handheld radios around me, but the German said that a German, Sebastian Lang, had broken ahead of the rest by over 2 minutes. This is a big lead, but since he still had more than 7 km of 8% grade to climb, not insurmountable. Soon Lang broke onto the long straightaway below us, disappearing as he entered the hairpins. But almost immediately another rider came into view, the Italian Ricco was charging hard to catch Lang. We could see the gap closing as Lang looped up the slope with Ricco closing fast. As Lang approached, the cops on motorcycles blasted through to clear a path. If you’ve ever seen a Tour, you know that the roads are narrow and the fans crowd close enough to touch the bikers. I was in position to be one of these! A series of Tour cars cruised by preceding the TV camera motorcycle, with Lang in tow. He was moving fast. Compared to the amateurs of the morning it was amazing to see his legs gobble the slope. It is mass confusion along the road at this point, people hollering and running across the road where there is a break, surging forward to get close to the rider. Similar to other individual sports, you root for each cyclist that passes. I had barely finished taking a picture of Lang when Ricco was on top of us and past. A better climber than Lang, he had closed to within a few bike lengths by the time he passed, and I would learn later Ricco would blow by Lang putting over 30 seconds between them before reaching the peak. This is what the mountains are all about!
In regular intervals the rest of the competitors raced by, there was a group of 20 or so bikers not too far behind that I think would have contained most of the contenders for the GC. The time began to stretch out between the racers, and there was still one large group to come. Eventually this group came into view and began to struggle up the climb. These were the sprinters. Traveling together for moral support and going just fast enough to beat the time cutoff to remain in the Tour. Built for short bursts of speed, not these long, grueling climbs, the look on their faces was pure pain by the time they reached us. They were riding 5 wide so the motorcycle cops drove right at the fans on the edge of the road to push us back into the grass. For all intents this was the end of the stage for us, and people began to hike or bike back to their cars. The drunken Basque kids were still hitting on the French girls as said goodbye to my Tour pals and trudged uphill.
It was a long day, I didn’t get off the mountain until after 6:30, but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I hope to do it again, only this time with a bike, so that I can be one of those struggling amateurs gasping up the steep of a Category 1. But if I’m going to go the effort, better make that a Hors Categorie!!!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2004878&l=8e38b&id=1173293194
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2004880&l=d30aa&id=1173293194
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2004882&l=83810&id=1173293194
Once I learned that I would be in France during the month of July I began to make plans to see one of the world’s great sporting events: The Tour de France. For the uninitiated the Tour is a bicycle race that lasts 3 weeks, traveling throughout France, and is known as the premier test of physical endurance in any sport. Each day, or stage, is a bike race unto itself with different specialists vying for their chance to win. The flat stages showcase the powerfully built sprinters, the mountain stages in the Pyrenees and French Alps are lead by the lean and light climbers, while only the best riders have hopes of capturing the overall Tour win in the General Classification (GC). What sets the Tour apart from other races is the long and grueling climbs through the mountains. These climbs are categorized by their length and steepness: a 5 is the lowest category, a relatively short and shallow mountain, a 1 is the second to highest, extremely steep and long, and above a 1 is the dreaded Hors Categorie (HC), which means “beyond category”, so steep and long it is beyond mere mortals to attempt.
Fortunately this past Sunday was the first mountain stage of this year’s Tour. The mountains are where the action occurs, the top contenders for the GC begin to attack and put large chunks of time between themselves and lesser riders. Also, the mountains are better for spectating simply because the riders are moving slower and are more spread out as they climb. Yesterday’s stage traveled from Toulouse to Bagneres-de-Bigorre, including two category 1 climbs, the second of which, up the Col d’Aspin appeared to be a prime place to watch the race. This was the first stage in the Pyrenees between France and Spain.
Once again my travel plans were somewhat unrefined. I was disappointed to learn that none of my coworkers had an interest in seeing the Tour; I would be on my own to figure this out. I was able to find some info on the web, including this humorous write-up (http://gearchangeup4.blogspot.com/2006/07/brit-what-happened-at-tour-de-france.html) by a Brit who followed the Tour the year Floyd Landis “won”. I knew that I would be camping somewhere along the race route, so decided the best plan was to get to Bagneres-de-Bigorre and then use the GPS to travel to Arreu, the town at the base of the climb up the Col d’Aspin. My assumption, which proved to be correct, that in the mountains there would be few roads between towns, so that I was sure to be on the road of the Tour stage. I had food to get me through the weekend, a sleeping bag (a tent didn’t fit in my luggage), and my suitcase full of clothes. Besides a map of the stage, including the times when riders were expected to be at checkpoints, that was the limit of my planning.
The drive to Bagneres-de-Bigorre took over 6 hours and I arrived in a steady rain on Saturday about 5 pm. Climbing out of the town up the side of the mountain I was forced to shift to first gear on the hairpin turns. These were the curves the riders would descend the next day. All that I knew is that I wanted to camp somewhere on the other side of the mountain, along the road the riders would be ascending. Nearing the top I could not believe the way campers were parked at the side of the road with their wheels not more than a couple feet from steep drops. I was beginning to think that I would spend the night in such a precarious position. Fortunately when I reached the peak, the spine of the mountain opened up into a clearing where hundreds of cars and campers were parked along the slope. Interestingly in socialist France, capitalism was alive and well at the peak of the Col d’Aspin, for only 5 Euro I was allowed to drive my car along the hill and park in the grass. The rain was still heavy, so those with tents were hurrying to setup. Not having the luxury of a tent, I knew that I would be spending the night in my Renault Laguna. A fairly roomy car, I was glad that I had not asked for a small car at the rental. Not so good was my choice of parking locations. The car was clinging to a rather steep slope, so steep that when I reclined the passenger seat and spread my sleeping bag out, gravity persuaded my body to nestle in the crack between the seat and the door. After a few machinations with the sleeping bag I was able to add sufficient padding to prevent hard plastic from leaving imprints in my body.
The rain was severe enough that I scratched plans to roam the area. I had meant to bring a rain coat along from the US, but in the hurry to leave I made a poor trade for a tiny umbrella that barely covered my head. It would be uncomfortable, without the added discomfort of being wet. The revelry from the other spectators was dampened as well, I could hear drunken singing at a nearby campsite, but most were bunkered down in their tents. That night it continued to rain hard and the wind rocked my car as the gusts roared over the Col. It was very cold too, and I ducked my head into my sleeping bag to stay warm. I had visions of myself standing in the rain during the race struggling to stay dry under my tiny umbrella with a garbage bag improvising as a rain coat (I had remembered the bag in my luggage at some point and decided that if worst came to worst I would layer up with clothes, tear holes in the garbage bag, and tough it out). Not sure how much I actually slept, but suffice it to say that when I woke up for good at 6 am I would have gladly traded this night for one crammed in coach class on an international flight between two fat men! But the anticipation of the Tour made me quickly forget this.
The rain had stopped in the morning, but it was still very cold, probably in the upper 30’s or low 40’s. Sticking with my plan from the night, I layered up with 5 T-shirts and 2 long sleeve shirts. I would have loved to have had a more thermally appropriate hat than a baseball hat, but there wasn’t much of a breeze, so I actually felt fairly comfortable. I loaded my bag with food and water (stuffed the garbage bag in just in case) and literally fell out of the car to begin exploring. The mountains were shrouded in a low cloud, with only hints of the vaunted steepness of the Pyrenees.
Reaching the road and beginning to drop down into the valley I crossed paths with the fans painting their favorites names on the road. For almost the entire climb up the Col there would a bike riders name on the road, each rider seemed to have his own fan section where his letters were spread across the pavement for several hundred yards. There were already amateur cyclists ascending and descending the stage route. It is common for enthusiasts to follow the Tour and ride the climbs while the road is closed to cars before the race. These were bikers of all stripes, from the wannabe pros decked out in full regalia, to the slackers riding a mountain bike with sneakers, and every shape and size in between. As I was learning, watching a Tour stage is more about the prelude than the actual race. There was a LONG time to wait before the riders would arrive at about 5 pm.
Since I didn’t have a bike, I kept hiking down the mountain. Within a kilometer of the peak I found the place that was to be where I watched the race. The road twisted below into a series of 8% grade hairpins, then stretched out in a long straightaway, before snaking around the side of a hill and disappearing. I could see the road at 6 different locations, maximizing the amount of time I could see the riders. Usually you don’t see them until they are right onto top of you, so this was a great place to be. The road was narrow, leaving little room for spectators, so I decided to make sure I was back at this spot by noon to make sure I had a place. Walking down the peak for a few more kilometers I had a good taste of what the riders would experience. The amateurs continued to fly down the road, or struggle up it, in increasing numbers. There was almost a continual procession of riders going in one direction or the other. The crazies were there in full force, most sporting their home country’s flag (yes, I did not represent very well, I forgot to bring a US flag).
Back at my spectating location, a few meters more than 1 kilometer from the peak, I settled in to wait. The side of the road was already filling up and the amateurs were flying fast and furious or slow and haggard on their bikes. The French are not the friendliest of people, they make little effort to speak English even if they know how, so I was glad when a Spaniard from Catalonia parked near me, and a short time later a German from Berlin leaned his bike against the fence post guarding the cliff. These were to be my Tour “buddies”, the Spaniard kidded me about being a Tour virgin. Both had seen the Tour before and were quite glad to practice their English as we waited for the riders. Compared to them, and most of the other fans, I was better dressed for the weather. It was still cold and would remain so throughout the day. Since many of the watchers had biked up all or a portion of the Col, they were dressed in shorts and thin shirts, including my Spanish and German acquaintances. All were obviously cold. {One story I initially forgot to include: The German had spent time in Montreal recently. Rather than waving the banner of his home country, he had purchased a Canadian flag and enthusiastically waved it as assuredly the only German with a Canadian flag on that day}
The first indication that race is approaching is the “Caravan”. This is a long chain of floats advertising whichever company pays for the privilege, with models perched inside whipping free stuff at the fans as fast as they can. This is actually quite exciting. You holler and grab at whatever you can, the hot chocolate and real bike jersey were big favorites, while trying to avoid being bruised by a flying package. The floats drive fast up the narrow road, amazing that none of us was hit as we squeezed in to grab the freebies. At least it kept us warm as we surged back and forth toward the next float. This lasts for a LONG time, I didn’t time it, but possibly an hour of floats passed by. Capitalism rules!
Once the Caravan had passed I could feel the anticipation build, the Peleton would not be far away! (The Peleton is the term used for the main body of bike riders). The first indication the race has approached is the noise of helicopters. There are three following the riders, one close to the ground following the leader, a second a bit further back and higher, and a third higher still circling for wide angle TV shots. I could not interpret the French announcers on the handheld radios around me, but the German said that a German, Sebastian Lang, had broken ahead of the rest by over 2 minutes. This is a big lead, but since he still had more than 7 km of 8% grade to climb, not insurmountable. Soon Lang broke onto the long straightaway below us, disappearing as he entered the hairpins. But almost immediately another rider came into view, the Italian Ricco was charging hard to catch Lang. We could see the gap closing as Lang looped up the slope with Ricco closing fast. As Lang approached, the cops on motorcycles blasted through to clear a path. If you’ve ever seen a Tour, you know that the roads are narrow and the fans crowd close enough to touch the bikers. I was in position to be one of these! A series of Tour cars cruised by preceding the TV camera motorcycle, with Lang in tow. He was moving fast. Compared to the amateurs of the morning it was amazing to see his legs gobble the slope. It is mass confusion along the road at this point, people hollering and running across the road where there is a break, surging forward to get close to the rider. Similar to other individual sports, you root for each cyclist that passes. I had barely finished taking a picture of Lang when Ricco was on top of us and past. A better climber than Lang, he had closed to within a few bike lengths by the time he passed, and I would learn later Ricco would blow by Lang putting over 30 seconds between them before reaching the peak. This is what the mountains are all about!
In regular intervals the rest of the competitors raced by, there was a group of 20 or so bikers not too far behind that I think would have contained most of the contenders for the GC. The time began to stretch out between the racers, and there was still one large group to come. Eventually this group came into view and began to struggle up the climb. These were the sprinters. Traveling together for moral support and going just fast enough to beat the time cutoff to remain in the Tour. Built for short bursts of speed, not these long, grueling climbs, the look on their faces was pure pain by the time they reached us. They were riding 5 wide so the motorcycle cops drove right at the fans on the edge of the road to push us back into the grass. For all intents this was the end of the stage for us, and people began to hike or bike back to their cars. The drunken Basque kids were still hitting on the French girls as said goodbye to my Tour pals and trudged uphill.
It was a long day, I didn’t get off the mountain until after 6:30, but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I hope to do it again, only this time with a bike, so that I can be one of those struggling amateurs gasping up the steep of a Category 1. But if I’m going to go the effort, better make that a Hors Categorie!!!
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