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.
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