Thursday, September 27, 2012

Well, it’s time to review the last couple weeks in a very fall like France. I wore long pants, socks and shoes until mid June and as soon as August was over, back to them again…….so very different from my Georgia weather. I even put the heat on last week….in SEPTEMBER…..argh!

We spent a weekend in Angouleme with Jacques and Claire for the Circuits des Ramparts; which is an antique car show and race through the city streets.  We also toured the Chateau de la Rochefoucauld, outside of Angouleme, which is family owned and lived in.  The history was interesting to see and I loved the family tree painted on a wall in the chateau.  It goes back about 40 generations, but for the last twenty there has been a Francois right down to the current,  Francois XX.  He is Tristan’s age and his father Francois XIX is Ross’ age, so it was interesting for me to see this modern family who still maintain a family castle.  It wasn’t the best kept up or renovated castle we’ve seen, but still interesting since the family has a wing they use.  The grandma (wife of Francois XVIII) came into the courtyard carrying her grocery bags and chatting with folks as she entered the private quarters. 

My favorite thing in the day was the photo Ross took of me with Claire. Yes, she’s very tiny and I’m not, but the distance between us and the angle makes her look soooo small and me sooo large.  It’s pretty funny!

It was fun being downtown with the crowds watching the cars being shown off in the city center.  It’s not my thing, but some of these people traveled from all over Europe to show their cars and it was impressive to see.  There were modern Ferraris and Lamborghinis all mixed in with very old restored cars.  I don’t know all the names but did admire the work involved.  It reminded me of a day with my dad, he loved car shows and this one would have been one of his favorites.

It was a great weekend of laughter, which was just what I needed to clear up my lonely moments of the previous week.  We played a game which was new to us, Settlers of Catan which was a lot of fun; but if you’ve never played a game with the Coquerel family,  watch out, they play to win and no mercy!  I ordered the game (yes the English version) on amazon.fr so we can play it with the kids at Christmas.  I think it will be a lot of fun.  We always play a lot of games at Christmas and I realized I didn’t bring any to France with us, but left them in Georgia.  So now we have the Settlers of Catan, Blokus, Uno and Pinochle here. That should do.

Claire again did a canard(duck) dinner for us and it was delicious.  The skin was crispy, crunchy and we enjoyed it very much.  Now I realize all those times at her house in Georgia where we thought we were eating really good chicken, it was duck!

We arrived home Sunday night and again Sophie did great in the car. She gets car sick so I asked the pharmacist here what to do.  Here you get meds for people and dogs at the pharmacy, not the vet.  He gave me these cheap pills that she takes only a half of one and they work great.  The car sick meds I got in the US for Rosie were so expensive, you had to decide if it was worth using them.

Monday morning Ross was off for a five day trip to Italy.  Yes, I’d love to go to Italy, but this was days of seminars and several different cities and he was with another guy, so this wasn’t a good one for me.  Turned out to be a good thing too as I spent part of the week with a bad headache and stomach virus.  Very weird one, but once it passed, I was fine.  Ross unfortunately came down with it too,. But after he was home, so that was good.

Saturday was a busy one for us as we went to Anne-Rachel and Paco’s for lunch and then a neighbor’s house for dinner.  Anne-Rachel and Paco have moved into a house this summer and I was excited to see it for the first time.  We loved it, it will be such a great house for their family.  Lots of room and very bright and airy.  They live about an hour and fifteen away from us so it was a nice day for the drive as well.

At 8PM (or 20:00 -I don’t know if I will ever get used to the time thing!!!  ) anyway, we walked down the street to a neighbor’s house.  It is one of  the couples we met at the Fete de Rue a couple weeks ago.  They are the ones who traveled to Georgia this summer. They also invited another neighbor couple so it was a great evening of getting to know each other.  They all speak about as much English as we do French, so it was a night of mixed languages.  One thing I thought was sweet…..the couple have three children, the youngest about 16.   I met her at the fete as well, but briefly. She was home with a friend over for the evening and although they spent most of it upstairs in her room, both girls came to greet us and the other couple with the cheek kiss thing they do here.  I thought it was very polite and nice.  Dinners here are long, relaxing and in courses so it was after midnight before we walked home.  It is such a different schedule than we are used to in the US.  It was a really nice night and hopefully they will be couples we can occasionally do some things with.  

I made Tartiflette last week for dinner.  It was something Claire cooked and I wanted to try it.  It’s potato, onion, lardon (which is similar to bacon) with salt, crème leger (kind of a liquid cream) and white wine topped with this special tartiflette cheese you use only for this dish.  It’s a hearty fall meal served with salad.  It’s funny, when I bought the cheese I discovered it was the smelliest cheese yet we’ve had in France. With my air flow fridge and the cheese box we don’t have trouble anymore, but phew, this was double bagged, sealed and boxed and it was awful smelling.  The oddest part is, that the taste is very nice and smooth and not foul……sometimes here the smelliest cheeses are not the strong tasting ones at all.   The dish turned out well and while I wouldn’t make it all the time, it’s kind of like lasagna or chili that you love to make and eat, but usually don’t want again for a while.

Speaking of chili, I have a batch going right now for dinner.  I am trying so hard to make small amounts of things and this seemed like it would be a little batch, but in the crockpot it’s more than I thought.  It’s just about ½ the crock pot, but way too much for two of us. I’ll be freezing some for a later date.  I hope I can squeeze it into the freezer; I’m thinking some juggling will need to happen first. Space is limited here so it’s hard not to have my big freezer where I could just whip up large batches of things for future eating.  Here every inch of freezer is accounted for.

This weekend we are going Saturday afternoon to a church retreat.  It goes until Sunday late afternoon, so this should be interesting.  I laughed at the announcements for it.  We need to bring bedding -guess we’ll take the sheets, pillows and duvet from our single beds upstairs since we have no extra bedding here at all. We also are to bring finger food snacks and sweets for Saturday night, but in the announcement it says, “no strong alcohol please”…that just made me laugh, it’s so very different here.  At home it would be a given that strong alcohol wouldn’t be a church retreat thing!  It should be a good chance for us to get to know people a bit better, and you know how Ross loves a crowd and being uncomfortable!!!

I had a weird thing this week at the massage therapist guy.  I’ve mentioned before he does some Chinese energy stuff; but he’s a good massage therapist and seems to be able to keep my muscles from having issues even though I don’t understand all of it; he knows his stuff and finds where I’m having trouble and works on it.  Okay but this week, he’s at my feet and he has his eyes closed and doing some breathing thing and he asks me (keep in mind he speaks NO English, so we communicate in my broken French) “Have you been sick? Your head and your lower stomach? Okay, so how on earth does he know that from my feet???  He was absolutely correct, but I’m clueless as to how he knows things like that. We’ve worked out okay communication and he smiles, but respects my need for a bit of modesty.  I now bring my own small towel for my chest, just so I know they’re covered. I still am amazed that women just strip down to their undies or less right in front of him. I know it’s how it is and when I’ve talked to women here about it, they are fine with it and say it’s the best time to have conversation with the doctor or massage therapist since they’re waiting on you.  Those who have gone to the US find it so funny that we see a nurse, then they leave the room and you strip and out on a gown before the doctor comes. So, I guess it’s all in what your normal was growing up.  But, he is fine with my issues and lets me stay covered!

I also went to the dentist for the first time here. Talk about nerves!! I don’t mid going in Georgia and the dentist is a friend so that makes it easier, but,  I still don’t love dental work!!!  The dentist here is a French woman who trained in Texas so she speaks English-hallelujah!!  Still very different.  There is one receptionist/clean up person and the dentist.  The dentist’s husband works at SKF, so that is how we found her. So, one half the room is her office with her desk and then through the archway is her dental room.  You meet her first at her desk and talk.  I wanted her to understand my gum grafts that are just a year old.  After that much money and work, I don’t want anyone digging at them! Then you go to the dental chair.  It’s very modern and clean with the latest technology.  The x-ray is different, none of that nasty thing you bite on and she cleans with an ultra sonic thing which I loved. She does it all herself with no hygienist or assistant.  I had a small filling that needed to be fixed and she took care of that as well.  It was a really good experience and my whole bill was 66euro.  That is less than $80.  That’s not after insurance, that’s the actual cost.  We pay everything up front and get money back from our expat insurance, so we know full costs of healthcare here.  I made an appointment for 6 months explaining to her I’d like my teeth cleaned again.  She said if she sees a French patient every two years, it’s good.  Usually it’s only for a tooth ache and then a lot won’t pay their part for a crown so they lose the tooth.  A crown is about 300 euro…..in the US my co-pay for a crown is $500 and that’s half.  She said she can tell I take good care of my teeth and she was so impressed that Ross and I got braces as adults.   She said that is unheard of here and thought it was pretty great.  She will repair my permanent retainer too if it should pop, so that is awesome.  

Ross has had a crown bothering him for a while, so he is in the process of a three step old crown replacement.  So far, he’s been twice and the next is the final where he will have a little bone surgery before placing a new crown on. He says it’s cool though, she only numbs the tooth and not the area all the way up to his nose, so while he couldn’t feel anything she did, he left without that numb feeling in his face.  So, while he doesn’t enjoy dental stuff either, it’s been an okay experience.

I’m off to the Super U for a few things, it’s the little grocery store here in Luynes.  Not my favorite, but perfect for a few things.  It’s too far to walk but only five or so minutes by car, so it’s handy. Oddly though, I can get a few things there that I can’t get anywhere else; like vergoise brun, which is my closest thing to brown sugar.  Here they use cassonade which is similar to what we’d call sugar in the raw.  For some recipes I just want the flavor and consistency of brown sugar.  I even thought to add molasses to white sugar which would work, but I can’t find molasses anywhere!  I’m guessing no treacle toffee for Christmas this year……that will be a first!  My kids might just revolt! What will we eat while paying a game?

Until next time……