Tag: French Sabbatical

Getting cell phones for each of us for our year in France has proven to be a bit difficult. We first tried to get them on Tuesday, four days ago. But since we didn’t yet have a French bank account we were denied. We went back this morning, French bank account set up, and over the course of two hours managed to get three phones. Those of you good at math will realize that there are four of us, meaning we are short one phone. Orange, the company through which we are getting service, accepted our bank information on three phones and denied the fourth. Twice. Once in the morning and once in the afternoon. We will try again in two weeks, the assumption being that we will have earned enough “equity” to qualify for a fourth phone.

The person fourth in line for a phone was Ella, seen here in this picture with me inside the Orange store. We took this photo before we knew that she’d have to wait a couple of weeks for a phone but during the two hour marathon needed to get the three phones purchased. Thank goodness we had Romain and Manon with us to do the talking. And Saad, the Orange employee who helped us, was more than kind. I can’t say the same about the guy who entered the store three times, and was kicked out three times, shouting at the top of his lungs.

Melinda and I took a short walk to a nearby bakery this morning, picking up pain au chocolat for the girls and a baguette for us. The conversation in the bakery was entirely in French with the young baker woman warning us that the chocolate was hot and could burn our tongues. Yes, the bread was fresh out of the oven; in fact, we saw it being placed in the baskets for selling.

On the walk back Melinda admired this particular door and asked me to take her picture in front of it. She liked the multiple mail slots, the color, and the doorknob in the middle. And you can see all the baked goods in Melinda’s hands.

Back at the apartment I bathed my part of the baguette in apricot jam. Yummy!

When I was taking high school French my teacher invited the class over to his house for coq au vin. I absolutely loved it, and rarely have had the chance to eat it since. Imagine, then, my delight when I found a can of coq au vin in the grocery store.

Okay, so delight may not be quite the right word but it did make me laugh out loud (coq au vin in a can!!). I ate it for my lunch, inviting Melinda and the girls to join me. No go on that, possibly because I kept repeating, “coq au vin, in a can” over and over. It was pretty good, too. There were three pieces of chicken on the bone, plus a sauce and some mushrooms.

I even dreamt about it, imagining getting three cans and then de-boning the chicken & eating it with some red potatoes. Maybe I’ll try sneaking it past the girls some night.

Our friends had arranged for us to meet the head of the “college” age group at Loquidy, M. Bregeon, the school Ella will attend beginning September 3. He was extremely friendly, kind and thoughtful in our meeting today. First, he gave us a lengthy tour of the campus, pointing out the places where Ella will likely spend most of her time. Then we sat down for a meeting in his office, conducted mostly in French (he speaks very little English).

Ella was understandably nervous but held her own just fine. She signed up for “Aviron” (rowing) instead of rugby. And she’ll be studying Spanish instead of German. You see, all French students at Ella’s age start a “second” language, having already begun English as their “first” language (French doesn’t factor in to this language count). This should make things interesting for Ella this fall.

Pictured here with Chloe & Ella is Romain Boudeau, the 17 year-old son of our friends here in Nantes. He was free today and spent 5 hours of his time showing us around town. We stopped for lunch after visiting a number of places and I snapped this picture. Ella’s meal may have been the most interesting. She ordered poulet avec frites et salade (chicken with fries and a salad). What made it interesting is that the chicken arrived on her plate completely raw but with a burning hot stone side plate. Romain explained it is a signature dish, served this way so you cook your chicken right at the table on the hot stone.

It’s late here in Nantes as I write, approaching midnight. We just returned from a lovely pizza dinner at the home of the Boudeaus where we all cheered on the Netherlands in the World Cup. Yup, here in Nantes the game started at a reasonable hour, 8:30pm.

Well, we left Seattle at 4:30pm on July 4, but we traveled east and lost 9 hours along the way, ultimately arriving in Nantes at 6:15pm on July 5. So I’m tallying the 5th as a travel day and including a picture of a fortune I got on Saturday. I was waiting for Melinda while she was doing some last minute shopping in downtown Seattle and went for a snack & a beer at P.F. Chang’s. They gave me a fortune cookie as I was leaving. Pretty apt, eh?

Oh, about the travel day… The way we flew (northeast from Seattle over Canada to Iceland) we were never outside of daylight. So from the moment we woke up in Seattle on July 4 until late in the day in Nantes on July 5 it was daytime for us. I found that pretty fascinating.

Whew. I’m already exhausted and we haven’t even boarded the first of our three planes over the next 18 hours of travel. Making sure our 8 checked bags each stayed within the 50 lb limit, saying final goodbyes to family and neighbors (Chloe’s goodbye to Alex was especially hard), and otherwise getting to SeaTac is enough for one day. But here Melinda and I sit at the gate, plugged in and online, and a little bit giddy. Chloe & Ella are also plugged in and online, several seats away from us. The separation of seats is due to finding outlets for our electronics.

For those of you keeping score at home, we leave in 90 minutes for Reykjavik, Iceland. We catch a connecting flight from there to Paris. And then it’s Paris to Nantes. If all goes as planned, we will be on the ground in Nantes at 9am Monday Seattle time (6pm in Nantes). So my next update, assuming I find easy Internet access, will be tomorrow from France.

We sold our beloved Volvo today, thus rendering us carless on the eve of leaving for France. It was a bittersweet experience letting the car go. We’ve joked over the last month about how the car seemed sad to be letting go of us, maybe even a little bit mad. Various vehicles hiccups kept happening. But then yesterday, all was clearly forgiven. We were driving past Melinda’s parents’ house, one of the few times all four of us have been together this week. Melinda made a comment and I retorted, “Should we say that in French?” Immediately, on the radio, an Edith Piaf song began playing. The Volvo is happy. We are excited. T minus 18 hours until our flight takes off.

We leave in less than two days and today we “prepped” by purchasing two iPads, one that Ella bought for her use and the other Melinda and I bought for (mainly) Melinda to use. It’s an interesting thing, the iPad. Initially, when I first heard of it, I wasn’t that impressed as I’m not a big fan of the iTouch. But once we got Ella’s iTunes library moved over and she was happily playing her music, I started to warm up to it. It will certainly be great on the plane and I think it will be easy to use in France. Good thing some money was saved up in advance.

Today’s photo is of Melinda working on her new iPad. Right now, at 10:45 pm she is trying to merge two Address Books for syncing with it. Chloe & Ella are out with their cousin Stephanie and good friend Carly seeing the movie Eclipse. Meanwhile, the bags are fairly well packed and I’m hoping for a good night’s sleep.

After greeting the family who will be living in our Seattle home and helping them get to know the house and its idiosyncrasies, Melinda, Chloe, Ella & I zoomed off to Ola in West Seattle to get haircuts. Today’s picture is of just me (I didn’t think of blogging this way until tonight)… So here I am unveiling my new look for France – short hair and 70’s era glasses. The mustache is gone but some chin hair remains.

A big shout-out to our friends Elizabeth & Eric for letting us stay in their View Ridge home for a few days. And let me just say how odd it was to see another family moving into our house. I think Chloe & I had the hardest time with it.

Um, we leave for France on Sunday afternoon. We’ll  be in Nantes in less than 100 hours. That’s crazy!