A quick tour of the Luberon

LE LUBERON - A meandering drive through the Luberon, the region just north of us, always reveals new wonders of Provence...and good restaurants. The towns of Gordes and Bonnieux are both medieval hilltop villages that are fun to explore. And we stumbled upon, quite accidentally, Les Beries, which are wicked old stone huts that date back probably 1000 years or more (I should know more exactly, but like Lindsey (below), I fell asleep during the video).

Gordes - One of the most picturesque of the French mountain villages

Bonnieux - One of the most picturesque of the French mountain villages...wait. have we been here before?

Les Beries - Yes, they used to live in these things. Brrrr

Wine by the case outside Bonnieux

 

The historical significance was lost on Lindsey. Toni is quite attentive, though. Meanwhile, Candie does her best white, female Samuel L. Jackson impersonation

Letters to Pere Noel

The girls ponder what to ask Pere Noel for

MARSEILLE - The girls found an easy way to make sure Santa, errr, Pere Noel, finds them in France. A stand at the Christmas market in Marseille was a one-stop shop: pens (the cool, real ink kind that you have to keep dipping), paper, envelopes, stamps, even Ol' Saint Nick's address. A very helpful bi-lingual elf was staffing the stand, and patiently walked them through the instructions, and then helped seal the letters with a traditional wax seal on the back of the envelope. Nice.

Hard to write with gloves on

He dutifully explained that there was three different piles he needed to sort the letters into - Really good kids, just OK kids, and naughty kids. Of course, our girls have been really good, so that was the easiest part of the whole process. Trying to translate some of the more obscure Polly Pocket toys into French was a bit more difficult. But we all know Santa Claus speaks every language.

The scene on this chilly, rainy Saturday night was very Christmasy with shoppers bustling around the crowded street, stores open late, and a pretty large Christmas market - although the section we stumbled across (because of its proximity to the parking) was filled mostly with santon displays. This is a big deal in France - huge nativity-like scenes that are actually miniature representations of an entire village. You can buy the figurines in all sorts of sizes and they have people, animals, and buildings of all sorts. And the prices are as wide-ranging as the characters.

Big sister makes sure the address is right

Everything is Blue & White in Marseille!

We like visiting Marseille because it has a whole different energy than Aix - a bit rougher around the edges but fun and exciting in a big city kind of way. Plus, it has an Olympique Marseille gift shop so Candie could pick up a soccer shirt for Patrick fro Christmas. We ended the evening with a boulabaisse quite appropriate for the weather conditions (after which the waiter slipped my wife his phone number in some sort of strange pick-up attempt - she's still got it..by "it" I mean the ability-to-elicit-young-mens-numbers "it", not the number itself. But I think she kept the dude's  number, too). That episode was followed by an American-break at the Starbucks, the only one we've managed to find in all of Provence so far (I am sure my virtual friend Sarah will point out if there are any others!). I made a mental note to return in any case, not just for a taste of home, but because the North African guy working the counter is a Celtic's fan.

Thanksgiving in France

The traditional Thanksgiving spread Provencal style

Our first big real test if we could handle the new lifestyle: Thanksgiving. Not only the blockbuster of all American holidays, but also a traditional big party event for us. Every year since we moved to the islands we'd always host a massive dinner, educating the locals about our late November over-indulgence custom (and feeding them plenty of turkey and beer in the process) and taking in random Americans. Like in France, Thanksgiving is kind of a non-event in TCI - it's not a holiday so everyone has to work and the kids go to school. But Thanksgiving at our house is usually a late night affair, holiday or not.

Here in France, we expected things to be a tad tamer, but we weren't going to back down totally from tradition. We decided to take the kids out early from school on Thanksgiving (but not before they got to enjoy turkey for lunch at the school cafeteria, a nice gesture by Madame Pecnard and the crew). They got home in time to watch the Macy's Day parade, which we streamed over the Internet and set up for all to watch on the computer monitor in the living room.

Toni's pumpkin pies - a big hit with the pumpkin deprived French

We had invited a small group of people - not our usual island SRO crowd - but enough to make it significant - and to worry Toni to death about how to feed everyone out of our tiny kitchen. Our American friends Dave, Audrey and Marin were key to the invitee list, bringing their knowledge and appreciation of the holiday. Our new French friend Agnes and her friend Philippe, joined us, and seemed vaguely familiar with the concept. And our very cheerful and friendly Dutch neighbors, Lannie and Hans (and dog Casper) made the trek up the drive to see what it what was all about. And of course, Candie was here, fully recovered from her chaperoning of Lindsey's birthday party the day before.

The main challenge was securing le dinde, the turkey It's not a common delicacy in France, so we searched  a while to find a place to buy one, finally discovering a butcher not far the house who could not only order us one (no, they don't keep them in stock), but also cook it. All ('all') Toni had to do was prepare the rest of the stuff --potatoes, stuffing, green bean -- ya know, stuff - to surround the bird and we were good to go. I, as usual, was on beverage detail, remarkably easy in France given the availability of good wine and the relatively modest beer consumption here (thankfully so - we have a typically small French refrigerator and ice seems not to have been invented yet here in France so I'm not sure how I would have managed if we needed island-levels of beer - i.e. multiple coolers).

Board games. A bit more civilized than we 're used to

Candie and I set off in the the afternoon to pick  up the prepared turkey at the butcher, only to find the place closed when we arrived. 'Mon Dieu, this could be a minor disaster if they're close for the day,' we both thought out loud (Candie didn't say the Mon Dieu bit - I have picked up penchant for using French terms like that that are easy to say but imply a deeper expertise in the language). Visions of picking through the Carrefour aisles an hour before people would start arriving entered my head. Of course, we quickly found out that they weren't closed for the day, only the extended French lunch hour. We had a couple of quick drinks (Candie: two thumbs down on Pastis) and returned to pick up the bird.

Toni outdid herself with a great spread and every one enjoyed the American style feast, complete with the football games on the PC in the background. The crowd filed out obediently just after 11, which is typically when our island parties just kick in.

Caspar squeezes into Chico's designer couch to sleep off his turkey dinner

But it was a very pleasant, civilized Thanksgiving and we realized we could adjust if we needed to. Quietly afterwards we reflected on how much we do have to be thankful for. And how quickly time was passing on our France adventure.

Bobo and Lindsey's 7th

Lindsey and BoBo le cloon

Today was Lindsey's 7th birthday. We'll always remember when she was born because, like this year, it was the day before Thanksgiving and she popped out like a Butterball turkey (easy for me to say). That was in Londonderry, Vermont - which, in a lot of ways, has a similar rustic, woodsy feel to where we are today in France, especially around this time of year.

Anyway, Toni bravely invited Lindsey's whole class to our house for an after-school fete (school gets out at noon on Wednesdays). All the parents were more than pleased to let their kids walk through the woods to our house instead of having to battle traffic and parking at CIPEC for a day. So, I think every one of the snot-noses showed up, about 20 in total of all backgrounds. Luckily, our friend Candie is here and she helped lay down the law as only Candie can. And Lindsey's best friend's Mom helped out tremendously, too (Audrey - who is very helpfully bi-lingual).
Savannah had decided that her younger sister's party would be a carnival theme and even recruited one of her friends to run the games.

All things considered, it was a reasonably well-run affair. Toni put out a good spread, catering to the various kid tastes - American kids: chips, pizza, soda. French kids: salad, jambon sandwiches, and l'eau avec gaz (funny scene: Eddy the french kid trying to figure out how a juice box works).

The highlight was Bobo, some clown we found on the Internet. His You Tube video looked good and he was the cheapest of the three we contacted. Satisified that he wasn't the French version of Shakes the Clown, we sent him a 50 Euro deposit and hoped for the best.

Although he claimed he works all over the south of France, from Monaco to Nimes, he proved to be a tad directionally-challenged and it took 3 phone calls and a meeting at the MacDonald's to guide him into our house. Once settled in, he delivered the goods with an entertaining (on a 7 year old level) range of magic and balloon tricks. The kids dug it (if their chants of "cloon, cloon" were any indication) and his perfomance occupied about 2 of the 3 hours we needed to fill with activities. Presents and cake and Savannah's games filled the rest.

In the end, we didn't lose any of them, no one lost an eye, and barely anything got broken.

Chico was temporarily traumatized by all the activity, and we can add men in clown suits to the list of things he is not particularly thrilled about. But the bag of French fries he found lying around in a misplaced Happy Meal soothed his pain considerably.

Best of all, Lindsey had a day to remember. She especially enjoyed getting a re-stock of toys, since she left most of hers behind when we came here (mental note: add one more suitcase for the return trip). She was momentarily bummed that Bobo couldn't produce a purple balloon figure for her. But that soon passed as she was deluged with an avalanche of pink and purple shiny plastic-y stuff - even the French kids are into Polly Pockets, thankfully.

Here's the link to the ever-present SmileBox highlights.

Candie est dans la maison!

Fresh off the trek from the islands, Candie hit the ground running. Unloading her extra suitcase of crap we had ordered on line for her to deliver lightened her load considerably.

Candie's courier challenge

Which she successfully compressed for travel

TCI Visitor Count: 12

Truffle time!

The expert truffle hunters were out in full force this weekend in a local pasture, rooting away in search of the elusive and tres chere truffle. Those are pigs by the way - the picture is weak. Meanwhile, I continue to train Chico to be a Truffle Dog, further inspired by our recent trip to the Musee des Truffes in Menerbes.

Christmas street market in Aix

Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé

It's a big deal when the new vintage of this fruity drink-it-while-we-got-it French wine is made available and a tradition that its coming out party is always on the 3rd Thursday of November. There wasn't all that much fanfare around Aix - a few restaurants had specials on, and Toni picked up a bottle at the local wine store.

In fact we might not have even noted the event were it not for the turkey hunt we were on - no gun, just looking for a boucherie that had the apparently rare dinde in stock. Turkey is not a big seller in France, and US Thanksgiving is certainly not celebrated here (but wait, an extra 2 and half days off of work, hmmm, the unions might go for that), so we had to special order a bird. Who know what we'll end up with.

Anyway, the French media claims than almost 40 million bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau will be drunk in the next three weeks. "Corks popped around the world just after midnight as the fruity new-harvested wine was sampled by millions: with six million bottles going to Japan alone amongst 110 countries."

Bertrand Chatelet, head of Sicarex research institute for the study of Beaujolais wines, describes the 2010 wine as “very aromatic with strong hints of wild strawberries, raspberries and redcurrants."

We're stalking up for Thanksgiving because we've been told it goes well with turkey.

Les Honeymooners

The perfect French honeymoon spot: the Irish pub.

Molly and Dodge, our next door neighbors and good friends from TCI, arrived today on a leg of the European honeymoon trip. I take full credit for steering them to this side of the pond for their post wedding shenanigans, convincing Molly during a couple of late night wine-fests last spring that it would be the best way to get their life together off on the right foot.

After stops in Rome, Siena and Santa Margarita in Italy, they met me during a driving rainstorm at the Nice train station. First stop (after a quick call on a local cafe to let the rain slow down a bit):  a place to get some roadies for the hour or so drive. Today's lesson in French culture is that the truck stops (or whatever they are called here) on French highways don't sell alcohol. However much that makes sense, it's still inconvenient during times such as this. Ever the creative improvisers, the newlyweds quickly produced a special bottle of Chianti they had bought for us from Italy (sorry Toni), got three plastic cups out of the gas station coffee machine and we were set for the ride home.

Savannah bestows the newlyweds with wedding gifts from Provence (not including my socks)

We had fun the next couple of days catching up on the island gossip and getting a first-hand recap of the wedding (held on the same day that category 1 Hurricane Tomas struck the island - hey, if your wedding can't survive a little 80 mph wind, the marriage is doomed anyway.). Savannah and Lindsey showed off their improving piano skills (Molly is something of a mentor and inspiration to them in this area). I tried to convince Dodge that Pastis actually tastes good. We drank at a cool little Irish pub that we discovered in Aix, and ate at one of our new favorite restaurants in town - Le Poivre D'Ane. And Chico happily reminisced with the parents of his friends - Buck and Basset (the boys), who he dominates despite being a fraction of their size.

And we all got a little homesick

It was a nice pit stop for all of us, and two days later we put them on a train to Paris (with Dodge having successfully stolen a pair of my prized sweat socks) for a fittingly romantic conclusion to their honeymoon.

(TCI visitor count: 10 and 11)

Bi-lingual birthdays

Lindsey's Lucky 7 birthday is in a couple of weeks and Mom had the bright idea of having it at our house. So she has been busy with the plans, while I desperately look for an excuse to be out of the house that afternoon. Bi-lingual invitations for 18 kids in her class, activities and games for all of them, and now we are on the hunt for a clown (or some other suitable artiste de fete).
Luckily, Aunt Candie will be here to keep order.
Here's the link to her party invitation.

Lindsey's Tour de France career begins

Lindsey at the head of the pieton

MARSEILLE - Big day on the kid milestone marker today as Lindsey rode - I mean really rode - a bike for the first time. First a few laps around the parking lot at the local supermarket (closed, of course - it's Sunday!), and then some more laps around a piazza in Marseille where we went for lunch. She did awesome, only a couple minor spills, and is well on her way to Tour de France caliber.

Bike riding is obviously taken very seriously here and everyone does it. Lindsey and Savannah are both late bloomers when it comes to biking because we weren't really set up too well to learn and practice such things on the island. Both of them have taken to the two wheelin' enthusiastically - and sans training wheels. There's plenty of places to ride around here so I'm sure they'll be touring the French countryside in no time.

Dad will stick to 4 wheels for the time being...

A Giants Triomphe

Hummmm baby - New meaning to Arc de Triomphe

PARIS - I found myself in the City of Light on the day the San Francisco Giants won their first World Series since they moved to the West Coast. The Tuesday morning crowds along the Champs Des Elysees were probably a bit more subdued in their reaction than the throngs that jammed Market Street in the City by the Bay at about 11PM or so their time (yes, it was about that time judging by the stream of text and calls that starting coming in on my cell phone), but I did see a couple of the black-and-orange wearing faithful wandering about with subtle smiles.
I am bummed I didn't get to see a game in the playoffs - I sold my Game 1 ticket, and was torn the rest of the Series since I had tickets for game 7, too. Luckily or unluckily, depending on your point of view, the Giants wrapped it up in 5 games so I didn't get out of Paris. Not a bad place to be stuck, mind you, and I have to consider myself pretty fortunate for having experienced two of the world's greatest cities in such a parallel way on this day.