200 million French speakers can't be wrong

One of the gnawing concerns I have had about the move to France is the general and long-term usefulness of the French language to us as a family. OK, yes it will be useful in France, and it will certainly and necessarily be PC for us to embrace, especially if we don't want a year of French waiters spitting in our food. Toni and I have resigned ourselves to the fact that we must be able to handle the basics and then some in the native tongue. I have visions of a mundane but not altogether uncomplicated situation arising that requires some degree of language dexterity to deal with - a broken toilet, let's say, or perhaps trying to bail one of our kids out of jail (quick, get Nadine on Skype!. We even downloaded a couple of courses of Rosetta Stone (still unused).

But I have been hard pressed to mentally justify the academic investment in our family learning the language for any thing other than our stay in France, whatever length that may be. I mean, when are we ever going to use French when we leave France, other to impress people at cocktail parties? (Toni argues this same point when the topic of learning how to drive a manual transmission car comes up - a challenge she sees as far greater and with even less value than learning French.) This despite the fact that I actually have a rudimentary working grasp of French myself and absolutely no grasp of any other language. Mine is more of practical concern than anything related to the well-promoted (by the French) aesthetic and cultural value of the French "mother tongue" (as Madame Precnard at CIPEC calls it), or of learning a second language in general.

In the part of the world where we originate, now live and will undoubtedly return, Spanish is by far the more dominant second language (in many places, primary). It therefore seems to me that, especially for our kids, if we are committed to any degree of a bi-lingual existence long-term, our energies would be better focused on learning Spanish. And in fact, Savannah has been taking Spanish lessons at night, along with our island friends who will move to Barcelona in parallel with our move to Aix. I believe it is Savannah's not-so-subtle protest against the move, not any long-term vision on her part. But at least she will be able to communicate with 95% of the workers at Miami Airport now.

But my sensitivities to what, if any, flavor of bi-lingualness we should embrace as a family were altered somewhat by an article in today's NY Times (which I had the rare pleasure of reading in all its liberal glory of its grimy and unwieldy print format during a flight from Dallas to San Francisco this morning. Double bonus: in-flight internet access allows me to post this from somewhere over the Rocky Mountains, addressing a bona fide criticism of far too infrequent P2P blog postings leveled on me by #2 Jacquie just minutes after she picked me up at DFW last night. Who knew an American Airlines experience could result in such a combination of pleasure and productivity? But I digress).

So the NY Times article - found here - talks about the state of the French language, both within France and elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa and the Caribbean where it is still relatively common. In fact, it reports that 200 million people speak French in the world today, and only 65 million of them actually live in France. It goes on to bemoan the growing use of English by French political leaders and other elite, a trend seen by some as a sign of surrender of French influence and authority in the world (ummm, didn't that happen 6o years ago?). In the article, there are well articulated and philosophical defense from everyone from Sarkozy to African politicians about the need for the French language to endure and thrive, as part of what the French president calls "the battle for cultural diversity in the world." While his statements may reflect more of the cultural battle going on within his own country, his point is well taken.

It is a logical -- although not altogether intuitive - argument that in an age of increased 'globalization,' which would seemingly imply 'sameness," diversity in cultures and how one expresses oneself becomes even more critical. I believe that we all do need a sense of self and cultural identity, even as we sip Starbucks in Shanghai and eat Big Macs in Brussels. So I can appreciate the enthusiasm by Francophone to want to defend and even proliferate the use of their language.

But being American, we have it easy in the sense that English is the de facto language standard of globalization. The downside to that is that it also holds us back in terms of being motivated to learn a second language or understand other cultures. And in fact it is American culture which often seems to suffer from the blandness of universal acceptance, especially when one travels abroad and get sense of the richness and uniqueness of other cultures (of course many of my friends from home don't even have passports, underscoring the fact the fact that globalization may, ironically, last penetrate certain corners of the USA. A shepherd in the African Sahara will know who is on American Idol long before a lot of Americans will know how to find the Sahara on a map).

American culture and the English language, arguably the most ubiquitous in our globalized world and certainly the most 'practical,' are frankly boring to us Americans.

All of this leads me to think that maybe we should throw the practicality of learning a 'useful' language out the window, and strive to be more Francophone in our commitment to learning a second tongue. If nothing else, it will come in handy if we have plumbing problems.

Bourdain does Provence

One of my favorite TV personalities, Anthony Bourdain, brought his show "No Reservations" to Provence recently and the episode aired last night on The Travel Channel. Bourdain has a knack for mixing in with the locals and finding hidden gems. And his tour of Provence was no different. He drank Ricard and red wine like a champion with the local boys, dined on savory Provencal style cooking, and toured cool towns and vineyards.

"How can you not like a place with great food, great wine and free health care," he commented.

Look for his show on The Travel Channel. They repeat the episodes from time to time. Apparently Samantha Brown, also a Travel Channel celebrity who many say looks like my wife (or vice versa) also has done an episode on Provence, but she doesn't have quite the edge that Bourdain has.

Au revior, Peugeot!

GAP - Nadine’s old Peugeot finally showed her age, and at a most inopportune time. Mike and I were started headed back to Aix so I could grab the TGV to Paris, when the car began overheating. We stopped just before getting on the toll way, and re-filled the radiator but what had been a slow drip yesterday had progressed to a steady streaming leak this morning. Thinking quickly on our feet (thankfully we didn’t polish off that bottle of Scotch last night, as we had contemplated), Mike re-directed us to Gap, where there was: 1) a Peugeot dealer, and 2) a train station.

The mechanic at the Peugeot dealer quickly diagnosed the problem as fatal (blown head gasket), at least from a cost to repair perspective for a car that old. Quelle dommage, but I had a schedule to keep. So we made a bee line to the train station, where, thanks to a surprisingly nimble-fingered ticket agent, I was able to cancel my original TGV ticket from Aix, get a local train to Marseilles, and re-book on a later TGV from St. Charles Station in Marseilles to Paris. All within minutes.

The efficiency of the French train system impressed me, too – you can basically get anywhere in the country on the rails, even if it sometimes is not the most direct route. Gap to Marseille was about two-plus hours, albeit at a noticeably slower pace than the TGV, but still efficient and comfortable.

That was all fine and good, but I still had two flights to deal with later in the day (Paris to London on Air France, then an overnight back home via JFK on American) and it was clear I was probably not going to make either.

I jumped on the train in Gap just as it was departing la gare, and Mike made his way back to the sister’s house to help sort out my flights and figure out what to do with the car (he could still drive it but it’s days were numbered). Within short order, we had Toni and Nadine on Skype, the Blackberry and the local (Orange) cell phone I had topped up, all of us working my itinerary from various angles. After much electronic to’ing and fro’ing over the options at hand, we decided it was best for me to deal with the flights when I got to the Charles De Gaulle, which I did by 4:30 (remarkably, only an hour or so later that I had originally planned, but still too late to make my flights). In the end, I found a friendly American Airlines agent just as she was leaving for the day, re-booked a flight from Paris to Miami for the next day ($100 change fee, no extra award miles needed), and had an uneventful night at the Ibis Hotel in Terminal 3.

Off to see the sisters

MONTGARDIN -- Today we head north to see “the sisters,” Nadine’s two siblings who live in a town called Montgardin about 90 minutes outside of Aix in the mountains. But first Mike had to run a few errands, including buying a BBQ for the house (which he delivered complete with a supply of lamb chops for Eugene and his family to christen the new grill with). While he did that, I wandered out to Cours Mirabeau and hung out a café, checking email, doing some work, IM’ing Hubert (“so are you moving or what?” and Toni, and taking in the warm sun that bathed the town. Spring had definitely arrived in Provence, and, at the moment, I thought to myself that I could definitely get used to this lifestyle.

Mike picked me up at La Rotonde around noon and we drove the picturesque 90-minute route to Montgardin in Nadine’s 15year-old Peugeot sedan, a couple of times commenting on how well the old diesel still ran despite the relative lack of use (I think real writers call that last bit foreshadowing). He noted that Toni would need to learn to drive a stick shift if we came to France since that was basically all there was available in terms of cars (at the house, we had talked to Eugene about buying the Peugeot wagon had had bought second hand when he first arrived – it is a stick shift, too).

Mike had brought along a supply of bagettes and sausage, which we devoured like two real Frenchmen on the way to Montgardin as he pointed out points of interest along the way, such as the walled town at Sisteron. It was a very scenic drive along the Durance River and up into the lower Alps, where snow was still layered across the peaks, made even more dramatic set against a crystal clear blue springtime sky. Closer to Montgardin we saw several gliders, hang gliders, and even a hot air balloon, as this area has excellent wind conditions for such things. We passed a good-sized airfield in Tallard where glider planes are parked all over the place.

Turning onto a small track off the main road, we pulled into the sisters’ house in the small town of Montgardin. They greeted us warmly, taking a break from the spring yard work they had been busy with across their sprawling property. The house is a classic French country farmhouse, probably several hundred years old and it used to be run as some kind of mill by Nadine’s family. It’s where Nadine grew up, and the sisters have lived their whole lives. They run a small restaurant and B&B there now, catering mostly to the summer tourists who hike and sight-see in the region. There’s also some skiing in the immediate area. We are not far from the Italian border here, and the nearest ‘big’ town is called Gap.

Mike and I did a bit of exploring around the old house and property. He showed me things he had done over the years to help spruce it up (knock down a wall here, remove a few acres of fill there) and places and things his kids had enjoyed when they were growing up during their visits to their aunts in the French countryside.

Later, we drove up to the top of the hill which serves as the town center and admired the views of the Alps. And we checked out the local church cemetery where several generations of Nadine’s family rest peacefully overlooking the snow topped mountains.

Back at the house, we shared good conversation and good wine with the sisters, next to the crackling wood burning stove that warmed the house. They made us a superb French style dinner of home made pizza followed by some delicious duck and vegetable concoction (the restaurant was closed that night). They broke open a very sweet, but tasty liqueur drink after dinner, made from a local herb grown at only high elevations (over 10,000 feet) in the Alps. After a few of those, then a nightcap of scotch, Mike and I were off to bed in one of the B&B rooms, ready to get up early and hit the road so I could make the 9:50AM TGV train back to Paris from Aix.

Back to Aix for the night

AIX EN PROVENCE - We checked in at the Hotel Cardinal, a small typical French hotel, just off Cours Mirabeau on a narrow, winding street typical of the old part of Aix. The room was nice enough, except for the lack of a stand-up shower (it had a large tub and one of those hold in-your-hand shower heads). Not uncommon in France, and in fact, one of the bathrooms at Le Bergerie has the same set up. Tubby time will have a whole new meaning in France.

Mike and I managed to get on-line using the same wireless connection, checked email, and Mike made his required 3 or 4 Skype calls to Nadine, the kids and work people back on the island. {Mike uses a Mac notebook that is always within his easy reach, and loves the video feature on Skype, using it to show his wife and Toni real time views of various points of interest the whole time during our visit.}

Then we set out on the town. It was Monday night so not a whole lot happening (compared to the bustling activity of the weekend), but we made our way to a little area with a couple bars and restaurants that were relatively lively. We ended up at a Spanish tapas restaurant and drank a couple of pitchers of local red wine, ate various Spanish-influenced meat dishes, and then tried some kind of flaming tequila shot drink that the guys sitting next to us were pounding down with alarming frequency, using straws to battle through the flames. We thought they had bought us a round when two infernos showed up at our table, but Mike later pointed out they ended up on our bill at the end of the night. We enjoyed them anyway, and headed back to the hotel.

We called it a night, but not before a few more video Skype calls, including one to Toni, Lindsey and Savannah - during which I walked Savannah through the typical school day and classes at CIPEC. At first he was tentative and not very open, but toward the end warmed up to it when she heard about all the activities available. Plus, in my flaming tequila-induced state, I promised her a cell phone if she agreed to move to France – that won’t be forgotten.

I called my other wives in Texas, too, to give them the report, which of course excited them as well – Jacquie even threatening to quit her teaching job and join us as the girls’ full-time tutor.

L'ecole: CIPEC

LUYNES -- The CIPEC School, an unassuming yet charming little set of buildings nestled into a small hillside, is literally less than two minutes walk from La Bergerie. The school is separated from Mike and Nadine’s house by a little stretch of wooded area, and there is a path that weaves around right to the entrance of the school. The kids from the school even play in the wooded area behind the house, and Eugene and Jackie see them around all the time.

The idea of the kids being able to walk to and from school is a huge attraction for us – an big incentive for the whole move, really – and I think Savannah and Lindsey would enjoy that part of the experience, too.

The school itself is small-ish, about the same size as the Ashcroft School where Lindsey and Savannah go now on the island. There are grades from pre-kindergarten up to Grade 5/6, which is for kids up to around 11 years old. It’s called a bi-lingual school, but most of the classes are taught in English, except for a couple – and even those are segregated by proficiency in French. The kids all are required to take French as a subject, too. I met some kids who spoke very little French, and while they were learning it at the school, it didn’t seem to be a major detraction from their primary education and core subjects.

Madame Pecnard, a slightly bookish and serious French lady, is the principal of the school, which she and her husband founded it back in the mid 80s. She is the main French language teacher at CIPEC, but told me the roughly 20 teachers on staff are from all over the world with diverse educational experiences. She showed me around the small ‘campus’ which includes a playground area, various individual buildings for each class, and a main office building/dining hall. It all overlooks the gorgeous French countryside of Luynes.

We visited the Grade 5/6 class, where there were about 20 kids in the midst of their afternoon study session. Apparently the school doesn’t give much, if any, homework to the kids. Instead, they prefer to let the students do their work while still at school during a daily study period and in the presence of their teachers. Not a bad idea, and I am sure the girls will like that concept of no homework.

Madame Pecnard went around the classroom and randomly chose kids to introduce themselves to me. I was impressed that every single kid was very some place different – England, US, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Russia, Spain. But they all spoke very good English, even the French kids. A few of them described what they were studying and Madame explained that they operate at different levels even within the same class, because of the diversity of their backgrounds and educations.

CIPEC attracts a lot of ex-pat kids from some of the companies and organizations based around Provence that have an international employee base. So it can be a bit of a transient population - Madame estimated that there is about a 20% turnover every year, which is about what there is at Ashcroft, too. {I got to speak with Mike’s son, Marius, while we were in France this week. He is in college in Montreal now, but Mike checks in with him at least once a day on Skype (as Mike does with many, many people, I learned). Marius spoke very highly of CIPEC and his two year’s experience there. And Mike tells me that at CIPEC Marius really progressed quickly in a short time with his French, which he speaks fluently now).

Back at the school, Madame went over the typical daily schedule with me. School starts at 8:45 and runs til 5 PM every day, except Wednesday which is a half day all the time. The kids take their core classes in the mornings – English, French, maths (why do the Europeans add an “s” to the word math as a subject?), and history (French, I presume – forgot to ask). After lunch, which looked pretty good to me (natch, this is France – what did I expect, macaroni and cheese?) when we peeped through the window, there is a study break. Then, twice a week in the afternoons, the kids take secondary subjects like music, art, science, and geography; and twice a week they go to their sports classes. That takes place down the road a bit at a sports club and Madame told me there is a whole bunch of activities they can do – tennis, horseback riding, marital arts, swimming, gymnastics, and dance. Plus, there are other organized activities and clubs for the kids after school and on weekends. So it’s good to hear there is no shortage of things for the kids to do.

Madame then reviewed the kids’ Ashcroft School transcripts with me and she was pleased with their background, classes and reports. All in all, I left feeling pretty good about CIPEC and I think the kids would fit in well there.

La Maison: La Bergerie

LUYNES - After visiting the CIPEC school, Mike and Eugene came and met me and we walked back to La Bergerie for my first visit to the house we could live in. Along the way, Eugene showed me a few of the areas where the CIEPC kids play in the woods, and also the nifty tree house he had built for his own kids. Within two minutes we arrived at the house.

I met the two older daughters, who Eugene and Jackie are home schooling. The parents weren’t real pleased with the secondary school (across the street from CIPEC) for a number of reasons, one of which is because the girls weren’t learning enough French. That, plus they said it was more segregated in terms of the ex-pats and the French kids than CIPEC, and their girls weren’t even getting the benefit of the cultural immersion. So they now study at home and seem to be happy and well adjusted. They also hired a French tutor, which Eugene said has made a big difference in their language skills. The two older girls are 13 and 15 and we chatted about what it was like for them being in Provence at that age. The best thing they all liked about living there was the opportunity to experience so many different places and things - small Provencal villages, dramatic mountain scenery, historical sites, the beaches, and the local culture – all within a short distance of the house in Luynes. As teenagers, the older girls like to hang out in Aix, too, which seems like a safe city and where they can see movies, shop and check out the French boys.

The youngest daughter is 4 and she goes to CIPEC and loves it, so that was re-assuring to hear when I chatted with her after she came home that afternoon. She’s a tad younger than Lindsey, but there were definite similarities and she talked about a lot of things she does at school that would be familiar to Lindsey, too. The family’s plan is to return to Australia after touring around Europe this summer and the parents are anxious to get the older girls back into structure of a regular school but they weren’t concerned at all that the experience in Provence had set their kids back at (even with the home schooling) – just the opposite in fact.

Jackie (a Irish woman who moved to Australia many years ago) and Eugene (an Aussie through and through) had prepared a great French lunch for me and Mike, including quiche, various meats and cheeses, fresh salad and the requisite bottle of wine, a local rose’. We talked about how they had met Mike and Nadine by chance in Bali, and Le Bergerie was the solution to their challenge of wanting to live in Provence for a year.

Afterward, Jackie showed me around the house, which has three bedrooms, one of which is a large self sufficient apartment-style room downstairs that has a separate entrance. Upstairs are two good-sized bedrooms, and a glassed-in sun room which they use as an office and study area. The main floor has the kitchen, dining area, TV room, and a living room – including a cozy fireplace which Eugene says they use all the time when it is cold.

Outside is a large patio deck area, and further down the driveway is the pool. Mike and Eugene both say you spend a lot of time outdoors in Provence thanks to the nice weather, and the pool comes in handy during the really hot summer months of July and August. The house is surrounded by woods and trails and the family enjoys exploring the immediate area. They get occasional wild animals coming through (pigs, rabbits) but very rarely any unexpected human company.

It was good to talk to Eugene and Jackie about the mundane stuff – utilities, mail, banking, the Internet and TV service, routine maintenance stuff, etc. since we would be in a similar scenario as they were when they first arrived. And of course, Nadine has vowed to help us settle in seamlessly, as she did for her current tenants.

I also met the gardeners, who come twice a month, and the contractor who fixes stuff around the house (Mike is having a new roof put on this summer). My lack of proficiency in French worried me as Mike rattled off instructions to the workers, but Eugene doesn’t speak much of the mother tongue and he says he gets along fine. At that moment, it seemed like the type of place that is always a bevy of activity, even though it’s fairly isolated from the main road and the neighbors (of which, from what I could tell, there were only two or three within walking distance), but I think I just caught them on a busy day, and for sure Mike wanted to see some things attended to during his short visit.

Mike then drove me around the nearby towns (Luynes and Gardanne) and a few of the other important places to know about for shopping and such. It’s all very modern, centralized and easy enough to get around. There are large shopping areas within minutes - big supermarkets, a Home Depot-like store, clothing stores, gyms, gas stations, even a McDonald’s (which, as with all McDonald’s in France, offers free wireless internet).

And, in 10 minutes we were back in downtown Aix en Provence.

Un bon jour a Aix

AIX EN PROVENCE - My first full day in Aix and I made it even fuller by being tricked by Daylight Savings Time. Apparently, that happened overnight in the US, but not here in France, so instead of being 6 hours ahead as it was when I went to bed, we are today just 5 hours different from East Coast Time for the time being. I awoke thinking it was 9AM (adding six to my watch, still on US time at 3AM), but it was only 8.

I drew the curtains and looked out at La Cours Mirabeau to see the bustling sidewalk of last night's Saturday night revelers replaced by a long row of vendors selling their wares from table tops. They stretched in either direction as far as I could see. The Sunday street fair was already in full swing. I hustled across the street, hoping to knock off the girls' shopping. Perusing the mostly junky knick knacks, old albums and books, and and other remnants from southern French attics occupied most of my morning -- and I did find a couple of treats for the girls, including some French kids books that should help them a bit with the language.

It was a truly beautiful day, just a slight nip in the air but comfortable and the sun was shining brightly, so I set out to do some exploring. Living where we do, I forget how inspiring and uplifting a nice spring day can be -- especially the first one of the season, as I think this was. The warm day seemed to bring out the masses, and I get the sense they had been holed up for a long winter this year (it had snowed here just last week - a rarity for this part of the world). A nice lady at the Tourist Office gave me a map and marked some of the highlights - statues, churches, museums and the like (she failed to point out the popular pubs, but I left that to my own keen sense of such things).

Aix is a pretty small and walkable city. I made it around roughly a third of the town in no time, stopping for lunch then a drink or two at a couple of cafes, all the while doing my best impression of a leisurely French guy (at least as best as one can do sans an ever-present cigarette). The cafes were packed with sun seekers and Sunday conversationalists - the French seem particularly adept at sitting around cafes, intently smoking, drinking endless tiny cups of coffee and solving the world's problems (it was also an election day of some kind today, albeit apparently not an important one, but still enough to fuel a solid afternoon of discussion).

I made my way over to a sorta sports bar/pub that I had spied the night before (when it had been teeming with - mostly - drunken Brits). My intent was to watch the rugby match between France and Italy in the Six Nations Tournament and was looking forward to seeing how well I could adapt to life without US sports on a Sunday afternoon. Of course, due to my still undiscovered time zone/clock change confusion, I arrived an hour early and they were till hosing down the place from last night. I wandered off to another cafe to wait, returning at the appointed hour only to find a disappointing turnout of - mostly - drunken Brits. Maybe it was the fact that France was the heavy favorite (and subsequently marched over Italy in way that would have made Napoleon proud) that kept the crowds away, or perhaps the spring weather made the prospects of watching guys in tight shorts on TV in a dank smelly pub a bit less appealing. I watched a little over a half when it was clear that France would win, cover the spread, and blow away the 'over.'

Back for a stroll down Le Cours Mirabeau and the crowds were even thicker at the cafes. Lots of folks took advantage of the opportunity to break out the Harley's and other warm weather transport. A very cool energy to the Sunday cafe crowd and it has become very obvious that the pace of life here is one of its strong suits.

I ended the day at a small local restaurant, enticed by their sign outside advertising Moules Frites for 12 euros. No such luck - "tout hors de moules - all out" said the manager/waiter dude. But he vowed to satisfy my fish fetish - and returned shortly with a whole poisson draped across a plate. After seeking, and receiving, my approval he disappeared to prepare it and delivered a little seafood masterpiece in short order.

The food will not be an issue here it seems.