Des choses routieres

I love to drive in France.   The french are particularly good at transportation.   The rail system is amazing and the road system is also enviable.  The autoroute system (equivalent to the U.S. interstate system) has beautiful surfaces and is designed for speeds well in excess of the 130 km/hr limit. Most of the french system is funded by tolls (curiously, the French would consider the U.S. very socialist in the manner that Americans fund their interstate). The guy who uses it pays for it. And the tolls are not cheap. Their beautiful roads are expensive.

Buy what I really love about the french road system is the “D” highway system that goes everywhere the autoroute does not.  These roads, usually through beautiful scenery and often windey are really fun to drive.  The french “rond-points” make sure that you almost never need to stop and the signage is pretty amazing at getting you from little town to little town without a lot of fussing over maps.

Unlike Paris, it is really helpful to have a car in southern France.    The public transport is very good here but it is very time consuming to sightsee by bus and train.  We agonized over the right approach to getting a car: buy a used one? overseas delivery of an Audi? lease?  In the end, we decided to just do occasional rentals.  The price of rentals is very low since we are here in the off-season.  We can rent a car for a 3-day weekend for 70 euros.  This includes insurance of course.  So we just rent a car every other weekend.  Its kind of a hassle to learn a new car every other weekend but its also kind of fun to experience so many european cars.

The cars are, of course, quite different here.  The size of the average french street makes it completely impractical to drive U.S. size cars here.   Even the U.S. manufacturers produce different cars in this market. I’ve rented a Ford and a Chevy here that I have never seen in the U.S. Japanese cars are rarely seen here. It’s kind of amazing. The argument is that you can’t get service for them. Still? I remember a similiar attitude in the U.S....about 25 years ago. Am I in a timewarp? Why haven’t the Japanese been more successful in creating a service infrastructure here? Most of the cars on the road are Renault and Peugeot-Citroen. French chauvinism?

The car itself is not a revered thing in France.  Probably a good thing as they are ALL beat-up.   When I rent a car it is always necessary to do a little inventory of the scratches and bumps.  In the U.S. this is mostly the rental company proving to you that nothing is wrong.  In France this is to make sure both parties agree to all of the previous dents.  One car I rented had FIVE dents in various places.  And no wonder: there simply isn’t enough room in the little villages to drive.  It’s like playing bumper cars.  I’m really glad I did NOT buy the Audi over here.  I can’t imagine how I would have been able to keep it in good shape before bringing it home.

This week we visited Saint-Tropez.  The city on the mediterannean is located on the southern edge of le Massif des Maures.  Saint-Tropez was just so-so.  However on the way there, by absolute luck (I missed a turn), we happened upon the most beautiful mountain road I have ever been on.  For a hour+ we went up and down a tiny, forrested, winding path through the Massif des Maures from north to south.  It was spectacular (and a little scary).    Gratefully we only saw a handful of cars (I discovered the real meaning of “blind corner” on this path).

How to get there:
Start on the A57 at Gonfaron (north-northeast of Hyeres).  Head south on D39 toward Collobrières.  Take the D14 over to D39 and continue until you hit N98 (St. Tropez) or end on the mediteranean at Bormes-les-Mimosas.
Google maps: http://tinyurl.com/27eqfmp

Mauvaise nouvelle de nouveau

Jane's Dad died this past weekend after a long illness.   His suffering is over. It was hard but Jane was able to have some great talks with him in his last days.  Thank goodness that we live in an age where communication is so amazing.

Ralph was a role model for expatriates.  He was born and raised in England, brought his young family to Canada when he was a young engineer (Jane was 2), and then moved down to the states in the 80s.  He had jobs in Italy, Turkey and Chile as well.  Everywhere he went he had many, many friends.  We know we are making him proud these days.

A bientôt Ralph.  Tu nous manqueras.

La campagne française: si douce

The country side is very beautiful here.  There are alot of forests, hills, and mountains in the south of france.  Jane and I spent the weekend hiking and driving through the baby mountain passes (St. Victoire and the pass between Cassis and Le Ciotat).  The "woods" of france are SO different than Minnesota.  I remember a passage in Shogun where the author describes the countryside of Japan and how every inch of the terrain has been manicured by man.  I feel the same way about France...more wild perhaps but almost everything has been touched by man.

We were hiking through a beautiful forest yesterday on Sainte Victoire.  The trees were beautiful but on inspection it was obvious that nearly every one had been trimmed.  It wasn't a wild forest.  It was a garden forest.  Every forest I have been through in France is like this: beautiful but, effectively, man made.  Most forests in Minnesota are so wild that you can barely penetrate them.  One can easily sense the forest primieval in a spot like the boundary waters.  I think it must be hard to have that experience in France.

Likewise with insects.  Minnesota seems thick with an insect world but France seems to have somehow avoided our crawling friends.  How is this possible?  One of my favorite features of southern france is the shuttered windows.  Too hot at night?  Just open the window and let the world in.  No screens.  Just nature.  Where the heck are the critters?  Why aren't french households overriden by insects?

I appreciate the wild of Minnesota but frankly it is sure nice to have nature be so hospitable for awhile.

Le faux pas

It was a very unusual weekend for us. Celebrating an American holdiday in France was a little challenging. For us, Thanksgiving is all about family so being so far away was sort of hard. Alas, we had one evening that was really special with the local expat group. This group has really been a life-line for us. The group is filled with english speakers but it is also well-attended by many local french who enjoy improving their english. They are all very welcoming and we've already made some good friends.

We're very sensitive to any cultural faux-pas that we might commit here (curious that I have to use french to describe that nuance). It's difficult though to be aware of somethings. There are so many things we take for granted. For instance: teasing. Americans tease. A lot. Not in a mean way. We just like to give ourselves gentle ribbing. It's very much a way we show affection. Tonight was a great example. The folks who organized our Thanksgiving outing invited a gentleman from the local americsan consulate to say bonjour. He was very gracious and, I thought, the consumate American. He did the usual political niceities and then he requested that the audience give a friend of his (who was in the restaurant business) some feedback suggesting the locale of our dinner was far superieur to his establishment. It was, I felt, so American. Understand that I've had almost no social contact with Americans (other than e-mail) for 3 months so I'm probably hyper-sensitive. But the teasing made me feel transported.

Minutes later, I was chatting with a french friend at our table who had just received her after-dinner coffee. Unlike the rest of us who recieved a paper cup with our espresso (very unfrench) she recieved a ceramic cup. Well, I demanded jokingly of her "how come you deserve a real cup"? She looked at me guiltily. She did NOT understand that I was teasing. Perhaps it was my french. Humor is SO subtle. Or perhaps it is simply not the way one plays with a friend in France. So much to learn.

Sainte Victoire

This weekend we focused on starting our hiking adventures.  First order was going out to the local Decathalon store (read: monster sporting good store) to get some hiking boots for each of us.  I love the stuff that I can buy at these stores but I always end up feeling empty and have a strong desire to get out of there as fast as possible.  Rampant materialism is everywhere now.

Properly attired we headed up to Sainte Victoire for our first hike.  We had a wonderful little visit from the local moutons (see video).  Very fun.  Amazing that sheep ranching is still practiced this way.




This weekend we went to Barrage de Bimont.  This dam in Sainte Victoire controls the water supply to a large provencal water system.  It's also the beginning of lots of great hikes into Sainte Victoire.

In addition to great hikes we also discovered paragliders taking advantage of the local cliffs and attendant thermal up-drafts.  Pretty amazing to watch these folks.  They were literally aloft for hours.  The sport was invented in France and there are now 25,000 french who "faissent du parapente".

Settling in

Life has really changed since our move to Aix. Aix is not as exciting as Paris but it is beginning to feel more like home. Our push to get involved has really payed off. We have lots of new french friends: mostly older friends (retirees) and younger friends (college students), not many between. This works for us. We’ve always had friends in a pretty broad age range.

Last weekend we headed down to Cassis for a nice Friday dinner and spent Satuday luxuriating in the beautiful cliffs and hills of St. Victoire. We’re intent on joining the local hiking scene. It is such a surprise to find out how popular hiking is here. Perfect for a couple of Boundary Waters fans: les voyaguers sont ici! This weekend we’re heading out for our first serious randonnée at St. Victoire.

Sunday found us in the pretty town of L’isle-sur-le-Sorgue walking through anitiquités and then on to Gordes. Gordes was amazing. The town is known for its bories: homes made entirely of stone, no mortar. What was most fantastic was that they still build their houses completely out of stone without mortar.

We’re starting to get excited about the ski season. Apparently there is a bus we can catch at the center of Aix that will take us to the local peaks (we’re talking the Alps here) for x-country or downhill. We cannot wait!!!

Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Paris anymore

Well we successfully moved to Aix-en-provence from Paris this week. None of the luggage nightmares arrived (we were moving 5 pieces...one very big: my bike). It was a great move. We chatted with a couple of teens on the TGV from Paris and even helped them with their English homework. On arriving in Aix we were greeted by the owners of our apartment: a wonderful woman and her brother who shepherded us and our luggage from the train station and then showed us around town and entertained us. So nice.

Aix is a bit of a shock. Almost anything would be shocking after Paris. Perhaps another grand city of the world would have been an easier transition than Aix. Aix is very small (140K, 40K of whom are students), very white, and very warm (we had a 70F day yesterday). The beautiful Massif Sainte Victoire (sort of a baby mountain range) is just east of Aix. Hiking is VERY popular here. Almost immediately we regret not having a car. Yes, you can get anywhere in Aix by public transport but we are going to quickly grow out of Aix. I've taken two bike rides to Sainte Victoire and I loved it. I can't wait to bring Jane...but I need a car to get her there.

We've both jumped into the social life here. We are determined to become part of Aix. Jane has joined the local expat group and has been invited to pick olives next week...that's right...pick olives. I have gone nuts on language exchange groups and have met with 2 new people with several more on the agenda this week.   We're looking for a yoga group and hopefully we can get some cooking instruction.  We are REALLY bad french cooks!