Posts from the Past

IN SEPTEMBER OF 2007, just a few weeks after we arrived in France, I put up a post titled Some Things that will Take Getting Used To and  highlighted the following things:

• buying milk (lait) by the six-pack
• paying $5+ for a gallon of gas
• not ever getting coffee to go (closest Starbucks is about 5 hours away)
• remember that eating out for dinner will take at least 1 1/2 hours -- minimum
• eating chevre
• understanding that motor scooters pay no attention to the rules of the road
• remembering to bring our own bags to the supermarket
• everything is closed on Sunday afternoon
• peanut butter is difficult to find
• Dr. Pepper is impossible to find
• trying to learn the passé composé form of verbs

Now that seven years have passed, how are we doing on this front?  Let's run through the list again and give a little progress report..

• buying milk (lait) by the six-pack -- Got over it pretty quickly, not a problem.
• paying $5+ for a gallon of gas -- I wish -- it's now about $7 a gallon.
• not ever getting coffee to go (closest Starbucks is about 5 hours away) -- Good news!  We now have Starbucks -- one at each of the local malls in Nice.  And Subway now serves coffee-to-go.
• remember that eating out for dinner will take at least 1 1/2 hours, minimum -- Not if you stick to pizza!
• eating chevre -- I'm trying, I swear.  But not there yet.
• understanding that motor scooters pay no attention to the rules of the road -- No hope for this one.
• remembering to bring our own bags to the supermarket -- It's a simple concept, really.  But I can't grasp it for some reason.  We have a stack of dozens of bags at home because every time I go to the supermarket I forget bags and have to buy new ones.
• everything is closed on Sunday afternoon -- This is beginning to change as France experiments with the idea of entering the modern world.
• peanut butter is difficult to find -- Best solution: make your own, which we do.  Easy. Cheap. Delicious.
• Dr. Pepper is impossible to find -- No longer the case.  Not only is it easier to find in stores, but at the cafe at my school they have cold cans for sale!!  Seismic change since 2007.
• trying to learn the passé composé form of verbs -- Come to find out, passé composé was easy compared to all the other verb forms.  I'm still struggling with the Conditional!!

Change of Address

FOR THE FIRST time since our move to France, we no longer live in the village of Le Rouret.  Because the owner of the house we have been in for the past two years is using it for himself this year (actually, it is his daughter who will be using it) we had to find a new place to live. Slightly stressful, to be sure, but Kerri and I love change and the idea of trying to find a new place to live is, well, kind of fun.

We landed close-by near a small, medieval village.  Our house isn't directly in the old village, which is too bad in some ways, but we're very close and -- as you can see -- we have reason to be happy with the new place.  Warm, sunny weather in October 30 doesn't hurt.

Halloween decorations, of course.

Coffee with Stephen Roche

THIS MORNING I took our car in for a follow-up 'controle-technique' visit and headed over to the Cafe Du Cycliste here in Chateauneuf-de-Grasse for a cup of coffee while I waited.  Two minutes after I sat down Stephen Roche (yes, that Stephen Roche) and a cycling partner pulled up on their bikes and sat down at the table next to me.  Roche, for those of you who don't know, won the Tour de France in 1987 and his son Nicholas is a top-level pro who just signed-on to ride for Team Sky -- one of the biggest and best cycling teams in the world (I have a soft spot for Nicholas because he used to go to the school where I now teach)  Stephen Roche has had a home here in the South of France since the early 80s when he was a pro and he owns at least one hotel and some other real estate in the area.  It certainly  isn't uncommon to see him riding in the area.

I guess today was one of his riding days.

Of course, I was too embarrassed to ask for a photo, so I don't have one.  But the best part -- he was riding a brand new Carerra bike. Carerra was the team he rode for when he won the Tour in '87, so it appears there are still some ties there.

Seriously, Back at It

TIME TO GET this up and going again, if only to help us chronicle our years in France.  As you can see, "for a while" has turned into a much longer time period than we (or anyone) would have expected.  But that can be explained...and will be at some point.

Now to figure out how and why so many spammers are commenting on this dormant blog.