Our First Year....

It is definitely Fall in the South of France. The leaves are changing, the days are cooler and most important, the stands that sell ice cream in the summer are now selling crepes and chichis (deep fried donut-like pieces). Yum! Fall also means we have been in France for 1 year. So, in honor of this momentous occasion, I have compiled a list of things we have learned, things we will never get used to, and things we will really miss when we leave in 2 years.

Top things I have learned in France:

General:

1-Sidewalks are for dog poop and car parking, so watch out. As David Liebovitz writes in his book, The Sweet Life in Paris, when a French person says "I am a socialist", they mean "I do not pick up my own dog poop." So true.

2-Having your one good french phrase be "I do not speak French" saves you from many a telemarketer. However, a surprising number speak English. How is it that even the telemarketers are bilingual??

3-Even a mediocre baguette tastes amazing with butter and salami.

4-Favorite breakfast for French children...a glass of chocolate milk with a baguette for dipping. They don't eat again until lunch.

5-Favorite after school snack for the French (but don't call it a snack...the French don't snack) a third of a baguette with a large chunk of chocolate. Not all that surprisingly, my girls like it too. Nutella will do in a pinch.

6-If your child does not want to wear a coat and it is under 75 degrees, you will hear about it from every little old lady. If the temperature drops below 75, all babies will be bundled and with a knit cap. All French children will be wearing a warm coat with a scarf. My children will be wearing a cardigan. Please don't tell me they are cold. We lived in Canada for a year. That is cold.

Safety:
1-Bike helmets are not mandatory. However, if you want to ride at night, you must have a reflective vest and several lights. Seems as though the helmet should be required too. Very few children wear helmets, and the French seem a little puzzled that ours do.

2-It is perfectly acceptable to ride a bike or scooter with your child clutching you from the front or rear. If it is a bike, no one will be wearing a helmet. If it is a scooter, only the driver will be wearing one. Surprisingly, helmets are required for scooters or motorcycles, but I think that has to do with socialized medicine. I have heard that if you are injured while riding without a helmet, you will not be covered by the medical system.

3-Car Seats: Although there is a law mandating car seats they seem to be somewhat optional. I have seen many an acquaintance with their smallest children crawling on the floor of the minivan in traffic. Also, the tiny cars here do not fit a car seat so many baby seats are turned sideways. Maybe it doesn't say that the car seat actually has to be safe.

Fashion:
Yes, the French have style. They don't wear sweats or tennis shoes in public and even if they don't look what we might consider great, if they wear it with confidence, then they are fashionable. The French woman is supremely confident.

1-Wearing jeans that stop at your knees and boots that go to your knees is very chic. It must be paired with a wool, leather or fur coat that goes to mid-thigh.

2-What has happened to me? I now own 2, no 3 pairs, of black boots (dressy, casual, over the knee), 2 pairs of brown boots, and 1 pair of red boots. I also now have purses to match each set of boots and about 12 scarves. For a 4 day trip to Barcelona, I took 2 pairs of boots and 5 scarves. I also now have wool coats in blue, black and grey as well as 2 dress coast and a poncho style dress coat. I figure that I am pegged as an American everywhere I go, so I should at least be a classy one.

Things we will never get used to:

1-Everything is closed on Sunday afternoons. Most stuff never even opens. Luckily, the mini-mart down the street (where I do most of my shopping) and the market are both open Sundays, but forget about running errands at say, Ikea.

2-Carrefour, the giant Wal-Mart style grocery store, is always packed. I have been there at 8:30 on a Friday evening, and all 30 open check out lines were 6 deep. It is the same at 9am on a Wednesday or 2pm on a Thursday. It still amazes me.

3-Carrefour is self-bagging and the cashiers sit. They must have a great union. Everyone knows it is self bagging, and yet they are never ready to bag. To top it off no one (except me) ever has their Carte Bleu (the most popular debit card ever) ready for payment, nor do they have their Carte Fidelity (frequent shopper card ready).

4-How can everyone wait so patiently in all of these grocery lines, but when they get out on the street, watch out? It is like the Indy 500, motorcycles and scooters weaving in and out, horns honking. In a word, crazy.

5-How many people speak English, but are unwilling to admit it until you have completely butchered the French language. Really it is just easier to say that I don't speak much French, ask if they speak any English and go from there. They almost always fess up to speaking "a little English". It is almost always better then my "little" French.

6-Could the tequila and in turn, the margaritas be any worse? The rum is not that great either. We make do, but I sure miss a good margarita.

Things I will miss:
Sadly, most of the things I will really miss are food related, and the food hasn't changed my life or anything, although it has all been good.

1-Lardons: Small chopped up pieces of bacon that you can fry up. Perfect for eggs, salads or quiche. On the other hand, no regular bacon or turkey bacon either.

2-Wine at lunch and dinner and midmorning if you want.

3-"Junk" Food: It seems to be much less junky here. There are fewer preservatives and things just taste good. The ducklings faves? Chocolate crepes, Special K with Chocolate chunks, chocolate pretzels and well, I see a theme here. Chocolate is a big part of our lives.

4-Chocolate: Even the crappy generic stuff from Carrefour is better then most anything in the US.

5-Wednesdays off school: I thought it would be silly to have a day off in mid week, but I and the girls love it. Morning is ballet for 1 hour, and afternoon is whatever.

6-No rushing: I drive, tops, twice a week. School ends at 4:30, and that is really too late for after school activities. Snack at 5, playtime, homework, dinner at 7ish. Bed at 8. All in all pretty awesome.

7-Inexpensive wine: Anyone want the Gold Medal Bordeaux from the Paris wine show?? I can get you some for about $10 a bottle.

8-Good Rose wine: An awesome wine. Totally cheap and very much a southern French thing.

Now that I look at my list I realize we will really miss it here. And we will be leaving just when I can finally speak the language. All this work for nothing. Oh well, I am looking forward to the next 2 years and hope that we enjoy them as much as we have enjoyed the first.

Rentree (and yes there should be a ' over the 1st e)

Yeah! It is back to school time. The school supply list has been deciphered, several stores have been visited in the quest for said school supplies ("No, we don't have a 24 cm X 30 cm document protector. They don't make that size.") and it is time to relax. In fact, I think I heard a simultaneous sigh of relief go up from around the entire neighborhood as the children went off to school. This leaves the FMB (French Mommy Brigade) with time on their hands. To do what, I am still not sure and have not figured out, but whatever it is, it keeps them quite trim and relaxed looking.

I know what I am doing, and that is enjoying the quiet, that and preparing for lunch pick up. Yes, another thing that is different here. Unless you work, you must pick your children up for lunch from 11:30-1:30, breaking your day into roughly, 2.5 hour chunks before a pick up. This is actually not entirely true, as they do allow the children of the non-working parents to stay one day per week for lunch, an event known as Cantine. My girls love their Cantine day, but probably not as much as I love an entire day to do whatever I want with only the youngest duckling to hold my hand. This week, I took the baby duck to the beach, shopped for clothes, bought shoes and went to my favorite place, Carrefour (I hope by now, everyone knows my true feelings about my "favorite" place). It was amazing to have an uninterrupted block of time for me, or mostly me. I think that is the first time I have been on my own, or as on my own as I ever get, since June. It was pretty wonderful.

The best part of going back to school turns out to be the Swine Flu, or H1N1/grippe as they call it here. No, I am not looking forward to getting it, and am even quite a bit worried. What I am thrilled about is that it has lead to the demise of the "red cups of death". Last year at the twins school, they had communal drinking cups....disgusting, red, hard plastic drinking cups. These cups sat in a basket in the bathroom and as the children washed their hands, they could get a drink and then return the cup to the basket for the next child. I was appalled, this would never happen in the U.S., but as the newcomer, I was not going to be able to do anything about it. I begged the girls not to use the "cups of death", and began sending bottles of water for them. Well, the teacher would not let them drink from their own bottles and half the time the girls forgot not to use the "cups of death". It was a long year. Now, however, among the hysteria over the "grippe", the cups of death are gone. The "red cups of death" are gone and they can bring their own water bottles from home. I noticed right away, and danced a jig of happiness. Throw a little Purell their way and it might be an ok year.

Summer is coming to an end....

Today is a very exciting day in the Canard household. The cleaning lady is returning from her extended summer vacation. She has been visiting her mother since the beginning of July. I am quite jealous of the extended French vacation. Everyone we know has been gone all summer. Most people have gone to visit family, staying a couple weeks and then either returning sans kids or vacationing on their own. Did I mention, sans kids? As the Big Duck technically works for the U.S. we do not enjoy the same benefit. Did I mention, jealous?

Not only does Madame P come once a week to vacuum and scrub, she watches the littlest duckling, giving me one afternoon a week to myself. Granted, I usually do my big grocery trip of the week, but it is blissful to be alone. And, that is saying something as I go to Carrefour, the French equivalent of the Wal-Mart Super Store only with more people crowding every conceivable space. In Madame P's absence, I did manage to vacuum several times a week and even cleaned a few toilets, but let's face it, unless the kids knocked over the dogs water, the floors were just not getting cleaned. Having four ducklings at home and under foot every day, all day for the past 7 weeks is not conducive to accomplishing anything at the house. I consider it a miracle that the laundry got done, although come to think of it, they did wear swimsuits a lot cutting down on laundry volume.

So, although I will remember this summer, our first here in France, with fondness, what I am really looking forward to having is a clean house and more then 30 seconds to myself. Did I mention, Blissful?