To Car or Not to Car...

When we first moved here I was so excited not to have a car for awhile.  We rented a car after a month here, so that we could do some further “explores” that were not easily accessible by buses.  But Ed has been curious enough about buying a car for the year that he has followed a few leads with people.  There are enough people moving in and out of Aix that there seems to be a reliable source for used cars.  But this, of course, begs the question, do we want (or need) a car?

What does having a car offer us?  We rented a car yesterday so that the boys could have that oh-so-north-american experience of a waterpark. And I then woke up early, before returning the car, in order to go shopping for big bulk items (toilet paper, gads of milk, etc.) that are harder to bring back on the bus.  We have talked about taking longer trips once the school year has started, to Spain, to Italy, to Switzerland. 

One of the things that I can’t figure out is how cost effective a car would be versus bus/train tickets.  There is the gasoline to figure in, the car insurance, the parking.  We have been talking all along about, if we do decide to purchase a car, sharing the vehicle with another family.  This would, of course, bring down the cost immensely.  But we will all share the same school vacations.  And Wednesdays.  And weekends. 

There is also the cost of freedom.  I am not quite sure why, but for me there is a great liberty in not needing to think about a car all the time.  It is so easy to get all of our basic needs met without the addition of a personal vehicle.  Most of what we need is in walking distance, and the bus system seems to be quite extensive, including buses to other cities.  These last two weeks we have taken the bus down to Marseille at least three times.  But when Ed sent me out to take pictures of two vehicles he wants to consider (note the subtle techniques he uses!) the gentleman who was selling them was speaking about how he cannot imagine that people would live in Aix and NOT have a car.  That he and his wife, if they so choose, can hop in the car and have lunch in Italy with hardly a second thought.  That there is so much in the area that they can choose to do in a spontaneous instant. 

Yes, there is something very appealing about that ability.  One can even call it freedom.  But I still don’t want to have a car. It seems to me that a little forethought is an OK, even desirable, thing.  Certainly Julian prefers to have some fore-warning about his days and we don’t tend to live our lives very spontaneously.  Although I am still trying very hard to work on that whilst here in France.  And if living just that bit more lightly on our planet means needing to plan out our trips, even if it is a trip to Italy for lunch, then maybe that is OK. 

I may still be swayed.  The two cars that we have rented, and I think almost all cars in Europe, are stick-shift cars.  I LOVE driving manual transmission cars!  We drove a teeny one, and then for some reason were upgraded to a mini-van yesterday.  But both were a lot of fun to drive. The roads here are also fun to drive on.  It reminds me of driving into downtown Boston to play at the Conservatory.  There are rotaries, twisty roads, narrow passageways, and always drivers working their way through traffic in their own inimitable style.  I am the navigator in our family, so it is a lot of fun to try and work our way through the one-way streets, keeping the sun as my guide when the street signs tell me otherwise! 

There are lots of discussions to be had over the next few weeks.  I am still not sure where I stand.  Because it seems to me that I am still keeping my car in Toronto, so this is a chance to live without a car.  But it also my one year, at least for awhile, to live in Southern France, and there are a lot of interesting small towns to explore.  The jury is out!  Feel free to weigh in on this one!

What's for dinner?

Today’s market haul

Mint

Coriander

Chinese greens

Green onions

Eggplant

Fennel

Chard

Heirloom tomatoes

Mixed mini-tomatoes

Wild mushrooms

Melon

Peaches

Raspberries

Eggs

Three rounds of goat cheese

Already in the refrigerator/On the shelf

Cauliflower

Green beans

Lettuce

Carrots

Green peppers

Garlic

Lemon

Dried beans

Half a cabbage

Still to buy at the grocery store

Milk

Yogurt

Wine

A friend of mine, also on sabbatical here in Southern France, asked me what we were eating.  She said that her family was getting tired of bread, cheese and the vegetables around.  It has really got me thinking, what do we eat here?  Is it healthy?  Am I changing my cooking habits? 

We tend to buy a baguette 4-5 times a week, either regular, or cerraine (cereal).  So there is a good deal of bread and cheese going on, especially with the yummy cheese vendors in the market.  And the olive vendors have so much selection that we definitely shop there about once a week.  Micah loves the saucisson, so we get those about once a week as well. 

We also have an organic store, literally right around the corner, which apparently opened up right before we moved in.  I have to admit that it allows me to cook somewhat in the same way as I did in Toronto: tofu, quinoa, and all the bulk beans and grain that I could desire, except what I buy at the market.  And it is close enough, with no street crossings, that we can send the older boys down to the store to “practice their French!”

So, what are we eating?  Yesterday for breakfast: oatmeal with a bit of honey (and the honey here is SO good!).  Yesterday for lunch: A picnic with our friends of marinated tofu sandwiches with a pistou spread, saucisson, melon, peaches, cheese and some sliced veggies.  Last night for dinner:  noodles with a tomato sauce, cabbage salad, sliced veggies.  Less veggie-intensive than normal because we got home late.  Did I mention that I sprouted my basil from the market and planted it in the dead plant’s soil?  It is growing proudly on my kitchen counter, soon to be pruned for another sauce! 

Anyways, am I cooking differently than in Toronto?  Slightly, because I am getting my food much more frequently and I am choosing my vegetables as opposed to working with the food basket.  It allows me to meet everyone’s requests much more easily.  Julian wanted artichokes last week, Noah loves berries, Micah is all over the peaches.  And Ed, unfortunately, wants greens.  Wait another month, I told him – it is not the right season! 

We are eating a bunch of the summer veggies, but I am trying really hard to make sure that we do not only eat starches and cheese.  I love it when we do, but our bodies do not necessarily thank us when we do this too often!

The one tricky thing is eating with others, or eating out. It is easiest to make a pasta or pizza for a vegetarian, but one friend did make a frittata. And another made a Provencal pistou, a vegetable and bean soup.  I find that eating out is mostly the same.  We just are not eating out as much here, partly because of the prices, partly because it seems slightly less child-friendly, and partly just because we don’t even know where to go! 

Lunch today I will make a big salad with the leftover baguette from yesterday’s picnic and some of the goat cheese from the market this morning.  Dinner tonight I will cook up some lentils, roast the cauliflower with some of the spices I bought at the market, and probably the fennel as well and serve it over rice or quinoa.  Cut-up crunchy veggies will round out the meal.  And I am sure that the fruit that I bought today, the raspberries, melon and peaches will be all but gone by morning.

So, in short, I think I am not yet bored with our cooking and eating experiences here.  Far from it.  I think I am actually reveling in the challenge, and appreciating the flavours of the freshest of the fresh each time.  A melon is just a melon if you eat it that way, but a melon is a thing of tasty beauty if it is just picked, chosen for you by the farmer and savoured slowly, enjoying each sunny morsel as it goes in.  Yum to summer foods in Provence! 

Summer in Paris

We just got back from five days in Paris.  Definitely a good trip.  But I am (more than) a bit of a homebody and, even here in Aix, it was definitely good to get back home.  First, the trip:

We arrived Tuesday in the early afternoon.  Depositing our bags in our friend’s apartment, we hopped back on the Metro to go see the symbol of Paris.  The Tour Eiffel.  The boys were so excited – there were many photos taken, with us leaning on the tower, us smiling with the tower, the view of the lines under the tower.  We decided to just walk around, forgoing the experience of climbing the tower for another trip.  We THOUGHT that the lines were bad because it was late afternoon.  Ha!  Little did we know!  Walking around the grounds, taking in the swarming souvenir salesmen, and just enjoying being in Paris, all was grand.  We walked for a bit to a different Metro stop and headed back to the 17^th arrondissement.  Too tired to hunt for food and cook, we picked up some surprisingly delicious middle eastern food. 

Up the next morning and off to the Louvre.  The lines, even early in the morning, were outrageous.  Snaking all around the pyramids, through the whole courtyard and into the next.  Ed and Noah decided to walk around and maybe skip the excursion.  They saw Julian, Micah and I enter and went to the park instead.  Julian, Micah and I decided to wander our way through to the Mona Lisa.  Along with all the other people who had waited in the line.  Can I say that I was wowed?  I didn’t really get the chance to look at her.  It was a mob scene, unlike any the boys had been in before.  We squeezed our way to the front, the boys snapped a few photos and I snapped a few of them snapping photos… We then went to a few other areas of the room to check if she really did look at us at each of the vantage points. Yup.  Cool. 

We explored a few other areas of the museum and then popped out to meet with Ed and Noah.  After a lunch on a picnic bench we explored the Parc de Tuileries, and all of its amusement park rides!  Let’s just say that it had been a long time since I had been in a fun house, and it really was fun.  And the Frenchman running the booth had fun with the air jets as I crossed over key parts of the walkways…. Good thing my skirt was really a skort, eh? 

Heading back to our friend’s neighbourhood, I picked up some veggies, beans and grains and cooked up a meal in the apartment.  It really was a blessing to have an apartment with a fully working kitchen, toys for the kids to play with (and swords, oh how many swords!) and space for us to spread out.  Plus, it is August, so many of the neighbours were away on holiday! 

The next morning we awoke to go off to Versailles.  The Metro train ticket takes you all the way there for the same fee, so we popped in our tickets and an hour later were lining up in, yes, another queue.  After losing Micah for the second time since we got to France (said much more nonchalantly than was felt) we finally made it into the grounds.  The palace itself is an overdone wonder, but with lots to ogle.  But the real treat was wandering the gardens.  We ran, meandered, strolled, and felt at points like we were the only ones there.  The grounds are enormous!  After an ice cream Ed decided to start his way back with the boys whilst I, who could not convince anyone to join me, scampered off to see Marie Antoinette’s Petite Trianon.  She quit Versaille after a bit … the chamber-pots were a bit too pungent for her, and the gossip a bit too cutting and built her own home.  Complete with a theater that only housed seven or so royal guests while she portrayed peasants, servants, etc.  That went over really well in the times leading up to the French Revolution.  She also had a farm built for her with a sheep hold so that she could stop by and play shepherdess for an afternoon. 

We picked up some sushi on the way home (we are so urban, after all) and headed off to bed.  The next morning we went to the Palais Garnier, the opera house.  This was top on Micah’s list of things to do, as the Phantom of the Opera was to have taken place in this theater.  We ogled the enormous chandelier.  And I have to say I was so pleasantly surprised to see the opera house ceiling, a mural painted by Chagall.  Totally different than any other French gilted walls or classic statuary.  Totally colorful and beautiful.  And it was really fun to have Noah and Micah try to hunt out the Phantom in all of the different nooks and crannies. 

The afternoon was a bit rainy so we ended up going to the Aquarium, near the Eiffel Tower.  Neat to see the tower in different light.  And the Aquarium was … an experience.  It actually housed very few fish, but lots of entertainment for the children.  Microscopes, computerized fish floors, and a full-fledged cinema that showed Peter Pan while we were there.  Who knew that the Aquarium would give my kids their screen time for the day? 

The next morning Ed took Julian and Micah to hunt out an English language book store to find some reading for the train back.  Noah and I stayed back and just had a morning at home, cleaning up after ourselves, playing some games, etc.  We had a lunch and then headed back to the train station.  The TGV is amazingly fast.  You speed by the cars on the highway at least twice their speed.  And then we were home. 

It is so nice to wake up in Provence.  The light here is so beautiful.  I never would have imagined the quality of light to be so different, but it is bright and airy and, at least now, so reliable.  This evening I walked into our kitchen and the light was literally golden on the walls.  It floors me every time.  I have walked past Noah and Micah’s room many a time thinking that someone left a light on, only to realize that it is the evening light coming in, creating the glow.  And yes, it is summer everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere right now, but we hardly use the lights here at all right now.  The computer, yes, the lights, not so much!

Anyways, as much as we loved all the sights and experiences that we had in Paris, I think that each one of us is glad to be back in Provence.  Life is just that bit slower, people already know us on the streets and in the stores, and the routines are just that bit freer to allow us the chance to make choices on the go.  All I know is that I am so glad that we chose Southern France to spend the year, and not Paris.  There is so much that Paris has to offer, but it is so urban.  So full of people all the time.  And not just the tourists.  The subway was well utilized every time we went on it, the streets always had pedestrians in large numbers.  Call me a country girl, but I guess I just need that little bit more room to see what is going on around me, to take in the sights.  The sounds.  The light. 

What we let slide...

Last night, at an Arabian Nights costume party, I leaned over to Julian, pulled him in close, and gave him a compliment I never would have imagined myself saying.  “Julian, I just want to let you know how proud I am of you.  I know that when we first arrived you were gagging on all the cigarette smoke, making it very clear that you disapproved.  But I notice that now, even though you still hate the smoking, you look the other way.  It is a mature thing to be able to personally disagree with someone but to continue to let another make different choices from you.”  Although many may argue with me on this point, because smoking is known to be so bad for people’s health, for Julian I see this as a big milestone.  Tolerance is a positive trait in this situation!

Along the same health and safety lines I find myself letting go of things that in any other situation I would not stand for.  We are still carless despite the rental car of last week.  For several different outings we have had to rely on the generosity of others to get us to a location.  Not every car is set up for children riders.  We have ridden with Noah on my lap.  Or, the hardest for me, two boys belted together into one seatbelt.  No car seats, no one-boy-one-belt situation.  But we are in another country, relying on other people, and grateful for the opportunities that keep coming our way.  It is a hard thing to reconcile, because this is the safety of my family at hand.  Will I then accept rides at home that are under less than ideal conditions?  Will I start to refuse rides here because I know that they will not meet safety standards?  The jury is still out. 

My family has been more than a bit vocal about another issue – the issue of contacting us.  We got a cell phone as soon as we arrived, but we couldn’t get a full plan one until we had bank cheques.  The phone that we had was a pay-as-you-go with only a limited number of minutes on it.  No land line, either.  The cheques arrived last week and we now have a fully active phone that can make AND receive calls.  But for that short amount of time it felt a little strange to be so disconnected.  At least it taught me how to call a land line from a computer, and how to video chat with my family.

In a different matter, we have also changed our regular habits.  The French eat on a totally different meal schedule than we do in Toronto.  We wake up a bit later (it’s summer after all) and eat breakfast sometime around 8.  Lunch is not until 12:30 or 1:00, with no morning snack.  There is a “gouter” around 4:30 or 5, a small snack, seemingly with a drink for the adults as well and then dinner is not until after 8.  Restaurants do not even open until 7:30!  Our schedule is mostly the same as this, with dinner around 7:30.  It is amazing to me how quickly we all adjust.  My kids don’t even ask me for a snack until the time in Toronto when they would normally ask me about dinner. 

And, for a girl who is normally pretty tight with her pennies, we have been buying wine all the time, and having at least a glass just about every day.  This is totally out of the ordinary for me, but I have to admit that it is enjoyable, especially in the heat of the late afternoon, to sip a cool glass of rose.  Chalk it all up to adapting to a new culture, right?  

The last thing that has gone out the window is bedtimes.  At home I am fairly strict about bedtime – earlier for Noah and the older boys by nine.  Here it is Noah who goes to bed around nine, and the older boys not until closer to ten.  As I mentioned before we are all sleeping in just that wee bit more, which helps.  But the whole early to bed, early to rise doesn’t really cut it around here right now.  And on party nights… the boys have already, in the four weeks that we’ve been here, had a number of nights keeping them up until 11, 12, and the other night, even until 3 in the morning.  Two of the three fell asleep at that party, but not Julian!  I know, I know, it’s just that start of many late nights for my children.  But yikes!  At least we don’t have any important events to need to wake up for.  And I am sure that once school begins we will get onto a more “normal” schedule. 

But for all the differences, all the things we are letting go, I sure am enjoying the experience.  I definitely feel like an outsider.  So many things keep surprising me, keep catching me off guard.  And in order to take it all in I am trying really hard to roll with the experiences that come my way.  This year is only one year, and we have to live it with vivacity! 

One last funny story: We finally received our carte de sejour, down in Marseille, on Ed’s birthday.  The prefecture was a  nightmare – I have never seen so many people crammed into so many different lines.  There was even a line to get your line-up number.  We had an appointment, but no one seemed to know anything about where we should go, or what we should do.  Finally, after about half an hour of waiting, we went upstairs.  When we were called in for our appointment, the woman went through the typical French bureaucratic rigamarole.  First off, look grim and dour so that everyone knows that you will not stray from ANY of the rules.  Then, find one small thing that is not done properly.  In this case Ed had his visa in his Canadian passport, but his entry stamp in his U.S. passport.  Next step, fuss and complain.  “I’ve never seen this type of problem before…”  We just apologized and waited.  She walked away, and then came back and shuffled the papers.  She looked up.  “Happy Birthday!” she said.  From that point on she chatted with us, mostly in French, but even a bit in very good English to tell the kids that her children had just gone to go see the Harry Potter movie.  And then she sent us on our merry way, two cartes de sejour in hand.  Thank goodness for the registration process!  Vive la France!

30 meters off the ground, it's laundry time (photo: Julian D-S).

Bonnieux

many opportunities for play

These are genuinely "perched villages."

a hiding spot (with brother lying in wait)

Gordes (the most dramatic of the "perched villages")

brotherly love, kinda sorta

Highs and Lows

This past Saturday we decided to rent a car for a week and take in some of the sights that we can’t reach via city bus. Ed found a good rate, picked up the car and swung by to pick up the family.  First stop, Chateau de la Barben, a castle from the 13^th, 16^th and 19^th centuries. Let me back up to the last few nights previous.  Wednesday night we had had an impromptu shared dinner with the neighbours, putting the kids in bed around 11:00.  And then Friday night, yes, right before the road trips begin, we had another communal dinner with other of the neighbours, again up until 11:00.  Recipe for success, right? 

Well, as you can imagine, the boys, all three, were a bit emotional at the outset.  And then they saw the car.  In Toronto we drive a mini-van.  When Noah was born the older boys were both still in car seats and we couldn’t figure out a way to fit three seats in our wagon.  So mini-van it was.  But, especially here in Europe where everything is just that bit smaller and compact, we got a regular five-seater.  Picking up a booster for Noah on the way out, we started our journey. 

One minute would be the stuff of Brady Bunch legend, with the kids singing a song, or playing a word/number game.  The next would have one boy socking the next.  Usually Noah socking one brother or the other.  We quickly realized that Noah needed to be seated next to only one brother.  A quick presto-change-o later and off we go again.  A few missed exits, a few tears, and we arrive. 

Oh wow!  Walking up the path, the Chateau really is a castle, with towers and turrets and beautiful gardens.  Julian and Micah each have their cameras out and are snapping details like crazy.  We get up to the top of the walkway and I pull our our picnic lunch.  “Oh no, not bread and cheese, again!”  Mind you, the bread is from our local artisan boulangerie and the cheese was fresh from the farmer’s market bought that morning.  The fruit was the newly ripe Mirabelles, a super-tasty sweet little plum.  But we have been having a lot of picnics, and what I consider variety is being taken as a lack of creativity. 

Waiting around for the castle to re-open after lunch, we wandered around a bit.  The Chateau was purchased anew in the 1960s and the “new” owners actually live in the castle.  It was fascinating to see all the elements of all the different eras mixed so easily together.  The modern dress, the ancient stone walls, the furniture from different eras.  The tour was given by a guide in period dress, around 1700s.  The boys took in a good deal of the information, as there was a little “game” they could play during the tour.  After answering all of the questions, the boys turned in their papers for a pin.  And then we worked on the treasure hunt!  There were nine clues located along a trail around the grounds.  Each clue had a decoding aspect (in French, of course, so double decoding for us!) and a refine-your-knowledge aspect, where we had to read the information and then choose the correct response via multiple choice.  The corresponding letters spelled out the final word, be brought back to the desk for a certificate.  Very well done, lots of fun.  And, along the way, we discovered a few super-cool items, like a hidden passage-way under the back part of the castle, and a hiding spot that still housed a cannonball! 

The next morning we awoke and packed up to go to two of the “perched villages” of the Luberon.  With Noah by the window, and Micah and Julian feeling cooperative we thought we were all set.  This was to be a slightly longer journey, around an hour as opposed to 35 minutes.  But it was WAY longer.  First, just because the boys didn’t want to be in the car again.  But also, the maps do a wonderful job of showing you the main roads.  However, they don’t show the details of how to get through each individual town.  We even struggled a bit to figure out how to get out of Aix, and we had a city map with us!  But let’s just say that the cream of the crop was the town of Cadenet.  We arrived at the roundabout near Cadenet and took the wrong turn.  Then again.  Then we finally figured out the way in, and then we couldn’t get out.  Cadenet is a cute little perched village, which means a village built on a hill.  Each road is a full house above the next, and all the roads are even more narrow because of it.  And one-way.  We finally found a road out, and the rest of the journey was pretty straightforward from there. 

The first perched village was the village of Bonnieux.  We walked from the lower portions up the church at the top.  Let just say that the humour of the participants was less than good.  But the town was so interesting and quaint in all of its twists and turns that each one of us was taken in.  On the way back down we found the Boulangerie Museum and took a quick gander through its offerings.  Basically it showed lots of equipment through the eras, from reaping and grinding the wheat, measuring out the flour, all the baking-ware involved, dictum declaring the latest laws regarding wheat, etc.  A quick 30-minute museum, and a nice change of pace.  We decided to have a quick talk regarding state of mind, that positive attitudes lead to more fun, and then we drove off to the next perched village, the village of Gordes.  SO worth the drive.  Seemingly impossible, Gordes is even more perched than Bonnieux and the approach allows you to take in every steep and breath-taking moment.  We found a place to park and began to wander, with the fairly immediate goal of finding a place to eat dinner. 

After a bit of exploring, we began to look in earnest for a place to eat.  As we had encountered unfortunately before, no self-respecting restaurant opens before 7:30.  It was about 7:00 at the moment.  But, one restaurant advertised non-stop service.  We took a seat and wondered at the lack of other customers.  After about 5 minutes at the table a gentleman came over to tell us that there was no dinner service.  Non-stop service through the lunch hour!  We eventually found a restaurant, with a table overlooking the fortress in town.  Ahhhh. 

Hopping back into the car with full tummies all went more or less well. The sun sets after nine around here, so the fact that Ed only had his sunglasses was still fine.  For awhile.  And then we got to Cadenet, oh lovely Cadenet.  If at all humanly possible we got even more lost trying to go back through Cadenet than the first time.  We saw the same black cat cross our path, the same gaggle of little old ladies enjoying their after-dinner chat in the plaza, the same forks in the roads.  Finally, after about twenty minutes of driving through this tiny little town, just trying to get out, Ed asked a man for directions.  The man very kindly hopped in his car and led us out of the city back to the same roundabout.  The rest of the journey home was without incident, although after two days of touring with three young boys we decided that a day off was in order. 

Yesterday we caught wind of a lake about an hour and twenty minutes away.  The road trip was, well, another road trip.  Lots of fun, and lots of togetherness.  But the lake was amazing.  It was Lac du Sainte Croix, at the foot of the Alpes.  The water was turquoise blue, from all the clay in the water.  Very nice on our skin!  And we found a small patch of shade to enjoy the sandwiches Ed had brought (no bread and cheese today!) and the amazing flat peaches, sadly on their way out.  The water was fairly cool and the view from the water was just stunning.  The perched village of Sainte Croix on one side, the green hills alongside, the view across the lake and then the view of the first portions of the Alpes along the other edge.  Later in the day we rented a paddle boat, but one with a slide.  Quite fun to slide into the shockingly cold water in the middle of the lake.  A nice day, all around. 

I think today holds another day off, maybe with a concert in the evening.  After these two weeks we will go back to a mostly regular schedule and school starts the first week in September.  But it sure is nice to be on a holiday.  Tomorrow I think we will go to the city of Arles, to take in some of the Roman constructions, and then we have a bit of business in Marseille on Friday.  And, I have to admit, I can’t wait to get rid of the car on Saturday!