La Fête Nationale

Yesterday was France's "Fête Nationale" which is a national holiday (jour férié) commemorating the storming of the Bastille. From our perspective, it basically looked like their version of Canada Day/Independence Day. A day off, a reason to party, a fireworks show.

I won't pretend to know much at all about the history, but I can tell you how our day went.

Since the holiday itself fell on a Tuesday, some people got Monday and Tuesday off, making it a 4 day weekend that we didn't know we were getting until the hubby got to his bus stop for work Monday morning to find no people and no bus. Whoops!

Now, normally in Canada, I'm used to some more or less family friendly activities throughout the day culminating in a fireworks show after dark as the grand finale of the day. After that, people either go home or to house parties, bars, or other privately organized events. The publicly sanctioned fun is over. Goodnight.

Waiting for nightfall

Here, the fun started the night before the holiday. While there was nothing much (that I knew of) going on Monday, there was a fireworks show after dark to sort of kick off to the holiday. After the show, people could go home, to private events, OR to one of the many squares around town where a total of 14 free musical acts were set up to perform shortly AFTER the fireworks show. The 10pm fireworks show was just the beginning of the evening! And this is in a country town of 25,000 people. We went home, though.

I think it makes sense to have the fireworks the night before. It allows you much more freedom to celebrate a fireworks night when you don't have to be at work bright and early the next day.

I also want to mention the music used for the fireworks show because it was great. Songs included:

• Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy - The Andrews Sisters
• Greased Lightning - Grease Soundtrack
• I Get Around - The Beach Boys
• Take a Chance On Me - Abba
• The Final Countdown - Europe

It was a blast!

And for all the awesome and explosive sound and light... both littles fell asleep mid-show! Go figure!

The next day, hubby wanted to check out a lake we'd heard about. Sadly the buses weren't running but luckily, he and Li'l Monkey discovered a firefighter demo at a park on the way home.

Beyond that it was just a quiet day which, once the boys were asleep, we capped off with a champagne toast to our One-Month-In-France-iversary. Rosé, of course, since this is Provence. So what if the actual one-month mark was 4 days ago and I'm sipping the champagne while I finish this post? Pshaw! Technicalities, I say! It works, and better late than never! To France! To Canada! To me! To you!

Cheers!

France:Day 3

It rained today. It rained a lot.

Driving in France frightens us. It frightens us a lot.

So what was today's plan? To drive through the pouring, sheeting, occasionally-causing-hydroplaning rain, from Aix to Manosque, of course! We need to find somewhere to live, after all, and there were apartments to be seen. (Mom, I know you're reading this. We didn't hydroplane. Someone else did. She missed us. Nobody was injured.)

Some lessons and stories from today will get their own posts, but since we're already talking driving, let's just take care of this one right here.

I think we're finally getting the hang of driving here. Still going to be glad to be rid of the rental car but it's not heart-attack inducing anymore. Roundabouts, which were so foreign to us, are fairly simple once you hammer home one simple rule:

The person in the roundabout has the right of way.

Ta-da!

So we're in Manosque. We have an apartment to see at 10 am and at 6 pm. We filled the in-between time with lunch, sightseeing, and asking questions about this and that.

Turns out if we wanted the Li'l Monkey to get into the International School, we had to register back in April. (And to register would have required proof of address... back in April!)

It also turns out that kids can start going to French school as young as 2 if they're potty trained and considered “psychologically ready” at their assessment (apparently there's an assessment) so Monkey might be a couple years behind in school even though he's not yet 4.

Oh look, wine.

...

In all seriousness, Manosque was absolutely beautiful and we'd picked our apartment before the day was over. We managed to avoid getting drenched by the rain, enjoyed the cooler day, had an amazing pizza lunch, and I'm sure everything will work out in the end.

Left: Eggplant, bell pepper, and zucchini with cheese
Right: Classic margherita pizza

At some point, this gent had parked next to us and set up a
small table to sell these beautiful cherries.
We bought some just before heading back. 

France - Getting There, Part 3

As I said last time, we did make it to our apartment in the end. Here is a tour of our cozy little nest lovingly nicknamed The Shoebox:

Using the 12” floor tiles as a guide, the main living area is roughly 9'6” by 10'6”. There is a decently sized closet. The hallway is 8'6” by 3' with a small kitchen area and a door to a washroom of decent size.

Tangent: This is not the first time I encounter this. What magic do these people possess that they can shower without shower curtains? What's the trick?? I don't get it!!!

Shower? Oui!
Shower Curtain/Door? Euh, quoi?

Anyway, the room is a perfectly nice, workable size for one or two adults, which we are except that we also have a toddler and a baby with us. Necessity is the mother of invention and since no other option was really going to work, check out our sleeping arrangement: set up to sleep across them. This provides us with a bed roughly the length of a double and the width of a king. After the first night, we lashed the two mattresses together with the bungee cords since my rear kept sinking between the two mats. It's a glamorous life, y'all.

We have unpacked only the few hot-weather things we brought since there is a bit difference between an average temp of 22C and variable and an average temp of 28C and sunny. The suitcases are on the floor under the bedframes.

The window doesn't have a screen. We've kept it open quite a bit to let the air flow and haven't had any flying-bug issues yet. (Real time edit: We had a bee/hornet thing in the bathroom two days ago. That's all so far.) There's an oscillating fan to help keep us cool. One of the balconies across the street has palm trees on it. The sidewalk below is cobblestoned. There are lots of trees.

All in all, I call it many things, such as: an appreciation for the house I have back home; a motivation to not procrastinate on apartment hunting; a crash course in keeping a place cleaner than I usually would; a motivation to get out and about each day; a de-conditioning from North American concepts of what is small and what is spacious. After this month, I suspect that 5 or 600 sq ft for a family of 4 will indeed feel quite sufficiently spacious!