Les Invitees

In France, guests are referred to as "les invitees" (i.e the invited).  I always found this interesting.  It resolves the dilemma often presented to Ann Landers or Dear Abby about what to do with uninvited guests.  In France, by definition, there is no such thing as uninvited guests.  Apparently here you will never have to worry about having visitors foisted upon you.

I invited my French family to visit us.  In 1989, I studied abroad in Perpignan, France, and lived with a French family headed by Jean and Mireille Guillebaud.  They are delightful.  Very active in the outdoors.  They have a mountain home about 1 hour outside Perpignan, and love to hike.  They are now in their mid-70's, and appear as active as ever, showing me pictures of their recent 3-day hike with a group of friends.  And, they relate so well to children.  It was like having another pair of grandparents here.  They do have grandchildren both here and in Canada the same ages as my kids.  We had extraordinarily warm and sunny weather last weekend.  We explored the town together:

We also enjoyed a nice time visiting, sharing pictures, eating, and preparing our giant pumpkin (grown by a neighbor) for soup-making:

It was wonderful to have the company of Jean and Mireille!

Earlier we also had our very first visitors.  Asha's FASPS classmate Rykley and his family the Brauns visited us in early September!  They had been celebrating family anniversaries with extended family at a Provencal home about an hour away, and stopped to see us before heading back up to Paris.  We were so happy they were able to fit us in!  Asha and Ford were especially eager to show them around Vaison as we had just gotten settled.  Here are some photos of that visit with Jen, Trevor, Rykley, Dax, and Eve:

Not to be outdone, Ivy has issued a standing invitation to her friend, known around here as "the cat."  Here they are enjoying the night air together.

Here Ivy has her paw on her buddy's back:

It's great to pal around with pals.

News and Pretty Pictures

          Averil, Ford, Asha and Ivy now hold down the fort in Vaison la Romaine.  Here is the news as relayed to me by telephone:

          From Asha:  A boy kicked her in soccer.  It was on purpose.  Asha told the coach, who also happens to be her mom.  Asha painted her nails rainbow colors.  Her mom painted the same colors.  Ford and Averil watched "Mars Attacks" on the computer.  Asha did not like it when the martians shot the people with their ray guns, which caused their skin to dissapear and left only bones.

          From Ford:  Mars Attacks was awesome.  He needs a new swimsuit.  Ford and Asha were bad.  It made their mom mad.  They made it up to her by giving her breakfast in bed the next morning.  She had already gotten out of bed when breakfast was ready, so she had to get back into bed to eat it.

         From Averil:  Mars Attacks was awesome.  Asha's friend has divorced parents.  Her father lives near us so when Asha's friend is at her father's house she is nearby and can come over to play.  She found a mechanic in Vaison.  Wire some more money please.

         And here are some market photographs taken in October:

Road Trip Day #12

          Last night we stayed in Chartres, two blocks from a very famous and large cathedral.

          But we didn't really care.   Our mind was on our car, which was acting strangely.  On Wednesday, it had periodically be losing "ooomf" on the autoroute, and then, 30 miles outside of Chartres on Wednesday night, in the rain and dark, the engine light came on.  That's not what you want to see when you're on a road trip.  And there was no way we were going to risk breaking down on the autoroute on the 400 mile trip back to the south of France.  We resolved to stay put in Chartres until we had the all clear on our car, even if that meant a big change in plans.

          Once again, lady luck was with us. 

         First thing in the morning, we were actually able to locate a Hyundai/Suzuki dealer on the outskirts of town.  Averil called.  They had a garage there where they repaired Hyundais.  Averil described the problem to the mechanic.  The mechanic invited us to bring our car right over so he could check it out.  We did so. 

          The Hyundai mechanics were nice enough to look our car over for nearly an hour.  Their diagnosis:  the problem is not grave and can be dealt with when we return to Vaison.  There would be no danger of it breaking down on the return trip to Vaison.  Oh, and "no charge" for their inspection by the way, and "Bon Route!" 

          They were nice to us.

          Armed with that reassurance, we left Chartres for the 6 hour drive to Lyon.  We were relieved that we would not be stuck indefinitely in Chartres:

We Get the All Clear from the Hyundai Mechanics

          I might mention that when we bought this car, we had the foresight (or good luck) to have spent some extra money to buy a form of insurance for mechanical issues good for one year.  So any repairs are covered.

          We made the six hour drive to Lyon without incident.  It was long, but the countryside was pretty and Le General amused herself by taking self-portraits:

        We arrived in Lyon in late afternoon.  It's a nice city so far as we can tell.  After that long car ride, a 1 and 1/2 hour walk was in order.  The weather was balmy.

 
It is a very sophisticated seeming university city.  We walked for a long time.  Ivy chewed on some broken glass, we watched bats flying over the Rhone river, saw some great architecture and public art, and watched a rat eating garbage.  Then we had Thai food for dinner and strolled about a lovely park where we saw drug addicts getting methadone from a mobile dispensary.  It was a great evening.

          And now it is time for the sad part of this blog.  Because tomorrow morning, Averil and Ford and Asha drop Ed off at the Lyon airport.  He's got to go back to Seattle to get ready for a trial.  And Averil and Ford and Asha will continue on down to Vaison which is only 2 and 1/2 hours away by car.  They should even make it to school for the second half of the day tomorrow.

          It was a great road trip.  Thanks for tuning in.

Road Trip Day #11

          This morning we left Saint Malo.  We drove to Caen, where we visited the excellent Museum of History and Peace.  The museum is actually about World War II with an emphasis on D-Day.  It is an outstanding museum with many fantasic exhibits and a lot of information.  We spent three hours there and learned a lot.

          Then we went to the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach.  It was also outstanding and very humbling.  We walked on Omaha Beach too.  I'm not sure what I expected.  It looks just like an ordinary beach.

          Here are some pictures:



Museum

Museum

Museum

Looking Down Onto Omaha Beach from American Cemetery

Omaha Beach

On Omaha Beach

 

          We made the long drive to Chartres in the late afternoon, not arriving at our hotel until 9:30 p.m.  Our car has started to behave inappropriately again.  Tomorrow will be spent trying to substantively address that issue.

Road Trip Day #10

          Having had two consecutive late-night social dinners, we slept in this morning.  Then we returned to Dinan where Ford showed us around some more.  We had crepes there too, followed by tarte tantin (sp?):

          In the afternoon, Ford's French family was nice enough to show us around Dinard which is a picturesque town on the ocean very near Saint Malo.  Jacques Chirac used to spend a lot of time here.  There is an anual film festival and a statue of Alfred Hitchcock next to the beach:

          We promenaded about with Ivy, keeping her necessarily on the leash at all times:

          We had coffee with Ford's French family at a spot with a great view, especially when the tide is out.  It's a spa-like place:

          The day before, at the suggestion of a local beachcomber, we had gathered sea snails from tide pools.  We cooked these tonight as part of our dinner:

          They were too small really, and hard to get out of the shell.

          Tomorrow we'll be leaving Saint Malo.  We'll head toward Chartres, with stops along the way to see where the allies invaded in WWII.  Here are a few more pictures from the day:

Ford, Brieuc, Theotime, Asha

Road Trip Day #9

          You may recall from a couple of days ago that we were having an issue with our car.  In the 36 hours after the problem was observed, the issue had not repeated itself.  But we felt like we needed to at least describe the problem to a mechanic.  So this morning we walked into a garage here in Saint Malo.  Eschewing the customer counter, we walked back to where the mechanics were working.  Watch Le General take command:

Yes, we really learned nothing.  Except that, if the problem has not repeated, it may have been a computer glitch of sorts that righted itself when the car was turned off and then turned on again.  Like booting down your computer and then restarting it?  For now we'll keep our digits crossed.

          After that, we spent some quality time in Saint Malo proper, in the walled part of the city and on the beach.  We had moules frites (mussels and french fries) before walking the ramparts that encircle the city.  We went out onto the beach too.  Here are some photos:

Saint Malo from a Distance

Ford on the Beach

Asha on the Beach

Ed on the Beach Just After Saving World from Madman

Ivy on the Beach

         
          We had been invited to dinner by Janine, the mother of our friend Anne, in whose home we are staying.  Janine's friend Bertrand has a home in the country near the town of Dinard right on the Rance river.  It is a very stately home with a gigantic fireplace.  Janine served us a fabulous dinner and we met Bertrand's son and daughter-in-law (Thibault et Olivia) who are in their thirties and who speak perfect English having spent much time in the U.S.  So the conversation went from French to English and back and forth again, often within the same paragraph.  They were all very nice to us.  Janine is a very good cook.  Here is a picture taken in Bertrand's castle-like living room:

It was another late night, but worth it!