Finally in France

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Finally, after months of planning, we have arrived to begin our adventure in France. We are starting in a less visited but very beautiful area of France called Poitou-Charentes. It includes Bordeaux, St Emilion and the areas south and east. The Maritime portion of this area has lovely seaports on the Atlantic. But we will be living for a month in the Charentes, which is far different. Farmlands abound and at this time of year it is all about the last harvest and turning the dirt for the winter. Cognac is within this region but the local farmers make an apertif called Pineau de Charentes that is a less alcoholic tasting combination of wine and cognac in red and white varieties.

Our small village of Chalais is about an hour south of Angouleme. It is typical rural French life - village markets twice a week. Since ours is on Monday the shops are all closed Tuesday as well as the traditional 12-2 each day for lunch. This is one of the things we need to get used to. If you want to eat lunch out, it better be between these hours. Otherwise, all that is available is beverage service. Similarly, if you want to have dinner out, it won't be until after 7 or 7:30PM.

There are basically two cafes in Chalais and they serve the same traditional food. Croque Monsieur ( Grilled ham and Cheese) or Croque Madame ( Same thing with a fried egg on top). This area of France is famous for it's beef and a good steak costs about 10 Euros with salad and frites. Salad is also popular but it lacks the variety of veggies that we have in the US. Generally lettuce, sliced tomatoes and a dressing which is invariably a creamy mustard variety.

On the other hand, the desserts are great! My favorite so far is chocolate fondant. It is dark chocolate cake with a hot liquid middle surrounded by chantilly creme. Yumm! Its a good thing there is lots of walking in France. Also wine is good and inexpensive. I incorrectly calculated the servings the first week. It seemed to me that 15cl was less than a shot glass full and hardly worth the bother. So I ordered the more reasonably(But I thought still skimpy) 35cl. Turns out 35cl is half of a 75cl bottle. But at 5 Euros for the larger serving it was still a bargain learning experience.

Our french is barely basic, but I've realized several things about a different language. First, if you are using phrase books you can only make statements. Such as - I would like ...., How much is...., I don't speak french. In much the same way that we learned language as kids, we are only able to make our needs clear to others but not to understand theirs. In many ways, without language we are deaf and mute in most situations. So I have looked into other ways of quickly accomplishing successful communication I'd like to share with you.

First, I take my French dictionary everywhere and look up any word that I don't recognize. Sometimes the words must make a phrase that isn't a literal translation. But this method has helped me to better able to read signs in the towns and highways.

Second, I found books in English and in French. Sometimes the stories are side by side on the page. Sometimes one chapter is in English and the next in French. It is laborious to translate the french chapters but you can whiz through the English ones to keep the story going.

Living in the country, after living in LA for five months, has been a lovely adjustment. Our house has a small fireplace and electric radiators for heat. As the temperatures have chilled, we love building a small fire in our living room in the evening. The house is surrounded by huge farm fields of corn. The days after the corn was harvested, we were invaded by crickets, spiders and other bugs evacuating the fields. But we also were rewarded with clear nights, plenty of stars and total quiet. What a treat!

Our landlords, Tony and Jo, live in a house connected to ours. They are English and have lived in France for 18 years. It is a genuine advantage to start out with people who are willing to help us understand life in France. For example, a few days after Halloween, there is All Souls Day. On this day, everyone honors those who have died but taking Chrysanthemums to the cemetary. We mistakenly thought that all the mums in the market were to decorate the homes for fall as they are in the US. Turns out, giving Mums to a french family as a gift is a real social blunder.

After the spider invasion, Jerry and I turned up with multiple nasty bites. Jo gave us a lesson on the French health system and took us to the local GP. In France, the doctors have appointed as well as walk in hours. Our doctor, Dr Michaud, had a small simple dusty office on a side street in Chalais. You pay 23 Euros for a visit in cash to the doctor. We needed several prescriptions filled as well and some were not easily translated from english to French. Dr Michaud pulled out the PDR and spent a long time in conversation with the local pharmacist to work it all out. When we went to pick them up, the pharmacist brought out the meds in many boxes, filling several bags. Then we were told that we couldn't take them home until the next afternoon. Turns out Jerry needed a blood test to determine the dose of one of the med.

So we were off the next morning to the lab. We sat in another two hour queue in a tiny steamy waiting room But for only 6Euros, Jerry had his painless blood draw and we had our meds. The French have the best health system in the world according to many sources. They have a green card called a Carde Vitale that they simply present for care. They, too, pay a small sum for office visits. But theirs is returned. It is intended to reduce unecessary visits.

The grocery stores have also been an adventure. First, you need a token to release the baskets from the spot outside. Then translating the labels have allowed us to have a few dietary adventures. For example, our dictionary says Fromage Blanc is cottage cheese but it sure looks and tastes like yogurt to me. France produces over 200 kinds of cheese, kind of intimidating. We found one from the region with a walnut flavor that we particularly like. But you can forget about Cheddar. Similarly, there is plenty of duck (canard) and lapin but turkey is hard to find. The French palate enjoys more bland tastes which we are getting used to. But we were able to find an Enchilada kit for a change in tastes. There are McDonalds here but like many countries they have a French slant. The one here is Mc Baquette - a burger on a long french bread with mustard sauce. Pretty good!

If it sounds like we are food oriented, it's one of the basic needs you know? Now that we have figured out food, water and heat - I'll talk to you more about the sites and culture of French.

We were grateful many many times for the help we had from Tony and Jo. Since our decision to start a month early in Chalais was fairly impulsive, it has turned out to be the exactly right place to begin.

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