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Published: April 22nd 2011
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France life is everything I imagined so far. Wandering off to the bakery for our daily bread and breakfast. Long leisurely meals with great wine. Hot and sunny. Everything shuts down from 12-2.30 so all you can do is lunch and nap. Vendome is a perfectly sized town. It's cute and quaint, easily walkable, a good range of boutique shops (at least a dozen clothes shops I'm happy to shop in). There is an old town with a new town immediately adjacent and our house is right in the middle of both so it's perfect.
The house is incredible. It's huge and very antique yet has every modern convenience. Sophia is loving exploring it as there seem to be secret nooks and crannys and passageways and doors everywhere. She keeps discovering new things every day. There are so many rooms and toilets (6 apparently) and bathrooms. There's a large wine cellar under the house and an attic room. The house is so big as Phillipes father was an ear nose and throat surgeon and this was where he consulted and operated from. The neigbouring houses were obviously other doctors and some medical specialist are still based there (although actual operations
are now done at the hospital which is about 500m away). There is so much art and antiques in the house I'm terrified we might damage something. The walls are covered either with fabric or hand painted wallpaper.
We much appreciated our welcome by Phillipes brother Jean-Paul (JP) who came down from Paris especially. He met us at the train station brought us to the house and cooked fantastic meals for us the two evenings and one day he stayed. He took Gerard for a driving and navigation lesson. He returned looking almost as traumatised as I was after taking Phillipe on the same outing. He admitted most of the trauma came from the feeling of having no control and knowing the driver has no idea of what they're doing. Personally I'd rather be driving with Gerard in France than Phillipe in NZ.
JP is a retired anthropologist (specialising in Spanish cultures) so was very interesting at our dinner conversations. He taught at several big name universities in America such as Princeton. He has worked in America most of his working life except when doing research in various countries such as Philippines for a year or two at
House frontage
From the road. (Half only) a time. His wife is American and they only returned to Paris recently for medical care for her as she has lupis and is on dialysis. His English (although very american) was great however he really struggled to understand us which surprised him.
JP spent the day (well what was left of it after cooking eating and his nap) walking with us around town pointing out the sights and explaining some history and translating for us with our most complicated transaction - at the phone shop. We were wanting to find out the pricing options (and different suppliers) for a local sim card for txting but more importantly data to avoid the vodaphone bill shocks. It was great having JP for that. We would never have got there on our own - at least not with the best rate.
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Rhonda
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Wow looks amazing, The weather has been amazing here so I hope it holds out for the royal wedding weekend.