Bittersweet moments

The countdown has begun. We leave Vaison la Romaine in six days.

We leave Provence as EVERYTHING is in bloom and becoming green. The plane trees are green, the orchards are filled with blossoms and one can see the beginning of new growth on the grapevines. When we were out on Sunday, we saw the first of the red poppies. The temperature has been pleasant (warm but not hot) and the days are filled with sun and low humidity. We have been having our “apero” on our balcony watching the sun move west. Two evenings ago, we ate outside at our neighbor’s house. The days are long even though we are still two months from the solstice. Il fait beau, quoi! 

Leaving is bittersweet. We have made more friends here and have a very nice vie quotidienne. On the other hand, we have wonderful friends in the states, most of whom we have not seen since October. We will miss the long summer here but hope that summer 2010 in Lansing is as nice as last year…

Nonetheless, I will miss the people here – especially the friends we have made, the wonderful foods and wines, the children and the staff at the crèche, the “good energy,” and the beautiful vistas. I can rarely walk anywhere in town without seeing someone whom I know – someone from our French class, a parent of a child at the crèche, our favorite shop owner, etc. Life is good.

Work clothes?

We helped Margaret and Phil paint the shutters (les volets) on the front windows of their home. As we were getting ready to go there, I realized that I had not brought old/work clothes to France. I found a pair of pants that I had last year (too large) and a long-sleeve shirt that is also too large. We spent the next few hours painting and we did a good job of turning the medium-blue shutters into a dark blue.

The concept of needing work clothes is sort of foreign to me here. I might need to amend my list of reasons why I love France to include NOT working. We had fun helping with their chores but the idea of needing “work” clothes is one aspect of my wardrobe that I completely ignored – and I think the plan to avoid work works (mostly).

My time at the crèche has never been “work” for me – I have too much fun with the kids and the staff. Confucius (I think) said: “Give a man a job that he loves and he will never work again.” That is how I feel about going to the crèche for my volunteer time.

As for the staff, one of the teachers invited us to come to a play in which she performed. The play was called: Exercises de Style by Raymond Queneau and includes a number of skits describing the same two scenes. Ellen was afraid that it was going to be clever nuances and plays on words beyond our French skills but the performance contained very funny and very understandable skits. For instance, there were two women – one English or American talking in French with an Italian woman – both with very accurate accents. There was the church choir that sang the description of the two events as well as an operatic duet in which the singers described the events to an aria from Carmen. There was the jogger’s description, the vamp’s description and, Ellen’s favorite: the person with a tooth ache who tried to describe the two events through a mouthful of cotton… VERY funny! (and we didn’t have to work to enjoy it.)

Language

I have discovered a neat feature in MS Word. You can go to “Tools” and set the language in which you are writing. When I write in French, the “spell check” function works pretty well and catches the spelling errors, most of the missing or incorrect accents and, occasionally it suggests verb-tense changes or corrections when I use a masculine adjective with a feminine noun.

My computer has an American keyboard, so every time I need to insert a letter that has an accent, I either have to go to the ASCII codes or click on “Insert/Symbol” and then choose the correct one. French keyboards have all of the letters with accents but to accommodate them, they had to move a few things around so the layout is similar but different enough that it usually causes me to groan or curse or both.

French keyboards are similar to French word formations. Peoples’ faces appear very similar to American faces but when they start to say a word, they purse their lips as if they were getting ready to kiss. Whether it is “ooh la la!” or a stammering “euw,” the way they form words starts with a kiss. Americans seem to make words by starting with a smile and thus our words are broader.

I am getting better at predicting who are Americans even if I can’t hear their conversation but can see the lips making words… Of course, we Americans also LOOK different. I am happy to say that the distinction is becoming less noticeable, but I am still surprised at how often a vendor will speak to me in English even though I have not said a word or how I can guess the nationality of someone that I see on the street. – in truth, I can usually guess “French/not French,” but it is a start…

Spring is definitely in the air. When Phil and Margaret took Ellen and me to Avignon yesterday, you could see the fruit tree blossoms everywhere. The sky was bright and warm and we had lunch on the terrace of a little café in Vacqueyras. An American that we met on Sunday said that we should definitely change our schedule and plan to be here in May and June. She said that those two months are like heaven. Maybe next spring…

Update: Roman ruins

Ellen, Margaret and Phil went to a presentation about the archeological work on the Roman ruins discovered in Place Monfort. The presentation was given by the lead archeologist and the mayor. (I was at the crèche.)

The archeologist announced that the equipment that I saw last week had been brought in to conduct a “sondage” – a sampling of the ruins that rest below the surface of the present town. We have heard from a variety of sources that the current town is built on top of the Roman ruins. We also heard that there are probably many more walls/remains to discover but most are below the current layout of the city. Our French professor told Ellen, Phil and Margaret that one wall of her basement is a Roman wall…

The backhoes had created holes – somewhat at random – across the parking lot to determine what rests below the surface and whether the city could proceed with its plans to change the area around the big fountain.

The team of archeologists had worked for almost a week clearing the holes and scraping and brushing the walls that they had found.

The lead archeologist announced that the dig had uncovered what was a large basin for holding water during the Roman times. He added that it was not a major find nor did it hold much promise for uncovering valuable artifacts. His team had discussed whether they should attempt to make the site visible from the surface using glass or thick plastic but decided that the exposure would ultimately do more damage from moisture condensation and mold.

The result? On Friday, the backhoes were back refilling the holes with dirt and sand. It appears that the city’s plans to change the square will proceed.

The Romans and Vaison la Romaine

This story has two parts but the parts are connected by 2000 years – give or take a century or two.

The first part starts in the hills near Mt. Ventoux, between the villages of Beaumont du Ventoux and Ste. Margarite about 20 km southeast of Vaison. High above the Gorges du Maupas are the quarries from which the Romans cut the stones that built Vaison la Romaine.

We went there with Phil and Margaret for a walk/picnic. They parked the car beside the small stream in the Gorges and we walked up to the site of the quarry along the road that the Romans had built for transporting the stones from the site. One can still see rocks in the roadway that have ruts worn into them as a result of the carts and their heavy loads. Because the incline is fairly steep, there are also places where one sees the striations cut into the rocks to improve human or beast of burden traction. The quarry is immense and, even after 2000 years, one can get a sense of the work that was done at the site.

Side note: I know nothing about the etymology of words, but I find it interesting that the French words for career and quarry are the same – carrière.

The second part of the story comes from Place Monfort in Vaison la Romaine. The city had planned to change the traffic patterns and create a park in front of the cafés and bars that line the north side of the center of town. A few days ago, the city closed half of the parking lot and brought in the back hoes and started tearing up the area around the fountain. They worked about one half day…

Gone are the back hoes. The big equipment has been replaced by a team of archeologists who are working with hand tools and brushes because the back hoes had uncovered more Roman ruins about two feet below the surface of the parking lot – probably some of the stones from the quarry are buried in the parking lot.  I don’t know what will happen to the city’s plans, but clearly the city’s plans have been put on hold… 

Au Revoir

 

I love the way French women say « Au Revoir » when they are ending a conversation on the phone. It is sort of a breathy, lilt-in-the-voice way of saying good bye that makes me feel like they enjoyed talking with me and are hoping to speak again soon.

I generally fear phone conversations in French because I have to be VERY attentive and listen to the words carefully and then respond – on occasion I can actually respond intelligently – on other occasions the caller will cask me to repeat the sentence (usually because my response was not a sentence). In person to person conversations, I know that I get a lot of cues from watching the face and body language of the person with whom I am speaking. None of that is available – unless you are using Skype with a webcam – when you are talking on the phone.

The way French women say “Au Revoir” on the phone seems to be pretty much a universal phenomenon. Whether the woman is older than I or younger than I, from Vaison or from Paris, the lilt seems to be the same…

Women say “Au Revoir” VERY differently in person-to-person situations. Maybe it is the situations – I most often see women across the counter of a grocery or a shop. It is more matter of fact – more friendly than “Have a nice day” sounds in the US but just a few degrees from warm. Sort of like the difference between kissing a loved one and kissing your aunt…

Dining in France: What Restaurant Should We Try Next?

“Well, I can no longer say that I’ve never had a bad meal in France! “

This was Ellen’s pronouncement as we left a small vegetarian restaurant – and she was right: the vegetables were over-cooked and without the advantage of herbs, the cauliflower sauce was gummy, the pasta was bland and there was nothing memorable about the food or the presentation. I could have sucked on old tennis shoes with more flavor. It made me think of the contrast of how wonderful were the vegetarian meals we had in Cairo over the Christmas holidays where they know how to use spices and herbs to enhance flavors.

Our friend Cindy pointed out that no one in the restaurant was overweight – an observation that was easy to comprehend because no one would have wanted to  “clean the plate.” It was a waste of time to have spent a meal there but we had walked out to the “lunch only” restaurant called “Auberge de la Brocante” and it was “complet” (sold out). Since we passed the veggie restaurant on our way back, I agreed that we stop there when Ellen said she had always wondered how the food there was so we decided to try it. . . It turned out to be a BIG mistake--BIG. We all agreed on that. (My bad!)

In contrast to this disappointing experience, we went to La Lyriste  in Vaison la Romaine for Ellen’s birthday and chef Benoit created another menu that was superb. After amuses bouches of hummus and olive tapenade, we had an entrée of his foie gras with salade frisée and a crème brulée . The main dish was salmon with sesame seeds en brochette and shredded fennel in an orange sauce. Cheeses came from the Vaison cheese shop – the best of which was the Reblochon. Dessert was a parfait of pear mousse, chocolate mousse and a final layer of pear mousse and pear chunks.

Happy birthday, Ellen.