Ch-ch-ch-changes!

It's official: the Sanders family has moved! Not very far though; although, I wouldn't be surprised if moving here feels like living in another world. We've actually moved back to Paris proper. For those of you who were unaware that we were not living in Paris, consider yourself informed. We've been living in the close suburbs of western Paris-area, basically a 15 minute train ride away from actual Paris. It's hard to believe, but it's been about seven years that we've lived here! That's actually the longest literal place that I've lived in my whole adult life. Even if you're counting cities and not apartments, I only lived in Seattle during my college days for just under 5 years. Our church's senior pastor retired back in January and since then, the church parsonage has been sitting empty, just waiting for some new tenants :) Some of you might be thinking, 'But didn't you guys just have a baby as well?' Why yes, yes we did. Ha! I wouldn't recommend the combo but for a lot of various factors that I won't really get into, this is the timing that we got.

Here's a few little factoids about the new digs (pics to come at a later date!):

--We'll now be only about a 20 minute walk from the Eiffel Tower (I hear those wheels in your heads churning...you're wondering if we'll have a guest room in the new place, aren't you!)

--Napoleon is buried there (not in our new place, but down the road, lol...)

--Paris is divided up in a circular pattern like a snail (oh how fitting!) and cut up into neighborhoods called 'arrondissements'. They're numbered, so we're in number 7.

--In 2011, the population in the 7th arrondissement alone was 57,786... That's actually more than my hometown of Albany, Oregon ! (And the 7th is considered to be one of the less populated Paris neighborhoods!) Compare that to the surface area of the two places and the 7th arrondissement is more than 10 times smaller than Albany! (4.09 square kilometers compared to 45.97)

--It is stinking rich. One of the richest in Paris. But you might not know that just by walking around. It is a place of old money; people have been wealthy since the beginning of time and apparently don't feel the need to flash their bling around.

--This follows my last point, but since the 17th century, it has been home to the French upper class and aristocracy.

--There are a ridiculous amount of public demonstrations that take over the street our new place will be located on. Yes, my husband has told me before that he couldn't get back home right away because of the tear gas lingering in the streets!

--The place was actually a very old home originally which is extremely rare in Paris proper (we mostly have apartments in Paris).  When the church started meeting way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, they met downstairs in the house. They quickly outgrew the location and added a ginormous room onto the front of the house. Today, the first two levels of the house are used for church purposes and the upper two make up the church parsonage.

--This follows my previous point: we'll be living on site! This should be an interesting adventure full of advantages and challenges as well.

--And I'll just end on this: there's no yard but one of the little known gems of the parsonage is that it has a roof top terrace....lounge chair and chilled drink, I hear you calling my name...

10 years ago Part 3 (the last and final!)

One of the many churches in Rouen 

I recently had to take a French test in order to prove that I speak and understand the language so that I can apply for citizenship eventually. I was more than slightly terrified, which sounds odd for someone who has been living in a country for 10+ years, but the French are not like us straightforward Anglo-Saxons. We think that if you know your stuff, it'll mostly go alright for you on a test. The French are a whole different breed; they love their trick questions. In order to succeed at a French test, imagine that "the man" is out to get you, will throw everything in his power at you to make you fail, and then do alright in spite of that. In the states we have a minority group of "bad test takers"; in France no one thinks they're safe. Come what may, however, I couldn't help but feel proud of myself for being willing to be sitting in that chair, black pen in hand, and multiple choice answers in front of me. If anyone had told me that all these years later I would be doing that, I think I would have either peed my pants in fear or laughed outright in their face.

Sometimes it's easy now to forget just how hard it was for me in the beginning. When  I  Matt rolled that beast of a suitcase upstairs to his friend Grace's house, I really had no idea of the adventure that was awaiting me. Grace was a lovely hostess and I remember marveling at how at ease she appeared here when I was just starting to have my Dorthy moment. We were definitely not in Kansas anymore. The next couple of days were filled with "sight seeing" amidst drizzly rain although to be honest, since I was getting to hang out with Matt I'm not sure how much of the sights I actually took in, nor how much I actually noticed the rain.


Matt and I trying to not to look awkward as we posed for the picture together 

Ever the gentleman, Matt drove me out to Rouen, the city that I would be staying in for the next school year. Once again, he arranged a place for me to stay for a couple of days before I would meet up with my French contact for the year. Saying goodbye to him felt like I was losing my one lifeline with the familiar. Suddenly it occurred to me that I had signed a year of my life away to this place. Nothing felt like comfortable home. The college aged girls I was staying with sweetly invited me out to a party that they were going to that evening but truth be told, I didn't feel like partying. I felt like the kid who had shown up to summer camp and then realized that she was actually at summer camp. I'm sure if I could have figured out a way to call my mom and have her come pick me up, I would have.

Bravery comes in the morning frequently and the next day I was ready to tackle the adventure awaiting me. Unfortunately, the adventure wasn't quite ready for me. Out of habit, one of the girls double locked the door on her way out to class. Even more unfortunate for me was my complete lack of familiarity with a European door. The thing had probably around 5-6 locks and other such doodads on it that I thought for sure it was just a matter of me not pulling on the right thingamajig. Somewhere between 45 minutes to an hour into a very frustrating process I began to realize that I was missing some important element (like a key) and that I would just have to sit in jail for the rest of the day. Thankfully, one of my hosts came home for lunch and suddenly my prison sentence was commuted to only half a day. I did, however, struggle with locking and unlocking that door for the remainder of my stay there. French lesson number one: Americans are just not used to old, complicated things and such things can only be learned the hard way.


My first day finally successfully exploring the city of Rouen

I eventually met up with my French host Christine. She was one of the English teachers that I'd be working with throughout the year and in charge of helping me find housing. Because I would only be staying a school year, in the end, there were only 3 options available. 1) renting an apartment with some college kids above the landlord's place. 2) renting a room from the same guy in what I would eventually nickname the haunted manor. 3) living with the nuns. You think I'm joking but it turns out that even nuns need money to live on. Options number 3 and number 1 felt off the table to me (the nuns had very tight rules and the place was about as homey as a convent, pun intended...and living above my landlord didn't seem like the wisest idea in the world) so the haunted manor it was.

As it turns out, I probably would have been better off living with the nuns. Oh hindsight. I eventually realized that my landlord was an eccentric control freak which made for a wild ride of a school year. I look back now and laugh (mostly!) but at the time  I wondered what on earth I'd gotten myself into. My first clue was what I have affectionately dubbed the "three scraps scolding" in which I got in trouble because three small bits of paper had been found in the stairwell which indicated that I had not been keeping up on the housecleaning. It was the first of many scoldings. The guy was obsessively controlling--he alone had the only key to the mailbox and would stop by everyday to personally give us our mail.


My quite possibly old haunted mansion...


We weren't allowed visitors of either sex to step in past the front gate on penalty of violating my rent contract (at least with the nuns it was only the opposite sex!). He couldn't stand for the storm shutters to be left open during a storm and I would come back from a long day of teaching only to discover that he had come into my room without my permission to shut them. One of the highlights however was the day that my housemate and I informed him that the fridge door was somehow damaged. I came home to a full fridge with no door in sight and a note saying that since the fridge was fairly new, the two of us would need to pay for a new one! My favorite moment, however, was the one time Matt broke the rules and came to help me clean the top floor on my last day in that loony bin. Due to my limited French, I hadn't understood some of the typed out and laminated signs in the bathroom. Apparently their was a whole tribute to Louis Pasteur and his contributions to good hygiene. It then went on to ask all gentlemen users of the toilet to pee sitting down as they do in the Netherlands to promote better bathroom hygiene! A guy who will tell you how to pee is clearly not a guy to be trusted.


My bedroom


There were other adventures in that place as well. My bed was a joke from the first time I sat down on it. My lats underneath my mattress were made with flimsy plastic and I broke 2 of them immediately. For once my beast of a suitcase came in handy as it was big enough to support the mattress under the bed. I ended up sleeping on it for the rest of the year. I also very stupidly decided to rent out the balcony bedroom when all my life I have struggled with active (and sometimes violent) night terrors. Thank God he overlooked my stupidity on that one and we had no balcony flinging adventures. I did manage to scare the snot out of my housemate one night with my spine chilling screams (or so I'm told). Which must have been all the more bewildering for her because neither of us could speak the other's language well at all (night terror was somehow not listed in my phrase booklet). I remember that we would sit at the kitchen table, eating our breakfasts with one hand and a French-English dictionary in the other. Our rule was that we were supposed to speak to the other in their language. It made for very loooong drawn out conversations, let me tell you.


My balcony view... 


I think now that I really would have liked her if I actually could have communicated with her. She seemed to me to be a funny, down to earth kind of girl. One day our new washing machine started going bezerk on us--I'm not kidding, it literally felt and sounded like a minor earth quake was happening. We both ran in from our respective rooms only to discover that darn washing machine rocking nearly 2 inches into the air on either side. Cleaning up the pots and pans on top of it (because yes, it was in the kitchen) we shared a good laugh that it was only a possessed machine and not something needing to be measured on the Richter scale.


New York monuments (Twin Towers and the Brooklyn Bridge) made out of tp as a project by some of my students... 


To my surprise, my work as an English assistant in two French middle schools was one of the highlights of my stay in France that year. It was, and probably will be, the one and only time I've worked with middle school students in my life. They had us do everything from correct student's pronunciation, to creating English activity workshops with small groups, to teaching a class about American pep assemblies (I may or may not have led the class in a game of chubby bunny for that one...I plead the fifth to traumatizing French youth...). I had no computer when I came to France (laptops were a rarity then) so I was stuck using the school computers and internet at one of my two schools (for some reason it didn't work at the other). It meant that I had internet connection for about 2 days a week, in between my class schedule. I otherwise needed to buy an international phone card and call my friends and family from an available phone booth when I wanted to get in touch.




 I sometimes wonder now what my experience would have been like, had I moved over here today in our "connected" world. The truth is, who knows? I might not have felt as homesick and alone but then I definitely would have missed out on my trial by fire. In my alone-ness I was forced to learn about the culture around me and highly motivated to finally speak that darn language.  I learned to stop taking small comforts like dishwashers and dryers and readily available music to listen to for granted. But most importantly, I learned what it was like to have my faith refined through fire. France has at times been my cross to bear but without it I would not have been able to savor the victories he has also thrown my way (such as learning this week that I actually passed that test!). With God, for every taking apart there is always an equal and even better building back up. I'm so grateful that he has brought me to this crazy, wonderful, frustrating like heck, delightful country. Here's to whatever the next 10 years bring!

10 years ago Part 1

10 years ago this month I packed a ridiculously heavy and large bag to set out on my French adventure. I would be leaving for a full school year and kindles and laptops were still in the minority. So as to not get bored, I packed all of my favorite books that I'd want to have on hand. I bought the biggest suitcase I could find and I vacuum sealed my clothes like a crazy person. Somehow it was cheaper to fly into London and I had what I considered to be the world's best idea: book a hostel overnight and see London while you're at it! What could be better, right? I flew right into the city center. I hauled that big beast of a suitcase out those airport doors like a boss.

No one but fancy people had gps on their phones then (I didn't even have one of those!) but I whipped out my mapquest directions like no one's business. I tried to look very confident because you don't want people in a big city to think you don't know what you're doing or anything--they might try to pickpocket you. Just a hunch but 10 year older me thinks that the enormous suitcase and paper directions just might have given me away. Thankfully Londoners were kind to the helpless American girl with too much stuff. 

I walked those 10 or so blocks to the hostel. I remember being so glad to finally get there as the last 5 or so had been completely cobblestone. I was wrong, however. I had only reached the check-in desk. My room was located at the other location back 4 blocks in the direction I had just come. Feeling like an odd combination between Wonder Woman and Popeye pre-spinach I gritted my teeth and pushed 'the beast', as I was starting to yell  call it in my head back those darn 4 blocks and up the stairs to my private suite that I would be sharing with about 8 other people in what can only be considered as the world's biggest dorm room.

Unfortunately, the internet café that the hostel provided was located back at the check-in office. I briefly contemplated letting everyone back home consider me MIA at least for another 24 hours but decided my mom just might swim the whole Atlantic Ocean if she hadn't heard that I'd landed safely. Funny to think about in the age of Whatsapp, Viber, and instant everything. So I dutifully wrote and told everyone that I was okay. I wrote another email that night too. There was this cute guy that I had been emailing now for a few months. It had started off as a random French contact and had evolved from there. I told myself that it was only a little crush, because after all, how can you actually have a crush on a guy you've never even met before. (I know, I was the one girl in school who didn't have a crush on Leonardo Di Caprio after Titanic came out) That's what I was telling myself because not so long before I had crashed and burned after falling for my best guy friend in college. There was no way I was playing the fool twice and Cautious Carol had now become my name. I did, albeit very reluctantly, throw in that he would know how to spot me the next day in the Paris train station (oh, did I mention he had arranged my whole Paris stay?) by the fact that I'm just under 6 ft tall (1m80). I had kind of been avoiding that little factoid due to the fact that it tends to scare most boys off. But I figured that short of chopping off my calves and replacing them with peg legs my height would become obvious soon enough.

I'm assuming I fed myself somehow. Not sure when or how but clearly I didn't starve. I do remember not having factored in my big heavy suitcase to lug around during my little "London visit." I couldn't just leave it unattended. Someone might steal my fabulous book collection.  Thankfully I made a temporary friend who looked nice enough and she agreed to watch my suitcase for an hour or two. I did some sort of bridge walk along the bank of the Thames (which I wouldn't learn for a few months yet is actually pronounced as if there's no H). I walked by famous monuments having no freaking idea exactly what I was looking at. It took me forever at one point to realize I was staring at the London Tower. finally made my way back to the beast after doing way more walking than I thought was possible and somehow found the force within myself to drag it to the train station. 

Back then, before the age of terrorism, security with the Eurostar was nothing like it is now.  I just about died of embarrassment when I couldn't get the beast up onto the shelf reserved for luggage and the gentleman next to me had to do it for me. And then I really wanted to just sink into the floor when he loudly declared for the whole cabin to hear, just how heavy my luggage was and what could I possibly be bringing that could be so heavy? I should have made up some ridiculous answer but all I could think of was the truth and that made him look at me even more incredulously. I took my seat and promised myself that I would wait a few years before coming back over the channel. By then maybe my embarrassment would have waned a bit.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I was actually hoping to see the water from the train windows once in the tunnel. I don't know what I pictured, maybe one of those viewing floors you find at an aquarium? Clearly I was quite the seasoned traveler by that point. But one thing is for sure, I successfully managed to get off that train and step onto French soil which turns out is a decision that would change my life from that point forward. 

A Cueillette-ing We Will Go!

You guys. I'm in love with a farm. (A husband and daughter too just in case any of your were worried).  But not just any farm, a cueillette kind of farm. It's a good thing I've got friends that aren't as lazy as me otherwise I would have passed all this cueillette-y goodness without a clue (as in, my friend Heidi actually looks up cool places to go even after more than a decade of living in France). I mean, I've lived here for seven years now and just found out about these things the other day. But what is a cueillette farm, you might just be asking yourself? So glad you asked. Below, ladies and gentlemen, is a cueillette: 

        cueillir

   

                       vt  

              [ +fruits, fleurs]   to pick

           (ANTHROPOLOGIE)   to gather

           (fig)   (=attraper)   

               [+malfaiteur]   to catch

cueillette

   
      nf  

   [+champignons, fruits sauvages]   picking, gathering  
la cueillette des champignons      mushroom picking  

   [récolte]   harvest, crop

     (ANTHROPOLOGIE)  

   la chasse et la cueillette      hunting and gathering  

I mean, who doesn't want to go to a farm where catching, gathering, and hunting is involved, right?? The way a cueillette farm works is basically like a glorified u-pick farm. Only instead of just berries and whatnot, they have a little of everything, including flowers! Fun right?  

They way it works is you grab one of these big ol' wheelbarrows at the entrance and head out to whatever part of the farm that has the seasonal produce you might be interested in. 

Here's a list of just a few of their products mentioned on the sign below: beans, eggplant, tomatoes, spicy peppers, zucchini, raspberries, spinach and radishes. 

And of course not an awful place to take the kiddos: 

Near the entrance/exit they had a few products already picked and get this: pumpkins were less than 5 euros a piece! That's half the price of a Paris pumpkin! (Please understand this is important news to us American expats that are forced to tramp all over Paris every year looking for a dang pumpkin to carve only to have to sell all our possessions just to buy the thing)

Spaghetti squash below: 

Putting the wheelbarrow to good use: (laziness must run in the family...lol) 

In the apple orchards, pickin' with Papa: 

As it turns out the girl is much better at picking up apples on the ground than cleaning up her toys... 

After our hard work on the farm we decided to head over to the other end where the animals and store were located. 

This, believe it or not, is an 'insect hotel'. I still haven't decided whether it is cool or creepy... 

Isn't this just the cutest chicken coop ever?  It kind of looks like a little house! 

I have to say I was pretty blown away by their store. Here I am expecting a couple zucchinis and tomatoes and this was the view that awaited us:

I mean, everything just looks gorgeous, doesn't it?? 

I loved some of the different creative displays as well. Check out the sausage stand: 

And is this not the most beautiful display you've ever seen for fresh herbs? Only in Europe would they make a fountain into a plant display! 

They also have a cafe/restaurant within the store as well. It was a little pricey for our little outing but definitely something to not rule out in the future! (Besides, who doesn't love a dog presenting you with the menu??) 

Good times were had by all. Here's our fall harvest that we took away: 

 Not too shabby, aye? 

The name of the place we went to is called Les Fermes de Gally and you can check out the website here:  http://www.ferme.gally.com/_cueillette-acces-horaires-cueillette-de-gally   There are quite a few cueillettes in the Paris area though, if you're interested, just do a google search for cueillettes in Paris and you're sure to find some! Happy picking! 

Bringin' It Together

Yeehaw. It's official! After a buttload of paperwork, a disastrous Starbucks run, one parking ticket, too many trips to our local town hall, and a case of mistaken identity at the US embassy, Livia is now a dual citizen! 

Check it out:

Livia, l’Américaine

Livia, zee Frenchy

Livia, the dual citizen! Woohoo! 

How getting knocked up in France is different than the US of A

First of all, lets just start off with this pic, shall we? Classy I know. 

That's the pregnancy glow for ya (it brings out your inner coolness).

Ok now I should probably throw in a disclaimer: I have been pregnant all of three weeks in the states. I also wasn't showing yet since it was my first trimester. So everything I've gleaned about preggo ladies in the states has been taken from friends/family and American pregnancy websites. I apologize in advance if I misrepresent you fellow rotund future mommies. 

I present to you, the battle of the pregos: 

The Frenchy vs. the American  pregos, that is...

	US of A:	France:
Length of pregnancy :	40 weeks	41 weeks
Who delivers your baby :	An OBGYN	A midwife
Pregnancy mantra :	Eating for two, yeeahh!	9 months of dieting. Boo.
Recommended weight gain :	11.3-15.8 kilos/25-35 lbs (for the average woman)	12 kilos/26.4 lbs (no range, period.)
Maternity wear:	Dress up that bump!	Ditto.
Biggest Prego fears:	Doing something to harm baby.	Gaining too much weight. (ok, probably it’s the same as for Americans but this is def a close second!)
What not to do:	Drink alcohol, caffeinated beverages, herbal tea, eat spicy food, deli meat cuts, seafood, under cooked meat, dye your hair, paint the nursery, go in hot tubs/saunas, smoke, do drugs, lie flat on your back, change the litter box.	Drink alcohol (officially, although quite a few French women will have a bit), eat seafood, sushi/uncooked salmon, unpasteurized cheese, any kind of meat from Spain or Alsace(ie. charcuterie), bleeding meat, junk food, smoke (although too many women still do this while prego), do drugs, gain extra pregnancy weight, so much as even look at the cat.
Average Cost:	·         2,800-4,740 $ with insurance ·         11,000-17,800 $ without insurance	·         Zilch with basic insurance ·         Between 0-30% of medical costs months 1-6, 0% months 6-9 without insurance (just Soc. Sec.)
Supplements:	Bottle of Prenatal Vitamins	Folic acid, iron
Pregnancy bible:	What to expect when you’re expecting	J’attends un enfant
Controversial topics:	Stay at home or work, breastfeed or bottle, attachment parenting or cry it out, epidural or natural birth	Kind of breastfeeding…although the debate isn't as intense.
Maternity leave:	4-12 weeks (varies)	6 weeks before baby is born, 10 weeks after (all paid)
Biggest pre-baby perk:	No one yells at you for eating that slice of cake and a lot more people are nice to you	Government financial assistance for low to mid income earning families (900 euros up front and then a monthly stipend after birth)