May, 2011

Chateau de Tarascon (Provence)

Built in 1400, it is in remarkably good shape although it is unfurnished. In America when our kids went on a school field trip, they would visit the zoo. Here, kids meander through castles and learn about Charlemagne’s conquests.

I know, let’s take a trip!

After spending two weeks at home once we returned from Germany last month, we got antsy and decided we needed to hit the road again. So, we packed the car, plugged in the GPS and headed for a home exchange we arranged in Aix-en-Provence in the South of France for a week. Familiar with the region, we meandered the whole Provence area once again with an eye towards possible future real estate opportunities.

Our home in Aix-en-Provence

The ramparts of Aigues-Mortes

We also made time to visit Chateau d’Avignon and the enclosed medieval city of Aigues-Mortes, with over a mile (2km) of spectacular ramparts. I have written about our fondness of medieval cities before, so we made a point of returning to Carcassonne, one of the largest and most intact fortified cities in Europe with moats and a double wall enclosure.

Carcassonne

Presumably, after the enemy would take a pummeling getting over or through the outer defensive wall, he would get a chance to repeat the punishment a mere 60’ (20 M) later at a whole new interior wall. The photos are scanned from postcards as I was not able to take the aerial shots myself…yet.

A close up of Carcassonne

Then, we headed for the island of Oleron in the Bay of Biscay, in western France, for another week in a home there. Sensing that our season here was coming to a close, we packed in as many historical sites as possible. It’s what we do in Europe. OD on history, then go home to chill for 7 months.

Meshcers inhabited caves

We visited places like Meshcers with its inhabited caves along the coast. After the citadel of Chateau Oleron, we went to Brouage, hometown to Champlain, a really big dog in Canadian history. He ‘founded’ Quebec and is a renowned figure in those parts. For our Canadian friends and family, this one was for you,.. eh!

Stained glass window, a gift of Quebec city to honor Samuel De

Champlains founding of Quebec, in his hometown church of Brouage

Fort Louvois

Fort Louvois, one fort among thousands all over France and Europe that we simply can’t seem to get enough of, is reachable only a few hours a day at low tide, as you must walk the narrow 1200’ (400M) causeway from the mainland to get there.(Its underwater in the pic) Fort Vauban in Fouras was relatively small but with so many available, we are starting to get quite picky.

Fort Vauban in Fouras

The city of Cognac, where the stuff is made, was sobering. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist!) We toured Chateau Cognac which was originally built in 950 and was the birthplace of Francois 1^st (one of the kings). Since 1795 it has been the Otard brand Cognac distillery and storage site for aging the spirits in its medieval cave like cellars. The tour ends with a sampling of its $170. (115 Euro) a bottle product. While a purchase will lighten your wallet, the hooch will sure put hair on your chest.

Chateau Cognac cellars

Aubeterre-Sur-Drone, classed as one of the most beautiful villages in France, is home to a large church that was carved out of rocky hillside. With the ceiling at 60’ (20 M) and adjacent rooms to boot, it is a stunning piece of work.

Aubeterre-Sur-Drone's church

carved out of a stone hillside

The French have come up with a very cool way to see the countryside. Appropriating unused rail lines, they have what they call ‘Velorails’, which are bicycle style driven train cars that run on the tracks and allow you to propel yourself down the line. Being off season, the day we were there we had the 12 miles (7km) of track to ourselves. They have these gizmos in many parts of the country.

No trip to the area would have been complete without stopping by to visit the village of LAPRADE. Named after ME, they even built a ‘monument’ in MY honor. (Janice insists it is just the local church) In fact, she says that just because it bears my name doesn’t mean that it was named after me at all. I think she is being too modest, how about you?

I don’t want to suggest that all we did was visit forts and castles all the time as we did tour cities like La Rochelle. Such places as St-Martin de Re are both. An entire town of 2700 people, are enclosed by 9 miles (14Km) of double wall fortified stone, with moats as defensive protection. Classed as a World Heritage Site, it has become the 95^th such site I have visited.

St-Martin-de-Re

That about covers the highlights, skipping the lesser side trips. All in all, an easy, relaxing trip.

Maddie’s letter

Ms. Maddie

It is not every day you get a letter from your 11 year old granddaughter. Rarer still is one that requests, almost pleadingly, to come visit you. But one that offers to fly across the country to come cook, wash dishes and windows, clean house and do laundry to justify her visit, is as rare as hens teeth. Seen below (click on the image to read it) is the letter we got from our Maddie, an inquisitive, wanna-be magician.

She will follow in her big brother’s footsteps, who came out to visit us at the island two summers ago. As there are no direct flights between where she lives in Seattle Washington and our local airport, none of the airlines would agree to escort her to her connecting flight. Fortunately, her mom (daughter Amy) agreed to come along. For us, it is a two for one bonus. Other siblings will get their turns as they come of age. Needless to say we are thrilled that they will join us for a week in August to see if the river chooses them. We are told that Maddie has had her bags packed by the door for weeks.

Our little buddies

Once a year, we invite the children of friends of ours (John and Claire) to ‘party’ with us. It has become a fun little tradition, where we make pizza, bake cookies, play games and wrap it up with a house wide round of hide & go-seek. One by one, the younger ones are getting old enough to join the big kids and look forward to the ensuing mayhem.

They do things differently here

I really try to balance the positive and less positive impressions of life in France that I share with you. Europe in general and France in particular are utterly cool places to visit and spend time in but I can’t help comparing some things with the experiences and lifestyle we have at home. I don’t want to be Pollyanna-ish about life here so in the spirit of ‘keeping it real’, here are a few more in no particular order.

A large hotel in Paris recently deleted a bunch of Emails from an organization that wanted to rent a substantial block of rooms. The reason? The emails were in English and the staff only understood French.

95% of cars in Europe have manual stick shifts. About the only cars that have automatic transmissions are rentals (for American visitors) and ours. Recently, we had friends in our car that had never seen a car with an automatic before and were fascinated with how it worked. Boys and girls, we are so not in Kansas anymore.

An increasing number of packages for prescription medications here are embossed in brail for the blind. Patently obvious, after the fact, it allows for far more independence and safety. How soon before we catch up?

A number of cities in the country have paid substantial fines for not building required low income housing. They have decided that they preferred to pay the fines (and their citizens the higher taxes to cover them) than to build subsidized housing in their communities.

Cars parked on sidewalks on both sides of the street

I have written before about the rather unique ways people here park. On sidewalks, in crosswalks, on median islands between lanes, in front of fire hydrants and on and on. Nothing will assure a car being parked in an unauthorized area like one of the few ‘No Parking’ signs to be found. They seem to act as a magnet.

We have debated why the police don’t simply cite the little cheese eating violators, solve the problem and move on. The reason is that aside from the fact that many old village streets we never intended for vehicles, it simply goes against the grain of the French ‘live and let live’ mentality. Unable to bring themselves to man up, they prefer to have people drive around the inevitable chaos. When they are dead serious about not wanting cars to park in an area, they erect physical barriers as seen below. Mostly lightweight metal frames, they usually end up getting bent by sideswiping or cars backing into them.

This ‘live and let live’ mantra is fine but sometimes seems a bit much as in the case of public urination. Relax; I am not going to become a potty mouth here. Many of us (men anyway) have succumbed to the occasional need to pull over on the side of the road, climb a fence, run across a farmer’s field to a cluster of bushes to…eh…splash our boots.

Here, it is not uncommon to see someone pulled over, stand by the front or rear of his car in full glorious view and let-r-rip. Recently, we were driving in the downtown area and saw an adult bicyclist a mere 5 feet from us at a stoplight, facing the building and running a stream down the middle of the street. Crass? We report, you decide.

Finally, I have just figured out the most lucrative job in Europe. It requires no education, training, skills of any kind, investment or people skills. You can even spend all day reading the paper or a book. It is a position that is not affected by the economic downturn and like being an undertaker, will always be in demand. Your overhead is minimal but the one requirement is that you stay awake.

The job? Bathroom attendant. You might not get a lot of bragging rights, but the money keeps rolling in incessantly, albeit in small amounts. In many public places here (highway rest stops, airports, train stations, some large restaurants) you are charged from .50c to a Euro ($1.50) to use the bathroom. (At least for those who bother) I recently waited for Janice outside of one for 5 minutes and counted at least 10 people a minute going in. That works out to $300. to $900. an hour. You can hire some minimum wage worker to keep the place clean, while you ‘manage’ the operation. Short of being a brain surgeon, OJ Simpson’s lawyer or Bernie Madoff, this is serious pocket change.

Why Janice spent 5 minutes in the facility in the first place could be a subject of an in depth future Epistle article. Then again she might have just been trying to get her money’s worth.

The Transition

As we go to press, we have just transitioned from Europe to America. Ahhh, guilt free hamburgers, beverages with ice, understandable English and at $5. a gallon (.80c / Lt) gas that is all but free. Is this a great country, or what?

We flew from Paris to Los Angeles two days ago after Janice received her VERY LAST cancer treatment. She will be followed up by her doctors in New York but we expect it to be once every 3 months or so. She is now working full time at growing her hair back out.

We are currently with daughter Kami for the week end before heading to our home on the central coast. More on all that next month.

Dad and Kami

April 2011

Ploumanach Beach on a spring day Double click on the image for a screaming vew

Deutschland or Bust!

Last week Janice and I drove half way across the continent to Aachen, Germany to help Mandy and her guy Markus move into their new apartment. Mandy is finishing her advanced Masters degree in Stockholm, Sweden and is due to graduate in May. She and Markus will then live in Germany while he completes his studies in Aeronautical Engineering and she decides if she will begin her doctorate in Arbitration Law.

The Bayeux Tapestry

We loaded the car with every tool I own here and stopped in Bayeux (France) along the way to see the 224 foot long (68 M) embroidered tapestry displayed in the Museum. Completed in the year 1077, it tells the story of William the Conqueror in a visual display for what was an illiterate population. A few miles (Km) up the road, we also stopped to visit the Pegasus Bridge. I had always believed that the WWII liberation of France and Europe began on June 6, 1944 with the Normandy invasion. It turns out that it actually began on the night of June 5th, when 3 gliders full of British commandos landed 200 feet (75 M) from the bridge and overpowered German guards.

The Pegasus bridge

The mission was to secure the 150 foot (50M) long bridge for allied advances and to blow up other bridges in the area to prevent German reinforcements. They succeeded and thus the first shots of the invasion were fired and the village liberated was one you may have never heard of. It is Ranville. Continuing on, we spent the night in Paris where we picked Mandy up while she was visiting mutual friends from California. We drove across Belgium, the Netherlands and finally arrived at their place in Aachen where we hit the deck running. Together with Markus’ father, we moved stuff from student dorms to the new apartment, picked up load after load from Ikea and other businesses to bring back to the apartment to assemble and go back for more.

Mandy and Markus' new apartment

In Germany ( like most of Europe), when you rent an apartment, you get the 4 walls, floor and ceiling. If you want a light, you either bring your own or buy one because all you will find are two wires hanging from the ceiling in each room. Kitchens have no counter tops, cabinets, sinks, stoves, refrigerators or lights. The previous renter installed his own and took them with him to his next place, so now you need to start the whole process all over at your expense. Since you are installing your counter tops, you obviously need to cut the openings out for your sink and cook top. When you move out, you must return the apartment to the landlord freshly painted. This being their first ‘all grown up’ apartment, they needed tables, chairs, dishes, desks, sofas…..you get the drill. We acted as transportation (they have no car), assemblers ( chairs, tables, bed, cabinets) and installers. What they put together is an incredibly cute starter apartment. For most of our stay we were generously received at Mandy's host parents home (when she was an exchange student in High School) an hour away.

Honfleur

After a week, we packed our tools and set off for home, stopping to visit the city of Le Havre. We chose to see it because it is listed as a Unesco World Heritage site, the 93rd such site I have visited. This however, is the first time I was disappointed. For us, it was a bust as the architecture was was simply not our style. What was a delight was the nearby city of Honfleur, one of the most beautiful medieval towns in Normandy. This one is a keeper.

Bits and Pieces

We want to welcome Gabrielle Alexia Laprade to the family. Born on March 25th she is my brother Marc and his partner Grace Delos Santos’ brand new baby girl. Both mom and Gabrielle are doing fine. As for Marc, better you than me, buddy! We learned this month that both daughters Mandy and Kami have been granted Canadian citizenship and are now dual citizens. This as a result of Mandy sussing out a new Canadian law granting citizenship to first generation progeny of a former Canadian parent. (Name withheld to protect the guilty party) Now we are told that daughter Cassie is applying also. As to your obvious question, no I am not.

Janice's artwork in Mandy's new apartment

Janice has been hard at work on her art classes, loves it and has threatened to fill all our children’s homes with her paintings. Say but the word and she will probably fill yours also. As you can see in the photo, her hair has begun to grow back so she has stopped wearing her wig. She refers to this time as her poodle look with the super curly hair phase lasting about 6 months. She is down to two treatments to go with the last one a day before we fly back in May. This was the month where a couple of friends and I traditionally return to our cider bottling task. This was a light year as we only filled a little over a thousand bottles in two days. We were also invited to a wine tasting event. Complete with restaurant dinner, we were educated by the vintner who grew the grapes and bottled the wines we drank as to the composition, soil types and other peculiarities of the various wines. Good fun! Last fall Janice spent a good part of 5 weeks at the ‘Sarah House’ in Syracuse NY while she was receiving radiation treatments. When we left, Janice wrote a letter of support which became part of a successful grant request. Then, we offered our house in France for a week to be auctioned off as part of a fundraiser they had this month and the week raised $5,400. Nice! I wish every week we rented out would do as well!!!

Projects of the month

Last winter I had brought a paper template of our fireplace opening at the island to France in order to forge a set of doors that acted as a fire screen to prevent sparks from landing on the carpet. As you know, we had to return to the US earlier than expected, so I did not get a chance to start it. So, I have spent a good part of this past month in our village forge, getting on the J - O - B. We did as we often do, that is search the ‘price is no object’ web sites to find pictures of our favorite models and simply copy them. That makes them rather affordable. Friends on both sides of the pond marvel at our lack of propriety in packing slabs of metal in a suitcase, or worse by simply wrapping the steel in cardboard. The airline agents do look at us askance but have no recourse but to accept the package as luggage as it is not in violation of any airline rule. We are rather pleased with the result and we will have a little ‘show and tell’ once I install it at the Bee in June. The thing about this forging gig is that it is so not like woodworking. Over the years, I have done a fair share of building stuff including some exotic hardwood furniture. It was no walk in the park but with wood, if you cut it the right length, width and thickness, then shape it the way you want it you are pretty much home free. Metal is a beast. You start much like above but the shaping part is a whole other world. It bends, tweaks, warps, twists and curves. Then it vaporizes. It is a given that when I heat metal in the forge and begin shaping it, it will immediately bend in an unintended manner. This is expected and requires some tweaking. The latter immediately causes the piece to warp and calls for further corrections. Once done, I can see curves that I don’t want so I put it back in the forge to heat it up, soften the metal and work on it some more. This, of course will introduce a twist requiring…well you get the idea. Occasionally when I have spent a lot of time getting it almost perfect, I will put it back in the forge for one last heating to work out the final details. That is when I get it just a tad too hot and it…eh…vaporizes. Get a new piece and repeat. Whatever love was shown me by my mentor is long gone. There was a time when if I simply did not set fire to the building, I was doing fine in his eyes. As time has gone on he has become as demanding as a wife. Now, I occasionally have some minor flaw in a piece I am working, figuring it will give it ‘character’ and ‘charm’. Besides I figure, that old goat will never see it anyway. (My mentor, not my wife!) But no, he takes one look and says “I didn’t know you wanted that twist in just one place. It stands out like someone in an evening dress on a nudist beach”. Fine. “What do you expect, perfection?", I ask. “Not from you…”, he says. This is a tough crowd. What we did get around to putting the finishing touches on this month was a new front entry door. Again, planned for last year but put on hold due to our quick departure, we scoured the internet for a design we liked and commissioned a local artisan to build it for us. Now before you get all over my case for actually hiring someone to do something, it would be good to remember I have no workshop here and limited hand tools.

Thin, cheesy, warped and plain Jane Other than that, it was fine

Besides, friends who have been so generous with loaning me all manner of their tools simply didn’t have the equipment needed to do this project justice. We have needed a new entry door since we bought the house but abject poverty precluded doing anything about it until now. Of course personal pride required that I forged the decorative metal bits myself.

New and improved! Better sound and heat insulation, more light in the house and simply screaming looking.

Personal observations of life in Paris

Motorcyclists in Paris are as numerous as flies, comprise about 20% of all vehicles in the city, travel barely across but in the oncoming lane of city traffic, weave between vehicles at every opportunity and reposition themselves in front of the first car at all traffic lights. At night they travel with their emergency flashers on at all times to have a better chance of being seen. There is no question that they can navigate the city streets quickly but at great risk to their safety. Parisians hate them with a passion and authorities have made a feeble attempt to rein them in but the motorcyclists reacted by blocking traffic for hours all over the city. The city fathers relented and the result was the bikers feeling empowered and are more arrogant than ever. Now they demand that car drivers make way for them and if you fail they are likely to pound their fists on your car roof or kick your door as they drive by. In an accident they will invariably blame you for causing it. Faced with this challenging moral dilemma, I believe that if I were to find myself in such a situation, I could find it in my heart to back up and finish the job. With some exceptions, black people (or is it more PC to refer to the folks as ‘people of color’?) in Paris seem to be better assimilated into the larger population than African Americans are at home. It still seems weird to hear them speak perfect French but not a word of English. The exceptions seem to be blacks that are not from former French colonies but (some) illegal African immigrants who are only looking for work. One of the things we have seen when traveling on the RER (local commuter train service around Paris) are female Middle Eastern panhandlers who will board the train with a young child in one hand and a portable amplifier and power supply on a little cart in the other. Once the doors close on their captive audience, they begin to belt out songs that sound like the Arab call to prayer. Everyone looks annoyed but dares not say anything fearing being labeled as Arabphobic or something. Before the train pulls in to the next station, she then passes the hat in a usually unsuccessful attempt to collect anything. Hey I am just a tourist here so I take it all in. As a resident, I would surely have to begin practicing my yodeling skills.

March, 2011

Chateau de Suscinio

Built as a ducal residence in the 1300's, it was ruined by vandalism during the revolution and restored by the state. It is located in the South West area of Brittany.

Who, me walk?

For someone who will drive around a parking lot for 3 minutes looking for a parking place closer to the front door of a business to avoid walking, I have turned a new page. No need to email me about being bone lazy, someone in this household has already beaten you to it.

Double click on the pic for a spectacular view

I saw a report on TV about how 30% of Americans are obese as opposed to only 10% of the French. Clearly, they are doing something right aside from drinking red wine and eating cheese. It is not unusual to see cycling clubs with 20 to 50 members in their spandex type outfits, hogging the roads as they ‘Lance Armstrong it’ around the countryside.

I had a friend here who asked me if I wanted to join a group who walked once a week to explore new areas. Walk, I asked? On purpose? Surely you jest! I was totally on board with the exploring part but when I found out we couldn’t drive to these areas, I hesitated. Still, the desire to find new cool stuff prevailed. I was in.

Besides, these were mostly old farts who looked like they would soon be needing walkers to get around so how hard could it be? I was also told to bring something to eat as they picnicked along the way. These walks are done along different parts of our coastline as there are hundreds of miles of footpaths that meander everywhere. We set off at 10 AM so it required getting up at O’ dark hundred to participate and I figured we would be back by 2PM so it would be no big deal.

It is only waist deep, so its no biggie

We set off up and down hills, along mountain top ridges, double timing across meadows and freshly plowed fields, through muddy forests past dolmens* and across streams, covering miles of craggy rocky beaches, sometimes in the rain. These old Frenchies could walk my socks off! The last time I walked like this I was carrying an anti tank weapon at boot camp with a drill sergeant yelling “I am going to turn you fat, lazy sissies into soldiers yet!!!” .

* Dolmens are prehistoric burial chambers dated 11 thousand years BC. That would make them considerably older than the Egyptian pyramids, The Great Wall of China or Stonehenge. The stone she is touching is 12 X 15 feet (4X5 M)

This Dolmen is roughly 12 feet wide (4M) and approx 50 feet long (17M) They are found all over Brittany

At 5 PM, some 7 hours and 20Km (13 miles) after our departure they decided to ‘cut it short’ and save the longer walk for the following week. With typical hot air bravado, I insinuated that I thought that we had just warmed up and the walk had yet to start. I have been at it weekly ever since. It’s not easy staying a lean mean loving machine.

A couple of months ago I had posted a video about the Thousand Islands. Now I have something similar below about our neighborhood here. All these pics were taken within minutes of our home and are a very good presentation of life out in the middle of nowhere in France. For the best view, click on the bottom left menu tab below, then full screen. You must advance to the next picture on your own by clicking on the arrows in the center bottom of each picture.

Our coastline

View more presentations from starfireproductions

(Bogus add, there are none)

I have mentioned in the past that the tides in Brittany are the most dramatic in Europe. While on our walk, I took a few photos as we started and again at the same places several hours later when we returned. Bear in mind that the 'high' tide shot is still not at the highest tide.

I couldn't hang around for several more hours and I figured that this would give you the general idea anyway. As you can see, it resembles a bathtub where the plug has been removed and the tub drained. This process happens all along our coast twice a day.

Boats lie in the mud at low tide and...

...rise again at high tide

Side note

I recently wrote about our phone number in the US (805-762-4646) you could call where the calls are forwarded to our home here (at our expense). Our kids and family have started using it but others remain wary. Rest assured that it won’t break the bank as it is a fixed cost regardless of how many calls we get. Again, it will only cost you a call to California, you will NOT pay the cost to a call to Europe.

Do know however that we are 6 hours ahead of East Coast times and 9 hours ahead of West Coast callers. Also, the “weird French lady” that answers when we are not home is the French message that says we are not home and to leave a message. After all, we are in France! Please resist any temptation to be cute and leave a message in what only you would think is French.

Entertaining like crazy

We have not entertained at home since Christmas, partially because we were traveling some but mostly because were tore our kitchen up and completed phase two of the remodeling project. Now that that is behind us, we have been making up for lost time.

This past month we have gone on an entertaining frenzy, having two couples over per night (several in a row) each week for dinner parties. We have had so many folks over you would think we were running a soup kitchen. Janice is in her millieux cooking like a madwoman while I clean up the previous mess and prepare for the next.

The French like to think their food is the best in the world and they certainly have some pretty spiffy dishes. Then again, they sometimes eat ‘things’ and ‘parts’ that are unmentionable in a family newsletter. Let’s just say they might not be your favorite either. They get a kick of eating “like Americans”.

Being retired, you realize how much more time you have to make and nourish friendships and we work hard at it.

Gotta go. Two other couples just arrived…

Al Jazeera

I was watching a little TV the other day when I decided to stop and take in some of the other stations we get other than BBC and UK programming. We don’t watch French TV really, as much because the programming doesn’t interest us as because Janice needs a mental break from slogging through all things French all day long.

I have known that we get satellite programs from all over Europe and the Middle East but I have always just surfed by them. Some are from Romania and parts beyond, in languages unknown to me but surprisingly, many are in English. The Russian network for one, the communist Chinese network for another. Best of all, Al Jazeera is broadcast in English also.

Gosh, I thought, I have never seen a beheading before like I had heard they did or listened to an Al Qaeda spokesman rant about American Imperialism or whatever it is those rag heads whine about. Then, to round things out, I could take in some communist propaganda from China or the former USSR. This should be good fun, I thought.

Talk about ruining a perfectly good preconception and prejudice! Al Jazeera was interviewing a number of American officials, giving them more than a fair shake. Their broadcaster was railing against Arab strongmen suppressing their people’s freedom. Huh?

Sensing a trick, I switched to the Russian broadcast. They were doing a program on ecological failures in Russia. Another letdown. Finally, I watched the Chinese Communist official mouthpiece, CCTV. They were doing a program on the American economy, outlining its strengths and weaknesses. Other than the broadcasters eye shape I couldn’t tell the difference in content bias with US network broadcasting.

Hey, I am not saying that these guys never air questionable or even outrageous stuff, but I do feel that I now have a more informed and tempered point of view than I held previously.

Rotheneuf

This month we visited the village of Rotheneuf near St-Malo. The village is famous for its sculpted rocks, "rochers sculptés". After the parish priest suffered a stroke in the mid 1800's, he was left paralyzed on one side and retreated to a life as a hermit in the cliffs of Rothéneuf. He carved over 300 fascinating, grotesque and bizarre faces and figures into the rock. This is the French version of Easter Island.

This is a portion of the cliff side. Click on the

image to see some of the sculptures close up

Yet another low tide shot. When the tide comes in it sometimes laps over the wall by Janice's feet.

See you next month!