making friends

We're now about 4 months into our year in France, and I'd say the theme of the past month is friendships. Now that we've gotten to know people a little better, we have been having people over at our house and we've been going over to their houses. Many of these new friends are through the girls' school. Eve and Ella have become very friendly with several girls, and as it usually goes, that has led to friendships with their parents too. Most of these families are international in one way or another, such as having one or both parents born in a European country other than France. For example, Martha has enjoyed speaking German with a family where the Mom is from Germany. Martha has an Austrian accent, from her time after college in Austria, which apparently is amusing to German speakers but is lost on my naive ears. As we had somewhat anticipated, sharing the connection of being an international family has facilitated friendships. At the same time, we've enjoyed getting to know some purely French families, and those families have been generous in helping us learn a bit more about the local culture and cuisine. Yesterday my friend from tennis, Jean-Luc, hosted us for a wonderful lunch that lasted about four hours, during which the girls somehow didn't implode (with much credit to their cat and to a movie they put on after the girls got a bit antsy).

All of this makes us think that we will be coming back often to this part of France in future years. Not only is it a beautiful and interesting place, but there are a lot of people here whom we enjoy.

But don't worry (or celebrate, depending on your preference), American friends and family! As much as we're enjoying it here, we do miss our family, friends, and life back home, and will be excited to return.

Christmas on the way

There are plenty of signs that the holidays are approaching. For one, we got some snow, which is unusual in this part of France. There are also a zillion marchés de noël (Christmas markets)--every town, city, and village has its own at some point between late November and Christmas. Here are a few images from the last couple weeks.

local attractions

Considering that we are living out in the countryside, there are a couple of surprisingly nice attractions for the kids within a five minute drive. We visited both during the past week: Les Villages des Automates (an offbeat amusement park in the woods) and Zoo La Barben (a beautiful little zoo perched on a hill above a chateau). On top of that, the Christmas market has started in Aix, and they have rides that the girls love. So they are living large these days...

Saint Cyr-sur-Mer

Last weekend checked out a small seaside town about an hour from where we're staying, Saint Cyr-sur-Mer, in part because it was mentioned in a cartoon ("Oggy and the Cockroaches") that the girls watched recently. That made this town very interesting to Ella, who was trying to figure out where exactly Oggy and his friends had been in this town. As for the rest of us, the sunset and the rocky paths by the coast were enough to make our trip worthwhile. We also saw serious windsurfing on the waves. The famed Mistral wind was over 100 km/h at times last week. The wind generally comes for a day or two at a time, once every week or two in the fall (and more often in the winter, I believe). A small price to pay for the nearly constant sunshine here.

a few reflections

Now that we've been in France for three months, a few reflections:

We are feeling very fortunate to have this experience, and we are enjoying it a lot. The girls (including Martha) have had great attitudes about learning the language, and are making a lot of progress. My dormant French (from living here for a year as a ten-year old, and then taking a couple classes in high school) has been better than I expected, although I won't ever be mistaken for a native speaker. It hasn't been all peaches and cream for Eve and Ella, as they often feel some boredom or frustration at school from not understanding what people are saying. Right now they're at the stage where they can say and understand bits and pieces, but not much more.

One of the best parts of our time here has been the natural beauty we're surrounded by. We are living in the countryside, and the sun light in Provence is as good as advertised. We've gone frequently to Aix en Provence to get a bit of city life, and it's a great place to walk around. One of our favorite aspects of Europe is how pedestrian-friendly a lot of the cities are.

Italy trip

We saw a lot of the major sites in Italy during a 9 day trip over the girls' fall break. We were all impressed with the art, history, natural beauty, pasta, and gelato, not necessarily in that order. We did the trip by car, and were pleasantly surprised by the Italian drivers, who did not live up to their naughty reputation. During our visit to St. Peter's in the Vatican, the Pope made an appearance, although we could barely see him in the distance. St. Peter's is indeed a large church.