Shopping at the Leaning Tower of Pisa (LTP)

On our way back from Florence we decided, after much debate, to visit the LTP. The best time to visit the Tower is on a rainy day in November. Lines were short indeed.

Construction on the tower began almost 900 years ago. The LTP was intended to be the bell tower for the cathedral at Pisa, but it was not the will of Allah.

The architect knew little of limestone or clay. He packed mud that shifted and gave when wet. As the tower went up for a mere 100 ft and began to lean, the architect hoped at first that nobody would notice. Hopefully construction would be completed and checks cashed before questions were asked. The identity of the architect is not publicly known, nor are we certain where he hid. I have my suspicions: I believe the name was Hulot and he escaped to France where his influence continues to be widely felt.

After three hundred years the lean was 5 degrees. Galileo measured g but he was unaware of the gravity of the situation. A total collapse was imminent and Pisa’s CAC (Committee Against Collapse) was formed. Attempts to decrease the lean by counterbalancing the tower, pumping concrete into its foundations and similar measures only served to increase the lean.

The best architects in the world were consulted. As in all bar jokes, discussions were multinational. The Japanese suggested pulling down the tower and rebuilding from scratch, the Chinese thought that a second tower should offer support in an inverted V for Victory design. The Russian solution was more complex: Remove the lowest part of the tower where the lean originated. The French? Well, they had to deal with other projects such as the pont d’Avignon immortalized in song. To be continued in the Hulot chronicles.

In 1990, the LTP closed for 12 years while its foundation was reinforced to restore the lean from 5.5 degrees to a more stable 5.0 degrees. To my eye, the lean at first glance appeared even greater; I estimated 10 degrees.

Walking up the steps is an unusual experience where the ears are aware of the tilt and the steps are worn smooth on one side of the spiral compounding the disorientation. Leaving the tower feels much like disembarking from a boat, one totters on level ground before regaining balance and composure. This could be a Buddhist metaphor, what is real and what is illusion and how easily do we buy into illusion and mistake it for reality.

To extend the metaphor, there are some terribly original tourists who will take pictures of themselves standing in line with the tower to prop it up or appear to. Do they feel better for their efforts? Does it add to good karma or is that also virtual?

Pisa has its share of vendors: Umbrellas with art work inspired by the Uffizi, watches with familiar brand names such as Rolex, a great deal at 20 euros, T shirts immortalizing Da Vinci’s man with Homer Simpson at the center.  More impressive were LTPs in plastic with an electric light within. I bought one of these to sit on the mantelpiece beside my plastic Taj Mahal, which also doubles as a lamp.

Les election du College Rouston

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The boys were settling down in their College (middle school in France) and the CLA, the special class for foreigners not fluent in French, when they got kicked up to the regular class to be integrated and civilized. They will be taught everything, including English, in French. This is on a trial basis for two weeks: time will tell. They seem to do better with homework than with listening comprehension in class. It’s hard when the teachers speak too fast.

They are more than a little worried. In France, students’ self-esteem is not a consideration, and feeling good about oneself is tantamount to over-confidence. There is little danger of developing an inflated ego. The teachers read out the scores on tests in class and discuss in detail each student’s mistakes. For additional humiliation, a student can be called to stand in front of the blackboard and work out problems for all to see. During these sessions, the teacher might pass comments like “Tu es idiot, stupide, nul.. Tu ne peut jamais reussi.” The last is a prediction, often accurate: You will never succeed.

To say a petit merci to Prof Tutta who taught them for two months in CLA, Jeroen and I brought a gift of chocolate. We weren’t allowed to see him without a rendez-vous but we could and did leave the gift with the concierge, the little woman who presses a button to open the gates of the school. We walked by her cabin without checking in, and she scolded us for a long ten minutes for slighting her. I kept apologizing with no success in appeasing her. Jeroen stared with a dazed look on his face, which can be translated in five (edited) words: “What is your problem?“

Wouter and Mohan have not thrown a party to celebrate this promotion. The reason for the non-celebration is purely social, unlike the promotion itself. The only kids they could invite are in their special class, and many are upset to be kept behind. Some of the older kids will be leaving this school at the end of December to return to their local schools and face immersion after 12 months of remedial French. I’m not sure they will all succeed, partly because some of them joined mid-year and started in the middle of the course. Like a movie you watch from the middle and can’t understand. I feel that way about French films even when I watch from the start and have subtitles to help.

The President of France, Francois Hollande has outlawed homework. This is partly because children are suffering from burnout and are dropping out of high school, especially kids with single parents working long hours who may not be able to help with homework. The growing disparity between kids with pushy parents and helpless parents has been a challenge, so rather than “No child left behind,” France has adopted a “No child gets ahead” philosophy to level out the playing field. Hollande also wants to have children promoted every year to stay with their peers despite lack of skills rather than have kids fail and repeat a year and get displaced socially. France will soon be more like America and may even consider renaming pommes frites to frites de libertie.

I am proud to tell you that Wouter was elected Class Representative of the CLA class. He ran a great campaign. A la Romney, Wouter had flexible stands on policies. More critically, he chose the perfect running mate: a lad from Turkey. This secured the block of five Turkish votes. With Turkey in the bag, the East-Block constituency (i.e. Romania and Lithuania) came also on board. The three Anglophone votes were secure from the beginning as was Mohan’s loyalty vote. However, with Wouter’s promotion to French-only education, CLA will now have to elect a new leader. Perhaps the boy from Romania who has invented a new language, a melange of Romanian and French, nouveau francais, which Prof Tutta cannot understand. I think he doesn’t try. Anyone can figure out “Moi etre dans toi classe.”

Soon my boys will be speaking English with a French accent. It doesn’t get better.

Our penthouse

For those needing directions to our new place: go down Boulevard Albert 1er until you run the risk of stepping into the salty waters of the Mediterranean. Look left, and up and find the flat with yellow sun-shades.

Rent-a-baby

If you want to experience French bureaucracy at its finest, you could do no better than to visit the Prefecture to obtain a Carte de Sejour, a long-term visa, needed by those wishing to stay in France longer than three months. 

There are things one needs to know before setting out on this mission. Getting a Carte de Sejour is not usually achieved in one trip. It took our American friend Julia three visits, which is about average. The line outside the Prefecture starts at 7 a.m. Local legend has it that only 50 people are served on any given day. Number 51 gets to return the next day at an ambitiously early hour.

The person in charge at the CNRS (Jeroen’s employer) gave us some forms and a list of documents to photocopy before leaving for an extended holiday. We needed recent photographs, copies of “useful” pages of our passports – we found out in time that they meant “used” pages-- proof of address, pay slips, letters from the CNRS, telephone and electricity bills, and marriage and birth certificates, offically translated into French. The translation office used by the French embassy in Washington DC is no good because, perhaps because it is does little to further the French economy. We triple checked everything and got there at 8 am when we saw two queues, one for the carte de sejour and a much shorter one for automobile registrations. Not as bad as we feared.

Two women from the Prefecture with white silk flowers in their buttonholes stepped out to answer questions. One of them looked at my paperwork and asked, “Are you from Sophia?” Jeroen said no, I said yes. Mine was the right answer; the CNRS is located in Sophia Antipolis. Jeroen, in his best French, was busy denying that we were Bulgarian. The woman said that we would be better off to have the paperwork sent to them from Sophia when the liaison person returned. Our situation might be too complicated for her colleagues to understand. We were not ready to turn back, not yet.

The doors opened promptly at nine. We entered the foyer, which brought Dostovesky to mind. The short car registration line opens into the same foyer. Some switched to join the front of our line, probably returning petitioners. People who’d arrived after we had in the morning were now ahead.

A Tunisian gentleman left the line for a few minutes and returned with coffee and directed us to a vending machine. Jeroen congratulated him on his country’s successful revolution and its influence and inspiration. He smiled and offered a sip of his coffee.

At the main desk, someone cursorily checked our dossier and gave us a token. We sat on orange plastic chairs in a busy basement room with monitors suspended from the ceiling to direct token holder to counters where they would presumably be served. Behind one of these counters was a woman in a red blouse looking at her computer screen and tapping on her keyboard. She had no clients. Was she playing Tetris? Her fingers moved too slowly. It had to be Minesweeper and she wasn’t about to be blown away. Perhaps she was a trainee, doing well judging by her sulk and the work she wasn’t doing. She got up once in a while to distract a colleague. More time squandered.

With A-36 in our hands, and A-32 on the monitor, we thought our turn was near. However, we hadn’t anticipated the wave of strollers and lovely children, bringing the room to life at 10 a.m. They formed a new line at the main counter and received golden tokens. From A-32 it went C-01, then C-02, and then C-03. An entirely different series claimed priority. The C-series, dedicated to the elderly, the impaired, the pregnant, and especially mothers with children who had skipped a morning dose of ADHD medicine.

When it was our turn one and a half hours later, it went smoothly. We were out in 20 minutes and in my hand I had a paper, a visa of sorts. (Julia says we’ve set a new record). Now that I can work in France, I want to start a business: a childcare facility across from the Prefecture in Nice. The rent-a-baby service would be a sister concern.

Firenze

A colleague recently remarked that he’d spent two days at the Uffizi museum in Florence and hadn’t seen it all. Compare that to Art Buchwald’s man who saw the Louvre in under six minutes. Not an easy feat given the crowds but it can be done if you pick the right day (a Monday in March) and time (first thing in the morning before the artists are awake). Buy your ticket online, get a map to run up the stairs, see the Mona Lisa, dart down a corridor and see the Winged Victory and Venus de Milo. Choosing the right entrance is key, ignore signs (scenic route) and do not run. I’ll bet that the visit can be made in under three minutes.

We visited Florence and the Uffizi during our four days of quasi-homelessness after moving from Heathcliff’s house in Valbonne until the apartment in Antibes was available. We became Friends of the Uffizi in anticipation of the visit. It shortens the wait time time to enter to a mere five minutes and promises unlimited visits during the calendar year with a chain of subscribing local museums if you can drag yourself to see still more art.

The Ufizzi is a great place for art historians but I am no more an art historian than George Costanza was a marine biologist or architect. We joined tired tourists shuffling about from one painting to the next, from the thirteenth century down to the fourteenth as so on. Lots of gilded halos early on, giving way to the sixteenth century angels (Birds? Do they lay eggs?) and sunlight pouring through gaps in clouds.

We had the audioguide but it said little beyond, “Now you are in Room 13” after we punched in the number 13. We walked through the museum and at some point thought we were done, but no, it’s a lot like IKEA where like a rat in a maze you walk past lampshades and cutlery long after you’ve picked the table you came to buy.  The children finished long before Jeroen and I did (let’s blame my arthritis) and found the gelati stand.

Next was the Accademia where David looks beyond victory with modest eyes and exposed genitals. I thought about the not-David that had been chipped and smoothed away and the incredibly accurate surface anatomy, with cephalic and basilar veins, the dorsal venous arch incorporated in the sculpture. Michelangelo endured dissection much better than I did, and without the benefit of formaldehyde. I saw a grown man yawn before David, I blamed jet-lag. Naked sculptures of men and women graced the piazza outside, including a copy of David which tempted the average tourist to skip the real thing. The copy, alas, was done by an artist with less talent or with fewer than 10,000 hours of practice. We’ll never know.

The highlight of our trip to Florence was our visit to Signora Valentina’s home. She hosted my brother as a student many years ago when he was a student. On the first evening of his visit, she told him, in Italian, that her son was a zoologist, and unsure if he’d understood what she’d said, proceeded to imitate several animals to make her meaning clear. For our visit, she enlisted her niece, Costanza, an art historian who speaks English fluently and translated a book on thirteenth century Italian art into English and is often at the Uffizi. Signora Valentina said that I look just like my brother which I’m sure she intended as a compliment. She cooked a lovely vegetarian meal for us, three different kinds of pasta and a salad, all so good. I could go back for more.

At Hotel Carolus, we met two Tamil employees from Sri Lanka. One of them spoke of the precarious conditions of Tamils still living as refugee in tents of plastic with little security save the eyes of Geneva and expats Sri Lankans in the UK and USA. “The Tamils were betrayed by the Tigers,” he said. “They could have made a deal but no, hungry for power, they wanted it all. Just like the Palestinians under Arafat. Now we have nothing; we could have had something.”  His bilingual children speak Tamil and Italian, and play football. He plied us with coffee, and offered me Ceylon tea, packed, of course, he added wryly, in England. He also told me that he bicycled to work and lived across from Dante Alighieri's house.

The other gentleman, older, and softly spoken, plans to retire in the next year or two to the hills of Kandy. His wife and grown children run their little coffee plantation which also grows pepper and cardamon. He goes home every three months and has traveled all over Tamil Nadu, visiting temples. His favorite temple was Meenakshi in Madurai, and then, as an aside mentioned that he was Muslim. Yet, he said, Tamil culture, which is truly his own culture, includes temple architecture and sculpture and music. He has as much faith in art as he does in his religion and he can respect the frailties of other humans and their Gods.

Andre, the porter, was another gentlemen with Tamil ancestry from Mauritius. He speaks little Tamil but his grandfather came from the town of Chidambaram. I told him, in my best French, the legend of Nandanar, the untouchable, who in a dream was summoned to the temple in Chidambaram but was stopped at the door because of his caste. He was found dead in the sanctum the next morning, brought home by Nataraja. Since then, the doors of the temple have been open, and anyone can enter.

I cannot finish this piece on Florence without mentioning Giardino di Barbano at Piazza Indipendenza, a family-run Tuscan restaurant. They served a most delicious vegetable soup and good pizza and packed Tiramisu to go. We ate there every night while in Florence, as much for the simple food which satisfied soul and body as for Silvia’s gentle presence.

Au revoir Heathcliff

What became of Heathcliff?

I am asked over and over, “What became of Heathcliff?”
Did I bring him to Antibes with me?
Ah, gentle reader, read on but be warned that the passage below may not be suitable to be read aloud to young children (gratuitous violence PG13).

Something weird happened the day before we left the house in Valbonne village. I was, as usual, working on my as yet unborn but soon to be immortal novel, seated at the kitchen table when I heard Heathcliff’s meeouw. I opened the window and in he jumped, and hid himself between a chair and a cushion. He had the air of a cat who was frightened, perhaps chased and needing to escape from enemies. I couldn’t imagine that Heathcliff would have enemies, but one never knows. Really, one doesn’t, so I shut the window, keeping Heathcliff safer. I wrote a little on my computer (MacBook Air), read what I’d written and hit the delete key. It’s often better that way.

I made myself another pot of tea (Nilgiri orange pekoe), black, no sugar, poured myself a cup and contemplated Ved Vyas and how easily story-telling came to him. Yes, he had a scribe, but still, the Mahabharata was written two thousand years ago without spell-check. I wrote another paragraph and decided to keep it.

I heard a soft “Hello.” I jumped out of my skin. Nobody in sight. Was I hearing voices? Hadn’t I taken my medicine? I got out of my uncomfortable chair and walked around the house, checking. My cell phone was long out of juice. The phone was in its place. TV off. No radio. Computer muted. I must have imagined it. I returned to work.

“Hello.” An English accent, not ox-bridge, less refined, perhaps Leeds, Yorkshire, with the lo stretched out and the he half-swallowed and soft. It’s hard to write a classic with all these interruptions no matter how friendly. I looked around, no one. Did I say no one? There was Heathcliff. But it couldn’t be. 

I saw Heathcliff looking at me. Cats don’t smile, but Heathcliff was clearly smiling. He rubbed his back against my jeans (Levi’s, denim, size 4) and stood at the front door, commanding me to open it and let him out.

I sat back down. No words. It was impossible to contemplate leaving Heathcliff to the perils of Valbonne. Every cat, even one who sometimes bites and scratches, deserves an owner. So before we left the house, I had to kit-nap him. 

Next morning, I had a cardboard box lined with a towel, and an empty laundry basket to serve as a ventilated lid. I wore a strong pair of long garden gloves to capture, hold and transfer the cat into the container. I put out warm milk in a saucer. Suspicions were aroused instantly or did he smell a rat? We were always too lazy to warm up the milk. Heathcliff sniffed at the milk but would not taste it. He looked around to see if a human would volunteer to taste the milk and make sure it was safe for a cat. He surveyed the kitchen and left through the kitchen door.

I played cat-and-mouse with him, except of course I was the cat and he the mouse. If I could wait, he would return. He did, with a rough looking army of other street cats. They mewed collectively, loudly, as if aspiring to roar, stretching out claws. I grabbed Heathcliff. Was that stupid! The other cats jumped on me, shredding my garden gloves to, well, shreds. A black cat with yellow eyes bit me on my right forearm, just below the elbow. I released Heathcliff who ran away, an orange blur of stripe and claw. The army of cats walked out stealthily, ready to pounce if needed.

I washed my arms in the kitchen sink (see how I included it) with antiseptic soap and dabbed some Neosporin and put on a couple of band-aids. No need for stitches.
A black cat turned slowly in my direction and spat before leaving. Not very nice but before I feel the need to criticize someone, I think of what my father said about not rushing to judge because everybody did not have the privileges I’d known growing up.

If Heathcliff has taught me anything, it is that stray cats are like stray humans. One can love a stray creature, but strays will never be tamed, may never learn to trust or accept love. That doesn’t mean I can’t love Heathcliff or miss him, I just can’t take his behavior personally.

Suffice it so say that Heathcliff roams the rues of Valbonne. I will return there, often, to see him. I have an abstract art class on Friday mornings (more on that subject later, I promise), and will stop by rue St. Bernardin, perhaps with a can of tuna fish from Frederica’s grocery store.

My husband and children are doing well on Claritin. Cat allergy. If you believe that such an illness could exist, you’d believe anything.

M. Lausberg welcomes the New Antibois

It is not an easy matter to open a bank account in France. We tried the post office in a proletarian moment soon after we arrived.  We were asked to return the next day to make an appointment.  Your credit card does not help you get a phone line any more than the money you’ve stashed away in Switzerland. You need a French bank account. Jeroen emailed his colleague who suggested we try the Société Générale.

One does not just walk into a back in France. One presses a button and the security person releases a switch to allow admission. A sign at the door states that people in masks and are not admitted, and bank robbers must have a piece d’identite and a rendez-vous.

Monsieur Lausberg welcomed us at the Société Générale branch at Place de Gaulle without prior rendez-vous and plied us with coffee.  He is the man who deals with the foreign born. Although M. Lausberg does speak some English, we insisted on speaking French, using hand and shoulder shrugs with “Baah” sounds to fill in the many gaps which M. Lausberg filled. Agrafeuse is French for stapler, I bet most of my family, friends, readers and fans (see how I slipped that in) don’t know that.

What did we need to start a bank account? Piece d’identity, a passport works. Jeroen’s passport was acceptable, mine, not-European, was not. Then we needed proof of address and here we showed our rental contract for the house in Valbonne. He who triumphs first has made a mistake. There were two problems with the contract: It was in English and in my name. M. Lausberg asked us to get a French translation and have the proprietere change the tenancy to my husband’s name.

The French love paper. Not the kind you fold and tuck away in your handbag, or in Jeroen’s case pull out of your back pocket, dog-eared and ready to tear. The French do dossiers, file folders for four-holed punched paper safe in water-proof plastic protectors and a final flap with criss-crossing elastic bands that render third-line of security. I am told dossiers become a life-long habit, perhaps even an addiction but I don’t believe I am at risk.

Jeroen’s ATM card has a picture of Lucky Luke shooting faster than his shadow. If you don’t know about Lucky Luke, get on Amazon and buy the Goscinny’s. The Stagecoach. It features Jolly Jumper, the horse that can run so fast and play chess so slow and Jesse James. M. Lausberg prefers Obelix to Lucky Luke. It’s close.

M. Lausberg told us that his daughters spoke English and Italian fluently, whereas for him English was a heavy foreign tongue. He is of Belgian descent and can make better frites than any Frenchman. We offered to teach him essential English phrases for bankers just in case he gets transferred to the New York office in a dystopian future.

1.  This is a hold up.

2.  Unmarked bills

3.  Getaway car

4.  Burglary, theft, pick-pocket

5.  Armed robbery

6.  Drive-by shooting

7.  Don’t call the cops

8.  Ransom, kidnapping

9.  Let me see your hands

10.  I don’t got all day.

M. Lausberg punched our new address into his computer with obvious satisfaction when we returned to report our move to Antibes from Valbonne. The apartment we rent would cost a little over a million euros. Would we qualify for a loan?  No? Would M. Lausberg make some special arrangements to help us get that loan?  M. Lausberg’s vocabulary increased with a new phrase: White collar crime.

We are now officially Antibois and proud of it.  Why not Antibien? Or Antibais? M. Lausberg explained: Nicois from Nice, Marseillais (pronounced mar-sigh-yay) from Marseille, Strasbourgouis from Strasbourg, and Parisien from Paris, a cold grey busy city in the North that knows to pretty itself with black and gold. We are in the South of France.

Heathcliff and How to Live a Happy Life

This is less travelogue and more philosophy. I expect to recover and get back to describing life in France soon.

I am not a cat-person or a dog-person. I describe myself as an elephant/ tiger/ dolphin person, large mammals that do not qualify as household pets. I have long held that God made cats and dogs solely for experimentation, and their value lies in their service to us as lab animals, testing not only drugs but also shampoo and make-up. That said, let me expound/ expand on Heathcliff, the orange striped cat who shares our home in Valbonne.

Heathcliff was described by my otherwise generous land-lady, Annie, as "wily, cunning and evil, with an ability to charm...he is a stray who will bite and scratch....the previous tenant, who'd asked if the house was haunted, fed this cat who now expects to be fed if not loved...don't let him in.."

Heathcliff survived this negative propaganda by mewling outside the glass door in the kitchen that opens onto the lane, rue du Presbytere. He has since taught me several life lessons.

1. Persistence pays. Heathcliff did not mew once and give up. No, he mewed everyday, morning and evening, and behaved as if he had a right to be here, and that we were mere rent-paying tenants whereas he had squatter's rights.

2. Seize every opportunity. Heathcliff has the ability to be in two places at once. He manages to get into the house when either the front or kitchen door is ajar even for a second.

3.Thicken your skin. Heathcliff knew well that he wasn't welcome, but he wasn't about to be sensitive and have his feelings hurt. He wanted in, he got in.

4. Forgive the ignorant. Heathcliff does not hold grudges. He readily and freely forgave us for inhospitality and rudeness without our asking. Indeed, he went so far as to rub his head against our legs, purring as he did so to tell us that we were friends, even if not feline, and that he would accept any food we had to offer. This was communicated non-verbally by standing in front of the refrigerator.

5. Accept cold milk if warm is not offered. Jeroen began to share 2% milk with Heathcliff. Heathcliff has his own shallow dish. No milk split so far. Heathcliff often waits for the milk to come to room temperature. If we had a microwave, I'm sure Jeroen would warm up the milk.

6. Fear shadows? This is something Heathcliff demonstrates. Jeroen will tease, yes, tease, by letting the shadow of his hands approach H. Fingers twitching in a V-shape are particularly delicious. H will pounce on them. Heathcliff will strike at his own shadow. This has taught me that all our desires and fears are but shadows that will vanish when the lights are off (or when the sun shines directly overhead, take your pick). Buddhism 101.

7. Prefer simple toys. Heathcliff is happy to jump on crumpled paper. I made two balls of paper, sorry Jeroen, those were the receipts you're looking for. Heathcliff had a blast. Two balls on the field would make soccer and football players less aggressive. Can't speak for rugby.
H ran from one ball to the other, entertained himself for half an hour, which beats the time a new, more expensive toy would captivate my children.

8. Expand your territory. H runs up stairs to hide under my bed on the fourth level. H has to be chased down with a broom, which makes me look and behave more and more like a witch. Halloween is close, now to knit a black hat.

9. Cozy up. Heathcliff jumps up and sits on my lap while I work on the computer, purring away. He does the same to Jeroen. I am now permitted to stroke him, gently, no sudden moves please. So far so good.

10. Discourage familiarity. After a half hour of cozying up, H will bite (me) or scratch (Jeroen) and jump off and leave. He might have heard the village gossip that we are planning to move in another week to Antibes. Is this his way of punishing us? He might  expect to be forced to move with us, clearly not something he wants. I have seen him emerge from a neighbor's cat door. Is H a player? Is he a stray? Does he own the house next door? H has mystique, a quality every cat and human should possess.

Was Annie right after all? Were we being used? So many questions....I shall ponder for a long time.

Meeouw from France.

Jeroen's week 1.

The gate keeper at Nice airport

I reached France about six hours later than I and KLM had planned, thanks to Holland’s friendly neighbours to the east. I spent a longish day in the lounge of Schiphol (sipping Pastis to prep for my time in the Provence). Most morning and early-afternoon flights within Europe were canceled after ground personnel found a WWII bomb under the C gate. Just after lunch, security closed Schiphol entirely as a Lufthansa airliner was approaching. From my comfortable chair I witnessed our national response to an imminent Al Qaeda attack. Code orange was confusing Dutch TSA officers. The Dutch commando unit in desert camouflage (admittedly, it was a sunny day) frantically ran back and forth by the Starbucks stand. What to do? Coffee, or country and queen? Apparently, the German pilot misunderstood descent instructions from the Dutch tower. This reminds us all of the infamous German coast guard joke:

Ferry captain calling in: “May-day, May-day, May-day we are SINKING!!” German coast guard responding: “Okay, okay, okay, but what are you (th)sinking about??”

We bought a 1998 Honda-CRV for 2000 euros from Alessandro, an Italian researcher from the Galileo school of astronomy. Alessandro is a deep thinker indeed as he foresaw administrative hassles ahead: a Japanese car with Italian plates to be driven in France by a Dutch geologist with a US address. The otherwise stoic French DMV official would surely flinch this time. Alessandro suggested that I use the car “for the time being” until all paperwork was sorted out. Time being in this case is five weeks and counting. He brought the Honda to Nice airport and we said our bonjour, ca va?, ca va bien!, et vous?, ca va, merci!, au revoir. I was thoroughly pleased with putting Lecon 1 into practice until I discovered that I had misplaced the parking stub and I would have to pay for the full day’s fare.  A frantic search of my pockets, bags, and Honda came up empty. With only 20 euros in cash I headed upstairs to the gate hoping that I could sneak out by tail-gating an unsuspicious driver, a trick that we have rehearsed frequently at the Ann Arbor YMCA. But no such luck. The barrier of parking lot D7 in Nice airport has no Mediterranean attitude. Fortunately, the guard at the gate - Fabien, according to his nametag – who is responsible for the just-in-cases like me, was preoccupied with the Olympic Marseille versus Toulouse pre-game show. “Excusez-moi de vous deranger, mais mon chien a mangé mon ticket” (my first full sentence in French!!) was met with a blank stare. However, “I hope that the French teams will do well in the Champions league this season” did wonders. He couldn’t be bothered and opened the gate without looking away from the television.

The rond-point.

Driving in France is a bit like downhill skiing. One looks ahead and ignores mirrors. Moreover, changing lanes is obligatoire. While Americans let off steam in yoga, spinning and free-weights dojos, the French relieve anxiety and sweat in traffic. Yet, traffic moves in reasonable good humour. The round-about (rond-point in French), hailed everywhere for its safety and efficiency, is France’s most difficult traffic obstacle, the mogul of the traffic piste. It is where the elite driver stands out. The rond-point serves well as a model for the atom. There are discreet traffic lanes but Heisenberg urges drivers to go whether they please. When you approach the rond point, you are reminded that “vous n’avez pas la priorité”. If you play by the rules, it takes 10 minutes and some bravery to enter the rond-point. The French driver ignores authority and gets on with life. In my early French driving days (Sep 1-7, 2012), I would maneuver my way as quickly as possible to the lowest orbit of the rond-point.  I would do 360s, 720s, and even 1080s to catch my breath. Indeed, I was the laughing stock of the rond point, despite my Italian plates. When I had mustered enough courage, I would turn on my turn signal (more ridicule!), look over my shoulder (loud laughter!), plan my exit get out and off I go to collège, sailing school, the fencing hall, or ping-pong club

Heathcliff

I expected to go back to the boulangerie Le Fournil d'Eugene. Three a.m. rolls around, and I roll over and continue to sleep stirring briefly at 7 a.m. when the church bells ring. More on the matter of the church and the churchbells.  Valbonne is a small village, perhaps half a kilometer by half a kilometer (one-third of a mile...think metric every inch of the way). It is a Roman town which means we have some arches and streets run parallel or perpendicular to each other. The roads are narrow and cars are parked in lots outside the village. We live on the South-West edge and our windows to the South overlook the abbey where the aforementioned churchbells ring. It was charming the first week. The bells are not in tune, and sound tinny. Worse, they are rung either by a drunken man or possibly by a wayward child with an inability to count to seven and with no sense of rhythm. The bells also ring at noon and sometimes at 7 PM.

  

The deacon of that church has not come to visit us. His wife, on the other hand, brought us flowers from her garden and a sprig of lemon basil and greeted Jeroen profusely in French with, "Where is your lovely wife? I haven't seen her in a while."  I sat at the table sipping on tea. Jeroen continues to deny that he has another wife and says he'd never seen the deacon's wife either. Perhaps she was mistaken. We held on to the flowers and the lemon basil and haven't seen her since.

Valbonne, the little village, has at least 20 real estate agents and thirty restaurants. Among the best rates of these is a Restaurant Indien called Le Kashmir, up the lane from us. It has indoor and pavement seating and the front window has a painted Ganesh made of plaster or papier mache lit by strobe lights that flash green and red, livening up the village in a way the bells fail to. The people who run it recognize me and I'd heard them say more than once, "The doctor sahib walked past." So I decided to introduce myself. There are four men who work in the kitchen usually. They are from Lahore. I was upset for a while for a number of reasons. First, they had no business to call themselves Indien. Second, I cannot sanction their claim to Kashmir beyond the line of control. Third, I wasn't sure why they had a Ganesh in the window when Islam takes a tough stand on idolators. I went back to ask why they had the Ganesh in the window. The owner said that he is Hindu and from Delhi. I left euphoric, dreaming of peace in the years ahead. Indians and Pakistanis could live and work together, with religious tolerance etc.  He invited me to come and eat with my family.

We went in on a Saturday evening and were turned away although the restaurant was nearly empty. They said they were full and that I'd need a reservation for a Friday or Saturday night, and the owner apologized at length. I refused to be offended and promised to return the next day. (It was true, every table was occupied when we walked by thirty minutes later). We were delighted by the quality of the food we picked up on Sunday. I plan to continue to get food once a week or so since my kitchen is not fully operational. The cook and the cleaning lady both quit without notice. Alas. Last I heard, they were writing a novel.

Now for the low-lights of the culture in the village. We have a sculpture exhibition of the works of Roger Capron. Jeroen is not a fan because  distortion of anatomy is not his idea of art. I see the sculptures as colorful and harmless and plan to take some photographs before the exhibition ends at the end of the month. These works of arts are scattered around the village, mainly in the periphery. We cannot help but encounter them on the way to the car park or bus stop.

The first Sunday of the month draws vendors of clothing, antiques, linen and handbags in great numbers. I found myself mildly irritated by these infiltrators selling junk and disturbing the quiet. It felt like I was trapped in an open-air thrift shop.

News on the cat front. Jeroen has been feeding Heathcliff ('easecliff en francais) the orange cat. I am confused. Heathcliff rubs his back on Jeroen's jeans and mews at us on the street, staking his claim on us as Primary Providers, an honor I decline. For a stray he appears well-fed, but I cannot explain his confidence.

Wouter and Mohan are happy at school. Wouter is #4 seed at table tennis, Mohan is #10. It's not only because I am their mother that I say this: They are under-rated. Which could be an advantage in a competition. The boys went to a karate class and recoiled at the violence. The dojo here encourages sparring, quite unlike the one in Ann Arbor where junior students are taught restraint. A young man took a kick to his face when the black belt lost control and could not retract his foot in time but swung with his weight after the foot made contact. No loss of consciousness or blood, but one less beautiful Frenchman walks the streets of Antibes. Karate will have to stay on ice, though not the same ice that was placed on the Frenchman's face.

Mohan signed up for fencing, twice a week for a total of five hours. Both the boys have joined a ping-pong club which seems to be a free-for-all. They are also sailing Hobie Cats twice a week. I understand that these are hard to capsize, yet the feat was achieved by one of my children. Fortunately the school doesn't give them homework.

Of school, I have only to tell you that Prof Tutta told Mohan that he was stupide. Took me back many years when I was accused of that same fault. The music teacher yelled at Wouter twice, once for not having a plastic cover on his music notebook, and again for dropping his pencil in class. I have to buy recorders for them before next week. The school PTA is holding elections which are not discussed on the local news. I have brochures and a list of candidates with dubious qualifications and character references. Obama-Romney is an easier decision.

Jeroen and I went for a 5 km hike to the ruins of a Roman camp. I am very pleased that I could walk and didn't have too much pain the next day. Yay!
We will have to move to Antibes next month. We've looked at a few places. I'd like something with a view of the Med that's close to school.

Arrival

Shortly after we arrived here at the end of August a little nervous about the coming year,
we moved into an old charming (read difficult) house in Valbonne, with the bathrooms and bedrooms on the third and fourth floors, the kitchen on the first, not intended for anyone with a physical disability.

A stray cat was here first. He is called Heathcliff and bites and scratches anyone who dares show any affection. He comes in whenever the door is open. Chasing him out is not easy, especially since Heathcliff moves fast.

The boys did not get admitted to the CIV. No spots at all in troisieme. The local college is obliged to take them but the Principal (who, according to my landlady hates children, parents and teachers equally) sighed, shrugged and said the boys were not francophones and would not be accommodated, nor would there be any allowances for them.

We were referred to another college called Rouston in Antibes which has a program for foreign born French-deficient children. They had to take a test to judge their level and started two weeks ago in this school. 19 children in their class, ages 12-15, 11 boys, 8 girls from Turkey, Italy, Romania, Ireland, Philippines, Indonesia, Latvia.....Wouter and Mohan proudly represent the American contingent. Their class is taught mainly by Prof Tutta, who Wouter thought resembled an auto-rickshaw driver in India: Sandals on his feet, short-sleeved white shirt untucked over khaki pants. Fortunately, all the children love the Prof and enjoy the class. The school week is limited to 25 hours, Monday through Friday. Wednesday is a half day, school ends at noon. On the other days, school ends at 2:30 or 3:30, depending.  Of these 25 hours, 18 are devoted to French. Wouter and Mohan are glad they learned so much from Madame Jeri in Ann Arbor. The kids who haven't had any French are struggling. The good thing is that the only common language the kids have is French. They spent the first week staring at each other in silence, now they talk to each other.
For the rest, they have 2 hours of math (learning to write numbers in French, now advancing to decimals, directed at the youngest child in the class), social studies (Napoleon and French history), music (they have to sing French songs). No science as far as I know.

School starts at 7:55. The bus from Valbonne reaches Antibes at 7:51 and they can't make it in four minutes to school. So Jeroen drives them every morning. It takes 40 minutes to drive those 14 km. 
The options for lunch are limited to go home for lunch or eat school lunch. Can't bring a sandwich from home. So they eat school lunch and learn to appreciate my cooking.  We will move to Antibes on the first of November. The kids can then come home for lunch. We haven't found a place yet, but are continuing to look for a place close enough to walk to school.

I have mixed feelings about Valbonne village. It's infested by English-speakers who don't speak any French. I played doctor two weeks ago when two drunken Englishmen got into a bar fight with an unknown assailant who got the better of the Englishman on the ground with broken nose and swollen eye and bloody face. The other Englishman swore at all present including the local police while I cleaned wounds and checked out the injured man. He wanted to take his friend home in a taxi. I sent him off in an ambulance with a neck brace. The policeman said under his breath, "Toujours les anglais."

This has improved my standing in the village. The locals now know about me and thank me for saving a life (which I didn't but I don't tell them that). I have since become best friends with the baker. I went to the boulangerie yesterday at 3:30 am to bake with Remy who has just bought the business from his step-father, Eugene. I stood around and stayed out of his way while he prepared his miche and orchestrated the baking of pastries and baguettes and boules. I plan to go again to learn a little more about the mixes for the different kinds of bread. On the wall was a certificate from Bannette, the supplier of flour, that recognized this "Four d'Eugene" as an outstanding boulangerie. Remy told me it's what you get when you buy a lot of flour from them. Remy can speak perfect English (he went to the CIV for Lycee) but he will not speak it in France. He used his English when he went to Thailand last year with his girl-friend who sells the bread on a table outside the bakery from 7 to 1 pm every day. I understand perhaps 30% of what he says and I nod a lot.

We have also a relationship with the grocer, Frederica and her husband Sebastien. F told me with a wink that the boys have been buying les bonbons. We have a market in this town on Fridays. Oliviers with olive oil in bottles. My landlady who is English and is married to a Frenchman and speaks like a native has olive trees in her garden. I've asked her to call when the olives are pressed in the local moline.

I have a great feeling of satisfaction as I eat the bread and the little pates of tapenade mixed with olive oil biensur. I said to Remy, "Je suis en France et je mange bien."  Who knows. We are falling in love with France.

Au revoir et merci de tous.