La Morte

Can you imagine in British Columbia a conversation that would sound something like this:

        “We’re heading up to Dead Woman for the holidays to do some skiing.” 

        “Oh, sweet!  We skied Dead Woman last year.  Actually the kids learnt to ski on the slopes of Dead Woman.”

 Just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as Whistler, Sunpeaks, or Big White does it?

That’s probably why I was pretty surprised to hear that we were heading to “La Morte”  for a ski holiday.  Well, the actual “station” itself is called “L’Alpe du Grand Serre”, but it’s right in the town of La Morte in the Rhône-Alpes region, about 40 km from Grenoble on the North Alps.  That’s a big difference between ski hills in Canada and France.  In France, often towns existed at the ski hill centuries before any entrepreneur thought about mounting a few télésièges and declaring it a ski village.

For the beginning of the two week school holiday that happens here in February, we were lucky enough to be invited by the father of one of Grace’s school friends, François, to join them for a school holiday at his sister’s chalet.  Moreover, this generous offer included the use of their second car.  Convoying it on a scenic route through the provencial countryside by car allowed us a different experience than whipping by it on a fast train, which up until now has been the only way we have gotten around.  Not only did it let us see the smaller towns from their inside streets, it also meant a much more windy path.  I remarked to Barry that it was probably hard on François’ french driving ego to be passed so often while driving at a slower pace so as not to lose the trailing foreigners.  Even by Canadian standards, Barry is known for his old-man style driving. But in all fairness, I was quite happy with the speed Barry was setting: the curves were very sharp and we had two little backseat passengers not feeling so well.

When we arrived at La Morte and saw our first glimpse of the ski runs, we were far from convinced that we would be able to do any skiing (think Cypress Mountain, February 2010!). There was barely any snow covering the hill.  Luckily, that night there was a healthy snowfall, so we were able to ski in the French Alps, something we never thought we would do.  Conveniently, we borrowed most of our snow and ski equipment from François’ family.   Lily learned to ski independently with her little “french fry” turns on the bunny hill.  She was thrilled and so proud.  A 5 year old from the lower mainland being able to say she learned to ski on the french alps.  Chic, non?

Barry and I even did some professional development during this trip.  The brother-in-law is a “directeur” of a country école primaire near the town of Vizelle. The school is newly built and I found myself drooling over the built in flat screen televisions, the separate smaller room attached to each classroom for art projects, group work etc., and the large upper story windows looking out to the mountains.  All the teachers made us feel very welcome and we enjoyed chatting with them during la récréation.  Among some of the information we discovered was the fact that now in France you become qualified as a teacher after passing one single written examination (les concours).  However, there is no opportunity anymore to get some practical experience in the classroom.  For my anglophone teaching friends who are interested in learning some new french vocabulary, imagine facing your first day of on-call teaching without ever having stepped in a class as a teacher and pair it with this french word: le cauchemar: the nightmare.  There is a good chance you won’t forget it!

By the way, our very welcoming hosts did tell us that the town of La Morte is thinking of changing its name.  I, for one, would suggest “L’étrangère Contente”  (The Happy Foreigner).

Odds and Ends

With the start of the second semester, Virginia and I are finding that our days are suddenly very busy so the blog has taken a bit of a back seat.  Here are a couple little vignettes from the past while.

Entraînement Physique:  Since arriving in August, the combination of cheese, bread and the odd glass of red wine has resulted in me putting on a little extra insulation for the winter.  Not such a crazy amount that I have had to go out and buy a new wardrobe but enough that I realize that the standard new year's resolution: to eat healthier and exercise, was very much in play.  I have taken some solace in the fact that gaining weight in kilograms sounds much nicer than gaining weight in pounds.  My augmentation of 5 kilos has a better ring to it than the massive amount of 11 pounds.  The next step of course is for me to gain another 3 pounds and I will have reduced my bodymass gain to a mere single stone.
For the past month I have been faithfully making my way over to a local gym three times a week and I am beginning to see some improvements.  I have found that there is a different sort of etiquette around working out in France as compared to Canada. In Canada you are generally left to your own devices as there are some serious work to be done.  At my gym, everyone is very friendly and I do enjoy the banter that transpires on the gym floor.  I must admit though that my pitiful excuse for biceps and triceps have resulted in more than one self proclaimed fitness guru approaching me and offering me their secret to an amazing body.  One fellow flexed in front of me, motioning me to touch his arms and pecs and proceeded to tell me that five years ago he had little tiny arms and a big belly like me (my comprehension on this day was unfortunately quite good).  He suggested I just needed to work out for two hours, five times a week for the next five years and I would be buff like him.  I thanked him for the advice and went back to lifting my meagre weights, thinking to myself that his plan sounded a bit harder than all those ads I see on TV.

"On se les pêles":  For me the most difficult aspect about learning a new language is incorporating new words into my vocabulary.  I can use my limited vocabulary quickly and efficiently though I really need to expand it.  In order to do this, I try to learn a new word and then use it 10 or so times a day until it becomes second nature.  A couple weeks ago, the weather turned quite cold and I tired of always saying the same thing to describe the days weather.  I needed to express myself more than just saying "il fait froid".  I overheard a friend say " il fait pas chaud" and voila a new expression for me.  That night, I went over to a buddies house and when I said my new phrase he told me that I could also use "On se les pêles".  I was so happy to have three different ways to say the same thing.  The next day was cold again and to everyone I met out came "on se les pêles".  The lady at the boulangerie, the parent in the school foyer, the coffee shop owner, and finally to Pierre with whom I go to an english conversation group every Tuesday.  Pierre was the first person that paused for a second when I told him I thought it was cold and with a slight chuckle he said that I should probably be careful with this particular phrase.  When I recounted this to Virginia, she did a quick little search on the internet and it turns out I had been telling everyone that it was so cold that a particular part of the male anatomy was freezing.  Yikes!  Fortunately the weather has been quite nice lately and I haven't needed to delve into my colourful vocabulary to describe a chilly day.

This weekend we are headed to the Alps for four days of skiing.  It is another example of people being extremely good to us here.  A friend has invited us up to his sister's ski chalet near Grenoble and he has even tracked down the special equipment that allows me to ski.  The girls start two weeks of holidays on Friday so a trip to the mountains seems like the perfect way for us to kick off their holiday.   Take care and love to all of you.

A Day in Nîmes

I, perhaps like many other North Americans, assumed that denim and blue jeans were an American invention:  Levi Strauss outfitting cowboys and gold miners in the Wild West, yee-haw.  But, I was doggone wrong.  The material of the blue jean originated in the cotton twill textile factory of the André family from Nîmes, France and was known originally as “serge de Nîmes” and then shortened to “de Nîmes” (voilà, denim).  The French language also gave English the word “jeans”, as in the 16th century the port workers of Genoa, Italy created some work trousers made from denim that were called “bleu de Gênes”.  So, no doubt Levi put his own twist on the blue jean, but he was working with a centuries old European product.

We only learned of this little trivia after our visit.  The reason we popped over to Nîmes, found along the ancient Roman road connecting Italy to Spain, for the day was mainly to see the best preserved Roman Amphitheatre and Roman Temple in France.  This was the first town we have visited in the Languedoc-Roussilon region, and is my new favourite spot in France.  We splurged for a fancier lunch than our normal fare at “Le Resto” and even let the girls each have their very own 8 Euro dessert:  Lily chose the “fondant au chocolat” and Grace the “riz au lait”.  We then just meandered through town,  past the impressive Roman sites up to scenic Jardins de la Fontaine where the girls had pony and bike rides.  The girls are planning on taking their Papa and Grandma back there next month.

The symbol of Nîmes is the croc that can be seen tied up to a palm tree on its ancient coat of arms commemorating Rome's military wins in Egypt.  Army veterans who served during this campaign were given plots of land in Nîmes.
Lily's contemplating life in one of the city's squares.

Florence

Somehow this Florence post got away on me (I had a nasty French flu bug and then our Rome visit popped up), but we had such an interesting week in the area that I couldn't let it slip by altogether.  Truly, our stay felt to me like a slice of history, art and food heaven...most within minutes walk from the apartment we rented.   

View from the Uffizi Gallery (Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Springtime highlights for all 4 of us)  looking down to the Ponte Vecchio and the River Arno.  The bridge used to house butcher shops but now mostly small jewellry stores.  When we were picked up from the train station and driven to our rental apartment along the river it was quickly evident why it is thought to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

You could smell the leather before you could see it!  The Florence leather market, where I could have spent much more time and money.

The apartment we rented was within the walls of what used to be a 13th century castle only half a block away from the Santa Croce Basilica.  Grace loved the ancient rings built into the side of many buildings for tieing up horses, including this one right outside the entrance to our building.  I wonder how many kids have done exactly the same over the centuries?

From Florence we took a bus and visited Siena for a day.  Here the girls are in the huge Piazza del Campo.  

We ate such delicious food on this trip.  One restaurant just down the street from us was rated very well on  "Trip Advisor" and, boy, were all the positive comments right.  We tasted the best lasagna any of us had ever eaten and shared some chocolate/pear pie that exceeded any dessert expectations:  we literally had to pry little Lily fingers from the plate to get her to stop licking it afterwards.  At a pizza place across the road they made their own special balsamic vinegar almost as thick as ketchup that was served with olive oil to dip  pizza bread in - we went back twice just for that starter.  Add onto this the best cappucino at only .90 cents and a 1 Euro pastry that I continue to try to find here in France (so far, without any luck).  Grace and I went back 4 times in one visit to buy yet another pastry to share.  Above, Grace is eating lunch in the town of Lucca.  Grace wanted a pasta with a cream sauce before we left Italy, and she hit pasta jackpot at the "Lucca In Tavola".  The only meal to have topped this, she claims, was a meal of Beijing noodles she remembers from our adoption trip for Lily.  

We spent our last day before flying out of Pisa in Lucca.  After the great eats, we took a walk on top of the wall surrounding the town (photo above) and then wandered through the pedestrian only streets of the city centre.  Lucca was charming, relaxing and quaint.  We were thankful to have made the effort to see it.

"A gelato a day keeps young travellers' grumpies away."  Lily's favourite flavours were anything with chocolate.  Grace was looking for the perfect match for "crema" (the mandarin/crema combo received top marks).

On New Year's Eve we found ourselves in a country hotel outside of Pisa where a few surprises awaited us.  First of all, it didn't take us long to discover we had ants in our room.  Thankfully they were of the small, innocuous variety, but still numerous enough that 3 steps in any direction guaranteed ant carcass on your socks.  As no other rooms were available, the fellow at the office was most anxious to solve our (and their!) problem. He was back in a flash with a large canister from which he freely started shaking some surely toxic white powder around that frightened me way more than our tiny roommates.  We quickly stopped him and I wore shoes for the rest of the night and the girls made a game out of moving around the room without touching the floor. 

 Secondly, our hopes that we could hit up the neighbouring restaurant for a bite to eat were quickly quashed: sold out New Year's meal.  Yikes.  Stuck car-less in a country hotel room and with no real food prospects, Barry decided to head over and talk to the restaurant and see if he could wrangle some food for us.  At first he told the girls to stay in the room, but I quickly suggested that if we were to have any chance at eating real food that night, he'd need the girls.  Bingo!  Barry explained the situation to the hostess and she quickly headed into the kitchen repeatedly talking about "bambinos".  Barry could see the cook doing a whole lot of head shaking (after all, he had 50 people on their way for a 4 course meal), but he was eventually worn down and the picture above shows what he had ready for us an hour later.  When Barry saw  food enough for 4 families and knowing that he had been inconvenienced on a very busy night, Barry tried to offer the cook some more money, but he was very gracious and wouldn't hear of it. 

Once again, three cheers for Italian hospitality!