Another little note: As we prepare to post this, it is December 3. The “expert” from the French telecom company changed something out and we had wi-fi for about an hour – a couple of weeks ago! He is supposedly coming back tomorrow, but today we awoke to find wi-fi! It won’t let us open some things, so we’re not sure what’s going on… The hardest part of this trip has been dealing with the internet, pretty much wherever we’ve been. In any case, that’s not much to complain about! Hopefully things will get better! More posts coming as soon as we can get a solid connection!
Our life here in St. Rémy is very different than our life in Oakland – for many different reasons, mostly good.
The first thing to say is that LuLu is très contente here! Because we are way off the road and there is a lot of property around our apartment, she is able to spend time outside unsupervised. There are an infinite amount of sniffies here and she takes her work seriously. So usually, once or twice a day, she spends 15-30 minutes outdoors on her own, exploring. There are two dogs that live here – Prospère, a handsome hound and Coquillette, a little terrier mix exactly LuLu’s size. Prospère is a rescue who’s is pretty much scared of everything, including LuLu! At first she was afraid of him, but now she wants to engage with him and he runs away from her! She and Coquillette basically ignore each other. They greet each other, take a minute to sniff and then go on their way.There’s no hostility, but they’re not bosom buddies (bottom buddies?) either. Also, Delphine’s sister-in-law, Morgane, and her partner Charles recently adopted Pongo, a purebred Beagle puppy and LuLu is intent on socializing him whenever he comes over!
Clockwise from top left: 1. Les Trois Mousquetaires – LuLu, Coquillette et Prospère. 2. LuLu and Pongo meeting for the first time. 3. Père coming over the fence for a visit.
The first couple of weeks that we were here was all about getting oriented and nesting in our apartment. Unpacking and feeling like we were HOME was a treat! We went to Ikea the first week. (Yes, we know. But it’s close and has much of what we need and is inexpensive.) Being cognizant that everything we buy will probably stay here, we kept the shopping to a dull roar. We purchased a few items that we felt we couldn’t live without – pot holders, rubber bowl scrapers, a laundry basket, a bonsai ficus (20€!), some tall glasses. And a throw pillow for the couch. All of this will stay here in the apartment, or go up to Théo and Delphine’s house.
We also spent some time exploring the grocery shopping possibilities in our town. The best are the open air marchés on Wednesdays and Saturdays which you have seen in the previous post. So that’s the best place to start – with the local producers who bring products that were picked yesterday! It should be noted that our enthusiasm for the marchés often exceeds the capacity of our frigo. At one point, while cleaning the refrigerator, Donna discovered 5 cartons of various types of olives from different marchés!
But close to us is a little commercial area which has the Intermarché supermarket, a BIO organic grocer and Cerise et Abricot produce market.
Intermarché is like Whole Foods on steroids! It has regular and organic produce, an entire aisle of organic flours, pastas, crackers, cookies, cereals, etc. Plus, a patisserie, a cheese counter about 15 feet [5 meters] long, a butcher, a charcuterie et traiteur with prepared foods such as smoked meats and sausages and about 49 different types of ham (including the best bacon we’ve ever had!), patés, salads, dips and spreads, cooked meats, quiches and poultry, and a huge seafood counter that will prepare a shellfish tasting platter for you to take home (Haven’t tried it yet). Intermarché also has cleaning items, pots & pans, shampoos and bath soaps – everything that you might find at a grocery store at home. So – it’s convenient no matter what you’re looking for. And it’s open for longer hours. Bio and Cerise et Abricot close at lunch time – very standard in France. Of course boulangeries (bakeries), patisseries (pastry shops), fromageries (cheese shops), boucheries (butcher shops) and poisonniers (fish mongers) are abundant.
In terms of entertainment, there is quite a lot to do here. There is an event venue called The Alpillium which offers theater, music of all genres, dance recitals, etc. At the end of September there was the St. Rémy Jazz Festival and we attended two of the three concerts. The first night we saw the Steeve Lafont Trio with Costel Nitescu on violin. This was Gypsy jazz and it was FABULOUS! The second concert we attended was on the recommendation of the Monsieur at Cerise et Abricot – the Richard Galliano 4tet. Also wonderful. Galliano is apparently is very famous in Europe. His son is the drummer for the group and he was, to Donna’s mind, the main attraction. Just wonderful! We also managed to score tickets to see John Mayall – aged, but still pretty wonderful with a terrific young female guitarist. We also saw Raul Mindón, an amazing guitarist and a two man “circus”, Inbox. These two young jugglers and acrobats tossed around about 20 large moving cartons for about an hour! They will be joining Cirque de Soleil on its upcoming US tour!
shine!
We are looking forward to some other events coming up in the next few weeks at the Alpillium. There is one movie theater in St. Rémy. It shows mostly French movies, but there will be the occasional English or American movie and that will usually be shown in the VO – Version Originale – for about half of the showings, and then dubbed in half of the showings. We managed to see the Downton Abbey movie, The Adults in the Room and Le Mans in VO. The movies are only here for a week at a time, so you have to stay alert if there’s something you want to see.
We have a little booklet that is an annual calendar of events in St. Rémy and we check it out to see what’s to do every week. November 11th we attended a ceremony in remembrance of the Armistice of 1918. The war memorial is in what is now a municipal parking lot next to the church. There were military veterans of various French campaigns, police, sapeurs pompiers (firefighters) and a class of either second or third graders with their teacher. Plus, about 100 other citizens. Wreaths were laid, the French version of taps was played by two lovely old gentlemen and the Marseillaise was sung. We then marched together to two cemeteries and did the same thing again at memorials in those cemeteries. It was quite moving and made Donna think of Daddy Jess, her maternal grandpère who fought in France during that war. Afterwards we went to Hotel de Ville for apéros and the presentation of a medal to an elderly gentleman for heroism in Algeria.
As far as television goes, we don’t have a schedule, so when we turn it on, it’s kind of a crap shoot as to what we will find. So we don’t often turn it on. One day we watched “Bones” in French. It was one we had seen previously, being a fan of the show and Steve Beers, its producer (husband of Donna’s good friend Rainey). So that was kind of amusing and fun. We have more often found “reality” TV – with shows similar to The Bachelor or Love Island. Young, attractive, overly dramatic people having conflicts – not our genre at all! We can watch Apple TV and (when we have internet) we can watch Netflix and Amazon. But most evenings, we read. Sam is reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and enjoying it tremendously. Donna is concentrating on reading in French. And mostly books she has read in English previously. It has made a big difference in vocabulary acquisition! A lot of words can be deduced from the context and occasionally she has to look up a word or two or three or four per page.
And speaking of the acquisition of French language skills… We have both been taking French lessons from a terrific teacher and Provençal native, Magali Viven. Sam has taken several weeks of lessons and is making progress. Donna took one week, concentrating on pronoun placement and more complex sentences. She is coming along. Every new adventure adds a new vocabulary word (or two or three or four!). Talking on the phone is still a challenge, but even that has improved!
One thing we have enjoyed is the French custom of Apéro – a little break between the end of the work day and dinner. Most bars will serve chips or nuts or tiny crackers when you have a drink at this time of day. So every so often, before dinner, we will go to a cafe or a bar for a drink and a chat. [Sam has never been roughed up for his sans alcool requests.]We love the custom and wish it would spread to the US! We go out to lunch or dinner a couple of times a week, but Donna is enjoying shopping for ingredients and cooking at home, so mostly we eat in.
At the butcher, the cuts are very different than what we find in US butcher shops, so that has been a challenge to try to figure out. To get a pork chop, Donna asked for a part of a pork roast to be cut off. Then she cut that in two to make two 1 1/4” chops. But it was boneless, so we missed the additional flavor that a bone-in chop has. The chickens come with their heads and feet still attached, so of course, Donna learned how to say “Please remove the head and the feet.” “Enlevez la tete et les pieds, s’il vous plaÎt.” [“SVP in this case means “dammit!”]
While Donna has enjoyed cooking, Sam has been an amazing boulanger! At least twice a week he has been putting out some of the best bread ever! And as mentioned previously, we share the loaves with our hosts, Delphine and Théo, who LOVE it! He has used the wood oven once, but since most of his loaves are no-knead, the bread needs to be cooked in a Dutch oven to begin and then taken out to be cooked on the floor of the wood oven. You get a little hit of wood smoke!
Note from Sam: A remarkable thing happened upon making the first loaf, in September. I bought a 1 kg bag of flour, Pain Bio aux 5 céréales! It’s white flour (US equivalent, high gluten flour) with rye flour, oat flakes, millet, rice, lin brun, and sunflower seeds. It made me look good from the start. But I’m a little afraid to take credit. (Donna says he shouldn’t be – it’s all been delicious!)
More recently, sourdough tugged at us and I’ve given it a try. Results have been tasty but somewhat uneven in the crumb. The recent NY Times recipe is long and time-consuming, but seems to be profoundly on point. I wish I was retired so I could have the time…. I found another, softer, easier way and it makes very good sourdough but it ain’t as tangy. All told, making bread here has been fun.
We have joined a fitness club, Wake Up Form, which is part of a chain in France. We go to stretching and Pilates three times a week. The club trainer came up with work-out regimes for each of us on the machines, so we can do on the days we don’t have class. The stretching and Pilates teacher talks about 300 miles a minute and is a bit difficult to understand, but Donna has learned a TON of new body part words! The instructor knows a very few words in English – like “straight leg” and “shoulder down” which she uses when Sam needs a reminder. But everyone is friendly and helpful. Sam is the only man in any of the classes and he suspects that the other men in the club (not Woke Up in this regard) do not approve of his attending the classes. Sam is finding that at this stage of life, his body rebelled after a spell of inactivity. Three months’ touring Europe was a lot of walking, but lifting was incidental and not enough! Range of motion thus curtailed is improving with strength and flexibility activity. He has just started physical therapy for carpal tunnel syndrome (R) and osteoarthritis in his shoulders (R & L) and can use the equipment and mats at the gym for these exercises.
We have also dipped a toe into the medical care in France. We both got flu shots – you get the prescription from the doctor, go to the pharmacy to buy the vaccine and then go back to the doctor for the injection. It cost less than 30€ each for us to get flu shots – which we imagine is a good deal less than what an uninsured person would have to spend in the US. Sam had an x-ray on his shoulder for 58.35€. Donna has been getting physical therapy for her knee at about 16€ per session (less than her co-pay in Oakland!). St-Rémy only has general practice docs, so if one needs a specialist, one needs to head to Aix-en-Provence, Montpellier, Marseille, Arles or Avignon, all within an hour or so of St. Rémy.We do have health insurance coverage on this trip, but it doesn’t cover pre-existing conditions. And as a wise friend of ours said – At our age, what ISN’T pre-existing?
Going into the GP’s office here is a very different experience and took some intuiting to figure out the way it works. At the clinic we have been going to there are no appointments. You walk in, say “Bonjour” to everyone in the waiting room and find a seat. Then you need to count how many people are in the room and make a kind of mental note of who was here before you. If there are five people in the waiting room, you are sixth in line. After the number five person exits the doctor’s office and he asks who’s next, you get up and enter. When you leave the office, you say “Au revoir” to the folks who are still waiting. Très aimable!
Once or twice a week Sam goes to Aix-en-Provence, about an hour away, where he has friends. Occasionally, Donna accompanies him and spends her time wandering around the Vieille Ville while he is with them. We may have dinner with them, or come home for something simple. Aix is a lovely old town with an amazing old historical center. And it has a mall with some interesting shops kind of on the order of Fourth Street in Berkeley. We have not yet spent any time being tourists there. We have big plans to get to the Cezanne Museum, however.
And, of course, we try to do some sightseeing here in Provence. The next few posts we will share some of the places we’ve seen in this beautiful part of the world.
LuLu's Outta Town 