Roquebrun

This is the quintessential French village. We visited it once in early September, and we enjoyed it (and their delicious wines) so much that we went back yesterday.

As you drive into Roquebrun, the view is magnificent. There is a tapestry of vineyards with L’orb river flowing through the landscape and Roquebrun climbing the hill beyond the river. As you can see from the pictures, Roquebrun is situated on a hill with ruins atop the village. There are other ruins (they look like watch towers) overlooking the river as well.

We spent a leisurely afternoon on the beach of L’orb, eating our brie, bread, and left-over BBQ chicken. Then Mike and the kids climbed into the chilly water to shoot the rapids. Well, Josey shot the rapids while Mike stood guard to rescue Max. I watched from the beach where I knitted peacefully in the sun, stopping frequently to take pictures.

When Max started shivering (it didn’t take long), he lounged on the beach with me. We were having fun watching Josey and Mike play in the water until we noticed Max and Josey’s thongs floating downstream!! Some small French children had thrown them in the water. Sheesh! Luckily, we got help saving the shoes and no one went barefoot.

After the water sports, we ventured across the bridge and into town. We kept walking up and up and up the beautifully maintained cobblestone paths until we reached the Jardin Mediteraneen. A walk through le jardin leads you to the base of the ruins. However, you cannot enter the ruins – unfortunately! The views from the top of the hill were absolutely breathtaking.

Roquebrun is the most well cared-for village we have visited so far. It is absolutely gorgeous. In fact, I can imagine living there

We ended our Roquebrun adventure at la cave cooperative. This is where all the local vineyards bring the grapes of the area to be made into wine. The region is known as St. Chinian, and it is famous for its delicious wines. Mike, ever the wine connoisseur, bought a lot of wine!

On the drive home, we were enjoying the amazingly beautiful architecture of France. Simply look out your window and you see either a vineyard in beautiful colors or a chapelle (small chapel) or an abandoned building of some sort or a castle. Here are some pictures to give you an idea of what you can see . . .

Visit our Flickr site for the complete photo extravaganza! http://www.flickr.com/photos/billats/

My dad will be here to visit next weekend, and we can’t wait to bring him to Roquebrun!

Love to all!

Mon Quarantieme Anniversaire

It’s true . . . I am officially 40 years old. Mike and I had a debate about when I actually turned forty, considering the time difference between France and the US. However, I can no longer deny it.

We started the day with a trip to the Pezenas farmer’s market where the kids each bought themselves a treat. Max finally found himself a beret, and Josey splurged on some hair clips.

I must digress to tell you about Max and his search for a beret!

He has been looking for the perfect beret since he arrived in France – seriously. Most of you know how fashionable that boy is!

Our search for a beret has been disappointing because the only ones we could find were 28 euros, which is well out of Max’s price range. Aha! Now that cold weather is creeping in, there are suddenly warmer hats at the market. So, much to our delight, Max found a black beret on my birthday.

He received compliments the moment he put it on: “Tres beau!” Several elderly women even patted his little head. (Sidebar: The French people often touch children – complete strangers! That is taking some getting used to, I’ll tell you.) When we stopped at the mushroom vendor about 2 minutes after buying the beret, the vendor was wearing the exact same beret! I said in my broken French, “Mon fils aime beaucoup votre chapeau.” (Translation: My son really likes your hat.) The friendly man responded in rapid-fire French something that I barely understood . . . I only got that this beret is the traditional beret of the Languedocian region of France, which is where we live. Max was thrilled! The whole morning, he kept asking me, “Mommy, do you like my beret? Does it look good?”

He lost another baby tooth last week. He actually swallowed it while eating a nectarine. He asked Mike to pull it out, and when Mike looked in his mouth, he said, “But Max, where is your tooth? It’s gone!” The 5 euros provided by the toothfairy paid for that new beret.

Dinner & The Bruns

We goofed around the rest of the afternoon, preparing for our first French guests. Our new friends, the Brun Family, joined us for my birthday dinner. Sandra, Jean-Louis, Victoria, and Noah were very welcomed guests. They kept the evening fun-filled and thrill-packed (just imagine trying to speak in a foreign language for 4 hours straight while making dinner, playing with the kids, etc.). Dado made his famous Fred Chicken (delicious!!), and Sandra made the delicious cake you see in the pictures.

You will all just love this: the sprinkles on the cake came from Walmart! When Sandra was last in the US, she bought them on one of her shopping trips. She absolutely adores Walmart, Target, Gap, and Old Navy.

They also brought me the gorgeous flowers. And Noah made me several adorable pictures of trains and Monterey. We haven’t known the Brun family for long, but I already feel very close to them. I thank them very much for making me feel loved on my birthday.

More About Sandra

I must digress again to tell you more about Sandra. I’ve mentioned her in several of my posts – she’s the one who really, really, really wants to speak “American” English. We have daily French/English speaking sessions with her at school, and we have the 3-hour marathon on Thursday afternoons while the kids are in school.

Sandra is a wonderful, kind, down-to-earth person. Mike and I are so grateful that she introduced herself the first week of school. She has done so much to make us feel welcome in Bouzigues: She has invited us to her house several times, she has introduced us to many people at school and in town, she has shown us the local swim center, she has taught us so much French, she has helped us understand what the teachers communicate with us (that is such a huge help!) . . .

She even included us in her friend’s surprise birthday party last Sunday. That was amazing! It was a Sunday “lunch” party that lasted 6 hours! There was a different course and alcohol involved with each of those 6 hours, too. It started with appetizers and Pastisse (the local liquere) and Muscat, progressed to lunch with wine, moved on to cheese with bread and more wine, and ended with fabulous desserts with champagne. There were about 12 adults and 8 children there, and they were very welcoming and friendly. Unfortunately, my camera was out of batteries, so I don’t have any pictures.

Merci beaucoup, Stephanie and Stephan, pour la invitation a la fete!

It was a fascinating afternoon. When we left (very full), Mike and I both commented on how exhausted we were mentally. It is very challenging to focus on French for 6 hours straight. It takes complete concentration to listen while the locals speak, and even with complete concentration I only catch a small portion of what they are saying. Luckily, I can often get the “gist” of things. Then, responding is even more challenging! Piecing together the few words I know into a comprehensible sentence . . . LOL!

Much to Mike’s delight, Sandra is also teaching him all the French swear words (gros mots), so he can eventually translate the soliloquy by the Merovingian.

It was a fabulous birthday! And you know what? I really don’t feel 40 at all! More like a mature 21.

Love to all!

The Nitty Gritty Part 4 - The Bouzigues Gym

Here is another nitty gritty post, but this one will be a quickie. Much like a visit to the Bouzigues gym!

The gym is upstairs from the post office, which is about 3 doors down from the school. (BTW: Our post office is only open from 8:30am to 11:30 am, M-F.) So, Mike and I visit the gym right after we drop off the kids.

The gym is about as big as the women’s locker room at Toadal Fitness, and most of the equipment looks like it’s from the 70s. Just check out the leg curl/extension machine (that's an actual chain!) and the free weights (yep, that's all of 'em).

And look at the "cardio area"!

Is the gym better than my rock workout? Peut etre.

Love to all!

Please Leave Us Comments!

Hi Everyone!

I often wonder if anyone reads my blog posts. I consider the blog posts to be an opportunity to share our adventures, but they are also my own journal of our time in France.

Thus, I tell myself that if no one else reads the posts, it’s okay. However, the truth is that I would be thrilled to know that someone, anyone, is really reading them!

So, please leave us comments.

To leave a comment:

1. Scroll to the bottom of a post.
2. Look for something like this:
3. Click on the word “COMMENTS”.
4. Type a message in the window.
5. Click .

Voila! When I check our blog, I will see that someone left a comment.

Now here’s a secret: I am thrilled when I receive a comment on the blog! This is true for any emails I receive, too (hint, hint).

Thank you so much Melissa, for all your comments.

Love to all!

Look Who's in High School!

I’ve been waiting to get pictures of Alex’s first day of high school, but I may never get them! She is now a freshman at Lewis & Clark High School.

Wow! And look at those beautiful teeth – no more braces.

The Nitty Gritty 3: Why Bouzigues?

This is a question Mike and I hear almost daily. The only question we hear more often is: Why did you move to France?

Let me start with Why did we move to France?

When Alex moved to Spokane, I was ready for a serious change. I did not want to stay in our Placer Street house in Santa Cruz if she wasn’t there, too. So, when Mike said one night in late April of 2006 (completely out of the blue): “Let’s move to some other country.” I thought about it for a few minutes, then I said, “Okay. Where?” Boy, was that easy or what?

Why did Mike have this bizarre idea?

First, it is simply too easy to spend your entire life doing the same thing every day: live in the same house, go to the same job, see the same people, eat the same foods, etc. He did not want to wake up in 10 years with all things being the same expect for one – the children would be off to college by then!

Second, we were very disenchanted with many of the residents of our neighborhood. Crappy neighbors are the worst!

So decided to experience life – to live a little! What better way to do that than to move to a foreign country with a different language, different customs, etc. It would challenge us in so many ways and teach us and the kids so many valuable things at the same time! We would all learn French and become world-travelers.

Thus, the idea of moving abroad was born. Our next steps were to:

• Get another job, so I could make enough money to support this strange idea.
• Decide where to live.

The Job & Santa Clara

I ended up with a fantastic contracting job at Cisco. Since I would be working in San Jose, we decided to move to Santa Clara for a year. All the better for me to be closer to work, right? We were moved into Machado Ave. in Santa Clara by July 23, 2006. (Yep, only 3 months after Mike’s original idea!)

Ugh. We should have stayed in Santa Cruz. Living in Santa Clara really didn’t teach us anything useful, and it’s not a pleasant place to live. I missed my friends & family terribly, and I also missed all things Santa Cruz (the views, the vibe, the stores, the gym!!). C’est la vie!

Two good things came from Santa Clara:

It put Mike closer to French classes. During our year in Santa Clara, he took 1 class during the Fall semester (Mission Valley College) and two classes during the Spring semester (Mission Valley and San Jose City College). He learned a ton, and he made two valuable friends in his professors. His Mission Valley prof was in Montpellier in August (her teenage son was taking French classes here), and we spent a great evening touring Montpellier with them. His profs have also provided invaluable help for us with translations, questions about France, etc. We thank them both!

We met the Woo family! Minji was in Max’s kindergarten class, and her parents, Sumi and Sung, are wonderful! We had so much fun spending time with their family. We hope they come to visit us in France. I miss them all a lot!

Deciding Where to Live

Here we are – job hunting, packing all of our possessions, renting our house, and turning our lives topsy turvy, and we have to make a decision on where to live. I honestly think the decision was based on The Merovingian. He is a character in one of the Matrix movies. Why The Merovingian? Well, we knew we wanted to live somewhere in Europe, but we weren’t sure which country. We didn’t know any of the languages (besides my 4 years of high school Spanish), so we were going to have to learn something. The Merovingian has an amazing soliloquy in French, and Mike has always wanted to know what he was saying. Voila! Let’s learn French! Thus, let’s move to France.

As I mentioned, I was just ready for a major change. I didn’t have any specific country in mind, so France sounded good to me. Am I easy or what?

Having decided on France, we now needed to decide where.

Mike would have decided based purely on where he could surf. However, there isn’t much surfing in France.

We aren’t city people (hmm . . . maybe that’s one of the reasons that Santa Clara was such a bummer!), so we definitely did not want to live in Paris, Lyon, Nice, or any of the other big cities.

D, Debb & Reed

Lucky for us, I decided to send an email to my friend Deanna (aka D). D used to work for us when we owned 3 Dog. I haven’t seen D in many, many years, but when I think of my friends, she’s always high on the list!

When D heard that we wanted to France, she said, “You have to talk to my sister!” And that’s how we met Debb.

Debb is D’s older sister, and Debb has lived in Bouzigues for 12 summers in a row. Debb and Reed also have an apartment in Paris, where they live the rest of the year.

When Debb heard that we wanted to move to France – but not to a big city like Paris – she instantly said, “You have to move to Bouzigues! It is the Santa Cruz of France!”

Debb has been wonderful since that first Skype call. She scouted rentals with the local immoblier to find us a place to live (you have to have a residence address to obtain a French visa, so this was a crucial task!), she communicated with us as often as our worries required (email and Skype), and she answered all the questions we had as well as all the questions we should have asked but didn’t know enough to ask!

Since our arrival in Bouzigues, Debb and Reed have been our saviors. They have fed us, entertained us and our children, taught us where to shop, toured us around Bouzigues and neighboring villages, provided invaluable advice on all things French, introduced us to many wonderful people – heck, they even let me work at their house for hours on end before we had our own Internet connection.

Their generosity continues to amaze us! Their latest act of largess: They have offered to let us use their apartment in Paris for my 40^th birthday celebration. Woohoo!

Merci mille fois, Debb and Reed!

So that’s how we decided to move out of Santa Cruz and how we decided on Bouzigues, France. Someday soon I will post another blog entry on the French visa process. That’s a doozy!

Love to all!

Cathie Galas & Dan Ingalls!

Last week we had visitors from Santa Cruz, and it was wonderful!

Cathie Galas has been a friend of mine since she joined Toadal Fitness several years ago. She started out as a Spin regular in my classes (right in the front row, where I always appreciated her smiling face), and she was also one of my personal training clients.

When we moved from Santa Cruz, Cathie and Dan (her husband) hosted my going away party in their gorgeous Rio Del Mar home. That’s how sweet they are!

Dan has a series of talks he is doing in Europe for business this month. They started in Porto, Portugal, and they had some time to sight-see before his next talk in Paris. Fortunately for us, they decided to use some of that free time in Bouzigues!

Originally, they only planned to stay overnight in Bouzigues. However, they had so much fun their first afternoon that they stayed through Wednesday. That says a lot for:

• The charm of Bouzigues and the South of France
• The charm of the Billats
• Both!

On Saturday, we filled the entire afternoon and evening with fun. We started at St. Guilhem le Desert, which is an amazing village 45 minutes away. The church there was built in the 900s, and it has one of the most beautiful pipe organs I have ever seen. The village itself is also breath-taking. Check out the URL, too.

http://www.saint-guilhem-le-desert.com/index.php?ChangeLangue=Uk

Next we took the tour through La Grotte de Clamouse. That is an amazing cave about 45 minutes away. I wrote about it in a blog post last month, if you want more details. It turns out that Dan has explored many caves in Virginia, so he really enjoyed La Grotte.

We ended our outing with a short sightseeing adventure around La Pont du Diable, which is a bridge near La Grotte de Clamouse. We climbed up the side of the mountain like billy goats to get the best pictures. It was completely spontaneous and really, really fun!

That night, we had dinner at La Cote Bleue. La Cote Bleue is the only hotel in Bouzigues, and they also have a restaurant that the locals rave about. Poor Mike decided to be daring, and he ordered the Bouzigues equivalent of a Fisherman’s Platter. Picture this: a huge, beautifully arranged platter full of oysters, mussles, clams, escargot, whelks (another type of snail), shrimp, and crayfish. Sounds good, right? Hah! It was all raw. He choked it down, but he wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t smiling the next day, either.

Over the next few days, we brought them to a Farmer’s market, had them over for dinner twice, visited Pezenas, and introduced them to Reed (Debb was out of town on business). They also did some sight-seeing trips of their own around the area.

I know this sounds truly corny, but I will cherish the memories of their visit. It was so magical just to spend time with them. Having friends here in Bouzigues, seeing what our new life is like, is truly special.

Thank you Cathie and Dan for being here!

Love to all!