Un Mois

As of Monday, we have been in France for a month. In some ways time has seemed to fly by, yet in other ways it feels like we have been here for quite some time.

We have now been initiated into the Marseillais culture. On Friday we had dinner with Pierre and his girlfriend Selha. You may remember Pierre from our earlier LeBonCoin pursuits, he was the one who basically gave us everything that would fit in his trunk and then delivered it.  Well, he also invited us over for dinner and introduced us to Marseille’s drink - Pastis. Pastis is an alcohol that is served by mixing one part Pastis to five parts water. When the two are mixed together the amber alcohol diffuses and turns the mixture a milky white! Pretty cool party trick huh? The drink itself tastes like black liquorish. I myself am not a liquorish fan, but actually enjoyed the pastis because there is little after taste and the liquorish flavour is not overwhelming. I guess, if I was a rough and tumble Marseille sailor, I would take my pastis one to one with water and perhaps it would be a bit more overwhelming, but I am enjoying as it is at the moment. The dinner was splendid with a shrimp and avocado topped salad to start, a local fish (I forget the name) and julienned carrots, zucchini, fennel and pepper for a main, a cheese plate, of course, and a fruit salad with homemade litchi rum for desert. They were oh so generous and we will definitely have to return the favour once we have settled into our new place. The discussion was great and pretty much 98% in French! Things are coming along.

In fact Friday was a very good French day for me. Not only did I have dinner in French, but I connected with a newly made acquaintance for coffee.  I met Raphelle on the bus, on the way to Ikea , because she was reading a teach yourself English book.   She is studying English so that she can work in London in January. We spoke about half French and half English, and I helped her with her CV. It was a nice combination of the languages and nice to talk to someone who understands what level you are at. In addition to that, I encountered one of my classmates from the French class on the metro and had a half decent conversation with him about why as a Canadian I don’t already know French. I figure I just have to keep throwing myself out there and muddling my way through the language.

We have also thrown ourselves into getting to know the city. I didn’t realize how much I missed being in a bigger city until we got here. I especially miss the people watching. In Kingston, I never really just stood around and waited for a bus or had to wait in line. Everything and everyone was just around and accessible, which definitely has its perks. Also as a high school teacher, anonymity was not an option. In Marseille, waiting for the bus is a type of entertainment in itself sometimes. Some of the most unusual things we have seen include a woman carrying a ferret around Ikea, a man finishing off the last of a boxed wine bag while chatting on the street about parking, and an elderly gentleman chewing down on a cinnamon stick. (Is this a new way to quite smoking?) In addition to these I have developed a pet peeve, which Keith and I have termed “soother sightings.” Now, I know we are not parents and I don’t want to criticize those who use soothers, but when a child is a certain age, I think it is time to give the thing up. We have seen numerous times children at the supermarket having long conversations with their parents through soothers.  Why would parents put up with this? Get the kid to take the thing out of their mouth and talk properly. Most of these children are well past the age of three and obviously want to be interacting. The current top “soother sighting” was a child who was at least as tall as my hip, walking with his mother in designer jeans, and a leather jacket.  If I am totally out of line about my soother parameters on acceptability, I know that many of you will correct me, but this one was absolutely ridiculous!

It is nice that we now have the ability to settle into the enjoying our commuting on public transit with all of its observations and not worry about where we are going or when our stop actually is. The ability to hop on a bus and arrive at Ikea for example has been a treat. We have now acquired a set of dishes (on sale!!), utensils, glasses and a half decent knife. The one I have been using at the residence made me want to stab it into the table and leave it there, but I have found my Zen again with a beautiful paring knife that slides through tomatoes, as if they were butter.  My Ikea addiction continues as I try to figure out what sort of bedding we need and dream about fun lamps, rugs and frames that I am not allowed to indulge in until after we move into our apartment.

It feels like we have accomplished a lot in getting to know the city and a bit of the language, but considering that we have now been here a month the lack of our own place looms over us as a sign that really we still have not fully settled in. In addition to this, there are some pangs of homesickness that have started to grow. Some of these things are very silly like not being able to find a store that sells yoga mats, or rationing my English reading material because I don’t want to spend 20 Euros on a new book. (I can’t get a library card until we can prove we have lived at one address for three months. Errrr.) Other things have hit home with more impact and made me sigh.  Having left behind our Kingston lives a month ago, I am realizing how much I miss my students and their entertaining stories. Hopefully in the not too distant future I will have other teenagers telling me equally funny things. Teenagers let loose about their adventures with a stream of consciousness style that I miss. As we plan for Christmas with Elise and Aid visiting us, I am also realizing that this will be my first Christmas away from parents and all of those loved ones in Edmonton. This makes my heart ache and I wish now that we had not been so rushed in those last days of packing so that we could have squeezed in the advent calendar. I don’t really remember a Christmas without the advent calendar, although I do remember that at one time it was new. For those of you who have not seen it, my mom made me a replica of the advent calendar my brother and I had when growing up. It is a felt stitched Christmas tree on which you hang an ornament every day leading up to Christmas. My brother and I would fight over who got to hang what ornament, and we had a special order and place for many of the colourful toys, animals, and Christmas objects that were represented. Alas things are going to be quite a bit different this Yuletide, but I guess after seven years of marriage perhaps we should start making some of our own traditions. Keith’s big plan is to get a palm tree in place of a traditional Christmas tree. Will this be something we continue when we return to Canada?

I apologize for the lack of pictures with this entry. I have actually taken some floral photos lately, but I need to start developing more of a street photography mentality so that I can get some photos of people and the bizarre things they do.