I’ve reached the age where birthdays are more “Gha-a-a-a-a-a” than “Yea-a-a-a-a-a-a,” but we had a pleasant Saturday all the same. We decided to treat ourselves to a nice lunch here:

We had been here last year with Pascale and Jacky and loved it, but then we were here for dinner, we had dressed up, and we had a reservation. For my birthday lunch, we just showed up and were wearing nice-ish normal clothes, but woohoo, we got in anyway. So did this chien. Hey, we ARE in France.

David was smart enough to remember that the menu in French restaurants, which is always some combination of courses, is usually too much food, so we ordered only an aperitif, a main course and a bottle of wine. Here’s what came with the aperitif:

If you know David at all, you can imagine his lack of delight at discovering the front right one was pureed baby peas with lemon. (Quite tasty for anyone but David.) Then we had the best steak we’ve ever had in France. (We haven’t quite figured out what to order here.) Here’s the waiter doing something fabulous with the sauce:

Then, okay, we did manage to find room for a Café Gourmand:

After lunch, a bit more wandering around town, our usual people watching, then eventually home for a relaxing evening. It was a quiet, good day, no balloons, no singing, no gazillion candles on a cake causing a fire hazard, just a few here:

This marker of another year passing reminds me once again of all I have to be grateful for: you, dear friends, this journey certainly, and of course, my companion in adventure who will even eat the occasional pureed pea to help celebrate a milestone. We met 36 years ago today. Now that’s an anniversary worth celebrating. Cheers!

Sunday Pascale and Jacky picked us up and took us to see le Marais Poitevin, which is classified as un grand site de France. 

But before we got in a barque we had a bit of time to wander around the town:

And then had a traditional grand dejeuner here:

We ordered way too much food. The set menu included entrée, plat, fromage (optional extra), and dessert. First course for me, fois gras:

Then le plat or main course, where I misunderstood the menu and managed to order veal kidneys for both David and me. Jacky asked if I understood what I was ordering, but I assured him yes. David was, of course, at my mercy, since it was all written and discussed in French. Jacky also chose this, so here’s what three of us ate:

Pascale had an assortment of things, including eel, which we tasted and actually liked. Definitely a new experience. Then, the cheese course. I wasn’t able to finish any course but the first, not even the two small slices of chevre, and explained to the waiter, “J’avais les yeux plus gros que le ventre.” This is a well-known French expression just like the English expression, “My eyes were bigger than my stomach.” But because it was part of the set menu, here came dessert after the cheese course. When the waiter set mine down, he said quietly to me, “Désolé.” (“Sorry.”) Too cute. Here’s dessert for me:

Fortunately, the top part of an Ile Flottante is a very light meringue, mostly air, and the creamy custard part was fabulous. Still, I could only manage to eat a  few bites. After this feast, Pascale and Jacky rented une barque, like one of these, for une petite balade in the marais.

Marais can be translated “bog, marsh, swamp,” none of which seem to evoke how beautiful and tranquil it all was. Pascale and Jacky were smart enough to rent the boat WITH the guy on the back, le pilote, to do all the paddling.

At one point we caught up to a barque sans pilote, stuck sideways, blocking the entire canal, and the guys paddling managed to get it unstuck only to get stuck again, which was–let’s be honest–hilarious. Other than that, though, it was remarkably serene considering how mobbed the town was.

We glided along, completely relaxed, taking pictures and settling into the peace of the place. I kept feeling the urge to recite from The Wind in the Willows, especially after catching a quick glimpse of Ratty (or one of his French cousins) right before he dived under the bow.

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” * 

I agree, especially if you can do it on a perfect Sunday afternoon with delightful friends.

*Rat to Mole in The Wind and the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. See the quotes page for newly added quotes from Kenneth Grahame. 

My friend Nikki asked me to occasionally mention things that are not completely fabulous, to help her avoid feeling jealous, so I’ve wracked my brain (because we are having an excellent time) and come up with a few. So, Nikki, especially for you . . . .

Living here does occasionally require, well, intestinal fortitude. Or maybe gumption. Whatever the mot juste, I can assure you  it’s not always easy or perfect.

Strong arms are required to live without a car, and having to schlep everything all the time, no matter how good it is for our fitness, is just not that fun. In addition to groceries, water, wine, etc., often there’s my school bag and/or my camera bag as well. Sometimes I can get David to act as my sherpa, and he certainly carries the vast majority of the groceries, but I draw the line at asking him to carry my girly-looking bags. So, tired arms and aching shoulders, not to mention . . .

My poor feet. Sometimes I can almost hear them demanding, “Seriously?!? Sit. Down.” Oddly, the most comfortable shoes for all this walking have been my OrthaHeel sandals, which are really just fancy flip-flops. You should see the looks I get. Feet-face-feet again. Could be the fab plastic jewels, but more likely the slap-slap sound. The looks I get are not admiring. They’re either stone-faced or slightly confused. It may change as the weather continues to warm up, but at the moment I may be the only person in La Rochelle, besides the occasional 20-something guy, wearing flip-flops.

Next, strong nerves are required when you find yourself on a narrow sidewalk with a wall on one side and cars screaming around bends, practically on two wheels, on the other side. And I mean, Right There Next To You. So close your hair practically blows back. Yikes. Cardio workout anyone? Let me catch my breath.

You also need adapability for the unexpected. The first time I walked into the rather posh restroom of the Café de la Paix and realized a gentleman was coming in with me, I was, to say the least, startled. Each person does have his or her own little compartment, but I felt just awkward enough that–I confess–I hid in mine until I heard him leave.

Certainly strong self-esteem is required–or at least a willingness to laugh at yourself–because making stupid mistakes in French is a daily event. Every. Day. Multiple. Times. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve asked for 6 or 8 planches (which means planks or shelves or boards) of bacon fumé instead of 6 or 8 tranches (slices).

Then Wednesday, instead of explaining I was fatiguée (tired) after my little illness, I told the receptionist at school I was fatigante, which is likely true, since it means tiring or annoying, but was not what I meant to say. Everyone, whether vendor, server, friend or teacher, has been unfailingly kind and helpful, correcting the gender I’ve used and/or my pronunciation (un pain ordinaire, pas trop cuit*, with no T sound, but une baguette, pas trop cuite*, with the T sound). I’m still not too great at saying le moelleux, but since that’s a delicious warm chocolate lava cake with a melt-y center, I’m not going to quit ordering it!  

Sometimes you even need a strong stomach, since there are a great number of, how shall I put it, souvenirs des chiens on the sidewalks. They are easy to avoid, but are not pretty. This is in spite of the signs requesting a ville propre (clean city), complete with a rendering of how exactly one cleans up after one’s dog, since it’s such a foreign concept. (I know, right? I so wanted to include a photo of the sign, but I’m afraid David vetoed it for the Good to Know post, so I probably shouldn’t put it here either.)

And if you happen to walk through the central outdoor market area just after it finishes for the day, but before the debris has all been swept up, beurk!*  But your timing has to be spectacularly bad, as ours somehow usually is, because the clean-up is thorough and immediate. David loves offering me items from the gutter as we pass by, as if he were a waiter. “A little fish today, maybe?” as we pass a particularly odiferous leftover. “Or perhaps a squashed tomato?” Dégoûtant!*

*Vocabulary:   Pas trop cuit(e) = not too cooked (browned)       Beurk! = roughly, yuck / Dégoûtant! = Disgusting  

So . . .  helpful? It’s surely not news that there is no perfect place on earth, or perfect people for that matter. We all make do the best we can. It brings to mind this: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8 Seems like an excellent goal, wherever you are.

This weekend David and I both had the opportunity to experience adventures in ill-health while abroad! Yippee. Saturday evening David developed some sort of stomach bug, complete with fever and chills, and was just sick enough for me to start freaking out about my lack of preparedness for health issues while here.  Neither of us is prone to sickness, so I didn’t really think I had to have that all figured out. We have international health insurance because it was required for the long-stay visa, but other than knowing where to find a few pharmacies, I felt pretty ill-equipped. I do know 911 is useless here. Instead, you call 15 for medical emergencies, 17 for the police, and 18 (or 112–don’t ask me, I have no idea) for the fire department.

Fortunately, no emergency services were required, and David is on the mend. But just when he was starting to feel better yesterday, I started feeling unwell–I’ll spare you the details–and became increasing convinced that I’d have to miss my first day back at school and would somehow need to find a doctor and get myself there, since antibiotics would be required to get me back to health.  I remembered the welcome packet for school (yes, I’m one of those people who read things like that) had a page of emergency contact information, so I was able to find a clinic half an hour’s walk from the house. It’s just around the corner from here (below):

I was still in a bit of a panic, since although my French is definitely improving, I’m not great at talking on the phone, but I felt I should call the school to let them know I could not return today, and then I had to call to get an appointment with a doctor. I managed both, in a rather bumbling, incoherent way, admittedly, but . . . yay . . . gold star for me.

I’ve read somewhere that doctor’s appointments in France are rather different than those in the states. Don’t know if this is true or not, but I’ve read that you have to take off all your clothes and sit there, awkward and freezing, on the examining table without so much a tissue: no gown, no drape, naked as the day you were born. And while it is true that things were rather different–no nurse checking my blood pressure, taking my pulse, making me stand on the scale, no nurse at all, in fact, and best of all, ZERO paperwork–I’m happy to report, no nudity was required. The doctor was the one to fetch me from the waiting room, and we walked through a little courtyard to a small exam room, but he sat at a little desk and I sat in a chair on the other side and we had a conversation–flipping between English and French as either of us lacked the necessary vocabulary. Then he explained the prescription he was giving me–three pills, take one a day, avoid the sun, drink LOTS of water–then asked me for 23 euros, shook my hand and showed me out.

I retrieved David from a bench in Place de Verdun and we went to the pharmacy where I turned in my prescription and was immediately given the packet of pills–cost 13 euros 56 centimes. Done and done in about 20 minutes and for about 40 bucks USD. Love it. We, however, did not feel quite well enough for lunch here:

And while I certainly would have preferred that neither of us get sick, it was one more fear conquered–okay, two–the phone AND the doctor. Here’s hoping your fears can be conquered without the need for ill-health.