Talbert Pipes Life in France Adventures Two Years On Maison Talbert in the big snow of 2004 Two Years On, Various Thoughts and Reflections A very weird realization - two years ago, on May 28th, we were being transferred at the last minute by our airline, who had dumped our flight, to another flight and another airline upon our arrival at the airport. On May 29th we touched down in France and haven't been out of the country since - in fact, we have barely been out of the workshop! I settled down to write this two years review with more of a challenge than the one year review, since our second year hasn't been as disastrous or horrifying as the first, and is therefore not as interesting to read about. Granted, it had its moments, such as the heat wave of the 2003 summer (when we had no air-conditioning) where we lost our $3,000 laptop computer (on which our entire income depended at the time) and the bank foreclosure on our old house in the US (which we were no longer able to make payments on). But, unlike year one, there are good things to report too - we've made some good friends here, business has gathered steam, we have learned the workshop better and are producing goods more reliably now, we have managed to fix up the interior of the house a little, and if the stars align correctly we will even have ADSL in a week or two. I'm going to write some follow-ups to a few of last year's topics, and also add some new ones. Our friends Dan & Nancy discover the joys of Brittany in January Part of our more enjoyable experience is simply because we now have a better idea what to expect from our environment, and know what to brace for. Our first winter was indescribably miserable, not only because we were homesick - winter in Brittany is an experience that would make even Mickey Mouse want to sit in a black room all day, if you're not properly prepared for it. North Carolina had its share of rain and nasty weather but I had never before experienced the sort of ongoing, week after week oppresiveness that the grey and rainy Breton landscape could create. Winter means bitterly cold winds, heavy charcoal-grey skies, and seemingly unending rain. One has to face this with a sense of humor, and learn to embrace and enjoy it curled up each night with a bag of hot popcorn and a classic horror flick... or you will go buggo. It's an environment straight out of a film noire, where the so-inclined can wander the jagged cliffs in soaking melancholy. Now, on to the commentary! Adventures in Expatriate Living: No one should move to a foreign country unless they are prepared to accept the locals on their own terms, and understand that cultural norms differ. I've met a lot of expats who love it here, and I've met a few who hate it here. The latter group generally stick exclusively to friends from their own country (England - we don't have this luxury since there are no Americans in the area), never bother trying to learn any French, and spend the majority of their time complaining about every aspect of French life. I don't understand why these folks go abroad at all, but there you are. You have to be prepared to enter a land where even the most basic things are unfamiliar, so be prepared for total confusion with even simple stuff like trying to decipher how to flush the toilets. Computers make the world go round: If we had to pick one disaster of Year Two that really stood out, it was the loss of our laptop computer. We do 90% or more of our real (meaning, profits large enough to pay bills with) business by internet, so when the one computer in the house goes belly-up, it's crisis time. Naturally, we had been so busy during our first chaotic year here that we had not been making backups of all our data, so we had a very bad few days where we weren't sure if we would ever get any of our priceless files back. It was also a forced cultural transition with the shock value of jumping into icewater, because our laptop was from the US and had Windows in English, as well as a QWERTY keyboard... while our replacement computer has Windows in French and an AZERTY keyboard. I was forced to learn to type all over again, under high pressure, and also had an adventurous couple of days getting the new machine to network to the dying laptop in order to salvage all of our old files. A lot of the problems here have been from the domino effect - we're so busy trying to cope with the daily struggles that we don't have time to do the essential "butt covering" that folks in their native cultures take for granted, so one thing goes wrong and its effects are compounded, which wastes more of our time and forces us to leave other areas vulnerable... and so it goes. Two years on, I am beginning to feel shades of my old normal self again - I have a comprehensive computer backup plan with multiple versions of all our crucial files, so I can cheerfully shoot holes in this machine if I like. And then there has been the ADSL saga - Herbignac was promised ADSL by the end of 2003 but the date slipped and continued to slip. I've learned to be mellow about this, as being late seems endemic to French culture (Emily and I turn up early for everything, because we are "on time"). It turned out that a minor soap opera had been brewing behind the scenes, with certain characters in the Herbignac town government trying actively to delay the implementation of ADSL here. This will sound really bizarre to most Americans, but the motivations seem to have been two - to embarass the left-wing mayor, and to "keep out those horrible forces of change". Thankfully reason prevailed, and our village is wired for ADSL as of yesterday. Our modem should be arriving...oh, perhaps in a month or two, since it will probably take that long for the ISP to bother shipping them out. Living in a Foreign Language: It isn't nearly as bad now as it was only a year ago. I still can't read books and magazines, but I can exchange basic chit-chat and I know what to look for on packaging labels. In fact, my current level of language is really rather blissful, because I can say the things that need to be said but I'm still pleasantly insulated from all the annoyances (commercials, radio DJs, door to door salesmen, etc). Emily can happily talk to anyone, even on the telephone now (for some reason deciphering a foreign language is thrice as hard while on the phone.. probably the lack of visual cues for word hints) and she could probably follow movies in French. Her French is sufficiently good that she has been hired as the Herbignac advanced-level English teacher, and now does this additional job one night a week. Also, I've met a number of bilingual people and this is excellent for my French practice, since we can converse in and out of both languages when needed. Probably the most enjoyable thing about learning a foreign language is that it can be "turned off". This can also be annoying, because one has to consciously "turn it on" in order to really focus on what is being said and understand what to say, but it can be quite handy to be able to tune out 100% when you're stuck in a long and boring meeting or a long line. Food and Wine: We've now been living here long enough to be utterly bored with crépes. Every single town has a créperie yet they all serve exactly the same menu - ham, cheese, ham & cheese, egg, etc. Bleagh! Some are good and others are not so good, but the difference between the best and the worst is so fine-tuned that they all seem nearly the same. There are a few places that offer specialties and more interesting twists, and these are about the only ones we visit. Other than now being jaded by the local dish, our food experiences have gotten much better - we've learned to recognize a lot of the frightening foods so we can avoid them (never, never look at the insides of an andouille sausage) and have found many absolutely delicious dishes that we're hooked on. Brittany makes up for its crépe monotony in the summer when the moules (mussels) come into season, and moules in butter & garlic sauce have replaced hot wings as a "food of lust" for me. It's just a shame that they are only available in the summer. Most foods, though, are seasonal here... as well as nearly everything else! In the US we were accustomed to being able to buy watermelons in January and air-conditioners in November, but here it sometimes seems that virtually everything but potato chips is seasonal and limited - it's on all the shelves one minute and gone the next, and you won't see it again for another year. The beer situation has improved a little - I've found some beers that are pretty good (I'm particularly fond of Leffe and Jenlain's absinthe beer, but Kronenbourg makes Bud seems classy...) but I'd still kill for a Sam Adams Cream Stout. Cultural Adaptation: We went to a Chinese restaurant in St. Nazaire which was really excellent, and the next week we found our way back to it (it is downtown) without a hitch. This will sound utterly unimpressive to normal people, but other expats will understand! We've learned the French system of navigating and now can drive all over the place without getting lost, simply because we know the basic geography layout. It isn't like the US, where one learns the main road numbers and names and navigates thereby. To get somewhere in the US, the process is as follows: Look at map Note the main roads you need, and which exit numbers to take Follow signs to I-85 and drive until you see Exit 119, then get on Highway 9 for 9 miles to merge with I-95 Etc etc. In France, the road numbers are not very reliably marked and often in towns they will change names every other block, while the country roads are unidentifiable. This throws US navigating styles into chaos for a while until you realize that the intersections are all very reliably marked with town destinations, and you navigate not by road numbers and NSEW directions but by town directions... "That is in the direction of Guerande, then La Baulle". Driving cross-country here reminds me more of Tarzan swinging through a jungle - you don't really have a detailed route but you don't need one, because you just follow the road that goes to the city in your direction, and when you get there you look for the next city's signs. Our trips have become: We want to go to Pornichet OK, that is in the direction of Guerande so we drive vaguely in that direction, following the Guerande signs at all traffic circles After Guerande, we sort of want to go towards La Baulle, so we'll follow any La Baulle signs we see until we get close enough to start seeing Pornichet signs It's a little harrowing at first for those accustomed to a stricter form of navigating, but you get where you're going and it does have the advantage that you never have to learn any road numbers because you'd never use them anyway. Traveling locally has gone from annoying to fun. Twisty inner cities, however, are still bizarre to the point of hilarity. Outside of navigating better, we have also adapted to other customs with more or less success. I still feel awkward when expected to kiss strange women hello, and probably always will. I'm accustomed to the constant handshaking now and even do it by reflex, which will probably be really embarrassing on my first trip back to the US. When our friend Camille teases me for not wanting to kiss cheeks, I tease her for being freaked out by the concept of hugging (Yes, here one kisses strange women but you do not hug anyone, apparently even your parents). Overall, we're a lot less worried about accidentally making fools of ourselves now. We still do this frequently, but now we know the culture well enough not to worry about it! Houses: We never did manage to sell our old house in the US, and eventually the bank foreclosed on it, which was a real tragedy. We had high hopes that someone else would get it and love it as much as we did, and that things would work out, but sadly this was not to be. However, we've worked hard to turn this one into a decent place to live, and gradually have been making small improvements to it wherever we could afford them. Probably as much as anything else, this "repainting" of our home has helped us to feel more a part of this new land and at ease with living here.