Week 2 1/2 - 3 1/2: Olonzac

By the time we arrived in Olonzac, we were ready for the quiet part of our vacation. Paris was full of sight-seeing and socializing; Toulouse was all about walking. Our bodies were getting in shape, but we were tired.

Our rental house was in Olonzac, a small town with few services. The house was actually part of a larger house, so our owners were right next door. Upon our arrival, the house was freezing. There was some electric heat however, except in our bedroom, and a fireplace. They welcomed us with some basic information, and in an effort to be a good 'guest', I inquired "Who is your favorite olive oil vendor?" The response floored me, "Oh, I don't like olive oil." It turns out that the don't each much French cuisine at all, except for the wine. Each night we smelled their boiled sausages, food cooked to within an inch of its life. Did I mention that there was no separation between our two units? We heard their conversations and smelled their food. The owners, whose names have totally escaped me, had moved from their native England. The husband was trying to learn a little French, but madam was not. It appears that they moved for the sun and wine alone.

With enthusiasm, we found an intermache and began to shop for food. We weren't in Toulouse anymore! The selection of produce was no where near as exciting, but we found enough to get started. By the time we returned to our house, the rooms had begun to warm up. We opened a bottle of local wine, and I began to plan our meal. The kitchen, sold to me as a gourmet's delight, lacked the most basic elements of a French kitchen. No sharp knives, no BREAD knife [this is a country that celebrates bread daily!], no mill, no tart pan, several pots but only one handle, and every single pan was covered in teflon. As I surveyed my tools, it became clear that producing the meals that I had imagined in my head was not going to be possible. Leslie and I fondly reminisced about the lovely food we had seen just that morning in Toulouse. In spite of the obstacles, I was able to produce a dinner of veal, potatoes, flagolettes, cheese and cookies. It was delicious. We finished the bottle of wine. Okay, I finished most of the bottle of wine.

Week 2: Two Days in Toulouse

The TGV from Paris to Toulouse leaves from the Montparnasse train station, a modern, sleek concrete structure. This was our second visit to this train station and so we knew the layout quite well. Instead of taking the metro, we took a direct bus. Much easier to negotiate with the bags.

At the station, we purchased some sandwiches and water before settling into our large, and very comfortable seats. I love the TGV! It is comfortable and someone else is doing the driving. We alternated between reading, creating email [there was a plug at each seat for laptops], and napping. Around 1:00 we pulled out our picnic and enjoyed lunch.

Arrivals in new towns is always a little disorienting. The Toulouse station was packed with people, and was shrouded in bright orange scaffolding so none of the directional signs were visible. After some confusion, we headed out of the station, abandoning the idea of finding the bus mentioned in our tour book, and started to walk. Have I mentioned rain? It was pouring as we tried to locate our hotel. Imagine us with four bags, two on wheels, two on our backs, trying to negotiate sidewalks with rain pouring down. It was a little pathetic.

We loved Toulouse. The city is a nice combination of open plazas, old mansions, geeks, and students. I suspect that we would like it even more with sun, an experience we have yet to have. At the center of the city is Les Halles, a daily covered market. In the morning, we cruised through and the food being sold at each vendor was amazing! All around Les Halles there are equally fine food shops ranging from wine to cheese, prepared salad to intact fish. Someday I would like to return to Toulouse and have a kitchen to fix our own food with these stellar ingrediants.

We had one really fine meal at a restaurant, which was also located in the square around Les halles. I chose the Cassoulet, the local specialty. Totally delicious, but why are the portion sizes for Cassoulet so huge? We ordered the Wine of the Month, a local vintage, and it couldn't have been better.

We spent most of our time in Toulouse outside, following the Michelin walk. The museums we visited were all located in 18th century mansions. The buildings themselves were actually more interesting than the art they store. People with money sure do know how to live!

The walk began at this lovely St-Sernin, the most famous and magnificent of the great Romaneque pilgrimage churches in the south of France. [Yea, that is a Michelin guide quote. I don't talk that way.]

This mansion, Hotel d'Assezat, was built in 1555-57 and is an amazing example of Renaissance architecture. The house is now a museum, and though the collection was nice to view, the reason we bought tickets was to see the inside. Another example of the weathly living well.

Toulouse, well worth the visit!

Week 1: Paris

Arrival at DeGaule is pretty easy. You walk miles through sunlit corridors [if it isn't raining that is] and the queue up at immigration. The man asked me why I was visiting Paris, and I replied 'to see all the new baby cousins.' Nope, no smile from Mr. Efficient. He slapped the visa onto my passport and on we went to baggage claim.

Our bags were actually at baggage claim! I can't count the number of times my bags have not arrived with me, so this was very special. Slipped out the first open door and had a cigarette. The airport has been reorganized since our last visit, but we found the ticket office for our Air France bus, and then waited for it to arrive. My cousins live near Etoile, so the Air France bus is extremely convenient for us. Once we left the bus, we began the walk to the apartment but I explained to Leslie that it was essential that I have a coffee before we made it all the way. "Good idea," he replied and then I spotted what would become our new favorite cafe! Right around the corner from my cousin's apartment, a new hip spot with copper, pretty lights, and as it turned out, a delicious cafe! [We returned here every morning once I discovered an open linksys wireless.]

Our arrival at the apartment was greeted with much enthusiasm, many kisses and an introduction to Juliette, Elizabeth's most recent child. Juliette is two and has chosen to not talk. Turns out she can talk, but just doesn't. This works for me. One less person to not understand!

Before you knew it, it was lunch time, and a full French meal was set before us with the help of Marta, who comes for one hour a day. Anne and Henry look wonderful. They have hardly aged at all. In fact, I realized on this trip that I don't really know how old they are. I will guess though that they are about my parent's age: 68 and 75. Nothing in this apartment has changed since the last time we were there in 2001. Their housing passion is saved for their summer house.

Our afternoon was spent walking around the neighborhood, reaquainting ourselves with the shops and searching for internet access. [I had purchased a Sprint plan before leaving and Sprint claimed that the FNAC had an access point. Nope. No access point.]

Anne and Henry have four children, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Julien and Thomas. For this, our first dinner, Thomas and his new bride Gwenola came over. Of course, missing their August wedding was what started me on this path towards making a trip to France. I carried a gift from the Artful Hand, Boston, and thank goodness, Gwenola loved it! What a lovely woman. Meeting and getting to know her was a real treat. They shared photos of the wedding.

After a full day of walking, church viewing and museum tramping, Friday's dinner was at Henry's brother Julien-Paul's home with Anne, Henry, the wife Marie-Annick, a son Pierre Louis and his wife Fredericka. For a variety of reasons, I had never met Julien-Paul or any of his family. We walked in the door and they popped champagne in celebration of the American cousins! Okay, this stuff was amazing! Delicious! No cheap knock-offs will ever do again. Almost immediately I was presented with family trees and scanned ancestral portraits. I was asked to review my generation for accuracy, and made the requested changes. Since this was first Friday of Lent, dinner was a challenge for Marie-Annick, who apologized that no meat was included in the dinner. Okay, the meat wasn't missed. The first course was smoked salmon, served with capers, fresh lemon and olives, with a mache micro-salad. [Leslie has stated that he will never eat smoked salmon without fresh lemon again.] The next course was a casserole with something long and white, hard boiled eggs and a cream sauce. Again, so good you can hardly imagine. The cheese was lovely and then the chocolate mousse was fabulous. We ended up staying very late, chatting with our newly-found cousins. Pierre Louis and his wife drove us home since the buses had long since stopped running.

Julien-Paul lives right below the Eiffel Tower, and at midnight the Tower began to twinkle with brilliant lights. I am not a real fan of the Eiffel Tower, but even I have to admit that the light show was lovely.

Saturday, Anne and Henri left for their ski vacation leaving Leslie and I alone in the apartment, well, there was another young cousin there too, but she didn't really factor into our stay. We began our day going to the market. This daily market is just blocks from the apartment, and is really good. Patricia Wells raves about this market in her books, and I share her enthusiasm. We began at the coffee roaster, moved to the cheese shop, before ending up at a produce stand. Marta had already made a veal stew, but we needed to complete the meal since Elizabeth would be arriving from Luxembourg to see us.

Elizabeth, as always, was in great spirits. She only moved to Luxembourg from Paris in January, so she talked a lot about the new people, new schools for all five children, and how her husband is doing with his new position. For her, this evening away was a vacation. No children for 24 hours! The thing that she misses most in Luxembourg is good croissant. Otherwise, she has found other mothers, supermarkets, everything except for a good croissant. We had a wonderful evening together. In the morning, when I went outside to have a morning cigarette, I slipped down the street and bought some croissants. It was the least I could do since she had come all the way from Luxembourg just to see us!

Sunday was yet another social day. After our sight seeing, we headed to Charlotte's apartment with a fine Parisian cake in hand. Charlotte is married to Pierre and now has three children. Unfortunately, Pierre doesn't speak English so I think he finds our visits hard. Helene and Jerome have grown tremendously in the past five years; that is what children do after all. The newest child, Agnes, is something. Alert and observant, she is clearly not letting the older two do much without her. Again, a warm and wonderful evening with family.

Monday evening we spent with Nancy and Peter, Leslie's first cousins, once removed. Peter works at the American Embassy in the State Department, while Nancy is an aspiring singer/songwriter. We met at a casual restaurant near their apartment, and had a really wonderful set of conversations. We have only met them twice before, at family weddings, which hadn't given us much chance to get to know them. Well now we have, and we are certainly glad that we did. They are both smart and engaging. Peter has just learned that he has been reposed to New York City at the United Nations, reporting to Bolton., so they will not be very far away from us.

Tuesday we planned very carefully. The ballet started at 8pm, and I wanted to make sure that I had enough energy saved for this significant evening. After a full morning, we returned to the apartment to nap in the afternoon. Since I had purchased the tickets over the internet, we needed to be at the box office no less than 45 minutes before the start of the performance. In perfect Susan-Style, we arrived 75 minutes early. As we entered the lobby, a guard said something that sounded like "there are no tickets this evening." I responded in my cave-person French, that I already had tickets. There was a very long line. Several times, employees came by and review my printouts and continued to say there was a problem, in French. After about 30 minutes, a manager noticed my print-outs and indicated that I should follow him. We were taken to the other side of the lobby and put into a much shorter line. It was here that I discovered what was happening. Une greve! A strike! [If you haven't read a newspaper lately, France is having a disagreement about young workers.] Well, this was the first strike action in all of France in support of the students. And so we actually waiting in line to get our tickets, so that we could wait in line to get our refund. Back in the long line was a woman with a bright orange hat. She kept screaming, in English, at a cashier who didn't speak English, "I don't want my money back. I want to see the ballet!" Over and over she yelled. Now, I have to admit that I too wanted to see the ballet, but I was pretty sure that no one would cancel a strike just because the orange-hat woman wanted to see the ballet. It was embarrassing to watch. Leslie and I took the money with disappointment and headed back out into the city. Our biggest regret was that we had spent the afternoon resting instead of exploring the city.

Paris: the Last Day

Wednesday was our final day in Paris. I woke feeling horrible. My feet, legs and bones simply felt awful. Against all my upbringing, we stayed in. After lunch though, we pulled ourselves together and headed out. [Did I mention rain? Good thing we brought that umbrella.]

We returned to Notre Dame and then headed to Isle Saint-Louis, an area of Paris that I haven't been to before. Within blocks we found a chocolate store. We stopped and bought a gift box to leave for Anne and Henry as a thank-you gift, and a box of small dark chocolates for us to enjoy with our after-dinner coffees. In the next block I found a scarf for Lauren. In Paris this year, everyone was wearing these beautiful, striped scarves. I had looked at them in other stores, but the quality vs. price didn't work for me. This store had both. The right price, and the scarves were so beautiful. "Un cadeaux?" the young woman asked. "Oui," I replied and she packaged the scarf in tissue paper and a beautiful bag. The perfect gift for Lauren.

We then kept walking, across the Seine through many new neighborhoods and towards Bastille. Since we were early for our evening dinner with a friend, once again we stopped for a coffee and a foot-rest. Wednesday night's dinner was at the home of a fellow Filemaker developer. Ugo and I have only known each other online. As with all the Friday Night Chat members, he had anxiously followed my health during treatment. But, you know, I didn't really _know_ him. Our evening could go anyway.

Well, let me tell you, it was a wonderful evening! Once again, we were greeted with champagne. I had brought some small gifts for the children, so they liked me immediately. A jug of maple syrup for Ugo and his wife, and a Filemaker 7 book for Ugo. [Our bags were much lighter after this visit!]

Dinner was amazing! We began with foie gras. The next course included a veal roast, cooked to perfection, small roasted fingerling potatoes, and flagolettes, a delicious small dried green bean. [Leslie like the flagolettes so much, I made them three additional times during our trip.] The cheese plate was perfect. Five perfectly selected cheeses, each ripened to perfection. And then dessert... mousse au chocolate.

After dinner we were offered coffee, which we gratefully accepted. I sheepishly asked if it would be okay if I stepped onto the terrasse to have an after-dinner cigarrette. Well, actually, I could smoke inside, since indeed, they both wanted one too.

This was yet another wonderful evening in Paris. Ugo and his wife and children are exceptional people. My life is better for knowing this family. I have offered our home to them, should they wish to come to Boston for a visit. It is my hope that they will find this possible. I would love to introduce them to my city.

Paris: the Last Day Photos

Susan and Ugo

Being Silly

Ugo

Leslie enjoyed dinner.

Ugo and his wife. The perfect hosts.

France: A Trip Overview

Our three week trip to France was social, quiet, lively, informative, emotional, and restful. We managed to experience a full range of vacations. The whole vacation had one overriding theme though: rain. It drizzled, poured, and misted. The four days of sun were so wonderful, but always the next day, more rain.

Our first week in Paris was filled with social events, museum viewing, and lots of walking. We then took the TGV to Toulouse were we spent two nights in a hotel. [POURING] Another train to Narbonne where we picked up a rental car for the week in Olonzac. And finally, another train to Dijon where we spent three days before heading home.

There were many reasons for this trip. I didn't want to loose my frequent flier miles if Delta went belly-up, many new babies and spouses to meet, and some time to find my new normal.

The new normal doesn't make me happy. The new normal needs to rest, a lot. The new normal needs to stop walking and have a coffee far more frequently. The new normal has bone and joint pain. The new normal seems to catch illness more often. The new normal can only use two parts of the day instead of all three: morning, afternoon and evening. The new normal is very curly hair that is headed straight into the chia-head phase. The new normal worries about cancer. The new normal has to decide between getting an hour of work done or posting a blog entry!

But, to not be too much of a downer, the new normal brings a few good things. The new normal places a much higher value on staying in touch with those I love. The new normal opens the heart to other people more easily. The new normal only needs 5 minutes to shower, and 6 minutes to have dry hair.