Week One: L'Arrivée

Hello, bonjour, salut to friends and family! Thank you and merci for your interest in our family's adventure in France. The experience is so much richer with you along for the ride -- virtually -- and we would like to use this space to bring you with us as we learn, grow, and, of course, adventure!

Week One: L'Arrivée

La première et deuxième journées

We started out Monday (June 19) afternoon with a 10-hour flight from Seattle to Paris, a 4-hour layover, and then a quick hop from Paris to Bordeaux. 

Felicity fairly effectively fell for our little scheme of turning the afternoon nap into an overnight snooze and slept most of the flight -- woohoo! Wilson, on the other hand, was just too excited and wound up sleeping less than 4 hours...which meant Mama and Dada got no sleep at all. Oh well. 

Our host, friend, and reason this adventure is possible, Jean-Claude, met us just outside baggage claim with his son Matthieu ("Thieu") and grandson Fañch, who is 4.5, when we finally got to Bordeaux on Tuesday afternoon, local time. Thieu and Fañch are visiting from their home in Réunion, a French territory just off the coast of Madagascar, which sounds comparable in many ways to a very crowded Hawaii. Fañch's mother, Alice, and Fañch's 3-month old sister, Mona, will be joining us on Tuesday. 

We Franglished our way through the crowded highways between Bordeaux and our respite à la campagne, La Hage de St-Aubin-de-Branne. (Side note: yes, Seattle, Bay Area, and DC traffic is bad, but beware of envying the French before you sit in the long, long lines of semis carrying goods between the Med and Northern or Eastern Europe!) We are sharing one of two gîtes with Fañch & his family while they are here. The gîtes are 15th-century buildings that have had many renovations for modernization and are currently undergoing another. At the airport, Jean-Claude had forced many a madeleine upon us (much to Wilson's delight), and by the time we got to the gîte, we had a typical multi-coursed French meal with melon, moules frites, a selection of fromages, salad, a simple dessert, baguette, and, bien sûr, a glass of wine of the region. In fact, for the entire first week, Jean-Claude and Tieu have made us every meal, and each seems to follow a lovely formula of fruit or crudités (raw veggies), a main, a side (entrée) of cooked vegetables, salad, cheese, and a dessert, often pudding, yogurt, more fruit or best of all, ice cream. 

 

 

Day Trois

Wednesday started with a French breakfast; for les enfants, that includes a giant cup (really a bowl with a handle on it) of cocoa. A dream come true for Wilson! Jean-Claude and his family had business to attend to, so les americains took a stroll to the river near our home here, the Dordogne. 

  

That day is also a national celebration of music all over France, so in the evening we went to a neighboring village to see the professionals and amateurs that turned out to play -- Wilson and Felicity's first rock concert! This guy's got the moves.

 

Day Quatre

The fellas got to attend their first French market of the trip while maman adjusted to working for a company based in the Pacific time zone on a French schedule. Wilson, still aspiring to have "one of his jobs" someday be in construction, got to shadow Monsieur Dominique, a lovely (and patient) man who is doing the renovation work on the gites. Monsieur Dominique later said to Mama (unprompted, in French/Franglish) what an attentive, sharp, and hard-working little helper Wilson was. After some people's work was done, Wilson, Brian and Felicity received a custom tour from Jean-Claude of le région: an ancient church built in Roman-style, a cemetery (Wilson's first), the local moulon (windmill), the local vineyards -- complete with surprise wild boar running through the vines at sunset, a drive along the Dordogne, and a drive back not just along, but through some of the local fields of grapes.  

Day Cinq

Another work day for Heather, but some R&R for the boys. On Fridays, it is customary to have a lengthy lunch with neighbors and/or workers, so Msr. Dominique and neighbor Christine joined us for an amusing lunch conversation about the differences in customs between the U.S. and France. The French were stunned upon learning that in the States, wine tends to be reserved for special occasions, rules and traditions vary dramatically regarding wine between states, and no, it is certainly NOT customary for every home to have a “vin de table” available for every meal! “Not even a simple table wine?!” Christine said to Heather, in French, astonished.

Day Six

C'est le week-end! Saturday morning started with a ride for Heather with Matthieu over to Bordeaux to pick up a rental car...and an adventure getting lost searching for a rental car office -- and that's WITH a local who lived in the city for 15 years! But at least the way out was easy, and the drive back to Branne pleasant. After a bit of rest and play back home, it was back to Bordeaux to check out the Fête du Vin. Now, Thieu had stayed in Bordeaux that morning to help a friend move. He and Jean-Claude had concocted an elaborate process for us to avoid paying for parking, but to also be well out of Bordeaux traffic, to join up at the fête. Except...Jean-Claude was busy, and would not be joining us. That meant that Thieu had entrusted these crazy Americans, who he has known less than a week, to navigate Bordeaux public transit with their two children and his only-French-speaking 4-year-old son! By some miracle we made it! The bit of the city we saw was very cool, but the fete had nothing to offer children (except the cool big boats...which were occupied by private parties) so we didn't stay long. Wilson and Heather shared our first crêpe (creme and caramel) and gallette (local cheese, eggs and veg)  of the trip, though! They were delicious. We're looking forward to going back to spend some dedicated time exploring Bordeaux soon. 

Day Sept

Since Saturday was all about wine and tedious (and hot!) travel, it seemed only fair for Sunday to be all about the kids. So, off to the Castle of Games we went! Wilson got to try his hand at "archery," write with a real quill in a wizard's alchemist room, help us wander our way out of a labyrinth with clues referencing very French takes on classic fairy tales, and even share some delicious glace de violette with his maman.

  

 

 

À demain…

As our journey continues, we hope to share more (and more often, as work allows). Generally, the first week has been one of adjustment, and therefore challenging at times. As the language comes to Heather’s mind more fluidly, as we settle into the Gironde (our region) environment, and as we get more reliable sleep, we are finding increasingly more moments of deep happiness. Or, one might say, of felicity.