May 15, 2010

Top: The cottage where we stayed.

Middle: The girls browsing in Loumarin, where Camus lived and is buried.

Bottom: The chateau outside of Aix-en-Provence.

Dude, Where's My Chateau?

The girls and I looked at the calendar and said OMD!!! (Oh Mon Dieu!). We only have about two months left in Europe; we gotta travel, baby! So, because the French are celebrating the Ascension and the girls had Thursday and Friday off, we traveled to Provence for the weekend. We stayed in a cottage on the grounds of a beautiful chateau outside Aix-en-Provence (see picture above).

We spent one afternoon in Aix, soaking up the sights in a southern French city. Very different atmosphere than Paris (think San Francisco versus New York City). It's a big university town, so lots of young'uns. The next day we spent enjoying the chateau; we played tennis and the girls swam in the pool and jumped on the trampoline. The owners are British and bought the place, in ruins, 8 years ago, spent the first year remodeling the three cottages on the grounds and are now working on the chateau itself. This story led to much dreaming (Erin: "Mommy, can we buy a chateau?), (Megan: Mom, think about it, it's an investment, we could rent it out when we're not using it!!). Claire ran the numbers on her financial calculator and realized it doesn't make financial sense. Yet.

Thursday evening, we decided to venture back into Aix for dinner. But, we were low on gas, so first we looked for a gas station. You would think by now I would have learned. It was Ascension Thursday, after all. You guessed it. We had a better chance of being hit by a meteorite than finding a gas station open. So, having learned from my husband (Rob "Intrepid" Pulkownik), we drove towards the autoroute thinking we'd have better luck there. One teensy little problem; I got on the autoroute going the wrong way. ("Told ya," said Megan, without raising her eyes from her book). And, of course, once you get on the autoroute, it's almost impossible to get off. Oh, and no gas station in sight. By this time, our little rental car was on empty. We finally spotted a sign telling us that the next gas station was 20 kilometers away. I told the girls we didn't have 20 kilometers worth of gas.

So, we decided to get off at the next exit and head into the village in search of gasoline. There were gas stations, but none of them were open. In fact, there was nothing open except one tiny little bar. I parked and went in to ask the locals where I could find a gas station. A brief summary of my conversation.

Me: Hi, can you tell me where the nearest gas station is located?

Drunk local (pointing): Yes, it is right down that street. However, it is not open.

Me: Ok, can you tell me where I can find a gas station that is open?

Another drunk local (coming over to help): Madame, are you aware that today is Ascension Thursday? In France, this is a very holy day. A holy day of obligation. It is today that we celebrate the ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven, forty days after Easter.

Me: Yes, I know, but I am almost out of gas.

First drunk local: We have many charming customs to celebrate this most holy of days. I like to pretend I am ascending as well by drinking vins de pays until I can no longer stand. It is as if I am flying.

Second drunk local: At any rate, Madame, you will have to go the neighboring village to find a gas station. It will not be open but there is an automatic machine into which you can put your carte bleu.

Me: This is excellent news! I have a carte bleu! (And a carte de sejours which no one ever wants to see). I will now drive to the neighboring village to find the gas station that is closed but has an automatic machine. Thank you very much for your help!

First drunk local: If you do not find the gas station or you run out of gas along the way, you are most welcome to come back here and drink yourself into ascension with us.

At this point, all of the patrons of the bar (which means the whole village, because it was the only place open on Ascension Thursday) either poured into the street or ran to the window to watch this silly American woman and her three giggling children turn around and head to the next village.

By this time, I was really nervous. We were below empty in boohickey Provence and the nearest gas station was in a village 9 kilometers away. We got there, and after a few turns, found the gas station with the automatic machine. There was much cheering! We pulled in ...

and the automatic machine was broken. A car pulled in right behind us with a handsome young French couple. Turns out they were in the same fix. The young man's parents live in the village, and he was so desperate he was about to call them to bring him some gasoline. But, he reminded me, this was Ascension Thursday. He was unwilling to disturb them. Together, after a lengthy conference (during which I glanced longingly at what were clearly full tanks of gasoline locked up in a cage and thought about what I could find to break the lock and steal a tank), we decided to convoy back into the village in search of an open gas station. I knew this was futile (Jesus Christ himself apparently couldn't buy gas today), but we had company! French company! No one could make fun of us for being stupid Americans, because we were right behind a stupid French couple!! We drove back into the village and into the first gas station we saw. It was closed of course. Then Claire spotted a parked tow truck with a phone number. Brilliant!

I called the number.

Woman: Allo?

Me: Hi, I'm at your gas station and I'm out of gas.

Woman: So? We are closed.

Me: Yes, I know. Can you direct me to the nearest gas station that is open?

Woman: Madame, it is 7:45 in the evening. It is Ascension Thursday!! There are no gas stations open at this time on this most holy of days!

Me (now heartily sick of hearing about Ascension Thursday): Please will you speak to my new best friend?

I put the young French dude on and he prevailed upon them to come to the gas station and open it up. Something about his parents owning the land upon which the gas station was located.

Then, the young Frenchman said to me. You are very smart. I would never have thought to call the number on the tow truck.

I nodded smugly and said, Yep. Good 'ole American ingenuity. You might recall we fired up a few tanks of the stuff during WW II. Saved your bacon then, too. Ascension Thursday notwithstanding.

I've decided it would ruin the moment if I mentioned that it was my 11-year-old that actually saved the day.

I am not kidding when I tell you that 30 seconds later, a very disgruntled gentleman appeared, and angrily pumped gas, first for the young and handsome French couple, then for us. Turns out he lives across the street.

I apologized profusely for disturbing his dinner, and thanked him for rescuing us.

He wagged his finger at me. Be careful Madame, he said. It is, after all Ascension Thursday.

May 7, 2010

We returned last Sunday from an amazing trip to Spain. We started in Sevilla, which was warm and beautiful, made a quick stop in Cordoba and then drove on to Granada. Our apartment in Sevilla was right in the center of the city, and decorated with posters of Bo Derrek, Harry Potter and Audrey Hepburn. If there was a unifying theme, it eluded me. We visited the cathedral, the palace, and Rob and Megan went to the bullfighting ring. Claire, Erin and I refused, on principle (plus we were pretty tired).


We had a few glitches along the way; for example, no one mentioned that you can't drive into the center of Granada after eight o'clock in the evening. Which can make it a bit difficult to get to your rental apartment. We used GPS, but apparently the satellites weren't told about this charming custom either. We found ourselves driving up the mountain, only to find that the road the GPS had directed us to was closed off. We stopped to ask a waiter at a restaurant who was very helpful. He said "there's no way to get there from here." But he said it in a really charming way and smiled the whole time. He told us to go back down the mountain and ask someone in the lowlands. Which we did. The man at the gas station sighed and said, "it's very difficult. I'm not sure it's possible right now." Where were we, France? We were in regular contact with our landlady who apparently either didn't drive or hadn't been out of her neighborhood in fifteen years. After about two hours (I'm not kidding), by which time Rob was banging his head against the steering wheel and I was growling at the children (Claire was quiet, but Megan and Erin were giggling hysterically at our incompetence), the landlady agreed to meet us outside the walls of the city near her neighborhood. So, at ten pm, we were hauling our luggage through narrow alleys, on cobblestone streets, past outdoor restaurants and up numerous steps. Finally, we made it to the apartment. Luckily, it was perfect. It was located in an old building with a spectacular view, and it was completely redone and very Mediterranean. Lots of tile, ceramics and dark wood beams. It was also located a short distance from the International Institute for the Interpretation of Water. Who knew there was such a place? But, aren't you glad there is? I've always felt we take the stuff for granted. Now, I can rest easy knowing someone else is taking care of the heavy lifting.

By midnight, we were fully recovered and being entertained by a multilingual restaurateur who got Megan and Erin hooked on filet mignon (Rob was sort of hoping for sirloin).

It turns out that Granada is the Berkeley of Spain. Lots of hippies in dreadlocks, buskers singing and playing guitar (badly), and dogs. Lots of dogs. At night, they would gather on the square just outside our flat, smoking interesting herbal substances and spinning and dancing.

On our third night, we were eating outside in the village square and Rob and I were enjoying a really nice bottle of Spanish wine, when Erin asked, "So what is the meaning of life, anyway?"
Clearly, she'd been spending too much time with the hippies.

Three ways to tell you're in Spain, not France.

1. People wear colorful clothes. In France, grey is the new fuchsia.

2. People are tan. In France, my kids look Spanish. The average French citizen looks like they just got out of a casting call for the Twilight series.

3. People are friendly. They smile a lot. Let's just leave it at that.

4. You can buy food for less than a night in a four star hotel.

When we got back to Paris, Claire discovered that she'd left her bag (with her computer and wallet inside) in the taxi we took from the airport. I called the taxi company and the woman informed me that, without the number of the cab, we were out of luck. She directed me to the Parisian lost and found, then hung up on me. We knew there was no chance we'd get it back but, since Claire was hysterical (she's been writing a book on her computer and it wasn't backed up), I tried anyway.

If only all of France worked like the lost and found (or, as it is formally known, the Office of Found Objects). You fill out a form, with the date the object was lost, as well as a detailed description. Your form is inspected carefully by someone who, if everything is in order, gives you a number. When your number is called, the person behind the counter looks at your form and enters the key words to see if there's a match. When I got there on Monday, they informed me that it was "too soon," and I should return on Wednesday. I returned on Wednesday and...
voila! Not only had the taxi driver returned the bag, with the computer and wallet safely inside, but the Office had opened the computer and emailed Claire to let her know they'd found it. Of course, she didn't get the email because she didn't have a computer, but the point was, they tried. They went the extra kilometer. Amazing. I was almost weeping with joy.

I told the man at the counter: "This would never happen in the US."

He shrugged and said, "You have a lot of thieves there."

Here, I think, is another advantage of socialism. Since a taxi driver earns about as much as a doctor (and gets at least as much vacation time), he doesn't need to keep what's left in his taxi. He's happy to return it.

Either that or we got really lucky.