Tomorrow begins the final countdown. We'll officially be moving into our new apartment on Sunday, the 4th of September. Before that, partner has a half day of med school Friday, which I assume is orientation and scaring the crap out of students to make sure they take this seriously. Tomorrow we'll be renting a truck to move the last of our stuff in, and on Friday we'll take the things that we're too scared to casually put in the back of a moving van. Saturday will be our one day of solitude before the final push on Sunday to make sure everything's taken care of.
I spent today intermittently getting my hourly hit of email, bit of a net addict, I admit, and bagging up what we have left. All of our clothes that we have in this country fit into a single box. The largest is our blue IKEA sack full of video games. Believe me, it's entirely indispensable. I still have the game consoles to pack up, but they won't be leaving until Friday, so I've got a day on that. If it really comes down to it, I can pack them up tonight. I already packed up the monitor and keyboard for our desktop because we're taking the desk tomorrow.
As I was putting stuff in boxes, I realized that this is my fourth move in 2 years, and moreover eleventh move since 2002. Now since some of those were between college and home when I lived in the dorms, we may have to remove 3 or 4 of those, but still I think 6 moves is still pretty impressive. I also should mention I'm one of those people who loves chaos. I have seriously just thought about throwing on a backpack and disappearing sometimes (which is still more reasonable, I think, than my brother's "move to China and become a Shao-lin monk" idea.) but I always had something to hold me back from doing it; college, family, friends, debt. I guess maybe I should just take it as a sign to enjoy manageable chaos, and leave the real stuff to the experts.
If it were just boxes and sacks, that would be one thing. I have learned to hate moving furniture ever since the enormous dresser fiasco of 2004. Admittedly, the first moves were nothing, because I had no furniture. Even when I moved in with partner, I was over at his place constantly anyway, I still didn't have to worry about furniture. However; my partner is not like me. He needs to be comfortable. He can't sleep on a couch or a mattress on the floor. He needs a bed. The truth is, he's spoiled me! The first time we moved into the place that we chose together was the first time I ever had to rent a truck. We got everything in and it went pretty quick. I was never happier to be done though. When we moved back with my parents before the move abroad, we had so much that we had to leave some stuff behind.
I like to take moving time to simplify my needs. That's a fancy way of saying not having to schlep six boxes of Dark Shadows cassettes across multiple time zones. There are always exceptions, though. We have an entire messenger bag full of cords, connectors, and adapters. Since moving to Europe, we've had to by a fleet of connectors and adapters. The bigger problem I have though is the crippling inability to get rid of cables and connectors, especially the ones that we don't even have any use for, but you never know when you might need it. I blame my father for this instinct.
Should something ever happen and I have to move back to the US alone, don't be surprised if you see pictures of my apartment online, and I have a beautiful matching set of milk crate with cushion chairs, bookshelves from the design house of Plank and Cinder Block, and a desk made from two sawhorses and a car windshield. However, if I can get FiOS, you know I will!
All right, it was a nice break. Now back to packing....
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Advertissement!
One of the things we've heard all of our lives is about how certain things are "a sign from God." I myself am even guilty of taking missed buses or a stubbed toe as some sort of supernatural warning. We've all made predictions based on something inconsequential and saying that it is ordained in the heavens to be such. Lately though, it's not so much small things that are captivating the attention of people as a sign from above.
Michele Bachmann (Can you tell how she's the final straw when I write something political?) recently said that the hurricane and earthquakes that have recently effected the eastern seaboard are God letting us know that he's displeased with the politicking that's taking place. She actually told a crowd in Orlando that "now it's time for an act of God and we're getting it." But of course, she's using it to grandstand. It's something all politicians of all stripes do, especially when he or she is falling in the polls.
For years, there have been numerous examples of not only religious extremists meddling in political affairs, but moreover religious extremists wanting to blame any natural disaster on whatever the cause may be. Rabbi Yehuda Levin recently announced in a video that the Virginia earthquake was due to the legalization of same sex marriage on the east coast. Although Rabbi Levin may appear to be a front runner, let us not forget about our christian friends. Pat Robertson blamed Hurricane Katrina on abortion and later blamed the earthquake in Haiti on a "pact with Satan." John Hagee, a well known and highly respected minister on the right famously stated that Katrina was God's wrath for Southern Decadence, a gay pride event in New Orleans. Clearly the years of practice have really placed the good reverends in a higher position of understanding, but maybe we can take something from what they're saying. The truth of the matter is that God is creating natural disasters to tell us to get our shit together and improve or repair the crumbling infrastructure we have or God will knock it all down to show us where we have failed.
I remember winters back in my hometown. There were times when school would close for a week because the wind chill was so low, you could not stand outside for more than five minutes without getting frostbitten. In Defiance, I think most people can tell you what Thundersnow is, if they haven't seen it. I remember listening with my brothers and sisters as they would announce school closures the night before because they knew how bad the weather was. Sometimes it wasn't even directly because of the weather that school closed. It had gotten so cold that the diesel used to run the buses had changed from a liquid to a gel.
Summers were no different. Without school, it most likely meant that there would just be some days where we would be in the basement waiting for the all clear after a tornado warning. The sky would change to yellow or pink, and even sometimes shades of green. My mother always told me that pink meant hail, green was a tornado, but she never had any idea about yellow.
The one constant among the natural disasters we faced growing up had one common point, we would almost always lose power. Sometimes it would last a day, but other times it meant that we were happy that Dad had kept his camp stove charged. It meant no going outside because we couldn't clean up after. This is not unusual though, as we did grow up in the middle of nowhere. This is something that we just learned to deal with.
However, my life since moving to a city hadn't changed much. There was still always a chance of losing all power in a natural disaster, but there would be times in Columbus where the campus side of High Street had power, but the public side didn't. (Ohio State had its own power plant.) Back in 2006, I remember that a good deal of the eastern half of the country was in a constant brownout stage for at least a day. I remember when the entire city lost power after Hurricane Ike. I had friends who went a week or more without power, and this was in central Ohio.
We have people in positions of power blaming imaginary beings for what's happening to us in the world today. People like Bachmann or Robertson may very well believe that this is some sort of divine retribution, but the bigger problem is the devastation that these disasters leave behind. The Eastern Coast got lucky this time that Irene wasn't as big of a disaster as it could have been. Although highly unlikely, we could use this latest disaster as a wake up call. There's no excuse for the state of our electrical grid among other infrastructure problems in the first world country we supposedly are. It's disappointing that this opportunity is being squandered by people who prefer to deal with imaginary beings than those directly effected.
Michele Bachmann (Can you tell how she's the final straw when I write something political?) recently said that the hurricane and earthquakes that have recently effected the eastern seaboard are God letting us know that he's displeased with the politicking that's taking place. She actually told a crowd in Orlando that "now it's time for an act of God and we're getting it." But of course, she's using it to grandstand. It's something all politicians of all stripes do, especially when he or she is falling in the polls.
For years, there have been numerous examples of not only religious extremists meddling in political affairs, but moreover religious extremists wanting to blame any natural disaster on whatever the cause may be. Rabbi Yehuda Levin recently announced in a video that the Virginia earthquake was due to the legalization of same sex marriage on the east coast. Although Rabbi Levin may appear to be a front runner, let us not forget about our christian friends. Pat Robertson blamed Hurricane Katrina on abortion and later blamed the earthquake in Haiti on a "pact with Satan." John Hagee, a well known and highly respected minister on the right famously stated that Katrina was God's wrath for Southern Decadence, a gay pride event in New Orleans. Clearly the years of practice have really placed the good reverends in a higher position of understanding, but maybe we can take something from what they're saying. The truth of the matter is that God is creating natural disasters to tell us to get our shit together and improve or repair the crumbling infrastructure we have or God will knock it all down to show us where we have failed.
I remember winters back in my hometown. There were times when school would close for a week because the wind chill was so low, you could not stand outside for more than five minutes without getting frostbitten. In Defiance, I think most people can tell you what Thundersnow is, if they haven't seen it. I remember listening with my brothers and sisters as they would announce school closures the night before because they knew how bad the weather was. Sometimes it wasn't even directly because of the weather that school closed. It had gotten so cold that the diesel used to run the buses had changed from a liquid to a gel.
Summers were no different. Without school, it most likely meant that there would just be some days where we would be in the basement waiting for the all clear after a tornado warning. The sky would change to yellow or pink, and even sometimes shades of green. My mother always told me that pink meant hail, green was a tornado, but she never had any idea about yellow.
The one constant among the natural disasters we faced growing up had one common point, we would almost always lose power. Sometimes it would last a day, but other times it meant that we were happy that Dad had kept his camp stove charged. It meant no going outside because we couldn't clean up after. This is not unusual though, as we did grow up in the middle of nowhere. This is something that we just learned to deal with.
However, my life since moving to a city hadn't changed much. There was still always a chance of losing all power in a natural disaster, but there would be times in Columbus where the campus side of High Street had power, but the public side didn't. (Ohio State had its own power plant.) Back in 2006, I remember that a good deal of the eastern half of the country was in a constant brownout stage for at least a day. I remember when the entire city lost power after Hurricane Ike. I had friends who went a week or more without power, and this was in central Ohio.
We have people in positions of power blaming imaginary beings for what's happening to us in the world today. People like Bachmann or Robertson may very well believe that this is some sort of divine retribution, but the bigger problem is the devastation that these disasters leave behind. The Eastern Coast got lucky this time that Irene wasn't as big of a disaster as it could have been. Although highly unlikely, we could use this latest disaster as a wake up call. There's no excuse for the state of our electrical grid among other infrastructure problems in the first world country we supposedly are. It's disappointing that this opportunity is being squandered by people who prefer to deal with imaginary beings than those directly effected.
The Poetry and Insanity of French Roads
Frankly I have found myself more and more at peace with the idea that I will most likely never drive in France. I have seen too many shenanigans in French city driving and on highways to ever wish to risk it. I'm sorry, but when you actually have to consider whether or not to buy a car because it may be too big to get down the street, that's when it's a problem. Most cities in France predate any kind of city planning so sometimes roads will only be wide enough for one car to pass, or your car may just be too wide for the road. We're not even talking like a hummer though. There are cars the size of an Impala that can't navigate some roads.
Also, most cities have roads named for World War II. In Rennes, there's a section of town where all the streets are named after allied countries. Ploërmel actually has a side street named for the day the city was bombed during the Occupation. I think every city has a road named after Charles De Gaulle and usually General LeClerc.
One thing you can be sure of though is that if you miss a road that connects with another, you will need to turn around and catch the road coming back the other way. There is no simple way to reach a road once you've missed it. As all the roads predate actual planning it's just a mass of twisting paths that come together however people decided they should be laid out. Sometimes, you'll just be driving on roads and they will spontaneously change names.
Like in the US, there are a bunch of divisions for roads in France. Most of what I've discussed so far is for communal roads. Those are the roads that connect the cities of a commune. A commune in France is a collection of cities and villages that work together. The roads are usually denoted with a number preceded by a C in a black rectangle. It's kind of like what we could call township roads. The next step up is the departmental roads. These are denoted with a D before the road number in a yellow rectangle. They're something like a county highway. After that we have Rue Nationale, which are more similar to American State and National Routes, commonly denoted with RN before the number in a red rectangle. The largest grouping by far though is the Autoroute system, which is comparable to the Interstate System.
The strange thing is, most of the signs are blue on the Autoroute, while they are white or green on all other roads. There is the exception of point of interest signs being in brown, and they're usually a lot nicer than what you'd see for the point of interest markers in the US. However, the markers between departments are really basic. They just have the departmental seal and the name of the new department. Regional markers that I've seen usually aren't much more impressive. It is neat that on the Bretange sign, they actually put the Breton phrase for welcome on the sign (Degemer Mat.)
They do have a system as well that takes you around cities, but it's not like in the US where you have a 2 or a 4 before the number. They have what are called Rocades. It just translates out to beltway. The main issue is that it's not one continuous road. Basically there are 4 rocades that intersect at certain points. So you have the north, south, east, and west rocades. The connections are just exit ramps, so you really have to know the road you want to take. (Hence the problems coming out of IKEA.)
They also don't just list the largest city like from what I remember with 270 around Columbus. You head North, and you're headed towards Cleveland, South/East is towards Wheeling, and West was towards Cincinnati. Around Rennes the Rocade will take you towards Caen, Le Mans, Lorient, Vannes, Brest, St. Brieuc, St. Malo, Nantes, and Angers as possible destinations. It doesn't really explain things well, so you can get lost pretty quick. All of these routes are accessed through Portes. There are 22 Portes that take you to different places, and not all of them take you to different cities. Porte d'Alma just takes you to Alma Shopping Center. It's a quick way in from the South though, and if you take the opposite direction, you can get to Angers. All of this is saying nothing of actually learning to drive in France.
Almost all cars here are manual transmission, and to actually drive an automatic, you have to get a special permit that allows you to do so. Most French people also consider automatics for old women who don't want to be bothered with shifting gears. Another obstacle is the shear cost. My partner said he probably paid about $2000 to get his license. He had to take first aid courses, and before he could get in the car, he had to pass what's called the code. I have never seen anyone speak positively of the code. It's an essay test first off, so it really makes our multiple choice test for a permit look pretty ridiculous. After you pass the code, you can start driving with an instructor or your parents. After you feel confident enough to take the test, you have to take it in a car that's provided by the examiner's station. It's a nightmare because every manual transmission has a different clutch. Finally after all this, should you pass, you have to have a sticker on the back of the car that denotes you as still learning to drive for 2 years. That's what the red A is on the back of French cars. They're not adulterers.
So I'm more than happy to take a bus or a subway and be nice and safe. It's a great system and I'm more than happy to oblige. If you are from the US and decide to brave it, you can get a 6 month driving permit. After that, you'll need to get a full license, but I'm not sure how that process works. I'll write more when the inspiration strikes.
Also, most cities have roads named for World War II. In Rennes, there's a section of town where all the streets are named after allied countries. Ploërmel actually has a side street named for the day the city was bombed during the Occupation. I think every city has a road named after Charles De Gaulle and usually General LeClerc.
One thing you can be sure of though is that if you miss a road that connects with another, you will need to turn around and catch the road coming back the other way. There is no simple way to reach a road once you've missed it. As all the roads predate actual planning it's just a mass of twisting paths that come together however people decided they should be laid out. Sometimes, you'll just be driving on roads and they will spontaneously change names.
Like in the US, there are a bunch of divisions for roads in France. Most of what I've discussed so far is for communal roads. Those are the roads that connect the cities of a commune. A commune in France is a collection of cities and villages that work together. The roads are usually denoted with a number preceded by a C in a black rectangle. It's kind of like what we could call township roads. The next step up is the departmental roads. These are denoted with a D before the road number in a yellow rectangle. They're something like a county highway. After that we have Rue Nationale, which are more similar to American State and National Routes, commonly denoted with RN before the number in a red rectangle. The largest grouping by far though is the Autoroute system, which is comparable to the Interstate System.
The strange thing is, most of the signs are blue on the Autoroute, while they are white or green on all other roads. There is the exception of point of interest signs being in brown, and they're usually a lot nicer than what you'd see for the point of interest markers in the US. However, the markers between departments are really basic. They just have the departmental seal and the name of the new department. Regional markers that I've seen usually aren't much more impressive. It is neat that on the Bretange sign, they actually put the Breton phrase for welcome on the sign (Degemer Mat.)
They do have a system as well that takes you around cities, but it's not like in the US where you have a 2 or a 4 before the number. They have what are called Rocades. It just translates out to beltway. The main issue is that it's not one continuous road. Basically there are 4 rocades that intersect at certain points. So you have the north, south, east, and west rocades. The connections are just exit ramps, so you really have to know the road you want to take. (Hence the problems coming out of IKEA.)
They also don't just list the largest city like from what I remember with 270 around Columbus. You head North, and you're headed towards Cleveland, South/East is towards Wheeling, and West was towards Cincinnati. Around Rennes the Rocade will take you towards Caen, Le Mans, Lorient, Vannes, Brest, St. Brieuc, St. Malo, Nantes, and Angers as possible destinations. It doesn't really explain things well, so you can get lost pretty quick. All of these routes are accessed through Portes. There are 22 Portes that take you to different places, and not all of them take you to different cities. Porte d'Alma just takes you to Alma Shopping Center. It's a quick way in from the South though, and if you take the opposite direction, you can get to Angers. All of this is saying nothing of actually learning to drive in France.
Almost all cars here are manual transmission, and to actually drive an automatic, you have to get a special permit that allows you to do so. Most French people also consider automatics for old women who don't want to be bothered with shifting gears. Another obstacle is the shear cost. My partner said he probably paid about $2000 to get his license. He had to take first aid courses, and before he could get in the car, he had to pass what's called the code. I have never seen anyone speak positively of the code. It's an essay test first off, so it really makes our multiple choice test for a permit look pretty ridiculous. After you pass the code, you can start driving with an instructor or your parents. After you feel confident enough to take the test, you have to take it in a car that's provided by the examiner's station. It's a nightmare because every manual transmission has a different clutch. Finally after all this, should you pass, you have to have a sticker on the back of the car that denotes you as still learning to drive for 2 years. That's what the red A is on the back of French cars. They're not adulterers.
So I'm more than happy to take a bus or a subway and be nice and safe. It's a great system and I'm more than happy to oblige. If you are from the US and decide to brave it, you can get a 6 month driving permit. After that, you'll need to get a full license, but I'm not sure how that process works. I'll write more when the inspiration strikes.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Inscription Day
We had been planning on going up to Rennes just a few hours, we had thought probably about 5, or somewhere around that. We left around 10 am because we wanted to do a few things in the morning at the Caisses d'Allocations Familiales, which will now be abbreviated as CAF. I looked up where it was in the morning, right next to the Charles DeGaulle stop on the metro, so we wouldn't have to look around for it. We estimated we'd probably be there until about 1:30 pm, when we'd have to leave for partner's inscription into med school, which was set for 2. Being realistic about time constraints, we figured we'd get the CAF done, go to the inscription, which would take about 2 hours, and then finally talk with Numericable at the store in Columbier. After that, we'd have dinner, and get back home around 9 or 10pm at the latest. So much for planning.
We get to the CAF and gird our loins for what we expect to be at least an hour wait, and maybe an hour of paperwork. Since he was just requesting student housing assistance it went much faster. We were finished pretty quick. After that we had some time to kill, and mother-in-law remembered that she saw a lamp at Pier 1 that she thought would look great in our place. As usual, she was spot on, so we bought it then and there. We put the lamp back in the car, and made it to campus around 1.
I had remembered my orientation at Ohio State. It started on Thursday night and ended on a Sunday afternoon. I had to fill out all my student loan information. They talked to my parents about letting your children go, an how hard that might be. (This was the fourth time they'd done it, so well, old hat really.) I got my student ID, met people from my program, and got a big talk about how wonderful OSU was, the history, etc. I was expecting one thing, and got the other.
This was an inscription, not an orientation. We came in, and there was only one other student registering at the same time. Since partner was doing continuing education, he was classified differently, and they did everyone in his classification the same day. They took him and his mother in, and they worked out everything. It was all good. He had all of his info, his student ID, and we were in and out in about an hour. I also want to mention, hint hint every American University, that partner's entire bill for a year of med school was less than 200 euros. It makes me sick to think of the 30 thousand some debt I have from a State School. Bitterness aside, it was all good.
On the way back, we got a few more forms filled out that we weren't expecting to get done that day, and we had some extra time. We also decided to get the cable taken care of then too. We got 100megs/second internet service with 150 TV channels, unlimited telephone service to French land lines and cellphones along with unlimited international calling to 100 countries (cellular and land lines), an unlimited cellphone SIM free until December with unlimited calling to French land lines and cellphones, for 40 bucks a month. To top it off, we got 2 months free because we went to the kiosk. So we still had more free time.
Like that, we had a chance to grab some lunch. There was a place nearby that had a lunch offer, but only one left. Mother-in-law took the lunch offer and we had these really good pizza thingies. Any time someone puts coppa, roasted tomatoes, and mozzarella together, I'd call it a win! Then I got a pain chocolat and a coke. We ate in the car, and thought since it was only 4:30, we had time do to some more things to lighten the load later.
The logical solution was, of course, that we should go to IKEA to look for dishes. We didn't need anything more than that, and it would be quick to do. It was right on the rocade and it would take all of 20 minutes. We'd take that stuff back to the apartment, have dinner, and head home. Everyone agreeing this is a logical way to save time, we go.
When we get there though, we do realize that we'd like to buy a piece of artwork for the walls, and we don't really have any silverware. We still didn't have any pots or pans to cook in, much less tupperware to put leftovers. Remember how I said this would be a quick shopping trip to IKEA? The store is designed to prevent a quick trip. We got distracted by pretty pretty things, all of which we did need all and all was gorgeous, and ended up staying at IKEA for, wait for it; 3 hours. We had two carts worth of stuff. We had a carpet, a framed art piece, a lamp, silverware, plates, a dish scrubber, something for next to the sink, two of those metal hook things that hang on the back of the door for coats, etc. Somehow, we got everything into the 106, which was better than playing tetris, and we finally got it loaded in to our apartment. By the time we got back to the apartment, we were all dying of thirst and starving. It was 9pm, and we needed to go get food or we would all die.
Not so fast there bucko. There was still the slight problem that we still needed to get groceries to last us til Wednesday, partner's last day of work. There was a Carrefour close by, so we did our shopping there. It's good to know because of how close it is, and especially because of how much cheaper it was shopping there. Usually for a weeks worth of food, we spend about 50 euros. If we hadn't bought school supplies, we would have spent 35 total. With how small our refrigerator is, we will not be able to buy much. So every few days it's a trip to the market. We were among the last people in the store, but we got it done. Thursday we'll have to go again, but at least it won't be as insane. Soldiering on, we finally make it to the restaurant.
We had a nice relaxing dinner. We went through 5 carafes of water; three of them before the food arrived. We talked about a lot of stuff with moving, and how much we'd gotten done that day. Also, the schedule for moving is becoming cramped, and we'll have to rent a car to move up the last things from Ploërmel. While we're talking, partner looks over at a table and then tells me to look at the second person from the right. I look at him and I realize I'm starting at the French doppelganger of my older brother. He had the same hair, the same facial expressions, and I was just floored. I spent the rest of the meal trying to stop looking like some kind of creep staring at this guy I didn't know. It was so positively strange. We finish our meal, pay, and look at the time. We leave the restaurant at 11:30pm. It's an hour trip home...
That's how Friday shaped up for me. I hope you all had a great weekend, and there's probably going to be at least one story coming out of building IKEA furniture tomorrow, on Sunday!
We get to the CAF and gird our loins for what we expect to be at least an hour wait, and maybe an hour of paperwork. Since he was just requesting student housing assistance it went much faster. We were finished pretty quick. After that we had some time to kill, and mother-in-law remembered that she saw a lamp at Pier 1 that she thought would look great in our place. As usual, she was spot on, so we bought it then and there. We put the lamp back in the car, and made it to campus around 1.
I had remembered my orientation at Ohio State. It started on Thursday night and ended on a Sunday afternoon. I had to fill out all my student loan information. They talked to my parents about letting your children go, an how hard that might be. (This was the fourth time they'd done it, so well, old hat really.) I got my student ID, met people from my program, and got a big talk about how wonderful OSU was, the history, etc. I was expecting one thing, and got the other.
This was an inscription, not an orientation. We came in, and there was only one other student registering at the same time. Since partner was doing continuing education, he was classified differently, and they did everyone in his classification the same day. They took him and his mother in, and they worked out everything. It was all good. He had all of his info, his student ID, and we were in and out in about an hour. I also want to mention, hint hint every American University, that partner's entire bill for a year of med school was less than 200 euros. It makes me sick to think of the 30 thousand some debt I have from a State School. Bitterness aside, it was all good.
On the way back, we got a few more forms filled out that we weren't expecting to get done that day, and we had some extra time. We also decided to get the cable taken care of then too. We got 100megs/second internet service with 150 TV channels, unlimited telephone service to French land lines and cellphones along with unlimited international calling to 100 countries (cellular and land lines), an unlimited cellphone SIM free until December with unlimited calling to French land lines and cellphones, for 40 bucks a month. To top it off, we got 2 months free because we went to the kiosk. So we still had more free time.
Like that, we had a chance to grab some lunch. There was a place nearby that had a lunch offer, but only one left. Mother-in-law took the lunch offer and we had these really good pizza thingies. Any time someone puts coppa, roasted tomatoes, and mozzarella together, I'd call it a win! Then I got a pain chocolat and a coke. We ate in the car, and thought since it was only 4:30, we had time do to some more things to lighten the load later.
The logical solution was, of course, that we should go to IKEA to look for dishes. We didn't need anything more than that, and it would be quick to do. It was right on the rocade and it would take all of 20 minutes. We'd take that stuff back to the apartment, have dinner, and head home. Everyone agreeing this is a logical way to save time, we go.
When we get there though, we do realize that we'd like to buy a piece of artwork for the walls, and we don't really have any silverware. We still didn't have any pots or pans to cook in, much less tupperware to put leftovers. Remember how I said this would be a quick shopping trip to IKEA? The store is designed to prevent a quick trip. We got distracted by pretty pretty things, all of which we did need all and all was gorgeous, and ended up staying at IKEA for, wait for it; 3 hours. We had two carts worth of stuff. We had a carpet, a framed art piece, a lamp, silverware, plates, a dish scrubber, something for next to the sink, two of those metal hook things that hang on the back of the door for coats, etc. Somehow, we got everything into the 106, which was better than playing tetris, and we finally got it loaded in to our apartment. By the time we got back to the apartment, we were all dying of thirst and starving. It was 9pm, and we needed to go get food or we would all die.
Not so fast there bucko. There was still the slight problem that we still needed to get groceries to last us til Wednesday, partner's last day of work. There was a Carrefour close by, so we did our shopping there. It's good to know because of how close it is, and especially because of how much cheaper it was shopping there. Usually for a weeks worth of food, we spend about 50 euros. If we hadn't bought school supplies, we would have spent 35 total. With how small our refrigerator is, we will not be able to buy much. So every few days it's a trip to the market. We were among the last people in the store, but we got it done. Thursday we'll have to go again, but at least it won't be as insane. Soldiering on, we finally make it to the restaurant.
We had a nice relaxing dinner. We went through 5 carafes of water; three of them before the food arrived. We talked about a lot of stuff with moving, and how much we'd gotten done that day. Also, the schedule for moving is becoming cramped, and we'll have to rent a car to move up the last things from Ploërmel. While we're talking, partner looks over at a table and then tells me to look at the second person from the right. I look at him and I realize I'm starting at the French doppelganger of my older brother. He had the same hair, the same facial expressions, and I was just floored. I spent the rest of the meal trying to stop looking like some kind of creep staring at this guy I didn't know. It was so positively strange. We finish our meal, pay, and look at the time. We leave the restaurant at 11:30pm. It's an hour trip home...
That's how Friday shaped up for me. I hope you all had a great weekend, and there's probably going to be at least one story coming out of building IKEA furniture tomorrow, on Sunday!
Friday, August 26, 2011
Vamos a la playa
(Just a side note; are all of Loona's songs pretty much about partying, dancing and the "rhythm of the night?")
Through some sort of fluke of nature, my partner had his weekend off, and after spending the entire afternoon lifting IKEA the day before, we decided to go to Carnac. For those of you who have never been to Bretagne, maybe just Morbihan, Carnac is a town along the Gulf of Morbihan with 3 or 4 beaches. It's also where most Bretons go for a day trip in the summer. It's always packed, always warm, and I've never left without going in the water. (Even the first time I came in December of 2004, we walked along the coast in Carnac, and got wet. I wanted to be able to come back and be the first of my brothers and sisters to be able to say I'd been on both sides of the Atlantic.)
The car ride was a little rough, I'll admit. It takes about an hour to get there, and there's no direct route despite the traffic. However most people who come there are actually staying a while. There's lots of Germans and Dutch, but the most common are the English. I have never gone an entire day without hearing someone speak English there. Luckily though, it was nearing the end of vacation, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Plus, my niece was ready to see the nude beach that we had jokingly told her we'd be going to. her natural question was,"You mean everyone will be able to see your zizi?"
So we set up on the beach close to the railing so we would be sheltered a little bit. We had brought a few things to eat and some water, so we put the cooler on one of the towels to keep it down. The others we held down with sandals and the like. We didn't really have to change as we had just worn our suits under our clothes. There aren't many places to change on the beach, and after last time when I had to change in a car, I wasn't looking to repeat. So we unfolded the transat and left our stuff with my mother in law while the four of us went swimming.
I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but the last time I had come to Carnac, I got burned really bad, and it lasted for a week. I could barely move my arms or my neck and my partner laughed at me. I wasn't about to repeat that week, so I used the sun block my sister had taken with them to Spain. If SPF 50 wasn't going to stop my ass from burning, I don't know what would. So I did the best I could to cover and I had to brow beat my partner in to putting it on. He's lily white to begin with and works 5 days a week in a lab. When he's off two days, we stay inside and play video games. The only time we leave the house then is for groceries, and even that doesn't happen sometimes. He doesn't tan, he burns. I won't say I'm a thousand times better, but I wasn't the one refusing to wear sun block. So we coated ourselves, and went swimming.
Now, it was very warm as I said, so I figured that with the temperature being about 32 (90), the water should be about 25(80). Yeah, no.... It was about (20)70! Oh, but it was the ocean, and when would we see it again, so we went slow, and eventually just gave up that plan and jumped in. It knocked the wind out of you at first, but the longer you stayed in the nicer it was. We played around and acted as bouys for my niece for a while. It was low tide, so we walked on the rocks looking for crabs or starfish. It was a bust. The water was too cold to have jellyfish, luckily, so we celebrated the small victories. After about an hour and a half, we came back to the shore.
My sister and mother in law tanned for a while and talked while my partner and niece were building a sand castle. I went with my partner for a bit, but my niece got tired of it pretty quick. We hadn't taken anything to dig with or buckets to make the sand castle with. So she wanted to go back with her mother. I was ready to seize the opportunity to take a nice quiet walk with my partner. We walk about 30 feet away and we hear my niece calling behind for us to wait for her. Apparently whatever my sister and mother in law were discussing wasn't very interesting to her. So we went out on the rocks. So we started looking and my sister in law came over with my mother in law. I started looking for rocks, because I'm a geek like that while my niece was looking for crabs with my partner and sister in law. They found a few very small ones. Of course my niece refused to touch them, and would run screaming when they found one. I talked with my mother in law a bit when all of the sudden we heard my niece screaming!
She had found something living in one of the shells! She found a very small hermit crab in a shell probably only about an inch long. In French, they're called bernard-l'ermite, and my niece kept saying Bernard Bermite, like it was his name or something. So then began the controversy of what they ate, to which the answer we responded was plankton. She had no idea what that was, so we just told her little things in the water. Then she wanted to find some way to keep him alive and take him home. So she puts the poor thing in a shell with some water and takes it up to where we were. So my sister in law tells her that it's not enough water in the shell and that she should put some water in the bottle. So she runs back to the beach, all proud and fills the bottle full. But the hermit crab needs sand and a little bit of air at the top. So she runs back a second time and does it. She even added some seaweed, even though she refused to touch it earlier because there were crabs hiding in it. She was determined to take that bad boy home with her. She said that she could just give it some water from the tap, but then we had to explain the difference between seawater and freshwater. It was getting complicated and we needed to start thinking about getting back, so her mother told her to put the poor thing back in the ocean, which she did, in the most disappointed 8 year old manner she could.
Afterwards we took a final swim, and then started packing up. I took back some rocks and my niece a fistful of shells. We through out poor Bernard Barmite's now empty home on the way
back to the car, distracting our niece with the two things that could make everything better: churros and ice cream.
I think it's pretty straightforward, but I am not sure how familiar the audience may be with churros. I had never eaten churros growing up. That may have had something to do with my parents never wanting to take 5 children to the county fairs. I can't blame them. I really didn't know much about carnival food until I started high school and I had to go because I was in the high school marching band. Pretty much, churros are the same dough used for Elephant Ears and funnel cakes, but they are long pipes and after they're fried, they're rolled in sugar. I actually didn't learn about churros until I watched someone make them on food network and ate my first churro in France.
We got four churros with a tub of chocolate sauce for dipping which was an excellent appetizer for the main event. The igloo ice cream stand is the biggest in town. They have something ridiculous like 150 different flavors. They range from the normal chocolate and vanilla, to the not so outrageous blackberry or currant, but getting to the out there chive and curry flavors. The line is always around the block, so you have to pay for what you want first, and then you stand in line for service. I got two scoops, one blackberry, the other black currant. My niece couldn't finish all of her's so I ended up finishing her brownie ice cream. I tend to like sorbet more than ice cream, but I was satisfied.
After that, we headed back home. We'll probably spend the week recovering from the weekend, and this Friday we'll be going back up to Rennes for my partner's med school orientation. I don't really know what if anything we'll be doing other than that. I think the next post will probably be about the French highway system anyway. I seriously am bothered by it, if the IKEA Saturday wasn't an indication.
Through some sort of fluke of nature, my partner had his weekend off, and after spending the entire afternoon lifting IKEA the day before, we decided to go to Carnac. For those of you who have never been to Bretagne, maybe just Morbihan, Carnac is a town along the Gulf of Morbihan with 3 or 4 beaches. It's also where most Bretons go for a day trip in the summer. It's always packed, always warm, and I've never left without going in the water. (Even the first time I came in December of 2004, we walked along the coast in Carnac, and got wet. I wanted to be able to come back and be the first of my brothers and sisters to be able to say I'd been on both sides of the Atlantic.)
The car ride was a little rough, I'll admit. It takes about an hour to get there, and there's no direct route despite the traffic. However most people who come there are actually staying a while. There's lots of Germans and Dutch, but the most common are the English. I have never gone an entire day without hearing someone speak English there. Luckily though, it was nearing the end of vacation, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Plus, my niece was ready to see the nude beach that we had jokingly told her we'd be going to. her natural question was,"You mean everyone will be able to see your zizi?"
So we set up on the beach close to the railing so we would be sheltered a little bit. We had brought a few things to eat and some water, so we put the cooler on one of the towels to keep it down. The others we held down with sandals and the like. We didn't really have to change as we had just worn our suits under our clothes. There aren't many places to change on the beach, and after last time when I had to change in a car, I wasn't looking to repeat. So we unfolded the transat and left our stuff with my mother in law while the four of us went swimming.
I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but the last time I had come to Carnac, I got burned really bad, and it lasted for a week. I could barely move my arms or my neck and my partner laughed at me. I wasn't about to repeat that week, so I used the sun block my sister had taken with them to Spain. If SPF 50 wasn't going to stop my ass from burning, I don't know what would. So I did the best I could to cover and I had to brow beat my partner in to putting it on. He's lily white to begin with and works 5 days a week in a lab. When he's off two days, we stay inside and play video games. The only time we leave the house then is for groceries, and even that doesn't happen sometimes. He doesn't tan, he burns. I won't say I'm a thousand times better, but I wasn't the one refusing to wear sun block. So we coated ourselves, and went swimming.
Now, it was very warm as I said, so I figured that with the temperature being about 32 (90), the water should be about 25(80). Yeah, no.... It was about (20)70! Oh, but it was the ocean, and when would we see it again, so we went slow, and eventually just gave up that plan and jumped in. It knocked the wind out of you at first, but the longer you stayed in the nicer it was. We played around and acted as bouys for my niece for a while. It was low tide, so we walked on the rocks looking for crabs or starfish. It was a bust. The water was too cold to have jellyfish, luckily, so we celebrated the small victories. After about an hour and a half, we came back to the shore.
My sister and mother in law tanned for a while and talked while my partner and niece were building a sand castle. I went with my partner for a bit, but my niece got tired of it pretty quick. We hadn't taken anything to dig with or buckets to make the sand castle with. So she wanted to go back with her mother. I was ready to seize the opportunity to take a nice quiet walk with my partner. We walk about 30 feet away and we hear my niece calling behind for us to wait for her. Apparently whatever my sister and mother in law were discussing wasn't very interesting to her. So we went out on the rocks. So we started looking and my sister in law came over with my mother in law. I started looking for rocks, because I'm a geek like that while my niece was looking for crabs with my partner and sister in law. They found a few very small ones. Of course my niece refused to touch them, and would run screaming when they found one. I talked with my mother in law a bit when all of the sudden we heard my niece screaming!
She had found something living in one of the shells! She found a very small hermit crab in a shell probably only about an inch long. In French, they're called bernard-l'ermite, and my niece kept saying Bernard Bermite, like it was his name or something. So then began the controversy of what they ate, to which the answer we responded was plankton. She had no idea what that was, so we just told her little things in the water. Then she wanted to find some way to keep him alive and take him home. So she puts the poor thing in a shell with some water and takes it up to where we were. So my sister in law tells her that it's not enough water in the shell and that she should put some water in the bottle. So she runs back to the beach, all proud and fills the bottle full. But the hermit crab needs sand and a little bit of air at the top. So she runs back a second time and does it. She even added some seaweed, even though she refused to touch it earlier because there were crabs hiding in it. She was determined to take that bad boy home with her. She said that she could just give it some water from the tap, but then we had to explain the difference between seawater and freshwater. It was getting complicated and we needed to start thinking about getting back, so her mother told her to put the poor thing back in the ocean, which she did, in the most disappointed 8 year old manner she could.
Afterwards we took a final swim, and then started packing up. I took back some rocks and my niece a fistful of shells. We through out poor Bernard Barmite's now empty home on the way
back to the car, distracting our niece with the two things that could make everything better: churros and ice cream.
I think it's pretty straightforward, but I am not sure how familiar the audience may be with churros. I had never eaten churros growing up. That may have had something to do with my parents never wanting to take 5 children to the county fairs. I can't blame them. I really didn't know much about carnival food until I started high school and I had to go because I was in the high school marching band. Pretty much, churros are the same dough used for Elephant Ears and funnel cakes, but they are long pipes and after they're fried, they're rolled in sugar. I actually didn't learn about churros until I watched someone make them on food network and ate my first churro in France.
We got four churros with a tub of chocolate sauce for dipping which was an excellent appetizer for the main event. The igloo ice cream stand is the biggest in town. They have something ridiculous like 150 different flavors. They range from the normal chocolate and vanilla, to the not so outrageous blackberry or currant, but getting to the out there chive and curry flavors. The line is always around the block, so you have to pay for what you want first, and then you stand in line for service. I got two scoops, one blackberry, the other black currant. My niece couldn't finish all of her's so I ended up finishing her brownie ice cream. I tend to like sorbet more than ice cream, but I was satisfied.
After that, we headed back home. We'll probably spend the week recovering from the weekend, and this Friday we'll be going back up to Rennes for my partner's med school orientation. I don't really know what if anything we'll be doing other than that. I think the next post will probably be about the French highway system anyway. I seriously am bothered by it, if the IKEA Saturday wasn't an indication.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Rennes, Caen, and other IKEA adventures
I should probably mention that Saturday was the hottest day of the entire summer in Bretagne. We decided to move what we expected to be three carloads of IKEA flatpack furniture in 31 (88) degree weather. I, being the genius that I am, decided to wear a black long sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I didn't want to look like hell and it was just fine back in Ploërmel. I neglected to remember that when I wore this shirt there, it was never over 20 (70.)
I should also mention that we had already decided on everything we were going to buy a couple of weeks ago. We'd gone to the store, took all the references, and we were just really going to pick things up. It wasn't going to be anything spectacular, but it would all be good quality stuff that could last a while. So with our lists in hand, I'm all done up with cologne and all that, we all get into the little Peugeot and make the trip up to Rennes.
We meet my sister in law at our apartment, we show things off and plug in the refrigerator to keep things cold while we get all the rest of the stuff around at IKEA. They had just gotten back from a trip to Spain a few weeks ago and they had brought stuff back for us. I might mention that if you stood my partner next to his sister, you could tell that she'd been out in the sun, and my partner had been hiding in a bunker somewhere. We're more inside people. So we take the rocade north from Alma to catch rue national 12 to get to the IKEA. It took us maybe 15 minutes to get there. We park our cars, and go grab some food first at the cafe.
After grabbing something quick to eat, we get into it. So we're going through the references when Mathieu's sister says we should come over and look at something. We got this couch for half price. It's much more modern than the one we picked, and it's a convertible. Vendu! We take down the reference, and forget about the other couch. We also got a very nice TV stand. It was more expensive, than what we had originally imagined turning on the side and buying a couple of storage boxes inside it like drawers. So I'm pleased that we got something more adult. The only other big ticket item was the bed, which I can't find a picture of, so I'll have to take some apartment pictures.
I know you're all thinking the same thing I was. How the hell are we going to get this back. We had my sister in laws 9/5, but even that wasn't gonna hold all this. So with the first load, we got everything but one part of the couch. We're already starting to sweat, so we decide that we would let my niece and mother in law stay at IKEA with what was left, and we'd start putting stuff in the apartment. So we pack the first load, and she says she'll follow us.
Like I said, it took 15 minutes to get there, so you'd think logically the same time back, right? If you know where the hell you're going, yes, that's all it takes. However, we did not. I want to blame the majority of it on the rocade system in France and especially on Rennes while factoring in the area around IKEA is exceptionally poorly laid out, none of the signs make sense, and the area around IKEA is a black hole or the Bermuda triangle. Take your pick, it adds up to fuck all. The first time, we took the Rocades to follow towards Le Mans and Caen.
We're just happily driving along, and all of the sudden Mathieu asks me what color the signs were. I responded with blue. I don't think I had ever heard more shouting and cursing in French than at that moment. "J'en ai ras le bol de cette--!" is about all I can actually print because of how fast he spoke and content. So finally, he stops to catch his breath and I ask him what's wrong. We were on the A84, headed towards Caen! So I said, thinking logically, why don't we just turn off at the next exit, and he said, this is an Autoroute, there are only exits for major cities! We lucked out though, and we found an off ramp. Of course, we were in a Peugeot 106 that my father in law has had since 1995. It's not wise to push it up to interstate speeds. So, an hour and a half later, we're at the apartment unloading.
So we get cak to IKEA, another 15 minute trip, and we take the second load. We asked my mother in law what would be best to do this time. She said to take Rennes-centre. So we take it, sure and it's a nice scenic drive through town. 45 minutes later, we're there. We're all starting to get suspicious about how long this is taking, so with the third load when we're all coming back together, we try another exit, this time towards Nantes/Angers. 15 Minutes.... Third time's the charm, I guess. At least I'll have to tell myself that so I won't end up in the bathtub with the cake mix. So that was that.
There is another adventure to tell while the family was together, so I'll talk more about that in the next post, and probably talk more about the highway system in France after. I hope this finds you all well, because I'm still recovering. I'll tell you this, the next post involves churros!
I should also mention that we had already decided on everything we were going to buy a couple of weeks ago. We'd gone to the store, took all the references, and we were just really going to pick things up. It wasn't going to be anything spectacular, but it would all be good quality stuff that could last a while. So with our lists in hand, I'm all done up with cologne and all that, we all get into the little Peugeot and make the trip up to Rennes.
We meet my sister in law at our apartment, we show things off and plug in the refrigerator to keep things cold while we get all the rest of the stuff around at IKEA. They had just gotten back from a trip to Spain a few weeks ago and they had brought stuff back for us. I might mention that if you stood my partner next to his sister, you could tell that she'd been out in the sun, and my partner had been hiding in a bunker somewhere. We're more inside people. So we take the rocade north from Alma to catch rue national 12 to get to the IKEA. It took us maybe 15 minutes to get there. We park our cars, and go grab some food first at the cafe.
After grabbing something quick to eat, we get into it. So we're going through the references when Mathieu's sister says we should come over and look at something. We got this couch for half price. It's much more modern than the one we picked, and it's a convertible. Vendu! We take down the reference, and forget about the other couch. We also got a very nice TV stand. It was more expensive, than what we had originally imagined turning on the side and buying a couple of storage boxes inside it like drawers. So I'm pleased that we got something more adult. The only other big ticket item was the bed, which I can't find a picture of, so I'll have to take some apartment pictures.
I know you're all thinking the same thing I was. How the hell are we going to get this back. We had my sister in laws 9/5, but even that wasn't gonna hold all this. So with the first load, we got everything but one part of the couch. We're already starting to sweat, so we decide that we would let my niece and mother in law stay at IKEA with what was left, and we'd start putting stuff in the apartment. So we pack the first load, and she says she'll follow us.
Like I said, it took 15 minutes to get there, so you'd think logically the same time back, right? If you know where the hell you're going, yes, that's all it takes. However, we did not. I want to blame the majority of it on the rocade system in France and especially on Rennes while factoring in the area around IKEA is exceptionally poorly laid out, none of the signs make sense, and the area around IKEA is a black hole or the Bermuda triangle. Take your pick, it adds up to fuck all. The first time, we took the Rocades to follow towards Le Mans and Caen.
We're just happily driving along, and all of the sudden Mathieu asks me what color the signs were. I responded with blue. I don't think I had ever heard more shouting and cursing in French than at that moment. "J'en ai ras le bol de cette--!" is about all I can actually print because of how fast he spoke and content. So finally, he stops to catch his breath and I ask him what's wrong. We were on the A84, headed towards Caen! So I said, thinking logically, why don't we just turn off at the next exit, and he said, this is an Autoroute, there are only exits for major cities! We lucked out though, and we found an off ramp. Of course, we were in a Peugeot 106 that my father in law has had since 1995. It's not wise to push it up to interstate speeds. So, an hour and a half later, we're at the apartment unloading.
So we get cak to IKEA, another 15 minute trip, and we take the second load. We asked my mother in law what would be best to do this time. She said to take Rennes-centre. So we take it, sure and it's a nice scenic drive through town. 45 minutes later, we're there. We're all starting to get suspicious about how long this is taking, so with the third load when we're all coming back together, we try another exit, this time towards Nantes/Angers. 15 Minutes.... Third time's the charm, I guess. At least I'll have to tell myself that so I won't end up in the bathtub with the cake mix. So that was that.
There is another adventure to tell while the family was together, so I'll talk more about that in the next post, and probably talk more about the highway system in France after. I hope this finds you all well, because I'm still recovering. I'll tell you this, the next post involves churros!
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