Need a Little Christmas

Christmas isn't quite the affair in France as it is in the states. Don't get me wrong, it's a well celebrated holiday. But you don't see the extravagant decorating or the hear the incessant Christmas music starting in October that you get stateside. On one hand, I don't mind it. On the other, I miss a little bit of the excess. And I really miss decorating my home for Christmas.

Friday, I wandered up to Boulevard Haussmann to see what was happening at the big department stores here in Paris. I can't really do any shopping but I just wanted to see if I could scare up a little dose of Christmas. The two biggies here are Galerie Lafayette and Printemps and they came through, injecting me with the fix of Christmas commercialism that I desperately needed. First, the light show on the exterior of the Galeries Lafayette. Absolutely breathtaking. I couldn't figure out how add a video to the blog but these lights change colors and design constantly across the huge facade.

The interior of the building, which dates from around 1912 was just as beautiful. Yes, that is a stained glass dome at the top!

It's main rival store, Printemps, is just across the street and also stunning.

Both of the stores featured Rock and Roll themed animated windows this year and though I didn't take any photos, they were delightful and brought back memories of  the annual trek to Minneapolis with my boys to take in the delightful animations in the Daytons' windows...just as my parents did with me when I was a child. 

The reason I didn't take any photos of the animations was because the other windows at Printemp were just so beautiful. Sponsored by Chanel, they take us on a trip around the world. Not my world, but perhaps the world of Chanel! Nonetheless, they are exquisite and I thought you should be treated to a few of them.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm supposed to denounce Christmas commercialism and revel in the simplicity and love of the season. Fa la la la la. Which I generally do. Unless I'm without all the overkill and excess. Then I get all hinky. So thank you Paris for pulling through for me. I've got just enough to survive until I get back to the states for Christmas...in just a couple of weeks!

Have a great week everyone,

Guest Pest

I got to do a guest post yesterday! I feel like I've arrived. Several weeks ago, Lindsey over at The American Girl  asked me to write about my best day ever here in France as part of a series she's doing. The kind of moment that makes you realize you made the right decision or the kind that reawakens your courage when you're SURE you've made the wrong decision. I couldn't come up with the BEST. I'm terrible at choosing favorite things.

I love reading Lindsey's blog because it's about a young woman who has chosen to live in France. And I love looking at this whole business from her perspective. She's joyous, optimistic, open and a cutie patootie to boot. I mean what can you say about a young woman who can't sew but owns a sewing maching....just because she wants to sew...someday? Please take the time to check out her blog. For self-serving purposes, I'll link you up with MY article here! But take the time to read some more, okay?

Bon Week-end

Daphnée Does Paris

Planning a trip to Paris soon? Language woes got you down? Never fear, Daphnée's here! Yeah, I guess I'm advertising (unbeknownst to anybody who would ever think to pay me for it)  but I spotted this new I-Phone/I-Pad application today. My old blackberry doesn't qualify and I hope to own a Kindle (mom.....) rather than an I Pad....but I did view all the trailers and these French lessons might be a fun way to learn a little French.  Click here to go to the web page. 

  

Actress Anne-Sophie Franck of the film Inglorious Bastards stars as Daphnée in the series, and it covers everything from shopping to dining, nightlife to ....a different type of nightlife. The entire series is only $2.99 and can be downloaded from the apps store.

I have once or twice had the opportunity to say "tu me fais mal!" However, I have never, ever gotten to say "tu les trouves jolie mes fesses?" Now that I know how to say it....well... I gotta go!

Putting the Summer to Bed

I just woke up from a very long nap and I’m still a wee bit groggy. My little sister just left France to return to Minnesota after a two-week visit. She was the final visitor of the summer season.  That is both the good and the bad thing about living in a place like Provence.  I have not been lonely, that is for sure. I haven’t had the chance. The steady stream of visitors began in May, most stayed for 2 weeks, I had maybe 2 weeks in between them and I… am…. truly…. exhausted. But oh my goodness, thanks to them and their visits, I’ve had a hell of a summer!

I have hiked in Italy, gotten lost and lost someone in Monaco, antique shopped in Isle sur le Sorgue, 

lunched in Loumarin, lazed on the beaches of Carry le Rouet, Bandol and Cassis, dined street-side in St. Tropez (and also examined all the enormous yachts in the harbor… I think my future husband owns one of them), drank both coffee and absinthe in Antibes, 

swam in the turquoise waters of Lac du St. Croix,

 and wandered the rows and rows of purple lavender in Valensole. 

 I’ve driven the Route des Crêtes that snakes its breathtaking way along the highest maritime cliffs in Europe and traveled the rim of the Gorge de Verdun, one of the most beautiful river canyons in Europe.

I’ve learned how perfume is made in Grasse and bought my first REAL bottle. I’ve felt the thrill (and terror) of the enormous fighting bulls running down the streets of Arles and St. Marie sur le Mer, 

I’ve been horseback riding in the Carmargue and spied on the flocks of pink flamingos as they graze (do flamingos actually graze?) in the wetlands. 

I’ve watched the white Camarguaise horses galloping freely through the salty grasslands. 

I have visited the bird market in Paris 

and sat entranced before the brilliant yet transparent colors of the enormous Water Lily paintings of Monet at Le Musée de l’Orangerie.

 I have tipped a glass of red on the stairs of Montmartre

and sipped champagne in the cool shade of a friend’s grape arbor. I’ve attended concerts in vineyards and castles and even a grand circus in the country yard of a friend.

I have eaten fat, warm grapes from the vine and figs from the trees. 

I’ve savored wild boar and bouillabaisse and can now eat a fish with the head still attached.  I’ve been taught to make a mean mussel mouclade and I’ve even learned to almost like chèvre.

I have learned to drive like a true French person and finally become somewhat skilled in the fine art of both being charming and being charmed (and that this does not apply while driving!). I’ve learned to barter at the market and joke around in French. I’ve learned that the French bureaucracy will always be aggravation-times-ten but I’ve learned (and will continue to learn) how to get what I want through the back door…. like a native.

 I now know that it’s cheaper to rent a car through U.S. websites but more economical to buy a train ticket through a French website. And that hostels are a perfectly acceptable place to stay…if I don’t mind being 30 years older than the rest of the guests (which I don’t).

I’ve visited with old friends and made new ones. I’ve ended relationships and begun fresh ones. I now know that if I ever date again, le monsieur must understand “girls night”.

I’ve locked myself out of my hotel room after-hours and filled up a friend’s diesel consuming car with regular gas (oops!). I have had not one single run-in with the French police or crazy Frenchwomen.  And I have not had enough sleep!

So today, I’m washing the beach towels and putting them away, returning the last rental car of the summer, writing this article and finishing my test for my courses at the University, which starts in two weeks. And after a brief babysitting stint this afternoon (this should be interesting…French 3-year-old cared for by a 51-year-old American who speaks French like a 2-year-old), I’m going to sleep for a very long time.

There were times this summer when I really wondered why I continue to invite endless summer guests to my little section of heaven (and sometimes hell). But the time eventually comes, like today, when I know exactly why. 

My big thank you to all who have taken their time this summer to make my life richer.

                                                           

Le Rentrée

This is my Monday memory for this week. Written this same time last year. Of course, it's not Monday...and it's not September 1. It's September 3rd, the day after this year's rentrée, and I'm...again...behind. Geez! This is supposed to be the time of the year when we get all our ducks in a row! However, I am at this very moment, sitting at sidewalk café in a lovely neighborhood in the 18th in Paris, sipping a café crême and waiting for my little sister to wake up. Yeppers...I spent my rentrée making the journey to Paris to meet my sister, Jennie, who will spend the next two weeks with me. My best friend. We have a few adventures lined up (well actually we have not one single plan but I'm sure some adventures will evolve) and if I can manage all these ducks, I will try to keep them in something that resembles a row.

Today is September 1, and we have now entered that special time of the year when everybody has returned from their holidays and school and work begin again in earnest. It’s such a big change that there is actually a term for it…la rentrée.  And if you say to someone “à la rentrée”, what you mean is “see you in September”. It specifically means the re-entry into the new school term but it has become a generic term for the beginning of almost everything. From what I’ve read, this is when politically rhetoric heats up again, all the new books are released, television shows and their time slots all change, new movies are released, and the stores are packed with parents and children positively loading up on school supplies. Yup, they’re all back and the tourists are filtering out.

And of course, as it is in the northern mid-west, the weather is changing. The nights are cooler and those days of energy-sapping heat are gone. In the country, the grape vines are heavy with fruit and you can see some of the vine leaves hinting at the impending color change. I picked blackberries and hazelnuts this weekend and was nearly killed by the fallen,slippery, over-ripe figs as I walked under my neighbor’s fig tree.

And so I begin my rentrée also. Sunday I signed a lease for my new apartment and I’m so excited I can hardly stand it. My own place for a whole year which means no more moving for a while. It’s more than I wanted to pay but this mid-western girl needs access to outside space and this place has a terrace! It won’t be ready for a few weeks and since I had to move out of the mansion yesterday, I will stay with friends until the big day.

My new computer arrived and so I’m back in the driver’s seat. The transfer of the information that I had so luckily backed up onto a portable hardrive the night before it was stolen went without a hitch and I feel like an old friend has returned. Just a few moments ago, I spent an hour talking on Skype to my boys. It was so great to see both of their faces and to spend as much time as I wanted talking to them about almost nothing.

I signed up for a semester of school and took my “entry test” last week. Believe it or not, I skipped one level since I was last in class and though, in fact, I probably should have progressed more, I’m still just a teeny bit proud.  So now I’ll be attending 4 classes each day, 5 days a week for 12 weeks. In French…. to learn to speak French.  Yikes!

It’s all a beginning…. again.  And that feels really good. And now I’m going to go dig some clothes out of whatever box they’re in, find my toothbrush and hairbrush, and go out to lunch. It’s time to celebrate. Here’s to a wonderful, exciting, and hopeful la rentrée!

50 is the New 20

My friend Marcie doesn't celebrate birthdays...she celebrates birthmonths. I think she's got something there! April is my birthmonth and so as part of my usual Flashback Mondays, I'm including this story that I wrote almost a year ago.

When I was 20, 40 seemed old. When I was 30, I was sure 50 would be the moment when I would become a grandma type. Yesterday I celebrated my 50th birthday.... in Paris. The same place I celebrated my 40th birthday. I didn't feel old 10 years ago and I still don't. What a lovely surprise. I'm sure anyone who has passed this birthday, as well as their 60th or 70th, feels the same way. Your body might betray you periodically but your mind still believes in its youth and is always a little surprised by the years it has acquired .You wonder where the time went but at the same time you celebrate the gifts that time has given you.  Yes, my feet hurt and I have to work a whole lot harder to stay in the same size jeans. I can't stay up for 48 hours or go longer than 6 weeks without touching up my gray roots. But what I've gained is worth more than comfy feet and a tight stomach.

I have two grown, wildly creative and funny children who are mostly on their own and whom I adore in spite of, or maybe because of, their problems, foibles, and youthful angst. I have a family, some related by blood and some whom I've chosen as family, who love me and care for me, in spite or, or maybe because of my problems, foibles and not- so-youthful angst. I still have my sense of adventure but it's now tempered with the ability to relax and not take things so seriously.  I spend far less time worrying about the little things, like the dirty windows or whether or not my dessert is home made. I'm less critical and judgmental of other people and let myself enjoy their eccentricities. I seem to observe and see more things than I ever have before. And most importantly, I can still laugh my fool head off for almost no reason at all.

Of course there are bad things that come with age. Losing someone you love to old age. Watching friends begin to succumb to the diseases of time and living.... like the big C. Feeling the pain of friends as they care for an aging parent while caring for a grown child who has lost their way...and knowing my turn will come.  Worrying that my generation did not do a good job as caretakers of the earth and leaving a better place for our children.  Knowing my knees might not make it through a full day of mountain climbing. Not being able to sleep until noon, even if I really need it.  And reaching the ripe, not- that-old age of 50 and not knowing what I want to do when I grow up!!

When I was 20, I was sure I would be doing something important when I was 40. When I was 30, I was certain that once the boys were older, I would find that fabulous career that I had decided to put on hold until they were in school. When I was 40, I knew it was just around the corner. 

I've turned a lot or corners since then and I still haven't found it. I've done so many things and enjoyed them all. I've been a trail cook in the mountains of British Columbia, a television journalist, an educational director for a non-profit agency, a computer trainer, a designer, a florist, and an advertising executive. But none have brought me to the point where, at 50, I know what is next. How does a person reach this age and find herself in this predicament? I envy those who were certain from the get-go and happily remain steadfast.

So here in France, I'm not only on a travel and cultural journey but it's personal as well. Trying to find my place in the second half of my life. Should I begin the struggle of trying to become a writer? Have I got it in me? Should I start the travel business I've been thinking about? Or do I settle for finding a job that gives me insurance and a retirement fund, both of which are just a wee bit important at this stage of my life? Much more important than they used to be.

My boys sent me a song for my birthday that they wrote and recorded. It's called 50 Is The New 20. It's hysterically funny and, of course, it's more than a bit of a stretch, but , in a way it feels sort of true. At this juncture, I'm more like a 20-year-old than a 50-year-old and I've really got to get serious.

Soooo......within 5 years I swear I'm going to be a grown up. I really mean it this time. I'll have a plan. Yes, a plan, and a bank account and possibly even a lease (in an apartment with an actual oven)! After all, I could have grandchildren by then and I'll need a place to bake cookies and rock them to sleep. I'll need money to take them to Disneyland and Washington DC.

On the other hand, they could visit their granny in her tiny apartment in a faraway, foreign country, sleep in a drawer, learn to make mousse au chocolate, which requires no oven, and enjoy their odd collection of acquired family that will most certainly be living in my apartment (currently, while I'm traveling for a month I have a 19-year-old Swedish au pair named Alessandra and a 56-year-old French businessman, both of whom are temporarily homeless, living in my apartment). I could introduce them to my friend who speaks 5 languages and is learning Apache.  Or the Irish barman who remembers every single book he's ever read (and the list is extensive) and seems to know the etymology of every English and French word in both dictionaries.  Then, I could show them the Roman aqueducts scattered haphazardly around the countryside and take them to real castles, built in the 11th and 12th centuries.

So what's a 50-year-old going on 21 to do?

My 50th in Paris. Curiously, everybody at the restaurant sang to me....in English! I was kind of bummed.