Andorra

We visited a small town in Andorra called Pas de la Casa on Saturday. It’s just across the border from France. But to get there was fun. Picture climbing mountains in a very small car, just switchbacks all the way to the top (more fun coming down!) There are two tunnels under the mountains; one goes toward Barcelona and the other toward the center of Andorra. We’ll probably take the second one next time we go to get to Andorra la Vella. We didn’t make it to Andorra la Vella, it was further in and we were running out of time. But that’s the other big town in Andorra.

Pas de la Casa is a border town and basically a ski resort, though this time of year it's pretty barren looking. It's so high up in the mountains (The Pyrenees) that it's above the timber line. Very barren, just grass and hills and rocks, oh, and wild horses. The big draw there this time of year is the shopping. France adds 20% tax to everything. 20%! So people go there for perfumes, jewelry, sporting goods, high ticket electronics etc. It's a steal at 20% off.

Mostly wandered through shops, tried to touch a wild horse but it showed me it's back end so I got out of its way. Walked, drove, ate. It was nice.

We explored some tiny towns on the France side on the way home and took pictures of churches. Stopped and had a few coffees here and there. Z you would love it! No brown water pretend coffee here. I’m not used to coffee this strong but it is surprisingly good.

Still trying to clean the place up and organize. It’s difficult to tell who is winning the spider wars. I was trying the humanitarian approach at first (not wanting to invite bad Karma) but couldn’t keep up. It seemed that every day there were more webs and more spiders in the corners of the ceiling. I finally just took the broom and began sweeping them away and squashing as many as I could get. This seemed to be working until yesterday when I opened a shutter and almost screamed at the size of the friend waiting for me there. Word must have gotten out and they’re sending in the heavies. I swept the big guy off the ledge, he curled into a ball and fell two stories. Of course my bedroom window is right below and now I’m paranoid that he may have gone in there.

S is gone now to Turkey and Hungary. Drove him to the airport at 5hr on Monday morning and will pick him up on Saturday afternoon. At least I have the car. He has encouraged me to go out and explore. I have to admit that it’s a bit frightening. Getting lost in Chicago is one thing, at least they speak the language and I know which way is west. Here I still don’t have my bearings and mostly have no clue which direction I’m driving in and if I get lost, no one speaks the language.

Went to the grocery store for a warm up and out to find a place to send a FAX on Tuesday. Today, though the mission was to find IKEA. I printed the map from the website, then compared it to the 4 other maps of Toulouse that I have, went out. Of course I got lost. I took the wrong turn off the highway and couldn’t get back on. (Damn those frickin circles, where are they when I need them.) So I just drove in the general direction until I found it. I had been trying to get there at 10hr, when they open, and arrived at 10:22. The parking lot was almost full, just like any other IKEA I’ve ever shopped at. It’s the weirdest thing. Anyway, went in list in hand and found a few things I needed. I didn’t get everything because it’s hot, and the store was hot, and some of the people were um…well to borrow a line from Meg Ryan in French Kiss…hygiene deficient. But at least it gives me an opportunity to get lost again tomorrow.

I came home and hit the boulangerie, there are two in town, one is a chain, you see them everywhere in every town. The second boulangerie is local and wonderful. I bought a couple of ‘brioche’ and some ‘palmiers’ too. The bread will be the death of me. Still losing weight though, apparently the stress still outweighing caloric intake. Cannot get used to the taste of the milk; even the nesquick doesn’t mask the flavor enough. This could be a problem, I love milk.

Cold

Have cold.
Have fever.
Have “New country and not used to their germs” sickness.
Have INTERNET ACCESS! Yippee!
Have vitamin C.
Have Echinacea.
Have OJ and hot tea.
Have Kleenex
Have lovely new “Serta queen sized pillow top mattress set” bed.
Have fluffy comforter.
Have fluffy pillows.
Have to go there.

Conversion

Sunny today but cool breeze blowing. Still no cell phone. We did order one though. This is funny. We found a phone in the phone store that is exactly like what I already have. What I have has the wrong type of ‘card’ in it and won’t work here. But this new one will work everywhere. We decided to go with this phone because I already have all the accessories for it so there’ll be no extra expenses. The batteries, chargers, covers and instructions are all the same and the charger has a transformer on it so either phone will charge in either country. They had to order it from another store though, so it won’t arrive until Thursday.

An idea whose time has come: The intersections that don’t have a circle, do have a traffic light. Unlike the monster light posts, with lights you can see from every direction, in the US, the ones here are small and unobtrusive. The one big charm of these lights is that they discourage those annoying people who creep forward anticipating the light change. You see, the light post that faces you is on the right hand curb on your side of the street. You have to look out your right side window to watch it and if you move forward beyond the limit line you can no longer see the light. I’ve done this out of habit several times and then all you can do is wait for the guy behind you to start honking obscenely to let you know the light is green or take your chances when the cross traffic appears to have stopped.

Baking banana muffins, but oven is Celsius. What’s the conversion again? F - 32 x 5/9 or F - 32 x 9/16…

The Office

Slept through the night for the first time! Feel pretty good this morning except that it’s raining and windy and cold. Hmm, must be fall already. This house really does hold the cold in very well. Time for more hot chocolate. Nothing to do today except Blog, read, oh yeah, and organize that office. Funny how the whole unpacking project was not as daunting as this office organization is. Oh well, I’ve got nothing but time.

I found a schedule of events from the American’s in Toulouse. There was to be a “Back from Summer” event today. Too cold and rainy to walk up to the bus stop, and besides aren’t these the kind of days just made for snuggling up with a good book. Lord knows I brought enough of those with me. I’ll go find one now. S is coming home early today (at 17hr instead of 19hr, real early) so we can get over to the ‘Carrefour’ and get me a cell phone in relative peace.

More Unpacking

Air Shipment arrives today. That means the vacuum cleaner, power transformers and FOOD. Comfort food. Of course it’s raining and it’s cold. Unpacking will warm me up.

Moving truck arrived with all the branch breaking ruckus of its previous arrival (see Sean’s Blog of August 24th). If the driver would but turn that steering wheel thingy just a bit to the left he could avoid the trees altogether, but what fun would that be.

Unpacked the 12 boxes of the air shipment in a hurried frenzy. I hate the disorder of moving. Still have the upstairs bedrooms (guest rooms) to organize but since I don’t have to look at them daily I can take my time. Besides, our first guests aren’t scheduled to arrive until the week after Christmas.

Going to sit have a nice cup of Mexican hot chocolate from my personal stores.

Sunday

The weather is fall like. Cold, highs in the 60’s and rain on and off. I’m still unpacking the few remaining boxes. You know those last few boxes that are full of ‘why did I bring this’, ‘what was I thinking’ and ‘this goes right to the garbage’.

All the odds and ends are ending up in the office which will take weeks to sort through. Did some laundry and, ::gulps:: hung it up to dry in the garage. You’d think that with as cold as it is the clothes won’t dry, but we’ll see. The appliances take forever, almost two hours to wash one load of laundry; a load of laundry so small that we’ll have to wash every other day to keep up. I’ll take a picture of the washing machine, you won’t believe it. It is also a dryer but since it has no vent to circulate fresh air in, all it really accomplishes is cooking of your fine washables. The dishwasher is worse it takes over 2 hours to run, at least it’s very quiet.

Drove into downtown today with S just to try to get lost. There’s nothing to do since it’s Sunday and everything is closed. The sun did come out before we left so we took the wet linens out to dry on the outside lines. Of course 30 minutes from home it started to pour down rain again. Typical.

Even on Sunday, with everything closed, it’s hard to find a place to park. Some of the downtown streets are only wide enough for one small car to drive down. The problem is that it’s difficult to tell which way the street runs, signage is scarce and even then, difficult to decipher. But it was an adventure. Some things look familiar, but not familiar enough to be landmarks. The one big recognizable thing is the ‘Grand Round’ it’s a road way that circles a park with 8 arteries feeding into it. It’s difficult to know where to get off (signage) it’s best to look for a landmark. I can see me venturing into town alone and driving in circles for hours, though after today I know to look for the signs that point me to Montpellier. That generally means east and will eventually get me to something I’ll recognize.

I saw a bird to today that looked like a blue jay on steroids. About twice as big as a jay and much darker blue. Couldn’t find it in my “Birds of North America” book. Hmm?

Today

Day was devoted to driving. Have to learn path to airport as I will be taking S on the 15th. It’s only about 20 minutes away so S made me drive it over and back twice. It’ll be a bit tricky. There are no street signs in France. None. And those damned circles will be the death of me.

Need to do some more in depth grocery shopping and need to get a cell phone so off to shopping.

Now picture this, a super Wal-Mart times 3, ok got that, now stick a mall onto the front of it. I kid you not. Mall and then the other half is this ungodly huge store. 60 check out registers across the front of it (alright perhaps that's a slight exaggeration there are probably only 30 check outs). 3 security check points to enter through. (In case you shopped in the mall they check and tag your packages before you enter). It’s like a super Wal-Mart plus a Best Buy plus a Home Depot plus Office Max. You can buy groceries, clothes line, light bulbs, door stops, printer, cell phone, and DVD’s. We visited two such places today ‘Carrefour’ which is closer to our house and ‘E.leclerc’ which is near the airport. Craziness I tell you, craziness! Because everyone works M-F 8hr til 18 or 19hr (They get 2 hours for lunch – everything closes between 12hr and 14hr except the restaurants and some stores), they all have to shop on Saturday (closed Sunday) the crowds are insane.

An idea who’s time has come: When you go these mega stores, or any market for that matter, you will only see carts neatly parked in the cart corral. Why? Because each cart is fitted with a lock and chain that attaches it to the cart in front of it. When you need a cart you put a 1 Euro coin in the slot to release it from the others. When you return the cart to the cart corral and lock it up you get your Euro back. A Euro is currently worth a little over a dollar. Let’s picture the parking lots of Super Wal-Mart or target with no free roving carts.

Didn’t get cell phone because despite finding several places to purchase one, the crowds were huge and we would need someone’s undivided attention to get past the language barrier. Hopefully next Saturday.

Did, however, hook up phone service and order DSL. Phoned the phone company (S’s cell phone) the call was handed off several times when it was discovered that my French was, well, not good. They finally found one nice English speaking lady to help me. When I gave her our address, she told me that that address didn’t exist. I assured her that it did as we have received mail here from our banks and UPS delivered to us here. She asked me if I knew the name of the previous tenant. Luckily I remember the Canadians names and was able to give her the info. She found it immediately and said that in fact the name of our street is ‘Avenue Louie Delherm’ not ‘Rue du Doctuer Delherm’. Ok, but the landlord told us our address and mail gets here so what gives? There are no street signs so there is no way to clear this up. Am not, however, going to change anything as, as previously mentioned, mail is arriving. (Maybe not all of it?) Who knows! DSL will take a week. They are sending modem and service will be hooked up by Friday (9/12) Two weeks without internet access! The mind reels.

Where did I put the...?

Today I’m re-arranging furniture, because, as predicted by S, nothing is as I want it. It appears that the walls of each room were lined with boxes and furniture until they were covered and then on to the next room. So I’m trying to strategically place furniture so that it’s aesthetically pleasing and functional, oh, and it fits in its room of requirement. (Huh?)

That partner desk has to weigh over 200 lbs. Damn thing is heavy. And those two IKEA kitchen counters are so big they don’t fit in the kitchen. (Swear they didn’t look that large in the store) That’s ok though; they fit nicely in the office and will provide me with tons of work space for crafting. Moved wardrobes into bedroom and arranged all the living room furniture. I’ll tell you, I will be so sore tomorrow, but I’ll try not to think about that now. The good thing is that there is no carpet. Everything slides nicely over beautiful floors. Got to find that broom!

Began unpacking and storing clothing. Looks like everything will fit in bedroom space without having to put things in upstairs closets.

Note to self: Re-evaluate clothing collection. Beyond ridiculous! (Do they do yard sales in France?)

P.S. Bowels still unhappy. Water? Or milk? Still not king.

What is this? Did I bring it? Is it mine? What's it doing here?

Where did I put Wednesday? I’m sure I was entitled to one this week but seem to have misplaced it. Oh well, no big deal, I’ve got loads more of them coming up.

Tap water is ‘potable’ but hard, so hard in fact that I don’t think my hair actually gets wet and I had to use so much conditioner in it this morning that I’ll run out soon. Good thing I’ll be making one more trip back. Will start a list of things to buy upon return.

The yard and cherry grove show the signs of a very harsh summer. Hope they recover. And contrary to what I believed, the elementary school is not ‘in the neighborhood’ it is in fact directly across the street. It appears to start at 8hr and end at 16hr. There also appears to be a constant stream of kids coming and going all day long. They’re noisy and it sounds nice to hear their voices, even if I can’t understand them. They’re so far off and the babble sounds like kid babble anywhere.

Had some bacon (?) and eggs for breakfast. The bacon is well not so much Oscar Meyer-ish as extremely thin slices of well marbled actual ham. Would not crisp up, but was delicious none the less.

Ok, the unpacking begins or continues. Set Precious up in the large kitchen and put in a movie. What movie doesn’t matter as it’s just for background noise really.

So far the unpacking is like working a puzzle. You know those square ones made of a bunch of little squares where one square is empty and you move the pieces to their appropriate place by judicious use of the blank one. What are those called, I know they have a name. Anyway, that’s what the unpacking is like. I’m trying to start in the kitchen, unpacking dishes, linens, etc. but running out of places to put things, no cabinets to speak of here. So then move on to dining room to make room but need to move some boxes out of there into the living room (the living room will be last.) trying not to trip over open suitcases that have no hope of being emptied for a few days anyway. And so it goes move this out so I can put that there, so this will fit here, on and on. Either that or my ADD is kicking in and I’m just not able to focus on any one project. Too close to tell.

I have many companions though, there seems to be a wide variety of eight legged creatures. I’ve seen them in every size and color. Spider webs in every corner of every room. They can stay for now, but only because I haven’t unpacked the broom yet and the vacuum cleaner won’t arrive until Monday.

Now, here’s a funny thing, the front door has three dead bolt locks on it, however, the windows in each room are large enough to walk an elephant through and they have no screens. Quite secure, yes?

It’s true though, that all the windows have stout working shutters but if I close the shutters no breeze comes in. (And neither do the flies, and that would starve my spider friends) I thank god I didn’t have to be here during the hot summer when it would have been necessary to keep the shutters closed. Though the shutters in concert with the thick walls keep the darkened rooms quite cool I need light. I worry that my cat acquaintance could just hop right in through one of the windows to explore. There are actually leaves blowing in through my bedroom window, leaves! I’ve got to find that broom. (I wonder if I could train the spiders to weave across the windows?)

The day is overcast though and every once in a while the breeze brings in the smell of slightly, grudgingly dampened earth. Not enough moisture to be called rain but enough to remind us that it still knows how.

By the end of the day have managed to unpack 8 big kitchen boxes and have stacked the resulting paper mountain and empty boxes in the garage for removal by the moving company who will be delivering the air shipment on Monday.

A new cat friend has visited me on bedroom window sill. He ran when I spoke to him about his bandaged friend and asked after his own health. Oh well, have to wonder how much further he’d have come if it weren’t for my intrusion.

Will sleep like a log (til about 1hr when I will spring out of bed as if I had sense. Time adjustment will be tough without a schedule to pin me down) Have soreness where previously muscles were, maybe they’ll return. (Muscles, not soreness)

Note to self: Re-evaluate book collection. Reaching point of ridiculous.

P.S. Ditto movie and CD collections.

P.P.S. Bowels very unhappy, still not king.

Honey I'm Home!

Arrived around 1:00 pm France time. I lost Tuesday somewhere over the Atlantic (damn I hate that). We visited a local grocery store before heading home so that I could ascertain its location and availability of goods and also there’s no food in the house. (Unless you count spaghetti fixings as food) Also S is off to work tomorrow and that leaves me alone from 6hr til almost 21hr M-F. (When giving opening and closing times we use the 24hr clock for accuracy and none of this foolish American am, pm nonsense that is too long and confusing) I did recognize some brands. I bought Pepsi and Nesquick and some super chunk Skippy. It’s true the milk and eggs are not in a refrigerated section. The eggs are all brown (is that why they don’t need to be refrigerated) (kidding of course) The milk is, well, very thick and creamy with just a very, very miniscule hint of that sour milk taste. I notice it because it’s exactly that hint of taste that makes me dump a one day overdue unfinished carton milk down the drain. Thank god for Nesquick. Also bought some bacon (?) and of course bread.

Arrived at house and found it to be a maze of boxes in every room. What was that man doing? Working I suppose. Trying to stay awake for as long as possible to just get on with the time adjustment. Had a dinner of some chocolate milk and some yummy vanilla yogurt (Yoplait).

As luck would have it, UPS arrived, not an hour after we did, with the side rails for the bed. Have assembled my beautiful bed with all new linens in the midst of chaos. It will be my oasis from madness, if only to hide in blissful sleep. S has commented that it will be my best friend during my bouts of depression. (Isn’t he just a laugh riot!) Dying to sleep so I guess I will.

There’s a cat in my front yard with a rather wide bandage around its middle. I asked after its health but it replied in French and I could not understand him. Hope he stops back by.