Week One

Salut!

I've decided to start a blog in order to keep my family and friends updated on my life in France, to avoid answering the same questions multiple times, and to keep a sort of journal of our adventures in Caen. If you're bored already, feel free to ignore these posts!

Before we begin, I wanted to mention that Caen is in "Basse Normandie" (lower Normandy), in the northwest of France - not to be confused with Cannes, which is in the southeast and is where the film festival is held (see map below). Caen is pronounced sort of like "cawn", but with a soft 'n'.

Now that we have that cleared up, time for a recap of week one. A lot has happened in the past 7 days, so please bear with me. The next posts will likely be shorter over the next few weeks as we get settled in.

Week 1 Adventures 

A quick recap...

Paris
-Arrived in Paris on the morning of Monday Oct 19. Successfully pulled 4 suitcases and 2 carry-ons through both the Toronto & Paris airports. It was a smooth flight, but I didn't sleep a wink. Took the RER (light rail system - part of the metro) from the airport to downtown Paris. I was energetic and excited to point out all the stops on the metro that I knew from my semester in Paris 8 years ago (eek!). Alex smiled and nodded like a good fiancé. Arrived in downtown Paris at Gare du Nord (one of the many train stations in Paris). As Alex discussed directions to our hotel with some locals, I impatiently flagged a cab to take us to our hotel (even though it was actually around the block) because my chipper attitude had worn off and the staying up all night on a plane had set in. After a 3 to 4 hour morning nap followed by 40 minutes of trying to force ourselves to wake up, we met up with my cousin and his partner for a walk by the canal, a fresh baguette from a boulangerie and a bottle of vin rouge (naturally). The four of us then had a lovely dinner at a French restaurant, where I had what I think was a cornish hen and Alex had le canard -- plus more baguette, red wine, and dessert. Let the French-fifteen commence!

-The next morning we grabbed some delicious French pastries for breakfast, and then headed to Gare Saint-Lazare (the main train station) to head to Caen. I failed at ordering coffee (see "Things I learned", below).

Downtown Caen
-After a 2 hour train ride, we arrived in downtown Caen. From the main train station, we successfully took the tram/streetcar with all our suitcases to GANIL (Grand Accélérateur National d'Ions Lourds), where Alex will be working. Caen has 2 tram lines as well as about 20-30 bus lines that run every 10 minutes, and the fare is only 1.45 euros (about $2.20) which isn't bad for a city about the size of Guelph!

-When we got to GANIL, we were greeted warmly but told that our apartment at the lab had been booked for the next Monday (Mon Oct 26th) and that the lab's guest house had no free double rooms, so there was nowhere for us to stay. Awesome. Everything had been going well until then, so we figured this was our bump in the road. Fortunately, the staff at GANIL are extremely friendly and the receptionist quickly booked us a hotel room downtown (which the lab graciously covered). Time to head back to where we had come from! One of Alex's new colleagues kindly offered us a ride back downtown so we wouldn't have to bring all our suitcases back on the tram. I was skeptical that his typically small French car could fit all our luggage, but after a few tries, we got it all in!

-We spent 4 days at the hotel downtown, which was situated right in the centre of the city. This turned out to be a silver lining, because although we had two people and a lot of luggage in a tiny French hotel room, we were able to step out of the hotel and explore downtown Caen. Everything was within walking distance and we spent most of the past week eating at delicious French (and Italian) restaurants, eating fresh croissants and pain au chocolat included in the free hotel breakfast, and exploring the city. We did a lot of walking and observed that downtown Caen has: tons of great restaurants, great shopping (the French are très fashionable and we have decided we need to buy entirely new wardrobes), a canal running through the city, and at least 2-3 banks, boulangeries, and immobiliers (real estate agents) per small city block. We've learned that in France, all properties are bought or rented through real estate agents, so that explains why they are so numerous!

Beautiful church at night

One of Caen's many churches

-As for sites to see, Caen has many lovely old churches built in the gothic style and le Chateau de Caen in the centre of the city, which is essentially the ruins of an old fortress. The chateau now houses a museum and art gallery, which we haven't visited yet since it's free the first Sunday of every month. However, we did walk around the chateau and came across some French sheep (les moutons), grazing in a field off to the side of the castle, smack in the middle of downtown. Très cute. 

Le Chateau de Caen

Les Moutons

GANIL

-On Saturday there was a double room available at GANIL's guest house, so we took the tram back to the lab. GANIL is situated north of downtown, near one of the university campuses. Although there is not much around it except one mall and grocery store across the street (luckily for us!), the grounds are quite pretty, with lots of green space, fall leaves, and tons of rabbits! Alex says that since it's a secure gated property, the rabbits have no predators and are thus overpopulated on the GANIL site.

GANIL grounds

-Our room at the guest house is basically a dorm room - although we have a queen sized bed, a bigger desk and more space than we did in our hotel room, so at least we can fit our suitcases in much more easily! Since we're in a double room, unlike the singles, we also have a half bathroom (which here means a sink and a shower, but no toilet!). The toilets are in the communal bathroom down the hall. There's also a shared kitchen and laundry at the guest house, so it's quite livable for now. We cooked dinner for the first time since arriving in France this weekend, and since we didn't have so much as a mini fridge in our hotel, this was really our first opportunity. Our meal was mediocre after the delicious meals we had become accustomed to, and we made sure to have a nice Italian lunch downtown yesterday just to ease ourselves in slowly. ;) But in all seriousness, my waistband is happy that I now have a kitchen and can at least have normal things like cereal for breakfast.

Today
-Alex had his first day of work today (which means he set up his new computer, filled out paperwork, and has been sending me links to apartments on the French version of Kijiji). I am confident that he will do no actual work for the first few days, as there is a lot of admin stuff to be done (for example, setting up a French bank account, sending in a form to the government to say he's arrived in France, etc., will require help from his lab staff who can converse with the French authorities). We're counting it as work-related tasks and will likely be most of what he does for the first few days. Meanwhile, I have a three page list of tasks to get done (getting a job is on page 3); the first being looking for a furnished apartment for us to move into. After doing some research last week, we thought there weren't any furnished places in Caen, and were starting to think we'd have to live in a dorm room for two years, or else try to furnish an entire apt in a foreign country without a car, which sounded pretty daunting. However, after talking to his staff today, Alex sent me some great links to furnished apts, so things are looking up. Thank god for nice colleagues who know what's going on around here! I drafted a French blurb (which is currently being edited by Alex's secretary) and am excited to start contacting people about apartment viewings. (Even the thought of setting up appointments with strangers to look at apartments in French sounds fairly daunting, so I'm sure each step on my to-do list will be an adventure!).

Things I learned this week...

1. I do not know how to order coffee. In the Paris train station I ordered  un cafe "avec lait". I got a shot of espresso. I tried asking for un peu de lait but the waitress shook her head and (I think) told me in French that was a different drink that I would've had to pay a different price for. So, no milk for me. A noisette seems to be a shot of espresso with a dash of milk. Although I did some research before coming here and thought I knew how to order a latte, a cafe crème also seems to be a shot of espresso, with maybe a dash and a half of milk. I have yet to figure this out. Luckily, I actually prefer espresso to drip coffee, but I'd prefer it in latte (or at least cappuccino) style - i.e. a shot of espresso with LOTS of milk. The guest house has a coffee machine and for 35 centimes I can get any style of espresso drink I'd like, so I'm playing around with that. My goal for next week is to be able to order a latte. Stay tuned...

2. You have to pre-weigh your vegetables in France. I learned this in 2007 but obviously forgot. On Saturday after arriving at the guest house, we were looking forward to finally cooking a meal, and did our first grocery shop. However, we were forced to forfeit most of our produce because we hadn't pre-weighed it before checking out. Turns out there are weigh scales in the produce aisles. Today I successfully printed out little price stickers to put on each of my vegetables before heading to the cashier. Success! Perhaps this will also be a lesson in French vocabulary, since you have to choose your vegetables from a touch-screen computer in order to print the stickers.

3. Tout c'est jambon.  I know jambon is ham. I know proscuitto is ham. I know pretty much anything that sounds like salami or sausage (saussice) is ham. I even knew from my 2007 semester abroad that lardons were ham. So when we went to a nice crêperie and ordered galettes (meal crêpes) for lunch, I thought I was well prepared. Almost every galette listed some sort of jambon, lardon or saucisse, so when one listed poitrine grillé, I paused. Poitrine? That's not poulet, but it does start with a 'p'. We used our trusty Google Translate app. It translated to "grilled breast". Not very helpful. But since one doesn't typically hear of "beef breast", "pork breast" or even "rabbit breast", we shrugged, "must be chicken". It was bacon. Tout c'est jambon. (Disclaimer to my fellow Jews: I ate it. It was delicious. Perhaps we should get on board with ham and cheese. Just saying).

4. The French and the Italians know how to cook. Ok. I already knew that. But I just wanted to tell you about the pasta we had the other night at a cute little Italian restaurant in downtown Caen (La Trattoria, if anyone is planning to visit). A nice Italian man (who owned the restaurant, obviously) brought it on a cart next to our table, flambéed it and then prepared it in a gigantic wheel of parmesan cheese, before serving it onto our plates. It was basically homemade fettucini Alfredo, except it was tagliatelle, and it was an even creamier, cheesier, more delicious version. Since the nice Italian restaurant owner was talking to us about the travesty of making bread without salt (or so we think), I thought it would be rude to snap a picture. Here's one I stole from Google.

Tagliatelle a la parmesan

I wish I had eaten here

5. French translations are funny, and everything ends with "erie". As I've learned, "café au lait" does not always get you coffee with milk, and "grilled breast" means bacon. "Very bad kids" is apparently the French version of Sour Patch Kids. I take delight in the numerous "eries" around --boulangerie, brasserie, crêperie, vienoissierie, joaillerie, and even pancakerie! French is a wonderful language, that I hope to master (at least somewhat) over the next two years. Signing up for French courses is next on my to do list, and we are quickly learning that our French needs some major improvement -- mostly so that everyone who speaks to us is not forced to dumb down their sentences to the level of a first grader before we are able to understand. Case in point: Alex had a mandatory medical exam for his work last week, which lasted over an hour. The very first instruction given to him by the nurse was apparently jibberish to him. After staring blankly at her and asking her to "s'il vous plais, repetez", she responded, "Oh, hmm, fais le pee-pee". He took his urine sample cup to the bathroom and left his pride behind... although the French nurse didn't seem the least bit phased. And on that note, time to fais le dîner. 
À bientôt!

French equivalent of Sour Patch Kids