Week three: apartment hunting and green beer

Bonjour!

I apologize in advance - this week doesn't have a theme. Here's a random list of updates from the past week:

1) Logement. I was pretty bummed out in the past week about not being able to find us an apartment. Given that it is my one goal in life right now, not finding the perfect one RIGHT AWAY was starting to get to me. This attitude was probably somewhat unrealistic, given that we're looking for a furnished place that's bigger than a studio/bachelor apartment, which is pretty uncommon here. Most of the furnished places out there are either tiny (like 200-300 square feet) or old/gross. We actually found one we LOVED just over a week ago that was huge, nice and right downtown. We hesitated for a few hours because it was expensive, and when we emailed the owner less than 24 hours after seeing it, it was already taken. Naturally, that made us want it even more. However, after seeing a few more disappointing apartments this week, I saw one on Thursday that I liked, and brought Alex back to see it on Friday. It doesn't have all of our criteria (it's a bit of a hike from downtown, and we'd have to buy a washing machine and all the kitchen supplies) but it's nice, more affordable, bigger than a broom closet, and has a dishwasher, soft-closing kitchen drawers, and a wine rack built into the fridge. It was an obvious choice for me. After some convincing, Alex decided he could live with it too, and we emailed the real estate agent yesterday. Fingers crossed that we have an apartment by the end of the week (!!) For now, we have to focus on getting our documents in order (there's a substantial amount of paperwork we need to produce, and we also need a French guarantor who will produce all the same documents, including three months of bank statements, tax receipts, rent receipts, a work contract and identity cards, to REALLY prove that someone will pay for the apartment if we can't). Luckily, Alex's boss will act as our guarantor. On top of that, we'll also need to pay first month's rent, a security deposit, AND an agency fee that are each equal to about a month's rent. So, we're preparing to pull out a whole lot of Euros this week! We've been told that there are a lot of hoops to jump through when renting here, so I won't be surprised if it's not the easiest process in the world, but I'm hoping it goes as smoothly as it can.

The kitchen of our maybe-soon-to-be apartment

2) Dolly's. On Friday night after apartment hunting and a lot of walking, we had a couple drinks downtown and then headed out looking for a restaurant. We came across an English-American pub that we'd seen bursting at the seams a couple of weekends ago on a Sunday afternoon. It looked half empty, so we waltzed in and asked for a table. The maitre d' (who was British - and I can't tell you what a relief it was to hear a native English speaker for a change!) hummed and hawed for awhile, and said we could maybe sit at the bar. It was about 8:45pm, but apparently every table was booked for 9:30pm. We'd had two pre-dinner drinks (aperitifs), thinking this would take us to French dinnertime and that we wouldn't have to eat in an empty restaurant. Apparently dinnertime is even later on Friday nights...lesson learned. "Sitting at the bar" meant literally sitting in the only open space in front of the bartender, with nowhere to even tuck our legs in. However, the place quickly filled up and we could see why we needed a reservation. The place had great atmosphere, warm lighting, and was full to the brim by 9:30 or 10:00pm. We had an awesome meal (it seemed to be some kind of British-pub/vegetarian/vegan fusion, which sounds weird but was delicious).

From our prime location we watched the bartender make drinks, and like the bar where we'd had our aperitifs, we saw the bartender making something that looked like bright green or bright red beer. Since it wasn't St. Patrick's Day or any other holiday we could think of, we were confused. The drinks they were making looked like flavour syrup (the fruity type they use for Italian soda at home) plus draught beer. Some people were also ordering flavour syrups with water. Very strange. On our way out, I asked what it was and what it was called. The French (but English speaking) waiter was confused, and after I tried to explain my questioning several times, he said, "I dunno, a beer with peach is called a demi-pèche, a beer with lemon is called a twist, and a beer with mint is disgusting, don't order it." He then laughed and walked away. I had learned recently that the French order un demi (which literally means "half") when they want a beer, since 25 cL (250 mL) is the most common beer size here (basically a half pint). We've almost never seen anyone drink a full pint here, and we've never been served one. With this knowledge, and after a lot of Googling yesterday, all I could come up with is that a demi-pèche is a very popular drink in this region, and that it is literally peach flavour syrup and beer. Most people seemed to be ordering the red or even the green one, despite the waiter's criticism of mint beer. He himself was drinking green-syrup water, which looked pretty disgusting. I'm still quite skeptical, but I'll have to remember to order a demi-pèche if we go downtown next weekend.

Demi-pèche et demi...fraise??

On the way out of Dolly's, we went up to pay at the cash. The cashier was a British woman, and I jokingly asked her if she needed any English-only speaking employees. She said that she had just interviewed a lovely English gentleman earlier in the week, but unfortunately couldn't hire him because she knew he wouldn't even be able to answer the phone. Nevertheless, she humoured me and inquired about my CV. When I said I studied nutrition (food-related - ah-ha!) her face lit up, and then she proceeded to explain that without better French, I wouldn't be able to work out front, but that I could likely wash dishes with the English-speaking kitchen staff.  Alex was kind enough to chime in "she didn't just study nutrition, she has a PhD!". I just felt blessed that someone was even remotely insinuating that I could work in France. (On that note, I do have some work-related developments, but I'll save those for another post).

Dolly's English pub (taken from website)

3) La plage. Since I was getting sick of sitting in the room here at the guest house, we spent our Saturday afternoon taking a day trip to the beach. We hopped on a BusVert (similar to a Greyhound), which travels to the surrounding areas. Our 40 min trip took us on a tour of many small towns along the water, and we got off at the end of the line in a small seaside town called Courseulles-sur-Mer. We got there around 1:30pm, only to find out that nothing in the town was open except restaurants. After having a large brunch at the guest house, we weren't hungry. So, since none of the shops were due to reopen until 2pm (after the two hour lunch break that most French businesses take), we decided to take a long stroll on the beach. It was very quiet and serene, and although it was November, it was a mild day. For some reason, an ice cream stand was open, so we had a gelato and walked along the water (or rather, on the seabed, as the tide was out really far).  As you can see from the pictures below, the coast definitely looks like the North of France - calm, serene, grey, and quiet. Very different from the colourful Mediterranean coasts of Southern France, Italy or Spain.

Panoramic view of the beach

Cloudy sky at the beach

Beach front houses

The Atlantic ocean - North coast of France

Windy November beach day!

Courseulles-sur-Mer

We continued along a path just off the beach, and ended up in Normandy countryside - which I wasn't expecting to see so close to the beach. It was very beautiful and quiet, and we stopped for awhile to watch some horseback riding lessons at a nearby stable.

French girls horseback riding

Green pastures not far from the beach

Normandy countryside

Once the shops reopened (there were about three in total), we came across an art gallery where a local artist was currently working. We ended up buying three tiny oil paintings depicting the area, which we plan to hang in our new apartment.

The mini oil paintings we bought

Before we caught our bus home, we had a coffee and a snack (tarte au 3-fromages and a ham and cheese toast, because the French can't get enough of their ham or cheese) and I noticed grand crème was one of their coffee selections. I ordered it, and got something more closely resembling a latte than I've had so far. It was coffee in a big mug like we have in North America, but definitely still contained a lot less milk, and was quite strong. More like a "grand" mug full of espresso, with some milk. I added a pinch of sugar (which I never need to do at home), sipped my GRAND crème and accepted that lattes will be something I'll drink on trips home to Canada. All in all, a successful day at the beach.

Oh yeah... and the maple leaves are HUGE here!