Report six

Six reasons to name this post, "Report six" besides the fact that it is, the sixth: 1) Six is spelled the same way in French as in English. 2) I don't have a theme to impose on the random narrative ahead. 3) I will use only six pictures to compensate for flat writing. 4) Six would be the number of people in our family if the dreams I keep having about Kristin being pregnant come true (NOT meant as a heads up). 5) Six is about the number of French words I can effectively use on a daily basis. And 6) Six is now one thirty-third of the unique visitors to this blog. There's no statistic on how many have read more than one paragraph but I don't think that matters--I'm now officially able to insert miracle-diet ads for cash (thank you loyal and slightly overweight readers!).

Soccer update
I don't have any pictures of Jack's first soccer practice with Sporting Club Angevin. The story is... Ella and Ivy's gymnastics coach gives private English lessons to a 10 year old boy (Alex) who plays soccer through SCA's youth teams (a city-sponsored program as it turns out). Kristin e-mailed to ask about openings on the team and, like with gymnastics, we got welcoming encouragement for Jack to come join the fun. The coach also replied that it would be no problem to be on Alex's team (not that we know him at all). So, last Wednesday afternoon (the day of the week that French kids get dismissed from school at noon), we took the bus to the outskirts of Angers for soccer practice. Kristin, Jack and I found the field and walked out to talk with (this part was all Kristin since only French was spoken) the youth soccer director, Damien -- a very nice guy (as far as I could tell from his smile and affirming gestures). When Damien asked if Jack had clothes for practice and Kristin communicated the gist of this question to Jack in English, Jack started to pull off the sweat-pants he had on over his shorts. The mere motion towards this potential public disrobing caused Damien a brief convulsion and he quickly transitioned to a tour of the locker rooms. Just as it seems the French don't wear shorts "in public" -- which is to say while in transit between leg-exposing activities -- nor do they make wardrobe changes in plain view. Now I have another clue why people don't look at me at the rowing club.

As soccer practice got underway, we met Alex's mom, Allison. An added bonus was that Allison is British and so we got to chat about why we're in Angers, how the soccer club's game schedule worked, and how it was nice to have so quickly make the connection with Alex based on the tip from Myriam. Well, we found out later from Jack that there are two Alexes on the team and Allison's son is not the Alex we thought we knew of. But Allison politely and with minimal awkwardness let the allusions to our imaginary mutual acquaintance evaporate from our conversation while we moved on to other pleasantries. We were told about the good supermarket a couple of blocks away from the field so Kristin and I took a walk there to help pass the almost two hours until practice was over. (Now that we're dialed in on soccer, only one of us at a time will be busing out to the field to shop, sit, and hopefully make good enough connections to find a carpool). As Kristin and I were browsing French groceries, we talked about how odd it was that Alex needed English tutoring since his mom (at least) was a native English speaker. Kristin cited the voluminous literature about children who reject the native language of parents when they are raised in a country with a different language and so maybe outside tutoring was strategy to address this scenario. Anyway, since learning the obvious source of confusion, we've cleared things up on e-mail. Kristin and Hugh are at least a little more grounded than first-impressions can imply and one of the Alexes speaks perfect English.

Interesting soccer side note: the field is on Rue de Camus. I had the thought of making some snarky comment about soccer and the meaning of life but I double checked the map and noticed the full street name was Rue de E. Camus. Employing my 21st century artificial knowledge base (wikpedia and google), the next branch of this digression is aided by the discovery that the City of Angers has, on its website, an index of all streets with an explanation of the name. Emmanuel Camus was a resident of a small town whose border with Angers is partially marked by the street now named for him. A veteran of the 1914-18 war, he was later a town alderman, became an officer in the army reserves in 1939, and was killed in Angers by German machine gun fire in 1944. A good reminder to keep playing soccer.

Jack had to skip what might have been his first game on Saturday because we all went along on the student excursion to...

Mont Saint-Michel

At the tidal island of Mont

Saint-Michel, overflow

parking is often underwater.

We left from Angers at 7:15 AM, a convoy of three buses filled with students from four study-abroad programs: three U.S. (AHA, Kansas, & Notre Dame) and one Japanese. The first two and a half hours on the bus we were hostage to (only two rows in front of) a very loud, endless, monologue about the infinite mundanities of sorority life in Georgia delivered with enough "likes" and up?-talking to make an open-minded linguist and several others in earshot seek the refuge of headphones. I was like about to be all like, "Excuse me, but like Facebook called, and they like want their LIKES back." On the plus side, Ella, Ivy and Jack have presumably been scared away from the greek system forever.

It can take as many as
15 muscles to smile

Not too soon we were able to get off the bus in Saint Malo -- a walled city turned port town with a resurrected "pirate" tradition and bustling tourism industry. Having entered Brittany we followed instructions to take a lap around town on the ramparts and then find a good lunch of moule frites (mussels and chips) and/or galette (savory buckwheat crepes). For the first mile or so of our walk we seemed to be next to a group of the Japanese students who, about every eight steps, tried and failed to take a picture of themselves simultaneously in (one two three jump) mid air. It was cute about five times. Later, our lunch spot was picked for us when we saw three sacks of just-delivered moules against a restaurant's door. As quality indicators; the moule sacks; along with the owner's black wardrobe accented with orange-framed glasses, orange wristwatch, and orange scarf (all matching the restaurant's orange vinyl); proved very accurate.
Next stop was Mont Saint-Michel. Gamma 'bamma Ding-dong had evidently like eaten a like totally huge burger inducing a like total coma and so, the rest of the ride was pleasant.
As you can imagine (or if you can't, there're pictures), Mont Saint Michele is stunning. It's one of those  hyperbolic urban designs that tricks you into thinking that life in a rat maze could be calming or even restorative. But then, I gotta figure, any time you see that much cut rock and that much attention to detail you've gotta assume slaves. Speaking of stratification, the island is today divided into four distinct zones. Level 1: parking. Level 2: gauntlet of garish trinket shops, ice cream, and scary meatish products. Level 3: Official ticket counter, official gift shop, and audio-tour sales. Level 4: Abundant vistas, stairways, and tunnels through the church, chapels, abby, and crypts. [New photo albums: Mt St Michel & Hugh's Virtual Gift Shop -- new merchandise weekly].

Middle school update

Ivy, Ella, and Jack's school continues to go pretty well. With all of three weeks of beginning-French completed, their favorite hours of the day are still art, PE, and lunch. Oh yeah, and English. Despite some apparent skepticism by the administrator, she agreed to let them all take English (yes like the old Cheech & Chong bit: "Mexican-American, go to night school, take Spanish, get a B"). They actually learn a lot watching their peers learn a second (or third) language as well seeing how their own language is broken down and taught.  Jack's class had a big, standardized math test today which everyone seemed to be anticipating but him. The math teacher, who doesn't speak much English, did his best to let Jack know that it didn't apply to him and he could take it for fun (or go draw). Jack's school friends continue to be a great help with navigating the hallways, the eighth-graders (enforcers of asphalt-soccer customs), and translating teacher instructions and handouts -- as best as they're able anyway.

Ella and Ivy got matching invitations today from a couple of their friends, Elisa and Véda, to go downtown after school next Wednesday and hang out. Last week, it was Veda's birthday and when Ella and Ivy realized that she wasn't having a party (apparently birthday celebrations are more of a family affair here), they thought this was sad and made her cards.
Today, Ella and Ivy's class is going on a field trip to a nearby church to connect the art and architecture to recent coursework. The teacher told each student to come with a shoebox. Since we have no shoe boxes here at the apartment, Ella quickly concluded that we all needed to go out last night and buy new shoes.

On the agenda this week

Perfecting our expectation-lowering

skills at the préfecture on a Friday

afternoon. Now serving...

This week we will have to return to the préfecture in attempt to complete the transaction for residence cards. The length of our stay, by a small margin, requires that Kristin and I have one in addition to our visas. But I also need to get one if I'm going to get a free loaner bike from the City of Angers' VeloCité program. But I digress... Kristin, Sue and I (Sue came as our expert bureaucratic navigator) sat for two hours only to be told that we needed to fill out two forms which were apparently available exclusively from the file-folder behind the clerk's desk. While there could be some benefits to having a resident card beyond the intrinsic pleasures of full compliance with immigration law, we're hoping we don't trigger the process that will require us to take a €20 train ride to Nantes for a visit to the immigration medical department so we can pay €200 each for a chest x-ray to ensure we don't have tuberculosis.
Since I'm pretty sure we don't have tuberculosis, we'll all be heading back out on a student-program bus tour Saturday morning surveying the châteaux of the like Loire.

The butter pyramid

We all know that French food is big on butter. Butter's national status is further clarified with the first bites of a ham and butter sandwich. But the [w]rap sheet on our 250-gram brick o' beurre churned out deeper truths about the place of solidified milk fat in the French gastropsyche. Sure it's a constant term in breakfast calculus. And yes, its inclusion on the breakfast check list is legislated. But these things merely hint at the bottom line: food with butter is "le début du bonheur" --  the beginning of happiness. By no means is butter a casual, fatty afterthought. It is the genesis of pleasure.

Where there's butter, and thus pleasure, it can only follow that there's a willingness to take risks and innovate--as long as risks don't involve possible loss of butter. Assume, for example that you're French and you'd like to incorporate more hamburgers and [french] fries into your diet. Keep your mouth open 'cause beurre will find a way.

If there were not butter in there, too,
this would be wrong.

While lore would have us believe that a glass of wine will dissolve butter right out of our blood stream, there are indeed more pragmatic tactics for maintaining a fashion-worthy figure: smoking. But if cigarettes and/or manual labor aren't your thing, there is a list of six local exercise regimens which work very well. I don't know this from experience but the gym classes cost more than butter, and price-signals (like my hips) don't lie.

Two of the approximately 750
masons-per-square km retrofit
pavers where old-way meets
Tramway on Rue de la Roë

There is a lot of manual labor going on in our new neighborhood. Angers is abuzz about the upcoming June start of its new light-rail transit system. Lucky for us, since the recently laid tracks go right by our front-door, the heavy construction finished up a few weeks before we arrived. But the masons and electricians are out in force, 4.5 days a week, 5 hours a day, working through the punch list of loose ends and ill-fitting bricks.

This Saturday, the regional agency behind the Tramway, put one of the new train sets on display up the street at Place de Ralliement. Townsfolk, including us, eagerly tested the new upholstery and view through the knee-to-ceiling windows.

I'm sure madame's helmet is
in the bag.

Ivy enjoys extra lumbar support while
Ella and Kristin tolerate the holdup

At 7:50 AM , about half way along our walk
to school, the sun rises over le poolevard.

The tram will not head out to Ella, Ivy, and Jack's school (not that we'll be here then). The mode for that trip has been an invigorating 25 minute walk mostly along Rue de la Madeleine. 50 or 60 steps along this stretch of urban poop-scape provides another source of insight on French society. If the French have a reputation for being dismissive or aloof, it's not you -- they're simply preoccupied with sidestepping dog excrement. I've already made the mistake of appreciating the architecture on the walk back from the school drop-off.

One thing we've managed to appreciate without stepping in it is the splendor of French work-wear. To expand on an old adage: anything worth doing is worth doing well-dressed. A crew of gardeners in matching techno pants with built-in knee pads. Crossing guards that evoke memories of Icelandic flight attendants. Cardboard collectors who could as easily be on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Every chore has a corresponding getup replete with asymmetrical accents and ergonomically correct seams. Our favorite though has been the firefighters. Check out those helmets (with integrated LED power beam). Oh, centurion. (Photos of aforementioned getups, with more as they're encountered, on display here.)

"Neuf un un, quelle est votre urgence?" 

"Yeah, hi. There's an office chair in a shopping cart
 on a wooden palette with a bamboo tube -- on fire."

So, from Angers, we say Bonne Saint Valentin to you! Many of the stores in town have had decorations up for the last several days but, unlike in the U.S., Ella, Ivy, and Jack haven't gotten the sense that anything like a Valentine card exchange will be happening at school. Of course in the U.S., all the advanced notification regarding Valentines Day at school is mostly to ensure that each child expresses equal amounts of contrived affection for everyone. The supermarché certainly wasn't selling boxes of pastel sugar-hearts with those two-word phrases printed on them (which if actually spoken could only prolong the need for companionship). But, if that doesn't demonstrate that the French don't waste time with bush league romance, Kristin went out and found the most amazing chocolate heart any of us have ever laid down Euros for. So perfectly did it capture her feelings, she bought one for each child.

Valentines Day in Angers as seen by a clairvoyant fly.

Routine maintenance

At the student orientation last week, Kristin was given a handout on the symptoms of culture shock: anxiety, irritability, stereotyping, distrust of hosts, difficulty eating or overeating... etc.  I think this explains my unexpected hostility when I met Monsieur biscuit(s) -- a box on the store shelf. Why did I find his smiley salute so agitating? Now I know it was/is culture shock. The only way I could respond was to buy him and to eat him. There were many of him in the box--individually wrapped emissaries of suspect friendliness. My cultural ground-wire appeared in a sugar-induced vision: Cookie Monster. Does anybody out there have contacts at PBS? I'd really like to see a Monsieur Biscuit vs. Cookie Monster throw down -- doughy hands and glazed buttons crumbling from CM's black felt mouth.

Yes, not being able to speak any meaningful amount of French is becoming more aggravating. It's instructive and humbling to be the clueless foreigner but, like Cookie Monster, I'm learning to find satisfaction in a one-word world: "cooooookie."

Angers has a professional soccer team -- Angers SCO. Jack and I hoofed it the two miles or so to Stade Jean-Bouin on Saturday for the match against Clermont Foot. We went for the cheap seats where adults are 7 Euros and kids under 12 are gratuit.  The only problem was that I had my camera with me. This lead to a lot of Cookie-Monster communication which actually didn't go that badly. The problem was my zoom lens. I'm not sure exactly what the concern was but it apparently had something to do with closeup pictures of players. The security guard, with the help of some ticket-takers and and other partial English speakers, finally got me to understand that he did not want me to just turn the camera on (which I did); did not want me to tell him about all its functions (which I started to do but simultaneously started laughing at the ridiculousness of that prospect); but simply wanted me to extend the zoom lens so he could see how long it was. Without looking through the viewfinder or reading the number off the lens itself, Monseiur Securite simply waited for the lens to extend and then exclaimed (in English), "It's too big!" Having no car to put the camera in, it was "explained" that we'd need to leave it at the gate and reclaim it when we left. Yes I was skeptical but somehow trusting and it all worked out. Angers won 1-0 and I got my camera back when we left. 

A random pic I grabbed from the rowing club's website
showing one of their recreational boats, the French
countryside not far from town, and apparently, a guy
with a rifle (Scott?)

Before Saturday soccer, Kristin escorted me down to the river to poke my head in the door of Angers' rowing club, Angers Nautique Aviron. We were lucky enough to find the club secretary on hand (she works parts of two days per week) to take my registration form and some Euros. Of course I also had to attach a photo to the form. I'm not sure what you can do in France without providing a passport-sized photo. The secretary and Kristin talked at length (en Francais), apparently about me wanting to row, and then about the fact that the woman's son lives in Weed, California. So, in some capacity which I'm still figuring out, I've joined the rowing club. I took the first opportunity (Sunday morning at 9:00) to meet up with the recreational rowing group. I got there a little early and stood in front of the doors. A couple of guys arrived and after our bonjours, we were stuck with the blunt realization that our conversation was over. As women started to arrive, they made the rounds with the little kisses/bises. There was no hesitation to bise the new guy (me) but there was some evident awkwardness when 1) they found out I was American and 2) we were unable to verbally reset the terms of our relationship. Oh well, life's a bise. It couldn't have been too bad. Despite very little English being spoken among club members in general, the head coach, Franc does speak English. He placed me in a "cox-less" Empacher quad (four rowers, two oars each, no coxswain) with two very athletic women a little older than me (one is apparently the current over-40 French female ergometer champion) and one aspiring women's French national team rower who seemed to be about 20. I was put in the two-seat which, because they apparently count stern-to-bow in France was communicated to me by holding up three fingers. After a brief cookie-monster oui/merci session with national-team girl, I agreed to sit behind her (but I'm still going to call it the two-seat). A good time was had by all -- at least I didn't hear (understand) anything to the contrary.


We've met a couple of other tenants in our apartment building. The third night we were here, a guy knocked on our door to explain that a young woman who lives upstairs (we have not seen her yet) had made a deal with him to pay a share of his internet bill if he would give her his wireless password. He did. She has never paid. And so he was at our door to warn of us this horrible girl's scam.
Last night, a different guy was at our door asking for a bandage. When offered a selection of bandaids (we had switched to some English at this point), he clarified that he needed a much bigger bandage -- "for the wrapping." It turned out that we'd come across an ACE bandage in our closet just the day before and this was exactly what he was looking for. He let us know that is was for his girlfriend and he could probably have it back to us in five minutes. Huh? Too much information? We made it clear there was no rush. Is girlfriend the..... internet thief? Stay tuned, this blog might turn into a slightly abnormal Nancy Drew mystery.

Ella, Ivy, and Jack are at their first full day of school today. Yesterday they started just before lunch so that Madame Thomas would have time to run around in the morning and tell their new teachers they were coming. Lunch was "some kind of delicious meat." All three were sad to have wrongly assumed that you should only take one section of baguette from the basket at the end of the cafeteria line. Today they will be prepared to take to the school yard looking like many of the other kids -- three or four baguettes sticking out of their pockets.  Jack has three friends already, Thomas, Thomas, and Pierre. One of the Thomases told Jack that he loves Americans and asked if he knew Michael Jackson. (Jack opted not to mention last year's events.) Ella and Ivy made more general first-day acquaintances with girls who were very excited that their experimentation with English phrases were understood and responded to. One girl told Ella that she was beautiful and another, who is also named Ella, exclaimed in English that she was glad to meet "another me." At PE class, another girl came up to Ivy and said, "I like your sweat."

It's a long school day -- 8:15 to 4:50 but lunch is two hours and they also have an hour of library time. Nonetheless, to help with the 25 minute walk back to our apartment, picking up a chocolate croissant for the stroll at the boulangerie across from school is clearly the right thing to do (at least yesterday it was). You could pick up your dinner baguette too but, you know, it stays warm better if you wait till you're almost home and you buy it at the boulangerie across the street from your house. Of course, you're then walking a significant distance in the early evening without a baguette sticking out from somewhere and, as stereotypical as it may sound, that borders on conspicuous behavior.

On jay jeem! On jay jeem!

 

Learning French at the Saturday market.

Name your poisson.

The week of transition is over. Our first "bon weekend" consisted of a couple of longer walks around town, the Saturday market at Jardin du Mail, and, on Sunday, Ella and Ivy's first gymnastics meet with their new club, Angers Gymastique (That's "Onjay Jeem!" if you're listening to the cheering section). It case you didn't hear, they took first place! And, if you're a glutton for coverage of this event, you can watch my 9min 56 secYouTube video.

En France, no kiss no medal.

Monday the new batch of AHA students arrived on a few different trains from Paris. We took turns helping Kristin and the AHA crew provide a welcoming committee. It was actually nice to return to the train station, this time not feeling jet-lag stupid.

Sue, Pauline, and Jack welcome Alex:

another aha moment.

It's been 20 years since I was last in Europe but, at the train station, with my restored consciousness, it dawned on me -- isn't there supposed to be a Peruvian flute band here? Maybe Angers is off the PFB circuit but it was their omnipresence that characterized them more than their music. I'm sure many travelers have gone mad with paranoid delusions of being followed from town to town by the PFB. So, has the pan-flute craze dissipated? Or are they living under my bed?

In case you're wondering where these places are exactly, and you're too lazy to search the internet yourself, no worries. I've been adding a few things to our Angers Google map. The blue markers are the student host-family locations. The place where you should send peanut butter and mexi-blend cheese is marked with the yellow house.

Our first walks around Angers have been filled with great sights of the very old and the new. The centuries of architecture and decor are striking--that, and I've always been a sucker for fancy door knobs. But even as contemporary construction has seemingly eliminated old-world decorations from the urban landscape, some themes have survived in new media.

At Maison d'Adam, the oldest house in Angers (left), classic half-timber construction provides ample opportunity for a craftperson's legacy (my sincere apologies for the gratuitous gender neutrality).

By way of contrast, in our new millennium, after crafting your ephemeral six-pack, you can at least complicate your legacy with Lookme™ boxers (left). These euro man-panties are on sale down the rue for €28. That's 20% off -- or 20% on depending on your perspective.

The modern period has also delivered locally tangible shifts in the form and function of human creation. A short walk from the train station (where a mid 20th century statue of a young woman falling out of her yoga pose adorns the adjacent traffic circle) takes us back, again, to the street below our apartment where Jack is pictured getting a head start on French idioms from a contemporary expression of liberation.

On the food front, tis the season for crepes. Tonight, we found out yesterday, is La Fête de la Chandeleur. Contrary to my ill informed assertions earlier, this, the celebration of the presentation of Jesus at the temple, is apparently the end of the Epiphany season. And, instead of cake, crêpes are used to mark the occasion. And while we did our duty and put crêpes on our menu, according to Wikipedia, we missed a couple of details:

     "In France, Candlemas (French: La Chandeleur) is celebrated with crêpes, which must be eaten only after eight p.m. If
        the cook can flip a crêpe while holding a coin in the other hand, the family is assured of prosperity throughout the
        coming year.."

So... ate too early and totally skipped the coin thing (although I'm sure I could have flipped a crepe with a coin in both hands. But, no doubt, our carelessness may have taken a year off our financial lives.

Despite our risky disregard for local superstitions, we got to celebrate our first La Chandeleur with Taylor and Debbie via Skype. Taylor (being offered wine by Ella above) fixed up a crepe-ish pancake with fixins on her i-Pad and tapped (nom nom nom...) it right down.