Le Sud de France 5.3: Home is Where They Break Your Heart.

Claude Michel is in his seventies, five feet tall and one of the few villagers who wears a jacket and tie when he goes out for a drink at our tiny bar. He is a sharp dressed man. He's also a former mayor of the village and a retired Captain in the French Foreign Legion where he received a Legion of Honor medal for his service in the brutal Algerian war. He came to the village thirty years ago.

He is a man out of another time and another world. When he meets a woman, he bows his head and kisses her hand. I'd never seen this done before and when he kissed my wife’s hand, I was startled. Then I watched him closely as he kissed another woman’s hand, and realized that the way he did made it a lovely gesture.

Today most women don’t expect to have their hands kissed, but Claude Michel’s method is as disarming as it is simple. He takes the woman’s hand, slowly lifts it up, so the woman has a moment to realize what is about to happen, and then he barely touches her hand with his lips. This gesture is an elegant sign of respect rather than of eroticism and most women seem comfortable with it.

Another one of the short men in the village is Liam Gonzales whose family, like half a million others, fled Franco’s Spain in 1939. They were the losers in the Spanish Civil War and they fled across the Pyrenees to seek asylum. Instead of sanctuary, the Vichy government put them in internment camps and then sent to the German ovens. A little over 100,000 avoided that fate by hiding in villages and in the hills. When WWII began many of them fought as part of the Maquis, the Spanish underground. The allies assured the Maquis that after Hitler they’d deal with Franco, but they broke that promise. Liam’s family and thousands of others were left stranded in the South of France. Many settled here in the Herault and I would guess that today about a third of our villagers have Spanish surnames.  

Liam’s first name is also the result of another war--the Napoleonic War of the 1800s-- when the British sent Irish troops to Spain as cannon fodder. Rather than face Bonaparte's cannons many deserted into the Pyrenees with Spanish ladies, the results were Spanish kids with names like Liam, Patrick, and Sean.

 

  The other night when we stopped at the bar for a drink, Claude Michel was there and after kissing my wife’s hand, he came over and shook mine vigorously. He held my hand with his right hand and my elbow with his left, which recognized immediately as the old politician’s hand-lock. 

I bought him a drink and he told me that he played piano and violin and that we should come over to his place for drinks one evening. I told him I played “American guitar” and he replied, “Ah, tu devr’apprendre à jouer de la guitare française, maintainent!” (Ah, you must learn to play French guitar, now.)


I struggle with my understanding of French but I realized that Claude Michel had just used the familiar “tu” for “you” instead of the formal “vous.” Tu is how family people and friends address each other. 

Paul has a guitar like mine

Just then, a big woman who had been talking to Liam, stood up and with a nod to Claude Michel, began to sing. She stood very straight and sang very slowly at first--and very loudly. The song she sang was about a terrible battle that took place near here in 1943 between resistance fighters and the Germans. It recalled the horror of the occupation and that dark night of the soul that the French bear for their collaboration with the Nazis. At this battle, the partisans were defeated, this is a song of loss and sorrow. Nonetheless, it is an uplifting song that urges listeners to carry on, to remember those who died, and to never give up hope. 

At its heart, it is an anti-war war song.  

As the woman sang the passion in the her voice grew and with each chorus, more people stood up and joined in; soon everyone was on their feet. Claude Michel was standing next to me, his back straight and stiff, his right arm waving in front of him. In the dim glow of the bar, I could that see his eyes were damp. Liam linked arms with him and the two rocked back and forth, and then Claude Michel reached out and took my arm and began rocking me in time to the music.

I stood there singing in French or at least trying to sound like I was singing in French, but I had no idea of the words I was singing. The music and the crowd just carried me along and soon enough I was singing at the top of my lungs. 

A strange thought struck me there as I sang. We Americans have no comparable songs of war, songs of remembrance with which to honor Americans who've died in Iraq or Afghanistan or Vietnam. Without songs of sacrifice and remembrance I thought, we numb ourselves to war's madness and that makes it too easy to go war and to do it without feeling a thing.

In our small village bar, the sorrow and the passion of that awful moment in 1943 was alive again. I stood next to Claude Michel and I was sobbing too, not for the partisan’s losses, but I think for my own.

But this was not what I came to France for, I came here to take pretty pictures, eat cheese, and write funny blogs- not to dredge up old memories and open old wounds. Certainly, I didn’t come here to have my heart turned inside out by a bunch of semi-sloshed town folk in some hole-in-the-wall bar in the middle of nowhere.

Later as we left the bar, Liam patted me on the shoulder and tapped his heart with the palm of his hand. 

Above us, a bright crescent moon floated in a star-filled sky, lighting our way.

"Yeah,” I thought as we walked off, “home is where they break your heart.”  

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Sud de France 4.3.2: 10 Tips for House Hunting French Style

Part 2: Driving Miz Crazy

There is nothing more exciting than speeding down a one lane country road while your driver is talking and looking you in the back seat. It’s the fun part of looking for houses with estate agents--realtors. They know the roads and love being out in the French vineyards and sunshine. And since they want to show you several houses in an hour or so, they go as fast as they can between them. 

It adds a touch of danger to house hunting that you won’t find anywhere else.

So if the itch hits you, here are some more tipsfor finding a house in the South of France.

Tip 6. Negotiation. The asking price of a house is usually negotiable but estate agents don’t like lower prices because they cut into their fees. In France as elsewhere owners think their homes are worth more than they are asking for anyway but you need to bargain. The current recession means there’s a surplus of houses and not too many (or any) buyers. It is truly a buyer’s market.

Looks good but it the whole top floor of a house.

Tip 7. Notaire Fees. On top of the price of the home you the buyer has to pay for a “notaire” or a notary to do the paperwork; title searches etc… The notaries represent the French state and not either party in arranging the sale. The work of the notaire takes about two months. It’s all paperwork and grind slowly indeed. The notaire’s fee varies (it’s about 7-9% of the selling price) but it will adds thousands of Euros to the cost of the house. 

Often when buying directly from a seller an under the table payment is negotiated to reduce their taxes and your notaire fee. For example, if the asking price is 175,000 Euros the seller might take 150,000 officially and you’ll give them a separate check for 25,000.

How did this big bed get to the 3rd floor?.

Curiously some notaries will leave the room once the officials papers are signed to "go out for a smoke’.' But it is really so that the extra check can be passed between buyer and seller in private.

Tip 8. Furniture Issues. When buying a village house consider negotiating with the owner to have them include the furniture in the deal. When you see a big bed in a third floor bedroom you have to wonder how it got up very narrow circular stairway. Owners are often happy to avoid having to remove things by including them in the sale.

Tip 9. The Crazy Brits. There are a lot of homes around the South of France that were bought by British people in the last decade or so. They’ve remodeled them and many are now on the market. You can tell a Brit’s home the second you walk into it. They have cut every corner possible and have create a little British village house in the middle of France. Paisley and floral wallpaper (to remove), faux ”oriental” features (to trash) and all sorts of strange tinkering (see photo). The Brits also favor small electric “hobs” with convection no oven to actual stoves.

No stairway to heaven it's the attic access.

My favorite corner cutter is the jet toilet. An ugly, water saving toilet that sounds like a jet plane taking off each time you use it.

Buying a home from a Brit add 10% for the work you’ll need to do to make it a tolerable place to live.

Tip 10. Size Matters. We all grew up on movies like the Three Musketeers with sword fights up and down huge staircases. Well those were Hollywood sets. Rooms in real castles are tiny and a village house can be really very small. When you’re looking for a house in France you need to scale back your size expectations. Our 3 bedroom house in Washington State had 2000 square feet (200+ sq. meters) of living space and was as one realtor put it “kinda small.”  Now that we’ve been in France we are excited when we find  a place with 1100 sq.ft.(120 sq.meters) of living space.

No room for the 3 musketeer fights.

But when you find that place in the village of your choice you’ll find that life takes on a whole different dimension. And after all that’s why you go through the whole exercise in the first place.

Sud de France 3.9: Sex At The Vide Grenier

An old poster for an island vacation

Barbie and Ken lay there naked in the hot, French afternoon sun. Another Ken and Barbie, more modestly dressed in shorts, lay beneath them. It was a classic “mise en scene” orgy and it would have been a bizarre except that it is a common sight at French "Vide Greniers". Translated as an “empty attic” sale it like a garage sale on steroids. 

A vide grenier  fills a village for blocks

Vide Greniers are popular throughout France and it seems that there are one or two every weekend in different villages throughout the Herault. Although similar to an American garage sale there is one big difference, a grenier sale involves an enter village and naturally when dozens of people empty out their attics you get a pretty surprising glimpse into their private lives.

One thing that is constant with these greniers is that there are lots and lots of dolls for sale. I guess French women, more than their American sisters, hang onto their doll collections well into adulthood. Occasionally the dolls are neatly sorted, labeled and wrapped, but most of the time they are simply piled on top of each other; inadvertently creating scenes of wild sex and odd juxtaposition.

A wide range of tastes here for certain

It is ironic of course because a vide grenier sale is usually put on by the local PTA or a church group as a village fundraiser. The moms sell snacks and sandwiches at the local “Salle des Fetes” (community center) while the dads direct traffic and parking.Yet for all this wholesomeness just a few minutes into a grenier you begin to notice the odd stuff.  

Lawrence and Florence of Arabia I suppose

Usually a grenier will fill an entire village center with tables as far as the eye can see down every street. There are piles high with stacks of old books, mountains of old clothes, boxes of old vinyl records, CDs and DVDs, old car parts, cartons of electrical wiring bits, used kitchenware, big wooden boards of pin and badge collections as well as display cases of coins.

A Barbie anyone?

But there’s no order to the grenier. No one seems to feel the need to put clothing sellers in one area and record sellers in another. It would probably be too hard anyway as each seller’s table is a hodgepodge of stuff with lots of different kinds of things to sell.It is like stepping into the largest open air junk shop imaginable enhanced with wine and baguettes. 

The noir side of Noir.

So there I am at a grenier on the lookout for the provocative stuff, the subtle stuff that goes beyond the piles of sexy lingerie. That doesn’t interest me, actually I’m a little put off at the thought of buying someone’s used risqué undies for the one I love. 

As you can see from the photos my search went pretty well. 

Photos and text © 2010 Steve Meltzer

Sud de France 3.7: Puimisson Village Life

We were driving from our small village of Puimisson to Saint-Genies, the next one over, and we had turned a corner scaring the birds that were eating in the vineyards with the noise of our car. The birds exploded into the air, rising up in the thousands, darkening the sky and setting it in motion. The sound of flapping wings filled the air. It was nothing I had ever seen in America. I grabbed my camera but by the time I got a shot off they had mostly settled down again. This photo hardly does the moment justice.

Traveling the single lane country roads of France in autumn you wind your way through hectares of grape vines that have burst into the most astonishing reds and oranges, browns and yellows. Who knew that the leaves of different varieties of grapes would turn different colors? 

Different grape varieties, different colors

Who knew how simply beautiful it would be?
 

Later sitting in a bar, still dazzled by the vineyards, I thought about our move to France, life, the universe and everything.

I turned 65 earlier this year and had a late life crisis. I felt that I wanted things to be different. Easier perhaps or just what’s a good word?--gentler? We had been to the South of France before and decided that if we were ever going to have the good life we wanted, we needed to move here.

Life in America had grown increasingly expensive and brutal. For example although we lived in an idyllic setting it the Northwest surrounded by big trees, deer and friendly neighbors. Neighbors who were nice enough but had big dogs and were armed to the teeth—a good friend had a loaded Uzi he enjoy showing around to folks. These were hard people who didn’t laugh much. They had money and instead of feeling secure they were paranoid.

And we had grown tired of the rat race that was all about more money, more stuff and more more. The striving for more reminds me of a scene from the movie “Key Largo.” At one point good guy, sailboat captain Humphrey Bogart asks bad guy gangster Edward G. Robinson what he wants.

Robinson thinks for a minute and says, “More.”

Bogart replies, “More what?”

Johnny Rocco just wants more

Robinson pauses and then in an annoyed voice responds, “I don’t know. Just more.”

That goes right to the heart of America. What do Americans want? More? More of what? Who knows, just more.  More cars, more homes, more money more home theaters.That’s the big difference here in Sud de France. 

Our village has a bar, a bakery, a butcher and a tabac. And it is sufficient. Villagers don’t want more shops in the middle of town. These few shops and the local winery, provide them the basics of daily French life. There’s a supermarket a couple of miles away and the big city of Beziers is twenty minutes away so it’s not that people don’t have access to stuff.

It’s just that they don’t equate how much you have with how well you live.

Our rental village house has a little kitchen, living room, two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a terrace that overlooks a vineyard filled valley. It is perhaps 700 square feet of living space. It plenty of room for us and our cat and one we use one bedroom mostly for storage. It is a great place to have as a home base and to go out and photograph and write. 

That’s the trick to the French good life for me I think. Getting to that place where you have enough, where you turn off the “more” machine and it’s just okay.

Hanging out Sud De France style