Sud de France 2.5: When the Google fails where are the cops when you need them?

We had planned to turn ourselves into the police today. 

According to our long stay visas within a week of arriving we are supposed to check in with the local Prefecture of Police.  

Naturally we go online to find it and when we Google “Prefecture” we get the web page for the Sous-Prefecture in Beziers. There’s a little Google map on the page to help find them and I zoom out to look for landmarks in Beziers.

To my surprise as the map takes in more area, I discover that the arrow is stuck in the town of Montblanc some twenty miles from Bezeiers. Okay I think, perhaps it is part of the metro area of Beziers just as parts of Long Island are part of metro NY. 

But I'm unsure of this so I go to Google Earth which finds the address again in Montblanc. Well if you can’t trust the Google and Mama Google Earth who can you trust? 

So Diane puts on her high-profile intimidate-the-locals suit and grabs her corporate lawyer attaché case full of papers and we head out to meet the cops.

The drive is uneventful. We roll through the hills of the Herault and reach  Montblanc a typical southern French town that has grown as a retirement community with loads of small newish townhouses. 

As directed by Google we turn off the D-18 make a right on the Rue de la Paix and a left onto the Avenue Edouard Herriot. But after passing by a block or two of residences it’s clear that the Google has steered us wrong. 

When all else fails in France you go to the nearest Mayor’s Office and beg for help. Every town has a mayor and every mayor has the kind of power that a Boss Tweed or Mayor Daley could have only dreamed about. Want to put a terrace on your home get the mayor’s okay and it’s a done deal. Want a house? Ask the mayor.

But things are not going well today and as we open the door to the Mayor’s office and the doormat gets caught and is dragged along until it jams the door halfway open. We push at it but it won’t budge. 

Sacre bleu! The Americans are destroying City Hall. A secretary sees us and shrugs. She comes out and gives the door a hard rap, freeing it. She passes me with a grim face and I try to be invisible. This is probably a really bad moment to ask where the Prefecture is—but we do it anyway. 

"Where is the office of the Prefecture?" The secretary looks at us as though we are morons from space who have landed on the wrong planet. 

"What Prefecture? “She asks and Diane explains that we have a slip of paper from the Consulate in San Francisco that says we have to see the police when we arrive in France. She hands the secretary the wrinkled 1x5 inch strip of paper that was slipped into our passports by the Consulate. 

It is a sorry looking piece of paper that looks like it was hastily cut out of a larger piece of paper and it hardly looks official.

If anything it resembles an amateur's ransom note. 

And even worse it is written in English. The Consulate sent a note in English and not French. 

The secretary looks at it and puts it down as though it is covered with dog poop. Her expression says “What is wrong with you people?”

Score another point for the morons.

She shakes her head, goes to her computer and prints out a map--a Google map--with a large red arrow pointing to a spot in the middle of the city of Beziers.

“La,” she says, “C’est la.” It is there.

I look at the map and notice that the scale is so big that the arrow covers most of the city of Beziers and the tip of the arrow is pointing to a blank white space.The Google has struck again.

But we smile, we thank her a million times and gently ease ourselves out the door making sure not to get it stuck again.

Back in the car we get on the road and I’m feeling like an outlaw--like Bonnie and Clyde, like enough is enough.

If the cops want us badly enough let them stop hiding from us. Come out in the open "flics" and find us. Otherwise we won’t can't find you. 

Maybe we will go to our very own Mayor and throw ourselves on her mercy.
Ça va?

Photos and text © 2010 Steve Meltzer

Sud de France 2.4: Market Dazed

Living in France market day is a special part of the week and Wednesday is market day in Clermont l’Herault. It’s an important part of any town’s economy and the markets are scheduled so that the farmers, cheese makers and other sellers can be in a different town on different days of the week, to spread the joy around so to speak

Market day is a medieval tradition and beloved because not only is it an opportunity to get extraordinary food, but it provides townspeople a chance to meet friends and catch up on the latest news and gossip.

So this Market day morning we grab our shopping bags and set out early for our first look at the Clermont market. When we arrived we parked at the municipal lot and walk about three blocks to the “Centre Ville” and the market.

The heart of Clermont l’Herault is the old church and as it has been done for centuries the market spreads itself through the streets surrounding the church. 

Even from blocks away from it you can see the market stalls extending for blocks in all directions. And even though it is early in the morning --some vendors are still setting up--there are dozens of people already shopping.

Walking into the market I am amazed at the variety of the stalls. There’s are three or four olives stand each with at least twenty varieties of olive concoctions, a couple of honey vendors, half a dozen produce stalls, about as many cheese stands and so on and so on. There’s a housecoat and pajama seller and a lingerie booth and a soap seller. A guy with a petite goatee is selling kitchen knives and across from me there is a van selling horse meat. 

Yes, there’s a horse meat vendor and he sells out of the side of his small van. There’s a small wooden riser in front of the van and after a minute or two I realize that it is for the older French people, who are physically very short and are his main clients. Horse meat isn’t all that cheap so I suspect that these older folk simply acquired a taste for it as children during the hard, hungry years just after the Second World War. We forget how devastated Europe was by the war. While America boomed countries like France and Italy were literally, no actually starving.

It’s always a good idea to walk the entire length and breadth of a market before you start to buy anything. It was a good idea here because there was something at the Clermont market I hadn’t seen at other French markets, sellers of fresh mushroom.

Clermont lies in the green, forested hills of the Herault and it seems that a lot of the locals go out and pick wild mushrooms to sell at the market. There were several at the Clermont market with improvised stalls made of old crates. On top of the vertical crates sat horizontal crates filled with huge boletus mushrooms the size of a softball, chanterelles by the ton at $5 lb and lots of wild mushrooms I’d never seen before.

At the produce stands there were lettuces the size of sombreros (1 euro each) and piles or berries and melons.

It was truly overwhelming and humbling. It is what life should be about, friends and good fresh food.

Photos and text © 2010 Steve Meltzer

Sud de France 2.3: En attendant les Américains

Summer faded into fall and fall was nipping at winter’s nose as we waited at the Cafe des Vente for the Americans. They had left Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris at 7:30 AM and by any reckoning should be in the l’Herault seven hours later or by about 3:30PM.

It was now 6:30PM.

But let’s rewind for a moment to get the whole story. Our landlord had rented a village house to an American couple. Then she suddenly had to go up to the U.K. on business and could not meet these folks as planned. This put her in a bind. Then she put two and two together and came up with us. Since we speak English and are American too, she asked us to help and being nice people or just foolish we agreed.

Having just arrived in France ourselves we had yet to get French mobile phones we ended up dealing with the Americans via email. So far so good.

It was a setting out to be a stormy, windy day across France when this we got a buoyant email early in the morning.

“We’ve arrived. It is 7:30 AM and we are leaving Charles de Gaulle.” By leaving they meant getting into their rental car and driving from Paris to the Herault a trip of roughly 300 miles. Now this is pure American. In a country with a TGV that gets you that distance in three hours or where $27 gets you a Ryan air flight to here in 90 minutes, choosing to drive for about seven hours after a ten hour flight through six time zones and paying about $140 between gas and tolls was, well, very American. But look we are still red, white and blue (it’s only been four days in France) so our attitude was “you want to drive-okay drive.”

The folks at the online Michelin site say the drive at legal speeds takes seven hours. So leave Charles de Gaulle (CDG) at 8 AM add seven hours of driving and you get here at 3 PM.

Okay, the plan then is to get to the bar at 2:30, drink some coffee and be the happy “Bienvenue et Aloha y’all” greeters.

We get to des Vente, order our coffee and wait under an awning protected from the afternoon rain.

3 PM and the rain subsides, but no Americans.

4 PM the sky clears and it gets a bit colder. Still no Americans.

5 PM and still no Americans.

Let me digress about one of the lovely things about France. For $3, we got two espressos and the right to sit in the café for the rest of our natural lives. The waiters don’t make funny eyes at you or wipe your table every two minutes or ask if your coffee is cold.

The space is yours.

Finally at 6:30 we write a note and ask the bartender to pass it on to any bleary eyed and lost Americans who appear at his door. The note said simply: “eMail or Skype when you arrive.”

Ten we got  home, started dinner and just as we are to sit down to eat--at about 7:30--guess what?

That familiar voice whispered through the evening silence and said “You have mail”

An email from THEM, “Hi, we are at des Vente. Having a drink, see you when you get here. Take your time”

Okay, let me be honest here. This was a moment when I was ready to throw my fellow countrymen under the bus. After waiting around without a word or email at the bar for four hours, I had been all ready to settle into a quiet evening, watch the sunset over the pool and have a nice cold Vodka tonic and bore myself to death with British TV.

Okay we are new here in France. Recently gone from the US of A and I certainly don’t want to disparage my fellow countrymen. But people this was not cool. These were the Weakest Link.

But we did our duty as we had sworn to and went back to town and escorted them to their new digs. After a few ‘bye-byes’ and ‘we’ll see you soons’ we drove off.

And I had to wonder where had they been for those extra four hours?

I was annoyed and then annoyance turned to fear.

Just yesterday I had read that the U.S. State Department had issued a terrorist warning for Europe. It said that the Ben Laden Traveling Circus was up to something and everyone should be extra cautious.

Could these seemingly ordinary Americans actually have been secret agents? Or worse, part of a sleeper cell?

And is that what they did? Did they stop on the road to sleep?

Oh my god!!!

Photos and text © 2010 Steve Meltzer

Sud de France 2.2: Villeneuvette

In France you don’t have to find things to do, things find you. 

Driving down a local road we saw a sign for a restaurant we had been told about. Turning into the little road the sign pointed to, we came upon the town of Villeneuvette--a walled village from the 15^th century or earlier. And in the middle of the town was a wool weavers fair. 

A serious wool weaving fair with weavers dressed in wool clothing that was rural French couture well before the reign of Louis XIV. There was a wool spinning exhibition and people were selling everything from wool toys to wool pillows. And they had a table for a hands-on kids wool class, complete with background music performed by an accordion player. Or maybe the accordion player was with the wine bar? I wasn’t sure but a good, though weird time was being had by all.

The other interesting thing about Villeneuvette is that it is a better example of community redevelopment than anything I’ve seen in the states. No Main Street Projects or Civic improvement group. The town was falling apart for years and the final blow was the loss of their water due to some changes in the water level due to expanded demand from the bigger towns.

So the folks got together and went back to their roots to pull the town together. First they got the water system repaired by pressuring the regional government and then they turned to their past for their future.

Villeneuvette had been a textile town for centuries. It was known for the quality of their products. So the town used its skill in making fabric to become a ‘crafts village.’ The restaurant anchors the town and draws people to it and then there are several small shops selling fabric and other things and there is a crafts gallery.

Okay it’s a gorgeous setting. The town is surrounded by vineyards and it really looks like a village out of the 16^th century. Well that doesn’t hurt but it’s the pride of the people that got to me. They call it a renaissance and that’s true.

All in all that was a pretty good discovery to make on a lazy Sunday when we weren’t even looking for anything to do.

Photos and text © 2010 Steve Meltzer

Sud de France 2.1: A First Meal.

After the jet lag comes the crash. Thursday we arrived functioning on automatic although with 24 hours of travel behind us we are only pretending to be A-Ok.

We are really feeling like zombies looking for brains to eat. 

Then I slept for perhaps 34 hours of the first day and I’ve finally arrived. That is to say my mind and body have merged into a semblance of a whole person. With that feeling of unity of being I thought that perhaps a nice dinner would be in order to celebrate our arrival.

I’ve always shopped in the European style--that is shopping daily and letting the market fresh food drive my choices for meals. You buy what looks best and plan around it. 

So for our first meal in France I went (no giggles please) to the local Hyper U supermarket for food. OK, OK I know it is a supermarket and like shouldn't I be being pure and going to the local fishermen or whatever. Well, my excuse is that Wednesday morning is the market day in Clermont l’Herault and today is Saturday.

What I ended up getting at the (super)market was moules, or mussels. These are the lovely small mussels from Meze, a town just down the road by the Med--some fifteen minutes away. I got a kilo of mussels for 1.70 € (metric translator’s note that that is 2.2 lbs of mussels for 2.25 USD or $1.02 per pound). 

Talk about fresh! Geez these elegant little puppies were just plucked from the sea and haven’t even had the time to realize that they are out of the water. I steamed them in a local white wine (1.99 € or $2.58 a bottle) with shallots, bay leaves, some provencal herbs,. Then had a lovely bottle of Saint Chinian red to go with them (4.50€ or $5.85).

Warning: For those who will scrunch their noses about pairing red wine with seafood let me just say, screw it. This is France and I drink red wine with everything--mussels, oysters, veal and my pain au raisin at breakfast. 

Back to the mussels, served them with a good baguette from the local boulangerie (.60 € or 78 cents) and made a side dish of local velvety soft and tasty lettuce and local tomatoes. Whole meal for two people with wine cost us about $10.

We haven’t done any sightseeing. We will have plenty of time to do that over the next dozen years. But we did visit a friend who is selling a village house. It is priced around about 200K € (250K US.) It has four bedrooms, rooftop terrace overlooking the village, beamed ceiling, built in the 1600s and with a great old wine cellar. Renovated with modern appliances it has a motivated seller. But no one’s looked at it in the six months it’s been on the market. Housing market here is as dead as in Miami. Good for us I guess in the long run, sad for a lot of other folks though.

Photos and text © 2010 Steve Meltzer

Sud de France 2.0: Nous Arrivions

We are here in Sud de France, in the Herault. 

All three of us arrived in one piece although Mouche the cat is still rather unstable as the kitty meds wear off. He was rather subdued at Charles De Gaulle as we carried him between flights but it was fine. We were told that at Air France the captain of the plane is responsible for the animals. Well mon bon Capitane did good. So Mouche had a good trip and now is exploring his new digs.  

 

Clermont l’Herault is rather pretty. Lying in a lovely valley, that you get to by going through the spectacular Gorges d’Herault, the town is midsized and bustling. 

Actually the countryside is beautiful rolling hills and valleys, vineyards and orchards.  The photo above is our view in the morning. On the way to the rental you pass several orchards hung heavy with autumn pears and apples.

The place we are renting for October is modern-boohoo-as you can see from the photo of our patio and pool. It has one of those French silent fridges and black, glasstop stoves and a Bose sound system and the pool. 

Ultimately leaving the USA was about downsizing and arriving in a place with three bathrooms (three showers and a tub) and a pool is somewhat hypocritical but it’s what we found. Big drawback to the place is that the British owner has SKY-TV so all you can watch is Brit-TV. God helps us, 24/7 of the Weakest Link and Top Gear. So weird the Brits love, LOVE France but the people and the culture not so much. And right now the Wi-FI is out so we have to go to the local bar to logon. Oh well.

As I expected the vaunted French bureaucracy turns out to be as sweet and tender as the French people—a toothless paper tiger. At Charles de Gaulle the Air France rep who had to look over Mouche’s papers was at least nine month pregnant. She glowed with impeding motherhood and her affection for our little guy was delightful, although she got up to scratch his neck she let out a mother-to-be “OH OW and settled back into her chair. 

But the striking thing is that we are here and the shock for me is the growing sense that we are indeed not on vacation but here for a while.

And that is why I am so thankful and overwhelmed in the few hours we have been here by the kindness of strangers.

For instance, our landlord’s rep met us in town and took us to our place. When we arrived there on the kitchen table was a spread she had prepared as a welcome for us. It included a bottle of white wine, a tray of shrimp and smoked salmon, a tray of pate and cheeses and a fresh baquette— just a small gesture of welcome and not really a part of her job. 

And then she said she is planning a party next week for a couple of her friends, some Americans, Canadians and Brits who she thinks would be fun for us to meet. Welcome to expatria. 

There have been other small moments to our trip that were special. Particularly there was the baggage guy who was going to be loading Mouche onto the plane for the flight to Montpellier. An Arab guy, probably a Moslem from Algeria, he asked us the cat’s name. We  told him it was ‘Mouche’ and he tapped on the cat carrier and said,

“Bonjour Monsieur Mouche. Bienvenue a Paris. Welcome.”

Then he turned to us and said, “Did you see that? Monsieur Mouche smiled. I think he is very happy to be in France.”