thefrenchfeed

Bonjour,

There is no doubt that living in another country gives you a much better glimpse at life and culture than you get from a few weeks on holiday. It’s sometimes the small things that you become aware of. For instance, the French have a different way of showing fingers to indicate how many. Like this – if an Australian wanted to order two coffees they would hold up there hand like the one on the left, but a French person would look like the one on the right. Their thumb always has to be included.

                                         

No idea why.

We are also discovering the cost of living here is very different. On the surface, it doesn’t look all that different. Groceries are about the same in Australia, although there are variations on some things as you would expect. Cheese and wine is very cheap, but so are many of the vegetables (e.g. mushrooms, root vegetables, cauliflower), and most other things are about the same. Things involving a service (hairdressers, restaurants, etc) and public transport are about the same if not a bit cheaper. Cars and petrol are also reasonably priced but nearly all are European cars – Renaults and Peugots mainly. But apparently they do not register their cars. There are plenty of toll roads, and car insurance must be paid, but no yearly car registration.

We were talking to a French person the other day and doing some comparisons. Her partner is with the military police, which is considered to be a well paid job. His monthly income is €1700 – that’s about $32,000 pa ($AU). She also told us about an investment apartment they bought last year – a very small one bedroom studio place in a nearby large regional city. Purchase price was approx $90,000 (again $AU).

The French love their paperwork. Anything to do with government, banks, buying cars or leaving employment generates a ton of paperwork. Not that we are thinking of buying or leasing a car, but if we did we would have to wait. Some friends agreed to a long term lease of a car. It is sitting in the car yard, they have the money but have to wait two weeks. Not negotiable. And buying one is a lot longer.

And then there is their eating timetable. Lunch is from 12 to 2. Children are either collected from school by parents and returned after lunch, or they eat at school and sit down to a full three course meal. Most businesses and offices close up for two hours and then work from 2pm through to 6 pm. Which explains why the French eat so late. Restaurants don’t open till 7pm. We turned up at 6.40 once and were allowed to sit in the corner until the clock ticked over and they were ready to take our orders.

I’m sure there will be plenty more quirks (in our eyes, not theirs) that we discover, but it’s all fun.

And can’t finish without a photo. Of the weather. This was taken this morning after Lee and his trusty peddly rode through it to work.

L&M.

 

Salutations

No post would be complete without mention of the weather which is getting a bit tiresome. This week has been definitely an indoors sort of week with temperatures like this.

 

So not much news or adventures to report. Instead, here is a random group of photos from Cherbourg that have been taken at various times.

L & M

Salut

We had a week of staying at home and watching the rain. Except for Wednesday morning when the sunrise looked like this!

Another highlight of the week was a visit to the Battery du Roule. This is a series of caves that were built at the top of a nearby mountain during WW2 by the Germans to house a series of guns to protect the harbour. The guns they used were originally designed for U boats and could shoot to a range of about 20 miles – enough to keep those pesky English away. When it was first started they employed prisoners from Eastern Europe who couldn’t speak French so that there was no risk of the work being leaked. But as time went on they were using anybody from the local area to try and get it finished. As it turned out, it was completed only a few weeks before D Day Landings so the Allies got the most benefit from it. The photos are from one of the other Australians on the tour.

 

Not much else to report. Would like to say that our French lessons are coming along swimmingly but that is not true. Although when we were in Paris last weekend we noticed that we could understand quite a bit more than when we arrived a couple of months ago so something must be sinking in.

Au revior

L & M

Bonjour

We just spent a long weekend in London to celebrate aunt’s 91st birthday. So close and yet so far. We were very organised and had booked and paid for the train from Cherbourg to Paris, then Eurostar from Paris to London. We had a Metro train to catch in Paris and then the London Underground to our accommodation (also booked and paid for) plus the hire car.  What could possibly go wrong? A train strike, that’s what. First leg was train to leave Cherbourg at 7.30 am and got there in plenty of time to find lots of people staring at a blank departure board wondering why their train wasn’t listed. There had been no announcements or publicity and still have no idea why there was a strike. The only train we could get was at 10.30 – too late to get our connecting Eurostar train and also too late to pick up our hire car in London.

Anyway, eventually we got to London only 11 hours after we left home and things picked up from there.

The Eurostar was fast, efficient and easy. We reached speeds of 260 km an hour but you wouldn’t know because it was so smooth and quiet. There was a lot of snow on the ground in the French countryside (which always makes everything look prettier than it is) but no snow in England.

 

And then we sped through the tunnel for about 20 minutes and according to google, it’s about 50 kms long. The time and money involved in building the tunnel must have been enormous, but it seems to be very well used. Both our trains (to and from England) were full or nearly full and they are scheduled every hour. The tickets are not a cheaper option (compared to the ferry) so they must be making some money, although the profits took a dive in 2016 after the Paris terrorist attacks.

St Pancras Station is still impressive and still boasts the title of “Europe’s longest champagne bar”. Here’s a few photos of the station.

 

 

 

 

 

It was a nice change to be able to have announcements and signs in English. Even the lifts are very British and polite….

 

One noticeable thing about London was how it is in much need of a good clean up. There was litter EVERYWHERE. It may have something to do with the added security measures and removal of many of the rubbish bins. The French use the transparent plastic bags but in London the few bins that were available were overflowing with rubbish and it seems people just throw their cans, bottles, cigarette buts, etc wherever.

Apart from the train strike, the travelling was a good chance to see some of the country side. Hard to imagine suffering through the heatwaves in the southern hemisphere, while everyone here is hanging out for some warmth and sunshine.

C’est tout pour le moment

L & M

 

 

Salutations

Last weekend we headed away for a few days to Le Mans which is about 250 kms south east of Cherbourg. No car race (that’s in June) but still plenty to see.

We stayed right near the Old Town which dates back to the middle ages. It’s been beautifully preserved with cobble stoned alleyways, stone and half timbered buildings and mostly only pedestrian traffic. Needless to say, every time we turned around we were reaching for the phones to take more photos. Like these…..

One of the highlights was the Cathedral of St Julian, built between the 11th and 15th centuries. The stonework and stained glass windows were amazing and hard to imagine how they were able to build something so majestic in the days before technology is what we have today.

 

 

And of course there is the car race. Apparently they get about 260,000 spectators along, not to mention the racing crews, media and everybody else involved in the whole shebang. It’s not a huge place so it must be bulging at the seams during race time. There is a public road that becomes part of the track and we were able to drive along that – not surprisingly there were no pot holes to speak of.

Best part was the car museum which has many of the winning cars from back in the day, as well as many other old cars. Everything came with interesting stories and technical information in both French and English and lives up to the good wrap it gets on tripadvisor.

We also made a visit to the Royal Epau Abbey. This was built in 1229 by the widow of Richard the Lionheart who came off second best when he met with a crossbow through his eye during battle. His widow wanted somewhere decent to be buried but she left it a bit late because she died well before the building was completed. It has a long history of various people fighting over it but it is now listed as a ‘historic monument’ and has recently been faithfully restored for a small sum of 60 million francs.

Au revoir jusqu’a la prochaine fois

L&M

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bonjour

I know it’s a bit early but happy Australia Day to everyone. Good luck to those who are expecting a shout out on the Honours list.

As you would expect, it’s just another day in France. Except for some Australians working here, and then it’s a day off – Yay!! When it comes to public holidays, the usual Australian national ones will be recognised here on the day, but in cases of all those other local ones (e.g. Brisbane Ekka or Melbourne Cup Day), a schedule has been worked out to spread them through the year. So most months there will be a three day weekend.

So this weekend we are planning a trip to Le Mans – about 250 kms away. The car race is held in June but apparently the car museum is brilliant and the town is really pretty so stay tuned for the photos.

Our boxes arrived from Australia finally and it was good to unpack some familiar things, including our bikes. Lee is now riding to work every day which is only about 10 minutes, but it’s very dark when he leaves, usually raining and often gale force winds. The days are slowly getting longer and hopefully we will see a bit more sunshine. Even the locals think we have had more rain than usual.

I have just returned from a couple of days in England to visit my aunt in hospital (she’s fine and home now – thanks for asking). Anyway, one would think that, being just across the channel, it would be a quick easy journey. Nope! According to Google Maps, the distance is about 280 kms as the crow flies. Not being a crow, the way to get there is via ferry. Or rather, car (1.5 hours), ferry (7 hours), train (another 1.5 hours) and then another train to the hospital. Not much shorter than travelling to Australia really.

We are going to have another trip to London in a few weeks and this time we will try the Eurostar – train to Paris then about 5 hours on the Eurostar to London. So not much quicker and a lot longer distance wise.

And totally unrelated to the above but because we need a picture, here is a lovely little square tucked away in the heart of the old town.

Au revior pour le moment

L & M

 

 

Bonjour

Happy new year and let’s hope 2018 is one of the better ones.

After the nice Christmas/New Year break things are settling in to our new normal and we are getting more familiar with life in Cherbourg. Yesterday we went to the Saturday markets again and it was certainly much quieter than the last time which was just before Christmas when a ferry was in town. It is definitely the place where the locals come on Saturday mornings for their fruites, legumes, fromage etc and catching up for coffee. There is a bit of a protocol when it comes to buying the fruit and veg. Everyone forms a very orderly line and you wait your turn. And you certainly don’t pick up anything and help yourself, but wait to be served and tell them what you want (or point in our case). It’s easy to tell where the best prices are – just look for the stalls with the biggest queues.

We are starting to feel less like tourists and doing more things that the locals do, like catching local buses and getting a haircut. Things you don’t think twice about at home but takes on a whole new challenge here. But it’s been all good experiences and while very few locals have much English at all, they are friendly and with a bit of gesturing and pointing we bumble through.

And now to the weather. We’ve been keeping up to date with the heatwave in Australia – poor Sydney this weekend. At the other end of the spectrum we had a visit from Storm Eleanor this week. This part of the world doesn’t see many cyclones or hurricanes, but some think tank thought naming storms might be the way to go. Mind you, this was not your usual storm that comes and goes in a few hours. It formed off the west coast of Ireland and made its way across Scotland and Wales and then on to the north of France. All this took several days of howling winds and horizontal rain. The ferries across the channel were cancelled and lots of loss of power but happily there didn’t seem to be too much damage or anybody getting hurt. We saw an interview on TV where it was felt that giving this storm a name might make people sit up and take it more seriously and not take silly risks. So sounds like the strategy worked.

The storm also bought some huge tides. It’s interesting how the temperature variations here are minimal. Today’s maximum is 8 and the minimum is 6. But it’s a different story with the tides. Here’s some photos taken on Thursday of the high tide around midday and the low tide at 6pm.

 

 

That’s it for now. Stay cool.

love

L&M

Bonne annee a la famille et aux amis

Hope you all had a very happy Christmas. From what we hear it was pretty hot and sweaty on your side of the world. It was a quiet time in Cherbourg and so we bunkered down with Christmas lunch and then the obligatory annual viewing of Love Actually.

On Boxing Day we met up with some other Australians and there was much comparing of notes about our experiences and impressions so far. It’s surprising how many of them have bought their pets along. Apart from a rabies shot, there is no problem with bringing animals here to live. Going back home will be a very different story – 6 months quarantine and about $7000 for each pet. A couple of these animals are getting on in years so there could be some very tough decisions when the time comes to go home.

We hired a car for a few days and have been able to get out and see some of the surrounding countryside. Unfortunately there was only one day of reasonable weather and so we drove to the most north-western point of France. The coastline was beautiful and quite surreal when you see memorials in tiny villages to local residents (women and children) who died in that area as a result of WW1 and WW2. We stopped at one place where the scenery was spectacular and the bunkers are still intact with views across the Channel to England.

 

One of the tiny villages on our road trip was Gruchy in Greville-Hague, the birthplace of Jean-Francois Millet. We’d never heard of him, but definitely recognize some of his work – e.g.

 

We didn’t waste the opportunity to go shopping while we had the car. Just outside Cherbourg is Le Glacerie (originally named because of the glass that was manufactured in the area). Now it is home to all manner of warehouse style shops and so we picked up lots of household type things that should get us through. Which meant more disposal of packing and cardboard boxes (sigh). Happy news – we are getting our heads around how to get rid of rubbish. Baby steps but very satisfying.

Speaking of shopping, that is an experience. Another topic which could take up pages. But (and perhaps it has something to do with where we have been shopping) for a country that makes recycling your rubbish so complicated, the amount of food that is sold in packages is astounding. Everything from ready made sandwiches, meals, snails and sliced meat. Here is a small section of the aisle that sells yogurt in tubs. There’s plenty of other shelves of tubs of every possible type of dairy item you can think of.

Another interesting and good to know piece of information is that the local nuclear power plant is required to conduct a test of their emergency siren on the first Wednesday of each month. It is so comforting to know that we get the heads up in case of an emergency. What we are supposed to do if/when that happens is anybody’s guess. Apparently there was a survey conducted in France in 2013 and it was found that only one in five people knew what to do if the emergency siren in sounded. (Short answer – stay inside and seal up all vents and places where air can get in).

Today (because it’s somebody’s birthday) we went out to a French restaurant for lunch. It’s definitely not the done thing to whip out the phone and take photos of your food, but service and presentation was excellent and food was good to very good, depending on the course. Everything had lashings of butter and/or cream but when in France……

Finally, we hope everyone who reads this has a very happy, healthy and safe 2018.

love

L & M

Bonjour

Week 2 nearly done. Lee has put in his first week of finding his way to work (even worked out the local bus system!), getting all his access and passes sorted, working out who’s who and now he’s on a 10 day break. Yay!

Many of the others Australians here are taking the opportunity to get some travel in during the shut down and the few remaining in Cherbourg have planned to catch up on Boxing Day. And we found out this week that there is a partners’ group which is basically a group of partners of guys who have been posted here and get together for social activities and just general support. I met a few of them on Thursday and, while some of them have been here for  a few months, the others are new arrivals like us. So picked up some great tips and info about life here.

We’ve been out and about trying to get to know where things are and this has confirmed what I already knew – my sense of direction is woeful. The old part of the town is mainly pedestrian access only with lots of little lanes and narrow streets and nothing is straight. Here’s what I mean….

But even when I get lost, because the place is so small, it’s not hard to get back on track. And it’s a lovely place to get lost.

Today we went to the open air markets in the main square. The range of produce was quite impressive with lots of root vegetables but surprising amount of more exotic stuff – mangoes, lychees, pineapples. There were also some fresh meat and seafood on offer. The chickens still had their heads attached – would be hard to cook something when they are watching you like that.

And we discovered this shop only about 50 metres around the corner from our apartment. If this means nothing to you, then google “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”

If there is one thing we know for sure – we need to learn to speak French. It may be possible to survive without it but the entire experience would be so much better if we worked on this. There are several places where we can learn and so in the new year this will be near the top of the list.

A few things that we are missing from home (Yeah I know – “if that’s all they have to complain about”…..)

• wheelie bins. Rubbish collection is a bit of a science. Could write pages on this. No more just putting everything in your own personal bin and just waiting for the magic to happen every Friday morning.
• screw caps in wine bottles. The French like their traditional corks
• pay wave. There may be some shops that do this, but we have yet to find them
• plum pudding. Nothing even close to that here. Pastries and bread things – no problem but dried fruit? what’s that?

We had a knock on the door the other evening – most unusual as this is a secure building. Lee answered the door and it was a local fireman selling their calendars. My Australian brain automatically sees muscly bronzed men with no shirts. Not here. In France they use children’s artwork to decorate their calendars. Here’s the page for October. Our neighbours in the apartment building are all quite elderly. I would love to see the reaction if I tried to sell them some of our calendars next year.

Anyway, that’s the French Feed for now. Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas (we will be thinking of you) and 2018 is happy, healthy and joyeux.

Love L & M.