Life in France, Travel in France & beyond

Do you know the way to San…James?

The blue and yellow symbol point the way
The blue and yellow symbol point the way

It’s 1000 kilometers (600 miles) from Carcassonne to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. Bill and I walk a lot but that distance is way more than we would want to cover on foot yet lots of people come here to do exactly that. Known by a range of names including the Way (or the Path or the Trail) of St. James, the Route (or the Road) to Santiago or the one we hear the most often, Camino de Santiago or just The Camino, it’s a pilgrimage pathway to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Believers go to the shrine there seeking the final resting place of the apostle St. James. Continue reading “Do you know the way to San…James?”

Unknown's avatarBob4 Comments
Life in France

Welcome to the season

Garden gate welcome to Christmas
Garden gate welcome to Christmas

When I was growing up, the school year always started at the beginning of September and the first holiday we had to look forward to was Halloween. That was followed a month later by Thanksgiving and only after that huge feast was a memory did we start to look forward to Christmas. Somehow, over the years, all of those months got compressed into “Hallo-anks-mas” where store shelves that had been stocked through the summer with back to school supplies were suddenly filled with a combination of candy corn, pumpkin pies, and candy canes. It’s a little bit different here in France. Continue reading “Welcome to the season”

Unknown's avatarBob3 Comments
Life in France

Matryoshka

A castle within a castle
A castle within a castle

Today’s language lesson changed from French to Russian because I had to look up the name of those nesting dolls (and this blog post’s title)  that stack inside of one another, each getting smaller and smaller. This folk art was started in a craft workshop near Moscow in 1890 by an industrialist searching for a new style for his country. Carcassonne has its own bigger-than-life version, as in 10 meter (32 feet) tall stone walls, that got their start at least 800 years before those tiny carved dolls. Continue reading “Matryoshka”

Unknown's avatarBob
Life in France

Now we live there

Keyhole connection for the phone/TV/Internet cable
Keyhole wall connection for the phone/TV/Internet cable

Although we bought our house here in Carcassonne a few months ago, I haven’t felt as if we really live there…until today. One of the requirements for getting a visa for our first year in France was to have an address, so we rented a fully-furnished house. It’s really comfortable and truly came with everything we needed to live, down to the knives, forks, and spoons, and the all-important Internet. The only problem is that once we venture outside of our 2-foot thick (60 cm.) walls, there is no wi-fi, so when we go over to work on the house I feel a bit out of touch…until today. Continue reading “Now we live there”

Unknown's avatarBob2 Comments
Life in France

Not like I recall

A very fit and trim Père Noêl
A very fit and trim Père Noêl

This time of year was always fun growing up because lots of Christmas catalogs would arrive and you could spend hours sorting through all the latest toys, games, and all the other items you never knew you wanted. As an adult in our fantasy land called France, it’s really no different except that the amusements that now catch our eye are likely to be centered around food and drink but it’s still fun to peruse all of these catalogues de Noël looking for everything we didn’t know existed, seems unusual, or we just don’t recall ever having seen before. Continue reading “Not like I recall”

Unknown's avatarBob1 Comment
Life in France

MEET-ings

The mayor welcomes the new arrivals to Carcassonne
The mayor welcomes the new arrivals to Carcassonne

When you’re working it seems that there are always meetings to attend; sometimes so many and on such a regular weekly schedule that you can’t get your work done. The higher up the corporate ladder you go the more time you spend away from your desk and around a conference table giving and receiving information. Once you retire and have the luxury of choosing which meetings you will attend, that word takes on a whole new meaning with an emphasis on those first four letters—MEET—as in becoming acquainted with new people and that has definitely been true here. Continue reading “MEET-ings”

Unknown's avatarBob1 Comment
Life in France

Fill in the blanks

No blanks to fill in this castle wall
No blanks to fill in this castle wall

It will be a long time before Bill and I speak French well enough that there aren’t pauses between thoughts while we search for words. Luckily, the French seem to be very skilled at filling in the blanks both in real life and in what we see on television. In an effort to increase our knowledge of the language, we watch game shows with the subtitles turned on since that doubles our chances of connecting the words we hear with those same words we see on the screen. In programs with names like Slam, Don’t Forget the Lyrics, and Questions for a Champion, there are dozens of blanks to fill in daily, some of which we’re starting to understand ourselves. Continue reading “Fill in the blanks”

Unknown's avatarBob1 Comment