Next month, the Tour de France will be zipping through Carcassonne. In fact, race fans, Stage 11 of this cycling extravaganza will start here the morning of July 13 as the 22 teams of nine riders each set off on that day’s goal city of Montpellier on the Mediterranean Sea, about 100 miles away. As if that event itself won’t be celebration enough, our town had a Tour Festival this Saturday in preparation. Continue reading “Trial run”
Last Monday the city put a sign on both ends of our rue reminding the residents that the street would be closed on Friday from 7 PM until 2 AM for the Fête des Voisins or Neighbors’ Day Festival. For one night a year at the end of May, cities, towns, and villages across the country shut down neighborhood roads to create one giant outdoor party with the official goal being to “break isolation…and give a sense of belonging”. Thanks to the friendly people who surround us, we’ve been there since our first week here. Continue reading “Is it pork or paëlla?”
As you probably know, wine holds an important role in the culture and economy of France. We live in the middle of the world’s largest wine-growing region and in March attended the wine fair hosted by the high school not far down the road from where we live. Not to be outdone by their comrades, the students at the high school for those who want to enter the restaurant profession organized their own Salon Cité Vins wine tasting and guess who was there when it opened at 10 AM? Continue reading “A day at the tastings”
We encounter a lot of people on a daily basis essentially because we walk around town quite a bit. Since we don’t have a car, anything that’s close enough to go there by foot, we do. Today we needed to replenish our supply of local sparkling wines because we had served a few glasses…ah, bottles…to some lovely ladies from Liverpool, England last week. And just how did that happen? Continue reading “Liverpool ladies”
We’re not late night people and the TV channels that we get don’t help us to stay up. We intentionally have only French television so once 8:00 PM rolls around and the news comes on our unofficial language instruction stops and we struggle to find something interesting to watch. Last night was a bit different because a semi-final episode of Eurovision, the multi-country song contest, was playing and we wanted to see what artist might be getting their big break. Previous winners who went on to worldwide fame include ABBA and Céline Dion. Around 9:30 PM, with the show still on, imagine our surprise when the doorbell rang. Continue reading “We’re going to a biker bar?”
One of the advantages of living in another country is getting to compare your new experiences with the ones you are used to. We were watching television the other day and a political ad came on. That’s not a topic we pay a lot of attention to but in the hopes of improving our language skills we watched it anyway. As with much of what we see that doesn’t come with French subtitles, we didn’t fully understand the message until the commercial concluded and the sponsor’s logo and name flashed up: Parti Socialiste. Oh my, that would never happen on American TV. Continue reading “Not there you don’t”
We went to the Palais de Justice yesterday but not to attend a hearing although we did visit two different courtrooms. We were also in a couple of assembly rooms, many corridors, and even a lounge where lawyers dressed in long, flowing black gowns with white scarves tied at their necks looked quizzingly at us. I overheard one of the avocats tell her colleagues that we were there to see the exposition. We had gone to the city’s courthouse to see an art exhibition. Continue reading “Art is where you find it”
Let's Live In France 