¡Barcelona!

A colorful market in Barcelona

When I first learned we were moving to France, I was both excited and a little disappointed. Disappointed because throughout high school and college, I spent a considerable amount of time learning Spanish, and had always wanted the chance to try out my language skills in a Spanish-speaking country. I thought Spanish would be a much more useful language to know than French, what with the number of Spanish-speakers in the US and the proximity to Mexico and Latin America.

Imagine my surprise, then, to find out that I was moving to France. I had to shove my hard-earned knowledge of Spanish to the back of my brain and start cramming French in there instead. I enjoyed the challenge of teaching myself French and have done reasonably well at learning the language. But I still harbor an appreciation for Spanish and Latin cultures and that dream of communicating in Spanish. Thus, the close proximity of France to Spain was something I wanted to capitalize on while we were in Europe.

Amazingly beautiful gelato

It took us nearly two years of living in France, but I finally realized my goal of seeing Spain. Last month we took a short trip to Barcelona and had two-and-a-half days to see the sights. Here's what we found.

Barcelona is full of life. Compared to Paris, it felt sunny and open and friendly. On our first full day there, we did a walking tour loosely based on the one in the back of the novel The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. One of my favorite books, The Shadow of the Wind is a page-turner of a gothic novel set in Barcelona in 1945. Zafón sweeps you up into a twisting story of shadowy characters and intricate mysteries, while expertly painting the scene of a dark and dismal post-war Barcelona. I was keen to see some of the places that figured so prominently in the story, so we took a stroll down the Ramblas, a long pedestrianized street that takes you through the heart of Barcelona's gothic quarter. We saw an epic outdoor market with amazing foods, then joined the sea of tourists that made its way past the flower vendors, souvenir shops, theaters, restaurants, and living statues, and ultimately emerged at the marina in front of a massive statue of Christopher Columbus. In addition to the Ramblas, we saw a wide variety of architecture, including some fantastical buildings created by Antoni Gaudí in the late 19^th century, as well as the outside of La Sagrada Família, the enormous modern basilica designed by Gaudí that has had construction ongoing since 1882. Rounding out the day was a trip to Jansana, a lovely gluten free bakery.

Going incognito and keeping the sun off

We did a lot of walking that first day, and in our vacations pre-baby, we would have felt obliged to go out again in the evening to cram in as much sight-seeing and experiencing as possible. But now with an 8-month-old who goes to bed around 7:30 pm, we had a perfect excuse to have a quiet evening in our AirBnB apartment, cooking ourselves a simple dinner and having hot chocolate on the patio. It was a relaxing end to an enjoyable day. Despite my initial worries about vacationing with a baby, it all worked out splendidly. Maëlys seemed to enjoy the new sights and sounds and she managed to sleep fairly well in an unfamiliar environment. Plus, Spanish people seem to love talking to, smiling at, and touching babies, so she made us quite popular with the locals.

I should note, however, that on the speaking Spanish with locals front, I failed miserably. First of all, Barcelona is part of Catalonia, so they speak both Catalan and Spanish there, and Catalan sounds rather like a mixture of French and Spanish, which confused me. Secondly, my brain is now wired such that when I hear a foreign language, I automatically respond in French, regardless of the language I hear. I kept saying “oui” instead of “si” and “merci” instead of “gracias”. So when trying to order in Spanish at restaurants, I would stare blankly at the server while my brain cycled through the English and French words before coming up with a French pronunciation for the Spanish word. It was frustrating but amusing.

Casa Batlló, designed by Gaudí

GF cake at Pasticelía

On our final day in Barcelona, we first got lunch at another excellent gluten free bakery, called Pasticelía. This time, after again being struck dumb at the sight of the waitress and having to order in English, I mentally rehearsed a couple of Spanish sentences explaining that our sojourn in Paris had left me struggling to speak Spanish. She chuckled and told me (in Spanish!) that she didn't know any French, so she appreciated the effort. It was a small victory.

Sagrada Família basilica

Afterwards, we took the subway, a funicular, and a cable car (excellent views of Barcelona) up the hill to the Montjuïc Castle. Montjuïc was a 17^th-18^th century military fortress that was the site of a number of battles and symbolized Spain's defeat of Catalonia in 1714. It served as a prison and a house of torture for three hundred years, and is mentioned in The Shadow of the Wind as the grim place where one of the characters was tortured. There is a small historical exhibit inside the fortress, but we mainly just walked around the grounds and on the ramparts. The castle's unpleasant past is not really on display too much, but a somber air pervades what's left of the fortress. At the end of our visit we walked down the steep hill through well-tended gardens and back to the funicular. In the evening we hurriedly made our way to the train station and caught a two-hour train to Carcassonne, a medieval town in the south of France.


I would love to spend more time in Spain. Barcelona was a very colorful and inviting place and with two-and-a-half days we barely scratched the surface. But at least we made it there and at least I was able to use a little of my mostly-dormant Spanish skills. The next part of our vacation took us “back home” to France, and was a great contrast to the bustle of Barcelona. Rory will tell you about that adventure in our next post. Stay tuned.

Statue (should be) entitled, Naked woman pondering ice cream cone.

Preparing for Bébé, Part 2

In Part 1 of Preparing for Bébé, I mentioned some of the activities we've undertaken in the final stretch of my pregnancy. And in previous posts, I shared some of my experiences with things like health care and public transportation as a pregnant woman in France. By the way, good news on the transportation front! Once I hit about 8 months, my belly had become sufficiently large that people started regularly giving me their seat on the bus and métro. No more of the "I don't want to offend her by assuming she's pregnant if she's really not" behavior. It's been great! I really appreciate the Parisians' courtesy and generosity in this regard. The one caveat is that when people are engrossed in their phones (as most people are these days), it's much less likely they will notice my protruding tummy and I'll have to stand until a seat opens up. Such is life with technology these days.

Excusez-moi? Heavily pregnant lady would like to sit down. Anyone home?

Anyway, in today's blog, Part 2 of Preparing for Bébé, I'll look at two of the most helpful tools I've found that have allowed us to get ready for the baby. These are specific to living as an ex-pat in Paris, but provide a good contrast to the preparation process in the US or UK.

Message: like a bridge over troubled waters

The first crucial element in our quest to be well-prepared parents has been membership in Message, the large community of English-speaking parents and parents-to-be in Paris and its suburbs. I learned about Message from a blog post back in December when I was feverishly researching how to have a baby in France. Remember that my French language skills were pretty limited back then, so diving into French administrative websites for information on finding doctors, paying for health care, and registering at maternity hospitals was hugely overwhelming. Add on the early pregnancy hormones and anxiety, and I was barely keeping my head above water. When I found Message, I felt I had been saved.

Upon paying my 60 € membership fee, I received a very helpful book called The ABCs of Parenting in Paris, which explained everything from declaring one's pregnancy to government agencies to what types of butter are available in Paris grocery stores. More importantly, I was personally contacted by coordinating members of Message who answered my panicked questions and suggested I explore the online Message forums, where one can find a rabbit hole of members' questions and answers on any subject regarding the ex-pat parent's experience. It was a treasure trove of knowledge. Through these forums, I found an excellent English-speaking obstetrician, learned which hospitals not to go to, and got step-by-step instructions on submitting my pregnancy declaration to the government.

In addition to the online forums, Message offers classes led by trained volunteers on topics like birth preparation, newborn care, and breastfeeding. The classes were super helpful for Rory and me, and not just because they weren't in French (though that was a big part of it!) Another nice perk is that each Message member gets an assigned Breastfeeding Support Person who will help and advise you (for free!) with any questions or problems related to breastfeeding. Furthermore, there are Message play groups, monthly meet-ups, bring-and-buy sales, and seminars, as well as support groups for single parents, adopting parents, and more.

One of the most useful features of Message for us, however, has been its online Classifieds forum. Like Craigslist or France's version, Le Bon Coin, members can freely post their items for sale, apartments for rent, services offered, or items wanted, but you get to avoid the scams and shady characters common to Craigslist and don't have to contact people in French like on Le Bon Coin. Instead, it's just buying from one ex-pat mom or dad to another. The prices are often excellent and you can find gently used high quality (e.g. typically very expensive when new) baby gear. Plus, you get to meet friendly parents around the city who were in your shoes not too long ago and who can give helpful advice. It has been an invaluable service.

Membership in Message has already paid for itself many times over. When having a baby in a foreign country, especially when far away from family, anything that makes you feel less adrift at sea is probably worth doing.

The fact that Paris is a big enough city for a well-organized network like Message to exist, is also part of what makes living here a challenge. This city is expensive. This brings us to the second crucial element of our baby preparation: how to save money on baby stuff in a city where an apartment the size of a closet can sell for 200,000 €.

Saving money: go used and go online

Truth #1: Living in Paris is expensive. Although many ex-pats who move here work for big global corporations and can afford to live in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, we are not those ex-pats. Rory's two-year university contract and my very part-time music teaching keep us afloat and fairly comfortable, but the cost of living is just a smidge higher than we were used to in Ohio.

Truth #2: Having a baby is expensive. Holy catfish, Batman! Baby stuff is NOT cheap! 800 € for a stroller? 600 € for a crib? Well, there goes our month's rent...

With a first baby, there's often this desire to have brand new everything for one's precious bundle of joy. It has to be pristine! It has to be the best! I, too, had these feelings briefly.

But then I remembered that we most likely only have one year left in Paris, and international moving/shipping costs are enormous, so investing in brand new furniture and baby gear doesn't make sense as we may not even take it all with us when we move. That's where the Message Classifieds came in. The vast majority of our large baby-related purchases have come second-hand from Message members. Crib, stroller, swing, playmat, even dining room table and food processor were pre-loved by Message members. Had we bought everything new that we found on Message, it would have cost us in the neighborhood of 2100 €. Instead it cost us 595 €. It required patiently browsing through Classifieds posts every few days and making long trips out to the corners of Paris to pick items up, but the savings were definitely worth it.

Online shopping has been another huge money and time saver for us in Paris. Here's why.

As I was explaining to my incredulous mother the other day, there really aren't any big one-stop-shopping stores in our neck of the woods. Nothing like Target, Costco, or Walmart exists over here. You can find select places like Monoprix—a stand-alone department store that has groceries, clothes, and limited home goods, but the selection isn't very big by American standards and they're on the expensive side. So generally if I need to buy a wide variety of products, I have to go to a wide variety of stores. As I have no car, I have to walk or take the bus or subway to do my shopping. My 9-months-pregnant body can't handle too much of that these days, so that's strike one against traditional shopping.

Fill-your-car shopping trips and the stockpiling of groceries for the month aren't really done here either. In France, every few days you go to the boulangerie to buy bread, the boucherie to buy meat, the fromagerie to buy cheese, and it lasts for a few days or a week. Refrigerators and freezers are small, apartments are small, and we haven't had a pantry or closet since we lived in the US. You don't pick up 12-packs of butter at Costco because you won't have room to store it. Besides, again, I have no car, so I can't buy more than I can carry. I even gave in last month and bought what I call a Granny Shopping Cart, but I still can't bring that much stuff home at one time. Babies apparently need and consume a lot of random stuff, and heaven forbid if you should run out of diapers, or if the batteries for the baby swing die in the middle of the night. Or on a Sunday, when all of the stores here are closed. Going out shopping with a screaming baby every other day is probably not high on most parents' list of things to do, so that's strike two against traditional shopping.

Hence, online shopping.

After weeks of research on Amazon, bebe-au-naturel.com, lilinappy.fr, and dozens of other websites, after slowly reading and translating French product reviews and comparing prices in France, the US, and the UK, we ended up buying more than 300 € worth of baby-related stuff online (think wipes, baby laundry detergent, waterproof mattress pad, nasal aspirator, cloth diapering accessories, etc.) and had it shipped to our door (or to a nearby location for pick-up). It did mean dealing with unintelligible delivery-guy phone calls in French, but was otherwise an easy and straightforward way to ensure we got highly recommended products at cheaper prices. And I didn't have to kill my back and feet running around to dozens of stores throughout Paris to do it. I call that a win.

That's all for Part 2 of Preparing for Bébé. In our final installment, I'll show you how we are turning our little 33 sq. m (355 sq. ft) apartment into a baby-ready home without feeling like we're on an episode of Hoarders.

Have a splendid week, everyone!

La Toussaint

Yesterday (November 1) was La Toussaint, the French name for All Saints' Day (also known as All Hallows). Despite France being a secular country, this Catholic holy day is also a national public holiday. (Yeah, French secularism is weird, and feels less consistent than American secularism, but that's probably just a matter of perspective. It's quite rare to see French politicians talk of their personal relationship with God, for instance.)

Most people from Anglophone cultures will know All Saints' Day as "the day after Halloween". After all, Hallowe'en is a contraction of All Hallow's Eve(ning), in other words, "the evening before All Saints' Day". However, Halloween celebrations as we know them in Anglophone cultures were quite missing on Saturday night!

Although the tradition of "trick or treating" is often regarded as being American in origin, it actually finds its roots in Scotland. Still practised today, children will go "guising", that is, going around the neighbourhood in disguise. They knock on the door of a neighbour, are invited inside, and have to perform a "piece" to get their reward (fruit, nuts, and sweets). The piece can be a joke, a riddle, a poem, a song, or some other performance. Apparently this practice in turn can be traced to traditions around the celtic pagan festival Samhain, the traditional harvest festival.

Okay, back to France. So, we didn't get to dress up, or give (or receive) any sweets, but instead, we got a public holiday with excellent weather! Yesterday was also the first Sunday of the month, which, as you may recall, means that many museums are open for free. We took advantage of this and visited the Musée du Moyen Âge (Museum of the Middle Ages).

Wow, the middle ages were pretty grim. Here's a statue of a martyred saint.

Yep, still pretty grim.

There was also some Roman artefacts, like this statue of Emperor Julian the Apostate.

Luckily, the middle ages weren't all doom and gloom. They had unicorns too.

And bunnies!

And books with pictures. Or maybe this is a colouring book?

After the museum, we visited Grom, an Italian ice cream shop. They have a variety of sorbets (milk-free, of course), and all of their cones are gluten-free. This is a winning combination for a happy Talia.

Apple and lemon sorbet!

We also visited the Panthéon, a huge mausoleum which houses the bodies of many of France's most famous men. (Yes, men. There is the body of exactly one woman in there: Marie Curie. However, two more women - Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz and Germaine Tillion, both heroes of the French resistance during WWII - were added recently. Their bodies were not physically moved into the Panthéon (at the request of their families), but their names are listed among the others.)

Voltaire's tomb.

We also spent some time cycling around in the sun - the weather was really fantastic! (Unlike today, which is grey, cloudy, and barely more than 10C (50F).) Unfortunately, the camera battery ran out, so no pictures. But it was very pleasant.

So, while we may have missed out on the candy explosion of Hallowe'en in the USA, or more traditional Hallowe'en activities in the UK like apple dooking, a day of free museums, ice cream, and relaxing in the gentle sun definitely makes up for it. More of this, please!

57% fluent in french, whatever that means

My dear husband has a PhD in linguistics. He's been studying language for the past ten years. One might incorrectly assume that he would have fluency in several languages under his belt by now, especially having grown up in multilingual Europe. Rory can teach you about phonological processing and phonetic reduction, individual differences in speech production, and even the Acazulco Otomi word for “potato”. He's a very smart and knowledgeable guy when it comes to Language with a capital L. But as he is fond of saying, “Learning a language is hard.”

Autumn in Paris from the Bois de Boulogne on our Journée sans Anglais

Indeed it is. Being plonked down into a foreign country where you don't really speak the language is quite challenging at times. Even though according to Duolingo I'm 57% fluent in French after six months of individual study, more often than not, I don't understand the conversations happening around me on the subway, in stores, and most embarrassingly, when I am trying to be an active participant. For an adult who has prided herself on being reasonably articulate and skilled at communication, it's a bit of a sucker punch to the ego when a child speaks to me in French and I have to look at her with a perplexed and apologetic expression on my face like, I only caught one word you said and you're making me so nervous that I can't even think how to say in French that I didn't understand you. Please don't think I'm a weirdo or a complete idiot, or worse, an American.


Rest assured, I have been studying and learning and making a lot of progress with my French. For example, last week, I somehow “volunteered” to coordinate logistics for a two-weekend Baha'i study circle event, meaning that I had to contact about fifteen Parisians and ask if they would provide lunches or childcare for a group of 15-20 people. I was expected to call people I didn't know, on the phone, in French. I've had anxiety about calling people since I was ten years old, but to have to do it in a foreign language...*shudders*


Well, I spent about a day gathering the courage, writing out and practicing a bunch of possible scripts for the calls, looking up French phone expressions, Facebook friending the people I was about to call, and generally being terrified any time I touched my phone. That evening, I started calling people. And for the next several days, I left messages entirely in French. I had calls that began in French and switched into English when I couldn't explain myself anymore. I emailed and texted people in French (WAY easier than calling, let me tell you). And on the weekends, I brought snacks to the gatherings and interacted with people in French (“Quoi de neuf, Talia?” “Pas beaucoup,” I said smoothly). I still panic every time my phone rings, but the experience of successfully communicating in my new language really energized and emboldened me.


Not everyone gets to be shoved into the deep end of the language-learning pool like I just did, so if you're studying a new language, here are some of the other tools and activities I've found useful.

• Duolingo: An online site that turns language-learning into a game. There are 23 languages available, including Klingon! It does get a little repetitive after 20 levels or so, since the format doesn't change or get harder as you go. But it's great for learning vocabulary, conjugations, and phrases.
  
• Quizlet: A site that allows you to create flashcards (or use other people's flashcards), then study them using a variety of strategies and games.
  
• Comme Une Française: A great website with lots of videos on authentic French language usage, explanations about daily life in France, common mistakes French learners make, and tons more. It's run by Géraldine Lepère, a young woman who acts as teacher and mentor and helps people (particularly expats living in France) feel more at home with French living.
  
• Cercle International de l'ARC: If you happen to move to Paris and want to practice conversing in French without paying 12 euros for a speed-dating style Franglish event, The International Circle of the ARC is an organization where you can meet up with people from around the world and talk in French with the guidance of a native French speaker (it seems to be retired people who serve as these French animateurs). It's only 10 euros for the whole year and there are three 2-hour sessions five days a week.
  
• Children's books in French: Local libraries probably have some. I enjoyed reading Madeline, Harry Potter, and have started on Le Petit Prince. Comic books are really popular in France. Not the superhero kind like in America, but the graphic novel kind and classics like Asterix. Pictures help a lot when reading a new language!
  
• Netflix: There are quite a few movies and TV series in French (or other languages), and you can always add subtitles. We started with English subtitles when watching in the US, but now that we're in France, they only have French subtitles. I just started a popular comedy series called Fais pas ci fais pas ça. It really helps to watch the acting, hear the French, and read the French text—it's more effective than just studying a language book.
  
• Journée sans Anglais: Rory and I just started having a Day Without English. Yesterday, we managed without English for many hours and it improved our fluency and understanding. Of course, it helps to have someone to talk to in whatever language you're speaking. It's a little awkward by yourself...But lacking a language buddy, you can always just have an inner monologue in the other language.

We've lived in France for two months now, and I still feel like a complete numpty (great scottish word) when it comes to speaking in French. But I'm getting better! And everyone assures me that by the time I leave Paris, I'll be très natural at the language. For now, I'll keep perfecting my look of polite confusion.

An Abundance of Free Time

Before we moved to France, whenever we told someone that we would be moving to Paris for Rory's work, I was inevitably asked the question, “So what are you going to do there?” I would usually smile sheepishly and say, “I have no idea!” and then elaborate on what I might do with all my free time (since I can't legally work until I have my residence permit, which may be several months). Anyone who knows me probably knows that free time was a foreign concept to me. Rory had to persuade me not to teach cello lessons on the weekends or after 7 pm, and any time that wasn't spent teaching was usually spent on Baha'i activities like serving on the Local Spiritual Assembly and participating in neighborhood community building. It's not that I didn't want free time, it's just that there were too many good causes to support.


To be honest, having nothing but free time in a new city and country is a somewhat terrifying prospect. To not have the consistency of getting out of the apartment every day, and to not have specific projects for which I am held accountable, means that there are some days when I stand on our balcony and gaze out at the bustling street below, and then decide to spend the rest of the day at home. As I wrote three and a half weeks ago when Rory first started his job,


“Being unfamiliar with my surroundings, the timid, small town girl in me would have been completely content to stay at the apartment doing laundry and watching episodes of “Jane the Virgin” until Rory returned. Paris is an amazing city, don't get me wrong, but the throngs of people all saying things I can't understand, the irrepressible fear that someone will steal my purse...these things make it scary to tackle the city on my own.”


On that day three and a half weeks ago, I'm proud to say that I was writing those thoughts not in our apartment but in a gluten-free cafe called My Free Kitchen. I steeled my resolve and trekked to this cute cafe where I deliberately ate very slowly, not just to make the delicious blueberry almond cake last longer, but also to give my nerves a chance to calm down. It was a relatively easy walk, only 30 minutes and almost a straight shot from our place, but I was nervous nonetheless. No one messed with me, no one even talked to me, it was all fine, but I couldn't shake the nervousness.

GF blueberry cake from My Free Kitchen on my first solo outing

Fortunately, that successful first solo outing gave me the courage to explore other new places in the city by myself. I have visited several of the surprisingly numerous gluten-free cafes, I've gone to the bank and the post office and the town hall to conduct important business (speaking in French, I might add!), I even went for an early morning run to see new parts of my neighborhood.

Hôtel de Ville, Paris' City Hall

A large part of the rest of my time has been spent working on learning French, cooking and baking in our tiny kitchen, reading and writing (Harry Potter in French is a fun way to learn new words), meeting friends-of-friends, and finding groups to join on Meetup. This week I went to a meeting of the Trailing Spouses group at a coffee shop next to the river Seine and found a bunch of lovely American, British, and Australian women to chat with. Just before that, I registered for a French conversation group at the Cercle International de l'ARC (I had an interview in French! It was terrifying!).

Harry Potter at the Wizard School

Hogwarts is called Collège Poudlard. *Giggle*

All this is to say that I am finding fun and productive ways to use my free time. Without the extreme demands on my time and energy, I am finding that I can be more creative and more open to new experiences. I am standing at a crossroads, with paths branching off in all different directions, and I get to choose which paths to follow. It's an exciting prospect.

One month!

Today is a month since we moved to France. We haven't actually spent the whole month in France - we've been to Belgium, and taken a couple of trips to Scotland (and England, technically) - but today is a month since we moved.

So, what has happened in that time? Here's a run-down:

Work

I've started work. Being a postdoc is hard - harder than being a graduate student - and adjusting to a new environment with new colleagues is difficult but rewarding. Foremost among these differences, apart from, y'know, being in France, is that I am now in a cognitive science department, while I got my PhD in a linguistics department. So I've gone from being at the cognitive end of studying language, to being at the linguistic end of studying cognition.

Previously I had colleagues who wondered about why "John ate", "John ate the steak", and "John devoured the steak" are all fine English sentences, but "John devoured" is not acceptable. Now I have colleagues who wonder about how the mammalian auditory system represents acoustic information, or human metacognition under attentional load, that sort of thing. Well, we do more than just wondering, but I'll spare you the discussion of experimental research methodologies in cognitive science.

Apartment

Our apartment is set up and we're living just fine. We might do a little furniture rearranging or adjusting while we settle in, and we could probably do with some particular kitchen items to help us cook specific recipes, but the basics are all there. It's rapidly becoming a home.

 

Necessities of modern life

Bank accounts, library accounts, ATM cards, phone numbers, we have all of these. We've figured out the transport system and can navigate easily. Talia doesn't yet have her carte de sejour (residence permit), but that's a long process. We also don't yet have our cartes vitales (a card which entitles you to healthcare), so I'll probably need to chase up someone in HR at my work. French bureaucracy is somewhat labyrinthine so I'm not entirely looking forward to it.

 

Friends

Friends! Friends are good. We've met up with a few people we knew before we moved, not to mention seeing people on our trips to Belgium and Scotland. We went to a Bahá'í feast the other week and met some local Bahá'ís, which was really great. We have more friends-of-friends on the horizon who we will be meeting soon, too. I've always found making friends hard, especially when moving to a new place, but the effort has always paid off.

Language

Our language skills have improved a lot since we arrived. Well, Talia's have at least. She's been making her way through all sorts of complicated interactions in French just fine. I've been a little slower, partly because my work is more or less in English, and because I've not been trying as hard. I'd better catch up!

Settling in

If you've been following our blog, you'll know that we've been to Scotland and Belgium and even Canada and Iceland briefly, but we haven't really mentioned Paris yet. We've been here for nearly two weeks now, if you can believe it, so I should probably share with you some of our progress in settling in and making Paris our home.

La fontaine Médicis, in the Jardin du Luxembourg.

One aspect of settling in somewhere is having access to the things that you are used to having (or, alternatively, being used to having the things that you have access to). This can often be difficult when moving to another country, where things are done differently, and a degree of flexibility is usually required. One such item we were particularly concerned about was the availability of gluten-free flours. Talia is gluten intolerant, and loves to bake, and gluten-free baking requires a diversity of flours, starches, and gums of various origins. In Columbus, these often sold for fairly high prices at "natural" stores.

Imagine our surprise, then, when the first store we walk into - an African corner shop no bigger than a newsagents - has a huge variety of flours, both glutenful and gluten-free, for prices far lower than we could get in the US! These flours were marketed not as "natural" alternatives to support a healthy lifestyle, but simply traditional west African fare. We have since discovered even more stores with great variety of ingredients.

On the other hand, however, we have had great difficulty in finding baked beans, of either the American or British variety. (For those who don't know the difference - baked beans in America tend to be a bit more sugary, and come with pieces of bacon(!) in them, while British baked beans are in a more modest tomato sauce.) Apparently the French just don't eat beans in this way, and we had no luck in sourcing them in the "international" section of a local supermarket. There are some "English food shops", which import food specially from Britain (everything from pickled chutney to spotted dick), although we haven't checked them out. It will be hard, but I am sure that I can resign myself to a life without baked beans.

In addition to getting to grips with the food situation, I'm finding that I keep having to remind myself that, no, we're not on holiday, we really do live here. I suppose this is a common feeling when moving to a new place, but it's especially acute in a major tourist destination like Paris. Settling in will take a while, I think.

2 Days Until We Leave

In 49 hours, Rory and I will flying out of the country. We have already started living out of suitcases, as we had to be out of our house two days ago, and our lovely friends have given us a place to stay until we leave. All of our earthly belongings now fit into two fifty pound suitcases, two carry-on bags, and two backpacks. And of course there's my cello. Oh, and the 5x5 storage unit we rented in Columbus. But that's it, I promise. There's nothing like an overseas move to cure you of your attachment to material possessions!

Apart from the disbelieving, mouth-agape facial expressions we see on people when we tell them we're moving to Paris, we also get a few of the same questions frequently. Here are our answers to some of them.

Q: "Has it hit you yet that you're moving to France?"
A: Not quite. We will have a two week holiday in Scotland before taking a train to Paris, so we'll be easing into European living with something that's a little more familiar. When we no longer understand the language around us, I'm sure we'll realize just how foreign we are. Of course, we'll be just a 7 hour train ride away from Rory's family, so anytime we get too homesick, we can always go back to Scotland. Paris is 9 hours ahead of my family in Oregon though, so I'm counting on family members vacationing in Paris for the next two years.

Q: "Do you have a place to stay in Paris?"
A: Fortunately we do! After weeks of online searching and not having anyone respond to our inquiries, we found someone through Rory's work supervisor who is renting her place for 9 months. The apartment is in the 11th Arrondissement, close to the Place de la Nation. It's a 5th floor, 1 bedroom apartment (without an elevator--good exercise!). The kitchen is really more of a corner than an actual room, but the place is fully furnished and even has a washing machine! So that's a big relief to have a place to stay, even if it's only for 9 months.

Q: "Do you speak French?"
A: Well...Rory studied French in high school but had forgotten a lot, whereas I studied Spanish in high school and college. As soon as we found out we were moving to France, we got French grammar books, comic books, children's books, CDs, and DVDs out of the libraries, religiously did Duolingo practice every day online, and tried a plethora of other methods to learn the language. We've been working on it for four months and we can both read pretty well now. We can converse slowly and poorly, but I have the feeling we'll be saying to people frequently, "Répétez plus lentement, s'il vous plaît !"

To all our wonderful friends and family in America: au revoir et merci !
To our friends and family in the UK: à bientôt !
To everyone in France: désolé pour notre mauvais français !

We leave August 2nd!

Only 49 days until we leave the country. Seven weeks to the day. We have found an apartment in Montmartre to stay in for a couple of weeks while we search for our own place. And we have our plane and train tickets. Now we just need to get rid of all of our stuff, improve our French, and wrap up our work in Ohio. No big deal.

Btw, yard sale June 27!