.fr

it's late on wednesday, 23:08 european time, and seth is a chatterbox. he should be relishing this time that i'm absorbed in something else, since we've been spending all of our time together for 8 days straight, but for the last 2 hours that i have been writing, he has been drinking a bottle of wine. (he has been drinking a bottle a wine a day for the past three days. he says he is indoctrinating himself into french culture, learning about french wine. i say he is a 2euro-a-bottle wino). now the bottle is nearly finished, his lips and teeth are purple, and he is one chatty fellow. it is cute, if a trifle irksome as my concentration is tenuous. he is obsessed with going to switzerland at the moment. flipping through the channels he says, "alaska is the switzerland of the united states."

we wake up and head for la poste/western union to pick up the money that seth's parent's have hopefully sent. that was our best idea. the next best idea involved maxing our daily atm withdrawls for about a week and hoarding the money at the etap. have i mentioned how much we need up front to get a place? in france, you typically get an apartment through an agency and they take a hefty finders fee, usually less then a months rent, but our chi chi agency charges more. then there's first months rent, and a security deposit of two months rent. also taxes, renters insurance, paper fees. so we have a huge stack of money we're carrying and i'm nervous. but we make it unmugged, and we sign all the paperwork and viola, the place is nearly ours. but not yet. we are informed that we will have to wait until the first of the month. afterwards, i realize that i have been bitten alive the night before by mousquitos.

all last evening and all this morning and afternoon we tried to figure out how to get the money for the apartment. we have the money, but no way to get it out of our american bank account on time. so we have some pastis at a bar and think about it.

later i got yelled at for strolling in and using another bar's restroom. they're pretty touchy about that stuff here. oh, and i stepped in dog merde (which is everywhere, everywhere i tell you) and dragged it into an internet cafe.

get up early. we had to find an apartment, and we were determined to do it by the end of the day. this meant approaching various immoblier, or real-estate, agencies and requesting afternoon appointments to look at apartments, in our still-poor french. it would start by me introducting myself as an assistant de langue anglais and then seth as mon fiancé. and then saying that we would like to find a deux ou trois pièce entre 500€et 700€. the first three agencies were very nice and patient with our slow french. in the fourth agency there was just this hella cranky perma-sneer woman who wanted to see our paperwork before we could even sit down, and then after four minutes of silent scrutiny said she could only offer us tiny furnished studios because in france, she informed us, you have a contract for three years and they will not rent to you for less. we were nervous about this, of course. so i called corrine who assured me that it wasn't true.

our afternoon appointments. the first guy shows us two places in such a hurry i could barely make out any detail. we didn't love either. the next guy, the only agent to wearing a suit, in hot weather no less, shows us two gorgeous places. the first one has so much light and those enormous french windows. it's overlooking a quiet street and the back faces a courtyard. the next place is a lovely little chalet style place with the ceilings crossed with logs. and it's in an amazing and lush courtyard. but it's also little, and seth would hit his head on a log going down the stairs, and again when walking into the kitchen, and again when waking up.

we cancel our 5 o'clock apt and decide on the first one that he showed us, the windowed one. After all, it is nearly the end of the day and we had our goal. I call corrine to ask her a question about the rental contract and she says she's going to come to the appointment with us. so we meet at 5, er... 17:00, seth and me, the realtor, an english speaking manager, and corrine. first corrine and the realtor get in a fight about the contract. not sure about what part, but it's fast and french and finishes with a souffle of air. then we find out that we can't get the place without a french bank account, and we can't get a french bank account because we don't have a place. one of many catch 22s that happen here everyday in french paperwork land, ladies and gentlemen.

the annual bicycle celebration all day today in avignon. bikes, bikes everywhere.

so it seems that we have some time to kill. we went to the tourist office for brochures, then take a bus across the river villaneuve, a small provincial town on a hill. we got off the bus at a huge flea market with beautiful antiques and european trinkets. we can't afford most of it, but covet it all. we have lunch at a place, some cheese melted on bread item, good, but not 8€ of good. i buy 250g of olives from a woman at an olive cart for 1.95€. it is my first experience with the metric system. we don't finish the olives, and we won't for days.

another breakfast at the hotel, and then a bath. i love the bath. there hasn't been a bath in my apartment in 8 years, so i love the bath where and when i can. then we go work on our first task of many: getting seth's brand new tri-band cell phone hooked up with a french plan. it's our first real complicated conversation in french and it doesn't go too bad; it goes even better when the salesman starts speaking english. french cell phone plans are pricy; about 45 euro for 2 hours talk time a month. he opts for the pre-paid plan. later we go to the net cafe and i finally call corrine, the conseiller pedagogique, and my contact from the school. she wanted to meet with me immediately, so she picked seth and i up and took us to the central school in vancluse and i meet the "inspector," who i guess kind of like a superintendent. then she tsk tsks us for not calling her earlier, but in a nice way. she really wanted to help us with everything, and since it is now late on friday afternoon all the apartment agencies are closing and we'll have to wait until monday to start looking.

this is french breakfast: day-old baguette with jam or honey, orange juice, and some coffee or hot chocolate. it has a point - light, nutritious, keeps you til lunch, but it's not saying much of importance. one of my favorite things in the world is a huge delicious breakfast. substance: eggs and potatoes and bacon and melted cheeses and ketchup is a resounding hell yes. breakfast, if done well, keeps you full until bar time. but since we are actually up early, as opposed to normal brunch time of 3pm, we eat a breakfast portion and it lasts until noon.

we set off to explore avignon by day, for although there is a lot we have to do, today we will be tourists. so we take the tourist train around avignon with all the other tourists and we feel better. we find the palais de papes, a huge medeval castle from the 1300's that at one time housed the papacy, and its huge stone courtyard, empty but for tufts of tourists. the frenchy tunes of a duo of buskers echo off the buildings. we find an internet cafe. we find a place for sandwiches, but accidently get the more expensive assiette.* we find the big indoor market les halles and i buy a little cheese from the fromager for only .60 euros. i also buy a small bunch of raisins, which in french are grapes. the guy tells me how much they are and i can't understand so then i ask him again and i still don't understand. i give him a bunch of change with an embarrassed smile and he gives me back half of it. this is what may was saying when she told me to learn my numbers.

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*literally means plate, so the guy asked us if we'd like a plate for the sandwiches, and we're like 'sure a plate would be fine'. but what it really means is you pay twice as much.

change planes at frankfurt, then catch a bus at the marseille airport to the marseille train station, then take a train to the avignon station, then disembark, look at a map and discover that our hotel is three blocks away. we walk the rest, seven bags between the two of us, drop them off at our room at les roches, and then drag our exhausted selves 100 yards, entering the 900 year old walls of avignon. it's an old european town, stone everywhere, narrow streets, cafés. we walk down the main street and reach a huge square with tons of tourist trap restaurants and a big merry go round. we have an 8€ dinner at one of those restaurants, beef with sauce, canned green beans and french fries, kir and flat tap water. we order everything in french and we're happy that we were understood. we're exhausted. we return to the hotel and slip under nice sheets.

tuesday, september 20

today i was supposed to wake up and go cash in a "massage sandwich" gift certificate (sauna, massage, hot tub) to common grounds that seth gave me last christmas, then leisurely bid adieu to friends, then calmly ride to airport with big caverns of time to spare. but of course i grossly underestimated how long it would take me to pack, which was supposed to have been done by yesterday afternoon, and i instead awoke with five hours sleep, for the third day in a row, and consulted the list. if i were four people i could get everything on the list done and still have time for that massage.

but i am not and massage will not happen and i know this, but i will fortunately get (nearly) everything done with help. suzie will come and help me run errands. (i called and told her that i had to get some euros. she replied, "but it's ten in the morning! well, i guess if that's what you want... " later on in her truck when i requested to go to the big wells fargo in town, she realized that i did not, in fact, ask that she take me for gyros.) while i am running errands meghan will be at my place helping me with the very important task of sock matching. that one had been on the list for months and the microwave-size box was overflowing with loners. but she will go beyond sock matching master and she will have my dishes washed when i return and then she'll help me pack: by physically stuffing assigned clothes in the backpack, by helping me decide what stays and what goes, and by generally helping me keep my shit together. megan was an amazing help and i would have left with things half-done, my baggage messy and incomplete, and miss-matched socks if she wasn't there to help.

so everything ready to go? no, not yet. seth has to finish cleaning, take out the recycling, move the mattress down, write a letter to the building manager and drop off his keys* and virginia is waiting to take us to the airport with baby violet in the car. so i will do more last minute small things and may will come back from work, "you are not at the airport yet? tsk." and help me lug my huge suitcase and backpack down the stairs. christy and laurel will down come down too, and as seth puts his hancock** on his final notice, we will all bid adieu with quick hugs and quick goodbyes, jump in the car, and drive into traffic.

we are late for the plane, the brusk, german woman explains at the lufthansa desk. the cutoff is 3:15 and look, it is 3:25 according to the huge LED behind her, and we cannot make it, and she is sorry. i ask her if there is anything, anything she can do? she asks why we are late. well, we are moving and lots to do, you know. she makes a call and i hear, "yes, they are quite late. tsk." and then looks at us and gestures to the luggage scale saying, "you are too late" and then ignores us for five more minutes. perplexed, we do a quick rearranging of our bag contents so that my huge suitcase is under 50 lbs and then a clerk suddenly pops up from behind the desk, slips tags on, gives us our boarding passes and directs us to the gate.

the plane is completely full and because we are late our seats were given away and we are separated. but a nice neighbor switches his aisle seat with seth's aisle seat and viola, i can hold his hand when the plane takes off, and we can take our respective painkillers that we have be stowing for months, and we can clink our plastic cups of complementary wine.

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*while in this particular instance seth is trailing me, we usually like to take turns making each other nail-bitingly late to the airport.
**for brady