Pam & Alan's Europe 08-09: .....and about time too!

The Story So Far

Yes, I thought you may have got the impression that we've forgotten all about blogging, but it's not true. We've been very busy.

This is largely due to three things:

We have only one more week in Montpellier
We have made lots of friends who want to party
There are many things we haven't yet done here.

Leaving

Well, all good things must come to an end they say, and I take the view that, whenever you go to a good place, you will be sorry to leave. If you go to a bad place, or stay somewhere too long, however, you won't be sorry to leave. I know what I'd prefer.

Making Friends

Making friends occurred in a sudden rush, not the gradual process we had expected. This is because firstly, the student crowds we started off in are dominated by young people and are a transitory lot, not really having the same interest in the local community as we do. In fact, we know only one other person who has stayed on for a long time, and that is Cressida from Sydney. The second reason is two fold: firstly, one of Pam's classmates, an American, told us about the English/French conversation sessions a while ago, but we were slow to fit it in to our schedules. Secondly, the French are a reserved bunch (!) and it took a while for us to get to know the crowd. Once that happened, however, we were flooded with invitations to soirees, parties, discussions, dinners, lunches and even a conference on expatriate authors living in the South of France. That was fun as it was held at the astonishingly beautiful Opera Theatre in the main square. Pictures to come.

So Much to Do

And time has got away from us and there is so much to do and so little time to do it in. Its interesting that our responses to this are quite different. Pam has changed into overdrive and booking up every possibility. Alan has settled into a wind down sort of mode and is quite happy with what's not done. That's partly due to an ear infection which has been a nuisance.

Ear Infection - Lobe of Rubbish!

Yes, Pam got a cold with which she lost her voice for a few days. Didn't stop her coming to discussion group and nodding a lot. Alan caught it from her and it developed into an ear infection. Mild at first, and then suddenly bad.

The medical help in Montpellier, the Medical University town and the first of its kind in France, is excellent. The ear became very painful at nearly midnight, as they do, and a call to a number out of the phone book had a doctor at our door in 10 minutes. Not only did he prescribe some good stuff, he gave us the name of a specialist, and drove Pam to the all night pharmacy.

That was great, but the ear infection is not going away. A visit to a doctor a few doors down in our street, resulted in some additional medications, but it still won't go away. Looks like the specialist will be getting a visit.

The French medical system is similar to Australia, in that private health cover is not free. All of the doctors and all of the pharmacies provide you with an already filled out claim form, detailing the diagnosis, treatment, and costs. It ain't cheap but it is good.

Buying a Car

Yes we've bought a car. A French car. A Citroen Berlingo. It's a van-like thing with 5 seats and a large luggage area at the back, and it is diesel, so it only costs a mint to run. We're very happy with it and we've taken it to Avignon and up into the mountains to visit a giant cave and the surrounding views. It seemed to like the trips, and it was very comfortable and it felt safe. I think the previous owner had never ever cleaned the windows though. They're clean now.

Our initial research on the web for advice on registering and insuring a vehicle in France indicated that it is a long, tiresome and frustrating business. Not so. Alan got the insurance in a week, and Pam got the registration (immatriculation) sorted out in a day. Just proves that Americans make their own trouble and then complain about it.

And another thing. We, as residents, are entitled to a parking permit so we got one. It cost nothing and gives us parking at the charged areas on our street for about $1.20 per day instead of $1.20 per hour, and it gives us a 15 day limit, instead of a three hour limit. But wait, there's more! Outside our house is a free area, so if we are lucky enough to find it vacant, we can park there forever for nothing. What a pity we leave next week.

Music & Dance

Where would we be without them? Montpellier being a university town with most of the population under 25, puts an emphasis on entertainment. For example, this weekend is a music festival. It runs over 2 days and includes some surrounding villages in the "Agglommeration". There are..... 400 concerts!!!

I went into town on Saturday night and the place was alive! every restaurant, bar, cafe, sandwich shop and ice cream van was pumping out music and people were everywhere. The city gets a real buzz at these times, and I walked through about 5 different inner suburbs as well as the ancient medieval city, and it was the same everywhere.

You guessed it. It was all modern rock, rap, jazz and not my style. The other thing we've noticed here is that a concert advertised to start at 8 O'clock can start any time after 8 O'clock on the same day. The gospel concerts we attended started over an hour late every time.

The Montpellier Dance Festival begins just as we are leaving. Shucks! We talked about how there are some things you just can't know about until its too late. There are 2 reasons for this: firstly, we tend to book up our time some days ahead and we find that we are already booked when something comes up that we'd like to go to. Secondly, a large part of the world is geared for people who (I assume) are just sitting around waiting for something to happen, so they only need a days notice and they're happy. There's a message in there somewhere. Let me know if you find it.

Cooking

It wouldn't seem right to blog about France without some mention of cooking. Well, it's great.

Ah, you want some details? Here's a list of the things you can buy in the markets and shops around here:

Chicken and lemon terrine
duck terrine
rabbit terrine
rabbit (with head and feet)
Chicken (with head and feet)
365 different cheeses
Lamb you wouldn't believe
Veal
Beef
sausages made of duck, bull, cheeses, you name it
Everything else

And its all delicious.

But, more importantly, we have tested our cooking abilities on our French friends and our seasoned chicken and our beef bourgignon both received accolades, including a comment from a passing neighbour about the delicious aromas. We are happy.

One last thing on the subject. Here, there is great emphasis on the wine you cook things in, so we cook beef and veal in the excellent syrah (shiraz), and rabbit in chardonnay, and the results are wonderful.

Blogging

A blog about blogging is like a reflection of a mirror isn't it? I do this only because we don't have a lot of time left, and we will be moving nearly every night for about a week, as we tour the Dordogne. This means no blogging for a while. We don't really know how good our internet access will be in the Loire Valley, so there may be a bit of a lull. Rest assured, we will cook food, drink wine, tour Chateaux and take photo's and video's with gay abandon, especially when we have guests.

Pam returns from Barcelona late on Wednesday night. She'll be utterly exhausted, so I expect that she will stay up blogging and processing 20000000 photo's until 3 am.

Did I mention the omelette...........?