being tourists

Usually, while on "vacation," Dan and I are running all over wherever we are, trying to see as much as possible in a short amount of time.  We always return home from "vacation" needing a vacation.  So, upon arriving in Quiberon, we decided that since we would be living here for a year, there was no need to run around like crazy tourists.  We have slowly ventured through the trails behind our house, and I almost know the way in and out of our little village of Kerniscob.  But it wasn't until today that we did anything truly touristic.  With the encouragement from our new friend (and a future colleague) Karine, we bought tickets for a boat tour to the Ile aux moines (by the way, there are no moines (monks) on this island after all!)  We caught a boat and had a guided tour of the golfe du Morbihan before having une escale of about two hours on the island itself.  After a quick stop at a creperie (we are in Bretagne, after all!) we rented bicycles and set off to discover the island.  It was adorable.  What a lovely place to live and visit!  The small roads meandered here and there, mostly uphill, it seemed, but we enjoyed ourselves.  The weather held up and we enjoyed the sun and breezes.  We stopped to visit several old megalithique sites, like this one, the second largest in Europe, after Stonehenge.  Without a map (the tourism office had to close for lunch, of course!) I had to trust Dan's instincts to get us back to the boat in time.  I'll be honest, I second guessed him a few times and I was not thrilled at the speed in which I had to pedal to get us back to the boat three minutes before it was set to depart, but we are making memories, non?  I am glad that we took the time to be tourists.  We didn't even hear any English, which makes us wonder if Quiberon is only known to Europeans.  We won't tell!

dinner conversation

Today we had a great day with a new friend, another teacher from my new school.  She came over to the house, we chatted for a while about school, then went into town for some real Breton crepes.  They were délicieux.  She drove us to la pointe du Conguel which was beautiful, and a good way to walk off the chantilly we had just consumed.  She drove us around our little presqu'ile and eventually to her parents' so we could park and walk around downtown à pied.  Her mother invited us in and offered us water.  She was so charming and chaleureuse.  As we were getting ready to leave, I excused myself to use la toilette, then we were on our merry way.  It was a great day, in all, and I arrived home with a library card, some books, DVDs, an insurance quote, two baguettes, and hopefully a new friend.  At dinner, Dan and I reflected on our day as we ate our seaweed-derived pasta.  It turns out that the day didn't go as smoothly for Dan:
Dan: Yeah, today was great until you all abandoned me.
Me: Um, what?
Dan: When you both went to the bathroom.  (sarcastically) Thanks for checking with me first, by the way.
Me: I said I was going to use the bathroom before we left.
Dan: Yeah, maybe. In FRENCH.  You left me with her mom who was babbling on about something-
Me: Dan, I highly doubt she was babbling.  She was probably offering you another glass of water or telling you about her house.
Dan:  Didn't sound like that to me. I mean, I had no idea what she was saying to me and didn't want to offend or upset her.  She thought I understood.  She was being so nice! At one point I nodded.  I scanned the room and saw a photo of a little girl in a Breton outfit.  It was adorable and I realized that I could say something:'J'adore cette photo.'
I don't know why, but we were laughing hysterically at this point, with cidre almost spouting out of our noses.
I guess it's good to laugh at ourselves.

meeting the neighbors...

We've been having a hard time backing the car out of the garage.  By "we" I actually mean Dan, but that's not important.  After a few days of sharing only each others' lovely company, our friend Angelique said she and her family would meet us at our house so we could follow them to the beach.  Great!  We were so excited to be around people.  We assumed our "getting the car out of the garage" positions - I stood by our neighbors' fence poised to give the necessary hand signals while Dan buckled up and instantaneously started sweating bullets.  Our first, brief encounter with our neighbor was a few days ago when she popped her head over the fence to watch Dan try to manoeuver the car out of the garage and into the alley.  "He needs to make fewer moves," she sagely offered. (You mean 8 tries is not good?!?)  "Sophie does it in one quick swwwpppp (French sound accompanied by a gesture for which I have no words)."  This, of course, did not help as much as she had hoped.  I of course had a better suggestion for Dan, "You need to somehow do it better."  He wasn't thrilled with my advice either.  So, this day, on the brink of making it out of the garage and into the alley in only TWO tries, Dan and I shared an excited giggle.  He got ready to make his final move forward as I walked to the passenger side of the car.  Suddenly, the car lurched backwards.  "Dan!" I cried out.  Whew!  He was about an inch, I mean 2.5 centimeters, from the fence.  THAT was a close call.  "Come on Dan, get it together."  Dan put it into first gear and hit the gas hard so he wouldn't drift back into the fence.  Well, he didn't drift back.  He slammed into the fence, shocking everyone around us, and most of all himself.  I couldn't believe my eyes.  Or my ears.  CRRRAAACCCKKK.  Oh merde!  Dan managed to put the car in the right gear and unhook the little Polo from the fence.  All I could think about was that now I had to explain to our neighbors that we had just rammed their fence. After all, they had tried to help us improve our turns. Oh yeah, and our new friends just saw the whole thing.  Did that really just happen?!?  After a few minutes of me fretting, pacing the alley trying to find the best way to enter their property, the neighbor appeared.  I bumbled "Je suis désolée, mon mari...la voiture...est-ce que c'est cassée?"  She did not look happy.  "Ça a fait CRACK!" She said.  Um, yeah, I noticed.  She told me she'd have her husband look at it later and gave us a few more suggestions.  We went to the beach and spent the whole three hours thinking about how, thanks to us, "Franco-American relations were now at an all-time low" (thanks, Ramsey!)  When we returned home, we stalled in the house a little before deciding that we needed to check the prognosis of the fence.  Turns out, it'll stand a little while longer and has been reinforced with a 2x4, I mean a 5x10.  We were strongly advised to NOT back into the other side of the fence.  We'll work on that ;)

First Week Whirlwind!

So we boarded our plane in Honolulu and arrived in Newark.  We found our way to the President's club and enjoyed a glass of wine (we were going to France after all!) and after a short 7 hour layover, we were on our way again.  We landed in Paris and were greeted by a beach in the airport.  And since we had another 8 hours to kill, we sat down and took a load off!

Enfin (finally), we took a navette (shuttle bus) to the center of Paris.  It was amazing seeing the city again and be reminded that France is now our home.  We got to the train station and waited for the train.  When it arrived we had 10 minutes to board.  So we began our search for our car.  Car #1 should be at one of the ends (said our American brains) so we looked at the one closest to us - chouette! - it wasn't car 1, so we ran as fast as two people with 4 pieces of luggage and 2 back packs could run.  Awesome - the last car wasn't car 1 either.  So as they were making the final boarding calls we found our car and got in.  Obviously there was no space for our luggage so we just kind of put it somewhere (a nice frenchman helped us make some room) and we sat down.  Erin quickly stood up and got my deodorant and a clean shirt and handed them to me.  I was soaked in sweat from our little ordeal.

We arrived in Auray and were hesitantly greeted by Angelique who had made us some sandwiches (thank you!!). She narrated as she drove us to our new home.  I remember her say that on the left side was something about a poubelle (trash can) bay.  Since it was dark I couldn't see, I just guessed the bay was really ugly.  (After hearing lots of people talk about poubelle this and poubelle that it finally dawned on me that they were saying plus belle, or most beautiful!)

We stopped and had a drink with some of her friends and met her kids.  And I made plans for surfing in 2 days (I later confirmed with Erin that I understood them correctly!).  We finally made it to our house and Angelique showed us around and then gave us some groceries!  We said good night to her and then settled into bed.  The next morning our new cat, Naussicaa, brought us a welcome present - un oiseau (a bird).

The next day Sophie's parents came to visit.  They are incredibly sweet!  They took us out to lunch and her dad made jokes very similar to jokes Erin's dad makes (asking for the subtraction instead of the addition, what they call the bill).  They then showed us around the house and how to keep things working.  And then as a good bye gift, he played the acordian for us!  It was awesome.  Then we didn't know what to do!  So we took a walk behind the house and found a tower to climb.  And also some fresh blackberries to pick and eat (my new favorite hobby!).  And we also made it over to La Cote Sauvage and saw the dramatic cliffs made by the ocean pounding against the coast.



The next day Angelique picked us up and we met her friends and the kids and went surfing!  Another idiot moment was when Erik, in French, told me if I don't understand something just ask him to repeat it in English.  My response was "huh?"  The waves weren't big at all and since it was a beach break it meant we could just walk the boards out and not really paddle.  Everything about it was different.  But after my first wave, things felt better.  Finally, something I could do!  We had a good time and it mostly worked (except when I said the wetsuit kept me warm except for my two backs - and Erik was like "feet?", "ah yes, feet, not backs!").



Angelique very kindly invited us to her house to celebrate the fete on the 15th.  Erik (the guy who loaned me a board and wetsuit) cooked the meat and someone had cooked this incredible cake called "far" which tastes like the best warm mochi you've ever had with a crust on top of sugar.  Soooooooo good!  We then went down to the beach and watched fireworks which had Breton music accompanying it.  Very awesome!



The next day we ventured out in the car.  First off, holy cow the space to back out of the garage is TINY.  If the car needs 10'...I mean 3.5m to back out, then the space we have is 3.501.  I had to back up and pull forward about 10 times. (you can read about our neighbors comments later on from Erin)  And with cars darting out at you from all directions on roads that are barely big enough for our tiny car - my old attitude of driving as being a relaxing thing is no longer true!  In addition to the stress of backing out and driving, I wouldn't even get in the car without spending about 2 hours researching roads and alternative ways etc.

So here we are - stressed and unhappy at Super-U (the grocery store) and then one back home once the driving is over for the day!  And us celebrating our first meal cooked at home (it was pasta - nothing exciting!).



After dinner, I took a walk and saw my first sunset over la cote sauvage.  It was beautiful - not a bad replacement for hawaiian sunsets.


The next day we wanted to drive up the coast and go for a walk.  Unfortunately as soon as we pulled out onto the road (after about 30 minutes of trying to get out of the garage!) the cops started to tail us (by "tail us" I mean we were on a small road with no turns and they were just following us).  They were following us forever and I was panicking (by "forever" I mean we were on the only road that would lead them into town)!  So at the first rond-point I had to lose them!  It was touch and go for a while, but we got away.  When we finally got to the beach, there were no spots left so after panicking while trying to dodge other cars hunting for a space, we finally found a tiny spot.  We had a nice enjoyable walk and saw some old ruins and also an old house that had windows aimed at the various islands (I assume for navigation or something similar).  The sign as you enter the beach says "swimming prohibited" and someone wrote under it "surfing is obligated" - I like that sign.

We also took a walk in town and saw the main beach and also walked through some of the trails behind our house.  And I of course went berry picking (because that's my new favorite thing to do!).  I also made dinner that night in the breton way: une galette (de Super-U) au saucisse, pommes, et fromage (a savory crepe, made by super-u, with sausage, apples, and cheese).  It was very very good!

And so much more happened and will continue to happen.  We are having a great time but every day has its own struggles....I mean opportunities :)

E Komo Mai, Sophie!

After a short plane trip (read: all day!), we were all exhausted but excited!   Sophie got her first lei and then she experienced an indoor thunder storm (when our grocery store turns the water on for the fresh food, since it "rains", they play thunder sound also).  While trying to find a light switch she turned on the garbage disposal and shrieked in panic!  While we all laughed at these funny things, I began to realize I'll be in her shoes soon!  At least I can blame someone - Erin! :)

We had a whirled wind few days - taking an island tour (we saw some honu!), meeting the Travis' for ice cream, and having another Aloha/Bon Voyage party for the three of us with our Hawaii friends.  Oh yeah, we also did administrative things and bought a new washer/dryer.  By time Thursday came, we were still frantically checking to see if our visas would make it.  And they did!  So we had to quickly pack and get to the airport!



In DC most of the French side of Team France packed for a year what the American side packed just for the weekend.  So after being shamed, we did trim our bags down a lot - but still, when we weighed our bags, we were overweight - not a big surprise.  What was a big surprise was the $400 bill for the overweight bags!  The extremely nice agent took pity on us and refunded our money and also stamped up as Elite so we could board early to ensure a place for our other huge bags.

Its been a long 4 months between finding out Erin was accepted and leaving for France.  And along the way we have had bad luck (and expensive bad luck) - our car battery dying, needing to replace our curtains, and our washer and drying needing replaced.  But we have also had some incredible people along the way to counteract the bad stuff - all the help the Fulbright people gave us, the grant itself, mine and Erin's family for the generous gifts, Jeff/Belinda/John for hosting us in DC, our Hawaii friends (especially Helen) for the wonderful party, and the very nice Continental (of course!) agent helping us leave without costing us a fortune!

So finally our adventure begins!

Making Friends in DC (Dan)

Oh la la!  It feels like a year has passed but the calendar says only 2 weeks!  I flew to DC filled with excitement because I envisioned seeing my brother, his wife, my nephews (my godson who I rarely get to see) and also my sister and mom.  After all, we were in DC and so were they!  I expected the Fulbright sessions to be mainly for Erin and I didn't want to get in her way and I wanted to let her have her space.  Plus, they were just going to be the standard things, right? - "be respectful of other cultures", "things will be different and hard", etc.  Wrong - on all accounts.  I did get to see my family very quickly and they did help us tremendously to get around, but I was as engrossed in the Fulbright sessions as Erin was.  And it wouldn't be until we landed in France that the cliche (a french word!) lines I heard in DC really started to sink in and then I was so grateful for the sessions!



The time in DC was filled every day.  If we weren't in sessions, we were talking with other people on Team France (our affectionate name for those going to or coming from France) - after all, we all had visa problems and we all had the same concerns and questions.  We had meals where we talked intensely with other members of Team France (and I would often whisper to Erin about how incredible this all was!) and then we spent most nights together as well.  Team France really became quite close and had a lot of fun.  We learned some important history of our region: 1) Bretagne is the best region (c'est clair!) 2) no toll roads in Bretagne due to their resistance to joining France over 1,000 years ago!

And then there was karaoke.  No, we weren't back home in Hawaii, we were in a group of 20+ Fulbrighters etc. (I'm covered in the "etc.") going to a restaurant called "Cafe Japon" and eating sushi and talking about the upcoming year.  We ate a wonderful meal where we all had many laughs learning about romances in Paris and singing my new favorite song: "America.....America......America......the states!"  The single guy who was running around taking care of us offered to open the back karaoke area for our exclusive use!  So who were we to say no?!  It was quite the sight to see Team France sharing and grabbing for the microphone to belt out YMCA (it was the first time many of us saw this video - wow!), 99 Red Balloons, and Prince.  We even had someone in the group, Seb, sing in perfect pronunciation (according to the Japanese worker) his favorite Japanese song!

So after a few drinks we laughed our way back to the hotel and into a deep slumber which caused Erin and I to oversleep.  So we woke up late and rushed to get ready and eat breakfast before we split up and I did a Segway tour of DC while she did more sessions.  For those of you keeping track at home, it is now Thursday and I have not yet mentioned our visa because up until now, we were told to just wait and see (which I'm sure you can imagine was easy to do!).

So around 10am Erin calls and says no visa appointment today (what she didn't mention was that we had an appointment for the 29th of August!).  So I'm having fun on my Segway tour and around noon I get a call saying to be back by 2pm for our visa appointment - yay!  I'm not sure who, but I'm sure someone pulled some strings for us - whoever you are, un grand merci!  When the tour ends at 1pm I rush back to the hotel and get a shower and dressed and we hail a cab to get us to the French Embassy. Once there we realize we're 30 minutes early but oh well.  So we head in to the embassy (my first time at any embassy).  Once there they call our name and a very nice young lady helps us.  She takes our papers and hands most of them back to us and tells us corrections to make (sometimes more than once).  She walks us through everything slowly and nicely.  We then get our picture taken - without a smile! - and finger printed.  She informs us that we probably won't be able to leave on time (in exactly 1 week) since our passports need to be mailed back to Hawaii.  We say we know and she talks to her boss and she came back and said the same thing - but said she'd try (for those who can't stand the suspense - the passports/visa came just in time!).  So we leave the embassy - both commenting on how nice and helpful that lady was.

Thursday night is the goodbye dinner where each group puts on a little cultural show for everyone.  It was amazing!  There was dancing and singing and more of both!  I think everyone was dreading it because it seemed so awkward, but it turned out to be just a lot of fun and filled with laughter.  And along the way we learned about other places people call "home".  Earlier in the week, when we were talking about values that each culture had, we had decided that Americans were individuals.  So. true to form, none of us talked to each other and we did our own thing.  The group going to France did work together (I helped because Erin was feeling sick the day we planned our performance) and came up with our own version of "Going to Carolina in My Mind".  We sang the chorus and just replaced Carolina with our own home states and things from our state.  We sang about Pittsburgh, Carolina, Park City, San Francisco, New Jersey, Chicago, and Honolulu (Honolulu had fresh leis and big waves).  So as everyone was leaving the dinner, our group gathered by the piano and Guy (an amazing Pianist!!) played and we sang.  It was a great way to end the evening.....but it wasn't over.

Team France had too much fun singing karaoke the night before and we were all so impressed with Guy's ability to play, that we decided to combine the two and have Guy be our own person karaoke machine!  So Team France (along with a number of other people) got drinks and sang very loudly our favorite songs.  It was quite a sight to see all these people from various countries who spoke different languages gathering and singing and laughing together.  That night was one of our first true Fulbright experiences.



Friday was the last day and so it was sad.  We had become so close to these new people and it now we had to say goodbye.  We talked about when what we were doing until we left and when we'd arrive in France - but we mostly just talked and laughed until we, one-by-one, said goodbye.

I had my first "stupid moment" on Friday.  I had invited Caroline and Yann along with Stephanie and her husband Jean-Paul to my brother's place, to join our families for a bon voyage party.  I had spent a lot of time with Caroline and Yann and some time with Stephanie but I didn't actually meet Jean-Paul. So I was talking with a random Frenchman and was telling him how these four were going to join us at Jeff's house.  I had a funny feeling though that maybe I was talking to Jean-Paul, so I asked and sure enough, I had been spending the last 10 minutes telling this very nice man about how I was inviting these other four french people over to my brother's house not realizing that he was one of the invited ones!  Oh la la!  We had a good laugh and said that it wasn't going to be the only mistake of the year! :)

Later that day Erin, Sophie, and I went to the Holocaust museum (first time for Sophie and myself) and were blown away.  It was one of those awful things that your instinct is to turn away but your mind tells you not to because its something important that you need to see.  A quote from the museum from Dwight D. Eisenhower sums up this up: "I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda'."


After the museum we went back to the hotel, packed up my sister's car which she left for us (it was originally mine!) and headed to Jeff's house.  We had a wonderful dinner and then went to bed.  The next morning we woke up and went to the pool with my nephew and came back to Jeff's house and already guests had come!  Both my family and Erin's family made the trip down to DC.  The house was packed and we got to see our families which was a very very nice treat.  We soon got a call from our new French friends and so I made a quick trip to the metro to pick them up and bring them over. So packed into my brother and sister in law's quiet house were our new French friends, my family, and Erin's family.  We had such an amazing time!  We ate sausages and hot dogs and lots of desserts.  We played "le foot" (soccer) and learned a little rugby.  And with rugby came our first lesson in crossing cultures!  My nephew, Chris, and I were being shown a rugby move which involved him and me standing side-by-side and putting an arm on the other's shoulder, then bending over while a third guy reaches between each of our legs from behind to grab our shirts and link us all together to help us push the other team.  Well this caught Chris and I off guard since we weren't expecting a hand to be reaching up between our legs!  After a good laugh by everyone (including our spectators!) we tried again, this time expecting the hand, and successfully pushed the other team (just Jean-Paul) back!

Our families, in addition to making a long drive to see us and throwing an amazing party and inviting our new friends over, also gave us a little gift from each of them from their own areas.  So we now had a wonderful variety of things to bring over to France and give to the many many nice people who will help us out this coming year (and who will hopefully excuse me starting off as a mute and then excuse my many mistakes which I'm sure will give everyone a good laugh!).  In addition, they also gave little gifts to our new friends to help the get started this year.  It was another amazing Fulbright moment to see just the kindness of people.  I took our new friends back to the metro and they kept saying how nice everyone was and how cute my nieces and nephews were (I knew all of that, of course!).  We exchanged goodbyes and there may have been a tear or two.  But we also made plans to see them again around Christmas and the summer.  So goodbye, but not forever.



The next day we spent in DC touring around the mall and trying to avoid the rain.  It was a long day which didn't end until around 10pm when we had dinner and then we still needed to pack!  But it was another great day and a lot of fun.  Monday morning came too early and Jeff woke us up and we were on the road by 4:30am!  And a "few" short hours later we were back home in Hawaii.



On Sunday morning Jeff commented on how he was sad to see our new friends leave since he probably will never see them again.  Sophie, Erin, and I have said the same thing and I'm sure everyone who was in DC feels the same way.  It just goes to show how quickly you can form bonds and that your language skills don't have to be perfect.  You just need to be nice, try to communicate, and remember to laugh!