Au Revoir (A Bientot?)

We've been back just over 2 weeks now, and it's starting to feel "normal". Hannah still says "bonjour" to strangers as they pass in the street, and "merci" when she gets her babycino (she's very happy with the non-UHT milk!); I occasionally protest at the ridiculous over-use of indicators on the road; but basically we're back to being Australianised.

We've obviously talked a lot about our trip, and been reflecting quite a bit ourselves. The bottom line is that the trip was fantastic; better than that it was perfect. Which obviously is being said through the lens of rose coloured glasses, and with memory loss kicking in for the jet lag, the screaming kids in the back of the car, the endless weeks of gastro/flu/conjunctivitis, and the occasional language barrier. But it certainly exceeded all our expectations: Em learnt (and tasted!) more about French wine than we imagined was possible in 3 months; I thoroughly enjoyed my time with girls and have adored spending such quality (and quantity!) time with them, and as a bonus probably cleared my head of some of fluff that I'm sure has accumulated over the last 10 years at work; and the girls are both alive and mostly well after being looked after by Dad.

But for me one of the most remarkable things about it was how sad we were to leave: both the place (which I think I expected) but more surprisingly also the people.

One our final Sunday we helped Cyrille and Severine move house; we were grateful recipients of their lovely, generous nature, and from the crowd of people who turned up to help, it was obvious all their friends were only too happy to repay their generosity. It's very handy when needing to move fridges etc that a lot of your friends happen to play rugby. But the point is at the end of the day (after all 3 fridges had been moved), it was sad to say goodbye. Normally after I've moved someone's fridge, I'm pretty happy to say farewell, but this time I was genuinely sad.

3 months probably isn't long enough to form life-long friendships, but in that time we got to know some very lovely, funny, intelligent people. And most of them went out of their way to not only help us, but to include us in their lives, and make sure that our experience of France was as good as it could possibly be. And the sadness at the end was probably due partly to the fact we were saying goodbye, but also because I felt our language barrier had prevented us forming better friendships. I sincerely hope that we will again meet with many of our French friends, because there's no doubt they've been a part of a great experience for our family.

It was weird how with 2 weeks to go, we started to mentally pack up and come home. Most people wouldn't holiday in Lyon for 2 weeks, but somehow it felt like we were nearing the end. We tried to counter the intuition by cramming in lots of activities. We had two lots of visitors: Becca and Mike for a long weekend from London, and Kristy came to visit us from her current home in the French Alps. And visitors of course necessitated meals out (lunch in Ampuis and back to Le Nord in Lyon for lunch), more great wines (see tasting notes below), another wander around Lyon (Em finally saw the steam come out the nose of the horse in the famous statue at Place Terreaux!!!) and of course a few more delicacies from the local patisserie! While Becca and Mike were staying, we also had Yann, Cyrille and Severine for dinner. A great night (the latest we’d been up for a while!) with terrific food, obviously great wine, and wonderful company and conversation (often about the great wine!). And luckily there was a wine expo in Lyon the last weekend: 500 producers under 1 roof, just in case we’d missed any while we were there (www.vingneron-independant.com).

But we're back. Survived (relatively easily) the flight, the drive home (much easier when you know where you're going!) and (relatively painfully) the week or so of jetlag that followed. We've enjoyed catching up with all our terrific Aussie friends and family, and we've both coped with getting back to our Australian jobs! Life isn't quite back to normal (still boxes to unpack!) but we're almost back to our "pre-France" lives, although probably living them with a slightly different perspective. Em bought a baguette from Bakers Delight the other day, and as soon as Abby and Hannah saw it they went crazy, demanding a bit be broken off for them. One bite, and it was put back down though - just isn't the same (or as good!) as the French version.

2006 Mersault Premier Cru, Domaine Jean-Marie Bouzereau

Intense lifted aromas of white peach with complex aromas of butter, vanilla, diacetyl. Palate is fruity, clean and fresh with oak and fruit playing equal and balanced roles. Intense, balanced and amazing length. 18.5/20

And one last album of photos (for now):

Au Revoir (A Bientot?)

Degustation

As we near the end of our adventure in France, we’ve started thinking about all the things we haven’t done yet, or “have to do” before we go. I guess it’s natural – there’s no way we’re going to be leaving with regrets, but with 3 longs months stretching out in front of you, it was ok just to ease into the French experience; with under 2 weeks left it’s all systems go! It’s too early for a “what we’ve achieved and what we haven’t” blog (I guess that means there’s at least 1 more!) but the topic of food was prominent in the discussions, so here we are….

Em made a comment something like: “I’m a bit disappointed we haven’t embraced French food and cooking as much as we could have”. We’re both pretty good at trying things when we go out, but unfortunately we don’t get to go out nearly as much as we’d like – although I’m sure the credit card appreciates the restraint that 2 young children have provided!

We’ve been lucky enough to have a couple of restaurant meals in the last few weeks, including “Le Nord” (http://www.nordsudbrasseries.com/), a bistro run by Paul Bocuse who is (apparently) one of Lyon’s most famous and favourite chefs. The other lovely meal was for Em’s birthday; where we had a wine tasting / lunch combination at Domaine Comte Senard (http://www.domainesenard.com/) – a winery in Burgundy: lovely Burgundy wines and some great traditional French food including Coq au Vin. “Le Nord” was just the 2 of us (very special!) but we had both Hannah and Abby for the lunch; somehow we still managed a lazy 3 hour lunch which looking back on it was just extraordinary, but a lovely way to celebrate.

Lyon is renowned for its rich, meaty, “offaly” food, and we’ve had a fair bit of that. We’ve tried Rognol (kidneys… sheep I think) and sheep testicles at various restaurants. I’ve previously blogged about the escargot and frogs legs we had at friend’s place. At home we’ve had all sorts of sausages, salamis and terrines etc (including Terrine De Chevreuil, or Terrine De Bambi as it was described to us) – some of which we’ve known the contents of, and others where we didn’t and knew it was best not to ask. And everywhere we’ve had Foie Gras which is the most incredible food until you think about how it’s made. And of course, we’ve had more French cheese than can possibly be good for us, but that wasn’t a real chore!

But Em’s point was that we hadn’t been too adventurous in the kitchen. We’ve done duck a few times (and are big fans), and Em’s mum tackled rabbit once with great success, but we weren’t sure we could count that as our achievement! So this week, we decided rabbit was on the menu again. The timing was perfect as my aunt Alana had provided us with a rabbit recipe at the start of the trip, and a friend of hers from Benalla, Sarah, was staying with us (hence the ability to sneak out for a restaurant dinner!).

So “le lapin” and ingredients were purchased, and preparations began. The first setback came when we realised it was a whole rabbit that had been purchased, and dissection would be necessary. But a sharpened knife and deep breath and that hurdle was cleared, and it was relatively smooth sailing from there. The outcome was tremendous: good looking, and very, very tasty! Kind of makes you wonder why we haven’t done more of it!

For those that are interested, to accompany the rabbit, we recommend a red burgundy (of course), specifically:

2005 Givry, G. Prieur

Medium –Light red colour. Stewed strawberry aromas with hints of red berry. No sharp edges. Some fruit sweetness and a little bitterness on the medium length palate.

For more pictures, click on the image below.

Degustation

It's just like you dreamed it

These were the words of the chorus for the main song of the Disney Parade, and thus after our 2 day excursion to DisneyLand Paris, we had this on repeat in our heads. Except of course for Hannah, who instead was singing “It’s chestnut leaves”, but that’s another story.

But it got me thinking, I wonder if DisneyLand Paris is anything like the French were dreaming it would be when they agreed to have it in their country? Don’t get me wrong – I loved it; we loved it. I’ll admit to being a bit of a Disney fan, and we had an awesome 2 days: both Abby and Hannah loved the songs, the dances, meeting the characters, and some of the easier rides; while both their parents had a ball on Space Mountain, Tower of Terror etc etc – for one of us it was the first time on an upside down roller coaster – very cool!

But it’s not very French. In fact it’s not French at all. All the signs are in French as well as English, but that’s about the only way you’d know it had anything to do with France. All of the announcements and most of the songs are also in German and Spanish – which is quite amusing and means all the routines are about 4 times as long! – so in fact you could be almost anywhere in Europe, except for the fact that you’re in DisneyLand, which is just oh so American!

So it’s kind of bizarre that a country that prides itself on its culture and it’s language, and is renowned for being particular unhelpful towards those who don’t speak French (although to be fair, we've found this to be very untrue) would agree to host an enormous theme park for a company that has made a fortune taking lovely European fairy tales, and turning them into populist cartoon rubbish for a nation that probably believes French Fries are the height of French cuisine.

Yet they do it amazingly well. They have the infrastructure and co-ordination ability to handle the logistics. We caught the TGV (train with great velocity!) which turned the 500km trip into a relatively easy 2 hour journey (direct from Lyon to DisneyLand) – sure it was 10 minutes late which the Germans wouldn't have allowed but still very impressive. They’re ideally located: between what appeared to be the 3 major hordes of people who go – the UK, Spain and Germany (and possibly some French go too?). And they've managed to turn the ubiquitous “Bonjour / Au Revoir / kiss kiss” meet and greet routine into something resembling the lovely over the top American hospitality. Not in quite the same way – after check-in we hardly saw anyone in our Disney Hotel, which I’m sure wouldn't be the case in America – but in a very friendly, lovely way. Maybe even more lovely than the American way.

They've dropped a fair bit of their “Frenchness” – the food is full of fat like French food, but horrible like good American food is; and there’s no need to attempt to speak French and explain that you’re Australian before resorting to English. It was actually amusing to watch the character minders interact with a crowd: they would generally speak in French, but with lots of hand gestures, but when they really wanted to control a crowd and get their point across, they’d resort to English – obviously used to rowdy Brits! But somehow it’s still got a French flavour to it.

It was never on our agenda to visit DisneyLand while in France, but after weeks of wine tasting we thought it was probably appropriate to give the kids a treat while in France. And the French didn't let us down with their interpretation – I’m sure helped by imported (I’m assuming, based on her name alone), “cast members” (they don’t have staff or employees) such as Melody to ensure the fake smiles and “you’re welcomes” flow like they should in the happiest place on Earth. The weekend after DisneyLand was back to normal with Coteaux de Lyonnaise wine tasting till 9pm on Saturday night, and then lunch and some 10 year old Burgundies with a sister of a friend of a friend (long story). And while she mightn't have previously dreamed it, I wouldn't be surprised if Hannah’s only long term memory of France is DisneyLand, and she dreams of it in the future.

More pictures by clicking the image below.

It's just like you dreamed it

Coffee

Apart from Hannah who is desperately missing her friends (“Mummy, I want some friends who can walk” – apparently our 6 month old visitors don’t count), we had our first pang of home-sickness this week. Despite what some people may be thinking, it wasn't me craving an in-depth discussion on the ability of social media and Web 2.0 to influence and shape the superannuation industry. It was Em who desperately craved banana bread and a coffee in our local café in Erskineville. And to be honest, I think she would have traded the banana bread for a pain-au-chocolate. What I suspect she was craving was the café experience, and by experience I mean:

1. A nice café
2. A friendly chat
3. A snack with her coffee
4. A decent coffee. With milk.

I've previously explained that the French have been extremely friendly and welcoming, so the lack of friendly chat is entirely our fault – we just don’t speak the language. And while they and we (especially Em) are generally happy to attempt a bit of communication, it’s both hard work, and reasonably un-fulfilling.

From what we've found, the French don’t appear to do “nice” cafes. There is no atmosphere or decor. They tend to resemble a rather dingy bar, where most of the patrons have headed home after a long night, but a couple still hang around. And maybe we’re just being pretentious, but occasionally you want to feel welcomed, and cosy; rather than like an interloper who’s place will be hosed down seconds after they walk out the door.

The French boloungerie /patisserie is a bit of an institution. We have 2 in our tiny village - in took a dedicated stretch of croissant sampling to decide which would become “ours”. And the breads and pastries are wonderful. But they don’t serve coffee. And more bizarrely, the “cafes” don’t appear to serve any cakes . Some have a biscuit tin, but that’s about it. In my Australian mind, it’s a perfect match, and an obvious gap in the market – but again, perhaps I’m a philistine.

But surely a decent coffee is possible. I have this romantic notion that the Europeans (especially the French and the Italians) do a good coffee. My hopes now lie with the Italians. I don’t know if everyone has short blacks because the cafes only have UHT (long life) milk, or if the cafes only have UHT milk because everyone orders short blacks. But the end result is that a café-au-lait is terrible. Short blacks have a role (after dinner they’re quite good), but it’s not for the morning coffee. You can’t linger over a coffee that is 2 sips big. Even if it’s great coffee (which occasionally, but rarely happens), it’s still unsatisfying. The French seem to drink a lot of coffee, and I think the reason is that they want the experience to last more than 2 minutes. And of course a baby-cino is unacceptable with UHT milk, which means that the café experience is much harder anyway.

More photos by clicking on the image below (nothing to do with coffee, but of our recent visit to the French Alps!)

Coffee

Retail (Vent au dètail)

As the primary carer (you might find that title in the blog a few times – I figure it’s a rare opportunity to use it), I’ve decided that an analysis of the French retail sector is in order. I find it fascinating – and whether it’s because of my new role, or my innate sense of “why” I’m not sure. But they seem to do retail at the extremes.

Let’s start easy. The French do amazingly big supermarkets. In Australia Coles has taken over Bunnings, and Woolies has made a bid for a hardware store. In France they’ve done that and moved on: companies not only own, but stock under the same roof groceries, hardware, baby stuff (e.g. cots, prams etc), ride on lawn mowers, washing machines, books and saucepan lids. Oh, and of course wine. All in the same store. Seriously cool. (Ok – maybe not cool, but convenient).

And they’ve worked out seemingly obvious aspects of retail to make them more efficient. You weigh your own vegies, and put the sticker with the barcode on the plastic bag yourself (or in some fancy places, there is a dedicated person to do this, but Hannah doesn’t like those shops, because weighing is her job!) which dramatically speeds up the checkouts. Everyone brings their own bags (we almost remember now), and does their own packing – everywhere, not just at Aldi! Environmentally friendly, and quick! And somehow they’ve trained the French to return trolleys to the trolley bays. There aren’t any trolley bays in the supermarket, they’re all in the carpark. So when you park your car, you get your trolley, and return it when you’re finished. Sure you need a coin (like some places in Australia) but I can’t believe the €1 is enough of an incentive – it’s either something more sinister (French mafia?) or perhaps social pressure?

Not that everything is “better” than Australia. Despite having trolleys bigger than a Fiat Panda, they haven’t realised that if all 4 wheels can steer, the trolleys are a lot more manoeuvrable. And given the mind-bogglingly confusing layout of the shops, an easy u-turn capability would be very helpful. Despite being trusted with weighing vegies and returning trolleys, I haven’t seen a self-checkout yet – much to Hannah’s disappointment.

And big doesn’t mean bad. Sure there’s bad stuff, but the quality is generally good, and at times excellent. The hair dryer I bought the other day apparently works well. Food especially is of a good quality, even in the biggest supermarkets. And the range of other goods targets all price points – from the cheapest nappies to expensive champagne. The range is a tad different to Australia though – aisle after aisle dedicated to stuff made from milk (fromage, yoghurt, butter, crème frais etc etc ), but no fresh milk to be found. Actually that’s an exaggeration – in some of the bigger stores, there is one “end” with a display of UHT milk and half a dozen bottles of fresh milk.

But they also do “little” well – far better than I’ve seen in Australia. I’ve already pronounced my love of markets – and from where I live I can find one every day within a 20min drive. And if that’s not enough, I can find permanent shops who only stock fresh food direct from the farmer (often with the farmers bio underneath their beans – which is kinda cute!). And the food is incredible. That feeling I occasionally get in Australia of “wow – this tomato really tastes of tomato” is replicated time and time again (but with different food of course!).

Some of the “wineries” we’ve tasted at are probably the extreme, but a good example of the small retail. We feel encouraged when there’s a sign outside their door telling you their name. If they mention the fact they do tastings, or have opening hours on display, it’s obviously very commercial (not necessarily meaning bad as it would probably be in Australia, but certainly meaning big). We drove through the Appellation of “Bandol” – producer of perhaps the only good wines to come out of Provence (I say perhaps, because I’m certainly not qualified to speak on this subject, but the other wines are typically Rose which says a lot…..) - and you would have needed to stop the car, get out, and read the name on the letterbox to know who was who. If you wanted to taste, it was ring the door bell.

As it turned out this trip we didn’t ring any door bells. We were in Provence (the town of Six-Fours-Les-Plages) spending a few days visiting Lilou, and our foray into Bandol was a side-trip on the way back home - the kids were already in their PJs. Em was keen to at least cast an eye over the vines though, and it was an intriguing detour. We hadn’t done any wine tasting in Six-Fours – there’s something about the southern coast of France that empties your mind of anything that isn’t the magnificent coastline and beaches. Magnificent until you realise there’s no sand – when it gets downgraded to just wonderful.

The thing is, even though the exterior is uninviting, it doesn’t seem to mean they don’t want you to stop by! Last week we had Toby and Ana from London, and Carli and Nick from Hong Kong visiting, and of course had to try out some of the local wine tasting (are there other tourist attractions? Not really it seems if you stay with the McCutcheons!). We headed south (the appellation of Cote-Rotie for the wine buffs out there) and had a coffee at Ampuis before walking the streets, looking for wine tasting. Em had the address of somewhere she thought was good, so we walked down that street. We worked out which house it was, but couldn’t really find a way in, until Toby chatted up someone who was working on a tractor. We presume he worked there, because he invited us in for a tasting. Fifty minutes later we emerged from the cellar. We’d tasted about 4 different wines, including a couple of good ones (Em’s tasting notes will know exactly how many and which ones!) but the impressive thing was the time he spent with 6 randoms off the street. Especially considering vintage (ie picking) was starting the following week.

And that experience has been reflective of most of our visit to France. Initially, you’re not sure they want to interact, but once they do (which unfortunately with my French, can take some time, if it all) they are extraordinarily hospitable, informative, interested, and welcoming. The time this experience probably hasn’t been reflected, was when we visited the town of Chateaunerf du pape. This place embraces tourism and buses of people and flashing signs (not just at the hair dressers). Their wine is obviously well known overseas, and they play on that. And while you felt very comfortable walking in to a place to taste (especially if the sign in English said “Open for tastings”) – somehow you felt the people serving were really only interested in making a sale.

On the way to Six-Fours we spent a night in Orange, staying with Lilou’s parents. Lilou’s parents were amazingly hospitable. I don’t think we stopped eating the entire time we were there, and each meal was an extraordinary salute to food from the region of Provence. From the simple (grilled bread; fresh garlic; prosciutto; fresh, fresh tomato) to the very French (mustard Rabbit) to the incredible (zucchini was made not only to be eatable, but wonderful!!). It was a very enjoyable few days.

On the way we to Orange we decided we would stop in Hermitage (or “ermitage” as it is sometimes written; I presume so the Americans don’t pronounce the H!) . Em asked her bosses which places we should visit; so they decided they had best accompany us on our tour! They had both previously worked there, and thought they wouldn’t open the really good bottles unless they came too. So Cyrille and Yann both did – despite it being their day off. And the promise of extra-ordinary wine being opened at Chapoutier was delivered upon. I haven’t tasted too many €200 bottles of wine in my life – but I look forward to tasting many more (hopefully a few more while we’re here!).

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2006 Le Pavillon Ermitage - Vanilla, plum and hints of cassis. Medium to full bodied with an intense and concentrated flavour. Great complexity and length. Tannins incredibly chewy but not out of balance. This wine could be aged for 20+ years.

2001 Le Pavillon Ermitage - Meaty, gamey nose with smoky oak. Well balanced in fruit and complex flavours, with softer tannins than the 06 but could still age for 10+ years.

2001 Vin de Paille - Intense dried fruit aromas with pan epice (gingerbread), golden syrup and vanillan oak, toast and honey on the palate. The flavour is intense and sweet without being cloying. The winemaking is done by drying the grapes on tables for 3 months before pressing and fermenting the wine.

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A discussion of French retail wouldn’t be complete unless it included the toll roads. I’ve got no idea if unlike Australia they’ve worked out financial viability yet, but given the high tolls, and volume of cars using them, I wouldn’t be surprised. But despite the financial pain, I love the toll booth experience. It’s the best adrenalin rush in France. For those that haven’t experienced it, a toll booth on a motorway is at least 20 booths wide. Each one has a dazzling array of illegible icons above it, indicating which vehicles can use it, and which forms of payments are accepted. As traffic comes off the motorway, it zig-zags its way across the expanse of bitumen, searching for the shortest lane. Seeing a car travelling at 90 degrees to the traffic is not unexpected: at either 100 km/h or 1 km/h depending on congestion. As it’s your turn to pay, the heart rate raises a little as you work out whether any of your currency will be accepted. If you find yourself in a credit card only booth, you start the game of roulette, cycling through the cards, hoping one will be accepted. Behind you cars start to line up, and with each failed credit card you realise the prospect of needing to reverse - causing a tsunami like wave of cars behind you – grows ever closer. Finally, mysteriously, a card is accepted. The boom gates open and the 20 lanes of traffic embark on an enormous drag race to the 2 or 3 real lanes in the distance. The whine of tiny French car engines and the occasional enormous German car engine at full rev mixes in your head with the sound of your own heart beat racing. In a hire car, nothing but redlining is acceptable. It’s an amazing sensation: the only thing that compares with scorching across 20 lanes of traffic to get the prized fast lane is in sailing: crossing the fleet on port tack. And while we remain somewhat landlocked, I’ll make do with my toll booth adrenalin fix – beats scanning your own vegies in my opinion.

More photos by clicking on the image below:

Retail

Bouchon

A "bouchon" is a cork. Kind of like the one that comes out of a wine bottle (in fact, exactly like that!). So we've come across the occasional bouchon. A French bouchon is not all that different from an Aussie cork - but far more plentiful; due in part to the French distaste for the wonderful stelvin (ie screwcap), and in part to our goal to learn as much about French wine as possible - and there's only one true way to learn.....

We were very fortunate in sneaking a bouchon out of a bottle today for lunch - surprisingly rare, and in this case most unexpected. Em's boss Cyrille was heading to a restaurant in Craponne (a popular village it seems!!) to do a delivery of wine and asked Em to join him in the trip. We (the rest of the family) thought we'd head along too. In turns out (gee our French must be bad!) that Cyrille was having lunch there, and we joined him in what was a wonderful feast. Oh how the French do long lunches well! The Foie Gras was extraordinary, despite not being in season (who knew force feeding ducks had a season!?!?!); Em's lamb wonderful, and I tackled the local speciality Rognon - which it turned out (after I ordered it) to be kidney. It was however, pretty good - and certainly went well with the Cotes du Rhone wine :-) Em's tasting notes reveal:

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Cotes due Rhone 2006 B.A.E.C Jamet, Jean-Paul et Jean-Luc

Drank this wine at Lunch with Cyrille, Tom (and kids) in Craponne. The nose was very floral and fruity with red fruits (fruit rouge), strawberry and a very little touch of oak. The wine was only medium bodied but a lovely balance between the red fruit flavours and the developed and complex characters. The wine lingered on the palate and was a perfect accompaniment to the millefeuille of agneau with aubergine that I had for lunch (oooh.. and the 2 types of fois gras we had for entrée) Score 17 Price €20 on restaurant price list – Cyrille reckons €6 from the producer.

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However, a bouchon is also a plug - as in bath. You wouldn't think all that different to Australia, however we seem to have had quite a few issues. Due to our own incompetence more than any poor design, multiple forks have been sacrificed to "de-bouchoning" the bath.

Remarkably a bouchon is also special type of restaurant in Lyon - that specialises in Lyonnaise food. High in meat and fat - it is as yet unsampled by us, but apparently wondrous. We've had quite a few recommended, so will hopefully soon be embarking on this 3rd kind of bouchon with gusto.

There is however a 4th type of bouchon. We only knew of the cork and the bistro versions when we noticed the word, flashing in yellow above the motorway. While the option of a wonderful restaurant, 3km ahead doing some innovative advertising was appealing, the result instead was a traffic jam. Bouchon. As Em's (other) boss explained today - "imagine a map of Europe - there is Northern Europe, and Southern Europe (ie South of France, Spain, Portugal). All of the North comes to the South for the holidays. And then they all return. And in order to bring tourists and commerce to city, they build the motorway right through Lyon." Instead, all it brings is cars. And one big bouchon for the last week in August.

Bringing back memories of our first car trip in France, we tackled this bouchon with two kids on the edge of hunger and tiredness, but figured they'd last the 15min trip to Lyon, before a stroll, some dinner and an ice-cream would sort them out. Hannah even fell asleep 2 minutes into the journey, so our decision to go was looking justified. It's just that she woke 45min later, and we were in reality still 45min away. More (justifiably) screaming kids.

And unlike boules players vs lawn bowls players - there's nothing romantic about French bouchon. It's just like an Aussie traffic jam - just with more Peugeots and Renaults. We were concluding a wonderful day that we'd spent with Lilou and Arno with a trip to the old part of Lyon when we struck the bouchon. Given time was now against us, it was obvious a new plan was called for; luckily we were able to simply get out of our respective cars and meet to discuss the next steps.

The wonderful Lilou had been instrumental in getting us setup in France - particularly finding us our accommodation, so it was fitting that she and Arno were our first guests in our "proper" abode; having only moved this week, we are now ensconced on what will be our home for the next 10 weeks or so until we leave. Click here to check it out on Google maps. It's great to be in our final house - feels a bit more settled. It's not often rented out, so not setup perfectly, but nothing that a trip to Ikea and the local Auchan couldn't fix. And the extra space, grass, rooms and wonderful hosts more than make up for any deficiencies in things like crockery!

Cork's pretty much the same, but more prevalent. Plugs surprisingly different. Traffic jams the same the world over. One thing that has stood out as being remarkable are Hair Dressers. "Coiffeurs" are by far the most well lit, marketed, branded and obvious store in every village. There's always a few, even in a village with only 1 cafe. And while you might struggle to notice the quaint restaurant as you drive through, the coiffeur has neon signs guiding you from before you leave the freeway.

And on the subject of driving.... what is it with give way to the right? I realise it's the same as Australia, but bizarrely it appears to often apply at T-intersections?? I'm attempting to educate the French that there are better ways... 1 driver at a time. And while they freely stop on the through road to let in a car from some obscure side street due to "give way to the right", pedestrian crossings are merely reminders of Beatles album covers.

Another obvious difference is the greeting. At every store "bonjour" as you enter is mandatory. It can sometimes be a bit weird that you can't sneak into your local 7-11 equivalent for a litre of mik without personally greeting the owner, but I think it's nice. And of course leaving requires more dialogue than a Bush administration diplomat. "Merci. Au Revoir. A bientot. Bonne Journee. Ciao. Goodbye. Adios."

What was amazing - and lovely - was the greetings we received at a party we recently crashed. Our friend Tony from Sydney was in town, and he invited us to where he was staying. We didn't realise that it was their daughter's surprise 18th birthday party that night (at their place). But our hosts - Jean-Michael and Christine - were very warm and inviting. The incredible experience though was when each of the guests arrived, they would say hi to their friends, and then come over to us and say bonjour - with a kiss on each cheek. Whenever someone new would arrive, the round of cheek kissing began, and each one of them made sure to come and saw welcome. It was touching - and a sign of maturity and sincerity that I'd love our kids to have at that age.

The other event that Tony managed to organise for us while he was in town, was to watch the Bledisloe at some other friends over a couple of beers. It was a great afternoon, and lovely to meet some more friends of Tony's (and kiss some more cheeks); until of course the result. So I've decided to give Bouchon one more definition: "the loss of the Bledisloe cup and Ashes in 1 weekend". 10 years ago it was unthinkable we needed such a word.

More photos by clicking below:

Bouchon

Markets

I get markets when they serve a real purpose - which in my mind is when the goods or services would sell anyway, and the market just provide the system.

So the ASX works as a market. I get growers markets. I don't get markets at tacky tourist locations: no-one wakes up in the morning and thinks they need a mosquito coil holder built entirely of spoons and forks; or spray painted "art" of space age kangaroos crossing the harbour bridge being chased by koalas; or a cheap, incomplete Peruvian chess seat; or a broken clock; or a scarf. Yet most markets provide a place to buy and sell these - and so people do!

Hence my apprehension whenever someone in our family suggests we go to the markets. However, I can confess to being a fan of the Craponne markets. Yes, Craponne - I'm sure there's a beautiful French way of pronouncing it, however I'm sticking with the phonetic pronunciation.

Stall after stall of amazing fruit and vegetables: the strawberries (fraise) we purchased almost tasted of lollies they were so sweet; the raspberries (frambroises) melt in your mouth; tomatoes so rich and delicious that tomato paste isn't even an option in recipes. And stone-fruit that (apparently) the Queen of England gets sent directly to her. Or maybe it was the raspberries. Doesn't matter.

And it's no wonder the fruit in the markets is good - it's everywhere, and from what we've seen it's all good. Em and Hannah went on a little exploration this afternoon across the road to collect whatever the fruit were on the tree. Apricot like (although I don't actually know what fruit), they were amazing. And the blackberries that line every road in our little village (causing a few scratched ankles) are pretty good too!

Back to the market; fromage of all different varieties and flavours. Hard, soft; goat, cow; delicate, strong; incredible, amazing. Even when Abby's not eating, she'll tackle a little bit of soft French cheese. Despite being a regular addition (and sometimes at lunch a focus) of the meal, we still haven't sampled enough French cheese.

By now I was pretty impressed with markets. I was initially sceptical of the meat stalls - but even they were tempting. It's rare that I have a good thing to say about sausages, but a subsequent meal has proven that the Lyonaise saussage is indeed pretty tasty! And the "cooked chook" (I struggled with the French equivalent of this one) was amazing - better than I would hope from Portugal, the home of chicken.

And then I came across the guy standing next to 3 queen sized matresses. Why? It's this sort of vendor that gives markets a bad name. No-one (sane) wanting a matress would think: "I know, the Craponne markets have a great selection, with prices that can't be beaten." Equally, when was the last time you impulse purchased an ensemble?

Nevertheless, we'll be heading back. If not to Craponne, then to one of the other many villages throughout the region holding regular markets - possibly with more marketable township names. The food in the local supermarket is a step above the equivalent fresh food people in Australia, however it's not a patch on the markets.

The Craponne market was also a good opportunity to flex our conversational French. "Bonjour; Visa? Merci; Au Revoir" had been the extent of our conversations at supermarkets. However at markets the more fluent amongst us (Em) engaged in a reparte around the best potatoes for salads, as distinct from those for sauteing. While Em's French is more than acceptable (for what we need) and allows her to engage in mixed English / French conversations with some success, mine is (predictably) poor. Our current neighbours (English, but fluent french speakers) brought round some cooked fish for us to try for dinner - I called out some time later (rather proudly) "poisson: tres bon" and was met with "nice accent".

In addition to her pre-trip counting, Hannah can generally be coaxed into an "au revoir" or "merci". She obviously recognised that there was a different language (she thought the two loud speakers on train were probabably 1 for French, and 1 for English), however this evening when playing with Em rolled out "A bientot" unprompted. I give myself 2 more weeks at best of being the 2nd best speaker in the family.

Em remains the undisputed winner of the French langauge skills however. Today, due to the 38ish degrees, we decided to eat ice-creams in a little park; and of course there was a game of petanque / boules underway. (As an aside, why is 10 old French people, playing boules, with quite a few bottles of red wine romantic, whereas 10 old Aussie blokes, playing bowls over a few schooners of VB just not as classy?). After a while one of the players approached and launched into a French monologue. Eventually Em had to stop him, but she'd followed enough to know there was an issue with dog poo in the park - and to just be aware of the kids running around. Once it was established we were Australian, there was even a delicate cultural exchange around the proper word for dog "merde". Very impressive :-)

And more photos below (for those that missed it last time, click on the image below for even more photos!)

Markets