So East it's Ouest

They have an interestingly complete knowledge of pharmacy drugs.  The paramacies here are the best in the world and they're everywhere; you can buy everything from cool glasses and makeup to massage seats.   You must always say hello and goodbye to store keepers. You can get discounts for being a student at lots of places, including movie theaters, train tickets and museums.   Les Soldes- by law there can only be two real sales a year, going back to government regulted guilds.  Use those times of the year wisely, one is the end of January to early February.  French door latches are ridiculous, it takes your full weight to pull a door closed, even though you don't want to hurt them because they are beautiful.  In America they would be considered broken, here they are considered difficult. Keep bread fresh in a cotton cloth.   The pizza is not good.  Just because they live side by side with the Italians does not make them good at making pizza.  Do not expect much from French made

Deep sigh of relief, today marks the last day for the municipal elections in Rochefort du Gard, (mayor) Finally an end to posters that have eyes that seem to follow you like the Mona Lisa, pushy campaigners who block the way to the market and bakery, and pamphlets in the mail and put into your bag at stores.  I don't know how many times I've seen the lines ______ is not a privilege it's a right!, succeeding together, and my dynamic team.  The good news is now I know for certain that if you live in Rochefort du Gard you are called a Rochefortais(e).  I've learned some important words from the pamphlets though like: concitoyen (fellow citizen), dominical (on Sundays), abrivado (Provençal-related to bull fighting), grutier (crane operator), s'atteler à (tackle the task of), aîné (older sibling), déchets (waste), and enfouissement (burying).  The interesting thing in France is that a couple of days before the elections they are not allowed to publizize themselves at all

There is a yogurt aisle.  Not a dairy aisle, a yogurt aisle.  Dairy takes up 3-4 aisles.  Lactose intolerant?  Don't come to France.  The chance of offending every honest Frenchman would be too high.  Butter, milk, cream, creme fraiche, custards, gelato, sauces, yogurt, and should I even mention cheese.  Back to yogurt.   Yogurt is common to eat after finishing your meal at home.  So this leads me to question which came first, the great yogurts that were made in France which were then heavily consumed or did the large consummation of yogurt by 'Les Français' lead to the development of great yogurt?  We might never know.  The one thing I do know is that you will begin to eat lots of yogurt if you live in France.  Before I came I was an occasional Greek yogurt partaker or strawberry and banana smoothie maker but now it's an everyday yogurt meal plan.  It might be yogurt for breakfast or yogurt after lunch/dinner or all of the above.  And the best part about it is that the

The Sunday morning market was interesting.  The night before I smugly reached for my wallet in which I thought I had a 10€ bill and some large change in order to buy the majority of my food for the week, you can fill your kitchen FULL of vegetables, fruit, eggs, cheese, and meat normally for under 20€ and if you do it right for under 10€.  So I was preparing to crunch the figures a little bit this Sunday, but I was thinking I would still be able to buy a snack pack of first of the season strawberries, some avacados, or a couple new types of vegetables; I had lots of leftovers and some vegetables left from last week so I was looking forward to trying out some olives or something new like the homemade lemon confiture I saw last week.  Wrong!  I looked in my wallet and there was no 10€ bill in fact there were no bills at all! Then I remembered I had used that bill to pay for my bike's front brake earlier in the week.  Crap.  I looked in my change, 4€.  Crap.  I looked in my backpack,

This is a blog post dedicated to a decidedly French tree, the plane tree.  It is a hybrid of American and Asian sycamore trees.  You can see them lining the streets almost anywhere in France, they line the streets.  They were supposedly planted by Napoleon's army because they were fast growing, hardwood, shade trees.  They are normally kept pruned (very French)  which is why they look so strange during the winter.  One very worrisome problem in this area is that there is a fungus (brought over by US soldiers during WW2) that is killing all of the plane trees, causing them to rot from the inside out. This has happened before with a disease that was brought over by Americans at the turn of the century that killed most of the centuries old grape vines but that's another story.  Other trees in the area -apple, pear, apricot, almond, pomegranate, cypress, birch, and of course olive trees.  - handy hint wild almonds can be toxic do not eat them Almond tree in bloom

Last week I spent with my grandparents settling out some problems I had here, visiting some nearby towns and making sure I was stocked with groceries and supplies.  We went to Avignon, Estézargues to see le Pont du Gard, Les Baux and St.Rémy de Provence (some of my favorite cities), and Marseille.  They left on Saturday morning and after they left I got really bored, I mean we spent almost every night in a new hotel It is a bit of a shock to stop traveling and also to begin completely speaking French again.  It helps when you have awesome landowners who invite you for a 9km hike in the mountains with their dog, you get your bike back, figure out what you're going to do the next week and you start planning out your next trip : ). That trip really made me feel like " yeah I can do this", especially when you finally reach the center of Paris by yourself. The weather around here is getting really nice and it feels like spring has really arrived.  Everyone is walking and bicyc

Well after a series of unfortunate events and the loss of my bike tools in the mail I had to resort to a bike mechanic to finish fixing my bike.  I choose the nearest bike mechanic that I had been to earlier to buy some of my bike supplies, thinking yeah he was macho but whatever he'll get the job done and you'll have your bike back quickly.  Turns out he is quite the jerk, I shake my fist at his buisness when I pass it. I took my bike elsewhere and happened upon a very professional un-macho bike mechanic in St.Rémy.  First I asked about his other bikes for sale, about 50 which he had for sale for reasonable prices.  When he checked out my bike he said "whoa this is 40years old, this is...this is collector, this is...cool.'- as he was checking the wheel for straightness.  I said, ' I know'-with a smile.  He had it fixed up In two hours and I paid 1/3 the price of other mechanic (jerk) even with a throw in new tube and shift cable. I took it home and oiled the c