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Weather

Yesterday we experienced weather that is typical for here, but very atypical for the southern US or anywhere else I've ever lived.

Some kind of rainy cold front coming from the ocean brought alternating clouds and rain, then warm sun, over and over, all day. We'd see a nice sunny day out the window, and get the girls' shoes on to go play outside, and by the time we were out there, it was cloudy and cold and starting to rain.  So we'd run back inside.  Then ten minutes later the sun was shining again.

Note the blue sky underneath the rainbow.

It was crazy.

My experience tells me that once clouds roll in, or clouds clear, that is what the rest of the day will be like (or at least the next few hours).  My brain just expects that based on the continent-wide weather patterns that we experience in Tennessee.  To have the weather change so drastically, so quickly, was weird.

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Random things

This part of France, this particular year, has had consistent rain and very mild temperatures.  The grass and clover love it and make a beautiful, thick, green lawn in front of the chateau.  I think I read somewhere that lawns began in France as an expression of extravagance in the gardens/landscaping of rich folk, and people copied that as a way to show that they too were part of the upper crust of society.

Roses and soft lawns are a perfect fit for this part of the world, but not so much in Tennessee.  You really have to work to keep as fescue lawn looking nice and weed-free.  And don't get me started on the southwest where grass lawns are even more unnatural.

I'm not so much pointing out the flaws in trying to adapt French aristocratic lawns to middle class American landscapes as much as marveling over the perfect suited-ness of grass lawns to northern France.

Same goes for stone fruits and apples.

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Visiting Paris

We have some friends, Jo and Er and their little girl Lu, who are in language school near Paris. Since school hasn't yet begun, we thought it'd be a good time to visit them and see a little bit of the city.  With two kids, the best we could hope for was one activity a day, and with the train schedule, that limited us to one thing.

Another great feature of Europe is public transportation. We drove to the University, parked our car, walked 200 feet to the Rennes metro, took the metro to the train station, got on a bullet train to Massy, hopped on a bus outside the train station, and walked off 100 feet from the language school where Jo & Er are studying.  Talk about convenient!

The high speed rail system in France is called TGV, which is an acronym that translates to "very fast train." It's also incredibly affordable. Buying tickets a week out costs €10 per adult and €5 per child (from Rennes->Massy, prices vary for other routes).  A four hour drive is reduced to a one hour, twenty minute ride on a train that goes 200mph the whole way.

Some people spend longer commuting from Franklin to Nashville.

This particular train was built in 1994, which should surprise nobody once they look at the teal seats with magenta trim.

We left Rennes around lunchtime and got to Massy in time to relax in the garden behind the language school for the afternoon.

The next day we headed to the Eiffel Tower to get the obligatory family picture and do some climbing. Unfortunately we missed the chance to take a zipline off the tower.

Obligatory family picture.

We bought tickets to climb the stairs since the line for the elevator was quite long. J wore H, and F climbed all 669 steps to the second platform AND back down.  I was impressed.  

Here are a few pics:

Looking down from the first platform.

Lots of layers of paint going back all the way to 1889 and the first coat of red.

The tower is made of iron, not steel. It's pretty corroded in spots.

If a baby's head can fit through, the rest can.

Taking a rest.

Rust on the tower. It was last painted in 2009, and is a year overdue.

More new things

1. Peanut butter is not a thing here.  Nutella is.

2. I already knew this from living in Italy, but roundabouts are great.  A little confusing if you don't know where you're going, but so much more efficient than lights.

3. Nobody drives pickup trucks.  We saw three the other day and were surprised.

4. Saw what I thought was stinging nettle, and confirmed it a few days later on my arm.  It's everywhere here and I've begun an extermination campaign in my spare time.

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French language

The French language seems like a huge mountain that we're standing at the base of, looking up.  I can't see the other side, but many people who have been there tell me it's great and the mountain is totally climbable.  From here though, it looks like a hard climb with plenty of opportunity to fall to my death.

This is crazy.

But...

Spending a year in flight school gave me personal experience with climbing a mountain that seems daunting at first.  Over the course of a year, I memorized four chapters of flight manuals (Chapters 5 and 9 of the TH-67 and UH-60 manual), countless mnemonic devices to remember things like the five functions of the stabilator (SCALP) and more IFR navigation rules than I ever dreamed of.

This makes sense.

So I'm pretty sure J and I can do it.

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New things

It's been interesting for me (A) to notice the environmental differences between this region of France and Tennessee. A few thoughts:

1. It gets light at 6:10am and dark at 10:15pm.  (Civil twilight) 

That's over 16 hours of light per day.  On June 21st, the longest day of the year, it's 17 and a half hours.  We're all the way up at 48.1° latitude here, which is a little strange, since that's even further north than Seattle and the most northern part of Maine.

The bummer is that we have to deal with horribly short days in the winter.  We can look forward to only 9 and a half hours of light on December 21st. How do I insert a crying face emoji?

2. Bugs are different. 

There was this funny spider that tried to hide from us by flattening itself against the wood of the playset. I tried googling "flat spider France" but didn't come up with anything.

Flaticus Spidericus

3. Plants respond differently to the cooler environment. 

Hydrangeas are just now blooming. Eggplant still have to be covered with plastic to grow at all. Lettuce hasn't bolted yet, and I suspect it may not ever. Not when the average high is only 76° and it rarely gets above 86°. 

Unfortunately we arrived well into the planting season, so putting things in the ground may not result in much happening.  I'll ask the gardener.

New experiences this week:

- Ate turkey gizzard. It wasn't bad.
- Saw a quince tree with fruit on it.

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