Apartment Hunting

I've begun the search for a new apartment. As I said way back, the place I'm currently in is really just a long-term house sitting. The folks to whom it belongs return in a few months, so I need to find my own place...and as I've watched and heard from others that it can take a month or more, I started looking about two weeks ago to give myself plenty of time.

As of today, I've seen 14 places, and only two were acceptable. I wish, oh how I wish, that I'd taken photos to show you that I'm not making this stuff up.

Apartment #1: On the 5th floor, it had an "elevator." You know when you go to the drive through part of the bank, and they give you that canister to put your money/check in, and the canister goes shooting up through the space tube over to the teller at the bank? Okay, imagine then a human-sized canister exactly the size of my body (and not a half inch bigger), and that was the size of the "elevator." And there's no way I'm pulling my grocery cart up five flights of stairs.

Apartment #2: In an old bourgeois building, it really was beautiful. But old bourgeois buildings mean that each room is small and separated off to help keep the heat in. There was absolutely no place, therefore, for a dining room table in the small living and small kitchen. And there were no kitchen cabinets, no closets, and entirely too much noise, even with the windows closed.

Apartment #3: Central heating means I have to pay for heat, whether I wanted it on or not...and as French people are always cold, they keep the heat on full blast. This place had central heating, and thus...I'd be paying a whole bunch for what I don't want. So I wasn't thrilled with that fact before I walked in...and smelled the septic tank. And walked right back out.

Apartment #4: Terrible wallpaper and ugly bedrooms aside, it had a cute kitchen/living room with an awesome terrasse. The neighbor's cat was a little too friendly, though, and decided to introduce himself during my visit. I'm not a cat fan.

Apartment #5: What was once a studio apartment with crazy high ceilings had been turned into a two-bedroom apartment. They just built a loft space, a wall, and a ladder, and "made" two bedrooms. My head touched the ceiling in both "rooms." So all my guests would have to be shorter than 5'9". Sorry, Dad, you can't come.

Apartment #6: Speaking of building a loft and a ladder...another place had done the same thing...except that the space between the floor of the loft and the ceiling of it was about...maybe....4 feet. The realtor said that I could put a mattress up there and let my guests crawl up the ladder and crawl into their bed. Um, no. (It could have been used as "attic" storage space or as the camelridingcowgirl pointed out, a bedding/play area for friends' small children.) That place had some other quirks that I just couldn't decide if I loved the quirkiness or hated it. And if you're going to go quirky, you need to lurve the quirks.

Apartment #7: The group of North African boys hanging outside of the front door of the building was already a pretty bad warning sign...that, and it's on a road named for the marijuana that used to grow there. Ha! Then, as the realtor is unlocking the triple bolt, the Artist and I hear screaming children somewhere in the building. We walk in and I think, "This is the ugliest apartment I've been in yet." It was "semi-furnished," (which they hadn't advertised), and the "carpet" was a 2-foot by 3-foot piece of astroturf. I kid not.

Apartment #8: The realtor kept insisting that this place was only 10, maybe 15 minute walk from the Metro. I wanted to say, "Lady...I have google maps right in front of my face. I know where it is...and that is a 15 minute walk UPHILL from the metro!" But I went to look at it anyway...and it was 13 minutes uphill. Eeek. And then no elevator. I can handle no elevator when I live somewhere flat. She showed up with her dog in tow...only in France! The first of the two places she showed me was another bourgeois apartment with no place for a dining room table, the smallest living room I'd seen yet, AND...the laundry room was a shed out on the terrasse!

Apartment #9: In the same building, a newly renovated place with a great view...and absolutely no space. And it was on the fourth floor walk-up. No thanks. But your dog is cute!

Apartment #10: A nice place, in a great location. The floor was a little wonky in the living room, and the bathroom was quite possibly bigger than the kitchen. I need a bigger kitchen, please. (The main problem, besides the kitchen, with this place was that it was shown to me immediately after I was shown my dream apartment, which I'll talk about in a minute. I told the realtor, you need to show this one before the beautiful one if you ever want to get rid of the wonky floor place!)

Apartment #11: This place had beautiful hard wood floors...that I could hear with every step I took. The kitchen was weird...it had two burners (not four), and absolutely no place for an oven. Hmm... The weirdest part was that the bathroom had glass paned double door windows facing the front door/entry way. So you'd have to hang curtains up in the bathroom for privacy. Pretty doors...for a different room! And before I forget: the whole place smelled like Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Apartment #12: And saving quite possibly the best for last: Another bourgeois with all the separate rooms. The realtor shows me and the camelridingcowgirl the kitchen and explains that there's a toilet room just outside in the glassed in patio. I step OUTSIDE, and sure enough, an outhouse toilet. The camelridingcowgirl shrugged it off thinking there would be a second toilet elsewhere in the place. Oh no. The building is old enough that it was pre-indoor plumbing, I suppose...and thus, the realtor explained: all the toilets in this building were outside.

An outhouse! In FRANCE! I lived in a three-hundred year old farmhouse in France and I didn't have to use an outhouse!

There have been two that I've liked and submitted my dossier (application) for. One is a one bedroom, super quiet, and comes with fridge, oven/stove, washing machine, dryer, and dish washer. That is unheard of in France. Unheard of! The one problem with that place is that it's one bedroom. The other place is much bigger, the most beautiful apartment I've ever seen in my whole life, in a spectacular location, and has many of the little things I asked the Lord for in an apartment. It will be noisy in the summer with the windows open, and I don't love that...and it has no appliances, but most places don't. But: amazing location, view of the Vieux Port, around the corner from the metro and five minute walk from the main bus station, 10 minute walk from one of our work places, hard wood floors, fireplaces in two rooms, high ceilings, gorgeous crown molding, a sink in the toilet room (that's a big deal to me), closets and kitchen cabinets, and all entirely renovated...with an elevator! Just dreamy. Once I hear back from those two, we'll see if I need to continue the hunt.

Oh man. I so wish I had pictures. Low ceilings, cats and dogs, septic tank smells and OUTHOUSES. Vive la France!

Campbell's Cream Soups

A billion years ago when I lived in Portugal (yes, I am that old), I discovered that Mr. Campbell was a genius. Why? Because he invented a condensed soup, marketed that soup, and then sold that soup. (Actually, it was Mr. John T. Dorrance who invented condensed soup. But Campbell sold it, so I'm going with him...) While that may not seem genius to you... open any American woman's pantry and you will find Mr. Campbell hanging out in there. Read any recipe for any type of American casserole and it will include a can of cream of whatever soup...brought to you by Campbell's. I'm telling you, he was a genius.

So there I was in Portugal with no idea how to cook, and every recipe I encountered called for a date with Mr. Campbell. Who was nowhere to be found in Portugal. And so I learned how to make a basic white sauce that could then be turned into a cream of whatever sauce for casseroles. I've been doing it ever since.

The thing is, cream of chicken is not so easy. Because I don't have canned chicken broth either. So I tend to usually just make cream of mushroom instead and deal with it.

Well, one day a few weeks ago, I walked into the grocery store, and there was a half-shelf full of Campbell's Cream of Whatever soups! They had cream of asparagus, cream of tomato, and cream of mushroom. And for only 2.37 euros a can!

(My mother shrieked at that price. You can't think about how much 2.37 euros is in dollars. You have to think in relevance. Relevant, in this case means "something within the 2-3 euro price range is not overpriced, especially when it is a hot-commodity contraband item from America." Relevant really does mean that. You can go look it up...in the Soj's American Living in France Dictionary.)

I bought every can of cream of mushroom that they had, and gave several away to friends. On a later trip, I wanted to buy a few more to stock up, but they had never re-filled the shelves from my last shelf-cleaning visit. As I turned away, I noticed a can of cream of mushroom on top of the asparagus, in the very back. I called one of the stockers over and asked if she'd pull it down for me.

"Are there any more cream of mushroom's up there in the wrong spot like this one was?" She looked through all of them and found one more can. Then I said, "I know you're not the one who orders the food, but if you tell your manager...the recipes that Americans use (it was on the English aisle), they all call for cream of mushroom or cream of chicken. If you stock cream of chicken...we Americans will buy it!"

(Visions of "if you build it he will come" just flashed through my head...)

She told me she'd tell her manager, and I cynically thought, "No you won't. You don't care if Americans would be in Campbell's creamy bliss." But the next time I went back, I saw...

Restocked shelves...with CREAM OF CHICKEN SOUP!!! However, they cost 6.90 a can, and well, I've lived without cream of chicken this long, I can keep living without it at that price. (There's relevant, which is 2.37, and there's just plum crazy, which is 6.90). I walked away and figured I'd wait until they realized no American was going to pay that much and they ought to lower the price.

So today, at first glance, I saw that 6.45 over on the right. Then I looked at it again, and realized that was the price for PEANUT BUTTER. The far left price, 2.31, is for cream of asparagus. The middle one is blank. The third from the left is 2.27 for cream of tomato. Could it be? Did they change the price of the cream of chicken?

I grabbed a can and carried it up front, and asked the check-out lady how much. 2.10!!! Woot!

No, I didn't buy every can...today. My shopping cart was already full and a girl can only pull so much up a Marseille hill. But tomorrow... those cans are mine!

Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Thank you, Monoprix, for marking it down to a relevant price. Casseroles will soon be coming to a Marseille table near you...

Some completely useless trivia for you should you ever go on Jeopardy and they have a Campbell's category for you to choose from:

• The red and white colors on the label reflect the colors of Cornell University's football uniform.
• The gold seal in the middle of the label was the symbol of the 1900 Paris Exhibition.
• Cream of Mushroom soup is one of the top 10 items sold in US grocery stores every week.
• One of Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup prints sold for 11.8 million dollars.

Nicer weather and drugs

Several people have asked me, so I thought I'd update you. It stopped snowing. It warmed up. It's gloriously been in the low 60's with the sun shining for...well, forever now. This picture does it no justice, but since I showed you the Mediterranean with snow, I thought I ought to show you it in normaltime weather. It's this pretty pretty color.

When it snowed, I mentioned that I'd been under that weather and had been in a somewhat Nyquil-induced stupor for awhile. Well. I reflected last night and remembered that it was January 28th when I first began feeling bad. I went to the doctor on February 13th, and she insisted that I did not have a sinus infection. I didn't go to medical school or anything...but I've had sinus infections all my life and I recognize them. I think she was wrong. So she gave me a non-functioning nosespray and sent me on my way.

10 days later, I was incapable of going out and enjoying the gorgeous Marseille sunshine (and thus also doing my job), because I had no energy left from fighting off the sinus-infection-that-would-not-die. I went back to the doctor and said, "Please make me better." She checked me and oh! imagine that...I have a sinus infection. She gave me what one friend lovingly termed, "The French cocktail," (because they never give just one drug), and sent me happily on my way.
One antibiotic, two different forms of Advil, a stronger nosespray that I have to take for 15 days, and the most necessary thing in life beyond Jesus and air: a box of tissues. My nose has been blown raw.

But...I have been (for the most part) able to sleep through the night without any Nyquil. I can breathe! The sore throat and headache and feeling tired and weak are finally gone and now I just have a runny nose. So...a month later...I can happily say that I am beginning to feel better. yay.

Salons

I'd love to tell you that I am back from the land of stuffy-nose, sore throat, and no energy, but it wouldn't be true. I suppose today's post comes from the world of should-buy-stock-in-tissues.

***'Salon' in French can either mean a hair salon or an exhibition/fair.

In this case, it means the latter.***

Way, way, way back in 2007, I braved a transportation strike to go to the Salon du Chocolat in Paris. It was worth every bit of the inconvenience on transport to get there. (A few pictures can be found HERE.) I knew it would become a regular part of my annual existence in France. However, I wasn't able to get to another one until just a few weeks ago. I'm not sure how long the Salon has been coming to Marseille, but I sure am glad it's made it's way here!

I went with Barney and the Artist. While not even half as big as the one in Paris, it was still fun to see so much chocolate and get plenty of free samples. This booth had chocolate covered macarons. Coffee flavored macarons. Could there be anything more tasty in the whole world? I think not.

There was a chocolate fashion show. Because, um, who wouldn't want to wear chocolate? One outfit was made entirely of chocolate! (It was also utterly ridiculous looking...) Anyway, here's a close-up...it had little cicadas! (The cicada is sort of the 'symbol' of Provence).

This one, I think, was made with the help of a friend of mine! She's a superb cook, and the camelridingcowgirl told me that our friend made the little flowers.

A close-up of the flowers. She did a good job, huh?! :)

I wouldn't wear a chocolate dress...but I could settle for some earring shaped like my favorite French yummy--the macaron. I bought a pair of pink/red ones.

There were also chocolate sculptures.

Above is a group of Frenchies playing pétanque, (bocce ball), the national pastime of Provence. Below is a chocolate pétanque set.

About a week later, there was a Salon of "Creative Past-times." There were booths of every kind of crafty past-time you could ever imagine! Quilting, knitting, embroidery, tatting, tile mosaics, baking, wood stuffs, and scrapbooking. Scrapbooking?! In France? Who knew? Barney and I laughed, because the salon was approximately 95% women...and all above the age of 50! We had to be the youngest people there.

My little quilter's heart was thrilled to see beautiful quilts, and even more beautiful fabrics. I'd say "for sale," but that might imply a low price. Not so much. (The prices didn't stop me, though!)

The quilts below are made my the quilter man at my local store in Marseille. The big one on the left is truly beautiful and impressive, as it looks like a Persian rug, but upon closer inspection...it's not actually quilted that much. It's just big squares and rectangles sewn together. I could do that. The other two, however, are a different story. The Log Cabin on the top right took my breath away and I've continued to stare at the picture of it on my phone...and the Lone Star quilt in the center was also so pretty. I'd like to make both those patterns some day!

I found the booth for the Quilting Association of France and asked if they knew of a quilting group or workshop that I could join in Marseille so that I could (a) improve my quilting skills and (b) learn all the quilting vocabulary in French. These sweet little ladies were so kind to me! I told them I was a beginner, and that I've only made around 10 quilts or so. The woman writing down my info laughed and said, "If you've made that many AND you're an American, we're going to say you're an intermediate!" (Quilting in France certainly has it's own style that has nothing to do with America, but true patchwork quilting is seen as très americain, and thus, simply by birth, I am endowed with some kind of patriotic abilities that these women must not possess...) I hope to join their group very soon. Can you imagine it? Little ole me, sitting around a quilting hoop with a bunch of retired French ladies. Oh boy!

I near bout keeled over and died when I found these art nouveau fabrics! The hardest part was deciding which ones to buy. I finally decided on two half-meters of these two prints, instead of one whole meter of just one. I'm so in love with them. Pretties fabrics I've ever seen in my whole life, right there. It was a good day!!!

More Snow

I feel like the only thing anyone has discussed in Marseille lately has been the weather. After an incredibly mild (so far) winter, it turned cold all of a sudden about two weeks ago. There were the whispers of snow last week that I already wrote about. Last Friday night, it snowed again, and just north of Marseille there was actual accumulation. Like several inches of accumulation. But with so many warm bodies and and underground Metro system warming up our little city on the Med, nothing stuck here. But the cold continued...

I would get up and look at my phone to see how cold it was. Most mornings it would say 19ish degrees F, with a windchill to make it feel like 14. Or 9. Or even one day, 6 degrees. Farenheit. That's cold, folks. COLD.

A few days ago, CSI and I were out doing some research, and this arctic cold Mistral wind nearly bowled us over. When we got back to my place I asked if we were wusses because we can't handle these temperatures, when there are other places that are so much colder than here...and then I remembered. (1) We don't have appropriate clothing for this kind of weather. (2) We don't have HEAT. All I have is a small little space heater who, surprisingly, is getting the job done...but still. My apartment is not heated. It doesn't really need to be.

If this cold snap would just lift already.

Last week, a group of friends laughed at lunch that if it's going to be this cold, it really ought to snow. It's the only thing that can make it bearable. Well, at least it isn't raining.

All week I kept checking the extended forecast, and it couldn't make up its mind. Either it was going to snow today and tomorrow, or it was going to be sunny. I mean, look at it. It says that it is 32 degrees and sunny out, but that it's supposed to snow today with a high of 36. HUH? Well...

When the forecast can't get it right, why not just step out on the balcony and find out for yourself? This is a video I shot two hours ago from my balcony.

As I said, I don't have appropriate clothing for snow days. So, I put on a pair of tights, then wool knit tights, then my winter thermal running pants, then a pair of jeans. FOUR long sleeved t-shirts, a hoodie sweatshirt, and a scarf. Plus hiking boots, a coat, fleeced earmuffs, fleeced knit hat, and gloves...Then I went down to the beach. Oh, what a glorious walk! Snow on the sand! Amazing!
Look at that gorgeous color of the water!!!
More snow on the sand, and low visibility of the mountains just across the way.
A surfer who apparently hoped that snow = good waves. It didn't. Too bad for him.
The sun trying to fight it's way through the clouds.
In this photo, you can almost barely see the snow that was coming down.

I took a video there too...

Oh how I love snow. I love that our God is so amazing that He can make snow fall somewhere were it is almost always sunny and warm. I love the image of our sins being as white as snow. I love the Christmas song that says He came...not in a loud storm, but soft like a winter snow.

Sorry I haven't written about much other than weather lately. That's because...I've been sort of under it, actually. I'd gotten a winter cold back around New Year's that lasted a good two weeks, and then I had about a two-week reprieve, and then fell under it again about two weeks ago. I can't seem to shake the sore throat, runny nose, headache. So...I just go to work, stay at home, blow my nose, and wish that it would snow to make it all worth it. Today was worth it.

Marseille Snow

I used to think that fall leaves were my favorite thing ever. They make me ecstatically happy. But when I walked outside from Thanksgiving dinner in 2010 to a winter wonderland, a falling snow that didn't stop for a month, I discovered that it might just be that snow is my favorite thing ever. I can count on fall leaves every year. I can only hope to see snow. The hope increases the joy when fulfilled.

Back in January 2009, there were whispers of coming snow. The forecast said it would happen, but all the Marseillais said, "I'll believe it when I see it." My language teacher told me that it hadn't snowed in her son's lifetime...and her son was almost 30 years old. Like a child on Christmas morning, I woke much earlier than necessary and raced to the window to see if my dreams of falling flakes had come true. At 5:30am, they had not. Absolutely no precipitation. No white. No skies softly drifting to earth.

I went about making my coffee and meeting with God and didn't look up at the window for another hour. When I did, oh my how the scene had changed! It must have started snowing just after the moment I'd last looked... Here's a video I took from my balcony that morning.

I went out and wandered through the once-every-thirty-years Marseille snow and marveled at my Mediterranean city covered in white. Palm trees bent low from the weight of the fluff. Visibility almost zero in a city that is usually blindingly bright blue. The water in the port frozen with small icecaps bumping against sail boats.

It was the best day I'd ever had in France. I still treasure that memory.

This past weekend, I checked the forecast on my phone: Wednesday, sun. Thursday, snow. Friday, sun. Saturday, sun. Sunday, sun. Etc.

Thursday, snow? Could it be? That a small little break in the sun would bring...snow?! Please oh please oh please let it be! Let it snow! Just one small sweet day of precious beautiful fluttering flakes.

Despite being sick and Nyquil-drugged, I jumped from the bed this morning, raised my shutters and looked out the window in joyous hope.

Soft little flurries were bumbling around in the air, trying to drift their way down. They were so light that I couldn't even capture a photo of them. Not that my iPhone weather app proves anything, but it did show just what the snow looked like: Heaven's dust coming down for a gentle, quiet morning.

It's not even noon and the snow has stopped. None of it stuck. And as the weather forecast shows, the sun will come out tomorrow and probably stick around for awhile. After all, this is Marseille. But I am so thankful for those few hours of watching the stuff that fills my heart with such joy fall from the heavens.

Worst Airports Article

Yahoo! posted an amusing-to-me article today about the worst airports in the world. If you travel alot, you might be amused by it too. The journalist gave a disclaimer in the beginning that he was only rating major airports because the small shack by an open field in India shouldn't have to compete against CDG.

That said, I laughed. Outside of the US, the only country to make it onto the list twice was FRANCE. In fact, the only Western country apart from the US to make the list was France.

Beauvais, which IS NOT IN PARIS, but is listed as a Parisian airport is on the list. Remember the time I was flying home to Paris from Venice and got rerouted to Liege, Belgium and had to take a bus back to Paris? Yeah, it was that airport.

CDG (the main airport in Paris), came in at number 5. They'll probably go on strike for being named on the list.

I agreed with the list about JFK being the worst. I flew through there once and said never again. There weren't escalators in the international terminal! Watching all those international travelers lug their suitcases up and down stairs was just sad.

My favorites: in the US, I'd say Charlotte. I love the rocking chairs. Internationally: Mumbai and Seoul. Oh man. Mumbai has these leather lay out chairs that look like something from the first class of the airplane, and are just what a lay-overed weary traveler needs. Seoul has 30 minute hot showers for $7. And when I hadn't had a hot shower in a month, and I'd already been traveling for 3 days and had 2 more to go before getting home, that was the best $7 I'd ever spent. In fact, I paid it twice to stand in the hot water for a whole hour.

My least favorites: CDG and Beauvais, as already noted. Frankfurt. It used to be really crowded and smoky and all around unpleasant, and while all that has changed with the new terminal...I still have the old feelings about it. And there's no Starbucks.

Because really...a Starbucks can make any airport feel just a little bit better.