Final France Days

Someone was teasing me recently about how all I post on social media makes it look like I just live a life on vacation.  I laughed at that.  I guess I figure no one wants to read about the expense reports, the daily phone calls to my logistics coordination with moving questions, the complaints about the heat, the cleaning of the fridge before putting into storage, discovering wood eating beetles (again), business calls over Skype, etc.  That's all normal boring stuff that relates to most people's lives.  Who wants to read that?  So I post about the stuff that makes me happy in my life, and that might be different than others.  

Anyway, here's my "vacationy" life--the last few days in Marseille.  During my moving week, my friend Honey invited me to break the Ramadan fast with her and her family one evening.  In all my years in France, this was only the second time I've been invited to break the fast.  Her mother-in-law (who is in one of my classes), made the traditional chorba (a soup that all North Africans eat to break the fast), brique (a North African egg roll of sorts that is filled with beef and cheese and is oh-so-yummy), a small frittata, steak, chicken, potatoes and green beans. Seriously, it was a feast.  After all that, we still had fruit and then dessert!  

Notice something that doesn't belong?  Her mother-in-law knew that I'd introduced Honey to Dr. P, and how much she liked it, so she hunted down two cans for us.  Double portion blessed at this dinner, I was.

Me and Honey Honey.  I'm gonna miss that girl.

On my very last day, I'd already thrown out or given away all the stuff I didn't want, but I had one book left.  I can't handle throwing books away, even if I don't want them anymore.  Well, in Marseille, there is the book giraffe!  In a city where people vandalize and steal all the time, it's amazing that the book giraffe still serves its original purpose: to be a free book exchange.  Leave a book, take a book.

Here I was, dropping my book in the hole.  The very moment I laid it down...

...a face appeared on the other side to look through the stash inside.  Hopefully my little English book will find a home somewhere in Marseille.

Next, I headed over to say goodbye to the French Steel Magnolias.  I call them that because they are a group of Southern women who sit around each week gossiping about all the people of the neighborhood.  I'd like to say that these women helped my listening comprehension in the area of the Marseille accent, but considering that during my goodbye party I will silently deciding which one was which character from the movie (instead of listening to their conversation about some woman who recently changed jobs for whatever reason), I'm not so sure my actual listening comprehension improved.  Haha.  I did enjoy getting to be a part of their neighborhood circle for the past two years.

My team always had a tradition that for a person (or couple)'s last night in Marseille, we'd go out to this fancy steak place on the Vieux Port.  The thing was, I liked the steak...but there were other restaurants I'd wanted to try that were just as fancy.  I didn't have a team anymore (I am the team!), and so I figured I could break tradition and eat wherever I wanted.  I'd passed by the Nautical Society many times, and always thought you had to be a member of it to be able to eat there.  Turns out that isn't true.  Anyone can eat at the restaurant, member of the society or not.  I asked my friend, Chrome, if she would mind eating with me for my second to last night in Marseille.  The restaurant is on a boat in the Vieux Port, with a great view of all the other boats all around.

Chrome and I had great conversations over dinner (as we have many times over the past 2.5 years).  I had watermelon gazpacho for my appetizer.  They gave me a huge bowl of it, with a small side salad.    It seemed like a big appetizer, and later I saw the same appetizer coming out in much smaller portions.  However, the gazpacho was soooo good that there are no complaints from this end about the big size of my portion.

For my main course, I had filet mignon of pork with mustard sauce and caramelized onions.  Delish.

And for dessert: strawberry tiramisu with speculoos.  Died and gone to heaven, I have.

Thanks, Chrome, for all your help and friendship and fun!  We're both big enough travelers, we figure we'll see each other again somewhere.

There was a lot more that happened on that second to last day in Marseille.  I had the walk through and said goodbye to my sweet apartment.  I accidentally stole a towel from the studio I was staying at, that ended up being 10 days of drama of how to return the dumb hand towel.  I had lots of sweet little Marseille moments that made me smile and think, "This is why I love these crazy people."  It was such a good day that I was nervous for my actual last day...would it be able to top this day?  What if I only encountered crazy Marseille people who would make me think, "This is why these people make me crazy"?  It turned out that my fears were in vain.  My last day was equally as good.

On my very last day in Marseille, I met up with Manue to eat lunch at one of my favorite restaurants. They serve a duck dish with sauce made from whatever fruit is in season.  Cherry is my favorite, but I thought it was going to be too late for cherry sauce.  The Lord smiled on me, and I got to eat duck with cherry sauce one last time.  Sooo, sooo good!

Manue was my very first friend in France.  I met her in Paris, and a few months later, I ended up getting an apartment in the same building as her.  She has always been a consistent help for language and culture and helping me just love France.  It got fun when we both moved to Marseille the same month back in 2011.  She was so sweet and gave me a Huguenot Cross necklace, telling me that I am French Protestant, so I must have one of the necklaces to show it.  It was hard to tell her bye.  But I kept reminding her that I'll be back to France some day, and since she's French, she'll more than likely be here, so we'll surely see each other again.  

Barney and Woody happened to be in Marseille for a short little stopover during their journeys of their year out, and so I got to meet up with Barney while Woody took care of business.  Catching up with her made the day seem normal, instead of weird...since it was my last day.

Keeping it normal still, I went over to the apartment where I lived back in 2011, and had a final goodbye dinner with the family who lives there and their intern.  We ate pizza and played games and laughed a whole bunch.  I do enjoy that lot!

On my way back to Aix that night, I stepped out on to the terrace of the train station to take one final look and photo of Marseille.  I'd taken a daylight photo there the day I arrived so many years ago...and now the sun has set on my time in the sweet little city by the sea.

Once I left Marseille, I still had five days left in France.  I did my {most complicated ever} expense report, and sent emails, and recouped a bit from the moving weeks.  Then, came the Tour de France!

A few months ago, I looked up the route of the Tour to figure out when they would be closest to Aix.  I then planned my fly date and moving date backwards from that day.  *You know you're a fan when...

Mr. X found a spot on the road that wouldn't be too crowded and we drove up there, and set up our picnic chairs.  There were six of us, which was fun.  About thirty minutes later, the caravan came through, and we had so much fun jumping up and down and waving to get them to throw things to us.  (The caravan is made up of all the sponsors for the Tour, and they throw out free samples of their brand.)  We got hats, bags, candies, cookies, keychains, magnets, bracelets, juice bottles, and more!  So much fun!

(I don't have pictures from the caravan because I was keeping my hands free to grab stuff.  If you want to see pictures from a previous year, click HERE.)  About an hour after the caravan, the three cyclists in the lead at that moment came by...

Then the small pack of leaders came--about 15 or so of them.  Mr. X and I crossed the road after that, to be in the shade.

Then came the peloton!!!  It was a serious WHOOSH! and then they were gone, but what an awesome whoosh!

There's Chris Froome, who was (and currently still is) the yellow shirt wearer for the day.

I said it was my favorite way to do the Tour.  There were no big crowds like when I've seen it in the cities.  Just a fun afternoon out with friends, with free stuff and an awesome whoosh of colored wind for about 27 seconds.

The next day I had my final goodbye dinner with Honey, her mother, and her mother-in-law.  They were so sweet and sent me the most precious text messages throughout the night after we'd said goodbye.  I've said goodbye a lot throughout my life, and especially over the past few years and the past two months...but this one was hard.  This family has my heart.

And all of a sudden, it's my last day in France?  What better way to spend it than at the beach, swimming in the Med?  The temperature of the water was perfect, and I swam for nearly two hours straight.  I could've stayed all day, but I had some final packing to do.

And so my time in France has come to an end.  Tomorrow I fly to the Middle East, via a long layover in Athens.  I follow the Alpha and the Omega, and so as this chapter ends, I look forward to beginning the next new journey.  I do love me some France, but...you know me...

...always looking for a better country...

Quick Trip to Paris for Bastille Day

Months ago, I realized that our team wouldn't have a big group of summer interns here for Bastille Day, especially due to the fact that by the time Bastille Day would arrive, I'd be the only one on the team left.  The idea of going to the fireworks show without a big group of people seemed sad to me, and I didn't want Bastille Day to be sad.  It's my favorite day of the year in France.  Who better to spend it with than the Superheroes in Paris, then?  Since they needed to talk with me about some work stuff anyway, we just planned for me to have those talks in person instead of over Skype, and I booked my ticket.  I was so glad I did.  During moving week, it gave me something positive to look forward to.  

Look who greeted me at the train station!  Sweet Kirbiegirl, it was so good to be reunited after almost a year.

The Superheroes had just finished their required year out of France (I hate that our years don't line up), so it'd been over a year since I'd seen them.  For all the years I've known them, they've always lived in the suburbs of Paris.  But now that their kids are all off to school, they got rid of their house and are looking for an apartment in the city.  It was my first time to be staying in Paris and get to stay IN Paris, instead of just outside the main city limits.  I loved walking by this skinny building with its art nouveau cafe on the ground floor every day.

On my first day, we went straight away to get felafel, my favorite thing to eat in Paris.  If I can only have one meal there, that's what I want.  The funny thing was, that day I was really craving hummus and harissa (the latter being a spicy pepper tapenade).  So I didn't get my normal order of a felafel sandwich, but order the Dixie Plate instead: a plate of hummus with several felafel balls.  And then I just dumped a whole bunch of the harissa in the middle and went to town on that with some pita bread.  Yum.  I know I'm about to move to the part of the world where this kind of food is normal, but I'm still happy to be eating the French version now before I leave.

Next, we headed over to Shakespeare and Company (the famous English bookshop just across from Notre Dame), where we sat and listened to this angel from heaven play the piano for at least an hour.  It was one of the happiest, most magical moments I've ever had in Paris.  Pure bliss.

The next day, I took the Biz to the Harry Potter exhibit.  It didn't have as much stuff as what I saw last October, but it was still super fun.

It also had some interactive things that the one in London didn't have.  For example, the baby mandrakes really were squealing (you could hear them several rooms away), and they let you pull them up to be replanted.  The Biz had to cover her ears when I replanted mine...

We got to play Quidditch!  That was fun.  It was fun watching all the kids play too.  There was a Sorting Hat that sorted kids into their houses.  You could sit in Hagrid's big armchair.  And they had wands for us to shoot as well.  Fun times.

Later that day, Mrs. Superhero and I went for my favorite walk along the Seine.  We stopped in the Tuileries and just sat here for a good long while talking and watching the gorgeous clouds.  We found some awesome little pizza stand on the banks of the Seine that the tourists didn't seem to know about and had a delish cheap dinner.  It was such a good day.

This part of the Samaritaine was always under scaffolding.  I love it.  So pretty.  I mean, really, all of Paris is so pretty.  It never gets old.

We saw a practice run for the parade the next day, and got this close to the horses.  Good thing, because we weren't that close at the parade!

Because the Superheroes have always lived outside of the city, they wanted to take this summer's opportunity of being so close to get up early and get in line to see the Bastille Day parade.  We arrived at 8am and already were about 5 rows of people back from the Champs Elysées.  We stood, waiting, forever.

And ever.

And ever.

It was lame.  The waiting.  And it went on forever.

Then, after two + hours the President of the Republic went by standing on a Jeep.  I saw him.  I just didn't take a photo. Oh well.

Then one troop with funny hats went by.  And another troop with different funny hats went by.  And another.  And another.  The only interesting thing was the hats.

After all the troops had gone by with their hats, the one cool part began.  (We'd now been standing still in the same exact spot for over three hours.  Try that sometime.  It lowers the coolness factor of whatever you're standing to see.)  The flyover began with the fighter jets shooting the colors of the Republic.  That's cool.

There they go.

This was cool.  They were so close over our heads.  And it seemed silent as they went over the Arc de Triomphe, and then, about the time they were over the lamppost in front of us, a sudden roar, and then they were gone.  55 different planes went.  Only the first set had the colors.  Some tanks went by.  Then, some guys parachuted and landed in front of the president and it was over.  I gotta say--I won't go to the parade again.  Not quite worth standing for four hours.  At least in the Tour de France, you get free stuff from the Caravan's floats as they pass by.

We went home and took some naps, and then headed back out to go to the Eiffel Tower for the firework show.  We'd learned from previous experience and had an exit strategy.  We arrived around six o'clock, and the Champs de Mars (the big grassy field in front of the Tower) was already mostly full, and so we weren't all able to sit together.  We sat for about five hours (better than standing for five hours), playing games, eating, reading, and talking.  While I don't love crowds, I really do love this one on this one day.  Here's me and Mrs. Superhero having a great time.

The show began at 11pm.  I tell you what--the French really know how to do fireworks.

I actually didn't take that many photos because I knew I had good ones from 2011 (click HERE).  If I can figure out how to upload a video from my phone, I'll put the one of the finale.  It was pretty awesome.

The last day, we sat in my park again and read and talked.  I bought some macarons.  We had lunch at a cute little Frenchy salad place where there were no tourists, and it was just lovely.  Stumbled upon some awesome Russian musicians in the metro who were so good I gave them some money.  It was just, all in all, a great quick Paris trip.  And a good way to begin the end of my time in France.  I headed back south with one week left to go.

Moving: I am officially homeless

(If you read this post a few weeks ago, with no descriptions once the photos began, it's cause I accidentally hit "publish" instead of "save".  It's now all filled in and ready to go...)

As many times as I've moved in my life (too many to count), this was my first time to move out of an apartment, as an adult, with hired professional movers and shut everything down.  Really, this apartment--from start to finish--was all new things for me.  Looking for a place (click HERE), finding the dream apartment and being approved for it, (click HERE to see the photos from when I first moved in AND the Vieux Port before the renovations!), doing the move-in walk through (click HERE), the entire month of moving and buying furniture and appliances and culture shock from all of that (click HERE), my couch not being delivered (click HERE) and then later on being delivered (click HERE), buying a table (click HERE), and then having to have it replaced (click HERE), building a temporary kitchen and starting to decorate (click HERE), then adding to my kitchen (part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4), all of these things were new experiences for me.  I learned a lot.  I cried a lot.  I grew a lot.  I settled into my own home and my way of doing things.  So add to that now, all the new of wrapping things up, packing up, moving out, and closing out.  Instead of thousands of posts about the move, I've just put it together here in one place.  

The short version is: it's done, I've moved out, and it wasn't too painful.  The long version: keep on reading...

I made myself a schedule as soon as I returned from Africa of what I would work on in the apartment each week to get ready for movers.  I knew they would pack for me, but I still needed to sort through everything, decide what to keep or throw out or take with me to the ME.  I needed to take things off the walls, pack the linens in vacuum bags, clean as I go, etc.  I worked on the easiest rooms first.  Then, one day, I tackled the closet with all my clothes in it, and it looked like the apartment had exploded.  There were {organized} piles everywhere.

After about a month of that, I was talking to my dad one day on Skype, and he could see the bookshelf still full of books behind me, and commented that it didn't look like I was moving at all.  I sent some photos to him to prove him wrong.  Here, you can see that all my books are on the bookshelves--and I'd put many of them into ziplock bags to protect them.  There was nothing on the bug bookshelf.  Nothing on the walls.  All the breakables gathered into one spot on the glass bookshelf.

In the sewing room/guest bedroom, I'd organized all my fabrics and sewing materials, and packed everything else.  

The hallway certainly showed evidence of moving!!!  For over a month, I kept anything that I wanted to give up in the hallway, and invited friends to come over and sort through it.  It was all up for grabs.  By the very end, I only ended up throwing out a small shelf, a tea tray, a vase (that wasn't even mine in the first place), and some cookie cutters.  Everything else turned out to be a treasure to someone!  It was fun watching people come over and be so excited to find something they needed or wanted that others had rejected.  I was glad to give.

In the kitchen, I put all my appliances together.  Some friends had deconnected the oven from the wall (it wasn't a normal plug), moved the fridge away far enough from the wall that we could unplug it, and unplugged my washing machine (in the bathroom) so that we could drain the water from it's pipes.

I'd taken the shelf down off the wall.  The one sad moment I had during the moving month was when I took the decorative stickers down off the wall in the kitchen.  I remembered how hard I (and my friends) had worked to build my kitchen two years earlier, and so to take it down/apart brought the reality that I was leaving.  I got over it quickly, though.  The big X on the one cabinet was to let the movers know to not pack that particular cabinet.  It belonged to the apartment, but wasn't attached to the wall.  (After the movers left, we moved it back to the spot where the oven had been, it's original spot, and resealed it to the wall.  You'd never know we'd moved it years before...)

How about that, Dad?  That certainly looks like I'm moving!  All the doors were gathered to one spot.  The table was taken apart, as was the couch. 

That clock on the fireplace mantle was the very last thing to be packed.  I'd grown so accustomed to looking up at it to see what time it was, I couldn't handle putting it away.  I took the battery out of it the morning the movers arrived, and let the packers put it back in its box.  I didn't realized how special it had become to me.  (Thanks, Mrs. X for that house-warming gift so many years ago!!!)

One week before the movers came, as I went to dust everything one last time, I picked up a wooden bell I'd bought in Ethiopia, and noticed two perfectly formed dust pyramids underneath.  My heart sunk.  Wood-eating beetles.  As if that was what I needed a week before the big day.  I'd contemplated before that doing a bug treatment on the bug bookshelf, just to make sure it was okay before packing up, and this discovery guaranteed that I would do one.  I threw out the bell, and did two coats of a bug treatment on the bookshelf and the headboard to my bed.  (The latter had had bugs before I bought it, but I've never had a problem with it myself.  Better safe than sorry.)

All the sheets and towels and blankets and pillows were all put into large vacuum bags.

The bedroom went back to bare.  (In case you're wondering, I stayed in Aix at the X's for a couple of nights, then at a rented studio the week of the move, and now am back at the X's until my fly date.)

The day of the packing arrived.  One guy showed up.  I'd expected 2-3.  I wondered, the next day, if the moving company regretted only sending the one guy for day one.  Oh well.  He packed the whole kitchen, all the breakables, and all my books.  He had a special box for all the non-kitchen breakables, that kept everything separate and thus even more safe after wrapped.  I thought that was cool.

Kitchen about half way done.  I didn't get a photo of it, but there were 22 boxes of books.  22 boxes.  Wow.

This roll of bubble wrap was almost as tall as me!!!  And they had two of them!!!

Day Two: Loading the moving truck.  There were three guys down on the street, and two upstairs.  First, they set up the elevator lift to move things out through the window.

Here's what it looks like from the street sort of far away.  You can see how high my windows were!

The truck and the lift.

They'd load things on to the lift, and it would lower them down.

This guy was a beast!  I tried to get a photo of it, but I wasn't quick enough, ever.  He'd pick up a whole bookshelf and throw it onto to his shoulder, and then hoist it out through the window onto the lift.  Crazy.

I watched out the other window several times.  I've always been fascinated by the moving elevator lifts.

Then, when they were doing my fridge, this mover got out ONTO the lift to help get it into place.  I'm afraid of heights and began completely freaking out.  Apparently, he's not supposed to do that, because all the other movers began yelling at him to get back inside.  ACK!

There goes my fridge into the truck!

Mr. X took this photo for me, and when I saw it later that day, I had an "oh well, what can you do moment,"... when I saw that the protective cover over my mattress had ripped.  Cue "Let It Go" music.

They ended up having to go get another wooden container because I filled up these two.  I kept thinking if they'd packed more efficiently, there would've been more space.  But again, nothing I can do about it, so just let it go.

As soon as they were gone, we filled all the holes in the walls and vacuumed up the floors (with the vacuum the X's had brought with them, since mine was now in storage).  We moved the kitchen cabinet and resealed it as well as the bathtub.  I went back the next day and did all the final cleaning.  Friday afternoon, I met with the man to do the walk-through.  I'd never done an exit one, so I was a little nervous.  The walls will have to be repainted, and so I didn't know how much he would comment about that.  

He had an iPad with an app that pulled up my original walk-through.  He ended up marking that I'd made improvements throughout the apartment, and that there were "signs of normal usage" (the dirty walls), and no damages.  I should get most of my deposit back.  He was so nice--even called me a "maniac"--which means crazy about cleaning.  He said it was so clean he couldn't believe I'd lived there 3.5 years.  That made me feel good.  I figured I'd done as my momma had taught me: leave a place better than when you'd arrived.  I handed my keys back.

I shut the windows and turned out the lights for the last time.  I got a bit chocked up.  Thanks, sweet little apartment, for being such a good home to me, and a place of getaway and rest for others.  You'll always hold a special place in my heart.

And with the closing of the door, I became officially homeless.  Ah well.  Not the first time, probably not the last.

Everything will stay in a storage unit here in Marseille while I'm gone for my required year out of France, and then my six(ish) months of stateside assignment.  I've got four suitcases packed that I'll take with me to the ME and then to the US.  Wherever I end up moving permanently after my time in the US, they'll send my stuff.  But it is crazy to think that I probably won't see my things for nearly two years.

In the two weeks after the walk-through, I have to wait for my electricity, gas, and electric companies to finish out my accounts and either charge/reimburse me one final time at the bank.  I'd hoped to be able to close my bank account before I left, but that's not going to happen.  I'll have to mail a letter, probably in August, to have them close it.  I could've booked my ticket for about 5-7 days later and been able to close the account in person, but that seemed like a long time to sit around with nothing to do.  I don't love leaving without everything finished, but what can you do?

While packing up was exhausting and had some underlying stress, it was so much less painful that I'd anticipated.  People have been so sweet and supportive the past few weeks, sending messages and texts.  I felt like my phone would buzz all day long with someone telling me they were thinking of me.  I honestly believe that it was so painless because of these sweet prayers of friends, and the help from the friends who were here.  I survived and lived to tell about it.

Thanks everyone!