L'école

People talk a lot about French bureaucracy, but never have I known anything less bureaucratic than getting into French school - it was certainly a lot easier than doing it in Canada.

They wouldn't register them before we arrived, so I was a tiny bit worried, but when we got here we simply took their birth certificates an vaccination cards to the Mairie and they gave us a stamped form with the name of the school on it.  We walked from there straight to the school and the Directeur (Principal) gave us an appointment for 5pm the same day.  He went through all the details about the school and told us to bring the boys back at 9am the next day for their first day of school.  Was amazingly simple, and everyone involved was just so lovely and unstressed about it all.  Such a joy.

The boys got placed in age-appropriate classes - CM1 and CE1.  The Directeur said they would review those placements after a few weeks if they were struggling, but I expect they'll stay there now as they seem to be doing just fine.  I really think that the Ontario French immersion system has prepared them well for French school.  Apparently the other kids say they have a big accent, and our boys don't know any of the slang, but they can cope OK with the classroom work, and seem to be doing well on tests.  The only thing that either is behind in is that Andy hasn't learned joined up writing yet (they learn it in Grade 3 in his Canadian school) whereas all the kids in his class already know it.  One thing we do notice is how easy the maths is here compared with Canada, but that is nice for the kids to have one subject that they don't need to worry about.

The school day goes from 9-12 and then from 2-5.  There is a "cantine" from 12-2 we could sign them up for, but they boys like coming home and lazing about, and it is nice to see them for those 2 hours.  The best thing about school here is no school on Wednesdays.  It is brilliant, I think it should be like that everywhere.  It seems to be the day that kids do all their sports and other activities, but we haven't got round to signing them up for anything yet - school is a big enough step for now! 

So, so far so good on the school front, although the boys really really really miss all their Alta Vista friends. 

Carcassonne

 Carcassonne is about an hours drive from us.  It is a medieval city and castle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cit%C3%A9_de_Carcassonne.  Andy spent two weeks worth of allowance on a plastic sword and that was that - he was the king, we were his knights defending the castle and the town from evil invaders.  The castle was really impressive but had been extensively renovated 150 years ago so you didn't know what was 1000 years old and what 100, which wasn't the best, but there were plenty of places to shoot invaders from! It was the first really cold day, and we all shivered. 

Les rollers

The boys convinced us that rollerblading is a very French thing to do, especially as there is a skatepark down by the water.  So we bought them some second hand rollerblades, and they've been loving it.  Here's some videos and pics.

La ville

We are living in Marseillan, France http://tinyurl.com/8y4l9pg.  Not quite sure how we ended up here except that we wanted to live in the region, and hoped to be: near the sea, in a town of between 5,000 and 25,000 people, somewhere not too touristy.  Marseillan seemed to fit the bill.  I don't think we could have chosen better.  I'll write more once we learn more about the town (and take some photos) but our first impressions of the are amazingly positive and absolutely everyone we have met has been so nice.  Here's a shout-out to the following people who have been just awesome and really helped our transition:

• The school liaison people at the Mairie.  I had been in email contact a couple of months back and they told me to come in on my arrival.  So we did.  They had everything I had emailed in already printed out, and signing up for school was just a matter of providing the documents.   Way easier than anything we've done in Canada.
• The School Prinicpal.  We turned up at the school, documents from the Mairie in hand, and he immediately gave us an hour of his time to register Joe and Andy in school and tell us everything about the school - it was so nice of him to do that without an appointment.
• The man at the sports centre.  Joe and I were walking around town and went to the sports centre.  A really nice man, looking every bit the PE teacher told us all about the sports Joe could sign up for if he wants to.
• The young man at the youth centre.  We popped into the youth centre and explained we were interested in activities and the nice young man behind the counter explained it was only for 13+, but then two days later he saw me waiting for the kids outside the school and gave us information for a trip to Montpellier.  It was exactly what we were looking for and he knew it.

There are a lot of other people who have been nice too - the lady at the Boulangerie who welcomes me each morning, but the people above really made our day because they had no reason to be kind, but were, and it made such a difference to us.  And what is even better is that we talked with all these people in French, in our kind of useless but earnest French, but in French nonetheless. 

La maison

We have to say something about our house.  It is amazing.  I feel like we got it by accident.  I posted a wanted ad a few months ago on a site and although loads of people responded, but no one had exactly what we wanted. Then I got an email from the guys at www.marseillanvillage.com titled "The Perfect House in Marseillan".  A phonecall and several emails later, and negotiating price and the deal was done - I'd rented a house for half a year on the basis of a few photos and some googlemap sleuthing. (You can see their description of it under Maison du Colonel at the link above if you're really interested.)

It turned out to be just perfect, I can't even describe how amazing it is.  The location is exactly what I'd hoped for, right in the middle of the town in a warren of narrow streets (the front of the house is on one street and the back of the house on another).  We've got four bedrooms and my& Stewart's room is enormous with a walk-in closet (!) and ensuite.  The guest room also has an ensuite bathroom, and then the boys share another bathroom. We also have a big living room and kitchen, a separate dining room and a TV room (we only get French channels on TV, so I don't feel guilty letting the boys watch it).  There's no garden, but a little terrace off the top floor that we haven't used much yet except for drying washing, but I'm sure we will once it gets warmer.  Oh, and it has a big garage that is incredibly difficult to back in to (especially with our neighbour tut-tutting as we try!). Only bad thing about the house is that it looks kind of weird from the front, but you don't notice that when you're inside.  I keep taking photos of the house but nothing really does it justice.  Just come and see us!

Bonjour!

Bonjour! Welcome to our Fasts in France site.  This is where we'll post some photos and comments on our lives here in Marseillan.  It'll be pretty boring unless you really like us. Please say hi and leave a comment.