Montpellier

Montpellier is our closest really big city, but we haven't been there as much as we expected we would.  Even though it is only about 40 miles away, everything we need is closer, and whenever we rent a car we tend to go somewhere further away.  We've been to the excellent zoo and to the airport a couple of times, but hadn't really explored.
So this week I got the train there, and spent the day wandering the streets, seeing the sights, window shopping, and generally enjoying being away from the kids for the first day in four months!
It is a truly beautiful city, but my main impression of the architecture on wandering round was that everything was "inspired by" (aka a copy of) something else.

First the Arc de Triomphe, based on (according to my free guide from the Tourist Information Office) the famous Paris landmark.

Then the aqueduct, built in the 19th century and inspired (according to the same book) by the Roman Pont du Gard.

 

Then I got very confused, walking through the really attractive neo-classical Antigone district to discover it is younger than me!  That one is not such a big deal, but still struck be as a bit strange.

 But, not understanding the city, and why its landmarks are copies kind of makes it more interesting.  And it is really lively, liveable and city-ish compared to the quiet life we lead in little old Marseillan.  Made me miss city life in Canada for the first time, actually.  Don't miss shops though - how did the high streets of the world become so homogenised? Zara, Gap, Claire's accessories (true!).

Dimanche soir

Here are a few pics of us on an early Sunday evening on our roof terrace.

Andy reading Asterix (actually just looking at the pictures...)

Joe playing mini-sticks

Sitting down to a game of Scrabble

La plage

After a couple of rainy days the sun is out again, and it is like summer.  We biked to the beach today and had a day playing on the beach and swimming in the sea.

Le médecin

We experienced a bit of French healthcare this week.
It seems that all sports clubs here require a medical certificate before registering kids in the club.  Because they are all the same I think it must be some government policy rather than at the club level. For Andy's Judo the instructor told us not to worry too much about it and we could bring it later (I understood that never bringing it would probably be ok).  But Joe has started doing tennis and they said he really did need it.  So, we took him to the doctor and discovered they even have a special form for medical certificates for kid's sports.  (He was completely fine, of course.) 
The process of getting an appointment was incredibly easy.  I just walked into a random doctors office, and explained what I wanted, and although it was clearly neither an emergency nor important they said they would see him no problem and they offered an appointment the next day, or afterwards.  The cost for a consulatation (of any kind) with the doctor is 23 Euros. 
Was so different to trying to get an appointment with a family doctor in Canada where you would never be able to walk off the street and hope to get an appointment (apart from a walk-in clinic, of course).  I can't even seem to get an appointment with my own doctor less that four or five days in advance.

Les gens de Marseillan

I know I've said it before, but people here are SOOOOO nice.  Just friendly and easy-going and always taking the option of being helpful rather than not. 
The latest example was this morning.  Joe decided he'd like to do Tennis while we're here, so, knowing that the kids tennis is on Wednesday mornings, we trundled down to the tennis courts.  Once I'd explained why we were there (in my rubbish, but (I'm beginning to realise) functional French) the instructor warmly welcomed him, lent him a tennis racket and said he could do join the group for free trial today.  He even said that if Joe likes it then they will only charge a third of the annual cost as he will only be there for a third of the year. Of course that is the nice and obvious way to react to a strange child with an incoherent mother turning up at your class, but he didn't have to be nice. 
It was exactly the same when Andy signed up for Judo, they were amazingly welcoming.  In fact, it has been the same for everything: getting a library card (we didn't quite have the necessary documents, but they gave us one anyway, along with a tour of the library), signing up for school, and all the other day-to-day things. People in the stores here are nice too. It's different, I know, because they are selling things, but they could be surly and unwelcoming and they aren't, they are just friendly and kind.  The boys and I had quite the adventure last week getting the boys' hair cut - the barber was so nice to the kids, made us all giggle and it was the first time I had really heard the boys having a conversation in French - they're good!
I don't know whether it is because Marseillan is a small town, or something to do with the Mediterranean culture, or the French culture, but whatever it is, I love it.  People just always choosing to be kind, it fills life with little smiles.

(More photos coming soon, I lost but now have found the camera).

Gogos

The big craze at the boys' school is Gogos
They are these inch high plastic things with funny faces.  You throw your Gogo at the other person's Gogo and if it falls down you win it.  A bit like marbles or something.  I have no idea if these are popular in Canada, but they have taken over our house, with constant games, and I think that's all the boys play at school too - certainly they keep coming home with new ones, having won some and lost some to the other kids.  They cost 1.5 Euros from the Tabac for a pack of three, so the boys have been spending their pocket money on them - better for their teeth than candy!
If I find my camera before the craze ends I'll post some pics.

Nîmes

Finally, after meaning to do it for a while, we spent a day in Nîmes yesterday.  I'd been told it was nice and it didn't disappoint.  A day wasn't nearly enough to see the city (especially with plenty of sitting around having coffee and a nice long leisurely lunch), so we bought a ticket to the Roman monuments, and saw the city a bit by walking between them.  The best by far was the Arena, which is still used for events today.  They really got the audioguide right, too, full of a zillion little facts.  The kids latched onto the schedule - mornings was men fighting lions and bears, lunchtime was prisioners fighting to the death or being mauled to death by lions, and then the afternoon was gladiator fights.  Apparently it was extremely rare for the losing gladiator to lose his life by the "thumbs down" signal (we also learned it wasn't really a thumbs down) because in that case a lot of money had to be paid to the gladiator's training stable in recompense.  Another highlight was the Tour Magne, with views over the city.  We missed loads too - hope we go back sometime.

The Arena.  (That's not me btw)

Inside the Arena

The Maison Carrée - a Roman Temple, now with a (very dodgy) 3D film showing inside

Tour Magne

One of the views from the top of the Tour Magne

La bonheur est dans le pré

Joe memorised the poem La bonheur est dans le pré for school, so I thought it would be a good time to post some photos of a couple of our countryside adventures.
Last week we went on a bike trip to the local town of Florensac.  We stopped there for a long and leisurely three course french meal and then biked back.  It is only about 5 km each way on the straight road, but we took the mud and gravel paths through vineyards and little woods, so no idea how far we ended up going.  It was a really beautiful bikeride.  Here are a few photos:

Another fun afternoon was a 10km round trip walk we did near Cessenon sur Orb.  Earlier in the day Andy found a stick and a piece of string and became a longbowman.  We were also able to find a suitable stick for Joe, so they did the entire walk saving us from lions, wolves and the occassional dragon.

Not countryside, but it seems like a good place to put some pictures of the town/city of Sete.  We see it nearly everyday from Marseillan, across the water from us, a big mountain sticking up out of the water.  So we went there and explored a bit, but unfortunately it was too cloudy that day to see Marseillan.
There was a big petanque championship going on while we were in Sète - it seemed to be quite an exciting event with lots of people gathered both inside and out to watch it.

Joe's coke habit

Joe's very predictable when it comes to drink orders. Here are the highlights! :)

In Brussels

In Amsterdam

In Berlin

Waiting for the ferry in Sweden

In Marseillan

In Cassenon sur Orb

La météo

I have added the weather to the blog (see right hand side of page), and so am inspired to write a couple of lines about it.  It is warm here.  Not sure what the weather will be like when you read this, but right now it is showing 20 degrees for the weekend coming up.  You can tell we're not from here, because we walk around in sweaters or even T-shirts, whereas all the locals are still in their winter coats.
It is also very sunny here, and it has only rained once since we arrived.  Apparently they are having some kind of record dry spell, and in the newspaper they seem quite concerned about it, but for us it is just lovely.
Here is a picture of a tree, which doesn't have much to do with the weather, I know, but it is a very pretty tree...

Le Judo

Andy's joined the local Judo club .  His first class was today and he thought it was "Pretty awesome!!"  He's never done Judo before, but did do Karate when he was six and it seems pretty similar (apologies to anyone who does Karate or Judo and knows all the reasons they are completely different). It is twice a week for an hour each time, so it looks like that will be his main/only after school activity while we're here. It looks like he will get to do three competitions, and is already wondering if he might possibly get his yellow and white striped belt before we leave - lofty ambitions indeed!

L'école (2)

Back in January I wrote about how simple the transition to French school had been.  After four full weeks of school (not including two weeks of school holidays) everything is still going great.

The teaching style here is very different from Canada - much more focussed on rote-learning and memorisation.  Luckily, both our boys are pretty good at memorisation, so they're doing well.  Joe, for example, has twice got an A+ in French because he correctly recited poems they'd been told to memorise for homework.  And yesterday he got 20 out of 20 in his French history test for knowing the dates of all the battles in La Guerre des Cent Ans (Hundred Years War) (the battle of Agincourt is relegated to a footnote!).

Joe was bullied a bit for the first few weeks of school, with older boys coming up to him and shouting all the English swearwords they know in his face, but he says that's stopped now.  Andy didn't seem to experience any bullying at all.  They haven't really made any friends yet, but seem to have people to play with at recess time (I think it is a bit easier for boys, they just join in the football game, or whatever).  They are in different parts of the school, so don't see each other at recess which probably makes things a bit easier for both of them because there is no competition between them.  Neither of them want to stay at school over lunch break though, so every day they have a big break from school from 12-2, which is extremely civilised!!!



    

Beziers

We're car-less at the moment.  Bikes are good for less than 5km (Andy's limit) so any further than that we're using the public transport system.  On Wednesday (no school on Wednesday's here) we took a bus trip to Beziers, the nearest big town.  It was an interesting place, very old and in many parts beautiful, but somehow there was a sense of struggle about the place.  We walked up to a beautiful look-out place (one of many beautiful look-out places), with old old four storey buildings on the street.  From the top floor I am sure you could see for 100km or more, and yet those buildings and the ones in streets around seemed like slums, boarded up windows, vacant-staring people sat in doorways, etc.
Yet, in contrast, around the cathedral, less than 5 minutes walk away, the city is quite posh (see photo - not that you can see much). The kids were amazed to see the prices in the shoe shops - shoes for babies too small to walk with an 80 euro price tag.
An interesting place, anyway, I'm sure we'll be back lots.  Here are a couple of pics: