Adventures in France

This week after 125 days of travel we circumnavigated the globe and arrived home to Kingston, ON! Dassa was so happy to be back that he kissed the Buddha statue on our front hall table. Now we are unpacking our house, buying groceries, and seeing friends. My initial reaction to being back in Kingston is that is SO quiet and uncrowded. I think we were the only people in the library last night except the librarians. This might also be that we are out-and-about at odd hours due to jetlag. Currently the kids are at the park playing baseball and it's not even 7:30 am. Luckily we have arrived home to the first spring weather.

I am again behind on my blogging, but this time I have a very good excuse: our computer was stolen a few weeks ago in the south of France. This is also the reason my mother's excellent blog was posted without photos. Actually, most of our stuff was stolen at the end of the trip, including my travel and art diaries. Luckily, we still have all our photos, and I realize, this blog, which recounts most of our adventures. It's for this reason that this blog post will be on the long and unwieldy side. 

So here we go, France: the final chapter of our travels, where we explored Paris, bicycled down shady lanes in Provence, were reunited with my awesome home stay family from 28 years ago, and... where we were robbed blind!

I met back up with Rob and the kids at the Nice airport about three weeks ago. From there we traveled along the Cote D'Azur to the small city of St. Aygulf (near Cannes) to spend two nights in an Airbnb with a view of the Mediterranean. Why St. Aygulf? Twenty-eight years ago I went to France as a sixteen-year-old to learn French for a month. I was assigned to a family with a daughter my age from Paris, who also had a summer home on the Cote d'Azur. There was a beach with topless Germans, a waterpark, a lovely town square and a bar with live music overlooking the water. Sounds like paradise, right? It was, until I accidentally told my French homestay mom that I came to France to meet men. I mixed up the words 'hommes,' and 'gens,'  causing me to be unceremoniously ousted from their house and assigned a new family. I had been trying to explain how her daughter and I were only talking to a guy in the town square because he had so persistently followed us home from the beach. And, I added it was interesting to meet different people. Except I said men.

So, Rob, the kids and I went back to St Aygulf to see the sea, and eat in the bar with the live music where I had once been too young to order a pastis. St Aygulf was still beautiful, and had a lovely market in the town square. However, it was still quite cool in France at this time, and there was no live music yet. The town had a feeling of waiting for the July/August season where it would then be overrun with tourists. 

Overlooking the Mediterranean  

Beach at St Aygulf

On the stairs of our Airbnb

From St Aygulf we headed to my second home stay family, in Gemenos, about fourty minutes from Marseille. After being kicked out of my first family, I was assigned to the Matthieu family in the rural area of Gemenos. I was devastated that I was being punished for what felt like an innocent French mistake, and arrived at the Matthieu family in tears. Despite this rocky beginning, I was warmly welcomed by their family and their charming house surrounded by peach trees and the rocky collines of the Aubagne area. The Matthieu family had two children my age, Richard and Claude, and a house that fascinated me  because it was "older than Canada." Although I had not kept in touch with my homestay mom Fernande,  five years ago I received a Facebook message asking if I was the same "petite Canadienne" that had stayed with them all those years ago. I was thrilled to hear from her, and added France to my list of potential countries for our shabbatical trip. Our current plan was to stay with Fernande for a weekend.

However...  on the way to see Fernande we stopped in the town of Cassis for a short hike in the Calanques. I would tell you more about what is the Calanques except we never got to see them. In the ten minutes between filling our water bottles at heading off to the hike, we discovered that our rental car had been broken into and all our stuff had been stolen: four backpacks, a day pack and Rob's beloved guitar. The only thing we had left was our passports and credit cards (which we had with us), the gifts for Fernande, and a bag of dirty laundry. This was absolutely shocking to us, and we spent days cataloging what we had lost. At first we were gobsmacked by the loss of some of our bigger ticket items: the travel computer, guitar and our beloved packs. Then we realized the small items we would need to replace immediately: underwear, toothbrushes and socks. Later on we listed all the small irreplaceable items: the seashells from Thailand, the small piece of amber Dassa found in the dust in Petra, the kids "dear Diarrhea Dude" journals, all my art supplies, Dassa's shofar, and the keys to my car which were on a keychain from my first job at Hill's of Kerrisdale. We also lost important items like Dassa's puffer, Makaio's Haftorah notes, and some expensive orthodontia. The kids mourned the loss of their Magic cards stoically.

Despite spending the afternoon filling out a police report and the fact that we would be arriving at Fernande's with a bag of dirty laundry and nothing else, I was determined not to arrive at her house in tears the way I did all those years ago. Fernande's house looks the same and Fernande has not changed much either. She is still warm and welcoming, although she has many more cats (nine!) than she did last time. We were greeted with hand-me-down clothes from her daughter Claude and her husband Christophe who live nearby and have boys a little older than my kids. 

You know how there are some people that despite years of not seeing each other, you instantly click again? This is exactly how I felt with Fernande. She might never have met Rob or the boys, but I instantly felt at home with her and her family. An amazing bonus was getting to know Claude again after so many years. I've been inviting people to visit us in Ontario (come to the cottage!) all through our trip, and I sincerely hope some of them will, but I especially hope my Gemenos friends will visit. 

This is me and Fernande, my French home stay mom. We both cried a little the day I left. I'm holding the thank you card that I wrote her all those years ago. She kept it, which is how she remembered my name and found me on Facebook. Please note that I wrote the card on my bat mitzvah thank you note stationary, complete with my name in pale pink cursive, which matched my bat mitzvah dress, the kippahs, the invites and the napkins! 

This is Fernande with her daughter Claude (far right) and her daughter Elsa.

Despite spending some of our weekend in Gemenos on the phone with insurance, the rental car company and at the local Kiabi (the French equivalent to Old Navy) we also hiked in the hills behind Fernande's house, explored a beautiful seaside park near La Ciotat, and walked in the very quaint French town of Gemenos with its beautiful church, city hall, two bars, two pastry shops and World War monuments. (These I would later feel are the key elements of any French town.) Even more importantly, we visited with Fernande, and with Claude, Christophe and their children, both at Fernande's house, and at Claude and Christophe's nearby home. Fernande made many delicious Provencal specialties for us. Everyone was concerned that being robbed would spoil our time in France, but our lasting memory is not compulsory shopping at Kiabi, but the warm hospitality we experienced. Dassa and Makaio particularly enjoyed playing soccer with Fernande's grandson Matteo.

Hiking in the collines behind Fernande's house 

Hiking in the collines

Gemenos door front

View from La Ciotat, a town on the south coast of France

This is us, wearing our only clothing at La Ciotat

From Gemenos we spent five days in a small town called St. Remy de Provence, about fourty minutes from Avignon. We explored local markets, ate a lot of baguette and cheese and spent a day in Avignon where we saw the famous bridge and the medieval gothic Palais des Papes, where the popes ruled from Avignon in the 14th century. (We also had the car window repaired here.) The kids were frequently disinterested in playing tourist and preferred to watch French TV (it had been many months since they could understand the language of any country we traveled to), leaving Rob and I to explore the beautiful landscape by bicycle. This might sound very cliche, but much of the surrounding area looks a lot like a Cezanne painting. We rode out to the hospital where Van Gogh lived for a time, had coffee in small towns, looked at really old buildings, and said things like, 'I can't believe we are in France!' (Okay, I said this, many, many times.) It was so much fun to be in a country where I could speak the language, and because of this I was able to chat with many people. Rob and I also went out a lot at night without the kids, which was refreshing. We went out for dinner, for drinks, and on a Saturday night, for a variety of live music in St. Remy. Although there were some tourists in the area, (mostly of the older, well-heeled kind) the south of France did not have the same tourist intensity of our earlier travels, and this was refreshing too.

Kissing on the Pont D'avignon, mainly because we felt like it, and partly to gross out the kids. 

Sur le pont d'Avignong, on y danse....

This is Rob at the Palais des Papes in Avignon. I just realized he is wearing the hand-me-down shirt from Claude's kids that I later wore all through Paris. 

Cycling in the countryside near St. Remy de Provence. 

Cloisters at the Nursing Home St. Paul where Van Gogh lived for awhile when he was unwell. 

Hiking in the hills around St. Remy de Provence. Makaio was disinterested in having his photo taken for the zillionth time. 

From Avignon in the south we took the TVG train to Paris. I knew the train was fast, but I had no idea we would be traveling at 300km/ hour. This was most impressive. We then arrived in Paris where we found the lack of signage in the metro most unimpressive. We did eventually find our way to our airbnb (near the Pere Lachaise cemetery) 

My only disappointment about Paris was sartorial. My mother had brought me fresh clothes from home to wear in Kiev and I was looking forward to wearing something other than hiking pants and a ratty blue t-shirt, but all those clothes were stolen in the south. So I toured Paris very unglamorously dressed like a twelve-year-old boy in a Vans hoody. None of this of course mattered when we saw famous Paris landmarks such as the Eiffel Tour, the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay and the Arc De Triomphe. I had no idea that Paris was like an outdoor museum, and my kids were really impressed with all the beautiful buildings. 

On the banks of the Seine

Rob and I ditched the kids every night in Paris. They were happy with pizza and a device, and Rob and I were happy to watch the final game of the Champions League, walk to Montmartre and see Sacre Coeur, and lastly, to break the fast of Ramadan at a restaurant just outside our Airbnb. I confess we didn't know it was Ramadan and were a little confused by the people sitting at tables with bread and dates, just waiting for the sun to set, which wasn't until 9:45. I had read or heard somewhere that the real food of Paris is not haute cuisine, but Moroccan couscous and other North African dishes. That night we ate delicious Algerian food, while chatting with a couple at the table next to us about Paris and Canada and our travels. By coincidence we ran into the same guys the next night in a totally different part of Paris. They recognized us because we were wearing the same clothes as the day before, the only clothes we had.

 I'd like to take a moment to thank my mother for sending me to French immersion back at General Gordon in 1986, for enabling this moment, and all my other French-speaking moments, to take place. I love being able to speak a second language, and it has enriched my trip in many ways, but especially since the French love to travel and we met many of them in Asia. I encourage everyone to learn a second language and go traveling! Make lots of mistakes, and tell people you came to only meet men, but do it anyway. 

On the steps leading to Sacre Coeur

View from Sacre Coeur

Makaio spent several moments trying to figure
out how to rescue Bally ball from the Seine,
and then several more trying to convince us
 to get on someone's houseboat to lean
over another six feet to grab Bally-Ball. 

We had one very sad moment in Paris. Makaio lost a precious item: his tennis ball. Unlike Dassa who enjoyed buying a few small souvenirs along the way, Makaio does not believe in shopping, unless its for food. He did enjoy bouncing his tennis ball everywhere we went, from the streets of Hanoi to the tea plantations of Sri Lanka, as well as the shuks of Israel and Jordan. Unfortunately "Bally-ball" as he was known, fell in the Seine on our last day of the trip. This was actually Bally-Ball the Second, as the first was accidentally forgotten in the Nice airport. 

Since arriving home friends have asked if we met our goals during our walkabout. I happily replied that we had no real goals. We saw lots of interesting things, met great people, and spent A LOT of time together. I didn't learn to play guitar, I was a lackadaisical home school parent, and despite walking an average of 10km a day, I'm certain I was in better shape before the trip began. Friends also want to know what was the best part of the trip, and although there were definitely highlights of surfing and hiking in tea plantations (and being with elephants and going for high tea, and seeing Petra) most of my favourite moments are about the people. I guess this falls into two categories. I loved seeing family and friends from years ago in France and Israel, and I adored spending time with my best friend Robbie in Israel. Mostly, I loved being with Rob and my kids. Some of our best memories are mostly funny things that happened to us, as opposed to things we saw. For example, there was the time we tried (and failed) to fit all our four of us and our packs into a tiny elevator in Nha Trang, Vietnam. Or, our many maneuvers to fit all four of us (and our packs) into tuktuks made for three in Sri Lanka. None of us will forget finding out that Makaio was scared of donkeys and camels at Petra, or that I was knocked down by a dog on the beach in Thailand, or Rob's cannon ball off his surfboard. I think we will all remember being assigned a hotel room in Montreal on our very last night that was already occupied. (Run away! Run away!) I will cherish memories of Makaio diligently practicing his Haftorah everywhere from Tam Coc to Wadi Rum, as well as Rob's math lessons drawn in the Ko Jum sand. I could go on, but I will save these for our immediate family. 

So how do we feel to be back home? Rob is ready to leave again. Right now. The rest of us are excited to be here. The kids were thrilled to go back to school today, and Rob and I are thrilled to be here and NOT at school. The best part about being back is not my own bed, or having something other to wear, but seeing our friends. We were excited hang out with our regular Friday night neighbours in Nancy and Morgan's gazebo, and to celebrate my student Misha's bat mitzvah Saturday morning. I've known Misha since she was a toddler and taught her at Hebrew school for many years. She made a kick-ass speech about fighting for women's rights as part of her d'var torah that made me both proud and excited to know her. I was also very happy to visit with my favourite co-worker Trish, (and happy that I didn't have to trek to work to see her!)

The Liebersmiths will be returning to regular life now: unpacking, insurance claims, filing taxes, but also camp, cottaging and lots of biking.  Rob and are already discussing (and disagreeing) about our next shabbatical. Stay tuned (but don't hold your breath) for Shabbatical 2023! 

Back in Kingston!