How We Welcome Summer Here

I can't believe that we passed Spring in a jiffy! I had wanted the Student to take the 1st signs of Spring in the valley, where the trees were so covered with little pink flowers, and the walkway lined with wild flowers of so many different vibrant colours...but it seems that we have to do that next Spring after we got used to the seasonal changes.

Now, the neighbourhood is filled with roses, lavender and cherries for us to pick, our neighbour just picked 2kg worth of cherries 2 weeks ago, I tried them and they are pretty sweet for something in the wild...

So this is a list of what we did and will do in summer:

1) On a fine sunny Sunday afternoon, open the windows and enjoy the breeze with a pot of fine tea and cake.

2) Before time stands still in August, settle all outstanding administrative matters, like exchanging your driver's license for this piece of paper (the locals also hold the same paper, since eons ago). This process is the most straight forward of all the French administration, whereby everything can be settled within an hour or so at the Prefecture (after getting your CDS of course). Documents required: True copy of translated driver's licence, original licence, 2 photos (same size as for CDS), true copy of CDS, and fill in forms given by the Prefecture on the day of exchange. Exchange is immediate, since it doesn't take much effort to laminate this piece of junk...which we cannot live without...

3) Go for a concert and summer sale in Paris. In the first week of summer, there were a number of free concerts to go to...but unfortunately, the weather was not very agreeable.

4) Go for a hair cut. I had mine done at a local hairdresser's, and had a great time speaking in French to her! She was really nice and patient to have understood my half-past-six French. Now that we are spending in Euros, I'm a little more thrifty when it comes to a haircut...so we save some Euros by cutting the Student's hair at home instead. Easy peasy...a full set of clippers just cost 10 Euros from Carrefour. But the Student's head is getting bigger, so I'm taking a little more time to get it in shape. I'm taking an average of 2 hrs to cut a  "hawk" style.

5) And of course....go for a vacation since there is NOBODY working...:)

Footprints on Alluvial Plains

The same image of Mont Saint Michel on the front cover of my guide book in France, this is like a floating village with an Abbaye at the tip.

This post is rather belated since we went for a short vacation (after a long vacation) during the Ascension long weekend. After Tour La France, we thought we could have another small roadtrip to St. Malo, with Mont Saint Michel as a highlight. This is about 4 hours drive from GIF, and so, we stayed 1 night at Angers, which is on the way and 2 nights at St. Malo.

Our 1st stop was at the Cathedrale of Chartres. This is another UNESCO monument of Gothic architecture.  My bad for going to the Cathedrale on Ascension Day, bad bad choice...this is a religious holiday, and the Cathedrale is practically closed for anything touristy. We could neither enter the crypt or get the audios, the labyrinth was also blocked by chairs placed for people attending the service. Maybe, we are just not fated to walk the labyrinth.

Nonetheless, this highly religious monument has already invoked lots of curious cells in me to find out about the rose windows, what the labyrinth contain and what lies underneath this majestic and sacred structure. And so we made another bad choice to buy a guide book on the Cathedrale, which we could not understand nuts! The English is so badly translated from French, that we might be better off getting a French version instead.

We ended the 1st day at Angers, and spent half a day in Chateau d'Angers. This is a very lasting structure of wood, which was reinforced by stones in the later years. The Apocalypse Tapestries are also housed in the building.

The cones are removed for the use of canons

This set of tapestries measures 100m long and 4.5m high, illustrates the biblical text between the good and evil, with Saint John as the "narrator".

Princess Daisy: Here comes Mario again!

It was a stressful day arriving at St. Malo, since our schedule has to be governed by the tides. Seriously, the most important thing to carry around here is not the map, but the tide table. Everyone seems to be here, and the nearest parking spaces nearest the old town were all snapped up by 2pm. After 1 hr of frantic search before the tide comes up, we settled with a space at the passenger terminal, which is a little distance away.

I had initially planned to visit Grand Be and Fort National on the same day, while the tide is still low. However, I realised that Grand Be is situated at a spot where the tide rises faster. So if we really want to go, we can only do that +/- 1.5 hrs of the LOWEST tide. On the other hand, Fort National is much more flexible with a wider window to walk over the beach.

Fort National, accessible by foot during low tide only. Guided tour in French only, with an English leaflet.

This fort held an important role in defending the city during the war. Besides Fort Nationale, there are also a few more offshore forts serving the same purpose.

St. Malo city, view from Fort National.

Something we tell each other regularly....

Grand Be with it's access submerged.

This wall is not friendly with short people. If not, the walk by the ramparts would be perfect!

We got some Bordier butter from here, I'll never spread my bread with any other butter again...

These butter are all handmade in Bretagne, and is a speciality of the region. Various flavours too...we tried doux (unsalted) and sel fumé (salted, smoked). The latter was brilliant for making mash potatoes, and I heard that it is great for grilled fish too. 

We happened to catch some action from the art forum too...great music and fun!

I think the Student was more startled then they are when he took this picture.

We hopped over to the neighbouring town, Dinard on our 2nd evening in St Malo. The route from St Malo to Dinard is subjected to frequent jams, and is not for one with a tight schedule. The jams are almost certain, as the boats and the cars share the same path. When the boats need to exit into the sea, the road will be raised to let the boats pass. Everytime this happens, it will take at least 15 mins...so, just pull up the handbrake, enjoy the breeze, check FB and blog. Here, we stopped by the barrage and loaded some information on their electricity source.

In Dinard, take a walk along the coast...there are luxurious mansions lining the coast, most belonging to rich Englishmen who were once shipowners here.

A statue of Alfred Hitchcock in Dinard.

This is the restaurant that I missed having dinner at....we reached the restaurant too late without any reservations. In St. Malo, forget all other things, except seafood and galette.

Mont Saint Michel is about an hour drive away from St Malo. A UNESCO site, and a major focus of pilgrimage (we are really making sure our roadtrip is in-line with the religious holiday). In the 10th century, the Benedictines settled in the abbey on the mont, with a village below. This image is what the people in the middle ages regards as paradise, a representation of the heavenly Jerusalem on earth.

The mont is connected to the mainland via a tarmac causeway now, historically via a tidal causeway. On google maps, the mont looks like a floating village on the alluvial plains. The carpark used to be just below the mont, but it was very venerable to the tides. They have since constructed another carpark at the mainland, and provide shuttle buses across the causeway to access the mont.

Legend has it that the archangel Saint Michel, who defeated a dragon (symbol of the devil) instructed Saint Aubert, the bishop of Avranches to construct a church on Mont Tombe, which is Mont Saint Michel of today.

A statue of the archangel slaying a dragon in the church.

It was low tide in the morning, and saw streams of "ant like" people walking on the alluvial plains. We were just not equipped and dressed to join the crowd...slippers, bermudas and raincoat needed. There is quicksand in the area, so it is advisable to follow the crowd and not wander on your own.

Those specks are people, not dirt on the lens. These guys actually walked all the way to the coast at the end side, past that rock you see. To do that, I suppose we have to spend the entire day here.

The Abbaye on the tip of the mont.

The grass land here is apparently very good for sheep grazing. So try the lamb on the menu here.

These monks and nuns live, pray and work here in the Abbaye, prayer starting soon, so this is our last shot here.

The Cloister of the abbaye. Admire the architecture and art sculpture on the pillars here, I notice that there is not a single repetition in the design.

Capturing a shot that we can't get on our own.

The Weekend that We Went Back In Time

Had a very eventful weekend last week, with a hike at Saint-Remy with our classmates from ALFAP on Saturday, and a visit to Musee d'Orsay on free Sunday. We are never the arty-farty type, so France has really taught us well in this aspect. I'm not a connoisseur of paintings, but I left Musee d'Orsay with only images of impressionists and post-impressionists paintings. 

The 2 artists etched in my mind are Edgar Degas and Vincent van Gogh, the former with a negative impression, and the later with curiosity. There was a temporary exhibition on the theme of "nudity" by Degas, all was good until the explicit paintings of prostitutes. If my understanding of "impressionism" is right, then I would think that Degas must have visited lots of brothels for his project.  

Van Gogh's works are so distinctive, that I think the non-arty me could probably sniff out his works in future.  The child-like style of his is so unmistakable that I can't help wonder what was going on in his head when he painted those crooked images. Were these the images he saw during the years when he suffered from his mental illness? I'm curious...

Oh well...we ended the day very well at Coutume cafe, based on David Lebovit's  recommendation. Haven't had such a good cup of latte ever since I arrived in France! But I guess this place is really just good for coffee, as their meals are rather sub-standard. Great place to get all kinds of coffee gadgets here, they even have a coffee mill so that you can grind your own coffee beans....cool!

It was pure coincidence that our paths just crossed with these "18th century" beings. I would probably have freaked out if I'm alone in the forest, with these ladies standing in the middle of the woods like that. Turns out that an association is having a party at the château, commemorating French history. They saw us walking past, and wanted to invite us to join in the party...can't believe that something like this can really happen out of the blue, this is my neighbourhood and I'm LOVING IT!!!

The Alien in France - Conjoint of a Scientist Visa

Finally, I've received that piece of paper that weighs a tonne after 5 months of patience. A tonne of French labour and administration to make my long stay possible in France. Seriously, I've always thought that my treatment would be the same as the Student, but apparently not. In my case, I'm the conjoint (or spouse) of a Scientist visa. Below is what just happened to both of us to get that golden paper.

Both the Student and the Wife:

Got a 3 months visitors' visa from the French Embassy in Singapore. Free for the Student, but I have to pay about SGD 150 ( EURO 99). This has to be done in our home country, and just the beginning of the visa saga.

After we arrived in France, we have to make an appointment with our prefecture to submit our documents to apply for the Carte de Sejour (CDS in short) to enable us to stay for 1 year. The appointment was made by the school, Supelec. Since we are not in centre Paris, there is not too much crowd and hiccups here. After all the documents are in, we received the recepisse (read 25 Feb 12 entry), a temporary paper, valid for 3 months until we get our CDS. I waited for about 4 months, and so the recepisse expires, making me an illegal alien for a while. But ah...this is very normal, I'll just have to make sure that I stay in France and not wander around the EU region.

Between the recepisse and the CDS, the visa saga starts to brew...

The Student: 

Received 2 parallel letters to go for a medical appointment at OFII at Creteil (1.5 mths after the recepisse), and that he can collect his CDS, with EURO 368 timbres* from the prefecture at Palaisseau any date in the morning. Bravo! This is so efficient...1.5 mths...wee!!! But this means that the medical certificate is not crucial to him getting the 1st CDS, probably for subsequent renewal only.

The medical appointment was smooth and easy, he just answered some questions on vaccinations and illnesses by the doctor. Took his eyesight test, weight and height. Proceed for chest X-ray, final review by doctor, and all done within 2 hours.

The Wife:

Received an SMS to meet at OFII, and prepare EURO 368 worth of timbres* (4 mths after the recepisse). The process for me is so very different...but why? I'm the Student's wife, shouldn't the treatment be the same?

[*Timbres = stamps purchased from either the treasury or the prefecture. I got mine from Tressorerie de Palaiseau. These are NOT postage stamps.]

I went for the appointment at 1pm as stated, and did not leave until 5pm. I was 1st asked to wait in a waiting room with many others. After 45 mins of waiting, a stylish dude ushered us to a TV room to watch a 15 mins film of Life in France. Then, he came in and blabber in French a lot of words that I cannot catch. Some contract....blah blah...EURO 368....blah blah...whether we need to attend French lessons...blah again...and he left with some people he called out. After 5 mins, a very friendly lady came to get me into her room, and I finally have a clear picture of what was expected of me. Not that she can speak English, but as least there is Google translator to bridge my minimal French, and her minimal English.

1) I am supposed to go for "Formation Civique", it is a 1 day event at Evry to talk about integration into the French culture. She arranged for a day whereby the event is held in English...sweet!

2) She gave me a date to go to a place (slightly further than Palaisseau) to evaluate my level of French, and to allocate me into the right class near to where I stay thereafter. At the same time, I did a mini test in front of her. The French class is free!!!

3) She asked me to sign a contract, which I still do not know the content. But what are my odds? If I don't sign, I have no CDS. Therefore, it is no longer important whether I understand the content.

After this "interview", she ushered me to the 1st doctor. Here, I took my height, weight and eyesight test (short and long sight). Then I take my slips and go downstairs, the multi-function security guard took my slips  and asked me to wait aside for a chest X-ray.

Before this, I already have a preview of the X-ray room during the Student's medical examination. And so, I came prepared with a front clip bra and buttoned shirt. Attention ladies! There are no robes for you to change into...With what I was wearing, I can just flash my body in front of the radio panel, without the nurse (male or female) seeing anything.

There are 2 doors in each changing room, 1 door leads you to the radiography room, and the other enables you to enter the changing room from the common corridor.

Go into the changing room, lock the door you entered by. When the spotlight shines onto your door leading to the radio room: Put your hands on your waist, walk out half naked, look confident, chin up, chest up and shashay your way to the radio panel. Press your chest against the panel, deep breathe in. When you are done, turn around, strike a pose and strut your thing back to the changing room. Voila! That's it...

Then I waited for a while to collect my print, and go up to wait for another doctor to evaluate the print and answer questions on the vaccinations (specifically BCG, Hepatities and Tetanus) that I've done. No proof required, just a Q&A. 

After all's well, I waited again for the 1st friendly lady to get me back into her room, whereby I give her my timbres and received my laminated piece of Card! On general, this is a pleasant experience, the staff in OFII are very professional and nice too. I guess the only fault of this is the 4 months' wait...