Carcassonne (11th century village) Valerie and her cousin

Sushi in Montpellier with Valerie's cousin and god child. 

Fetes et Bal en France

Ok, what can I say, I am feeling inspired today. Anyways, I realized that it was necessary to mention the village festivals or should I say drunken festivals that occur every summer. In France there is a festival for about everything you can imagine in the summer but the most common are the Fete de village and if you live in the country, the Bals. The Bals are a once in a lifetime experience. It is highly unlikely a tourist will come across a Bal. In fact if they can, I highly recommend it. I most likely am one of very few Americans who have attended a Bal. In Haute Savoie there is a Bal every summer. Everyone from miles around attend the Bal. Of the 4 or 5000 people, ages range from 14 to probably 70 and 80% of them are drunk. It is based around a theme and this year was country western. An American flag was even flying. However, I don't think much of the drunken crowd even took notice.

At this particular Bal, we came with a crowd of about 15 people. When we walked up there was a line of about 100 people but when you come from the area apparently there is no such thing as waiting so we walked right up to the front of the line. As we were walking in there was a full cow roasting on a spit. Apparently it was to be eaten the next day.

There are several different areas of entertainment. The VIP area is for champagne only, a live music area, a dance and techno tent, a designated throw up area, (just kidding) and about 3 other areas which for some reason I can't recall there names. Hmmm, a bit strange.....

The people are the best part of the Bal. When the alcohol is flowing the crowd gets wild. There are people dancing on the tables between bottles of champagne. There is champagne coming from every direction unfortunately most of it isn't falling into your glass. Most of the younger crowd are the ones out of control but there are few old ones mixed in.

We left a bit early; I think it was 3 in the morning. At that point Valerie had had enough. In fact she had enough for both of us. I had to control myself since somebody had to get us home. Needless to say the next day was a bit rough for Valerie.

Apartment Hunting in Lyon

I know it has been a while since I have written. I figure now is as good a time as any. It has already been 1 year of life in France! Things are going well. However, Valerie and I are still separated due to work (not marriage wise). I have just finished the période d’essaie (trial period) for my company which means it is safe to say that I will not be losing my job anytime soon. And it also means that Valerie can soon quit her job in the south and move here.

However, there are some small problems to overcome as always. First, we need to buy an apartment in Lyon. Since we both have jobs right now we can qualify for a good loan. But without both having jobs we would not qualify. So, we have been searching for several months and are yet to find the right place. Valerie wants something old with character. I would like something newer so we don’t have to pay for unforeseen problems later, like leaking roofs and plumbing that typically occur in older apartments. So this is a bit of a challenge for us. The real problem of searching for an apartment comes from that fact that there is no main listing for the city. In the US you go to one agency and he has a listing for everything available in the area and they are willing to take you around town for the day. Here in France we have to go to each agency and ask about there listings. Usually they have only 1 listing that fits are criteria so it is a real pain in the ass. Second, when we find something we like online we call the agency to ask for a visit. Well, typically we get an answering machine and they never call you back. It is amazing. I swear they have no sense of urgency. It seems like they don’t care to make money. I have two great examples. The first one is when we walked into an agency and the guy looked at us like what the hell are you doing here. Then when we asked him if he could look for an apartment for us he proceeded to pull out a piece of paper from a trash pile to write down what we were looking for. Needless to say we never got a call back. The second example occurred recently. I visited an apartment that I really liked but Valerie wasn’t in Lyon to visit it. I took some photos and Valerie liked it as well but needed to visit it for verification. So she called the agent to ask if he could make a special visit on Sunday for us since it was the only possible time for two weeks that she could come to see it. “What, Sunday, that is unheard of!” He told her, that they would find us another apartment that we would like soon. UNBELIVABLE! They really don’t care about their commission. So we are still searching.

Once we find an apartment, it will take at least 3 months for everything to clear. At this point we are looking at November or December and most likely longer before Valerie can move here.

We are still together every weekend. We have been doing a lot of small travelling on the Mediterranean since it has been so beautiful.