Mathieu Benjamin has arrived

On October 22, 2007 Mathieu decided to make his appearance in the world. Although, at first he wasn't sure about it, which made his mother have to have an emergency c-section. After all was said and done both Valerie and Mathieu were in perfect health. Mathieu weighed in at an astounding 4150g (9.1pounds) and 55cm (21.7in).

First, like all parents probably say, he is beautiful. Now we have entered his 6th day of life and at the moment he is sleeping allowing his parents to rest for a few hours. Here are a couple of pics.

Valerie at 8 Months

It looks like she is already ready to pop but she still has to wait until mid October.

8th Month of Pregnancy

I always do the same thing. I wait a couple months before publishing new stuff and then I write to blogs in the same day. Well, at least I am writing.

We have almost completed the baby’s room. I repainted it and added some curtains to make it darker. We are getting the crib, stroller, high chair, car seat, and some other things from Val’s friend so we are pretty much ready aside from some odds and ends. Valerie has bought a ton of stuff on eBay recently. Gotta love this site, at first we didn’t want to have used things but after we saw that most of the prices are practically double what you might pay in the US, Valerie decided it was best to do our shopping on eBay. In fact I am thinking about calling the kid eBay…

Everyday has been getting a bit more difficult for Valerie to climb the stairs up to our 3rd story apartment. She is going to stop working in 2 weeks though. She is, of course, extremely excited not to work for the next 4 months. She thinks that she is going to get a bit bored but I am sure that will all change once our baby arrives.

Short Summer Vacation

We just came back from Toulouse which is unfortunately, the last vacation we are going to take for the year with our soon to be arriving son. More about that later.

Toulouse is a beautiful city. It is a bit smaller than Lyon but with lots of charm. It is called the Rose city since all the buildings are built in red brick incorporating old and new architecture. In fact it reminds me a lot of Sacramento. There are beautiful canals that flow through the city that add to its charm. To me, it seems a bit more modern than Lyon, but than Lyon is supposed to be one of the most traditional cities in all of France.

The city is the headquarters for Airbus so you can imagine a large percentage of the people living there work for Airbus or one of its affiliates. Everywhere you look there is an Airbus office. In fact our friend works for Airbus and she lives 2 minutes from her office.

When we landed at the airport we even got to see the A380 for the first time (the biggest commercial airline in the world). Actually both Val and I thought it looked small, but apparently it is shorter in length than most long haul airplanes and wider in the body.

Anyway, we didn’t spend all our time in Toulouse. We spent some time in The Lot. This is a region north of Toulouse. We stayed at a bed and breakfast with a pool (a necessity since it was hot) and then we visited a couple of medieval villages in the area, one being Figeac, the birth place of Jean-François Champollion who was the first to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs as well as a part of the Rosetta Stone.

After our trip in the Lot we traveled by train over to Carcassonne to visit some of Valerie’s family. In Carcassonne we rented a small electric boat and took a trip down the river. What is interesting here is that they have these gates in the river called Ecluses (or Locks). They are sections, usually 2 gates, in the river that raise and lower boats between stretches of water that are at different levels. It is really cool to watch. One stretch of the river maybe 20 feet higher than the other so if the boat is on the lower part they open the gate in front of the boat and the boat enters the gated section. The gate closes behind it and then the gate on the far end opens a slight bit to let the water rise within the gated area. It is similar to filling a bathtub. Once the gated area has risen to the level of the new stretch of river the boat can travel through. I believe this is the way the Panama Canal works.

Overall, the vacation was short as they always seem to be and now we stuck at home for a while. At least it is for a good a reason. The baby is due in 2 months!

Worst Flight Ever - Morocco

We recently traveled to Morocco where we spent several days in Marrakech and a few in Agadir. It was my first steps on the African continent so that was rather interesting for me. The country is well worth a visit and we really enjoyed our stay. But the true point of this blog is to speak about Atlas Blue Airlines which we will never fly again.

Atlas Blue is one of those normally good low-cost airlines and they offer direct flights from Lyon, France to Marrakech. Well, to start, going over to Marrakech wasn’t so bad. We had a flight at 10 pm which was projected to land in Marrakech at 11pm. (It is a 3 hour flight, and Marrakech is 2 hours behind France.) So the first leg of the trip we took off a little over 2 hours late arriving at around 1 am in the morning. Luckily we had a person from the bed and breakfast there to pick us up. I am sure he wasn’t too happy but we were happy to be there and to get some sleep.

Waiting in hell….

On the return we had a flight at 4 pm so we arrived at 2pm which is normal for an international flight. After checking our baggage and heading through security it was about 3 pm so we had plenty of time to relax. There wasn’t much to look at, only a Duty Free shop and a small cafeteria. Around 4pm we notice that our flight had been pushed back to 6pm on the Departure screen. No big deal we can handle a small delay. Then, when 6pm came, there was still no plane and the flight had been pushed back to 10pm on the departure screen. Now it was getting a bit frustrating. No announcement had been made so we had no information on why we were being delayed. Around 8pm the flight completely disappeared from the screen and once again, no announcement was made. The passengers were starting to get pissed off so a group of them demanded that the airport personnel give us food and tell us what was going on. We were able to get food consisting of a piece of bread and bologna but no information on the flight. In fact many at this time, passengers were heading over to duty free and buying alcohol to drink since the cafeteria was near dry of food and drink. Finally, at just after midnight, a plane was prepared to take us home. Once we boarded the captain announced, in fact he was the first person to give us any information, that he had been called 2 hours prior to come to work to fly us home. He followed that statement by telling us that we would be making a detour to Madrid, Spain to drop off 50 passengers. So 2 hours later we arrived in Madrid and dropped off the passengers. An hour after the passengers were dropped off we were still sitting on the tarmac. The captain came on again and said, “I believe you all have the right to know the truth. We are supposed to pick up 50 more passengers here, but they will not board the plane.” Personally, I can understand this since they were supposed to be going to Marrakech but were going to be going first to Lyon 2 hours in the wrong direction and then to Marrakech. By 5 am after sitting on the tarmac for over 2 hours, the passengers finally boarded. We arrived in Lyon at 7:30am. Only 15 hours late!!!! Oh and I forgot to mention, there is no beverage or food on this flight. NEVER, NEVER FLY ATLAS BLUE!!

We Are Having a Baby

Ok, so I am a little late to write this on the blog but WE ARE HAVING A BOY!!!! As of today, Valerie is exactly 5 months pregnant. She is getting bigger everyday. It is crazy to think that a living being is growing within her body. Every night, he kicks her around. I tell her that he is already defending me. We are still not sure about the name but we are thinking to call him Mathieu. This name will work both in English and in French.

Anyway, I have to chalk another one up to socialist medicine. We have been looking into all the benefits of having a baby in France and they seem to be numerous. We are going to pay nothing for having the baby and on top of that if we are lucky we may even get a stipend for having the baby. Although this depends on your income level and we may exceed the maximum but there is still hope. On top of this Valerie will have 4 months off to take care of the baby and I will get a measly 2 weeks but that is better than nothing.

The only problem we seem to be encountering is finding a day care. Apparently, there is only one in our neighborhood and it is on a first come first serve basis. Hopefully we will get lucky come January when we will need the day care. If we can’t get in we will hire a Nanny. This option costs more but we will get a good size reduction on our taxes at least.

Well, I guess life is going to change for good moving forward.

Another India photo...
Somebody had to pay for this trip so I sent Valerie out to pick rice for the day. She is smiling because I haven't told her the plan for the day.

India photo...
I look serious here but I am really just trying to hold back my happiness to be Varkala on the Arabian Sea following a massage and a swim. Or maybe it was constipation.

India photo 2...
Valerie is bigger than the Taj Mahal. It is crazy how small this building made of marble really is. :)

A few India photos since I forgot to post them when I blogged.
I couldn't get any closer. They were a bit more vicious than I expected. They act like they own the place or something.

Weekend Trips

One of the things I really like about living in France is its proximity to everything. You can travel through several countries in just a few hours making it great to take weekend trips just to visit a particular city. For instance, last weekend we flew over for a night to London. (Literally 24 hours!!). We took the equivalent of Southwest airlines over and if you buy in advance it costs less than 100 euros round trip.

In addition we belong to an apartment exchange site on the Internet and a woman from London let us stay at her flat for the night. We didn’t have too much time to socialize with her since we only had 24 hours to enjoy London but from what we got to know of her she was extremely nice. Originally from India she had lived and worked as Teacher in London for the past 30 years. Now, she spends her time enjoying life traveling as often as possible to make up for all the time she couldn’t travel while teaching. She was unhappy we didn’t stay longer though. Next time we will. J

Her flat, was near Wimbledon which in reality was a bit far from the center of London but we didn’t mind. It was just like having a free bed and breakfast in a city that normally costs at minimum 100 euros/night.

Anyway, we have done this trip a couple of times, since I love to go over to London to drink a beer in the pubs, eat fish & chips, Indian and Thai, as well as to have a full size coffee which is non-existent in Lyon (you only find espresso shots in Lyon). I still haven’t figured out why Starbucks hasn’t expanded here with its success in Paris. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that Nice will be next since there are so many English people there. On Valerie’s side, she typically enjoys the same things minus the fish & chips and coffee but also adding a Whopper at Burger King.

The only problem with these trips is that the weekend always goes by to fast. And, of course before it is over we are already planning our next trip.

Straining Your Senses

There is a lot to say about traveling in India, we stepped off the plane in New Delhi at the bright an early hour of 5 am. Luckily there was a driver to pick us up because we already felt lost. We found our driver in the crowd of people and he rushed us out the door without speaking a word. It wasn’t long after that we realized that our English-speaking driver that we supposedly hired didn’t speak any English. It was good to know that we were about to spend 8 wonderful days with him. We left the airport and our India trip was officially on its way.

First, it is necessary to describe India a little bit upon arrival. IT IS INSANE!! India is a constant barrage of activity; a full-frontal, continuous shock to all your senses. You are slammed from arrival to departure. The first thing you notice is all the people. They are everywhere. There is no place to get away from the people, you see them walking everywhere even on the highways. You find yourself wondering how far they are going to walk and where they are walking too. Then, you see all the trash in the street which they heaps are constantly being added. You notice that the trash collection agency is somewhat reminisence of a Flinstones cartoon including cows, pigs and dogs munching away at it as you step over or try to avoid them. Then you smell the pollution. It infiltrates every pore of your body. And if you haven’t already noticed India is loud! The sounds of car horns begin to echo in your head and they never go away even when you are sleeping. The car horn is a cultural necessity to navigate through cars, bikes, people, camels, wild dogs and cows that all seem to use the middle of the road in the same proportions. Did I mention India is loud?

They say India is a love/hate relationship for a foreigner. As you step off the plane you feel right away that you want to get back on and leave. For us it took 2 days before we felt acclimatized. In fact in the first few days we were a bit afraid of everything including the food and especially the water. We ate only one small vegetarian meal a day for the first 2 days because we just didn’t feel hungry. Once you begin to feel more confident about the food you realize that it is really very good and you begin to branch out. Each night we were trying different things and I must say the Tandoori is excellent especially my personal favorite Chicken Tikka Labrador. (It really could be dog!! jk)

They also say that between 30 and 70% of travelers experience some form of diarrhea during their travel. We were in the lucky minority who somehow avoided diarrhea, dysentery, malaria and all the other horrible diseases that scare you. There were 2 nights during my trip that I heard someone puking everything up in a toilet. This was not a pleasant sound. On the other hand we didn’t avoid travelers’ constipation. But I guess you can’t always be lucky.

We learned a new word as well, a "tout", anybody who attempts to take you -- at any cost and at great lengths -- into their or their friend's hotel, taxi, auto-rickshaw, store, whatever, for the commission they expect to receive. Scamming is like an art form in this country. My favorite was in Pushkar, they try to give you a bunch of flower peddles to throw in the lake as a religious gesture. You think how nice of them to offer you this small gift and you head to the lake with them and throw in your flowers. Then they demand a couple of hundred rupees. Luckily we read about it before and didn’t fall for it. Everywhere you go people are trying to take your money. The tour guides seem to be the worst, they hit you up the second you arrive at an attraction and tell you they know everything about the place and then charge you 10 euros or more to take you on a tour. It is a bit pathetic when you consider that a whole day usually costs no more than 20 euros. At one point we had a little girl following us in Ajmer demanding us to give her money. She wouldn’t leave us alone. It took us more than half the trip to get the right tone in our voice when saying NO to make them go away. At least some are honest about it. In another town, one rickshaw driver wanted to charge us 100 rupees to go somewhere. We said no, and then he said I will charge you 20 rupees if you go to two stores just to look (no need to buy) and then he would receive his commission from the store. So we bought in. Of course in the end the place we originally wanted to go could have been right around the corner. You have to realize they live on 180 rs a day and if just 3 tourists give them a 50 rs (less than 1 euro) or more they have made there day without doing any work. Life is good…

Another crazy thing was the way everyone wants to check you out, see what you’re doing, shake your hand, and take their picture with you. For Valerie it was even worse. Indian men seem to have no shame when it comes to staring. They see a western girl and boom the girl is like an eye magnet… I think at times they would ask me, just to be polite, if they could take my picture and then Valerie’s. My opinion is that they then throw my picture out or cut out the section with me in it so they can just have Valerie.

We found negotiating to be extremely funny for a little while. The tourist price can at times be 5 times the price for an Indian (or maybe I should say always). You automatically need to start at half and then negotiate up. You can never get the Indian price and after a while you just become plain fed up and start to pay the second price offered.

No blog about India is complete without a discussion about driving in general. Foreigners beware. There is a pecking order for right of way to this chaos: cows are at the top, trucks and buses are second, and dogs and pedestrians are at the bottom. In between buses and pedestrian is every other contraption (term used loosely). I find that if you are not driving a bus you better get the hell off the road because a bus coming barreling down the road will not get out of the way for anyone and he doesn’t care if there is not enough room to pass he is going to pass anyway. With that said the buses are the fastest vehicle on the road. However, our non-English speaking driver wasn’t too bad. When it comes to the rules and laws for driving in India I have come to the conclusion that there are really no rules or laws.

Here are the few I picked up while sitting in the backseat of a car hanging on for dear life:

1. The most aggressive driver always wins.

2. If you don’t honk at least 50 times every 100 feet you may cause an accident.

3. Push through pedestrians at all costs. Pedestrians have no rights even if there is a pedestrian crossing.

4. Do not hit the sleeping cow in the middle of the street. You are better off hitting another car.

5. Passing is expected and must be accompanied by honking the horn.

6. If there is room on the street (small or large) use it even if it seems like there is a not enough room or it is a sidewalk because of the thousands of people walking along.

7. Lanes have absolutely no significance. They are more considered street art if they are actually there.

7. Park in the middle of the street if there is no parking anywhere else.

8. The driver behind is responsible for knowing exactly what is going on the mind of the driver in front.

I personally found that your normal day consisted of a cold shower, lots of sun block and a good prayer that today is not the day I will get diarrhea and your night consisted of a cold shower, lots of mosquito block and a good prayer that tonight I will not get diarrhea.

Here I could go on and talk about all the forts and palaces we visited but you would probably just get bored. The real adventure was in the north so in quick summary we visited Taj Mahal in Agra, then on to Rajasthan to Jaipur, Pushkar, Bundi, Ajmer, and Udaipur. In the Kerala state in the south we visited Alleppey and Varkala. But instead I am going to tell you the highlights.

1. Obviously we couldn’t make a trip to India without seeing the Taj Mahal. It was amazing. The amount of marble used to build it and the share size leaves you in awe. A quick history lesson for those interested: The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan built it as a mausoleum for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It took only 16 years to build.

2. Udaipur was beautiful and very relaxing. After spending a night in a hotel for 300 rs (6 euros) we decided to step it up and took a nicer hotel for 1500 rs (with breakfast). It was worth it. We spent 4 days there and really eating at some of the nicer restaurants; however, the most famous, the Lake Palace which is situated right in the middle of the lake was booked when we tried to go there. And unfortunately, the only way you can go is if you have a reservation to eat or are staying at the hotel. We did pass by it on a boat. It is an impressive palace that has been renovated into a hotel. You may not know this but the James Bond film Octopussy was shot in Udaipur. Almost every hotel and restaurant has a free showing of Octopussy at 7:30 each night so of course we watched it. Valerie and I discovered beer there as well. There are only a few regions that you will find bars or clubs in all of India such as Bombay and Goa. In fact it is even difficult to find alcohol in restaurants. The ones that do serve beer usually don’t have license so they make you place the beer in a coffee cup and the bottle under the table. It is quite funny actually. One night we were at a restaurant and we both wanted to have a beer but there was nothing on the menu. Valerie had read there was a term that is used in some restaurants called ‘Special Tea’ so she ordered a ‘Special Tea’ and it just so happened that it was a beer. What luck! We learned the hard way that local Indian beer only comes in 32 oz bottles which are a lot if you only want one small beer but it is really cheap.

3. House boating in Alleppey was incredible. We flew from Udaipur to Kochi and in the airport we met two travel writers who wanted to share a ride down to Alleppey in order to cut costs. Initially we wanted to go to Kochi but we decided what the hell. They told us that they had a motel on the backwaters that we could stay at for 900rs (little under 20 euros) per night. The motel was so hidden we the taxi couldn’t even find it. We had to wait in the taxi on the side of the road for 15 minutes for a boat to arrive. From there a man on a small rowboat picked us up and took us 10 minutes down the river to the motel. What a surprise! It was a small 4 cottage place right on the edge of the river with rice paddies behind hence the name ‘The Rice Garden’. We absolutely loved it. The only sound you could hear was the river. After being in noise and pollutions for 9 days it was a welcome retreat. They made us a home-cooked dinner of traditional Varkalan cuisine that night and a Varkalan breakfast in the morning. The rooms were very simple including a small terrace looking at the river but you didn’t need more. And like the atmosphere the owner was extremely nice. I would highly recommend this place.

The next morning we got on a houseboat (Kettuvallom) and spent the next 24 hours on the backwaters passing rice paddies, palm trees and quaint villages. At night we watched the sunset and then lay on the mats at the stern to look for constellations in the night sky. The houseboat was the perfect way for exploring the beauty of the Kerala backwaters.

4. Finally Varkala. This part of our vacation was all about relaxing. We arrived in Varkala where we had already booked a room in a hotel just five minutes walking from the beach. The first night we were unhappy with our choice (or should I say my choice of hotels). We wanted to end in luxury but it really wasn’t luxury. It was a small room with a tiny bathroom in bad condition. Plus we were hidden on the ground floor on a corner without any light. So we set off to search for another hotel the next day. We found one but it was charging double the rate which wasn’t a problem but we decided first to ask our hotel if we could change rooms and it just so happened they had a much nicer second floor room with balcony over look the pool for the same price as our original room. We decided to change and this made all the difference. I felt sorry for the lady who took over our old room. In fact she changed rooms not long after. Anyway, there isn’t much to do in Varkala but get massages, do Yoga, go to the beach, watch the sunset over the Arabian Sea, eat and drink in the restaurants on the cliffs overlooking the sea. We did them all and it was the perfect ending to our time in India.

On a final note, tips are not required in India and of course the American in me wanted to give tips at restaurants and to rickshaw and taxi drivers. However, after a while Valerie was getting fed up with me and tipping so I finally put a stop to it. Don’t know why I added this but it was funny how many little arguments we got into over tipping.