The Eagle has landed – house, schools and cars

This week we’ve had terrific successes:

A place to live – as I mentioned in an earlier post, we signed papers to rent a house in the country-side south of Chateauroux. As I write this, I’m seated in the living room of a five (six?) bedroom cottage in Arthon – it’s rustic and rural but well-appointed and comfortable, with a full kitchen, washer / dryer, and surrounded by acres of green space.

It’s 5am right now and I’ve opened some of the shutters and windows – an owl is calling from somewhere across the yard. We’re not in Wedgwood anymore… or Bourges for that matter.

A place for Miles to go to school – on Thursday we registered Miles at a middle-school in Chateauroux. This is not the private school I was pursuing initially, but rather, the school that my friends Jerome and Anne Marie had originally recommended for Miles. We were attracted to the emphasis this school puts on having a “European Classroom” – with kids from many countries, and a strong emphasis and support for French as a second language as well as lessons in English and German for all the students.

By the way, that animal sound outside is getting louder – maybe it’s not an owl. Do foxes make sounds?

A place for Lee to go to school – although we had hoped Miles and Lee could attend school in the same (or adjacent) buildings, we’ve wound up enrolling Lee in a public school a few blocks away. We had a coupe of different choices for Lee, but in the end, we settled on this school based on it’s proximity to Miles’ place, and the warm reception we received from the principal. While the school does not emphasize foreign languages, Lee will spend four hours a week studying French as a second language, guided by teacher who travels between different primary schools. Her full-time teacher speaks English very well, and is a neighbor of Jerome and Anne Marie’s.

I wish I could describe the sounds I’m hearing. They’re quite loud – this critter is closer than I realized. Or bigger than I thought?

Shopping for school supplies – always a challenge for us in the US: the sheet from ASB will say to purchase a certain type of notebook, but we can never find it – we can get something similar… does it matter? Will the kids be set back if they don’t have the right things. Ugh.

It’s similar here, but with many added wrinkles. To begin, we need to translate the list of supplies! And the supplies are different – for example, the writing paper in the recommended notebooks looks more like very complicated graph paper – is this the right stuff? As ever, we’ve had great help from Anne Marie, and this week, from her daughter Jade who recently returned from a three week visit to the US. Ceil, Anne Marie, Jade and the kids spent the better part of Thursday afternoon picking out binders, pens, markers, etc. We think we’re all set.

A car for Ceil to drive – because the company pays for my rental car, but not for Ceil’s, we’ve been casting about for the lowest cost way to get transportation for Ceil. We thought about leasing a car, but the paperwork is extensive, especially for a foreigner, and the usual lease runs 12 months minimum; we thought about buying a car outright and either selling it back to the dealer or shipping it home at the end of our stay, but that’d take more cash than I can readily lay my hands on. So we finally decided to rent a car.

I mentioned this plan to Fatima, a lady that I work with, and a few hours later she told me that she had made all the arrangements. This surprised and delighted me – I was planning to see what kind of rates I could get through my corporate account, but it was not easy – none of the agencies my company works with have outlets in this part of France. Fatima was able to hook us up with a very nice four-door Citroen C4 using their corporate account – which, for all I know, will turn out to be cheaper than my company's – but I’ll check nonetheless.

So, school starts Monday morning and I think we’re all set: a school (check), a way to get there (got it), stuff to bring (yes), a place to come home to afterwards (roger). What else could go wrong?

Not sure why I’m thinking about this at the moment, but it’s been a while since I saw “American Werewolf in London”. That was a good movie. Remember the scene out in the country side where the two guys are attacked by wolves? That was cool. I think I’ll go close the windows. And lock the shutters. That creature out there sounds pissed… or hungry.

We checked out of the hotel and moved into the house yesterday morning. We did a fair amount of food shopping during the afternoon, and had a terrible lunch at restaurant called Cote a Cote – looked like a Sizzler’s on the outside, but the food was not as good (yikes). Ceil has been in-country for two weeks now, and trapped by the kids quotidian gastronomic preferences, she has yet to have an even remotely French meal. She took a brave step at Cote a Cote and ordered an item off the menu which we could not decipher – it had poule in it – that’s chicken, right? Turns out she ordered “chicken fingers and French fries”. A sad moment for her.

The kids prepared dinner for us last night. So many weeks of eating in restaurants has had some effect – the table was fully set, with spoons for soup, dessert and coffe, glasses for wine and water – and a handwritten menu. Lee was the waiter and Miles was the chef. Ceil and I both had the salad to start, dressing on the side, followed by a ham sandwich and cheese plate for me, and fettuccini with tomato sauce for Ceil. The staff joined us for dinner, and much to my surprise, the service continued all the way through clearing the table. What a treat!

Thanks for your continued comments and support.

Love to all.