Time for pumpkins! It was a rather quiet month travel-wise, although we handled a lot of day-to-day business as you’ll read below. Consequently, I’m sorry to say that we have few pictures to share. The temperatures took a dip and it was clear that fall had arrived. The rains, again, were thoroughly enjoyable but after so much time lived in dry California, we don’t think it’ll get old to us. Southern France makes fun of the North’s weather, calling it too wet and gloomy. We haven’t found that to be the case and it’s a good balance for us. Lille is easily 5-10 degrees cooler than Paris in the summer and after cooking there in the heat the year we arrived, this area is perfectly suited for us.
We love October and started to watch horror movies in the evenings. It was a natural to bake bat cookies and we delivered them to the staffs at the cafés which we frequent. I’ll use any excuse to do some simple baking to fill the kitchen with great smells. Baked items are so easy to share and everyone seems to appreciate the results. Unless they’re lying to me. It is possible.
Amiens, a two-hour train ride from here, has a large bi-annual one day street market that we naturally had to see. Train rides are another thing that we never tire of – air travel yes, but train rides, no. They also host a highly-touted Christmas market.
The flea market was amazing. As I’ve said, they have it twice a year and it spreads over 51 streets, it states on the website. We had brought umbrellas because the weather app showed it might rain. Unfortunately it rained alright – torrentially all day. It would have been fabulous if it hadn’t been, but after sloshing around for a few hours, even with umbrellas, our pants were wet up to the knees and the wind had also blown it enough to soak our coats. We stopped at a little pub for a meal and a warm up. Got fortified with beef carbonnade – a nice stew with a touch of nutmeg, over fries. With baguette and red wine, it did the job and we did some more looking before catching the train home.
This market had a huge, varied inventory from children’s toys to antique furniture. I might have been tempted to purchase a few things, if the weather had permitted lingering. We mainly went to see if we could find an old cabinet that we could repurpose to cover the A/C unit. Something that would hide it and blend in, like just another wood cabinet. I had made a cardboard box wrapped in holiday wrap when we first got the A/C, but that had gotten worn. We did come across one wood cabinet that we would have been able to use but the seller wanted too much and wouldn’t haggle. If we’d not been so clearly Americans, we might have had better luck. As soon as we open our mouths, the price goes up. So back on the train, we decided that we would add some fold-up rain ponchos to throw into our cart, along with the umbrellas when we see that it ‘might’ rain. Our raincoats would have been overkill if it hadn’t rained or rained much, since it wasn’t cold. Ponchos will be easy to tote, fill in the gap nicely and keep us dry if the need arises. And we found some in town as soon as we got back. The town of Amiens is utterly charming and when we return in December, we’ll be sure to be in weather-appropriate gear.
One odd occurrence this month was that a French acquaintance asked us to recommend a place for him to stay in Miami, since he is planning a trip there this spring. Many people, who have never been to the United States, can not grasp how large it is. It really isn’t the first time someone has said, “Oh, you’re Americans. Do you know So-and-So? She lives in (fill in the state).” Seriously. We have been asked that. It’s hard not to laugh. We smile politely and say no.
But this is someone we see weekly, who has traveled to the US and was fully aware that we may not know the area, so we felt we needed to do a better job than to just state that we don’t know Miami. Fortunately for him, we do know someone who has relatives that live there and have first hand knowledge of the city. We texted our friends, who were very willing to impart what they knew. They did so with the caveat that their relatives no longer lived there and they themselves had not visited for decades. But the information was still valuable and G researched places to stay to accompany it. We felt we’d done the best we could and he was happy at our efforts.
As the first week passed, the apartment heaters kicked on – more evidence that the temperatures were dropping. We finally started to get some health items taken care of, which is such a relief after being sequestered for so long. G returned to our new dentist to have a broken molar capped and for our first major health repair, it was a great success. Then he went to our new cardiologist who outfitted him with a monitor to wear for the day to gauge how well his heart is working. I also found a new, local GP who speaks English. She agreed to take me on as a new patient, which I really appreciated since, in my research, it was hard to find one that would.
G spent a good amount of time this month thoroughly researching our US health insurance with world-wide coverage because we’d been notified that the cost would be increasing in January. There is quite a bit of information and ex-pat advice on the subject, regardless of which country you are living in. G had to wade through that to find better alternatives. We both have Medicare which doesn’t cover outside of the US. We also this year received the Carte Vitale, the French government health insurance card that provides us with universal coverage, including dental and vision, in France. Partnered with a mutuelle complémentaire santé (private top-up insurance that covers what the government doesn’t), that we subscribe to for less than €200 monthly, they provide our comprehensive care.
We then discussed, and decided to drop, our US world-wide health insurance. Our US costs between Medicare, which we can’t drop without garnering a high penalty upon renewal, and our US insurance, we were approaching $24K annually. All insurance reimbursement requests, including documentation, are submitted online, and require deductibles and co-pays. Prescription reimbursements are too difficult to handle through the third-party provider. So, needless to say, we weren’t getting full value for our costs. We can pick up the insurance again when/if we ever return to the US.
Lastly, we also discovered that as French residents and part of the European Union (EU), we can receive the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC), free global coverage good for all EU countries. If we go outside the EU, we’ll buy travel insurance for the trip.
By pure chance, I read an article about wills in France and discovered that as foreign residents, it is a law that one has to have a notarized, government-registered codicil attached to one’s will, if it is from another country. It wasn’t a complicated issue and we already had a notary down the street which we had used before. After we read the requirement, we simply trotted ourselves down the street and got that taken care of. Apparently, it became a requirement to specify your directives after a huge scandal involving a wealthy family whose children (living in different countries) fought over the father’s will with their mother, who was living in France when he passed. Children have very specific rights that can trump the spouse. So now you have to officially say that you want to avoid any tugging between differing country’s laws. It was an easy thing to accomplish.
Other non travel related things involved our handy guy, Giovanni. He was able to take time out of his busy schedule to replace the toilet tank mechanism and take care of a small kitchen sink leak, which was a relief. At the hardware store, I found a very light wood which was suitable for building the box to cover the A/C unit, since we only use it one month out of the year. I happily discovered that the hardware staff could cut the wood to my measurement and began to work on that project. I can faux paint it to blend in with our other furniture.
We had an overnight visit from an Oakland couple, Wlad and Sony. G had worked with Wlad before they both retired. We met them at the train station and walked to the apartment, explaining the architecture. They came bearing wine – always a treat, parked their bags and we gave a tour of our place. Then we went for a walk through both plazas and along the oldest, historic street. It began to cool so after picking up a fresh baguette, we returned to the apartment for lunch. I’d made a simple French country chicken soup that went well with the bread and we served a white wine. They love baguette, love French butter, loved the soup and are also wine-appreciative. Much conversation and getting to know each other. They are really fun people. After lunch, we went back out – they wanted to see some shops and we went through New Lille, around the corner. At 6pm we took in an opera performance held in a side foyer. It was a nice program – an hour long, with some in English. It was a real disappointment that they had closed off the stairs so that we couldn’t show them the immense, historic grand lobby and theatre, or exit through the main doors, which was actually one of the main reasons for us getting the tickets. We’d been let in the side entrance and exited the same way. Very disappointing.
After the performance, we walked to the restaurant L’Assiette du Marché and had a wonderful, leisurely meal. Back home, more visiting before turning in. They’re giving thought to leasing a place in France for a few months at a time, which we discussed at length. In the morning, G left to go around the corner to the patisserie for croissants and baguette while I boiled eggs, plated cheese and ham, cut figs, put blueberries in a bowl, brought out butter, poured milk in a pitcher, also yogurt – both plain and lemon. – set it all out on the sideboard with plates and utensils.
After breakfast, we bundled up for a walk through old town, as it had turned out to be a cold day. After our walk through the oldest part of Lille, we had originally planned to have salad at home but the weather was NOT a salad day. G suggested that they try a northern France staple – mussels and frites (fries), which they were familiar with. There is a restaurant right off the plaza which practically serves only that, which we went to. I had the curry broth mussels, Sony had the wine broth, G and Wlad had the chorizo broth mussels. We tasted each others’ and they were all good. G told me later that he thought mine was the best of the bunch. The chorizo was not integrated well into the broth, so its taste wasn’t throughout the dish. Sony’s was in the broth – really good although subtle and the curry was also in the broth and very flavorful,
Before heading back to the train station, Sony told us that she fell head over heels for our guest sofa bed, wanting to figure out how to check it in as an extra big piece of luggage! G helped her find the company online and she’s going to do more research to see if she can get it in the states. It’s gratifying to hear that it is that comfortable. We’ve tried out both sofa beds – the guest room and the living room. They’re both comfortable and easy to open/close for us. The living room sofa bed, however, is actually uncomfortable as a couch. Eventually we’ll be looking to replace it.
Toward the end of the month, we tried a new restaurant, called Salsa Posada, which was really good. We had Sangria – very good, their chips were deliciously fresh and guacamole perfect. They surely made their own tortillas, both flour and corn. We ordered a plate of beef fajitas and a combo plate with a chicken taco and a chicken enchilada. It was all wonderful and made me long for the days I could eat those things regularly! A dinner filled with reminiscing about people long gone and family meals we had shared. Back home with a very happy tummy.
On the 24th, we celebrated the day we moved into this apartment, 3 years ago. Sometimes it’s a surprise how long we’ve been here but most of the time I feel like we have been here much longer – it’s such a good fit. To include our neighbors and friends in the occasion, I baked cow cookies. They were delivered with little cartons of milk, on a whimsy. For the evening, we went to a restaurant we’d been promising ourselves that we would eat at on a special occasion, named Le Lion Bossu. It was an incredible meal which included ox cheek on rocket salad and Iberian wild black pork. Apologies that I only took one photo below of an appetizer, but we were too engrossed in the meal to take pictures.
In a rare occurrence, we had a pleasant visit from Fabrice, our landlord, who stopped by for an espresso. His office is down the street from us but he is kept so busy that we generally communicate by text messages. We caught up on each others’ news and as always, he patiently explains things we are confused about, such as school schedules and national holiday closings. One story he told us absolutely horrified us. It was about another building that his family owns, a block away, which was rented out as a café, with apartments rented above. The café proprietor, without any training or understanding, made modifications to the interior structure without notifying Fabrice. When he vacated this year, Fabrice found that he (or someone) had cut off support beams in the basement to run venting piping, cut out stair structures and over head beams for more piping – some just for head room. The pictures we saw were an absolute slaughter of this historic building and the end result of the support butchering was that the building was actually listing to the side, pulling away from the adjacent structure. Fabrice was discussing this devastation very methodically and we were audibly gasping. It was going to be horribly expensive and time-consuming to shore up the supports and save the building, not to mention that the vintage beams were irreplaceable. He was doubtful that he could be compensated because he would have to prove exactly who did it, but most of all, I was stunned by his calmness as opposed to our reaction – we were absolutely furious and enraged on his behalf. It was incomprehensible to us that anyone would even consider doing such an action. It was just incredible and we were so sad for Fabrice.
On a much lighter note, during the last week this month, we’ve gotten ready for the biggest trip we’ve taken yet, since getting to France. We’re celebrating G’s 70th birthday in style and next month, we’ll definitely have more pictures to post !!
twokiddosoverseas.com 
You must be logged in to post a comment.