Weather has warmed, skies are blue, sun is out and it’s time for aperols ! We aren’t traveling this month, as we had originally planned but I’ll explain that later. Yes, this is a blah, blah, blah month with no pictures, a special break for us (and you) after last month’s breakneck Italy tour!
But first off – one photo. We went to a friend’s birthday party in a cool, little local bar in Wazemmes – met some really interesting people and there was a wall sculpture of a whale, made up of books. Tres coool.
We also joined friends at a party celebrating one month since the official opening of another friend’s Mexican restaurant. I believe we mentioned that, with photos, in an earlier monthly blog. It was a nice evening with good entertainment.
We saw that our passports were to expire within the year and when you travel, you must be aware of the governing rules. Some places of travel require that your passport is not newer than 6 months, others require that you have no less than 6 months remaining on it. There was a rule that you must have empty pages available for stamping, which meant if you traveled quite a bit in the 10 years that your passport is viable, you needed to order extra pages when you did renew them. Now, there are many places that are forgoing stamping your passport (much to the chagrin of people who love to collect multiple stamps) and the extra pages are probably going to the wayside.
All of this just to talk about our photos on the drivers licenses, the visa cards, the health card and the senior train ID’s. I’ve always taken good photos, with the exception of driver’s licenses in the states. One spectacular failure was when I was 27 or so. I had a horrible gastric issue that made me lose an extraordinary amount of weight to where I was 5’4″ and just under 100 pounds – trust me when I say it was not a good look. Lying in bed on day 8, I realized that I’d forgotten to renew my license and in pulling it out I saw that my grace period was closing. The DMV was around the corner so I hoisted myself out of bed, pulled my hair back in a pony tail and ran to take care of it. I should also mention that I had an unsightly mouth sore on one side running half way down to my chin. I gave no thought to any of it but when my license came a few weeks later in the mail, I burst into tears. I never considered myself particularly vain as I did not (nor, still) wear makeup, nor did I sport any complicated hair styles. But I kid you not when I tell you that this photo made me look like an extra from a vampire movie. The whitest skin possible, gaunt cheeks, hollow dark, rimmed eyes and what looked like a trail of blood dripping out of the corner of my mouth. I did not know that you could ask for another photo and lived with that for four years until the renewal came up. It would make cashiers gasp and that was back when they actually checked your licenses. I never had such a horrible one again but even then, they were never good photos.
In coming here, the bad luck continues to include the last three mentioned. Over the last 10 years, my hair turned salt and pepper and it’s now mostly salt. I only state that to underline how it looks in photo booth photos for all of those cards. I look like a ghost and many times more like the ghost of a convict. You aren’t allowed to wear your glasses or to smile (I have a very nice smile) but you are allowed makeup. The first ID photos here, I realized that I should probably wear some make up so that I didn’t look like it was taken of me in a morgue. OK, makeup 101, do it yourself – yep, you guessed it – I looked like Ronald McDonald’s auntie with white hair. I scrapped that approach and just settled for what I got.
When our passport renewal was up, we were tight on time with the travel restrictions. We’d just returned from the Italy trip and had barely 6 months before the Kenya trip so we needed to get them in the mail to the Paris embassy. I scheduled a haircut appointment for the morning of the photoshoot (photo booth’s aren’t allowed for these) and picked out my clothes carefully – a colorful scarf to punch in some color since I would have this photo for 10 years. A day in advance, I woke up with a blight on one eye lid and the next day it evolved into a spectacular black eye, completely ringing my one eye. Great. And my haircutter canceled my appointment because she was sick. Of course. I was set up for failure but I wasn’t going to take it lying down.
Around the corner is a makeup place called Sophora, which I have never set foot in, in the seven years we’ve lived here. I resolutely marched in with my remedial French. I promptly and spectacularly failed to convey the issue to the sales clerk. In desperation, I began to channel Marcel Marceau, the famous French mime. With wide gestures I mimed photo – she nodded – I said ‘pour passport’ – she nodded again. THEN I whipped off my glasses and pointed to my eye and she took a quick breath in with wide eyes. An understanding flit across her face as she zipped over to open a drawer lined with flesh-colored tubes. Picking up two, she compared them to my face before returning one to the drawer. Then she proceeded to gingerly apply the concealer with a brush to my eye and handed me a mirror. Mission accomplished, I bought the tube. As for the haircut, my stylist always artfully manipulates my hair in different directions with product (which I have in my drawer and seldom use), which is why I had scheduled my appointment for the photo on that morning. Back home with concealer in hand, I pulled out the products, turned my head completely upside down and tried my best to copy the hairstylist’s approach. Well, I didn’t look like I’d stuck my fingers in a light socket so I decided to take it as a win. And here you are, five paragraphs later, just to learn that the photo session netted something less than a morgue picture. One I am happy to live with for the next ten years. The scarf really did the job. Poor G, everyone looked at him after seeing my eye. It didn’t help that I feigned “don’t hit me” when I looked at him !! I have a cruel streak. These photos, which G insisted he include (he doesn’t have anything to do when we don’t travel since photos are his job and I have to placate him somehow), don’t really even show the extent of that black eye which completely encircled the eye. But the last one is with concealer on my passport photo.
Now on to why we aren’t traveling this month. When we first got here, it was a year before the pandemic. When that hit, I took French language lessons online. Then after the quarantine ended, we faithfully attended a French language institution for classes. With poor memory skills, I also beat myself up at home daily, going over the lessons. G did not study and did much better than I, which made me consider many homicidal responses. Then in frustration and burn out, I withdrew from the rigorous self-induced regime and stopped all studying during last year. Getting my 10-year residency card took off a great amount of pressure. Of course there came a time when we knew we had to return to the commitment of learning this language, so we looked for ways to make it fun again. We came across an immersion course in the south of France, in Vichy for 55+ aged people. This sounded perfect. The courses here are open to all international students and for as many courses as we’ve taken, we have discovered that we don’t catch on to the lessons as fast as the younger set. We need more time and more review – we were actually slowing the entire class down which was not working well. To go to a warmer climate (Lille’s June is often overcast and rainy), in a small French town, taking course work in the mornings and walking on cultural tours in the afternoons – all in French? We signed up.
Then after reading some reviews of the course, we were alerted that despite the course tag of Immersion for 55+, it actually held the language classes for age 16 and above with only the cultural tours being held for 55+. Checking the website again, we found they did indeed state that the classes were open to all ages. We were back to the same issue we had locally and had no reason to travel for the same set up. It was something that I was really looking forward to and we canceled out of the course. We are back to looking for course work geared for an older generation. It was a bitter disappointment. With the month of June zipping by, July was too short for signing up for any language courses and in August all of France closes down. I will consider going back to the regular classes at Alliance Française, but have decided to start at the very beginning again, to regain my footing and confidence. When I get to the point that I’m getting lost again, I will just continue to retake that particular course until I have it well in hand. But I still hunt for ways to make it less a chore and more as ‘fun with adventure’.
Still, staying in town did net us getting our balcony looked at by the owner. The apartment was built in 1920, the cement, support balusters had become compromised, and one in particular was separated from the cap rail (see video). One set of photos we can include involved its repair. We had a friend who stayed at our place while we were in Italy and she is the one who discovered the issue, thank goodness. Over a total of three days of work over two weeks, the balcony is once again secured and has been water-sealed to prevent further degradation. I know – such excitement to report. You don’t travel and this is what you’re reduced to.
This group was playing next to the Apple Store on our street. Good music, enjoyable, and people engaged. Unfortunately, the police came by and asked them to ‘move on’ since this was not a site for that type of entertainment. Sigh…
A last note, is that a friend of ours, Anya Behn, who is a tech wiz, wrote a piece for her local paper on understanding social media, its workings and its impacts – especially regarding kids. We’ve included it with her permission and have shared it among our friends as well. It was frightening to find that one-in-two under 18 year-olds struggle with addiction to digital devices.
Now, at the end of the month, it has gotten hot – up to 90. Gotta say we move in the mornings, close in on the afternoons and venture out in the evenings for a crisp Pino Grigio. Stay cool wherever you are.
twokiddosoverseas.com 
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