Greetings!
The mistral mystery. That’s what we’re calling it. You can look it up. The mistral is a wind that wheels down the Rhone River valley from the north and crosses Provence with winds of 80-to-100 km/hr, which is about 50 – 65 mph. The mis-tral’ (emphasis on the “tral”) was to have hit today, Friday, December 6 with 80 km/hr winds and increase to 100 km/hrtomorrow. False alarm. Winds of 25 mph today and 5 mph tomorrow. The mistral is supposed to be a frequent visitor, especially during the winter. Haven’t seen it yet. We’re told that because our house is on the side of a hill, that we won’t feel the effects of the mistral, but we’ll see the damage. The mistral doesn’t just pass through, either. It can last for days. We’ll let you know what it’s like – if we ever see it.
Speaking of seeing, we’ve included some photos. Back in September we visited the “south” side of Marseille. That’s supposed to be the appealing side of town. We had visited downtown Marseille, which is vibrant and very interesting, especially the section of African commerce. And, we had already driven through the north side of Marseille on the way to downtown and hockey. The north side is the side you don’t want to venture into. Lots of architecturally old areas mixed with high-rise apartments. I’m told there’s nothing really to see and/or do there, it’s just a place where people live, and apparently, not very nicely. I’m toying (I don’t think it will be “we”) with doing some north Marseille exploring in our car. Need to get off the auto route and see how the real people live. Anyway, one Sunday afternoon after a hockey game we headed down a beautiful boulevard lined with brilliant old homes that took us to the sea on the south side. Wow! Great old houses and then California-like buildings (mostly condos) near the ocean. It really looked like southern California. A wide beach and some restaurants along the way. We ran into a little entertainment center that included some trampolines. So, Sophia and Keaka couldn’t resist strapping in and making a go of it, as the Brits like to say. We grabbed a couple of photos of the view from the oceanfront. There’s also a photo of the shoreline down the way from Marseille. It doesn’t take much of a student of geography to see that France has significant shore line for a country without that much land. One could find a pretty nice condo along the sea in that section of Marseille, which is only about 10 minutes from downtown. Another place to live, sometime.
I don’t know how the economy is really doing here in France and the rest of Europe. I can tell you that here in the south of France and during our travels we’ve seen lots of tall construction cranes. Some are because of hillsides, but unless they’re using the cranes for kitchen renovations, there seems to be plenty of building going on. We’re also reading about a lot of new construction in Hawaii, including some 400 foot tall condo projects. Not much residential construction for a few years, so they’re ready to build.
It’s been cold here lately, 32 degrees and lower in the morning, so we’ve resorted to the heating system in the house. We have radiators, which seems pretty common here. I wouldn’t tear out the system you have to get to the radiant system. It takes a long time to heat up, so when you get up in the morning and turn on the heat, you’ll be long gone before it warms up. We’ve been told that “most people in the south” don’t even have heating systems and simply have little floor heaters for very cold weather. We just had two days and nights without heat and without much electricity. The main on/off box next to the fuse box in the house was overheating and creating that wonderful burning electricity odor. The electrician suggested totally turning off the electricity and vacating the house, as the on/off box had to be replaced. He felt it could start a fire and left us a fire extinguisher. Well, we used candles and turned on the odd light. It took the two days to get the part and get it installed, and we did survive. The dryer quit working a couple of weeks ago. Dried the laundry on the line outside, which is what just about everyone does here. There’s nothing quite like stiff and scratchy underwear, to say nothing of sandpaper-like bath towels. It’s hard to imagine that most folks here are without heat and clothes dryers. Also, the house does not have a garbage disposal. It’s amazing what you take for granted. We’re told garbage disposals are far from common in France.
We mentioned getting acclimated recently. I bought a sweater with a zipper. I like that 60s look! Anyway, the men’s zipper is opposite from the U.S. I guess it’s like a woman’s zipper in the U.S. It’s a challenge to zip it up. We’re just getting use to wall electrical switches. Up is off and down is on. And, does anyone know why electrical power and the accompanying outlets have to be different in every country? It seems like we’re always looking for electrical outlet adapters. We like the fact the French drive on the right side like the U.S., but it seems curious that some things are flipped over. For instance, trains operate on the left side when you have two sets of tracks. There are some other things like that also. Just wondering why? And, you can’t get cash at banks. In fact, a bank won’t make change, even if it’s for cash you just got out of their ATM machine. If you want to walk into your bank and write a check for cash, you must go to the main branch in a downtown location. So, the ATM machine it is. I’d never used one nor had a debit card. It isn’t that bad. Nice to move into the modern era. But, a bank without cash seems strange. The main reason seems to be security concerns. The French have security concerns at every turn. I’m surprised they haven’t put a wall around the country.
Working on the details of our upcoming Paris trip. Paris is a lot to bite off, especially with two disinterested teenagers. Trying to decide how to plan one major event/tour each day and mix in things that will interest Sophia and Keaka. They want to go to Disneyland France. Our interest in going to Disneyland again is pretty low and doing it during the winter is a very low priority. If Disneyland can be avoided, the Paris portion of the trip will be a success.
The Wilsons
