Nous sommes arivée

Dear Friends,

We are safely and happily ensconsed in our flat in Villefranche-sur-Mer.  As we suspected, it is not as perfect as the photos and prose on the internet made it seem, but it is wonderful.  I am sitting at the table in the room that constitutes the living room, kitchen and dining room and gazing out the glass doors to the balcony with a wonderful view of the roof tops, the Mediterranean and Cap Ferrat.  It is unfortunately raining but the view is still great.  We will post some pictures later when it is sunny, and we are more settled in.

We arrived yesterday afternoon after an uneventful flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam and then on to Nice.  Villefranche-sur-Mer is built on a steep slope rising from the beach.  Our flat is on the upper part of Villefranche-sur-Mer called l'Octroi although houses continue further up the hill.  After unpacking, we walked to the main road and found a small pizzeria to have lunch.  At this time of year there are not many visitors so the others in the restaurant seemed to be locals.  The proprietor greeted us warmly and was happy to let us speak French (such as ours is).  We each had a very thin crust pizza that was very good.  It was then time for a nap.

We walked down to the old part of town right on the water for dinner.  It is a very picturesque town. Despite the fact that it was Friday night, there were very few people.  We had our pick of restaurants.  Fortunately, there is a great notebook in our flat with suggestions for restaurants, etc. We went to one of them.  Again the waiters were very nice and happy to let us use our French.  They were impressed that we were walking the hills.  As we have no car, we have no choice, and we will be lighter and more in shape because of it.

We are giving ourselves the luxury of sleep this morning but are planning on finding the school and doing some grocery shopping this afternoon.

More later,
Jane and the Unabashed Liberal

A Great Adventure

Dear Friends,

It has been a long time since I have written and even longer since I have written with any regularity.  Now Jane and I are about to embark on a great adventure, and it seems like a good time to try to write again with some frequency.  We (Jane will be posting here as well) will be writing mainly about our adventure, but we hope to include some reflections on how the United States and its current President are viewed from Europe.

Jane and I are right now frantically packing for a one month trip to France to learn how to speak French.  We love France, and we can speak just enough French to survive, but frankly it is embarrassing and rather arrogant that we only speak one language.  We will be attending the Institut de Francais (here) in Villefranche-sur-Mer near Nice.  We go to school for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for 4 weeks.  We eat breakfast and lunch at the school and are completely immersed in French.

the school




View of Cap Ferrat from school

We have rented a small apartment that according to the brochure overlooks the Mediterranean that is a six minute walk (according to Google) from the school.

The balcony of our apartment

 

The weather forecast for Minneapolis for tomorrow predicts a high of minus 1 (not counting the wind chill).  The weather forecast for Villefranche-sur Mer for tomorrow predicts a high of 52.

We received an email from a friend of ours who is French and lives in Paris today.  He writes in part

Glad to hear you are going to come to France, Villefranche is a very beautiful place, crowded in the summer, but certainly very quiet in Jan. You are likely to get some nice sunny weather at that time of the year, good chances of being able to have lunch in the outside in the sun, but rather cool at night of course. You should see mountains with snow in the back country and even sometimes the Corsican Peaks about 100 Km across the sea.The bay is wonderful and the cape houses some of the most expensive properties in France.There is a nice walk all around the Cape. 

The Cape he refers to is Cap Ferrat. The picturesque harbor of Villefranche-sur-Mer is protected on the east by Cap Ferrat and on the west by Cap de Nice.

We leave tomorrow (Thursday) and school starts Monday.  We start with a test for placement purposes.  We both are already having performance anxiety.  We will keep you posted as our adventure unfolds.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal and Jane