Dear Friends,
We arrived in Villefranche on December 28, thanks to my typo, one day before our landlady was expecting us. As a result, there was no taxi to meet us at the airport in Nice, also our apartment was not completely ready. Our landlady who was giving a luncheon at her house at the time told us to just get a taxi at the airport which we did and that someone would meet us to help with our bags and finish the cleaning of the apartment. We took a taxi to Place de la Paix, the closest place to our apartment where a car can go. Sure enough we were met by Danny, the husband of one of the cleaning ladies. He was very strong, grabbed our two big suitcases (almost 50 lbs each) and carried them to our apartment. It is two steep blocks downhill to our apartment then two steep flights up stairs.
We were impressed. As our landlady had told us they were doing "spring cleaning" on our apartment. All the seat covers, cushion covers, slip covers, etc. had been washed along with all the regular things like sheets, towels, etc. They were all over the place drying when we arrived. We left Danny, at his urging, with everything and went to lunch. When we returned two hours later, the place was immaculate. Normally we would have been met with a bottle of rosé and flowers, both of which were missing but an amazing welcome considering we arrived a day early.
We went to lunch at Lou Bantry, a restaurant on the water. It was nice. As usual, I started my stay with moules frites. Place Amélie Pollonais which is right by the water and normally has three restaurants, a gift shop, an ice cream store and a couple of bars is being renovated so nothing is there now and will not be for a couple more months. Consequently we could not have lunch at Le Cosmos or Les Palmiers where we would normally have had our first lunch.
We were in no hurry to provision so we ate dinner at Le Serre, our neighborhood casual restaurant about half a block away. We ran into our landlady, her husband and a couple who were their friends who had just purchased an apartment in Villefranche and were beginning to furnish it.
The next day we had to actually get down to shopping. We had forgotten a few essentials, like Jane's pjs, and we needed some essentials like the Nespresso capsules for our coffee. Fortunately we had left a couple in our box in the apartment from the fall so we had some the first morning. As we got on the bus to go to Nice, we ran into the couple we had met the night before who were also on their way to Nice. Despite the fact that they had lots to do to furnish their new apartment, their first stop was their favorite chocolate store, Florian. It is nice when people have their priorities straight.
While in Nice we made great progress at becoming truly French. We now are members of the Nespresso loyalty group which apparently means I can get lots of emails from them. We are also members of the Galleries Lafayette (large French department store) loyalty group which meant that we got 40% off the items we bought that day.
The next day was Saturday, and it was a beautiful day. Of course Saturday means ex-pat pétanque. It was a small group, only six, including one new person. I am happy to report that my team won, rather handily I might add. The Saturday market was small but had all the things we needed - vegetables, fruits, flowers and patés.
Unfortunately later that day our return to Villefranche began to turn bad. As usual we were both tired as a result of jet lag and the stress of Christmas, moving to a new condo and packing, but this time Jane was sick. On the airplane she turned on the air and was blasted with every germ known to mankind as it was towards the end of the flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam. Then a couple of days later while using nasal spray she coughed involuntarily and inhaled the spray and who knows what else. She kept getting worse. All the while I was developing a bad cold. We really did not eat much and had no energy. Our New Year's Eve was pizza by ourselves feeling miserable in front of the tv instead of a gourmet dinner at La Belle Étoile with friends.
On Tuesday our french teacher gave us the name of two local doctors and explained how to go see them. They share an office with one there in the morning and one in the afternoon. You do not need an appointment. The office is about a 10 minute walk from our apartment. So mid-afternoon, we set out on an adventure to see the doctor. When you walk in the door, there is a waiting room with no receptionist. The patients just sit down and are seen in the order in which they arrived. The doctor was seeing one patient when we arrived and there were two others ahead of us. When he was finished with the patient he was seeing when we arrived, he came into the room and simply said "Allons y" let's go. The next patient got up and followed him out of the waiting room. He was a middle aged man wearing jeans and a blue checked shirt.
When it was Jane's turn, we dutifully followed him into a nice, clean and very simple office with an adjacent examining room. We had prepared for a discussion in French. Jane said, "We are Americans." He replied in perfect English, "Everybody has something." By which he meant, being an American was a problem, but he said it with a smile and a twinkle in his eye. He said it had been a long day so let's speak in English. He asked all the right questions and actually listened carefully to the answers. He examined Jane, not by taking blood and running tests but by listening to her heart and lungs. He then announced that she had a small infection in her lungs which he would treat with a course of antibiotics. He then proceeded to give her a prescription for the antibiotic, a steroid, a cough suppressant and a nasal spray. He also gave us a bill for 30 euros and a paper for our insurance. The entire time elapsed while waiting and seeing the doctor was less than an hour.
Jane went home to bed, and I proceeded to the pharmacy. The total bill for all four of the prescriptions was 30 euros. The pharmacy also gave me a paper for our insurance. Thus began a long road to recovery which is still going on today, almost a week later.
Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment