Joyeux anniversaire, James -- la fête

As I'm typing this, I realize that this is now the third year in a row, we celebrated James' birthday with French food. You'd think he'd want a little variety, but we've only eaten out twice in Aix so French cuisine still seems new. Besides, we've never celebrated his birthday with Provençal food, so it is new.

James' birthday also coincided with World Happy Hour Day, according to the birthday card my mom found. So, since we had missed celebrating that while James was recovering, on Friday when we celebrated his birthday, we decided to celebrate that too.

As it turns out, France is a particularly great place to celebrate that holiday because happy hour, or apéro, is huge here. Every evening between about 6pm and 8:30pm, the outside terraces of all the cafés are packed with people having their apéro. Yes, even though it's November, people still like to sit outside. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not as cold here as it is in, say, Chicago this time of year, but in Aix it's not warm anymore. (It is noticeably warmer in Marseille ... another reason to miss it.) I understand wanting to eat outside. I like to eat outside too; in fact, I eat my lunch outside on our terrace whenever I can because I can sit out of the wind and in the warm sun. But there's no sun at 6:00pm, and it's cold enough that after nine winters in Chicago, it seems too cold to us to sit outside and have a drink at apéro. A lot of the cafés and restaurants put out space heaters (which, as James and I were talking about, has always seemed a little weird because isn't the point of eating outside that you get to enjoy the nice weather?) but many don't, and people and people still sit there.

Apéro is not a crazy raucous party filled with drunk people. The drinks aren't half-price, and it seems like a lot of people get just one drink and sit for a long time with their friends. In fact, not everyone drinks something alcoholic -- juice seems to be a popular alternative. The cafés also serve complementary snacks to go along with the drinks. The most popular snacks around here seem to be toasts with brandade de morue or some other delicious olive-oil based (i.e., non-mayonaise) spread like tapenade or anchoïade, olives, bite-size pieces of pizza or quiche. It's great. And for James' birthday, it was a nice little amuse-bouche before dinner (above pic).

For the main event, we went to La Chimère Café, which was recommended by some of James' colleagues as an Aixois favorite. In French, a chimère is either a chimera or a pipe-dream and both are equally suitable names for a restaurant. Given this statue at the entrance, I think the former is what they were going for. Either way, though, the food was outstanding.

As a first course, James had the assiette mareyeur (the fish-wholesaler's plate), which included langoustines, prawns oysters and smoked salmon on a salad and I had foie gras de canard with a delicious onion relish. For the main course, James had daube de taureau, which is a provençal stew made, in this case, from bull's meat. It was cooked with delicious chanterelles and some little onions and potatoes and even included a certain delicacy from the nether-parts of the bull. I had (filet) mignon de porc wrapped in bacon with a white wine cream sauce and garnished with a thai black rice risotto. For dessert, James had a poached pear with custardy, delicious vanilla ice cream and I had canelés, a specialty from Bordeaux, with crème anglaise. To drink, we had a wine from the appelation that surrounds Aix-en-Provence, Côteaux d'Aix-en-Provence. The vineyard is just up the road.


Here's a picture of James after dinner. Did I mention that the meal was delicious?

Apartment search, act 1

Finding an apartment in Marseille was extremely difficult. So difficult, in fact, that we ended up living in Aix. But I'll get to that.

By the way, this is not one of the happier posts. At the end of it, you'll say to yourself, "let's get to the good stuff!" I have to admit, I hesitate to post this now because, obviously, everything worked out and we're not still living at the hotel. However, I'm putting it in here because it happened, and any of you (i.e. parents) who talked to us in the first two weeks might want to know the details that we didn't tell you over our semi-functioning Skype connection.

Scene 1
James' supervisor in the lab and a friend of a friend, both of whom happens to live in Marseille, had recommended a couple of websites where we might find housing -- either through agencies or through individuals. They're just what you'd imagine: you put in your criteria and get back a list of properties that may or may not still be available. I had spent a considerable amount of time looking around on these sites and on Craigslist while we were still in the States and there were a few promising leads, but it seemed like it would be easier to look for a place once we were here. This was especially true since almost no on provided email addresses with their listings and I didn't want to make a bunch of international calls.

Once we got here, it became immediately apparent that this was not Chicago, where finding a place had always been relatively easy (so what if we looked at about 15 places before we found the Casa del Berwyn ... we found plenty of nice places before that, they just didn't take dogs).

We started off looking for a furnished apartment. There were several that were posted online on our first Friday in Marseille, but by the time I called about them on Saturday, they were already gone. To be fair, there were other furnished apartments in our price range, but they were all in parts of Marseille that are public-transportation challenged (i.e. there is no public transportation). That wasn't an option for us given that James's lab is in Aix and he would need to go there on weekdays.

So I set up email alerts to find out when new apartments were posted on the websites and checked email way too often, when the wi-fi was working.

Scene 2
We tried a few apartment locater services in Marseille, which come in a couple of different sizes and flavors. One thing that's common to all of them is that unlike agencies we've been to in Chicago, the tenant-to-be is the one who pays, not the landlord. Some agencies sell you a list of contact numbers for apartments, which all sound really great on the website/list and which the agents at the agencies guarantee are still available, but which, according to the hotel staff and everyone we've talked to, are often already rented. Then you're out the 200 Euros you've paid for the list. Other agencies actually take you to apartments, and don't charge you unless the place you. When they place you, though, you owe them a month's rent plus other administrative fees for their services. This means that you've got to come up with three months rent at the beginning (agency fees, security deposit, first month). However, when you're living in a hotel...

In addition to the expense of using an agency, there's a law in France that you're not allowed to pay more than 1/3 of your salary in rent unless you have a guarantor, who has been employed in France in the previous three years, who will co-sign with you. So agencies won't even show you apartments that are above the 1/3 mark. It's not so clear that individuals renting out their apartment have to follow the 1/3 rule, but they ask a lot of questions (smart) and definitely want proof of your salary (also smart). At least they would show their apartments before they got proof that we'd have a salary.

This last issue could be solved as soon as James could sign his contract because not only would that guarantee that he actually had an income, but since he would be employed by CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), a government-funded entity, agencies could up the rent cap slightly before requiring a guarantor. Besides that, James' supervisor thought the lab would be willing to act as guarantor. However, since the contract wasn't ready and James hadn't signed it, no dice. That severely limited the apartments the agencies had to offer -- in several cases to no furnished apartments. The financial crisis in the US wasn't really helping us look legit, either. I think some people thought that all Americans had just lost all their money. Little did they know, they were dealing with two people who had no investments and were not at all affected by the financial crisis that was unfolding in the US. That's not exactly something that will instill confidence in your ability to pay rent though, so we didn't mention that.

Things were looking bleak.

Scene 3
We widened our search to include unfurnished apartments. However, it turns out that in Marseille, most unfurnished apartments are completely unfurnished -- there's a space in the kitchen for a sink and an oven or stove and a fridge, but you have to supply them. So, while we could afford basic furniture thanks to Ikea (which you can even get to on public transportation!), we couldn't afford furniture and appliances.

Sigh.

Back to the hotel.

Joyeux anniversaire, James!

Yesterday was James' 33rd birthday. To celebrate, James got to drink a lot of tea and eat a lot of bread and some potatoes with herbes de provence. Not the most exotic or celebratory of meals but James is recovering from a bout with the stomach flu so we have postponed his birthday celebration. Dr. Ng at NU Health Services would say to wait at least three days from the last symptoms, but I think we may throw caution to the wind and celebrate tomorrow. After all, a certain other doctor at NU Health Services would tell him to take some naproxen and come back in a week, so who are we going to listen to?

James did get two new books (one in English and one in French) and he got to open these presents in the picture. No, that one on the right isn't a briefcase, it's a very clever box. It's also, however, a very small box. It's funny because the clerk who rang me up obviously saw what I was buying and these were what she gave me. When I got home, I discovered that they didn't magically unfold into something larger than they looked like they would in the store and were really the right size for a shirt or thin sweater (the one on the right) and maybe a pair of underwear and an undershirt (the one on the left, which is actually more like an envelope than a box). It made me wonder where the clerk thought I was going to put the actual items she rang up, but it turned out she was sort of right: gifts were stuffed into each container (and they didn't tear -- neither the gifts, nor the boxes!) and another was "wrapped" in the plastic shopping bag from the store. I don't know where you buy boxes and wrapping paper around here yet.

The good thing is that once James is totally recovered, he can celebrate in style!

Cartes de séjour

Long-stay visas, which you get if you're going to be in France for more than three months, are only valid for three months. When you get your visa, stapled into your passport is a little note that says you have to present yourself at the préfecture to apply for your residence permit (carte de séjour) within a week of arriving in France.

James checked this out with the lab administrator and she said to take all our documents and go down to the préfecture.

James: "Do we need an appointment?"
Administrator: "No, you can just go."

So, on the first Monday after our arrival in France, we did.

When we got to the préfecture, the world was there. Although, apparently there were not as many people as are sometimes there because the line wasn't out the door snaking around the corrals that are right outside the building. There weren't really any signs telling you where to go so I asked at an information desk and they told us to go to the really crowded room, where we got in a really long line behind someone else who said he was there for his carte de séjour. Actually, we got in line behind someone who was saving a place for a pregnant woman who had gone to sit down, who was there with her elderly mother, who was also sitting down. Apparently saving places in line is a totally normal thing to do because a woman who got there right after we did asked us to save a place for her while she went to sit down with her toddler. And eventually the guy (in front of the pregnant woman) in front of us went out for a smoke and we saved both of their places. I think it's a pretty good system.

So we waited.

We got some necessary photos in the photo booth while we waited. And we waited some more.

After about two hours, we were getting pretty close to the front. The pregnant woman had come back a couple of times to make it known that she was still there, so when we saw her approaching, we figured she was just coming back to stand in line for a while. Then, all of a sudden she was starting a fist fight with some other guy who was there. There was shoving, clawing, racial epithets, general yelling, and then the pregnant woman's husband came out of nowhere and punched the other guy. A mêlée had ensued!

However, through the ruckus, everyone managed to maintain their places in line and after the fight ended, the pregnant woman came back to her place in line. Apparently she and the other guy had had a run-in earlier on and he had accused her of cutting in line and kept trying to prevent her from getting back in line. (So maybe that system of saving places only sort of works.) She told her story a few more times with a few more details each time, but each time she loudly told everyone that "that's how it is in his country -- the men hit their women". Perhaps the most surprising part of it all -- even more surprising than a fist fight started by a pregnant woman -- was that she was telling the story in front of people who may well have been from this guy's country. I'm amazed that another fight didn't break out.

Finally, after over three hours of standing in line, we made it up to the window and presented our documents, and got our cartes de séjour.

No, actually, that's not what happened at all. That's what I wish would have happened.

Instead, were told that we were in the wrong place. We were told that for visas scientifiques (the kind that foreign researchers get) we needed to present ourselves at CROUS (Centre Régional des Œuvres Universitaires et Scolaires), which is basically an administrative entity that makes student life better at French universities. The irony of that was that although the CROUS was across the city from the préfecture, it was just up the street from our hotel.

Before our trek back across the city, we stopped for lunch at this really nice little sandwich café. I think it's called "101" at 101, Rue de Rome, but it's a little hard to tell because it has a creative sign: the first "1" is a fork, the "0" as a plate and the second "1" as a knife. Actually, you can see it in street view if you go to the Google map of Marseille and enter the address (except, as you can see from the link, Google thinks it's at 92, which it's not). The woman who we think is the owner is really nice and she happily and patiently described to us the many options for the lunch formules (set menus) like the one we shared: delicious buttery crusted quiche lorraine + salade niçoise + tarte frangipane aux poires for only 5€! We wanted to go back there repeatedly because the owner was so nice, but alas we didn't.

After lunch we went to CROUS and found Madame B., who could help us. She was going on vacation for three weeks starting the next day, so she'd have to help us later on, but she was very nice, very helpful and very pleasant to work with.We were much happier after that. Here's a view toward La Canebière (a famous street in Marseille, that goes down to the Vieux Port ... think The French Connection).

We still don't have our cartes de séjour. But that's for another post.

Marseille is (was) cool!

Marseille is a great city. All the guidebooks tell you it's a little (or more than a little) gritty and rough around the edges, and maybe that's true, but in a good way. It's just that you might call it "international" rather than "cosmopolitan". It feels like a city where real people live, rather than a tourist destination (even though there are plenty of tourists there), and it has a really laid-back and welcoming feel. It's lively, diverse and full of interesting neighborhoods to explore. And it's right on the water. We loved it immediately.

Things seem to radiate out from the Vieux Port, which is impossible to miss -- and you wouldn't want to. Every morning there are fishmongers (actually, most seem to be the fishermen themselves, but I just wanted to say "fishmonger") along the Quai des Belges at the eastern side of the harbor selling freshly caught seafood. However, staying in a small hotel room doesn't lend itself to the purchase of fish so we didn't get to take advantage of that. The port is also really beautiful to look at. Now only small boats can moor there so there are lots of sailboats and little pleasure cruisers, and the ferries that go to the Îles de Frioul and Les Calenques (no, unfortunately, we haven't been to either yet). It's a post card that could greet you every day if you lived in Marseille and it would look more beautiful than any of the pictures I took.

The Vieux Port opens to the west into the Mediterranean so this picture on the left is taken looking north. On the far left side (with the round tower) is Fort Saint-Jean, one of the two forts that are situated at the entrance to the port. Actually, you can also see the corner of the other fort, Fort Saint-Nicholas, peeking into the picture right by the big white tent. What's funny is that you'd think that these forts would have been built to protect the port and the city but, in fact, they were built by Louis XIV after an uprising in Marseille to keep everyone in line and remind them who was boss. He actually had cannons on the forts that pointed toward the city.

This photo on the right, also looking north, was taken from Notre Dame de la Garde, which stands on a cliff over the harbor. Beyond the two forts, you can see where all the shipping now happens and the large cruise ships dock.

Finally, this picture was taken (from Le Pharo) looking into the Vieux Port. This time you can actually see part of Fort Saint-Nicholas on the right side of the photo.
There's obviously a lot more to Marseille than just the Vieux Port, but I have a lot more pictures of it than I do of other things, and this is enough for one entry. And besides, thinking about it makes me miss it.

Arrival in Marseille -- Wednesday, September 17th

This is the view from our first room at the Hotel Lutétia in Marseille, where we stayed for the first part of our trip. It's really a pretty nice place. It's very tidy, well-situated, very reasonably priced (when the dollar isn't as weak as it was in the second half of September) and the staff are extremely nice. So stay there. Unless you really need wi-fi in your room so you can finish your dissertation.

Our first room was on the fifth floor and even had a little balcony type thing (from which these pictures were taken). It wasn't big enough that you could really sit on it, but it was big enough to...say...store juice and or cheese overnight because you were trying to be thrifty and eat in your room rather than going to restaurants. Here's a slightly different view from the balcony.

After the manager tried everything he could think of to get the wi-fi to work, he finally let us move into a room on the first floor (premier étage, not ground floor) where the wi-fi did work. Mostly. Although still only sort of.

That room was on the opposite side of the hotel so it faced the backs of other apartment buildings. I would have taken a picture, but it would have been a little like spying on people so I decided against it.

It's 54 - 41 day!

We've been in France for 54 days and we've officially spent 41 days in our apartment in Aix. So, to commemorate these two important milestones, it's time to start our blog! That's actually quite a lot of time and a lot has happened, but it's probably better that you're not going to read about our two weeks in the tiny, tiny hotel room in Marseille while we were in the midst of it.

As a November 9th resolution, James and I promise to keep posting interesting things as they happen and we'll try not to be too annoying. If we are, look at the pictures and skip the text! Speaking of which, the next few posts are about what's been going on in the last 54 days. You may already know about it, but I'm adding the pictures I've been promising everyone.

As for the name of the blog, a mas is a provençal farmhouse and bonheur means happiness or luck. So there you go.