Week of 5 Fevrier, 2024
Lundi
The high from our fun weekend away didn’t last long — by Sunday night, Todd and I were trading turns vomiting in the bathroom with a pretty epic stomach bug. Monday we were both completely out of commission, huddled under the covers with chills and body aches. Even getting Oli to school was out of the question, which was probably for the best, as he joined our little barfy club Monday night.
There’s something about being sick that makes me feel particularly homesick. Lying in bed, feeling like death, I desperately missed our bedroom back home, our dog who is the best snuggler, our friends and family who would have been at our doorstep, ready to help when we needed them. I felt so down that when the clip of Tracy Chapman singing “Fast Car” at the Grammy’s popped up on my Instagram feed, I started weeping, and Todd probably wondered if the virus had gone to my brain.
Mardi
Tuesday dawned a bit brighter (with less nausea), but we kept Oli home from school to be safe. We were all feeling pretty sluggish still, though Todd mustered the energy to gather some comfort food (McDos) for lunch. It may not have been the best thing to put into our nearly empty stomachs, but it was delicious.
Later, I ordered grocery delivery for the first time since we’ve been in France, which felt incredibly indulgent. Grocery shopping has become a bit of a pain point for me, I think because it’s just so different here. Back in the U.S., I’d plan out our meals for the week and then drive to Publix or Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods, fill up a cart with everything we’d need, then return home to fully stock our pantry. Without a car, living in a third-floor apartment, that’s just not practical here. Plus, food spoils a lot more quickly here, probably because they use fewer preservatives. And so instead, we sort of wing it day to day, dropping into the store whenever we need things, which is both liberating and a little bit stressful.
Mercredi
It was sunny for a while today, and I spent close to an hour sitting on a park bench in the Jardin Public. I did my French lesson, read the news, and caught up with a few friends on Marco Polo. It was lovely, but also something that I would have done in my backyard or front porch back home. Our tiny balcony is a poor excuse for outdoor space, and it’s definitely inconvenient to have to walk 10 minutes to get to a place where I can sit and enjoy the sun. Bordeaux feels greener than a lot of French cities we’ve visited, but where we are in the center, there’s only one tree that I can see, across the street in a neighboring building’s courtyard. A bird must have stopped there for a quick break early this morning, because I heard it singing, and for a moment I thought I must be back home.
I’ve been keeping an eye out for other rentals with outdoor space, but it feels a little fruitless. We were lucky to get this place — most French landlords expect you to have a typical job with paystubs (which we don’t), preferably with a French employer. They don’t care how much money you have in savings, and even offering to pay more up-front doesn’t work because that’s technically illegal here. That leaves us with pretty limited options. Luckily, we really like our little apartment otherwise, and we’ll probably stay put for the foreseeable future.
Jeudi
We optimistically scheduled the babysitter for tonight, assuming we’d be feeling all better from our stomach bug. But as we wandered the streets of Bordeaux, looking for a restaurant that looked appealing, we realized that all we really wanted to eat was a bowl of Frosties on the couch. At least we had a nice walk, and Oli enjoyed playing board games for a couple of hours with someone more energetic than his parents.
Vendredi
Oli shared a little moment of triumph on his lunch break: His teacher was reading a story about une grosse grenouille, and he understood a lot of it! He’s still spending the majority of his days with his French immersion teacher, and it’s clearly paying off. He says that he would love his school — if only it wasn’t in French. Hopefully he’ll feel differently soon, as things continue to click into place for him.
I, on the other hand, feel like I’m at a standstill with my French learning. The more I study, the more I realize that I don’t know, and the more I feel frustrated by seemingly arbitrary rules and technicalities. Not to mention the challenge of how quickly real French people speak, and with accents and slang… it feels impossible. I’ve also been working on a couple of articles that are taking up most of my brain space each day, leaving little energy left over for learning French. I think it may be time to sign up for a class or hire a tutor to actually keep me accountable. Or maybe I can just be like the influencers I see on Instagram who have lived here for years and still can barely cobble together a sentence. (Kidding — I really don’t want to be like them!)
Samedi
With a bunch of random errands to run, we spent today doing the equivalent of the dreaded Short Pump day back home, i.e. shopping at a suburban mega-mall. After having a nice lunch with a fortifying beer in the city, we hopped on the tram and rode the few stops to Bordeaux Lac, a sprawling retail center in the ‘burbs.
It was incredibly busy, but I do always enjoy these excursions, especially noting the differences and similarities between the French stores and ours back home. There’s Leroy Merlin, which is like Home Depot but a little more design-forward. Auchan Hypermarche, which is like a Super Walmart where people aren’t wearing pajamas to shop and you can also buy foie gras and rabbit. Todd’s favorites, Decathlon and Intersport — like Dick’s but with less questionable names and better prices. And then there’s IKEA, which is exactly the same, except there are more people drinking wine with their meatballs.
Oli had some money to spend, so we stopped at Smyth’s, a toy store that’s bigger than any I’ve ever seen in the U.S. He browsed the drones and Tech Deck toys before settling on a new game for his Nintendo Switch. We also went to Cultura for the first time, which is like a combination of Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Michael’s, and Guitar Center. We got a new Ticket to Ride game in French (Les Aventuriers du Rail). We then went to GiFi, which is kind of a budget home and garden store. I was way too excited to find cheese balls for sale there; I was craving them after watching The Office episode where they throw cheese balls at each other. It’s one of those things that I never would have bought back home but I suddenly desperately needed them when I thought I couldn’t have them. We ended the day at IKEA, which was very crowded yet also somehow calm and organized and polite. I bought a pretty orchid, which is now brightening our kitchen table.
Days like this are when I most miss having a car. Specifically when we’re loaded down with bags after a day of shopping and we still have to ride the tram back and then walk from the tram stop to our apartment. It’s a trek, especially when the sunny sky somehow starts pouring rain and I do not have an umbrella. Note to self: Always bring an umbrella. Or just suck it up and get an Uber next time.
Dimanche
I woke up late last night and noticed it was pitch-black outside of our windows. Normally the streets are lit by the distinctive copper streetlights that are strung along wires between buildings. I’ve never seen these anywhere else — they’re one of my favorite things about Bordeaux. But between 1-5 a.m., streetlights throughout the city are turned off to save on energy costs and also reduce light pollution. Similar measures are being taken throughout France.
I think about the streetlights back home in Richmond’s Fan neighborhood. They’d often turn on, like magic, when we were sitting out on the front porch, while Oli ran around with his neighborhood pals. They’d remain blazing through the night, bright as day. There it was an important safety measure, intended to help prevent thefts and assaults. It wasn’t always the most effective though, as car thefts and even shootings are sadly quite commonplace in the city of Richmond. These are the things I think about when I wonder if our future is in France or the U.S. — some things I really miss, and some things I really don’t.
