Our Juicy Life

Buy now or wait...

So we only have 20 weeks until we leave for France. Things are getting sorted out very nicely. Long stay visa, rental car, boat, renting of our house, Travis taking over the studio, buying a car in france (thanks kim) etc...but one thing is still weighing heavy on our minds....the euro! We are going back and forth about buying our euros now (for the year) or waiting to see what will happen in the summer. Last week the euro/dollar was at 1.53 the lowest it has been in while. In March it went up to 1.60, some people say that it could go to 2.00. Our rent is payable in euros and I don't want to be stuck with a much higher rent. So right now we are in the process of opening an account with Credit Agricole and we have opened an account with HiFx which is a foreign exchange service. They don't charge a fee (most banks and places like American Express can charge up to 4%) nor do they charge a commission to transfer money to our account in france, they get low rates because of the high volumes of trading and we can lock in a rate for as long a 2 years, if we want. But today the euro is back up to 1.55. My head is spinning. If anyone has a crystal ball handy, do you mind checking out the future for the euro/dollar and letting me know what it's going to do between now and September? Thanks.

Let the countdown begin

I have been feeling antsy lately, restless. I am so ready for our adventure, but it's not until September. Bruce thought it might be good to get a big wall calendar so we can count down the weeks/days. I also was visiting Kim at her blog and noticed her countdown widget...what a great idea. Then every day I can see on my computer screen how many weeks/days I have left, that will be just what I need. So I put one on my blog...thanks Kim! Kim is leaving in July, so her days are 1/2 what ours are....lucky dog!

We only have 4 more weeks of regular after-school classes and then our summer program starts. It will be 12 weeks of 1/2 day summer camps. Our schedule will switch from having the morning & early afternoon free and not having to go to work until 3:00 pm to being at the studio at 8:00 am and working until 1:30, so our afternoons will be free. I prefer the morning free, but alas. We will work the same number of hours per week, a light load at 20, but instead of working Tuesday-Saturday, we'll work Tuesday-Friday. Once the camps start the weeks fly by....usually when we start them it goes like this "ugh, 12 weeks of camps", then the next thing we know it's "ah, only 6 more camps"....then "yeah, only 1 more camp". Camps are great fun, we do super cool projects with the kids have a wonderful time, but it's draining and exhausting (in a good way that doing art with kids brings).

It feels like I'm a kid again...."are we there yet?" We were big on road trips when I was younger, as most of the country was back in the 60's and 70's. We had a big green station wagon and all of us would pack in there at least 2 times a year and head to Florida. I think I have been to Florida maybe 25-30 times. My parents are from Florida and my oldest sister and brother we born there. My sister Anne and I were born in Michigan. My father was a golf professional and started out in Florida and then took a job at a private club in Michigan. But anytime we had vacation it would be back to Florida to see the grandparents and Aunts and Uncles and it would allow my dad to golf.

I recently saw my brother, he and his family came out to San Diego for a weeks vacation, so Bruce and I drove down to have dinner with them. We were talking about the hell we had on those car trips. Mom and Dad in the front and 4 kids in the back. I'm sure many of you had those trips. "This is the imaginary line, don't cross it". "Mom, Anne hit me". "Mom, Mark kicked me". We didn't have DVD players in the car or hand-held games or ipods. My Dad would pop in his 8-track and we'd listen to his music, Edie Gourmet, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, etc... We played the alphabet game with license plates. Yee Haa! My brother also reminded me that on the drive down to Florida we'd always stay the night in a Holiday Inn and every time we'd have to eat, we'd stop at a Holiday Inn. He is sick of Holiday Inn's. We'd also stop in the same city for the night...talk about creatures of habit. Florida was our vacation...my dad didn't want to go anywhere else. Sure, we'd stop at Rock City or Mammoth Caves on the way down, but that's it. It was always St. Petersburg Florida. Staying with my grandmother, swimming in her pool, going to Treasure Island beach, going to Disney World when there was no Epicot center. The sunshine state. All my grandparents have passed on and only my cousin and her husband live there now, so no more Florida trips for me.....ever again.

What was I talking about? Sorry, got side-tracked. Ah, yes....counting the days until France. It seems so far away, but I know that once the summer gets going it will come up fast. It's hard to be patient when the countryside is calling you. The picture above was taken in September when we visited the Aveyron region. This is very close to where our house is. The nice thing about that area is that it won't change from when we saw it in September to when we'll be back in September. It is patiently waiting for us.

New friends far away

In September we went to the Aveyron region of France for 3 weeks. We had never been there before, didn't know anyone, but figured we'd check out this remote beautiful region. We stayed in a gite called Le Roucan, owned by Nala & Neerva. It was amazing and very rural. When we arrived with our bikes Nala said to us "my neighbor down the lane owns one of the lightest bikes in the world". Sure, Bruce said....right...in the middle of nowhere a guy has the lightest bike. Nala promised to introduce us to him.

The next morning Nala is tapping on our door telling us he spoke with Jacques, who is the man who has the lightest bike. Jacques will take you on a bike ride today...now....get ready! WHAT? So back down the road we went. The place we were staying was the last house on a very long road (about 1 mile up), it was at the end of the road. Jacques place was the 2nd house on the road, called Feniryols. So, we drive down to his beautiful french home with our bikes. Jacques is about 60 and fit as anything. He kisses us 3 times and was so warm and welcoming. He immediately took us into his "bike room" and there it was....his bike....and Bruce was amazed. It weighs 4,257 kg. That's nothing! His bike is worth probably 15K - 20K. Seriously, we were shocked. We weren't in Paris or Toulouse or Nice...we were in the middle of nowhere, in rural france and here we are with this man who loves bikes as much as us. FATE.

We went on many rides with Jacques and his girlfriend Fabian and our new friends Fabrice & Anke. We instantly made a connection with all of them. It felt so comfortable...like home. Jacques invited us to his home for dinner one night. Which I hear is very very unusual. Most french people who have only known for 2 week don't invite you to their home for dinner. We were honored. Our dinner included Jacques, his daughter (who was visiting for the weekend from Pau) and our host Nala (unfortuantely his wife Neerva was out of town). We had duck, fois gras, amazing wine, great conversation, etc...it was a truly magical night that ended at 2 am. We knew that we had met people who would be friends for life.

We spoke with Jacques today on the phone. It was great to hear his voice and we can't wait to see him. But we heard some sad news. Fabrice and Anke have separated and are getting divorced. They have 2 beautiful girls, but sometimes that's not enough to keep a marriage together. It was sad to hear that, boy you really see people differently when they are out of their home. Jacques told me that Anke wants to move back to Germany (where she was born and all her family is) and that made me sad too. Anke and I really hit it off. I am very athletic and love to bike, run, swim, etc...and she is exactly the same. I was so looking forward to having a good friend there. I am trying to reach her now to see what her plans are. I hope she'll be around some of time we are there, but who knows.

We are still so excited about our sabbatical, but it's strange how much can change in 6 months. We know that we still have very good friends waiting for us to return, but it's different somehow. When I was there the landscape and the lifestyle, it all seemed so dreamlike to me, but when you look at it you realize that people are the same all over the world, be it in a big city in America or in the rural countryside of France.

Book Rentals Cars - check!

We booked our rental cars - yes CARS for our sabbatical in France. Why are we booking 2 cars you ask? It's going to be a crazy couple of days when we first arrive. Remember, we are taking the Queen Mary II from New York to Southampton, England. It's the only way we can get there without having to put Dashell the Golden Retriever in the belly of the plane. So, instead of arriving in France, we arrive in England.

Now comes the tricky part. We will be arriving in Southampton England and we will have our luggage, 2 bikes in their plastic carriers and 3 dogs. I found out that you can not rent a car in England and return it in France - it has to be returned in England Great! And because of 911, the largest car we can rent is this Renault Scenic (above). Do you think everything is going to fit? Keep your fingers crossed.

Here's our plan. We'll pick up the rental car and see if we can get everything in. If we can, great. We will then drive 2 hours to Folkestone, England where we will take Le Shuttle (the part of The Eurostar that your car goes on - you stay in the car during the trip) and we will go under the channel to Calais, France (about a 30 minute ride). We will have a hotel booked in Calais (next on the to do list) and Bruce will drop me, the dogs, our bikes and the luggage off. He'll then turnaround and take the car back to Dover, England. Why Dover and not Folkestone? Well...the Le Shuttle doesn't accept "walk-on" passengers, only people in their cars. And the regular Eurostar leaves from London (too far away). So, he has to take the ferry from Dover to Calais. Dover is only about 15 minutes by taxi from Folkestone. AHHHHH! So, that takes car of the car from England...we'll have it for 24 hours, we just need to get all of us & our belongings to France and then we'll take it back (well, bruce will take it back). If we find that we can't fit all our belongings in the car, the we move to Plan B, we will either rent 2 cars or Bruce will take the luggage and bikes to France and I'll stay in a hotel in England and then he'll come back and get me and the dogs. I hope we don't move to Plan B.

Then we'll rent the same car (if we find out that all our stuff won't fit in the one we rent in England - we'll get a bigger one in France) and we'll drive from Calais to our new home (about 9 hours). So, we plan on staying the night in Calais and then leaving the next day for our home. It's going to be tricky and probably a bit stressful, but we travel really well together and the nice thing is that we are not here for a 2 week vacation, so we can take our time getting over and getting to the house. We will be keeping the French rental car for about 2 weeks, hopefully enough time to find another car to buy. Something that runs, is cheap and can just get us around, nothing fancy. We'll buy it and then sell it before we leave in September 09.

So, that's the plan, at least the plan now. Who knows what will happen when we get there. But that's the exciting part, that's the adventure. Stay tuned.

A Warm Welcome

                   

This is Bruce when we were in France in 2006.  We went to Provence (stayed in Lourmarin for 10 days) and then went over to the Dordogne (stayed in a 200 year old restored bread oven for another 10 days) just north of Riberac.  It was an amazing trip.  This is Bruce in Perigoux, with our daily baguette.

Travis, who is taking over teaching our classes for us when we leave in September has been in over to the studio the last couple weeks to meet all the kids and parents.  He's been welcomed with open arms and it just makes me smile.  Our customers are great!  They know that we love France and that we really want to take this sabbatical and have been nothing but supportive and positive.  The kids are amazing...they are so open and flexible and have been great, they love Travis already.  Travis looks like Bruce's brother, which helps, but he's also a great teacher, artist and is very personable and friendly with everyone.  We need that...we want to make sure that everyone is taken care of when we are gone.

               

This is a view from our bread oven in the Dordogne.  We fell in love with that area...also called the Perigord.  There are 4 regions (the black, purple, white and green).  We probably would have moved there, but it gets really really cold during the winter.  It's more west and north from where we are renting the house, but hopefully we'll take a weekend trip to see the owners of our bread oven Chris & Mike.

                  

Our first 10 days were spent in Provence...in the village of Lourmarin.  Where Peter Mayle wrote "A year in provence".  It was so beautiful.  We biked everywhere and had a wonderful time.  The only bummer was that is was in March and "les mistrals" were blowing.  These are the spring winds...not warm santa ana winds like we get in Southern California, these were cold, strong blowing winds.  There were some days I thought I was going to get blown off my bike. 

We had our appointment with the Consulate General of France in Los Angeles to get our long stay visa, but had to cancel it because Bruce noticed that his Visa expired in November - oops!  He went to the post office to get it renewed and he should get it in 4 weeks.  Then we'll reschedule our appointment with the Consulate.  We had to get tons of paperwork ready for our appointment.  Marriage license, 3 copies of passport, 3 copies of application, letter stating we have health insurance, copies of our bank statements, copies of our tax return (since we own our own business), letter from us stating that we will not work in France, etc...According to the person I spoke with if all our paperwork is in order we'll get our long stay visa that day.  I hope it goes smoothly.  Will keep you posted.

The dogs have a vet appointment tomorrow for their rabies blood test - titer test.  It must be done 30 days after the rabies shot and it has to be sent to an approved university (university of Kansas) to be processes and then the results need to be sent back and I need to send these over to Cunard Cruise line by May 1st.  I need to send them paperwork to show the dogs are micro chipped, then rabies shots and then the titer blood test (needs to be negative).  All this has to be done in order and at certain times or we won't be able to get them into England.

We have started to clean out our closets and get rid of stuff.  We are not pack rats by any means, but man there are things I don't even remember that I have.  How sad!  I packed up 2 bags full of clothes and shoes and gave them to a woman who lives down the block, she's a single mother, her daughter is 11 and her mom lives with her, they have garage sales a lot and I know that money is tight, so I hope that she can either use the stuff that I gave her or sell them.  I makes me feel good to help her out, she's a good lady just trying to survive in Los Angeles, not easy.

We only have April & May left for our after-school classes and then June-July-August for our 1/2 day camps.  Then we'll spend the first 2 weeks of September with Travis and then we'll take off for our cross country road trip and then leave NYC for England on October 4th.  It will be here before we know it and we are so excited.  I can't tell you how excited we are.

We are lucky we have such great customers, who are supportive of our sabbatical and will still continue to send their kids to our studio.  I know they will be pleased with Travis and his passion for art and kids.  It's the most important thing, to make sure that our customers are taken care of.  We wouldn't be able to leave if we thought that  the studio would suffer...we know it's in good hands.