France Adventure Part 3

These key boards are very difficult to type on. The keys are close and they moved things around.

The euro (E) to dollar exchange was 1E to $1.32. I bought two pairs of chauasers ( shoes) one regular canvas tennis shoes(7.99E) and one pair of sandles(19.99E). I also bought une pair of pants (4E), one polar flece sweat shirt (4E), one sweater(4E), kahki trench coat(5E), and six pairs of stockings because its freezing here. I bought the pair of pants the first day and I have worn them every single day unwashed till yesterday when I washed them in our friend's real washing machine! We wash our socks and underwear out in the sink and dry them on the lines we have strung about our apartment in Paris. Here, in Clermont, they have a washing machine so we washed all our sweaters and pants.

I was going to bring a bunch of dirty undershirts with me but I forgot them at the little apartment. So when we (Tony and I) got here we only had the clothes on our backs. Well I did bring an extra pair of panties, but tony didn't. The girls had all their bags and didn't forget any. Right now I am wearing Cecile's PJ's since all my clothes are on the line. We have been taking showers only every other day because of the lack of hot water at the apartment in Paris. The water lasts about 3 minutes and must be conserved. You get used to not showerings. Old Spice deordant really works!!!

Cecile is really cool. At 32, she is a school teacher of English for 11 to 16 year olds. She is 5'3 110 lbs, brown redish hair, big brown eyes, and looks a bit like Juliette Binoche. She is a lovely person and I am having the best time talking to her. She speaks English perfecly and has no problems speaking fluently in it. She has been teaching me French as we walk along the tiny roads of this town.

Dan is 31 year old American who moved here when he was 19. He is working on his distertion which is on the problems of translating. He teaches English to French college students in Paris. The reason they own the tiny apartment in Paris is so that he has somewhere to live while he is there. Right now he is on the summer break just like we all are. Cecile's school goes for a another month. They are they nicest people in the whole world.

Baby Mark is learning both French and English. Dan speaks to him in English and Cecile in French. His first word was Cheese. He is always smiling and hasn't cried one time. He wakes up at 10am if they let him and doesnt wake up at all at night. He loves Christy the best and is very cuddly. I have never met such a good tempered baby.

This town, Clermont-Ferrand, has 130 thousand inhabitants who mostly work for Michellin Tire corp which is headquartered here. It is high up but I can't remember the exact meters. Its quite large and looks alot like Paris except for the "highways" which are alot bigger than anything in Paris and alot smaller than our regular roads in Tampa. The town is built on a dormant volcano. The foliage and the grass is a bright vert (green). The buildings are a dark color and the cathedral is black because they are made from lavac rock. Its very very gothic. Tony is taking lots of picture. The roads of the street are also made fromt he black stone.
There are tons of college kids hanging around the streets looking gothic and very cool because there are two colleges here: Baisle Pascal University and another one which I forget the name of. There are also lots of shops catering to the punk kids who live here. We haven't had a chance to check them out yet.

The apartment which we are staying at now here in Clermont is quite large. Just a little smaller than your house I think. It only has one WC and then the bathtub and sink are separated by a few rooms. Tony and I are sleeping in their bedroom, Christy is sleeping in Mark's( their 16 month old baby) and Abby is staying in the library. It has wooden floors, one master bedroom, one childs bedroom, one library, a sitting room, a formal dining room, one WC, one bathroom, one junk room which can be turned into a guest bedroom, one kitchen/eating area, and 600 square foot yard. They have a washing machine just like Alfredo’s but it doesn’t have the drying part. Althought it is the first floor apartment in a 4 story building, the yard is not shared with the other occupants. They bought the house from her family. She grew up here and her parents live 5 minutes away.

Dan, Cecile, and baby Mark are staying at her parents house while we are here. Her parents are retired and are vacationing in Italy right now, I think. We will be eating our meals at her parents house becuase it is much bigger and has a dishwasher. Yesterday we had lunch and dinner there. For lunch we used a Rachette Set which we melt the cheese in a little oven set in the middle of the table, then we pour the melted cheese over potatoes. Cut ham, sausage, endive, and radishes are also served. We ate a bit late : 2pm. So for dinner we only had soup de poisson (fish soup) and du pan (bread). After every meal we eat formage.

Yesterday, after lunch, Dan and Cecile took us to a castle about 30 minutes from their home. It was a small castle with small well sculptered gardens. It was up the mountain and it was bitterly cold. We had a guilded tour of the inside in French. Dan translated it for us when she finished, but it wasn’t very interesting. Mostly only telling us where things were from. I want to know how they lived.
Being built in the 15th century, the castel walls were a meter and a half thick. We have pictures of the outside. We weren’t allowed to take pictures on the inside, but it doesn’t look like much. There was a chaple in the first chamber.
The next room to the left has two windows facing a valley with bright vert grass and dark green ever green trees. The room itself is painted baby blue with white molding of fluers (flowers) and birds. The moldings are all over the walls and not just in the corners. It was a bright and happy room.
The next room was a dining room which is still used by the current owners, who are not noble. It had a bronze Dutch chandler. The room was darker only having two deep windows. I think the walls were stone. It had a Spanish Renessance painting.
The next room we saw was the kitchen at one time but now is a sitting room. The next room was had the well. It was also stone walled and very dull. It had some broken stone statues which had been found in the garden during a restoration in 1900.
The next room was the pantry and had lots of tools for harvesting wheat, combing wool, hanging meat and other such things. There was also a deep place to put ice they collected in a cave near by to keep all year long.
And that was it. Not very much. Also when we got out side Dan told us that castel owners would knock out the dividers to make two windows into one to reduce their taxes becuase they got taxed for the number of windows they had. I thought that was interesting.