Ok, ok the cats have NEVER spent the night outside!

The Difference Between Cats and Dogs

It is this basic: the dog thinks it is part of your family, the cats think they are letting you use their house.

Every night, the cats come inside. They are hungry, and need to check on their beds. It is just that some nights, Lea escapes, and we have to go retrieve her. It has never been later than 7:00 pm, though. Trips up to open space are probably futile, me thinks she would come back anyway.

As Famous English Veterinarian James Herriott once said, "If you want to find the warmest, coziest place in a barn, look to where the cats are sleeping."

FYI, the dog will be on holiday with family friends, probably adopting them. Dearly hope to get her back, she is that awesome. And she is BFF's with Lea the bad, go figure.

Back to the Exchange........

We suspect our new French friends are in California, their plane was outbound on July 27th. We have not heard from them, but they were very anxious to know when exactly our house would be available for occupancy. We leave Saturday morning at 9:30, and suspect they will arrive around noon. And hoping they are enjoying the lovely coastal route up from Los Angeles.

Between Now and Saturday Morning

We will finish cleaning, finishing our notes for our guests and packing like you-can-not-buy toothpaste in France. We have acquired two new bags from Costco that clearly will not fit overhead. They are nearly full.

It is almost Bon Voyage time, with luck the next post will be from a restaurant terrace in Versaille, keeping the champagne a fair distance from the laptop.

Au Revoir, Mes Amis!

Differences

The Difference Between The Them and The Us

We had a lot in common, but some of our differences were comical. We needed to trade keys,  right? Or, at least devise a method of getting into each others house. Marie sent me 3 keys, and the following instructions:

There will be 3: one for the gate (it can be hard to open if it is warm because the metal dilates), one for the shutter of the front door (the second one on your left when you come inside the garden), and the last for the front door......and the alarm code is: ##### and "off" (the keyboard is just on your right, on the wall, when you come inside).

We just have one key, and it will be in a lock box on the front porch.Code #####.

We also have cats, and they have no pets. We are very concerned about our cats, as we live next to "open space", a "preserve", call it whatever. It is land which will never be developed into houses or stores and has been preserved naturally. With all associated wildlife.Have not confessed about the fish.

During the day, not much happens up there. At night, the coyotes, raccoons, skunks, owls and more come out. Some have been known to prey upon the domestic cats. So we really, really, really want our cats in at night. Our trick is to feed the cats only at night, inside, which seems to get them in the house. One cat is very tricky and an escape artist.

Our French friends think they will be fine with the cats. We can hope.

Speaking of Trust....

One has to advance some amount of trust to do a home exchange. After all, we will be oceans away from our house while strangers are in our house. And of course, we will be in their house.

More than a few friends have asked about this. A surprising number of friends have not even mentioned the trust thing. We have agreed to leave each other's house as we found it, including watered plants.

I think the basic trust issue is overcome because both families are in the same situation: we are in their house, they are in ours. Perhaps even bigger is the enormous amount of communication that occurs between the families, negotiating the dates, what will be available for each family and more.

At some point, it felt like we were really getting to know each other and we had a lot in common. Then something terrific happened. We began to treat our families as special guests, not just the cleaning, leaving some food, wine and instructions, but favorite dining spots. We have been wishing each other excellent holidays!

Ghost town: Viroflay in August

Ghost Town Vacation

I finally was able to view the lists of  stores, restaurants, tourist spots, museums etc that Marie had sent me. (Through the acute detective work of my Dr. Wonderful, who had many iterations with Microsoft word -pffff- rtf files to text edit to get to Word format)

What a thorough list Marie sent! I am now shamed into perfecting my list for her: no small feat, we're talking the Bay Area...San Francisco, wine country, beaches, the coastal drive up  from Los Angeles and of course the lovely Marin County.

But first. We are arriving in France on a Sunday morning. August 1st the double whammy. August in France, and Sunday morning. Will we be able to get dinner and wine? One would think stores are open in France on Sunday, but they are not!

I pondered the list and noticed no mention of the August/Sunday possible problem. So I emailed Marie. She is candid, and she first did phone/inquire about this for us, arriving after 2 long flights, pretty jet-lagged, can't speak the language...what are we to do about a meal. And thankfully they are FRENCH, and understood the wine problem??!!?

Marie has offered to leave us some chicken, some fois gras (and other typical french products, Champagne...). The restaurants and wine shop in Viroflay are closed on Sunday, Marie found out, and much of August.

Fortunately Versailles is a 5 minute train ride, and quite a big tourist attraction. Wouldn't dare close Versailles during tourist season. We are saved by Versailles, and that is not what Versailles is noted for. "Restaurants with the best terraces!"  She offered us again to take their car. "Why not take our car to Versailles for dinner?" Is this sounding like a vacation or what?

If we are too tired, we can order pizza, and Marie sent the phone numbers for Domino's and Pizza Hut. All the way to France and Pizza Hut?

We will be eating in Versailles on Monday, but more likely, a nap and a drive to Versailles on Sunday.

International Drivers License

Do not know if this is necessary, but afraid I will not be able to drive a car without one so planning on getting that before we leave.

Our Preparations Continued

I finished sorting through the linen closet. We do have towels for a family of 6, heck, we could towel up a family of 12. But some of the towels have been in the closet for some time, so the washing and sorting of towels has commenced.

During the Sunday meal panic-emails, Marie asked about touring Alcatraz while here. It's your basic prison on an island in the middle of the bay, but the views from the ferry required to get there are fabulous, so we recommend and recommend tennis shoes, lots of walking.

This inquiry did inspire us to complete our recommendations for them, easy for me. Mr. did a google map with recommendations of restaurants, attractions, etc, check out one:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=105016267495495024567. 00048bc5007d09b0de14c&z=9

You must copy and paste the entire url into your browser, then wait for the upload. Quite something! and apparently kind of time consuming to do. Also a first pass, so no critics!

I have begun to do an itinerary for us. Much of what one does in the Bay Area during these economic times does not require a reservation, nor does one need to get very dressed up.

Not true for Paris! Marie suggested reservations for dinner, even if you just call the same day. And the boat ride with dinner around the Seine requests suit and tie. Note to self: add tie to Paul's list. Marie said yes to the cruise, but not  dinner on the boat, expensive and not so tasty. We will not argue food with the French.


Next: Emailing restaurants and boats in France...

The list

The List!

I heard back from Marie today. She was so worried about my concerns that nothing would be open. Of course we will not have to go to Paris for groceries! She emailed me a list of lots of places to shop in Viroflay, a couple of towns within 5 kilometers. Who said French people are not nice, these people are over the top.

Unfortunately the list was created on a PC, I am MAC, and she sent it as a .rtf. So I now await Mr PC genius to open the file. Can't wait!

Thank God for Google maps...I'll be able to see the shops before we even get there. Stay tuned.

Bastille Day

I didn't really expect a response from Marie today. Maybe tomorrow, those French! (They have a different word for everything!?!)

Paris in August?

Paris in August

The advisability of a vacation in Paris in August continues to rear it's ugly head. Friends and acquaintances are telling us that folks in Paris pack up and take a collective vacation every August. What will there be for us to do, let alone eat?

In preparation for our trip, I bought and was loaned a few books. In the eight chapter of A Year in Provence (the chapters are months...), author Peter Mayle makes a huge point of the big city slickers coming into Provence from Paris. He even describes the, "twenty-mile traffic jams..reported on the autoroute at Beaune, and anyone getting through the tunnel at Lyon in less that a hour was considered lucky.." all routes south of and out of Paris. "A traditionally awful start to the month, and the ordeal woud be repeated four weeks later in the opposite direction during the exodus weekend. "

Another friend brought the Food Lover's Guide to Paris, by Patricia Wells. Looking at some of the chic swanky restaurants, I noticed they were closed in August.

How does an entire City take a vacation at once? Right now, I am taking solace in the fact that both books were written in the 1980s, and surely the chic citizens of Paris have seen some light, or value in staying open during what is someone else's vacation time?

Our daughter wanted to go to the Ballet while in Paris. I couldn't tell what show was on there, so I asked Marie for a URL. Sadly, the Paris Ballet company is on holiday during August. However, so is the SF ballet.

I await Marie's reply to my last email: is anything open in Viroflay during our stay? We may be taking lots of train rides. The countryside is supposed to be beautiful, and Bordeaux is open, right?

The Vacation

The Vacation Idea

Every year, we try to go some place new for a vacation. Since the Euro was low (versus the US dollar) we thought we'd go to Portugal. As Mr Wonderful hates the packing and unpacking usually associated with Europe, I decided to try www.homeforexchange.com. Of the 30 families I contacted in and around Lisbon, none were willing to spend the money to visit the US this year.

Now addicted to the idea of a European vacation, we put France as our second choice (thinking a French family would contact us!). Every Friday, the webmistress would send us possible homes to exchange with. After many exchanges (and some advice from a friend who had previously done this: make sure the home your visiting is the size of yours, not a 400 square foot 5th floor walk up, or has the accommodations you are looking for!), we settled on a lovely home in Viroflay, between Paris and Versailles. Lovely, lovely home and family.

The French Connection

It is the first home exchange for us and our French family. Many emails back and forth: was our pool safe, how many could fit in our cars, do we have internet service, could we send a picture of our family so the French family would see who was going to be sleeping in their beds, eating in their kitchen, etc.

There were some language problems. They meant, was our pool fenced so the three year old couldn't get in (the yard is fenced, not the pool). They'll have to be aware of where little Chantal is! We have offered to put bells on the patio doors. Our daughter was three when we put the pool in and was terrified of the pool, but now does swim team.

In The Beginning, The emails

I emailed Marie (my new French friend and Mom of four) many times. We found out our husbands are both engineers, and she (and I ) are in Finance. I decided I didn't need to tell her where the pots and pans were, probably in the same place as her kitchen.


We rent homes for skiing a lot, and we did know that there are just so many places one will put a hairdryer, coffee maker etc. We really wanted to know where the good food shops and restaurants were and fun local stuff to do - we knew we'd visit Versailles, the Lourve, the Eiffel towel, etc. Stephanie is insisting she is makings lists of all their favorite places for us to visit.

The Cleaning

We found ourselves looking at our home in a new way: through another family's eyes. Which meant, we should probably clean up our personal stuff, and maybe the guest room.

I painted our master bath, it had some mold on the walls. First cleaned it with the proper chemicals, the anti-mold paint. Got a new medicine cabinet.

My husband was even more voracious. He began fixing things that had been years in the making. New screen in bathroom, no more mosquitos slipping in!

The kitchen refridgerator's ice maker worked, but no water came out of the water dispenser. That was fixed. Many trips to Goodwill, 4 bags of old tennis shoes from the garage, out! Our guest room now has boxes under the desk, rather than papers and statements and canceled checks on the top. There will be more boxes in the garage as we continue the cleaning, or rather hiding.

Drawers in the kitchen have been cleaned out and put back together, with ancient, broken or just plain gross stuff thrown out. Clearly, people who move every few years do not have these problems. We have lived here for 16 years, and at least one of us is a very bad pack rat.

The Confession

Eventually, I emailed Marie that we were cleaning, but would not be getting to the garage for their visit. Which is the location of our washer and dryer and second refridgerator.

Marie emailed back: their garage was a mess, and the location of the washer dryer, and they weren't going to have time to paint the kids bathroom, which was moldy. The last one was kind of late, I had already painted our bath!

I feel certain there may be other confessions, but it was reassuring to find out our French family was our alter ego.

The Cleaning Continues...

Mr Wonderful is going to clean our kid' play room, which has a single bed and probably perfect for their only son. It's been used as extra storage. There is a possibility that the tile which fell off of the wall between the hot tub and pool gets re-attached. Last night, Mr Wonderful finally matched the grout.

We are scheduled to leave July 31st, and it's July 12th. Not too much more can get fixed around here. We will leave everything clean.

One email, Marie threatened to bring her own pool towels. This was after I asked her to not machine dry ours every time they are used, as the towels are huge and can be dried more frugally by hanging on a chair in the back yard. I didn't want her to bother with this, so I emailed her a picture of our beautiful pool towels.