Ce n'est pas possible!

It is not possible! Quite jarring and shocking to hear that phrase when all you want is a little creme brulee. Not possible as if it is the most impossible request in the world, as if not only did they not have it on the menu but it was so out of the realm of possibilities they were shocked we even asked. Strange... I have ordered creme brulee off their menu at least 3 times in the past couple weeks.

I am unsure if something became slightly lost in translation when the French began using this phrase. The phrase is French is Ce n'est pas possible which translates exactly to It is not possible in English but the meaning between the two is totally different apparently. If I were to tell someone it is not possible, I would mean it is completely out of the realm of possibilities. It is not possible I can be in two different places at once, it is not possible your handbag arrive to your door at 4 in the afternoon in New York when you ordered the bag at 3:13 that same afternoon in Louisiana, it is not possible to buy Pepsi from the Coca Cola Manufacturing Plant. These things are not possible. To buy a creme brulee at a restaurant that actually does serve creme brulee, that is a possibility, if they are out of creme brulee then they are out, not to the extremes of it being impossible! to have it.

I am experiencing this quite a bit. While trying to exchange my cell phone for a better one a couple of weeks ago, I was greeted with the phrase "Ce n'est pas possible!" Sure its possible, you just go over to your little cash register, scan the bar code on the box and voila, return is in process. However, apparently as severe as this phrase is to me, it is actually quite impossible to exchange a cell phone at Orange as I tried...4 times. I think the french need to get a new phrase, one I can better understand the meaning. At Orange, it was actually impossible to get the phone exchanged as was there policy but at the restaurant, it was in fact possible to get creme brulee but they were simply out.

Luckily for us, you ask enough times for certain things and "It is not possible" begins to mold itself into "It is possible" and voila, it is finally possible for us to have all of the furniture we asked for and it will be delivered today! Woohoo! Go GE! I am off to buy some necessities for the apartment before the furniture gets there (i.e. washing detergent so we can have wash the new temporary sheets we bought to sleep on until Soner's box finally arrives with our stuff...such a waste of money since we will have the sheets in less than 2 weeks fingers crossed but at the same time such a necessity as I am not sleeping on a mattress!)

Have a wonderful Memorial Day! I will write about our Thursday and Friday holiday and post pictures later.

This is a Test

More great news! We got approved for ALL of our furniture everything from a TV and TV stand to all the bedroom furniture and an extra leather chair to go with our leather 2 seater couch, everything EXCEPT the one other thing that is actually needed...a sideboard to store all our dishes, pots and pans, food, whatever. We do not have any cabinets in our apartment minus one under the bathroom sink and 2 and a half under the kitchen sink. My sincere hope was this sideboard would be tall enough to act as counter space as well as storage otherwise, I guess I am glad our floor is clean enough to eat off of because that may be where all the chopping, mixing and preparing is done. At least all my dishes and pots will be nearby on the floor next to me! But seriously, I am sure we will figure out a way to also get that even if we have to give up one item. We got very lucky. GE does not typically provide all these items to a CLP especially items such as an extra living room chair and a tv and tv stand. Maybe they were tired of paying for a hotel room or maybe Soner was so persistent and it was hard to argue with him. Who knows. Too bad GE didn't relinquish a little extra money when they went to ship Soner's container from Turkey otherwise we could possibly actually live in this great fully furnished apartment of ours. Unfortunately, we have no sheets, towels, no forks or knives, plates or cook ware. I guess maybe GE was right in not including our sideboard because we actually do not have anything to put into it. Maybe that is why they choose to ship Soner's container by sea! Smart move GE! Now we may have a fully furnished apartment but we cannot actually live in it until June 10th unless someone takes some action and figures out what to do for at least sheets and towels to shower as Soner has already bought these items and it is not his fault the container will not actually be in France until May 28th even though it was shipped in April and it is not his fault they will not be able to have it unloaded and through customs and to him until around June 10th. GE, I think you made a BIG error trying to save a little money and not shipping this box by air. So will it be for the cost of one hotel night hello new apartment, goodbye Atria (if GE provides for us) or should we begin to make a permanent home in the Atria hotel?

So the domino effect happens when one thing doesn't quite go right,.. it means everything else also seems to follow suit. If we are still in the hotel or even in a dish-less apartment, there is a good possibility of eating out for the next three weeks until we get our furniture. I don't think my body can take it anymore. I will go invest in some stupid knives if it means I could possibly eat an apple or some other item other than a pastry or pasta. I will invest in a microwave if it means perhaps I can eat a decently healthy meal other than french fries and pizzas. I will try to do everything in my power to assemble enough items at a very very reasonable cost (as I do not want to throw around money when we already have these items in a nice little container hanging out on a boat) to ensure I can possibly stop this ever growing weird looking roll around my belly. I hate that our oven will sit there sad and lonesome all by itself for the next month. I just don't think I will be able to justify spending 15 Euros on a crappy pan when I could get a nice one for 25 Euros and I cannot justify spending 25 Euros on a nice pan whenever we already actually own that pan!

Ah the tests GE puts us through. I do hope they are paying attention and noting how well Soner handles stress in his personal life (with me, the apartment and the lack of items to fill it, I am not quite sure how he has not taken a "sick" day) and how it is not affecting his business life. I hope they are seeing this and realizing he is the perfect man for any upper level position.

(Crossing my fingers) I can handle all this, just please GE, don't throw any more curve balls to us for at least another 3 or 4 weeks.

A Whirlwind Weekend

This has certainly been a whirlwind weekend! Friday it rained most all day so I was quite a bit restless as I did not really care to go wandering around in the rain. Two pieces of good news though. Thursday I finally opened a bank account, bad news on that, the exchange rate seems to have increased a couple days before so I don't actually have any money in this bank account because it is silly to lose so much money if the exchange rate goes down this week. Friday we got the keys to the apartment! It was great. The apartment is so much better than I had remembered it being and I like it quite a lot. Its big with lots of windows. The sun never shines directly into any of the windows yet it seems bathed in sunlight.

So Saturday, with the assumption we were dropping the rental car off Sunday and would not have access to a vehicle again, we checked out prices at the 3 stores within 20 or so kilometer of our town. They were rather quick stops as we did not get moving to the stores until about 10:30 or so. A lot of the stores whether it be a major store or not, close Noon til 2 everyday! Apparently the French like to have nice leisurely lunches and since you should be enjoying your leisurely lunch like everyone else, then obviously you would never dream of shopping between those hours. We had our nice leisurely lunch at Buffalo Grill. This restaurant is more Texan than some Texan restaurants. We had a cowboy and an Indian greet us hello as we walked in and had an appetizer of buffalo wings, cheese sticks, chicken skewers and onion rings. Oh and they also gave us popcorn with our appetizer! It was great. If we hadn't known better, from the clientele, we would have also thought they were possibly Texans. They seemed to gobble it all down and make quite a mess while doing so. This restaurant was completely unlike any restaurant I have seen in France or Turkey. It is finally almost time to start our shopping again so we went on to the Leclerc to buy up the "big" items. We loaded up on all the essentials, fun: ( Blah, I hate we have to waste all our money on cleaning supplies, drying racks, vacuums! They add up so quickly. We could take a nice little vacation for what essential items cost. We spent the day heading back and forth between stores and finally ending up back at the Leclerc at the end of the day since it stayed open the latest. I did manage to also buy some flower pots. Yay for me! I will plant some flowers for our balcony. Cross your fingers they will not die on me.

We changed our mind Sunday about the car as we have no furniture in our apartment and we will have to make a trip up to Ikea towards the end of the week to pick up items GE does not provide (hoping they will actually provide these items before the end of the week though!) There is a holiday Thursday so everyone has off Thursday and Friday so we need furniture by Wednesday. During holidays nothing is open so it is almost silly to have dropped the car yesterday so we could turn around and pick it back up on Wednesday evening. So imagine this, bright and early on a beautiful Sunday morning. It looks like such a great day, the weather is perfect, the sun is shining and we get to spend the entire day cleaning! We arrived at the apartment around 9:30 and cleaned until about 8 stopping for a total of about an hour to eat. That apartment will be spotless and I plan on being in pain from cleaning it for about two weeks so send heating pads! I have pictures so I will post soon. The apartment is so nice. We have a nice large living/dining room, two bedrooms, one of which is going to be a huge closet (hmm not so huge, both bedrooms are actually smaller than my parents walk-in closet) and our kitchen is surprisingly large. Too bad we don't have a fridge, an oven, any countertops or cabinets... I am wondering how do you rent countertops... I don't believe you can just go to a store and say "I would like to rent countertops, what can you give me" and since you cannot do that, what does one do? Maybe we can find a huge chopping board at a good price and put it over part of our kitchen sink. We do have a kitchen sink so I guess thats something: )

This was my weekend, endless trips back and forth and a workout harder than anything I have ever done! I am off now to try to finish up the bathrooms! (Eww me and bathrooms do not mix. I really think Soner should have cleaned those so I would not have to visually imagine the things I cleaned over and over and over again like a movie in my head!) Enjoy your day!

Does it thunder in French or English?

Apparently it has rained a few days since I have been in Belfort but I have only witnessed it once or twice for only a few minutes at a time. The rain here reminds me of the rain in New Orleans,.. it rains most days it seems but it is not enough to pull out all your rain gear and call it a day once a few drops hit the cobble stoned streets. In fact, three times I have thought the rain would put a damper on the day so I have turned around and headed back to the hotel, opted to drive the car to dinner once and freaked out a bit when I got lost yesterday because the rain had begun. The rain appears to only be enough to cause this southern girl's hair to become 3 times its size and then it quits! If I didn't know better, I would think I was back in New Orleans minus the giant cemeteries (although while passing through one of the small towns Sunday, we did see a cemetery very reminiscent to N.O.). So is this a French thing? This frequent rain that seems to dry instantly when it hits the ground? I have yet to find a city except New Orleans with rains like this. In San Diego, if it rains however infrequent, it pours with no end in sight. North Louisiana, if it is going to rain, it will rain and most likely all day, the same in Dallas, Chicago, Houston...

So as I said before, I got lost yesterday! I think somehow I even exited the city (not hard to do I guess since it is a tiny city but when I turned to walk back toward the way I came, I was welcomed by a sign stating "Bievenue Belfort"). While I was taking a quick excursion out of this lovely city, it did start to rain and I was already depressed after having tried to open a bank account at a bank for the 3rd time. All three times unsuccessful. I am a little backwards in thinking banks should leave their doors unlocked during business hours and not make you essentially ring a doorbell (its not really a doorbell) to call to them to let you in...at least I think that is what I am doing when I press that little button and as I do not speak french well enough to be understood over a possible intercom, I have given up completely. One bright spot of the day, I purchased stamps! A small victory but the postal lady spoke no English and I had to rely only on French. J'ai besoin d'envoyer la lettre, s'il vous plait. I also continued to explain I wanted to send a letter and a post card to aux Etats Unis. Success! My only difficulty was in understanding it was possible to send a letter and postcard to the United States using the same value stamp and I only had to use one of those stamps on each item.

Today I planned on another small victory...finally opening a bank account with Soner's help and an English speaking banker near by Soner's office. Struck down again unfortunately but we have an appointment tomorrow at 9 to open myself a French bank account. Woohoo! Finally!

On other news, we may have the keys to our apartment tomorrow afternoon. There's a good chance we will not have furniture and that we will be stuck in this hotel throughout the weekend continuing to eat out for every meal BUT at least I know there is good healthy food around the corner. It was fun at first trying to read a French menu but after a while, you just want to be able to go to a restaurant and order without so much thought! Everything takes so much thought around here. Who knows if I will ever actually take the time to continue learning French or read any of the great business books I had planned to tackle. My mind is so worn out by the time I muddle my way through any thing French (product manuals, menus, French phone, tv and internet information!) that I am unsure it will be able to grasp anything other than a kids cartoon (which by the way also takes much work just to have on in the background...lots and lots of high pitches with the same phrases repeated over and over and OVER again! At least they are an easy learning tool!)

Well I am off to enjoy my 4.20 Euro ($5.72) coke and try to be quiet and still for a little bit.

Assume Nothing

If ever I made a toast to being in France, it would go something like this: "Here's to trying to blend in, trying not to cry when your 300 US Dollars only comes to 220 Euros and never assuming anything" and then I would proceed to do everything as I would in the US and watch all the French people exchange a knowing "ah, she's American" look.

My latest "excitement" is not really excitement at all. I almost absolutely hate my new cell phone I purchased Thursday. It is a touch screen cell phone which the sales lady said was very similar to the iPhone but it IS NOT! Tapping on the touch screen always leads me to everywhere I do not want to go and the enjoyable things on my iPhone such as language translation and currency exchange cannot be put on to this phone, in fact, I cannot download any applications for this phone except ring tones. I know cell phones used to just be cell phones but I have become so attached to the ease of the iPhone, I do not even remember how to perform normal functions on a cell phone. Anyway, I tried to make an exchange today but no one in Orange parle anglais so I had to make my way in French while the little French man looked at me as if I had lost my mind. It seems, if I am understanding correctly, they do not do exchanges or returns and I am stuck with my silly little cell phone. Seriously, if the sales lady had mentioned upon purchasing the phone, I would think my cell phone was turned off in the sunlight because you cannot see the screen at all or it would take two or three taps on the screen for it to register my touch or that it simply was nothing like the iphone short of the touch screen, I would not have purchased it and instead gone with a phone far cheaper. I guess the French will really enjoy me pouring money into their pockets with all the purchasing mistakes I will probably make in the future.

Adventures in Belfort

It has been an adventurous last few days. Friday the Bellforissimo Festival began. 20-30 White tents dotted the water way with flower venders from all over the city and a few crepe, wine and meat venders. It seemed everyone in Belfort came out! Everyone was carrying flowers around and I was a bit sad we did not have an apartment yet as I would have loved to bring home some of my own flowers to plant on the balcony. We wanted to taste some of the many wines they offered but for the first time, the language barrier was actually a problem. With so many people around, it was not even worth finding out if any of the venders spoke English as it would be almost un-understandable with all the noise and chaos around. The pictures below are the little flower beds they created specifically for the festival. There was a couple of them on each of the four corners by outside the festival and a few placed nearby. I am assuming it was a paint theme! They used colored chips and flowers to create the "paint" flowing from the tubes of paint. It was very vibrant.


Saturday we made our first trip out of Belfort to Stausbourg to explore Ikea! We came home with a few odds and ends for our apartment, very exciting as it means we will actually have an apartment soon! Soner and I continued on our way about an hour or so outside Strasbourg to visit with a military buddy of Soner's. They greeted us with lots and lots and LOTS of Turkish food. I had not been presented with so much food since i was actually in Turkey. It was nice and little bits and pieces of Turkish began to come back to me.
^^We found these great little Nutella treats at the gas station with little cookie sticks to dip into the Nutella...heavenly!

The most memorable part of the weekend, the mountain! Sunday we wound our way throughout little towns near Belfort. The towns were beautiful little French villages everyone in the US imagines with their great big windows and shutters that actually open and close. On our way back to the hotel after our little adventures we decided to follow a sign with some kind of symbol on it. Little did we know it would take us about 30 minutes away or so and up a mountain! Ballon d'Alsace. We followed and followed and followed the signs and eventually began to climb a mountain..a very high mountain in my personal opinion. My stomach was in all kinds of knots as we made our way up with the edge so near the road. One false move and I could see my life flashing before my eyes. The view was beautiful from the top although a little chilly. Picture Soner in a t-shirt and shorts and I in a little summer dress, cardigan and sandals and everyone else in anoraks and pants! I told Soner he needs to start speaking Turkish when he is around people so they don't think stupid Americans everywhere we go! Luckily, our return trip down the mountain included a very slooowww tour bus in front of us so I could actually enjoy the scenery instead of practicing my in and out, in and out breathing.

Peeling Paint

Would it be as pretty without the distressed peeling paint look? Every building I see minus the brand new buildings have some level of peeling paint whether it be on the shutters, the doors, the walls,.. I wondered why absolutely no one has bothered to repaint these items in the whole city. Are they too busy living their lives and enjoying themselves to bother with such things as the exterior of their home or do they realize the true gem is the inside and the aging outside only adds to the depth and stories the building can tell. I have only made my way through 3 or 4 apartments but the same holds true for the interior staircases leading from floor to floor. They are most definitely many years older than me and appear a bit dilapidated as if one false move might cause a limb to pull a disappearing act into a rotten stair.


Would any of these places be as beautiful and pretty with a new coat of paint? Probably not. They would probably instantly lose their charm and become just like every other "faux" French home you see throughout the States. Too perfect to be French.

Today I practically skipped down the streets in sandals and a sundress. The day is one of the best days I have seen thus far with blue skies and a very bright sun! (Trust me, it was bright..so bright that at 6:30 in the morning I was wide awake and unable to fall back to sleep) I proudly purchased my first "French" cell phone. Its not the coveted IPhone but I was not ready to shell out 549 Euros for a phone I may be unable to use in 6 months. My prepaid phone is wonderful though supposedly. I can talk as much as I want and text as much as I want (as long as I'm willing to keep shelling out euros for minutes!) AND all calls and texts I receive are FREE! How is that for great. International calls, domestic calls, SMS, MMS, everything free..it is wonderful especially because seriously, it is not my fault if someone wants to talk to me or get in touch with me,..why should I be forced to also pay to give them that privilege. Afterwards, I made my first return to a store. Luckily, it was not too difficult, unfortunately it was not attributed to my choppy French but to the very kind English woman in line next to me who rattled off exactly what I wanted to say to the saleswoman. I was very excited to hear the word "sensible" in her explanation to the saleswoman though as I had planned on using the word to describe my sensitive eyes.

Drumroll please...we have an APARTMENT! Woohoo! It is a stunning European style..oh wait, it is not stunning or very European looking on the outside but modern and square, however, it will have to do. The interior is almost new (I have yet to get an explanation for "almost new" though and I am not quite sure what it refers to as there is not a refrigerator, oven, dishwasher, washer, cabinets, countertops or closets throughout the apartment so the "new" items might possibly refer to the bathtub and sink in the bathroom or the solitary sink in the kitchen.) Otherwise the inside has nice tile floors throughout the living room and kitchen and sad to say, slightly hideous wall paper in the two bedrooms..think bright red and yellow in one room and cream with blue stripes with light houses dotted everywhere in another. Soner thinks there was a passionate artist in one room but what type of person was in the other one?? I am crossing my fingers the wallpaper gets replaced. You may think 5 months is not a long time, it may seem short and you should just deal with the aesthetics but we are talking about being in a place 150 days give or take, enough time to complete a semester of college and begin another one, to find a job, work there and quit, for an entire season and a half to pass.

France is wonderful though all in all. We had dinner at the first restaurant we ate at upon my arrival Saturday and it was even better than the first time. Maybe because we are learning at least one new word each of us each time we go. Speaking of learning, I will go back to learning more french via my iPod. Talk Soon.

The economical way!

You try to save in every way you can with all the hype everywhere about this "terrible" recession we are in! I go around and pretend it has affected my life a little by cutting back on magazines. Thanks to Mom, I cut back on magazine buying but she did not! (Days ago before France, the latest Cosmo, Glamour, People, Life & Style (the list could go on and on) were to be found scattered all throughout the house.) It is a hard thing to grasp as people seem to have gone on with life the same as always in Shreveport. There were still tons of people buying their low fat, no water, no whip iced drinks from Starbucks, "Oh make that a venti!" and it was a rare occasion you could walk into a restaurant at lunch without a long wait. Of course, the argument people have to eat applies here but where else can one typically save the most money than eating?? It's all I ever do anyhow. Food is one of the best parts of life.

I have learned something about the French since I have been here but of course it came out of a news article I read off Yahoo! news from the US. It just so happened to coincide with my trip. French people sleep and eat more than any other wealthy country in the world. They sleep an average of 9 hours a night and spend an average of 2 hours eating. What they did not disclose is if that two hours is strictly putting food to mouth or enjoying conversation while eating. I have had Turkish meals that in one sitting last longer than two hours so I am very curious to know what puts the French at the top of this list. Also, how do the French stay so thin as everyone claims with all this eating? Every plate of food I have seen around here is enough to feed four people with each having leftovers for lunch the next day. Think Monjunis lasagna times one and a half plus penne pasta and another food filling another slot on the plate, each as big a portion as the lasagna...for ONE woman sitting by herself.

Anyway, back to cutting back. I have eaten at 4 restaurants since Saturday. Here, it seems the average price of a coke is 3.50-4.50 euros roughly the equivalent of 4.65 to 6 US dollars for a single coke in a bottle. On the plus side, the bottles do look slightly larger than the cans which is what we paid for in Turkey for about the same price. So you have two choices here, pay the inordinately excessive price for a coke with perhaps a second round as you continue to eat your very large portion OR pay 6 euros for 4 glasses of wine to be split between two people! So far the wine is winning out! The most expensive wine I have seen thus far was at the Moroccan restaurant we ate at Monday night and that was only 14.50 euros for an entire bottle of wine!

Suffice to say, I am very lucky as I do like wine and buying it here in France to drink with dinner or cheese will definitely cut back on our grocery bills. All in all, France is good. My limited french regarding foods is causing a bit of anxiety when it comes to where to eat dinner.. I prefer to only eat dinner at restaurants I can recognize more than one word in a food description. This is my goal for the day though, learn more french food names and apply to dinner tonight. So off I go to learn more French.

Je ne comprend pas!

Well, I take great comfort my French must be good enough for everyone to understand "Je ne comprend pas" (I don't understand). I must be saying something right although they do continue to speak French to me,..maybe they are somehow under the impression I am French and only misunderstood them and not simply do not understand a word that is coming out of their mouth!

Soner says I will not have jet lag because I started going to bed at the time he goes to bed when I got here and that the jet lag days have passed behind me. I disagree. I only stayed awake all day Saturday and Sunday because what choice did I have?? Sleep both those days and then he will work for the week and I have no one to show me around OR force myself awake and enjoy it? So I take naps, 2 hr naps in the afternoons and try to sleep late in the mornings. A bit difficult as I believe every moped bike in the city drives past our hotel and revves its engine just to spite me.

After laying in bed for hours this morning, I finally dragged myself up and out of the room to Sephora! A comforting place! Most all of the products had English and French descriptions so it was perfect. I also stumbled upon a wonderful place, the Mono Prix. Not much of an exciting place to most but for me it was heavenly! It means I no longer have to trek the endless miles (If it wasn't miles, it sure felt like it was!) to get to the supermarche' at the end of the city (so I only actually did that long walk once but it made such an impression on me). This place is a bit smaller but do I really need ALL those choices of food the big supermarche' has to offer? I think I may be the only person who gets excited about grocery stores. I have favorites in every city I have been in! In Shreveport, definitely Brookshires on Line Avenue, Baton Rouge it was Albertsons on Bluebonnet Blvd, San Diego Ralphs in La Jolla, Chicago...hmm I only ever went to Dominics across the street because I am too lazy to walk to another but I went there often to walk around and think of something to buy and in Istanbul the grocery store in Kanyon Mall, maybe also because it was the only one I ever frequented to walk around and look at all the food. I sound like a nerd more and more as I go through this post, don't I?

Last night I met a lot of Soner's CLP friends. There were 11 of us in total and a baby. We had Morocan food with lots and lots of couscous! The food was pretty good and the mixture of people were quite funny. There were two people from the United States, a New Yorker and Houstonian. The majority of everyone else seem to be from Russia with perfect English! The night was nice but there was no one on the streets when we left a little after 10. It was very quiet..almost spooky quiet.

Ok one more thing, the perfect coke..I found it! It is a miniature canned version of the regular thing. It is a real can and a real coke with only 64 calories to the can. It is the most wonderful size as I cannot actually finish a real coke ever so this is not wasteful and you don't feel the need to drink an entire 12 oz coke just because it is there.