How to get something repaired in France. Or, Sure, we can take cold showers in the middle of winter...

you know, i am generally not one who likes to use her blog as a forum for complaining about the difficulties of cross-cultural living. even though at times i encounter challenges or frustrations living in france, the things i love about this culture always outnumber the things that make me want to scream into my pillow. but i do want to use this blog to give you a picture of what life in france is like, and the past few days have provided the quintessential example of how things work here. so read this blog entry, not as the rantings of a frustrated foreigner, but rather as an informative story to give you a glimpse into french culture.

it all started on monday evening, when i was feeling particularly chilly and tried to turn on the radiator in the living room. but the heat never came, and upon inspection i discovered that our gas heater, that provides our apartment with heat and hot water, was not working. i found this strange, as the very same heater had just broken down and been repaired 3 months prior. i decided that i would call the company that fixed it last time. although the repair hadn't lasted 3 months, they were friendly, cheap, and quick to respond.

the next morning, tuesday, i called the heater repair company. no answer. i called again an hour later. still no answer, although the voice message said they were open all day. i called every hour all day tuesday, with no response. andrea showered at her office. (yes, she has a shower in her office. is that normal in the french workplace?) we all slept under piles of blankets wearing 3 pairs of socks each.

wednesday, i decided to give up on them, after another unanswered call. so i pulled out the pages jaunes (yellow pages) to find another company that could come fix the heater. that, of course, was no easy task:

call #1: we don't want to drive into the city center
call #2: we don't want to fix that particular brand of heater
call #3: we don't do repairs on wednesdays
call #4: we're leaving for vacation on friday and don't want to take any more work before then
call #5: we're feeling rather busy today...

this continued until literally the 9th company i called agreed to send someone to our apartment. the repairman said he'd come that afternoon. i asked him what time. he said somewhere between 2pm and 6pm. i asked him if he realized that i had a busy schedule and did he really expect me to sit at home for four hours waiting for him. ok, i didn't actually ask that, but if i had, i'm confident his answer would have been oui.

repairman showed up, fixed the heater, and charged me twice as much as i was charged 3 months before. i asked him what had gone wrong. he said it was complicated. i asked him if it was normal that it should break down every 3 months. he said yes. i asked him what i could do to fix it if it happened again. he said there was nothing i could do, i'd just have to call a repairman.

wednesday night, i took a hot bubble bath to celebrate the return of the gas.

today, thursday, i went into the kitchen to wash some dishes and discovered that the water was ice cold. that's right, the gas heater has once again broken down.

i called the repair company and finally got a hold of the man who had "fixed" my heater the day before. i explained to him that it was not fixed after all. for some reason, he did not seem all that surprised. i asked him if he could please come back today and repair it in such a way that we would not have to go through this again on friday. he said he had already left aix and did not want to drive back into town today, he would come back tomorrow.

i guess i'll take a cold shower tonight.


(for similar stories, go to megan's blog to read about the 8 month-long mold problem in her apartment. this is the real france.)

and we're back...

one month.

one month is admittedly too long to go without a new blog post. apologizing. moving on. starting to write again.

one month also happens to be the ideal amount of time to put one's life on pause, neglect one's blog, and journey halfway around the world to spend some much needed catch-up time with far-away family and friends. for this i do not apologize.

after almost a year in france, i was very ready to spend the holidays in california. the fact that i love my life abroad doesn't exclude me from missing my family and friends in california.

highlights of my trip home include:
--hot beverages you can take to go in paper cups with lids
--eating so much mexican food, i think i'm sick of it for a while
--hours of playing cards with my family, including a particularly spirited game of nertz in coffee bean and tea leaf that just may have disturbed a few other patrons
--honorary roommate status at lauren and laura's house in santa barbara
--spending time with my church families
--butterfly beach
--family dinner and game night at the guys' house
--paying for everything in dollars. and not paying for anything in euros.
--family. and friends. and family. and friends...
--sharing what God is doing in France with a lot of people
--driving up the 101, ipod blasting, watching the sun set over the pacific ocean

low points include:
--sitting motionless for 3 hours on the 101 because of an accident
--mom's broken ankle (what is with our family and christmas-time foot injuries?)
--accidentally attempting to "faire les bises" multiple times and causing a few awkward situations

of course, i could go on and on listing highlights, because it was a wonderful trip. i am so thankful to have spent time with all my dear friends and family members. to all of you- come visit me in europe! i'll return the favor and show you a really good time.

the weirdest thing to adjust to during this quick little culture hop, besides the huge cars and huge portions of food, was the realization that i've changed. as easy as it was to slip back into my old little niches in my california life, i know that the previous 10 months (and the previous 3 years, really) in europe have changed me. not in major ways. in subtle, hard to recognize, why don't i quite feel at home in my home ways. it's good to start processing out those changes now that i'm back home. and by back home, i mean back in france.

because i was a big-time blog slacker while i was in the states-
MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEARS to all my wonderful blog readers! i hope you all passed a wonderful holiday season!

wow, it's 2008. here we go...

My Life as a Rockstar. Or, Yet another reason I really love my job.

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m kind of a rockstar. The absurdity of it still makes me giggle. But it’s true. One of my roles at [iccp] is, along with Adam and Tasha, to start a high school ministry from scratch. One way I decided to go about this was to start a band. Actually, this band is the realization of a dream that began years ago after observing that, 1. music is a powerful avenue for outreach because it speaks to so many people, and 2. we have some incredibly talented high school musicians in our community who were longing for an outlet for their musical gifts and for a place to be connected to something meaningful. A few years (and a bit of blood, sweat, and tears) later, a band was born.

Last weekend was our public debut, and we debuted in a big way. On Saturday night we played for a event that was organized for youth in the greater Provence area. Our (still nameless) band has been rehearsing for months and months, and I was so pleased with how well we clicked as a group for this first gig. We also had the opportunity to play on the Cours Mirabeau, the main downtown street in Aix. A large stage is set up at the top of the Cours as a part of the Christmas market, and our band was invited to play 2 sets on this stage on Friday night, and 3 sets during the day on Sunday. We drew a huge crowd both days and got really great feedback. I’m still not sure how to handle the attention (I don’t think I’m a rockstar by nature), but I am excited about the fact that through this we’re connecting with a lot of people and [iccp] is becoming better known in the community.

So we’ll see where this goes. Yesterday I got a connection to potentially play at IPN, a nightclub in town popular with exchange students that has started doing live music once a week. My job is so awesome.

It feels good to be legal. Or, a French bureaucracy Christmas miracle!

I am a legal resident of France!!! And it’s slightly unexpected. The process to get a residency card in France is anything but easy- it usually takes a year before you have the card in your hand, and requires loads of paperwork, a doctor’s visit, hunting down a place to pay the required taxes, and multiple visits to the sous-prefecture office. I had to make one such visit the other day...

My récipissée (the temporary piece of paper saying that my residency card is in process, and allowing me to travel in the meantime) had expired, and I had to get it renewed so that I could travel to the States for Christmas. The average non-French resident has their récipissée expire and get renewed several times before their actual residency card is ready. Well, when the girl behind the window looked me up in the computer, she says, to my utter shock, “we should have your residency card here.” Somehow, (and it must have been either a complete and utter fluke or an act of God’s grace), my residency card was ready in an abnormally timely fashion, before I ever had my medical visit or paid the necessary tax. And normally the sous-prefecture would have held on to my card until those things were taken care of (which would probably require many more months of hassle), but when I explained I was traveling in a few weeks, he said, “ok, I’ll give you the card now, the rest will get worked out later.”

Extraordinary efficiency in French bureaucracy and a friendly, helpful government worker! Sometimes France really can surprise you...

So This is Christmas. Or, The carol service is over, I can have my brain back.

Last weekend [iccp] hosted our annual Christmas Carol service in the big cathedral in Aix. It was especially significant for me this year as I devoted several months of my life to the planning of the event as one of the coordinators (along with the lovely Lindsey Pettyjohn). I must say that, despite my slightly elevated stress levels leading up to the event trying to keep track of more details than my brain could contain (I didn’t even realize how much it consumed all my brain space until it was over and I was suddenly able to think about other things), the event went smashingly well. The place was packed- around 1200 people were able to hear the story of Jesus’ birth in both French and English. It’s very cool that we have such a good relationship with the Catholic Church that they give us free reign of the Cathedral each year. Go to this link to check out a 360˚ panoramic view of the service. Hold down your mouse button and scroll around to have a look around the cathedral.

Once. Or, how to make an album for the ears and eyes.

The other day I went to see a movie called Once (at the recommendation of Darrin Jones) that turned out to be really wonderful; I'd even venture to say it's shaping up to be one of my favorite films. It's a unique approach to film: instead of creating a plot and then layering on music to inject emotion, the entire movie is actually born out of the music. In fact, it's more a "visual album" than a movie; it's like curling up to listen to your favorite album and watching it unfold beautifully before your eyes.

The story is a snapshot into the life of an Irish musician who meets a girl while playing his music on the streets of Dublin, and for a few days they experiment in making music together and in the process, significantly impact each other's lives. Essentially, it's a love story, but not a conventional one: the bond that develops out of their creative partnership is so much deeper and more significant than a passion-filled romantic love. It's a love marked with respect, integrity, and self-control, with a deeper purpose than gratification of desires.

The story is fictional, but the music is straight from real life. The male and female leads (Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova) aren't professional actors, but musicians (Hansard is of the band The Frames, and both record independently; Irglova is to Hansard as Lisa Hannigan is to Damien Rice). This, along with the simple but beautiful cinematography, gives the film a powerful sense of authenticity. I love how effectively song is used as dialogue; one song portrays just as much emotion and movement to the story as ten pages of dialogue would.

So, to state the obvious, I loved this film! I'm certainly no movie critic, but I'm highly recommending it. It's not a grand film, it's simple, but it's incredibly powerful in it's simplicity. See (and hear) it.

Thankful. Or, How to celebrate an American holiday in France.

I walked down the street on my way to the market early Thursday morning feeling extremely festive and thankful, and was a bit surprised when all around me were French people bustling about, on their way to work and school, as if it were just a normal Thursday, and not at all an occasion to be full of holiday cheer. I had an inexplicable urge to cheerfully announce to each person I passed "It's Thanksgiving!" For some reason, the complete lack of Thanksgiving spirit was making me feel exceedingly more Thanksgiving-y than I normally would. I reached the Cours Mirabeau and discovered that, coincidentally, the Christmas lights, which the Cours had been completely covered with weeks before but had yet to be turned on, had all been illuminated that morning, giving the whole street a cheery glow. I knew that the French were completely ignorant that it was an American holiday that day (and if they had known, most wouldn't have cared), but it made me feel that, even subconciously, the French knew it was a day to be festive.

That night I hosted a Thanksgiving celebration at my home. Hilary, Andrea, and I invited friends from all our different social spheres to share a Thanksgiving meal with us. We ended up with 40 people at our apartment, and yet still managed to have a sit down meal with a place for everyone (ok, so we had to bring in extra tables and chairs and pile all the living room furniture in our bedrooms, but we pulled it off). It was the first time I've ever done a Thanksgiving meal myself, so I was really glad to have Pat and Lindsey also slaving away in my kitchen all day. We managed to have all the elements of a traditional Thanksgiving meal, as well as some delicious international dishes (ever had paella and sushi for Thanksgiving??). Less than half our guests were American; the rest were from France, Spain, England, Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, and a couple more I'm forgetting right now, and many had never experienced Thanksgiving before. There were so many different groups of people, I wondered how everyone would mesh, but by the end of the night, there were loads of connections formed and new friendships made. It truly felt like one big family gathered together. Several people told me how happy they were to be so welcomed and included. This is Thanksgiving.

One of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving was asking people all night long what they were thankful for. So here's my own (slightly belated) Thankful in 2007 list:
**I'm thankful for the internet. Ok, I'm not acutally thankful for the internet, but it allows me to stay in touch with people I dearly love who are far away. And I am thankful that through the internet and a couple webcams, I was able to see and talk to my whole family (including Nana, Grandpa, and Vogel fam) on T-day. I'm very thankful for my amazing family.
**I'm thankful for my wonderful apartment that I can use to welcome many people, and for my wonderful roommates that make it home.
**I'm thankful to be doing a job that I love, that I am passionate about, that fits me well, and that is furthering God's Kingdom.
**I'm thankful that Ikea makes a product that tastes remarkably like cranberry sauce.
**I'm thankful that God blew me away with His extraordinary provision this year, and for the confidence that He will continue to do so next year and all the years of my life.