Nous arrivons

This is a view of our quartier...

I have never blogged before, let alone on a French keyboard (clavier), where 3/4 of the letters are in the right place but all the others are hiding, it seems even changing positions, though I know that can't really be. The most difficult part is that the comma and period are in strange places; to get a period you need to use the shift key! which is itself in some shifty place. At this rate it will take me forever to post to this blog, just as it has taken me forever (over 6 years of practice in addition to 8 years of schooling) to reach some level of comfort speaking French. Frankly, I didn't think it would ever come, but it has, so this teaches me to have more faith in the process of incremental, invisible improvements: (merde! that colon was supposed to be a period)

It is a week now since we left the US on three connecting flights to Toulouse. A week, and I am still struggling mightily to adjust to the time change (décalage horaire). It has never taken me this long before. Steve has gotten there before me: sleepy at midnight and awake at 8 am. I tell myself this is because he has the advantage of more structure to his days: he gets on the métro in the morning for the university and returns around 18h with a baguette under his arm. Me, I have to go out walking in the afternoons just to keep myself awake. I am up from midnight till 4h or 5h, then left to my own devices I'd sleep till noon. Steve says it's a lot like living with Alex, except without the candy wrappers lying around.

Today I got up at 8 am because the cleaning lady was supposed to come, and I really didn't want her to find me encore au lit (still in bed). Here it is 12h30, though, and she still hasn't arrived. Her name is Isabelle, and she comes with the apartment, except that last Thursday she had la grippe and today - who knows? There is also a young man named Richard, who comes every Friday to move a few things around on the terrace and look at the plants. They were still bone-dry after he left today, so I went out and watered them.

The apartment is a funny combination of luxurious and funky. The household help and the two terraces, upstairs and down -- these surprise me. The weather has been cold enough that we can't really take advantage of them, but there is a sofa on the upstairs terrace and a large round table downstairs for eating outdoors, plus a gas grill. We look across the red tile roofs of Toulouse to the brick walls and bell tower of l'Eglise St. Nicolas de la Grave, which tolls on the hour all day long.

Indoors, we have several quaint, bohemian-style rooms with high ceilings and creaky floors; so many old-fashioned chairs and tables we continue to trip over them; exposed, splintery beams which are clearly load-bearing; and plenty of light during the day. At night, we have mostly mood-lighting, which makes it a challenge to read. It is the top floor of a 4-story (3 if you're French) walk-up, so we also have a skylight and a huge sleeping loft with two extra beds overlooking the living room. Our own bedroom is in the back, near the terrace, across from the kitchen, which is a nightmare by suburban American standards but really pretty good for a French city. The whole place is bigger than we need, but unlike Paris, it's not easy to find furnished apartments in Toulouse. There are hardly any tourists here. This time of year especially, you don't hear a word of English anywhere you go, and language skills are more appreciated. Most of the Toulousains know English from school, but they tend not to feel comfortable trying to speak it.

...Like our landlord, who is an opera singer: Bertrand Maon, basse! (Even his speaking voice is impressive, the first thing I noticed about him before I learned what he does.) Probably he speaks Italian and German, but he was clearly relieved to find he could use French with us. The apartment is filled with opera CDs and Maon family photos, particularly of maman, who always seems to have her eye on me, wherever I go in this place!