We were actually able to get up around 8:30am this morning. Seems like we are starting to get back on track. Liam is the first to get over his jet lag as he has been frequently the first one up in the morning.
After a lively game of ping pong between Liam and Francois, we received a call on Francois’ cell. It seems…suprise, suprise IBM won’t be coming until tomorrow. The part they ordered had not come in yet. Arrrggghh! How frustrating is that, well Francois could tell you I’m sure. What can you do…it’s France!
After that bad news, we decided to spend the day at our home in Giroussens since Francois was pretty bummed about the whole thing. The kids and I spend the morning doing some schoolwork then we played outside for awhile before coming in for lunch.
By 2:00pm Francois and I went to Lavaur to go to the post office and buy some groceries. Oh yeah, I drove to Lavaur – Wahoo! I am still sweating from that drive, I was so nervous. I’m not used to my left foot having to do anything. After buying some stamps we tried to look for an open restaurant. No easy task. As the shops open up around 2pm, the restaurants close until 5pm. I can never get the times right. I just miss sitting in Starbucks at whatever time of day I want (spoiled Canadian right?).
After arriving home and having supper the kids and I walked down the road to a nearby farm to look at the sheep and donkeys they had. It was a nice walk and the weather was really warm, like summer. The kids talk a lot about their friends back home but I think they like it here.
We’ll see how much Francois likes it here if IBM doesn’t show up tomorrow!
Wow, 8:30’s mega early for me unless I have school…..I like my sleep 😛 (and i’m not even jetlagged :S) I just have to say, Liam and Emma are sooooo big since the last time I’ve seen them, it’s kinda really shocking to see the photos. And that blue door is awesome. And I should be writing my biochem paper, but I’m procrastinating……ah Starbucks, I wish I was there right now 😛 J’espere que les gens d’IBM lui rendre visite :D. (Wow, that’s some pretty bad french). I have to go to my afternoon class now…….salut!
Comment by Sarah — April 10, 2007 @ 2:59 pm
Francois, I hope your IBM part shows up tomorrow or if not you can blame it on IBM (just to spare France). Maybe Dell would have a better service :0
I had a chuckle about the restaurants. As for Starbucks, I’d rather be close to a nerby farm and look and sheeps and donkeys then sip a decaf skim milk almond tall $3 latte 🙂
Kids look fantastic on all the pictures and the weather seems to be perfect since you guys arrived. Do they have rain in France?
Comment by off2europe2 — April 10, 2007 @ 9:11 pm
Hurray, IBM made it here today and brought me a new hard drive for my laptop. I’m now restoring from backups and should be fully back in action within a couple of hours. I think we’re going to head off to Cordes-sur-ciel today, which appears to be a very cool town. You can see neat photo of it here:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cordes_sur_ciel_vue_du_Grain_de_Sel.JPG
Comment by admin — April 11, 2007 @ 2:07 am
Hi,
I am following your trip in France here thanks to this blog. I have never been in France. So i am suprised, that restaurants are not open all the day, like here in Slovenia, or Austria, or Italy.
When you wrote “What can you do…it’s France!” i would rather say “It’s IBM!”. I was suprised how quickly they fixed your problem. IBM in Slovenia is or at least was very rigid, narcisoid company.
Starbucks coffee? In a paper? Oh no, thanks. Your taste must be damaged. I hope, it will be cured, before returning to Canada.
I am sorry i can not compare my experience in France with yours. I have been only in Paris for two or three days visitin an exhibition about computer technology. Even without knowing the language, i supposed, i shall be able to communicate in english with computer people. How very false. They spoke french and nothing but french.
Sicerely
Vilko
Comment by vilko — April 11, 2007 @ 2:41 am
hi Mr Sustic,
i’m glad to see that you are still following along in our adventures. We are indeed typical
canadians and we love (read: are addicted to) our starbucks and tim hortons coffees. But the food here
in France is amazing and we’re really enjoying it.
As for the IBM folks, they all spoke English which was good for me because I don’t know all of the technical
computer words in French yet.
We’re really not accustomed to the stores and restaurants being closed but I guess this is something that France
has in common with Spain. From what I’ve heard, the people in Spain like to have a ciesta in the afternoon.
Despite the short work weeks here and the constant closing of the stores, France manages to have one of the highest productivities in Europe (as measures by GDP per worker).
Update: I’ve been doing a little more research on this and the most recent data that I can find from https://www.cia.gov shows that France is behind Germany, the UK, Denmark, and many other EU countries in productivity. Here are some 2006 GDP numbers from https://www.cia.gov
(numbers are GDP per capita)
Comment by admin — April 11, 2007 @ 8:28 am