our first day in Dublin

 

We arrive by taxi, in the dark, on Sullivan Street near Phoenix Park.

It’s a working class neighborhood and the small red brick row homes are not pretentious, but the neat flower boxes and painted doors are charming. One of the reasons to do home exchange is the chance to live in a real neighborhood instead of a hotel, and this is surely a real neighborhood. We’re thrilled.

The next morning, it’s time to reconnoiter.

Our exchange host has left a large pile of maps and instructions, including where to take the bus. We walk a block or so, and find the #10 bus, which of course, but surprisingly at first, is on the left side of the street.

Now the question is how to pay. Exact change is required, and fortunately we have it. This begins two weeks of making sure we always have the change needed to go wherever we’re going, and to get back.

It’s a double decker bus and we go topside for the view. The trip is slow in the morning traffic, but we enjoy the sights of the city as we roll through neighborhoods suggesting a variety of economic levels. In 20 minutes, we’re on O’Connell Street in the center of Dublin.

We get off across from the General Post Office, the place where the 1916 rising began and the bullet holes are still proudly displayed. Pat of course, is Irish, and I have read many books and listened to many Irish ballads. This place is a shrine … to persistence, to failure, and, ultimately, to success.

We walk along O’Connell, past the luxurious Gresham Hotel and across the River Liffey, flowing from 75 miles away in the mountains of County Wicklow (the source also of the clear pure water which makes Guinness beer).  

First on our agenda is the main Tourist Office, located in a magnificent former church on Suffolk Street, the office Samantha Brown featured on her Passport to Europe show about Dublin. It’s a fantastic place, with lots of useful books and merchandise, a very friendly staff, and a charming café. We will return several times in the next two weeks, for information and for reservations.

I purchase another city map. I need a durable map that folds into my camera bag, and that has all the streets. Until I have a map that exactly fits my needs, I can’t be comfortable.

I also buy Fodor’s Ireland, for our out-of-town trips, and we pick up Dublin brochures, tram routes, bus routes, theatre announcements, everything that’s free. Now I have the tools to plan our two weeks.

Grafton Street, the pedestrian shopping street in the center of Dublin, is mobbed. Our first impression is that it’s not quite as elegant as it was before, ten years ago. Street musicians play in front of McDonald’s.  

We buy an Irish Times and head off to St. Stephen’s Green, a 22 acre park at the end of Grafton Street, first enclosed in 1664, a place of peace in the center of the city, except when it too hosted riflemen in 1916. We share a bench in the shade with a young father and his three small sons. A brass band plays at a nearby gazebo.

For lunch, we wander back down Grafton, and one block over to South William Street, to the Georgian mansion built in 1774 for Lord Powerscourt, now an elegant center of galleries, boutique shops and restaurants. We climb to the third level and enjoy panini and penne with Peroli beer at La Corte, watching the action in the atrium below.

Not so Irish, you say. Well, much of Dublin is not so Irish anymore. Dublin has become a sophisticated international city, fully immersed in the European Union, and doing very well, thank you.

For example, over the course of two weeks, we had maybe 15 meals in Dublin, and only once or twice was the waiter or waitress Irish. Even some of the bartenders in the pubs were not of the land. This led to many interesting conversations, and a feeling that, on balance, progress has been very good for the Irish.

The Marks & Spencer food court on Grafton Street provides wine and chocolates for our dinner tonight at Una’s home. Una, you may remember, is the lady from whom we purchased our home in Collioure (see finding our home in Collioure). We haven’t seen her since, and we are excited about our upcoming evening.

We take the spanking new Luas light rail tram to the Heuston train station in West Dublin, a 10 minute walk to our apartment.

a writer from Argeles

While waiting in the Girona airport for our flight to Dublin, Donna hears us speaking “American,” and introduces herself.

A writer, she lives in Argeles-sur-mer, the neighboring town just north of Collioure. Originally from Boston, despite 18 years in Europe, she still has more than remnants of a delightful accent.

She’s on her way to Dublin for a conference on credit unions, which is what she writes about.Donna gives us her card, so we can email and establish contact upon return, and perhaps learn more about the flourishing art community in Argeles..

Best of all, she gives us the fantastic news that her friend operates a used book store – English used books – in Argeles.

Ryanair to Dublin

Ryanair was Europe’s original low fare airline and is still Europe’s largest low fare carrier. This year, Ryanair says it will carry over 35 million passengers on 346 low fare routes across 22 European countries, utilizing 15 European bases and a fleet of over 100 Boeing 737-800 aircraft. They claim a team of 3,500 people, comprising over 25 different nationalities.

We get in line to check in, although it’s still 30 minutes before they’re scheduled to open the line. I bring a tray from the café and have my dinner standing in line. 

The weight limit is 15 kilos each. We packed and weighed carefully. My bag is 15 kilos, Pat’s is 15.5. There’s no charge for the extra half kilo, and they never weigh our carryons. Other passengers have significant carryon, which must be more than 10 kilos allowed. Nobody bothers them, a lesson for next time.

The flight leaves and arrives on time. The plane is clean and comfortable. Food and drink are available for purchase.

* train to Girona

Our Ryanair flight to Dublin leaves from Girona in Spain. To get to the Girona airport, we train from Collioure to Port Bou, just across the Spanish border, then from Port Bou to Girona, and then by shuttle bus from the train station to the airport. It’s not the easiest of trips, especially with (too much) luggage.

The train from Collioure to Port Bou is a few minutes late, which is unusual. French trains are usually precisely on time. The delay had to do with a defective air conditioner. Unfortunately, they didn’t get it fixed, and it’s over 90 degrees outside, with no circulation inside. The good news is that it’s only a 20 minute ride to Port Bou.

In Port Bou, we buy our tickets to Girona. Buying tickets separately seems to be much less expensive than purchasing the through ticket in Collioure. I don’t know why.There’s a wait in Port Bou but the station has a relatively nice café.

A young lady offers to share her table. She’s a musician who plays viola for the BBC Orchestra, on her way to Girona to mentor a young people’s orchestra giving a concert next week. The train to Girona is also without air conditioning, but the conversation is good and the hour goes quickly, except for another 20 minute delay at some dusty stop with no station.

At the Girona train station, we catch the (air conditioned) shuttle bus to the airport.

about Collioure

Our magical fishing village of Collioure is located in the south of France, on the Mediterranean, about 25 miles north of the French-Spanish border. The nearest large city is Barcelona.

Our apartment is described in detail at www.homeexchange.com, where we are listing #52059. Let us know if you’d like to swap homes.

Collioure is a delightful blend of narrow cobblestone streets, art galleries, restaurants ranging from gourmet to pizza, boutique shops, beaches, spectacular views, and friendly people.

During the summer season, there is frequent local entertainment showcasing the unique Catalan culture. A fresh air market comes to town year round, on Sunday and Wednesday mornings, bringing fresh produce, cheeses and spices. The local wines are outstanding and inexpensive (3-4 euros a bottle).

Additional information and photos can be found at the Collioure Tourist Office site (see blogroll) 

baseball & mlb.com – the new season

Spring training has started and I’ve just ordered mlb.tv from mlb.com for the 2007 season. They raised the price to $89.95, but have added some features, including all of the pre-season games and access to the 2006 game archives.

Pat is thrilled.

fireworks in the harbor

Valerie says it’s the best fireworks she’s ever seen.

But we’ve seen the fourth of July fireworks on the East River in New York, and the Festival fireworks in Edinburgh, Scotland, so we’re skeptical. It turns out we’re wrong and Valerie is right.

The pathway along the old castle is blocked, so we walk up and over the parking lot. We’re fortunate to find one of the few remaining spots on the Port D’Vall beach. We set up our beach chairs for the hour long wait.

Next to us, a young girl (8 or 9?) takes off all her clothes except her underpants and goes into the sea. Her long blonde hair and naked body look surreal in the dark. She emerges, her parents help her change to dry clothes under a towel.

At 10:00 pm sharp, music pours from speakers across the harbor, and the lights along the castle wall and the church go black. Fireworks shoot from five different locations across the harbor, continuously for 20 minutes, many in patterns we’ve never seen before, all coordinated with the music. It’s breathtaking.

When it’s over, we join the huge crowds working their way slowly into the town center. We stop for dessert crepes, then continue toward our apartment.

There are mobs of people standing in the street. As we get closer, we can see they’re patiently waiting for the train. Despite many extra trains, the last visitors don’t depart until the wee hours.

bullfights

There is a corrida in Collioure, next to the train station, just below our apartment.

As far as we can determine, it’s used only two nights each year. One night the bulls will be killed, one night not. This year, it’s bad luck for the bulls, and the less lethal night is rained out.

Let me say first that we will never go again. It is a disgusting, brutal, cruel, immoral, and pointless display of bravado. But we did go, just this once, and Mayor Moly was there collecting tickets. There was an almost-capacity crowd, perhaps 2,000.  

The band played and the opening procession, the paseillo, was impressive: matadors, picadors, and huge horses, whose function we later learn is to drag the dead bulls out of the ring.

The first bull enters the ring. Picadors, mounted on horses protected with thick padding, taunt the bull and drive a lance into his back. Next, three banderilleros each place a pair of sharp sticks into the attacking bull’s back, jumping aside at the last moment.

Now at last, when the bull is already worn down, it’s finally the matador’s turn. He flashes his red cape to entice the bull to charge, nimbly stepping aside, a little closer each time.

When the bull is practically comatose, from all the charging and the stabbings, the matador takes his sword and prepares for the kill. Slowly, he maneuvers until the bull is directly in front of him, standing still, snorting, dripping blood and sweat.

I’m rooting for the bull, but there’s no chance. The matador rises high and plunges his sword deep into the bull’s back.

At first, the bull doesn’t move. Then his knees begin to buckle. He is down, but still dangerous. The matador removes the bloody sword, and another man plunges a knife into the bull’s neck.

The bull falls dead to the ground. The man with the knife cuts off the bull’s ear.

Out comes a huge horse, dragging a harness. The dead bull is attached to the harness and dragged from the ring.

The matador is presented the ear. He struts around the ring to the applause of the crowd.

The same sordid sequence is repeated four more times. We’re actually ashamed to watch, but we stay anyway.

the festival of St. Vincent

Every August, the Festival of St. Vincent is Collioure’s biggest week of the year. There’s music, fireworks, and bullfights, and our little town is glutted with over 100,000 visitors.

The partying goes on until 5:30 in the morning, including those camped below us in the train station parking lot. However, the police are omnipresent, and we saw not a single instance of any disorder.

We did see Mayor Michel Moly, just about everywhere. He was introducing performances, directing street performers from one venue to another, and even collecting tickets at the bullfights. Early every morning, the streets were swept spotless, as they are every other morning in Collioure. I wrote a letter to the Mayor telling him how impressed I was with him and his administration.

Blessing the fleet

One of the major events, in fact the historical reason for the festival, is the blessing of the fishing fleet.

There’s a chapel overlooking the sea, and we watch four strong priests carry the relic of St. Vincent, held on their shoulders with long wooden rails, from the ancient church, along the beach, then up precarious rocky steps with no handrails. I guess if they slipped it wouldn’t be a good omen for the fleet.

Mass is conducted at the chapel, with about 50 people standing reverently for the service. Then the relic comes down the steps, an even more dangerous journey, it seems to me.

Many priests march in a dignified line along the beach at the edge of Collioure bay, then load the relic onto the signature lanteen-rigged fishing boat of Collioure, the hull painted bright blue with two horizontal stripes, one yellow and one red. Leaving their shoes behind, the priests, and the mayor, board the boat for a quick trip around the bay. They return, retrieve their shoes, and escort the relic back to the church.

Red neckerchiefs

We have coffee and croissants with Valerie and Lorcan, and begin to walk home.

There’s a group of young people outside our friend Lawrence’s Café Sola, already drinking at 10:00 am. They’re all wearing red neckerchiefs designed for the 2006 festival, and I want one.

“Where can I get one of those neckerchiefs,” I ask.

Lawrence overhears.

“I have them,” he says, and promptly produces two. A young man ties them around our necks.

“Can I pay you?” I ask Lawrence.

“No,” he says.

Then he smiles slyly. “But give me ten euros for a round of drinks for all these wonderful young people.”

low cost airlines

Since the inception of low cost airlines, many destinations in Europe are now less expensive by air than by train.

We’ve flown Ryanair to Dublin, booking our tickets on the web (http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/). Sometimes, if the flight is not full, they will offer tickets for a one euro, or even a penny. You still have to pay the taxes, which might be 25 euros, but still, what a bargain.

The flights are a delight. If there’s any kind of question, however, contacting Ryanair by phone is very difficult.

The other issue is luggage. I think the low cost airlines may make more money on overweight luggage charges than they do on the tickets. So be careful. Weigh everything, and give yourself a slight margin for error. I will say they have given us a one kilo grace without extra charge.

There are other budget airlines. We flew Wizzair (http://wizzair.com/) to Budapest and it was excellent. Although the startling pink and purple planes were even more distracting than the unusual name.

We’ve never flown Easyjet (http://www.easyjet.com/en/book/index.asp) but have heard good things.

From Collioure, flights on low cost airlines are available from Perpignan and Carcassonne in France, and from Girona in Spain. Some destinations have daily flights, some less frequent, but you can reach almost anyplace in Europe.

organization of the train

When you have a reserved seat on a train, you have to find the right car, and do so quickly, because the train doesn’t stay in the station very long. If you board the wrong car, you will have a difficult passage through narrow aisles with all your luggage. This is not fun.

Our friend Karl pointed out to us that most stations have an electronic signboard which lists the exact sequence of cars in the next train and gives a platform location for each car.

So easy when you know.

don’t take the sleeper

We’ve enjoyed sleeper trains with a private compartment in other European countries. We bought first class tickets on the sleeper train from Collioure to Paris, expecting similar privacy, but instead we were in a four berth compartment. When we entered, there were people on the lower two berths, plus a dog in a cage.

The dog was never a problem.

always ask twice

We’re in Paris, with a ticket on the 11:24 am train to Collioure. It’s only 7:00 am and there’s an 8:24 am train.

“Can we exchange?”

“Certainly, monsieur, but only first class is available. It will cost another 125 euros.”

We decide to take a walk instead. About twenty minutes later, Pat suggests asking a different ticket agent the same question.

Lo and behold, we get a different answer. Second class tickets are available. The price difference, reflecting a rush hour train, is only 29 euros. We buy the tickets at 8:10 and easily make the train.

Our seats are close but not together. The second ticket agent took the time to search for two singles. The first agent couldn’t be bothered.

We’re in France, where the consumer is never king, and service is not our job. Always polite, always with a smile, but never going that extra step.

Well, almost never. The second guy did.

the train goes everywhere

The train, located less than 100 yards from our apartment, is a major amenity for us, as well as a necessity. Trains in France, and throughout much of Europe, are clean, comfortable, and on time.

Travel by trains has become much more affordable for us since we purchased our Carte Senior. For 53 euros per year (each), we are entitled to 50% off all tickets if available. If the senior allotment has been used up, then we get 25% off. We made back our investment on our first round trip to Paris.

Unfortunately for visitors, you have to be a resident of France to get the senior discount. Even without it, trains are often cheaper and always easier than driving.

TIP: Ticket early. Many reserved trains will fill up. If you can, book way in advance. You can always get a refund, or exchange tickets (if available), if your plans change.

LEW

shopping near Collioure

The neighboring village of Port Vendres, less than a mile south of Collioure, has a large well stocked supermarket, but is accessible only by car.In the other direction, accessible by car, bus or train, is the town of Argeles-sur-mer.

Our experience there includes Carrefour, a major department store on the outskirts of town, and the tiny English used book store in the town center.

Further to the north is Perpignan, on the outskirts of which is Auchan, an even larger department store, and Leroy Merlin, the Home Depot of France.

In the city of Perpignan is a wide variety of shopping. There’s a set of modern stores, including electronics, DVDs, and a home decorating boutique, in a marvelous old building 10 minutes walk from the train station.

Also in Perpignan is a Galeries Lafayette department store, not quite the equal of the flagship store in Paris, but that’s a very high bar. In Perpignan, Galeries serves Pat’s passion for gracious table and glassware.

Barcelona is two hours away by train or car. There’s an excellent department store, El Corte Ingles on Playa Cataluna, that we only discovered as we were leaving Europe last year. Of course, Barcelona is a shopping mecca, with many great stores, including one of the largest sporting goods stores in the world.

And then, of course, there’s Paris.

narrow streets and tiny shops

There are no large stores in Collioure, but the village is full of boutique shops selling art, ceramics, espadrilles, jewelry, and women’s clothing.

One of our favorites is Majolique, which has three small shops selling their own handmade ceramics: colorful bowls, jugs, and dishes in primary blues, yellows and greens. We have purchased an olive oil cruet, several small serving bowls, and dishes, some of which we have brought back to Key West. This is also our first stop for presents. Check out their web site at …

www.roussillon-pyrenees.com/artisanat/artisanat-collioure-majolique.html.

Espadrilles are the favored footwear in Collioure, reflecting the area’s Catalan history, and they’re available all over town. Pat swears by them.

Artists have flourished in Collioure since the early 20th century visits of Matisse, Derain and Picasso. Sidewalk artists abound, some of considerable quality, and there are numerous art shops.

at the topless beach

We walk the 5-6 minutes down the hill to the village and wander toward the beach, obvious Americans carrying two small beach chairs, an umbrella, and a tote bag with our books (always books). There are other umbrellas on the beach, but no other chairs.

We get ourselves settled, the umbrella providing 100% coverage against the midday sun. There are several small beaches in Collioure, some sand but mostly rocky. Our chairs are a necessity for us on the rocky beach we have chosen today.

While most women wear bathing suits, it is disconcerting to see the bare breasted, young and old, simply stroll by. One woman, topless on the beach, inexplicably pulls her suit top up to go in the water, then takes it off again as soon as she emerges.

A young girl joins her friend on a blanket a few feet from us, bares her top, and sits there chatting. She’s more than a little overweight.

Many people, men and women both, change their clothes on the beach. All their clothes. The technique is to wrap a towel from waist down, then pull the pants off and on under the towel. Everyone who does this is well practiced and discrete, and probably nobody but us pays any attention.

Perhaps this will soon become so routine for us as not to warrant mention.

Perhaps.

restaurants

There are many fine restaurants in Collioure, and gradually we will try them all.  

There’s outstanding pizza at the Pasta Pizza Arcade on rue Colbert. The outdoor cafes along the Quai de l’Amiraute, the main walking street along the canal, offer crepes, moules (mussels) with frites, and terrific salads.

There are also many outdoor restaurants beside the beach. We especially like a glass of wine at Copacabana or St. Vincent, right on the beach.

Excellent cheese sandwiches (does fromage en baguette sound better) are available all over town. Ice cream stands are found on almost every little street.

For more serious eating, we’ve enjoyed El Capillo at the intersection of rue Pasteur and rue St. Vincent.

When we watched the World Cup Soccer championship game at the Templiers Hotel, a place frequented by Matisse and many other painters a hundred years ago, Pat ate moules with frittes and I had calamar with a garlic sauce. Did we ever imagine we would eat such food? It was delicious.

A caution about eating in France. Americans are used to eating quickly, especially at lunch, but the French cannot be hurried when it comes to food. If you out to eat, expect to spend time and enjoy your experience.

the outdoor farmer’s market

Every Sunday and Wednesday morning, year round, the market comes to Collioure and Place du Marachel Leclerc is taken over with food trucks and tables. It’s always crowded, and the selections, especially the fresh vegetables, are the best.

It’s wonderful to eat fresh food, all grown or produced with a few miles of where we live.

Thirty varieties of olives – your choice. Pat tries several before she finds the ones she likes.

Most of the vendors don’t speak English, but sign language works just fine. The bread man is a cheery delight, smiling and flirting with his female customers, and his bread is fantastic.

There are fresh flowers, tablecloths and napkins, sandwiches, hats and straw shopping bags.

Also art, and one Wednesday we buy an inexpensive reproduction of a Collioure scene.

buying food

This is not as straightforward as you might think. The packages are, of course, all in French. Sometimes it’s clear what’s inside, but not always.

Asking for something in the store can be an adventure, but it’s fun. Pat describes apple sauce with hand motions that do the trick.

Mainly, we buy our food at the Shopi, a small supermarket in town. The cheese section is superb, and they have packaged fish and meats, canned vegetables, cereal, soda, and pretty much whatever we need. We shop daily, taking our shopping bags, if we remember, buying only as much as we can carry home.

There are also several smaller food shops in the village, including one called Casino, which is like a small 7-Eleven.

Pat doesn’t ride her bike to the village for our daily baguette (that image was how our dream began), but often, at the end of her morning run, she lines up with the men at the local boulangerie. In France, buying the baguettes is very much a male task. So this little blond lady in running shorts (something else that’s unusual in Collioure) creates quite a stir each morning she appears.

At the midpoint of our five minute walk from the village center to our apartment is the Domaine Galy wine shop on Avenue Aristide Maillol, featuring outstanding local wines at 3-4 euros ($4.00 to $5.00) per bottle.

We’re terribly spoiled by this.

We’ve read that a glass or two of wine every day, especially red wine, is good for you, so we test this theory regularly. We also discover the local rosé wine. Our part of France, the Languedoc Roussillon region, produces outstanding rosé, and we’ve learned to love it.

The only problem is that we can’t bring any wine back to Key West, where we have sticker shock in the fall buying wine at normal U.S. prices.

Once or twice during the summer when we have a car, we go to the larger supermarkets in Port Vendres or Argeles-sur-mer, and stock up on large purchases which are too heavy to carry. Things like soda and paper goods.

For a while, we buy bottled water, but eventually we conclude that the tap water, cooled in an empty wine bottle, is just as good, maybe better.

LEW

dining on the terrace

I like to cook.

Pat and I have a deal, in Collioure as in Key West. She sets the table (and her table settings are glorious) and cleans up. I cook. We each think we have the better of the deal.

Our kitchen is the most normal sized room in our tiny apartment, and it’s actually quite conducive to cooking. We eat most of our meals on the terrace, although we do have a small cafe table in the kitchen in case the weather is bad.

We bought a small electric grill, the French equivalent of a George Forman model, and set it out on the terrace for hamburgers, steak, and fish, and something that resembles a hot dog.

Each time we eat on the terrace, we’re captured and entranced by our view. Did Steven Spielberg create this just for us?

We hope it never gets routine.

LEW

expats in Collioure

Valerie and Lorcan

Pat first met Valerie by email, seeking a home exchange in Collioure. That never happened, but Valerie led us to Una and our home (see finding our home in Collioure).

We subsequently met Valerie and her husband Lorcan, they have become regular and wonderful companions.

In mid-July, we invite Valerie and Lorcan, and her brother and sister-in-law Ann from New York, to cocktails on our terrace. It’s a perfectly delightful evening. Conversation never lags, everybody laughs. Lorcan sits so quietly you almost forget he’s there, and then he pipes in with a hilarious comment.

We show our Budapest pictures – too many, but everybody loves the Szechenyi baths.

Ann is reading Valerie’s copy of The Heretic. She brought a pile of books with her, but Valerie decrees she must read this one first. Ann is full of questions about the research and the characters, and excited to know I’m working on the sequel. But we can’t really discuss that because we don’t want to spoil the rest of her read.The conversation ranges widely.

We repeat the story of how Valerie helped us find our apartment, and she insists we tell the story of “stealing” the shopping carts from IKEA in Montpellier.

“Listen now to what these fine upstanding people did.”

But the biggest laughter is reserved for my 13 page Home Exchange Instructions for Guests, complete with 45 photos. Valerie insists I show what I’ve written. Ann calls it a “thesis” and Valerie, chortling, manages to say it’s a “Ph.D. in Home Exchange.”

It’s well after midnight before we finish the last of four bottles of wine and call it a night.

Frazier and Ann

We’re relaxing on our terrace and are surprised to see someone on the terrace above us. It’s the first time anyone had been there. Turns out to be a couple from York in England, with a friend of theirs. They’ve just purchased the unit and are here getting it in shape, just like we did in January.

They come down to see our apartment, and we agree to have dinner later in the week.When the day comes, we stroll down to the village about 8:00 pm and wander until we find a restaurant to our liking. There is, at first, the usual talk, how we each learned about Collioure and made our purchases.

Then we listen spellbound while Frazier tells about his project working in Romania with orphaned children.

He describes abandoned children who spend all of their lives in hospitals, sometimes tied to their beds. His work is to try to rehabilitate them with play therapy. Some respond rapidly. These, Frazier believes are the ones who were born normal but were damaged by the way they were treated. Others, perhaps retarded from birth, respond less. All are, and will always be, significantly under-sized.

After dinner there was live jazz on the plaza near the beach.

Rose and Mike

Rose and Mike live next door to us. We meet Rose first, in June. She says hello and promptly climbs over the low wall between our terraces to join us.

She and her husband Mike, and son Alex, are from London, and they are in Collioure several times over the summer, sometimes together, sometimes just one.  

Rose was a great help in my dealings with France Telecom (see problems).

She read both of my novels, and I took a photo of her holding both books. She was one of the first to read the as yet unpublished A Good Conviction, and was quite helpful in finding typos which had eluded me and all the previous readers.

We have many conversations with Mike towards the end of the summer, share strategies for discouraging the cats which by then had become an annoyance, and have dinner with him in town the night before we go to Australia.

Una

Of course we had met Una the previous summer when we bought her apartment, but we hadn’t seen her since, not having been in Collioure at the same time.

The next time we see her, it’s in Dublin. Pat and Una had been corresponding by email, so she knew we were coming, and she invited us to her home for dinner.

Her friend picked us up at our Dublin exchange house, and both he and Mary, who we had met in Collioure the previous summer, joined the dinner party. We also met Una’s daughter, the one Pat had called who told us Una was in Collioure.

Una has a magnificent home behind high hedges on the outskirts of Dublin, and she had prepared a wonderful meal. Later in the summer, Una comes to Collioure and seems pleased at how we’ve enjoying her former apartment.

The next day, we get an email. “I’ll be at Templiers at 10:00 tonight.”

We join her for wine and late night talk.

Later, as walk back up the hill to our apartment, we reflect on just how active and delightful our Collioure social life has become.

Collioure natives

Sam

Sam (the realtor), who speaks perfect English, was the first breakthrough. Not only is he an excellent realtor, but he is friendly and he became our friend. Whenever we had a problem, we could go to his office or call on his cell phone, and he was always willing to help. He found us a plumber. He told us how and where to pay our taxes. He came to our apartment to help get our Wanadoo connection connected. And we didn’t even buy our property through him.

Madeleine

Madeleine, who works with Sam, is a gem. We first met her when she opened up Kristina’s apartment on our first visit to Collioure in 2005. She always has a big smile and a cheerful word. It was very exciting for us, strangers in Collioure, to cross paths with Madeleine and her husband one night walking through the village.  

One day in her office, we discuss my novel The Heretic, and Madeleine says she would like to read it. I’m happy to loan her a copy (I only have two with me in Collioure), but she says it will take her a while to read a novel in English, something she has never done before.

I give her the book just before we go off to Australia for a month, and receive this email shortly before we return:

Hello Pat and Lew! Hope you are healthy and happy! I thank you again to have given to me the chance to read your book ! I really enjoy to read it: - at first because of the style, it’s easy to read, and understand the story of this family and the historic facts. And also because I had the feeling to live (maybe) the story of my own family (born in Spain and being obliged to leave and go to Algeria!) I have learned a lot and would be happy to see you when you come back to Collioure to speak about it. A bientot and all the best for you both. Madeleine.

This was the first time we had any inkling that Madeleine’s ancestors had been Spanish Jews, subjected to the same persecution faced by my fictional family in The Heretic.

Lawrence

Lawrence owns Café Sola, the sports bar at the very center of town. On our first trip to Collioure in 2005, his imperfect internet connection was the only game in town. We used it every day, and when it didn’t work, Lawrence let us use his own computer in the back room. It’s a great pleasure for us to wave hello to Lawrence almost every day we walk through town. ps. he now has a better internet connection.

Who will we talk to?

One of our biggest worries in living abroad is that we would have no friends. We’re in a new place, we don’t speak the language. Who will we talk to? Will we be lonely?

This was less concern for me, since much of my time would be taken up in writing, which is after all a solitary activity. But for Pat, who is far more social to begin with, it is a real issue.

Not to worry …

translating documents: google

How do we deal with French documents, since we don’t speak French?

We use a wonderful service provided on-line by Google which takes words, sentences, or whole documents in one language and translates them quickly into another.

(http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en)

To copy into Google translate, the input document has to be in computer readable form, so if you start with a hard copy, such as the real estate purchase agreement, you have to scan it first. 

My HP printer-copier-scanner-fax loads the scanned document directly into Word, from which it can be copied and pasted into the Google translate program.

TIP: Neither the scan nor the translate works perfectly, so you’ll have to use a dictionary for backup to clean up the results.