ER Visit

 So 2 doctor visits + 1 ER visit in the past two months in Bordeaux.  Totally gained a different perspective on our BC public health care system.  I appreciate my family doctor more than ever.  Selfishly wishing I could just zoom her 😅  If BC ever moves away from the family doctor care towards the care center system, that would be the wrong direction to go based on my experience. Sadly I hear that's where we're headed.   And the long wait for the urgent care in BC...is no wait at all compared to the French ER.  I don't recall spending more than 4 hours at the ER with any of our kiddos all these years.  

Well, I spent 8 hours at the ER at the Bordeaux public hospital the other night.  The waiting area was a typical ER waiting room, maybe a bit smaller than the Canadian ones but felt like a party room.  You could barely find a seat.  The stretchers were lining up all the way outside the hospital.  At any given time, there were 3 stretches inside.  Each stretcher was accompanied by 3 firemen.  Do the math, that's 9 firemen + 3 stretchers + 15 other patients like me in a closed area, not well ventilated.  The firemen were chatting up a storm with each other and with the patients.  None of them wore a mask.  One stretcher was a man in his 20s, in athletic shorts.  His right knee was red and swollen.  Looked way too farmilar 😬 I overheard him saying "football" to the man next to him.  I symphasize.  Wish him a smooth recovery!

The nurse who registered me spoke perfect English with North American accent told me not to worry about the fees.  It doesn't matter who pays, I wouldn't have to pay a cent, he said.  Welcome to the French public health care.  But money was far on my mind.  Five and a half hours after the registration, I finally saw the doctor.  He didn't speak much English and he apologied for that.  I was thinking why would you speak a foreign language in your own country?  No need to apologize.  Thanks to Google Translate, he and I understood each other perfectly.  He ordered ECG and x-ray to check my heart and lungs and explained to me why.  The ECG and x-ray took no time at all, super quick, but the wait to get the result was another 2+ hours.  A total of 8 hours later, I was cleared and sent home with a copy of my complete test results.  However, the pain in my chest was unexplained.  I went home in the same condition if not worse.

My landlord drove me to the hospital and stayed with me the entire time despite my repeated plea for her to go home.  I got to know her quite a bit during the 8 hours 🤣  She's such a sweet lady, well traveled.  Been to Montreal and skied Tremblant.  Quebec French sounded really funny to her.😂  She couldn't understand why fresh fruits and veggies were so expensive in Canada.   She's also been to Taiwan a couple of times, tried every type of street food.  Her fav Chinese food is dumpling.  I made a batch just for her.  Noah wrapped half of these yummy looking dumplings.  Not bad eh?

The moral of the story, if you have to get sick in a foreign country, make sure you have a nice landlord 😁 I feel very fortunate!

Dune Du Pilat

We had an amazing time visiting Dune du Pilat, the tallest sand dune in Europe, situated between lush forest and turquoise Atlantic ocean, about 1 hr drive from Bordeaux. It's absolutely breathtaking. Walking up to the top takes no more than 10 minutes but with all the visitors lining up to go to the top, for a moment, it felt like we were trying to submit the highest peak in the world 🤣 Seriously, where did all these people come from? Why would anyone want to visit the sand dune on a beautiful sunny day in Feb? LOL! 

The crowd disappeared as we continued to walk along the dune towards the beach. We found ourselves surrounded by nothing but sand and the ocean. Not another soul in sight. Serenity!!!

 We encouraged the kids to get their bickering out of the way, the best location for that sort of thing. Mommy and Daddy can and will ignore your mischievous behavior here.  Well, they found themselves in Boba Fett, running for their lives or becoming the best shooter of the bunch. Or better yet, Frozen 3, starring Levina Xing with sand magic 😂 

Nature is the powerful place to heal and recharge.  I don't disagree one bit.  We'll deal with kids' bickering on the drive home. 

New Home in Chartrons

We moved to a new home yesterday amidst the French national protest chaos.  We've been looking forward to the move since the day we lost Evania and Noah temporarily.  Our new home is much closer to kids' school, about 15 min walk through a residential street, very quiet and straightforward.  No need for buses or trams.  It is located in the Chartrons district of Bordeaux, just North of the city centre, known as a trendy, posh neighbourhood.  If we use Victoria as a reference, I'd say Chartrons is a bit like Oak Bay or Fairfield neighourhood of Victoria.

As early as the 18th century, the whole district became a busy hub for wine cellars and merchants due to its proximity to Garonne River for wine exports.  However, in the post war years, it was abandoned by business owners.  In early 2000s, the government decided to revamp the entire area. If you take a stroll through the Chartrons neighbourhood, you'll notice the typical old architecture facade on most buildings, which are now occupied by restaurants, offices, schools, and even private homes.  Now, it's highly desired area to live.  It's quite nice.  It's like walking through a time machine into the past.

This is the residential street that our kids take to and from school daily from now on, one way traffic, not very busy.  We're planning on getting Evania and Noah to walk Levina to school next week.  

Our new home is only slightly bigger than the previous one but it feels like a home.  It's a two bedroom, one bath house.  Yes, we'll have to get creative with 1 bath for 5 people.  😂

Here's our living room with a pullout couch.  Kids will take turns to get the couch.  Noah started this time.  He said he had a great sleep last night.  

 Notice the coffee table?  It's made from an old barn door.

A solid dining set.  The dining chairs in our previous Airbnb were falling apart in the end.  I'm sure these solid wood ones will last our entire stay.

I'm enjoying the hot chocolate kids made me.

I love the big window in the kitchen, let in so much light throughout the day.

We actually have a dishwasher this time 😁 and a gas stove.  It doesn't cook as fast as the induction technology, but it's still faster than what we have back in Victoria.  It's great for stir fries, which I do on a regular basis.  The landlord was very considerate.  She bought a brand new set of pots and pans for us.  

Here's me happily cooking away.

The hallway leading to the master bedroom and bathroom.

This is the kids bedroom.

The master bedroom.  The bedding is so comfortable.

I hope I'll find myself in that chair with a book in the coming days.

Bathroom/laundry room.  We noticed something missing in the bathroom.  There's no fan or vent.  The previous Airbnb didn't have one either.  This is something I've noticed in a lot of buildings.  When you walk into a shop or a mall, you would feel the air so stale to a point that it's hard to breathe.  It's quite noticeable, at least to me.  I wonder if this is something that cannot be retro fitted in the older buildings?

Anyway, this is our new home.  We are super happy here.  The location is perfect.  The surroundings are beautiful and pleasant.  Kids say this actually feels like a home.  

 

French

We've been in Bordeaux for almost 4 weeks now, but it feels like a decade.  

Compared to English, French is much harder to learn.  And learning at my age is beyond challenging (just my opinion, I'm sure Nick thinks differently😉).  French doesn't seem to have rules at all.  All verbs change depending on the subject and tense.  Almost every word comes with gender including adjectives and nouns.  Can you imagine the French government starts modernizing its official language for gender neutral purposes?  Or have they considered it already and abandoned the idea?  It would cause way too much confusion for beginners like me.  And the French way of counting numbers...you truly have to be a math genius to count.  And the sound of r, not a sound you can make with your tougue.  The best time to practice the r sound would be early morning when you wake up, clearing your throat over the sink.  Levina often corrects me when I say merci.  She says it sounds like I am saying m-e-ssi.  "Add the r sound from your throat", she would recommend.  I'm sorry my throat cannot make a sound. But when I add the r sound, she says it sounds like m-er-ssi.  I can't get it right!!!  I'll just have to practice it 20 times over the sink each morning.  

Almost forgot to mention - French liaison.  I'm struggling with this one the most.  When the French people talk, they're not talking.  They're singing.  Yes they sing without a pause.  They connect two or sometimes even more than two words together in a sentence.  I was having coffee with a mom from Levina's class one day.  She grew up in France, but lived in England for 30 years before moving back to Bordeaux.  So she's a full bilingual, fluent in both languages.  She said to me "French is a very difficult language to learn. " I thought to myself...that's right and coming from her, it means something.  She continued "like we don't say Je ne sais pas".  I was excited for a moment because I actually recognized something she said in French, and that's the first phrase kids had told me to learn to say.  I totally understood her, every single word of it, when she said it.  But wait a second, the French actually don't use it?  I was so puzzled.  "Chais pas" she went on.  WHAT?  "Sh-ui-p-a" She slowed down.  How did "Je ne sais pas" become "Chais pas" and they don't sound alike at all.  "That's right.  When you say 'Je ne sais pas' fast enough, it becomes 'chais pas'.   ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  I went home and proudly told the kids I learnt something new that day.  They went "Oh yeah chais pas...all kids talk like that at school" Grrr....I thought I could for once show them something they didn't know. 😆

All kids are adjusting well.  Levina's French vocabularies have grown 10 folds, and this is just the beginning.  Her pronounciation is superb, according to her teacher.  Her teacher spends about 30 min to 1 hour 1:1 with her every day.  The empty binder from the beginning of the school has grown heavy, full of sheets of vocabs and practices.  So far they've covered all the basic grammar and conjugations.  Levina can now translate simple sentences from English to French and describe pictures in French.  Her teacher says she will be able to talk to her friends in French by the end of the school year.  She was recently asked to memorize a poem about 4x table.  Here it is.

Noah, being a social kid, has no problems with making friends at school.  His teachers say he chats and draws.  Yes the two things he loves doing.  He's also taken an interest in the French hit pop music culture, becoming obsessed with Stromae's music (what a talent!).  He LOVES his music, his voice, and his dance moments, starting to follow the lyrics, looking up words in the dictionary, and mimicking his dance. If we had a piano here, he'd be playing his music now.  I remember Noah's previous grade 6 French teacher Mr. P had always said that the best way to learn French is to talk and listen to some French music.  Here we go.  He's doing both, seemlessly.

Evania, being Evania, is the only one in this family that has little language challenges.  I'm sure she would disagree with this statement.  What I mean is that she has little difficulties with daily basic communications, unlike her mama 😂  Last night, she came home from her soccer practice, saying that a couple of boys got into argument, but she couldn't understand what exactly they were saying.  Apparently, one of them started yelling at her like a Karen, but two other boys stepped up and defended her.  And those boys started arguing with each other.  I guess she's got her own challenges, not academically, but socially in a way.  So far, she's only practicing with the team, hasn't played a game yet.  It'll be interesting to see if they will let her play in games.  She finds it difficult to keep up with these boys even though they are 1 year younger, but they've been trained really well.  They make very quick decisions with or without the ball, which forces her to move faster.  As a result, she sometimes doesn't always make smart moves, naturally.  But I'm sure she'll get there as her training continues.  She'll be the Karen yelling at the other boy in no time.  😆

Last, but not the least, Nick.  He thinks he speaks French already.  Okay.  He does.  He told me the other day that our landlord popped over to check on something and brought us a bottle of vin rouge.  What a nice gesture!  He then continued telling me about the landlord, who works as a correctional officer, his wife is a pharmacist.  This house actually belonged to the landlord's grandmother, and he felt bad that he didn't have time to complete the backyard etc..  I was quite impressed with him to be honest...for a moment.  "Did he speak English?" "No, French" he replied simply.  "Wow...how did you understand him? Impressive!" I was impressed.  "Oh he pulled out Google Translator" he added.  Haha...Nick actually has a gift when it comes to languages.  He has no problems with placing orders at restaurants or at his favorite boulangerie.  When we go to our neighourhood butcher shop, I tell him what I want, he then places the order for me LOL!  French words come out of him much more naturally.  Yes he does speak French!

Cell Phone Plans

I had heard about how cheap the cell plans are in Europe but didn't really appreciate the definition of cheap until we started shopping for one.  

Before our departure, we purchased an 8 GB SIM card for Europe for $35 from Amazon.  It's valid for 2 weeks from the time you insert the card in your phone.  8 GB of data is a lot for two weeks.  We put it in Nick's phone, and used it mostly for navigation when out about.  He would turn on his hot spot for me to tether when needed.  It worked out well.

For a permanent solution, we went to a Free mobile boutique at Bordeaux city centre.  They're one of the big mobile companies in France.  Orange is another one.  After talking to one of the sales people, we were led to this machine.  Pretty cool, eh?!

We got a plan with unlimited talk and text and 110GB data for a grand total of 15 Euro per month.  That's equivalent to $22!!!  The entire process of getting a new SIM and a new plan only took 10 mins.  Why do Canadians pay 3x or even 4x a month on cellphone plans?  

Now, we have a French number, and the coverage is all over Europe.  The plan is valid for one year, but we can cancel anytime.  Just call the number provided in the contract.  

I did read somewhere on FB that Free's coverage can be a bit spotty in certain areas, but we don't live in remote villages so it shouldn't be a problem for us.  I've had this SIM for about 2 weeks now, and haven't had any issues at all.  

After Evania and Noah's unplanned adventure, we decided that it was important for Evania to have a SIM so she could call us in case of an emergency.  We went to the same boutique, and got a plan without data but with unlimited text and 2 hr talk time for 2 Euro ($3) a month.  😆 I'm now wondering how French telecom companies make money at all.

Return of Football

We're right back at it - Football.

When it comes to soccer, our kids will always say yes, well, at least the older two.  Being involved in a team sport is probably the best way to immerse themselves besides being in school all day.  It was not easy to find football clubs here in Bordeaux.  I had sent numerous emails to various soccer clubs prior to coming to Bordeaux inquiring about kids' soccer programs.  Not many of them responded to my emails.  One guy named Stephanie responded and told me to call him and discuss further.  Right on!  We could totally hash out the details without any language barrier over a phone call. 🤣 I didn't have the guts to make the call obviously.  It was a bit discouraging to say the least.  You'd think it would be easy to find kids soccer programs in a country that has won two world cups.  Not so.  

So my only lead here in Bordeaux was Stéphane.  Thanks to Evania, our only French interpreter, her French improved drastically within the first week.  I was sure we were in good hands.  We had a good discussion with him over the phone, with some pauses, eye brow raises, shoulder shrugs or sometimes just blank looks on our faces hoping to squeeze more details from the other end of the line.  At the end of it, we still had a ton of questions unanswered, but the gist of it was our kids would try it and he would decide.  Big win! 😁 

However, Stéphane failed to mention a very crucial piece of information.  Or maybe he did, it was lost in translation.  He has no girls teams.  Not even for little kids.  So Levina ended up palying with 8 or 9 year old boys.  Below Levina is doing a warm-up with the boys.  We're setting her up for HUGE success here, aren't we?  I'm gonna hear from her this time!!!

Noah, on the other hand, eager to get on the field, had very little reservation, and fit right in.  At times he didn't understand the coach, a couple of boys actually translated for him. 

For Evania, Stéphane was afraid that the physical gap between the 14 year old boys and girls might be too big and that might result in injuries.  He put her with the 13 year old boys to see how she fit in. 

Although Evania didn't say much before her tryout, I knew she was probably a bit nervous.  After all, she's only played on the girls team back home.  She dragged her little sis to jog around the turf with her to warm up.  That's what sisters are for right?😆  She looked tense from head to toe.  She didn't loosen up until her foot touched the ball.  She was in her natural habitat.  At the water break, I quietly asked her how she had felt.  She just flashed me a big smile 😀 "This is the best soccer I've played Mama...these boys are so fast and skilled, way better than any team I've played with."

So at the end of the night, Stéphane came up and pointed at Noah "uh...small player...but good sequence".  To Evania "I know football.  She's no problem".  To Levina "Bonne"  He will take all three kids.  

Now to register them with his club, Union Saint Jean.  Oh man I could dedicate another whole blog about it. LOL...French are notorious for their paper work and manual processes.  It took us 1 hour by bus to get to his office (got to see a different part of the city), and 1.5 hours to fill out forms for 3 kids.  Each form was 6+ pages front and back including medical conditions.  The admin was so patient, explained every single section on the form, and then input all the info into the computer.  Why was this not an online process?  It takes 10 min max to register a child for soccer via Lakehill PowerUp online system.  😅  

Cost!  I was very pleased to see the cost wasn't astronomical, compared to the fees we pay in Canada.  Their soccer season runs from Sept to the end of June.  The cost varies a bit depending on the level ranging from 230 Euro to 300 Euro for the entire 10 months period.  With the current exchange rate, that's about 330 CAD to 450 CAD each child.  And the part Noah is most excited about...the kit.  The cost includes a complete kit (jersey, jacket, track pants, shorts and socks).   Back home, we would pay roughly $350 each child for Sept to March (regular season), and for Spring soccer, we would have to pay again.  For all three kids, the admin pro-rated the fees, so we paid for 6 months, instead of 10 months.  He made sure we understood that.  I'm starting to like French people.  Their frankness and doing everything by the book is growing on me. 

Les Bibliotheques de Bordeaux

To speed up the French learning process, we need French books, lots of them, for the kids.  We went to the library at Bordeaux city center, Les Bibliotheques de Bordeaux, one of the biggest public libraries in France.

Anyone who resides in Bordeaux can obtain a library card.  You just have to show your ID and proof of residency, a document with your current address.  The librarian who helped us spoke some English, super helpful.  It took some time for her to process all 5 cards.  Wherever we go, the request is always x5 😂  While waiting, I looked up, realizing how big this library is, 8 stories in total.  According to the librarian, the top 2 floors are not open to the public.  They hold very important old books.  I assume she meant ancient books.  The general public has access to Floor 1 to 4.  We were on floor 0, getting our library cards.  The main entrance was on floor -1.  

Floor 1 has books for the general public like nursery, children's books, fiction and non-fiction etc..  I snapped a couple of photos of the nursery and children's area.  The entire space is really well designed and inviting.

Here Nick is taking a well deserved break from reading a picture book 😆 Trust me reading in French was an exhausting activity.

Floor 2 is teens' heaven.  It has an arcade, a few PS4 stations along with cushy seats and all the games (you can borrow), lots of board games (you can play there), and a huge selection of music.  Which teen wouldn't want to spend time here?

I'm most impressed by the music room.  You can reserve a wide range of music instruments in the music room including piano.  The librarian told us that anyone can reserve to practice there and can do so two weeks in advance.  Noah's very excited about getting his hands on that piano.  

We spent well over an hour there and barely explored the first two floors in the building.  With all the books, music and entertainment there is in the library, I have a feeling it's going to be one of our frequently visited places.  

Evania and Noah's Unplanned Adventure

So what exactly happened last Friday after school?  Here's Evania's own account of their unplanned adventure.  With her permission, I'm sharing it here.

Here's a photo she took on the bus at 15:45 on Jan 6 during the unplanned adventure.  

I would title this a mother's ordeal!