Beynac-et-Cazenac, France

Get ready to step into storybook heaven...

The kids had a week off of school so we took full advantage and drove 10 hours to the south of France (not to be confused with Southern France .... [seriously, why do we say South of France?!]). We realized 10 minutes into the drive that we had failed to download any and all movies onto devices. Cue: mom-panic scale 10. But guess what? We survived. Noah even sat and looked out the window for several hours (right after he slept for like three hours). WHAT? Turns out kids can survive sans screens. Who knew? Sienna colored non-stop. I don't even know my children anymore.

Anyway, would you please look at this place?!?!???!!! 

Ogle, drool, heart-eye-emoji and all that. It. Was. Magnificent!

Here's the back story. I've followed Stephmodo's blog forever. Several years ago they renovated this cottage in Beynac and I loved following every step as covered on her blog. I dreamed of visiting someday but I knew it was probably out of the question. Then we moved to a little place called Luxembourg and the idea to visit this magical place shot right to the top of my Europe travel bucket list. I booked a week there as soon as we got settled. The rest is history. 

Here she is! Just to the right of this cobblestone path is Chateau de Beynac. Tourists wandered this path up and down while we were there. 

Front door nirvana right here.

The keys. The keys!!! So rad. And a tad finicky. We eventually got faster at locking and opening but nearing the end of our stay Adam said, "Okay, we get it, you have castle keys! I just want to get in!"

Kitchen. With fridge and freezer bigger than my Luxembourg kitchen! #totesjels

Would you believe it wasn't cold enough to use the wood burning stove? That was kind of sad but mostly amazing. I mean, November! It's November! And it's cold in Luxembourg! I guess this is the magic of The South of France. 

We spent a lot of time here, just hanging out. I brought a bag of stuff for the kids to do as I knew it would be off-season and we'd be having the relaxing, home-based vacation instead of a go-go-go vacation. They didn't mind a bit. They loved the place. It's also bigger than our small apartment, so that felt luxurious.

The cottage is three floors, here's the second floor.

Great vintage poster of various food industries of France.

Third floor attic room. The beams! The beams!

The tub is the real reason I came, let's be honest. A distinct part of the castle roof is right outside those windows.

How does a person process this kind of wonder?

The backyard garden area. Adam and I had several lunches out here of the meat and cheese and fruit plate variety. He died and went to heaven a few times. Had to be resuscitated. 

Exploring outside the house involved runs and walks for me and bike rides for Adam. When the kids came, we did a castle, some gardens and about four outdoor markets. We did what we could; like I said, this was the off-season, so there were lots of things closed. I would have liked to canoe down the river, tour some caves, and see inside of the castle next door (it closed right when we got there), but it was not to be. 

Noah always struggles with site-seeing. This is him the moment we stepped out the door when we were headed to tour a castle. Poor dude didn't even want to start. 

Thankfully he rallied and the castle (Chateau de Castlenaud) was amazing.

The little village below with the red roofs was one of my favorite parts.

See? Happy boy! 

So many terrifying drop-offs. We gripped the children a few times in hopes that we would all make it home alive.

Everybody thought this was hilarious.

And back at our own Chateau de Beynac. I had to tell myself over and over that if you've seen one castle, you've seen them all. Sniff, sniff.

This was one very windy afternoon when we went to Marqueyssac Gardens. We picnicked and walked around but we didn't last long. The wind nearly blew us away.

 We had to try this one a couple times: I drove all the way out to this farm one evening while Adam had to be on some phone calls for work. I was interested in seeing a geese farm where they specialize in producing fois gras, so I made a loose reservation via email with the farmer's wife. I took a sketchy back road through a bumpy forest that I thought for sure was about to mess up my car, and when I got there the lady told me their power was out and they couldn't do the tour. We came back  a couple days later and all was restored and she was very nice to show us around. They usually only do tours during the busy season, when they'll have 80-100 people on the tour. We were the only ones on the tour but she was happy to do it.

They basically keep the geese outside and grazing half their lives, then the other half they are kept inside and force fed three times per day. Here's the farmer feeding them. He feeds them every day at 7 am, 12 noon, and 7 pm with corn. That device goes all the way down their throats to help pack it down tightly. Then the farmer also butchers them and cooks them and cans the fois gras in his facility. 

I'd bought this fois gras several days earlier from the market, and we also bought some from these farmers. I was told to eat it cold with good bread and good wine. It tastes like meat butter. It was good but I'm not dying to have it again. Glad I tried it once! 

And that will be our segue into the food portion of this post. 

Yogurt in glass or ceramic (the blue ones) jars is pretty much the most fabulous thing evuh. They sell this stuff in Luxembourg, too. Booyah.

This region of The South of France (is that capital T bothering you yet?) is known for fois gras, walnuts, and one other food I can't remember right now...

We tried walnuts in several different ways...this tart being one. It was like pecan pie but better.

Adam ordered sausage with walnuts. So good! What?

 These strawberries were like candy.

Vanilla beans! They terrify and intimidate me and I must learn how to use them.

The one thing I want to go back and buy more of is these chocolate covered marshmallow wands. I will dream of them always.

Meringues the size of a child's head! 

We took coq au vin (chicken in a winey stew) and cassoulet (duck and mystery sausage in a white bean stew) home from the markets and heated them up for dinner. So delicious! And I feel like I got a nice peek into French cuisine in the comfort of our cottage without being stressed out about spending a fortune at a restaurant with restless kids who won't eat whatever's on the menu. 

Isn't cheese the only food that stinks to high heaven but tastes exactly like heaven? I mean, what other food can do that? #amazing

 I saw this guy several times and he was so jolly; I finally just bought something. Four dried figs for six euros. Yikes. I'm still working on them...

 Almond nougat!!!!!!!!!!! I want more. So much more.

It is a relief when this guy figures out how to be happy, I tell you! Chocolate cookies always help.

Beynac, we'll be back. #ifonlyinmydreams

Pumpkin Bumpkin

I'm a little confused by Halloween in Luxembourg. Do they celebrate it? Do they not? Every store has at least some selection of pumpkins and costumes and decor but I don't think there's a specific organized day. Unless it's the Day of the Dead which I think is November 1. Whatevs. I'm too lazy to look it up.

We feared that nobody would celebrate so we scooped up tickets being sold by the American Women's Club of Luxembourg for a trunk or treat. The kids dressed up, they got candy, there was spooky Michael Jackson music and bounce houses and hot dogs for sale. It made our Halloween dreams come true. Two thumbs up.

 But then our church ended up doing one, too! Who's going to complain about extra candy and costume wearing? Not us!

 This event was held in a parking lot near our town's square and next to my kids' school. Everyone brought soup to share.

 Pigging out in our trunk:

Tidbits

*Summer's over. Karolina, the kids' neighbor friend, was My Summer Lifesaver. When she was visiting her native Poland for two weeks in August we all nearly expired. She is an absolute delight and we pretty much can't live without her sparkling personality (and her entertainment of my children on the playground for hours on end). Her mom is one of my favorites, too. We are lucky to have good neighbors that we get to see everyday. Here they are enjoying the trampoline park in Merl and a walk in the woods behind our house.

*We visited Adam at work for lunch only once this summer. Why not more? I'm asking myself now. We went for a walk around the Grund afterward. The Grund is in the lower part of Luxembourg City. It's a lovely area. (His office is on the right.)

Bruxelles = Brussels

We took an impromptu trip to Brussels this weekend. Our new friends, the Cordanis, invited us and we went for it.

First of all, Bruxelles is the same as Brussels. Just like Germany is the same thing as Deutschland. Just like Français is the same as French. I see signs for Bruxelles all the time in Luxembourg and I finally put it together. Great job, me. I am learning about languages and stuff.

Second of all, it's only 2 1/2 hours to Brussels. Huh? I thought it was four. Great job, me. Google map it, girlfriend.

So, we got up early on Saturday morning and were in Brussels by 10 am. Great job, us. This is all I want in life: to take full advantage of seeing new sights. It doesn't matter where I live, a quick jaunt down any new road always brings me new room to breathe. Exploring new places is my oxygen.


Just out of the car, Noah was immediately ticked. "I DON'T WANT TO WALK!" I forgot to set expectations early on. It was a rocky first hour or so.

The Grand Place was the grandest place I'd ever been. This building was my favorite.

Camping in Beaufort

We were so excited to get our sea shipment because that meant we could go camping finally! It turns out we didn't really need the tent, though. From my limited understanding about camping in Europe, it appears that people use mostly campers, small cabins, or mobile homes that are provided by the camp ground. Or, in our case, teepees.  My neighbor told me about this camp ground in Beaufort, a town known as "Little Switzerland" that is one hour north of us, still in Luxembourg but close to the Germany border . She said they loved it. Since it was so close to home, I thought it'd be a great jumping off point for figuring out how to Euro-camp.

The campground was enormous and these were the only five teepees. I chose the teepee route because it was the cheapest, 120 euros for two nights, and we could rent cots. We could have used our tent and it would've been even cheaper but we couldn't have rented cots. Our camping mattresses all popped last year and we haven't replaced them yet, so cots were necessary. They gave us the largest teepee.

 It had a luxurious wood chip floor. All four other teepees had smooth wood floors. ??????

 These were our neighbors. More on them later.

Our Place, Our Stuff

When I lived in Taiwan at age 23 I wasn't interested in interiors or design of any kind. Because of my lack of interest in those things, I didn't take any photographs of my living areas. I so wish I had. I'd love to have pictures of the kitchen I shared with five other people, where we had to boil our drinking water and where one of my roommates whipped up the most amazing American meals for us once a week; I wish I could see my balcony where we did laundry (or didn't do laundry, depending on whether the machines were working or not); my tiny bedroom then my bigger bedroom and the hard mattress I slept on that had a top layer of grass cloth; the bathroom that had a drain in the floor where I took showers with no shower curtain and had to put used toilet paper in the trash; the hallway area with the full length mirror where I got ready every day; and the hodge podge selection of books on the first floor bookshelves where I first picked up The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, a book that would become one of my all-time favorites. These are the mementos of daily life that I don't want to forget.

Now in Luxembourg we've been ever so slowly piecing together a world that resembles home. I took tons of pictures of our apartment when we first saw it while house hunting, and you can see those on my other blog. 

I'm taking it from there now ...

This is the apartment on the day we arrived. The rental furniture company was in the middle of unpacking everything that was meant to hold us over until our sea shipment would arrive two to three months later.

 The kids' room with the rental beds.

I thought I took a picture of our bedroom, but I didn't. 

Catching Up

Some of these pictures are at least a month old, so let's play catch up. On a particularly hot day, we decided to try the pool with a view in Vianden. 

 What. A. View. It was stunning.

 Noah got to show off his new Euro trunks and swim cap.

Grocery Shopping in Germany

I know what you're thinking. Another grocery store blog post already? Lucky me! This may not be interesting to anyone else but this is my daily life and I want to document it. I just know myself and I know that in 20 years I'm going to want to look back and see what I ate when I was living in Luxembourg. The not so exciting thing is that it is much the same as what I ate in America. Did I just say "not so exciting"? What I meant is the exact opposite. Being able to find things here that are similar to what I can find in America is the very definition of exciting. The grocery store is the haystack and every time I go I am hunting for a lot of little needles. You'll look at all of these foods and shrug and say, "Big whoop, I can get that at Walmart." EXACTLY. That's precisely the point. What you don't see is all the millions of things I had to compare side to side to make just one decision. Grocery shopping is serious brain drain. And just when I thought I had a lot of it figured out, I decided to try doing it in another country. 

Some of my friends go just over the border to Perl, Germany, to shop in bulk at Lidl, Aldi, and DM, all discount grocery stores. It takes 30 minutes to drive there. After a pep talk from my friend about what I could expect, I set off with the kids to conquer all three.

 Here's what we found:

 

 PEANUT BUTTERRRRR. You take it for granted, but peanut butter happens to be equivalent to gold in its rarity and value. Also, rolled oats, flour, cereal we recognize and like...

Paris: NOT Overrated

My husband has been into cycling and the Tour de France as long as I've known him. I used to join him to watch it on TV every year when we were newlyweds. Then, life got a little busier and I haven't been a regular viewer. But for three weeks in July, it's playing in the background somewhere in the house when he gets home from work and on the weekends. The years I watched it with Adam, we got the English commentators. Then we quit cable and I think all he could find online were French (or a variety of language speaking) commentators. We've been along for the "ride" (heh) as Lance Armstrong dazzled the world then fell from grace; I watched Floyd Landis win, then have his title taken away. Then Alberto Contador won and ... you guessed it, his title was stripped. It's a fascinating international sport full of competitiveness, fanfare, intrigue and cheating. Adam loves it because he loves cycling himself. I loved watching it because of the literal tour through France. The scenery was so spectacular it seemed unreal to me. 

When we moved to Europe, we figured we'd wait until next year to plan a trip to Paris to see the final stage of the race. But then we decided to just go this year. With not much planning, we went. And it was wonderful!

On Saturday morning, we left at 7 am and drove the three and a half hours to Paris. This was a picture I took of the countryside on the way there. It was rainy and gloomy most of the trip.

 A week or so ago I found a listing on Homeaway.com for 100 euros for a night. It's a small apartment in the 17th arrondissement that slept four. Good enough! Here's the place.

Grocery Shopping in Luxembourg

Eating good food is very important to me. It permeates every part of my life. If I'm eating well, chances are I'm a happy camper. If I'm not, it becomes a top priority for me to figure out how to improve it. Eating well has a different meaning for everyone, but for me it means eating plenty of home cooked food with the occasional sprinkling of restaurant/fast food indulgence. That's why, when I got to Luxembourg four weeks ago, I knew I had to tackle grocery shopping right away. While grocery prices in Luxembourg are comparable to Seattle grocery prices, eating out here is more expensive. So, I didn't feel like I had a lot of wiggle room to get dinner wrong. Or breakfast. Or lunch. Also the linchpin for making hangry kids turn happy: snacks. Lucky for us, Europeans are all about good food! And we are holding out as long as possible until we go to McDonald's. We just know there is too much good food to be discovered here ... we're not quite ready to sully it with the worst burger in America.

The first thing that gave me heart palpitations when I moved here was pre-cooked, pre-skinned, pre-packaged beets. I love beets so much and have always been sad they take so long to prepare. Four weeks in, I am sick of beets. Thank you little package! 
 
This was my first grocery store haul.  I was running on fumes because of jet lag, but I was proud that I got it together in time for a decent first dinner in our apartment.

Not in America

It all started with the pirate ship playground. It's one of the first things I saw when we came into Luxembourg City on our house hunting trip. Adam parked the rental car and we were headed into the city center to get some lunch. Across the street was the behemoth ship and I went over and took a picture to send to Adam's parents who were watching our kids. I knew they'd die with excitement to play on it when they got here. After I got over the shock of the ship, I saw the slide. It was at least three stories high. And my America alarm went off. "That would never fly in America."

It was at Sienna's school during the morning of the doctor check up. I went just because I didn't know what they were going to do and I didn't want Sienna to be uncomfortable. The doctor check up was fine, nothing different than what we'd just had when we registered here a couple weeks ago. But then I went back to her classroom and all the kids had stripped down to their undies. They were ready for their check ups! "That would never fly in America."

It was house hunting and finding that each and every place we looked at had doors and windows that opened into nothingness, even several stories high. There were glass barriers up to my waist but that was it. "Do these have child proof locks on them?" I asked. The real estate agent didn't know what I was talking about. Also, screens? Are there no bugs here? So far there actually aren't that many bugs getting in the house ... or flies. And absolutely no child proof locks."That would never fly in America."

School Ends, School Starts

The kids finished preschool and kindergarten in Seattle in June.

Mr. Nobes charmed his teachers everyday with his sweet, calm personality and winning smile. He is such an amiable kid (when he is at school). This is the only picture I got of him at graduation; the rest were videos of the kids singing adorable songs. One was some kind of chant about the bible? "B-I-B-L-E the bible is the book for me!" Cracked me up.  Their graduation theme was Mexican fiesta and we had a delicious pot luck feast afterward. Teacher Joan and Teacher Bonnie will be greatly missed! They are some of the sweetest, kindest ladies ever.
It was a remarkable year in kindergarten for Sienna. Although I loathe all the graduation fanfare for small people our society engages in, I realized it's kind of cute when it's your own kid. I tried to check my bad attitude at the door and just enjoy the spectacle. Let us try and forget that Noah spilled his dinner of Cheez-It party mix all over the floor before the show even started. Party on.

 

But seriously, I think this girl is ready for high school. She learned so much this year, I was practically watched the brain wrinkles settle in with my own eyes. (Kind of a gross image.) Here she is with her darling friend Simone. I was grateful she had a great little group of friends in her class. That always makes going to school so much more enjoyable.

Swim Caps, Sneakers and Swim Suits

You wanna hear about my day?

Here goes.

I woke up at 5:30 am to run for an hour. Adam left for work soon after I got back. Then I showered and ate breakfast and got the kids up. Amid the usual morning getting-ready chaos, I remembered to do the two things I committed to memory right before I fell asleep last night: pack them a morning snack ("something healthy, NOT chocolate" recommended Noah's teacher) and take their measurements.

We went to school a little before 8 am. For Noah it's more like 8 am and for Sienna it's more like 8:15. Sienna's teacher doesn't really come out of hiding until 8:15 and I can't get inside the school because the main doors are locked, so we wait near her outside door and try to look natural. I talk to both of the kids' teachers about what's coming up. Is today water sports day? Is it pool day? Yesterday was sports day. Noah's class is doing pool day today. Sienna's class does pool day tomorrow. Where does that leave water sports day? And is there still a sports day on Friday? I feel like there is. I still have no idea.

After I drop off the kids, I drive about a mile up the street to the shopping mall I spent several hours at yesterday. I get stuck in construction traffic for a bit and am annoyed. But then I look out my window and see a crumbling old building, just one of many that add to all the charm here. I take a picture just as a tractor is going by. This place is so quaint. I don't want to be too annoyed to remember that. Behind me is the very modern Bertrange Commune. This center of community, which is like every other community center in Luxembourg, has a commune (where you go to register in your town and take advantage of many other services), an old Catholic church, a children's school campus, and shops. It's a very lovely mix of old and new and I love driving through it. Someday I'll walk around the shops. But today! Today, I must go to the Belle Etoile mall to find three things: swim caps, sneakers and swim suits.

I was told by another ex-pat that Noah will not be allowed in the pool unless he is in Speedo-style swim shorts or briefs. I have to find them before they go swimming this afternoon. The children will not be let into the pool without swim caps, either. Must. Find. Swim. Caps. And sneakers. Both Sienna and Noah are about to bust through the toes of their sneakers. Plus, they need them for sports day. So help me, I will find the sneakers.