French Forms

The morning was punctuated by rain on one side and high wind on the other,
but the bridge, the river and the mountains persuaded me to go for a run anyway. 

Just when you think you're out of the French form business for another year, with both a driver's license and a carte de sejour tucked in my wallet, a minor accident and a car purchase send us back up to our necks in forms in French.
Truthfully, the forms aren't so bad, it's trying to figure out what to do with them. Can I take a picture and email them? Do I need to fax them (are there still fax machines)? Should they be mailed?
During the past month, since our departure from the apartment we thought we would be in all year,  we lived on a narrow street where cars insist on driving quickly. I was sitting at my computer by the window on the road, preparing for my class to start at noon when a car zoomed past and I heard a crunch. I just had a feeling.
I walked out of the house and saw something strange hanging off the front of the car. The headlight. Pretty sure it's not supposed to look like that.
A car was parking in front of our car, so I waited until the woman got out.
She was nice about it. She had cut too close as she tried to park.

I told her I had to get inside to teach so she gave me her name and number and said she would be back home, just down the street from me, at 6.
In between classes, I contacted a few French friends. I barely know what to do in an American accident, much less a French one.
One friend sent me a form to be filled out. It's an "amiable" form, which means both drivers agree on what happened.
But the woman didn't get home at 6 or 7 or... well, I quit watching for her and texted. We agreed to meet the next day at 4 at her place.
So she cordially offered me coffee, but I declined and we filled out the necessary forms. It was Friday afternoon. I had no idea what to do with the forms. She suggested I call our insurance company, which is also our bank. I tried but got stuck in the "Press 1 for xxx" and "press 2 for xxx." Speaking French to a person on the phone is hard enough. Figuring out what a machine says is even more difficult. I decided to head to the bank branch 30 minutes away on Monday.
Come Monday, I checked the hours and saw that the branch is closed Monday. I knew Wednesday was a holiday, so my only option was Tuesday.
The bank was open until 5:20 p.m. and my last class ended at 4. I would have time to drive half an hour before it closed.
Then I got there at 4:40 and saw that it was closing early (exceptionelle) at 4:50. I barely made it. The woman who helped me, after a 5-minute wait, had no idea what to do with the form. The bank does not have an insurance branch. She searched online. Then she went to her manager's office and he suggested they would send it for me. So whether it was mailed, emailed, faxed or simply struck in a drawer, I have no idea.
The car accident reminded me that I had never received my carte grise for the car. The carte grise is like the registration. Our friend who sold us the car did all the French paperwork online, but we never got the form.
I hopped online and claimed that it was lost, even though we had never received it. They asked for 99 euros, which I paid, and said they were processing the request. Then I got an email that listed about 10 documents I need to send in before I can get my carte grise.
It's all a little overwhelming. I need to print out the forms and mail them in.
Technically, it's illegal for us to drive the car without the carte grise, so we need to be super careful not to get pulled over before we receive the paperwork.
But, the good news is, that my husband has safely returned to France, so anything I'm dealing with now is not on my own.
The weather was so cold today, I feel like I might be in a Nordic country rather than the south of France, with temperature in the 30s (4 C) and high winds that endanger pedestrians from flying market umbrellas.

These fabrics are beautiful, but expensive. They said they were hand-loomed. 

No matter, we're still enjoying life.
As for our living arrangements, they become more nomadic by the week, so I promise an update soon.

As Promised, More Pictures

On Sunday I posted some pictures of this castle that sits above Sax, Spain. The view at night is impressive.

View with some electric wires

As Earl and I prepared to go into town for dinner at 9 pm, we stopped to take this shot of the Moorish fortress in town. This is the view from the house where we’re staying. 

It’s hard to get a good shot of lights on an iPhone at night.

A closer view

Here’s a closer look that turned out well as we were driving home from dinner at 11 pm. 

See this could work as a diet plan. By 9 pm (they don’t start serving dinner until 9:30 usually) I’m tired enough that I might just curl up with a book and skip dinner. 

But the castle is beautiful at night. 

Last night, we just made omelettes around 7, but I taught 9 classes and was wiped out. 

Still, the full moon peeked through the window at me. 

Full moon through iron bars

Lights and Artwork

I was in Paris for a few days meeting my husband who flew to the States for a brief hiatus. I couldn't wait to see him again but his flight didn't arrive until the evening so I was in Paris alone for the day.
What to do?
There are some things we haven't done that I wanted to visit, but I wanted to wait for Earl so we could see them together. So I decided to visit Les Ateliers des Lumieres in Paris.
You may recall that we visited a similar exhibit in Provence back in April and I wrote about it here. I loved the exhibit in Provence of the Spanish masters and 60s pop art.
In Paris, the main exhibit is Gustave Klimt.
I walked in during the middle of the show, assaulted by walls full of flowers, bathed in the colorful light.

 Unlike the cavern in Provence, this show is presented in a warehouse, so there are doors and scaffolding. An article I read says this is a former factory.

Apparently, during the summer, the lines were out the door and around the block. Now, at the beginning of September, I waited less than five minutes before being directed to one of the ticket windows for a 14.50 euro ticket.

 I love the colors here.

You may be saying, Gustave Klimt, now which one was he? This is the painting he's most famous for. Here it's projected on a wall, and the wall next to it, and next to it...

The whole room could be transformed into a cathedral. And the floor was amazing too. 

Sometimes children would skip from flower to flower on the floor, or people would stand in the center of a spinning circle. It was definitely interactive art.

A mirrored room, with floor and walls of mirrors reflected the paintings over and over. I laid down on the floor to watch it for awhile. 

I stood against one wall and took a picture of the artwork projected on me too.

Truthfully, the still pictures are amazing, but nothing can compare to the movement. The exhibition finds the action in the paintings and adds it before moving on to more details. I can't think that the artist would be upset at the changes made to his/her artwork, instead, I have to think artists would be thrilled to have so many people immersed in it. 

So I had to include a few minutes of video from my Youtube page. 

This first video shows the opening of the Klimt exhibit.

This is a clip from the middle of the exhibit. 

The photos alone don't do it justice. There's nothing like standing in the middle of the colors and the movement.
You'll find L'Atelier des Lumieres at 38 rue Saint Maur 75 011 Paris

An Author's Life

I once had a writing colleague tell me that there's no such thing as "writer's block;" it's just a lazy person's way to avoid writing.
Maybe.
I'd like to say that my life in France has been too happy to write much, but I've had plenty of sad times or doldrums, and that still hasn't sent me to the keyboard.

Perhaps I could claim that I've been too busy living my life to write, but I've read nearly 300 pages of a novel and watched two movies this weekend, time that I could have spent writing.
So apparently, not writing is a choice for me now.
I have another novel finished, waiting for editing, and a novel that I'm so excited about, but it's only half written. Guess I'm not that excited about it.
If I followed a schedule, sitting down to write every morning, I know I'd be caught up in the characters again and finish it in no time.
Discipline. I knew I was missing something.