Rose Bowl Memories and Lessons Learned

 Twenty-six years between appearances, and twenty-three years of my personal waiting to attend a game

 I attended the Rose Bowl this year for the first time in my life. Growing up in the state of Michigan, I remember watching the televised Rose Parades every year and the annual football game. It seemed at the time that the only schools from the Big Ten conference that played in that game were the University of Michigan and Ohio State University.

My mother was a graduate of Michigan State University (MSU), as well as many of my aunts, uncles and cousins. I grew up being surrounded by MSU partisans and later, that is where I went to college. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, MSU's football program wasn't the greatest. I attended the games while in school, but we lost more than we won.

This changed after I graduated when they hired a new coach and in 1988, MSU went to the Rose Bowl and beat the University of Southern California.

I couldn't attend that game due to timing and finances, but I did cheer on my team as I watched the televised broadcast.

In 1991, my husband and I moved to California. We promised each other that if Michigan State ever made it to the Rose Bowl while we lived in California that we would go to the game. It has been an annual joke when I told my bosses that I would be willing to work the New Year's Day holiday, *unless* Michigan State was in the Rose Bowl. Usually by October I told them that we had been mathematically eliminated from contention and I could work that holiday. So my husband and I have waited twenty-three years since moving to California for MSU to be in the Rose Bowl (but it has been 26 years between appearances.)

Getting Tickets to the game

The last few years have been nail biters as to determining if MSU was going to go to the Rose Bowl. About three years ago when I thought there was a good chance MSU was going to go, I started investigating how we would actually get tickets. I called a friend who went to the game back in 1988. Josh had a friend who was a season ticket holder and who allowed him to purchase the Rose Bowl tickets reserved for him. I didn't think that it was likely I could score tickets that way, so I went online and discovered the Team Tix option.

Team Tix is a money making scheme, similar to buying stock options. You don't actually purchase the tickets, but reserve the opportunity to buy tickets at face value should your team attend the Rose Bowl.

Here is how it works:

In September, you go to the Tournament of Roses website and follow links to the Team Tix site. The earlier you start the process, the cheaper it is and the greater number of tickets available together. These are non-refundable reservations and you are obligated to buy the tickets if your team wins, and please note that the fee paid to reserve tickets does not apply to the cost of the tickets themselves.

The longer in the season you wait, the higher the price per reservation and the fewer reservations are left. Once all the reservations for a specific team are sold, then there is the ability to trade them on an online market where people will place bids for these reservations and the current holders will determine which bids they want to accept.

So we paid money for reservations in 2011 and 2012, but didn't get any tickets from the process. We just gave money to an agency for the right to dream that our team would go to the Rose Bowl. For them, it is like printing money. They get money from alumni from dozens of schools who get nothing for their reservations. It is kind of like playing the lottery where you know going in that you might not win and you won't get your money back if you lose.

This year, it worked for us. We reserved four tickets at $25 a reservation and when Michigan State won the Big Ten Championship playoff game against Ohio State University, we received an email the next day telling us how to obtain our tickets at the face value of $150 each.

That experience was a lot better than a friend of mine who decided two weeks before the Big Ten Championship game to try and get tickets for the Rose Bowl. The Team Tix at that point was red-hot for MSU fans and her online bid didn't get accepted, like she thought it did. Instead, she had to wait until the tickets went on sale to the general public on a Tuesday morning. Ticketmaster was sold out of their allotment in minutes. My friend Sue wound up paying a different website $520 per ticket for two seats near the Stanford end zone.

It was crazy, but at least she bought tickets at that point in time. Later, the secondary market had tickets over a thousand dollars each.

That's what happens when it is twenty-six years between Rose Bowl appearances, you get a lot of pent up desire by alumni to attend. MSU did have a certain number of tickets reserved for their alumni, but 24,000 was not close to meeting the demand. The alumni tour packages sold out instantly and some creative Spartan fans looked to the Stanford allotment of tickets and found a loophole.

Since Stanford had gone the previous year and won at the Rose Bowl, there was not the same level of hunger by their alumni to attend the Rose Bowl. Stanford offered the ability to purchase four Rose Bowl tickets at face value to those who put a $100 deposit down on 2014 season tickets. It was discovered that MSU fans were swallowing up these tickets with no intention of purchasing season tickets at Stanford.  Once it was discovered, this opportunity was taken down off the Stanford website. That is why there were many Spartan fans in the Stanford sections.

Getting to Southern California:

Since we live in California, we didn't have the travel headaches that Michiganders did. We simply chose which day we wanted to start driving down and arrange for hotel accommodations. We ran into a few Spartan fans who said they were unable to get a flight into LA, and instead flew into Las Vegas and got a rental car to make it the rest of the way.

That's just crazy, but it does show the determination of Spartan fans to be where they needed to be to cheer on their team.

Getting hotel rooms in the area was a difficult and expensive task. We decided to avoid the Pasadena area entirely and instead looked to Anaheim the home of Disneyland. We went to the theme parks on December 31st and January 2nd and saw many MSU fans wearing Spartan green. After making the decision to watch fireworks on New Year's Eve at midnight meant that getting to Pasadena early in the morning to be at the parade would be pushing our luck and energy. If we tried doing everything, we would be exhausted by the time the game started and *the game* is the reason we were down there in the first place. So we decided against going to the parade and instead just programmed it to be recorded on our DVR before we left home.

Parking

There is limited parking at the Rose Bowl Stadium. It is first come, first served with the lots open at Oh Dark Thirty in the morning. I am not joking, the parking lot opens at 4 am. Imagine celebrating New Year's Eve at midnight and then getting ready to wait in line for a parking lot to open four hours later. YIKES.

The Rose Bowl Stadium does allow for tailgating before games, but there are specific rules about that and a long list of prohibited items.

There is also another parking lot that is about a half an hour's walk away - the Parson's Lot. They have passes you can purchase in advance and that is the option my husband chose. However, we did not get the pass in the mail when it was promised. By the time we realized it hadn't come, and we had the postal Christmas holiday to contend with, it was very late in the calendar year. My husband sent an email and had to wait for a few business days for a reply. Thankfully there was enough time for the company to reply and have passes waiting for us at "will call" at a certain entrance.


Getting to the parking lot

We would have been better off using a paper map. Instead we trusted modern technology and GPS. BIG MISTAKE. The GPS recognized that there were barricaded streets due to the parade route, but it still tried to direct us through streets we could not traverse. We were coming from Anaheim and made really good time on the LA freeways because it was a holiday and there was no traffic to speak of, but we should have thought long and hard about the parade route and tried to go west and north of the parking lot and then get closer. Instead we followed the GPS and approached it from the south and east. Once we actually got around the parade route and were on the street we needed to be, the traffic was at a snail's pace. We would watch the traffic lights go through two or three cycles where we would advance maybe a single car's length.

It was painful.

Once we got to the parking lot, they did have our parking pass waiting for us. :whew:


There is no tailgating allowed at this parking lot, so we had to try and meet up with our friends at the stadium.

It was a sea of green and white that stretched out into a really long line waiting to board the shuttle buses. There were some Stanford fans wearing red, but they seemed outnumbered by the green wearing Spartans.

In retrospect, it would have been faster for us to walk to the stadium. Instead, we waited patiently in line.

I had made grand plans to meet up with friends and family before the game. I had read and re-read the guidelines for what was allowed for tailgating. Except, I didn't quite understand some of the finer details so my grand plans didn't work out too well.

I did meet up with my Uncle Jim, but that was after several cell phone calls and text messages trying to explain exactly where I was standing using land marks. It wasn't easy, but here we are mugging for the camera.

  
Lessons learned from my attempt at tail gating fiasco: unless I am willing to brave the morning rush of cars at 4 am to get a prime parking spot at the Rose Bowl Stadium's parking lot, forget about trying to bring food or drink to tail gate. They have food and drink for sale in a specified area and will not allow you to bring in anything from the outside.

Plus, I should have kept my cell phone in my pocket on vibrate. I certainly could not hear it ring reliably in my purse with the ambient noise of thousands of excited football fans.

My husband had brought his nice camera with him. Too bad we didn't notice a mention in the fine print of a prohibition for telephoto lenses. He had to surrender his camera during the game and had only a specified short period of time to pick it up after the game concluded. To make sure he didn't lose out on getting his camera back, he left the game with about three minutes left. So he missed the greatest play of the game which guaranteed Michigan State's victory.

(We did watch it on our DVR'd recording after we returned home.)

Here is a view from the Spartan end zone:

I also ran into my cousin Joann in a tunnel before the game started and had a chance for a quick hug and picture.

My thoughts about the game:

It was a close, hard fought game. I wasn't too worried when Stanford at the beginning. I knew there was a lot of time left in the game and we would get our chance.

I was surprised that the MSU Fight Song had a few minor changes done to it since I had last attended a football game. There's a part of the song which goes,

"See their team is weakening
We're going to win this game
FIGHT, FIGHT, RAH TEAM FIGHT
Victory for MSU!"

 The way the fans in the stands near us were singing was a little more "in your face" style.

"See their team is WEEEEEAK"

It is fun to sing, but kinda mean.

Other observations:

I enjoyed watching the Spartan Marching Band as always. They are a great tradition and I am proud to have them represent my school.

I thought the Stanford Band was weird.

Their dress is not uniform, their instruments are not always real instruments, (one woman was using a STOP sign as a percussion instrument), they don't really march in formation or make good formations one can understand, their sound is passable but not great. Maybe if it was my school I would learn to love it and feel their irreverent ways were really cool. Being from a different background and competing school, I was taken aback by my surprise in their attire and casual approach to music.

I also think the Stanford mascot is weird. They have a dancing tree that looks like it is covered in carpet remnants. Strange.

One more thing that I find uncomfortable about Stanford is referring to the team as "the Cardinal." Singular. It is not a title of a religious leader nor of a bird, but instead it is a color.

I heard sentences that had strange syntax in them using the singular "cardinal" in a manner meant for plural usage. It was awkward and as someone obsessed with language, it bugs me.

A tree as the mascot, but the team is referred to by a singular color. Eh?

Michigan State University's mascot is Sparty, but the school and the fans are referred to as Spartans, and our colors are green and white. It doesn't seem difficult to understand or say in the singular or plural usage.

/end rant about my befuddlement about the Stanford mascot/naming scheme

Here is a scene after the victory by Michigan State University:

 My group of happy Spartan fans found each other after the game was over in the parking lot. We decided to follow the large crowd walking back to the parking lot rather than wait for the incredibly long queue to take shuttle buses back. That was one of our best decisions of the day.

All in all, it was a great time and one that I am glad we did. I will always have the memories of being at the 100th Rose Bowl and cheering on my alma mater to victory.

Magic words in France and Italy

Traveling can be an enriching experience, not only from seeing new sights but also by learning new customs. My language skills in French and Italian are limited. I have taken French lessons at my local Alliance de

--> Française, but I realize that my grammar is still rustic and rudimentary.

I do my best to use as many French words as I know, and with the best pronunciation as I can muster, knowing that if I am patient enough I will manage. I learned early on that the French people are formal and that you must start every interaction with "bon jour." If you do not begin with that nicety, you are considered rude.

I can respect wanting a formal greeting. It is a cultural difference and this may be a source of some friction Americans have when they visit France if they do not recognize the cultural expectations of the host country. Americans are much more casual and we will chat with anyone, and even think about needing to start a conversation with a greeting of "good day."

Many times we will be at a store, say a coffee shop, where we are staring up at the menu. Then, when we are greeted and asked for our order, we are more likely to answer with the drinks we want than to start with "Good day, I would like to have..."

During my first trip to France in 2007, I did my best to use bon jour with every interaction I had with a French person. It was when we were in the Midi-Pyrenees region and at farmer's markets that I discovered a different phrase, that of

--> bonne journée. (It is pronouced bun jour-nay).

A farmer's market in Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val.

At first I thought they were wishing me to have a good journey. I wondered how obvious it was that I was on vacation. Later, much later, I realized the significance of bonne journée. 

It is the feminine version of bon jour and the polite way of ending a conversation by wishing someone a good rest of their day.

Get it? Start with the masculine bon jour and end with the feminine bonne journée. It is like book ends to a conversation.

In 2011, when I returned to France I used bonne journée instead of au revoir to say good-bye. The reaction was startling. I found that in the villages, my wishing bonne journée was treated as if I paid them a high compliment. On more than one occasion, the person's voice went up an entire octave and they trilled out "Aussi!  Bonne journée!" (You too! Have a Good Day!)

Seriously. Americans have become so jaded and cynical that wishing someone a good day or "have a good one" is fodder for stand up comedians. Yet, that simple nicety will endear yourself in France with the locals.

 

My Italian is more sparse than my French. It consists of a few all purpose words such as buongiorno, buena sera, grazie, ciao and prego.

Having learned my lesson in France, I did my best to start any conversations with Italians with buongiorno or buena sera. 

The word that surprised me as to its usage is "prego." I feel it is the Swiss Army knife of words in Italian.

It is used to say please, thank you, and you're welcome. I have had waiters come to my table with their pad in hand and simply say "prego." It might translate as please, but it has so many more uses.

Tasso Ristorante Pizzeria in Sorrento, Italy

If you are traveling in Italy, know that prego is used far more often than per favore.

During our trip this summer we visited our exchange student and his family. While he was living with us in California, I saw him use his cell phone for reading texts, emails, etc., but do not remember seeing him talk into the phone. In Italy, I saw him answer the phone a few times and was surprised at his greeting.

"Pronto!"

Not buongiorno or salve, but pronto.

It reminds me of the old greeting, "go ahead, it's your dime."

The other day when I had a phone call from an unknown user, I decided to use "pronto" as my greeting. The caller was flummoxed and hung up on me. Just as well, I think it was a telemarketer and I am on the "do not call" list.

Does anyone have any other "magic" words they learned in a foreign country they would like to add?

 

 http://lcmccabe.blogspot.com/2013/07/magic-words-in-france-and-italy.html

 

From Paris to the Midi-Pyrenees

With the idea that the third time is the charm, I shall once again try picking up where I left off on my travelogue posts regarding my trip to France last September.

This post is dedicated to covering some of the nuts and bolts of traveling as well as relating our trip from France to the Midi-Pyrenees where my husband and I stayed for two weeks.

In preparing for our trip we thought long and hard of what we needed to bring with us. At every turn we were exhorted to pack light and so we took that advice to heart. We chose clothes that for the most part we could wash in a sink (blue jeans were the notable exception to that ideal.) We knew we would be in Paris for a week, a few days in Provence and during those times we would not have any access to a Laundromat, nor did we want to. With that in mind, we packed several packets of detergent and before we set out in the morning for sight seeing, we washed our underwear, shirts, et cetera in the sink and hung them to dry on the line over the bathtub.

We took two suitcases with us and two carry on bags. We considered the possibility of one of our suitcases getting lost in transit, we divvied up our clothes with the shorts and short sleeved clothes for the south of France going into the checked bag and the cooler clothes for Paris in the carry on suitcase. The checked bag had our various liquids that are now contraband on board airlines such as shampoo, shaving gel, tooth paste, and laundry detergent. Thankfully, we had no problem with our luggage and our precautionary packing of warm versus cool climate clothes did not prove necessary.

One of our carry on bags was filled with books. Included were guide books, a large Michelin spiral bound map of France, my working manuscript, and a Tess Gerritsen novel. That bag was heavy. Very heavy. Since I was the one who insisted on bringing all those books, I wound up being the one to schlep it around on top of my rollered suitcase while Scott carried the lighter bag with an old and rather clunky laptop. We had the high hopes that we would be able to keep up on our emails and I thought I might be able to blog during the trip similar to other friends of mine.

The hotel we stayed at in Paris, Hotel Dieu (I blogged on that neat historical working hospital/hotel in a previous post) had a wi-fi connection, but we were so exhausted by the time we returned to our room that the most we were able to do was check our email and download pictures off our digital camera. Composing a thoughtful blog post was out of the question. Even posting a small “we are here” post with a picture seemed as if it would be a Labor of Hercules to achieve.

Saturday morning marked a major change in our itinerary. We were leaving Paris, picking up a lease vehicle, stopping at Guédelon in the Burgundy region, driving south to Montauban, going grocery shopping before the stores closed, then check into the villa we were going to stay at for two weeks in Monclar-de-Quercy. We knew it was going to be a full day and that is why we had to start our day at an insane time of the morning. We had a shuttle van scheduled to pick us up in front of the hotel at 06:00 in order to take us to the Paris Orly Airport where we were to pick up our lease vehicle from Renault.

That meant that we had to wake up, take our showers, pack the last items into our suitcases and be outside at insane o’clock all the while without any benefit of any caffeinated beverages. It was brutal, but we survived. My husband and I have gotten so accustomed to our routine of achieving our therapeutic level of caffeine at a slow pace by periodically slurping coffee from a mug near our bed that having to get up without benefit of coffee is brutal and almost torturous. We knew that the hospital cafeteria would not be open at five in the morning, nor was it likely that any of the various cafés nearby would be open at that time on a Saturday morning. So we suffered while stumbling around our hotel room with our eyes barely open.

Our driver arrived shortly after 6 a.m. and it was our first real exchange with a French speaking native that was not fluent in English, and it foreshadowed what was to come for us. He spoke a little English and we spoke a little French. Together, the three of us were able to piece together a conversation. The discussion at first was focused on making sure he understood which gate at the airport we needed to be dropped off. Once he understood we were picking up a car, he asked if we were going to drive around Paris. We laughed, and said no -- that was dangerous. He then laughed and agreed with us. We told him we were on our way to visit the south of his country near Toulouse.

Then, he did something I thought was very kind of him. He wanted us to be aware of the monitors on the auto routes which would issue citations if you drove faster than the posted speed limit. He pointed out the signs and also the cameras in boxes by the side of the road.

Later when he heard that we were from California, he expressed his love for our state because of its beauty. We thought he had visited our state, but he had not. He said he knew it from pictures and he would like to visit one day.

We had other conversations with French people during our trip which had similar results. Using as much French vocabulary to the best of our ability allowed us to have a pleasant if not sophisticated conversation. We felt as if we made positive connections with people from another country, another culture, and another language.

After being dropped off at Orly Airport the first item on our agenda was to find coffee and something to eat. Then we also drew more money out of an automated teller machine (ATM). For those from the United States who have not traveled overseas before, forget any thought you may have of formally exchanging money or using travelers’ checks. ATMs are the way to go because you get Euros at the current exchange rate and depending upon your bank you may or may not have any withdrawal fees associated with the transaction. The only sticking point is that there is generally a maximum amount of money you can withdraw on any day.

Another financial aspect to consider before traveling is to contact your credit card company and alert them to the fact you will be on vacation and will be making quite a bit of charges. This is to avoid them thinking that your card was stolen and freezing your account for fear that there are unauthorized charges being made. Tell them of the dates of your trip and where you are going ahead of time and you should not have to worry about frozen accounts.

European countries also have a security chip embedded in their credit cards which are not in American credit cards. This will sometimes render your credit card transactions as invalid, so you should be aware of this potential. It seemed more likely to be troublesome at petrol stations and having a backup of Euros on hand was important.

In obtaining cars for driving overseas, there are several companies who have lease programs. You actually purchase a brand new vehicle and will sell it back to the company at a guaranteed price at the end of the lease period. The minimum is seventeen days possession of the car, but Renault had a minimum charge of twenty-one days.

My husband worked on these details and had the contract drawn up months in advance with Renault USA for the date, time and place for us to pick up the vehicle. He chose the Renault Megane.

Another driver picked us up from the airport and took us to the Renault facility. Our car was waiting for us. We signed some papers and were given “smart keys” which are about the same size as a credit card but are thick and padded. They have embedded computer chips which activate the car, even if it is not inserted into the ignition slot. To start the car you simply press the “start” button. Those keys also unlock the car whenever you are even near the car which makes it difficult if you are like me and want to just check to see if the trunk is locked. It will not be if you are standing near the car with that smart key in your pocket no matter how many times you punch the lock icon.

Our next goal was to find a station and fill up the car with gazoil, a diesel fuel. Once that was accomplished we set dusted off our Garmin Nuvi GPS and started it up. We had purchased a package for France and was about to discover how it differed from using that electronic toy in the United States.

One thing that we noticed as soon as we left the autoroute was that the accent of the voice in the Garmin garbles the pronunciations of roads and towns in French. It butchered the language – to the point where we would turn and stare at it and say “Wha ?”

At one point we switched the voice’s language to French, but that did not help because then every word was said in an incomprehensible thick accent. We wound up reverting to the familiar American sounding female voice and read the street names whenever a turn was announced.

We also had to play around with the settings to convert to kilometers as well as the time zone we were in rather than our Pacific time zone.

The GPS unit did get us to Guédelon without any trouble and we had a lovely time there. I shall blog about Guédelon another day since it is well worth a post all on its own.

In the meantime, here is a picture from that site to serve as a teaser. Yes, they are building a castle using thirteenth century technology!

We left Guédelon and relied upon the GPS to find the best route to Montauban. The thing is, since we were in a rural area, it did not take us directly back to the autoroute. It took us on a convoluted path going from one rural road to even lesser traveled rural roads that made us start doubting the reliability of the unit. We also were in need of lunch and beginning to get cranky.

We had considered eating lunch at Guédelon for they have a cafeteria there, but alas it had not opened for the day by the time we left even though the stated hours made it appear that it should have been. There were towels draped over the areas where food was supposed to be, so we knew that even if someone stepped up and began puttering around in that kitchen that it would probably still take some time before we had food in hand. So we left Guédelon without eating.

We considered and rejected the idea of stopping at a village for a meal. Many of the small villages in France are economically depressed and if we stopped at a village restaurant for lunch, they would probably want to make sure that we enjoyed our stay. That would likely translate into the two hour lunch as is customary in France. We just did not have that kind of time that day, and did not want to insult anyone -- so we set our sights on the promised fast food restaurants that line the autoroute. Then rural road after rural road, our morning croissants became a distant memory. I then did something desperate and searched for food on the Garmin GPS menu and found a McDonald’s restaurant that was not too far out of our way.

Eating at a McDo’s in France was out of desperation and necessity. It actually was not as bad as I had feared. We had reasonable fast food, and in around twenty minutes we were back on the road again.

We eventually made our way to the autoroute and once on those really smooth roads we seemed to fly through the gorgeous countryside.

Our next big goal for the day was to go grocery shopping. The reason we needed to do that on a Saturday night is that many stores are closed on Sunday in France. If we had not made it to the large E. LeClerc supermarket on Saturday night before they closed, then we would have been dependent upon the small grocery store named 8 à Huit (pronounced wheat-ah-wheat) in Monclar-de-Quercy which is only open for a few hours on Sunday. And never is the store open from eight to eight as the name implies.

There were some things we needed such as toilet paper and laundry detergent that we did not want to pack in our suitcases nor would be readily available at farmers markets.

I had corresponded with Sarah Rule for months prior to our arrival and she was kind enough to alert me to certain things that would otherwise have taken me by surprise. First was that the shopping carts require a Euro coin deposit to release them from a locking mechanism in the parking lot. We made sure that we kept at least one Euro coin at all times. Second was that grocery stores no longer provided shopping bags for your purchases. You are not asked paper or plastic, you are expected to bring your own.

So we packed some cheap flimsy plastic grocery bags from our local store and had them on hand for our shopping trip.

Each step in our journey in France seemed to be passing some kind of milestone that was worthy of celebration.

1. We made it to Paris. Check.
   
2. We made it through Customs without any hassle. Check.
   
3. We retrieved our checked bag. Check.
   
4. We found our shuttle bus to take us to our hotel. Check.
   
5. We enjoyed our week in Paris. Check.
   
6. We got our shuttle van to Orly Airport. Check.
   
7. Picked up our car. Check. Got petrol. Check.
   
8. Found our way to Guédelon. Check.
   
9. Found the grocery store in Montauban. Check.
   
10. Got our shopping cart and bags. Check.

We were giddy and getting pretty silly at this point in the day, but we felt as if we had accomplished something amazing just by finding our way in a foreign country without having to depend upon tour guides shuttling us from one over touristed spot to another.

Entering the large supermarket was another new adventure. One of the first aisles we went to was the wine aisle. There we became like kids in a candy store and just piled bottle after bottle into the basket. Their selection was almost exclusively French wines and we did not recognize any of the labels since we normally support our local economy and to us that means drinking Sonoma County wines. We rarely drink anything “over the hill” from Napa and treat that as being an import, so we really did not know which wines to choose and wound up picking what looked good. I did insist that we buy at least one bottle of champagne to celebrate our successes thus far. Most of the wine we purchased was a bargain at only about two to three Euros per bottle, but the champagne cost at least twenty Euros. I picked a bottle of Canard-Duchenne because I liked the name.

It was very tasty, and I have seen that label since returning to the States.

We then came upon the produce section and by watching other people realized that you need to hand your bags of fruit and vegetables to a clerk who will weigh it and create a price tag to be slapped on the side. I did not quite understand the subtleties of when it was and was not needed at first. I handed a head of lettuce to her, but she shook her head since it was priced by the unit and not by weight. A couple of other such examples happened until we understood how that system worked.

We felt good that we discovered this on our own and not after being embarrassed by a check out clerk telling us that we had neglected to follow that little step. I am also not so sure if we would have understood that verbal reprobation if it we heard it in rapid fire French and had people standing in our line glaring at us for slowing things down.

It was interesting to see in the meat section some animal products that are not available in the States, namely cheval and pigeon. The cheese aisles were filled with a wide variety of cheeses, but there was no cheddar to be found. That is a British cheese and therefore is not readily found in France. Neither could we find shredded Parmesan, although it was available in the familiar grated form that reminds me of fine sawdust.

We were unfamiliar with the brand names of the various products such as laundry detergent and dish detergent, so we went with the old “this looks good” method of shopping. Scott was determined to cook as many dinners as possible and so we stocked up on a variety of foodstuffs to last us about a week with the idea we would supplement as needed.

I mentioned this before, but it warrants repeat attention: the covers of the tabloid magazines at the checkout stands featured both Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. I felt ill at the sight. I cannot imagine that France does not have its own starlets that are worthy of public attention. Of all the possible American cultural exports the people of France could choose from, why would they want to fixate on those two air headed bimbos?

Once we bagged our groceries and left the store, we packed our trunk, returned the shopping cart in order to retrieve our Euro coin, and headed for Daramousque at Monclar-de-Quercy.

Sarah gave us fabulous directions to find their place and we arrived at around the time that Scott had planned: around 8 o’clock at night. It was a good thing we arrived before it was dark otherwise it would have been difficult to find their driveway.

As it was, we were welcomed by our hosts and shown to the cottage where we would be staying for two weeks. Scott then set out to make dinner. I thought he was planning on spaghetti, salad, and a baguette. Something simple, tasty and quick, but no -- he was in the mood for wild mushroom risotto. As he was knocking around in the kitchen, I unpacked our groceries and suitcases.

Here is the view from the patio of the cottage.

After a year’s worth of planning, we had finally arrived. We would soon be seeing and exploring places that were settings in my novel.