Settled in Roquebrun

We arrived in Roquebrun on May 1, as scheduled. We being Theresa, me, Nacho and Ginger, and my new car, the trusty 2000 Opel that I bought in Paris from a colleague of Ellen, my friend who teaches at the American School there. It has only about 30,000 miles on it, and was quite a nice car when it was new. Its still a nice car, and is very comfortable and quiet. It also has room with the seats down to haul building materials, a real plus. I figured out its getting about 30 mpg, which is twice what I got with the PT Cruiser -- the gas is twice as expensive, so I think it works out about the same cost to drive.

The Roquebrun house is on 6 levels, no two rooms on the same one. The living room is at the top of the house, half a story down is the kitchen, half a story down the master bedroom, etc. Which means you stand on landings wondering if the bathroom is up or down. But its fine, its got enough bedrooms and works fine. The street is just about wide enough for my car, which has to be parked a block away. This is a hillside village so there are lots of very narrow streets, and pedestrian paths and stairs from one street to another. There is no house address, don't mail me anything. The village is beautiful, up above the Orb River and a very picturesque bridge. There are two restaurants, a pizza place, a cafe/bar, post office, grocery, bakery, and two wine caves. There are cherry trees, figs, citrus, agaves, aloes, and olives. And of course acres of grape vines. The village is within the Parc de Haut Languedoc, which is the garrigue (chaparral to you in California). It looks a lot like the San Diego back country, which I'm sure is why I like it so much. We were in cold drizzle from Paris to here, and when we got close to this place, the sun came out and it was 75 degrees. What a relief......

This is a popular spot for people going on a drive, or taking a weekend day to go out and have lunch or dinner somewhere picturesque, kind of like driving up to Julian. Today it was a gang of Vespa ruffians taking over the cafe/bar and terrorizing the citizens. They all looked like accountants.

We took ourselves out to a good dinner last night in what I've decided is going to be my preferred restaurant. We had a terrine (kind of a pate) of rabbit as an entree (appetizer), the main course, and a dessert, and a carafe of wine with the meal and an aperitif before. What a pleasure, and I would say less expensive than it would be in the US. Tomorrow we're going to the market in St. Chinian, a few miles away, which I've been to several times previously. A good small market for food, clothing, and tourist goods. Think I'm going to have to go to Ikea on Monday for some lamps and other household items. I can always use them in my new French home. I think I can get a pretty sweet little place here for well under $100E, maybe under 50E. we'll see. Tell you more about that later.
a bientot
bon