Everything Else

I would be remiss if I did not chronicle a bit more of our trip to Basque country.  The food alone is certainly blog-worthy.  The Basque have their own version of tapas, called pinxos (pinchos).  At lunch and dinner time every day, the countertops of all the bars in every town are covered with platters of pinxos.  You wander in, pick up one, two, or three, and enjoy the tasty morsels with a glass of sidre (hard cider), beer, or wine.  Somehow the bartender knows exactly how many you've eaten, even if there are 20 other people standing alongside the bar with you. 

Pinxos in San Sebastian

Pinxos tend to revolve around either fish or pork, which in general are the two most common food categories in the region.  I cannot possibly tell you what is actually on any of them as they are all combinations of tapenades, vegetables, fish, etc.  The first day we ate pinxos for lunch, I said to the bartender, in my best high school Spanish, that we had never eaten pinxos before and we were unsure how to eat them.  What I meant was that I didn't know whether we ordered specific items, or if it was an all-you-can-eat situation, etc. The bartender took it to mean that I was a total idiot, and looked at me with a strange expression on his face as he replied, "Put them in your mouth." 

More pinxos in San Sebastian

The best part about pinxos is just the camraderie and ambiance in the bars.  Don't let the word "bars" make you think this is just for adults - strollers were everywhere. I have never seen so many grandfathers taking care of their grandchildren, and on top of that making sure to enjoy a drink and a pinxo with another grandfather-nanny.  On Sunday afternoon in Bilbao, we stumbled across the Plaza Nueva, a square lined with bars and restaurants serving pinxos and drinks to hundreds of families, 20-somethings, grandparents, and everyone in between.  Many of the bars had hand-printed signs stating, "Hay calamares", explaining that they were also serving hot fried calamari.  This was clearly the most popular dish with the Sunday afternoon crowd judging by the number of people we saw popping calamari bits into their mouths around the plaza.

Bilbao

With its location on the rough Atlantic coast, fish of course plays a huge role in the local cuisine.  On Saturday night, we headed to the seaside town of Getaria for dinner.  After a drink in one of the bars (with two other strollers present, and one pregnant woman drinking beer), we headed to dinner at Elkano.   We didn't realize at the time that some of the most renowned chefs in the world have eaten here and declared it the best fish restaurant in the world. We also didn't realize that it was a pretty fancy place.  Nonetheless, we showed up with our baby and toddler in tow.  Unfazed, the hostess supplied us with a booster seat for Baby Oil - apparently it is commonplace in Spain to bring very young children to very expensive meals! 

Getaria harbor

And then we found out about kokotxas.  Kokotxas, a Basque specialty, is part of the chin or throat of a deep-sea cod called hake.  At Elkano, they offer kokotxas served in multiple ways - lightly battered, grilled, and with "green sauce" (seemed to be garlic and butter).  Rocked. Our. World. And our mouths.  Both of us took one bite, looked at the other and said, "I have never tasted anything like this before."  It was, simply, awesome. 

Kokotxas three ways

The grilled hake was also some of the best fish I have ever, ever eaten.  So fresh, so tasty, so perfectly prepared on the outside grill located on the sidewalk outside the restaurant.  Baby Oil and Mademoiselle were also perfect - though Baby Oil declined to eat anything but bread, and we decided we would forgo caring about his nutritional needs for one night - so we successfully pulled off eating one of the nicest meals we've had in Europe with two small children. 

They are cute small children!!

On the French side of Basque territory, the food is more...French.  We chose to focus on desserts, which are vastly superior in France compared with Spain.  Paries and Adam are probably the two most well-known patisseries in the Pays Basque.  Paries features mouchous, which are a type of macaron with no filling, and kanougas, which are caramels (unclear if anything is actually different or unusual about them).  Adam features one simple macaron - one layer, no flavors save traditional almond.  The Adam macaron is chewier than Parisian macarons but it is seriously delicious.  Both shops offer touron, which is made of honey, sugar, and almond paste.  Frankly we found the tourons too sweet for our tastes, though we tried a few flavors.  Since it was raining for 2 days straight while we were in St Jean de Luz, we decided to spend most of our time eating. 

We also sampled quite a bit of gateau basque, or traditional Basque cake.  Again this features an almond filling - they really have a thing for almonds down there in Basque country - but in a delicious crust, and the traditional kind has cherries in it.  A great gateau basque is excellent.  Our favorite one was from a small bakery in the town of Espelette.  This little town in the foothills of the Pyrenees is most well-known for piment d'Espelette, a specific type of chili pepper used in many Basque dishes.  In Espelette, you can find everything with piment d'Espelette, from cheese to chocolate and anything else you might want.

Sheep's milk cheese with piment d'Espelette, in Espelette

In addition to the food, I should also briefly mention the bright and beautiful world of Basque textiles.

Ubiquitous throughout the region, ranging from cheap touristy items to upscale fabrics, you can find towels, tablecloths, robes, napkins, bags, portfolios, and much more in these lovely patterns.  Our favorite shops included Artiga, Tissage de Luz, and Euskal Linge. 

While the beret is a worldwide symbol of France that you never actually see in Paris, it turns out that the beret is a Basque symbol of victory in the world of Basque rural sports.  We almost bought a Basque beret for Baby Oil but instead just took this photo.

Despite some feelings of loyalty toward France, I have to say that the Spanish side of the Basque region felt significantly more Basque. The French side felt more like France with a Basque veneer, and better desserts.  I am truly glad we decided to explore this part of Europe, even if we ended the week declaring that we would never go on vacation again with small children.  Which is why we are headed to Scotland in two weeks. 

Boulder Pulling

As you drive through Spanish Basque country, the landscape feels rugged and wild.  You feel isolated, seeing few people but many sheep.  This quiet wilderness is turned upside-down once you experience the life in Basque country, where the people are warm, welcoming, and live life to the fullest in their remote corner of Europe.

No experience better captured the vitality of Basque life than watching the gizon proba in Deba last weekend.  Gizon proba is one of the traditional Basque rural sports.  It literally translates as "man test", and consists of 8 men attached to a metal harness dragging an almost-2000-pound "boulder".  For a set amount of time (about 30 minutes), the men pull the weight back and forth across a proscribed distance.  The number of lengths is recorded on a scoreboard as hundreds of locals cheer on the men.  When the first group is done, their competitors warm up and attempt to best the first team's score. 

The idea of 800 or more people standing around in the rain on a Saturday afternoon, shouting and cheering as a bunch of guys lugging a giant weight for half an hour sounds crazy and even a bit boring.  The reality is certainly unusual but completely engaging.   The home team, from Deba, went first.  Almost the entire crowd was from Deba, so the cheering at each turn, and the encouragement as the task became increasingly difficult, was deafening at times.  Local kids watched with the same intensity as American kids watch the NBA finals. 20-somethings stood in the back, alternately cheering and drinking.  A quartet of EMTs were on hand in case of injury.

And they're off!

The coach keeps them going strong.

This is serious stuff.

The first 20 lengths or so come across as child's play.  Soon enough, however, it becomes clear that this thing they're pulling is really, really heavy. 

Yeah, this is hard.

And finally, time is called.  The team literally collapses in relief.

Then the next team warms up. They were from the neighboring town of Mendaro, and could not hold a candle to our Deba team (we stayed in Deba, so of course felt a natural affinity for the home team).  The man we rented the apartment from later suggested that the event was rigged, but I think it's hard to give anything but your most in this environment.  Plus, I was there and both teams were working hard.  Deba won, 40-35. 

I have never experienced anything like gizon proba before.  Not just because it was so foreign to us, but because we felt we really experienced an authentic community event, the kind that regularly marks the lives of the Basque people.  Afterwards, we walked back to the center of town with what felt like every person who lives in Deba, and we ate at the restaurant in the town square with dozens of other families and townspeople, all basking in the excitement and energy of the feat of strength we had all witnessed.

Ce n'est pas des vacances

We arrived back in Paris today after 9 days in the Basque region of Spain and France, seriously questioning our sanity in taking this trip with a 28-month-old and 4-month-old.  It turns out that traveling with kids is not actually a vacation - as one French woman we spoke with in Biarritz said, "C'est du travail!" - it's work!   Good friends of ours who also recently had a second child are planning a trip to Club Med in Turkey in a few months, and throughout our trip, we thought, "Gee, that sounds like a good idea."

Basque country is a fantastic place to visit, even with kids. And I will write much more about the trip.  At this moment, I am just too exhausted to do anything but pen this note about our questionable decision-making, and about how we spent most meals trying to ensure Baby Oil didn't break anything at the restaurant, and maybe ate something besides french fries.  Only one meal got to the point of embarrassment, after breaking a glass, a plate, and rolling a baseball around the floor.  The silver lining was that seated near to us was a French family with a little boy a few months younger than Baby Oil.  At first I thought to myself, "Great, I will now watch this child happily devour spinach and cod and vegetable soup, while mine tries to jump out of his booster seat." 

But no, it turns out that French toddlers may not all live up to their reputation.  I watched this French child eat apple juice with a spoon, stick his hand in his water glass, and then only eat his fries.  I felt much better about life after this. 

The genuine delight and exuberance expressed regularly by Baby Oil did add to our enjoyment - how long has it been since you were thrilled to the point of shrieking at the sight of a crane? Or a dump truck? Or a really big car carrier? He quickly latched on to saying "hola" around Spain, which never failed to elicit a smile.

We did learn some important lessons about travels with children.  For instance, now we know that snaps on pajamas from DPAM will set off airport metal detectors, but Petit Bateau jammies do not.  We know that there are really big sharks in San Sebastian's aquarium, but an outside seal pool at the aquarium in Biarritz.  We know that after two days of rain in a beach town, your toddler may very well resort to poking his little sister in the eye as a new fun game.  We know that Spanish formula makes Mademoiselle spit up even more than normal.  We know it matters less whether the town you stay in is historic, scenic, or charismatic - the real issue is, how good is the playground? 

So we traveled Basque country for 9 days.  We ate incredibly well, and felt like we really got a feel for the region, particularly in Spain.  It was a great trip - but it was not really a vacation. 

More to come...

Canaries

Just when I think this city is done surprising me, I learn something new.

Today I learned that in Paris, canaries are priced by how well they sing. Which leads to so many questions, such as who is the judge of quality, and what if you disagree with your bird's abilities?

I also thought I was done with pregnancy-related anecdotes.  And then a friend went to her last appointment with her ob, three days before a scheduled cesarean.  The doctor informed my friend that the baby looked ready to go, and he was concerned she might go into labor.  "Please, do me a favor," he says. "Take a cab home, and lie down for the rest of the day. I have a reservation at a really nice restaurant tonight so I don't want to be interrupted by you going into labor."

Right now every interaction and experience is colored by the reality of our impending departure.  I have been eating so many baguettes in anticipation of no longer having ready to access to them that I may actually be baguette-d out.  (I say this every day, and it hasn't actually stopped me from eating one yet.) We have a bucket list of things we'd like to do before we leave, and we're heading on our last big exploration of France next week, when we go down to the Basque Coast.

I feel some regret about leaving just when Baby Oil is starting to speak French, and that Mademoiselle will have had so little time in her country of birth.  For a long time, it felt like our life here was simply a time-out from our "real" life in the States.  Somehow, along the way, this turned into real life. 

I get two more months of life in this city of sliding-scale canary prices.  Two more months of watching 10 year-olds zoom by on their scooters, holding tight to the baguettes under their arms.  Two more months of elderly Parisian women going ga-ga over Mademoiselle in the grocery store (seriously, this happens often). Two months to prepare for life in New York, a life about which we know nothing except where Baby Oil will go to preschool.  Which in New York, it turns out, is a major accomplishment given that we missed every application deadline.  Who knew that they were so deadly serious about preschool? The acceptance letter we received read like a university admissions letter - "We are pleased to inform you that [Baby Oil] has been accepted into our program."

Two months left.  What do you think we still need to do here?

Feeding Bebe

Mademoiselle is 3 months old today!  But what really made me have one of those "oh, this time goes so quickly" moments (cue the cheesy music, please) was when our pediatrician told me that in just one month, it would be time to start introducing food to our petite fille. 

Food? Already?!

But let's back up a few steps, and talk briefly about Mademoiselle's nutritional journey to date.  For the first month of her life, she was breast-fed, with just a very few small bottles of formula given by Mr. Oil when I was truly desperate for sleep. 

At her one-month check up, the pediatrician asked if I was nursing, and I said yes but mentioned that she had been given a few bottles of formula.  "Wait," said the doctor, "what country are you from?"

"I'm from the US," I replied.

"But Americans do not do this.  Americans are very serious about the breast-feeding. They never give a bottle. Where did you come up with this idea?" said the doctor, quite shocked about my un-American behavior (he is French, of course). 

"Um, I was really tired?" I replied, a bit confused.  Was he going to chastise me?  Where was this heading? 

"This is so French!" he exclaimed.  "Of course you get tired, and it is better for your own milk if you get some rest.  This is very good!"  Phew. 

Anyone with a child, or who has any friends with children, surely knows that there is a great and ongoing discussion about the benefits of breast-feeding.  And there are significant amounts of judgment that go along with your decisions in this area.  I have no plans to expound on any of this here, and while I think the judgment exists just as much in the American expat community in France as in the United States proper, the French have a different outlook.  While nursing is encouraged, nobody is expected to nurse for very long.  In fact, one of the informational sheets I was given when I left the hospital with Mademoiselle stated explicitly that "long-term breast-feeding is not normal in French culture, and if you choose to do this, it will be difficult."    As an example of this, an American friend was at a dinner party here in Paris. She was still nursing her child, who was about 13 months at the time.  An older French woman who had never met my friend before said to her point-blank, "What, will you still be nursing him in university?"

When Baby Oil was born in the US, I was visited by lactation consultants in the hospital and had several follow-up visits with the on-site lactation consultant at the pediatrician's office.  In France, when I asked a question about nursing to one of the maternity nurses, I was told that the best resource for information on nursing was Message, the English-language expat moms' group of which I'm already a member. 

I stopped nursing 3 weeks ago, and it was absolutely the right decision for me.  Mademoiselle is thriving and smiling and happy, and I'm much happier too.  So right now I'm quite grateful to have had a baby in this country where women are not expected to subjugate their body to their child for months if not years on end (not that there's anything wrong with nursing, and yes I know that breast milk is best, and yes I know that the American Association of Pediatrics says blah-blah-blah).  I told the pediatrician at the three-month check-up that I stopped nursing and he gave me a blank look, as if to say, "why are you even bothering to mention such a trivial matter?"  

So at 4 months, we are supposed to start introducing food to Mademoiselle on a fairly regimented schedule.  While at least one American mom here has told me that she would ignore the French approach, I tend to agree with the pediatrician who explained that every year, a new set of recommendations comes out that changes whatever was recommended the year before.  But at the end of the day, we mostly end up doing what our grandmothers did, because we know that worked. 

At 4 months, we are supposed to give formula + rice cereal in the morning.  Then at "midday", give vegetable puree followed by formula.  At 4:00pm, fruit puree followed by formula.  In the evening, formula + rice cereal. 

The best part is the 4:00pm piece, because that implies that I am feeding my baby at precise times.  What happens if it's 4:30?  Will I anger the French food gods?

At 6 months, by the way, we give formula with cereals that contain gluten.  At midday, it's vegetables and meat or fish, followed by milk or "milk-based dessert" (because a 6 month old totally needs a 3 course lunch that includes dessert - good thing I bought those mini cocottes at the Le Creuset outlet - creme brulee is a milk-based dessert, right?).  More fruit and formula at 4:00pm. 

These decisions may have to moderated based on the fact that, as it turns out, our sojourn in France is about to end.  In July we will return to the United States for good, and in August settle into a new life in Brooklyn.  This has happened rather quickly and while it was something that presented itself to us rather than us searching for a way to get home, we are excited to be heading back to America.  Though I'm not sure what our American pediatrician will say about milk-based desserts and 4:00pm fruits! 

The Sky Is Bleu

It's a funny thing raising an accidentally bilingual child.  Suddenly I have a much greater appreciation for immigrant parents in the US who send their children off to school and quickly become unable to help them in many respects.

Baby Oil has been attending a French nursery school (glorified day care, but nursery school sounds better) for about nine months.  It's a few hours every morning, and a fair amount of time is spent playing with toys.  The halte garderie is private and serves a significant number of expat families (five kids from our area's expat 2011 baby playgroup attend).  We are still mostly unclear about how much French Baby Oil understands while he's there, and how much he actually speaks. 

Yet in recent weeks, his French has started bubbling to the surface.  There was the day he came home and pointed out that "the sky is bleu."  For several days thereafter, if you tried to tell him anything was the color blue, he would correct you, and say, "No! Bleu." 

There was the week the school dedicated to animals.  After that, we were summarily instructed to say "elephant" ("eh-lay-foh") instead of elephant, and "girafe" ("ghee-rahf") for giraffe. 

Somewhere along the way, Baby Oil started a gimick in which he would ask, "Tap?" and then attempt to smack Mademoiselle.  This was confusing because tapping someone is not necessarily hitting, and we didn't know what he meant by wanting to tap her.  But I mentioned this recurring scenario to a friend and she pointed out that "taper" in French can mean to slap or hit.  Point to the nursery school for teaching my toddler to ask if he may hit his sister in French. 

Interpreting toddler-speak is not easy in one language, and certainly gets more confusing when the toddler has access to a second language, and the parents don't know what he's learned in that second language.  Baby Oil's love of "gateau chocolat" has been clearly documented, and his big sentence in French revolves around that love - "Tu as fait du gateau?" (Did you make a cake?)

The only word we use for pacifier in our house is tetine, both because that is what the school calls it (though Baby Oil does not take his out of the crib these days, for the record) and also because frankly I don't like the word pacifier and I really don't like the term binky.  On occasion, Baby Oil has referred to his tetine as a tetifier - a combination of English and French terms. 

If Mr. Oil or I try to talk to him in French, it usually falls flat as he expects English from us.  And sometimes if he picks out a French book to read, and we begin to read it in French, he will stop us and say, "No! Read it!"  Because apparently reading in French is not actually reading.  But when a friend who is French - though is always speaking English around us, of course - reads to him in French, he happily soaks up every word and appears to follow the story.

Most of my friends here are raising children in bilingual households because one of the parents is French.  They have their own set of stories about specific items or phrases coming out only in one language, or emerging preferences for one language (usually French) over the other (usually English).  Parenting is often a humbling experience, but so far one of the most significant realizations of my own limitations is when my son says a word that I know means something in another language, but I don't know what it means.  Or when he nods along with a story that I can barely follow.  Or simply knowing that he spends more than 15 hours each week in a French-only environment whereas I spend none in such a world.  At the same time, I also feel fortunate to be able to give my son this gift - even if its only temporarily.

The sky is bleu.  I wonder what we'll learn tomorrow! 

All About the Fries

Here's a tip - don't go to Belgium and ask for French fries.  Definitely go to Belgium, however, and eat a lot of fries.  And chocolate.  And waffles, unless you are traveling during Passover.

We spent two days in Belgium last week - one day in Gent and one in Bruges.  Both are small to medium-sized towns about a 3 hour drive from Paris, and 30 minutes from one another.  Both boast beautiful Flemish architecture and winding canals.

Gent, Belgium

Bruges, Belgium

Our first activity upon arriving to Gent was lunch. We picked the first place we came across, with a full menu of salads, omelettes, toasts, pastas, etc.  What most of our crew really wanted was fries, but when we asked if they had any fries, the woman said no.

"No?" we asked incredulously.

The woman explained that they were not licensed to serve fries because in order to do so, they would be required to have a specific fry chef and be a "real" restaurant.  We looked around and saw tables, chairs, tablecloths, and the full menu.  This is not a restaurant in Belgium?  And what on earth is a fry chef?

The mystery was only furthered when we stopped at a fry shop and were duly served by a sullen 20-something girl who most certainly did not appear to have any kind of chef credentials.  She was the only person working in the shop.   Outside there was a sign indicating that this shop has a "master fryer" but apparently he (or she) was not in the greasy shop populated by teenagers.

What's more delicious - Belgian fries, or Mademoiselle?

Even the Friet Museum (yes, a museum entirely dedicated to fries) in Bruges did not answer this question, though it did offer more information about the potato than you could possibly imagine.  For instance, you can massage potato slices on your nose every night to help get rid of shiny skin.  Also, potatoes were once considered a food of the devil because they came from the ground.  Belgian fries are, according to the Friet Museum, the best fries in the world.  That is possible, and equally possible is that the Friet Museum is the only museum in the world where in addition to a gift shop there is a fry shop.  And your entrance ticket gives you a discount on fries!

One important lesson we learned during this family vacation is that we are actually terrible at caravaning.  We had two cars, and theoretically one car would follow the other.   On the first day in Gent, we lost each other before we exited the hotel parking lot.  And my visiting family did not have a working cell phone.  The hotel clerk had told us generally where to park in the city and although that parking lot was full, we managed to somehow find each other anyway.   That was lucky, and we resolved to do much better the next day.

Baby Oil and his uncles explore the Castle of the Counts in Gent

So when we left for Bruges the next morning, we naturally lost each other before we left the parking lot.  Again.  This time the meet-up did not go as smoothly, in large part because the other car did not actually have a map.  We were supposed to meet a tour guide in the market square at 10:00am.  But my family never showed, and at almost 11 we decided we would start the tour without them.

Through some remarkable coincidence, we happened to walk over a bridge next to Bruges' famous "Lake of Love" when a boat tour cruised by on the canal.  We looked at the boat, and there was my family!  Our afternoon was thus spent all together as any afternoon in Belgium should be - touring the Chocolate Museum and the Fry Museum, and eating copious amounts of Belgian chocolate and Belgian fries.  It's not like French chocolate is anything to sneeze at - it's amazing.  But simply crossing that border gave us free rein to indulge in the not-exactly-exotic world of Belgian chocolate (which according to the Belgians, naturally, is the best chocolate in the world).

Our hotel was in a glamorous spot just off the main highway into Gent, and across the street from some sort of industrial factory.  It probably produces chemicals or detergent or something really boring, but Baby Oil pronounced after examining the factory out the window of our hotel room that "it is a factory making chocolate for [Baby Oil]!"  Ah, the optimism of youth.

On the third day, my family went on to Luxembourg and we headed back to Paris via Fresnoy-le-Grand.  If you've never heard of this town, you are in good company as it is squarely in the middle of nowhere.  But it is home to the Le Creuset factory and the Le Creuset factory store.  After driving for a good 30 minutes on country roads surrounded by quiet, lush fields, a number of World War I cemeteries, and remarkably little civilization, we found Fresnoy-le-Grand.  Turning onto the Rue Olivier De Guise, I was not at all convinced we were in the right place.  But then we saw a really big building that could pass as a factory, and at the end of the street was a small white house. 

From the parking lot, this is what you see:

And this is the store:

But then you walk in the incredibly inauspicious doors:

to this:

Hello Le Creuset!  Everything in the store is 30%-50% off.  And if you even try to suggest that these are the same deals that can be found at other Le Creuset outlets (I have no idea if this is true or not, but Mr. Oil foolishly brought it up), I will strongly argue that you are wrong. Regardless of facts.  And now I have a beautiful Le Creuset pot bought just feet from the factory in scenic Fresnoy-le-Grand, France.  Well, it's possible I have a beautiful large pot, 4 beautiful smaller pots, 4 beautiful mini pots, 1 beautiful serving dish, and some really nice spatulas.  I may have gone a tad overboard (no comment, Mr. Oil, if you please). 

Fries, chocolate, and Le Creuset.  That is my kind of trip!