Showing posts with label Home Exchange Tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Home Exchange Tips. Show all posts

Friday, September 17, 2010

Fourth Tip...having friends always helps!

As you know from prior postings, we had many adventures in France.  Sometimes those adventures were challenging.  Looking back, I realize that the key to having a successful home exchange is to make sure you have a good friend (or friends) who are willing to assist the people coming to your home while you are away and vice verse.  (The vice verse is probably even more important for you!)  Also, make sure you leave a list of numbers for emergency repairs...like a plumber, mechanic and a friendly doctor.

Because we were in a country where we didn't really speak the language, many things were more difficult that they should have been.  When our phone & internet service went out at the house...we didn't know who to call at the phone company.  Even if we did know what number to call, they didn't speak English, so we wouldn't have been able to figure out what was going on.  Because our exchange house had free international calling, we were planning on relying on making calls from the house to home.  We didn't have an international plan on our cell phones.  We had gotten a French sim card for our cell phones and would be using them to make local calls.  When the phone and internet went out, we had to scramble to figure out the best plan on our cell phones and get that activated.  And, we learned, there is just no good data plan for international use.  The prices are exorbitant!  So, we ended up relying on wifi...which wasn't so bad in places like Paris...but out in the countryside it was pretty much non-existent.

When our phone first went out, we spoke with the folks that our exchange family had told us would be able to help with any issues we had.  These folks (the Mopins) would become our saviours over and over again.  From helping us get our phone back up (which took 15 days and multiple calls to the carrier...all conducted in French), to dealing with car troubles, to plumbing issues to finding a doctor for one of us and accompanying us to the doctor and pharmacy...they did it all.  They also had us over to their house for dinner multiple times and introduced us to others who also opened their homes to us.

At our home, our person picked our exchange family up from the airport and took them back at the end of the trip.  She also handled dealing with the pool person when the pool had issues, showing our guests how to work various things when they couldn't figure out the instructions we'd left, and loaning them a Garmin...since our GPS system was on our cells phones and we hadn't thought of leaving one for them.  She also made sure that all the parking tickets got paid in a timely manner, since I wasn't able to set up an auto pay for those (since I didn't realize we'd be having tickets to pay over the summer!)

Whoever you select to be your ombudsman, make sure they like you a lot!  You never know what issues might arise when you leave your home, especially for the first time.  Your ombudsman may be called upon to perform all sorts of duties in your absence.  Also, realize that when you return, you will probably owe this person a lot of favors.  You might want to start doing favors for them before you even leave...this way the karmic scorecard won't be completely one-sided when you return.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Third Tip for Doing a Home Exchange...how do I say water?

When we first decided to do a two month home exchange, I knew immediately that I wanted to go to France.  The food and wine were calling my name.  I had taken a year of French in college (after 8 years of Spanish in high school and a little dabbling in Russian also).  In college, I was an International Relations major.  This meant that it was required (almost) to spend a semester abroad.  I was slated to go my senior year, however I encountered a little obstacle.  I met the love of my life, the man of my dreams, my soul mate...the person with whom I would spend the rest of my life. 

St. James and I met spring semester of my junior year (his senior year) of college.  Ours is a romantic story and if you haven't heard it, here it is for you.  (If you have heard it...maybe 20 times or so, feel free to skip this part.)

James and I went to college in different states (me in California, James in Oregon).  We met at a Model United Nations conference in Sacramento, CA (which was just about half way between our respective colleges).  We were both on the Security Council. 

If you don't know what the Security Council of the UN is click here.  (See, this blog is educational as well as entertaining..I hope!)  The Security Council is a rather small group by UN standards.  At our Model UN meeting, there were about 20 of us on the Council.

The Model UN Conference was held at the Red Lion Inn in Sacramento and this was my third year attending.  The prior two years had been educational and interesting...but mainly it was an excuse to party with several hundred college kids from all over the west coast.  It was a three day conference, which provided plenty of time for mischief.  Given that my son, my nieces and nephews and other young impressionable minds read this blog...I won't go into the details of those first two meetings...I will only focus on my third one...which is PG rated!

My school was representing the country of Holland and James' school was Egypt.  During our first meeting of the Security Council, I receive a note that says:

Would Holland do me the pleasure of going to dinner with me?
Signed...Blue Shirt

Cool, I thought...then looked around the room to see who my secret admirer was.  Of the 15+ guys in the room, at least 10 had blue shirts on.  Oops!  How was I going to figure this out?  I looked at the note again and saw that it was on country stationary...across the top was printed EGYPT.  Well, that narrowed it down.  I looked across the table at the Egypt delegates and there were just two.  One in a white shirt and one in a blue shirt.  I thought...ooh, the cute boy in the blue shirt wants to take me to dinner!!!  I smiled at him to indicate my acceptance.  At our next break, he came up to me to introduce himself and discuss details.  He told me that he knew of a great Chinese place and that he could use his school's van (that's how his group had come to the conference) and that we would need to go "dutch" as he didn't have a lot of money.  For many girls, this combination would have been a no go.  Chinese food, school van, going dutch!  But, he was so darn cute and I liked that he was honest about not having a lot of money.  So, I happily agreed.

Later that evening, he picked me up and we went to the restaurant.  Now, I never even wondered how he knew about a Chinese restaurant in Sacrament, when he was from Oregon.  Turns out, his group had eaten there the night before...so at least he knew that it was edible, clean and relatively cheap. 

Here's what I remember from that dinner.  I have a faint image of the restaurant in my mind, an acceptable place...clean, bright.  I have no memory of what we ate.  I do know that after just 10 minutes of conversation with James, I knew he was the one!  This was the man that I was going to marry.  No doubts in my mind.  I'd never met anyone quite like him.  He was serious but had a wicked sense of humor (a sarcastic wit that has been passed on to our son)...he had a plan for life, he was smart, handsome and quite a charmer.  I felt safe with him and could tell he was a gentleman through and through (not just a first date act)!  Here I was, all of 20 years old...and I was ready to take the plunge after 10 minutes of conversation.

We spent the rest of the weekend getting to know each other between Council sessions, then had to part ways.  We spent the next two months writing letters (almost every day) to get to know each other even more.  This was before email (heck, it was before the Internet) and long distance phone calls were still very expensive.  We talked once a week, if we were lucky.  We fell in love over those two months.  I poured my heart out in those letters and told him everything about me and he did the same.  (And yes, I still have the original note and the letters...in the attic somewhere.)

When Memorial Day rolled around, he decided to make the trek to Southern California to see me at school.  What I didn't learn until years later is that he had to sell his fly fishing equipment and a stereo to get enough money to make the trip.  Love makes us do interesting things! 

By the end of the school year, I had decided to change my life completely.  Instead of graduating in a year...I decided to graduate in December.  Which meant I would not be going abroad my senior year, as I needed to take an impossible number of units to graduate early.  I took classes over the summer and an extraordinary load in the fall and was able to graduate in December.

Over the summer, James had moved to Los Angeles to live with his step-grandmother and work and be closer to me.  I spent the summer working for my mom's company in San Diego.  At least we were only two hours away instead of 12.  The first weekend that James came to San Diego and met my family, my mom fell in love with him!  She offered him a job for the summer and  to share my brother's room in the converted garage.  She took me aside and told me that if we were ever to break up, she wasn't sure that I would be the one that the family would stay connected to.  Normally, having this much of a family blessing can be a turn off for a young adult, but for me it was so nice to have my choice validated.  I knew I was going down the right path.

James went back to Oregon to work on his Masters and I finished my last semester of college.  It was very difficult to be apart that semester, but we survived.  I moved up to Oregon in January and James and I applied to law schools together.  We were lucky to get into the same schools and selected Hastings in San Francisco.  He proposed in February and we left Oregon at the end of the summer and moved to San Francisco for law school.  I will save for another day some of the stories of living in Oregon together and our law school years. 

I told you all of this so you'd know why I missed my year abroad in college.  Which is also the reason that my French is less than stellar.  Actually, my French is really non-existent.  While I can understand a bit and can say hello and goodbye and order croissants in a bakery (notice that word is the same in French and English!), I am no where close to being able to hold a conversation. 

However, I do know how to ask for water (une bouteille d'eau, s'il vous plait).   Although, many people did not understand me when I was asking for water, at least I knew I had the correct words.  My sister, on the other hand, had a heck of a time getting water. 

Kerry is a runner and most mornings would get up and run about five miles along the country roads.  She
would finish her run through our little town and stop at the bakery to get a bottle of water.  For some reason, she always had trouble with this.  She said they always looked at her like she was crazy when she asked for a bottle of water.  Finally, she found a little shop where the owner got to know her and knew what she wanted!  When we were having lunch in Strasbourg, she ordered water from the water by saying "Azul, s'il vous plait."  The waiter looked at her like she was crazy and I started cracking up.  I told her she had just ordered Blue (in Spanish).  I asked her if this is how she'd been asking for water all this time and she sheepishly acknowledged that yes, she'd been asking for Azul.  It was even funnier at this point because we were in a Mexican restaurant (ok, fake Mexican restaurant...but they were trying hard!)

My third tip for doing a home exchange is to study the language a bit before you go.  It's important to be able to say hello, goodbye, please and thank you and to be able to count.  Being able to ask for water also comes in quite handy.  And, if your car breaks down or your toilet explodes or you get lost...being able to ask for help is also quite useful!

PS...James and I are starting a conversational French class tonight, so hopefully next year will be a little easier in France!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Second Tip for doing a Home Exchange.

Here's my next tip for doing a home exchange.  (I really hope this doesn't offend anyone...but it might...so I apologize in advance!)

Make sure you are not exchanging with a bachelor.  Or, if you are exchanging with a bachelor, make sure he's not a professional photographer!  In our experience, Bachelors tend to have a different idea as to what is needed in a kitchen to cook gourmet meals.  Bachelors tend to not be so worried about the little details...like cobwebs in the pantry, spiders in the shower, propane in the tank for hot water, comfortable furniture and other little things like that.  I could be completely wrong and this could have nothing to do with the fact that our exchanger was a bachelor (he does have a lovely girlfriend, who came on the exchange with him...I'm just not sure she had added "a woman's touch" to his house yet).  But, I have to find some lesson to be learned, and this is what I've gleaned.  In our next exchange, I will be looking for more feminine touches in the house photos!

Since our exchange, I have reviewed the pictures that were posted of our exchange house, trying to determine whether I should have seen some of the more rustic parts of the house.  This is where the "don't exchange with a professional photographer" rule comes in.  The pictures are beautiful.  There was no real hint of what the house really had in store for us.  Now, when I look at pictures for our next exchange...I know what to look for.


First picture posted on Exchange site...we assumed this was the front of the house...shot from the road.
Nope, this was the back of the house...shot from the fields.

This was the front of the house...shot from the road, by us.  The house sat about 20 feet from the road...which had a lot of cars on it late at night...and they were very noisy!  Completely unexpected for a country house.  Notice, no lovely landscaping...no beautiful flowers.

To see other pictures of the house that we took

Trust me, none of these shots were included on the home exchange site.

In reviewing the pictures of your proposed home exchange, look at the details in the pictures.  Are there any dark spots on the walls...could be holes...or other more unsavory things.  Are there any full pictures of the kitchen or bathrooms?  If not, could mean that only one wall of those rooms is "presentable" and the rest of the room...not so much!  Look in the corners of the rooms...look at the tile work (is there any tile work?).  Basically, just look really carefully.  What at first appears to be a beautiful, romantic country home...could be just an old country house that needs lots of work!  Which can be totally fine...as long as you are prepared! 

Pulling up to your exchange home and thinking you must have the wrong house is not the best way to start off your exchange.  In conclusion, don't be afraid to ask for more pictures.  If there aren't any pictures of the bathroom(s), ask the proposed exchanged to send you some (ask for pictures of the shower).  This way, you know up front exactly what the house holds in store for you!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

First tip for doing a home exchange!

I have many things that I learned about doing a home exchange.  I realize that my posts tend to be very long.  Boy, I guess I have a lot to say.  So, in the interest of brevity, I am going to post short tips on things I learned about doing our next home exchange.  I'm hoping that others can learn from my mistakes and not have to go through them too!

First tip...don't exchange cars...rent your own car.  Many home exchangers exchange cars, as well as homes.  In theory, this is a great idea and another way to save money.  Here are a few reasons it's a better idea in theory than in practice.





1.  If you accidentally put the wrong type of gas in the exchanged car...you could end up having to replace an engine.  With a rental car...you don't have to worry about it.

2.  You don't really know what shape the car you are borrowing will be in.  It could be a brand new car with no issues...or it could be an older car with specific requirements (ie...you can only put in a little oil, don't fill it up or it won't run properly) that you don't find out until you've already done what you weren't suppose to do.

3.  Things can get broken on your car because no one takes care of your car like you do.  For example, a small tear in a convertible top becomes a very large tear because you weren't there to show your exchange family how to carefully put the top up and down.

4.  Speeding Tickets...yep...you or the exchange family can get radar tickets and not even know it until you're back home (this, luckily didn't happen to us, but it was a constant worry for our host, as he had the maximum points allowed on his license and if his car got anymore tickets...he'd lose his license.  Needless to say, we tried not to speed...which really wasn't a problem since we had filled up the oil on the car because it was low, the day before we found out that the car was temperamental and you should only fill it up half way or it would be sluggish (translated...no way you could do the speed limit on the freeway without a big downhill running start!)  Or, someone could get a ticket in your car for making an illegal u-turn on the freeway (this did happen...in the US...not France...we're waiting to see if this becomes a problem for us.)

5.  Parking Tickets...no need to really say anything here.  It's fun to come home and see what surprises there are in the mail!  (For full disclosure, our exchange family did pay for all the parking tickets they got.)

6.  Your tags could get stolen and your exchange family gets a ticket for expired tags.  Yep, someone stole our tags on the Expedition and the exchange family got a ticket.  I felt bad thinking we had forgotten to renew the tags, but turns out they were stolen off the truck.

With a rental car, none of these things are issues.  If you get a ticket, you deal with it.  There's no risk that your exchange family will have any problems from your tickets.  You almost always get a fairly new car, so it doesn't break down...and if it does...you can call someone who speaks your language and have it dealt with.

In conclusion, it's probably not a terrible idea to exchange cars for a one or two week exchange (but all of the above are still risks)...however for anything longer, I recommend renting your own car!  Who knows, you might even get to rent something like this:

Monday, June 28, 2010

More Space Bags


BEFORE


AFTER
Gotta love space bags!!!
Just like the commercial!
PS, Only 7 more things on the to do list...then it's blast off!

Money, Money, Money

Come on, sing it with me!  Love ABBA!!  Always sunny, in a rich man's world.
Enough silliness this morning.  I wanted to share some really important research results with you.  Given my Type A personality (defect?), I decided it was important to find the best way to exchange money for our trip.  Given that the Euro has been declining for the last few months, I thought I should probably exchange some money before we left...looking to hit the Euro at it's rock bottom.  Which meant that in addition to everything else that I was doing, I started watching exchange rates...on a daily basis (sometimes hourly).  This turned out to be just as bad as when I was trying to time buying our plane tickets. 

I called our American Express office every morning to ask what their rate was...the lady at the office got to know my voice...everyday she would tell me the rate (which was always 8 or 9 cents higher that the exchange rate I was seeing on-line) and ask me if I wanted her to reserve for me.  Everyday, I didn't like her rate and would tell her no.  It took about a week of this before I realized I was never going to get the rate I was seeing on line through our local American Express office, because instead of charging a large fee to exchange money, they just build it into their rate.  (At this point I'm realizing that my sophistication as a currency trader is on par with the caveman from the geico commercials.)



Finally, I found a great post on a Fodor's forum that explained everything I needed to know.  Basically, to get the best exchange rates, just use your ATM card to get money out at a bank in France.  The bank will give you the best rate available, and the transaction fees are relatively small.  Thank goodness...I could go back to my real life and stop pretending I was Ivan Boesky.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Space Bags

I love my space bags!!!

Friday, June 25, 2010

It's an illness...help!!!

The list writing has gotten completely out of control.  A few weeks ago, James and I sat down and did a long list of things that we wanted to get done at our house before we left.  These ranged from the mundane (replace burned out light bulbs...we had 9 burned out throughout the house) to the more tricky (fix the jacuzzi air switches, which control the jets and haven't been working properly for awhile).  There were about 47 other things on this list.   I also had quite a list of things to accomplish at the store before I could leave the business in delightful Susanna's capable hands.

In addition to repairing items around the house, we also needed to create space for our guests' things.  Like closet space and dresser space.  Our closets and dressers are pretty packed (as I'm sure most every one's are)...so I thought we'd just have to box up stuff (clothes) and store it in the attic.  Which reminds me of a story about my mom, Christmas stuff, boxes, the attic and St. James...but I'm going to stay on track (since I'm able to laugh at this story after all this time, but St. James still fails to see the humor in it).  Boxing stuff up is kind of a pain.  And, it also has to be left to the last minute (since we're using a lot of the stuff until we leave).  As I'm finding out, many of the 47 things on our list had to be left to the last minute.

Being the Type A that I am (if you don't know that about me, you probably haven't spent any significant time hanging out with me yet), I type up the list, assigned each task to one of the three of us (there were actually 4 tasks assigned to Ethan and the rest were fairly evenly split between James and me.  I also assigned dates by which the tasks should be completed.  About 10 days ago, we started attacking the list in earnest and making pretty good headway.  St. James actually was able to figure out how to fix the jacuzzi air switches without us spending $2k on having to have new ones put in (yeah...means more wine in France!)  For the last 5 days, the list has taken over our lives. 

Each morning, I get up, pull out the list and make a new daily list from the things left to be done.  I am terrified we are going to forget something really important (I don't know, like taking our pets to our friends who are taking them in for the summer)!  Today, the list became five lists...each remaining task assigned to one of the remaining five days we have left before we leave (I handed James his list for the day and told him to return it at the end of the day with everything checked off...I think I might end up going to France alone).  At the end of this day, I redid the lists into 4 lists (Sat, Sun, Mon & Tue).  I was going to keep all these lists for a wacky scrapbook page or something, but am getting an incredible amount of satisfaction from ripping them to shreds after I've transferred the undone items to a new list.  Shall I give you a look at tomorrow's list?  Then I think you'll see the full extent of my illness.

  • Finish bills
  • Unforward email
  • Dogs to groomers (OMG...if we forget this one, our friends will ship these dogs to France)
  • Pack (Steph & James)
    • Clothes - Steph done
    • Electronics
    • Toiletries
  • Finish cleaning out kitchen pantry
  • Finish instruction book on how everything works in the house (yes, we are leaving detailed instructions on how to use each appliance, the bbq and every remote in the joint)
  • Finish cleaning up den (mainly desk area)
  • Clear shelves & rack space in master closet (so our guests don't have to live out of their suitcases)
  • Change light bulbs in master bedroom (we have really high ceilings, so it requires the big ladder, hence it has been delayed until the very end)
  • Things that got added to list
  • Finish cleaning garage
  • Finish fixing pool stuff
  • Fix sprinklers on lower yard and reseed
That's it.  There are many other things for the rest of the days, so let's hope we get these all done tomorrow!
PS...post updated Saturday to show what got done (strike throughs).  Luckily, Sunday's list is much shorter!

Staying connected...could it be that difficult?

In this day of connectivity, how do you stay connected in a good way, but unconnect from everything that you'd like to be unconnected from?  The first time that James and I went to Europe together, we had just graduated from law school and finished taking the Bar (which was 20 years ago this month).  We didn't have cell phones or laptops.  Nothing to worry about in terms of staying connected.  We just bought some travel guides, hopped on a plane and off we went (oh that it actually was that simple then, but that's how I remember it).  We had an amazing 6 week trip traveling all over Europe, with only a few minor glitches (oh that it actually was that way then, but that's how I choose to remember it!)  Someday when I run out of things to write about on this trip, I'll write a little bit about that trip.  There are so many funny stories.

But, I digress (I think I do that a lot, sorry!).  I'm talking about staying connected, in a good way.  James and I both have iphones and I have to say that we have come to depend upon them for everything, especially when we travel!  I find restaurant reviews (Yelp is a favorite), and we read about things to see and do in new places.  We also get our email, talk to friends and family and read our kindles...all on our iphones.  (I won't even mention the endless Scrabble marathons we have, also.)

When contemplating two months without my iphone, I was fairly sad.  I couldn't imagine walking through the Louvre without my handy, dandy iphone telling me the juicy tidbits of why Mona Lisa was smiling.  I also couldn't imagine just walking into a restaurant in a little village without at least a hint as to someone else's opinion.  (Is that bad?  Should I be more adventuresome and just say...ooh, this looks good, let's try it?  I know that I will be doing just that for many dining adventures this summer, but I like the idea of having the fall back of seeing what Michelin or Bob from SF had to say about a place.)

Why would I not have my iphone you ask?  Ummm, AT&T international plan SUCKS!  There, I said it.  The data cost was going to be outrageous, not to mention just calling on the phone.  Oh, what were we going to do?  In comes St. James...to the rescue!  Since we have V1, V2 and V3 phones (and now the new V4's) (V stands for version...I know each version has a name like G1 or G3 or something, but I don't know what those names are and St. James isn't around to ask), he said that he thought out of the 3 older version phones, we should be able to "unlock" at least one, so we could use the phone in France with a French sim card.  What that meant is that we could use our great phones, but at a local cost, instead of international.  I said, sign me up! 

My phone happened to be the V2 phone and since I never plug it into the computer, my software rarely gets updated.  I guess I was running a software version that was one back from what James had on the V1 & V3 phones.  Lucky for me, because that meant we could unlock (or jailbreak...such a better term) my phone.  Since the other two phones had the most current software, they couldn't be broken out of jail.  Yippee, we were going to have at least one iphone to use.  That was really all we needed, plus one other regular phone in case we decide to separate during the trip (like, Kerry, Katie and me go shopping in Paris while James & Ethan visit some old museum...oh, I didn't say that!).  Anyway, we were just going to buy a cheapo phone when we got to France, so we'd have two.

Then the best thing happened...Apple released a new iphone (V4 to me) and all of a sudden, James was able to jailbreak our other two iphones!  Now we'll have plenty of iphones (running French sim cards, so we'll have French telephone numbers) to enjoy accessing the intricate details about the three of us have all come to love.  (Actually, James has come to love this...Ethan and I just roll our eyes when a question is asked (even a harmless wondering) and James immediately finds some website that gives us an incredibly detailed answer...which he proceeds to read to us...all 7 paragraphs worth.  Ethan has gotten very good about not asking WHY questions anymore!)

I'll write about what plan we actually use after we're in France...we have a couple of options and will decide there.  Also, I just want to say that I could have been a lot more technical in this post and used all the correct lingo and really tried to impress you with my technical savvy...but I know you all would have just laughed...so I didn't even try.  In the end, that's probably good for all of you.


My new iphone V4...which we won't be using in France cause it's still in jail!

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Anticipation & Electric Bills

One of the best parts of an adventure is the anticipation.  Thinking about what you're going to do, what you're going to see, what you're going to eat...how you're going to feel.  For me, it's really been the last two weeks that I have allowed myself to savor all the possibilities.  I just got off the phone with our French host.  Can I just say, I love listening to a French man speak.  His accent is so wonderful and his phrasing is delightful.  He just confirmed that he will be picking us up from the airport and taking us to the house, as he and his wife have a show in the South of France before they leave for the US.  So we'll get to meet our hosts, which I'm really looking forward to. 

At this point, he might be a little worried about me...as a bit of my neurosis came through loud and clear on this call.  Everyone keeps asking me if I'm worried about letting complete strangers live in my house.  I have to say, a year ago I never would have considered it.  I love my home, it's a big part of me. While I love to share it with friends by entertaining, I haven't really wanted someone to stay here when I'm not here (except for my delightful Susanna, who has house sat for us for every trip we've taken in the last five years).  Over the past several months, something has switched in me.  I still love my house, but I am not as attached to it as I was before.  I feel very comfortable turning it over to someone else.  I'm a fairly trusting person...I'm convinced nothing bad is going to happen.

Well, except for one thing.  I'm really worried about electricity.  I can't believe I'm sharing this, but what the heck.  When I was little, there was a huge conservation push (you know, during the 70's when we had the energy crisis).  My mom instilled in me that if you leave a room, you turn off the light (even if you're coming right back).  I don't let the water run when I'm brushing my teeth.  I don't let the water run when I'm doing dishes.  I don't leave the refrigerator door open to pour a glass of milk.  I don't turn on the heat in the house until the inside thermometer dips below 60 and I certainly don't turn on the air conditioner until we've reached 90 (inside...not outside).

I've always been this way, ever since I can remember.  Even before I had my own electric & water bills to pay.  I've conserved for other people's benefit, not just mine.  Now, you might think that I'm writing this to show you how noble I am.  How Eco friendly I am.  How dedicated I am to solving global warning and conserving resources.   Yeah, not so much!  I actually don't think my behavior is any of these things.  I think it's neurotic.  (And I'll tell you, my hubby does too!). 

In fact, I didn't actually think I was neurotic until I started living with James (we'll have been married 22 years at the end of July) and we started having discussions over the thermostat...or in the bathroom as he had the water running as he was shaving.  I'd be like, turn off that water while you're shaving...he'd look at me like I was crazy...and he'd say, but I'm using the water to shave.  I'd say...only in between swipes...turn it off while you're swiping (yep, my technical shaving term, but you know what I mean).  This would elicit more crazy looks.  I'd leave the bathroom, strongly of the opinion that I was right and James was wrong.  We'd have very similar discussions at the kitchen sink and definitely have had major discussions about turning on the heat or the air.  If I was alone, I would never turn on either.  James grew up in the mid-West and Oregon and when he was young, water was never an issue.  So he just looks at things differently than I do.  He also likes to be comfortable, so if sweat is dripping off his brow and the thermostat says 98, he's OK with turning on the air. 

Now, some might say this is a control issue for me.  That I want things done the way I want them done and I'm inflexible.  I might say that I just want things done the right way and in this case my way happens to be the right way.  I bet some of you are thinking, boy how has he put up with her for 22 years (24 years if you count the courting and engaged time)?  Well, I'll tell you, I have no idea.  With a bit of age under my belt, at this point in my life, I realize that I am married to St. James.  The fact that he can accept my craziness and generally not give me a hard time about it absolutely amazes me.  But St. James is a topic for another day.  (I'm not sure whether he has started to read the blog yet...I'm not going to mention anything and see if he does.  He may not be happy with me talking about him here, we'll have to see.  If I never mention his name again, you'll know which way that conversation went.)

This all leads back to why I'm worried about electricity, and why our French host/guest might think I'm a little bit bonkers.  During the summer, our house seems to suck electricity like there's no tomorrow.  The electric bills can be staggering (trust me, I know staggering given that I own a store that has 11 freezers and refrigerators!)  So, to be staggered at home can be quite sad.  And, it's always after the fact.  I always get surprised by these amazing electric bills and water bills and gas bills (because of the pool, in the summer).  We had a water leak that we didn't discover for a long time (two water bills' worth)...don't even get me going on that.  Today in our conversation, I explained most of this to our soon to be guest.  How I'm really only worried about the electric bill and if they could remember to turn the air off when they're leaving, not let it run all night, etc...that would be great.  By the end of the conversation he was saying, we probably won't even run the air...I don't think we'll need it.  I laughed and said when it hits 110 outside, you're probably going to want to turn it on.  He didn't laugh so much at that.  Then I mentioned the pool.  We don't let the heater run all summer, just a few days a week.  I asked if he wasn't going to use the pool for a few days (like when they go to visit the Grand Canyon), could they turn it off.  I think this one put him over the edge a bit.  But I think I redeemed myself and told him someone (delightful Susanna) would be checking on the house when they were gone, so if they forgot something like turning off the stove, she'd catch it.  (OK, I didn't really say the thing about turning off the stove...I'm not that neurotic!)

Now I've bared my innermost secrets about controlling the use of electricity.  After I've written this, I'm starting to think it really is a control issue.  We're all adults, my guests know that they should be judicious in their use of the air conditioning, right?  I probably shouldn't have said anything.  Oh well, I'm leaving them several bottles of wine to welcome them, hopefully that will make up for any damage I've done.

Til next time.  Just be happy I'm not in your home everyday, telling you to turn off the air (except for James, who does have to deal with this everyday...sorry babe.)

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Planes, trains & automobiles, Part 3 (trains)

This is the last in my three part series on worrying about transportation.  Mainly because I'm completely exhausted reliving all the stress I put myself through trying to make decisions about what plane,what car, what train...OMG...I can really see that I need a bit of a break.  What has always been really easy for me, making decisions, has become such a chore that I don't even want to decide which socks to wear in the morning...or whether I should wear socks or not.  Anyway...

The last decision about transportation that did need to be made before we left the States had to do with trains.  While we do have a car to tour around France in, after a little research, I realized that we did not want to be driving in Paris.  Especially right now, as there appears to be some fairly major road construction going on, making Paris driving even more difficult that normal.  I knew that we would want to take the train into Paris several times over the course of the two months.  I also knew that we might want to take a train or two on some extended trips.  However, I did not know where those trips would be or how many of them there would be.  I refused to sit down and come up with a grand plan.  I was hoping to be more spontaneous while in France.  Wake up in the morning, decide Lyon sounded good, and off we would go.

I did a little digging to find train schedules and costs.  I then looked at train passes.  Gosh, they seemed expensive, and since I had no idea how many days we might actually be traveling by train, I was hard pressed to make a decision.  So, I kept looking at train schedules and I kept looking at train passes.  I swear I spent a week going back and forth on this issue.  Then I did a Bing search:  what's the best train pass?  (I love Bing...I put in all sorts of odd things..and it really gives me the info I need to make a decision...hmmm, just like their commercials say!)  This search led me to a wonderful site (which you probably know all about if you do any traveling, but since I haven't done that much traveling since the advent of the Internet, I didn't even think about this one).  The great site is Fodors. Duh!

But what is truly great about this site is it's forums.  I got so many of my questions answered that I had been struggling with for so long.  Not only about transportation, but about phones and currency exchanges and how to act so the French won't think we're just rude Americans, and so many other things.  Whatever your question, just search the site and someone has first-hand experience on it.  There are also folks who travel extensively and write incredible descriptions of their journeys.  Day by day itineraries, with details of where they stayed, what they saw and what they ate.  After reading some of these, I felt like I'd already been on my trip.  They also were part of my inspiration to keep a more detail accounting of my trip.

Another great site that I found was Rick Steves' site which answered all my questions about trains.  So well, in fact, that I ended up buying our Eurail pass through his site.  Yep, that was my final decision.  I bought a 5 person, 3 country, 6 day pass (could over two months) for about $2,000.  That works out to about $66 a day.  If we go into Paris, round trip in one day is about 66 euro, so the pass would be cheaper.  If we travel to say Nice, the round trip cost would be 375 euro (taking 2 days of the pass at $132 is a significant savings).  Ultimately, to give ourselves the greatest flexibility, the Eurail pass seemed to make sense. I went with the three country pass (France, Italy & Germany), which was just a tad more than the one country, so if we decided we needed to jaunt off to Italy or Germany, we could.  (Also, when you buy 2 or more persons together on the same pass, you get a significant savings, so we could afford to buy first class passes...yippee!!!)  I also decided that we could decide what if any passes the three teens joining us in August should buy, after we're in France for a bit.  (Another decision left to a later day...I'm starting to love this!)

Because these posts have been so long and detailed and I have a feeling completely un-entertaining, I thought I'd spice things up with this:


Is that spicy enough for you?

Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Part 2 (Automobiles)

Once the flights were all squared away...I started worrying about getting from the airport to the house.  As part of the exchange, we are using our French counterparts' car and they are using ours.  Very cool and saves on renting a car and trains...or it would if only 3 or 5 of us were going.  The car we're using seats five with not a ton of trunk space.  So, for the first month, it should not be a problem...we can all fit in the car for the excursions we are planning.  But, how were we going to get from the airport to the house...which is 1.5 hrs by train.  Oh, right...by train!  Although after traveling about 15 hours (with the clock saying it's been 24 hours), I got to thinking that we might not be that gung ho to get a train into Paris to catch another train to Auxerre.  So, I started researching shuttle services or some option like that.  Didn't get very far with that.  Seems an hour and a half is considered too far for those types of services (that is unless I wanted to pay $700 - $1,000...then I could pretty much get anyone to take me).  Since I was still looking for economical ways to travel (the train would definitely have been the cheapest option at about 33 euro, one way), I did not jump at the $700 shuttle service.  Rather, I sent an email to our exchange family and asked them their recommendation. 

Low and behold, they graciously volunteered to have someone pick us up.  Gotta say, I jumped at the offer.  My note did include something like...what's the best way to get to your house from the airport...are there any good shuttle services?  Oh, by the way, we'll have someone pick you up when you arrive in Los Angeles.  (Not too subtle hint, I know.)  Then I worried that they might be sending the car that we are going to be using (which seats five and not tons of trunk space), so I had to send another email saying we really didn't want to be a bother, but wanted to let them know there would be five of us with lots of luggage and we'd be happy to take the train so as not to be an imposition.  I received an immediate reply saying they would be bringing two cars to pick us up and to bring as much luggage as we wanted.  Another worry put to bed.

I then took to worrying about what we were going to do when all eight of us were there.  Clearly, we would not all fit in the 5 passenger car (especially with all these teenagers).  I researched renting an 8 passenger van for the month, which was actually quite difficult to find and about 4,500 euro for the month (James noted we could just buy a car for that much money).  Then I considered renting a smaller car, and we'd just take two cars everywhere.  Then I thought, we'd just leave a few folks at the house each time we left (I figured at any given time 2-3 of the teens would be ready for a break from us).  I have finally arrived at a wonderful solution.  I'm going to decide when I'm there.  I'll have a whole month before the rest of our group arrives and I'll have a much better understanding of how close the train station is and whether we want to be driving at all.  (It will also give me a chance to meet some neighbors and maybe someone has a car they want to rent to us for the month at a much better rate.)  So, I've left a detail unfinished before I leave...and it feels pretty darn good!  Kind of like I'm living on the edge.  Are you starting to get the picture that I might be just a tad bit of a control freak???   No, not yet?  Don't worry...you will!

Stay tuned for the final installment on my transportation worries.  Can you imagine what's next?  Have you fallen asleep yet from the tediousness of my mind?  Feel free to share your comments.

Planes, trains & automobiles - Part 1 (Planes)

One of the things that has stressed me a bit as we get ready for our adventure is transportation decisions. First, I should let you know that the participants on our trip are James (my hubby), Ethan (my 12 year old), Kerry (my youngest sister), Katie (her 13 year old, sometimes called little katie), Lukas (Ethan's best friend), Megan (Michelle, my middle sister's 12 year old) and Katey (Michelle's 15 year old, sometimes call big katey). (By the way, my sisters also have sons name Ryan (big ryan and little ryan). Interestingly, Kerry had Ryan and Katie...then Michelle married Rick who had two kids (Ryan & Katey)...at least the girls spell their names different...although I can't tell you home many times I have to stop and remember which spelling is for which girl. Alright, that was a bit of a side-track...but important info for the coming months.

My guys (James & Ethan...that's what I call them), me, Kerry & Katie will be going to France together. The other three will join us for the month of August. So, we'll be five in July, 8 in August. (Tedious details, but after I explain my stress over transport...you'll see why it was important to get this all straight!)

First transportation stressout...FLIGHTS! The reason we can afford to go on this trip is because we don't have to pay for any housing (since we're doing a home exchange). So, theoretically, the trip should just cost us our airfare, food & spending money. In my mind, it should be a cheap trip! To keep it a cheap trip, it was important to get low priced airfare. The hunt for these low prices started in March. I had no idea how many websites are out there that will search all possible airlines for all possible flights. Sometimes, I think there is just too much choice! There were literally hundreds of options. And since I was trying to get the cheapest fare (after all, 8 people traveling to Europe adds up and I wanted to be mindful for every family involved), I started looking at tons of different permutations. One leg on this air line, the next on that. Flying different airlines there and back...good lord...it was starting to take over my life.

Then I started reading about booking strategies...how Tuesday are the best day to book, as fares typically go down on that day. I also struggled with whether we should pay more for the non-stop flight. Finally, I found what I thought was the best available airfare (about $1,300 roundtrip) for a one-stop flight and I booked it for the five of us. I sent the info on to Michelle and Lukas' mom (Liza...who will be flying over with Lukas and the girls in August to spend 10 days in Paris), so they could book their flights and ensure that all the kids were on our return flight. It felt like air traffic controlling to me! Everybody had to book on the same day, so that the return flight didn't fill up. After many hours of hair-pulling, I got the thumbs up from Michelle and Liza. Everyone made it on the same return flight! Yippee. Time to move on to the next transportation issue. Stay tuned.

P.S. one note, after you finally commit to your flights and purchase the tickets...don't ever look at the options again...who wants to know that flights dropped $200 the next week, right???

Monday, June 21, 2010

Two months, when you're a grown up!

When I decided that I wanted a two month "escape," I'm not sure I really considered what that meant in terms of the things that needed to be handled while I was gone.  After all, I'm a grown up and have lots of responsibilities (too many, sometimes).  I could certainly head off to France, stay connected through the internet and participate in my regular life just as if I were at home.  However, I had something a little different in mind.  Escape to me meant not checking my email, not checking my bank accounts, not paying bills, not being involved in the day-to-day ops of my business.  I wanted to go and pretend to be someone else.  I didn't really care who that someone was, I just knew I didn't want it to be me...with all the stresses, all the pressures, all the damned decisions!

I started making lists....lots and lots of long lists.  To ensure that everything at home ran as best it could, without my attention or interference or thought!  For home, that meant handling all the bills (which while I did pay them on-line, I'd never set up ebills...so silly now that I realize how easy it is to do so), making sure the house was looked after to ensure that our French guests were taken care of, and finding a temporary home for our two cats and two dogs (since I did think it was a little too much to expect our French visitors to take care of all these animals!)  The pets were actually the easiest to arrange, since we have some terrific friends who were willing (even happy???) to take all four of them.  We'll see how they feel about that decision at the end of the summer.

One down side of this adventure is the fact that I chose not to plant a garden this year, since we would be gone for the prime production months for our tomatoes.  (In the past, I've had up to 16 different varieties of heirloom tomatoes.  We are definitely missing my tomatoes already!)  I'm probably going to plant fall tomatoes when we get home (which I've had good success with in the past).

For the business...there's just one word...Susanna!  When my mom was dying, I was basically out of commission for a month and my wonderful Susanna handled everything at the store.  She is one of the reasons that I realized that I actually could leave my US life for a couple of months.  She willingly stepped up and said she was ready for the challenge to handle everything on her own.  I'm blessed to have her in my life!  We've spent the last three months training on all the things that she wasn't trained on yet and she is now ready to handle all aspects of the business.  We've laughed that when I come home (if I come home), I'll have to start another business...this one won't need me anymore.  (And I am really happy about that prospect!)