Chez Moi

French Lesson: The word “chez” in French is a preposition literally meaning “at the house of.” Thus, the title of this blog translates to “At the House of Me” or rather “My house.”

Cultural Lesson: Should you ever see a French restaurant named “Chez Pierre” (or some other stereotypical French male name), avoid it. It is a tourist trap. It is bad.

And so, at long last, I present a tour of my house. The same house in which I’ve been living for the past four months. The same house in which I have only 9 sleeps left. Just don't touch anything.

Note: The inside pictures were taken when my host parents were babysitting a few of their grandchildren (a not uncommon occurrence). The house looks like a 1980’s Toys R’ Us exploded. So beware.

Welcome.

This house is more than 150 years old. It has been in Madame’s family for at least three generations, and it is something of an engineering marvel that it is still standing up. It seems most houses in France are that way.

I’m glad I took that picture back in March, because those ugly looking trees have since sprouted leaves. This is what were are dealing with now.


Shall we go in?

Up the stairs (I always go up the stairs on the left, always) and through the door is a foyer.

There is a tiny rug to wipe your feet, but they don't seem to mind a dirty or even muddy floor. Through the various doors are:

The kitchen (dirty from an evening party, the cleaning lady has a lot of work ahead of her today)

The kitchen is the same size as my bedroom: not big.

A sitting room (complete with a small collection of swords dating back to Napoleon)

The dining room (with a piano)

The TV room (note the small TV)

And the stairs.

All the stairs in France are spiral/curved. They are all tremendously dangerous if you are not paying attention.

We pass up the second floor (premier étage). That is where my host parents sleep and work and do laundry and other things. I haven’t been told not to explore, but I think it is understood that I don't belong there.

Up to the third floor. My domaine.

At last count, there are five rooms on the third floor. That's not to say there aren’t more. I just found a new one last week. Two of the rooms are full of toys (actually full). Two have beds for visiting children and/or grandchildren. The last is mine. All of them have sinks. The bathroom does not.

I have a pretty standard, bedroom set up: a twin bed, desk, swivel chair, and wooden bureau (c. 1780).

Out in the stairwell/hallway, I have my own little kitchen.

I can use the kitchen downstairs, but this is mighty convenient to store food and heat up a quick (read: cheap) meal.

Probably the best part of the house is the backyard (a.k.a. le jardin). Back in the winter and early spring, it looked overgrown and somewhat depressing. Now that the flowers have started blooming, it is quite the scenic place to read a book on a sunny day.

Roses are everywhere in France. They are giant, colorful, and smell like… roses.

Among the roses are something like 6 varieties of fruit trees/plants including: two types of cherries, apples, peaches, lemons, and some sort of nut.

We have a chicken, too.

They collect the eggs (which are giant). There is also a turtle, as creepy as it is giant, that was once a pet and now just roams around the yard. And there is a hunting dog, but I haven’t seen him in a couple of months.

So that is my humble homestead. From what I’ve seen, it is pretty average, if not above average, for an Angers bourgeois (upper middle class) family. It has grown on me over the past four months.

And my host family.

Can you tell who the American is? I can't.

Madame is a retired doctor who spends most of her time preparing for her children and grandchildren to come for weekends and/or extended stays. In fact, she is leaving next week to go help her very pregnant daughter take care of her two young children. Monsieur is a practicing doctor by day and a deacon at the local Catholic Church by weekend. By night, he sells drugs outside the soccer stadium (tell him I sent you).*

I don't know that I fully appreciated my house or host family the past four months. I sure hope they don't pave it and put up a parking lot...

*My host dad does not sell drugs outside the soccer stadium at night. That I know of.