This circle is closing awfully quickly:  1 week away from completing a full year of living in Toulouse; 1 week away from leaving Toulouse.  It has been a year of adapting to life in a country with a different language and different culture.  It has been a year of travel.  And it has been a year of professional development.

I know the question I will hear most often when I return is “what did you like best?”  The simple answer is: “living in a foreign country.”  But there is no simple answer.  Of the many places we visited, I can’t even say which city we visited was my favorite.  There was something to take from every place -- from the sublime to the mundane.  But we are our memories and I’ve stocked mine with quite a few this year:  A dinner of pork and spaetzle with a good dark German draft in a small eatery around the corner from our hotel in Munich; a less successful -- but equally memorable -- meal in a beer hall in Salzburg; the contrast between the serene setting and the history of Dachau; the Anne Franck house in Amsterdam; the canals of Leiden; White Nights in Turku (for those who don’t worry about their biological clock); Walking the same streets Mozart walked in Salzburg and Vienna; Everything about Prague; Climbing a hill in the highlands of Scotland to gaze out over Loch Lomond; Climbing up to Park Guell to gaze out over Barcelona at the Mediterranean Sea; Roma with the family at Christmas; walking towards the Spanish Steps as the New Year rang in; Ostia Antica; Firenze; Venizia with Rachel; the Musee D’Orsay in Paris; the medieval village of St.-Cirq-Lapopie and the nearby prehistoric caves at Pech-Merle with their amazing paintings; and that awesome repository of Anglo history, Westminster Abbey.

What did I like best?  I think I’ve answered that.  Which was my favorite city?  None of the places I visited.  My favorite city was the one in which I lived – Toulouse.  I hope the travel agents never discover Toulouse.  Last night was “la fete de la musique.”  All over France, bands set up around the city or town and showed their stuff.  I went out at 9:30 and spent 90 minutes walking from Place St. Georges to Place du Wilson to Place du Capitole and back home – a circuit of around 1.5 miles (about a mile).  The streets were jammed the whole way with teenagers, college students, families with young children, and old folks like me.  There were local bands playing at every street corner, down every alleyway, and multiple bands in every plaza.  Some were good, some were less good.  That’s really not the point.  The point is that the whole city turned out on a Thursday night to enjoy the event.  I’ve been on the subway in the middle of a week getting from point A to point B when an empty car suddenly filled up with college students in ridiculous costumes blowing horns and singing at the tops of their lungs.  I’ve gone to the park to discover the gazebo full of people doing swing dancing.  Toulouse is a city of about 1,000,000, but there is a sense of community.  The city has the depth of culture you would expect of a European city with a long history but it also has the vibrance of a community that cares about quality of life and takes time to enjoy it. 

So what have I learned?  I have learned that the only way to understand the extent to which one’s culture shapes a person’s thinking is to live outside of that culture.  I have come to more fully appreciate that growing up in America means learning a certain approach to life.  As a group, Americans have a wonderfully positive problem-solving approach to life’s challenges.  It is why the rest of the world looks to us to lead (OK, that and the whole military-industrial complex thing).  That mindset is most definitely not universal.  It is culturally born and bred.  But although I value that aspect of American culture, living in a different culture has made me aware of the tradeoffs.  We say that “the only constant is change.”  That belief prepares us well to identify challenges and take them on.  But in the process, we often neglect the consequences; we fail to evaluate what we are giving up when we change.  Is change for the sake of change good?  Sometimes, perhaps; sometimes, not.  We are so forward-looking that we fail to appreciate what we are giving up until it is gone.  When we eat lunch at our desk or skip it entirely, we gain some work time.  When we leave work late and go home to finish our tasks after a quick dinner, we gain further productivity.  When we rush through the mega-grocery store and stock up for a week, we are making efficient use of our time.  Better if we pick up several pre-made meals.  We don’t often stop to ask ourselves what we give up in the process.  We don’t often stop at all.  Most of the time, I live in a world that is pretty fast-forward (my daughters will laugh at that claim).  This year, I have lived in a world that takes its time.  For me, I think the right pace is somewhere in-between.  In 7 days, I return to my old world.  I’m a good enough psychologist to know that context is a powerful determinant of behavior.  I hope that knowledge will serve me well.

Soon I leave Toulouse.  It will never leave me.

Did I mention that Toulouse is really old (i.e., 23 centuries)?  One implication of that fact is that the streets are generally very narrow in centre ville (city center), where we live.  Many of the streets are 1 lane wide and are paved with brick or stone.  Another implication is that the streets are definitely not laid out as a grid or in any other systematic pattern that I can detect.  When you combine these two observations, you can explain many of the differences between French and American culture.  On the one hand, you have a French city with narrow streets that wind all over the place; on the other hand, you have the wide avenues laid out in grids in American cities.  Many implications follow from these differences, including: 

1. Sidewalk cafes are a critical part of the culture of France; sidewalk cafes are where we relegate smokers in America.
2. The French walk a lot; have you checked the latest obesity data for the U.S.?
3. The French use mass transportation when they aren’t walking; what’s mass transportation?
4. The French are still neighborhood-oriented; I remember American neighborhoods… from my childhood.
5. The French work to live; Americans live to work.
6. Wine, bread and cheese; wine-spritzers, white bread and Cheese-whiz. 

Allow me to elaborate a bit.

Sidewalks cafes.  This is simple.  How can you enjoy a relaxed meal at a table on the sidewalk if 4 lanes of traffic are whizzing by the entire time?  But it’s more than the width of the streets.  When the buildings that line the streets are all 4-5 stories tall and the distance between the buildings on opposite sides of the street is one car lane and 2 wide sidewalks, you have shade.  Of course, you can put up your awnings and umbrellas and produce shade, but you still don’t have the intimacy that it created when the buildings are closer together and people are walking by constantly (mostly in the streets because the sidewalk cafes limit access to the sidewalks). 

Walking.  Big American streets discourage walking because they create large distances between destinations.  And it isn’t pleasant to walk along busy roads out in the sun or wind or rain or snow (see above).  French streets encourage walking basically because they discourage driving.  In centre ville, all the streets are one-way, they wind all over the place, and they are crowded with pedestrians.  If you need to move a mile or less, you can always manage that faster by foot than by car.  So walking is simply the more practical alternative in France, whereas driving is the more practical alternative in the U.S. 

Mass transportation.  As just mentioned, cars are of limited utility in a French city.  They are fine for getting from one ville to another, but not so functional within a city.  Hence, mass transportation.  (OK, there is the matter of taxation on gas – I spent $85 for 12 or 13 gallons of gas a couple of weeks ago.  On the other hand, my rental car was getting about 11-12 miles per  liter, or over 40 miles/gallon.) Mass transportation only works in the most congested American cities because – as in French cities – driving a car is the slowest way to get from point A to point B.  Not to mention the most expensive way to travel.  So the conditions that lead to mass transportation really are very similar in France and the U.S.; those conditions are just much more prevalent in France. 

Neighborhoods.  A few factors – all stemming from the narrow, winding streets – combine to explain why neighborhoods continue to exist in France. One is the already mentioned encouragement to walk.  If everyone’s walking, then you actually encounter your neighbors with some regularity.  Which leads to getting to know your neighbors (and which ones to approach and which to avoid).  If everyone’s driving (i.e., U.S.), then you might get an occasional honk or wave if your neighbor has learned to recognize your car.  Another factor is that the narrow streets + 5-story buildings + winding streets of a French city mean that it takes years to develop a spatial map that extends more than a block in any direction from your home.  You can’t wander too far from home for fear of not finding your way back.  So love the one you’re with. 

Living and working.  So you’re walking and meeting your neighbors at sidewalk cafes and in boulangeries.  Life is good and the slower pace (i.e., walking) means you actually have the time to notice that fact.  And you think: “Hey, life is good.  I think I’ll take a break and have un verre and chat with my neighbor, who really is an interesting person.  Why work more than 35 hours a week?  I have all I need.”  The U.S.?  You can drive to the local Starbucks and that can be a nice respite, but they don’t serve wine and you’re probably stuck inside because the sidewalk café is either not very appealing or the weather is too hot and humid.  And you really can’t afford that much time from work unless you’re retired or independently wealthy or a student.  So work more, make more money, then use your money for a vacation. 

The basic things in life.  There are boulangeries on every street corner in France because what is more basic than bread?  You buy bread every day because yesterday’s bread is stale tomorrow.  In the U.S., there are shelves of processed bread in every supermarket.  The shelf life is about a month.  In France, the making of cheese is an art form; the consumption of cheese is a ritual (have I mentioned how one must eat cheese?).  In the U.S., artisanal cheeses are currently the rage.  Still, processed cheeses are the choice for sandwich-makers throughout the country.  Your chain sandwich store in France offers ham and brie on a baguette; Subway offers ham and provolone or American slices on limp bread.  And wine?  To be fair, the U.S. makes respectable wines, especially on the west coast.  But every region of France produces wine.  The vin de pays are quite acceptable; the AOC wines are great. Du pain, du fromage, du vin…did I mention the French perspective on love?  Maybe in another blog.

I begin to understand why artists talk about light with such reverence.  Provence is fabled for its light: A destination for artists and for sun-worshippers, en general.  Toulouse is in the Midi-Pyrenees, which is immediately west of Provence and definitely southern France.  So the light in Toulouse can be pretty spectacular, too.  Evenings are really the best time to watch the light.  It is clear and soft and the change from early evening to late is a constantly evolving show.  There’s a big, old (built before Columbus sailed) church visible from my balcony.  Around 8:00 p.m., it is white-washed by the sun.  By 8:30, it radiates a rose color, as does the city (hence the nickname “pink city” although I prefer the untranslated “ville rose”).  By 9:00, the sun is low enough that the buildings are in shadow, but the cumulus clouds are lit up – textured whites on top, blue-grays and pinks on the bottom.  It will stay like that for another 30 minutes or so and be twilight around 9:30.  But the most amazing light I think I’ve ever seen was on a short evening trip from Ayron to Poitiers two weeks ago.  It was about 9:30 p.m. (sunset was closer to 10:00 2 weeks ago) and we were driving through the countryside, fields of mowed grain around us.  The area is in a bad drought this year and about two-thirds of the fields were harvested and had turned to the yellow-brown associated with Fall.  There were huge rolls of baled hay dotting the fields – probably 12 feet in diameter.  The sun was so low in the sky that the bales each threw a shadow as much as three times the diameter of the bale.  The fields absolutely glowed with soft yellow light, partly the color of the sun and partly the color of the dried fields.  Spell-binding.  Wish I had a good camera available (and knew how to use it).  Sorry that my words can’t convey.

Unfortunately, today (Sunday) is cloudy with occasional brief, light showers.  In fact, that’s been the weather pattern for the last 10 days or so.  The benefit is that the temperature is cool – in the 50’s in the morning and no higher than the 70’s by après-midi.  Of course, the downside is that it does get dreary.  Nevertheless, people make it to the farmer’s markets on Sunday morning, rain or shine.  So that was this morning’s diversion.  The market I go to is 6 or 7 minutes walk and it is large.  It is laid out around a church, Saint Aubin, and has around 50 stalls.  It has everything: Meat stands, cheese stands, bread stands, books, DVDs, clothes, shoes, bedding, and on and on.  I bought my usual – du pain et du fromage.  Malheureusement, I was forced to do some pointing today.  Two of my exchanges stayed in French; one was reduced to pointing when asked which particular loaf of bread I had in mind; and one was reduced to pointing and English (she initiated it when she incorrectly perceived me to not understand the amount).

I actually arrived at an awkward time, although I knew that would be the case.  The university’s last teaching session ended a couple of weeks ago so the university has turned very quiet this week.  It just officially closed on Friday and won’t reopen until the last week of August.  The result is that I’m not really meeting anyone now.  Unfortunately, that gives me very little opportunity to practice French.  I saw Julie for a total of about 5 hours last week and Franck for lunch one day with Julie.  So this is definitely contributing to my lack of progress with the language.

I’m on my own this weekend and the weekend started off badly.  Specifically, I stayed home on Friday to receive my “Freebox” (i.e., internet, phone, TV package).  UPS was supposed to come sometime between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.  Of course, the delivery arrived at 4:45, so I was stuck in my apartment all day.  OK, unpack the equipment and see if you can make sense of the French directions.  Evidently, not.  I was supposed to hook up the box that controls the internet and phone first.  Didn’t work.  Still doesn’t work.  I don’t know if the problem is the equipment, or the phone connection, or errors on my part following directions.  OK, a little set back but I’m totally dependent on Julie to help me communicate with the communications company. 

The failure with the internet hookup was a bit demoralizing because I was hopeful that I would be able to phone home or Skype.  I decided that I needed to do something different to get my mind off of my frustrations so I decided I’d go on an adventure Saturday morning.  Julie had mentioned that the town of Ramonville at the end of the Metro line has a nice section of the Canal du Midi that even reached to the Mediterranean.  She then had second thoughts about that suggestion, saying it was too long a walk.  “Oh, yeah, we’ll see about that.”  I caught the metro to Ramonville and got off sometime before 9:30.  The metro station is right at the intersection of a couple of highways, so it wasn’t the most appealing start to my walk.  But I found a map and gradually got oriented.  Off I went to search for the canal.  A half mile up the highway, then cross towards the sports complex.  Take a wrong turn and walk a half mile until the error becomes apparent.  Reverse direction and take the path to your right and – voila! – a bridge over a canal with nice walking and bike paths on both sides.  Cross the bridge, choose a direction and walk.  And walk.  And walk.  Here’s a town.  Oh, it’s the penultimate stop on my metro line.  That means I’m headed away from the Mediterranean.  And I haven’t seen another bridge since the first one I’ve crossed, which puts me on the wrong side of the canal if I should choose to head back to the metro.  Given I’m 2 miles into my journey and the Mediterranean was too far to walk BEFORE walking a couple of miles in the wrong direction, that goal is terminated.  And, besides, the view along the canal is pretty but unvarying.  I’ve had enough exercise so I make the decision to head back to Toulouse.  I scramble around the fencing and over the construction to get to the overpass on the highway I’ve reached so that I can get to the other side of the canal and avoid having to retrace my steps and overshoot the nearest turn off to the metro station.  I’m back to the apartment around noon and ready for a nap.  Then some French lessons, followed by some statistical analyses I’ve been slogging through, followed by dinner, then a walk to le Place du Wilson to sit on a bench by the fountain and watch the people.  A little walking around after that helped me fill in an important gap in my cognitive map of my general neighborhood.  I also ran into a group of American college students headed – boisterously -- in the opposite direction.  A rude shock to my state of mind at that moment.

And on that note: A bientot!

A note of explanation:  I arrived in Toulouse, France on July 1 for a year-long sabbatical stay.  I spent the first 5 weeks on my own, settling into my apartment and learning my way arround.  In the second week of August, the rest of my family arrived.  My wife, Betty, and youngest daughter, Rachel, will stay the year with me.  Betty is also in Psychology and an Associate Dean in the College; Rachel is in the fortunate position of just having graduated from high school, so we offered her an "off year" before college to learn some French and some French culture.  My oldest daughter is one year out of college and will visit 2 or 3 times this year, but will live in Lexington and keep my mind at ease because my 2 golden retrievers were left at home.  With that, this is the first of several blogs that I created for my family.

Fromage and Toilettes (14 Juillet, 2011)

I have now been in France for 2 full weeks.  Half the time in Toulouse and the other half in the area around Poitiers.  I spent approximately 4 days and nights with Julie’s (my colleague and sponsor) family in Ayron where the main activities included eating, drinking, talking (in my case, listening and watching), playing games, and swatting flies.  Lunch and dinner were extended affairs and, although the food was often simple, great attention was paid to every morsel.  Each meal followed the same basic pattern.  First, we drink.  I impressed by not only trying pastis, but by requesting a refill.  Then some sort of entrée – maybe prosciutto and melon, maybe some foies gras and bread. Wine with the entrée.  Then some sort of plat.  (You may have figured out that Americans blew it again – entrée is what we call “appetizer” and plat is what we call “entrée”.)  The plat might be soup at lunch.  Or oeufs brouilles avec pommes de terre.  Generally nothing complicated but full of flavor (never spare the huile d’olive).  Wine with the plats.  And bread.  And salad.  Then cheese for dessert.  With bread.  With wine.  Red wine only.  And then maybe a peach or nectarine.  After dinner drink anyone? 

I have learned how to eat cheese.  I didn’t really need the instruction, but I dutifully followed it.  Take a plate with 5 or more types of cheese and cut a slice of any that interest you.  (All of the cheeses are what American restaurants now label “artisanal”, but they are better than anything I have had in an American restaurant.)  Take some bread.  Take some red wine. Enjoy.  Repeat. 

Last night, Julie and Franck and Mina and I went to a party thrown by one of Franck’s and Julie’s colleagues.  Lots of people; few English speakers.  But it was interesting to sit back and watch the interactions.  I kissed a lot of women’s cheeks on introduction (that would be above the neck).  The adolescents are very much a part of the interactions.  Although some of the conventions differ, the whole scene reminded me of family parties from my childhood (e.g., Uncle Johnny and Aunt Jenny’s barn).  The French appear to have retained their ties to family and neighbor; they still have the concept of the family home.  By the time the cheese came out at the party, I decided that I didn’t need the calories.  But when a guy I met at the start of the party came over to instruct me in how to eat cheese, I got up and listened to the instruction.  You must have bread and red wine to accompany the cheese.  You might want to try this one and this one and this one and this one and this one, but not that one because it is too strong for an American.  “Oh, yeah? Sez who?  I’ll try some of that, too”.  Now, I have eaten enough stinky cheese in my life to handle a strong French cheese and this cheese was no problem.  I can imagine that someone might develop a fondness for whatever it was.  The sort of person who might be partial to the cheese would most likely be an old man who has lost all concern about having people around him.  The cheese was soft and very ripe.  I think that I identified the aging process: (1) Place in jock after the jock has been worn for 2-a-day football practices for a week.  (2) Hang in an unventilated room in the middle of a cow pasture for the months of June, July and August.  (3) Then scrape and mold into little rounds, and (4) serve to Americans with the warning “this is too strong for Americans” to make sure that they try it. 

The French may know food, but they don’t know kitchen design.  Or bathroom design.  Kitchens tend to be small and cramped, from my limited sampling.  I will leave kitchens for Betty to elaborate upon after she has spent some time here.  Bathroom design:  A closet with a toilet and a separate closet with sink and shower.  The separate rooms make good sense but nothing else does.  The way you use les toilettes is you enter the “room” and carefully move your body into a space between the toilet and wall so that there is room to swing the door shut.  Then you do your thing.  Careful not to bend forward too far because you’ll hit your head on the opposite wall.  Then position yourself out of the way while you open the door.  As for the salle de bain, ours has a lave linge for Lilliputians (the drum of the washing machine is approximately 1 foot in diameter – we’ll see whether it can accommodate 1 bedsheet).  Next to the washing machine is a pedestal sink with virtually no ledge on it to put things like a glass or soap.  But the highlight is the shower stall.  All of 72 cm square – yes, I measured it -- that’s about 28 inches for you Americans. I still haven’t figured out how to get my legs clean below my knees.  There’s nothing to hold onto to pull my leg up and bending over will propel me into the opposite wall.  As a friend observed: “With all of their perfumes, I guess the French never saw a need for adequate bathrooms.” (The context for this comment was a bit different than a discussion of bathrooms.)

It would be helpful to know the French language in this country.  No progress on that front and I haven’t figured out how to remedy the problem.  I can construct some baby-speak, but the delivery generally leaves people shaking their heads and then all of the courage it took to attempt some communication completely dissipates.  Worse is that if I do manage an intelligible (if not intelligent) sentence, I end up shaking my head in confusion when I receive a reply.  My confidence wasn’t high to begin with and it is going in the wrong direction.  I have spent several hours now in the company of people speaking French.  I haven’t noticed any progress in my parsing of speech.  I catch occasional words.  I’m best at “Bob.”  Very discouraging.

With that note, I need to go do some self-instruction in French.  I’ve been a week away from lessons because I’ve been on the road.  I think I’ll start by trying to decode the notice I received from the post office about some failed delivery and having 15 days to do something about it.  I hope I can figure out what…

#1 on my “bucket list” is arranging a private concert by Diana Krall for me and 30 or so hand-picked friends and family.  (Ella is no longer available.)  The playlist will be chosen mostly from her “Live in Paris” CD and her “All for You” CD.  The finale will be Diana’s version of Joni Mitchell’s “A case of you.”  The champagne will be French; Kentucky will, of course, supply the bourbon.  Mr. Dave and Ms. Betty will put together the menu. 

There must be at least one dream on your bucket list….

#2 on my bucket list is living abroad for a year.  At the moment, I am two months into crossing that item off my list.  I am definitely not in a hurry to get it crossed off.  Toulouse is a great city in which to live and is conveniently located for one who finds Europe a generally pleasant place to spend some time.  Being in France on a sabbatical leave is, perhaps, the best of circumstances in which to spend time abroad.  I am expected to spend a year focusing on the part of my job for which I was trained; I am meeting new colleagues who share many of my interests but bring different perspectives to our common ground; and I have a great deal of freedom in deciding how to use my time.  But the biggest advantages of living abroad are the consequences of the constant mundane challenges to routine.

Most of us spend a good deal of time operating on auto-pilot.  I am most aware of this in my own life when events knock me out of mechanical mode.  I admit to being a creature of habit.  I find great comfort and security in habit.  But when I am taken out of my routines, I usually find myself enlivened.  Things that I take for granted receive closer examination.  Thoughts that I did not previously take the time to develop seem worth the effort to elaborate.  In the context of a sabbatical, some of this is simply a matter of slowing the pace and having the extra time to contemplate concepts and ideas.  But if the leave is taken in a new environment, it is not simply a matter of having more time.  It is being forced to grapple with unfamiliar circumstances that bear family resemblances to circumstances with which I am familiar.  It is seeing familiar things in unfamiliar settings and perceiving them in a new way.  I’m not talking just about the big stuff; mostly I have in mind the items of everyday living.  Consider some very loosely associated examples from the domain of grocery-shopping.

1. We do not have a car in Toulouse so – like most people in the city -- we walk to the grocery store and must hand-carry our purchases back to our apartment.  So:
   1. We shop every day or two; we spend a greater proportion of our time shopping in Toulouse than in Lexington (I think).
   2. Our refrigerator is about 1/3 the size of the monster that sits in our kitchen in Lexington.
   3. We make wiser (healthier) food choices because we don’t have the luxury of loading our hand-carried basket.
2. Because we must pay for every bag we use in the grocery store, we bring our own canvas bags to the grocery store.
3. Milk and cream are stocked on unrefrigerated shelves in the store.  The sell-by dates are generally about 2 months from the date of sale.  Really.  I’m not sure what it means.
4. In the land of Louis, I have yet to encounter Pasteurized cheese.

You notice these sorts of things because they entail relatively major changes in daily living.  And you notice that these challenges to your routines cause you to re-think other things.  The spillover extends all the way “up” to the much more abstract domain of my research expertise.  An attitude of examination and re-consideration of long-held practices and beliefs takes root.  That is a good thing for anyone.