Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals

 

The week school started:

 

At last, summer came to an end, and the weekend before the highways were jam packed with commuters returning home (sound familiar anyone?), the city shops were jam packed with families shopping (again, sound familiar?  Something does always remain a universal conundrum).  I was not overly concerned about the stationery needs, as you would expect of me, but I did notice about 20 families crowded in a rather sophisticated looking children’s shoe store.  When I say ‘family’, I really am not kidding- Pa, Ma, Boetie, Sussie, en Babatjie in die stroller nogal!  What was so special about this shoe shop, and did I need Alex and Beth to wear special shoes?

 

The next afternoon (Sunday) we bussed diagonally across the city, with a bag of treats and 2 cricket bats, to meet up with a few…let’s call them ‘expats’.  (You wouldn’t be playing cricket if you were not an expat, I assume).  I was rather excited, firstly because I would be able to make contact with an English speaking community, as would my Alex, who is missing her maatjies so much.  And, more importantly I realised, the crowd playing cricket all had their Monsters/Minions/Missy’s all at Robert Schuman International School.

 

The first person who picked up a conversation was an Australian, hailing from Sydney, who immediately sensed my need to connect, he spent a decent amount of time listening.  (I mean, really listening, a kind of guy who you actually remember, and this actually prompted me to Google him the next day.  Turns out Google likes him, and there is reference after reference to him as the Artistic Planning Director of the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, would you believe!)

Anyway, nice guy that he is, he introduced me to his wife, and we had a chat, and I decided that Mrs. E couldn’t be more Australian, if there is a stereotype for Australians, if she tried.  We swopped numbers, and they disappeared off in a rush a little later.  Alex later told me that their daughter, who is Alex’s age, had pulled her hair while playing earlier, which bugged me, I guess.

 

Monday dawned, and after a mad scramble to leave the house earlier than we normally do, we headed to the train station to collect Aunty Annie’s Mom-in-law, Jill, who was in Alsace visiting family, and had promised to pay us a visit with gifts from Mom and Andrea. 

 

Turns out I should stop reading guide books, and listen to my hubby, because I wasted an hour of Jill’s time making her sit on a tram and bus while heading up to the Orangerie for a walk around.  We drank coffee; the girls enjoyed an ice-cream, and then had to high tail it back on a bus in order to attempt eating lunch under the Cathedral before Jill returned to Colmar.  It really was lovely to see a familiar face, and have a natter with Jill, because she really is good with that sort of thing!

It was while I had Beth fast asleep on my chest travelling home on the bus, thinking how tiring the bus and tram trips are for the little ones, and me, that Anton phoned to tell me the ‘bad’ news.

 

I say bad in inverted commas, because at the time, it was the worst news for me.  The Robert Schuman International School did not have space in the Grand class for Alex.  Beth was in- no issues there, but for Alex, well, the class was already full, and as it was not urgent for her to be in school, they would not take her.

 

Let me quickly try explaining why the Robert Schuman School was what we wanted.

~ There is 20% English actually spoken.  It’s not the language of the teaching, but 18 hours a week are English classes.

~ The level of education is more recognised internationally.

~ It has children from many different parts of the world, and would be interesting for the girls to learn something different.  And yes, the girls would make friends with English speaking children, and they could settle easier.

 

That it happens to be situated on the other side of town from where we had selected to live wasn’t going to be an issue for me– I would make it work, regardless.

 

With Beth fast asleep on my chest, and the knowledge that we would not be catching the 07h23 No. 4 bus the next morning to allow the girls to reach school by 08h30, I had the opportunity to really give it some thought.

 

Firstly, I would find out about the waiting list for Alex.  Just to be completely sure.  And secondly, as Alex was now by default enrolled at the local village school, there was no way I was going to split the girls school trips.  There is no way I could manage that, and it would just be daft to put us under all the pressure.

The best way forward would be to have both Alex and Beth being taught by French ladies at the school over the road. 

When I say ‘over the road’, I really do mean ‘over the road’.  It takes me 2 minutes to walk them there.

 

As you can imagine, this situation has provided me with hours of careful consideration, and concerns, and planning for the future.

Essentially, by putting Alex & Beth into Eckbolsheim the following has fallen into effect:

 

1.  We will continue living in this village.  This in itself is marvellous.
2. We will not have ‘easy’      access to any major form of ‘expat’ community.
3. As a result of the      above, we will form our own network of acquaintances, maybe even friends      later, in our own time.  These      friends could come from Anton’s work, or eventually, I might even find a      circle of mum’s that I can communicate with.
4. University or Alliance      Francaise French lessons will not be suitable for now.  I will have to look into a private tutor.

All of these contribute to the romanticism of living in Europe.  It turns out I would prefer this to the opposite, which would be that living here is an effort, a chore, something to be dealt with for as long as I need to.  A positive mind set really is the best way forward, a step that will allow us to settle properly, and maybe, just maybe, we will really become ‘locals’. 

And maybe I can write a book like Elizabeth Gilbert, Peter Mayle, Frances Mayes or even Joanne Harris.