Hey, welcome back to the Office Odyssey, all you faithful clickers who’ve been checking in week after week for the last 12 years, hoping for an update, for some sort of sign, maybe just a scrap of news from the Extreme Telecommuting front – we truly appreciate your devotion! And, yes, Mom and Dad, I’m talking to you.

Veterans of our previous forays in Extreme Telecommuting may dimly recall the semi-regular updates to this site – the witty anecdotes, the pithy insights, and what one close friend regularly referred to as the “ceaseless bloviating.”

 

Well, this time out, the times, they are a-changing. For one, we’ve already blown the “semi-regular updates” thing out of the water – we’ve passed the six-month mark on this year-long Odyssey and I’m just now getting to the – ahem – first update. As for the “pithy insights,” I’m pretty sure that’s just my name for the “ceaseless bloviating.” You say potato, I say pomme de terre (and make up a story about Kristanne throwing it at me during a disagreement over the sociopolitical implications of German expressionists versus whether I should have a beer with lunch.)

 

So, this time around, we’re changing the approach, moving towards less reading and more pictures. Reading is for suckers anyway. All those words…who needs ‘em? And cheap puns, or easy jokes at the expense of an entire country? I would never stoop that low. I mean, except for, like, this one last time. Come on – there’s a town in France called “Froges”? That’s so much in my wheelhouse, I’m not sure there’s even room for me in there at the same time, too. I’ll be sure to give you further updates when we visit the charming village of “Wopalina” in Italy or the bustling hamlet of “Jerryburg” in Germany.

So, it feels more than a bit odd to reach back into the old hard drive and pull up some wistful photos from the dimly remembered days, of, uh, August, but this, alas, is where we find ourselves, now at this distant remove in, err, January? Our story, already in progress, begins back on August 1st, when four road-weary Heatons first made their way to Grenoble after a blistering five days in Paris with the Travelator and his family. More on him later. For now, suffice it to say that you don’t want to hit a new city with the Travelator without some sort of suitable warmup in your back pocket. Like, say, having recently through-hiked the Gobi Desert in your underwear with only a Tootsie Roll to sustain you. That might prepare you. We left Paris knowing that we’d be back but that we’d never see it again as we did during those five days – through the eyes of a man who has compressed entire guidebook’s worth of sightseeing into the barest instant. A man who will drive your children to tears, you to drink, and a caravan of rented mules to “just one more UNESCO site, I promise!”

In true Office Odyssey style, we entered Grenoble with what might charitably be termed as a “strong outline of a plan.” It verged on full planhood, but left out important items, like, say, where to live. It also didn’t take into account that one shouldn’t arrive in a new city in France on a Sunday because there’s no place to eat, save for the furshlugginer McDonald’s. Really. But all was well when we woke the next morning to the view you see up there. See, we did have a place to stay for the next week – that’s the “outline” part of the plan. And it was a great one, too, a small gîte up in Le Sappey en Chartreuse, full of Alpen splendor. We hung our hats there for a week or so as we figured out where we could stay more permanently.

I’m already doing it, aren’t I? I can’t help myself – I start laying these pictures out and the half-truths, inventions, and exaggerations just come naturally. But if I keep this up, I’ll never catch up! So, a quick summary of our trip so far, in full Anti-Odyssey style as our kids ramble down a picturesque hillside in the Chartreuse, probably to blame one another for the untimely escape of a grasshopper.

• We moved to France on 8/1. Sid still telecommutes and the Internet still works in France, so this was do-able.

• After Paris, we went to Grenoble, where we planned to live.
• Some #$%@ visa issues –mainly the fact that we didn’t have them – necessitated a quick trip back to SF to remedy the same.
• After reassuring our friends and neighbors that we hadn’t changed our minds and they didn’t get back their presents from the multiple “Bon Voyage” parties, it was back to France we went.
• We take up residence in an Apartment/Hotel a short walk from the kids’ new school. Kinsey convinces herself that she doesn’t like croissants (what do the French know about pastry, anyway?), but is happy to find that there is an ample supply of fresh anchovies at many nearby markets.
• We start paying our own humble homage to the Travelator with side trips to Clermont Ferrand, Puy-en-Velay, Annecy, Vulcania!, etc, etc.
• We also hammer without cease on the cold, iron door of French bureaucracy, laboring to assemble the quotidian stuff of normal life –bank accounts, cell phones, a place to live that’s not in a hotel.
• Memorably, I take the kids to the pool in our new hometown of Meylan and get to borrow a Speedo to comply with the local regs. They may have since rethought those regs after seeing me in a borrowed Speedo.
• Kids start school. Kids start sports. Kids start to go mad in tiny hotel room. Parents decide to join them and form Insane Heaton Posse, a breakthrough hardcore rap group featuring lots of invented French phraseology and relentless farting. Hilarity ensues.
• More trips. Kids get two weeks off for Toussaint holiday, so off to Scandinavia for Q’s birthday, including Hans Christian Anderson House, Legoland in Denmark, Norway, and a tumultuous overnight ferry with lots of hard-drinking Eastern Europeans and no vomiting…from us.
  

  Good lord that looks like a pot field behind the dolmen.

• Scandinavia is insanely expensive. Hot dogs cost $80. They must be dipped in myrrh. I can’t imagine that would taste good. OK – losing the narrative here.
• Miraculously find furnished apartment from private party where an entire year’s rent paid up front into an escrow account is not required. Breathe sigh of relief, move few belongings into new digs, and welcome our first visitors – Jo & Chris!
• Buy bikes and begin to ride them places. Can now carry baguette in classic French “under arm” pose from our neighborhood boulangerie without feeling like a total wanker. Consider beret but ultimately reject because my head is the size of a watermelon.
• Receive second visitor in the form of Shark Tompkins and introduce him to the wonders of Chartreuse liqueur. Hilarity ensues. Also, snoring.
• Ski season begins and the Heatons hit the Alpen slopes. French people shrink in horror at the site of an out-of-control Sid clad in a day-glo orange jacket careening down the green pistes.

That’s about it, summary-wise. Sure, there’s the odd moment of complete terror whenever someone starts to speak to us in French, or the crushing embarrassment when we attempt to reply, but you start to grasp the big picture. One of the things we both like best about our lives here is how we’re trying to make them just that – our lives, lived normally, just in a new place. So, it’s not like we’re off gambling with Posh & Becks in Monaco every weekend, or jetsetting in the Cote d’Azur, or getting tantric with Sting in Italy (okay, just once, and I didn’t even enjoy it) – it’s more like we’re getting the kids to school on time, carpooling to fencing class, and hitting the kids sports events on weekends. Normal life.

Well, as normal as you can be when you’re rocking a sweet leased car like that full-on diesel-powered Partner Tepee you see at left. Brought to you by Peugeot, the Tepee boasts plenty of interior space, but without all that powerful engine that just gets in the way in some other cars. Who needs it? We didn’t realize it at first, but our car also brands us as foreigners – all long-term leases sport red license plates, in contrast to the normal yellow and white ones. This is probably a good idea for everyone’s safety –I imagine it helps other drivers to know that at any moment we may drive in the bus lane, on a sidewalk, the wrong One Way, or just completely freak out in a roundabout. Forewarned is forearmed, my French friends!

Switching to Stream of Consciousness Mode

We spent a lot of time checking out different places to live. This is the town square in a little town called Theys. We liked it, especially for the tendency of local food vendors to give us copious bits of free deep-fried cheese, but ultimately decided it was too far away. Gorgeous setting the low Belledonne Alps, though.

 

 

 

The French school schedule leaves the kids with Wednesdays off, so Kristanne occasionally gets to take them on cool day trips. This is the French Revolution Museum in Vizille, a small town near us. French kids go to school fewer days than any other industrialized nation, but the most hours. The normal schedule is Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 8:30-4:30 with Wednesdays off. However, I’m still not sure they’re not stuffing the ballot box by keeping kids in school for some solid week in April just to come out on top in hours.

 

This was part of a weekend trip to the Ardeche area, including Clermont Ferrand, Puy-en-Velay, and the combination educational/amusement park of Vulcania. And the worst sausage I’ve ever tasted — for a country that cooks so many dishes so excruciatingly well, the French can’t produce a proper sausage to save their everloving lives. I’ve got a freezer full of the good stuff saved from Kristanne’s most recent 1.5 hour drive to Switzerland to prove it.

 

This is the first day of school for the kids, walking the short trip from our apartment/hotel over to class. Every kid in France starts school on the same day – the rentree. There’s an accent mark in that word somewhere, but I’d have to look up both the text codes to put it in there and the word itself to know where they go, so you’re left with my typical approach to French – throw in imaginary accents wherever feels best to you and suffer the consequences.

next steps?

I’m barely scratching the surface here, but if I keep trying to catch up, this thing will never get posted. It’s been a great six months and we’re looking forward to seeing what the next six bring. What we know for sure is that we have two great travelers with us — both Quinn and Kinsey have done an amazing job adjusting to a new life. We’re extremely proud of them!

See you next time on the Odyssey!