Slow but Steady Wins the Race

It's not really a race but we'd like to be done with the third floor bathroom so that it can be used by guests who are coming, sooner or later. And we'd like to be done so that we can resume being tourists instead of home renovators. In the first picture you can see what we started with this summer; some plumbing done last year just before we left. You can go back to June and the post "Work in Progress" to see the beginning stages. Nancy has finished the walls with a fresh coat of paint on top of the drywall finishing job she'd done last week. I laid the wood floor a few days ago and Nancy is putting a coat of urethane on it as I write. We have the sink, the sink cabinet and need to acquire a toilet (WC) before our plumber comes again. The tub is set and awaits a surround, a tile job on the walls, and an enclosure. There is a lot more to do; we need to finish the outside walls, hang a mirror and a cabinet and, of course, set the tile. Back in Moab, I'd said it would take a month and we are just a few days short of that. Now, I think.......two more weeks.

How We Got to Spain Without Leaving France

Okay, so if you want to split hairs, maybe we did leave France. We went to the enclave of Spain which is inside of France. It's called Llivia and here are a couple of maps. It is not very large, perhaps a few square miles in size, but it is very strange. We sat down at a table at a restaurant and heard "Hola! Como esta?", not "Bonjour, Monsieur et Madame." The menus were in Spanish, French, English and German. All the signs were in Spanish and we no longer saw French banks, but Spanish ones. We were in Spain, but we really hadn't left France. If I hadn't known about it being an enclave of Spain, we would have been even more mystified because there were really no indications that you were technically in Spain. But suddenly, everything changed. It reminded me of riding our bikes through Belgium and passing from French speaking Flanders into the territory of the Walloons, who speak Dutch. The signage, the architecture, the signs of affluence, the general tidiness of people's property, it all changed and we, in our ignorance, wondered why.

Llivia has a strange history which as best I can relate in 25 words or less, is that some Duke or Poobah or Spanish potentate decided he didn't want to join France when they drew up the boundaries, and France didn't feel like fighting another war over the matter.

Nancy will do a post soon on our journey. The purpose of our wandering yesterday was to find the terminus of the little yellow train that runs high in the Pyrenees. And we were successful; we found the train station, got timetables and intend to ride it soon.

Riddle....

How can you go to Spain without ever leaving France?

A Tour of LaTour de Carol

We never did see the focus of our outing yesterday, Le Petit Train Jaune, but wandering around La Tour de Carol was captivating. A few km from the eastern terminus, and barely spitting distance from the Spanish border, we felt more than transported in place and time. And yes, it is in France. The architecture, names, colors and ambiance was all Spanish.



The train station was open, but the ticket booths were closed (it was within an hour of noon), so I had to settle with a few brochures posting schedules and promise to head back to the Internet site.


The Little Yellow Train is the highest train in France and winds 63 km through some of the most scenic valleys of the Pyrenees, between La Tour de Carol and Villefranche de Conflent in the Languedoc-Roussillon (www.trainstouristiques-ter.com/train_jaune.htm). It was constructed between 1903 and 1927, providing access for remote regions of the Catalan plateau. Some of its 650 civil engineering feats include 19 tunnels, and a couple of bridges that are reputed to be architectural masterpieces---and definitely not for the faint-hearted. The Gisclard bridge is suspended about 80m (240 ft) above the River Tet.


It was hard to tear ourselves away from La Tour de Carol and head off into the Spanish exclave Doug discussed (Llavia) for lunch, but Fergus needed yet another country notched on his collar. Within about 10 minutes of departing Llavia, and moreorless following Le Petit Train Jaune, the weather abruptly and violently turned. From bright sun and then magnificent bulbous clouds, we suddenly found ourselves completely enveloped in pea-soup fog. We were headed up the narrow road to Mont-Louis, intending to turn off toward Quillan, but I (the navigator) completely missed the sign due to invisibility. So we had to turn around and re-negotiate the hill. However long the fog lasted, it seemed ten times longer. At times there were no lines on the road, and huge concrete barriers enclosing both sides---giving the feeling that we were more like bumper cars.


Le Petit Train Jaune should best be done on a crystal clear day. We hope to take the ride this summer with guests. (Guests: people who spend time at another person's home).

France AntiTelecom Revisited

I had another chat with my friends at France AntiTelecom this morning. I prepared myself not to expect any cordiality, and reviewed my case as I waited in the phone queue. A mere 15 minutes later, I moved into lead position. My 'problem' today as I defined it, was that our illimite linge (unlimited phone line through the internet livebox) was apparently not activated. Of course, we have now discovered this after making numerous calls to the US during peak times. Whereas, in my ideal world, I imagined being refunded for these more than likely very trop cher calls, that idea evaporated quickly.



I reiterated that I wanted the same services as last year. My customer service representative told me I could not have that. Pourquoi, I politely question? Because you can't. But, I must now make a decision immediately. From his viewpoint, I needed to switch from this plan to that plan, from a secondary resident to a permanent resident, then do this and that; and I must make a decision NOW. I'm thinking, but too afraid to ask....Or What?



Last year, we actually had two phone numbers. A landline, and a mysterious VOIP (voice over internet protocol) number that allowed us to make long-distance calls for cheap. When we used the latter number, we had to physically switch a phone connection, and then remember to switch it back. It was called the ala carte Menu, and I plodded ahead to confirm that this plan was indeed no longer available. I guess he already confirmed this and wasn't going to go over it again. I needed to make a decision now.



Although I really just wanted to tell France AntiTelecom to shove it, I knew that my name would be blacklisted for life. I told myself to grovel, praise him for his kindness, and beg him to go over (once again) the details of the new arrangement. Ah, it works. Could he do anything about the charges we racked up while we assumed the VOIP line was working? I knew I just went too far. Non, it is not possible. I have been taking up too much time. Desole. I checked my watch---it wasn't anywhere close to lunch. But I needed a drink.

Veni, WEDI, Vici

Intellectually, I know that I should accept the collective advice of the local experts. They've 'been there, done that', and more than a few times. I took the opportunity to ask Billy and Julian during the outing with the Leran Walking Club: "How do you install tile around a bathtub if you can't get concrete backerboard (Hardiboard) here in France"? It seemed like a perfectly OK subject to be discussing while meandering down farm lanes.

I had already posed the same question to Alan from Quillan, who is working on Nigel's place in Leran. So far, everyone was in agreement. It wasn't an ideal situation, but they all used "greenboard", or water-resistant drywall. And, thus far, knock on tile, they had never had a problem with tiles falling off. But, they said I should talk to the real expert---John the Aussie. Over lunch at Le Rendezvous after the walk, I captured John's attention and asked my question. Sally overheard me, apparently couldn't believe I was still dwelling on this trivial matter, and suggested that I 'get a life.' At the risk of sounding obsessed, I pressed on. John reduced things to their most simplistic form: "It's not rocket science".

So, what was my problem? Am I a tiling prima donna, a skeptic or someone harboring a bizarre neurosis of 'fear of falling tiles'? I searched for answers in my tiling books and, of course, the Internet. Some of the tiling guru websites weren't reassuring, confirming my gut-level fear that "all greenboard should be torn down "! When I dreamed that night about tiles falling off the walls like giant raindrops, I knew I needed a different direction. I scoured the catalogs from Tout Faire, Chausson, Mr. Bricolage, La Peyere and BricoMarche, looking for something......

Then we happened to be in a carrelage magasin (tile store) and they had a display of Wedi board---a waterproof tile underlayment. Parfait! Different thicknesses, depending upon what it's going over, a foam-core sandwich board encased with thin layers of fiber cement. It's much lighter than the US cement board, which makes transporting it up three floors much easier. The board itself was somewhat expensive, but the mastic, waterproof seam tape and screw kits were killers. Screws are screws, aren't they?

Now I'm having another nightmare. If the tiles fall off now, what can I possibly blame it on?