Hospitals in France

My worst fear recently came true - needing the hospital in a country where I didn't speak the language well.

A couple of weeks ago, I came home to find that my husband was really sick.  He seemed to have a severe case of food poisoning.  I took care of him the best I could, and we settled down for the night. 

I went into the other room to read for a bit as my husband tried to fall asleep.  A bit later, I hear him get up, then I hear a thud.  My husband had passed out, and he was out cold long enough for me to try to wake him up, fail, and start panicking.

I called a good friend of mine and he told me which emergency number to call (France has 5 or so of them - hospital, police, fire, etc).  I call the emergency number, and in my most perfect French ever, I say,

"Est-ce que possible a parler avec quelqu'un en anglais, s'il vous plait?"

I talked to a few people on the phone, and the ended up sending the paramedics.  They, of course, did not speak English, so we talked to them as good as we could, however, I discovered I had never learned the words for "passed out", "food poisoning", or various other colorful health terms in French.  But they were very patient and soon we went for a ride in a French ambulance!

At the hospital, as they are taking our information, Bram is speaking pretty good French for someone who was just lying unconscious on the bathroom floor.  He was beginning to feel faint though, and he wanted to lie down, but the nurse didn't understand him, so he just started to mime fainting, when he actually began to fall over.

Finally, a hospital bed obtained (albeit, in a hallway), IV set up, and after asking for a blanket for my shivering husband, we try to explain all we can to the nurses.  Finally we get a room, and I spend the night sleeping in a folding chair as Bram gradually gets better over the night.

It was scary and frustrating to not be able to express ourselves completely, especially when I see my husband is suffering, but we did alright in the end - although it took some time, we could understand the nurses and doctors, and they could understand us.  I'm happy to say that Bram is now doing great.  But the real kicker is when we received our hospital bill.  A similar hospital  bill in the States was over $4000.  Here, we had to pay €27.    

Baby You Can Drive My Car

My brother and his girlfriend, both avid car aficionados, are currently visiting me in Paris.  So I took them to the Champs-Élysées, where they have several car showrooms, set up more like clubs, with flashy lights and booming techno music. 

The first one was Renault, with this pretty car to greet you.

 

Also for a pretty price.  Ack!

They also have some strange concept cars, straight off the spaceship.

At Mercedes, Danelle poses with a car.

Toyota had a lot of concept cars, very sleek and strange looking.

This was pretty cool - a personalized vehicle with windshield and coffee cup holder.

And a car that's been converted into a foozeball table.

Renault had several of their racing cars on display.

Citroen had a multi-level display that went up 5 stories, with cars suspended between the stories.

Looking back down from the top of the display.

Needless to say, Joey was pretty excited about his car viewing day.

Partying like the French

We recently had a housewarming party.  We had everyone make their own crepe.  Some of us were pro's, and some were first time crepe makers.  We had an assortment of toppings, including my favorite (very non-French) combination of Nutella and peanut butter.

Joys of Playing with Photos

So I recently discovered how fun it is to play with HDR photography.  And I've been to a lot of cool places and have about a year of normal + overexposed + underexposed photos waiting to be processed.  So I started and got some really awesome results.  Enjoy.

Fountains at Versailles, France.

Buildings in Paris, France.

The windmills of Holland in Leiden.

St. Nicholas church in Prague.

The sunset over Prague castle.

Boston skyline.

Year of the Dragon

This last week celebrated the beginning of the Chinese year of the Dragon.  We went up into Paris to see the Dragon-filled parade.

Happy New Year!

The streets were crammed with people.  The parade actually had a hard time getting through the mass of people, and took a while to get started because people couldn't clear the streets in a timely manner.

We were crammed in, but near the front, so we were in the midst of the action.

Enter the Dragon!

I catch an image on Cinthia's camera.

 

Bram has been Dragon-ized.

Close encounter with a dragon.

 

A dragon sees some kids...

And attacks!

Raaaah!

If you look carefully, you notice that dragons also wear tennis shoes.

 

Dragon sightings in the area.

Snowed In

Normally, New Mexico is a desert.  Really.  It only snows a couple of times a year, and then, not that much.  But going home this Christmas proved to be a different experience. 

Life in the desert

 Cold and wet?

Snow at sunset.

The mountains at sunset.

I also was able to see how my brother's beard has progressed.  

That's epic

Bram and I decided to travel down to where we did our undergraduate studies.  It was so wonderful to be traveling again through the desert, down a route I took many times years ago.

Crossing the Rio Grande.

Birds in flight.

Glorious desolation.

Snow on the mountains.

Even God likes this land.  

Finally we arrived - the small town of Socorro, where I spent four years of my life.

Still lined with fast food restaurants

 Back on campus.  Several buildings have been renovated since I've been back.

My old building.

Then it began to snow.  Fast.  I thought now might be a good time to leave Socorro.  But we lingered.  Soon this...

Turned into this...

That's a foot of snow in an hour.  No, this is not normal for New Mexico.  Not at all.

Needless to say, our travel plans back home were canceled as every highway in the state closed.  Luckily, some old friends were able to take us in, so we stayed the night at their house.

The front of the house, buried in lots of snow.

Nico didn't want to leave the warmth of the house, so he watches us in the snow from the window.

A day later, we check frequently if the highways are open again.  Then we receive a call from my mom - they are open!  We make our escape.  

The highway is covered with snow too, but it's enough to make it through.  As we passed another town, they closed the highway after us.  It turns out the highway was only open for about an hour, and we made it through!

 

The snowy scenery was nice to see, but we were glad we escaped.

Of course, no visit to New Mexico is complete without a green chili smothered burrito.

Snow on the Sandias.

Christmas Eve dinner at my parent's house.

Christmas Day dinner at the in-laws, and seeing our nieces and nephew.

Playing with Christmas toys.

Bram surrounded by his fans.

He later got a makeover.  Lucky guy!