[The following is a transcript of a letter begun on 25 November 1968, by the older daughter of MARVIN and MAUDE ISOBEL (TASCHEREAU) SANGER, mentioned in Chart T-2, posted in this blog on March 15, 2011. (?) indicates words I was not able to decipher. She was in Aix-en-Province for a year as a student.]
Monday 25 November 1968
Dear Aunt Margaret, Uncle Henry, and Sam,
Merry Christmas to you! I was so pleased to get your card which is the first Christmas card for me and your letter. Thanks so very much . . . . The letters, cards, and pictures bring the distances so much closer together. I really enjoy it here in Aix-en-Provence, which is really such a beautiful little town. On our way here we stayed for about 8 - 10 hours free in Paris and since then on my own free time between our intensive French courses I visited Barcelona and Madrid in Spain. Mark (?) wrote me a couple of weeks ago that he had had my address for ages and that he was living somewhere north of Oxford in England but that he had spent a few days in Spain. I hated him, as coincidence he was in Madrid on the afternoon of Oct. 29 and so was I. I left Madrid that night to return to France, but if I had only known, I could have seen him. But I really shouldn't talk, I must be the world's worst letter writer. Spain is very beautiful and so is France. Spain is very much like California. France is much (?) on climate. On Nov 18 it snowed in town yet and the snow hung around for three days in the shadow. It has been very frosty in the mornings and at night with the (?) freezing up and then melting. You are right about the family being spread all over, Sam. Mark (?) is as I have said in England, his brothers Barry and Peter are respectively in Korea and Vietnam. Barry is going to marry a Korean girl. I find Political Science fascinating myself especially since it is my third specialty. France is a darn good place to look at politics too. I'm following one course at the institute on French politics today which is regretfully turning out to be something that I have studied before. Regrettably my situation is not organized here at all . . . . The French have their own delightful but curious attitude towards a lot of things, and to say the least it makes life interesting. It is funny I kept a rather reserved judgement of France for a while but a lot of people in the group (53 of us) immediately started hating everything American and loving everything French. Now a good lot of them hate everything French and love everything and only everything American. It's sad considering that they will be in Europe until next August. I have reached a stage where I'm still proud to be an American and even though I dislike some things American and like some things French. It is still a reasonable outlook, for one thing I'm happy. My biggest hate is American tourists, but tourists American or not are rather obnoxious but regrettably American tourists take the cake. I have to go back into town to class now. The institute is across the street from the cathedral of which it was once associated. The university was founded in 1409. Think of it! Now the older part is reserved for the special part of the university for foreign students studying French. There are a lot of foreigners in Aix from all over the world and a lot of Americans. There is a little anti-American feeling and some Americans engender more of it. But to me it was very upsetting to see things like "American Assassins" written on a park's protected bench or to see "American Imperialism" linked to the terrible riots in Mexico. It was frustrating to explain in French (at first) because my French wasn't that good, about the U.S. and Vietnam, or the race problem in the U.S. I really have to go!
November 29, 1968
Happy Thanksgiving! Last night being Thanksgiving, the program had arranged for a dinner for us at La Rotonde, one of the better restaurants in town. We had quite a feast with a relish tray for an appetizer, cream of chicken soup, turkey, purée moussiline (mashed potatoes), sweet potatoes, country style peas, cranberry sauce, pumpkin and apple pie a la mode plus a French (?) coffee at the end. Turkey is very rare in France but obtainable but cranberries are non-existent, they substituted with strawberry jam Apple pie and the pastry on the pies was beautiful in the French pastry style but the pumpkin pie was pastry with a ridiculously thin layer of pumpkin. I tried to explain the idea of pumpkin pie to one of my French Friends and she was horrified. French pastry is a delight beyond words and Spanish pastry is the same. their bread is out of this world. I wrote home in I think my very first letter that that is what I will miss most when I get home. It is one of the most delightful golden crisp crusted confections that this world has ever seen but regrettably it does not keep, the very next day it is fit to pound nails with into whatever you want. Croissants and coffee are justly celebrated except I can't see how anyone can just eat one. Everyday you can see children, housewives, businessmen, everyone from nuns to motorcyclists lug this bread around, even as far fetched as it seems I even saw a couple of lovers walking along hand in hand and he was carrying a loaf of bread in his other hand. I eat at the student restaurant which is a fascinating place. Unhappily the bread there is no always fresh. I can't really complain though because the meals used to cost c. 30 now they cost all of c. 33. They serve only lunch and dinner at the restaurant. At the adjoining cafe they sell things for breakfast. Because of the price of the meals, you can't really afford to eat any where else. Most things are expensive in France and certain foods are among them. Since the restaurant is open only during certain hours and can serve only so many meals and seeing as how the French do not know how to make a line and wait in it, it is a real pain sometimes to get in to the restaurant. i don't find it too upsetting to have to fight through a shoving pushing mob to eat but it really bothers the life out of some of the others. Inside the seating is 8 to a table. There is a plate, knife and fork with a glass at noon, a spoon is added at dinner and the plate is a soup plate because since it has gotten cooler they serve us a variety of potato soup each night. At noon if there was anything like ice cream or yogurt to eat the accepted style was to use the back end of your fork. For table covers they use large squares of newsprint and since there are no napkins we can tear the corners off for a crackly substitute. The meals are pretty good though and no matter how hungry you are there is always something you can fill up on. There is always as much salad, bread, and a starch dish and soup as you want. There is always an appetizer of some sort. With one hideous exception there is always a protein main dish and some sort of dessert with fruit or fruit and cheese or cookies or cookies and ice cream. Wine is extra and besides water there is nothing else to drink in the restaurant. But there is one problem because of the number of people that have to be fed the tables have to be cleared off and reset for other people coming in afterwards, so you can't take forever at all when you eat, especially since they keep a crew of (?) to clear the tables and the all but snatch the forks out of your hands if you take too long. They do snatch the plates right out from under you. . . . French milk is terrible they boil it among other things. French coffee is great almost like a dessert. I have have been eating like a horse, or about 3 times as much as I eat at home and truthfully that is no exaggeration. I feel great and have put on five put on five pounds despite a rather long drawn out tedious cold.
Monday 2 of December
As you can see I regrettably write letters in installments. One thing that I do find rather troublesome here is that my schedule is such that my day is broken up into little segments and I spend upwards of 2 1/2 hours minimum walking into town for classes out of town to the dorms, to the faculty for classes or midway between the fac. and the dorms to the restaurant. It is slightly under a five minute walk to the (?) from the dorms which is not bad but if I have to go into town it takes twenty minutes and i walk rather fast. A cross between a runaway wind mill and a two legged greyhound. There aren't a great many sidewalks in Aix either and the pedestrian doesn't have the right of way. A good rule of thumb for French traffic and the driving there in, would be as long as you don't hit anything or anyone, it's legal! Stop lights have to be obeyed by the drivers of cars because there is never enough room for them to sneak through. For a pedestrian there is and walking in French traffic has given me nerves of steel and completely cured me of any nervousness in traffic.
[here follows several difficult to decipher lines which I am omitting]
They are very fussy here about money matters like you just wouldn't believe. I opened a bank account here for French franks (which I'm going to close out because of the money situation) and to get money out of a normal French bank account you have to go to the bank, tell the man that you want to withdraw so much money. He then fills out a check which you endorse twice. He takes the check, stamps it, then checks the signature in the file against the signature on the check. The check is then put on another desk and a man picks it up and calls downstairs to see if the account is good. If it is the withdrawal is recorded downstairs in the books and he then goes to a machine and types up a little form like a cash register receipt which he gives to the first man who calls out your name from the check. He then hands the receipt to you and slips the check through the little window to the cashier, who is ensconced in a glass cage. There is a number on the receipt which is your number in line to go to the cashier who takes your receipt, looks at the check, and finally counts out your money. [lines omitted]
What do you think of the financial mess that de Gaulle has created? It has put some of the kids here in a bit of a bind. The new financial rule is that no one can take more than $40 worth of French currency out of the country and no more than $100 in currency of any other country. Thank heavens travelers checks being drawn on another bank outside of France are exempt. I brought a little cash with me and some travelers checks to begin with and dad sent me a check which I put into the bank. From now on I will buy travelers check in American dollars because they are the safest as is any check in American dollars drawn on an American bank. [lines omitted]
I think that it is the distance that makes it so difficult. It costs around $12 for a 3 minute phone call. However the French mail system is excellent. it is really fast but very expensive. It costs 1 franc or c. 20 for ten grams, not at all like our 20 cents for the half ounce. They even weigh post cards here.
If I am going to finish this and get it in the mail I had better call a close about now. . . .
I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving.
Thanks for everything, take care,
Love to you all.
Link to Aix-en-Province at GoogleMaps:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Aix-en-Provence&aq=&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=39.644047,33.925781&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Aix-en-Provence,+Bouches-du-Rh%C3%B4ne,+Provence-Alpes-C%C3%B4te+d'Azur,+France&ll=43.51868,5.454712&spn=0.284312,0.265045&z=11
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