Our house hunting trip to Grenoble, France

Well, it seemed like it took forever to get here and now it’s over. Dana and I finally completed our house hunting trip to France. In the meantime, we received yet another lesson in how to trust God with the timing in our lives (more on that later).
The trip over was quite something. Our first flight of three was cancelled, causing us to have to rent a car and hightail it to Chicago. We made it in plenty of time, but it didn’t do anything for our nerves. The international flight was fine except for the length. Dana, of course, had no trouble sleeping. Finally, after 25 hours of travel we arrived at our hotel in downtown Grenoble. Tired and hungry, we were pleased to find a welcome bag from our host family, the Radelines. It contained a baguette, cured salami, and some nice cheese. It was devoured quickly.
The next day was Sunday, which in France means that almost nothing is open. So, we spent the day walking the city and driving the surrounding area with the Schellenberg’s. We also found one café open. It was excellent, of course it should be. They first opened their doors in 1709. We then finished the day hanging out with the Schellenberg’s and their 5 children. For dinner, we had raclette, a regional dish. It consists of potatoes, cured meats, and melted alpine cheese……I think I’m going to be just fine here.
We spent Monday visiting Cat and getting yet another tour of the area. We also went to Options, the language learning facility. The purpose of the visit was to evaluate our French speaking abilities. That did not take long! We ended the day eating “pizza from a truck” at the Radelines. Apparently it’s a local trend.
Tuesday was house hunting day! We saw 5 houses in 4 different suburbs. It was a long day. Although we decided two days later, we ended up selecting the first house that we looked at. It is located in St. Martin D’uriage, which is about a 25 minute drive from the Cat facility in Grenoble. Not that different from what we have now, except that this drive to work will be completely downhill. What this also means is that the view from our house is a little different than the average view in Central Illinois.

On Wednesday we went to the bank, selected a couple VWs, and visited the school. The visit to the school was awesome. It is very small, 123 kids from age 3 to 5th grade, but we think it will suit our kids well. They are very accepting of “Anglophones”. In fact 30 of their students speak English as a first language. They will even receive an English lesson once a week versus never in all of the other school. It is also only 4 km from our house. Actually, the house we chose is the only one within a reasonable driving distance to this school. In hindsight we were very glad to have chosen the house we did. Likewise we were happy that things were delayed as long as they were. Otherwise our eventual house would not have been on the market yet. It’s amazing how often God works things out like this, even when we think we know better at the time.

I hate to keep talking about the food here, but it’s really good. On Wednesday night we ate Fondue, which, as it turns out, originated here. Then on the last night Dana and I got to go to dinner on our own for once so we went to L’Auguste, which came highly recommended. With the exception of one questionable choice, it was very good. We are looking forward to trying restaurants and cooking for ourselves.
The trip home was long and uneventful and we were happy to see the kids. Now we just have to decide what to do with everything we own over the next few weeks. Some things will go with us, but a lot will get sold or stored. I’ll be sure to update the blog once moving day gets closer.
Au revoir!