First Days...

Kevin's face shows you how well our French is coming along... here we practiced with our patient waitress. It's hard to not feel shy as we fumble simple words and sentences, but everyone is very friendly and helpful. We find ourselves blurting out Spanish words as our brain reverts to our first foreign language lessons from high school. It's been surprising to see how much Spanish we actually know!

We had dinner on this charming street last night. All the restaurants fill the ally with tables each night and a strand of lights zig zags across the building tops. In the States, an evening like this would seem like a special occassion, but in Agen, it's just every day life.

This is where Kevin will shine. This old stadium holds about 15,000 loyal fans and there is a lot of excitement surrounding the team since they have returned to the Top 14 divison this year. Agen is known for two things: prunes and rugby. The town has about 40,000 residents with another 17,000 in the surrounding villages. It has everything we could possibly need, but is still very quaint. The old part of town has cobblestone roads and beautiful old architecture. It is perfect for us.

Kevin's coaches, admins and physios speak little to no English. We've been in shock since we arrived, hence the too few pictures we have to show. They gave us our car - a Ford Focus hatchback - without having us sign a lease contract. They pretty much set you loose and say 'good luck'. Good thing Kevin can drive manual.. He'll be giving me my first lessons this weekend ... I'll be looking into automatic scooters..

This weekend we will travel to some nearby villages and towns. The team doesn't train on Sunday so we might head to Bordeaux for the day - it's only 1.5 hours West. Next week they will take us to view several homes. Some of the players live in flats in downtown, but many live in houses in Agen and the nearby villages. We hope to find a place quickly so we can begin the furnishing process and set up my office. We've got some work ahead of us.

Au revoir!