Floating...

 

So no news from the placement officer yet.  The email we received on the 5th of July said that it will be 4-6 weeks before our phone interview, so in the meantime we are enjoying our time in Europe and taking advantage of being here to visit some of the tourist sites nearby.  Even though the photo above was taken while we were at the beach on the Atlantic ocean, we are actually in Normandy at the moment.  So a lot less ocean and a lot more happy cows!  Normandy is one of the prime areas in France that produces wonderful butter and cheese, so we are spoiled for choice in terms of delicious dairy products.  I will say it will be hard to give up the choice and variety of foods we have here when we go to the Peace Corps.  I am already trying to figure out how much space I can take in my suitcases for spices and such!

We are going to visit a castle nearby today.  It is called the Chateau d'Anet and was built for Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of Henry II of France from 1547 to 1552.  Here is a link to wikipedia where you can read all about it and a photo of the caste.  Amazing to me that it could be built in 5 years back in the 16th century!

Wikipedia, Chateau d'Anet

The Cordouan Lighthouse is 400 Years Old this year!

Where we have been staying much of the time here in France is in a village called St. Palais sur Mer, on the Atlantic coast not too far from La Rochelle.  Looking out from the house you can see a very cool and very old lighthouse called Le Phare de Cordouan. 

Here is a link to the Wikipedia entry describing it: Corduan Lighthouse

It is the oldest lighthouse in France and the tenth tallest "traditional lighthouse" in the world.   And this year it is 400 years old!

We were invited to go out to the lighthouse for the celebration that was held only for boaters.  It was really spectacular.  All the boats gathered around the lighthouse at low tide when the sandbar is exposed around the lighthouse then we ferried back and forth to the sandbar on little zodiac motor boats.  Once we were there we spent the afternoon watching entertainment that had been arranged for the event-jugglers, acrobats and even a team of parachutists who landed on to the sand bar.  Very impressive!  The fête included free food & wine from the region for all of us who made the trip out to celebrate.  The grande finale of the event was an aerial video made of the event where we were all herded onto the sand bar to form the number "400" when seen from the air.  I never got to see the result of the shoot until now, when I searched for it and found the video on a French news site.  For those of your who speak French or are in the process of learning it for the Peace Corps, I have attached the link to the video here.  Our "video art" where we make the 400 is right at the end, so if you don't speak French feel free to jump ahead:

Le phare de Cordouan fête ses 400 ans

Happy 4th from France!

As family and friends know, we are in France while we complete our application process.  Since it is a big holiday back in the US, I just wanted to wish everyone there a great 4th of July!  I am including a photo of the beach where we are at the moment enjoying ourselves with family and friends.  We won't have our fireworks for 10 days until Bastille Day, and with government offices closed today in the US, it promises to be a calm day here.

Next Steps Next

Just a few days after we received our medical clearance, we were contacted by a placement assistant and asked to submit our updated resumes.  As I said, after months of waiting, all the sudden everything seems like it is on fast forward now!  Although it seems somewhat unreal, it is also exciting to contemplate next steps.  It sound like what happens next from reading other blogs is that we will be contacted by the Placement Officer to set up a time to talk.  At that point, we should have a much better idea of where we are in the process and what to expect next.

Better Late than Never!

Since we have just received our medical clearance, I thought it was about time that I started to create a blog.  The Peace Corps Journals site has been so helpful as we go through the application process, I feel that I should also contribute to help other applicants learn more about the process-at least from our perspective.  I also would love to hear from other people in the PC "orbit" as we move through our passage-other applicants and especially other folks applying and serving as couples and/or those applying and serving who are over 50.  I know there are many of you and we would love to connect.

We are nominated for French speaking Africa leaving in October 2011.  My husband is nominated in business and I am nominated in the health area. That's all we know for now, but as many of you know, lots of things can change between nomination and invitation, so we are staying open to all possibilities.

After the long "hibernation" of waiting through the medical clearance phase of the journey, things are starting to speed up and feel very real all of a sudden!  We still have lots of unknown-the biggest two being whether we will really leave in October and whether our nomination will remain the same.