Laundry, french style

   Part of moving to another country is discovering the little mundane things that you take for granted back home aren't ever going to be the same again. After learning how to cook in a tiny kitchen, (I'll tell you all about that another time...), laundry has to be the biggest hurdle to overcome. I'm told we're lucky. I'm told that at least we don't have to go to a laundromat. I'm told that at least we have a nice new washing machine. So I counted my blessings while I tried to figure this thing out...

  When I first looked at it, it wasn't the french that got me confused so much. I could look those up. It was all the buttons! What do all those mean? I tried looking in the guide book, no help. Paul has never done laundry before and was even less help. So I started playing with the dial and discovered all the different settings. Different ones for cotton, synthetics, delicates, sport, jeans and so on. I still don't know what half of them are. There were also a few settings on "time saving" mode. As far as I could tell, it only saved 15 minutes to half an hour. So I picked cotton for our first load. Then our next button says temperature. So that one at least was obvious. Then, 'essorage'. This, we think, is for the power put into it. This will change automatically with what setting you put on the dial. But you can put it manually into a quieter 'night mode'. Then there is pre-wash, and rinse. Then I'm not sure...I just push the play and let it run. Did I  mention a load takes about 2 hours? Yeah, it's a time commitment.

   Next we put the clothes and soap in. This is the cool hatch inside when you open the lid. It's about half the size of an american washer. So as well as taking twice as long, you can only wash half as much. 

    Here is our dryer. Fancy, I know. We usually set it up in front of the radiator by the door. Really it's the only spot on our place with enough room to open it up, but it's a plus that things will dry a little quicker. I've got a system going where I rotate things so it all gets access to the heat. And the rack folds up to stand behind the door after!
   So all in all, we keep our washing to a minimum so our space isn't constantly taken up with drying clothes. Hopefully it'll go faster in the summer and we'll find a way to dry things outside. I hope this was a semi-exciting look into the little known world of foreign laundry. Sometimes even the little things are done differently...