Tourism

Today I saw American tourists in Conflans. I know I'm being a snob, but I find absolutely nothing interesting about Conflans Sainte Honorine worth touring. It's a nice enough town, but it's too small to have museums or worthwhile boutiques (half of the town center is empty storefronts), and too big to be charming.

The Americans were apparently on a river cruise up the Seine and making stops along the way. This particular group of eight or so had hiked up from the river to experience a slice of French life - the market.

They stood clustered in a group at an intersection of the covered market hall listening to a guide explain to them how French people come here every week to buy fresh food. They stood in awe and watched as the cheery poissioniere hollered over the din, advertising a sale on sole as he furiously scraped scales off a little red fish.

I felt like an undercover agent, face to face with my own people. I kept my eyes lowered, lest they recognize me as one of their own and reveal my secret identity.

As the group pulled away I spotted a middle aged man snapping photos of the very same kind of fish I'd five minutes earlier asked the very same poissioniere to behead and filet for me.

"Where are visiting from?" I asked politely. Just to reassure myself for story retelling purposes that they were indeed Americans and not Canadians.

"Santa Monica, California" he answered quickly. He literally shrunk back from me a step, as if they'd been strictly instructed to not communicate with the natives.

Before I got a chance to say something nice about California, he scurried out the door behind his group. Maybe he'd relay to them the anecdote about the aggressive French woman with the incredible American accent. Maybe he should have taken a photo of me.

As I walked off to find a vegetable stand I thought about living in an American's idea of exotic. I still maintain romantic notions of fresh markets, but more often than not I am annoyed by my Saturday morning ritual of trotting across the street to the market. Only because I'd much rather be sleeping in, instead of rolling out of bed, thinking a few days' worth of meals in advance, making a list, and walking over there before the best fish is picked over and the vegetable stands run out of David's favorite peaches.

I guess this one of those moments of clarity where I realize that I'm lucky to have access to food so fresh that I have to shake off clumps of soil and pick off odd feathers or scales before I prepare it. Remind me to remember this life when I'm glaring at florescent-lit styrofoam packages of prepared meat in my local 24-hour grocery store in the States someday.

Three Conversations about Fish

For the first time in a year and a half we're back in Michigan for a short holiday. I'm going through the usual bout of reverse culture shock, but a conversation I had yesterday pretty neatly sums up the whole thing.

First, I'll relay two conversations I had recently in France with colleagues. Before I begin, some vocabulary: the French word for athletic shoes is baskets. As in basket the sport, known to us as "basketball". If you think it's funny to use a single sport to globally identify all athletic shoes, I remind you that we call ours "tennis shoes", and how many of them are used for tennis?

A Conversation I'd Never Have in Michigan #1
This in English, with a very patient, sober colleague who says he prefers to speak English with me to improve his language skills.

Me: Hey, what happened to the hood of your car?
Luc (pronounced like Skywalker, if you're wondering): Oh, I was at my parents' apartment near the shore and a man put a basket on it.
Me: A man scratched your car with a shoe?
Luc: No. A basket. You know...the thing you put laundry in?
Me: Oh, a basket. My mistake. How could a basket make so much damage?
Luc: Well, he thought I parked too close to his car, so he put his basket on my hood and scratched it on purpose.
Me: What was in basket? Not laundry, I guess?
Luc: Oh no. Shellfish. Oysters, mussels. You know.
Me: Oysters and mussels. I see. Your car was damaged by shellfish. Hm.


A Conversation I'd Never Have in Michigan #2

Eric: I went to Leon last night.
Francois: I'm not a fan of Leon. Their mussels aren't very good.
Eric: You aren't going in the right season.
Francois: And when is the right season?
Eric: The summer.
Me: I thought it was the fall.
Francois: No, you're thinking of scallops in the fall.
Eric: Oysters in the winter.


A Conversation I'd Never Have in France:

Kroger Fish Guy: Can I help you?
David: She's looking for sea bass.
KFG: Um...I have lake bass.
Me: That will do. I'll take four of these. Will you filet them for me?
KFG: They're already fileted.
Me: I mean, will you take the skin off?
KFG: Um...I'll get someone who can.

The Fish Guy comes back with Kroger Fish Guy #2, who is not a wizened, grisly fisherman-looking type but another young man wearing a Kroger cap slightly askew.

KFG2: Those fish are already prepared. Scales and bones removed, everything.
Me: Yes, but I'd like the skin off, please.
KFG2: Oh..I don't know about that. They're pretty thin. I've never skinned a filet so thin. I don't know if it's possible.
Me: It's possible.
KFG2: Well...
Me: It's possible.

He walks off and returns with a knife far too long and inflexible for the job, but I patiently watch him do his best and hold up a skinless filet for my inspection.

Me: Perfect.
KFG2: Huh. It's possible.

This conversation is remarkable not only because the guys working the fish counter didn't know how to remove the skin from a filet - something my local poissoniere would do with a flick of the wrist - but because of their "let's give it a shot" attitude. This is classic American behavior. This is what I miss.

I know the Kroger story isn't related to the first two, but the French conversations - which were coincidentally also about fish - were a few of those times when I was hit upside the head with the reminder that I am definitely not in Michigan anymore.

Salsa!

Here are few photos from my salsa class:




I intended to have many more, but after finally figuring out the best settings on the camera for the light and subject conditions (I never realized before just how fast we'd been moving), the class was practically over and the instructor was annoyed with me for screwing around with my camera and not dancing.

Les Belles Jambes

I fell last week, which isn't particularly interesting in itself, but the patching-up process was kind of funny.

Plus, check out all the great vocabulary I learned from the experience:

un pansement = bandage
un kit de secours = first aid kit
une cicatrice = scar
un genou = knee
lache = loose

I fell in the parking lot of the Auchan, the large grocery store not far from my work. I was in a hurry and was trotting to my car, and stupid me, I was running in heels. I gashed up both knees and the heel of one hand. My pride took the biggest hit, however, because when was the last time you saw a full grown adult take a spill of such a nature?

The woman who scraped me off of the pavement happened to be a colleague from work, and lucky for me she had a first aid kit in her car. The damage to my right knee was so bad, however, that she could only tape a bit of gauze to it and send me straight back to the office infirmary.

Well the infirmary happened to be closed that day, so I made it through the rest of the day and drove my battered self home with David. He cleaned up my wounds and put a loose bandage over the wound to let it breathe. Then he sat back and proceeded to describe the different phases a scraped knee will go through. The scabbing, the pussing, etc.

"I'm a boy" he explained. "We have these things all the time".

The next day I wore a skirt to keep air circulating to the cut. The loose bandage looked a bit silly hanging off my knee, and I received a few inquiring looks. I mastered the verb conjugation for "I fell".

Well it wasn't long before the first phase of the healing began and I could feel an oozing down my leg. Disgusting, I know. The bandage wasn't cutting it anymore, so I hobbled to the infirmary and made noises alluding to a bandage change.

The nurse tut tutted at David's handiwork and proceeded to open packages of anesthetic and bandages. She cleaned the wound again, then applied a sort of thick sticker to the wound. She explained that it served as a second skin, and I must use it to avoid having a cicatrice. Then she put a large transparent sticker over it to make it waterproof. Maybe because I've never seen a medical doctor for a scraped knee before, but I was duly impressed.

"Don't use bandages" she warned as she escorted me to the door. "You must use these. For les belles jambes". For beautiful legs.

My cool new patch only lasted until the end of the day, when it too started leaking. I stopped at a pharmacy on my way home and pointed to my knee. "I need some of these."

The pharmacist put together a set of boxes and charged me a very un-French-like outrageous number of euros for them.

"You must use these" she urged. "You don't want a scar. For les belles jambes."

This country sure does have its priorities straight.

Faire du Tennis

I bought a new tennis racquet two weeks ago, which has - naturally - caused the weather to go south for the past two weekends.

When we lived in Levallois there were some beautiful tennis courts not far from us, but entry was limited to club members, and club membership never comes cheap. Here in Conflans we found some decent courts with similar - albeit lesser fees. We were considering it for a while when David recalled that he had tennis courts at work.

For whatever complaints David might have about his job, it certainly comes with a number of perks. Every company has a sponsored program to enhance the non-workday life of employees (score another point for socialism). For example, my company has discounted movie tickets and Disney passes, and last Christmas they gave everyone a digital camera or DVD player. Of course, I have only been a "real" employee since January and I haven't received any treats yet.

David, however, has been a proper French employee from the beginning, and has been able to take advantage of several benefits. For example:

• CD and DVD rental
• Power tool rental (this was the key to building our kitchen)
• Discounted plane and train tickets (this is how we are getting to Amsterdam and England in the coming months)
• Discounted hotels
• Discount vouchers for books

And tennis courts. David found the guy who keeps the key, and learned that the courts were rarely used during the week, and practically empty on the weekends. So every weekend that doesn't rain we drive out to Cergy Saint-Christophe and let ourselves onto one of the four pristine courts, complete with taught nets, scoring chairs, and nary a crack. One side of the courts is wooded, and on the other sides are rolling hills that lead up to the offices.

Pity for these beautiful courts that I am still so bad at tennis.

Update

Just to give you an update on what's going on with us in "real life", here's the news:

I signed a local contract two weeks ago. This brings my expatriation to the end of its short life at the close of December. The conditions of said expatriation were: two years, plus one more year if both parties agree, plus one another under the same agreement conditions. Dave and I were all set for a third year when the mandate came down from upper management to cut all expatriation contracts that weren't in "developing" countries (i.e. India and China). I wanted to stay, my boss wanted me to stay, and a local contract was drafted up. After a long and bitter fight - of which I ended up losing - I retreated, sulked, and finally conceded (it took a lot of reassurance and head petting on David's part). I marched up to HR, signed my name on the dotted line, and started a new life as a French local.

So, this means I am losing my housing allowance. Hence, David and I are currently on a house/apartment hunt. We plan to move north, closer to work for both of us. We had a good two years in Paris, but the commute is really getting us down.

We pretty much have two options:
1. An apartment in a mid-sized city near a train line so we still have easy access to Paris and David can take the train to work
2. A small house with more space and possibly a yard in the countryside. Very peaceful, but could get dreadfully boring. And we'd most likely have to buy a second car so Dave could drive to work.

What else. I'm trying to get my residence permit renewed, that's pretty much a constant in my life. I'm realizing that coordinating Christmas gifts, in fact even cards, from overseas is a headache. And I just booked a train ticket to Frankfurt to visit Sabrina and Josh, that might not have been the best idea at this busy time of year but I'm anxious to visit another German Christmas market.

David is good. Excited about going to Florida for Christmas in a few weeks. Oliver is needy, also nothing new there.

Way to Go, French Department of Treasury

Last week, we received a letter from the French department of treasury: Our records indicate that you have not paid your taxes. Please pay them immediately.

I found this to be strange, because we had been on the alert for the tax bill - which we expected in September - for some weeks now. This was the first we had heard about it.

Today, seven days after I received the late notice, I received the French tax bill.

Holidays Season

French vacation season is upon us - or, as the French call it, "holidays". Which means a few annual changes:

1. Commuting traffic is lighter, and parking spots are easy to find. Even before we start our own holidays, we are relieved some amount of anxiety every morning and evening when there are fewer cars on the road.

2. Work has gotten crazy. This weekend starts holidays for a good chunk of people, so everyone is rushing to get stuff done at the last minute. When I worked in Detroit I always wondered why the number of e-mails from France went up in mid-July. Now I know: tying up loose ends.

3. You can forget about getting any services done for the rest of the summer. It's one of the great paradoxes of France: all the shops run great clothing sales, but all of the tailors go on holiday. Last weekend I tried to get a new pair of pants shortened and new heels on a pair of shoes. I went to two tailors, who both turned me away, saying "We are closed as of tonight". I had to throw a regular fit of whining to get the shoe man to agree to repair my heels. He said "If you don't come back for these shoes before 6 p.m. (holding up 6 fingers to stress his point), don't expect to see them until September."

So how does this country operate between late July and early September? I'd tell you, but I'll be off on holidays.

The European Cup

Now that Roland Garros is over, everyone has been talking about the European Cup football tournament.

Not familiar with Roland Garros? It's the stadium where the French Open is played, and the proper name of the tournament. Well, to be precise, the truly proper name is Les Internationaux de France de Roland Garros.

It might be the real name, but to me it's just another example of the French using alternate names for places and events.

Have you ever flown into Roissy? That's the cool French name for the Charles de Gaulle airport. Roissy (WAH-see) is the name of the small village that the airport is technically located in. If you talk about Charles de Gaulle, you could be referring to any number of things named after the famous general, so "Roissy" is what they use for the airport.

"Beaubourg" is the alternate name for the modern art museum, known to most non-Parisians as the Pompidou Centre. I guess Beaubourg is the name of the medieval neighborhood that was torn down to make way for the museum. And anyone cool uses the old name.

Anyway, back to the European Cup. For the past few weeks, there have been football (soccer) games on tv every night. David is beside himself with happiness. We watch games almost every night, which - as you can imagine - takes up most of our evenings. I'm behind in housework, blogging, and calligraphy practice.

Sadly, England didn't qualify for the tournament this year (it seems that English football teams are like American baseball teams: rarely made up of nationals), so David chose to support Holland. You'd think we'd support France, but their team is pretty lame.

Well Holland was knocked out last night by Russia, so now Dave prefers Germany and I like Spain. Which also tells you a lot about us.

Spain just beat Italy tonight in a shootout, so it seems I won't be getting many chores done again this week.

Why You Don't Want to Shop in France

I saw this pretty dress a few weeks ago at a BCBG store in the 17th arrondissement in Paris. The price was 370 euros.
My friend Katie went out and found the same dress in the BCBG in Troy, Michigan. Price: $340. The BCBG website also confirms this price.

And with today's exchange rate , the math works out like this:

Paris dress: 370 euros x 1.53 = 568 USD

Michigan dress: a real steal if you're French.

This is why I reserve most of my shopping for the semi-annual sales and Spain.

How to Get What You Want in France: Part Deux

Our friend Wally turned 30 last week, which I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around because surely he must be a few years younger than us. Anyway, he celebrated on Friday night at a bar called L'Orange Mechanique, which, of course, is the French title for "A Clockwork Orange".

David and I came by for a little while and met a few of his rock & roll friends. But Dave has quit drinking in preparation for the race, and I had been feeling a little under the weather for the past few days, so we left early and were home in bed by midnight.

In hindsight, perhaps we shouldn't have gone out at all that night - although I only had one drink and we didn't get home that late - because I woke up on Saturday feeling far worse than under the weather.

The depth of my sickness didn't really hit me until I'd walked halfway across Levallois for my blood test. The hospital is clear on the other side of town, a good kilometer away, and as I stood swaying in the middle of an intersection trying to remember which way to go, I thought, "shoot. I should have asked Dave to drive me."

Well, I ploughed on to the hospital and staggered through the labyrinth of halls up to the lab just 15 minutes before they closed. I recognized the receptionist from my past two visits and she eyed me warily. I smiled weakly and asked "Am I too late?"

"Too late for what?"

"For a blood test." Of course, I don't really know the exact words for "blood test", but this bit of communication was done with the French word for "blood" and a miming of a syringe on my arm. It got the job done.

"Ah, no" she told me, "we don't do blood tests on Saturdays."

"But the sign on the door says you're open on Saturdays."

"Just for people to pick up results."

How French. At this point I knew I was a goner, but I had hoofed all the way across town, and I was annoyed. I also knew that if the receptionist was a man, I might be able to cute my way into something, but she was in fact a lovely young woman, and we all know you can't get any favors out of those.

But still, I was there. And I was exhausted and deflated. I pressed on:

"So. You only take blood during the week."

"Normally, yes."

"Great." I coughed for emphasis and sighed. "Ok, have a good day then".

I turned to trudge out the door. Halfway there, she called after me:

"Do you have your request?" The printed piece of paper from the doctor with the list of tests required.

I turned around slowly and shuffled back to the desk. I pulled out the paper and she began tapping on her keyboard.

"We can do this today, but next time don't come on a Saturday."

Hot dog. How did I get away with that? My bad French? My cute accent and American pluck? My pathetic state of health? Probably the combination of the three. Or maybe she wanted to see if she could make me faint by taking a little blood out of me. I dunno.

The nurse came out of a back office and I escorted myself to the little room and pulled off my jacket. She took my blood and I scooted out of the lab, waving weakly and telling the receptionist that she was very very nice.

She raised an eyebrow and locked the door behind me. Done.

How to Get What You Want in France

I went to the outdoor Saturday market last weekend, which is something I haven't done in a long time. The Saturday market is further away, and smaller, and I don't know it as well, but I was in the mood to get the weekend started with a chore out of the way.

When I walked up to the poultry stand I remembered another reason why I don't visit the Saturday market as much: the chicken guys always fuss over me.

It's not a bad fuss, really, and I should take it as a compliment, but it always flusters me a little because I'm not entirely sure what they're saying.

Anyway, Saturday morning the chicken guys were both in a good mood, and when I got to the front of the line one cheerfully took my order while the other stopped what he was doing to smile and ask how I was. Plus something else I didn't understand. When my order was complete, the guy wrapped up my meat while he asked "What is your origin?"

If I'd been confident in my French, I would have said "You ask me this every time". But I'm not, so I gave the non-sassy answer, "half Vietnamese, half American". Which wasn't an easy task in itself, considering the difficulty of pronouncing the word "Vietnamese" in French. Isn't it embarassing when you can't even pronounce your own nationality? You see, this is why I hate coming to the Saturday market.

Anyway, he smiled and said it was "a nice mix". By the time I translated that in my head, considered why he used "beau" instead of "belle"-which would have been a prettier compliment but finally, grammatically incorrect-and blushed, he'd already walked off to fetch my change.

He had barely dropped the coins into my upturned hand when both chicken guys suddenly lit up and started whooping greetings down the aisle of the market. I turned to see a glamorous woman in her early 40's, strutting though the market with her wheelie bag in tow. She was dressed in a preppy little argyle sweater, short pants, and stylish boots, with flashy Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses and perfectly coiffed hair. I was suddenly awkwardly aware of my oversized hooded sweater, tattered sneakers, and lazy ponytail. And I wondered with amusement at what time she woke up to look like that.

She smiled broadly and waved a casual hello to both of them as she continued past. I was glad I got my change before she walked through and everyone got distracted.

I proceeded to the other side of the market and finally found myself at a large vegetable stand. I got a young merchant who wasn't as amused with me, but put together my order efficiently enough. I asked for a lot of stuff, enough to earn me a free kiwi from my favorite fruit guy in the Sunday market, but no dice here.

I was just stuffing the last broccoli into my bag when I noticed the somber young man smile and greet a woman beside me like an old friend. I glanced up to see Madame D&G lean forward with a sweet smile and ask for a bunch of "not too ripe" bananas.

"Oh", he cut her off, "let me take your chariot" (this is the French word for wheelie cart but I like my term better..it doesn't invoke images of horses and Ben Hur).

He ran around from behind his stand and quickly took her bag from her. He brought it behind the stand with him and proceeded to carefully pick through a box of bananas in the back, the reserve bananas for those especially glamorous customers. Then he carefully placed a not-too-ripe bunch in her bag and leaned forward expectantly, waiting for the next request.

I stood there for a minute and watched the scene in awe. There you have it, I thought: the real way to get what you want in France. You have to work it. I reconsidered my wardobe and wondered if Dave would take me shopping for clothes to get the best fruit out of store merchants. Probably not.

And then, two days later, I dashed into the local hospital to ask the night reception what time their lab opened the next day (I needed blood tests done. My French doctor requires a battery of tests before she'll give the time of day. There's another rant for later). The bored guy behind the desk told me that the lab was closed tomorrow, but there's another lab that's open around the corner. He wrote down the address and handed it to me.

"Ok, what time are they open?" A long shot.

"I don't know."

"Well what time is your lab open?" My desperate logic: if his lab opens at 8, then there's a good chance that another lab that does the same thing will open at the same time.

He didn't understand me. He asked in English, "What are you looking for?"

I began to answer him in English when he stopped me and pleaded: "Say it in French".

I paused and looked him. He was smiling.

I had heard that the French find American accents cute, but I never really believed it.

I remembered the woman in the market and tilted my head to the side and smiled back.

"You say it in English". It didn't even make sense.

He shook his head, still smiling, and I plowed forward in bad French. He gave me my answer, and I left with a wave and an au revoir, bonne nuit. I bet I could have asked him to call the other lab for me. Or even find someone in his hospital to take my blood that very evening.

Must work on this "working it".

Jean-Claude

I just got my hair cut, and while that seems hardly newsworthy, it's the little things like haircuts that remind me just how much we can take communication for granted.

This was my second haircut at chez Jean-Claude. I intend to make myself a regular for two reasons: the haircut is great, and Jean-Claude speaks English to me.

Apparently they remembered me from my last visit (probably the only dumb non-French speaking girl who comes by), because when I walked in Jean-Claude grinned and said "What's up!?" I couldn't help but giggle. I haven't heard a "What's up" in months, and coming from an effeminate French guy it sounded kind of goofy.

To be honest, I don't even know if Jean-Claude is his name. But it's the name on the storefront, and he's the only guy there, so that's what I call him in my mind. And I find it kind of fun-in a silly, snooty way-to be able to say my hairdresser is a "Jean-Claude".

And truthfully, Jean-Claude doesn't even cut my hair. His assistant (who does not speak English) does the work while he dictates from the other side of the shop. She just trims and snips and hums quietly to herself, and I am relieved to not have to make small talk with the hairdresser.

What else I like about chez Jean-Claude is the clientele. Every time I visit, the other customers are senior citizens. I'm used to the shops I frequented back home, where the chattering hairdressers fuss over equally chatty girls who have three different shades of highlights and manicure appointments afterward. I like the company of the older crowd: they always smile politely at me and I love the banter they exchange with Jean-Claude.

Too bad the price isn't as charming, but hey, this is still Paris after all.

The Strike Continues

If you hadn't heard, the train strike from last month has picked up again.

The train employees had gone back to work when the government agreed to "think about" their conditions. They set a deadline, which was up on Tuesday night. And ever since they've been striking.

This time around it doesn't seem so drastic. True, there are a lot more people walking on the street (despite the sub-freezing temperatures...brrr), and traffic is a bit heavier, but it's really not all that bad.

Although on Thursday morning I saw a well-dressed businessman trying to hitchhike out of town. He even had a cardboard sign. I would have taken his picture if I didn't feel so bad for him.
It's going to be bummer if the metro is down for the weekend. I guess we're just going to have to wait it out.

The Woes of Apartment Living

...are tenfold in a foreign country

It's 4:15 in the afternoon and I am sitting in the apartment, trying not to stress out about what's going on in my kitchen.

Just after lunch I received a call from Amalia, our landlord. She said that the apartment concierge had called, that our downstairs neighbor had water leaking into his apartment, and they wanted me to come let them into our place so they could investigate. In the meantime, they had shut down the water for the entire building.

So I jumped into my car and began the hour drive home, all the while wondering why Amalia couldn't handle this problem: it's her apartment, she has a key, surely she works closer to the apartment than I do, and she speaks fluent French. I also spent a considerable amount of time worrying if I'd left any water running or flushed anything stupid down the toilet this morning.

To give the drama an extra punch, David is in Germany until tomorrow night. Just this morning I was thinking that disasters always happened in Michigan when he went out of town: Oliver brought a live chipmunk into the apartment, a bat was loose in the basement, Oliver got into a serious fight and had to be taken to the vet...

But I managed to handle all of those on my own (following a self-pitying phone call to one of my parents) and I'd have to handle this. Time to be an independent woman.

So I pulled up to the building, grabbed a flunky from the management company downstairs, and marched up to the apartment, expecting the worse.

And there was nothing. Whew! I knew everything was ok when Oliver greeted me at the door with an eager "oooh, what are you doing here so early?" look in his eyes. The flunky and I combed the apartment over and found nothing wrong. Then we went to the apartment below (not nearly as cool as ours, by the way) and started searching the ceiling.

We found the leak running a straight line across the ceiling of the kitchen. "That," I said in poor French, "is where my hot water pipes run". Too bad I don't know the word for "pipe".

So they made some phone calls and now I have two flunkies, the plumber, and the downstairs apartment neighbor's son all having a laugh in my kitchen.

Since I started writing, the plumber yanked out our washing machine and found the source of the problem. Just a leaky gasket, they say. I don't know a thing about plumbing, but the leak he pointed out (which I cannot deny, is certainly a leak) is a good meter away from the spot in the neighbor's ceiling. Well what can I do.

I talked to Amalia, who told me that there are two situations: 1. The issue is with a building, or "community" pipe, and the managment company pays, or 2. The issue is with "our" pipe and we are responsible. Either way, we won't be paying, it's just a matter of insurance paperwork.

In the end, the pipe was "ours". I wasn't very happy with the way people kept saying "the damage you've done", "it's a private issue", etc. I guess I'm just being oversensitive.

The chipper management guy was kind enough to fill in all of the paperwork for us, so now all I have to do is call the insurance company. Here comes another adventure in French. Better look up the word "pipe".

The Weekend in Photos

As I was driving home from work on Friday, along the quiet countryside road that I'm so fond of, I spotted this giant pile in a field.

I do believe it's potatoes. I should have parked the car next to it for a reference, but it had to be at least 15 feet high.

That's a lot of spuds.

When we got home on Friday, we were happily suprised to find two package slips in the mail. One was our licenses, and the other was a surprise.

So on Saturday morning we hopped out of bed and headed out to the temporary post office. It turned out to be in a nondescript converted garage only a few blocks from us, and the line was true to standard.

Finally we received our packages: one self-addressed-stamped-envelope from the prefecture, and one care package from my mom. Oh happy, happy day!

So here are our French driving licenses.

Flimsy, poorly laminated scraps of pepto-bismol pink paper. Dave says they look like a kindergarten project.

What's interesting is that we can't drive a car towing a trailer, but we can drive motorbikes under 125 cc's. And the third vehicle we can drive looks like some kind of goofy camper or bread truck. I dunno.

Our plan is to present our new licenses to the insurance company to negotiate a lower rate (or simply shop around for new insurance), then tuck them away in safe place in the apartment. And if we get pulled over in France, gee, all we have are these US licenses, we're just clueless Americans, and shoot, we don't speak French. Hah!

Here's a photo of some of the contents from the care package. Ever since I left home (even before I left the country), my mom makes sure to send me a Halloween package every year. This year it was especially welcome because of course, we're further away from our families, and any reminder of home is well-loved, but also because Halloween never really took off here in France. There are some stores with Halloween decorations, but there are no mini candy bars or haunted houses or kids running around in costumes.

So the ghost-patterned kleenexes, ziploc bags of PayDays and Reeses (my mom really does know us well), toy bat, and gummy worms made for a fun, happy reminder of Halloween in the States. Totally made my day. Plus, we also got a Halloween card from my gramma in the mail, that's in the photo, too.

For the rest of the afternoon Dave went out running and I went into Paris to visit the used English-language book shop, The Abbey. I wanted sell off a couple of lousy novels to make room on our bookshelf, but the owner wasn't around and the assistant wasn't allowed to buy books.

I spent some time browsing anyway, to see if there was anything I was interested in. The Abbey is a cute, albeit cramped shop, with new and used books stacked on every available surface. I soon learned that customers had to use aging wooden ladders to get to books on high, and alphabetizing by author or title had long ago been abandoned.

And somewhere on the bottom shelf of the travel section I stumbled upon a book with a familiar logo: The University of Michigan Library. It was a brand new copy of In the Arctic Seas. A Narrative of the Discovery of the Fate of Sir John Franklin and His Companions. by Captain M'Clintock.

How odd.

But it was fun to see a piece of U of M in a tiny book shop in Paris, so at least it made me smile.

On Saturday night we went to a birthday party for my French teacher Gil. It's a shame I didn't take any photos, but the food was great and the company warm. We played a fun game where everyone has a secret identity as either a werewolf or a villager and we all go about trying to kill each other. In a purely role-playing, non-physical sense, of course.

Dave was the last remaining werewolf until the villagers had him burned. He thought it was a great game. I played a clueless villager (a clueless villager who didn't speak French, no less), and wasn't as amused, but I did enjoy the Salem-witch-hunt-mob-mentality of the whole thing.

Today I went out to the market early because this morning we had daylight savings. The kitten exploiters were out again, with the usual crowd gathered around. This time they had three teeny kittens, soooo cute, plus a baby pig! He had his front hooves up on the side of the box and let me rub his bristley head and tug on his ears. Ooooh!

After I finished my shopping I went back for this photo. Unfortunately he didn't have his legs propped up anymore, and I just missed an adorable picture of one of the kittens licking his head. In exhange for the photo I took a sugar-coated cough drop from the exploiter and let him ramble on to me in French about them while I understood about 30% of his words. Poor guy, if only he knew what a waste of breath I was!

And then this afternoon a bunch of Dave's work friends came over for lunch, which eventually turned into dinner when it was all over. Pratap, one of his colleagues from India, is finishing his contract in France and going home this Wednesday. He wanted to cook everyone dinner, so we offered our apartment and kitchen.

It turned out to be a daunting task, starting with whole chickens and cooking for 11 people. We ended up with a team of cooks, including myself (I was more of a vegetable chopper than a cook)and Guillaume's wife Indira, who is half Indian.

In the end we had a great meal of Indian food, with "spicy" and "not so spicy" chicken, lemon rice, and roti bread. I wanted to watch and learn how to make it myself, but there were so many crazy spices thrown in there, I was completely lost.

And now, unbelievably, the kitchen is clean, David is watching SpiderMan2 in French, and I am exhausted.

Bises!

Here Comes the Strike!

Like the weather or traffic report in any normal country, France has politely informed us that a strike is impending tomorrow.

I bought a newspaper on Sunday, a copy of Le Parisien to read in my French class, and a good excuse to spend more time subtly gloating over the rugby loss that was splashed across the front page.

Of course, I gave up on the paper within a few minutes (although I'm proud to report that I understood a comic), but Dave spent a good amount of time reading it. That's when he found that the paper lists the week's upcoming grèves, or strikes. How nice of them, we thought. Then we promptly ignored the details of the list because we foolishly thought we wouldn't be affected.

Then a few days ago Guillaume warned me that we had to leave for work early on Thursday because of the upcoming train strike ("Don't you Americans read the newspaper?"). All of the metro and RER drivers are going on strike tomorrow. Apparently they're mad because the government wants to change the minimum number of years they have to work before retirement.

Back when the Paris trains first started, driving one was a physically challenging job. So they used to offer retirement to train drivers early. But these days, metro drivers sit on comfy chairs and use joysticks to get from one stop to another. So the government wants to even things out, and they're not happy.

And in a show of support, the Air France pilots will also be on partial strike (I wonder if the psychological tests for flight school hopefuls will be on hold). They all stick together, it seems. Who knows who else will be striking, I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

So how does all of this affect us? Well, Guillaume patiently explained, there will be no trains tomorrow. So everyone will be DRIVING. Oh yeah.

The HR department at David's work sent out an e-mail warning employees of the strike and encouraging them to carpool tomorrow. On the drive home, the highway traffic signs warned that tomorrow, driving will be difficult. France doesn't have hurricanes, so they batten down for strikes.

Guillaume and I both worked late today, so I offered him a ride into Levallois-Perret this evening so he could metro home into Paris. Halfway here he received a phone call from a friend telling him that the strike was starting at 8 p.m. tonight. Suddenly, he was gripping the dashboard and begging Dave to speed up. We finally pulled up to the metro station at about 7:45 and he burst out of the car like a man dashing for a fallout shelter.

For the rest of the 5 minute ride home, we noticed how many people were on foot and on bicycles. It seemed the whole city was on edge, waiting for la grande grève.

David and I are planning on leaving for work 30 minutes early tomorrow. If anything else interesting happens with this whole strike business, I'll be sure to let you know.

Handshakes and Kisses

This is an old topic that we’ve faced since we’ve been here, but I’ve been thinking about it recently and finally decided to document this piece of French culture.

The French handshake is a morning ritual that everyone must participate in. The first thing you do when you get into the office is go around and shake everyone’s hand. Not literally everyone, but everyone in your group or area. French handshakes are less “shake” than “squeeze”, and you’re bound to give yourself away as an American if you give a hearty pump.

If you don’t shake hands every morning, you’re rude. So, against every instinct we might have to not interrupt people, walk into their cubes while they’re in the middle of a phone conference, or demand their attention when they’re focused on something, we have to march up and offer our hands for the morning squeeze.

If you run into someone you know who is walking with a group of people you don’t know, first you shake the hand of your associate, then go around and shake the hands of his companions. Plus “bonjour” with each. Exhausting.

And then, if you need to talk to someone at their desk, first you drop off your folder/notebook/PDA at their desk, shake hands hello, then run around and shake hands with everyone else in their group before you can return to the quick conversation you intended to have before all this shaking nonsense started.

One of the worst crimes one can commit is to shake hands with the same person twice. Because this implies that you’ve forgotten that you greeted them earlier. Which is likely, considering how many handshakes you’ve gone through that day.

Now if you know someone especially well, this is where the kissing starts. Remember, the French kiss hello is actually a brushing of both cheeks. All the lips do is make the little kissing sound that accompanies. Although for families and really really close friends there is lip-to-cheek action. And Wally says that if you like someone romantically you can make your interest clear by slipping in a little lip, but I haven’t seen that at work yet.

Most people do two kisses, one per cheek, but some do four (left-right-left-right), which I understand is becoming popular in Paris now. I’m not sure about that because I never see young people do it, usually just older ones. When I see people kissing four times it reminds me of chickens, the way they bob their heads back and forth. What an outrageous waste of time.

Crossing the line from handshake to kiss has been really difficult for me. The “handshake or kiss” dilemma is a popular subject for American writers living in France, but none can give me precise rules.

It’s harder for women because the rules of chivalry imply that the woman initiate the kiss. The men don’t want to make the women uncomfortable, so they let them decide when it starts. Unfortunately, I’m worried about making the men uncomfortable, so usually I avoid it. I know in France it’s perfectly normal to kiss platonic friends, but when I’m starting to cross that line with male colleagues, my American subconscious worries that I’m sending out The Wrong Idea.

The woman is essentially defining the relationship with her choice to kiss or not. What pressure! Shortly after I started working here I learned that a former colleague from Detroit was here as well. When I ran into him, I thrust out my hand just as he started to lean forward a bit. He quickly retracted and shook my hand. I could tell this meant to him that I didn’t consider us friends. I felt like a jerk.

I’ve started making my own rules for this problem by only kissing those who I’ve seen socially outside of work. However, some, like Guillaume, I kiss outside of work (gee, that sounds bad) but shake hands with at work. I’m not sure why, but for some reason his body language set the precedent and I went with it.

Personally, I think it’s more professional this way, but again, I don’t want to hurt feelings. I kiss my friend Irantzu’s boyfriend (this also sounds bad), who I barely know, but in this case he initiated it, probably because I thought I was a clueless American who didn’t know better. Right on.

Yesterday I ran into an awkward dilemma when I came upon two former Detroit colleagues (both French) in the hallway. Stephane I usually kiss, Alex is the aforementioned colleague I handshake. What to do? Well, I started by kissing Stephane, and when Alex offered his hand I took it, then said “aw hell” and gave him a kiss while still holding his hand. Cowboy American style, and anything but French grace.

From now on, I’m just going to have to turn and walk in the opposite direction whenever I see Alex. It’s easier.

Harlem Gospel: What French Tourists are Really Looking For in America

This week I had a conversation with one of my colleagues who just returned from a vacation to New York City. I asked him what he thought.

He said: "It's amazing: You could be standing on a street, all the signs are in Chinese and all the people are Chinese. Then you cross the street and all the signs are in Italian and all the people are Italian. There are sections like this all over the city. And they don't mix! I saw a white guy get yelled at and chased out of a black neighborhood. You call the States a melting pot, but it's not. It's a Japanese lunch box!"
I told him I had never thought of it that way, but suddenly I had a craving for sushi.

Then I asked what he saw during this visit.

He replied, "You know, the usual things: Statue of Liberty, Broadway, Times Square, Harlem…."

I said, "Wait. Harlem? What did you go there for?"

"We wanted to see a mess."

"You went all the way to Harlem to see a mess." (I thought, There are plenty of messes in France. Try the sidewalk outside my apartment after the morning dog walks.)

"No no no. A mess. You know, at a church?"

"Ah. A mass. You went to church?" This was odd for me, because I have yet to meet a French person who regularly attends church, let alone on holiday.

"Well, we just wanted to see hear Gospel music. My mother-in-law had a guidebook that recommended a great church, but when we got there it was overcrowded with a bunch of other people with the same book. And we didn't go to Harlem to see white tourists. So we tried another church, but they wouldn't let us in because they were having a funeral. So we didn’t go to a mess at all, but we did hear some gospel music from the street."

"You went to Harlem just to hear Gospel music. And you weren't allowed to crash a funeral. That is weird."

"We were really looking forward to it. You know, the singing, the dancing..."
He started chair dancing and singing an unnecessary verse of When the Saints to Marching In.
" Gospel music. Just like the movies."

"Blues Brothers?" I asked hopefully.

"Huh? No, Sister Act."

Blasphemy.

Rentrée

The French word for “back to school” is rentrée, which needs no explanation, yet I didn’t figure out until I saw it on the junk mail fliers that have flooded our mailbox for the past few weeks.

Rentrée is the unofficial mark of the end of summer, and the last summer vacationers seem to have conspired to all come back to Levallois-Perret last weekend. Which means parking on the street is back to being a challenge.

We had noticed that during the course of August, there were even fewer homeless people in town. Now they’re back, too. David has a theory that the French government ships them to the south of France for holidays. Ah, socialism!

Monday evening was mild, and when I got home late from work I opened the windows in the living room and immediately noticed the change. For one, the smell of pizza had returned. Luigi’s back! Dave’s going to be so pleased.

Secondly, the building across the street from us had come to life. Of course you know I wasn’t raised in a city, so the whole concept of neighbor watching is new and fun for me. I felt like James Stewart in the movie Rear Window, except that it was my front window, and I’m not confined to a wheelchair, of course. From my vantage point I could see that the family on the bottom two floors were back from holiday, the kids (they appear to have a gaggle) running through the upper bedrooms, the parents smiling and tanned. I can’t get over how attractive the parents are, and how young they seem to be to have so many kids. While I watched, the beautiful mother and a daughter walked out of the apartment and turned to blow kisses to the father, who smiled and waved from the front door. It was like the cover of a catalog.

On the third floor, the scene was slightly stranger. Normally an elderly woman lives there, and we often see her shuffling back and forth, peering out the windows every 20 minutes like she’s expecting someone. When summer holidays came around, her apartment was dark and shuttered like the others, so I imagined she was out at the seaside with her family.

On Monday, the living room of her apartment, directly across from ours, was full of people. They were all standing and sitting around, concentrating on going through something. Like stacks of letters (I imagined love letters from World War II) or files. They didn’t appear to be removing anything, and they didn’t do much else than study these things all evening.

Ever since that night, the shutters have been open, but the windows dark. Now I’m worried that she died or is in the hospital, but hopefully she’s just been moved to a relative’s house. Or better yet, still on holiday.