Hagenbach and Baden Baden

I've just spent the majority of the work week in our office in Hagenbach, Germany. I used to have a Spanish boss who sent me to Valencia - now I have a German boss who has different priorities. It's a shame really, but I don't have any complaints about Germany, either.

Hagenbach is barely German anyway - it's little more than 8 kilometers from the French border. The office chatter is always a mix of German and French, and most are also fluent in English, which makes me rather more comfortable there then my own home office here in France.

My first evening in town, I was invited to a colleague's apartment to celebrate her birthday. She has a beautiful apartment not 100 meters away from a village clock tower, with a balcony completely overgrown with a kiwi tree. I had never seen a kiwi tree before, and I was completely fascinated with the branches swelling with fruit. Silly me, I thought kiwis only grew in exotic countries. I had previously considered southern Germany's weather to be not unlike
Michigan's, so now my reasoning wants to know: why can't my parents have a kiwi tree?

The next evening made an otherwise ordinary trip to Hagenbach the Best Business Trip Ever. By sheer coincidence, David had to take his own business trip to Durlach, which isn't more than 20 minutes from Hagenbach by rental Mini (oh yeah, the Gods of Rental Cars have finally smiled upon me). After running some errands after work - finding an ATM (a word to the wise - Germany doesn't do credit cards) and buying a batch of our favorite chocolate - I arrived at the Karlsruhe train station with a smile and the Mini keys ready to hand over to my better half.

However, after my hug and kiss hello, David looked at the keys with unexpected trepidation. "I'm hopped up on coffee" he warned me wearily. "I don't know if I should be driving your rental". But I relented, and it didn't take much persuasion before he was sliding behind the wheel and eying the dashboard excitedly.

We zipped off to Durlach, which wasn't more than a few minutes' drive from the train station. David checked into his posh 4 star hotel (a far cry from the village attic I was crashing in outside of Hagenbach), and we walked to a nearby Cuban restaurant for dinner. We were served by a friendly waitress who spoke perfect English and served David a tall German beer. Score another point for Germany.

I stayed that night in Durlach, and took off the next morning for Hagenbach. David walked to work, which was mere steps from the hotel, and left for Paris again that evening.

For my last night in town my boss invited me to nearby Baden Baden for the evening. "Baden Baden" literally translates to "Bath Bath". I don't understand the need for redundancy, but apparently they do have a lot of baths in town.

We drove the Mini out to the edge of the Black Forest, where Baden Baden is nestled between two low mountains. After a harrowing drive up the side of one of the mountains, we walked around an old castle built into the side of a cliff. Vincent had stopped by his house to change into sensible shoes, but I was still in my work skirt and heels. So my exploration of the castle was limited to delicately placed footsteps, but I made my way to the top tower in time for a spectacular view of the landscape below just before sunset.

Back in the town center, we ate at a tourist bistro where the waiter proudly bounced linguistically between French, German, and English for our amusement. I had a hearty meal of veal and cranberries with spaetzel, which is a kind of German pasta. It was an evening and a meal that was right up David's alley, and I mentally marked Baden Baden as a place that I must bring him to sometime.

August

This is me, in the office.
Not on a Saturday.
Not at 7:00 a.m.
This is 4:30 on Thursday.
It's August, and everyone has cleared out for summer holidays.

Last year David and I took our summer holidays at the same time as everyone else - late July and early August. But last year we went to Morocco, where the prices stay fairly steady year round. This year we're going to the south of France, where I can pretty much guarantee that 80% of my colleagues are, as well as much of the rest of the country.

Thus, The South is maddeningly crowded and wildly expensive this time of year.

Thus, we chose to take our vacation in early September.

Thus, I am practically alone in the office.

You could argue that the peace and quiet is calming, and I can get a lot of work done, and I can come and go as I please. True. That is nice. But it's also very lonely, and rather boring.

And frustrating. For example, trying to find information from someone who isn't there. After receiving five Out of Office messages, I am inevitably transferred to an intern, who shrugs and recommends I wait until September.

And I seem to have an unusually large workload for August. The project engineers who are left behind or have come back early have also found themselves almost alone in their departments, and are taking the opportunity to do some housecleaning. This leads to updating their parts in the system, and this leads to sheepish engineers I've never met before, wandering over to my desk.

The problem is, it's usually not my job to help the engineers keep their parts up to date. But the expert on my team is in the south of France, and all of a sudden I'm dusting off the parts of my brain I had stuck on a shelf and forgotten about over a year ago. Ughhhh...this is the right hand part in a left-hand drive vehicle, it's available in two different colors, three different speaker options, and not on the Mazda version?

What happened to my lazy August at work?

God Bless the Cheeseburger

Our company cafeteria likes to throw surprise theme lunches once in a while, and today happened to be American day. As I walked into the canteen with a colleague, I stopped short at the sight of an American flag hanging just inside the door. In France, hanging a national flag is just short of fascism, and my lunch companion watched uncomfortably while I gave the flag a mock salute.

"It's not the 4th of July yet, is it?" he asked.

The rest of the canteen was decorated with cowboy hats, motorcycle models, and more flags. The cooks were cheerfully serving up barbecued ribs, chicken wings, and cheeseburgers, naturally. As I stood in the middle of the room and took it all in, I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. I felt as if my identity had been exposed by making a novelty of my country's cuisine.

I decided it wouldn't be very sporting of me to go for my usual salad on American lunch day, so I carried my tray to one of the counters. The cook lit up when he saw me, and said,

"We made this lunch just for you!"

The other people in line - who I didn't know - turned to stare at me. Yes, I am the American, and yes, we eat like this. I smiled and tried to look absolutely delighted to be reunited with cheeseburgers. He dug through the pile of ribs to find me the biggest chunk, dropped a dollop of BBQ sauce on it, and handed it over proudly.

Being as I work in a male-dominated engineering environment, I am used to being stared at in the cafeteria. But today I felt everyone's eyes on me, identifying me with their food. I rushed to my team's table and sat down quickly, then surveyed my colleagues' plates. Two had vegetarian plates, and the third had uncharacteristically taken a salad. They were clearly not impressed with the cowboy menu.

I did a quick glance around to see if I could spot any Frenchies eating hamburgers with forks and knives. I was disappointed to see that the only hamburger eaters in the vicinity were two upper managers, both holding their burgers with two hands.

I ate my ribs delicately with a knife and fork. And admittedly, they were pretty good. But fortunately, no one asked if I liked it, or if I missed food like this, which obviously would have been a trap. So I'll just keep it to myself that I enjoyed American lunch day, and I plan on enjoying the hamburgers that I intend to make for the real 4th of July next weekend.

32 Hours in Cologne

We ran out of chocolate about three weeks ago, which could only mean one thing: time for someone to take a trip to Germany.

As it so happened, David and I both had trips planned for Germany the next week. He drove to Cologne with his boss for a three day trip, and I took the train to Strasbourg and drove over the border to our office in Hagenbach for a short two day visit.

It was a pretty uneventful trip, but I did manage to make a chocolate stop on my way back. David didn't have the spare time, but he did have an excellent trout dinner while he was there, which he still reminisces about every few days.

The next week I week I was off to Cologne myself for training. I had never been to Cologne (or Köln, as the Germans call it) before, but I had heard rumors of a beautiful cathedral. David had seen it from afar the week before and I was hoping to pay a visit.

I happened to get an up-close view, as the train station exit was only a few hundred meters from the cathedral. It was huge. And filthy, as these things tend to be after a while.

Before dropping into a cab I took the opportunity to pop into a Starbucks for a coffee, as I had foolishly decided to take the 7 a.m. train (which had meant a 4:30 a.m. wakeup). And in Starbuck's I got my first taste of Cologne: the coffee was cheaper than Paris, and the staff friendlier. The barista nearly giggled in delight when I asked him if I could speak English.

The cab dropped me off at the entrance of a supplier park in Niehl, outside Cologne. The supplier park is right next door to the Ford plant, where the suppliers can make and assemble components and deliver them to Ford via conveyor belt.

The Faurecia office was small, containing no more than 15 people, most of whom were signed up for training with me. I was surprised to find that they were a pretty even mix of French, English, and German, and all happy to welcome a visitor. The first thing they did was drag me out for lunch at a sushi bar with its own conveyor belt. I was definitely warming up to Cologne.

After the small training session that afternoon, a cheerful Brit from the sales department offered to drop me off at my hotel, which wasn't far from his apartment. En route, we received a call from another Cologne-based Brit I'd met a few years back in another session, who insisted that my chauffeur take me to a hip Thai restaurant for dinner.

The Thai place was great, and so unpretentious I couldn't help but love it for it's casual, laid back style. And the food was excellent. Stuart - who was perfect cross between Thom Yorke and David's uncle Peter - was a pleasant dinner companion, and told me stories of his Faurecia career in England, France, and Germany. Of course he spoke all three languages fluently, and of course I was wildly jealous.

After dinner we met up with a few other of the English lads for drinks in a lounge that was as unassuming and relaxed as the Thai place. We drank outlandish fruity drinks, then moved onto a vodka bar that could have been scooped up and delivered directly from Russia. Or at least how I image Russia to be. Dark, seedy, and full of suspicious locals. In other words, my brother would have loved it. I passed on the vodka - I was really wearing out by then - and the boys got the idea and deposited me at my hotel.

I stayed in an old monastery that had been converted to hotel rooms. I was hoping for stone walls and heavy tapestries, but my room looked like any other room in any other hotel. The only reminder of the hotel's history was the monk mannequin that sat thoughtfully in the lobby, flanked by candles. Of course, upon dropping me off, my new friends had to give him a hard time.

The next day was full of training, then Stuart kindly drove me to the train station with enough time for me to take a photo of the cathedral before leaving. Maybe next time I'll have the chance to actually walk around it.

And then last week I was off to Germany again, this time to Rüsselsheim, near the headquarters of Opel. I know nothing of German geography, but as I was booking my trip I learned that Rüsselsheim is close to where Sabrina and Josh live. Because, duh, Sabrina and Josh work for Opel.

So, as the train clacked its way into Germany, I called Sabrina at work and asked if she and Josh were free for dinner. At the end of the conversation I was dialing my hotel to cancel my reservation for the night.

The train pulled into Frankfurt just before 9 p.m., and after wrangling with a grumpy Avis agent, I had my car keys and GPS in hand. I arrived at Sabrina and Josh's apartment around 10, just as Sabrina was putting the finishing touches on a classic American dinner. We had a great evening, talking about our travels in Europe and the difficulties of working in a foreign country. Talking to Sabrina and Josh always makes me feel normal again.

My training in Rüsselsheim was a pleasant success. I had expected paltry attendance and grumpy Germans who would be annoyed with the software's faults, but in fact everyone was present, on time, and pleased with the training. Not only that, they asked really intelligent questions and asked for more challenging exercises. I can't say that training has ever been so gratifying.

Back in the Frankfurt train station I had enough time to buy a small dinner and a few bottles of German beer to stuff into my luggage for David.

So now we're stocked up on beer and chocolate, and the next scheduled trip to Germany isn't until June, when David returns to Cologne. Me, I'll be staying Frenchside for a while, but a team in Spain is starting to make noises about training, so maybe I'll be planning a trip to Abrera soon. I hope so - we're out of olives.

Happy Birthday to Us

The French word for birthday is anniversaire, which makes "happy birthday" bon anniversaire (good birthday) or joyeuse anniversaire (joyous birthday).

However, when you start talking about wedding anniversaries, things get confusing.

Last night before leaving work, I was looking at a calendar and mentioned to my colleague that my anniversaire de marriage was today. He understood well that it was not my birthday, and I was pleased with myself for having successfully communicated my point.

Then when I came into the office today, he looked up at me and said "Happy Birthday!"

I smiled and said "Oh no, it's not my anniversaire. It's the anniversaire of my marriage."

"I know. I understood. Happy birthday! Doesn't that work?"

"errr…no. You see, 'birth' is naissance, and 'day' is the date. Birthday. This isn't my birthday."

"Oh. So what should I say?"

"How about 'Happy Anniversary'?"

"Bon anniversaire? But that's what you say for an anniversaire."

Uhh....forget it.

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.

God Save the Queen

Or: How to nearly get fired and kicked out of France

Here it is, the long overdue story of my work woes. I'll warn you in advance, it's a dark tale.

This story is actually very long and complicated, but now that it's a few months behind me, I'm tired of thinking about it and will skip some of the uglier details.

Sometime in mid February, I went to the local prefecture to renew my residence permit. Since David and I have moved, we go to a new prefecture. This one is in Versailles, situated on a cobblestone road, just a stone's throw from the palace. I had visions of Louis XIV in a plush velvet robe - not Sarkozy in a snappy Armani suit - personally kicking me out of France if I didn't get my residence card.

My former permit expired last October, but I had a small piece of paper testifying that I had applied for a new card in the fall. In fact, I hadn't applied yet, but I'd begun the process. However, I knew I was getting a new contract in January, we were going home for Christmas, we were moving - well, a lot of things happened between December and January that gave me reason to delay my application process. Finally in February I had all of my papers in place and went back to re-apply.

Well, unbeknownst to me, I only had a three month window to reapply for my residence card. The woman at the prefecture told me to go back to the US and apply for a work visa again. Ohhhh no.

The next day I told the story to my director, who immediately frog marched me to the HR manager. There was some chin rubbing, some muttering, and I was told to wait while they figured it out.

By the end of the week I had a letter in my hands stating that without a residence permit, I was no longer legally allowed to work on site. I was banished from the workplace on paid leave until a consulting company could sort out the mess and get me a new permit. Worse, the estimated time was one month. One month!

Legally I wasn't required to work during this time - I could have had a free vacation. But professionally, I knew I was toast, and I had to spend my time out of the office working as best I could from home. During a time of financial crisis, no one wants to cost their company the added expense of an immigration consultant company, not to mention full pay for not even showing up to the office.

All of this led up to the day before my birthday, and I walked out of the office on February 26 with the letter stuffed into my bag and tears in my eyes. The next day I drove to the consultant company in Paris with all of the supporting documents to help their mission.

The consultants' office was a surprisingly small, chic loft with only a few employees. I was greeted warmly at the door by a young woman who immediately saw my misery written quite plainly on my face. She guided me to a table, handed me a glass of water, and opened my file. Then she asked the question that turned everything around:

"Please tell me that I'm correct - your husband is English?"

That afternoon she had a meeting with a French immigration official. She took copies of my work contract and David's English passport. David and I left for Carnac for the weekend, and I tried my best not to think about the potential consequences of her meeting not going well.

The following Monday I was online and working by 7:30 a.m. I had a list of things to do from by boss - the kinds of things that can be done out of the office. At 9:15 I decided that the consultant girl had had enough time to get into the office and have her coffee. I dialed her number, and she gleefully reported:

"I have your temporary residence card!"

My temporary card - or recepisse - is the official paper that will hold me over until the end of May, when my permanent card is processed. The permanent card allows me to live and work in France for 10 years. If David wasn't employed I'd be entitled to five years (yeah...I don't understand it either). All this because I married a boy with British parents. All this because his parents registered his birth with the British consulate when he was an infant, and because they encouraged him to apply for his English passport before we moved to France.

And so I was able to return to work the next day. Never have I been so happy to return to the office.

Lots of hugs and kisses to Roch and Sue for this one.

Priorities

I signed a new contract two weeks ago, officially giving me a job title so long I have to copy and paste it from the organization chart every time I want to sign my e-mails with an official-sounding name.

It's not really big news, as signing the contract means only a few administrative changes and little difference in the office. Same job, more accountability. And - as I've been gently reminded - no pay increase during a time of economic crisis.

The only significant change is a shuffle in hierarchy, which puts me directly responsible for four people - two in France, two in Germany. I also have a new boss, and we belong to a new department - Engineering Processes and Efficiency.

When the organization chart was first presented last month during a big engineering meeting, I braced myself for the reaction of the colleagues who would see their names written beneath mine. After the meeting I returned to my desk and kept my eyes firmly on my computer screen, waiting for the oldest, and - not surprisingly - grumpiest member of the team to return.

Finally he sauntered up and, tossing his notebook on his desk, asked me "Did you see the new organization chart?"

"Yes..." I answered meekly. Please don't kill me. Never mind that I am 15 years your junior, female, and speak miserable French...how about we just agree to never talk and you do what you want?

"Did you see that Alfredo is no longer our boss?" he asked with an irritated grunt.

"Yes." This was not something I expected him to be upset about. Alfredo's group had been split into two parts and our new boss was quite effective.

"Well!?" he continued angrily. "Who's going to sign our vacation requests?"

Vacation requests? Our entire group had been shifted to a new manager and director, he now reports to an American, and he wants to know who signed his vacation request?

"Well, I guess that would be me." I answered.

He sat down in a huff and pulled something from his desk. He scratched something onto it, then reached across his desk to hand it to me. It was a vacation request - Alfredo's printed name had a line through it, and mine had been written in ink above.

I sat up straight in my chair, did my best to act like I sign these kinds of mundane papers all the time, scrawled my name, and handed it back. And that was the last time we discussed the hierarchy.

* * *

A week later, I was summoned to Germany to meet the team there. My boss called a meeting with everyone in his group and proceeded to present the organization chart. I closely watched the two Germans - who speak even less English than my French colleague - to gauge their reaction to the news. They barely flinched. Maybe they had been tipped off. Then finally the older of the two broke in to ask a question.

"Ah," my boss translated for me, "he wants to know who will sign his vacation request."

By the end of the day, I had signed two more.

Priorities

A few days ago I walked into the coffee room at work and bumped into one of our plant managers. We exchanged polite bonjours and I tried not to let my eyes reveal the fact that I knew he would soon be leaving our ranks, not entirely by choice.

"How are you today?" he asked in English.

"Oh...I could be better" I answered honestly, edging toward the coffee machine. Times had been tough in my neck of the office.

"Well," he said kindly, "how's your health?"

I hate small talk. But it did occur to me that at 31 years old, one can take good health for granted. I thought about this for a few seconds while the machine poured my coffee and answered,

"Ok, I have my health."

"Good." he said, smiling. "Now. How's your love life?"

My brain briefly calculated the odds that he was checking my availability and decided that the honest answer was the best:

"Um. My love live is good."

"Ok then" he concluded with a concise nod. "That's all you need now, isn't it?"

"I guess you're right."

Then he put his hands in the pockets of his lab coat and walked out, and I never saw him again. And now he's unemployed, but I hope he meant what he said, and that he's happier than I am now.

Beaujolais Nouveau Day

Yesterday was Beaujolais Nouveau Day, and I don't know how I have lived in this country for nearly two years before learning about it.

Beaujolais is a region of France which - like most regions in France - produces its own special wine. Traditionally, on the third Thursday of November, the first batch of wine - that is, the grapes pressed from September's harvest - is available for sale. Of course, being that it is such a young wine, most French people regard it as crap. But it's tradition to drink the Beaujolais Nouveau on this day, and purists use the opportunity to wage if this year's vintage will be good or not.

Three separate people who told me about Beaujolais Nouveau Day used the expression "excellent marketing technique". Every bar and restaurant has a sign advertising the arrival of the Beaujolais Nouveau, every grocery store has bottles for sale, and many villages have entire festivals dedicated to the wine.

According to Wikipedia, the Beaujolais Nouveau is also wildly popular in Japan (I've heard that jumbo jets full of wine are flown to Japan the night before the big day) and the US, where it is typically marketed for Thanksgiving.

All this fuss for bad wine.

I happened to be out for lunch with my group at a local pizza restaurant when my colleague Hervé spotted the sign advertising the Beaujolais Nouveau. He ordered a glass and asked if I was interested. Well of course I was interested, this is cultural education.

I know nothing about wine, so the only thing I can tell you is that it was light. Unfortunately, not light enough, because halfway through my meal I was hit by a wall of dizzy, followed by a fit of giggles. My colleagues were baffled, open a window near my head, fetched a bottle of water, and fought over my camera phone to take pictures of me.

By the end of the meal I was thinking straight again, but I could tell that my face still glowed pink. Back at my desk I kept my head low and popped mints and gum to banish the smell of drunk from my breath. This is one of my personal greatest mysteries: how can I drink one small glass of wine and smell like a wino?

After an hour I was given the thumbs-up by the guys who sit closest to me and was free to roam from my desk without fear of anyone seeing me. There's a mistake I won't be making again.

At David's work, his boss bought a bottle of the Beaujolais Nouveau at the company cantine (his company still has liquor for sale in their cafeteria - mine stopped over a year ago) and poured a healthy glass for everyone. Dave's colleagues asked if he liked it (he did not), and if he could taste the banana in it (he could not).

Wikipedia also told me that the Beaujolais Nouveau can have the flavors of banana and pear. This is not due to additives, but a result of the way the fruit breaks down.

Dave and I discussed it on the way home. I told him what I head read on Wiki, and he exploded in irritation.

"There's nothing snobbier than a group of people who claim to perceive something that doesn't exist!"

This morning I called to check up on a friend who I knew had been out with a buddy and a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau last night.

"Ah.." he said, fondly recalling the previous night's events "...the Beaujolais tasted like banana."

Training in the Countryside

I spent all day in a training session today. When I received the meeting invitation in my inbox yesterday afternoon (that's right, at the last minute), I noticed that the training location was in a place called "Saint Sulpice". That didn't sound like one of our regular meeting rooms.

After some asking around I learned that Saint Sulpice is the name of a village about 25 minutes from Méru. Nowhere close to our regular meeting rooms. I later learned that HR had tried to book a training room too late and couldn't find one available all day. Off to Saint Sulpice.

So this morning I punched "Saint Sulpice" into the TomTom and was met with at least 20 different choices. Shoot. Which one is it? I decided to stop by the office to print off written directions and try to guess my way there. As luck would have it, as I was pulling out of the parking lot I spotted a plant manager whom I knew was on his way to the same training. I waved for him to jump in, and he graciously accepted.

"Thanks for the ride" he said with a relieved smile.

"Well, to be honest," I answered, "I need you to tell me how to get there."

He guffawed. "What?! You need directions? You didn't just pick me up for my sex appeal?"

Heh. French men.

Twenty minutes later, we were cruising down narrow country roads, my co-pilot pointing left and right. There was absolutely no way I would have found the place without his help.

Saint Sulpice is a very quiet country village comprised of moss-covered brick houses and horse pastures. My colleague directed me to park along the side of a muddy lane between two ancient brick buildings and jumped out of the car. There was not another soul in sight, and I was starting to worry that he led me to a deserted location to try his sex appeal joke a little more seriously. Then we passed through an iron gate and spotted the trainer waving hello.

The training session was held in a gite, or a kind of farm house that has been converted to guest houses. They had cleared out the tiled living room of one of the houses and set up a large table for our group to sit, along with a projector screen and a paperboard easel. Outside of our little house stood a low-slung brick building with wooden doors that couldn't be higher than four feet. I was curious to poke around and find out it was used for, but I was soon ushered into the training room and set to work.

The training itself was nothing worth mentioning, but I couldn't get over the oddity of carrying a standard day-long training session to a remote location in the country. Was this some kind of retreat? If so, why wasn't I relaxed? Like many European farmhouses I've visited, the radiators were new enough but didn't give off heat enough. Of course - dumb me - I wasn't wearing socks, either. I ended up sitting with my coat over my shoulders, but it didn't help my cold feet.

At lunch we were sent to the other half of our living room, where a dining table was set up. Then the house chef and his helpers passed back and forth between our little house and the main house, carrying our meals. And it was truly a French meal.

We started with little salads, topped with a small filet of unknown whitefish and tomato sauce. Then came the main course, another kind of fish unknown to me on a tomato tart and a bed of rice, with a cream sauce. Following this was the cheese course, with another little salad and two kinds of cheese, one goat and one cow (I think).

While we ate I pondered the menu and thought about how often I have no idea what I'm eating. Especially when it comes to fish. The thing is, in France you eat what you're given because often, you don't have a choice. If I'd refused to eat my lunch because I don't like fish, I would have gone hungry. This is also how I came to be a veal and lamb eater. Consequently, there is no such thing as a vegetarian in France.

After the cheese came an impossibly fancy chocolate dessert and coffee. Incidentally, I wasn't asked if I wanted coffee, it was just delivered to me. I leaned back and tried to ask for a bit of milk, but my request went unheard and I didn't want to make an embarrassing racket with my bad accent. So I gave up and dumped a packet of sugar into the cup and drank it. And someday I'll say "...and that's how I came to be a black coffee drinker."

Our session ended late, past 6 p.m., and it was pitch black in Saint Sulpice. Not a street lamp for miles. My colleague piled back into my car and helped get us back to Méru, where I dropped him off.

What a strange work day. This one is definitely going under the "France is Weird" file.

Lunchtime

Most people look forward to lunch as a relaxing break. This is especially true in France. No one eats at their desk. Everyone takes time to walk to the cafeteria and eat a complete meal of starter, main dish, and dessert. This is often followed by coffee.

For me, lunch is not much more relaxing than work. It is still in French and requires effort in order to follow the conversation. This conversation is rarely about work, and is usually relatively interesting.

My lunch experience on Friday was quite typical. We sat down and the start of the conversation was directed towards me. They were interested in know what my plans were for the weekend. Most people are under the impression that Chi and I travel a lot because we are new to Europe. This is true compared to the typical Frenchman, who only travels during certain times throughout the year.

My lunch companions’ latest suggestion was Deauville. It is on the coast west of France and only a few hours drive. There was an annual American film festival there last weekend and this must have been what brought it to mind.

More interestingly, apparently, is the local cheeses of Deauville because this is the direction to which the conversation took. The cheeses of Deauville became compared with the cheeses of Caen, a city towards the east of Deauville. In typical fashion, I took the opportunity to daydream. The steady French conversation provided a mellow background for my thoughts.

After ten minutes or so I faded back into the conversation. They had arced their way across France to the cheeses of Alsace. I was in disbelief. I stopped them mid-sentence and asked, “Are you guys still talking about...cheese?”

They looked at me. I looked at the younger guy across from me who was wearing a grin. Yes, yes they were still talking about cheese. They must have realized how ridiculous I found all this. They finished by stating: “Yes…Deauville. You must visit Deauville.”

The Olympic Games, French Style

So the Summer Olympics have started, and France is just as excited as the rest of the world, I imagine. David and I missed the opening ceremony, but we were still on holiday for the first day of the games and were excited to see the first events.

After flipping through our catalog of French channels, we finally found the one public channel showing the games. And the sport they were showing was....equestrian dressing? Never have I seen this sport in my life. A stiff man in a tuxedo and top hat rode a horse through a series of fancy steps and maneuvers: cantering, walking diagonally, galloping, eh. I complained that the real athlete was the horse, and did he get a medal?

We got bored with that soon enough, and came back later to see fencing. I can't remember watching fencing during the Olympics in the US, but since the games started here I've learned all about it.

"It's a truly French sport" my colleague and friend Alain told me. "Don't you hear the words at the beginning of the match? Allez! En guarde! You've heard of the Musketeers, right?"

For whatever ignorant reason it never occurred to me that the Musketeers were French. Probably because all of the movies I've seen about them were in English.

"D'Artagnan" he offered.

"Oh, Chris O'Donnell" I replied.

He was not amused.

What I don't miss is the cheesy American coverage. The heartwarming sidenotes about the athlete's mom crying in the stands. Maybe they have the same in French and I don't understand, but so far I've seen no footage of emotional parents. Lots of footage of how great France is, though.

Which means we've seen loads of fencing and judo. But we have been treated some other interesting sports like kayaking, archery, and now, some track and field. Although today they stopped coverage of the track events to cover the entire medal ceremony for the French saber (another form of fencing) team. We saw each of the medal presenters and their names, we saw the athletes file out and fidget in front of the podium, we saw the whole darned thing. Because, of course, France won the gold.

France has been doing ok so far, but has been coming up short of some gold medals. When they won their first, in some kind of wrestling category, my colleagues couldn't stop talking about it. And I couldn't stop teasing them in return.

"It's a very old sport" Caroline said proudly. "It dates back to the original Olympic games."

"Huh. Is it true that we have one athlete who has more gold medals than your entire country?"

Like a true American, Michael Phelps is both despised and admired here. And I love it. The Olympics have brought out a bit of friendly competition between myself and my group at work. When the French won a gold medal in the 100 meter men's freestyle, they were so proud.

I said, "A French guy won? So Michael Phelps must not have been in that race."

Caroline replied quickly, "But the French swimmer beat another American. I'm sure of it."

She quickly looked up the race online. "Well....the guy he beat was....Australian. But his name sounded...American."

It's a good thing that the US is so good at the summer games, it's making my job a lot more fun.

Au Revior, French Holidays

Big news in France, on Wednesday evening the government voted to eliminate the 35-hour work week. Currently we are required to work 218 days per year, and with this law the new minimum will be 235. And now everyone is talking about those 17 extra days.

French holiday time has always been a standard 5 weeks. But with the 35-hour work week, any time worked over 35 hours would go toward additional holiday. This extra time is called RTT. When the socialists implemented the 35-hour work week about 10 years ago, the idea was that with all this holiday time, more people would be needed, and the unemployment issues would be relieved.

Well, that was the theory anyway. Most companies, like mine and David's both, assume that you are going to work the standard 40 hour week (never mind if you work more). So when you sign your contract, the RTT is already added. I have 10 RTT days, but 7 of them are "collectif", which means that the company or the unions mandate what days we will be taking for RTT. For example, if a national holiday falls on a Thursday, we'll often have the Friday as a RTT collectif. The week of Christmas - which is usually automatically off in the US - is collectif.

With the new law the RTT will be eliminated. Of course, that's only 10 days, so the new theory floating around the office is that the other 7 days will come from holidays. "We could be required to work on May 1st!" one of my colleagues declared indignantly. I'm still trying to understand why we get May 1 off to begin with, but regardless of the holiday, anyone would be bummed out about losing 17 days of vacation.

The new law is optional for companies, and if they require us to work for the extra 17 days I've heard that we'll get raises. Of course, David and I can't find any proof of that in the few English-language articles we've read on the topic. The idea is that we'll be making more money, which will give us more spending power, which will drive the price of homes down (still trying to work that one out as well). It's all part of Sarkozy's big plan.

Surprisingly, everything is set to go down by early September. To be honest, I'm a bit disappointed that there haven't been riots and strikes in response to the decision. Whatever happened to the French obsession with vacation?

Brazil: São Paulo

We landed in São Paulo on Wednesday afternoon, and dumped our stuff in our hotel in Santo André, which is the neighboring city where Faurecia is located. Then we walked from the hotel to work, which was only 4 blocks away. I’ve always wanted to be able to walk to work!

Unlike almost every other company site I have been to, Faurecia Santo André is in the heart of the city. The company has 4 floors in a tall building, which ended up being a bit of a hassle because we were constantly running up and down stairs trying to find each other.

Santo André from the 10th floor

Behind the hotel was a beautiful park that we passed through every morning. I wanted to spend more time there, but we were always going to and from work or to and from dinner and I never had any time. That, and I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere alone after dark.

José on the way to work

After a few days this really irritated me. I appreciated the concern, but I hated having to have an escort everywhere I went after dark. The Brazilian work day ends at 6 pm, which is also when the sun sets, so I was stuck.

Every night after work we would meet with various program managers and directors for dinner, and every night I played Russian roulette with the menu to try to guess what wasn’t going to make me sick.
Finally on Friday I was done with work by 16h and escaped from work during daylight hours. I took advantage of my freedom and took a walk through the park, then visited a shopping mall near the hotel. The mall was a big bummer, but at least it wasn’t far out of my way.

That night I took a sketchy cab ride into São Paulo to meet my colleague Christine for dinner. Christine spent a few months working in Detroit and met Katie there, so Kate put us together for my trip to Brazil. Anyway, the cab got lost, I got car sick, and showed up at the bar grumpy. But soon a samba band started playing and people started singing and dancing and I couldn’t help get caught up in the cheery atmosphere.

For dinner Christine ordered me a plate of fried polenta. I had been perusing the menu for vegetables, but she shook a finger at me: not here.

I learned that eating fried food in South America is safer because the food is cooked in such high temperatures and kills off the bacteria. And there is a lot of fried food in Brazil. There is also a lot of meat. Not exactly steaks or hamburgers, but fried meat or bits of meat tucked into other fried things. By the end of the trip my stomach felt heavy and I longed to get back to the small portions and raw vegetables of France.

Breakfast and lunch in Brazil is funny because in most places you are assigned a number that the waiter uses to keep track of what you order. Or you go to a buffet and are charged by the weight of your plate.

Drinking in São Paulo is also different than drinking in any other city in Brazil. If you order a beer, as soon as the beer is done the waiter or bartender will replace it with another one. He keeps tally on a piece of paper on your table or in his pocket, and this goes on until you tell him to stop. Convenient, but dangerous. Good thing I don’t drink beer.

Anyway, after several samba sets and several more drinks, I finally grabbed another cab back to my hotel. This one got lost, too.

On Saturday I forced myself to get up earlier than I would have liked and checked out of the hotel. I was picked up at the door by Alex, another colleague, and we went for breakfast in a local bakery.

Alex, like Christine, is French. He lives in Detroit but will be transferring to Brazil very soon. He had been in Santo André for a week, which made him barely less of a confused tourist than I was. Between the two of us we mimed and giggled our way through the challenges of ordering breakfast, then getting the car filled with gas.

With the help of a lousy navigation unit from his car rental company, Alex drove us into the city of São Paulo while I read a map and gaped out the window. São Paulo is a rather ugly city, and has a reputation for being unsafe. We passed dilapidated parks full of homeless people, entire communities living below bridges, and the most destitute slums I have ever seen. As we moved into the city, Alex asked me to put away the map and hide the navigation unit and avoid eye contact with people. He said, “You already look too rich.”

“Now how do you propose I remedy that?” I asked, trying to figure out if I’d just been offended or complimented.
Finally we were in the heart of the city and parked the car in a guarded garage. We walked through a lovely square and a market, then wandered our way through some back streets to a pretty little cathedral.

Afterward we met Christine back the market and walked together to a nearby tower. We took an elevator to the top and took in a beautiful view of the city before learning that the bar that we were planning to visit was closed for a wedding. So we went back to ground level and lunched in a small bakery. I guess “bakery” is the term for a café plus small store, so an activity like buying cigarettes at a local bakery is perfectly normal.

Lunch was nice. We spoke in English and basic French, and Christine threw in little Portuguese lessons for Alex. I thought about how the French people I meet living outside of France are always so nice and friendly.

Christine et Alex

After our meal we walked back to the car park to retrieve my luggage and meet the cab that Christine has arranged. In Sao Paulo it’s not advised to take a cab anywhere unless you know the driver to be safe. Therefore, anyone who gave me instructions to go anywhere via cab told me, “I know somebody”. It’s like the cab mafia.

As it turns out, our company has a favorite cab driver whom everyone knows and loves. “Julio has saved me many times,” Alex told me. So it was Julio that picked up and drove me to the airport. He let me sit in the front seat and adjust the temperature controls. He spoke a little English, and we exercised the extent of his vocabulary with talk about football and movies.

In the airport I learned that my flight was delayed by four hours. I sulked for a while, wrote some postcards, then stalked off to the VIP lounge to sulk for the rest of the wait. The VIP lounge was overcrowded, but I snagged an armchair near the pianist and typed out most of this blog post.

And now finally I’m home, and still not sick. I’ll give myself another two days before I claim the trip to be a success.

Brazil: The Paperwork Part III

I finally got my récepissé yesterday! I can check off one more box on the paperwork road to Brazil.

The journey was anything but smooth, however.

The first thing I did when I got to work was bring the list of required documents to HR. I needed a copy of my work permit, something called an "attestation", and some other stuff. I handed the list over, told the tragic story of my dossier being lost, and asked (begged) for a quick collection of the papers.

The HR girl squinted at the list and said, "I don't know what this is." She handed it to another girl, who handed it to a third. They didn't know either. I quivered on the spot and wanted to yell, "But you knew what it was in January the first time I asked!!!"

"Can you come back on Monday?" she asked. No, I said, I couldn't. I needed it today.

Instead, I agreed to come back after lunch. At 1:30 I dashed upstairs to HR and was mildly surprised to be handed a sheaf of papers. Incidentally, they were not the same papers I was given in January, but I wasn't about to argue.

By 2:30 I was on the road to the prefecture. I stood in the same line for an hour, and as luck would have it, got the same guy behind the window. He remembered me, which might have been a bad thing considering the near tantrum I'd thrown the day before. Again, I felt sorry for him, having to deal with cranky foreigners all day. He had sad eyes and looked physically exhausted. He reminded me of a sour version of one of the Wiggles.

Anyway, no matter how bad I felt, I was on a mission. I slapped down the envelope of meticulously color photocopied, collated, and paperclipped documents onto his counter and gave him a look that said "You know what I want."

He nodded morosely and took the envelope to a back room. A few minutes later he returned and said, "I need a copy of your current carte de sejour" (which, by the way, is NOT on the list). I pulled it out of my bag and held it out for him. He pointed to the photocopy machines on the other side of the room. I gave him a new look that said "Now I know you have a copy machine back there, buddy. Let's save us both some time." but it didn't work.

So I fished 10 centimes out of my bag, copied the carte, and returned. "Ah," he said apologetically, "I need both sides". As I walked back to the machine, digging through my bag for another coin, I wondered what would have happened if I didn't have the right change - would I have been sent away to come back tomorrow?

The grumpy Wiggle took my copies and disappeared again. When he returned he said nothing, but flopped into his chair and took out a blank récepissé form. I leaned forward in anticipation. Was this it? Had I done it?

As he put the form through the printer and trimmed my ID photo, he asked where I was going. I said I was going to Brazil for work. He smiled sadly and said I must have a good job, the only place he got to visit was his counter at the prefecture.

Finally he slid my finished récepissé across the counter. He hadn't asked to see my flight information or letter of intent to visit Brazil at all. "That's all?" I asked incredulously. You're actually going to give it to me?

"Ah, the French administration is beautiful, no?" he said with a sarcastic smile.

"Yes, well, every time I come here I have to return 2 or 3 times."

He pointed to the long line behind me and said, "But most people have to come 5 or 6 times."

So I guess I should consider myself lucky.

Next stop: Brazilian consulate!

Brazil: The Paperwork Part II

Working backward, this is what I need to get in and out of Brazil:
1. A travel visa from the Brazilian government. For that I need...
2. My carte de sejour or a récepissé (temporary carte). For a temporary card I need...
3. Proof of my trip. i.e., plane tickets. For that I need...
4. The travel company to book my trip. And they won't do that until I have...
5. A signed travel request from the head enchiladas.

All I got done today was #5. I rushed the travel request to the travel coordinator, who tut tutted my emergency (it seems I'm always begging her for last minute travel arrangements) and said she'd do what she could.

At 2 p.m. I had to leave to make it to the prefecture before they closed, and I still didn't have #3, the tickets. But I had a signed letter of intent, so I thought I'd give it a go.

David dropped me off at the prefecture and I eventually found myself in the right line. I waited for over an hour before the exhausted Frenchman behind the counter was ready to see me. The first thing he did was tell me: "I'm closed."

I immediately launched into a whine. He shook his head and said "No. I'm joking." Although he wasn't smiling and it wasn't funny. He said something else that I didn't understand and he changed to bad English: "Where are you from?"

"The United States."

"Which one?"

"Huh? Michigan."

"Ah. The country?"

"The. United. States."

"No. The country. The trees, the farms...the country."

I hate it when people assume that the US is New York City, Los Angeles, and a big field in between. It reminded me of college when I used to get all riled up when rich kids from Chicago thought that Kalamazoo was full of nothing but corn.

But I was at the mercy of this guy and I had to play along. I smiled and said "Right. La campagne". The countryside. Whatever.

He asked what I wanted. I started by saying that I had to go to Brazil and he nodded and took my carte de sejour. He poked some numbers into his computer, exchanged a few words with his colleague, and pointed to the date.

"This is old."

"Yes, I know. I have two pieces of paper there verifying that I have requested a new one."

"Yes, but the dossier is lost."

The dossier? Folder? What was he talking about? I didn't lose anything. He kept pointing to the expired date, telling me that the dossier was missing, and for the life of me I had no idea what he was telling me I had lost.

And then I realized that I wasn't the one who had done the losing. The paperwork I had submitted for my new carte de sejour was lost. Maybe it would have helped if he'd used the pronoun "we". I wondered if he'd been trained to avoid accepting blame on behalf of the prefecture.

He got up from his chair and started hunting down bits of paper. I recognized the collection of forms from my visit to the prefecture in January, when I requested my new carte the first time. I was going to have to do this again?

"So you won't give me my récepissé."

"Come back with these forms, give them to me, and I make your récepissé."

I already had a bad vibe about this guy and did not look forward to our reacquaintance. I muttered something about thanks for losing my paperwork, to which he answered that it wasn't his fault. I can imagine that poor guy gets comments like this all day. I felt bad, so I answered, "I know. It's France." and left.

So tomorrow I have to go into the office and collect the proper paperwork again, then revisit the prefecture. Hopefully my tickets will be delivered by then, but by the time I get that done the French at the Brazilian embassy won't be accepting visa applications until Monday morning.

On my way to the metro station to go home I called my boss and hinted around to see if he was considering canceling the trip (for reasons completely unrelated to me). Ever the optimist, he gave me a little pep talk and told me to start packing.

Brazil: The Paperwork

It seems I'm off to Brazil. My boss asked me to go a few weeks ago, but I didn't really take him seriously until the team meeting on Monday when he asked how my visa was coming along. Whoops.

So I got online and began poking around the Brazilian embassy website to see what I needed to do. Naturally, the webpage comes in two flavors: French and Portuguese. Finally I found the list of requirements, and learned that as an American citizen, I need a travel visa. The German guy I'm going with does not.

Normally, we have a travel company that arranges visas. However, I learned a lesson from my boss a few weeks ago: because he is Spanish living in France, he had to jump through a number of extra hoops to get a travel visa for India. I was strongly recommended to skip the travel company and pursue the visa on my own. Super.

And one of the requirements for getting a visa is a photocopy of my carte de sejour, or residence permit. Sure, no problem, except when it occurred to me that my carte de sejour had expired. And suddenly the words of the guy behind the window at the prefecture were ringing in my ears: "Here is a piece of paper proving that you have requested a new card, but you cannot leave the country". Of course I had ignored him and gone to Spain the following week, but that's because of the freedom of the European Union. Going to South America is another ball game.

More specifically, getting back from South America.

After some fruitless phone calls (if the Brazilian Embassy doesn't answer questions by phone, why do they have a phone number?), I sent an e-mail to the Brazilian consulate. Within an hour I had a reply: no problem, I can get a visa with my expired carte as long as I had the extension request.

Great! So the Brazilians will let me in. But will the French let me come back? And this is what has been hassling me ever since Monday afternoon.

At first I thought I'd just try to get into France as a tourist, but I have a temporary work visa plastered in my passport and I am a terrible, terrible liar. And surely an American coming to France from Brazil won't be something the French passport control will find commonplace. I can't expect them to give my passport the cursory glance and toss it back at me. I imagined getting thrown into a French holding cell for lying to the government. Or worse, being shipped back to Brazil.

So I enlisted my colleagues to call the prefecture for me. They took turns. After a few days of being hung up on, transferred, and berated, Caroline finally got through today. They told her that all I needed was a récepissé, which is a temporary carte de sejour, which they would issue immediately for me if I showed up at the prefecture with proof of my trip.

I had already been gathering the other documents I needed for my visa, so the proof wouldn't be hard to come by. However, I need copies of my plane tickets. And because it's a trans-Atlantic trip, I'm not allowed to get tickets without a few upper upper management signatures. And guess where the upper upper management is this week: Detroit.

This is how I found myself calling my old office this afternoon (at least I could speak the language), begging so-and-so's assistant to track down the executive director of engineering, interrupt whatever he's doing, and get him to sign a travel request and a letter I invented "from" him, stating my reasons for travel to Brazil. I hope he doesn't mind if I give the Brazilians his phone number.

What's funny is that I never talk to these management guys when they're in the same building as I am. In fact, I avoid them (they like to test my French). But today I was calling their cell phones, hassling their assistants, and sending them text messages.

Let's hope they forget the whole incident before they get back to the office tomorrow. By then I should be standing in a line at the prefecture anyway.

How to Freak Out a Frenchman

A surefire way to shock the bejeesus out of a Frenchman is to look at him while you're typing. It drives them crazy the way we can look away from what we're writing. It's my favorite work trick.

Most French people can type well enough, but they have to do the constant keyboard-to-screen back and forth check that requires so much attention and neck exercise.

French children start school at age 3, so it seems reasonable that they'd have an academic advantage over us. But for whatever reasons, typing is not on the curriculum in French schools. When I told my colleagues that I learned how to type when I was 8 years old, they were stunned. I could almost read their minds: you don't know what a predicate nominative is, your world geography is paltry at best, you have no concept of your nation's history and you've been typing since you were 8?? Oh la!

French Meetings

I had a meeting today that was scheduled from 1:30 - 4:30. At 5:00, when I realized that I wasn't understanding enough context in French, my legs were falling asleep, and I had plenty of other work to do, I left. When I left the building at 6:15, it was still ongoing.

I've found this to be very normal in France. For example, every Monday my group has a team meeting. It is scheduled for 30 minutes, but every week it lasts no less than 1 hour and a half. I don't have a problem with the length, but if it's going to take that long every week, why can't we schedule it for an hour and half? Even when I start the meeting by saying "I have another meeting in an hour, will we be done by then?", they shush me and say that the meeting is only 30 minutes long. And then it takes 1h45, I'm late for my other meeting, and I'm forced to skip lunch.

The thing is, when Americans have meetings, we set an agenda, we check things off lists, and we move on. Because we all hate meetings. But when the French get together, someone presents something, and everyone argues over every single Powerpoint slide. And they're not just arguing about little issues, but major procedural stuff as well. The kind of things that can't be resolved without a management steering committee and a budget adjustment, but we're going to argue about it anyway. And in the end, after everyone is exhausted and absolutely nothing has been resolved, we decide that we still have to finish the other 75% of the presentation, so we have to meet again next week.

At first I thought it was just my screwed up group, but almost every week David is telling me about another "marathon meeting" that took half or sometimes all day. So the problem is clear: the French. End of discussion!