Friday musings

Back in my early years in France, after I had finished my French classes and was starting to look around for a job, there was a statistic that shocked me:

50% of French people earn less than 1500€ a month.  

Of course at the time, I still had my American salary expectations and I hadn't quite understood yet how the French just pay up front for a lot of the things we pay out of pocket for (insurance, retirement, etc).  But the fact of the matter was, I was making more than that as a college student, and I could not wrap my head around the fact that half a country was making less than I was earning while in school.  And unfortunately, I just heard on the news the other day that ten years later, this fact is still true, and it still kind of floors me.

Because of the nature of my job, I spend a lot of time talking to your average French Joe (or maybe that should be Jacques). People who might or might not have their BAC, but who have most certainly never gone on to college.  The working class.  The ones who consider Paris to be far away and things like Paris Fashion Week and who wore what when to be alien.  But because part of my job entails convincing people to take good care of our equipment even though they won't be paid any extra for doing so, I talk to them. Not so much about family since family tends to stay out of work conversations, but about the weather, politics, differences between our countries. After all, it's a lot harder to say no to someone that you have a connection with.

I might not always agree with what some of these folks have to say - all foreigners should be kicked out of France for example - but I have learned a lot from them and it's been an eye into the mindset of a certain class of French people (and yes, IMO, there are still distinct classes in France).

One of the main topics of conversation as of late has been politics.  Those of you who follow French politics will know that François Hollande's approval ratings have been on a downward spiral since being elected. And I can tell you that definitely matches up with what I have been hearing while on the road.

A lot of these people seem so disillusioned by what he is proposing.  The increase in taxes, the likelihood that most of it will come from Monsieur tout le monde instead of the rich. But it always leaves me wondering - what were they expecting?  François Hollande's campaign was full of all kinds of wonderful promises - more money for schools, more money for students, more money for the poor, more fonctionnaires, etc.  And sure all of that is great, but the question I kept asking was - where is that moola going to come from?  Show me the money François!

There were vague answers about taxing the rich (many of whom are now planning on leaving France), but the truth of the matter is, the burden of most of it is going to fall on the average person, either through increased direct taxes or through an increased cost of living due to businesses being taxed more.  To me, it was almost to be expected, but it seems that most people didn't think that far ahead and now they are scared of what is to come.  Many of these people are living off of minimum wage and already have tight budgets, and the idea of having even less money to work with is not a fun one.  But this is the choice they made and they have to live with it now for the next five years. They didn't like Sarko as a person and they voted based on that, instead of his presidency. Of course I never say that to them, but it is often what I am thinking during these discussions. And I guess that is what scares me about the upcoming election in the US - that people will vote emotionally, and not rationally.  

When I was younger, I used to think "Oh, what harm can be done in just a few years?", but after seeing the changes that are happening after only a few months in office, I see how naive that was.  To Hollande's credit, he is at least trying to come up with money to fund all of his promises instead of just increasing national debt, but I still worry about the effect that it will have on France.  Contrary to a a lot of its Southern and Eastern neighbors, France has mostly been spared from the economic downturn, and I wonder if that will be the case five years from now?

Red light, green light

I came across this stop light the other day while driving to visit a customer - luckily the light stayed red long enough for me to snap a picture!

Le Mans

I travel to a lot of different cities for my job, but now that I am married to C, I don't often take the time to check out the new ones - getting home after a week away has become more of a priority.  But a few weeks ago, I found myself with a non-refundable train ticket and a few hours to spare, so instead of heading to the station to wait, I parked the car and decided to walk around Le Mans, a city I had been through many times but never visited.

The only thing I really knew about Le Mans is that they had the famous 24 heures du Mans, the annual 24 hour car race circuit held every June.  So it was a surprise to discover that the city had a fantastically-preserved old town, called the Cité Plantagenêt and/or le Vieux Mans.

I would have loved to have had this as my bedroom as a child.  If you look closely, you'll see a teddy bear waving hello, so I must not be the only one to feel this way:

 

One of the things I really loved about the city was how things just seemed to be built on top of the other. This picture shows several old doors that have long been filled in, plus a blue door that leads to who knows where.

 

 There were also all kinds of homes with fabulous doors:

 I don't know about you, but I would be quite happy to live at either Number 18 or 20 on this street:

 

And then there was this door  and it's crooked entrance:

 

Gérard Depardieu filmed Cyrano de Bergerac here, and these little gun holes reminded me of that, and of the ancient history of the city, which goes back all the way to Roman times.

 The other thing that struck me about the city was the incredible detail in so many of the buildings:

 I've seen a lot of timbered cities in my day, but none have ever had the detail of those in old Le Mans:

These people obviously took great pride in their homes and there was a really interesting mix of building materials that I haven't seen elsewhere:

 Another really typical feather where these little figurines that graced the doors of many homes:

Lastly, there were several homes with turrets and the like, which is always fun:

There is also a pretty imposing cathedral:

 Detail of the cathedral door:

Lastly, I left the city with a smile on my face thanks to these city employees, who whooped and hollered as I walked by and yelled out that I was "charmante".

I'm not sure if there's enough to do to spend a whole day in Le Mans, but at only an hour from Paris, it'd be a great place to stop for lunch or dinner on your way in or out of town!

Some things are the same worldwide

I just about died laughing when we stopped tonight to take a picture of this château and noticed that the windows were all fogged up in the car seen in the bottom of the picture.  I don't think I've ever seen French kids "parking" before...probably because they can't drive (unaccompanied anyways) until the age of 18, and it's fairly rare to get your own car anyways that early on.

Good for them though - how many kids can say they've made out in front of a deserted castle??

Scenes from the South of France, part III

I'll write more about my fantastic week down South with L & B later, but first I want to talk about the crazy weekend I just had. (Ahh!! I'm becoming Frenchified - I just wrote weekend as "week-end").

I've mentioned before that whenever I go down South, I usually meet up with a Scottish woman and her husband at least once during my trip. Well, last time I was there in May, she mentioned she was throwing a huge birthday bash in the beginning of September and that I should come. She was inviting about 150 people, and I was a bit nervous about going since I wouldn't know anyone besides her and her husband. But I decided to just put my fear aside and just go for it - it's good for me to get outside my comfort zone every once in a while. I knew there would be a good mix of anglophones and Frenchies, and I figured that once everyone started drinking, it wouldn't be that difficult to mingle. Plus it was for a good cause - every year my friend uses her birthday party as a way to raise money for breast cancer research. Normally she does a walkathon, but this year she just asked everyone to save their pennies in these little pink piggie banks. Aimee was nice enough to let me put mine at her teahouse.
It turns out I was right, and I spent the night talking with various people of all ages and all nationalites. The big surprise of the night though was that they'd decided to take advantage of the fact that so many of their family & friends would be there to use the occasion to get married! And they asked me to be the interpreter for the Anglophones. I can't even describe how touched I was that they'd asked me - I was so honored to be part of such a special day for them. So I stood up front there with the Mayor and interpreted his speech during the wedding. And then we all had a lovely meal and danced and sang until the cows came home.

Times like this are so bittersweet for me though - as much as I love feeling a part of something, I still can't help feeling bitter about Bretagne. Why was I unable to find this there? I can't help feeling like I failed in some way, but the most frustrating thing is that I'm still not sure why. I've never had trouble meeting people or making friends, and I tried joining clubs, sports activities, etc, but no matter what I did, I was always kept at an arm's length.

And yet outside of Bretagne, it's been totally opposite. During my travels, I've met so many great French people who've opened up to me right away and who've practically treated me like family from day 1. The proof being that I walked away from this weekend with invitations to go visit some really lovely people all over France. Plus the phone numbers of a few who live here in Paris. But I still can't stop wondering why I wasn't good enough for the Bretons?

I am happy though that I stuck it out long enough to have these kinds of experiences, to have given myself the time to know (and love) this other side of France and the French. And after so many years of rejection, it's been a relief to realize that it's not me, and that not all French people are automatically going to think I'm some kind of freak of nature. (They can figure that out later on their own, lol).

But I do need to figure out some way to make peace with this, because this feeling of failure eats away at me every time I think about it.

A post from last week

My co-worker wasn't too in to the idea of going to a French restaurant, so instead of going back to the Quebecois restaurant, we decided to eat at a Moroccan restaurant instead. It turned out to be a fantastic experience - we were the only ones there, so we got great service and the chef kept coming out to make sure we were happy with our dishes.
I also had an interesting conversation with the waitress - she was from Morrocco but had lived in Paris for several years before moving to the middle of Bretagne in the fall of 2008. I asked her how she was liking it and she hesitated, and I immediately recognized that hesitation. It had happened to me so many times before. I could almost hear her inner monologue, debating about how honest to be. When someone asks you that, do you say how you really feel? How lonely and isolating it can be to live in small-town Bretagne? Or do you give the answer people want to hear? ie. That Bretagne is a very beautiful region but it sure rains a lot, haha.

So before she could answer, I cut in with "It can be pretty tough being a foreigner in a small town here, huh?" And I saw an immediate wave of relief wash over her face. She agreed and said sadly that she hadn't expected it to be so difficult. So hard to make friends. So many stereotypes and misconceptions surrounding her home country. And she still hadn't gotten used to all the staring when she was out in public, that she often felt like she had two-heads. At which I had to laugh because it was a phrase I'd used myself many a time.

Unfortunately I didn't have any magic advice to give her on cracking the tough Breton exterior - it's a puzzle that I was never able to solve. I could only commiserate with her and reassure her that she wasn't alone, that it had been like that for me (and so many others) as well. So many of us asking the same questions - Why can't I fit in? Why can't I make French friends? What do I have to do to be accepted? Why am I not good enough for them?

I've found myself replaying our conversation in my head several times over the past week. My heart goes out to the poor woman, and I really hope she was somewhat comforted in knowing that it wasn't just her. Cuz it's something that took me several years to realize.

Mooooo-ve out of the way

For those of you not on Facebook, here are a few pictures from where I've been at this week - down in the south of France, in "les Landes":The town and village names in Bretagne can be crazy, but over the years, I learned how to pronounce such names as "Plonévez-du-Faou", "Locmiquelic" or "Ploublazlanec". Down here though, it's like a whole 'nother language, with names like "Arou-Ithorots-Olhaïby" or "Moncayolle-Larrory-Mendibieu". What on Earth kind of names are those??

I (stupidly) forgot to bring my GPS, and had just thought "Oh, well I'll just take a quick look at Google Maps before I go and get an idea of the major towns along the way" - but I had no chance of remembering names like that. So I got lost in the foothills of the mountains (several times) and ended up quite late for my scheduled visit.Being late though was really the theme of the week - how could I not be when I spent my drives stuck behind various tractors, trucks or other slow-moving vehicles. I had to laugh though when I was delayed due to the following:Can you imagine having to tell your clients "Sorry I'm late, I got got stuck in traffic behind a herd of cows!!"

This may sound strange, but one of the things I love most about living in Paris is the relationships I've developed with various commercants in my neighborhood. Normally people think "Oh, capital city, it must be so impersonal and you're just a random face among all the others living there". But I've had totally the opposite experience. I've found here what I was looking for all those years in Bretagne - some kind of recognition. And I don't mean recognition in the awards sense - I mean literal, physical recognition. Or acknowledgement if you will. Just some kind of sign that the person working there recognizes me and my fidelité to their store. That's not too much to ask for, is it?

I find that here the grocery store down the street - after just a few months, they'd realized I wasn't a tourist and all of the sudden I was getting friendly "Bonjour's" and "Ca va's?" Whereas in Bretagne, I couldn't even get a "hello" after five years of going to the same grocery store a block down the street. Same thing for my bakery - I went to the boulangerie across the street from our apartment at least three times a week and purchase the same baguette every time. But yet every day, it was like they had no clue who I was or what I wanted. And it pissed me off because really, how many Americans - or even foreigners - could they get in that small town on a regular basis (especially for a boulangerie on the edge of town)?

Another example here is rhumrhums. While the owner of the rhumrhum bar has still refused to acknowledge our weekly presence, at least our regular waiter has. She's taken the time to learn our names and has even bise-d us on occasion. Though she's unfortunately been banished to the basement, so I haven't seen her in a while. But after rhumrhums, I always head to see my crêpe dude. He's just over a block away from the rhumrhum bar and I get a butter & sugar crêpe from him every Friday night. He knows me by name and he always greets me with the biggest smile. And he realizes if I'm not there one week and always asks where I was.

Funnily enough, last month when I was in Bretagne, I stopped by that old bakery again (they make the best sandwiches ever). When I walked in, I saw the same woman who'd been there the entire time. We made eye contact, and I saw a brief glimmer of surprise in her eyes as she remembered who I was. But then it disappeared and I got the same old stony "What can I get for you?" as always. No "Oh, long time no see! Where have you been?"

It's taken me a lot of time to realize that a lot of this is Bretagne-specific. That was all I knew for most of my time in France, so for me, that's how all of France was. But I've slowly realized I was wrong (and thank God). Now, when I go down South, the people down there definitely remember me and welcome me with open-arms. And even in the Loire Valley, the hotels I go to on a regular basis are starting to remember who I am. But it's yet another reason I had such a tumultous relationship with France for so many years. These kinds of connections may not be important for some people, but they are vital for me - it's really important for me to have an emotional connection with my surroundings, and I was just never able to establish that in Bretagne. So I'm really grateful I've had the chance to experience the rest of France - and to get to know the France that so many other people love.

Can you imagine going without electricity, water or a phone for several days straight? Most of you have probably heard about the big storms that the South of France experienced last weekend, and I've been watching it unfold every day on the news. About 30% of my clients down there, and the majority of them are in les Landes, the area that took the brunt of it. It's so strange for me to see all of those tiny towns on the news - sort of like their 15 minutes of fame, though not in a good way.

I haven't been able to reach many of them so far because their phone lines are still out - pretty much every time I try, I get a message saying "This number does not exist". I hope they haven't suffered too much damage though, and that none of their animals were hurt. I'd almost planned on going down there this week too, but I'm really glad I didn't now. Staying in a hotel is already getting old, let alone in a hotel with no electricity or running water!

I guess it just goes to show how spoiled we all are nowadays. I've tried to think about how I would deal here with no heat, no fridge, no oven, no lights, etc - I'm certainly not equipped for it. In fact, the only thing I am equipped for is internet, since my blackberry can act as a modem for my computer if need be! (Though without electricity, my laptop wouldn't last long.) It all just makes what Riana's doing look even smarter, ie going back to the basics and not being a slave to consumerism and technology....

I cannot believe how nice people have been to me lately. It's like I'm in a completely different country. And it leaves me wondering whether it's the change in region that's made the difference, or the change in me.

The Scottish lady called the hotel tonight to see if I still wanted to come over for "girls night" with some of her French friends. I almost said no since I've gotten to be so awkward around new people, but I thought "What the hell? Chances are I'll be coming back here again, so I might as well get to know some people". So I went, and we spent the night in the jacuzzi drinking champagne. This is significant because 1) I haven't worn a swimsuit for probably five years and 2) I spent the night hanging out with French woman. Real, live French women. Who were nice AND friendly.

Afterwards, we had supper out on the patio, and then her husband and the Scottish dude came back from their trip and we sat around the fireplace drinking red wine. And you know what? It was really fun. I'm sort of regretting it this morning since I'm now exhausted, but this kind of stuff is good for me. It's good to get out of the "house", to see people, to get myself out of my head and to remind myself that I do have interesting things to contribute to the conversation. So yeah, it was a good night - and hopefully there will be many more good nights to come in Paris!

I am 56.

One of the things that's been niggling me about moving to Paris is the changing of departments. I mean, I've lived in Morbihan for almost five years now - it's MY department. I am Morbihannaise. Le 56 is my number.

It's been so engrained in me - everyone knows 44's are bad drivers, and that 22's are hicks (kind of like North Dakotan & Wisconsin drivers, lol). And don't even get me started on anyone with a 75 - then you automatically know to watch out. You know, parisien, tête de chien; parigot, tête de veau, and all that jazz. And now I'm going to be one of them! :-)