Sep 24, 2009

Saison

n. – season
Mois
n. – month
I’m going to begin with my favourite season in Paris which is “printemps” or spring. Usually, this starts around “mars” or March. (Note: the French don’t capitalize months or days of the week like we do). While the first weeks of the month may still be a bit cool, you can feel the openness of the city as the grey gloom of winter gives way to sunshine and blue skies. Colourful flowers decorate window boxes and accent the lush green of the gardens and parks. People are happier, lighter and even friendlier as the city awakens after its winter slumber.

As the weeks pass from “avril,” April into “mai,” May, the days get longer and warmer and by “juin” or June, “l’été” or summer has arrived. Sandals, sunglasses and sun dresses are sported as people take just a little more time over lunches at outdoor cafes while planning their upcoming vacations. From “mi-juillet,” mid-July until “fin aôut,” the end of August, the city thins out as people head to the beaches, the country, or even to exotic locales overseas. And rather than feeling desolate as it clears out, the city just feels peaceful. Traffic is lighter, restaurants are more accessible and even if you’re still here working, you sense that the load is lighter whatever it may be.

“Automne” or fall can begin as abruptly as the “rentrée” or re-entry at the beginning of “septembre,” September. Parents looks as sleepy as their children on the first day of school and it seems like the weather turns from sultry to crisp almost overnight. The leaves start to turn, the traffic starts to churn and everything comes back to life and back to work. The temperature keeps dipping as “octobre,” October turns to “novembre,” November and the trees are finally stripped bare leaving them looking naked and vulnerable.

By “décembre,” December, “l’hiver” or winter has officially arrived. The sun has faded away as if to take its own vacation now. Replacing it is a sheet of grey that covers the pretty city fading its spectacular lustre. While it may not be as cold as New York, the dampness of the climate makes it feel worse and the lack of sun and blue sky makes it depressing and sad. My husband says it’s like looking at a beautiful painting in the dark. You can no longer appreciate it even though it’s right there in front of you.

“Janvier,” January and “février,” February are probably the worst months since whatever festive sparkle was created around the holidays has now disappeared. For this reason, it’s nice that February is the shortest month and when its final day rolls around, you can take a breath of fresh even if still frigid air knowing that it’s uphill from there. And so the cycle begins again with sunshine and flowers erasing the memories of sadness and frost. Perhaps it’s true that without the one extreme we would never appreciate the other so I have to be thankful for both and the transition that fall and spring allow between the peaks and lows of summer and winter.

Sep 23, 2009

Medicament

n. – medicine
Certain medicines are handled differently here than in the US. Several of the over-the-counter drugs that we find there are only available by prescription here and vice versa. A doctor once recommended ibuprofen to me when I had a sore throat. The normal dose is 200 mg or one pill, but she recommended I take at least two to be effective (which I always do). She asked me if I needed a prescription to which I responded I already had some, but what I realized she meant was that if I wanted to take a dose of 400mg or the equivalent of two pills, that would only be available by prescription. This must be why they sell them so parsimoniously in boxes of only 10 at a time and why you have to ask for them at the counter. In New York, I used to buy bottles of 200. I imagine here, that could make me eligible for rehab!

Claritin, the popular anti-histamine available OTC in the US, is only available by prescription here where Zyrtec, another type of the same medication that is only available by prescription in the US is available OTC here. Melatonin, which is often recommended to aid in jet lag and is easily accessible in the U.S., is also a prescription medication here.

While anti-depressants are prescription only, they are relatively easily prescribed. I once read that France has the highest percentage of people on anti-depressants which I think has less to do with a nation of depressed people and more to do with the ease by which they can be attained. Medication to treat the ills is covered generously within the health care system. However in the case of depression, therapy, is not. Therapy is looked at as an indulgence where the medication is looked at as a necessity to directly affect that condition. Homeopathy on the other hand is popular among many pharmacists who seem to prefer a more natural remedy to pharmaceuticals. I’m sure there is a fair amount of disagreement between internists, psychologists and pharmacists on appropriate methods of treatments.

Of course everyone is concerned with swine flu here – so much so that the customary kissing on both cheeks has been forbidden in many work places and schools. When my husband felt under the weather recently after a trip, we stopped by the pharmacy to ask for a remedy. The pharmacist panicked, pulling her shirt over her mouth and threw face masks at us. My husband was instructed not to touch anything in the apartment or our building and to call emergency services right away, which we thought was a bit extreme. We decided to wait it out a night so while he sat on the couch behind his mask, I was in charge of opening doors and turning on lights. In the morning, he was as good as new.

At our office, there are now signs in the restrooms with detailed instructions on how to properly wash your hands. I think I had that one down already, but question whether this is designed for people who are only now starting this practice in light of a pandemic.

I’m often amused by instructions on products. “For external use only” is one of my favourites. Hardly anything with this warning on it is something I would ever think of ingesting. We have quite a few toxic things around the apartment at the moment in my never ending quest to destroy the mosquitoes that seem to have targeted us specifically since nobody else in Paris seems to be bothered by them.

There are oil diffusers that we plug in, citronella candles that we burn, a light that’s supposed to attract and then trap them and my all time favourite, the swatter that’s electrically charged with the push of a button. It looks like a small tennis racket, but rather than having to swat and squish the bugs against a surface, all you have to do is catch them within the net and they’re electrocuted.

Many of these items render our apartment a somewhat hazardous environment for children or small animals so we always have to take care when either come to visit. I’m sure the oils produced by the plug-in repellent are completely poisonous to us as well, but again, I respect that they’re for external use only and since I started practicing washing my hands long before the swine flu came about, feel that I’m pretty thorough with this procedure following any handling of them. Now if they could only come up with a medicine that protects against mosquitoes, prescription or not, I would be first in line.

Mariage

n. – marriage
Noces
n. – wedding
Voyage de noces, lune de miel
n. – honeymoon
French weddings make me think of the expression, “It’s not a race, it’s a marathon.” I have been to quite a few now, including my own and each time I’m fascinated by the endurance of the participants and the tradition of game playing that never seems to get old.

Here the couple is officially married during the civil ceremony. This can precede a religious ceremony, but it the only one that validates the union. This comes from the separation of church and state so while there is religious tolerance of course, only the state is recognized as the official ruling party if you will.

The civil ceremony takes place at the mairie, or the city hall. Depending on the location, the room where this happens can be large enough to accommodate an entire wedding party or quite small. Many couples don’t even have the civil ceremony on the same day. It can be just a small gathering of family, optional and “temoins” or witnesses, obligatory.

At the wedding we attended last year, the civil ceremony was followed immediately by the church ceremony and then the reception. Usually the city hall and the church will be within walking distance. In the case of the wedding we attended last weekend, the city hall was located just across the street from the “salle” or hall where the reception took place. There was no church.

At our last church wedding, the reception that followed was at a winery, which was a lovely setting. However, first we had to make our way to a location nearby for a group photo, something that seems to be increasingly popular. It’s not that easy getting a hundred or more people in a group shot so in this case, it involved bleachers that we had to stand on. As my luck would have it, I was asked to stand on the top rung in three inch heels causing me to wonder if I may upstage the wedding with my early demise.

The “vin d’honeur” literally translated is the wine of honor, or cocktail hour. I should clarify though that it is never just an hour and there are rarely cocktails. Champagne or sweet wines are commonly served and hors d’oeuvres range from light to heavy depending on tastes and budgets.

The bar was set high by the first French wedding I attended as it was impeccable in every detail down to the ice sculptured vodka bar that followed the dinner and opened the disco. The setting was exquisite, the food extraordinary and the celebration punctuated by several meaningful and lovely speeches.

I prefer this to one that is constantly being interrupted by games or entertainment of some kind. One wedding we went to actually had a play in the middle of it. This was probably one of my all time least favorites. The vin d’honor was endless with only sweet wine and cookies to nibble on. It was a buffet which I have to admit I’m not a fan of anywhere even if it’s at the Four Seasons. And someone decided it would be a good idea to separate all the people who knew each other. It wasn’t.

There’s a game of musical chairs that’s popular. Twelve people are chosen and the MC, if you will, yells out a particular object that they have to retrieve while one chair is removed. For example, a sock, a lipstick, etc. The people then grab these things from the rest of the guests. Each time a person is eliminated, they are given a theme during a month of the following year where they have to entertain the couple. In order to make it even funnier, it could be making a fondue in July or having a picnic in December.

The first time I saw this was during a post-wedding brunch. This is also common especially in remote areas where a hall has been rented out or in the case of our first French wedding, a tent has been erected. The last time I saw the game played it was at the wedding dinner, which was scarier to me since you now had people who were well into their cups running and grabbing things and attempting to make it back to their chairs in one piece.

There was an even more dangerous game played at this wedding which involved the two fathers, bare feet, blindfolds and axes. They had to attempt to slice a wine cork that was placed on top of their socks while blindfolded. I’m surprised they didn’t cut off their toes, but the worst damage that was done was to the socks that were of course completely shredded.

This wedding was particularly festive and themed no less. The hall was creatively decorated in a pirate theme complete with pirate servers. The dinner was a buffet that left us a little nutritionally challenged, but clearly the priority was the décor and they pulled that off very well. We were served cold cuts and cheeses and my husband naively waited for the hot entrée that never came. Instead, dessert followed in the form of a variety of cakes and sweets. Normally, there is a “piece montée” or wedding cake, but this time there was a sculpture made entirely out of sugar representing a desert island and hidden treasure in keeping with the theme.

Dancing usually starts around 1 or 2am by which point, these days, I’m ready to leave. So we snuck out quietly since the night was just getting started. Usually the last to leave pack up around 7 or 8 the following morning, which doesn’t give them much turnaround time preceding the brunch continuation.

If the bride and groom have left before the party is completely over, they can be visited by some of the guests with a “pot de la mariée” or soup of the bride. Basically, it’s a disgusting mixture of whatever is at hand that she has to drink. (Our location at our wedding remained a secret for this reason). Another pre-wedding tradition especially in the provinces that I found interesting is a spin on the bachelor party called “enterrement de vie de garcon” or literally translated, the burial of the boy’s life.

A miniature coffin is filled with gifts, wine, liquor, cigarettes, gum, candy, photos, basically whatever people want to put in it. The groom is then forced to walk around the town, preferably dressed in a costume (think prisoner with fake ball and chain) carrying the coffin along with his friends and at the end of the evening, burying it in the backyard if there is one available. The coffin is to be unearthed either after the birth of the couple’s first child or five years after the wedding, whichever comes first. In our case, it came when my in-laws sold the land where it was buried.

Marriages are usually fun and festive events. Even if it rains, the French have an expression, “Marriage pluvieux, marriage heureux,” a rainy marriage is a happy marriage. If it rains at your wedding as it did at ours, you will hear this repeatedly. Rain or shine, theme or none, one thing is certain, all cultures enjoy celebrating this tradition and on a personal note, I hope the day comes when all couples who wish to will be allowed to. Perhaps it will begin here where “egalité” or equality is part of the country’s credo. Vive l’egalité et vivent les marriés!

Sep 6, 2009

Fierté

n. – pride
Cadre
n. – frame
cher
adj. – expensive
Rentrée
n. – re-entry
September 1st signifies the re-emergence of the Parisians from their vacations. The word for vacation in French, vacances, is always plural, perhaps because they have so many of them. This year since the Monday of the first week in September was actually August 31st, many Parisians chose to extend their vacations one more week.

I’ve been trying to get a picture framed for a while now. It’s nothing of particular value as we tore it out of a magazine, but the colors are perfect for the place I want to put it which is in the small space that houses our toilet.

There’s a little frame shop just around the corner, but like with many French merchants, his hours are basically the same as ours, only open during the week and closed during lunch. Since I don’t work on Fridays, that’s my only window of opportunity so I went over there a couple of weeks ago to deposit my picture.

The sign on the door clearly posted his hours and left a number to call in case he wasn’t there during those times, which he wasn’t. So I called and he explained as if I should have already known that he was still on vacation and wouldn’t be back until the following week after Tuesday.

Well this was unfortunate because the following Friday was my day learning about civil laws where I thought I would be stuck until his closing time. So imagine my delight when we were let out early and I knew I had time to run home and go back over with my picture.

Once again, he wasn’t there so I called the number and got the same response – to try again the following Tuesday. Well fed up now, I decided I needed to find another framer. I asked a woman who worked in a store nearby that restored paintings and she suggested another shop not far away.

So I wandered over there just to confirm that he was open before returning to get the picture. He was and told me that normally he is open until 7pm, but that day he was closing early because he was still partially on vacation. I couldn’t bear the thought of waiting another week so I sprinted back to the apartment, grabbed the picture and sprinted back.

I think I impressed him with my perseverance so he didn’t rush me as we selected an appropriate frame. I explained, not that he couldn’t see for himself, that the picture wasn’t anything of value and as such I didn’t really want to spend a lot of money framing it. At the same time, I was embarrassed to admit that it would be hanging in our “toilette” since he is after all an artisan who takes pride in his work.

He totaled everything up and to my surprise, it came out to just under 100 euros (twice what I imagined paying even on the high end). Of course by then, I didn’t want to say never mind. After all, he had taken his time and almost risked missing his train. When I told a friend who was visiting from New York the story, she thought that maybe because the picture itself wasn’t of any value that he wanted to make it more special by creating a nice frame. Maybe that’s true or maybe it’s just that custom framing always costs more than you realize.

The French are a proud people and I noticed examples of this with the same friend and her daughter who were visiting. They don’t speak French so I was proud myself to translate on their behalf. But since we visited a lot of tourist spots and live ourselves in a very international neighborhood, I noticed that many of the merchants or waiters would respond to me in English.

At first, I found this disconcerting because it made me question whether my French was good enough. But I realized that they’re proud to speak English and don’t want someone to make them feel inferior. My husband can get away with speaking French because he is French, but with me it’s almost like a competition…oh you can speak French, Madame, well guess what, I can speak English. It’s funny in a way because I realized I was just as proud of my skills as they were. Perhaps I am becoming a little bit French myself.

Formation Civique

n. – course in understanding French civil laws
The final requirement in securing my carte sejour was to take a class in French civil law. There are four types of classes that are offered to immigrants such as myself: one to help you learn about the daily life in France, “Session information sur la vie en France;” one to help you find work, “Dipense d’un bilan de competences professionelles;” one to help you improve your French speaking skills, “Dipense de formation linguistic;” and the final and unlike the others, obligatory, one to teach you about civil laws.

I was given a date and required to be there from nine in the morning until seven at night. I was dreading it like a bad rash, panicked about being late or quizzed at the end and failing somehow. I have to admit though that I was more than pleasantly surprised.

There were about 20 of us including the teacher and a translator. The majority of the group was made up of native Spanish speakers representing Chile, Nicaragua, Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru and the translator from Cuba. I was the only American and the rest of the group was comprised of an Asian woman, several Africans and two Algerians.

Our teacher was Tunisian and as with most teachers, her sprit and personality helped keep us interested in the information, even thought it, in and of itself, was already interesting. We learned about the history of France, how it evolved from a monarchy to an empire and finally a republic.

We learned about the regions (22), the departments (100) and the communities (36,000). We learned about the constitution, the organization of the government and the fact that it is laic, meaning that religioun is something to be practiced privately and not imposed on by the state. We learned about human rights, liberty, equality and fraternity, the French creed, as well as the various symbols of France, Marianne, the flag and the Marseillaise.

In addition, we learned a little bit more about the various cultures of each of us sitting in the class. How our countries and our laws may be similar in some ways and very different in others. I imagine at the core, these classes are designed for people coming from regimes that are less free, if you will, or less concerned with human rights. The fact that polygamy and female circumcision, “excision,” are illegal here is not shocking to me, but for some, these practices are common where they are from.

Being faced with this reality reinforced in me how lucky I am. I moved from a country where human rights and freedoms are revered to one that feels the same. And in many ways, the French people are even more protected with regards to unemployment insurance and health benefits. It is both a democracy as well as a socialized system that work in tandem.

So I learned a great deal in a short day and even made some new friends. After nine months, I have finally completed all the requirements for my carte sejour and have a few months to relax before starting the process of renewing it again. But the next time it will be with a more profound respect of the place I now call home in thanks to the chance to be educated further in what all of that entails.

Sep 5, 2009

Respect

n. – respect
Rules in France are truly meant to be broken. Lines are meant to be cut and subway turnstiles are meant to be jumped. For this reason the latter are designed to challenge only the most acrobatic. I have trouble getting though their double barriers myself even though I pay. For those less agile, there’s always the method of squeezing behind the person in front thereby piggybacking on their ride, but this invasion of personal space is frowned upon slightly more. If they had the same system here as they do in Germany where there are no turnstiles, nobody would ever pay for a metro ticket.

When it comes to parking on the street, many people would prefer taking the chance of risking a ticket than paying. They figure with the law of averages, they’ll end up paying less in the long run since the tickets aren’t that expensive. Breaking the rules is often not only embraced, but even encouraged. A good example of this happened the other day to a friend of mine visiting from the US.

She is quite small for her age, in fact although she is twenty-two, she could easily pass for sixteen or even less. As she entered a museum, the man behind the ticket counter assumed she was younger and started to give her a half priced ticket, but she told him her real age. Since people under twenty-five are still entitled to certain discounts here, he asked her if she lived in Europe to which she responded truthfully that she did not. He rolled his eyes and shook his head as if to say, I gave you every chance to break the rules and you failed. He was truly disappointed in her.

Of course I generalize to make a point. Many people do not break the rules and to clarify for the ones who do, it’s not so much a question of dishonesty, but rather entitlement. They make their own exceptions, as is often the case with the language itself, to justify their behavior. They will question a speeding ticket or driving infraction far more than an American would. Perhaps it’s because they’re less intimidated by authority or perhaps it’s simply because it’s in their nature to not go down without a fight.

It’s that pluckiness that often makes for interesting and challenging dinner conversations. And when questioning or even arguing a point, the French almost always remain polite and even formal. Once when a women felt that my husband had cut in front of her while driving (he didn’t), she pulled up along side us, rolled her window down and using the formal tense, told him, “Vous êtes un vrai con, Monsieur!” (You are a real asshole, Sir!), to which he responded, “Vous aussi, Madame!” (You are too, Madam!). I loved that two grown people could swear at each other in a civilized fashion. And it’s that civility that makes the French unique. Liberté, égalité, fraternité and above all, respect, if not for the rules, at least for one another.