Swimtrunks & Fancy Cookin'

The French have great stage presence in musical settings as well. Idols of French music include Serge Gainsbourg, the classic tortured artist who drank, smoke, and drugged himself to an early death. But you can't beat the first five seconds of this live performance.

When he was younger, Serge Gainsbourg wrote a very suggestive song for the young France Gall (another heavy-hitting name in French pop culture) about a girl named Annie who likes suckers. This was a scandalous hit in the 60s, and France Gall had to work very hard to recover her dignity afterwards.

My years of Youtube research paid off recently as I was complimented on my knowledge of 20th century French musicians. Jean-Jacques Goldman, Lorie, Charles Trenet, Jacques Brel... I've watched them all, following one internet link to the next. Before changing subjects, one more classy song by Gainsbourg is "Je t'aime... moi non plus," which translates literally as "I love you... me neither," a duet featuring a solo of sexual moaning.

What else is new? I technically only teach twelve hours a week, and I have many vacations. For lack of other purpose, and to keep a tight budget, I spend a lot of my time just buying and cooking meals. I know the approximate or exact price of almost every item in my small living space, from the bargain 5€ skillet to the 0,92€ can of tomatoes (a cheap pasta sauce).

I'm trying to experience more or less the French lifestyle, but to a certain point I do need to keep my morale. The milk comes in tepid boxes, which I refrigerate. I found the baking powder hidden in little sachets, translated baking units in an American recipe and made pancakes... crepes will come soon. I am also apparently bizarre in eating eggs for breakfast; a neighbor friend was really confused when I mentioned that, and then concluded that I was like the English.

In French; very roughly quoting:
"You had eggs? For breakfast?"
"Yes." "Eggs for breakfast?" (Now assuming he just must not personally know how to fry eggs quickly on our burners) "Yes. Look, I can show you how, just crack it on the skillet, it just cooks" "I know. With bacon? Bacon and eggs?" "Well you don't really have bacon, but I used ham, yeah." "We do have bacon. Do you want to find bacon?" "I'm fine for now." "Ahhh... eggs for breakfast... you're like the English!"

A lot of the youth workers around me seem to be eating pasta. Since I'm no French chef, I seek out some foods that to some extent I already know are good. In my search for tasty foods, I've been wandering all around town and have visited every store possible.

This sad substitute for macaroni was a serious disappointment:
There is no delicious cheese packet! It's also bothersome to see a cracked raw egg hovering above my forked noodles.

I managed to buy a bunch of soy/rice noodles with sweet & sour sauce, soy sauce, hot chili sauce, popcorn, etc. at an Asian food shop (in Angers... Ancenis may be too small for that sort of thing). On a related note, I recently made fajitas. Not a bad feat, since they rarely eat anything like that in France; I had to consolidate ingredients available at different places. MMM! Not that French cuisine isn't excellent... but if I'm living here seven months I think I'll need my Mexican food.
In French, by the way, "sour cream" essentially corresponds to "crème fraîche" i.e. "fresh cream." That seems strangely opposite in meaning.

Looking out my window while cooking at night I can usually see the high speed train spark as it flies by. And looking into a window at the train station in Nantes I managed to catch a glimpse of the work being done by the SNCF (national train system) welcome booth representative:

Hey! That screen seems awfully familiar.

COFFEE! MEXICAN FLU!

Firsts first: I got a coffeemaker. It's beautiful.

It's nice to be settling into my new residence. Living out of my suitcase for a week and a half was a little uncomfortable. Finally, I can hang up my giant American flag! With sticky tack, because the rules for the room said no tape - but if that doesn't work, of course, well - the flag must fly somehow.

In buying items for my room I decided to spend a little extra for the pink rolls of toilet paper that are popular in French bathrooms. First of all, I think they are hilarious. Additionally, I just wouldn't want to miss out on that cultural experience.

I got to watch a few classes at the junior high where I'll be teaching four one-hour classes per week. Here's what I observed in the first class I watched:

At the beginning of class, a student was made to stand in front of the class and ask questions in English. The young boy executed this daily task with an odd courteousness and an interestingly affected voice.

To one student.
"What is your name please."
[mumble mumble]
"How is the weather please."
[mumble mumble]
"How are you please."
"Fine, thank you."
"What about you Slimane."
"Fine, thank you."

Catch it! Bin it! Kill it!
In the next class, the English teacher had a slide printed off from an annual British awareness campaign for the flu: "Catch it! Bin it! Kill it!" After a little preliminary discussion about some of the words on the poster and the layout of the poster, she asked an open question to the class: "What do you know about the flu?"

I was somewhat surprised by how eager the French children were to demonstrate their knowledge of the flu:
-It is a virus.
-It comes from Mexico.
Good!

Speaking of sickness, I learned yesterday that as a worker in France I am entitled (starting four months from now) to one month of paid sickness and one month of sick days paid at 50%. Pretty cool, huh? Oh wait... the catch being, when you're taking a sick day, you can only leave your house for two hours, and they will CHECK your home to make sure you haven't left. If you have, you're in serious trouble with the government.

France is a little bit different from the States.

I wrote a diary entry his morning on my way to Nantes for an English teaching assistantship meeting. Here it is:

October 5, 2009
Dear Diary,

Today I got on the 7h05 train to Nantes with Kelly. We almost missed our bus - we walked outside just in time to run it down! All thanks to our very hot instant coffee with no milk to cool it down. At the train station, Kelly bought us breakfast while I went in line to buy the tickets. Apparently (she told me this while we waited on the bench for our TER train), the lady at the counter gave her a lot of trouble while she was ordering. She wouldn't let her buy jam with her croissants + pastry order -- the jam comes "only with the bread!" That's a rather different mentality than in the US, where at least if you offer to pay you can usually get anything behind the counter.

Here's a sketch of what I see out the train's window:
It's still dark outside.

Where's Waldo? And Who The Hell Is Charlie?

There are lots of funny translated titles in French bookstores: Dr. House, Les Frères Scott ("The Scott Brothers" = One Tree Hill), but this one takes the cake (and eats it too). "Où est Charlie?" (pronounced Ooo eh Sharley) - Really? That doesn't even rhyme! If Waldo's name must be changed I would prefer "Où est Jorge?"!

That said, I did enjoy seeing Charlie in the bookstore.

I still haven't quite figured out how to eat on the go in France. There just isn't as much fast food, so when outside the big city centers you're on your own. My attempted "cheap lunch on the go" last Friday in Varades consisted of:

• 3 slices of uncooked-looking ham bought from the butcher
• 1 small bottle of warm milk bought at a corner store
• 1 apple washed in bottled water
  

This meal cost about 4 euro - pretty good. For another euro, I could have bought a baguette and made a sandwich, but I was feeling adventurous and back-to-my-animal-roots by eating the ham all by itself.

Only one McDonald's exists in Ancenis, and yesterday I found it:


There's McDonalds, looming on the horizon, ostracized to the giant commercial center just outside the small town's boundaries. This commercial center has apparently sprung up in the past 10 years or so like a cancerous growth.

But returning to "McDo" (as they call it) - I knew that I should perhaps not go to France and visit the McDonald's. But it called to me. I was hungry and the damn restaurants were too expensive. And as for the taste, and the smell - how could this be wrong when it felt so right?


I decided to get a Big Mac in honor of Matt in Cincinnati. Maybe fast food really is an addiction, because that greasy Big Mac brought with it a wave of satisfaction unmatched by all the finest wines of France.

There was no dollar (or euro) menu, unfortunately, and a small cup of "iced tea" with no ice (they consider it A-OK to call it iced tea and include no ice) costs something around 2 euros. That sucks! I really don't find it all that great that they sell beer, either, since I really wouldn't feel like paying for beer with my Royale.

Oh, and besides McDonald's, I also saw a beautiful 600 year-old castle and a quaint little house.



Wow! That's one leafy house.

Speaking of houses, tomorrow I move from the 3rd floor of an English teacher's house into a dormitory 0f Ancenis. I'm very excited! The reason being, of course, that even though I make plenty of coffee and even worked at Starbucks, I've actually never bought or owned a coffeemaker. This is my first priority upon moving into my new home. I'll also be buying plenty of rice, couscous, pasta, an iron, and a radio. Stay tuned! (groan).

Bicycle Spectacle!

Hi! I'm living in the danger zone here, St. Florent le Vieil, France. The other day I decided to ride a bike about 45 km to Angers, where my friend Kelly and her boyfriend are living. I took my bike? No. I'm living with a middle-aged woman who is an English teacher at the local high school until I get permanent lodging. After buying a lock and refilling the tires of my borrowed feminine bicycle [see above - notice the basket], I was on my way at 5:11pm (17h11).

Unfortunately, as a wiser person might have foreseen, I didn't quite make it to Angers before dark. The sunset finished right as I entered the general vicinity of Angers: Bouchemaine, at the outlet of the river that runs through Angers, a few hours walk from the apartment to which I was going. Unfortunately, my map was a black and white photocopy made by a librarian in Varades, near St. Florent, and it had absolutely no details - all it showed of my area were a few big roads.

Since I didn't want to cut my own path through the farms, I was stuck walking along the edge of freeways. Not a great situation, non? So I decided to keep walking with a combination of trying out side roads where it was quiet enough as not to be killed by a car. At a bus stop, I took a digital photo of the bus route map to take with me. I needed to cross that damn river, but presumably stay near enough to society to find a payphone to call my friend. My cell phone? Not an option, since the SIM card was two years old and deactivated.

The darkness, the fatigue, the pulling the bike around, the going in circles on side roads - needless to say, my progress was rather limited. After an hour and a half of riding around and not finding a payphone and not finding any food place open (all those damn chateaux and not one White Castle!), I could tell by my maps that I didn't have much of a chance of making it to my destination in any time less than a couple hours, though I still couldn't find where I was. On a side road, I found a new backlit map in the middle of semi-populated area with an elementary school. I noticed some young people in a house nearby had their front window open, music playing and were engaging in lively conversation. One woman looked out the window a few times, noticing my strange presence.

After squinting tiredly a minute or two in front of the map, I decided my situation was sufficiently hopeless and walked directly through their gate, bike helmet in hand, up to the open window to ask to use their telephone, announcing as plaintively as possible that "Je suis gravement perdu" [I was gravely lost].

They took great mercy on me, offering their many cell phones and speaking in their finest English. The next thing I knew they invited me inside to watch a movie with them (District 9 in English with English subtitles), gave me Coca Cola and "belgium" waffles with nutella - delicious! and were all carrying on very welcomingly. After the movie, they went out of their way to drive me and my bicycle to my friend's house across the river (17 minute drive). I gave them my email and we're keeping in touch. Probably one of the more senselessly dangerous situations I've gotten myself into, but three points for humanity. Thanks, guys.

This is a Horrible Way to Start a Blog

Oh look at that it looks like I'm typing a box of words.