Notes on a Country: Comme-Oddities
Hope this is shorter for ya’ll ; ) But I make no promises ; )
Differences:
• Toilet paper goes quick here. The ply is short-lived, that is unless you buy the more expensive brands. I guess it’s the same in the states, but here, it just seems like I am ALWAYS buying it.
• Eggs and milk are bought lukewarm, outside of a freezer. We buy milk lukewarm too, soymilk and powder milk, but here you can buy cow milk and goat milk among the aisles.
• I have never seen so many sorts of prunes and grapes. My favorites are these little green prunes called “Claude Reine Vert”, which really doesn’t mean anything special… “Green Queen Claudia”. Whooo. And I also like these little bitty green grapes called “Chasselas” and these big fat green ones called “Italia”. All the grapes have seeds, and it’s funny because normally I like dark-colored grapes, but here the ones that I can find taste like muscadines, and I CAN’T stand the taste of muscadines.
• No one uses air conditioners here, unless its places like the Office of Tourism or the City Hall (la Mairie), who cater to many foreigners. Truthfully, it hasn’t been a problem for me. However, I remember one day in early September when it was a little hotter, and I was walking around on the Presqu’île and I saw some older ladies sitting together in the shade dousing their necklines and their shoulders in water. Then I remembered an essay I wrote in one of my French Lit classes at UCA about the “La Canicule” (the heat wave). In 2005, many people died (mostly the elderly) in France because of a huge heat wave that struck the nation and took by surprise those without an AC unit.
As I said, no one uses AC here, I never have. It’s the beginning of October now, and there have been a couple of days where I thought I was going to die of cold. It is gonna be a LONG winter!
• I love having the accessibility of recycling almost everything, and I love how it makes me feel. But note that the French don’t recycle aluminum. Strikes me odd. Hmmmm.
• I love getting handed a free newspaper every evening when I get off the métro. I have never read the news like I read the news now.
• People hardly ever smile at one another on the streets, in the markets, in the métros, etc. Except me. I’m a smiler ; ) Truthfully, it’s a pretty cold place, and the only thing that is keeping me going is my eternal optimism, that and the little moments that happen throughout the week that keep me smiling. Every once in a while I get some human compassion, and those brief moments make my day, each and every time.
As an exception, people smile and say hi instantly and repeatedly in my apartment complex and in the elevator-I guess because we are “neighbors”.
I have seriously said hi 5 different times (yet in the same exact manner) to a guy who lives a floor underneath me and equally to some girl that lives a floor or so above me. They seem nice, always very pleasant; it’s just very weird though. I find that people here are very stand-offish, but once you are in, you are in, and you don’t even necessarily have to know the person beforehand. For example, I recall the night of Marie-José’s son’s house-warming party when I met her other son Pierre and his girlfriend Maude for the first time. We rode in the back seat together to the party. Pierre knew before he and Maude got in the car that I was with his parents, and I think because he knew, and maybe because he knows how close Marie-José and I have become, he slid right in the backseat like we were friends, like he could slide right in and hit my hip and it wouldn’t matter. He did just that, stuck his hand out, gave me an enormous smile and that was that. I was “in”. I will never forget that feeling! I felt grand!
The same thing happened when my host Rotary club welcomed me for the first time. The president of the club, Joëlle, came right up to me, in my face (like the French do), and just started rambling, inviting me over to meet her daughters of my age. I had never emailed, never seen, never even heard of this woman, and there she was in my face kissing my cheeks because she knew who I was through Marie-José and through Rotary.
This talk of cultural barriers makes me think of first impressions and how others can talk a person up. My mom always used to tell me that a first impression is crucial. I used to shrug it off…not iron my clothes…not act like every strand of hair had to be perfectly positioned, every eyelash perfectly separated… Lol, here I’m still the same way here, but I make sure that when I go somewhere for the first time or meet someone for the first time, I put on my best face, my best outfit, and my best attitude. In fact, most of my meetings are for the first time only anyway, so you know what that means! Yup, Jessica is lookin' sexy all the time! Lol.
I have found that a first conversation is crucial. I am lucky and happy to say that most of my first conversations have been amazing! It’s funny, the first night I got to Lyon, I remember when Marie-José picked me up at the train station and then took me home to meet Jacques. They commented on how my French was very good, and for me, to hear that is bizarre because I know how many mistakes I make more than anyone else I think! Well maybe! I think that my close Anglophile friends I have here like Nathan and Karen, who are in my same boat, notice my mistakes. Of course it’s always supportive, respectful, and beneficial--We gotta learn somehow.
Haha, it’s a good thing that I showed a good potential the first day I met Marie-José et Jacques because in subsequent days, I don’t’ know how many times I have had to clarify or repeat what I want to say to them! It’s sad but true! Ahhh, c’est la vie d’une étudiante étrangère !
• Drivers are ruthless. They are out for blood here. My legs almost got forced concave the other day when some idiot driver (who was parked might I add!) backed up and nearly amputated me. She didn’t look one time to see if a) a car was coming and b) that Jessica Jones was standing there. The nerve! The same goes for bicyclers. They don’t care. They own the road just as much as the drivers. Seriously, I always look both ways at crosswalks when I have a “go” sign because there are always those idiot cyclists who “own” the road and take pedestrians out. Sure they can easily swerve, more easily than a car can, but I am convinced that they are egotistical and merciless. I’d rather not have an unforgettable story of me in a hospital bed after having been mowed down by a biker. Ha, I’d probably make up a cool story ; )
• Truthfully, public transportation is first come first serve. I don’t know how many older people, pregnant women, and moms with strollers I have seen standing in the middle of métros and tramways keeping their own bearing-without any handles. Sad but true.
Also, you had better wait for people to get off the métro/bus/tramway before you get on, or they will ram you to the nasty métro ground, or get in a tiffy and storm off mumbling to themselves.
• Speaking of pregnant moms, they get good good benefits here. Momma’s here, no matter their marital status, get money for each kid they birth. If their marriage is stable they are getting a stable monthly check. If their marriage is in shambles they are getting a stable monthly check. For-each-kid. Whoa.
• Annoying cell phone rings, and people talking on cell phones don’t annoy me here like they did stateside, instead, it’s people who blast their MP3’s or cell phone MP3’s, and expect everyone around them to already automatically love whatever it is they are listening to.
I was in a superstore called “Auchan” the other day and these two young punk high school girls were listening to some awful American music, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Of course, with my luck, they saw, and then they continued to stand right next to me, giggling proudly at how much they must have though I hated them. I giggled later at their music choice and how banal they would appear in America. I won, and they didn’t even know it! ; )
• I have grown to hate chestnut trees and pigeons. Both of their droppings drop on my head, hurting me physically or mentally, or sometimes both.
(Cody, t’en souvient-il? Le Centre Pompidou, les serviettes, le “photo-up” du dernier siècle…)
• France has got to be the anti-aging capital of the world. I have never seen so many “anti-rides” (anti-wrinkle) formulas! The other day, I was looking for a simple daily face crème with some SPF in it (cuz I ran out of your Mary Kay goods Katie!), and I ended up standing in the aisle (mind you, an entire aisle in dedication) for 30 minutes searching out all the formulas that could “guarantee” me a diminishment in my fine lines and wrinkles. In the end, I went home with a formula specifically for 20-something year olds who need sun protection and hydration throughout the day. Believe me, it took a while to pick that out after I narrowed down “what I needed”, for then I had to pick out the brand and the price. Truthfully, I went home feeling like I made the best decision ever. Furthermore, I was trying to find some acne gel the other day, and I figured that the same store would have a lot of choices since they had everything anyone would ever want in the face cream selection. They didn’t. They had two different choices. Later, I looked at a supermarket near where I live to see their choices, and I couldn’t find a single thing. Do people not have zits here?!!
On another note, and under the same topic, I am TOO white for French face concealers! Seriously, I must be albino! I am going to have to look elsewhere for something to hide these under eye circles that will inevitably keep developing.
Also, my nail polish remover is better than yours. My nails smell like sweet lotus flowers that haven’t been poisoned by acetone (acetonic?) toxins. Seriously, I would wear the fragrance as perfume!!
• France closes on Sunday, which means I have to buy the key essentials (i.e. toilet paper, bread, coffee) on Saturday. No really, a billboard drops in front of your eyes when you step foot outside of your apartment. It says: “France is closed today; you can wait until tomorrow”. There are a few restaurants that open and I think some supermarkets open until like ten to noon-ish in the morning, but still, for the most part the State turns its cheek on you. If you “got to have” something you had better wake up at the crack of dawn to go and get it, or wait around until the shops owned by foreigners open up.
• The Master’s Degree programs work bizarrely here. You have an entire month and a week to turn in your official document saying what classes you would like to take, and in the meantime you go to those classes without having been enrolled in them first. Très très bizarre! Currently, I am pleased with four of my six of the classes I am taking, and one I am not sure about yet (a French grammaire class!) , and another one I don’t like at all ( a theater class). The teacher is “Muh-nuh-tuhn” (monotone en français), and while he teaches he pleases himself I tell ya. He smiles at a hand movement he makes or a theatrical rendition of a French play he *beautifully* recites. He is full of himself. Plus, he paces back and forth and it annoys the crap out of me. It sort of makes him look like an animal trapped in a cage, doing the only thing it can: pace and walk about. Furthermore, he gives a speech for an hour and a half (in the same tone!). I always fall asleep.
Yesterday I had my other two classes that I hadn’t started yet because the teacher was sick. She said she’d be back on Oct. 3rd. That’s right, she can predict the exact day when she can come back from a lengthy sickness.
Seems sketchy to me. I’m thinking that she’s been on the beaches of the Côte d’Azur this whole entire time. She did look pretty tan today!
• The French ask me what my country is like, not what my state is like. To give you a little history lesson…France is composed of many provinces, and many of those provinces have been around for centuries. The inhabitants of those countries are very close to their land, their “pays”, which suggests that it is not just their land, it is their country, and it is where their heritage lies. Whenever I think of this, I think of people in the US who are really tied down to their “country”, people who have produced wine in their own vineyards for many generations, people who live in the backwoods in sheltered mountainous ranges, people who live on remote islands on the Atlantic coast and still speak a different language. They are out there! I like the thought of it too ; )
• The laundry mat is a great place to meet men. Last week I did my weekly load and I met the most wonderful man in the world. Many years ago he was a “Boulanger”, a bread maker. Today he is retired, living alone in “une maison de retraite”, a residence for the elderly. The day I met him he was doing his own laundry because his caregiver was sick, and that same day he talked about how we was going to the hospital to have an operation on his knees. I helped him. Well, I DID his laundry ; )
I wonder how he is doing, and I hope that I see him again because I had my best French conversation with him yet while living here.
• I’m pretty much a loner here. I don’t have many friends yet except for Yusuke, a Japanese student at another university in Lyon who was in my class in Tours, and a married couple from Finland who have installed themselves here. Vera and Mattie. I met them my first week in Lyon at the hotel where we all stayed, and yesterday I found them on the street. They smile a lot like me, and I was so happy to find them again! We exchanged numbers immediately! I also made an American friend named Gary. We met at church two Sundays ago. I decided to start looking for a church because I thought that it would do me good. I like having a support system and people around me that care about other people. I’ve made a few friends in class, but the students are very private here and often I feel like we are in class together and that is it. And that is it. I think that they are just as busy as I am though, so I don’t hold it against them. Also, they have their friends from Undergrad school.
Although I have not yet been cheek-kissed by a classmate, I’m awaiting it, and I think it’s gonna happen next week: )
Okay, so I think I’m done with my Frenchie-Lyon thoughts, now I just have to make a comment about clones.
I had a conversation in Tours a few months ago with a fellow Rotary Ambassador Nathan, who is in Strasbourg currently, and he mentioned how he had been seeing all of his friend’s faces and/or bodies and/or characteristics in France.
It has now hit me! It’s an epidemic! I am cursed to look at a lot of my friends faces while walking around the city and I can’t a) talk to them, b) hug them, and c) exchange “how’s your mother’s”.
Let me just list you off who I have seen who has struck me as one of my friends.
1) Dustin Seaton. There was a tall guy in the metro the other day and he just looked like a regular normal bloke, and then he face squinted like Dustin Seaton. I giggled to myself : )
2) Sarah Haney. I was in MacDonald’s using their “Wifi Gratuit” their “wee-fee gratooeee” (free WIFI) and I saw this college-aged girl walk in with long blond hair and she had the face of Sarah Haney. As I examined her (stealthily of course!), I discovered that she moved her hands too much and she wanted attention. Haney, you’re not like that, but nevertheless, I thought about you the other day ; )
3) Thomas Herndon. I was on the tramway going to IKEA one day and this guy had Thomas lips! And a Thomas nose! He was even quiet and reserved like Thomas is when he’s by himself! It was crazy. He seemed really friendly too : )
4) Sarah Mason. So once this chick got off a metro and she was your short, she was wearing black leather boots that went up mid-calf (made me think of your black rain boots), she had on cool glasses, short hair with spiky ponytail things, and she looked friendly. I wanted to reach out and touch someone!
5) Andrea Jones, my mom. I saw a younger version of you, momma, and I daydreamed that if I were slimmer maybe I would look like this young woman. She must have been my age and she looked like you in photos before you married Dad. She had darker hair and she was shorter, but her eyes haunt me still.
6) Justin Jones, my brother. Every time, I tell you every time I see a normal height, square jaw, slim-Jim, military type, I do a double-mint gum. Every time! (Haha, oh Slim Jims and Justin Jones!)
7) Chris Heien. Same game- square jaw yet with a different height and long-blowy, silky locks. I see you mostly sporting loafers, nerd glasses, and a sweater coming down your back, draping your shoulders.
9) Linda Drasler. It’s your hair sweetums. There are a lot of really curly heads here. I think it’s the weather.
10) Anne Milligan. I was on the metro the other day and I saw Anne’s red hair (but it was longer), Anne’s nose and eyes, and that was all that I could see of this young woman until she got off at the stop, and I noticed that the bottom half of her face was not that of Anne’s.
11) Christian, I walked behind you the other day. The guy had a perky walk, and tight European jeans, but he sported a faux-hawk. And your mug just wasn’t the same, but your skin color was and so was your height. The faux-hawk part just made me laugh and laugh ; )
12) Julius. I saw a German the other day (and I know this because he spoke German) and he looked like you Julius. He had your rosy glow and your height, and even your facial features !
For the rest of you of whom I haven’t seen doubles (yet)…it just means that you are too unique for anyone else’s shoes : ) And when I do see you, it just means that I miss you very much : )
On a side note, I have been seeing celebrity look-alikes as well. There are two guys in two of my classes: one looks like Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the other looks like a young Eddie Veddar of Pearl Jam when the song “Jeremy” debuted. I stare too, it’s uncanny really. My Eddie Veddar look-alike is a lady-killer though. Can’t imagine how bad he’d hurt a foreigner ;) Lol. I don’t think I want to know! Crazy lady killers. How do they sleep at night? Ha, with many others, that’s how.
So, as some of you know, I went to Paris over the weekend. It was indeed as lovely as the world gives it credit for being. And for me, the second time was the charm.
City of Love= Check. City of *clean* streets= Check. City of Lights= Check. City that never sleeps=Check. City of the most memorable monuments= Check.
(PS, the streets weren’t that bad!)
In fact, I couldn’t get away from Paris!! I changed my train ticket, so that I could spend 6 more hours there! Then, I missed my changed train ticket because the city wouldn’t let me go (I got lost in the 1st Arrondissement!)!!
I ended up taking a red-eye night train to Lyon that lasted 5 and half hours (three and half hours more than usual!). I have never slept so well too, let me tell you! After this *well-rested* night of peaceful sleep, I got off the train in Lyon at a train station far away from my apartment, and I found out that because it was October 1st, my monthly transportation card had expired.
I really should have just stayed in Paris : )
I had a great time though. I was invited for the obligatory Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar Weekend Orientation. They set us up in a youth hostel for two nights, and they gave us a tour of Paris by foot and by “bateaux-mouches” (literally: fly boats--but they are slow), touristy boat rides that coast all along the Seine river. I saw many of Paris’s famous sites from the water!!! It was amazing : )
I stayed in the youth hostel with three of my good friends, which boosted my moral like nothing else could ; ) There I met two Canadian guys who were celebrating their birthdays and their drunken youth, I met a remarkably kind-hearted girl named Carly, a scholar from Austin, Texas, and I met up my friend Daniel again. I met him back in April in Kansas City when we had our Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar weekend orientation. Both he and Carly will be in Tours for three months, so hopefully we will get to see some of France and/or Europe together while they are here ; )
Friday night we had a fancy dinner at a nice hotel, and I recited “L’Albatros” by Baudelaire for all of the Rotarians, the former Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars, and for all of the current Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars. It was amazing! I have never felt so lax in front of a group of people! The former Ambassadorial Scholars, the Scholars who threw the whole weekend together, had requested before we arrived to tell them if we had any special talent. I’m not special and I don’t have any talent, but by golly, I still have my favorite poem memorized, and I was confident that I could get through it. I did : )
To all of my past students: I represented ! I stood there and recited it for them less nervous than I was when I taught it to ya’ll. Yay ; )
Just a side note—If you ever decide to arrive at the Gare de Lyon, the Lyon train station in Paris, DO make sure that you KNOW what line you are coming in on. That place is a zoo. Nathan met me there, and for an hour or so we were looking for each other! It was ridiculous and I felt dumb. Also, don’t tell someone to meet you at the welcome station because there is not one, there are several! Many several!
The weekend was great though, just what I needed to reaffirm my goals and to create many new friendships.
I am glad I painted my nails red : )
Also, anytime you want you guys can go to my Photo website and check out my photos. If you have Facebook, I’d prefer you go look at them there because there is where you can read my silly little comments under each photo. Regardless, they are both meant to let you know how I am doing, and as you may know, I LOVE taking photos! Furthermore, many of the times, if you want to know how I am doing, just go look at my photos. I upload frequently, and they tell stories within stories ; )
Mise-en-abyme ; )
http://picasaweb.google.com/BulletproofSpirit
As I passed by the strikes during the strike parade today in Lyon, I listened in on what some of the other spectators were saying. Here results some of the "best" conversations ever had (and they just say SO much:)
This is a photo of a sondage of how many students are participating throughout France, note that a big blue dot is on Lyon, which means that as of Nov. 13--three days ago--there were more than 150,000 students participating. Surely that has augmented. It's funny, just by looking at the map it looks like all the mountaineous regions, all of those students are like "Meh, whatever"!
These photos were taken at my university today.
These are the chairs and bureaus that the protesting students pushed up against the doors.
Problema nùmero cautro:
Problema nùmero cinco: