Off again!

After a few days of pleasant, dry sunniness, the overwhelming heat, humidity and rain has returned.  Paris has been particularly dreary lately.  I think it's true what they say, Paris is probably best in the spring.  Luckily, Nick and I are hopping on a train tomorrow morning, headed for a week's stay in Brittany.  We tracked down a nice looking B&B, somewhat centrally located for good access of a variety of different things and we'll be making that our home base.  We'll rent a car to get around from there.  

Since the trip to Paris overtook the original plans for backpacking through the Olympics, this week in the forgotten corner of France will be our honeymoon.  We're looking forward to authentic buckwheat crepes, locally brewed cider, long drizzly hikes along sea cliffs and mountains and a little bit of quiet.  If it's half of what I'm hoping, it will be a stellar time.  Anyway, not sure what kind of internet access we will have for the rest of the week, so if you don't hear from anybody for a while, that's why.

Au revoir!

French Mythbusters: Smells, cigarettes and updos

The French smell bad, because they never bathe.


No.  Where does this even come from?  My only guess is that Americans, so obsessed with cleanliness that they launched a polio epidemic of epic proportions*, still can't hack the European idea that maybe the oils your own body produces aren't so bad for you.  While there are some interesting health/hygiene/style trends to be found here, even while being crowded in the five o'clock sardine can of the metro, I haven't noticed any particularly smelly French people.  My nose is pretty reliable and doesn't miss much, so I say this with considerable confidence.  Consider that how you will.

The curious thing about this is that everyone smokes.  Okay, okay, not quite everyone**.  But from my perspective, there is a much larger prevalence of smokers in Paris than there are in Seattle.  In spite of this, even while crammed in tight places, I don't notice many people reeking of cigarette smoke.  Obviously, when they are sitting in front of you on a cafe terrace, cigarette in hand, and the wind is blowing in your face, you get a whiff from time to time.  On the whole, though, for coming into contact with that rank, stale, cigarette smell that turns even a smoker's stomach, Seattle buses are ten times worse.

Another interesting observation on the hygiene note, and one that I love, is how much more casual women's hair is.  It's pretty clear that many don't wash it every day, but it doesn't look dirty or greasy.  Having recently jumped on the no shampoo bandwagon (baking soda and apple cider vinegar!) that's something that I can really get behind.  Even if you do shampoo, the simplicity I've been seeing here is refreshing.

In the states, especially in downtown Seattle, most to many women obviously blow dry, straighten, layer on tons of product or do some horrible combination of the three.  Here, women wear their hair both long and short, but natural.  Very few seem to do much with it.  Sometimes it's pulled back or up, with little braids or a messy topknot, but for the most part, none of it would have taken more than five minutes to do.  As someone who has always been so anal about her hair that she rarely does anything with it (it won't be perfect!), it's been a good place to slowly get used to letting my hair do its own thing.

All in all, the French are no more unpleasantly odoriferous or lacking in necessary hygiene than the average American, at least, those with whom I am acquainted.


*Maybe this is still debatable?  If so, forgive me for not citing sources, that's not really what this blog is about.


**For those who like statistics and lying with numbers: I found information saying that with a recent (2008) ban on smoking in public places, the rate has dropped from 40% to 20% of adults.  Based on my brief, incomplete and entirely anecdotal evidence, I would guess that at least 40% of the people taking that survey are liars or are creative with their truth, but I realize there are factors that would contribute to a skewed perception on my part.  For example, I largely eat outside on cafe terraces - where it's still legal to smoke.  I find the cultural attitudes toward smoking here very interesting, but I've been having trouble finding many numbers. Here's an interesting article with comments for anyone else who finds it intriguing.

Rue Montorgueil: In which our heroine slogs the streets of Paris with camera in hand

Okay, so it wasn't quite that bad.  In fact, slogging is hardly an appropriate term, but how often do you get to use that in every day conversation?  My point exactly.

I went out this afternoon to take some photos of the aforementioned Rue Montorgueil.  Our landlady, while here checking on our internet, asked us if we went to the local supermarket, and then asked if we knew Rue Montorgueil.  We said yes and she said, "Well you know everything then!"  That's kind of what it feels like.  The street is mostly closed off to all but local traffic and pedestrians treat it as glorified sidewalk.  It bustles with cars, vans and motos in the morning, as the businesses open up and get ready for the day, but the rest of the time, driving down it is about as efficient as driving down the road directly in front of Pike Place.  Don't waste your time.

The entrance to Marche Montorgueil

The green, wire work arch, with gold letters reading Marche Montorgueil marks the entrance to what is probably the only street in Paris that one needs to survive.  It is lined with restaurants (French, Lebanese, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Italian, fast food), cafes, bakeries, butcher's shops, cheese shops, wine shops, pharmacies, a couple of supermarkets (though they really only supply what you can't get everywhere else on the street), newstands, flower shops, the list goes on.  Just this side of the arch and outside Montorgueil, sitting rejected and lonely, is a Starbucks that yearns to be allowed to hang with the cool kids.  Tough cookies.

Typical French cafe

Most, scratch that, all of the restaurants down Montorgueil have outdoor seating.  Most of them have surprisingly formidable protection against rain and inclement weather, which has been put to very good use lately.  Just after these shots were snapped, I sat down for coffee, watched the clouds roll in and the rain pour down.  Makes for good people-watching.

Pharmacy

In need of some ibuprofen to dull the pain of too many baguettes? Go searching for a neon green cross.  Sometimes they even flash in interesting and exciting patterns.

Outdoor displays from several different shops

Sidewalks are covered in the displays and cases from all the various stores.  Last night, Nick and I watched the butcher take everything down.  The very large, l-shaped refrigerated case that sits in front, fully on the sidewalk, was slid in front of the section of case housed inside the actual building.  Platforms under the outside case were picked up in three pieces and stowed behind the counter and the door was pulled down in front.  When open, the store is at least double its closed square footage.  No pictures though, they were closed when I walked by today.

Cheese shop!

The French buy, sell and eat lots and lots of delicious cheese.  Need I say more?

Our breakfast cafe of choice

Fruit and vegetable stand

Yum!

Mmmm....

If you're really lucky, after a day wandering down Montorgueil, drinking coffee and wiping the drool off your chin as you walk through wine shop after Greek importer after vegetable stand after, after, after...you end up, at home, with a delightful dinner like this.

Bon appetit!

PS For a more, er, French tour of the street, Nick's coworkers told him about this music video which was filmed down Montorgueil.  Be forewarned, it does feature women wearing nothing more than selectively placed black bars, but there's nothing crude, assuming you can handle French techno.

Lazy Weekend

We had a nice quiet weekend.  Went on some long walks close to home, up on Montmatre, saw the best view in the city (not the Eiffel Tower, in case you're wondering), ate some delicious food, crepes, curry, steak and all together too much crusty bread; I would have given a lot for some serious pain killers last night for the jaw.

Interesting tidbits for all, with delightfully cryptic, earmarks for those who I know will enjoy them particularly:

For the Tam-Flam:  Nick and I stumbled upon a cafe called the Pink Flamingo Cafe; didn't have a camera but may go back just for you.  Also, ordered a g&t yesterday and it came with gin in one glass and tonic, ice, and lemon in a separate small carafe.  Mix your own, to your tastes.  Genius!  I've seen this a few times. Tanqueray also seems to be the favorite here, silly Frenchpersons.

For my dearest illusion:  You are not allowed to come to Paris/France.  At least not without a giant bottle of ibuprofen and an ice pack for each side of your face.  That said, I found an art supply store the other day.  Ooh la la!  It was beautiful.  I really wanted to pick up some pastels, because I managed to come to Paris with the only medium that I find consistently disagreeable...but at 1.5 to 2.5 euro for a stick, I decided to hold off, though it saddened me greatly.

Brotha Z:  I saw someone who could have been your twin in Jardin du Luxembourg the other day.  Leastwise, if you had a twin with rather blondish hair.  The way he was sitting in the sun with his head tipped up, it looked like it could have just been the light and made me do a double take.  I do this all the time with different people.  It's like my subconscious is looking really hard for someone I know.

D Ele:  I found our hotel from sophomore year in high school.  Not a bad location, definitely missed out on some good night life.  Unfortunately, I rarely have the energy for night life here...by the time the French deem it appropriately late to begin living, I'm pretty much ready to go to sleep.  On the upside, I get to watch the city wake up all the time and that's pretty awesome.

For Z Lace Lady and others:  Here are pics from our trip out to Chantilly last weekend.  It's a quaint little town with a chateau formerly belonging to some member of French nobility and a racetrack, reachable by commuter train from Paris.  The weather was drizzly bordering on rainy, blustery and miserable with some deceiving moments of sun (most of these were while we were deciding whether or not to take an umbrella, of course).  

Chateau de Chantilly

Stables, but a likely looking chateau to the uninitiated

Turns out that what we thought was the chateau, was actually just the stables/horse museum.  The man loved his horses.  The chateau itself, after having been destroyed during the Revolution, was rebuilt and now houses a very nice art gallery and museum.

The man himself, Henri d'Orleans

  The surrounding area is filled with gardens, parks and lots of little byways on which to amble about; originally we went mostly to walk about in the quiet, but the weather put the kibosh on that.

 The museum in the chateau was also home to a very few examples of Chantilly lace, a handmade lace that is created using bobbins and a pillow, set up like this.  Through some miracle of time and patience that I will never truly understand, you get things that look like this:

This, is not bobbin lace.  But I wouldn't mind if it came home with me.

 

I'm not dead yet!

But I did greatly enjoy our adventure to a French cemetery last week.  One afternoon, I was getting antsy and in need of some peace and quiet, so Nick dragged me down to the metro and we went to find the only place in the city that we were pretty sure would actually be quiet:  a cemetery.  I don't recall the name, suffice to say it was not the more famous one (wherein reside Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Eugene Delacroix, among others) but it was a wonderful bit of history, culture and was largely calm aside from the crunching of rocks under our feet and those of other wanderers.

I was intrigued at what seemed to be a moderately purposeful separation of Jewish graves from Christian graves.  It seemed to include both old burials and new and got fuzzy around the edges, but there was definitely some sort of delineation.  We didn't have time to check out the entire cemetery and I haven't learned any more about it.

Many of the small mausoleums had the most beautiful stained glass in the walls and above the altars.  Some were very well kept with happy, living flowers inside, some were broken, dusty and grown over.

A long row of old mausoleums.

This was one of the most beautiful little mausoleums.  Unfortunately, it was
tucked up closely to its neighbors, so a full picture was impossible.

Ugh.  Blogger's layout is being temperamental with layout again...I will have to learn to more skillfully manipulate.  Later.

Agh! The typos in this are embarrassing...

French Mythbusters: Episode 1

Let's be frank.  Americans, and the rest of the world, have some strong preconceived notions about the French. As with stereotypes the world around, these are mostly nonsense, but periodically have a grain of truth to them (see again "stereotypes").  In order to help me order some of my thoughts and observations, here follows some common "beliefs" and my responses to them.  I realize most of the people reading this blog are level headed and worldly enough to know better than to take these stereotypes without a grain of salt.  However, we are all influenced, however subtly, by these things we have heard until we have a chance to change our perspectives first hand.  Here are some of my first hand experiences to tide you over til you get to yours.

1. The French are rude.  Well, fine maybe not everyone...the Parisians are terrible though!

My last trip to Paris made me a firm believer in this one.  Was I here long enough to have enough interactions for a decently rigorous sample size?  Of course not.  Also, I think I was probably 15, clearly the peak of worldly wisdom.  

A portrait of Nick that we stumbled upon.
(Not related to this post in any way.)

So far, the people here who have been helpful, kind, respectful and friendly far outnumber those who have not.  Admittedly, I speak a little more French than I did before and I have gotten better at faking it in any language.  The key is not to address people first in English or to have the first words from your mouth be, "Do you speak English?" even if you're saying it in French.  It's a pretty basic thing when you stop and think about it.  How would you feel if someone walked up to you and started speaking in a language you didn't understand while in your home country, automatically expecting you to comprehend what they're saying?  Or asks if you speak their language, without first even saying hello.  I'd be miffed too.

I've observed this a few times in comparing the interactions and reactions that Nick and I get from waiters.  Nick, at first, would frequently start out by asking in French if they spoke English.  When I'm in a foreign country, my English gets strange accents and I feel very odd talking in my native tongue.  When I did the talking to waiters, I prefaced with many apologies and began blundering my way through some French.  Though I'm sure they all understood Nick much better (most of them do speak English) there was a subtle shift in demeanor and a generally more pleased vibe when we would attempt some French first.

Here, I think is the more interesting bit that is really what leads to many tourists' misunderstanding of the French.  The expectations on what a waiter should be in France, Paris at least, is completely different from the perspective of most Americans.  Furthermore, most travelers encounter more waiters than they do any other representative of the culture they are experiencing.  Here there be problems.

Old church (Eglise St. Eustache), new mall (Forum des Halles)
expansion being built (also Les Halles)
(Still not related to this post.)

A French waiter should, ideally, see to all of your needs, while leaving you completely alone.  They should be respectful, efficient, knowledgeable and a largely unseen part of your dining experience.  This perky, "Hi, howya doin', I'm Shelly and I'll be your server for the evening, please ask me anything and feel free to tell me your life story," vibe that is sometimes taken too far (in my introverted, anti-social opinion) in the States, just doesn't compute for most French people.  French waiters aren't rude when they don't smile at you or talk much, in fact, you'll notice it's exactly how they treat everyone else.  They are working to serve you a meal, not to socialize. I for one, wholeheartedly love this particular French quirk.  Most of the waiters I have seen are the most hardworking individuals I've encountered here and they are completely courteous and helpful.  Because they approach their job so professionally, I never feel bad interrupting them if I need something.  It is their job and they take it as such, so you never get those subtle vibes that you are imposing on their social time.  

An added perk, all taxes are included into the price of the meal and there is no requirement to tip.  Meals look much more expensive here, but by the time you take that into account, it's pretty close to the same.  

Well, that got a bit off topic, but moral of the story is thus:  The French are about as rude as anybody else who lives in an enormous city where they put up with the noise, sights and smells of a gajillion* other people every day.  Of course, I'm making no claims to fully understand all the ins and outs of a culture that I've only spent two full weeks experiencing.  I'll probably need at least another week for that...

*again, this is a technical term

Bastille Day

Well.  I sat down to begin writing up a shiny new blog post on Monday, only to be interrupted by a skype call from my father.  No worries, blogging can wait (that word is too silly to represent any occupation that could be taken seriously, anyway).  Mere minutes into said phone call, just after he has gotten his microphone working so that I can actually hear him, the call is dropped.  Now, Skype has enabled me to freely (financially and easily) communicate with people anywhere from two feet to 5,000 miles away over the course of the last four years or so.  I consider it their right to drop a call now and again.  I told Nick to stop sucking up bandwidth and went on with my life.

Two days and one new modem later, we have internet again as well as a working phone line.  If you tried to contact me and couldn't, that would be why.

Anyway, adventures of late have included  Bastille day, Chantilly Chateau and racetrack, Musee D'Orsay and generally bumming around Paris, eating food and drinking wine (it's cheaper than mineral water).  The weather has been positively dreary and, by all accounts, no different than Seattle or the rest of western Washington.  Ranging from 70-80 degrees fahrenheit with a humidity you can basically taste, it's been surprisingly close to Costa Rica.

Bastille Day did dawn bright and sunny (according to Wikipedia this is always the case).  Nick didn't feel well, so I went down to see the military parade along the Champs Elysee by myself.  I saw a bit of the hustle and bustle, but soon realized that I would have had to get up a lot earlier to see much more than the backs of the people in front of me.  I decided to cut my losses and run, with the thought that most Parisians watch the parade on tv from the comfort of their own couches anyway.  Here are some photos that I snapped while trailing down the empty streets behind the other crazy people as we wound our way up to some sort of view.

People queuing.  I'm not sure what they call it in France.

Empty streets

People, behind people, watching people watch other people in snazzy uniforms.

Rockin' some shakos.  

A mostly empty street; a rare sight in Paris.

"Mon dieu, is Francois still in the honey bucket?"

After my brief foray out, allergies or bug hit me pretty hard.  Unfortunately, Nick and I both spent most of the day inspecting the insides of our eyelids, rather than taking part in national festivities.  By all sounds through the windows, it was quite a party by evening and early morning.

Also, blogger is getting right, left and center confused, so hopefully the pics look alright.