la pensée-du-moment

10.03.15: C'est terminé

2010-03-15T04:35:00.003+01:00

OK, it's done.

I started this blog 4 years ago as a way to describe the new world in which I found myself, that enigmatic placed called France. Now, after a few months back in the USA, I can look back over some of these moments and recall what a strange and wondrous journey it was.

I had the great fortune to have:
- lived just outside of Paris,
- worked daily with a talented and welcoming bunch of French folks,
- travelled to the 6 corners of France, and many of the places in between,
- endured long evenings surrounded by people talking incessantly in a language I didn't understand,
- visited nearly a dozen other countries in Europe and Africa,
- bicycled thousands of kilometers of country and mountainous roads with the best bicyle club in all of Europe,
- tasted wines of perhaps thousands of very fine wine makers,
- missed my family,
- formed a formidable partnership to learn me French with the best prof in Ile de France,
- taken the time to appreciate midieval architecture and renaissance paintings,
- gained a lot of respect for anyone who has ever emigrated to another country,
- shared it all with a partner who didn't lose her sense of humor (too often), despite significant daily challenges,
- survived it all to tell the stories.

But, now it's done.

If you find yourself in a similar situation and have a question or two, feel free to drop me a line.

If you found anything interesting or enjoyable in this blog, remember, you too can start your very own.

Au revoir.

09.08.14: Ultimate Tourist Experience (2): Asset seizure by foreign gouvernement

2009-08-14T18:13:00.005+02:00

As interesting as was the hospital experience, I'm thinking having all my foreign assets seized by foreign gouvernement may in fact be a little more interesting. You decide.

Returned home from work Thurs evening, checked the mail as usual. I will say, the mailbox is usually empty, from time to time the electric bill, checking account statement, or a discount coupon from Speedy Rabbit pizza delivery. In other words, not normally a highlight of the day.

Opened the plain letter envelope addressed to me. What a surprise: Your checking account (i.e., all the funds I have accessible to me) has been frozen by the French government for failure to pay taxes!

If you want to see how this is exactly written in French, (in case you ever receive something similar, for example), see the image here attached:

So why does this happen?

A fun thing about being an expat is that we all sign contracts with our employers to outline our respective responsibilities, and then our employers honor those responsibilities, as they choose. In my case, my employer committed to manage the French tax situation. My role in all this is to provide certain tax preparers correct information in a timely fashion, and sign some forms attesting to the accuracy of said documents. I do not write checks to the frenchies. Apparently, my company decided not too either. After 3 years of this mis-behavior, I guess some french fonctionnaire somewhere decided that that was enough. Interesting fact supplied by my bank the following morning: the tax authority needs provide zero documentation to my bank for the veracity of their claim to seize my assets. Only an amount to seize, which in my case, was substantially beyond the amount in my account; in fact, substantially beyond the amount I have ever had in a checking account. Thus, my account was totally seized.

What to do?

Well, like always, get on the phone, send faxes, harass, repeat myself, send friends and family down to the local tax office to get clarification, have my accountant friend (who is on vacation in central France) call the tax authorities and explain to them the situation (in a language I am sure only they can understand) which puts them in a mood to be responsive if anyone would show up with a check for the right amount, and then oh yeah harass the ir-responsibles on 2 or 3 continents (is England part of Europe ?) to get my taxes paid and my account re-opened.

As sometimes happens, there is in fact someone who has authority and the right mindset to resolve a problem. I was fortunate enough to find such person by late morning Friday. She responded mightily; checks written, apologies not made; account re-opened Friday afternoon, with 15 minutes to spare before everyone shuts down for the 3-day bank week-end. I am out 102€ bank fees (to be discussed, bien sûr), but I can go to the market on Sat AM and buy a fresh rabbit for the grill, some Bleu d'Auvergne, and a little Languedoc for accompaniment.

Twenty-four hour diversion in an otherwise remarkably interesting lifestyle.

09.03.29 : Ultimate Tourist Experience; The Ides of March

2009-03-29T22:36:00.001+02:00

So, anyway, I had been giving some consideration to what I wanted to do for my birthday this year, like a very nice dinner with some friends, perhaps with just my wife, or a BBQ in the garden or whatever, and well, I just never executed a plan, and then, as often happens, something just happens that takes the decision right away from me. That thing, was, of course the ultimate tourist-ethno-cultural-study experience .... foreign hospital!

Now that I am sort of (and I mean sort of) over the shock to my system of actually being 50, I can almost talk coherently about some of the events leading up to that moment in my now definitely-more-than-half-over life.

Like a lot of Sunday mornings, I started off on a bike ride with the local cycling club. On the climb up the first hill, the famous little colline to Ormesson, I said to myself: Oh shit, this is not going to be a good day, as my little heart pounded rather strangely. Ouup, demi-tour, after 15 km, returned home, and then about an hour later, decided to go to the hospital for a little EKG and relaxation, with the idea in mind to be home in time for dinner. Well, even if you don't speak much French, it was obvious from the 2 doctors, 1 nurse and 2 technicians circling my little roll-a-bed in the emergency hallway: You are not going home today. As they pointed out to me: Hey, you're lucky ... we even have an open bed today.

I had never spent a night in a hospital in my life, and I get to do it on the 8th floor of the very celebrated public hospital Henri Mondor of Créteil, just outside the frenchy confines of Paris.

On the cardiology ward, there are only old men, and me. Fortunately, I have a shared room. Fortunately, my roommate, about 75 years old, not only has a heart problem, but perhaps slight hearing loss also, and of course, the remote control for the TV. I know this is just a bad dream, but I swear, as I am trying to catch a little nap in the afternoon between EKGs and injections of I-don't-know-what, I swear my wife is answering questions to a French game show that is blaring on the TV. I doze off and my wife jumps up says: "Utrillo! Yes!" Is this really happening? More drugs, please. The best show on TV of course was saved for after dinner: Demain n'arrive jamais. In other words: 007, Tomorrow never comes. I didn't know Pierce Brosnan spoke so much French. The only segments not dubbed in French are all the segments not in English ... so when they speak German or Chinese, they sub-title in French. When they speak English, they dub in French. Logic. Anyway, there is a lot of blowing up of planes and ships and rockets and stuff. The volume was enough to make your heart stop.

I have heard a lot of French people comment on the American health care system, and apparently our desire to define payment responsibilities and methods prior to providing treatment. I was in my little hospital bed on Mon AM, when the admissions desk calls me to discuss their concern with my insurance. "Can you come down to admissions to discuss this with us?" I'm in a hospital bed, with a drip line connected to my arm. Sure, I can come down; I'm not doing anything up here. So, I throw on some jeans, pull my drip line thru my sleeve to put on a shirt, and walk down to the elevator with my drip bag on a pole with 5 wheels, of which one wheel actually rolls, while the other 4 do not, requiring me to carry the roll-a-pole system.

There are innumerable pleasant things to say about French people. This is one of their charms: they live for themselves. Example: With my roll-a-pole and drip bag, I try to enter the elevator to descend the 8 floors to discuss the medical payment plan. This is one of those big elevators that is used to transport the hospital beds, I imagine you can comfortably fit about 8 or 9 people without crowding. There are 4 people in the elevator, all standing by the door. Not one moves to allow me in. I have to bap the first man nearest the door with my drip bag pole to get him to back up. A few minutes later, standing in line at admissions with my little bag-on-a-stick, one woman nearly runs me and my poled bag over to cut the line in front of me. The world rotates independently around each French person. 60 million little suns and planets and universes. Watch out for the black holes. We make some phone calls to the US to discuss the insurance plan, which seems satisfactory to the admissions. She actually speaks some English. The only person in 2 days who speaks English to me is the one collecting the money. Go figure. I notice on the way out she speaks Italian to someone on the phone. International language, that money thing.

The nice cardiologists eventually allowed me to leave the hospital. Armed with a prescription to protect me from my new found arrythmia, I have permission to do whatever I want. We’ll see how this goes.

Beware the ides of March.

Some are you are already 50; some, like Jay, very soon to be.

For the rest of you, be very afraid.

Happy Spring and Easter and all that,

08.11.05: La nuit américaine

2008-11-05T22:38:00.005+01:00

Dear Mr. President-elect:

It is 0630. I just left a bar in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. You just finished your speech recognizing that you are now the president-elect of the most powerful nation on earth.

There is, and has been for the last few hours, rejoicing in the streets of Paris. I was in the Sherwood for the last 5 hours watching the results come in on the big screen. When Ohio went your way, I told them you had the election, no doubt about it. Harry’s Bar, next door, was jam packed, as was the bar across the street, as was the street between these three bars, a small street, deep in the heart of Paris, crammed with people from all over Europe, watching the big screens, smoking their hand rolled cigarettes, drinking alternatively beer and champagne, speaking alternatively french and franglish, all the while hoping, and yes even praying, that you would win the election.

I was in Paris, also, in April 2003. Just a few weeks after the war in Irak began. Before the big election this year, I reviewed my photos of the buildings around Paris from that time, adorned with 2-story banners, proclaiming the illegality of the american guerre en Iraq. I still have some of the stickers the french gave me at the time: Halte la guerre en Irak. I remember thinking how odd it felt to be american in france, and being uncomfortable when people asked me where I was from. I heard other Americans at the time say that they were canadiens, just because they didn’t want to be hassled.

This morning, I can tell you, in the streets of Paris, everyone is an american.

The little parisienne socialiste next to me explained how your victory was the only way for the US to move forward from the heavy chains of the soon-to-be former administration. The young french guy, american flag draped over his shoulders, dark aviator glasses, raised his fist in victory and chanted: on y va; on y va; oui, on peut; oui, on peut. The tunisenne, tears streaming down her cheeks, kissed me (hey, you weren’t there) explained to me what it means to see the USA elect a black man president. If it can happen for us, just think what the Algerians and other North Africans can accomplish in France. Just think about what every minority can do everywhere. Hope can come from anywhere. Hope is needed everywhere. Hope is more than a small town in Arkansas.

So, as I left the bar with Fréd the neighbor, headed home to catch a few hours sleep (it’s still a work day for me), here is what I hope for the short term future:

Abandon Iraq. Cut our (and their) losses and let’s move on. Sorry.
Send all of our troops to the Afghani-omni-Stans. I don’t know how many –stans there are, but we have unfinished business there. We let our resources get diverted to Iraq. I’m tired of thinking that any individual, any group, can attack the US and still be in existence 7 years later. Finish the job. Ask for volunteers. Ask for what it takes. Get it done.
Close Guantanamo. Period.
Oh yeah, we have a few economic concerns. We can work our way through them. Let’s clean up our external mess, and the internal will sort itself out.
Let’s treat each other like compatriots, neighbors, fellow americans again, working together to resolve our common problems.

Congrats. Thanks.
Let’s go. Let’s not lose the moment.
It feels good to feel good about being american.
I left the US after the last election, living in Europe for more than 3 years now.
It feels good to think about coming home again.

Let me know how I can help.

08.11.01: La preuve

2008-11-01T23:19:00.001+01:00

Just to prove that I really did do my homework, studied hard, showed up on time, and have a really good french teacher, and that all of that is now officially recognized by the Minister of Education of the Republic of France ...

08.10.31: DELF B2, de plus: scariness in the modern world

2008-10-31T21:06:00.000+01:00

So, anyway, I succeeded in passing the DELF B2 back in July. They notified me of my great success at the end of August. Seemed perfectly normal. They also told me that I would receive a fancy nice diploma from the French Ministry of Education and Other Important Things.

It's the end of October. It's Halloween, in fact, and I have not heard a word from them. So, I called l'Alliance Française to ask them if they had forgotten about me or lost my mailing address.

I said: Hey, I passed the DELF back in July and have not yet received my diploma.
She said: Normal. Tout à fait normal.

This is a phrase I hear often enough to explain situations that I still don't find at all normal.

She then went on to explain the tortuous path that this diploma must travel before it ends up in my mailbox, probably five months after the exam. This little piece of paper will criss-cross France and visit several important gouvernemental offices through bureaus of only the most qualified diploma signers in France. And then, and only then, will then send it to me. I find that a little scary in this 21st century.

That is how I know this little diploma is very, very special.

Happy Halloween.

08.08.27: DELF B2, Results, Réussite

2008-08-27T20:14:00.002+02:00

It's official ... I passed the DELF B2.

75/100, quand même! ... that should get a mentioné 'bien' by any normal french standard.

I am now certified by l'Alliance Française, and I suppose the Ministère of Education of the République of France, to possess a certain degree of independence within a franco-phone environment and ... to be capable of correcting my own mistakes!

(At least in the realm of minor grammatical french errors, at any rate).

I suppose for the serious mistakes, I'll still rely on you to point them out to me!

I think I'll celebrate by throwing a little chicken on the grill, eatin' one of my very own home-grown tomates with a little Mozzarella, and, well, maybe a glass of Bourgueil (why not).

Bien mérité, even if I have to say so myself.

08.07.31: DELF B2: Epreuve Production Orale

2008-07-31T19:09:00.009+02:00

Last day of DELF-ing exams arrives.

Just to add the next chapter of the story, here is how it goes ...

Arrive at l'Alliance Française 1/2 hour before scheduled exam time. Sit in the hallway for 1 hour with other prospective delf-ers. Young woman sitting next to me is Italian, needing to demonstrate a level B2 Delf to gain admission into a university in Angers. Didn't ask what she is going to study, instead we joked about the high level of dis-organization that is Rome. She also commented that it was likely significantly more difficult for an anglo-phone to learn french than an italo-phone. We all start from somewhere. That knowledge helps me not at all today.

One-by-one we are called into the exam prep room. The examin-atrice asks me if I received her e-mail, which previously required 10 mintues of telephone conversation. I said: Thank you very much. I am given a command to choose one of 6 face down blue cards. The card I choose happens to have the numbers 9 and 10 on the face side. The examin-atrice then shows me 2 titles corresponding to articles 9 and 10, and commands that I choose one of the articles for my exam topic du jour. I choose bio-diversité in the title. The subject of the other was not immediately obvious from the title.

I now have 30 minutes to prepare myself to talk for 20 minutes. In my 20 minutes épreuve, I should demonstrate that I well understood the point of view of the article, that I have my own opinion about the subject that I can express well in an organized fashion, that I can understand and respond to topical questions from a bona-fide française, and that your average french person would not have extreme difficulty to understand my admittedly heavily anglo-phonic accented prononciation of french words. Whatever.

I did the best that I could. I spoke for 10 minutes non-stop at the outset to express my point of view. At which point the examin-atrice said:

"OK, that was perfect." I didn't know if this was just another sort of cute meaningless french phrase, intended to put me at ease, or if in fact she was commenting on my presentation skills. I said:

"That was perfect?" She said:

"Yes, that was 10 minutes, perfect. Now I need to ask you some questions ....."

OK, all in all, not a complete flop, from my point of view.

Scores available at the end of the month. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, here is the text I was presented as the basis of my impassioned discourse on the why-we-don't-need-yet-another-org to say what is already being promoted by several other important scientifique organizations ...

Happy reading,

Un appel international en faveur de la biodiversité
Caroline de Malet 15/10/2007 Mise à jour : 16:35 Le Figaro
.
LA TERRE est «au seuil d'une crise majeure» ! C'est en ces termes que dix-neuf scientifiques issus de treize pays lancent un appel à la communauté scientifique mondiale, en l'exhortant à parler d'une même voix pour orienter les politiques mondiales de la biodiversité. Publiée aujourd'hui dans la revue Nature (1), leur déclaration exige que soit «comblé de toute urgence le fossé entre les sciences de la biodiversité et les politiques». Car, soulignent les auteurs de cet appel, «la quasi-totalité des domaines concernés est en forte régression et de nombreuses populations ou espèces risquent de disparaître au cours du siècle. Malgré cette évidence, la biodiversité reste largement sous-évaluée et insuffisamment prise en compte par les politiques publiques comme par les entreprises».
Les signataires de cette déclaration proposent donc que soit mise sur pied une instance qui fédère le point de vue de la communauté scientifique et oriente les décisions politiques.

08.07.24: DELF B2, Epreuves écrites

2008-07-24T21:41:00.005+02:00

So, the first of two days of épreuves arrives. Today is the day that I get to demonstrate my french skills in written comprehension and also in producing a coherent written argument of my own making.

The exam begins earlier than anticipated.

I arrive at the appointed address in the 6th, just off métro stop Notre-Dames-des-Champs, about twenty minutes early. In the lobby is a sign posted: DELF B2 8ème étage, prenez l'ascenseur with some little arrows pointing to the left. I followed the direction of the arrows to find the elevator, with a small hand-written piece of paper stuck on the elevator doors: H-S. This is a sort of pop-quiz. H-S means hors service ... the elevator don't work, in other words. OK.

I climb to the ninth floor. Enter a classroom, where there is a guy already in the room, with a crutch laying on the floor next to him. I said: Did you take the steps? He replied: Was there a choice? So much for handicapped foreigners. Can't walk up nine floors in a non-air conditioned building in mid-July? Guess you don't get to pass the exam.

About thirty additional potential ‘independants’ arrive by the same path. After all of us have entered the classroom, the examiner arrives and states: “It is clearly marked on the door not to enter. You need to leave while we arrange the room for the exam.” We did not point out to her that it also is marked on the door: Exam in process.

We thirty shuffle out to stand on a platform at the top of the stairs that is large enough for five. The rest stream down the stairwell in the July afternoon heat. Ten minutes later, our examiner opens the door and begins calling us into the room one-by-one. Names of origins from around the globe, all ready to demo our newly acquired French skills. Some for citizenship, some for university entrance, some for job advancement. Show ID. Sign the log. Receive seating assignment for the day. Enter the next potential victim. The guy taking the test next to me is German, looking to establish his 3rd language competency to allow the next level promotions for his fonctionnaire position with the EU.

After all 30 of us are signed-in, seated, and nearly sedated from the heat, it is time to begin the actual exam.

The exam was … as advertised.
Oral Comprehension … 2 extracts from radio interviews to listen to, then questions of true/false, multiple choice, short answer. Always difficult for me to understand the nuances.
Written Comprehension … one text from an advertising company touting their ability to provide marketing strategies for the adolescent market; second text an editorial from Le Point about the changing political landscape in environmental concerns.
Written Production … write a letter requesting financial support for a bicycle rally that is promoting increased bicycle use in our daily living. I sense the checks are already in the mail coming my way.

2 ½ hrs of concentration in French. Brasserie around the corner to suck down a cold beer after.

How did I do? Dunno yet. Feels like more than 50% correct to me, the minimum for success.

Next week is round 2.

For an example of the level of written comprehension expected, see the following:
http://www.efute.org/article.php?id_article=43

Two example questions:
Define what is meant by: corvéable à merci
Describe the significance of the word “ mutant” in the last paragraph.

08.06.29: DELF B2, Problem Solving 101

2008-06-29T08:54:00.011+02:00

Two subjects: demonstration of foreign language capability; basic problem solving skills.

I decided that after 2 years of french lessons and, oh by-the-way, living in a francophone country, perhaps I should officially document the level of french language proficiency that I have achieved. (And I'm not even completely sure that last phrase is grammatically correct in english). There is an official exam, recognized by the EU, for example, and administered by le ministères français de l’Éducation nationale, which is called the DELF/DALF. Multiple choice for which level you would like to demonstrate: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, from lowest to highest proficiency.

I decided to go for the B2: "Independent." Has a nice ring to it. I am no longer completely dependent to rely on the kind graces of the local population to survive. I can perhaps, from time to time, express my own wants and needs with my own poorly pronounced words and phrases. Powerful. This is the official description: The B2 has acquired a degree of independence that permits her to argue, defend her opinion, develop her point of view and negotiate; demonstrates an ease with social conversation and self-corrects her errors. Also, this is the level needed to enter french universities or to attain certain levels of employment within the EU.

I sent in my check and registration at the end of May to Paris office of L’Alliance Française. My check was cashed within days.

I begin the preparation with my french teacher. In the last few weeks I have written and presented argumentative essays to solve most of the world’s problems: I have defended the rights of spammers, argued for the continuation of the tradition of bullfights in southern france, deplored the promotion of anorexic models in modern society, and campaigned for the adoption rights of homosexuals. Well, whatever. I signed up for this.

Problem solving.

We note often that there is a significant gap in demonstrated problem solving skills between americans and french. Seems like in the US, when you explain a simple problem to someone who is in a position to change a little something, they make the change. In France, often seems like the opposite. The more solutions you propose the more intractable becomes the problem.

I called L'Alliance Française this week to find out the times for my exams. I spoke to the woman who prepares the test material; she does not arrange the scheduling. Brief synopsis of our phone conversation:

I cannot help you. My colleague does the scheduling. I doubt that she can call you back; she is quite busy with all the planning, you know. You can come to Paris after the 10th of July and look at times posted on the board to find the schedule.

I don't live in Paris.

You don't know anyone who lives in Paris who can come to our office to read the posting for you?

You don't know anyone in the suburbs who can ride a train into Paris to look at the posted times on the board?

No. Do you think you can mail me the information?

Oh, that is not possible sir. Then we'd have to mail one to everyone.

Hey, how about you could post the info on your web-site?

I agree that that is a good idea, but I don't have access to post info on the web-site?

Perhaps you know the person in your organization who manages the web-site, and you could request them to make the posting for us?

(After she corrects my pronunciation of 'twenty-first century')...

Well, certainly I know very well the web-site manager, but it's very, very difficult to make changes to the web-site, and with summer vacations and the other responsibilities, and believe you me, I agree it's a good idea, but I am sure there is a very low probability that that will happen. Did I tell you that I only manage the test material; our tasks here are very well defined and separated into little tiny boxes. My colleague takes care of the scheduling; my other colleague manages the web-site. We don't overlap on tasks.

Do you think you could send me an e-mail?

Weeeeell, exceptionellement, perhaps I could do that.

She notes my e-mail address, which I spell for her about 3 times.

I will try, this is not guaranteed, and you know, sometimes e-mails don't go thru. But very exceptionally for you, I will try.

Oh-la-la. Crisis averted. And I had that whole conversation in french.

Can I have a few bonus points for the upcoming exam based on this phone conversation?

Some links for amusing yourselves:
Info about the DELF/DALF: http://www.ciep.fr/delfdalf/
L’Alliance Française: http://www.alliancefr.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=2339

08.06.21: Bordeaux-Paris, à vélo

2008-06-22T17:59:00.005+02:00

In the cold dark grey of winter, it's easy to commit to anything.

So there I was, surrounded by a bunch of french guys, all talking all at once, way too fast for me to understand, and then the president looks at me and says: You wanna do Bordeaux-Paris with us don't you Pat (or something reasonably equivalent in French). My history is that the president looks out for me. He tells me when to pay attention; he invites me to participate in events that he thinks I will enjoy. So of course I said: Yeah, sure, why not. I am thinking of Bordeaux wines, sunny days in the south of France with a pleasant migration north.

Later, like a month later, I asked the president what is this Bordeaux-Paris thing anyway, like a 5-day bike ride, enjoying the scenery and good wines of france? No .. it is a 620 km bike ride in a week-end, non-stop. By this time, I had already said I would do this, and I don't back out of anything them frenchies challenge me to do. I do my part to sustain some national pride; there are not a lot of north americans in these parts.

So off to training, which turned out to be a bad experience this spring. Every cold grey damp sunday morning I got in line with everyone else in the club, and nearly every week I blew up. Some sort of strange behavior of the cardiac under stress. Never seen before by me, but rather unpleasant to limp home every sunday, the last 80 km or so, with a heart rate unregistreable by my heart monitor. Good intentions, slow moving legs. What a pisser.

I already said I would do this.

Off to the médecin generale, eye-nose-throat specialist (oh yeah, had a bout of laryngitis in the mix), then cardiologist. Lots of wires hooked up for stress tests EKGs and probably some other stuff I didn't understand. I only blow up on the road, in public, apparently. Best the cardiologist could say is I probably have a sort of arrhythmia that can manifest itself under some forms of extreme stress.

And, I already said I would do this.

Next several weeks, every week-end, trying to extend the distance I can do comfortably. One Saturday, 230 km, no problem. Following week-end, blew up 80 km into 120 km ride. Following week-end, hard ride on Saturday of 180 km, followed by blow-up on Sunday 30 km into 150 km ride. I watch the other guys in the club regard me with doubt and suspicion. I use the language barrier as self-protection. I cannot explain what is going on, and I am not going to back out of this.

Cardiologist recommends I cancel the plan. But, I already said I would do this. He gives me a fancy heart recording box; tells me to keep with me on the bicycle, when (not IF) when I blow up again, I am to calmly dismount the bicycle, sit on the ground, relax, take the magic recording box out of my pocket, and then register my heart movements through my fingertips in this box. OK, why not. He can use it later for a diagnosis, he says.

Friday, 20-juin, am. We assemble at Michel's load up the bikes and equipment. Drive to Bordeaux. Uneventful. Michel is 67. Today is the first day in his life that he has driven on the auto-route. He knows every back road in France; doesn't like to drive too fast. We check into Kyriad; assemble at Buffalo Grill for early dinner. I chuckle. I am in France, with all french folks and we are eating in a resto with red vinyl seats, pictures of cowboys and indians on the wall, and Budweiser and buffalo burgers on the menu. They ordered the red wine from California, just to give me a hard time. For dessert, I ordered a ' crumble', tried to pronounce it like I thought a french guy should; the waiter did not understand me until the third try; they in fact pronounce closer to how we would say it anyway; he then starts to tell me the origin of the word is english and the meaning; he takes it pretty good when I tell him I american. Have to be careful about correcting french in public, they really really really don't like to be embarrassed in public.

Sat, 4:30 AM. Chanon's alarm watch goes off. Light breakfast; leave the hotel at 5:30; pedal the few k, to the starting line. 6:00 AM sat AM, 21-jun, 1500 bicyclists are lined up to begin a non-stop ride to Paris. What the hell is wrong with this?

Nothing. I said I would do this, after all. The friendly french meteorologist promises nothing but sun & warmth, nothing but sunshine on this longest day of the year. Also, in France, it is la fête de la musique. I am expecting little break-outs of music all along the travel route.

We roll out together, I join a peloton of about 100 riders doing about 30 km / hr. It feels good. We stop 100 km and a little over 3 hrs later. I have not blown up; my legs, lungs and heart check good. Mr. President decides we should ride a little slower; we have yet a long way to go. So we let the peloton go, us following in a smaller group rolling a little more casually until we hit the region 'vallonée', then I continue as a small group of 1, doing what I can, knowing I can usually catch the others when the route flattens out a little. The day remains sunny, the temperature climbs, the route continues the next 200 kms of 1 km ascents followed by 1 km descents. I gain no net altitude, but I work hard to do it. Early afternoon, full sun, 35 deg C, longer gradual climb of 5 km and I think I am going to blow up. But, I said I would do this, so I tell myself to continue until I really do blow up. When that happens, it is all over. I am fatigued, but my heart retains its rhythm, elevated, but not unstable. 9:00 PM I stop for pasta re-fill, simple road-side self-clean, rest for an hour, and decide if I want to continue. I am cooked, but the heart beats steady, I continue. The sun sets, the temperature drops, we mount lights on our bikes, and reflective vests, and continue in the dark. It is stone quiet except for the pedals, the chains, and the wind, and breathing. We are 4, together, rolling at 25 km/hr in the dark with merely our small handlebar lights to see, on french country roads in the middle of france. I recover, slowly. This is some of the most enjoyable bicycling I have done. 8 wheels, 8 pedals, 8 legs, all in sync, in the quiet, in the dark. No thoughts but pedal rotation in a steady manner. Temperature perfect, copains also.

There are 3 levels of participation in this event: slow, medium, fast speeds. The slow group leaves Bordeaux on Fri AM, the medium group leaves Bordeaux on Sat AM and the fast group departs on Fri afternoon.

We enter the southern region of the Loire Valley after midnight. At 1:00 AM the leaders of the fast group pass us. They are in the same darkness as we, except they have a chase vehicle directly behind them with spotlights lighting the road. They appear to be rolling at about 40 km/hr, in a peloton of 30 or 40, in the dark. They will ride the 600 km in less than 15 hours. We will not.

4:00 AM, Romorantin, 435 kms down, supposedly less than 200 to go. I stop for tea and ramen. My legs are unstable. My heart beats steady, if still elevated. I have been awake for 23 hours, and mostly on my bike for the last 22. I am not thinking very clearly, I am fatigued. I have this thought: if you fall in the dark, you will break your collar bone. This is not a good thought. Fear creeps in, in my fatigue and wins the moment. I put my bike in the van, crawl in, and fall asleep un-wake-able for the next 4 hours.

I did not finish. I am OK with that. I said I would do the best that I can. My first attempt at a long-distance ride. I enjoyed it; I did not blow up; I did not get hurt.

I will be back.

08.06.06: D-Day, Birthdays, 9-11

2008-06-08T23:59:00.004+02:00

I met a super nice french couple when I was in Senegal about a year and a half ago. We try to stay in touch with some e-mails, an occasional phone call, and an infrequent visit to their place in Normandy. This June, they both are turning forty and decided to throw a big party in their own honor. As it turns out, the same week-end as the anniversary of the D-Day landings on Utah, Omaha, Gold, Sword, and Juno beaches.

Before going to the birthday party, I had the afternoon to do a little exploring, so went to Le Mémorial in Caen to see the French national WWII memorial. This week-end was the opening of a new exposition at Le Mémorial ... Where were you on September, 11 2001 at 8.46 AM? which is a display of objects found in the rubble of the World Trade Center, displayed to accentuate the very personal side of the tragedy.

A piece of an exit sign from the WTC, a fireman's boot, a laptop computer, a payphone. Normally mundane objects all, but each carrying a small piece of a tragic story forward to remind us of the day that everything changed.

A badge found from a police officer, next to a 10 foot banner displaying her photograph, her previous acts of heroism as an officer, words of remembrance from her colleagues and family. Next to similar posters of a financial advisor, a fireman, a flight attendant, and a nurse. Each story personal, real, unforgettable.

There is a life-size poster of several people walking down the streets of New York in the moments after the collapse of the World Trade Center, the sky darkened by the airborn remnants of 2974 deaths, survivors covered with soot permeating every pore of their grey-ed skin, and the backdrop is the carnage depicting the day the world ended.

All of this, in a memorial in France, for gods-sake, that commemorates the heroic deeds of the UK, Canadian, and American forces 64 years ago to bring the beginning of the end to WWII.

There are also videos of George Bush speaking to the United Nations the day after. And a video of Osama Bin Laden, speaking to persons united against the US.

Here is what I thought:
Osama Bin Laden is still making videos, and Al-Qaida is likely planning another attack on the US.
And $500B of our military resources is being squandered in Iraq.
And it is 6 1/2 years later.
Our president and his administration are a national disgrace.

Bush's birthday is July 6.
I think I'll send him a birthday card this year. Or 2, 974 of them.

Our government's primary duty is to protect the citizens of the US; they have failed to bring an end to Al-Qaida and Osama Bin Laden, the group that committed the most serious attack against US citizens on US soil.
And we are complicit in our complacency.

08.05.31: No skirts, please

2008-05-31T21:50:00.000+02:00

So I was in our cute little town last month running a few errands when I saw Mr ImSuperior Newspaper man on the sidewalk in front of LaPresse in a kilt. Really. I didn't have time to stop and say anything at the time, so I just looked at him as if to say: Why are you wearing a skirt? and kept on about my business.

This past week-end I went into LaPresse to buy my usual copy of the week-end edition of LeMonde (you know, the one with the New York Times section hidden in the middle) and Mr ImSuperior was working the cash register. He had on a white t-shirt that said in very big bold black letters: "Je suis à côté un con" and a big black arrow underneath the words pointing to his left, i.e., in the direction of all his customers when he is at the register. The catchy little slogan translates roughly like: I am standing next to an asshole.

When I enter the news shop, I read his tee (and it probably took me a few more seconds than your average french guy, admittedly), he points to the word 'con' and says: "it means asshole", 'con' being the only word on the tee that he assumed I might need a little help with.

Well, as it turns out, the famously gracious current french president was at the Salon d'Agriculture earlier this year (a big damn deal state fair) when he said to one of his impudent french citizens: "Casse toi, pauvre con." This became a big deal, because Mr Sarkozy's phrase, roughly translated, means: Get out here, you poor bastard (or asshole, if you prefer). So, that is when I learned the expression "Casse toi" and also the word "con".

So, I said, in french, heavily accented, to be sure, "Thanks to your president, I learn all of the most polite french expressions", which brought a small smile to the only other customer in the shop at the time, a seemingly pleasant middle-aged french woman.

And then, of course, I attempted to buy my week-end journal, when he of course harassed me somehow in french I didn't understand.

So I got real close to him, and I looked him right in the eye, and said:

What's the matter, d'ya lose your skirt today?

He said, VERY defensively in a little tiny voice, a few octaves higher than normal: I didn't LOOOse it, it's just in storage until the next event.

I said: Like a dance or a ball, or something?
He said: Yeah, like that.

I gave him the 2€30 for the paper, said: happy dancing, and left.

The journal was more fun to read than usual this week-end.

Thought you might wanna know,

07.10.23: To each hexagon, six points

2007-10-23T18:13:00.000+02:00

French folks like to refer to their country as the Hexagon (l'hexagone), easily associated to the geometric, geographic shape of the land. They are, in fact, quite proud of this and refer to it quite often as though this is either clever, or at least, quite fashionable.

In any case, as of October, and after 2.5 years of casual, travel when I can, exploration, I finally completed a trip where I can now say I have touched each of the six points.

Equally french-y, the double meaning of every word is always fun to exploit ... so in that word game point of vue, I offer six points of traveling and living in France. Not in the order in which I visited the six corners, but nevertheless, here we go counter-clockwise from the SW corner ...

Cheese, cerise and wine are not the same as french, spanish and basque

Oct07 - Pays Basque, Biarritz, St-Jean du Luz, Bilbao-Espagne. If you go up in the Pyrenées mountains you can find a lot of sheep, and those sheep provide a nice supply of milk that ends up in brebi cheese. Add a light sauce from local cherries, and accompany with a glass of very nice Irouleguy red wine. All very complementary and enjoyable. This comes from a region of the country where the local language, Basque, is one of only 3 languages in Europe that does not descend from the vast indo-European family of languages. Apparently, doesn't mix well with french or spanish.

Lack of communication sometimes results in bomb-making.

Pushing on a rope is not usually pleasant, unless you really believe in what you are doing

Oct07 - Banyuls-sur-Mèr. A little spit of land on the Mediterranean coast, all the way in the southwestern corner of France, just next to Spain. A beautiful landscape of very steep hills completely covered with grape vines and stone, overlooking the Mediteranean Sea on a beautiful sunny week-end in October, long after the large majority of tourists have departed until their return next summer. Hills steep enough that you can only imagine goats would be happy on these hillsides. Having said that, the Romans planted the first wine grapes here, and after about 3, 000 years of practice of working these hillsides, vine by vine, all by hand in between small hand built dry-laid stone walls to stabilize the steep slopes, they turn out a rather nice desert wine, and an ever-increasingly reputable series of red wines that recall the Order of Templars that used to hide out in this part of the country.

Practice often makes plenty good enough.

Every week has 4 1/2 days.

Apr05 - Nice, Antibes, Mediterranean coast near Monaco and Italy. First experience I had with recognition that the rhythm of life here is completely different than the US. Lunchtime is lunchtime; dinner is later; in between - well, too bad you missed lunch. Tues the museums close, as well as Sun afternoon, and well if Monday is a holiday, why not close all the basic tourist attractions for a three-day week-end. It can be that way. There is no 24-hr Walgreen's or Kroger's. Get your work done during the work day, plan ahead for the time off, no one else works just because that is a convenient time for you to shop or visit.

The other 2 1/2 days, you might as well enjoy with family and friends and with whatever supplies you have on hand.

Not everything in France is French

Dec05 - Strasbourg. In the face of a true architectural marvel of a 15th century cathedral, sipping hot spiced wine in the Marché Noël crisp winter air after having enjoyed a traditional choucroute (sauerkraut) dinner in a restaurant that has been in business for about 400 years, you can reflect on the fact that the soil here has changed owners and languages every hundred years or so for several hundreds of years. French, German, French, German, loves-me .. loves-me-not. My great-grand parents exited from Alsace-Lorraine in the late 19th century in the face of conscription into the German army for my great-grandfather. He decided chances were better in the USA. Spoke German; came from France. Strong signs of non-french-y influences everywhere. Napoléan decreed that French would be the spoken language in his France; Austria marched into Paris on his watch. Beer, sauerkraut and auld-long-syne all around. Static is nowhere ... today in france, there is the basque country, return of the language Bretagne-ic, and significant immigration from Africa.

We all need to update our definitions of ourselves on a continuing basis, or speak Latin, I guess.

The best beers are made in the USA

Sep07 -Lille. I drank a few (hundred) beers in the US. Love a good IPA or pale ale. Traveled all around France; always heard talk of Belgian beers as the finest. Went to Lille; hooked up with a group of americans in search of the finest; sampled a few (tens) of the finest northern france/belgian beers that the connoisseurs could barrel up. Give me Snake Dog from Flying Dog or a Commodore Perry from Great Lakes, or just the next IPA off the shelf at Dutch's Pony Keg any day of the week.

Never question that the new school can beat old school at it's own game.

Magic still happens

Nov06 - Bretagne, La Forêt de Brocéliande. I didn't make it all the way out to the point at Brest, but nevertheless, had a nice long Thanksgiving week-end '06 to explore a nice portion of Bretagne. Deep in the center, from the heart of the country that brought us the Knights of the Round Table, chivalry, and Merlin, (yes, from France - see point #4) if you have the fortune to follow a mysterious trail deep in a an enchanted forest, you can collect some water from a spring that marks the location where Merlin met the mysterious Lady of the Lake and persuaded her to give the magical sword Excalibur to King Arthur. Today, it is said that the water from the fountain provides some mental health stability. Worth a try, after having traversed l'Hexagone and lived in France for 2 years.

I have drunk from the fountain; I feel all the better for having done so.

07.10.18: Tourisme et Religion

2007-10-18T01:02:00.000+02:00

When I was a kid, I went to a school called Our Lady of Lourdes for about six or seven years. We had a grotto out front of the building with a staute of Mary in it, and every year, one afternoon in May for about an hour, we had a religious ceremony of some sort (I seem to have forgotten the details) where I presume we commemorated some sanctity characteristics of Mary the Virgin, and also Bernadette the young woman who had visions and the shakes associated with close encounters of the religious kind in a cave just outside of Lourdes, France.

So, obviously, in heading south and west in France, I was drawn to Lourdes like a little catholic boy to recess.

Drove until it was time to quit for the day; found an interesting chambre d'hôte about 20km from Lourdes in a hamlet called Saint-Pé-de-Bigorre. For the evening, we had dinner with two couples, one French, one South African. The French couple, who lives near Paris, was visiting the husband's hometown, where he had in fact been enrolled in the seminary as a teenager, but thought better of the situation; left; ended up working for an international construction company and lived most of his life in Asia, Africa, and the Mid-East; married a delightful woman with whom he had a few daughters. Said he didn't regret leaving the seminary. The S. Africans were visiting some family in France for a cousin's 60th birthday party and couldn't really get the french concept of terroir (i.e., why Champagne comes only from Champagne, why Roquefort only comes from Roquefort, and, god love us, why Bourbon only comes from gen-u-wine Kentucky sour mash). At any rate, made for some lively and interesting 5-course dinner discussion in a several-hundred-year-old farm house, around the corner from the seminary, in view of the Pyrénées mountains, not that far from Lourdes.

Went to Lourdes in the morning.

There is a lot of opportunities there to purchase rosaries, statues, candles, Jesus bracelets, Mary necklaces, Bernadette postcards, and water bottles. A lot of opportunities. Really. It's transcendantal. Hundreds of little shops in the ville, all with the soul intention of selling you some sort of religious artifact with which you can cherish and mark your moments spent in Lourdes, a place of miracles in the 19th century.

I will say this... walk past the tourist shops (OK, pick up a rosary or two if you like), continue on past the 20th century model of a 18th century gaudy Romanesque sort of church/cathedral and you eventually end up at the spit of land associated with the miralces of Bernadette and Mary. Hallowed ground.

The real grotto.

And for me, I will also say this ... a sense of calm, order and peacefullness reigns at the shrine. Truly. It was very pleasant. I didn't see any miracles.
I did see groups of people who had traveled from Eastern Europe in buses to pray together, a group from Hawaii on a 'greatest religious sites in France' sort of tour, and just regular folks, likely from all over the world, lining up at the water fountains, saying some simple prayers, perhaps hoping for a miracle, but more likely perhaps just looking for some minutes of peace and calmness, and a forget-everything-else for a few minutes sort of tranquility. You can find that there, next to the water fountains, just a few meters from the real grotto, in which, of course, there is a statue of Mary.

I lit a candle for Mom. She would have liked that.

As she always said: "You never know."

The sign next to the candle says: "This flame continues my prayer." I like to think the candle is still burning.

Oh yeah, just so I don't forget ... the Pope (the current one, Benoit XVI) has committed to going to Lourdes in the fall of 2008 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the visons that Bernadette had of the Virgin Mary near Lourdes. Tourism and Religion and the Pope. Should be something.

07.07.23: Les Alpes, Ups and Downs of life in France

2007-07-23T22:07:00.001+02:00

About 20 years ago I went to Colorado and climbed a few mountain passes on my bicycle (Rabbit Ears and Loveland still stick in my mind), and at the time I said (to myself): "wouldn't it be cool to go to the Alps and climb some of the cols that comprise the Tour de France." I never said I was in a hurry about it, so there you have it, last week I did a few of them alps. Col du Télégraph, Col de le Croix de Fer, Col Galibier most notably. Just a week after Le Tour passed by.

Here is what I remember:

Saturday...

We roll out of the hotel at 7:00 AM, the eight of us, after a breakfast of baguettes, marmalade, a little OJ, and café au lait ... we might have a long day ahead of us. I am nervous. No, I am scared. J'ai peur. I have no idea of the magnitude of the climbs ahead. Like I said, it's been a long time since I rode a bike in the mountains.

I ride alongside Robert, usually steady and very strong. About 15 km into the day, I notice he is sweating profusely and breathing hard. Robert, who kicks my ass every Sunday morning is looking a little peaked. It's not even 8:00 AM. J'ai peur. I am not sweating; either I am on form, or I am completely dehydrated. I take a drink. It's all I can do. I regard my heart monitor; I seem to be OK, or it's not working. Nothing to do about it except spin the pedals. Perhaps today is the day I kick Robert's ass. Or not. A few km later, Robert kicks it up a notch. I do not respond. I do not know what is ahead. La peur ne cesse pas. I maintain my pace.

About halfway into the 1st climb I realize I have forgotten my food / energy bars for the day. I am in France. Either this is a problem without solution, or this is a problem easily solved. There is no middle ground here. It's a food related question ... this should be easily solved. 10 km from the summit, there is small resto by the side of the road. I stop for a café, tarte tatin, a re-fill of my water bottles and a few sweet breads to-go. Food supply question easily solved. I'm finishing my café, Jacques, Jean, and Michèle pass. I re-mount and re-join the climb. The clouds hang low; there is no noise; the view is supressed; la peur ne diminue pas.

A few km later I feel a strange rotation pattern developing in my right pedal. I am 5 km from the 1st summit of a 2-day/4 summit week-end and my right pedal has backed out of the crank arm, lodged itself askew and misaligned in the threads. The pedal is not rotating about the same axis as the crank-arm. It is now causing my knee some pain. I un-clip from the pedal, and push the pedal pad with the center of my shoe. Very in-efficient, but at least it doesn't twist my knee on every rotation. I cannot give up in the face of these frenchies. 2 km from the summit, the pedal has nearly liberated itself from the crank arm. This is good news. I can now extract the pedal,and there are just 2 threads remaining in the crank - but it's enough to re-attach the pedal. I torque it down with all the little allen wrench has to offer. J'ai peur, mais je persiste. The pedal holds; I do not quit.

Le col de la Croix de Fer. Altitude: 2068 m (6800 ft). Not too bad on altitude, but the climb is 4800 ft in 20 miles.

The view at the top is very pleasing. Robert was waiting for me at the summit.

I ask another cyclist to take my photo next to the brag sign. Apparently, I forgot to turn the camera on. He is trying to take the photo and he says out loud: "Hey, does this thing work?" They were the first english words I had heard all day. Turns out, he is from Calgary. Speaks english pretty well. Can apparently ride a bike also.

I'm thinking the hard part of the day is over. Not much is as it seems here. Next little climb, having received no significant advance billing, Col du Mollard, is a nasty little climb, not long, not high, but steep and after lunch, was not pleasant. I nearly cracked 100m from the peak.

After, it's all down hill, 50 km, practice high speed turns. How fast do you dare? Noone passed me on the descent. Being overweight is a bonus on a descent.

Evening ... cheap pasta meal in a 2nd rate hotel 5m off the main highway. Two glasses of whine and I am ready for bed.

Sunday ...

I ride out of town with Michel in the early morning fog. The fog deadens the sound, clouds the road ahead in mystery, intrigue. The only sounds are those of mine and Michel's quiet breathing, our calm conversation as we begin the ascent. We can not see ahead 100m. On a bicycle, climbing, that is enough. I know the road rises; beyond that, I do not need to know. We breathe; we chat about nothing; I regard my heart monitor. I am in better condition than yesterday, or the battery is slowly dying. We will see.

My heart monitor has 4 levels: (1) u woose, (2) u r not a woose, (3) r u sure u know what u r doing?, and (4) exploding!exploding!exploding!

I am on level 2. This is good.

I read the names of the all the TdF riders that climbed this pass the week before, painted in the road, encouragment for the pros with big fans. I do not find my name among them. I have no rabid fans with spray paint cans. I am alone. I push the pedals.

About 30 km later, the fog lifts, the sun shines, I believe, in fact, there is a slight breeze on my back. The normal gods who punish people that ride bicycles uphills have taken the day off.
I turn right past the treeline; I look up; yesterday was nothing; today we have a climb. I continue. All the guys with shaved legs pass me. I pass the old ladies with super granny gears. At any rate, I continue. I pass a sign that indicates 500m to the ravitaillement (refueling stop). About 500m later, I pass another sign that says 500m to the ravitaillement. 500 m later, a third. This is a cruel joke. French sense of humour is lost on me. The wind is picking up; the road steepens. 100 m later, I reach the summit.

Col de Galibier. Altitude 2645 m (8678 feet).

This was a climb. This is a view. In the distance, glacier peaked summits. The valley stretches out below me in every direction. The sun is shining. There is a local cheese producer selling artisanal Tomme cheese. All is good and right in the world.

Jean, le président of our local cycling club, asks me to ride a supplementary 6 km with Robert. He assures me there is a great view to be enjoyed, and it is only 6 km extra. I agree. They are always playing jokes on me, those frenchies. The route is steep, hot, and about a 20 km detour. It is afternoon, I have already had a beer, I am tired, I perservere. At one point, I watched another cyclist actually fall over as he couldn't make a turn; don't go too slow. He fell from exhaustion. I redouble my efforts. The view to talk about was to after the mini-col was crested. We descended along a cliffside ... lean too far to the left and it's about 1000 ft straight down. Did I mention that I am afraid of heights? Every km that passes, I have more respect for the TdF riders. And then, and then, it was 50 km of descent. 50 km is a long way to go down. Fast. Perhaps the detour was worth it.

Evening .... much celebrating, as we have proven once again that, although we are human and old, on a good day, we can still push a bicycle up a long steep hill. The good weather in the afternoon was a special bonus. Another cheap meal in a 3rd rate hotel (look up Turkish toilet in your french travel guide sometime, and then share among 5 hotel rooms). I will be happy to make these climbs again next year, but I might try to throw my 2 centimes in when it comes to picking the hotel accomodations. Two glasses of cheap red wine, and I am again down for the count.

07.06.29: Portuguese mystery mash, Mirabelle, Poire William, Moonshine

2007-06-29T00:21:00.000+02:00

This is my level of sophistication: give me a beer, or I'll have a glass of wine. I don't much care.

This is not an attitude or behavior pattern that is much shared here. Before dinner, we have an aperitif, with the entrée, we might have a little white wine, unless the entrée is foie gras, in which case there is a very limited and special selection of wines to choose to accompany (Juraçon seems to work pretty well), with the plat then we have a little red wine, and then after dessert, we can have a little digestif. Add to this, each region of France seems to have a slightly different version of a local apéro and digestif specialité. This is a lot of different alcohols to keep up with. I'm doing the very best that I can.

Before I came here, I think all of the alocholic beverages I consumed came in bottles with official looking labels from real companies. Don't think I had that moonshine kind of stuff. But, then I'm a Yankee, and all that, anyway.

In the last 3 weeks, I have now had 3 home-made alcohols. Like I said, I'm doing the very best that I can.

Went for a bike ride on Sunday with the group into Paris. Had a picnic in Bois de Vincennes in the early afternoon. Full spread of all the frenchy pique-nique items. After the picninc, went back to the 'hood for a little dessert specialty ... came in a 2-liter plastic softdrink bottle, plastic cap and all. Pass the bottle around, pour a little into your little plastic cup. Toast the day. Wow. That was some tough stuff. Apparently a portuguese family recipe for home made digestif. Careful what you drink.

Went to some new friends house for dinner later in the week. Had a super nice dinner, initiated by canteloupe and very thinly sliced italian ham (together), finished off with a little putting lesson on the living room carpet, and a family specialty mirabelle digestif. Apparently, in former times, certain regions of France retained the right to make distilled alcohol for family use. At any rate, the right to distill certain quantities is retained by the family as long as they continue to own the farm. The grandfather of our hosts for the evening makes his own special blend of mirabelle (a small plum, regional speciality) every year, and distributes to the family. Strictly medicinal. I did putt better afterwards.

Went to borrow a bicycle from Daniel in the cycle club. He invited us to stay for dinner. Very simple, yet elegant salad followed by beef, at the backyard patio table on a very pleasant summer evening. Turns out, it was their wedding anniversary, which they were going to celebrate more formally the next evening, so decided to share the evening with us. After dinner, Daniel said that his father makes a traditional family recipe of poire william (pear based eau de vie) if I would like a little digestif. Why not? This was something. He pulled a bottle out of the cooler that was labelled 1976 and we sipped a little homemade in the garden, long after the sun had set, just the four of us, sharing some conversation about the difference in life between US and France, and which boulangerie has the best baguette in town. Very strong stuff, served chilled, goes down very easy with friends of an evening.

Moonshine next?

07.05.17: Pilgrims, pelerins, pinot noir, past and present

2007-05-17T13:18:00.003+02:00

In the middle ages, apparently there was a lot of sin. There was also a lot of anxiety about how to get absolution. Depending on income bracket and political connections, there were options for re-arriving in a good state of grace, before, well you know, an accident happened and you were standing at the gates for a final accounting. Wear clean underwear, you know.

One popular method, open to all income brackets, was to make a pilgrimage. One very efficient pilgrimage route was to make the trek to San Juan de Compostelle (or St-Jacque, if you are still in France, headed towards the Spanish border). For those with the fortitude to make the journey, all sins (up to that point in life, at any rate) were absolved. Starting over. Clean slate. Guaranteed by the Pope.

All of this was based on the fact that St John (allright, english version name) the apostle's body washed up at this spot in Spain, after having drifted at sea for like 400 years, and so the miracle happened, we have a church, and we have the promise from the pope that if you make the pilgrimage, all sins are wiped clean and a ticket to heaven is tucked safely in your pocket.

The pilgrims returning home would bring a seashell with them as a remembrance of the trek to the Spanish coast (and perhaps a reminder about their state of grace). The route is now marked with bronze shells embeded in the roads along the route throughout France, and you can usually encounter a few folks walking along the route most days.

Vézelay was an important stop along this route of pilgrimage. The day I visited, there were two men on a tandem bicycle who were making the pilgrimmage from eastern France and planned to make Compostelle a few weeks later. Don't know if you get full marks for taking a bicycle instead of the foot path. There was also a guy walking down the highway in the rain, red poncho, seashell necklace, heading west, 1500 km to go. Vézelay also makes the UNESCO list, as the orgin of the highly successful 2nd crusade, launched from here in 1146 by St-Bernard, and the launching point for Richard the Lion Heart for the 3rd crusade in 1190, the town continually providing alternate paths to forgiveness.

If you drive down the highway about 120 km east and south, you can find a modern day pilgrimage of another sort in full swing. Arriving in the heart of the Burgundy region, France's answer to the question: What to do with some Pinot Noir vines? Make Burgundy wine. Lots of it.

Divide up the land into very tiny parcels of mini-hectares; give each hectare a different fancy french name, and then invite the California pilgrims to traverse the Route de Vin. Gevrey-Chambertin, Nuits-St-George, Morey-St Denis, Chambolle-Musigny - all grand crus.

The pinot pilgrims, nicely tanned from sunny californie du sud, travel the route in BMWs, driven by their french drivers/guides, with their long hair, speaking impeccable english, smoking Marlboro Lights, and retaining enough of their strong french accent, so you always know just whose country you are in. Make some appointments at some of the grand crus, superior class wine houses, deguste a little wine here and there, pack up some cases at 600€ per, discuss shipping to the US, and seek coronation back home by having the well stocked cave. This pilgrimmage is not open to all income brackets. Not so obvious you leave in a state of grace, but you can certainly arrive at an altered state of consciousness with enough degustations.

Me ... I bicycled a little along the côtes (steep, dry, scenic) and bought a few bottles of Gevrey-Chambertin for the cave from a very pleasant vignoble, whose son is living/working in California in the field of software.

To each, their own pilgrimmage. To each, their own salvation/salivation.

Bonne route.

07.04.12: Round and semi-round

2007-04-12T23:59:00.000+02:00

Apr 12th, 1961 – Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the earth. He went around in a big circle, and became an international hero. He simultaneously represented, to the East, all the best that human minds can bring to demonstrate technological innovation, and, to the West, all the fears realized of world domination by an evil empire. And it was just 46 years ago today.

Just for going around in a circle. But he did go all the way ‘round. I guess that was the key. No points if you don’t make it back.

I celebrated by having lunch with a bunch of Russians. Really. Why not?

I don’t remember 1961, but my lunch mates of today did. They spoke with great pride of Yuri, but also equally respectful of Mr. Shepard and Glenn’s similar accomplishments within the following year. Mr. Armstrong, too. As for circles and orbits and pendulums … I was having lunch with a bunch of Russians, just like any other business meeting, working for future shared successes. No evil empires, no world domination. Just trying to close the loop on some open action items, and have an enjoyable lunch or two in the process.

Apr 12th, 2007 – Also the birthday of a good friend, so we had dinner in Montmartre, on a balmy spring evening, sitting at a little bistro table that sloped with the hillside, on a terrace that overlooks all of Paris, with a nice view of the golden dome atop l’Hôpital des Invalides in the distance, the final resting place of Napolean Bonaparte. He, who also, completed a few orbits of his own between France and banishment.

The crème brulée wasn’t bad; the English translations on the menu were. Pavé de boeuf was translated as cobblestone of beef. A sauce, jus de viande, was translated as ‘dishwater.’ Sort of a half-English translation. Just read the French; it seems more appetizing. No points for half a translation.

So, Pascale is 45 today, also a number that seems like half-way to something; one can imagine that 45 years represents a half-life, human size. She is optimistic to continue the journey.

Apr 12th, 2007 – Half-way around for me. I signed a 3-year contract for this position, and today marks exactly 18 months to the day from which I landed my American feet on this foreign soil. Half way around. No points if I don’t make it back, I suppose.

I’ll be back; I need all the points I can get.

07.03.29: Age rules!

2007-03-29T21:35:00.002+02:00

Merci à tous for the highly appreciated birthday wishes.

I greatly enjoyed all of them, even the one that had the audacity to remind me of a partial educational failure of mine from nearly 20 years ago. Yes, I am getting old(er).

So, what does a birthday look like from here?

Well, Thursday AM is my french class session. I have been accusing my french teacher of changing the grammar rules every week for about the last three weeks. Of course, in true french-y fashion, she completely denies it. It actually reached a peak last week, when, in a fit of passion for learning (er, perhaps just frustration), I actually vigorously, forcibly, enthusiastically, demonstratively scratched out an entire rule on pronoun usage in my text book, looked at her and screamed: "Vous n'êtes pas d'accord? moi, non plus!" (you don't agree? I don't either!).

It made me feel better.

Future french students ... you have me to thank if them frenchies can decide amongst themsleves the propoer usage of the pronoun 'en' in regards to referencing non-human, yet sentient beings.

At any rate, she didn't quit; she came back for another laugh at my expense this week. Must need the job, or more likely, just the entertainment. Well, I know she changes the rules just to force me to conjugate into a hypothèse, but there is no way a french person will ever admit to making an error.

Today, she bought the coffee during our coffe break. Bon anniversaire (un).

This afternoon ... meetings, phone calls, e-mails, blah, blah, blah, saved humanity from itself. Listened to a guy say that 50 years of data is not sufficient to claim that global warning is happening. Kept my mouth shut .. I work for that guy. BUT, it is performance appraisal season in the big factory, so I had the pleasure of giving an appraisal to one of my employees. Talk about changing the rules. Either EVERYTHING I was told in cultural awareness training was completely incorrect (strong possibility) or la employée du jour is an exceptionally unique française (just as likely, a very strong possibility). Well, as usual, I know I am right.

I am the boss. See rule #1. If you don't like that one, see rule #2. Bon anniversaire (deux).

Ahh ... this evening ... I had une petite experience at the local cycle club meeting. OK, so I was out on my bike a few weeks ago, ran across a group that had the name of my ville on their jerseys, so I rode with them for about 50 miles. Very pleasant experience. They invited me to their monthly meeting, which I attended this evening. Meeting scheduled to start at 8:15. I arrived at 8:10 (Only had to ask for directions once to find the address). Noone. 8:25 ... a few people arrive. 9:00 ... meeting actually starts. So, we start the meeting about 45 mintues late, which bothers noone. Although, it can be noted that I noted the time. Perhaps I should say: noone was concerned about the time, except for l'américain. Meeting begins with an acknowledgement of the new person in the room (Yes that would be me ... please introduce yourself in french please ... don't forget to say thank you). About 25 people, almost all of them older than me, and all of them in better shape than me. A few people who run in the New York City, Chicago, and Rome marathons every year. . Discuss who will participate in which upcoming rides, the usual request for volunteers to help with coordination (I acted like I completely did not understand). After the regular business, the club president has a welcoming one-to-one chat with me so that I understand what they do, chastises me for using 'vous' instead of 'tu' ... afterall we are kindred sportive kind of guys; several people introduce themselves to me to make it very clear that I am very welcome to join their club, but only if I want, and then, in true french-y fashion, we popped the corks on several bottles of cidre - a kind of fermented apple based cider - and had a few rounds.

No rules. Bon anniversaire (trois).

Here's to no rules (except mine) for the rest of the year...Merci à tous,

07.03.21: St. Paddy's Day ... Long memories

2007-03-21T21:27:00.002+01:00

Well, I might be a little late, but Happy St. Paddy's Day just the same.

I got a little busy late last week and didn't have time to write before la grande fête, and then, well, took a little trip for the week-end, which I now summarize for you below....

Went to Normandy last week-end for a visit. First time to that famous region. Hey, what's to see ...

Started off with a visit to a couple in Caen that we met in Sénégal last December, and we were invited to their house to spend a day or two. Turns out that Véronique is friends with all of the directors of the big hotels in Deauville (you know, where all the Hollywood stars hang out during the Deauville film fest). So, we took some tours of the 4-star-luxe hotels in Deauville, had a cocktail or two on the house, and short-sheeted the beds in the Susan Sarandon Presidentielle Suite. Took a tour along the northern coast between Honfleur and Cabourg, and ended up back in Caen for the evening.

Believe it or don't, but Friday night we went into Caen to a bar named "O'Donnell's Irish Pub", had a few pints of Guiness (pronounced here as uhn puhn de Geen-ace), and listened to a band (5 piece) play traditional Irish music. Very traditional, and nicely played. Mostly reels, and a few ballads. I never did figure out where the band was from. When the singer sang, his english sounded, well kindof irishy, and my french hosts said he spoke french with a bit of an accent, but when we were leaving I thanked him in english, and he looked at me kind of funny like he didn't understand. So, I don't know where they were from, but they played a nice set of music on the eve of St. Paddy's Day, in a northern French town, not that very far from Ireland. I didn't mind it a bit.

Normands can be persistent with their apple theme. Apples grow here, along with cows for cheese and butter. In the french tradition of combining economics and the necessity of a specialty drink for each course of the meal, the Normands have figured out how to make an aperitif (before dinner) and a digestif (after dinner) from the same fruit. I don't know the exact process, but apparently fruit, fermented and distilled results in a relatively strong apple-based, cognac inspired, digestif called Calvados. If you can find the aged (30 yrs, what patience!), it makes for a quite nice after dinner drink. One fruit region, two drinks needed ... add a little fresh apple juice to calvados, and voilà, you have Pommeau, a sweeter, lighter alcohol version suitable for an aperitif. I am not an expert on these matters, but I will be happy to report new discoveries, as experienced.

Spent the rest of the weekend visiting the famous sites ... D-Day beaches, American Cemetery in Normandy, and the Bayeux Tapestry, and on Monday, to an 1000 year old ruin of an abbey called Jumièges.

The Bayeux Tapestry is a tapestry (go figure) that is about 70 meters long and 50 cm tall which recounts the history of the Battle of Hastings and the conquering of England by William the Conquerer (Guillaume le Conquérant) in 1066, establishing the strong presence of the Normans in western europe for a few more centuries. Created as a sort of political propaganda at the time, it has taken on a life of its own in symbolism throughout the ages, and is preserved in an unbelievably wonderful condition 900 years later. Worth a stop, if you find yourself near Bayeux.

The D-Day beaches and war memorials are, as always, moving. La Pointe du Hoc is a spit of land that juts out into the Channel that was strategically important to capture in the initial phases of the Normandy landings. In preparation, the small strip was aerial bombed to the extent that no spot of earth was left untouched. The nazi defenses persisted, and the Rangers who scaled the cliffs to arrive on this spot found tough resistance. Today, the strip of land is American soil, and the remains of the aerial bombing are evident everywhere, while the grasses and potentillas, in yellow spring bloom, put some soft edges on the remains of the concrete and steel bunkers that were constructed by Rommel's crews in anticipation of the eventual Allied attacks.

At the American Cemetery we hooked up with a British couple to take a guided tour given by a French lady, who is employed by the American Battle Monuments Commission ( abmc.gov). Quentin Roosevelt, son of Teddy, died as a pilot in WWI near where Grandpa was engaged in Eastern France. Theodore, Jr, also son of Teddy, died in Normandy during WWII. As a tribute to the family, Quentin's grave was moved from eastern France to be next to his brother in Normandy. I recalled seeing some photos of Quentin and his wrecked plane in Grandpa's photo albums, which I mentioned to our French guide, as she had discussed that they are always trying to tie together pieces of history. She said that they had some photos of the original burial site of Quentin, but that they had not previously seen any photos of Quentin's plane nor the surroundings. So, I e-mailed her some digitized photos from Grandpa's stash, including the photos of Quentin, for which she is very thankful to have. She may contact me to have at the look at some more of the family archives. We'll see.

In a turn of history, at the British war memorial, there is a large engraving in stone, commemorating the contributions of the British soldiers in liberating France, that references the Battle of Hastings, and essentially says: "We, the previously conquered, return 900 years later as your liberators."

Europe has a long memory like that.

Hope your week-end was memorably pleasing,

07.02.25: Home Field Advantage

2007-02-25T22:19:00.000+01:00

Rugby action for the week-end:

- France defeats Wales at Stade de France.

- Ireland defeats England at Croke Park, a stadium with emotionally charged history contre les anglaise. To wit:

o It's the first time a British team will play at the cathedral of Irish nationalism and scene of "Bloody Sunday," the darkest day of Ireland's war of independence. On November 21, 1920, Dublin police and British troops - infuriated by the Irish Republican Army assassination that morning of 14 British spies and associates - retaliated by firing wildly into the Croke Park crowd during a Gaelic football match. They killed 11 spectators and a player, Michael Hogan, while two other people were trampled to death. [http://www.rugbyheaven.smh.com.au]

Home field advantage -- get it when you can.

Last week-end I was in the mid-west, slogging thru the winter ice and snow. Loving every minute of having a fourth season again, and knowing, for me, it would only last 6 days, until the next non-stop back to Europe. In between snow plows, spent some time with Dad.

The locations to find some home field advantage are diminishing for him. He was having some difficulty with his cell phone, not sure which button is hang-up, which button is call. The few angstroms that differentiate between the colors red and green are not obvious to the color-blind, and to remember left vs. right is not so obvious to the early Alzheimer's crowd.

The cell phone ... a great tool for the elderly has become too sophisticated for it's own good.

We went to the Phone Store, you know, run by the local current Ma Bell to look for a simpler phone. Talked to the salesperson, explained we wanted a phone that was just a phone ... you know, no internet surfing, no text messaging, no extra features, just 10 digits, a call and a hang-up button, easily read, easily understood, no significant human memory or sophisticated thought processing required.

She looked at my Dad, my Dad of tall stature, with his long grey hair, his military straight spine, the handsomest man in his neighborhood, not the least bit physically tired, even though he had already swum two miles earlier that day, with his grey-blue eyes that look at you uncomprehendingly if you say a sentence too long. And so she looked at my Dad and she said, in a not overly pleasant nor kind tone of voice, "I'm sorry, sir, but we just don't make phones like that. I guess everything has just gotten too complicated for you." That's what she said. And then she looked at me and said, as though my Dad were no longer there, and she said: "Is there anything else, today?" I don't think I answered.

Dad has lost home-field advantage. Wherever he goes, he doesn't get to hear the home-town crowd, he doesn't stand firm, knowing the turf, knowing which direction the sun will come from, which direction the wind blows in the afternoon, which pub is next door after the game. Every day is an away game. Every away game, the odds are on losing. Every loss, just extends the streak. And he is not very happy about it. This is my take-away.

I live in France. I don't speak no good, very well, you know, that french language. I got no home-field advantage, either. I smile a lot. A lot. Either they think I am an idiot, or that I am happy for no obviously good reason. But I smile and always say please and thank-you. I get a lot of help, because of that.

When you don't have home field, do your homework, play smart.

07.02.03: Patience, Woody, Patience

2007-02-03T23:29:00.000+01:00

I am in a Woody Allen movie. In fact, I've become Woody.

I have been observing for the last year how patient I am becoming. This is a forced response. I have attributed it to dealing with french people day in, day out. We don't always a share a common language. Patience, patience.

I imagine that there are multiple ways to learn a foreign language. A seemingly necessary evil is memorizing verb conjugations. Another aspect is actually talking to real people who (quite naturally) speak the foreign language you are trying to learn. This can be scary, intimidating, humorous, and sometimes enjoyable. A way to make take the edge off is to go to a structued environment where you sit in small groups with actual real-live french people and talk for 45 minutes in English -- ostensibly for them to learn english, but quite honestly I find it to be some of the more sane conversations I have here anyway, and then 45 minutes in french -- ostensibly to learn some french conversational skills, but actually a way to defend américain's honor in the face of several massively stupid international "gaffes" (le mot de la semaine this week on RFI, associated to M. Chirac and Iranian-awareness) by our gouvernement. The hour and a half for this exercise is acceptably banal, and perhaps a little educational. The shared lunch afterwards is actually the good reason to participate. At lunch I can manage an interesting conversation with one or two francophones, and honestly share some interesting perspectives.

So today, after the obligatory Bush-bash (or you don't get invited to lunch) we were walking up the street to a resto, when one of the elderly américaine participants asked me to wait for her while she managed her affaires. She said she knew where the resto was for lunch, which I didn't question. After I waited to accompany her, we walked around St-Germain des Pres several times while it became painfully obvious she had no fricking idea where the resto was to meet up with the others. So, I didn't get to have lunch with my frenchy friends today. I really thought I would kill her.

That's when I knew I had become Woody. Patience, patience. This time for an american in paris. Go figure.

She told me she met President Eisenhower when she was a young woman. Namedropper. In Paris, no less. She looks like Diane Keaton will look in another 10 years. She told me she was very attractive when she was young. These are the other things she told me: her father was abusive, her mother was an alcoholic until the day after her father died, her ex-husband, now deceased, was french, haute bourgeoisie, and non-communcative, she is much younger than my father (who is 77), and she loves living in Paris -- in fact, it was her destiny, fulfilled.

All this while I had a little pasta and a glass of vin rouge in a little Italian restaurant off Metro Odéon, on a brisk, sunny winter day. It really seemed like a Woody Allen movie. But a little less funny. But then, the character played by Woody in his movies doesn't see the humor either.

06.11.05: Un an

2006-11-05T16:57:00.000+01:00

The maple leaves are bronze, laying on the lawn in the front garden. The fog appears thick every morning lately; this morning the visibility was under 50 meters at the river's edge, the other bank barely discernible through the mist. In the early mornings during this most recent vacances scolaires, the quiet is as thick as the fog. This afternoon, bicycling, the breath visible, signaling the end of automne indien, full-fledged autumn now undeniably here.

It must be one year since I have been here now; the seasons have fully cycled.

Just like last year this weekend, the Sunday market was again a necessary pleasure of the day. Unlike last year, today, several of the vendors recognize me, look forward to a few pleasant words to exchange, a small sale of some bananas, merguez, saucisson dinde, and without fail, une tranche de cantal. The clémentines are in season again.

The clothes vendors were in full force today. At one booth I was encouraged to look at the Levi's. Sixty euros a pair for 501s. I bought a pair of 501s at Sear's last week in Cincy for 20 euros (oh yeah, I received a $15 discount for opening a Sears charge, which undoubtedly I will cancel, so I can get the same discount again next time I make it to a Sear's.) I didn't tell them how much less expensive I can get Levi's for in the US. What would be the point.

By the same token, I went to Carrefour yesterday to pick up some coffee and chocolate to bring to the US this week for some former expats who are on a "I need some french stuff that I can't get in the midwest" craving. So, that is the point. There are some very nice things to enjoy, wherever we are.

At the market today, two young women in white lab coats walked up to me and spoke for a few minutes, too quickly for me to understand what they said. After I said: "Je n'ai pas compris", they paused for the few seconds that it takes one to ask oneself what they said that wasn't understandable, before recognizing that I spoke with (just a little bit of) an accent (for them, anyway), and then they asked me where I am from. One of the two then explained, in a sort of hesitating, but perfectly understandable simple english, that they are med students collecting donations for a student association. When she finished explaining, she asked, rather shyly: "Did you understand me?", in a way that communicated that she had absolutely no confidence that what she said made any sense. It made me realize that when I speak french, although it sounds completely foreign too me, I can be understood, if they choose. And when french people speak halting high school english to me, I can understand, if I choose.

Maybe something to consider as we got to the polls on Tuesday, and in the days to soon follow. We think we talk in a strange language, not understood; but in fact, it's not that difficult, motivation to make a connection and a little patience going a long way to bridge the gap.

I gave the med students all the coins in my pocket. For me, that was the point. Just to prove that I really did understand.

I think I need to go rake a few maple leaves off the lawn.

Un an, et puis àpres? Je ne sais pas, mais je suppose qu'il serait intéressant, encore.

06.08.23: Visit to Grandma's

2006-08-23T22:46:00.001+02:00

So, I went to Germany for a week, and I have only have four things to say about it:

Benefiziumsgässlein (19 letters, ~7 syllables)
Exclusivherstellung (19 letters, ~6 syllables)
Riemenschneideraltar (20 letters, ~6 syllables)
Motivschachtabdeckungen (23 letters, ~7 syllables)

I have no idea what any of that means. But, what the hell kind of language / culture would willingly torture themselves with these kinds of words? Maybe Saxons?

And these were just the easy pickens from one day's touring along the 'Romantische Strasse'. Somehow, these little signs don't have the same romantic caché as, say: "Tu veut rencontrer à Paris?" (5 words, 22 l, 8 syl)

Nevertheless (1 word, 12 l, 3 syl), there are other things to discuss ...

The food ... all right, I really tried.

Everywhere I went, I tried to ask about local specialities and recommended items to try. Maybe I was just in too touristy or too non-touristy of places. Or maybe the germans just don't celebrate food in any way resembling the french-y local terroir thing. Anyway, I never found a resto that was very excited about sharing some local specialty, in the way that it is insisted upon in France. So, I had some brats, had some beer, had some sauerkraut ... I'm not coming up with anything particularly memorable here. I should go back and give it another try. Or not.

The culture ... I share just one memorable observation...

I had a really scary experience.

Sunday afternoon, I needed to go to Julia's grandparents' house to return some clothing articles as a favor. So, drove out to the 'burbs in a little german town outside of Braunschweiger, turn left and right a few times thru a residential neighborhood, houses all seemingly built in the last 60 years (consult history of western europe 101), pull in the driveway, and regard grandma's house, grandma's neighborhood.

I thought I was right back in the neighborhood where I grew up on the west side of Cincinnati (consult 45248, google earthers). Small yellow-red brick ranch house, neatly maintained yard and gardens, little picket fences between the neighbors' driveways. Went inside. Think I have rolled the clock back a few years ... same furniture styles, same floor plan layout as every house I can remember from the days on the west side. Sat down. Grandma offered me everything from coffee to champagne, and chocolate to chicken sandwiches. Just like everybody's grandma I always knew. We chatted. Skiing, football, hunting, taxes, ... The coffee was damn good. The chocolate was quite nice, but she admitted that I could buy some richer chocolates, at a good price, closer to the Swiss border. I was just stunned and amazed at how this home, these people, this visit, felt just like thousands of home visits with grandmas and parents and friends that I have spent in one little neighborhood on the west side of Cinti, 5000 miles away.

When I first arrived in France, people referred to me as an Anglo-Saxon. I had never heard this before, and it sounded a bit odd to me. My family's ancestry is Irish-Italian. So, Anglo ... no, we're Irish, dammit! Saxon ... prego .. I'm Italian. But I guess the few non-germans who migrated to western Cincy do not a culture dictate.

The Braunschweigerians are Saxons ... how was I to know?

I felt so at home, I had to leave.

06.07.23: Le Tour -- Out-Landis-h!

2006-07-23T22:33:00.001+02:00

Usually, I watch the Tour on television in Tom's very worthy basement, with a few beers. He has TiVo and an OLN cable package, and for the last few years, with Lance on the hunt for setting some victory records, there was plenty of cable coverage available in the US. This year, alas, je suis ici en France, donc, I have a different view of the Tour ...

From my conversations, here is what I gather ...

All French people believe that ALL cyclists use dopage for performance enhancement. All French believe that it is not humanly possible for a non-dopaged human to complete the Tour with the average speed that is actually maintained over the three week period. Thus, since the speed is achieved, all cyclists are dopers. Hence, the Tour is not really a test of cycling skill, but a test of mad doctor cleverness. And, lastly, Lance Armstrong need not be considered among the greatest cyclists of all time; his unknown wizard behind the curtain happens to be the luckiest and most skillful mad scientist of the current era.

Thus, the race that carries their name is mostly denigrated by the french. I assume, this carries until the next French cyclist wins the race; in which case I suppose the victory will indeed be a demonstration of skill, tenacity, strategy, and preparation. But, with the current crop of french riders, we wait for some time.

Alas, un Américain a gagné Le Tour, encore, cet an. Merci, Floyd Landis.

For my part, I had the opportunity to watch the Tour speed by twice, so why not?

The first time, Stage 14, a transition stage between the Pyrenees and the Alps, with a few medium size climbs enroute from Montélimar to Gap. We targeted Col de Perty as the most interesting climb of the day and set up camp about 1 km below the summit. How to watch the tour .. take cold drinks, arrive early, take a book (or in our case, french verb conjugaison charts since we were in between sessions from our course intensive), camera and binocs. Find a spot on the climb where you can see the route down the valley for a few kilometers, preferably under a shade tree, and camp next to a German family or two. Wait, wait, wait, and then wait a little more. Share a few german words with El Diablo. Just when you think you have that subjunctive verb form memorized, along comes the caravan. Beacoup de choses tossed out the car windows ... hats, key chains, noise makers, big hands for cheering on your favorite, etc. Wait, wait, wait, encore. How about some plus-que-parfait verb forms? OK, en fin, les cyclistes. Have your camera ready. Even on a climb, these guys are moving pretty good. George Hincapie was trailing in the rear of the peloton today. The maillot jaune for George was a brief moment of two weeks ago, now a memory, filed for the glory day tales. The peloton passes; the team cars in pursuit, le flamme rouge passes to signal the end of the course.

Next viewing ... à Paris for the finale. We took the Metro 8 to Place de la Concorde, and were effectively blocked from walking across the street or any closer to l'Arc de Triomphe, as we arrived only 2 1/2 hours before the race. Up and down the Rue Rivoli, tens of thousands are lined up to watch the Tour parade the Champs-Elysées, even if an américain is destined to take top podium spot again this year. How to pass the time? A nice family from Nice was willing to chat together as we leaned on the barriers, in view of the Place where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette lost their heads. Or, you can choose to be accosted by an 88 year old French gentlemen, who speaks no english, is happy to bash americans, and it is not such a bad way to practice some french with a guy who won't leave as long as you promise him a cigarette (Gaulois, s-v-p). The caravan passes, this time without gift items for the crowd. The peloton approaches. Quick with the camera, but this time knowing that the race will complete 8 circuits of Paris before the finish. Floyd looked quite content, tucked in behind the Phonak train, bringing the man home for the victory. For me, stroll down to the Marais for a falafel and a beer.

It wasn't Tom's basement, but it wasn't too bad either.

06.06.06: Bonne quelque chose

2006-06-06T17:21:00.000+02:00

The locals have a nice penchant for well-wishing, always based around the word bon(ne).
Some recent examples:

Bonne installation (when you move into a new place)
Bonne dimanche (every Sunday, after every purchase at the market)
Bon spectacle (at entry to a pretty average local musical show), and my favorite ...
Bonne continuation (upon serving the plats after the entrée, for the remaining enjoyment of the meal)

I had a few articles to repair/replace/return this week. Every article, every vendor has their own story. So, in order of occurrence on Saturday ...

France Telecom (who, by the way, have launched a new marketing campaign called "Open". On large black signs, the word open appears in simple text font, in orange letters, just left of center. I don't know if this in deference to or in defiance of l'Académie Française, but in small print on the bottom of each sign is the translation into french ("s'ouvrir"). At any rate, the cell phone that I purchased from Mr. Open-ness last month is no longer working. The reason I bought a new phone last month is because the prior one was stolen from my house on Easter week-end. So, after about one and half hours of conversation, it was decided that the next best step was to have Mr. Orange visit my house on Tues AM and replace the phone. Despite several attempts at explanation, it was not real clear to me why that was a better solution than just exchanging the one I had with me for the one in the back room of the store. No matter. Everything will be resolved on Tues. Mr. Open does not equal Mr. Convenience today.

Bonne conversation.

FNAC ... and Michelin GPS.

I bought a Michelin GPS machine just after Christmas last year, without which I suppose I would still be wandering the Loire Valley trying to find my hotel in some medeviel shaped village. Instead, I travel the roads of france without fear, without regard, without maps, and I always arrive on time. Michelle (the voice in the machine who guides me thru each rond-point) is suffering from some strange voice malady that needs to be rectified. Approaching Place d'Italie on Thurs evening, she could barely choke out 'deux----i---eme ----s--ort---ie'. I had a flashback of Chevy Chase and BigBen. I took the first sortie. At any rate, to get Michelle fixed, as it were, Mr. FNAC demands that the machine be sent back to Michelin for ONE MONTH. Incroyable. After much protestation, he did agree to write on the return ticket to Michelin that I need the GPS for professional reasons, so please return urgently. Mr. FNAC suggested this might speed the process to three weeks. This, for an article with a one year guarantee. I am sure every return ticket has the same urgent plea. I am not the least bit confident that I will ever see Michelle again, and I am not happy with the prospect of traveling le sud de la France next month with old-fashioned maps.

Bonne route, bonne chance.

Decathlon ... and a bike rack. I bought a bike rack a few weeks ago, but it doesn't fit the bike, so I returned it. No problem. Just get in line with your receipt and the cashier will refund your money. No long conversation; I almost forgot where I was for a second.
But then she said:

Bonne restitution.

06.05.10: Marva: à contre-courant

2006-05-10T11:21:00.001+02:00

The first time I heard Marva Wright was in New Orleans, Christmas night, 2000. The stock market was at an all-time high, 9/11 was nine months in the future, Iraq was a fading memory from 1991, gasoline pump prices were $1.65 a gallon, and we were 6 days away from the dawn of the 21st century.

Having said all that, Marva sang the blues. In the face of so much optimism, in a smoke-filled room, packed with Bud bottles and voo-doo scents, accompanied by Henry Butler, Marva made us forget all that there was to celebrate, and instead feel, deep in the core of shared memory, the omniscience of pain. It was a moment, an evening, not to forget.

I caught up with Marva again this week. This time in St-Sulpice, Paris's largest church (and, thanks to the DaVinci Code, perhaps currently the most famous) on a chilly, drizzly spring evening to kick off the St-Germain des Prés Jazz Festival. (Metro 4) This time accompanied by Lucky Peterson on the organ and the London Community Gospel Choir. Now, we are post-9/11. Diesel pump prices are 1€15 per litre. The S&P500 e-bubble is seen for what it was. The CPE and Clearstream scandal have infected local politics and policy. Iraq is no longer a fading memory, but a constant reminder of how the misperceptions of the few can result in the adverse reality of the many. And Katrina dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of the Gulf of Mexico on FunkyButt's, where I last saw Marva in the Ramparts.

Having said all that, Marva and the congregation pumped out some gospel to carry the message that hope is omnipresent. Lucky, in solo, softly playing the organ, proposed the most heartfelt version of A Change is Gonna Come. Everyone believed. Marva's At Last was right on time.

Marva the contrarian. She gots the goods. I think the rain is letting up.

06.04.14: Respectez le fromage

2006-04-15T07:15:00.001+02:00

OK, so where I work, there are about 10,000 frenchmen and a few people from various countries around the globe. I am the only person there that doesn't speak french (yet). Shame on me. OK. I am working on it. Really.

At any rate, all of the written communication in the plant is in french. Until this week. A new sign showed up in the cafeteria:

"Please take on a full piece. Dont cut the cheese."

When we walked into the cafeteria on Thurs, 6 people read the sign and immediately looked at me and started laughing. The sign was obvioulsy not posted for them. I told them it wasn't very good english.

Some observations we can make here:

Assumes all french speaking people know how to behave in public with cheese.
Assumes all previous mal-handling cheese purchasers do not speak (or at least read) french. This is a very small population.
Conversely, we could assume the actual fromage abusers are french, but to save face, the sign is posted in english as a diversion.
Assumes that the offenders are compliant with written instructions - so obviously does not apply to the french
When it is important to communicate, even a frenchman will stoop to english.

I will just say this: I did not cut the cheese in the cafeteria. (and I will not explain this expression to the locals, just yet).

06.04.12: Impressions et Surreality

2006-04-12T16:15:00.000+02:00

OK, it's been some time since I actually had a few minutes to update (well, OK since I made a commitment to just sit down and do it). Had a troublesome project to complete at work that took too much time, but since that is where the income flows from, whaddaya gonnna say? Well, that is behind me now (in a good way), so here are some non-work related impressions from the last month or so ...

Mid-March ... The man on my right is sporting an ivory-white yarmelka with gold letters "Elijah Cohen Barmitzvah 15.04.2005". The man in front of me has on a purple wig. The lady behind me wears a cowboy hat and boots, and her children are dressed like spiderman and annie oakley. The man in the front of the room stands behind a podium, rocking back and forth on his feet, looking alternatively at the ceiling and the scroll unfurled on the podium, while chanting, singing and reciting a poem. At seemingly random moments, the whole crowd stomps their feet and spins their little noise makers. I have on a yarmelka myself, believe it or don't, and the whole time the man to my left is pointing to a book I am holding in my hands and keeps saying in very broken english: "if you want to understand what is going on, you have to read the book." I look at the book, and each page has 3 languages written on it: Hebrew, Hebrew with latin characters, and what looks to me like fairly complicated french. OK, I am not going to figure out what is going on here. I look in the corners of the room, expecting to see Salvador Dali sketching this scene. Dali does not show himself. Instead, I listen to the chant, and calm myself with this little riddle: If you are in a french temple, and someone says: vous êtes très gentil, are they saying I am kind for sharing the seat, or are they calling me a Gentile? I opt for the former. Always the optimist.

The ceremony ends. I stroll next door and have a pizza and a beer, sans yarmelka.

Just another evening in a strange land.

06.02.05: Chambre d'hôte: ouvert

2006-02-05T20:00:00.000+01:00

As the Ukrainians left Monday evening, Colleen and Andy were chugging north on the train from Barcelona. So, with the exit of the eastern Europeans, comes the arrival of the North Americans, and the first official guests to chambre d'hôte mesnil. As of 31-janvier, we are now officially open.

Colleen and Andy made themselves at home and pursued the obligatory primary tourist meccas in gay paree, and (as some of us still work for a living) we hooked up in the evenings for some nice meals and conversations. We did the circuit: Tues evening in the Quartier Latin for a simple and traditionelle Menu à 15, Wednesday in Le Marais for a feast of mid-eastern 'quinze éléments' with a wide-ranging spectrum of fish, meats, cheeses and vegetables.

Thursday we went for a traditional and very nice repas at Le Timbre in Montparnasse (6th, Metro 4 to Vavin). Quadruple feast day: groundhog's day (US), le chandeleur (France), l'anniversaire de Colleen (local), and also the 16th anniversary of the day when F.W. de Klerk promised to set Nelson Mandela free (international). A day worthy of celebration. We ate 80% of the menu (skipping only the andouillette and the boudin). The assiette de fromage was a selection entirely from l'Auvergne and the vin de l'Ardèche, selected by the chef, was a great accompaniment for the wide range of plats (confit de canard, poulet roti and brouillard). Elbow-to-elbow in the postage stamp sized dining room, one friendly server, assisted by the chef in full view of the dining room, we were the first to arrive and second last to leave.

On Wednesday as we were chowing on the éléments, a musical duo came in to entertain the crowd (and hope for a few coins, no doubt). The guitarist from Cuba and the bongo sidekick from Paris (and hey, aren't we all from Paris at some time?) posed for a photo op for Andy. Andy pulls out this cheap medium format camera that has duct tape on it to cover up the light leaks, points it in roughly the general direction of the musicians, and pulls the lever for a very long manual exposure. There is no way to hold a camera steady for more than about 1/30 sec, on a day without too much café, and I know he added a little wine to the café he drank earlier. So I'm thinking: what the hell kinda photography work is this? He tells me there is actually a market for this kinda stuff.
The trick is though, you never really know how the image is going to turn out, so you take a few hundred images, and from time to time the image is everlastingly priceless. So, you have these black&white candids, where the subject is randomly placed (or not) within the view window, and the film is bounced up and down a few hundred times within the timeframe of the shutter opening, and perhaps the lighting is about right, and perhaps some nice darkroom work all results in a memorable sense-du-moment. Or perhaps in the blurred image, we each have the opportunity to see what we want to see.

[Sidebar: I imagine this is like US foreign policy. You points your Rove-r in one direction, he perhaps holds steady long enough to sketch a shaky image of the future, so you pull the shutter and hope for the best. I guess the difference is, you can pull the shutter a few hundred times on a cheap plastic camera, and noone is likely to get hurt. Not sure there a few hundred mid-eastern countries left to experiment on in the hopes that one will turn out to be a thing of beauty for the ages.]

Sometimes, I think about the decision to come to France this way. Was the future-scope camera centered on the target, was the exposure about right; did I have a clear enough sense of the image that would come out of the darkroom? Not so obvious just yet. But the camera still has a lot of film left on the roll. So for today ... point, steady, click. The collage continues.

[Addendum: the guest book at chambre d'hôte mesnil has this inscription supplied by our most recent guests: "... the best shower and bed we've experienced in all of Europe."
Next?]

06.01.25: Ukrainian Roulette

2006-01-25T21:23:00.000+01:00

~~The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.~~Well, actually, the Ukrainians are here. Really.

So, here we have it. Six Ukrainians here for six working days, and they work for six hours a day (I am a little anxious about this six repetition, especially since I just took the DaVinci Code walking tour last weekend).

At any rate, if two languages being spoken in the same room (français et anglais) can cause confusion, three languages (en plus, russian) is approaching a level of entropy that may require a corollary to an existing law of thermodynamics. The official language for this week's activities is english. I am the only person in the room who speaks english (er, well, at least american) as a natural language. Most of the french have a pretty good command of english, and two of the six Ukrainians speak english (not bad, actually) and they have to translate everything into Russian. Everything. And the chief Ukrainian does not speak english or french. Needless to say, progress is slow. Having said that, we are making progress.

[As a side note: If I understand it correctly, Ukrainian is actually the official language of the Ukraine, but since the Russian language was required for the past few generations, there is a general re-learning of the native language taking place currently. In the meantime, for basic communication, the folks with us this week are speaking Russian (not that I can tell).]

Lunchtime, we get to have a little lighter conversation. At least, I try.

On Monday, I asked the frenchies if they had read the recently released report from the University of California-Davis that states that it is not a good idea to have wine and cheese together. At first, they asked if this was referring to Kraft American Pasteurized Process Cheese Food. In which case, they agreed. Anything not fit for human consumption is not improved with any type of wine. I explained that this was a rigorous study, conducted to the highest oenological and fromogological standards that demonstrated that elements in the cheese inhibit the ability to taste some characteristics of the wine. Their question: "But does that mean the experience is not enjoyable, or just different than expected?" Maybe it helps to start with the right question. At the time, we were having a very nice Bordeaux with some Bleu d'Auvergne and Brillat Savarin. I didn't mind it a bit.

Today at lunch I explained the story of the current film, 'Goodnight and Good Luck', to the group of french and ukrainians. Gouvernement intrusion into private lives, un-American activities, banishment from the film industry, champion of civil liberties from the media, relationship between two current Georges (Clooney and fourth-last-letter-of-the-alphabet), and parallels with current events in the US. Wow, this guy had to translate the whole thing for his Ukrainian buddies (and still eat lunch.)

At the end, the chief Ukrainian said something to his translator in a relatively serious tone of voice, which then got translated to us as follows:

"Da, we know of such practices from our experience with Soviet Union. Maybe just a little more severe for us. You should take care with current situation."

Everybody laughed. Me, a little nervously.

It's not everyday I get advice about protecting civil liberties from someone from the former Soviet Union.

Maybe he's got a point.

06.01.06: Arrosage, Nues, Gratuit

2006-01-06T19:51:00.000+01:00

If I were the type to keep score, here is how the week is shaping up: 1 glass of champagne, 4 breasts, one glass each vin rouge and rosé, and 1 shot of Chinese saki, all gratuit.

Went to the local market on Sunday morning. Our market, sort of like Findlay Market, but all grown up and very comfortable and relaxed in its role. About twice the size of Findlay, open on Thursday and Sunday. Excellent selection of fresh fruits, vegetables, meat and fish, and around the periphery, street sales of clothes, and shoes, and also gloves and scarves on colder winter days. Oh yeah, and within waking distance of our house. Bought a nice pork roast and some chops for the grill from the regular boucherie. Since it was the first Sunday of the year, the boucher gave each of us a little pocket calendar. A mundane fleur-de-lis design on the cover for Jen, a naked woman for the design on mine. Not sure when was the last time Si Leis allowed the vendors at Findlay to hand out pin-up girl calendars, probably not even a Ben-gal on playoff Sunday.

Monday, at work, just before lunch. Assemble in the Comité for an arrosage. Good to learn some colloquial language every day. Arrosage: a watering. In practice: celebration initiated by one of my colleagues that he has been in his new position for 3 months; celebration enacted by champagne all around at 11:30 AM on a Monday. Sharing champagne has a bit more cachet when it is the family business, and you can pull out bottles that all have the family name on the label. One glass of champagne, gratuit encore.

Tuesday, at work, at lunch. Michel's birthday was Sunday. He decided to share a little of the celebration with us. One bottle of vin rouge, purchased at the company luncheon canteen. Shared around. One glass vin rouge, gratuit encore encore.

Wednesday, at work, at lunch. Céline signed off on and moved into a new apartment this past weekend. She decided to share a little of the celebration with us. One bottle of vin rosé, purchased at the company luncheon canteen. Shared around. One glass vin rosé, gratuit encore encore encore.

Thursday, evening. Walked down to the local Vietnamese/Thailandaise resto for dinner. Nice little dinner of bœuf au sauce piquante. When a guy with a french-asian accent tells you your french is improving, is this a positive? Am I now sounding slightly asian with my french pronunciation? At any rate, after dessert (apple beignet, nicely dusted with a little sugar) M. Serveur offers me a shot of Chinese saki as a digestif. Proudly he pours me a shot in a special shot glass that has an image of a naked woman in the bottom, but only as long as there is alcohol in the glass. As you drink the digestif, the woman mysteriously evaporates, diaphonous and tawdry ..... Now this is truly a conundrum. If you chooose to drink the alcohol, the naked woman will disappear. I think I have had this experience before. Not sure I have always made the best choice in this situaton. I choose the saki. Saki and two more elusive breasts, gratuit, encore x 4.

As the nudity dissolves into a blurred image and the saki dissolves into my bloodstream, I realize the distinctions between the familiar and the unfamiliar are starting to dissolve also, bit by bit, étape par étape.

05.12.22: Foggy day along the Meuse

2005-12-22T23:05:00.000+01:00

Dad:

I had a few days to do some exploring, so I thought I'd check out some of the places Grandpa stayed when he was here. So, here is the story of what I found.

Drove east out of Paris for 2 hours on A4, then exit and continue on, mostly further east and a little north. At every intersection, take the smaller of the two roads, until finally all of the roads are barely one-and-half cars wide, just ambling through the French country side. All small towns. To an American driving through on a cold December morning, they all look the same. Agricultural countryside, crops long since harvested for the year, winter rye showing through the frost. Towns spaced about every 10 km. Rolling hills, reminiscient of western Kentucky, without the split rail fences, and without the roadside advertising.

All the towns have really only four identifiable features, and three of them are the same for each town.

The black lettering on the white sign to tell you where you are on the map; about 10 or 15 old grey buildings, older than memory, serving as either houses, cow barns, or maybe a local general store;

a church in the center of the town, the tallest structure;

and next to the church, a memorial to the local men who served, and mostly died, between 1914-18.

Rolled through a slightly larger town, Varennes-en-Argonne. Looked strangely familiar. I think, perhaps, Grandpa was here. Can you check his stack of photographs?
This is what it looks like today:

I seem to remember a similar photograph or two, black & white, with soldiers about, of the church, and the mill on the hill across the river.

Went into the hotel to use the restroom. Three old men sitting in the bar, one with a cigarette, one with a beer, one with a glass of red wine. It's 10:00 AM on a cold December morning. The one with the full head of grey hair, the beer drinker, telling a story, the other two acting like they had not heard before. The interior of the old building is spotlessly clean.

Drive on, visiblity low, temperature steady at 1 deg C. Fog hangs heavy, like the history in this area.

Grandpa's DSC citation says he was in action near Mamey and Cuisy.

OK, so on to Mamey first.

To an American on a cold December day, 3 days before Christmas, nothing special about this town is obvious. One old man walking up his mud drive carrying a bucket, perhaps some feed for the chickens.

No place to stop for a coffee, no other activity about.

No reason to think this should be a decisive location in the history of the war, but I guess battles don't care what came after, or before, for that matter.

Drive on towards Cuisy.

Another hill, another town.

Down in the valley, a small cluster of buildings, captive between two facing hillsides. Must be Cuisy in the valley below. One can imagine countless trenches and artillery lined up on opposite sides of the valley, facing each other, waiting for the first to flinch to decide the moment, the day, perhaps the rest of the war.

Turn right, drive down the dirt road.

Cuisy.

Same small town, same church, same memorial. One of hundreds of similar French towns in this part of the country. This one is unique to me, only because Grandpa survived long enough again this day to gain the other hillside. No place to stop for a coffee, no activity about on a cold Thursday afternoon, 3 days before Christmas. One house has a few red and gold decorations hanging outside a window facing the main street.

One backyard has a small American flag next to the barn. Noone about to ask about this; it will stay a mystery.

Decide to walk about, over the next hill. Ground nearly frozen this time of the year. Better than September and October when Grandpa was here. I imagine it was just as cold then, but everything turned to mud from the rains and the constant footsteps and heavy vehicles. Through the fog, crest the next hill, an abandoned structure. Bombed out church. Taken by the Germans on Sep 11, 1914, re-taken by the French and US forces in September 1918. In the intervening years, the town and the church destroyed.

This town different than the others in the area; this one not to be re-built.

Keep moving, further north and a little westward. Next hill. Through the fog, smooth white surfaces. All day, everything has been stone and earth. Shiny white marble looks stangely out of place, yet calm, not disturbing. The boundary between the marble and the fog is elusive. Look again. 14,246 pieces of marble, each one marking the grave of an American who didn't leave France.

The markers have names, dates, divisions, home states marked on them. All of the states, all manner of family names.
Choice of marker: Latin cross or Star of David.
Choice of date: September, 1918 or October, 1918.

Up the next hill, introduced myself to the supervisor of the memorial. Middle aged guy, American accent, ball cap with American flag on the front. Told him my grandfather earned the DSC in this area; he expressed great interest in knowing more when I told him Grandpa was a balloonist.

This is what he told me: "You know, there was only one American balloonist killed in the war. Amazing when you consider how dangerous it was. He is buried here, out in that field. Perhaps your grandfather knew him".

And then he said this: "You know, there was one balloonist who used up three balloons in the same day, and survived."

This is what I said: "Yeah, that was my grandfather." He read the copy of the DSC citation I had with me.

Then he said: "Can I have a copy of this?" And: "Do you have a photograph of him that I can have? We are putting together a display that we share with visiting dignitaries, about the history of the Americans who served in this area." So I told him I would gather up some photos and send them to him.

Then he said: "You know, you oughta come back the last Sunday in May. We do a real nice memorial ceremony here with both American and French troops. I think your grandfather would appreciate it. The fog should lift by then."

05.12.13: Rebel desserts, with a cause

2005-12-14T08:05:00.001+01:00

The idea when I left the US was to develop and feed an obsession for wine and cheese. Seemed pretty straightforward. About as difficult as standing at 5th & Lex and developing an obsession for taxi horns.

Instead, I am becoming enamored with desserts.

To be sure, I have sampled some pretty nice wines and cheeses so far -- some downright extraordinary.

Exhibit 1 -- every damn fromage from Auvergne - Auvergnians are maniacs about their cheeses, and I think they have a point. More on this another day.
Exhibit 2 - wine & cheese show in the Marais a few weeks ago. (Metro ligne 1, St-Paul) Met this very ambitious vigneron from Languedoc who has concocted some very sexy wines in the last few years (syrah, cabernet, carignan, grapes grown on the side of a volcano).
Made a commitment to visit his domaine next year for a major dégustation.

But the desserts here are can be just downright intriguing.

So, check this one out from MusicHall (Metro lignes 1 or 9 to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, walk about 3 blocks north, and oh yeah, they have a few street names here I can sort of pronounce correctly).

Le Havane:
carpaccio de poire au sirop de tabac, et ses fines meringues croquantes garnies de parfait glacé à la réglisse.

Not sure I have this completely figured out, but should be something like this: thinly sliced pear, served with a little crunchy almond biscuit with licorice ice cream and tabac soaked in caramel.

Tabac, as in tobacco. Kentucky's finest. For dessert. ("I usually only have a cigar after a good meal", he told the hostess.) No kidding. They take some tobacco leaves, soak them in a very sweet caramel syrup, dry them out (I assume in a little dessert tobacco barn with La Poche Poste painted on the side) and then stand them like little gothic buttresses to create the parfait arrangement. Interesting mix of acrid tobacco encased tenderness. A very nice set of flavors to finish a meal with, and to precede un café.

France is a lot like La Havane. Visually very attractive, a little bitterness coated in sugar. Just the proportions change day to day.

(Oh yeah, the photo at the top .... we went down to Boulevard Haussmann the other night to enjoy the Noël window displays and outside lighting at Printemps and Galeries Lafayette.)

05.12.09: Visa, et nous ne faisons pas américain express

2005-12-10T08:16:00.001+01:00

Subtitle: Kafka does Isle-de-France

Remember that character in the Drew Carey Show, the incredibly large woman with the massive blue eye shadow and the bubbly personality? Well, she dyed her hair red, lost any redeeming qualities she might have had with her personality, and she lives in France now. She is in charge of the visa status of hundreds of non-French citizens on a daily basis.

And she is reeeaaalllly unhappy about the whole situation.

Oooh, j'exagères! Not! I really wanted to take her picture just so you would know that I am not exaggerating this time, but I figured that would be the end of my France vacation for sure.

Okay, so here's the story. We need to officially change our visas to long term stay, and the process has multiple steps, beginning about 6 months ago, and culminating in a visit to our local préfecture this week.

Thursday, 8-Dec
07:45 - Arrive at the préfecture. Cold, rainy. We are about the 100th persons in line.
09:00 - Stated opening time of the préfecture. No activity at the front gate.
09:15 - The gate opens, and the town crier announces multiple categories of people, none of which seem to apply to us, so we remain in the default line.
09:45 - We are now 6th in line outside the big gate; there are about another 50 people behind us. Gate closes. Town crier announces that is all that will be admitted today.
09:45:15 - Bedlam, melée, teeth gnashing, paper waving. Noone else passes through the portals of french freedom this day.

Friday, 9-Dec
07:20 - Arrive at the préfecture. Thankfully it is not raining on Friday. Unthankfully, the temperature has dropped a few more degreees, so it is just above freezing. We are about the 75th persons in line. We also have with us an appointment letter faxed to us from the préfecture yesterday, for an appointment at 8:00. We are not overburdened with confidence.
07:30 - I wanted to do a little photo shoot, you know, give me your tired, your poor, etc. We were in that kind of a line. I took one photograph. It was, of course, still dark out. The flash, of course, fired on the camera. I was immediatley verbally abused by about half a dozen young men.

I found out later I was standing in the line of people seeking asylum. No photos please.
So, anyway, my career in photo journalism ended early this morning by a desire to stay in line long enough to at least have the opportunity to be turned down again by the French gouvernement for a visa.

08:00 - Check my watch, check my appointment letter. No activity at the front gate.
08:30 - French army nurse Mimi struts out of the gate. Barks orders, checks papers. We get assigned to line number 3. Behind the Bulgarians, but ahead of the dread-locks.
09:15 - We, along with the refugees, are in the building. We are now warmer while we get verbally abused by this frightful woman.

Let's imagine that this very large, unhappy woman is really here to help us. Let's imagine that we have an obsession for fondling paperwork (originals + 1 photocopy, please) and verifying that we can distingiush between the original and the photocopy. (See that small stamp of blue ink in the corner .... it must be the original, a photocopy would be all black print, of course). Let's imagine we need to ponder for 10 minutes why immigration did not stamp my passport on my most recent entry to France. Let's imagine that it is significant if I entered France on October the 12th or the 13th, given the fact that I am standing right here in fricking front of you! Let's imagine that it is important that I have one piece of paper that verifies that I have the second piece of paper, and that both of them are here with me today. Let's imagine that all of these are incredibly important details that determine if I (and my lovely wife) will, in fact, be legally or illegally in this country after Monday.

Let's imagine I'm a white guy, with resources available to me from one of the largest corporations on earth, and this is how I got treated.

Let's imagine that I'm not so fortunate, not so white, not so wealthy, and don't get through this process after 2 days of standing in the cold and rain. And imagine this is only one of many ongoing encounters with the fonctionnaires. Could lead you to want to burn a car or two (thousand). Or who knows, we could all get lucky, and the next to go could be a certain préfecture.

11:15 - Exit the building with new fancy stickers in our passports. We assume we are now legal. After all the shouting and arguing to get them, we are in fact just happy to leave the building.
11:16 - Still not content that I didn't get to complete my photojournalism task for the day, I snap a photograph of a protester outside the gate on our way out. He is standing next to a policeman. Bad move on my part, I guess. The policeman starts yelling at me, then yells at his compadre to call the chef de la sécurité. They have a long discussion on the phone. They tell me to leave. I'm not sure if they mean France or just the area in front of the building. I choose the latter, for now.

Am I ranting? Ah, tomorrow I will go to some 10th century architecure marvel, and truly be humbled and amazed. But the stench of the Créteil Préfecture is not likely to wear off for some time. And, rumours to the contrary, I guess all French women ain't all that skinny, and Lady Liberty was parked in the Seine this week, with no reach to the unfriendly confines of Créteil.

Irony of the day:
The french word for a little label is étiquette.
Go figure, encore.

05.11.06: Le déjeuner de six-heures

2005-11-07T06:14:00.001+01:00

Can you actually spend 6 hours at lunch, and enjoy it?

We have been given a lot information about social customs here and cautioned about a certain level of formality that is not typically practiced by us new world folks. So, with a just a slight touch of anxiousness I accepted an invitation to a Sunday lunch at a colleague's home.

Appointment for noon on Sunday, and I assumed we would not be watching the NFL on the TV.

I drove down to Bois-le-Rois, only got lost once enroute (not bad for me, actually) and arrived generally on time with a nice bouquet of flowers for the hostess.

They asked me if I wanted something to drink, and I said: "Well, if there is coffee available that would be nice, or just a glass of water". They looked at me like I had a W sticker across my forehead, or something. What was I thinking? Coffee is only for aprés-dessert (and well, it's café, not coffee). And they were seemingly uncomfortable with the notion of giving me a glass of water. After they finished harrassing me for being too américain, they explained that despite the fact that it is noon, it is time for an apéritif, and I should have a glass of champagne or a beer. Well OK then, beer for me it is, and what time does the football game start?

This is then followed by 'pain surpris', little sandwiches of several varities as a little entrée, then a move to the dining room table for the main plat -- beef bourgoignaise served with homemade spaetzel, accompanied by a nice bottle of red wine. A little break, some nice conversation, then a plate of cheeses (yes, you know the kind), a little more nice conversation, followed by a homemade chocolate cake with sauce anglaise, and in acquiescence to my american ways, I was allowed to have café with my dessert. All of this was accomplished in just under 6 hours! Actually, when I looked at my watch after dessert I was a little stunned. We had just had some great conversation all afternoon and the time passed very pleasantly.

So what's on the mind of regular folks in conversations with Americans?

Well, invariably I get to hear the opinion-du-moment of the W thing, as expected.

Also, almost everyone that I have a decent conversation with eventually wants to know if Ohio has the death penalty. So, that is a big curiosity here (from the folks who invented the guillotine). I have tried to explain the state / federal court systems and appeal processes that result in changes in the death penalty implementation, but this is apparently not well understood. Federalism, state's rights, local rights, etc. is not a concept that France has experience with (Evidence the current situation, where after 12 days of rioting the national government finally gave permission to local mayors to impose curfews. Give permission after 12 days of chaos, excuse me?)

Many people also are confused over the notion that the Supreme Court can have an influence on abortion rights. The typical response is: "why is this something that the court is even involved with?" Well, that's not really a question I even try to answer.

Sunday we spent some time talking about employment contracts. They were absolutely stunned when I told them I have had probably 20 jobs in my life, and never had an employment contract (until now, at any rate). The whole notion of not having every detail in an employment situation explicitly defined and agreed to in writing made them very uncomfortable. I guess we are just living on the edge. Crazy new world people.

So, a Sunday afternoon in November with no Who-dey and no Hudy D-Lite, but all in all, very enjoyable. Welcome to the Jungle, really.

05.11.02: Resto Pensée

2005-11-02T09:47:00.001+01:00

I think it was just over 100 years ago that Pavlov won the Nobel Prize for his work on conditioned response. The thing I don't remember (from the only psychology course that I took in high school) is, what did the dogs do after he rang the bell when he didn't give them the damn food? OK, so we know that they salivated, but how angry were they when they didn't get the food, and what did they do next?

I was thinking about this last night (OK, almost every night) when I was waiting for a glass of water, which seems to be a big deal over here. After 40 years of restaurant service in the U.S., I have been totally conditioned to expect a glass of water delivered, without my asking, (and independent of whether I need it or want it) within about 2 minutes after I sit down. Moving here I get to experience the conditioned-response-meets-denial side of the experience spectrum. And on more topics than just a glass of water.

[Sidebar: So anyway, as I'm wondering how many times to request water before it is considered embarassingly rude (by local standards), the woman at the table next to me plops her baby on the table and changes her diaper (the baby's) in the middle of the restaurant dining room. Which gives me another thought ... do people do this in the US and I just never paid attention, or have I just discovered another quaint local custom? I think it might be the latter. OK, aprés-change, a very cute little baby]

I am coming around to recognize that what is so much perceived rudeness between foreigners is just a lot of seemingly common situations (but from independent perspectives) and the participants have vastly conflicting conditioned responses. For a glass of water in a restaurant -- not a big deal. The handshake thing they got going on over here -- hopefully not a big deal in the long run ('cause I cannot just keep it straight every day exactly who I have seen already today, and who I haven't). But, on the other hand, two unfortunate deaths in the suburbs leads to burning 1,000 cars a night in Paris for twelve nights and counting. And 'splain to me again that thing where we end up in Irak. Who rang the damn bell?

For my part, I am trying to pay attention to what I have been conditioned to do vs. what it is that I either really want or need. I hope that's not too french-y for the long haul. It may be a good strategy for holding onto some sanity.

Oh, and did I mention ... hold the H2O, forget about the damn dogs ... the côte du Rhône with the fusilli au saumon is quite excellent, merci.

(The photo is the local Italian restaurant where they do serve water, have a pretty good lasagna, and they keep very polite smiles on their faces while I butcher the french language, mercilessly.)

05.10.24: Le Bilboquet est OK (et bien plus)

2005-10-25T08:37:00.001+02:00

I took the metro line 4 to St-Germain-des-Pres to see the district existentialisme remnants. Apparently, this area is famous for smart writers like Hemingway hanging out here in the 20s and 30s (I suppose pre-Spanish revolution), and later still in the 50s for J-P Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, developing their special blend of existentialism. Don't know what it looked like in their day, but very much the nice cafe scene today. Maybe a little heavier on the tourists, and a little lighter on the heavy thinkers than in years past.

But if you forget about trying to find the exact chair at Les Deux Magots that Hemingway sat in while he was musing over ... whatever, and wander around the corner and down one block, you can hear some very nice jazz tunes working their way out of Le Bilboquet.

I sat down for dinner and to listen to the show last Sunday night. 4-person combo. Piano (and vocals), lead guitar, bass, and drums. Basic. Without a doubt the 2nd best pianist I have ever heard. (For the prémiere ... Henry Butler, Christmas Night, Funky Butt's, The Ramparts, New Orleans, 2000). When they opened up with 'And the beat goes on ..' I was a little concerned, but damn if they didn't make that song sound great. La-di-da-di-dee ... la-di-da-di-daah. A big mix, from Rat Pack, to Marley to an excellent rendition of I Put a Spell on You. Now, I'm a fan of Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and I expect Nina Simone might have peddled a few versions around the Paris clubs for many years (recall, after leaving the US in the '70s for racial reasons, and I think passed away last year), but this live jazz version put a big time spell on everybody in the club; and served up with a fondant au chocolat.

[Sidebar: why the heck don't we have this dessert in the US? OK, I think I have had this dessert about half a dozen times so far, and it never disappoints. Basically, it is a single-serving size chocolate cake, bordering on a brownie, but the center is melted (melting?) very dark chocolate. So my question is: how do they bake a little cake in about 5 minutes where the outside is a great little crusty cake, and the center is just melted chocolate? They can be a little inventive over here when they want to be. I will not leave here until I know how this is done. I have also seen it on menus as: moelleux au chocolat and moyenne cuit (sp?) chocolat. Maybe I have become a little obsessed with this.]

It all came together when they launched into a very jazzy-blues version of The Wind Cries Mary; I think Jimi would have been proud (and I didn't hear any rumblings to the contrary from Père Lachaise, either). Sometimes you are in a club and the atmosphere, the music, the food, and the conversation works itself into a very nice fondant au soirée. Le Bilboquet is a pretty good place to start. That's a brand of existentialism that I can hold on to.

La-di-da-di-dee ... la-di-da-di-daah.

[Addendum: There is a jazz radio station here that gets me back and forth to work every day; even in the nastiest traffic Paris has to dish out (well, sans riot zones), this station keeps me sane and entertained. They also stream on the web, so you should check it out ... TSF 89.9 FM - Tout Jazz.]

05.10.22: Cimitière du Père Lachaise

2005-10-22T10:08:00.000+02:00

The obligatory visit to see Mr. Morrison's resting place.

I went to see Jim Morrison's grave the other day, but then there were a whole lot of other gravemarkers in the way, so it took a little longer than I expected. I thought it was Jim Morrison's cemetery, but I guess the other 100,000 people buried there have a different opinion.

At the gate to enter, for 2 euro you can get a map and admission.

To me, the kindly gentlemen said: "But for you, you can enter for two greenbacks, if you have them. That's about a 20% discount. The reason is, we never forget '44 and '45."

I wanted to remind him that my grandfather was here in '17 and '18, but there were other people in line, and probably not from the US, so I let it go, this time.

At any rate, the cemetery is on the east side of Paris, and amazingly is about 44 hectares (~100 acres).

The only grave that has a little protective fence around it, and the only grave that has a gathering of people around it is .... Mr. Morrison's.

The simple marker has an epitaph in Greek, and depending on the translation you find, means either:

"To the divine spirit within himself"
"The devil within himself"
"The genius in his mind"
"He caused his own demons"

Nice.
Rock'n'roll should always be an enigma.

05.09.27: Versailles, Le Jardin

2005-09-25T10:10:00.000+02:00

OK, so the first time I went to Versailles was about five years ago, and I only had time to visit the gardens; so I did not make it inside the royal living quarters. But at any rate, here is the reaction I had the first time I was there: I walked thru the gate to enter the central garden area and you think: what a nice garden, isn't this interesting. And then, you walk about another 50 meters ... and then you see the garden. What you had seen was really just a patio. And then you say (depending on where you are from, but in my case): "Holy Excessivity! This is unbelieeevable." We are not talking about a garden here. I think basically what we are talking about is maybe the size of New Jersey, but all of it incredibly well manicured.

So then my next thought was this: What took them so long to have a revolution? I mean really, why would you finance a lifestyle like this for some fancy-pants royalty while everyone else is living baguette to mouth. I don't know what King George had in England at the same time, but I imagine if he had tried to build a place like Versailles near Boston or New York or Philadelphia, the revolution would have come just that much sooner.

So this year, I thought it would be fun to take Jen, and just gauge her reaction as this whole thing unfolds before her. It was really a beautiful sunny fall afternoon. I swear to Neptune, she had exactly the same reaction. She wandered across the patio, nodding agreeably about how nice the place is, and then all of a sudden: recognition of the enormity of this place, and then she had basically the same thought I had: "This was all for ONE guy?"

Really, it is that enormous. Kinda makes you wonder how the mob were even able to find Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette when they knocked on the door in October 1789. If Crawford, Texas starts to develop a reputation for impressive water sculptures, let's start re-reading the Constitution.

OK, so don't get me wrong. I am not negative about the beauty of this place.

It is stunning.
It is a marvel of design.
It is a joyous way to spend the day, wandering about and imagining the 18th century coming alive in all of it's regal regalitry. They even pipe in some nice baroque music to help re-create the ambience.
All I am saying is: let's also keep in mind who paid for all of this.

Appended below for your viewing pleasure are some images from the day. The water sculptures were big this day, so these photos are heavy on the water theme; in conjunction with the water fountains there is also an enviable collection of plant diversity, and all very nicely maintained and manicured in a very french-y formal garden style.

And, if you do get a chance to visit, here is my recommendation for the most stunning water / sculpture / garden I have ever seen. The sculpture is called le bosquet d'Encalade. This sculpture depicts the demise of Enceladus during the giants' failed revolt against Zeus. Enceladus was one of the 24 giants that revolted, attempting to reach Mt. Olympus by stacking mountain upon mountain. As it become obvious that the battle was lost, Enceladus attempted to escape, but Athena crushed him under a large piece of extracted earth, that is now the land of Sicily. Go figure.

Happy gardening!

05.09.23: House-hunting à Paris

2005-09-24T07:12:00.000+02:00

House-hunting

There is only one sane way to go house-hunting in a foreign country where you don't speak the language: hire a company to take care of the intial screening and the appointments and the interpretations and the contracts and the yadda-yadda-yadda. We actually got something right.

Here are some images of the house we decided to rent and a few interesting images of some of the other places we decided to let go. No fish stories here ... all images without digital enhancement. The last image is of our tour-guide and house-hunting heroine. Without her, I think we would still be living in the States.

We are located ~20 minutes east of Paris, in a nice little town called La Varenne. We are within walking distance to the train into Paris, and not too bad of a commute for me to get to work. If you need to satisfy your mapping curiosity try: La Varenne, postal code 94210 in www.mappy.fr. I haven't tried the digital satellite images from google yet. I'll keep the porch light on, just in case.

05.07.27: A new adventure

2005-07-27T17:55:00.000+02:00

For our next adventure ... Jen and I are moving to France for the next three years.

I have accepted a new position with my company which will take us across the pond. I will be supporting the same engine model that I have been working on the for the last several years. For this engine model, we build half of the engine, and our French partner builds the other half. I will be stationed at our partner's facility in Villaroche, France, working as an on-site focal for Engineering.

You can look for Villaroche in mapquest (oú viaMichelin.fr, if you want to feel a little french-y), but you have to zoom in real close. The town I will be working in is essentially a small village supporting a few industrial facilities.

But ... it is located about 45 minutes south east of Paris. We could do worse.
What's the timing? I wish I really knew, but right now it looks like I will be starting over there sometime in August, and Jenny will stay in Cincinnati until early November. We have filed the paperwork with French Immigration, and are now at the mercy of the bureaucratic paper mill. We do get to go to the French Consulate in Chicago to be seen in person before they will give us our visas, and I also have the pleasure of taking a physical from 'un medecin du republique' to be granted a work permit. I'm sure these are just a few of the interesting experiences ahead.

As for our house ... we will be keeping it. We will be returning to Cinti, and we really enjoy our house and our neighborhood (and it was the only condition upon which Jen would agree to go). In the meantime, we expect to find some house-sitters to help us keep the house occupied. For the first go-round, we have been corresponding with a couple who are geologists at a university in Spain, and who will be coming to the University of Cincinnati for a sabbatical, starting this fall. Stop by this winter, si usted quiere hablar español.

Where are we going to live over there? Not sure yet. After we get our visas and the work permit looks like a go, we begin to look for some housing over there. Right now, we are leaning towards looking for a small house to rent just outside the 'peripherique' on the east side of Paris. Should be accessible enough for me to get to work, and also close enough that we can enjoy what Paris has to offer.

Do we speak French? Of course not. We're Americans, for godsakes! Well, hopefully that can change without too much pain (and that's an American 'pain', not the french bread variety.) What we know now, is that sitting in French class for one and half hours is enough to generate a pretty good 'mal de tête'.

When will we be back? I plan to re-enter the US on 21-Jan-2009. Should be a change in mood in the country by then. I expect Jen will arrive several months prior to ensure that transition occurs.

Those are some brief answers to most of the questions we are typically asked. The other question is: what's Jen going to do? Still an open question, and needless to say, Jen is giving up quite a lot to support this move. If anyone has connections for an English speaking psychologist in Paris, don't keep it to yourself.

That's all for now. We'll try to keep you updated, and we'll remember to post an update from time to time for some of the more interesting experiences ahead.

Jenny will maintain the same e-mail address (and she is better at actually replying to the letters she gets).

Love to all (et bon courage),Pat