Category: France

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France Life

Biased Observations From France Parte Deux

You may know who painted this, even. It’s in le Musee d’Orsay, if you want to go see it better.

As promised a few days ago, here is a post about things France could improve on. My cold is slowly easing up. I hope I can narrate by the weekend. We’ll see.

So France does some things better than the United States does them. My 157 mph average speed trip from Paris to Poitiers this morning was one of those things. But, France also needs improvement in a few areas. (Not manners. See my last post for details.)

One thing that bugs me is that you need to go to a pharmacie even if all you want is some aspirin. If it’s actual medication, only a pharmacie can sell it. (Pharmacie is French for Pharmacy.) I wanted some athlete’s foot treatment, get it in any grocery for cheap, right? Nope, not at all! Had to go to a pharmacy, ask for it at the counter (they do have some things out where you can pick them up and go pay) and pay about three times as much, on a per volume basis, for some creme to treat athlete’s foot. Same with antihistamine, decongestant, cough syrup, eye drops, and of course those obscure medical brands of toothpaste and stuff. I find it outrageous, and expensive. Get a clue, France!

Another thing is showing up when you say you will. Mostly people do, but tradesmen, well, sometimes they’re not maybe all that prompt. I arranged for an electrician to replace a circuit in the kitchen on April 14th. Hasn’t shown up yet. At least the master electrician who diagnosed the problem was timely. Been waiting at least six weeks to have a door put between two upstairs rooms. Probably keep waiting for a while yet. At one parking garage next to the station in Poitiers, the elevator has been out of service for at least a whole month. Why? If you can’t fix it, make the doors look like janitor’s closets or something, right? Or just fix it. Seriously, now, France, you can’t just let things go to Hell like that. People will talk!

Pop music in France tends to run to poorly done house music. Partially this is because from 7am to 7pm stations are required to play a large percentage of artists from France only. The other half of the day you hear a lot of American rock and roll hits, which is okay but hardly original. Come on, France, boom-bah-boom, house music, boom-bah-boom, is okay for a while, boom-bah-boom, but all effing day? boom-bah boom!

Overall, I like France a great deal. People are friendly and eager to help, the food is mostly decent (though it could use a bit more heat) and health care is affordable. And I like the United States, even though we really should work on our transportation priorities a bit harder. The two countries are very similar in general zeitgeist and political inclinations. Both look to the same philosophies for their basic ideals. And, in spite of some tense times over the centuries, France and the US have never once gone to war with each other. Not many countries can say that about the US, can they?

I could rant on for both sides of the “who does it better” debate, but why bother. France is slower? Life is easier. The US makes the coolest cars. (True dat.) So, what the heck? Everyone should visit a country where the natives don’t speak their native language at least once. Any country on the European continent will do (except Switzerland,) and, if you’re desperate, heck, try the United Kingdom. Many people there, I’m convinced, don’t actually speak English. 🙂

Categories
France Life

Biased Observations From France

Truth: I didn’t take this one. But it is in the Public Domain.

You see what I did there, right? Instead of Las Vegas, I substituted France. Clever, huh?

I have been posting a series of videos on YouTube from France. I have another one just waiting to be narrated. That means writing up a narration with timing while watching the silent video, and then narrating it several times until it sounds good enough to record, then recording it. No problem, if one doesn’t have laryngitis. Which I do. So, I shall now probably disappoint some followers by posting this instead. Desolé, guys. But, I do want to share some impressions of the country I’ve spent the past two months in.

First, I’m not comparing to say one country is better than another. I have homes in both, I like both, but they are not exactly the same. Mostly they are the same, but not exactly. Here are a few things France does better (you might be surprised.)

First, supermarket carts. They wind up all over Vegas because people steal them to hold their worldly goods, or to joyride, or whatever. And those that don’t get stolen end up with flat wheels, or wobbly wheels, or worse, and they are still in use. Some stores have lines beyond which their carts will lock a wheel, but that doesn’t seem to stop people. It’s a problem. In France you will find all of the carts chained together end to end (in several rows) underneath some sort of weather shelter. You take a coin (50 centimes, 1 euro, or 2 euros) or a token made for the purpose in some cases, slide it into a slot, which pushes the locking device out of the handle of the cart. (They call them chariots. Cute, huh.) When you’re done, you the empty cart back to the shelter and use the locking device to push your coin or token out, and at no net cost to yourself, you get a cart that is never stolen, and rarely damaged in any way. This is so simple that it’s genius.

Second, French toilets are everything that Italian toilets are not. That is, they actually do what those commercials showing the guy dumping dog food into the toilet claim to do: you can flush almost anything. But, dark clouds are on the toilet horizon. Low-flow toilets in France, of which there aren’t many thankfully, plug into the electric source for the location, and when you flush they fill with water for a while (there is always some in there) until they sort of flush. A lot like an Italian toilet flushes. (If you’ve never used an Italian toilet, you wouldn’t believe me if I described how well they work. It’s not well at all.) Remember how much the first low-flow toilets in the US sucked? These are worse! But I have seen exactly one B&B with those toilets, and every single other one I’ve seen is a powerhouse of stuff removal. Yay, France on this one.

Third, something I’ve liked for years is that in France, manners are not optional. In America you walk into a store and you assume that the people there are obliged to serve your every whim. In France, not so much. The customer is sometimes a boorish nuisance, in fact. This is also true in the US, but you’re obliged to ignore that and be nice to them anyway. Frankly, that system sucks, and I’m glad to be somewhere that it doesn’t hold sway. What do I mean? First, and this is not an option in any sense of the word, you always say Hello! In French that’s bonjour, and it’s okay if you say it the way it looks, which is wrong, you’ll get full credit for the attempt. As I said, this is not an option. You can NOT overuse that word. The idea is that you are invading the store clerk’s space, and as they are a person deserving of respect, you must give it to them. If you’ve visited France and thought everyone was impolite, you didn’t say bonjour enough. Simple as that. Trust me on this one.

Almost as important as hello are please, thank-you, and good-bye. In French these are S’il vous plait (Mexican speakers, in Europe you always use the formal you, in France and in Spain too), merci, and au revoir. That please phrase sounds like See Voo Play, and you should be saying please in America, too. Merci sounds like mare-see. You can add a beaucouup (bow-coo) if you really mean it. And au revoir sounds like O re vware, with a flat a. Au revoir means literally “Until we see each other again.” You say that to someone that you’re about as likely to meet again as you are Julius Caesar, because it is respectful. The English equivalent is “see you later” or “Until the next time.” All of this goes back to the French Revolution (the first one.)

Much like others since, those revolutionaries were eager to reform everything. They came up with different names for days of the week, different months, and tried to come up with some way for all the “egals” (equals) to address each other. All that failed. As it happened, as time went by, and there were more revolutions and finally a third republic (ended by WWII) it was decided by common consent, apparently, that everybody shall be addressed as nobility. Therefore you always say bonjour madame or monsieur. Madame meaning literally “My Lady” and Monsieur meaning literally “My Lord.” It is deep in the French psyche that everyone gets that sort of respect, and I like that.

Okay, that’s some stuff I think France does better. Next post I’ll write about things I think France could learn a few things about. Au revoir!