Categories
Culture Food France Healthcare

How ‘Bout Them French?

The Flag of France

As promised, here are some things that I think the French do well. I’m not going to compare one-to-one with how Americans do these things, in case you’re wanting to see something like that, but here goes what are simply my opinions, after living in France for the past 15-1/2 months straight, of some things I think France does well. I’ll post about things I think they do a lousy job of later, so stay tuned.

#1: Health Insurance

Contrary to what you may have heard, health care in France is not free. It is, however, not so expensive that anyone has ever gone bankrupt from developing cancer, for example. That only happens in America, which I guess is “exceptional” in its way. I went to see my doctor to get a prescription the other day. She charged me 26.5 Euros. At the exchange rate as of this writing, that is $29.42. Due to the speed (ha ha) of French bureaucracy, I don’t have my insurance card yet, but the doctor gave me a form to fill out to get my 60% reimbursement. As my income last year was entirely from pension, I don’t pay for the insurance, as they do not tax pensions in any way. For other income, the fee is income based.

#2. Education

The reason you can see a doctor for thirty bucks is because they don’t charge for higher education in France. Come to think of it, what is called “Vocational Education” in the US is also free. (You must buy books and groceries and pay rent, though.) Applied to a medical degree, this means that doctors do not start their career a quarter of a million dollars in debt, so they do not need to charge exorbitant fees to pay that off and still feed their families. Nor do members of any other profession or trade. It’s sort of like the state provides you with some bootstraps to pull yourself up by, if you get my meaning.

#3. Food

Not French style cooking and famous French dishes, which, to be honest, while delicious, seem a bit bland after a while to someone used to living and eating in the Southwest. I brought my own Cholula! I mean that the food is simply of better quality. You can go to any old supermarket and get the sort of quality you’d have to go to Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s to buy in the US, except you don’t pay Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s prices. In fact, most things cost less, at least in our part of France. Thus, whatever you’re eating, even McDonalds (McDo), tastes better. Fast food such as what’s at McDo even looks like the pictures on the menu. M&Ms are mostly not as brightly colored as in the US, nor are any foods, because of stricter rules on additives in food. With fewer additives, no “factory farms” anywhere, and a ban on a number of things that are allowed in the US, the overall quality is enhanced greatly. Yum, I say, yum!

#4. Manners

Somebody is going to read this and comment about how rude the French were to them, or to somebody they know. It happens, usually for one good reason. That person they were rude to did not use good manners on them. Here’s the way, again, to be mannerly in France. a) Say “bonjour” to anyone you’re going to interact with. If in doubt, say “bonjour” anyway. Worst case you’ll embarrass them and they’ll quickly return the greeting. That word has interesting roots, but it just means “hello” to anyone in France. Only exception is to only to say it to one person once in a day. If you meet them again you can say Salut, or even just hello! b) if you need something say s’il vous plait. Never mind how that’s spelled, say “see voo play” and you’ll be close enough. When you get it, say merci. When the interaction is over, the polite thing to say is au revoir, which means until we meet again. Don’t let that put you off. Say it every time. For brownie points, throw in a bonne journée. Say bone journay to get close enough. No one expects you to know French, but using these four words will go a long way toward making your visit pleasant. In fact, most French people strive to help strangers, and I’ve never met anyone who disliked Americans for any reason. (Can’t say the same for Brits, but that’s for another day entirely.) After my first visit to France in 1976, I started greeting shopkeepers and others with “Hello” or at least “Hi how are ya” and was surprised that my life was improved. Americans may not insist on manners, but we appreciate them even if we aren’t aware of the fact. Trust me. You can practice at home right away. Through the speaker at McDonalds, even.

5. Intelligence

Not everybody is gifted, whatever they teach you in M.Ed. school. France knows that, but here they respect intelligence. There is a career path for virtually any profession, including being a government employee. To be in the government, there is a school to help you do that, too. The system isn’t perfect, but at least you know that those who succeed in the democratically elected government have had training, internships and experience that means that they are most likely intelligent, and that they most likely know what they’re doing, even if you disagree with their policies. Same for any profession, really. And trades are not held to be any less intelligent or important than any other choice of career. It sometimes seems as if the U.S. celebrates the stupid, but France never does.

6. Elections

A campaign for president lasts for six weeks, period. Sure, there is posturing and gesturing, especially by an incumbent, but the campaign is short and mercifully sweet. For the Assembly (representatives) the campaign is only a couple of weeks. The only losers I can see are the TV networks that don’t make a fortune off of all those ads. There are also elections for Maire (Mayor) and Departmental Council, also with short campaign seasons. Mayors nominate candidates for President (there are thousands of Mayors) and also elect Senators. There is a lot one could write about French politics, but this is about how they elect the politicians. The posters have a designated place in towns and villages, and they come down shortly after election day. Much easier to take, especially if, like me, you can’t vote here.

There is more I like about France, but I’ll let those five items stand for now. Keep your eyes peeled for my “Things France Does Poorly” issue, coming to a screen near you!

Categories
Culture France

La Vallée des Singes

This is a fluffy looking Lemur sleeping on top of a fence.

I’ve been bad this summer and haven’t posted a thing. Haven’t recorded and posted but one song to YouTube, as well. This week is different. I posted a song the other day, and now there’s this. What has this to do with France? It’s in France, in fact, not very far from where we live. And it was fun to visit and see all the primates in the closest thing you’ll find to their natural environment in France. Except the humans, who were in their natural state of confusion. If you look up the word singe, you’ll see it translated as monkey or ape, and you might as well just say primate because this place includes lemurs, who are neither monkey nor ape, but something like a lemur was probably an ancestor of both. I’d like to point out some cultural differences between France and the U.S. at this time.

But I can’t, because a zoo is a zoo in either country. Is it bad to keep what may have been wild animals in captivity, however nice it is? Consider that this zoo contains, according to their signage, the largest group of bonobos in the world. Group, not total numbers. Still, there aren’t that many bonobos here. I hope that some day zoos will be able to repopulate the wild with otherwise extinct animals, which is why I enjoy zoos where I can get to know more about them. I was a biology major, in case you were wondering. Let’s hear it for the Krebs Cycle! (You’re using it, trust me on that.) There’s my intro, and here are some pictures of what we saw.

These are colobus monkeys (colobi to the French). When I was not yet in kindergarten, and aunt and uncle were stationed in Ethiopia, where they even met the Ras Ta, and where they also bought me a rug made from one of these monkeys. I was maybe five, I wore the thing out. I would never kill anything to make a rug these days, and in my defense, I didn’t kill that one. The hair was coarse, in case you were wondering.

They called these things Gélada. They look kind of like something I’ve seen before, but when I check a translation of that word, it comes up Gelada. Whatever that means, huh? A sign said they were a new species, but I don’t know if that’s new to this zoo, or actually a recent discovery. Some biologist I am!

This guy.

This gorilla was overseeing his group at feeding time. I would not mess with him ever.

His people. Yeah.

Near the end we saw chimpanzee feeding time. This one, for reasons only he (she?) knows, decided to climb a tree and face the other way.

That’s it. No profound insights, no comparing France and America, just some pictures of primates doing what they do. We did listen to the chimp feeder’s spiel, but only really caught the topic sentences. It takes a couple of seconds for me to get what I’ve heard, and there’s no time when someone is giving a spiel, but she didn’t look or act differently from any other zoo employee taking care of animals. The chimps seemed to appreciate her as well.

Next time I’ll write about things I think France does well. Watch this space for details.

Categories
France language

Je Parle Le Français

Et, plus important, je comprends le français

Okay, you don’t read French. I get it. But I’m posting this because, and no one is more surprised than I am, I do! And so, in case you’re thinking of learning some French, I’m sharing how I pulled it off.

After my final new lesson in Duolingo, I can report that I studied French on Duolingo for 1524 days. That’s a bit over four years, but that isn’t where I started, and it doesn’t even show the days I didn’t study, not that there were a lot, but some days I just couldn’t hack it. My first exposure was a month-long visit mostly to France in 1976. I learned “Tourist French” along with how to be polite (I’ve posted about being polite in France if you’d like to know.) I knew Spanish (more or less) so it wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. Spanish and French are both based upon Latin, and they do have a lot of words in common. The difference in pronunciation can be extreme. Take bien, which means “fine” in both languages. In Spanish it sounds, reasonably enough, like “bee-ayn”, emphasis on the “ayn.” In French it sounds like “byahn” sort of, emphasis on the “ahn” and spoken as one syllable. Same word exactly. French, as it turns out, isn’t crazy about pronouncing all the letters in a given word. Here’s an excellent example of that for you French students. You know what Je ne sais pas means, right. (It means “I don’t know”.) If you say that in France, you’ll be understood, and you’ll stand out like a sore thumb. What do we (ahem) say in France? It’s sort of Zhay pah or for a more formal setting J’sais pas. Nobody ever says ne out loud. In writing, well, you’d better spell it right or the ghost of Cardinal Richlieu will haunt you. Or something.

My first lessons in French after we decided to move here were in a series of audiobooks, formerly CDs, from Paul Noble, titled (you’d never guess) Learn French with Paul Noble. Mr. Noble loves language, and he makes it easy to pick up the rudiments of a new one. He teaches a bunch of languages, and in that teaching explains what nouns, verbs, and other parts of speech really are. Want a quick example? Take nouns. If you can say “that is my (his, hers, theirs) _______________. It’s a noun. Those types of nouns your English teacher was so keen on just don’t matter, because in a sentence a noun is a noun. Verbs. If you can say I, you, he, she, it, they are _____________________ (some act or other) it’s a verb. Transitive, intransitive, who cares? A verb is a verb. He even explains pronouns, right down to why they are called “pro”. I found his teaching to be a great background in the basics of French, so that when I switched to Duolingo (where I once completed the Spanish course) it was a lot easier to get along.

Some people don’t care for Duolingo, but for me it worked wonderfully. It is free with ads, but after about a year I signed up for the pay version because I wanted to help keep it free for those who can’t afford it. Using “Super Duolingo” does give you some advantages in the games included with the app, although with enough determination you could dominate with the free version, too. Duolingo has cartoonish characters that weave in and out of the learning, and of course a green owl. I do recommend trying the app in the free version (free, for real) and if you like it, maybe buy up to unlimited hearts. (Once you see it you’ll get that.)

And of course I visited France several times since 1976. I’ve been up the Eifel tower twice, eaten the blandest Mexican food imaginable, toured the Louvre several times (Mona Lisa isn’t worth it, but the rest of the place is fantastic,) watched the world from Montmartre, been through other museums, and Notre Dame (we walked across the plaza two days before it burned.) I’ve also seen Cannes, Nice, Saint Tropez, Bordeaux, Rennes, Poitiers, some lovely castles, a bunch of cathedrals including the one in Orleans, and lots of French countryside and small towns and villages. We liked it well enough to move here, and I’m glad we did.

So if you plan to move to France, or study in France, or just to study French because you like distorting your mouth a lot 🙂 this is the story of how I came to be basically literate in French. 1524 days with a green owl? Totally worth it!

Categories
Culture Life

Holildays

France has exactly one more national holiday than we have in the US. This month is especially rife with them. Last week was Labor Day, or May Day, the one day of the year when only emergency services and such can force an employee to work. Some family owned businesses are open, but not much else, even restaurants. This week we had VE day, jour de victoire, which commemorates the end of fighting in Europe in World War Two. Today is Ascension Day. I don’t know why Ascension day, as France is stubbornly and thoroughly secular. It may have to do with the time the French state became secular, even taking over ownership of church properties. As compensation, perhaps, we continue to celebrate a number of Christian holidays, and not just Christmas. In a couple of weeks we will have Whit Monday off. I know nothing of Whit Sunday or Whit Monday, but it is a holiday.

One holiday that is very similar to one of our American ones is the Fète National, or National Holiday, which I’ve mostly heard referred to as “Bastille Day.” Oddly, it does not celebrate the storming of the Bastille on 14 July, but in fact the huge party held one year later on the Champs du Mars. The idea is to repeat that happy celebration every year on the anniversary of the first grand party. It is very similar to our Independence Day celebrations, with fireworks, parties, cookouts, and general yee-haw type celebrations. We hope to be in Paris some year for the occasion. (Not this year. Olympics? Merci, mais non!

Other holidays include Noel, Toussaint (All Saint’s Day), Armistice (November 11th), Saint Etienne (St. Stephen’s Day), Assomption, Assumption Day, Nouvel An (New Year’s Day), and in what was once known as Alsace-Lorraine, Good Friday, Easter Monday, and what our British friends would call Boxing Day. (Only there, not nationwide.) If you’re counting, that’s twelve national holidays, plus a few left overs that some areas insisted upon when they became French (again.) There are eleven national holidays in the US. (Don’t forget Juneteenth, folks.)

Except for Labor Day, you’ll find things open on most holidays, though not everything, and some things are on a reduced schedule. Some supermarkets close completely, most of the ones around here open for at least a few hours. I bought some groceries just today, in fact. Most of these holidays don’t involve any particular observances (a few do, of course) but people do a thing called faire le pont, which literally means “make the bridge.” For instance, this week Wednesday and Thursday are holidays. You have thirty days of paid leave per year, so why not take Friday, too, and then you’ll have a five-day weekend? Heck, we took a five-night vacation to Italy once. You can have quite some fine family time in Five Days, huh? A possible drawback is that, outside of Whit Monday, holidays are scheduled by the date, not the day of the week. If November 11th falls on a Sunday, there is no day off, and if you don’t like it, tough. Then, there are weeks like this one where, honestly, even places that are open are short staffed. Like I said, there are differences between French and American national holidays.

So, for all you American readers, have a good Memorial Day weekend, and remember the purpose of the holiday. (You can go ahead and cook out, but pay some respect while you’re at it.) And, while I’m at it, have a good Junteenth (why not?) and for heaven’s sake, Happy Fourth of July! (Bastille day, the fète national, is commonly known as quatorze julliet, or July Fourteenth!) That one is, as I wrote above, pretty similar to one of ours.

Categories
Culture France

Fête du travail

Our official Departmental (county) emblem. Vienne is the name.

It’s May Day in France, and all over the world (more or less). In France that also makes it Labor day, or Fête du Travail. This is the one day all year that an employer may not force anyone to work, except for hospitals and emergency workers, police, EMTs, that sort of employee. Other than those folks, everyone has the day off. (I guess if one offered employees enough cash one could go ahead and open the store, but I imagine that it would take a lot of cash.) It is a paid holiday. This year it’s on a Wednesday, so many people faire le pont (make the bridge,) take a couple more days off and have a five-day paid weekend. Next week there are two holidays, but one can force employees to work (by paying them overtime) every day but today, but there will be a lot of bridge building next week as well.

And that segues nicely into discussing the different attitudes toward work in the United States and France. In the US, many people live to work. We distrust anyone who isn’t regularly employed. Welfare moms are a common subject of scorn. We are, by reputation at least, the grasshopper in the old (French, by the way) tale of the grasshopper and the (ant, cricket, pick your lazy insect.) In France, workers are certainly not lazy. In fact, France has the most productive economy in the European Union, but workers are entitled to thirty days of paid vacation per year, in addition to paid holidays. Thirty Days?!? Yes, in fact. There are a couple of consequences of all that free time that American enterprise never seems to consider.

First, employees who feel more in control of their lives tend to be happier and more productive. Even good old Canada has a nicer work climate than the US, in spite of being frozen stiff for most of the year.

Second, French workers generally work while they are working, are expected to, and do, avoid wasting time at water coolers or break rooms. From noon to two they take lunch. In a store they will typically work from nine to six, er, eighteen hours as they track the day here. That’s a seven hour work day broken up by a two hour lunch. Seven hours? Well, yes, the law says that a work week is 35 hours long. Plenty of people work more than 35 hours per week, but they receive compensatory time off. Yes, even more vacation. And, an employee is expected to take the time. Because, as stated above, the French Work to Live. Yep, they do what they must to ensure that they can enjoy a leisurely lunch, three weeks on a Portuguese beach, some time off when their kids have a school break. Working your ass off so that you can finally retire is not something people from around here understand. Why not, they will ask, enjoy life as you live it?

Different strokes, right? I’m not saying one way is better or worse than the other. That depends on your personal outlook on life, I suppose. But it does show how different approaches to the same problem can both yield good results, which is a valuable lesson to learn in and of itself.

Categories
Culture History

Musée Gallo-Romain Perigueux

This is what remains of a 1900-year-old Roman noble’s house

Yesterday we visited the Musée Gallo-Romain in Perigueux. This is the main indoor display area as seen from the upper level gallery. The city was named Vesunna at that time, although late in the empire its name was changed into what has morphed into “Perigueux” (try Para Goo to get close). Whoever built the place was very rich. The under-floor heating was handled by slaves. (No political comments, please.) Here is a picture of the kitchen:

If you read French, the sign has a lot more information.

Of course, next to the kitchen is a small dining room:

The murals are original.

Those aren’t the only painted walls on the house:

That’s 1900-year-old paint. We should all look so good at that age, huh?

Comfort was provided by under-floor heating, which involved pots of fire beneath the floor. These pots could be moved around (by slaves, of course) if the family and guests moved to a different room. The slave owner had an excellent insurance policy. If somebody murdered the master of the house, all the slaves were killed, which provided the master with a sort of personal Pretorian Guard. I didn’t get a picture of a heating space, but if you visit, you’ll see several.

There are things outside in a courtyard, including a 2000-year-old tower that was incorporated into the town wall in the fourth century. (Prior to that there was no need for a town wall. No wonder people looked back on Rome with a sigh, I guess.) But a truly impressive storm came up and it would have been difficult to see what we were looking at due to wind and rain. But, I did get a few more photos, to wit:

A capital from a column with, I dunno, an amphora full of biscuits? Rocks? Whatever, carved into it.

An inscribed bit of stone, but from what I couldn’t say. I can read a 21st century vulgate version of Latin, but not the original. I think there’s a translation on one of the small labels.

A part of a column. I’d say “NO BULL!” but, well, you know . . .

A row of back rooms of the house. Could be bedrooms, storerooms, slave quarters, nobody knows, really. Originally the house fronted the river (Dordogne) but after numerous modifications, and especially after the city wall was built, that access was cut off. In fact, sometime in the third century somebody filled in the courtyard and raised the floor. Like all good things, this place deteriorated in the end, and was under a mess of landfill until rediscovered by canal diggers in, I think it was, 1859? Sometime around there.

A really interesting aspect of this old town and house is that the owners, and their slaves, probably still have descendants living in the area. Unlike the US, where the only ancient town I’ve been to is a village in Arizona, in Hopi, that’s even a bit older than Vessuna. That is, I’m actually related to the indigenous people of France, kind of distantly, but more closely than I am to any Native Americans. My grandfather was born in a village in Moselle, a long way from Perigueux, but still in France. And, in fact, most of the inhabitants of Vessuna were local Celts, not imports from Rome. A bit odd to contemplate for an American, but there it is.*

And that was our first brief vacation together in France. Must pick another area to explore. Hmmmm . . . .

Visit: https://www.perigueux-vesunna.fr/

*The French are mostly still shorter, like Celts, even though their country has a Germanic name.

Categories
Culture Food France

Stuff You Might Miss

A menu from the Banquet du Chasse yesterday. Lots of food.

BONJOUR!

Sorry for my extended absence. La grippe can be a harsh taskmaster. Anyway, this is about some things you may miss if you visit, or move to, France.

  • Good Mexican (Tex-Mex anyway) food. French food is undeniable fine, but the French never have come to appreciate the tang of a chili. They do have chilis, of course, but they all seem to be the mild variety. I grew up in a household like that: Mom thought that pepperoni was “too hot to eat” so we never ate it, or anything like it. Same with the French, although they do use Spanish chorizo on pizza.
  • Pepperoni. You might think that pepperoni is a basic Italian sausage, but it isn’t. In fact, pepperoni was invented by Italian immigrants in New York City. Yes, the most iconic pizza topping of them all is absent from French pizzarias, even though the pizza is, in general, pretty good.
  • Mac and Cheese. They do sell the stuff in boxes, but it ain’t Kraft, buddy. Not even close. Of course, you don’t have to miss Mac and Cheese if you learn to make your own, which, in fact, is pretty easy. Still, Kraft we don’t have. Sorry.
  • Hershey’s chocolate. It seems that people who didn’t grow up with Hershey’s chocolate tend not to like it, probably because it’s made with a different process from other chocolate products, a process that turns the milk ever so slightly, which is why Hershey’s tastes uniquely like Hershey’s. This extends to chocolate syrup for ice cream, where everyone “knows” that Hershey’s is the best of the lot. Oh, well.
  • Grabbing a quick lunch outside of fast food. Eating in France is an experience all its own. That banquet that we attended provided us with four hours of sequentially presented EIGHT courses! Yoiks! A “quick” lunch will run you about an hour, and many people take two, right out of their work day, to enjoy a leisurely lunch. Of course, if you go to Mickey Ds (McDo) you order from the screen and can leave as soon as you snarf down your food. Question is, for most of us most of the time, why do that? France is the second most popular country for McDonalds, by the way. Also the second biggest consumer of pizza per capita.

Some things you won’t have to miss include Snickers bars, Ben & Jerry’s, Hagen-Daszs, potato chips (not crisps, it says chips right on the bag), pretzels, burgers, hot dogs, pizza of course (Italian style, cooked hot and fast), paper towels, automobiles, freeways, toll roads, DIY stores (Bricos), supermarkets (even hypermarkets), movies (they always have showings of “VO” or version originale, with French subtitles of American films. You can ignore the subtitles.) And there’s more. The similarities, in fact, outweigh the differences.

I’ll do my best not to get the flu again, so I hope you’ll read on in my next post!

AU REVOIR

Categories
Culture Food France info Life

Home Again

This was our house the first time we looked at it. It actually looks the same as it did in the picture on the outside, except for our old Kia parked in front of it.

Kind of repeating a topic this time, but as this blog is intended to let whomever is interested in it to know about the experience of moving to France, it’s probably just the thing to do. I spent three months here (in this house) in the spring of 2022, and I moved here permanently in May of 2023. So I have actually lived in France for thirteen months now, and I do have some impressions.

First, it no longer seems at all odd. In fact, the way things happen here seems normal, and I’m not sure but that I’d need to do some adjusting if I were to move back to the US. Not that the US is bad, but it’s different. In France I am in the process of applying for a residence permit, which of course I’ll never need in the US. You ain’t seen bureaucracy until you’ve seen French bureaucracy! That said, they have a facility in the nearest sizeable town for the sole purpose of helping people find a way through the bureaucratic maze, and they were very nice, and very helpful, and I felt better when I left than I did when I went in. That, believe it or not, seems like a normal thing.

And the food really is better. Not just restaurant food, but food you make yourself. Europe doesn’t approve many additives in food, so the beef never had hormone treatments, nor antibiotics unless it was sick, and there is a lot less added sugar in, well, virtually everything, although sugary treats are quite easy to obtain, and not just weird Frenchie stuff, but Kit Kat bars, Snickers, Gummy Things, Nestles (naturally, as it’s a Swiss company,) plus pies and cakes and other dessert items. Even, occasionally, doughnuts that would sell in the US. Not all the time, but sometimes. But outside of the dessert aisles, the food is nutritious, and meats, in particular, taste better, and if you’re into veggies only (can be tougher in France) the legumes (vegetables) are extremely high in quality.

Streets and roads are not as wide as I was used to in Nevada. In fact, some country roads are just about wide enough for one car, and it’s not unusual for someone to have to pull into a side lane or entrance to a field to pass another vehicle. This is normal. Also, speeds are generally lower, although the Autoroutes (mostly toll roads) are beautifully maintained and have a speed limit of just above 80 mph. Every so often they catch somebody going 120 mph or so, but as enforcement is strict, that’s rare.

And I can speak some French. In my learning curve, I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can see how much I don’t know. This is discouraging, but also encouraging. Sometimes I even understand what someone is saying to me, and I’ve had a few conversations that, I think, actually worked. So there’s that.

I hear my supper calling, so I’m signing off. Be sure to tune in for the next thrilling installment!

Categories
Culture France Life

Frenchified?

Inside Notre Dame de Paris, before the fire

Last weekend I went out walking with my dogs and found myself having an attack of Frankish resentment at an impolite encounter. The hunters were out (la chasse), in which some people stand by a road with shotguns while facing the woods, while others take their dogs, circle around to the other side of the woods, and attempt to chase out something for the folks by the road to shoot. The bush beaters have shotguns, too, so maybe the folks by the road are just backup. Anyway, as I’ve written a few times, in France, it is obligatoire to say bonjour to anyone you meet well enough to lock eyes with. Not saying bonjour is the height of bad manners. You might get away with no s’il vous plaît, no merci, or even no au revoir, but bonjour is not negotiable. One says that, or apologizes if one starts a conversation without doing so.

Anyway, on Sunday the mutts and I passed by a number of people standing along the road holding shotguns. I’m cool with guns, and none of these people looked like they were obsessed with their guns, which are, of course, a tool to use of you happen to want to kill your prey animals yourself. I’ve eaten some of the wild boar from around here, and it is probably worth shooting. It’s very good. Most of the people and I exchanged bonjours, although one man we so intent on the tree line that I don’t think he even knew we were passing. But there was one small group, a man and a woman, who I looked at, nodded at, and said bounour to each of, who just stared at me as I walked past. Now, I’ll admit, maybe they were strangers to France. Maybe from someplace like Denmark where, I’m told, saying hello before getting down to business is considered impolite. I admit, maybe they had their reasons, but, you know, I found their failure to say hello made me angry. I mean, how dare they? One always says hello, boor!

I wasn’t that angry. I didn’t say anything to them about it (they should know better anyway, right?) But I was surprised to find out that they sort of pissed me off by not responding. I’ve lived here a total of just about a year, counting three months in 2022, and apparently that’s enough to start soaking up local cultural norms. Who knows what’s next? You never know, I might start eating pizza and beer and cheeseburgers like I see a lot of French people doing. And there’s just no telling where that might lead! Or, seriously, it is interesting that I would react that way. You don’t formally greet everybody you happen to meet the eyes of in the US, do you? I didn’t, although I did always at least nod and maybe make some sort of sound.

I guess I’m just moving along the continuum toward being a judgmental twit, huh? Well, life’s a journey!

Categories
Culture France Healthcare

Sproing!

Springtime in Paris? Well, yes to be accurate.

The sound in the title of this post is spring, springing. Last month it was colder than heck for around here (I used to live in Minneapolis, don’t bother with examples of when it gets “really cold.”) Yesterday it was 65 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny. The cranes (grue) have been flying north over Lizant. It’s actually rather pleasant, and not terribly cold even when it rains. This weather is premature, but I haven’t heard any complaints. Maybe next summer the weather will continue to smile upon us and it won’t get up to 30 degrees Celsius every other week like it did last year. Maybe.

My French is improving. I had my medical exam for my Titre de sejour, residence card, last Tuesday. So on Monday I had to drive to Poitiers, about an hour away, to go to a French equivalent of a county hospital to get a chest X-ray taken. Then on Tuesday morning I walked into what we’d call a “Class C office building” again in Poitiers, with uncertain lighting and disturbingly bland decor, at 9:25 in the morning. At 11:55 I walked out again, having had a six minute interview with a nurse, and a fifteen minute interview with a couple of doctors. I’m telling you here and now, if you want to live in a particular country, be sure to be born there. It’s a lot less aggravating. I’ve since applied online for my official “can you live in France?” interview, which should be easy enough to pass. I had to send them many of the same documents I had to send the agency that gives out visas. France has a huge bureaucracy, with many branches, and apparently no two branches do much effective communicating with each other. This is itself very encouraging, as a scary situation would be where you give your documents to just one office, and the entire government apparatus knows all about you. I tell myself that while awaiting another step in a bureaucratic dance.

Besides awaiting that appointment, I await eagerly my carte sanitaire, or health insurance card. French healthcare is priced according to income, and they do not include pensions. Our income being all pensions at the moment, it should be cheap enough, huh? I applied in October, sent further documentation in late December, and as soon as I receive the card I plan to visit my French doctor, if only because I promised those doctors in Poitiers that I would do so. I do believe that there is no way that one could overestimate the ubiquity of French bureaucracy. But, what the heck, I do like living here.

Speaking of which, I’m considering reviving my “Grumpy American Moves to France” YouTube channel. Please let me know if you’d be interested in such a thing. If you want to check out what it was a couple of years ago, click here: (483) A Grumpy American Moves to France – YouTube