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

Categories
France Moving to France

Moving In

We actually bought this in 2022, and I’ve been here since May 2023, plus 3 months in 2022.

Not moving into the house. That’s over and done with. Moving into France requires a series of steps, one of which I have reached, or am about to reach. I am currently living on a one-year tourist visa, which you can get if you just want to spend more than 90 days in France. By you I mean anyone. It required a trip to Beverly Hills to interview with the company that handles French visa applications. They were nice. My visa expires at the end of April, so it’s time to apply for the next thing, which is a five-year residence permit, which requires a couple of things as well.

First, a medical exam, which is scheduled for a week from Monday and Tuesday. Monday for an X-ray, Tuesday for the interview. I have to take my passport (of course), vaccination record, birth certificate, and any records of surgeries that I may have, which is exactly none. I hope that doesn’t mess anything up, but if they aren’t available, they aren’t available. After the Tuesday exam I have another interview (or will have) in which it is determined either that I am a suitable subject to live in France for at least five more years, or if I should be sent packing. As I am retired, and we have income and won’t actually cost France much of anything (we pay our taxes on time) that shouldn’t be a problem.

After five years there are several ways to go. One can renew that five-year card online, apply for a ten-year residence card (carte de sejour is the official name of those cards, by the way) or apply for French citizenship. That’s four years from now if I include the application time. Of course, for the five-year card one must also demonstrate a basic knowledge of French language. A2 level, which is enough to get by. Ten-year card required B1, which is essentially comfortable. Citizenship requires B2, which is good in everything except the technical minutiae of life. Even the current French zeitgeist is okay with not knowing how to build a skyscraper, apparently. These requirements are new, as of last week. Previously the 5-year had no language requirement, the 10-year required only A1, which I call “tourist Franch”, and citizenship required only B1.* If you think that there has been some complaints from some expatriate quarters, you’re right. Mostly, though, not from Americans. From Americans I have read sympathetic posts, and comments that we should require English of anyone wanting to live in the US, forgetting that the US has no official language, as does France. Tough to write a defensible law about a non-existent situation, I’m afraid.

So this is simply a report on where I am in my adventure in Moving To France. I’ll post something about how my medical exam goes after it happens, in a couple of weeks. Until then, au revoir!

*Those letters are from a European standard language skills rating system. I am C2 in English, proficient that is, at least! 🙂 The levels, in ascending order, are A, B, C.

Categories
Culture France

French Labor

A view from Montmartre. That’s a “high school” class visit walking past, in case you were wondering.

News today in France: It is very difficult to get to anywhere significant from anywhere significant as farmers are staging nationwide protests by blocking roads and Paris streets. The Autoroutes and National Roads (largely freeways) are affected, and the alternate routes are, shall we say, not so fast at the best of times. French people in general back the farmers, and also labor unions of all sorts.

Remember that last sentence. A majority of French citizens, while off put by the inconvenience, support the ideas behind the protests. A protest is called a manifestation, a union is called a syndicat. These protests are mostly organized by a group whose name translates as “Young Farmers’ Union.” If this sounds weird to American sensibilities, that’s just because it is, but you should know that most Europeans agree with the French people on this one. This is the weirdest thing about life in France, that labor unions are appreciated and respected. Yet, France is a capitalist country. France has the most productive economy in the European Union. France is the second largest food exporting country in the world after the US. But France, generally speaking, supports labor and farmers.

I’m not offering an opinion on this phenomenon in this post. I’m just pointing out something different about French and European society. I leave you to make what you will out of these simple facts. For me, this has little impact on my daily life. I’m retired, I live in a small village, and all the towns I need to get to are along side roads, but there are lots of people who are impacted in a major way. As Dorothy says to Toto, I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore, are we?

Categories
Culture France language

The French Languages

A Real Book. A Long History. Written in French. Sigh.

You may think I’m going to talk about dialects of French, and there certainly are a lot of them to consider. French is spoken as a native language in the Carribean, in Canada, in Africa, and in Polynesia plus some other places. But, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is that, whatever dialect you speak, you probably will need to learn two French languages. Spoken French (not too awful) and Written French (too awful.)

To begin with, let me show you a few letter combinations you can write to represent the sound we call a “long A”.

è, Ă©, ai, ait, er (on the end of a word), and several more if you can believe it. Now, about the plain old e. It’s a schwa (the linguists term for it) which means it’s just a generic vowel mostly considered unworthy of being pronounced, especially if it is at the end of a word. Chien, is pronounced sort of like shieh. It means Dog, masculine or just generically. Chiene is pronounced sort of like “she-en” and means Dog, feminine. Many times, a vowel with an e on the end of it is the feminine form of an otherwise masculine word. If you see an unaccented e on the end of a word, never pronounce it. If you do, the members of Richlieu’s Academy will probably come threaten you with their swords, and maybe send you to their secret jail somewhere. (Kidding)

French, like English, changes verb forms depending on who’s doing it. I run, you run, he runs, that sort of thing. They run, easy enough. In French that phrase looks like ils courent. The word “to run” is courer. Keep up, now. To run sounds like “Cou-ray”. I run sounds like “Cour” (there is an s on the end of the word.) courent sonds just like cours. Yep, ent means absolutely nothing to how one pronounces the word in French, but it absolutely must be put there if you’re writing it out. L’academie français, founded by that famous Cardinal Richlieu, keeps a tight grip on written French. But, being a free country, French people say whatever they want to.

For example, if you take French, they’ll tell you that “I don’t know” is Je ne sais pas. Sounds sort of like Zhe nay say pah. But, forget that. Write it, but in speaking it, I kid you not, what comes out sounds a lot like Zhay Pah. In French, even under current rules, you could write that out as J’ai pas, but don’t ever do that, or the ghost of every retired French grammar teacher will haunt you to your grave. (J’ai pas, by the way, could be translated as “I have nothing.” That would even work, wouldn’t it?)

This, then, is a warning. study your academic French well. You’ll need that, if only to fill out government paperwork (or to read government paperwork) but remember to speak the way French people do, in what is, pretty much, an entirely different language.

Categories
Culture France memoir

Je Vais Ă  Disneyland !

This is the plaza outside the entrance to Disney Parks, Paris photo by the author

That picture was taken on January 7, 2024, 25 kilometers East of Paris Centre-Ville. Yep, Disneyland Paris (and Walt Disney Studios) in January. Had a pretty good time, considering the weather, which kept getting colder as time passed. The feels like temperature got as low as 18.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Our puffy, cold-climate worthy coats never arrived from Nevada. Lined raincoats are good, but maybe not good enough. At least I had earmuffs!

It was the final day of the Holidays at Disney

his tree is just inside Disneyland, or was, that is. Disneyland is the same place, only different. Have another picture or two:

Top: Main Street; Bottom Frontierland

You’ll notice the Thunder Mountain Railroad in Frontierland. There is also a Mississippi steamboat, a really lame walk-through called “The Real Wild West,” restaurants, and maybe in summer those canoes, but I can’t say for sure. On Main Street you’re looking at the Emporium, which will be familiar if you’ve ever been to a Disneyland Magic Kingdom.

Amazingly, this park is 30 years old as of last year. (Guess that makes it 31 years old this year, huh?)

For lunch we found a place serving turkey legs with frites (fries, sorry) and soft drinks, and we ate outside. A bit cool, but not bad yet.

We got there at about noon, so after lunch we went on “It’s a Small World.”

I thought that the French were experts with topiary. This is one of the exhibits outside of the “Small World” entrance. Maybe I was wrong?

It hasn’t changed much since 1965, but here there is a small “American” section, consisting of a couple of NFL fans and the Hollywood sign in a high alcove. The default language, as in all of this park, is of course French. Most attractions also present in English.

This was the first Disney attraction I ever rode on, in 1965, Flushing Meadows, New York. It still gets me every time because it makes me feel the way I felt in 1965, which was excellent, and born of sheer naiveté. After this, we went looking for Tomorrowland.
Which isn’t there. Instead, we found Discoveryland, a Jules Verne themed area.

You can put Deepl/Google away. It says, “Whatever is within the limits of possibility is and will be accomplished.” It’s been trendy of late to credit Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein, with inventing Science Fiction, but hers was more of speculative/fantasy. Verne was an educator, and you can learn the state of scientific knowledge of his time by reading his books. He invented classical Science Fiction, later developed by Asimov, Heinlein, and their peers. France is justly proud of what he accomplished.

Here’s an photo of Discoveryland:

It has Hyperspace Mountain, a Spiderman web-shooting ride, and some things that looked frankly worthy of le vomit!

Well, we were back the next day, and it was 5 below zero Celsius, which is 23 degrees Fahrenheit, which is too cold for a lined raincoat, but that’s what we had. We spent the morning on a couple of attractions, including a roller coaster in the dark (bad idea for an old guy) and a space adventure ride (Star Tours, for which they made a new script, bless them.)

That’s the roller coaster in the dark, Avengers themed. Heck, go for it

We went back to the hotel and sat in a hot tub for a couple of hours, coming back for dinner at Captain Jack’s, right next to Pirates of the Caribbean. Same song, a bit longer ride. Captain Jack’s serves good seafood, and takes a couple of hours to do it. Hey, it is a French restaurant!

Pirates of the Carribean is longer, but still has Captain Sparrow in it. It has not been edited to fit contemporary American tastes, so the wife sale is still on.

Captain Jack’s. Note how those people are dressed. They did a good business in character themed fuzzy hats!

After that we went back to the hotel. On the way our, we caught a bit of the final Holiday Parade of the season:

The next day, tired of freezing in Disney, we went into the city (Paris) and discovered that we needed to have advance tickets for Saint Chappelle, so to stop freezing in Paris, we had a most excellent steak dinner for lunch, went back to the hotel, and ate complementary beverages and snacks until it was time to return to the station to catch our train (more or less) home. I leave you with the following photograph of what was happening weather-wise as we waited for the shuttle to the station:

The snow stuck to the streets, even. It did not snow in Lizant until the next afternoon. It all melted the day after that.

One big difference between France and the US is that we live five hours by car (on excellent roads with 80 mph speed limits) from Disneyland Paris, but the train from Poitiers gets there in about two hours. Nice. (Yeah, Poitiers is an hour away, but that’s still two hours faster, innit?) If you like Disney stuff, I recommend these parks. But, if we go back, it will most likely be in May or October. I’m tired of being cold, folks!

Categories
France language

Parlay Voo?

If you think he can’t talk, you never met a beagle

The proper spelling is parlez-vous, in case you wondered. I do mean speak French, of course. Do you? I’ve been able to speak French for a while, now. What is relatively recent for me is the ability to understand French when it is spoken to me. There were scattered bits of comprehension for a year or more, then last October I made a call and got somebody’s voice mail, in French. I was amazed to hear, in French, The person you are trying to reach is unavailable. Please leave a message after the beep. Yep, beep. Bip, I suppose. It went on to say how I could leave a number if I wanted to. If that message sounds familiar, that means that you’ve heard people’s voicemail before. Voicemail is messagerie vocale, by the way. Since that day, I have had moments of temporary lucidity in my comprehension, and generally, I am finding it easier as time passes. I wonder if this is because I’m getting used to the Poitou accent, or just have practiced enough that it is starting to sink in. Whatever, I like it. I was able to translate something for Tami a couple of days ago. No one was more surprised than I was.

So, if you plan on spending more than a week or two in France, here’s my advice. Learn more French than you need to just be a tourist. You may need to ask for a jump start when leave the lights on in your rental car. You may want to look for brown sugar in a supermarket. You may need to know where the bank is. All sorts of things can come up, and you’ll need to know how to ask for help with them. Several years ago I had to ask a French gentleman to use his credit card for us at a gas station and I’d reimburse him in cash. My French was pretty weak, but he was great, and we were saved, so to speak. Weak, but not entirely lacking in the useful words needed to ask for that sort of help. I highly recommend that you get to at least that level of French if you’re going to be here longer than a casual tourist. (In Europe, that would probably be known as level A2. A1 being tourist French.) And, I can’t stress this enough, practice listening to French being spoken. It is a musical language, where rhythm and cadence are important. Quite a few syllables are not important, so it can be confusing. So listen, listen, listen.

There are French language movies available on Netflix and Amazon Prime that can be configured to display French subtitles. Why French? Why not English? Simple. I learned recently that when you know two languages, both are active all the time. The trick is to suppress the one you are not using, which can’t be done in this case if you’re reading English words. In fact, reading the English words tends to suppress your French. French subtitles (les soutitres français) reinforce your French, allowing you to keep your English down to, well, maybe a mild roar? Whatever, it helps a lot, and I write from experience.

Well, that’s this week’s French lesson, the first of 2024. Hope you enjoyed it, and remember, practice, practice, pratique!

Au revoir!

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info

Happy Holidays

Categories
Food France

French Food @ Home

Our Local Bakery

We live in the sticks, really. It’s ten kilometers to the nearest town with any normal facilities, such as supermarkets, hospitals, movie theaters, etc, and both towns at that distance are still very small. But, the bakery pictured is two blocks from our house in a commune of 400 people. Bakeries are, I’m saying, common in France, and the bread is very good. The food you buy in France to take home and prepare is all good, actually, so it’s really just a matter of deciding what you’re hungry for this week, or today. You can buy most familiar things in a supermarket in France, if you know what to call them. Most things. However, Molasses is iffy, truly hot sauce can be tricky, refried beans are mostly unheard of, although there are places to get them because some restaurants use them. Without salsa, but still. Powdered sugar, eh, you may need to make your own. Tami did find brown sugar, which is sugar and molasses mixed together. There may be other things that are harder to find (Fritos Original!) but that mostly covers it. Besides those things, which can be worked around, you can buy whatever you need to use at home. And, it will be better than what you buy in the US.

I’ll use wine for a quick example. All French wine for sale is at least good. Maybe not top shelf, but good. This is generally true of anything you find for sale in France. The butter is all good, and some of it is excellent indeed. Meats are fresh and tasty, never having been dosed with antibiotics to fatten them up, yet still fatty good. (French people don’t worry about fats. A quick rule of thumb, if you’re not sure of something you’re cooking, add butter.) There are no factory farms in France, so the chances of contamination with e-coli or other bacteria are considerably lower. Another rule of thumb is that a person weighs ten pounds less in France than in the United States, and this without excessive worry about weight. Hmmm. Legumes (all vegetables) are fresh and seasonal. Right now, for example, cauliflower is over eight Euros per kilogram, which would be outrageous during the harvest season. This is different from the US, although thanks to our Southern neighbors in Spain and Italy one can get pretty much anything pretty much any time.

So, in sum, there are a few frustrations to cooking at home in France, but whatever you cook will be made with high quality ingredients. Not so bad, really.

Categories
Culture Food France

French Food

MENU

  • French Bread
  • French Fries
  • French Dressing
  • French Toast

Joke aside, French Fries are just called “fries” and anyway they’re originally Belgian. This week I’m writing about restaurants. Nothing specific, just in general. You can get fast food here. within an hour of where I sit, ten minutes in the case of McDonalds, you can find McDo (as it’s called locally), Burger King, and KFC. Unfortunately, it’s not a great McDo, as they rarely do the fries right. But I want to discuss “real” restaurants, which are anything but fast.

One thing an American will notice about a French restaurant is that they do not play background music. I believe that originally this was supposed to calm customers, but I think that these days it may serve to help in turnover. That is, it raises the noise level and makes it less pleasant to sit in the dining room. This is true even in upscale restaurants. In France, restaurants are supposed to be quiet enough for a table to converse without raising their voices. With nobody raising voices, this actually works. However, the noisiest restaurant I’ve been to in Paris was made noisy by a table full of drunken Parisians. So, I’m talking general guidelines here, not hard fast rules. As an American visiting France, be aware that we Americans do talk loudly when dining out and, you know, don’t.

There is a rule to remember: Keep Your Hands Visible above the table. This runs counter to American etiquette, so beware. You can even rest on your elbows, but avoid hiding your hands. If your hands aren’t visible, people will wonder what you’re up to. (Insert joke here.)

Nobody will ever hover around making a fuss and asking you if everything is okay. In fact, if you want service, you have to wave down your server. I’ll be honest, I prefer the French method, although it can be frustrating if your server is out of the room, which they sometimes are, of course. You will be seated normally and given menus, and likely asked what you’d like to drink. There’s nothing unusual about the drinks selection, except there aren’t free refills, which has never been a problem for me, but worth remembering. Your server will bring the drinks and ask if you’re ready to order. (So far the same, huh?) Often the Plat du Jour is worth looking at. We’ve had some great meals with the dish of the day. But, order whatever you want. In touristy areas you’ll probably get a menu in English that you may not even have to ask for. Once you’ve ordered, your server will disappear, maybe dropping off some bread. You may get an entree (starter) then other pre-main course items, depending on what you order. But, it may take a while between courses. We had lunch in a nearby village last week and were there almost two hours. But the food was delicious.

Delicious, but not spicy hot. French people prefer subtle flavors to spicy dishes. We had amazingly bland Mexican one time in Paris. Excellent otherwise, but begging for some Pace Picante. (There are some places to get authentic Indian, Mexican (Qudoba no less), and Middle Eastern food.)

Take your time eating. You’ll be left alone to enjoy your meal. Servers in France are considered professionals and paid a living wage. They have no need to grovel for tips. They’re off doing their job serving others at different phases of their meals, and are available to you any time you call them over. Traditionally, a cheese course follows the main course and precedes dessert. It’s a free country, you don’t have to take the cheese, but there are some excellent ones around and, as a tourist, you might want to try a few. For me, I go straight to dessert, which is usually excellent. Most recently I had a crĂ©me brulĂ©, which is custard with sugar sprinkled on top which is then scorched with a small blowtorch. You think I’m kidding? Ask your server. They will have pastry, custards, maybe tartes (pies) all in smaller portions than you may be used to, but usually very good.

Speaking of those smaller portions, you will rarely be given too much food. In the US it’s common to have portions dripping off of the plate, which doesn’t happen in France, in my experience. But the food will be delicious. I’ve had excellent steaks, what are scalloped potatoes, vegetables of various sorts, some wonderful desserts, top-notch entrĂ©es (appetizers) and, sad to say, occasionally some lousy food, but that’s rare.

The big difference between eating out in the US and in France is that in France, even in a crowded restaurant, one can usually have a conversation using ones “inside” voice. In fact, that’s generally expected. And, the meal is never rushed. You can, of course, eat in a hurry and rush off, but that will surprise everybody. (If perchance you do have to eat in a hurry, tell your server as you’re seated, and you will be accommodated, at least in my experience.) And the portions will be what you can eat, not set up to appear as massive as possible. Contrary to what I’ve read elsewhere, boxes are provided if you can’t finish it all anyway. So, allow a couple of hours (French people do), use a quiet voice, remember to call your server over if you need service (even to get the bill, or addition.) In tourist-frequented areas (Paris for sure) you can probably get a menu in British English (close enough) and the server will probably know at least enough English to do their job in that language.

And, above all, enjoy the food!
If you liked the service, leave a Euro or two on the table. Forget 20%!

Categories
Culture Food France

Pardonnez Moi!

Really. What happened is that our stuff (most of it) arrived and I’ve been busy unpacking and sorting and putting away. Which means France has been looking pretty much like our old place, except that we’re taking things out of boxes instead of putting things into boxes. But, on to something topical.

It’s the holidays in France, and it’s looking a lot like Christmas. In fact, the word Christmas comes up surprisingly often, considering that here the occasion is known as NOEL. As in Joyeaux Noel et bonne annĂ©e. To top it off, I found a display of Reeses’ Peanut Butter Cup Xmas Trees, the real thing, made in the US of A, in a store that’s a little hard to describe. It carries things like a Big Lots, sort of. Anyway, we also bought some decor there, and the Xmas trees were delicious as always.

France is different, no doubt about it. “Bacon” means cured meat, probably pork porc, which includes smoked pork belly poitrine fumĂ©e which, when I have the butcher slice it thin, turns out to be what an American would call bacon. Mmmmmm! Bacon! Homer could maybe survive here. Food differences certainly exist. At a restaurant you have to call for service. Nobody comes around to interrupt your meal and ask if everything is okay. If everything isn’t okay, any French person would complain to their server, so “okay” may be assumed. Also, servers do not live on tips. You can put a Euro or two on the table if you really liked the service, but it’s neither required, nor even expected. It’s just a bonus, and a lot of servers deserve it. But they can live on their salary, and service at a restaurant is considered an honorable profession. How’s that for a difference? On the other hand, while brands may differ, and you need to know what to ask the butcher to do if you want, say, a strip steak, you can generally get the ingredients to make whatever you want to make, including Mexican style food with actual spice in it. (The French don’t believe in spicy food, but prefer delicately prepared, subtly flavored fare.)

In other food news, France consumes more pizza per capita than any country other than the US. They have McDonalds (even in Tahiti, I recently learned.) There is a KFC near Angouleme. It’s different, but it’s not that different. Myself, I make diner style eggs, hash browns, toast, and bacon on Sunday mornings. It isn’t difficult, and I really like that stuff. So, even though it’s different here, I still get to eat my favorite foods, and drink my favorite drinks, and, this may be sad, as my wife pointed out recently, they’re “becoming more like the United States all the time.”

Hmmm. Hopefully not in terms of political discourse. Until next time, Au revoir!