Tag: oddities

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Culture France

French Oddities

This is inside the cathedral at Orleans. Not so odd, but quite pretty.

Note that I am not saying any of these things are better or worse than what I was used to, just that they are, you know, kind of odd.

Grocery carts: all four wheels swivel. This means that you can push your cart sideways if you want to. As I recently was in a Kroger outlet in Denver, I can’t say that there’s a distinct advantage overall, but each configuration, all wheels or just the front, has its advantages and drawbacks. Moving sideways is handy in narrow aisles, for instance. But front wheels only is easier to control in general.

Pharmacies: If it is any kind of medicine, even over-the-counter, you must go to a pharmacie (yeah, a pharmacy) to buy it. No grabbing a jar of aspirin at the grocery store. This isn’t so bad, but the package sizes are smaller, so I stock up on over-the-counter meds when I’m in the States. Also, of course, there’s nothing to buy at a pharmacie that isn’t medically related. No Doritos, swimming suits, or chocolates in these places.

Prescriptions: Of course, you go the pharmacie, where they will not count pills or other doses, rather they will give you a box of whatever it is. The prescription will be written for enough to last a certain amount of time, six months in the case of something you take every day. If the first box doesn’t cover it, the pharmacist stamps the scrip, gives it back, and you go back for the rest.

Potato Chips: They do, in fact, call these things potato chips. Those fried things the English call chips are frites, or in English, fries. But the chips aren’t what’s odd. They’re the same as in the US, and in fact Lay’s has a major presence in France. What is odd is that in most stores, they are not sold with the other snack foods like pretzels, cheese balls, or Doritos. This is because in France, potato chips have always been considered as a part of an actual meal, and are therefore usually out with the other “real” food. The largest store in our area moved the chips to the snack row recently, though, so perhaps this is changing. Or maybe it’s the seven percent British population, because brits eat their crisps the same way we eat our chips. You know, en masse!

House Numbers: Napoleon didn’t really invent house numbers, but he did standardize how they’re used in France. A few years ago it was decided that, what with all the online ordering and all, every house must have one, so places that were “In the butchers’ street” became, for instance, 12 rue de la bucherie. If there is a second address on the same property, that would be 12 rue de la bucherie bis. A third, 12 rue de la bucherie tri, and so on. Buildings of apartments or offices are more normal, with floor and suite numbers. And speaking of floors:

Floor numbering in buildings: The ground floor, or res de chaussé, is either not numbered at all, because, well, it’s the planet, right? If it has a number, such as in an elevator in a public building, it is 0 (zero). One floor up, what you’d call the second floor, is the premier étage or first floor. If there is a second floor it’s above that, and so on. Nobody cares two centimes about the number 13, so there will be a 13th floor in a building if it’s tall enough, and the same is true of every other number. I have noticed that in the US, the scheme of ground floor, then 1, then 2, etc. is used, but only in parking garages.

That’s enough. I don’t want to bore everyone. I will undoubtedly post more things I find odd about France in the future. See you there!

Categories
France Life

Cool!

This was a restaurant in western Germany in 2016. Maybe it’s still there?

The Canicule has lifted!

And that’s my first peculiarity about France. A heatwave is called a canicule. But, before you give up on that, we (sort of) use the same term in the US. It is the 2000-years later version of caniculare, which is Classicical Latin for “Puppy Days.” Or, I guess, Dog Days. The Romans, most likely of Greek origin themselves according to many sources, took from the Greeks the idea that the reappearance of the Dog Star, Sirius, was responsible for the miserable hot weather common from mid-July through August. In Gaul, it just got to mean any hot miserable weather, and I’m glad it’s over.

Now, for more along the lines of what I had in mind when conceiving this post. France has what they call Hypermarchés. That is, a huge supermarket within a store that sometimes can make a Wal-Mart Superstore look tiny. In those, and other, smaller, supermarkets, when you shop, you will always (always!) have to work your way around employees stocking shelves, or worse, hauling warehouse trucks around piled high with stuff they need to shelve, or empty because they’re going back for more. These stores tend to open at 8 or 9 in the morning, so, naturally, you’d expect that a crew would be coming in at, say, 5 or 6 in the morning to get the place stocked and ready, so that shoppers can find what they’re looking for without fighting employees. Hah! You see, in France, the Customer is Not Always Right! In fact, many times, The Customer is Just In Your Way! Seriously, and this is why you must say bonjour when entering a store, or, in the case of the larger more impersonal ones, to anyone you need to interact with, and certainly to the person who checks you out.

While I’m on stores, you will almost never get anything bagged up for you. If you want it in a bag, you bag it yourself. I’m okay with this, as one can simply put everything back in the cart and wheel it all out to your car, but it can be off-putting at first. If you don’t have any reusable bags, they sell them. I like them. I took one with me to Las Vegas for a year and used it every time I went to the supermarket. I even got a few cents credit for every one of their bags that I didn’t use. The reusable bags can be tough as heck, too, made of jute or hemp, and they last for years. Unless somebody steals one, of course, which is why I now bag as I load the car.

Pharmacies! If it is by any conception some sort of drug, you must buy it at the pharmacy. That goes for Aspirin, Aleve, laxatives, athlete’s foot treatment, and of course prescribed drugs. There are “parapharmacies” that sell vitamins, nutritional supplements, plasters (band-aids) and other non-drug items that you’d normally expect from a supermarket, but if you have a headache, you must go to the pharmacie. They display lit green crosses, so they’re easy to find, and they are everywhere, but to have to go to a pharmacy (spelling deliberate) for ibuprofen? Weird.

Food is food, and in a lot of cases you can buy the same things in France as you can in the US. Except some tasty stuff like good hot sauce, packages of sliced bacon, Heinz Baked Beans (sorry, Who), and pepperoni. In fact, French cooking, while deservedly famous for being well prepared, is remarkably bland for someone used to Southwestern cuisine. If you like some heat in your eggs, bring some sauce with you. I like Cholula.

Primature à droite, that is priority to the right. Many moons ago this was the case in Ohio where I learned to drive, but I doubt that there any intersections left there where it applies. (There could be.) That is, in an unmarked intersection, that is, one with no signage, the vehicle approaching from the right has the right-of-way. This is true even if the intersection is a T-shape. There is a sign in France used to warn you if you’re approaching one. It’s a white triangle, point up, outlined in red (like an inverted Yield sign) with a black X on it. If you’re driving here and see one, be careful, slow down, be ready to stop. Unless you’re on a real road and can see that nobody is coming, but officially do as I say. This is a great way to confuse someone from the UK, where, I’ll admit, there isn’t much call for priority to the right.

There’s more stuff, and I’ll try to list it in the future. There’s more stuff about the US that French people (and Brits*) find strange, too. I sort of make these things up during the preceding week, so I can’t promise exactly when, but keep coming back and you’ll see them in all good time.

* about 5.6 percent of the population of our Commune are from the UK, so I get exposed to British customs and language as a sort of side bonus.