Well everyone, this is my first post from the American side of the Pond since arriving on Sunday afternoon, and have I got news for you! In fact, as far as I’m concerned, this is a “CNN Breaking News” kind of moment, so I can only apologize for not publishing it as soon as I got to a computer Sunday evening. But I had jetlag, you know, and it took me a couple of days to get back into the right rhythm … plus I had to find the right images online for the blogpost that wouldn’t end up infringing someone’s copyright and, then, WordPress started having formatting issues. Anyway, enough about the jetlag and the bloggers’ headaches, right? You just want to know what this juicy tidbit of information is. Well … <drumroll> …
Despite everything you may have heard or believed up to now, you CAN bring smelly French cheese into the US! *
* Make sure to read the disclaimer at the end of this article.
Okay, so you know how I joke all the time about how U.S. Customs thinks unpasteurized cheese is a chemical weapon? The last time I did that, in fact, was just 9 days ago. I was saying that if I ever wanted my parents to taste a real Camembert, I’d have to smuggle it into the country under the noses of those luggage-sniffing dogs they have. Well, as it turns out, I was wrong … completely and utterly wrong … and I owe my current status of “harbinger of good news for American expats in France and their friends and family back home” to an unexpected encounter with a Customs agent at Charlotte Douglas International Airport Sunday afternoon.
A few days ago, I wrote about the second anniversary of my departure for France. I described how my life had changed as a result — about what I had left behind and what I had discovered here. Since then, I’ve been ruminating on the various lessons I’ve learned during the last two years as an expat in France. Here are my top ten:
1. When people say that French bureaucrats are paper shufflers extraordinaire, they aren’t exaggerating. In fact, they may be understating the case. I’ve never seen such a paper-centric modern society in my life: a form for this, another form that’s exactly the same (except for two questions) to accompany the first form you already filled out, mail it in or make an appointment to drop it off. By no means may you send it electronically. If you want to survive as an expatriate in France, here’s my advice:
Invest in a good ink-jet printer and several reams of paper. You’ll need two copies of everything, s’il vous plaît … plus an extra one for your files for that moment when you discover that they’ve misplaced the two copies you already gave them. (Take my word for it; this can happen.)
“Louis Pasteur in His Laboratory” by Albert Edelfelt
On the other hand, the French don’t just pasteurize their milk … they ultra-pasteurize it. (I won’t get all scientific on you, but there’s a difference of about 115º in the process.) That allows the French to package and store their super-clean milk in unrefrigerated bottles or cartons for months on end. Why? It apparently has something to do with limitations on refrigeration here … like not having enough room in the fridge for all your Camembert AND your milk at the same time. (See 7, below.)•
3. The Paris Métro is undeniably a marvel of public transportation, but it stinks … literally. Let’s just be brutally honest here for a minute. The Paris Métro has a certain charm with all those green and white 1960s-era trains rolling through its hundreds of art nouveau stations, but being authorized to eat and drink in the Métro does us no favors, folks …
4. Don’t be fooled by what looks like a toll-free number in France. Why, yes, they do have numbers here with prefixes that evoke the 1-800, 1-888, 1-877, 1-866 family of truly free telephone numbers we have back in the U.S., but that doesn’t mean that it always works that way here. The rule of thumb: never trust a number with a prefix any higher than 0809. The vast majority of 08 numbers in France are in fact toll numbers, and the amount you pay can range up to 0.75 euros ($1) a minute. The good thing is that the numbers belong to color-coded families, so always look for GREEN numbers … these numéros verts are always free. The unfortunate thing is that many (perhaps most) customer service numbers aren’t green, which leads us to the next lesson …
“green number … free call from a land line”
5. The French are experts at profanity. They are also, as we all know, the world champions of nonchalance. (That’s why we just use their word for it.) When these two character traits come together, you discover a marvelously nuanced array of how to say, as Rhett Butler so famously put it, “I don’t give a damn.” It takes a bit of practice, but dealing on a regular basis with French bureaucracy (or customer service calls you have to pay for) can put you well on your way to successfully distinguishing the appropriate audience and circumstances for such exclamations as:
Je m’en fiche!(literally, something like “I put myself out of that!”)
Je m’en fous!(literally, something like “I do myself out of that!”)
Je m’en tape!(literally, something like “I tap myself out of that!” … keeping in mind that “tap” can have the same slang meaning in French as it can in English)
Je m’en bats les … ! (literally, something like “I beat my … !” … well, I’ll just stop there and leave to the rest to your imagination.) You probably understand already that this is the last one in the arsenal.
And, simply adding “contre” right before the verb (“Je m’en contrefous!“) just reinforces how much you don’t give a damn! … !!!
You can always find rough equivalents between French and English swear words, too, including the euphemisms we’ve created to replace them in polite company. For instance, “merde” and “mince” are the French equivalents of “sh*t” and its polite cousin “shoot.” It might be an oversimplification, but from what I’ve seen and heard, French profanity is simply a little less profane than English profanity. (That might explain why I have no qualms about publishing “merde” but you don’t see the S-word spelled out.) What I mean is, saying “merde” doesn’t seem nearly as eyebrow-raising in French circles as the S-word is in ours. Another case in point is the word usually translated into English as the F-word: putain. Literally, it means “whore,” but it’s used as both an interjection and an adjective to express … well, almost anything depending on the context. Don’t just take my word for it — check this out:•
By the way, if you don’t want to sound too crass by blurting out “putain,” you can always trot out the polite-company equivalent: “punaise.” After all of that, I realize that I’m actually giving this topic short shrift. I see some real research and a full post on this in the future. Stay tuned …
6. As melodic and enchanting as the French language is (and as colorful, too, given number 5), the French are also experts at nonverbalcommunication. Despite the adage that there are no stupid questions, the truth is that there are, and if you ask one in France, you’re likely to get a look that very efficiently communicates that fact without so much as a sigh from your respondent. The French can also express an entire range of sentiment from sympathetic support to mild annoyance to overt hostility just by puffing air through their lips. It’s all a question of how forcefully it’s done. Take a look at this … (the whole video is great, but there’s a good example of what I’m talking about at about 0:55 – 1:05):
7. Air conditioning is one of the most brilliant inventions in human history. You recognize this undeniable truth when you no longer have it. Here in Paris, summer is usually fairly mild by the standards of the Deep South, but every now and then you wake up in a sweat to a forecast high of 101ºF. That’s when you start cursing France for being a third world country, and you hurry off to the nearest supermarket to hang out in the frozen food section. Let’s face it … that dormitory mini-fridge won’t ever cut it as a make-shift air conditioner.
But it only felt like 99º with the ovenesque breeze. Same forecast for today.
• So, there you have it — my humorous look at the top ten …
okay, okay
… seven things I’ve learned while living in France.
(You have to cut me a break, guys. My laptop was starting to overheat,
and I didn’t have enough battery life to make it to
the ice cream case at Super U.)
I hope you enjoyed it. Come back soon!
Two years ago today, I left the United States with 130 pounds of stuff packed into 3 bags and a one-way ticket to the next chapter of my life.
Sixteen months earlier, I had met a guy in a Paris bar who would end up changing my life forever. I had just left my job as a lawyer in DC, thinking my life was going to go in a certain direction … but then, during a week-long vacation in Paris, I crossed paths with Michel. It was a romantic story worthy of a Hollywood screenplay, and it very quickly set in motion a complete reassessment of my future plans. By the time I left Washington for good on August 15, 2010, I had fallen in love, I had gotten engaged, I had applied to a French language program in Paris, I had gotten a one-year student visa from the French Embassy, I had gotten married, and I had said goodbye to my closest friends in Washington, not sure when or if I’d ever come back there to live.
During the last two years, I’ve lived a life completely different than the one I led before. Instead of living in a 1,100-square-foot apartment in Adams Morgan with the most adorable French bulldog on the planet, I now live in a 205-square-foot studio in La Courneuve with two very furry cats. Instead of working for a prestigious law firm doing securities regulatory work, I now write a blog, I search for that elusive English-teaching position, and I go to school to improve my French. My daily life has changed dramatically … Continue reading Every Beginning is Only a Sequel
Yesterday was my second Fourth of July here in France. Expatriates around the world know the feeling: you’re in a place that’s become your home, but on a day like the Fourth, the separation from your homeland feels wider and the differences seem more pronounced. You seek out a way to feel as “American” as you can, no matter how far from America you are. And we all have our ways of doing that …
For example →
Last year, I decided to seek out an historic American bar here in Paris and toast America’s birthday with the drink special of the day: The General Washington. Unfortunately, it didn’t go exactly as I’d planned, and it almost ruined my day. This year, Michel and I decided instead to celebrate by having a picnic on the banks of the Seine with a group of our friends. We asked everyone to bring something quintessentially American or, in the alternative, to come dressed as an “American.” Knowing this particular group of friends and their penchant for dramatic flare, I was sure to have material for my next blogpost. Continue reading As American as Apple Pie
Most of you know that I’m married to an amateur singer and dancer. Michel has been a member of a musical theater troupe here in Paris called Les Caramels Fous (“The Crazy Caramels”) for about four years. While they may not be a professional company, let me assure you that the musicals performed by this thirty-year-old all-male, all-gay troupe are anything but amateur. When I first met Michel in April 2009, he was getting ready for the premiere of the Caramels’ musical Madame Mouchabeurre (“Mrs. Butter-Fly”), a comic retelling of the opera Madama Butterfly set in Brittany in the 1950s and 1970s. Michel played several roles, including a Breton woman wearing an outfit from the ’50s, a Breton man in traditional costume, a French sailor, and an American paratrooper. Madame Mouchabeurre had three highly successful runs here in Paris in June 2009, October/November 2009, and June/July 2010, the Caramels playing three performances a week to packed houses for three- or four-week stints each time. Starting in November 2010, the Caramels took Madame Mouchabeurre on the road for several more performances all around France: Charleville-Mézières (Ardennes), Nantes, Fréjus, Merignac (Bordeaux), Blagnac (Toulouse), La Baule, and Nice, before returning to Paris for another performance at Puteaux last December. Continue reading No Gondolas for Denise
Thursday, I wrote how ecstatic I was about the opening of a Chipotle Mexican Grill here in Paris because I could finally get my Mexican fast food fix. Obviously, like any great international city, Paris has an array of good Mexican restaurants, but every now and then, you just crave that mass-produced, no-surprise flavor you get from fast food. Before coming to live in Paris, I had become a big fan of Chipotle, so when I first heard that they’d opened a location here, I made plans to go there for the lunch the very next day.
Now, before I get to my review of Chipotle Paris, I should note for those of you who are not aware that American fast food often undergoes a slight transformation when it crosses borders and oceans. It makes sense, I guess, that fast food restaurateurs want to ensure, while staying true to the brand, that what they serve overseas will also appeal to the local palate. I’ll never forget the first time I encountered this as a high school student traveling to London in 1989. After just a few days of subsisting on the rather bland English fare served up at our hotel, a few of us set out on a foraging mission to find something quintessentially American. (After all, you can only eat roast beef and garden peas for so long.) We descended on the first Pizza Hut we could find, already salivating over the Super Supreme pan pizzas we were going to order. We weren’t at all prepared to find on the menu such “foreign” creations as prawn pizza or chicken and sweet corn pizza. The same is true in France, of course, where even KFC and McDonald’s offer several menu items that were clearly dreamed up by a kitchen team with absolutely no American members. Take for instance, the most recent addition to the French “McDo” (pronounced “mac-doe”) menu:
Even so, my expatriate palate still longs for the familiar, even mundane flavors of home:
cheap and readily accessible peanut butter
Krispy Kreme donuts (because, I’m sorry y’all, but a French beignet can’t even touch a Krispy Kreme donut)
pimento cheese on white bread (because I’m from the South, if you didn’t pick up on that from the “y’all” I just dropped)
a veggie “burger” that doesn’t consist of a potato pancake stuffed with peas and carrots, and—of course—
Mexican fast food.
Well, I am pleased to report that I can now cross Mexican fast food off the list! Today, thanks to a fellow blogger’s post in the Americans in Paris Facebook group, I made the joyous discovery that Chipotle Mexican Grill has opened a location right here in Paris! (Click here to read her review and see pictures from Chipotle Paris.) I may not be able to find pimento cheese or good donuts here, but I can now gorge on quality, mass-produced guacamole to my heart’s content!
Monday was Memorial Day in the United States and, thanks to the timing of Easter this year, it was also le Lundi de Pentecôte (Whit Monday) here in France. While Pentecost Monday was removed from the list of French state holidays in 2005, traditions die hard here and it made a quick comeback just a few years later. No one wants to be deprived of a three-day weekend, of course, and the French have rebelled for less. So, while my American friends were hitting the road to go to the beach or were gearing up for a weekend of barbecues and pool parties, I was doing the same.
My destination: the Burgundian countryside.
A friend of ours has a country home in Burgundy — an old farmhouse renovated into a magical little oasis far from the bustle of Paris — and we were invited along with three other friends to spend the long weekend there. How could you say no to that? So, Saturday morning, we headed off down the A6 and the A77 to western Burgundy, towards a little hamlet called Picarnon. And when I say “hamlet,” I mean it. Our friend’s country home is nestled among ten or so other houses located just off the main road, surrounded by rolling fields and woods. It was postcard picturesque and absolutely peaceful … even with the self-described “charming” neighbor, who seemed just a little too intrigued by the presence of six obviously gay guys splashing around in the inflatable pool next door. But she was nice all the same.
It’s Wednesday, May 9, less than 3 days after François Hollande became the French President-Elect in a moment that many, myself included, had dreamed would come. There are many reasons why I supported Hollande, not the least of which is his support for same-sex marriage equality. I am hopeful that under his presidency, the French government will finally recognize the fact that I am married to a French citizen and I’ll be able to apply for a visa on that basis. There are other important reasons for my support, of course; the older I’ve gotten, the more politically liberal I’ve gotten and—yes—I now consider myself a Social Democrat, firmly allied with the interests of the French Left.
If only they seemed more welcoming.
This afternoon, I came across an article in Le Monde, posted on the French newspaper’s Facebook page. I don’t always read the French press—I admit I should do it more often if, for no other reason, than to improve my French skills—but this article caught my eye:
Today, like some kind of United Nations election observer (or a self-appointed election journalist for the online media), I witnessed my first foreign election in progress. April 22, 2012 : It’s the first round of the French presidential elections, and I tagged along as Michel went to his polling place and exercised his franchise. It was a proud moment for him and for me. It was even memorialized on Facebook. Here’s the picture …
As an American — coming from a tradition that likes to view of itself as the father (even the guarantor) of democracy around the world — I found it very intriguing to watch the voting process here. As in America, the voting system differs from town to town, but here in La Courneuve, they still use paper ballots and ballot boxes (“urnes“). That struck me as both surprisingly outmoded and, somehow, so much more legitimate than pressing buttons on a touchscreen and watching your vote disappear into the ether. Watching Michel vote brought to mind images of elections in less developed countries that we Americans often see on our evening news, but also memories of my childhood, accompanying my parents to their polling place in rural South Carolina where, after having voted, they dropped their ballots in a little locked wooden box with a slot in the top. Nostalgia. Continue reading “Aux urnes, citoyens!” • “To the ballot boxes, citizens!”
je parle américain 