These are a few of my favorite things....this week...

10 favorite things in Paris this week

In a spin off of Josh’s vignettes, I’m opting for an even briefer glimpse into life here in Paris these last few days. The reality is that this city continues to amaze me in 100 small ways each day. So, for anyone from 2T (you know who you are…) , this may seem a bit like the old days…

10. Cheap Vegetable Bins—I know I mentioned these in my last entry, but I love them! Today for 1 and a half euros, I got a bunch of mushrooms and two tomatoes.

9. The Buttes-Chaumont Park—it’s like Central Park, but on the edge of Paris. Josh and I visited the first time, and I returned yesterday to sit in the sun (and sip wine) with my friend Angie.

8. Student discounts—Josh and I have been flashing student IDs left and right, each time saving us a few euros. My ID is from the Alliance Francais (French classes are over, but the ID is still valid), Josh’s is from 1892 (aka 1998 when he was “researching” as part of a fellowship in France—they don’t check too closely). We have gotten discounts at the following places in the last week: the French Agricultural Fair, the Erotic Museum and the Louvre—oh wait, we didn’t go to the Louvre, but I am planning on trying to use it to get a cheaper haircut. My goal is to make back my tuition with discounts before we leave.

7. My Tuesday Coffee Group—Each week several of my former French classmates meet for coffee at 11:30AM. The regulars include: Angie (an American flight attendant), Ali (a Turkish journalist), Shell (a Canadian student), Eric (an Australian Chef) and myself. It’s a random group of people who make me laugh and gratefully speak English. We also swap English books and rugby has been the topic of conversation this week since the European playoffs have been going on.

6. Flowers—It really feels like spring has sprung here in Paris. The flower shops are outdone only by the flowering trees and the tulips that are starting to bloom. In a related note, you can also tell its spring because I think every other person is making out with someone, but it might also be that the city is just that romantic!

5. Ecole Koenig—My first real French job is with a music school that teaches over 350 students music and theater—sound familiar? I am thrilled to be in a place that feels so committed to good teaching and in an environment that inspires the children.

4. St. Chinian Wine—We continue to drink fabulous wine at every turn, but our “house wine” continues to be a favorite. As a true sign of our devotion (or slight insanity), we took a special trip to a store to stock up on Friday night. We just keep thinking that they have put the decimal point in the wrong place because surely no good wine could really only cost 1.25.

3. Marco Polo Vert Tea—I had the best cup of tea I’ve ever had at my French teacher’s apartment last week. Immediately after the lesson, Angie, Josh and I set out to find the tea (which we found for a good price at Bon Marche). It is made by Mariage Freres, a famous French tea company, and I’m drinking a cup as I type this. I will say, the French do coffee extremely well, but tea is a regular part of my life here in a way that it wasn’t in DC.

2. Metro musicians—I know it might be annoying to some people, but I adore the accordion players, singers and drummers who hop between cars, hoping for a euro from the crowd. This week I heard a fabulous violin player and found myself smiling (JN, I couldn’t help but think of you…)

1. Champagne—I know its no surprise that champagne in Paris is wonderful, but we’ve had only a few glasses and last night Josh bought a bottle to celebrate my new job. It was light and fruity (but yet complex and interesting). It was a special night and surely drinking champagne at our kitchen table will always be one of my favorite memories of this year.

A more traditional entry will follow soon, but I didn’t want to miss a chance to offer just a few tidbits from across the Pond.

sPg

Historical Humility

[First, before I forget, here are our latest photos, through March 2:
http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=41321172842757557/l=249642553/g=14513899/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB]

I don’t know if this is normal for spouses (from what I’ve heard, it is with any siblings), but I know that as soon as I find out something gets under Sara’s skin, I waste no time in redoubling my efforts to break it out any chance I get. [Note from Josh: Sara hates the expression so much, she really didn’t want me including it verbatim in our blog, so you’ll note some edits below…]

A perfect example of this is the saying “X [poops] bigger than Y.” In other words, X is so clearly bigger/better/stronger than Y, it’s not even worth discussing. (Science has determined that in fact, virtually all species and people are bigger than their own excreta, hence the expression.)

For people too polite and/or sheltered to have had access to this expression (CM to the banquet, CM to the banquet please…), I’ll use it in a couple of sentences. The original Star Trek [poops] bigger than The Next Generation and all that crap. Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby [poops] bigger than that those little white Hood vanilla ice cream cups with the wooden spoons. Thomas Jefferson [poops] bigger than Millard Fillmore. You get the idea.

Well, go figure, Sara’s not a fan of the expression. But it’s the essence of today’s blog, so sorry Sara, I have no choice. Here it goes:

French history [poops] bigger than American history.

The first time I went to France back in 1989, my host father, a history buff and an antiques collector, made an offhand comment over dinner one night that the US was a young country with an extraordinarily short history and historical perspective. I remember sputtering, “We have a rich history, with the American Revolution, the Civil War, two World Wars, Vietnam, and the like.” He just smiled.

After three going on four years living in France, every day I understand better what he meant. Don’t get me wrong, I do think America has a fascinating and essential history. But the numbers don’t lie.

[Before I get started, let me recognize the politically correct and just plain correct reality that America was clearly home to indigenous people long before any of the European-American history I’ll discuss ever took place. And let’s just leave Leif Erickson out of the discussion for convenience sake as well.]

American history goes back roughly 400 years (as Queen Elizabeth’s upcoming visit to Virginia will soon commemorate). The history of the French (via their precursors the Gauls) goes back roughly 400 years…BC/BCE. Our country itself only goes back 230 or so years. France has stuff in the back of its fridge that’s older than that.

Admittedly, in those 230 years, we’ve only had two forms of government: the confederacy under the forgettable Articles of Confederation, and the democratic republic under the Constitution. Now, during those same years, the French had a monarchy, the First Republic, the First Empire, the Restoration of the monarchy, a bit more First Empire, the Restoration II (Electric Boogaloo), a constitutional monarchy, the Second Republic, the Second Empire (The Empire Strikes Back), the Third Republic, semi-dictatorship under Vichy, the Fourth Republic, the Fifth Republic, and something called “Cheese-a-palooza.”

Still, despite the…excitability of the past 230 years of French government, they still have millennia of perspective on their national history. To Americans who didn’t live through that era, the Vietnam War seems like ancient history. To the French (who got in and got out before us), it’s last Thursday.

In that same first visit to France, I asked my host father how the French could have moved so quickly past the humiliation inflicted by the Germans in three recent wars (1870, 1914, 1939) to go on to form the core partnership of the European Union. He replied that France had only been at war with the Germans for 100 years, and that the Brits were the ones that really got the French’s goat (cheese), since they’d been at war on and off with the French for fully 1,000 years.

I’ve mentioned my commute in an earlier blog, and it’s useful to mention here to reinforce my point about the immensity of French history. Just a block or two short of my office, there’s an intersection that I normally just plow straight through. But I know from past trips that were I to turn left at that nondescript intersection, within two blocks I’d be face-to-face with two beautiful timbered medieval buildings that date back over 500 years. And if I had turned right, within two blocks I’d find the massive remains of one of Paris’ earliest city walls, built between 1180 and 1210. (The church which stands in the wall’s shadow dates “only” from 1796.) Similarly, on a recent walk just minutes from our apartment, Sara and I stumbled on a castle and two of the oldest buildings in Paris, all centuries older than our country. The point being that in France, around any corner, you could just stumble on something one, two, three, even nine times (the Roman baths at Cluny) as old as our country.

But we have beautiful, historical structures in the U.S. as well, you say. What about the Washington National Cathedral? Well, here’s a quiz—which president placed the final stone in the Cathedral? Teddy Roosevelt? Woodrow Wilson? No, George H.W. Bush, in 1990 (The last stone was a finial, a word which I had to look up. It means “a sculptured ornament, often in the shape of a leaf or flower, at the top of a gable, pinnacle, or similar structure.” I wonder if before he placed the stone, Bush Pere said “Let’s get finial, finial. Let me hear some body talk…”) Notre Dame was started in 1163, and finished around 1345. That makes its cornerstone nearly four times as old as the U.S. of A.

When you consider that the French national cathedral was built 800 years ago using just hard labor and the most basic of tools, while ours relied on cranes and laser tools and was finished less than twenty years ago, it is truly humbling. In retrospect, the nearly twenty years it took me to understand the comparative youth of our country is just a drop in the bucket.

Greetings, People of Earth

Greetings, People of Earth:

No set theme to the blog today, just another collection of vignettes (as you know, “vignette” is French for “those tiny chocolate-covered raisins they sell you at the movie theater”).

First, an apology: I’ve been bad about posting our photo links to the blog. I’ve been good about taking the pictures, I’ve been good about transferring them from my camera to my computer, I’ve been good about uploading the photos to Snapfish. But each time I post a blog entry, I forget to post a link to the pictures. So, basically, there’s a frog-load of pictures here, so set aside longer than usual to peruse them. In each batch, there should be a satisfying mix of “artsy pictures,” “touristy pictures,” “people pictures,” and “still-life pictures of vegetables.” You’ll see what I mean. Let me know what you think of the pictures (particularly the artsy ones).

Week Two Photos: Most importantly, photos of our long-term apartment (the photos in our “Week One” batch were of the apartment we only lived in for our first few days in Paris). Also, photos of Sara and I drinking wine from baby bottles, and some of those crazy vegetable still lives.
http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=199251169759156695/l=240180977/g=14513899/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Weeks Three and Four: lots of photos of the French national library, Sara’s and my stroll along a Paris canal, and other fun stuff
http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=62461170781409622/l=240334660/g=14513899/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Weeks Four and Five: a good, old-fashioned Paris protest, Sara’s and my Valentine’s Day (a trip to the ballet and to a smoky jazz joint), plus a weekend trip to visit chateaux/castles in the Loire Valley (plus super-cute kidlet pix of our friends’ Beth and Sebastien’s twins)
http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=201191171900796337/l=240502926/g=14513899/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Now, some non-photo-related thoughts and observations:
* Sara bought a chocolate bar, that, like most things here, had a wrapper that was translated into several languages (to make for easier trans-European sales). But go figure, what we call “Dark Chocolate” and what the French call “Chocolat Noir” the Spanish call “Chocolate Negro.” 'Nuff said. I suppose in America we'd call it "Theobroma Cacao African American," just to be both scientifically and politically correct. It also sounds like an entry on a Letterman Top Ten List of Rejected Ben and Jerry Flavor Names: 10.) Chocolate Negro, 9.) Fun With Fennel, 8.) Lemon Pledge, 7.) Chunks-o-Slim-Jim, 6.) Sawdust Swirl, 5.) Fingernail Chip, 4.) Peas-n-Tuna, 3.) Blue Balls, 2.) I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!, and 1.) Melgibsonilla. (PS: Yes, I know Letterman actually already did this list, but mine's not bad...)

* We also bought a bag of cheesy chip-like things that were called “Crac’zie.” That sure explains the whole “bet you can’t eat just one!” phenomenon, doesn’t it?

* In a recent debate between Sara and I about the comparative value of a “biscuit-flavored dessert cream” item I’d purchased, I was emphasizing that the damn thing actually tasted remarkably like a “petit beurre” cookie (“biscuit” means “cookie” in French, and “petit beurre” is like the official #1 most beloved store-bought cookie of France, similar in status though not in make-up to Oreos in America), which I thought was both amazing and worthwhile. Sara argued that the “phlegm-y” texture grossed her out. I asserted that “biscuit trumps phlegm-y,” which, as Dave Barry would say and M.S. would appreciate, would be a great band name.

* I love France Info, the 24-hour French radio news network (you can listen live online at www.france-info.com). One recent story actually involved the theft of 9000 Euros (or $11,700) worth of cheese. Even the French newsreaders recognized the absurdity of this, mentioning that a few cheese knives were also stolen, possibly in case the evildoers wanted a snack on the road. (N.E., help me out here, I know there must be a fantastic pun in this somewhere, but I’m blanking…)

* Fun Ipod Moment: While walking down the Rue Mouffetard (aka “The Mouffe,” a literally millennia-old steep and narrow street today filled mainly with touristy restaurants), what came on the Ipod but…the Magnum, P.I. theme. Between its irresistible, energizing vintage catchiness and the fact that Sara and I had seen “Rocky Balboa” recently, I have to admit that I felt projected into some kind of crazy, Euro-fey, reverse downhill version of the famous stairs/museum training scene. I resisted jumping triumphantly in the air, fists pumping above my head, when I got to the bottom of the hill. I did instantly sprout a thick, cheesy moustache (don’t worry, the Berthillon caramel au beurre sale ice cream is so good it instantly shaved it off for me) and felt the lingering need to call people “Huggy-Bear.” Oh wait, that's Starsky and Hutch. Never mind.

* Still on the Ipod theme, are you convinced, like I am, that your Ipod’s “shuffle” feature doesn’t actually create a random scramble, and that instead the damn thing plays favorites? We’re not alone. Check out these two articles (though I still don’t buy the explanation) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6854309/site/newsweek/ http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,68893,00.html

Well, with the last two blog entries being death-slogs in terms of length, I’d better cut this short here. But stay tuned for another blog entry within a couple of days, and more vignettes shortly thereafter.

Josh

Cauliflower, Fennel and Wine

We’re starting to settle into the routine of life. Even in a foreign country, in time, comes routine. And, a regular part of my daily routine involves a trip to one of the local markets, which is one of the best parts of Paris in my mind.

We’re adopting a “European model” of life—our small fridge holds just enough groceries for a few days and most of the regular guests in our dorm-size fridge are things that are unlikely to be found in our fridge in the States.

We always have at least two types of cheese (and one of them is probably smelly in a good way), a variety of yogurts (this week we have coconut yogurt in small glass jars that is both cheap and tasty), diet coke (ok, not everything is a stranger), red wine (honestly a bottle lasts us a couple days here and the Gibson House Wine costs under two euros and its perfectly tasty—really!), and a collection of whatever other ingredients I have stumbled upon in my market journeys.

Josh refers to me as “MacGyver” in the kitchen—each day’s menu is based more on vision, intuition and improvisation, rather than planned menus. I tried a few recipes and they didn’t work out so well—I think I felt confined.

My favorite way to shape the menu is to find the “sale bins”. Each produce guy at the market (and yes, it usually is a man for some reason) has bins for a euro or a euro and a half full of things that are still in good shape, but are ripe enough he knows they won’t last more than a day or two. It’s a cheap way to buy a good amount of produce that is ready to eat immediately—perfect!

This week, I found a great deal on tomatoes (we’ve had tomato sauce, roasted tomatoes, sliced tomatoes and we still a have a few left), fennel (we’ve had fennel salad, sautéed fennel and we’ll keep having it for a few more days), eggplant (we’ve had roasted eggplant and I am considering making ratatouille) and clementines (which have been the omnipresent fruit since our arrival and have been in a part of at least one meal each day since our arrival). I also noticed that cauliflower is starting to show up (so we’ve had roasted cauliflower and cauliflower soup).

Josh is more than a good sport and has nearly stopped questioning the random mounds of produce that greet him each evening. He did ask today while staring at three enormous heads of fennel (when one head will usually last at least two meals)—“Was fennel having a going out of business sale?” For some reason he didn’t even take note of the five eggplants that were also on the table. And yes mom, I only paid 3 euros for all of it! [Note: Josh is also already predicting that one of my complaints about the states will be the lack of fennel. If you happen to be out and about and see fennel—can someone tell me how much it is a pound?] I think we might even be getting our five veggies a day.

We’re having a dinner guest tomorrow and therefore a trip to the market is on tap after French lessons. There is a market at Place Monge on Wednesdays and its on the way home from my teacher’s apartment—how convenient! We’re having pork, which I bought today, but I still need fruit for the tart—though I wonder, how bad could a fennel and cherry jam tart really be?

sPg

Equal but Separate, Part Two

Here, beloved readers, is part two of my manifesto (be sure to read my last post if this is going to make even a fragment of sense). Stay tuned next week for something more in line with the light-hearted drivel you expect from me.

FREE SPEECH
Both France and the US hold liberty dear, and no liberty is more central than the freedom of expression. But once again, the two countries part ways on how they allow this right to play out, or the limits to its exercise. The US again pushes this freedom to the limit, banning only expressions like the famous “shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater,” where speech directly creates danger or harm to others.

France honors the same principal, and includes the same limit, but defines harm quite differently. In France, it is illegal to deny the Holocaust happened. It was within the past couple of months made illegal to deny the Armenian Holocaust happened. You could either face steep fines, or literally go to jail, for either. In the aftermath of the Danish/Mohammed cartoon scandal last year, a French satirical paper re-ran the same cartoons out of solidarity, and currently the newspaper is facing charges. Perhaps the French mood is changing—at the trial for the newspaper, several presidential candidates showed up to testify in support of the newspaper.

When the French see American neo-Nazi or Ku Klux Klan marches covered in the media, they take it as additional evidence that our culture is more anti-Semitic and racist than theirs is. The difference is similar to the equality question above (maybe our country has too many shrinks) — we thrive on tearing the scab off our problems, admitting them, wearing them on our sleeve, letting it all hang out, perhaps bordering on a sick obsession. The French, on the other hand, take a more ostrich-like perspective—if they don’t see it, it doesn’t exist. My opposition to the French model is on two levels—first, what if the speech (even if it’s something as hateful as Holocaust denial) is the canary in the coal mine? What if it the hate speech allows the nation to see that it’s profoundly failing on a basic public policy basis, and inter-group resentment (think this summer’s French suburban riots) is brewing. I think it’s better to find that out. I also believe very strongly in the idea of the marketplace of ideas. Sure, let the neo-Nazis or Ku Klux Klan march, because they’ll turn out a few dozen people, whereas the protest will draw hundreds or thousands, and an impressionable young child watching the events will take away the correct lesson on who to emulate.

A pending counter-example to the general American openness is the long-term effort to ban flag burning. I think it’s another case where you let the moron do whatever s/he wants, and you trust your compatriots (and perhaps yourself) enough to let the transgressor know that this kind of behavior is problematic. But the idea of flag burning leads us to our next subject, that of patriotism.

PATRIOTISM
People in both France and the US clearly love their countries. But in France, strong declarations of patriotism are considered to be dangerous potential rightist tendencies. Whenever French people visit America, they are shocked by the number of American flags they see. In France, you only see French flags that are flown at government offices, and perhaps those for sale in tourist shops. The 2002 soccer World Cup was a rare exception to this tendency, with French fans painting their faces red, white, and blue and their team’s ultimate victory triggering celebrations by millions in the street. But, even in the aftermath of this good fortune, the French examined their patriotic response, wondering how fragile the distinction was between a stadium full of patriotic soccer fans, and an excessively whipped-up rally of pre-fascists.

Perhaps, with patriotism as with Holocaust denial, the much more immediate historical relevance and/or complicity of the French during World War II, leads them to better understand what’s really at risk if things go too far. They would rather bring things to a stop too soon than too late, risking a small preemptive loss of freedom to prevent its wholesale loss (such as what they directly experienced just 60 years ago.)

GUNS
Speaking of war, both countries love their guns. Both nations have their interest groups that fight tooth and nail to maintain their rights on this front. In 2002, Jean Saint-Josse, the leader of the French Hunt, Fish, Nature, Traditions (Chasse, pêche, nature, traditions) Party received 1,204,863 votes, or 4.23%, of the votes in the first round of the presidential election. The French presidential election consists of two rounds, the first which involves all possible candidates running in one field and the two highest-scoring candidates advancing to a winner-takes-it-all second round thereafter. The popular saying among the French is that they vote with their hearts in the first round and with their heads in the second round. All this to say that at least 4.23% of the French thought hunting an important enough issue that they put their vote where their heart was and voted for a presidential candidate uniquely on this front. This party would seem to be the group that the National Rifle Association in America once was, or in times of criticism, still claims to be.

Yet, French opposition to handguns, automatic weapons, and the like is nearly universal. They just don’t understand the American fascination with these kinds of weapons, and they constantly wonder when we’ll decide that their impact on our society is too tragic to be allowed to continue. Most French people don’t know about our Second Amendment, and trace our gun obsession instead back to our cowboy history (?!?). But just because they try to contextualize it doesn’t mean they understand it.

Sadly, in the aftermath of the shootings in Utah and Pennsylvania last week, the French all-news radio network led with the story, and editorialized that the two shootings should reignite the debate in our country about the impact of guns on our society. Sadly, later that same day I checked the Washington Post website, and the Utah story was listed as a minor, headline-only link, and the Pennsylvania story never made it into the website headlines at all. For the American debate to be reignited, it would have to be taking place, I suppose.


The conclusion—I don’t really have one. I just find it fascinating that two countries with intertwined democratic histories and overlapping core beliefs can exercise those principals in such different ways. I love to collect anecdotes and examples of how each countries’ freedoms play out. So, let me know what you think, and stay tuned for updates as the year continues.

Equal but Separate, Part One

Sorry, faithful reader(s), for the delay in posting my latest blog entry. I guess I fell off the blog wagon (who knew blogs had wagons?!?) Inexplicably, our schedules have felt quite tight, even once we found our apartment and I got settled at work. So far, our year seems to be the ultimate proof of Parkinson’s Law: “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” (I meant to compare it to Murphy’s Law, but who has the time?)

Doubly sorry to those of you who love my “vignettes” series of postings, because this is not one of them. Stay tuned to my next missive for more random mental wanderings. Today’s blog is more serious/political/academic/reflective, and it’s the anti-vignette in terms of length. Don’t worry, this will pass, more levity soon…

A disclaimer: as I say at the start of my tours of Paris for visitors: everything I say will be more or less “in the ballpark” accurate. Be inspired by the general principles and ideas, don’t hassle me with technical historical specifics…

INTRODUCTION
First, a basic bi-national history lesson. During our Revolution, France greatly aided the Colonies financially and militarily (admittedly mostly to piss off the Brits). [This is the counterpart to the cocky American rejoinder to the theoretical rude Frenchman—“If it wasn’t for us during World War II, you’d be speaking German. Well, if it wasn’t for the French during the American Revolution, we’d be speaking, well, at least with an accent.]

Lafayette (of Lafayette Park fame, or vice versa) volunteered to lead American troops into battle, and George Washington served as a mentor and father figure to him. During and after the Revolution (the treaty ending the war was signed in Paris), Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson served as the first US ambassadors to France, and became part of a bicultural mutual admiration society there. Our fledgling democracy served as a role model to French revolutionaries, but much more importantly, the dire straits the French economy found itself in (due to their going greatly into debt while helping fund us during our Revolution) led to great dissatisfaction among the masses, culminating in the French Revolution. To thank George Washington for the inspiration and assistance each had provided the other in times of revolutionary need, Lafayette provided Washington with one of the very few keys to the Bastille prison (it still hangs today at Mount Vernon).

All of this is a long way of saying that our two democracies were founded at nearly the same time (1776/1787 and 1789) and our two revolutions were in indirect relation to each other. We share many of the same founding principles: separation of church and state, liberty, equality, free speech, and the like. But what is most interesting to me is that, in many cases, our two nations interpret these founding principles entirely differently. That’s what I want to talk about today.

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
Let’s look at the separation of church and state. A bit more history: after the Revolution, the insurgents strove to suppress all signs of the Catholic Church, which they considered elitist and anti-democratic. They commandeered churches and converted them to civic purposes (even storage spaces such as salt vaults), smashed statues they thought evoked religious (or royal) figures, tossed holy relics into the Seine, and chiseled the letters “St.” (meaning “saint,” not “street”) out of saint-named street signs. They even created a new calendar, replacing our “Anno Dominis” year count with a new start at Year One, and replacing month names (since they are all part of the Justinian or Gregorian calendars created by popes) with new names based on nature and the cycle of the harvest. Long story short, they strove to create a civic space that was entirely free from any religious influence or even presence.

This period, though obviously long-since renounced and regretted, seems to have left its stamp on the French version of the separation of church and state. The French still want their government institutions entirely religion-free. In the States, we (and by “we” I mean most Americans, plus or minus a President or two…) believe in the separation of Church and State as well, but by that we usually mean we don’t want the government “playing favorites” among religions, or supporting any religion at the expense of the others. But we don’t usually insist that our government spaces be entirely clear of religious expressions by individuals. (Government religious expressions that most Americans, for better or for worse, take for granted—like “In God We Trust” on currency, the “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, having prayers open sessions of Congress, having the President take his/her oath on a Bible, and having court witnesses swear on a Bible—would and do baffle the French.)

An example of the contrast: for a decade, France has been undergoing a very public debate about whether Muslim girls can wear headscarves to school. The vast majority of French people say no, the public schools are religion-free spaces, and bold brandishments of faith have no place there. In America, on the contrary, the separation of church and state would likely prevent a teacher from wearing an “I [heart] Jesus” t-shirt (since this could be interpreted as a governmental endorsement of a particular religion), but a student could likely wear such a shirt with no problem.

Interestingly, rules are made to be broken, and in France, for centuries, the “home team” has been Catholic, so guess which way the exceptions break. So, while French school rules now ban “ostentatious” religious garb, more modest symbols (such as cross pendants on necklaces, or sometimes yarmulkes, are permitted). In other words, if the minimum physical manifestation of your faith happens to be something tiny, you can wear your faith on your sleeve, but if it’s larger, say, a headscarf, you are out of luck. [I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Patrick Weil, the professor I’m working with this year, served on the President’s headscarf committee, and supported the no-scarf policy, saying that many girls were forced under threat of violence by male family members to wear it, and that the public schools were the only “bite of the apple” that the French government got to teach these girls democratic principals, and the only chance the girls got to escape repressive conditions and improve their fate.]

Another coincidental convenience and church/state exemption for France’s majority Catholics: most French school cafeterias do not serve meat on Fridays, but there’s always plenty of tasty pork products. Kosher food is generally available on request, but again, it must be requested, while Catholic-friendly grub is the default for all students. Many French schools have half-days on Wednesdays and on Saturdays, remnants of former Catholic school carve-outs, but the Saturday school days are obviously difficult for orthodox Jewish students. Also, a look at the school calendar (and the general government holiday schedule) shows that it lives at the rhythm of the Catholic Church, with holidays for Easter Monday, Ascension, Pentecost, Assumption, and All Saint’s Day. A final loophole in the French separation of church and state, more charming than harming, is the fact that virtually all French weather forecasts list what saint day tomorrow will be.

Of course, our own separation of church and state can have its excesses. Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, a group I normally support, has sued the US government to stop it from using federal funds to rehabilitate deteriorating Spanish Catholic missions in California. I understand these are churches, but they’re historical and architectural treasures first. I’ve seen signs in Paris listing the City of Paris as one of the funders for the renovation of some ancient churches, and as long as this support extends to significant places of worship for other faiths, and funds their architecture and not their worship programs, I think this is a reasonable expense.

EQUALITY
Another key shared principle between our countries is equality. The French list it second only to liberty in their national motto “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité,” and clearly we’re all familiar with America’s somewhat tortured respect for the principle (The Declaration of Independence’s “All men are created equal” both proves our love of the principle and pointed out the galling gaps in our equality spectrum.)

Again, France and the U.S. share this key principle but differ sharply on how to make it a reality. In the U.S., we see equality as a future goal which can be accelerated through pro-active means such as affirmative action. In France, they feel that the only way to achieve equality is to create institutions that treat everyone equally, immediately. As a result, minorities basically don’t exist in France. Their census is entirely free of “race” questions, and most surveys are forbidden by law from including racial questions. All students nationwide are given the exact same tests, and, in a meritocratic manner, may the best (wo)man win. “We are all French, there are no minorities” is the almost painfully noble and optimistic principle.

Of course, by not collecting statistics by race, painful realities all too familiar to Americans can safely remain in the realm of ignorance or at least unproven speculation in France. The U.S. knows that there are still disproportionately high levels of poverty, illiteracy, alcoholism, health problems, unemployment, exposure to crime, participation in crime, and other sad scourges in many of our minority populations, not to mention the ongoing discrimination they face. Interestingly, because these statistics (sad though they may be) exist in the U.S., they are frequently used against us by French intellectuals who decry a persistent racism in America. France has no statistics, no minorities, and no problems like these—that’s the implied result.

I am moved by the idealism of the “we are all French” mentality, but the weaknesses of the principle were proven by an exercise I’d do with my students back when I was a language assistant in a French high school back in 1994-1995. I would ask “Name a famous French minority person who is not an athlete or a musician.” The students would then either name an athlete or musician (before remembering my rules), or, after reflection, would name a semi-obscure famous person, such as a deputy cabinet secretary or the anchorman on the 1PM news on the second-place, government-run TV station. I would then trot out the contrasting list for the U.S. (here’s an updated 2007 list: Condi, Colin Powell, Oprah, Barack Obama, Bill Cosby, Denzel Washington, etc.—literally, the headliners of the nation). In other words, the short term results of the “to make an omelet you have to break some eggs, wear your guilty feelings on your sleeve, make people less equal in the short term to make them more equal down the road” strategy practiced in the U.S. seems to have borne some fruit.

[The French would argue that there have been African Americans in America for several centuries, almost as long as Caucasians, therefore, they have had more time than the much more recent African and North African immigrants to France to integrate themselves into majority life. That is to say, one would expect African Americans to have done better in the US than North Africans in France, because of the historical head start African Americans enjoy. A better American point of comparison to France's North African immigrants might be Latinos, historically more recently arrived, where the US has had success but fewer “headliners” fame-wise.]

Recently, skirting the edges of the law banning racial surveys, an organization of black French people (there’s no PC term for black in French, there’s no “African American” equivalent) and two media outlets conducted a survey to determine the size of the French black population. Interestingly, the news of the survey results (4% of the French are black, and over half reported suffering from discrimination in their daily lives) was quickly overcome by the backlash to the survey’s mere existence. On the lips of virtually all of its critics was one word: “communautairisme,” a word meant to describe the American reality, where people are seen as breaking into separate and divisive identity groups. Long story short—the realities of the survey were lost in the furor over whether it ever should have been conducted in the first place.

There are clearly flaws in both models. The “race-blind” French system of “concours,” or mega-tests, to determine advancement in the educational system and into the most renowned institutions of higher learning is of course 100 percent egalitarian, but clearly rich, white students who live in neighborhoods with the best schools and have parents that have already passed similar tests a generation earlier have a “greater than equal” chance of succeeding at these challenges than poor minority immigrants in neighborhoods with shoddy schools and who may be the only generation to receive formal schooling in the first place.

But is the American model, where, in some cases (the number of which you will over- or under-estimate, depending on your views of affirmative action) less qualified minority students are admitted to universities over better qualified majority individuals, hence reinforcing their differences and perhaps stoking inter-groups resentment, better? To me, the “results” piece I mentioned above is determinant, but then again, there are no provable French results (see above), so it’s hard to say.

STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO OF THIS TREATISE IN A COUPLE OF DAYS. Will Lassie save Timmy from the well? Will the General Lee actually clear the lake it was trying to jump over? Stay tuned...

Daily Bread

As a good Catholic, I have always felt that “Daily Bread” was not just an important phrase in the Our Father. Rather, I think that if Jesus thought the phrase important enough to put into the prayer he told people to pray, than I should take this part of the Bible literally. So, I love a bit of bread each day and Paris is the perfect place to take an adoration and make it into a near religious quest.

Josh and I have been on our own personal Quest for the Holy Grail—aka The Quest for the Perfect Baguette, or lacking that, at least a baguette we can clearly agree on. Few things will bring tension to a dinner table faster in France than a baguette.

This is a bit more complicated than it may seem. There are just so many choices! In our immediate neighborhood, there are at least eight bakeries and that doesn’t count the others that are a mere stones throw away. Frankly, if any one of these bakeries were in Washington, I would walk miles to them and would be happy with the least of the lot, but here, I do not have to settle.

NOTE: Its worth mentioning my other small obsession here. I have been reading two books about Julia Child. While one book should be enough on most topics, I have read two back to back, because Julia was a bit of a crazy American, who came to France in her 30’s with her Francophile husband, and fell in love with the food. I love how in each chapter she describes entire meals, including exactly what wine she had. Now, that is a role model I can take seriously. Julia also loved French bread—so much so that in her second cookbook, there is a reliable French bread recipe.

Anyways, the first few days, we were happy with all bread, because it really is all better than what we can get back home. I found myself wondering, “How can my country put a man on the moon, but not be able to make a reliably good loaf of bread?”

But then, the squabbles began. Josh likes the outside of the bread best and prefers that it not be too brown. He feels the inside of the bread is mostly irrelevant and breaks his bread into small “outside” pieces.

I think that the mark of a good bread is as much the “inside” as the “outside”. I like big irregular bubbles inside the bread. I also like the outside crispy and more “done” than Josh.

So we began to compare. Josh generally is in charge of buying the bread—he picks it up on his way home and in the interest of science, he would bring different baguettes most days. We only buy a demi-baguette, not that we wouldn’t eat an entire baguette, but this is as much of a nod to Adkins as I can muster.

He bought one from the Middle Eastern Baker (I liked that one, he thought it was ok), he bought one from the baker at the end of our block (he liked that, I thought it was too puffy on the inside), I bought one from the Artesian baker on the other side of Arago (I liked it a lot, he said it tasted like a pretzel—which I guess is bad), I got one from the baker enroute to the internet café (I thought it was entirely forgetful, so I had it for lunch and didn’t even enter it into the competition). Josh claimed Leigh liked a boulangerie on rue Mouffetard (which is what the word for bread maker is here) and got one from there (he liked it; I thought it was puffy and couldn’t believe that was the one Leigh was talking about). We tried to get one from the Asian baker, but they never seemed to be open and as it turns out they are a “patisserie”—which makes baked goods, but not bread.

I was starting to think that one of us would always be at least 25% unhappy with our bread options. BUT, then, a miracle! We think we found at least a temporary solution. There is a baker that is three doors down from the other baker on rue Mouffetard and this baguette was something different.

It was a bit more expensive—0.70 for a demi-baguette, rather than 0.40, which is typical elsewhere, but it had bubbles on the inside and crispy, but not too crispy outside.

I was in love and Josh was at least in like (he says the white flour on the outside makes a mess, but otherwise seems to agree that it is a good baguette). I’m sure this is the bakery that Leigh was talking about and I can tell you that it is the bread we now have most nights here.

Josh also suggested that this was an entirely different product and this was country bread, not just a baguette. I’m not sure about that, but all I know is that it was what they gave me when I asked in my halting French for a demi-baguette.

So, the Gibson family boulangerie of choice is at least named for now. It’s a cute little stand and they also have a great little bread with cheese in it (now we’re talking!)

Maybe next week I’ll be brave enough to go there and ask for something besides the baguette (though I will have to learn more vocabulary first). But for now, je voudrais une demi-baguette s’il vous plait.

sPg

Frenchlish

“So there I was, dressed in black. The tension was palpable. The man on the radio kept trying to tell me what which wire to cut to defuse the bomb, but his words sounded exactly alike to me. O-dessoo, o dessooo sound exactly alike to my untrained ear, but I knew one meant over and one meant under. This wasn’t looking good.”

The good news is that this didn’t really happen, but this was the scene in my head as we attempted to learn and understand the subtle differences in pronunciation between “over” (au dessus) and “under” (au dessous).

I am prone to this kind of Ally McBeal Moment”, which are those times when I have a whole scene play out in my head, with only a small link to what is actually happening. I actually did giggle in class as I pictured the trouble I could imagine if I couldn’t grasp this French language nuance and as I wondered, are there many other things as humbling as learning a language as an adult?


The Lanugage

I just finished my “French Boot Camp”—two weeks of four hour a day French lessons and I absolutely think that taking the class was one of the best decisions we’ve made so far.

I was a bit sad, to be honest, in leaving the class yesterday because I really learned a lot. Though I had studied in the States, I was almost entirely mute beyond “Oui”. And, in two weeks of lessons, I went from a near total lack of French, to at least the vocabulary of a toddler. Now, that’s progress if you ask me.

I now can explain: what my name is, what my husband’s name is, where I am from, how old I am, where I live, what my phone number is, what my address is, what I like, what I don’t like and I can even ask some important questions like “where is the bathroom” and “how much does that cost”.

With my new found knowledge, Josh has even considered removing the bi-lingual “Please return me to 75, rue Broca” note I have pinned to my jacket. [and no, I don’t actually have a note like this]


The Class

And aside from the French, I really enjoyed my classmates and I think that was the icing on the cake. There were 16 of us ranging in age from 16 to 42 and from countries as far and wide as Indonesia, Iran, Macedonia, Canada, Turkey and South Africa. I was one of only two Americans (and she is from the South, so maybe we aren’t even from the same country—sorry Carey.).

I also learned a lot about these people in a short period of time. It’s a natural side effect of the verbs we were learning. When “I am” and “I have” and “I speak” and “I love” and “I detest” are some of the only phrases you know, you get right to the good stuff fast.

The one Chinese student smoked, but she loved the clarinet. The 16 year old Brazilian had a (gasp) 22 year old boyfriend named Patrick. The South African guy, who moved here for his fiancée, trains horses and has chickens and goats back in South Africa. The Iranian doctor hopes her son is a doctor one day too. The charming and funny Canadian woman learned that pharmacies had to let you use the bathroom if you say you are pregnant and the Korean student with funky red glasses only watches television on Sunday.

Learning what languages everyone spoke was particularly interesting and made me wonder why on earth we wait until high school to learn other languages in the States. My sentence was humble: Je parle anglais. I didn’t even claim Spanish on the chance that this was the only language I might have in common with someone. My classmates spoke at least two of the following languages: Russian, Persian, Zulu, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, Macedonian, Arabic, German, Korean, Czech, and English—which everyone spoke and it was the unofficial language of the classroom. I calmed myself the first few days by thinking, “Well, they may be able to speak a LOT more languages than I can, but they don’t speak French yet, so at least we are in the same boat on that front.”

I also have a renewed appreciation for “being in the same boat”. We all laughed with and kindly (at) our own mistakes. The Turkish journalist had a great French accent and helped me learn a specific form of question. The Macedonian math professor had trouble with remembering his numbers, which made us all feel better. The other Chinese girl would just freeze sometimes when the teacher asked her a question and start giggling because she had no idea what the question or the answer was.

Our teachers was a 35 year old woman originally from a small town about an hour from Paris. She really did a great job (which is why I am continuing to study with her). She seemed to know exactly when to make us say it in French and when an occasional English question was ok.

Josh said that the “recognized term” for a combination of French and English is Franglais, but I think that term applies to those lucky ones who actually claim to speak some French. I think for now, I am really speaking Frenchlish---my own crazy, mixed up, basic marriage of two languages: one I know and one I hope that I can crack (at least a little) in the next year.

sPg

Here is another set of “vignettes” from recent days in Paris (a reminder: “vignettes” is French for “I’m giving you bullet points and you’ll like it, tiresome American capitalist pig dogs!”)

1.) Anyone who knows anything about my love of Paris knows that my #1 fave is Berthillon, the world’s best ice cream. (Note: I mean ice cream in its purest form, perfect embodiments of the represented flavor in smooth frozen form. I love enormous American scoops of Ben and Jerry’s at least as much as the next guy, but when you taste a tiny jewel of a scoop of pure Berthillon perfection, it will give you pause the next time you indulge in Fat Ass Fudge, or whatever the latest Ben and Jerry’s concoction may be.)

[Josh, you ask, I thought these were supposed to be pithy vignettes. That monumental last parenthetical reference was hardly haiku. To which I respond:
Paris greets winter
Chill chases chaque chic chez soi.
Who let the dogs out?!? ]

Anyhoo, like I was saying, Berthillon rocks. And, in a breaking scoop (har har har) that you’ll only get from “His and Hers Parigi,” I think I have a new favorite flavor: Caramel au Beurre Sale (Caramel [made] with Salted Butter). Holy frigging crap this stuff is good! It gives you a touch of that salty-but-sweet tingle that you get from trail mix with chocolate chips, or a Reese’s Cup. How good is it? It’s so good, it cured my goiter. OK, so I didn’t have a goiter. The Caramel au Beurre Sale is so good it gave me a goiter, then instantly cured it (it’s whimsical, cute-but-dangerous, in that Gavroche-on-the-barricades kind of way). It’s so good, it made me forget the name of whosit, that woman I moved here with. Sally, or something…

Seriously, it’s good stuff that makes me happy. But I don’t remember ever seeing it before, and on the flavor “menus” posted outside the shops it’s written in magic marker instead of being professionally printed, so maybe it’s only here for a limited time. So you’d better visit soon!

2.) So, like I was saying, vignettes. One of my favorite “cheap entertainment” options in Paris is to get the weekly “Pariscope” magazine and scan it for the many free concerts held in Paris each week. They’re usually held in interesting spaces like neighborhood churches, so between the space and the music, you’re relatively certain to get your lack of money’s worth. Last week, we caught a Russian pianist playing in a Swedish church, speaking in French about the German composer’s music he was playing. If nothing else, this sounds like a solution to the Clue game (Colonel Mustard, in the Conservatory, with a Lead Pipe). Another piece played by the Russian, with lovely vocal work by a Swedish music student, consisted of selected poems by French poet Paul Verlaine set to music by Gabriel Faure. In a Paris-small-world coincidence, I was able to remind Sara that Verlaine was the person whose “famous guy lived here” plaque we’d seen a couple of days earlier at the top of the Mouffe, our market street. So, we’re practically neighbors. In another coincidence, Hemingway lived in the same building as Verlaine, though decades later. Depending on your perspective, Hemingway is either the George Washington or the Paris Hilton of Paris—virtually every building in the Latin Quarter seems to boast that he slept there.

3.) Help me solve a mystery. Each night Sara brings to bed earplugs, to wisely protect against by rumored-but-never-proven snoring problem. But she always brings three. What’s the use of Sara’s Third Earplug? (which, as Dave Barry would say, is a great band name)

4.) Sara and I saw a Humvee on the street the other day. Given the bite-size nature of French vehicles (I’ve seen American chicken nuggets bigger than the cars here), our first thought was: uh oh, the invasion has started…

5.) As indicated in another blog entry, my office is located in the city’s principal Jewish neighborhood. As such, there are several Israeli-style falafel stands in the neighborhood, and I’ve been trying each out on my workdays. The best known, L’As du Falafel, I have seen referred to not once but twice in print as “Leni Kravitz’s favorite falafel shop.” Color me nutty, but despite the Jewish-sounding name, isn’t listing something as “Lenny Kravitz’s favorite falafel shop” a bit like saying it’s “Kim Jong-Il’s favorite taco stand” or “Antonio Banderas’ favorite eggroll”? [A quick update/correction: after I wrote this, but prior to publication, a web search revealed to me that Lenny Kravitz is actually half-Jewish. So, an endorsement of his favorite falafel would instead be like bragging about "Tiger Woods' favorite Pad Thai. The Editors apologize for the error.)

6.) It makes me crazy, but there are now at least three Subway restaurants and seemingly a couple dozen Starbucks in Paris. These are fairly new, and join the several KFCs and several dozen McDonald’s that have been here for years. I have no bone to pick (har har har) with KFC, or with McDonald’s, but I do with Subway and Starbucks. Why? You can debate the merits, but KFC and McDonalds bring something to Paris that wasn’t here before: fried chicken and hamburgers, and both fast and relatively cheap at that. But what do Subway and Starbucks provide that the French didn’t have already? The French don’t need Jared’s savvy weight loss advice, and to paraphrase Dennis Miller, they also don’t need a coffee so big you can dock a Jet-Ski in it. Paris already provides what could be argued are the world’s best cold cut sandwiches and coffee. I’d much rather see French-style bakeries and cafes in the US than Subway and Starbucks here. There, I’ll get off my soapbox now.

The Priest France Loved

Have you ever noticed how few things actually stop us in our tracks? And have you ever then noticed what stops us isn’t at all what we think it will be?

I fancy myself a reasonably worldly woman who has seen enough to be only nominally surprised by everything. While about 100 times a day since arriving in Paris I have been shocked and delighted (and that only speaks to my reaction in the cheese aisle at the local Franprix), I have actually found myself stopped in my tracks twice each day this week—because of a priest named Abbe Pierre—a man I had never even heard of until Monday.

The Priest
Josh told me before I headed off to my first class that my walk should be a bit more interesting because “Abbe Pierre”died that morning" at the hospital I pass enroute to class.

Josh then went onto explain that this Capuchin Priest who was essentially “the French Mother Teresa” was the most popular person in France (and he meant that literally: there is a poll taken each year and Abbe Pierre won for 17 of 20 years years. He probably would have continued winning, but took himself out of contention to “let the young people have a chance”).

And Abbe Pierre had been a decorated Resistance fighter during WWII (the ultimate symbol of “a good person” in France) and he had spent the last 50+ years serving the homeless, founding an international organization call Emmaus that serves the poor.

This was clearly a good man, but I didn’t expect to be moved the way that I was, and maybe still am.

The first afternoon I passed the hospital and there were many news vans and the beginning of a small makeshift memorial. By the time I returned home that evening, the news vans were joined by more reporters and the make-shift memorial had grown even larger.

I stopped on the way to class that first day mostly out of obligation. It seemed to me that people who do good things should get my attention. I stopped on the way home, and each subsequent time this week, because there is something truly powerful about this vigil.

There was a sleeping bag with a flower in the top, there were many small candles burning, there were roses and potted plants—but more than that, there were always people. Even I could make out that every newspaper wrote all week about the loss of this national hero.

I was learning about the French by watching how they grieve the loss of a beloved figure. I also didn’t have any similar experiences from the States, so this type of grieving seemed new to me.

I asked Josh if he felt anyone in America captured so many people’s hearts and would have a funeral like this—we were slightly embarrassed to say the only person we could come up with was Oprah. Any modern president would be too controversial, and undisputed greatness is rare.

The funeral was at Notre Dame today, which seemed in stark contrast to the little I knew about this man. 3,000 people were inside the cathedral, thousands more were outside of every imaginable walk of life. I suppose Notre Dame seems like the only appropriate place to honor a man so beloved by a nation.

It is interesting though that the national funeral would be so obviously Catholic with the president of France sitting in the front row in a country that prides itself on separation of Church and state

But the more I’ve learned about Abbe Pierre, the more fascinating he becomes and the more interesting the national grief seems. He was undoubtedly a very good man who served France during the war and the poor, but he was also flawed and anti-establishment. He advocated for married and women priests, he admitted to breaking his vow of celibacy, he used the media to advance his causes, he accidentally created controversy when he supported a friend who wrote a Holocaust revisionist book.

Yet here he was, being honored by France’s greatest living people, in one of France’s grandest cathedrals.

France adored this man. In his life he seemed to have embodied France’s proudest values and his shortcomings seemed to mirror those that the French have been accused of throughout history, making it impossible for anyone to hold his faults against him.

And for me, a newly arrived visitor to France, this man showed me a side of this country I feel lucky to have seen so early in my stay. I didn’t need to see this side of France to begin to understand what a complex country we have chosen to live in for a short while. But I come away learning more from the simple vigil outside the hospital than any world history class ever taught me about France and its people.

sPg

For more about Abbe Pierre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbe_Pierre

It Hit...

In the frenzied final days before our departure, people would ask us if the fact that we were moving to Paris for the year had “hit us” yet. My response was that, like the days and weeks leading up to the wedding, we were so close to the individual trees that the forest was lost on us (or we were each like the group of blind people who each knew about the one part of the animal they found, but had no clue to what the whole elephant was like…you pick which metaphor/simile serves you best). Long story short, we were so caught up the micro-level steps necessary to leave our two jobs, our apartment, and all our personal relationships behind, it was difficult to focus on the fantastic fun and opportunity that awaited us. Like with the wedding, “it” would only “hit” post-facto…

Well, on Monday, “it” finally did hit me...and at the strangest moment(s). I started work on Monday, which meant I had to find my way from our apartment in the 13th Arrondissement to my office in the city’s primary Jewish (and more recently, gay) neighborhood. Gritty and trendy urbanite that I am, I bundled myself in my overcoat, popped my iPod earbuds in my ears, and set out on foot for my destination.

Commutes generally don’t have the best reputation, but it was while I walked to work that morning (and home that night) that the enormity of our Paris year finally hit me. It hit me as I walked by our neighborhood’s unassuming St. Medard church, for which ground was broken in 1450, and whose “most recent” portions still outdate our country by well over a hundred years. It hit me as I walked by the community marketplace whose selection, quality, and prices would put Whole Foods to shame. It hit me as I stopped for a quick coffee, and realized that the $1.50 espresso at any of thousands of corner Parisian cafes easily outdoes many of the best coffees available in America. It hit me as I crossed the Seine, and the sorrowful warblings of a solitary bagpiper, alone with his thoughts down on the quai, lifted up to my ears. I suddenly felt a deep and grateful appreciation for the opportunity that has been presented to Sara and myself.

Before you start worrying that I’m getting all deep and reflective, rest assured that “it” hit me in a much more whimsical way during the evening commute. Walking back along the Seine, as the rear portion of Notre Dame Cathedral came into view and the 2000-era twinkling lights on the Eiffel Tower began their hourly sparkle, what did I hear on my iPod but some church-style organ music followed by a guitar going “junk-a-junk-a-junk-junk-junk, junk-a-junk-a-junk-junk-junk.”

With the concordance of the happy sights and sounds surrounding me, I tucked my hands in my pockets, walked quickly and in time with the music (help me out, what music video am I thinking of, with the guy walking purposefully along as the backgrounds behind him keep changing?), and broke out into a shit-eating grin the size of a Mercury Sable. I didn’t walk home, I damn near floated.

You gotta have Faith…

Clothespins and French Lessons

Do we ever really discover new ground or do we simply return to old ground with new eyes?

As I hung laundry in our small little apartment, I found my thoughts momentarily drifting to my childhood backyard. As a child, I watched my mother hang clothes from a line, and I was surprised (and slightly disbelieving) to find myself doing the same activity 20 years later.

At the end of the day, a 350 square feet apartment in the 13th arrondissement in Paris couldn’t be farther from acres of land in Northwest Indiana, yet here I was, hanging laundry—the exact same activity, regardless of the location of the clothesline.

In those childhood days of hanging laundry, I remember these large sticks, fashioned by my father, which seemed unwieldy but were designed to tighten the line. In my little Paris apartment, Josh traded large homemade poles for an elaborate system of stretching a single clothesline throughout our entire apartment. Our clothesline stretches past every door and window in our apartment, yet it only 20 meters long. Once again, the activity and necessity of tightening the clothesline is the same, regardless that we have a mere micro-acre.

[I could offer reflections on baby bottles, given that Josh and I found ourselves at a curious, but entertaining, fondue restaurant last night where wine was served in bottles—baby bottles. It seems, however, that I really don’t have any memory of “the last time I drank from a baby bottle,” so letting this one go makes sense.]

I didn’t have to drift back to my childhood to find myself retreading familiar ground once again. My first French lesson in France is tomorrow and imagine my surprise when I learned that the books that I will be using are the same ones that I used for my brief (and only mildly successful) classes in Washington, D.C. It seems that I will get to return to the same books that made me crazy in Washington, but with a new level of commitment… and urgency.

Before when I turned the exact same pages, I felt like a hobbyist at best and French seemed like a code word for “interesting adventure”. Now, as I look over these pages, they seem like keys to the kingdom. If I can actually learn the difference between avoir and etre, then maybe I have a chance at communicating with that corner vendor on the Rue Mouffetard who has beautiful greens or the butcher across the way who has the perfect chicken or the grocery store clerk on Rue Broca who is asking me if I need bags for my grocery.

To be honest, my expectations are fairly low. I don’t expect to be able to fully participate in French conversation, even by year’s end, given that the French take their conversation as seriously as they take their coffee or their baguette, but I do hope to at least consider myself a passive participant in time.

Finally, I find myself returning to a dinner table with new eyes. In life, I’ve been fortunate to rarely lack a place to share Sunday dinner and this was one thing I thought for sure would be absent for the foreseeable future.

But, in this new chapter, I have a whole new appreciation for the daily routine, which now gives me the chance to sit with Josh each night, at our table. In our lives before, there seemed to be endless good reasons why we found the dinner table only a few times a week at best. Now, our dinner table, with a short glass of wine, is the touchstone of our days.

I also have found myself extremely grateful for the invitations to join others at their tables in this time of new beginning in Paris. Iris, Sue and Beth (and their families) graciously invited us to share a meal, a tart or a snack with them in our first weeks here. But more than just offering delightful culinary treats, they truly opened their homes. We left each home having full of tips on life in Paris (including French telecom tricks, possible job leads and where to buy toaster ovens). We also left each home with a bag full of goodies ranging from extremely helpful books on how to live in Paris, to the ready made tart crust—which is the French woman’s secret to good tarts, to a borrowed pot and extra butter. At these tables, at a time when we are still figuring out what community is even possible, I felt lucky enough to feel comfortable, even for a moment.

So maybe I won’t spend all year re-seeing my old life through new eyes, but for now, seeing the new in the old or the old in the new makes Paris feel like another place that I could begin to imagine as another one of my homes.

sPg

Mixed thoughts...

For today’s blog posting, I will offer a few “vignettes” (“vignette” is French for “I don’t have the patience or the discipline to assemble my thoughts and anecdotes under one unified theme.”)

- First, the photos from our first week are now ready for viewing at http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=536201169300768187/l=239907225/g=14513899/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB Not a lot of winners, but something for folks who like “people pictures” as well as those seeking the more artsy…

- Second, a follow-up on Sara’s most recent blog entry. It’s true that she has a keen eye for spotting and recovering from the kind of “Q and A” differences she has discussed. But she slipped up on one—you could say it was a “Q and A” on TP. On the early solo grocery shopping trip that Sara’s already detailed, she secured toilet paper and stashed the still-wrapped four-pack in the toilet-side cabinet. A couple of days later, gales of hysterical laughter unexpectedly poured forth from our bathroom. Moments later, Sara stumbled out, tears rolling down her face, with a roll of paper towels in her hand. Turns out that a two-pack of paper towels looks an awful lot like a four-pack of toilet paper. To give Sara the benefit of the doubt, maybe she somehow knew and was confused by the French words for “paper towel”--“essuie-tout”—which literally means “wipe everything.” Well, almost everything…

- Another odd example of a “Q and A” situation: on French calendars, the week starts on Monday and ends on Sunday. It’s much more intuitive this way, and demonstrates a better church/state separation that we do in the same realm. But then again, when American TV weather folks give the next day’s weather, they don’t say what Saint’s day it will be, like they do in France. It’s always interesting to see how our two quite similar countries have totally different takes on the same national guiding principles.

- Maybe it’s because we’ve been together nearly 24/7 since we arrived in France, but Sara and I are taking on each others’ bad habits. Sara is now sleeping late (as late as noon), and I am now napping. Before you know it, Sara will have started biting her fingernails like me, and I’ll start sniffing glue like her!

- Another of Sara’s and my “resolutions” for our Paris year is to see more movies. We always enjoy going to the movies, but for some reason we only make it to a couple a year in DC. Fortunately, we’ll have more free time this year, and, with apologies to Hemingway, Paris is a “movie-able feast.” In terms of the number and diversity of films showing, and the sheer quantity of screens, Paris is second to none in this domain. But sadly, cinema led to one of Sara’s and my first disagreements of our Paris journey. She rightly thinks that Paris provides us with an opportunity to see all the great American movies that we missed during their first release in the US. But I think that we should take advantage of the unique opportunities available to us only here in Paris, so we should see movies from other English-speaking countries that never make it to the US, and/or vintage films that are being shown on the big screen here but that otherwise, in the US, we’d have to see on cable or DVD, if at all. An example of what I’m talking about: “The Freshman,” a 1925 silent movie starring Harold Lloyd, is showing currently in Paris and likely nowhere else. So, to settle our dispute we talked it out, and it goes without saying that Sara won and we ended up seeing the latest Scorsese movie, “The Departed.” (Another “Q and A” example: whenever possible, the French refer to a movie primarily by its director, whereas most Americans refer to its lead actor). To avoid future disagreements on movies, I think what we’ll likely do is follow the example of many other couples, and create a alternating selection process, with each spouse getting a veto-proof choice of every other movie to attend. So, given that Sara got her choice this time (admittedly an excellent film…), I think I may flex my selection power next time and choose a moody Latvian silent documentary on wood chips…

That’s it for today, everyone. Enjoy the day!

Josh

Q and A

Have you ever found yourself in a place that is just different enough that somehow it seems even more foreign than if everything around you was new? If everything is new and different then expectations are non-existent. But if only some things are new, expectations are harder to pin down.

This is my experience in Paris—I refer to it as the “Q and A” problem. Q/A does not refer to in shorthand as “Question and Answer”; rather it refers to the orientation of the French keyboard where the letters Q and A are switched and symbolizes those many little differences that remind me around every corner that I am in a foreign country. Most of the keys are the same, but about five to six are different—just enough difference to trip me up, but not so much as to make the whole venture out of reach.

A disclaimer seems necessary: I feel like I have the luxury of this perspective because Josh navigates so much of the French culture and language easily. This allows me the wonderful chance to only bite off what I want to chew.

Another Q/A experience for me was my first solo trip to the grocery store. I am looking to food and cooking as my window into this country. I proudly set out to the Fran Prix, a small, but dependable French chain of grocery stores, a half block down the street, fully confident that I could locate some basic goods and pay for them, without actually speaking to anyone. I haven’t spoken to anyone at the Columbia Road Safeway in years, so this didn’t seem like a tall order.

I picked up my cart and my troubles began nearly immediately in the produce section. I knew I wasn’t doing something right, but I just didn’t know what I wasn’t doing and there weren’t enough shoppers for me to spy on. So, I picked up my lemon, apple and lychees (another note: lychees are everywhere. I don’t particularly understand them as a concept, but Josh loves them, so they were on the shopping list).

I started down the vast yogurt aisle, turned left at the vast cheese aisle and continued on. I am particularly amazed at the yogurt selections—there must be 150 different types of yogurt (and yogurt-esque products, which are too numerous to detail here).

It took a few confused interactions to acquire salt. I couldn’t find bleach (but I did find ammonia). I gave up on pepper. I found the diet coke. I decided the sparkling water could wait. I forgot about the paper towels. Finally, it was time to check out.

I braced myself. Grocery store clerks (at least according to Josh) are notoriously grouchy. I unloaded the basket, softly said, “Bonjour madame” and hoped for the best.

The line behind me grew. She then asked me a question. My heart pounded, I shrugged. I smiled (despite the fact I knew smiling would get me nowhere) and hoped it wasn’t that important. She sighed slightly and pulled out bags (lesson #4—it is best to bring your own bags to the grocery store). I thought I had dodged a bullet and then it came time to ring up the produce.

As she picked up my lemon, she asked a question—or was it a statement? Regardless, I smiled again and she kept talking. I managed a feeble, “Je no parle pas francais”. She sighed again. The line kept getting longer. I was literally sweating. Then she got up and left, with my produce!

I clearly had to stand there, absorbing the glares that were probably entirely in my mind. I cursed myself for not paying better attention in French class.

But what I thought was going to be a story of “How the French clerk made Sara Cry on Day 4” actually turned into the story of “How the French clerk took pity on Sara and Helped Her” The clerk returned a short lifetime later, with stickers attached to my produce, rang them up, announced my total and I was on my way. Lesson #5—there is a scale in the produce section that you use to weigh and print out a price tag for each item.

I then bagged up my groceries and left, with a bit of a zip to my step.

Maybe I never thought a trip to a grocery store would feel like a significant accomplishment, but maybe this is exactly the type of reminder I need about the importance of accomplishments of all sizes. I know there aren’t medals for every day moments like these, but maybe there should be and I know that I enjoyed the best apple of my life today at lunch and I even know how to buy another one—all by myself.


sPg

Picture Perfect: New Year's Resolution

I think this year, I may actually keep one of my New Year's Resolutions!

One of the goals of this year in Paris for Sara and me is to actually make time for those things that we give short shrift to in our normal rat-race lifestyle. [True story: for Sara, one of these resolutions is "get more sleep." This from the woman that makes Rip Van Winkle look like an insomniac Paris Hilton.]

So, my resolution is to take more pictures, and in general to take my amateur photography hobby more seriously.

To get a jump start, a pre-departure goal of mine was to go through all of my past photos and to compile a "portfolio" of sorts. You can check it out at:

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=76231167894379762/l=239668912/g=14513899/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Please let me know what you think in general, or which photos are your favorites.

Going into "The Paris Year," my intention is to hang my camera (a small point-and-shoot digital...I prefer this to lugging a Leica) by the front door of our apartment, so I can grab it each time I walk out the door, and never be without it.

Watch this space for ongoing evidence of my photographic expoits. (And, to be fair to Sara, I know one of her goals is to write more, so stay tuned to her blog posts and possibly other writings here.)

This I Believe: France

Many of you who are reading this post will likely know I'm a big NPR (National Public Radio) fan. I turned to NPR just after 9-11-2001, when I found TV news to be disappointing. Add to my 2001-era apprecation the fact that, since the fall of 2004, I've been working from home with NPR playing constantly in the background, and you'll understand how big of a fan I am.

If you've listened to NPR recently, you'll know that they have revived the Edward R. Murrow-originated radio staple "This I Believe." According to their website (www.thisibelieve.org), "This I Believe is a national media project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values and beliefs that guide their daily lives."

Well, one day, in the shower, the essay I'm including below sprung more or less fully formed into my head. On the way back from Chesterton after visiting Sara's family, I put pen to paper and jotted it down. I've now submitted it to NPR, though I'm not holding my breath. But for you, beloved family and friends, a preview of "This I Believe: France."


I believe in France. In America, this is no small ordeal. Apparently, despite the PC world we live in, the French join the Rednecks (a la comic Jeff Foxworthy) as the only demographic it’s always safe, acceptable, even encouraged to insult. If you ever visited the Germany Pavilion at Epcot Center and immediately issued a unilateral surrender, you may be a Frenchman. If you use your cheese knife more than you use your bath towel, you may be a Frenchman. If you have ever ridden a bicycle carrying bread under your arm, you may be a Frenchman. The Simpsons didn’t refer to the French as cheese-eating surrender monkeys for nothing.

Yet, I persist in believing in France. I believe in French innovation. At worst, France is a lovable loser. The French co-invented the World Wide Web, and had internet-ready computer-like terminals available to every home as early as 1982. But they failed to seize on its commercial potential, and used it primarily as an online phonebook and porn venue. Americans took the internet ball and ran with it, and now the French are left trying to safeguard their language from terms like “le web” and “le podcast.”

I believe in French historical perspective. History has a different meaning for the French. In the US, a 1970s-era collectible Star Wars glass from Burger King is a low-grade antique, and a Buck Rogers lunchbox is an heirloom. The French are on a totally different timetable than we are. I once asked a Frenchman how his countrymen could be on such good terms with the Germans, even co-leading efforts to European unification with them, despite being invaded and frankly humiliated by them twice in the past one hundred years. The Frenchman shrugged (of course) and responded that France had been at war with England for almost one thousand years… “now that’s a real rivalry!”

I believe in the intersection between French innovation and history. If a Parisian ever loses his ruler or meter stick, she needs only visit a couple of convenient locations in Paris where sample meters were posted in 1793, during the Revolution-era invention of the meter. (The French invented the meter! That’s like being Steve Gallon or Peter Inch or something!) Just hold a piece of string up to the wall-mounted scale, snip at the meter line, and you’re ready to measure. It bears explicitly stating that the sample meter, and the building where the sample meter is posted, are roughly the same age as our nation.

There is much we could learn from France. I believe in the admirable French work/life balance. When a store has a sign in the window bragging “service continue” or “continuous service,” they don’t mean that the store is open 24/7, only that they don’t close down the shop at lunchtime. Now that’s sacrifice!

I believe in the French health care system. American pharmacists can sometime make just getting a prescription filled seem like a terrible ordeal. On the other hand, not only do French pharmacists dispense loads of free and useful medical advice, they are also trained to separate edible mushrooms from poisonous ones. So, happy gathering!

I may not believe in French hypocrisy, but I am at least bemused by it. The French believe strongly in the separation of church and state. Yet, holy days such as the Assumption and All Saints’ Day remain national holidays, and French schools frequently still do not serve meat on Fridays.

I believe in French ideals, though not always their repercussions. The French admirably feel that all their citizens are simply equal Frenchmen, so they gather no racial census data. This hopeful but idealistic strategy creates a statistical “One France,” but masks huge racial disparities in education, unemployment, and the like.

I believe in French urban benevolent dictatorship. In Paris, the world’s greatest city, when it is clear that a project will be beloved post-facto by the people, pre-project opposition is blissfully ignored. When Paris’ gay Socialist mayor decided prior to the summer of 2002 that what sulky, city-stranded Parisians needed was their very own beach, he acted with ruthless benevolent efficiency. He had two thousand tons of sand dumped on Paris’ Seine-side expressways, moored floating swimming pools to the river’s banks, planted palm trees, brought in ice cream shacks and chair rental cabanas, and declared four weeks of “Paris Plage,” or “Paris Beach.” Despite taking a key rush hour commuter route out of operation for a month, the project was an instant and massive popular success. If we tried this in America, we would still be at the environmental impact phase, and the Triple A would be holding weekly protest news conferences.

I believe in France. Given some of what we see today in “New America,” there are certainly days when “Old Europe,” and France in particular, doesn’t seem so bad.

Shadowlands and Packing

Shadowlands and Packing

[all names are avoided in this post to protect the identity of my contact, who went above and beyond the call of duty]

I arrived in an unmarked car with Oregon plates. Two coded phone calls were exchanged. There was a wave through a window. A third party came to the car and said, "She's up the street".

I pulled out slowly to make sure I wasn't spotted by anyone inside. Meeting several blocks up, the woman looked around and joined me in my car. She kept looking around and I turned off the headlights. There was no reason to think we would be caught, but the stakes were high. If we failed, I would have gray hair.

This undercover operation, code named "Colorsafe" was all in the pursuit of hair color--one of the few things I've decided I just can't risk not packing.

Packing is a curious activity. Deciding what you can't live without and making sure it will fit in two suitcases is an interesting process. What do I need? What do I want? What do I not want to have to worry about finding in my size, shape and color?

One thing that did make the short list is hair color. I can trust the French to provide shampoo, socks, shirts and even shoes, but there are some things that I don't think we are on the same page about like jeans and hair color. These are two things that I bringing from the Good Old US of A.

Off to continue packing.

sPg