Park Life

"le parc:" the park (but in French you do not say the "c" at the end so it really just sounds like "le par-"

I engaged in one of my favorite activities in Clermont this afternoon-lounging in the park right by my apartment, called Jardin Lecoq. On a 75 degree and sunny Sunday, what better pastime to rest, recover, and rejuvenate for the week (and from the weekend) than lying on a blanket in the grass.  I took my journal with me to record some of my observations:

Today, I chose to put my blanket down in a more public spot than usual, in order to engage in some quality people watching. With almost everything closed on Sundays in France, the park is quite a hot spot. You will see the occasional jogger here and there, but the principle activity here is idling. I see people, young & old strolling, couples hand-in-hand, or lying together in the grass. Public displays of affection are appropriate in France, especially in park settings. Children are running about, after balls, after each other, sometimes parents running after them.

The park soundtrack has a consistent buzz of happy cries and laughter of the kids running around, accompanied by the steady stream and trickling of the fountain in the pond, the gentle strumming of a duo playing guitars next to me, and the bits of various conversations you catch around you.

I had closed my eyes for a little while and opened them to realize a little dog lying not but a few feet from me. I quickly realized her owners were near by and she had just been looking for a sun napping buddy.

The couple to my right are laying in what I would consider a long-term comfort love position. She on her stomach perusing a magazine, he with his head resting on her back, together forming a "T." There's a younger couple up the hill a bit basking in the sun, she on her back, he on his side facing here, extremities gracing each other. Less PDA action here, or maybe it is just too hot in the sun to engage in full-on cuddling.

A new addition to my soundtrack turns on, that of the techno beat music emitting from a cell phone of two tweener girls sitting to my left, along with their carefree sing-a-long. What once was a boom box on the shoulder of hipsters is now a smart phone simply held in hand. The tweener girls, hipsters in their own right with over-sized sunglasses, tube tops, and jangling jewelry. Jingle-jangle with every movement.

Now another young couple approaches, and assume a more appropriate French position, her sitting in front of him in an embrace, cigarette in hand, he kissing her neck.

Two young boys run by, their little brother falling behind, not by lack of energy, only due to his shorter legs. How funny is it to watch little kids run? They don't even think about it, I imagine they just want to get somewhere fast so they just pick up their feet and go. With the toddlers, just learning how to make their body work, it's almost more like a wobbling motion to get from A to B.

The shade of the tree I am using to shield myself from the sun continues to creep back as the sun moves further west--must move blanket again to avoid melting. This brings me closer to the guitar strumming, only a few feet away and now has turned from a duo to a trio. Lucky spot I chose-no singing, no other raucous, just gentle strumming. Must be titled "Sunday afternoon tune," for it fits so well.

Nearer to the pond, I can now see all the kids who enjoy gathering around the water, chasing after pigeons or feeding the wading ducks and swans. Two guys to my left are lying side by side, jean cuffs rolled up and shirts pulled up to expose stomachs to the sun. Gay? I could not tell you. Perhaps a quite acceptable and normal activity for heterosexual males in France. My gay-dar can just be thrown out the window here where men kiss each other upon greeting, carry purses, and sometimes sport tighter clothing than I.

I dozed for a moment to be awoken by a little girl who stumbled upon my leg. Must have lost control when wobbling while running. ha. Not more than 15 minutes has passed, and there are whole new groups of people around me to be observed.

Park life.

To Market We Go

"marché:" Market
"legumes:" vegetables
"le boucher:" butcher
"la viande:" meat
"une pastèque:" watermelon
"melon de l'eau" honeydew melon (literally "melon of water"...confusing!)

There is a great market in Clermont-Ferrand called marché St. Pierre. It is an indoor market, open everyday (excluding Sundays), but on Saturday mornings there is more stuff and people. The last couple of Saturdays Kate and I have gone to the market to buy some good, fresh foods for the following week's meals, plus it is fun to go to the market and see what there is to see.

  I have never seen such a colorful array of fruits and vegetables. I do not know what they do over here but this market houses the most beautiful produce--I have never seen such red tomatoes, bright peppers, or such lovely displays of fresh produce! Anyone heard of purple or orange cauliflower? Even if you are not buying anything, it is fun to just wander around. The first couple of times, we didn't really know how to do it, though. For the fruits and vegetables, there are 3 big "stands" run by different people. The first time we tried to buy something, we were not sure if we should pick it out, where to wait in line, where to pay, etc., so we just stood there for awhile. Amateurs. Now that we have done it a couple times, it's a little better. Typically, you just kind of stand around the area where what you need is, try to make eye contact with the vendor, and be ready to order everything you want. One time I said a "head of lettuce" and the lady thought I said four lettuces so she went to find a big bag to put them in and it was awkward because I really only wanted just one. whoops.

Then there are the meats. Oh, the meats. I am not and likely never will be a vegetarian, so I do not usually have a problem with raw meat. However, I think I am used to a nicer presentation of it, you know, all ready for me to just cook. In France, you know what you're getting because oftentimes, it's all there. For example, poultry. The chickens are plucked but often come with head-on, full beak and all. eeks! There are rabbits in full form (no head, phew!). There are also really big slabs ready to be sliced by the butchers of many different kinds of raw, cured, or ground meat. (saw horse yesterday! "cheval"). The market also has an array of fresh fish, but I do not usually peruse that section too much. Most of the fish come in full form also...with those eyes staring back at you...

The cheese is also present, but it does not stand alone. So many different kinds of cheeses! In this market there are three different cheese stands, filled with all sorts of cheeses. The best though, is the store right outside of the market that is solely dedicated to cheese. When you walk in there, your nose is in for a treat! Wow, that is a smelly place. The smellier the better!

This week's market take: tomatoes, red and white cabbage, yellow peaches, bananas, quetche (mini-plums), red pears, and pork chops.

You know you're in France when...

• You can buy a baguette on every corner.  
• Nothing is open on Sundays except the Boulangeries who sell baguettes.
• Cheese that is blue, green, black, brown, or even fuzzy is considered particularly good.  
• There is no ice in drinks...ever.
• 75% of the men you encounter are wearing man-purses (a.k.a. "man-sac," "murse.")
• You are a girl sitting a bar drinking a pint of beer and the group of guys next to you are drinking hot chocolates.
• Techno music is bumping from the speakers at most bars/clubs.
• "Tik Tok" and "I Gotta Feeling" are played on repeat. 
• You find a large cathedral in every town you visit.
• A shoes saleswoman tells you your feet are too big and she cannot help you.
• People stare at you funny when you exercise.  
• You can only get really really small cups of coffee.
• You have to watch your step at all times in order to prevent encountering dog poop mines.
• Wine really is cheaper than water.
• A beer is the same price as a Coca-Cola (sometimes cheaper!)
• The boys urinal and girls toilets are in the same bathroom!
• Dogs accompany their masters in restaurants, grocery stores, and shopping malls.
• You try to speak French and people speak English back to you.  Ouch.
• People cannot drink a beer straight--they will put peach or grenadine syrup in it called a "Demi-pêche" or a "Monaco"
• Mojitos are offered at almost every bar
• You can sit at a restaurant for 4 hours and no one will kick you out.
• It is considered pretty good service if you actually get water at a restaurant without asking.
• There is a large section at the grocery store dedicated solely to NUTELLA.  On the other hand, there is usually only 1-2 jars of peanut butter.
• Stores are closed between noon and 2pm...sometimes even restaurants!
• People iron their sheets...and jeans.

To be continued...

August in France

"juillet:" July
"août:" August
"congés:" time-off
"vacances:" vacation

France is an interesting place to be in during the month of August, and by "interesting" I mean slightly boring and very quiet. Unlike us perhaps work-a-holic Americans, the French take their vacation time very seriously. One might observe that the French may have a better "work-life" balance as opposed to Americans, a full-time work week being capped at 35 hours and a 5-week vacation allowance per year. On the other hand, they pay a lot of taxes for this. (Socialism?). Anywho, August is nationally recognized as holiday time in France, where almost everybody takes all or part of their 5 week vacation time all at once. While great for everyone taking vacation, not so great for the American interns who do not get to take an August holiday (that's me!).

This past week there were 5 interns and my boss in the office. It was a bit quiet. Also, our factory closes for all of August therefore there is no production during this month. This is obviously planned for in advance, as it happens every year. While I do not mind so much working in the quiet office, it does bode problems for me if I need to ask someone a question (and they are off on the beach somewhere!).

The really annoying part about staying in France in August is that everything else closes for vacation. Normally, in the U.S., if you work in a retail store for example, the employees will stagger their time off so that there is always someone available to work. Here, not so much. Stores, bars, restaurants just plain close for the month of August. Even my boulangerie (bakery) is closed for a whole month! I cannot get the good bread! You'd think that being an American and rarely eating baguettes at home would not affect me, however, after being here so long I have picked up the French habit of bread being a necessity and now it is TORTURE not to have it. We can buy some cheap bread from the supermarket but its just not the SAME!

I await the end of August where life comes back to normal in Clermont-Ferrand. For now, I suppose I should try to appreciate the quiet.

Uncomfortable or Uninformed?

La politique: politics
La guerre: war

As I have been in Europe for over 7 months, I have had a chance to interact with a lot of different people, from different nationalities, different races, different religions. One thing is almost always for sure is that because I am American, everyone wants to discuss the tough stuff. That is, the stuff that I normally avoid discussion about; politics, Bush, Obama, the war. Now, I can understand what America is an easy target. We are the richest, most powerful country (right now)…and this is not me bragging about my country, these are the facts. It is always easy to criticize the top. But dang, I really feel like when I get this criticism or “discussion” about what is going on in America, and especially with respect to the war, I am supposed to defend the country—its as many of the people (especially the French) are asking me to defend the government’s decisions. I’m just Michelle Majerle, 23 year old from Kansas; I am not the President, Congress, the 300 million-person population of America…

The French specifically love to discuss politics. It’s not a taboo subject, on the contrary, a subject you are likely to broach upon first meeting someone. For example, on my second day of work at my internship, I had to drive 2 hours to our factory with my boss, and in that conversation he asked me what I thought about Bush, Obama, the war, healthcare; what my family thought about all of the above, and if I thought America was protectionist. OK buddy, we just met. And then there is one of the other interns at work who enjoys pestering me everyday with questions like “Is Iraq going to be the 51st state?” Politics is just not personal information here, as in the U.S. I think in the U.S. we do not discuss these subjects so in depth for fear of offending people. Maybe we’re too sensitive? Perhaps it’s a good thing to be more open about it; all the questioning has made me realize just how little I know about U.S. politics and the war we find ourselves in. So is it that I feel uncomfortable discussing my person political views, or am I just plain uninformed?

As I start to think about it more, this whole fiasco with the building of a mosque in New York at Ground Zero comes to mind. Apparently everyone is getting all fired up about it, with such comments like, “We cannot let them win!” Who is them? Have I been gone so long that the “War on Terror” has now become the “War on Islam?” A mosque is like a church, a temple; a building where people go to pray. A mosque has nothing to do with “terrorists.” I may not know everything about the political environment, but I do know that these people are more uninformed than I am.

Customer Service? I don't think so.

Today's French experience:

Last Saturday, I bought two ethernet cables to use in our apartment (since we finally got internet after only 7 short months!). We ended up being able to set up the WiFi, so the cables were not necessary. As the packaging was undisturbed, I had the receipt in tact, and it had only been 3 days since I purchased the products, I assumed the return process would be quick and simple. The ideas "quick" and "simple" do not exist alone in France, let alone conjointly, so I am not sure what I was thinking!

I walked down to the "mall" which holds the store FNAC, a general equivalent to what we know as Best Buy at home. I walk in, looking for your typical customer service desk that handles returns. I approach a counter that ressembles what I know to be a customer service desk, but when I explained to the employee that I wanted to return the items, he told me he does not handle that at his counter. He pointed me to the security guard up front, and told me to tell them I needed to return something, and they would write me a ticket. OK. So I go to the front of the store and the security guard writes me a ticket with my name and the product information on it. THEN, she tells me to take it to a salesperson on the floor. OK. So I go up to a salesperson on the floor and tell him I am trying to return something. He determines that these cables are not in his department and refers me to another salesperson. I wait for a few minutes until this other salesperson returns, and tell her I would like to return something, and she types some stuff into her computer and prints off another ticket. Then she proceeds to tell me that I need to take the ticket to the cashier counter. OK. The cashier counter has a long zig-zag line, kind of like the lines you wait in at amusement parks to go on the really cool rollarcoasters. That's annoying.

As I was waiting in line I pondered striking up a conversation with the young guy in front me who was buying some vampire romance/horror flick--looked like a French "Twilight" if you ask me. Then I saw the man-sac and I just stayed quiet. The French aren't really keen on talking to strangers anyway.

Finally, I got to the register and received my 27.63 euro credit. It only took talking to 5 employees to get!

French (Corporate) Culture

Bonjour: Hello
Ça va?: How are you/how is it going?
Ça va, ça va: (response) it goes
Bon appetit: Eat well (“Bon app” for short)
Bon après-mid: Have a good afternoon (“Bon aprèm” for short)
Bonne soirée: Have a good night (“Bon soir” for short)
A tout à l’heure: See you later (“A tout” for short)
A plus tard: See you later (“A plus” for short)

I have now worked for a little over a month now, enabling me to become a bit acquainted with our office culture. As I have not had too much experience in offices in the States, I have little to compare to but I have found some aspects at work that I think may be different than our culture at home.

First of all, of course there is the difference of language. That comes with the territory, I suppose (no pun intended). I speak mostly French in the office with my co-workers. There is one women who works at my office who is Irish, so I get to sneak in some English with her every once and a while. The office is not very big--only about 15 people at most (with some leaving at the end of the summer), so I have a chance to talk to everybody a bit. However, as we handle a large export market, there remains the rest of the world to speak with. What is, pray tell, the international language of business? That’s right, good ‘ole English. Despite the unfortunate reality that many Americans will only ever learn one language, at least it’s a damn good practical one! We speak English with most of our clients, excluding perhaps Belgium and Luxembourg (French speaking), some of the French-speaking African nations, and some Spanish-speaking nations (as the family that owns the company all speak Spanish as well). The main part of my internship so far is working with the U.S. market, conveniently enough for me I speak good English.

The second thing I want to make mention of is the abundance of pleasantries exchanged throughout the day. I will be one of the first to say that I believe the French in general are much “colder” than we are in America; we who embrace foreigners with welcoming arms into our great melting pot. Yet, the French are all about their gestures and greetings. When I enter the office in the morning, I have to make my rounds to individually say “Bonjour” to everyone who is already there, maybe exchange a few ça va’s here and there. Then I make some coffee and go to my office, and everyone else that comes in after also makes rounds so you get a series of “Bonjours” for the first 15 minutes of so of the morning. If I encounter the President of the company or my boss, they will usually shake my hand. I do not give the kisses (“bises”) to anyone except sometimes the other interns, who are my age—although I feel like I get them whenever they feel like it because it’s not everyday. You’d think that after being here for 7 months I would know when to give/expect kisses, and when not to, but there’s just consistency here. I just don’t pucker my lips until there is a cheek right in front of them in the case of a forward motion being mistaken for a lean-in for the kiss. Miss-firing kisses is just embarrassing.
After morning “Bonjours,” there comes mid-day “Bon appetites” (or “Bon app” if you’re sly) in which you tell everyone between the hours of 12-2pm to have a good lunch even if they are not at the moment eating, even if they have already eaten, or even if they are just walking in the hall. If I leave the office for lunch, I make sure to do rounds again to wish everyone “good eating.” What happens after lunch, perhaps less formal, but there is the “Bon après-midi,” to wish your fellow colleagues a good afternoon. Whereas in English, our “Good Afternoon” I find to be more of a introductory greeting, here it is more of parting greeting-more so as “I hope you have a good afternoon” smooshed into two words or a quick “Bon aprèm.” (I have yet to try the cute shortcuts to these greetings for fear of sounding silly). When the day ends, there are the “Au revoirs” and “Bonne soirees” distributed, again another cycle of rounds to make sure you bid everyone adieu. That means no sneaking out early without everyone knowing—or, if you do without saying goodbye, you will likely be perceived as rude!

Finally, there is the “vous” and “tu” game. The lovely English language is fortunate enough to only use one form of the word “you” to everybody and anybody. In many other languages, however, there are two forms, an informal (tu) and a formal (vous). This complicates things because misuse is considered quite rude. The French are taught how to use these when they are young and learning the language, so I believe it comes naturally to them when to use “vous” and when to use “tu.” For me, however, I’m dropping tu’s when I should be dropping vous’s all the time, and vice versa. I especially had this problem when I started working because most of the people I have been speaking to in French are other students, so I was accustomed “tu.” (and therefore conjugating like so). When you meet someone for the first time, or they an “elder” (whatever that means), or in a position above, you should always use, “vous.” I use tu with anyone about my age or younger. With those you start using “vous” with, you have to wait for them to give you permission to use “tu.” (it’s actually a verb-“tutoyer”). I have had our marketing director tell me I can tutoyer him, an older woman who is probably around 60 tell me I can use “tu,” but I have been warned by my fellow interns to never-ever, not once use “tu” with the three brothers who run the business (despite one of them only being 25 years old). This makes sense; it is similar calling someone Mr./Mrs. instead of their first name—but in English you don’t usually slip their first name by accident as I have been doing with “tu.” Whoops. Oddly enough, however, I call them all by their first names, but use “vous.” Weird.