Everything Has Changed

What if we would have gone out to eat instead? Our decision to not blow an obscene amount eating but to have spaghetti for the third time that week in our studio-sans-stove certainly impacted the nature of our conversation. Reaching for another glass of sink water from her chair in the dining room kitchenette library, Annalise casually recalled that she had come to Europe to travel and was looking forward to our first vacation.

Within five minutes we had bought two two-month unlimited Eurorail passes, necessitating we quit our jobs. The impulse of it all belies how much our needs had changed. You can email us for more info, but this decision was nothing personal--strictly business. Nancy, accommodating and warm-hearted as she was, was also a gold-digging bitch. By grabbing all the money we still had and running in the night, we enabled a promiscuous 2-3 months with the rest of Europe, allowing ourselves also to forward our careers in a stoveful, couchful apartment in Chicago come winter, not to mention save for a wedding. Option two would have been fun but left us with 0 euro, which is one way to beat the exchange rate.

So, here we are in Paris. Next Belgium. Then Amsterdam. Then Portugal. That’s the first two weeks. It’ll be fun. We’ll keep you more posted than Raisin Bran.

A description of the teaching jobs. Charles taught at 3 different schools, 13 different classes, grades 1-4. Annalise taught one school, a few classes. We both kinda enjoyed it, though Charles was filled with dread going to class and likes the riddance of anxiety. Annalise was amused that half the students went to learn what wines were paired with what dishes and that learning a recipe for tiramisu was some serious homework, such is professional catering and hotel working school. Her profs spoke English and she never had more than six or seven students at a time. Charles was often left alone with 20+ and no one spoke English but him. With some first graders Charles played Hangman, so they could practice saying letters in English (H = “Accch,” n’est pas “Ahsh”), and so the category was names and he had put five placeholders for letters, and someone guessed “H.” There was an H.

_ _ _ _ H

And then they guessed Q, and B, and Q again and he had drawn individual nosehairs, but there would be no eleventh hour. The correct answer was S A R A H, but the hangman hung.

Sarah burst into tears, which was a surprise. Luckily, this teacher was in the classroom, because she, unlike a couple of others, knew it was illegal to leave her pupils alone with a foreigner with no teaching experience.

Nancy was nice, filled with people we’ll probably never see again.

M_NEY.

To you Chicagoans reading this: see you sometime after Jan. 9.

Two Negative

Living in the Land of Lardons (amongst other delicacies)

Unfortunately, you don’t need to know French to guess what lardons are. Yes, that’s right, lardons = lard…bite size pieces of lard. The dictionary translation is “streaky bacon” and from what I’ve seen they’re basically large bacon bits with as much fat and little meat as possible. In the region we’re living in, lardons can be found in quiche, pizza, salads, pasta and, my favorite, the “Lard Sandwich,” the first item on the menu at a popular sandwich shop near our apartment.

While the ubiquity of lardons is something I hadn’t expected in France, I did come to this country expecting people to eat strange meats and organs…and really, France has exceeded my expectations. Charles and I are fortunate to live right in the center of downtown and just a block away from Marche Central, a huge indoor market with stands from different countries serving fresh jams, pasta, chocolate, cheese, pastries, produce, and, of course, meat. In fact, 75% of this large, Grand Central Station-esque market is filled with meats and unidentifiable organs. Vendors strive to sell chicken, rooster, rabbit, pigeon, etc., looking as life-like as possible, keeping the heads, eyes, and feet all on the animals. With the rabbit (keep in mind I used to have a pet rabbit) it wasn’t enough to keep its eyes in and leave a petrified expression frozen on its face. Oh no! They went the extra mile by keeping its fuzzy rabbit tail on, splitting open its stomach, taking some unidentifiable organs out and laying it on its body (a bonus, I guess ). If Marche Central were in the US, all debates about classroom animal dissection would cease and there would just be field trips to Marche Central to better understand anatomy…or should I say, gastronomy?

Through the Ringer

France is annoying and expensive. We went to do our laundry today and saw that it cost 3 euro for one load in a washer. These washers are the size of onion rings. It'll cost a trip to London to do two weeks worth of laundry. Dryers charge by 13 minutes.
Other things that are exorbitant: rent, internet, utilities, train fare, clothes, all toiletries, technology, intra-France cellphone calls and any normal food. Plus, we have to keep all our receipts because we have gotten rung up twice for one purchase three times in two weeks. Has it really only been two weeks?
People said our trip would be an "adventure," and I never put any stock into that, because when I think adventure I think of my friend Jeremy's trip to cambodia (http://bloggingxanadu.vox.com/), or a peace corps pioneer. Those trips require courage. Wow, I live in a culture that I can't afford and wants to be American. Will I go broke? I'll never know unless I stay.
I'm not unhappy or homesick, I'm just telling you that Nancy is a pricey gal and sometimes she's hard to live with.
In other news, Annalise's stomach is making strange noises and I teach little kids (sometimes sans other adults, to my surprise).

Plus des us

Dijon, Beaune are added: http://picasaweb.google.com/annarlessuperblog

A Dabble in Stereotyping

Having been here a little over a week now, here are some very gross over-generalizations:

Public bathrooms cost fifty cents sometimes. That sucks.

The French know how to spend money. They spend on completely useless things. This isn’t necessarily bad. Art, for example, is not practical. They don’t, on the other hand, buy big cars. Although it could be argued that an SUV is dangerous and useless outside of, say, the wilderness, the idea, misguided or not, is to have a safer, better driving experience, and driving is something you have to do. The French, instead, collect crystal. They think having more than one TV in a house is ludicrous. The upper middle class here has lots of paintings and wine cellars. A nice art to luxury.

The toilet flusher in our studio apartment bathroom is strong.

The lack of screens on the windows is not great. In the morning, when we kill mosquitoes, we have our own blood on our hands.

Annalise’s professor asked us why the Americans hate France. “I watch FoxNews, I see what they say about us, and I don’t understand it. What did we ever do to them?” France is like an affectionate, naïve big brother when it comes to the US. France is older, artistically richer, and yet 75% of their shows, movies, and music is American. In a way, they can’t escape from looking up to us. They don’t understand our senseless belligerence and just stroll along with their crystal and pointy-toed shoes, singing Kanye West and watching Boston Public.

French people who act like Americans are disappointing because they fail. I don’t like French youth because they love role-playing as Americans. They sing in terrible English, oblivious to meaning, dress in our brands, try to act hard, only to be undermined by their flowery vowel sounds. Imagine if all our pop culture were in French—wouldn’t you want to learn French? We don’t get it why Annalise’s students aren’t all that enthusiastic.

I like it here because life isn’t about work. Americans live to work. The French work only so much to live. This is, without a doubt, as it should be. There’s no invisible hand to feed, little obsession with a competitive edge. If people work hard it’s because they like their jobs, not because they want more money than they know what to do with. Liking your job and working at it is common all around the world, but over-achievement for its own sake is foreign here. If you don’t like your job, they’re limits set up by the gov. on how many hours of your existence can be taken from you. One doesn’t feel guilty about having fun on a weekday. The French don’t need to earn the right to live because it’s given.

A hot dog is four euro, a salmon/spinach quiche is two. Buy local.

France’s food isn’t superior to America’s, it just has a better average. What I mean is this: In Chicago, I didn’t eat badly. However, I always had the option of eating shitty food, I just never exercised it. In France, I don’t really have that option. Well, I do, jus t not as easily. The common gastronomical denominator isn’t low. For this reason, there are less fat people.

And what’s with the coffee? I think I actually want a Starbucks. I haven’t seen a non-NesCafe-vending machine coffee-to-go yet in this country.

French people look better than Americans because they are fashionable and eat better.

I ordered a beer called Desperado. I don’t pronounce French well, but I asked for a Desperado and the bartender stared at me. He looked at me and said something I didn’t understand. I repeated “two Desperados.” In French: “Deux Desperados.” I got one Stella. How did this happen? What else could “Desperado” be but “Desperado”? I went back to get what I wanted. This isn’t really an over-generalization, but does represent how frustration in the little things is definitely part of life here. I’m glad there’s two of us. (“Two Desperados, get it, ha ha ha” –Annalise).

Although our current living situation in the downtown studio isn’t as good as our 2-bedroom apartment in Chicago, it’s not far behind. It seems luxurious to have countertops around the sink in the bathroom, a shower with consistent water pressure, a shower head that is taller than 2/3’s of (Charles’s) height, a desk, a dresser (for Charles), floors that won’t be flooded, I’m sure there are other things. One can reach the pantry, the refrigerator, the dishes, the dresser, the sink, the bed, all from our “dining room” table. 1828 Henderson, however, had more than one room, a stove, a couch, and people in the neighborhood spoke English. The grass is greener on the other side of the Atlantic.

I wonder what life will be like here for us in five months. It’s hard to imagine, it already seems like five months have gone by. Will we want to be here forever, or will we hate our lives? Stay tuned.