Why nobody wants to be your friend

Browse through any compilation of "expat tips" on the internet, and one thing will probably stand out: you are not, under any circumstances, meant to be friends with other expats. If you are, you've royally failed at Integration, Getting The Most Out Of Your Stay, and, probably, Life. You are most probably an Ugly American or the kind of red-faced Brit who wears a knotted handkerchief with the St George's Cross on it on his head, uncomfortably tight shorts and no shirt. While others - classy, sophisticated bon vivants - are quaffing Bordeaux and tucking into cassoulet, you're probably blind drunk on warm beer and stuffing a pie down your hole while you indulge in a little light football hooliganism before retiring to the bar for a moan about being surrounded by "bloody foreigners speaking gibberish".

I'm not saying never make friends with locals, or shut yourself up in an exclusively English-speaking enclave where you are guaranteed a steady supply of meat pies (momentarily tempting as that sounds), but I say, feel free to disregard this supercilious advice and make the heck out of expat friends. They may very well be the only friends you'll have.

I always roll my eyes at the romanticised travel guides where the author pitches up in a small French village and everyone is mad to learn all about ze craaaazy Eeenglish who is renovating the local Murder House (fun fact: Murder House is what we used to call the dentist growing up. There's word of mouth advertising for you). You'd think, from reading these books, that nobody in France lives in a city (well, except Paris. It's well known that Paris is the only city in France).

(On a side note, a lot of people (French and otherwise) tend to assume that I come from the country, or all of New Zealand is some sort of clean, green rural idyll. Chunks of it are, sure, but I grew up all my life in a city of a million or so inhabitants - according to Wikipedia, it's now at around 1.5 million. I'm not saying that's huge, but depending on who you ask, that's bigger than all French cities except Paris, Marseille and Lyon. Add in Auckland's peculiar geography, our penchant for living in detached houses on ample land, our crappy public transport and the world's 8th highest number of cars per capita (the US is 3rd, France is 19th, and most of the top spots are taken by dots on the map like San Marino, Monaco, Lichtenstein and our old friend Luxembourg), and I am no stranger to gridlock.

See how awkwardly-shaped Auckland is? It's like someone's small intestine after a tragic accident. That circle in the middle is the Central Business District, full of all the offices in the entire city and half-empty apartment buildings built by speculators in the early 2000s who thought that Asian students would like nothing better than to come thousands of miles to a country the size of Great Britain but with a population that would fit into one of their hometown suburbs, and then live in a shoe closet. Ringed around the middle are where rich people live, and then everyone else has to commute in from all directions, thus equalling traffic chaos.)

But I digress. My point is that everywhere I've lived has been marked by the baffling indifference of the surrounding Frenchies to my presence. I was promised casseroles, pastis at 10 in the morning, and hilarious misunderstandings. Where are my casseroles? It's true, French boys do quite often like to chat up the Anglos on a night out, and you get the odd person enquiring where you're from in a shop or whatever, but it's yet to translate into life-long friendships and comical anecdotes.

The truth is, while I'm getting to the age that, even amongst the expat pool, more and more people are settling down, getting married and popping out kids (the horror), chances are that many of the expats you'll meet will share a similar outlook and lifestyle to you. Compared to your peers back home or the local population, they'll often be more fancy-free, adventurous, and most importantly, also desperately seeking friends. Throw in the fact that the language and cultural barriers between you are lower or non-existent, and you can bond over bitching about French people and venting the frustrations of trying to establish a life in a new country, and you basically have insta-friends, just add rosé.

While there are some tried and true methods of sneaking into a French friend group (getting a French Significant Other being the most obvious, but you can also try studying or working with them, flatsharing, or just dumb luck), the shocking truth is that many - most? - French people just don't want to be your friend. If you live in the same city you've always lived in, or maybe the one where you went to university, where your family lives, where you have a solid group of friends going back years, you're probably just not on the market for new friends all that often. Add in a serious relationship, a dedicated career and/or kids, and the odds decrease even further. And then consider the fact that the person you're being asked to befriend basically has the language and social skills of something ranging from a bright cocker spaniel to a slow ten-year old child. OF COURSE when they're surveying the savannah of friendship, they're not going for the goofy, lame gazelle jumping up and down screaming "Pick me, pick me!" (I guess in this tortured metaphor, the French friend lions want to have to work for their prey or something.)

That's not surprising, nor am I blaming the French or any other majority group for this situation. I think 9 times out of 10, you'll find the same thing wherever you go in the world. Some people are lovely, patient saints. Some people actively seek out those from different cultures because they want to learn the language, or they're fascinated by their country of origin, or they just want a bit of exoticism in their lives, but most people have their own stuff going on and they're not going out of their way to include the bumbling foreigner in their lives unless there's a compelling reason to do so.

So that's why I say to you, expats of the internet, feel free to actively work on cultivating friendships with the locals if that's what you want to do. But don't feel bad if it doesn't work out exactly like you planned. Don't fall into the trap of becoming that bitter expat in the corner who spends all their time whining about their host country, but embrace your expat friends - literally, they probably need someone like you in their life too.

Christmas spirits

(I don't actually)

Officially, I think Christmas should start after my birthday. But it is in full swing in these parts, and I've got to say, I'm getting in to the Christmas spirit. It's hard not to when there are twinkling lights in (it seems) every tree, to light up the dark that otherwise arrives around 4 pm, it's proper cold and there's Germanic treats to warm your hands and stomachs on offer.

Germany, of course, is widely known for its Christmas markets, and quite a lot of the festive spirit rubs off on neighbouring parts such as Eastern France and Luxembourg. I haven't been to the Metz Christmas market yet, but the Luxembourgish version has a distinctly Germanic feel to it. You can gorge yourself silly on bratwurst, rösti, or speck (or fondue, waffles, chocolate...) while sipping glühwein served from novelty mugs, browsing the usual assortment of Christmassy tat and listening to live carols (on a Wednesday night, no less).

A Christmassy wonderland

The view from afar

Bit blurry, but you get the idea

I went along after work with some of my colleagues, and whether it was the company or the mulled wine, we had a lovely time. There were many laughs after Em and I bought "sneeballen" (which I assume is German for snowballs) - a dense shortbread-like ball (folded as though someone had scrunched it up like a ball of paper) covered with chocolate, caramel, nuts etc. It actually wasn't that good, but we got our money's worth in laughs trying to bite into the things. It was nearly impossible to get any purchase! Defeated by the balls...

Attacking the boules

Hot dog!

More mulled wine

Definitely a good idea to cheer up the winter season! And the atmosphere was great as well. A little secret about Luxembourg - due to the multiple languages spoken in the country anyway, plus the European institutions, the international banks and the thousands who pour across the borders to work every day - it's actually very cosmopolitan. I love walking around the markets and hearing people speak different languages (and being fairly sure most of them aren't tourists). I think this will not be my last Christmas market of the season, it would be a shame not to experience a German one being so close!

How to date a Frenchman*

*if he's a dick and you're a doormat.

I first came across this article on thelocal.fr  linked by an acquaintance on Facebook a while ago, left a sarcastic comment and moved on. Then I stumbled across it again yesterday, after following a different link on Twitter. Once again, I made the mistake of reading it all the way through, and it made me mad enough that I was still thinking about its stupidity today.

Basically, the message is that the Frenchman is the "holy grail of international lovers" (actual quote), and you should do anything to please him and mould yourself into whatever Stereotypical Frenchman deems acceptable in a woman. God forbid you be yourself, have an opinion, reflect your own culture and background, or disagree with him.

Some of the top tips:

- Apparently, Frenchmen will text you all the bloody time. This includes sending kisses and plenty of emoticons. Okay, some allowances can be made for a romantic honeymoon period, but seriously guys and gals, is there anything more irritating than constant contentless texts reading "salut" (or "slt", which always makes me think they're starting off by calling me a slut), "ça va?" or, worst of all, the dreaded "coucou"? The man-catching advice doesn't deal with what to do if you want to shut down the stream of verbal branlage altogether (gosh, that wouldn't be very sweet and feminine of you), but it does offer the gem that you should definitely not try giving him a call, since "he might not take too kindly to it because you’re invading his 'guy space.'" I didn't know 'guy space' extended into the airwaves, but makes sense. After all, most guys I know also have very strict no-fly zones and maintain exclusive fishing areas which are universally recognised by International Man Law (or just "the law"). 

- If he says he loves you after a few weeks, don't freak out, just say it back! Chances are, he doesn't really mean it anyway, and if he does, meh, who are you to have feelings that differ from the almighty French man god? In the same vein, we're later told to "get used to being in a relationship the second he kisses you". Again, you have no agency in this relationship. The kiss of a Frenchman has all the magic relationship potency of some sort of gypsy curse.

- Don't let him take a photo of you because he'll probably make it into his screensaver by the second date. Firstly, this seems an awfully specific situation. Secondly, and not to draw any hysterical parallels, shouldn't the advice be "hey, creeper, don't be weird about photos of girls you barely know" instead of "woman: man with camera steal your soul. Be heap careful"?

- One of my favourites - no makeup. We've all noticed that many French women eschew heavy makeup, so (other than the obvious "I'll wear as much makeup as I bloody well please" reaction) my beef isn't so much the basic advice here. It's the icing on the cake: "French men like their women to have beautiful, flawless skin naturally. If you’re not blessed with dermatological perfection, you can either scream in frustration or rethink your skincare routine." Oh, well as long as we still have *options*. 

On an unrelated topic, I like my men to have [redacted, since my mum reads this]. If you're not blessed with [redacted] perfection, you can either scream in frustration or rethink your genetics. Up to you, lads!

- You're not allowed to get mad if he's late, or be unavailable if he texts you (of course texts, haven't you learnt he's incapable of calling) at short notice to go out. Not only that, but "Of course, this means you have to look fabulous all the time, just in case." Except obviously looking fabulous doesn't include wearing any of your whore paint. Save that sheer foundation for the street corner, amirite?

 - Pretend to be allergic to everything he eats, so he won't feed it to you. WTF? Leaving aside the logistical nightmare of keeping this one up - and my gut instinct tells me being an insanely fussy eater probably contravenes some other secret French relationship commandment - is it really that hard just to say "no, I don't want to eat off your fork"? God knows your resolve hasn't been worn down by refusing to capitulate over things like makeup, chronic lateness or whether you love him. In all fairness, you did already have to fight to the death to avoid him taking creepshots of you though.

 - The article rounds out by telling you that you have to be cool socialising with all his exes and you're not allowed any hang-ups in the bedroom. At this stage, I can't even get worked up about that - standard women's mag advice, really.

 So where can I sign up for one of these prize catches? And where did those of you in happy couples find all the good ones?

Fiesta!

On Friday, I finally made it to the Beaux Arts museum in order to see the Tours 1500: Capital of the Arts exhibition before it closed. It seemed a lot of people (mostly pensioners) had the same idea, since it was pretty full. It was quite interesting - Tours was the 'royal capital' of France at this time, but the exhibition stressed that the political and financial centre never really shifted from Paris. Instead, Tours became a capital of art and culture. The exhibition was made up mostly of sculpture and illuminated manuscripts from the period, with a few paintings. It was interesting to see the manuscripts right after the Belles Heures exhibition. The quality and complexity varied quite a lot, from some very fine works by Jean Poyer and Jean Bourdichon to others that were relatively much cruder.

It also helped to illuminate (if you'll excuse the pun) some of the history of Tours. I have spent many an idle moment scanning the horizon here and wondering where all the 'towers' of 'Tours' have gone. Turns out the old city was once surrounded by a wall, which did indeed feature quite a few towers. Even before the revolution and the world wars, Tours suffered quite a bit of destruction during the Wars of Religion, and the exhibition showed a few religious sculptures which had been partially destroyed during this period (e.g. faces effaced). Sigh, people suck.

On Saturday, it was fiesta time. Fiesta Latina, that is, a Brazilian restaurant where we headed to celebrate the birthday of Charlie, one of my (only, how sad!) French friends. Charlie's a total little firecracker, nothing like the stereotypical French girl, she is basically bouncing off the walls at any given moment, talking a mile a minute, very good for improving your French comprehension! The food wasn't amazing (although the fixed menu started out with a salad with duck hearts in it, which were actually quite nice!), basically just various bits of meat cooked on a rotisserie or whatever, but the atmosphere was really fun, lots of singing and dancing going on. I think French people must have to go to a Brazilian-themed restaurant in order to really kick back and go a bit crazy over dinner. It is a bit odd having someone's naked bum jiggling about next to you (the Brazilian dancer's, not the clients') while you're trying to eat though! At one point I was also trapped in a corner of the small dancefloor while shirtless men did capoeira a few inches away. Well, not the worst experience of my life, I must admit.

I left my camera with Charlie at one point while I was dancing, and came back to a memory card full of close-ups inside people's mouths and down people's pants/tops arrgh! Here are some non-disturbing snaps from the evening. Apparently, based on this evidence, I had the same look on my face all night long, only varying the angle and people I was standing next to...

Les gars (guys) (some random French guys on the dancefloor told me off for saying 'les gars', because apparently French people don't. Mmmkay, guess I made that up all by myself then). Benjamin (Charlie's boyfriend), Michel, Denis and David (Liz's boyfriend)

Benjamin and Charlie all excited with her birthday sparkler

David, Charlie and Liz

Me and Charlie

On the dancefloor. Ha ha it took me ages before I noticed that dude's head down there!!

Me, Charlie and Liz again

Charlie, Michel and me

And again. By the way, Charlie made her dress herself! She's so tiny even by French standards that she has to make or alter all her clothes herself

Rosé, bureaucracy, and wanky Frenchmen

So last weekend we had a pretty chilled-out time with my sister Jess, her friend Liz, and our mutual friend Marion (who lives in Tours, but knows Liz from uni in New Zealand. Oh and we discovered also that Marion used to work with my cousin, who is an actress back home - god, New Zealand is a small place at times). Some of the highlights were the hour-long dégustation of rosé wine - a bit awkward having to translate for the girls at times, hope I did okay. I learnt quite a lot about how rosé is made (there are two main methods, one which basically follows the method for white wine, and the other for red wine), but not sure how much of that information I passed on! We also got to hang out at the guinguette, the "famous" open air café/dance hall/concert venue on the banks of the Loire. It rained a bit while the girls were here, but it was still mild enough on the Friday to sit outside and have wine by the Loire. The opening of the guinguette is always a very welcome sign that summer has finally arrived in Tours. (Talking of which, it has been baking hot for the last couple of days, although thunderstorms are predicted next week.) We also had dinner at La Souris Gourmande, a cheese-themed restaurant which j'adore (their tartiflette is amazing, if you're ever in Tours), drank lots of wine (but didn't actually have any big nights out) and generally just hung out and relaxed.

I swore I was taking a break from alcohol, but that lasted until Wednesday, when it was so hot that not cracking open a bottle of rosé would have probably resulted in a criminal indictment. Then on Thursday, my friend Liz had just arrived back from Japan and I went round to help her deliver flyers for her business around our neighbourhood. I think we did about three blocks and then decided it was wine-o'clock. We seem incapable of just having a quiet glass and this was not helped by heading to a bar (same one I went to with my sister and friends across from the Souris Gourmande, if you're reading this Jess) where they are super friendly and nice and you can just sit at the bar and chat with all the regulars and your glass just keeps getting magically filled (and these glasses are about the size of a bucket to begin with!). We spent a lot of the evening chatting to a guy who had spent 12 years being tortured in a Vietnamese prison camp before breaking out, fleeing on a boat and getting picked up by a French navy vessel. Getting to meet people with stories like that is definitely a highlight about travelling! He was much better than the young French guy I got talking to later, who said things like "I have a complicity with my girlfriend" (meaning that they have an "understanding" that they can cheat on each other) and then when I said you can't say that in English, he looked up the word on his iphone and showed me that it existed (obviously having a completely different meaning in this context makes no difference) and said (quote) "you're not English so you don't know how to speak properly like an English person does". He also tried to convince me that "snob" is an adjective (as in "She's very snob", because in French they have just borrowed the word snob and thus say things like "Elle est tellement snob"), and then when I said it wasn't, he asked Liz, the "real English person" and damn Liz was like, "yeah, snobby" and the guy was all like IN YOUR FACE and just wouldn't listen when I said "NO! SHE SAID SNOBBY! NOT SNOB!". Plus he said New Zealand and Australian accents were the same and if he couldn't hear the difference it meant it didn't exist. Anyway, I might still be a little bit ragey about this stereotypical arrogant French guy, so we'll move on. (Although, one last thing, I was talking to arrogant Frenchman's friend later and he said that he didn't have a "complicity" with his girlfriend, she just cheated on him all the time and he was sad about it and trying to act like the big man about town to make up for it. It's not very elegant to crow, but I've got to say HA! He deserves it!)

On Friday, the attestation d'emploi I needed from my assistant job turned up, so I had to drag myself out of bed and across town to take it to the pôle emploi. I didn't want to wait since Monday is a holiday and obviously the sooner I get all the paperwork together, the sooner they might start paying me. It took like two and a half hours' round trip to just give them this piece of paper, since they were being rubbish at the reception and I had to wait to see someone else who took all of about 30 seconds to sort it out. Good news though, they still had my file (apparently if they decide it's incomplete, they just reject it and send it back to you, because of course that makes way more sense than just sending you an email saying "hey, we need one more piece of paper from you, can you bring it down?") so fingers crossed now everything will be in order and they'll make a decision on it soon.

Right, that's all of interest (supposing it was, in fact, interesting). I'm going to go catch some rays (21 degrees, my idea of perfection) before watching quali for the Monaco GP in a couple of hours. Hope it's sunny where you are too! Here's some photos from Greg's and my sister's visits to Tours.

I don't know if you can read this, but it says "Bastard is waiting for you at stand E8 at the Tours Fair". I was intrigued!

The west windows in the cathedral glowing in the afternoon sun

A shot of the cathedral from behind

 

Not a great photo (hello fake smile...), but the only snap we got together, courtesy of the covoiturage guy who was giving Greg a ride to Paris 

 

Ducklings!!

An old church (or something) hidden behind the cathedral

Greg and St. Martin's at night

An old building I liked

Me and the ghost of Fritz, the famous elephant, as featured in the Super Best Tour of Tours Ever. I look strangely like my arms aren't attached to my torso, but I assure you they are.

My sister Jess and her friend Ratty got into the swing of things with Fritz as well

Me and Jess at the cheese restaurant. Mmmm, cheese

Liz, and Marion at the restaurant

There has long been a goat-about-town in Tours, which some guy takes around on a leash (you can see a glimpse of him hanging in a kebab shop here, on my first visit to Tours), but now there is a RIVAL GOAT, who rides around in a little cart pulled behind a bike! I've seen him twice in the last couple of days. Is this town big enough for two goats, that is the question??

 
And here's a video of my cat, Bob. Bob is normally frightened of everything (he was severely traumatised for about a week after Greg's visit, due to Greg running around the apartment gratuitously making dinosaur noises and so on, followed by me running the vacuum cleaner and not having enough time to give Bob make-up cuddles before the girls showed up from London), but I have recently discovered that he loves smoked chicken so much he's even willing to meerkat about in order to get it. If you don't know Bob, this will seem like less of a ground-breaking revelation, but honestly it's a big step! I have tried buying him toys and things, but if you roll a ball at him or whatever he gets scared and runs away and hides, so it is awesome to see him playing a little bit!

 
And here's an awesome video of my brother swimming in his own private waterfall in Hawaii. Frickin jealous!

Definitely Mike Jagger

Those cool cats at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours aren't just all about that old fuddy-duddy art and history, they know their stuff when it comes to popular culture too.



I've seen the printed version of this poster on the bus as well, same typo. Bien joué! I do want to go see the exhibition though...

What do you get if you cross a rat and a log?

A ragondin, of course!




Last night I went over to a friend's for drinks with her neighbour and a girl she met on a training course whom she'd invited specifically because "SHE'S SINGLE, YOU'RE SINGLE, YOU MUST GO OUT TOGETHER!" Turns out, as well as being single (rare among Frenchies), she's pretty cool. We have already talked about how we must get drunk and sing karaoke together and also get dressed up all fancy and go to the opera (different evenings, presumably). And she works at the markets and has offered to get me sweet deals on cheese. May be developing a girl crush.

Anyway, the point of this blog post is about the joys of cross-linguistic/cultural communication, or, how I learned what a ragondin is. Communication can sometimes be difficult, but it can also provide different ways of seeing things (or bizarre ways of learning new information). Sometimes it's like your whole life is a game of Taboo, where you can say anything except the name of the thing you're describing. And then sometimes it's more like charades!

We were, for some reason, talking about the botanic gardens at Tours and she mentioned that there were ragondins there. When I asked what a ragondin was, my friend Liz said that it was an animal that "didn't exist" in England and it looked like a big rat. Charlie the Frenchie defended the honour of the "cute" ragondin, and chose to describe it as a cross between a rat (pronounced "rah" in French) and "a big stick that you hit people with" – that confused me, but turns out she meant "rondin" – a log. How rat + rondin = ragondin, or how exactly rat + log is a sensible way of describing an animal, I don't know. This is, after all, a country that decides the most notable difference between a mouse and a bat is that the bat is bald (a bat is a "chauve-souris" – a bald mouse). Also, a log is a "big stick to hit people with" - this may be a worrying sign of violent tendencies chez New Droog.

I was also amused by her description that ragondins love dirty water and eat everything. If you have a dirty stream – why, get yourself a ragondin, pop it in, and it will eat up all the sewage tout de suite. But – attention ! A ragondin will eat anything, so if it runs out of sewage (apparently its meal of choice) it will start eating plants and fishes. So you must monitor your ragondin, and take him out of the stream once he's done his job. Presumably you then pat your ragondin on the head and take him to another dirty stream to feast on more delicious sewage.

If, by any chance (and I don't see how it's possible) you still don't know what your friendly neighbourhood ragondin is – apparently it's a coypu, and they don't get a very good rap in Wikipedia.

Oh and I also learned that in French "Little Women" is "The four daughters of Dr. March". Come on, France - he's not even in the book. Yeah, "Little Women" is pretty patronising, but how man-centric can you get?

Whuh?

I'm always learning new things about my adopted home. Lately I've been watching the (very addictive) Engrenages/Spiral, a French cop show which, as well as being very entertaining, has been filling me in on how the French justice system works (hopefully in a way that is at least vaguely in line with reality). And today, I was reading Le Monde's commentary on presidential candidate François Hollande's proposal to make the famous 1905 law on the separation of Church and State in France (the wellspring for all those recent laws and debates on stuff like wearing the veil in public) part of the French Constitution. I was very surprised to read:

En Alsace-Moselle... le concordat napoléonien, survivance anachronique, oblige les contribuables athées à payer les salaires des prêtres par le truchement de l'impôt.

In Alsace-Moselle the Concordat of 1801, an anachronistic survival, obliges atheist taxpayers to pay priests' salaries via their taxes.

Wow, really? Apparently so - in this region, priests (and rabbis, pastors etc.) of the Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran and Calvinist persuasion receive a state salary, as Class A bureaucrats! This is based on the fact that Alsace-Moselle wasn't part of France when the 1905 law was passed. But surely someone could have changed the situation since? Is there a huge priest-paying lobby in the area? Surely there's got to be a lot of people, whether religious or not, who would agree that non-Christians/Jews shouldn't be obligated to pay the salaries of religious figures, and that it should still be at the discretion of even believers.

Of course, tax breaks for organised religions are not uncommon all over the world, including (and correct me if I'm wrong) the US and NZ, but it surprises me that France, supposed bastion of secularism, goes a step further (at least in one region) by actually directly paying the priests. I don't want to get into an argument with anyone over the benefits of religion to society or anything along those lines - I'm certainly not trying to have a go at religion in general, I just was shocked to find this information out! I have mixed feelings about the law banning the full veil in public, as well as some other stuff which is usually defended under the "we are a secular society" heading, but I feel like the continued existence of this tax system in Alsace-Moselle really undermines the legitimacy of such laws (whether or not you agree with them). Surely France should be cleaning house on the Alsace-Moselle law before turning around and claiming that they're oh so secular? If I were a Muslim woman living in Alsace-Moselle, pretty sure I'd be either wearing my veil until they got rid of that law, or refusing to pay my taxes. (Or probably neither, since I don't know if I'm really the "political firebrand" type, but it's easy to pretend when one's a hypothetical Alsace-living, veil-wearing Muslim woman on the internet.)

I must say I wouldn't mind though if they made Good Friday a public holiday for the whole of France, instead of just for Alsace and Lorraine!

Some of my favourite (French musical) things

Of course, as soon as I say the weather's been good and we won't have any flight problems this year, there's only a bloody storm (called "Joachim") across half of France! According to Météo France, the wind got up to 103 km/hr here last night. It claims the storm is officially over in these parts (until it maybe starts up again in the afternoon), but it's still raining on and off and windy. Anyway, on to the topic at hand.

Other than having to study the entire oeuvre of Jacques Brel at school, most of my knowledge of French music dates from 2007, when I lived in the Nord Pas de Calais with a bunch of Brits, some of whom couldn't speak any French at all. Consequently, the music channels (and we had about 5 to choose from on Canal+) were on in the lounge 24/7. Since then, I've mostly come across new (to me) ones in clubs or at the gym. I never listen to the radio anymore, so if I'm missing some good 'uns, let me know! It's a bit of a mixed bag genre-wise, but here are a few of my favourite things!


I first heard this back in summer, but I only just came across the video. It's Mika, singing in French! And it's super catchy of course!


Elle Me Dit - Mika


This might be cheating slightly, since Martin Solveig sings (or has other people sing while he DJs) in English, but he is French! And he performs the miraculous feat of producing music that makes me want to get on a treadmill and turn it up to 10 kph (truly a wonder for the ages). Here's his latest:


Hello - Martin Solveig


Big in Japan - Martin Solveig


This isn't really a favourite as such, but dancing the Madison is a weird fitting-in-with-the-French rite of passage. (Although I think it's maybe an American thing originally?) Everyone knows it (at least vaguely), and people will actually do it in clubs. I put this clip up out of the many available on YouTube because they dance the Madison about as well as I do.


The Madison by ???


Talking of not being able to dance...


Les blancs ne savent pas danser - James Deano



This gets stuck in my head big time every time I hear it, but I still like it!


Champs Elysees - Joe Dassin


Okay, I didn't grow up as the only black kid in a small French town, but I still feel like I can relate to this a little bit after living in the Nord Pas de Calais countryside


Marly Gomont - Kamini


There is a rocky version of this that everyone always ends up linking arms and singing along to at 3 am in your favourite French club, but I can't find it online. Does anyone know who it's by?


Emmenez-moi - Charles Aznavour


Mostly linking to this so French-speakers can have a laugh at the amazing spelling of whoever wrote the subtitles. And then he gives up on it altogether halfway through!


Garçon - Koxie


You can skip the first 45 seconds of this video if you're not interested in seeing old French men (including Eric Cantona I think?) argue in a tabac. This video always makes me want to go re-enact it in Marseille


A la Bien - Soprano



Kind of the "Sid and Nancy" of France, in that the lead singer of this band killed his girlfriend




I got really sick of this after thrashing it back in 2007. But I am proud that I can rap along with it! Plus MC Solaar is a legend - we even had him in our textbooks when I was first learning French


Da Vinci Claude - MC Solaar


And finally, another 2007 classic:


Double Je - Christophe Willem

Things they don't teach you in French class

...How to understand (or reproduce) French handwriting. Below is a password a colleague wrote down for me. Perhaps I shouldn't be posting passwords on the internet, but seriously, if any of you want to figure out how to hack into the admin interface of the local-host version of our Theses and Dissertations Database, please just do some indexing while you're there. We is Dublin HARDcore, bitches! (Ah, library jokes, the best of all. PS Even for a library joke that one was stupid and didn't make a lot of sense, even if you know what Dublin Core is, which you probably don't... I promise not to make any more, or to pretend I can pull off saying 'we is' or 'hardcore' or 'bitches'.)

ANYWAY... I've been in the habit of writing 7s with lines through them for a long time, since I used to write a lot of barcodes out by hand in an old library job & my 7s ended up looking like 2s. Here, though, their 1s look like 7s (without the bar).



I often end up writing 1s as just a line and then going back and adding the little tail they have here later (curse you, 2011!), but there are plenty of other weird differences that always trip me up, and presumably cause problems for French people when they try to read my handwriting. (My name on my Monoprix loyalty card, for example, has an extra E and L in it, and I'm always getting an O tacked on to the end of my name as well. And the birth date they have down for me is wrong, but I don't know how, so I can't actually use my loyalty points. Quel scam!)

It took me about 5 goes to decrypt this, and that was after having typed it in the day before (with my colleague reading it out to me).


What do you think this says??


Oh, and remember my awesome pun about the cardboard boxes - ça cartonne? Of course you do, you've only just managed to stop laughing about it and I'm going to go and set you off again - and on top of that, you're already in fits over my awesome Dublin Core joke. Sorry!

Well, the 'happening' was written up in one of the local rags, but they missed a trick! Someone give me a job as a French journo, tout de suite!



PS I have just remembered that Jennie en France did a post on handwriting differences several months ago. And I saw it, and I commented on it. Never mind though, she has quite a different blogging style from me, so other than the general subject I don't think our posts have that much in common, so feel free to enjoy them both. Or if sensible and informative is your style just read hers, but TOO LATE, you already got this far with mine! Muhaha

L'Affaire DSK

If you haven't been following 'L'affaire DSK', it's the scandal involving the French politician and head of the IMF who has been arrested in New York on attempted rape charges. One thing you'll notice if you follow the story is all the commentary on how this reflects (or doesn't) French mores. I've seen plenty of chat to the effect "well, what do you expect from a French man?" This ranges from the mildly hysterical (people claiming that you basically can't move in France without being groped or worse) to the seemingly credible (people recounting their own experiences of being sexually harassed with no real recourse).

I don't think French men are more likely to assault you than any other nationality. However, the sexual culture is different here in some ways. While I personally haven't experienced anything, I think the bar for what constitutes 'sexual harassment' is probably set higher in France than in most Anglo-Saxon countries. I imagine you could get away with a suggestive remark, for example, more easily here. This is related to the broader context - men, including strangers, are more likely to compliment you here, or to come up and ask you out in, say, the supermarket. As far as I recall, I never had a guy come up to me and ask me out or say I was beautiful outside of a bar-type context in New Zealand.

In a way, I suppose this can be charming. Maybe even refreshing. But it definitely has its dark side. Sometimes I feel like I can't move without being dissected by the male gaze. It feels like public spaces here are controlled by men and women's rights to just exist in them without being bothered are taken away. It's gotten so that I instinctively stiffen a bit when I see a man walking towards me on the street or, worse, coming up to me when I'm sitting in the park or wherever.

Today, while walking home, I noticed a car pull up alongside me in the carpark on the other side of the footpath. I glanced towards the car, saw a guy with his window all the way down, and looked away. I think he tried to talk to me, but I implemented my general policy of totally ignoring the guy and kept walking. He responded by driving on a little bit and pulling into a space and again calling to me as I walked past. I don't know what he said. I always have my ipod on and I don't want to know what's being said to me, 'good' or bad. This time, knowing he was there, I didn't even turn my head but just kept on walking. By this stage, I was pretty sure he'd go past me again. Even worse - when I got to where the carpark crossed the footpath, there he was stopped at the zebra crossing. Again, I avoided looking at him and walked around behind his car while he continued to shout something at me. Just past the intersection, I stopped at the bus stop, having had pretty much enough of walking by this stage. So he goes past me a fourth time, still yelling something. At this stage I gave him the fingers. Juvenile, yes, but I was furious. Okay, it's not the worse thing that's ever happened to someone, but it made me livid that this guy thinks he has some god-given right to stalk me down the street, yell at me, block my path with his car and basically punish me for not talking to him. I assume at least by the third or fourth time whatever he was saying wasn't very complimentary either.

Sure, this isn't something that could or does only happen in France, but, while today was an extreme example, some guy is bound to say something or come up to me probably about once a week. Which just doesn't happen in NZ or the UK, at least not if you're not in front of a bar at 2 am. And it doesn't make me feel good. It makes me angry, and often actually makes me feel worse about myself since I think "oh great, the toothless 60 year-old thinks I'm in his league". It makes me angry as well that many men don't realise, or don't care, that this can be very frightening or intimidating for a woman, particularly if it's late at night or somewhere isolated. It's unfair that, not only do they not themselves feel like frightened potential victims at any given moment, but that they're not even conscious that that's the reality for women. Again, not all men are like this, but at the moment it definitely is making me more hostile towards the literal and metaphorical man on the street...

A couple of French podcasts

Really having trouble getting to sleep at the moment, despite being tired by bedtime due to lack of sleep from previous nights. Right now, the naughty cat is on the spare pillow next to me, which at least stops her from scratching on my door and crying for a solid half hour or so. There will be trouble if she pees on anything though! I can't really blame her for being more than usually eager to get in though. I think today's high was -3 and low -6 (or that's what it was when I got up this morning anyway). No snow, but it was cold! I think I almost gave myself an insta-cold walking home from work, I had watering eyes from the wind, a runny nose, swollen glands (unless that was my imagination running away from me) and frozen ears, fingers and cheekbones by the time I made it in the door. I need to suck it up and buy a hat, even if I do look silly in it. Also need to buy some more hand cream, my hands start to crack as soon as it gets cold, especially along the joints of my thumbs, and then they just never heal up :(

Anyway, the point of this post was meant to be to share a couple of podcasts I came across recently. They're both from RFI (Radio France Internationale, www.rfi.fr). The first is the Journal en français facile, which is a 10 minute daily news roundup. When I came across it, I was a bit concerned that 'français facile' would be way to easy for me. Instead, it only goes to prove that French people don't really understand how to speak slowly and clearly for foreigners. I swear, 90% of French people will say something at exactly the same speed and clarity level, whether it's the fifth time you've asked them to repeat it or not. That becomes a bit more comprehensible when you listen to this podcast, tailor-made by professionals for people learning French and realise that that's how fast they speak when they're trying to dumb it down! I can understand it, but I should considering I live here and everything - I think a beginner would be totally lost. They even have things like soundbites from correspondents in Cambodia or the Ivory Coast or wherever, who do not always have the easiest accents to understand. Still, if anyone happens to teach French, they would make good listening exercises, or obviously for improving your own listening comprehension. Plus I don't always pay a lot of attention to the news, particularly the French national news, so it's nice to have half a clue about what's going on.

The second one is 'Apprendre le français avec l'actu' which I really like. These are shorter, around 2 - 3 minutes, also entirely in French, and focused on one word or phrase 'making the news' at the moment. For example, today I listened to the one on 'mi-mandat' (this was a few days old). Of course, you don't even have to speak French to figure out that 'mi-mandat' is 'mid-mandate' i.e. referring to the recent mid-term elections in the States. But rather than just explaining the word, they give a brief account of why this word is in the news, and then more about the use and etymology. Unlike 'demi' (but like 'mid' in English), 'mi' is a particle and can't be used on its own. As they pointed out in the podcast, it's obvious but easy to miss that 'mi' turns up in words like 'minuit', 'midi' (formed with 'di' from the Latin), and 'milieu' - literally in the middle of a place. The other day, I learned that 'portefeuille', which means a wallet, can also mean 'portfolio' (and there's obviously a common root there), in the sense of a cabinet minister's portfolio - this is because 'portefeuille' used to refer to a folder for documents. Which makes sense when you think about porter - to carry and feuille - which is a sheet of paper as well as a leaf on a tree.

Anyway, I won't go on boring those of you who don't speak French, but if you do speak French to a reasonable level, I would recommend these, especially the learning French from the news one. Even if your French is really good, you will learn interesting little things about the French language I'm sure!

The discovery of France

I've been trying of late to improve my knowledge of French history, because although I took a paper on the French Revolution at uni and several general ones on European history, I've always felt a bit fuzzy on some of the particulars of French history, especially the whole Napoleon-Louis Napoleon-Revolution-Republic-another Revolution-Monarchy bit of it (unfortunately I still am majorly confused on all that, so if anyone knows a good book or something to brush up on it, let me know!)

So first I listened to an excellent Open Yale podcast course on the History of France Since 1871, taught by John Merriman - more info here. Unfortunately, this started after the whole confusing mess mentioned above, but it was still really interesting on the recent history of France. Good to learn who all those 'hommes politiques' every bloody street in France is named after are! Jean Jaurès, for example, who has a major square where the two main axis routes of Tours named after him, was the guy who united the French socialist parties back in c. 1905. He was assassinated on the eve of WWI due to his unpopular pacifist stance.

Anyway, I am currently reading The Discovery of France by Graham Robb (best 1p I ever spent, thanks Amazon! FYI for those reading from France - I always compare prices on amazon.fr and amazon.co.uk - English books on amazon.fr are almost always shipped from England anyway, and althoug the cost of shipping from England is a bit more, often the prices of the books will be much lower and thus offset the shipping & currency conversion differences) and I'm enjoying and learning so much that I thought I should share with any other francophiles who may be reading.

Essentially it's an exploration of France before France i.e. teasing out the 'real' France that existed before everything got centralised and homogenised. I think most people know that France used to be a patchwork of different languages and cultures, but the amount of differences and how long they endured were a real surprise to me. It's billed as a sort of travelogue - one guy exploring France on a bicycle - but it's actually not at all. While the author, a former Fellow at Oxford, really did go around France on a bike, there's very few mentions of this in the book and no sort of 'wacky encounters' or anything like that, just a historic account of what "pre-modern" (i.e. up to the 20th century and sometimes even beyond) France was like.

The first section, which basically describes life in some of the regions and maps out the cultural and linguistic differences, is especially interesting. Did you know, for example, that there used to be a hated minority group in many parts of France called the cagots (or a variant thereof)? They weren't a linguistic, religious, or ethnic subset, just a sort of caste that was shunned and restricted to living in certain areas and working in certain trades, for reasons unknown to even those who were persecuting them. I found it particularly poignant that, when the Revolution came, the cagots tried to take advantage of the situation by burning the records that identified them as outsiders, but this initiative failed because their names were memorised and passed down in the rhymes of the village children. The Wikipedia article on cagots is largely sourced from Robb's book.

After the many fascinating 'did you know' moments in the first third, I found the middle third dipped a little bit, with an over-emphasis on tracing the development of transportation in France and how it opened up the provinces to change and 'discovery', but it's still interesting. I'm currently on the last third (these are my divisions rather than the actual structure of the book) which is describing the impressions of tourists from the Ile-de-France in the regions. One interesting point that is made is that many of the hallmarks of regional identity - cuisine, costume etc. are actually either quite recent - whatever fashions etc. these tourists found at the exact moment they arrived in a region in the 19th century became the 'traditional' costume of the region, even if it had actually been at one a wide-spread fashion throughout France that had just hung on in the slower-changing provinces, or not really representative of traditional life in the province at all e.g. the sorts of rich, meat-filled regional cuisines we know today, which may be native to an area but would have been far out of reach of most of its subsistence-level inhabitants before the modern era.

To sum up, I found (am finding) this a fascinating alternative to the typical Paris-centric, great man sort of history that you normally read about France or anywhere else, full of interesting tidbits and insights into a bygone world. Highly recommended!

Vive la différence!

I've been thinking a bit more about a couple of other things to emerge out of my lunch with the boss yesterday. For example, she said at one stage that I was "always there, working, & I never took any time off". I think I managed not to shriek with laughter, but I did say that I was definitely NOT complaining, but I wasn't used to having quite so many holidays. I suppose it's true in a way, apart from the compulsory August holidays I have only taken a couple of days off so far (with a couple more scheduled around Toussaint and the 11th Nov, in order to extend the long weekends a bit). But seriously, gentle readers, I work 35 hours a week and I have (once again) 11 weeks' paid holiday plus stats. And to a French person, this equals "always there, working"!? Lolz. In fact (as I explained to her), I'm taking 3 weeks at Christmas - there's a two-week compulsory shutdown, but I'm taking an extra week because my parents are visiting. Then there's another compulsory 2 week break over Easter, although I'm not too sure how that's going to work with Easter being so late this year - if the 2 week break extends into May I'll have to take extra time off in April or before that to make sure I take all my holidays before the end of my contract (even if it rolls over), because my contract ends on the 1st of May. So at the moment, that leaves me with "only" 2 weeks' leave to spend, & I'd rather not take too much time now & hold out for some long weekends when it's deepest, darkest February/March & I just don't want to get out of bed!

Anyone who's reading this and thinking "WANKER!" - I don't blame you, seriously I know it's a ridiculous amount of leave & I'm very very grateful. But do bear in mind that I earn less here per annum than I did in my last job in New Zealand, & the cost of living is a lot higher - for example, I pay nearly double the rent here that I did in Wellington (my apartment's nicer to be fair, but it's also in a small provincial city, not the capital), so it's not all sunshine and roses. I'm not complaining, but just to balance things out...

Anyway, the second thing that stuck in my mind a bit was that we were talking about how I found my apartment in Tours & she said that she was impressed that I handled it all myself & if it were a French person, they would have been on the phone going "help me, help me", so that was a point in my favour! I was thinking (but didn't say of course) that it was partly that I was just too shy to ask for any help, but you know, it's true that by this stage I'm pretty self-sufficient and good at taking whatever life throws me. Travel's good that way. As well as the general experience in living in the famous 9 cities, this is the third time that I've turned up in a new city where I didn't know a soul & had to find a place to live and figure everything else out at the same time with nobody there to give me a hand. Doing it in Wellington was a bit easier, for obvious reasons, so I'm glad that that was the first time I had that experience, a trial run if you like. But does that mean that foreigners in general are more self-sufficient than the French? To be honest, I have my doubts. I've come across plenty of people, particularly in the assistantship programme, fresh out of university and fresh off the boat who have been pretty clueless and panicked and really reliant on people to help them sort their lives out. I think a combination of life experience - I'm not just out of university & having my first experience overseas or outside of a structured environment (living with Mum & Dad, or, from what I gather, in a dorm in the US - which by the way is not intended as a dig at Americans, it's just that it's much much less common for people to live in dorm or other student accommodation in NZ, or even to go away to uni, unless you come from a town where you have no choice in the matter) - and just the fact that there WAS no-one to help me when I turned up here in Tours or when I arrived in Nice or Wellington for that matter, is what makes me "different" in that respect.

Anyway, that's probably just pointless rambling, but it was just interesting for me to have a French perspective on what, in their opinion, makes me different from a French person, since usually it's just the other way around.

Nantes & St Nazaire

Just back from a long weekend, a little bit browner and happy that I saw the sea, even if only for a few hours. Lots to catch up on!

My friend Ruth arrived safe, sound & on time with Ryan Air (gasp!) on Friday, and it was lovely to see her smiling face again at the airport! The last time we caught up, as some readers may remember, was in Milan for the Grand Prix last September - I can't believe that was 11 months ago! That means I'm coming up on a year in Europe!

After dropping R's bags off chez moi, we headed out for a small taste of Tours nightlife and a lot of chatting. A cider, a delicious pizza (each), a small carafe of wine and a cocktail later (um, over several hours...), we called it a night and headed home for some beauty sleep before a busy day on Saturday. We started off hitting the shops in Tours, so that R could get some vital French shopping done. Highly successful inasmuch as R made some lovely purchases and I didn't buy anything. Then it was off to the station for the train to Nantes, via Angers.

We arrived about 3 pm, armed with the address of the hotel and nothing more. No taxis, no tourist office, nothing... After a bit of milling about at the taxi stand, we decided to wing it and try to make our way to the hotel on foot, after consulting a very vague map at the tram station. Pleased to say that we successfully navigated our way to the hotel, and this was but the first of our navigational triumphs! We all know how directionally-challenged I am, and given that I had to correct R a few times on which way to go, it's probably safe to say we're pretty much equally blessed in that department (although ONE of us is a geographer!), so this was an achievement!

I can't remember what we did after checking in, I think we just wandered the streets for a bit - the hotel was pretty close to the central shopping/bar district - and then went back to the hotel for a rest (I fell asleep, whoops) and shower before dinner. Another great meal - galettes followed by crepes, very Breton. Galettes and crepes are essentially the same thing, I think the difference is galettes are made with wholemeal flour and crepes with white flour. My galette was filled with reblochon cheese, creme fraiche, lardons, and potatoes mmm, and then the crepe was chocolate almond yum! This was accompanied by a small pitcher of very nice rosé each, whole meal came to about 15 euros I think, bargain. We then stopped in at a Cuban bar and had about 4 mojitos each, if memory serves. Finally, somewhere in France that makes decent mojitos! Normally (as in Prague), they are made with table sugar instead of sugar syrup, which manages to shoot straight up the straw and completely coat the inside of your mouth unless you spend about 10 minutes stirring first.

Sunday was our sightseeing day, so we were up earlyish and headed out to the chateau of the Dukes of Britanny, which we had passed on the way from the train station the day before. This was very large and imposing outside, but inside was actually made up of several smaller buildings. You could go in and walk around the grounds and up on the ramparts for free, which was nice. We made the mistake of asking some old dude to take our photo - first he made us switch sides, then said 'I see nothing', switched us back, still said he saw nothing, fiddled with the camera for about 5 minutes and then when Ruth told him 'oh well, just hold the camera out and click', I swear to god he just pretended to press the button. In any case, no photo was taken and we were left wondering whether we asked an actual blind man to take the photo... We then had to wait for him to shuffle off before we could ask someone else to do the job.

Inside one of the castle buildings was a museum on the history of Nantes. Very comprehensive. I think we had definitely peaked by about room 20, and were somewhat disheartened that there were still 12 rooms to go! To be fair, it was well done, and there were definitely interesting things, like the history of the slave trade in Nantes. I knew that there were slaves in the French Caribbean, but if you'd have asked me how they got there, I probably would have said the Americans or maybe even the British sold them to the French colonists. Turns out that Nantes was a major player in the slave trade, and that there were even slaves held in mainland France. Nantes was so into slave trading that they went right on doing it for about 50 years after the slave trade was officially made illegal. I could have lived without quite so much information about the rise and fall of Nantes as a port and industrial hub, on the other hand...

After lunch, we checked out the cathedral, which looked all shiny and new - turns out it has been very majorly restored after a huge fire in the 1970s. Restoration work only finished two years ago. The façade was restored in three stages, and you can really see which bit was restored most recently (photos to follow).

On the way to the cathedral we had to cross the street to avoid a drunk coming the other way, vomiting as he walked - this was not to be my last daytime drunken encounter, as we shall see. Nantes seemed like it would be a nice place to live, but I must say, man, did we get hassled! In Tours, and in England in R's case, we don't get yelled at or stared at nearly as much - not sure whether we stood out as tourists, or if it's just what they're like in Nantes, but there were several unpleasant encounters where men leered or made various remarks (not all of which were understood, but you get the drift). One guy yelled something (didn't catch what) pretty much right in our faces as we were walking past, in broad daylight, and he was with a woman! On the plus side, one guy asked us for money in a very polite fashion, and was even nice when we said no.

Anyway, Sunday night we had an apéro and then dinner quite late thereafter, I didn't enjoy the meal quite as much as the previous two nights, but it wasn't bad & the entrée of (essentially) cheese on toast was very nice.

On Sunday, R had to catch her train back to Tours at midday, and I decided to take the opportunity of hitting the beach while I was nearby. So, with beaucoup de tristesse, it was goodbye to R, but it will not be another 11 months till we see each other next - R's wedding is locked in for May, if not before.

I headed off, then, to St Nazaire, a reasonable-sized coastal town not far from Nantes. I still hadn't made up my mind whether I would just stay for the afternoon or the night, but when I arrived at the train station, once again there were few facilities - no tourist information, no luggage storage that I could see, and I couldn't get the coin-operated toilets to work, so I just decided to head into town, hoping the beach was close. Had no idea of the size or layout of the town at this stage. I ended up following the signs to the Office of Tourism, which was maybe not the best idea in hindsight, since it was about a 20 minute walk away through pretty desolate areas - okay, not that far, but on a blazing hot day, with a suitcase and no idea where you're going and how far away it is, it feels longer. Anyway, by the time I got there and enquired about hotels and so on, I decided it would be best to take a room for the night, so I could change into my swimsuit, leave my luggage, and hit the beach properly.

Before I even got to the tourist office, however, I had quite a disturbing encounter. Remember what I said about the vomiting drunk? Mum, look away now... I was about to meet vomiting drunk #2. Just before I got to the tourist office, I came across a Carrefour supermarket, and popped in for a bottle of water and a sandwich. Right outside there was that rarity of rarities in France, a free public toilet, hurrah! When I went in, I saw a girl at the sink washing her hands. It took a second to realise that she was running her cut finger under water, and that she was vomiting. I went up to her and asked her if she was okay, and another girl suddenly appeared behind me and told me not to worry, she would look after her. I was pretty disturbed - they were pretty obviously street kids, and it looked like a serious cut, but I didn't really want to argue with the second girl. I went to use the bathroom, since the girls were between me and the door in any case. It was absolutely hideous - when the girl wasn't vomiting, she was screaming and crying in the most horrible way. The only thing I could think to do was to take some plasters out of my bag when I was in the loo and offer them to the girl who had talked to me. When I came out, there were about 5 or 6 of them in the bathroom, including men, several of them clutching bottles of alcohol. I offered the girl the plasters and she said that I was kind, but they would be no use - which judging by the cut, was true, although presumably better than nothing at all. The wounded girl was still screaming horribly. I wasn't really scared at this stage, since the girl was talking to me quite nicely, but I did think it was probably better not to hang around since they clearly didn't want my help. Looking back, I think I was probably lucky that they were busy with their own drama and didn't take it in their heads to rob me or worse... Goodness knows how the girl got injured, for starters. So I left, but I was worried enough to tell the people at the tourist office across the road what I had seen. They told me that they were always hanging around there, fighting and getting into trouble - the police came by regularly, but just left again. They didn't really seem to care, so what could I do? In fact, I went to the supermarket the next day and there were three or four of them (not sure if they were some of the same ones from the day before or not) in front of me in line, buying dozens of bottles of beer and wine. Judging from the conversation of the cashiers, this was a daily experience. Someone told me that there's been for quite some time a phenomenon in these parts of 'punk' kids who dress in a certain way (boots, cargo pants and so on), hang out on the streets drinking, and go everywhere with huge dogs on chains, and once I was told that, it's true, you see them all the time. It's really sad that in a country like France, which may not be perfect in terms of giving opportunities to young people, but that at least has a social safety net for those who will take it, that these kids can end up pretty much voluntarily living on the streets, begging and drinking themselves into oblivion. How did they end up like that?

Anyway, now that I've finished giving my mum nightmares, the rest of the afternoon went well, spent lying on a couple of lovely sandy beaches on the Atlantic coast (my first time, not counting Ireland where I saw the Atlantic but there were no beaches). By the time I got there, I only had a few hours on the beach, but it was very nice. I was planning a day at the beach today, and even to go for a swim, but I was very disappointed this morning to wake up to overcast, drizzly skies and a forecast that the whole day would be the same. :( I went out briefly in the morning, decided that I didn't want to go to a museum dedicated to St Nazaire's history as a naval port (ye gods!), so went to the train station and discovered that it was going to take all day to complete a journey of about 2 1/2 hours, owing to long stops in Nantes and Angers. Got to the train station at 10.45, set out from St Nazaire at 12.20, and finally made it to Tours at 6.05! Wasn't too bad really, read my book (Wolf Hall, proving a winner so far) and went into town for lunch at Nantes.

Good to be home, if a bit disappointed about the beach today and sorry that the holiday with R went so quickly. Looking forward to Porto with my friend Carolyn this weekend though!

In which I have what Mum would call an adventure...

...and everyone else would call a pain in the arse.

So today I went out to the gym mid-morning in an effort to beat the heat, which worked nicely. (Full workout btw Mum, you were right.) Returned home about an hour before qualifying for the British GP was about to kick off, plenty of time to eat lunch and do some housework.

About 1.45, 15 minutes before qualifying, I was in the middle of cleaning my room and decided to take down the wrapping of the 5 or so parcels I've received in the last couple of days (preparing my summer reading via Amazon - it's just incredible that I can get a book sent from England to my door in France for 3 euros TOTAL! They're not all that cheap of course, but wow!) Anyway, there I was, still in my gym shorts and tee, slipped on a pair of sandals to go downstairs and fatally decided not to take my keys.

I think you can probably see what comes next. Yep, I locked myself out of the house. Once you shut our front door downstairs, it's locked, you don't have to turn a key. The dumbest part of this? As I made my way down the stairs, all I was thinking was "better not lock yourself out, what would you do then?" And then I evidently closed the front door behind me without a care in the world, because I didn't even realise I'd done it until I'd deposited the recycling and went to go back in.

So there I was, on the street, on another blazing hot day, with nothing but the clothes I stood up in. No cellphone, no money, no nothing, just the knowledge that my flatmate would be at work all day, on the other side of town, and I would die without water. So I decided to ring my neighbours' doorbell (who I've never met) and basically beg. This was pretty awkward... The lady who answered the door was super nice, she let me in right away and suggested I ring my flatmate (don't know her number) or the rental agency in case they had a spare key (the most I remember from writing my rent cheques is that their name is some kind of acronym). I was sitting there on her couch in my gym clothes, sweating buckets, it was fricking awful. Eventually, she figured out that I could ring my flatmate at work (good job her), and my flattie rang the former flatmate who has a set of spare keys, but no dice, he was out of town. So then I had to really awkwardly ask for money for bus fare. I said 5 euros, and I think she thought I might be scamming her at that point, since the bus fare is only 1.35 each way, so she gave me 3. Fair enough, obviously. I only said 5 because it was like 30 degrees and I knew I'd be thirsty, but I coped (I actually spent my return bus fare on a bottle of water cos my ticket was valid for an hour - although you're probably not technically meant to use it for a return trip).

Anyway, I was lucky enough to get a bus there and back without having to wait at all, and got the keys off my flatmate no worries. Once I got back to mine and was reunited with my handbag, I went and bought the neighbours a bunch of flowers at the convenient Saturday flower market for being so nice, which I think they really appreciated. In this day and age it does actually restore your faith in humanity a bit to know that someone would let a crazy, shabbily-dressed, sweaty foreigner they've never seen before into their house, let them use their phone, leave them unsupervised to do so, and lend them money, all with no way of knowing whether I would ever pay them back, or if I'd pay them back by robbing the place. So I hope by paying them back in money and flowers I returned the favour in that way as well. I also feel proud of myself, because once over I probably would have been way too shy to ask for any help, let alone money, and would have just walked for like an hour out to the flatmate's work. Travel = character-building.

Took me about an hour to take the trip out to my flatmate's work and back, thus I missed the whole of qualifying :( And to cap it off, Button's miserably down in 14th!