Weird Moments in France

Having just passed the one-year mark for this journey, and finding myself in increasingly random situations, I decided to reflect on a few of the strangest moments in France. And here they go, in no particular order . . .

• Sitting in a car with three 19-20 year old french boys, as we listen to LMFAO, and they literally create a rave in the car--with flashing lights and dancing (as much as humanly possible) and beatboxing, going from Lyon to Montpellier (300km). When they weren't raving, they were rapping their own lyrics on the fly, or creating a faux quiz show about a particular type of bread. I haven't laughed that much in a long time, but I still have no idea what was going on. Merci Rudy, Maxime et Clément pour la vraiment bizarre soirée--Vous, les gars, êtes ridicules... mais c'était extrêmement drôle.

• Meeting Georg at the youth hostel in Montpellier, and having him organise my life within 2 hours of knowing him. Thanks for choosing my French city, university course, forcing me to own a phone (to the point where you gave one to me), and letting me stay with you for the first week here in Montpellier :) And not to mention indulging me in figuring out how to cook pizza (both frozen and from scratch) in a frying pan. Tu es le meilleur, Georg!

• Going to a community hall with two french friends for a Karaoke night that ended up being predominantly for retired people, and singing oldies George Brassens songs in French with an accompanying guitar player. There may be video evidence of this one. Je te blâme, Olivier. Et merci à toi, Fanny, pour ne pas faire un demi-tour :) C'était une bonne soirée.

• I've already written about this--but it remains one of the more random situations I've been in. Cycling into Cateau Cambrésis for the day and sitting at an outside table at a restaurant for lunch, I bonded with the people sitting at the table next to me as we ran around trying to collect my maps that were flying everywhere in the blustery winds. In the next ten minutes, in a combination of French and English we got to know each other, and by the end I had a piece of paper in hand with their address, and instructions of how to get to their home. They, having been married just the day before, invited me to stay with them and their family for the night. As they were leaving I had to run after them to find out what their first names were. Talk about hospitality. Merci à tous--Maité, Benjamin, Corinne, et Marcel-André! Il était le meilleur accueil  à la France!
  

• Any and all of the language moments when afterwards I know I've told someone something ridiculous, or understood something ridiculous . . . 
•   "Tu as besoin de souris" instead of "tu as besoin de sourire" . . . or "you need a mouse" instead of "you need to smile." Désolée David! Et c'est vrai, il possède une souris! Et un grand sourire.
  
• "Au début, j'étais trop timide, maintenant, je suis ok avec mes gaufres en français" instead of "Au début, j'étais trop timide, maintenant, je suis ok avec mes gaffes en français" . . . or "At first I was too shy, now I'm ok with my waffles in French" instead of
  "At first I was too shy, now I'm ok with my blunders in French" (this one was particularly ironic). Celui-ci était à la ferme des abeilles dans Tréziers. Stephanie a eu un bon rire hors de cette phrase :) Merci à tous!
  
• Thinking the hiking club was going flamenco dancing, when in fact they were going to eat a type of pizza called Flammekueche. Merci Frøydis pour l'invitation à joindre la groupe, et Pauline, merci pour l'explication.
  
• "Tom, il pleut" . . . instead of "Tom, il pleure" . . . or "Tom, he's raining" instead of "Tom, he's crying" Tom est anglais, par conséquent, il comprend ce type de situation. N'est-ce pas, Tom?
  
• Using google translate on emails I don't understand and coming back with phrases like: "it stands in the juice (sock!)" . . . and having to respond.  "On se tient au jus (de chaussette!)" . . . is a doubly hard phrase . . . se tenir au jus is essentially to keep someone in the loop . . . jus (juice) is doubling for electricity, or current--keep someone current . . . and the "de chaussette" addition at the end is a joke about a weak/bad coffee--yup, this is what I have to deal with. Merci beaucoup, Karine :)
• Spending half an hour trying to pronounce feuille and fouille with several different groups of people. Désolée, Benoît de continuer à blesser tes oreilles avec mon accent. Et merci d'avoir essayé :) Merci également à l'ensemble des équipes de frisbee (l'Université et le Club sur plusieurs occasions), et particulièrement Karine, pour essayer de réparer mon "mignon" accent anglais.

• The Fête des Lumières in Beaux Arts that didn't seem to have any lights (Fête des Lumières means Festival of the Lights). But, what it did have was a 15-20 person band that milled around in the crowd, playing anything from the Cranberries to old French songs, wearing the most bizarre getups I've seen--including a faux leather red jumpsuit, zebra sports jacket, and any number of jacked up christmas decoration lights (these being the only real lights we saw). I have no idea how they started each song, as at any given time there were several musicians drinking wine from the bottle, texting, smoking, dancing, or sitting, all looking in different directions--we even saw the saxophonist smoke while playing. I think the highlight was when one took a bag full of feathers and dumped them all over the crowd, for no clear reason. Merci encore Georg, pour danser avec moi dans la rue!

• Performing Molière in French, using a postmodern polyphonic technique (as in no defined character roles) and abstract acting, all performed by people from different foreign countries . . . resulting in absolutely no-one in the audience understanding what was going on.  Merci Tianna, Vanessa, Amanda, Shuko, et Yasmin. J'ai effectivement eu un temps merveilleux dans cette classe. Surtout merci à Tianna qui m'a aidé à mémoriser mes lignes!

• And who could forget my first job in France--sitting drawing with Sarah Connell on the seaside when a father and daughter came up and offered us a bottle of wine for me to draw their house. Or carrying my bicycle up (Sarah) and down (me) five flights of a circular staircase in a tiny apartment building on l'Ile de la Cité in Paris.  Tu me manques, Sarah! 

• My brother (this isn't really in France, but was during my time here) trying to coerce me into singing a duet with him of the Potato/Potahto song at Deutche Opera House in Berlin for a concert for my parent's 40th wedding anniversary. All of the other performers were professional musicians. And to top it off, having him call excitedly to tell me that he was going to try track down Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (the famous German baritone) to attend, as he is one of my dad's favourite singers. Thank you Andrew for not making me do it! Maybe we can do this sometime in the future in a less entirely terrifying situation for me.

But all in all, the random, lovely, bizarre, terrifying situations have made this year what it is. I have three months left in France (at least on this visa--maybe they'll take me back someday) and I'm trying not to squander any of it.

Bisous à tous,

Mary

Thanksgiving in London and Speed-Tourism

Well, as it's the best holiday ever invented (in its current evolutionary phase--I entirely agree with anyone who wants to talk about indigenous rights), I wanted to spend Thanksgiving amongst friends. Tell me if you can think of anything bad about feeling thankful, cooking, eating, drinking, friends, family, singing, games, more eating, and napping. Impossible. So with that in mind, I decided to hop the ditch and spend my thanksgiving (yes, I know this blog is hopelessly out of date) with Sarah Galbraith and contingent. Unfortunately the trip was incredibly short, so I decided to make it simple and not try to catch up with all of the other lovely people in London--that will have to wait until May/June when I return next.

On arrival, I couldn't help but sing The Wombles on the train.

And then we were off for my first London pub--and some snooker playing amongst the hippest of hipsters. Wow, there were some great woolen jerseys in that dive.

The next 24 hours were full of Thanksgiving goodness. Markets for fresh ingredients, cooking, organizing the apartment to fit more people than it should . . .

The meal itself was amazing. Turkey, two types of stuffing (one with haggis), mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, apple/blueberry sauce, numerous roast vegetables, various salads, pies and cakes galore. The English contingent pulled out all of the stops. 

The night continued on into singing and music and laughter, until I fell asleep somewhat mid-sentence. Standard.

The next day was absolutely beautiful and sunny, and we went riding our bikes all over, ending up at Derek and Laura's place for pancakes and blueberries. It was awesome to meet Achilles Renoir--what a cool wee man. We also went for a wander in Hampstead Heath, catching up on the last few years of events, and kicking leaves. Unfortunately, I left my camera at home, so you'll have to take me at my word. It was a picture-perfect endorsement for moving to London--hmmm.

My last full day in London was spent attempting to fit in a variety of tourist-centered attractions in a haphazardly browsing fashion. I started out with my atlas and compass in hand, and headed for the South bank of the Thames. I tracked down a Banksy . . . covered in plexiglass it gives food for thought--is this how street art should be treated? On the one hand, it's worth a ton of money intact, and as is can be protected from further tagging and artworks. On the other, the nature of street art is ephemeral and often politically or socially motivated and pertinent to a moment in time, rather than preservation through the ages. Thoughts?

I also saw a series of these characters . . . which I thought were incredibly emotive, encircling a worksite. Looked like they were possibly commissioned.

I then trolled the bridges . . . Tower, London, Southwark, Millenium (which looks fabulously like a spine), Blackfriars, and Waterloo.

I spent several hours at the Tate Modern. As usual, dreaming of all the artworks and projects I could do.

In wandering about London, I was intrigued and excited by the juxtaposition and layering of different epochs and styles of architecture and art. What an interesting city.

With the light fading, I suddenly realised that my version of hitting the tourist spots didn't really fulfill the norm, and that I'd at least like to catch a glimpse of some of the more famous landmarks, so I speed-walked my way about, getting in the new Globe Theatre, Big Ben, The Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace and its famous guards, Trafalgar Square, a double-decker, a red telephone box, and a heartbeat's worth of the British Museum (which only fueled fire to my desire to return). . . all in just a few hours of severe ADHD.

And then I returned to the real-world, the London I was there to see . . . spending another lovely evening with Sarah and Brendan.

In the morning, we frequented the local tea shop--I promise I'll always remember to let you have the front section of the paper first, Brendan. I cede it to you for all eternity.  Look at that look he's giving me--it's just daring me to try for it. Also, the perspective in this shot is a *little* off, but yes, he is an extremely tall, lovable Scotsman, and Sarah is quite the compact model.

Thank you all for a lovely time. And you entirely succeeded in making me think very very seriously about London as a next sedentary location for this wandering minstrel.

Oh the decisions to be made . . .