Stupid American, encore

I'm happy to report that I am continuing to single-handedly uphold the stereotype of the Stupid American.

In my French class, we played a ‘game’. It was an exercise where one person leaves the room (I volunteered first because I had to go to the bathroom) and the others who are left in the room think of one word – it can be any person, place or thing – and the object of the game is to get the person who left the room (and then has come back) to say the word without realizing that they said it. This is all in French, of course, and the students are from all over - Japan, Tiawan, Brazil, Holland, Italy, Portugal, etc. etc.

OK... so they thought of a word... a person. Then they began to ask me questions... It went like this..

1. Do you like sports?
Yeah, some sports.

2. What sports do you like?
Well, not many, but I do like “la foot”.
(discussion follows about American football vs. European football,
known to us as soccer.)

3. Have you been to any soccer games?
I went to lots of soccer games when my son played soccer in High School!!

4. Have you gone to any soccer games here?
No

5. Have you watched soccer on TV?
Yes, occasionally (flipping channels...but I didn't say that!)

6. What team do you like best?
Olympic Lyonnaise (Nevermind that I really didn’t know many others...)

7. What French players do you like?
Oh… geez...I couldn’t name any...

8. WHATT?? YOU CAN’T NAME A SINGLE PLAYER????
Uh... non, je regrette(sorry).

The thought bubbles over their heads...
WHAT????? Not one single famous french football player??
Were you born yesterday?
Did you just get off the boat?
Have you been hiding under a rock?
Just fell off the turnip truck?
Had your head in the sand?
Ah, no... just stupid American.....bien sur.

End of game...the word they were thinking was ZIZOU.

Thought bubble over my head...Zizou? huh?? what's a zizou??
(Zizou is the nickname that his fans have given him)


So how bad was my faux pas?
Imagine living in America...or specifically Illinois... and not knowing who Michael Jordan is.

Imagine living in America, Texas, ...and not knowing who Roger Clemens is, or Lance Armstrong.

Imagine living in America in the 60’s and 70’s ... or specifically New York... And not knowing who Joe Namath is.


OK... guilty as charged... stupid American.

So in case you are a stupid American too, read here:

The village news said this about him...
The French have never been very passionate about football, but Zinedine Zidane is still the most popular man in France. It's partly because he is the only contemporary Frenchman who is both world famous and universally recognised as the outstanding genius in his field. It's partly because his way of playing the game is so stylish that even people who have no interest in football can immediately appreciate that Zidane is doing something extraordinary. He's also a nice guy.

And another article:

This Is Zidane:
An exquisite ball player who never stops working to improve his control and skills Zidane is the ultimate midfield soccer star. Posessed with an intuitive vision of the game in progress he is a play-maker 'extraordinaire?' Zidane is an extrovert on the playing field and a quiet family man off it. He is involved in charity work in France and North Africa.
Awards:
1996: European Super Cup and the World Club Cup with Juventus.
1998: World Cup with France.
1998: European Player of the Year award -- the Balon d'Or.
1999: FIFA 1998 World Player of the Year.
2000: Euro 2000 Championship with France. Named Player of the Tournament.
2000: FIFA World Player of the Year for the second time.
2002: European Champions League with Real Madrid.
2002: World Club Cup with Real Madrid.
2003: FIFA World Player of the Year for the Third time

Zinidine Zidane - simply the best!

l'affiche (poster) 

Watch the mail

I just finished work on our Christmas cards for this year. They are ready to mail. For family and friends who have received our cards in the past, you know what to expect. We have been sending Christmas cards designed by the same person ever since we got married 27 years ago. The card designer is Ted Naos. Coincidently, he teaches architecture at CUA where Kate is a student. When we learned that he was a prof there, we hoped she would have the opportunity to take a class with him, or at the very least, get to meet him.

In the fall of her sophomore year, she had a studio class with him. She learned that he earned his degree from the University of Texas... so ... they had much in common and talked about missing Texas. She also told him about our love of his cards and he told her some history behind a few of the special designs. He even sent us a very kind letter thanking us and telling us what a delight it was to have Kate in his class (well, of course!).

Kate also learned that he is from Greece and that he spends every spring semester in his homeland. I had not realized just how much his home country of Greece had influenced his designs until...

One day I was walking past a travel agency window and saw a poster advertising trips to Greece. And wow, it hit me. The poster looked just like the Christmas card designs!

Monday-morning quarterbacking

I never gave much thought to our method of dispensing food at meals until we performed the 'post-game analysis' of Thanksgiving dinner. After having French friends over for dinner on numerous occasions, we have come to one conclusion... buffet serving is just too uncomfortable for them ... We can not continue doing it over here.

But wait.. Buffet is a FRENCH WORD, isn’t it?
Reference.com says this:
History
While serving oneself at a meal has a long history, the modern buffet was developed in France in the 18th century, soon spreading throughout Europe. The term originally referred to the sideboard where the food was served, but eventually became applied to the form. The buffet became popular in the English-speaking world in the second half of the nineteenth century.

I wondered if maybe we were overreacting to our observation...
I think back on my own experiences... Thanksgiving, Christmas, family dinners, get-togethers with friends... we put out all the food, then everyone grabs a plate and serves themselves. If you want more... no problem…. Just get up and serve yourself some more food. At Thanksgiving, there’s often more food than you can fit on your plate so you actually PLAN for ROUND II.

But that’s not how it’s done here and we realize that. Each course begins with the passing around the table of one single dish and then each person takes a serving. If a large crowd is gathered, it can take a lonog time... and if someone gets heavily involved in conversation, the process can actually stop for a while! Then, eating begins only after all have been served. We can’t go on to the next course until everyone has finished the first one. I am a very slow eater and often feel weird as I hold up the process. But it’s OK... no one is in a hurry.

It’s strange... even when more than one food is being served, it is always on just one plate... a platter .. and it is passed around. My problem is that my current casserole-type dishes typically are heavy and are too hot to pass around anyway. I guess I need to work on it. ... at least when I serve French friends...

more snow! 

Other happenings during the American holidays

It’s been snowing here a s#!+load but doesn’t stay on the ground. In my opinion, that’s the best kind because driving in it is something we don’t quite know how to do yet.

After the Thanksgiving feast, our French friends who have children about the same age as ours invited us over to their house on Saturday so the young’uns could meet. We were invited at 5pm and Harry had a train to catch at 7:45. Our friends said they would serve some simple light food so we figured we could pull it off in about 2 hours. We drove over (5 people in an itty-bitty car with Harry’s luggage) and arrived at 5:00. It was a very nice visit, their kids spoke really good English, and all got along really well.

We started eating... and we quickly realized that at the pace things were going, there would be no way Harry would make the 7:45 train. No matter that the ‘simple’ food was only a salad, some cheese, and a tart for dessert. Each course involves passing around the plate, discussing the food, waiting until everyone is served... then finally eating the course. Before we could begin the process with the cheese tray, we got a lesson on each kind of cheese, where it was from, how it was made, yada yada yada... then we could pass it around... and eventually eat. Before the meal ended, it was decided that the French kids would have to leave and drive Harry to the train station and our kids would go along too. The adults would finish the ‘small simple light food’.

I think/hope Harry made it in time. Kate got dropped off at home to work on a school project and Jeff went out with the French kids to a sports bar where a soccer game was being shown in French (of course). He said he didn’t really watch it until everyone started cheering... then he would check out the screen, see what happened, and maybe give a cheer too.

We stayed pretty late and it was a very nice visit. They had a fire going in the fireplace and we talked about life, politics, the french riots, the trials and tribulations of learning a new language, and we even helped them with some new English words. They are very patient with us and our French... the conversations would switch back and forth between the languages. We determined that the best way to have good conversation was to talk in our own language... and listen in the other.

We are so blessed to have these good friends!

Happy Thanksgiving 

Turkey part deux

To prepare the “Golden” Thanksgiving turkey we had to soak it in salt water before cooking. Finding a pot large enough to hold enough water to cover the turkey was a trick, until we remembered that we had a bucket that we used to wash the car. After cleaning the bucket, we made the brine and dropped in the turkey. Fitting it into the refrigerator was the next trick. We moved around a few things, adjusted the shelves, and stuffed the turkey into the fridge. The timing to remove the turkey was around 10-11 pm. It wasn’t that we had to simply remove the turkey, but we also had to wash it clean of all salt water. The kitchen sink (often referred to as the wet bar) was too small, so …. picture this… giving the turkey a bath in the bathtub just before midnight. Into the fridge it went, and off to bed we went.

The next day…
There are no aluminum pans that you can buy here to place the turkey into for cooking. So we had no pan… we had to improvise. We placed the turkey in the tray-thing that we found at the bottom of the oven and used some of the extra-large foil I packed before we left the states. OK… good to go…. put the bird in the oven and wait…

For the accompaniments, Jeff brought fresh cranberries from the states and Kate brought the stuffing mix along with a new supply of peanut butter for dad – crunchy, of course.

Paul took the turkey out at the appropriate time, carved it, tasted and said it was better than any prior turkey we cooked! Yipee! We did it! Our friends, two French couples, joined us for our Thanksgiving dinner, and along with the kiddos and it was a very nice evening indeed!

It's snowing!! 

the city sights on the walk before the snow 

Thanksgiving day

We received a few calls asking how a hundred dollar turkey tastes.... and... the answer is... we don't know yet. Seems that these "natural" turkeys need to be brined. You don't just plop them in the oven, you have to soak them in brine water (salt water with spices) for 10 hours. Then you take it out of the brine and let it sit for another 10 hours. That all has to happen before you can cook it. So... today, turkey day is being used to brine the turkey. That's ok because we have invited our french friends over for an American thanksgiving celebration on Friday night.

So the holidays began with the arrival of the 2 kiddos from DC on Wednesday. Then today, friend Harry arrived from Rome. We had a really nice day visiting and catching up with things. Then tonight we went out for our weekly pizza. While sitting at the pizza place, our waiter told us that it was supposed to snow 15 centimeters tonight. I didn't beleive him but then during dinner, it started to snow! By the time we finished dinner and walked home (soaked with melted snow) there was enought to have a wimpy snowball fight! Can't wait to see what it looks like in the morning.... when we take the turkey out to cook.

friend and the kiddos 

the little turkey in our little fridge 

the great turkey hunt of 2005

Thanksgiving is just a few days away and we have finally “scored” our turkey! We started looking for one a few weeks ago and were advised to ask for a “grande dinde”. So on Friday night we stopped by a few of the Boucheries/Charcuteries to see if we could order a turkey. “non” was the answer... maybe for Christmas, but not now. So we went by Les Halles (a huge market place where they have everything) and one nice man told us to come back “mardi matin”. So today is mardi and it is morning(matin) and so we went to see the nice man again. And voila! Une Grande Dinde!

These are not exactly the big Butterballs you find in the U.S. stores. These birds still had their head and wings and a few feathers on them. The price tag said 21.99 euros. Quite a bit to pay for a turkey, we thought. And the bird was only about 4 kilos, or about 9 pounds. Hmmmm kinda small... we thought... and to think you get them free if you go Krogering enough before the big day! So… considering that we will have (at last count) about 10 people to feed... we wondered if we should buy two of them at that outrageous price. We thought better of doing that when we realized that the oven probably wouldn’t hold two, and certainly the refrigerator would be too small. So we bought only one.

The guy started to work on the bird... taking out the insides, chopping off the head, plucking the remaining feathers, then burning off the remaining fuzz. (And to think we actually want to eat this thing...!)

So after a few French comments from the nice man on what a beautiful turkey we had just bought… he presented us with the bill. I wondered why such a fuss over a 'beautiful turkey'... you know, he sounded like a car salesman telling us what a beautiful car we had just purchased. Anyway... this baby’s price was (are you sitting down??) 83.30 euros. Yep, with the current exchange rate, that’s about a hundred bucks... and not 21.99 for the whole bird, but 21.99 a kilo! And I think we also paid for the parts that got cut off.

yep, 83.30 euros 

temperature on Nov 20

 
 

one of many murals in the city

 
 

a real building, on the walk home

 
 

another busy Sunday

We were invited to have lunch at the home of one of Paul’s colleagues on Sunday so we went to early Mass. As we walked through the center of the city, the temperature sign said it was minus one degree. We really didn’t need the sign to tell us how cold it was, especially walking across the Rhone with the wind blowing. After church we did the routine… get a croqant (those red things)… walk past the arts and crafts market to buy some decorative gourds for the Thanksgiving table! Then it was the walk back home and I took a photo of one of the many murals here in Lyon. At first glace, it looks like a regular building, but actually, it’s just a painting. There were “Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive” signs EVERYWHERE, both fancy ones and simple ones made by hand.

After the Sunday morning routine, we hopped into the car to head toward the countryside to the south of the city. We drove thorough winding narrow roads to arrive at the hilltop home of Pierre and his family. (So many Pierres here… not to be confused with our other French friend… also named Pierre). We had a wonderful (very long) lunch with roasted duck, the requisite cheese tray, and all the many other great things! It was served with a good Beaujolais (not Nouveau) wine – Pierre says that the Nouveau is just a marketing gimmick for students and amateur wine drinkers, not for the serious wine lover!

After the food and lots of French (aaaaargh!), we went for a walk. I thought we would just take a short trip around his house but instead, it seems that we went on a serious mountain-climbing expedition. At the top of the mountain, Pierre showed us a rock and said that this particular rock is where Merlin the Magician cast a spell. At that point, I was just thankful that we would be soon heading downhill.

The views in the mountains were breathtaking as we overlooked the valleys below. Once in the valley, it was just as beautiful… the colors were all so vivid as we gazed at the green crops and lots of dairy cows, donkeys, and even a few bulls. I can’t believe that I didn’t bring a camera!

 
 

Les pompiers

 
 

My doorbell rang around 6 pm without anyone buzzing my apartment. “How strange”, I thought. So I looked through the “judas” (that’s what they call the peephole here) and standing in front of my door was a fireman. The thoughts that ran through my mind in that 15 seconds were quite dramatic. “Was the building on fire? ... Had there been a firebomb thingy placed in or near the apartment? Has the violence reached our neighborhood?” It wasn’t an overreaction since a few days ago, around 10 am, I noticed that the traffic was at a standstill just outside my window. There is not usually a traffic jam at that time of the day. But upon further inspection, I noticed that there was a s#*!load of blinking lights from emergency vehicles down by the metro station. I never did find out what was going on... but on the same day... when Paul came home from work and tried to get into his parking garage, he was not allowed to do so (and not told why). And with all the ‘excitement’ around here, we even scrapped our plans to celebrate the Nouveaux Beaujolais event this year.

So... when I saw a fireman at my door, I was starting to hyperventilate. I finally found the courage to open the door to see what the problem was. Turned out, the (fine looking!) young fireman wanted to know if I would buy a fireman calendar. ...funny how they even do that here, I thought... as I envisioned a calendar filled with pages and pages of muscular fireman just like the one standing at my door. How could I refuse?? So I found some money, bought my calendar and said au revoir to the cute fireman guy.

I tore open the calendar to find... well... now I shouldn’t have been surprised... (this is france and they do love paperwork)... a folder ... with a complicated system of papers that had a “day timer” look to it... one paper for each month... and then lots more papers with information about the mission of the firefighters and other stuff that I didn’t take the time to translate.

This would make a nice gift for a former student turned firefighter. I’ll send it along with my kids to Houston.

 
 

always intertaining

“What did you learn in school today?” I remember asking that question at the dinner table one night when my first 2 kids were really young. The oldest (who must have been in first grade) answered, “BLUE… we learned about the color blue.” I turned to my daughter who was in a Montessori pre-school and asked the same question to which she responded, “Vincent Van Gogh… we learned about Vincent Van Gogh today.”

That story came to mind last night when I asked Paul what he learned in tutoring today. He said he learned more of the (whatever) tense. He then asked me what I learned in French school today and I said,
“I learned how to say the equivalent of It’s raining cats and dogs....."

“Il pleu comme vache qui pisse.”

Well..... It doesn’t actually mean “raining cats and dogs” … instead, it’s the expression that the French use that means that it’s raining a whole lot. Literally.... it rains like a cow pisses!

katrina news again 

that famous doctor again

My friend Ginny just called to tell me to read the Houston Chroncle today. My famous beau-frere is in the paper today. Read all about it here.

Thanks Gin!

beau-frère Noun, masculine (a) brother-in-law


p.s. "Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive!"

What??

Paul came home last night after his french tutoring session and told me that he was learning a new tense. I said, "what, another one?? how many tenses are there, and how many do you need???" Before that conversation, I was feeling pretty good about my progress. I just got moved up a level at my french school and I can talk in the past, the present and the future. So why do you need all those tenses?

So then I did a little research. Did you know:
There are 17 different tenses in French? Gees, I got a l-o-n-g way to go!

So it seems that all I do now is memorize verb conjugations. No problem.

Do you realize that in french, if there are
10,000 verbs times the number of tenses (17)
and then you have 6 persons per tense... me, you, other you, her/him, they, and us

.. so mutiply that...
if my math is right - 1,020,000 conjugated forms.

Whooo Hooo - Go Tigers!

 
 

New Discoveries, New Connections

 

I just finished eating a persimmon. We bought it at the market this morning and it was so delicious! My grandmother had a persimmon tree, so did my aunt, and I looked forward to eating as many as I could during this time of year.

“The persimmon tree is even more spectacular after the fall of the leaves. In November to December only the fruits remain on the tree, visible then by far in the countryside as they begin to announce the festival of Christmas!”

In the market they were called Kaki. I thought this was a strange name and when we got home, we looked up the French word for this fruit. Kaki is the Japanese word, the French word is...
“la plaquemine”...
as in Plaquemine parish...
In Louisiana! where the town of Buras is located!

Wow, I never knew that! 

a 'borrowed' picture of place bellecour, as we walked by, we wondered what the tents were for 

updates - the weekend

Friday was a holiday - called Armistice Day here, Veterans Day in the US. We didn't do much during the day, didn't even go out since the weather has turned much colder. But we left the apartment around 6:15 pm and as we stepped out onto the sidewalk in the dark, there was a very distinctive smell of burnt plastic. We wondered if we were smelling burning cars.

On Saturday we decided to get some Christmas shopping done early so that the kids could take the gifts back with them after their Thanksgiving visit and mail them from the states. We walked from our place over the river, passed by place Bellcour, and then shopped down the main pedestrian strip. We didn't find everything we wanted so we then walked over the the mall. I was amazed at how many policemen were walking the halls of the mall. I wondered, at first, if shoplifting was an issue, but then it dawned on me... 'oh... maybe the riots... maybe they suspect trouble...' We bought a few things and headed home around 3:00pm. This morning, as I was checking the news (in English) I came upon these items:

Washington post
Nov. 12 -- Dozens of youths threw trash cans at police and attacked sidewalk shops in a main square of Lyon on Saturday night in the first clash between rioters and police in a city center after more than two weeks of violence in France, according to news reports.
Youths stormed through the historic Place Bellecour in Lyon, France's third-largest city, located in the southeastern Rhone Valley region, even though the city had imposed a nighttime curfew on minors not accompanied by parents. Police fired tear gas to disperse the youths, and 10 people were arrested, officials said.


And
Trouble began at around 5pm as 50 youths attacked the market stalls in the Place Bellecour and continued as shoppers fled and police moved in.

...we got home in time...

tres chic 

the bride and groom 

the wedding

I’ve been wanting to write about the French wedding that we stumbled upon during our “Tour de France” but I was waiting for Ginny’s pictures to arrive - she took some good ones. We were walking around Paris near the Parthenon and saw the wedding party exiting the church and so I sat down in a spot nearby and just watched.

My observations:

- we were in the land of 4 kisses – in Lyon it is only 2 (one per cheek) and when we were in south-central France last summer, the number of kisses was 3 – it’s all still a mystery to me!

- many of the women at the wedding wore beautiful hats! What a sight to see! And of course, the clothing was tres chic!

- the bride wore a mini-skirt wedding dress – only in Paris!! and her boots were made of peau de soie fabric.

- as the guests stood on the church steps for a picture, there was no, “say cheese!”. Instead, they all shouted in unison, “quatorze, quinze seize” (fourteen, fifteen, sixteen)

- a Smart car, wrapped in a big tulle bow sat outside the church for the bride and groom. They left in that car.

don't say cheese! 

the getaway car 

Wake up on day 15 to read....

"Friday seven policemen had been injured, four of them in the eastern city of Lyon"

getting a little bit closer

Day 14 of the riots in France...
On the way to work Paul saw a tow truck with a burned-out car. That made the violence around here a bit more real. Today I heard on the news that some of the bombs last night caused power outages in some of the city. It didn't happen to us, but at my French school today, one of my Japanese classmates told me that she didn't have power last night because a bomb was thrown into the power station near her house. And the subways are open during the daylight hours only, but I think I will continue to walk...

l'echelle 

on a lighter note

Today was the big day for the mystery "sweeping" to happen. So I was ready. I had my echelle (remember, that's the ladder) ready. At 9:30 am my doorbell rang. I let the guy in, he went straight into my kitchen and set up his ladder. He took a piece off of the chimney-vent-thing and shined his flashlight into the darkness and said something in French. I didn't have a clue as to what he said so I asked him if everything was OK. He said it was fine, pas de probleme. He climbed down from his ladder and asked me to sign a paper. I did and then he left with his ladder. The whole thing took about 2 minutes.

It's time to say something

Isn’t it ironic ... the French word for curfew is couvre-feu
couvre-feu: covrir to cover + feu fire

The whole world has been watching the fires in France. We have been watching them too – on the French news in French, on the BBC in English, and on CNN. All of the French talk shows have been discussing the fires. But it wasn’t until the 11th night of the riots that the violence hit Lyon. It started with some cars that were set on fire. And like the fires in Paris, it was out in the suburbs. But yesterday evening (the 12th day)… this happened:

The city of Lyon suspended public transport (Lyon's entire public transport network was shut down) late Tuesday following scattered incidents, including the tossing of a Molotov cocktail into a metro station.

Since I’ve been getting calls and emails from my kids, my friends, and other members of our family, I decided to post about it with the frequently asked questions.

How did this start?
(good answer from another French transplant blogger living in Paris - http://frogblog-lavache.blogspot.com/)
“What isn't being reported is that the two kids who were electrocuted were on railway tracks "tagging." Graffiti is out of control here. In my post on my blog about the Gare de Lyon, I had to change the position of the shot I took of the three TGVs because they had been so horribly tagged. The trains here are all electric, so if you are going to be tagging trains or train stations, a favorite pastime of the unemployed black, Muslim, and black Muslim kids here, you are going to be walking and crawling around the power sources for the trains. Despite the denials that the police were chasing them, it seems likely that the police caught them and gave chase. They tried to hide in a transformer box and got fried.”

Are you close to the violence?
Well before yesterday, I didn’t think I was real close to it. We live in the city, not “outside the loop” in the suburbs where these things are occurring but the incident on the subway yesterday is too close for comfort. There are a lot of “non-native French” people all around us, in our neighborhood, and all over the city. It appears to me that most Arab, Moroccan, African, etc. people that I see are pretty normal and have jobs. And sadly, this will make me see things differently and I will be a bit more cautious. And I won’t take the subway anymore.

Where do you keep your car?
Paul drives it to work every day and at night we keep it in a parking garage on the –5 floor.

How will this end?
I have no idea. It’s not an easy solution. One talking-head here (shockingly!) said that the rioters should be given the tainted ground meat that recently killed 19 people in the southwest of France. I have heard the rioting called the “juvenile jihad”. And the fear is that it will spread all throughout Europe.


If you have a deeper interest….
This gives one European perspective… click here.


And this gives an American one… click here.


I’m currently reading a very enlightening book entitled “Eurabia”.
For the definition of Eurabia Click here.
Click here for book reviews.


I often find references to these articles by Bernard Lewis but have not actually read them. If you access to online periodicals, you may want to check it out.
"The Roots of Muslim Rage," The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 266, September 199O, p. 60;
or in Time Magazine, June 15, 1992, pp. 24-28.