Unexcused Absences

When we are in France, it’s like we never left the USA in many ways. The countryside has fields, farmhouses, and beautiful scenery. The cities have buses, shops, and gum on the sidewalk. We live in a nice little (floating) apartment that has a great view and can move around to fun places. France is definitely a first world country. In other ways, though, there are distinct elements of both culture- and lifestyle-shock.

Store and museum hours are a big one. All but the biggest typically open for a few hours in the morning, close for a two hour lunch, re-open around two or three in the afternoon, and close again for good between five and seven in the evening. Almost all are completely closed on Sunday, and most also close a second day, usually Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. It may not seem like a big deal, but we are awfully spoiled in the US with our long hours and no closings for lunch. We were so used to simply going to the store for whatever we need, at whatever hour, on whatever day, that it still hasn’t sunk in, even after all our time in France, that we really have to plan our grocery and provisioning supply stops well in advance. It is remarkably easy to get caught in a small town, on the wrong day, and end up with no fresh fruit or bread (neither of these keep well, our fridge is tiny and the bread has no preservatives). On the plus side, the quality of the bread/pastries and fruit/vegetables are lightyears beyond what we can get in the States, so the trade-offs (and putting up with limited business hours) might just be worth it!

Speaking of store hours, they treat closing time differently here. In America, as long as you get through the front door at, say, 6:59pm for a 7pm closing (not that an American store would close at 7pm, but bear with me…), you’re allowed a reasonable amount of time to gather up your goods, check out, and be on your way. Not so in France. Heather was once in line at the checkout, in the process of having her things rung up, when 7pm struck. She was allowed to finish her transaction, but the two people in line behind her were made to leave their carts and vacate the store, kind of like the “checkout Nazi” – “No groceries for you today, get out!” To my engineering mind, the clerks would spend more time restocking the shelves with all the items in the two carts than they would just checking out the last two people, but what do I know? It’s not my country.

"Cuisine US", American kitchen!

We get a kick out of how foreign language is used for marketing purposes here. It’s really just like back in the States, but here the exotic foreign language is English! In the US, kitchen items like towels or aprons are emblazoned with French phrases; here, we have a rug that has little kitchen icons along with words like “toaster,” “pudding,” “dishes,” and “egg.” A little dose of home! We’ve also seen real estate ads here for nice homes that advertise “Cuisine US,” which means it has an American-style kitchen. The irony is that a big selling point for fancy homes in the US is “European Kitchen!” Another fun one is the T-shirts emblazoned with nonsense English phrases like “Forest Mountain Climbing Club” and “Chicago Team.” Same but different.

Instructions for, um, "walking" your dog

Another thing, nobody loves their dogs like the French. Most western cultures love their dogs (some eastern cultures love them for different reasons), but in France there are dogs everywhere. People take their dogs into the grocery store, an no one bats an eye. Dogs are everywhere, in the restaurant, in the post office, maybe even in the theater, although we’ve never checked that out first-hand.

Check etiquette in restaurants is completely different. In the US, we expect the waiter to bring the check immediately following desert, where in France it’s considered the height of rudeness to bring the check before we specifically ask for it. I’m sure that little difference has led to some international incidents over the years, in both cultures. I’m convinced that right now some American couple in France is quietly stewing for 3 hours waiting to leave the restaurant, while simultaneously a French couple in the US is wondering why American waiters are so rude. The subtlety is that when an American waiter brings a check, the implied understanding is that you can linger as long as you want. Whereas in France, once the check is presented, you’re expected to pay-and-vacate promptly. Same but different.

In the same vein as the dinner check, the French consider it a violation bordering on a jailable offense not to have close to correct change when approaching a cashier. While it’s considered ok to hand over a 10 euro note to pay a bill of, say, 8.24 euros, the cashier will give you the stink-eye if you hand them a 50 euro note to pay for the same 8.24 euros. Never mind that the difficulty in making 1.76 euros in change (if you hand them 10) or making 41.76 euros (if you hand them 50) is no different (only two 20 euro bills), they look at you like you just killed their dog. To me, the hard part is creating the 1.76 (a handful of 1.00-, .50-, .20-, .05- and .01-centime coins); the two 20-euro bills are trivial in terms of time-motion-efficiency. But here, you instantly become persona-non-grata. No attempts on my part at merci (thank you), or bonne journee (have a nice day), will crack the glare of ill-will from the cashier. It’s a tremendous amount of overhead for me to remember to have a complete selection of bills and coins with me so I can present the cashier with close to the correct amount. They’re totally happy to make change, as long as you don’t hand them more than 20 percent over the stated bill.

But while cashiers hate pulling the extra two twenties out of their till, they think nothing of stopping to help you dig exact change out of a pile of coins. Several times we’ve seen cashiers cheerfully spend what seemed like minutes digging through an old lady’s purse to extract the correct change, and no one in line seemed to mind at all. It’s all part of the “exact change” culture!

The Smart car

Almost everything here is small. Tiny cars, tiny vans, little tiny streets, corner grocery stores, many things seem to be about 20-30 percent smaller. Fortunately, not quite everything is smaller; wine bottles are still 750 ml! And to be fair, some things are as big as in the states. Buses and long-distance trucks, to cite two examples, are just as big as ours. The French have even begun to embrace the “big box” concept, where they’ll have what we’d call an industrial park on the outskirts of medium to big cities with lots of large home improvement stores, groceries-plus-everything-else stores (like our big Target or WalMart stores), furnishings and appliance stores, etc. Pretty soon we’ll have them eating processed pseudo-meat patties with sauces of dubious origin between two buns… oh wait, the French have McDonalds too. But it really is the “Royale with cheese” instead of the “Quarter pounder,” just like in Pulp Fiction (we checked).

Tight fit for the delivery van

A _very_ small car

As a general rule, expect things to be smaller. If you rent a condo or apartment anywhere in Europe, for example, prepare to rub shoulders with the people you’re staying with. One time we stayed in the French Alps with our friend, the Minister of Leisure, and a few others (5 people total) in an apartment billed as “sleeps 9!”, and we could only sit 4 at the dinner table at one time. Plus, in our bedroom, the bed arrangement was two singles, one that slid out from under the second. But to make room to slide out and extend the second single, we had to put the end table in the closet AND close the bedroom door. I guess in a fire we were supposed to first fold up the second bed, then open the door and escape. The five of us were packed in tight, and we’re still unclear as to where the other four were supposed to fit (remember, it “sleeps 9”). Oh, and the washing machine was the size of a toaster oven; I think if you had to do laundry for 9 you’d have to give up a day of skiing to process the 27 loads you’d need to do.

Horse meat!

The French enjoy red meat as much as, even more than, most cultures. The difference is that they cut up their cow in a completely different way. The names may be the same (eg., filet mignon), but the way the meat is cut is quite different. And they use the whole cow. You don’t even have to search beyond the corner grocer to find offerings like kidney and liver, much less tripe (stomach lining), tongue, brain, or other parts that end up discretely disappearing into sausage or hot dogs in the US. Oh, and there’s a very popular red meat here that Americans would never consider; horse meat! Same but different.

Something funny happened when we decided to camp out out west of Carcassonne. We had just gotten Après Ski settled in for the evening, and walked 40 meters up to a small bridge to check out the paysage (countryside), when a co-ed group of muddy (it had been raining the past three days and the towpath there was dirt, turned to mud) French cyclists rode up and stopped next to us. They had obviously been cycling for a good long while, as they looked severely bedraggled. But they were all about our age and in very good shape. “Dans quelle mesure à Carcassonne“ (how far to Carcassonne)? They asked. “Je pense dix kilomètres“ (I think ten kilometers) I replied.

Out came a series of “Zut alors” (aw, shucks), and other less family-friendly phrases I was not taught in high school French class. “Nous avons besoin d’une pause” (we need a break). “Avez-vous un allume-feu” (do you have a light)? as they all produced cigarettes. “Nous sommes très sportif” (we are very athletic). Apparently they carried cigarettes for their exercise breaks but not lighters. Either that, or they carried matches which got soaked in the rain. The details are unclear. The funny thing, of course, is that in both cultures people of all ages enjoy a day of bike riding, but at this point American athletes would have broken out a healthy mix of organic grains and nuts, or maybe in extreme circumstances a PowerBar or some beef jerky (but only made from cows that lived relaxed, pastoral lives, and listened to nothing but NPR), whereas the French athletes fired up… cigarettes.

Complètement le même, mais tout à fait différent (completely the same but totally different).