Cruising the Canals with the French - or - the Differeneces between France and the Netherlands

Recently, I went to a conference in Amsterdam.  The conference dinner was on a boat, and we cruised the canals of Amsterdam.  During the dinner, I sat with some French scientists, and they made two interesting observations about the differences between French and Dutch society.

The food:

France: You might remember one of my first blog posts on food in France - particularly, the spread of food provided at a work party.  When food is provided, food is provided.  Chefs to grill whole shrimp before you, and foie gras, chocolate fountains, cocktail glasses filled with various flavored moose, macaroons, and crates of wine are in great supply. 

the Netherlands:  Food is provided.  Great!  You walk into the lunch room, to be greeted with sandwiches with meat.  Next to that are sandwiches with cheese.  (Never, ever both.)  If a Dutch sandwich  had meat and cheese actually touch, the world would collapse.  Then there are these packaged raisin rolls (which seem to be everywhere) and pitchers of milk.  Milk?  Yes, milk.  The delegates of the conference commented the only thing that changed with the spread day to day is the order of the trays.  They also said, "Normally when I go to a conference, I'm so full from eating all the time - this is the first time I go to a conference I'm actually hungry before dinner."  Yes, welcome to the Netherlands.  Here, as my Spanish friend so eloquently put it, people eat simply so they don't die.

Shutters:

France: Every house is equipped with shutters, whether they be metal or wood.  As soon as the sun goes down, the shutters swing closed.  I've never seen inside a French house from the street before.

the Netherlands: The Dutch have nothing to hide.  Take a walk at night and you can see inside half a dozen houses - either they don't have curtains or shutters, or they simply don't care.  While on our canal trip, one of my colleagues was able to see inside a houseboat, where a completely naked woman casually strolled around her house.  Yes, welcome to the Netherlands.

The Great European Strike

For those of you that may not know, there was recently a strike of air traffic controllers going on across Europe for some time between January 27th to January 31st.  There was an interesting trend in when various countries were going on strike:
Slovakia: On strike for two hours on January 30th.
Hungary: On strike for two hours on January 29th.
Germany: On strike for one hour on January 29th as a show of support only, low impact projected.
Portugal - On strike off and on on January 29th, for a cumulative time of four hours, moderate disruption of travel.
Italy - On strike on January 29th, and briefly again on January 30th.  Some delays expected.
France: On strike for the entire duration of January 27th to January 31st.  It will cause major travel disruptions across the entire country.

Ah... France.

Death of a Fashionista

Living in the Netherlands for a couple of months has successfully erased any fashion sense that Paris instilled in me.  Sure, my shopping life in Paris was limited by my "practical" inability to spend 5,000 euros on a pair of shoes (or 500 euro for that matter)... but I did enjoy the funky unique shops in the Latin Quarter or Les Marias.  Heck, even shopping in the French equivalent of TJ Maxx made me happy -- "I'm shopping in Paris!"

But life in the Netherlands has changed me.  When I leave the house, I no longer check the coordination of my clothes.  No, now, the first priority is much different...

warmth.

Biking to work when the temperature is just above freezing, pedaling against the cold wind from the sea, while being buffeted with dry leaves, pelted with little bits of ice, or encircled in freezing fog will change the way you look at the world.  As I pedal, the only thing that keeps me going is the hope of having hot cocoa when I get home.  (Ah... Bluebear's cocoa on tap...*)

My typical outfit when I leave the house now is a nice shirt, covered by a sweater, covered by a jacket, covered with a raincoat.  I pull up the hood of the raincoat, put my hat on, and wrap a scarf around the whole ensemble.  A nice pair of gloves and boots, and sometimes, if it's raining hard enough, rain paints, which completes my stylish look.

I would post a picture of me dressed like this, but I won't.  My self esteem is high, but come on, even it has limits.

Parisians would laugh.  They would laugh.

(Note: Dutch people have way more fashion sense than this, in general.  They are just better at dealing with the cold that I am.  I have seen Dutch people biking in the cold, wearing shorts.  Or Dutch women biking, while it's just a fraction of a degree above freezing, wearing high heels and a mini skirt.  There is not even an atom of me that is capable of doing this.)

But, I can't complain.  I can't feel the cold or the rain.  Normally when I am dressed like this, I feel isolated from the world.  It is like I am an astronaut, floating about in my space suit.  Nothing can touch me.

However, all of that changed last week, as I biked to work.  My ears were cold.  A gap in my defenses!  I wouldn't (couldn't) bring myself to buy the only pair of earmuffs I could find (that happened to be leopard print).  So instead, I stooped to a new low.  I bought something that no one with an ounce of respect and fashion sense should buy...

I'm so ashamed...

But hey, it has ear flaps, and is lined with fleece.  Even though it has weird looking balls dangling from it, perhaps, it is, indeed, the price of warmth.

The Downfall of Society - Summer Returns

The end of the world seems to happen every summer time...

Summer is back, and that means the world slowly begins to fall apart here in France.  With the entire French population slowly draining from the country, the rest of civilization slowly begins to crumble.

Sure, things you would expect start to happen.  The trains run less frequently.  The canteen closes.  But then there are more irritating things...

Colleagues have long since stopped returning emails or phone calls.  If you try to track them down in their office, there's a sign, quickly jotted on a post it note.  "On the beach.  Will return September 7th.  Don't bother calling or emailing."  You look at your calender, and it's July 16th.  Sigh...

Then our upstairs neighbor has left, and every morning at 7 am his alarm clock goes off for an hour.  And we shouldn't expect him to return to turn the dang thing off for another month...

And then there's things that begin to make you question is the end really is nigh.  The internet quality is going down daily with no one around to fix the accumulating network problems.  The supermarket is being remodeled.  It is not being restocked, and the merchandise that is left looks like it's been through a bomb blast.  And my favorite - the trash in the bathroom no longer is being removed.  Fun!

It's the end of the world, and I know it...

Torrential Rain and Government Sponsored Freezing

April 15th marks the day where the government decides to shut off the heat.  Coincidentally, it's also the day that the weather decides to become as awful as it knows how, with torrential rain and near-freezing temperatures.  Are the two connected?  Probably.  It's too much of a coincidence otherwise.  Perhaps the weather likes to let our technologically inclined society that it still can control our lives and emotions.  Or perhaps some government officials have cameras installed in our offices, watching us shiver.

Anyways, after a March of t-shirts, it's back to sweater weather for me.

Hospitals in France

My worst fear recently came true - needing the hospital in a country where I didn't speak the language well.

A couple of weeks ago, I came home to find that my husband was really sick.  He seemed to have a severe case of food poisoning.  I took care of him the best I could, and we settled down for the night. 

I went into the other room to read for a bit as my husband tried to fall asleep.  A bit later, I hear him get up, then I hear a thud.  My husband had passed out, and he was out cold long enough for me to try to wake him up, fail, and start panicking.

I called a good friend of mine and he told me which emergency number to call (France has 5 or so of them - hospital, police, fire, etc).  I call the emergency number, and in my most perfect French ever, I say,

"Est-ce que possible a parler avec quelqu'un en anglais, s'il vous plait?"

I talked to a few people on the phone, and the ended up sending the paramedics.  They, of course, did not speak English, so we talked to them as good as we could, however, I discovered I had never learned the words for "passed out", "food poisoning", or various other colorful health terms in French.  But they were very patient and soon we went for a ride in a French ambulance!

At the hospital, as they are taking our information, Bram is speaking pretty good French for someone who was just lying unconscious on the bathroom floor.  He was beginning to feel faint though, and he wanted to lie down, but the nurse didn't understand him, so he just started to mime fainting, when he actually began to fall over.

Finally, a hospital bed obtained (albeit, in a hallway), IV set up, and after asking for a blanket for my shivering husband, we try to explain all we can to the nurses.  Finally we get a room, and I spend the night sleeping in a folding chair as Bram gradually gets better over the night.

It was scary and frustrating to not be able to express ourselves completely, especially when I see my husband is suffering, but we did alright in the end - although it took some time, we could understand the nurses and doctors, and they could understand us.  I'm happy to say that Bram is now doing great.  But the real kicker is when we received our hospital bill.  A similar hospital  bill in the States was over $4000.  Here, we had to pay €27.    

Partying like the French

We recently had a housewarming party.  We had everyone make their own crepe.  Some of us were pro's, and some were first time crepe makers.  We had an assortment of toppings, including my favorite (very non-French) combination of Nutella and peanut butter.

Year of the Dragon

This last week celebrated the beginning of the Chinese year of the Dragon.  We went up into Paris to see the Dragon-filled parade.

Happy New Year!

The streets were crammed with people.  The parade actually had a hard time getting through the mass of people, and took a while to get started because people couldn't clear the streets in a timely manner.

We were crammed in, but near the front, so we were in the midst of the action.

Enter the Dragon!

I catch an image on Cinthia's camera.

 

Bram has been Dragon-ized.

Close encounter with a dragon.

 

A dragon sees some kids...

And attacks!

Raaaah!

If you look carefully, you notice that dragons also wear tennis shoes.

 

Dragon sightings in the area.

Are You Ready For Some Football?

European football, that is.

My husband and I recently went to the Stade de France to have a truly European experience - to watch the US play France in "real" football - aka soccer.  First of all, the Stade de France is huge!  As we walked to the stadium, we could feel the energy of fans of both teams.  French and Americans alike were draped with flags.  French had red, white and blue roosters on their heads, and Americans had Uncle Sam hats. 

Inside is huge too!  The US fans were placed in a separate section with a metal gate between us and the French fans so we wouldn't tear each other to pieces.   Probably a good thing, because otherwise, the night might have been a bit more colorful.

Note the gate.  After France scored, it was covered with screaming French fans.

Before the game, the players practice, and spectators practice their flag technique.

 

Before the game rituals - bringing out the flags of both countries.

 

Both teams on the field before the game begins.

 

France even gives us (the spectators cheering for the US) a little something.

 

Right before the game starts, the flag-people go crazy.  I've never seen so many flags before.

 

Cheering for the USA.

Some great field action.

The final score was 1-0, France, but it was a good game nonetheless.   It was fun to cheer with some nationalistic people, and to see some impressive footwork.

People

While learning French, everyone is always taking the time to correct my grammar.  But I had a chance to give back yesterday.

Three of my friends, (one German, one Syrian, and one French), all of whom I would call fluent in English, recently asked me if people is plural or singular, as in:
- There is people
or
- There are people
I said it was the latter and that it's plural.  They then asked me what the singular of people is, and I said person.

And it blew their minds!  They were almost bowled over in shock that two words that don't even share the same root can mean essentially the same thing.

It feels good to give back.

Marching for Peace

This last weekend, I went to an interfaith march for peace.  If you know me, you know this is right up my alley, and I couldn't let it go by, even if it was a bit difficult to get to.  It was in a suburb of Paris which would have had me need to take three different regional trains to get to, and get back from, at 11 PM at night.  Because of that, I went with a carpool of people from my church.  What an experience!  We didn't drop the fact on them that we aren't fluent in French until after we met up with them.  But they were sure nice about it... speaking slowly to us and enunciating.  We were able to understand most of what they said, and they could understand us too.  Fun!

The march started at a Buddhist pagoda.

Inside, we listened to some chanting in Vietnamese.

 Then we went off to our next destination.  Our group marched through a train station:

It was just so much easier than going around!

The next stop was a Jewish Synagogue.  Of the places we visited, it was the smallest, so our growing group of  1,100 people could not actually fit inside.  So we prayed outside as someone read a Psalm over the loudspeaker in Hebrew.

The view of the crowd as they march up the hill.  A lot of people came!  As we marched, lots of people looked on and some even joined us. 

Our next stop was inside the Cathedral.  This isn't my picture, but I added it because it is pretty awesome.  This modern cathedral is well known because of the trees on the roof.  Since it was dark, I didn't get a good shot of it.

by Rabanus Flavus

Inside was seating for 1,100 people.  It was totally packed. 

 

A choir sang the Our Father - they were quite good!

 

Our next stop was a mosque.

Some of the beautiful artwork inside.

The ceiling was really cool!  The walls and ceiling of the entire building were decorated in intricate geometric carvings.

 

The rug was made of parallel prayer segments that people line up to use during the service, all facing towards Mecca.

After the prayers in the mosque, the religious leaders share thoughts of peace.

Two rabbis, a cardinal and a pastor.

An Imam, some of the organizers, and some Buddhist monks.

The experience was so wonderful.  It's so great to see people taking a stand saying yes - we believe peace is possible!  More than a thousand people left their warm houses and spent three hours outside on a cold October night.  Rather than complaining about the world, they showed the world that we can come together regardless of race, religion, or creed.  (And that message is the same no matter what language it is said in - English, French, Hebrew, Latin, Arabic, or Vietnamese.)  :-)

The Dangers of French Dining

So last night, we went out to eat with one of my husband's French friends.  The French language found on menus was one of the first things I learned on coming to France, but last night was different.  We went to a very "French" restaurant, which had things on the menu which a.) were either hard to translate or b.) were fun things that the French eat but that Americans in general do not, ie andouillette or steak tartar.  (If you don't know what either of these are, I would recommend a google search on your part.)

Anyways, something that caught our eye - Ris de veau.  Veal with rice?  Bram's friend confirmed it - he thought it was some sort of risotto with veal and mushrooms.

So we ordered it.

It wasn't risotto.

See, in French, rice is spelled riz.  On the menu, what we ordered was ris.  I thought it was a typo.

It wasn't a typo.

Shortly afterwards, this is what was delivered to our table:

This is not risotto.  I did not know what this is.

My husband's friend looks at it and realizes his mistake.  He didn't know what it is, so googles it on his phone.  He then tells us he will tell us what it is after we eat it.

Uh uh.  I google it myself, but google translate does not help me.  So I start to eat.  But apparently, my stomach does not like the fact it doesn't know what it's eating.  It is decidedly NOT HAPPY. 

I look over at my husband's friend who is whispering to his girlfriend what it is.  He gestures at his ear.  Oh my gosh, I'm eating ear?  No, he assures me, I am not eating ear.

So finally I find out what it is - sweetbread, or rather, the gullet of a calf.  Knowledge did not make my stomach any happier.  The consistency was just too strange for me.  The waitress had a good laugh at our expense when she heard of our mistranslation, and told us that Americans normally don't order that.

Ha ha.

Ironically, if you go to Wikipedia, the entry for sweetbreads shows it on a bed of mushroom risotto:

Paris by Boat

My group recently took a boat cruise, during which we listened to talks all day.  The talks were in French, and I spent most of the day being so sick I couldn't even look at the screen as it bobbed up and down in front of my eyes.  But that's ok, it gave me an excuse to sit on the deck and watch Paris float by.  (Which, I'm sorry, is more fun than listening to science talks in French.  Even the organizer agreed with me on that one.) 

Being from the desert, I am still amazed by so much water.  We went through several locks.

The lock begins to fill with water.

Totally filled with water now.

And the floodgates open!

Some of the locks were quite deep.

 

We headed south-east of Paris.  We went through beautiful suburbs that I didn't even knew existed.

Many trees beginning to turn color and very nice houses.

Wouldn't be a bad place to live.

We even went through a tunnel.

One of the interesting things we saw: a floating swimming pool on the river.

Back in Paris proper.  The Eiffel Tower in the background.

Sailing towards Notre Dame.

On the other side of Notre Dame now, seeing the bridge that connects Île de Cité and Île St. Louis. 

Entering our final lock.

It fills with gushing water!

Almost all filled now!

And it opens!