The Inaccurate Tourist

16. Thirteen

I needed to go buy some diving equipment this week because I'd like to go down to the south of France and check out some sunshine and beaches. For one week, I will be hanging out with the diving club from Massy, but for the next I will be either by myself, or hopefully meeting another Canadian detached to France.

Anyway, I found myself in the Latin Quarter (5th arrondissement) looking for a dive shop to buy gloves, boots and a dive belt. This area is quite interesting, around the Sorbonne and the academic institutions. It's called the Latin Quarter for the language of the academics who originally lived there -- it's mainly a tourist area now, with many bookshops (even one sporting a large Canadian flag) and plenty of Greek restaurants. Logically enough.

At the dive shop, I put into practice the single most important piece of advice that I've been given. When shopping in Paris, You Must Ask. Nobody Will Tell You. In fact, I suspect that this isn't true when the shopkeepers know you well, but as a stranger (and a foreigner), you can't expect the same in-your-face service that you get in Canada. Look around all you want, and you won't be pestered, but when you're ready to try things on or want to see a selection, go up to somebody and ask.

In fact, as an expatriate, I've found that piece of advice applies to many situations. You might have heard (from me) that the bureaucracy and "rule-making" in France is excessive. Fortunately, nobody really believes that the rules apply to them. Generally, the person telling you that you can't do something is the ideal person to ask how to get around the rule. But, You Must Ask. Nobody Will Tell You.

Unfortunately, I'm really going to have to rush this area -- maybe I'll come back to it in another travel log. I'm heading to the bus in half an hour, and I want to get to Treize. But this is probably some very important and historical church.

If you're planning on burglarising my home because you know I'll be on vacation, don't bother. I have a friend staying here while I'm away. His in-laws are staying at his place so it works out well. He can water my plants, which are growing very nicely. Except for the coriandre (cilantro), which I threw away because they always seemed to be attacked by insects. I might buy some more when I get back -- I miss the salsa.

I've been told that the restaurants in this area aren't particularly good, because they only expect one-time visitors (tourists). Nevertheless, the windows are very well arranged. This is from a restaurant for cuisine from the mountains -- you can tell because the principal plate is a bowl full of melted cheese.

But speaking of excellent meals, I was invited for a traditional Napolitain meal with the aforementioned in-laws last night. The official languages were Spanish, Italian, French and English. Everybody had a different set of comprehension and speaking abilities, so we were always trying to find translation path for witty comments and general banter. It was an excellent meal and a very amusing time.

XIII (Treize or Thirteen) is a series of famous bande desinées (comic books) that follow the story of a man with complete amnesia trying to discover his past. He was washed up on the shore in New England with a bullet wound to the head. The story is addictive, and very surprising throughout several sub-plots. Here's a little spoiler for those that get the chance to read it: nobody is who you think they are, and don't get too fond of any characters that you believe to be major. In fact, that's generally good advice for life as well, isn't it?

They're cashing in on the popularity of the books with scratch and win tickets. I've captured some so you can see XIII and his ally Major Jones yourself. They rock.

XIII alias Jason Fly. C'est sous ce prête-nom qu'il est supposé arriver enfant à Greenfalls, avec son père adoptif. C'est sous une autre identité quíl y reviendra des années plus tard.

XIII alias Jason Fly. It's under this assumed name that he grew up as a child in Greenfalls with his adoptive father. It's under another identity that he will return there several years later.

Née dans le ghetto noir de Chicago, le Major Jones, pilote de chasse de l'US Air Force, est l'alliée inconditionnelle de XIII.

Born in the black ghetto of Chicago. Major Jones, fighter pilot of the US Air Force is allied unconditionally with XIII.

Major Jones is cooler than all the Bond girls put together. I'm majorly jonesin' for Major Jones.

Kind of a lame log? Don't think I put enough time in on it (I didn't)? Then identify that church and give us some information about the Latin Quarter, the Sorbonne, the Museum of the Middle Ages, the Fountain of Saint-Michel and XIII!

15. Right

If you were Monsieur Average in Averageville, France sitting at the Average Café with your five closest average friends, one of you would be "extreme right". That is, you believe that France's independence is being lost to the European community. You support the death penalty, building more jails and zero tolerance for delinquents. You have a poor view towards immigration (especially "third world immigration") which causes unemployment, insecurity and is poor for the economy. French citizenship should be restricted to those worthy of it, every citizen should have a job, and the family (especially the French Family) should be subsidized. In short, one of the six at the table voted for Jean-Marie La Pen -- all these opinions were taken from his official brochure, mailed to every voter in the country.

Slightly more than one person voted for Jacques Chirac, the current president of the Republic. He's merely "right".

Slightly less than one person voted for Lionel Jospin, the current prime minister of the Republic. Thanks to a quirk in the French political system, for the last few years, France has had a "left" prime minister (Jospin) and a "right" president. In fact, the president nominates the prime minister, who must have the majority support of Parliament.

The French president must have a majority of votes to be elected. This is unlikely to occur in a single round of voting (this year there were 16 candidates), so there is a second round two weeks later between the top two candidates. Everybody expected it to come up to Jospin and Chirac -- left versus right as always. With Jospin out of the running, the French have a choice between "right" and "extreme right".

Where is the left in France now? Nobody really knows, and nobody at your table (or in the café) is admitting to voting "extreme right". Everybody is exclaiming that it is the shame of France that Le Pen got such support, especially the one and a half people at your table that didn't vote this year.

There were riots in Paris when the news came out, at Place de la Concorde. I mentioned at work that I thought it must have been pretty extreme, since they used tear gas. I got a strange look and an explanation that there's ALWAYS tear gas.

Jean-Marie Le Pen has been encouraging supporters to take to the streets on May the First (typically a worker's holiday). I have been personally cautioned that it might not be worth hanging around outside on this day. I don't know where Le Pen stands on me personally, but I'm not inviting him over to my next Mexican fiesta. I'd invite the old prime minister if I could remember his name.

And that's my editorial. The other major event this week was food related -- I went and conquered my fear of paté. Of course you can find this stuff in Canada, but I've never really been sure what is in it (except meat). The answer is meat, fat, spices, mushrooms, this and that -- it can be mysterious in a delicious way, rather than a frightening way. Some other words for paté that you should know include rillette and terrine, made from rabbit, duck, goose, wild boar as well as pork and beef.

I'm currently avoiding foie gras until a special occasion. This is a rich and traditional food (very much loved and quite expensive) that is made from force-feeding geese through a funnel and harvesting their fat-bloated liver. In French, special occasions are sometimes known as jours de foie gras, much as we might say 'salad days'.

Many foods in France (such as paté) have a higher fat content than some Canadians may be used to. Matière Grasse isn't necessarily something to avoid -- it's an ingredient to be used in a dish. It's usually more clearly identified than in Canada (for example, gras of pork or duck).

Some French people find it difficult that salmon is easily available in Canada, but we don't eat it raw (outside of sushi, of course). In Canada, smoked salmon is usually VERY smoked, such that the fish has been preserved, and slightly dehydrated into a very rich and oily delicacy. In France, the smoked salmon is essentially uncooked salmon that has taken the flavour of the smoke. I highly recommend it.

Finally, I saw an advertisement for Quebec the other day, focusing on the key words of the province: été, plaisirs, fête, nature, éspace (Summer Pleasure-Party Nature-Space!). Oddly enough, the poster also had a picture of a canoe with motion blur added. As we all know, there's nothing more action-packed than canoeing!

In lieu of any pictures, I present the following vocabulary -- the tants and the tots:

• tôt - adverb. early, soon
• sitôt - preposition. as soon as
• plutôt - adverb. rather
• aussitôt - adverb. immediately
• bientôt - adverb. soon, quite soon
• tantôt - adverb. this afternoon, sometimes
• tant - adverb. so much, so many
• autant - adverb. as much
• pourtant - adverb. nevertheless

Political paté?

14. Parc

This weekend we went to Parc de Sceaux so I could fulfill last week's promise that I would take some pictures of a park in Paris. In fact, Parc de Sceaux is outside the boundaries of Paris to the south, but it is still accessible from the RER (high speed suburban train), so it counts.

If you take the RER, get off at the Parc de Sceaux station (not so difficult). If you take a car, carefully examine the following picture to see if you can figure out which cars are parked.

The land used to belong to an aristocratic family, who had built a chateau there. In 1670, Jean-Baptiste Colbert bought the property. Colbert was superintendent and Secretary of State under Louis XIV, and decided to extensively remodel. Many of the greatest artists and architects of the day were worked to transform the grounds and chateau into a sumptious residence fit for a king. The notable André Le Nôtre designed the grounds and gardens.

Of course, much of it was burned and dismantled during the Revolution, but the chateau and grounds were rebuilt in the mid 19th century. The Musée de l'Ile de France is now located here, and the Orangerie has chamber music in the summer -- and Johnny Hallyday celebrated his 57th birthday there with a concert in the year 2000.

Of course, you are familiar with Johnny Hallyday? He's a grand interpreter of mainly popular American songs such as "Frankie et Johnny", "Viens Danser le Twist", "Johnny, Reviens!" and "Da Dou Ron Ron".

The grounds are very attractive for strolling, and there are large areas of grass for sitting and chatting, picnicing or playing sports (ball games are forbidden). There are toy sailing boats in the grand canal, and I believe that you are permitted to fish before 14h00 on weekdays. There's a fairly avant-garde playground with children swarming over wooden playground equipment sculpted to look like comfortable easy chairs or climbable bookshelves. Amusingly enough, one part of the playground was designed to look very unstable and dangerous.

In addition to the kilometers of canals that were build over three hundred years ago (at time of writing), there are several unusually large fountains.

The Grand Canal used to be lined with huge poplars, carefully trimmed and shaped to be particularly impressive. A storm on December 26th, 1999 (millenium bug?) knocked most of them into the canal. They've all been replaced with new and young poplars, so a dozen years from now, I can come back and see what it would have looked like.

In fact, there were incredible lengths of perfectly flat land lined by impressive and geometrically trimmed trees and hedges. There were also several buildings (such as the aforementioned built, burned and rebuilt chateau), but I was particularly impressed by the blossoming trees.

Of course you can find these pink and white flowering trees in Canada as well, especially lining the streets in Victoria. It's quite another thing to see an entire square park filled with them -- especially because they are really only in full flower for a short time. Many people were sitting under the trees and enjoying the sun and color.

A couple of other things -- the French presidential elections are coming up. France has a Prime Minister and a President (Lionel Jospin and Jacques Chirac), and due to some oddness in timing and public opinion, they aren't currently from the same political party. Due to some campaign expense laws, there haven't been many posters or advertisements out yet -- I've been told that it generally all occurs in the last few weeks. Rather than having the candidates stick their posters in all sorts of inappropriate and historical places, the city of Paris has erected temporary metal walls specifically for political posters around trees, in parks and about the metro.

I believe there are fourteen candidates for the position, and the president is elected by a majority of popular vote. If the first round of voting doesn't award a single person a majority, they eliminate some of the candidates with the fewest votes and hold another round.

Since I signed up for the 3km cross country for the coupe de site for our group, I need to get another medical certificate to ensure that I'm not going to die during the run. This is the third medical certificate I've needed since I've arrived.

I reported this child to the appropriate French authorities because I have reason to believe that isn't an officially licensed Batman costume. Did you realize that the official spelling of Spider-Man MUST include a dash and a capital M? I saw the movie La Famille Tenenbaum. If you didn't like this movie (even after reflection), you were wrong.

13. Bells

Write when you have something to say -- write what you know -- enjoy what you write -- just write. I've been finding it a bit difficult to keep to my schedule, but it hasn't been because nothing is happening. I've been enjoying the springtime. The next time that you move to a foreign city, I recommend doing it in the winter. Every day gets better, brighter and more colorful.

When I wrote the original Hundred Steps from Chez Moi log, I had actually prepared some research about Cardinal Wyszynski and his beliefs. I read about the Church Notre-Dame-du-Travail. I discovered the village of Plaisance and the people that lived and worked there, and how it transformed from a hamlet, to a working class neighbourhood, to a warehouse (entrepôt) district, and then subject to the real estate speculation that makes any property within Paris a prize. I learned that "le mur murant Paris rend Paris murmurant" (the wall surrounding Paris causes the city to murmur). Then I got tired, scribbled a couple of lines and dropped it on the website.

I don't really have any apologies for that -- I've got things to do. I'm just waving away with my right hand to ensure that you don't notice that my left hand quickly snapped some photos again but this time I didn't have time to take the hundred steps. These are only TEN steps away from my apartment. And I didn't do any research this time.

For example, who is Jérome Bozel and why was he living in this apartment between these years, and why does he get a plaque? I'd love to appear strongly knowledgable, but I don't really know. Is he still alive?

I did find out the purpose of the Place de Catalogne this week. If you recall, I described it as a very large brick circle, perfectly flat but not level, rendering it useless as a roller rink. In the picture, the street is level -- the shiny circle is perfectly and exactly tilted. Why is the circle shiny? When the weather gets warm enough, the water is turned on, and the entire Place de Catalogne is covered with running water as a unique and modern fountain.

I just noticed Sandra's Ladies Shoes across the street. I pass by it nearly every day.

Anyway, like all Parisians, I have a Carte d'Orange which permits unlimited use of the métro through a number of zones. When you come to visit me, you'll probably get one as well (or risk looking like a tourist with their little green tickets). Either way, there's another non-fixed cost to riding the métro -- the panhandlers. Sometimes several times during the same trip, you can expect to hear "Excusez-moi mesdames et messieurs pour vous déranger..." followed by a speech that sounds practiced and effective. Less frequently, the appeal is made silently with a slips of paper placed on each empty seat and then collected, hoping for your centimes. It would be irresponsible for me to suggest any social policy -- you can feel free to respond or ignore the request.

Likewise with the buskers (who frequently haul in taped accompaniment with a speaker on a caddy) -- you can hear all levels of expertise on all sorts of instruments, from accordeons to clarinets, from brass quartets to lone guitarists at night playing Pink Floyd. Admittedly, sometimes La Vie en Rose wears a little thin, and for some reason the Love Theme from The Godfather seems to be particularly popular.

In my opinion, you should do what makes you feel comfortable. Be prepared to walk away saying "non, merci" if you feel like you're being scammed (particularly for requests for charitable donations in the metro and around high tourist areas).

The crest of the City of Paris is a three masted sailing ship on a red and blue background -- in fact, the colours of the French flag come from this crest (with the Royal white added). Although I took this frame capture from street level, this stonework is immediately across from my apartment.

A couple of other things -- the street vendors have stopped selling marrons (chestnuts roasted on their homemade stoves in the biting cold), and had been selling tied bunches of narcisses (daffodils). Apparently daffodil season is over, this week they are now all standing outside the metro station selling tied bunches of lilas (lilacs). I'll keep you updated -- they all seem to switch products at the exact same time.

I also picked up Monsieur Bleu LaPeluche, a stuffed cat made by a group of elderly French who are raising money for social outings. To be quite frank, M. Knucklebunny has been seriously neglecting his duties as mascot (always absent, claiming to be trapped by his fingers in excruciating pain by a metro door), so I'm convening a focus group to determine if perhaps M. Bleu might do a better job.

And remember kids, Monsieur Knucklebunny says "When pushing someone under a metro train, use the palm of your hand to shove him squarely in the flat of his back. While it may look more accidental to push him by his shoulder, this might cause a mid-air spin that permits him to pull YOU with him!".

Oh yeah, I visited the Parc de la Bagatelle this long weekend and I discovered that a "belvedere" is not an English housekeeper that comes and helps families with Moral Issues because the mother is going to law school. Who knew? It was a beautiful day for a walk in the cultured gardens -- I was torn between bringing the video camera and leaving it at home. I enjoyed the afternoon with my book (Harry Potter) and I'll take pictures of the next park. Promise.

Do you know what a belvedere is? Do you think the cast was sad or relieved when he got married and moved to Africa?

Is anybody going to attempt a Save Monsieur Knucklebunny campaign?

Did you know that at Easter time in France, all the bells in the Church go to Rome, pick up a bunch of chocolate eggs for the children and hide them before returning to the steeples? Kind of makes the Easter Bunny seem a bit more logical, doesn't it?