Poisson d'avril

Happy April Fool's Day! But in Frace April Fool's is called poisson d'avril and the trick they play is to paste a fish on your back. This is one tradition I wouldn't mind participating in. I wonder if I'll get a poisson d'avril, I only have two classes today.


***
The fish you see above was my lunch on Wednesday. My room mate Katherine works at a lycée where students train to be waiters, cooks, and pastry chefs, among other things. On Wednesdays the school opens a restaurant, and Katherine was lucky enough to be able to get us a reservation.

We were served the four course meal. We started with a salad with duck, and next came our main course (above). A whole fish, head and all. I was a little less surprised as when Peter and I had been to Paris, where we were each served two fish au beurre blanc (Julia Child is right, it's more than deliciuos!). Next was the cheese course followed by the largest desert; not only did we get fruit salad, but we got a madeleine aux poire (pear cake). We definitely had food babies by the time our coffees arrived, but it was so good that it was worth it.

Vancouver

Isn't this photo of Vancouver just amazing? While I'm loving my time in France, it has started to dawn on me that my time here is almost over; I have a mere three weeks of teaching left.

While I'm in no rush to get back to Vancouver, there are things I'm looking forward to doing, like having a drink on Chill Winston's amazing patio in Gastown and eating nachos at Foundation. I'm also interested to see how much the city has changed since I've been away.

Friends back home, what, if anything has changed about the city?

(Photo by NASA via Design*Sponge's Vancouver City Guide)

Crottes de chiens

After more than six months of informal research, conducted in French towns such as Lyon, Dijon, Toulouse, and Paris, I can safely say that Saint Étienne is literally the shittiest town in France, if not all of Europe.


A sanitary bag dispenser in Toulouse. Note that it is empty and unreplenished.


It's a well known fact that neglect to pick up after one's canine is a French national trait. And I get it. Dog shit is gross, but cleaning it up is part of the social contract one enters when one becomes a dog owner.

According to Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow, authors of Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong:

In all, 200,0000 Parisian canines leave ten tons of excrement behind them every day. . . . The city of Paris . . . spends seventy million francs (five million pounds) per year on a brigade of seventy motocrottes (motorcycles that streak through the streets sucking up dog droppings with vacuum cleaners). But the efforts to rid the streets of excrement is futile, thanks to Parisian dog owners' enduring lack of civility (143).

Disconcertingly, however, when I was in Paris, I hardly even noticed les crottes de chiens. SaintÉ, however, is full of these canine landmines which make being a pedestrian in this town hazardous.

As Nadeau and Barlow note, "In an average year, six-hundred people break a limb slipping on dog droppings or trying to remove the mess from the soles of their shoes" (143).

One last observation on the shittiness of this town: I've noticed that the size of dog I most often see (small ones) does not correspond to the size of the landmines I dodge. Does this mean big dog owners only walk their dogs between nightfall and dawn out of shame that their fellow citoyens would see their lack of civility?

crotte de chien (crot duh she(n)): politely put, dog poop

Sympa

As I have mentioned before, when people ask me about the difference between Canadian or Québecois French and French as spoken in France, I liken it to the difference between British and North American English: different accents and some different words or expressions.

One new expression I immediately encountered upon arrival in SaintÉ was "sympa," but immediately caught onto its meaning.

sympa (sim-pah): cool

Sympa is short for sympathique and translates as "cool," (or "nice," or "kind," depending on the context).




Le Sympa, a restaurant in SaintÉ I've never been to, although I'm sure it's très sympa.


For example, when I returned from Belgium the night before school resumed, I was starving. When I got home, my room mates had left a note on my bedroom door welcoming me back and letting me know I could help myself to the beef stew they had made for dinner. What's more, my room mate Andrenne had bought me an African Violet for my room.

As this anecdote illustrates, my room mates are très sympa, for which I am fortunate.

They Say It's My Birthday

So I thought I'd list 24 things I'm greateful for on this twenty-fourth anniversaire of mine:

1. My health.
2. The health of my friends and loved ones, especially my maman. I'm sure I've given her a few extra grey hairs lately.
3. My boyfriend who has been so supportive of me this year I've been abroad.
4. To have a loving and supportive family.
5. My friends and loved ones back home, pure and simple.
6. That I am living abroad in France.
7. That because of this, I have been able to travel throughout France and Europe.
8. The friends I've made on this year abroad.
9. That I am not as stressed as I was this time last year when completing my undergraduate Honours thesis.
10. That I defended my thesis and received an A.
11. That by all accounts, I have a bright future ahead of me. 
12. To be able to eat so many delicious and affordable French cheeses.
13. And to be able to drink delicious and affordable wine along with these cheeses.
14. To have discovered Malbec Sec, my new favourite white wine.
15. To simply even have delicious food to eat every day.
16. My cats.
17. Flowers, they're beautiful.  (Like the ones above, which I indulged myself for my birthday and bought at the market yesterday).
18. To be able to take long walks.
19. Fresh air.
20. To have grown up in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
21. Music.
22. Dancing.
23. Laughter.
24. And you, dear reader!

 Update: As it's my first birthday abroad, my dad sent me birthday wishes to make it a good one, and short anecdote about my neighbour back home, a World War II air force veteran, who celebrated his 19th birthday in Italy.  Thank God the circumstances of my birthday abroad are different--even if the classroom can sometimes be a battle.

Les trains

When I started this blog about my year living in France and travels throughout Europe, a question I asked myself was whether to write in English or French. I decided on the former as most of my readership reads English. While I am bilingual, the aspect I most want to improve on is my written French. I've therefore decided to do a series of posts in French.

I originally wrote this entry in my travel journal on the train to Lyon en route to Belgium on October 27, 2010.

En attendant mon train sur le bord du quai comme le soleil se levait, j'ai pensé à comment impressionant sont les réseaux de chemins de fer de la France et de l'Europe. C'est un avantage de l'Europe qui rend le voyage plus facile qu'en Amérique du Nord. En Amérique du Nord je ne pense pas qu'on peut voyager comme ça aussi facilement, ou du moins pas aussi abordablement. Comment les européens font-ils s'ils viennent en Amérique du Nord en voyage? Est-ce qu'ils font une grande tournée comme le font les gens de l'Amérique du Nord quand ils vont en Europe?

Read my English translation after the jump:

IAmterdam

As I mentioned, it was my friend Stefan's photos of Amsterdam's quaint "off-kilter charm" (his words) that made me want to visit the city so badly. I found Amsterdam's canals, bridges and architecture so alluring, I absolutely had to go for a walk along them while I had the chance, living in Europe.

We stayed on a canal boat! This was a serendipitous find, as when planning out trip in January, we had no idea you could stay on a canal boat. But as soon as we discovered we could stay on a boat, we had to. Staying on a canal boat was an awesome experience as canal boats are such a part of the city. Not only was the boat quiet (booking a hostel in Amsterdam, we were worried about the quality of sleep we would get staying in a dorm with potheads), but the Oosterdock was centrally located and we were able to walk everywhere. My only complaint was the plumbing; it was difficult to regulate the hot and cold water in the showers--but that's why they call it a Dutch shower, right? Overall, when planning a trip to Amsterdam, I highly recommend staying on a canal boat.

We flew into Amsterdam from Geneva, and arrived into the city just as dusk was beginning to fall. After checking in, Jacky and I meandered in the general direction of the Nieumarkt, where we were told there were lots of food options (it was 8:00pm by that time, and the Dutch eat much earlier than the French). Suddenly we ended up in the Red Light District. I was a bit surprised, not at the prostitution, but that it was so easy to stumble into; I would have thought it would have been harder to find. Nevertheless, as the men were looking at the women in the windows, I was mesmerized by all the swans swimming in the Red Light District canal (over the next few days of our stay we noticed they seemed to only swim in that particular canal).

For dinner, we ended up going to Dwaze Zaken, a cool café and had veggie lasagnas with chickpeas in it (a delicious idea I'm totally adopting!). And as the rhyme goes, it was so nice, we went back twice. We returned the next night for a cheese fondue dinner and the jazz show that we had seen announced.

A word on nomenclature in Amsterdam. I had totally been ignorant of the difference between a café and a coffee shop as cannabis was not my motive for visiting Amsterdam. In Amsterdam, a café is a restaurant/bar, whereas a coffee shop is an establishment where one can buy and consume marijuana. Then there's the Starbucks-esque coffee chain, Coffee House. Apparently, many a confused tourist wander into the wrong kind of coffee establishment. Fortunately we did not, as Jacky was aware of the differences.

There is so much more to Amsterdam than pot and prostitution (which, oddly, very few locals partake in, but seem to encourage tourists to). Our first day we did a great walking tour of the city. We learned that the reason for Amsterdam's crooked charm is that that the foundations of many of the seventeenth century townhouses were made from tree trunks plunged deep into the mud. With time, a pocket of air forms and rots the logs, shifting the house any which way. As such, Amsterdam homeowners have to get their doors and windows custom fitted, as well as repair their homes' foundations.

Amsterdam is also a city of amazing museums. While we were there were went to the Van Gogh Museum. The museum traced his development as an artist, his influences and well as contextualized him within the Impressionist movement and among his contemporaries. There was also a really interesting temporary Picasso exhibit charting his first years in Paris from 1900 to 1907, ending with sketches of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

We also visited the Rijksmuseum, which could probably be compared to the Dutch version of the Louvre. It is a huge, beautiful building (currently under renovation). I had read that it has a collection of more than 20,000 pieces, so I thought it would be an overwhelming visit, like when you try to see everything in the Louvre. Instead, it was really well curated. There were fifteen rooms, starting with an explanation of the the Dutch Golden Age and ending with Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age painters.

Amsterdam is a lovely city. If I went again, I would definitely go in spring as we unfortunately we missed the tulips.

Broadcasting Note

I've been sick, but I'm better now. I listed all the ideas I've had for posts so my goal for the rest of the month is to get caught up on them.

(image from Wikipedia)

Where Am I? Amsterdam!

You guessed it! I was in Amsterdam!

Three years ago, my friend Stefan lived in Stuttgart, Germany for eight months while working on co-op for Bosch, during which time he travelled all over Europe. His photos of Amsterdam's, as he described it, "off-kilter" charm is what made me want to go so badly.

Well thank you and congratulations Stefan! You are the lucky winner of the Amsterdam postcard challenge. Email me your mailing address and I'll send your postcard!

Thanks for everyone who played!

Where Am I? Postcard Challenge #7

This morning I am leaving on the second trip I am taking during this break. I am super excited for this trip. When I raided the library's travel section last summer before leaving, this city was at the top of my list of places to go. Here are the clues for this seventh postcard challenge:

1. Its 165 canals measure a total 75.5km in length and are crossed by 1,281 bridges.

2. The headquarters of the world's first multinational corporation were located here.
Bonus: Can you name the company?

3. This small state was a power to contend with during its Golden Age. Bonus: When was it?

Where am I going? If you think you know, leave your answer in the comments below. I will get back in the wee hours of March 7th and will draw the lucky winner later that morning. You therefore have until 6:00am Central European Time (CET) on March 7, 2010 to submit your answer.

Good luck!

Le Père Cent

Today was my last day of work before the holidays. As I headed home from class, I saw students having flour fights, so I tried to avoid them.

No, it's not snow. The streets are covered with flour.
Later this afternoon on my way back to the lycée four students asked me for change. I don't give out change as a rule of thumb, so my automatic reaction was to say "no." Next thing I knew, I was floured!

I got to the lycée and the teachers explained to me that today is le Père Cent, a tradition among stéphanois lycéens. Traditionally 100 days before their final high school exams, but now celebrated the last day of school before the February holidays, students ask for change. If you say no, they throw flour at you.

Having planned make the most of the afternoon to explore a park I'd not yet been to, I ran into a few groups of students. I explained to them that I am Canadian and that in exchange for money, I wanted to take their photos. They were happy to pose for me, and I gave both groups a euro each.

Nice ASSE

Outside of teaching, I don't encounter much English in my day to day life here in France (aside from speaking to other English assistants or reading the English translations of signs in museums, which contain a surprising number of mistakes). The gem above, however, is a constant source of amusement for us English speakers living in SaintÉ.

ASSE stands for Association Sportive de Saint Étienne, SaintÉ's football (soccer) team. Unlike us foreigners, the French pronounce every letter in the acronym, "A-S-S-E." They are also called les verts after the team's colour. ASSE's glory days were in the seventies, when they won la Coupe de France four times.

Although less humourous than Nice, ASSE's number one rival is Lyon. The two opponents faced off in SaintÉ the night we were in Lyon eating frog legs. Lyon won 4-1.

"Allez les verts!"

(Photo by Amy Barger)

Monopoly Money

As a Canadian I have felt the need to defend our colourful currency from our southern neighbours teasing us about having Monopoly money. I was thus super amused when the bank machine dispensed my 100 franc bill (the smallest amount I could choose from) and I got my first glimpse of Swiss francs: they are way more colourful than Canadian money! Swiss francs are multicoloured and way more brightly coloured than Canadian bills.

I had heard that Geneva was super expensive, but with the exchange rate I found that things were about on par with what I would expect to pay for them in Euros. Of my 100 Swiss francs, I still have more than 40CHF left over.

(Image of Mr. Monopoly via Google Images)

Un dimanche dans la Haute-Savoie

As I mentioned , Pamela, like many others, works in Geneva, but lives just across the border in France. Having seen the sights in Geneva on the Saturday, Sunday Pamela brought me to see Annecy.

Annecy is a breathtakingly gorgeous mountain town in the Haute-Savoie department of France. As with Lake Geneva, I couldn't believe how blue and crystal clear Lake Annecy was. There are many Venices in Europe--essentially every town with canals and bridges is nicknamed Venice--and Annecy is called the Venice of the Alps. Annecy's canals and architecture reminded me a lot of Bruges.

Annecy is bidding on the 2018 Winter Olympics. Being from Vancouver, I found this especially interesting and couldn't help but think of how amazing a location it would be for the games.

We spent the early afternoon leisurely walking around the old town's bridges. The old town is dominated by the Château d'Annecy, a medieval castle where the Counts of Geneva and the Dukes of Genevois-Nemours lived and which is now a museum.

Later that afternoon we drove to the tiny but picturesque medieval walled city of Yvoire, which is situated on the French shoreline of Lake Geneva. The village is so small, it only takes twenty minutes to walk around. During the warmer months, Yvoire distinguishes itself as "le village le plus fleuri de France," and also has a garden of the Five Senses. Like Annecy, Yvoire has a castle, but more incredible still is that it has been inhabited by the same family since the seventeenth century!

After a leisurely visit of Yvoire, Pamela drove me back to the train station in Geneva. It was a beautiful drive along Lake Geneva at sunset and I was amused one last time at our nearly unnoticeable transition into another country.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I just wanted to wish all my loved ones back home a Happy Valentine's Day!
When in Rome, I visited Santa Maria in Cosmedin, home not only to the Bocca della Verità, but also to the relic of Saint Valentine's skull (how romantic, right?). You can see a picture of Santa Maria in Cosmedin in my facebook album from this trip.

Tastes Like Chicken

I tried escargots back in December and liked them. Now I can also say that I have eaten les cuisses de grenouilles.

Yesterday a group of us went to Lyon. After a day spent seeing the sights with our newly-arrived American friend Claire, we set out to find a bouchon Lyonnais, a traditional Lyon restaurant, for dinner. Lyonnais cuisine is very carnivorous, offering such specialties as tripe and brain. We chose this restaurant that seemed to be a modern take on a bouchon Lyonnais that also offered a vegetarian menu as Claire is vegetarian.

In France restaurants frequently offer set menus, which are typically good value. The only downside to this is when you are torn between dishes on different menus. Last night, for example, Claire ordered delicious chèvre crème brûlée and was nice enough to let us four omnivores have a taste.

When our frog legs arrived, we were surprised to see that they had been breaded and fried--we were expecting them to be pan fried in butter and more readily resemble legs; that they didn't made it easier to not think about the fact that we were eating frogs. The legs were delicious and they did actually somewhat taste like chicken.

Eating amphibious creatures spurred the debate as to whether a pescatarian would eat frog legs (a quick google search reveals we aren't the only ones who have wondered). We texted our pescatarian friend Annie who responded that she wouldn't eat frog legs as frogs weren't fish.

So there we have it. I have had the two most renown unsual French foods. Are there any others I should try while I'm in France?

Un samedi à Genève

Much like Belgium, Switzerland may often be left off the typical Eurotrip itinerary. But with an invitation and an old friend to meet up with, how could I not go to Geneva?

Inextricably linked with the United Nations, Geneva is probably of more interest to international relations students. However, there is more to Geneva than simply the UN. It is a beautiful city to spend the day exploring.

I arrived in Geneva late morning and met up with an old friend and classmate from UBC, Celine, who is from Geneva and works for an international organization. The sunny and spring-like weather made it the perfect day to wander the city on foot.

Crossing the pont du Mont Blanc, I couldn't believe how blue and crystal clear Lake Geneva was--unfortunately the iconic Jet d'eau was turned off. After getting a look of Geneva's famed flower clock and taking a quick walk around the jardin Anglais, we headed to the old town to climb la Cathédrale Saint Pierre's tower, where we were rewarded with an amazing view of the city and lake. We then took a walk in the parc des Bastions, where you can play giant games of chess or checkers and see the Reformation Wall.

After grabbing a quick bite of lunch, we went to the United Nations headquarters where, being an international relations student, I got the obligatory-photo-in-front-of-the-UN taken.

That evening I met up with Pamela. She, like many others, works in Geneva, but lives just across the border in France. Having not really travelled in Europe by car, crossing the border was rather novel: one moment we were in Switzerland, the next we were in France. Unlike the Canada-US border, there was no line-up and no agent to talk to; there was a customs building, but it appeared to be closed that evening.

Later that night, Pamela and I crossed back into Switzerland to have dinner at a fondue restaurant. The restaurant was decorated with murals of cows grazing in mountain scenes. We had fondue "moitié-moitié," which is half gruyère and half vacherin cheese, and was served with bread and potatoes--it was so delicious! This little taste of Savoie (the French and Swiss both lay claim to fondue being their dish), was the perfect end to a lovely day.

Where Am I? Geneva!

You guessed it: I was in Geneva for the weekend!

As the home of the European headquarters of the UN, among hundreds of other international organizations, Geneva could surely be considered the modern caput mundi.

Lake Geneva (called lac Léman in French), is Western Europe's largest lake, with a surface area of 580km².

Switzerland's three C's: chocolate, cheese and clocks of course!

And Jean-Jacques Rousseau is the Genevese native whose philosophy was one of the sources of inspiration behind the French Revolution.

Congratulations to Julie, the lucky winner! I will pop this postcard in the mail for you tomorrow. Also, thank you to everyone who played!

I couldn't help but laugh when I came across these hilariously kitschy Swiss army knife chocolates--probably the ultimate Swiss souvenir--I had to buy them!

Spring break begins in just under three weeks so stay tuned for the next postcard challenges.

Where Am I? Postcard Challenge #6

Back in December I attended a dinner organized by one of my colleagues for current and former English students and teachers. It was there I met Pamela, an alumna, who invited me to come visit her. This weekend, I am taking her up on her offer, so here are the clues for this sixth postcard challenge:

1. The whole world is here. Ancient Rome was called the caput mundi. This city might be considered the modern caput mundi.

2. It is located on the shores of Western Europe's largest lake.

3. The country is known for three things which begin with the letter "C".

4. The philosophy of a native of this city is considered to have influenced the French Revolution.

Where am I going? If you think you know, leave your answer in the comments below before 4:00pm CET on Monday, February 7th. I will draw the lucky winner once I'm home from work. Props to you if you can answer each of the clues(but don't worry if you can't, it will not put you at a disadvantage for a postcard).

Good luck!

Groundhog Day

Yesterday was Groundhog Day in North America, and while France doesn't partake in it, I would say that judging by the snowfall the day before, that we still have at least six weeks of winter left; despite the spring-like weather that started off the new year here, winter's not over yet.

Talking to some colleagues at lunch today, I learned that in France yesterday was la Chandeleur. Although originally a religious holiday, it is now celebrated by eating crêpes. According to superstition, if you succeed in flipping the crêpe in the pan while holding a gold coin in your left hand your family will have a prosperous year.