Verbless Existence

French!

So after 21 months here, French isn’t so bad.  I can make myself understood in most any situation (although there have been plenty of embarrassing experiences) and can understand most things.  I work mostly in French now.  Thinking back, I was pretty naive about it.  I didn’t really think it would be such a big deal.  I think this is in part an American thing - I had almost never met anyone who didn’t speak English!  As a tourist, it’s easy to find English speakers most anywhere.  But it’s a big deal to not speak the language.  As a result, when we arrived I was really motivated to learn.  Then the baby came!  C’est la vie !

Here is the authoritative guide to the process of learning a language:

1) Sweet Christ this is difficult!  How could anyone ever understand this gibberish? (one week)

2) I just understood a word! on TV! This isn’t so bad! (after ~one week)

3) I am a babbling imbicile.  I can only make basic utterances for my primal needs and observations.  ”Bread good! Weather bad! Two drinkable yoghurts, please!” How will I ever find a mistress at this rate? (~one more week)

4) Slow progress (forever)

I haven’t found French to be too difficult, although I think learning a language in general is tough.  Many of the words are the same as in English. The pronunciation is really tough to understand though.

There are also a lot of tricky things in French.  For example, French has masculine and feminine nouns.  These are impossible to get right ever, and the articles, prepositions, contracted prepositions, the spelling of certain verbs, and the pronunciation and spelling of many (most?) adjectives changes depending on the gender of the noun. It’s maddening.  If you mess them up, people will not understand you and screaming at them will not improve your situation.  Such noun genders arise naturally in a language and serve to help identify foreigners.  You win this round, ancient jerks.

No words in French are spelled correctly either.  From hearing a word, you can never guess how to spell it.  Usually it involves adding tons of vowels somewhere followed by a whole bunch of silent consonants at the end.  Also, many of the accents are silent! That’s the fun part - obligatory marks above letters than change neither the pronunciation nor the meaning (OK sometimes the meaning, often the pronounciation).

The verb tenses are distinguished by the verb endings.  This is second nature for native speakers, but it’s tough to get fast enough to pick these up in conversation.  For example: donner (to give), “je donne” (I give), “je donnais” (I was giving), “j’ai donné” (I gave),  ”je donnerai” (I will give), “je donnerais” (I would give).  The last two are pronounced exactly the same.  They also have three spoken (and written) and one exclusively written past tense, and two future tenses, and a bunch of other stupid tenses that aren’t used much.  That can be tough.  

I can’t say now nice it has been to be able to learn this language here though.  It is something that is fascinating to me and very satisfying to improve.  I love hearing French in the hallways every day at work, in the streets, and in the boulangeries.  I think I’ll really miss it!  It truly is a beautiful language, except when it is falling out of my stupid American mouth.

What blog?

I forgot about blog! Oh no!

Remember when Sara went to Sweden three weeks ago.  Loren was Mr. Mom.  Baby survived.  It was a lot of work!  I had to drop the baby off at the nu-nu’s, drive to work, work, get my hair done, pick up the baby, feed the baby, put baby to sleep, wake up with baby, wake up with baby again, feed baby, and repeat.  Also there were diapers to change.  Some people may call these “normal things associated with being a parent.”  Maybe.

Sweden

I thought that Sweden would be filled with way more blonde people eating rotten fish. Instead people were all shapes and sizes! And I only saw rotten fish at breakfast (but didn’t eat it). It also had a sun that didn’t want to quit. The sun was up by 4 or 5 and was still quite high at 11. I have a theory that there’s no crime in the summer in Sweden because there is too much daylight. But then in the winter, Swedes are inundated with crime! All in all though, it averages out.

The Swedish cuisine isn’t so hot. I suppose that’s why we don’t eat at Swedish restaurants. It seems like they take in lots of other cuisines, which is why we ate at an Italian and French restaurant. But they didn’t seem to really get it. Their mozzarella tasted like nothing and they didn’t serve bread at the French restaurant! Sandwiches are also about 90% bread and 9% mayonnaise.

Sweden looks a lot like New England. It’s green and has a shore line a bit like Maine (at least from the air). It also has Ikea!

I took a few photos (all in Uppsala) when I was there but had about 20 minutes to do so. You can be the judge.

The town of Uppsala.

The castle.

Me, trying to take a photo of me and the cathedral. Whoops.

The cathedral.

The castle and a bell.

The cathedral from by the castle.

L’Ascension

Today is Ascention day!  Finally!  Most people in France don’t work on Ascention day, which is always a Thursday, and most people don’t work on the following Friday because of course it’s almost the weekend.  The following Monday is a low-effort day following the four day weekend, and then it’s almost time for the summer holidays.

France has a lot of religious holidays, which is strange for such a secular country.  In addition to Ascention day, Assumption day and Whit Monday are national holidays, as is Easter.  Sara had to take a course for her residency here and they mentioned numerous times that France was secular, etc.  I asked my friend here who ascended on Ascention day and he guessed it was God.  I’m no theologian, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the right answer.  We should have more God-based holidays though because according to the Old Testament, he can be a little jealous.  We could have Creation Day and Beginning and End of Flood Days.  Just a thought.  We could lose Columbus day I think.  (Correct answer: Jesus ascended on Ascention Day, Mary ascended on Assumption Day, and nobody knows what Whit Monday is).

I thought these words I was typing in this pedestrian entry sounded a little familiar.  Here is a similar entry: http://verblessexistence.tumblr.com/post/603291491/french-holidays .  You can vote for which one is your favorite, or not.  No one will be counting or reading the votes.

T - 2 months

Two years ago we made the decision to move to France. Perhaps decision is too strong a word. Loren had no other job offers and, well, he needed to work! He beat me in completing grad school first so got to pick the next destination. France seemed as good as anywhere outside the US so France it was.

Now, we have two months left. At times it’s flown by and at times it’s dragged. We’ve had our ups and downs. Ups = SOLENNE! Downs = Solenne. Just kidding. She rocks. Downs = getting bitten by a dog. And damn if we haven’t eaten well and seen places we may have never visited. (Did you know they had beaches in the Netherlands? They are windy!)

So for the next two months, we must do the following:

• Eat as many croissants as possible. We had some fresh ones this morning and, in the words of Clay Davis, shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. They are good. I forbid any friends and family from ever purchasing them from Costco.
• Eat as many baguettes as possible. See above.
• Go to the beach. Solenne may eat her weight in sand and file down her teeth on stones, but how often do you live on the Mediterranean?
• Go to the butcher more. It’s a true art that is not celebrated in the US as it should be.
• Enjoy the hills behind the house as much as possible. The view is astonishing and will never be surpassed.
• Cook with butter and olive oil. Because it’s better here.

I could go on, but the rest would probably be food related and I think you get the gist.

If you have suggestions for last flings, do let us know. And for our US friends & family, a bientot-

Montreal is not France

I went to Montreal recently and discovered that Montreal is not like France nor does French spoken there sound like French.

Montreal looks kinda like Boston. You know you’re not in the US because of the French signage. Even STOP signs (which say “Stop” in France) say ARRETEZ in Quebec. They are much more protectionist of their French in Quebec than France. But there are also lots of Starbucks.

French in Montreal sort of sounded like someone speaking French with an American accent except better. I like to listen in on conversations in France to practice my French but had a decidedly harder time doing so in Montreal. It sounds weird! I spoke to a couple of natives about my observations and they said that people in Montreal make fun of French people for speaking like they’re talking out of a hen’s ass. And that’s pretty accurate. When French people speak, their lips are all squinched up and pursed. When people from Montreal talk, it looks more or less the way we do. The mouth is more open and wide. D’s sound like Z’s. And when they pronounce English words, it sounds correct.

You don’t need to speak any French there though. I spoke it a couple times (because, come one) but really didn’t need to. At least they didn’t speak back to me in English.

Child care a la francaise

This week is Solenne’s first week of child care (apart from the doting care of her 6 grandparents). I don’t know what it’s like to find or place children in child care but here’s what it’s like in France.

Finding it is hard. I signed up at 2-3 nurseries (creches). I heard from 0. In Marseille in particular, it really helps to know someone to get crap done or into clubs and the like. Child care centers are no exception. I know about 4 people in the city and none of them works at a creche. I also loathe making phone calls (for the obligatory nagging about where one is on the list) and forgot how to get to one of the creches. Those factors aligned such that Solenne will not be attending one.

Then, my friend/neighbor/landlord (one of the 4) told me about a mom of a child in her son’s class who was training to be an Assistante Maternelle. It’s like being a home daycare provider but there’s formalized training, internship, and regulation (well, this is France after all). That means I don’t have to look in bakeries (yes, bakeries) or ask the other 3 people I know to see if Asst Mats (the real abbreviation) have space?!? Great! Sign me up.

I met Carole and appreciated her style, experience, and the location of her home. At the foot of the hills and in a nice neighborhood, I knew Solenne would get her daily dose of sun. Carole’s apartment is clean, and she has a son who is 3.5 who still has all his fingers and toes. Child care provider - check.

Now we’re in the transitioning phase. In France (and probably the US), there’s an adaptation period when you slowly leave the baby there for longer. We’ve completed two days and so far, so good. No tears. It probably helps that Solenne loves other kids as her son is home from school because he’s on week 2 of 2 of his spring vacation.

Now for the fun administration! This part is normally boring and stupid but France has some interesting structures in place for families to hire Asst Mats and then to pay them. I sign up online to report the hours she works for me, the gov’t sends the pay stubs, and then I get reimbursed 85% of what I pay for child care (which is a whopping 5.5 euros/hour). Not a shabby deal.