Joyeux Thanksgiving!

November 24^th, 2011 was just any old workday for my French coworkers and me.  I had a few moments of Thanksgiving nostalgia- particularly when my dinner consisted of plain pasta with butter – but for the most part, I was too busy to even notice.  I taught classes in the morning and then rushed over to the art museum to help prepare for the press lunch (which featured several stacks of my newly-translated dossier de presse) and the opening event Friday evening. 

The lunch went well, and the opening was even better! 

J.J. Grandville was a French caricaturist whose satirical drawing inspired several filmmakers including the Lumière brothers, Charlie Chaplin, and Walt Disney.  The exhibit is a mix of Grandville’s sketches and silent films that clearly demonstrate his influence.  

Me at the Press Lunch, taken by one of the photo-journalists (embarrassingly enough, this photo appeared in the local newspaper,  L'Est Republican)

The same day that the Grandville exhibit opened, the Besançon Christmas market began!  Set up in the main square of the town, the Christmas market is a mix of live music, pastries for sale, colorful scarves, and the smell of spiced vin chaud. 

At school, my students kept telling me I had to try tartiflette at the Christmas Market, so when I saw a stand, I went on over.

Tartiflette is made with thinly sliced potatoes, Reblochon cheese, and little bits of fried ham.  Ok, so maybe it’s not the best thing to eat if you are watching your cholesterol… Good thing I’m not!  

I washed down my tartiflette with a glass of vin chaud (hot wine with spices), and was feeling cozy and satisfied.  

Les "week-ends"

On Monday morning I wanted to throw my alarm clock out the window.  It was the end of two very busy weekends that have left me grateful I will be staying in Besançon for a while now. 

Weekend 1: Lausanne

Friday, November 11^th, was Armistice Day (in commemoration of the WWII treaty with Germany), so I had yet another little holiday!  Two friends and I decided to spend our long weekend in Lausanne, Switzerland – a beautiful Swiss city that is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Besançon.

Lausanne is home to the International Olympic Committee and the Prix de Lausanne dance competition, so there is a lot of “excellence” around.  

It is situated on Lake Geneva, which is quite possibly one of the most beautiful bodies of water I have ever seen!  

Lausanne is a very efficient city.  Its population is only about 125,000, so it is the smallest city in the world to have metro system. 

On a night out – we met people from all over the world who live, work, and study in Lausanne – a few English people, French, German, Chinese, and Pakistani.  I immediately got the impression that Lausanne is a relatively open place.  But when I went to the restroom at the bar, I noticed a ton of graffiti all over the bathroom stall saying things like, “I hate Switzerland!”  “All Swiss are racists.” “You have to be white to be Swiss.” 

I was curious, so I checked the other stalls and found all the same type of graffiti.

It was odd to be in Lausanne, because although it is so close to Besançon, and the official language is French (albeit with a bizarre accent), it felt like a completely different country.   It is difficult to put my finger on why.  This is all I can come up with:

French people, like Americans, have a definite sense of being French.  It is not something they constantly discuss, but it is part of their identity, especially when they meet foreigners.  When I (as an American) meet a foreigner (which happens every day at the moment), being American is a large part of the way I present myself.  It is somewhat of a source of pride to announce to my new acquaintance, “I am American.”  In the same vein, they usually take pride in telling me, “I am French,” “I am Italian,” “I am German,” “I am English.” 

A photo of my friend Gemma and me in Lausanne.  (She happens to be English, and is quite proud of it!)

With the Swiss, I didn’t sense this same type of urgency to announce their nationality.  They are Swiss and they weren’t so worried whether or not we knew it.  This feeling I have about Swiss identity also probably comes from the fact that most people who live in Lausanne aren’t actually Swiss.  The city has more foreigners living and working there than actual Swiss citizens. 

Back in Besançon for the Week

We arrived back from Lausanne late the night of Sunday, November 13^th.  I woke up early the next morning and went in to Besançon’s Fine Art Museum, where I have been doing some odd jobs.   They had asked me to do a translation for the press release announcing an exhibit that is opening today (Friday, November 25^th.)  I strolled into the museum and found the place in a flurry. 

They needed me to stuff envelopes for the press lunch, oh yeah, and also get to work on that translation!  Other than a few small things I did for class when I was in college, I had never done a translation before.

Let’s just say it was harder than it seemed.  A rather large part of my week was consumed with perfecting this translation, which ended up sounding like a French person trying to speak English.  We had to settle for a less-than-perfect version because of time constraints, but I was frustrated because I knew I could have done better, given another week. 

Oh well, all was forgotten as I embarked on my next weekend adventure: Paris. 

Weekend 2: Paris

I hoped on a train after work on Friday and arrived in Paris around 8:00 pm.  I was staying with my friends (sisters) Laura and Julia.  We went to dinner at a little Italian restaurant near the girls’ house, where Laura and Julia (whose father is Italian) spoke in lilting Italian to the waiters.  I was practically green with jealousy. 

But it wasn’t long before I got to show off my own bilingual skills!  My friend Greg from UVA was in Paris with his parents, so he came to meet us!  We had a confusing ten minutes of trying to explain to Greg how to get to the restaurant.

He was calling us from a pay phone, speaking English to me, then Spanish to his parents (who are Mexican-American) waiting behind him.  I then had to turn to Laura, asking directions in French then translating what she said into English for Greg.  Finally, Laura got on the phone and said the directions in Italian, hoping Greg might understand (since sometimes Spanish and Italian sound similar.)  In the end, with a mix of all these attempts, Greg arrived at the correct metro stop and off we went! 

We went to a “DJ Party” at the music venue connected to the Moulin Rouge – no, we were not in the old cabaret hall, but we did get to queue outside it while waiting to go in.

Greg and me outside the Moulin Rouge

Seeing my friend Greg was an absolute joy, and reminded me that I’m really never THAT far away from the people I love….

During my days in Paris, I walked around with Laura and Julia.  They live in the Bastille neighborhood, which is in the 11^th arrondissement.  They are right on the border of the Marais, which used to be a primarily Jewish neighborhood, but has slowly morphed into one of the most chic shopping areas in Paris.  This may be because the Jewish shop owners had no qualms about opening their stores on Sundays, so Parisian shoppers flocked to the Marais to buy the latest fashions after Sunday mass. 

For a break, we relaxed in the Gardens of Tuileries.  Later, we had a coffee at the top of the Pompidou Center, and saw a lovely panorama of the Parisian night skyline. 

Champs Elysee on a Sunday Afternoon

Outside of the Pompidou Center

I definitely caught the Paris bug this weekend, and I have to admit, it was with a bit of reluctance that I boarded my train for Besançon Sunday night. 

Long Live the South?

On Monday night I met my new friend Virgile for drinks.  He had insisted that I meet him Monday so that I could talk with his friend Cyrile.  (I know, Virgile, Cyrile… kind of rhymes doesn’t it?)

“Cyrile is a big fan of the United States,” Virgile told me. 

We met at a bar and started out the evening with a round of beers; and so our conversation began to flow. 

Virgile works for a pharmaceutical company in Besançon – the town where he grew up and where his parents still live.  Right away, he seems like a very stable and sensible guy.  He is wearing a suit, has neat haircut, and doesn’t smoke. 

Cyrile lives and works in Vesoul, a smaller city about forty minutes away from Besançon, but he was born in a tiny unknown town of one thousand inhabitants.  He tells me this town is still where he feels most comfortable and at home.  Although Cyrile studied history when he was at university, he now owns a motorcycle dealership.  He is wearing jeans, a baseball cap, and a blue hoodie that says “Dunder-Mifflin.” (Yes, like The Office)  He smoked between six and eight cigarettes throughout the evening. 

Cyrile asks where I am from in America.  I tell him and he immediately says, “Oh! You’re from the South!” 

It turns out that Cyrile is a regular history buff, and is particularly passionate about the American Civil War.  For reasons I can’t quite comprehend, he has chosen the Confederacy as his preferred “team.”  He said he has a small confederate flag in his room and used to dream about being a confederate soldier as a boy.  He asked me all about different battles, and wanted to know which battlefields I had visited.  He told me about the brilliant strategies of Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee.  When I told Cyrile that some of my very own relatives had been proud confederate soldiers, he was near ecstatic.  Turns out, my new French friend knows more about American history than I do. 

Virgile, Cyrile, and I mused about how what the Confederacy really wanted, was to be a bit like the European Union: separate countries, with separate leaders, armies, and laws; but loosely tied economically and diplomatically.  

“Well then,” Virgile said, “You should be glad America is not that way.  Because it is not working here.” 

He and Cryile then launched into a long tirade about the situation in Greece.  They explained that France is often seen as a bridge between two different EU factions: the warm-blooded, laid-back southern/Mediterranean countries, and the cool efficient northern countries.  They said that both types of mentalities exist in France, often divided between the public and private sectors. 

Virgile said, “In France, government employees can relax.”  “They do nothing and have holidays every other week.” "They are like Italians." 

“Yes, and Virgile and I have to work long hours with very few holidays,” added Cyrile.  "We are like Germans."

At this, I smiled sheepishly.  I am, after all, a government employee.

So of course, this Friday, I have another vacation, which I will be using to travel to Switzerland with two girlfriends.  (I didn’t mention this to Virgile and Cyrile.) 

So... Long Live the South!  (And thank God for the French government!) 

Vive les Vacances!

 

Vacation is very important in France (an attitude I wish my workaholic American friends would adopt).  So naturally, three weeks after I started my job, it was time for a 10-day vacation.  It may be true that the French don’t celebrate Halloween, but they get 10-days off school (or work) instead!  Fair trade?  Possibly… 

So what should I do during my ten days off?  A responsible teacher might have stayed in town and worked on lesson plans, but I’m not all that responsible so I had to come up with a different plan.

Then I realized- I have three lovely friends who are living in England at this very moment.  It’s time I paid them a visit!  I started off my vacation in Lyon, France, a city not far from Besançon.  Then moved on to Brighton, a beach city in the south of England, then to London, and finally to Oxford. 

Lyon

My friend Altaire, who studies anthropology at the University of Sussex and lives in Brighton, met me in Lyon the weekend before my English holiday.  We saw Yelle in concert – a French electro-pop group with a lively female singer.  

The concert was Saturday night, so we spent the day exploring Lyon.  We walked along the Rhone river, through the Parc de la Tête d’Or (Park of the Golden Head), and finally found ourselves outside Lyon’s famous contemporary art museum. 

 

Now, some of my friends might know that I’m somewhat of an “art freak.”  I thoroughly enjoy looking at blank canvasses called “untitled” and trying to contemplate what they might mean.  So I was pretty thrilled to spend the afternoon doing just that.  Together, Altaire and I contemplated the arbitrary nature of gender roles, our preconceptions about the uses of everyday objects, and the inequalities and assumptions inherent in Western culture.  Pretty heavy stuff for our first morning in Lyon.   

The major theme of all these exhibits seemed to be that life is senseless and that we have no reason to hope for any kind of meaning.  Or as my old friend Thomas Hobbes once said, “The life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Yikes.  I have to disagree with Mr. Hobbes.  I may be naïve, but I simply can’t stand to believe it.

We left the museum feeling a bit solemn, but figured it was nothing a beer and a walk in the Lyon sunlight couldn’t fix.  But as we were walking I noticed a large, white Church at the top of a very, VERY steep hill (or was it a mountain?) and said, “let’s go there!”  Next the weird art, old European churches are another fetish of mine. 

So we walked, and walked, and walked, stopped to catch our breath, walked some more, crawled, climbed.  You get the picture.  Finally we made it to the Church. Notre-Dame de Fourvière.

 

The inside of Notre-Dame is meant to make everyone who enters it feel the opposite of the way I felt on leaving the contemporary art museum: that life has a purpose; that people have the capacity to love one another; and that we should be in constant awe of life's beauty.

The ceilings of the church were ornate mosaics and moldings, not unlike the churches in Florence, but the ceilings of  Notre-Dame de Fourvière were decorated with geometrical shapes, rather than biblical figures. 

 

As we were leaving, mass was beginning, so we stayed for the opening hymn.  French singing was still echoing in the foyer as we left. 

As we were walking down the hill, Altaire and I talked about how we had seen two completely different outlooks on life that day.  I’m not sure if it’s really possible to choose the truth, but if it is, I’m definitely going with the second one!

Brighton

We got to England late Sunday night and went straight to a 24-hour convenience store.  Wow.  I had forgotten those existed.  I couldn’t believe I was hearing English all around me, albeit in a funny accent. 

The majority of my day in Brighton was spent, eating scones, drinking tea, taking stupid pictures with Altaire’s camera, and striking up conversations with shopkeepers in my beloved native language.

They call Brighton the “San Francisco of England” because of its large gay population, it’s quirky art scene, and it’s large quantity of vegan and vegetarian restaurants. 

Perhaps the oddest part of Brighton was the Royal Pavilion, an old government building modeled after the Taj Mahal.  Unfortunately for whichever Duke built it, the pavilion ended up looking more like a Disneyworld attraction than an official government building.   

In all, I really liked Brighton.  It’s basically a beach city with a flair for culture and all the quirks of the Brits :)

London

It probably goes without saying that London is an amazing city.  I arrived on Wednesday morning and met my friend Freddi at Picadilly Circus.  She lives in Soho, so we wove through the crowds on the main streets back to her secluded alleyway apartment.  

We went first to get coffee at Freddi’s new favorite haunt, The Society Club.  I’m not sure where this name came from, but The Society Club is anything but an exclusive social club.  It’s an all-inclusive bookstore, coffee shop, art gallery, event space, and general hang-out.  I couldn’t tell who was working from who was actually purchasing coffee. Everyone just sat around chatting about books, about art, in French (I felt at home!), or just telling jokes.  Occasionally someone would get up and make coffee for someone else but it was never a big deal.  In the short time I was there I met, a girl who’s mom wrote a book about living in a random French town, an actor/dog-walker, the seventy-five-year-old woman who owns the place, and a aspiring photographer who showed us his work. I couldn’t help falling in love with The Society Club, so if any of you ever find yourselves in London, do me a favor and GO THERE

Freddi had class so I went on a “Free tour of London” to see the obligatory sights – Wellington arch, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and Big Ben.  This tour actually is free – but the guide will ask you for tips at the end.   

During the tour, I hit it off with two German girls who were also visiting London this week, so I joined them for lunch afterward.  We decided to be as British as we possibly could, so we went to a nearby pub and ordered beer and  “Fish and Chips with Mushy Peas.”  

This dish is actually as unappetizing as it sounds.  Fortunately, my lunch was cut short when I realized I was late to meet my cousin’s English beau for tea in Chelsea.  Au revoir fish and chips! 

Alastair is a clean-cut British chap who met my cousin Margaret when he spent a year studying abroad in America.  He visited UVA a few times while he was in the states, so he and I had a grand old time reminiscing about events such as Foxfeilds and Beach Week over our cups of English tea. He taught me about the different types of accents in England, explaining that you can tell by someone’s accent, not only where they are from, but also their level of education and their financial situation.  This made me grateful for my own very American accent, basking in relative anonymity.

A day later, I hopped on a train for Oxford.  

Oxford

When I arrived at the train station my friend Laura bounced up and gave me a huge hug.  She was glowing and clearly in her element in this intellectual paradise.  We walked all over Oxford, visiting the two famous Magdalen and Christ Church “colleges.”  

When I say college, I mean a sort communal living, dining, and learning situation that takes place in a large castle-like structure.  The closest comparison I can find is “houses” in Harry Potter – you know like, Gryffindor and Slytherin.   In fact, the entire time I was at Oxford I felt like I was wandering around Hogwarts (I swear the staircases changed at some point!) Some parts of Harry Potter were actually filmed at Oxford, and the “Great Hall” from the movie was allegedly inspired by the dining hall at Christ Church college.  

Laura invited me to a diner at her college.  We ate at four long tables, and had to stand as professors entered the room and took their place at “high table.”  It was all very exciting!! 

My second day at Oxford, I attended a talk by a professor from Harvard about the future of journalism education, a topic that interests me since I am an aspiring journalist myself.  Most of the time I tried to hide behind a pillar, because I was afraid something about me might be screaming “I DON’T GO TO OXFORD!”  But luckily no one found me out…

The talk was given in front of a panel of journalists from all over the world.  Harvard-man was arguing that journalism education is only good if students are also educated in the discipline they plan to report on.  He said we should all require our journalists to learn political theory if they plan to report on politics, religious studies theory if they plan to report on religion…etc.  I was nodding along comfortably agreeing with everything he said, until the journalist from Yemen raised his hand and said, “but sir, in my country we don’t have journalism school.” 

Before leaving Oxford I made sure to rummage through the bookstore.  I wore my glasses and bought two highly intellectual books about Africa, one of which I read on the train ride home.  

Now I am back in France, and it is starting to feel like a very familiar place indeed. 

Home Sweet France

I am just getting back from a week in England!  I had a fabulous time there, and met some wonderful people. 

I have to admit, however, that it was very comforting to head back to my adopted country.  There is something so soothing about hearing train announcements in French, and about knowing that I will be able to eat something other than “fish & chips with mushy peas.”   

 (This is actually an English delicacy, ugh!) 

But the best part of returning to Besançon was the view from my apartment this evening.

Coming very soon: tales of my trip through England from Brighton in the South, to London, and then on to Oxford.  But for now, I am going to enjoy being "home."

Besançon Photos

I finally took a few photos.  I've mostly been avoiding it because I didn't want to seem like that American who takes picture of stupid things like street lamps.  But here are a few I've managed to get in this past week :)

This is how I celebrated my birthday: chocolate cake and French beer

Close up of my lovely birthday cake!

"Me work? Never!"

Just some ancient Roman ruins casually perched in the town center...

Tu veux aller au cinema?

Or you can just rent the Roi (king) Lion

Anyone want to buy 5 lbs of cheese?

You can buy preservatifs at any hour of the day with these handy vending machines that line the main streets.

A frontal view.  Just for kicks.

My friend Charlotte modeling some lingerie at one of the many boutiques de seduction...

              And last but not least, just a guy chilling in the park next to some vulgar graffiti...

Have a good weekend everyone!

Lost in Translation

Part of my job here in France (Yes, I do have a job!  Gotta pay for all that cheese and wine somehow...) is to teach college-age kids who are specializing (majoring) in English.  Most of these students will go on to teach English, live in an English-speaking country for a year or two, or do some other kind of job that requires them to be fluent.  Most of them have studied in the U.K. for some amount of time.   They are accustomed to being that person, within any group of French people, who can speak English the best.

But when I first walked into the classroom, they wouldn’t say a word.  Why were all these supposedly top-notch English speakers suddenly mute when I stood in front of them, speaking the language they had all freely chosen to study? 

And then I saw myself the way they saw me:  Here I was, only one to two years older than them, fresh from America, speaking perfect English with more ease than they could ever hope for. 

I can relate to this sense of defeat.   I have felt the same way in French Lit classes with native speakers.  (Native French speakers just love to enroll in college French classes for the easy A)  For all the time I have spent, reading French books, watching French movies, traveling to France, etc., I still cannot articulate my thoughts like these elusive French people can.

Back in America (oh, how I miss that faraway land…)  Whenever I was out with friends and we met a French person – say at a bar at one in the morning – my friends always thrust me toward the Frenchman saying “Ann Marshall speaks French! Talk to her!” 

I hate this. 

I always feel like this native French speaker is going to uncover me as a fraud.  They are going to see that my French is not flawless like theirs and that I can’t really speak French like them.  They are going to know right away that I sometimes forget the most basic vocab words, and use the wrong gender or verb tense from time to time. 

As an English speaker living in France, I now understand that those fears were insane.  I fully understand that a French person cannot speak English as well as me, (why would I ever expect them to?  They are French…)  but I always appreciate the effort.  They say things like “Yesterday he is going to the park.”  Or “What age do you have?”  But I know what they mean.  I know they are learning, and I appreciate the courage it takes to approach a native speaker and potentially butcher their language.   

I wanted to explain to my class that I knew where they were coming from.  That the tables would be turned if I was sitting in a French class taught by any one of them. 

So I told them a story from when I was in France two years ago.  I was staying with a French family who had two daughters – Laura who is my age, and Julia, who is about my sister Susan’s age.

Before I arrived at their house I had an allergic reaction to the preservatives in the airplane food.  (Why did I ever eat that crap anyways?  Must have been the free wine they serve on AirFrance flights…)  I was really weak  and green in the face when I first met my chic French hostesses.

I wanted to explain that I did not usually look like a sickly Raggedy-Ann doll, so I said “Je suis très malade au cause des préservatifs qui étaient dans la nourriture de l’avion.” 

Now before I translate this lovely little phrase, let me just explain something here.  In my lazy American French, when I don’t know the word for something (like preservative),  I usually just say the English word with a French accent.  Bizarrely enough, I would say this actually works about 75% of the time.

What I thought I was saying to Laura and Julia was : “I’m really sick because of all the preservatives that were in the airplane food.” 

Unfortunately for me, the French word for preservative is actually conservateur.  This was part of the 25% where my cheat-tactic doesn’t work. 

So what I actually said, to these two French girls I had just met, was:  “I’m sick because I’m allergic to the condoms that were in the airplane food.”

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, préservatif means condom. 

So Laura, Julia, and their friend Guillaume (who was also present for my moment of humiliation) burst into a fit of laughter.  Between gasps and giggles they said,  “I’m pretty sure you didn’t mean to say that.” 

I explained that I had meant to say that I was sick because of “the things they put in food to keep it fresh for longer.”

“Oh!  Conservateurs!” They said.  Voilà.

This story succeeded in helping my new students relax.  Now, some of them won’t shut up…

(By the way – I am still really good friends with Laura and Julia.  I’m pretty sure the whole me-eating-condoms-in-airplane-food-thing is a bond that can’t be broken.  They both came here from Paris this past weekend to help me celebrate my 23^rd birthday!!  Needless to say, this story was told several times throughout the night to both friends and random strangers…) 

Ten things I love about Besançon

1. During the ten minute walk from my apartment to the main town square, I pass one Apple computer store store, two banks, three wine shops (not including convenience/grocery stores), five lingerie shops, and eight bakeries.  Looks like the Bisontines have their priorities in the correct order…

2. Don’t even think about trying to go shopping or run errands between 12:00 and 2:00 in the afternoon.  This is Besançon’s designated lunch break.  The only establishments open during this time are restaurants. 

3. Also, if you try to eat lunch at a restaurant after 2:00 pm, you are out of luck.  The restaurant kitchens all close promptly at 2:00 and open again at 6:30 pm or 7:00 pm for dinner.  Hey, the people who work at restaurants need a break too!

4. Almost all the buildings in the downtown area are at least 150 years old. Very few of these said-buildings are handicap accessible.  Heck, to get up to most apartments in downtown Besançon, you will have to walk up ten to twelve flights of precariously-constructed wooden stairs.  No elevators in sight. (My apartment is slightly less offensive than some, requiring only eight flights of steps…)

5. At every bus stop and on every street corner, there are couples between the ages of 16 and 27 making out.  “Oh baby, I’ve got to catch the bus and it’s going to take me to the faraway land of the next bus stop so we’d better make it count right now!” When I explained to a French friend that I found these types of public displays of affection a little strange, he just shrugged and said, “They love each other.  Why should they hide it?” 

6. There are probably more churches than bakeries in Besançon, and they are all beautiful, ancient, and drafty. Unlike the bakeries, however, the churches are never crowded.

7. Besançon used to be a Roman city, with a huge fort on the hill above what is now the main downtown area.  Today, these Roman ruins are home to a zoo.  For a small fee, you can go see baboons running around on thousand-year-old Roman architecture. 

8. Bisontines are not afraid to offer strangers an opinion on their choice of wine.  Twice now, I have been browsing the wine section at the Monoprix (sort of the French version of Wal-mart) and random French people have advised me against the wine I was about to buy.   Once, a Frenchman even chased me to the register.  “Ne l’achete pas! Ce n’est pas bon!”  Don’t buy it!  It’s no good!  He recommended that I try a different bottle of wine for a similar price, and I have to admit, he was right…

9. People in Besançon are extremely friendly and helpful to foreigners.  It is not a tourist town like Paris, Nice, or Bordeaux, so foreigners are more of a novelty than an annoyance.  I really love living in Besançon.  It’s the perfect size – somewhere between a big city and a small town so it’s very manageable for an American like me. 

10.  I am already becoming a Besançon townie!  Twice I have been stopped by visitors asking directions, was able to successfully direct them (in French!) to their destinations (which, granted, were quite obvious and easy to explain)… I have (almost) arrived!

Alors On Danse

On Thursday and Friday of this week, I went in to Lycée Pasteur for a few hours to meet some of the professors, students, and other language assistants.  When I first arrived at the door of the lycée, the teacher on duty started yelling at me because she thought I was a tardy student.

“Excuse me, but do I look like I’m in high school??”  I was particularly dismayed by her mistake, because (being fully aware that I may be closer in age to some of my students than to the other professors)  I was wearing what I hoped was my most professional and “teacherly” outfit:  a high-waisted pencil skirt and a white blouse.  I was even wearing my glasses for God’s sake!  I squared my shoulders and said with authority.  “Je ne suis pas étudiante.  Je suis professeur d’anglais.”  I am not a student.  I am an English teacher. 

The other teacher squinted at me, trying to decide if I was indeed a legitimate adult, or if I was just pretending.   Finally, she sighed and directed me towards the teacher’s lounge where I was supposed to meet the other English professors. 

The teachers were on their lunch break so I got to sit around and chat with them for an hour.  Unlike Americans, French teachers wouldn’t dare grade papers or do any kind of work during their break.  Lunch is sacred here. 

I got to talking with one of the Spanish teachers, and told her I loved to dance.   She got a huge smile on her face and told me that she was a salsa dancer.  “I go to a class every Friday night,” she said.  “I would love it if you can come!”  She told me the class was held at a bar called “Mad’s” in downtown Besançon.  “It’s a lot of fun!”  she assured me.  “Afterwards everyone hangs around and has a few beers.”  Ok, I thought, why not!

Now let me just explain something here- because of my ballet training I am usually able to pick up new types of dance much more quickly than the average person.  "How hard can salsa possibly be?"  I asked myself.  I will probably be killing it by the end of class….

So I was humbled.  Salsa is amazingly complex and esoteric, especially when the class is taught in French.  I had brought along two friends – a Scottish girl named Charlotte and a South-African girl named Jannike – who are both also English assistants at high schools in Besançon.  Jannike (perhaps wisely) chose not to participate, but to sit calmly drinking her beer a few tables away from the dance floor while pretending not to laugh at Charlotte and me. 

To begin class, the teacher taught us a few basic salsa steps, then we were asked to partner up with a member of the opposite sex.  Seeing as Charlotte and I were the perhaps the least experienced in the class, no one jumped to partner with us.  Finally, a boy who seemed slightly unsure of his own salsa prowess held out his hand to me.  Together we stumbled through the moves: casino, salsa, casino, cortico, casino, salsa, casino, cortico…. And so on. 

Antoine’s Mom

After class, my dance partner Antoine sat down to drink a beer with us as we cooled off.  He is twenty years old, outgoing and goofy.  “A wee lad,” as Charlotte, my new Scottish friend, says. 

After a few minutes, a tall, beautiful blond woman, sauntered over to the table and slid into the booth beside me, after leaning across the table to give Antoine a kiss.  Antoine’s mom looked like she was about thirty-five years old, though she must have been older. 

She turned and started speaking to me as if she had known me all her life.  “Did I like salsa?”  She wanted to know.  She said she has been coming to salsa classes for seven years now.  It’s her passion.  

“It makes me feel strong and powerful.”   She looked strong and powerful.   She told me she especially enjoys dancing the man’s part because she gets to lead.  (In this class, she had been acting as a man because there weren’t enough to go around.)

I told Antoine’s mom that I had a pretty extensive background in ballet, but admitted that I felt slightly inept at salsa.  “Salsa is the opposite of ballet,” she declared.  “You must promise me you will keep at it for a few more weeks.  I think you will notice a huge difference.”  I promised.  

Antoine’s mom asked why I was in Besançon, and if I liked it so far.  I told her, “I love it!”  She said it was great to be traveling at my age – to live somewhere “foreign,” and said she had taken a year off from work and school to travel around the world when she was young.  “I was a bit of a hippie,” she confessed. 

Then the salsa instructor called Antoine’s mom over.  He wanted her to help him demonstrate a particularly difficult move.  I stared after her in a mixture of amazement and envy.  I turned to Antoine and said, “Your mom is so cool!  I want be like her!” 

“I know,” he said.  “Me too.  Why else do you think I am taking this salsa class?” 

So I think I have found my newest hobby!

Tu veux boire un verre?

In France, it is perfectly acceptable to sit outside a café at four o’clock in the afternoon and order nothing but a Coke.  Granted, this Coke-drinking is generally accompanied by smoking perhaps one, but often three, cigarettes – depending on the amount of time one sits – which can be quite a long time. 

For some reason, in America it is not socially acceptable to simply sit and drink a Coke at four o’clock in the afternoon.  Now, if you are drinking a latte, or even a beer, that’s ok, but just a Coke?  Or – God forbid – an Orangina?  Cokes and Orangina’s are the types of beverages that Americans drink while shopping, driving, or walking to our various destinations.  We see no need to sit down to drink them. 

But every time I take a walk with a French friend, our little promenade inevitably ends in the question, “Tu veux boire un verre?”   This means, in a slightly loose translation, “Do you want to have a drink?” When uttered in English, this lovely little phrase almost always means, “Would you like to drink an alcoholic beverage with me?”

This question is sometimes asked in the context of ‘Happy Hour,’ a most curious ritual in which uptight urban professionals drink beers on the cheap after work while continuing to discuss their jobs and their co-workers. 

Or this question can be a casual way to ask someone on a date if you haven’t quite plucked up the courage to ask him or her to dinner.  If you just “have a drink” with your crush,  you can always deny your romantic intentions later in case of rejection. 

Finally “having a drink” can be used when you are awkwardly meeting someone for the first time- like your brother’s roommate’s mother’s friend’s son who happens to be living in the same city as you at the moment.  (Yes, this did actually happen to me once, and fortunately, I can report it was much less bizarre than it sounds.)

Alternatively there is the question, “Do you want to get coffee with me?”  

This question can be used to facilitate a meeting about professional relationships, i.e. “Let’s have coffee and discuss the possibility of you interning with us this summer.”

“Getting coffee” can be a pretext for seeing friends with whom you’ve fallen out of touch, i.e. “I know we haven’t seen each other since I stole your boyfriend, but let’s “get coffee” and try to patch things up.”

And of course “getting coffee,” “like “having a drink” can also be used for pseudo-dates: “Hey, I really enjoyed meeting you the other night at that art opening.  Let’s have coffee to…uh…discuss the works further…”

If I am hanging out with my sister or a close friend and we get a hankerin’ for some caffeine, we will simply walk into a coffee shop, order our coffee (or Coke or whatever) in a nice “to-go” cup and continue on our way.  We would not waste our time sitting down to drink this beverage unless we had some sort of “business” to conduct.  

The point of all this is to show that American’s aren’t in the habit of just chilling out with their beverages.  We always have some reason for sitting down to quench our thirst.  What’s more: the beverage with which we sit cannot be just any beverage, but must be a) alcoholic or b) expensive, frothy, and caffeinated. 

But “Tu veux boire un verre?” means something very different than “Do you want to have a drink?” or  “Do you want to get coffee with me?” (Which can both be loaded questions.) 

“Tu veux boire un verre?”  just means:  “Do you want to sit outside this café with me, at four o’clock in the afternoon and sip on a Coke while we talk about nothing and watch the people walking by?  Heck, we don’t even have to talk.  We can just sit there enjoying our Cokes if you want.  For as long as we please.”

“Oh, and by the way, it’s ok that you stole my boyfriend.  I was getting tired of his snoring.” 

Stuck on the Train: A Reality TV Show

The first friends I made in France this trip were pretty much forced to befriend me.  That’s because my train from the Gare de Lyon to Besançon, which was supposed to take about two hours, broke down and we ended up stranded in the train for 6 hours!  Yikes.

When I first got on the train, I tried really hard not to seem foreign.  I smiled and nodded when people spoke to me, trying to avoidsaying anything but, “Merci” or “Pardon” so that no one would notice my accent.

The first 45 minutes on the train went according to plan.  I listened to my Ipod and hid my face by pretending to read a French newspaper; the other people in my compartment were doing pretty much the same.  But all that calm, normal (but depressingly anti-social) behavior was about to seem silly and useless.   The train stopped short and all the lights went out.  There were cries of “Merd” and “Putain” left and right (neither of which I will translate here.)  Eventually the lights came back on but the train remained where it was.  The conductor came around to each car and explained in rapid-fire French what the problem was. I, of course, was lost. So.  I had to suck it up and speak to someone.  I looked at the man sitting across from me: “Excuse me, would you mind telling me again what he just said?  I’m a foreigner and I didn’t catch some of it.”  (That was a lie, I didn’t catch any of it.)   He smiled and said slowly in French, “the engine is broken, so we are going to have to wait here for a new part.” 

Oh, ok.  I can deal with that. 

My friend Laura, who I met on a previous trip to France, is from Besançon (the town where I was headed and where I will be living this year).  Laura lives in Paris where she works for a company that buys the rights to foreign films, but she was planning to go home to Besançon that weekend to see her family.  We took different trains from Paris because my plane got in before she was going to get off work, and I didn’t want to sit around the train station with all my luggage.  But Laura’s mom (a lovely, generous woman) had offered to pick me up at the train station.

I sent Laura’s mom a text to let her know that my train would not be on time.  

Timidly, the people in my compartment started chatting. 

“Where are you headed?”

“Oh no, this delay will cause me to miss the play I was going to see with my husband.”  “My son just texted me a picture of the delicious dinner I am missing right now!” 

Everyone was also curious about who I was and what the heck I was doing here on this train with enough luggage for six months.  I told them I was American and heading to Besançon to teach at Lycée Louis Pasteur this school year.  They all knew Besançon and assured me that the students would be nice to me.  Mathilde, a beautiful young woman in her early thirties who was originally from Besançon (and went to “Pasteur” during her high school years), told me an amusing story about how she had a crush on her English Assistant when she was in high school.  “He was a tall, blond, British guy, and I used to always see him drink beer in a nearby bar after school,” she explained. 

In the compartment there was also, Matthieu, a fourteen-year-old boy who lived in Paris but was visiting his grandparents in Besançon for the weekend; and Nicolas, a suited-up business man who had been in Paris for work, but was returning home to his family in Dijon. 

The conversation mostly consisted of Mathilde and Nicolas telling Mathieu (who was also unsure about Besançon) and me all about the city.  

“There are lots of cool music and arts festivals at the ‘Citadel.’” 

“There is a special kind of cheese that comes from the Besançon region.  You can’t find it anywhere in the United States or anywhere else, I hear. But you have to taste it. I think it’s the best in France!” 

“Did you know that Besançon used to be an old Roman city?  There are Roman ruins that still stand near the center of town.” 

“Victor Hugo was born in Besançon.”

“Also, the Lumière brothers, who invented cinematography, were born there.” 

“Isn’t it funny that their name was ‘Lumière’ (which means light), Ha Ha Ha!”

“There is a really cool art museum in the center of town called the Musée des Beaux Arts.  You should definitely pay a visit since you are interested in art!” 

“There is lots of good skiing nearby – I’m sure it’s much better than whatever you have done in Virginia (it doesn’t snow much there, right?) …”

After we sat for nearly three hours, the conductor announced that we would be turning around and heading back towards Paris to get some part repaired.  Then we would head towards Dijon, stop for a few minutes, and continue on to Besançon.   Ugh. This was going to take a while, to say the least.

Nicolas went to the dining car and returned with a bottle of wine, a corkscrew, and four plastic cups.  “I think this might help,” he said.  “Chin!” (which means “Cheers”)

Two hours and another bottle of wine later, we had decided that this situation would be a great premise for a reality TV show: Stuck on the train: two French professionals, a fourteen-year-old-boy, and a random American chic are forced to entertain one another for six hours in a small enclosed space. 

Fortunately, our reality TV show was more like fiction than “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.”  When we stopped at Dijon, the loss of Nicolas left a hole in our little group, but we gained Benoit, a chubby, jolly man, who was also on his way to Besançon. 

We finally arrived in Besançon around midnight.  Laura, whose train left two hours after mine, arrived two hours before me.  Her train had also experienced a delay because some other train (mine) had been blocking the tracks.  Since it was so late, Mathilde offered to give me a ride to my new apartment, rather than have Laura’s mom meet me at the station.  Matthieu and Mathilde’s husband helped me carry my bags to the car.  We all got to meet Matthieu’s grandfather, who thanked us profusely for “watching out for Matthieu.”

What did I learn from my experience on a reality TV show?  Well, I learned that people in Besançon are wonderful and welcoming – nothing like the actual characters on reality TV.  And I learned that there is nothing like wine to give me a little confidence in my French-speaking-abilities.