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!