Le Quatorze Juillet
Fireworks on Bastille Day
It has been quite a longtemps since I last posted here, but today is Bastille Day, and outside my window I can hear a backdrop of sirens, various drunk people yelling, and mysterious banging sounds which could be cars backfiring, contraband fireworks or my neighbours getting rather patriotic. All of this is making me feel very festive. You see, France’s Fête Nationale also marks my one year anniversary of living in France, and while I still don’t know the words to the La Marseillaise (I can name everyone on the last season of Star Ac though), there are so many things that I have learnt over this past année about France, the French, the world, and even myself, that I would like to share. I can hardly name them all, but here are a select few which I may expand upon another day. Allons-y!
- The most useful phrase I have picked up is C’est pas grave (it’s not serious). This is a wonderful phrase that can be used in contexts ranging from someone stepping on your toe to all kinds of things which really are serious, like say, a cancer diagnosis. I was once watching the evening news and some poor man’s house had been completely devastated and he had lost all of his worldy possessions and all he had to say was c’est pas grave! Sometimes the French are very stoic. That is when they’re not being…
- … very dramatic. Quelle drame! Another thing I have picked up is the art of a crisis. Some people in Paris have un peu de crise over anything and everything. Often while waiting in queues or on public transport. On the 69 bus one afternoon I bore witness to a man yell at a poor young lady, and the entire bus, about using her mobile phone, ranting on about the demise of society and how he should just go and kill himself now. Of course this man would probably say c’est pas grave if he were diagnosed with cancer. It’s all very confusing.
- Aging French rock stars are very scary. I present Exhibit A – Michel Polnareff. I could give you several more examples but I really think he is enough evidence.
- There’s an unspoken dress code for each arrondisement in Paris and after a while you can pick it. Basically everyone wears variations on the same thing though.
- Coming from an Anglo background and upbringing, I still always get surprised when people do the double cheek kiss, but I’d rather they did that than not do it at all.
- I can’t wear as much eyeliner as French girls without looking like I was in a violent punch up, or a panda.
- I like how everything is often given a cute nickname ending in -o, like frigo, texto, moto, and Sarko.
- Often the things that smell the worst do in fact taste the best.
- I swear a lot more now than I did before, putain.
Merci France for letting me storm your proverbial Bastille.
À la carte
À la carte
Where I live in Paris there is a plethora of tourists. Actually perhaps that could be said for most areas in Paris, but on my local commercial strip I seem to hear more foreign languages than French. The tourists are steadily dipping in and out of cafes, asking for directions, pulling out the Metro map and looking confused, significant others wearing silly matching raincoats (and caps embroidered with their country of origin) walking hand in hand and looking very much in love. A few Parisians aren’t keen on them, but I love the tourists. I have been one myself after all. Plus I’ve been here for almost a year now and I still need to pull out my Metro map and look confused. But I have learnt to have a discreet one tucked away in my Paris Moleskine. I love the tourists so much that I have been known to walk up to them and ask ‘Bonjour! Do you need help?’. The Mairie should pay me for assisting lost souls on their pilgrimage towards Galeries Lafayette.
But my favourite thing about Paris tourism is without a doubt the English translations on menus. Yes, I am one of those silly creatures who derive joy from grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. I am by no means whatsoever a grammar snob who gets annoyed by mistakes (because I certainly make them in French all the time), I just find misspelled words and literal translations charming and delightful. Especially when they sound as appetising as “raped cheese”1. Goodness, does it need counseling? Or maybe you’d prefer “Hamburger with egg of horse”?2
Also the whole thing about Parisian waiters and waitresses being rude is a myth. If you happen to stumble across a rude one he’s just as likely to be rude to the locals as he is to the tourists. Most of them are lovely and extremely keen to show off their English abilities. One sort of French I have reached total fluency in is cafe and restaurant French, but if the staff overhear me speaking English with my dining companion, they jump at a chance to tell us the Plat du jour in my mother tongue. Often in the culinary realm though, it just doesn’t translate very well.
Waiter: So ze special of ze day is grilled stingray with concussed tomato, it is very good.
Antonia: Sounds delicious. We’ll take two.
Friend of Antonia: Am I going to die?
Waiter: And something to drink?
Antonia: Two glasses of red wine and some water.
Waiter: Would you prefer water suffering from gas or not suffering from gas?
Antonia: Oh, definitely with the gas. Merci.
Friend of Antonia: Why are you feeding me poisonous maritime creatures and fart water?
My favourite badly translated menu item has to be this:
Apparently this is how steak tartare translates into English at a cafe nearby, but I doubt very much many Anglophones order their beef codly chopped has to the order of the machine cooled. Maybe just the brave ones.
1. fromage râpé is grated cheese
2. Hamburger avec Oeufs a Cheval is really a meat patty with a fried egg on top of it, riding horseback if you will. That’s right, French horses don’t lay eggs either.
À la Pharmacie
À la Pharmacie
Anyone who has ever been to Paris will know that one of the city’s quirks is there is literally a pharmacy on every single block. Quite au contraire to England’s pub on every corner philosophy (although that may be another form of medication itself), it is impossible to peruse the rues of Paris without seeing the warming glow of a green neon cross every hundred metres or so. Comforting for most who recognise the emerald beacon of readily available medication, but probably not for epileptics as those signs often flash so furiously that I sometimes wonder why there isn’t a Japanese cartoon called ‘Green Pharmacy Seizure Robots”.
So why are they everywhere in Paris? Is there a plague going around that I didn’t know about? Are Parisians the sickest populace in the world? Perhaps, but France has an outstanding health system (Assurance Maladie) so deeply rooted in the core of the society that when asked to name the three best symbols of the French nation, the people responded “the flag, the health and the Marseillaise”. Even illegal immigrants receive basic cover, which is much more than I can say for Australia. However pharmacy overload doesn’t necessarily correlate with excessive illness. I think I could even go so far as to say that the pharmacy density in Paris exceeds that of anywhere else in the world. But it’s not because there’s something in the Seine.
Basically, Parisians are vain, nosy hypochondriacs. And I do mean that as a term of affection. Nothing is more charming than the little old women who are convinced they are dying of a fatal disease when all they have is a runny nose. There is also the very French notion that there is a cream to fix everything. Want to lose 5 kilos? Try this cream. Cellulite? Cream. Herpes? Cream (I don’t know that from experience but I assume so). Whenever I am in the pharmacy I am always overhearing people deeply engrossed in a discussion about which cream is best for what. The creme de la creme of cremes if you will. Not to mention that each time you ask the pharmacist a question, every single person currently also waiting in the queue will happily let you know their opinion as well, even if you’re just there to buy shampoo. I recently saw a man come into my local pharmacy with a broken and grazed wrist (he was there to get, surprise surprise, cream) and the moment he pulled out his x-rays, everyone on the grounds gathered round to see his green stick fracture and offer advice. “Make sure you do kinestherapie (physio)” said one bystander. “Did you have a moto accident?” asked another. “It will heal faster if you hold it at exactly a 48 degree angle for at least ten hours a day” was my favourite suggestion.
And then a malady befell me. Just last week, while taking something out of the oven, the top of my finger brushed against the grill and Voila! Antonia Brûlée. I was worried it would get infected so strolled the very short distance to the pharmacy on the corner of my street to ask what would be the most appropriate cream to apply. Now my French is passable and generally I can get by day to day without drawing too many blanks, but there are moments when I have total vocabulary amnesia. My conversation with the pharmacist went somewhat like this (en francais):
Antonia: Bonjour Madame!
Madame La Pharmacienne: Bonjour Mademoiselle, how can I help you?
Antonia: Well I think I need a cream. I have a [searching brain for the right word for burn] erm… flamant on my finger, what should I do?
Madame: Excusez-moi?
Antonia: A flamant. On my finger.
At this point Madame La Pharmacienne turned from slightly puzzled to bright red with laughter. She called out to everyone else in the store, who quickly rushed over and upon hearing what I had just said turned bright red with laughter themselves. Looking at them I wondered if there was a cream to apply for mass hysteria. I was turning bright red for a different reason altogether. “Pardon Madame” I whispered. “What exactly did I just say?”
“Flamant! Like this.” The woman stood on one foot and bent her other at a right angle, exactly like… a flamingo. I had just told everyone that I had a flamingo on my finger. Well… that would be serious. Unfortunately for me, there was no cream to fix my flamingo or embarrassment but the pharmacist did give me a lovely topical cream for my burn and it’s almost gone now. Although I haven’t been back in the pharmacy since. But just so you don’t make the same mistake I did, the word for burn in French is brûlure.
Photo by cubn6
Antonia Hayes is an Australian writer, photographer and mother of one who woke up one morning somewhere in between The Eiffel Tower and Invalides unsure how she ended up there but decided to stay anyway. Originally from Sydney, she has been living in Paris since 2006 but still can't remember which one is the Left Bank and which is the Right Bank. Antonia is currently working on her first novel and is pretty sure she lives on the Left Bank.