C'est Fischer Time!

            Some weeks ago I decided to spruce up this blog with a gadget highlighting subjects mentioned in old posts. Soon after, one of the 2 or 3 people who actually reads these screeds (and, big surprise, a trombone player) pointed out that posts including dog shit outnumbered those of beer by margin of 6 to 1. So, in addition to disabling the subject counter, I've decided to address that disparity with this post.  I should point out that, while enjoying a good lager, I am not one of these people who can tell you all about top and bottom fermentation (as opposed to all the way through, I guess), where the best hops come from or, in fact, discuss the subject from any perspective other than that of an enthusiastic, if limited, consumer. I'm aware of the Reinheitsgebot of 1516 only because it was printed on the labels of the Bitburger I used to buy and I wouldn't be caught dead drinking American Budweiser. That fact alone qualifies me as more discriminating than most American hops heads.

Beyond Le Mer

           

The 4th of July at Chez Hinson/Gunia

  

            For the past week or so, the temperatures here have been in the high 80's and low 90's (high 20's, low 30's if you're reading in Celsius) and the last thing I've felt like doing is putting an old MacBook on my lap. But we've been here 10 months so now might be a good time for a summary and progress report.

Get Your Kicks On The...

Autoroute designation sign

            If you're an American who wants to live overseas, oh, wait, before I forget, I'm marking today, the 30th of January, 2013, as the day I saw someone actually pick up after their dog. Had I been able to competently express myself, I might have said, "Madame, I am moved by your civic pride, public spirit and sense of self-sacrifice! You, and you alone, have disregarded the indifference and selfishness of your peers by putting your community and country first. You are a hero of France and I salute you!" Or, "It's about fuckin' time." 

 

            So, where was I? Oh, right, living overseas. Anyway, if you're determined to leave North America behind, as I see it you have two options - either live where they speak the same language or where they drive on the same side of the road. If you pick the latter it leaves you one less thing to worry about as you're trying to figure out what the hell the road signs says.

Bordeaux 15144

            For the eight years that Cynthia and I lived in Florida, we spent a lot of time looking around public places and saying, "We're the youngest people here." For the past 4 months we've been looking around and saying, "We're the oldest people here."  This is definitely better but I'm still not too shot in the ass with being 60 so it's good to be living in a place that reminds me of the United States I grew up in.

            Like Springdale, where I was raised, Bordeaux sits on a major river, the Garonne. It is, however, missing the array of smokestacks that bracketed both ends of town. But Springdale is missing the ruins of a third century Roman amphitheater like the one just down the street from our apartment. In fact, this city like the rest of France, has places that went up centuries before the sprouting of the trees used to built the Pinta, Niña and Santa Maria. There is evidence that people lived here in the sixth century B.C. and they settled permanently a few hundred years later. The Romans came along at the time of Julius Caesar and the oldest building in town is their aforementioned amphitheater. In fact there's so much significant stuff here that Bordeaux is a UNESCO World Heritage site, an honor not likely to ever be bestowed on my hometown. But as beautiful as it is here, none of that is what takes me back.

 

             Four months isn't enough time to start drawing any hard and fast conclusions about the natives and their attitudes. I have noticed, and already mentioned, that they don't seem to mind stepping in dog shit every five yards. And our French friends claim that "The customer is always right" hasn't really caught on here in a big way but we haven't seen much of the stereotypes we were given to expect. But it does seem to me that, apart from the architecture, there's a continuity to life here that I think is missing in the U.S.

 

            When I was a kid, my hometown must have had a dozen little grocery and variety stores and they are all long gone. The bakery, butchers, shoemakers and hardware stores (two) are, likewise, memories.  Even Shoop's, the tavern and the town meeting spot that had been there as long as my mother could remember, closed up a few years ago and downtown Pittsburgh is almost unrecognizable as the place where I went to work in 1971.

 

             Walking around Bordeaux, I can still find these sorts of places. Within spitting distance of our apartment are two different cordonniers, shoemakers,  that look like they've been there since de Gaulle was a corporal. Every time I walk past it feels like Johnny Basilone ought to be inside. Johnny, Springdale's shoemaker, was a little guy with black curly hair who didn't say much and always had a lit Pall Mall in his lips that was generally about 2 1/2 inches of ash. I was at least 20 before I ever saw him take a drag or heard him talk. If one of these places does happen to be run by the same kind of guy smoking a Gaullois, at least I won't have to worry about talking to him.

 

            The Wal-Martization of America seems to have made it certain that the Steve Mikus, Lou Mazolli and Pete Cincilla kinds of store are gone for good. But those places still exist here in spite of and side-by-side with mega-stores like the Auchan at Mériadeck. This French chain’s local branch takes up 3 floors and sells everything from bulk walnuts to washing machines. (I admit, though, that I love it, especially on what we've been calling Alsatian day, when they set up a big wok-like tub and cook choucroute garnie, sauerkraut with sausage, ham, potatoes and anything else they can think of, and it’s only €13 a kilo. I like to stand right beside it for a while and just breathe deeply) 

 

But everywhere there are little épiceries, charcuteries/boucheries, patisseries, boulangeries and variety stores that I’m too lazy to look up the French word for. Sometimes there’s more than one of the same type on a block. How they stay in business, I don’t know but a few of these shops have on the wall a little photograph of the place from about a hundred years ago as the same type of business. (These pictures almost always contain at least one woman that looks like my Aunt Min, a sturdy farmer’s wife.) A hardware store near us has been in business since 1831, although it has been forced to move a couple of times.

 

There's a possibility that I’m over-idealizing all of this. I did, after all just have a birthday and there’s something about having that 6 on the front of it. Like all those things from my hometown, my youth is gone for good so maybe I’m just fighting against the day when I have to admit to being old. But I can tell you that being in a pâtisserie in France is just like being in the Springdale bakery when I was 9 years old.  And I still can't have one of everything. 

 

It's also occurred to me that a big part of my motivation to come here in the first place was the fear of aging. Some guys buy Harley's, some dump their wife to chase women half their age. My wife brought me to France so I spent more than one, less than the other and more wisely than both.  

Ruins of Palais Gallien

Photos ©2013 Cynthia Hinson

            

Chiens

                

                 The idea of cleaning up after dogs does not seem to have caught on here. Although Bordeaux isn’t as bad as Toulouse (which our friends blame on the Socialist mayor) there's enough dog shit on the sidewalks here that you have to pay constant attention to an area no more than about 6 feet in front of where you're walking. On top of all this, career panhandlers that are always accompanied by two or more huge dogs inhabit every French city we've ever been to and Bordeaux is no exception. They congregate in busy pedestrian areas and are probably using these dogs for sympathy from the easily touched but it seems to me that cute lap dogs would be more effective than a breed that reminds you of the unpleasantness of 1940-44.  Needless to say, these things leave log-sized turds all over the place and it never fails that the instant my guard drops I’m skating on brown ice. 

 

                  Like Americans and their kids, there doesn’t seem to be any place a French person will not take a dog. Unlike American kids, most of the dogs we’ve encountered have been well behaved and obedient. Many of the shops have a resident dog and it’s common to pass a café or pub where a basket at the end of the bar contains a sleeping cat.

 

             Last Sunday we drove to a little town that was holding its annual vide grenier, or emptying the attic – a yard sale. (Incidentally, the shit French people are trying to get rid of doesn’t look any better than the shit Americans are trying to get rid of.) Stopping for lunch in a little restaurant in Cadillac (no mention of the car that bears it’s name) we found most of the tables around us had small dogs beneath them. All of them sat patiently waiting for whatever it is dogs wait for, although one of them would occasionally bark at dogs passing on the street outside. Other than that we didn’t hear a peep out of them.  After he’d eaten his lunch, the guy with the occasional barker gave it his plate to lick, which wigged us out a bit since you’re never sure how well the dishes get cleaned. This same guy had also helped his tablemate drain a bottle and a half of rosé so this dog was probably used to a slightly longer leash when his owner’s judgment is impaired.

          I’ve had a strained relationship with dogs the past few years, in part because I’ve lived next door to a family of douchebags who sometimes had as many as six barky dogs running around. When we first moved in, the old guy across the street was already so fed up he had taken to shouting "Shut those god-damned dogs up" through a bullhorn. The first time I asked for a little consideration, what I heard was, “It’s only for a couple of minutes, it’s what dogs do.” Sorry is never a word in these types of people’s vocabulary.  All in all, I think I’ve seen enough here to feel that France may help put me back on dogs again.

 

          Before I go much farther, I should probably make some kind of disclaimer to the effect that, at this point, the conclusions and opinions about my new home are all subject to the possibility that I could be completely full of shit. I’ve heard people who’d spent a couple of weeks outside the U.S. make broad, sweeping pronouncement about the places from which they’ve just returned-places they probably experienced from the comfort of a tour bus or for a couple of hours near where the boat stopped. So everything I say in these early days might be subject to later revision but I think I’m right about the dogs. Now, if someone could just get their owners to use pooper-scoopers.

In France, a dachshund is called a teckel and this one was just sitting there outside a shop watching the world go by.

We meet the French Mr. Drysdale

            One of the first things we’d planned to do once we landed was to open a bank account, which turned out to have been a good idea since you can’t get much done around here without one. To buy a cell phone, rent an apartment, in fact, most major transactions require you to produce your relevé d’identité bancaire, or R.I.B. – a little slip of paper that proves you have a bank account. As near as I’ve been able to figure, the laws of France tend to favor consumers, and not just a little, so this handy little document gives creditors a leg up on where to start recouping their losses from mauvais payeurs. (As far as I know, this means deadbeat, but it might not. I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been really irritated by writers that throw foreign words and phrases around without any translations. Fortunately, my pathetic French will keep this to a minimum.) 

 

            The Tuesday after we arrived in Bordeaux, we appeared at the local branch of Barclay’s to arrange for our accounts. We'd chosen Barclay's for it's international character (the one that doesn't lose billions of pounds) and because our friends know one of it's regional kahunas.  We were met by a very nice bank official who ushered us into his office where he began to explain the various account options available. Maybe any Americans he'd dealt with were well heeled or possibly he knew our friend was the president of the local Aston-Martin club, but it was obvious from what he was showing us that he figured we had a shitload of money. This impression didn’t last long.

 

            The number of documents required to open this account approached what I needed to get into the FBI. In fact Barclays might now know more about me financially than the Bureau ever did, but at that initial meeting we came up short. We had to have some proof that we had actually lived at our U.S. address. Why, I don’t know.  My bet is that France, like the U.S., probably came up with a bunch of ideas to keep criminals from easily laundering money but end up only make it more difficult for everybody else.  Fortunately for us, French customs officials wanted the same thing so we happened to have a copy of our latest St.Pete water bill, conveniently sitting inside another folder of documents back at the apartment. 

 

            So it took two meetings to get our bank account and by the time we’d finished the only thing I hadn’t done was turn my head and cough. We still had to wait a week before we were notified that Barclay’s was now ready to accept our euros, which brings up another point. All of our income has to be converted to euros. Not surprisingly, having our account set up to let Barclay’s convert our dollars (which, after gaining or holding against the euro all year, began to sink almost as soon as we got here) royally screws us. Well, maybe not royally but going through a currency broker gives us a better exchange rate. Now we’ll see if all the figuring Cynthia did before we decided this little adventure can keep us from ending up in the streets, which brings me to the subject of dogs.

 

             Last time I mentioned I was going to go off about dog shit, however, I’ve decided maybe I should do a whole post on the subject of dogs in France, or at least my observations, anyway. Sorry if you were really looking forward to hearing about it. In fact, if that’s the case, I recommend counseling. À bientot, TTFN.

In Transit

         I started this while we were just killing time at the airport and wanted to do a last stateside post. I don’t remember why I didn’t finish it but it could have been some dispute over hogging the laptop. So this is my first post from France and it should probably be something profound or sentimental but if you're looking for that you might be disappointed.

         We spent the last two nights in Florida at a hotel but right up until the last minute were fixing things around our house. When you marry someone with a master’s in Historic Preservation, it's accepted that you'll live in a house with some years on it and constant maintenance is part of the equation. If, like me, you lack competence in the use of tools and/or have no patience, it's going to cost you.

                    But that's not what I'm going to talk about today. Instead, I've been thinking, among other things, about one of our last meals in Florida, possibly due to the contrast with our new home. The day before we left, we had breakfast at a Cracker Barrel, mainly because it was right across the street from the hotel (a Hilton) and would be a whole lot cheaper. Cynthia and I used to eat at these places a lot as we were travelling from our home in New Jersey to visit her folks in Louisiana. It’s always struck me that these “Country Cookin’” pushers are a pretty good example of what America is all about, at least for some people– the food is cheap and plentiful and a gauntlet of down home Made in China crap is arrayed so that it is impossible to walk straight to either the hostess station or the restroom. And as an aid to digestion, country music is piped throughout.

            Cracker Barrels also seem to serve as a place where the morbidly obese can freely mingle with their own. Whoever made the remark about feeling thin by hanging around larger folks must have been here. I’m no lightweight myself but I’ve never left a CB feeling anything less than anorexic.

            And there always seems to be a big family containing at least one member who is so severely mentally handicapped or old and senile as to have no idea which end is up. You never see these people come in and never see them leave - they are simply there.  I’ve often wondered if this is where country folk come to abandon family members they can no longer care for. “I mean everyone seemed so nice and all I just knowed  they’d take care a Mamaw.”

           
            Along these same lines, during our 8-hour layover at London's Gatwick Airport, a fate that should at all costs be avoided, I couldn’t help noticing that a substantial number of our fellow loiterers bore a striking resemblance to Marty Feldman, the late English comedian. One can, however, avoid having to spend too much time with the unwashed by paying a substantial fee to instead lay about one of a couple of very nice lounges. While there, we were reminded that, because of PBS and things like Masterpiece Theatre, Americans have this idea that TV in the UK is vastly superior to our own. One of the lounges large screens was tuned to a channel that covered what appeared to be a half marathon from beginning to end, including the packs of colorful stragglers. It was on for at least two and a half hours that I noticed and reinforced the idea that anyone who could sit and watch about a dozen guys running along a road, who looked like they’d just survived an African famine, would have no trouble watching any of the crap on American TV or a show about drying paint.

            
            By the time we finally got to Bordeaux and checked in to where we’ll be staying for at least a month, it was getting to be late Sunday. In the USA, we are used to things being open at all hours and so it is never any trouble to find food, even if you’re reduced to eating at McDonald’s. Here things are a little different and we were worried about being able to find something open. But when you are in the company of a discriminating palate, a restaurant can’t merely still be open on a Sunday night, it must be open and pass muster. After passing Moroccan, Japanese, Indian and Chinese places, we finally came upon a great pizza place we had tried on our last visit and Cynthia’s life was spared.

            
           It was nearly 10 by the time we sat down and one of the first things I noticed was, unlike Florida, we were not one of the youngest couples at a table. We might have, in fact, been the oldest.  Peppone’s serves real Italian pizza pies that, unlike their American cousins, are sized for one person. And in contrast to Cracker Barrel, the average customer was sized smaller as well.

             I’m not sure what the ideal length for a blog post should be but this is probably enough anyway. Next time, I’ll let you know how it went opening a bank account and expound upon the danger of France sinking under the weight of dog shit.