Un masque, s'il vous plaît

One of the things that I love about the French culture is how invested it is in the art of disguise.  Think about it - parfum, maquillage, haute couture -  no one does disguise better, or wears it better, than the French.  I suppose the thing I find most interesting about the French love of the art of diguise is the courage it takes to practice it, because most of the time, the thing that is being disguised is not really hidden at all.

My favorite example of this is the parfum du Métro.  The city of Paris has developed a scent that it diffuses throughout many of its Métro stations.  The parfum is an attempt to mask the odor of the thousands of bodies that pass through the stations, which, combined with the various smells left behind by the personnes sans domicile fixe who sleep in the Métro stations at night, is quite pungent.   The Métro authority's parfum fails miserably in its attempt to hide these odors.  However, they bravely ignore their failure and  continue to diffuse the parfum du Métro daily.  I love that.

Of course, the French love of disguise can have some serious consequences.  For example, the French like to pretend that their social assurance system is the best in the world.  I suppose that it is, if you are the person being taken care of, and not the government who has to find the revenue to meet the hidden costs of the caretaking.   The French also like to say that their society is open, progressive, and sophisticated.  But the French veneer of sophistication and je ne sais quoi  is a very thin veil that disguises the truth of France, where racism is common and where immigrants, especially non-white immigrants from former French colonies, face a steep uphill climb.

Back to less serious forms of disguise.  I'm referring to the above photo of today's breakfast which consisted of café and a tartine - which, as you can see, is just the fancy French name for bread and butter.  However, I would argue that the combination of superb French bread spread with satiny and rich French butter  deserves to hide behind a fancy name.

Bonne journée à tous!

Trop de vin

I ate a magnificent dinner last night with my classmates at the Restaurant de la Tour in Sancerre.  It amazes me that a small town like this - less than 2,000 people - should have not just one, but two "gourmet" restaurants (the other is the Pomme d'Or, just across the street from the school).  I guess that is a testimony to the attention that the French people pay to food and wine; no McDonald's drive-throughs here.  However, even the French sometimes turn to convenience food.  When I was in the local grocery store yesterday I noticed escargot and jambes de grenouille - frog's legs - in the freezer section.  I guess sometimes you need to have your frog's legs, and you need to have them fast. 

The French lessons are going well, although my French is actually getting worse rather than better.  Our professor Valérie said that is normal, because students learn so much grammar during their lessons that they lose confidence and start second-guessing everything that they say.  Happily, after a glass or two of Sancerre blanc, my French returns to its former mistake-riddled "fluency."  As good an excuse as any to drink wine.

I am having a great time here, working hard, and learning a lot of French (the immersion is invaluable), However, I really miss my family.   Three weeks is too long to be away - luckily I will see Lizzie next Saturday in Paris. I am counting the days.  À bientôt!

If Walt Disney had created a French Village attraction, I imagine that it would have looked a lot like Sancerre.  The village is textbook picturesque, with its old buildings, cobblestone streets, planters overflowing with geraniums and ivy, and streets filled with friendly people.  My apartment is in a 400 year-old building and is beautiful and spacious.  The entrance to my apartment, pictured above, makes me feel like Cinderella every time that I walk up the stairs.

Everyone here seems very happy, and it is not hard to understand why.  No freeways, no pollution, birds singing, church bells ringing - once again I am thinking of Disney!  I was talking with another student yesterday and trying to articulate what it was like being here when she quite neatly described it for me.  "Sancerre est un rêve," she said; Sancerre is a dream. 

Last night I went out for a glass of wine with a few of my fellow students.  We were sitting in an outdoor cafe when we were approached by a group of young men, one dressed in a chicken suit, one holding a small wooden coffin, and another holding a small notebook.  These gentlemen were members of a bachelor party; it seems in this part of France the tradition is that the groom dresses up as a poulet for his last big celebration as a single man.  The groom's friends were soliciting funds for the wedding night (that was the purpose of the coffin), and also requested that the married men in our group help the groom by drawing a favorite sexual position (thus the small notebook).  A very funny British man in our group made an instructive and inventive drawing using stick figures and handcuffs, which he explained to the groom in basic, yet very effective French.  There are certain things that don't need a lot of explanation, I suppose, and this was one of them.

I absolutely love Sancerre.  I know the village can't be as perfect as it seems at first glance - but for now, I am going to enjoy the ride. 

Beginning at (almost) the end

I've been thinking about starting a blog for a long time.  Not because I think that I have anything particularly interesting to say, but because I hope that blogging will help me to become a better writer.  Writing is such a large part of the work that I do as a student and as a tutor at San Jose State, and I'm all for anything that can make it less of a pain.  My English studies have taught me to appreciate literature but I still have not learned to appreciate writing.   

My upcoming trip to France is what pushed me to finally create this.  My plan is to write a daily post about the three weeks that I will spend there this summer, and then to share those posts with any interested family and friends.  I'm going to France to study the language, so I'll be writing first in French and then also posting an English translation.   Maybe I will write about something that someone else will find interesting.  Maybe I'll just be boring and my blogging career will be as short-lived as my first attempt at college. 

My plan is to post again just before I leave for my trip.  Right now I am almost at the end of the semester, and I have to turn to the (painful) process of writing an essay and a ten-page research paper, and studying for two finals.  Then a big family event - Jack's graduation from high school! 

One step at a time.  I'm off to investigate the confrontation between Western feminism and Third-World feminism.  Actually a million times more interesting than it sounds.