Week 5: We're officially residents of France!

Salut!

Comment ça va? J'ai entendu qu'il y a des neige au Canada! Ici en Caen il a plu pour trois jours, mais aujourd'hui il fait beau! (Your French tidbit for the day: the weather).

Now, what you've been waiting for. 

1) I bet you're just dying to hear the latest updates about my cell phone buying process. Well, here goes. After a few weeks of having an empty French bank account, we got fed up and transferred Canadian money into our French account using a fancy Global Currency Transaction. (Even though I did this from my Canadian account in English, I felt kind of proud that it was successful, because you had to enter all kinds of French bank codes and I was kind of nervous that we might screw it up). Once the mulah came through a few days later, Alex was finally able to activate his French bank card by withdrawing some cash. Woo! On Friday (it seems to be a big day for banking related moments, as I've had something arrive every Friday for about three weeks), we finally received our secret security key in the mail, so now we can make online purchases. 

This is the secret key card you receive from the bank. Whatever site you're using to make purchases asks you to enter
for instance, the number in "F7" or "G3"... kind of like Bingo.

Receiving the key card also means that we successfully received mail at our new address! If you're wondering why that's exciting/a triumph, read the aside below. 

[An aside about the mail here: It is very rare for apartment numbers to be posted on apartments or mailboxes, which we noticed when we were apartment hunting. Most apartments we viewed just gave their street address. If you're setting up an account or filling out an online form with your address, you give the bâtiment/escalier (building/stair) number (ours is 'C') and the floor number (ours is 1ér étage, meaning first floor, even though we're on the second floor, because the floor above ground level counts as floor zero). It's all very confusing. We've realized that since really no one uses their apartment number, it's very important that the names of everyone in your household are written on the mailbox and the plaque beside your buzzer, along with your floor and bâtiment/escalier, otherwise your mail/deliveries will probably never reach you because the postal worker won't know which apartment you are in. This is in stark contrast to Canada, where it wouldn't matter whether the mailbox in your apartment building said the name of the person three tenants before you. Needless to say, we put stickers on the mailbox, our door, and the buzzer plaque that listed both our names, stair/building number and floor number - and our apartment number, just for good measure.  Our apartment building here has three or four entrances (A, B, C...corresponding to the bâtiment/escalier) and the postal worker has to go into each entrance and look for the tenant's name on the mailbox, since the bâtiment/escalier isn't necessarily included on your mail. If they can't find your name, they might have to search another part of the building until they find it. Wouldn't an apartment number on the mailbox make everything so much easier? Our system at home makes so much more sense to me... Note to family in Canada: you might want to add "Bâtiment C" to the address I gave you!]

Back to my story. After receiving the secret key card in the mail, I finally ordered my cell phone online. The purchase went through without any frustrating pop-up messages telling me that my address wasn't acceptable, my bank card wasn't acceptable, or that the phone I was ordering wasn't in stock, as had happened so many times before. Yay! The confirmation page stated that my phone should arrive by Dec 2nd - so I should be able to buy a French SIM card and get a cell phone package just in time to go home to Canada for Christmas. Figures.

Later that night, I received an email from Motorola that started with "Nous sommes désolées..." and was instructed to call their customer service department. Le sigh. I called the next day and successfully navigated the phone call in French. I think I resolved whatever the issue was (something about our change of address, the fact that the bank card was in Alex's name but the order was in my name, and that our online account was in Alex's colleague's name, since when I'd first tried to order the phone we'd been living in a hotel and I'd put his colleague's name and address). What a mess! I successfully cleared up the confusion, and the woman said she'd send me an email in which I needed to click a button to confirm the order. Of course, this was Saturday morning and I haven't yet received the email (which at home would've come through immediately). I called back today (another French phone call!) and the man I spoke to said the confirmation email usually takes 3-4 days to arrive. So I guess my order probably won't even begin to be processed until later this week. Oh, how I love France. 

2) In happier news, we got the Internet this past week at our new apartment! I picked our FreeBox up at the FreeMobile store and set it up all by myself (a big success for me). Similar to the cell phone packages, the internet plans are way better here, and ours includes: unlimited internet, a TV box with 200 cable TV channels, AND a landline in which you can make free international calls. This is all for about 30€ a month. Crazy, right? 

Naturally, Alex went shopping after work the very next night and came home with a fancy new smart TV. I's an Android TV with all kinds of apps and stuff, and given that I haven't had cable TV in about a decade, I feel super fancy just having cable, and will probably never make use of the apps. (Alex mentioned that he downloaded me a fitness app, but I don't want to disturb the neighbours so I'm going to ignore his subtle hint and continue eating baguettes and camembert). However, I now know how to turn it on and navigate the 197 French channels (BBC, CNN and Sky News are in English, so at least I can stay somewhat up-to-date on world events). 

Alex also picked us up a cordless phone, which I also haven't owned for about ten years. So, now we have internet AND a TV, AND a landline in which I can call Canadian numbers for free. [As another aside, the phone plans here all specify whether you can call landlines - les numéros fixes - or cell phones - les mobiles - which is different than at home where it doesn't matter what type of phone you're calling. Luckily, we are able to call mobile phones with our mobiles and landlines with our landline, so it's not too confusing].  All in all, although I still don't have a cell phone in which I can call or text, having a landline, a TV and the internet makes me feel much more connected, and I have the sense that our life here is really starting.

3) On that note, we moved into our new apartment a week ago and are starting to feel much more at home. I really like our new place - mostly because I convinced Alex that we should get the apartment with the nice kitchen. This past week I got to spend tons of money buying everything you need to furnish said kitchen: dishes, cutlery, glasses, mugs, cooking utensils, pots, pans, etc... plus essentials like a variety of matching purple and green baking pans and muffin tins. 

On top of that we had to buy pillows, bedding, a vacuum, an iron, towels, garbage cans, floor mats, and all the other things you need to run a household. You don't realize how much stuff you use on a regular basis until you have to buy it all in a one week period. Or until you go to make a recipe and have to use an empty can of beans to measure out the amounts because you don't own measuring cups. Or when you successfully make the recipe that will feed you for three days, and then realize you don't own any containers to put the leftovers in. (Needless to say, measuring cups and tupperware were moved to the priority section of the To Buy list that night). 

First night in our new apartment! I exploded half this bottle of champagne
in our brand new fridge half an hour after arriving. A true "Sam moment".
I also cut off a (tiny) piece of my thumb the next night. It's still healing.

Alas. Yesterday we ordered our washer-dryer online and I THINK that's the last big purchase we needed to make in order to set ourselves up. Phew! The washer-dryer is due to arrive on Wednesday, and the control panel in the online image looks super confusing, so I'll probably write a whole post detailing the learning process. Which reminds me...

4) All appliances are a little different here. You'd think it would be easy enough to turn on a new stove - or oven - or dishwasher. These things are all basically the same, right? It turns out they aren't, and it actually isn't that intuitive when all the symbols are different and you don't have a manual. Or when the manual is all in French, German and Swedish and you don't know any technical terms in those languages. For instance, both the washing machine in the guesthouse and our dishwasher here have settings for 3h, 6h, and 9h. Alex and I kept marvelling at how a cycle could take so long. We learned from his colleague this week that it's actually a delay - you can set it to START in 3, 6 or 9 hours. I understand that on a washing machine - you can set it to start in the afternoon so your clothes aren't wrinkly by the time you get home from work. But a dishwasher? I'm not sure why you'd need to delay that for 9 hours. Maybe so it can wake you up in the middle of the night?

I'll give you another example.

Mini bottles of wine at the Ikea cafeteria

The first night we tried to cook in our new apartment, we were exhausted after our trip to Ikea, which involved taking a tram, a bus and a walk in each direction, and buying as much stuff as we could possibly carry on both shoulders. (On the plus side, as per the image to the right, we had a nice French sit-down lunch at Ikea. The cafeteria-style restaurant had the option of bread, appetizers, entrées, desserts, coffee, and of course, mini bottles of French wine).

After arriving home from Ikea with sore arms and legs and unwrapping all our new stuff, we opened a celebratory bottle of champagne and placed one of our new pans on the stove. After purchasing so much new kitchen stuff, we were determined to cook dinner in our new place.

Our stovetop and its mystery symbols

We tried pressing all the buttons to turn on the element, but it kept making a noise and turning off, or displaying a mystery symbol that looks like the top half of the letter 'H', as shown above. Since we had no manual or even model number, Alex had to Google the brand name of our stove and look through images online until he found one that looked like ours. Once he had determined the model, he tracked down someone's English translation of the manual, which was a bit tricky to follow. After trying everything the manual instructed us to do, we figured out that our new fancy induction stovetop has automatic sensors so that it turns off if a pot/pan is not on the element. (I guess so the element isn't left on and you don't burn yourself. Smart).  However, it only senses magnetic pots and pans, and we'd opted for the more affordable frying pans at Ikea, rather than the more expensive stainless steel ones. Thus, the element was automatically turning off because our pans weren't magnetic and were not being detected. Fortunately, our pots were magnetic and we were still able to cook dinner that night. The following Monday I made another tram-bus excursion to Ikea and returned our already unwrapped frying pans, which the cashier nicely agreed to give me store credit for. He even drew the symbol for "induction" for me so I could purchase ones that would work on our stovetop (it's a swirly symbol, in case you're wondering).  Since I was there, I bought several more things that we'd 'missed' on the first trip, like red wine glasses and champagne flutes. ;)

The oven won't turn on unless you set the timer. The whole thing turns off when the timer runs out, so you have to make sure to watch it. Or maybe we're missing something.

All microwaves have dials rather than an electronic screen and buttons, so it's really tricky to put things on for <1 min.
 I've had a few accidental steamy baguette slices!

5) I'm learning French! (Slowly). I've signed up for French classes, but unfortunately they don't start until January because we moved here in the middle of a semester. However, I think my French comprehension is improving a bit. The first two weeks we were here, I couldn't even answer the phone or call about an apartment viewing. I've been getting some practice with French every time I need to email a company about something, which is helping quite a bit. In addition, this morning I called Motorola for the second time AND called to set up an electricity account in French. The latter was probably a 30 min call, and involved navigating the French touchtone menu, answering a lot of questions about aspects of our apartment (type of heating, number of people, what appliances we had, whether heating was included, etc.), finding our apartment's kilo-wattage from our home inspection document, relaying our banking information, and setting up how and when we wanted to be billed (every month? every two months? by mail? automatic withdrawals?). Alex received a confirmation email, so it looks like I successfully completed a full service call in French! I think we should probably set up a sticker system on our fridge, because I definitely feel deserving of a gold star today. 

6) Finally, I wanted to reiterate a few things from previous blog posts. 

- The French really are nice. The Ikea man drew me a swirly symbol so I could buy the right frying pans. The lady at the electricity company made sure I understood everything, and told me at the end of the call that I did a good job with my French. (So what if that's something you say to a five-year-old? I was proud). Our landlord is super nice and friendly, and was really impressed when he learned this weekend that we'd just moved here from Canada. He even offered to buy our washing machine and other stuff off us when we leave, so we won't be out so much money. Lastly, everyone says bonjour/bonsoir, even if you are just passing them in the hallway or on the street. 

- Tout c'est jambon. I wasn't lying. The grocery store by our new apartment has about three aisles of pork products, and a full aisle of beef. Chicken is in a separate aisle that is shared with le lapin, le canard, le dinde et le veau (rabbit, duck, turkey and veal). All frozen pizzas are topped with either ham and cheese, or four types of cheese. There is no other option. Similarly, Alex's friend who lives in Strasbourg (which is in the Alsace region of France, on the border of Germany) told us that an Alsatian salad is literally just ham and cheese, so you really can't be a vegetarian around there. Alex ordered mignon at a fancy restaurant this weekend, assuming it was filet mignon, and naturally it turned out to be some sort of pork roast. (Luckily he eats pork and really enjoyed it). To top it all off, check out la vache qui rit, below.

Does this cheese look familiar? Look more closely. It's ham flavoured.

As I sign off, I would like to acknowledge my awareness of the fact that all my posts so far have been about the mundane details of my life. Somehow these anecdotes are (somewhat) interesting (I hope), just because they are different. However, I'll try to have some actual adventures soon so you don't have to keep reading about frying pans and ham. We're off to Strasbourg this weekend to visit Alex's friends and to check out the famous Strasbourg Christmas markets. Hopefully I'll have some good stories (or at least photos) next week!

Bonne journée!

Week 4: Remembrance Day, apartments and cell phones, oh my

Bonjour! (Did you know they don't say bon matin in France? Apparently it's a Québecois thing. The France-French have fourteen ways of saying good afternoon and good evening, but no good morning. Figures).

Just wanted to give you an update on our week.

1) Remembrance Day (Armistice de 1918).  At first I thought there were no Remembrance Day ceremonies happening in Caen. I thought that was very strange since this is an area with a ton of war history. Turns out Jour de Souvenirs, although a direct translation of Remembrance Day, is not what they call the holiday here. It's called Armistice Day, or Armistice de 1918. Luckily Alex didn't trust my Googling skills and found information about the festivities in about two minutes flat after I told him five times that there was nothing happening here.  Since it's a stat holiday here, Alex had the day off and we headed downtown Wednesday morning for the ceremony. It was very long (and in French, of course), mostly because they read the names of every solider from Caen who had died fighting for France in ONLY the year 1915 (a hundred years ago). There were 406 names in total, and they had a French student walk by the podium to represent every name they read. It was quite a sobering representation. Alex pointed out that if they keep up this tradition of calling out the names a hundred years later, in the next couple years they probably won't be able to read all of names of the soldiers who died in 1916, 1917 & 1918,  since there were so many more casualties. As you would expect, there were also French soldiers, a band, and a lot of war veterans. There was even a Canadian flag, as you can see in the photo below.

Canadian flag at ceremony; statue of Verdun

And a black and white version that Google made for me

War veterans carrying flags and French soldiers at attention

Procession, and a Canadian flag to the left

French war veterans

Like good Canadians, we wore red sweaters, and I donned my sparkly silver maple leaf broach. (I'm fitting right in with the fashion here). Interestingly, the French don't wear poppies on their coats like we do at home. We only saw two or three at the ceremony, and they were worn by the guys carrying the Canadian flag. Instead we were given a sticker of a blue flower (le bleuet de France), which is apparently the symbol they use here. (However, very few people were wearing them. We bought them from a woman walking around selling the stickers as a fundraiser, who only seemed to be targeting children -- and apparently us -- so I'm not sure how common they are. Maybe we stuck out).

2) The photo below isn't from a candy store. Let me explain.

Not a candy store

We tried to go to the movies on the evening of Remembrance Day and failed. Since everything else was closed for the holiday, I looked up all the movies playing in Caen (there are three theatres here), and found an English movie with French subtitles that had done really well at the Cannes Film Festival. We took the tram all the way across town, but when we got there, the movie we wanted to see was sold out. Everyone sighed simultaneously and left. Who knew all the citizens of Caen would want to see an English movie playing at 5pm on Remembrance Day?? Unfortunately, it was a small theatre, and the next showing wasn't for five hours. Of course, there were no other English movies playing in between. Since most other businesses were closed for the holiday, we walked to a mall where we'd heard there was another theatre. The mall turned out to be open, so at least we got to do some shopping. We eventually found the movie theatre, which was a big one like you'd find in the GTA. Of course, it wasn't playing any English movies at all. However, it did have a huge room of self-serve popcorn and candy (as per the photos). So obviously we went into the theatre just to take pictures of the concession and not to buy a movie ticket. We plan to go back sometime just to take movie popcorn to go, since watching movies in French that you only understand 10% of sounds boring; whereas, eating delicious movie theatre popcorn on the tram sounds, well, delicious.

Sweet (sucre) and salty (salé) popcorn to go

3) We got an apartment! (Almost). After finding an apartment and having all our documents approved earlier in the week, we went to the real estate agency to sign the lease yesterday. It took about 2 hours and involved about a thousand initials and signatures on the part of Alex, our guarantor, and the apartment owner (le propriétaire), but not myself, because I am a woman. (No, really, it's because I don't have a job here and apparently that makes things complicated. So, my name is not on the lease, but at least I didn't get a sore hand like the rest of them). Alex's boss acted as our guarantor, so he had to sign everything, in addition to hand-copying a long document that basically stated that if we blow up the apartment and flee the country, he'll pay for three years' worth of our rent. I promised him after that if/when I blow up the apartment making muffins, I'll pay my share. That's where the insurance comes in. We were also told we needed to buy two types of insurance, and that once we'd done that, we were to bring the attestations of insurance on Saturday in exchange for the apartment keys. We went to the bank yesterday, were told we needed an appointment, went back today for the appointment, and luckily were able to buy renter's and civil liability insurance in one shot. Phew. Now that we have our insurance papers, we just have to go back downtown to the real estate agency once more tomorrow morning to get our apartment keys. Hurrah! Since all the stores are closed on Sundays here, we are also planning (perhaps rather ambitiously), to bring our suitcases across town on the tram to the apartment, and then jet over to Ikea (aka take the tram and a bus), buy everything we need for our apartment (all our kitchen stuff, bedding, garbage cans, you name it), and bring it back on the tram before the day is done. I'm thinking we might not have time to also go to the grocery store and make a second trip across town to the guest house to get the rest of our luggage, so we might not actually be sleeping there tomorrow, but we'll definitely be in by the end of the weekend. Luckily, the owner is very nice and said he'd transfer the electricity account to our names, so I don't think we have to deal with that ourselves. Then we just need to figure out how to set up the internet. Which I'm sure won't be as easy as it sounds, because...(see #4).

4) ...Everything here is circuitous. So far, there have been a lot of steps associated with each task we need to do here, each of which is contingent on something else. For instance, I want to buy a new French cell phone, because my Canadian phone hasn't been working very well for a few months (might be the brook I dropped it into in summer 2014). Nevertheless, I didn't bother buying a French SIM card, and I cancelled my Canadian plan before I left. So naturally I can use my phone only with WiFi, but not to text or make calls. I tried to do buy a French phone the first week I was here, and have tried several times since. To illustrate the circuitous process of things in France, I'll outline how this has gone down so far:

Step 1) Spent a full half-day doing research on phones and plans. Figured out which phones are sold here through various French phone companies, read reviews of the phones, and decided which one I wanted.

Step 2) Went to the cell phone store of our choosing. Alex bought a phone plan and French SIM card to put in his phone. Simple. It worked. However, they didn't have the phone I wanted in store, and all the phones they sold in store required a 2-year contract. The plan Alex got has no contract, is 20€ per month, has free international long distance and 50 GB of data, and obviously I want the same one. So I decided I'd buy my phone outright (online) instead of signing into a contract, and come back to buy the plan. Easy-peasy.

Step 3) Spent forever picking and customizing new phone online. Decided which case and cover I wanted. Did I want engraving? What about a welcome message? Was "Hello Dr. Goodman" better than "Bonjour Samantha?" Was pink better with gold or silver trim? Hmm, maybe purple was nicer. But did it go with the magenta case? Did I want 8 GB or 16 GB? (Obviously this took over an hour and much consultation with Alex regarding colour combinations). Finally made up my mind, proceeded with the order, and got to the payment step. Needed it delivered in France but were living in a hotel at the time, and we realized we didn't have an address.

Step 4) Alex emailed a colleague to ask if we could use his address for our shipment. Went out to dinner. Waited for his reply.

Step 5) Came home. Put Alex's colleague's name and work address as the shipping address. Put my Canadian address as the billing address associated with my credit card. Wouldn't work: France is the only option in the drop-down list of countries. Put Alex's work as my billing address. Wouldn't work: billing address doesn't match up with actual billing address on my credit card. Put my actual Canadian billing address but with France as the country. Obviously didn't work. Cried a little. Had a small inward (ok, outward) temper tantrum. Didn't buy a phone. Decided we needed to wait until we had a French bank card associated with a French billing address so we could make this (and any) online purchase.

Step 6) Waited until the next week when Alex had started work. Went to bank with Alex four days in a row. On the third day (a Thursday) we got an appointment set up. On the fourth day (Friday), we went back for the appointment. Got a bank account. Were told our actual bank cards would come in the mail in the next few days. Hmm. Still can't buy my phone, but have a bank account. Slow progress. Feeling better.

Step 7) Waited another week, didn't get bank cards in the mail at Alex's work. Went to the bank 5 minutes before they closed on a Friday. Turned out bank cards were waiting for us in the mail AT the bank. Asked how to activate them. Was told that I needed a code which I should have received in the mail. Went home. Alex checked his mail at work but obviously had none.

Step 8) Waited another full week. Got codes in the mail at Alex's work today (Friday, two weeks after setting up the account). Went back to the bank with codes in tow. Huzzah! However, bank account is empty since Alex's pay hasn't gone through yet (obviously). Were told we needed to make a withdrawal in order to activate bank cards. Since account was empty, deposited 20€ and then immediately withdrew the 20€ to activate my card. Card activated, success!

Step 9) Immediately after this, had appointment with banker to buy insurance. He noted that our account was in the red by 20€. We explained that we'd deposited and then withdrawn 20€ to activate the card. He explained in French that when you make deposits, they take one business day to go through, so we had just put ourselves into overdraft. Normally, he continued, you'd incur charges, but I'll wipe the fee since you are apparently five years old and don't understand simple things like not withdrawing money from an empty account. (See, the French are nice!). Decided not to activate Alex's card, so as not to go into overdraft twice in one day.

Step 10) Bought insurance. Banker then showed us how to set up Alex's card for online purchases. Asked about mine, and he said we can only use Alex's card to make purchases online because he is the primary account holder (and I'm a woman, duh). We said ok. I asked Alex to pretty please share his bank card number with me in the future. He said yes, since it's the same account anyways. (I made that up - I didn't ask his permission, but plan to stealthily copy the number down and hide it on a secret sticky note). Asked if we can use the card (which is a MasterCard) as a credit card while the account is empty. You know, like what credit cards are for -- buying things that you can pay off later. He said yes, but you'll be charged every time you do this. Credit cards here are not credit cards as we know. They are basically debit cards with overdraft. Learned something new today. Do not buy cell phone on newly activated credit card while account is empty, unless you want to incur fees.

Step 11) Came home, reluctantly closed cell phone company tab that was waiting with order ready in online shopping cart. Will not be ordering phone today immediately after bank appointment as I had planned/hoped. Alex went back to work to find out when he'll be paid. Secretary was away all day. Obviously. He asked a coworker, turns out they get paid once a month at the end of the month. Guess I won't be buying a cell phone until December. As the book my friends gave me is titled, le merde!

All of that to explain to those of you who keep asking why I don't have a French phone number yet.
Vive la France!!

A hilarious book my friends bought me (thanks, girls!) which I read in the first week I was here and learned a lot from!

P.S. I'll post pictures of the new apartment once we've moved in!

Week three: apartment hunting and green beer

Bonjour!

I apologize in advance - this week doesn't have a theme. Here's a random list of updates from the past week:

1) Logement. I was pretty bummed out in the past week about not being able to find us an apartment. Given that it is my one goal in life right now, not finding the perfect one RIGHT AWAY was starting to get to me. This attitude was probably somewhat unrealistic, given that we're looking for a furnished place that's bigger than a studio/bachelor apartment, which is pretty uncommon here. Most of the furnished places out there are either tiny (like 200-300 square feet) or old/gross. We actually found one we LOVED just over a week ago that was huge, nice and right downtown. We hesitated for a few hours because it was expensive, and when we emailed the owner less than 24 hours after seeing it, it was already taken. Naturally, that made us want it even more. However, after seeing a few more disappointing apartments this week, I saw one on Thursday that I liked, and brought Alex back to see it on Friday. It doesn't have all of our criteria (it's a bit of a hike from downtown, and we'd have to buy a washing machine and all the kitchen supplies) but it's nice, more affordable, bigger than a broom closet, and has a dishwasher, soft-closing kitchen drawers, and a wine rack built into the fridge. It was an obvious choice for me. After some convincing, Alex decided he could live with it too, and we emailed the real estate agent yesterday. Fingers crossed that we have an apartment by the end of the week (!!) For now, we have to focus on getting our documents in order (there's a substantial amount of paperwork we need to produce, and we also need a French guarantor who will produce all the same documents, including three months of bank statements, tax receipts, rent receipts, a work contract and identity cards, to REALLY prove that someone will pay for the apartment if we can't). Luckily, Alex's boss will act as our guarantor. On top of that, we'll also need to pay first month's rent, a security deposit, AND an agency fee that are each equal to about a month's rent. So, we're preparing to pull out a whole lot of Euros this week! We've been told that there are a lot of hoops to jump through when renting here, so I won't be surprised if it's not the easiest process in the world, but I'm hoping it goes as smoothly as it can.

The kitchen of our maybe-soon-to-be apartment

2) Dolly's. On Friday night after apartment hunting and a lot of walking, we had a couple drinks downtown and then headed out looking for a restaurant. We came across an English-American pub that we'd seen bursting at the seams a couple of weekends ago on a Sunday afternoon. It looked half empty, so we waltzed in and asked for a table. The maitre d' (who was British - and I can't tell you what a relief it was to hear a native English speaker for a change!) hummed and hawed for awhile, and said we could maybe sit at the bar. It was about 8:45pm, but apparently every table was booked for 9:30pm. We'd had two pre-dinner drinks (aperitifs), thinking this would take us to French dinnertime and that we wouldn't have to eat in an empty restaurant. Apparently dinnertime is even later on Friday nights...lesson learned. "Sitting at the bar" meant literally sitting in the only open space in front of the bartender, with nowhere to even tuck our legs in. However, the place quickly filled up and we could see why we needed a reservation. The place had great atmosphere, warm lighting, and was full to the brim by 9:30 or 10:00pm. We had an awesome meal (it seemed to be some kind of British-pub/vegetarian/vegan fusion, which sounds weird but was delicious).

From our prime location we watched the bartender make drinks, and like the bar where we'd had our aperitifs, we saw the bartender making something that looked like bright green or bright red beer. Since it wasn't St. Patrick's Day or any other holiday we could think of, we were confused. The drinks they were making looked like flavour syrup (the fruity type they use for Italian soda at home) plus draught beer. Some people were also ordering flavour syrups with water. Very strange. On our way out, I asked what it was and what it was called. The French (but English speaking) waiter was confused, and after I tried to explain my questioning several times, he said, "I dunno, a beer with peach is called a demi-pèche, a beer with lemon is called a twist, and a beer with mint is disgusting, don't order it." He then laughed and walked away. I had learned recently that the French order un demi (which literally means "half") when they want a beer, since 25 cL (250 mL) is the most common beer size here (basically a half pint). We've almost never seen anyone drink a full pint here, and we've never been served one. With this knowledge, and after a lot of Googling yesterday, all I could come up with is that a demi-pèche is a very popular drink in this region, and that it is literally peach flavour syrup and beer. Most people seemed to be ordering the red or even the green one, despite the waiter's criticism of mint beer. He himself was drinking green-syrup water, which looked pretty disgusting. I'm still quite skeptical, but I'll have to remember to order a demi-pèche if we go downtown next weekend.

Demi-pèche et demi...fraise??

On the way out of Dolly's, we went up to pay at the cash. The cashier was a British woman, and I jokingly asked her if she needed any English-only speaking employees. She said that she had just interviewed a lovely English gentleman earlier in the week, but unfortunately couldn't hire him because she knew he wouldn't even be able to answer the phone. Nevertheless, she humoured me and inquired about my CV. When I said I studied nutrition (food-related - ah-ha!) her face lit up, and then she proceeded to explain that without better French, I wouldn't be able to work out front, but that I could likely wash dishes with the English-speaking kitchen staff.  Alex was kind enough to chime in "she didn't just study nutrition, she has a PhD!". I just felt blessed that someone was even remotely insinuating that I could work in France. (On that note, I do have some work-related developments, but I'll save those for another post).

Dolly's English pub (taken from website)

3) La plage. Since I was getting sick of sitting in the room here at the guest house, we spent our Saturday afternoon taking a day trip to the beach. We hopped on a BusVert (similar to a Greyhound), which travels to the surrounding areas. Our 40 min trip took us on a tour of many small towns along the water, and we got off at the end of the line in a small seaside town called Courseulles-sur-Mer. We got there around 1:30pm, only to find out that nothing in the town was open except restaurants. After having a large brunch at the guest house, we weren't hungry. So, since none of the shops were due to reopen until 2pm (after the two hour lunch break that most French businesses take), we decided to take a long stroll on the beach. It was very quiet and serene, and although it was November, it was a mild day. For some reason, an ice cream stand was open, so we had a gelato and walked along the water (or rather, on the seabed, as the tide was out really far).  As you can see from the pictures below, the coast definitely looks like the North of France - calm, serene, grey, and quiet. Very different from the colourful Mediterranean coasts of Southern France, Italy or Spain.

Panoramic view of the beach

Cloudy sky at the beach

Beach front houses

The Atlantic ocean - North coast of France

Windy November beach day!

Courseulles-sur-Mer

We continued along a path just off the beach, and ended up in Normandy countryside - which I wasn't expecting to see so close to the beach. It was very beautiful and quiet, and we stopped for awhile to watch some horseback riding lessons at a nearby stable.

French girls horseback riding

Green pastures not far from the beach

Normandy countryside

Once the shops reopened (there were about three in total), we came across an art gallery where a local artist was currently working. We ended up buying three tiny oil paintings depicting the area, which we plan to hang in our new apartment.

The mini oil paintings we bought

Before we caught our bus home, we had a coffee and a snack (tarte au 3-fromages and a ham and cheese toast, because the French can't get enough of their ham or cheese) and I noticed grand crème was one of their coffee selections. I ordered it, and got something more closely resembling a latte than I've had so far. It was coffee in a big mug like we have in North America, but definitely still contained a lot less milk, and was quite strong. More like a "grand" mug full of espresso, with some milk. I added a pinch of sugar (which I never need to do at home), sipped my GRAND crème and accepted that lattes will be something I'll drink on trips home to Canada. All in all, a successful day at the beach.

Oh yeah... and the maple leaves are HUGE here!

Who said the French were rude?

It's a common (mis)perception that the French are rude. [Disclaimer: for any Québecois or Acadiens reading this post, I'm referring to the French from France].

During my semester abroad in 2007, I never experienced the typical French frostiness that tourists describe. I often told family and friends back home that everyone who says so was crazy, and that the French were indeed very polite. Especially if you told them you were from Canada. That semester, I proudly donned my Roots backpack (plus a trusty Canadian flag pin), which seemed to protect me from any ill-feelings that might have otherwise floated my way. However, I after being repeatedly warned that it will be different in the "real world" (i.e., work place), I have often wondered whether things will be different this time.

After all, in 2007, I was living in La Maison de Canada in an international students' residence at le Cité Universitaire de Paris. I lived in a bubble of English-speaking Canadians and happy-go-lucky exchange students who were excited to drink "champagne" that cost 87 centimes (approximately $1.30). Plus, I really only interacted with the French in order to order food: I knew how to ask for un baguette integral at the boulangerie, check out at the grocery store, and order a meal, du vin rouge, and un carafe de l'eau at a restaurant. [Note for anyone travelling to France: ordering un carafe de l'eau ensures that you receive tap water with your meal, rather than being charged for still or sparkling bottled water. Alex mentioned to me that he also learned how to order tap water when living in Germany, and the translation is literally "pipe water", which is not so different from the "tap water" we ask for in Canada, but sounds much funnier... But I digress.] My point is, my past experiences interacting with Parisians were overwhelmingly pleasant. No one was ever outright rude to me, and at the most, the baker/cashier/waiter replied to you in English. I never experienced any hostility.

So, this time around, just to be safe -- and to ward off any negative American stereotypes -- I brought with me a new (pale purple and even more juvenile) Roots backpack with a (prettier, sparklier and much more grown up) Canadian maple leaf pin (thanks Grandma Barb!). For good measure, I attached a Canadian flag luggage tag to my backpack. This served as my carry-on at the airport and will also be great for weekend trips around Europe. So far, I think it's working.

Here is my proof:

1. We bought our train tickets from Paris to Caen without being grumbled at. Although 95% of people buy their train tickets using the automated machines in the train station, we opted to go to the (completely empty) room where you can buy your tickets from real live French employees, to make sure we bought tickets heading in the right direction, etc. I expected at least a typical Parisian sigh at our inability to use a simple touch-screen machine, but I was wrong. The woman at the desk wasn't just cordial; she was downright charming. She printed our tickets, apologized for her lack of English, told us in the clearest French I've ever heard which platform to go to, how to get there, and that although you are supposed to validate your tickets on a machine, she'd done it for us. Perhaps it was because she was in the tourism industry, or perhaps it was because Alex was doing the talking (dear, if you're reading this, that was an allusion to your charm), but whatever the reason, she was the opposite of rude. One point to the French.

2. They love Canadians. On our first night in Caen (a Tuesday) we walked around the city around 8pm (the typical French suppertime) only to find that almost every business in the city was closed. We found exactly four open food establishments: two were completely dead, and two were bursting with people. We followed the crowd and chose to wait for a table at a bustling Italian restaurant rather than eat alone in the empty Vietnamese place. We chose wisely. We were seated within 10 minutes, and the bubbly waiter promptly asked where we were from. When we said we were from Canada, he became even more chipper (I didn't think that was possible) and told us in French that he had relatives in Toronto, Windsor and Vancouver (so do I - funny coincidence). He then proceeded to happily yell "Canada!!!" every time he came to our table. And he came to our table a lot. I think he kept our glasses full as an excuse to yell "Canada" as many times as possible within a one-meal sitting. Since the restaurant was full, these announcements brought a lot of stares our way, but at least the attention was positive. We had a delicious meal of stone oven Italian pizza, and enjoyed our newfound publicity. Another point for the French (even though I suspect the waiter was actually Italian).

3. The French let you take your time. When you have paid for your groceries and are hastily trying to bag them while simultaneously putting away your change (people actually use cash here), the cashier waits until you are completely finished before starting to scan the next patron's items. And she doesn't even look annoyed about it. It's a miracle. One point for the French, and minus two points for Canada. If you're going to make the customer bag their own groceries, you could at least wait for them to do so before chucking the next person's food down the conveyor. It's common sense. Come on, Canada. (As a plus, there are no plastic bags available for free or for purchase, so you are expected to bring your own reusable bags or purchase a canvas one from the store. An extra point for environmentalism...but I'm getting off topic).

4. The staff at Alex's lab are so friendly! As I mentioned in my previous post, the lab put us up in a hotel for free when we had nowhere to stay, and they gave me an access card and WiFi password even though I don't work for GANIL. In addition, they're letting us stay in the guesthouse for no charge until we find an apartment, they edited my French blurb so I could email people about renting apartments, and they are currently guiding Alex through booking various appointments, printing off documents he needs for the authorities, getting a computer, and giving us tips on other aspects of daily living - even though it's not their job to make sure we know how to find discounted movie passes. Importantly, they also set him up with all the documents needed to open a French bank account. Which brings me to my next point.

5. We managed to set up a bank account. This week, we set up a French bank account in under an hour. Given all the hoops we've been told we'd have to jump through, I was impressed. (Ok, it was the fourth day in a row we had gone to the bank, but still...) The employee who we worked with was super friendly, and ensured that we understood everything since French isn't our first language. A couple of times I even made the mistake of saying something to Alex quietly in English (like "ooh, I've never had a MasterCard before"), and the teller would make sure I repeated my statement and that he understood any questions or concerns I had. I need to learn how to say "please ignore me" so we don't spend so much time translating my useless comments ("in the past she has had a Visa...no, no, a MasterCard is fine...no, there's no problem...yes we'd still like to proceed..."). All in all, a pleasant experience. Plus, every employee at the bank took a moment to politely wish us goodbye as we left. (We still need to figure out when to say bon journée, bon midi, bon fin de midi, bon fin d'après midi, bon soir or bon soirée, but that's a subject for another post).  

6. They use letters instead of pick-up lines. Did I mention that I got propositioned by a Frenchman in the very first hour Alex left me alone in France? It went down like this. Alex went to the lab bright and early for his mandatory medical appointment on our first morning in Caen. [For all those who know me and think my definition of early is 11:30am, I have to defend myself here and point out that an 8:45am appointment did feel pretty early considering we were still operating on Canada time, which is 6 hours behind]. Anyways, still yawning, I went down to the hotel lobby for my free breakfast of les croissants and du café. The breakfast room was occupied by a French couple who were whispering to each other silently in the corner, and an older gentleman quietly eating his breakfast. I tried to be equally silent, but my table was too close to the window, and my chair made a loud scraping noise every time I moved it in or out from the wall. The couple left the room, followed by the older man. A younger (well-dressed, tall, black) man came in and got himself a croissant (did I mention he had nice glasses?). I quietly read my book, spilled croissant flakes all over my lap (how do the French eat flaky pastries and baguettes so neatly??) and tried to gracefully eat a kiwi with only a spoon. My chair made more scraping noises when I got up to get more coffee and I vowed to become more graceful in the future (ok, maybe just less clumsy and awkward). The French man barely glanced in my direction, and left the room before me. However, the French must also be quite sly, because when I went back up to my hotel room, he met me at my door. After introducing himself in French and shaking my hand (Michel, enchanté!), he handed me quite a long French note, which I think said something about how he wanted to introduce himself, had at least two paragraphs of writing, and ended with his phone number. "Yay, making friends already, look at me!" I thought to myself and mumbled something very awkward and grammatically incorrect like, "Je suis ici... con mon fiancé... qui travail...en...le lab". At this, Michel seemed surprised, and confirmed twice that my fiancé was indeed here ("Ici?" <points to hotel floor> "Oui, ici"), which was a blatant lie on my part, since technically my fiancé was not currently in the hotel. Michel then apologized and politely extended his hand for the note, which I reluctantly returned. "So much for making friends," I thought. I never did get to read the rest of the note, but since the man did not seem interested in my friendship, I can only assume it was comprised of a beautiful French love poem. Because, as I've clearly demonstrated, the French are a very polite people, and they hand-deliver love notes at 9:00am.