The Aude Experience - Moving to Southern France

2005-05-06T03:13:00.000-07:00

Have I ever lied to you before?

Learning to Shop in France

2005-01-01T03:06:00.000-08:00

I had never realized how much sensory information we process that in essence we totally ignore. We scan our environment ignoring the familiar looking for the specific. While doing this we are alerted by items that are out of place, dangerous, sexy, beautiful, and so forth. I suppose the older we get, the more things become familiar, the more things we know we can ignore. Simplifies things, gives us time for the important things.

It was like suddenly getting a case of tunnel vision when I came to France for the first time. I had never been out of North America before. I found just driving around and going shopping amazingly difficult. Nothing looked the same.

On the road the signs were different. The symbols were different (although easy to decrypt) the placement by the highway was subtly different, all the place names were different, the whole thing took longer to read, react to, and driving was more stressful because of it. Moments of apprehension, confusion were frequent, and wrong turnings became the usual mode of exploration. I can imagine how much worse it would have been if I had gone to England and ended up on the wrong side of the road. There even habitual things became deadly, like crossing the road looking the wrong way, or turning on to the wrong side of the road at a corner.

The supermarket was a bigger problem. Some things are the same in principle – the staples are placed as far from the door as possible so they can troll you past the impulse buy stuff. The cheap stuff advertised is at the end of aisles and prices rise as you walk farther down. But layouts are different, with a different rational for placing types of product in adjacent areas.

But the bigger problem is the packaging. Everything was strange, out of place. Package colors, sizes, brand names, aisle organization were different.

I could not possibly ignore everything looking for the familiar. The familiar was not there – or if there - not in the right place. No way around it, I had to take the time to wander slowly through the store like a five year old looking at everything. Many times. Even in the hardware stores.

It took a while but now I can navigate easily to the sections where I can find what I am looking for and scan shelves rapidly for the packaging I seek.

By the way, even the shopping carts are different. They have 4 wheel drive. All four buggy wheels swivel, making it easy to maneuver around inside, but difficult in parking lots where the land slopes for drainage. You have to learn to push from the down slope side with the cart traveling at a diagonal attitude to the destination. And watch it roll away downhill if left un anchored.

Learning to Live in France

2004-12-31T15:08:00.000-08:00

Learning to live in France

One thing I found in Southern France was the almost complete lack of drive-in coffee, burger, and doughnut shops. Anywhere in Canada it is possible to find a Tim Hortons, Starbucks, or other clone within sight no matter where you are. I had a size large (about a half liter) cup holder in my car and was seldom without Life’s Sustaining Liquid.

It seems in France you have to find a Café, then stop, park, get in to the place, sit down and order a cup. It comes fresh brewed in a teensy little cup. Tastes great. Takes about 3 to give me a fix.

Not every town has a café. They are not always open.

Villages all roll their sidewalks up at around eight PM and go to bed.

Restaurants open around 11:30 AM and stop serving around 1:30, close by 2:30 and do not reopen until seven. Lunch is normally 12 to 2. The whole damned place stops for lunch. This includes Government offices, all other offices, most stores, most hardware and industrial supply places, convenience stores, and even service stations have no human help, (except on the big highways and in big cities.)

McDonalds is an exception. They serve all the time they are open. Say from 10:30 AM to 10 ish at night. Not the 4:00 AM to 2: AM you find in bigger places. No breakfast menu except le weekend, between 10Am when they open and 11:00 AM after which they think it will spoil your lunch and no Hash Browns ever.

So it took me almost a year to learn that I can’t eat or have a coffee at just any time, I can’t re-supply at lunch time or after the normal working day. So I now eat, work and shop in the French pattern. Mostly. Often, on the menu, wine is cheaper than bottled water.

Hmmm. Not so bad. 2 hour lunch with nothing to do but enjoy the food, relax, read a book. End the working day at a reasonable hour. Of course the whole place is up at the crack of dawn. The most productive hours are the five before 12 noon.

At this end of the supply chain so far from Paris, industrial suppliers specialize in having everything you need for a project except the one crucial bit. (available on special order, 2 weeks delay, deposit necessary on order.)

Hardware stores are annoyingly often out of normal stuff. One store had a large range of screw fasteners of various types, but when I looked for plasterboard screws there were none. I asked when they would have some. Was told they did not carry them. “Pourquoi?”, asks I. “We don’t sell plasterboard.”, says he, with a shrug.

Central planning, stocked by bean counters. – C’est la vie.

All my translations are freely interpreted, and only roughly represent what was said.

France Culture Shock

2004-09-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

I suppose I might as well start at the beginning.
Moved to France in 2001 from Canada.
Noticed a few things right away.
Here in France, they all speak French. In Canada only about a quarter speak French and about a half can understand a bit of french.
The roads.
Seem to have been designed and built somewhere around 1890 or before. Narrow, not much land available to widen them. Pavement is good, generally.
All the drivers seem to want to go really fast. And the roads are narrower than 2 vehicles depressingly often.
Not to worry, they still rocket along.
I remember a conversation where one french guy says to another something like " Oh, it takes about an hour to get there. Not driving fast mind you, nothing over a udred and fifty." That is KPH, and translated to about 90 MPH. Of course Stirling Moss said that it only takes real skill once you are over a hundred miles per hour.
Hmmm.
Trees.
Trunks a yard thick. Every 10 meters along both sides of the road. Narrow roads. Trees about 50 cm from the verge. Ditches about 2 meters deep for big rains. Rock bottoms. Cliffs with low stone walls keeping the cars from falling over.
So I drive slower now than when I first got here. No need to speed. Everything is near by.
Compared to North America.