Episode VI

FEUILLES FRANÇAISES EPISODE VI ~ December 7, 2009

Dear Friends,

Another two weeks have gone by, and thus it is time to write of my adventures once more. I cannot believe its December. The thing is, here it neither looks nor feels like December, if it weren’t for the Christmas trees and lights scattered around Bourges, I would think it was early April, everything is still rather green here, and it rains a lot. Based on how things look here, there is no way that Christmas can be 18 days away.

I’ve had an interesting two weeks. Last issue, I was steeling myself to prepare my first-ever Thanksgiving feast. I mean, I have always helped my parents, but I had never cooked an entire bird corpse before. Trying to celebrate Thanksgiving in France was quite an adventure in and of itself. Firstly, turkey was a problem on a number of levels. When I first started to talk to people about doing a Thanksgiving dinner, I was informed that butchers and supermarkets do not stock turkeys until Christmas. In France, roast turkey is a traditional Christmas meal, and like us with Thanksgiving, they seldom eat it any other time of the year. So I was resigned to roasting a chicken. But then quantity became a problem. Every other time in my life that I have hosted a party, roughly 75% of the invitees have been able to come. Originally, there were about 11 invitees to Thanksgiving dinner, and yet somehow, 16 people RSVP-ed, 145% of the invitees, hrm, I am still scratching my head there. But I would have to roast the biggest chicken in the world to feed all those people. So I renewed my search, and to my astonishment, I found a butcher who could get me a turkey. Let’s just say, for the first time in my life, something was killed specifically on my behalf.

Anne, and our beloved beheaded...

After I ordered the turkey, I faced another problem. Here, in France, I HATE walking by the butcher counters at the markets, or past butcher shop windows, because 95% of the time, they feature entire animal carcasses. Just yesterday at the market, I saw an entire rabbit, skinned, with the eyes still in its head. So, here in France, when you buy a chicken, you have to decapitate it yourself. (I expect this is how the government keeps the people’s innate guillotine instinct at bay) So I had a couple days to steel myself to hack of a turkey’s head (and possibly its feet too). However, come Wednesday morning when I fetched the poor bird from the butcher, he was, mercifully, headless. Apparently the butcher pitied us both, the squeamish American who lacks a cleaver, and thus he spared the bird the indignity of my trying to remove his head with a normal kitchen knife.

Me expertly stuffing the turkey

Ok, so we got a little carried away with the tying up business, but we didn't want him to go anywhere... really, not too bad for a first-attempt.

Thanksgiving transpired on Wednesday, November 25, it was more convenient to do it then, since no one had class in the afternoon, leaving us free to cook from noon on (this was Anne’s and my crazy project). I did as much preparation as I could (cutting, and peeling, and such) the night before. First task was stuffing, which, thanks to Dad’s directions (via e-mail) was no problem. I was even able to come up with a passable substitute for Bell’s seasoning by visiting the spice guy at the market. Next came the topic of turkey, and let me say, I am thankful for the internet. You can really find anything on there, eHow and About.com have articles on cooking turkeys, and YouTube has videos on carving turkeys, and let’s just say, I owe my Thanksgiving success to the World Wide Web. It wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing turkey on the planet, but we did pretty darn well for first timers, the tying it up business was a little confounding.

The table, with imported decorations (Thanks, Mom!)

My international Thanksgiving extravaganza!

Enjoying dessert.

We had everything: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, squash, cranberry sauce (courtesy of Anne’s visiting American friend, Erin), gravy (again imported), bread (German, provided by Viola), sautéed zucchini, cheese (had to have something remotely French), pumpkin pie, apple pie, and cider. And, I must say, everything was delicious! And I am not sure I could replicate it ever again, but everything was ready at the exact right moment! We had 15 guests in attendance (one of the original RSVP-ers bailed). It was pretty much the United Nations: 4 Frenchmen (and women), 3 Americans (hosting), 2 Germans, 1 Brit, 1 Aussie, 1 Irishwoman, 1 Indian (India, not native American), 1 Chilean, and 1 Mexican. Somehow we fit everyone around the table, somehow I found 15 seats in this little house, and somehow everyone found something to eat. It was enormously successful. It made missing on of my favorite holidays more bearable. It was pretty much a perfect evening, definitely one of my favorites since arriving here. Good food, good friends, good conversation. Ton of dirty dishes though.

On actual Thanksgiving, I had school of course, and that was ok. The last two weeks at school, I have been talking about Thanksgiving as an American Tradition. I have even shown some YouTube footage of the Macy’s Parade and American football in class. And of course, there were a few hundred pumpkin pies to be doled out. For the most part, the kids liked the pies. It is very hard to tell if they follow my lessons or not. For the most part they seem to like working with me, either that or they really hate their regular English class. I have a couple classes that are really stellar, and then a few that have me tearing my hair out. But, that I guess is the life of a public school teacher.

I honestly think I could visit Paris every year for the rest of my life, and discover something new each time. Canal St. Martin: a tranquil spot in one of the busiest cities in the world.

What can I say, I have a fascination with lock chambers.

The weekend after Thanksgiving, I decided to spend the weekend in Paris. I am always glad to show someone else my favorite city, but I wanted to spend some time there for myself. My friend Adrien adopted me for the weekend. I wish I could explain it, but something happens to me when I am in that city, everything just feels so comfortable and familiar. It is possible to be in love with a place? If you had told me nine years ago, when I first clapped eyes on Paris, that some day I would feel so comfortable and so at home in one of the largest, and possibly the most popular city in the world, I would never have believed you. It is just as Gertrude Stein said, “America is my country, but Paris is my hometown.” Upon arriving, Adrien and I took a walk by the canal St. Martin, and as we watched a boat lock through the levels, I was forcibly reminded of working boat tours in Lowell, and then I realized this was the first time I had seen a MODERN lock chamber in action.

Aside from staying with my former teacher (Adrien was a PhD student teaching a section of Roman History when I was at Paris VII), I had dinner with my former hosts, Guy and Anne Langellier-Bellevue. They are still housing foreign students, they have a guy from Pittsburg, and a girl from Down Under for the moment. The apartment looks exactly the same, and it was so strange to be there as a dinner guest. 17 Rue des Renaudes was not a place I ever expected to see again, it was like time traveling, going back to another period in my life. It was very cool. It was so nice to see them, especially Guy, he and I became good friends during my six months with them.

The Champs Elysses alight with Christmas spirit.


Sorry for the glare, I only took my smaller camera with me, not wanting to be a tourist, well, not too much anyways.


Ferris wheel and Napoleon's stolen Obelisk in Place de la Concorde (where they used to behead people).

Paris was all lit up for Christmas, with the trees lining the Champs Elysses covered in Christmas lights, an enormous tree outside Notre Dame, and a huge white ferris wheel at the entrance to the Tuilleries Gardens. I have always wanted to see the Champs Elysses illuminated for Christmas, it was really beautiful, elegant, but not over the top. I spent my Saturday doing a few things I wanted to do, off-the-beaten-path things.

I went to Shakespeare and Company looking for a book, which I did not find, but they referred me to the Abbey Bookshop, which is run by a Canadian (non-Quebecois) in the Latin Quarter. I did not think it was possible to find a bookshop more crammed full of books than Shakespeare and Co., but the Abbey proved me wrong. It is smaller, probably a quarter of the size, with the same amount of stock, books are literally piled shoulder-high, and the 20-something staff members say that they owner is the only one who truly knows where everything is. Business was slow on the rainy Saturday, so I chatted with the staff for a while, after they pressed some champagne and birthday cake on me. They were really lovely, so the Abbey Bookshop might become a new favorite Parisian haunt for me.

From the Abbey, I headed to the end of Metro line 1, Chateau de Vincennes. Some of you may remember this site from Paris Papers, on a cold Saturday, I was bored, and rode the metro to the end of the line to see if there really was a chateau at the stop called Chateau de Vincennes. Turns out there is, but in 2006, it was closed for renovations. I figured that three years was enough time to finish renovating, and I have always wanted to go back, so I did. Turns out that the medieval keep has been completely redone and is open, but the Chappelle is now being worked on until mid-February, I guess I have an excuse to go back. Chateau de Vincennes is nothing like the glorious chateau of the Loire Valley, it is a medieval castle. It is actually the first legitimate medieval castle I have ever visited, complete with a keep, drawbridge, moat, and dungeon. Basically: totally cool!

Layer 1, in brown in the outerwall, the moat is in front of that. Once you get over the moat, and through the outerwall, you have to get into the keep... good luck with that.

The plywood part used to be the drawbridge, under it is the (empty) moat. According to the guide, this was one of the first examples of a working Medieval drawbridge.


A real MOAT!!!!!!!!! (You know you are a history nerd when you get excited about a moat)

Bye bye boys! Have fun storming the castle!

Vincennes began as a hunting lodge, but king Charles V built the castle in the fourteenth century. Basically, traditional medieval castles are big square towers that only have one or two entrances, surrounded by a wall, which is surrounded by a moat that can only be crossed by a drawbridge. Vincennes, at six storeys is the tallest medieval keep in France, and originally, there was only one foot bridge connecting the outer wall to the keep. Actually walking around in a true medieval fortress definitely gives one an understanding of a castle as a fortress, rather than a sprawling luxurious palace (like Versailles in the seventeenth century). Vincennes, even today, would be highly defensible, whereas Versailles, forget it. Vincennes was built right in the middle of the Middle Ages, before the Renaissance with little thought for high-art and luxury, and a lot of thought about protection. It was really great to see the inside. If I were an outlaw raiding castles, I would think twice before trying to sack Vincennes.

This is merely a tiny corner of the wine expo. When the French say, "there are a lot of people here," they say "il y a du monde ici," which literally translated means, "there is the world here."

After wandering the Middle Ages, I headed across town to a wine expo. Adrien had a ticket, and was unable to go, so he gave it to me. I expected a small wine tasting, maybe a couple dozen vintners. Not quite, I have found the closest thing that exists to French Black Friday. This little wine-tasting turned out to be the largest collection of independent winemakers in the entire country. Literally, there were over NINE HUNDRED different vintners, and the largest MOB of Frenchmen (and women) I have ever seen. It was a madhouse. The most interesting part: there, in a city of millions of people, at an event with thousands of people, Anne and Julien happened to find me, out of the blue. So we passed a couple of glorious hours wandering around tasting wine.

It is funny how much I appreciate wine after living in France twice. With good wine, I can taste the subtle undercurrents, and the differences in complexity between a 2005 and a 2006. It’s really quite cool, it is not knowledge I ever expected to have in my life, but there Julien and I were talking about undercurrents of pineapple and raspberry while Anne looked at us like we were kidding (it was her first official go at wine tasting). It was a really cool event, but a little crazy, everything was scattered about, and there were too many people, and SO MUCH WINE, after however many thousands of sips (half of which ended in spits, otherwise your tasting comes to an end when you fall over), your tongue just gets numb. Still I ended up with a couple of nice bottles for the coming months. I prefer sweeter golden wines, and I found some lovelies. This is something I will surely miss about France.

After our wine-tasting whirlwind, I parted ways from my friends and made my way to the base of the Champs Elysses to visit the temporary Christmas Market offering hand-made crafts, exotic gifts, and holiday treats. It was not too cold, so I wandered between the stalls there for a bit, and enjoyed the lights on the Champs. Unfortunately, Sunday morning arrived all too quickly, and I needed to get back to Bourges for school on Monday morning, so I took the noon-time train from Paris. It is always so hard to leave. I am not sure I could ever live there permanently, but I do love it so much!

The German Gals with an insane pile of cookies!

Back in Bourges, I was invited to a cookie-making party German-style. The four local German assistants got together and were baking traditional German Christmas cookies, and invited me to join them, so long as I provided music. It was a fun afternoon spent eating far too many varieties of far too delicious goodies. On Monday, it was back to the grind, but Gina, Viola, and I have a new tradition of Monday night suppers together, so that is something to look forward to after a long day at school.

The past two weeks I have had some trouble with my schools not bothering to inform me when I don't have class. It is really annoying to get up at 6, take a bus across town to be at school for 8 only to be told you don't have class. In the last two weeks, this has happened five times, and I am getting very frustrated. Apparently that is just how things are here, but I hate wasting my time like that. Oh well, as we say over here, "c'est la vie."

This issue’s school story comes from my Thanksgiving lesson. I made a PowerPoint with photos about how we celebrate Thanksgiving back home: what we eat, family traditions, etc. One of my bullet points said: “We eat turkey…” and I asked individual students to read aloud and translate the points, and one student read that phrase and translated it as, with an air of slight horror, “You eat… TURKS?” I just about died trying not to laugh. That might be the hardest part about teaching in France, not laughing, but when teaching and learning languages there are always those wonderful little moments.

Chateau de la Ferté Saint-Aubin

This past weekend, I was again adopted by the German clan, and we took a ride to a little town called la Ferté Saint-Aubin, where there is a little chateau, and it was all done up for Christmas. It was very pretty, there were all sorts of neat little activities, and it helped put me in the holiday spirit (as much as is possible without snow).

I am still waiting for my social security card, I have a temporary number, but not the full-Monty, and I was just notified today of another paperwork glitch. I seriously think I deserve a prize, because I am the only assistant who seems to have hit EVERY SINGLE logistical immigration road block that exists in this country, honestly, I ought to start playing the lottery.

As Christmas approaches, stores are allowed to be open on Sundays to make more time for shopping. Christmas lights have been strung around town, and Christmas trees are starting to appear in windows. But the French do not seem to be that big on Christmas music, I expect many radio stations back home are getting into their non-stop Christmas music phase, but not here, I can’t seem to find Christmas music to save my soul.

Tomorrow I am off to the city of Tours for another gathering of all the assistants in the department, and then this weekend I am off to Strasbourg, in the much-disputed territory of Alsace-Lorraine, a region on the border with Germany which seems to bounce back and forth between the two countries like a ping-pong ball. A political nightmare, but a cultural gem, apparently it is the perfect hybrid of French and German culture, and apparently, NO ONE in the world does Christmas like the Germans, and in this regard, Strasbourg is very German. And, potentially the best part, in Strasbourg, this weekend, the forecast says: SNOW! Once I get back from my mini-adventure in the north-east o f France, I will have only five more days of classes before Christmas Break! I shan’t be blogging during the holidays, but if you are good, I might squeeze out a mini-episode recapping Strasbourg before taking a break from blogging.

That’s about it for news. In the event I do not get a mini-episode up before the holiday, I wish you all the Merriest of Christmases and the Happiest of New Years. I hope you all enjoy a safe, happy, and healthy holiday with your families.

Joyeux Noël!

I remain your snow-deprived Thanksgiving chef extraordinaire,

~Monica


Moi avec Pere Noel!