My French Impression

Let. It. Snow. (properly)

2010-11-25T16:14:00.003+01:00

The silly season is approching, and while I was ready to head out for a late afternoon stroll to soak up the increasingly christmassy ambience of the Rouen highstreet, it started to snow! In Novermber! But not the good stuff - the type that doesn't settle on the ground and just turns to liquid in your hand. And so, staying curled up with a plate of freshly baked vegan chocolate chip and banana oat cookies, seems like a much better idea. I know I'm going to pay for it though when a certain someone who was motivated enough to go outside in this frightful weather, finally comes home and realises that half of the batch has dissapeared! Ooops - better take advantage and have another one while I can. In the mean time, here they are...

Mash 3 large, ripe bananas with 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (if you've got some) and 1/4 cup of coconut oil (or olive oil).
In another bowl, mix together 2 cups of rolled oats, 2/3 of a cup of almond meal, 1/3 of a cup of shredded coconut, 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon (if you've go some), 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon baking powder.
Mix the dry and wet ingredients together, then mix in 200g of roughly chopped dark chocolate chips (this make the cookies VERY chocolatly, so if you dont have this much chocolate on hand, don't worry). Make about 25-30 bite-size balls on a tray and stick it in oven on 180 degrees for about 15 minutes or until golden.
Bonne apetit!

Dramatic. Mouldy. Pancakes

2010-11-03T12:16:00.008+01:00

Today is the final day of the first school holidays of the French school year. Strangely enough, these holidays are one and a half weeks long, which means no classes Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday this week, but back to school for Thursday, Friday, and for the unlucky 50 per cent of kiddies who have school on a Saturday morning - yep; its back to work Saturday too.

Although I finished high school back in the prehistoric year of 2003, the school time table has been of concern to me ever since I arrived in this country. Firstly, as a teachers assistant, working between the hours of 8am and 5.30pm (the horrendous official school day hours in this kiddie slave-driving country), out in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, whose claim to (very local) fame is its round pink 1960s church. However, now that those seven torturous months of waking up at 6am to teach the 8am class (before the winter sunrise at 9.30am) are long gone, my recent enrolment in one of Paris' drama Conservatoires, means I'm back to school again.

I have to admit that this time round it is a lot more pleasant. Well of course it is completely different given that this year, I am one of the carefree students (not the suffering teacher), we are studying drama (not English as a second language!), and instead of getting up early to go to a campus that's a 20 minute walk from the centre of in-the-middle-of-nowhere round-pink-church town, I now get up early twice a week to go to Paris! With my bodily expression dance class on a Monday and my theatre class on a Saturday, its back to school for me in three days time, starting with my Saturday drama; which gives me a mixed combination of excitement and dread.

You see, while I can absolutely act in this foreign language and have done so before in an all-French workshop and production that I took part in between my arrival in France and the end of the 2009-2010 school year, I feel that my level of fluency in the French language is not quite bilingual enough to enable me to confidently, spontaneously and intelligently participate in improvisation. Give me a French text and I will learn it perfectly and be able to perform it convincingly, but put me up there with a young French person who speaks a million miles an hour and uses vocabulary that I've never heard of before, and well, basically I'm screwed.

This is why, after the rigorous two-round audition process and being finally accepted into the conservatoire (after my first place on the waiting list turned into an actual place…), I was very disappointed to discover that all classes were based on improvisation. Although you may say that this is a good thing - that it's good to challenge ones self etc. etc., all the people in my class are very young, zippy and speedy (yes, at 23, I'm one of the oldest), so while I take a spilt second to process and react to what someone has said to me during an impro exercise, the impression of deafening silence must already be ringing in the ears of the people I am acting with, as they always seem to pick the talking back up before I've had the chance to respond. This vicious cycle continues on and on throughout the exercise, meaning that, for me, the improvisation process usually consists of standing there like a lost idiot while others talk at me.

It is for this reason that, in our last class before the holidays, I was particularly excited by our teacher’s proposal to do individual improvisations. She gave us a two situations to choose from, with a list of rules and components to give us some structure, and then one at a time, we were to come up and do it all on our own. Given the reputation I am sure I have as the idiot who can’t act, I was trilled at this opportunity to show that I can do more than just stand there. With only myself to understand, interpret and keep up with - I could set the pace and the rules, take my time and knock their socks off! And so, I chose option one; take an objet out of a box, tell a story about that objet to the audience, interact with an imaginary second character and talk to myself.

Deciding to really play with emotion, I entered the room, looking for a book, scanning the imaginary shelves before finally checking inside an old chest. I find the book, but in taking it from the chest, I see a pebble that was hidden underneath it. I say to the audience emotively "it's a pebble, just a pebble that I found on the beach on my 21st birthday". There were a few giggles at this point which I didn’t understand straight away given my serious tone, but concluded that perhaps my stating the obvious: "its just a pebble - I found it on the beach" (well duh - where else would you find it?!) was probably the reason. And so I continued on, candidly recounting how I went to the beach that day in the morning with my mother, how I don’t remember where everyone else was, but that I remember being happy that it was just the two of us. I talked about how beautiful my mother looked in the low golden morning light, starting to cry, but still smiling. I then alluded to not really knowing at the time, but in hindsight, being aware that it would be the last...

I stopped mid-sentence, having heard my flatmate, the imaginary second character, call out to me from the next room. Clearing my throat, I responded in a chirpy voice that I had found the book and that I was coming. I put back the pebble, closed the chest, took a moment to myself, clutching the book and repeating "that’s enough now", and I left the way I came, calling "I’m coming" to my friend.

At the end, I was incredibly proud. I could feel that I had really found some sincerity in my performance and that the others were just a little impressed. To my delight, my suspicions were confirmed by my teacher, who sung my praises, explaining to the group what was good about everything I had done. “However, there was just one little thing at the beginning” she said to me in front of everyone. Yes, of course, sods law means that the little band of laughter at the beginning wasn’t entirely unjustified; that my success was too good to be true… My opening line; "its a pebble, just a pebble, I found it on the beach", or rather, as I said it in French; "c'est une galette, qu'une galette, je l'ai trouvée sur la plage", wasn't 100 per cent correct. You see, for the word pebble, I used the French word "galette", well actually, the word for pebble in French, as my teacher explained, is "galet", not "galette". And so it turns out that I opened my serious and moving improvisation by opening a chest, taking out an object and explaining to the audience "its a savoury pancake, just a savoury pancake, I found it on the beach on my 21st birthday"...

Pebble (galet)

Savory Pancake (galette)

Mouldy pancake found on the beach and stored in on old chest

Me. Me. Me.

2010-10-23T21:05:00.006+02:00

Today I feel as though I re-found a part of myself that I had forgotten, or at least neglected. My boyfriend, with whom I live, left on Thursday to spend a long weekend with his family in Bordeaux, leaving me alone in Rouen until this coming Monday. No problems as far as that goes. Although I miss him when he’s away, I certainly can get on with things when he's not around. But this getting-on-with-things business is exactly where the problem lies. In all my rushing around, spending all of my time and energy on the situations and environments surrounding me to try to advance in accomplishing the things that I want for myself, I've been spending no time and energy whatsoever on my person; on advancing myself as a human being.
I’ve been feeling this lack for a little while and recently bought myself a new diary to restart up this practice which, up until a year ago, has been a part of my life since the age of nine. But writing such amounts in English again after having had practically no English literary exposure since I moved to France last year, has been rather daunting, and while it is horrible to write a sentence and then realise that I have written it like a French person would, what's even more horrible is not being able to identify all of the grammatical errors that are, without a doubt, still present.
I think it was probably this that has limited my new diary-keeping to simply recounting the events of my day, without one single ounce of creativity. And so on the train back from Paris today, I forced myself to write without listing a sequence of events; just simply describing what I observed around me. Although I'm yet to properly look over what I wrote, its was so refreshing to indulge in the present moment and forget the narrative; what I had done that day, what I was going to do that evening, tomorrow, next week, next month... I suppose it was the written version of seeing the beauty in every day; a subject that a certain photographer I know has often focused on. Although my observations weren't necessarily beautiful, it was refreshing to acknowledge the existence of everything around me in that very moment, without any regard for what comes before or after.
When I finally arrived home, I had to pop out to the shops, only to get caught in the rain, running home with a carton fruit crate on my head. Cold, wet and tired, I decided to draw myself a hot bath, setting up the playlist with Sinatra, Crosby and Martin. I passed many hours with those three when I used to live alone in Melbourne. Knowing hardly anyone in that city, it was a period in which I spent a lot of time by myself and hence, given there are only so many times one can watch Bridget Jones' Diary 2 on DVD, it was also a period in which I spent a lot of time working on myself. Transported back to this time in my life by those familiar voices, and inspired by how it made me feel to be back in my old appartment on Fitzroy Street, I decided to take the remainder of the evening, for me. I knew I had emails to check, but I didn't want their contents running through my head while I was soaking in the tub, nor for the remainder of this very relaxed evening. All email checking has thus been put off until tomorrow, and the only action I'm granting my computer this evening is to tell all of you to, at least one evening this week, stop doing all the things you think you need to do, and do the thing that you really need to do - spend a little time with yourself, on yourself.

Card. (Board Box). Trick.

2010-04-03T15:16:00.007+02:00

Up until a few days ago we had been blessed with our first few days of French springtime, however my optimistic anticipation of summer seems to have been in vain…

Last weekend I spent a rather lazy Saturday. Up at 11, breakfast at 11.30 sitting in the sunshine of the living room, followed by an afternoon trip to the cinema to see the latest film starring Vanessa Paradis (French national icon and Johnny Depp’s wife) and Roman Duris (well known for his role in The Spanish Apartment).

It was while coming out from seeing this film (which takes place in Monaco in the middle of summer, I should add) that I noticed that our own sunny sky in Rouen had been replaced with thick, dark, brooding clouds. I said jokingly as we got onto the tram how funny it would be if it starting tipping down, given that it is a good 10 minutes on foot between ‘chez nous’ (our place) and the tram stop.

Of course, upon emerging from the underground station, the heaviest rain to hit Rouen since my arrival was hammering the city. With drowning being the only other option, we chose to run to the first café we could find, ending up in a little brassiere, tucked away in one of Rouen’s many little side streets. After a bit of hot chocolate, people watching, and cardboard-box-innovation (see below), we arrived home an hour later, warm and dry.

P.S The film I saw, L’arnacoeur, was fantastic; the title is a play on words with the French word ‘arnaqueur’ (pronounced the same as the title) translated as conman, but with the difference in spelling at the end, arnacoeur, using the french word for heart. Basically a film about a man who is employed to seduce women so that they will break free from their current unhappy relationships. It should be released soon in Oz and other Anglophone countries under the title Heartbreaker – highly recommended!

Pretty. Serious. Knickers.

2010-03-28T22:11:00.007+02:00

Feminine, chic, seductive, alluring … is there anything more French than sexy underwear? Although most women the world over enjoy the indulgence of lovely lingerie, (there’s nothing like knowing you’ve got a little lace hidden under that shirt, to give you that outside confidence), however the French appear to take it much more seriously.

Here silk and lace are considered an essential part of femininity and there’s an equally serious selection of lingerie shops ready to fill the demand. The provocative publicity shots of French lingerie brands such as Aubade are not only the most popular bedroom poster choice among teenage boys, there is not a single French person that does not recognise these iconic images. Indeed undies are part of France’s cultural identity … hey, they don’t call them ‘French knickers’ for nothing.

So it might be surprising to find out that I have hardly set foot in a lingerie store since my arrival nearly six months ago. The first reason may be lack of money. With all the travelling that living in a centrally placed European county encourages … well there’s only so far an English Assistant salary can go. The other reason is probably that, with all those goddess-perfection posters everywhere setting the standard, why should one even bother? Especially as coming to France in September meant that I missed the Australian summer and have been consequently hiding under big jumpers and my extra winter padding for more than 18 months.

However, with the air starting to loose its crispiness, you can feel that spring is just around the corner, bringing hope, freshness and most importantly, summer. In other words, a time for self-reinvention. That’s why last weekend, I found myself in what has now become my favourite boutique in France. Tiers and tiers of delicate luxury, carefully hung on pretty little hangers, each row clearly marked with the available tallies de bonnet (cup sizes). Upon entering the change rooms, the shop assistant removed all the hangers for me, handing me a lovely little pile (that I could already visualise slipping into my draw at home), ready to try on, no fiddling about.

For the first time in my life everything was so lovely that I had to try on the three sets, between which I was debating, three times each before finally making my choice. I am now the proud owner of real French lingerie and have to admit I’m starting to realise what all the fuss is about.

P.S. to get a real idea of the French art of seduction, take a look at the website listed on the above Aubade poster. Handily translated in English as well, this site is full of kinky tips and ideas, demonstrating that the French have now turned loving into an art form too.

Back. In. Action.

2010-03-17T17:24:00.006+01:00

It’s strange how things work. I began this blog just as I was embarking on a new journey, with a fixed commitment to regularly posting the events of said journey, as they unfolded. Great concept … a little different in practise though. The unfortunate thing about exciting new adventures is that they tend to take up a lot of time, and writing about your life suddenly seems impossible to factor in to your schedule with all that living your doing.

Not just that, but the whole exciting bit that comes with new adventures tends to sweep you away and you forget that writing is something that you enjoy and start thinking of it as a painfully boring task that confines you to a dark room where the only thing seeing any action is your keyboard.

It is for that reason that I am currently (somewhat uncomfortably) seated on a plastic green IKEA stool pulled right up next to my ‘Paris window’. Yes, I am perfectly aware that I now live in Rouen, a lovely little city a good hour north-west on the train from Paris, however this window has earned its name from the view it gives of Rouen’s rooftops, which are very reminiscent of those commonly found in the City of Light.

This tiny window furrows vertically out of the slanted ceiling of my attic-converted bedroom and is thus almost completely inaccessible, hence why I have had to awkwardly perch myself on this little stool. The upside, however, is that it offers the best view from my apartment, it also faces south, into the sun, which means that my dark-little-writing-room fear is now sorted.

As for the problematic issue of the action being limited to my keyboard, I’ve brought backup … FOOD. I always tend to write better when my mouth is occupied … perhaps blocking one portal of expression (my gob) lets me channel my thoughts and energies through the other (my writing)? In any case, sweeties are a necessity and seeing as I am a little short on supplies at the moment, I am here with an almost (but not entirely!) empty Nutella jar and a spatula…

I have to say, I feel decidedly French sitting here in the afternoon sun at my ‘Paris window’ with a jar of Nutella by my side. Nutella is in fact the favourite adopted child of France. They eat it here by the tonne. It’s impossible to walk in a French city without seeing it on every corner. Great big one-kilo containers posed on the counters of fresh crepe and waffle stands, the chocolate-hazelnut contents waiting to be drizzled onto steaming hot delicacies. When French children come back from school and have their ‘gouté’, an essential French snack to be eaten between 4pm and 5pm consisting of a glass of milk and a ‘tartine’ (a piece of bread spread with something), Nutella is the standard tartine-topping. They seriously put it on and in everything – come to think of it, the last time I was in Paris I had a delicious Nutella icecream in the Latin Quarter with two equally delicious people.

Licking the last of the chocolatey goodness off my white plastic spatula, I can certainly see what all the fuss is about. I think I better put it back on the shopping list.

Crazy. French. Lady.

2009-10-06T19:06:00.003+02:00

So here I am, baking hot under the late September Paris sun, working on my tan in the pretty tiered garden that meanders up to the White Meringue. For four days straight it’s been in the high twenties and I appear to be getting more of a tan here than I did back in Australia. People everywhere are doing the same thing; licking ice creams, smoking, smooching, chatting and soaking up the sun.

As usual there is entertainment, this time in the form of buskers; and there is something here for everyone. The more highbrow may enjoy the sweet melodies of the young, attractive, French brunette seated at her eclectic piano next to the water fountain on the top tear. I myself am currently enjoying the musical stylings of the plump forty year old woman who is running up and down the steps, weaving her way around the Wednesday afternoon picnickers, singing Edith Piaf songs at the top of her lungs.

She doesn’t actually complete any one song; just chops and changes between the bits of verse and chorus that she knows. She also ports what appears to be a multicoloured plastic flower lay on her head. Nothing seams to stop this woman as she skips, jumps, and twirls with a big grin on her face. Certainly she must be boiling hot charging around in this weather, wearing her long sleeve pink leopard-print glittery top. Perhaps the high, bent-legged kicks she not-so-elegantly manages to do every so often by leaning backwards on one of the park’s many benches, is in fact her cooling mechanism? At least she is scaring off the tourists that are seated there.

Of course, I was far too busy laughing and enjoying myself to get the camera out on time and catch the real action – even if I had, it is unlikely I would have managed to capture her in the frame with the way she was darting about. But it appears that the combination of the sun and the stairs did eventually manage to get the better of her. A little more tired, but no less zany, she returned to her bag, took a swig of water and promptly sat her self down next to a compete stranger and struck up a conversation.

Feet. Change. Tarts.

2009-09-30T08:36:00.004+02:00

Finally back at my host’s apartment after a day of nonstop walking. I’m a bit stupid really as I’m been avoiding the Metro, scared I’m miss something fabulous between my destinations by taking the easy way out underground. As a result I’ve been forcing myself to walk ridiculously long distances and I am sorry to say that it may well have got the better of me. What I thought ways going to be just a bruise after dropping a 25kg bag on my foot, appears to have turned into … well I’m not really sure. It is painful and difficult, but not impossible to flex and point my toes, but each time I do, my foot … creaks.

I first noticed my foot was uncomfortable enough to have to start compensating for the pain by limping, when I was passing Notre Dame. However, the look of admiration and delight on my face was not a result of seeing what I still consider to be the most beautiful cathedral I have ever laid eyes on, buy to the even more rare sight of an available seat just opposite, between two Indian tourists.

True to form, after five minutes, my determination to cram in as much as possible crazily drove me to pass two more hours stumbling through the Latin Quarter, looking for a patisserie so that I may take something home for my host and I. Of course, as soon as I actually needed one, all the patisseries in the Land of Patisseries, appeared to have packed up and left. The only patisserie I could now think of in the whole of Paris was back in Montmartre, but I was relying on pastries to break my 50 euro note and give me change for the metro.

So, I decided to ask a man at a small pizza joint if he would change my note for coins, which he did, though not without making it clear how hurt he was that I wasn’t going to buy anything, making me reinstate that change was indeed all that I was after. I have found this not be uncommon. It seems if you ask a shop owner for change, they take it as an insult, as by asking for change you are in fact implying that nothing in their shop is good enough to break your note with. But what can I say? I was still full from the bargain falafel that I bought late that afternoon and ate in a pretty little square full of trees and fountains, all in the Jewish quarter of Paris which the French call le maquis.

And so, having obtained my change from the disgruntled pizza man, 20 minutes later I found myself hobbling up the steep and increasingly familiar streets of Montmartre, where I bought two amazingly delicious strawberry tarts; sweet crumbly pastry covered with pillows of vanilla custard cream, topped with succulent, ripe, glazed strawberries; just enough to take my mind off my strawberry coloured foot.

Snoring. Tea. Conspiracy.

2009-09-27T21:43:00.007+02:00

When you wake up in the city of love, what is it that you hope to hear from the lips of the first French man you see? Certainly ‘you’re beautiful’, ‘I love you’, or ‘do you want a croissant with that coffee?’ are highly desirable. The morning greeting I received from my host on the other hand was ‘you snored your head of last night … you’re like a professional’. Despite the fact this was strictly a one off occurrence (I swear!), probably due to a combination of plane and alcohol dehydration, my host promptly turned the incident into a long-running joke. However, not to be defeated by my embarrassment, I soon set off to spend the day aimlessly wandering the streets; but not before something to eat.

Breakfast was left over bread with honey and my host kindly offered to make me a cup of tea to go with it. Naturally, what he brought to the table was black tea in a bowl whose generous diameter permitted me to partake in standard French breakfast-time behaviour – that is dipping my bread and honey in my tea. Yes, soggy bread and tea with floaties is customary in the world’s food capital (though in all fairness this is traditionally done with coffee, not tea, though I’m not sure it makes much difference). When I finally made it onto the cobble stone streets below I decided to spend the day doing my best to not play the tourist. And so I left my map and my camera in my bag and let my vague knowledge of Paris and my curiosity guide me, taking which ever road was most visually appealing, strange or inviting.

Although the map remained out of action as planned, there was one camera exception. While sitting on a park bench overlooking one of Paris’ many beautiful gardens, this time just metres from the foot of the Eiffel Tower, a flock of school children, no older than about five, ran out on to the greenery dressed in matching smock-style uniforms; the boys in black, the girls in baby pink, both with wide white collars. They really seemed like little cherubs as they played, hugged each other, called out and giggled merrily in French. When stuff like this happens in Paris, the kind of stuff that it so cute that your heart may explode at any given moment, I can’t help but wonder if the French government it behind it; orchestrating spectacles of loveliness to keep the tourists coming back and to reaffirm Paris’ position as the capital of all things lovely.

The day ended with more French tourism conspiracy in the form of a guided tour, thanks to my host, through the magically lit, aroma filled, accordion accompanied, Monet and Toulouse Lautrec-haunted streets of Montmartre; from the front of Sacre Coeur (more commonly referred to as the White Meringue by my host), to the Deux Moulin café of Amelie Poulin, past the many old artist residences and into one of Paris’ many private gardens that we snuck into by flowing in behind a resident as he entered through the locked gate.

Mothballs. Skype. Skyline.

2009-09-26T19:53:00.009+02:00

I hadn’t even arrived in the city of love and already it was everywhere. My flight from Kuala Lumpur (after a torturous six hour delay) was choc-a-block full of young couples, mostly French, all falling asleep on top of each other. I on the other hand was cuddling up to my tiny plane-provided polyester pillow, trying not to breathe after having been seated next to a fifty year old Japanese man who smelt like mothballs.

Having endured a tearful farewell to my three best friends; my mum, dad and younger sister, and having had the fact that I am far from my boyfriend reinstated by my lack of person to rest my head on, I did my best to avoid lulling into a depression by trying to sleep as much as possible. This worked very well in fact. That is, until I had to wake up. Upon touch down, suddenly the scary reality of having to speak French all the time to everyone hit me in the face. So did the fact that I was alone in a foreign country that was literally half a world away from everyone I love.

And so, after some rather fluffed attempts at asking where I might find a power point at Charles de Gaulle airport, and after about 45 minutes searching for one, using what little I understood of the directions I had been given, I plugged in my formerly flat-battery laptop and opened Skype so that I could let my beloveds back home know that I had arrived safely. Needless to say, when I finally logged on to the internet, only to find out that access was by credit card payment only, I was on the verge of tears.

Determined not to fall apart, I lugged my 40kg of luggage (tip 1: never take this much luggage on a flight) onto the train to central Paris, where my next goal was to find the baggage lockers. After heaving my bags up and down out-of-order escalators several times, looking for an ATM (tip 2: have currency on you before entering a country) and then trying to get someone to give me change for notes (tip 3: have coins on you in case the change machine for the lockers is broken at the Gare du Nord), I finally arrived at the consigne de bagages with what I needed, only to drop my 25kg bag on my foot and spend half an hour searching for a free locker. Unsurprisingly, when I finally saw my family on the other end of the Skype screen, having found salvation in the McDonalds across the road where the power points are easily found and the internet is free, I burst into tears.

Fortunately, after a few words of reassurance, I was encouraged back onto the streets. Now light and portable with just my hand bag, I took the short walk to Montmartre where I was to meet my Couch Surfing host in three or so hours. Hours I killed by watching a comedy show in the little park in front of Sacre Coeur, before wandering up the steps, seeing a man climb a pole while spinning a ball on his head and walking through the tourist-crowded, historic streets with a big grin on my face. A grin which grew when I met my Couch Surfing host and arrived back at his Paris-postcard flat whose wrought iron French windows offer views of Sacre Coeur and the city skyline.

And so I begin...

2009-09-26T12:19:00.002+02:00

For years now I’ve had an inexplicable obsession with France. It is difficult to know when exactly it began. For a while I believed that it was a relatively recent love affair – over the past few years or so, but I’ve since come to realise through rereading old childhood diaries and such that France, and Paris in particular, have long held a special place in my heart. This may strike as somewhat unusual, given that, up until the beginning of this year, the extent of my French experience consisted of a day trip to France on the Channel Tunnel at the age of nine, but the feeling of adoration was strong enough to compel me to take up French at university, where I started as a complete beginner 18 months ago. So, needless to say, when I visited Paris for the first time and spent three whole weeks in the country in January 2009, there was a lot of pressure on France to perform. Fortunately, she did not fall short of my expectations and I was left delighted, exhilarated and full of longing to return. Even more fortunate as I had already applied for a contract position assisting to teach English in a French high school, and it is here that I begin.