La langue Francaise

I love the French language so much (which helps with my degree) yes, it’s ridiculously complex sometimes with far too many tenses and sentences to say what can be said with one word in English, but that is partially what I love about it! It’s almost like going back in time to Jane Austen’s England when they were very wordy! Also the way the French speak is fantastic, not only their accent (a French person saying ‘so British’ will never fail to make me smile) but also the musicality of when they speak. The French don’t believe me, but to the English French is a very musical language. They also detest the word ‘like’ and Britishisms which are everywhere in France now. In a way I agree with the academie francais (a group of old French men who decide what words are allowed in the dictionary) in refusing to acknowledge pretty much all foreign words, like walkman. But sorry academie, I think you’ll find Jeans and denim were French words to begin with before Levis took them over!
The way they imitate others when they speak is fantastic too, and reminds me of being read stories when I was little and every character had a different voice and way of speaking, well every day is like that in France! Whether they’re giving their teacher a high nasal voice or imitating the accents of other French speakers, it’s a delight listening to them!

French music

I have just realised something I love about France. Why has it taken me this long? And I don't mean why has it taken me so long to realise I love something about France, because obviously I do love loads of things about the country. I feel bad that the bad experiences have taken over my blog, it's not all bad, I promise! But on to my recent realisation:
The music. Ok, French music is, in general, bad (I hesitate to say awful or terrible, because some of it isn't, but... well. It's not amazing.) But the attitude towards music is amazing! Let me explain.

There is no concept of christmas music. Something anyone who has ever worked in retail will appreciate, as there are not non-stop christmas songs in the shops. But it also means that you get songs like 'last christmas' playing at random times of the year. Like October. Or February. Or in the summer. Which, for the hilarity as you realise that a Christmas song is playing while you're reaching for a tin of sweetcorn in the local supermarket, is fantastic!

There also seems to be no real concept of 'unfashionable' (for I can't find another way to describe such songs) music. So you will get songs that you danced to at school discos 10 years ago played in clubs, which everyone still loves. Even when it's not retro or cheese night. Also I don't think they have a concept of cheese. I LOVE the French attitude! I hate the English attitude which sometimes amounts to 'why do you like that band/music/song? They were from ages ago. You have therefore less of a person than I thought you were'. I knbow this thinking is supposed to be secondary school thinking, taken straight out of films like Mean Girls, but apparantly some people still think like this. If you are one of these people, I have no time for you.

There is also the law that over a certain percentage of songs must be French language on the radio, which seems pretty silly, but I still love it. There are also songs which are from other countries than England, U.S. or even France. Which is brilliant and an attitude we should have in England, they don't understand the lyrics. And they don't care. (Which hilariously results in Lily Allen joyfully singing 'fuck you' to a crowded shop)

Basically, the French attitude to music rocks!

The smell of France

I’m not talking about the cheeses, although some of those are intense. I’m not talking about the lovely smell of a bakery, or the delicious smell of roti chickens in the market. I’m talking about the unpleasant smell that you can’t escape no matter where you are, the smell of urine. It is a rare and wonderful thing to find a public toilet in France which doesn’t smell of piss. Which is why you normally have to pay for the pleasure of an unscented toilet. The first thing that reminded me I was in France when I landed in Lyon airport after the Christmas holidays was the smell of the toilet. But it’s not just toilets. Possibly because of the extreme lack of public toilets in France, people pee in the streets. Often. So often that walking around a French town for 30 minutes you are nearly guaranteed the sight of someone urinating in the street. And not necessarily against a wall. I’ve seen it done off the bridge into the river, and as I had the... pleasure... of seeing the other day: a man facing and peeing into the middle of a busy pavement. It could be related to the lack of toilets, or it could be because they leave dog poo on the pavements and think ‘why can’t I leave my waste in the road too?’ disgusting, I know. And the smell... if you want an idea of what the roads smelt like before plumbing, certain streets in France might give you an idea.

Mr Inexplicable

I don’t even know how to describe this guy, he was so weird. Me and Claire went to a club on Valentines night (where we saw a girl with 3 guys circling like wolves, it was very cave-man like, I was waiting for one of them to knock her out and drag her back to his cave) and at the end of the night we got the metro, all very normal. As soon as Claire got off this random guy came and sat opposite me. Worried at first about random French guy, I ignored him and one stop came and went so I thought he wasn’t going to say anything. Then he asked me out. I said no. Then he spat on the floor and asked me if I was sure. You know what, I didn’t want to date him at first, but that display of masculinity made him SO much more attractive. I said I was sure and breathed a sigh of relief as my stop had arrived and I could get as far away from him as possible.

Guy #2. Mr I’ve-Heard-Women-Like-This

This is an example of the man who has read a ‘what women want’ manual and is testing it out without realising he’s not being natural (or charming) at all. I was at a house party and having a rest from dancing, a guy came and sat next to me and started asking me questions. It felt like I was on a gameshow or something. “What’s your name?” “Kiera, wha..” “where are you from?” “England, wh..” “Why are you in Lyon?” and so on... Someone had obviously told him that women like talking about themselves and this was what he was counting on. Although I have no explanation for what he asked me after question time was over and he had ‘got to know me’: “what do you think of me?” “what?” “what do you think of me?” “ummm... I don’t know” “do you want to kiss me?” “what? No!” Maybe he was just feeling lucky.

French Man #1. Mr Scary-Following-You-Home

I’ve actually had 2 of these, which makes me really glad I live next to a metro stop. The first was during the first term, I was just getting back after a night out and was about to open the door to get into the residence when there was a sudden voice behind me saying ‘excuzez-moi’ I jumped with fright, spun round preparing to attack this man who had silently crept up to me and was by this point about an inch away from me. Luckily I have an English accent and was able to tell him that I didn’t have a French mobile when he asked for my number. Well, it could have been true! The second guy was in the second term, I was getting a very early metro home after a house party and was, obviously, dressed for the night time at 6AM. Again, was just about to go through the door when a guy who was in front of me turned round and asked me something to do with drinks, I misunderstood and thought he was asking where he could get a drink (no sleep, somewhere between drunk and hungover, my listening skills aren’t fantastic at the best of times). Eventually I understood that he was asking me out for a drink with him. He was about 40.

French Romance

Let’s start by saying that everything you think you know about French men is probably a lie. They are not suave, smooth or charming. None that I’ve met anyway. They can range from the ‘casual look’ man wearing a scarf or jumper knotted around the neck (a look which is shockingly popular in France- they don’t understand what the ‘preppy/gay look’ is over here) to the Mediterranean highly-styled, designer-clothes-wearing, man-bag-carrying highly metrosexual man most commonly found near Italy. And these are just the men you might consider dating, there is a shockingly bad selection in France! There are the pervy men who stand around all day doing nothing but harassing every woman they see (to the point of following them because they simply have nothing better to do). There are the French version of chavs who are normally white guys not really understanding that the American style ‘gangsta’ needs to be black for him to be taken seriously. And then there are the guys who actually don’t seem to know how to talk to women. I’m not talking about the guys who completely freeze when they meet something with breasts, I mean the guys who have read an online manual of how to talk to women and want to practice their new-found ‘skills’. To demonstrate my points, I’m going to describe some of the men I have encountered during my time in France in my next blogs over the following weeks.

The Easiness of English Girls

So why is it that English girls are seen as slutty or easy when abroad? Well, taking France as my example I will look at the clothes first. Someone’s French housemate went out in a dress which ended above the knee and was worried it was too short. The general feeling of the French when they visit England is that about 90% of the girls are prostitutes. Short skirts are not worn by the French! There are some rare occasions when you will see a pair of legs on show, but the girl is normally accompanied by a boyfriend. When it gets colder you also see more skirts, normally just with sheer tights underneath. And they think the English are stupid!

Bright colours are also more readily worn by the English, something which is simply not allowed in French society, god only knows how H&M survives in France. Black is the colour of choice, teamed with a dark blue jean and sometimes other colours on the neutral spectrum such as white, beige, cream and grey. Just to mix things up a bit. Brighter colours attract the eye of the prowling French man who sees it as a mating symbol in a very ‘discovery channel’ ‘this is how the female bird attracts the male’ way.

Another possibility is that when English girls can speak a bit of French (and actually decide to talk to the locals rather than sticking with the comfort zone of people they know speak English), some of the things we do and say confuse the French and are not translatable. Flirting for example, is in France, always a sign of attraction, you can’t flirt with your friends. Just accept this and don’t try to explain it, I doubt you’d get anywhere. English words can be said with a French accent if we don’t know the translation, in the hope of it being a French word too. Sometimes it is, and the conversation carries on without anyone knowing you were just guessing. Sometimes it isn’t and everyone stares and says ‘quoi?’. Sometimes it is a French word but means something completely different. Like when I said ‘je suis excité’ when talking about the festival of lights. Well, it is a French word, and to some degree I suppose it does mean ‘excited’, just... over excited. I had actually said that I was turned on by a light festival. Not the sentiment I was trying to convey. It is also too easy to mis-conjugate verbs. Such as the word bisou which means kiss. Embrasser also means kiss. So does baiser, in certain contexts. Not when you are trying to say ‘I kissed him last night’. If you used ‘baiser’ as a verb in that context, it would be a colloquial way of telling everyone that you slept with him last night. And so voila! A reason that all English girls are seen as easy. Even if they’re not.

How to be a french student

Studying in France is, understandably, very different to studying in England. For a start you don’t actually need to read while at university. Thinking for yourself is not encouraged as the teacher gives you all of the information needed for the exam. That is of course, unless you are required to do a presentation. In which case you will be expected to speak for 30-45 minutes about a subject and essentially teach the class. This happened in one of my modules last year, and after each presentation the teacher would launch as many challenging questions as possible at the student(s) and leave them scrambling for answers they didn’t know. The rest of the time though, you will just be required to listen, make many notes (my record is 7 A4 pages in 2 hours) and occasionally read handouts in class. If you happen to be given a handout, to really fit in with the native students, you will need highlighters. And you will need to highlight everything. I mean everything, one student I remember ended up with sheets with big bright green rectangles in the middle of them, with maybe 3 blanks which included the less important words or sentences. The use of the internet, including Wikipedia, is also encouraged.

French house parties

Well, back from another house party chez un francais. So of course I stink of cigarettes and my eyes are slightly sore still from the smoke that enveloped the room. You know those foggy/misty scenes in the woods in horror movies? They could so easily replace the woods with a French party and the fog with smoke.

This wasn’t as bad as most parties though, there wasn’t the usual person/group crowded round the laptop selecting the music that they insist everyone likes and wants to dance to, even when everyone else was happy with the previous song that had been cut off half way through. Oh how we miss the days of boom boxes and stereos, when the music was in physical CD format and not found on YouTube. When the speakers were halfway decent and not made for personal computer use. Of course this statement goes for house parties pretty much worldwide now.

But oh how I miss being in England and the smokers being a small minority rather than the majority, where house parties are not needed because it’s so cheap to go out, and where when you do go out there are not the majority of bars and clubs which ignore the non smoking ban. I miss my clothes and hair not stinking of cigarettes, the smell infused in my hair that makes me want to vomit when I wake up hung-over. Oh for the days when I didn’t stink after a good night out!

Public toilets

So. Public toilets in France. Where to start ? First of all there are the horrors of the small stops along the motorway which are either metal toilets or porcelain holes in the ground. While the holes are disappearing quickly in France, it is very easy to stumble across them. I found one at a train station in the south of France once and the disabled ‘normal-style’ toilet was nowhere to be found. I also found that at one of the biggest ski resorts in the region has nearly nothing but holes in the ground as their facilities. If you do have the luck to find a ‘normal’ toilet then you will find that the national toilet-seat thief (I call him Jean-Claude de Merde) has stolen all of the loo seats in France for his own personal use. God knows what he does with them! There are also a surprising number of unisex toilets. With many of them placing the urinal next to the cubicle. So yes ladies, if you experience a call of nature you may have to walk pass a peeing man to answer said call. At university especially, if there is a gender-specific toilet members of the opposite sex will use it anyway. How odd!

Velo'v adventures

I thought I'd change the post this week and tell you an interesting anecdote in which Claire and I lost and gained 150 euros in the space of 3 1/2 hours.

First of all, let me explain the concept of the Velo'v. It is a rentable bicycle with stations all over Lyon. For the low cost of 1 euro for 24 hours you may rent a bike and ride it wherever you wish. It has 3 gears and non-squeeky very good brakes (which, as I remember put me off my last bike).

So after going to 2 bars last night, myself and Claire decided to get a Velo'v each and ride to vieux Lyon to visit the wonderful 24 hour Bredz bakery. Leaving our rented bikes outside to look at the sweet pastry delicacies (rather stupidly we have to admit, but this had been done many times already by Claire) we bought 2 treats each and left to find only one of the bikes remaining outside.

The plice were phoned, they arrived incredibly quickly, I was impressed by Claire's use of French both on the phone and in a crisis. The worry was that if your rented bike is stolen or left somewhere there is a 150 euro fee taken from your bank card. So we gave details to the police (which look so much more intimidating than the English police), more police came which we gave details to aswell, and they told us what to do.

Apparently we had misunerstood what he said slightly, as I had understood that we needed to go to a TCL (Lyon public transport) office, so we looked at the opening times and went back to Claires to sleep for 2 hours. We awoke at 7ish in the morning, and I hope for Claire's sake that her alarm is not still ringing (although the way it wouldn't turn of this morning, my hopes aren't high!), and we walked to Bellecour to a TCL office that opened at 7.30. Where they told us it wasn't where we needed to go, and gave us a number for the Velo'v information centre. I vaguely remembered the policeman telling us to make a report at the station and that we had to take a funicular to get to the 'commissariat' of the 5th arrondissement.

So we walked across place Bellecour, by which time the light rain had turned into freezing bullets, punishing us for being so stupid as to leave our rented bikes unguarded for 5 minutes. But it's France, you can leave your coat unguarded all night in a club/bar without it being stolen so please forgive us our stupidity!

We arrived at the metro station for vieux Lyon to get the funicular, looking like 2 drowned rats, both laughing about and angry at our situation, deciding that we would split the 150 euros fine. However, I didn't know which funicular we needed, or where the police station was, so we asked a member of staff who didn't know either. We decided to call the number for the Velo'v information. And what information they had! We gave them the number of our tickets (issued by the machine in order to rent a Velo'v during the 24 hours). We tried one of our tickets. Then the other. Then double checked the first one. They had both been taken back to a Velo'v station. The thieving sh*t who had stolen our bike had saved us 150 euros. We have mixed feelings towards him now.

Rules of the road: Zebra crossings and Parking

Well this is the last installment of 'rules of the road', there will be something new next week!

Zebra Crossings: well, they exist, but that’s pretty much all they have in common with England. Traffic sometimes stops, but doesn’t have to and most French people you see will just walk across without really looking. Some of the zebra crossings come with a green man (no button to press though, you just have to wait) and some have no lights at all. They’re both as terrifying as each other. Even though most cars have a red light telling them to stop while the green man flashes up for you, cars coming round corners don’t have that all-important red light and will often just slam on the brakes inches away from you. I’m so used to it now I’ve stopped flinching. When attempting the crossing with no green man however, please check that there are no buses on the way first. They stop for no man.

Parking: Basically anywhere. I’m sure the pavements in France have been widened specifically for car users. No space to park on the side of the road? Park on the pavement if it’s wide enough! If not, use your imagination, traffic islands and roundabouts are often perfect spots and with the added bonus that you won’t forget where you left the car.

Rules of the road: Bikes

Both motorbikes and bicycles are dangerous in France, mostly because they play by their own rules, which makes them more dangerous than cars, especially because they are small enough to go on the pavements. The general rule chez les français is if it is possible to do something then it’s allowed. It is possible to drive a bicycle or motorbike on the pavement, so most people do.

Motorbikes on the road are just as scary on the road as on the pavement though, and in the same thought as ‘if you can then go ahead’, they will overtake you on the road no matter what speed you are going, just because they can.

Bicycles are in a category all of their own, as well as going on the pavement in heavily pedestrianised areas (even if there is a cycle lane on the road), they have their own set of rules that no-one else follows. They don’t follow any road rules as far as I can tell. They follow even less rules than cars! They don’t stop at red lights or follow one-way-traffic laws. If there is a pedestrian in their way they expect them to ‘sense’ there is a bike hurtling towards them and get out the way, because the cyclist will not shout, ring a bell or do anything to let you know they are about to hit you. They won’t even swerve. Why should they get out of your way, if you won’t get out of theirs? This means that if you have been in France for any amount of time it is likely you will have been almost run over by an equal amount of bikes as cars.

Rules of the road: Cars

Aside from driving on the ‘wrong-hand-side’ (which makes roundabouts confusing), there are various rules or quirks with French traffic that are useful to know.

Cars: Every single car in France believes it has more of a right to be on the road than everyone else. They are always in a hurry and easily angered, so each day you spend in France you are guaranteed to hear cars beeping angrily at each other. There is also a widespread lack of respect for basic traffic rules. Like the speed limit. And slowing down when going round corners or reaching junctions. If you need to stop, the emergency brake is very useful. The amount of times French cars come screeching to a halt, their tyres must need to be changed once a month, at least! You’re not in France unless you’ve been nearly run over by some vehicle or another. At traffic lights, as soon as the light goes from red to green (no amber, that would be too leisurely) everyone thinks they own a Lamborghini or Ferrari (nice cars like this obviously don’t exist in France unless you’re in St Tropez, in which case they all come from Monaco.) and they try to make their rusty Ford or Vauxhall go 0-60 in 3 seconds. Even if there’s someone still crossing. (ESPECIALLY if there’s someone still crossing) Like I said, you’re not in France till you’ve been nearly run over. It’s the near-death experiences that make life so vibrant! Indicating is also unnecessary. People will see what way you’re going when you turn.