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.