Already, after less than a week in France, I’m glad that I read it as it has helped me realize that the French mindset is in many ways completely different from ours. For one, whereas Americans live to work, the French work to live. Case in point: most shops are open only 9 to 5 with at least an hour and a half break in the middle of the day for lunch and everything is closed on Sunday. Work overtime? Ha, c’est rigolo!
On Saturday, I experienced both the Second Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Work and the Tenth Commandment: Thou Shalt Be Polite (and simultaneously rude), while opening a bank account. After buzzing my way through a series of doors and waiting in line, I get to the counter and explain that I am the “assistant d’anglais” for Decrétot and that I would like to open up a bank account today if possible. As soon as I said “if possible” I realized that would immediately nullify my request. Sure enough, Madame looked at the other woman at the desk, who really wasn’t working but rather talking with some guy chatting her up, and asked her when she could help me. After a couple of sighs and eye rolls, Madame asked her again, didn’t she help another assistant on Tuesday already, to which she finally replied, “Bennn I can’t remember what I did on Tuesday. It’s not possible for me to help him today.” Awesome. Their only suggestion was that I come back Tuesday between 5.00 and 6.30. Now here’s where Clarke’s wisdom came into play; she asked if that would work for me and I told her no, that would be impossible for me as I’ll be in Rouen (which was a lie, I’ll be there tomorrow all day and observing classes on Tuesday).
She looked up at me, slightly annoyed because she had already started to write the date and time of my appointment on a card, sighed and asked if I had my carte d’identité with me so that she could make a copy. Already prepared, I pulled out a photocopy of my passport that I had made beforehand and she went back to see if anyone could help me. Thirty seconds later et voila! I wasn’t sitting down for more than a minute when a woman came out of her office and helped me set up my account.
It has been much warmer here than I thought it would be; in the mid to high 60s in the daytime, but it has rained for at least a couple of hours each day since I’ve been here. This weekend was the Foire Saint-Michel, basically a giant Cowtown/yard sale/carnival. This was the 199th year that they’ve done it, and supposedly there are more than 650 stalls that bring in more than 80,000 people. There were a lot of different rides and carnival style games (unfortunately most of them catered to little kids) and pretty much anything you could ever think of was on sale somewhere: from jackets and boots to fireplaces, sausages and cars. Today was the yard sale part of the weekend and I spent a good part of the day with Sylviane, Jean-François and their neighbors. I met the most awesome old French man, Tony, le corse. He not only makes his own sausage from Corsican pigs (which I was told are different from regular pigs because they are black and more delicious), but also makes his own wine, three kinds of which I was lucky enough to sample. If he was selling it I would have paid 30€ for his vin de noix in a heartbeat, mais alors he only brought one bottle with him and we drank it all. I was also treated to some other specialties from Normandie including two kinds of pâté, one made from duck, the other pork, pork with a mustard mayonnaise, and several “cakes” with a variety of meats, cheeses and vegetables baked into them. And of course, there was fromage. Sylviane wasn’t sure if I would like the one since it was strong, but it was delicious and she commented, “Oh! An American with taste!”
At the foire, people make a killing it seems selling all of their stuff. Last year Tony made over 500€ and this year Sylviane and Jean-François made more than 150€ in about four hours. Unfortunately, the party got cut short as it started to rain. I helped everyone pack up, performed the necessary bisous and headed out to do one final tour.
Tomorrow is orientation in Rouen, where all the assistants in the académie will come together for a giant meeting. Tuesday I'll start my week or two of observing classes and before I know it it'll be the Vacances de la Toussaint. C'est la vie, hein?
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