French Holidays (Part II)

While the lights and decorations in Paris at Christmas were lovely, I would be remiss if that were all I shared with you about my first holiday season in France.  So here is a little more about my first French Christmas…

Coming from a very large and very tight-knit family, I was a bit nervous that celebrating Christmas away from them for the first time would make me very homesick.  In Syracuse, we always celebrate with extended family and I’ve always really enjoyed the holiday traditions.  Would the holiday be the same without them?  Would it feel like Christmas?

I guess love of a close-knit family is a commonality that brought Paul and I together, because Christmas with his family was very similar to Christmas with mine.  If I had to sum it up in two words, I submit two possibilities.  “Family and Food,” or “Cousins and Cuisine.”  Since there were a lot of aunts and uncles around, I think I will go with the first to be inclusive.  Either way, I was so pleased to find myself surrounded by a big group of people who loved each other and were excited to be together for the holiday.  Everyone made a lot of noise and had a lot of fun!

So, to get more specific, there were about 22 of us all together for Christmas Eve dinner, which was hosted by Paul’s maternal grandmother.  We put together one looong table in the middle of the living room where everyone sat together, roughly grouped together by age.  (As one of the younger cousins in my family, it was REALLY cool to be counted in with the adults.  All younger cousins should try this at least once!).  And, as you may have guessed by my two submitted phrases, there was a lot of food to be had. 

For Christmas Eve, we enjoyed foie gras and champagne before/while we opened Christmas presents.  (I’m told presents are usually opened on the 25^th, but more cousins were present on the 24^th this year, which explains the switch-up).  This was quite the experience.  In the Italian side of my family, the custom is generally to have one representative from each family hand out the presents to all the other cousins.  From there, we hang onto them all for a couple minutes while everyone gets settled, then we watch each other open them/open them together, trying to see what everyone gets while you open your own.  It eventually descends into chaos, but it’s usually orderly when we begin.

Well, I learned that in France there is not generally a “From” tag.  Also, all the presents are placed under the tree earlier in the day as people arrive.  When we get the go-ahead to open them, you either scurry toward the tree to help distribute presents or hang back (as I did, as a nervous newbie) and in a flurry of activity you end up with presents in your hand.  Everyone opens the presents as they receive them, still in the midst of the finding/distributing stage.  As is universally true of opening presents, this is lots of fun.  However, it is slightly confusing because unless someone makes a comment when you open a present, you have no idea who gave you what.  I kind of hung around the living room for a few extra minutes to chat with the Aunts (the presumed shoppers) to find out who gave which presents!  In short, it’s a lot of fun and there is a lot of excitement and energy in the atmosphere. 

After opening presents we ate dinner, as I mentioned before, at a long banquet table in the living room. Dinner itself was lovely.  It was a traditional French meal, orange duck, or canard a l’orange.  We sang Christmas carols at the table, and each attendant from another country (Along with the French, there was also a cousin from Columbia, a fiancé from Australia, and me) sang one of his or her traditional numbers.  Luckily, we all picked familiar ones and the whole group joined in, so nobody really had to sing alone.  It was really cool to hear different traditional songs and familiar songs in a couple languages.  After cleaning up from dinner we had an impromptu dance party (which I’m told is not traditional) that was captured on video camera before everyone headed off to bed.

Christmas day was also cool.  A few of us went to Christmas mass at the Royal Chapel. The Countess of Paris was there (apparently she would be an heir to the French throne if they opted to bring back the monarchy) so the mass was very formal and included a lot of Latin.  It was also very long.  We ducked out after Communion, at which point mass had lasted one hour and 25 minutes.  The chapel was absolutely beautiful, situated at the top of a hill so it received a lot of light that poured in through the stained glass windows and illuminated all the marble and artwork in the chapel itself.  However, being a bit older, there is no heating system in the building.  We were a little chilly (okay, we were freezing) so I absolutely recommend paying a visit to this chapel… during the summer.  I’m looking forward to going back to check it out when things warm up!

We shared the main meal on Christmas Day with the other half of Paul’s family.  His paternal Grandmother hosted her children and grandchildren for lunch.  We had some more foie gras and champagne (I really like foie gras and champagne. Vive les French holidays!), followed by some delicious roast beef and, of course, the cheese course and dessert.  And then the food coma.  Naturally.  This was a more intimate gathering of about 11 people, so it was slightly less boisterous than Christmas Eve, but just as warm and welcoming as the festivities the evening before.

In order to celebrate Christmas with Paul’s great aunt, we actually had ANOTHER Christmas dinner on December 26^th in Paris.  It was a marathon holiday and I liked it.  We enjoyed the same general atmosphere – lots of people (though the younger cousins were sent to McDonalds because Parisian apartments aren’t quite big enough for whole-family dinners), lots of food, and a really lovely time.  I think the adult cuisine was remarkable, though, so will give a brief run-down of the menu.  We enjoyed chevreuil, which is a type of dear that doesn’t exist in the US, and cepes, a type of mushroom that Paul’s grandparents hunted earlier in the fall and saved for the special occasion.  We also had a buche for dessert, which literally translates to “log.”  It’s a type of cake in the shape of a log and is only available around Christmas.

So that is the gist of my first Christmas in France.  I still got a little homesick when I called my parents, but I really felt like a part of the family and a part of the celebration.  And while I missed my own traditions, it was really special to witness and participate in someone else’s.  In the end, it made me feel truly blessed to be a part of two families.   

French Holidays (Part I)

Well, I survived my first Christmas season far away from home, and I have to say that despite really missing my family and all of our holiday traditions, it was wonderful.  Even though the weather was unseasonably warm (and therefore lacking in the beautiful sparkly snow department), Paris is really lovely at Christmas.  Every neighborhood, brasserie, and boulangerie gets into the act with holiday decorations and lights.

Some of the most notable Christmas decorations were at the grands magasins, Printemps and Galeries Lafayette, in downtown Paris. Though I've never been in the big city around the holidays to witness it, I think this is the Paris equivalent of the Macy's holiday windows in NYC.  We first went to check it out on a Saturday evening at around 6:30 which was... a HUGE mistake!  As we probably should have predicted, the place was packed with families and kids and Christmas shoppers trying to get a look at the windows.  I think we gave up on the last few displays just because the place was so crowded.  Paul took this opportunity, though, to bring me to the rooftop cafe at Printemps were we had a gorgeous view of Paris.  The city was all lit up with regular lights, Christmas lights, and the Christmas Ferris Wheel at Concorde.  It's fun to get tours from real-life Parisians.  :)  

Getting back to the window displays, we happened to be in the neighborhood a few days later and really lucked out.   It was 10:00pm on a Wednesday, so the sidewalk was almost completely empty and we had a perfect view of all the windows.   Here are some of our pictures...

The awnings over the sidewalks were covered with lights that somehow made it look as if it were snowing (I think there were flashing LED lights mixed in among the regular gold lights).

The displays at Printemps were created/sponsored by Dior.  There were at least 4-5 different scenes (that moved) with these lovely ladies in pink and red dresses.  I believe the ladies in the picture above were ice skating with hot air balloons and the ladies in the picture below were at the amusement park in their best ball gowns.  

The Printemps advertisements around the city were also featuring one woman in a pink dress and one woman in a red dress during December... so once you had seen the window displays, every ad made you smile at the memory of the fanciful scenes.  The scene pictured below featured what looks like a holiday ball. 

As you can tell from the superbly fashionable Polar Bear's bag, the Galeries Lafayette windows were designed by Louis Vuiton.

The penguins were also styling....

Both of the grands magasins had little walkways right in front of the windows to give little kids the opportunity to get up close and see everything.  And on the sidewalks of this area there were about a dozen different guys selling roasted chestnuts out of wire grocery carts.  (They seemed to disappear quickly when the police came around, but the chestnuts smelled delicious).  

Although they weren't as intricate as the grands magasins, even just the local "places" and neighborhood main roads in certain neighborhoods were decorated.  The city in general had some extra sparkle, which definitely helps the Christmas spirit.  This is in front of the Pantheon... it was like walking through a little Christmas forest in the middle of the city.

Well, I have lots more to say about Christmas in France (ummm the food?  So much to say about how awesome that was) but I hope you enjoy all of these pictures for now.  More to come about the holidays later. 

And of course, a belated Joyeux Noel!

French Lessons

Greetings, and my apologies for the long hiatus!  The past several weeks have been chocked full of visitors, three out-of-Paris excursions, and our continued efforts to settle into our apartment, just to name a few things.  As usual, it has been a whirlwind, but a lovely one.

The main thing to which I’ve been dedicating my time lately is a French class at La Sorbonne. I’m very proud to say it is an intermediate French class (that’s right… no beginner French for this girl!).  It is also an intensive class, though I’m not sure why they don’t just call it intense!  It’s three hours of grammar every day followed by one hour of a phonetics lab.  Between the class itself and the studying/homework, it has been a lot to handle.  However, it has helped immensely.  I’m learning new words, verb tenses, and (of course!) agreement rules every week.  Taking this class has made it much easier to communicate with people who do not speak English and given me a much greater appreciation of all the gender-neutral nouns and adjectives in English!  Paul and I are even trying to speak French to each other at home, though I think our record is only two hours without slipping into English, if that.

The class itself is very interesting.  There are about twenty students of all ages coming from all over the world.  We’ve got a few Americans (North and South), Europeans, Asians, and even one girl from Australia.  The age range is fairly wide as well, including some people who have just finished high school.  In fact, one of the American students was explaining to me how excited he is to be allowed in bars here!  (Sigh… that made me realize I’m a decade older than some classmates.  Wow).  A few other students are retired or nearing the end of their careers, and simply wanted the opportunity to live in France and learn a beautiful language.  I’m humbled by the fact that for most of the non-US citizens, French is their third language.  I can speak to almost anyone in the class in English without a problem.  Unfortunately, I discovered that learning French has overrun the part of my brain where I used to keep my Spanish and Italian skills.  I tried to speak to one of the girls from Columbia in Spanish and ended up saying, “Yo parlo español.”  Yikes.  Last weekend I did manage to speak one sentence of coherent Italian, though.  Maybe the wine I had been drinking awakened the Italian in me? 

Another fun fact about my French class:  It’s taught in French.  I thought perhaps that’s because we’re an intermediate class, and therefore very advanced learners (okay no, I guess those would be the people in advanced French), but I later learned that even beginner French classes are taught in French at La Sorbonne.  So… they teach you the language you don’t know in the language you don’t know.  I have to say that there have been quite a few instances, especially at the beginning of the course, when I really had no idea what the professor was talking about.  I’m happy to say those instances are few and far between now, but it definitely still happens. 

I’m not sure if I’m holding back my own progress (I hope not!), but after four hours of class in a different language, I sometimes return home desperately wanting English music, prose, TV… or sometimes wanting no words at all!  It’s daunting to consider my goal, which is to be completely bilingual, so I can live and work here as comfortably as I did in the States.  I know it’s a long shot… I sometimes imagine all those words in the English dictionary that I don’t know… and then I imagine the French dictionary right next to it.  Oy. 

Moral of the story here:  Find a native speaker and have them teach your toddlers another language – it will be way easier for them when they’re that young.  OR, give your own brain some exercise and learn a second language.  OR!!!  (This one is the greatest idea in my humble opinion) come to Paris to learn French and hang out with me! :)

Just as a side note – the tiny little pine tree I mentioned in my last post has been planted in our courtyard and is actually doing really well!  It’s grown and spread out its branches!  I can’t say that the French Oak is doing quite as well, but hey… it was supposed to lose its leaves around this time of the year anyways, right?

Champignons and Groceries

One of the most remarkable (and perhaps predictable?) things I've noticed since living in Paris is how different the basic activity of procuring food is in France versus the U.S.  Parisians seem to go every day to the boulangerie for their daily baguette, which lasts only one, maybe two days before it is hard as a rock.  We cross the street to the small shop when we want any charcuterie or cheese (It's so good from this one shop.  Really).  Essentially, if you want something, it's pretty typical to buy it from a shop that specializes in that one thing.  Not a bad strategy if you want quality food, but certainly different from what is typical in the U.S. these days.  Essentially, I guess, the French don't seem to mind going out of their way a little to find really good food.  If eating well is an art form, then seeking out the best foodstuffs is just part of the fun, right?

Last weekend we visited my husband's grandparents outside of Dreux, and I learned another part of this art.  We went mushroom hunting!  Now, please comment and correct me if I'm wrong, but my experience is that the attitude toward wild mushrooms in the U.S. is widely hands-off.  As in, "Sure!  You should go pick mushrooms and eat them if you feel like poisoning yourself this afternoon."  I don't mean to say that you can pick up any old mushroom in the woods and eat it in France.  Far from it.  But Paul's grandparents knew exactly which mushrooms we could eat, where we could find them, and under what weather conditions we should search for them.  Judging by the other cars parked near ours, other people knew these things, too.

Initially, we didn't find much and it seemed that our search for mushrooms was going to be just a nice walk in the rain.  But, after some searching, we finally found a few that fit the bill.  It's hard to see them, as their colors blend in with the forrest floor.  

We also had to compete with other mushroom hunters.  For example, the first mushroom we found was already being enjoyed by a snail.  (Poor snail... Paul shook him off the mushroom and he was then forced to find something else for lunch.  Terrible luck).  We also found some mushrooms resembling those typical of Disney movies, with big red tops and white polka dots.  Word to the wise: Don't eat those ones.  They're very poisonous and called "Fly Killers" or something along those lines in French.  What was Disney teaching us??

Eventually we found 2-3 types of mushrooms, just enough to make a side dish for a two-person dinner.  I learned that the best time to hunt mushrooms is from early September until mid-October or around July 14th.  It's best to look for them after it's been raining for a day or two, but has been sunny during the morning.  They grow in just a few hours.  Hopefully we can go again this fall or next summer and hone our skills some more.  Here are the spoils of our excursion:

We also brought home a tiny pine tree and a tiny oak tree to plant in our little courtyard.  (Really tiny... maybe about six inches tall each).  All in all, it was a lovely and productive morning.  

If going all the way to the woods to search for mushrooms is one end of the Find Food Spectrum in France, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that there are, of course, grocery stores here.  Now, I will be the first to admit that my assessments of grocery stores are almost always biased because I grew up so close to Wegmans.  (Wegmans is perfect.  Grocery stores don't get any better.  You can ask Mrs. Baldwin).  However, the Monoprixs here are pretty good, though they take a little getting used to.

For example: When I first walked into the Monoprix near us, I went up the escalator.  It's right in front of the door, so this seemed like the logical traffic flow.  At the top of the escalator I was rather surprised to find clothes.  The women's accessories department was right in front of me.  "Why yes, I think that scarf would go fabulously with our minestrone soup tonight. Thank you!"  Some more exploration showed me that it was a mini department store up there, and that all the soaps, body washes, and shave gel-type products could be found upstairs, with separate cashiers, rather than downstairs with all the food.  

I thought it best to quickly exit this zone of temptation (I love shopping) and head back down the escalator, where I found what looked to be a more typical grocery store section.  Most things were the same as in the U.S., with a few exceptions.  For example, there is an employee who weighs your items in the produce section and labels them for you.  I wonder if they don't think the customers can figure out how to use the scales or if they don't trust them to honestly weigh the products.  Ah well.  

I also find it remarkable that the milk is warm.  Yeah... it's kept over near the soda and juices.  Warm.  Apparently (according to Paul's explanation) the milk here is super boiled to sterilize it, so you can keep it in the pantry and only need to refrigerate it after you've opened it.  While it seems strange to me, it's also highly convenient.  We can stock up with about 6 cartons of milk and not have to worry about running out for a while.  I wonder why this hasn't caught on in the U.S... we seem to be okay with tinkering with food products in order to give them a longer shelf life.  Maybe a strong dairy farmer's lobby?  I can't really say if the taste is different.  I had been drinking skim in the U.S., and the milk we've found here has fat in it... so it tastes amaaazing.  

One other fun thing:  You can buy hard liquor in the grocery store.  Like, bottles of vodka and gin, not to mention the beer and wine that is available.  For those readers who are French, this is very different from the U.S.  Depending on in which state you live, the alcohol regulations differ.  In New York, you can buy beer at the grocery store, but not wine or liquor.  In Virginia you can buy beer and wine, but not liquor.  In Pennsylvania, you can't buy any alcohol at all.  You must go to special alcohol stores for that.  But I have never found an American grocery store that sells hard liquor.  I wonder what the U.S. would be like had prohibition never occurred.  Regardless, this didn't have a big effect on my grocery purchase, but I did stop and gape a little bit.  

So there you have it.  You can go hunt your own mushrooms in France, or you can pick up your groceries in a big box store with your new jeans and bottle of Jack if you feel like it.  Something for everyone....

à bientôt

Second Installment: Lille

My how the time flies!  I've been in France for almost two weeks, and this past week has been pretty busy!  We went on our first excursion outside of Paris, had our first house guests, and are making some serious progress on the apartment!  Not bad for 7 days' work...

Since my husband and I had been on opposite sides of the Atlantic for two months prior to my arrival here, we thought it would be a nice idea to spend our first weekend together away from the cares and worries of everyday real life.  (The French seem to call this a "week-end en amoureux," which I think translates to a "Lover's weekend."  Ooh la la!)   

At the suggestion Paul's friend, we went to a city called Lille, which is close to the France-Belgium border.  It was absolutely lovely.  We only spent one night there, but walked around the main squares, did some window-shopping, and walked around what's called the Citadel (below).  The Citadel was a military fortress built around 1670 under Louis XIV by an architect named Vauban.  (Paul tells me he is really famous... note to self: learn about Vauban).  However, I found the structure's shape to be of particular interest.  It's a pentagon.  It's a bit pointier than the pentagon with which we Americans are familiar, as its corners are emphasized with what look like little tower buildings, but it's definitely a pentagon.  It's a tiny bit humbling to realize that something most Americans think of as completely All-American existed somewhere else before our country was even founded.  Though after having lived near the US Pentagon for five years, I have to add that the Americans kind of took it to the next level, size-wise.  Did you know the Pentagon is the largest office building in the world?  I guess a few hundred years worth of technological advances will give you an advantage....

One last note about Lille: The food was amazing.  Paul and I had dinner at a restaurant recommended by the staff at our hotel, and we were not sorry.  The name of the place escapes me, but everything about the meal was excellent.  The meat was tender, the sauces were delicious, and the dessert was creative (it included basil sorbet!) and to die for.  And a big note to all those who would like to visit France and enjoy some of its best food: Paul's review of the restaurant was that it was amazing and we wouldn't have been able to afford a meal as good in Paris.  This might make an out-of-Paris detour worth it to any traveling foodies.  Just some food for thought... (ha, get it?)

Aside from our excursion, the week was great.  We finally made it to a REAL Ikea and subsequently have more shelves and order in the apartment.  We hosted a former colleague of mine and his wife for two nights, which was a lot of fun.  Paul played tour guide for us on Tuesday, and it was as much a tour of Paris for me as it was for our guests.  (I was trying out the panoramic function on my camera at the Jardin du Luxembourg, below.  Clearly, I still need to work on it!)  Our guests also left us with a book, Paris: Free & Dirt Cheap, which is pretty great.  We were able to find restaurants in the typical tourist trap areas that were good an relatively inexpensive.  Thank you, Son of Wat!

Now back to that whole organizing the apartment thing....

à bientôt!

Intro/Adventures in Parisian Apartments

I'm not an extraterrestrial, but I think I may feel like that occasionally in the years to come.  My name's Ellen.  I'm an American who recently married a Frenchman and moved with him to Paris.  Before this summer, my initials were EM, but on July 20th, I became ET.  

So yes, ET has landed in Paris.  Did I mention ET doesn't speak French?

These are snippets of my new Parisian adventures... they may only be interesting to me, my friends, and family... but hey.  Who knows?  Maybe they'll shed some light on life in Paris for another soul who finds herself here and could use the insight.

First adventure: Moving into a Parisian apartment.  

This may not sound like much, but it's come with some surprises for my American self.  For example, when you lease an apartment here, they sometimes come with unequipped kitchens.  That is, the kitchen came with a sink and a counter.  No cupboards, fridge, oven, or stove.  To a Parisian, this is no surprise.  But to me... what the whaaa?  

By the time I arrived, my husband had acquired a fridge, and we went to Darty the next day to purchase a stove (which arrived yesterday.  Yay!).  The next step was cupboards.  Before we went to Conforama (an Ikea-type place), we measured all our spaces and tried to size up what we need.  But of course... there are things we didn't know, measurements we didn't quite have, and we were unable to procure said cupboards on the first try.  (I like Ikea better than Conforama.  This may not be a fair assessment, and may simply be an emotional pull toward the familiar, but I'm sticking to it!)

One of the few things we DID acquire at Conforama was a cabinet to go over our toilet.  Ah yes... did I mention that apartment bathrooms here are sometimes divided into two separate rooms?  The room with the toilet is called the "Water Closet," and it feels, well.... like a closet.  The sink and shower are in another room.  The cabinet we purchased is an attempt to gain some storage space and make it feel more like a room in there and less like a closet.  But let me get to the amusing part... When my husband asked if he would be able to carry the cabinet home with us (we have to put it together), the sales associate kind of smirked, but said yes.  (At least from what I gather).  Well... turns out it was bigger than we expected.  

This is Paul standing on the "New Bridge," (Don't let the "new" fool you... Wikipedia tells me construction was finished in 1607) with our cabinet.  We carried that 1 km.  Luckily it wasn't rush hour on the metro, and a very nice lady offered to help us get it through the turnstile.  By the time we made it home, the plastic had almost completely ripped and I had snagged the screws/small pieces and put them in my purse.  However, we made it all the way home with the cabinet intact and no missing pieces!  Next stop: construction.

Speaking of construction, it would probably be good if I stopped blogging about settling an apartment in Paris and actually, ya know, continued to unpack.  Details...

Moral of the story:
Beware unequipped kitchens, water closets, and smirking sales associates who tell you it's possible to carry an item home... 

à bientôt