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25 October, 2000
Lord, there's a lot to write. We keep meaning to update this page, but then it keeps being just one thing too much at the end of the day. I also want to say that please, if our French friends are reading this, realize that it is only meant to be a record of what things have made an impression on us. We have moved to a new country knowing nothing about it, and we picked one of the most congested places to move to. I'm sure that many of our experiences are a reflection of our own limited background. Anyway, onward and upward. I have discovered that irony will not make life here (or anywhere) any more bearable, and after this sentence I shall abandon it as much as possible. I expect that it will make these pages a little less entertaining, but perhaps more worthwhile overall. Technical Support The keyboard on my PowerBook stopped working. When I took it to the local Mac dealer for repairs, I was told that it was too difficult to tell what was wrong with it. They needed to send it to a specialist for two weeks. I can't do that because I need it every day to work on. I asked where the specialist was, and was told Le Cannet, a part of Cannes. I thought perhaps that it would be possible to take it to the specialist when he actually needed to look at it, reasoning that he would probably only spend a couple of hours at most. I was told that it was not possible, because of the protocol. The specialist is available only through Macintosh dealers, and not to lay people. This exchange has made me nervous, because from a business point of view, it's as if there are no ambulances and no emergency medical care. I am contemplating buying a secondhand computer to have on hand in case sometime I really do have to send my powerbook to a specialist. We have been told by several people that in France, you will not be offered something unless you ask for it. This has been proven true. However, I discovered a useful question to ask here whenever I am stuck: "What would you do if you were me?" The man in the Mac store said he would order a new keyboard, and hope that that is the problem. So, I have done that. Now my regular keyboard seems to be working, but a new one is on the way just in case. Learning to Flow I have had an interesting time here in that it is really easy to get stuck. Today, I needed to order the keyboard for my computer. I was to order it from a French company in Paris. By a stroke of luck, they had an American keyboard in stock. However, they would not accept an American credit card, because their bank had advised them not to. So, I had to go to the bank to withdraw some cash from an ATM, deposit it in my French account, and find out how long before it would be available to my French bank card. I left the house and drove to downtown La Bocca to do this. I began the trip by being almost hit, head-on, by a woman coming around an underpass, at a fairly slow speed. I honked, and she stopped. Then, I got to the bank and realized that I'd forgotten my checkbook. So I drove home, got it, and drove back to the bank. Then, there were several people in line to use the ATM, and the bank turned out to be closed for repairs. I waited, got the money, and drove to the main branch in downtown Cannes. This story is taking too long, but it really captures the feeling of my day. Downtown, I somehow didn't see the bank, and walked about 20 blocks out of my way. Finally I got to the bank, deposited the money, and was told that it would be available Toot Sweet, or right away. I went home, and called up the company in Paris. I asked to speak to the man I'd spoken to yesterday, who spoke perfect English. They had never heard of him, but they did think they could get a keyboard for me. I went ahead and ordered it. Now, my old keyboard has started to work. So: what I am getting around to saying is that you really have to stay in tune with what is happening here. If you do what's right, in your bones, things go really smoothly. Buying the car was an example, and registering it. There were no hitches at all, and I didn't worry. But if I start worrying, and not listening to my instincts, things go haywire really fast, like today. It's been a great growth experience in that respect, because I find that more and more I am really able to go with the flow and not worry about things. The universe will provide. La Police We were told an interesting story by a Texan who lives nearby. Apparently some thieves broke into a neighbor's house. They called the police, and the police told them that they would come later, after they were sure the thieves had left. Apparently the police wish to avoid conflict. This helps explain the way that people drive here. In fairness, we were told that the paramedics are truly excellent. Where to Live Our biggest concern since we arrived has been where we are going to live. We've visited almost every village on the Cote d'Azur, from Eze to St. Tropez. At first we thought we'd live in Antibes, but it is really too congested and polluted. The whole part of the coast from Cannes to Italy has a lot of air pollution, and is extremely built up and congested-feeling. Then, we settled on St. Tropez. It's a beautiful town, in a beautiful location. It's surrounded by miles of hills and forests, and has a beautiful rocky coastline nearby. It has an artistic community as well. However, it is famous for being crazy in the summer, and it can take two hours just to drive to a town that is ten minutes away in the winter. It is also far from the highway, so during the summer it would be really difficult to go anywhere, and impossible just to get around town. Finally, we've settled on St. Raphael. It's a smallish but beautiful town south of Cannes, on the other side of beautiful rocks and national forest. It is much cleaner than Cannes, and much less busy. In general, we really liked it there. Part of the point of this trip was to find the best place we could possibly live. We haven't done that yet, but St. Raphael seems like a good place to start from. Fred, from In-Cannes.com, has been helping us with real estate agents. It may be difficult to find a good residence at first, but there are many empty vacation places that we can rent temporarily. High Speed Internet Access When I signed up for internet access with France Telecom, they offered me a choice between 64k and 128k access. I chose 128k, because I use the internet all day long in work, and it's easily worth the extra fees. When I set up the modem, I could not get it to work at 128k. For the first month, I had so much on my mind that I didn't worry about it. Last week I got around to dealing with it. I called France Telecom technical support, and was told that they don't actually offer 128k internet access. They offer a modem which is capable of it, but no actual service at that speed. Modem Erection Now that our American phone service works, our French service failed. Whenever I was using the internet, callers would get a busy signal. We have three lines, so there should be no problem. Fred called France Telecom on our behalf, and they came out to fix the problem. After an hour and a half of various testing, they decided that the problem was with the modem configuration. The FT man called the modem company and got a woman who was very delightful but spoke very poor English. After walking me through the setup process, she asked me to log on and see if my modem had an erection. I asked her to please repeat what she's said, and she said again: "does your modem have an erection?" I started to laugh, and then I realized that she was saying "Does you modem have any reaction", but blending the e and the a. It turned out that the problem was that I need to drop the leading zero of my phone number when I tell the modem what it is. However, in the instructions, the sample number begins with a zero, so this was not apparent. Gia Eats Friend Yves Today in class, I (Gia) was learning the past tense. My teacher asked me in French (we're allowed no English whatsoever, and in fact many of the students do not speak it anyway) what I did yesterday afternoon. I responded that I met with my exchange langue (ayshonje long) from one to three o'clock. She then asked me if I had lunch with him, to continue practicing the past tense. I responded that I ate him for lunch! A simple grammatical mistake that caused me much embarrassment. I "exchange tongues" with Yves for about 8 hours a week. Half the time we speak in English, and half French. He is a native French person, who lives by investing through the internet. He works from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. each evening, to be connected during New York and Japanese hours. Yves has also made a couple of amusing grammatical faux pas. He offered me a piece of candy and asked me if I'd like a sweetie. On another occasion, he told me he has a friend who's an anesthesiologist, who sleeps people. Television Tax Yesterday I was working when the door buzzer rang. I went to the little phone-thing and said "J'arrive", or I'm coming. The person on the other end said something urgent, but it was muffled and I couldn't understand. I went downstairs and there was a man with a clipboard and his identity papers. I assumed that he was collecting signatures for a petition, because of the clipboard. After talking to him for a while, in French, I gathered that he had something to do with Television Tax, and I thought that he was trying to get a tax abolished that was affecting his livelihood. I offered to sign his clipboard, but he didn't want that. Finally after a lot of back and forth, I realized the truth. He was trying to collect the television tax. Each year, if you own a TV, you must pay about $130 in tax, to the state. If it's only black and white, you save about a third. It helps pay for public television stations. The collector was an inspector to make sure that I didn't have an illegal television set. I just referred him to the landlady. I hadn't realized that there were still tax collectors in the world. Speaking French Both of us are getting much better in French. I (Gia) am taking class every day for three hours and exchanging tongues for a couple more hours. I (Andrew) am dealing with enough different professional people that I now feel competent to solve most problems in French, IF I am talking to a patient French person. It's a nice feeling to know that we are beginning to be able to take care of ourselves. Shopping Carts, Toilets & Pay Phones Here, you need to deposit 10 francs ($1.50) to have a shopping cart. You get it back when you return the cart. You need to pay 2 francs (30 cents) to use a public toilet. You need to have a phone card to use a pay phone; they don't accept money. Residence Papers At this point, we have two big things on our mind: finding a place to live, and getting permanent residence papers. Of course, we looked into what we need for residence papers before we came, but now that we are here, we find out that it is more complicated than we thought. Apparently, they would like it if we had $20,000 in the bank to prove that we are not planning to depend on French welfare. Mirror Pool We toyed briefly with the idea of starting a "Mirror Pool", in which people who read this page would bet on how long the side mirrors on our car would last. Any proceeds would go to buying new mirrors. Finally, it seemed like more trouble than it is worth. Fires There are two things which are common here which dramatically affect the quality of life of everyone. Both of them are incomprehensible to us. The first one is that everywhere there are two-stroke scooters and dirt-bikes which have very poor mufflers. Apparently, they are unregulated as far as the noise they can make, and they are audible for many blocks. There are many of them. The other thing is that people burn trash. Not many people do this, but on a half-hour trip, say, you might pass five fires. The smoke from these fires is almost constantly coloring the air here. Some days it actually darkens the sky, and some days it's not as obvious. Frequently you can smell smoke in the air. The overall level of air pollution is terrible, and these fires exacerbate the situation. It passes comprehension why they are still allowed in an already polluted area. Wine You can buy a decent bottle of wine for about $1.50 in the supermarket. This is normal, not exceptional. Pens Waitresses here consider it normal to store pens in their cleavage. What's on Television Here, they show things on TV, during early evening hours, that would result in a jail term in the U.S. They had a man, lying on his side, who had painted his butt like a face, covered the rest of his body in black, and lip-synched (cheek synched) to Bohemian Rhapsody. It was pretty repulsive. They had a gameshow which featured naked people running through a fluorescent blue dungeon. However, sex on TV doesn't have the feeling here that it does in the U.S. It just feels like sometimes they have it, sometimes they don't, and that it's no big deal. In a car ad from Peugeot, they have about twenty little baby boys, baby penises dangling, swimming around the car. I betray my provincial background by being fascinated with this stuff. Our belongings We received a call from the shipper in England, saying that our things had arrived there on September but that they were missing the customs paperwork. Could we please fax the forms they'd send us? They did, and we did, which took two weeks, and then they called and said could we please send the forms, as the customs office doesn't accept faxes. We did that, and now we are project to have our belongings as soon as they have a truck coming here. They have no idea when that will be. My (Andrew's) dream is that it will come the day after we move in December, and we won't have to move it ourselves. The drawback to this scenario is that my tax returns are in there, and that's the only way I can prove that I make enough money to get residence papers. On December 2nd, when we move, we will have been here 3 months and will no longer be legal tourists. End on a Positive Note Finally, although it is easy to remember all the wacky things that have happened when we do these pages, we are really beginning to be more comfortable and connected here. We are beginning to make friends and learn our way about. Some of the countryside is really beautiful, and we are excited to find a place in St. Raphael. I (Andrew) had two days to spend in Grasse while the car was being repaired, and I had a lot of fun just wandering around. I realized that I haven't really had time to just settle in here. So much of our time has felt like free fall and emergency repairs. We really look forward to having a chance to just live here. If you'd like to be notified when we update this page, e-mail us and we'll add you to the list.