Spending an election year abroad is a strange thing. What’s even stranger is coming back two weeks before the election, essentially diving right into the fray.
On the surface, my world isn’t much different. Much like in San Francisco, Obama is the Complete Rock Star in Europe, bigger than Michael Jackson, bigger than the Beatles, bigger than (dare I say it) Jesus. You’ve seen the pictures of the enormous crowd attending Obama’s speech in Berlin. Perhaps you’ve seen the Economist’s global electoral map—if only the world could vote! To the French, Obama truly symbolizes hope. Many people confessed that for France’s foreseeable future, there’s no way a black man could make it so far in politics. Although the French have conflicted feelings about the American Dream, they can at least cut past their suspicion of capitalism to acknowledge that America truly is the Land of Possibility, in ways that reach far beyond the marketplace.
Bolstering the French fervor over Obama was the relative lack of knowledge of his opponent. “McCain who?” was rolling off every Parisian’s lips—including the media’s. I spent countless hours elaborating on the GOP hopeful to my English students, dispelling the overgeneralization that he's GWB #2 and arguing that although he wouldn’t be getting my vote, he wasn’t all that bad (well, that was until he announced his unfortunate choice of a running mate, the economy imploded, and the McCain campaign went haywire).
I talked about the election constantly—on a daily basis, in fact—with my students and with French and expat friends. I obsessed over the news coverage, my anxiety building. It wasn’t as bad as Larry David’s, but at one point my husband asked me to stop talking about the election with him, as his vote was already decided and my constant chatter was stressing him the hell out. What would happen to our collective anxiety once we moved back to the States in late October?
Well, here we now are, in one of the liberal, elite capitals of America—not “real America,” in the eyes of a certain Veep candidate—and the Obamania is palpable. SF is plastered in Obama posters and it all amounts to preaching to the converted, but it also gets one’s spirits up. I realized the other day that I don’t think I’ve seen a McCain sticker, poster, T-shirt, anything—ever. If I lived in a battleground state, the Obama button I’m sporting on my purse would make more of a statement, but I might be subject to vandalism a la Peter Frampton, or worse—fall victim to a faux robbery attempt. (This election keeps getting weirder and weirder.)
I’m one of those Dems who refuses to give into the power of positive thinking, buoyed as it may be by the imperfect science of pollsters. There’s too much at stake to rest on those laurels. While all the Tina Fey-induced catharsis has helped, the anxiety has definitely been increasing. It’s seeping into my dreams. So I decided to do something, given that I have more free time on my hands: I’m volunteering for the campaign, spending hours at the phone bank.
During the shifts I’ve worked, the volunteers were given the softball assignments of calling people in SF who expressed interest in volunteering for the campaign, and of calling absentee-ballot voters in OH who already pledged support for Obama (“Don’t forget to mail your ballot today!”). No arguing with angry Republicans, no strained conversations with those who believe Barack is a terrorist, no waxing poetic to the undecideds. And though it’s been like shooting fish in a barrel, the experience has provided me with moments—just a handful of small moments—that make me so glad to be back in America during these last crucial days:
- The 84-year-old man who adorably responded, “My, yes, dearie” when I asked him if he’d already sent off his ballot, and followed it with, “If those two [McCain and Palin] make it into the White House, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
- The elderly woman who told me that her sister had never voted in her life and was now casting her first ever ballot.
- The man in San Francisco who was worried that because he wasn’t a citizen, he wouldn’t be able to help the campaign’s volunteer efforts. When I told him that anyone could help, he exclaimed enthusiastically, “Anything for Barack! Anything!”
- Looking around the phone bank, smiling at the people around me, and feeling inspired by the community rallying around this important common cause. I’m proud of all the passion this election has inspired and how it’s drawn out record numbers of voter registrations. Even if the election results are not the ones I personally want, and despite all the usual BS and newfound levels of crazy seen this year, I’m still heartened by the energy and interest in the political process this election has evoked.
My husband has long since abandoned his ostrich-like resistance to election chatter—it’s impossible to hide from it. And we’ll both be at the phone bank, quelling our anxiety in small bursts before the Big Day arrives.
30 October 2008
25 October 2008
Ode to Paname
I reconnected with an old friend in SF last night, and one of the first things she said to me was, “I read your blog for a couple months when you first started it, and I thought, ‘Jess is miserable there. All she does is complain about it.’ So I stopped reading it altogether.”
Huh. I wasn’t so much offended by her remark as I was taken aback. Really? Did I “French out” and shout my complaints from the blogosphere rooftops? Yeah, maybe a little, but not constantly and always with humor. However, as a stereotypical “positive American,” this post is my proof to the world that I do not use the blog as a vehicle to kvetch. Because, truly, doesn’t everyone want to hear you gush when you’re inevitably asked, “How’s Paris?” And so here it is, my light and fluffy treatise on the things I’ll miss the most about "Paname."
When my sister visited during our last week in Paris, I realized that every time I uttered the phrase, “This is one of my favorite spots in the city,” I was standing in a garden or park. I’ve always been attracted to green spaces; part of the reason I love SF so much is that it marries the urban and the natural so well. But Paris takes the art of landscaping to a whole new level. Whether the simple symmetry of the 18th century buildings, arcades, and rows of shady trees forming the perimeter of the Place des Vosges; the cheerful flowers at Parc Monceau and the Tuileries; the multi-faceted wonderland of the Jardins du Luxembourg; or the red ivy spilling down the old walls of the Carnavalet gardens, I ache for the rare and hence overwhelmingly delicious bursts of color on the Paris landscape, manicured to breathtaking effect.
I will also miss the art of la table. I appreciate how much energy the French put into food preparation and presentation—it all matters and therefore if it takes time, it’s worth it. I loved strolling down the streets of Paris and gazing into the vitrines to find the latest work of patisserie perfection. How does Pierre Hermé manage to get that syrupy dew drop to stay flawlessly posed in the edible rose petal topping his raspberry crème pastry? What’s in Michel Cluizel’s secret sauce that makes gold-dusted chocolate even possible?! You know, people would say when I first moved to Paris, “You must be indulging in pastry 24-7.” In fact, I didn’t indulge in eating the pastry regularly, but rather I indulged in eye candy on a daily basis. That’s one thing that is absent from daily life in America. We do have excellent food, but that level of French elegance is hardly part of la vie quotidienne.
Speaking of food, there’s nothing like walking past a boulangerie, just for the smell of the best bread in the world baking to golden completion. Even the best French-style bakery in the States doesn’t come close. I am also sad to have said goodbye to the good folks at Chez Omar, our local cous cous joint celebré. Not only did we love the food and worship at the feet of their harissa (the only surefire spicy food to be found in Paris), but the restaurant was also kind of our Cheers—they all knew us there and loved to joke around with us and call N ‘l’arab’ because of his part-Syrian heritage. It’s the kind of convivial relationship with local merchants that’s not guaranteed in Paris.
However, that’s not to say we only experienced it over cous cous. Our butchers were jolly and kind, our greengrocer sweet and thoughtful, but no one made me smile as much as my local pharmacist. “Heeeeeeeeh-lllllloooooooooooooo, Miz Jessica Mordo!” he exclaimed every time I walked in to refill my allergy med prescription, followed by him belting out a random show tune (occasionally with jazz hands). We established early on that I was an American who lived in SF and grew up in NYC, and that he was an extra-fabulous, rabid Broadway musical/New York/Castro District fan. We instantly got along. Plus he was the only other person in my neighborhood aside from me who felt no compunction about wearing gym-style clothes in public. Without fail, every time I went into his shop, he was wearing basketball shorts and a tight, white tank top. I think he just wanted to show off his buff physique.
And another thing I’ll ache for? In America, we are in the shallow end of the pool in terms of living history. Europe is the deep end of the ocean by comparison. I’ll miss turning a corner and discovering yet another Gothic church or 18th –century hôtel. My personal favorite is the Église de St-Germain, which was built in 586 A.D. (I mean, COME ON!) and now stands beside a Christian Dior boutique. (How’s that for incongruity?) I’ll truly miss walking (always walking! I’ll also miss living car-free) around the narrow, cobbled streets of the Marais and imagining the centuries’ worth of characters, plot arcs, and changes in setting over the course of l’histoire.
The hardest part of leaving any place, though, is not the sights and smells and random acquaintances, but the deeper relationships you created that make it home. I already miss my lovely French and expat friends and hope to lure them over for a SF visit sometime before we make it back to France—which hopefully won’t be for too, too long.
Huh. I wasn’t so much offended by her remark as I was taken aback. Really? Did I “French out” and shout my complaints from the blogosphere rooftops? Yeah, maybe a little, but not constantly and always with humor. However, as a stereotypical “positive American,” this post is my proof to the world that I do not use the blog as a vehicle to kvetch. Because, truly, doesn’t everyone want to hear you gush when you’re inevitably asked, “How’s Paris?” And so here it is, my light and fluffy treatise on the things I’ll miss the most about "Paname."
When my sister visited during our last week in Paris, I realized that every time I uttered the phrase, “This is one of my favorite spots in the city,” I was standing in a garden or park. I’ve always been attracted to green spaces; part of the reason I love SF so much is that it marries the urban and the natural so well. But Paris takes the art of landscaping to a whole new level. Whether the simple symmetry of the 18th century buildings, arcades, and rows of shady trees forming the perimeter of the Place des Vosges; the cheerful flowers at Parc Monceau and the Tuileries; the multi-faceted wonderland of the Jardins du Luxembourg; or the red ivy spilling down the old walls of the Carnavalet gardens, I ache for the rare and hence overwhelmingly delicious bursts of color on the Paris landscape, manicured to breathtaking effect.
I will also miss the art of la table. I appreciate how much energy the French put into food preparation and presentation—it all matters and therefore if it takes time, it’s worth it. I loved strolling down the streets of Paris and gazing into the vitrines to find the latest work of patisserie perfection. How does Pierre Hermé manage to get that syrupy dew drop to stay flawlessly posed in the edible rose petal topping his raspberry crème pastry? What’s in Michel Cluizel’s secret sauce that makes gold-dusted chocolate even possible?! You know, people would say when I first moved to Paris, “You must be indulging in pastry 24-7.” In fact, I didn’t indulge in eating the pastry regularly, but rather I indulged in eye candy on a daily basis. That’s one thing that is absent from daily life in America. We do have excellent food, but that level of French elegance is hardly part of la vie quotidienne.
Speaking of food, there’s nothing like walking past a boulangerie, just for the smell of the best bread in the world baking to golden completion. Even the best French-style bakery in the States doesn’t come close. I am also sad to have said goodbye to the good folks at Chez Omar, our local cous cous joint celebré. Not only did we love the food and worship at the feet of their harissa (the only surefire spicy food to be found in Paris), but the restaurant was also kind of our Cheers—they all knew us there and loved to joke around with us and call N ‘l’arab’ because of his part-Syrian heritage. It’s the kind of convivial relationship with local merchants that’s not guaranteed in Paris.
However, that’s not to say we only experienced it over cous cous. Our butchers were jolly and kind, our greengrocer sweet and thoughtful, but no one made me smile as much as my local pharmacist. “Heeeeeeeeh-lllllloooooooooooooo, Miz Jessica Mordo!” he exclaimed every time I walked in to refill my allergy med prescription, followed by him belting out a random show tune (occasionally with jazz hands). We established early on that I was an American who lived in SF and grew up in NYC, and that he was an extra-fabulous, rabid Broadway musical/New York/Castro District fan. We instantly got along. Plus he was the only other person in my neighborhood aside from me who felt no compunction about wearing gym-style clothes in public. Without fail, every time I went into his shop, he was wearing basketball shorts and a tight, white tank top. I think he just wanted to show off his buff physique.
And another thing I’ll ache for? In America, we are in the shallow end of the pool in terms of living history. Europe is the deep end of the ocean by comparison. I’ll miss turning a corner and discovering yet another Gothic church or 18th –century hôtel. My personal favorite is the Église de St-Germain, which was built in 586 A.D. (I mean, COME ON!) and now stands beside a Christian Dior boutique. (How’s that for incongruity?) I’ll truly miss walking (always walking! I’ll also miss living car-free) around the narrow, cobbled streets of the Marais and imagining the centuries’ worth of characters, plot arcs, and changes in setting over the course of l’histoire.
The hardest part of leaving any place, though, is not the sights and smells and random acquaintances, but the deeper relationships you created that make it home. I already miss my lovely French and expat friends and hope to lure them over for a SF visit sometime before we make it back to France—which hopefully won’t be for too, too long.
21 October 2008
Super Sized Shopping
Today I learned that I was out of the country long enough to have almost completely forgotten what the American supermarket experience is like. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t stepped foot inside a large supermarket in over a year; it’s just that it didn’t happen all too often in France, and there’s also truly nothing like an oversized, professionally merchandised American supermarket—so much so that I felt like an alien visiting Planet Earth for the first time.
I entered the surprisingly sparklingly renovated Safeway on Church and Market and immediately entered panic mode. The place felt cavernous, on a whole other scale than the cramped aisles of Parisian supermarkets (even the upper crust ones). And it was meticulous! This is Safeway, one of the biggest chain markets in California, hardly a paragon of the dreamy natural food market-type places that I prefer to frequent. I’ve seen Safeways with dirty floors and crap lying around in the aisles. I’ve seen this particular Safeway trashed from hordes of shoppers picking through Halloween candy and thronging the check-out aisles. This was a shinier, more soothing Safeway—and the squeaky-clean grandness kind of freaked me out.
I needed to grab lemons and tomatoes from the produce section, nothing more, but I wound up spending close to ten minutes wandering around because there was just.so.much stuff! Completely overwhelming! There was produce to last for weeks and weeks and weeks. The fruits were enormous (I was kind of scared of the oranges; don’t even get me started on the melons). I agonized over buying a five-pound bag of clementines, as I haven’t eaten them for a while and it seemed like a brilliant idea…but five pounds? Really? Can’t I just pick out a half dozen? (Not) surprisingly, that wasn’t an option at Safeway. I ultimately decided against the excess. Moving onto the veggies, I saw varieties of cauliflower I’ve never, ever seen in my life—green, orange, purple (ooh, pretty!)—which left me to wonder, have these always been around, or has there been some new, radical G-Mod breakthrough since I left America? In fact, there were nearly endless varieties of everything—“omnivore’s dilemma” indeed. At the fanciest Monoprix in Paris, you still get a tiny produce selection. All fruits, whether at the farmer’s market or at the hypermarket, are miniscule relative to here (and they taste soooooooooo much better, to boot).
Another strange phenomenon was occurring in the produce section. All the Safeway employees were saying hello and asking if I needed help finding anything. Imagine this level of service in France! You practically have to chase and then put employees in a headlock to get help. Well, I also suppose that considering the breadth of products in the produce section alone, it’s not an asinine assumption that one might need assistance locating something.
Speaking of finding things, it took me a while to wade through the double-wide aisles to get the rest of the items I needed—not just because the store is so incredibly huge, but also because of (you guessed it) the variety of products to choose from. Over 20 types of mustard? Pfft. This isn’t even France, where moutard is king. Indecision paralysis overcame me in the laundry detergent section. I think there were more types of detergent than there are of yogurt in France, and believe me, that is saying a lot (every market there, whether a hole in the wall or the Monoprix, has a dedicated yogurt AISLE). At that point, I had reached the end of my shopping list, not to mention the end of my rope. I berated myself for no longer being the speedy, efficient shopper I once was and just grabbed the first jumbo-sized (of course) jug I saw. That’s another thing that was a little hard to swallow—there’s not much super/economy-sized products in Paris. Apartments and fridges aren’t big enough to house the likes of Costco goods. I got used to buying enough of what I needed / could feasibly carry on a ten-minute walk home.
The check-out process was lightning fast and the checker was chatty and sunny and I lingered for an extra moment just to continue our conversation, he was so nice. (We can score two bonus points for America, there.) He reminded me that the paper towel six-pack (which filled nearly half my shopping cart) I bought was buy one, get one free. I did something absolutely shocking and turned down the free six-pack. It violated all the rules of my bargain-hunting cultural heritage, but my goodness, I just couldn’t stomach taking home a dozen bulging rolls of paper towels. It just felt too…too, you know? It seems living in France has heightened my awareness of American glut, but I’m back and so I’d better get reacquainted enough so that I don’t get paralyzed every time I go to the supermarket.
I entered the surprisingly sparklingly renovated Safeway on Church and Market and immediately entered panic mode. The place felt cavernous, on a whole other scale than the cramped aisles of Parisian supermarkets (even the upper crust ones). And it was meticulous! This is Safeway, one of the biggest chain markets in California, hardly a paragon of the dreamy natural food market-type places that I prefer to frequent. I’ve seen Safeways with dirty floors and crap lying around in the aisles. I’ve seen this particular Safeway trashed from hordes of shoppers picking through Halloween candy and thronging the check-out aisles. This was a shinier, more soothing Safeway—and the squeaky-clean grandness kind of freaked me out.
I needed to grab lemons and tomatoes from the produce section, nothing more, but I wound up spending close to ten minutes wandering around because there was just.so.much stuff! Completely overwhelming! There was produce to last for weeks and weeks and weeks. The fruits were enormous (I was kind of scared of the oranges; don’t even get me started on the melons). I agonized over buying a five-pound bag of clementines, as I haven’t eaten them for a while and it seemed like a brilliant idea…but five pounds? Really? Can’t I just pick out a half dozen? (Not) surprisingly, that wasn’t an option at Safeway. I ultimately decided against the excess. Moving onto the veggies, I saw varieties of cauliflower I’ve never, ever seen in my life—green, orange, purple (ooh, pretty!)—which left me to wonder, have these always been around, or has there been some new, radical G-Mod breakthrough since I left America? In fact, there were nearly endless varieties of everything—“omnivore’s dilemma” indeed. At the fanciest Monoprix in Paris, you still get a tiny produce selection. All fruits, whether at the farmer’s market or at the hypermarket, are miniscule relative to here (and they taste soooooooooo much better, to boot).
Another strange phenomenon was occurring in the produce section. All the Safeway employees were saying hello and asking if I needed help finding anything. Imagine this level of service in France! You practically have to chase and then put employees in a headlock to get help. Well, I also suppose that considering the breadth of products in the produce section alone, it’s not an asinine assumption that one might need assistance locating something.
Speaking of finding things, it took me a while to wade through the double-wide aisles to get the rest of the items I needed—not just because the store is so incredibly huge, but also because of (you guessed it) the variety of products to choose from. Over 20 types of mustard? Pfft. This isn’t even France, where moutard is king. Indecision paralysis overcame me in the laundry detergent section. I think there were more types of detergent than there are of yogurt in France, and believe me, that is saying a lot (every market there, whether a hole in the wall or the Monoprix, has a dedicated yogurt AISLE). At that point, I had reached the end of my shopping list, not to mention the end of my rope. I berated myself for no longer being the speedy, efficient shopper I once was and just grabbed the first jumbo-sized (of course) jug I saw. That’s another thing that was a little hard to swallow—there’s not much super/economy-sized products in Paris. Apartments and fridges aren’t big enough to house the likes of Costco goods. I got used to buying enough of what I needed / could feasibly carry on a ten-minute walk home.
The check-out process was lightning fast and the checker was chatty and sunny and I lingered for an extra moment just to continue our conversation, he was so nice. (We can score two bonus points for America, there.) He reminded me that the paper towel six-pack (which filled nearly half my shopping cart) I bought was buy one, get one free. I did something absolutely shocking and turned down the free six-pack. It violated all the rules of my bargain-hunting cultural heritage, but my goodness, I just couldn’t stomach taking home a dozen bulging rolls of paper towels. It just felt too…too, you know? It seems living in France has heightened my awareness of American glut, but I’m back and so I’d better get reacquainted enough so that I don’t get paralyzed every time I go to the supermarket.
19 October 2008
Little Differences Ain't So Little
It is wild and wonderful to be back in the States, for at least the following few phenomena we have experienced over the past 24 hours – things that just don’t really occur in France, not ever:
1. Around the clock convenience! We managed to discover a 24-hour grocery store and a café that opens at 5am on a Sunday, the latter of which was perfect for our early-rising, jet-lagged souls (although we rolled in for our lattes at a leisurely 6:30am).
2. Amazingly friendly repartee with random people, exemplified by the woman checking us out at the supermarket who, after making small talk and learning about our current status, warmly exclaimed, “Well, I am so happy for you that you’ve moved back to San Francisco!”
3. Spicy means spicy! We ate at a tacqueria last night. Our mouths burned throughout the meal and we loved every second of it.
Woohoo, America! Aside from the above, being here generally makes us so.freaking.happy. We are home.
I’ll write more when I’m semi-recovered from the jetlag. For now, my brain is rapidly being reduced to a bowl of oatmeal.
1. Around the clock convenience! We managed to discover a 24-hour grocery store and a café that opens at 5am on a Sunday, the latter of which was perfect for our early-rising, jet-lagged souls (although we rolled in for our lattes at a leisurely 6:30am).
2. Amazingly friendly repartee with random people, exemplified by the woman checking us out at the supermarket who, after making small talk and learning about our current status, warmly exclaimed, “Well, I am so happy for you that you’ve moved back to San Francisco!”
3. Spicy means spicy! We ate at a tacqueria last night. Our mouths burned throughout the meal and we loved every second of it.
Woohoo, America! Aside from the above, being here generally makes us so.freaking.happy. We are home.
I’ll write more when I’m semi-recovered from the jetlag. For now, my brain is rapidly being reduced to a bowl of oatmeal.
14 October 2008
One Last Jab at Our Sanity?
In the 13 months we’ve lived in our lovely Marais apartment, we’ve never had any plumbing disasters—and luckily so, as I’ve heard tales of unspeakable frustration in getting a plumber to come over and deal with rapidly accumulating puddles in an efficient manner. So it was just our luck that on Saturday night, exactly one week before we’re vacating the premises and moving back to the States, our toilet promptly decided to not work. After some detective work, we applied a temporary fix until we could make it to the only hardware store open on Sunday in Paris (open until noon, at that).
Cut to Sunday morning, when we discover that we have no hot water in the apartment. No way could the two plumbing events be related, we surmised. One problem has to do with a broken part in the flushing mechanism that affects water flow. The other has to do with the water heater, not to mention the toilet pipes don’t even appear to be attached to the water heater. Not a chance, nuh-uh.
What to do? I called our landlord, who lives in the south of France and very rarely puts in an appearance in the city. I proceeded, in my much improved but still somewhat rough-around-the-edges French, to explain that we had an emergency situation with our water heater and needed some advice on how to deal.
“Bah, qu’est-ce que tu veux? Je suis pas plombier.” (What do you want? I’m not a plumber.)
His response stunned me so much I almost dropped the phone. I said I of course knew that, but could he please advise me on how to proceed? Did he have the phone number of a plumber on hand who could help?
It was like I’d said absolutely nothing, because he repeated exactly what he’d said before. We kept going back and forth until he said there was nothing for him to do. Um, WHAT??? I then handed over the phone to N, whose fluency could help tackle this impasse more effectively…or so I thought.
N repeated what I’d already said about five times and then was bowled over by a screaming tirade of several variations on the themes of “It’s Sunday morning! Sunday!” and “What do you expect me to do, you pushy, entitled, American ass? Fix it myself? It’s not my responsibility.” (Oh, really? It isn’t?) N fought back with a few good ones, such as “Yes, we invented this situation to inconvenience you,” “French law states that fixing household problems is the landlord’s responsibility and I’ll quote you the legal code to support that,” and “I find your attitude utterly lacking in niceness and therefore inexcusable” (well, I’m paraphrasing on that last one).
At one point N put the phone on speaker so I and our visiting sisters could hear the landlord’s sustained ranting. This continued for about 10 minutes until finally N threw off his boxing gloves in disgust and said we’d call a plumber ourselves the next day (as of course, plumbers don’t work on Sundays in France) and send the landlord the bill. He finally managed to hang up and was about to dash out the door to the hardware store for the wayward toilet part, when the phone rang. It was the landlord.
He laid on the passive-aggressive guilt-cum-spite tactic real thick: “Well, now that you’ve ruined my day, I’m canceling my trip to Belgium—which I’ve already begun, as you called me while I was driving on the highway—and coming to Paris to show you that I absolutely do not know how to fix your water heater.” Wow. What are you, 13 years old and angry at the world?
N talked him out of this absurd plan but the guy still would not calm down. N couldn’t take it anymore, not to mention was pressed for time due to the hardware store’s soon-to-be closed doors. He pawned the landlord off on his sister, whose French is perfect and who knows far better than us the nuances of national etiquette. She apologized profusely for our “ignorance” of how things “work” in France and for disturbing him on a Sunday. He was still sputtering a bit, but she managed to calm him down. Pfew.
Perhaps we are ignorant and could’ve been more apologetic about calling him on a Sunday at 11 a.m., but holy crow, man! You’re the landlord! You’re the responsible party! We never presumed he should drop everything and get his landlordy ass over here to fix our water heater, but rather very clearly asked for conseil. He seemed more pissed off that we bothered him on a Sunday than anything else, which is a typical French attitude. Le sigh. Well, we learned that our landlord is cranky and irrational and that ce mec là, il est un vrai con. At least we’re out of here in a couple days and so thus don’t have to care.
Oh, and P.S. It turned out that as soon as we fixed the toilet and the tank refilled, the water heater started to work again. The heater was never broken, and we can blame our ignorance of our apartment’s byzantine plumbing system for disgracing our landlord so. All’s well that ends well, or so the saying goes.
Cut to Sunday morning, when we discover that we have no hot water in the apartment. No way could the two plumbing events be related, we surmised. One problem has to do with a broken part in the flushing mechanism that affects water flow. The other has to do with the water heater, not to mention the toilet pipes don’t even appear to be attached to the water heater. Not a chance, nuh-uh.
What to do? I called our landlord, who lives in the south of France and very rarely puts in an appearance in the city. I proceeded, in my much improved but still somewhat rough-around-the-edges French, to explain that we had an emergency situation with our water heater and needed some advice on how to deal.
“Bah, qu’est-ce que tu veux? Je suis pas plombier.” (What do you want? I’m not a plumber.)
His response stunned me so much I almost dropped the phone. I said I of course knew that, but could he please advise me on how to proceed? Did he have the phone number of a plumber on hand who could help?
It was like I’d said absolutely nothing, because he repeated exactly what he’d said before. We kept going back and forth until he said there was nothing for him to do. Um, WHAT??? I then handed over the phone to N, whose fluency could help tackle this impasse more effectively…or so I thought.
N repeated what I’d already said about five times and then was bowled over by a screaming tirade of several variations on the themes of “It’s Sunday morning! Sunday!” and “What do you expect me to do, you pushy, entitled, American ass? Fix it myself? It’s not my responsibility.” (Oh, really? It isn’t?) N fought back with a few good ones, such as “Yes, we invented this situation to inconvenience you,” “French law states that fixing household problems is the landlord’s responsibility and I’ll quote you the legal code to support that,” and “I find your attitude utterly lacking in niceness and therefore inexcusable” (well, I’m paraphrasing on that last one).
At one point N put the phone on speaker so I and our visiting sisters could hear the landlord’s sustained ranting. This continued for about 10 minutes until finally N threw off his boxing gloves in disgust and said we’d call a plumber ourselves the next day (as of course, plumbers don’t work on Sundays in France) and send the landlord the bill. He finally managed to hang up and was about to dash out the door to the hardware store for the wayward toilet part, when the phone rang. It was the landlord.
He laid on the passive-aggressive guilt-cum-spite tactic real thick: “Well, now that you’ve ruined my day, I’m canceling my trip to Belgium—which I’ve already begun, as you called me while I was driving on the highway—and coming to Paris to show you that I absolutely do not know how to fix your water heater.” Wow. What are you, 13 years old and angry at the world?
N talked him out of this absurd plan but the guy still would not calm down. N couldn’t take it anymore, not to mention was pressed for time due to the hardware store’s soon-to-be closed doors. He pawned the landlord off on his sister, whose French is perfect and who knows far better than us the nuances of national etiquette. She apologized profusely for our “ignorance” of how things “work” in France and for disturbing him on a Sunday. He was still sputtering a bit, but she managed to calm him down. Pfew.
Perhaps we are ignorant and could’ve been more apologetic about calling him on a Sunday at 11 a.m., but holy crow, man! You’re the landlord! You’re the responsible party! We never presumed he should drop everything and get his landlordy ass over here to fix our water heater, but rather very clearly asked for conseil. He seemed more pissed off that we bothered him on a Sunday than anything else, which is a typical French attitude. Le sigh. Well, we learned that our landlord is cranky and irrational and that ce mec là, il est un vrai con. At least we’re out of here in a couple days and so thus don’t have to care.
Oh, and P.S. It turned out that as soon as we fixed the toilet and the tank refilled, the water heater started to work again. The heater was never broken, and we can blame our ignorance of our apartment’s byzantine plumbing system for disgracing our landlord so. All’s well that ends well, or so the saying goes.
08 October 2008
The Next Chapter
I’ve been neglecting the blog lately, as there’s been a whole lot going on. First, dear friends from L.A. were in town. Next, I spent a week in Tuscany for the wedding of SF friends. It was heavenly. Finally, and most importantly, my mind has been elsewhere as I’m moving back to the States in 10 days. It’s bittersweet, but mostly sweet. I miss my community, my homeland, and many efficiencies/conveniences that I always took for granted. There will be a lot to miss (plus a lot to not miss!) in France, and at the end of the day I spent 14 very enriching, opening, lovely months here. It’s comforting knowing that I can now call Paris home and that I’ll definitely be back to visit, as N’s extended family and our new friends are here.
In the coming days I’ll certainly slap together some reflections on my time in France, a.k.a. the good, the bad, and the smelly, but today I’m musing about the future of this here blog. What started as a means to keep friends and family updated on my life in Paris took on a life of its own as the nature of it evolved and the readership grew. The blog has provided a new medium for a lifelong passion and has been a cathartic tool for processing my impressions of what can at times be a strange and alienating culture. Plus, as my FIL poignantly noted recently, it’s been a file conducteur (connecting thread) in my life abroad, a kind of stabilizing element that carried through the less certain early months when I didn’t speak much French and thus benefited from creating a sort of dialogue with myself, and continued through the fullness of the latter months when my local network had expanded and my understanding of the culture had become sharper and more multi-dimensional.
And so, one of my preoccupations about Great Move Back has been deciding how the blog will evolve. I’ve got ideas. I, unlike Sarah Palin, do not read “all” news sources, but in the ones I do tend to read I think I noticed something about, like, $700 billion and some guys (and one lady) running for some sort of political office. It’s not at all an interesting time to move back to the States, armed with reverse culture shock and new bi-continental perspective on home to boot. So stick with me—if you dare!
In the coming days I’ll certainly slap together some reflections on my time in France, a.k.a. the good, the bad, and the smelly, but today I’m musing about the future of this here blog. What started as a means to keep friends and family updated on my life in Paris took on a life of its own as the nature of it evolved and the readership grew. The blog has provided a new medium for a lifelong passion and has been a cathartic tool for processing my impressions of what can at times be a strange and alienating culture. Plus, as my FIL poignantly noted recently, it’s been a file conducteur (connecting thread) in my life abroad, a kind of stabilizing element that carried through the less certain early months when I didn’t speak much French and thus benefited from creating a sort of dialogue with myself, and continued through the fullness of the latter months when my local network had expanded and my understanding of the culture had become sharper and more multi-dimensional.
And so, one of my preoccupations about Great Move Back has been deciding how the blog will evolve. I’ve got ideas. I, unlike Sarah Palin, do not read “all” news sources, but in the ones I do tend to read I think I noticed something about, like, $700 billion and some guys (and one lady) running for some sort of political office. It’s not at all an interesting time to move back to the States, armed with reverse culture shock and new bi-continental perspective on home to boot. So stick with me—if you dare!
05 October 2008
Seeing Orange
This is N hijacking Jess’s blog. Apparently, I need to hit some kind of frustration threshold before I’m inspired to write anything.
My mobile phone provider, Orange, has recently made The List, in company with such French greats as banking and taxis. Yes, I realize that nobody loves their mobile phone provider back in the U.S. either, but what has transpired recently with Orange is definitely an order of magnitude more insufferable than the tales of woe I’ve heard from U.S. consumers, which generally seem to revolve around dropped calls and/or poor reception.
Any discussion of mobile phone service in France must begin with the discrepancy in cost between mobile phone services in the U.S. versus France. I was going to ballpark this part, but curiosity got the better of me and I decided to get factual by looking up figures on the websites of Orange and AT&T. The results are shocking. Looking at comparable, fairly low-end calling plans at each site, I found that Orange’s cost per minute of talk time (about $0.51) is fifty times higher than AT&T ($0.01)! To be fair, I summed up AT&T’s 5000 nights and weekend minutes as well as the 450 minutes of peak talk time, but even when you exclude the nights and weekend minutes Orange is still nine times more expensive. Orange basically gives you two hours of talk time for $60, although you do get unlimited calls to three numbers. Anyway, you might chalk this up to the higher cost of living in France, until you consider that broadband/cable TV/VOIP telephony is available as a package for about $50, and the Internet is roughly 15 times faster than the speeds that are readily/affordably available in the U.S. (16 Mbps at my place!)
All this is a prelude to my iPhone story. When the iPhone 3G was announced, I decided to finally cave in and get it, having held out on the first generation. Orange, like AT&T in the U.S., is the exclusive iPhone carrier. Luckily for me, or so I thought, I was already an Orange subscriber. Thus, I was surprised to learn when I went to the Orange store to get the iPhone that I had not accumulated enough “points”, and so the iPhone would cost me about $600, versus the $300 advertised price (converting roughly from Euros here). However, they did inform me that if I were to cancel my current subscription, and join as a new customer, they could offer me the $300 price since I’d be a new customer acquisition that way. Go figure. The catch was that since I would be cancelling my subscription before my full year was up, I’d have to pay the remaining two months of subscription.
At this point, before having purchased the actual phone, I mentioned that I might be relocating out of the country soon, and asked whether I’d be able to take the phone with me and cancel my new subscription without any penalties. I would of course have not gotten the phone if the answer hadn’t been “oh sure, no problem.” I think there’s a law that prevents providers from charging cancellation fees in the event of an international move. In any case, they repeatedly told both Jess and I (in separate stores) that it would not be an issue. So we went ahead with it.
Fast forward four months – Jess and I are leaving the country soon. I begin the process of notifying Orange that I need to cancel my service due to the fact that we are leaving. During the half dozen attempts to reach the cancellation department at Orange over the course of a week, I experienced a distinct pattern of neglectful customer service which was, in fact, entirely circular, much like a mobius strip. It went like this:
Call
Navigate byzantine menu tree to indicate to the system that I am interested in cancelling my subscription
Wait on hold
Customer Service rep responds who has not been informed that I would like to cancel my subscription
Verbal explanation to CS rep that I would like to cancel my subscription
CS rep asks for my identifying information
CS rep then tells me that he actually can’t execute the cancellation, and that I need to speak with the cancellation department, which he puts me through to
Wait on hold
CS rep comes back on to tell me that the cancellation department is so busy (surprise surprise) that they can’t answer the phone, and to try back later
This happened over and over. I suppose denying your customers the ability to cancel your service can be called a retention strategy.
Eventually, I managed to speak with a cancellation rep and explained to him that I needed to cancel my service, as well as “unlock” my iPhone so it will work on other networks. Without the unlock, the phone would be useless back in the U.S. The rep informs me that the unlock will cost $150, since I have had the phone for less than six months, although this fee was never mentioned by the people who sold us the phones and told us it would be “no problem”. However, this is actually fair, since Orange heavily subsidizes the cost of the phone in exchange for a 1 or 2 year commitment by the customer, and we have only had the phone for three or four months. So I agreed to the fee, and told him to go ahead with the unlocking procedure, which actually needs to go through Apple. The rep informs me that all that is left for me to do is to send a letter requesting the cancellation along with proof of my employment abroad. Jess and I duly send in these letters, thinking that would be that.
A week later I get a voice message from an Orange cancellation rep. Apparently, they “just” need us to go into the Orange store where we purchased our phones (yes, the specific stores) and return the units. Upon handing in the phones we’ve now spent $450 each on, not counting monthly service fees of course, our accounts will be cancelled. All this after Jess and I were told, separately, on multiple non-consecutive occasions, that cancelling our service and unlocking our phone to take the abroad would be “no problem.”
Needless to say, I’m super displeased with Orange right now. However, this frustration does not compare with the prospects of again attempting to reach Orange’s customer support reps to set all of this straight.
My mobile phone provider, Orange, has recently made The List, in company with such French greats as banking and taxis. Yes, I realize that nobody loves their mobile phone provider back in the U.S. either, but what has transpired recently with Orange is definitely an order of magnitude more insufferable than the tales of woe I’ve heard from U.S. consumers, which generally seem to revolve around dropped calls and/or poor reception.Any discussion of mobile phone service in France must begin with the discrepancy in cost between mobile phone services in the U.S. versus France. I was going to ballpark this part, but curiosity got the better of me and I decided to get factual by looking up figures on the websites of Orange and AT&T. The results are shocking. Looking at comparable, fairly low-end calling plans at each site, I found that Orange’s cost per minute of talk time (about $0.51) is fifty times higher than AT&T ($0.01)! To be fair, I summed up AT&T’s 5000 nights and weekend minutes as well as the 450 minutes of peak talk time, but even when you exclude the nights and weekend minutes Orange is still nine times more expensive. Orange basically gives you two hours of talk time for $60, although you do get unlimited calls to three numbers. Anyway, you might chalk this up to the higher cost of living in France, until you consider that broadband/cable TV/VOIP telephony is available as a package for about $50, and the Internet is roughly 15 times faster than the speeds that are readily/affordably available in the U.S. (16 Mbps at my place!)
All this is a prelude to my iPhone story. When the iPhone 3G was announced, I decided to finally cave in and get it, having held out on the first generation. Orange, like AT&T in the U.S., is the exclusive iPhone carrier. Luckily for me, or so I thought, I was already an Orange subscriber. Thus, I was surprised to learn when I went to the Orange store to get the iPhone that I had not accumulated enough “points”, and so the iPhone would cost me about $600, versus the $300 advertised price (converting roughly from Euros here). However, they did inform me that if I were to cancel my current subscription, and join as a new customer, they could offer me the $300 price since I’d be a new customer acquisition that way. Go figure. The catch was that since I would be cancelling my subscription before my full year was up, I’d have to pay the remaining two months of subscription.
At this point, before having purchased the actual phone, I mentioned that I might be relocating out of the country soon, and asked whether I’d be able to take the phone with me and cancel my new subscription without any penalties. I would of course have not gotten the phone if the answer hadn’t been “oh sure, no problem.” I think there’s a law that prevents providers from charging cancellation fees in the event of an international move. In any case, they repeatedly told both Jess and I (in separate stores) that it would not be an issue. So we went ahead with it.
Fast forward four months – Jess and I are leaving the country soon. I begin the process of notifying Orange that I need to cancel my service due to the fact that we are leaving. During the half dozen attempts to reach the cancellation department at Orange over the course of a week, I experienced a distinct pattern of neglectful customer service which was, in fact, entirely circular, much like a mobius strip. It went like this:
Call
Navigate byzantine menu tree to indicate to the system that I am interested in cancelling my subscription
Wait on hold
Customer Service rep responds who has not been informed that I would like to cancel my subscription
Verbal explanation to CS rep that I would like to cancel my subscription
CS rep asks for my identifying information
CS rep then tells me that he actually can’t execute the cancellation, and that I need to speak with the cancellation department, which he puts me through to
Wait on hold
CS rep comes back on to tell me that the cancellation department is so busy (surprise surprise) that they can’t answer the phone, and to try back later
This happened over and over. I suppose denying your customers the ability to cancel your service can be called a retention strategy.
Eventually, I managed to speak with a cancellation rep and explained to him that I needed to cancel my service, as well as “unlock” my iPhone so it will work on other networks. Without the unlock, the phone would be useless back in the U.S. The rep informs me that the unlock will cost $150, since I have had the phone for less than six months, although this fee was never mentioned by the people who sold us the phones and told us it would be “no problem”. However, this is actually fair, since Orange heavily subsidizes the cost of the phone in exchange for a 1 or 2 year commitment by the customer, and we have only had the phone for three or four months. So I agreed to the fee, and told him to go ahead with the unlocking procedure, which actually needs to go through Apple. The rep informs me that all that is left for me to do is to send a letter requesting the cancellation along with proof of my employment abroad. Jess and I duly send in these letters, thinking that would be that.
A week later I get a voice message from an Orange cancellation rep. Apparently, they “just” need us to go into the Orange store where we purchased our phones (yes, the specific stores) and return the units. Upon handing in the phones we’ve now spent $450 each on, not counting monthly service fees of course, our accounts will be cancelled. All this after Jess and I were told, separately, on multiple non-consecutive occasions, that cancelling our service and unlocking our phone to take the abroad would be “no problem.”
Needless to say, I’m super displeased with Orange right now. However, this frustration does not compare with the prospects of again attempting to reach Orange’s customer support reps to set all of this straight.
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