John Denver was right

So, here we are again at last, back in North Carolina! And what a long, strange trip it has been. I've been across the ocean and right through hell; I can be forgiven for one hackneyed expression. I've given this blog a bit of thought, probably more than it was ever worth, and have decided to keep it running and keep writing in it from time to time. It was that or shut it down for good... I gave that idea some consideration, on the grounds that I already had the Pipe Blog to write and another blog was one too many, but in the end I opted to keep this going for the simple reason that it's open-ended. The Pipe Blog is a focused subject, with limits, while this one better fits a wide range of rambling and digression. The near future will probably bring a good bit of commentary on what it's like to be back in the USA after seven years abroad, but for this evening, I'll let John Denver sum up my feelings best:

There and Back Again

Biz News - Fans of the more unusual Talbert Briars might want to take a look at this Ebay auction, on an odd piece done a couple years back for a special order. No new pipes from me, though, for reasons that are about to be obvious....


It seems like it has been a terribly long time since I have updated this blog, especially since the days when I could manage new posts each week, sometimes even every couple of days. Not so in 2008 - For us, like so many others, it has been a very difficult year and I have been too busy simply trying to stay fed and sheltered to keep up with my online writing. This may change soon, though, for today's picture is the harbinger of major news -

My wife and I are moving back to the United States!

We've lived nearly seven years in France. It's time. There are a multitude of reasons for the move - some expectedly angry and unpleasant, others fortuitous and perfectly timed. I may tell some harrowing stories in the future, but I don't want to dwell on specifics for the moment. Suffice to say that in one bright swoop, circumstances lined up ideally to enable us to make another transatlantic hop on our shoestring (nay, non-existent!) budget, and we chose to grab the opportunity. I write this sitting amidst packed boxes of books and clothes, and if all goes well, we should be leaving Brittany to return to North Carolina sometime in late April or May.

I depart France with the same jumble of extreme feelings I've had through all my time here. The people are wonderful, the bureacracy is a nightmare. The scenery is stunning, the communication is an eternal struggle. For every incredible vista of ruined castle overlooking rocky seaside cliffs, there are a dozen entreaties to government offices and business administration officials. It's nation where complete strangers will fly halfway across the country to bring you a bottle of their favorite wine, yet you have to literally scream and threaten violence just to get a fonctionnaire to acknowledge a fax. Living here has been like life with a beautiful trophy wife - lovely to look at, yet terribly difficult to maintain. But I know I will miss the place terribly, despite all the hassles, as we settle back into the relaxed, insular, Shire-like rythym of life in North Carolina. I can't help but think of Frodo Baggins, and wonder if I, too, will feel as though I'm "going back to sleep".

One aspect that I'm certain won't go back to sleep is my pipemaking - Talbert Briars will continue and carry on as always, and I look forward to once again being able to compete with the ranks of American pipemakers on an even footing, unhampered by the horrible dollar-to-euro currency imbalance that has dogged so much of our time here. It's also going to be a wonder to really be able to focus on my work again, without the pressures and immense weights of worry we have suffered for so long. All pipemaking will be shut down for the next several months, and our workshop is now closed in France. Some of the French machinery may be sold, some is definitely going with me, but it will take a long time to design and build our new workshop in the US, and until then there will be no new pipes (For those who may be interested, we have exactly two pipes remaining in stock for sale - one Ligne Bretagne and one Talbert Morta. Contact us soon if you're interested in either, before they get packed!)

I know the pipe community will probably have questions for us, but I'd ask that they be either posted here as comments, or held back until I can assemble a FAQ for this move, which will answer some of the obvious inquiries like, "Will Mortas and Ligne Bretagnes continue?", "Are you selling any of your stock and tools?", "Will your stamping change?", "Will your pricing change?", and so on. I have enough to do with the move, I'd as soon not have to type replies to the same questions many times over! And some questions have no answers as yet... The Ligne Bretagne stummels and hardware are going with me, for example, but I have not yet decided if they will change name. Morta pipes may continue if I can secure a reliable source of high quality blocks, but the material is hard to come by, and I am not interested in producing a substandard product. Time will tell...

In the very near future, the website will go offline except for a front page linking to this blog and our "Life in France" blog, where I hope to chart the progress of our move and our reactions to re-immersion in the American lifestyle and culture (Things I look forward to - KFC, good Mexican food, easy talking, and being able to get things accomplished without fifteen notarized attestations from the mairie and the préfecture plus stamped copies of every utility bill we've ever had and our marriage license. Things I do not look forward to - Loud, belligerent people, US non-health care, and Paris Hilton... though I think we have managed to foist her off on the Brits now). People interested in this social stuff may want to add us back to their Favorites for a bit, because the blogs are likely to be more active soon.

And speaking of, I'm currently looking for a good title for the "Life in France" blog if anyone has any ideas, since "An American Pipemaker in Brittany" won't work anymore. I'm going to miss sights like this being outside my front door...

French hold out against credit crunch

An interesting article from BBC:


French hold out against credit crunch

Unlike Britain, the US and many other countries, France appears to be weathering the credit crunch storm in reasonable shape.

The BBC's Emma Jane Kirby asks if other nations should take a leaf out of the thrifty Gallic book?

If I had to use one word to describe France's financial system, the word I would choose would be "cautious".

French banks are immensely careful about whom they lend money to and, to limit risks, they spread their investments much more widely than those in the US or UK.

Only about a quarter of banking activity is related to investment banking and dealer-broker activity - the rest is all to do with retail banking.

This meant when the credit crunch bit, the French banks were hit a lot less hard than those in many other countries.

But it is not just about banking investments - this country as a whole simply takes far fewer risks.

Take the level of household debt. In France, it is at 47% of GDP, while in the UK it is well over twice that.

It's not that temptation does not exist in France - the lure of consumerism is just as strong as it is elsewhere.

But it is very difficult to spend money you do not have in France.

French credit cards are little more than debit cards, so there is no question of simply sticking a couple of flat screen TVs on your credit card and hoping to pay for them later - if there are insufficient funds in your account, your bank will immediately block the transaction.

In the wealthy suburb of St Germain-en-Laye, just outside Paris, I met Francois Artignan, a well-to-do banker who moved back to France two years ago after a long stint of living in the UK.

Francois admits he misses the buzz of London living but says he was alarmed by the way so many British people lived on their credit cards and never saved money.

"It's true that you can note a big difference in consuming behaviours between the French and the English," Mr Artignan says.

"People here don't believe you can just put your debts together and get them refinanced... But in London... it was as if wealth was something you could get from a bank, it's a sort of miracle people seem to believe in England.

"It seems to me people there are very keen to use up all the money they have, and that's a worry when you wonder how people are going to have money for retirement for instance," Mr Artignan says.

Sluggish growth

From his Paris office, the chief economist for market analyst Xerfi, Alexander Law, has been comparing the spending patterns of France and Britain.

Mr Law, who has dual nationality, believes that innate French prudence has saved it from disaster.

"Generally in France you spend what you have and not more," he explains.

"In the US and the UK, the economy has been driven by household spending, consumption has been driven by credit, and a lot less in France, so that's why when there were periods of expansion France grew a lot more slowly than the UK and the US but conversely when it's slowing down, it will slow down in a more moderate fashion than the UK or the US."

France's rate of growth is horribly sluggish - this year it looks set to hover around just 1%, meaning its likely to be way off target for meeting its promise to the EU to bring its budget deficit back under control by 2012.

But although its slow economy is hardly the envy of the world, its reluctance to tie its economy into the housing market in the same way the US did has also meant that when the American sub-prime market collapsed, it did not drag the French market with it.

There are far fewer household owners here than in the UK - about 57% of French people are on the property ladder, compared to 70% in the UK.

Although a high earner, Mr Artignan was 43 before buying his first home because in France, unless you have a big deposit, you can forget begging the banks for a huge loan.

Two conditions

President Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to push France into becoming a nation of house owners by building thousands of cheap new homes.

But France still believes in strict rules and regulations, Finance Minister Christine Lagarde says.

"Expect two conditions - a down payment of 20% of the value of the house plus mortgage [repayments] which will not exceed 30% of income.

"You already have a pretty good safety net there and clearly no real estate financing similar to the sub-prime market that has existed in the US and which has hurt the financial system so much," Ms Lagarde says.

France has long been feeling the pinch of the global rise in food and fuel prices and many people here complain that their spending power is falling fast.

In France, 46% of people chose to stay home for their summer holiday this year rather than splashing out on an expensive break away, and so many people are cutting back on dining out that some 3,000 cafes and restaurants went out of business in the first three months of this year.

Sparse spending means sparse growth - but should other countries take a leaf out of the parsimonious Gallic book?

"I'm not suggesting that we have the basic principles right, I'm not suggesting that we can teach the world lessons," Ms Lagarde says.

"But I think it will be for each and every category of players, traders, regulators, supervisors, to examine what they have done, what they should have done and what they should be doing in the future to bring a bit more morality into the system.

"I think we have let this world of fantasy and virtuality overcome reality... There have to be more principles, more discipline and a bit more reality," the minister says.

Expat Motivational

I haven't had much to write about in this blog for a while now, but today I stumbled across the hilarious "motivational" posters at Demotivator.com, and thought this one was absolutely perfect-o for an expat blog. At least, all the other expats who check in here should certainly get a grin out of it!

In the meantime, I will continue to keep my fingers crossed that I'll have nothing "interesting" worth writing about, though I'm sure a story or two will happen along eventually...

My New Shoes work, and It's a Good Thing

Breaking News - Headline! Colossal Squid caught TODAY!

It's funny - Last time I posted, I thought I had two full blog posts of stuff to write about. One for the hospital visit, a second for the shoe hunt... But in reality, the shoe hunt was startlingly minimal. We visited Chausseland, a French shoe mega-store, and managed to find exactly four pairs of shoes in the entire store that were my size, 47-48. One pair were running shoes, and resembled nothing so much as giant tentacled amoebas trying to wrap themselves around a colorful neon sign. When did running shoes get so weird? I would have been happy with plain white "tennis shoes"; I don't really want to pay an extra 40 € to have 3" thick rubber bubbly soles and more slathered-on cladding than a mid-80's Pontiac.

Anyway, long story short, one of the pairs of shoes that fit was an excellent plain pair of brown leather walking shoes. I assume from their designation that I am not allowed to run in them, so I will try my best to be steady and non-stressful in my locomotion. It's strange to think that my feet have enlarged since moving to France. I thought it was only my waistline! But, alas, for whatever reason (I personally wonder if it isn't some sort of "foot spread" brought on by five years of life in a house and workshop with a tiled concrete floor), I no longer fit my American shoes. It's a little eerily symbolic, that - as if now it's time to drop the old American shoes completely and start contacting the ground in real French shoes........Never mind that all pairs in question were almost certainly made in China!

I also got myself a set of arch supports in the process. I'm flat-footed as your average duck, and I don't think the cement workshop has done much to improve matters, so we'll see if some artificial enhancements will help a bit. The new shoes got their first big test almost immediately this week, when we had a visit from an old friend of Emily's for several days. We decided to take the time off together, and go and see a bit of the countryside, so for the past three days I've been walking the length and breadth of Nantes, Guérande, Vannes, La Roche-Bernard, Carnac, and a little slice of the Quiberon coastline. My cheerful new French shoes took it all well, and I'm happy to report that I didn't get even a single blister, unlike the painful toe-abrasions that had started occurring every time I put my old shoes on. It was a great visit, probably the most fun one we've had so far, with nary a disaster to be had, and lots of beautiful sights and good company and great eating all around. We had the opportunity to marvel at our own total adaptation to French navigation when we purposefully flung ourselves through Nantes with no map at all (Really, it's easy! Just follow the signs!). Five years ago we were petrified, trying to spot the tiny road signs and know where to turn. Today, we ignore the road signs altogether and just relax and go towards "centre ville" or "direction: Rennes".

In closing, here are some pics from our adventures of the past three days:


Here, Emily and Emily wander the cobblestone streets of Guérande in the rain. Of course, in the rain.










Dinner at Herbignac's restaurant "La Bigouden". When we arrived, it was one of the best crèpèries around. Then, it changed owners. Luckily, it has now changed owners again, and is once more quite good. I even had an andouille crepe and it was delicious - That's how good it is. My first andouille. This coupled with French shoes is positively unsettling...

For those who don't know us, that's our friend Emily B on the left, and my wife Emily Emily on the right (in both pics).



Here they are out rock-climbing at La Roche Bernard. Absolutely beautiful day.












Hide and Seek at Carnac. These two are very silly when they get together!

Infected Bigfoots in the Land of Tiny Shoes, pt 1

Two stories today, intertwined.

I mentioned in my Pipe Blog that Emily had managed to impale her palm on a workshop carving tool the other day. Ouch. This provoked some mild fretting on her part, because she couldn't recall her last tetanus shot. This worried her considerably, enough to brave a doctor visit for a new shot. Unfortunately, this launched us off into another strange encounter with French health care...

She called the doctor's office, explained her problem, and the secretary made an appointment for her. So far, so good. However, on arrival, she found herself talking to the replacement doctor (They shuffle offices to maintain service at odd hours and weekends), who gave her the classic default answer here - "Non, ce n'est pas possible ici', or, "No, we don't give tetanus shots here... What do you think this is, a doctor's office?" Now, the secretary could have told her that over the phone instead of making her an appointment for the doctor to tell her that, but it gets sillier. In the states, you'd call your local doctor, run by, get jabbed, pay $65 for the visit, and be on your way. Here, he explained that we would have to go to the hospital in St. Nazaire for the jab.

OK...

The thought of trying to navigate our way through a French hospital, asking people at forty different windows where we were supposed to go, was enough to have made me shrug and take my chances with dropping dead, had it been me (After all, if the infection killed me, I'd still be saved an encounter with French bureaucracy and Em would be showered with insurance money, so I'd call that a better outcome). Emily, however, is a cautious soul by nature, and opted to tackle this strange new experience. Besides, we had to go to St. Nazaire anyway to find me some new shoes (more on this later).

I must take a moment here to mention the sheer creepiness of the two French hospitals I've seen thus far. I hope they're not all like this - Maybe all the others are pristine and gleaming, but both the one in Nantes and the one in St. Nazaire seem stuck in a time warp - Huge rambling monoliths of state-approved 1970's architecture that surely looked quite snazzy in 1973 but unfortunately haven't been painted since. The overall impression I had of both was crumbling grime held together with bailing wire and tape (Right down to the swinging doors that one passes through on the way to the emergency room, which seem to have door pulls retrofitted from random planks of wood someone had in their back yard). They aren't shiny, they aren't white, and they certainly aren't confidence-inspiring as places to be treated. However, this gothic feel seems quite at odds with the high tech interiors, which are stocked with fancy new equipment and - to our shock - really bright and helpful and friendly staff. Well, mostly... I remind myself of France's better health care conditions, hospital care, and lower infant mortality rates to the US and wonder if the American hospitals aren't perhaps spending cash on looking shiny that might better be spent on new equipment instead. But, I digress..

We go in with NO idea where to go or what we're after. There is a bewildering maze of windows with bored people sitting in them, and we're told to take a number from a ticket machine and wait to be called on to explain our problem.... This despite the fact that there is a sleepy fellow just sitting and yawning in a free window three feet from us. We puzzle over the instructions on the ticket machine for a few minutes, long enough to inspire one of those very objectionable French types to come by and fire off a rapid flurry of high-speed français explaining just which button to push for a ticket, as we're obviously dolts. Fortunately, around this time Emily realizes that we don't want this ticket thing at all, and off we go to an actual service desk where a smiling and helpful lady points us to the emergency ward for the shot.

(Cue more walking through the hospital admiring the grim peeling pea-green hall paint and scuffed .. well, scuffed everything)

"Urgences" is another help window with a young woman who directs us to a very helpful and smiling young woman who tells us that we don't come to the hospital for shots, that isn't how it's done.

!!!

Yes, normally a tetanus shot is handled exactly as it would be in the US - it's given by your local doctor. Easy peasey. Emily explains that the doctor claimed to have no stock of the tetanus vaccine (He said no small doctor's offices carried this in their stock). Hospital lady laughs at this and says the normal procedure is to get a prescription from the doc, then go to the drugstore to pick up the medicine, than cart it back to the doc so he can give it to you in a shot. She's really quite boggled by the fact that our doctor didn't do this, and the story quickly circulates all around the Urgences area about what a maroon this temp doctor is... I don't know the French word for "hick", but there is much eye-rolling and their impression of our stand-in visiting doctor is pretty obvious. To my eyes, it's just another example of the French administration at its most classic - We didn't already know the process to ask about in order to get the shot, so the information wasn't provided because we didn't know the question we needed to ask. Information Retention is the one facet of French character which I still find insanity-inducing, and these experiences never fail to make me want to throttle the next state employee I see.

The people at Urgences more than make up for this, though, by being quite friendly and helpful and extraordinarily quick - Emily was in and out before I covered ten pages in my book in the waiting room, and all to the tune of 9 euros. Victory!! And then, we were off to try and find a new pair of shoes for me.......a size 47+, here in the Land of Gelfling Feet. More to come in part deux.

The Wonderful Miracle Pizza Box

Wow. It's been quite a while since the last time I updated this thing! Alas, the Christmas season will do that, but it's more than that, it's the growing degree of frustration inherent in trying to think of things to write about. We're going on five years here now, and there just aren't that many startling and strange adventures anymore. My observations of the differences between French and American cultures seemed to have reached their zenith with, "There are nice people and real assholes wherever you go. They just wear different hats." Without Indiana Jones-style tales of getting lost in Nantes to relate, the only purpose for this blog would seem to be to make it one of those ongoing loggings of the minutia of our daily lives, and that seems an awfully dull subject for reading, since most readers probably have quiet daily lives of their own.

So, I'm strongly considering just closing this blog down. Or perhaps I'll just turn it into a travel photo site with light comments, we'll see. It really will boil down to what I have the time for. But, I did want to post a pic of this new arrival in our fair village - the pizza vending machine!

France is awash in vending machines for things that I've never seen state-side, such as this video rental vending machine. When we moved here I had no idea what it was, having never seen such a thing before, and someone actually had to explain to me that one could rent DVDs from it without human interaction. I don't know why the French have such fondness for unusual vending machines, though I'd wager it's partly related to the French working hours. In the US, video stores are open till midnight. Here, nearly everything closes at 7, making life quite difficult for those working daytime jobs. Also, perhaps, it may be in part a sort of vast, chagrined realization that friendly customer service may not be the strongest trait in the French character, and such work might better be left to machines... ;)

In any event, the things are a wonder! I'm all in favor of anything that lets me avoid having to deal with other human beings, so naturally I've taken to them quite well. The new pizza machine is a real marvel of technology, offering a wide range of pizza choices and four minute cooking. You stick in your credit card, pick from the video window, and voila, within minutes you have a fresh, steaming, boxed pizza sliding out the slot and ready to eat. Good pizzas too, and very generous on the toppings (We like the "Ferrari", which is loaded with around six pounds of chorizo and other hot sausages). After thousands of years of human challenge and achievement, I'm very tempted to pronounce the instant pizza machine as the pinnacle of our accomplishments. Especially since it is within walking distance of my house... along with the video machine! Ergo, walk to the machine, rent a movie, walk to the other machine, get our pizza, go home and enjoy. Life is good.

Though, when pizza machines are the only thing I have to write about, blogs get quite dull...

Parliament of Oddballs

We just attended the French science-fiction convention Utopiales, in Nantes, and I wrote a new article of stories and photos for our "French Adventures" website area. It was great fun, but I'll let anyone interested go and read the article, which goes into more detail.

Also, wonder upon wonders, I finally wrote our article "Four Years On", about our fourth year of life in France. It's only about six months late, but that's a good sign, in this case.

Back when we moved here, our friend Trish told me something very portentous. I'd said something to her about other expats, and she gave me the somber warning that most expats were, by and large, horrid. IIRC she commented that dark secrets were the norm. So, I've been curious as the years have passed to meet and observe other expats, and see what I think of them. And, by and large, I've come to agree with her.... people who go off to live in other countries are a weird bunch.

Not all of them, though - In fact, I can pretty much divide 95% of the expats I've encountered into a few simple categories: The Vacationers, The Posh, The Dreamers, The Retirees, and the Insane. I've spent a good bit of time recently on the Brittany forum for English speakers in France, and find I have virtually nothing in common with the majority of them. There are a few folks there that I like very much, but also some real wankers, and overall I've concluded that it isn't a forum that I'll ever participate in beyond the "information exchange" level - That is, where to find good prices on this, or best times to buy tickets for that, etc.

Anne from BlueVicar.com wrote me with this: "I am interested in your comments on community...or lack there of...amongst other expatriates. Just because someone hails from our homeland doesn't make them a pal, that's for sure. I often feel quite the opposite, but there does seem to be something about people who are willing to live abroad...and the way they see the world. I find it fascinating! The more stories I read, the more interested I become." I've found that the simple fact that someone has moved to another country is no guarantee I'll want to spend five minutes with them. Show me a fellow who has a full bookshelf collection of HP Lovecraft and it's hot odds we'll get on like a house afire, but introduce me to "This is So-and-So, who moved here from California, so you two have something in common" and I'm likely to regard the person more like a suddenly-discovered bodily growth.

I speak from experience. Truly, there are some expats, a very rare percentage, who are genuinely fascinating and intelligent and sane, but for the most part they tend to lump together like so:

The Vacationers
These people are in France for work. Yeah, I know that seems like the wrong term, but through their jobs they are essentially experiencing France as a vacation. Their corporation has transferred them here and paid all their expenses, plus probably handling the details of renting or buying them a house. This is not an experience of living in France, this is a paid vacation, and they very very often have really skewed views of just what France is, based on their blinkered experience of it. Tell-tale signs - Lots of talk about wine and cheese and how much paid vacation time they have here, coupled with random griping about anything that isn't like it was "back home".

The Posh
Wealthy, usually British folks who aren't really expats, they just have a "summer house" in Brittany. Easily identifiable by their Range Rovers and yacht club insignias, not to mention accents, no one in their right mind wants to get stuck at a party trying to talk to these people. Their view of France: A giant personal playground that exists to furnish them with good wine and cheese, if only they could do something about the "help".

The Dreamers
This is where, I hope, I fit best (either here or 'The Insane'). That narrow slice of the population that have their heads in the clouds and try to follow their dreams as best they're able. They're not stupid but usually also not rich, and if you luck into meeting one at an expat gathering you can be sure to have a good conversation.

The Retirees
France is in danger of becoming the UK's old age home. I'm amazed at the number of Brits I hear who want to retire to France. I barely survived the cultural transition at the flexible age of 36... Do these people have any clue what they're in for? Obvious signs - Grey hair, sandals and socks, and lots of overheard mumbling about the things they don't like in the UK these days. Amusingly, plenty of retired Brits seem to think that rural France will be more like the England of their youth. I say "amusingly" because, well, I'm usually amused to witness the results of this misapprehension.

The Insane
Yeah, Them. If you've been to any gathering of expats, you know them. Too bat-shit to be accepted at home, they've gone abroad hoping that their personal brand of lunacy won't be noticed as much in another language. Unfortunately, as expats they keep getting introduced to more expats like themselves, and their bizarre behavior finds fertile soil and just gets more entrenched. Crucial warning signs include tinfoil hats, furtive & obvious paranoia, and very loud and totally one-sided opinions on anything and everything under the sun, regardless of whether they actually know anything about said topic...

So, this is why I'm much more likely to be enthused when a French friend says, "Hey, let me introduce you to Pierre Marceau, you'll like him, he's a big fan of sci-fi films" than when someone says,"Hey, I have GOT to introduce you to this guy Bango Jinkers that lives near here, he's American too, and you're sure to have lots in common!" To which I say, "Yikes."

Indoor Rain

Sometimes it's easy to forget just how much we've managed to get accomplished in the past four years. The pics today are the before and after shots of our upstairs library/office/study/studio, first as it was when we bought it, and then after we repainted & totally re-vamped it. We continue to have 'adventures' with the roof, however.

Our roof is rather mangy - an old, slate-tiled thing covered in moss (one can easily guess the age of a roof in Brittany by how many pads of moss have sprouted on it, and how thick they are). When we bought the house, the owner assured us that, "No, never, it had never given any problems!" so you can imagine our surprise a few months later when the first hard rain of October created a miniature waterfall down the stone wall of the spiral staircase.

Insert displeased face here.

What we've found over the past few years is that the brief periods of hard wind we have almost reliably take off a shingle or three, leading immediately to odd adventures in indoor rain. The day before yesterday, it blew so hard the trees were bending, and after this we were taken back four years by seeing a familiar thing, a nice stream of water running down the stone staircase wall again, stemming from an open hole about the size of my hand. So, we installed our giant bucket and wailed for the roofer, and today all is well. Odd, though - no call or advance warning or doorbell ring. I simply heard this mystery thunking from outside and opened the window to see a ladder coming at me, and roofing guys scrambling all over. They had the whole thing sorted in two hours, with numerous little holes and problem areas patched up. And I was amused, because it led me to another cultural observation - contractors are different in France, but they all seem to look like each other in the same way that US contractors do.

Call an electrician, or a roofer, or an HVAC guy in North Carolina, and what you'll get will almost always be: a great big guy, lots of gut and exposed butt crack, talking at full-blast volume, driving a huge pickup with a logo on the side and bumper stickers for NASCAR and Bush on the back. In France, the standard seems to be: a little short guy about 5' tall who looks like a Slim Jim meat stick come to life, with a weathered and wrinkled face like a saddlebag with eyes, smoking a Gaulloise. It's these things that make our cultures special ;)

Let's All go to the Movies

Halloween season is here. The air's turned cooler, the skies are getting that different sort of light, leaves are turning, and all of Brittany is getting ready for the next three months of solid rain. I keep a hoard of "Halloween Season" movies in a stack under our cabinet and they've now built up high enough that we could watch a horror film every night for about sixteen months without letup.... but this is a good thing! We've had a nice low-key opener to this year's six-week fest of monster movies - "The House that Dripped Blood", a classic Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee film that also rolls in Denholm Elliott and Jon Pertwee (in a role that humourously foreshadows the character of Peter Vincent some sixteen years later).

Last night switched gears for a replay of "28 Days Later", a fun modern semi-zombie flick that offers some very creepy moments and a better experience the second time around. Thinking of movies spurred me to look up some info on the latest Peter Mayle expat fantasy "A Good Year", and I thought I'd write a little about expat movies.

I mentioned this topic already in an article on our regular site, but thought I'd toss in a couple more cents. Most expat movies are utter rubbish - sometimes entertainingly silly, like "Under the Tuscan Sun", but as often as not they're over-romanticized fluff aimed squarely at bored housewives wanting to fantasize about moving to faraway lands. For anyone who really wants to put their head into the experiences, feelings, and struggles of moving to a foreign country, I suggest the following films:

Lost in Translation - Already written about, as mentioned above. Nails the experience perfectly in every detail.

Spirited Away - Probably the best animated film I have ever seen, and one of my absolute favorite films of any kind, the film sums up well the life of the working expat. It's marvelous in conveying the sense of alien-ness, the surreal experience of watching different rituals and modes of behavior without really understanding them. Add in the need for resigned acceptance that there is no running away or going back "home", and each new day's battles must be tackled head-on, and it's a perfect mirror. Especially touching is the depth of feeling displayed in the story for the kindess of strangers, those random folks we encounter who decide to help out when they've no reason to. The same themes and "leaving home" feelings permeate "Kiki's Delivery Service" too, and I like it equally, but overall it's a bit more of a Feel Good film that shares SA's victories but not its terrors.

Jacob's Ladder - What, a horror film?! Yet the similarities are unmistakable in the overall subtle sense of unease.... Things aren't quite right. You can't hear what those people are saying, you don't know if the person you're depending on is behaving properly or intentionally causing problems, you don't know the customs, you feel plunged into a bizarre world where everything feels just a little bit off. We tried watching this one too soon after we arrived here, and had to turn it off. Everything was going wrong, we seemed to be losing massive amounts of money with no end in sight, we'd had all sorts of horrible problems, and, like Jacob in the film, I was occasionally plagued by vivid dreams at night that I was back in the US... that none of what seemed to be happening actually was happening, and that everything was still OK. In those days, waking up to the unpainted walls, bare flooring, and escalating mountain of debts and problems was like being punched in the stomach.

I'm sure I'll have more to add in future....

We are Not Alone

Today's photos were taken at Pen-Bé, our favorite nearby spot (exactly 8 miles from our house) to go have picnic lunches on the beach. Or the rocks, as the case may be. I had the interesting experience of putting my finger into a tidal pool and having about forty tiny shrimp come out from under shells, all to "feeler" my finger and then try to climb onto it! Emily is sitting here next to our collapsible cooler bag, which is a wonder for insta-picnics.

We've been Blog-Spammed!
I guess it's a sign of finally making it in the blog world. Got my first blog spam today after nearly a year of running this thing. I'm still going to keep it as a free-comment blog for the time being, as I find those word verification tests annoying. We'll see how it goes. If I wake up one morning and find 400 comments about the effectiveness of Viagra on Paris Hilton, this may change.

I'm now on MySpace
I posted this news over on the Pipe Blog some weeks ago, but eventually realized that the two blogs are two very different audiences and it might be smart to post it here also. Yeah, I resisted it for as long as possible, but I finally gave in and set up my MySpace page when my friend Mark Rainey got one. So, now you can go view this pointless site, and see what comments have been left by passing fourteen-year-olds. For those who may be interested, however, I did at least post a mix of pics - Some personal pics, some pipe pics, and some of my artwork. Somebody go add me so I'll have more than one friend, LOL!

We are Not Alone
We live as immigrants but NOT in an "immigrant community" (Those enclosed conclaves of foreigners who carry on their own culture, language, architecture, etc... Like Asians in Chinatown or Brits in the entire south of France...). Thus, it's sometimes easy to forget that we're not the only people doing crazy shit like this, there are plenty of others. I thought I'd make a little list of some similar blogs and sites I've visited recently:

American Spoken Here
The blog site of an American family who moved here a year ago to run a B&B. I had a laugh when I first saw their site because their house picture looks almost exactly like ours! A nice place to go for the wife's-eye view, and she seems to have a devoted following. Her article on her first year in France was fun, and boy, does the vast distance between the daydreamers and the experienced stand out in the comments to that article (Loads and loads of "You're an inspiration!" and "Live your dreams!" contrasted with my dry, "Good job surviving. If you really want satellite TV, here's how:"). :D

A Pretty How Town
Another site by a US lady - To quote her byline, "Florida Girl meets Norman boy". Beautiful photography in this one.

Sam de Bretagne
A Minnesota lady moves to Brittany. Why are so many travel blogs written by women? It's bizarre. It seems to be a thriving female subculture vibrant with co-reading and commenting on each other's articles. I hope this isn't going to make my testicles drop off.

Blue Vicar
Not a blog, per se, nor centered on Brittany, but instead a themed collection of the stories and adventures of foreigners in France. As with all such things, some are funny, some are tragic, and most are interesting in one way or another. God forbid life should ever be "dull" again...

Brittany Life Online
And finally, here is a thriving online forum in which I participate (to some extent), populated by hordes of (mostly British) visitors to Brittany. Like all unmoderated online forums, it ranges all over the place, from interesting bits to utter rubbish, but it's a nice exchange center for useful information, plus it's a way for English speakers in Brittany to connect and get together on occasions.

That's all for now, from Trever on the rocky coast of Pen-Bé!

And So It Begins...

How will it end? In fire...

And if you've never watched the TV series Babylon 5, don't feel confused for not recognizing this quote. What this refers to is my current dedication to improving my French.

At about ten minutes a day, granted, but at least it's something, and something I make sure to do every day.

Over the past few years, I've had too many distractions and not enough free time to make anything more than disjointed, cursory stabs at learning français, and a repeating cycle had quickly become apparent: I would begin to feel settled and OK, and turn a bit of energy towards actually trying to learn some more of the language, and then some new disaster would hit and throw us month's behind on our income, forcing out all other concerns. Worse still, many of the major problems we've had have been very "French" in nature - delays of months getting parts or work done, instead of a few days... Startling bills for otherwise inexpensive supplies... Minor problems becoming huge hassles due to the overcomplicated paperwork mess here... Etc etc. Each time, I'd be left with a seething resentment of French administration or French attitudes, which would quickly translate into an absolute total disinterest in learning the language, and it would take months or a year before my disgust had settled down enough to begin to take an active interest in learning again.

Which, thus far, has been a universally reliable predictor of near-future disasters. !!

But, I'm daring the fires again. No lessons this time, though, at least not yet... Going to a lesson a week didn't help much, as I'd forget everything I learned one week by the time the next lesson rolled around. This time I'm focusing on learning to read first, a little at a time, and a little every day - coupled with consistent writing in French every day. My personal notebook is now filled with several weeks' worth of scrawlings like, "Tirez le chat!" and "Je peut lire en français, unpeu" and "Emily a beaucoup des petits oiseaux, et ils sont tout mort".

I've timed myself, and I have a consistent lesson burnout after between ten and thirty minutes - I very quickly reach the point where too much new input all begins to get jumbled up and the brain cache has a buffer overflow, dumping big chunks of the new knowledge. This, no doubt, stems from my genetic predisposition towards being monolingual - unlike Emily, I've never had a shred of interest in learning other languages, and even now, my focus and energy is entirely predicated on using the language as a tool, and the fun stuff I'll be able to do with it, rather than on any enjoyment of learning the language itself. Kind of like how everyone else in the world feels about being forced to learn English...!

What I don't get is why human language should be so difficult, and computer language so easy. I've also begun to set aside about twenty or thirty minutes a day for "personal fun time", and have started playing with the Adventure Game Studio package with the vague potential idea of writing my own PC adventure game. Or not, it really doesn't matter... I am having a fun time just learning the building blocks of the software's scripting. And I'm positively flying along - In little time I have already begun designing and importing my own backgrounds, creating hand-drawn animations, and learning cutscene animation. C'est façile!

Which really sounds unutterably geeky.................

Beware the Murky Frogpits

This is me up near the river dam at Arzal. For once I have a lot to write - yesterday we visited the dam for the first time and got a lot of good pics, and last night we went to Luna Parc, a traveling fair that stops here in the summers. It's a lot like a US county fair, but it's actually better in a few key ways.

That isn't today's post, though! :D

I thought this was worth an article after talking with our friend Marie-Blanche about the lack of fast food outlets in France. We often find ourselves missing easy fast food - There are only three McDonald's joints scattered across our entire region, and only one alternative chicken place. Ergo, when we find ourselves out running errands and we're hungry on the road, it isn't possible to just pull over somewhere for a quick bite. Everyone turns their noses up at fast food, but the lack of it can be a real nuisance on a very busy day.

Except that, according to our friend, it isn't lacking..... We just aren't seeing it. In France, she says, fast food is at cafés, not glittery McDo's, and if we want a quick bite we can just stop at any café for a sandwich. Unfortunately, trying to drag Emily to these places is like trying to get an iguana untangled from a fishing net - ever time you get one claw unstuck, another one hooks in, and when all is said and done, you've just wasted a lot of time and energy annoying the iguana.

Why the resistance? French cafés are scary. Emily is a lot more bothered by them than I am (bolstered by years of male restroom conditioning, where one often sees bacteria the size of Border Collies loping around). I'll try to relate our typical experiences so far.

Imagine if you will.....

You've just run errands to several different places and spent the afternoon driving through roughly thirty-five idyllic little stone towns filled with thatched roofs and all named 'Ker-something'. You're starving, and you spot a sign saying, "BAR - CAFE - SANDWICHES" (There are places like this in virtually every little village). You think, "Ahh, food!" and pull over. But the horror begins to set in quickly...

The creaking wooden front door hasn't been painted since the 70's, and when you open it, you're rewarded with several popping sounds as various bar tenants explode into dust from their first exposure to sunlight in years. The interior is dank, musty, shadowy, and no matter where you go, there are always at least four or five half-sodden locals lurking at the bar looking unshaven and disreputable. If you've ever wanted the "Cowboy enters the saloon" experience, this is the place, because all conversation will inevitably stop dead as these sullen characters all turn to inspect you. Except, of course, the owner/barkeep, to whom you do not exist, as his family has not known yours for generations.

Dare to pursue the experience further, and find a wooden chair. Your table is decorated with an unemptied ashtray containing the fuminous remnants of eighty-seven Gaulloises, and you are the center of attention for the room. France doesn't seem to have the, "It's rude to stare" code of conduct that the US has, as the locals will simply sit and openly goggle at you for as long as you're there. You may as well be wearing a motorized neon beanie for the attention you'll get. No smiles, no welcomes, nothing to suggest friendliness, just sulky glowering.

Of course, you don't know what to expect... Do you sit and wait for a waiter? Do you go to the bar and ask for a menu? Do you actually want to eat anything that is cooked here? Regardless of what you do, you're stuck, because a good thirty minutes will pass before the barkeep peels himself away from deep conversations on village incest to come and ask what you want. The choice is pretty limited, typically... You're not getting curly fries and BBQ roast beef sandwiches here, your options are more like: Sandwich. Beer. Fries.

If you haven't run shrieking by this point, you'll eventually (roughly 45 minutes later, after enough time for all the regulars to spit in your food) be served some sort of mystery meat in a foot-long bun of the most durable bread you've ever encountered. Chewing doesn't work, biting doesn't work - you're eventually forced to hold the thing in both hands and saw your incisors into it, really using your neck muscles to tear loose rough chunks, which you then chew for the next ten minutes.

And after a couple of these experiences, you'll never, ever want to go back to one of these joints again, and if you even start considering another try, your wife will threaten to set fire to you in your sleep because she is so repulsed.

So, that's been our experience with using cafés as "fast food". Why do I love American fast food places? Let me count the ways:

*Reliability. I can go to a Wendy's in North Carolina or Michigan, and know I'll get the same food.

*Variety! Hey, some of us like sourdoughbread hamburgers...

*Cleanliness. I've been in some dingy fast food joints, but no McDo I've ever seen even begins to compare to the Innsmouth-esque quality of some of the small-village cafés I've visited.

*Prices. Hamburger, fries, and a coke - $6. Mystery meat sandwich, frites, and..... Ugh.... "Zee Coka, monsieur?? You would not prefer un whisky wizh your lunch?" - 9 euros

*Speed. Go in, stand in line five minutes, get your food, eat. At café, go in, sit, wait fifteen to thirty minutes before your existence is acknowledged (if you're lucky, that is, and you don't look too British, in which case you may truly Never Be Served....), then another thirty minutes while they kill the animal in the back room, add the "foreigner's exxtra spice", and finally bring it to you. Tack on an extra fifteen minutes when you're done for trying to get the bill.


Maybe I'm being paranoid, but there's just something about having five unshaven, obviously drunken guys at a bar (at noon!!) watching you eat with all the rapt fascination you'd give to assembling a $3K home stereo system, that just puts me off a bit...

This has run a little long, so I'll wrap up here, with another part soon. We have found a couple of cafés that are....well, OK...even pretty nice... and they'll get their due in the next post!

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Here is definitive proof that not everyone in France is stylish and elegant :)

Emily salvaged this fellow from our yard. Birds nest under the eaves of our house, and chicks often fall the two story drop to the paved yard. This critter survived by miracle, probably by bouncing off a nearby bush. Emily the bird expert is now once again enmeshed in chick-rearing. The little fellow is already capable of eating on his own, and we're taking pains (despite the pics) not to over-acclimate him to humans. With luck, he'll be off and away in a matter of days.

I'd meant to post another list of France vs. USA babble, but that's got a bit derailed by the number of side projects we've had. At times of much distraction like this, my wobbly French suffers the worst. I had been taking private lessons here in town, but my professeur had to break them off because her final exams are this month, and she has to spend all month studying to get her English teaching degree. Then, there will be summer vacations, we'll be outside, it will be too hot for sitting indoors at lessons, other projects will pop up demanding attention (The long-delayed FDP Pipe of the Year is seriously beginning to lurk...) and what little progress I've made in French will fade away completely. Aside from buying groceries, I don't think I've spoken French in a month now.

The gap to conversational-level French seems larger than ever. Worse, we've actually, finally met a few people here in town that we share a lot of interests with, but can't talk to... or at least I can't, and that successfully cramps our entire socializing. But, I realize how long and how much hard study would be needed to reach the point of actually being able to participate in after-dinner chatter, and just don't see myself having the time (or money!) to invest in such education when so many other, more-pressing issues are at hand. Grrr...

On a tangent, socializing here is still something we can't quite get a grip on anyway. We can't invite French people over for dinner because they'll hate the food we make, so they invite us over and probably wonder why we can't return the fun. In the US, dinner wasn't the point of a gathering, usually - we might go for dinner but that was just a marker on the road to everyone ending up in the den laughing. Also, there was movie watching, which I'm not sure is even done here (Friends would phone us up, we'd go over for dinner and a rented movie afterwards). Meal times seem to prohibit this, with the French eating so much later that by the time dinner and dessert is finished and everyone has talked for a while, it's often midnight! I can't imagine inviting any of our French friends over for movies and popcorn - I suspect they would find it weird. Or perhaps not, I don't know - Like my lingual abilities, my window into French casual life remains extremely small, very tight, and very focused.

But in the meantime, there is plenty to keep us busy!

Who's Better?

I came across this wonderful cartoon on this entertaining page about France and the US, and it inspired me for a blog post. What an accurate picture, eh? ;)

People are always asking me which I like better, France or the US, and this is an impossible question to answer with a Yes or No because there are so many nuances to both, and I find various bits of each more or less desirable than others. So, in the interest of cross-channel debate and a bit of fun, here is the start of my 100% biased (but observed through direct personal experience) observations on who is better at various topics:

Movie Theaters
France wins, hands-down. I stopped going to the movies in the US because I always seemed to be spending my $6 to sit next to some fat, loud mouthbreather who spent the entire film describing it blow-by-blow to his buddies on his cellphone, while cybersex-texting his girlfriend with his other cellphone. The last movie I saw in the US was Fellowship of the Ring, just before moving, during which I had to walk back and threaten the spinal cord health of a pack of teens who somehow couldn't resist talking in full volume about their friends and their date scene throughout the film. IMAX may be nice, but I don't think I could put up with an American theater audience just to see it. Over here, theaters are lower-tech (Our favorite just has two vending machines instead of a concession stand, for instance) and they thankfully haven't discovered the concept of selling chicken wings and steak dinners to moviegoers. Instead, you buy your little bag of malted milk balls and then go in and try your absolute damnedest to not rustle the plastic as you munch, because if you do, it will be the only sound in the theater. We went to see V for Vendetta a few months back, and there wasn't a cellphone buzz through the whole movie.

Cheese Variety
This one is closer but I'll have to go with USA, simply because you can get all the French cheeses there also, and you can actually buy cheeses from other countries as well. I don't know if it's economic protectionism or simple snobbery, but it's hell trying to find cheese from anywhere outside France here - Where do I get my Stinking Bishop? Doesn't seem to be an issue of taste, as every French person we've had over who has tried our imported Nacho cheese & chips has loved the stuff (Unlike their consistently horrified reactions to peanut butter). I'm prone to guess that there's a regulation out there somewhere spurred by the French cheesemakers to keep out all those dangerous imports that might actually compete with them. Who knows?

The Child Factor
Sorry to all my American friends, but France just has better-behaved kids. The old saying, "Better seen and not heard" is still in force here, and I am often amazed at how polite and deferential French children are. Our friend Claudie's teenage son breaks off from street soccer games with his friends just to come over and shake my hand when we visit, whereas it seems US kids have to be forcibly pried from their Playstations just to elicit a grunt. I've forgotten what it's like to go out for a nice dinner and have to contend with the undisciplined sprogs of mass breeders stampeding unchecked through restaurants. Between this and the movie theaters, it's like heaven.

More to come....

Medieval Fair at Guérande

Owing to a surprise windfall of income over the past few days, we decided to take off about four hours this Saturday and pay a little visit to the Guérande Medieval Fair(e)(sic). They've had this every year but we have always missed it - usually too busy, or we'd forget and only see the signs until a week after it was over. Guérande is an ideal location, and made the medieval fairs I attended in the US look rather bland by comparison. US fairs are typically open-field events with pavilions and tents everywhere, and plenty of enthusiasm, but it's hard to compete with having a fair wrapped around and through a genuine medieval walled city.

There were plenty of folks there in costume, both workers and visitors - In fact, we were surprised at how many wandering princesses and wenches and knights and pageboys kept drifting in from the parking lot. It made the whole city a little surreal, driving down cobblestone streets past parked cars and scooters and small clusters of young people furiously texting away, while Rapunzel-esque costumed Ladies-in-Waiting (for what?) drifted down the sidewalks trailing long ribbons and often disparate parts of their outfits (It was bloody windy).

They did a great job of tarting the place up, and we didn't see half of the full production. When we arrived after lunch, they were still setting up the main exposition area, where it looked like they might have jousting (and probably a fair bit of wenching) this evening. There were some excellent huge dining halls being assembled too, though I didn't have the chance to check out what might be the main course for dinner. We refrained from spending any money that we didn't have anyway, though the smell from the on-location breadmaker's stall was enticing - Huge round loaves of hot, just-from-the-oven bread were piled in rowdy jumbles.

The dance troupe shown below keep popping up all over the city inside the walls, singing and doing various routines to medieval music (and modern medieval, such as Blackmore's Night's "Fires at Midnight"). This served nicely to remind me that I need to get some more Blackmore's Night CDs someday, to provide an elegant balance to thrashing away in the workshop to stuff like Send More Paramedics. We took a huge pile of pics, and I'll post more in coming days as I have the time. At least now my parents can get a glimpse of Guérande when the sun is out!

Thomas Wolfe was Right

" And again, again, in the old house I feel beneath my tread the creak of the old stair, the worn rail, the white washed walls, the feel of darkness and the house asleep, and think, "I was a child here; here the stairs, and here was darkness; this was I, and here is Time." Thomas Wolfe, 'Return'

Today's photo is a shot of Emily hiking around in the Briére marshlands birdwatching, down near the coast of Mesquer. Heron city!

Last week my old friend Paul sent me the links to their family's house-for-sale, and a link to the model of the new home they're buying in Alabama. It was a bit of a shock - when you move far away, you inevitably freeze-frame everything about your previous home and when it changes, it's more unsettling than normal. This was a bigger reality shift than expected, however, because it caused both Emily and myself to realize that we now have virtually no roots left in what we think of as "home", except for our parents. For the past four years, we've both entertained vague ideas of eventually flying back over for a working vacation - a visit to the Richmond pipe show followed by a leisurely drive down to North Carolina to visit all our old friends... except that now, they are all gone. Virtually every last person I knew and was close with has moved out of state, which brings the realization that a visit "home" will be solely a visit to our parents (and a stop at Pipe & Pint, of course!).

My last remaining grandparent died the summer before we moved overseas, and with his passing I also lost my connection to my childhood in the form of his family farm, where I spent a lot of adventurous hours as a kid. It's funny to look back at this timing now, because I was really unaware at the time of just how utterly severed I was from everything in my life previously. No more farm, no more white painted house with creaky floors, no more gates and ponds and outbuildings. My parents moved around the time that I left for college, and I never really had any roots in their second house - later, they moved again to a house with which I have no emotional connection at all (It is a perfectly nice place, but it is not "home" to me in the sense that my childhood house in Welcome was home - it is simply the place where my parents happen to live). Ergo, when I now think of revisiting Davidson County, I come up blank. There is literally nothing there for me to see again, nothing familiar that would feel like "coming home" - people, yes, but not places. Odd, that. When the closest remaining place you can get to a familiar childhood haunt is Hanes Mall (undoubtedly also changed from end to end), one questions the idea of trying to revisit the past at all.

A Little Snow, Not Much Else

In our four years here, we have been lucky to get one snowfall per winter, so you can imagine our surprise to find it snowing huge flakes a couple of days ago - in March, even - the second time this winter. I grabbed our new camera and shot a little Quicktime video clip of the snow on our border hedge, and another of snow falling across the road from us at the Salle d'Europe building. Outside of this odd and unexpected event, I have absolutely nothing to write about. We've been stuck in the workshop like ticks for the past few weeks, and when you never get to leave the house, there isn't much room for interesting things to happen that you can write stories about.

Which does spur me to comment that, at the best of times, I prefer for this blog to be about things - events, people, culture, ideas - instead of a stream of consciousness about myself. I've read a good number of blogs; good, bad, and occasionally very ugly, and have noticed what I consider a disturbing trend among them... Something that I'll dub "ego masturbation". It's a process that seems to set in as the writers drift more and more off the theme of their blog and begin to toss in more and more of their lives, likes, dislikes, etc. I've seen many a blog written to excess by some unknown twenty-something who's absolutely convinced that their opinions about music, movies, hot guys/girls, or whatever, are so utterly engrossing that surely it's worth writing fifteen thousand words about them (God forbid if they try their hand at a little poetry...).
So, if this place gets quiet for a long time, it's likely that I just don't have much to talk about.

On that idle ramble, I'll leave with a joke for the day.

Adam was walking alone through the garden and wishing he had a companion to talk with. God came to him and said, "Don't be lonely, Adam. I will make you a companion called woman. She will be beautiful, sensuous, intelligent, lusty, and kind. She will obey your every command without question. She will prepare all of your meals, clean the home for you, and iron your fig leaf once you realize you're naked. She will always be happy and never, ever have headaches."

Adam said, "This all sounds great! What's it going to cost me?"

God replied, "An arm and a leg."

Adam gulped, considered, and asked, "What can I get for just a rib?"
And the rest is history....

Representing America

Now that the Olympics are winding up, maybe I'll have a chance to reflect on some murky bits that have been stirred to the top of my puddled brain. One of these is the sheer oddness of being a walking representative of your home country. Out here in the French countryside, a lot of people have never even seen an American outside of TV, so we are the country. Constantly in the back of the mind is the worry, "Am I going to make my whole country look bad if I do this or that?" I can't begin to know what impressions about the US we must give to the locals, though my guesses would be:

"She's really nice and polite, but isn't it odd how she doesn't wear makeup or take pains to dress stylishly?"

"That American fellow seems very reserved. He's polite when he talks, but he doesn't talk much, and he always looks kind of unshaven and scruffy."

"They have good manners but they really keep to themselves." (Of course, when you can't communicate well enough for casual socializing, this is the unavoidable byproduct.)

At this point the reality behind the impressions diverges sharply based on one's cultural predispositions. In the US, one could read these descriptions and hear that Em and I both have a strong sense of identity, are confident enough not to bother with supercilious "dressing up", and are probably decent characters because we have good manners. I suspect that French folks put a lot more weight on appearances than we do - especially regarding proper dress and grooming - so I doubt we would rate so well in their eyes. However, I hope we make a better show for our country than some of our other US exports.....

....Such as, for instance, Tonya Harding. The Olympics this year brought back memories of that utterly revolting experience, and Em and I were very happy that we were not living in Europe during her Olympics. Seeing this classic example of redneck trailer trash (Pardon my crude directness, but, well, you know it, I know it, everyone knows it..) representing the United States to the world would have had both of us refusing to show our faces in town for months! I still think back on her blubbering performance at the skating events and mentally cringe. This year's crop of athletes made us proud, though - at least with the exception of Bode Miller, who came off in BBC interviews like a bored frat boy "too cool for his shirt". For me, the most incredible Olympic moment belonged to the Chinese skater who suffered that terrible crash, then paused, rested a moment, and carried on her couples exhibition to such extraordinary results. I doubt I will ever do anything that would cause our local friends to be equally impressed with American resolve, but her determination really gives everyone else something to shoot for.

Who is Paris Hilton?

Today's BBC Olympic quote is a classic illustration of just how disconnected one can get from "popular culture".

BBC Commentator: "This American skater is the Paris Hilton of the skating world."

I have absolutely no idea who Paris Hilton is. I found the picture at left by doing a Google search for images, and then carefully picking my way through about five thousand hits to find one picture that wasn't mostly naked or outright pornographic. I first became aware of the name a year or two ago when I began receiving a lot of spam emails with Paris Hilton in the subject. I innocently assumed they all referred to the Hilton hotel in Paris, of course (Yes, you can point and laugh now). Eventually I came to realize that this was (in theory) a person and not a building, at which point I assumed she must be a porn star with a name like that (If you name your daughter Candy or Ferrari-Lynn, you know she's going to have a brass pole in her future). I still don't know if Miss Paris is an actress, model, or just one of those people who manage to get in the news a lot. It's weird being so detached from reality - Next thing I know, there will be popular bands with names like "Enter the Haggis"......

And this still doesn't explain just what the BBC guy meant by his comment. Does the US skater spend most of his life flashing his midriff for cameras? Inquiring minds want to know.