Road rage III

Big news: I passed the written portion of the French driving exam! Champagne!!! I’m so relieved to be done; it was very anxiety-inducing, and who needs that? Not me; I have a toddler and a business and that’s all the anxiety I need, thank you very much.

Oh, but wait—the written exam is not an end in itself, but rather, a means to an end (quite possibly my own). Thus, for the past month, I have been putting my officially solid grasp of driving theory into practice behind the wheel of my very own test car, a Citroën C3, which I have so far not crashed and have only stalled 50 times or so.

Now, as I have mentioned before, despite my owning a California driver’s license, there are basically two factors that have deterred my ever bothering to attain a French one: 1.) the stick shift 2.) la priorité à droite (priority to the right). Why? Read on.

The stick shift

Remember that scene from Big, where Tom Hanks keeps putting his hand in the air during a board meeting and saying, “I don’t get it”? That’s like me with the whole clutch thing. Try as they might, no one has ever managed to get that particular notion through my otherwise fairly well-screwed-on head. The bicycle gear metaphor is no use. YouTube videos of mechanics presenting a real clutch are no use, either (they actually make things worse by adding all kinds of insane vocabulary—flywheel? Pressure plate? Whaaa?). I don’t get it. I also don’t get why everyone keeps going on about how automatic is so boooring, while manual is so exciting! Personally, I think the “excitement” factor is simply adrenaline rushing into the bloodstream at the possibility of imminent death.

La priorité à droite

I’ve been bitching and moaning for eons about France’s priorité à droite. But now, having finally experienced its heinousness from the driver’s seat, I realize I haven’t been bitching or moaning nearly loudly enough. Just look:

I actually made this. It’s a slow day, OK?

See the orange car arriving from the right? Logic would say that he should stop instead of just careening onto the main road. That may be, but this is driving in Europe, land of roundabouts and sidewalk parking; logic has no place here. Because he is arriving from the right, the orange guy can just GO. No pause, no yield, no stop; nothing. Just go. The blue guy, on the other hand, who was driving along on the main road minding his own business, has to slam on the brakes and let that jerk gentleman on the right get through. Imagine the consequences if the blue guy’s view of the intersection were to be obstructed by foliage or who knows what. Just put up a damn stop sign, people! Stupefying.

Do you know what la priorité a droite really is? Think about it. The cars driving on the bigger, wider, faster, obviously superior road have to yield to the cars arriving from the smaller, narrower, slower, obviously crappier road ... why, it’s a microcosm of Socialism! Making life difficult for the big guys so that the little guys, however undeserving, can get ahead. It’s like formalized cutting in line. No wonder it doesn’t exist in the US.

Other than that, my lessons are going fairly well. So far, I’ve driven with two instructors: the first one is an economics fan who talks a kilometer a minute (does that expression even exist?) and is convinced that France’s economy is going to implode at any moment, that Russia, China and the US are headed for war with one another, and that those paranoid survivalists whom everyone takes for crazy are actually the only ones with any sense; the second one is a laid-back musician-looking type with a diamond-studded double piercing who keeps telling me that I seem tense.

I am supposed to take the practical portion of the driving exam after 20 hours of lessons, which seems pretty optimistic considering I still don’t actually understand what I’m doing. But no matter! I don’t have to understand something to do it right. Take parallel parking. I went to “the Google,” typed in “parallel parking,” and came across a perfectly wonderful explanation of how to do it. No theory, no opinions, just clear, concise steps to follow. As the author says, “You do not need to practice, you just need to fucking follow the directions.” Very refreshing. Now if only that kind of pragmatism could get me through the exam!

Pass the feta

OK I’m back. Spring has STILL to show up in Paris, but I can’t hibernate forever; there’s too much opinion-spouting to do! Let’s get right to it, shall we? France has just replaced charismatic President Nicolas Sarkozy by an insipid mass of vanilla pudding and far be it from me to not point and laugh.

So here’s the thing. I realize that a lot of people out there love to hate Sarkozy; bizarrely, the fact that he has a taste for luxury goods—even French ones—seems to stand out more in the minds of many than how he dealt with Libya or managed to keep France afloat during four years of economic upheaval. Who cares if he single-handedly reshaped the presidency? Who cares if he brought gutsy and much-needed structural reforms? The big jerk dared celebrate his 2007 election at a swanky restaurant! Quelle indécence! 

I personally LIKE(D) Sarkozy; his dynamism, while not always well-directed, was a breath of fresh air after 12 years of Chiracian inertia. I loved how he challenged the whiners instead of caving into them; I appreciated his iconoclasm, his courage, his leadership, his willingness to take an ax to the bloated French state. My only wish is that he had hewed wider and faster, though, because with the election of socialist François Hollande, France is nearly certain to do an about-face and march straight into the mire Sarkozy had so deftly avoided.

François Hollande has no experience in high office. No one—not even his supporters—seems capable of explaining exactly why he would make a good president. I’m not sure even he knows why he would make a good president. His campaign platform seems to rest entirely on pointing out that he isn’t Sarkozy. All we’ve heard from him for months on end are self-aggrandizing comparisons with former President François Mitterrand accompanied by platitude upon platitude such as, “What’s at stake in this campaign goes beyond all of us on the Left. What’s at stake ... is France itself” or “I’ll let you in on a secret ... I like people, while others are fascinated by money.” This kind of crapola would be laughable if it didn’t draw emphatic nods from so many.

Whereas Sarkozy brought with him a feistiness and pragmatism sorely lacking from the French presidency, Hollande brings precisely the opposite. The man is in way over his head; he’s like a lost deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming semi. His proponents may cheer him for being “normal” or “calm,” but these are daft, profoundly irritating attempts to sidestep the glaringly obvious fact that the guy belongs behind a desk at the post office, not at the helm of a G8 nation. It matters not whether a president is “normal” (name me ONE “normal” dude who has wound up as president—and no citing Kevin Kline); it matters whether he is capable of successfully leading a world power. And Hollande most definitely is not.

To put it another way, when I looked at Sarkozy over the past five years, I saw this:

It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.

And now, when I look at Hollande, I see this:

The Traveler has come! Choose and perish!

I don’t know about you, but in the middle of a worldwide economic crisis, when it really does matter who the president is, I know damn well who I want in charge of the country in which I live … and it sure ain’t a French spin on the Stay Puft marshmallow man.

I'll miss Sarkozy. His disappearance from the French political scene will be a tremendous loss, and I’m tempted to say “too bad for France” except that I live here myself and am therefore personally affected by the embarrassing results of an election I unfortunately didn’t have the legal right to participate in. I’m definitely not looking forward to five years of Hollande’s “assuaging” gibberish, especially while he “calmly” transforms France into the new Greece. But, I will not lose all faith in the ultimate utility of universal suffrage, for the United States’ own elections are on the horizon and I cannot wait to get out there and reelect my Obama!

 Now THAT is a world leader! 

Les Misérables

Last weekend, I skipped the country and discovered Luxembourg City: close enough to Paris for a weekend, yet far enough away to feel exotic. Most of my entourage raised an eyebrow when I announced my weekend plans, as apparently the going rap on Luxembourg is that it’s a) small b) boring and c) unsexy. Whatever. For those of you contemplating a visit to Luxembourg, it is none of those things. In addition to being gorgeous, G. and I found it to be plenty big (it’s the damn capital, people! 50 square kilometers—get with it!), plenty interesting, and ... well, it may not be sexy per se, but what do you want? It’s wedged between Germany, eastern France and Belgium; it can’t have everything. What it DOES have is money. Lots of money. And an entire army of invisible street sweepers who keep the place impeccably groomed. That, my friends, is one clean city. Even the fallen leaves look somehow artfully fallen. There is no “5-second rule” in Luxembourg; if you should let any food fall to the ground, you could probably pick it up whenever you felt like it and keep eating. No worries.

They also have really big cheese.

Oh sure, there is poverty in Luxembourg. We learned all about it at the city museum, currently featuring a temporary exhibit cleverly entitled “Poor Luxembourg.” Over the course of a really quite elaborate series of displays and installations, including full-scale models of a homeless camp and a “social” grocery store, we learned that “poverty” in the Grand Duchy is not so much a question of true financial insecurity, but rather of coping with limited access to social pleasures (fewer extracurricular activities for one’s children, for example). We also learned that the gross minimum wage is roughly €1,800 per month—by far the most generous of the EU. In other words, indigence is such an oddity in Luxembourg that it’s worthy of an entire museum exhibit.

France is not Luxembourg. France has plenty of poverty—as well as a fairly conspicuous homeless population. I would know; I was sat upon this week by one particularly conspicuous specimen. Sat. Upon. I was taking the métro home from work with a friend, when an extremely alcoolisé gentleman sporting rags and a half-consumed bottle of whiskey staggered onto our train, screaming what can only be translated as, “You bunch of #@*$!! I #$$& this &$*@ piece of #$$& world of @$#!! Go @#$% yourselves!” Everyone in the wagon stopped talking and stared at him, at which point the doors closed and the train took off. The sudden movement was obviously too much; in slow motion, he toppled backward ... right onto my friend and me, strategically seated as though we had intended to serve as a human safety net. It was nice.

Enter at your own risk.

Like the subway of your average metropolis, the Paris métro has quite a population of “residents.” Some drink themselves into oblivion; some peddle illicit merchandise; still others beg. Of the beggars, I count three categories: the passive, the proactive and the performing. The passive find a spot somewhere in the labyrinth of tunnels and stations and just camp there, with or without a puppy/child by their side, silently admonishing you to spare a dime. There is one such woman who hangs out at the station Opéra, at the foot of the stairway leading to the line 3 platform, just glaring at each and every person who walks by, her eyes boring right into you as you attempt to breeze past nonchalantly. I once fearfully offered her a few lunch vouchers—the fabulous tickets restaurant—and she actually turned out to be way nicer than I had imagined. I almost wanted to give her some marketing advice about the whole catching more flies with honey than with vinegar thing, but thought better of it. If I were homeless, would I take advice off some random commuter? Probably not.

The proactive métro dwellers go ahead and climb aboard the trains themselves, passing from wagon to wagon, shouting over the din about who they are and why they need your contribution. Some are polite; others are frighteningly belligerent. Consider this: back at home, my parents are harassed day and night by phone calls from perfect strangers soliciting money, but here in Paris, you can get the same treatment face à face! Who says urban living is impersonal?

Finally, there are the performers. Some dance; some sing; some play musical instruments. Some are quite good; others are so ear-splittingly bad I would pay them to just STOP ALREADY. And while I’m at it, I would also happily, happily pay them to cease and desist massacring such cherished oldies as “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Hotel California,” anything by the Beatles, and the perennial favorite, “El Cóndor Pasa” (yes, I realize the tune predates Paul Simon. That’s no excuse to screw it up). There are also plenty of métro gypsies, but they enter more into the “nasty pickpocket” category than the “unfortunate homeless” one.

For the record, I do not have a heart of stone (plus I’m a Democrat; I’m like obligated to at least feign sympathy). Although, with the price of Paris’s monthly métro pass likely to increase to a whopping €78 over the next year, there comes a point when those of us who do use the public transportation system for ... transportation ... are perfectly justified in demanding, I don’t know, the right to not be sat upon by drunken homeless guys for example. I’m just saying.

As the leaf turns

Autumn in Paris has always been a treat for me. I love the changing colors of the chestnut trees; I love the crisp, envigorating air; I love the spicy smells of autumnal things like chimney smoke and wet leaves; I love quiet Sunday strolls through fragrant woods. I also love the soulful melancholy that accompanies all of it. November, a time of transition between the burnished richness of autumn and the first soft chimes of Christmas bells, is indeed upon us and in no time at all I will be humming Handel airs beneath my breath while crunching through the leaves on my way to work.

Last weekend was Halloween, a sad little holiday that came and went nearly unnoticed in Paris this year. I’ve never seen the French get overly excited about October 31; it seems to be an American export that never really found a serious following among the Gauls, who class it alongside Valentine’s Day as a commercial (read: American) holiday for the unsophisticated masses. This year, however, was even more of a non-event than usual. Blame la crise économique if you will, but I didn’t see so much as ONE tiny little nod to Halloween in the Parisian streets. Not a single jack o’ lantern, rubber spider or orange and black motif to be found. No, this time around the French seem to have skipped right over Halloween and gone straight to Christmas. Bizarre to enter the neighborhood Monoprix supermarket in the middle of last week and find it bedecked with over-sized decorative gift boxes, the ceiling strung with Christmas ornaments in fuchsia and black (I believe they’re reusing last year’s color scheme, incidentally. No doubt further fall-out from la crise).

When I was a child, Halloween was first runner-up in the Best Annual Event category (first place naturally belonging to Christmas). It wasn’t dressing up that I looked forward to so much as the gleeful saccharine orgy that accompanied said dressing up. I should specify here that our mother raised my brother and me on a strictly no-sugar policy, knowing full well that sugar (alias “white death”) leads to cavities, hyperactivity and all manner of other evils. Thus, all throughout our childhood we were given a regimen of fantastically healthy food that had little in common with what the “normal” neighborhood children were eating. While they happily sucked away on Tootsie Pops, we had to content ourselves with a bizarre sugar-free variety, whose surprisingly chemical lemon flavor I can still conjure up if I try (*shudder*); instead of fruit roll-ups, we got relatively tasteless 100% fruit leather (“fruithide” would have been a more accurate name); in place of chocolate chip cookies, we munched on carob raisin bars, and so on and so forth.

Yet be that as it may, Halloween was always the one time of year when my mother would put aside the tofu and allow us to take part in a ritual that went entirely against her naturopathic instincts. I reveled in the spoils of Halloween until I had reached an age when dressing up and begging for candy started to feel weird, at which point I abandoned it to the same “I’m too old for this now, but I wish I weren’t” domain as pet mice and 25¢ slime. Since then I may have donned a costume once or twice for the occasional eccentric (very French) party, but just between us I cannot dress up without feeling perfectly ridiculous, even after a few glasses of wine. Maybe I have unresolved issues with Halloween.

This year I turned 30, an event that many face with anxiety, loathing, or even mild depression. Not me. I have found my entry into a new decade to be liberating. For one, it has granted me a sudden sense of legitimacy as a real adult person. And as an adult person, I decided this year that it was time to celebrate Halloween differently. I thus devoted the entire evening to a more elegant form of decadence than heaps of candy or barrels of chardonnay. Instead, I popped over to the nearest Pierre Hermé boutique, a veritable temple to the sugar gods, where I bought six perfect miniature French macarons, a specialty for which this particular pastry chef is known throughout France (and undoubtedly beyond). Upon returning home, I ran myself a lovely hot bubble bath, artistically arranged my macarons on a little plate, put on some background music and cracked open the half bottle of chilled champagne that I had been saving since July. It was, as the French would say, “awesome.”

Conclusion: I may have found a way to re-market Halloween to 30-somethings. But if not, at least I can find comfort in knowing that I have created a new personal tradition that will provide me with an excellent reason to cherish October 31 once more.