Rue Rude

Cars are important

Everything is so easy in a car here. People can drive for years and still not know how to parallel-park. You can drive right up to any store. You look over at the car next to you at a stop-light, and the driver looks twelve years old....

On the other hand, every American town is now surrounded by miles of strip-malls. The one goes with the other.

I went out to dinner with an old friend in a nice restaurant that had been created in an old gas station. He showed us an amazingly gorgeous parking garage near his office, complete with columns and colonial style.

"We call it the Garage Mahal," he said.

Back in the U.S.A.

Today I had the exhausting experience of traveling from France to the U.S.A. during a red terrorism alert.

In the past year I have begun getting to U.S. flights from Paris CDG three hours early to avoid getting bumped-- these flights are always overbooked now, and I have been bumped several times when arriving two and a half hours in advance.  So today we arrived three and a half hours early and checked in with remarkably few problems. It was three hours till our flight, so we went to get a bite to eat, then leisurely browsed in the magazine store and headed off to the security point with well over two hours to spare.

"Oh no! That can't be the line!" That was each new person's reaction on seeing exactly where the end of the line for the U.S. flights was. We stood still in line, mostly without moving at all, for more than two hours, as the earlier flights were given priority. Meanwhile, people going to European destinatons from the nearby gates waltzed straight in through a double-manned security gate . While waiting for the rare passengers, the security people at the European checkpoints lounged around lazily in full view of the hundreds and hundreds of people in line for the U.S. flights: old men and women of 80 looking exhausted (there was nowhere to sit and they were not invited to go first), mothers with babies and small children (ever tried to keep a one-year-old amused for two hours while you stand still in line?), and the rest of the human flotsam and jetsam traveling to the United States from France at the height of summer.

When I was a child, flying was glamorous. Flight attendants wore gloves and high heels, and couldn't weigh more than 130 pounds, be older than thirty, or be married. People who were seeing you off could come right onto the plane with you to say goodbye. People used to dress up to fly. How have the mighty fallen!

There were signs all over the airport about the new rules: no liquids on board, not even water, not even if you tasted it; no gels; no ointments; no medicine without a prescription in your name (except insulin); carry-on baggage strongly discouraged. I had reluctantly checked my computer, padlocking the bag; I carefully put my perfume into my checked bag even though I usually carry a little vial in my purse. I was not too happy when the security woman snatched a lip balm, lip pencil and Dior lipstick out of my bag, dropped them into a garbage bag, and said, "Pas de maquillage à bord!"

"No one said anything about lipstick!" I said indignantly. Her eyes swept over me. She was already onto the next passenger. The security people had all been working overtime and looked absolutely exhausted.

The flight from Paris to Washington was okay-- I pulled a blanket over my shoulders, put a sleep mask on, and slept the whole way. The new transatlantic planes mostly have seats now with "ears" in the headrest that you can fold outwards to support your head, so it's much easier to sleep.

In Washington, we waited twenty minutes at immigration and forty-five minutes in the baggage claim areas. Then another hour in a crowd scene waiting to re-check our bags. The entire huge baggage-claim hangar was a wall-to-wall milling mob of tired passengers with luggage carts, all cross because they were going to miss their flights.                   

"I am not a security guard," said a Mexican-American policeman to us when we asked why he was holding us back. "I am a U.S. law enforcement officer with responsilibity for protecting our borders. Our job is to keep our country safe. People are complaining about all these controls. Would they rather be dead? BOOM! Then they'll wish they didn't kick at a little extra waiting!"

Total time on planes today: 8 hours.

Total time standing in line: 4 1/2 hours

Total time door to door: 16 hours

"Who will come to the United States if this continues?" said two Germans standing behind me in Washington. They didn't know I could understand German. "Who will even want to come to this country?"

Logomania

When I first came to Paris (I seem to begin a lot of posts that way. I'm surprised I haven't written a book by now; everyone who spends a year in Paris seems to)-- when I first came to Paris, I was struck by how all the women in my neighborhood seemed to be wearing a uniform. The same coat, the same black dress, the same Hermès scarf, and every single one of them wore the same little black Chanel purse with its leather quilting,  its little gold chain, and its ubiquitous double-C logo that looks strangely like a cattle brand and likewise serves to identify its owner (she hopes).

"If I ever want one of those," I would declare, "I'll know it's time to leave." I even talked a man at a second-hand store out of buying one for his wife. I told him it was bo-o-o-o-ring. I'm sure she would have been furious if she had known: it was a great price and even had its original housse.

Funny, those little bags are starting to look classic to me now. I wonder if this is an omen.

Accompanying one of my many visitors who like to "lick the windows" on the rue Royale (the French expression for window-shop is lécher les vitrines), I noticed Chanel put its logo even on the staplers.

Early August, Champs-Elysées

What a pleasure it is to drive around Paris in August! We actually gasped as I drove into Étoile today, it was so empty. Oh-là-là! (By the way, the French never say Ooh-là-là. But even the most masculine men say Oh-là-là. Americans would say, Whoa!)

The Champs-Elysées was blocked off except for one lane of traffic in each direction. Ever-suspicious of our mayor Bertrand Delanoë's nefarious intentions (he hates cars), I decided to drive that way to see what he was up to: was he planning to turn the Champs into one huge pedestrian zone? I wouldn't put it past him.

There was almost no traffic. At the light, I pulled up next to a traffic cop. "Excusez-moi, madame," I said. "Do you know what is going on here? Why is the road blocked off?"

"It's the tanks," she said. "On the fourteenth of July, the tanks roll down the Champs and they tear up the pavement. C'est la même tous les ans!" She waved me on with a smile.

*Photo from Baloumba at Flickr

Free parking in August

This is a Paris parking ticket. You'll have a hard time getting one in August, when parking is free, unless you park in a crosswalk (the cardinal sin) in the middle of town.

I was about to pay this one, left over from early July, when I noticed it was not for my own car! Someone had slipped it under my windshield-wiper, hoping I'd pay it without looking.

The way you pay the ticket is to buy a timbre fiscal amende at a tabac. They look like this:

You stick the large section of the stamp on the parking ticket and mail it off to the Trésor public in Rennes. The small part goes on the second page of the ticket, which you keep as proof that you paid.

To pay for parking in Paris, you buy a parking card (left) at a tabac. They look a bit like telephone cards. I sometime keep the old Paris ones, they're so pretty.

Then to pay for parking up to two hours, you use a parcmètre (right). Depending on the neighborhood, parking is expensive or cheap. Parking in our area was free until about ten years ago, but I don't think there are any places left within Paris itself where you can park free anymore.

Paris residents get a special card for all-day parking at a cheap rate.

All these things become less relevant in the run-up to the 2007 présidentielles. It is an old tradition in France for each new French president to forgive all parking tickets more recent than six months old. Politicians denounce this practice, but it would be dangerous to be the first one to discontinue it.

Early August in the 16th arrondissement

Bakeries, pharmacies, and tabacs are required to register with the city and tell customers where to find a substitute that is open.

Beauties of Place de la Concorde

Paris is full of beautiful girls. But they're not all French. These three tall slim girls were speaking Russian as they turned heads.

Early morning at Paris-CDG airport

A day after I got to Paris, and still groggy from jet-lag, I found myself this morning at 5:55 at Terminal 2C at Roissy (Paris-CDG), waiting for a U.S. flight. My passenger had missed the plane, and I ended up spending four hours waiting, with a bomb alert  in the middle. It wasn't actually boring, though. France is the most-visited country in the world, and the whole world passes through CDG. As I waited, I saw arriving:

--the French university karate team, handsome kids all in white, with a ribbon of bleu-blanc-rouge sewn down their sleeves and FRANCE on their backs

--A large Arab family, dressed in modern clothes, arriving from Dubai: the man who came to meet them greeted only the men and walked off in front with them, giving not a glance to the women and girls trailing afterwards with the luggage (I have been told that it is the height of rudeness in strict Muslim cultures for a man to look at other men's wives and daughters. Still).

--A pretty American woman with three children, greeted warmly by a man who said "Buenos días!"

--Two tall Palestinians in long white robe and red-checked headdress, speaking German

--A group of young people with Air France "juniors en vacances" jackets (I believe these are vacations for the kids of Air France personnel): one young man shouts joyously, "Bonjour la FRANCE!" as he comes out of the security zone

--a very blond woman in a pink sari

--dozens of chic French tourists in clamdiggers, returning from the Seychelles, all tanned olive

--a young Chinese woman saying "Dis 'Salut' à Mamie!" to her child, then speaking Chinese to her mother

--an old French white man holding a little half-African granddaughter in his arms, all dressed up in a blue gingham dress and ribbons

--airport employees on scooters

--a Frenchwoman hugging a little Vietnamese girl and her white-French companions

--American friends greeting each other warmly with hugs and kisses, chewing gum the whole time

--a bunch of giant Belgian surfers arriving from Rio de Janeiro (by the way, judging from the college kids I know, South America is the place to be these days)

--Tall, slim African boys coming from Senegal, a large group in red tracksuits.

--Elegant African women with bright tignons on their heads, and matching flowing robes. One of them was passing through the gate with her cart when a customs policeman came running after her, yelling, "Quand je vous dis d'arrêter, vous arrêtez!" and made her go back inside, where I heard shrieking.

Once I figured out which flight my errant passenger was actually on, I went off to the restaurant at the end of the terminal and had a leisurely breakfast, enjoying my new favorite newspaper Le Parisien. Just as I had finished my grand crème (the French do not call it café au lait, which was a big surprise to someone from Louisiana) and was thinking about ordering a second one, I heard the waiter say to another tablée, "Service is suspended until after the bomb alert." I paid up and prepared to join the large number of people in the corridor at the end of the terminal. Just then the restaurant was evacuated too.

Since this happens regularly at CDG, no one seemed especially worried. It got crowded though. I read my newspaper and explained to a number of puzzled Americans who asked what was going on. Finally we were allowed back into the terminal.

When we got back to Paris, where I arrived yesterday, I went grocery shopping, since there was no food in the house. Most of the stores run by French people are closed for August, but the north Africans stay open. I went to my local grocery store, where I have a friendly relationship with the Moroccan Berber owner. I told him about the bomb alert. 

"I have been closely involved twice," he told me. "Once I saw a fat, suspicious-looking bag at the Gare Saint-Lazare. It was partly open, and was standing by itself. I told the police about it, and they came over and evacuated the station and blew up the bag. They have a little robot that pulls the bag, goes all around it, and blows it up if there is something suspicious inside. But they made me stick around as a witness and sign some papers, and I missed my train. They gave me a document as an excuse for my employer.

"But the funniest time was when I was waiting for a train at the Gare de Lyon. I had a long wait, so I had lunch at a restaurant there. I left my suitcase at the table while I went to the bathroom, and when I came out, there was no one there. The whole terminal had been evacuated and the police were coming to explode my bag."

On the way into the airport, a big panneau lumineux over the exit said: Terminal 3, Rapatriement Liban. Repatriation Lebanon.

Small town traveler

Today I took advantage of being in a friendly small town to have my costume jewelry repaired, a job that jewelers in Paris decline with a sniff ("Mais ce n'est même pas du vrai!").  The guy next to me was changing his watch battery, and  we got into a conversation, as Americans, but not the French, do to make the time pass while they are waiting.  "Leaving tomorrow? Where are you going back to?"

"Paris," I said.

"Which arrondissement?" 

Usually people say, "Paris, France?" so I asked in surprise,"Have you lived there?" This is not a cosmopolitan town.

"Yes, I spent two summers in Europe as a student. I was in Paris for three weeks in August."

"Bad time to go!"

Yes, he had almost entirely unhappy memories of Paris. The oppressive sweaty heat with no air-conditioning-- this strikes Southerners as third-world. The rude waiters. The haughty professors. The people who answered in English when he spoke French. He was broke and Paris was expensive. The shops were closed. All the other people in the program were foreign girls, so he felt left out. There were no French young people in town because it was August.

I felt apologetic, as if  Paris were my home town.  Then I realized, it is my home town. I've never lived anywhere else half as long.

Luckily he liked the South of France. He had had a wonderful time in Nîmes (inevitably followed, in French, by "la Romaine") with French friends. But the place he really missed was England.

"Sometimes I am homesick for Oxford just as if it were my own home."

Envie de partir

After a tea party, I walked one of my mother's friends to the car. She grabbed my arm as she got in. "Look, I can't talk about it in front of the others. Do you feel this way? I'm worried about this country. I never thought I would say it, but I am ashamed for the first time in my life, ashamed of my own country. Of what is being done in the name of our country. I am in despair about it. Tell me," she said. "Do they hate us over there?"

Maybe they do, but right now I think French people in America must be having a much harder time than Americans in France. Much as I love to criticize France when I'm there, on this trip I've been defending it non-stop. I can only imagine how bad it must be for French people here.

People throw their hands in the air when they hear I live in Paris (after first saying, "Paris, France*?"): "I can speak French! This means 'hello!'" ["I surrender."]  They say things like, "I don't have much respect for the French" or "The French are basically cowards" or "Most of the French people I have met are wimps."  I don't know what to do. I am not good at arguing because I take it all personally and tend to think that people who say these things are stupid, which is not a good base for an argument, nor is it necessarily true these days-- these words are idées reçues in the United States right now, and people say them complacently, with no fear of contradiction, much as French people remark complacently at dinner parties that Americans are uncultured grands enfants. ("Mais charmants!" they will add rapidly when they realize I'm American. "Tout à fait charmants!")

I'll be back in Paris next week. (I just Googled meteo Paris and got a link that asks: "Is Paris safe these days?") The weather is nice there right now, which I am looking forward to. Here it's one hundred degrees (38° C), eighty percent humidity. And that's normal. Time for more ice tea.

*Europeans are often sarcastic when Americans ask this, but to be fair to Americans, there are towns called Paris in 26 American states**, and people who live there like to say, "I'm from Paris!"

**States with towns, townships or ghost towns named Paris, according to the U.S. Place Names Gazetteer:
AR, CA, ID,  IL, IN, IA,  KS, ME,  MI, MS, MT, MO, NE, NH, NY, NC, ND, OH, OR, PA,  SC,  SD,  TN,  TX,  VA,  WI