The Cranky Foreign Resident: I Love the French, But Sometimes…

Three years ago Polish contributor Justyna Gawąd, her French husband and their European son moved to the Anjou region of France from Warsaw. Justyna is generally no crank, as far as we can tell, but it took little encouragement to get her critical juices going for France Revisited’s Cranky Resident/Cranky Traveler Issue.

By Justyna Gawąd

I am Polish, I live in France. I LOVE France and Frenchies, I do. But sometimes they “bother me enormously,” to quote from As Good As It Gets.

Paris
Paris is Paris. No comparisons with any other city in France or abroad. Paris is French and you better keep it in mind because everything French, by (French) definition, is better.

The language, the culture, the food, the fashion, the ANYTHING as long as it is French. So you NON-French show up and you do not speak even few words of French? You better brace yourself up because you will have to pay for it.

Restaurants are among their favorite playing fields… but they hold the rulebook and will let you know what’s good for you and for your budget. And if you can get lousy (with rude as an option) service and sticker shock, well it’s YOUR fault—tant pis (too bad). At the same time restaurants/brasseries where waiters voluntarily speak English are HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS. If you want to stay there and you don’t have bottomless royal diamond visa card, check prices before ordering! Example: you can pay for a cappuccino up to 8 Euros, while cappuccino’s French twin brother, the ‘café crème,’ costs less than half that. The difference between them? Something sprinkled on top… and your accent.

At lunch time you should eat lunch, not sip coffee or meditate over a glass of beer. EAT! If you want to contemplate the view and you have eaten before, kindly ask FOR PERMISSION to take a seat. Otherwise you could be literally kicked out of the restaurant.

Metro and RER – Luckily not too much to complain here, other than the fact that the French create directional signs that can be deciphered by only by the indigenous.  If you don’t have a super connection with your intuition then you better avoid changing metro lines or RER at the Chatelet/Les Halles station. Exits are easier to find, though you don’t know where you’ll end up. I was once stubborn enough to aim for a specific exit and after 30 minutes of circling dirty corridors I found something that could be used as a secret entrance to Ministry of Magic.

Outside of Paris
Ah, this is a completely different but equally French story.

Primo, you will learn to spend lots of your time eating. If you don’t have that habit, you’ll get it eventually. In the countryside, which by Parisians’ definition is anywhere beyond the capital (and, when their feeling generous, a couple of big cities), business life starts at 9:00 am, if you include the coffee, and more often at 10:00 am then lasts until noon. Here we take long aforementioned pause to eat and to digest in peace and quiet before restart work at 2:00 pm, again a big later if you exclude the coffee. Mind you, after 5:00 pm there is little point of trying to DO anything.

Children are off from school on Wednesdays so lots of working mothers don’t work that day. So if you’re banker or consultant of some kind is a mother then good luck trying to get an appointment that day. And since she’s isn’t available then no other person will be able to assist you, pas question, as the quality of service wouldn’t be as good.

As some businesses are open on Saturdays, they will be closed on Mondays. In fact apart from opened places of daily necessities, like drugstores, supermarkets and a few others, the quicker you can absorb the philosophy that you can’t much done on Saturday afternoons, Sundays and Mondays the better.

In May there are 5 long weekends, don’t ask how that’s possible.

Renting or Buying
You’re trying to rent or buy a house or an apartment? I hope you are very well organized.  As the French normally don’t call back, you will have to keep track of all phone numbers, properties you inquire about and the same properties being presented as different offers. If somebody calls you back two weeks after you had left a message on the answering machine, it is still considered as normal.

While visiting a property after at least one week (normally two) of preparations, phone calls, exchanging emails you have to have answers ready if you don’t want train tracks or a highway through the garden, cows in front yard, mold on walls or no access road to the property. “Why not??” the agent will say. “This property CORRESPONDS to your list of requirements! You wanted ‘quiet’, it is ‘quiet’!” If it didn’t cross your mind that you can have cows in the garden, well, blame YOUR imagination.

Once you do speak five words of French, no matter how badly, lots of doors and hearts will open for you. Let’s not dwell on the “why” and just simply focus on that fact.

If you don’t speak French, TRY avoiding speaking English. Again, let’s forget about any reasonable explanation. Use Latin, Hebrew or Esperanto, anything but English.

France is to be loved or hated, and when it’s loved, even by those who do not love you back, I’ll bet that you’ll leave this country infatuated with French ways of being, doing and living. At home you will buy a bottle of St Emilion, pronouncing the name PROPERLY and looking with pity at all those who prefer to drink Zinfandel.

© 2013, Justyna Gawąd

Justyna Gawąd is Polish and is happily married to a Frenchman. They are proud parents of one child, guardians of one dog and faithful servants of one cat. Three years ago they moved from Warsaw to the Anjou region of France, where, deep in the countryside, they have been trying to become peasants while also trying to run businesses. They have had an easier task of the former. They have recently started the process of buying a house. Once accomplished, Justyna plans to acquire a few horses.

Also see The Cranky Parent, The Cranky Host, The Cranky Urbanist and The Cranky Pedestrian.