Douce France - ou comment se faire envoyer chier
Just got back from a week in France, visiting friends, eating so much food, walking and getting sunburnt.
There's no doubt that spring has sprung down there, although given that I spent the week in the south, I'm not surprised. One of my friends didn't seem to think that it would be that hot, although it was regularly over 20 degrees with blazing sunshine.
And France's wonderful administrative processes reared their ugly head, too. People don't seem to hesistate in telling you where to go over there, which can prove amusing sometimes, depending on whether you are on the receiving end or not. Two examples from my bank:
1) I went to pay money into a branch in Paris and query a charge. The lady at the counter seemed happy to give me information about the charge, but when I tried to pay money into my account without proof of ID, I was shocked to hear her tell me, "in that case, we don't want your money". I was tempted to suggest that with an attitude like that maybe they didn't want my business at all!
2) Slightly more amusing (not on the receiving end): In another branch there was an old hag at the front of the queue who had a long query. Just before she left, the charming young lady behind the counter told her that she "didn't want to get annoyed with her any more", which raised a few smiles.
Unfortunately, this wasn't the end of it all, seems there was something in the air. Earlier that day, I unfortunately had to go back to Paul Valéry University to collect my degree certificate. I had taken care to bring the papers I needed, and we set off. Upon arriving at the university, I was shocked to see security guards grouped around the entrances with dogs. Seems that they were expecting trouble after the demonstrations against the CPE that had been taking place in the last few weeks. We managed to get in (using my friend Marion's teacher card, my student card long having been lost), and eventually found our way to the office we needed, only to see that it was closed. Considering that it's only open three days a week anyway and even then only for three hours in the morning, this was a little rich. We eventually managed to find someone who was willing to ask the people inside (yes, this is Paul Valéry, they make no attempt to hide the fact that they are there) to help us, considering I had come from England to collect the document. In short, we were told that they could not help us, they were closed, and I would have to pay to send them the documents I was holding in my hand and for them to issue the document that was sitting in a drawer behind the door. I had to resist the temptation to throw a chair through the window of the office, as I didn't fancy seeing those dogs any more close up.
On my way back to Paris at the end of the week, I found myself on a new concept TGV, the IDTGV. The idea is that the train has two mood zones, one called Zen and the other Zap. In IDZap, it would appear the idea is that you turn your walkman up as loud as you can to drown out the music blaring out from the bar, or the screaming kids around you. In Zen, I believe, you have to stay silent, trying to slow your heart rate so as to not irritate your neighbour. The ironic thing is that I'm sure that posh people book into Zen on the bottom deck, so as not to be irritated by the other passengers, yet it turns out that the Zap bit is in first class on the upper deck, and has larger seats, and a trolley service etc. All quite amusing really.
One final thought - we had a few discussions about young people, jobs, immigration and integration with various people while in France. Just as I was on the RER (another different kind of train, not to be confused with the Métro, the TGV, the TER etc) going back to the airport, a young second generation north african man came walking down the train, and started playing playing old French songs on an accordeon as we reached Le Blanc Mesnil station. He was busking (and being thoroughly ignored by most people, especially the Italian family who where filming him, except when he turned 'round, when the father pretended to film his children and out of the window). I think this says more about integration than most of the other conversations that we had.
