Re-post: DRIVING WHILE BLIND

J’en ai marre !!!!!

The tourist season has officially begun here on the French Riviera. What always arrives with the hordes is the inevitable and harsh criticism of French driving habits.


I’d like to intercept a bit with this blog before the Anglophones really start getting flagrant down here!

Everyone knows that anyone’s life can be irrevocably destroyed by an intoxicated or mentally disturbed driver on the road in any country by a driver of any nationality. My question is why have the French, in particular, been given such a bad rap as drivers?

I have been recipient many times of French driving hospitality. What I have found is that my French friends and acquaintances have displayed skill and grace at ever turn…so to speak. It’s no wonder, I later learned, considering what they have to go though in order to earn the privilege to drive in their country.

How may of you who have criticized the French actually studied for the French Permis de Conduire?


Too scared, right?


And I’m willing to bet…too broke!



Then, that means you don’t know bupkis about anything French.

Want to know how I came to this conclusion? Because it is expensive, difficult and studying for it would actually result in an evolution of thinking that would cause you to realise that you had no prior knowledge of what it takes to understand of the Gallic approach to manoeuvring safely through life in France. My philosophy is in order to criticize the French you should have been educated in France and taught by the French. How else can one understand the cultural nuances of a country which has the power to seduce millions of people through its doors, whether they be rich or poor, yellow green or blue, to a place which is probably the most complicated in all of Europe? Even people from rich and powerful countries are willing to test their fate in a country which for years will render them functional illiterates!


Years ago I took the driving school plunge…so I know of what I write.


I can’t overstate the fact that the pursuit of the French Permis de Conduire is an expensive, lengthy but profoundly informative study of the psychology of the French population. Believe me, studying this will enhance one’s relationships with the French people you encounter, do business with or with whom one becomes intimately involved. It will even enable one to distinguish a foreign driver from a French one.


Imagine that!


Case in point:

One sunny afternoon, a fellow student, who is also an American, and I left another gruelling session of La Code de la Route to stop at a corner café. As we approached the curb, a car came screeching towards us in a completely misguided attempt to park in a no parking zone.

Mr. America, hisses, ., “Look at that. After they get their permits, all rules fly out the window. How typically French!


My response was, “What makes you think the driver is French?”


He pointed to the French License plate on the Italian Fiat, and said, “Look… 06 (the code for the Alpes Maritimes)!”

As if on cue, two men emerge from the car, sharing a typically boisterous conversation in Italian!

Typically French, right?

So, this is the advice from yours truly…the Expat Curmudgeon Writer on the Côte d’Azur…to American drivers in France. Stop criticizing…stay alert and either take your bigotry and pack it in your little back packs and go back home… or just get off the road and take the friggin’n bus!

POACHING FOR EUROS: Part 1

First, I would like to emphasize that this Post is targeted specifically to American women in France, and those looking to live in France…actually to American woman everywhere.

Not long ago, I was having lunch with some American women who happened to be married to or living with French men. They were exploring the reasons for the difficulties in developing friendships with French women.

Reasons explored ranged from “they tend to make their friends in elementary school» or “they are so busy with their raising their families and cooking gourmet meals for their men, or “they are not as liberated as American women…they close their eyes to their men’s affairs” to “I am so intimidated by those stylish French women and their chic, black ensembles.”

It made me reflect on the numerous books on the allure of French women published by Anglophones.

After indulging in a conversation and theories that went nowhere, we changed the subject, finished lunch after which I returned home to the comfy familiarity of my American husband.

Later that day, I looked up books on Amazon.fr to see whether French women extolled the feistiness, progressive and liberated openness… or anything else positive at all…about the American woman.

I found nothing!

Nothing titled, “Unlock Your Inner American Woman”, “Those Lucky American Chicks Who Mostly Sleep Alone,” or even “The American Amazons of the Women’s Liberation Movement: What On Earth Is Their Secret?”.

Again...absolutely nothing.

(Perhaps some of you out there might be able to name a few for me). It simply appeared to me that here was no reciprocal interest between French and American women, regarding anything! Not even PMS.

Over the years I’ve met French women who expressed in subtle and diplomatic ways a curiosity of what the attraction American women had for their lifestyles…French cuisine and politesse, notwithstanding… and their men, in particular. It seemed to them that we, American women, had access to more wealth, comforts and gorgeous men of such diversity that it was globally enviable. Or so they said.

I kid you not!

It’s no wonder that thousands upon thousands of French women every year clandestinely flock to Greenwich (Village), San Francisco and Disney World in search of the American Woman’s secret allure and wonderful quality of life!

But then…I digress…

Although, I can personally understand the unpredictable power of love and the unpredictability of where one might unearth a lover or mate in this big wide world, I can also understand the ominous consequences of choosing a life partner from a tribe whose women are an unknown entity to a newcomer.

When a woman enters a foreign culture she instantly acquires the status of the women of that culture. Remember that.

On impact, I might look like a poacher, myself. However, my girly- girl posse, prior to marriage and for most of my life, actually, consisted of primarily members of the tribe among whom I eventually found my mate. It was inevitable that I would end up marrying one of the members of their family. I had been acculturated by the population of that particular tribe already and was quite familiar with the nuances of the male-female relationships within that tribe.

My advice to my American sisters: Do some serious research. Put romantic notions on the back burner...especially after your sweet sixteenth birthday. Read up on American foreign relations… think twice before poaching. It could prove hazardous to one's emotional, financial, social and spiritual well being.

Of course, that is unless one is a War or Mail Order Bride. Then that’s a whole ‘nother story…n’est-ce-pas?

ELECTION 2012: France

Sometimes, I feel a little queezie.  Especially on days when I allow my self to contemplate too profoundly on my life, here,  in France.  I start wondering what will become of us (my husband and I) since we have placed our destiny in the hands of these people:

  

 Nevertheless, each time I slip into a mood of apprehension in this regard, I run across a statement  like this in the media from the United States:

"But I'm telling you that I'm worried and very, very concerned today when a mother, speaking about her son being in jail, says, 'I'm happy he's in a safe place.'  You cannot take that casually!"
                                                              ~Bill Cosby
                                                                in an interview with the newspaper, The Root

Maybe I’ll just call it  day and watch a French movie.  I’ll tell you all about it later.

What movie, you ask?

Filmmaker, Gabiel Jullien-Laferrière's, Neuilly Sa Mère.

A bientôt!

Bonne Année 2012 à Tous!!!

“ New years day…now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”

                                             ~Mark Twain

The EU Blues: The Countdown

"Get that guy out of our organization"
~unknown

"Get this guy out of our orgaization!"
                                           ~unknown

"Yo man! How in the hell did that guy get in here?
                                                 ~unknown

"Pay your bills!!!! Leave Us Alone!!!!


(google images)

Une Connerie Extraordinaire!

The most politically questionable sculptural installation project in Europe in the last decade has to be that of the completion of the Fountain du Soleil and the Sept Scultures Illuminées de Sept Continents. This monument to something not yet clear to me, now defines the Place Massena, which is in my opinion …the heart and Soul of the City of Nice.

Had I considered myself pudique I hardly would have settled in France…particularly Nice... but this most recent project has tested the limits of my comprehension.

At the centre of the Fontaine du Soleil… standing haughty and very, very, white (marble) in all of his “butt naked glory” at the entrance to the Old Town of Nice is Apollo!

photos by dwelch-tyson

All of you know him, I’m sure: the God…Greek God, I emphasize…of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, enlightenment medicine, healing, plague, music, poetry, arts, archery…everything… and I suppose our very existence as well.

He is the son of Zeus and Leto and twin brother of the “chaste “(ah…hem, look, I didn’t write this stuff. I wasn’t even born yet) huntress Artemis. Surrounding Him are five bronze statues of fabulously buffed naked men and a voluptuous broad or two...one toting a baby... accompanied by their animals. Allegedly, these Greco-Roman mythological folks represent the planets, Earth, Mars, Mercury and Saturn.

Yeah, right!

The inauguration took place on June 20th of this year (I happened to be in New York at the time and missed out on the “festivities”). Apollo is now back at his old location at the Place Massena after almost 40 years of censure.

It was rumoured that he was banned  back in the 70s for being “overly well endowed”. This I find hard to believe because, in my opinion ( based on, of course, quite limited experience in these matters), he appears to me to be in completely perfect proportion throughout…if you get my drift.

But then what do I know? I’ve never been with a Greek!

So, back then,  after considerable controversy, Apollo was exiled to North Nice to the Sports Stadium, Parc des Sport Charles Ehrmann.

To my way of thinking, a sports stadium seemed to be a far more appropriate place to reside, outside of perhaps as a centrepiece for a Gay Disco, for this particular Deity.

google image



google image

This Apollo now complements the contemporary art installation commissioned from the Catalan artist Jaume Plensa which frame the tracks of the Tramway.

Plensa’s towering seven white resin sculptures, which punctuate the square, are of naked men. These men are sitting on 10 meter high poles. Each man lights up the night with a play of light which bounces from one statue to the other signifying communications between the seven continents. 
This interplay of light flashing reduces the Tramway to a dubious image of an ominous phallic image snaking its way though core of Nissa La Bella.

I have been informed that the work is called “Conversations in Nice.”

Yeah, right!


It’s not the Apollo statue itself which perturbs me, it is the cumulative message of the entire centre city installation!

When a friend, appealing to my own personal sense of swagger bragged to me, years ago, how her Niçois population was rather “butch” I had no idea that this was what they were referring to.

Considering the sorry state of Greece today, it hardly seems fitting to have that kind of karma dominating the downtown area of a major French city!