Apparently these looked cool lit up...

The French have a contentious relationship with time. When I was younger my father would tell me how he was fond of the fact that as a toddler I would not go to sleep until the minute my bedtime struck. He would later lament when this gave way to the ‘9ish’ ambiguity of my stepmother, complaining it was a relaxed American standard. Today, I know that perhaps compared to the German example ‘9ish’ would imprecise, but to the French, ‘9ish’ regardless of the situation would be early or late pending some standard I have yet to understand.

Monday, under the pressure of an impending deadline at work, I was able to duck out of the office for only 20 minutes to try and stop off at the bank during lunch. Of course from 1230 to 150 pm the bank was closed. It’s not even a lunch hour. Who determines these arbitrary off times? Who deigned the 80 minute Monday lunch, when the rest of the week the bank is open continuously?

This phenomenon is constantly on display to me. I usually come into the office before the designated in time of 9 in the morning, often the first to arrive. I don’t mind this, we all usually stay late, and I like having the time in the morning to check out the goings on I missed due to the time difference with America, be it Peter King’s Monday Morning QB, the latest chicanery on Deadspin, or what have you. But meetings are another item entirely. I have yet to have a meeting be less than ten minutes en retard. Of course these meetings then inevitably extend past their designated end time. Often, I feel as though this country is an hour and ten minutes ahead of GMT just to mess with the foreigners. In fact, I wonder what time movies start.

At the end of the day though there was a large party scheduled at Place de la Concorde, commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago. Scheduled to begin at 7, I assumed the festivities would continue into the night to remember such a momentous event. I left the office at about 7, having been working until then, thinking I might have missed the first few minutes but that I should be beholden to a spectacle I had not seen since election night in Grant Park last year. When I arrived at 735, the party was over, and the police were clearing out only the stragglers. How can a people be so damned punctual for a party, and tardy for work?

What time is it?

Hopefully within this logo is a job opportunity

Random thoughts at the end of another work week.

Imagine the successes that would be possible if there were no technical difficulties. I shot a video using a borrowed OECD camera last Wednesday and have not yet been able to properly transfer the footage for editing on my Macbook. The main concern of course being that I am tired of lugging my damn laptop to and from the office on the outside chance I might finally get a functioning .mpg or.mov file to work with.

So far myself and a co-worker have gone through the following steps:

• Try using the direct firewire dv out from the camera we used directly connected to my Macbook. (nope)
• Try using the firewire dv out to a PC (no dice)
• Try routing the camera via HDMI through a TV and then recording to another camera (produced .avi)
• Taking in the .avi but having to transfer from PC network to a USB hard drive and then to my laptop because there are no firewire ports on OECD office computers and then having to convert the file to a .mov which took two hours. (efficiency fail)
• Of course when I got home the .avi had constant audio dropouts. (usability fail)
• Try looking at the .avi file originally left on network, hoping the error was on my end, but instead find it also has drop-outs and the original conversion was bad. (major fail)
• Co-worker who did HDMI routing transfer tries again, has same problem, but says the tape itself played back on the camera has no issues. (baffling fail)
• It is now 10 days later and my co-worker is taking the camera to a transfer specialist, even video editing in France requires a middleman and some bureaucratic red tape. (French fail)

I also brought up logistical points to my boss this week regarding the idea that I cannot afford to live in France once my ‘stagiaire’ contract runs out in December making only 47€/mo after rent. He had to go out of the office for most of the week but said we will discuss soon and that he would like to keep me.

We shall see how that goes over, the reviews of my work are good, but the HR department also just threw out my French intern equivalent at the end of her first week, for not having her papers in proper order and has been told there isn’t room in the budget for a real employee. A perilous position, no doubt, but worth a shot, since I am really liking the job and beginning to get settled, but more importantly the loan collectors are demanding payments to start November 15. Happy birthday Stefan, from your friends at Citibank!

I also learned that the guy at the laundromat will in fact turn out the lights on you if you are there past 830 in the evening waiting on the dryer to finish. I had to finish drying my drawers on the heater… again.

The city is pretty though, and I think against my best efforts to shove my English-only iPod into my ears at all opportunities, I am picking up the language a bit more as time passes. Today in a meeting I was not the person who asked the same question in English moments after it had already been posed in French. Score! Plus, having finally made a French friend, I now have someone to practice speaking with and not fear getting a negative review at work. I have also been told the French are both not as difficult as I think, yet simultaneously more difficult than I think – notably when involving the trains. Luckily, I have avoided this particular pitfall. My interactions with RATP  to get my metro pass was actually the easiest transaction I have had in Paris.

Lots of balls in the air moving forward. The magazine hits deadline again next Friday, my least favorite day of the year is a week from tomorrow, and my first intercontinental visitor arrives in less than three weeks. Whoo-wee, and I still have to book my flight back to Cali for Christmas. Maybe by then I will have the Internet and won’t have to write these posts at the office.

~TGIF.

Not the Great American Pub

This weekend I was going to finally get the Internet set up in my apartment, and finally, finally watch USC football in the comfort of my own place with beer and streaming video. This did not come to pass, but a better adventure was had.

I began my day searching in Bois-Colombes after successfully navigating the morning market for the first time and purchasing fruit and bread for the week ahead, yes this was a minor accomplishment by my low ex-pat American standards. Afterward I had lunch, and went to the brand new SFR in town. At the store the rather courteous middle-aged clerk retrieved a 3G key from the back room, and began asking for articles of ID. Uh-oh.

1. Passport? Check
2. Bank RIB form? At the apartment, can get later.
3. Utility bill? Um… no

So I left without the internet again, but determined to go back to my apartment and then to the office to scrounge up some sort of alternative documentation. I grabbed all of the papers from my bedroom desk, my laptop, and headed to the 16th. At the office I fooled around on the web for a bit, made some long-distance phone calls on the work line, and grabbed anything else I thought might aid me in my next battle with SFR.

My second attack on team SFR was even less useful than the first. This particular clerk had a Parisien attitude, and did not offer much assistance. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that the more annoyed I got the worse my French became.

At one point I decided to just read the damn list of accepted proofs of residency, and saw paystub listed. I grabbed my paystub from within the stack of papers I had taken from the office and handed it to him thinking I had triumphed. Alas, my paystub had no address on it! How is this even possible!!??

The clerk suggested I either find a resident French friend to set up the account for me (non-existent) or go to my bank and get what I believe he said was a chequier de commerçant. Of course by this point I was so frustrated I would have barely understood ‘Bonjour’.

In any case I now need to go to the bank this week and see if they can help me out. Thus far in my dealings with Societe General they have been of use, so now I just have to remember to bring my passport to work tomorrow; I have already failed to do so Monday and Tuesday this week.

Regardless this takes me to the more interesting part of the day. That morning I had resolved that Internet or not I was going to see my team play, even if this meant returning to the Great Canadian Pub to try and make them stay open until the final whistle after 4 in the morning local time.

I arrived at the only bar in Paris I knew showed American football around 11 at night, just in time to see the final moments of Florida’s destruction of Georgia. Wow is Georgia bad. I talked a bit with some Big Ten fans, one of whom had the early quote of the night with ‘wow I really want to dislike you but, you are right too much,’ after I made the comment that Les Miles needs to find a better fitting hat.

At around 1130 with the early games in hand I asked the bartender to switch the slingbox game to Northwestern vs Penn State so I could pretend to care about my graduate school. NU promptly fell behind 20-13.

Now, the Great Canadian has two tuners for North American games, a slingbox which can pick up just about anything that is televised and ESPN America which in general shows the biggest game of any American sport. I set myself at the bar directly in front of the main slingbox TV just in case the  USC game was not the one chosen for ESPN America. At midnight though I was thrown not one but two curves.

Just after the Penn State touchdown, the bartender told one of the Big Ten guys that he better be ready because at the top of the hour the game was going to hockey. That’s right hockey. I thought the barman was joking because he said it with a laugh and made a comment about how we were in the Great Canadian Pub, not the Great American Pub. He wasn’t and at midnight the slingbox left football to join the opening of Canadiens vs Maple Leafs. The football fans left, and I was left alone at the bar to mutter softly to myself… hockey?? HOCKEY??

Adding insult to injury ESPN America was set to show the World Series instead of football of any sort. Now this was acceptable because it was the World Series after all, but of course the end result was no football for Stefan. And to compound it all, the baseball game was in a rain delay. It was a sad time.

At this point I was faced with a quandary, leave and take the train home, or wait it out and maybe catch the back end of the SC game when the hockey ended around 3, hoping the bar stayed open until the game ended. I decided I needed to find out how the late night train worked and of course the Oregon game would be close so I might as well stick around until they threw me out. Of course we all know how the game went, and there is no reason to rehash the details here, but suffice it to say that when I did not get cell reception I got not one but two absolutely livid phone messages from fellow Trojans back in Chicago.

In any case I met a couple of very nice university students at the bar who took pity on my poor french and offered up some comparably fantastic English. We talked about a bunch of things while one of them alternately fought off and accepted the advances of an Irishman. I found out among other things that Tarantino is as revered among French film students as US ones, and that Sex on the Beach is a popular drink wherever you go.

Alas the SC game never came on, even after the hockey finished, as the slingbox couldn’t pick it up. Probably for the better considering what the score had to have been at that time. In any case I saw the young ladies into the cab, watched the Irishman leave ultimately defeated, and meandered on my way back to where the night bus was. I am happy to report that the Noctilien is in fact punctual and very easy to navaigate, and I finally climbed into bed in the Hauts-de-Seine at 6 in the morning.

Hockey???

The SFR 112 - worth every penny

It is said you get what you pay for. My cell phone was free with a prepaid phone card. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised then when the end call button broke, text messages began bouncing back, or when it ultimately died after ceasing to charge - all within 48 hours.

Over the past six weeks I have come to realize the French bureaucracy knows no bounds, and this is in fact the country that would require a receipt for a donut and then file it under ‘D’… for donut (RIP Mitch Hedberg). However, like someone in a dysfunctional relationship, I figured this time would be different; it had to be different. Of course, it wasn’t.

Monday evening my phone finally died after deciding to no longer accept a charge at some point over the weekend. So, I was effectively cut-off from the rest of the world again in my apartment thanks to this turn of events and my intermittent at best Internet service. However, beyond being my phone, this particular item of electronic equipment was also integral to my days in another capacity – as a primary timepiece. This was an especially pertinent fact for workday mornings, as it was my only viable alarm.

That night I slept with my Macbook in sleep mode next to me on the floor so I could open it to look at the time, hopeful I hadn’t overslept with each glance. Tuesday I resolved this wasn’t suitable, especially considering my already fickle sleeping patterns, so I went straight away during lunch to Darty, the Circuit City wannabe where I bought my phone in September.

At Darty I found the returns/exchange counter in the back of the store and in my trademark busted French explained it had stopped charging and I wanted just to exchange it for an exact replacement. The clerk at first seemed capable and understanding but eventually his computer gave some sort of info that required him to ask for the assistance of the returns manager. The two of them spoke rapidly and from what I could gather because the phone was actually issued by SFR, the cellular provider, I had to go to their location to get a replacement. I said, fine, took my SIM card and exchange receipt, left the phone and charger, and tried to remember where the neighborhood SFR was in the 16^th arrondisement.

Of course I could not find the SFR and after wandering aimlessly for a while decided I probably ought to head back to work. At the office I looked up the exact location of SFR, it was of course just beyond where I had been, and that night ended up being another exhibition in light sleeping and laptop timekeeping.

The next day I again took lunch to go handle my lack of a phone, going straightaway to the SFR, now knowing exactly where it was. It was a very short visit. Turns out SFR no longer stocks my model, it has been dicontinued because it was defective, but because I bought the phone at Darty, it was not their responsibility to replace the defective model. So back to Darty I went. At least I knew where I was going this time.

At Darty I decided this time to bypass the returns counter and go straight to the cell phone sales staff. I explained my situation to the sales fellow, who could not have been older than 20 –good to know hiring practices in phone sales are universal. He took my paperwork said ok, explained it would be 5 euro to upgrade my phone to the next crappiest model, and took me to the seating area where I originally bought my phone before. I figured this was a sign of progress.

I was joined five minutes later, by an older saleswoman who asked me for my proof of identity. They were trying to sell me a first phone again! This was unacceptable for several reasons:

1. I would lose my cell #
2. I would need to provide all my documents again; none of which I brought
3. I would lose all of the cell minutes credit on my current account

I showed the lady my SIM card and said no I just wanted the exact same phone as I had originally bought, just a working model. It took ten minutes or so for them and another employee to agree this was doable, just long enough for me to regret having handed over my SIM card for fear of not having it returned. Of course in the end I ended up right back at the Darty exchanges counter I had started at 24 hours before, having wasted at least two hours on a wild goose chase. I love France.

~Allo?

This is what a French chip looks like.

Consecutive posts about food; impressive for someone once called anorexic by ESPN’s most famous sideline reporter, although, it probably is impossible to live in France and not be impressed, and disappointed, by food on a near-daily basis.

Food is very much the binding tie for life, and most meals are inane and uneventful – consumed only to fulfill our basest need for sustenance. France is dramatized as a land of fantastic delicacies and delectable confections, and while this stereotype is certainly based in truth, what about those snacks in-between or those meals that aren’t meant to be gourmet but just filling?

I have already noted the difficulty I often have eating in France, with my distaste for cheese and such.  This past Sunday I took matters into my own hands and sought out a replacement to one of my biggest culinary voids: Cheez-its.

Cheez-its have been my snack food of choice for as long as I can remember, following me through the fat and skinny Stefan eras, from Benicia to Connecticut and everywhere in between. I get upset in the states at a convenience store that doesn’t carry the low-fat low-sodium varieties I have come to love. I nearly pulled out the happy dance upon discovering the low-fat White Cheddar box in Chicago. Not having Cheez-its in France is a major difficulty.

Now, I have come across such a conundrum in the past, usually in vending machines, but often there is some other relatively inoffensive sodium-laden alternative – your Triscuits or Wheat Thins will usually suffice. In France these too are non-existent.

The French prefer sweet snack foods. The cookie aisle in any French market is astounding, and there are shops dedicated to pastries, chocolates and cakes. Not one baker providing the three, but a pastry shop next to a chocolatier, adjacent to the cake-maker, and this is just in my particular suburb.

The salty option is decidedly lacking, but the major saline snacks are chips – crackers are nearly extinct. I had to go to three different markets just to find saltines. The French though, have co-opted as their own potato chips, but beware of the flavors: Bolognaise, Rotisserie Chicken and Paprika, and those are just the Lays.

For some reason the French want to make potato chips match the flavors of their meals, and not a seasoning. As anyone who follows along on Facebook knows, I gave the Rotisserie Chicken flavor a whirl, and won’t make that mistake again. I saw a small child appearing to enjoy Lays Bolognaise at the airport waiting for my delayed flight to Switzerland, and almost tried explaining to him that there are so many better chips waiting for him in the US. Paprika was the most acceptable of the options I have seen or tried, but still, what happened to barbeque, salt and vinegar or sour cream and onion?

So, on Sunday I decided to bite the bullet going to the local G20 store in Bois-Colombes with the intent of finding the best Cheez-it substitute, or at the very least a serviceable salty snack option. In the entire store I found three vaguely enticing: Ritz crackers, Dutch cheese crackers and bacon flavored chips.

One would assume that the Ritz crackers would be the safest alternative, being a familiar brand from the US. However, as I mentioned before, Lays is American, yet produces Bolognaise potato chips in this market. I can’t quite put my finger on it, maybe it’s the fact they aren’t packaged in those zip-locked cracker towers, or that the cracker itself is smaller, but French Ritz are different and not in a good way.

Option two was by far the worst: Dutch cheese crackers. I wanted this to work. The first one I tried and almost immediately had my brain working to convince my taste buds of its acceptability. I was thinking, nearly audibly, ‘this is ok, perhaps, its cheesy in a fake cheese kind of way, this could work.’ After about ten I almost wanted to vomit. It is safe to say that unless my 17-year-old ‘co-locataire’ eats them, those Monaco crackers will be staying in Bois-Colombes longer than I.

This brings us to the bacon chips. Firstly these are from the brand Vico, which produces the French equivalent of Ruffles. Now Franco-Ruffles are shaped like waffle fries, and due to this have a quality that is somehow inherently wrong to me. Also, bacon in France is more of a ham flavor, which I don’t care for nearly as much as that delicious greasy, morning bacon taste, but after having attempted Nederlander crackers I was willing to try anything.

Sunday afternoon I sampled the bacon chips to get rid of the vomit sensation from the cheese crackers, but with such a small sample size, withheld judgment. Tonight, I decided to go full bore, combining the bacon chips with a prosciutto sandwich and a beer to wash it down. These pseudo-Ruffles aren’t bad, even if they don’t taste at all like bacon ham or any other meat on this Earth. The closest thing I can approximate thir taste to would be the Ruffles Works chips they had for a short period of time when I was an undergraduate. They are a little tangy, and a little sweet, and completely inoffensive. We have a winner!

I am still not a junk food person, but it was very good to find a palatable snack food option that doesn’t make me want to yak. I promise the next post will be about something non-food related.

~Ruffles have ridges.