It kind of felt like it was the Armageddon. We were huddled in the windowless kitchen of the hostel–a bright, unusually cheerful bunker. Everyone sat around drinking, discussing their plans for the future, trading exit plans and information. We were all glued to the hostel’s four computers and our cell phones. In [...]]]>

It kind of felt like it was the Armageddon. We were huddled in the windowless kitchen of the hostel–a bright, unusually cheerful bunker. Everyone sat around drinking, discussing their plans for the future, trading exit plans and information. We were all glued to the hostel’s four computers and our cell phones. In between our frantic clicking and texting, we ranted out loud to each other about the sheer incredulousness of it all. Except there was no fire ball–everyone’s flight got cancelled because of an Icelandic volcano, that’s all.

For the two-week Easter holiday I decided to go to Spain, a glaring omission in my European travels. I started in Granada and continued to Madrid. On Wednesday April 17, I arrived in Barcelona–my final stop before home. In vacation mode, I had no access to a television and was only intermittently reading the news. At first it a few people had told me their flights were cancelled because of some volcano thing. They all seemed to be going to the U.K., so the full impact didn’t fully register with me. I was impervious to that thought I could be affected by it.

By Friday, there was enough talk about it that I decided to check the status of my flight from Girona to Karlsruhe-Baden, a city in western Germany, which was scheduled to leave Sunday morning. The Ryanair website assured me that while all flights to northern France and northern Germany were cancelled, mine was okay. So I went about my tourist existence without giving it a second thought. When Saturday rolled around, I could no longer be so high and mighty. All flights to France and Germany had been cancelled until Tuesday. In an instant I was in the same predicament as everyone else: scrambling to get home and finding a place to stay until I did.

As the sheer size of the chaos dawned on me, so did the selection of options to get back, each with their unique difficulties. I was able to rebook my flight for Wednesday but waiting for it meant putting myself up in Barcelona until then and risking the possibility the flight could be cancelled again. (Which it was.) But would there any room left in Barcelona’s hostels or had the spaces already been gobbled up already by travelers whose flights were cancelled before mine? How could I get home short of spending hundreds of euros or spending an entire day on a bus?

Some of these questions answered themselves. The website for the Spanish train system, useless as it ever was, told me they were fully booked. The Eurolines bus system didn’t have any buses leaving Barcelona to any place near Strasbourg until the end of the week. Those who had made the trek to the airport, train and bus stations, told me they were flooded with people. Not speaking Spanish was enough to deter me from going in person, but knowing this eased my guilt for not trying. I felt like as long as I got across the border to France, things would be okay. To make things more complicated work was starting up again on Monday and I had less than 100 euros in my bank account.

Over the course of my vacation, I hadn’t made efforts to befriend any French tourists. But now they became my countrymen. I heard wafts of French drift up from the lobby as I sat in front of the hostel computer trying to find a solution. They must must need to go back or know the best way to do it, I thought. This was how I found out the SNCF, the French train system, was still on strike. Two weeks ago, on the day I left France, they went on strike. At the time, I figured it was another one of those random (and frequent) one-day strikes and didn’t even bother to check what regions or routes were participating. Two weeks later I had completely forgotten about it.

In a word, I was overwhelmed. The only thing I felt like I could do was call my parents and ask them what to do. It was then I realized a few things. The first was that I only had six euros of credit left on my phone and it would be best used to try to find a way back to Strasbourg. (At the time, I didn’t know how to top-up with a credit card. Seriously.) The second, and more chilling of the two, was that my parents couldn’t help me. I was never in a dire situation since they could give me the money to tide myself over until I could get back. But they couldn’t help me figure out what to do any more than I could. What could my parents tell me about the best way to bus or train back? I knew better than my parents did and that was weird. So I sent them an email instead.

After spending hours searching for a solution and finding none, I resigned myself to having a drink with my fellow travelers. At the time of going to bed I had found a flight for Wednesday, a place to stay for free for at least one night, a few leads on getting a ride back to France but no plan. Before bed someone asked me what I was going to do tomorrow. I thought for a second and answered, honestly, “I think I’m going to sleep in.”

One of the leads came to fruition the next morning through Covoiturage, a French rideshare website. In broken French, over the hostel clamour, I found a drive from Barcelona to Lyon for 45€ that evening. My drivers were kind enough to offer me a place to sleep at their apartment since we wouldn’t arrive at Lyon until after midnight. This is how I found myself in a tiny two-door car with two French people, an elderly Spanish woman and a Quebecker for six hours. By the time I woke up in their apartment the next morning, train service had resumed to normal and it was just a hop, skip and five hour train ride from Lyon to Strasbourg.

I had always thought I was incredibly fortunate that, up until now, all my travels had gone according to plan. But now I’m not so sure if that’s a good thing. While everyone in the hostel was frantic and complaining, it was a strange bonding experience. As a person, it was a moment of self-discovery. When things slip out of your control, you find out what you’re capable of. After close to three years of living abroad and traveling, this experience brought out competencies in me I didn’t know I had. Somewhere along the way I learned how to solve problems and speak French. I can take care of myself and it only took a volcano in Iceland to erupt for me to realize that.

Wintzenheim – 24/02/2010 

Today I finally understood why Albert Camus could write about such length about “the absurd.” He’s French. Of course this revelation came after a dalliance with the Office of Immigration and Integration. The way things work in this country is so preposterous sometimes, it could only be described as absurd. Sometimes the [...]]]>

Today I finally understood why Albert Camus could write about such length about “the absurd.” He’s French. Of course this revelation came after a dalliance with the Office of Immigration and Integration. The way things work in this country is so preposterous sometimes, it could only be described as absurd. Sometimes the people, offices and bureaucracy make no sense whatsoever. On days like these, when it feels like the entire system has converged against me, I can’t even feel upset. I just feel numb. There’s disbelief, but you just can’t be angry at the absurd.

Here is a list of things that irritate me about France:

-A general lack of communication between people/organizations. This is the worst and most evident when you deal with any government-run organization. New laws get passed and the people whose jobs are to deal with the general public have not received or read the memo. When you meet the rare competent and well-informed worker, even they will tell you that getting things done or approved is a matter of luck. Different French people give you different answers to the same question. In fact the same person will give you different answers the same question. The official word that is posted on government websites takes ages to trickle down and come into effect in real life. The best people to turn to with your questions are other foreigners. Somehow they are always-up-to-date on new laws and procedures and can give valuable advice on how to convince bureaucrats you’re not  just making it all up.

-The inability to say “I don’t know.” Instead of admitting they don’t know the answer to your question and asking someone who does, they often send you off to someone else (usually across town.) Sometimes this is done under the guise of telling you this is the person you who can help you. The other halfo the time, they honestly send you to the person they think can help. Inevitably, this person will not know the answer, do the same and pass you along. It’s the French version of pinball.

-Everything is more complicated than it needs to be. No one does this better than the French. If I need to deal with bureaucracy, I need to leave the house with every single piece of paper I have whether it’s related to the task at hand or not. Every single form requires a stamp or another piece of paper from someone else. Why not make it easy for everyone and making ridiculous and irrelevant demands? I complain about red tape in Canada but lately, I’ve found myself saying, “This would never happen in Canada.” It’s a little sad when you grow to appreciate your home only by living through a lower standard elsewhere.

-Opening hours of offices/stores/organizations. If you want to get something done you either need to get up at 8.00 or do it after lunch. The entire country shuts down at 12.00 and does not start up again until at least 13.30. (Sometimes it takes until 15.00 to get going again.) Everyone is on their lunch break except for restaurants, bakeries and some of the bigger stores. Even some supermarkets close for lunch. This collective shut down makes it impossible to run errands during your lunch break. Things re-open for a few hours and only to close between the hours of 16.30-20.30, depending what it is. Most things are closed by 18.00. Naturally, only restaurants and cafes are open on Sunday. I’ve accidentally showed up at the library on Monday countless times to return books only to find it closed and there are no deposit boxes.

-The lack of English speaking people. Yes, I know I came to France to speak French. But when I’m talking to the director of Office of Immigration, it’s not a language exchange situation. I’d prefer things to be clear, rather than practise my speaking and comprehension skills. How can people who don’t speak English get hired to deal exclusively foreign people? It’s a running joke among my Spanish roommate and her friends that the international relations officer at their university department doesn’t speak English. It’s kind of funny. Except not.

-Grèves. Far be for me to tell people they can’t strike, but the way the French go on strike makes no sense to me. Workers for the trains, schools, libraries go on strike for a day and then resume normal service. How does this help you get your demands? Yes, I am inconvenienced, but too briefly to get really angry about it. This week the school’s cafeteria workers went on strike and German food day was canceled as a result. A few days before the strike, the principal made a cheery announcement about it over the PA, telling everyone to bring sandwiches.

In the interest of fairness, here is a list of things I like about France and wish existed in Canada.

-Opening hours of offices/stores/organizations. The fact that the whole country shuts down for lunch is a double-edged sword. It really bothered me at first and is an inconvenience sometimes. However, there is something incredibly egalitarian about such strictly enforced dining hours. Sure you can’t do anything during your lunch hour, but neither can anyone else. Everyone is required to take a nice, long, unrushed break.

-The vacation time. I also feel like French philosophy about holidays is an extension of the previous point. They are on to something with this universal vacation time. During the month of August when the whole country goes on vacation, it’s only an inconvenience if you’re not on holiday with them (i.e. if you’re visiting France on your own holiday.) The French school system has a crazy number of vacations, many for no apparent reason (at least to me.) So far I’ve had week and a half  off for the Toussaint holiday (October), two weeks for Christmas, two coming up in February (informally known as the French ski vacation) and two more for Pacques (Easter) in April. I will have been on (paid) vacation for two out of the seven months of my work contract.

-Overwhelming number of student discounts. If you’re under 26, you’re golden. You can buy a train discount card that gets you up to 50% off. In Strasbourg, as a student or young worker you can get a culture discount card that gets you into the movies, theatre, orchestra, opera, museums and concerts for free or super cheap. Unemployed people (and boy are a lot) get discounts too.

-The CAF. This is a program that refunds a portion of rent to people with low incomes. One of the really interesting things is there is no sense of stigma like there is with applying for welfare in North America. They calculate how much money to give back to you based on factors like your income, whether you live with roommates and whether your apartment is furnished. It seems like all university students have it and know all the little tricks to get more money back (like pretending to be in a common-law marriage with one of your roommates, regardless of gender.) This entry is tentatively in the “like” category and  pending the day I actually see this money make it into my account. (If ever.)

-Telecommunications. Every service provider offers television, unlimited internet and a landline for about 30 euros. The kicker is you can call landlines in certain countries for free. Canada, United States, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and all of the EU, aka all the countries where I could ever possibly need to call, I can call landlines for free. Recently, I found out that I can call mobile phones for free in North America since there’s no distinction in the phone codes between cell phones and landlines. This is unbelievable when you come from Canada, land of area codes and long distance fees. In fact, sometimes to call from one Toronto suburb to another (with the same area code)  is considered long distance. It doesn’t make sense to me that calling internationally is included in the plan, but I have to pay extra to call a French mobile phone. Another great thing about mobile phones is the right cancel your contract at no cost if you can prove you’re moving to a place where your company can’t provide service. Don’t even get me started on owning a mobile phone in Canada–that’s a separate blog post.

Whenever things aren’t going my way, I tend to blame the country since it’s an easy scapegoat. While I try to be as fair and realistic about these experiences as possible, there is no denying that the French have their own special way of doing things. If you want the good, you have to accept the bad–merde and all.

Once I get settled into a city, it can be hard to leave–even for a visit. I attribute it to Torontonian syndrome. This means paying lip service when friends suggest you visit them in Ottawa or Kitchener, but secretly loathing the idea of taking a Greyhound out there. Those who live downtown [...]]]>

Once I get settled into a city, it can be hard to leave–even for a visit. I attribute it to Torontonian syndrome. This means paying lip service when friends suggest you visit them in Ottawa or Kitchener, but secretly loathing the idea of taking a Greyhound out there. Those who live downtown are even worse and balk at the idea of going up to the suburbs. Somehow this complex has dogged me during my stints living in the Netherlands and Taiwan. I’m always torn between discovering the rest of the country or getting to know your city better. But this weekend, for the first time since arriving in France, I traveled outside of the Alsace region. I took two high-speed trains across France all the way to Rennes. Of course it would take a music festival to get me out west and the Transmusicales Festival, or Les Trans, was a good enough reason for me.

When I decided to do this program, for the longest time, I was convinced I was going to go to Nantes. I had met a few Nantais during my travels and was charmed by their friendliness and impossibly cute French accents in English. My logic was that if they sounded like that in English, if I learned French in Nantes, maybe I would sound like them. In the end, I ranked the Strasbourg academy as my number one choice, instead of Nantes. Since then there has always been a little pang of longing for what could have been if I had chosen to live in the Bretagne region instead of the Alsace. (I know Nantes is technically no longer a part of Bretagne, but I’m talking historically/culturally.)

Even though the festival was in Rennes, I figured this was my chance to see Celtic-influenced French culture (as opposed to the brand of German-influenced French culture over here.) I never cease to be amused by the pride the French have for their home region (or their disdain for Paris.) The Alsatians tell me their region isn’t French at all and the Bretons were only too eager to tell me the same thing. One of my students told me how in “Little Brittany,” they eat crepes and wash it down with cider. Oh cider, I thought, how very English. In the Alsace, you will never hear the words choucroute or bretzel without the words “regional specialty” attached to them. I know these things as sauerkraut and pretzels (or bretzen, since I learned the German word first.) It’s funny how at least these regional specialties are just things that, from a foreigner’s perspective, come from other countries.

I was surprised to see quite a few half-timbered style houses in Rennes, since I thought they were characteristically Alsatian. The ones in Rennes looked more rickety and purposely historic, while Alsatian ones are painted pleasant pastel colours and look like they come out of fairy tales. While I thought living in one of these houses in 2009 is quaint (Sélestat has its share), it’s nothing compared to the stone houses and medieval villages in Bretagne. I took a little excursion to Dinan and it blew my mind that medieval castle is only minutes away from the downtown. I know it’s all perfectly normal to the French, but the North American suburbanite in me is still amazed at the idea of growing up with among this kind of scenery.

The vibe from Rennes itself was the opposite of old age. I knew it had a reputation as a student city but was surprised by the extent of it. I had inklings that Strasbourg felt was a bit stuffy, but going to Rennes confirmed it. Rennes is an anomaly (like the university towns Kingston or London in Ontario) in France because of the disproportionate number of students. The youth is visibly and immediately apparent in the students littering the streets. Even the clothing stores were more interesting to me than the ones in Strasboug. The city also has a surplus of is police presence. Around downtown, especially at night, I saw on average seven carloads of police wearing special protective gear while patrolling. My friend told me these were normal patrols there to control drunken students when they spill out onto the street after last call. Since this was during Les Trans (which brings in its share of drunken tourists) it was only natural that they beef up the force.

The festival itself had a fantastic atmosphere. It was held at Parc Expo, a collection of airport hangars just outside the city. Each had its own line-up and one hangar was a dedicated bar, lounge and water bar. The tarmac was consistently full of people smoking or getting some fresh air after dancing–though these might be the same thing for the French.

I came to Les Trans was to see Fever Ray. This tour was billed as the group’s first and only tour and Rennes was the second-to-last show. Since I’ve never seen The Knife (and probably never will since they refuse to tour again), seeing Fever Ray was the next best thing. I was so close to the stage I could smell the incense, but not close enough to get a good look at Karin Dreijer, the singer of both bands. The Knife are known for their stage fright and standoffish ways and seeing Fever Ray confirmed this. Dreijer was positioned half way back on the stage, clad in full on black-and-white face makeup and a witch-like robe. The antique lamps surrounding her and her equally spookily-dressed bandmates flashed while smoke swirled around stage. It was dark, slightly unnerving and great.

I only planned on going to the festival for one day but I unexpectedly came into a ticket the night after, the techno night. Commanding most, if not all the of the hype, was Mr Oizo–best known in North America for the music video for Flat Beat. I was most excited to see the French reception for their homeboy. The first half-hour was great but it really petered out by the end. Significant numbers of the crowd were leaving and those who stayed was just because it was, well, Oizo. I was pleased that he played the Justice remix of “Blood On Our Hands” by Death From Above 1979. At times it felt like he was falling back on the popularity of other bands to keep the crowd interested. How else do you explain playing two Daft Punk songs in one set? The most memorable part of the set was a sample of a robot voice gleefully declaring to the crowd that “Nous avons le grippe A” (We have the H1N1 flu) and “Nous allons tous mourir à Rennes” (We are all going to die in Rennes.) A cheap trick for sure, but it worked. To paraphrase Morrissey, if ten-tonne truck crashes into us, to die in Rennes, well..it might be a better way to go than in Strasbourg.

Two weeks I ago I taught my class before the one-and-a-half week Toussaint holiday. This terminale (the final year of high school) class was the first class I ever taught. It consists of mostly boys who told me about the virtues of pimp rap during our first session together. They were [...]]]>

Two weeks I ago I taught my class before the one-and-a-half week Toussaint holiday. This terminale (the final year of high school) class was the first class I ever taught. It consists of mostly boys who told me about the virtues of pimp rap during our first session together. They were opinionated, funny and pretty good at English so for the next two weeks I looked forward to the vacation and teaching them again. To reward them for being the most animated class, I took printed out the lyrics to “Gangsterz,” a song by English rapper Wiley, blasted it several times and had them play fill-in-the-blanks. This activity meant I got to explain what it meant to “squash the beef” or when “the shells start spraying.” It was an amusing way to end the day, the first two weeks and to send me off on my holiday to London.

My last stop on my backpacking tour last summer was two weeks in London and I absolutely fell in love. After a month and a half traveling nonstop, it was a relief and luxury to have such a long time to spend in one place (especially since I had one friend kind enough to let me stay with her for the entire trip.) This time coming from Strasbourg to London, I felt a culture shock that I never anticipated.

While I’m frequently clueless in France because of a language barrier or the French way of doing things, London makes sense to me but is so big it becomes a mess of logic. The quintessential London experience for me is going through a series of false starts before I finally head down the right road I meant to follow. Londoners are pretty useless when it comes to giving directions. The city is so big even people who have lived there their entire lives plead clueless when asked how to go somewhere. The sheer number of people constantly milling around made me feel claustrophobic. I remember feeling the same way last year but somehow this trip, the feeling was much more intense. Somehow it felt like I had come from the countryside and was being overwhelmed by the city. I had obstained from buying winter clothes in France because I knew I was going to London. When I worked in flagship stores in downtown Toronto, we got people driving from small towns in Ontario and even from Ottawa to do shopping. I had always looked at those customers with amusement and a little pity; travelling so far to Toronto, all just for a shopping trip. And now, here I was, one of those people.

Both times in London I’ve been pumped full of stories by the people who live here about the dangers of the city. Last time it was my friend’s roommate who was off-work during my visit because he was recovering from having his jaw bashed in a pipe in a random act of violence. What happened to him was scary but seeing how much he enjoyed telling the story and watching him smoke weed to cure the pain lessened the impact of his story a little. This time most of my trip with my friend Mark’s apartment in Walthamstow, a borough in northeast London. There I faced foxes running through the streets and in our backyard at night. Bulletholes in windows in windows of stores were pointed out to me during our hurried walks through the streets. I earned the respect and awe of Mark and his roommate when I returned home at 2 a.m. after taking the night bus alone.

Maybe the most bewildering part of my trip was the culture of poverty that exists in London when you look past tourist hotspots of Zone 1. Houses aren’t billed for their gas consumption but instead you top-up your gas credit like a mobile phone. This is why during the first morning of my stay in Walthamstow I had an icy shower and couldn’t turn on the stove to cook. As spoiled and naive as it sounds, the concept of not having credit automatically extended to me is strange. When people here forget or have no money, they just have to do without. Something so basic and essential, like gas, for me, was just always, by some mysterious force, just there.

I regret now not taking any pictures of Walthamstow. It’s the kind of place no one would take a picture of for aesthetic purposes, which is why I forgot. (Apparently, it’s also not unheard of to get jumped for your expensive technology there.) The only reason anyone would is to document what normal London is outside of the glamourous bits. It’s unremarkable, dirty and even ugly. I’ve been told by teachers that my neighbourhood in is dodgy, but Strasbourg wouldn’t know dodgy if it got bit in the face by it.

What people will give up and put up with to live in London is both sad and admirable. Surprisingly, living in Strasbourg is slightly cheaper than Toronto. While I don’t earn much or live in luxury, I can live comfortably. People in London pay twice as much as I do for half (or less) of what I have here. After leaving, I could feel already how more culturally alive I felt there. I found myself in an old factory on a Wednesday at what may or may not have been “a dubstep rave.” On a lazy Sunday I sat in on an afternoon of children’s activities at the Victoria & Albert museum. I made my own bejewelled Indian headpiece and followed barefoot women  in saris in a parade around Hellenic sculptures. When I flipped through a copy of Time Out and saw both Morrissey and Brett Anderson (of Suede) were playing on the same night, I really felt like I was at the centre of the universe. I didn’t go to either, but I could have and that felt amazing.