An American in Provence

The Prefecture is the place where foreigners go to be tortured.
Well, okay, not officially. Officially it is to get the papers for visas, green cards, asylum, etc.
There is one in Marseille. Alain and I have been there four times, spending a grand total of 12 hours either waiting in line to get into the building, or waiting inside the building.

Joyful Experience 1) The first time we went it was the middle of September and we went to get the Carte Etudiante. Even though it was blazing hot and we waited an hour in the waiting room (no air conditioning, not many benches, no bathrooms, and no water) it turned out to be our most successful visit so far. So they gave us the paperwork, and we came home and filled it out. It required a medical exam and a photocopy of I think every official piece of paperwork I own. A few weeks later we got a letter in the mail, saying that my carte was ready, that we had to go back down and pick it up.

Joyful Experience 2) The second time we went, we went early in the morning and were there before the doors opened at 8:15. We ran up and got a ticket then proceeded to wait four hours. I think people get about ten tickets at a time to give to their friends and family who come after them. Our ticket was finally called and we presented our letter and I received my Carte Etudiante, good for one year, placed in my passport.

Joyful Experience 3) Last week we went back to the Prefecture, proof of marriage in hand, to get my Resident card. We got there around 7:45 again. The line was quite long, but not something to cause concern. We were prepared for another 4 hour wait if necessary. However, these lines are not normal lines. They are filled with pushy desperate people who don't really care that you were there before them. The only thing to do is push back in order to maintain your spot in line. Then of course there are the line jumpers. Oh so annoying! When we finally got in the building, we raced upstairs only to find out that they were out of tickets. We assumed that a new roll would be placed in the machine, so we waited. And waited. Alain finally went to go ask what was going on, and it turns out that they only give out 200 a day, which will keep them busy all day, so if you get there after that, too darn bad for you, go home and try again some other day.
Determined not to make the day a complete waste we went over to the driver's license section to get information about my getting a French driving license. Not surprisingly, we waited in line (though we did get a ticket, yay!) and found out we need to get my driver's license translated and have my residency card. Just to be clear before I go back again to the translator at 50$ per hour, do I need my grade school diploma translated as well? It isn't hard people! Name! Birthdate! Height! Weight!!!!!!!! This isn't Arabic!

Joyful Experience 4) Determined to make it this time, we get up at 4, get down there a little after 5:15. Probably would have gone earlier but that is the earliest the subway starts working. I was expecting to be the only ones there, or at least up near the front. Wrong again. The line was almost as long as that of Joyful Experience #3's at 7:45. I guess other people had the same idea.
So we got in line and prepared for a four hour wait. I think about 4 fights broke out. The people at the very front of the line had gotten there at midnight. So we spent another four fun hours crammed into a cattle shoot with sweaty smoky people (though to be fair, we were doing our fair share of sweating, considering the heat and closeness) and being much more vigilant about not letting people cut in line.
The Prefecture finally opened around 8:45 and first all the people who had letters telling them that their Carte was ready to be picked up passed first. And lo and behold!!! there were no more tickets for everyone else who needed to PICK UP the paperwork to fill out, turn in, to get their LETTER!!!!
We tried to go get help at the city hall, nothing doing. Only the Prefecture can do it, and since we live in Marseille, only the Marseille Prefecture can handle our case. Only there are about a million foreigners in this million and a half city. Because heaven knows they wouldn't want people to go to Aix-en-Provence 30 minutes away to pick up the precious forms. Which can't be sent by mail. And Alain has to go with me, not only for safety reasons, but because they can't give me the form by myself.
It strikes me as funny that I needed to fill out every form ever invented to get a one year Student card but to get a permanent card I just have to give a photocopy of my marriage license, my passport, and the electricity bill (to show where we live.) I guess they figured if you are married, you have gone through the Death by Paperwork trial.

It makes a girl want to claim Asylum, because that line is shorter. I suggested a hunger strike to Alain. I think it would be quite effective- get a large sign that says "Greve de la faim" and stand out in front of the Prefecture in broad daylight telling anyone who asks what the problem is. I think after about a day the Prefecture would be so embarrassed they would just say "Here is your damn form. Go away." He thinks I am joking. Just wait until I have to refuse a job offer because I don't have this card.

I have done it. I have completed Stage 1 of my Super Important Mission. I have converted Alain to the joys of Peanut Butter. That's right- Butter of the Peanuts.
The French, in general, seem to hate it and consider it as one of those Strange American Things. It is difficult to find in the average grocery store. Once, when I first arrived here, Alain and I were wandering the grocery store and I wondered out loud where the peanut butter was. Another American woman apparently overheard me and went off and got two jars of it to show me- it was located in the specialty Regional Foods section. Yes my fellow Americans, America was represented by Tex Mex Taco Filling, Tacos, and Peanut Butter. Sniff. (tear in my eye) I am so proud.
Apparently however the French didn't feel anything else was worth importing, such as chocolate (no big surprise there) soda, or sadly, Macaroni and Cheese. That is my next mission. Import a big case of it and hand it out free in the super markets. Okay, back to the regularly scheduled program.
Yes, anyway, so after a long time of funny looks, I have finally converted him to the simple joys of the Food of the Gods.

(picture courtesy of La Provence)

There are two things that Marseille does very well- trash and strikes. When they combine into one (ie the Garbage collectors go on strike) watch out! Within about three days the city is going to reek. Especially in high summer.

Here is some info from another website.

Nationally, SNCF is running about 50 to 60 percent of normal on long distance routes. Marseille is still on strike, and there are no trains running from Toulouse, Montpellier, or Limoges. Service is increasing in the west with four return trips from Paris to Nantes and Rennes; and 50 percent of normal service to Bordeaux. The Eurostar trains to Brussels and London are supposed to operating normally.

Note also that the port of Marseille is shut down and the garbage collectors are still on strike, in addition to buses, in Bordeaux.

La Poste- A minority of sorting centers are still voting for
strike action, so deliveries are expected to be irregular all this week. Mail your Christmas cards as soon as you can. In France, cards are usually sent for New Year instead, so it is not unusual to get cards at the end of January.

The date? 1995

And again
September 1999:- Big subjects in the papers are the garbage strike in Marseille

And finally, from some exchange students
Marseille 2003

-Why go to the most criminal city in France?
Although the tourist books say:
“Marseille only has 4 places of interest”, we discovered that there is a lot more to enjoy in and around Marseille that is worthwhile to sniff from a couple of hours to taste the French lifestyle. (please do not do this when the garbage men are already on strike for a week!)
Apart from the garbage men to be on strike the public transport and even the students of the university have been on strike several times, but it only made us realize that the NS is not that bad after all.

-After a short holiday break were we visited Spain, we returned to
Marseille in the evening and are confronted with a terrible mess in the streets. Everywhere in the whole city the streets are filled with garbage and for the first time of my life I see rats and cockroaches peacefully dining together. Marseille was already not the cleanest city of Europe, but at that moment it was the dirtiest place on earth. The cause of this mess was, obviously, a strike of dustmen. This strike took almost 2 weeks and fortunately the municipality of Marseille found a great solution: spraying a citron-odoured liquid in the streets! An anti climax to leave Marseille like this after nevertheless a great time.

Hmm. Let me get this straight. They are saying that there are student strikes, transportation strikes, La Poste is slow and annoying, and that the garbage people are on strike? I don't believe it! Okay, it seems like I have been pretty negative about Marseille lately. But I really think that besides maybe Quito, Ecuador it is the dirtiest city that I have lived in. There is a high amount of graffiti, dog droppings and general trash all over. People really just do not seem to care that they dropped a sandwich wrapper on the street 2 feet away from a trash can.
Dog droppings are not required to be picked up by their owners. Or perhaps they are, but it certainly isn't enforced. The most that people will do is to drag their dog over towards the gutter or a patch of dirt when he starts to squat. So the good news for dog owners in Marseille- you don't have to pick up your dog's poop. Bad news for everyone else- you are walking in dog poop.
So normally the trash cans are emptied once a day, then someone comes by as well with a big broom to brush all trash on the sidewalk into the gutter where it will be washed away by the water that flows through the gutters. (on purpose from faucets, not rainwater.)
Then people come through with huge hoses to power wash the trash off the sidewalks into the street where it is swept up by a big street cleaner. It would be impossible to get people to park only on one side of the street this night and the other side of the street the next night. Why? because there are simply not enough parking spots as it is, much less when half of them are required to be empty.
There is some recycling, but mainly for glass and plastic. I haven't seen any paper/newspaper recycling bins.
So this latest strike lasted for a little over a week and was, as always, about the hours of work and salary. After a strike it takes several days just to pick up all the extra trash by hand that was set around the garbage cans. It is actually quite a shock to see how much trash is accumulated from the people living on one street in a week. It seriously makes you worried about the environment.

One thing that I have found that seems to be unique to learning French is the Dictée. Basically, it is a way to test your listening comprehension, spelling, and verb conjugasions all at the same time. The teacher reads a text, and you have to copy what he or she reads. Sounds easy right? Nope. Because there are a lot of spellings that you can't hear and have to know that they are there, depending on the text. Such as the difference between "je suis allé" for a man and "je suis allée" for a woman. They sound exactly alike. Whereas for English, if you know the spelling, which granted can be tricky sometimes, you can pretty much get it right.
Even when I took one semester of French 101 in Virginia the teacher did this. Here in France, there is a TV show where a man comes on and reads a Dictée and the audience tries to write what he says, and the home audience can do the same. Oh Boy!

Here is an example of what you hear for a dictée.

"Leh bah-ca-laur-ay-at a faytay ses doo cent shans en doo meel un. Ceh dee-plome res poor ahn gran nohm-bre day joone jhan une ayta pahm-poor-tan dahn leur par-cour scolaire. Leh bah-ca-laur-ay-at day-mure un eggs-ahmen deefeecile ohs you day ghen-air-ah-tions deh joone lee-say-ens qui see pray-san shaq ahnay. Ce-day-pan-dan, dehpui lay loi deh ori-en-ta-tion deh mille noof sans cah-tre vahn noof, leh bah-ca-laur-ay-at ah chan-jay deh ohb-jec-tif. Il neh sah-jee plu deh leh con-fair-air ah oone aye-leete may deh loov-rir lar-jay-mahn ah twot lay coo-che deh la poh-puh-la-tion dahn sen sue-see dahc-say ah lah coul-ture poor toos. Il ee ah may-teh-nahn une grahnd dee-ver-see-tay deh bah-ca-laur-ay-at. Dahns quel-que shan-nays, la pluh-par days Fran-says sehron tee-too-layr deh ceh dee-plome qui ooh-vreh lay poort ah bow-coo dough-tre sehx-ah-men ooou cohn-coor."

So that is what you hear. I wonder if anyone who knows French can figure out my phonentic translation. Besides the words, the teachers says the ponctuation, such as comma, period, etc. I am getting better at guessing where the accents marks are supposed to go. It helps to have a reader who is good at reading dictees. It is EEM POHR TANT that they pronounce correctly, remember to say all of the punctuation marks, and don't get lost and skip words.

Anyway, here is what you are supposed to write.
"Le baccalauréat a fété ses deux cents ans en 2001. Ce diplôme reste pour un grand nombre de jeunes gens une étape important dans leur parcours scolaire. Le baccalauréat demeure un examen difficile aux yeux des générations de jeunes lycéens qui s'y présentent chaque année. Cependant, depuis les lois d'orientation de 1989, le baccalauréat a changé d'objectif. Il ne s'agit plus de le conférer à une élite mais de l'ouvrir largement à toutes les couches de la population dans un souci d'accès à la culture pour tous. Il y a maintenant une grande diversité de baccalauréats. Dans quelques années, la plupart des Français seront titulaires de ce diplôme qui ouvre les portes à beaucoup d'autres examens ou concours."

Eet ees vair-ry dee-fee-coolt.

Yesterday I took the TGV up to Lyon to meet a business contact. (How cool is that- Speeding through the South of France on the TGV for business? But I bet it gets less cool after the 100th time.)
I got up at 6, took the subway to the Marseille train station, (picture) the Gare St. Charles. My train left at 7:40. It was rather uneventful, but I was disappointed that I couldn't see more- on the ground level you see mostly hedges and privacy fences. You have to be on top to really get a nice view of the beautiful countryside. I vowed that on the way back I would sit on top. But on the way back there was only one level. And I slept. Oh well.
The trip was supposed to take a little over an hour and a half. Instead, it took about an extra half hour just pulling into the train station in Lyon. I got off the train and looked for the nearest Metro station. Except that the Metro was on strike. Go France!
Upon leaving the train station, I immediately got stopped by some woman handing out something. Forget what I said in the Mademoiselle/Madame post. Apparently, even dressed up in my "Big Girl Important Clothes" I still warrant a Mademoiselle.
Lyon has quite an extensive public transportation system- four metro lines (compared to Marseille's two), a tramway, and I think a hundred bus lines. I stood for about 15 minutes just trying to figure out where I was on the map and how to get to the old part of the city. The bus line map was labeled with the stop names and names of each quarter, not the street names. So it was an interesting exercise in deduction to try to match up my tourist map (printed rather badly from my book) with the street names to the bus line map. I finally decided to just walk in the general direction of where the old town must be. Lyon is described as
"France's second city, dramatically sited on the banks of the Rhône and Saône rivers, has been a vital gateway between north and south since ancient times. Upon arriving you immediately feel a brin du sud, or touch of the south."
Marseille and Lyon both vehemently contest that THEY are the second largest city in France after Paris. I think it depends on whether you count just the city or the suburbs as well. Anyway, in order for a tourist to feel that it has the "brin du sud" I think you have to be arriving from up north. Coming from the south south of France, it definetely feels northern. Alain once was amazed when talking with another American in the US who told him that she had visited the South of France. He asked where exactly she had visited in the south. She replied "Lyon". He laughed because all true Provençals think Lyon is WAY UP THERE. I think that if you divide France horizontally in half it is considered in the southern half, but I think it still has some attitudes of the north. And the Southerners definetely consider it the North. Of course, I was only there for half a day.

Lyon was founded by the Romans in 43 BC on the site of a Gaulish hill-fort settlement called Lug[o]dunon—from the Celtic sun god Lugus (light) and dúnon (hill-fort). It was recognized as a major point on the roads between the north and south and later became the capital of Gaul due to it's geographical position and the rivers. There are still two large Roman amphitheaters remaining, one built in 15 BC for 30,000 spectators.

Lyon is now the capital of the Rhône Department. It has 9 arrondisements (haha, less than Marseille's 16), which are different areas or departments of the city.

So I walked towards the old part of Lyon. The City Hall is beautiful. At least, I think this is a picture of the City Hall. For some reason they have a big Bull statue in front. You would think they would have a Lion. I walked toward the big Eiffel Tower wannabe but had to turn back before I reached it so I would make my meeting in time. It is like an illusion- you think it is getting closer as you walk towards it for 45 minutes, but it still remains really far away. The Marseillais tease the Lyonnais for being copycats- they copied the Notre Dame de la Garde church of Marseille and the Eiffel Tower of Paris.
In reality, the tower is the Tour Métallique and was built in 1893, and now is a television transmitter. And the church is the Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière "the hill that prays", described as a "gaudy mock-Byzantine creation- a riot of turrets and crenelations, marble and mosiac- was built in the late 19th century and has become one of the symbols of Lyon." Anyway, I didn't get to judge the gaudiness for myself, as I had to get back to my meeting. My feet were killing me by this time anyway. So I limped back to the train station, our appointed meeting spot.
On the way back, I noticed Lyon's handing of traffic. They seem to have a much better grip on it than Marseille. Or maybe it is just that Lyon is past the growing pains that Marseille is in the throws of right now in constructing the tramway. Lyon also has a Rent A Bike program. They have red bikes stationed at various places in Lyon. You have to insert a card (probably a bank card I am guessing, or ID card at least) into a computer system, and it unlocks one of the bikes for you. This seems to be working well, unlike poor Charlottesville who had a similar yellow bike program and all the bikes diappeared within about a week. I think the difference is that in Charlottesville they relied on the honor system whereas in Lyon there is some amount of accountability and traceabilty.
I met my colleague for lunch. Although Lyon is considered the Gastronomic Capital of France, we had a 13 euro lunch right by the train station consisting of a salade verte (green salad. Which usually in France means just lettuce.) a personal pizza, and a dessert- chocolate moose for me. He left around 2. I was planning on walking around some more, but didn't feel like braving the bus system or walking all way back to the Vieux Lyon, so I wandered around the shopping mall across the street. Pretty typical mall, one could almost believe that they are in a US Mall. They even have The Body Shop here. Oh, and no food courts. There tend to be little cafes and stands in the malls, not a big eating area.

My return TGV ticket was for 5:30, but I wanted to see if I could catch an earlier train back. I was able to exchange it and catch the 3:15 train. There were two women watching a DVD (I think Pirates of the Caribean) on a portable DVD player. Without the headphones on. After a couple of minutes of LOOKS from me and some other passengers, I finally asked if they would please not mind putting the headphones on. Well, apparently this was a huge imposition and how Dare I Ask That. They did finally do it with much huffing and puffing. I meant to stay awake and look at the beautiful scenery but conked out, made it back to Marseille a little before 5. So that was my interesting trip to Lyon. (picture below- lion crossing the crosswalk)