Tag Archives: France

My Travel

Cannes Do

Nice Airport isn’t unfamiliar to me. Aside from that long ago trip to Cannes that started by landing in the aforementioned location, I’d also flown here for an entirely different event last year, then set off to a village about half an hour away which was one of the many picturesque examples of rural southern France. At the time I had exited Terminal 1 at the airport, feeling nervous about locating my bus stop, which was intensified by ongoing construction all around me and no shade in the hot July sunshine.

Fast forward a little over a year later, and I stride out, to be pleasantly surprised by a sleek, finished square, with an immediately visible cafe, relaxed travelers, clearly labeled stops with seats and roofs, and a smoothly running train shuttle that takes me to Terminal 2, where I pick up the rest of my group. Go, Nice!

I love the look of our hotel, especially its lush, green front lawn, and inside we’re firmly told to „Have a seat“ before we can say much, a phrase which is repeated to another woman as well, only she responds in an English accent, „I’ll stand, if you don’t mind.“ I really like hearing that, but we’ve all been on the road for a while, so we do settle regally in the armchairs nearby.

Soon after we’re greeted by a visibly nervous manager, who shows us two rooms to choose from for those error-induced first three nights, though both are still not anything like the apartment we originally booked. Still, we pick a comfortable option, considering the circumstances, and negotiate a fair deal on the price as well. Kudos!

After that’s done everything is a little easier and we set out to remember our bearings and get some late lunch. The local architecture is beautiful, with white, beige, cream and pastel tones dominating. Balconies and shutters are everywhere, numerous varieties of palm trees, both potted and not, dot the occasionally hilly streets. White summer dresses, striped jumpsuits and fedoras regularly pop up among the relaxed streams of people flowing outside – most of them speaking French, plenty Spanish, some Italian and yes, the immediately noticeable mother tongue is also there (though not as loud as I expected). Throw in a sprinkle of various English accents, including confident American, Dutch, a bit of German, and you’ve got yourself a European melting pot.

What I’m floored by is the sheer amount of large hotels that have been built, or even are being built since I was here last. Of course, nine years is a long time, but I remember more space between buildings. It’s a little unnerving. We emerge from the Rue Meynadier, a lovely pedestrian street full of cafes, shops and artisan businesses, and, just like everyone else, inevitably find ourselves on the very fancy Boulevard de la Croisette (there hast to be a boulevard! This is France!), which (never) satisfies all my Valentino and Cartier needs. The Croisette is, however, one of the easiest ways to cut across to the beach, if you are already walking around the city center.

We stop by a large supermarket located near the hotel and soon have what I would say is a French enough shopping basket, with a baguette (mais oui!) among some local vegetables, ham and cheese, as well as some (discounted, but still freshly made) strawberry tart.

I have already automatically replied in French to some very short sentences I understood, to my breathless excitement, so despite French class being out for the summer, it’s not really ever far from my day, because that’s just what I do now. And what I Cannes do, I do.

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My Travel

Off to Cannes

My 2019 summer vacation takes me to Cannes, a city I’ve been to once, but that was nine years ago, and before all those involved had a smartphone or, indeed, Instagram. Ah, how times have changed. I’m fervently hoping that this lovely place (so much more than „just“ the film festival it’s known for all over the world) on the French Riviera will not be overrun with people trying to take the perfect selfie. I certainly won’t be part of that crowd.

As always a multitude of impressions descends on me the minute I walk out the door, backpack snugly positioned, suitcase leisurely rolling along, glasses in place to pick things out and remember them for this blog post.

On the way to the airport express a woman passes me, wearing exactly the same gold sparkling sandals I have at home. It’s both strange and interesting to recognize the exact item I own and know it came from one of the mainstream shops we all go to on a person I will probably never run into again. Her feet are very tanned. Mine are still my trusty classic redhead fair. Fair feet. Sure, why not.

At the airport I spot a stylishly dressed little girl. She’s wearing a denim jacket, black and white striped pants and, again, glittering gold sandals, as well as effortless confidence. Her younger sister is hanging on her hand, enthusiastically bubbling over with important news in my native language. „I saw a big unicorn! I really did, honest, a big unicorn, such a big unicorn!“ Hey, I believe her, I see them too.

The couple ahead of me in the line for the security check look like (wannabe) influencers, at least if their serious swiping through artfully staged couple snaps (yes, I could see the pictures) is anything to go by. „This one? Should we post this one? Maybe the other one?“ But they are cute and earnest, plus also polite to the staff.

The flight is made doubly pleasant not just because of the sunny universe outside, but because no one else occupies my row and I can joyfully scoot from my aisle seat to the window. The nice-looking family in front of me with two small children reminds me both of our travels when my siblings and I were young and the little people who made me an aunt. As soon as they sat down, the kids are methodically listing what their mother may give them: headphones, iPad, book, crayons – multimedia consumption in action right before my eyes.

So this is basically stage one. Stage two is meeting up in Nice airport with the rest of the party. Stage three is arriving at our accommodation in Cannes and seeing what happens next. Shortly before our departure we were notified that due to some nebulous error/ glitch/ mistake/ pick your own word, we would be spending the first three nights not in our orignally booked apartment, but a smaller one with bunk beds. Stay tuned…

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My Travel

The French and German Way of Life

Germany is where I live and France is where I go regularly. True, I don’t know all of Germany, I know a certain part of Northern Germany best, and there is still so much to discover. I don’t know all of France either, as I mostly travel in one particular direction when I do go, though I have been to a few different cities. But in the last decade, through this combination, I have been fortunate to experience for myself parts of the French and German way of life. And for me one of the most telling bases of comparison for the two is the impression I’ve gotten from both nations in their approach to managing time.

I think those last two words, the choice of them, is already indicative enough of the strength of the German influence on me, which joyfully melds with my own character set-up. It seems Germans see time as something to be treasured, respected, a luxury to strive for, a tool to plan with, a sought-after component of leisure, an opportunity not to be wasted. For there is nothing more frustrating than time that is wasted. The French, meanwhile, always seem to be sure that whatever happens, there will be more time, becase la vie est belle and so is France, and why don’t you sit down, have a glass of wine and some cheese while you wait, you uptight German person.

In my French class we recently started a new lesson built around the subject of le train. Much was said while we collected the vocabulary we already knew. Our teacher explained the one marked difference between the German Deutsche Bahn and the French SNCF. Punctuality? Non. Plus, plenty of people in Germany complain about Deutsche Bahn. Non, it is le ticket! If you have your German train ticket, your platform is printed on it, and usually c’est vrai! Meanwhile, in a French gare you have to go stare at some information screens to find out where you board your train. It is not unusual to not have these details even 15 minuts before departure (being German). This was precisely my first experience taking the train from Paris-Est station to Strasbourg and the memory still makes me snort like an impatient horse.

I had to ask my teacher one burning question. Are the French relaxed about this fact and all Oui, c’est ça, or are there actually people in the country who are irritated by this? My teacher shrugged with that characteristically elegant, but nonchalant air, her eyebrows going up and her lips puckering in sync with the movement of her shoulders. Certain circumstances allow you to get a refund for your train ticket, she said. But what about your destination, the plan to be somewhere at a certain time, I sputtered. Another shrug.

I was recounting this story to a German friend, after we had made lunch plans, which we neatly laid down like we always do, despite knowing each other for ten years. We had included the possibility of being SPONTANEOUS in deciding where to go if it rained, because we planned to walk. But in case we didn’t get to, we were prepared!

Being a middle child, maybe this is what it’s about for me, a constant melding and co-existence of the stable and the new, the tried and tested injected with occasional joie de vivre, the satisfaction and gratitude of something working our as planned (or better) against arriving somewhere two hours later, but your favourite cafe is still open, and you get dessert on the house because your group is friendly and happy about seeing each other.

I know that the French and German way of life will both stay as they are. I know that I will continue feeling as if a bus or a subway train arriving on time as per my prior checking online is a present just for me. I know that (sometimes) it’s OK to stop thinking about time as such and live in the moment. And occasionally I will prepare dinner as a three-course meal. After that I will memorize the platform number printed on my train ticket AND check it on the information screen in the station.

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My Travel

Learning French and Going to France

When you’re learning French and traveling to France, you naturally feel like you should try speaking French once you arrive on French soil, right? Wait, try? “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” You are not simply a tourist or a visitor anymore. You basically have an obligation.

Oui, Yoda certainly knew what he was talking about. I know the process of this particular trip to Paris and it automatically divides itself in to tasks in my head in reference to opportunities to parler français. With decisively German precision I follow my plan of producing short, but appropriate sentences.

I enter the plane and say “Bonjour, Madame”, “Bonjour, Monsieur” to the crew as I make my way to my seat, on the same volume level that I use in other languages, because, you know, je parle un petit peu français. I am rewarded with a “Bonjour, Madame” or sometimes still with a “Bonjour, Mademoiselle.” I like being called Mademoiselle. I don’t find it derogatory and it reminds me of when I started flying to France as a student, after first moving to Germany. The German Fräulein has said farewell and disappeared in to the mist of times past, but Mademoiselle isn’t quite ready to leave just yet.

Step two of my exciting journey en français is putting to the test our extensive lesson on ordering in a restaurant. Are you ready for it? Here goes. “Je voudrais un chocolat chaud, s’il vous plaît.” The stewardess doesn’t politely ask me to repeat my request (parfait!) and gracefully hands me my little cup of hot chocolate, following the action with a sentence I can’t repeat, but I know she’s saying I should stir the liquid. She also asks, and I’m pretty sure I am typing this correctly (confidence is everything), “Vous desirez de l’eau avec votre chocolat chaud?” And because I’m an experienced traveler en France and prepared to invest my German powers of concentration in this drink before me, I answer elegantly, “Non, merci.”

I gratefully sip my hot chocolate, because I need to fortify myself for what comes next after these linguistic achievements. Step three of my interactions en français will be to put money on my Navigo pass so I can take the train from Charles de Gaulle Airport to Paris. I spend the remainder of the flight painstakingly composing various versions of what I want to say. “Bonjour, j’ai mon Navigo…non, bonjour, j’ai un Navigo…is it un or une Navigo? Wait, they don’t need to know it’s my Navigo, too much information, and I have it in my hand anyway, it’s not like I just picked it up off the floor, my picture is on it. OK, how about, bonjour, je suis ici pour cinq jours? Or is it de cinq jours? Or just cinq jours? Bonjour (smoothly slide Navigo towards SNCF employee behind the glass), je suis ici pour (maybe I can ask them, with that little laugh as if we’re sharing an inside joke, if pour is correct, haha, hmmm, oui, le français) cinq jours et je voudrais…what do I use for “to” or “until” when I’m talking about a stop? We recently had a few lessons where we repeated how to use en, au and aux, depending on whether you were talking about a country, city or region, and what gender they were. But we didn’t cover stops of the Parisian metro!

But my feverish race of thoughts is stopped quickly after I enter the SNCF ticket office in the airport. I only manage to get out “Bonjour, je suis ici pour cinq jours”, but something about it must have been convincing, because the lady at the counter released what sounded to my ears like a torrent of rapid French and the only word I understood was “dimanche”. I apologized in English and she reeled off the information I needed in the same language, but she clearly didn’t wish to pursue any longer interactions, so all my carefully constructed sentence parts will have to be saved for next time.

I redeemed myself the next morning by loudly and decisively telling a man blocking my path in the metro “Excusez-moi!”, only to see that he was a ticket controller.

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Hamburg

Learning French as an Adult

Thankfully school students still draw in pencil on desks, so it’s easy to remove the typical choice of doodle that’s staring me right in the face and, quite frankly, offending me. You’d think they would get a little more creative in the 21rst century, but no. I open my coursebook to Lesson One and join the rest of the class in repeating the bonjours, bonsoirs, je m’appelles and et tois.

The good news is, French is so widespread nowadays, especially in a city as international as Hamburg and with travel in Europe being what it is, that the material is by no means unfamiliar. It’s simply been a very long time since I’ve learned and pursued. Practiced conversations are quite short and ever so slightly stilted, as we tentatively feel our way around words and sentence structures, not yet being advanced in verbs beyond the present tense. Que fais-tu? Moi, je suis danseuse classique, so there! Actually, I made myself a ballet dancer, but the teacher frenchified it a little more so that the translation wouldn’t be too close to Deutsch and we would learn new additional words. We were encouraged to make up professions today and the result was a long list of diverse occupations that we practiced talking about. Que fais un footballeur?

A French colleague told me ils and elles were used to talk about groups doing something, yes, “but the French language is a bit macho”, so even if there was just one man present in the group I’m talking about, the correct pronoun to use is ils. Mais oui, bien sûr.

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