Snow in Paris

Just prior to Christmas we were greeted one morning with about 10cm of Snow. It started at about 8am, just in time for peak hour and as such there was chaos on the streets (well even more than usual). I decided to hit the town with my camera to take some pics and generally enjoy the winter wonderland.

There were still a few idiots who decided that riding a motorcycle in the snow was a good idea. During the morning I saw three different people come off there cycles on the snowy roads. I even helped one guy pick his bike back up after he took a tumble right beside me on the road while I was walking along.

Germany

It was very pleasant to travel to Germany for a week and enjoy some ruthless German efficiency, which is a far cry from the stifling French bureaucracy as described previously.

We took in Berlin and Munich, and got out to a few different activities.

The best thing that we did was go for a drive in a 'Trabi' the people's car (if you happened to be people from East Germany) which was the pride of East German engineering. With an enormous 500cc two stroke engine, generating a massive 19kw of power, the Trabi truly was the car of its time. It had a four speed column shift gearbox. To make things easier this was the first time that I had had the pleasure of driving on the right hand side of the road. To my credit, I managed not to stall it once despite a really shitty clutch.

Onto Munich we took in a Bayern Munich Champions League game at the Allianz Arena. Which was pretty cool.

Following this we headed out into the Alps to see a couple of castles, and our first real experience of European Winter.

Lastly we headed out to the Munich Olympic site to have a bit of a look around there as well.

Reflections 6 months on - Bureaucracy

I have now been here for just over six months, and I think its time to reflect on those pieces of French culture that seem so peculiar to a lot of us outsiders, but to those living here it is simply a part of everyday life.

They are both good and bad aspects to the culture that are particularly ingenious, intriguing, and at times downright frustrating. But hey thats all part of the fun.

Bureaucracy - The word is French, and it is everywhere. 25% of the population of France work in the public service. Their job is to make sure that the other 75% of the population, keep in line, fill out their mountains of paperwork correctly, and file this paperwork away never to be seen again. If one letter is even out of place, it is also their job to make sure that you fill out the paperwork again. This also does not take into account the millions of people who fill administrative jobs within the private sector, in order to do all of the above jobs and ensure the running of their own personal fiefdom.

This lists of duties for an administrative Frenchman or Frenchwoman however discounts the most important job of an administrative worker in France. Which is, the collection of passport sized photographs. I wish I could find on the internet a statistic on how many passport sized photographs are collected in France each year. My guess is it would be somewhere in the order of several hundred million. Oh how I wish I had shares in the company that own all of the photo booths located at all of the supermarkets and railway stations. Day after day, hundreds of thousands of people all over France, put their 5 euro note into one of these machines and sit down in front of the camera to pull a bland face, in order to satisfy the devilish photography requirement of some sort of menial administrative bureaucrat. I myself have been relatively lucky (i think) in that so far in my six months here, I have only had to hand over the relatively meager total of 7 passport sized photos for various purposes. A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a fellow Australian who recently filled out some sort of complex application for something in France and required that she provide 14 passport sized photos. (Yes I said fourteen!)

But hey you would think that with so many people actually working in the public service that things get done really quickly with a minimum of fuss, right? I mean with all of that man power and a population of a mere 62 million, there should be no hold ups at all.

Oh how wrong you are my friend. You see in order to make sure that people actually have work to do, (or in reality have work to palm off onto colleagues or other department) meaningless paper work and rules have been created.

For instance, when I arrived here, I had to go to my local 'council chambers' to get the ball rolling to get my residency card. This involved rocking up, taking a number, waiting about an hour, and then showing a lady all of the paperwork I had while she told me exactly what I would need for my next appointment at the big main police centre slap bang in the middle of Paris. Then after about 5mins of this, she wrote my details, on a piece of paper.(which was the official booking sheet.) It already had about 20 people written on it who would be having meetings before me on the same date. Obviously the use of computers would make tasks just far too efficient. At the end of this little process I had been to a meeting, for the purpose of making an appointment for 7 weeks in the future.

After the 7 weeks, I arrived at the big police centre with all of my paperwork, unsure of the next step but hoping that this would be the end of my little process. I guess it was rather naive of me to think that everything would be done on this day and I would be walking out of there with a residency card. First of all a little geography lesson for the woman who made my appointment, Australia is in Oceania and not North Asia. This little geography problem cost me my spot at the head of queue for the day (my appointment was at 1st up at 8:30) and I had been given an appointment at the wrong office. So I had to go to another office, which I did, only problem was I had to go after the 20 or so people who already had appointments for the day.

After about two hours, my number was finally called and I went up to the little desk where the unfriendly bureaucrat processes person after person all day. After a few questions and an in depth eye over my paperwork, it was decided that my paperwork was inappropriate (as my bank statement was not written in French) so all of my copies of paperwork that passed muster were placed into a manilla folder, and I was given an appointment to come back in 4 weeks, (with the appropriate bank statement in French) and hopefully all would be well.

In the intervening time I arranged to open a bank account in France and thus everything was written in French and I was hoping that all would be well. So after 4 weeks, I went back and waited about an hour this time. (Already a little more positive) My number was once again called, and I nervously went to the desk and joined a gentleman this time. I sat there for about 20 minutes while he read some emails that were attached to the outside of my file. He then fingered through all of my paperwork again (even though it was already passed as ok last time) and barely spoke a word to me throughout the whole ordeal. (Which was not so bad, as I have a feeling my French would have been rather poor due to how hot and tired I was) Anyway, after about 20mins It appeared all was ok, however I would not be getting my card today, as I had one more step, which was to go to the mythical land of ANAEM, which is apparently where my 'Carte de Sejour' (residency card) will be living.

So I recieved another peice of paper, telling me that I would be having another appointment in about 4 weeks time at different place in Paris, and if all goes will I will get to leave with a couple of exciting presents.

So four weeks later (are you keeping track of time?) I was one of the 100 or so people who each day queue outside ANAEM in Paris waiting for them to open so they can go inside and argue with the French bureaucracy as to why their family should be allowed to join them in France after they have been denied. This office also serves as the place where strangers in white coats, get to measure your height and weight, ask you some questions about your health and you get to stand there with your shirt off while a strange Frenchman takes an x-ray of your chest.

Once they opened I got to sit in a little waiting room, just like at the doctors. My name was called after only 10 minutes! and I went inside and my height, weight (I had lost 11kg since I arrived here) and my eyes were checked. This was all passed easily, and then I was hearded into a room with a cold metal bench that somehow resembled solitary confinement. I was told to take off my shirt and shortly a man will open the door and ask me to step through so I could have an x-ray taken of my chest. (This is done to check for TB) After sitting on the cold bench with my shirt off I was called in, and an x-ray was taken. WOW, the most exciting thing was that afterwards, I was lucky enough to keep it. It hangs on my wall now as a reminder of how much fun this entire process had been. Well after the x-ray, I was told by another doctor, that I was fine, and I had no health problems (and no TB) and obviously I was a model French citizen, and that I would be allowed to stay.

So I then had the privilege of paying 300 euros, to finally be handed the much sort after "Carte de Sejour" after 15 weeks of fun, fun, fun. I walked out of ANAEM with a big smile on my face and a peice of plastic with my face on it (and a chest x-ray) The long complex and amusing process had finally come to an end and I was officially a resident of France. I celebrated with a crepe.

Some cheese I have eaten recently

I have headed out to the supermarket in the last week or so to pickup some different cheeses to try, the goal before our time is up here is to get through and try every single cheese from the book "French Cheeses" that I have recently acquired.

With this goal in mind, I came home from the supermarket with four different cheeses recently.

MUNSTER - First of all I came home with this very tasty looking Munster cheese. Munster cheese comes from the far east of France and apparently has a very high fat content. (45%, great for those arteries) It comes with a slightly reddish rind and a fairly strong odor. Munster is an AOC cheese and thus production is strictly controlled, according to the AOC, "a limited area of milk production, including major part of département of Vosges, a large part mountainous or in front of the range in Alsace, départements Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin, a few communes in

département Haute-Saône and Belfort Territory, cantons of départements Moselle and Meurthe-et-Moselle."

Most importantly, the taste. Munster has a very strong odor, and this is the first thing to hit

your senses. It has quite a creamy texture although is a little firm, a little bit like a thickshake. The taste is not quite as strong as you would expect from the smell, but has quite a sweet milky taste, which is left lingering in your mouth after you have swallowed it.

SAINT-NECTAIRE - I also picked up a very interesting cheese called "Saint Nectaire". The first thing that struck me about this cheese was the colour of the rind, which was ashen, almost black. This cheese comes from central France, almost smack bang right in the middle of the hexagon. I am going to turn to my favourite wikipedia for a bit about the history of this cheese. "It is made in the Auvergne region of central France. The cheese has been made in Auvergne since at least the 17th century. Its name comes from the Marshal of Sennecterre (a linguistic corruption of "Saint-Nectaire"), who served it at the table of Louis XIV. The Marshal of Sennecterre is also responsible for the introduction of Cantal and Salers."

The smell of this cheese is a little bit like old mouldy socks that have been left out in the rain for a while. However lets face it, some cheeses aren't exactly rosy smelling to the nose, and I was hoping it would taste a little better than it smelled. This is one of the more firmer cheeses that I have purchased, it has a similar consistency to something like Colby that you might have back home, however slightly more silky. The taste is a little acidic and a bit spicy and certainly sticks in your mouth for a while after woods, (probably due to the acid)

PICODON - A goats cheese again from central France. It comes in a nice little round nugget, and has a very typical goats cheese type taste but a little more on the spicy side. The reason for this spice is apparently the goats that it comes from devour anything and everything on the mountains on which they live around central France. This diet of theirs is reflected in the taste of their milk.

The cheese book I have suggests that you suck on this cheese a little bit before eating in order to get all of the taste out, I didn't really try this, but it tasted good enough to me without doing so.

BRIE DE MEAUX- Brie is actually a speciality from a region not far to the east of Paris. There are so many varieties of Brie that you can buy at the supermarket or a fromagerie. The one that we picked up was an aged brie. It was a lot darker in colour than a regular Brie that you might find in Australia and was a lot firmer in texture. When I unwrapped it the smell was almost smokey and you could smell the mould (Probably because it was aged a little longer than normal Brie).

Once in the mouth, the taste was strong and rich and tasted quite sweet. There are still quite a few different varieties of Brie I am keen to try, but this one was a good place to start and whet my appetite for some other varieties of Brie.

French Cooking - Coq au Vin

The other night I thought I would have a crack at cooking something uniquely French. After all I have been here for many months, and I am not sure that buying some cheese and eating it with a baguette really counts as putting together traditional French cuisine.

After scouring some recipe sites on the internet, I came up with something that looked not overly difficult, and would hopefully be pretty tasty. I settled on 'Coq au Vin' (chicken in wine) a traditional French dish, the variation of which I made was Alsace (because I used Reisling) as the major wine.

So I ventured out to the supermarket (in the freezing cold, its like 5 degrees here at the moment) and bought my ingredients, chicken thighs, mushrooms, lardons (cubed bacon) thyme, reisling, onions, garlic, chicken stock, flour and a bay leaf (which I could not find).

After preparing all of the ingredients the first thing to do was to give the chicken a coating of flour mixed with some salt and pepper. Once the chicken was coated, I was to lightly fry both

sides of the chicken in some oil in a large pot, that was to be used for actually making the dish. I gave the chicken about 3 mins on both sides, so the peices were slightly yellowly/brown. (About the same colour of the pretty autumn leaves outside)

I then removed the chicken from the oil with some tongs, which I had to go all the way to IKEA to purchase. Apparently French people do not use tongs. I had looked in pretty much every shop in Paris that sells kitchen utensils for some tongs, with no luck. So I had to go and buy some from the Swedes. I have no idea how they go about cooking sausages here without tongs. I told my French friend, that a kitchen without tongs is like having a car without a steering wheel.

So i removed the chicken from the oil and put it aside on a plate. I turned the heat down a little, and added to the oil, the mushrooms, lardons, onions and garlic. I cooked this for about 5 minutes until the onions and mushrooms began to turn a little brown.

At this point I added my chicken stock and Riesling and mixed it all together throughly. I also added my thyme (and would have added a bay leaf at this point had I had one). It created a

wonderfully fragrant broth. I then turned the heat right up, in order to bring the broth to a boil. Once the broth came to a boil, it was time to pop the chicken back into pot with the broth, turn the heat down, pop the lid on, and leave it to simmer for about half and hour.

After the half an hour, the smell of the dish was wafting tastily throughout the house, making me very hungry.

I had prepared with the dish some mash potatos, couscous, and some green beans. I removed the chicken from the broth and placed it on the plate. I then spooned some generous portions of the broth to cover the chicken as well as all over the potatos and couscous.

We sat down at the table and then it was time for the all important first taste. Smelling the aroma whilst I was slaving over the stove for a half an hour or so, left my mouth keen to jump straight in. I put the first forkfull in my mouth and I was pleasantly suprised with the taste. It wasn't as terrible as I had feared. In fact if I do say so myself, it was pretty bloody good, and we began to eat away at the Coq au Vin. It had the sweetness of the Reisling as a dominating flavour but it was well balanced with the aromatic thyme, salty lardons and

the mushrooms providing a good balance to the sweet wine.

All in all it has left me keen to try something a little more difficult and hopefully even more tastier next time.

France v Austria - World Cup Qualifier

Not being able to help ourselves with our desire to finally see some world class football. We took ourselves along with some other Aussies out to Stade de France last week, to see the World Cup Qualifiedr between France and Austria.

France have been struggling a little with their qualification for South Africa 2010, coming 2nd in their group, and indeed lost to Austria 1 - 0 in their last meet back in Austria earlier in their year. Sadly for France the outcome of their group was such that regardless of the result of this game they were destined to finish 2nd in their group which meant they still have not qualified for the World Cup, but they are not out of it at the same time.

Despite this fact, there was a sellout crowd at the Stade de France of 80,000 (home to the 1998 World Cup Final). We were very pleased when we arrived at our seats to discover that there were 40,000 French flag distributed amongst the seats for us to wave throughout the game. So we grabbed our flags and settled into our seats on the lower level in the corner of the ground.

The stadium slowly filled and by the time the two teams came out onto the field it had reached a roar. After a stirring rendition of 'Le Marseillaise' (during which I find it very difficult not to start singing the Brisbane Lions club song) the game got underway.

Austria almost opened the scoring after 10 mins, only to be denied by an acrobatic save from the French keeper. This early strike stirred the French team and from this point onwards they finally started finding their feet and launched numerous attacking raids only to be denied by the Austrian defense. The Frenchmen's hard work was rewarded with a goal by Benzema after 18 minutes. 10 minutes later, French hero Henry was barely touched as he was brought down in the box, but the referee had no hesitations in pointing directly at the spot. Henry picked himself up, and stepped up to the mark to casually slot away France's 2nd goal after 27 mins. It could easily have been 3 or 4 before half time, if not for some wayward shooting and poor last touches by the French players. However they went into the main break, leading 2 goals to nil.

France opened up the 2nd half looking a little slack, and Austria were able to pounce on this slackness picking up a lucky goal 2 mins into the 2nd half. This goal once against woke up the French team and they continued to dominate for the next 25 mins. During this time they were rewarded for their persistance with a 3rd goal by Gignac in the 67th minute. This would finalise the scoring for the evening and when the referees whistle sounded for full time, everyone (except the small group of Austrian fans) would leave happy with the result at 3-1.

The National Anthem

Henry's Goal

Part 2 - Things I ate and Drank

For the 2nd part of our weekend in Courjon & La Rochelle, I am going to go through this in chronological order.

We hopped of the train in La Rochelle on Friday afternoon and after a bit of a wander around town headed to a cool little wine bar called "La Guignette" Here they specialise in flavoured local wine. All they do is get some white wine, mix it with some fruits and volia! We tried, 'Le Rince-Goret' (citrus fruits) 'La Rouge' (red fruits) and 'La Verte' (Apple). They all tasted pretty good, and the best bit is that the wine on tap at the bar. Just take up your empty bottle when you have finished for a re-fill.

After filling up on wine we headed to a local restaurant, for dinner. For dinner I had what

was described in the menu as the "Duck Pyramid"(pictured left after I had eaten half). However it was more of a cylinder than a pyramid (but I wont hold it against them). It had a bottom layer of mashed potatoes, on top of which was a some caramelised onions. On top of this was a big fat slice of foire gras. Finally on top of all of this was a whole leg of duck. It was easily one of the best things I have ever eaten. It was also one of the fattiest things I have ever eaten. But I think thats what made it so good.

Blotting to copybook slightly we headed off for lunch at McDonalds on Saturday. This was only a precursor for the cheesy goodness we were going to experience at dinner on Saturday night.

Saturday night started off quietly with a bit of foire gras on some toasted bread. To wash down our foire gras, we did so with a bit of the local specialty from the region called 'Pineau'. Pineau is

effectively is a fortified wine and is made by mixing traditional fortified wine, with grape juice, and the result is a very strong very sweet liqueur. After this it was time for dinner, which was a traditional French meal of raclette. What is raclette, you may ask? Well I think the best way to describe it, is its basically Korean bbq, but with cheese. You have a big grille in the centre of the table which you use to cook you meat on. However under the large grille there are also small paddles for each person that you place a square of cheese on. You then put your paddle with cheese into your slot, this slot heats up your cheese until it melts. Then you take your cooked meat off the grill ontop, take your melted cheese on the paddle below, then scrape the cheese off your paddle and all over your cooked meat. Then you eat. Yum yum! The meat we enjoyed with our cheese, was Jambon sec, saucisson, salami as well as baked potatoes. Dinner was washed down with a nice local red. It was cheesy but oh so good.

After dinner it was time for what was my highlight of the weekend. We had a chance to try some cognac which was bottled in 1865 (yes thats not a typo). So we had some 144 year old cognac and my god, I had only the smallest sip, and it felt like my mouth was going to explode. It was like someone had punched me in the face. But it was a fine way to finish off the evening before some more feast the next day.

Sunday lunch is traditionally a big meal in French households and we certainly were in for a treat on this Sunday. Lunch time, and we had 'Confit du Canard' (ie some more duck) It was cooked to perfection in its own fat, and once again we washed it down with a local white.

So all in all a great weekend of gastronomy.

La Rochelle et Courjon (Part1 Places we went)

(Main Railway Station at La Rochelle)

So last weekend we went down to the South West of France, on the TGV initially to a place called La Rochelle as a base for going to our friend Aurelie's parents house. About an hour inland, in a tiny ville out in the countryside called Courjon.

I am going to split this post into two pieces. Firstly on all of the places that we went and what we saw. Secondly, on all of the food and drink we consumed throughout the weekend. First of all, I will begin with the places we went.

We started out hopping off the TGV in La Rochelle, a beautiful and historic town on the east coast of France. Aparently the town was founded in the 10th century and became a major town by the 12th century because of its harbour. Infact according to wikipedia "The main activities of the city were in the areas of maritime commerce and trade, especially with England, the Netherlands and Spain. Until the 15th century, La Rochelle was the largest French harbour on the Atlantic coast, dealing mainly in wine, salt and cheese."

Indeed you can see the old entrance to the harbour and the fortifications which still stand today (and are still the entrance to the harbour) A little bit of more recent history about La Rochelle courtesy of wikipedia "During the Second World War, Germany established a submarine naval base at La Pallice (the main port of La Rochelle). A German stronghold, La Rochelle was the last French city to be freed at the end of the War. A siege took place between 12 September 1944, and 7 May 1945, in which the stronghold, including the islands of Ré and Oléron, was held by 20,000 German troops under a German vice-admiral Ernst Schirlitz. Following negotiations by the French Navy frigate captain Meyer, and the general German capitulation on May 7, French troops entered La Rochelle on May 8."

Finally I could not go past this little tidbit of information for all of you movie buffs "The main port of La Rochelle became the setting for the movie Das Boot. The U-Boat scenes in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark were also shot in La Rochelle."

Anyway I ate some pretty nice food and drank some pretty good alcohol here, but I will detail this in the next part.

Late in the evening on Friday we headed to Courjon a small little town where Aurelie is from and where we spent the weekend with her family. It is small and out in the country side. I was awoken on Saturday morning to the sounds of hunting dogs, and gunfire off in the distance, and the hunters were out in force looking for some sanglier, (wild boars) that roam around these parts

Saturday afternoon we headed off in the car around the local area, our first stop was an old roman town, now called Saintes but back in the day went by the Roman name of Mediolanum Santonum. Now I am going to once again dig into wikipedia for a bit about the history of of this place as well. "It was founded in about 20 BC. Some estimations show that Saintes had about 15,000 inhabitants in those days, and that its borders were almost the same as today.

Saintes was the capital of the former province of Saintonge." Hence the name. These days it is a big functional regional centre, with about 30,000 inhabitants. There are quite a few relics from its former days as a large roman town and we visited a couple of these. Firstly we headed to the

Basilique Saint-Eutrope de Saintes, a large church in town that was built in 1081. Sadly during the religious wars in the 1700's the 'top' roman style part of the church was

effectively demolished and a more neo-roman style church was built on the same spot.

However, the underground crypt from roman times still survived and is open to the public to wander in and have a look around. (Which you can see here on the right)

After we left the church we headed on over to the old Roman

Amphitheater that still stands giving an insight to the Roman heritage of the town. So we wandered up, paid our 2 euro entry and headed inside. This was pretty cool, and so far I am pretty

certain that this was the oldest thing I have ever seen in my life. This dates from the formation of the city around 20 BC.

On Sunday we headed out to another Roman Style Church, this time in (a town whose name I forget, oh the shame!) The interesting thing about this church is that architecturally it is a Roman style church and it still stands and has done so since the 13th century. There are not many Roman style churches left in France as most of them were torn down and replaced with Gothic style churches in the 17th & 18th centuries.

On the way back to La Rochelle to catch the train home to Paris, we came across fields full of wind powered electricity generators, such as this one.