Stereotypes about the French that are true

Before I begin I would just like to say that this blog is in no way intended to be offensive or critical of the Frenchies. These are simply my personal observations and the  French stereotypes that have been confirmed during my stay in France. My next blog will focus on the stereotypes that we got wrong.. Alors, on y va!

I am zee frog and I like to smoke zee cigarette wiz a beret on my head

THINGS THAT ARE TRUE ABOUT THE FRENCH

1. They eat a lot  but they don't get fat

This is something that I found hard to believe at first but it is in fact true. I remember in the early days of my life in France I would watch my host family, friends and boyfriend devour piles and piles of food almost always accompanied by some kind of wine or champagne. It was such a surprise to see people follow the 'set menu' so closely and on top of that, to do it and to not get fat. It wasn't until I did some extra reading that I discovered the tricks of the French trade. 

If you eat with the French be prepared for a big meal because you will most certainly have 3 courses and you will probably have the whole shebang. A French dinner traditionally consists of: The l'aperitif - a small alcoholic drink to stimulate the taste palette, l'entree - the starter, le plat/le plat principal - the main dish (plus at least one if not 2 bottles of wine), le plateau de fromages - the cheese board or tray, le dessert - the dessert, le cafe - the coffee (often served with dessert) and last but not least le digestif - an after dinner spirit such as cognac. Before you ask, yes I have done and managed to do this, several times. When curiosity got the better of me I started thinking about how they (and I) weren't obese yet and this is what I found out. Apparently the French way of eating is how we should ALL be eating. The French don't inhale their food like we or the Americans do, they take their time to eat all the courses and eat different dishes to ensure that their body is digesting their food correctly. It's very important in France to have an aperitif and a digestif, as if you are telling the body that the meal is beginning and ending. So what if dinner takes 3 hours??? In France 'take out' food is very uncommon. Giving food your time and patience is top of their list. 

2. They drink a lot of wine (maybe gallons)

This is certainly true, adding on to what I said about their eating habits the French like a little tipple. They definitely drink more wine than us, probably because the wine is so much better and a lot cheaper here (you can get a good Bordeaux for 4 euros). But again, I quickly discovered how they do it. The French don't binge drink, viola, simple. Yes they drink an obscene amount of wine but it's all in moderation and it's all whilst they are eating food. I've rarely seen French people just drinking wine without eating or at least intending to eat. In England we often drink wine to be drunk, knowing that one bottle (in my case anyway, in my sister's and mother's it's two) can be a cheap and fun way of getting drunk quickly and the effects lasting all night and most of the next day. Wine headache. I've been at a lot of dinners with 3 or 4 people where we've consumed a huge amount of wine but thanks to the coffee and the digestif and all the food I've never been drunk OR hungover. There is so much pleasure to be found in eating well and drinking a good French wine. Ahh c'est la vie. 

3. The French love love

According to a survey by Durex, French people have more sexual encounters annually than Americans. This might not seem too surprising but when you think that the United States total area is 9,629,048 square kilometres and France's area (mainland) is about 551,000 square kilometres...it's a bit more of a shock. Oh and that you could fit all of France into Texas (just ONE state in America), well...that's a lot of sex the French are having. Unfortunately their addiction to love means that they are generally, famously unfaithful. I say generally because I don't like to tar everyone with the same brush  but after speaking to a number of people the general consensus  seems to be that they are great lovers but not so wonderful partners, especially if the word commitment is involved. 

4. They eat snails and foie gras 

Yes, they do indeed eat snails and other specialities like foie gras. However there seems to be a general impression in England and America that it's all they eat and it definitely isn't. These kind of things are reserved for special occasions and are not served in every restaurant. Foie gras is expensive and snails are a 'typical' dish but they are both mostly found in traditional French restaurants. I think tourists eat more snails than the French actually do. 

5. They eat oysters and drink champagne on Christmas day

This year I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to go home for Christmas so for a while I was thinking about how I would celebrate Christmas here. A friend very kindly offered for me to stay with his family for Xmas but when he explained about the oysters I was a little unsettled. Don't knock it until you try it I guess but I think I'll stick with smoked salmon and Dad's mackerel pate. 

6. They love paperwork 

Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork party. The French absolutely LOVE paperwork, to the point that I think, if it was possible, the President of the Republique might make a bank holiday especially for the people who spend their lives cajoling you for your documents. For example, I would like to have a 'carte vitale' (a health card) here, sounds simple enough right? Wrong. I've been here for over two years and I STILL don't have my card. They want an original birth certificate (and not just the healthcare system) the retirement people too so I have to pay for new documents (which just to add I will never get back even if I leave France). They want your first and last three payslips, a copy of your contract, an attestation from your employer (because the contract isn't enough of course), a copy of your passport (must be recto-verso) and much much more. Oh and the best thing is, when I finally get my card I have to send off ALL my medical bills from the last two years so I can be reimbursed. Honestly the French healthcare system is good when you are finally accepted but my god, their attitude towards paperwork is just anal. The people on the phone are also not the friendliest or most helpful so a lot of time is lost just from being misinformed. 

7. People can be a bit racist

Again, just to emphasise, this is not all French people. However, when walking through the ticket barrier at Opera every night I see people getting stopped by the ticket controllers. This wouldn't be a problem if the people had been passing through without a ticket or jumping the barrier but the controllers aren't asking for that, they are asking for their identity papers. I understand that France wants to control the amount of immigrants in the country but does that justify stopping people and demanding their papers because of the colour of their skin?! I have never been stopped because I'm white but the funny thing is, I don't have a French identity card and I haven't carried ID since I lost my driving license so I could easily be an immigrant. Obviously I'm not and I have the right to be here because I'm from another part of the EU but how can they know that from the colour of my skin? The judging a book by its cover mentality is what I dislike. 

8. Paris is the most romantic city in the world

If you are lucky enough to be in love in Paris, Paris really IS the most romantic city you'll ever visit. There are people snogging EVERYWHERE. If you're single you find yourself very agitated by these people,.I don't sit there thinking 'oh how cute' I sit there thinking 'Gosh...couldn't you just do that at home and not on the metro?!' French people have no shame, I had a couple sit next to me on the RER once and I ended up having to move because they were so intense that I actually started to feel uncomfortable. I guess I'm still a British prude at heart. I'll kiss someone on the metro or on the bus or even in the street but if it's very intimate I don't feel like it should be entirely public, so please people sucking face, do it at home.  

9. They are very impatient and they don't know how to queue

Oh yes, this one must be one of the most correct stereotypes about the French, including of course the famous French 'sigh.' Note to all; never, ever, go to a post office with a French person. I have first hand experience of this and although funny it was a lesson learnt. Now, just like in England, the French post offices are very slow. The people, just like the post, move at snail pace and if you are not a patient person it is very difficult to stay calm. My ex is not the most patient person ever and to be fair to him the people in front of us seemed to be particularly special that day but his reaction was ust comedy gold. I could feel him getting agitated as the woman in front of us was taking forever and claimed she 'had never sent a package before' so needed full, child-like guidance on how to do it. I think we were in a hurry because he had to go to work, I don't really remember but for some reason we needed to send our letter quickly and this lady was the only obstacle in the way. I reassured him that she would be finished soon enough and we would be first in the queue after her. Then, we got the queue-pushers. In France they don't understand what it means to queue, they think a queue is just people standing around in formation for no reason. I watched a woman push in front of around 30 people once and when she was yelled at she explained simply that 'she had no time to queue.' WOMAN ON A MISSION! I had to laugh at the sheer audacity of this woman, as if the other people couldn't possibly be busy too. Anyway, so these people tried to push in front of us, I could feel his palm sweating in my hand but nothing could have prepared me for what happened next. All the French people, including my ex, started yelling at the queue pushers "Eh, il y a un queue la-bas!!" "Vous faites quoi??" "Incroyable." It was like a customer war and I just didn't know where to look or rather, hide. French 'sighs' were being issued all over the place (the French sigh is great it's about 5 times as strong as a normal sigh and so loud you could probably here it at the other side of the room). Finally we got served and I tried to usher my ex out of the PO before anything else happened. 

10. Last but not least, they aren't as rude as people think but they can be a tad impolite

Everyone says the French are really rude and it's sort of what you expect to receive before you arrive in France. In fact they are not as rude as everyone makes out. Unfortunately it's a bit of a language barrier between English and French and I finally understood why this misconception exists when I started speaking the language. French is MUCH more direct than English, we cushion everything with nice words to make our sentences and phrases very polite, the French do not. For example, even to a friend I would say 'can you hold this for me please?' whereas, if it's familiar, the French say 'tiens' meaning take this. The first time someone said that to me I thought they were being very rude because I would never say 'hold this' to someone but in fact it's just the language! The only thing that grates on me is men's attitude to women sometimes. In England if a man goes through a door before you they will hold the door and if you have a huge, heavy suitcase or a pushchair they will carry it up the stairs. In France they let the door smack you in the face (this happened to me in my first year as I didn't even think about the possibility that the guy might not hold the door) and I've encountered women who have waited for 20 or so minutes before I offered to help them. I'm always helping girls my own age, women with pushchairs and elderly people carry things. I dread to think how long they would wait if I didn't offer and it's quite shocking how surprised they are when I help them! 

Anyway as I said this is not ALL French people and I'm only generalising what I have observed, I have wonderful French friends who are polite, kind, funny, faithful and they even binge drink with me sometimes! I hope you enjoyed my anecdotes about les francais...and if you're French that you didn't take any offence :-) 

Exploring Greenhouses

My Green Thumb

Everyone knows someone who 'has a green thumb' or as the French would put it 'avoir la main verte' (literally to have a green hand). In our family I would say it's my mum and I, although we are still learning. When I was growing up we didn't have a very large garden. First we lived in a little cottage with almost no garden at all and after when we had a reasonable sized garden my sister and I insisted on having a 'summer house' so we could 'move' into it temporarily and play with our dolls all day in peace (the house consequently taking up most of the garden space). As a result the plants we took care of were pretty basic... hydrangeas,  geraniums, lavender etc. and the extent of our gardening was pulling up weeds with mum and watching Dad mow the lawn. We also had a Jack Rusell called Mylo at this point so any nice plants were destroyed by him urinating on them anyway. I didn't really realise how much I enjoyed gardening and being surrounded by nature until a) we moved into our now, current house and b) I moved away to Paris.                

The cottage we lived in was the 4th from the right (shown by the arrow), it's so small and covered with hanging baskets you can barely see it but that's where I lived for the first 4 years of my life :)

I suppose I never realised how lucky I was to live in Devon until I moved to Paris. We live in the South-West of England and are physically enclosed by the coast on one side and the countryside on the other. We live a maximum of five minutes from the beach (with a view of the sea from the house) and only a twenty minute drive from Dartmoor National Park. My sister and I went to a school that was in the middle of nowhere and to quote the website is placed in the foothills of Dartmoor yet in the heart of Devon’s glorious countryside. Moving away  makes you realise what you had and how grateful you should have been for it! The first thing I noticed when I arrived in Paris was the lack of green space and if I hadn't discovered Jardin des Plantes I may not have stayed. It sounds dramatic but when you are so accustomed to having so much green around you the city's polluted, grey air is not a welcome sight. 

Finding Green Spaces

As most of you know I've been visiting the Jardin des Plantes for a long time now and I've had a year pass (the zoo included) for the past 2 years. I love the garden itself and the zoo even more so but recently I have to admit I've thought about cheating on the JDP with another garden...quel horreur. I don't want to become bored of the JDP so we're having a break and while the weather is nul I've decided to visit some other parks and greenhouses, starting with the Jardin des Serres d'Auteuil.

Jardin des Serres d'Auteuil

I've wanted to go to this garden ever since I read about it on Time Out Paris, a website you should really have a look at if you haven't before (it updates you,  in French or English comme tu veux, on all current events and exhibitions worth seeing/doing in Paris http://www.timeout.fr/paris/en). Anyway I won't digress as I have a habit of doing that. This Wednesday I finally had time to go to the garden. The garden itself is a botanical garden set within a major greenhouse complex in the 16th arrondissement, close to Bois de Boulogne. The metro is Porte d'Auteuil on the Line 10 and while you're there you can also glimpse the famous site of Rolland Garros and the equally as famous Hippodrome.

The garden is very big and reminded me a lot of London with wide open spaces, huge trees (even a conker tree!) and park benches. The only downside for me was that it was incredibly close to the road which was a little disappointing, it's hard to relax entirely and feel 'away' from Paris when you can hear cars zooming past to join the Peripherique, mais tant pis. It's one of the oldest gardens in Paris existing since 1761, with the greenhouses existing since around 1895.  You can see that the greenhouses have existed for a long time because apart from the large, central greenhouse the others look very dated and the door handles are so old and low it's sometimes difficult to enter inside! However, the greenhouses themselves, especially the main greenhouse is unbelievably beautiful inside.

The main greenhouse is full of different plants, mostly tropical and unusual, it also has a man-made pond with Japanese carp and other fish and a bird cage with budgies, love birds and others. The other greenhouses are all designed based on different climates and are often linked to a specific continent. There is only one main greenhouse but at least ten other 'hot' houses. There were cactus plants, cocoa, apples, palm trees and much more and according to their statistics the greenhouses produce around 100,000 plants each year! Another advantage (which you don't have at JDP) is that the information is also displayed in English, yes sometimes I like to be lazy, but it's nice to have a summary in English as it's not exactly everyday French they are using!




















Overall, I really liked the park and absolutely loved the main greenhouse. There were even small tables and chairs where people were reading or drawing which is what I would probably do if I went again. If you're a fan of greenhouses and just need a day away from central Paris this garden is perfect. I also recently went to Parc Floral close to Vincennes which despite the horrible weather was also a great park, even including a Bonzai and Butterfly house (although the latter was closed). I imagine Parc Floral is much better in Summer though, under the rain the big open spaces and lack of cover are not ideal. Anyway, come rain or shine get out of the centre of Paris and visit one of the amazing gardens Paris has to offer. You might even discover you have a green thumb!