Chris.Derecola

After our stay in Paris, we spent about five days visiting the French cities of Dinan and Bayeux. Other than seeing the D-Day beaches/sites, we had no real itinerary or reason for visiting these particular places. They were chosen mostly because they were relatively easy to visit by train, they had sights worth seeing and most importantly, they weren’t Paris.

Dinan

• The city is very cool and a good way to spend two days. It’s an old fort city that was built in the 13th-15th centuries and much of the buildings are original. It’s impressive to see a city and buildings twice as old as our country.
• I get the impression it is a tourist town for the French and some English. Most of the people there were French families on vacation and our English language tour was hosted by a French woman whose jokes were mostly about Anglo-French relations. In many cases, people were plain surprised we were American because they don’t get many in the area. There was even an English woman working in one of the shops who said we had great accents… imagine that.
• Very few people spoke any English and if they did, it was very limited.  There was more than one occasion where our server spoke zero English and we had to stumble forward with our broken French. I’m sure it was piss poor, but we tried.
• If you’re there on a Thursday, be sure to check out the market. It’s like a giant flea market, but it also has a ton of local produce and meat available direct from the producer. It seemed many of the local used it as their grocery store and I couldn’t blame them, given both the breadth and quality of the selection. We ended up buying some cheese and dried meats to have with our baguette in a local park for lunch; it was great.

Bayeux and D-Day Sights

• This town, as the closest to the D-Day beaches, is extremely touristy. There were more Americans, but most of the tourists were British families. I can’t recommend going for any other reason than to use it as a base camp for sights.
• The Bayeux Tapestry was neat, but I can only suggest it as a time filler and not a destination. Your time is probably much better off spending a day to go see Mont Saint-Michel. We couldn’t get it to work with the schedule and our backpacks, but everyone talks about it.
• All of the D-Day sights are WAY more spread out than I had imagined. We sprung for a private tour guide and it was some of the best money we spent on the trip. Having a knowledgeable, personable guide who tailors the tour to your wishes and also serves as your chauffeur was great. I really can’t imagine being herded like cattle on other people’s timetables via massive tour buses.
• The American Cemetery was much larger than I expected and reminiscent of Arlington Cemetery. There were people from all over the world there to pay their respects and we were even lucky enough to meet an 80-something British veteran who landed on Gold Beach that fateful day. He was somewhat hard of hearing so conversation was minimal, but just being to see him in his medal-heavy uniform and say “thank you” was awesome.
• Visiting these places was not something I ever really had a desire to do. As much as I like to learn about military history, visiting was more because we were going to be in France and not because that was the reason we were in France. Having been, I’d recommend it to everyone. There is a certain sense of scale – human, material and geographic – that one cannot grasp without being there. Seeing the impossible-to-spot machine gun nest so perfectly positioned above the massive spans of Omaha Beach did a lot to re-frame my perspective.

A few other general observations about France:

• There are dogs on trains, in the stores and hanging out under the table of restaurants. At first I felt a little uncomfortable about this, but then I realized how I’d been trained by the American fear of germs and uncleanliness. In the end, everything about it seemed much more natural.
• No one wears shorts and/or flip-flops, even when it’s warm. Even when dressed casually, the French have a certain standard they abide by. (Interestingly, I originally typed flip-flops as flip-slops… so I guess that’s all I have to say about that.)
• 99% of the cars are hatchback and manual. I probably don’t have to tell you how cool I think that is.
• The French are obsessed with eating outside. We oversaw a woman walk her lunch on a tray about 20 yards into her backyard to eat alone. There was only one chair and she was very purposeful in taking each of the items off the tray before eating. Eating outside is definitely a part of life and since most real estate ads just had pictures of the patio, it’s clear that’s a selling point.
• The French are exceedingly polite. Whether it be the teenage girl sitting on a park bench saying “good evening” as we walked by, the bartender teaching us how to ask for matches in French or a random stranger pointing out I dropped 20 Euro in the kebab shop, they were warm and welcoming.
• Everyone who is interested in visiting Paris should seriously consider spending some time outside the city. It’s a nice city, but there is so much more to France. The slower (and cheaper!) lifestyle in the more rural areas is not only a good way to peer into the lives of the French, it’s also very refreshing.

As I mentioned before, we spent some time hanging out with people who live and work in Paris. We didn’t know any locals, so I turned to a site known for connecting people who love to travel and want to meet others along the way – CouchSurfing.org. The main purpose of CS is to find places to crash in your many travels around the world, but it also supports a community of people who just want to meet others. As such, it tends to attract people who are welcoming of random encounters with perfect strangers.

Random encounter is probably the best way to describe it, as not much planning went into it. I sent a message before we left, saying we’d like to meet up if they were interested. I got a very welcoming response with a phone number to call once we were in Paris. I didn’t call until we were a few days into our trip, but little did I know things would move quickly from there. It was about 7:30 on a Monday (or was it Tuesday?) night and Clo (3rd from left), asked if we would be interested in taking the metro to her and Joel’s (2nd from left) apartment to hang out. One thing led to another and before we knew it, it was 9:30 and we were sitting on their couch getting to know them and their two friends.

They were nice enough to share dinner and more than a few bottles of wine with us, so the first awkward “staring at each other” moments were pretty minimal. We learned a lot about each other before the conversation eventually lead into travel, politics and cultural differences between America and France. I would not describe language as a barrier, but since we didn’t know French and they had varying fluency in English, we would sometimes get entertainingly sidetracked about what to call (or how to explain) certain things.

In addition to meeting new people, I think we learned a lot about what make the French tick… and they hopefully learned the same about Americans.  We come from similar, yet very different, cultures and our perspectives and perceptions are shaped accordingly. Here are a handful of things that made an impression on me.

• “I could just not drink one night a week and go to the gym.”  This was said during our discussion about how Americans drive everywhere and then go to a specific place to exercise. The idea of gyms is still on the fringe in France and the comment was about how to make time to exercise. This comment is also amusing because a barrier to going to the gym was the consumption of alcohol (wine) every night. I explained that in America, someone who drinks every night would probably be labeled an alcoholic. The follow up conversation led into how it was commonplace to not only drink a decent amount of wine during the week, but also do it in the company of friends well into the night. A fact highlighted by the presence of both friends and wine bottles in the above picture.
• “You live in a house, like on TV?” The response when we said we lived in a townhouse in the suburbs. For them, the idea of cookie-cutter neighborhood America wasn’t much more than what they saw on television shows. Make your own social commentary.
• I was asked if the Nationals baseball we brought as a gift was real because it was so hard. I found it amazing they’d never held a baseball before, but then I realized I’d never held a cricket ball before I went to India. Like I said, perspective is everything.
• “It’s very Arabic… you know, welcoming.” That was Clo explaining what was so great about their three months in Syria. I probably don’t have to explain the irony in this statement but if I do, just watch any of the 24 hour news networks for about eight minutes.
• It’s not uncommon for the French to get 11 weeks vacation. They couldn’t believe I “only got three” and that it included sick leave. They said there was no way possible the French could get such a little amount. This is where people usually make a joke…
• The double-cheek kiss. Upon meeting them outside the metro station, I immediately went to shake hands while introducing myself. The behavior actually caught them off guard and I quickly realized my mistake. I then found out that not only was I unsure of cheek kiss protocol in general, I really wasn’t sure how to do it with complete strangers. I’m pretty sure I made a fool of myself.

All said, the evening was a very welcome change in scenery. We laughed, we learned and helped break down barriers… even if they were only our own. I’ve extolled the virtues of meeting locals (more than you probably cared to read) and the more I do it, the more I believe it. It’s not for everyone, I understand that, but I encourage you to do so if you have any inclination. What could go wrong?? <wink>

It’s been four weeks since we returned from vacation and I’m still not entirely certain the best way to report on the trip. I took a ton of notes, generally a page or two per day, but it’s organized more as a stream of consciousness than anything that can be turned into blog posts. I’m also pretty sure you don’t care to hear about a report of every meal we ate as that sort of detail can get boring quickly. I think the best option is to break it up into geographic sections and hit on the points that I feel are interesting. We’ll see how this goes.

So yeah, Paris. Paris is a city I never had a desire to visit and as such, I had no expectations going in. We knew we wanted to go to the F1 race and given the location of the trip, Paris seemed like a natural companion. Visiting a place you never really cared to see changes your perspective, I think. I felt like I was there mostly to drink it all in and not to kill myself trying to see and do all the things I thought I had to. With that in mind, here’s a peek into my thought process and a glimpse of Paris through my eyes.

• “Backpacks were the right idea.” – We took four trains to get to our hostel and I couldn’t imagine having to do it while lugging around suitcases. I guess that’s why they call it luggage, eh? If I can manage being light on supplies, I’ll definitely consider a backpack as my first choice for travel.
• The weather is great that time of year, if it doesn’t rain. Most people were wearing light jackets, but I thought it was comfortable in a t-shirt. It’s much like late September / early October in DC, which is a great time of the year. Unfortunately, we had rain 3+ days of 5.
• Life is extremely casual, with dinners taking hours. Much of the food is rich and service (relatively) slow, so dinner becomes something you do with your evening and not something you do for sustenance. Breakfast on the other hand is generally very light with the only source of protein being yogurt. Despite eating very well and sitting around a lot, there were zero fat locals. Hmm.
• English was not at all obvious. Some people could/would speak a few words, but the French are very much… French.
• The wine in France is fantastic, although that’s probably not surprising. Even the “cheap” bottles in restaurants are very, very good. I don’t think we had a bad bottle of wine while we were there and we had quite a few.
• The French were surprisingly polite and agreeable. Their reputation in America is quite the opposite, so I was pleasantly surprised. I know America has a tendency to hate on the French more than is reasonable, but they don’t deserve it. I honestly think they were far more friendly than the people in most east coast cities.
• The Louvre is HUGE. I do not understand what makes one piece of art more popular than another, besides group think. If you plan to visit Paris museums, buy the Museum Pass. It will save you a ton of time because you don’t have to stand in line (in the rain).
• I didn’t know what to do with myself in the room. My relaxation is usually defined by doing some activity so having no TV, radio, internet or computer made things interesting. I honestly had to learn how to relax without all those distractions.
• The Arc de Triomphe was much bigger than I expected. It’s something you should see in person to understand the scale.
• Portion size is a topic of conversation. The words “there’s no way that’s enough” usually come up… and then are usually proven incorrect.

It occurs to me I should dedicate an entry to our experience of hanging out with locals/strangers. I thought it was something I could touch on in a bullet or two, but I’m convinced I wouldn’t be doing it justice after reading my notes. It wasn’t one of those “life changing” experiences or anything, I just feel I owe it to those we met to explain what I learned about their country, their culture and their lives within each.

“Looking forward to moving on but sentimental about leaving Paris” – Those were my words, which is somewhat at odds with my opinion of the place. I don’t think it’s on my list of places to visit again but if someone asked me, I’d go. Given the choice, I’d probably go back to Japan 10 times out of 10 so that probably says something. I don’t mean to diminish the city because I had a great time, honestly appreciate the new experiences it afforded me and can see how others would love it. At the end of it all, I’m glad we went.