La Fête de la Musique

Hurrah for the French government! Every June 21st is a musical celebration in France. The streets of every city in the country are open to anyone who'd like to perform. Music goes all day long until 2 a.m and it's all free!

Hearing this, I pictured amateur bands crammed up next to each other, a motley crew of classical, rock, punk, reggae, indie, and pop knocking elbows, their musical equipment tangling and mixing. I suppose it could be like this, but I didn't stick around long enough in Lyon to find out. Sadly, my last train home left at 8.22 and apparently the music really gets going at night.

I met up with some friends in Lyon's Parc de la Tete d'Or to have a picnic. As I was the first to arrive, I planted myself next to a Jamaican music tent filling the cool morning air with happy reggae. We camped out and lazily rocked back and forth to the music until evening when we went to explore whatever musical discoveries were to be had.

It was easy to find music. One just had to perk one's ears up like a dog, listen for music, and walk towards the sound until they became louder. We found a stage next to the Hotel de Ville. The band there was doing a cover of a famous French band called Noir Désir . I had never heard of them before, but someone told me that everyone in France knows who they are. Well, not everyone.

Above: me, Patricia, Indira, and Mia-Lisa in Lyon right before I hopped the metro to get home.

In order to make up for not being able to see bands staked out on every street corner late into the night, I'm watching a live coverage of the Fête in Paris on TV.

Running French Errands

Well, French errands are really just the same as ordinary errands, but generally create a little bit more stress than errands in one's native country.

When I first arrived to France in September, going to the bank, post office, doctor, city hall or even the grocery store were all new to me. Even though I could speak French before arriving and had lived in Hungary and Spain beforehand, these things all required me to pump myself up before stepping out the door and silently recite what I needed to say over and over again in French. A pocketsize dictionary was like a secret talisman in my bag. I would over prepare, bring any paper or identification card even slightly related to the visit, at least four passport photos of myself, and several photocopies of all of this. Okay, maybe not for the grocery store.

This all took time, therefore what would be a short and simple visit to the bank in the U.S. became an entire morning's worth of energy in France. There was the paperwork preparation, the looking up of French bank lingo in lifesaver dictionary, the walk there, the nervous constricting of stomach muscles before approaching the counter, the bizarre look from the clerk at the sound of my first words, then the problem that I forgot one paper, the going back home to get that paper, photocopy it, laminate it, and sign it in gold pen, and repeat.

Now that it's June, I still over prepare and form at least one introductory line in my head, but my stomach muscles no longer constrict in anxiety. After almost nine months of being here, I've either gotten used to it or just don't care if the French freak out at my foreign accent anymore.

Upon finally receiving my green carte vital (medical card), I decided to finally take care of the vaccination suggestions that the doctor in October had recommended I get. My tetanus shot had expired and I had put off getting it in the US, because I had no health insurance. An idle Wednesday morning was the perfect time to discover the Chasse medical building, perched on top of the pharmacy in a neighborhood I rarely venture to.

Sounding the bell, I entered, wondering how it would compare with doctor's offices in the US and Hungary. It resembled both in different ways. The French medical building was more modern than Hungary's as in the US, but the doctor's desk, computer and examination area were the same room as was the case in Hungary. A man that looked to be in his young twenties with a stethoscope around his neck greeted me and was extremely kind, using gestures even when I could understand everything.

An older man, the doctor, appeared full of smiles. They told me to go to the pharmacy to get the "elixir" that would go into my vaccination. It was the first time I've ever had to go retrieve the liquid that was to be my shot. I got a standard check-up and the younger guy took my height and weight while the doctor tried to guess them. It was all very pleasant, and luckily I didn't mind about the weight guessing. When asked why I didn't come earlier for the vaccination, I told him that I had just received my medical card a few weeks ago. He nodded his head in understanding, "ah c'est la France."

Un déjeuner à la campagne

Last weekend, I was invited to have lunch at a colleague's house. Monsieur C, my colleague, picked me up and asked if I had a bathing suit. His family has a pool, and later I was to discover that there was so much more to their nook in the forested slopes just outside of Chasse.

We pulled onto a gravel road that led into the woods and ultimately their house. We were surrounded by trees, not a neighbor in sight.

Although I never got around to swimming, I did make some other observations (ten to be exact):

1. Monsieur C's 18 year old son runs his own chicken business at the house. The boy was so passionate about raising chickens, ducks, geese, and chicken/duck hybrids that I couldn't help but not be impressed. Some of the birds I saw in those forested coops looked like nature's outcasts, never meant to be seen by the world. I saw ducks with chicken faces and a monster pigeon who looked like the head of the bird Mafia roosting in a barn.

2. A goat was roped to a tree nearby the table where we ate lunch and roosters crowed every once and a while, making periodic awkward silences slightly more bearable.

3. Inside the house were stuffed foxes, badgers, and immortalized snakes kept in fluid-filled jars.

4. No matter how hard one tries to fit in as a foreigner at a French lunch, those around will always seem to maintain that regard of parents looking at a child incapable of serving or putting food in his/her mouth.

5. While the French deem it necessary to mix certain foods together in each fork bite, others are not to be mixed. Meat, salad, and pickle can all go together in one stab of the fork, but when faced with an array of cheeses, it's necessary to taste the lightest cheese first, like Brie, then finish tasting with the strongest.

6. There exist tiny treasures called fraises des bois (wild strawberries) that grow to be the size of a peanut and taste like candy. They flourished within the thickets all around the house and while taking a tour, became an instant snack.

7. Pastis with Grenadine syrup is much more tolerable than the pure stuff.

8. L'eau de vie, or water of life, which is used to make cognac and tasted dangerously close to Hungarian palinka, rested in apricot filled jars on windowsills, until Monsieur C's wife got one down for us to try. Tasting the alcohol spiked apricots that seemed to rest innocently in my glass caused my face to contort in odd ways much to the amusement of Madame C.

9. As their house rested on a slope with a lovely view of the Rhone and an enormous factory on the other side, Madame C. informed me that the old stone paths alongside the river were built for horses to pull boats down the river. I was amused by this image, then immediately felt sorry for the horses of yore.

10. When I left, Madame cut me some salad from their garden, so fresh that it still had ants from the earth crawling over its leaves, some potatoes, and cherries. She invited me back saying that she'd make frog legs for lunch next time.