Dateline France, 19 Sept. 1989
Report 2

A couple weeks have passed since the last report, and, obviously, we have
not been sitting still.

As a cub reporter for Gracious Loser enterprises, I have been observing
French cuisine in the INRIA cafeteria on behalf of Kaye.  The meals there
are substantial, and are subsidized so that they only cost me about $3.00
each.  You can have three side dishes and a main dish.  Side dishes run
to fruit, salads, yogurt, cheese, pate, cold cuts and desserts.  The
main dishes are fairly heavy, in line with the mid-day meal being the
traditional main meal in France.  [Trivia: Did you know that in Western
culture, by and large, on the average and in the long run, the time for
the main meal of the day has slipped back an hour per century?  In mainly
agrarian times, breakfast was the biggy.]  I had been practicing eating more
slowly, as I had heard that the French lingered over meals.  Not so.  If
you go out to a restaurant or are invited to someone's house, dinner will
run close to two hours, at the cafeteria if you aren't done in 15 minutes
you are a slowpoke.  You want do get done fast so you don't have to
rush when you go get coffee afterwards.  There the pace is more leisurely,
and much more talking goes on.  (There seems to be a conservation law working
on French drinking utensils.  Coffee cups only hold about 1/3 cup of coffee
(but with a specific gravity of 1.88), while tea mugs are big enough to
float a kidney in.))

I have been observing the French eating protocols, as well.  None of this
sissy cutting your meat with the fork in the left hand then switching it
to the right hand to put the food in the mouth.  Hold it and stick it in
your mouth with your same hand.  My kind of eaters.  Fruit is always
peeled before eating.  I'm not used to peeling pears and peaches before
eating them, but it seems de rigeur hear.  I probably seem rustic in
eating the peels.  Next week I am going to start to eat oranges and bananas
with the peels on to see what kind of response it gets.  You always get bread
with a meal, and a piece of bread is kind of a universal implement.  You
can push things onto your fork with it, get the last bit of sauce, or
use it to clean your knife between courses.

[Note to Mike Wolfe: the cafeteria here has neither milk nor diet coke, just
water, bottled water, beer and wine.  I've heard that the cafeteria at IBM
France even serves beer at lunch.]


Kaye and I are both working on improving our French.  Kaye will be taking
a class in our town, and also has coffee with a neighbor lady sometimes
and talks French.  The wisdom at INRIA is that for any native English
speaker coming here, their French is worse when they leave than when they
come.  So I am investigating the possibilities in town, near INRIA and
in St. Germain.  There has been some humor in our first attempts--Kaye
asking for "hygenic maps" when she wanted toilet paper, and me telling
everyone that I'd gone to see the Palace of Blankets.

Having the kids in school has cut into our sightseeing, but there are
still Wednesday afternoons, weekends and some long school breaks coming
up.  Last weekend we went to see the fireworks show in the garden at
Versailles, with Dave DeWitt and family and some friends of theirs.  The
fireworks take place over the Neptune Basin, and are carefully choreographed
together with water fountains, lights and music.  The effect is much
more artistic than typical American displays, which seem mainly to go
for firepower.  Some of the ground displays were exceptional, including
some rotating ones over the basin that gave the impression of fountains
of fire.

On Sunday, in the little park across from our apartment, was the the Le
Vesinet "Brocante".  I am told there are no garage sales in France (garage
space being very precious and no one wanting to sell one), so instead there
are Brocantes, were everyone brings their castoffs and sells them.  At
9:30 people showed up with their tables and wares, packing them in baskets,
boxes, bags and wheelbarrows, and people who wanted to buy came at 10.
The kids thought it was wonderful, as perhaps half the stuff was toys.
It was better than a toy store, as the toys were out of boxes and could
be tried before buying.  They both made out well--Luke with Legos and a
magic set; Sarah with Duplos and zillions of Smurfs ("Schtroumpfs" here).
Smurfs and Mickey Mouse magazine seemed the two items most in evidence.
I noticed that some of the younger vendors were unable to hold onto their
profits for long, spending it on new toys nearly as fast as they earned
it (with the effect that some families went home with the same volume
of stuff as they brought).

On the Wednesday before we went to one of the science museums in Paris.
The first area we went into on entry seemed much like US science museums
of late: buttons to push, levers to move, pulleys to pull.  A high-tech
amusement park.  However, the rest of the museum was much different.
One of the galleries was a display of about 45 lenses and mirrors, showing
their properties and focal points.  Sarah was most interested in the
exhibits on physiology, while Luke is currently captivated by chemistry.
The planetarium show was a 45-minute lecture as you might find in a
beginning astronomy course.  Many of the galleries were essentially
laboratories (metalurgy, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, etc.)
where there were sheduled demonstrations.  We heard a lecture on liquid
air, which gave me a change to expand my vocabulary and stick my finger
in some.  The laboratories seemed to all have curators who have advanced
degrees in the appropriate science and who maintain an office out on the
museum floor.  A much different feeling from OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science
and Industry, for the non-Oregonians getting this.)

I have noticed that when laws are referred to on signs, they are identified
by the date alone: "Post no bills on this wall by the law of 23 April 1893."
I guess you decide whether or not to obey the law by whether your affiliation
is in accord with the ruling majority at the time: Conservative, Royalist,
Boulangist...

Dave Maier