Le Franco Phoney

I’m sorry about yelling that, but last week, St Jean de Sixt was covered in posters advertising a monster truck extravaganza, and we all know that a monster truck means a crushed car or two. Brilliant! Bring it on. Some friends and I meandered across the road and paid the €12 for a standing spot (it was €3 more to sit on some raised planks of wood which we decided wasn’t necessary).

After stalling for about ten minutes (probably so they could tell late-comers that they hadn’t missed anything yet and get a few more people in), the show commenced. But before we saw the crushing of cars, we had to watch a pre-teen kid on a quad bike, a relative of his do handbrake turns too many times, and a variety of dangerous-looking things involving kids and audience members that would have health and safety officials in shock in some other countries. Here’s a quick photo gallery.

Did we come here for the kid on a quad bike (they start young in this family)? NO.

Did we come to see the kid’s brother hold on to a car while another family member (dad/brother? who can tell) did handbrake turns? NO.

Did we come here to stick our kids in a truck that raises off the ground, with no seat belts on and the window low enough for them to fall out? NO! (But well done to those kids for performing the most dangerous stunt of the day.)

Did we come here to watch fellow audience members sit in the passenger seat of a Renault Twingo, unseatbelted, while the driver does yet more handbrake turns? NO. (I did that as a teenager in my brother’s car, and again in his mates’ cars, and more recently in a car owned by that passenger pictured in various snow-covered car parks.)

Each year, La Clusaz hosts a moonlit walk through town (la balade au clair du lune in French) when the moon is full and bright in the sky. All the street lights are turned off, but the town is still lit by more than the moon. Candles flicker on the ground, in trees, and on window sills along the main streets which are blocked to cars and full of pedestrians and entertainers.

This year’s theme was light. I guess it would be a bit boring without any additional lighting to view the entertainment by, so the entertainment itself was illuminated. Pictured above is one of the acts that got friendly with the tourists. I love the smile on the drummer’s face as he tries to get a member of the public dancing. Their light came from the giant illuminated cones around them. This was the extremely upbeat band compared with the one I’d seen marching down the street ten minutes earlier: they sounded like a funeral procession from New Orleans.

Meanwhile, pictured on the right are two illuminated angel people on stilts, along with a juggler and a non-stilted illuminated angel person to keep them company. They were really magical to watch as they floated and wobbled carefully along the roads, sometimes backwards. The juggler had green illuminated pins which was probably a good thing, or nobody would have noticed him juggling. All the kids were fixated on the white lights.

The kids were also fixated on the big screen that took temporary silhouette photos of anyone standing in front of it. My friends and I tried to get in there to do YMCA with our arms, but the kids kept us back. When I finally muscled my way to the screen, strangers joined me before my friends could (reluctantly) make it, so I did a C by myself while the kids around me smiled as part of their poses, which was as pointless as my C without the Y, M and A since silhouettes don’t show smiles.

The giant inflatable angel, pictured, floated silently over people’s heads through town. It risked being popped as the two blokes driving it tried to get it under an arch of decorative street lights (unlit) and got it wedged between the arch and a neighbouring street light (turned off as well — no wonder they ran into it). Moments earlier, it had been floating up and down ‘watching’ a two-piece band playing something folky. By the time it made it under the street lights, everybody watching the band had turned their attention to the floating angel, breaking out in applause, mid-song, when the angel made it under the lights without popping. The band seemed less than impressed and I reckon they would have popped the inflatable angel with one of their instruments had it been close enough to try.

I imagine that trapeze artists don’t really like wind blowing them off course while they’re trying to catch each other and swing around in the air. However, St Jean de Sixt last week put an event involving wind and a trapeze. Let’s start with the exciting stuff — the trapeze. Both children and adults were allowed to have a go at this trapeze. Shoes must come off and a harness applied, but otherwise, off you go. Once up the ladder, someone on another swing would swing back and fourth while you get launched onto a swing, then get instructed to hold on with your legs and dangle your hands down, then the trapeze expert swinging opposite you grabs your waiting hands and you let your legs get loose of your swing, thus completing the trick.

And once you’re done, you can try your hand at one of the many musical instruments set up to capture the wind, or fly some of the kites on offer, or make a little boat and watch it sail with the wind on a big swimming pool. The whole event was staged on top of a hill — the windiest part of St Jean de Sixt, which doubles as a ‘ski resort’ (two drag lifts) in winter. I heard about it from a friend. The week-long event was free, which, according to my friend, happens in July when the villages and ski resorts want to attract as many holiday-makers as possible. Freebies help ensure there’s a flow of people in July, while it’s almost guaranteed in August. So, if you want cool freebie events when you visit the mountains, remember to come in July, not August.

My recent trip to the north of France highlighted a law which I never knew about. According to some sources, it’s illegal to feed pigeons in Paris. I’m not convinced this is a specific law — and I continued to feed a single pigeon beside me with churros from a nearby fair while the guy sitting next to me explained that the law was passed for health reasons and that although he had no objections, the police might fine me. Just as an aside, he then chatted for about twenty minutes about his background and asked about mine and my travel partner’s, then handed me a bracelet as a gift. I’m pretty skeptical of people being this genuine, but he really was happy that I accepted his gift and explained that in his culture, it’s offensive to refuse a gift.

I’ve done a bit of a web search (because if it’s not on the internet, it doesn’t exist, right?) and I’ve found differing views about this pigeon feeding ban. One website says there’s a €35 fine, while another website quotes one section of a law which is a bit hazy about the whole thing, but does suggest it might be illegal. Local councils apparently have some say in the matter, but an outright ban on pigeon feeding in Paris is something I could not locate. It may well exist: my French language skills simply are not up to the task of inquiring wholeheartedly into this, and nor is my motivation since I don’t live in Paris. However, for anyone planning a trip to Paris, it might be illegal to feed the pigeons, and that’s as helpful as I can be on the matter. On a far more helpful note, don’t waste your money on the dodgy churros at the fair at the Louvre end of the big park between the Louvre and the Champs-Elysées — you’re likely to reject their dryness and feed them to the pigeons instead.

Pictured is a big round bunker — a bit like a giant Camembert cheese, but made by the Germans rather than the French, and far less desirable to chance upon during World War II. This is Batterie Todt, on the French coastline closest to English land. On the other side of the bunker is a massive hole that once housed a very large gun (more info and some great photos on the construction and history of the bunker here). There were lots of interesting things inside here, such as a motorbike that was parachuted out of planes for the parachuters to use and really innovative contraptions to make the best use of space, time or multi-functionality. The living quarters downstairs were cramped, and the museum of war-time propaganda on the ground floor really made this place worth the visit.

Some relics caught my eye more than others. For instance, check out this baby gas mask below. Freaky or what? Okay, it’s best to be safe and have these available but seeing a fake baby inside this was a bit strange (a real one would have been stranger, obviously!). Note also that there’s a foot pump to keep your baby’s air fresh and flowing. Next in the gallery below is a sausage vest. Okay, maybe it wasn’t used to store sausages, but maybe it was. Why not? Next up is a string vest that wouldn’t look out of place in some parts of big cities today. However, it’s probably the only one that unravels and can be relied upon to get you out of a tree if you happen to parachute out of a plane and land in the wrong spot. Handy eh? Last up is the big canon stationed outside the bunker. This thing was aimed at England, but it never actually bombed its target. Just imagine how things could have turned out had the engineer made a better-designed canon. Thank you, engineer.

It’s a well-known stereotype, right or wrong, that French footpaths are covered with dog poo. There’s certainly a fair amount of poo here in St. Jean de Sixt, and in an effort to clean up the dog poo in Annecy, the council installed dog toilets. Pictured is one from further up north near Boulogne, where I’m staying at the moment. These large dirt pens let dogs do their business and walk away without their owners having to address the steaming pile their dogs have left behind. Annecy also provides bag dispensers around town so that owners whose dogs prefer not to use the toilets can remove the poo from the pavement. However, St Jean de Sixt does not, and I learnt this the hard way.

Some friends asked me to look after their dog, Snoopy, who looks much like her namesake, overnight. She seemed edgy at 8am the next morning, so I took her out, half asleep, with a coat hiding my pyjamas. Within a metre of getting her onto some nearby grass, she stopped to poo. About 30 metres away, a woman in a chalet started shrieking that it was her property and I must clean it up. The dog was still pooing. As I was yelling out sorry (I had no idea it was private property that far away from the house: it looked like part of the public field the house backs onto), she repeated herself. As I tried to explain that I would go home and get a bag, she was again yelling the same words at me, and I was by now embarrassed that she had woken all her neighbours because of me. I know the norm in France is to talk right back over the person talking to you, but there was no point: she was too far away. When she finally finished, I explained once more that I had no bag on me and that I would return with one and she thanked me and said that was kind. Err, no it’s not kind: I didn’t feel like I had a choice!

Had Snoopy pooed just one metre before, where it was practically piled up on the road next to the field, she couldn’t have said a word. Or could she? My friend here near Boulogne told me a woman once told her off when her dog was pooing in a public place, even though my friend already had a bag in her hand to collect the mess. So despite the stereotype of streets covered in dog poo being the norm, clearly, at least two French women object. I can’t help but feel they’re fighting an uphill battle though. Good luck to them.

Okay okay, I know: this is a blog about all things French. So what’s the deal with a vending machine in Belgium? I went to Belgium last weekend for a music festival and I feel the need to tell you about this vending machine that was placed at the entrance of a shop. As you can see, there are lots of cigarettes going on in there. This alone surprised me as I remember in Australia, when I worked in a shop, having to ask people to prove they were eighteen (raised from sixteen) before they could buy cigarettes. I guess anyone can walk up to this vending machine and buy a packet no matter how young they are, but perhaps there’s some ID-checking process that somehow happens. Does anyone know?

This particular vending machine is the friend of the teenager: it contains not just cigarettes, but various other things that can help a teenager get through those difficult years — condoms, for a start. I think that’s a great idea: no more embarrassing moment at the checkout required, but safe sex is more likely. Rizla papers are also in there (along with bags of tobacco) for anyone wanting to roll their own…erm…’cigarette’. Bizarrely, razors for women are available, which might be handy if a date has gone well, he’s rolling a ‘cigarette’ back at his house with a Rizla, and she just realised she forgot to shave. She can pick up the condoms at the same time just in case things get a bit steamy later on.

And way down the bottom there, next to the tobacco and the Rizla papers, are postage stamps. Postage stamps? Are these not a bit square for the average teenager exploring sex, drugs and shaving? I reckon they are. I can only presume it’s for those ‘crazy ex’ types who decide to write that scathing letter late at night when everyone else is either rolling ‘cigarettes’, shaving bikini lines, or opening a packet of condoms.

Us Aussies are pretty good at making biscuits, and that’s why Tim Tams have appeared as the only Australian product on the shelves of the supermarket chain Carrefour in Annecy.

These biscuits, similar to the UK’s Penguin biscuit (but nicer — I might be biased of course), are hauled all over the world by travelling Aussies and after years of only being available in shops selling Australian goodies (mostly to Australians desperate for a fix of something from home), Tim Tams made it onto the shelves of Tesco supermarkets in the UK about five years ago. I took them for granted: they were always available and I bought them only when I had a real hankering.

That all changed when I moved to France. The “foreign foods” aisle of the supermarket has various things from the UK — Heinz Baked Beans, treacle, tomato soup(!), and this really posh (ie, tiny cardboard container and very costly) oatmeal stuff that I never actually saw on the shelves anywhere in the UK — but there’s never anything from Australia — until now, that is. Wedged between random honey from the Middle East and biscuits from Italy (oh come on: Italy is only an hour away!) lies the Tim Tams in all their glory. Just to reiterate, I have never seen any Australian product on the shelves of a French supermarket. I heard rumours that vegemite is available closer to big cities, but I’ve never seen that. The Tim Tam presence is a total win in my books.

Upon arrival in the aisle containting these treats, I embarrassed my shopping partner by letting out a shriek, followed by “TIM TAMS” in an overly loud voice. The five shoppers in the aisle all turned and stared at me, my shopping partner disowned me, and I ran to the Tim Tams and picked up two packets for the trolley. The five shoppers shrugged at the weird English girl rejoicing about her English biscuits and moved on.

Since that day, I’ve been checking that the Tim Tams are still there (and they are). Just in case, I’ve been buying a few packets every few weeks — obviously to keep the Australian export market bolstered rather than for any personal enjoyment. Obviously.