Le Franco Phoney

As you can see from this photo I snapped last week, winter has arrived and covered all my flowers in snow. This particular flower is now under about 60cm of fluffy snow. Because of the snow dump, the La Balme area of La Clusaz was open for skiing last weekend, and I was there for first lifts on Saturday morning.

The powder covering the hill was untracked, but after a few runs in snow that was falling sideways due to very strong (and cold) winds, my friend and I stopped for a hot chocolate to warm our chins and toes. I was lost in my hot chocolate when a guy came over and asked something in French which I paid no attention to, concentrating instead on the steam from the cup in my hand. My friend answered in French then poked me out of my relaxed state. My snowboard, the guy said, had fallen off the ski/snowboard rack in the strong wind, then taken itself further down the hill and off the piste entirely. Nobody could catch it and nobody could see it. He pointed to the track it had made under the telecabine, which disappeared within metres, and my friend and I started searching. We decided to stop because the snow was as deep as our legs. We took the telecabine down to see if we could see where it had landed. We didn’t. We found a piste security man named Gilles who said he’d look for it, but that it was probably buried under the light, fluffy snow and wouldn’t be found until spring, presuming it wasn’t stolen when it did reappear through the snow. The snowboard is old and worth little, but it’s been a great powder board that responds well, and the bindings are comfortable and cost a bomb when I bought them, so I didn’t want to lose this board. Going back up the telecabine, one guy said if he found it, he’d keep it. Another guy said he’d lost his skis, and whoever found them handed them in and he’d do the same too.

I pointed out the last track of the snowboard to Gilles and he surveyed the angle of the snow and picked his path. He said he’d meet us at the bottom. Back in the telecabine, my lovely friend offered to come back during the week and snowshoe to the top of the telecabine (a couple of hours at least) so that we could continue the search on foot if Gilles didn’t find it. We watched him from the telecabine on our way down as he climbed with his skis over rocks, damaging his bases. The longer he was gone, the less chance of seeing my snowboard again. Seconds felt like minutes and minutes felt like hours etc. I’m sure you know that numb feeling where time is standing still for you, while everyone else around you is oblivious to your crisis and you wonder how they can carry on. About ten minutes later, Gilles arrived – with my snowboard! He found it! I hugged him, I kissed his cheeks and I shook his hand. I told him in French that I loved him. He seemed used to this reaction but I didn’t care: I was grateful beyond his comprehension.

The snowboard had slid under the snow and travelled around 100 metres before it hit a tree and rested. The only sign of it was 1cm of orange binding that acted like a tiny beacon which he spotted after some time searching nearby. My resolves from the experience:

1. I’ll never rest my snowboard or skis on that particular rack again; and,

2. I owe Gilles gingerbread too (along with the guy from the post office who I mentioned recently).

Recently, I had an issue with the French post office which accepted a tube-shaped package to be sent to England, but after I paid for it, they sent it back to me as a rejected item and expected me to pay for it again, chocked up so it couldn’t roll. I took the item back to the UK the following week and reposted it without a problem, but it’s sparked a bizarre chain of events. At the same time, I posted a present to my mum from the UK post office, saving me room in my suitcase for my favourite British goodies that I can’t get in France. Ten days later, it turned up in my letterbox in France: Royal Mail has sent it to the clearly marked “Sender” address instead of the one on the front of the package (also clearly marked), next to their big stamp. I’ve now filled out the form and hoping for a reimbursement.

Meanwhile, the French post office has warmed my heart after last month’s frustration: the man who accepted the tube-shaped parcel was working when I took in more parcels with my mum’s. After joking that Royal Mail are worse than La Poste, he made a point of saying he’d found nothing in his regulations book against sending tube packages overseas, then insisted on paying for one of my small packages by way of apology for the first mess-up. How kind is that? Now I regret all that stress and anger that I released in my other blog entry, although from the reactions of my friends, it’s clear that I’ve been one of the lucky ones.

Here is a photo of Vernazza, one of the five villages that makes up the Cinque Terre in Italy. I was there last month, walking the paths —  often just some stones raised off the slanting ground to flatten it — between the five villages. I could go on about the pesto, the gelati, the welcoming atmosphere, or the loudness of children, but this is a blog about France, not Italy. So why am I mentioning Italy? Because it’s only through going to a country where none of my (two!) languages are spoken that I realised just how much improvement I’ve made in French. The Cinque Terre itself is full of American tourists even at low season, so getting around the five villages isn’t so difficult (and walking on the paths, you never know whether to say “hello”, “buon giorno”, “hola”, “guten tag” or “bonjour”). However, on the way to the Cinque Terre, I was in a restaurant where I wanted a fruit juice. I know the word in French, but not in Italian. None of the Italian staff knew the English or the French word, so I followed the staff to their drinks fridge and pointed. I ended up with iced tea. Apparently, juice is just not available in some restaurants in Italy. The language frustrations continued right up until we reached the border back to France: we stopped just before the Frejus tunnel to fill up with petrol (there was a petrol strike happening in France at the time). There was some problem with my bank card and the man said something in Italian. I asked if he spoke English. Nope. French? Yes. Result! We managed to establish that the card was fine but the machine’s connection sometimes played up, and fears that he was charging me twice were alleviated when he explained in French what the writing on the first cancelled receipt said. Thanks Italy — for the food, the welcome and for the reassurance that my French has improved more than I realised (but your kids really are very loud).

I’ve written about Tignes a few times. It’s a handy place to go for some summer skiing when desperation for the white stuff kicks in. I spent four days there last week for a pre-season ski test and I think I’m finally bored with non-winter Tignes. It seems that there’s always a t-bar that’s broken down with people stuck on it for ten minutes or more while they try to restart the power. Okay, I know they stop a ski lift when someone falls, but I’m not talking about a minute or two here. I’m talking about everyone vacating the t-bar because their legs are aching so much while waiting for the lift to take them to the top.

Day one, Thursday, was an excellent day with 40cm of fresh powder off-piste and of course flattened pistes for the downhill racers who tend to take over huge areas of the glacier. If every day were like that at Tignes, I wouldn’t mind. Here’s a video taken by one of my friends (the lovely Julien):

But after much rain and wind on Friday, Saturday morning was a nightmare. We arrived just after 9am. The queue for the furnicular railway to the glacier was huge due to high winds preventing the glacier area (and furnicular) from opening on time. Apparently, the wind at the top must have affected the only working chairlift in Val Claret, which was also closed until 10am. Hmm… By 11am, we had finally reached the glacier. We queued for the telepherique which was due to open at 11am. 35 minutes later, it opened and our legs and backs were already sore after standing for more than two hours before any skiing was done. We lost almost the entire morning to queuing, but refunds are not offered even though the glacier was due to close at 3pm. Over the course of the day on the piste (the whole three hours), various lifts stopped for extended periods of time. The stopping of the chairlift that goes back to the furnicular — and to the only toilet on the glacier — was the final straw for me. The other nearby chairlift wasn’t running at all (why? Who knows), so my best option was to head down the piste to a toilet at the bottom. It’s only when you have a stomach bug that you realise just how limited the toilet facilities are on the glacier. Now in pain, I skied as fast as I could to Val Claret and to the heavenly image in my mind of a golden throne with wings, complete with the singing of angels, a roll of toilet paper and some soap. Of course, there was no soap in the toilets I found, but one of the three toilets did at least have toilet paper. No points to Tignes for toilets, nor reliability of ski lifts. I think I’m over it.

I’ve always been impressed with how many languages flight attendants speak on international flights, and in the past, easyJet has been no exception. On my flight over to England from Geneva last week, the two flight attendants greeting passengers were both unable to speak any French. I don’t think the attendant at the back could either because they asked me to translate for a French lady who had a problem. Her daughter had left her doudou (normally a soft toy, but hers was a scarf) in her pusher and she only realised once she had boarded the plane. With less than half the passengers loaded, I explained to the flight attendants that the French lady’s daughter would cry for the entire flight if she didn’t have the scarf. Apparently, they’re not allowed off the plane so cue ten minutes of difficulties in finding someone who could walk back along the short platform to where the pushers has been left for loading. Finally, a member of ground staff boarded the plane to ask what he was looking for, then explained the pushers were already loaded. Don’t they have contact with the people at the gate? The French mum gave up and returned to her unhappy daughter but the flight attendants were so grateful for my translation that they offered me a free hot drink. Yes, I scored a tea bag, cup, some hot water and two long-life pots of milk from the easyJet flight attendants! Fine, that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but this is easyJet, who charge extra for basics such as checking in a bag, using certain bank cards for booking the flight, food and drink on the plane, and now the horrible ‘speedy boarding’ (which allows people to pay to board the plane before the rest of us plebs race on to get a good seat). I’m not criticising them for their approach: they provide a fantastically cheap service for quick trips away (even if their staff aren’t as multilingual as I previously thought). But I’m pretty sure anyone who has flown easyJet will understand my satisfaction at being offered a freebie out of gratitude. Hooray!

I think the picture says it all, but in case you don’t see it, there are some parking bay lines painted over a new walkway and garden. Was the painter annoyed at the loss of some car parks to this nicer-looking layout? Did common sense really not prevail when the painter had to step up onto the walkway to continue the line? Meanwhile, at the entrance to the right, the painter must have had an attack of the smarts and realised that painting the line parallel to the other bays would leave no room for cars to drive into the lot, so the line remains faded and old. It didn’t stop him/her from marking the white line at the top of the parking bay, so what we have on the right is some sort of diagonal parking, blocking both a pedestrian walkway and the car park entrance. Parking bay painting fail.

Pictured is one of two cylindrical parcels I took to the post office last week. Each contained a kitty toy for friends’ cats. Rather than wrap them in any old thing, I thought I’d do the right thing and provide properly packaged parcels that the post office would appreciate. One parcel made it as far as Annecy after four working days (La Poste has a tracking system on items sent around France: this item is not going to Annecy) and one made it to my letter box. The reason? Cylinders are not allowed to be posted anymore. So how did one get through? The post office man, upon seeing the parcels last week, explained that they roll, making it hard to scan the postcode. He said it wasn’t a problem for overseas items, but that the cylinder going to France would need to have chunks added to it to stop it from rolling. He even offered to do it — what a nice man. I thanked him after asking if he was sure and he said no problems – it was quiet and he was bored. Clearly, the parcel for overseas was a problem as that was the one that ended up back at my door.

Thinking the mix-up was purely down to someone reading the sender address instead of the destination address, I took the item back to the post office. The goth lady was working instead so I explained that the post office had accidentally sent the item back to me and could it please be resent. No, not now, she said.  It cannot be sent while it is a cylinder. She said I would need to change the shape so it wouldn’t roll. I asked if I could just drop it off after I’d made the manual change (thinking at the time it would have been easier just to do a bodge job with some bubble wrap and brown paper). She said no because I’d need to pay for it again. Er what? The postage was already more than the cost of the cat toy and she wanted me to pay again? The man last week accepted it so how was this my fault? She agreed but wouldn’t budge. It might only be a small amount of money, but it’s not the amount in question: it’s the way La Poste want me to pay for their mistake and inflexibility. The country renowned for its red tape really does live up to its reputation at times. Outstandingly bad for something as simple as sending a cat toy to a friend.

Thankfully, I’m going to England this weekend, so if I don’t see the man who served me last week before then to hassle him about it, I’ll take the package back with me. Extremely frustrated, I spouted off about it to friends. These are the reactions I got in just one afternoon:

1. French friend: “Yes, it’s stupid. I’ve lived with it all my life so I don’t know any different. I’m used to it. I can’t be angry.”

2. Australian friend: “Remember the string story! Parcel packaged up old style, brown paper with string. Post lady says no, string is ‘interdit’ (not allowed) but then 2 seconds later says yes it’s okay, it’ll just cost more!!! How is this possible? I said, you choose it’s either interdit or it’s not.”

3. American friend: “French customs held all of my household goods from the US ‘hostage’ and tried to make me pay 19.5% tax on stuff that I already OWNED…like my grandmother’s china….until my French boyfriend called them up and said, ‘This is France, not Nigeria’.”

4. British friend: “We were on holiday in Hossegor, sent a parcel to California, recorded, & guess what when we got back home (Bozel) it was waiting here! We took it to La Poste in Bozel & they said we had to go to the post office where it was sent from 700km to get our money back!!!!”