Le Franco Phoney

My Australian friends who brought us news of the 24-hour milk vending machine in Annecy have since moved to a village with a bread vending machine. A baguette is a highly-valued food item here in France, with baguette deals sometimes offered at the petrol bowser. It’s therefore surprising that the typical Parisian baguette vending machine has been snubbed for this machine with big round loaves. My friend Suzanne is impressed with both the bread and the machine, saying:

It is wonderful and the bread seems to be a little different to normal bread. It is much heavier and somewhat rustic.  When I stopped the other day the machine was a little steamy as the bread was still warm.  Yum.

WHAT? Still warm? The bread could be made from the worst recipe in the world and still be saved by that homely smell of fresh-baked bread. Is there a better smell and taste in the world than warm bread? This bread is no doubt tasty even once cooled, and I’m looking forward to buying a loaf next time I’m visiting.

Unless, of course, my friends move to a village that has a 24-hour chocolate pudding vending machine…

I talked about the art of the haggle at French garage/car boot sales (called a vide grenier ) in the past. Haggling doesn’t come naturally to me, but last weekend at the St Jean de Sixt vide grenier, I found myself haggling with the big guns.
Pictured is a ski binding. A ski technician friend spotted a pair of skis with these bindings on them, and said that the bindings alone were worth more than the €30 price tag on the skis. Since I needed a pair of bindings for some new skis, he suggested they’d be a cheap alternative to brand new bindings since the technology hasn’t changed much in recent years. I could trash the skis at that price. While we were standing there, a man asked the seller if he would reduce the price of a neighbouring pair of skis. The seller said no and the man turned to walk away. The seller changed his mind and asked for €25. The man offered €20 and after scoffing from both parties, the seller accepted, mumbling about it under his breath.

I figured I could also get this pair for €20, so I picked them up. The seller, aware that my friend and I had seen everything, promptly wrote out a sticker for €50 and slapped it on the skis I was holding, mumbling some more. I protested and said I’d pay €20. He was a big man – both in height and girth, and had a scary look on his weathered face. He snatched the skis from my and slammed them back against the wall they had been leaning on, saying I could have them for €30 and no less. Had I been by myself, I would have been so afraid of this scary man towering over me that I would have scampered away. Instead, I scoffed like a French man and said no because he had just sold the previous pair for €20. He scoffed back, so I scoffed some more, shrugged and turned to walk away. He picked the skis up and thrust them towards me, agreeing on €20. I said thanks and he didn’t reply. I handed him a twenty and he sarcastically said I may as well have it back since the skis were practically free, then ignored my friend who bothered to say goodbye. I didn’t even try. Upon closer inspection of the skis, they’re in almost new condition, with great edges, bases and top sheets. Bargain!

So, one angry French man later, I have a working pair of bindings and a decent pair of skis too. It was worth almost weeing myself after all.

If you ever drive in France, you need to know this road rule. It’s some weird hangover from the past that sometimes causes confusion at roundabouts and often results in accidents. This yellow diamond with a black strike through it often appears at the start of a town, and for months I thought it had something to do with a change of speed limit. How wrong I was. This sign means that roads to the right have right of way over the main road — by default! That’s right, you can swing out of a side street and into a main road regardless of oncoming traffic and still have right of way. Whether anyone on the main road stops for you, however, is a different matter. At least one of my French friends in the past year has had an accident resulting from this road rule. Worse still, there seems to be little consistency country-wide over just how much weight the priority has at such intersections. In addition, most roads have road markings that dictate that the main road users have priority over the side streets. So, much like the French language, there are exceptions to the rule.

Add in the roundabout rule of giving way to the left and you’ve got a world of confusion. I’ve been motioned through at roundabouts by locals on the left who just don’t understand why I’m not following the default “give way to the right” rule. I don’t help matters: if they’re going to give me right of way, I’ll take it, even if it’s not mine to take.

Meanwhile, these plain yellow diamond signs are often placed at the end of villages, where the speed limit increases. Once you’re past this sign, the main road users have right of way over the side street users. At last — something that makes sense! Weirdly, however, most French drivers seem to barge on in past the give way signs and dotted lines on the on-ramp of faster roads, expecting the faster traffic to slow down while they cut off a car and slowly pick up speed. All you can do is sit back, brake and say “Bof” while doing your best shrug. May as well fit right in and embrace the local customs, eh?

“What on earth is this?” was the question someone asked me as we drove under this thing. What do you think it is?

The answer is actually very simple, and the name gives it away. In French it’s called a paravalanche. During winter and early spring, this construction protects the road and those using it from avalanches. These huge tumbles of snow might look pretty, but snow is heavy, so this tunnel prevents both the road from being blocked by snow as well as death by avalanche.

These tunnels are all over the roads in the French Alps, particularly on steep areas such as this where the land cannot support much snow.

The name, however, is interesting. The jury (of me) is still out on whether it’s a joining together of ‘para’ and ‘avalanche’, or one of many uses of ‘par‘ in French, which most commonly means ‘by’. Meanwhile, ‘para‘ can mean ‘semi’. For example, a parapharmacie is a pharmacy that stocks products that do not require a prescription. It seems that neither ‘para’ nor ‘par’ means the right thing. However, both have less-common usages. I’m sticking with, ‘para‘ which can also mean ‘protection against’ in English (which the Oxford Dictionary tells me comes from French, with roots an the Italian verb which has roots in Latin). What do you think?

The eternal shopper in me enjoys exploring foreign supermarkets for local products and cultural differences, and supermarkets here in the French Alps have pleasantly wide aisles to accommodate most busy times. When I first moved here, I appreciated the extra space after years of cursing the often overcrowded, narrow-aisled supermarkets in England. However, returning to an English supermarket last weekend, I can now appreciate how much better it can be.

More than one supermarket in Annecy has some staff on rollerblades who can help customers quickly. Handy eh? Yeah, except customers also must weigh and price their own fruit and veg, and if you forget to weigh something, don’t expect a rollerblader to help. You must run back to weigh the offending item, much to the huffing of those in the queue behind you. And that’s not where the fruit and veg problems end. This summer, checkout staff have questioned me over (my correct) pricing of grapes, lettuces and a watermelon. The results were more sighs from the queue as the inevitable long and pointless discussion in French began about each item.

Speaking of queues, one supermarket introduced “La ligne bleu” — a thin blue sticker that runs the length of the shop just a few metres from the checkouts. If a checkout queue ends up beyond the blue line, more checkouts will be opened — except they never are. The line is now cracked and disappearing and presumably abandoned from the start. But then, maybe the French aren’t so bothered about queuing — or at least that’s what one couple in front of me thought, when after bagging their items (because the staff merely throw things in your direction after scanning them, leaving you to bag as quickly as they throw or face smashed eggs as the next item is flung), they couldn’t pay, so one ran off to get money. After 20 minutes, the other one explained that her boyfriend had driven home to get some money and might be a while. Who does that? I was buying just a few items, but with no express checkouts, I had no choice but to pick up my items again and join the back of another queue — which extended beyond la ligne bleu of course.

Meanwhile back in England, the checkout boy apologised for keeping me waiting (just three minutes while he took payment from the only other customer). He scanned and priced my fruit correctly and bagged it up for me, adding points to my loyalty card for bringing my own bags. If only English supermarkets would deliver to where I am in France. God knows the French ones don’t.

I know you were all panicking about the cows going up the hill in September, so I wanted to let you know that this week, the same cows descended. The warm weather allowed them to graze in the field just up the road one last time before heading down the valley to lower fields and eventually into a shed for winter. Welcome to October in the Aravis. How do I know they were the same cows that I mentioned in September? By the bells.

Hearing the clanging of the bells coming down the road gave me plenty of time to grab a camera and get a close-up of a bell. This one has the Savoyarde flag with studs representing the white cross (le croix de Savoie). Below the flag is Bambi! Okay, maybe the craftsman had a particular type of deer in mind — no doubt the ones that I sometimes see at night around these parts — but when I see them, I say “Oh there’s Bambi”. This also works with any large-winged bird for me (“Look, an eagle.”), even if it’s an owl.

The Bambi thing all started in a bubble/télécabine/gondola in Méribel one day, when some Italians said something to me in Italian and pointed down. Realising I didn’t speak Italian, they said “Bambi” and pointed to a brown, horned thing below. For a moment, we all spoke the same language. A few days later, a Bambi was below the same lift, so I used the same word to point it out to the French people sharing the bubble with me. For a moment, we too spoke the same language even though I knew no French back then. Bambi allowed us to share an experience that we otherwise would have missed.

The cows, however, need no such international word. The clanging bells announce their arrival without any tourists pointing and calling them Bambi. Pity.