Le Franco Phoney

Today, I headed down to Annecy, motivated to sort out my health care card, called a Carte Vitale, which means I will finally stop paying for all my own medical expenses and let my taxes work for me instead. French paperwork is renowned for being tedious and lengthy: I gave up importing my favourite car (edition not produced in France) from England because the paperwork was so horrendous, and indeed confusing.

So, I left La Clusaz armed with birth certificates, passports, and as much other paperwork I could find to prevent any hold-ups. I arrived in Annecy and parked in a central car park called Place des Romains and walked to the CPAM office I had been instructed to go to. After the usual “take a number” system, the staff member who looked into my request explained she could not process a health care card for me: I needed to go to the office on the other side of Annecy and request one there. She wrote down the street and office name for me and off I went. Somehow, I found the office despite the name being completely different to the one she has written down. I explained my request to the receptionist, but she got stuck when she discovered I had no social security number.

After some phone calls and people shuffling by to check out my paperwork and tut that I had no social security number, the woman instructed me to go to the office in Avenue des Isles—the road beside the Place des Romains car park, where I had started the day. I couldn’t be annoyed at the wasted hours because I had expected this to happen. My days are much less stressful when I’ve set my expectations low, and if there’s any French paperwork to be done, I’ve discovered it’s best to set my expectations as low as they will go.

The good news when I arrived at the third office was that it was the right office and I was the first in the queue. The bad news was, when I eventually did get to see someone after a long wait in a corridor with three seats which were soon in demand as the corridor filled with others, that the woman helping me could not find my details on the computer system in front of her. More tutting; more French I didn’t quite get; more confusion on both sides of the table. She scribbled some notes on a piece of paper and sent me on my way without looking at any of my papers. No Carte Vitale, and no receipt that I had been there. I have to wait for something to arrive in the mail in order to apply for a Carte Vitale, and I’m guessing that I will be required to return to Annecy and relive today’s events all over again. I’ve included a picture of the Carte Vitale in case I never actually get to see my own.

I really should have just gone skiing instead.

As I’ve described before, I’ll never be considered a local here in La Clusaz. In fact, it takes about three generations for someone to be gain that privilege. Because I’m not local, it’s always nice when familiar faces whose names I don’t know say hello and stop for a chat. Yesterday is a perfect example. This afternoon, I popped out for a quick slide down the mountain. When I arrived at the first drag lift, the (normally grumpy) guy checking the electronic tickets said: “You’re late today.” For the past month, I’ve said hello to him every time I’ve seen him. Sometimes I’ve had a reply; sometimes I’ve had no acknowledgment at all. Grumpy? Maybe. Or shy? I’ve persisted in saying hello because even if he is grumpy, I refuse to let it rub off on me, and I’ve embraced the way the French say hello to strangers. So, back to the moment. I explained to him that I had finished my work early. He nodded and told me to be careful on the hill. Achievement #1: get grumpy/shy drag lift man to talk. Achieved. Bonus points for his apparent concern for my well-being.

At the very next lift queue, the ticket-checker also said hello. I said hi back, and to my surprise, he told me that my accent had improved significantly since last year, which led to a quick conversation about how important it is to be able to communicate even if you don’t know all the verb tenses or the entire vocabulary. Achievement #2: Have a conversation with a stranger and actually understand everything he says, and speak well enough for him to understand everything I say. Achieved.

The reason I was surprised (and still am) when he said that my accent had improved is because the only words I had uttered were: “Bonjour. Ça va?” These words (“Hello, how are you?”) are not the most difficult to say. In fact, they are some of the first words I ever mastered in French. I’m certain that my accent on those words is exactly the same as the first day I learnt them. La Clusaz can sometimes be xenophobic, and although this guy is probably not a ‘local’ (in the La Clusaz sense of the word, and therefore an outcast like myself and most of the people I mix with here), he already knew I was not French and he still made the effort to have a conversation with me. Achievement #3 (not mine): give a foreigner warm and fuzzies by patiently speaking French with her. Achieved.

One of the things I really love about living in France is the baked goods. Another is the jovial sense of humour with strangers. Mix the two and you’ve got the perfect situation for a practical joke. The Savoyarde folk are very proud of their heritage: many would like to be independent of France, much like Monaco. The Savoyarde coat of arms—red with a white cross (like a plus sign)—is a common sight in farming villages and major towns alike. And if the coat of arms isn’t apparent enough on the streets, you can even find the Savoie cross in bakeries: le croix de Savoie is a baked good too. The brioche-based treat is, as you would expect, in the shape of a cross, and delightfully filled with vanilla custard. It’s a very tasty treat.

I was discussing the croix de Savoie with a friend of mine and he told me there’s more than one type. He said he had bought one in La Clusaz earlier in the week and that the baker insisted on calling it le croix de Haute Savoie (La Clusaz is indeed in Haute Savoie, the region north of Savoie) when he rang it up on the cash register. The baker seemed indignant when my friend requested the item without adding “Haute” to its name. My friend did not ask why, and, being French himself, was surprised to hear the baker differentiate his own baked item from the well-known Savoie version.

Me, I’ve lived in both places and eaten many examples of the baked treat and I’ve never noticed a difference. Curious to find out, I went to the same bakery and snapped this photo of the croix de Haute Savoie alongside some other baked treats. The baker was there so I asked him what the difference was. He looked confused, so I explained in my best foreigner French what my friend had told me. “Ah,” he said, “it was a joke. I was just seeing if he would believe me if I called it that and I guess it worked!” At least, I think he said that, based, again, on my best foreigner French. He then chuckled with his visiting delivery mate and the a bakery assistant. I felt I should join in with the laughter despite not understanding just why they found the joke so hilarious. Eventually, I left the shop, with a bread stick under my arm, and left them still giggling about the whole thing.

Later on, I told my friend that he’d been taken in. He smiled and said, tongue in cheek: “There is a difference between the two regions you know. A friend from Haute Savoie told me. She said: ‘The difference between Haute Savoie and Savoie is just like the difference between couture and haute couture.’ There you go, that’s two French jokes in one day.

The year of 2009 has so far been good, if not a little odd. For example, I saw this car wedged in some trees after it skidded off the road backwards. This happened in the afternoon when the roads were completely dry from sunshine all day. The car is from this area (the 74 in the number plate gives it away), as was the car in my front yard one morning last year and the one in the creek opposite at 2am one morning. Maybe they’re just bad drivers here.

Meanwhile, in the snow park on Monday, I saw a snowblader land in a heap after trying a small kicker. He didn’t move in time and the next jumping blader then landed on his mate. They were then landed on by a third blader. Where is their common sense? Most of us check that a mate has landed safely and cleared the area before we take the jump. A kid barely old enough to be on skis somehow dropped off the huge red kicker in the park, much to the disgust of some La Clusaz team dude who was training teenagers how to do big tricks off it. Everyone had to wait while this kid zigzag-snowploughed down the landing zone, while his mother apologised profusely to the La Clusaz team dude who just shook his head.

Over in La Balme, the cool kids were trying out next year’s snowboard range. Their presence meant that bling came to La Clusaz. I missed the public testing day without realising, and was told I could not enter or try any boards. However, I know a ski technician who was allowed in, so together, we shared inverted camber snowboards, double inverted camber snowboards, and a few other boards too. While I waited for him at the gate with my own snowboard, a man asked me if I liked my board. I said I wasn’t sure as I had just bought it off a friend, and he said “Oh, it’s just that I’m the head of Rome snowboards in France, so I always like to ask people if they like their Rome boards.” Actually, I wish I could now tell him that I do quite like the board.

At the end of the day when the testing was over, the man at the gate let me in. However, my snowboard—a 2007/08 model—was not allowed. I had to leave it at the gate. Did he think I was planning on dumping it? What on earth was that about?

La Clusaz is now returning to normal with the bling snowboard tests over and this week’s bladers all too tired to keep going or injured from doing stupid things. This means I can write part two of my thoughts on French bakeries very soon. Tasty.

This morning, I entered a local bakery, where the nice French lady always smiles at me. This morning, however, things had changed. Instead of smiling, she was scowling at the woman in front of me, while the woman threw down the lid on a beautiful-looking raspberry cake and said: “bof”. This prompted the scowling lady to huff, which prompted the woman to huff, which prompted the scowling lady to call for the baker/owner/husband to sort out the problem. While they awaited his arrival, she swore loudly: “Putain de bordel de merde fait chier” (which means, in nice-speak “lady-of-the-night from a lady-of-the-night’s house of poo makes me poo”), then smiled in my direction and served me (giving me, I discovered later, the wrong bakery items, which were pleasing to taste nonetheless).

Meanwhile, the baker arrived and it was only now that I discovered the severity of the situation: the customer had ordered a raspberry cake only big enough to feed four children, and this was far too big. Can you imagine the disaster?! What on earth would she do with all that delicious cake that the children would snub after their first piece? How could this problem possibly be solvable? The baker knew the answer: “Just charge her for a cake the size for four people,” he said to his wife. Now, this may have eased the customer’s mind—she seemed very happy with this resolution, but the baker’s wife was still shooting evils in her husbands direction, clearly hacked off that he had undermined her stance and given into the client.

With a face of thunder, she looked in my direction as I was still waiting to pay while all this was going on. I must have looked a bit scared because her scowl turned to a cheery smile as she took my money and apologised for the delay. I said it was no problem, smiling back sheepishly, which encouraged her to launch into another bout of swearing and a scowling face, clearly aimed at the other customer, but said while looking at me. I whispered goodbye mid-swear and left the shop as quickly as possible with my own incorrect order. I’m not convinced the cake didn’t end up on someone’s face before I was at the end of the road. French bakeries can be scary despite their attractive appearance.

Many years ago, I recall a supermarket visit that involved a woman telling my mum and I about her son in a mental institution who was being allowed to visit for Christmas. We didn’t know her: we were just checking out frozen turkeys for the festive meal when she walked up and said she would need a bigger turkey this year because her son was visiting. Instead of ignoring her, my mum said “Really?” and smiled, and that prompted the woman to talk at us for a good ten minutes (hey, it might not sound like long, but when you’re in a frozen turkey aisle, it really is) about her son, the dogs in the sky (!?) and various other topics that actually made no sense. My mum just attracts people like that. It’s what she’s good at.

It looks like it might be genetic. Just last week when trying on a pair of boots, a little old lady informed me that she is old and sick and “look at my feet.” I looked at her feet and they were indeed as old and sick as she had explained. I didn’t understand much of her French, but I was left pretty speechless after burning my eyes with the image of her twisted, dry, bruised and lumpy feet with yellow toe nails. I escaped, feeling just a bit ill.

I’d hoped it was a one-off, but it was not. Today started with a man who saw I was buying three plates. Yes, today, I bought three plates. I will use them to sit my gingerbread houses on, as my friends never give my my own plates back. I’ve learnt to buy the cheapest I can find, and I was in the cheapest shop with all the world’s crazy people. The man in front of me at the checkout turned to his, erm, I can only assume it was his minder, and said in French, “Looks, she’s buying three plates. Three plates. That’s what she is buying. Three.” She pulled him away while I did exactly what my mum does – I smiled as if it was normal. These people are not normal. Later today, a woman came running up to me. Now, I had baggy jeans on and a blue hoody, complete with dreadlocks loose almost to my behind, yet she seemed to think I had a red supermarket apron on and was an ideal worker to ask directions from. “Where are the detergents?” she demanded, impatiently. Eager to help (will I never learn?), I said I wasn’t sure but I thought they were over- Too late! She heard I wasn’t a native French speaker and dismissed me as a BAD store worker who was probably taking a local French person’s job. “Oh,” she said as she walked off in a huff. I felt like yelling out in English: “No worries, any time, glad to help such friendly people as yourself. And have a great day, sunshine.” Instead, I carried on and was grateful I was not in the frozen turkey aisle.

Nothing says ‘You live in the country’ quite like experiencing the local fairs. If donkey racing at the Fête du Reblochon was not enough, last weekend’s fair in Thônes, the Foire de la Saint Maurice, topped it off. Now, just to give you a bit of background, the 22nd of September is the memorial day for this particular saint, who is the patron of many and varied things, including soldiers, weavers and, of all things, cramps. Thanks, St. M, but I still get terrible cramps in my right foot when surfing, so can you do something about that please. Eating a banana before surfing just doesn’t seem to work anymore.

Anyway, back to the fair. Thônes, pronounced ‘tone’, is a small village between Annecy and La Clusaz. Its highlights are tours of a local small cheese factory, a steep rock climbing area, and a choice of two supermarkets. Parking is free: it’s not a busy place. But that all changes with the fair. The never-used car park at the end of town, that sometimes has a truck parked in it while the driver takes a sleep break, was completely full of cars, with fair-goers making full use of the free shuttle bus to town. The roads were lined with parked cars, but I decided, being more local than many of the visitors, that I should try my luck in the Lidl car park. This involved going through two ‘No entry’ gates, which others with the same thoughts as me had kindly left open. Anyway, the signs are more of a suggestion than an order. My luck was in and I parked my car.

The fair itself offered the usual regional stands: sausages, cheese, cheap clothes and sweets. The rural aspect of the fair was reflected in the row of horses tethered outside the town hall. But three other things really made it stand out as a rural fair for me:

1. tractors for sale;
2. cows for sale; and,
3. the hay bale competition.

Yes, that’s right, a hay bale competition. Sadly, I did not have my camera to capture the moment, but the competition was a bit like a pole vault competition, except instead of people vaulting themselves over the teetering horizontal pole, they were chucking over bales of hay. I think I must have arrived at the time when competition was fierce, as the pole was high and the bales were low: someone must have made some freak high bale throw and nobody else could attain the same height. I couldn’t stand the tension in the crowd and opted for a crepe instead. Bring on the apple and donkey fête in Serraval next weekend!

August in La Clusaz means one thing: cheese. The Fete du Reblochon is held annually, and this year, it celebrated 50 years of enjoying AOC status, which means any cheese sold under the name of Reblochon must be made locally. The fete starts at midday with crazy people attempting to ski down a white, plastic sheet with ancient wooden skis in temperatures hovering around the mid-thirties. Once they’re done, this turns into a giant slide for kids, who spend the rest of the day — and the evening — rolling down it. With cows, goats and donkeys dotted around, traditional bands play traditional music while traditional dancers wear traditional costume and bounce around on the traditional stage.

Meanwhile, the locals start drinking.

A parade consisting of various farmyard animals and local floats makes its way through town in the afternoon, while displays of cheese-making, wool-spinning and ancient bread-making are going on beside the stage and bar.

Meanwhile, the locals keep drinking.

Plates of cheese and tartiflette are served to the masses, who spend their time eating, drinking and wandering around the displays, farmyard animals, wood-chopping exhibitions and entertainment they can participate in. It’s all good fun for kids, adults, farmers and city-dwellers alike.

Meanwhile, the locals are drunk…and probably serving behind the bar.

Before the sun went down this year, a donkey race was held with various high-standing members of the community participating as jockeys (a fireman, a policeman, a farmer, a ski instructor…and a few others of similarly respected jobs). Everyone was invited to bet on a jockey, but the real fun was watching the stubborn donkeys find new ways of refusing to move.

Meanwhile, the locals took the opportunity to drink some more while the bar wasn’t busy.

As night fell, the band played on and the bar was the place to be. Alas, La Clusaz is in the mountains and by midnight, most people had departed to find somewhere warmer indoors.

The locals, however, probably kept drinking after the rest of us left. The Fete du Reblochon is an absolute treat.

Small French farming villages — that just happen to be rich ski resorts in winter — are often very closed to outsiders. La Clusaz is no exception, and even the kids who were born here with parents from elsewhere aren’t considered local. Being an ‘etranger’ from Australia, I have no chance of ever being considered local, and that doesn’t bother me: my heritage as a bit of a novelty for the locals, which sometimes works in my favour. Last night, for example, I recorded some jingles for the local radio station, RadioMeuh (that’s French for ‘moo’). I don’t know if they will use many of the nine jingles I recorded, but it was nice to be amongst the Frenchies. I even managed to explain the plot of my novel in French to one girl who was patient enough to listen to my broken sentences and mixed tenses.