Le Franco Phoney

Shops here in the French Alps keep strange hours. For example, the supermarket in La Clusaz is closed from 12.30pm to 4.30pm, and rumour has it that the reason for this is so that tourists have to buy their lunch from the bakeries and restaurants and thus spend more money in town. In fact, most of La Clusaz closes for the inter-season months of May, October and November. And as I’ve written about in the past, convenience stores are more like inconvenience stores, while “fermeture exceptionelle” (unexpected closure) is a sign well used here in France, and one I’ve struck when attempting to go to a Chinese restaurant in Annecy, the post office in Bonneville and of course, the government office in Annecy for car registration. When I made it to the post office in St Jean de Sixt before it closed for the weekend at midday on a Saturday, I was then told that my item wouldn’t leave until Monday because nobody picks up the mail on the weekends. Shop keepers apparently have a comfortable life and they don’t need to open as often as I’d like them to.

So why am I still surprised to see this sign? Pictured here is a sign for a shop in Annecy called “Espace Déco” (a home decorations shop). The sign then reads:

Opening hours

Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 12.30pm - 2.00pm

Monday, Wednesday, Saturday: by appointment or call (number blurred out by me)

So, that’s a total of four and a half hours per week for customers to just happen to walk past while the shop is open. Does anyone ever really bother to call a number just to touch an item for sale and discover its price? I’d feel kind of obliged to buy it if I hauled the shopkeeper out of bed or wherever just so I could browse a few serving trays. How are these shops still in business? The only reason I can think of is that people must think it’s more exclusive if the shop stays closed most of the time and then they make the effort to come back. I think I’ve found the most exclusive shop in the Alps.

This picture says it all. The French just take extra care with things. I’ve seen the painstaking preparation and presentation that can go into even the simplest of dishes served in a restaurant and the way that no roundabout can be left undecorated, but I really wasn’t prepared for this. Is there anything in the world more mundane than a drain pipe? Normally, no. This time, plenty.

If you’re curious, this drain pipe hangs from an equally ornate restaurant in St Jean de Sixt.

St Jean de Sixt isn’t a big ski resort: it has one drag lift and one rope tow and nothing else. The five pistes include two greens, two blues and a red. Despite its diminutive size, I discovered that St Jean has its very own snow park, pictured.

I found this mini-kicker, which actually turned out to be a small toboggan course, behind St Jean Sport, one of the two ski shops in town. The guys who work there talked me through it. Bored on their lunchbreak but without enough time to properly hit the slopes, they decided to bring the snow to them. They invited me to test it, which I declined, citing the rubbish bin as an obstacle I’d likely hit. “No!” they insisted, “that’s not where you land.” I could believe them, but there doesn’t seem to be all that much space between the bin and their toboggan “course” and when I suggested they could show me, they all declined. I’m guessing the fun was in the building. Bonus points for their usage of a sponsorship flag at the top of the run.

Months ago, I wrote about the noisy church bells in my friend’s village and how annoying they were at 7am on a Sunday morning. You’d think that, just a few months after that experience, I’d be wise to moving near a church, and yet here I am in St Jean de Sixt, close enough to the church to be heard by the bell ringer if I yelled out to stop that noise if only he’d stop ringing the bells. And yes, apparently, the church bells are still rung by a local here. Thankfully, the bells don’t go off at 7am on a Sunday morning, but they do go off at 8am on a Sunday morning, and every hour after that until 10pm. There’s also the “It’s lunchtime!” ring at midday, and the “It’s hometime!” ring at 7pm. Friends say: “Oh, you get used to them,” and I guess I have to a degree. Hearing the DONG DONG DONG is in fact great for time keeping: I’m much more aware of the hours ticking past, but as a light sleeper who rarely enjoys a sleep-in, the Sunday morning bells are still annoying, so I now have ear plugs on my bedside table at the ready.

What ear plugs cannot fix is funeral parking traffic. The surrounding streets are lined with illegally-parked cars, and my usual car park is jammed to the point that some of those cars are wedged in behind other cars which hopefully only belong to other funeral-goers. I know it’s wrong of me and a terrible thing to have a whinge about funerals: somebody has died, and all I care about is the fact that I have to lug my skis fifty more metres because my usual parking spots are taken. So, deceased people, I’m sorry. But then, the church should be sorry too because when I first heard the funeral chime, I presumed it was a wedding with all its cheery major key chiming. Church, shouldn’t you be more solemn? Like me when I’m grumpy carrying my skis past all the people wearing black?

I can see into the cemetery from my house, and after each funeral, the attendees walk slowly through the cemetery before leaving the church grounds and waiting in their cars of other funeral-goers to move theirs out of the way, but the body never seems to get buried there. In fact, the cemetery seems pretty full — and a bit sad for its occupants during winter, for although the path is kept cleared by a lawn-mower-sounding snow clearer, the snow on the graves remains, and fresh flowers are a rare sight (where can anyone put them?). On the upside, they get a great view of the mountain. I took this photo from the cemetery, with the lovely view of the l’Etale peak of La Clusaz, when I walked through it the other day for signs of fresh flowers. There were none, nor any funeral goers, nor any signs of the bell-ringer, but I’m going to check that out with the local tourist office. And if he does exist, does that mean he never gets a sleep-in?

St Jean de Sixt is quite a small village. It has a fruit & veg shop, a convenience store (called “8 to 8″, but actually, it’s more like 9.30 to 7 with at least a two hour closure for lunch, closed on public holidays and possibly Sundays and sometimes just if it’s quiet, and perhaps it should be renamed an inconvenience store), a tourist office, TWO ski shops and two bakeries. It’s the village nested between the ski resorts of La Clusaz and Le Grand Bornand, although perhaps some would argue that it’s a ski resort itself, as it boasts a few drag lifts and has its own ski lift company.

Regardless, St Jean de Sixt is not a big town. Yesterday, I decided to try out the free bus service (free to resident card holders or people with a season lift pass for Les Aravis—La Clusaz and Le Grand Bornand). The bus was on time in both directions and the connection to La Balme once I was in La Clusaz was conveniently timely. After a day on the slopes, the bus dropped me off once more in St Jean de Sixt. Within metres of the bus stop, a kebab van had appeared. It was open, although its number plate and signs suggested the van was normally stationed down by the southern coast of France. Still, I was impressed that I’m living in a place big enough to have a kebab shop, even if it’s just for the winter. As I walked home, I noticed that the van driver had plugged in an electrical cable. It trailed about ten metres from the van, around a corner, along a car park and finally, wedged under a closed door of the public toilets. I wondered if anyone had opened the door, pulled out the cord and watched the man in the van saying: “Bah, qu’est-ce que…putain” and shaking his fist, then chuckling as the plug-puller plugged the cable back in. I honestly can’t imagine anything more sinister.

Today, I was in a car with a friend who also lives in St Jean. I told him about the kebab van and he was very excited. After our afternoon on the slopes, he decided he deserved a kebab for his dinner. We drove down to where the van had been but it was gone. GONE.  I think I ruined my friend’s day, with the excitement, then disappointment of the fallacy of a kebab shop much closer than ever before to his home. He wants it to come back. Will it be back? Or did too many people pull the cable from the power socket in the public toilets for it to make him smile anymore? If you’re out there, kebab man, please come back.

As I type this, I’m hearing cars toot their horns at midday on New Year’s Day. I guess they’re excited about 2010 because they’re tooting familiar chants. Perhaps they’re just on their way home from their night out, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they were drunk. Like anywhere in the world, the French Alps has its fair share of idiot drivers who take to the roads and put other people’s lives at risk. When I lived in the Meribel valley many years ago, the local police would stop suspicious cars and tell the driver to get out and leave their car there. I never heard of anyone charged with drinking and driving, but I did hear of the ’second gear’ rule, where, if drunk, you simply stay in second gear, which slows the car down to be a bit more in sync with the drunk driver’s reflexes and according to those drivers, will prevent an accident or at least minimise any damage.

Meanwhile, in La Clusaz, word gets around in the pubs if the police are stopping cars leaving town. Those who have lost their license can still buy a little two-stroke car that sounds like a lawn mover and goes at about the same speed. These cars, an old but popular model here pictured, need no license to drive! When you see these cars on the road, you know you want to be as far away from the driver as possible. The drivers could be drunk and may have bought the car because they lost their license for that reason. On top of that, they’re likely to cause accidents when they’re pushing their car to the limit of 45km/h in a 90 zone. They certainly cause traffic build-ups. But I digress. Last winter, a drunk driver in La Clusaz stopped to pick up three hitchhikers. Hitching is common in all age groups here because the buses seem to stop as soon as the sun goes down. And so, these three hitchhikers were school kids. The guy driving didn’t notice a huge bend in the road and drove straight into a tree down an embankment at high speed. He survived. The three kids did not. The loss of three local kids spun the locals into action. There was talk of some sort of car pooling last summer, but I don’t know if that ever took off. I did notice, however, that St Jean De Sixt declared ‘Operation Red Nose’ on New Year’s Eve, offering a lift home to anyone who called the central number. Volunteers drove (hopefully not in the lawnmower cars), and hopefully made the roads a bit safer for everyone.

Happy New Year. May it safer than some of the roads around here.

As I mentioned in one of my last blog entries, I’ve moved house. I now live in St Jean de Sixt, which is the next village down from La Clusaz, so it’s not a very big move. A friend visited the new house on the weekend, and as we walked towards the bakery, just a few minutes away, we obviously looked local enough for not one, but two cars to stop and ask for directions.

The first car asked for directions to Aravis. My French friend explained that the entire region is the Aravis, so they were already there. They weren’t convinced and wanted to know where the football stadium in the town of Aravis was. She explained again that the Aravis is a region and that it could be one of any number of football stadiums. They still seemed confused by this, but then mentioned they had been told to head towards Le Grand Bornand. It seemed odd to us (because why would such a small village where snow sports rule be the home of the football stadium for this region?), but we pointed them in the right direction and they thanked us.

The next car was less polite. A man  in a white van tooted and stopped. I presumed it was someone I knew, so I stopped and looked. His passenger was then yelled at to ask us for directions. She asked us where Avoriaz is. Avoriaz about an hour and a half’s drive from St Jean de Sixt, and we explained that they were going the wrong way. The driver took over and demanded to know where straight ahead would lead, while holding up a stream of traffic behind him (he hadn’t actually pulled over, so all the cars behind were glaring at my friend and I, presuming also that we knew this guy). We explained that the road ahead would lead to La Clusaz, and then south over the Col des Aravis. We suggested he turn back to the roundabout and go towards Geneva, which is North, and the correct direction. Without as much as a thanks — and we were unaware the conversation had even finished — he drove off and headed towards La Clusaz.

If this is how tourists treat people who they think are locals, I’m really happy to be considered a foreigner for ever. And to the rude man in the white van, I hope you’re still lost and that your passenger took the train home instead.

On Friday night, La Clusaz hosted the inter-village games known as Les Gamineries des Aravis which involves participants from the local villages (La Clusaz, Le Grand Bornand, St. Jean de Sixt, Thônes and Manigod) as well as a team of tourists. As you can see from this photo, the event features It’s a Knockout-style games, with events such as this one with two team members trying to knock a team member off the other surfboard. Other events included:

• blindfolded rollerbladers having to pick up two small, water-filled balloons and deliver them safely at the end of a go-cart style course (helped by a team member yelling which direction to rollerblade in);
• dizzy contestants carrying glasses of wine (of course! it’s France) over to a barrel and successfully emptying the glasses into barrels (the majority fell over before getting to the wine glasses);
• a trivia quiz with questions about the local area;
• four team members with their right legs fixed to a plank of wood and their left legs fixed to another plank, navigating a course with bike ramps and corners; and,
• tug-of-war in flippers, goggles and snorkels on a beach volleyball court.

Points were scored and teams cheered. A local school or group were selling home-made cake for a flat €1 per slice. The winning village holds the event the following year, unless it’s the hosting village, in which case the runners-up get to hold it. With this knowledge the locals were out in droves, wearing village colours. Le Grand Bornand were the winners in these stakes, with large numbers wearing matching pink Mexican hats and ponchos, and pink glow-sticks for after dark. They had air horns (annoyingly loud), a bass drum (a relief after the air horns) and cow bells (downright quiet compared with the air horns and bass drum). But did their solid presence help Le Grand Bornand win? Who won? It was the team who answered the question about the width of a local bird’s wing span. Which team was that? The tourists. The tourists beat the locals at their own game! However, the games must be held in the Aravis valley, so the team who came second were nominated to hold the games next year. Who was that? La Clusaz. But La Clusaz held the games this year which means they can’t hold them again next year. So, the team who came third were nominated to hold the games next year. Who was that? Manigod. So, while the announcer confused us all by announcing Manigod as the ‘winners’ in third place, the supporters cheered and made their way to the bar. The tourists probably went home with a slice of €1 cake.

Take a good look at this image below:

What do you see? Let me explain what’s happening. The 14th of July is Bastille Day in France, except it’s only the non-French who call it that. The French call it Fête Nationale, and it normally involves fireworks after dark and some form of entertainment before darkness. Also, the celebrations shown above actually happened on 13th July. Why? I’m not entirely sure, but it seemed appropriate, given that lots of workers were given a four-day weekend. So here we have some locals and some tourists in a little village called Chinaillon, which is just up the road (and part of) le Grand Bornand ski resort, neighbouring La Clusaz. The firemen are dressed in their old outfits and they’re using an old pump to show how firemen used to put out fires. As you can see from the photo, the firemen are actually more intent on spraying the crowd with water, and although they did so countless times, the crowd always replied with a thrill and a cheer. After watching the fire ‘fighters’ and some traditional dancing—including a local dance that showed good men (who knelt to their partners) and bad men (who turned their backs on their partners) to show that people, good and bad, can come together to dance—I headed back towards La Clusaz, and stopped in St. Jean de Sixt to watch some fireworks with some more friends.

Not satisfied with ending the night with a bang, the locals put on a ‘bal’ which traditionally, would have been a ball, but on today’s standards, it was two blokes playing instruments and singing songs such as Macarena and I Will Survive. The advantage of speaking English meant that I knew all the lyrics to these songs, while a French friend asked me about the lyrics to YMCA:

French friend: “What’s that bit say?”

Me: “Young man…”

French friend: “Oh, I’ve always sung ‘Yoplait’.”

Now, who would have thought a dairy product would ever make it into a Village People song? However, she had the last laugh when a song called le Madison came on. Supposedly an American line dancing-style dance, it’s certainly something that never caught on in Australia or the UK while I was there. While my French friend busted the moves at all the right times, the English-speaking crew were left bumping into people and turning in the wrong direction.

Of course, this all happened on Monday night, which meant we did it all over again last night in Annecy—a town that celebrated on the public holiday rather than the night before. Two nights of entertainment for one public holiday. You’ve gotta love the French!

Just a few weeks ago, almost a metre of snow sat outside my door here in La Clusaz, and the sunny, south-facing hill behind me was still covered in snow too. As I look outside my door right now, I see green grass. Further in the distance, the snowmen and the kickers have melted into the thin layer of snow that’s acting as a piste for now. Spring arrived with a snap less than two weeks ago, and the warmth of the sun is melting the snow faster than I remember in seasons gone by.

Fortunately, I took some photos of some ice formations underneath the Fernuy telecabine (aka bubble/gondola/egg, depending which country you’re from) before they melted away. Now, the stark, brown rock shows no sign of the pretty ice formations that grew throughout winter.

But first, let me start with a photo of the St. Jean de Sixt roundabout. As you can see in the photo below, taken about a month ago, it’s festive, and wintry, and it has been like this since December. The decorative lights have gone, the snow has melted, and the roundabout awaits new adornments for spring. You can click on the image text below for larger images.

The final photo shows a sunset from last week after the last snowfall we had. I haven’t altered this photo: the sun really did make the trees orange like that, helped, obviously by the snow sitting in them. The clouds at the top have made the mountain vanish into the sky while the sun changed the colour of the trees until they finally darkened with the night sky. The photo really doesn’t do the scene justice. You’ll have to take my word for it, or see it for yourself next time. It really was magnificent.