Oh Lyon!

Oh, Lyon! We had such a good thing going until... THIS:

 

How could you?! I don't know if we can work this out.

Game On, MVE

You know the expression ‘You can take the girl out of the country/small town, but you can’t take the country/small town out of the girl’? Well, all of that to say that even though I spent 6 years in Paris, I still don’t whip out the Louboutins to go to the market.  This coming from the wife of a man who shaves, showers, irons his pants (!) and puts on Prada boots to take the dog out for a pee.

Anyway, to minimize shame upon my husband in our new place of residence, I have been making a solid effort to both shower and put on make-up before exiting the house. Not at his request (he values his life….) but because we live in a nice area where ‘dress sweatpants’ – even Lululemons – are not acceptable attire. (I totally should have done a rundown on this annoying fact before renting an apartment in this neighborhood, but too late now.)

Saturday arrives, and I get done up and head off to market. Good thing I left my ‘dress sweatpants’ at home, too, otherwise I could have missed out on making an ally in the war against my MVE (Market Vendor Enemy – aka the flower guy who ripped me off.)  

I saunter by his stand and give him the snub, which he does not notice in the least. In hind sight, that is quite normal, seeing as how this week he does not recognize the new me (showered, appropriately dressed and made-up) compared to last week’s pony tail, hoodie and glasses. Enough said.

I stand in line, almost beside him, at his competitor’s stand and wait to order flowers. A well-to-do grande Dame in front of me huffs, “This isn’t Paris, you thief!” and shakes her fist at him. He scurries to the far end of his stand and pretends not to hear her.  She has on a flashy Hermès scarf, a long fur-trimmed cashmere coat and is carrying a Dior handbag. A little man (Husband? Driver? Concierge?) is standing nervously at her side.

I give her the one over and think, this is a lady I might like to know.

“15 euros for roses? Who does he think he is fooling!?” she rants on.

I can’t help myself, “You are not alone. He ripped me off last week. I am new here and as soon as he heard my accent, I got the ‘Foreigner Special’.”

“Shame on him! A young girl like you. And your French is very good. Don’t worry too much about him. I’ll see to it myself that he does not last here long if he keeps it up.”

“Count me in. I will not buy a single flower from him again.”

She pats my hand and says “Welcome to the 6^th, darling. I’ll be seeing you around, for sure.” Then with a little wink, off she goes in a cloud of Chanel perfume.

I Love Lyon: Last Week’s Top Ten

1.  1. Free bread – One of the bakeries in our neighborhood is called Max Poilane, a branch of the famous Poilane bakery in Paris. (And you all know my history with Parisian bakers….) The lady running the Lyon shop gave me a free loaf (not a measly baguette, but an entire loaf) of their excellent bread because she thought, personally, that the baker did not put enough salt in the dough, so it should be free for me. I should not have to pay for her baker’s incompetence. I looked around for the video camera, once again, waiting for someone to say “Ha! You are on a reality joke show, sucker!” But no. In fact, she even ranted on about how nice Canadians are.

2.  2. Empty movie theatres – We sauntered over to the movie theatre down the street just a few minutes before the show started, figuring we’d give it a try but knowing that we’d likely just have to turn around and head home. You see, in Paris, you need to order your tickets online (like a day before!), then spend 40 minutes on the metro getting to the theatre, then wait in line over an hour and then fight a mob to get two seats together.  In Lyon, we walked five minutes, got our ticket from a live person, and were the only two in the entire theatre. Miraculous.

3.  3. Streamlined Visa permits –  The Lyon version is that you take your 1,000 photocopies, head over on a Thursday morning (any Thursday), walk in, line up with say 20 people and then spend half an hour getting your papers, address update and visa permit all approved at once, and off you go a legal foreigner. No formal appointments needed.  In Paris, you call 6 months in advance for an appointment on a specific day, at a specific time. You go on that specific day, on that specific time, with your 1,000 photocopies, then you go through a metal detector and wait in line with half of Africa and half of China. Next, you get harassed by the woman at the welcome desk because, I mean, is your husband REALLY French? Then you wait some more (like 3 hours). Then you have your appointment (5 hours late) and get a sticky note to come back two months later to do the entire thing all over again to actually get your visa.  

4.  4. British grocer –  Craving a pop tart? Cheerios? No need for digging out the credit card (in Paris, pop tarts are 7.50 euros or like 50 Canadian dollars… just kidding!) or overseas orders now. There is a fully stocked (!) British grocer a 7 minute walk away.

5.  5. Helpful vets  – Thinking I might be fresh off the boat, our new veterinarian talked slowly and kept repeating herself so that I would not ‘miss the important things’. I didn’t correct her or tell her that I just spent the last year producing communications for which I had to read about gas-insulated substations in FRENCH. Anyway, she filled out all of the pet insurance and microchip update papers, like you would for a kindergartener, and she even put them all in pre-paid envelopes. I’m English, not stupid, but still – awww.

6.   6. Obedient hairdressers  – For the first time in a long time, I asked the hairdresser to cut off two inches and no highlights and that is EXACTLY what he did. I would ask the same thing in Paris but the guy who cut my hair always said “Look, you are cute and all but this is Paris, honey. You want to keep your French husband, you need to bring it.”  He would then trim off barely half a millimeter and blonde-highlight me to the max.

 7. Polite teenagers  – The young guy I nearly tripped with Lucie’s retractable leash did not lash out and call every name in the book (which has happened in Paris, when it was not my fault, on more than one occasion, and I mean EVERY name in the book). In fact, he kept saying ‘I’m so sorry. I really should look where I am going. I am so sorry, so sorry’. It was totally my fault, and I really need to pay attention, but still, what a nice kid.

8.  8. Forgiving post office people – Though I have now spent a good portion of most days in line at the post office, as is French life, I didn’t know if the person helping me was a he or a she. I tried looking for a name tag, or a bra strap, or girly earrings. Nothing. So I took careful measure to just say ‘Merci’. Until one afternoon I came out with ‘Merci Monsieur’. Uh-oh. Wrong! Had to pour on the accent and add a hasty ‘Parrrrdone, parrdone, je veux dire MADAME!’ Oy! I am going to have enemies everywhere if I keep this up. Moral of the story – ‘merci’ is always good enough.

9.   9. Quick cashout lines – Monoprix (major grocery chain) and Fnac (books, music and TVs) are always a nightmare because they are crowded and the line ups take so long, no matter when you go. We purchased a stereo on a Saturday afternoon in under 15 minutes at Lyon’s busiest FNAC. Success.

      

       10. Chocolate Art – Elaborate boxes of white, dark and milk chocolates? Sure. Little figures with marzipan and sprinkled nuts? Of course. Truffles? Most definitely. Everyone has that but Lyon one-ups them: Check out the “Chocolate Medusa”!

Overheard

Place: Waiting to cross the street at rue Vendome/Cours Franklin Roosevelt, Lyon, at 10:20 am Monday morning

Target :  Random man standing beside me talking on his cell phone

Translation:

“What?! Sorry, what did you just say?!!”

Pause.

“You are thinking about moving to Paris? Think again. Are you insane?”

Pause.

“Wait, have you been drinking? Are you drunk? Look, I will call you back when you sober up. Good bye.”

Mental high-five, wise man.

*Sidenote: I had Internet but no working connection box so was offline last week, not slacking off. I am back and have lots to you tell you! More soon.

Major Market Merde

UNIMPRESSIVE - here is our new local market:

(Just picture some average apples and oranges.... Our Internet is out until next week and I can't download the photo. Yes, it is 2010....?)

The list of things I will miss about Paris is short and goes something like this:

1)      -Friends

2)      -Local market

3)      -Pierre Hermé

Now, Pierre Hermé delivers outside of Paris, so scratch that off the list. And, if you have tasted the dips from the Greek guy at our local market, he gives number one on the list a go for its money.  This past Saturday, we (Al, Lucie and I) set out to try our new local market, hoping we could cross it off our ‘things we’ll miss about Paris’ list.

Movies usually lie about Paris, but they do get the fabulousness of local markets right. Our old market had over 200 stalls, nearly all of which we tried and tested during the past few years, and the people we bought from knew exactly what we would order and would throw in a free lemon or dip or other treat to keep us happy.  There was the eclectic mushroom man with OCD who had his many kinds of mushrooms laid out in rows that you would not dare touch in fear of disturbing his precise intended layout, but he knew his stuff. And the Italian family with the weird cousin who always made some off-handed comment about whatever we ordered. Or the vegetable stand girl who always said, in perfect English, “Hi, how are you doing?” but did not know another English sentence to save her life. Our favorite was the Greek guy. Actually, he could be Turkish or Tunisian for all we know, but we always called him the Greek guy, and he has some of the best, most delicious feta concoctions we’ve ever tried (in Greece included). Paris market people: you will be missed.

Our new local Lyon market is smaller, by a lot. We are down from 200 stalls to say about 50. But, maybe quality is better than quantity (though we had both in Paris). Here’s how it went: the flower guy did a one-over of me and upped the bouquet price accordingly. You know, the “Foreigner Special” – ie. 50% more expensive. Before handing over the money, I realized this and called him on it. He faked innocence, but we all know that I have just acquired my first MVE (market vendor enemy). Not a good start.

It can only get better, right? Wrong. Who sorts our vegetable order? A half-stoned, middle-aged man (who Al swears was working at the market when he was a kid – I forgot to mention that Al is from Lyon and grew up one street over from where we live now), and he was SMOKING A CIGARETTE! That is right – multi-tasking at its best. He would smoke the cigarette between his lips while he piled up our vegetables, then take a long drag, then grunt (as in ‘what else you want, huh?). Classy.

Moving on… we lined up in the wrong direction at the fish place, therefore accidentally skipping to the front (MVE number two in the making), and the fruit cost a fortune.

So, a recap on the market front. Paris: 1 - Lyon: 0. We’ve got some major work to do here.  Good thing that Super U is just down the street, and even open on Sundays (shocking).

ps. For those of you rooting for Paris, don’t get too excited. When reviewing life in general, Paris is still so far down in the red minus zone that it will be a cold day in hell before it can ever touch Lyon.