LLWorldTour

As I’ve written before, there are many stereotypes about Americans. Some people know us from living in or visiting the United States; others think they know us from the myriad of good quality, but often unrealistic American television shows and movies that make their way around the globe to a theater far from you. But, of course, in the same vein, we hear many misconceptions and stereotypes about other cultures, possibly none more so than the French.  We seem to dream and fantasize about Paris, but are supposed to hate the French.  We love French fries, French kissing, and French films, but are ‘told’ the French are rude and unfriendly. Just as so many foreigners believe untrue things about Americans as a whole without ever having visited the United States, many Americans (and others around the world) have cultivated a not-so-nice view of the French without ever having set foot in France.  Well, I am here to tell you that in my unscientific and simple personal experiences - ten years ago during my first trip to France and now - nearly all of the French people I have met have been nothing but cordial, friendly, and sweet. We all know that what you put ‘out there’ is a big determinant of what you get in return, and whether you’re in Chicago or Paris, a sincere smile and a ‘thank you’ or ‘merci’ goes a long way.

Here are just a few examples of the encounters I had with virtual strangers I met during my time in the home of “Marianne.”

My first day in Paris I was staying with Herbert, a friendly, hospitable couchsurfing host (who even picked me up at the airport…a rare treat) in the working class neighborhood around Montmartre. I left his apartment to go for a morning jog and bumped into a neighbor in the courtyard. “Bonjour!” he said with that lovely French ‘sing-songy’ lilt. He spoke some Spanish which was easier for both of us and we proceeded to walk together out of the courtyard to the street corner. Then he directed me to a canal which was a good place to go running - a run I was now more energized to do after this nice exchange.

Another fine afternoon in Paris I was at a supermarket buying some yummy fromage and charcuterie (ham, salami, etc.) with my new friend Audrey, for a nice picnic style dinner. The bubbly, rotund French woman who worked at the deli counter literally couldn’t stop saying how much she liked the United States. She goes on a trip there nearly every year and said she wished she was wearing one of her many American souvenir t-shirts (‘I Love NY’, etc.). She said this year she would be going on a trip to Chicago. The funny thing is she barely spoke any English (all this was translated to me by Audrey) and yet she still has a great time in the U.S., a fact that I find interesting considering the lack of French-speaking Americans I know - none. But, for a bit longer than we would have liked, she regaled us with tales of her former visits while continuing to stuff us full of free samples of rillettes du porc, saucisson, et fromage.

In the cute city of Nantes, another couchsurfing host, Maela invited me to join her at a friend’s birthday party. I was a total stranger who didn’t speak much French and yet her friends went out of their way to make me feel at home and were all open, friendly, and fun. They spoke their best English with me and by the end of the night I felt like one of the gang.

For nearly a week, I had the good fortune to leave my bag on the floor and relax in the tiny middle of nowhere town of Bias (it’s an hour and a half south of Bordeaux and hour and a half north of the Spanish border). My British friend Caroline was staying here pet sitting for her cousin who was off on holiday. We rode our bikes to the beach, cooked yummy meals, and relaxed in their cabin-like home in front of a toasty roaring fire - just 2 girls living the quiet countryside life. For me, it was great to relax, leave my bag unpacked, and stay stationary for a bit.  My first night there, we met the neighbors over the fence, with whom moments later, I was playing lawn tennis. Then they proceeded to invite us over for wine and nibbles. Keep in mind - they spoke zero English and yet we spent three nights out of six drinking, nibbling, and laughing with them. I will never forget their wonderful hospitality for the two ‘out of their element’ English girls next door.

I am on a shiny, fast train heading toward shiny, efficient Geneva.  As we ride the rails, we go through woods ablaze with fall colors-bright yellows, flaming reds, and pumpkin oranges. The undulating green French countryside has given way to granite rocky hills signaling we are entering Alp country. There is something about the Alpine country that I love - the crispness in the air, the clean oxygen in my lungs, and the cute flower-box adorned homes clinging to the green hillsides.

But what was I doing in Geneva? I hadn’t planned on a visit to Switzerland - one of the most expensive countries on the planet where a Starbucks cappuccino literally costs $7.  I was actually just here for a few hours to be picked up by new friends working at the UN Headquarters here. You may be sick of me talking about new friends, but I can not stress enough how this is the most amazing and wonderful part about travel. I met Leyla through my website when she emailed a comment about my post of the reverse culture shock some travelers feel when they return home after a long journey. She, too, has her own travel website, called Women on the Road and we kept in touch over the months through emails and she even interviewed me for her site.  She lives in France not too far from the Swiss border and told me if I ever was in France I should stop by. Well, you know me…so that’s just what I did.

Leyla and her partner, Anne, live in an amazing, renovated (work in progress) farmhouse near Seyssel, a small town about an hour southwest of Geneva. I was excited to meet them. And I had no idea how old they were or what they looked like. I kind of like that. It’s great developing relationships just through words/thoughts (in emails) and not having any preconceived notions or judgments because of how a person looks - their age, sex, race…whatever.

I spent a lovely week at their home. We drove around the beautiful surrounding areas all under surrounded by the amazing back drop of the Alps and Mont Blanc.

They took me to Chamonix where I ascended the incredible, Aiguille du Midi at 12,600 feet, The views were fantastic. Jagged snow-capped peaks pierce the cobalt sky and in wintertime the place is mobbed with skiers schussing down the mountain side.  After my short time at the frozen summit, my altitude-challenged lungs were ready for sea level and my stomach was ready for lunch.   Luckily back down in town Anne and Leyla were waiting to take me for the local specialty-raclette (from French: to scrape). You are basically served a mini charcoal grill sitting on its side like a birdcage of briquettes with a tasty hunk of cheese positioned in front of it. As it melts, you scrape the gooey goodness onto to the accompanying bread or potatoes. And enjoy with the plate of charcuterie of salamis and similar. Yummy.

We also took in Annecy, an absolutely charming medieval town (and one of the most appealing I’d been to in France)…with the quintessential cobblestone pedestrian lanes filled chock-a-block with shops, cafes, and strolling inhabitants.

Some other local musts I partook in: chowing down on garlic and butter soaked frogs legs and enjoying Seyssel’s annual town fair - with bric-a-brac to buy, foods to sample…and the odd cow or chicken for sale. Moo.

And to top it all off, Leyla took me to the local Sunday Bingo game. It doesn’t get less touristy than this. You can picture it - the local community center with a high pitched ceiling supported by sturdy wood beams, long tables at which random locals sat averaging the age of 75, and a table against a wall with locally baked goodies to buy - the proceeds going to some local charity.   After several hours, Leyla and her lucky cards brought her good fortune in the name of a frying pan, a gift basket filled with edible goodies, and even a vacuum cleaner. Like Charlie Brown, all I got was rocks.  I got nothing. Actually, I did benefit from the three-hour lesson of French numbers. Now I can count to 100 in French. Well, more accurately, 99-Bingo cards only have one or two digits.

As I made my way counterclockwise around the perimeter of France for a month and a half, I stayed in some towns that I only knew about through the artists that resided there. In the ancient Roman city of Rouen in Northern France, I strolled right by the stunning Gothic Cathedral at sunset in awe as if I’d seen it somewhere before. Maybe in my dreams? Nope. It was in the series paintings by Claude Monet who tried to capture the amazing light and colors that formed on the façade when the light of dusk meets the white stone. And now I was seeing exactly why he painted it - it was marvelous.

In Aix-en-Provence, I followed in the footsteps of Paul Cézanne. There are plaques on the ground all over town pointing out places where he lived, ate, drank, or painted.  Cézanne was born in Aix-en-Provence to a wealthy family who hopes of him becoming a banker and a lawyer. He fled to Paris to paint instead.

Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th century Impressionism and the early 20th century’s new line of artistic form, Cubism.

In the charming winding medieval streets of the old town in Arles, one of my favorite stops in France, I was mesmerized by Vincent Van Gogh’s shadow. Although he painted more than 200 canvases here, not a single one remains today. But what does remain is the oh-so-familiar sight of the ‘café at night.’ Supposedly this is the café Van Gogh painted and the very one that hung in my mom’s house and above my own fireplace for many years. I always loved the feeling it captured of those old European streets with the echoes of conversation and clinking of glasses on balmy nights. It’s that sound I hear walking around old streets all over Europe-the one where you almost forget that you are outdoors. On a dark note, it was also here where Van Gogh lobbed off a part of his own ear after a spat with his housemate, Paul Gauguin. All around town, you can see points where Van Gogh set up his easel to paint famous works such as Starry night over the Rhone (the other, more famous ‘starry night’ he painted during his time in an asylum just down the road) and the Yellow House - which is unfortunately no longer there, as like much of France, it was obliterated during the bombings of World War II. Sadly, Van Gogh suffered from major mental illness and depression and shot himself to death at the young age of 37. At the time, he had only sold one painting (for about $70) and died penniless.

And finally, in Lyon it was where the motion picture was born. Auguste and Louis Lumiere both worked for their father’s photographic firm. The Lumiere brothers patented a number of significant processes leading up to their film camera - most notably the tiny top and bottom sprockets that are used as a means to advance the film through the camera and projector. Their ‘cinématographe’ itself was patented in 1895 and their first public screening with an admission charge was held in December, 1895, at Paris’s Salon Indien du Grand Café. In a historical district of Lyon, The Institut Lumière, is a must stop for film-buffs. This museum showcases cinema’s glorious beginnings and is devoted to the Lumieres. It prides itself in conservation and contains many historical films, books, photos, and pieces of cinematographic equipment.

Fin.

Do you speak French? You might think you don’t, but the English language is peppered with French words and phrases, many of which we hardly even realize are French anymore. Apparently around 30% of our English vocabulary is of French origin.  Most of the French vocabulary now appearing in English was imported over the centuries following the Norman Conquest of 1066, when England came under the control of Norman-speaking peoples.  It is also via French that many Latin words have come to the English language.

As I researched this, I found there are thousands of words, so I’ve listed just some here.

So whether you realize it or not you may already “speak French!” C’est la vie!

• à la carte
• à la mode
• abbreviation
• absurd
• access
• adolescence
• advertisement
• amateur
• ambience
• après-ski
• à propos
• art déco
• au contraire
• au gratin
• au jus
• au naturel
• au pair
• avant-garde
• bistro
• bizarre
• blasé
• blonde
• bon appétit
• bon vivant
• bon voyage good
• boulevard
• brunette
• c’est la vie
• chic
• connoisseur
• crème brûlée
• critique
• cuisine
• cul-de-sac
• debutante
• décolleté
• déjà vu
• de rigueur
• double entendre
• du Jour
• eau de toilette
• en route
• entrepreneur
• Fatigue
• faux
• faux pas
• femme fatale
• fiancé
• film noir
• fleur-de-lis
• garage
• gauche
• general
• generous
• gourmet
• gorgeous
• haute couture
• haute cuisine
• hors d’oeuvre
• ignorant
• imagine
• je ne sais quoi
• joie de vivre
• laissez-faire
• laundry
• liberty
• lieu
• machine
• maneuver
• mardi gras
• matinée
• melange
• ménage à trios
• moustache
• mousse
• number
• omelette
• option
• passion
• passport
• pen
• petite
• premiere
• president
• prêt-à-porter
• protégé
• rendezvous
• résumé
• remarkable
• repartee
• risqué
• rouge
• RSVP (répondez s’il vous plait)
• sans
• sex
• soirée
• souvenir
• stupid
• tête-à-tête
• touche
• vis-à-vis
• voilà !
• voyeur

There are so many…if you would like to see more just go here.

On a crisp fall day, you can walk around downtown Chicago and often catch a whiff of cocoa-scented air making the trek to work just a bit easier.  Unfortunately, large cities aren’t known for their sweet smells. Often pungent odors like trash, urine, and exhaust fumes come to mind when we think of the scents of a city. But oh no my friends, not Chicago. The Blommer Chocolate factory, which is not too far from the loop, has been manufacturing that rich, chocolaty goodness for 70 years. Within smelling range of the factory, it’s nearly impossible to find anyone who doesn’t enjoy the rich, brownie-like aroma as they trudge to the office.

And I’ve always been flummoxed as to why the Chicago Tourism Office does not incorporate this amazing fact into their marketing materials: ‘Chicago - it’s the city that smells like chocolate’ or ‘Chicago - a city dipped in chocolate’ or ‘Sweet Home Chicago - we mean that literally.’

There’s always been a buzz about Chicago with its sparkling downtown skyscrapers, the year-round flower-scaped shoppers’ paradise of Michigan Avenue and the tourist-drawing public art filled Millennium Park. But, now more than ever, the ‘city of big shoulders’ is a thriving, sophisticated, cosmopolitan metropolis filled with young urbanites proud of their town and ready to share why.

Why is Chicago American’s hottest city now? Besides rivaling New York and San Francisco for some of the world’s best restaurants and most diverse neighborhoods, there are some new reasons. The Chicago Cubs - okay, dare I say it… they almost went all the way…again.  They have not won a world series in exactly 100 years, were number one in the national league and consistently stayed on top all season. Well, until they lost. “There’s always next year.”

The home to the world’s first skyscraper is breaking new records again. Just as Donald Trump’s new tower is being completed on the riverfront as the second tallest building in Chicago and North America, the construction of another momentous building is underway. Designed by world renowned Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava, the new Chicago Spire, at 2000 feet and with 150 floors, will be the twelfth tallest freestanding structure in the world.  The Spire will surpass Chicago’s Sears Tower to become North America’s tallest tower.

Now that the Beijing Olympics are a thing of the past, all eyes are on Chicago as one of the final contenders for the 2016 Olympics-a campaign the city and mayor Daley are fighting hard.In the event of Chicago being selected by the IOC, the 2016 Games will be the first Summer Olympics held in the Americas since the 1996 Atlanta Games. The final selection will be made on October 2, 2009. Currently, Chicago’s rival cities for the hosting of the Games are Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo. It is expected that Chicago’s significant infrastructure and public transport system, world-class architecture, renowned skyline, multi-cultural, historical, and pop-cultural contributions will be positive factors as the Olympics bid is weighed.

And to top it all off, the Chicago’s home son, Barack Obama, will soon be sworn in as the 44^th president of the United States of America. No matter what your political affiliation or whom you voted for in the election, this is an exciting and momentous time in the U.S. and in Chicago in particular. Nearly 100,000 Chicagoans gathered in Grant Park on Chicago’s lakefront on election night in hopes of hearing a victory speech - and they were not disappointed. After 2 years of hard campaigning Barack Obama won the election by a wide margin gaining 364 electoral votes to John McCain’s 174.

The world was watching from Japan to Kenya and Iraq to Vancouver.  Now so many eyes are on Chicago and the Illinois Tourism Board is counting on it. In fact, the Chicago Tourism site offers visitors a glimpse of Obama’s Chicago. I was watching from an election party in France, where something like 95% of the population supported Obama. I was anxious and tired and the boring, very conservative CNN coverage (lest they fall into the premature projections like last time) was hard to keep the interest of my French friends. But then at 6am France time, we had a new president and history was made. The citizens of the United States had spoken and I felt such a pride that I have not felt in a very long time. The only thing missing was me…from Chicago.

I tailored the end of my France trip to coincide with the presidential election. In other words, I tried to be in a larger city so I could watch the results with other like minded people, expats and interested French folks (which was pretty much everyone).  I had sent my vote in weeks earlier by absentee ballot and now I was fortunate to join some fellow couchsurfers in Lyon, France at an all night election party. Since it’s a six hour time difference from here to New York…we knew we were in for a long night.  We were totally exhausted and the CNN International coverage didn’t help us stay awake - even with their odd ‘beam me up Scotty’ style of hologram journalism (a bit over the top for me) - but by 6am we were cheering and applauding with the crowds in Chicago’s Grant Park for a new United States and hopeful for a changing future.

I heard some great things from my friends back home in Chicago and wished I was there to bask in the positive energy of the city.

From an email of a friend:

“Yea, it is a little Obama crazy. It’s fun. It just really feels positive. When your walking down the street, and people pass you by, you can feel that positive energy coming off people. It’s like walking around on that first beautiful day of spring and everyone has this underlying sense of happiness. It is like we all did something REALLY, REALLY GOOD, that we weren’t supposed to do, and we got away with it. It’s a fun feeling.”

From another friend’s blog:

“I’m so proud of our country today. We might not have been in Grant Park, like many we knew were, but I think there was celebration no matter where you were in Chicago. At the bar people were cheering like crazy, cars were driving by blaring their horns. Everyone was so happy. The front door/windows were open because it was such a nice night and people were lined up on the sidewalk watching and listening to Obama’s acceptance speech. …I want to remember where I was and what it felt like when our country made history and finally made a positive decision for its future.”

Check out this amazing website with the headlines of newspapers from around the world on November 5^th.

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It’s cold. It’s damp. It’s gray. I’m miserable and chilled to the bone here in southern France. But besides the unfortunate weather and my frozen toes I am still able to see that Aix-en-Provence is a beautiful and charming city.  If being cranky and wet still doesn’t manage to darken my view of this provincial town, then it must be something. I can only imagine how lovely it is here in the summertime; sitting outside in any of its numerous cafes, sipping a café au lait, watching all the chic locals  sashay by.

The town’s main corridor, the 17^th century Cours Mirabeau, is the closest thing to Barcelona’s La Rambla or Paris’ the Champs-Elysees. The broad boulevard is shaded by towering, sturdy plane trees and flanked by grand stone mansions, banks, and awning covered sidewalk cafes like Cezanne’s former haunt, Les Deux Garcons. And just north of this wide artery is the old town - all squirrely with narrow cobblestone pedestrian lanes bursting with flower markets, boulangeries, and trickling fountains at every turn. The sounds of the crowds echo and bounce off the centuries’ old stone apartment buildings adorned with fading multi colored wood shutters and thick wooden doors. It’s hard not to fall in love with this town’s medieval charm as have so many others.

Maybe I can live here?’ I think as I wander the corridors dazzled by the old-world feel around me. I guess I just have to add it to my list of ‘favorite small towns’ I’ve discovered while traversing the globe…it’s getting longer and longer and making it nearly impossible to figure out where to return.