Bringing you Wednesday’s selection of posts from other Anglobloggers on France. This week, Weekend in Paris, Femmes Francophiles and French Entrée. Many thanks!
A weekend in Dijon is just the ticket for anyone who wants to get out of the hustle and bustle of Paris and get down to some serious fun. A mere 1 ½ hours by train from Paris, Dijon has it all…world-class museums, top shopping, fab wine tasting, amazing walks along the most charming streets and yes, the famous Dijon mustard. Read more …
When I lived and worked in Paris, coffee was the one thing that continually frustrated me. How could a country which is famous for its food and wine, serve such bad coffee? This is a question that has left me baffled on many occasions in what is otherwise my favourite country – Rachel Guernier investigates. Read more…
Some practical advice for that emergency situation when you have wine but no corkscrew. Not sure that this situation would arise in France. What self-respecting French woman or man would be without a corkscrew? See the video!
In October, just before I started the diet (I didn't know I was in the photo!)
A month ago, I talked to you about my discovery of the benefits of fish for which I have gradually developed a real liking and which have certainly helped me lose weight and keep it off. Christmas was also approaching and I was a bit concerned about a backslide. As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. I was able to enjoy a couple of côtes de boeuf and lamb chops cooked in the open fire, foie gras, Rozan chocolates from the Pyrenees (my favourites), wine at night and other goodies and still lose 1 ½ kilos by mid-January. I could gradually see the centimetres coming off as well.
The clothing situation when you’re losing weight is a bit tricky unless you have an unlimited clothes budget. Fortunately I had kept a few things from the next two sizes down so the first winter wasn’t too much of a problem. As spring came, I was a little short though but determined not to buy too many clothes that I would only wear for a brief period. In seven months, between mid-October and mid-May, I lost 12 kilos and it was beginning to show!
In Italy, after losing 12 kilos
For the first few months, only my family and close friends had really noticed anything, but I can remember going to a get-together at the university in May wearing a new outfit I had splurged on after my last appointment with Doctor Séjean. I suddenly had women swarming around me, telling me how great I looked and asking me how I’d done it. They, too, had been told that after 50, it was pointless even trying to lose weight. That was probably the greatest kick I got out of my diet and was enough to keep me going while I lost the next 8 kilos!
With the warmer weather, I had started cycling again but probably the most effective move was to go back to the swimming pool. I now felt that I could face up to seeing myself in a swimsuit again. I decided to take things slowly and convinced Relationnel into going with me on Saturday or Sunday. Once I was doing 15 x 50 metre laps, I started going a second time during the week by myself. I gradually worked up to 30 laps, which is what I used to do many years ago, but I was much slower than before (age maybe?). In the end, I decided to go back to 20 laps because I was also getting too tired. Doctor Séjean regularly prescribed blood tests and gave me magnesium, vitamin B6 and vitamin D supplements accordingly.
Very soon after, we went to Italy for a month, moving around quite a lot. Doctor Séjean had told me just to take it easy, eat as much fish and vegetables as possible and pasta too if I wanted because it’s made with durum wheat which is easier to digest than fresh bread. We were mainly staying in B&Bs, with a week in an apartment on the Bay of Naples and the weather was very nice so we tried to only have one meal out a day. The rest of the time we bought picnic food from the markets or local shops, mostly salad vegetables, raw fish and cold meats. We had a glass or two of wine with our meals as well.
I guess we were getting a lot of exercise from walking but I was surprised when I came home to discover I was the same weight as when I left. In Italy, it’s quite easy to get vegetables in restaurants, particularly grilled zucchinis, eggplant and capsicums. One of the main things I had noticed after a few of months of dieting was that I no longer wanted carbs with each meal so I usually only had them once a day.
By then, any desire to binge or snack had totally disppeared!
Apart from the Prado, Madrid’s main attraction to me are all the unusual things you keep coming across that I’ve never seen anywhere else. These are just some of them.
You can just see a building on the left that’s a squat and has signs up that seem to indicate the people have been evicted. During the day, all their clothes and furniture are gathered together in the middle of the square (Santa Cruz) and at night, they line up their mattresses under the nearby arches.
How to keep warm in a terrace café!
We saw a lot of cartoon characters in various places throughout Madrid posing for photos and asking for money.
Particularly in front of the Palacio Real, various invisible men were to be seen. This was my favourite.
The “living statue” is a well-known attraction everywhere in Europe but we were not convinced that this “escapee from Vesusius” was really alive. I think he might just set up his plaster cast and collect the money at the end of the day!
There are many shops with this type of fashion. Always very colourful. Lots of fabric shops as well which have virtually disappeared in Paris outside the Quartier Saint Pierre.
We came across seemingly hundreds of these queues and couldn’t work out what they were all about until we eventually came to a church that was bursting with people already.
Another indication of how alive religion still is in Spain is this stall on the Sunday flea market.
And on the same flea market, just look at this sofa!
On the same market, the dummies are obviously having a whale of a time.
I don’t know whether the emergency medical service is a colourful in the rest of Spain!
Our Plaza Mayor turned into a very busy and eclectic collectors’ market on Sunday.
Anyone for crisps?
And you can follow them up with sweets …
And last, but not least, we have Cervantes with his famous Don Quixote and Sancho Panza with a typical skyscraper from the Franco era (1950s).
There is a first for everything. A laptop in a plane. Probably nothing new for most of you(I can hear my drummer brother saying “2time for a Mac, sister”) but until I bought my Dell about a month ago, I had never found a laptop I was comfortable with. The seats in these planes are getting smaller and smalller. Before you used to have a place to put your book or bag. Well Iberia doesn’t have anything. Also you pay for your drinks these days. I’m using my Asia Miles. The flight turned out to be more expensive than if I’d booked directly! Do not use your miles on short flights!
So we ordered our Cavo del Penedés (a natural sparkling wine it says in English) , fuet tradicional (long thin dried sausage affairs with miniature bread sticks) and pringles in lieu of the gin tonic and peanuts we usually have in planes. So I’m feeling very Spanish. Our home exchangers arrived this afternoon in Paris and we exchanged keys and they told us all the great places to eat in Madrid. We babbled away in English and Spanish (not Relationnel who just stuck to French) and we think we know how to get into their apartment in Madrid.
We nearly didn’t make the plane. Well, with luggage anyway. The day Relationnel told me he was “give or take an hour” I changed my whole attitude to life. I used to be give or take 5 minutes. I still am with planes. Our flight was leaving at 6.25 pm. Relationnel initially said that since we were taking a taxi we could leave at 5. I insisted on 4.30. Still no news at 4.12 so I sent an SMS. No answer. I waited another 5 minutes and phoned. “Just closing up the office”. He arrived at 4.26 telliing me the taxi was on its way.
We live in the middle of Paris and were going to Orly. The traffic was unbelievable. They have these special bus and taxi traffic lanes but they were full of buses and taxis … I remained very calm but I was sure we weren’t going to make it. We had this young driver that managed to weave in and out of the traffic with frightening determination. We arrived at the desk after they had closed the baggage check-in. Fortunately we had reserved our seats and boarding passes on-line last night.
We were sent to another desk. Our flight hadn’t boarded but it was too late to check in our baggage. “Just one”, I said in French and she checked her computer again and said “OK”. This other guy, a Spaniard, was trying to get her attention, but it was too late. His flight was closed. She asked me how come we were late and I explained the awful traffic and she commisserated. Thank goodness. Of course, when we finally got to the waiting lounge, it wasn’t even boarding. I even had time to buy a book.
The moral of this is that you should leave plenty of time to get to the airport. Traffic in Paris is entirely unpredictable. Next, it’s better to take public transport! Madrid, here we come!
I keep reading all these interesting posts on other people’s blogs so I’ve decided that on Wednesdays, I’ll bring you some snippets so that you can enjoy them too and perhaps discover some blogs you didn’t know. Thank you to everyone I’ve quoted!
Fairfax media’s Ben Groundwater has published his Ten unwritten rules of travel. My personal favourite on his list is about not reclining your seat on planes during meals. His article started me thinking as to what are my rules for travel. In no particular order here is my list. Read more
A Just France apartment rental in the 7th Arrondissement.
Renting an apartment in Paris, particularly if you are going for a week or more, is always a good choice. You’ll enjoy more space than a hotel room, and you’ll save money. A lot of the apartments for rent are truly gorgeous, but there are always some things to watch out for, and it pays to ask a lot of questions and do your research. Read more
Want to know the places to get baguettes in Paris? Our hosts will guide you through the city in search of the best bread. Read more and see the wonderful video in English on how baguettes are made!
Last time, in Part 2, I told you about Saint Germain l’Auxerrois but the time before, in Part 1, I explained about Pont Neuf actually being the oldest bridge in Paris. After leaving Saint Germain, you turn left along the Seine to the bridge. Halfway across, there is an equestrian statue in honour of Henry IV and wonderful views on either side. Turn right after the bridge and you’ll go past the bouquinistes selling their second-hand books and anything else they think tourists might be interested in.
A little further on, you’ll see what is probably the most unusual fire station in Paris – it’s a river boat! Paris actually has a surprising number of fire stations. There are two in our neighbourhood alone. As soon as the weather permits, they take their fire trucks out in the street to clean them. I personally think they want to show off their uniforms as well! Last Sunday, when we were going to the market, there was a fireman standing by watching a firewoman (?) hosing down a truck – and giving instructions on how to do it, of course!
And now I have a bit of etymology for you. You might notice that the boat says “sapeurs“. Firemen in French are called “sapeurs-pompiers“. This is because in the Middle Ages, the first firemen often had to knock down (saper) the houses around the one that was burning to stop the fire from going any further. The “pompier” bit comes from pumping water.
If you keep going, you’ll arrive at the Passerelle des Arts and can admire all the padlocks as you go past. Cross rue de Rivoli and walk through to the Place Carrée du Louvre, then left to the pyramids and right through the arcade with its wonderful plate glass windows and view of some of the museum’s antique sculptures.
Just in front of the Conseil Constitutionnel, you’ll see a rather nondescript column with a plaque on top saying “an 2000 la méridienne verte“. This was a project promoted by Paul Chemetov to celebrate the year 2000. Trees were planted along the Paris meridian which crosses France from North to South (from Dunkirk to Prats-de-Mollo-la-Preste). A big picnic was held that year on Bastille Day right along the meridian. Wish I’d known about it!
Turn right onto Place Colette, home of the Comedie Française theatre where Molière died, with its scaffolding, then through the arcade to the Buren columns. In front you’ll see a wooden building which is temporarily housing the theatre. Walk around it to the right and take a look at the exhibitions after the portico. They do have the weirdest things! But they’re often very clever, like the ones in the Pompidou Centre. A little look to see what Miss Bibi‘s up to and then I’m ready to climb the stairs to the 4th floor!
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Last Sunday when we were on another dépôt-vente excursion, I came across two Singer treadle sewing machines, one of which seemed in very good condition and a bargain at 40 euros. A nostalgia trip of course. My first sewing machine was one of those little kid’s ones that only did chain stitch. For the uninitiated, it means that you just had to pull on the thread and the whole lot would come undone.
I was a devoted sewer as a child. I had a Barbie doll that I made clothes for, including miniature bras and pants and skirts with zippers. So I was certainly not going to be satisfied with a machine that only did chain stitch. Mum didn’t think at 9 or 10 that I was old enough to use her electric Singer machine but I was very insistent so she bought me a hand-operated Singer.
Photo from The Power House Museum
I used to set it up on a low table on the veranda and sew away to my heart’s content. But I soon saw the limits of a hand-operated machine, particularly as Mum’s did zigzag and made buttonholes. She told me that the day I could sew a straight line in a piece of material without any markings, I could use her machine. Well, I mastered that in next to no time and migrated to the real thing. At school, we used treadle machines and I used to help all the others when they got stuck. We made boring things such as aprons.
By 13, I was making my own clothes. By 16, I was making everything I wore. I could take the machine to pieces and put it back together as well! And do you know what happened to the hand-operated machine? I decided when I was a teenager to redecorate my bedroom. I made little “flutter” curtains with sketches of Montmartre on them (already getting ready to live the French dream) and desperately wanted a white chenille bedspread. But Mum, very practical, was against it. I was not known for my tidiness. So I sold the sewing machine to buy the white bedspread myself!
When I came to France, the thing I most missed was Mum’s sewing machine. I’d practically made a whole new wardrobe before I left, because living in Townsville meant I only had summer clothes. So I made woollen skirts and tailored jackets that stood me in good stead for quite a while. I must have borrowed a machine from time to time though because I can remember some of the clothes I made in those early years in France.
Mum’s wedding present was a sewing machine. We went together to choose it at the BHV in Paris. By then, I wanted something more sophisticated of course that would sew things like jersey. I also needed something compact so I chose a little Elna. Mum bought the machine and then announced she was going off for the rest of the day by train to Liseux in Normandy, to see the church of Saint Therese. I didn’t know what to do. Mum didn’t speak French and Dad would never forgive me if I let her go by herself. What if something happened? I was getting married in two days’ time! But how can you stop your own (very determined) mother from doing something?
So I took her to the station and helped her buy the ticket and went home to face the music. After calculating the time she would need to go there and back, Dad spent a couple of hours down at the bus stop waiting for her! She came home safe and sound, perfectly delighted with herself and her ability to get around France on her own. Mothers!!
My trusty Elna is still going strong although I rarely do much sewing today. I made most of Black Cat’s clothes when she was little and when she was ten, I bought her an electric machine, also a Singer, a special child’s machine with two buttons – a hare and a tortoise. She didn’t use it very much to my disappointment, but I didn’t say anything. Then suddenly, when she was in her late teens, she became a keen sewer, much more adventurous than me, and she occasionally stuns everyone with a new outfit. A friend of mine has lent her a Singer, probably about the same one as Mum had!
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Working out a travel itinerary has become my most time-consuming holiday task. That wasn’t always so. When I was young and adventurous, I used to set off with a backpack and follow whoever knew when the next bus, train or boat was leaving. Or just stuck out my thumb. It made it very simple. There was always someone else at the other end offering a room and a bath. I usually slept in those shared dorms which even back in those days could be co-ed. I accidentally found myself in one on my first honeymoon, but that was because I didn’t know you had to ask for a letto matrimonial. There were six single beds. Fortunately, we were the only ones there.
An unforgettable trip to Malta (in lieu of Australia because I stupidly thought it would be easier) when Leonardo was four months old put an end to such spontaneous travelling. Although he was fully breastfeed and theoretically transportable with my trusty baby sling, he was still a hefty little fellow and a light sleeper and I arrived home more exhausted than when I left. Somehow, travelling wasn’t the same any more. The spontaneity no longer seemed appropriate.
And once Black Cat arrived, travelling, except for our 3-yearly trip to Australia, became synonymous with camping. Not that that was really a piece of cake. The kids loved it, but I spent most of the time getting sand out of the bed, cooking on two gas rings, washing up in a communal kitchen, taking showers with the kids, shopping for food and peeing outside the tent at night in the hope that no late revellers would go past.
My first real holiday since my pre-Malta days came when I took 12-year old Black Cat across France to Heidelberg by car. She was a model companion and we played it by ear. The only slip-up was that I had forgotten to take her passport with me. However, we decided to take the risk and cross the border at some little place whose name I can’t remember. No one came near us. We had a lovely time, having breakfast at the hotel, picnicking at lunchtime and eating out at night. We always seemed to find a hotel without too much trouble. We stayed in Reims, Strasbourg, Metz, the place I can’t remember, Heidelberg and Colmar. And when we’d had enough, we went home.
After I met Relationnel, we used to rent a holiday house for a week or two at a time, usually in Brittany, and take the four kids with us. We always went shopping in the morning by ourselves and finished off with a bowl of cider afterwards. We came home one day and were immediately confronted by the elderly couple next door. They told us that the “older ones” had been attacking poor little Thoughful and they were about to call the police.
Brittany in the summer
Mystified, because the four of them usually got on like a house on fire, we said we’d look into the problem. It turned out that they were all inside, pretending to have a fight with their pillows, screaming as though they were really hurt, Thoughtful louder than any of the others. We had to make them promise to behave themselves while we were out. I hate to think what the neighbours would have said if they’d known we were a blended family !
When Relationnel and I were finally able to go on holidays on our own, we would choose a country, book the first hotel and take off in the car, stopping wherever the mood took us. But as we always travelled in the summer and there weren’t any mobile phones in those days, not to mention the fact that I have become fussy about where I sleep since my backpacking days, it didn’t seem to be such a good idea any more.
Now, we plan everything beforehand. We work out the itinerary together and I book the accommodation. It does take a lot of time, but it certainly makes life much easier once we’re on our way. Now that you can check out the internet, consult Trip Advisor and see what the bloggers have to say, there aren’t too many bad surprises, although it’s amazing how a photograph can be so completely different from reality!
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In Twitter Twitter Little Star, I explained about the basic uses of Twitter, but since then, I’ve been learning lots of new things. I’m no longer a #tweep and am now a #twitterian, having joined the #500tweetsclub. Soon I’ll be a #tweeting machine.
Let’s take it one at a time. Now tweep can actually mean a few different things. It’s a combination of Twitter and Peeps to start off with. Peeps, I discovered (talk about not knowing ANYTHING) is short for people, but you probably knew that unless you’ve been living in the wrong country for more than 35 years.
But sometimes it can be more specific. One of my followers tweeted to his “peeps and fans“, including me. So I asked him what a peep was: “Ah, well peeps is my definition of people living in Paris and fans are tweeters interested in Paris but not living here :)”. So, I’m his peep. Hmm. He did check it was OK. Not sure what Relationnel will think about it though.
So, now from peep to tweep if you’re still following all this. A tweep is a person you’re following and who’s following you. But it can also be a Twitter user who’s new to the game and hasn’t made many tweets and is therefore the lowest of the low on the Twitter scale. If you’re at the top, you’re a twitterian. You can say, for example, “Thanks to all the tweeps who RT my last tweet” which means “thanks to all the lovely people who retweeted my last tweet”.
From tweep, we move to “tweeple” who are people who use twitter. So peeps and fans are tweeple as well.
A bit more on hashtags.
I received a tweet with #FF which I thought meant Fan Friday but Andrea tells me is Follow Friday (see comment), which is much more logical! This is when you tweet several people at the same time to suggest that they mutually follow each other! Took me a while to work it out. I’m waiting for Friday so I can use it myself! What are your favourite hashtags so I can learn some more and really earn the title of twitterian?
I’ve discovered a couple of new iPhone apps as well. Viber is the first. It’s like What’s App except that you can send text messages AND talk for free to anyone who’s got the same App (iPhone or Android), so long as you have a wifi connection ;
Then there’s instagram. To quote the publisher, it’s “a free, fun, and simple way to make and share gorgeous photos on your iPhone”. I haven’t discovered all the ins and outs yet, but it looks fun. I already use the PhotoShop Express App which makes posting photos on Facebook and Twitter much easier. The photos below demonstrate what you can do with instagram. The second photos are the “sunny” and “black & white” versions.
Original photo taken with my iPhone
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Two weeks ago, in part 2, I told you about my visit to Dr Séjean, a touchy-feely encouraging nutritionist from Martinique. She basically told me to cut out all wheat-based products for three weeks and divide my plate into four: ½ protein, ½ carbs (the contents of a Chinese bowl) and ½ cooked vegetables (cooking and storage tips in part 3). The result was astonishing. I’d lost 2 ½ kilos and 4 cm from my waist and tummy! She’d also told me to note down everything I ate. Of course, this in itself caused me to modify my diet. What’s more, it hadn’t seemed difficult at all because there wasn’t anything I wasn’t allowed to eat (apart from wheat). I could still have côte de boeuf and oysters on Sunday.
Many of you have talked to me about your weight problems since the last post and one of the main concerns seems to be binge eating. Once I started the diet, I no longer had a problem with that, but as I explained in part 1, I had been listening to hypnosis tapes for a few months and I’m sure they were extremely effective. However, it does seem that making sure you get enough protein, particularly at breakfast, can definitely help.
There are various ways to combat the urge to binge. First, you need to analyse what’s causing the problem. Most people binge from stress so you need to find a way to destress yourself. Relaxation cassettes, yoga, exercise, cycling, soaking in a hot bath, having a shower, going on a buying spree, having a cup of tea – there are all sorts of things you can do instead of eating. It takes one month to change a habit, Leonardo tells me, so if you can get past that first month, you’re halfway there. One method that I had found useful in the past was to go and sit in a comfortable chair if I felt the urge to raid the fridge. I’d close my eyes and breathe deeply, thinking zen thoughts. After a few minutes, the urge would disappear. Most of the time.
And one thing to remember – it’s not because you binged one day that all is lost. If you really want to lose weight and not put it back on, you have to be nice to yourself. OK, so today you ate all those biscuits or foie gras or whatever. But tomorrow’s another day. In fact, tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life! Pretty good, huh? It means you can always begin again.
Coquilles Saint Jacques
Doctor Séjean looked at the list of what I’d eaten during the previous two weeks and noticed that I didn’t eat much fish. What I like is seafood (especially oysters on Sunda and coquilles Saint Jacques), reef fish and salmon, not those insipid white fish you find in France. If you have to add beurre nantais, there doesn’t seem to be much point in eating bar (bass) instead of entrecôte. However, I had tasted raw fish in the form of capaccio in Venise the year before and figured I could give it ago.
Fresh fish at the market
I soon discovered that most fish is overcooked, particularly in restaurants and that when it’s raw, it’s delicious. Also, it doesn’t smell out the kitchen. I’d ask the fishmonger on the market each week for the freshest fish and had soon tasted practically everything tartare, sprinkled with a bit of lemon and olive oil. And after about a year, I started liking it lightly cooked as well. Now we buy different types of fish on the market on Sunday that we eat at each lunch and dinner until Tuesday night. I mainly like mackerel, limande (lemon-sole), rouget (red mullet), carrelet (plaice), lotte (monk-fish) and turbot, and I dislike colin (hake) and cabillaud (cod). I prefer bar (bass), dorade (sea-bream) and tuna uncooked. I deep-freeze fresh salmon and defreeze it and cook it in the microwave. It’s really easy and delicious when it’s not overcooked. So I guess that I now eat fish at about half my meals.
Foie gras with toast
But Christmas was coming up and I was a bit worried about putting back on my newly-lost kilos. Dr Séjean told me not to worry, that I should just make sure that if I drank alcohol, I always ate something with it. That was a surprise but she explained that the food absorbs the sugar whereas if you just have a glass of wine by itself, you store the calories immediately. She said that if I ate foie gras (as if I wouldn’t!) I should have it with toasted bread and, generally speaking, if I was going to have bread, I should have it toasted whenever possible because that way, it doesn’t have a bloating effect.
Wild mushrooms on toast for apéritif
We were planning a few côtes de boeuf of course but she advised me to eat them with vegetables and not just potatoes, for example. She reminded me not to forget the carbs and said I could re-introduce wheat-based foods after another week. But in the meantime, I’d got used to eating quinoa and polenta so I wasn’t really missing the wheat very much except for home-made fresh bread. Another thing she told me is that I should have at least 2 tablespoons of oil a day.
Having recharged my batteries, I took another appointment for a month later. Watch out for Part 5 and let me know how it’s going!
A weekend in Dijon is just the ticket for anyone who wants to get out of the hustle and bustle of Paris and get down to some serious fun. A mere 1 ½ hours by train from Paris, Dijon has it all…world-class museums, top shopping, fab wine tasting, amazing walks along the most charming streets and yes, the famous Dijon mustard. Read more …
When I lived and worked in Paris, coffee was the one thing that continually frustrated me. How could a country which is famous for its food and wine, serve such bad coffee? This is a question that has left me baffled on many occasions in what is otherwise my favourite country – Rachel Guernier investigates. Read more…
