I'm becoming something of a Francophile. I know almost nothing about the French or their history or their culture, but the two times I've been to France (both times in
Strasbourg) I've noticed things that I really like.
Short take: cobblestone streets, beautiful old buildings well-preserved, tiny bars and restaurants that look (and are) really cozy hangouts, French women riding bicycles everywhere (and always with perfect posture!), the sound of spoken French, well-behaved French children, swans in the canals, the fucking AMBIENCE of the place...
I arrived about 7:15 Monday evening from Zurich. B met me at the train station and we proceeded to a small restaurant our friend R had recommended. The place had room for maybe fifteen diners and it was empty when we arrived, though later it began filling up. These places are cozy, as I said, but intimite and romantic when they're not filled with people. So we had our dinner (delicious!) and then took public transportation back to the hotel, a small place in a residential part of town. Very quiet and comfortable, and I got a chance to meet the night porter, Monsieur Baker.
I've met him before, on my last visit to Strasbourg, and since then we've spoken many times on the phone when I've called from the States to talk to B. My French is non-existent but I've learned to say: Good evening, my friend. How are you? Madame B, please. Thank you very much! and so it was good to see him in person once again. He always calls me "Mr. John."
By the way: I've heard all my life how rude the French are, but I find them just the opposite. When people enter small restaurants they greet the other diners with "Bon soir!" and it's always "Please" and "Thank you" and "Goodbye" when doing any business with anyone, even at the supermarket.
The next morning when B went to work, I strolled around town, first starting at the canal and following it for some distance. You can walk above the canal on street level, or you can walk down stairs to canal level. The problem with this approach is, sometimes the next stairway is far away so you have to walk further than you intended. But I had nothing to do for hours except walk, so I did.
Saw a man feeding the swans and ducks, who swarmed around him in a frenzy, fighting with each other. The swans spread their wings wide and elevate themselves a foot or so out of the water when they're pissed, and it's an impressive site.
I found myself in a very old part of Strasbourg. I took lots of pictures but it was so overcast, I recommend you
go to the Flickr page to look at their photos instead; it'll give you a better visual sense of the place.
Unlike OKC with its streets laid out in a grid fashion, the streets in Strasbourg meander here and there. Most in this part of town are cobblestone, and many of the streets are closed off to motorized vehicles, though you have to watch out for bicyclists. More than once I rounded a corner, or was walking along just about to move to my right or left when a speeding bike whizzed past silently.
I saw a few interesting canal operations. One was a wooden bridge that swung 90 degrees to allow the tour boats to pass. The operator stretched a chain across the sidewalk, walked across the bridge and did the same on that side, then swung the bridge.
The sideways-swinging bridge over a canal. Note waiting pedestrians on the other side.
The other interesting thing was the canal lock which raises or lowers the boat to the proper level. The doors of this lock were made of heavy wooden beams and were probably very old, though the mechanism by which the doors were opened or closed was probably modern...I saw no lock operator so I guess the skipper can do everything remotely from his ship via radio signals, or something.
So I wandered around for many hours and eventually got kind of turned around. I consulted my map but couldn't make sense of where I was, so finally I had to ask a couple of women who were standing around having a smoke. I knew my bearings from the area around the university, so I found it on the map, pointed at it, and said: "University?" then pointed left and right with a quizzical look on my face. Which is my normal look.
One woman imitated hands on a steering wheel and said (I guess) "Are you driving?" I moved my fingers in imitation of legs walking. The lady said: "Ooo lah lah!" which meant: You're a fucking long way from where you want to go, Jethro. She pointed in the general direction of the university and after walking pretty fast for about 30 minutes, I found the U and thus was in familiar territory. Made it back to the hotel just as B was arriving from her first round of work...
After a few hours rest we went out to dinner. Found a place nearby and again we were the first people there. Evidently the French like to go to dinner starting about 8 PM. This was another small restaurant and they surprised me with their very large portions----ususally I find the portions about half the size of American portions. (And, probably not coincidentally, the French are about half the size of most Americans.) Had soup as an appetizer and then a huge container of salmon on a bed of noodles with a creme sauce. Delicious but lava-hot (little Johnnie burned himself) and even I, pig that I am, couldn't finish it all.
B had to work again until midnight (!) so she had to leave early. I stayed in the restaurant for about ten minutes, looking at the patrons. All nicely dressed, mostly older people. At the table next to ours were two elegant elderly French women, each of whom had before them an enormous plate of mussels, two large glasses of red wine, and (!) a bowl of French fries.
I'd wanted to visit the Cafe Brant after dinner but was simply too wasted after my walkabout, so I went back to the hotel. Read some, wrote some, watched some TV. I enjoyed the French programs, one of which was an art program about Van Gogh and the painting techniques he used.
The only English language station was CNN. It was also the only channel where the fucking program is interrupted every five minutes with an equally long block of commercials. All you have to do is watch European TV for a while to see how fucked up our system is, with its constant commercial content and it's very shallow, surface-only examination of the news.
Examples: one big news story was the possibility of a big strike at British Airways over the holidays. They kept interviewing people about what a hassle this was for them, how it would fuck up their holidays, etc. but here's their entire examination of WHY the fucking strike might happen: "It's due to cuts in operating expenses." That. Was. IT. Why the fuck didn't they have extensive interviews with the potential strikers to find out exactly what their position was? It was just assumed THEY HAD NO LEGITIMATE POSITION and the ONLY legitimate complaints were those of the travelers. And maybe on examination a viewer would agree with the passengers instead of the strikers, but let us see both sides.
The other really big news? Tiger Woods and his dalliances. I tried to figure out why the hell this was news AT ALL, in ANY way, much less the REALLY BIG NEWS they kept trying to make it. Finally it occured to me: everyone is amazed that a golfer, of all people, 1) WANTS to fuck and 2) KNOWS HOW to fuck. Which, if you think about it, IS kind of startling. I mean, have you ever really spent any time around golfers? If so, you get my drift.
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Next day, B didn't have to work until mid afternoon so we got to stroll around for a few hours together. We wandered up the main street adjacent to the main canal, past buildings many hundreds of years old, some of which featured intricate wood carvings as part of the building facade. You get an idea of how tall people are these days by looking at the much lower head clearances of the doorways of these old buildings.
Every so often we'd come across an alleyway that we'd follow into an old courtyards. Sometimes these were residential areas and sometimes a mix of residental or commercial, but either way it really was like stepping back in time. I always wonder which of our buildings in the US will be around 500 years from now, if any...
What you might see if you enter a Strasbourg alley, off a main street.
We came to one of the big Christmas markets. There they had hot spiced wine, hot spiced orange juice, but oddly, nothing like Punsch. There were also stands crammed with the usual Christmas bric-a-brac, all kinds of food items, and even clothing of various sorts.
B had to get to work, so we parted company and I continued roaming around. Found a stall selling different kinds of bags and, unable to control my fetish for man-bags, found a medium-sized black bag for about $15. I figured I'd get teased about this later but by now B has become accustomed to my addiction and she just kind of laughs about it...but I have to say, the bag is a good compromise between the fanny pack I was carrying and a backpack. Just right for toting around all my gear.
The sidewalks were crammed with people shopping or heading somewhere. I ran across three French boys about 10 years old. The approached me and started talking in French. I said: "Parlez vous English?" They looked at each other, puzzled---had I really seemed French to them? Finally one said: "Yes. What is your name?"
"My name is John. What is YOUR name?" Again the puzzled look. Then they figured it out. So one by one I was introduced to them. I shook their hands.
They showed me a piece of paper they carried, obviously some kind of school work they were doing. But what? A scavenger hunt, a survey, or what? One said: "Research," but he pronounced it in the French way and I didn't get it for a minute. Then I understood and said: "OK, research. About what?"
They jabbered at me in French. We were getting nowhere so I said: "Sprichst du Deutsch?" No. By now a curious middle-aged woman standing nearby was wondering what the fuck, staring at us, so they invited her over. We all jabbered about whatever the fuck these boys wanted, in pidgin German and English and finally the word "fox" came up. But what about foxes? Finally, frustrated with the unknowing American, they thanked me by way of dismissal and I walked off.
A few minutes later, as I was crossing a long bridge, the boys ran ahead of me on their way somewhere. A tour boat was passing beneath the bridge and the boys suddenly stopped and leaned over the rail. I, a former 10-year-old boy, knew EXACTLY what was about to happen: sure enough, one of the boys SPIT ON THE BOAT as it passed underneath. Satisfied, they ran on to their next adventure.
Later I told this to B. "No girl would have done that," she said. "Right," I agreed. "But he was marking his territory. Spreading his DNA. He'd have PISSED on the boat if he could have gotten away with it. Later in life he'll be ejaculating into and onto everything he possibly can. Part of being a boy..." B looked at me as if I'd simultaneously uttered something bizarre, yet profoundly true. Then she shook her head and changed the subject.
Walking back to the hotel, I passed Cafe Brant. This time I stepped inside for a bite and a beer. The waitress told me the pizza I wanted was only served during lunch ("Finish," she said. "Only lunch time!") so I looked at the sandwich menu and, unable to recognize a single word except "fromage" (cheese) pointed at it and hoped for the best. What I ended up with was a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and a half liter of strong local beer which was delicious, though the beer left me kind of wobbly due to my relatively empty stomach.
Interior of the Cafe Brant. Imagine eating, drinking, reading, and writing here.
So I ate, drank, and wrote a few postcards here. I imagined Henry Miller, coming to France in the late 20s, eating and drinking and begging for meals in cafes like this in Paris. Next time I'm in Strasbourg I hope it's warmer outside, because I'd love to be sitting on the sidewalk on a beautiful summer day, watching the world go by.
That night B and I rode into town and spent an hour or so wandering around. Though it was Wednesday evening, you'd have thought it was a weekend, there were so many people on the streets. Many of them were obviously tourists, here to sample the Christmas markets. We bought ourselves a hot orange juice and stared at the giant catherdral nearby, me wondering how the hell anyone could ever build something so elaborate and massive using only hand tools.
Our friend Sue, one of B's colleagues from London, was also in town working. We met her at her hotel about 9 PM for a late supper at the hotel restaurant.
If you check out the hotel's website, make sure to click on HOTEL, then under the VIRTUAL TOUR banner on the left, click the FIRST FLOOR link for a look at the interior of our the restaurant where we dined. This is a 16th Century building and very interesting from an architectural standpoint.
So we had a wonderful dinner in what is for me a pretty fancy restaurant, and great conversation with Sue, who's a witty and charming British lady. I told her I think Prince Charles should abdicate the throne in favor of Charlie Watts, the drummer for the Rolling Stones, though "If Charlie took the throne, he'd have to move to a smaller house." Sue no doubt thought me a Neanderthal because I think Charlie is the coolest Brit ever, but she smiled politely at the suggestion.
A very late dinner----we didn't get out of there until about 11:30. The maitre 'd called a cab for us. Downstairs, a FRENCH DRAMA: the cab driver was engaged in an argument with a guy on a bicycle, a small baby sitting in a seat at the back of the bike. At first I thought they were arguing because the cyclist almost hit the cab, or vice versa, but eventually the story came out: the cab driver noticed the baby's seat was wobbling badly back and forth. He was worried the kid would fall off, so he mentioned it to the cyclist---who then got inexplicably pissed about it and started arguing with the guy in loud tones! We got tired of the argument after a few minutes so B leaned forward and told the guy on the bike to let it go so we could get the fuck on down the road. The guy told her to mind her own business and kept babbling, but finally the cabbie said the French equivilent of "Fuck this shit!" and drove off.
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Next morning, after almost no sleep, we woke at 7 AM, hustled down to the bus stop, caught the bus, then a tram, then the train to Zurich airport, then the plane from Zurich to Vienna. It was a long day by the time we finally got home but a wonderful adventure.
Big thanks to B for letting me accompany her to Zurich and Strasbourg on this (for her) working vacation! I had a great time and my memory banks are filled to overflowing with everything we saw and did.
