La Coupe de l'Est

So last weekend was the Coupe de l'Est (Eastern Cup), hosted by the Strasbourg Ultimate club, Sesquidistus. The Besançon club brought two teams for a total of 15 people on Saturday and 17 on Sunday (Lois and Jérémy had to work on Saturday). We made the three-hour drive bright and early on Saturday morning. At one point the car's thermometer read -16 degrees Celsuis (3 degrees Fahrenheit)! We made a pit stop a little over halfway there and stayed outside only long enough to gobble down the croissants that Romain's car brought for everyone. Not my typical pre-tournament food, but yummy.

The tournament was held in a brand-new gym in Strasbourg's equivalent of Planoise (similar neighborhood, but the buildings weren't quite so tall). There were 11 teams there, all from the Eastern region of France: Nancy, Metz, Vesoul, Voujeaucourt, Dijon, Pontarlier, 2 teams from Strasbourg, our two teams, and one more I can't remember.

I played on the second team and we ended up 10th. Our two games on Saturday were both frustrating... a lot of the people on the second team are very new to Ultimate and are still working on the fundamentals. And those of us who have been playing for a while haven't played together as a team very much yet. In practice we usually mix up the teams during the scrimmage (because the first team playing against the second team all the time wouldn't help either team improve) and the second team is composed of different players based on who goes to which tournament.

It didn't help either that our two Saturday games were against formidable opponents, both clearly above our level of play. I was also a bit disappointed to only have two 25-minute games. I'm used to outdoor Ultimate tournaments where we play four or five 90-minute games a day; 100 minutes of Ultimate for a whole tournament day doesn't seem like nearly enough to me. But games on Sunday went much better (a loss to Vesoul and then a win against the Ultimate Troopers, finally). The first team finished third after losing a heart-breaking semifinal against our long-time rivals Everest (who come from Pontarlier and only play indoor; their signature throws are the kind of knifey-blades that are absurd outdoors but work inside where there isn't any wind). In the picture below the second team is warming up before one of our matches... you can see our fancy new jerseys!

Just like the other tournaments I've been to with the team I was really pleased with the whole experience -- the atmosphere was very convivial and the tournament was well-run. Having everyone in an enclosed space like a gym encourages the teams to interact off the court, and at this particular tournament all of the teams are from the same region. Most of the players knew each other and often people have played for more than one team because they moved from one city to another within the region.

I got to see a couple of players from Dijon, including Laurent, who I hadn't seen since 2009 (he recently moved back to Dijon from Spain with his Spanish wife). I also met an American guy named Aaron who went to Rice and is now doing his PhD in Metz. He played Ultimate at Metz and actually knows someone I went to high school with who also played Ultimate at Rice, Neil Narayan. Small world! (In this pic Aaron is on defense and I have the disc).

On Saturday night our whole team slept at the apartment of some of the Strasbourg players (slumber party-style, with all 15 of us on couches or the floor of the living room and kitchen). For dinner on Saturday the Sesquis had rented out most of a restaurant called Caveau Restaurant Gurtlerhof, which faces the Strasbourg cathedral and happens to be one of the restaurants where I ate with the other Wake students when the Dijon program took a weekend trip there at the end of our semester. The food was pretty good and it was fun to have everyone together in one place.

Overall a highly successful weekend, yet again! I almost forgot, the first team beat us (the second team) by 1/2 a point for the Spirit award. The way the award works is each team fills out a form after the match, grading their opponent on knowledge of the rules, comportment during the match, good spirit, etc and the team with the highest average at the end of the weekend wins the Spirit award. Last weekend the Besançon team (a mix of first and second team players) won the Spirit award at Tsunamixte, a co-ed tournament in Nemours. Here Gaël and Lois are proudly displaying the disc and trophy the first tea, won for best Spirit.

The next tournament for the second team is the phrase retour (round two) of the regional competition, which is being held in Vesoul on February 25 and 26.

A Tax on Trash and other Trucs

*Truc is French for "thing" or "stuff." It's the sort of word that causes teachers to wince when it is employed by their students, but is considered a perfectly acceptable catch-all in casual contexts.

First of all, it finally snowed! Okay, so it happened once before, back in December, but it was so fleeting that it seemed like it didn't happen at all. This snow has lasted two full days, so I think it counts. Tuesday morning I woke up to this outside my window:

Tuesday morning was a lazy one; all but one of my classes was canceled due to a big teachers’ strike. A couple of weeks ago, the French government announced it would be eliminating 42 posts in the département du Doubs (equivalent to Doubs county), including one post in each of my two schools. There were protests this past weekend and a big national strike organized for Tuesday. All but three of the teachers at École Champagne participated in the strike. So what happened to the kids whose teachers weren’t at school? Normally the city provides a kind of group day-care at the maisons du quartier (neighborhood community centers, similar to YMCAs). But none was offered this time at the maison du quartier in Planoise, where my schools are located, so parents without cars were in a jam. Presumably they left their kids with friends or family, or stayed home from work. This kind of large-scale hassle is of course the goal of a strike.

On one level, I can sympathize with the teachers because I have seen the law of diminishing returns at work when it comes to overcrowded classrooms, and I know that the removal of another teacher from the schools where I teach will only exacerbate that problem. But it would be interesting to compare the amount of money spent on dealing with the consequences of the strike (such as the price of employing people for daycare) with the amount the government plans to save by eliminating posts throughout the country. Thought for the day: what are the costs and benefits of a system in which strikes are permissible, and their consequences are paid for by the taxpayers?

This is the salle des maîtres (teachers' lounge) at Ecole Champagne... I took advantage of it being empty to snap a pic! 

Now onto this entry’s title: my roommates Steph and Charly announced earlier this week that as of February 1, Besançon will institute a weight-based trash tax. As of now, households pay a flat tax to the city to have their trash collected. Our apartment building’s residents split that tax based on the square footage of each apartment. But starting this week, our building will be taxed based on how many kilograms of refuse are in our trash container.

This concept, of course, presents all kinds of unintended consequences. I suggested people might start throwing their trash in the recycling bins, since there are no fees for recycled material. Steph replied that the plan calls for the trash collectors to check the recycling bins at the same time they collect the trash, and if they see trash inside they will add the entire contents of the recycling bin to that household’s trash count. This creates the desired negative incentive against residents disposing of trash in the recycling bins, although costing the garbage collectors who-knows-how-much time to check each bin. 

Another possible consequence: people will start throwing their trash in their neighbors’ bins. Response: we're getting a lock for ours. Not very charming, but I suppose it will be effective. A third possible consequence: people will start dumping their trash in parks or public places to avoid paying the tax. Not sure how they’re going to avoid this one. I suggested people might also try to dispose of their trash at their workplace, although I can’t say I considered that option for myself (can you imagine me carrying our trash on my 45-minute bus commute to Planoise?) We’ll see if the trash tax lasts...

One more quick thing. I saw a t-shirt in a store window a while ago and have wanted to put it on my blog ever since. Keep in mind this store doesn't seem to sell the classiest garments ever, so I doubt their design team really dedicated a lot of time to their translation. But still... So the shirt features a woman's face, artfully silhouetted and set at an angle across the whole front of the shirt. The material is white and the image and writing are a silvery gray. At the bottom is written: "Yoo're God's great paramour and sweet." Wha??? I have no idea what they meant to say, but whatever it was, they failed.

Another linguistic truc: I have a little "1 Minute a Day for Correct French" calendar made by the "For Dummies" people and it recently featured the word antonomase, whose English equivalent is "antonomasia." Still lost? It's the term for a proper noun which becomes so fully integrated into a language that it becomes a common noun. Think "Kleenex" or "Wellingtons." The examples my little calendar sheet gave me were les poubelles (apparently Mr. Poubelle, the prefect of Paris at the time, required garbage cans to be placed in the city streets in 1884 and they were named after him) and la silhouette (Mr. Silhouette, the Finance minister under Louis XV wanted to raise taxes on the rich and took a leave of absence after doing so, lending his name to the nebulous outline of an image). The term in English can also be used to describe a phrase which becomes inextricably linked with a personage (think "The Bard" for William Shakespeare or "The Gipper" for Ronald Reagan). 

So there's your French/English lesson for the day. Hope you're all well!

The Recipe for a Great Weekend: Friends and (host) Family

Since arriving in Besançon last September I have been invited to numerous raclettes and have wanted to host one myself. As soirée concepts go, this one is pretty basic. Myriam, one of the teachers at Ecole Champagne put it this way: "If your raclette isn't a success, you've got some issues" (my rough translation of her French). For the food, all that's required is to purchase the cheese, assorted hams and sausages and bread and to cook the potatoes beforehand. I wanted to go a little bit beyond, so I decided to bake some savory madeleines (similar to the texture of muffins) to go with the aperitif and also bake brownies for dessert.

Steph and Charly went to Steph's family's house for the weekend, so I had the apartment to myself. I spent all afternoon Saturday cleaning and getting ready for when Candice, Laurie, Kati, Justine, Franzi, GuiGui and Colin would arrive at 8pm. I wouldn't call my apartment big, but I'm glad it's not any bigger or I'm not sure I would have gotten everything finished in time!

But it worked out just fine and (don't worry Myriam), the raclette was a success. Franzi brought a bottle of Porto to share for the aperitif. I have seen port wine on menus before but never tried it. It's usually a sweet red wine (although apparently there are some white port wines and dry port wines) and it comes from the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. It was quite tasty and went well with my sesame and Coppa-and-olive madeleines (see a picture of the sesame ones below).

Before I go any further, I have a confession: I didn't take any pictures during the raclette. I don't even have the excuse that my camera battery is dead... the charger arrived on Friday afternoon. I had my camera out and everything, but I forgot to designate someone to take pictures early in the evening, and I was just too busy being the hostess/trying not to be the busy hostess to take any. I'm very sorry. The only picture I have is this one of me, which Colin took while I was getting dinner ready (and yes, he did help in addition to taking this picture).

So all in all the party went really well. We had way to much food (read: I will be eating raclette for at least the next week), which is always better than the opposite scenario. Toward the end of the evening GuiGui played DJ and introduced me to a group called The Baseballs (irony?) who take obnoxious pop songs and remake them in the style of early rock n' roll (as in Elvis-era). Check out their version of Rihanna's Umbrella (the video is good too). If you like that song, check out Bleeding Love, it will make you think the song was written to be sung this way. I'm in love with this group! Their music is the kind that just makes me want to dance, and I almost forget how inane the original songs' lyrics are in the process -- success! I think I might have been born in the wrong era...

Sunday morning I had to wake up bright and early to catch a train to Dijon to see my host family!! Finally! I'm really sorry we didn't find a way to meet up sooner because it was so absolutely wonderful to see them again. It was a little strange to be back in Dijon. It looked exactly the same, except for there are purple barriers everywhere for the tram construction. They were just starting the tram when I studied there in the fall of 2009 and it's supposed to be finished by the end of this year; the area around the train station and Place d'Arcy is still a mess though. My host family actually moved from the house where they lived in 2009 to an apartment just off Place d'Arcy (about a 5-8 minute walk from their old house). Now they're even closer to the train station and the center of the centre-ville.

The move was precipitated by their purchase of a moulin (mill). Let me explain: their friend Dominique owns a 17th-century stone farmhouse and the surrounding property, about 50km from Dijon and my host family loves to go there and take long walks on sunny Sunday afternoons. I went with them to the farm twice and what we did there can only be described as frolicking: walking, hiking, picnicking, enjoying nature. Last year, while they were celebrating Orane's 16th birthday with a party at the moulin (mill) which is part of the farm property, Dominique offered to sell it to them. Joseph and Noëlle, who prefer either the music and culture of Paris or the absolute silence of the country (and who didn't plan to live in Dijon forever), jumped at the chance. 

So they sold their house, moved into the apartment, and started planning for the refurbishment of the moulin, which right now resembles a ruin more than somewhere you would want to live. Before I talked to them this weekend, I knew that they had bought a moulin and even seen pictures, but I thought it was a fix-'er-up project for a vacation cottage; I didn't realize their plan was to retire there. Although it is in the middle of the country, apparently there is a train stop not too far away, which means it's only 1.5 hours from Paris. 

So you can probably tell from the pictures that we went to see the site after lunch. It was pretty cold, and as gray a day as they come, but I found the area just beautiful. There was something entirely serene about it, and I could imagine perfectly how magical it would be in the summer, with all of the trees and plants in bloom. The little creek you can see in the background is the river Seine, which at one point was the water which turned the mill wheel. 

On the way to see the moulin we stopped at la Source de la Seine (the source of the River Seine, the one that divides Paris in half). It's pretty comical to see how small the Seine is at its origin... I've seen bigger streams in the gutter at the end of our driveway at home after a big storm! But as it flows towards Paris this little trickle is joined by thousands of tiny tributaries until it becomes the massive river which empties into the English Channel at Le Havre.

Before we went to see the moulin I caught up with Noëlle and Joseph and we had a delicious and enormous lunch: beef in stewed tomatoes with mashed potatoes, bread and cheese, a fruit tart, coffee, and a kugelhopf which Noëlle had made that afternoon. As usual, it was all delicious! By the time we got back from the moulin Orane was home and I got to chat with her. She interviewed me for her bac project: The Portrayal of Women in American Film. I got back home around 10:30pm on Sunday night after a gloriously relaxing day. Noëlle invited me to come back for Easter weekend, when their whole family will be home, plus Ginou -- the Chinese student who lived with them for a little while and who has become their adopted nephew. I met him when he came to visit while I was living in Dijon. I was thrilled to be invited, I love spending time with them. Overall, another great weekend! I hope yours was just as good!

The Price of Progress

There has been lots of construction going on in Besançon relating to the tramway project, and yesterday evening I was shocked to discover that all but a handful of the 85 gorgeous old platanes (sycamore trees) that line the Battant-neighborhood side of the Doubs (not the centre-ville side) had been cut down. I was on my way to a doctor's appointment to get a medical certificate signed for Ultimate and another one for the marathon and I was totally caught off guard by the giant uprooted trunks strewn pell-mell across the quai. The tramway could end up being a really good thing for Besançon (making it easier for people to circulate around the city, better integrating the people who live in Planoise, limiting the car traffic, etc), but I still felt depressed seeing all of those felled trees. Or, at least, made me reflect a bit on the relationship of progress and what we sacrifice in order to achieve that progress. I noticed too that the faces of everyone I saw in the vicinity reflected the same shock that I felt. Apparently the fact that they were going to tear down the trees was announced quite a while ago, but it came as a surprise to me. They didn't appear to have made much progress in removing the debris when I walked by again around noon today (to get another form signed by the doctor). They've planned to replace the trees once the construction is over, but of course it's going to take a long time for them to grow back to the same splendor of the previous ones.

Check out this link to a local news report.

In which I donate blood, and the French trump us at food once again

Hello everyone! Sorry I've been a little quiet lately... I managed to leave my camera battery charger in the hotel in Paris, and while my battery lasted through Brooke's visit, it died shortly afterwards. I'm in the process of tracking down a new charger, but it's funny how the lack of photos has meant a lack of writing inspiration. In the past it was always the other way around...

It's also possible that I just haven't had anything exciting to mention. I've settled back into the routine here in Besançon and things are going smoothly, all except for the weather, which continues to be rotten.

But getting to the subject as mentioned in the title, today after school I donated blood!! I had planned to do it once last fall with some people on the team, but it turned out the blood drive had already happened a week earlier (I didn't read the post on the team forum carefully enough). So today was the first time I donated blood outside of the U.S. At home I've done it maybe a dozen times, and I think I donated successfully twice at Wake Forest (at least once the wait was too long and another time my iron count was too low).

This blood drive was held in the Grand Kursaal, a large theatre in Place Granvelle. I had never been in there before and was pleasantly surprised by how beautiful it was. If there are normally seats in the center (I wasn't sure if it was a theatre in the round or not because there was a stage at one end), they were cleared to make way for approximately 30 beds for the donators. There were probably 50 donators there when I arrived: 30 donating blood, 10 waiting to speak with the doctors for the pre-examination, and another 10 speaking with the doctors or filling out the forms. There were possibly more too, because the room designated for the post-donation meal (yes, meal, not snack) seated about 20-30 people as well. The procedure was identical to the one I've followed in the U.S.: fill out a preliminary form, wait to speak with a doctor, speak with a doctor who takes your blood pressure and confirms that you haven't traveled anywhere on their list of unallowed places, take your baggy of test tubes and pouch over to one of the beds, where your blood is taken by a nurse. My nurse's name was Lucie and she was very friendly.

I guess I was a little surprised by how identical the whole process was to donating blood in the U.S. They even used the same orange pricker-thingys to test if my blood had enough iron in it to be safe to donate (although the nurse did this after the doctor had given me the okay, and usually at home that test is done during the initial interview with the doctor). Anyway, I had the same sensation as usual... completely fine during the first 3/4 of the blood donation and then surpressed panic at the end. The same thing happens to me on plane flights... I'm totally calm for the first 75% of the voyage and then with one-quarter of the time to go my mind starts racing and it's all I can do to keep myself under control. Luckily this hasn't yet resulted in a real breakdown, so I can only hope it will continue as such. I successfully completed my donation and was directed to the collation (light meal) being served in the adjoining room.

Let me first say that I have always found Hoxworth Blood Center's juice and Oreo's totally sufficient. They even have Girl Scout Cookies during the season. But the Établissement Français du Sang volunteers took the post-donation snack to a whole new level. First of all, there were place settings and menus on each of the 6-7 tables for four set up next to a bar, where about 6-8 volunteers were energetically taking orders and serving the donators. I had two options: froid (cold) which was turkey with vegetables and rice or chaud (hot) which was five different flavors of quiche. I chose the latter option, specifically a generous slice of salmon and green pepper quiche. All of this was served with your choice of water, fruit juice, coffee, tea, and, yes you guessed it, wine. Of course there was bread and soft cheese on the table, clementines and yogurt and fruit compotes for after your main course and the slice of gateau served for dessert. Talk about classy! One of the volunteers actually got upset when I tried to take my dishes up to the bar before leaving; "Nous en occupe!" he said ("That's our job!")

Overall it was a very positive experience. Even the brief wait for my meeting with the doctor was enjoyable, because I got to read more of Les Misérables, which I started on Wednesday and have so far read nearly 100 pages! Only 813 more to go, in part one. But I really love Hugo's writing style and I can see myself enjoying every minute of this story.

Other breaking news: for those of you not on Facebook, I officially signed up for my first marathon earlier this week. It's going to be April 15th in a city called Annecy which is south-east of here. Check out Google Images for some pretty stunning pictures of the lake around which the city is situated. I'm also excited that Grace Pardo, a friend and fellow Wake '11 graduate, signed up for the half-marathon on the same day, so we're going to cheer each other on! I have a big training run planned for this Saturday, and I'm hoping the rain lets up long enough for me to get it in. I hope all of you are doing well, whereever this blog entry finds you!

Soldes? Sold!

The holiday season has passed, la saison des soldes (the sale season) has begun! Les soldes are a big deal in France because businesses are regulated differently here. Is it actually illegal to sell merchandise at a loss during any period except the official soldes, which happen for five weeks, twice per year: beginning the second Wednesday of the new year and again on the third Wednesday in June. Companies are allowed to have promotions throughout the year, but those mini-sales can never involve selling a product for a net loss.

There are actually two types of soldes: the two, five-week periods called the soldes fixes and then the soldes libres or soldes flottants ("free" or "floating sales"), which are two weeks of sales that a company or store can designate on their own, within certain restrictions such as the sale can't be immediately before or after one of the soldes fixes periods. The items during the soldes also must show the original price displayed on the price tag, along with the reduced price, to prevent companies from hiking up the prices just before the sales and then artificially lowering them.

I found it really startling that there are laws here prohibiting a company from selling products at a loss. Perhaps we have similar laws in America, but I'm not aware of them. It seems like a very obvious difference in perspective towards commerce and the rights of free enterprise / the government's intervention on behalf of the public good. 

Apparently in the last few years Internet sales and "private sales," accessible to only those patrons with a rewards card or part of a loyalty program, have made the soldes less intense than they used to be. I expected the centre-ville to be packed with shoppers on Wednesday and this weekend, but there didn't seem to be a lot more people than usual. I did do a little soldes shopping myself at a store called Promod and got two dresses and a shirt for just under 30 euro, which quite a bargain considering each of the dresses were 35 euro+ originally. There are also several round of reductions, so it's possible the prices will be even better this coming week, but of course there is the risk that only the XSs and XXLs will be left. That's your memo on French culture for the day!

Les Galettes du Roi

So Friday, January 6th was Epiphany, the Christian holiday which in the Western Christian tradition celebrates the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus and thus the revelation of God as Son to the Gentiles (apparently in the Eastern Christian tradition they celebrate his baptism in the Jordan River on this day).

In any event, it is celebrated in France with the eating of galettes des rois or "kings' cakes." These kings' cakes in no way resemble the ones you can sometimes purchase at bakeries in the U.S. around Mardi Gras. They look more like giant turnovers, honestly. But they're very delicious. Inside each galette is a fève, a small ceramic or plastic figurine. The person who receives the slice of galette with the fève inside is the king or queen for the day. This picture below is a galette comtoise that my friend Justine made for the crêpe/galette party she hosted on Thursday. It was delicious!

Each region of France has its own spin on the galette des rois, the Franche-Comté version is sort of like flan on the inside (see picture below).

The other type of galette des rois I have tried is the galette traditionnelle, which has a frangipane filling (almond-flavored). Colin's mom made a galette traditionnelle on Thursday and Colin graciously shared some with me (although he was probably tempted to not to tell me about it, he doesn't really like sweets but apparently galette traditionnelle is one of his absolute favorites). I have to say I prefer the galette traditionnelle to the franc-comtoise, because I find the latter a little dry. The picture below is of a slice of galette traditionnelle:

In the south, particularly Provence, they make a doughnut-shaped brioche galette which is decorated with candied fruits. Even though technically the galettes are eaten on Ephiphany, it's more like a two-week season of galettes. They're still being sold in boulangeries and I wouldn't be surprised if someone brought one into school this week. Below is a picture of one of the galettes from the south:

Brooke and I bought a galette franc-comtois right before she returned to Vienna and she got the fève! And I received the slice with the fève in the galette franc-comtois that Justine made. I've also seen chocolate-pear filled galettes and chocolate-apple filled galettes advertised at a bakery chain called La Brioche Dorée, so it's possible that there are many other types of galettes I have yet to try. I'm definitely going to ask for Colin's mom's recipe, it would be a fun treat to make when I come home!