Category Archives: French customs

Food, France, French customs, Paris

Best Brocantes and Flea Markets in Paris – Tea, wine or cocktails – National Garlic Day

2 Comments

It’s Wednesday again and I’ve found you some more great posts from other people’s blogs, starting with Vingt Paris Magazine giving us the best brocantes and flea markets in Paris, followed by Girls’ Guide to Paris with suggestions of places to have your favourite beverage, and a very interesting description of National Garlic day by Llamalady from Blog in France.

Best Brocantes and Flea Markets of Paris

by Anne at VINGT Paris Magazine, devoted to the 20 arrondissements of Paris and helping you get the most out of the city.

We were so pleased with Meg Gagnard‘s roundup of the best vintage clothing shops in Paris, we invited her back to share some insider secrets of Paris’s flea markets and brocantes -the best places to find vintage goods and antiques around the city. The list is a mix of trinket and furniture shops, as well as where to go to find out about weekly neighborhood brocantes. Thanks, Meg! Read more …

Tea, wine, or cocktails

by Girls Guide to Paris, an all-encompassing online guide to Paris

Here is an assortment of places where you can lounge and enjoy your favorite beverage, often with some excellent food as a bonus. Note: The term wine bar can be a little confusing in Paris. All wine bars feature wine, of course, but the bar part is a little more flexible. Some have a counter and tables, and you can show up anytime for a glass of wine and a snack. Others resemble restaurants more than actual bars. In many cases, reserving in advance is imperative. Some are cavistes (retail wineshops), which is good to know if you need a bottle to go. Read more …

National Garlic Day

by Llamalady from Blog in France who blogs about her life in rural France where, amongst other activities, she raises llamas and alpacas

Today, believe it or not, is National Garlic Day. And since garlic is irrevocably linked in most people’s minds with France, well, I had to blog about it.

Garlic, Allium Sativum, is originally from Asia. China is still the world’s biggest garlic grower, producing more than 12 million tonnes of it a year! Garlic is something of a wonder plant, because not only does it have the blood cleansing properties most of us know about it, it’s also anti-bacterial. Surgeons who ran out of anti-septic during the First World War would use garlic instead. Read more …

 

France, French customs

Voting for a New President

6 Comments

As I explained in Battling with French Administration, I have only  started voting relatively recently and this is only my second French presidential election. The first time, we were here for both rounds. Of course, it would be much easier if they adopted the preferential voting system in France, but having the two rounds is all part of the strategy and I don’t think any of the politicians would agree to eliminating the second one! This time, however, we will be in Blois the second time around. Black Cat will be away on both occasions.

So how do we go about voting? First, I’ll describe the normal voting system. When you become eligible to vote, you have to register with your local town hall. It’s wherever you’re registered on 1st January that counts. We are registered in the 1st arrondissement. Even when they move (provided they don’t go too far away), most people prefer to keep their original voting office rather than spend hours waiting around in queues to change it.

In about March, you receive an electoral card with the address of the polling station (usually a school) that you have to take along with you to vote, together with your ID. You hand them both over to the person sitting behind a table with all the ballot papers (bulletins de vote) in front of them. After they check your ID, they give you a little blue envelope and you take a copy of each ballot paper (10 this time because there were ten candidates) and go into the voting  booth (isoloir – love the name!), put your paper in the envelope and throw the others in the bin. Since we also receive the ballot papers by post, I prefer to select mine before I go. It’s a simple piece of white paper, about 10 cm x 15 cm with the name of the candidate printed in black ink.

Then you go to another table, with your envelope and ID. At our voting station, there are tables on either side of the see-through voting urn with a person at each table. One has the register with half the alphabet and the other has the rest. The person standing behind the urn reads out your name. After it’s located on the register, you sign and the urn keeper pulls back a lever so that you can drop your envelope in. When you have done so, he says in a stenorous voice, “A voté” (has voted). It’s all very formal. I was actually surprised they let me take photos but the urn keeper was very pedagogical, explaining everything to me in detail.

Now if you can’t physically go to your polling station on D-Day, the only solution is to find someone to represent you. They don’t have to be attached to your polling station (they just have to live in the same town), but they do have to go there to vote for you. You have to go along to the police station beforehand with the details of your proxy (full name, birth and place of date), your ID and your electoral card. You’re given a little bit of paper that says “récipisse à remettre au mandant” (receipt to be given to the proxy) that you hand over with your ID. A proxy can vote for one person living in France and one person living overseas.

So with Leonardo in Australia, Black Cat in Thailand and Forge Ahead in Madagascar, there’s only Thoughtful left.  He’s going to vote for Black Cat and Forge Ahead so Relationnel has found two work colleagues to vote for us. And they tell me they’ve simplified matters. We haven’t been to the police station yet …

France, French customs, Paris

The Romance of a Sale – Zen Things in Paris – Laines Locales Wool Festival at Prébenoît

4 Comments

I’m afraid I was so busy last week setting up house in Blois that I didn’t bring you my usual Wednesday’s other blogs post. But I’m back in Paris and my computer is up and working again. Thank you to the authors of this week’s posts: Petite Paris, an Australian-based independent bed & breakfast booking agent for anyone planning to travel to the romance capital of the world, on Zen things to do in Paris; Llamalady, an Irish llama and alpaca breeder living in the centre of France, who also runs a carp fishery and a holiday gite, reporting on a local wool festival; and Bread is Pain, an American living in the Rhone-Alps “slowly eating and drinking myself through the country”, talking about her love of sales.

Zen Things in Paris

from Petite Paris

When it comes to Paris, we already know the usual recommendations. We know the rule is Laduree for tea.  Pierre Herme for Macaroons. Coffee at Cafe de Flore. Or at Lipp Or at Deux Magots.  We know that a visit to the Louvre is a must see. Eiffel. Piere Lachaise. And we know all about the Batobus river boat tours. The Moulin Rouge. and the Opera. And these are all great, bien sûr… Read more.

Laines Locales Wool Festival at Prébenoît

by LLamalady from Blog in France

We are just back from a chilly and breezy but interesting morning at a wool festival. It was organised by Laines Locales of Limousin and was held at nearby Prébenoit Abbey. Had the weather been better we would have cycled there – it’s about 10 km away – but we’d have been blown backwards! Read more.

The Romance of a Sale

from Bread is Pain

I love sales.  Love them.  I will buy things that I don’t really find attractive or things that I absolutely do not need based solely on the fact that they are on sale.  As a dear friend of mine puts it “really, by not buying it you are losing money because it is such a good deal!”  (RIGHT?!)   This statement pretty much sums up my feelings when I see something marked down.  “Why look!  It’s a goose leash!  We don’t have a goose, I know, but one day we might and come on, honey, it’s 70% off!”  Read more.

Accommodation, Australia, Cooking, Food, France, French customs, Lifestyle, Paris, Sightseeing, Travelling, Wine

Favourite Paris Wine Shops – Phone App: Google Translate – Creating a Healthy French Pantry

2 Comments

Where to buy wine in Paris, a helpful traveller’s phone app and healthy eating the French way are  the subjects featured in my Wednesday’s Other Blogs this week.  Thank you to Like Home in Paris (vacation apartment rentals in Paris), Femmes Francophiles (fellow Australian blogger with an ongoing passion for France and the French language) and Mademoiselle Slimalicious (a young Sydney-based French blog writer who promotes healthy eating, fitness and exercise based on the principles of the French Paradox).

Sipping on Saturday – Favourite Paris Wine Shops

from Like Home in Paris

I know who I go to ask when I have a wine question or can’t decide which glass to take – Preston Mohr, that’s who. Our favorite drinking partner tells us about his favorite wine shops in Paris and believe me you’ll want to take note. Read more

Phone Application: Google Translate

from Femmes Francophiles

Translation apps are a growing market. No longer do we need to fossick in back packs or handbags for our bilingual dictionary or phrasebook. No doubt there are now young international travellers who have never had to worry about the weight associated with carrying these books with their dog-eared pages.  Read more 

Creating a Healthy French Pantry

from Mademoiselle Slimalicious 

Cooking at home (rather than ordering take-away) enables you to be fully in control of what you eat by being aware of the nutritive value of your meals. In order to manage your weight efficiently (the way French women do), it is important to make cooking everyday one of your priority.  Read more.

Food, France, French customs, Lifestyle

Dijon more than cuts the mustard – Coffee Culture in Paris – Open a Bottle of Wine with a Shoe –

4 Comments

Bringing you Wednesday’s selection of posts from other Anglobloggers on France. This week, Weekend in Paris, Femmes Francophiles  and French Entrée. Many thanks!

Dijon More Than Cuts the Mustard

by The Weekend in Paris – Paris advice that is practical and fun

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 …

 

Coffee culture in Paris

from FrenchEntrée.com – France for Australians

© French MomentsWhen 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…

How to Open a Bottle of Wine with a Shoe

from Femmes Francophiles

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!

Family, France, French customs

Cleaners I Have Known

9 Comments
My current Maria

I love my cleaning lady! We joke together that the only time I’m not so happy with her is when her holidays don’t coincide with mine (dammit, she goes away most of August) or when she stays home to look after a sick child (which I approve of naturally). One of the hardest things when I left the suburbs to come and live in Paris was losing my Portuguese cleaner whom I’d had since I was pregnant with Leonardo 30 years ago! She had a wonderful sense of humour (like my current Maria), was very devoted, obviously went back to Portugal for the whole of August like everyone else (I can forgive her for that!), and adored my children.

When she learnt that I was pregnant with Black Cat, she said that I’d never to able to make another baby as beautiful as Leonardo. But when she came to clean just a few hours after Black Cat was born, she declared that I’d done it again! Black Cat was born at home by the way, in case you’re wondering. I’d had enough of interfering French hospitals by then! I had a midwife and doctor present and everything went perfectly.

The French government has a good system for domestic workers called “chèques service“. If you declare them and pay social security contributions, they become a tax deduction. You have to set it up with the bank first so that when you declare their hours on the website, the social security contributions can be taken directly out of your bank account. That way you’re covered if there is an accident and they get a better old age pension and even sick pay. The scheme doesn’t just apply to cleaners, but also to nannies, gardeners, handymen or whoever else you might employ on an hourly basis.

So when we moved to Paris, Relationnel told me to be very nice to one of the Portugueuse concierges on our street (there are five altogether) because she knows absolutely everyone and decides who’s going to work where! He was right. Not that I wouldn’t have been nice to her anyway. I mentioned my need for a cleaning lady and very soon Maria arrived on my doorstep. All Portuguese cleaning ladies are called Maria Something by the way. Maria A. and I immediately got on. She likes cleaning, she takes pride in her work and she likes the freedom it gives her. She works for four or five different people in the same street.

We also go back to visit my first Maria in January each year for a galette des rois and whenever we visit a European city with a special Catholic church such as the Macarena in Seville or Assisi or Our Lady of Loreto near Ancona, I buy an icon to give her.

Leonardo’s first cleaning lady was also Portuguese but when she had her first baby and decided, quite understandably of course, to stay home and look after him, he had to find someone else, but never managed to find another Maria. Maybe that’s why he moved to Australia!

Black Cat has a male cleaner who’s Philippino and speaks English. Being a cleaner is a traditional profession for Philippino men and they do a wonderful job.

Now when we move to Blois in two years’ time, I’ll have to find another cleaner. I do hope there’s going to be another Maria.

Cycling, France, French customs, Restaurants

Use Your French to Help Combat Hunger – Paris for Lunch – Atlantic Coast by Bike

Leave a comment

As usual on a Wednesday, here are some snippets from other blogs. Thank you to the authors: Femme Francophil, Petite Paris and Experience France by Bike!

Use Your French to Help Combat Hunger

by Femme Francophile

Each year, on 20 March, French-speakers around the world celebrate the International Day of Francophonie.

This year to mark the day the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) and the United Nations’ Programme alimentaire mondial (PAM), known in English as the World Food Programme (WFP), provides you with the opportunity to not only extend your knowledge of the French language and the French-speaking countries but at the same time help those who are hungry. Read more

Paris for Lunch

by Petite Paris bed & breakfast accommodations in Paris

Bonjour Petite Friends. It’s 2.30pm and I havent had lunch yet. Looks like im going to work straight through AGAIN; picking away at an emergency (don’t have time to step away from le bureau) stash off tuna and crackers at my desk! If I were in Paris, I would eat at: Read more

The Atlantic Coast of France, My Destination for Spring 2012

by Experience France By Bike

This is my 100th post about biking in France, and I thought it was the perfect occasion to reveal the destination for my upcoming trip to France.  Having spent the last two years exploring the Loire Valley, Burgundy, Brittany and the Dordogne, this spring I will finally journey back to the Atlantic Coast of France. Read more

French customs, Paris

Keep Those Clothes On!

5 Comments
Au mois d’avril ne te découvre pas d’un fil,
En mai fais ce qu’il te plaît.
(In April, don’t remove a stitch,
In May, do as you please.)

It’s 19°C today with bright sun and blue sky and I just powerwalked up to Concorde and back. And there they were, the poor little kids, all rugged up in their thick coats and boots and even hats. The luckier ones were bareheaded and some had even taken off their coats – but they were probably foreigners anyway!

I’ve heard this saying many times since I arrived in France in 1975 and not just in the north. It seems that the slightest little breeze will bring on immediate coughs and colds. In the metro, the kids must be so hot in the winter. I can’t bear keeping my coat on for any length of time and I certainly wouldn’t be able to put up with wearing a balaclava or a hood with a thick scarf around my neck in a train.

Our flat is totally overheated even though we turn the radiators off but if the heating is adjusted so that we have the regulatory 19°C on the fourth floor, the people on the ground floor will only have 16°C. It’s the hot water going through the pipes that heats our place. The trouble is, you get used to having 23°C all the time. When we move to Blois, I suspect that I’ll have to invest in some warmer clothes!

But spring is well on its way, with daffodils and hyacinths and magnolias out in the Palais Royal Gardens. I swear I can see my bulbs growing in the window boxes. Yesterday, there was only one crocus out and today there’s a whole crowd of them. Not easy to take a photo though. Our balcony is actually just a gutter but it’s just wide enough to fit a small table and two chairs if one person sits down first and pulls the table forward to let the other squeeze in.

The people are milling around the fountain soaking up the sun. I must say that Parisians are real sun lovers. I guess if you’re starved for it the rest of the time it’s understandable. It’s actually surprising weather for March when you’re supposed to be getting “giboulées” which means a sudden burst of rain, sometimes accompanied by wind, hail or even snow, and often followed by bright sunshine. Not my scene!

Food, France, French customs, Paris

Summer in Paris – Obligatory Breathalyser – Let’s Make Duck

Leave a comment

Snippets from other blogs that I’ve enjoyed recently. Thank you to all those who wrote the posts.

Summer in Paris by Petite Paris, an Australian based service for Australian travellers and fellow francophiles on www.petiteparis.com.au

Summer transforms Paris!! To all our guests who have booked their summer in Paris…enjoy Paris Plages as the banks of the seine will be yet again be transformed into temporary sandy beaches with Palm trees brought in, deckchairs, ubiquitous ice cream sellers, and concerts for French and foreign guests! :). Read more

Obligatory Breathalyser by Kaz Reilly, Get Real France, an Irish Biddy living near Perpignan for the past 10 years.

If you’re travelling by car to France this year, don’t forget to furnish yourself with a breathalyser which you must by law have in your car from July 1st, 2012. If you are found without an “alcootest” or an ” éthylotest ” , you will face an on the spot fine of 23 euros… Read more

 

Let’s make duck! My lesson at La Cuisine Paris by Un Homme et une femme, Tales of Paris with Sir and Lady Lancelot

My second date with Sir Lancelot was planned for an early September night that turned out to be a horrible rainy day. Knowing that any plans to be outside were foiled, I received a text message from him that morning inviting me over for a “euro-trash” dinner cooked by Sir Lancelot himself. “Oh, a man who cooks!” I thought. Read more

Accommodation, Food, France, French customs, Lifestyle, Paris, Travelling

Paris Apartments – Travel Tips – Baguettes & Boulangeries

1 Comment

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!

Writing the unwritten rules of travel

Femmes Francophiles at  www.femmesfrancophiles.blogspot.com

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

Renting an Apartment in Paris: 10 Dos and Don’ts

by Doni Belau at www.girlsguidetoparis.com

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

Paris: Baguettes and Boulangeries

The Local Way by Bryan and Anna at www.paristhelocalway.com

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!