Foot, gym, zoo, & droppin' outta schoo'

Vilanjou. The biggest U-11 uniforms
are a little short(s).

It's official. Jack has a license to kick in France. The soccer league office had rejected his Bellingham doctor's athletics release form, telling us that he'd need to be examined by a French doctor before playing in any games. Site director Sue came to the rescue and and hooked us up with a local doc who was willing to issue the needed stamp based on U.S. doctors' paperwork. But wait, there's more! The league office then decided we'd need to submit proof of residency for Jack. So, digging into our now substantial pile of foundational documents, we compiled exhibits A through D -- another curious chain of "proof" and unspoken assumptions that somehow provides the youth soccer office with a defense against accusations of harboring wayward aliens.

We haven't actually seen the license. All the players' licenses are kept by the coach in an attractive leather pouch which is taken to games. Upon arrival, the ten or so 13-digit license numbers are transcribed onto a game form. The first order of business is to administer the standardized skills testing and record results on each player's row on the form: number of consecutive right-foot juggles, left-foot juggles, and head bounces. The two games so far have been at very nice fields -- one in a rural town, Vilanjou, about a 25-minute drive south, and one across the river in Beaucouzé. How is youth soccer in France different from youth soccer in the United States you ask. Well... let me count some ways. 1) For the most part, parents and families don't go to the games. Most players are dropped off at their home-club field (yes, very nice publicly-supported playing fields spread throughout the land) and crammed into a few cars with coaches and one or two parents who go along. 2) Snack: In France (where as Steve Martin says, "they have a different word for everything.") it's called goûter (goo-tay). The host field provides the goo-tay for all players while the coaches (and parents with nothing better to do when their kids are out of the house) go to the cash-bar and have a beer. 3) In the U.S. you might be surprised to see the coach smoking a cigarette while yelling to his players to stay in position. 4) Back to the facilities -- even at the youth level, each team is provided a locker room. Players just don't jump out of the mini van wearing their uniforms and cleats. After the game, players go clean up, change back into regular clothes, and then partake in the goo-tay. This also allows more time for beer.    Soccer & gymnastics pictures

Last Saturday was also Ella and Ivy's second gymnastics meet with Angers Gymnastique. A lot more teams this time gathered at yet another beautiful sporting facility down the road in Les Ponts-de-Cé. "Anjay Jeem" did great -- taking second place and securing an invitation to the May 28 meet in Laval.

Ella looked good coming off the bars but, because they
don't post scores here in France, we can only assume it was...
Is it true? ... Oh my god it is... A  PERFECT 10!!!

We keep appreciating the short, one hour French gym meets during which the same amount of gymnastics takes place as the seemingly endless affairs back home. The differences are 1) team size is limited to five. In the U.S. it is often over 10 and so the rotations through events creep and creep. 2) Scores are not posted. 3) Awards are given for team score only and only to the top three teams. No self-esteem nonsense here unlike U.S. meets where awards are given for every event, overall individual scores, and team scores -- all down to 11th place. Don't do the math, it will take even longer. It's nuts. 4) While the French gym-meet regimen saves time on gratuitous medal distribution, it takes some of that back with all the bisous ("bee-zoo" -- little kisses). Ella and Ivy were better prepared this time to go with the flow of countless kisses at the medal stand. It's a process. The second place team bisses (mmwah, mmwah) with each of the first place team and then takes its spot on the second level. The third place team then mmwah-mmwahs down the line of all 1st and 2nd place cheeks. Then the old dudes who deliver trophies and medals need to get in on the action and apparently their technique is a little more old-school. Ella and Ivy reported that their medal-hanger had gross wet lips. I'd chime in about the exquisite goo-tay stand at the gym meet but I don't want to sound like a broken record. And if I'm using the phrase broken record, I might be mistaken for an old man with wet lips. Number 9. Number 9. Number 9.

Château de Brissac as seen from Anjou Bus. I'm sure they
built it there to be close to public transit.

Speaking of number 9,  Monday we jumped on line 9 of Anjou Bus (the Angers-centric regional bus system) and headed out to Doué-la-Fontaine, home of Bioparc -- the recently re-named Zoo de Doué-la-Fontaine. They changed the name as part of their 50th anniversary -- 50 years of animals trapped in the large rectangular open pits of a long-abandoned stone quarry. But, ironic juxtaposition of strip-mining and species preservation aside, it was a well-done and oddly picturesque location which seemed to provide some decent space -- at least compared to where a lot of other captive animals live (and even work).
But, Bioparc did offer some notable options that most zoos I've been to would shun. As soon as you walk in, you can buy a bag of popcorn. Pourquoi? French people don't eat popcorn. Well, silly: It's for the animals. Yes, a zoo where you're invited to feed any and all animals who will eat it, popcorn. I think of the National Park campfire talks I've listened to where the rangers would have you feel guilty for accidentally dropping an almond on the ground, thus throwing the whole natural world out of balance. But, I guess a zoo is already so far out of whack it might as well just run with it. Next, we had to take advantage of the very good restaurant that was built right to the edge of the "camp des girafes." If they had wanted to, those giraffes could have shared my fish with curry sauce. But, again, an underlying French tenet seems to bear out: if something is worth doing, it's worth doing with good, thoughtfully presented food.  Bioparc pictures.

In between animals at Bioparc.

Spring in Angers has not been any kind of subtle, incremental shift in temperature and daylight. It's been head-on beautiful. And since we've never been here before, we can be totally confident in assuming it's like this every year. Walking around it's easy to frequently wonder how so much can look so good?  Public parks, pedestrian plazas, lasting infusions of artistry in architecture, public art, and one of my favorite elements, hardscape. Well done stone and brick work is everywhere that people are expected to gather for shopping, eating, bench-sitting, smoking, and kissing. The landscaping itself can seem a little too formal and overdone at times -- like I've always found trees in boxes to be dumb. But lay down the cut stone and mortar (and maybe a bronze nude or two) and voila, you've got yourself an urban womb of rejuvenating calm.  Angers spring pictures

Stumbled upon these folks across the river carved on an evidently less-celebrated half-timber house. The primary figures are labeled with some virtues: friendship (I will keep your skull with me at all times when you die),  liberality (I have a bag of stuff which I'll probably share), magnificence (crowns and capes - wear 'em if ya got 'em) , and illegible snake slayer girl. It's also interesting to note that nipple rings and the extreme standing-eagle yoga pose are nothing new.

In my bloggish opinion, overt artistic and decorative elements need to make a major comeback in the urban environment. It's not a French or European thing as much as it is a post-industrial thing I figure. But as I spend more time here, the question is becoming more: why wouldn't you carve, sculpt, paint, inlay, (etc.) animals, people, flora into and onto your house, school, bank, so on and so on? So much wasted surface. Look out neighbors, we're gonna have a chisel party. Another option is guerilla art which I've also been enjoying a lot of here.  Found art in Angers

School report

Ivy, Jack, & Ella on their last day in the
halls of the old convent--trying to hold
back the tears.

In the run-up to Jack, Ivy, and Ella's two week spring break at Collège La Madeleine, it occurred to us, with seven weeks left in our stay, to reevaluate their options. And, we decided they could drop out. They've had a really great experience at their school, meeting local kids, learning some French, helping classmates who are learning English. But, while it was a good environment for listening to a lot of French,  there were frequent chunks of time when teachers would tell them they'd be better off reading a book or just going to the library for the next hour. Not totally unreasonable given the way we parachuted in in the middle of the school year but not a model worth sticking with till the very end or our visit. They'll still be having French tutoring with Pauline twice a week (maybe more now). Their school friends are already making arrangements to hang out outside of school (which is probably better for language learning). And I'm making a list of incredibly boring field trips that I'm sure will prove to be the best days that ever were.

Bonus conclusion

Poulet roulé

So I'm cooking a chicken for dinner tonight. I remembered seeing some kind of poultry rack under the oven, so I opened the little door and went through the inventory. There was a little wire frame and a skewer down there but where would that go? It looked the same dimension as an oven rack but I didn't see the point if there's no way to spin it. So I put it in anyway and then I saw it. A magic hole where the skewer goes. Our oven has a built in rotisserie. Wooooooooo. That's so awesome! I'm sittin' here bloggin' while the bird is spinnin' to golden perfection. Life's little surprises are so good sometimes.

L'âge de la découverte

Why do we Americans call it French toast if French people don't even eat eggs for breakfast? These types of idiosyncrasies are fun to consider. But thanks to the internet, there's really no reason to involve you (other people) in such musings. I should just google it and go back under my rock. So, in deference to your prerogative, in consideration of your time, I'll abandon the French-toast mystery and dump it on the pile of evidence for the age-old assertion that contemporary media is killing social interaction (if by that you're willing to include conversations about toast).

I really can't ignore this self-made opportunity to tell my favorite toast story--a bit of a diversion from the Angers, France theme. It was a Saturday morning in 1991. I was still living in San Francisco so there's really no need to talk about seasons. I woke up on Nelligan's couch--an obvious indicator that it'd been another quality Friday night celebrating 36.5-hours of "work" at McCutchen. In need of breakfast, Patrick flexed his culinary muscle and set to fixin' a baking sheet of toast. Having badly burned all the prospective toast, it was suggested we see who could throw a piece of it the farthest. In case you're unfamiliar with Patrick's early 90's SF apartment (which doesn't exist anymore), it was one of a few units carved out of a natural wood hippy shack on 17th Street. Built on the back half of a very steep, rocky, lightly-forested lot on a very steep street, Patrick's door and front porch were at the top of very steep stairs. Just outside the door, we were about 200 feet from the street at a 45-degree angle. I can't remember who led off but my shot was a beauty. A backhanded wrist flip sent the toast off with impressive rotation and a visually pleasing slalom arc through the tree branches. As it became clear that this charcoal encrusted wonder was going all the way, a car came into view from the right, driver window down and... IN went the toast.

Superimposed on the Google Street

View of what's there today, the

approximate trajectory of the

epic toast flight.

In the same, unbelievable fraction of a second, the car exited our lot-wide view. We weren't looking for it but somehow this moment provided a sense of triumph--as if giving an unsuspecting driver an unfathomable yet mundane experience was a mission we'd been on for months. Who knows where this story might have gone next. But regardless of whether there's a chapter two, flying toast victim, here's to you (and that would be a toast).

My newly appointed panel of experts on all things Angers.

Back in Angers we've continued to encounter some ungoogleable puzzles. And just yesterday, I realized that I have the perfect, off-line resource for solving these curiosities--a panel of experts. Most Thursdays, in the hour leading up to lunch, I've been volunteering at the Angers Anglophone Library with the English conversation group--folks that meet to keep their previously acquired English in tune. Right off the bat, my experts are two-for-two.

1. What are those two-color, stripe symbols painted on poles, stones, and trees along the river and in other parts of town?
Well, this turned out to be easy. I was hoping that these markings would be the secret code of nocturnal masons. As it turns out, if I were any kind of euro-hiker, I would be all too familiar with the way-finding symbology of La Fédération Francaise de la Randonnée Pédestre. Founded by Jean Loiseau in the mid 1940s to create and maintain a wide network of hiking trails, the website history section explains that "He inquired about what already existed in some foreign countries: Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and even the United States in the Appalachian Mountains where they had the good idea to put paint stripes on different media in nature (rocks, trees, etc.).." This method would likely still be used in Appalachia if they hadn't switched to using junked cars in 1951.

2. How is it that taxi drivers in Angers (or all of France?) have some of the nicest cars on the road?

Do I want to hail the Audi taxi
or the 'Benz?

I should start off by saying that I can see great reasons why taxis should be the nicest cars on the road. If you're going to drive a taxi for ten hours a day, you should have a nice office. And if we want to encourage alternatives to car ownership and parking lots, taxis should be alluring options, not holding cells on wheels designed to be hosed out at shift's end. But how is this the case? Subsidies? Tax breaks? Well my experts first let me know that taxis in Angers are expensive -- pricier than Paris -- especially at night when the rates go up. But also, the tax write-off turns out to be part of the the equation. And at the end of the shift, a driver can pull the blue light off the roof and, voila, sleep in their car.


On special this week: Since my most regular interaction with locals is paying for groceries and baked goods, store shelves continue, sadly, to be my most reliable proxy for conversations that might otherwise be a more defensible basis for commentary on life as it's lived here (which, from the sidelines, looks pretty flippin' good).

In France, is this like, buying shampoo
and conditioner? Or is it just another
five-euro dilema? Is the next step to
create a blended product, add
chocolate, or both?

Virtue and vice and processed rice,
that's what Barbie Dolls are made
of. *Serving suggestion. **Inflatable
Ghost of Barbie not included.

We stocked up on French groceries for Jack's 11th birthday Friday. After Evelyn's visit a few weeks ago, we needed to declare a moratorium on pain au chocolat. But we lifted it to kick off b-day festivities.

Jack's request for his day of hooky was a picnic at Parc de Balzac across the river. After pre-dinner/pre gymnastics brownies and ice cream, Jack's friends from the 'hood all joined up for a birthday Skype session on their way to school in Bellingham (very fun -- thank you!!!).

At the banque,  you need to
expose yourself for money.
(I never noticed FP mom's
360˚ bossom.)

In other news from the last week, we haven't really noticed much impact here in Angers from France's new prohibition on burqas that went into effect Monday. Waiting for the bus on the way home from Jack's soccer practice I noticed that to enter the ATM kiosk I was standing next to a customer is supposed to remove face and head coverings. So, if you keep your burqa in exchange for the 150€ fine, you can't use an ATM to get the cash? And what do people look like here when you convince them to remove their hats, sunglasses, chin-high collars, scarves, and face veils? Answer: Round-headed, smiley faced, ATM-worthy Fisher Price cylinder people. So take note, when everyone fits in the same size hole it's a lot easier for The Man to take your money at the parking garage.

Friends don't let friends wear farmed fashion.

The salmon are running: In fashion this week, one word, salmon. I don't know how the communiqués are issued but, as if a switch was thrown at the prefecture,  everyone's got their salmon-pink jackets, scarves, pants... you name it... on. Kristin doesn't share my sense that this recent shift in outerwear is especially pronounced or notable. Maybe this is less a French/Angers thing than it is a result of comparing any observation about clothing rituals to Bellingham, WA -- where the most intense fashion topic in three years was probably a new color of Danskos.
Au revoir for now.

Order, chaos, and mockery on parade

Spring continues to deliver new leaves, flowers, bird songs, lizards (lots actually) and visitors. Grandma Linda, Grandpa Hugh and sister Jeanne stepped off the TGV from Charles de Gaulle airport on Thursday with the calm self assurance of daily commuters (however it will be more than a week before they ply this skill again). I tell myself they must have benefited from previously posted accounts of our TGV foibles -- an "if nothing else, one can always serve as a bad example" sort of thing.

Apocalypse Tapestry (wild things 1373) vs.
'Wild Things... (1963).
Go to your doom vs. go to your room.

Getting right into it with new visitors is easy here in centre ville.  Even on my third visit to the Château d'Angers in two months, there's a lot of chât to look at. (Photos) And really, I think it took three visits to connect with the Apocalypse Tapestry which is housed there -- the world's longest tapestry and most famous true tapestry in France (since, tapestry buffs will have you know that the Bayeux "tapestry" is actually embroidery). Some revelations take longer than others. But creatively delivered reminders of how treacherous and scary life can be are always worth waiting for. And even walking around town, it's easy to wonder if old-world perspectives on uncertainty (such as the fairly decent chance that a seven-headed devil dragon could descend from a fire-cloud at any moment and bite your head off) still inform the region's notion of public safety. The château itself is actually a perfect example of this. The moat, a 40-foot drop, is separated from the sidewalk by a 2-foot wall.

Jardin des moat. Looks
steep but, it's all about
balance.

Is more left to chance in France? Or, are some places, like the United States, obsessed with certainty? Is adaptability a virtue or a symptom of low self esteem? To describe societies we often cite the relative amount of order imposed on various aspects of daily life. They put barriers between opposite directions of highway traffic. They eat raw meat. Their trains are never late. They never care what time it is. They'll let anyone see a doctor.

In France: Accidents don't happen

to toddlers, mindless parents do.

I'm guessing it's more the case that all societies try to impose about the same amount of cumulative order and standards on their worlds. How that instinct to master the universe is divided and applied to civic life is, I think, a basic component of culture. Consider the intersection at our address: 33 Rue de la Roë. Among the four signs there are different layouts, parsings, fonts, and spellings. In the U.S. this would be an inconsistency in need of correction--it could cause the Publishers' Clearinghouse Sweepstakes envelope to get misdirected. But, it works. It's enough that all the signs are blue with white letters. The conformity forgone with street-lettering is applied to other categories--like window treatments.

Out with the old, in with the eww. I mean, you think you
know a country and then they start with the volets roulets.

And that would be shutters. Pretty much all windows have shutters (volets). And, it seems like all shutters (sadly) are gradually being replaced with volets roulets (rolling"shutters") which look like miniature warehouse doors. Our apartment's windows are fully equipped with "voolay roolay." Fancy ones are motorized. Ours are hand-cranked with seven-foot poles. We rarely roll them down for some reason. Maybe it just seems too much like a signal that we've withdrawn to the bunker. I'm pretty sure through that they would stop flaming arrows.

Our apartment according to the

Angers Fire Department.

And what if a flaming arrow? On the public safety front, while smoke detectors are nowhere to be seen, outside every apartment door is a detailed floor plan with the gas-shutoff location marked. While this helps party crashers find your fridge, it's also a good snapshot of those charming asymmetries from the days of Donald Rumsfeld -- when you built a building along the angles of the streets you have, not the streets you wish you had. These schematics also help the roulet voulet sales reps have an estimate prepared before they even ring your bell.

I'm sure that everyone's shutters have been opened/rolled up this week in order to see all the festiveness outside. Friday (April 1) was Poisson d'avril (Fish of April). We've been trying to track down a verifiable explanation of this variation (or some sources would suggest origin) of April Fools' Day. The outcome is basically similar, though. People play jokes on one another, the most traditional of which is to attach a paper fish on someone's back. This apparently started when the celebration of the new year shifted to align with the calendar year and people who were out of the loop, and still expecting traditional "new year's" gifts of food on April 1 (most commonly fish since it was Lent) would be mocked by being given a fake fish.

Figure 1: Life Cycle of the Poisson d'avril au Chocolat.

So, not quite in the same way that I think it would be funnier to switch back to giving people a real fish at 8:30 in the morning, the choclatiers have intervened to solidify the metaphor with cocoa, sugar, and... wait for it... butter. As the diagram at left shows, the larger fake fish often swallow a joke whole and it can be extracted and enjoyed before eating the fake fish which, funnily enough, costs much more than real fish. So the punch-line is both the end and the beginning. I'm sure the choclatiers are laughing with me.

Poisson d'avril also means young school children dress up and are lead on little parades through the neighborhoods in the morning. Top five categories of chosen costumes are sword-wielding pirates, mermaids, princesses, superheros with hyperbolic muscle inserts, and tomahawk-wielding Apache. The teachers feign obliviousness to the 20 or so paper fish taped to their backs.

Moving on to real food, it's a bit more real here. The Saturday markets don't only remind us that other animals can be on the menu (rabbit, horse, eel, etc.) but also remind us that all of these creatures can be dead and still have heads, eyes, and feet. This apparently dates back to the days when you were supposed to be skeptical of what you were buying unless you could look it in the face and make a positive ID. It was hard to be a vegetarian because, let's face it, carrots don't smile. The fact that chickens are sold without heads and feet in the U.S. (save dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets) obviously shows how much more Americans trust each other. And, really, what do we care as long as there's dippin' sauce?

The parade theme carried into the weekend with Carnaval d'Angers. The extra fun thing was that the carnaval (parade) went right down Rue Saint Laud, underneath our balcony, continued for five or six more blocks, and rounded back up to Place du Ralliement, just up the street. A drum corps, Bloco Chango, self-described as Afro Brazilian (so... south of the equator) certainly gave a high-energy start to the carnaval (and never stopped for three hours now that I think about it). (video below)

I have some pictures of the parade which I will be sharing with organizers of the ski-to-sea parade back in Bellingham--a parade that year after year conjures up the same formations of public safety hardware, anachronistic fraternal orders, and SUVs towing overtly commercial "floats" that they dwarf.

Equally as fun, since it was a tremendously nice day, was the people-watching from our balcony as the time for the carnaval drew near.  If you're curious about current French fashion and styles, check out my paparazzi Spring Fashion Review via the Rue Saint Laud cat walk.

Carnaval goers get hungry and for that, there're Nutella crepes. We were happy to see able-baker Charlie back in the groove with his crepe-making setup out in front of Le Grain de Malice--the closest boulanger up the street from us. Jack and Kristin saw "Charlie" having a bad morning a couple of weeks ago. As they walked by on the way to school, an unhappy customer was yelling about his sandwich and simultaneously throwing it at the baker. The sandwich bounced off the glass case into pieces. Unhappier still, perhaps due to his poor aim, the customer charged behind the counter and punched Mr. Baker in the eye. Numerous other customers had already flagged down nearby police who, by the time J & K were rounding the corner, already helping Mr. Cranky think about his choices. After few days, Jack reported that the baker was back in action, behind the counter with his big black eye. But he looks pretty good in this video--the crepes of wrath.

Bon appétit Au revoir. Bonne soirée.