We started our journey looking for where we could work. High-speed Internet was and still is our water and air. Emily and I need it to work – and we need to work to live and travel. So, there's no two ways about it. One of our first tasks is to sniff out all the cafes and restaurants that have wireless Internet wherever we are. It's become a habit.
"That looks like a cool place – let's ask if they have WiFi." or "That guy's working on a laptop, they must have Internet, maybe we can work there…" On Patmos we could have given you the WiFi tour of the island complete with our recommendations about which cafe had the best speed, the best prices and the best food.
Cannes with France's trademark cafe culture, has given me a new and very nice problem – deciding where not to work. As I walk around town and see the cafes and brasseries lining the streets everywhere, the real question has become where, in my only two weeks here, do I want to go? Do I want to sit in this location or that one? Which one would be more fun? And which would be cooler to be seen? Who has what I want to eat and drink (pretty much all of them)? Who has the best deal on their daily lunch special (they all have a "formule dejeuner")? Which will be more comfortable? Do I want to be by the water, or in the beautiful streets a row back?
I know, these are the kinds of problems no one wants to hear anyone whine about. But let me say, it has taken up considerably more space in my brain that I would have expected. Part of the reason is because for these two weeks, I don't want to be just a tourist. I am living here for two weeks. I'm speaking French, I have a studio apartment, and I work. I have a wife no one knows about on another continent. I'm like practically every Frenchman here.
So, the cafes I work in are a big part of my experience. Unfortunately, my top two picks don't have WiFi. The very cool and modern French tea houses tend not to be Internet friendly even though people hang out there for hours. In my two favorites which I enjoyed last visit to Cannes, they seemed surprised that I would want WiFi (pronounced wee fee – which was very hard for me to buck up and say seriously). So now, I've scheduled those for the days when I write off-line because I really can't let them go.
My new – albeit very temporary – life as a wannabe Frenchman in Cannes has started off well. For the most part, people have been very kind with my French and helped me out. If they speak English back to me, I just continue responding in French and they usually revert. It's typically when I do the most basic transactions that people offer up some English. They hear I'm a foreigner and assume I probably know only a simple phrase or two.
But daily transactions are the easy part. I can do those without much thought. It's when I start to take on more that I find myself grading my conversations afterward and thinking things like, "Did I use the past participle correctly?" or "Damn, I should have said it that way!" or very commonly, "I need to start saying thank you and Madame and Monsieur more at the end of things – they all do! I probably sound very uncultured."
I've found that my target demographic for conversation is middle aged to older women. For some reason, they are more patient and seem to find my little stumbles cute. I sometimes take a moment to think of a particular word or mess up my conjugation with the wrong participle. I even used a word today that I think I might have made up – although I swear we used it in class…. That said, middle aged women who run shops have been very kind to me and talk to me like I'm not a foreigner. They don't act as if they're working through my accent. Of course, it helps that they feel very safe and non-judgmental, so I relax and speak better.
The lady at the post-office who helped me get the right envelope and talked with me as if I was a regular customer despite the fact that I was the only one lurking around trying to figure out where they kept packaging materials, is one of my heros. I also want to acknowledge the local laundry lady who was not only nice and conversational, but who made my shirts look and smell nicer than anyone ever has. Although you'll probably never read these words, Thank You, Laundry Lady!
I think my favorite conversation yesterday was when I stopped at one of the popular cahrcuteries in town to buy a piece of faullete for dinner. I asked the very nice target demographic woman which faullete was her favorite. She liked the salmon and goat cheese. I chose a different one because, I told her, it looked so beautiful – I had to try it.
From there, our conversation went something like this:
"Where are you from, Sir?"
"The United States."
"Ah, you like this faullete because you don't have nice food like this. You have food, but no cuisine!"
"Well, I think the French are much more artistic with their food. France has a culture which values art and treats its food among those arts."
"True! And you and the Canadians and even the French Canadians – you have all this food, but no cuisine! You have no background, no tradition and you haven't created anything as a culture. Italians, they have cuisine and the French. You have all these kinds of food, but nothing you created!"
"It's true, we have food from all over the world, especially in our major cities – but not a unified cuisine like France."
"And you don't consider digestion! French cuisine considers how food will be digested and chooses combinations your body can handle comfortably. America has no concept of digestion in their food. Your food is also so expensive!"
"Well, I don't know that it's more expensive than here. The costs here are rather high here."
"True, the Euro is stronger than the dollar and it makes things more expensive."
"But it seems like it must be more expensive for French people too."
"Yes, well, it was very different when we had Francs – things were affordable. But now, I suppose it's more costly for us too."
This was the second day that an innocuous compliment has turned into an indictment of American culinary practices. However, when I left, I got the feeling that she would be very glad if I came back to buy more of her very excellent and digestible food.
All of this attempting to be French and buying things from people with strong culinary philosophies made me realize that if I'm going to be Cannois for two weeks, I need to start doing more of what they do. I see people everyday walking down the street with their fresh loaf or baguette and a small bag from the grocery – probably filled with butter and cheese to go on said bread.
So, I too went to the local Carrefour where I discovered that cheese – fancy cheese whose names I've never heard before and which would all cost tons at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's – costs even less than wine, which in turn costs less than water. Cheese is the cheapest commodity yet.
So, with a quick stop at the city's most famous boulanger for the right bread, I found myself becoming a local. I ran my errands up and down the same street, going to the best store for each kind of thing, and talking with the shop owners as I went – after which I walked away with my loaf and cheese and slice of faullete.
But being French isn't just about shopping, eating, sitting at cafes and discussing what's wrong with American cuisine – that's only 80 percent of it. The last parts involve art and walking. I only had time for walking. So, as I walked around Cannes – along the water after the rain, admiring the sunset, I was rudely reminded that there was a convention in town and it had just let out.
These were not Cannois wannabe, cheese buying, chatting with laundry ladies and epicierie women foreigners like me. These were producers, actors and film distributors here this week for the MIPCOM convention where television producers sell their products to DVD producers and distributors.
As they flooded out of the Palais du Festivals et Congres, the city began flooding with phrases like, "Well, when I was in New York…." and "I got us a couple of meetings with him…." and "In those days, we couldn't do that…" Suddenly, things were becoming very un-French and remarkably like Los Angeles.
That's when somewhere in that flood, Diane Keaton – noticeable because she always wears a variation of the same suit – walked right by me.
And I could tell Diane had never considered how important digestion is in her cuisine.
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