France Tales

Yesterday for Independence Day, July 4th, we went to a celebration with the mayor of Toulouse. This party with drinks and lite food was arranged by Americans in Toulouse and Association France États Unis Midi Pyrenees. We were invited by Democrats Abroad and we thought they were part of the arranging, but it was clear they were not. It was located in a grand hall in the Place du Capitole. The room was great but the event was definitely not my cup of tea. I heard too many “God Bless America’s” for my taste, saw too many flags a waving, and felt like I had little in common with these people other than we were Americans. In general I look for people as friends who are smart, interesting, funny, well traveled, a little irreverent, independent thinkers, kind, and being an American can only add to a friendship, not be the basis for it. Here is a picture in support of Obama on the Place du Capitole, I felt bad after, but I had to decline holding the American flag, I am a little embarrassed to have been standing in front of it. I mean on Place du Capitole here we were, a bunch of Americans, waving flags, I hope no one I know saw me.

Last Thursday Thursday we went to a science exhibit, photography show, lecture in an old Electricté de France substation, EDF. It was an old factory that has been turned into an exhibition space. It is on the banks of the Garonne River where the Canal Brienne comes into the Garonne. The building and exhibition space were fantastic. There was a photo show of science lab like photos from I’d say the 50’s. They were interesting but not incredible. There were some schematic drawings from the Concorde and architectural drawings of the “boule”, the science observatoire near my job. Those were neat. The observatory is going to be open on July 9th for public viewing. Apparently it is not easy to get in to see it and it is very James Bond. We are going to go.

The lecture was fascinating. It covered lightening, thunder, and weather patterns. I know, it doesn’t sound fascinating but the speaker was funny and engaging so it was lively. Too bad there weren’t many people there. His name was Serge Chauzy, physicien de l’atmosphère et professeur émérite de l’Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, and the lecture was entitled,”Coup de foudre pour le métier de chercheur”, my literal French knowledge tells me it means more than lightning for the career of researcher. I looked it up and asked Jean-Jacques and it is an expression meaning to fall in love with research.

Visit the site of Sciences et Patrimoine, there is an English and a French version. Here you can see all kinds of interesting videos, games, photos, and upcoming events. The site is really well made and the navigation is clear, something I don’t usually find in French sites.

See a video here of Mssr Chauzy.

Games for kids.

This is the kind of science I wished I had been exposed to when I was younger. When I think back to my science classes in school they were boring and did not stimulate curiousity. Oh well, live now, as an adult, as a child.

Nicholas Sarkozy gets himself in trouble each week. Nicholas Sarkozy seems oblivious to the presence of microphones or video cameras, or at least how stupid they can make him look. It doesn’t take much to make Sarkozy look stupid so il faut fait attention. Just a few days ago it got him into trouble over the fiasco in Carcassonne, this time with a TV technician. In this video taken just the other day he curses out the tech and rails against the lack of manners. While displaying his own fine manners.

“It’s a question of manners,” Mr Sarkozy is heard muttering. “When you’re invited, you’re entitled to have people say ‘hello’ to you”.

At the end of the brief outburst, he appears to suggest the employee should not be working for state TV.

I noticed today that some stores had their sales signs up in Toulouse. Some of you may know that in France stores are only allowed to have sales 2 times per year. Once in the winter and once in the summer. I wrote a post about it in the winter that generated quite a response. Read it here.

I didn’t see the signs in all the stores so I guess some have tried to begin again early. There were a few stores that tried this last year and they got fined. Yes you can get fined if you start your sales early. There are pros and cons to this method but after being here for nearly a year I think it probably hurts small businesses more than it helps them, even though the French claim it protects small businesses. I found this interesting opinion on another site:
http://www.discoverfrance.com/france_travel_info/Soldes.htm

No time for the January blues to set in once the end-of-year holiday festivities have drawn to a close. In Paris, the sales season known simply as “les soldes” will be inaugurated on January 10 and you can be sure eager shoppers will be lined up in the Paris drizzle waiting to rush their favorite department store. What makes this French version of the after-Christmas sale so special? For one thing, sale events in France don’t crop up at each holiday occasion, but instead get concentrated into a month in winter (”soldes d’hiver”) and the better part of the month of July (”soldes d’été”). While some stores will run promotions at other times of the year, the word sale is not allowed into the French retail lexicon outside of these two defined periods, under threat of fine from governmental authorities. Most UK and US visitors shake their head in disbelief at the thought that Big Brother is meddling in everyday mercantile exchanges for items that remain in the realm of garments and household appliances. Yet, a State agency, with a name that goes something like General Directorate for Fair Trading, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control, is empowered to monitor that all shopkeepers and retailers strictly abide by these measures and it’s up to the local prefects to decide on which date the sales must cease and how deep the discount can actually be, whether 30, 40 or 50% off. So much for the free market… You may think that all these shopping rules and regulations are in place out of a genuine, although overly-authoritarian, concern to protect the consumer, yet in reality France’s read on consumerism is to make sure that luring customers does not breed disloyal competition to the detriment of smaller boutiques and shops. This governmental protection of the retailer goes hand in hand with legislation designed to safeguard small independent manufacturers and agricultural producers, both of whom provide a tremendous source of France’s economic prestige. So some advice to American visitors is to stop shaking your head, embrace this everlasting French tradition and treat yourselves to the experience of “les grands magasins”…

In France once per year there is La Fête de la Musique. It happens on June 21st every year. It is the longest day of the year and music occurs throughout every big city and small town. I knew about it but was unprepared for how enormous it would be. Every corner had a different group and a different style of music. We arrived home at 2:15AM and many people were still going out at the time. It was a wild time. Here are a collection of pictures from La Fête de la Musique in Toulouse, France.

Balkan Beat Box will be performing live in Toulouse this evening. Today is La Fete de La Musique in France. That means all cities and towns are having music all day long and well into the night. Concerts in every public square and every musical style. I started listening to Balkan Beat Box last year and grew to love them. Rio Loco is a festival that began earlier in the week in Toulouse which features music from all over the Balkan States. It’s grand finale is tonight to coincide with La Fete de La Musique. Here is a link to Balkan Beat Box’s page on the Rio Loco site, there is a video and 3 song previews. I would describe them as Gypsy Electronica music, they sing in Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic, English, Spanish, Bulgarian, and some others I cannot recognize. I just happened to see that they were playing tonight in Toulouse. There are so many groups performing tonight that it is a miracle that I even saw it. I will have pictures tomorrow.