Since my wife was busy with end-of-the-semester grading, I volunteered to do a little shopping. I made the mistake of going to Auchan on a Saturday afternoon. This is a store very similar to a Super Walmart, it’s got everything. It was absolutely packed. People everywhere looking for food, drinks, magazines, car parts, and everything else imaginable. Shopping in France is always interesting for me, even on a good day. You try reading the ingredients on the back of a package when you don’t understand the language it’s written in, and see where you get. Luckily, today I had a small list and most of the items were pretty obvious. Although I spent 20 minutes looking at vacuum bags before giving up and moving on. Unlike most Walmarts I have ever been in, Auchan actually had all of their check-out aisles open. But there were still a million people in each aisle with shopping carts loaded full. I took my place in a relatively short line full of people with only 10 or 11 items versus the 50 or 60 items per person in the other aisles.

Quickly another lady joins my line behind me. She puts her bags down behind my basket on the floor and says something. I have learned to basically ignore everyone here versus being pulled into a conversation I can’t possibly understand, or respond to, with any sense. Normally this procedure works because I can briskly walk away from whomever, and be on my way without any embarrassment or misunderstanding. But this time I was stuck in a slow-moving line and had to attempt comprehension. All I could understand from her smiling lips was “vert,” the French word for green. I quickly ran through a list of questions that could possibly contain the word green. I came up with none. Sensing I didn’t understand, the lady asked me again; this time kneeling towards her bags on the floor and pointing at my basket. Was she asking me if she could use my basket? What kind of nutball question is that? And besides my basket is most definitely red and the French word for red (rouge) sounds nothing like green. Finally, after failing to understand this poor woman’s question three times, I explained in my best French, that I didn’t understand what she was asking and spoke very little French. She smiled and proceeded to walk up to the cashier. After a quick conversation that I couldn’t hear, the lady leaned under the cashier’s counter and picked up a green basket. She smiled at the customer nearest the counter as she lifted the green basket up for him to see. As this was the answer they had all been looking for.

There are generally empty baskets laying under the counters in French markets. You pick a basket up when you walk in, fill it with your goods, and then empty the basket when you check out. Why in the world was this crazy woman asking me about the green basket? Am I the keeper of the baskets? Why does she need a basket now? We’re at the checkout counter. Surely she could keep track of her bags for a few more minutes. Presumably, she has lugged them across the store basketless, so why get one now when she’s ready to check out? The remainder of the time I waited in line, this woman continued to wander to nearby checkout aisles and browse their goods. She could not stand still. One minute she was on my left looking at candy. The next she was on the right checking out a mirror.

As I finally reached the check-out counter I lifted my red basket off the ground so that I could begin placing my items on the conveyer belt. No sooner than I had grabbed my bag of corn chips did I realize there was a snag in my plan. There was a small boy lying half his body across the conveyer belt. One can only assume his mother had been dragging him all day from store to store, while she shopped for goods, and he became exhausted. I thought I would give him a hint and began piling my chips next to his head. Any normal, self-conscience lad, I thought, would understand my need to empty the red basket, and move off the belt designed for groceries, and not little boys’ heads. But no, the boy’s head stayed. Now the mother of the conveyer belt boy begins leaning over the boy, and my corn chips, to check out some phone cards. Why she could not have perused these cards during the 10 minutes she was standing directly in front of them, nobody knows. But now that I am holding my increasingly heavy, red basket, her son is laying his head on the belt, and my chips are resting gently nearby, she has decided that phone cards could definitely be a purchase. Several minutes pass like this until she has decided to actually move around me and give those phone cards a good look-over.

By this point, I’m seeing red and don’t notice if the lady actually purchases the cards or not. What I do see is the line moving forward. Boy lifts his head off the conveyer belt and I am able to lay my goods down. Suddenly boy becomes frightened. There are several divider sticks laying near the cashier. These sticks are designed to maintain dividing points between each customer’s groceries, lest the cashier gets confused and charges my corn chips to someone else. There are several of these sticks laying near the cashier, but they are too far up the line to be grabbed by the boy. The boy is so frightened that my goods and his mothers may mix that he sticks his full right arm in between them. Excitedly, girlishly, he chatters to his mother about this problem. She seems to understand but is helpless to solve the matter. Meanwhile, crazy lady behind me begins stacking her grocers right on top of mine. I push my goods closer to the boy’s arm, but crazy lady keeps piling them right up on me. Feeling the boy’s pain I point my stare of hatred towards the cashier who is hoarding all the dividing sticks. “Why don’t you push those down here?” my mind asks. Can’t you see the problems you’re causing?

Finally, my turn arrives. “Bonjour” I say, as I sack and pay for your goods before leaving with a final “Au revoir.” Relieved that it is all over I pack my sacks into my backpack and head for the tram.

Song of the moment: “Elvis Presley Blues” by Gillian Welch

I’ve been sick again. Why do I get sick so much? I blame it on travel. During my first year in Indiana, I got very sick very often. Same thing for Alabama. Tennessee did me good though. This time it was a sinus thing. Very congested. Sinus trouble makes everything very surreal for me. Like it takes a moment for my eyes to focus on anything so I spend my day in a series of brief blurs. I was feverish Wednesday night. Go to bed freezing and piling covers on top. Wake up drenched in sweat and glad of it, for I know it is passing.

After considering London, Dublin, Scotland, and Spain we have finally decided on Rome for our February vacation. Prices all around are cheaper. Our only problem now will be in trying to fit all of the places we want to see into a few days. I’m hoping to head South as well and maybe catch the sea.

My head is too dizzy from bad sinuses and good drugs to write much more. But I wanted to check in to keep the few, the faithful from forgetting about my little piece of cyberspace.

Originally written on January 25, 2005.

Daniel and all of the AIM missionaries went to Belgium for a conference last weekend. It was decided that I should preach on Sunday. There was a time, many a year ago, when I aspired to be a minister of some sort. I gave up that aspiration for various reasons and haven’t done any type of preaching/teaching in a very long time. The last time I did anything like it was in 1999 when my parents were going to church in Grove, OK. At that time I read a few passages from Pascal and asked the audience what they thought about it.

Unfortunately, I left my Pascal in America and knew I would actually have to lead some sort of sermon. I worked a few things together and padded it with a lot of Scripture. Luckily there were only about 5 of us there. Half the congregation was in Belgium and the weather was poor enough to keep the rest at home. The funny thing was that even with so few Jean Claude was there and he doesn’t speak English. So Tammy had to translate everything for him.

We went to Laura’s home in the evening. A bunch of us ate pizza and watched a movie. The movie was French but was about a young man traveling to Spain and living with an eclectic group (I’ve since learned the title is L’Auberge Espagnole). It was difficult for me to follow. Most of it was in French, but the group that was living together all spoke English or Spanish. So I got a French soundtrack part of the time, then it would switch to Spanish with French subtitles or English with French subtitles. I would concentrate really hard on what was being spoken to understand what little French I could. Then I would have to stop listening and try to understand the French subtitles. Then it would turn to English being spoken but it would take me a minute to realize I could actually understand what was being spoken and stop reading the subtitles.

We went home around 1 in the morning. It was cold and snowing! Beautiful snow too. Big bright, fluffy, flakes coming down all around. It packed rather well as well so we had to throw a few snowballs. Suddenly I became the loud guy on the street who I am normally cursing. It didn’t last too long and now there is hardly a remnant left.

We’re trying to plan a vacation in February. Originally we thought we’d go to London and then maybe Dublin, but it is looking a little too pricey for the moment. So now the plan is to take a tour of German castles. We’ll see if that works out.

After my French lesson on Saturday my tutor, Ann, gave me a little lecture about practicing.

“You need to go over your verbs.” she said. She then brought out a little address book. The address book had English words with French definitions filling its pages. They were alphabetized in the book in the same manner you would use it for address’. On page B instead of Bowland and Bales there was a banana and beach towel.

“You should get one of these. I’ve found it very helpful with my English vocabulary.” She then asked me if I had any friends that I could speak French with. Upon admitting that, no, I tended to hang out with English speakers Ann told me to start speaking with Amy.

“You’ve been here five months and hardly speak a word of French,” she lectured. Before I could counter that I had really only been here four months and that the first one didn’t count as I wasn’t taking lessons she expressed her worry over me wasting my time and money on lessons. We agreed to meet on Monday and I promised to do better.

I mentioned Ann’s lecture in a casual conversation on the phone with my mother.

“Mathew,” she said, “you know why you aren’t doing well? You aren’t studying, are you? Are you paying for these lessons?”

Upon hearing that yes, I was in fact paying for them she increased her lecture to a feverish pitch. My mother is a world-class nagger and here she was in top form. She urged me to start hitting the books. She added a stern voice while telling me that I was wasting my money if I wasn’t practicing the language with Amy. She swore she would have no son if I didn’t get things together.

It worked. Amy and I spent an hour the next evening speaking in French. She picked an old LaRedoute catalog and chose interesting pages to talk about. At first, she would describe what the models were wearing and ask me to repeat the French words for “skirt, boots, and jacket.” Then she would quiz me on the different colors being worn or where the models were located. Soon I was making up little stories to go with the picture.

“That girl is from Lawrence, KS,” I’d say, “she came to Paris on a two-week vacation. After three days her luggage was stolen and she couldn’t afford to stay in the hotel. After 7 days she had to start prostituting herself to live.”*

I was remembering words I didn’t know I had ever learned. Suddenly I could conjugate the verb “to steal” in the third person past form. The problem with my tutoring sessions is that we are continually learning new and more difficult language use. We rarely review in class and I am supposed to remember at will any past lesson. My mind gets so tied up in unscrambling the new information that it is too scared to remember anything older than a few minutes. But now in a casual setting with nothing new keeping me occupied I was remembering three months worth of verbs, nouns, and prepositions. I was far from perfect, and I had a very limited vocabulary but it was enlightening to suddenly be able to make a complete sentence and better yet, have it understood.

Amy and I have been speaking every day since and I have started using an address book for new vocabulary and grammar. “How is your sandwich?” I’ll ask over lunch. “I like the cheese.” And Amy, with an encouraging smile will say, “Tres bien.”

* In actuality this conversation went more like this: “She is American. She go to Paris. She no have bags and money. She is prostitute.”

1. Money: I hate to start off with such a materialistic beginning to this list, but I can’t help it. I hate being poor. Amy and I are doing ok here, we’ve got a good budget and manage to have a nice place to stay and eat good meals every day. But man, I miss being able to buy movies, music, and books and being able to go out to dinner more than once a month. We were far from rich in Indiana, but we were able to splurge a little without having to worry about paying the bills.

2. Hamburgers: Once in a while we buy some red meat and I make my own burgers. Other than that and the occasional overpriced McDonalds/Quick pit stop that’s the only time I get a burger. There is nothing like stopping by your favorite greasy joint and tasting a big, fat, juicy burger.

3. My car: I drive a little 1996 Saturn. It’s nothing fancy, or fast, but it’s a solid car and rides well. I love to drive. If it is not overseas or our honeymoon Amy and I drive to where we’re going. I love to have control of a vehicle maneuvering in and out of traffic or taking it fast down a deserted highway. Strasbourg is a nice city to walk around in, and the tram/bus system is top-notch. But I miss the whir of sliding my car through traffic.

4. TV: I hate to put this on this list. As a card-carrying member of the “blow up your TV” club I’ll be dismembered for missing television, but darned if I don’t. Most of what’s on TV stinks. We had a satellite in Indiana and I generally just watched the news, the History Channel, and old movies on TCM. Even with all the crap I still miss being able to sit mindlessly for a little while and flip. I really like the unexpectedness of it. I never subscribe to any kind of TV guide so it’s generally a mystery to me what is on at any given moment. That was a certain joy in flipping channels to find an old favorite movie on or a great episode of Cheers.

5. Convenience: A car might help this out by making trips to anywhere quicker, but even with faster transportation Strasbourg would still be very inconvenient. There isn’t a store with everything in it. If you want aspirin or antacid you go to a pharmacie. If you want good bread you go to a boulangerie. Good desserts you go to a patisserie. You need to buy the groceries for the week you have to go to three different supermarches, and that’s if you don’t want really fresh fruit, otherwise, it is another trip to a street market. Do you want lights? Go to one store. A shade for the light, that’s another store altogether. Heaven forbid you should need any of this on a Sunday or Monday or after 8 pm on any day. Nothing is open 24/7 here. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe we’ve gone crazy in the US where everything is open all the time and you can get everything you need in one store. But it is extremely annoying to be used to that kind of convenience your whole life only to have it lost in France.