Starting from the end

Since the trip home is already written (contrary to the holiday itself), I’ll just post it first   Here goes:

When the pilot announced an early landing I let myself get my hopes up for the 19h04 train. I tried not to but it just too tempting. It would mean being home up to an hour earlier than planned,without the need to change trains at Zurich HB (as it is there is always a change at Basel). Both prospects: the earlier arrival and the minimisation of train changes were too pleasant not to hope for, but we were at the very back of the plane, and at one of the far gates. We hurried along the moving sidewalks (bless Zurich airport for those!), and Luc tried to get me to relax and slow down a bit. I managed to somewhat, and even told him that I could accept that we wouldn’t make it, but had not let go (I almost believed myself actually!). The baggage started coming out onto the carrousel just as we got there, keeping the dream alive just a little longer. After 10 or 15 bags, my backpack appeared, and I just had time to take out the straps (which are conveniently designed to be zipped into the pack for travel and violent baggage handlers, who have nonetheless managed to rip different parts of the poor bag) and our small suitcase appead by the time I was rolling/tucking away the straps’ cover. We ran through customs (passport control had been before baggage claim) and took a left (Thank goodness for well-signed airports) and took off for the Bahn (train station) conveniently located in the airport (if only Mulhouse/Basel airport was so convenient!). We were closer than I thought to the 4 train platforms, but without my glasses I couldn’t really all the signs that indicated the stops (further proof that I am the grandma that a few of my French friends have often called me). I didn’t see Basel indicated at platforms 1 or 2, but didn’t have time to worry about not seeing it at 3 or 4, Since Luc’s better vision saw it at platform 1. It was 19h02. We hurried down the escalator and saw the train waiting. Annoyingly, the first class cars were the ones closest to the escalotor , so we ran a ways down (or up?) the platform. When the two nearest doors started to close simultaneously, I hit the button to reopen one of them, and we boarded, continuing our journey to second class safely inside the train. We found seats, put our luggage on the rack, and took our coats off while trying to calm down and get over our (my?) astonishment that we had made it. 19h04 came and went, and I got that frequent last second worry that we were on the wrong train. I didn’t make it to door, as a controller was on his way in. I asked him (in more stilted german than it should have been – I blame the adrenaline) and my fears were eased just as the train started moving.

I pulled out my handy Basel SBB books, which give me all the arrival and departure times for the station, and knew we had 20 minutes to change trains, with the platform indicated and everything (the French SNCF isn’t nearly so well organized). We double checked the platform on arrival, and the train was already waiting (no waiting in the cold!). At Mulhouse, the tram was waiting out front, although we had to wait a few minutes before leaving. At Porte Jeune, the tram change was picture perfect: our second tram arrived just as we exited the first. The walk home was frigid, but short, and we actually were home an hour ahead of time.

So there you have it. I don’t remember the last time I had a trip that went so smoothly. I suppose my bad luck was transferred Monday morning though, when one of my teammates showed up 45 minutes late, because her train forgot to stop at the station nearest the office, and she ended up halfway across the city!

Technology is cool

While I’m not actually eligible for my latest discovery, I have just found out that the Swiss train service (SBB) who already has ridiculously convenient tickets that you can buy online and print yourself, now also has electronic tickets that you can have delivered to your mobile phone (well, if you have a permanent residence in Switzerland and a contract with a Swiss mobile phone company – neither of which I have). What makes that particularly cool is that if you happen to have the internet on your phone, you could actually buy your ticket on the platform (or on the train for that matter), and not have to wait in line while watching the train pull out of the station or some such frustrating thing. Of course the major downside is that if your phone dies, I guess you’re kinda stuck, so it’s not quite as convenient as the Arlanda Express in Stockholm, but (to be fair) the Arlanda Express only has 1 possible route, so the system is less complex to begin with. Anyway, I’m babbling. Technology is cool though.

How to potentially ruin a holiday without thinking (before it even starts)

Well actually, it’s the “without thinking” that’ll do it. As it is I put off my shopping wAAy too long, considering the fact that I can’t just show up at the door with stuff I bought hours before, which added a layer of stress that irritated me to no end, but this morning was the real killer: this time tomorrow I should be on my way to the airport to head to Bucharest and spend Christmas with family there. Where does the “no thinking” come in? Too much time and freedom travelling around here, that it didn’t occur to me until this morning to see if I needed a visa. In past travels, I have needed visas twice: Czech Republic and Turkey (although Turkey was all handled for me, since it was a business trip).

So with my stress level through the roof, I got online and went looking. Inevitably, the first information I came across was intended for Americans who, as it turns out, don’t need a visa, but this was little comfort for me since they don’t need one for the Czech Republic but Canadians do (or at least did when I was there a few years ago). I soon came across a partial sentence that put EU and Canadian citizens (among others) in the same group, which seemed like a good sign. Sure enough, a (totally unofficial) website started to put my mind at ease. Next I needed to find an official site that said the same. I found the list of country from whom nationals require a visa, and downloaded it nervously. Once open, I went straight for the search box, while Luc tried to calm me down, pointing out that the C’s were already on screen, and that there was nothing between Camaroon and Cape Verte. And yet here I am only partially reassured. I don’t need to ask how I didn’t think of such a thing: I’ve had a lot on my mind for the last while, travelling in Europe is generally a breeze (plus Romania is part of the EU now), and Canadians generally have it pretty easy getting into foreign countries, but it’s no excuse. Time for me to get back to preparing for trips weeks and months ahead.

Anytime the blood wants to head back towards my brain would be great: I have to be at work soon!

It’s that time of year again

Oh, you thought I meant Christmas? Well there is that, although this year I am so far from being on time with anything related to Christmas, I’m not sure I’ve even realized how far behind I am, but this time of year, for the last few, has also meant bureaucracy time. My residence/work permit is valid for one year, and must be renewed in January (for which I have to submit the papers in December). This renewal requires a minimum of two visits to the sous-préfecture: the first is to get the list of things I have to bring, and the second is to bring the things on the list (as well as the list itself). I suppose the “pick up the list” requirement is to cover the fact that the rules may have changed from one year to the next either in general, or relative to one’s own citizenship, or perhaps relative to one’s own situation, but for the past couple of years I have had to go in to pick up a list that is remarkably similar from year to year. Ok, fair enough, especially since next year my situation will be different, since this time next year I plan to be married to my favourite Frenchie (although rumour has to the bureaucracy surrounding that is nothing to smile about!).

Anyway, since I launched this blog to include some “pense-bêtes” (the elegant translation is “reminders”) for myself about this bureaucracy stuff, and potentially for others who might be in the same situation, here’s what I needed to renew my status:

- 3 photos (black and white on a white background): thankfully photo booths are EVERYwhere, and notably at the train station, thus available 24/7

- my passport and a photocopy of the page with my photo, name, passport number..

- my current carte de séjour / titre de séjour as well as a photocopy of both sides of it

- a “certificat de travail” from the company I work for, with my profession, salary and “weekly working hours”

- copies of my last three pay stubs (cultural aside: just about everyone is paid monthly, actually everyone that I know, which took some getting used it when you’re used to bi-weekly/semi-monthly, although those schemes are no more than a distant memory for me at this point)

- My electricity, gas, or land line bill (as a proof of address)

- a self-addressed stamped envelope

- 70€ of OMI stamps (special stamps that you by at the sous-préfecture or the préfecture for paying things administrative things like this…of which I had accidentally bought 140€ last year, so I was really really lucky that the price hadn’t changed or anything, so I could just give them the extra ones I bought last year!).

So that was the list for me, in my current situation, with my Canadian citizenship (although I’m not sure how much my nationality actual plays in). In total, the page has 31 items on it, so 8 doesn’t seem so bad, and I was actually quite prepared for most of them. Of course, next year it will most like be very different, but hey. At least I will have written about it.

After rereading my old emails (which I converted into the posts that are dated from 2003 to 2007 on this blog) I realise that it’s great to look back and see things through my eyes “at the time”, so I guess that this is what this post is really about.

Any, enough bureacracy. I have some serious Christmas shopping and planning to catch up on. Argh.

Getting it right

Standing on an escalator the other day, completely exhausted from a (very) long day (among other things), I was suddenly reminded of something that bugs me: why is it that so often escalators and moving sidewalks are not “tuned” so that the handrail and the part you’re standing on move at the same rate. I should point out that there was no problem at the particular moment that this random thought suddenly came to me, but it did get me thinking how it can be done wrong. I mean, I realize the the mechanics and the physical length of the two parts are different, but the speed has to be calculated anyway, so how does the calibration end up wrong sometimes?

Random thought? Completely. Important? Not at all (unless you happen to be in the escalator business…or have inner ear  balance issues in which case I imagine that this could have rather unpleasant consequences), but there you have it. I said that this blog was about random stuff, so there you go.

Seelly Eengleesh

My brain randomly connected two otherwise unconnected thoughts/events this weekend, and, since that tends to lead to blog posts, here’s another one.

The one that made me want to write a post was one of those crazy words that people from other languages can only make fun of, but for once I’m picking on English. Luc asked me what a “cornemuse” was in English, and after describing the instrument a bit (Scottish…) I told him “bagpipes”, which he promptly translated literally back into French and it completely cracked me up. In an attempt to give the same impact that “sac de tuyaux” has in French, try calling it a “sack with hoses”. While it describes the instrument very well, man does it sound ridiculous.

Anyway, somehow that thought brought me to “seelly Engleesh”, which of course made me think about Monty Python, which then reminded me of a great line in House the other day: during a diagnosis the doctors say something about oil floating, and House asks “what also floats in water” and adds, after a pause “the correct answer was a duck”. I already think that House is one of the funniest shows on television, but that throwback to Monty Python sealed the deal. Love it.

Random photos

After attempting to take a picture of my strangely-shaped bread, I went through the various photos on my (work) telephone, and made some amusing (re)discoveries:

Canadian Jealousy for sale at Cora: 10€ per kilo (June 4, 2008)

Gift-wrapped goodness: My main course at Alchimy (remember when I told you about French Fusion cuisine?) (June 13, 2008)

Unwrapped goodness (but let me tell you that that plastic wrap was a royal pain during the actually chow time)

Someone else's goodness...or perhaps my entrée, I don't remember.

A mountain - probably in Switzerland, I think on my way to a meeting in Milan (July 24, 2008)

The top half of a vending machine probably at Basel train station. Why did I take this photo? Possibly the impressively wide range of snacks...as well as condoms and lighters. (September 18, 2008).

The bottom half of said vending machine. Fruit juice and Red Bull and Dairy-based beverages: oh my!

The whole reason I was looking at my mobile photos to begin with: my cratered cheese bread. Voilà.

Well, I thought it was funny.

Cheese bread trouble shooting

First came the oven. And it was good. Then came the mixer/blender/food processor. And it was good. Now, the star of my kitchen is none other than a bread machine, and it … is … gooooood.

I’ve never used a bread machine, and never dared to try making bread. But I LOVE bread, so I often thought about it. When I got the machine, I found myself reading the manual from cover to cover. Well, not exactly: cover to cover would have required me to read the same things four times in, respectively, Italian, French, German and Dutch. Being that I don’t read 3 out of 4 of those languages, it would probably have led to more frustration than enlightenment, although as I memorize bits and pieces in French, it probably wouldn’t be terrible for me to go back and read them in the other languages. But I digress. This is probably the single most useful user manual I have ever seen. Starting with the usual suspects (how to use this device with causing harm to yourself and your home, what are all the different parts of this device, how to program this thing, reading a menu for dummies, and other sometimes silly but often necessary instructions), the manual then went into “Baking bread: an art and a science”, explaining the purpose of each of the key ingredients in bread (yeast, flour, sugars, liquids, salt…), and recommending experimenting with different brands of yeast and of flour to see which get the consistency that you prefer. Next is recommendations for measurement and the order in which ingredients should be added and how they should be placed in the machine (an instruction of key importance, I realized later, when I noticed that even the “just add water” packages tell you to check your instruction manual to see what order ingredients – all two of them – should be put into your particular machine). Back to the machine itself, another page is dedicated to explaining the different cycles in a standard program, and two more pages on programming, not to mention how to use the “delayed start” function and what the machine will do if the electricity goes out. After a full page how to end up with the perfect loaf, and 2/3 of a page on maintenance and cleaning the machine, it gets into the really good stuff: recipes. My bread machine user manuel provided no less than 50 recipes for bread, not to mention 6 for cakes, 7 for jam, 3 for pasta, 7 for other types of dough (including pizza dough – yum!) and 11 for spreads and icing (the first of which, I must note, is garlic butter). I don’t think, at this point, that I need to tell you what country this machine is from. After these 29 pages of recipes (with extra instructions for certain cases), a two-page chart details the cycles for each program, including the times and temperatures of each step. Two pages of machine trouble shooting, and one page of bread trouble shooting follow, and the whole thing is wrapped up with 2 pages of FAQ. I’m impressed.

All this, though, was getting me to my point: trouble shooting. Well, almost…

While shopping for bread flour to use my new machine (now a little more than a month old), I came across bread mixes of the “just add …” type. I decided that this would be a good initiation to see how the machine worked, and be able to start out on the right foot (i.e. with a loaf that was pretty much guaranteed to work). I bought a package for white bread and a package for “country” bread, and make my first loaf of bread 2 weeks ago. I kept an eye on the machine through it’s 3 1/2 hour cycle of that first loaf of white bread (just add water, milk, and a bit of butter), paid attention to the strange noises it made at different times, and watch the dough turn and rise at different parts of the cycle.

A week later, we made another batch of white (finishing off the package of mix), this time trying out the delayed start to have fresh baked bread with dinner. This weekend we tried out the country bread (just add water!) again on delayed start, so that the bread was ready just as we rolled out of bed, and minutes before Luc’s mom came over to join us for breakfast. But yesterday was the first leap forward: bread from scratch. And not just any bread: cheddar cheese bread. Years ago, the grocery store near the house I grew up in sold cheddar cheese bread, and it was fantastic. Then they stopped, but the one near my grandparents house still did from time to to, so they would bring some when they came over. Then they stopped too, but my grandmother started making some. I’m a long way from my grandparents’ house here though (6385.72 km as the crow flies…or perhaps the swallow…European swallow I suppose…a really strong one at that, if Google Earch can be believed, which I think it can because I then checked with this), so it was time to try it for myself.

I found tons of recipes of line, and opted for the one with the most cheese, and a few other criteria that I have since forgotten. Then I put in more cheese. Then, when it was done mixing, I added a bit more, so that I would have cheese on top as well. I worried at how little it rose, until near the end of the baking cycle when I saw, to my surprise, that the loaf (theoretically the smallest of three sizes that my machine can handle) has expanded to virtually fill the machine. On the keep-warm cycle, however, it started to fall…and kept falling until it was more of a valley than a nice bulbous hill. I am really happy with the flavour, but not thrilled about the shape, or the fact that a part in the middle seems a bit undercooked, so that brought me to my trouble shooting (with the help of my handy user manual). Since I’d had the yeast for a while, I knew that the first thing to check was that, and was a bit annoyed, because I bought this yeast ages ago, and never got around to using it (until yesterday, at which point it is supposedly just barely past the best before date). So, I found some instructions online, and tested a packet of yeast. I think it’s safe to say that it’s still active:

Dry active yeast? No longer dry, but definitely still active!

My next suspect is the temperature of the water I used in the dough. My instructions for testing whether the yeast was active recommended using 110-115°F water. Meanwhile, the user manual and recipes usually refer to room temperature. For the record, room temperature in my kitchen, in the dead of winter is not 43-46°C., and even the proposed “ingredients warming” cycle of my bread machine is “only” 35°C. So my next test will be using warmer water, and this time I will actually take its temperature. The only problem is that most French people think the cheddar is an abomination (and many refuse, if jokingly, to accept that it is cheese at all), so I’m going to have to find some anglos to help me enjoy my experimentation.

PS. Here is the tools I used leading up to this post: the recipe, the conversion from volume to weight (for a more accurate recipe), the instructions for testing yeast, and the temperature conversion,

Why make a snowman…

…when you make – uh – a pâtéman!

Bonhomme de pâté

Oh yes, only in France, or perhaps only in Alsace.

I just don’t know what else to say about that…

The last laugh

After years of disappointing (and sometimes outright terrible) service, I finally closed out my accounts with the bank that I started with days after I arrived in France. I was assured that there was no cost to close them (it’s actually illegal to make someone pay to close a bank account in France, but that has only been the case for a couple of years). As usual, they lied, or at least were not entirely truthful: when the money appeared in my other bank, the amount was mysteriously lower, but by strange amounts: they took over 4% of one account, and less than 0.5% of the other. In both relative and absolute terms, they took more from the account that had less. I don’t doubt that they would be able to explain it away with some fine print that they neglected to mention when I asked if I would be charged anything and they said “no”, and have not yet decided if I want to go in there for one last angry discussion (at which they have nothing to gain from appeasing me, since I will never EVER EVER bank at LCL again…I know, never say never). So welcome to the first public announcement that I am making about the fact that LCL, formerly known as Credit Lyonnais, should be avoided at all costs (and costs, there are aplenty!).

Ne prenez jamais des comptes chez LCL / Crédit Lyonnais : ils abusent sur les frais de tout, le service est abonimable, et ils vont limite jusqu’à mentir pour prendre quelques euros de plus ici et là.

So they may have gotten the last laugh with what they skimmed a few more euros off the top when they closed out my accounts, but with today’s web, they may not laugh for long. I am fairly sure that I’m not the only person that is willing to talk about my bad experience openly on the web.