CROUS

CROUS (Centre régional des oeuvres universitaires et scolaires) is a nationwide group of cafeterias found pretty much anywhere in France at or near schools and universities. Whereas they were set up primarily for students and teachers, people from far and wide go to have lunch there because the food is cheap, copious and of excellent quality. You get four courses; salad, main course with meat and vegetables, cheese, fruit and dessert. It's well worth it even if the daily dish is not your cup of tea. Just pass on the pork cutlet or veal's head and go for the rest. Yet, normally what they prepare is delicious. This week when I went there they were serving "brandade de morue" (cod, olive oil, bread and potato casserole). Since in France lunch is from twelve to one without exception, I usually pass on going to CROUS. I'm busy, at home, still working, not willing to queue for fifteen minutes, or not hungry, or so hungry at noon. Yes, even after a decade in France I have not adapted to the culinary habits here. So, all in all, I go two or three times a year to CROUS always with the promise to return more often, yet alas, c'est la vie!

Last Friday I finished my class early, was by chance right next to a CROUS (one of the best in town actually), and was utterly famished. Perfect! Now, mind you, I usually go there accompanied. When we get to the end of the line, my lunch mates usually take out their CROUS card and pay for us both. As the price of a full meal equals that of a tall coffee elsewhere, I usually invite them to a café afterwards. On occasion I pay, it's usually around five or six euros, a bit more than what it costs with the card. This is what I intended to do this week as well. Yet, when I took out my wallet to pay for lunch, the cashier let out one of those exaggerated gallic gasps.

-- Oh là là, Monsieur. You don't have a card. My God, no! But, you've been here before, what did you do? Who were you with?

-- I was with a friend or else I paid.

--You just can't pay here, like that, monsieur. Who do you think you are? whew whew whew. Thérèse, Thérèse... monsieur doesn't have a card!!!!!

As the line started to back up and people turned their heads to see what was happening, I repeated I was sorry for the problem. I had never had one ever before. I would be willing to pay more if needed, take a card right now, whatever....

--How come you don't know where to get a card? You expect me... meeee... to tell you. How should I know? I don't have any here. That's not my job. Are you even eligible to get a card?

I let her rant on for a few minutes.... doo dooo dooo

--I don't know what to say Madame. It's never been an issue before. Sorry, you are right. I can only offer to pay or get a card.....

--Of course I am right...still. Where do you work? Jean-Loup, do you know this guy? Who did you come with before? Tell me! Oh là là. Well, sign your name here...on this sheet of paper. I just can't believe this is happening to me. You better come back a.s.a.p. with a card, or this will come out of my pay, you know.

I moved on to a table, sat down, tried to eat my brandade as the lady proceeded to repeat the story of the freeloader to everyone who followed in the line, pointing indiscreetly in my direction. Le voilà!

--And monsieur didn't have a card. Can you believe it?..... You know, I think he was a.... foreigner. Swiss, Polish, English or something... I know he won't ever come back with a card.

Strangely enough, I have looked into getting a card. When I ask people where they got theirs...most stare into space pensive. They possess one because... I guess... they have always had one, inherited it, or were given it by someone. Otherwise it's... go across town, see so-and-so between 9:30 am and 9:45, fill out a dossier, take two id's and a proof a residence, get five signatures and mail to this address in Paris by April 15th. They'll contact you if and when they decide to give you a card.

Sometimes I think my so-called-life in France is all about getting cards.

Moral: avoid CROUS (or at least some CROUS) if you don't have one.

Copyright 2012 Merquiades

Thinking of you, Cáceres

Once in a while I remember you, Cáceres, and the memory is so vivid it transports me back decades. I'm in a time warp, flying magically over thousands of miles of scenery long forgotten. Presto. I'm back on Paseo de Cánovas sipping watermelon sangría as the afternoon sun peaks its head over San Jorge cathedral.
What usually brings me back to you is the pungent smell of diesel fuel spewing from an old bus and blending ever gently with a distant scent of garlic and olive oil. Add the tune of some old bolero, and that's the recipe. I'm back on my journey on that Enatcar long haul carrier, destination Cáceres.

It was 1991; I was still wet behind the ears, both exhilarated and apprehensive as we rode deeper and deeper into the mysterious heart of Spain. The flat barren countryside went on for hours, dotted periodically with a sudden cluster of houses, a castle, a casino or two. The bus started and stopped with thuds as Spaniards in red jeans and black leather jackets hopped on and off at villages with grandiose baroque sounding names... Talavera de la Reina, Quintanar de la Vega, Arroyo de la Luz. On the radio, Cadena Dial played long bittersweet ballads of love forlorn. They came in and out with static as we grew ever farther from that fading signal in Madrid. "Me dijiiiste que me queríias... ......pero todo fue mentiiiiira. (You said you loved me.... but all that was a lie). Then a flood of guitar music and repeat, repeat, repeat ad infinitum... Finally, after we struggled to climb up a rugged hilltop, I could see the medieval city of white washed houses and red tiled roofs stretched out before us in the valley. Next stop, Cáceres! Just let it happen.
María Dolores met me as I got off the bus with a "Wow, Vikings do exist, don't they?" and promptly rechristened me as Roncho, short for Roncho el Grande, my Spanish alter ego... well, some remote play on words between my name and a Visigoth king who resembled me. It stuck. That was the only time I remember being greeted with such gusto from a stranger and actually seeing one of those arrival "welcome signs" with my name scratched on it in huge letters. Ok, so it WAS misspelled with several strange H's placed at random, but I could clearly recognize it. My head still spinning from the journey, I felt lost as anyone could be in the world. We watched the 1950 Pullman take off toward Seville, and we both burst out laughing. Diesel was now garlic.

Cáceres is a blur of souvenirs with no beginning nor end, where evening started at noon or rather nights lingered on well into the afternoon. The Spanish literature prof spoke of the Libro de Buen Amor for months on end, the geography prof insisted on the olive grove giving birth to Iberian civilization. The frequent breaks at the bar may have been longer than class time. The morning pick me up was a small insanely strong espresso diluted into a tall glass of rum. The waiter played "Camino" over and over. That was the only place I ever did a back flip or even attempted to. Cáceres gave courage to a push ones limit. The student strike was a welcome festive atmosphere. We marched round and round the city with banners reading "No Spanish blood for oil"! Didn't matter no one knew what the march was about. Did we need an excuse to be rowdy? In the meantime, we partook of tapa after tapa, lots of exotic fish, omelettes, spicy peppers and sharp sheep cheese washed down with gallons of sweet Spanish wine so thick it was like syrup. Of course, every day we had madalenas galore, not to mention the ever-present Galletas Fontaneda. Those crackers tended to show up everywhere. There were the nights the Canary Island girls danced on the bar of Montana with their own cosmic fandango choreography to the B52's "Lov Sack". There were the gypsies sitting on the steps to the old town strumming their guitars "Si tú me dices ven, lo dejo todo" (Just say the word and I'll leave it all for you). I see myself dressed as Pancho Villa for carnival, jumping on human chairs and chanting "un, dos, tres". In a dive decked out all in red, known to locals as the Leaning Tower of Babel, I translated Montse's favorite song for her "If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me?" to which she surprisingly retorted, "I've been waiting for you to say that all night. Now what?" So was that her I accompanied back to the convent for her 6am curfew or was it Inés, the blonde who asked me for every possible way in English to translate the maneuvers she liked do with her long mane of hair? Braid it, pull it back, curl it, tease it, tweeze it, gel it. Haze. I then see myself with a group of people on a farm applauding a gory pig slaughter, and watching them pour the blood into vats of steaming potatoes. What a local delicacy indeed!
I met wannabe bullfighters at a novillada in Cabeza del Buey and poets who weren't aware the golden age had ever come to an end. Amazingly every town, every street, every house seemed to be famous or infamous for some reason or another. They would say... "that's where Ana Pérez's brother's sister-in-law was murdered. She still roams around there on some evenings crying revenge." Yeah, uncanny, but in Extremadura I do have to believe everything. At some point in time, I went to a parent teacher's conference for the six-year-old in the house, played bocce on a rooftop, had party after party, woke up in strange apartments, and went to a wedding of a couple I didn't even know existed. Time rolled by in Cáceres like in a David Lynch film. Before you knew it you were appearing in Chinese restaurants, at the bullring for a quick faena, at a poetry reading, on the balcony of some loft, or chilling and watching Pretty Woman dubbed into Spanish. "Guay, guay" said Julia Roberts. It's either quite magical or a sign of distress when Friday becomes Tuesday and Monday morning is always the beginning of something extra special. In Cáceres, someone's always ready to meet you at the clock tower for a whirl around town. The anecdotes come back when I least expect it like a tap on my shoulder. "Whatever happens, just remember, man. Nothing better in life than pissing a good ale".

Cáceres is like a slideshow image of old pictures projecting onto the wall in any old order without rhyme nor reason. My stay came to an abrupt end the following June. Though the departure day had actually been planned long before I even arrived, I found myself throwing my clothes frantically into my suitcase an hour before the bus was to leave. Why was I at Sala Capitol till the last minute? I definitely wasn't ready to leave, yet I had used up six of my lives there. I didn't even bother to say good-bye to anyone. I wasn't sure at that point if tomorrow wouldn't be just another stroll from the Uni to the Plaza Mayor up the street and to that new home of mine I seldom stayed in for more than a few hours at a time. Lola drove me to the bus station, kissed me affectionately on both cheeks and pronounced the famous farewell saying of spaniards. "A ver si nos vemos, Roncho". (I guess I'll be seeing you sometime). Thus, I got on that rickety old bus. The same old driver took a victory lap around town and then I was gone. My carnavalesque experience was over and I never went back.

Ascension

The Holy Ascension occurs exactly 40 days after Easter Sunday. It's the day that Jesus Christ ascends forever into heaven. On this sacred day, he's not the only one floatin'. I'm floating right here, in France.

Every week in May has a holiday in France. Today is the third in a row. First, we have Mayday on May 1st, followed by Victory Day 1945 on May 8th, and today is the Ascension. Next week we've got Pentecost. Just by having a glance at any French calendar, the first thing that strikes you is that there are lots and lots of public holidays here, especially in the Spring time. Basically, in a nutshell, we celebrate the end of every war and every Catholic event, however important or not it may be. This is actually quite ironic, because if you stop any Frenchman and ask him what the holiday refers to or why it's celebrated, he'll give you that big Gallic shrug, roll back his eyes, and let you know one way or another that he doesn't know, nor care, but if anyone ever ever considered removing one, he'd be the first in the street to protest. By the way, as a side note, most French people nowadays are atheists. Look in one of those huge Gothic cathedrals that only exist for American tourists and Art students.

A previous government tried to get rid of Pentecost a few years ago. The logical reason was that millions of dollars are lost in May because no one works, and the country kind of comes to a standstill. Four public holidays in a row are an exaggeration and cause havok. This is particularly true because of the French custom called the "Bridge". This means... well.... I've got the perfect example at hand. The Ascension Holiday is on Thursday. A number of people, if not the majority, take Friday off too, and decide to make it a long weekend. And if... say they saved up some personal days and the next holiday is the following Monday... well, that means a public holiday or two bridged together turns into a 10-day vacation. I know a "civil servant" who by juggling around 6 or 7 personal days, a few sick days, and cheating here and there -- who will ever know? -- managed to get out of the whole month. Mind you, this doesn't include the real 8-week holiday which is coming up in July and August, or the 2-week Easter holiday we just had last month. You get the point, huh? Anyway, that government directive, well, it didn't happen. It turned into an option, then a theoretic possible for practicing Catholics, then everybody and finally became the so-called "Day of Solidarity" where you can work, if you really want, out of a personal desire to make money for the country so it can fund generous social programs. Now that's gone too! And by the way, that goverment fell!

For me, these public Catholic holidays are both a terrific Godsend and a cross to bear, and add quite a bit to my floating in France. Today, for instance, everything is closed except for a few restaurants and some North African kebab shops. The sky has turned grey again, this time apparently from Icelandic volcano ash, and it rains from time to time. So, here I am at home, in my own little world. It's great cause I can do any old thing I want... bad, cause I need structure... and money. But, I've listened to radio, watched tv, surfed internet. What did we do without it? I can listen to NPR, then France Info, Radio Catalunya.... read virtually any online newspaper, and as of yet, I love those internet word reference forums/fora (what is the plural?). I learn so much. Anyday can be a full language class in 5 languages. What could I have become if they had had this when I was 13 and had no exposure to foreign languages. Zilch. One activity rolls into another, one hour into the next, morning into evening. I feel so dizzy from spending so much time cooped up with myself, thinking....



Just before my offical blog writing time, I finished reading the novel, "La Mort Heureuse" (The Happy Death) by the awesome writer Albert Camus. It deals with the crazy life of Patrice, in French Algeria, in the 1950's. In this novel, no one works, they set around drinking pastisse, listening to bands play old French tunes, take excursions in cars, drive 500 miles per hour on small coastal roads, have love affaires, take sun baths on the beach, and above all, complain about the torture of life, the sheer boredom that weighs down their soul, the terrible existentionalism that occurs naturally when one has too much time to do nothing. I guess not much has changed today... Some love Camus for his ability to explain his reality in such beautiful eloquent French. It's true... I read it out loud... Others complain because his Algeria shows no Algerians at all. Yes, living in a bubble is so typically French. Oh la la!

Rontay