Friday, September 16, 2016

Please take a moment to download and read my file Fully Funded Public Transit .

Still working through the menu of drinks, I have refused a tea, for that is an afternoon drink, for me. This morning we discussed drinks with a unit of caffeine (for example "Un cafe" or espresso), and volume of fluid (as in defense against dehydration). We settled on a Double alongé, and this is indeed a compromise.

In Canada we take a large coffee (even a small us super-big by comparison with an espresso) and I am used to sitting with perhaps three coffees during the morning. Now mine are weak; I'll use perhaps two heaped teaspoons of ground coffee no matter how it is watered down, so that probably equates to deux cafes here in France. But I am used to the volume.

Against this I am in Poissy, and while I will never be a Frenchman, I want to fit in as best I can. I just can’t get by on a thimbleful of beverage, not matter how good it is!

And you don't have to order a coffee, you can have the waiter order it for you. A man enters the cafe, one of the regulars, and Madame Sylvie calls out "Un cafe?", to which he responds "Si i'l vous plait, Madame", so no matter what they call out to you, you can get away with the equivalent of "Yes please!".

I leave the cafe and want something to eat. The Boulangeries are all doing a roaring trade, but it is just not done to eat in the street, neither while walking nor while just standing there dropping crumbs at your feet. In Toronto I would buy a croissant and tear it apart with my teeth while hurrying down Yonge Street. In Poissy if I buy a croissant I feel that I ought to rush back to my room and eat it in solitude.

I compromise and head to the market!

How do I know to head to the market? Well, people are heading in that direction trailing bundle-buggies and clutching carrier bags. If 90% of people heading north up Avenue de Cep are clutching carriers, it's for a reason.

Sure enough! I enter the covered market and greet the two ladies, one of whom dashes towards me as if I were seventeen years old again and about to matriculate. I explain that I need to take time to look. Then I understand a little more about the boulangerie. At the left-hand end are the Pains-du-Matin, the croissants, raisin buns and breads and the like. Over at the right-hand end of the Pains-du-Nuit, the Eclairs, the Thousand-Leaves, dessert. In the morning you can buy breakfast stuff and supper stuff, but in general at night you will always buy supper stuff. The process is a little more complicated by the queue, which can extend into the street.

You need to join the queue to be served, but foreigners need to see what's on offer before joining the queue. It is exactly the situation I find myself in at home when there are a hundred flavours of ice-cream, and customers blocking off my view of the display case.

Clutching my Pain Raisin I am approached ("attacked" is just a bit too strong, but it is close) by a strikingly good looking young woman who turns out to be my friend Cathy in manner. She is promoting Saffron, and would I like a taste? Not before getting stuck into my raisin bun I wouldn't, but she wants to communicate, and I need the oral and aural exercise, so I let her run on. In the end she gives me a pamphlet. Among other thing she tells me Saffron will help me sleep well, and so I show her what I am using right now and dive into my sac-poche. Intrigued she sees me pull out a bundle of what look like a double-set of Monopoly Property cards. My collection of bus timetables. "I ride the buses all day long", I say, "and fall asleep very quickly late at night after I've written it all up". She laughs with me.

Later that day I read the 4-page pamphlet as an exercise in French. Among other things, Saffron will act against cancer, it is a strong anti-oxidant for the brain, and is good in cosmetics which I think need not concern us here. It is, continues the pamphlet, like a Swiss Army Knife (so don't try smuggling saffron onto the plane for your trip home!) Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Depression, Diabetes, and the dreaded DMLA (degenerative muscular with age, or something like that) not to mention, which they then do, Cardiovascular, Bad Cholesterol LDL and Tri-Glycerides. Saffron can permeate your life as an aphrodisiac to raise both the feminine and masculine libido, help with performance of your erectiles (I'm translating here as best I can) combats plaques and some of the cancer cells in your colon, prostrate, liver, and does something premenstruel.

If the stuff would only dry-clean my pants and launder my shirts I'd buy a ton!

One thing to watch out for with that libido stuff: Saffron is not recommended for women who are enceintes. That seems to cut the libido market in half right there, you ask me.

I will pass the pamphlet on to my friend Cathy; she needs the exercise in French.

On my way home I pass a small public park that was a private park until they opened the gates. Two gardeners are at work, and I wander around until I come to a small shrub where half the leaves are black. One of the gardeners comes with me from his job to take a look and explain. It is a fungus. A Champignon, in French.

Now Fungi can be huge devices that are hundreds of feet across, underground. Think "symbiosis" with trees and sky-loving creatures. So this plant is sick; it has been and continues to be attacked by a fungus. Not content with possibly shutting down a chain of hotels and placing the #3 bus route under a security alert, I may now be held responsible for the bulldozing of the park.

With all this activity it is almost 10:30 by the time I return to the hotel, so I start an upload while I do some banking and filing. The money is in, which is good, but I feel very tired. I have learned to take a nap, which I do, for an hour, waking around 11:30. The upload is finished. I consult my little lest, pack my bag, and head downstairs. First item of business is to pay up for the rest of my stay,. This goes straight through, and half-way through my stay here I feel relief sweep over me. Shelter, they say, is our primary concern. The delay has many causes, not the least of which was the off-again, on again Tuesday night thing and the apparent inability of the computer system to agglomerate several reservations into one bill.

Second item is to hand over my collection of Canadian stamps, coins, and my too-heavy and too-weak French-English dictionary. Madame can pass it on to a child, a parent, or a teacher.

Third item is the photo. I don my blue raincoat (so it won’t matter what colour shirt) and my orange shoulder-bag and Madame takes two photos. What do you think? So we take a look. She thinks it looks good, but I want my shoulder bag to be more prominent, so as a ruse I set the camera back in force and take a shot of her. Hah hah! This is the smiling face that has greeted most of my passages through the lobby.

Around about this time I get derailed, totally, because I decide to take a photo of the horse-and-cart in the middle of our roundabout. This is an exercise in logistics, because us pedestrians are not supposed to be there; there is no crossing to get me safely across, but there are eight sets of traffic lights (for a roundabout?!!???) so I take a couple of minutes to get the rhythm of the flow, and when the big hand is that far from the little hand, I dash across into no-man’s land. I know that hunger will get me out of here.

My initial analysis reveals twice four sets of lights in three phases. My head spins. Obviously it works well, and I am reminded of my initial confusion in Paris 35 years ago when, for the first time in my life, “Look Right, Look Left, Look Right Again” was no use whatsoever. Until the day I sat at an outside table and watched the reflection of the traffic in a glass panel. Then of course it looked just like it should, and re-assured, I began crossing streets without the aid of a white-gloved policeman.

I walk around the island twice. Once to mentally catalogue the individual intersections (and ultimately give up) and once to negotiate the best place to risk my life. The island is raised, and so is a blind spot to everyone, yet everyone knows what they are doing and they come around the piste as fast as they can. Nobody expects to find a pedestrian crossing THIS paved area. Deep breath, and run to an island (there are about a dozen here) served by Zebra stripes.

I have the bad fortune (!) to escape by island-hopping to "Hotel Restaurant", which has been hiding from me Lo! these many days. They have a luncheon board outside, and I get only as far as "Bavette", so I enter, and here I sit at 14:45 typing away. My pants have not yet reached the dry-cleaners, and I will not be riding any buses today. My morning nap has convinced me that I am wearing myself out, and getting the hotel bill off my chest has persuaded me to relax. The steak was excellent, the fries soggy, the Madame of good cheer, the waiter accommodating, and the other guy a good conversationalist. I shall tell Madame Sylvie tomorrow that she has competition.

I have made peace with the driver of #3 through the agency of the fellow in the "i"information. He understood my problem and has promised to convey to the driver my good intentions. I am relieved. It is only through tiredness that I am not riding the buses today, and it is a most welcome break. I have retired at 15:00 to my morning cafe for a pot of Lapsang Souchong in a pot that is boiling hot. I cannot rest my fingers on it. How come the French can make tea with truly hot water, but Canadians can manage only luke-warm. I write of what I know.

Lunch: I was eating right across the street from the Peugeot-Citroen offices, and it was no surprise to find four dark-suited executives at a table. It looked very much as it must have looked in Fontenay-Aux-Roses when I understood so little. To my great amusement, the two resident executives seemed to be of Italian birth, the other two were from India. They conversed in English, and I am not at all sure if they new that I could understand every word.

I tried to retain the state of affairs in every Indian city mentioned, but failed miserably.

I went to the cash register to pay. The Steak-Frites and a double cafe came to €12.50. I handed over a twenty and received on a saucer a Five-Euro note and some coins. I learned years ago that the saucer will always contain the change to make the tip. Given my slaughter of the French language, the geniality of the waiter and all, it seems to me correct to leave the €2,50 as a tip. Pour Boire.

What will I regret ten days from now? I am half-way through this holiday. I have spent the first part inserting myself into casual life in a variety of towns and villages, and in building up a stock of memories of places. It is usual on the last day of vacation to muse regretfully "If only I had ...", so today is a day of reflection, to consider my options. Thursday I will be in Paris to meet English friends. I can use that day to revisit the 12th arrondissment, where I stayed two years ago. Friday is my day of “TGV”, off to Amsterdam to meet a friend I have never met. Tonight I will review my visit of two years ago to see if there is anything from those days I'd like to do better.

I am picking up again where I left off. There are so many idiomatic phrases that it is easy to pass off as a local, except for my clothing and my shoulder-bag. On leaving the cafe a man calls out in three distinct phrases "Allez! Merci! Au Revoir!", which is just one of the choices I believe that if I said "Merci! Au Revoir! Allez!", that it would grate on the ears.

I have had a lovely conversation with the lady in the dry-cleaners. Five Euros, two more than in Mantes-La-Jolie, but better than Six just down the street. If I had been paying attention I'd have noted that they are closed Monday, so I am stuck in these pants for another three days after today.

So I am now typed up to date, except for a few photos. Since I haven't hit the buses, I have not been firing off photos.

(later)

It struck me as I sat in the cafe that one does not see teenager in the cafes. In Toronto I envy the teens who gather in a coffee shop; males and females get to talk together, something that was denied me in my youth. We don't see small children in cafes either. Only men and women who are about twenty-five or older. And either sex may breast up to the bar for a cafe, and either sex may sit at a table.

I walked back on the far side of Avenue du Cep for a change and dropped into a Boulangerie (well, I'd not been in this one before!) and bought myself a thick slice of fruit bread and a "mille-feuille". The lady made a joke that I didn't get first time off, along the lines of "Because it is Friday there are only nine hundred and fifty". It makes me feel good that my French is acceptable enough that people are prepared to make a joke for and with me.

I have bought some Euros from an ATM. €100 cost me $157.60, according to the ATM script.

A quick check of my account shows that an additional fee of $3 goes to the BMO.

My hotel bill is in: €1,404. You can do the math (divide by 7 and multiply by 10 for Canadian Dollars)

With the crisp new banknotes (delivered as twenties and tens, mixed!) I balance my account sheet in preparation for the remainder of my stay.

I mentioned yesterday that blue shutters are all the rage here. I walk past this uncompleted job each morning on my way to the cafe. I haven't seen anyone working here in ten days. Perhaps they are off having a vacation in Toronto.

Trees.

The tree at the rear is easily five stories high. Why can't we have five-storey trees along Yonge Street, Bay Street, Carlton, College? Don't give me any crap about Toronto being cold. They have snow here, too, and for what it is worth Toronto is at the same latitude as Marseilles; that is, Poissy is much further north.

I have solved the mystery of the size of the hanging baskets. They are mounted vertically in pairs or triples. I suppose too that you can dump excessive water in the top basket and let it flow through to the lower baskets.

This is from this morning's Figaro. About 25% of revenue for public transit comes from fares.

If you haven’t already done so, please download and read my file Fully Funded Public Transit .

And while I argue that collecting fares is a waste of time and money, here's another part of the Figaro article that indicates that 30% of SOMEthing is spent combating Fare Fraud. Now, if you don't have fares, you can't have fraud. It's as simple as that!

I was right! As I enter the courtyard I can see a bright yellow canopy. It is Market-Day!

This picture will help you to understand the level of my French. When I dropped in to the cleaners - on the left - last week to ask about cleaning, I understood the lady to say that I should take my pants to the other place. OK. I walked out of there and ended up at the self-serve Laundromat, where the gap is showing the yellow canopy. That's odd, I thought. A self-serve Laundromat is not a dry-cleaners.

Yesterday I found a dry-cleaners indicated by the yellow arrow. Same chunk of land, but separate doors. I had understood the lady to say "just across there", but she had probably said "just around the corner".

Square de Pincerais. This is where I ate my bun and found the stricken plant.

I have circled Poissy in this old map.

Here is a close up of the map. I have outlined Poissy which in those days consisted of half a dozen streets no longer than 200 yards. It did NOT run to 30 bus routes ...

... nor did it have a set of rules to be followed when eating a currant bun.

Look closely at the left-hand building, top floor, right-most gabled top-right window pane. See that it is broken? How does anyone manage to heave a rock that big up that high? Also the room immediately to the left, again, top-right window pane. Broken.

Wrong. There is a light fitting above each window. One of the nights I must go out and see what the lit gables look like.

This is the black-leaved plant, infected by a fungus.

One of the problems involved in ticking off numbers, is that with so many buses around, duplication of route numbers is inevitable. These are bus routes #32, but the map alone shows that they are not the same route. And both routes are within my prowling area.

Lunchtime, and I start by taking a photo of the prancing horse.

Here is a view from the other side, with the tourist office in the background.

And La collégiale Notre-Dame de Poissy

I began my survey of lights by taking a photo of cars held up before entering the roundabout coming in from Avenue Maurice Bertaux. That's my hotel on the right, the grand arch is the bus entrance to Gare Sud.

Then I took a shot of the van leaving the roundabout and heading south on Boulevard Gambetta while a northbound van is held up at the lights before entering the roundabout.

Next a shot of vehicles held up IN the roundabout while traffic streams into the roundabout from Boulevard Robespierre

Finally a shot of two buses southbound on Gambetta, held up at the lights before entering the roundabout. Now one bus might want to turn right to enter Gare Sud, and the other bus might want to make 270º of the roundabout and had off down Boulevard Robespierre, but held up they are.

Note the flower bed in the roundabout.

Here I am safely back on the sidewalk. More flowers, of course. I set off to walk south along Gambetta but after no more than twenty steps I find myself staring outside a restaurant at a board that says "Bavette".

This is the lunchtime Prix Fixé menu: A croque monsieur, a salad, and some fries. €7.50. What a deal.

Or you can splurge and go the €13.50 route. One of the first group, one of the second group, and one of the third group.

Compare this style of menu-on-the-wall with that of the restaurant in Maurecourt

One of the staff came in and set a steak-frites on the table and walked away. Knife, fork and glass. Twenty minutes later he was back and I asked whose lunch it was. It was his. He prefers to eat his steak-frites cold!

After lunch I set off again to master Gambetta, or at the very least to drop my pants off for dry-cleaning. Pedestrians are disciplined here. The pedestrian lights are tied to the vehicular lights. There are no pedestrian buttons, so if you wait, you can be assured that your lights will go green for you to walk across. In Toronto if you don't push your button, you may miss the light-cycle.

Look at the distance between the road intersection and the pedestrian crosswalk. The road intersection is not visible in this photo (it is behind me to the right)

I was standing roughly where the black T-shirt is swinging around the corner, so this view is looking back 180º.

Here's the point: when a driver reaches the pedestrian crosswalk, the driver's eyes are focused straight ahead, on pedestrians, not off to the left checking to see if there is a gap in the traffic.

As I head home after a quiet bus-less day, the rain clouds gather.

The rain clouds loom over La collégiale Notre-Dame de Poissy. And I have mastered the zoom feature of my camera.

I put my BMO card in the machine and because it is a Canadian card the ATM spits out English. I am disappointed.

I decided to walk home in a little round about way down to the end of Rue du General de Gaulle ...

... and wonder how I ever came to miss this building!

Here we see another car parked in the middle of the bus lane to drop off a passenger, who is maneuvering the boot or trunk of the car.

A multi-purpose shot. The rain is about to start, and the "Hotel Restaurant" is hidden behind the shrubbery in the centre of the roundabout. Each morning I have turned right and headed off to La Presse and the cafe Cep without ever really looking to my left!