Party at the Bastille 2

OK. Forget that last post we did about the party at the Bastille. That was nothing. Nothing.

Last night, France bet Spain 3-1 in the football world cup to advance to the quarter finals. France has been playing really, really badly lately and it was a minor miracle that they even made it to the top 16. Nobody really thought that they had a chance of beating Spain, and even the most die-hard supporters were predicting a hard-fought 1-0 win in extra time. So, the 3-1 victory (including a last minute goal by national hero Zinadine Zidane) came as a bit of a shock.

After picking our jaws up off the floor at full time, we decided to head down to the Place de la Bastille to see how the rest of Paris was taking the news. We were greeted by a cacophony of car and scooter horns as pretty much everyone with a vehicle took to the streets purely to express their elation by tooting their horns as much and as loudly as possible. The best effort was the guy with a moped who was circling the Place de la Bastille tooting his horn while a poodle perched in the basket on the front of the bike barked at everyone. The remainder of the population took to the streets on foot to shout, sing and wave their flags. Before long, the middle of the roundabout was full of people and the traffic was down to one lane, mainly comprised of people hanging out of car windows and sunroofs waving flags and cheering.

There was no real focus to the celebrations: it was just an uninhibited expression of pure joy from thousands of people. Quite an amazing experience, and something that we will probably never see again!

Fat Freddy's Drop

We've finally seen a reference to NZ in the media! There's a great free daily newspaper called Metro, and yesterday it contained a review of the Fat Freddy's Drop album. Strangely enough, we'd already heard a Fat Freddy's Drop song playing in the supermarket of all places. They're playing two gigs here as well. Go NZ music!
Anyway, here's what Metro had to say about the album:

Reggae dub from New Zealand? It's a scary thought. However, the seven members of Fat Freddy's Drop have proved that anything is possible. The ten warm, cheerful songs seem to have come straight out of Jamaica, and the group spices things up with funk and jazz influences. Radio Nova has quickly added the songs to its playlist.

Party at the Bastille

On Saturday, there was the annual gay pride march through Paris, ending in a party at the Place de la Bastille, right near our apartment. Then French have a lot of practice when it comes to marching/protests, so blocking off a busy (4-6 lane) roundabout to traffic for a party was business as usual. Add in a three-story sound system with DJs and you have the makings of a great day out. The Place de la Bastille has a column in the middle, which is generally off limit to the public, but on Saturday the base of it was covered in people dancing.

The monument obviously wasn't a high enough vantage point for one guy who somehow managed to climb onto a street sign and dance up there!

It had a great atmosphere, with transvestites in crazy outfits mingling with family groups.

What ever happened to...?

Although France is quite progressive in a lot of aspects, their TV channels seem to be the television equivalent of an old-folk's home. All those terrible programmes from the 70s and 80s seem to have found their natural home here in France. Dallas, The Love Boat, Knightrider, Bewitched and the list goes on. And does anyone remember Toptown? (That 80s programme where two towns competed in silly sports involving slippery slides and giant beach balls). It appears the French are still producing their own version called Interville, with lots of slippery slides involved.
The French seem to produce very little drama or comedy programmes, but instead of making a lot of reality TV like other countries, they fill their programming with game shows. At last count there are 10 per day. yes that's right, 10. Although, shows like Who Wants to be a Millionare are definitely increasing our French vocabulary.
The music situation is not a lot better. France has produced some amazing artists in the past like Francoise Hardy and Serge Gainsbourg, but it has also produced Johnny Halliday (think John Rowles with a French accent). Most of the pop music around at the moment is either bland, middle-of-the road, all-sound-the-same songs, or lip synching pretty boys or girls, probably discovered on Nouvelle Star (French Pop Idol). And, on the off chance that anyone was wondering whatever happened to Tina Arena (you know who you are), she has been wholeheartedly embraced by France. Her latest album is in French, and she is currently touring the country. Still terrible, though!
There are some artists bucking the trend and making interesting music, usually electronica or jazz, but none of them seem to be doing any concerts at the moment. Quel dommage.
However, the music and TV culture seems to add to the charm of the French. It's nice to know that a country that prides itself on its intellectual debate and rich cultural heritage is still secretly into The Pussycat Dolls.
Oh, and France 2-Togo 0 (woo hoo!)

Allez les Bleus!

Not sure how much coverage the soccer world cup is getting back home but here it is the only thing on the news. And I mean literally - the first quarter hour of the half hour news programme is devoted to soccer. I thought NZ was bad with rugby coverage but it really is exactly the same here, just for a different sport. We felt we should get into the spirit of things so have been watching games here and there. Unfortunately, no-one really rates les Bleus, the French team, and they had a nil-all game the other day against the Swiss, much to the nation's shame. It's still an exciting watch, and I even know what the off side rule means now.
The other regular item on the news at the moment is the heat. Summer doesn't officially start until next week, but it's already very warm. Earlier this week we had several days of 32-33 degrees, but today it's a relatively cooler 25! Rather different from NZ from what we've been reading. It's lovely though. It's a dry heat so bearable, just. I'm sure we'll get used to it at any rate!

Haute Cuisine II

Living in France has meant completely changing our perceptions of what is normal food to eat. This is most apparent when in comes to fruit. Apples here are rubbish. Oranges are OK, but fairly expensive. Kiwifruit are expensive. Pears are not much better than the apples. So, with all of the traditionally cheap and good (in NZ) fruit off the menu, what does one eat? Well, at the moment it's cherries which, at 2 euro (NZ$4) a kilo, are very good buying. How about rockmelons? There are plenty from Morocco about at the mo, so 1 - 1.50 euro buys one of those. Strawberries? 2.50 euro per kilo (we were offered a whole tray of about 12 punnets for 1 euro (NZ$2) at finishing time at the market the other day. Alas our hands were full and we really didn't know what we were going to do with a tray of strawberries). Peaches are going for between 80c and 2 euro per kilo.

Paris expensive? Not always!