Two treatises, a short story, and Les Baux de Provence

First, a short treatise on the verb profiter.

According to my French-English Dictionary: profiter: vi [tirer avantage]: ~de [vacances] to benefit from; [personne] to take advantage of; ~ de quelque chose pour faire quelque chose, to take advantage of something to do something; en ~ to make the most of it.

This is not a verb I had ever heard in a language class before coming to France. It simply was not used, and it is one of the many verbs I hear constantly, so clearly my professors didn’t go to the same France I’m in. Profiter is the replacement for “Have fun!” over here. When you leave for somewhere, you are told to profiter from it. Any recommendations given are with urges to profiter from your time here. I was recently told by Mireille that if I did not go to the doctor and get lots of medication for my cold, I was not going to profiter from my trip to Rome or my time in France. When making a purchase at Baux de Provences today, the sales lady was pleased that I was “profiter”-ing from the half-price sale. Americans tend to find the use of this verb pretty entertaining, and we throw it in our franglais conversations on a regular basis. Example:

“Je ne t’ai pas vu around recemment. Est-ce que tu been profitering from tes vacances?”

This, along with the verbs gêner (to bother) and bouger (to move, to budge), is probably one of the most common verbs I hear, and I urge all those coming to France to become familiar with it.

Second, a short treatise on the French and medication.

I sadly have been a victim of the common cold over the past week. I felt it coming on early last week, but it held off until Monday night, when I slept horribly and awoke the next morning feeling as though a train had run over me—a TGV train at that. Lots of coughing, sneezing, inability to breathe, and all that fun stuff that comes with a cold has been plaguing me ever since. Now, having a mother and many other relatives who are in the medical profession, I have long since been aware of the fact that there is really nothing one can do to get rid of the common cold. One can take ibuprofen if there’s a fever or a sore throat, one can drink lots of liquids, but given that the common cold is a virus, antibiotics really won’t help. Unfortunately, someone forgot to share this information with the French. They first have a terrible time believing that it is possible for someone to get a cold when the weather isn’t cold. I explained that colds are pretty common when the weather changes quickly, as it has been doing here, and everyone decided that I actually had allergies, not a cold. I learned pretty quickly just to accept that; it’s not worth fighting over. Then there is the problem of the medication. The moment anyone gets a headache, sneezes, sniffles, coughs, or wheezes, the nearest French person urges them to run off to the Pharmacy to get “medicaments”. The French will not rest until they have been given at least four different medications to take for their cold, whether or not the medication helps at all. I have been to the doctor only once in the past 5 years for illness, and that was when I got a fever of 103.4 at school last winter. And even that time, it just turned out to be the common cold with a higher fever than usual. With a cold, I tough it out with cough drops and ibuprofen. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the French fashion. I’m hoping my cold disappears fast before anyone else can urge me to get medicated.

Third, a short story on why one should not carry one’s French-English dictionary with them around Avignon even if one’s purse is already too full and starting to rip and the dictionary will probably rip it more if it is placed in the purse.

By Katherine Jacob

I was innocently walking from school Wednesday, hoping only to make the 6:06 bus so that I would not have to wait until 6:24 for the next bus. Little else was on my mind besides hoping that I wouldn’t have a weird guy step about an inch and a half away from me, tell me not to be scared, and then ask me a question I didn’t understand (that was Tuesday). However, as I walked along a street I noticed a guy next to me trying to catch a glimpse of one of the two books I was carrying: Capitalisme Contre Capitalisme, by Michel Albert, and my Larousse French-English dictionary. Apparently it was not economics that interested him, as he stopped me and asked me if I spoke English, to which I responded yes (in French). He then switched over to English and asked me if I was English.

When you’re an American in Avignon, you get a lot of people who are over the moon that you’re in their city. They’re genuinely curious about why you’re there, and they want to show off everything they love about France. Additionally, some 70% of the people you meet decide to try out their English on you. Sometimes this leads to entertainment (a drunk guy asking me and three of my friends if we would be sleeping around later), sometimes confusion (a girl asked me if I spoke English in English and it took me about a minute to respond because I couldn’t figure out what she asked because of her accent), and once in a while you encounter some genuinely good English that makes you feel guilty because your French is so bad. Regardless, I’ve gotten used to being peppered with questions about why I’m here, what I’m studying, and where I’ve traveled.

This guy’s accent was considerably better than other accents I’ve encountered here, and so I assumed he had studied English at some point and was interested in it. I told him that I wasn’t English, but American, which he found quite exciting. He wanted to know where I was from, and I responded, then he wanted to know why I was there. I told him I was studying abroad for a semester and he gave me a blank stare and asked me why. This should’ve been my first warning that this was probably not someone normal, but I explained that I was interested in French and that I wanted to improve my French (default answer as to why you came to France to study: Pour améliorer le français!). He then wanted to know what I was planning on doing for a job. As I am not even sure of this, I simply gave my default answer which is that I want to do non-profit work. He didn’t know what this was, so I gave him the French name: le secteur sans but lucratif. He didn’t know what that was, either (probably because it’s a pretty small sector in Europe), but then asked me my sign. What did this have to do with my work? Well, nothing—turns out he wanted to know my astrological sign. While I do not mind talking about things that actually have to do with me, the only thing I like about my astrological sign is the roller coaster of the same name at Cedar Point. Thus, I told him I had to be catching my bus.

The moral of this story is that one should never carry one’s French-English dictionary in plain sight no matter the condition of one’s purse.

Fourth, our trip to Baux de Provence today (Saturday).

We left around ten this morning to go to Baux de Provence for an excursion with l’Institut. Our first stop was the Cathedral d’Images, which was absolutely amazing. France keeps doing this to me: I’ll leave for an excursion with very low expectations, thinking that whatever I’m going to see just isn’t that exciting. A Cathedral of Images? Sounds like an art museum. And yes, I can appreciate Van Gogh (the current exhibit) as much as anyone else, but I really didn’t want to sit around and look at an art museum while in France. Once again, as with Pont du Gard, France proved me completely wrong. The Cathedral d’Images is a huge limestone quarry constructed out of the natural rocks of the region. Because it’s built into the landscape, you feel as though you’re still outside. Inside the Cathedral, you’re completely cut off from the light, and the art display is essentially a light show of Van Gogh’s paintings. They display the images on the walls, posts, and floor of the Cathedral, and have the show timed with classical music. It was incredible to see, and the music really made it a lot more powerful. I loved seeing that, and was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

After the Cathedral d’Images, we piled back in our bus to go to the town of Baux de Provence, which is quite “touristique”, as Mireille told me (touristy). It was a medieval town located on a high point in the region for defensive purposes. There are a lot of cute gift shops there, as well as lots of restaurants that are way out of my price range. You can get a gorgeous view of the valleys and hills surrounding the town. We also had a tour of the historical castle at the highest point of the city. It’s not actually a castle, since it’s all ruins, but you can see the original framework where a hospital was, and they had a lot of information about how defense of the city work. There were reconstructed catapults, as well, and that was neat. However, it was very, very cold and very, very windy, so none of us really managed to fully appreciate it. Everyone was tired out from all the walking around, and the most of the bus was dozing off during our ride back. We drove by St. Remy, an old Roman city, where they had an Arc du Triomphe and cemetery monuments that you could see from the road.

That’s about all from Avignon this week. I leave for Rome on Thursday night, so my next update will include exciting Italian news!