Cinema in Paris

Some have said that the French have a passion for cinme. Now, I have seen this with my own eyes and I can vouch that it is true.

I was hanging out with Olivier, my good friend in Paris who is letting me crash at his flat, when as the youth of all first world countries tend to do when dthey want to do something, they go to the movies. Taking pity of my poor command of even tourist French, Olivier suggested we see an English movie. They even suggested that we should watch it in le Version Original. All good.

However, what struck me was that it was easy to see a foreign film (albeit in this case it was the lingua franca of the modern world - English) and foreign films were marketed right alongisde the mainstream film. No seedy foreign film cinemas tucked away in Paddington or Newtown. You can watch English films right in the heart of St-Michel, one of the trendier suburbs of Paris. Furthermore, the first English film that was suggested was that big Hollywood blockbuster Mulloluhand Drive. That's right. A David Lynch film.

Unfortunately, when we got to St Michel, we found the cinema full. I could barely believe it. A David Lynch film packing out the cinemas? Granted - it was a lesbian flesh flick with Freudian overtones. So we had to reconsider our options. Now in Paris apparently, if you can't find a David Lynch film, then the next best thing is - a Woody Allen film. Explain this to me: what has a neurotic 90 something New York Jew got to do with reggae playing Parisian boys? Probably a lot.

Fortunately, we just make it into this cinema. The first thing I notice that's different is that the cinema is full. No, let me explain. The cinema is full. A Woody Allen movie has packed out the cinema. Hello. Is that strange? The second thing I notice is that before the movie starts, there is an usual level of background noise. In Ozzie cinemas there's normally a lot of shuffling or some loudmouth talking but in this cinema, the noise is the sound of the whole cinema being engaged in involved conversation. As a result individual voices are not heard but there are many people conversing such that it all coalesces into a low hum of French syllables.

As soon as the movie starts I'm thrown into the bliss of hearing uninterrupted English. It's then when I realise how I've missed the constant sounds of my native tongue. For the last week I've felt like a parrot who only knows one phrase - Polly wants a cracker? Qu'est ce-aue voulez-vous? Polly wants a cracker? Comment vous-allez? Polly wants a cracker? Ou etes d'ou? Polly wants a cracker? Do you speak English? Polly wants a ... er, yes I do.

During this time I almost convince myself that I am back in Australia. But there is something distinctly different (apart from the French sub-titles). This audience laughs at the jokes. I mean most of the audience gets the jokes and laugh at the same time. Like a laugh track. I'm thinking this is odd. Ozzie audiences either don't get all of the jokes - except the slapstick ones, or, they don't enjoy laughing out loud. I don't feel out of place blurting out my cacophanous sounds in such a cinema.

It's not until the end of the film do I realise that this Woody-Allen-literate audience don't even speak English as their first language.

The French truly love their film. Ahhh I have found the place to watch film.

Ironic that the French, who are so proud of their culture, have a such a soft spot for that American cultural imperialist Woody Allen.

Bread

Europeans take their bread seriously. Very seriously. In the supermarket, bread takes up a large section of the supermarket. This is because the peoples expect fresh bread, even in a supermarket. Always, there is a wall that has been converted into the bread display case, clear plastic drawers where you can see the (uncut) loaves. Examine it. Discern it. Critique it. And choose it. There is a bewildering variety of choice. Recipes from different regions, white, grey, wholemeal, bioorganic.

But the next step is the best bit. You take your loaf out of the basket and place it into...A BREAD CUTTING MACHINE. Open the lid, dump the loaf and press the big green button. The machine chuggs into action and your previously virginal uncut loaf now pops out as a sliced up proto-sandwich bread.

But perhaps where the bread fetish is taken to extremes is in your average sandwich diner. In any sandwich diner worth it's salt, there is a large, semi-industrial sized oven where ... all bread rolls, pastries, croissants are baked on-site. As you order your sandwich, you will be safe in the knowledge that the bread you eat just came out of the oven.

Biker models police downtown Cologne

Just visited Cologne, a lovely little town near the western border of Germany. Cologne (or Koln with two funny dots over the o and pronounced kern) boasts a stunning Gothic cathedral (finished last century), that sits squat in the middle of the city. shops crowd up to the cathedral and the train station is just next door. Everytime I strayed from a side street and stumbled onto the main street, the cathedral would burst into my view of vision and take my breath away.

Cologne is relaxed and just lovely to stroll through. It was on one of these strolls that I saw the future of urban policing. How do I describe them? Imagine a young sporty photogenic couple. Deck them out in the latest bike gear - lurid bike pants, high-tech contoured helmets and riding shoes. Give them each the latest in urban moutain bikes.

Then, blaze the "police" logo down the side, put on a funky style jacket. As it's uncomfortable wearing a belt with skin-tight bikepants, let the gun hang loose from the hem of the jacket. And finally, let those handcuffs dangle from the, quite trendite, jacket.

This is the uber-polizei of the 21st century.

English: the French connection

Remembering that the Normans (now part of northern France) invaded and conquered England in the 12th century illuminates much about the English language. Half of it is made up of latin words. Now that I'm learning French, odd words here and there reveals even more of the history of the Norman invasion. After the invasion, the Normans killed every English aristocrat they could find and replaced them with French lords. As such, in French, to ask is "demander", whereas in english, "demand" means to order. In French, to tell one to stop, or stick 'em up, one uses "se rendre". In English, to give up is to "surrender".

Life in Brussels

Finally, after some 2 months in Brussels, my life has settled into some kind of normality. I have found me a room in Sablon, perhaps the most expensive part of Brussels. There are antique shops with weightily priced ugly old furniture. Bars are definitely on the boutique side and the buildings have been impressively maintained in the ancient state. My room is on the third floor of a relatively steep staircase and it looks out onto the facade of a 17th century church. The church tolls on the hour (supposedly) and the sound always washes in through my window.

My room is large and airy with big windows looking over the church. It's wooden floor boards. The room is remarkably inexpensive for where it is. I got very lucky. Out of 7 phone numbers that Xavier, from work, helped me find. This was the only one. My flatmates are Michel, a 35 year old stock-broker who has been severley house-broken and often works from home. His parter, Victoria, a immigrant from Moldavia, a tiny tin-pot state split off from the former USSR. And Frabrice, who is, a musician-cum-agricultural-engineer-cum-international relations officer. Together we share the apartment which Michel rules with an iron fist, in the nicest possible way. All the worldly modern amenities are there.

Every morning, I wake, tumble downstairs, and stroll on faded cobble-stones, past some of the nicest parts of Brussels to Central Station. I stroll past the Belgian Congress, Belgian National Library, the Art Gallery, a huge plaza with a statue of a horse and rider, of whose identity, I know not.

I take a train to the university, which is about an hour from Brussels. Half of the transit consists of a big circle getting out of the city and the other half is through the most delightful Belgian countryside. It is a montage of rolling green hills, clustered villages of aging cottages, dead threadbare trees and gentle flowing rivers. I can enjoy this view everyday, everyday that is, when the weather permits. The weather in Belgium (and all of low-land Europe at that) is a filthy overcast day with the possibility of rain. When there is a sunny day, it is so unusual that people comment on it. "It's a nice day". "Yep...it is a nice day".

Dublin

A few weeks ago, I visited Dublin. Land of the Gaelic tongue, rolling hills, spires of rocks and spectacular coastlines. Or so I thought. Dublin is almost completely anti-thecal to how I had imagined it. The economic prosperity that has swept Ireland has remolded the face of Dublin. About ten years ago, Dublin was a very poor, very run-down kind of place. That is almost un-imaginable walking down current day Dublin. It's full of big department stores, cafes on every corner, trendite restaurants with exotic food from every corner of the globe and sophisticated electronic stores. It's the European silicon valley with cyber-cafes everywhere, and a high-density of dot-com startups. A far cry from the cobble-stone poverty of Joyce. The few indications of the grinding oppresion of the former English over-lords is a series of paintings in the stately post office in the centre of the city. The paintings illustrate the Rebellion, which in a manner of the Irish, failed.

So how did Ireland, only Dublin really, manage to bootstrap its way out of its Eastern European style of life? It did the savvy thing and joined the EU really early on. For the last ten years, money has been flowing into Ireland via Brussels to kick-start the Irish economy. And then the Irish Government made decided to aggressively court the i.t. sector. We're talking ten year tax free, or nearly tax free, status to i.t. corporations. My good friend, Ned, was working at Media-Lab Europe - in Dublin. Yes, that's the same MediaLab as the one at M.I.T., which has Chomsky as a director (MediaLab Europe has Bono as one of the Directors). The Irish Government GAVE AWAY a whole building AND LOTS OF MONEY, to entice MediaLab to to set up camp in Dublin. But we're not talking any old building. We're talking the OLD GUINESS HOP-STORE. What had happened was that about 40 years ago, Guiness worked out a new way of brewing their beer which took up 70% less space. As a result, they just vacated these massive Guiness factories in the middle of Dublin. The Dublin government has since been trying to work out what to do with them do. Give them away, yay.

The Irish (in Dublin) are not quite as friendly as I imagined them. But the astonishing thing about Dublin is the intensity of their pub-life (in comparison to the placid feel of Belgian pubs). Every Friday, Saturday night, every, and I do mean every, pub is filled to the rafters. Punters just enjoying the tactile presence of bodies jammed up against their drinking hole. According to Ned, the truly authentic Irish pub must have disgusting non-descript carpets, ornate decorations along the walls, and mis-matched antique lights swinging from the ceiling. And yes, Guiness is better in Ireland than out.

Ireland is a literate country. Maybe I'm biased. I was starved of affordable books in Brussels, and bought 10 books in Ireland, which were on discount. Being literate also means giving a tax break to artists. No artist in Ireland has to pay tax! As for literacy, the most famous exhibit in Dublin - the Book of Kells. It is great, but it's not that interesting as you only get to see eight pages of the book under glass. However, I maintain that the best thing I saw in Dublin, was the Long Room at Trinity College. It was an adjunct exhibit to the book of Kells exhibit. The Long Room is a stunning antique library in Trinity College. Dark and sombre, there are two split levels of floor-to-ceiling cup-boards all filled with beautiful, hard-cover, hand-made books. The room is massive and the wood-panelling is finished with a sophisticated sheen. A heavy air hangs over the room.

Nevertheless, once you stray out of the global zone, the old Dublin exerts itself. Rows upon rows of incredibly monotonic Victorian builidings fill the suburbs. Actually, calling them buildings would be a compliment. Brick boxes with windows would much more accurate. It would seem that the English didn't desire to build very well in Dublin. I wonder why. As an example of the Cathololcism that grips Ireland, while I was there, there was a roaring debate over a proposed new bill. This bill wanted to legalise abortion - for women who were clinically depressed and had said that they wanted to kill themselves. Now, the interesting things is, both for and against were pro-lifers. It would be unthinkable to position yourself any other way. A final point, I have never ever seen so many mothers with prams taking their kids onto public transport in my life. Dublin is a perpetual Young Mothers Associaton Conference.

A Shorter History of Belgium

As a I found myself preparing to live in this country, I saw it as my duty to find out more about the history of Belgium, a country more important than its size suggests, sandwiched between the larger nations of Europe. Of course, when I first enquired about the history of Belgium, all the Belgians I asked would answer « Oh, it's terribly complicated » and then proceed not to enlighten me much about it at all. The Belgians have a sense of poltical turmoil in-grained into them that mirrors the political traumas inflicted on their beloved country. And it is as much in the younger generation as in the older generation. Nevertheless, they had a boundless faith that Belgium will prevail. I was fascinated.

So I trooped off to one of two English bookstores in Brussels and found this one book, "A Political History of Belgium from the 1830's". White, bare with a single chess piece of the front. It was just what I was looking for. This book was originally published in Flemish and has now been translated into English after winning some acclaim in academic circles. No wonder, it was a somewhat dry, pedestrian historical overview, filled with a procession of mind-numbingly endless number of dates, figures and acronyms, sprinkled through with marxist jargon and neo-liberal technicalities in a bizarre attempt to drum up some passion. This is a book that reflects the Belgian character. And I was told by the erstwhile bookseller that it had been selling quite well. I had to buy it.

So where lies the complexity ? Simply put, since its inception in 1830, Belgium has been continually pulled in six different political directions, each of them dominating and then receding in turn. These are, in no particular order – Walloonia, Flanders, Catholicism, Socialists, Liberal-Capitalists, and the King.

The whole of Belgium, including Luxembourg, used to be ruled by Holland – by the House of Orange. When Revolutionary fever broke, the region that is now Belgium spontaneously revolted and tried to set up a Republic. The revolution was motivated by hatred of the House of Orange and so, the newly created Republic did not split along ethnic lines.

But it turns out that setting up a repulblic is not so straight-forward. What with Dutch speaking Flanders in the north and French speaking Walloonia in the south and some tiny German speaking part that I know nothing about, the creation of the new Republic required a lot of international deal-making, much as the state of Israel was created. With mainly the backing of France, who wanted to see a joker of a nation buffering them from Holland, Belgium became reality. However, admist the turmoil of nation building, and perhaps, with a not-so-distant memory of a Repulic backed Napolean rampaging through the lands, at the last moment, the people of the soon-to-become Republic decided that they wanted a Monarchy instead.

So a king had to be found. Thus, Leopold found himself elevated suddenly from a plain old member of the German aristocracy to a King. Leopold was diplomatic, cultured and had the right political views so as not to offend Dutch, French, English and German power brokers. The King possessed powers akin to the current President of the United States –appointing ministers, signing laws and dictating foreign policy – except that the title of King flowed from father to son, unlike the United States. This King made political neutrality –surprise, surprise - the cardinal virtue of Belgian foreign policy. The new King was also quite accomodating to the Catholic Church and rich land owners. This may have something to do with the very expensive electoral tax, without which you could not vote at all.

Until the first World War, Belgian politics was dominated by the struggle between the Catholics and the Liberals to dominate the government. The Catholics were constantly trying to re-consolidate a power that they had lost under Dutch rule and the Liberals were trying to establish a buorgeois secular captialist state. The most pointed political battles centred around control of education. A battle which the Catholics clearly won. The Catholics dominated this era but by the First World War, there were enough prosperous middle class Belgians to undermine Catholic support. With such a strong Catholic background, is it surprising that Belgium is not exactly a country renown for its easy-going progressive nature ?

After Universal Suffrage near the turn of the centry, the Great Depression and the Second World War, where the King took Belgian neutrality to ridiculously new heights, the Belgian Socialists managed to absorb workers discontent and Communist zealotry to become a significant political force in Belgian politics. The Socialists managed to under-write a working welfare state after the Second World War in Belgium. Nevertheless, the Socialists were always viewed with suspicion by the Liberals and the Catholics. Indeed ever since the First World War, there has been a merry go-round succession of coalition governments. Just after the Second World War, there was even a laughable Liberal-Catholic-Socialist-Communist minority coalition government. That one didn’t last too long.

The role of the King took a battering especially after he bet on the wrong horse during the Second World War. Although secular groups didn’t want the King back after he went on a self-imposed exile, the conservative nature of the Belgians exerted itself. Royal anxiety won the day and the King was asked back. However, given the acrimonous atmosphere over his conduct in the Second World War, the King abdicated in favour of his son, who was still under-age, thus ensuring that his son would get the throne with a clean slate. Since then the Royal family has slowly devolved itself to a skeletal, almost symbolic function. But every so often, the King would wade into the political quagmire. The one famous example was when King Badouin decided that he could not sign the abortion law passed by parliament, him being a good Catholic and all. Parliament was in a quandry. They couldn’t force the issue without engendering a constitutional crisis. What could they do ? What would you do ? That’s right, declare a coup d’etat for a a few hours, sign the law themselves, and then immediately re-instate the King (compare this to Australia where the Queen’s representatives simply dissolves parliament).

After being invaded twice, both times by Germany, Belgium decided that it was probably time to re-think it’s political neutrality. After the Second War, Belgium became one of the most vigorous proponents of NATO. Belgium couldn’t offer up its sovereignty to the the gentle patronage of the United States fast enough. And being a tiny inconsequential military nation smack in the middle of Europe, it was a most logical place to situate the headquarters of NATO. Having a bilingual capital sealed it. Brussels is now a wonderfully international city. It’s fantastic when the train attendant switches to flawless English when he sees that you are embarassing yourself with futile attempts to parler francais. From there on, it was natural that more and more of European power would accrete in Belgium. Indeed, the Belgians are so blasé about their role as European nexus that when the Belgian parliament first came together to vote for the Maastricht Treaty to bring in the Euro, they couldn’t even make chorum. This is the same Treaty that caused the hair to turn grey in politicians in other European nations.

But by far the most trauma that the Belgians have inflicted upon themselves has been the language split. Carved out of the old Dutch empire, you have the predominantly Catholic Dutch Flanders in the north and Liberal French Walloonia in the south and the capital Brussels is a region unto its own. When Belgium was first created, Belgium was predimonantly French. It was the French liberals who played the biggest part in the Revolution. It was the French capitalist who profited most from the new government. Brussels was French. It was understood that you had to speak French if you wanted a position of power.

Unfortunately two things happened. Over the last 100 years, industry shifted from the mining industries of Wallonia to the manufacturing and shipping of Flanders, thereby re-arranging the economic landscape. And the Flemish bred much faster the Walloons. Suddenly the Dutch speaking Flemish had both money and more people. Yet the people who ruled them often couldn’t even talk to them. There were furious battles over education. Since all government positions were assumed to be French speaking, the Belgium government saw no need for a Dutch university. Dutch-speaking soldiers in the Belgium army sometimes had no idea what commands the French-speaking officers were giving them. This caused a few problems during the War.

Although always a festering sore, the language problem simmered to a compromise by the Second World War when bilingual status was officially adopted. But oh what a compromise. It wasn’t a simple bilinguallism for all. That would have been too difficult. Instead, each county would count the number of Dutch and French speakers in their area and register with the central authorities as Dutch or French. Consequently different government departments would liase with that county. Different documents, teachers, officials would apply depending on the language registered. As you can imagine, there were all sorts of shenanigans with county boundaries, methods of counting and disgruntled minorities - around Brussels especially where the demographics would change violently from year to year.

The whole thing came to a head in the 70’s, timing fortuituously with the oil-crisis led recession and the subsequent neo-liberal back-lash. Along with a swing to the hard-right, the language issue fissured completely. In many a county, conservative single language speakers who refused to speak the tainted other language despite the official classification would get voted in. This was but the tip of the ice-berg. All three major political parties – Catholics, Liberals, and Socialists - decided to split along ethnic lines. Indeed, all of them felt that they performed better apart (figure that out ?). So from a three party system, you suddenly had a six party system.

Better yet, admist all this confusion - where there was talk of Flanders going back to Holland and Walloonia going back to France and Brussels joining Tintin on the moon - people decided that maybe they didn’t want a central government anymore. Then a most remarkable thing. The Belgians voted for a series of constitutional changes that devolved their country from a strong nation state into a loose con-federation of counties. All for none and something for everyone. What does that entail ?

What the Belgians did was to take the traditional split of the levels of government and completely re-organised the balance of power between them - the national government, regional government and counties. First, the finances for the different levels were completely re-vamped. The two lower levels of government were suddenly allowed to tax a citizen a lot more. In Belgium, paying taxes is a complex process where one has to pay a national tax, a regional and a city tax. Although there is legislation that dictates the range of taxation, city councils governments can impose quite a substantial personal income tax. And it can differ enormously depending where you live. In Brussels, the capital, the city tax is quite high. In the country-side, they are much lower. Second, certain national ministeries were disbanded and corresponding regional ministries were created. In particular, cultural and education ministeries were broken up into Brussels, Flanders and Walloonia. It was recognised that the three different regions were too diverse to have a national program and that the dominant language in each region created a distinctly unique culture. Education was also regionalised, given how important that a language is too basic education. Third, proportial representation was vastly increased at all levels of government. Given that Belgium has some 9 million people, Belgium has as many politicians for the national and state governments as the United States of America - a nation of 250 million people.

So where does this lead Belgium? Less unity it seems but a stronger society perhaps. Obviously such drastic changes reflected deep schisms in Belgium society. Yet most Belgians are deeply conservative. For typical Belgians, the constitutional reforms seem like a fix to a problem. Perhaps the model of Belgium society is one fit for Europe. However, I think a fix is all there is. My friend at work was helping me cart some stuff from Flanders Antwerp to here, Wallonia Gembloux. Talking to the guy at the other end of the phone, they found that they could converse better in English. Bilingualism has faded away for the triumph of the global tongue.

Hanover

I am spending the weekend in Hanover, the former capital of the glorious Prussian empire - the birthplace of the British Royal Family. It's my first foray into Germany and my conclusion is that everything they say about the German character is true. The evidence - German trains are the best, comfortable, well organised and everthing looked onto a well-oiled timetable. This in itself would mean nothing. But as we pulled into Koln; the German way imposed it's will on me.

First, the Koln train station is a hyper-realised example of Usefulness. Who needs a facade or an imposing building? All you need is a skeletan structure of cast-iron ribbing to keep the rain off. Then I wonder down into the guts of the station, expecting the usual smattering of dodgy food stalls, cafe's and station bars. Instead, I found a ... shopping centre. How practical! I thought as I slapped my head on the face. It makes immense sense. People travel to buy things. Let's cut the distance from the station to the goods. Just hop off the station and buy. Furthermore, you alleviate the problem of empty and dangerous railway stations as you can easily combine the security forces of both the shopping centre and the railway station thereby making it safer for all.

Now don't think this is peculair to Koln as when I arrived in Hanover, it was exactly the same. Yes, the same no nonsense hardheaded realism that makes life richer and more joyful for greater numbers of Germans.

Once into Hanover, I met Sebastien, a former flatmate from sunny Sydney. I met up with his friends who then apologised for how boring Hanover is. But it's not. I walked around Hanover and there was much to see. Hanover had the absolutely shit bombed out of it in the Second World War and the Hanoverrians have done a remarkable job restoring it. Old churches reconstructed, buildings from different areas carefully restored. Hanover boasts a lovely town hall from the days of the old Hapsburg empire. There were also leftovers from the Nazi regime, an eternal reminder of darker days.

The undeniable jewel of Hanover is the public transport system. Their buses are brightly coloured boxes that roam around the city powered by bio-gas - that's right horseless carraiges powered by pig-shit. After all Germany at the moment is jointly governed by the Greens which is slowly falling apart. The buses are big and roomy with large windows, all the better to see the sights of Hanover with. The seating arrangement is diverse and you can face whichever way you want and there is even a section separated for the back-of-the-bus people. Raised a bit higher and seats that face each other. A group of drunken Germans can be drunk together at the back of the bus whilst only minimally disturbing the rest of the passengers. And Hanover boasts one of the more arresting bus-stops I have seen. I can only describe it as a large vertical wok.

However, I was most impressed with their integrated tram/train/sub-way system. Some streets in Hanover have been designated as tram-only streets. Given that these trams hurtle around the streets at a rather disconcerting speed, god help any little old ladies who hobble across the street with their walking frames. These same trams then enter the sub-way system in the inner city where they accelerate into angry beasts of the underground. As it is unseely for sub-ways not to have platforms, the train/trams have a dual entry system where the exits extend horizontally to meet the platforms in the sub-way, whereas as trams, they trans-former away into steps that lead onto level ground. Finally, when these trams head into the outskirts, they can suddenly accelerate up to 100 km/hours to reach the nether regions of Hanover, the old Expo 2000 site for instance.

And finally, a few words about German cuisine. It's not true that Germans don't know how to eat. I'm a bit of a fan of the old Bratwurst and in Germany, there are sausage stores everywhere. They serve it perfectly. A big long sausage is served on a tiny little of bun - a most pleasing ratio of sausage to bread with a generous dollop of mustard. And you can yummy matjes fillets on bread.

Snow

Coming from a harsh dry place like Australia, you never see the snow. The first time I saw snow I was in La Charmee, a tiny village in the south-east of France in Bourgonne. It was at night and pitch dark all around. By turning on the outside light of the house I saw large white flakes drifiting down from the heavens above forming this unbelievable layer on the ground. Because of the lack of light, the snow seemed to have been attracted to light as flies drift towards the mozzie killer - zap-zap, zap-zap. Cast over the countryside was this blanket of white, yet the snow would artistically arrange itself on every branch, rock and stone. Walking in the snow produces a crunching noise just this side of the sound of nails on a blackboard.

Falling snow is kind like a hug not haranguing like rain. The flakes of snow wraps gently around your clothing before melting and saturing through your body to freeze you to death.

Noel en La Charmee

I now know how Christmas is supposed to be celebrated. Here I was, stuck in Paris, nowhere to go, missing kinda that familial atmosphere that is one's birthright in the time of Christmas. When, my friend Olivier offers to take me back to his family's home for Christmas. Of course I accepted. I was no fool.

So we travel some 9 hours deep into the south-east of France (the trains in France are excellent). We change trains at Dijon and make our way to Lyon. From Lyon we get picked up by Olivier's mom and her irascible neighbour and we head out into the pastoral fields. As we travel, the population density drops. Lyon has some million people. Then we pass through Chalon-sur Soane, which has 60,000 and finally we turn into a tiny road into La Charmee, a small village of maybe 60 families. By this time it was dark and when we pulled up into the family house, it loomed into me out of the frail light of the little car. Namely, a 200 year old French cottage complete with stone walls, big country windows and a roaring fire inside the house.

The house was thankfully warm as all houses tend to be in Europe in winter - may you never suffer a power blackout in Europe in winter. A large large room that was both living room and dining room took up the lower floor whilst the bedrooms made up the top floor. Simple design, a delight to live in.

Then onto Christmas dinner proper. In this case, Olivier's mom, his aunty and her partner, Olivier's brother and grandmother made up the company. And of course, the token Australian. For starters, we chomped on this kind of cheese-pastry, a minituaire cabbage called an ondive, and some guacamole (Olivier's mother thinks fusion but cooks francais). Then we talk for half an hour, or in my case, listen. Every so often, they'll ask me something in kindergarten french and my face will contort into thinking mode and then I'll spray out a sentence of dog-french. Painful, yet fastly enjoyable as everyone would roar in sympathetic laughter.

Now, I have been looking forward to the second course all day. It was foie gras, translated, it means 'liver fatty'. Story goes that hunters found that geese killed just before the winter migration had particularly delicious livers - larger, plumper with a smoother texture. Consequently, those wilely frenchman realised that you can forcefeed geese to simulate the storage of food for winter and then slaughter them for their livers to make foie gras. Foie gras is the jewel of peasant French cuisine. Normally beyond the reach of the average French family, Olivier's sisters had pulled some favours from a gourmet chef friend of hers. I was told that such 'ostentation' is reserved only for the yuletide celebrations in families such as Olvivier's.

As for the foie gras itself: it's pure liver of which I am not sure if it was cooked or not packed into a block with some kind of jelly through it. In effect, it is a solid chunck of liver. Sliced, everyone was served one special piece. It is special because it has the smoothest texture that melts in your mouth whereas the test has a very strong flavour that I find it hard to describe to people who don't normally eat internal organs. And of course, we were served bread. Lots of bread. And there was a special wine, specially recommended for foie gras - white, light and very sweet. The first tasting was the best. It was almost as enjoyable watching Olivier eat his foie gras as eating it myself. Like a prisoner tasting his first sight of freedom, Olivier tasted his first portion of foie gras.

We talk for another hour and then moved onto the next course.

Which was, baked small potatoes and a, of all things, kangaroo casserole. I have a feeling that the French probably eat more kangaroos than Australians. Australians feel weirded out to think of eating their coat of arms. But I say, what better way to assimilate than to partake in our national mascot in a material way. And we ate more bread and drank more wine.

Then we talk some more. And out comes the cheese. There was camembert, two types of goat cheese, and a nice hard mature cheese with a sliver of blue through the middle. And we ate the cheese with bread. And more bread. By the end of the dinner I was an expert at ripping out a healthy chunk of bread from the stick of baguette.

To finish off, after talking some more, out came two large baskets of profitterole kind of things. If memory serves me correct, then they were called chou de creme, or cabbage of cream. There was vanilla and chocolate. Whoa-hoa-hoa I didn't know if I could fit any more in but I trooped ahead and consumed to my delight and my stomach's demise.

Then there was more bread and coffee. After that was some present opening etc