My Brand New Carte d’Électeur

Even though I haven’t lived in France in ten years and even though I’m reg­is­tered as a “French abroad”, I still received a carte d’électeur at my par­ents’ address to vote for this year’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. So tech­ni­cally, I guess I can vote twice. Ahem… elec­tion fraud, anyone?

Packed Ter­race

When on earth are French work­ing? Bars and cafés always seem packed dur­ing the day! And I still can’t believe peo­ple drink alco­hol any­time dur­ing day­time as well. It’s weird to see peo­ple go shop­ping for clothes a can of beer in their hand.

Musi­cian in the Street

There are a lot of pan­han­dlers in the streets. The most per­sis­tent are the organ­ised groups from East­ern Europe and the drunken punks with their dogs.

“Nuit” (Night in French)

Bars are sup­posed to close at 1 a.m. or 2 a.m., and tech­ni­cally, night­clubs close around 4 a.m. (it depends on the city). In Nantes, noise dis­tur­bance is a huge issue, as peo­ple start to party on Thurs­day and don’t stop until Sun­day night. Peo­ple seem to spend their night get­ting drunk, shout­ing and yelling in the street, and there is no one to stop them.

Run­ning After The Tramway

Even though the ticket is get­ting expen­sive, I still love the tramway. Nantes has a pretty good pub­lic trans­porta­tion sys­tem and rid­ing the tramway is smooth and effi­cient. I know it won’t hap­pen in Ottawa (I doubt the tracks could stand win­ter) but I wish we had a sim­i­lar sys­tem over there!

Park in Nantes

French pub­lic parks look lame com­pared to the ones in Canada. They are usu­ally hang­outs for drunks and are pretty dirty. Not to men­tion that dogs poop every­where here, and that peo­ple don’t clean after their pets.

Shoe Toss­ing

Shoe toss­ing was appar­ently intro­duced in Nantes. Do they say “le shoe toss­ing” or “la shoe tossing?”

Choco­late Maker Shop in Nantes

Window-shopping takes a whole dif­fer­ent mean­ing here. Stores win­dow dis­plays, espe­cially those from inde­pen­dent stores, are often elab­o­rated and very pleas­ant aesthetically-speaking.

Kebab in Nantes

French really love “kebabs” (shawar­mas in Canada). There are just about everywhere!

I finally remem­bered this week that in France, unlike in Canada, the VAT is included in the price and that I could pre­pare my change beforehand.

Related arti­cles:

1. Street Mar­ket in Nantes
2. Fire in Nantes
3. Nantes By Night
4. Nantes’ Non-Tourist Spots
5. Is The French Diet Still A Good Diet?
6. Drink­ing In Rennes