While the rest of our friends in the States were celebrating the arrival of 2010 , Kim and I were in the Magnanerie, the renovated silkworm factory in our newly adopted village of Seillans, France.Not exactly a Provencal Peter Mayle moment but we learned a lot.
The median age at our soiree St Sylvestre in Seillans was around 60. With most of the music from the same decade, played over and over. Lesson learned: the French love sappy disco music and will dance to it for hours on end. In all it was eight hours of party that began at 8:00 PM. This is normally when we head upstairs for bed back home in Round Pond, Maine. We are trying to adapt to French life so we hung in there.
But it was a gala event created by Eric Brunel, the owner of La Gloire du mon Pere, one of our favorite local restaurants. Dinner began with a rather large slab of the tastiest foie gras, followed by something called Vol au Vent which we translated much too quickly as Flight of Wind, guessing it would likely cause gas later in the night. But we discovered to our dismay that it was actually veal thyroid, truffles and mushrooms stuffed in a puff pastry. All eyes were on us to see if we would even try, much less enjoy this French delicacy. This happens a lot when eating with the French, who love all things edible. So what could we do? Thankfully , thyroid tastes a lot like chicken, which was the next course, prepared to resemble a male rooster looking up at us from the plate, with his head slightly cocked to one side. Roosters we learned are highly respectable fowls here in France. So we ate it all.
Then came a ten-year-old calvados mixed with a tasty tart green apple sorbet. I thought the meal was over but the calvados was meant to clear the way for individual platters of six incredible and very sweet desserts. Kim does not like sweets but I just could not let any of these morsels go to waste. Besides, I was wasted and needed the sugar buzz. I also noticed that the French at our table countered this massive intake of food and alcohol by having a glass of water in between alcoholic drinks. I tried that once but didn't like the taste.
Speaking of wine, at each place setting there were four separate glasses, two for wine so you could try both the local rose and the red, one for water and another for champagne. A bit confusing at first but our French friends carefully explained how it all worked. Fair enough but we noticed that after a few hours, no one seemed to care if they were drinking champagne from a bread plate or their special flutes. It’s the French way. You have to be very precise about some things and then, more relaxed about others. It’s all in the timing.
Kim bet me 100 euros that the DJ would play the Macarena before midnight and I said no, this was a much classier event. She won. The Macarena, a one-hit wonder and certainly one of the worst songs ever composed, should not be played anywhere except on cruise ships. Of course this song was followed immediately by the YMCA and a long list of other memorable dance tunes ending with several by the Gypsy Kings that actually sounded pretty good. We were stumped by a rendition of the Amy Winehouse song, Rehab, which was in French of course. And everyone was line dancing to it, loving the part that goes, “non, non, non.” Later we found out that the DJ was feeling sentimental over the recent miraculous recovery of French rock star and pop icon Johnny Hallyday. That was good for us because he kept playing “I am the blues,” which is in English and was written by Bono. So we could follow along and look like we were enjoying ourselves.
But the language thing is a problem in France. Pas grave gets you through a lot of iffy situations but you need more words from time to time. Thankfully, the countdown to midnight started at the number 12 and then went down to 0. This was great for us because it marked the first time ever when we could hold our own in French with a group of fluent native speakers. If they had started at 20 we would have been in trouble. But at the stroke of midnight, there was no singing of “Auld Lang Sine” because it seems the French still hate the British (no celebrating Robert Burns Night over there unless you are an ex-pat from the UK of which there are quite a few of following in Mayle’s footsteps). And so at midnight they just kiss everyone in the room on both cheeks while saying Bonne Annee over and over. With a roomful of 60 slightly intoxicated people, this process took at least half an hour. What with the threat of the H1N1 virus and all I excused myself and went up to the washroom where I rubbed down both cheeks with the Purell I had brought along just in case. Don’t get me started on French bathrooms, I mean toilets. No two are alike when it comes to who goes in them, how the light is switched on, when the light goes off by itself or how you get water to flow to either the toilet or the wash basin. It is always a learning experience so we often skip that alternate glass of water between drinks to cut down on trips to the WC.
Around 3:00 AM Kim noticed that while my eyes were open I was not responding to her questions about French culture. Four cups of espresso poured into a champagne flute brought me back to life and upright for one slow dance. Kim led.
At 4:00 AM everyone started kissing again. It was time to call it a year, and a night. This kissing ritual is something the French always do when you arrive and when you leave. They are just so happy to see you. And just as happy to see you leave. With 60 people, it takes a really long time to say goodbye. And you need a lot more Purell. After the kissing, and getting coats on, and going out the door, the talking continues unabated. You would have thought these people would not be seeing each other for another year. Kim and I could not exchange pleasantries with anyone at this point other than pas grave, so we headed for street, trying to remember if we had walked or driven down to the Magnanerie. After an 8-hour party, it’s hard to remember details like that. But I was coherent enough to point out that we never walk anywhere if we can avoid it, especially in Seillans where level ground does not exist. Just then, Kim spotted our little Renault Twingo, wedged in between the rear bumper of a large Audi and the side of a medieval rock wall. Well, it was a nice night, so we walked back home up the 20% incline of the narrow cobblestone lane. It sounds perfectly charming but it was more akin to climbing up 7 flights of stairs after an 8-hour party. We got home at 5:00 AM and I was thinking maybe we had overdone this buying a house in France thing. So we were quite surprised to wake up three hours later (the church clock in the bell tower just around the corner comes to life at 8:00 AM) and discover that we could speak coherent sentences before even having that first cup of coffee. We were speaking In English of course. Sentences in French do not flow as freely without a lot more champagne.
