Hello y’all and it is time again for the part two of our France; trip in our Flyaway Friday. In our first part we discussed the books that would take us to France. And now we have someone from France to tell us more about their country and their French way of life. Let us meet Marie.
I thank Marie from Drizzles and Hurricane Books for agreeing to answer few questions about France; and their ways and means. I am huge fan of Marie’s blog and I love her discussion posts. She recently published one about Blog hopping and I could not help but nod in agreement with her throughout her post. You should definitely check it out.
For those of you who do not know Marie, here is a quick bio that she was gracious to share with us:
Marie is a twenty-something book blogger living in France;. When she’s not screaming about blogging and YA books, she is most likely working on her writing, re-watching Friends episode and / or getting lost in a sweet YA contemporary book.
So off we go to her answers.
1) What do you think is exotic about France?
It’s pretty lucky that we have different landscapes and climate in the whole country. North, South, East, West: each have their own micro-climate and landscapes. We have seas and oceans, we have small and big mountains. We have very cold winters and snow, we have very hot summers and drought, too. Basically, we got it all and it’s both a blessing and a curse, haha.
2) Will you tell us about France’s eating habits and the famous French cuisine?
Food is sort of a religion here in France. Seriously. Or maybe it’s just me, haha. We do love great food and I know French cuisine is praised everywhere in the world. I know I miss it whenever I am travelling abroad. There are many specialties, depending on the area you live in. We eat bread and cheese, we spend HOURS at the table. We eat frogs, snails, we eat mostly a savoury breakfast with croissants and jam and fruits. We also drink a lot of wine (we are not alcoholic, but having a glass of wine with dinner and during celebrations with family is… a habit).
3) Tell us more about a typical day in France.
Yes, it snows… well, it depends on where you are living in the country. I commute a lot, but that depends on where you live, too. It’s hard to depict a typical day in the country when everyone has a different rhythm. For me it’s train – work – sleep, basically. Oh and blog thrown in there.
4) Can you tell us about some of your unique French customs and practices, specific to France?
The 14th of July is a national celebration in the country, basically the equivalent of the 4th of July in the USA. Except that we celebrate maybe a bit less – we do have fireworks though. We also celebrate Labor Day on the 1st and Christmas and Easter and everything else. Christmas is quite a big deal, depending on where you live, since we have many Christmas markets around the country that are tourist-catchers.
When we first meet someone, or for a job interview or something, we often shake hands. When we are friends, family, or friends of friends, we do “la bise”, meaning that we kiss the other on both cheeks.
When invited to a house for dinner, we usually take a little present with us, such as wine, flowers or a box of chocolates.
5) Tell us about some of the stereotypes about France as depicted in the media, books / film etc that annoy you.
We always depict France and French people as very romantic people. The ones that complain a whole lot about everything. The ones going on strike all the time. The ones with an adorable and really sexy accent whenever we speak English or any other language, for that matter.
There is a bit of truth in… all of that, I’d say? It depends on which kind of person you’re meeting, though.
6) Tell us more about your national language. Teach us some very common words and few uncommon ones.
In English, there is no difference between when you meet a stranger or a friend, you will say “you”. In French, we have two pronouns: “tu”, when you address a friend, a colleague or family member, and “vous” when you are talking to your boss, a stranger, etc.
Instead of saying “bless you” when someone sneezes, we say “santé” (that means…health, basically).
As for some words you can’t translate, I am thinking of “retrouvailles”, it is the word when you meet someone again after a while without seeing them. There is also the word “dépaysement”, meaning whenever you are feeling… a bit lost, outside of your usual comfort zone, in a different environment and trying to find your bearings again.
Thank you, Marie for your time and letting us get a peek into your French life. You can contact her through her blog and social accounts.
That is all we have folks in this week’s feature of Flyaway Friday the France Edition. I will meet you next month with another country with its books, author and bloggers, in full.
What do you love about the French? Do you have any friends from France? Do you love Marie’s answers? Let me know in the comments. If you would like to do a guest post on my blog and want to talk about your country, contact me.
I so wanna travel there someday ! I follow a few french youtubers from France and ohh does it looks so pretty !! 😍As a french speaking canadian, id very much like to visit our cousins and see how different we are, hehehe.
However, with my migrated accent & “chiac” (language typic from where I am right now, since we’re surrounded by english peeps, we merge both of our languages together – in the same sentence) Not sure they’d understand me properly ahaha
France is definitely dreamy and on my bucket list. And you being French speaking would make your visit all the more interesting, right?
I haven’t had the pleasure of visiting France yet, this post has given me the itch.
Same here. France sounds so magical.
I miss long meals. Since having kids I find just about every meal as a time limit. That’s one of the reasons I like summer. When the kids are done, they can jump up and go play. If DH and I are eating outside, we can just go on and keep sitting at the table.
When we were kids we used to have long dinners outside under the moonlight, during the summer especially when our cousins visit us for the holidays. Day time would be too hot to do anything but loiter around as kids. Thanks for bringing me back those memories.
French culture is very different depending on what parts you go to. The south is so relaxed, possibly to do with the weather and beaches there. Lovely post.
Relaxing beaches sound inviting. I am adding that to my bucketlist.
Lovely post! I enjoyed finding out more about Marie’s live and French culture.
Marie would be glad to hear that. You should take a look at her blog as well.
What an amazing post, I love the idea and cannot wait to read more!!
I already found another blogger from another country for this February. So stick around.
This was terrific! I love hearing stories about people living in different countries and getting used to the culture and day to say life.
That is what I was going in for. Glad you like it.
I love this type of post! It’s so interesting to learn about other cultures, and I love the way you chose to interview other bloggers to showcase that!
Exactly, I definitely want to know more about other countries and their people and this is a cool way to do it, right?
This post! France is on my bucket list this year and I just loved this interview, thank you!
Yes France is on my dream list too.
I went several years ago and it was lovely, for the most part… But jackasses are everywhere.
Your comment made me spit my morning coffee and chuckle. But yes there are jackasses all around the globe.
Thank you so, SO much once again for asking me to answer these questions, I had such a great time with it and it’s incredible to be featured on your blog! 🙂
Thank YOU Marie. Your answers were spot on and gave us an insider view to France. Love you <3
Love you too! Thanks again!! <3 <3
Thanks for the insight into France Marie! This post was so informative. I love the picture too!
I totally agree, Marie did a great job with her post!
Oh man, I would totally go food crazy in France! Especially at the bakeries or patisseries. I’m going hungry just thinking about it. LOL. This was a fun post. 🙂
I totally can dream all day about the food! Glad you enjoyed it.
(Before I start: yes, I know this is cliche) I’ve always had this picture of me going to France, getting a croissant and a cup of coffee, sitting in a window seat of the cafe and enjoying the country… and then I the saw that last photo, and that is basically what I had in mind XD
Oh I love the picture you described and that is exactly what I want to do as well. It is worth being a cliche I tell you!
I’ve always wanted to visit France and reading this post has only increased my interest. You’ve asked Marie some on-point questions and she’s replied brilliantly too! ❤️
Glad you liked it and there would be more of these interviews.