Made from mineral water,  the “brumisateur” water spray hydrates, cools you off and gives energy to your skin… or at least that’s what the product is being sold as.

These sprays are findable in any grocery stores, and mainly used during summer I’d say… at least that’s the use I had of it.  Because we didn’t have issues with massive heat waves until 2003, French people usually don’t have air conditioning in their homes… or even at work… maybe in offices but not as frequently as here.  I personally never minded it since I never grew up with it and sweating is good for you!   Air conditioning makes me chilly and I usually end up with a eye irritation and a torticollis.

Anyways, these sprays thingies are nice.  I never saw them in the US but I did find the Evian ones on Amazon.com and as a US open sponsor… it’s kind of pricey though since it is probably imported.

Formed in 1976 to separate in 1986 , Téléphone was one of the greatest French Rock bands of all times.   Their music is omnipresent in France, their lyrics in every mind.

Jean-Louis Aubert (singer/guitarist), Louis Bertignac (guitarist/singer), Corine Marienneau (bass/singer) and Richard Kolinka (drums) along with Trust, very popular New Wave of British Heavy Metal band, became so big within 10 years that they opened for the Rolling Stones in Paris, The US, Quebec and even Japan. They also toured alongside with Iggy Pop in the 80s.

The following videos are their most popular songs:

Un autre Monde (lyrics):

New York avec Toi (lyrics):

Cendrillon - don’t trust Prince charming, an alternative version of the Fairy Tale (lyrics) : he knocked her up, left her for Sleeping Beauty (La Belle au bois dormant) so she started drinking and became a junkie.

“ça (c’est vraiment toi)” is a classic (lyrics) and is often played in the clubs:

And for those of you who, like me, need a little kick to their day to wake up, here is the best song of Trust (available on Guitar Hero) … Enjoy, Antisocial:

Tu bosses toute ta vie pour payer ta pierre tombale
Tu masques ton visage en lisant ton journal
Tu marches tel un robot dans les couloirs du métro
Les gens ne te touchent pas, il faut faire le premier pas
Tu voudrais dialoguer sans renvoyer la balle
Impossible d’avancer sans ton gilet pare-balle.
Tu voudrais donner des yeux à la justice
Impossible de violer cette femme pleine de vices.

Antisocial, tu perds ton sang froid.
Repense à toutes ces années de service.
Antisocial, bientôt les années de sévices
Enfin le temps perdu qu’on ne rattrape plus.

Ecraser les gens est devenu ton passe-temps.
En les éclaboussant, tu deviens gênant.
Dans ton désespoir, il reste un peu d’espoir
Celui de voir les gens sans fard et moins bâtards.
Mais cesse de faire le point, serre plutôt les poings
Bouge de ta retraite, ta conduite est trop parfaite
Relève la gueule, je suis là, t’es pas seul
Ceux qui t’enviaient, aujourd’hui te jugeraient.

Tu bosses toute ta vie pour payer ta pierre tombale
Tu masques ton visage en lisant ton journal
Tu marches tel un robot dans les couloirs du métro
Les gens ne te touchent pas, il faut faire le premier pas
Tu voudrais dialoguer sans renvoyer la balle
Impossible d’avancer sans ton gilet pare-balle.
Tu voudrais donner des yeux à la justice
Impossible de violer cette femme pleine de vices.
Antisocial, antisocial, antisocial, antisocial

In France, we usually do the egg hunt thingy, eat chocolate, but no honey ham or ham at all (“jambon“)… some people eat lamb (”agneau“) though.  I was thinking about the fact that we don’t actually eat ham as people do here, and especially not honeyed.

If you go to France you won’t find honey, or maple syrup ham or any sugared ham at all.  Cooked ham stays cooked and we do have a lot more choices in dry cured ham, for a more affordable price of course.

We usually eat dry cured ham as an “entrée” - people here call “appetizer”:

and regular cooked ham as well but also in quiches or omelettes and such.

I don’t think there is any sugary meal we cook with honey or syrup… I personally think it ruins the taste of the actual meat and doesn’t taste right.  But that’s just me, that’s what you get when you haven’t grown up eating it I’m sure.

Anyways, another thing that we do not have for Easter and seems extremely strange to me is the Easter Bunny… we do have Easter Bunny chocolates but we don’t have the character, the person dressed up as a bunny.

But what we do have is a day off on the Monday following Easter, the Easter Monday and people usually have a 4-day-weekend on that occasion (”faire le pont“).

In Europe, there is one type of cookies hard to find here.  It’s called “un choco“.  Biscuits with cocoa crème filling, you usually can find it anywhere.

There is two main brands of chocos: BN and Prince.  BN makes round miniature ones but the regular ones are square.  BN’s chocos always have a smiley face on them.

Prince, as its name suggests it, has a Prince for Logo.

There are several kinds of chocos of course: chocolate biscuits with white chocolate, even strawberry crème filling ones.

The only one I can find here, so far, is chocos from Bahlsen called Hit.

Here are some BN commercials, which are pretty good:

Let’s talk “Les Inconnus“.   French trio of humorists: Didier Bourdon, Bernard Campan and Pascal Légitimus are most famous for their satirical sketch comedy, music and movies.

There are too many parodies, too many classics to share them all on this blog but here are a few.

A parody of a band called Indochine, “Isabelle a les yeux bleus, les yeux bleus Isabelle a“:

Isabelle a les yeux bleus,
Isabelle a les yeux bleus,
Isabelle a les yeux bleus,
Bleus les yeux Isabelle a.
Soudain quand elle est partie,
J’ai vu qu’elle n’était plus là
Et comme elle n’était plus là,
Je m’suis dit elle est partie,
Dans la nuit noire,
Dans la nuit noire et obscure,
Obscure et sombre,
Isabelle s’est cognée contre les murs.
Isabelle a les yeux bleus,
Isabelle a les yeux bleus,
Isabelle a les yeux bleus,
Bleus les yeux Isabelle a.
Y aplus d’espoirs,
Dans le nuit noire,
Sur le quai de la gare,
Ddans le brouillard,
Il faisait un froid de canard,
Euh les mecs j’ai plus de rimes en “ar”…
C’est pas grave on continue la chanson…
Isabelle a les yeux bleus,
Isabelle a les yeux bleus,
Bleus les yeux Isabelle a,
Isableu belle a les yeux
Ho! le solo guitard….
Ho! MONSTRUEUX….
Ho! MERDE!!!
Merde! attends je comprends pas là…
Eh les mecs si on se faisait un plan en anglais,
On va conquérir l’Europe….
Isabelle has the blue eyes,
Isabelle has the blue eyes,
Isabelle eyes blue,
Blue eyes Isebelle et has
C’était trop tard,
Quand j’ai su qu’elle me quittait,
Qu’elle me quittait,
Je l’ai su oui que oui que très très tard…
Tard tard
Isabelle a les yeux bleus,
Isabelle a les yeux bleus,
Isabelle a les yeux bleus,
Bleus les yeux isabelle a
“ISABELLE LORSQUE JE T’AI RENCONTRE POUR LA PREMIERE FOIS, TU AVAIS LES YEUX BLEUS ET LORSQUE TU M’AS QUITTE, TU AVAIS TOUJOURS LES YEUX BLEUS”
ben c’est normal hein…
Sur l’quai de la gare
J’ai voulu la rattraper
C’était trop tard,
Son avion venait juste de decoller
Coller….
Ho! les mecs je viens de trouver un accord a le guitare, completement monstrueux…
Ouais vas-y vas-y!
Ecoutez!
Oh monstrueux, monstrueux!
Tu vois c’est pas compliqué tu vois tu mets le doigt là tu voiset apres tu fais comme ça regarde
c’est monstreux ah oué oué oué
Ho la la! c’est complétement d’enfer
L’éclate totale tu vois
Ho! j’vais vous dire les mecs ca va etre monstrueux!!

 

One of their songs, La Banlieue, but you have to understand French very well to get what they say (lyrics):

The first is a sketch is a classic:

The following is Didier Bourdon playing Jesus as Sylvester Stallone Rambo-style:

Another one is based on Bioman the TV show (Bioman jaune devant marron derrière!):

You can watch more through youtube and dailymotion… it’s hard to sum up all their work in just a few lines.