French methods of problem-solving are different

To logic-based methods

Dear Friend, 

I hope you’ve had a good week. If you are new since my last letter, welcome! I am delighted to be your pen friend. 

Christmas springs quite late here in Paris. It’s just this week, at the very end of November, that we’ve started to see festive signs. I enjoyed watching the incongruous spectacle of men in high-vis vests attaching large baubles to huge Christmas trees in front of the town hall of the 18th arrondissement. Meanwhile, the grand department stores have unveiled their Christmas displays, while local high streets are now sporting subtle white garlands. It’s a more low-key affair than the Christmas lead-up in London.

I have also been lucky enough this week to attend not one, but two, Thanksgiving dinners. I have consumed a frankly indecent amount of pie this week. Strangely, I had never celebrated Thanksgiving before I lived in France!

Pecan pie on its windowsill refrigerator at Thanksgiving Dinner 2 of the week

---

Inside out at the salle de sport

If you have lived in France you will know that the French methods of problem-solving are…circuitous.

I have previously written about my local gym in my letters. This description is from the previous letter ‘Cette machine est pour les hommes’.

“The nearest branch of my gym is housed in a huge warehouse-like building with a skylight. There’s a large central exercise room where classes take place, several metres above it is a horseshoe-shaped gallery, lined on three sides with running and cross-training machines. With my friends Kate and Lauren, we call this space the “judgement chamber”. If you do a class in the exercise room down below, it looks like an army of sweaty people are running over your head, or else about to jump into a void. 

Like many gyms, this space was evidently designed with men in mind first, and women as a secondary afterthought. For example, the men’s changing rooms are on the first floor (the gallery/judgement level), right by the ‘musculation’ area, which is usually also dominated by men. The women’s changing room, on the other hand, is up on the fourth floor. Now, there is a lift, but the men who work at reception say that it has been broken for two years and there is no plan to fix it. So, if you want to use the locker room as a woman, you must first climb up four narrow flights of stairs (a warm-up, if you will), then come back down to the first floor, and then walk back up to the fourth floor to shower and change.”

On Thursday I set out to use the gym. I usually come dressed in my sports kit so ad to avoid the stair climb. This particular time though it was very cold, so I decided to go dressed in my outdoor clothes and use the fourth-floor women’s changing rooms. As usual I said “bonjour” to the people working on the front desk, two young sporty men. I then began the climb, thinking to myself how nice it would be to only have to go to the first floor. But when I arrived at the women’s changing room, I saw this sign:

It read:

EXCEPTIONELLEMENT

JEUDI 23 NOVEMBRE 2023 

DE 7H A 22H30 

INTERCHANGEMENT VESTIAIRE 

HOMME/FEMME 

POUR INTERVENTION TECHNIQUE 

Or,

EXCEPTIONALLY

TODAY 7AM TO 10.30PM

INTERCHANGEMENT OF CHANGING ROOMS

MAN/WOMAN

FOR TECHNICAL INTERVENTION

I was, quite frankly, confused. So I went back down the four flights of stairs to the reception and asked the two young men, “What exactly does ‘interchangement’ of the changing rooms mean?”. “Ah, c’est très simple”, said one of the sporty men. “Today, the women’s changing room will be located in the men’s changing room on the first floor by the musculation equipment, and the men’s changing room will be in the women’s changing room on the fourth floor!”.

 “D’accord,” I said. “Oui madame,” said the gym man, “just go up to the first floor and today this is the women’s changing room”. I made my short ascent, feeling like I was walking into a secret parallel universe. When I arrived at the men’s (today women’s) changing room door, I noticed there was no sign at all. I opened it tentatively and walked into the middle of the large blue-painted space, turned left into a block of lockers and came face to face with a very affronted looking half-naked man.

“Euhhh!”, he exclaimed. By means of explanation I said:“Today, this is the women’s changing rooms”; suddenly I was a new advocate for a protocol I didn’t agree with or really understand. This man clearly knew nothing of the INTERCHANGEMENT, and therefore assumed that I was some kind of roving pervert.

“Euh non madame,” he said. “Your changing rooms are on the fourth floor.” “Oui I KNOW!”, I said, without looking directly at him (he’s still half-naked). I made another attempt to ‘explain’. “Reception told me that just today, this is the women’s changing room, and you have to go to the fourth floor.” He seemed unwilling to leave and I suddenly realised I was very much unwilling to stay. I decided to go back down to reception.

“Erm, there was half-naked man in the changing room,” I said, “and he didn’t know why I was there”. “Ah bon!?”, exclaimed the two men at reception, seemingly shocked at the news that a man was shamelessly using the men’s changing room, in clear disregard of the one-day INTERCHANGEMENT. 

“C’est bizzarre,” said one of the men at the front desk. “We are telling everyone about the system as they come in!” Now, I knew and they knew that this was not true. They both had, five minutes before, allowed me to walk up to the (usually) women’s changing rooms on the fourth floor, without a word. But they had a solution.

“Don’t worry, Madame — we’ll just go tell that man to leave”. Before I could say anything, one of the men had run upstairs to tell the affronted half-naked man to get out and go to the women’s changing rooms. When the front-desk man came back down he said proudly “c’est bon madame, you can go up now!”. Fearing further escalation of the farce plot line, I declined.

I have learned from experience, it’s best not to seek a logical thread in such situations!

---

Thirty-second book club

I am still navigating my way through the 19th-century English class system via George Eliot’s classic Middlemarch. It continues to be entertaining, interesting and surprisingly contemporary.

Faces, Hannah Meltzer

---

Thank you for reading this week’s Pen Friend letter. If you enjoy our correspondence, please do share, it makes a big difference!

Have a lovely week.

Yours, 

Hannah