Cinéma-ing on the Cheap

Last semester, I took a survey course on the rules governing the  EU common market and the core EU freedoms (i.e., freedom to provide services, free movement of goods, freedom of establishment).

So why am I mentioning it? In the class, we read a decision from the European Court of Justice about selling DVDs (released in another EU Member State) in France before they were officially released in France. France is unique in the EU in that it has one of the longest (if not the longest) delays between when a movie first comes out in theaters and when it may be released on DVD. If I remember correctly, it’s one year.

Madagascar 3, then, will come out in Germany months before it comes out in France.
Trying to rectify this issue, foreign distributors (all the while crying “free movement of goods in the EU!”) wanted to be able to distribute DVDs already release in other parts of the EU in France, and claimed that France’s unusually long delay was a barrier to the free movement of DVDs within the EU. The European Court of Justice agreed that there was a barrier, but sided with France’s claims that the delay protected art and culture and French cinema, entertaining evenings with friends, etc. My professor noted that it really protects the movie theater industry (like a back door subsidy) more than it protects film as an art form, but hey.

Relevance to today, you ask? Well, the French National Cinéma Festival is in full swing this week (until Wednesday, at least) and I am taking advantage of it. Essentially, when you buy a full price ticket (or student price ticket for me), you get a cute little bracelet. Then for every showing thereafter, when you show your bracelet, the ticket is only € 2.50! This means that I went to see What to Expect When You’re Expecting on Sunday, and Madagascar 3 on Monday, and tonight I’m going to a movie, and Wednesday I’m going to a movie…you get the point.

On a side note, I adored Madagascar 3. I will even admit to quietly clapping my hands (and grinning like a fool) when things were working out well for Alex the Lion and his crew of lovable zoo escapees. My personal favorite character, I must admit, was the Italian sea lion Stefano. He's quite cute, although admittedly only of slightly below-average intelligence. The French crowd laughed at the jokes about France, and I had a BIG chuckle when they made fun of French labor law, saying that the monkeys (who work for the clever penguins) now only need to work 2 weeks out of the year. I have had to do a little French employment law during my internship, and although the French definitely work more than 2 weeks a year, it's still definitely a different legal landscape than the US!

What to Expect When You're Expecting was fluffy and I laughed, which is what I was looking for on the rainy, dismal afternoon that was last Sunday. I cracked up at the end because I noticed that the group of spectators in front of me was composed of 4 boys in their late teens -- no girls in sight. Not exactly the demographic What to Expect was expecting.

I'll let you know how my next two movies go. :)

Busy-ness (?), Trains, and Church

Chers amis,

Whew.

It’s been an odd combination of busy and not busy at work. Sometimes, I’m running around working and gathering stuff, and end up skipping or postponing lunch or staying later than usual. Other times, I’m a wee bit bored and end up surreptitiously doing what I call “professional development reading” on law blogs, news sites, etc. because no one has an easily delegable task for me to do.

Toughest of all, however, is holding out everyday until the French-approved lunch time of 1:30. It has even surpassed the keyboard dilemmas. I’ll have you know I have become quite competent on the AZERTY keyboard, and then I get confused when I go home to my QWERTY iPad.

What have I been doing for the past week and a half? Let’s see:

I’ve worked on some commercial lease negotiation stuff, some research for the upcoming firm-hosted breakfast conference that I mentioned in my last post, and some French memo writing for a big lawsuit going down in French Polynesia.

Biggest and coolest of all though is being the unofficial point person for outside counsel on this one matter (a corporate reorganization in Eastern Europe). Essentially, I get to call and ask counsel in different countries whether they’re going to make our deadline, ask and answer follow-up questions and generally liaise between my office and theirs. Then, I compile their submissions on their country’s law into a memo to our client, and I edit their English along the way. So far, it’s been a very cool cross-border experience.

As I mentioned in my last post, generally everyone has lunch together in a conference room. The variety of lunch discussion topics has been pretty amusing. It’s ranged from attractive male and female tennis stars (not being all that familiar with tennis stars, it took me a while to pick up on some of the names being tossed around), soccer (of course), childbirth (usually it’s all women at these things), really bad reality TV shows (did you know that Ice-T has a show with his wife Cookie, or something like that?), the incomprehensible celebrity of the Kardashians (enough said), what high school everyone’s kids are going to (in France, I think it’s an application process even for public schools where you list your first through 3^rd choices, etc.), to the Queen of England and her Jubilee this week (with some Kate and Pippa gossip thrown in). Also, having read the Game of Thrones series, I was asked to give some spoilers, haha.   

On the sight-seeing side of things, I went to the town of Chartres on Saturday to see its renowned cathedral and just explore. I took the train from my nearest train station, Gare Montparnasse, which is only 2 metro stops away. I arrived at the train station and made my way from the metro area to the big main line train area, and tried to get my e-tickets from an automated ticket withdrawal machine. 

After 5 failed attempts to withdraw my tickets, I ended up going to stand in line to speak with a real person. I was in line for *quite some time,* nervously glancing at my watch as my departure time grew nearer and nearer. Once I was able to speak with a representative, I discovered that picking up your tickets at the automated machine does not work so well if you have a foreign credit card. The machines apparently only take cards with “puces,” or those little shiny SIM card looking things that some credit cards have. So, my lowly little PNC Bank debit card didn’t cut it.

I got my ticket with, oh, 4 minutes to spare until departure. The platform was clear at the other end of the station and the representative asked if I had a suitcase. When I replied that I did not, she kindly suggested that I run, unless I wanted to wait around an hour and catch the next train. I decided that waiting was not really that exciting of an option, so I booked it from platform 1 to platform 22 (of like 25). I ended up getting a little turned around and looked at platform 21, but the train sitting at it was dark and locked, so another Cartres-bound traveler and I headed on to 22. I saw that the first car was down to pretty much standing room only, so in great wisdom, I ran down to the next car and leapt aboard literally as the automatic doors were closing. It was somewhat of an exhilarating morning.

The train took about an hour, and after my arrival in Chartres I headed straight for the cathedral and wandered about inside checking out the stained glass. I honestly did not notice the famous labyrinth on the floor of the cathedral – I think it was pretty obscured by the chairs/pews – but I got my step-mom an oversized postcard of it anyway.

After touring the cathedral and gift shop, I had lunch at a restaurant just outside so that I could see more of the cathedral’s exterior. I read some and then someone was doing a mini-organ recital in the cathedral, so I got to enjoy that as well. By this point, I was kind of running out of ideas of what to do, so I toured the more touristy streets and perused some different shops. I ended up passing some time in the small park just in front of the cathedral where I read some more, and unbeknownst to me at the time, ended up getting a pretty impressive sunburn. The weather was warm but there was such a breeze that I never felt uncomfortable – ergo, how I never noticed that I was burning. Oh well. Ended up catching an earlier train back to Paris than I had originally scheduled.

This Thursday, I’m considering going to see a performance of Verdi’s Requiem (I did a paper on requiem masses in high school, so I kind of have a radar for them now) at a theater outside of the Louvre but I don’t want to get a ticket in advance because I would hate to miss it if something came up at work. I.e., last Friday I was supposed to go to a lecture on arbitration and the media at a local university from 5-7. I cleared it with the managing partner more than a week in advance, but by the time I got phase one of this Eastern European corporate reorg memo out to the client, I would have been late to the talk, so I didn’t go. I don’t want to tempt fate with Verdi.

I’m also excited for Friday, June 22 because I bought a ticket to see Paul Taylor Dance Company (a modern American company) perform at a theater here in Paris. I have never gotten to see them in the US – one time, I was in DC and they were performing at the Kennedy Center the day after I left…same thing has happened in NYC – so I am thrilled to finally get to go!!!

I know this is turning into a mammoth post, but I have to mention church, too! I went to First Church of Christ, Scientist, Paris last Sunday and it was nice, but it didn’t feel like *home* for the next 10 weeks. So last Wednesday, I tried Second Church, which is conveniently close to where I work…and I loved it. I was invited out to go out to dinner within minutes of my arrival by a fellow American (who has lived in Paris for more than 30 years). I arrived at church carrying a small tubular kind of fan that my friend had loaned me for my apartment – it ended up being quite the conversation piece.

After the service, I spoke with a few people and everyone kept asking about the fan and wanting to write down the make and model because it’s a unique size and they like it. Kind of odd, but I definitely felt included. Dinner after the service was great, and I’m looking forward to going again.

Hopefully, I’m going to get better about posting more frequently!

Bisous! 

You've been waiting for it -- first week of work!

Bonsoir mes amis,


Sorry for the delay in posting -- it's been quite a busy week! I started at the firm on Monday and my dad and step-ma were in town Sunday through Tuesday evening, so I had dinner with them each night after work. Today I had dinner with a law school friend, her partner, and their son! It's been a much more socially active week than I had imagined it would be. I pictured myself all alone this first week and how hard it was going to be to transition to living by myself again and not having Husband around. But, although I miss Mr. H. like crazy, I've been pretty blessed to feel like I have a "normal" life here with friends and family. It's kind of just like home but people smoke more (even more than in Pittsburgh, which seems impossible to me) and I speak a different language at work. You know, little differences.

So, work. Which I know you are all dying to hear about. It's very cool and there are several things about which I am DORKILY excited. For instance, I have my own email address with the firm, and my own phone line, and my own key and badge, and there is pretty much all you can drink tea, coffee, Evian, and Badoit (like Perrier).

The environment is so collegial -- some staff and attorneys all go out to find food at like 1:30 and bring it back and we all eat what we've bought in the conference room. Everyone has made a real effort to include me in things, inviting me to go "chercher un manger" (look for food) with them, explaining legal concepts to me, etc.

That's probably been the biggest and most obvious difference -- I'm doing some work in French law but I have a very introductory background in it, so essentially I am starting from a very basic level. But again, people take the time to explain things to me and usually, there's at least some corollary in the US system that I can kind of compare a given concept to, and then things start to click. Mostly I have been working on non-billable business development things, but I have gotten to help on one big lawsuit, so baby steps, I say.

Speaking of business development, the firm is hosting a breakfast mini-conference in June sometime, and for the invitations we wanted to include a picture at the heading to give the e-cite a classier touch. We had some photos done, but the coffee cup with coffee (it's breakfast, get it? We had a croissant too) wasn't on a saucer and the photographer didn't have enough time to re-do because she's was going away for Memorial Day (US based photographer, obviously). The lead attorney on the project was...dismayed to say the least by the lack of saucer. Efforts were made to convince him that it kinda sorta looked like a mug so a saucer is optional, but to no avail.

So, we have a photo shoot the next morning. I am dispatched to find a pretty looking croissant. I complete my mission and we start cleaning the table we've decided to stage the shoot on. None of us have a good actual camera so we bust out our iPhones. After two little shoots, some cropping and some resizing, I can proudly say that I, avocat and budding photographer, took the photo that will be featured in the invitation. Not what I expected to be doing for part of my first week, but we'll just call it resourceful. We worked some fresh peonies into the shot, too. It came out quite well for 2 lawyers and one lawyer-to-be putzing around with their phones. All in the name of business development, I suppose.

But honestly, the biggest "little" problem has been my computer keyboard at work. In case you didn't know, the French do not use the "standard" QWERTY style keyboard that we have in the US.

Instead, it's AZERTY.

Just pause, and think about it.

All of a sudden apple becomes "qpple" and Aztec becomes "Qwtec." Also, the enter key is in a weird spot so I keep hitting the *. That's not a frequently used thing, so why is it there!!!!! Like why wouldn't you have to shift to get an asterisk? Having it be a basic keystroke is ridiculous. Anyhoo.

I am determined not to ask for a QWERTY. This is my hero quest, my Everest, my wilderness journey: become an AZERTY-proficient typist. I am getting better already, and it is quite handy for French because the commonly used accented letters are there already. So that's nice.

Well, I'll update more with some of the sight-seeing stuff later. Just thought it would be better to share some of this first week of work stuff while it is in fact still my first week of work.

Ciao ciao,

Cate

PS Everyone says ciao ciao and all I picture is the dog, chow chow. I have to stop from laughing every time. I have a feeling that breed has a different name in French...