What is a Notaire?

[5-element]

[quote user="Sunday Driver"]

My notaire looks like Jamie Lee Curtis and laughs at my jokes.....[:D]

 

 

[/quote]

Well that's interesting - because our Notaire was  thirty-something, somewhat hispanic, a dark and dramatic beauty, with long flowing black hair down to her waist, theatrically dressed all in black, very attractive, and also rather personable. My husband's jaw dropped and it took a while for it to get back to its proper place, as for him it was love at first sight - she didn't look like Jamie Lee Curtis, although he (the husband) is quite partial to her too...[:D]

[Panda]

 

To even things up, my notaire has film star good looks and a great personality as well as speaking perfect english.  My jaw dropped when I saw him and I can never just drop some papers off, I need to make sure I am 'presentable'  He is defo the best looking french man I have come across!

[mint]

panda bear

it's only fair that you now tell us where this notaire is?  which department, town?

[tenniswitch]

[quote user="Collywobble"][quote user="tenniswitch"]

The class system is alive and well in France in a way that n'existe pas in the US.  (Although, it reminded me a bit of the way some people in the US defer to doctors.)

[/quote]

In the opinion of whom?  Ask some doctor's maid and see what they think. Or maybe the $3ph (illegal) mexican gardener. I'm sure they live in a different US to most of middle class suburbia (which is where I live).   I'm not sure which US you're talking about, but obviously not the one I'm in.  

There is a huge class system here, but it's not around your surname/heritage (unless you are a Kennedy), but around what you do, how well known you are and how much $$$ you are worth, what Alumni you are part of (that one makes me sick), golf club you are in,  etc. My god, I know people who are card carrying members of  "Descendents of the the Mayflower". How pretentious.

I have seen more shows about royalty, here  than in all my life. People here are obsessed with status.

That said, I have some fantastic American friends who are really down to earth and share most of the above thoughts. Mind you, they are, in general, well travelled, as I assume you  are yourself  TW.

Right, no hard feelings and back to France

Cheers[B]




[/quote]

I think you misunderstand me.  I was not trying to imply that the US is an egalitarian society.  On the contrary, the economic divide between the richest and the poorest has never been greater (and there's a pretty good chasm between the "comfortable" and the working poor, too). 

Social status in today's US is all about money, but not about class.  Social status in France is about class, not nearly so much about money.  I find myself in very few social situations in France in which the traditionally bourgeois are mingling with the traditionally paysan.  In the US, nobody (except a few "descendant of the Mayflower" dodos) cares who your parents and grandparents were. 

I'm not saying that one culture is better than another, just that they are quite different.  (Despite having known socially a number of French people, in the US and in France, I didn't really notice the class-consciousness of the French until I started living there for part of each year.  And, as Americans, we actually get an entrée with a lot of different people- partly, I think, because they can't figure out where we "belong".)

 

[Collywobble]

I think you misunderstand me.  I was not trying to imply that the US is an egalitarian society

TW, that is exaclty what I thought you were saying. Sorry, my mistake.

Cheers