Back from a trip to France, I am slowly recuperating from the "experience," as Californian sophisticates like to put it. Having lived and worked there years ago, I foolishly thought I had cracked the French Enigma. This trip showed me that I was not quite there. But before I start telling you more about the Enigma, I would like to pass along to people intending to visit France some advice not found in travel guides.

First, France is a big history museum. You cannot walk a few blocks in any city without coming upon some masterpiece of medieval architecture. My advice is not to let these marvels distract you. Instead, watch your feet. If you don't, chances are you'll step in dog doo-doo. France must have the highest dog population density in western Europe. Given an unemployment rate of 10%, and a value-added tax of 19.6% on top of a steep income tax, it is surprising that the French have the means to feed so many dogs, and big dogs at that---if excrement size is a reliable indicator. Perhaps the numerous French welfare programs include an Aid to Families with Dependent Dogs. In any case, it is prudent to wear rubber boots that you can wash just by wading in any of the many medieval or Renaissance fountains.

Second, if you plan to stay in a hotel, try to find one that has real showers. In real showers, the showerhead is firmly affixed to the wall at a height of about six feet (1.8288 meters). Most American showers are real. In France, showerheads are made to be hand-held, because they are fed by a flexible hose connected to the tub faucet. The contraptions waste time and spray water everywhere because, too often, the showers have no curtain. I imagine that the only function of these clever gadgets is to keep water away from certain body parts. But why? It's hard to understand why the French put up with the inconvenience. Unless they take showers in rare occasions.

Third, never think of having a quick sandwich lunch in a café. Regardless of what you eat and drink, stepping into a café means that you will be stuck there for two hours. That's the time it will take to place your order, get your sandwich, eat it, and pay for it, even if you can eat it in five minutes. At any time, most people in a café do not eat or drink. They talk or read newspapers. Meanwhile, café owners and managers complain that business is not profitable, and that the government should give them special breaks. Did it occurred to them that hiring more waiters could reduce the average time of a sandwich lunch to twenty minutes, sell more sandwiches, and reduce unemployment? Maybe it did, but the payroll taxes are so high that they'd rather not do that. For a quick sandwich lunch, go to McDonald's.

Fourth, when dining in a restaurant---a four-hour affair---be careful about what you answer when the waiter asks "Un apéritif, pour commencer?", which sounds like "An ahpayreeteef poor komansay?" and means "Would you like to start with a drink?" Do not order "bourbon et water," unless you are ready to explain in French what a bottle of bourbon looks like, and how much water you want in your drink, and what kind. If you can do that, you'll have to ignore the waiter's look of contempt, because, in his book, bourbon is an after-dinner drink---isn't bourbon some barbarous imitation of cognac, no? And then, when he finally brings you your bourbon, you have to ask for ice. And then you give up when you get a lone, minuscule ice cube that melts as soon as you grab your glass. So, order instead a Dubonnet---that's "Dubonay"---just to make it easy on yourself, and fool people nearby into believing that you're not a tourist. If you don't like it, pour it into the nearest flowerpot. That will do no harm because decorative plants in French restaurants are made of petroleum byproducts---"les plastiques."

Fifth, the higher-class restaurants are not what they used to be. Forgettable dishes have fancy names, like "Pavé de bœuf sauce Pont-Neuf," which translates as "Cobblestone of beef in New-Bridge sauce," but really means "some steak cooked in a pan." Forget about medium-rare steaks. French chefs don't know how to cook them. Less-pretentious restaurants called "brasseries" are much better. People who learnt to read with the global method often think that "brasserie" is a piece of feminine underwear and expect restaurants by that name to be a French version of Hooters®. Of course, they are wrong. Brasseries are fast-food joints of a sort---remember, two hours---with all kinds of stuff truly French like crèpes, charcuterie, seafood, and, for real men and strong women, tartar steak. Although "brasserie" means "brewery," these places don't make beer. They just serve strange beers with stranger names, which taste like yeast. Why they don't get good beer from Germany, two hundred miles away or less, is part of the Enigma.

Sixth, I have good news for tourists who are afraid to look like tourists because they don't know which sort of wine they should drink with which food. I could observe that it has become fashionable for the French to drink any kind of wine with any kind of food. One night, I saw a well-dressed man of sophisticated mien order red wine with his steamed seafood. With a knowing look, he instructed the waiter to serve the wine "frais," which means "cold." The waiter gave him a knowing nod. Twenty years ago, the whole restaurant would have laughed the man out of town, if not out of the country. Cold red wine? And with seafood? It may be that the French finally have come to terms with the real reason for which they drink wine. Not because it's highly refined---as they claimed in the old days---but just to get zonked. So, go ahead, order Merlot with your oysters, but don't forget to say that you want it "frais." Unless you don't like wine. But, again, don't order bourbon and water.

Seventh, be aware that the French vocabulary that you painfully learnt in high school or college will not help you much on your trip. France has fallen victim to the malady of pompous obfuscation. In need of stamps for postcards to send home, I entered a post office and looked for a window with the sign "Timbres," which means "Stamps." There was no such window. I asked a clerk who shrugged and pointed at a big sign that said "Espace Philatélie," that is, "Philately Space." I found that confusing, because the stamps I needed were not for study or collection. They were just to be slapped on postcards. I later noticed that "Espace" is a very popular word. Bookstores have signs such as "Espace Histoire" and "Espace Science" over the history and science sections. Some stores of sporting goods call themselves "Espace Sports." It looks like someone noticed that the word "Espace" was underused and, in the names of fairness and equality, decided to do something about it. The same goes for "pôle," like in "North Pole." Many government offices are called "pôles." I tried to figure out why, and concluded that the best explanation had to do with magnetism: these poles somehow must be thought of as attracting---or repelling?---people. Supermarkets used to be called "supermarchés." They are now referred to as "grandes surfaces," which means nothing more precise than "large areas." The list of obfuscating substitutes for ordinary words goes on and on. The French, who prided themselves on the natural precision of their language, must be eating their words---including indigestible ones like "espace," "pôle," and other pompous constructions.

Eighth, get used to hearing the French refer to their country as "l' Hexagone" and to themselves as "les Hexagonaux," all that because they think of France as inscribable in a convex, regular hexagon. It is as if this remarkable geometry was a sign that God had made France His Special Country. To me, France is better inscribed in a concave, irregular heptagon, which is not really special, except perhaps to crackpots who attribute supernatural properties to the number seven. If I were to pay the same sort of attention to the geometry of the United States, I would call the country "The Trapezium," and myself "Trapezial," which is silly. Could you picture yourself answering "Where are you from?" with "the Trapezium!"?

Finally, do not laugh when French people complain about "le stress." Do not ask why thirty-five-hour workweeks and two-hour lunches are so hard to take. The roots of the French "stress" are metaphysical and part of the Enigma, of which I shall write in my next column..