#les grandes vacances

[blackswaneuroparedux]

So recently I was listening to one of my favourite podcasts while on a business trip by train through the Swiss Alps to Zurich. 'The Rest Is History' hosted historians Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland were quite topical talking about France under de Gaulle and the student riots of 1968 as well as its legacy towards France’s current troubles with civil disorder.

The recent riots starting in Nanterre and beyond were troubling and significant. However outsiders not knowing the French or their culture and history thought it was either the fall of the Fifth Republic or start of the collapse of Western civilisation itself. It was nothing of the sort. For the most part the French think it healthy to blow off steam and have a jolly good riot in the same way people in England blow off steam by writing an angry letter to the editor of the Times. It’s just how things are. As predicted, things have gotten quiet now.

In their podcast Sandbrook and Holland cheekily suggested that the fizzling out of les evénéments – the student protests of 1968, during which it seemed that another of France’s periodic revolutions might ignite - had something to do with the Whitsun holidays. Realising that their Parisian parents were setting off for their holiday homes in the French countryside or the southern coast, the elitist student leaders put down their high minded revolutionary leftist philosophical slogans aside for the bourgeois comfort of vacances en famille. There is a lot of truth to that.

All this is to say les grandes vacancies have already begun in France. The grand vacation of July and August is an entrenched tradition in the French psyche. So ingrained is this tradition that until 2015 there were regulations still in place dating back to the French revolution that governed when bakers in Paris could take their holidays, so as not to deprive the city’s populace of their daily bread (not quite baguette, because that was invented later by the Austrians camped out in the Champs de Mars after the fall of Napoleon - but that’s another story).  

That France is in the middle of les grandes vacances can be seen here in Paris. Parisians are leaving their apartments and heading out to the countryside or down south to the Med - to be offfeeling handedly rude and entitled towards the locals. Schools have been closed since June. Many shops are closed or not nearly as crowded as usual, most of the people wandering the streets have cameras around their necks. Of course not everyone goes and those that stay can feel freer until the first glut of tourists arrive.

For many France in August is definitely their favourite time of the year. And every summer I’m reminded just how much French language and culture are inseparable by the fact that there are words for people who take their annual vacation in July, les juillettistes, or in August, les aoûtiens.

Most French people have 5 weeks of paid vacation per year, and some have even more time off with the inclusion of their RTTs (essentially, personal days) for those who work more than 35 hours per week. I work close to 80 hours a week, so I'm ready for my break from the corporate treadmill.

So my blog will be shut down for the rest of the summer as I go away on vacation. I’ll be back in early September.

I use this time to switch off my phone and strictly no social media as I go off grid. It's a question of valuing one's mental health. I hope you can do the same.

Thank you for following my blog and appreciating my eclectic posts.

I wish you all the best.

Have a great summer!

[improfusionberlin]

Liebe Freund*innen, die Sommerpause beginnt und wir werden unsere Kreativität ruhen lassen, um sie wieder aufzufrischen! Wir sehen uns im September wieder, um neue improvisierte Überraschungen zu erleben! Genießen Sie den Sommer und die Ferien, bis bald!

---

Cher*es ami*es, la pause estivale commence et nous allons laisser reposer notre créativité afin de la ressourcer! Nous vous donnons rendez-vous en septembre pour de nouvelles surprises improvisées ! Profitez bien de l'été et des vacances, à bientôt !

[whoops-ahaha]

my childhood crushes honestly

[brezelzeit]

Working on Rene in the art style of “Les grandes grandes vacances/The Long Long Holiday”

It’s a cute French cartoon about kids in occupied France in the war

I thought since they both take place in occupied France that I would kinda do a crossover thing where I drew Rene in that art style

Tbh, I cannot watch anything set in ww2 occupied France WITHOUT thinking about Allo Allo 😂

I highly recommend that cartoon it’s on Prime btw.

I’m sure most of y’all have seen that show but I’ll include style examples anyway

[slaughteredmeat]

these series go hard 😭😭😭

[erisbrownleaf]

A comission for my bro 🫶

[ashy-grey-salt-shark]

Day 4-6: Character you've never drawn

[jokakoka2434]

They are so zesty ✰

[nerdolapodre]

Lazy drawing I will probably never finish

cuties

[sealpost]

The Long, Long Holiday backgrounds

Credits to the official Les Grandes Grandes Vacances Facebook page.

[sebwayboi]

First prompt… Pierre Sr. & Jeanne :3

[twilloper]

[whoops-ahaha]

It's finally the summer hols. You know what that means? We're back on the annual long long holiday grind.

Also, on a separate note, the english dub for this series is what french dubs in general sound like to me. Very strange.

On another, separate note, I'm in the midst of creating ocs for this, so I may or may not doodle them and share...

[paintedbirdriver-blog]

Hi everyone :D! I have OCs fanart ^^!!!!

I never finish any of my drawings but i think that i should publish this :D! As a OCs creator I know how it feels to have fanart of your character so here you go :D!!!!!!!!!!

Originals Characters in order:

Lucille Laurent by Pagan-lovesong

Garnece Wolf by whoops-ahaha¿?¿?¿?¿?¿ (Sorry pal I dont know your name :c)

Christoph Schneider by sebwayboi

Christophs story "The Blond Boy" also by sebwayboi (Or at least I think so xd)

Morgane by Morgane

[slaughteredmeat]

hans if he was modern idk

[erisbrownleaf]

I'm not dead, don't get your hopes up haha