Americonneries

Vive les vacances!

2008-08-24T18:14:00.004+02:00

If you are a true Parisian, you hustle and bustle and push and shove all over the place because you live in a geographically small city with over 2 million inhabitants. Then August comes and you go on vacation to the south of France so you can push and shove all over the French Riviera with all the other Parisians who do the same thing every year. I never understood that, but when you go to France's Mediterranean coastline, you do have to stop and smile that such paradise is only a three hour train ride away.
So we packed up and took the train down to Aix-en-Provence to start our vacation with extended family at their house in Provence. We're not there 20 minutes when the first apéro begins, complete with Papy, an in-law's older father who loves the apéro. Here's a snippet from our conversation:

Distant cousin: Since you're American, does your husband call you honey or chérie?
Me: Chérie. Or honey. Both, they're both nice names so he can call me either and I'll answer.
Papy, his glass of pastis empty: Claudine is a pretty name, too.

Cut to the part where I am shooting across the water on a boat off the coast of Cannes with a Franco-Italian model. I should add that he's there as a friend of my brother-in-law's and we are in total a group of eight, in a boat rented for the day. Boats and yachts are all over the place yet the water looks like it's never seen a drop of fuel in its life. We park in between two islands, have lunch and jump off the boats into the water. Then at night, we watch the fireworks show from a beachfront restaurant that serves sublime lobster salad. It'd ruin the moment to say that the baby got tired and fussy and I took her home before the show even started, so I won't mention that here.
The port of Cannes is where you come to show off your money. There are yachts all over the place with names like Champagne O'Clock, La Vie en Rose, and My Space. Bentleys cruise around with license plates from all over Europe and the Middle East. If you wish, you can rent a yacht for 30,000 euros a week. Tempted?
The next day, we leave for a small town up the coast and check into a beachfront hotel. Our balcony has a view of the bay and in the distance on Cap Nègre, you can see the Bruni family's estate. It's rumored that the president was here during our stay to vacation with Carla but left hurriedly to Georgia to attend to the South Ossetia situation and then he was back in Paris for the funerals of the French soldiers killed in Afghanistan. So, we didn't run into him on the beach. Too bad - I totally bet he would have kissed our baby.
Later that week, we are in Cassis. The waterfront here is rocky and walking along the sunbathing areas to the water hurts bare feet in some places. That's why some people wear water shoes. In the area we blindly stumbled upon, that's all they wore. We didn't mean to go to a "no tanlines" kind of beach but that was the best spot we found. If you thought it wasn't possible to be overdressed in a bikini, well, it is.
After another short stay at the family house (Bottom's up, Papy!), we take the TGV back up to Paris, a delayed ride marked by a passenger's crazed cat jumping out of its cage and clawing the lady sitting across the aisle. We arrive in Paris and it's grey and rainy. And we need to move through the mob of people at gare de Lyon to get to metro line 14. The pushing and shoving begins again.

Christmas with the Wise Women

2007-12-23T11:55:00.000+01:00

Why do they call mid-wives mid-wives? I can't answer that, which is why I prefer the French term for them: sage femmes. If you're having a baby, do you want to be cared for by anyone else other than a wise woman? I'm seeing a few wise women in my preparations for showtime. In fact, in French hospitals, it's the wise women who deliver the babies while a doctor is called in only in case of emergency. Wise women have accompanied me a lot through my journey and now that my big fat French pregnancy is almost over, here is a reflection on the things I have learned from being pregnant in Paris...
1) If you are on a crowded bus or metro and someone gives up their seat for you, nine times out of ten, it will be another woman.
2) If you are pregnant and must take the metro in times of strike, the conductor will let you ride up front with him.
3) If someone in your near vicinity pulls out a pack of cigarettes, puts one in their mouth and then notices you are obviously with child, they will light up anyway without hesitation whether they are strangers, friends or even friends who have their own babies.
4) French fathers-in-law still haven't gotten word that having a few flutes of champagne is not a great idea for pregnant women.
5) The French think it's bad luck to give baby gifts before the birth, so baby showers are non-existent here. My thoughts go out to my mom's French teacher, a Lyonnaise who had her first baby in California. Someone asked her about throwing a baby shower and what she understood was that this person wanted to take a shower with her baby.
6) The biggest shocker I got from a wisewoman just yesterday: sushi and raw oysters aren't off limits as long as they are fresh. Still don't think I can bring myself to eat it after all this time hearing about the "risks" it can bring. The bad factor is so embedded in your brain that you can't bring yourself to believe it's acceptable. Kind of like if some medical report suddenly announced that cocaine is actually great for your health.
So now that the Christmas countdown is over, the big countdown continues. About a month left to go unless he (she?) decides to make an early appearance. Though I've been warning the baby about the consequences of having a birthday too close to Christmas. We'll see if it starts out life being a good listener or not.

Down to Their Skivvies

2007-12-13T19:07:00.001+01:00

Can you blog about something that happened awhile back? Sure, why not?
It's been a few weeks since the event, but we headed out to catch a fabulous burlesque show thrown by a fabulous Parisian lingerie designer. The invite said "glamourous attire required" so I nagged my jeans-addicted husband and some of his buddies to put on their nice suits and head out to the 9th arrondissement with my friend Natalie and I. The scene was set perfectly- walking into the place took you a few decades back in time.
The gents looked dapper and the dames looked swell. The evening's host wore a top hat and tails while our hostess was in pearls and a feathered bustier. Tap dancers with rouged cheeks hopped around the stage. It almost seemed in bad taste to smoke a cigarette without a Holly Golightly cigarette holder. And then there were the (almost) naked ladies. Unfortunately, my camera is merde, so my photos all came out like this:

Sorry, fellas. No tassles to see here. But on another note, this burlesque show was great for pregant women! Here's why:
1. My watermelon-sized belly has made it near impossible to bend forward to put on shoes and socks. But the dancers demonstrated an alternative method: sit on a chair, arch your back, bend your leg behind you and pull your socks (or in their case, sheer thigh high stockings) off from behind. For them, it looked sexy. For me, it's 100% practical.
2. On the sidelines, a few women were selling goodies like pin up girl photo books and such. Among their stuff was a salve for treating sore nipples after you take your tassles off. Hello! That's breastfeeding paraphernalia!
3. I didn't look forward to seeing beautiful bodies since my own looks like Mama Cass'. But when I got to the show, I found them inspiring and promised myself that I'd look like that a few weeks after delivering. Well, it's nice to have a goal anyway.
The show had dancers from all over the world and was done with enough class to show that you can undress down to your satin knickers in a room full of strangers and still be in good taste. The audience was dressed to the nines except one guy strolling around in a t-shirt, which earned me a few glares from my denim loving cohorts. And the fetus may have been oblivious to the surrounding garter belts and feather fans, but it really was an excellent show, with the cherry on the cake being the jazz manouche at the intermission. If you want to see some photos, another friendly Paris blogger (one of those legit ones) was there and you can check out her account here. Gypsy Rose Lee would have been proud.

Les Misérables

2007-11-21T12:42:00.000+01:00

Someone put together this little photo montage of life on public transport for the past week.
(If you don't speak French, here's a quick bit of vocab:
métro, boulot, dodo: metro, work, bed. French phrase for the daily grind.
en grève: on strike
cheminots: railway workers)

la foule
envoyé par vetodoud

Nicely put together in my opinion, although I missed the significance of the "no defecating" sign at the end (which looks like it's from the London tube, by the way.)
I had the misfortune of going into Paris Monday night. An attempt to take the métro ended in a full fledged panic attack. Passengers were pushing, climbing over and screaming at each other, so I squirmed my way out, deciding that waiting in a café for a few hours as traffic settled down would be better than that. Later that night, when my husband came to pick me up by car, we drove home from rue de Rome- a trip that usually takes us 15 minutes, though Monday night, it was a one-hour ride. And the stress and anger in the passenger trains was even stronger among the motorists. I saw three near-incidents where pedestrians were almost plowed down by drivers focusing on not being bumped into by other cars and scooters inching up on them. People were getting out of their cars to scream at other motorists who jumped ahead of them at intersections.
From Lille to Nice, the strike is paralyzing France. Workers are losing wages from not getting to work. Construction sites stand still. Stores have lost customers. An angry café owner wondered on tv last night how France is supposed to compete with other countries economically if they continue having strikes that hit the French wallet. Even the SNCF announced it loses 50 million euros for each day the strike continues.
And if transportation wasn't enough, it's spreading to other sectors. Teachers are on strike for their insufficient salaries. Airport controllers are on strike. Postal workers. Tax collectors- though their strike didn't upset folks so much. Neither did the electricians on strike who prostested by cutting power to the radars that monitor cars' speed on the highways.
Though this strike has lasted a week, in 1995, France saw one that lasted three weeks. Three weeks! I've heard it practically destroyed thousands of businesses. Maybe it's the threat of reliving that that put protesters on the street Sunday in a counter-strike. Thousands walked the streets of Paris, yelling "Cheminots, au boulot!" (Railway workers, back to work), "Grevistes, égoïstes!" (Strikers are selfish), and "Fillon, tiens bon!" (a cry to Prime Minister François Fillon to stick to his guns and not wimp out under the pressure). In France, you can say bad words on tv which is good news for stranded commuters being interviewed by journalists as they wait hours for a train to go home. They take full advantage of that. Negociations are going on today. And the Frenchies are holding their breath.

3 strikes and you should be out

2007-11-14T18:13:00.000+01:00

Imagine what would happen in Los Angeles if a bunch of pinheads decided they didn't like their retirement plan at work and protested by blocking all the major highways. A line of people holding a sit-in on the 405. People waving signs and blocking entrances to the 101 and the 110 freeways. Their work worries aren't not your fault, but it's you who has to be put out. That's sort of what's happening in France. AGAIN.
New reforms are being proposed to change the work regulations of unions, notably the SNCF, in France and the reaction they're going with is the old, faithful one: go on strike and stop the trains.
Today was day #1. 10% of the normal metro traffic ran. Only 90 out of some 700 TGV trains did their routes. The RER A and B lines were dead. TV news stations reported something like 200 miles of motionless traffic around the Paris region.
The scene today was bad enough, but what really gets me is that this is not unheard of here. The train drivers just pulled a stunt like this a month ago. Why are they so mad? Because the government wants to make some changes, the big issue being that of retirement. TGV drivers retire at the ripe, old age of 50 and anyone insisting they push that age back is asking for chaos. A few strikes ago, someone sent me an email explaining all the perks of driving for the SNCF and I list that message here (translated from French):
-Starting salary: 2,200 to 3,200 euros net monthly (1 Euro is about $1.46 as of today)
-Free healthcare: Covered 100 percent at 15,900 medical centers
-Retirement at age 50
-End of year bonus
-All kinds of bonuses, including one that translates to charcoal bonus. (This dates way back to the day when transit workers were exposed to health hazards from the coal powered trains. The coal powered trains are long gone, but the bonus remains. Go figure.)
-Free transportation for employees and their families
-A 25 HOUR WORK WEEK
The SNCF represents 1 percent of employees in France, yet their workers account for 20 percent of days on strike among all strikes in France. And, like playing pétanque and drinking apératifs, strikes are a tradition here.
And what a month for strikes it is. Not only is the transport sector in the mood for being a pain in the @$$ but the feeling is shared by the energy sectors and the universities. Students have blocked off several campuses protesting in favor of autonomy for universities. Last week, they took it off campus and had a sit in on the train tracks at Gare du Nord, you guessed it, blocking the path of commuter trains. We watched on tv as a smiling twenty-something girl among a crowd of commuters yelled, "This is the only way for us to be heard!" The six-foot tall black guy in her face bellowed, "I WANT TO GO HOME!" Then everyone started yelling at everyone.
Back to the transit strike, the word on the street says the majority of people are against the unions and with the government on this one. A relief from last month's strike when a reporter interviewed a stranded commuter who shrugged and said, "It's for a good cause." There's still a mark on my TV screen from where I threw my camembert-spreaded baguette after hearing that one. But today on tv, people were frustrated and pissed off. Except, I suppose for the few that only depend on metro line 14 for transportation. It ran as usual since it's automatic and therefore has no driver to walk off the job. I know what you're thinking: Well, if the drivers are so uncontent with their jobs, fire them all and make all the lines driverless! Sigh.. we can dream...
This morning, I heard the honking of commuters who took to driving starting at 6 o'clock. Lots of people took the day off. Some went to work in rollerblades. Friends in the center of Paris saw people storing Velib bikes (from the city's new public bicycle system) in their stairwells last night instead of risking going out to an empty Velib stand in the morning.
As for myself, I had no way of getting to work. I can't drive anymore and waiting on the train platform for three hours to see if a train might come was a little hopeless if someone were waiting for me to arrive at work at a certain time. In addition to the fact that squeezing myself into an overcrowded train when I've got precious cargo on my belly would be just plain wreckless. My boss said don't worry about coming in for the rest of the week. Nice, but I don't get paid if I'm not there. Of course, the obvious solution is just to jump the metro gates from now on so I can recompensate myself for my salary lost.
Perhaps the worst thing about all this is the image it gives of the French work mentality. That's what a French co-worker mentioned to me. There's that stereotype of the French saying they're lazy and can't handle working more than 35 hours a week and are always on vacation and blah, blah, blah... Personally, I don't know anyone who doesn't work more than 35 hours a week. Everyone I know here puts in long hours. But nevertheless my colleague lamented, "They're giving France a bad reputation." Hopefully, change is on the way and workers will be back at work by next week. If not, I'm investing in a commuter helicopter business.

M.I.A.

2007-11-08T17:35:00.001+01:00

If you're still checking in, I'm still alive! A change of apartments and our frustratingly neglectful internet provider has left us abandandoned without internet for a looong time.
I'm currently posting this from a cyber café that makes moth balls smell like roses and sitting next to some girl skyping someone in some language I've never heard before- and their conversation seems to have gotten ugly. All of which means I've been plugging my ears and holding my breath for about 10 minutes now. So I gotta go for now...I'll be back soon...

Babies, babies everywhere

2007-09-23T13:21:00.000+02:00

Yesterday, le French boss said to me, "I have a secret."
"Is it a good one or a bad one?" I asked.
"You're fired... No, I joke!" he said, throwing his head back in laughter. "No, it's to tell you that I too am going to have a baby!"
After a quick recovery from the somewhat unfunny joke, I congratulated him and we started talking about just how many people are having babies right now.
Remember playing that car game "punch-buggy" where you get to hit a sibling everytime you see a Volkswagon Beetle? You can play the same game in the streets of my town with pregnant women. Waiting in line at the ATM yesterday, I saw five pass by in a one minute period. And that's not even counting myself.
Friends are pregnant. Colleagues are pregnant. The owner of our boulangerie is expecting. She's always been a lovely woman, but has that extra little glow now that she has a bun in the oven. (ha!)
And who can blame us? Do you know how nice it is to have a baby in France? Right off the bat, there's the maternity leave: six weeks paid leave before the birth, ten weeks paid leave after (at 100% your regular salary in some cases). When I told my obstetrician that I commute an hour by train he said, "Oh, you get a congé pathologique then, of course." This translates to 15 extra days. There's also a congé parentale, which is a six-month leave of absence. It's unpaid, but your employer is required by law to have your job waiting for you when you get back. I've even heard of the same thing for a leave up to three years. No wonder employers are so cautious about hiring married women who have no children. Congé this, congé that. Did I mention my husband gets a 2 week paid paternity leave?
My medical visits and labwork aren't totally free, but they're pretty affordable. However, our birth preparation sessions are reimbursed by the same source who reimburses the 20 standard medical checkups for baby until he (she?) is six years old- securité sociale. And depending on your salary, you get an allowance right after the birth to help support baby financially. And then if it's baby #2, you get about 150€ (about $211) every month, no matter how high or low your income is. And you guessed it, an even higher allowance if it's baby #3. Though I must ask the question if it makes sense for a government in debt to pay that sum to families who are raking in 30,000€ a month on their own. I guess the equality part of liberté, égalité, fraternité is at play there.
My husband and I were discussing this with a friend last night at a local restaurant having its weekly salsa night. I hadn't been lately due to my "extra girth" and was happy to see our friend, the salsa instructor, to whom I excused my absence.
"I understand," he said. "My girlfriend isn't hasn't been coming, either. She's pregnant, too!"

Gods at Play

2007-09-06T19:39:00.000+02:00

Remember back when I told you about the Haka? Ever since then, I've had this randomly budding interest in rugby. Perfect timing, because it's France's turn to host the Rugby World Cup and the fun starts to tomorrow. Up to this point, the only exposure I've had to the French rugby team has been their overexposure in the team's calendar (translated title: Gods of the Stadium) where the players pose à poil(ahem... see photo). Their first game is tomorrow night against Argentina. Get your haka on.

So Much For Machu Picchu

2007-08-28T20:52:00.000+02:00

All our big vacation ideas have been swept out the window.

It appears we're going to have a baby!

In the end, I think it's a much bigger adventure, don't you?

Getting Down in Chinatown

2007-08-18T13:15:00.000+02:00

No trip back home is complete without French dip at Philippe's or a night out at Firecracker. I've been going to Firecracker since it weren't no thang but a chicken wang because it's the best- a jazz bar downstairs (with a mic open to those who've got the pipes and the guts), djs upstairs making everyone dance, djs outside making everyone dance and now there's even an ice cream truck (and one with a mission at that).
Seeing as it's been ages since my last time there, there were a lot of new faces, making me nostalgic for the old days when I could show up solo and count on seeing a group of buddies there. But you can't be too melancholy when you're surrounded by a ton of people doing the samba, so we went with the flow and partied like old times.

Chez Moi

2007-08-01T21:34:00.001+02:00

Palm trees! Carpool lanes! Avocados at the supermarket that can be bought ripe and ready for consumption! Overweight teenagers gleefully sucking down gallon sized mocha frapuccinos! Street intersections with clearly recognizable traffic laws! Radio commercials for affordable liposuction! Good Mexican food everywhere you look!
Such visions show I'm back home in California, where I've been for the past few weeks. So I excuse myself for not posting lately. I would have had to type poolside and my laptop isn't waterproof.

Patriotic Post

2007-07-05T12:23:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was the 4th of July, which I celebrated by going to work and then going out for pizza afterwards. Luckily, some people up in Normandy had a better idea.
Last month, about 2,500 French and American citizens and WWII vets gathered on Omaha Beach, near the American cemetery, to pay hommage. The goal was to form a human chain spelling "France will never forget" and take pictures to be given out in the U.S. as an Independance Day present. There were high schoolers from both countries. Parisians as well as Normandy locals. The American ambassador is somewhere in one of the F's. Here's the result:

*I have no idea who the jeep riding guys are at the end. I thought they'd be the veterans but they look about 50 years too young.
Hope you all had a good 4th!

Bottoms up, les filles!

2007-06-12T22:31:00.000+02:00

When my then boyfriend, future husband visited me in San Francisco the first time, we went to meet a friend for a beer at Zeitgeist, a beer garden/biker bar/SF staple. It was rare a month passed without meeting whoever for whatever occasion at Zeitgeist. There are always Harley's parked out front, an old lady selling tamales in the garden out back and rockabilly types playing pool. The floor sticks under your shoes, Lord knows what goes on in the bathrooms and you probably should question the cleanliness of the glass holding your Anchorsteam. I always took for granted how really special it is until my wide-eyed Frenchman walked in and, through a dropped jaw, breathed, "J'halluciiiiiine...."
Cut to two years later when we are happy newlyweds living in a little apartment in a Parisian suburb. We can be at the Paris Opéra in thirty minutes. I walk to the Seine river in five. We have a little outdoor market every Sunday and Thursday where a nice produce lady named Henriette makes me taste the cherries while I wait my turn.
And right now, I'd sell my right arm for a pint at Zeitgeist.
Why this feeling now? This sudden onslaught of nostalgia? Yes, I miss my friends back home. Yes, there's an endless list of jokes and laughs that just don't happen in French. A while ago, I had this discussion with Becca, a British friend, and we finally got to the root of the problem:
FRENCH GIRLS DON'T DRINK ENOUGH.
What does that have to do with it? Everything! My dear, fun loving girlfriends are all back in California. In their place are French girls who are friends of my husband or his sister. Often, the group of copains splits into guys' nights and girls' nights out. Cool enough. The French girls have welcomed me with open arms. But at girls' night, I am with a group of women who all have small children the same age, all work in the same profession, and have all been friends for years. See where I fit in? OK, neither do I so we're on the same page.
This in itself would not kill a soirée. If this situation happened in San Francisco, the liquor would flow, conversation would get silly and sooner or later, someone would start getting a little too honest and the night would get interesting. But in Paris, we're just too...grown up. I'm the only one who takes less than an hour to finish a glass of wine. Conversation still stays within the range where you can relay all to your mother. And there's never any old ladies selling tamales outside!
In our analysis, Becca and I did conclude that a little responsibility in the alcohol department is welcomed. Our cultures are both enormous abusers of alcohol. The gutters of London and San Francisco have seen enough vomit to attest to that. My time served as a cocktail waitress in the Marina district let me occasionally witness the societal low point that is the beer-infused bar brawl. But somewhere, there's that fun middle ground that lies between between "prim and proper" and "face down on some one's lawn".
So, French girls: I know you have that whole sophisticated, sexy image to keep up. I can respect that. But let the guard down sooometiiiime. Let me treat you to a drink or three at Zeitgeist. It'll be swell.

La Grosse Pomme

2007-05-29T22:32:00.000+02:00

So we flew to NYC last week for four days of nonstop Americana. There were $2 hot dogs in Central Park. Kandinsky at the Guggenheim. We got have drinks with Jenne. We missed Kirna Zabête and Scoop, but I did my homework beforehand and found a Hollywould sample sale not far from our hotel. A search for all things un-Parisian led us to Lucky Cheng's. My husband had his first brown bagged beer at a would-be speakeasy. I kept an eye out for endearingly bizarre things you'd find in a place like NYC, like the Venezuelan restaurant that turns into a gay salsa bar after midnight. Or the crazily cheery man who yelled "Yes!" and gave high-fives to all who would accept.

In school, I once had an ill-fated poetry assignment which kept me away from all writing instruments for weeks. But that doesn't mean I won't put my photos to poetry for you now. Ahem...

Whose chopper this is I do not know

It's feeling pretty shaky though

To think I'm here on my own will

And now I'm going to be ill

Or hey, how about a limerick?

The drag queens were bitchy and rude

And totally obvious dudes

But the show was ok

and the waitress did say

No one comes here for the food

If you can take it, here's a haiku:

Rubber street dancers

Flipping for dollars and change

I see your undies

How can you not heart New York?

English is Hungry

2007-05-13T14:52:00.000+02:00

It's no surprise that English is the universal language. It's undoubtedly one of the most useful languages to learn. The Paris métro is splattered with ads for English language schools. Parisian parents are always looking for anglophone nannies to speak English every day to their little Virginies and Charles-Henris. Japanese housewives brought to Paris by their husbands' jobs will sign up for English classes before learning French.
A few months ago, my husband's uncle was visiting France from Australia, where he's lived for the last 30 years. He says every time he comes back, he finds there's always more and more English words that have snuck into the French language- casual, every day English words that have no business being in a French conversation.
It is true the French use lots of English words, however incorrectly. They park their cars in the parking and keep their clothes in the dressing. If you're having cocktails with Angelina and Gwyneth, you're in a soirée people. Blow-drying your hair straight is a brushing and you dry clean your clothes at the pressing. My French mother-in-law is into scrapbooking. Does this have anything to do with the English language having five times more words than the French language does? I don't know where this all stems from but it seems the English language has got a hearty appetite and it's in the mood for French. It's as though English is nibbling at the French language word by word.
Take for example, this imagined conversation:
"Veronique, tu veux du chewing gum?"
"Non, merci. Comment c'est passé ton weekend?"
"Trop cool! On a fait du ski. C'était top."
"Faut que je fasses du sport. Ce soir je vais faire du jogging."
"Tiens, tu veux faire du shopping?"
"Volontiers! Ca serait super."
"Moi, je veux trouver un smoking pour mon copain. Celui qu'il a déjà, c'est un peu too much."
"T'as raison. Je suis pas très fan. Ca fait un peu fashion victim."
"Il faut qu'on y aille. Avec mon job, j'ai une journée assez speed."
"Allez! Let's go."

Looking into it, it's not as contemporary as it seems. Originally English words like révolution and gouvernement crept into French back in the times of the French Revolution. Since then, there have been efforts to preserve French and keep it pure, like laws forbidding state employess from using any other language than French in work communications. The Académie Française, the French language's #1 guardian and defender, requires that foreign themed restaurants have all items listed in French. It's impossible the French language would go in the same direction as Breton or Provençal, but there are people who who don't like English imposing its parking and pressing on French speaking.
But, for those people, let's not forget: C'est fashion parler anglais.

C'est Lui!

2007-05-08T11:51:00.000+02:00

President...Sarkozy..... President Sarkozy. After the first few times, it rolls off the tounge. And now it can be said. Sunday night is a blur of events. The results were known by officials an hour and a half or so before the 8:00 p.m. announcement but French law prohibits the media from revealing anything ahead of schedule. However, that law doesn't apply to other countries. How they got the results ahead of time I'm not sure, but Belgian and Swiss websites were already leaking the numbers with Sarkozy's clear lead beffore 8:00.
We watched TF1 from our apartment as the countdown started... 15 minutes left....one minute... 5 seconds.... boom. Sarkozy's face appeared on the screen with 53% flashing across the bottom. People cheered. People cried. My husband yelled at the tv screen, "Make France a champion!"
Sarko made his acceptance speech and went down the Champs-Elysées to Place de la Concorde where staff, celebrities and thousands of supporters waited to cheer him. People sang and climbed lamp posts and danced in the fountain.
Then there's the other 47% who weren't so happy. If you can call huge protests, hundreds of arrests and an estimated 730 torched cars unhappy.Some may call this an understatement. Peaceful and less than peaceful protests continued into Monday night.
News reports here say the U.S. president was one of the first to call and congratulate Nicolas. Here's what Tony Blair had to say:

Election Friction

2007-05-04T00:44:00.000+02:00

No one was on the streets last night. Ségo and Sarko went face to face for the first and only time in the presidential debate on TF1. Those few who missed the debate didn't watch it because they were watching Manchester and Milan face off in the League of Champions. Hard to say which was more brutal between the two.
Today in the streets, presidential fliers were everywhere.
I stood outside the Odéon métro station this afternoon watching a young man in an "I heart Sarko" t-shirt handing out Sarkozy pamphlets. People either smiled and accepted one or hissed at him and went on their way. One guy passing by poured his full bottle of water over Sarko Guy's head as his girlfriend laughed and clapped. They walked away and a man in the crêpe stand next to him stepped out and sympathetically handed him some towels.
"It'll dry off," Sarko Guy said with a shrug and a smile.
A few minutes later, a Ségoist strolled up and handed out Ségo pamphlets. Then one if his buddies joined him. Soon, there were four friendly men handing out Ségo's final call to voters while this one guy rushed around to meet enough people to keep up with them. Not long after, walks up this man that looks like Tom Petty's head on Shaquille O'Neale's body (ignore the color difference, I'm going for the size factor). Bouncer type asks Sarko Guy for a few pamphlets and rips them up and throws them on the ground. Then he closed in on Sarko Guy like he was going to beat him up until one of the Ségoists stepped in and calmed him down.
Political opinions aside, I had to admit Sarko Guy stood his ground. You had to like the kid's moxy, so I took a pamphlet from him and went down into the station.
Irked from all the bad vibes outside, I sat in the métro opposite a young hippie type who squinted at me and the paper in my hand.
"Excusez moi," he said to me. "You're not really going to vote for Sarkozy, are you?"
"I can't vote in France." I braced myself for what was coming.
"Oh, well that's good, then. It's just, you believe all his conneries. You would vote for a dangerous man."
This is where I hit my limit.
I leaned forward and said, "Do you see me giving you a hard time for doing your hair like a grandmother? No. I see people in the métro and I stay out of their business."
It's not a habit of mine to insult the hairstyles of total strangers in the métro. Though it was true that he did his hair in a bun and looked like the cartoon on a box of Mother's Cookies. Usually, I'm overly polite. It's just that this guy pushed the wrong button at the wrong time. It takes me back to crossing the campus of my San Francisco university where political activism is as fashionable as it is about a cause. I couldn't get to class without someone with a barbel through their nose yelling in my face about the evils of big business, local media, WASPS and how I was contributing to it by reading the San Francisco Chronicle. The Chronicle! Imagine if I'd been reading the National Review? Ironic how people yelling about peace can't seem to leave people in it.
Which takes me back to this guy in the métro. The straw that broke the camel's back.
After I snapped at him, he shrugged and leaned back. Between being caught off guard and fueled up, my French came out all floundered though and I can't even tell you if the guy understood me or not. As I was stepping off the métro, I heard an old man say, "What'd she say about her grandmother?"
Then I got on the last train to get home. After I found a seat, a middle aged woman sat across from me and immediately started shaking her head. I saw this out of the corner of my eye. I also saw the girl next to me watching her shake her head and following her gaze to me. The woman may have had a nervous disorder. There was a lady with a nervous disorder in a building where I used to work and I always thought she was shaking her head at me until the guard explained her condition. In any case, I wasn't looking to get in another train confrontation so I kept my eyes on my i-pod and put on Django Reinhardt's version of La Marseillaise. That always puts me in a nice mood.
We'll know who the new president is Sunday night. Both parties think they've won the debate. It's going to be a close one. Until then, while taking public transport, I'd rather just say "Je ne parle pas français."

What a Foot It Was

2007-04-28T18:14:00.000+02:00

Task List for Twenty-Somethingeth Birthday:

1) Wake up at 4:30am

2) Drive to Germany

3)30 minutes after reaching German destination, get back in car and drive back home to France.

4) Arrive in back in France to meet friends for birthday dinner, drinks and dancing.

Despite a pre-dawn search for a gas station that nearly left us stranded in a deserted neighborhood north of Paris, we got off on our way to a little town in Germany where my Monsieur had an important errand to do. Yes, I had to come along and it was the only day to do it and I don't want to discuss it anymore than I already have. The upside was that I slept until we passed the Belgian border.

But I fuss not. What's your ideal way of spending a birthday? Have you ever actually spent it that way? Ideally, I would have had a day of drinking panachés in the sunshine instead of brief interactions with the tired looking cashier at that pit stop in Belgium or seeing right in the eyes of tailgating Germans in our rearview mirror.

It was yours truly at the wheel for the return home which, thanks to the speed friendly German highways, was quick. Thoughts of the limitless vitesse of the autobahn were still in my head as I flew through Belgium as well. What is the speed limit in Belgium anyway? Given the lack of signs, let's not worry about it.

We got home in time to take a shower, doll ourselves up and run to the restaurant where my friend Nacho was already the first to arrive. Friends trickled in, as did the champagne, and the night lead to a beautiful buffet and a dance floor that called come hither.

Fun friend Vincent had given me a phrase du jour: C'est le pied. Literally, "It's the foot", which logically means "It's great!" Between conversation, food, drink and music, yes , it was the foot. A size ten foot at that. The night's happy glow was revisited the next morning when I woke up to the little collection of gifts I'd received the night before.

Spoiled? moi?

La Vie en Polls

2007-04-16T07:17:00.000+02:00

I've always thought asking me about politics was like asking a caveman about I-pods, but I thought I'd say a bit about the upcoming elections since that's all anyone is talking about. The campaign trail differs from its American counterpart in that there's no cars bearing "Sego 2007" bumper stickers or tv commercials blasting the evils of opposing candidates. I remember back when Clinton announced his presidential candidacy, People magazine put his family on its cover which read "Meet the Clintons." But French candidates don't seem to sell themselves along with their families. Other than Segolene's son doing some campaigning for her and Le Pen's daughter Marine, who's a senior member of his party, you don't see their kids in the process. We're a week away from election day with 12 candidates who qualified to run by getting 500 signatures of support from different elected officials of France. Among the final 12 are a jailbird, a communist, a man named Marie and a woman named George.

It's been explained to me that today's French Communist Party is not the Communist party of Stalin or Castro. What hasn't been explained is... well, why there's still a communist party in France. Umm... anyone? The mind reels. Their head is Marie-George Buffet who wants to unify the political left against the right.
Another communist on the ballot is the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire's young Olivier Besancenot whose slogan is "Our lives are worth more than their profits." His campaign, it appears, is not worth buying a suit since he's the most casually dressed presidential candidate I've ever seen.

José Bové is the anti-globalization ringleader who went famous in 1999 when he and a group of farmers trashed an incoming McDonald's. He was later jailed. Then he trashed some genetically modified crops and was jailed again. Last year, he and other activists destroyed the GM crop of a corn farmer and we saw on tv the farmer's reaction. He rammed his truck into one of the activist's cars. You've got to love the dramatics.

Speaking of drama, how about that Jean-Marie Le Pen? His far, far, all the way to the right Front National party has been called racist, anti-semetic and other pet names. I was driving down a street the other day lined with poster after poster for Le Pen and the FN and said to my husband, "What is this, white man's alley?" To my surprise, he told me that there are actually some blacks and Arabs in the FN, which is anti-immigrant. Perhaps you could compare it to Mexican Americans who are against heavy immigration from below the border. Jean-Marie himself is due in court to defend himself against comments in a 2005 interview in which he denied the brutality of the WWII Nazi occupation in France. You could chalk him away as a crazy bigot, but it is freaky to ponder the fact that he got to the second round of the 2002 elections against Chirac. A lesson in the racial tensions in the country- his approval ratings went up after the 2006 suburb riots.

Ecology is a hotter and hotter subject (it's April and we have summer weather already, but no pun intended). The Green party has Dominique Voynet as its candidate. She was on tv the other day zipping along on an eco-friendly scooter.
Another guy up for the role is Viscount Philippe le Jolis de Villiers de Saintignon. If the name makes you imagine a guy in knickers and tights who likes harpsicord music and slaps people with his glove, that's probably why he just goes by Philippe de Villiers. He's traditional and is against European integration.

François Bayrou, the "3rd man of the election", is the horse-loving farmer's son. That's important in a country that judges politicians by how they handle livestock at the annual Agricultural Convention. He came in 4th in the last presidential elections and may be the protest vote that opposes the right and the left.

Though its chiefs didn't want her for the job initially, the Socialist party has put forward Ségolène Royal. She and her babies' papa aren't married, they're PACS'd. For votes, she's willing to dance to hip hop and is all for gay marriage/adoption. She's a graduate of the ENA, alumnus of many French political hot shots. She's been the target of a lot of low blow, sexist comments. (She wore the wrong shoes when touring Chile! Who's going to watch after her kids if she's in office?) After criticism of her foreign policy, she made Sego World Tour and stopped by Israel and China. She made a few stumbles such as this one .

Nicolas Sarkozy, born to a Hungarian father and French mother, has been the front runner so far of all the polls I've seen, though he's been behind Royal among younger age groups. He pushed for stronger immigration regulations and deportation as Interior Minister and says France should choose its immigrants wisely. I myself came upon le loi Sarkozy here and there in my struggle to settle down with a residency card. Though French presidents are allowed to run for a 3rd term, Chirac isn't and is instead supporting Sarko.

No one's doubting France needs change. I've seen people with master's degrees stuck in internships due to the less than sparkling the job market. There's neighborhoods full of angry second generation immigrants. Let's all cross our fingers that the best candidate wins.

In the Banlieu, Just Passing Through

2007-04-04T23:47:00.000+02:00

I'm following up my last post with another word on train rides. Work has had me commuting into the banlieu. Actually, it's so far that it's more campagne than banlieu. I pass hundreds of houses, three river crossings, and one gypsy camp. There are things I miss about commuting into Paris, such as walking by an organ grinder every morning, but it is nice to be guaranteed a seat on the train every time. A far cry from the hell of the RER B the other day.

The ride is long but I get lots of reading in. These days, it's Gone With the Wind. Excellent story. Made me miss my stop once. Trouble is, Margaret Mitchell wrote all the slaves' dialogue in their patois of the time which is impossible to understand by reading- you have to hear it to get the message. So I'm on the train where people can hear me whispering to myself things like, "Tell Mis Scarlett ter res' easy. Ah'll steal her a hawse outer de ahmy crall effen dey's ary one lef'. An' befo' Ah gits started ker-bloom! Offgoes a noise an' he tell me twarn't nuthin' but de ammernition our gempmums blowin' up so's de Yankees don't git it." (If you had to read that last bit out loud to get the message, you know what I mean.)

In any case, here are some thrilling shots of what I see on the way:

R Ugh R

2007-03-27T07:45:00.000+02:00

I had to take the RER B last week, and had the good fortune to do so when the transportation folks called a strike, meaning there was one train running for every three. Even better, I ended up taking the train at rush hour. I boarded several stations away from the transportation hub that is Gare du Nord and it was already packed. Standing passengers were packed in so tight that chests were mashed into shoulders and strangers' faces were close enough to kiss. Those who couldn't even reach a pole to stabilize themselves found that they could lift their feet from the ground and still stay in place. I was pushed backfirst into an older woman still seated on one of the fold out chairs on the standing area of the train. I knew my backside must be brushing her head but couldn't move out of my knee-bent, spine-cocked-to-the side position. It was stuffy. People smelled bad. Then we arrived at the next station.
People waiting to board looked up at our train in horror, realizing they had to either squish in with us or wait in the cold until God knows when and another train would arrive. Suddenly, the RER train turned into a Titanic lifeboat with people shamelessly pushing eachother out of the way to board. Shouts of protests went ignored and two men bickered about who pushed who and as the doors closed, they were forced to argue for the next 20 minutes compressed together in what could only be described as hugging.
When we rolled into Gare du Nord, my back muscles were cramping and I was sitting on said old lady's shoulders, which were stronger than I'd have thought. I was facing away from the platform and to my right I heard "Oh la la..." and then to my left I heard "Oh la la..." Then, I turned and seeing the sight, I gasped "Oh la la!" Gare du Nord was a group of Titanic lifeboats with an endless sea of people scrambling over each other to cram into the already over capacity trains. After I got out and readjusted my spine, I knew I couldn't be mad at the masses of people agressively forcing themselves on board. The people I could be mad at were the SNCF workers on strike. No one seems to find it ridiculous that they strike so much. A friend gave us a print out of the SNCF's "grievous" working conditions after a big strike last year. I've shared this with some of you before, but for those who haven't seen it, check it out. I translated it from French so if it sounds funny, that's why.

-Starting salary: 2,200€ to 3,200€ ....net monthly (1 Euro is about $1.20)
-Free healthcare: Covered 100 percent at 15,900 medical centers
-Retirement at age 50, sans commentaire
-End of year bonus
-All kinds of bonuses, including one that translates to charcoal bonus...? Maybe for the BBQ's they have with all that downtime?
-Free transportation for employees and their families
-A 25 HOUR WORK WEEK
The SNCF represents 1 percent of employees in France, yet their workers account for 20 percent of days on strike among all strikes in France. And in France, that's saying something. Add that I read this right after reading about rickshaws being banned in Calcutta, leaving rickshawers complaining about no longer getting those 17 cents a day to support their families. Whatever happened to perspective? Something to ponder the next time I find myself on an overcrowded train sitting on top of some old lady's shoulders.

Zaza's Birthday

2007-03-21T07:41:00.000+01:00

Zaza, merci d'être géniale comme tu es. Tu m'offre des petits cadeaux sans raison. Dans les soirées où tout le monde parle du boulot, tu n'oublies pas que, pour moi, vous parlez chinois. Et bientôt, tu vas nous ammener dans un hélico sur New York. Je te kiffe! Joyeux anniversaire encore à la meillure belle-soeur du monde.

The biggest birthday party of the year (so far) went down last Saturday at the best restaurant in town, le 24, with the hosts not disappointing. Think excellent food, good music, a bottle of champagne a head and a generous afterhours bar. I'd have taken photos of the brunch the following afternoon, but I think that'd be mean to do to a crowd that stumbled home at 6am.

Two and a Half Hours from Paris

2007-03-17T13:22:00.000+01:00

I'm in the snack car of the Eurostar train shooting back to Paris. We were among many who made the trip from Paris to London this weekend, though unlike the rest, we'd just gone for a little weekend fun, and not for the England/France rugby match. We're waiting to buy our overpriced train food surrounded by a group of drunken French rugby fans, whose only English acquired over the weekend seems to be "blowjob". Judging by their charm, I'm guessing their team isn't the only one who didn't score this weekend. Luckily, our time in London was spent without their presence.
Most of my weekend was spent sandwiched between Zaza and Jean-Jean in a cab facing my husband. From the first pickup at Waterloo, the French trio fell in love with London taxis and somehow reasoned it always made more economic and logistical sense to take a taxi rather than buses or the tube. And for the times when there was no economic sense to a £10 cab ride, it just boiled down to "Mais ils sont trop chouette, les taxis de Londres!"
The French expression most used with London translates to "it costs the skin off your ass." And how. We went with a decent hotel, myself remembering the last time I tried to get a deal in Londonian lodging. It was only £10 a night and involved sharing a room with a grouchy aborigine woman who cooked chicken next to her bed. History was not to repeat itself.
Our first pint was in a crowded pub where the only nearly available table for four was occupied by a passed out man, who'd either come alone or was abandonded by his pals. Zaza and I weren't ready to squeeze in next to him, so we stood at the bar, where Husband and Jean-Jean gleefully discovered that smoking is still legal in London pubs. I thought it had already been banned, but it seems they've got until July to light up and share the love.
Now, a word on style. Coming out of the black and grey everyone always wears in Paris winters, landing in London is like stepping into Oz. An Oz where the locals are walking around in blue leggings matched with silver tops or red and gold shoes paired up with black and white print dresses. In the words of De La Soul "You get an E for effort and a T for nice try."
How is it that the city that produced the likes of Bella Freud and Plum Sykes could also be home to so many girls that seem to combine outfit assembly with the overconsumption of alcohol? Leicester Square on a Saturday night has London girls bar hopping in lycra minidresses and plexi glass heels. Or shirt dresses (that might actually just be shirts) and pumps. Coats would have covered too much, although it was ridiculously cold outside and we were shivering in our coats and scarves.
The irony is that there's excellent clothes to be found here. Not to mention the vintage shops. Treated ourselves to eye candy at Karen Millen. Her boutique inside Galeries Lafayette is delicious enough but her store in Covent Garden had a whole other equally enjoyable collection.
Reasons to go back: we didn't get a chance to stop by Liberty or meet my former roomate/favorite Englishman for a drink. Eurostar is advertising roundtrip tickets right at 66€ a pop, so maybe it will be sooner rather than later.

Sound wars

2007-03-08T16:14:00.000+01:00

If my apartment building were a soccer game, my neighbors would have a big fat red card by now. After moving into their 400 square foot studio, they bought a dog and two cats and consequently spend their time at home yelling at their pets for making messes. When they're not yelling at the animals, they're yelling at eachother. We're sick of hearing them fight... or even worse, reconciling. And then there's their love of hardcore industrial techno that they wish to share with everyone in the Paris region.
As for us, we're off to London for the weekend where I hope to do such British things as have a curry and take my A-levels and meet friends for a cuppa. Oh- and pepper my conversations with "that's brill!"
In the meantime, we're thinking of pushing our speakers against the wall we share with said neighbors and putting a cd on repeat all weekend while we're gone. Possibilities are:
Linda Ronstadt's Canciones de Mi Padre- Mariachi till your ears bleed!
Vive La Fête's Attaque Surprise- This punk electro album is great and has a song where the leadsinger belts out several blood curdling screams.
Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women- Ok, not an album, just the one song. I think it could drive one crazy after two days straight, don't you?
Log on now and cast your votes!

Is Gay the New Black?

2007-03-03T09:45:00.000+01:00

Paris has been under the spell of fashion week these last few days. You still get a healthy dose of fashion here even if you aren't in the club that received invitations to the shows at Tuileries and la Sorbonne. Walking past Printemps the other day, I got a interesting take on it. I'm all for originality but what is with the windows of their mens department?

Take this look for example: A man's suit softened by flowy blouses. It's a man dressed like a woman who's dressed like a man. Cross-cross dressing, if you will.

Or this one, for the man who sips apple juice out of a little box and has his lady cut his meat for him.

Then there's this guy. Yes, it's just a vest he's got on. And yes, if it was in gold, it would just be a stolen costume from a production of Chorus Line.

I can appreciate the challenge of creating new menswear with the limitations of wearability. There's only so many things you can get men to wear, right? And you've still got to do what the others aren't doing. But has it really come to the point where we need this?

Hit me, you can't hurt me

2007-03-02T18:06:00.000+01:00

Well, actually, of course you can hurt me. But I'll be covered for it!
After many grueling trips to consult the old trolls at the Securité Sociale office near my house, I've finally completed my dossier and should soon have the coveted carte vitale, that little green card, the key to medical coverage in France, that everyone but me has here.
I've been to the Secu office approximately 5 times to ask the same question. How do I proceed to enroll myself in the system after finding a job? Before being an employee, I was just under Husband's social security and was partially covered for medical care. Now that I've got a job, I'm in it on my own and am good to go- once I've got my own file. Everytime I've gone in to inquire on the procedure, someone on the staff gives me a detailed explanation. Problem is, it's never the same one.
Trip #1 It was explained to me that I must get a job and then come back with a written work promise and complete the dossier before I start work. That evening, a friend of a friend said that sounded odd. This led me to...
Trip # 2 I must get a job, hand in my information after I start working and have my employer send in my work promise to another office.
Trips #3-5 Different variations on the first two explanations saying the same things but of course, with major contradictions.
And then there was the version that my employer gave me. You guessed it- not the same story, either.
But today, on receiving my first paycheck, I took the dreaded trip to the office of hell, armed with every document on my checklist, wondering what I'd do if I was told that I really did have to bring everything in before I started my job. I took a number sat in the waiting area as my chest constricted in tension (ironically, frequent trips here are bad for your health). The woman calling out the numbers barked at the unassuming victim in front of me.
"No, madame. This paperwork is not what we asked for! No, it's not done like that! You must come back with this and this!"
When it was my turn, she kindly directed me to another colleague for further assistance. "I'm not the one who handles this! You sit back down and wait for one of the booths to open!"
When one of the booths that line the office did open, a woman with a surprisingly kind demeanor called me over. In fact, while the other employees walked around on hooved feet, dragging their tails, I swear this woman had wings and a halo.
She actually smiled when she asked for my paperwork and even made photocopies of my payslip, which I'd forgotten to do. After a quick 2 minutes, she smiled again and said "C'est bon." And it was over. And I don't have to come back.
Soon I can go to the doctor, get get checked out, flash my little green card and magically be reimbursed. It's enough to make me want to become a hypochondriac.

In my country, zees ees funny

2007-02-25T12:52:00.000+01:00

A cult comedy came out in France last year called Camping. It's about a snotty Parisian driving through the south of France, whose Porsche breaks down, forcing him to wait for a mechanic on a campsite surrounded by vacationing blue collar folks. I thought it was funny. All my French friends thought it was HIL.A.RI.OUS. A year after seeing the film, they still repeat its lines and everyone roars with laughter as though it's the first time they hear it. They keep repeating "Bah, il n'y a plus de Benco" though I found it as unfunny the 20th time as the first time I heard it.
They say humor is the hardest thing to translate and the Camping example is just one of many that prove this true. And what's so frustrating about it is that joking around is supposed to be about having fun, not holding your head in your hands trying to understand this crowd who calls their actors comédiens and their comedians humouristes.
It would be saddening to count how many times I've had a good laugh at something only to turn and see the blank expression on Husband's face. Or how many times we've unsuccessfully watched French stand up comedians together (a humor totally lost on me). While Husband, or even worse, Husband and a few friends are rolling on the floor laughing with tears in their eyes, I sit in the middle of it all trying to remember if I need to do laundry this weekend or not.
If I've run out of hair product and complain that I look like Roseanne Roseannadanna, it falls on (practically) deaf ears. We know a family who's last name is Le Hech, but I don't even get a smile when I refer to them as the What Le Hech's. Monsieur! What Le Hech!
My sister-in-law and her husband live nearby so we have dinner with them once or twice a week. Too often, I have tried to toss out a sly, witty remark that I'm sure will make someone smile, just to have the three of them look at me blankly and cock their heads to the side. Crickets. This is usually followed by a quick phone call to the US where an American is reached to appreciate the humour, thus ensuring the joke does not die in vain.
Here, they love to joke about Belgians and mock the accents of Quebeckers, but are good enough sports to ask me what jokes Americans make about them, putting me in a difficult spot. Uh... how do I explain that there are those who joke about Frenchmen as stuck up womanizers with body odor, but that those are usually people who've never ventured out of the US, let alone met a Frenchman...?
In a counter movement, I attempted to coin a joke in French. So French it's almost impossible to translate:
Pourquoi a-t-on cedé de trouver une sosie pour le president du FN? (Why did they give up the search to find a lookalike for Jean Marie Le Pen, presidential candidate for the Front National party)
Parce que c'était pas le pen! (Because it wasn't Le Pen, which also translates to it wasn't worth it. A play on words... I warned you it doesn't translate.)
But guess what? They thought it was funny. Voilà, laughter!

Jazz, Johnny and a Belly Dancing Colombian

2007-02-17T14:21:00.000+01:00

The vino and jazz at Caveau de la Huchette on Monday night was just the start of it all. I began what was a very musical week at Huchette, which is similar to another jazz joint-slash-former medieval torture chamber in the area, except here, you've got dancing. Before the band hit the stage, dancers warmed up with what they call le rock. As in, "Excusez-moi, mademoiselle. Can I invite you to dance un rock with me?" The crowd kept swinging after the band came on, led by an awesome singer who sang the standards in a low raspy voice and could scat like a pro. She was French but sang the American songs without an accent and even did that "squirmish, squirmish" thing at the end of Just a Gigolo. The crowd was a mix. Shaggy-haired Asian kids dressed by Urban Outfitter. Smartly dressed and perfectly made-up middled aged Parisiennes. On the dancefloor, a big, muscley guy in wingtips swung around a lady in a little circle skirt. Another man led a Sienna Miller lookalike onto the floor. Then a guy dressed like a cowboy stepped out with a homeless looking lady and swung her around so hard that if he'd let her go, she would have flown and landed onstage.

On Tuesday, I went to the Frenchiest French concert of all: Johnny Hallyday. Johnny (real name Jean-Philippe Smet) is so popular in France that I think I can speed up the process of getting French nationality by telling the prefecture I saw him in concert. He's been a big rock star here since the 60's and some label him as the French Elvis. But instead of getting fat and dying young, Johnny does commercials on tv for eyeglasses and is about to become a tax refugee. He says he pays 70% of what he earns in taxes and to escape that, he's leaving France and moving to Monaco. His show had some original music, but was full of American classics that he sang in French: Johnny B. Goode, House of the Rising Sun, Blueberry Hill, Hey Joe. The crowd sang along to the Frenchified versions, which sounded weird but I wasn't about to stand up with my hands on my hips and yell to the 18,000 other concert goers "You're all singing it wrong!" Anyway, I was not to be heard over the singing and dancing crowd that was almost upstaged by a gentleman in front of me who appeared to be having a religious experience. Johnny finished his show by smashing his guitar and leaving audience members to fight to the death over it.

Then came last night's show, the best of them all: Shakira. Normally, I'm not into pop music. It somehow takes the innovation and coolness out of discovering music if you know school girls are listening to it. But Shakira's concert was like a New Years party down to the confetti everywhere at the end. She performed barefoot as usual, in tribute to Fundaciòn Pies Descalzos, her foundation that benefits Colombian children living in poverty. My friend Carlos once told me that her voice wouldn't last long since she strains it when she sings, but he said that years ago and yet here she was, still belting it out. She sang some stuff from her first albums, before she made the English crossover, but the show also had a heavy Arabic touch complete with plenty of belly dancing, which I read was taught to her by her grandmother. (Who doesn't learn that from their grandmother?) I don't know how she shakes her hips like a paint mixer while singing, but she does it with a smile. Ironically, I found myself dancing not far from a group of school girls. And it was great. The only bummer was that I didn't even think about seeing who was opening for her and we wasted the preshow time eating croque monsieurs across the street when we could have seen Cut Chemist. But we caught his last few songs, so I can't totally complain. A good finale to a good week. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some cds to go buy.

When candidates go musical

2007-02-11T01:17:00.000+01:00

Until now, the only time I'd run into the mayor of my town was seeing Willie Brown on the Van Ness bus in San Francisco. Here in our little town on the Parisian outskirts, I run into Monsieur le Maire all the time.
Last year during the banlieu riots, everyone back home called to see how we were surviving the "war zone." Our area didn't see any car torchings, but in the sense of unrest, our mayor set up a booth in the street and camped out with his team in the evenings to reassure his public face to face.
A few months later, I passed him in the street on a summer evening. A few weeks ago, we saw him going into a store with his wife. Our last encounter was at the sushi restaurant around the corner from my appartment. Walking out of the restaurant with two bags of takeout, I looked up to see Monsieur le Maire holding the door open for me.
He's a friendly guy who always smiles and says "Bonjour." Last month, he organized several meet and greet cocktail hours to personally give town residents his best wishes for 2007- not a bad idea in an election year. His relationship with Nicolas Sarkozy could bring him into higher office should Sarko win the ballot. What strikes me most about our mayor? He looks just like Scottish actor Alan Cumming:

This realization led to hours (that could have been spent productively) of reflection, pondering the casting possibilities should someone make a musical comedy out of the upcoming French presidential elections. It would probably be called something like A l'Elysée! with the permanent ! as popularized in such other musicals as Oklahoma!
The Interior Minister/UMP party's candidate would be played by Dustin Hoffman, taken back a few years to match Sarkozy's age of 52. (Yes, in this fantasy time travel is possible. And Hoffman's played everything from an autistic to a cross dresser, so I see no reason why he couldn't do a French political figure.) In the 2nd act, he'd break out in song saying that, during the 2005 riots, the reaction to Sarkozy's use of the word racaille was blown out of proportion. He'd defended himself on a tv interview later, stating that if you see a kid lighting a car on fire, you're not going to address him as Monsieur. He's got a point there, our Nicolas. And in any case, my dictionary translates racaille as riff raff. It's hard to get worked up over someone calling you a name that hasn't been in wide use since the '60s. Is it really going to get to you if someone calls you a scallywag? You'd probably have to look it up before having a laugh that someone would actually use that word. Anyway, here's one of our leading men:

For the elections' leading lady, the role of the Socialist party's number one gal goes to our friend Anne. I don't know if Anne can even sing or dance, but that doesn't matter. She gets the part simply because everywhere she goes, everyone always tells her she looks like Ségolène Royale. Luckily, Anne doesn't read English and isn't into blogs, because she's getting tired of those comments and would very likely roll her eyes that I'm posting this. Anyway, her opening solo could be "My Opinion is the Opinion of the People," the answer Sego gave when asked her opinion on Turkey possibly joining the European Union. She's had a few blunders along the way, but she just outlined her plans as president, which include a guarantee for every university graduate employment or further training within 6 months of graduation. That's nice, but how? Hmm.... she'll need a dance solo.

Last but not least, is the part of the faaaar right's Front National leader and presidential hopeful, Jean-Marie Le Pen. Extreme as the party's views are, Le Pen fared surprisingly well in the last presidential elections, winning enough votes to get into the second round. As seen in the photo below, Jean-Marie is about to bite this lady just like he'd like to take a bite out of immigration. He'd like to bulldoze the cités (France's projects, on the outskirts of big cities), expel immigrants believed to contribute to unemployment and unrest, and bring back the death penalty. Talk about putting the party in political party! I can't think of the right actor who's got the bite (ha ha, groan) for the part, so until then, let's substitute with an attack dog.

After that, there's the UDF's François Bayrou and the Green party's Dominique Voynet, neither of whom strongly resemble actors, so we'll not worry about their casting for the moment. Let the show continue....

Is this a personal question?

2007-02-04T17:20:00.000+01:00

On a job interview, when the French interviewer switched from French to English:
Him: What are your OB's?
Me: (Oh crap, is this some more paperwork that I haven't even heard of, let alone filled out? Or maybe it's some language competence test I was supposed to have done? No one told me about that! This has been going well so far... Do I tell the truth or play along like I totally know what he's talking about?) Excuse me?
Him: You know, your OB's...
Me: Um... I'm not sure what you're talking about.
Him: What do you like to do for fun?
Me: (relieved) Oh, my hobbies!
Him: Yes, your OBs!

Til Death Do Us Part(y)

2007-01-31T21:45:00.000+01:00

The other night, I went out to meet two girlfriends for a drink. I picked a bar in the 1st and showed up to find one of them already there with another friend she'd brought along. Within 10 seconds of my arrival, this other friend insisted that the music was too loud and that we must find another bar. So just as the last of our quartet arrived, we took off for another spot, all chatting as we walked across the Pont Neuf into the Saint-Germain area. This other girl was British but my two friends are françaises so French was what we were speaking. After I said something, the Brit turned her head to me and coldly said, "I think it's silly speaking French to other anglophones." And thus I met little Miss Bad Vibe (not her real name, oddly).
Miss Bad Vibe had come over to Paris for a year of study and decided to stay on for a few extra months of watching dubbed Sex and the City episodes and slinging beers at an English Pub in town. Apparently an expert on several subjects, she enlightened us all evening with her personal display of wisdom. After a few months in Paris, she could explain all aspects of French culture. French girls? They don't have girlfriends because they don't trust eachother. Nevermind the fact that we were sitting there drinking wine with two French girls who are indeed quite good friends. But that's insufficient evidence because their parents aren't all French-born and raised.
Eventually, one of my friends asked me something about my wedding last year. Bad Vibe's big mouth gaped open as she turned to me and and whined, "You're marrieeeed??" much in the same tone of voice one would say "You're abandoning your medical career to join the circuuuus??"
"Why are you married? You're so young!"
She followed this with a lengthy soliloquy of merde stating that marriage is when you concede all the excitement and vitality of your youth to begin a long, slow life of burden that causes body and soul to rot until there's nothing left of you. You know, suicide.
You give up all projects, travel plans and adventures to bed down and watch the rest of the world continue on. One day you're the Mona Lisa, the next you're the manly looking wife in American Gothic. You get the point. Marriage=bad. Bad Vibe wrapped it up with an attribution of her facts to personal experience and an article she read in some magazine.
Wow, I thought. Have I thrown it all away too soon?
What was the deal? Are married people supposed to be totally dull as opposed to the sparkles and mystery of the single life? In a society that gobbled up Sex and the City and Bridget Jones' Diary, are we to the point where married people are just cows put out to pasture? This can't be. Look at the fascinating husbands and wives who dazzle today's world.
David and Cathy Guetta. Serge and Tatiana Sorokko. Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel. You want them at your parties- they're glamorous, captivating, interesting and married. There's tons of cool married couples. And they're not all doing it just to celebrate bikini-clad on a yacht in Saint Tropez, only to divorce when the party's over. (You may know of whom I speak.)
I know plenty of American Gothics who are just as fun now as when they were Mona Lisas. They still stay out til the wee hours, sipping the latest cocktails at Hotel Costes and listening to sub-groove deep house with dubby elements in the downtempo range. And everything else the cool kids are doing .
Even without all the fun, it's not like marriage is a bunch of lovey-dovey, sugar-covered bliss all the time.
As Nick Hornby writes in How to Be Good, "What you don't ever catch a glimpse of on your wedding day...is that somedays you will hate your spouse, that you will look at him and regret ever exchanging a word with him... if anyone thought about these things, then no one would ever get married... the impulse to get married would come from the same place as the impulse to drink a bottle of bleach."
But just understand this, Miss Bad Vibe- whether married at 21 or still single at 50, you are the only one responsible for your life's happiness. It's not a question of whether you are betrothed or not. And if you go around criticizing strangers' lifestyles, you may develop a weird skin virus that will turn your skin green and give you scales. I read an article about it in some medical journal. (Ha, you're not the only one fluent in boollsheet.)

Hell is spelled p-r-e-f-e-c-t-u-r-e

2007-01-23T14:52:00.000+01:00

I am standing in line at the Prefecture waiting to present my paperwork to get my Carte de Sejour, that sacred, sought after document which allows me to live and work in France. Until the magic moment I have it in my posession, I have a Recepissé d'un Titre de Sejour, which is French for Card That Entitles Us to Continually Piss You Off by Making You Come Back to the Prefecture Frequently for Nothing.
A provisionary document that I received August 1, my recepissé was originally marked valid until October 31, before which I was to receive something in the mail signalling me to come in for the Real Deal. Come October 29, I still had nothing so I went to the Prefecture to follow up.
A skinny woman in an almost translucent blouse looked up my file on her computer and unapologetically said, "It's not ready yet."
What do I do until it's ready?
She paused, before pulling out a stamp and pen, marking an official statement on the back saying my We're Entitled to Piss You Off card was good until January 22. Clever.
January 22 quickly approached and yet those merry souls of the French administration still hadn't sent me anything in the mail. So a few days before my card's expiration, I went to the Prefecture for another two tons of fun.
Between the first step in the process and my fourth visit here, I was accustomed to the long wait in line and all the serendipitous moments involved. My lower back became pained from standing so long. The old lady in front of me turned so as not to cough in the face of her companion and thus coughed directly at me. The man at the front of the line faced the empty booth where the worker has disappeared for the time it takes to drink a coffe, smoke a cigarette and read the paper. A woman was screaming at her kids in Arabic. The Asian girl behind me was standing so close that I was a centimeter away from getting felt up. My purse strap was starting to sear into one shoulder while the bag with all my official files cut into the other. My shoulders themselves were drooping under the weight. Another visit here and my shoulders will be level with my chest.
After the standing pain extended to my knees and feet, I think maybe I should have become an international celebrity before coming here. No way did Johnny Depp have to go through this crap when he moved to France. Likewise, I wouldn't have had to do all this if I'd married another American. Marrying a strapping young Californian lad wouldn't have involved long lines at French prefectures. Suddenly, images came to mind of Rita Moreno singing at me: "One of your own kind, stick to your own kiiiiind."
But my heart, Anita, but my heart.
After my West Side Daydream, I finally made it to the front of the line. And was told by a short little Frenchman that my card is not ready and that I have to come back. And the little man wasn't even going to do the magic stamp and signature on the back of my paper, extending the expiration date! No, I have to come back on the 22 and do this all over again. With a photo ID and my medical certificate (the one I lost an entire day getting). And another document on which I had to glue 4 stamps from the Treasury on that cost 55€ each.
And so here I am. I've got my required papers and am here on the requested date. Today, it's a 6 foot tall man behind me crowding my personal space. But I don't care. This should be it. After an hour and a half of waiting, I reach the front of the line and eagerly present my paperwork. The woman behind the counter is helping three people at once, but when she sees my Recepissé, she grabs it and looks up something on her computer screen. And smirks - I swear she is smirking- before handing it back to me.
"Your Carte de Sejour is not ready yet," she says, satisifed at my horrified expression. "You must come back in April."
I am so frusterated I can't talk. Do I just grin and bear it or jump on the countertop and go for her jugular? The latter, though tempting, might complicate things if I ask for French citizenship later, so I keep my feet on the ground. She does the little stamp and signature thing on the back of my We're Entitled to Continually Piss You Off card, extending its validity to April 15. Then she slides it back my way and moves on to her next victim. No apologies. No "bon courage." No one here thinks it is at all a shortcoming on their part that a routinely handled document is (hopefully) going to be delivered six months late.
I remember when I was in high school and listened to that Primus song DMV that says "I've been to hell, I spell it... I spell it DMV. Anyone who's been here knows exactly what I mean."
Well, Primus has clearly never been to my local Prefecture. Otherwise, they'd know how hell is really spelled.

French Country Rap

2007-01-16T16:07:00.000+01:00

My friend JJ grew up in Palm Desert and was the only blonde in her grade school which was choc full of latino kids. I was a latina kid at predominantly white schools. But neither of us wins the "Fish Out of Water" contest if we're up against Kamini.
He's a French rapper/nurse (yes, I said a rapper and a nurse) of Congolese descent who grew up as the only black kid in an itty bitty French village called Marly-Gomont, where the average age is 65 years old, 95% of the population is made up of cows and all the other inhabitants are whiter than white.
He wrote a little song about it, made a low budget video with a friend, put it online and suddenly became a hit. It's a funny take on his life and he gets the farmers to dance a little hip hop, but he does take a stab at the racism he dealt with growing up. This video has been big in France for a few months now and the latest is that it's inspired a few young whipper snappers to steal Marly-Gomont road signs. The Sunday news did a report in which residents of the town and Kamini himself told sign stealers to cut it out. Check out the video- if you don't speak French I found an unofficial translation of the lyrics online here.

Hot and Bothered

2007-01-13T11:49:00.000+01:00

I can go outside right now without a damn scarf and that's just not normal.
This is January in Paris and I'm freaking out that I can walk outside for an hour without the cold making the insides of my ears hurt. Or my nose run. Or my knees shiver. That's what Parisian winters are supposed to be about. So why did I see a girl out last night wearing sandals???
A few months ago, the weather was cold enough to cover the ground in frost at my in-laws' in the countryside and to kill a few unfortunate homeless people in Paris. The forecast for today, however, is 11°C (52°F). Quoi? One site states the average temperature for Paris in January as 3°C (39°F).
Everyone I talk to says the same thing: This is really great, but does it mean we're doomed?
Is this freaky heat really because of us selfish humans with our cars and smoke spitting factories? Surely this has happened in history before. On a taxi ride home once, the driver said he'd been told by an elderly passenger that after the turn of the century, it'd gotten so hot in Paris that the Seine had dried up to the point that you could wade across it in certain areas. However, I can't verify this story and the cabbie's historian credentials weren't hanging next to his taxi license.
But while I couldn't find any information on this story, I did stumble across this article which tells of a similar account that happened in Paris back in pre-automobile 1540.
Then I found this bit from a 1975 Newsweek article that scared readers about global cooling. Are you confused yet?
When I go home to Southern California, what always gets me is how many people are driving their huge trucks and suvs everywhere. Unless you're in construction or you help friends move houses every weekend, why the hell are you driving that? My stomach always turns as I see the brown haze hang over the mountains from the 210 freeway. Hhmm, that's the sweet air your kids are breathing.
I love Paris, the city that lets me go everywhere without having a car at all. But that's not to say we've got it better here. The périphérique that circles Paris is always congested and I can't go for a run along the Seine (which, in our neighborhood, runs alongside a busy highway) without feeling like I've smoked half a pack. There are reports that predict a future rise in deaths caused by air pollution in European cities.
Let's bring back the horse and buggy already!
There are those who think the issue of our affect on the climate change has been blown out of proportion and that climate change shouldn't be exploited and used to scare people. That's nice in theory, but can you explain the sandal clad pedestrian last night?
Fortunately, the temperature looks it will be dropping a bit in the next few days. And hopefully soon, we will have the reassurance of a real Parisian winter. We'll be happy to be miserably cold.

I've Totally Lost My Mind

2007-01-10T12:18:00.000+01:00

Today les Soldes start and all the stores in France have their prices marked down for pushy shoppers who will stop at nothing to get what they've got their eyes on. It's a nationwide, bi-annual and often violent sale that lasts a month. I'd check it out but the last time I went during the first week I almost got a black eye and lost a shoe in the cyclone of price tags and panic (not a joke). So I did something that should have been less stressful. I did away with our Christmas tree.
Husband told me we're not allowed to just leave it on the sidewalk; we have to cut it into bitty pieces and dispose of it properly. I'd love to disbelieve that, but it is true that I haven't seen any abandoned trees outside in the neighborhood.
"I think I've got a saw in the cellar," says Husband, leaving for work.
Damn. I hate our cellar, but I want to get rid of this tree, so I grab the keys and go down into the underground corridor lined with broken glass and rat poison on the floor. Each tenant in the building has a storage compartment and I unlock and open ours- which hasn't got a saw in it. So where is it? How can you lose a saw? Frusterated I've braved the dungeon for nothing, I go back upstairs. Now, I'm just getting plain mad that I have no solution. I try to tie the branches and trunk together into a neat bundle, but the branches balloon out again. I break off a few of them with my hand. Then a few others. Suddenly, all my frustrations from the last week surface.
The Prefecture who makes me stand in line for hours to ask about paperwork they should have sent me in the mail last October.
My neighbor who believes "If it ain't worth yelling, it ain't worth saying" and excercises that belief at all hours.
The fact that I was promised a job last fall that still hasn't started and have had to resort to starting the job hunt all over again.

Bam. I am a relatively calm person who has suddenly morphed into a madwoman attacking a Christmas tree with her bare hands. No gloves even, just me, tree and Le Tigre's Deceptacon blaring in the background. Think Edward Scissorhands meets Single White Female and you've got me violently snapping away with pine needles and tree dust flying all over. I'm sure there is some environmental group in San Francisco that would have me arrested for this.
But everyone gets mad and needs an outlet. Since there are no batting cages or rollercoasters in my neighborhood, this is actually working quite well. When I've finished, my tree looks like it just stumbled away from a nasty barfight. But most importantly, it's ready to be thrown away in a clean, responsible manner.
I can see the conversation tonight:
Husband: Oh, it's gone! You found the saw, then?
Me: No.
Husband: Then, how...?
Me: It doesn't matter.

Bonne Année and... however you say it in Danish

2007-01-03T17:59:00.000+01:00

Most Parisians I know spend the New Year among friends, at home, and eating fine food until 4 am. This year, we went out. My favorite Dane Thilde came down from Copenhagen with her charming boyfriend Bjarke to celebrate with us Paris-style. It was my duty to find the party with the only request being that Thilde "wanted to know she was in Paris." Will a boat party by the Tour Eiffel do?
Between a good dinner and a nice party, we had a great weekend filled with interesting conversation on such subjects as:
The End of the Year speech by the Danish queen: A New Year's tradition for Danes is the speech given by Queen Margrethe II in which she talks about the events of the past year and goals for the new one. Her speech is televised nationally and broadcast over the internet for those abroad. Our friends said everyone watches it as they themselves huddled around Bjarke's phone to watch it online.
Danish cinema's pride and joy: Viggo Mortensen and two guys from Casino Royale. It seems in Copenhagen, movie goers watching the new James Bond flick cheered whenever the two Danish actors appeared on screen.
Rats: The disturbing tales of the rat infestation in Paris after the removal of the huge food market in Les Halles was beat by a story of rats in Beirut. After bombing leveled much of the city's buildings, desperate Lebanese rats had nowhere to go and ended up on the beach. When Bjarke was living there a few years ago, he was advised not to go to the beach after dark for danger of being attacked by rats. Curious, he passed by one night with a sandwich and threw a piece of food into the darkness. Although he couldn't see anything, he could hear the scuffle of vermin encircling whatever he threw. Makes you feel cozy, doesn't it?

After our New Year's party, we learned the metro line we needed to get home was closed. So we tried to find a taxi in Paris. On January 1. At 4 am. This is like saying we tried to find dog sledding Eskimos in East L.A. The ratio between cabs and homebound party goers is far from equal, but by some stroke of luck, we found one after 10 minutes of trying. Could this be the first sign of 2007 being a lucky year for us? Let's just assume so.

Don't read if you still believe in Santa Clause

2006-12-27T12:13:00.000+01:00

For Christmas, we drove to the countryside to spend the holiday with my husband's family, their in-laws and some extended family. Champagne flowed like water and we ate our weight in oysters. In the lull before we broke out the gifts, we started talking about St. Nick. The family started saying Santa Clause (instead of Père Noël), followed by a wink and a smile in my direction. For whatever reason, however, no one could pronounce the name right and kept saying "Santa Cruz."
"Be good, children. Santa Cruz is watching." "Don't you believe in Santa Cruz? We get lots of presents from Santa Cruz!"
One eight-year-old distant cousin, Jules, was one of the last in his class who still believed in Santa Cruz.
"I think this may be the last year he believes in him," his grandmother told me during the apéro. "None of his friends at school still think it's true."
My in-laws' family tradition is to have someone dress up as Père Noël and stop by, giving the presents to the kids before disappearing again. This year, the role fell upon my husband. All decked out in his Santa suit with a little red wagon in tow, he waited outside a bedroom window while inside, his sister and myself passed him the toys to load into the wagon so he could make his appearance entering from the garden.
We were halfway through when I noticed that my partners in crime had stopped and were looking behind me with horror on their faces. I turned around and there in the doorway was little Jules with his mouth hanging open. Three of us stopped in our tracks. A painfully awkward pause ensued. It was my sister-in-law who jumped into action, ushering him out of the room while I tossed the last gifts out the window.
We all gathered in the living room moments later, playing it cool, while nervously wondering if we had just ruined his Christmas. It could have been Santa he saw. How does Jules know that Father Christmas doesn't routinely have presents inspected by families to ensure their maximum enjoyability before handing them out? Some sort of customs he must pass before delivering the gifts, just in case he's about to give a talking Malibu Barbie to the daughter of a bra burning feminist. It could happen.
When my husband, Santa, did pass by and leave the goodies, all the kids were equally excited.
"Did you get good toys?" Jules' grandma asked him later. I prayed he wouldn't breakdown and point a finger at us, screaming that the three of us had sabotaged his childhood holiday fantasy. Luckily, he just gave a genuine (or convincing) smile and said, "Yes. Merci, Santa Cruz!"

Christmas in ze city

2006-12-22T00:10:00.000+01:00

Christmas is Monday and I'm having a hard time getting into the spirit. When I was little, I lived for Christmas, but this year is a tough one as times have been less than cheery. The IHT put out a story about Paris becoming the new chic terrorist target. (Just in time for the holidays!) On a personal note, the start date for my dream job has been delayed again. Also, it's my first Christmas with the in-laws. Something not to be lamented, as they couldn't be any nicer, but something that also goes against all my personal Christmas traditions. ("What do you mean you don't open your presents on the 25th in your pajamas? And your dad doesn't hand them out wearing a Santa hat? You call this Christmas?!") Not to mention the fact that we are a Mexican family, meaning we eat tamales on Christmas and not foie gras. The only kind of tamales I could find here were from a Colombian restaurant on rue Rodier. Note I say Colombian, which are totally diferent from Mexican tamales. If anyone happens to be reading this from Paris and knows where I might find real Mexican tamales in Paris, PLEASE let me know. I am this close to storming the Mexican Embassy in hopes of finding some.

While I may have lost it a little this week with all this running through my head, I realise that acceptance is the only way to advance and enjoy. I will be singing Petit Papa Noël instead of Mamacita, donde esta Santa Clause and that's fine with me. In the interest of further enjoying the holiday season, I hit the town with my camera to share some shots of Christmas decorations.

I wish this one had come out better, but there are lights strung all the way down rue des Martyrs.

It's not Christmas unless you do your shopping alongside 3 million other last minute shoppers, so I went to the grands magasins. I hit up the toy store by Saint-Lazare for our nephews (to my disgust, I saw little plastic kalashnikovs for sale). Another reason to see the neighborhood is that the stores are always done up for the holidays. As with every year, Galeries Layafette wins the prize for the biggest electricity bill.

The store windows have got something for big passerbys, such as this decadent table setting that so closely resembles my own (joke) and for the little ones, such as the animated tea kettles below that dance to funny music.

I'm still blown away by the fact that Père Noël doesn't have a Mère Noël. Yes, in France Santa Clause is single as seen in a chocolate commercial on tv that has him flirting with a Jessica Rabbit type before taking her off in his sleigh. Ho ho ho!

Et Voilà. Feliz Navidad, Joyeux Noël and Merry Christmas to everyone!

Unreal Estate

2006-12-17T14:23:00.000+01:00

I once read that Paris is the same size as Boston but four times more dense. There are over 2 million residents here that live in old buildings (over a few hundred years in some cases) that have countlessly changed owners who have altered the design or structure of these apartments to adapt to their tastes or needs.
That leaves you with a full city full of funky, misshapen apartments. When I lived in the 6th, I shared a place with two other students that would under normal circumstances have been a one bedroom apartment. We had one real bedroom off the living room while the other "bedrooms" were accessible by a desperately small spiral staircase. One room was an open mezzanine which overlooked the living room. The other room, lovingly referred to as "the crypt", was cut off from all light and air circulation save for a small porthole window that opened up to the bathroom directly below. You could literally look down into the toilet from the bedroom. One could lie in bed while listening to the bathroom activities of their roomate as the sound traveled up. Yes, odors too. To top it off, a slanted ceiling hovered low over all of our upstairs space, meaning we could only walk upright if we kept our backs against the wall.
I've heard of apartments that have bathtubs with planks that fit on top them to serve as dining tables. Apartments with the bedroom on one floor and a separate communal toilet two floors below. Bathrooms that are so small, you walk inside and you're instantly sitting on the toilet. Our friend Eric lives on the 7th floor in a building that has no elevator. I've seen places that have the shower next to the kitchen stove. My friend Matt says this is practical as you can fry your eggs and wash your balls at the same time. The trick is just not to confuse the two.
For those who buy such apartments, the choice is to be creative with what you've got or perish. We have a friend who just bought his own place. And it's beautiful: parquet floors, intricate molding in the rooms, and nice high ceilings. However, the bathroom had little room for both a toilet and a sink while the shower was accessible by a creaky old staircase that looked like someone had been going up and down it using a jackhammer as a pogo stick. I wish I had a before shot to show because when he bought his place, it was a trainwreck. After much work and creativity, it looks great. The big find was a toilet shaped perfectly to fit the corner by the sink. And he's got a nice set of stairs that lead to the shower, which doesn't let water splash out onto the stairs. At his house warming, he unveiled the new bathroom to exclamations of "What great taste you've got!" "It's beautiful!" "It's so chic that if you didn't have a girlfriend, I'd think you were gay!" My commentary was that it's unique, stylish and clean. Inspiration for the day we buy our own funky, mishaped apartment.

Cutting the Cheese

2006-12-06T07:31:00.000+01:00

There's a subject I need to address here- one that is not totally original, but if this was hugely ground breaking as far as expat blogs go, I'd be writing it from Soroca instead of Paris. Thus I permit myself to share my most recent experience with the locals and their cheese.
If I have learned anything here, it's not to flinch when you are served a plate of moldy cheese. Where I come from, you buy cheese and it's yours until the mold comes in and claims it as its own. You step back and admit defeat thus tossing Mlle Cheese to live out her life with Mr Mold in the trash. In France, defeat doesn't come so easily. The French hang on to it, acknowledging the mold as an added bonus.
I'm always finicky about buying cheese for dinner parties with guests who are -surprise- French. They know where each one comes from, if the brand I chose is good or not, etc. Sometimes I beat the system by buying Italian cheese when I can find it. (Pecorino Pepato, I adore you.)
We had another couple over the other night. After dinner, I routinely brought out the cheese platter along with the salad and set it on the table telling our friends to dig in. No one did.
Conversation continued until I said again for everyone to help themselves.
"You're supposed to cut the cheese first, as the lady of the house," our friend Alex said.
The lady of the house? This was just a casual dinner at the house, not a formal, traditional dining experience. I look around at my friends and husband who, moments ago were from the same generation as me, but are now glancing expectedly in my direction. Hang on, aren't we all twenty-something, hip hop listening, club going, equal opportunity young adults who at one time or another have tried smoking a doobie? They weren't really going to hold this to me, where they?
It only got more confusing when Alex explained that it's so the guests know which cheese is the best and how it should be cut. Can't we make an exception if the "lady of the house" comes from a land where you can find cheese that comes out of a can? French friends looking to the American as the model of how to handle the cheese- that's like looking to an Amish person for advice on your car engine.
Perhaps I thought it over too much because when I sliced it up, no one gave any (verbal) objection and our soirée continued. Lesson learned: Lady of the house calls the shots. Whether it be moldy or Italian, no one contests to how she cuts the cheese.

Thanks...what-ing?

2006-12-01T00:42:00.000+01:00

My friend Kyndell pointed out that I didn't post anything about having Thanksgiving in Paris. Truth is, I was hiding the fact that... I messed up on the date. Hasn't Thanksgiving always been the last Thursday of the month? You know- it's always November 27thish. Since November 2006 is extra generous as far as Thursdays go, I made the mistake in thinking, "Well, last Thursday of the month- it must be the 30th!"
I will point out here that this was actually my 3rd French Thanksgiving. The first one was shared with my visiting sister, 2 Americans, a Saint Lucian and an Australian. My sister and I bought the turkey (from a butcher who told us "Bon Thanksgiving" ), American friend #1 made the mashed potatoes, American friend #2 did the stuffing and the others watched curiously.
Last year, I presented the holiday to my in-laws. My (then future) mother-in-law made the turkey while I ran out to the Thanksgiving store and made everything else. (Thank God my mom keeps her recipe books not far from her internet access.) The yams were surprisingly easy to make and everyone loved the cornbread.
Cut to November 23, 2006. My husband and I were debating whether to make pizza or go out for sushi when my mom calls to say those fateful words: "Happy Thanksgiving!"
What?!
Phone in hand, I turned toward our tv to see the French news was showing a clip of President Bush handling a huge turkey.
Quoi?!
It was all crashing down on me. I got off the phone and declared that we had to act quickly or else we would be sacrificing my cultural right to a night of gluttony. It was too late to go all the way to the aforementioned Thanksgiving store and their adjoining restaurant was booked til the next week. So we ran to the local market, hustled up some last minute guests and thus organized Thanksgiving Dinner 2006 at our apartment.
A chicken from the rotisserie down the street served as our turkey. The yams, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie were a lost cause. What could we do but console ourselves by replacing them with something wonderful that no one at home was getting to eat that day?
Enter the oysters. We schucked them ourselves (would you believe my French dictionary didn't have the translation for "schucking"?) and served them with a bottle of Reisling to three of our favorite neighborhood residents and a friend who'd just come into town from Marseille at the right moment. And so it was that I celebrated without any other Americans, had no turkey and missed out on my nieces' after dinner musical performance going on at home. But the evening was still spent with good conversation and quality food. And no cranberry sauce can beat the Thanksgiving oysters.

Everyone loves a good birthday party

2006-11-27T15:30:00.000+01:00

Until last weekend, the best birthday party in Paris I'd been to was the one my old roommate threw that involved 6 foot tall speakers and a near eviction. But then along came Alex, who also knows how to throw a fabulous birthday party. So well in fact that people came from all over the country to get down and live it up in the 6th. Here's some photos from our soirée people.

Eep opp

2006-11-24T09:46:00.000+01:00

Hip hop, or as I now pronounce it, eep opp, has some great artists coming out of France. Nothing makes me happier (outside of marital bliss, of course) than when French groups collaborate with their American counterparts. Hocus Pocus is a group from Nantes who got together with American group the Procussions to make this catchy little tune. I know I've posted this video elsewhere, but it's so cool that I have no shame putting it up again here.

Throat Slitting Rugby

2006-11-19T10:26:00.000+01:00

I'd never watched a rugby match for more than a minute but have noticed they make American footballers, who are basically playing the same game, look like pansies with all their protective gear. Last night, I was glued to the tv watching France play New Zealand who, as with each international game, started the match with the Haka, a Maori war dance. The clip below is from another match, but you can see the intimidation. Maybe I'm mislead by the throat slitting action at the end, but they look like they're about to dive into a carnal blood bath instead of a legal sport. If I was about to take on this group, I'd probably do a girly shreik, run out of the stadium and take up chess instead.

cabu

2006-11-17T15:43:00.000+01:00

Paris, while expensive as hell, has free perks here and there such as the exhibits at the Hotel de Ville. We went yesterday with the intention of seeing Doisneau's photos. When we saw the Doisneau line was about 5 miles longer than the line for the other exhibit, we went with the latter: Cabu et Paris.
I had never heard of this John Denver look alike sketch artist called Cabu, but was touched by his drawings that capture the many sides of Paris from the Assemblée Nationale to the sex shops at Pigalle. Cabu has been sketching Paris for more than 50 years but he still captures the little things you'd come across looking at the city as a newcomer. There are the monuments of course, but he also sketches scenes like the little Japanese tourists hauling designer shopping bags that stand taller than they do. The African men who stand outside the Chateau d'Eau metro stop hollering to hustle people into the hairdresser's across the street. He includes little notes in his sketches like "Rendez-vous at Saint Sulpice with a copy of the Da Vinci Code." . What hit me most about what Cabu had to say about the city was that he moved to Paris when he was 17 and still feels 17 when he's here. I first set foot in Paris when I was 24. A few years later, I don't feel any different than I did at 24- not to compare that to Cabu feeling like a teenager at the age 68. But it made me wonder if I'm still living here when I'm 70, will being in Paris still make me feel like a fresh faced 24 year old? I know enough people here will tell you that living in the city could actually age you quicker. In any case, I still have moments where I'm running late and walking in the street and getting frustrated at how slowly some people walk in the middle of the sidewalk and how there's just too many people about and I think I'm going to crack and then I get a glimpse of the lights dancing on the Seine, a quiet, constant backdrop to the noise and traffic, and I remember why I live here.

Chez Diablitho

2006-11-13T16:29:00.000+01:00

Saturday night, we headed out to Diablitho Latino in the 11th and had a nice night of dancing in one of the coolest salsa joints in town. Herminio, our favorite salsero in Paris wasn't there, but a lot of familiar faces showed out for a friend's birthday. I dig Diablitho Latino. There's good dancers but no salsa snobs (my mind goes back to a night at El Floridita in Hollywood when some guy on the dance floor corrected me on my alleged "extra steps." After which, I showed him some more extra steps and walked away). Diablitho's other big plus is that they stick to good salsa music and don't play zouk. Caribean music's nice enough to listen to, but there's no pulse to it. It makes you want to lay back in a lounge chair with a cocktail served in a coconut rather than get up and dance.
On this particular night, there were way more latin girls at the club than French girls. Or was it just that they were more visible? To state the obvious, latin girls' style could not be any more different from the French. It's like comparing apples and... parachutes. While Parisiennes have their 300 different ways to wear a scarf, the latinas have their skin-tight lycra, huge hoop earrings, and bra straps (or in some cases, entire bras) that intentionally show. Walk into this place from the cold street scene where everyone's bundled up, and it's "Fifi, I don't think we're in Paris anymore."
They say salsa is different between LA, New York and Miami with all that start on the one beat versus starting on the five. Personally, I've never paid attention to all that business. Dancing gets more difficult and less fun if I think too hard about it. There are a few stylistic differences I see in Paris (and I'll talk about the girls because that's usually who you watch more, right?). Parisiennes, though they can dance well, stay straighter and stiffer when they move while girls in LA are all hips and shoulders swiggling all over the place.
People watching aside, the reason we were there was to celebrate lovely Léa's birthday. There were a lot of faces I hadn't seen since her birthday party last year, so it was a sort of Léa's birthday reunion. My husband, who'd never been to a salsa spot before meeting me, showed off his freestyle on the dance floor. We got a good workout in before grabbing our coats and stepping back outside into the cold. Back into November in Paris.

Getting served at Franprix

2006-11-08T14:00:00.000+01:00

The Franprix market by my place is notorious among our friends for its bitchy cashiers. Not in an uptight, stuffy kind of bitchy, but more like a "I work for minimum wage and I can't stand customer service" kind of bitchy. Anyone who lives in France can tell you that trips to the market don't come complete with a friendly high school student wearing a Vons apron who is happy to bag your groceries for you while you take care of the bill. Here, you bag it all yourself and if you're lucky, it's during rush hour when everyone's just got off work and waiting impatiently in line behind you as you try to put your change in your wallet that won't zip closed, bag the bottles of wine in an upright, protected position and chase run away oranges.
I have seen markets where the cashiers will take note of the hold up and lend a hand, but the Franprix chicks usually cross their arms and glare no matter how many people are in line.
The other day, I was there waiting in line, holding my groceries with three people in front of me and four behind me. In a small market like this one, that's traffic. One out of three cash registers was open, while two other employees were chatting in the corner, ignoring the abandoned registers and the growing amount of customers.
Then, the woman behind me steps up.
"Are you going to open the other register?" she yells. They keep chatting.
"Tenez, je vais lancer une pièce," she says, digging in her purse.
Is that just a figure of speech I haven't learned yet or did she just tell me she's going to chuck her change at them?
Turns out, it's not a figure of speech. She pulled out a few coins and hurled them, one by one, at the head of one the Franprix employees chatting in the corner. This is the best trip to the market ever.
The girl turned around and instead of getting mad, did a little, half-hearted "Oh my, I didn't realize there were so many people" and jumped behind the other register where I was the first get be rung up.
After I paid and started to close that damn, unzipping wallet of mine, she actually helped me bag...my...groceries. Miracles do happen!
Leaving, I wanted to toss a chunky, 2 euro coin at her head and do an Italian grandma style "Thatsa so you donna forget de next time!" I didn't, but from now on, I'm not coming here without extra change in my pocket.

Another Stripe on the Wall

2006-11-05T17:15:00.000+01:00

Trying to make good use of the last few days of having free time on my hands, I took what seemed like a quick little idea from an interior design magazine and painted our place. Three days of non-stop work and voilà, I'm the proud mother of three beautiful walls. Naturally, I spend the majority of my days staring at my masterpiece. That's a bit of what I was doing when we became two of the five million people in France affected by the blackout that hit Europe last night. When our lights and tv shut off around ten o'clock, we poked our heads out the window, as did most of the other residents on our street, and saw there wasn't a light on anywhere.
This morning, the power was back and the sun came out and we were able to continue our wall gazing- as you can do now, too.

Before painting, I used an electric sander for the first time in my life to get the walls smooth and paintable. The sander was significantly more powerful than I thought it would be and as I strained from side to side, my entire torso violently spasming along with my feet teetering on the ladder, I realised I probably should have contracted a will before starting this mess. Luckily for the walls, I survived the sanding. Now, the painting. The magazine said it was "a long and tricky project." What it should have said is "this project is so labourious, it will make you gleeful that you only live in an uncomfortably small studio apartment!" I did the walls totally beige and then, to make sure each stripe ended up perfectly parallel, I measured from ceiling to floor each 23 cm beige section and then each 20 cm grey section. Yes, each centimeter of each stripe was delicately executed by moi. Halfway through the paint job, I was saying "I don't care if we have ten kids one day. After this is done, I will never move out of this place. Ever."

My Fabulous Journée de Formation Civique

2006-11-03T12:05:00.000+01:00

Of course, when I say fabulous, I mean long, drawn out and at times, miserable. This day long seminar is organised by the Minister of Employment and the Department of Immigrations and brought me out of my warm bed and out into the bitter cold morning, wandering around the streets of Colombes, trying to find the meeting place. Since our address isn't in Paris proper (yet a 5 minute train ride into town), all my paperwork goes into the Hauts-de-Seine Prefecture instead of Paris. Remembering the fun that was getting my titre de sejour in Paris when I was here as a student, I thought working with another prefecture would be easier. Less people! Maybe even a tolerable staff! The only thing that is different is that now when I have to wait in line at the Prefecture, I'm the only woman who's not wearing a veil. My dad suggested I go wait in line wearing a big sombrero, just to mix it up a bit and show my culture. I didn't go for it.
The beginning of our Journée Civique was directed by a small, wiry woman who needed hair gel. She began with a quick, roundtable introduction where we said where we come from. It went like this:
"Ivory Coast."
"Tunisia."
"Cameroon."
"Uh...USA."
"Morocco."
"Tunisia."
"Ivory Coast."
"Cameroon."
Before going into her day long lecture on how to live in France, the director said that despite the cold, we would have to open the windows every now and then otherwise everyone will fall asleep and she would be the first. Very motivating introduction.
Throughout the day, she touched on some points that I agreed with (it is important to know the history of your host country, when you live in a new country it is you that conforms to the standards not the other way around, etc.). But there was the occassional moment where her mind shifted from logical discussion to soliloquies from left field.
"When they Bastille was stormed, do you think there were six or seven prisoners still locked inside?...Interesting number, six... you turn it over and it becomes...nine..."
"Now, a juge de proximité handles small cases up to 1,500€, cases such as a dog who bothers your neighbors. (Pauses for dramatic effect) And when the dog goes mad... we put him down...(Another pause) Anyway, the juge de proximité..."
This talk was already not your usual professional presentation, yet things got worse when she talked about the internship she had done in Louisiana. Oh, America... it seemed to have quite an effect on her. This must be why she talked about the States almost as much as she talked about France. And every reference to America was accompanied by a wave of the hand in my direction.
"The cost of health insurance is incredibly high in the US!"
All 20 heads in the room turn in my direction.
I have gone from immigrant student of the French administration to unwilling symbol of the American system.
At lunch time, I chatted with Baba from Mauritania, who seemed surprised that an American had to go through the same formalities that he did. I admit that, while unfair, I know some things are easier. I left France for California in September when I was still waiting for my carte de sejour (which I technically didn't have the right to do). The comatose customs guy at Charles de Gaulle barely looked at my passport when I came back to France. I think I could have replaced my photo with a portrait of me drawn by my three-year-old niece and he would have let me pass. Baba said that it wasn't the same story for someone he knew who had tried to visit back home.
Then, we got coffee (two each) and regrouped back in the room for the last few hours of dramatic pauses and references to America. Finally, at the end of the day, we were given the necessary certificates of participation and a website that lists all the information we had spent the day going over. As in, the website that I could have read instead of getting up and hitting the streets in the November cold. For some reason, I am not surprised.

Employment, at last you are mine

2006-10-30T18:46:00.000+01:00

After almost three months of fruitless job searching, someone has finally recognized genius and swooped me up. The loooong process that took me from unhireable foreigner to owner of French working papers picked up when we decided to get married. Before then, I would have had to convince a potential employer to pay 800 or so euros and slave over a heap of paperwork in order to hire me. But after the wedding in May, things got more hopeful. Of course then I had to wait three months to get my titre de sejour (ie. right to work in France). After getting my working papers, I scoured through want ads that were either for stages (internships- It seems there are 50 internships for every one job in Paris) or for positions that had nothing to do with my background. I talked to people that had been searching for work for five months to a year before finding something good. It got to the point where I was writing cover letters that read: "Though my past experiences have been in journalism and fashion, I have always at heart wanted to be the coordinator responsible for European projects in the field of public health." And try writing that in French by the way. I can speak and write French pretty comfortably by now but French cover letters are another language on their own. They could translate to something like this:
Madame, Monsieur,
I am delighted to see that you look for (insert job title), position that is perfectly suitable to me. It seems to me passionate to work for you. I implore that you well find my enclosed cv(resumé). Please accept the expression of my distinguished sentiments.
I won't get into the specifics of the new job as I think employment and blogging should be kept far enough apart as overlapping the two is potential for trouble. But I will say that it is for a designer based in Paris' 1st arrondisement. Cork the champagne already!

Oops

2006-10-18T12:48:00.000+02:00

I used to parallel park a stick shift SUV on the steepest streets in San Francisco without having a problem. But for whatever reason, in France I am positively LAME at parking a car. The other night, after driving around for a half hour and finally finding a parking spot, I spend a good 10 minutes trying to wedge our car into it before my husband busted out laughing at my futile attempts. I let him park the car and sulked about feeling stupid. Luckily, my friend Lih made me feel better by sending me this story about someone big and famous doing something much more stupid.

Shrooming

2006-10-12T09:18:00.000+02:00

I'm by no means a food snob. I've had M&M's for dinner and felt no shame for it. But every now and then, you get treated to a meal that makes you truly appreciate the art of cuisine. Instead of a quick dinner before heading somewhere, you get an evening where the meal is the main event and you can appreciate those artists who turn ingredients into absolute poetry.

We got such a treat two weeks ago when we were invited to a hotel 40 kilometers outside Paris, which is the home of the restaurant Carmontelle. At Carmontelle, the women's menus don't have the prices on them and the servers announce your meal with a detailed description as your plate reaches the table. My entrée was lobster salad: the shell of a lobster's head that hid slices of tender lobster with wedges of coconut on a bed of roquette salad. Sounds simple enough, but there was something in the sauce that made me lose track of thought as I ate that lobster meat. So good. It couldn't be topped. Until I had my main dish: (If you're a vegetarian, look away. Otherwise, you'll know what you're missing out on.) The tenderest roasted lamb surrounded by walnut sized eggplants stuffed with garlic risotto. The meat was so tender, it almost had the consistency of fish. Literally melted in my mouth with all its flavors. As usually happens at Carmontelle, the portions are small but by the time dinner's over, you're helplessly full. We didn't order dessert but were given a tray of little snack size cakes and tarts anyway. A glass of Bailey's at the bar after, and we were off into blissful food coma.

To continue my gastronomic babble, it's mushroom season in France. We gave a visit to my in-laws in the countryside last weekend and arrived to see they had 5 buckets full of 'em. My father-in-law had gone out to the forest and came back with his car stocked. They go out to pick them and then look in their mushroom guidebooks to see if they are poisonous or not before eating them. I'd always thought there were 5, maybe 7 mushrooms you can eat, but my in-laws have have 3 novel-length books full of all these different shroomies that says whether they are delicious, so-so or toxic. Apparently, they'd had a mushroom dinner a few years back and spent the rest of the night puking in the bathroom. It happpens. I could see where you can mistake one mushroom for another- some of them look totally similar. I asked if people have really died after serving up a toxic mushroom omelette. They guess that maybe 10 people in France die a year after fatally mistaking one type for another. Then I asked the obvious question: Have people ever accidentally tripped out on mushrooms they've brought home for dinner? (I was picturing us all at the dinner table with finished plates, rolling on the floor, laughing hysterically at the singing sun and electric butterflies flying over our heads) But no, that's never happened to them. Then, my father-in-law says "You know what the neighbor told me? There's people out there who eat the toxic ones on purpose! It makes them hallucinate! They know which ones they are and they do it on purpose! Can you believe it?" Yea, I might have heard about that.

Saturday afternoon, we biked to the only bar tabac in town- actually, the only public establishment in town and played pool by the fireplace. Two old men came in during our game and chatted up the owner for a bit before turning to us. One asked us if we knew how to cook mushrooms (we said no, but we knew someone who did) and then gave us a sack of mushrooms to take home that he'd just picked. He said they were delicious, and due to their white stems and dark brown caps, he shamelessly added they're called tête de nègre. (Nigger heads?! Is he serious?!) Offensive language aside, we took them home and looked them up in the book. No, that wasn't their official name and yes, we could eat them. They even had two forks in one of our books' description which means they are between ok and phenomenal. We cooked up them with butter, creme fraîche and some herbs and .... miam miam! I am starting to prefer the French word for yum. They add an extra letter because here, you get more than M&Ms for dinner.

2 things...

2006-10-11T22:36:00.000+02:00

I used to keep two journals. One for profound thought and one for silly little observances of everyday life. Since I haven't touched either of them for a year to the day, I've composed a short list of 2 fairly significant things I've done since October 11, 2005:

1) Gotten married
Planning a wedding in France entailed tons of paperwork (among which was a legal document that doesn't exist in the US saying I am officially single and eligible to marry, as well as an officially translated birth certificate that set me back $120). It also introduced us to some colorful characters, such as the French priest who married us. Not long after meeting him, he told us, "In France, a priest without a good wine cellar is not a good priest." And thus, we were rarely without a good bottle of Sancerre or Saint-Emilion during meetings for our "preparations du mariage." And it wasn't always just for us. One day, we arrived as another engaged couple were ending their meeting with "Père Apéro", who told them to stay through our meeting and have a drink after. Then he gave us a lovely tour through the cathedral where we would have our ceremony. Along the way, we picked up some German tourists who were invited to come back and have yet another drink with us. We left every meeting with him happy to be getting married, happy to be crossing the street, even happy about being happy. Cut to the wedding. Were we married in a beautiful 17th century cathedral. There were 100 guests, but as it was a substantially enormous cathedral, the photos make it seem that there were only 5 of us there. See evidence:

I suppose we could raise the headcount if we counted the tourists who were peeking in from outside the nave.
The reception after, at a chateau somewhere in the woods, lasted until 6 am. Reason enough to get married in France, as I get looks of confusion and pity when I explain to people here that weddings in the U.S. usually wrap up around 1 or 2 in the morning. I was reminded that my friends are amazing when I saw how many of them made it out to France for the wedding. While most of the guests on my side spoke no French and only a few on the French side spoke English, we were touched by how much fun people can have together without the ability to really talk to eachother. Was it the mood or the champagne? You be the judge.

2) Learned how to say "balls" in French
The French you learn in school is really only gets you so far. Sure, "The bus is late" and "The dog is under the table" are phrases practical enough. But what do you say when you're in a crowded metro car and some six foot sleazeball is trying to rub up on you? (actually, screaming at the groper in any language would work, but that's beside the point) In the last few months, I've had to expand my vocab due to a variety of situations and can now talk my way through stopping a hairdresser when I see she is in the middle of turning my hair into a cyclone of dreadlocks and gel, consoling crying French football fans after a painful defeat, and pushy women trying to cut in line at post offices and department stores.
I have made progress, though I freely admit the slip ups along the way. Two in particular stand out:

-Speaking to the grandfather of a nice family in my neighborhood:
What I wanted to say: "J'adore vos petits-fils." (I adore your grandkids)
What I said: "J'adore vos petites fesses." (I adore your little butt)
-Speaking to an 11 year-old I babysat, upon sending him to school:
What I wanted to say: "Tu as oublié ta compote!" (You forgot your applesauce!)
What I said, or rather yelled in front of the other kids and moms: "Tu as oublié ta capote!" (Your forgot your condoms!)

In the end, flubbing up is how you learn, listening closely is how you accumulate new words, and whether you've anatomically got cajones or not, it's practical to be able to call something (or someone) a casse-couilles when necessary.

2006-10-10T19:25:00.000+02:00

Welcome to Américonneries. Being a Californian writing from France, I join the ranks of many other anglophones blogging from here. I'd love to be blogging from some exotic country with an unpronounceable name, doing some odd job and being paid in livestock, but Paris is where I studied abroad, where I met my now husband, and where I'm starting a new chapter in life. So, voilà. Enjoy.