FAME!

Sara Forestier in "Le nom des gens"

My friend Marina ran into Sarah Forestier at the Laundromat down the street from my building. She’s the star of “Le nom des gens” (The Names of Love). If you haven’t seen this movie, see it. I know there’s probably lots of celebrities in Paris, but this is the closest that I have come to an encounter. Except that time I met David Sedaris at the book signing.

Which reminds me, I never told that story. I was keeping it hush hush because I got an autographed copy of his new book “Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk” for my brother for x-mas and I wanted it to be a complete surprise. It was! And now it’s March so I suppose it’s safe to talk about it.
My friend Becca told me that David Sedaris was doing a book signing/reading at an English bookstore in Paris. I ran over there right after work and managed to squeeze in just before they started turning people away. It was a small bookstore so he was signing books downstairs, but the reading was upstairs. Those of us who didn’t make it in time to be crammed onto the upper floor got to watch the reading on a tv screen. This seemed like a cop out. But I got a close up encounter with him before he even started because he squeezed past me on his way up the stairs. People were generally disoriented, so he looked around and casually asked,“Wait, who’s here? What is this all about?” hoping that somebody would lean down and explain without realizing who he was. It didn’t work, but I still giggled.

His reading caused a whole lot more giggling along with some full on belly laughs. Afterwards, he invited people to come get their books autographed and tell him their favorite joke. This is a routine for him, he listens to everyone’s jokes and then shares the gems at future shows. Because I watched the show from downstairs, I was one of the first in line for the signing. It would have been lovely to have some hysterical pants-pissing punch line to spring on him, but when I got to the front of the line I had the words “knock knock…” swimming around in my head and I knew that couldn’t go anywhere good, so I just handed him my book and said “hello.”

Sedaris with a monkey

He smiled and asked me what my name was. I told him, but clarified that the book was for my brother. He asked where I was from. I told him Minneapolis, Minnesota. He said “Oh, Minnesota! Are you a Pisces?”

Uhh...no. Why?

He said he knew a guy from Minnesota once and he was a Pisces.

…

It was refreshing to realize that even people who are famously hilarious can struggle with small talk.

à+

TURNS OUT I DON’T HAVE TUBERCULOSIS

       In order to work and live longterm in France, part of the deal is that you have to go through a medical exam and get your lungs x-rayed. As you might imagine, the immigration office for Paris’s district sees hundreds of foreigners a day. Their system is set up like a medical visit factory. 
A slow moving factory, but a factory nonetheless. 
All the foreign people get pushed through the rigmarole like cattle. Each individual step only takes 5 minutes, but the whole thing takes hours because of at least 30 minutes of waiting between each step.

         When I arrived at the office, I handed my very official pieces of paper to the desk lady. Then I had to sit and wait for a while until she called my name and some other people’s names and led us to go wait in another room where even more people were waiting. This second waiting room was surrounded by doors that would occasionally open to reveal white coat people in little rooms. They would call some waiting people inside and then shut the door. Eventually my name got called and a woman in the little room asked me to hide one eye and read off some letters and then to hide the other eye and do the same. Then I was ushered back into the big room to do some more waiting.

         A long while later my name was called again. This time a different white coat lady showed me into a closet with a door on either side. She told me to take off all my clothes from the waist up and then walk through the opposite door. OK.

         On the other side of the door was a big room with two women and a bunch of equipment. One woman asked me if I was pregnant while the other slapped a heavy black vest around my guts. They pressed me up against the x-ray machine and ordered me to inhale deeply. Then I was ushered back into the closet to redress and go do some more waiting.

         Another long while later, yet another white coat woman called me into a different little room. She had my x-ray up on a screen. I said “that’s strange,” meaning that it was strange to see my insides. She said no, actually, my x-ray is of normal healthy lungs. Well, this was good news.

         We talked about general health and she gave me some advice about prescriptions and how to find clinics around Paris. Then she handed me my x-ray print and let me go.

my insides

         So, now I’m a legit foreign worker in France and I have all my stamps and everything! I hung my x-ray from my ceiling as a sort of trophy. 

Welcome to Brussels/Bienvenue à Bruxelles/Welkom in Brussel/Willkommen in Brüssel

THAT TIME I FORGOT MY PASSPORT

The icon of Brussels,
Manneken pis (aka little boy peeing),
sculpted out of Belgian chocolate

         Emma and I went to Belgium for a weekend! I had to work the morning of our departure, so I had just enough time to cram some stuff in my bag and cram some lunch in my mouth before we ran to the train station. With all of the moving parts, I managed to forget my passport. Oops.

         I realized this after we had already arrived at Gare du Nord and had maybe 30 minutes until departure. Just enough time to build up dangerous levels of stress, but not enough time to go back for it. So I just crossed my fingers and begged the universe to go my way.

         The conductor’s welcoming announcement was in French first, then English, then Flemish. In the French version he said that the controllers would be coming around shortly to check our “titre de transport.” To the best of my knowledge, this was a fancy way of saying ticket. I waited for the English announcement to clarify things.

         Unfortunately, this conductor’s English was not exactly intelligible. I’m sure he convinces non-English speakers, but it seemed like he was reciting a schpeel he had memorized without really understanding the words. The result was a jumble of more or less English words strung together quickly, as if the faster he talked, the more convincing he would be.

         I could only make out half of every sentence, but I heard him say that the controllers would be around shortly and that we should have our passports ready.

         This just about gave me a heart attack. 

I tried not to panic, but I’m sure that I alarmed my neighbor with all of the sweating and fidgeting and looking around nervously. I wondered if I should go find a controller straight away and come clean in hopes that he’d take pity on me? Or run to the bathroom as soon as they entered the car? Or wait it out and play dumb when they got to my seat? I decided that the latter was my best option.

         For the next 30 minutes, I hyperventilated and imagined worst case scenarios. I’d probably get deported. Or at least spend the night in detainment. How would I contact my school to tell them I was never coming back?

         After what seemed like an eternity, the controllers entered at the back of the car and started working their way forward. This meant I couldn’t see what they were asking people for. When they finally got to me, I handed over my ticket with all of the nonchalance that I could muster. The guy looked at me a little suspiciously, probably because I was acting like a loony, but then he moved along. CRISIS AVERTED!

         I realized afterwards that what I’d heard wasn’t the conductor telling us to have our “blah blah passport ready,” but to have our “titles of transport ready,” a direct translation from the French. Whoopsy daisy. As it turned out, I never needed my passport because France and Belgium are both Schengen countries (members of the EU that allow people to travel freely between them).

WHY YOU SHOULD COUCHSURF

Brigitte

         When Emma and I had both arrived in Brussels, we went about tracking down our Couchsurfing host Brigitte. For those unfamiliar with Couchsurfing, it’s an online network that helps travelers connect with hosts around the world. When you join, you can search members all over the globe and request to stay with them for a couple of days for free. In exchange, you agree to let other people contact you about staying at your place. 


I know what you’re thinking, staying with a perfect stranger one meets on the internet is how one ends up cut into tiny pieces and shoved into a psycho’s freezer.

 I, too, had reservations the first time I heard about it. But, after my first experience, I became a believer. Members tend to be idealistic hippies who like to travel and also to show foreigners around their hometown. Most are between 20 and 35, but not exclusively (Brigitte, for example, is in her 50s). It’s ideal when you have a travel buddy, and find hosts you actually want to meet and hang out with. Couchsurfing takes some faith in humanity and flexibility about sleeping arrangements, but in return you get an intimate window into another culture. And it’s free.

         When we got to Brigitte’s building, she was running out to a party with a homemade tart she’d baked. She let us upstairs with a smile and told us her roommate Kinge would take care of us. Did she ever.

         Kinge was a 23 year old Dutch-speaking Belgian med student from Flanders (the Flemish side of Belgium). She had met Brigitte a couple months before while surfing her couch and had asked to move in permanently when the school year started. We ended up in the kitchen chatting with her for a couple hours, while nibbling on bread with tasty homemade spreads that Brigitte had concocted out of chickpeas and beets among other things. We discussed everything from French heart health to conjoined twins.

Croque-Monsieur

Fruit défendu

         We eventually realized it was late and decided to go explore Brussels a little bit. Kinge recommended a neighborhood downtown, so we went there and got some fruit beers (I got a tasty brune called Forbidden Fruit) and elaborate Croque-monsieurs with béchamel sauce (French grilled cheese sandwiches).

        The next day, we had breakfast with Brigitte and a pregnant French girl that was also couchsurfing with her. We learned a lot about Brigitte and also had a chance to discuss a host of cultural topics.

         Brigitte is a French speaking Belgian whose life has had a lot of rough patches, but seems to maintain a sunshiney outlook despite it all. She used to travel a lot, but a combination of life, illness and political convictions about fossil fuels have stopped her from leaving Belgium anymore. Instead, she hosts couchsurfers so that she can bring the world to her. She’s quite the hosting champion, taking in a seemingly endless stream of surfers (she had 4 of us with there that weekend).

         Both Emma and I had heard about the escalating cultural divisions in Belgium, so we took the opportunity to ask for a local's perspective on the conflicts between Flanders and Wallonia (the Flemish and French sides of the country, respectively). Brigitte explained how Flanders is generally wealthier than Wallonia and how they don’t want to pay for the Wallonian social services anymore because they feel that the exchange is unequal. The government compromised by redistributing funds. This means, for example, that a single mother living on the Flemish side of Belgium receives more aid from the government than a single mother living on the French side. At this point, the divisions don't seem to be violent, but it’s becoming less and less logical to maintain one government for the two sides. It's hard to say how much longer they’ll be able to keep the country together for.

         Brigitte is die-hard into the Green movement, so the four of us ended up talking about how it plays out in each of our countries. Both Brigitte and the pregnant French girl were pretty surprised to hear us say that America actually has a green movement. I found that funny because Brigitte was citing parts of Food, Inc., which is an American film. She remembered the American problems, but not that it was Americans condemning them. I often run into Europeans who have trouble believing that such conflicting ideologies are coming from the same country.

         After a while we realized it was almost noon and we should probably go explore.

A STRANGE MIX/UN MELANGE ETRANGE/EEN VREEMDE MIX/EINE SELSAME MISCHUNG

         Although Brussels is technically on the Flemish side of Belgium, the population has become mostly French speaking over the last couple centuries. This makes it an island of language confusion. Most signs are in French, Flemish, German and English. In a restaurant, you’ll hear all of the above and then some. I had trouble knowing what language to order in.

My pot of mussels

Now that's a Belgian waffle

         Despite these difficulties, we managed to order all sorts of food all weekend long. We consumed mountains of chocolate, fries, waffles, mussels and Belgian beer.

HIGHLIGHTS

Barrel of gueuze oozing as it ages

         We found a traditional brewery called Cantillon that brews lambic in basically the same way it has for the last hundred years. They specialize in a kind of beer called Gueuze that is aged in a barrel for years (like a wine), until it’s no longer carbonated.

Hand-making chocolate

         The pregnant French girl at Brigitte’s told us about a chocolate factory where you can watch and learn about making handmade chocolates. This, of course, included samples, so we had to go check it out. The process was surprisingly simple and I plan on trying it out when I get back to the states.

         Emma and I weren’t able to get on the same train back to Paris on Sunday, so she left a couple hours earlier and I wandered around exploring some parts of town we hadn’t made it to yet. I found a movie theater doing a showing of the French film Les Miserables from 1957. It was a hoot. Unfortunately, it was 3 hours long and I had to leave before it was over to catch my train. Bummer. I actually still don’t know how it ends.

TEAM BUILDING EXERCISE

         When I got back home late that night, I was getting ready for bed and I dropped the cap to my contact lense case down the drain of my bathroom sink. It fell too far down to grab and fit perfectly in the drain so that there wasn’t room to hook anything around it. Emma and I spent a looooong time brainstorming and trying to finesse it out with various combinations of “tools” we had on hand. After an hour of frustration and failed attempts, guess what we finally succeeded with:

was it…

a) 2 disassembled coat hangers?

b) a butter knife and scotch tape?

c) a pencil and a piece of doublemint gum?

…It was the doublemint! I’ve never been so grateful for gum in my life. For the record, we also tried using the coat hangers, the knives and the scotch tape in various schemes, but without any success.

The next day I had to go to the immigration people to get my lungs x-rayed. I’ll write about that one next time. 

à la prochaine!

Paris, je t'Emma

Pastry attack on a bench by Val-du-Grace

EMMA!

         Emma came to town! Her visa is up in London, so she’s going to have a little look around Europe before heading back to the United States. I’m conveniently placed and can give her free lodging/storage, so she’s starting and ending this euro-tour by hanging out with me in Paris! We had a good ol’ time for her first stay and I’m looking forward to Round 2.

         Emma’s already been to Paris a number of times (I believe this was #5), so the trip was laid back and she wasn’t too concerned about seeing the sites. Her first night in town we just got a bottle of wine, made some dinner and got each other caught up on the last few months of life. The next night, a fellow American expat was hosting a Mexican Food party (this cuisine is seriously lacking in Paris). We went over there and enjoyed good company, tasty enchiladas, margaritas, guacamole, and whatnot.

         Sunday we went up to Sacré Coeur and it was practically abandoned. There was a film crew up to something and an asian tour group, but that was about it. This made it a very leisurely visit. We sat on the steps, had a snack and spent some time trying to locate landmarks.

My raclette set-up

SAY CHEESE

         That evening we went and got raclette with Marina at the restaurant by my place. If you aren’t familiar, raclette is a swiss specialty where you melt swiss cheese onto EVERYTHING. Namely meat and potatoes and things. It’s as awesome as it sounds. I don’t know how they do it at other places, but at this restaurant there are stoves installed at each booth They give you a cutting board covered in assorted meats and potatoes and pickles and condiments and it's all accompanied by a pile of cheese slices that you melt as you go.

Fountain I love in Jardin de Luxembourg

IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

         Monday was lovely outside so we walked around my neighborhood and over to Notre Dame and the Seine and stuff. Tuesday I had to work, but we went out to a bistrot in my neighborhood that Marina had discovered. It’s called Les Papilles (tastebuds). The chef offers one 4 course meal a night based on whatever is in season and that’s what everyone gets. This time he served a pumpkin soup with crème fraiche and crutons, a super tender slow cooked veal with veggies, a cheese course and a caramel apple panacotta. Delectable. We walked home and immediately put on pants with elastic waist bands.

I'VE A FEELING WE'RE NOT IN TWILIGHT ANYMORE        

         Marina found a website with weird things to do in Paris and suggested that we go to a vampire museum that she’d read about. Apparently it cost 7€ and you got a guided tour. I wasn’t really sure what a “Vampire museum” would be, but I figured -what the heck?

         Wednesday afternoon we headed out into the suburbs to find it. A man exiting the metro station with us heard us speaking English and offered to help us find this museum. It was lucky that he did, because the entrance was in some back alley that I’m not sure we would have found on our own. It turns out that the museum was a converted garage attached to the back of a guy’s house. It wasn’t a museum by conventional standards. It was one room filled with with piles upon piles of books and peculiar vampire related objects and plastered up to the ceiling with posters of Dracula films and icons. If you’re curious, this will give you a better idea: http://www.myspace.com/musee_des_vampires

         Outside of being crazy, why would you build such a vampire shrine?

Bela Lugosi doing the same gesture I make when I feel awkward. 

Well, crazy probably has something to do with it, but there’s also an interesting history. As a child, Jacques accidentally watched Bela Lugosi’s Dracula and it gave him terrible nightmares for months. A lot of people probably share a similar childhood experience, but Jacques’ reaction to his was to investigate the fear. He became fascinated with anything and everything related to vampires and dedicated most of his life to studying why people from cultures all over the world create these stories and why people believe them. He said he does not believe in them himself, but then later on he said some things that seemed to contradict that so whoooo knows. Our “guided tour” was more of an intellectual tour. We spent the entire two hours hanging out on his couches and listening to him unload all sorts of things (some related to vampires, some not so related to vampires) and drinking "vampire kirs". All and all it was pretty interesting and definitely a once in a lifetime experience.

LE CINEMA

         Thursday we went and saw Sophia Coppola’s new film “Somewhere.” I thought it was awesome and definitely worth a watch. Be aware that it’s not an action sort of movie though, most of what’s happening is under the surface. I found that beautifully subtle, but my coworkers thought it was boring.

         Friday we went to Belgium. I forgot my passport. More on that next time.

à+

Some Janvier

Sorry folks, I’m way behind. Here’s some stuff that’s been happening:

WE BE TRAFFIC JAMMIN’

         I went out with Clare and her temporarily disabled boyfriend (ski accident) to meet some other American ex-pats at a bar by Bastille. We took the bus there. The trip should have taken 20 minutes, but it ended up taking 50 because of an enormous back-up of taxis. They went as far as the eye could see. I've never seen anything like it. All the other passengers on the bus eventually got off and walked wherever they were going, but we were stuck because Silvan couldn’t go very far sporting his sizeable leg brace.

         We passed the time speculating about possible explanations for this tremendous jam. I offered that maybe it was a result of a major event we weren’t aware of, like a Lady Gaga concert or a presidential address or something. Clare supposed that it was a taxi driver strike. We concluded that this was the most likely reason.

         After a while we started chatting with the driver and he told us what was really going on. This is a regular occurrence. There's no real rhyme or reason to it, but all of the taxis in town just hang out at Gare de Lyon. When we finally got up to the station it was clear that he was right. There were cabs wrapped all the way around, parked 3 deep in a lot of places. Most of them were empty because there were only a handful of people exiting the station and, of those, many were trying to work their way around the cabs to get to their rides.

          The driver occasionally laid on the horn and spewed hate at the cabbies in earshot, but this had little effect. As we slowly inched along, he filled us in on how the city claims to have a shortage of taxis and how they’ve decided to create 30,000 more. All this time there may have been enough, but they’re hanging out at Gare de Lyon. Ahh Paris.

RAIN RIDE

         A couple Saturdays ago, Antoine invited me to go out dancing with him and his people. I’m not big on nightclubs, but Antoine’s scene is more like pubs where they blast catchy music that eventually inspires dancing. 
        His crowd is full of night owls, so they weren’t planning on meeting up until 10pm. This is past my bedtime. Despite a difficult battle with my inner grandma, I got myself dressed and out. My plan was to make it back home by the time that the metro stopped running (2am), so that I wouldn’t be stuck taking a night bus alone or paying 12€ for a taxi.

         Antoine was disappointed to hear this because he was hoping we could split cab fare. With the both of us it wouldn’t be too expensive. But he stays out until 4am. We compromised and agreed to leave together at 3am.

Café OZ at night

         They chose an Austrailian themed place called Café Oz and we got in a lot of beer and ridiculous dancing. Antoine is the type of kid that waits about 5 minutes after entering a place before finding himself a table top to dance on. It was a good time. We were exhausted and sweaty when we finally went out to find a cab at 3am. 
        Unfortunately, everyone else had already had the same idea and beat us to it. All the taxis were occupied. We walked around for 45 minutes and called 3 cab companies without any luck. I explained to Antoine that they were probably all hanging out at Gare de Lyon and we should just walk there, but he pointed out that it would take longer to walk there than to just walk home. Oh yeah, and it was raining. And neither of us had an umbrella.

         After an hour of walking up and down Grands Boulevards getting damp and frustrated, we decided to take Velib (rent-a-bikes) and hope we didn’t die. 

        We crossed Paris on rent-a-bikes at 4am on Saturday night (or Sunday morning), without helmets, in the rain, in our winter coats. And I was in a skirt. My annoyance at the situation faded quickly because it was all just too ridiculous. Plus, the streets smelled like bread from the boulangeries that were already starting up. And we got to pass the Pyramid at the Louvre when there was absolutely no one there. By the time I got home, I wasn’t even upset about being soaked and not being in bed until 4:30am.

IN FURTHER NEWS: Emma was here last week, we took a trip to Belgium, and I had my lungs x-rayed by the immigration people (not for going to Belgium, unrelated). I will write all about it in my next entry…

à tout à l’heure y’all!

PERDUE IN TIME AND SPACE AND LANGUE

HOW WAS IT?

         It was refreshing to be home for Christmas and surrounded by family and friends and familiar things. I was excited to come back to Paris, but it was hard to say goodbye to people. I’m looking forward to moving back to the Twin Cities this summer.

ALLER

         My trip back to the United States went less than smoothly. The gist:

         I arrived at CDG airport on time but the crew was late for work (frenchest thing I ever did hear). We departed 1 ½ hours late and I missed my connecting flight in DC. Then Customs. Then I ran in circles, jumped through flaming hoops, trying to get home same day -meanwhile assisting elderly French woman who spoke NO English and was also seeking a flight to Minneapolis.

4 hours, 5 long lines and 6 failed attempts later, Serendipity/Fate/Chance/WhatHaveYou lead me to a gate governed by the very same Delta rep I first talked to hours before on the opposite side of airport. She took pity on me, did computer magic tricks with a coworker and somehow gave me a seat on the only direct flight to Minneapolis (one I’d been repeatedly told was full). I got home at 9pm to hugs and drinks and snacks with my parents. THE END.

RETOUR

         Compared to the first trip, my return flight to Paris was relatively painless. The only real annoyance was an American lady who kept coming to make bland conversation with the woman seated behind me. She would lean down real hard on the top of my seat as if I wasn’t there, resting her elbow on my head and occasionally pulling my hair as she readjusted. While I was trying to sleep, of course. Mean-mugging was ineffective, but she went away eventually. Still, there were no screaming babies, no crazy turbulence and I actually liked the in-flight movie. 

GOOD EATS AT 30,000 FEET

         I know that “gourmet airline food” is an oxymoron, but that’s what AirFrance serves. There was champagne as an aperitif, free beer and wine, multiple courses, all the French bread you want and espresso after. At the end of our flight they gave us a cheese sandwich and a yogurt drink that aids digestion. Leave it to AirFrance to care about digestion on an airplane!

Not my meal, but not far from it. 

         Even flying to Paris, Delta raised the food standards up a notch. They had free beer and wine and served multiple courses. However, there was no champagne or baguette and the snack at the end of the flight was peanuts and an egg-mcmuffin (for the record, this did not help digestion).

GOLD, FRANKINCENSE AND ALMOND PASTE

         Fellow Americans, did you know that we are half-assing the winter holidays? Because I did not. I always thought that we were the x-mas champions. But, it turns out that the 12 days of Christmas start on the 25^th and this whole time we’ve been skipping the finale.  In France, not only do they have all of the consumerism and the carols and the santa stuff, but after the 25^th, they have a whole other celebration coming (and no, I don’t mean New Years).

         It’s called the Epiphany. Epic name AND it includes cake! One of the perks that comes with being a previously super Catholic country. The wisemen in our Christmas story get a song and cameo in the Nativity plays, but that’s about it. Here they get their own day (January 6^th) and a whole set of traditions including champagne and, most importantly, a cake filled with almond paste.

         They hide a little figurine in this “galette des rois” and whoever finds it in their slice gets to be the “King of the Day.” To the best of my understanding, this means you get to wear a paper crown and be a total dictator. Why have we not been doing this?

ANOTHER DIFFERENCE I'VE NOTICED BETWEEN MINNEAPOLIS AND PARIS

It’s been 50 degrees here in Paris this week. If this happens in Minneapolis, it means slushy snow. In Paris, there is no slushy snow because it disappears so fast, but there is an awful lot of slushy poop. I like to think it’s dog poop, but I’m really not sure.

FRENCH CELEBRITY QUIZ: 2010

Name this guy

Yesterday, I was talking with one of my classes about the Time Magazine “Person of the Year” and I asked them if they had anything similar in France. They said no, not exactly, but each year a newspaper does a vote and makes a list of the top 50 most popular celebrities. Every year the “Person of the Year” is the same guy.

Who’s that?

“Yannick Noah.” They said, as if it was obvious.

uhh…who?

They said the name slower for me and even spelled it out.

…nope

“He’s a tennis player turned pop singer.”

….

“His son is Joakim Noah.”

…Who?

Now they were REALLY disgusted with me.

“Joakim plays for the Chicago Bulls!”

Mr. Scottie Pippen

Still no. I had a huge crush on Scottie Pippin when I was 8, but my interest in the Chicago Bulls ended circa 1997.

They found this unbelievable, and I was a little shocked myself.

The most popular celebrity in France for years and I had no idea who he was!

         They named off some others who frequent the Top Ten list, including Zinedine Zidane. I didn’t know his name before, but I did know that a French player had headbutted an Italian player in the 2006 World Cup and that was him, so maybe that gets me half credit.

         When I got home I searched the 2010 list and researched them all. It’s not news to me that the French know more about our celebrities than we do about theirs, but I hadn’t realized quite how bad it was until this. Fellow Americans, how many people on this list do you know without google searching? I only knew one.

1. Yannick Noah

2. Zinedine Zidane

3. Mimie Mathy

4. Dany Boon

5. Michel Sardou

6. Gad Elmaleh

7. Jean Dujardin

8. Charles Aznavour

9. Florence Foresti

10. Jean Reno

OUTSIDE OF ALL THAT

         I’m slowly getting back in the groove here. Before I left, I didn’t realize that the sun doesn’t rise here until 8:40am. I had gradually become accustomed to it before, but now I can’t help but notice and find the dark mornings oppressive. It’s like being part-time nocturnal. On Thursday, I’m ¾ of the way done with leading my first class before the sun is up. Gross.

On the otherhand, it’s 50 degrees and I can run outside without getting my socks wet or wiping out on ice, so it’s a trade off. Yadda yadda yadda weather weather weather

I finally got my letter from French Immigration calling me in for my medical exam. They wait 3 months to contact me and choose, literally, the ONE day I have a conflict in the rest of the 4 months I’m here. It’s for the Monday morning I’m supposed to be in Brussels. I just bought my tickets a couple days ago. And the return trip is non-refundable. Pas de chance. More on this later when I figure out what to do.

later y’all!

Twas the Night before Christmas vacation

SPEAK GOOD ENGLISH

         If you think you’re fluent in English, I’ve got some news for you: teaching grammar will humble you real fast. Since I started teaching private lessons, I’ve been discovering all sorts of fun questions that I don’t even come close to having answers to. Such as, “how come we can only abbreviate the word “have” when it is an auxiliary verb ?”

hmmm…just let me google search that one real quick…

EUPHEMI$M$

         My student Patricia says that French people excel at creating things (art, poetry etc) but they’re not blessed in the field of marketing. While America, on the other hand, is awesome at selling just about anything.

I don’t know that this is entirely true. America's strength in advertisement is undeniable. But Paris is the number one tourist destination in the world, so clearly they’re selling something right.

Then I remembered that my class of business students keeps referring to “American chemical food.” It took me a while to figure out what they were talking about. “Oh, additives! We don’t eat chemical food, we eat additives.” 

How are you going to get people to eat something called “chemical food”? Come on, folks. And these were business students! It’s true, they’re going nowhere in marketing if they don’t learn up on some euphemisms.

        Patricia likes blanket statements more than your average bear, but maybe she’s on to something. Maybe Paris’ tourist popularity is more about the quality of their product than their ability to market it? I don’t know that I buy into it, it’s an idea I’ll have to chew on for a bit.

JOLLY OLD SAINT CHRISTMAS DAD?

         Today in class we played holiday bingo. The vocabulary words that come with the American Christmas tradition are weirdly specific, so I have some flash cards to introduce the words they might not know. "Elf, Reindeer, Carolers, Wrapping paper, chimney." I do not expect them to know these words. "Then we have easy ones like snow, present, christmas tree, Santa Claus..." 

WHO?

"SAN-ta Claaws," I enunciate. 

This is greeted by blank stares. FOR REAL? You know the jolly dude in the red suit, big bearded fella? hangs out with elves?

Ooooh, you mean Père Noël. We thought you called him... Christmas Dad or something.

Um. No. Sometimes he's called "Father Christmas", but that's like how you can call Michael Jackson "The King of Pop." His name is Santa. 

Amelia, proud soldier against the War on Christmas.

If all goes well, I'll be back in the Minnie-apple in 24 hours! Can't wait!