Making the Yuletide Gay...

Hope y'all had a delightful Chrismahanakwanzavus.  We sure did, and have the pictures from Strasbourg* to prove it.  Our whirlwind tour of France continues with the arrival of AH's siblings today and a wine tour of Burgundy.  I promise to sober up in a few days and regale you with all the details.  Until then, enjoy the after-Christmas sales, and try to eat all of those leftover Christmas cookies before New Year's- for each Christmas cookie left unconsumed by the advent of 2012, a tragic circumstance will befall you**.  

*"Strasbourg!," you say,  "Surely you mean Cologne, Germany!".  But alas, our Cologne trip was foiled by striking Belgian train workers (they get a government, and chaos erupts.  This cannot be a good sign).

**Yes, I might have just made that up, but the principle still stands: Christmas cookies are meant to be eaten.

Let It Drizzle Depressingly (and Interminably)

Hey, as we've discussed, we're all about realistic expectations around these parts.  At least the uptick to experiencing typical Parisian weather over the holidays is that it beats driving in blizzards, and it sure as heck beats having to rely on two homeless men, a random passser-by, and three OSU students to push my car out out of the mountain of snow under which it had been buried by the snowplows (not that I speak from personal experience or anything).

The stockings my mommy sent have been placed 'neath the skylight with care.  So yes, Virginia, despite the lack of snow I've actually managed to find plenty of time to be festive and merry in the month of December.  Here have been some of the highlights:

AH, the man who is so Grinch-like that he refuses to allow a Christmas-tree in our apartment and has been wishing people a "Happy Winter Solstice" (I had to fight tooth and nail to keep him from putting that as the greeting on our holiday cards), actually suggested that we go to the Marche de Noel (Christmas Market) on the Champs Elysses.  Mulled wine was drank, sausages were consumed, an ornament was bought (for our non-existent tree)...

...and giant, animatronic dinosaurs moved slowly and creepily next to a little person in a Santa hat who was calling people to take their places in line for the "Age de Magique," sounding like he would rather be putting a nail through his foot than yelling at a bunch of disinterested holiday shoppers.  Seriously, I could not make this s--t up.

The holiday fun continued this weekend with the arrival of Tour Guide Barbie, stopping in Paris on her way home to the States for Christmas.  We promised her Christmas-themed happytimes, and thus we set off for Galleries Lafayette which has famously elaborate holiday window displays. The theme of the displays, however, seemed to be "angsty marionettes":

Because nothing says punk rock like puppets.

 And the WTF-ery continued with this window.  They look like pygmy puffs (shout-out, HP nerds!) as styled by the Kardashians.  

However, we managed to finish the night with a visual palate cleanser courtesy of Place Vendome:

Last night the Christmas momentum continued with a fun night of cookie-baking with some of the swell gals from the ACP youth group.  The chocolate chip cookies that we made were so good that AH actually had an Aunt Cheri moment with one, so I'd say the evening was successful.

We also baked sugar cookies, which meant that I got to bust out the Eiffel Tower cookie cutter that my mommy sent me.  I got to feeling a little prematurely sentimental, and decided that I would take pictures of the Eiffel Tower cookies, lovingly decorated with homemade frosting and sprinkles, and send pictures back to the parental units in the Midwest.  Instead, this is what came out of the oven:

The Pastor's Wife and I decided that, perhaps, the Eiffel Tower cookies should not be presented to the kids to decorate.  So I set mine aside and decorated it as appropriately as I could:

So enjoy your festivities, everyone.  AH and I are off to Cologne, Germany tomorrow to do much imbibing and museuming.  Wish me luck dragging him to the Christmas market.  Lord knows I won't be able to bribe him with a cookie.

 

So Come On and Let Me Know...

Ah, the fog of stress that has been my life the past week was finally lifted last night amidst a cloud of celebratory chicken wings and (much) beer.  My finals have all been turned in, my government-mandated integration courses have been completed, and the children's production of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas that I was helping out with was performed without a single kid peeing himself on stage (which is my measure of success for children's performances).  I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that light is a trip to Cologne, Germany, followed by the arrival of my favorite siblings-in-law (that would be all of them because, really, I can't pick a favorite). 

Indeed, it is mighty nice to indulge my love of trashy fantasy novels and facebook stalking without that touch of self-loathing that comes from knowing that I really should be spending my time more productively.  However, now that my mind isn't occupied by a million and ten other things, it has begun wandering back to my nagging question of the month: where am I going to be this time next year?

Allow me to explain.  At this time last month, I assumed that AH and I would be leaving France in March.  Then, a job opportunity came up that would keep us here for another two years.  Then we were back to September of 2012.  And now, for the moment, it's looking like another year.

Now, to be clear, our future is far from set in stone.  In fact, I make no assumptions until I know that a contract has been signed.  But every time AH comes home and asks me, “How would you feel about leaving in three months?,” “How about nine months?,” “How about two years?,” I’m forced to think about what up until recently has only been vaguely forming at the periphery of my consciousness.  At some point, I stopped being a long-term tourist and started being an expat.  I’m no longer simply gallivanting about on a pastry-cloud; I’ve actually made a life for myself here.  So now the question is, is the life that I want to continue living?  For how long?

The universe, knowing that his question is weighing on my mind something fierce, has put me on the receiving end of two folks reflecting on their time in Paris over the last few days.  The first was the mother of two of the young denizens of Whoville.  While making small-talk, I asked her how long she had been in Paris.  She responded that she had been here with her family for five years but that they were about to move.  When I asked why she responded, “Because I think my children can’t keep living the Parisian life indefinitely.  We spent the summer in Canada, and I forgot how easy things are other places.  There is just so much in Paris that is difficult, and none of it needs to be.”

And of course, in the midst of my own needlessly difficult Parisian circumstance, aka my government-mandated integration class, the instructor offered the opposing argument.  “Some people say that life in Paris is difficult, and they’re right.  But just try.  Try, and it won’t be so hard.  Try, and it’s worth it.”

Now this man counts French as his first language and is married to a French citizen, but still: dude’s got a point.  So far, I haven’t tried any harder than I’ve needed to, I’ve been satisfied with just getting by.  I keep telling myself that I’ll pick up French by putting the French subtitles on my Sex and the City DVD’s.  Looking for an apartment in Paris sucks, so I live in a dorm with the square footage of a Ford Focus and no kitchen table; AH and I eat dinner every night at my desk watching The Daily Show on my laptop like a couple of undergrads.  I have American friends, work for an American family, and go to an American school.  And all of this is fine for a person who is going to be living in a country for less than a year.  I largely credit any success I’ve had adjusting to life abroad to having realistic expectations.  I’ve been content to wander through Parisian life, trying not to be too hard on myself when I have to flap like a lunatic at the salesgirl to get her to understand what I need, and absorbing the culture as I go.  But if I’m going to continue living here, I need to quite pretending that I’m a sponge and actually wade out deeper into the Frenchy Frenchness around me.

My real dilemma, though, is not simply in how many hours of French classes I think I can fit into a week along with work and seminary classes, or even the prospect of finding a decent apartment in Paris.  I’m wrestling with the anxiety of trying to become a real grown-up, not a post-college nomad.  And it’s not my biological clock that’s making me anxious.  Rather it’s an itch to just put down roots; I can practically feel them trying to unfurl, searching for soil that they can burrow into, trying to anchor me to something safe and steady.  But I think that this might be the challenge of my quarter-life crisis: discovering that maybe rootedness won’t look like what I had always pictured it to be.  Maybe it doesn’t involve a two story house and a couple of corgis.  Maybe rootedness is more about what I’m willing to invest, rather than any sense of stability that I might gain in return. 

Perhaps this is for the best.  After all, if my life circumstances continue to largely be dictated by a laser, I’m going to have to stick to a sense of security that doesn’t involve corgis.

BLARG

 Alas, finals have descended upon me and are keeping me chained to the not-as-fun-part of my computer, but I will return to posting by Tuesday at the latest.   Pray that my Wills & Kate mug may be ever full, and my brain may ever be willing to create more BS to be transferred to the page.

Art According to Allison: Someone Get Jesus Some Pants

So, I get it.  Israel's a pretty toasty place; it makes sense that Jesus wouldn't be swaddled in velvet and fur.  But why must Jesus always be the lone scantily clad figure in a sea of corsets and pumpkin pants?  

 I might not have read the Bible as carefully as you would expect from a seminarian, but I still think I would remember a reference to Jesus' refusing to ever tell a parable or heal lepers in anything more  than a loin cloth. 

Nope, sorry.  Capes are fantastic, but they, like leggings, are not a substitute for pants.  Seriously, the strategic draping over his lap is more soft-core porn than religiously devotional.  And there definitely better be no wayward breezes in heaven.

OK, fine, even Andrew Lloyd Weber decided that the crucifixion has more emotional impact when Jesus is wearing a diaper.  But I think this artist might have been overly concerned with perfecting the super-stripey pants down there on the left, and thus left Jesus pantless out of negligence.

Old Navy has nice pants.

 

 Kohl's does, too.

 

Seriously, you jerks.  Jesus has been through a lot for us.  SOMEONE PLEASE GET HIM SOME PANTS.

Joyeux Jour de Dinde!

If it were not for facebook, I would not have remembered that today is Thanksgiving Day.  So for all of you who posted pictures of the delicious pies and carb-laden side dishes that you've made for today's festivities, thank you for the reminder.  And the food porn.

Tonight, AH and I have made plans with two friends of ours to drink beer and eat sausages at the delightful Belgian Beer Academy.  Saturday we will have a "proper" thanksgiving meal with 150 of our closest friends at the American Church.  Believe it or not, this is exactly as it should be for me.  Before AH and I started courting (and thus making the rounds on holidays), I don't remember ever having a big-deal meal on Thanksgiving itself.  My mother and father always hosted the "hordes" (all five of my father's siblings, their spouses and children, and now grandchildren) on Saturday, so Thursday was usually purposefully low-key.  In fact, one of my favorite Thanksgiving meals was the year my mom, dad, and myself (my sister was off gallivanting around England, I believe) sat down to a meal of 3-ways (of the Skyline variety, you sicko) and Coronas.  Bliss.  

So what I'm saying is, it's comforting to know that some traditions transcend time and place: beer and carbs on Thursday, turkey and utter insanity on Saturday.  If only we could get a rousing game of "Oh Bitch" going on Saturday at church, and if they save me all of the crispy, delicious turkey skin, I will be one happy camper.

And now, to further procrastinate from writing a paper on the gospel of Luke, the requisite list of what I am thankful for:

1. The technology that allows me to keep in touch with people back home, and to go to a school in Oklahoma.

2. The Wills & Kate royal wedding mug, brought back from London by a friend of a friend, that, when filled up with Earl Grey tea, acts as a magical motivational talisman.

3.  Parks

4.  Boulangeries

5.  Friends over here

6.  Friends over there

7.  Free museums

8.  My tree

9. Crepes.

10.  Two fantastic kids to look after, and a boss that treats me like a human being.

11.  Beautiful churches

12.  Churches full of beauty

13.  A roof over my head, a place to sleep, and a stove top to boil pasta on.

And seriously.  I live here:

I may kvetch on occasion about snotty bureaucrats and tiny grocery store aisles, but please never believe for a second that I'm not thankful for this amazing opportunity.  Because I truly, truly am.

And you know what I'm else I'm thankful for?

Being on this incredible journey with my Adoring (and Adorable) Husband.  I couldn't have asked for a better partner in crime.  We'll have been married for three years next Tuesday, and I still thank God every day that I have him in my life.  

Now please, quit rolling your eyes, rinse the vomit out of your mouth, and go enjoy some cheap beer and greasy turkey skin.    

La Ville des Morts

Welcome to What the France:  Happy Way Belated Halloween Edition!

This past Saturday, determined to not let physics calculations and ancient papal bulls (guess which of us was working on which) prevent us from enjoying the sunshine and crisp fall weather, AH and I ventured forth to Pere LaChaise, the beloved ville des morts (city of the dead) of Paris.

Now, if anyone else were telling this story, this right here might be the part where they insist that "really, Pere LaChaise is beautiful!  It's not creepy like other cemeteries!".  But this is me telling this story, and so this is the part where I admit that I've actually always loved cemeteries- they're peaceful, and usually quite beautifully landscaped, and I get a kick out of the unexpected stuff people choose to put on their headstones.  And I've always nursed a slightly macabre streak.  You can't drag me to an actual horror film (unless you want to be on the receiving end of 3 AM phone calls in which you are responsible for reminding me that killing people with chainsaws is actually really impractical and thus unlikely), but I love me a good ol' fashion Tim Burton claymation creepfest.

Now THAT being said, as someone who really digs cemeteries, Pere LaChaise was especially beautiful.  I would even go so far as to say romantic.  And now, for the visuals:

I must say, I was quite disappointed that our attempt to go to Pere LaChaise on All Saint's Day was foiled by nasty weather because the Halloween factor was off the hook.  Exhibit 1: ravens were EVERYWHERE.  It's like Pere LaChaise is like their secret club, and part of the draw is that the pigeons aren't cool enough to know about it yet (ravens: hipsters of Paris' bird population.  You know, when they aren't busy wreaking havoc on my Bird Soap Opera).

Exhibit #2: a black cat crossed my path.  In a graveyard.  If this had happened on Halloween, I think it might have been too much.

While there were plenty of (relatively) simple gravestones, there were also many, many mausoleums that were about as restrained and understated as Saint Chapelle.  

And here are gravestones just lying about willy nilly.  This right here is a big part of the reason I need to be cremated:  if this were my gravestone, I would come back and haunt the crap out of my great-great-great-great-grand-whatever, being all, "Really?  You can't even keep my gravestone UPRIGHT?!  It was bad enough when you stopped bringing flowers, but this is just INSULTING!!" And then I would unalphabetize all the books on their bookshelf, just to be a jerk.

No, I'm not actually on the zombie-vampire-werewolf bandwagon (I like my fantasy full of wizards, beefy sword-wielding men, and ladies in corsets, thankyouverymuch), but this little row of mausoleums just got me thinking how great it would be if the inhabitants came out at night after all the living have left and gossip about that weird lady down in 82 F and the guy from 37 B.  And then they complain about how loud the tourists are during the day when they're just trying to get some sleep: "This used to be a quiet neighborhood, but with all the riff raff, property values are going to plummet!"

One of the reasons that Pere LaChaise is such a tourist draw is that Jim Morrison (of The Doors, in case you've lived under a rock until now) is buried here.  His grave is not that interesting, but I love this tree next to it that fans have come and paid tribute to the Lizard King on.  This one in particular gets me, since I've been wondering the same damn thing since I moved here.

While I'm as much of a Doors fan as any other kid who grew up being force-fed classic rock on road trips with dad (a happy alternative to sports radio), the celebrity grave I was most excited about was this one: 

Playwright, novelist, lecturer, and my first Big Gay Literary Crush, Oscar Wilde.  Yes, I'm kissing his tomb.  No, I did not get rabies.  

That photo was taken back in the spring when I went with my friend Heidi.  So this time, eager to show Jon, I dragged him hither and thither until we arrived...

...only to find they're doing reconstruction (only in month of November, of course).  Some people remained determined to leave their mark, though...

They had to put that sign up because apparently people had been kissing the tarp.  Now THAT'S commitment.

So I've been asked why Oscar Wilde (who was Irish) and Jim Morrison (who was American) were able to be buried in a famous Parisian cemetery.  It turns out, one did not have to be born in Paris, or even France, to be buried in Pere LaChaise, one only had to die in Paris.  I thought that was actually kind of beautiful, and fitting. Here, in the beautiful city of the dead, people from all over the world are united only by the fact that their lives came to an end here, and here is where they wished to pass their eternal rest.

So Happy Belated Halloween!  Hopefully I'll get to writing about French Thanksgiving before January is over.

Don't Worry: In Purgatory, There Is Espresso

So now that I've already been living in France for nine months (my baguette baby is due any day now!), the French government has decided that now would be the appropriate time to teach me about life in France.  Oddly enough, telling them about this bloggy blog did not convince them that I had been seamlessly integrated.  So last Saturday, at 8:30 AM (I work in the afternoons and study at home, so my sleeping habits are still much as they were in college, so yes, that is painfully early for me) I had the JOY and PLEASURE to trek all the way up to the 18th (which is an hour from where I live) to attend a Formation Civique.  


After trekking to the address listed on my convocation letter, I arrived at the smelly little hole in the wall that was the government office I was to spend the next nine hours of my life in.  And, as all official things in France do, my day began with waiting in a line, at the end of which I was shuffled into a tiny classroom to await the start of class with my fellow recent (or semi-recent) immigrants.

Now, this being a product of French bureaucracy, I had no idea what I was getting myself into ahead of time.  Therefore, in between ranting to AH about how much I did not want to give up an entire Saturday to this enterprise, we spent time musing about what, exactly, would be taught at this class.  Would I learn the appropriate way to carry a baguette?  Would there be scarf-tying lessons?  And, most importantly, would I be given lessons in the patented French Disapproving Glare?

Alas, not this time (I still have a "Vie en France" class in December, so maybe that's when they cover disapproving facial expressions).  The morning portion of the class was taken up with a presentation on the history of the French Republic.  During this time, I realized that it's a shame that nobody ever kicked my butt for raising my hand every freakin' time I know the correct answer. I think it's a carry over from my childhood in school when I may not have been the first picked for kickball teams, but gosh darn, at least the teacher would be impressed that I could not only tell her the characters of Romeo and Juliet, but give a full, acted out synopsis, complete with sword fighting on the table!  So yes, every time the instructor asked a question, I raised my hand and parroted a response straight from my travel guides, museum outings, or History of Christianity textbook.  My nerdiness was in such full, obnoxious force that I had to bite my tongue when the instructor conflated the Hundred Years War of the 14th and 15th centuries with the French Wars of Religion of the 16th century.  But bite I did, because, believe it or not, not even I would be so obnoxious and foolish as to argue about French history with the French government employee.

Empire, Republic, blah blah blah, systems of government, blah blah blah, they lost me again until laicity, or secularism, one of the principles of the Republic.  Just for fun, the instructor asked us all what we thought of the niqab ban.  You could tell we were in a room of non-French natives, because nobody took the bait (the French love to debate- civilly- matters of politics that Americans wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole in polite conversation.  Just don't ask what they do for a living- that would be getting personal).  Only the woman next to me, my Formation Friend (because when you sit through nine hours of a mandated government class, and also have over two cumulative hours of break, you make friends) ventured forth a tentative opinion.

Ah, France and secularism.  Opinions: I haz them.  This might be a whole other post for a more thoughtful day, so I think I'll wrap this up...

All in all, not worth my preemptive kvetching, especially when you factor in the two 30 minute espresso/cigarette breaks, and a full hour and a half for lunch at an off-site brasserie where there was bread (of course), and a lovely vegetable tangine that didn't look like it had been sitting in a plastic box 10 minutes before being on my plate.  So please, if you want to know what I took away from this class, don't ask me about the court systems (I remember nothing), or French history before the Revolution (unless you really like hearing about popes).  But ask me what I learned about France, and I will tell you what you may already know: coffee breaks and crusty bread make this world go round.

Bow Chicka Bow Wow

So, you have a choice.  For this week's post, I can either whine about the prefecture and the types of requirements that make me feel like I must produce both the chicken and the egg simultaneously...

OR

food porn.

I'll give you a second to decide.

Ok, food porn it is!

I think you made the right choice.

Last weekend, Tour Guide Barbie popped up from Tours for the day to accompany us to Paris' annual Salon du Chocolat.  As a friend remarked, "Only in Paris would they be able to fill an entire expo center with chocolate and sweets vendors." And fill they did.  Here are the highlights:

Two words: free samples.  AH, TGB and I easily ate enough chocolate to cover our 12 euro ticket, and also to count for several day's caloric intake.  And yes, that is just a giant block of dark chocolate that that man is chipping shavings off of and distributing.

The creativity that was evident in the different chocolate creations.  Dude, I can't eat chocolate Easter Bunnies because they're too darn cute; how am I supposed to eat Krush here?  Speaking of creativity...

There was a CHOCOLATE FASHION SHOW (at which we were clearly not in the front row, but hey, you get the idea).  Seeing those costumes up close afterwards (after my phone/camera battery had died, alas), I can attest that the swan does appear to be made mostly from chocolate.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to eat it, wear it, or cast it in my Bird Soap Opera.

Huzzah!  "Vegetables" that I will eat.  Side note, it never ceases to amaze me that I was a successful vegetarian for several years before moving to France, seeing as how my diet now is mostly meat, bread, cheese and chocolate.

It's true; France is just one giant 13-year-old boy.

And finally, just in case we forgot where we are...

Lavender: check.  Striped shirt: check.  Berets (plural!): check.  Man in loopy scarf: check.  Chocolate: check.  PDA and haughty expressions: check.  French flag (top left, most of it got cut off): check.  You know, just in case you thought that you'd fallen into a chocolate covered worm-hole and ended up in South Dakota.

Scarves, Manpurses and Pointy Shoes

A vespa darts in and out of traffic, the riders' bodies pressed against one another as the wind rushes by, their facial hair chafing slightly from the rub of the helmets.

A well dressed Parisian walks down the street, perfectly coiffed and bronzed from a recent trip to Marseilles, pointed shoes clicking on the cobblestones, his adams apple rising just above his expertly tied, brightly patterned scarf.  

Oh, yes.  I have to ask myself this question many, many times a day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=PpFlR5t4WGw

Once upon a time, not long after AH and I had begun our courtship, he showed me a picture of a Certain Young Man.  Upon seeing CYM, this conversation transpired:

Me:  Hmm, does he have a girlfriend?

AH: Not that I know of...

Me: Has he ever had a girlfriend?

AH: I think he went to prom with a girl.

Me: Yep, he's gay.

AH: He is not!

Me: Yes, he is.  He's an attractive college guy with no girlfriend, and he's CARRYING A MANPURSE.

Turns out, Certain Young Man is, in fact, gay.  Ah, there was a time in my not-so-distant past that the presence of a manpurse or a scarf tied with a bit of extra flourish was a dead give-away.  But it's things like this that throw my gay-dar into total flux:

That, my friends, is (in addition to one disapproving security guard) the inside of BHV Homme.  For some context, BHV is the closest thing to a Macy's in Paris, so it's pretty mainstream.  So this is no niche boutique tucked back in the Marais; this is a major department store, and they have an ENTIRE MANPURSE SECTION.  Not just a few "laptop bags" quietly tucked away somewhere, not just a few more gender-neutral options hiding in amongst the ladies' handbags.  Nope, options, variety...normalcy.

For the record, now that I've got AH shackeld to me forevermore (lovingly, I hope), my gaydar no longer has a purpose as I no longer need to sort potential mates from potential Project Runway-watching buddies.  However, Europe's way of screwing with my American-grown preconceptions of masculinity has had some interesting results.  One of these has been the way that AH and I think about what constitutes appropriate clothing for men.  AH, being a physics type, has never been one to venture much beyond: A) functional clothes that he can fix lasers in, and B) slightly nicer clothes that I force him to buy so that we can be seen in public together.  (Yes, this may sound shrewish and cliche, a woman who dresses her man. But ask me sometime what AH wore on our first date.  I DARE YOU).  But not long after moving here, he (of his own volition!) suggested that it was time to replace the ratty Old Navy scarf that I had bought for him the first Christmas we were dating.  He even suggested buying something that (again, *gasp*) might cost more than 5 euros! And (*GASPGASPGASP*) something with pattern and/or color!!  

And then he realized that he didn't want to spend 50 euros on a scarf that would get him mocked ceaselessly when we return home.

And you know what was extra fun?  Finding myself in the middle of a conversation about this very subject with a (very well-dressed) Frenchman at church and trying not to sound like an asshat:

Me:  It's so nice that men dress up so much here!  

Frenchy: Do men not dress nicely in America?

Me: It's not that they look like slobs, but men typically don't want to appear as though they've put thought into the way that the look.

Frenchy: Why not?

Me: Well, because people might assume things about them...

Frenchy: *Not getting it* Like what?

Me: *Oh noes* like, who they like to date. Or, you know, not date.

Frenchy:....

Me: Um, ifamandresseswellinAmericapeoplethinkit'sbecausehelikesdatingothermen.

Frenchy: *Pause* OH! *Pause* Why?

A terrific question!  And one that I am, sadly, in no way equipped to answer.  However, I will end with one final plea:  can manpurses PLEASE begin to make an appearance in more American men's closets?  Because I'll bet that Frenchwomen never return home with their purses ten pounds heavier because they've spent their evening hearing, "babe, can you just put this in your purse?".  So c'mon, American Dudes, man up and buy a purse.  You'll be giving your lady a break, and yourself some European mystique.

"There's Paris, and There's the Rest of France"

...or so a wise friend of mine recently said to me.  And it's true.  While Paris is lovely, the countryside is a beautiful breath of fresh air (literally- if anyone's urinating outdoors, there's enough open space for it to waft in another direction.  Cramped metro platform, not so much).  And wow, were AH and I in desperate need of  green grass, pumpkins, and a few scattered barnyard animals.

Have you ever seen that old vaudeville act where someone spins a bunch of plates on top of poles, and every time they get one going, they have to go tend to another before it crashes and fall?  Yes, AH and I have been doing that, except we are both clumsy, and mostly we've ended up with broken plates.  Broken, expensive plates.  And stitches from where we sliced ourselves picking up shards of broken plates.

In case you're in any sort of suspense, we are fine now, everything has (more or less) settled down to something resembling as much of a normal life as we ever have.  But to give a quick recap, in the past few weeks we have: flown in and out of New York for a wedding (yeah!), had to temporarily pack up and move out of our apartment (boo!), had mercy taken on us by people who barely know us and let us sleep in their apartments (yeah!), tried to get things done at the prefecture, aka The Place That Convinces Me That Ye Olde Catholics Were Right About Purgatory (boo!), AND used our homelessness as an excuse to visit Tours (yeah!) but almost didn't get down due to a train strike (boo!) because an SNCF worker got stabbed (double boo!), thus we were stuck in Gare Austerlitz for FIVE HOURS (extra boo, but not as much boo as when that guy got stabbed!).

And so it is the next to last part that I would like to focus on (the part where we went to Tours, not the part where someone got stabbed), because it was such a lovely little holiday in the midst of a total clustercluck. We are lucky enough to know someone who lives and studies in Tours, has an adorable apartment with a fouton, and (extra yay!) speaks French and thus is an invaluable travel buddy.  AH and I, not generally excel spreadsheet type planners on the best of occasions, were in an especially unprepared haze of uselessness.  Luckily, though, our lovely Tour Guide Barbie is not only knowledgeable but also imbued with a healthy sense of adventure.  So when we arrived at Gare de Tours at noon to discover that there was no train to Villandry (our chosen destination) until 2 o'clock, we were all (miraculously, even me) up for taking a 12:30 to the little town of Savonierre, which we knew was vaguely in the area of where we wanted to end up.

We were prepared for the fact that Savonierre was probably not a well-connected hotspot.  We were correct:

This, my friends, was the train station.  No ticket machine. No maps.  No buildings.  This was the extent of the amenities of the Savonierre train station:

We did pass a pleasant half hour here eating the spoils of our morning boulangerie outing (carbs, cheese, carbs, cured meat, and chocolate). After lunch, we consulted the GPS on my phone to get a rough idea of where we were heading, and off we trekked, garnering confused looks from locals as we went.  I can only imagine what it would be like to be driving down a road in your little rural town and see three strangers, two of whom are photographing this:

Yup, those are snails.  I was fascinated.  But I can imagine that the locals' reactions were something akin to what mine every time I see groups of Japanese tourists photographing the cement corn fields in my hometown.  

It turned out to be a lovely, invigorating, 4 km walk.  At times we weren't exactly on what you might call a "path meant in any way for pedestrians," but eh, we lived to tell the tale.  And after our first stretch of country road, we came upon what we guessed to be downtown Savonierre (our guess was population: 200):

Lovely, no?  A small river town tucked away in the Loire, with back yards and buildings that looked like they were created on a sound stage somewhere.  At one point, AH spied a set of stairs leading up the hillside, and we agreed that we would investigate.  Alas, they were in someone's backyard, and I don't think trespassing is one of those things you can use your ignorant tourist card on (at least when the object of your desire is behind a locked fence).  But we did see friendly critters, like this fellow here:

Don't you just want to snorgle him?  Tour Guide Barbie did not, as she has an utter fear of almost all living, non-human creatures, but I was a fan.  The town was actually teeming with critters.  I got really excited when I saw a coop full of what looked like mourning doves, and was getting ready to take a picture, when I saw an old French woman in an apron at her back door, slowly drying a dish and giving me a witheringly disapproving glare as only an old French woman can do.  I tucked my camera away and quickly moved on.

About 20 more minutes of country road and we arrived relatively unscathed at our destination: Chateau Villandry.  This being France, and Villandry being a chateau, I'm sure you know the drill by now: breath-taking gardens, opulent interiors, paintings that cost more than what I will make in many years put together. And I thoroughly enjoyed myself, as did AH and TGB.  AH and I also enjoyed Chateau Amboise and the nearby Clos Luce (where Leonardo da Vinci spent the last three years of his life; full-scale models of his inventions await visitors in the garden) the next day. 

But somehow, it was an unscripted adventure through the countryside (complete with snails, sheep and disapproving old French women) that I think I'll be telling stories about for a long time to come.

Crazytimebunnies

Alas, I will need to skip my posting for this week because I've been in and out of the country, and I'm about to be in and out of Paris.  But rest assured, all the joys of the Frenchy French will return as of next Tuesday. Stay tuned.

Bird Soap Opera

In my attempts to free myself from distractions *coughcoughFACEBOOKcough*, I occasionally drag my laptop and reading materials over to MontEnchantedFairyLandsouris to enjoy the fresh air and to shelter in the shade of my tree.  (And yes, it is my tree.  I've marked it, just not in the way a cat would).  However, focus is still often out of reach as I frequently find myself distracted by the various winged denizens of the park.  So much time do I spend watching their antics that I've actually cast them all in an elaborate soap opera (All My Children did just go off the air- vacancy filler!).  I may not have a plot yet, but here are the characters:

The ducks will probably be our protagonists, as they always seem to be caught up in the most drama.  Seriously, spring in the pond was like a one long, aquatic, avian episode of Mad Men, with Rogers  chasing down and pinching Joans everywhere you looked.

The mysterious, beautiful creatures that everyone idealizes and envies in equal measure.  But they are burdened with a deep, dark, shameful secret.  Secret baby?  Literal skeletons in the closet?

The brown-nosing upstart, desperately wanting to be liked, but mostly the other birds mock them behind their backs.  They will triumph in some unexpected way, or turn totally evil as a result of their rejection.

The mean girls, but in more of a Joan Collins-in-a-turban kind of way rather than a Lohan-in-spray-tan way.  Deliciously villainous, and always out to steal your man.

The well-meaning best friend.  Loyal, but dim-witted and passive aggressive.  They unknowingly get involved in a money laundering scandal, and its up to the ducks to bail them out.

And who do the ducks go to get the geese out of trouble?  The ravens, that's who.  As wise as they are wise-cracking, these birds can get the job- any job- done.  But at what price, ducks?  At what price?

And the seagulls are the characters that get added late in the second season to revive view interest, but mostly just end up being douchewads that nobody cares about.

Title suggestions?  Bird puns welcome and encouraged.

The Expat Life

Alas, my life as an expatriate in Paris doesn't involve much drinking in cafes with dissolute writers of arguable genius (obviously, I was never much enchanted with Hemingway- there, I said it).  But it has come with a few distinct advantages.

Chief among these is the expat community itself.  To know what being a part of an expat community is like, I want you to think back on your first week of college.  Remember that time when you could strike up a conversation with anybody because you knew that, like you, they were in uncharted territory and in desperate need of friends?  Remember all the small-talk you exchanged over regional differences, like who says "pop" and who says "soda"?  The number of times you told people your prospective majors, and the number of times you pretended to stay interested after they told you that they were majoring in business?  Keep the "interesting regional difference" conversation, replace "prospective majors" with "irritating quirks about life abroad (double points for complaints about the French bureaucracy)," and you've got the talk soup of your average expat gathering.  

And unlike your first week of college, that openness to meeting new people lasts indefinitely because there are always new expats arriving and old ones leaving.  And while sometimes this can be a major bummer (I sometimes feel like every time I make a friend, they turn around and go back to the States), I choose to see this as something great:  the Ferris-wheel rotation of Americans in Paris seems to bring in someone new and interesting for every wonderful person that it takes away.

One of my chief worries (and one of the questions I most often fielded) when I found out I was moving to Paris was, "but how will you meet people?  What will you do without your friends?".  Let me be clear:  being far away from the people that I've known and loved since I was knee-high to a pig's eye is no picnic. But I would be in a similar quandary no matter where I moved.  And at least in Paris, there's this fantastic club of people waiting to embrace you.  It doesn't matter if you can throw a football, or speak intelligently about the work of Pablo Neruda, or if you can quilt.  The only club rule is that you speak English.  If you speak English, you're in like flint with an interesting, multi-national, eclectic group of people who can't wait to be your friend.  I doubt I would've had that waiting for me in Cleveland.