Bisous from Paris!

Ciao a tutti!

2009-10-11T14:06:00.001+02:00

I made it to Rome last week! So sorry for the delay, it’s been a crazy time and things still haven’t straightened themselves out yet. But you can follow me on my new Italy blog, Baci from Rome. Until I get settled the updates will probably be pretty sporadic.

Weekend in Barca

2009-09-26T01:45:00.000+02:00

My sister-from-another-mother BB came to Paris with her fiancé last week.

It was their first time in Europe and they planned to hit Paris, Madrid and Barcelona in 7 days so I was really excited to show them my city. Personally, I’m not one for whirlwind travelling. I think you need time to explore a city, to sit around and soak up the atmosphere. But I think it’s a typically American thing to country/city hop quickly to try to see as much as possible in the short time allotted. Its one of the many downfalls of life in the States. With 10-15 days A YEAR of vacation, how much of the world can you really see? No wonder only 20% of Americans have passports.

We hit up all the must-see tourist spots in Paris (without actually going inside most of them—a picture of the triangle in front of the Louvre works if you don’t have an entire day to spend inside), some of my favorite spots to eat (making sure they tried escargot, macaroons, sandwich grecs, tartes, fresh baguettes and viennoiseries from a boulangerie, all types of cheese and a crepe at my favorite place on Oberkampf, yum!) and a few of my local nighttime hangouts.

Dinner of bread, cheese and wine on Pont Neuf

After 2 days in Paris they left for Madrid. I was supposed to go with them (I’m dying to see Madrid, I’ve heard such great things about the city) but I had tons of work to get to that had gone neglected since their arrival. So we made plans to meet up in Barcelona on Saturday instead.

Now I’ve been to Barca twice for work and though I never really got a chance to explore the city, I never really felt particularly excited about the place. My chef friend Kelly moved to Barca from New York earlier this year and adores it. I had planned to stay with her and see her view of the city but unfortunately she was out of town that weekend. So this trip to Barca wasn’t really different from the last 2 times I was there—it was ok, a beautiful city with lovely weather but honestly, I’d choose 10 other places to visit before Barcelona any day.

The absolute highlight of the trip was going to the FC Barcelona v. Atlantico Madrid match. I am a huge football fan but have never been to a live game. So when A said he wanted to get us tickets (at 117 Euros each! And that's not even for the good seats) to see one of the biggest clubs in football, I couldn’t pass it up. Sadly, I couldn’t find a flight to Barcelona under 200 Euros for that weekend and I realized again how major this sport is around the world (hotels were nearly booked solid for Saturday night, not to mention they raised their prices). But the game was fantastic!! Camp Nou (the stadium) is massive and it’s so exciting to actually experience the energy of the crowd. The singing and chanting, flag waving, hissing... I loved it all. And Barca won 5-2 so the city was buzzing afterwards.

We spent the next day and a half hanging out at the beach, eating as much Spanish foods as we could get our hands on and window shopping—and BB and I had a chance to try out a nightclub (sucked but it was free) and sit at the chic rooftop bar at our hotel and have some serious girl talk before I had to go back to Paris on Monday afternoon.

On a sad note: its my last day in Paris before the big move to Italy so I'm swamped trying to get everything organized. I'm sending half of the clothes and shoes I brought back home to the States (summer things and stuff I finally realize I'll never wear—I wish I had thought about that before spending $50 in overweight luggage fees), plus a bunch of books I finished reading while I was here (I need a Kindle!). I fly to Florence on Sunday morning and my cousin Martine is flying in from DC today to spend the week in Paris/Italy with me.

I'm so nervous! And excited! Will update as soon as I can.

On verra! Ciao! :)

A fairytale wedding

2009-09-24T13:26:00.011+02:00

I met M in 2008 when she moved to Paris from Toronto. She was a former roommate of a friend of mine in New York. M and her husband A work together at the same bank and met at a company function in late January 2009. By February, A had worked up the nerve to ask M to lunch and the rest is history (they also bonded over books, its such an aphrodisiac!).

I met up with M for drinks at Sir Winston when I was in Paris for B’s birthday this February. There was a group of guys from her office there, cute French banker types, who asked us to join them. Of course I was all ready to say yes but M quickly said no and steered me towards an empty table on the other side of the bar. Apparently its office policy that you shouldn’t date coworkers so it was all very hush hush, but she told me that she had met “The One” 2 weeks ago and that they had already talked about marriage and children. Keep in mind this was my no-nonsense, type A, investment banker friend who dated 6 guys at a time because she was too busy and independent to devote herself to one man. Now she had met some guy at the office (and a Frenchie no less! She was adamant about not dating French guys) and they were planning to get married?! Already?? If I didn’t know her better I would think that she had lost her mind, gotten herself knocked up or was just plain desperate. But later that night I met A and was like, “Ohh, I get it”. He is absolutely fantastic (the man carries her purse for her when they’re out shopping, enough said) and they compliment each other so well.

A month later they planned a trip to Venice and A proposed during a late-night walk along the canals (cliché yes, but so romantic!). Three months after that they were married in a civil ceremony in Paris. Their Catholic wedding took place in Clermont-Ferrand 2 weekends ago, at the church A was confirmed in.

We arrived on Friday so that we could spend a day exploring Clermont. Let me just warn you right now—there is NOTHING to see there. I spent about an hour exploring; the rest of my afternoon was spent working in my hotel room.

We did go to a lovely restaurant for a truffade dinner (an Auvergne specialty of fried potatoes, melted cheese and ham) that was the most incredible thing I’ve ever had. Then we went for drinks at the “Aussie Bar” in the center of town before heading to bed.

The wedding ceremony on Saturday afternoon was lovely.

The cathedral was as beautiful as French churches always are, and they hired a gospel choir to sing throughout which was the highlight of the ceremony for me.

When they came out of the church, we all threw rose petals and rice at them before heading off to the reception. It was my first time staying in a chateau so I was stoked.

This was less of a party atmosphere than E & J’s wedding. It was a black tie affair so we basically hung around looking fancy, drinking champagne and chatting. M & A changed into Indian outfits to incorporate her Indian culture. There was a series of lovely speeches by M & A’s friends and family—and when her father spoke, he got so chocked up talking about his littler girl that we were all in tears. Dinner was fabulous (fois gras, duck confit, chocolate mousse cake and LOTS of wine),

followed by an hour of dancing (disco) before everyone retired to bed.

One funny thing was that there was 1 single guy at this 70 person wedding (see, no men anywhere! I’m starting to get worried!). M told all her single girlfriends (7 of us) about him so we spent the night before the wedding talking about what he would be like and who would snag him first. We finally spotted him after the ceremony and one by one, each of us said, “Um, that’s ok. You can have him” and “Oh, that’s him? Um, not really my type”. M sat him next to me thinking we would hit it off best and though we chatted throughout dinner, there just weren’t any sparks. M’s little sister said he looked like Mr. Bean. And he spent the entire night on the dancer floor by himself while us single girls danced together in a group. Poor guy.

On Sunday morning we had a long brunch, took a tour of the grounds and hung out by the pool before starting back for Paris. I managed to score a last minute ride with a French/Italian couple (which saved me 65 Euros on train fare) and we stopped by Vichy on the way back. It’s a really cute town, but a bit like Ft. Lauderdale in that no one was under the age of 65 (Vichy is known for its thermal springs and being a base for the Nazi’s during the war). We arrived in Paris around 10pm on Sunday.

All in all a great wedding… the fact that I was able to spend the weekend in a castle in a beautiful region of France was all I really needed for it to rate as one of my favorite weddings ever. How often do you get to do that?

Oh and last thing I forgot to mention, the family. M grew up in the coolest family. Both her parents are bankers who love to travel. So they lived their lives all over the world—India, Beijing, Singapore, Toronto, South Africa, London… wherever her parents felt like relocating to next. During breakfast one morning, her father entertained us with stories of wild jumper plane rides in Africa and being invited to dine with the family of their taxi driver in the Middle East. These days, M’s family is spread out between the States, Europe and Asia. Their friends are so diverse and people flew in from all over the world to attend her wedding (so it made sense that the reception had an International/Global Travel theme). They are really such fascinating people with amazing stories and experiences under their belt (after the wedding M’s parents were driving down to the South of France, then flying to Denmark to spend a week with their grandchildren, then heading back home to Singapore) and I couldn’t help but think that was just the kind of life I want to live. I totally understand the need for children to have structure—spending their entire childhood in one home, one school, making lifelong friends. But there’s something to be said about raising a child that’s a citizen of the world. Going to international schools, living in a different foreign country every few years, speaking several languages. M and her sisters are all well-adjusted, smart, successful—and very close to each other and to their parents, even though they live thousands of miles apart. Of course, I don’t know if there are any deep-seated issues that I just don’t know about, but even with the constant moving, they seem to have turned out ok.

A countryside wedding

2009-09-11T16:18:00.000+02:00

So finally, updating about the wedding in Ardeche. Let me just get this part out of the way: no, I didn’t meet anyone. Can you believe out of 200 guests, every man under the age of 35 was in a relationship? All this coupling up is starting to make me feel old... and very single :)

Anyway, aside from that, the wedding was amazing. I drove down on Wednesday night with 3 others. We arrived at the campsite around midnight to find E’s Dutch girlfriends hanging out in front of our bungalow with chilled beers waiting for us—in what we would come to term “the dining room”. They had stopped by the supermarket on their way into town (the closest one being 40 mins away) and stocked the fridge with everything we would need for the next 4 days… you’ve never seen so much booze in your life. By that alone I knew we would get along very well :)

There were 7 of us (E’s friends) in two rented bungalows. We would drive into town every morning before breakfast to pick up fresh bread and have a cup of coffee at the bar (why do you always find old men drinking alcohol early in the morning?) before heading back to the campsite. The day would begin with a huge feast of a breakfast, followed by a dip in the pool, followed by a long lunch. At night we either hung out with some other Frenchies from the wedding party or sat in our “dining room”, drinking and chatting into the wee hours of the morning. One night we got into trouble for making too much noise. It was nearly 2am and we were singing and laughing and apparently keeping the rest of the campsite awake. The guardienne of the campsite came over to us and said, “You guys have to keep your voices down, it’s late. And this is Ardeche, not Mykonos. People come here to for the peace and quiet.” Oops.

On Thursday, about 30 of us went to E’s mother’s house for the BBQ and Olympiade. We spent the entire day eating, drinking, lounging in the sun and swimming in the lake. And later, playing petanque, football (soccer), volleyball and some relay race that involved an egg and a spoon. It was great b/c everyone got a chance to meet and get to know each other prior to the wedding, which only made Saturday that much more fun.

The wedding day was great. The ceremony took place at the mairie (which only held about 30 people, the rest of the group had to stand at the windows and peek inside. By the way, the entire town consisted of a town hall, bar, market/boulangrie and post office—and the view was amazing). After the cermemony, we danced through the town to the music of a local Klezmer band before driving back to the house for the reception. We sat under tents in the front yard, mingling and eating a delicious mix of Dutch and French food. The night was full of beautiful speeches, hilarious performances by their friends and an amazing DJ… I will admit I was one of the last people on the makeshift dance floor. We finally started the 15-minute walk back to the campsite around 5:30am… needless to say Sunday was a wash for me. I spent the entire day in bed until we started the drive back to Paris that evening.

I only hope my wedding will be like that— the entire day (or weekend) being a true reflection of who we are as a couple instead of conforming to some preconceived idea of what a wedding is supposed to be like; surrounded by the people who know and love you. And just a whole lot of fun. E & J looked beautiful and happy and everyone had a wonderful time… days later we were all still talking about how great the weekend was.

You really feel the difference when you come back to the city after spending a few days in the countryside. For 4 days my cell phone didn't work, I had no access to TV or the internet and there was nothing to see but cows within 50 miles of our campsite. We barely had hot water. I had real time to relax, talk to people, make new friends, read, eat good food... it was absolutely perfect.

Funny story: one morning during breakfast I realized that we forgot to make coffee. I got up, planning to walk down the road to get water to boil (yes, we were really roughing it) but one of the girls stopped me saying, "No need. Just use the water in the pot we boiled the eggs in". I almost died! Everyone poured themselves a cup of dirty egg water to make their coffee so I (not wanting to look like the bougie city girl) poured a cup too. But I just couldn't bring myself to drink it. It was this city girl’s first foray into camping and I don’t think I complained too much. I could have done without all the bugs and spiders and oneness with nature, but surprisingly, I had an absolute blast. I don’t think I could have gone as hardcore as sleeping in an actual tent (though our bungalow was little more than that), but I’m proud of myself!

This weekend I’m in Clermont-Ferrand (3 hours South of Paris in the center of the country) for my friend Mallika’s wedding. I’ll have to detail their love story later, it’s hard to believe. Mallika and Alex are getting married at the cathedral he was confirmed in and the formal reception will be held at a chateau nearby. It will be the complete opposite of the Ardeche wedding but no less amazing I’m sure.

ps— this makes wedding #7 within the past 4 months… I’ve warned my friends not to tell me about their engagement until the new year :)

A new adventure

2009-09-07T11:02:00.005+02:00

Yesterday I moved in with B. And no, it’s not what you’re thinking.

When I arrived in Paris I rented a room in a flatshare from a friend who had recently moved in with her boyfriend. Before I moved in, she had given her room over to a girl named Chloe who would be staying there long term. Chloe was backpacking through Southeast Asia for the summer and came back home on Sunday. I thought about finding my own place but then another idea popped into my head. I could find another flatshare or sublet in Paris OR I could use the move as an opportunity to find a new adventure. Can you guess which path I chose?

In May 2006, the year before I moved to Paris, I went to Italy for the first time. I was there for 2 weeks and I loved every moment and everything about Italy. Taking a wine tasting tour and cooking class in an ancient villa in Tuscany,

floating along the breathtaking canals of Venice, getting lost in the tiny streets of Florence, meeting an expat friend in Pisa for a massive dinner with her Italian in-laws that lasted 4 hours. But when I got to Rome… wow.

I felt completely in my element, it felt like home. It’s that feeling that drives us expats from our native homes, friends and family to live in a foreign place, overlooking the fact that you don’t know a soul, don’t speak the language, can't really know what to expect… simply because something inside compels you and you just HAVE to be there. The last time I got that feeling was when I visited Paris.

I only spent 4 days in Rome and knew I didn’t want to give up on Paris just because I happened to have a fling with another city. So I kept the original plan and moved to Paris—which turned out to be an amazing, wonderful, unforgettable experience (naturally). But in the back of my mind, I knew I had to get to Rome one day. Even if for a short period of time, I had to live there. Experience the food, people, language and culture as a local instead of just a tourist. And on the 27^th of September, I’ll finally get my chance to do that. There’s no real plan: I’ll be taking Italian lessons and working on some projects and ideas that will hopefully allow my gypsy nature this sort of independence permanently.

And so, that brings me back to my move to B’s. Originally I thought it would be a great idea. I’d have a free place to stay for 3 weeks before I move to Rome; B’s apartment was practically my second home anyway. But I didn’t realize we’d be struggling with how to manage being “just friends”, imagine throwing “living together” into the mix. Our saving grace is that he works all day and I have a pretty full social life so hopefully our paths won’t cross enough to cause conflict (though it's looking like, in his opinion, that may be the very source of the problem). I’ve already alerted friends that I may be coming to crash on their couch if things get out of control Chez B.

Unexpected chivalry

2009-09-04T14:44:00.006+02:00

Last night I went out for drinks with my roommate Benjamin and his friend Benjamin (apparently every French male around the age of 28 is named Benjamin) who just moved back from Rome and is “squatting” in our apartment for a week. We ended up at this tiny little bar off of rue Oberkampf that turned out to be a literary party celebrating a book launch. And apparently the DJ was super famous—the guys were all in a tizzy over him, though I couldn’t for the life of me tell you who he was.

Just after I arrived, the publisher of the book randomly came over, kissed my hand and started chatting me up. Turns out he also used to live in the East Village in New York but moved back to Paris after 9/11. He was interesting but physically not my type (late 30s-early 40s, short, blond hair/blue eyes). After 15 mins a woman came over to talk to him about a manuscript he just submitted so I snuck off to rejoin my friends. Later, the publisher popped over to quietly ask me if Benjamin was my boyfriend—I said no, he said good—but I eventually lost him in the crowd. Looking back on it, I should have given him my number; he would be a cool person to know, especially considering that I’ve been working on some writing projects lately. Oh well…

Around midnight Benjamin’s girlfriend, her best friend and another guy joined us. I excused myself to go to the bathroom and bumped into a cute guy on his way out. We did the whole smiley, double take thing and when I came back he was talking to RomeBen. I walked over to join them but quickly realized the cute guy was drunk, sleazy and slightly stupid. At some point he said something to me in French and though I didn’t understand the slang, I got that the context was sexual. RomeBen looked at him sharply and said, “Come on, don’t say stuff like that. I think you need apologize to her”. So the guy apologized and the three of us continued chatting. And then the interesting part of the night began:

Sleazy guy: “So where are you from?”

Me: “New York City.”

Sleazy guy: “No, I mean where were you born?”

Me: “Oh, I was born in Washington, D.C.”

Sleazy guy: “No, come on. Really. You're from Senegal, aren't you? Or Mali?”

Sigh. This is the thing that annoys the hell out of me about the French (some French people, I don’t mean to generalize). If you’re not white you’re not really considered French (or American in this case). If you’re black you can only be from Africa or the West Indies, there’s no way you can be anything else. I understand that it has to do with the fact that France only recently got an influx of post-war immigrants and they’re just now dealing with racial issues. And to be fair, most of the non-white people living here really are foreign-born or first generation French. You’d be hard pressed to find a black person in France who’s familial line goes back more than one generation within France. But not so in the States. The funny thing is, my parents were born in Haiti and moved to the States in their late teens/early 20s so I am in fact a first-generation American (and I happen to very much identify with being Haitian, possibly more so than American, since I was brought up with Haitian food, language, music, culture, etc) BUT it was the principle of the matter. This asshole was insisting that because I was black, I could not be American. Sure we’re all African, but for many black Americans, how the heck do you know which country your ancestors came from 300 years ago?

Anyway, as I’m about to open my mouth to set the guy straight, I notice RomeBen tensing up next to me. He steps in front of me, gets in this guy's face and says, "Didn't she tell you 5 times that she's American??" then proceeds to go off on him in French!

Now a little background on RomeBen: This guy did his undergrad in Engineering at one of Paris’ most prestigious Grandes Écoles (basically the French version of the Ivy Leagues) then went on to get his Master’s and PhD from MIT in Boston. During the day he wears his little glasses and works on his computer, quiet as a mouse. He’s not pretentious or anything (I didn’t even know the details of his schooling until last night). He’s very polite and friendly, timid even. In his 6 years in the States he sort of picked up a general idea of how far black people have come; to be accepted and be able to claim the privileges that come along with being American. But this is not someone who you could ever imagine in a million trillion years saying the words: “We can take this outside.” But he did! He said those exact words! OMG.

By this point Sleazy Guy is cowering on his stool (meanwhile he was easily half a foot taller than RomeBen) and one of his friends, trying to pacify RomeBen, apologizes and says that his friend is a little drunk and doesn’t know what he’s saying. I couldn’t tell you what RomeBen was saying, I was too busy staring at him in shock, wondering what happened to the shy little geek who had spent the past 4 days hunched behind his laptop in my living room. Finally I put my arm around him, gently pulled him back and said, “Shall we go?” And he stopped, gave the guy one last dirty look and we walked out of the bar. It was intense. And to be honest with you, also extremely sexy… it’s awesome watching a guy defending your honor.

After that episode I looked at him in a completely different light. We joined the rest of the group outside then jumped in a cab and went back to the apartment. The 4 of us hung out in the kitchen drinking tea and talking until Benjamin and his girlfriend went to bed. And then RomeBen asked me if I wanted to take our conversation into the living room (since Benjamin’s room is right near the kitchen) and we ended up talking until 3am.

He’s such a contraction—this adorable and super smart science nerd who gets really excited explaining molecular physics (still completely over my head) but values quality of life over work, loves to travel and live in foreign countries and will throw down if you get on his bad side. But alas, he has a girlfriend back in Rome. She’s coming to visit in a week or so and he said he wants to introduce us. I bet she’s sweet and wonderful and we’ll probably get on great so let me just shut my homewrecking mouth right now… :)

Update: This afternoon RomeBen and I were both in the living room, he was working and I was folding my laundry when he got up and left the room without saying a word. Suddenly I heard classical piano music. I thought he turned the radio on or something but when I walked down the hall to investigate I found him playing away (my roommate has an upright in his room). I had my own personal 10 minute performance. If I wasn't smitten before I may be now!

The casual wedding

2009-08-26T00:25:00.006+02:00

Heading to Ardeché in few hours (in the South of France) for my girl E’s wedding. E & J are the coolest couple, I absolutely adore them—very fun, down-to-earth, artsy (they’re filmmakers). They’re all about having a good time and going with the flow, which I guess is why we clicked immediately. The wedding is on Saturday but a few close friends are driving down early for a Thursday night pre-party: “Olympic Games” (i.e. three-legged races, soccer, swimming in the lake, etc) and a BBQ. E’s parents own a house in a tiny village; the ceremony will take place at the Mairie (town hall) followed by a reception in their backyard. The guest count is around 200 people and we’ll be eating, drinking and dancing under the stars until the wee hours of the morning. They’re not big into weddings so they made it a laid back affair—E described it as a big 3-day party for their friends & family, with a quick pop over to Mairie at some point to get the wedding stuff out of the way (LOVE that!). At one point, I was wondering aloud which heels would work best with my dress and E said, “Just come barefoot!” (she was dead serious). Truth be told, I’m especially looking forward to mingling with the guests. Weddings are a great place to meet men right? ;)

Back on Monday night with (hopefully) some interesting stories!

I LOVE Edinburgh!

2009-08-24T17:16:00.003+02:00

What a magical city! But good gracious it is COLD! Before I left I looked at the weather forecast: between 55-65 degrees, cloudy and rainy. But I think the Parisian heat must have fried my brain because all I made of that was, “Ooh, it won’t be 100 degrees and humid. Great, I could use a little break from the heat.” And I only packed a little cardigan and pashmina and set off. But as soon as I stepped out of the airport in Scotland I remembered REAL quick what 58 degrees felt like.

I flew into Glasgow on Thursday, took a 2 hour night bus to Edinburgh and made my way to the hostel. It’s called the Edinburgh Nights Hostel and was clean and relatively central which are really my only criteria. But what made it standout was the staff*. I’ve only stayed at a hostel twice before. Once on my first trip to London with my cousin 5 years ago, once in Dublin last year. In the first instance, we randomly made friends with a Londoner who took us out every night. And in Dublin, my friend Ali and I roomed with a cool girl from California and the three of us partied together the whole weekend. This time I was in a room with 4 Japanese kids who didn’t speak more than 4 words of English, and the hostel didn’t have a communal area so there was no chance of befriending people to party with. Normally I would have just gone out by myself, but I soon realized that drunken Scots scare me. I passed tons of bars walking home at night but instead of making a detour inside for a drink, it just made me clutch my purse a little tighter and pick up my pace. Guys weaving drunkenly down the street, screaming and shouting gibberish (or Celtic, who knows), making their way out of bars while dragging a drunken friend between them, fights breaking out. Even the girls were a bit off… a lot of them were stumbling around barefoot in their miniskirts and tank tops (mind you, its 50 degrees and raining!). At one point, I even saw a guy standing outside, calm as you please, with blood streaming down his face. Now of course I’m not saying that this is how Scottish people behave, but what I experienced was a little too “reality TV” for me. So I enjoyed getting to bed before 1am so I could be up early the next morning and sightsee (read: shop). One night I did go to a late night comedy show near my hostel but was chatted up by some guy who had such a thick accent (he was from Glasgow) I could barely tell he was speaking in English. I was drinking pink champagne and he offered to buy a bottle so we could chat more but I quickly declined and made my exit.

Edinburgh has amazing shopping (though I heard Glasgow is better which blows my mind) and the hostel was just a few blocks away from Princes Street, the main shopping area. They have everything from funky British retailers to H&M and Gap. And the Holy Grail: Topshop! (we do have one in New York now but for some reason it sucks. The Edinburgh store is apparently the 2^nd biggest after the Oxford Circus flagship).

But what I really came for was the Festival. Every August Edinburgh pretty much shuts down to this International Festival, which is really a series of festivals taking place over the course of the month. There’s the Jazz Festival, Book Festival, Art Festival, Fringe Festival (the biggest arts festival in the world)… Everyone from Janeane Garofalo to David Sedaris was in town and the energy was incredible. All these creative, artsy, over-the-top people out trying to make a name for themselves. And the best part? A lot of it was free! I spent my days hopping from one venue to another, taking breaks here and there to shop, eat or just sit in a café with a cup of coffee and the Festival Guide mapping out the shows I wanted to hit later that day. And around Royal Mile in Old Town you can just plop down on a step to check out an impromptu street performance at any time (my breakfast entertainment).

But the funny thing when you go to free shows is that at least half of them are terrible! Like the comedians are really, painfully bad. It makes me wonder how they got this far without a single friend or family member ever telling them the truth. How in the world does that happen? Couldn’t their mother say at some point, “I’m sorry Billy but you’re just not funny. The jokes aren’t funny, the delivery isn’t funny. Comedy is just not your thing. Have you thought about becoming an accountant?”

When I wasn’t cringing in embarrassment or trying to keep a fake smile on my face (some of the venues are really small and I made the mistake early on of sitting in the front row) I did get a good laugh at just how bad they were. Even thinking back on it now makes me smile… especially The Lebanese Midget from England with hair down to his waist who did a couple black jokes. No one was laughing and one Scottish guy in the audience looked over at me (the only black person in the room) apologetically, winced and ducked his head. I didn’t find the comedian insulting (I can handle a few stereotype jokes, we do strange things sometimes), sadly he just wasn’t funny :o/

As a black woman traveling in a foreign country I always take a quick scan to gauge how people are reacting to me. Sometimes it’s full out shock and awe (Macedonia), shameless flirting/catcalls (Italy, Tunisia) or steady staring that makes me slightly uncomfortable (Greece). In Edinburgh, either they’re used to seeing black folks and don’t find us to be that big of a deal (though I could count the number of black people I saw all weekend on one hand) or they’re just too polite to stare, but it was totally fine. Aside from smiling at my American accent, my being black didn’t seem to be an issue.

So the weekend (aside from my unpreparedness with the weather) was great. Edinburgh is stunningly beautiful, definitely one of the most picturesque cities I've visited. I found myself stopping dead in my tracks to take in the sudden view of the hills or the sea in the distance. Or sitting on the side of the road at dusk to watch torchlight’s flickering at the Castle on the hill while a symphony played. Or watching young boys playing bagpipes in the street (and yes, I DID see men in kilts! whoohoo!)—I don’t know if it was because of the festival but you really can hear bagpipes everywhere, and it’s a beautiful sound.

20 Euro flight, 40 Pound lodgings and a few bucks for food and drink isn’t too shabby. I’ll just have to remember to pack my jacket next time, even in the dead of summer.

*Two brothers run the hostel and when I arrived at 1am, cold and sleepy, they made me a cup of tea and then let me stay in a nicer 6-bed room en-suite even though I had paid for the cheapest room. And on Saturday around midnight, I came back to the hostel to collect my bag (they let me store it in the locker in my room instead of the communal storage in the basement even though I had already checked out that morning), prepared to spend the evening at a bar or café until the 3am bus to the airport. I was exhausted from a full day of running around the city and the brother told me to just go lay down in one of the rooms for a couple hours, that he would wake me at 2am when it was time to leave to go catch my bus. So nice! I don’t know, maybe I’ve been living in New York and Paris too long, but how often does stuff like that happen?

Bagpipes & kilts?

2009-08-20T09:21:00.000+02:00

I'm off to Edinburgh today! Why I absolutely love living in Europe: my Ryan Air flight was only 20 Euros roundtrip. I can't even get from New York to DC for that price. Granted I’m flying at the craziest hours, but no matter. I’m going to SCOTLAND! August is apparently the most exciting time to be in Edinburgh (though its supposed to rain every day) because of the International Festival going on all month. Including The Fringe, which I am VERY much looking forward to. Will post pictures upon my return.

PS… I have only 2 visa pages left in my passport (which I got in 2005) so I have to order more. For some reason that fact makes me blissfully happy! :)

Giverny

2009-08-18T10:37:00.007+02:00

About two weeks ago I was having dinner chez E and she suggested going on a daytrip. E is from Amsterdam, her parents have a home in Ardeché and her fiancés parents have a home near Marseille. Outside of those two places (and Il-de-France of course), she hasn’t visited much of the country. Never one to pass up an opportunity to travel, I told her I would be happy to join her. We settled on Giverny, which was close enough for easy access but far enough to be a relaxing reprieve from city life.

We took a 9am train from Paris to Vernon, 1 hour northwest in (or near?) Normandy. From there, we stopped by a grocery store to pick up food for lunch, rented bikes (12 Euros) and biked about 30 minutes through the countryside to the tiny village of Giverny.

When we arrived around 11am, the line to enter Monet’s house and gardens was already long so we decided to find a place to picnic first. Then we went to see the Monet family gravesite at the village church, followed by a cup of coffee on the patio of a nearby café before heading back to Monet’s house. 40 minutes later (and that was a short wait, let me tell you) we were wandering around the most stunning garden I’ve ever seen, words can’t even begin to describe it. The smell of the flowers alone was incredible. The colors were stunning. The grounds are bursting with fruit trees and plants, flowers of every type, color and height. You literally feel as if you’ve stepped into one of Monet’s paintings.
My favorite place on the grounds was the Japanese water garden.

Weeping willows, bright green bridges and water lilies floating in the pond Monet designed. Wandering through the little pathways and over the bridges reminded me of how I felt reading my favorite book as a child, The Doll in the Garden.

The house Monet lived in with his family was also open to the public so we were able to wander through the rooms, see the beds they slept in, the books they read, the kitchen they cooked their meals in. They even had family photos and wedding certificates displayed around the house. Everything was impressively preserved (no pictures allowed inside unfortunately).

After leaving the house, we wandered onto a little side street, sat on a bench under a tree to eat a snack and imagine what life must be like living in such a sleepy little village. Surprisingly, even with all the tourists flocking to Monet’s house, the rest of the village was very quiet and peaceful. We hung out for a bit before climbing back on our bikes to catch the 6:30pm train back to Paris. Giverny is definitely one of the most picturesque cities I've visited in France, and worth the trip.

The ex, continued...

2009-08-16T19:29:00.001+02:00

The final part of The Ex saga, read Part 1 here.

I get back to my apt and my mind is running wild with ideas about where he is and what he’s doing. So naturally, I decide to spend the next HOUR calling his house (his cell had been out of commission for a few days) getting angrier and angrier as the minutes tick by (Lord only knows what possessed me to do this—after the 3^rd or 4^th call you would think a girl would give up and go to sleep). Finally, at 3am, he picks up—tentatively, surprised to be getting a call at such a late hour. And do you know I let the poor boy have it? Thoroughly cursed his ass out. Where were you?! I was knocking on your door at 2am and you weren’t home!! Were you with HER?! On and on in that vein, things that make me cringe to remember so I won’t repeat here. Sigh. The funny thing is, I’m normally very nice and calm. To the point where my friends get surprised when they hear me say a curse word. But when I get mad (which is so rare people often ask if I ever get upset about anything), it’s not pretty.

Anyway, I’m going off for a solid 3 minutes while poor B just tries to get a word in edgewise. Finally he breaks in and says, “Wait a minute! I don’t HAVE to tell you where I’ve been. I don’t owe you anything”. And that simple (and very true) statement stopped me in my tracks… Oh. Right. He’s not my boyfriend. Why am I so upset?

And then he quietly says, “Stacy, what are you doing to me? YOU left ME. What do you want from me? You know I’m in love with you and if you just said the word I would leave this girl and be with you right now.” To be honest, hearing him say that he still loves me and knowing that this “other woman” has not replaced me was a little comforting. On the flip side, I felt guilty for being so selfish b/c I do want him to be happy. But what happens when he does meet “the one”. His next great love? The woman he’s going to marry? How will I feel then?

I had to stop and ask myself what I really want here. It hurts me to know he’s with someone else so maybe that means we should get back together. But is that just jealousy talking or genuine feelings? Last week B’s friend was driving me home and asked about B and I. And then he warned me, “I had to be around him all those months after you left. He was in really bad shape”. And I know I absolutely cannot do that to him a second time. So we spoke, finally had that heartbreaking heart-to-heart. And in the end, we acknowledged the fact that I am here for just a short time and there’s no point in starting something up again that I have no intention of seeing through. It just isn’t fair to either one of us.

I don’t know why I thought we could keep the friendship part without any fear that the romantic part would rear its little head. Is it true that lovers can’t be friends? Or maybe it was just too soon for B and I—maybe we didn’t give each other enough time to forget before we started speaking again. The thing is, while the thought of no longer speaking to him makes my heart drop, I don’t think we should be together. I’m at a point in my life where I’m ready to meet “the one” (ironically, because of B and all that I learned after being in our relationship with all its amazing ups and downs). And while I could blissfully enjoy much more time with B, the thought of getting married and having babies is very real for me and you don’t get there by devoting years of your life to a man you don’t see a future with.

The problem remains that I love him. Simply and completely and I believe that I will love him for the rest of my life. But I don’t think I’m IN love with him any longer. I don’t know what any of that means, if it’s a normal process and these feelings will also pass in time. Or if its a lifelong scar we're meant to carry with us when an epic romance ends... the whole business is confusing. In any case, B left for a 3-week vacation (Spain, Italy, Hungry and Germany) so it gives me a bit of time to clear my head about the whole matter. It’s been nearly 2 weeks and I've missed him since he’s been away. Maybe its innocent, like you would miss any friend you see often; maybe it’s more than that. I honestly don’t know.

One thing I do know is that a big mistake people make in love is that they forget that you have to use your head too, not just your heart. And my head is telling me to move on—however painful, there is someone out there who will make it easy for me to walk away from B. But how do you ever forget the one who took your heart first?

About that date...

2009-08-15T00:50:00.006+02:00

Just a word that I didn’t end up going on the date with Morocco the other night. I got an email from a friend inviting me to join her and her coworkers for an improptu picnic at Invalides that evening. That sounded like much more fun (and it was! I love meeting new people... funny that it always ends up being expat girls and their French husbands) so I texted him and told him that something came up.

The next morning I received this via text message:

Fitting, considering we met in a flower stall J

I know he leaves for vacation this weekend so I guess that’s that. Can’t say I’m too disappointed so that tells you how excited I was about that guy. I guess this means I need to get out there and find myself a real first date!

The ex

2009-08-12T00:20:00.002+02:00

This is going to be in two parts because it turned out to be pretty long… sorry, I ramble.

Normally I think I’ve got my sh*t together when it comes to relationships—I’m definitely not the jealous type, I don’t need or want to be all up in your face every second of the day, I believe in having my life, you have yours, etc. But last week I sort of lost it. Sigh.

Let me start at the beginning…

B and I have kept in steady contact since I left Paris last September. He came to see me in New York twice, I went to visit him for his birthday in Paris this past February. And in between, we would email a couple times a week, plus have a Skype date almost every Sunday morning. It wasn’t that we were trying to have a long distance relationship, we just happen to still care about each other and wanted to keep up-to-date on what was happening in each other’s lives. Careful not to mention any new romantic relationships of course. After my heart had time to heal a bit (which it did! With the help of good friends. But such a surprise b/c at the time I was sure I would drop dead on the spot from the heartache) I began to think that this was all for the best. As much as I love B, there are a couple of fundamental disagreements we have about life (most importantly the religion thing) that I don’t know if I can look past. But I do believe that he came into my life for a reason— maybe to teach me what love is, to learn how to be a little less selfish, to figure out exactly what I need from my life partner, to learn to see myself through his eyes (what woman doesn't want to look into a man's eyes and know that he finds you 100% beautiful & desirable & amazing? Even on your worst days)... who knows.

Sidenote: my mother is in LOVE with B and finds every opportunity to tell me I’m making the biggest mistake of my life (ironically she was in a similar situation and says she doesn’t want it to happen to me: she broke up with her first love b/c she thought he wasn’t “the one” and married my dad. After they got divorced she reconnected with her first love. They’ve been married for almost 20 years now)—I keep telling her she should marry B then :)

Anyway, when I flew back to Paris the first (only) person I thought of to help me with my heavy bags was B. He left work to come all the way across town to help me carry my 4 bags from the train station up 4 flights of stairs to my new apt. The next day we met up for dinner and drinks with a couple of his friends. And the following night I had a dinner date with my Dutch girlfriend E (the one I met through The Rocker a couple years back. I’m in town for her wedding in the South, among other things) who happens to live about a 10-minute walk from B’s apartment. By the time I finally left her apt, it was pretty late so I called B to ask if I could crash at his place for the night and he said yes. We were chatting well into the night and he suddenly mentioned something that made my heart stop: he’s seeing someone. Apparently it’s a girl he knows from his Tuesday night acting class, they started seeing each other three weeks ago. He felt guilty and said he would have to tell her what just happened between us (it wasn’t that much, let me assure you. Though a little more friendly than friends ought to be—lol, I was a bit tipsy from the wine, sue me). Well that just pissed me off. Irrational, I know, but how is it that I have to acquiesce to some random jump off who just popped into the picture two seconds ago? As if I could ever be "the other woman" with a man who was mine to begin with (yes, I know how that sounds. But this is how I felt at the time). I didn't think it would affect me to know that he's seeing someone. He's a good looking guy, I'm sure he's been dating. But for him to actually mention someone to me? Must be more serious than he's letting on. I tried to grill him for details about the girl (I’ve always been a bit masochistic) but he wouldn’t talk, only to swear that it really wasn’t that serious. Fine.

So a couple of days later, my Dutch friend E and I decided to take a day trip to Giverny (gorgeous but more on that later). We made it back to Paris in time to meet E’s friends at the Cinema en Plein Air screening of Mulholland Drive at Parc de la Villette. It’s an outdoor film series the city puts on for a few weeks during the summer. Everyone lays out their blankets with food and wine and watches a movie under the stars. Since it ended after midnight the trains had already stopped running so E’s friends drove us back to her house in the 17^th. Of course I figured I would just spend the night at B’s instead of trying to find a cab to take me home so I said goodbye and started walking over… Lord only knows what made me think that I can just pop over to B’s house any time I darn well please, no warning whatsoever. I knock on his door, no answer. It’s a weeknight, where the fu*k is he? Then it hits me: It's Tuesday. Acting class. With HER. Mind you, it was 2am at this point and his acting class lets out around 9:30-10pm… all I could think was, “Aw, HELL no!” I am heated and all sense of reason just flew out the window. I went back outside and flagged down a cab to take me home, fuming the entire time. Folks, it’s not my fault (ok, maybe it is, but this was SO unlike me so please forgive). I’m ashamed to say what happened next…

A date

2009-08-09T21:23:00.011+02:00

I stayed at a friend’s place in the 17th last week (a lovely apt in a very posh neighborhood near the Champs Elysees) so this morning I decided to stop by the farmer’s market across the street to restock her fridge and pick up some flowers as a thank you. While I was looking at the flowers, a guy working at one of the stalls came over, plucked a rose out of one of the arrangements and handed it to me. He was cute (Moroccan, around 30-35 years old, medium height/build) but I didn’t really think anything of it. While he was flirting, the florist started laughing as he wrapped my bouquet and said, “You have to be careful while you’re in Paris! We’re French men after all”. Then the florist asked Morocco for 1 Euro for the rose he gave me and he handed it to him saying, "That's no problem, she's worth millions more".

I went over to his stall next to find some fruits and he asked me to sit and chat with him. I was meeting friends for brunch and told him I had to run. And just then, a couple came to purchase something and he had a cute convo—very sweet, friendly, funny (I’m a sucker for funny guys). So when he asked for my number, though I had planned to say no, I gave it to him. Ok, I may be being naive but I figure it couldn’t hurt to go out with the guy once (though I do know that the term "dating" doesn't really exist in French, either you're with someone or you aren't). If I don't feel any sparks he could be an interesting person to know, someone to practice my French with and expand my social circle. Or I won't ever see him again. Anyway, he just called and asked me out for drinks tonight but I declined. So he asked if he could take me to dinner at Lido this Wednesday. I said ok but now I’m having second thoughts.

The dilemma is, will he expect something from me simply because he’s taking me out (Lord knows I can’t afford to drop that kind of money in my unemployed state)? I have heard horror stories about dating in Paris (i.e. men think buying you a drink/dinner buys them a free pass into your pants, they get angry if you simply say thank you at the end of the night, etc) but considering I met B so soon after I arrived, I didn’t really have a chance to experience "French dating". So what to do? Do I let Morocco take me to Lido (wait - is a cabaret too provocative for a first date anyway)? Should I suggest we just go someplace for drinks so I can pay my way (I personally don't believe in paying for the first date but considering that I’m not really interested and don't know dating protocol, maybe that's playing it safe)? Or maybe I’m over thinking this whole thing. After all, its just a date right?

Sigh.

Je suis arrive

2009-08-08T17:42:00.005+02:00

It’s a trip being back in Paris the second time around. It’s August so the city is relatively quiet, aside from the tourists traipsing around the Louvre. I’m living near Gare du Nord (a sketchy but central part of town) in an amazing 4-bedroom apartment with 3 guys. It was my girlfriend AC’s place until she moved in with her boyfriend. She needed someone to take over her room for a month until her lease ran out and thankfully the timing worked in my favor. I’ve got the room until Sept 5^th when AC’s friend comes back from holiday in Cambodia and moves into the apt. My roomies are cool—I’ve met 2 of the 3 guys so far. One is away on vacation. One left for 2 weeks in Israel and Greece a couple days after I arrived. But the third guy is absolutely adorable. I can’t tell if he’s gay or straight (European men, figures) but the first thing he said to me was that he was really excited that I moved in because he loved Americans and was looking forward to practicing his English. So he’s been sticking his head in my room for a little chat every night and sending me cute text messages during the day in his broken English.

(the building foyer)

The apartment is quintessentially French—a 19^th century Haussmann building with lots of dark creaky wood, tall ceilings, massive windows and huge heavy doors. A big change from the tiny chambre de bonne (which I adored) I lived in last year. Granted, I haven’t had a roommate since college (let alone a group of messy boys) so its been a bit of an adjustment but I always did enjoy being out of my element.

And how am I feeling about being back? It’s hard to describe exactly. On one hand I can’t say that Paris is my “forever home”, though I deeply love this city. But being here in this place, in this moment, I feel at peace. I sleep in. Go for walks. Meet friends for a glass of wine in the afternoon that stretches into the evening. Read books along the Seine. Host dinner parties in my apartment. Sit in cafes with free wifi and surf the internet. Window shop. Go to free concerts and movies in the park. Make new friends... I’m simply living. And I don’t feel that cloud of guilt and shame that hangs over your head in a city like New York. After a few weeks of being jobless, I was just plain sick and tired of people asking, “So when are you going back to work? What are you going to do with your life? Have you lost your mind?”

Honestly? Is it so unusual that after 8 years of climbing the corporate ladder I’ve decided to chuck Plan A and try something new? When I tell people in France that I quit my job and am spending the next couple months hanging out in Europe while I figure out what I want to do, they just nod and carry on, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. There is no judgment, only the understanding that your 20s are a time for learning and exploration. Sometimes the path is straight (where's the fun in that?); other times its not and it leads you to places you would never have imagined. The French seem to understand and for that I am grateful.

Recently I came upon a quote by Rilke that I found appropriate:

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.”

For now, I’m just going to enjoy living the question.

Paris, Part 2

2009-04-19T03:31:00.001+02:00

Today I purchased a one-way ticket back to Paris. It was impulsive but as soon as I clicked “Confirm” it just felt right. I don’t know how long I’ll be there this time, it could be a month or a year, but I am beyond thrilled.
I moved back to New York in October and have spent the last 6 months keeping up with France news, reading tons of expat blogs, going to French social parties and just daydreaming about Paris. I’m still only halfway unpacked, living out of suitcases and have hesitated to buy new furniture for my apt—I just had this feeling that New York was a temporary pit stop and there was no need to replant roots only to leave again. I didn’t know how or when I would go back, whether I was simply feeling nostalgic or if it was just a case of wanderlust, but this feeling in my gut wouldn’t go away.
I went to Paris in February for a 10-day vacation that went by way too fast. Then 3 weeks ago I quit my job (yes, I know it’s a recession), unable to reconcile the fact that after following my dream of moving to Paris, I came back to the States only to go through the motions at a job that I hated; living a mundane, unauthentic life for the sake of a paycheck. I was unhappy. I barely recognized myself and could no longer justify living less than my best life so I resigned with the intent to pursue my passions.
Today I met up with a couple of girlfriends for a fabulous afternoon of champagne in Central Park. When I got home I did my routine flight search and was surprised to find a ridiculously cheap one-way ticket to Paris (last week tickets were around $800) and bought it before I could think of reasons not to. I’ll be back at the end of July.
And at this point, I don’t have all the answers. I know I may seem irresponsible and flighty, but I just don’t care. I’m tired of listening to all the naysayers and the people who think I should be focusing on climbing back up that corporate ladder I left behind 2 years ago. Personally, I think its time I started listening to what my heart has to say. Paris has wooed me again—I don’t know for how long but I’m willing to go back for Round 2. New York isn’t going anywhere, jobs will come and go but I don’t have forever to make “selfish” choices like this so why not do it now before its too late? Stay tuned…

The Break Up

2008-09-17T17:35:00.002+02:00

B and I are officially over. It’s an ending I knew was coming, one that I had even thought about instigating on a few occasions, and yet, the heartache I feel is enormous and very painful. I left Paris on September 1st and it was a very difficult goodbye. Though most of my friends had already left the city in the months leading up to summer, I was still clinging to all of the wonderful memories I had there over the past year. The last time I punched in the code for B’s apartment building, walked up the 101 steps to my apartment, bought a baguette at the Boulanger… it was so hard to grasp the fact that my Parisian adventure was coming to an end. Not to mention the fact that my relationship would shortly be coming to an end as well…
B took me to the airport that Monday morning and reminded me that he would be seeing me in just three days. Turns out B’s friend, who works for Air France, had a flight scheduled to NYC and would be able to get B on the flight practically for free. B would spend 5 days in New York and 5 in Maryland and we would make the most of our last days together. But the reality of our looming fate caused a lot of tension between us and we spent much of his trip arguing, until we were able to talk it out and fully acknowledge our sadness.
On September 14th, I drove B to the airport to catch his flight back to Paris. There was a problem with his reservation and the airline wouldn’t be able to get him on a flight till the next afternoon—the same day my mom and I were scheduled to fly down to Florida for a week to house hunt and visit a family friend. I was so happy we would have one more day together but since my folks would be with us at the airport the next day, we decided to say goodbye beforehand and stayed up late into the night, spilling out all the things that we didn’t want left unsaid. So on Monday afternoon (exactly 11 months and 6 days after our first date) our goodbye was brief and as we hugged each other for the last time, B whispered into my ear, “I’m coming back for you…”, got back into the car, blew me a kiss and drove away.
And just like that it was over. The thing is they don’t tell you it would be like this… the grief that weighs so heavily on your heart, the days that seem to drag on and on, the nights spent alternately praying for sleep because you’re so mentally and physically exhausted, and praying for morning so you don’t have to lie awake in a cold empty bed thinking about the man who’s no longer a part of your life. It hurts not being able to call him, ask about his day, talk to him about mine. And the saddest part is knowing I no longer have the right to.
But on top of it all, I just feel shame. Shame for being so devastated and helpless over something as “trivial” as a breakup. People go through it all the time, hell, they go through worse all the time. It’s not like anyone died. It’s only the end of a love affair, and one that I was going to end one day anyway. So what’s with all the melodrama? (It reminds me of the weeks after 9/11 and how I just felt so distraught; I refused to leave the city but all I could do was cry and sleep. And I hated myself for being that way because I didn’t truly have the right. I was one of the lucky New Yorkers, I didn’t know anyone who died in those Towers, it didn’t touch my life the way it did thousands of other people. And yet, the grief consumed me for weeks on end).
So now, all I do is cry. I never knew I would feel this physical weight of sadness over ending things with B. Its like I'm walking around in a fog and everything has lost its meaning and importance, I don’t feel up for doing anything at all. I’ll be ok for about 30 minutes, maybe an hour, and suddenly something reminds me of him and my throat closes up again. No more slow dancing in his living room, no more singing made-up songs to each other, no more staying up late at night telling stories, no more excursions around Paris and France and Europe, no more silly jokes… I’ll miss him looking into my eyes and telling me I’m beautiful, I’ll miss arguing with him to put on a pair of dress shoes instead of his beat-up Converse sneakers, I’ll miss his hugs…
The craziest part of the whole thing is that our breakup is simply due to the fact that we are now living on different continents. There was no fight, no cheating, no boredom, no loss of love, none of the typical reasons that relationships end. It just so happened that it was my time to leave Paris but not quite his. And although I don’t think this is the person God intended me to spend the rest of my life with, I wasn’t ready to give him up just yet. But that’s also the reason why I’m trying to steel myself to this pain. Because in time, I know it will pass and I’ll be happy in the decision that we made to go our separate ways. As much as I miss him now, I know it will get easier. And one day, hopefully, we’ll be good friends and learn how to be an important part of each other’s lives in a new way. But for now I suffer and try to go on the best way I know how. And I just pray to God for the strength to get through the days and for help to carry this new burden. They say you never get over your first love…

Charity

2008-09-02T18:33:00.000+02:00

As usual, I'm a million years late updating this thing about my Habitat for Humanity trip. But since I want to document this experience, we’ll pretend that I actually wrote this back in August like I should have :o)

One of the things I wanted to do while living abroad was some type of global humanitarian work. I found the perfect opportunity when a friend brought me to an H4H meeting with her. I joined the Habitat for Humanity chapter at American Church of Paris and we spent close to a year doing a bunch of fundraising activities that would allow us to send a team to Macedonia to build a home for a family in need—bake sales, concerts, raffles, silent auctions, you name it. By the summer we had raised 10,000€ and 12 of us were off to Veles, Macedonia for two weeks in August.

As excited as I was about the mission, the trip would take a huge chunk of time out of the last few days I had left to spend with B—something that never crossed my mind when I first signed up as a single girl who had recently met a cute French boy. But by August, the clock was quickly winding down so I was feeling especially sad about having to be parted from him for 2 whole weeks.

After about 10 hours of travel and a 6-hour layover in Belgrade (we went to the city center to see a bit of the town—nothing much to report), we finally arrived in Skopje late at night and were picked up by our local driver to go to the hotel… and I use the term “hotel” loosely. What we walked into was the most run-down, depressing, dirty, ancient place I had ever seen—and, naturally, the only hotel in the village. When they led us down the dark corridor to our room, it reminded me of a scene from a horror movie and I had to fight the urge to turn around and head right back to the airport. The room was no better: two stained twin-sized cots with moldy, itchy blankets over them, a couple of rickety nightstands, thin washcloth sized sheets for towels, sheets strung up as curtains to only halfway cover our street-level window and the luxury of all luxuries: a floor fan. With the weather getting up to 120 degrees in the shade, the fan would turn out to be a welcome friend in the days to come. Thankfully, I was rooming with my good friend Temi who is not only a good sport (much better than me I admit) but absolutely hilarious as well—she’s English, I think they’re just born that way. She made the situation bearable with her endless jokes about our bug infested bathroom (with no shower curtain, a shower head with a mind of its own, a toilet that only flushed on good days, a tub so high you practically needed a step stool to climb in, no ceiling and water that you had to let run for 5 minutes before it would heat up) and the dusty town and its inhabitants and playfully suggest that we call a cab to sneak us to the airport in the middle of the night so our group wouldn’t know we were missing till sunrise, by which time we’d be well on our way back to Paris. I literally got a headache every night from laughing so hard, as she kept me up till midnight to gossip, share stories about our boyfriends and joke about our pitiful state.

So when we reported to work on the first day, it was a big shock to all of us to find out that we were not building a home for an underprivileged family. Instead, we were adding an addition (3 floors, 2 extra bedrooms and a couple of living spaces) to the already nice home of a family who wanted to expand. To say it was a disappointment is an understatement. I had all these grand illusions of saving some poor family from destitution—moving them out of their run-down dwellings, possibly even giving them indoor plumbing for the first time. And by the looks of the village, there were certainly families who fit the bill. But for one reason or another, we were given this case and we were to spend the next two weeks working on expanding a home for this mystery family.

Two days before the end of the mission, the heat, lack of nutrients (you pretty much get a choice of cow or pig in Eastern Europe) and the physical labor just took its toll on me (imagine carrying big pieces of rock and buckets filled with cement up and down stairs for 8 hours a day with few breaks—we’re talking serious sh*t here) and I nearly collapsed—I was vomiting and felt dizzy and lightheaded. I had to be taken back to the hotel to rest for the last two days.

The highlight of the trip a weekend holiday at Lake Ohrid where we actually had real beds with clean sheets, AC and TV… we were so thrilled by the luxury we stayed inside blasting the AC, wrapped up in the comfy bed, watching CNN.

Oh, I forgot to mention the fact that myself and the 4 other black girls on the trip caused quite the commotion. Everywhere we went, people would stop us to take pictures, ask us to hold their babies, want to touch us, talk to us or secretly snap us with their camera phones as we walked by. It was kind of amusing at first—I was used to blatant staring after traveling around Europe—but when it became situations where an entire restaurant would fall silent to stop and stare and it went on day after day for two entire weeks, it started to get a bit annoying. We couldn’t go anywhere without having our picture taken—and when one person asked for a picture, soon a mob would form around us and everyone wanted a picture. A guy in a shop in Veles even stopped us in the street to say he saw us in Ohrid the weekend before—keep in mind, Ohrid is 3 hours away from Veles. It was absolute insanity (and funny too, looking back now).

On the flip side, there was the night we went to dinner and got accosted by 15 kids (ranging in age from 5-12) there for a birthday party. They started singing "Happy Birthday" in English and we loudly joined in from across the restaurant. Afterward, they shyly came over to our table and started asking us 101 questions—and collapsing into giggles every time we responded in English. Later they sang and danced traditional Macedonian dances for us until their parents finally pulled them away. There's something about the pure innocence and curiosity of children that is just so adorable.

But for two weeks, I’ll say I endured. I complained every step of the way, about the bugs and the heat, about the difficulty of the work, about the fact that the home we were building wasn’t the kind of mission project I had envisioned, about the terrible accommodations, about the lack of privacy, about the building professionals who were supposed to be helping and supervising but instead, spent their time joking with each other and smoking cigarettes.

Its not until weeks later that I realize what a snobby bit*h I was—I was whiny and angry and disappointed and felt that the work was beneath me—why did I have to build an addition for a family who lived in a nicer home than I did? I finally realized that it wasn’t about these other people at all. It was about doing the work that God had called on me to do.

More than anything, this trip was a lesson in humility. God puts obstacles in your way to help you grow and learn how to become better people. He wants you to do good deeds because you WANT to help, not for what you’ll get in return. And I admit, I wanted the feeling of satisfaction I’d feel when we helped a family climb out of poverty. When we drove past the slums with the barefoot Roma (gypsy) children running around piles of burning trash, the devil on my shoulder complained, “Why couldn’t we build a home for them instead? They need it more.” But I realize now that I was missing the point. Sure our family wasn’t destitute, but they expressed a need to H4H and our role was simply to perform our jobs, not to evaluate the family’s economic situation and judge whether or not we felt they were worthy. We were there to help—and to do it with a happy heart. You give with the best of intentions and can be happy about that, the rest is out of your hands.

And while I didn’t figure out most of this until I was nicely settled back into the comforts of America, I am grateful for the experience. I’m glad to have helped THIS particular family because it became a test of sorts, and allowed me to find yet another area in which I am flawed so that I can try to fix it. My actions prove I’m human and still have a lot to learn. That sometimes (or oftentimes, whatever) I take the wrong course of action, sometimes I can’t see the bigger picture and sometimes I do act ugly. But the fact that I was (finally) able to recognize this makes me feel at peace with myself and feel that I’m heading in the direction where God is trying to lead me. We’re all flawed and that’s ok—as long as we eventually wake up and realize where we’ve gone wrong and try our best not to make the same mistakes again, we’re not too far off track.

So, lesson learned; I will never volunteer to build a house ever again. Nonetheless, I’m happy I was able to experience this and participate in such a great program. I’ll gladly help with the fundraising efforts and all the pre-planning, but when they request a team to go out and fulfill the mission, next time I think I’ll kindly decline :o)

A Thin Line...

2008-07-27T12:04:00.010+02:00

Interesting situation of being surprised by the unthinkable coming true, life lessons, etc.
As mentioned, my cousin is in town visiting for 3 weeks—let’s call her Fox. It’s Saturday night and my neighbor friend asked if we could all go out for drinks. She had friends visiting from Tokyo and since she’s new to the city, she didn’t know where to go. So I took them all to Café Charbon and we chatted till around 1am, at which point the Japanese girls were tired and decided to call it a night. After leaving them, Fox and I went to my new favorite hangout (which happens to be across the street from my apt)—a divey little bar with a really nice, cute bartender, friendly hipster crowd, and a DJ who plays music way too loud and forces all the patrons to drink in mass out on the sidewalk. Around 1:45am I get a call from Grapes asking what I was up to. I told him I was having a drink and he responds, “Ok, I’ll see you in 45 seconds or 45 minutes”. He shows up about a minute later, just as the bar is closing. The bartender gives us VIP passes for Nouveau Casino so we head over, but decided to go back to Café Charbon and have drinks instead of going to the club.
And for the next couple of hours, Fox, Grapes and I are all laughing and joking, having a good time discussing everything from dating in Paris to being black in America. In typical Grapes fashion, he’s being inappropriate and crazy and I find it completely hilarious.
After a couple drinks, I excuse myself to go to the bathroom and when I came back what do I find: Fox and Grapes making out. Interesting... especially considering that she knows all the intricate details of the Grapes Saga and we’ve discussed the situation and my feelings ad nauseum… Oh, but it doesn’t end there folks. After the cloud of awkwardness lifts, we realize its 4:30am and probably a good time to head home. Fox makes a quick detour to the bathroom while Grapes and I wait outside. He’s giving me the funny eye and asking me if I’m angry. He’s all like, “Don’t be angry. You're the one with the boyfriend, blah blah blah” and gives me a hug. Naturally I laugh it off like it’s the biggest joke I ever heard, “Me angry? What for?”.
So we walk the 3 blocks back to my apartment while Grapes keeps asking me when I’m getting married and how B is doing. We reach my building and as I turn to walk inside Grapes is like, “Wait a minute. I want to take Fox for a little walk”. Oh really now? That little walk turned into the walk of shame when Fox stumbled in around 10am the next morning…
After leaving them I was pissed. I waited to hear her knock on the door so I could give her a piece of my mind. So I guess it’s a good thing she didn’t show up till the next morning b/c it gave me some breathing room to gain a bit of perspective (don't get me wrong, I'm still annoyed. Just not in the neck-roll, curse a bitch out kinda way).
Thing is, it’s not even like Grapes held any real significance for me, it’s more the principal of the situation. I guess part of it is that I’ve been enjoying this little flirtatious dance we’ve been doing for the past year. The other part could be chalked up to simple wounded pride with a little slice of betrayal thrown in for good measure. I mean, my cousin? Really? Grapes is the type to screw a random girl every night, I get that and it doesn’t faze me in the least. But in all honestly, where do friends/family draw the line on what is acceptable? When is a guy off limits? Are you allowed to lay claim to someone else when you already have a boyfriend? Personally, I think a friend should respect the line. If said guy is potential boyfriend material, then by all means go for it and see what could develop (I’ve had a friend who ended up marrying her friend’s ex-boyfriend)—you’re allowed a free pass and true romance wins out over a little crush. But hurt your family for a casual fu*k? Low blow. There are too many random guys you could pick up instead for that to be ok.
Oh well. On the flip side, at least now I can stop entertaining any silly delusions about what could be…

Paris or Bust

2008-07-23T12:44:00.000+02:00

Not sure if you heard the story of Jessica Roy, the NYU student and aspiring writer who jumped ship and moved to Paris when she realized that the real world was not a bowl of ice cream. Her story is very similar to mine, and for much of the same reasons I fled to Paris hoping to escape the drama that is New York and touch down on normal ground again. I remember my magazine days and how I worked my ass off in the naive expectation that hard work would be rewarded accordingly. I later learned that its not good work that pays off—its kissing ass, flaunting the millionaire boyfriend, hinting about your eating disorder and having your hair dyed the perfect shade of blond that gets you the steady promotions. I was fed up, itching for an adventure and dying to live in the lovely city of Paris where life seemed so much sweeter.

Excerpt from Jessica Roy's blog:

It is, unfortunately, not enough to be honest in this city. I will not give blowjobs for bylines. I will not laugh at peoples' unfunny jokes because I want them to be impressed by me. I will not become someone else so that I can be absorbed into this elite, nefarious world where people trade intellect like currency … I am getting out of New York for awhile, from August-January … New York is not a place for serious people. And it's a terrible place for an honest writer.

A response from New York magazine:

And so Jessica Roy will depart for a semester abroad in Paris in September. She will continue to maintain her blog — which will probably become wildly popular and, upon her return, she'll be owning these godforsaken media parties. Hang in, little one. Paris is a good place to get just jaded enough to come back to this town and run the show.

And funny enough, the New York writer also summed me up exactly. It made me smile to think that this is where I was just a short time ago and I've now reached the point that this author is foretelling for Jessica. I've spent a year writing, loving, learning and growing and I hope this young girl finds whatever it is she's looking for—I certainly did. My time abroad is nearly over, the rust has worn off and I'm ready to take back my city.

Black Issue My As*...

2008-07-20T13:16:00.007+02:00

(Photo: Steven Meisel for Italian Vogue)

Like everyone else, I was really excited about the prospect of an “All Black” issue of a mainstream fashion magazine. And for it to be Vogue of all books—one of the most respected pubs in the industry and one that is least likely to feature black faces in their pages—was a big plus. After searching the newsstands in vain for a few weeks I finally found a sole issue remaining on the shelf of my local shop. I quickly tore open the package (I do love how international magazines always come with a little gift) and started slowly turning the pages… umm... I was really confused. For every one editorial page featuring a black model there are 20 pages of advertising featuring all white models. I had to stop and flip through the entire thing to make sure there wasn’t some mistake—surely there must be ads featuring black models, maybe towards the end of the book… nope. I think I counted a grand total of two ads, and they were for nondescript brands.
I’m sorry. Wasn’t the whole point of this issue to alleviate the discrepancy between black and white women in fashion magazines? To show that a black face can sell pages, products, a lifestyle, just as well as (if not better than) her white counterpart? Sure, Vogue Italia couldn’t force their advertisers to shoot black models for their campaigns but couldn’t they have positioned those ads featuring black models within the coveted cover spots or far forward placements? Couldn’t advertisers, considering that this particular issue would be read by a huge proportion of black women, have pulled an ethnic face from their repertoire? A Latina, Asian girl, something! Campaigns are shot months in advance; did none of these brands feature a single black model in their entire summer/fall shoot??
The thing is, its not like readers are just flipping through the articles and ignoring the advertising (how many of us who purchased the issue are fluent in Italian anyway? And there aren't that many black women in Italy). The reason advertisers spend millions of dollars on a page of advertising is because they expect that ad to turn into millions in retail sales. But at the end of the day, the cold hard reality is that fashion brands still do not feel that a black girl can represent their brand to the masses.
Personally, I feel like this was all just a big publicity stunt for Vogue Italia. They’re selling the issue like hotcakes (and the July issue isn’t normally a huge seller for magazines in general), getting tons of press and are being toted as the magazine that is bridging the divide. But when they were laying out the pages for the issue, I’d like to know what the discussion was when they saw hardly a single black girl in an ad in their so-called black issue. Granted, I can’t read the articles so there could be some very profound content within the pages, but visually speaking, the obvious discrimination only screams that much louder against a backdrop of black girl editorial. Its a beautiful issue nonetheless and I appreciate the effort. Its a step in the right direction, but until black readers can really see themselves represented throughout a magazine—including in the moneymaker—it’s simply not enough.
At the end of the day, having a fashion spread in Vogue is great, but having a multi-million dollar contract as the face of Dior is just a little bit better, don’t you think?

Bastille Day

2008-07-16T13:06:00.000+02:00

Spent 3 lovely days in the middle of the French countryside to celebrate Bastille Day– which was a big departure from my normal ritual of having drinks at a French restaurant on the LES with a bunch of French expats. A friend of B’s has a huge old country home in Corréze, a tiny little town about 5.5 hours southwest of Paris, and invited 3 couples (along with my cousin and another friend) to drive down for a relaxing few days. We drove down on Friday night, arriving around 5am and crashed till the afternoon. On Saturday, we spent the day lounging on the terrace, playing table tennis in the backyard, eating and drinking local wines and wandering around the river and the little town square.

On Sunday, we went to visit an old underground cave. Don’t ask me what that was about—the entire tour was in French and I had no idea what they were saying so I just sat in the little boat and took in the pretty scenery. But it was packed and we waited a good hour or so to get in—so apparently it was a really popular site. On Monday morning, B, one of his friends and I woke up early, took out the bikes and did a tour of the gorgeous countryside.

We got back to the house and the whole group rented canoes and went canoeing down the river. It was a 2 hour trip from top to bottom and not without its snags. At one point, the boys stopped to climb to the top of a bridge and fling themselves into the river (I had keep my mouth shut on that one, can’t be embarrassing B in front of his “boys”). Then, about halfway down the river my canoe (with my cousin and a guy friend of B’s) had a little mishap and veered off into the trees and bushes that were hanging down into the river. When we finally managed to untangle ourselves, we found our boat covered with spiders and bugs! They were just crawling all over us! My cousin was freaking out big-time so that got me laughing, but then I kept seeing spiders all around me and since I couldn’t very well jump out of the canoe into the river, all I could do was scream and cry. Meanwhile, the guy in the canoe is cracking up at our freak out so he isn’t helping, B is calmly rowing off down the river b/c he’s used to my bug-phobia, and the rest of the group is just looking at us like we were a couple of crazies. Sorry folks, I just don’t do bugs and spiders. It grosses me out. Funny enough, before we left on the trip, the guy who owns the house asked B, “Is Stacy going to be ok out here? I know she’s a city girl…”. Well…

Finally, B rowed up beside our canoe and made a half hearted attempt to pull the spiders out of my hair while I tried to stay calm and act like I was still having a blast—in actuality, I was just waiting till the end of the stupid ride so I could go back to the house and scrub myself down in the shower. It was fun in the beginning but after the spider fiasco I was so through. Ugh… just thinking about it is giving me goosebumps… That evening, we had one final dinner before packing back into our cars and driving back to Paris. It was a really nice weekend… I got to know B’s friends better and spend 3 days in a part of France that I’ve never been before.

The funny part was the girlfriends. The entire trip, all they did was cook and clean while their boys sat around drinking and talking. Like literally, on their knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. And the cooked every meal from scratch—baking cakes, making crepes, eggs, pasta. And they did the dishes afterwards! And during every meal, they were just silent and let the boys do all the talking. They barely made a peep! My cousin and I just couldn’t get over it. You can’t put an American (or New York rather?) girl in a setting like that and expect her to play the mute little housewife. The only reason we didn’t contribute to the conversation much was because they were talking so fast and we couldn’t understand all the French slang. But the two French girlfriends had no excuse! And I’m sorry, I’ll wash a dish or two and maybe you can get me to toss a salad one night, but I’d be damned if I’m going to cook 3-course meals and clean every day while my man sits on his ass like some King. B may get a home-cooked meal once in a while, but we are going 50/50 on that sh*t. My cousin and I couldn’t stop laughing at the situation. After a feeble offer to help (which the girls promptly denied after we explained that we barely know how to boil water) we just sat outside drinking with the boys while the girls cooked. But I guess these girls are better than us, they sure do know how to take care of their men. Maybe that’s why French girls are never single…

I [Heart] NY

2008-07-05T14:08:00.004+02:00

B and I first started discussing New York about a month into our relationship but I never seriously thought we would make it to the point where we’d be taking a trip to my hometown together. I didn’t think we’d see out the month, let alone still be together 8 months later. Even when we bought our tickets (about 3 months in advance) I was thinking up a contingency plan after our inevitable breakup. Needless to say, 8 months came and went and we were soon off to spend 2 weeks in the States—10 days in New York (alternating between 2 friends’ apartments) with 5 days in Maryland in between to visit my parents. B’s excitement about New York was too cute. He lives and breathes hip hop and couldn’t wait to walk the streets of idols. He’s seen every New York-based movie and was determined to retrace the steps of his favorite films. He said to me, “After I see New York, I can die happy” and I remember having the same feeling once upon a time. My relationship with New York goes through waves and lulls—even with the conscious knowledge that I lived in the greatest city in the world, just as often as not, I felt fed up, exhausted, stressed out and annoyed with the place. I never walked across the Brooklyn Bridge or climbed to the top of the Empire State Building. I talked sh*t and complained about everything b/c that’s what we do. Sure, the view of the Manhattan skyline always made me smile, but I forgot about that particular giddy, child-like enthusiasm that the city can make you feel until B arrived and reminded me. I was excited to experience New York with him, to show him my world.
And we had the most amazing time. It was exhausting and way too short. We didn’t get to see everything I wanted to see/do, but B got a small taste of my amazing city and naturally, fell in love with it. I loved that he was so eager to go out and explore. To take it upon himself to wake up early to pickup donuts and coffee everyday for breakfast while I slept in. I loved his excitement at seeing an old-fashioned ice cream truck. I loved that he was so un-New York as to actually start conversations with strangers in the street from sheer curiosity.

And in Maryland was just chill. I let him sit in my favorite chair to watch TV, we hung out at the mall I spent my adolescence in, swam in the pool and just relaxed with old friends and family. And my mother ADORED him. Naturally, being the Haitian mother that she is, she showed her acceptance by trying to suffocate him with food every 2 seconds. But she noticed all the little things (his manners, how he takes care of me, how well he treats me) and said, “That’s a good man—you better not let him get away”.
Growing up as an only child, the only deep interactions I had with people who weren’t my blood family was with friends. As with many other people, my friends became my family. Granted, I have lots of friends and not all of them hold the same amount of weight as others, but each person is significant for one reason or another. So the biggest thing to me was being able to introduce the man I love to the people who matter the most to me—I wanted them to love him as much as I do.
But I forgot that at the end of the day, B is pretty shy. That he’s not Mr. Life of the Party around strangers and isn’t the easiest person to get to know. I forgot that in a group of Americans speaking rapid-fire English in a loud crowded bar he can’t always keep up. I didn’t know what would happen when I took B out of his element. I expected him to just be able to jump in, stand his ground and be instantly comfortable in the middle of the silly, familiar banter that I’d developed with people after years of friendship. And I mistakenly thought that my friends would instantly see in him what I see. And although people had a chance to meet him briefly, I didn’t give many people the chance to get to KNOW him one-on-one and therefore, it was hard for most of my friends to form an opinion about him. With me, he’s B. He’s not perfect and he drives me crazy at times. He tells stupid jokes. He insists on his jeans and t-shirts. He gets moody and sullen and French on me at times, but my heart still skips a beat when I see his face. He is sweet and adorably awkward, gentle and so fragile. Why God put us together is beyond me, but between him and me, it just works. B is just about my polar opposite but he makes me happy.
But does he fit into my world? At the end of this wonderful year in Paris, would I be able to pack him up, bring him to New York and seamlessly integrate him into my life? That is the big question I was left with. Maybe it’s not meant to be as simple as that, but for a girl who is rarely without her friends, I cannot imagine having to try to split my time between B and my friends b/c they don’t care to get along. My boyfriend and my friends—we have to ALL be one family. As deeply as I love a man, I could not give up my friends for any one person—and I don’t know if I could deal with him not loving them as much as I do.
On the flip side, I’m still evolving and growing. Oprah said she didn’t truly know who she was until she turned 50. This is my first real relationship so I’m still figuring out how things work. Add to that the fact that we fell in love under unique circumstances and I didn’t have the normal springboard of opinion from my friends from Day 1 (whether that is a good or bad thing is debatable). I don’t know if my concerns are valid or just a bunch of rubbish that doesn’t matter at the end of the day. About 8 weeks till I leave Paris (GOD!) so only time will tell…

What Pride?

2008-07-02T14:41:00.002+02:00

Back in March, B’s mother invited me to his goddaughter/niece’s baptism. Very exciting stuff considering it was a big family affair and she told B to let me know I was to be her “guest”. Then, about 2 weeks before his family was expected to arrive from LA, B gets a call from his brother informing him that the baptism would be strictly family—meaning I could not attend. What?! Why?? Did his parents not want me to attend? Did the family think I was just some random jump-off who wouldn’t last and didn’t want me in the pictures? Was it b/c I’m black? I couldn’t understand why I was suddenly excluded (particularly since I’d already been invited months ago) so of course I assumed the worst. B felt horrible about it and that made me feel worse than the withdrawn invite itself. But there was nothing he could do so I decided to spend the baptism weekend in the South of France with my expat friends who were leaving Paris the following week.
2 weeks later, B’s brother leaves his wife and her 2 sisters in Paris and heads to his parents house in Troyes with the baby. I was determined not to act stank so I made every effort to get to know the ladies and we actually ended up hitting it off. They were all really sweet and fun and I took them around to see the sights and hang with my friends as if they were my own guests.
On Friday, B and his sister-in-law left for a weekend in Troyes. By Sunday, B returns to Paris and tells me his brother said I could come to next weekend’s baptism after all—apparently he regretted saying I couldn’t attend and was really looking forward to meeting me. Very nice. But there was no way I was going to go after all of that drama—my pride wouldn’t let me. So I gave B my gift for the baby and told him to extend my apologies to the family for not being able to be there.
The next day B’s brother arrives in Paris. I wasn’t sure whether it would be awkward or not but it went off without a hitch. We chatted and laughed a lot and ended up hanging out a few times throughout the week. By this time, my trip down South had been cancelled so I planned to spend the weekend in Paris partying with my friends. Meanwhile, the whole group was heading to Troyes that evening and it was time to say my goodbyes since I would not be attending the baptism and they would be flying back to LA directly from Troyes the following week.
As I was saying goodbye, B’s brother said, “What do you have planned this weekend?”
Me: “Well my friends are leaving Paris this week so we’re having our farewell party”.
Brother: “What day? B/c we would really like you to come to the baptism on Sunday”.
Me: “Tonight… but we may get together Saturday night too”.
Brother: “Well you should join us tomorrow morning instead”.
Me: [Laughing] “I really don’t think your parents would like to see me hung over tomorrow”.
Brother: “True. Then you’ll just have to come in the afternoon once you’ve sobered up. Really, I insist”.
I was determined to stick my ground, not b/c I didn’t WANT to go, it was strictly on principal. In my mind, I didn’t want to be the girl waiting around with her weekend open, hoping for a last minute invite. But once his wife started chiming in I couldn’t say no any longer. Technically I didn’t have any plans and I couldn’t think of a valid excuse quick enough so I gave in.

There were about 30 aunts, uncles and cousins at the house and we spent all day Sunday drinking wine and champagne, eating delicious French food and talking (all in French) in the family’s garden. B’s brother announced to everyone that he was really impressed with my French. I did some translating for the in-laws who didn’t speak French/English. I even had a 30 minute convo with B’s aunt discussing my relationship and future plans with B. Late that evening, while B was driving me back to the train station, he told me that his family pulled him aside to tell him I was great and they were looking forward to seeing me again. Score! I was able to meet his family and finally put faces to names, be part of a significant family function for the first time ever and practice my French. And I actually managed to make a good impression despite my nervousness. So in the end, I’m really glad I decided to swallow my pride and go.

Sorry!

2008-07-01T17:38:00.000+02:00

I know I’ve been M.I.A. these last few weeks—that only means that I’ve been super busy and have lots more stories to share so please forgive me and please bear with me. First, I had another interesting encounter with B’s family which tested my humility. Then, B and I went off and spent 2 eye-opening weeks in New York and Maryland. And finally, we had the biggest, scariest fight we’ve ever had, over the blog. And I did think about shuttering the blog for good—it’s an awful feeling to know that you’ve hurt someone you love—but then I thought, this blog is for me. I started it with the intention of having a space where I could jot down my thoughts and feelings and document my life in what is proven to be one of the most significant years of my life. A space where I could share with friends my mistakes, triumphs, doubts, adventures and lessons learned in all of its “coming-of-age” glory (and folly). As the ex-Governor McGreevy said (in an entirely different context but whatev), “This is my truth” and what good is having a truth if you can’t express it. That being said, moving forward, I will be conscientious while still trying to remain completely accurate and true to myself :o)

Land of Lepricons

2008-05-13T16:42:00.005+02:00

Went to Dublin with my American friend Alejandra (from New Orleans) last weekend. We had yet another national holiday (what’s up with the French and their endless holidays… these people never work) so we decided to spend 2 days in Dublin to see how the other side lives—basically we just wanted to spend a girls weekend partying. Which we most certainly did… and never have I been as conscious of my age as I am now.

We arrived on Friday morning and I quickly realized that despite being a tiny city, in addition to having a pub every two steps (a local radio station actually had a contest to see if anyone could walk from Point A to Point B without passing a pub... no one could do it), Dublin has the very thing that make London such a great town—amazing shopping! They had The Office and Oasis, Boots and the crème de la crème: TOPSHOP… they even had a Wagamama, which is, hands down, the most delicious Asian fast food I have ever had in my life. I was in heaven.

So after lunch and an afternoon pint (the pubs were packed even at 2pm, gotta love the Irish!), Ali went to take a nap while I set out to hit the stores (who needs sleep when you can shop?). Its times like these when I really miss my girl Paula (we once had a 4-day, sun-up to sun-down shopping fest in London. By the end of it our bodies ached, our feet were literally swollen. We had to sit on our suitcases to close them and feared getting stopped by customs due to the sheer amount of things we bought. But we came back to the States with piles of delicious clothes/shoes) but I went at it alone, and even though I’m hopelessly poor these days, I walked away with a few cute summer dresses.

We were staying in a hostel and our 3^rd roomie was a Californian named Kristy who had been studying abroad in Florence for the last year. She was super sweet and traveling alone so we invited her to join us for “an easy night out”. We had dinner and then decided to stop by a pub on Temple Bar, the party street which was a block away from where we were staying. After the first pint, we decided to go to a second bar. Then walking out the door, we bumped into an Irish girl who told us we HAD to check out another bar (off Graffton St which is where the locals hangout)… we arrived at the 3^rd bar and spent the next 3 hours dancing with a group of Brits in town for a bachelor party—the DJ spinning everything from Britney Spears and 50 Cent to “Grease Lightning” and “New York, New York”. Funny what music sounds so “fantastic” when you’re drunk :o) At closing, the doorman gave us free tickets for the club across the street which was inside an old theater so we stayed there till closing an hour later. And as per usual, we needed junk food to end the night properly so we decided to stop at Burger King (I know, but you really get to miss American junk food living overseas), where Ali met an Irish guy who escorted us home around 5am.

The next day, we woke up at noon, hurting from the night before. We had planned to see the Guinness Factory regardless of our physical state, so we walked over, waited in line for over an hour to get in and have our tour, complete with a free pint of Guinness (meanwhile, at that point just the sight of beer made us nauseous). We got back around 5pm and fell into bed until it was time for our dinner reservation at Elephant & Castle, apparently one of Colin Ferrell’s favorites. After dinner we wanted to do something chill but since it was Saturday night (or simply b/c its Dublin?), everything was a huge, loud, packed party. So we went to bed at 11pm Saturday night like a couple of losers… granted our flight left at 7am the next morning but its odd to think that just a few years ago I could party till 5am six nights a week and feel fine, while now, one night will do me in… oh well. Dublin was a blast, very cool city with really nice people, but probably made more for the younger set. But after living in a crappy shopping city like Paris for so long (yes, it sucks unless you can afford Chanel and YSL), at least I had a chance to shop!

Kalimera!

2008-05-08T15:24:00.010+02:00

B and I had both been itching to leave Paris and go someplace warm and since I had Spring Break, we decided on a week in Greece (April 26-May 3). What I was worried about was the prospect of spending an entire extended holiday (7 days and nights) with this man for the first time...

Athens (1 day)
Flew into Athens on Saturday night, getting to our hotel around 2am. Being in Plaka, the city center and oldest/most popular neighborhood in Athens, it was easy to find. They gave us the best room (I use that term loosely, considering the hotel was totally budget) with a view of the Acropolis. Granted, you had to crane your neck to see it from the balcony, but we knew it was there. After dropping off our stuff, we went out to grab a bite to eat. We found the streets buzzing, even at that late hour, and had Mythos beers and my all-time favorite Greek snack, Spanakopita (a spinach & cheese filled pie). I was told that Athens isn’t the greatest city so we only planned one day there, just to see the Acropolis. Well, guess what? The one day we’re in town the Greeks up and decide to have Orthodox Easter—meaning every single thing in the city was closed. Including the Acropolis. Needless to say, we were bummed… we spent the day wandering the city, eating and drinking.

Santorini (3 days)
We booked economy class for our 7am ferry and grabbed the best seats we could—two chairs at a table in the crowded restaurant. Not the most comfortable way to spend the 7 hour trip but we sat next to a really great couple and ended up talking to them the entire way. A 35-year-old French guy named Benoit (a struggling,girl formerly-homeless gypsy jazz musician) and his English girlfriend Clara (a wannabe interior designer) who lived in London and were spending 3 weeks island hopping—camping no less—on the most remote islands in the Cyclades. Couldn’t be me, but Clara put on a brave (girlfriend was totally faking it).

At the port we were met by a driver for the hotel who told us that the hotel we booked only had twin beds left and if we wanted a double, he could put is in their other hotel a few blocks away. It was terrible—situated on a loud, busy street and on the ground floor—so I politely asked the receptionist if we could take a look at our original hotel to see if we’d prefer that instead. She had the nerve to cop the biggest attitude! Finally I had to get rude and she agreed to call the owner and have us driven to the other hotel which we ended up switching to.

Walking into Fira town, my first thought was, “This is it? This dirty, busy, loud, tacky place is supposed to be one of the most beautiful islands on earth?” I was totally bummed until B decided to walk in the opposite direction from the center and we ended up in Firostefani, the most beautiful little village I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s the Santorini of picture books—whitewashed buildings, amazing volcano views, red rocked cliffs and an unbelievable sunset. And since tourist season had yet to begin, it was quiet and peaceful, as if we had the entire village to ourselves. We stumbled upon the most beautiful hotel (closed) and I talked the owner into opening the bar for us. We sat out on the terrace drinking beer and taking in the view… unbelievable is too light a word.

The next day we rented an ATV… I was really hesitant about it b/c the Greek Islands are known for their bad roads and tourist motor casualties. There’s nothing to keep you from veering off the side of a mountain, 1000 feet to the rocks/sea below and to your death. I wanted to just take buses to the sights but B insisted on the ATV and I’m glad he did. After running of gas on the side of the road and having to walk 20 mins to the nearest gas station, we ended up seeing so much of the island; visiting the beaches, ancient blue-domed churches, wandering through the villages… even driving back from Oia (in the dark, on a winding cliff) was amazing… granted I was drunk from dinner, otherwise I would have been freaking out. But the entire island is stunning; I will definitely be going back.

Naxos (3 days)
Naxos is known for their varying landscapes—mountains, vineyards, farmlands, beaches. It has absolutely everything you can imagine, is as close to unspoiled as you can get for a tourist destination and is a nature-lovers paradise. Needless to say, I don’t do the nature thing very well so aside from the fact that it was beautiful, the bugs and insects were kinda grossing me out.

Again, we rented an ATV and spend a day touring the entire island. My absolute favorite part was when we came upon a tiny village called Kinidaros. We stopped for lunch at a little place called Oasis, literally just a Greek guy named Dimetri serving food out of his kitchen. We walked in and asked if they were serving food and he replied, “Sure! I have some things I can make for you. Take a seat and I’ll bring something out”. No menu, nothing, we just had to wait and see. Turns out, he makes all the food himself, depending on how the day goes. That day he happened to kill a goat so we had goat cheese and spaghetti with grilled goat. He made a Greek dish of rice wrapped in leaves (picked from his tree in the front yard) grilled in olive oil (homemade). And we had a delicious glass of wine—also made himself out of 12 types of grapes. Everything was absolutely delicious. He sat down with us and told us all about his life and sent us off with a couple of bottles of his homemade wine.

The next best thing was getting lost on the way home. After seeing the countryside, we wanted to ride back along the coast. We took a little road and as it got more and more unkempt, we realized we had made a wrong turn. At a fork in the road, I told B to go left and we ended up near a house. I was going to get off the bike to ask for directions when out of no where, two dogs ran out and started growling and barking at us! I screamed and told B to step on it as the dogs ran alongside the bike, lunging and trying to bite our feet. At the time, I was terrified, thinking we were going to get eaten alive, but now I can only crack up at the image of B trying to maneuver the bike through the potholed, gravelly road without flipping us over and me screaming at him to go faster :o)

It was just such a fun, relaxing trip, I didn’t want it to end (plus, I wasn’t looking forward to the 6 hour ferry ride back to Athens). We got to Athens around 12:30am and since our flight was at 6:40am, we opted out of getting a hotel. Instead we got to the airport around 1:30am, picked out a spot on the floor in between all the backpackers, made a little “campsite” out of our suitcases and towels and lay down to sleep until check-in time.

My favorite thing on vacations is trying to pretend I'm not a tourist. Sure, I like to see the sights, but the best part is attempting to behave like a local—going to the small towns, eating their foods, getting lost in the backstreets. It was pretty unplanned so we just went with the flow and even with a few missteps, we had a blast. And the lucky thing is, it was B and my first real holiday together and it went off without a hitch (aside from the fact that I nearly made us miss our flight b/c I insisted on catching a United game… our saving grace being that the flight was delayed so they let us through the gate. Hey, we made it there in the end so that’s all water under the bridge). The only downfall of the trip was the reaction I got from the Greek people: I have never been stared at so hard in my entire life, not even in Italy (and you know how Italian men are!). I travel a lot so I’m used to looks a tourist (esp. a black woman) gets and I usually ignore it, but this was downright uncomfortable. I later spoke to a black woman who lives in Greece and she said the Greeks are fascinated with anything “ethnic”, it’s like the cool thing now, even though there aren’t many blacks in the country. So all the stares could mainly be caulked up to old-fashioned curiosity rather than racism. Anyway, apart from that it was an unforgettable trip—and a few dozen stares won’t keep me from going back again someday!

The "L" Word

2008-04-21T13:34:00.004+02:00

Saturday was another big day… B and I finally said “I love you” to each other.

B’s mother was in town for the day so he left my place around 8:30am to pick her up from the train station. They spent the afternoon together and he came back to my place around 7pm after dropping her off. It happened to be one of those rare warm and sunny days in Paris (this so-called spring weather is ridiculous!) so we planned to go bike riding. Naturally, all the Velib bikes were taken (the second the sun comes out of hiding, every Parisian in the city decides they want to go bike riding so unless you get to a Velib station by sunrise, there are never any bikes left) so we decided to go to a little café on Canal Saint Martin that B knew about where we could watch the sunset. We got there and, of course, all the outside seats were taken (gotta love Paris!). There was a supermarket next door so B suggested we grab some food and have a picnic along the canal—there were tons of people sitting along the edge of the canal drinking beers with their friends (totally illegal, but then this is France, the police don’t care). So we picked up a baguette, some saucisson, a bag of chips, a few beers and some cookies and found a spot along the canal to spread out and watch the sunset. It was lovely.

On the way home, we decided to stop by a little Irish pub called The Cork and Cavan and have another round. We hung out there for a few hours, chatting about lots of random stuff—from religion to football to Henry VIII—and at one point we were just making googly eyes at each other. He smiled and said, “What are you thinking?” Now, he always asks me what I’m thinking, and if it happens to be about him, I just laugh and say “Nothing” and he eventually lets it go. But this time, he wouldn’t let it go. He was like, “Whisper it to me” and we were whispering silly things back and forth to each other and then suddenly he whispers, “I love you”. WOW.

I said it back and he just kissed me all over my face, repeating “I love you” over and over again. It was so completely out of the blue and so HUGE, but oddly, really easy to say. Now to hear him call me “my love”… it’s just so exciting and weird!

It’s funny, because as close as my mom and I are, we never really had that kind of relationship where we said “I love you” to each other every day. Except if I was going off to college or moving Paris or something, we aren’t the type to say “I love you” at every parting. Plus, I’ve never loved a man before (except for those silly little crushes I was prone to every once in a while where I thought I was in love… but let’s just forget all about that shall we) so it’s totally new for me (and for him) but its really nice.

Training Day

2008-04-14T21:20:00.005+02:00

I remember my mom talking to me about the quirky little things that men do and how there are certain instances where you just have to bite your tongue and look the other way. I had no idea what she meant… honestly I couldn’t imagine any situation where I wouldn’t tell a man exactly how I felt—and if he got pissed that was his business, he could just fu*k off. And I’d be damned if I would close my eyes to something as insane as infidelity. But for the first time, I’ve finally understood what she was talking about. It’s not about being a stupid woman, it’s the little, inconsequential things that men do that may annoy, but since it isn’t really hurting anyone, a girl should probably just let it go.

Case in point:
On Sunday night, after cooking a dinner of spaghetti bolognaise for B and I (I’ve been doing a lot of this cooking thing lately, who would have thought!), we paused The Sopranos DVD to make some hot chocolate. The two mugs that I own were dirty (as were all the dishes and pots from our dinner) so B said he would do the dishes while I heated the milk. So I’m minding my own business, preparing the hot chocolate and what do I see out of the corner of my eye? B washing the dishes… WITHOUT ANY SOAP! I mean really! What’s the point?! How does a person think its OK to wash dishes without soap?! Are they supposed to be clean? Is someone supposed to drink out of that glass afterwards?

But I was thinking of what my mom said: When a man tries to do something nice and gets criticized for it by his wife/girlfriend, he has no desire to ever do it again. So if I told him he was doing it wrong, that I’d just do the dishes myself, he may get annoyed and never take it upon himself to wash my dishes again. And Lord knows I hate to do dishes but I hate to see dishes left in the sink … a bit of a catch-22, someone’s got to do it… aka B.

Let me tell you, it took every ounce of strength I had to not snatch the sponge out of his hand and do the dishes myself. I love the guy but it was dawning on me that every time B washed my dishes they were probably never totally clean! Finally, when I couldn’t stand it any longer, I just gave a little chuckle as I stirred in the chocolate. B turned to me and said, “What?” And I put on a big smile and breezily said, “Oh nothing… it’s just funny that you’re not using any soap”. Thankfully, he didn’t hear the strain in my voice. He just laughed saying, “Strange, I thought there was soap on the sponge already” and added more soap.

I had to do it. I would just end up having to rewash the dishes later, and from every moment thereafter, and then what would be the point? And in my defense, I completely ignored the fact that he didn’t rinse the dishes completely and there was still a bit of soap on them when he put them in the rack to dry. Hey, you pick your battles, right?

So. I’ve learned that the training process with men is also important and can be utilized in just this type of scenario. And as long as you’re not really criticizing but kind of masking your frustration as trait you find cute/endearing/funny, they’ll never even notice that you’re being an anal-retentive freak :o)

An Expat Wedding

2008-04-06T19:24:00.002+02:00

On Saturday afternoon, March 29^th, my Brazilian friend Christiane married her Frenchie in a civil ceremony in Paris. They got married at the Mairie (Town Hall) in the 2^nd arrondissement of Paris which was absolutely lovely (the rule is you have to get married in the Town Hall of your district and apparently some of them are pretty sh*tty) so they lucked out. They have the wildest love story: they met on a beach in Rio about 2 years ago when he was on vacation with his friends. A year later she went to Paris for vacation and decided to give him a call (they hadn’t spoken much throughout the past year). They spent 2 weeks together last March which was enough to convince her to move to Paris in September to give it a shot. By December they were engaged. Technically they got married now so she could live in France legally, but obviously it’s much deeper than that. If I didn’t see them with my own eyes I would give them about 6 months, tops. But they have this relationship that you can’t help but believe in the commitment and sincerity of. You can really see how happy and in love they are and even thinking of an “appropriate length of time” seems silly.

So around 9pm that night B and I went out to Enghiens Les Bains, a wealthy suburb about 15 mins outside of Paris, to the groom’s parents’ house for the wedding party. We spent the next 3 hours eating sushi, chatting with the other guests, dancing to the music on their iTunes playlist and getting drunk on champagne, then left around midnight to catch the last train back to the city. And with the weather finally deciding to cooperate, it was a fantastic day.

This Wednesday is me & B's 6 month anniversary… every month I’m shocked that we’ve arrived at this point. I mean, me? In a serious relationship?! Absurd. We go to sleep together and wake up together nearly every day now, and I still feel as though I can’t get enough of him—I miss seeing his face when he’s not around and it feels weird sleeping alone. It’s so strange because I’m the type who ALWAYS gets tired of people if they’re around too often, even if it’s my best friend… I think it’s only child syndrome. But with B, oddly, it’s different. On the one hand, we have our separate lives and I go out with my friends and have a good time without him and I love that. But on the other hand, if he’s away for a weekend, sometimes I prefer to just stay home watching Rob & Big reruns than go out and party—and yall know me, that’s just unheard of! I don’t know what will happen at the end of my Parisian run, we don’t like to talk about it, rather just enjoy the moment. But if at the end of the summer I only get to package the memories into a nice little box to take home with me, I’ll still be happy that it happened.

The French Countryside

2008-03-24T13:43:00.005+01:00

Thank God for holidays! I had a 4 day break from school last week due to the Easter holiday so B and I decided to get away from Paris and explore a bit of the countryside. On Saturday, we took the train 1.5 hours SW to Chartres. This town is famous for their cosmetics/perfumes, baguettes (they made the 1^st traditional French baguette) and the Cathedral of Chartres (also known as Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres) which is on UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites list. Its one of the oldest and biggest cathedral’s in the world, dating all the way back to the 12^th century, and it pretty much started the whole Gothic trend. The coolest relic was a robe worn by the Virgin Mary (see below)! I must have started at it for 10 minutes, its just hard to wrap your mind around something like that. And the town itself was absolutely gorgeous… it was freezing and it rained and snowed all day, but B and I spent hours just wandering down the little streets, along the river and through the old stairways/passageways. Absolutely stunning…

On Sunday, we went to Blois, about 3 hours from Paris in the Loire Valley. This region is all about the châteaux—their famous one being the 13^th century Royal Château de Blois, home to everyone from Louis XII to Catherine de Medici and is where Joan of Arc went to be blessed in the 1400’s. It’s such a trip to wander through castles dating back thousands of years—stand in the bedrooms of Queens, the office’s of Kings, walk down stairs that were built in the Middle Ages. I don’t think of it so often, but when I’m in these medieval towns, it hits me that America is such a baby compared to France. Unfortunately, Sundays are when France shuts down (another cultural grievance of mine) so nearly everything was closed but we were able to see all the important sites and soak in the ambiance of the village...

Weekend with the In-Laws

2008-03-19T00:06:00.005+01:00

I think I’ve figured out what it feels like to spend a weekend with your boyfriend’s parents: it’s like being on a roller coaster, at the top of the lift, right before the big drop. The sensation of being suspended at a point where anything can go wrong at any moment—you’re holding your breath, heart quickening, hoping everything will be perfect, anticipating the worst—and then you get to the end of the ride and you’re still alive, you realize it wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be. But each time you have to encounter the parents again—having lunch, dinner, making small talk on the way to the bathroom—the roller coaster starts all over again… and it’s absolutely exhausting! I don’t know if it gets easier over time, but if we were there for any longer than 2 days, I don’t think I would have made it through.

That being said, I had a wonderful trip.

My first thought upon waking up on Saturday morning was, “Is it too late to back out?” I just didn’t think I could go through with it, I was so nervous. But then I’d read online that if you cancel on meeting the parents at the last minute, “you better be seriously injured or dead when they find you”. So I got up early and spent the next 1.5 hours getting ready.

I wore a grey sweatshirt dress, brown knee high flat boots and a leather jacket with my pink scarf. Cute but casual—I didn’t want to come off as too “city girl” and scare them (they are country folk after all) but I didn’t want to look like I hadn’t tried either. I woke B up about 10 mins before we had to leave for the train station. It was pretty funny—he was so confused as to why he only had time to brush his teeth and throw on some clothes, “Did I sleep through the alarm? I didn’t hear it”. And I said, “No, I woke up earlier and turned it off. I just needed the prep time for myself and didn’t want you hogging the bathroom… they’re your parents, you don’t need to shower”.

We arrived in Troyes around 11am and B’s dad picked us up from the station. He’s an older, handsome man, very fit, with salt & pepper hair and glasses… it gave me a preview of how B will look in 40 years… not bad. I had decided to get the parents one gift: a pot of yellow orchids which I put in a small white vase. When we got to the house, his mom was waiting for us outside and I handed the flowers to her with a “J’ai s'apporté quelque chose pour vous”. She seemed pleased and displayed them during our meals all weekend (she may have thrown them out once I left but no matter).

It was about 68 degrees so we sat in their beautiful garden (B’s dad hand built a pond in the backyard and caught fish from the lake 20 mins away to fill it with), drinking aperitifs (cognac) and eating cheese while belle-mère showered me with questions… surprisingly, I was able to answer everything with just a little help from B on the French words I didn’t know. I was even able to have actual conversations with them. She told me she was really impressed with my French and mentioned how her daughter-in-law (B’s older brother’s American wife) can’t speak any French. B told me that when the wife is with them, she doesn’t say a word—so apparently my barely intelligible, kindergarten level conversation was a welcome change.

Afterwards, B and I went “into town” to sightsee. While we were walking, a black girl ran up to us and said, “Excuse me, are you American?” She said she hasn’t met a single American the entire 3 years she’d been living here (she had the typical story: American moves to France to teach English for a year, meets a Frenchman, falls in love and stays), let alone a black American. We chatted about expatriate life in France for about 10 minutes before parting ways. Wow—that is how small and isolated this town is. Very pretty, but a quintessential French country village.

We returned to chez B around 7pm for dinner with the folks. His dad BBQ’d steak on a grill he built out of a trash can (his father is seriously something else) and we drank so much wine that B told me I was starting to look drunk. Its really funny considering I grew up in a household where alcohol consumption (no matter how small) is considered taboo… meanwhile, B grew up drinking wine since he was about 5 years old. That’s American culture for you—if we weren’t so strict about everything maybe we wouldn’t have so many alcoholic kids running around. Anyway, later B and I met up with a friend of his at a little dive bar in town but I was so exhausted (read: drunk) we had to leave around 12am. That night, even though we were SUPPOSED to be sleeping in separate rooms, B knocked on my door around 1am and told me the guest room was too cold so he wanted to stay in my room (I was sleeping in his old bedroom)... just to sleep... hmm...

On Sunday, B and I had decided to go for a drive in the country so he could show me his childhood—picking mushrooms in the forest, playing & fishing at the lake, biking through the wheat fields—I would laugh if it weren’t so cute. So after a late lunch of escargot (beau-père picked the snails from the forest himself) and grilled sheep (sounds scary but it was delicious!), we were lounging in the living room watching TV when beau-père walks by and says, “10 minutes”. B barely turned his eyes away from the football game he was watching to say, “Oh yeah, my parents are coming with us”. Greeeaaat.

It actually turned out to be a good time. We drove around for about 3 hours and they gave me the full history of the village and showed me all their family hangouts which was really nice of them. And the countryside of Champagne (their region) is gorgeous. We went back home for a gôuté (a torte) and then belle-mère drove us to the station to catch our 6pm train back to Paris.

As relieved as I was to leave and switch the perma-smile off, I had a really great time. It went a lot better than I had imagined. They were really nice people and I think they actually liked me (they even invited me to come back in the spring). Plus, seeing where B grew up, what his life was like, who he came from, that was pretty cool. And the best moment: B’s brother is coming to France with his family in May for his daughter’s baptism and belle-mère was talking about how full the house would be and started ticking off on her fingers who would be saying that weekend and said, “…and Stacy and B will take one room...”. It’s gotta be the best feeling to have your boyfriend’s mother include you in an important family function as though you’re a part of the family. I sent them a Thank You card the next day.

(I forgot my camera at home so I have to scan in the pics from my disposable later)

Meet the Parents

2008-03-13T16:57:00.000+01:00

Saturday is a milestone—I’m going to B’s hometown to MEET HIS PARENTS! I am literally freaking out, I don't think I've ever been so nervous about anything, ever. What to wear? What to bring as a gift? What to talk about? Will they hate me? He’s from a small village (who even uses the word “village” to describe a place in real life?) near Troyes, about 2 hours east of Paris. My friend joked that I’ll have to call the town and alert them that I’m coming. And their one black resident will have to leave this weekend—because with my coming there, they’ll overfill their quota of the number of black folks allowed in the village at one time :o)

B said that we’ll do the typical village stuff—eat with his parents, bike ride, go to the lake, drive around the village so he can show me where he grew up, that kind of thing. And he told his dad that I’m a football fan, so his dad got us tickets to see their local team (who were relegated to Ligue 2 last year, but whatevs) on Saturday night—that was really sweet.

I’ve never met a boyfriend’s parents before—and B has never brought a girl home before either—so I have no idea what to expect. When he told his mom we were coming, she was like, “Wow, I guess this is serious then?” And he was like, “Yeah, it is”. I don’t know why, but I have a feeling that she’s thinking of me as “the awful American who is planning to steal her darling baby boy away from her”. Totally unjustified because she actually seems super sweet… but you know French mothers and their weird obsession with their sons. All I know is that his parents don’t speak any English and my French is shoddy at best… so that will make for some lively discussions! And we’ll be there for 2 whole days… lordy… stay tuned...

Cute French Café & Velib

2008-03-12T19:36:00.007+01:00

A friend just introduced me to the CUTEST little café near my apt... its called Séseme on Quai Valmy along Canal St. Martin. It's a tiny, bright place (seats about 10 people) selling hot drinks, beer & wine and an assortment of snacks— salads, sandwiches, soup & salad. Right now, we're sitting at the bar, drinking coffee and sharing a slice of carrot cake, typing away at our laptops. The waitress is super nice and just gave us leftover sandwiches since they're about to close. Well, I know where I'll be whiling away the hours from now on!

As a side note, I came here by bike. I just signed up for the Velib bike service which is this initiative the Mayor (?) started in Paris last summer. For 29€, you get a year-long subscription to ride the city bikes as much as you like. I've only used it once so far, but I'm trying to take advantage of every opportunity. Mappy.com said it would take 12 minutes to walk from my apt to the café so I decided to bike it, thinking I'd arrive in about 2 minutes. Naturally, I got lost. And 40 minutes later, I finally found the place. I nearly killed myself in the process—going through the huge roundabout in République, nearly getting run over by a bus and sideswiped by scooters. Ahh, the joys of biking in Paris...

Habitat for Humanity

2008-03-11T20:57:00.001+01:00

As part of the humanitarian bit of my Parisian adventure, I joined the Paris chapter of Habitat for Humanity through the American Church of Paris. This August, we’ll spend 2 weeks building a home for an underprivileged family in Macedonia. Right now we’re in the process of raising the money it will take to fund our trip (airfare, building supplies, food, etc) and each of us are charged with doing our own personal fund raising as well. This week I spent an evening creating (awful) Easter cards to sell, I’m helping to plan a concert, we’re organizing a dinner, and so much more… we need to raise a pretty substantial amount but we are seriously on our hustle so I think we’ll get there.

I really love the premise of H4H’s Global Village: these houses are SOLD to the family (at a very low rate, of course) rather than given to them for free—the idea being that people respect something more and take care of it when they actually have to pay for it themselves, rather than when its just given to them. So they’ll make monthly payments to Habitat on this home and at the end of 5 years or so, they own the house outright. I think its going to be an awesome experience and cannot wait to go—although Lord knows I am not a builder, do not like doing anything with my hands or any physical labor whatsoever (especially not in the dead heat of August) and am pathetically weak… so it should be interesting!

Anyway, here’s the link if you want to make an online donation (in the part where it asks for your name, please also put my name in parentheses):

DONATE TO HABITAT HERE

Thanks for your support, friends! And remember, all donations are tax deductible! :o)

Weekend Getaway

2008-03-04T13:23:00.003+01:00

Last weekend, B and I went to Lille (a town about an hour north of Paris on the Belgian border) to celebrate his college friend’s birthday. B went to University in Lille, but since he was doing an apprenticeship program in Paris, he only spent about 1 week every couple of months up there. We went up early on Saturday morning so that we’d have time to sightsee before the party that evening. Lille is about 2 seconds big so you can literally do it in a day. It was supposed to rain all weekend but we got really lucky and had beautiful sunshine (granted it was about 40 degrees but that’s ok) all weekend. We followed the walking tours in our guidebook and went to see all the famous sights. Lille is an absolutely gorgeous old French town with a really interesting history and just won the title of “culture capital” of France.

Later that day, we came across a small, kiddie amusement park. Hundreds of kids on merry-go-rounds, rollercoasters, etc… and then I saw it—a moon bounce! I haven’t been on one of those in ages and B and I looked at each other, grinning. He was like, “Do you want to?” and I said, “I’m DYING to but we can’t! Its for kids… look at all those parents standing around watching their children play—how crazy would we look asking if we can get in there with them?” So we walked off and laughed about how much fun those childhood days in the park were. Suddenly, B grabbed my arm and said, “Lets just go ask… who knows, maybe they’ll let us get on anyway”. I was really skeptical about looking stupid or like some child molester, but I reluctantly agreed to go back and ask. And it turns out anyone can get on the rides! So we bought our ticket and got in, and let me tell you, I haven’t laughed so hard in ages! It was so fun! The funny part was, after we got out, suddenly all the other adults decided that they wanted to go on the moon bounce too—we started a trend!

Afterwards, we went to a bar to meet up with B’s friends for a drink. Then we went to the hotel to hang out for a bit before heading to his friend’s apartment for pre-drinks (yes, they do A LOT of drinking in Lille). It was interesting because his friend’s don’t speak English very well and of course, when the boys reunite, they launch into telling hilarious jokes and stories from their college days—all in French (great practice for me). By 11:30pm I was exhausted and they were just getting ready to go to dinner before the night on the town. So B walked me back to the hotel then went back to meet up with his friends for a boy’s night out—he returned at 3am while the rest of them were out till 7am.

Sunday was more sightseeing after a long, lazy brunch, and we caught the train back to Paris around 5pm. It was an absolutely lovely weekend—just spending time with B, eating good food, drinking tons of beer, hanging out with the boys and getting lost in the streets of a charming little French town.

(random ridiculousness... had the nerve to have hydrolics and blast westside hip hop)

Paris Fashion Week

2008-03-03T16:27:00.003+01:00

My first byline. Last week was Fashion Week and my editor at Paris Voice charged me with reviewing the shows of the Anglophone designers. The French press are notoriously difficult with their guest lists, but I did manage to score a few invites. Problem was, the majority of those shows were on Saturday and Sunday, and this was the weekend B had planned a getaway to Lille (more on that later). I wrote an article for a US-based fashion magazine a few weeks ago but that doesn’t hit newsstands till April so this is my first published piece (click below).

Very exciting…

Jeremy Scott's Funhouse

A night of pampering...

2008-02-22T17:06:00.012+01:00

Ok folks: I'm not being biased, but I think I may have the greatest boyfriend ever (Dina, hold your lunch). Last weekend he told me to keep Thursday free because he was planning a surprise for me. As much as I begged, he wouldn’t tell me what it was, just that I should bring my bathing suit. Now, I’m thinking we’re going to the neighborhood pool—he just got a membership to the Paris pools and has been all excited that he can go swimming once a week—and I just thought, ‘Ok, that’s cool, haven’t been swimming in a while’.

So Thurs rolls around and he sends me a text message: ‘Meet me at Miromesnil station at 19h’. We meet outside of the station then get back on the subway and head to the south of Paris, the end of the line. We walk into this dark building, lit only by candles snaking up a set of stairs (I still have no clue at this point), open a big heavy ornate door and step into… a hammam! He had planned a whole night of pampering and relaxation!

Walking into Les Cent Ciels (Bathhouse & Hammam) felt like I’d been transported to Turkey: It’s very dark, lit only by soft candlelight, and the entire place is accented with intricately beaded, colorful furniture and draperies. All the staff is dressed like Arabic attendants, wearing djellaba-like outfits and turbans. The receptionist gave us a key to our lockers, a plush white robe and towel and flip flops and told us to get changed and meet her back in the lobby. So I come out completely naked underneath my robe and when B sees me, he started laughing and said, “You’re supposed to put your bathing suit on. What do you think I told you to bring it for?” lol, obviously I was still very confused. I had never been to a hammam before and had no idea what to do or what to expect. So the lady shows us around—the restaurant, the repose and sun rooms (outfitted with lots of plush loungers and skylights), the pool, the sauna and the hot, warm and cold hammams.

We spend the next two hours alternating between all of the rooms—10 minutes in the sauna, a dip in the pool, laying out in the hammams and back again. At 9:15pm, a lady came in and called my name. I looked at B confused and he said, “I scheduled a massage for you”. Lovely! It had been about 6 months since my last massage and who doesn’t adore them? The room smelled like flowers, and was dark and warm with soft music playing. There were rose petals on the table and the masseuse tells me to take off my bathing suit, put on tiny paper panties and lay down. Just like the gynecologist, in France, there is no shame when it comes to getting a massage—she thought nothing of asking me to flip over (no towel to cover up of course) half naked so she could massage my front and bend my legs into all sorts of crazy positions. But nonetheless, it was 30 minutes of bliss. After a final swim in the pool, we got back into our robes and went to the repose room to stretch out with a cup of tea. Then we went to the restaurant and had a traditional Moroccan dinner and glass of champagne. By midnight, we reluctantly left so we would catch the last train back to Paris. It was an absolutely amazing, luxurious, unforgettable night.

Apparently, this was supposed to be our Valentine’s Day but when he called to make the reservation they told him they’d been booked a month in advance. But this more than makes up for the original V-Day… it was so sweet and thoughtful of him to plan a romantic night like this. What girl doesn’t love a day of pampering? And it was so much fun! Granted, I’m now spending this whole afternoon trying to salvage my hair (which I just blew out and flat ironed a couple days ago) but it was well worth it :o)

Unemployment Pt. 2

2008-02-19T20:21:00.007+01:00

About two years ago, I passed a very pleasant unemployment period. My department folded at work and when given the option of relocating to the Miami office, I decided to stick it out in New York and just enjoy the summer living off a nice severance package and weekly unemployment checks. It was heavenly—3 months of catching up on my reading in Central Park, actually “finding the time” to hit the gym or run along the East River, meeting friends for lunch at their office (and breathing a sigh of relief when I got to escape back into the world of the shiftless), visiting with other unemployed friends, taking up random sports (swimming, tennis), exploring the city by foot, taking day trips to far-off locale’s like Boston—by August I had reluctantly accepted a new gig and it was back to the drawing board. But I’ll never forget that summer as one of the most enjoyable of my life—it felt like being on high school summer vacation again.

So last week, after returning from my 2-week holiday in the States, I got an email from my boss saying that the company was ending my contract (yes, via email) because my position had become obsolete. I wasn’t entirely shocked considering they hired a marketing agency last year to handle all their marketing stuff and I had sh*t to do—plus they’re cheap bastards and if they could get out of paying someone (I won’t even tell you how much of a fight it was to get my expenses reimbursed on time) they would. In any case, they agreed that I could wrap up my last project this week and they would pay me through the end of the month. Considering that I had been trying to work up the guts to quit anyway, this was the perfect little push.

Interestingly enough, most of my friends in Paris are unemployed; either by choice or because of the lack of opportunity here in France (the unemployment rate is ridiculous) so I don’t think I’ll be out of things to do. Today, for example, it was my first day of freedom and I spent it shopping with a girlfriend all afternoon followed by 3 hours of gabbing in a café. Tomorrow I plan on finally checking out Shakespeare & Co. and next week, my friends and I are planning a trip outside of Paris. And when the weather warms up, having all this free time will be lovely.

Problem is, I have a feeling things are going to get pretty sketchy really quickly. Life in Paris is NOT cheap, especially when you factor in the exchange rate. In New York, I knew lots of tricks to make my money stretch without drastically altering my lifestyle pre-unemployment. Here, on the other hand, it’s not the same story—you’re lucky if you can send a text message without spending $2. So, we’ll see how things go… it’ll be an interesting experiment. I may be moving back into the ghetto soon, who knows…

Tout va bien

2008-02-18T21:36:00.001+01:00

My cousin, as usual, was right (don’t tell her I said that). So B and I are hanging out at my place on Saturday morning, just lying around and chatting. And suddenly he looks at me and asks, “What’s wrong? Tell me” (he can always tell when something is wrong, it’s scary).

And I took a deep breath and just spilled everything. I told him that I felt that he takes me for granted. That I think that if he really cared he should want to do things that he knows will make me happy (whether it be sending me flowers or planning a nice evening) and he just isn’t. I told him that I wanted to feel special; wanted to be surprised once in a while; that I’m a girl and girls like presents. And that basically the last straw was Valentine’s Day—he obviously made little effort that day and as much as he says he likes me, if he’s not willing to make an effort to show me than it’s just not good enough.

He was silent for while then just put his hand over his heart and said, “Wow, that really hurt me”. And guys, honestly, the look he gave me very nearly broke my heart. He said the fact that I could think that he doesn’t care kills him b/c he’s never felt for anyone the way he feels for me and he didn’t realize that this whole time he made me doubt his feelings. That he’s new to this relationship thing and he just doesn’t know what to do but he’s going to work on it and make sure that I never feel taken for granted. He admitted that Valentine’s Day was pathetic and apologized. And said he understood that simply doing “something” was not good enough and he wishes he had made more of an effort. And he told me about all these things he’s been planning for us in the next couple of weeks and months (weekend getaways around France—including a trip to meet his parents, yikes!). He said that he doesn’t want to lose me and he would do anything he can to make me happy.

And for a long while we just held hands and talked; about how we felt, what we wanted from each other and out of a relationship. And I felt really great afterwards, especially since I said my peace and he listened and there were no hard feelings. I love that we have this open relationship where we can be honest and talk about these things and no one gets defensive or mean. And it felt pretty good to know that his misfire was simply from being a young clueless guy and not b/c he was a cheap bastard.

Just the act of actually voicing my feelings is something! I think it’s actually a sign that I’m maturing (uh..)! Yall know that if this had happened 6 months ago and my boyfriend fu*ked up like this, he would have been kicked to the curb immediately without even a heads up—I probably would have just told him I hate his shoes so he’s dismissed :o)

B's Birthday Dinner

2008-02-17T22:51:00.007+01:00

On Saturday night we celebrated B’s 24^th birthday. First off, a milestone: now, the fashion girl in me kicks in every once in a while, and even though B dresses much better than the average man (he is European after all), he hates to shop and I always think to myself, ‘If I see that boy in a t-shirt, jeans and All-Star Converse's one more time I just may scream’. Sheepishly, he mentions that he’s thinking of doing a little shopping that afternoon—he needs new work clothes and wants something new to wear for his birthday that night. I’m elated but I try not to show it so he doesn’t get scared off… for some reason he has this wild idea that I’m a crazy shopaholic and is scared to enter any stores with me (ok true, but so unfair). We head over to Les Halles to hit up H&M, Zara and a couple other European discount fashion chains.

I drag him through the stores and hold up vests, pink sweaters, blazers, skinny jeans (not too skinny!) and ties—lots of trendy but classic and mature pieces that would look fantastic on him. He practically shouts at me, “Stop trying to dress me like ‘The Swede’. I’m not your gay friend”. So I back off just a bit and coax him into a compromise. We bought a few white button-down dress shirts, properly fitting dress slacks, some sweaters/cardigans that can be dressed up or down… and my biggest accomplishment: I made him graduate from colorfully printed boxers to neutral-colored boxer briefs. After he stopped complaining about never being able to father children, he agreed that they weren’t so bad.

After a quick lunch, we split up. Went home to get showered & dressed and then he went to meet his friends for pre-dinner drinks while I went to Café Oz, a central Aussie bar, to meet my Man United buddy to watch the Arsenal match.

B came and picked me up with his friends around 8:30pm and we headed to Los Mexicanos, a theme restaurant with live music and dancing. 15 of us (10 of his friends, 3 of mine) ate [bad] mexican, drank tons of margaritas, I bought him a rose from the vendor and we all danced until around 1am. The night was a lot of fun—and it was so cute to see him so happy, the life of the party. He said it was the best birthday he’s had in a long while… he doesn’t usually celebrate his birthday but I kept bothering him about how loser-ish that was till he finally decided to plan something.

(he got a Lorie music video DVD, France's Britney Spears, as a gag gift)

Oh, and I chipped in with his 3 best friends and bought him top-of-the-line rollerblades. He laughed b/c he’d never thought of rollerblading but said he’s looking forward to testing it out—in a private secluded neighborhood, away from the guys he plays basketball with at his local park. Personally, my idea was to get him a 6-month subscription to Glowria (France’s new version of Netflix) b/c he just bought a new flat-screen TV and DVD player and he’s a huge movie buff… but I figured I’d acquiesce and go with their choice since they’ve known him longer/better. I’m happy to report that he kept saying that my gift idea was fantastic and he would have loved to get that instead. Oh well, looks like B and I will be skating through the streets of Paris together this spring! :o)

Trouble in Paradise

2008-02-15T17:06:00.002+01:00

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. This was my first “real” Valentine’s Day with a real boyfriend that I truly care about. B had been emailing me for a few weeks about how he was planning this special night for us. I was super excited about it, went out and bought a cute little hot pink silk shift dress and everything, just for the occasion. I bought him cute little romantic presents, spent an hour doing my hair and makeup… I shouldn’t have bothered.

The night before he told me that he didn’t want to go to a restaurant because it would be noisy and crowded and he just wanted to have a romantic night at his place with for the two of us… ok cute. I show up and there were no flowers or candles like he said there would be. Then he brings out my gift… a single red rose. I’m thinking this is just the pre-gift but nope, that’s it! And he’s really proud of it, tells me he’s never given a rose to anyone but his mother (um... ok). Then its time for dinner: microwaved chicken & rice (as in the pre-cooked kind that you buy frozen and heat up for 5 minutes… he guiltily admitted this halfway into the meal. Apparently he didn’t have “time” to cook) that we ate on plastic plates, a bottle of wine that we drank from plastic cups. Sitting on folding chairs with our plates resting on the coffee table. Romantic, huh?

I’m sorry; I’m a girl who likes romantic gestures. I’m not asking a man to shower me with diamonds and pearls (although that would be nice…), but put a little effort in. Write me a poem; take me to a nice restaurant; surprise me with presents once in a while for no reason… hell, a gift card to H&M would be happily accepted! All I wanted was a night that showed that he thinks I’m special and went to some lengths to make me happy.

My cousin is trying to assure me that he’s young; he’s never had a girlfriend before so he still needs to be trained. Sure, I understand all that is true, but do I really want to invest the time teaching someone how to be a gentleman? Its hard b/c I really do care about this person. I’ve never before felt so close to someone, so comfortable, so smitten. And I KNOW he cares about me, he just doesn’t know how to show it the way I need him to show it. But I’ll have to get all this off my chest. I have to stop pretending that I’m ok with everything, talk to him about how I feel and see how he reacts. He honestly is a great guy, he just doesn't know. But there comes a point where every woman has to decide if its time to walk away…

This feels like the year my first ever Valentine/boyfriend got me $0.99 card for Valentine’s Day and signed it, “From Anthony”. My girlfriends and I still laugh about it to this day. But then again, he was 13.

I hate British Airways & US Airlines

2008-02-14T16:26:00.003+01:00

I just returned from 2 lovely weeks in the States… a week spent doing nothing but relaxing in my PJ’s on my parent’s couch in Maryland, catching up on past episodes The Real Housewives of Orange County and Rob & Big (we really do make insanely addictive, sh*tty TV in the States, France needs to step their TV game up). Then I spent a week in New York, running around like a madwoman trying to catch up with 100 friends in 7 days…

Anyway, the reason I haven't written about the trip or have pics up by now is because the airlines lost both of my suitcases (with my camera cables in it)! Actually, I should say they lost all 3 of my bags.

Sunday night I was scheduled for a 6:55pm flight from DC to Philly. From there I had an hour layover before my direct flight to Paris. Well, my flight got into Philly about 15 minutes late… fine. Except I was on one of those small planes where they ask you to give them your carry-on so they can stow it under the plane during the flight and bring it back to you at the gate when you de-board the plane. So I’m waiting… and waiting… everyone else has received their bags and was on their way… mine never shows up. Finally they tell me they must have “accidently” sent it down to baggage claim and I would have to go down there to find it. By this time, my flight is scheduled to leave in 30 minutes. As I’m running over to baggage claim I hear the announcement, “Final call for flight 754 to Paris”. Of course, I’m at Terminal F and my flight is leaving from clear across the airport in Terminal A (and not just Gate A1, but Gate A25!)… about a 25-30 minute walk, the absolute furthest distance you could possible go in the damn place. So I find my bag and start running/walking with my heavy carry-on and my purse that was weighted down with fashion magazines and just praying that I make that stupid flight. Oh did I mention that I was also sick as a dog? I was nursing a fever and a pounding headache. I get to the gate at 8:42 (the flight was scheduled to leave at 8:45) and the guy at the gate just says to me, “Sorry, your plane left 10 minutes ago”. Nice. So I had to wait in line for 45 minutes at customer service with about 30 other passengers who all missed their flights and finally got put on a 10pm British Airways flight to London with a 3rd connection from London to Paris. I’m trying to stay calm and politely ask: “But what about my bags? How will I get the bags I checked on the US Airways flight?” And the snooty airline guy was like, “Your bags will travel with you on the BA flight to Paris”. But of course, 17 hours after this nightmare of a journey began, I land at CDG airport, go over to baggage claim, and my bags are not there. Its been 3 days and one bag arrived, the one carrying my makeup and hair products (thank God), but the other bag is still missing and they have no idea where it is.

I’m pissed, annoyed, frustrated, depressed and without any of my favorite clothes. I call about 3x a day but all they keep telling me is that it hasn’t been located yet and I just have to wait. So I’m waiting. Impatiently. I hate this.

It doesn’t help that tonight is Valentine’s Day and I’m in a seriously crappy mood. Bruno has supposedly planned a nice romantic night for us but I’m not even up for it at this point… poor thing…

R.I.P.

2008-01-23T12:43:00.000+01:00

I wasn't even a huge Heath Ledger fan, but its so tragic when someone you're used to seeing/reading about just up and dies. I just got word this morning (time difference, I was asleep) and was shocked. He was definitely a great actor and its unfortunate that there will be no more Heath Ledger movies, no more sightings on the streets of New York, no more Brokeback Mountain-esque performances to blow you away. He was only 28 and he was talented and beautiful and he's dead. And the worst part is that he has a 2-year-old daughter who will never get to know her father... at this point they don't know if it was suicide or an accidental overdose or what, but that little girl is going to have to live with that legacy... just sad all around. God Bless.

Finals...

2008-01-21T12:30:00.001+01:00

This past week has been insane… it’s been such a long since I was a student, I forgot how this whole studying thing worked… finals are not fun!

First, I spent an entire day at the Sorbonne registering for my spring semester which runs through the end of May. Last semester, I took the program that included 20 hours/week of grammar courses, phonetics courses and optional conferences (literature, film, French civilization). I barely made it to my required classes (grammar/phonetics) let alone found the time to go to the conferences—it’s a shame, it seemed like they would have been the most interesting classes. But with my work schedule (and budding social life?), I don’t have time to take all of the classes offered so I wanted to switch to a 12 hour/week program which would save me a good deal of money, free up my schedule and not require me to wake up at 6am every morning to go to school. But there’s a silly requirement that a foreign student must be enrolled in 20 hours of courses per week in order to qualify for a French visa; so basically I’m paying extra for the privilege to remain in this country legally. Sweet.

Anyway, once that was out of the way, I had to study for my final. A 3 hour exam on all the things I was supposed to have learned this semester… too bad I didn’t start paying attention till the last week of class. So I spent the night before the test cramming until midnight with a couple classmates and teaching myself the difference between passé composé and imparfait. My final was on Saturday afternoon in a massive building on the outskirts of Paris. There were about 50 rooms in the building, with each room holding 300 students. 4 pages of vocab/grammer short answer questions; 1 dictation; 1 composition where you had to describe a person you like for 2 pages (yes, I wrote about B).

It was tough! Everyone walked out of the room totally shaken and unsure about how they did… 3 hours seemed like a long time at first but it wasn’t enough! There must have been about 5 questions that I left unanswered... oh well. Our results will be posted on February 7th. I have friends who have to pass the test in order to stay in the country… and if they fail, they owe their government (who paid for the program and their living expenses) about 5,000€. Thankfully, I don’t need to pass—enrolling at a school is just a cover to stay in the country and the Sorbonne is a nice, prestigious name to put on the resume when I start job hunting next year. Passing would be nice though!

(courtyard at the Sorbonne)

The End of Rock...

2008-01-18T16:44:00.000+01:00

Can’t believe I forgot to mention this (it must have been because I’ve been on my deathbed for the last 3 weeks, bronchitis/asthma): THE ROCKER IS GONE. He finally did it. Packed up and left Paris for Shanghai. He’s been talking about moving to China since I first met him and he finally found himself a job out there. While I was in Tunisia, I got a call from him saying, “Come have a drink with me! I’m moving to China next weekend!” And of course I’m like, “OMG! Nooo! You can’t go!” And he was like, “Ok, stop it. No time for crying now, I gotta run” lol, he’s such a jerk, I love him!

Anyway, his farewell party was 2 weeks ago at a tiny bar near my apt. B was there too—his best friend is good friends with the Rocker. I was a bit nervous b/c all of the Rocker’s friends (the cute French boys that I’ve come to know from house parties, clubs and such) would be there—and since I’m never with B, they always take the liberty of acting really flirty/touchy-feely with me. We dance, play drinking games, that kind of thing. It’s all in good fun of course; just not the kind of fun I’d like to have in front of the bf… and there are a couple who have asked me out. Plus, I know what the Rocker is like and all our silly flirting is just how our [strictly platonic] relationship works. I just didn’t want him to say anything stupid in front of B.

But of course, he does it. In front of everyone, in front of B, he gives me a big, long hug and bisous and says, “I love you, my darling. If I could, I would marry you. And that’s no New York bullsh*t”, looks at me for a couple seconds, rubs my cheek and walks away. And I’m just like, uhh… and peek over at B out of the corner of my eye and he’s shaking his head and has this slight smirk on his face. Not sure what that meant…

Then, throughout the night, all of the Rocker’s friends came over to say hello, give me a hug & bisous, chat or try to get me to dance and I would make a point of immediately saying, “This is my boyfriend B” so they wouldn’t say/do anything foolish. The funniest reply I got from one of the boys was: “Wow, your bf is really good looking”. B’s only comment about the whole thing was a tight-lipped, “Well, you have a lot of friends here… how do you know these guys?” He’s a good boyfriend.

Anyway, I’m really sad the Rocker is gone! Apparently he was hanging out with Eva & Julien the night before the party. And at the party Eva told me, “The Rocker really loves you. He was talking about you all night”. He really is a sweetheart. Aside from the drugs, sex-craziness, ADD, insanity he’s an amazing person. He introduced me to some amazing, lifelong friends, he nearly got me arrested, he took me to some really fun parties… and I could always count on him for a phone call at midnight on a Wednesday screaming, “What are you doing?! Sleeping?! Get the fu*k up and come meet me at this bar!” lol, he is an original, that’s for sure—it’s so funny that our first night together would turn into this great friendship. Saying our goodbyes that night, the Rocker told me I have to stop by China and see him when I do my Southeast Asia trip this fall (yes, I'm going backpacking for a couple months, more on that later)… maybe I will! Me and the Rocker partying in Shanghai, now that would be one for the storybooks!

More Wine...

2008-01-17T16:42:00.000+01:00

Had an interesting evening with Grapes last night… I was cramming for my 3-hour French final with a couple classmates at Starbucks and I get a call from Grapes saying, “Hey, want to come over and help me finish my wine?” After 3 hours of straight studying, all I wanted was alcohol (free being even better) so I said sure. I showed up at his loft around 9pm to find a full-on house party. Apparently, his last wine tasting class was full of cute, blond, southern American college girls in town on holiday so he invited them to stay after and drink more wine with him. Naturally, there are 3 girls on top of his bar dancing to “Crank That” by Souljah Boy and a few more girls grinding together in the corner… nice. Gotta love American college girls (French girls would be mortified)!

Anyway, we’re all hanging out in his place, drinking, dancing (minus myself) and chatting. They actually turned out to be sweet so the night wasn’t a complete nightmare—it was actually a lot of fun. We ended the night with more drinks at Favela Chic. Around midnight, we left the bar and Grapes offered to walk me home. He put his friend in a cab and we walked to my apartment and the discussion turned to B… more about my needing to break up with him and date other people. At one point he told me that he wanted someone too so I should find him a girlfriend and I said, “No, I quite like you being single” and he said, “Right, so I can wait for you”. I was a bit tipsy :o) Strange thing: it turns out that we’ll both be in New York at the same time. He’s going to be in NYC for business in a couple weeks and it just so happens that it’s the same week that I’m there… can’t wait to hang out with him on my turf.

Today, B and I had lunch and he asked me what I did last night so I told him I hung out with Grapes… he was not happy. Particularly after I mentioned that we would be in New York at the same time. Ah well… I just learned that Mr. B and his “friendly neighbor” were hanging out again the night before. Not sure if I’ve mentioned her before, but this is the girl who lives across the hall from him. The one who was looking at me crooked the night B and I kissed for the first time; every time I spoke to him she would give me the evil stare and I assumed she was his girlfriend… turns out she’s just a very friendly neighbor. Anyway, she likes to stop by his place at 2am to ask for help moving a heavy piece of furniture or ask for aspirin. Who, pray tell, knocks on someone’s door at 2am to ask for casual favors? Needless to say, I don’t trust the bit*h. So maybe this was my way of kind of getting back at B (in a completely subconscious way, of course)… totally immature and stupid, I know…

OH.MY.GOODNESS.

2008-01-15T22:55:00.000+01:00

I'm in the market for a new laptop and I was flirting with the idea of getting a Mac but decided, since I mainly need word-processing stuff, to just stick to a PC. Umm... have you guys seen the new MacBook Air?!? It fits inside an interoffice envelope! Apple is seriously out of control... but I'm SOLD!

http://www.apple.com/macbookair/#ad

Toni Morrison

2008-01-11T14:45:00.000+01:00

I was walking down rue Oberkampf on my way to pick up donuts and ingredients for the romantic "welcome back/merry christmas/happy new year" dinner I was cooking for B the other night and suddenly I got that heart-swelling, content, intense, overwhelmed, grateful feeling... the one that just makes you stop and think: "I am so happy to be in this amazing city, in this exact moment, feeling this right now."

Then this morning, I'm lying in bed reading 'Jazz' by Toni Morrison and there are all these references to New York and I remembered the things that still take my breath away when I'm home: driving into the city over the Brooklyn Bridge, walking down East 7th Street at sunrise on a Sunday morning... These passages reminded me of my love affair with New York and I wanted to share a few:

"You have to understand what it's like, taking on a big city: I'm exposed to all sorts of ignorance and criminality. Still, this is the only life for me. I like the way the City makes people think they can do what they want and get away with it." (pg 8)

"They weren't there yet and already the City was speaking to them. They were dancing. And like a million others, chests pounding, tracks controlling their feet, they stared out the windows for the first sight of the City that danced with them, proving already how much it loved them. Like a million more they could hardly wait to get there and love it back." (pg 32)

"Like the others, they were country people, but how soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city, it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn't love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves." (pg 33)

And this was a nice little quote about love:

"I envy them their public love. I myself have only known it in secret, shared it in secret and longed, aw longed to show it-- to be able to say out loud what they have no need to say at all: That I have loved only you, surrendered my whole self reckless to you and nobody else. That I want you to love me back and show it to me. That I love the way you hold me, how close you let me be to you. I like your fingers on and on, lifting, turning. I have watched your face for a long time now, and missed your eyes when you went away from me. Talking to you and hearing you answer-- that's the kick." (pg 229)

Mrs. Cruise

2008-01-10T17:33:00.001+01:00

This post is totally random but I was just getting my celeb gossip fix on dlisted (my obsession) and came across some pics of TomKat... can I just say that I think that Katie Holmes is absolutely stunning? And she is working the fashion thing too... she must have gotten herself a damn good stylist because she was not that chic pre-Tom. And I LOVE Suri, she's the cutest. I think Katie may be my new favorite celebrity... she seems sweet. But why does everyone hate on the girl?

Fashion Story

2008-01-09T16:45:00.000+01:00

Finally submitted my first article to the magazine and here's the feedback I received from the editor:

"I love the article. This is definitely what I am looking for. This is the kind of article that will fit well."

The issue hits newsstands in April/May and will probably be online too, so I'll let you all know as soon as it comes out! Fun!

I [Heart] Tunisia

2008-01-04T18:03:00.001+01:00

Let me begin by stating an interesting fact: Tunisia is blessed with 355 days of rain-free, cloudless, sunny skies a year. You know those 10 days during the ENTIRE YEAR that they get rain? I was there for 3 of them :o)

That being said, the trip was absolutely phenomenal! I never thought I’d have a chance to get to Africa so soon, it was thrilling just to be on the continent for the first time. And being a safe, peaceful, touristy-friendly country, apparently Tunisia is a good segway to the continent for Africa-virgins like myself.

My flight was at 10:30am on December 26th which put me into Tozeur around 1pm. As soon as I stepped off the plane, I was greeted with beautiful sunshine, 70 degree weather, bright blue skies and palm trees. Once through customs, I got into the 4x4 that would take me to the hotel. The hotel itself was pretty blah. It looked great on the outside, but the rooms had just the bare minimum, which was pretty shabby and cheap looking at that. But hey, you get what you pay for! I was just praying that I wouldn’t get “The London Rash” (Paula and I got eaten alive by bedbugs in our hotel in London last spring—let’s not talk about it).

Day 1: I spent the day wandering around Tozeur. The hotel was at the top of Avenue Touristique, the main strip lined with shops and restaurants. I walked to the end of town and back again which took about 2 hours since I was constantly stopped by someone trying to sell me something or propose marriage (those Tunisian men are no joke… I can’t count the number of times I heard: “Gazelle! Where you from? African?” and I respond: “No, American”, to get back: “Ooohh America! You married?” lol, insanity). Afterwards, I sat out on my balcony and read until it was time for dinner. The coolest part was walking home as the sun was setting, the sky a dozen shades of pink and hearing the prayer calls from the mosque nearby. Amazing…

Day 2: Went to a museum, then I walked to the shopping district and picked up a bunch of knickknacks. I bought two jellebas (where in hell am I going to wear those? The vendor told me they’d be chic for a summer night in Paris… yeah, sure), two ceramic decorated plates, a little wooden drum, and a stuffed camel that plays a popular Arabic song when you squeeze it. Obviously I spent way too much money, even with the haggling, but I figured they needed it more than I do. One guy was telling me that he hadn’t sold anything in over a week and would take whatever I would give him for a little bejeweled jewelry box… although this could all be part of their plan! lol, oh well. At 3pm I left for my first excursion. I was partnered with a French family… husband, wife and their three adorable kids ages 3, 7 and 9. We boarded our 4x4 and went to Nefta to see the old town medina. There was a group of kids playing in one of the courtyards and when we passed, they all stopped and waved with big grins on their faces. At one point we stopped for a moment and two 4-year-old Tunis boys ran over to where we were standing. They were chasing each other and trying to hide behind my legs. And every time I spoke to them in English they screamed with laughter and tried to repeat the word… it was the cutest thing. Then out of no where, I feel a tiny little hand slip into mine. I looked down and one of the little boys was smiling up at me… just standing there holding my hand and wouldn't let go until we left. It nearly melted my cold heart; I will never forget that little boy. Next we drove through the desert oasis to get to the dunes overlooking Algeria to watch the sunset… the vbiew was incredible but sadly it was cloudy that day so we didn’t get to see much of a sunset. We did get harassed by the little Berber kids (nomads who live in the desert) who were trying to hawk their cheap jewelry though. Next we went to the sites where they filmed the English Patient and Star Wars. While driving out there, we passed a massive white tent smack in the middle of the desert. There were lights flashing and music playing… it looked like a wild party mirage. Our guide told us it was the Prince of Serbia who was out there hunting birds for the week. Hmm, must be nice…

my tour guide/driver

Star Wars film location

Day 3: Full day trip stopping at significant points on along the way to Douz, gateway to the Sahara Desert. We left at 8am and this time I was paired with a French couple and it was only the 3 of us on this trip. Our first stop was Chott El Jerid, the famous Salt Lake. Basically it’s a massive lake that is completely dried by the heat, leaving just crystallized salt in its place; and when the sun shines on the surface it glitters like a sea of diamonds. The next few stops I couldn’t tell you where we were—everything was explained in French and no one could translate… I did climb some big rocks and hold a falcon. Eventually we ended up in the place I’d been so anxious to get to: THE SAHARA DESERT!! We were outfitted in a traditional getup to protect us from the wind/sand, chose our camels and were on our way. We rode about 20 mins into the desert, passing people on dirt bikes, quad bikes and other camel riders. At one point, we met a “desert cowboy” who took each of us horseback riding—I’ve never galloped on a horse before, let alone through the Sahara. It was the scariest and coolest thing I’ve ever done. Next we stopped by the 40km (24.85 miles) Camel Race which was part of the annual “Festival of the Oasis” event that was going on in Tunisia that week—pretty wild. After lunch and a couple more stops, we returned to the hotel around 6pm.

Chott El Jerid (the Salt Lake)

Camel Race

Day 4: Our flight departed at 4:50AM. IN THE MORNING! Who in their right mind decided to schedule a flight take off that early? For what purpose? Anyway, it was pretty funny because the organizer didn’t want to tell us when the flight was scheduled to leave until the very last second. For days I kept asking and he was just like, “Don’t worry, I’ll let you know soon. But you’re confirmed”. I guess he didn’t want to ruin the trip with the bad news until the end. Anyway, we got back to Paris around 8am (flight was delayed of course… what kind of delay you could have at 4 in the freakin’ morning is beyond me but hey)

One funny thing was the reaction that I got from the French women while I was there (about 90% of the people staying in my hotel were French). Now French women in general aren’t the warmest and friendly people on earth, but try being a single girl alone on a vacation where NO ONE else is alone. Talk about being given the cold shoulder—all those women were so suspicious, they seriously thought I had some kind of ulterior motive for being there! Meanwhile, the men were very nice, offering to have me join them and their family for breakfast or dinner; and if I ever did take them up on the offer, I was given the death stare the entire time by the woman. It was nuts! They totally thought I was some hooch out to steal their husband/boyfriend! Pretty funny.

But anyway, the trip was great. It’s interesting to see the lives of the people who live in the 3rd world—makes me think of how much the rest of us have. We have so many ways to amuse ourselves its pretty ridiculous. Meanwhile, in a country like Tunisia, teenagers literally spend their day riding up and down the dirt road on a slab of plywood on wheels pulled by a donkey. But it looks like they enjoy their life so who am I to judge. And on the other hand, you'll see the random guy with his faux hawk, converse sneakers-- looking as Western as anyone. Anyway, I feel so blessed to have been able to go there! And I can’t wait until I can go back to Africa—I’m dying to see Senegal, Morocco, Egypt, Kenya…

*While I was in Tunisia, my copine Shelby was just getting back from a week-long vacay in another part of Africa—the Seychelles (an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Africa) with her boyfriend Nicco. She's a fellow expat like me—quit her NYC magazine gig to move to Florence for a few months and is just having a time of it down there. Anyway, I'm just too jealous for words and had to share the picture slideshow from her fabulous trip. Like does this place truly exist? It looks like something out of a postcard! I know where I'm honeymooning... check it out here

BANNED!

2008-01-04T16:40:00.000+01:00

Can't believe I forgot to mention this... smoking is officially banned in Paris!! As of January 1st, no more smoking allowed in public places. How fantastic is that! I just remembered when I was having lunch at a cafe today and noticed a customer step outside to smoke. I was like, "hmm, that's strange... wait a minute, where's the thick cloud of smoke thats always wafting around in here?". And then I remembered that the law went into effect with the start of the New Year! A waiter actually mentioned it the other night! YES!!!

ps-- sorry to all you smokers who will have to stand outside in the cold now

New Year's Eve Celebrations... Paris-style

2008-01-03T08:50:00.000+01:00

Had a really nice New Year's Eve... this year I decided I wasn't going to go too crazy about finding the perfect party, the perfect outfit, making it the perfect night. I just wanted to celebrate living in France and bring in the New Year with the people who have helped make this experience what it is so far. First stop was my copine Anne-Cecile's new apartment on Faubourg Saint-Antoine. She invited about 20 people to her place and we drank champagne, ate and danced from about 9pm till 12:30. I actually ended up meeting two girls in town on holiday who live in the East Village! So random... but we're meeting up when I go out there in a few weeks. From there, I went to meet with my Swedish gay boyfriend Carl... he was at a house party near my apt in the 11eme with a bunch of random French "industry people": filmmakers, stylists, singers, designers, etc. We hung out there chatting and playing Nintendo Wii till nearly 5am, then I limped home (sober, thank God) in my 4" platforms...

the fabulous Ms. Anne-Cecile

Farewell 2007!

2007-12-31T16:59:00.000+01:00

In about 7 hours we say goodbye to another year… and what a crazy roller coaster of a year it has been!

I said goodbye to New York, packed my bags and moved to Paris with the intent of staying here forever… what I learned is that I’m a New Yorker through and through and no other city in the world, no matter how fabulous and fun, can compare to home... New York is magic. Paris will always have a special place in my heart and I’m so glad I came here to experience this. In 20 years I’ll be sitting in my home in New York, telling my kids about the year I moved to Paris on a whim and all the incredible experiences I had there. But I know now that my life is New York—friends, family, annoying subway riders, congestion and dirty streets, the homeless guy who lives on my front stoop, falafels at 4am on Houston, coffee cart vendors… I miss it all. I had to leave it to find out that New York is my heartbeat.

I fell in love! 25 years of life, countless assholes, nice boring guys, broken hearts and dry spells under my belt. Always looking for that great storybook romance and never finding it. And then I come to Paris determined to spend a year dedicated to myself—having nothing more to do with men then the occasional casual fling here and there. And what happens? A month after I arrive, someone walks into my life and completely turns my world upside down and makes me feel something so different and new. It’s scary and exciting and wonderful and awful at the same time—who would have thought I’d have to travel 3,600 miles to experience this?

I’ve seen more of the world in 4 months abroad than I ever have in my entire life. 2007 is the year that brought me to Africa for the first time—AFRICA! How insane is that? Next stop will be a proper tour through black Africa though… but all in due time.

I learned that living in a foreign country is HARD. And I have a much greater respect for people like my mom/aunts/uncles, or anyone who left their home behind to make a new path in a strange place where they don't know the language, customs or a single soul... its not easy.

There were so many weddings and births this year! Its so exciting when a friend gets married or has a baby and you get a new addition to your extended family… especially those friends whom you braved freshman year of college with, lived with in the ghettos of Brooklyn, bitched over work with, made it through 9/11 with, daydreamed about the future with... we’re really growing up!

Tonight I'll ring in ’08 at a small gathering at a French friend’s loft in the center of Paris with stunning views of the city as our backdrop. Then I’ll meet friends in Bastille to dance until the sun comes up… and B finally gets back on the 2nd so we'll have our own private belated Christmas/New Year's celebration then :o)

I hope your 2007 brought you everything you hoped for. And even if some things were left unfulfilled or some things just went to sh*t, God does have a plan and the world always works exactly the way it’s supposed to. Some things take a longer time to come to fruition and some things are best not receiving at all in order to make way for something bigger and better later on. So the good and the bad—it’s really all been worth it in the end.

I miss and love you all. Champagne toast: Here’s to a healthy and prosperous 2008!

~~~~~~~~~
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

Christmas in the French countryside

2007-12-30T15:44:00.000+01:00

I spent Christmas in Chateau du Loire, a small town 2 ½ hours from Paris in the middle of the Loire Valley which is a few minutes from Tours (home of the famous bike race). My friend Anne-Cécile invited me to a Christmas day dinner at her parents house in the country and I was to arrive at 11am so that we could go bike riding to see the chateau’s that the area is famous for before dinner which would begin around 2pm. So the night before I’m trying to be responsible and get my fashion story for the magazine finished before the holidays. I was up till 4:30am working on it—despite the fact that I had to catch the 8am train to the Loire Valley. Needless to say, I overslept and missed the 8am train so I had to take the 10am which got me into Loire around 1:30pm… SOO bummed out.

Anne-Cécile grew up in a big old country house with lots of big rooms with high ceilings, exposed brick and wooden beams. There’s a beautiful garden and lake in her backyard. There were about 10 people present, all aunts/uncles/cousins of Anne-Cécile’s. None of whom spoke much English. But the interesting thing was, I met her cousin Sophie who, as it turns out, lives on 10^th Street and 1^st Avenue in New York! She works at an art gallery on the UES but because of visa issues was back in France for a couple months. She'll be returning to New York after New Years. It’s funny that we literally lived 3 blocks away from each other, go to the same neighborhood bars and restaurants (as we discovered) and probably passed each other on the street numerous times, but we end up meeting randomly on Christmas day in the middle of the French countryside. We’re planning to meet up when I get to the city next month.

As for the food—so delicious! We ate ricotta cheese stuffed mushrooms, foie gras, roasted turkey, potatoes, veggies, a special chocolate holiday cake and coffee. And of course, tons of bottles of wine and champagne to go along with every course. We had to leave to go back to the city right after dinner and I was sad to go. It was such a nice day and I was really bummed about not being able to see the Loire Valley. But her family invited me to come back in the spring to really see the beauty of the region. Apparently Anne-Cécile usually comes up with her friends from the city to BBQ, ride bikes, swim in the lake and just do nothing for the weekend. Can’t wait!

Oh, and Grapes called me that night around 11pm to see if I wanted to join him for drinks at Buddha Bar... would have been fun but I was leaving for Tunisia early the next morning and I didn’t want to have another oversleeping disaster so I declined…

Here are some pics of the Loire Valley... I wish I had taken a picture of the house, its so quintessential French, its adorable—but I totally forgot.

A day trip to Normandy

2007-12-24T14:37:00.000+01:00

On Monday I randomly decided to take a day trip outside of Paris since I’ve never seen the rest of the country. I had just purchased the 12-25 youth SNCF (France’s version of Amtrak) discount card so I wanted to put it to good use… and since I just learned I have two whole weeks to amuse myself, I decided to spend a day in Rouen, the capital of the Normandy region. I took the 8am train up there and arrived around 9:30am.

I walked from the train station into the city center and stopped at a restaurant for breakfast. Following that, I decided to check out the Joan of Arc Museum. One thing the city is famous for is that it’s the place where Joan of Arc was tried, imprisoned and ultimately burned at the stake. The museum is at the back of a tiny little shop selling touristy knickknacks. I bought my ticket and the lady told me to open the heavy wooden door and go downstairs to enter the museum which is in the windowless basement. It was creepy, especially considering that I was the only person down there but I remained calm enough as I looked at the little action figure sized models of the scenes of Joan of Arc’s early life. Once I finished that room, I climbed the stairs to the second floor… I turned the corner and came face-to-face with life size Joan of Arc mannequins depicting scenes of the end of her life—the trial, being wounded in war, praying in her cell, at the stake, etc. It was literally the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life! Imagine being all alone in a small, dark, silent room surrounded by dozens of very real looking figures illuminated in various stages of torture. It looked like any second the mannequins would come to life and kill me! So I literally turned and ran out of the room, my heart pounding. Unfortunately, to get to the exit you had to walk through the entire museum but there was no way I was going back there so I jumped over the security rope and ran out the front emergency exit door and out into the street. There wasn’t even a soul in the shop… I don’t know what they want people to take away from their visit to the museum, but if their goal is scaring the sh*t out of people, they’ve succeeded brilliantly!

So after that little excitement, I went to the Joan of Arc church across the courtyard (which was built on the site where she was burned at the stake) and listened to the morning mass for a few minutes. Then I walked over to the Notre Dame cathedral and took a tour of that area. Apparently, this was Monet’s favorite subject to paint and the cathedral was also featured in a novel by Flaubert. They were having a Christmas market in the square so I stopped a bought a glass of the popular holiday drink vin chaud (hot wine, it was gross) before heading off to Musée des beaux-arts to look at the artwork for an hour or so.

There's a small shopping area, so of course I did a bit of shopping before grabbing a bite for lunch. Rouen is a small, quaint little town and I quickly realized that there isn’t much to do. By 4:30pm I had seen everything so I decided to take the next train back to Paris instead of leaving at 7pm as I originally planned. It was a nice day… if a bit uneventful. Rouen is absolutely gorgeous though and it was really nice to finally see another part of France.

(Pics: City Center Square, Joan of Arc Church, Notre Dame Cathedral, street shots)

Countdown...

2007-12-22T23:29:00.000+01:00

10 more days till B gets back to Paris... its has seriously been the longest two weeks EVER! I hate it. It's funny because about a week before he left, I was talking to my friend Eva about not being sure how I felt about him, how (as much as I liked him) he wasn't really my type and I wasn't sure if I wanted to be in a realationship anyway. That was at the time that Grapes had entered the picture and I was kinda on the fence about whether or not I was missing out on meeting other people. And she said to me: "When he leaves on this vacation and you guys are separated for a month, you'll know get your answer. Either you'll realize there's nothing there or find out how much you really care about him". I got my answer alright! And honestly, I didn't think it would be this. Very surprising but... I think I may be in love folks! Crazy, I know...

One thing I must note... I just got an email from him letting me know that he made it to LA ok (from Mexico-- see pic below) and the kicker is, he signed his email:

i miss you stacy.
lots of love.
b

Love?? we email all the time and he's NEVER written that before... what does that mean?! lol, I know, I know. I need to stop, I'm being such a girl. And I'm looking into this way too much aren't I?

I'm going to Africa!

2007-12-21T16:28:00.000+01:00

I just bought a plane ticket to Tozeur, Tunisia! I just found out that I have the next two weeks off of work (yes, my boss gave me no warning about this until YESTERDAY!) and was pretty bummed out that I didn’t know sooner so I could have planned a vacation that wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg… or gone home and seen you folks. I happened to be talking to a girlfriend about it this morning and she suggested I checkout lastminute.fr to see if they had a cheap package… and the first interesting destination on the list was Tunisia (350€ all inclusive) so I just booked it. Yes, totally random, I know—I did check to make sure there weren’t any travel advisories, health crises or visa requirements first though :o)

So I leave next Wednesday for 4 days and will be staying in this cute little hotel in the middle of the desert... well it looks cute in the pictures anyway (see below). Its sunny and nearly 70 degrees there so all I’m thinking about is lying out by the pool, reading, shopping in the little village and most importantly, riding a camel through the Sahara!

I have no idea what time I’m leaving, which airport I’m flying out of, how I’m getting to the hotel, what I’ll do once I’m there, nothing… um ok… I may have gone insane…

Stay tuned!

Shelby & Vanessa in Paris

2007-12-20T14:30:00.000+01:00

Vanessa and Shelby came to Paris last week to visit for a few days. I absolutely adore these girls… I like to pick on Shelby and just drive her to exasperation; meanwhile Vanessa just shakes her head and laughs. It’s fun :o)

Wednesday was low-key, dinner at my local hangout L’Autre Café and drinks on rue Oberkampf.

On Thursday night, we started the night with dinner at Chez Justine. Grapes happened to call to see what I was up to so I invited him to join us… all very innocent of course. He’s insane and managed to dig himself into a hole a million times talking about politics, cultural differences, gender differences… so we had a great time with him. Afterward, Grapes left and we went to meet up with Eva & Julien to check out their friend perform at a bar nearby. Then we went to a party in Bastille called ‘From Brooklyn to Paris’. The most absurd thing ever: a random New York DJ spinning old-school (?) hip-hop for a bunch of French folks who think they’re Williamsburg hipsters. The party was in an old graffiti covered warehouse-type space and they put up a big projection screen to rotate a slideshow of “New York City”—which really was just shots of the run-down, graffiti and trash filled ghettos—that’s NYC in their eyes. But the contrast of American hip hop culture mixed with the scooter helmets that were scattered all over the place was a riot—they may be New Yorker wannabes, but its still France after all!

On Friday night we hit up Favela Chic for dinner… it’s a Brazilian spot and the food was really good. Shelby’s friend Nicole and her boyfriend met us there (they’re currently starring in a show about the life of Josephine Baker, pretty cool) and we all headed out around midnight when the crazy party people started making their way in. Nicole suggested we try Impala, an African restaurant/lounge on the Champs Elysees. It turned out to be a really great spot… you walk in and immediately feel like you’ve stepped into a different era. Its dark, hot, sexy, there are tropical plants all over, the waiters are all tall, dark, handsome, well-dressed Africans—and the music makes you feel like you’re been transported to an exclusive bar on some fancy resort in the middle of Africa. I loved it.

The thing that made me laugh though was that everyone in the place was white (keeping with the fancy resort theme I guess!), there were maybe 4 other black people there besides us. Eventually we had to get up and start dancing—we were the only people dancing but there’s something about a congo beat, you just can’t sit still for too long. Then Joseph, who’s a professional tap dancer, put on his tap shoes and started this freestyle tap dance, it was pretty hot. And the DJ indulged me for about 30 minutes and played my commercial pop favs—JT, Beyonce. We left around 3am, grabbed crepes from a nearby deli and made our way home. Shelby had a 5am flight back to Italy the next morning, so it was just Vanessa and I for the next couple of days.

On Saturday, Vanessa took me to Le Rhumerie, a West Indian restaurant in Saint Germain des Pres. The best rum drinks you’ve ever had and the food was delicious—fritters, fried plantains, paté.... I think we were going for the island vibe this weekend :o)

Speaking of which… Vanessa is headed to Puerto Rico for a week… about 10 of her friends rented a house on the beach and they’ll be ringing in the New Year sipping piña colada’s under the hot Caribbean sun. And Miss Shelby is off on a fabulous vacay with her hubby Nicco to the Seychelles, an island in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa… yes, we are all ridiculously jealous.

Here are some pics from their visit.

Sometimes the French need a good cursing out…

2007-12-16T15:36:00.000+01:00

Every month or so I buy “credits” to add to my pre-paid cell phone. You go to any Tabac (the equivalent of a bodega—they sell cigarettes, lotto tickets, calling cards, candy, etc) and buy coupons in any denomination (from 5€-120€) that have a 9-digit code on it which you type into your phone to recharge your minutes. Last week I bought a 95€ coupon from a new place near my apartment. When I got home, I tried to enter in the code but kept getting a message saying the code was invalid. After trying it a few times, the system locked me out. Annoying but I didn’t think much of it.

I went to the SFR store (my carrier) the next day on my lunch break and they unlocked my phone and attempted to enter the coupon code for me. It didn’t work for him either so he called and found out that the coupon that I purchased on DECEMBER 5th had already been used on NOVEMBER 30th! SFR told me there was nothing they could do and I would have to go back to the Tabac to get this straightened out. I asked him to write me a note explaining the situation in French and include his name and store phone number so I wouldn’t have any problems when I got to the Tabac.

So I get to the Tabac, handed the store owner the note and explained the situation. She immediately says, “That’s impossible”. She calls SFR and although I didn’t understand everything, I caught a few phrases like, ‘American… she doesn’t understand’, ‘her phone is broken, that’s the real problem’. She hangs up and tells me that SFR said there was a fraud situation for all 95€ coupons sold, someone had hacked in online and stolen the codes. She said there was nothing she could do but SFR said if I went back to their store they would just charge my cell over the phone without a coupon. There was an SFR store a few blocks away and she wrote a note for me to take with me to the store explaining the situation.

So I get to SFR and the guy who helped me was the biggest DICK. He looked at the note and simply said, “This is a lie. There’s no fraud situation going on with recharge coupons” and dismissed me. I tried to explain and ask what I should do nexy but he literally ignored me. I got so frustrated I called out, “This is ridiculous! Does anyone speak English here?!” A nice American man came over and said, “What’s going on?” I explained the situation, which he relayed to the guy who said, “I know what she’s saying but it’s not true. She got ripped off at the Tabac—they just printed duplicate coupons, it happens all the time. Next time she needs to buy a coupon from an SFR boutique only”. Oh, hell no!

So I walk back to the Tabac—by this time it’s nearly 6pm and I’ve been dealing with this ridiculous situation for 5 hours. Needless to say, I’m PISSED. I get there and waited calmly enough till it was my turn at the counter. When I got to the register, the woman asked, “So what happened? Did they charge your phone?”

Me: “No, they said you sold me a bad coupon”
Lady: “It’s not a bad coupon! You saw it come out of the machine. SFR is lying to you”
Me: “No. YOU’RE lying to me. You sold me a bad coupon. Now you have two options: #1, you give me a new recharge coupon. Or #2, you give me my 95€ back”
Lady: “SFR is crazy, they lie all the time. I told you there’s nothing I can do, you have to take it up with them. I’m sorry. Excuse me”. She tries to take the next customer behind me but I’m like, ‘Fu*k that, I’m not going anywhere!’
Me (raising my voice): “NO! You listen to me. I bought this coupon at your store. You cheated me and sold me a fake coupon. Now you better give me a real coupon or give me my money. It's very simple: money or new coupon. That’s it. Or we can call the police because I’m not leaving!”

By this time, the after work crowd had arrived and the line is literally out the door. Everyone is silent and staring at us. Now, I didn’t want to get loud and ghetto, but the dumb bit*h thought she was dealing with some stupid American hick from Podunk, Iowa (no offence to Iowans)… I’m a New Yorker! We do not play that sh*t. I don’t care if I don’t speak your damn language… the word “police” is the same in French, you get my point.

So I’m yelling at her in my broken French in front of her customers, announcing to the entire store that she’s a thief and she ripped me off. She looks a bit taken aback and frantically starts jabbing at her register and says, “Look! I can’t do anything. SFR froze my access to the coupons because of the fraud!” And as she’s trying to prove her fake point, a new recharge coupon prints out of the machine. She looks at me and says, “Oh… uh… well. That’s so bizarre. They told me on the phone that I can’t sell these coupons anymore…” Bizarre my ass! I literally snatched the coupon out of her hand (didn’t move out of line either, the customers can wait) and tested the coupon. It worked. I gave her the meanest look I could muster, turned and started to walk out of the store. And you know what that bit*h had the nerve to say to me?! “Wait, what about my 95€ for the coupon? Now I lost that money”. I turned back to her, threw the coupon on the counter and said, “I just lost an entire day of work dealing with this. I don’t care about your money. Call SFR and ask them to give you your money back” and I walked out. And as I was squeezing my way out the door, a man in line said to me, “I love your cute accent”. FU*K YOU! Do I look like someone you want to speak to right now?!

That day was so unreal. It pissed me off that this woman seriously thought she could take advantage of me and I wouldn’t do anything about it! WTF?! But I'm very proud of myself for solving this problem all by myself! I'd thought about returning to the Tabac with a French friend the next day, but I was just angry, I was not waiting any longer! I may speak French like a 5-year-old, but don’t try to screw me over… I’m not stupid. Go me! :o)

Why MTV?!

2007-12-12T13:13:00.000+01:00

Just received this from Cathy…
http://perezhilton.com/?p=10337

Its so insane!! That was the thing that drove me INSANE about MTV… everyone was a freelancer. And unless you were the VP of a department, you have no chance of becoming a “permanent employee”. Even though when you came onboard, they definitely lead you to believe that it's only a matter of time before you switch. Seriously, I’d say abut 80% of their workforce is freelance—which means no benefits, no days off, no health insurance, nothing! It is really ridiculous how cheap they are, considering this is a multi-million (billion?) dollar company!
Haha, kinda wish I were around for the walk-out. Sounds fun!

Mark Your Calendars! I’m Coming Home!!

2007-12-10T15:30:00.000+01:00

I finally bought my plane ticket to come home next month, I’m SOO psyched! I’m flying in and out of DC—you know Mom Dukes would be PISSED if I didn’t make this trip seem as though it was about her :o)

I arrive in DC on January 26th at 6:47pm
I leave for Paris on February 10th at 6:55pm

But no worries, I’ll be heading up to New York to visit all you folks for a whole week! Right now, I’m thinking I’ll arrive in New York at noon on Wednesday January 30th and will head back to DC around 5pm on Wednesday February 6th (the trusty Chinatown bus schedule you know… oh how I’ve missed you Eastern Shuttle!). That gives me 8 days in DC too!

Let’s start planning drink nights, dinner nights, football viewing days, lunches… since I've seen some of you, you've gotten engaged, married, had a baby... there's so much to catch up on!

Can’t wait to see you all! You have no idea how much I’ve missed you! xo

Une nuit de vin

2007-12-09T13:53:00.000+01:00

Went to Grapes’s wine tasting class last Wed night. I sent him an email the week before saying that my friend Ali and I wanted to take his wine tasting class sometime and he wrote back saying that he was going to England for a few days and would be back the following week. So we settled on Wednesday night—a 5-7pm wine tasting followed by dinner at one of his favorite local restaurants.

I was at lunch with B the day before and he asked if I wanted to meet up on Wed night. I told him I couldn’t because I was taking a wine tasting course and his face literally fell. He was like, “With that guy?” And of course I’m trying to play it all innocent, I just look at him confusedly and ask, “What guy?” And he’s like, “The guy from the bar on Thanksgiving” And I’m like, “Oh… right. Um, yeah” And he says, “I don’t like that guy—he was trying to play me [or something along those lines—more French though]. I saw how he was looking at you”. Now I thought the little outburst of jealousy was kinda cute but considering that I wasn’t completely innocent here I figured I should try to put him at ease. So I just explained that I was just going for the wine tasting and that I was going to bring some other girlfriends along so it wasn’t like Grapes was going to try anything, and if he did, I wasn’t at all interested—I did leave out the part about dinner though… probably TMI anyway.

Anyway, Wednesday rolls around and Ali, Sofia and I head over to Grape’s place for the wine tasting. He lives about 2 blocks away from me in a really nice, huge loft. The wine tastings take place in the living area and a door in the back leads to his bedroom and bathroom. We arrived about 10 minutes late and there were 6 other people there for the class, 3 couples—2 from South Carolina and 1 from Australia. It was a 65€ course (he didn’t charge us) and we got to sample 7 different types of wines and champagne.

Afterward, the four of us went to a really cute, very French restaurant next door. Grapes ordered a few bottles of wine and we spent the next 3 hours talking and eating… it was a lot of fun. Then he took us to this trendy club called Favela Chic (on Wed night it has more of a lounge-y vibe) and we hung out there till around 2:30am… finally Grapes and I left (Ali and Sofia were meeting friends at a Latin club in Bastille) and walked home together. Before I went off in the direction of my apartment, Grapes asked for my number and said that he would give me a call to meet up again sometime. It was actually a really fun night—Grapes is quite the entertainer, I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time.

During dinner we started a discussion about relationships. Someone brought up B and Grapes was saying things like, “You shouldn’t be with him. I can tell he’s not the kind of guy for you. You’re too good for him. You can’t really like him. You guys should break up, just be friends. You’re missing out on getting to know other guys who would be better for you”. I just thought it was funny, like why would he be trying to convince me to break up with my boyfriend… and secondly, he doesn’t even know me. Where he got all these ideas about who I should and shouldn’t be with—or got the audacity to imply that I should be with him—is beyond me. Then around 10pm, B sent me a text message asking, ‘So… how was the wine?’ and when Grapes saw me looking at my phone he was like, “Who are you texting? Your boyfriend? Don’t write him back”. But the thing is, I realized that night how much I really like B. Grapes is hilarious and smart and successful and cultured and cute… and definitely much more my type. But he’s not B. And at the end of the day, B is the guy I want to be with. So as great as Grapes is and as much fun as I think we would have if we got together, I guess it just wasn’t meant to be—right now, I’m all about Mr. B :o)

A Paris Weekend with Galen...

2007-12-06T14:28:00.000+01:00

By the way, my good friend Galen came to town from New York over Thanksgiving weekend... just a random trip since he's never been to Paris before. He spent most of his time exploring the city on his own, meeting people and partying. But we hung out one day/night (Saturday)... went to dinner at a cute, very French restaurant in Bastille, then went to my Swedish friend Carl's apt and hung out with his cute Swedish friends, then we all went to this crazy club near Grand Boulevard till 5:30am... LONG night... Bruno was there too which was cute. The only straight boy amongst a room full of gay boys-- he was a trouper though! Anyway, we had a blast. Here are some pics from the weeekend...

The Art of Yoga

2007-12-04T14:00:00.000+01:00

Recently, I decided that I needed to get myself centered… in New York, I was used to regular chiropractic, masseuse and acupuncture sessions and I’ve really been missing that therapeutic routine. Coupled with the stress of living in a foreign country, being robbed and facing near homelessness, I was in a desperate need of a way to physically and mentally de-stress here in Paris. So on Sunday I came across the website of a Yoga center near my apartment. Now I’ve taken tons of yoga classes so I wasn’t expecting anything too different. Granted, I haven’t worked out in months, but yoga was never something terribly strenuous or difficult for me so I walked into the studio super cocky about the session.

Folks, yoga kicked my ass last night.

First of all, let me preface this by saying that this was a BIRKRAM yoga class… meaning it was 90 minutes of 110 degree heat with 50% humidity in a small studio packed with people. I didn’t think too much about it honestly—even though I’ve never taken a Birkram yoga class. I just figured I may as well get the added benefit of the sauna-like heat— probably good for the skin :o)

Anyway, it started out fine. There are 26 postures that you go through and we repeat each one twice. As soon as I walked in I started sweating, but up until about the last leg of the stretches, I was doing ok. At the end of the class, a handful of people were still lying out on the floor recuperating, but the only thing I was thinking of was getting out of that hot smelly room. So I jumped up, rushed into the fitting room, threw on my coat and left. As I was walking to the subway, I started to feel a little queasy but I assumed I just needed to walk it off. Then as I was standing on the platform waiting for the train, it got worse… I was feeling beyond nauseous. But I didn’t want to leave the station b/c the train was arriving in 2 minutes and I would have to wait another 10 mins for the next one. So I discretely threw up in the trash can and got on the train, praying that I wouldn’t get sick again during the ride (a few of you will remember last St. Patty’s day… my experiences with public transit embarrassment). Thankfully I made it. But I pretty much threw up every 20 steps until I reached my apartment. And I was sick pretty much the entire night…

My hat goes off to anyone who does Birkram yoga… it is NOT easy. I’ve had some serious workout sessions, but this was beyond. Naturally, I have to go back and do it again. There is no way I’m letting a little heat and stretching get the best of me! We’ll see how Round 2 goes…

Heartache or Freedom?

2007-12-03T14:43:00.000+01:00

I’m so sad… my boyfriend is leaving Paris for an entire month this Friday! First he goes to Mexico for 2 weeks to see some friends. Then he goes to LA to see his older brother who is married to an American woman and just had a baby girl a couple months ago. His parents are flying out to LA too and they’re spending the holidays together in the States… he won’t be back till the beginning of January. It’s actually pretty funny that I even feel this way… I never knew I would like someone so much in such a short amount of time—well, in a non-dysfunctional way in any case (Lord knows if he had treated me like sh*t I would have been in head-over-heels in loe from day 1). But I’m REALLY going to miss B… its not even like we hang out every day, maybe 3-5 times a week, but knowing that I wont be able to see him for an entire month is so depressing. I’m just so used to meeting up for a drink or dinner, hearing his voice, hanging out at his apt… We’ve been talking about how much we’ll miss each other and how we’ll be sure to call/write while he’s away. And he said if he had known me before he bought his plane tickets, he wouldn’t have taken such a long trip… ah well, I will survive! And I guess this will be a test to see how we really feel about each other.

::sigh:: let’s hope I stay out of trouble!! :o)

(I kid, I kid…)

The Hills...

2007-12-02T15:24:00.000+01:00

I just got a new gig as the Paris correspondent for a fashion magazine based in Florida. I randomly came across an ad for a start-up magazine looking for a freelance writer, applied and got the job. They’re aspiring to be the next Glamour or Vogue… right. But my first article will appear in the April 2008 issue which is pretty exciting. I’ve never had a real byline before :o)

At this very moment I should be hanging out in Le Marais, getting inspiration and working on my first story. My editor is super excited about it—when I told her I wanted to write about the underground fashion scene in Paris she was like, “That’s a fantastic idea! Run with it! I can’t wait to read your article!” Sure, me too. If I could just get around to finally starting to write the damn thing… its due in 2 weeks. And what am I doing today instead? Spending the day catching up on The Hills online…

::sigh:: where is my motivation? But spending the afternoon wrapped up in the Audrina and JustinBobby drama is just too much fun :o)

Tomorrow I’ll start the article… honestly…

Thanksgiving Cookie Run

2007-11-30T13:25:00.001+01:00

Last Sunday night, my friend Ye-Jee organized her Annual Thanksgiving Cookie Run—finally, my first shot at the humanitarian bit of my Parisian adventure. An organization came up with the fantastic idea of spreading a bit of Thanksgiving love to the homeless community via cookies—it was something she took part in while she was in the States and decided to re-create it here in Paris. A bunch of us met at her apartment to bake the cookies and write cute little notes like “Jesus Loves You” or “Bon Courage” to put inside of the bags… since we spent most of our time joking and being silly, it took us 4 hours to make about 50 bags of cookies. Finally, around 8pm, we set out on the streets of Paris looking for homeless people to deliver the cookies to and decided to walk under the bridges along the Seine.

This is literally the underbelly of Paris, not the part of town people normally see/imagine. And I must admit, I was a bit scared. It was like something out of a horror movie where you’re screaming at the screen, “Don’t go down there, stupid! The monster is waiting for you down there!” But its real life. It takes a bit of maneuvering to get down there, and once you do, there is an entire community of homeless people who make their life under the bridges. There are hundreds of tents lined up, dozens of bonfires and people sitting around trying to stay alive and just make the most out of the hand that they were dealt. For the most part, everyone we met was really nice and extremely grateful. Many people asked, “But why? Why are you doing this?” and it broke my heart. These are the forgotten and it’s so sad to realize that there can come a point in your life when no one notices or cares about you anymore—where you are genuinely shocked at a simple, kind gesture.

There was one man that I’ll never forget. He had built himself a nice (if you can call it that) little home out of planks of wood and aluminum—outfitted with a tent, table, candle, a couple chairs and a radio. When we offered him the cookies, he invited us to peek inside to look around. So for about 15 minutes we sat inside his home and listened to his story. Turns out he is an immigrant from Morocco who moved to Paris about 20 years ago for work, after he got out of the war. He was plagued by a long-term injury and eventually lost his job as a taxi driver. At that point, his wife was the only one bringing home any income but they were still able to just get by. But 10 years ago she died and since he had the handicap, he was unable to get work (and being an immigrant, unable to collect disability) and lost his apartment—that’s when he moved onto the streets. He’s been living under the Seine ever since. He could have been my father, uncle, neighbor—he was such a nice, decent man who just had a string of bad luck (he told us he was never involved in alcohol or drugs) that landed him where he was—it could have happened to anyone. When we were leaving he said to us, “It’s so nice to see young people doing stuff like this. It makes me think that there’s some hope left in this world”.

It was an amazing night. Encounters like this make me so unbelievably grateful for what I have. I guess that’s the purpose of the Cookie Run taking place during Thanksgiving—not only are you doing a kindness for someone else on a significant day (something that seems so minuscule to one means so much to another), but its also giving us the opportunity to remember that no matter how bad our lives may seem at times, we have so much to be thankful for. I have wonderful friends and family and I know without question that there would always be someone I could turn to if I ever [God forbid] hit rock bottom. It seems hard to believe, but some people just don’t have that support system, they have no one to turn to but themselves. And what human being can survive on their own?

Psalms 30:12: ...that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.

We're Back!

2007-11-29T14:27:00.000+01:00

Phew! Crisis averted... the blog is back up and running :o)
Enjoy!

Fried Chicken

2007-11-28T14:33:00.000+01:00

So I’m part of this group called FRIED CHIKEN CHIKEN CHIKEN (my member name is east village chiken chow-down fashionista). My friend Ye-Jee (supreme fried chiken dancer and crumb eater) started it after a fabulous evening we spent at KFC in Chatêlet about a month ago. The five of us must have spent 4 hours at KFC, savoring our bucket, being silly and talking about our love of fried chicken (amongst other things, we're not that boring). Then we looked around and noticed that every single person in the place was Black, Spanish, Arab or Asian.

Now yall know I hate to be ignorant and perpetuate a stereotype, but it just happens to be SO true in France. KFC isn’t a popular fast-food chain but for a certain group of Parisians, KFC is high up on the list of dining options. And since there are only like three of them in the whole city, they’re always packed—it’s like a party in there every day. We decided that we wanted to embrace the KFC culture so Ye-Jee started a group on Facebook for everyone who loves fried chicken and is proud of it… its ridiculous but absolutely hilarious!

The group met at KFC last night… two buckets of chicken later (about 4 liters of soda, 20 pieces of chicken, 20 wings and 8 bags of fries) we finally called it a night. We had an absolute blast (tried to follow the chicken eating etiquette: no talking while eating, sharing the good pieces, etc) but we may have chicken’d ourselves out... we ended up giving the leftovers to a homeless guy on the street corner. Anyway, here are some pics!

Dismissed

2007-11-28T14:14:00.000+01:00

So I just about got myself kicked out of my French Phonetics course… thankfully, I put on a good “I’m sorry, please forgive me” face so the professor let me stay (under the condition that I don’t miss one more class for the rest of the semester… that’ll be a bit of a challenge), but it was really close!

Basically, this phonetics course meets every other week—for one hour a day, ever day. There’s been 3 weeks of courses and so far, I’ve only made it there 1 full week. But I have good excuses! The first week I missed the last 2 days because I went to Amsterdam for my birthday. The next week I had to deal with my visa—I spent 2 days at the Préfecture, waiting in line for 6-8 hours a day so that I could finally get the stupid slip of paper that allows me to stay in the country legally. And the following week I went to Barcelona for my business trip. See? Totally not my fault.

So on Monday, the professor approached me as we were leaving the classroom to head to the language lab, looked me up and down and said, “Who are you?” Now there’s something about teachers in France—they are total bitches, extremely rude and SO scary! I froze. She basically went off on me, saying that I haven’t showed up for weeks so I obviously don’t want to be there. And then she just said, “Au revoir!” and dismissed me with a wave of her hand. I hurried after her to try to explain in my broken French and begged her to let me stay.

The next day was the same thing—I was on pins & needles, wondering if she would ask what I was doing there and kick me out. When I didn’t know the answer to a question she would say, “Well if you showed up for class you would know”, she asked for proof from my job for my absence, and she wanted to call my other professor to find out if I’d been slacking in my Grammar course as well (I haven’t been). Finally today, three days later, she smiled at me as she was leaving class at said, “A demain, Stacy?” (See you tomorrow). “Bien sur!”
I think she was happy because today, every time she called on me, I knew all the answers :o)

It’s the first time I’ve walked out of class and felt like, ‘Ok, I’m not getting deported’. Thank God! If she really kicked me out I would lose my visa. Umm, yeah… it probably would be a good idea to actually start attending class, right?

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2007-11-23T12:57:00.000+01:00

I organized Thanksgiving dinner for a group of friends in Paris last night. Being one of my favorite holidays, I couldn’t let it go by uncelebrated! Initially, I had hoped to have a nice, home-cooked Thanksgiving at someone’s apartment but once I found out that the cheapest turkey cost 16€/kilo, I decided to scrap that idea.

I made a reservation at an American diner in the Latin Quarter called Breakfast in America but since we couldn’t get in until 10pm, we decided to start the night off with drinks at an English pub down the street at 7:30pm. But just me and 3 girlfriends met up for happy hour since everyone else was still finishing up work and such. The restaurant had a 4-course Thanksgiving dinner special for 29€― an aperitif (glass of kir), pumpkin soup (which they ran out of, jerks! We had walnut salad instead, it was delic), the main course (turkey with gravy and cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and string beans) and dessert (apple pie). Surprisingly, everything was delicious! I was expecting it to be bland, the turkey to be dry or the food to taste vaguely French—but not at all! If I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend I was back in the States.

Out of the 8 of us, only 3 of us were Americans so we explained to everyone the meaning and significance of Thanksgiving. Then we all went around the table saying what we’re thankful for and then we prayed before digging in. It was a great night! And it was B’s first Thanksgiving so it was really cute to see him really getting into it—at first he thought he wouldn’t like it (he has reservations about American cuisine, so French) but he thought the food was yummy and he had a great time.

Afterwards, the boys went home and the girls went to a karaoke bar around the corner to sing cheesy American songs until 3am with a bunch of drunken French people. It was a great Thanksgiving. I would have loved to be able to spend it with my friends and family back home, but since that was out of the question, this was a pretty nice compromise. There’s a lot of things to be thankful for this year (being in Paris, good health, my new apartment, etc)—one of which being new friends in a foreign country.

Ok, I left one thing out…. there was this guy at the pub we went to for pre-drinks—I can’t think of a good name for him so I’ll call him Grapes b/c he’s a sommelier. He was with a co-worker and they came over to us and said, “We noticed you guys are Americans and just wanted to wish you Happy Thanksgiving”. We ended up talking with them for about an hour and it turns out that he lives and works in my new neighborhood. At one point, he turned to me and said, “I don’t want to come off as sleazy, but can I take you out to dinner sometime? Since you’re new to the neighborhood… but only if you’re fun! I don’t want to go out with a boring girl” (joking). And I said, “Of course I’m fun, I’m a New Yorker!” He was absolutely hilarious so I agreed. About that time, B shows up and for some reason I felt a little… I don’t know, disappointed? Grapes and B were chatting for a bit and Grapes asked how the two of us got together… awkward. Anyway, before we left the pub, B went to the bathroom and Grapes slipped me his business card and told me to call him. And now I cannot stop thinking about him! This is sooo bad; I’m an awful person… what is my problem?! :o(

Another business trip

2007-11-22T13:34:00.000+01:00

Just remembered that I forgot to mention my business trip to Barcelona… I guess that’s because it actually turned out to be pretty uneventful! I flew out last Tuesday and stayed through Saturday afternoon. It was basically 4 days of my trying to throw some BS together for the marketing presentation my boss decided that I was going to give, and running around the hotel getting things organized.

Shelby flew out to meet me and we went to a few restaurants, I got to do a tiny bit of shopping at Topshop (which is definitely not as good as the ones in London) and we went to one nightspot. But we didn’t really get to party—and from what I’ve always heard Barcelona is THE city for nightlife. Totally missed it. I ended up getting really sick and spending the majority of the trip working or in bed… how exciting. And poor Shelby had to spend most of her vacation in the hotel… I felt really bad, sorry Shelby!

There were a bunch of hot hotel workers to ogle though—it seemed like every person who worked at that hotel was beautiful, particularly the doormen :o)

Oh well, there’s always next time! We’re thinking of spending Christmas in Morocco…

I found an apartment!

2007-11-21T16:15:00.000+01:00

FINALLY!!!

About a month ago, I put an ad up on Craigslist asking if anyone had an apartment or even a share that I could go into, but got no decent offers. Then it comes down to 9 days before I’m scheduled to move out of my crackden and I had no clue what I was going to do. B offered to let me stay in his apartment while he’s on holiday in LA for a month but I really wanted to find my own place. But every apartment I went to see (and I saw TONS) was horrendous, overpriced, an outright scam, in a bad neighborhood or simply asked for more paperwork than I could provide. So a few days ago, on a whim, I decided to repost my Craigslist ad to see if anything bit. I immediately got an email from an American couple saying they had something I might be interested in. I went to see it today and it’s perfect! Nothing fancy, but it’s my own place, in my price range and the owners are super nice—they didn’t ask for references, paperwork, a security deposit or anything—just a mutual understanding (and a receipt! I’m not stupid) that I’m their tenant and am allowed to stay in the apartment through September 2008—at least.

It’s a cute little studio in the 11th arrondissement in Paris. It’s tiny, but it’s fully-furnished and includes free WiFi and phone calls to the US. The neighborhood is in what has become a “trendy” part of town—a bunch of nightspots opened up on rue Oberkampf in the last few years and my apartment is about a block away. But it’s on a [relatively] quiet side street and is close to about 4 different metro lines—you New Yorkers know how important that is! I’ve swapped police raids and donner kebab stands in the ghetto for a neighborhood of French cafés and cute bars.

God honestly comes through every single time. Even when you’re down to the wire and don’t know how things could possibly come together, the key is to continue to have faith that He will work it out because He ALWAYS does. 9 days before I'm essentially homeless AND on the day before Thanksgiving—He has a sense of humour! I am feeling so blessed right now :o)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! You’re welcome to come visit me in my new home anytime!

Le Gréve - Part 2

2007-11-21T15:29:00.000+01:00

I've been in Paris for less than 3 months and am already having to brave my 2nd transit strike. So far we're at Day 8 and counting... with no end in sight. And to make matters worse, there are hundreds of people taking to the streets to strike AGAINST the strike, which is causing more congestion and traffic delays! lol, why can't the French get it together??

A weekend in Tuscany

2007-11-19T13:39:00.000+01:00

After the iPod fiasco, I left Paris to spend a weekend with Shelby in Italy. It couldn’t have come at a better time… I honestly just wanted a nice, calm weekend where I could relax and forget about all the crazy drama in Paris.

Nicco and Shelby picked me up from the airport in Pisa on Friday night and we went to dinner at the cutest, most authentic, hole-in-the-wall Italian place about 20 minutes outside of Florence—the owner was a friend of Nicco’s. I had a pizza with buffalo mozzarella cheese, prosciutto and tomatoes and I swear to you, it may have been the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten in my entire life—it literally brought tears to my eyes! I don’t know what it is about Italy, but they have the best food in the world! Even at crappy little tourist spots (this place most certainly was not), you’ll get good food—I hate to admit it, but that’s not the case in France. I think French cuisine is more of an acquired taste, and often times it can be hit or miss. Maybe because French food is more complicated, whereas Italian food basically boils down to bread, cheese, olive oil and meat :o)

After dinner, we went to a Bitty Mclean concert at a club in Florence. Now I'm not being ignorant, I understand that the reggae culture is not a genre to be adopted solely by black folks, but it never fails to amaze me to see hundreds of white, non-American people—rocking the dreadlocks, wearing their Bob Marley t-shirts, smoking a joint and really getting down at a reggae concert in the middle of Italy. Blew my mind… I’m a dork and never heard of Bitty Mclean but he put on a good show. And aside from the strange Ethiopian guy who tried to accost me (thanks for saving me Nicco!), it was a lot of fun.

Saturday was spent wandering Florence… Shelby and I had breakfast (and the best cappuccino ever), did a bit of shopping, had some delicious, cheap gelato, drank a few glasses of wine at a bar and sat under the Tuscan sun admiring the view of Florence. That night Shelby cooked dinner at her cute apartment. I must say, at first I was a bit sceptical about her cooking ability… I mean, Shelby doesn’t exactly strike you as the domestic sort. But she surprised me! She was in the kitchen for like 2 hours cooking this mushroom and cheese quiche thing and a meat roll thing and preparing appetizers (lol, this isn’t sounding very appetizing is it? Sorry, I forget the names!), and we had a bottle of wine—all delicious. Good job Shelby!

On Sunday I took the train to Pisa to visit Lutisha, her hubby Giovanni and her son Marcus Valentino, who has got to be the cutest baby on the face of the earth. I totally forgot to take pics while I was out there, so I stole one off of her MySpace page :o)
Lutisha cooked us lunch (what’s with all my friends turning into chefs lately?) and we spent all afternoon eating, drinking wine, gossiping and reminiscing about our college/NYC days—from life in the dorms, our Backstreet Boys adventures/obsession, our love lives... Five hours later I was on my way back to Paris…

It was the perfect weekend…exactly what I needed. Its nice to see good friends having their own expat experience: Lutisha in Pisa, Shelby in Florence, Zandile in London… each of us New Yorkers in a foreign city, making our own way, having interesting adventures… The thing that struck me the most is that Tuscany is such a contrast from Paris. Paris is very similar to New York in that it’s a loud, fast, sleek, gritty city—of course there’s that European charm and beauty that is particularly unique to France, and it’s a bit culture shock being in Paris, but on the whole, not such a HUGE departure for a New Yorker. On the other hand, Florence is about the size of the Upper West Side, it feels more like living in a quaint village than a cosmopolitan city—life is slow and meditative, all you want to do is eat and drink wine, I love it! And there's something about waking up to the sound of the bells ringing at the Duomo. It got me thinking about my next move… maybe I’ll go to some small retreat in India or someplace so I can get a real unique, reclusive experience. We’ll see!

AHHH!!!!

2007-11-09T12:23:00.000+01:00

My iPod was stolen today... I was on the metro sitting next to this normal looking Indian man, maybe around 35 years old, heading to the office from school and I quickly pulled my iPod out of my pocket to change songs. On the Parisian metro, there's a loud beep that lets you know the door is going to shut in 2 seconds. Well, as soon as the door beeped, the guy jumped up, snatched my iPod out of my hands and ran off the metro. I didn't even have time to react.

The other Parisians on the train barely bothered to look up. Meanwhile, there were two American tourists in the car and they were just as stunned as I was... they were like, "Oh my God, that guy just stole her iPod!" lol, that part was actually funny... or maybe its sad that Parisians are so used to this happening.

I'm trying to look on the bright side: I should be grateful that all he took was my iPod... he very easily could have snatched my purse instead, my life is in there. But I can't help it! I'm PISSED! Its not the iPod itself, its just all that music I had uploaded, gone... I don't have my computer with me so I can't replace it until I go home in February. Now I just have to listen to my stupid Shuffle with like 30 songs on it... I just don't get it!! Can't a person hold something without having to worry about it getting snatched out of their hands?!

I honestly hate Paris right now... thankfully I'm leaving to visit Shelby in Florence in a couple hours and I can get away from this thieving, crime-ridden freakin city.

About the French #4

2007-11-08T16:01:00.000+01:00

Today I had my first experience with a French gynecologist and it was quite intersting so I thought I’d share. Oh, you boys out there may want to stop reading now…

The doctor's office was located in a posh, residential neighborhood in Paris and once I stepped into the building’s courtyard, I saw 3 identical doors leading to God knows where… no sign, nothing to help me out. So I stood there looking around blankly until a nice lady took pity on me and pointed me to the door that supposedly lead to the doctor’s office.

There was a scroll box next to the door so I found the doctor’s name (or what I guessed was her name, I didn’t really understand it on the phone when I made the appointment), pressed the call button and I was buzzed into an empty room. No receptionist, no front desk, nothing. Just a few couches, a bookshelf, a coffee table and stacks of magazines. I walked up and down the different hallways a few times, sure I’d missed something or was in the wrong place. For a second, I even thought I had gone into someone’s apartment by mistake so I walked outside to check the front door and saw a tiny little plaque that read “Médcin”. So I just took a seat and waited to see what would happen.

Turned out the place is like a one-stop shop—the GYN is the receptionist, the doorperson, the accountant, the nurse and the doctor all rolled into one. Pretty funny…

Five minutes later, she appears out of nowhere and calls my name. She ushers me into her “office” which was simply a room the size of my studio that had a desk and a little alcove area that held the examining table and a bunch of medical machines. After taking a few minutes to ask me the routine questions (which was a bit of a challenge considering she spoke very little English and obviously my French is atrocious), she gets up from her desk, walks over to the little exam area, turns to me and says, “Ok, get undressed over there” pointing to a corner of the room.

Now we all know that in the States the doctor politely leaves the room and gives you 5 long minutes of privacy to get undressed, neatly fold your clothes and hide your underwear, and cover yourself in a nice little modest gown while you sit and wait for her to return and knock on the door to make sure you're "ready & decent". But does that happen in France? Of course not! The GYN just made up the table then stood there waiting for me to finish getting undressed. I hesitated when I got down to my underwear (she couldn’t be expecting me to strip down naked right in front of her?) but she just laughed and said, “No, everything”. At this point, I’m slightly mortified to be walking clear across the room to the table, stark naked in front of a woman I’ve never met before in my life… but the French don’t have the same inhibitions about the naked body that we do in the States so it was just not a big deal.

It really made me realize how prudent Americans are in pretty much every area of our lives (TV, advertising, etc). Even in a big, modern city like New York, a doctor would never expect you to prance around her office nude. Sure, they end up seeing everything anyway, but you always get that paper gown to cover up with so that you can at least PRETEND that you’re holding onto a bit of privacy. Whereas here in France, the thought of covering up in front of your doctor is so ridiculously pointless it doesn’t even cross their mind… so when in France!

Another b-day party...

2007-11-02T15:07:00.000+01:00

Last night I went out for drinks to celebrate my birthday with my friends in Paris (a few people from my French class and some other friends) about 15 of us at this cute “trendy” bar in the 2eme called Le Café Noir. The big news was that it was the first night I invited B to hang out with me and my friends… very nerve-wracking! On the one hand, you’re worried that he’ll be weird or dull and your friends won’t like him or won’t be able to understand what you see in him. And on the other hand, you don’t want him to be bored trying to make small talk with a group of strangers for hours... but then you don’t want to seem like you need to be all up in his face, holding his hand every second either… so I figured I’d just let them at it and not worry too much about it…

And he was great and everyone really liked him! Granted, there was the embarrassing moment here and there, like when a friend would come over and say, “Oh Stacy, is this the boyfriend?!” (We never officially said we were boyfriend/girlfriend so it could have been an awkward moment, but he just replied, “That’s me! I’m the boyfriend”). Or when one of my gay boyfriends eyed him up and down and nodded approvingly with a smirk on his face (B just laughed and said, "don't leave me alone with that one"... it was cute).

Some of you will remember a guy that I was semi-head-over-heels for once upon a time… the funny part is everyone who met him immediately thought he was a jerk and I just didn’t understand why they couldn't see what I saw (turns out they were right). But it’s nice to have your friends say nice things about the guy you’re seeing… and to be with someone who makes an effort to get along with your friends :o)

A neighborhood raid

2007-10-31T13:31:00.000+01:00

The ridiculousness of my ghetto is never ending… last night I came home from work around 8:30pm and when I turned the corner onto my block, the entire street was blocked off by four police cars, headlights on, lights flashing. About 10 police officers with three K-9 dogs were surrounding a group of 5 or 6 thug-looking guys at the end of the block. The dogs were barking—but like that vicious, scary, I’m going to rip your throat out kinda bark—the police officers were yelling and the guys were just standing there trying not to look guilty. It was just like a scene from Cops… I quickly crossed over the other side of the street and hurried to my building. But I did make sure to hold my front door open for a few seconds and peek inside before going in—just in case a suspect had slipped away and was hiding out in the courtyard or something. That would happen in the ghetto, plus there’s no lock on the front door (go figure).

I wanted to take a bit of video or a picture but knowing the French police I probably would have gotten carted off to jail for doing so, so I decided against it. Nothing in the papers about it either, just another routine night in the ghetto!

A lovely neighborhood I live in…

Single?

2007-10-30T15:04:00.000+01:00

So I think B and I are like pretty much boyfriend/girlfriend… we hang out just about every day and its starting to get pretty intense. For example, last night we were at dinner and he was talking about his trip to Mexico and LA to visit his brother and new niece… he’ll be gone for 3 weeks at the end of December so I made a reference to the fact that he has to show me how he does his favorite magic trick before he leaves. And he was like, “No, I’m not going to show you the trick. I want to make sure we’re still together when I get back so I need something to keep you around while I’m gone” (he was half joking of course... that would be psycho). Then he was going on about how we’ll email each other every day and the time will go by quickly… um, who says we’re still going to be seeing each other in January!? And what about the rotation of cute foreigners I’m supposed to be dating while I’m here?! Ok, it’s freaking me out just writing this so I’ll stop here.

PS—forgot to mention that I went out for drinks with the Rocker last week… he’s just really fun and crazy. I happened to have a dinner date with B later that night but I totally lost track of time and showed up about 45 mins late. I got a text from B saying, ‘Where are you?’... awful, I know.
The Rocker invited me to spend a weekend in Marseilles with him (in the South of France, about 5 hours from Paris)… apparently his parents have a house in a small town outside of Marseilles and his friend is having a party there in a few weeks. It was cute b/c he was like, “If I ask my mom, would you be interested in coming down with us for the weekend? You’d really like this party”.
I had invited him to come to Amsterdam with us but he said he couldn’t because he was so broke (but he did tell me to sample the mushrooms at the coffeeshops… he’s such a druggie). The funny/sad part is that when the bill came I felt bad so I paid. I know, you don’t even have to say it… me actually paying for a guy?? It was 10€ but still… what is France doing to me!?

Joyeux anniversaire à moi!

2007-10-29T17:43:00.000+01:00

I turned the big 2-5 on Saturday; in the center of Amsterdam, in a French restaurant, surrounded by about 35 Dutch strangers… I thought it would be depressing not being with my friends but it turned out to be one of the best birthday’s I’ve ever had (I still love you guys, gotta get through the pain somehow!).

Eva, Julien and I drove up to Amsterdam on Thursday at 10am… after a quick lunch at a rest stop in Belgium (its absolutely hilarious how the French and Dutch make fun of the Belgians… I guess everyone has their own version of pesky Canadians) we arrived in Amsterdam around 4pm.

The first thing we did was go to Eva’s graduation at her University… she received her Master’s degree (Cum Laude, smart girl!). I spent the night with Eva’s friends Marleen & Flor… a total stranger comes into their place and the first thing they do is hand me a spare set of keys! Marleen and I went to dinner at an authentic family-style place called “Moeders” ( Mothers in Dutch) and had a traditional Dutch meal of hodpodge (see below)… it looks gross but it was DELICIOUS—mashed potatoes with carrots and cheese with a bunch of different kinds of meat thrown in. The bizarre thing is I’ve been to the exact same restaurant in the East Village called Mama’s… I don’t know who copied whom!

The next morning I rented a bike (there are more bikes on the road than cars, its kinda freaky! Its not uncommon to see mothers strapping their newborn baby’s car seat to the back of their bike and zooming off through traffic…) but insisted on getting a normal bike that would blend in with the locals, not the ones with the huge “RENT ME” stickers on the front. Aside from the fact that my bike broke down both days, or that my butt was so sore that I could hardly walk, or that it was freezing cold, or that I hadn’t ridden a bike in about 7 years so I was pissing off all the other riders with my slowness and total disregard for biker etiquette, it was great! That morning I had breakfast at a cute neighborhood restaurant, on the same street where Brad Pitt owns a house (who knew?). Then I jumped on my bike and wandered around Amsterdam until I couldn’t resist the urge to shop. There’s an area called ‘The Dam’ which is like the Soho of Amsterdam… overall cheesy stores but it has your requisite H&M and Zara so it was all good.

That night was Eva’s graduation/birthday party. Her parents rented out a French restaurant and invited about 35 of her closest friends and family to dinner. The night was full of speeches, singing, laughing, wine... so much fun. And then at midnight, they surprised me by singing happy birthday to me and bringing me presents! It was very sweet and totally unexpected… we finished the night with drinks at Eva’s friend’s apartment around 4am in the Red Light District.

SIDENOTE: of course, the story wouldn’t be complete without my mentioning the super hot Dutch guy at the party (see below, but the pic doesn't do him justice). We sat next to each other at dinner and the whole time, I was just trying to focus on what he was saying and not drool too much. We literally chatted about everything under the sun the entire night. And when the party broke up and everyone was saying their goodbyes, he gave me a big hug and kiss on the cheek said, “I really enjoyed talking to you tonight”. ::sigh:: Granted, his girlfriend was sitting at the other end of the table most of the night (she left early) and she was very sweet, but still… a girl can dream can’t she? :o)

On Saturday we all woke up late and I met Eva and Julien for lunch. We went to a bookstore, took a stroll through the flower market (Holland is known for their tulips after all!) and hung out in a café for the rest of the afternoon. Later that evening we had dinner at Eva’s best friend’s house, took in a few documentaries at the Balkan Film Festival which happened to be going on that weekend, and finished the night at the festival’s after party.

Sunday was another chill day… woke up around 8:30am, had breakfast at another cute café, then met up with Eva and her friends for coffee and gossip until it was time to head back to Paris. But when we got to the car, there was a stupid boot on the tire (we were parked in a metered zone but didn’t feed it)… thankfully Holland isn’t France so the cops came within 30 mins to collect the 100€ fine, remove the boot and send us on our way. We got to Paris around 9pm on Sunday.

I think the nicest part of the entire trip was being able to enjoy the city on my own, as if I were a local—I began to feel very Dutch by the end of the trip! I love travelling alone… and when you’re in such a beautiful city, the best part is getting lost in the little back streets and trying to find your way back again. It gives you time to think and be thankful for the experience. And just enjoy being present. And to sum up Holland, it’s an unbelievably quaint country. The people are so friendly, everyone speaks English so there’s no awkward language barrier, Amsterdam looks like a movie set and it’s so tiny you can cross the entire city by bike within an hour. Of course, there’s a ridiculous amount of cows, sheep and windmills and they’ve got a funny obsession with potatoes and meat… but overall it’s an absolutely lovely place.

Oh, I know you’re all wondering… and the answer is no. Sadly I didn’t get a chance to sample the coffeeshop specialties… I’m not a smoker but I was really looking forward to it. But the weekend was so packed (in a lazy sort of way) I didn’t get a chance to check it out. I was also told I have to experience taking a ferry to the north of Amsterdam and going for a bike ride through Holland’s countryside… so much to do, so little time. It just means I have to go back again soon!