fries with that?

A few mornings ago I woke up very grouchy, this probably lingering over from the awful movie we had watched the night before. Les poupes russes, not a bad movie per say except in its moral, which was basically: be a slimy lecherous French guy all you want, in the end you will still get the girl. Then I got out of bed and fell down the stairs. This did little to improve my mood.

Note: My bag and laptop kindly were willing to sacrifice themselves for me and broke my fall, otherwise I probably would be convelescing at the moment.

It's great, I just learned that Amiens has the largest Christmas market in the north of France. This would explain how overnight thousands of pine trees were lashed to lamposts, so that where used to 1.5 people could fit on the sidewalk, now .5 of a person can (how the trees are still green remains a mystery, I suspect it's something similar to the way they process their eternity milk). Also lights are strung everywhere, merry-go-rounds are sprouting up, there's an inflatable fake snow globe in front of l'hotel de ville...and I have never seen so many French people actually at their workplace during normal work hours. Each store has meticilous decorations up, the effect is v. beautiful except for that the pastel huts lined through centre-ville kind of look like a shanty town, a bunch of temporary housing for displaced elves (I think it's the fake snow).

Finally the point of this post was to say I've discovered what the hardest part of speaking french here is -- ordering english products in french. McDo's is awful. A big mac is a beeeg mac, ketchup is keeeeetchup, and unless you put ridiculous stress on the wrong part of the word you will not be understood, or worse, you will be addressed in english that against all odds is even worse than your french. This happens at the Irish pub as well, there's one girl who I'm sure means well but I for the life of me can't figure out how the french say "pint" (so far I've tried "pant" and "peent" and neither have worked) and frankly I'm tired of ordering cidre and then specifying "grand" with my hands to indicate that I don't want a demi, i.e. a wee shot-glass of cider. Unfortunately my inability to mispronounce english means that she assumes I cannot speak french, so I end up having to conduct my entire transaction in broken english, culminating in getting say 2 e 40 back in change, which is french-english for say 3 e 50. And I thought our numbers were easy compared to theirs! None of this four-twenty-nine-teen stuff for me. It will be nice to go to Belgium where they've chucked that system and instead of saying sixty-ten say seventy (well, septane) and instead of four-twenty say eighty (octane). Meanwhile I'll just content myself to answer "voulez-vous du sauce pomme frites?" with a resounding and heartfelt NON.

Will have up pics of elven hooverville soon. For the moment, artistic moments in Parc St. Pierre:



And btw the weather here is morbidly rainy and depressing, do not let these pictures suggest otherwise!

It's not unusual...

because EVERYTHING here is unusual, unusual is the norm, nothing ever turns out like I think it will. For example: when did it become normal to sit on the floor of a shower and discuss Remington Steele w/a guy from Berlin at 3 in the morning? I've come to the realization that being an assistant in France is absolutely nothing like I thought it would be. I mean, nothing is ever quite as you expect it to be, but this is just surreal.

True my French is improving (imperceptibly), I am getting slightly better at teaching, and on good days I almost feel that I am a functional part of French society...but really, I am just a glorified babysitter, I spend my week baking things, bonding w/my stray cat, and occasionally teaching. Weekends are spent in the most unlikely of locations, speaking the usual creole / patois / esperanto of assistants and drinking into the wee hours of the morning. It's not a bad life, I think I'm just starting to feel guilty that I do so little and actually, amazingly, get paid to do this. And guilty that I still don't really speak French, and don't really feel compelled at all to try harder. And guilty that I'm just bouncing around Europe meeting a lot of people I'll probably never see again, and doing nothing serious with my life, no planning for a stable future. The grass is always greener I suppose.

Speaking of baking I had my first major success ! A chocolate cake made entirely from scratch for Jesse's birthday. The cake wasn't too chocolately but the icing was positively decadent!

Family portrait:



And a close up. Notice inspired decor. Like Martha Stewart but w/out the elegance!




Nothing else is really new here, about to repeat the proccess of another week where anything could and probably will happen. Best news is that Kathy is coming to visit me in 10 days!!! Tentative plans to visit Belgium. Should be great! And unusual per usual. Off to go make snickerdoodle dough. C'est la vie, c'est la vie ici...

i'm hanging for some chips, boy!

SHE LIVES! She blogs!

This is about how I feel about attempting to sum up my time in Ireland in one blog post:

But here I go:

10 days in Ireland
3 (min) amount of words a Cork person can say in the time it takes us to say one
2 hours spent sitting on the Bridewell Garda Station steps waiting for Craig
0 Craigs that were released from the Garda Station
1 fake roses bought for me and Jessy to unify the yankees and southerners
1 fried cods left in glove compartments
2 hours taken for Aofie to straighten Jesse’s fro

1 extremely friendly rooster at Looney’s B&B
1 dead body covered w/a blanket at Galway Bus Station [disturbing]
12 other people in our hostel room
5 French people staying in our hostel
1 Swedish guy who looked like a young, blond, Alan Rickman [Jesse’s]
3 traditional music sessions we saw
1 new pairs of shoes bought as mine developed massive holes in the soles

2 nights that are a bit hazy in my memory [and on my camera for that matter]

1 cool Australian / zombie [mine]
100+ Irish guys who thought drag was the best Halloween costume idea
800 (max) amount of people who live on Inis Mór
2 close encounters with cows

moo, lassie

12 miles walked all over the island
10 words I can say in Irish, as taught by cool old man at pub
3 pubs on Inis Mór, total
1 extremely saucy bartender
5 hours from Galway to Dublin with traffic
1 “hostel” that actually had a room for us
1.5 days spent in Dublin, sadly
1 night spent “sleeping” in the airport
60 est. number pints of Bullmer’s Cider consumed

10 est. number of pints I bought for myself or others
50 kilos of potato products consumed [curry chips! tayto crisps!]

EQUALS:

1,102.5 good reasons to go back to Ireland. ASAP.

So I will say, Ireland is everything I hoped it would be. The Irish, not to be stereotypical or anything, were overwhelmingly friendly, generous, talkative (somehow without getting anything done for all the talking. for hours!!!), hilarious, warm, gentle, cheery, prone to public displays of drunkenness, and occasionally v. violent. Ireland was cold and fresh and bright green from the minute we stepped off the plane onto the tarmac, there was good music on every street corner and pouring out of pubs each night, there were pubs on every block, chip and fish stops stayed open all hours of the night, and there were bookshops and used bookstores everywhere. I realize that no place is perfect, but Ireland, for me at least, I think comes as close as anywhere to an ideal place to live. It was, in a word, well…

Grand.

Check out the rest of my photos here (might I recommend the slideshow?)

They are definitely worth 1,000 words. Or 1,102.5. Also, I have some amusing videos but have not figured out how to post them yet. Check back and I may have them up. And I’ll definitely have updates on my not-so-thrilling life back in France. I’m working on a little number called The Carte Bleu blues.

[sneak-preview of chorus: it ate my caaaa-aaard.... now i ain't got no dooooough.....]