French men* give me the creeps

For the record, french men are some of the creepiest men I have experienced in all my stay in Paris.  This is a record of about 4 hours in Paris...

Last night as I was going out (around 9pm), I walked down the street and there was a crazy old homeless person yelling, that's fine by me.  So I put my headphones of my ipod on and begin to "listen" to the music.  Of course this angers the crazy french man and begins to shout at the top of his lungs at me, "POUTAIN!!!" and follow me down the street (Note: Poutain is a very not nice word to say to a lady).  There are about 60 people on this road at the time, including a tour group.  I keep the headphones on and assume the "I can't hear you" position and just walk away.

About 1 train layover later, I am waiting for the train to arrive.  My headphones are on now and I am actually listening to music.  As I wait I look around the train station to entertain myself.  For some reason creepy french guy #2 (dresses like a normal person and NOT homeless), thinks this means that I am attracted to him.  First, he tries smiling at me, and I resist the American urge to smile back, as I know that this is basically considered an open invitation to French men.  As I ignore him, he attempts to get in my line of vision.  This is the part where I begin to "dance" with my head to the music and use the "blank stare" look.  After about 2 minutes of him awkwardly trying to get in my line of vision he tries to talk to me, I again "jam" to my music and do a complete 360 degree turn.  At this point the train arrives and he luckily gets the idea that I am not interested.

On the next train I have to take, I am of course sitting directly across from a disheveled french man,  who starts off our journey serenading me.  When I deny him eye contact.  He does jazz hands in my line of sight to try and break my stare.  Luckily I keep my focus and keep looking blankly at a cute french baby 2 rows behind him.  After his last attempt at breaking my focus he finally gets off the train and tells me how much I will regret this.

Finally while I am walking home by myself, I walk past a homeless man on the ground who again screams POUTAIN at me.  

I really don't appreciate the French version of chivalry.  

*Please note, not all French men are creepy.  I would say about 96.8% are creepy, and the other 3.2% are probably nice

Fondue Fun in France

I have a friend in Paris!

That's pretty exciting.  A guy I knew from DE (John) actually lives in Paris at the moment.  So I officially know someone in my age range who lives in Paris!  Woo hoo!

Anywho last night John and I went to le Refuge des Fondues, an extraordinarily funny restaurant that also has delicious food!  Obviously it's a fondue restaurant but it's a fondue restaurant with a bit of fun.

First of all the place is always packed.  We had to wait outside until 2 spots opened up.  It's funny, the waiter comes and out of the restaurant and he basically screams COMBIEN (how many).  My guess is if you don't respond quick enough he won't let you in.  The girls in front of me (Americans) had said they made a reservation before and he wouldn't let them in, so they were going to try again.  It's a bit of a Seinfeldian Soup Nazi right in the heart of Montmartre.  When you finally are allowed to enter, you go through a door whose handle is a golden baby bottle...perplexing, yes, but this has a lot to do with the prior mentioned "fun" of the restaurant.  You are ordered to the back of the restaurant by the Fondue Nazi, as I will now call him.  The restaurant is about the size of a small class room, maybe 12 ft x 20 ft (maybe).  Two long tables are along each wall with barely enough space for one small person to fit down the aisle between them.  Everyone in the restaurant huddles together at the table as they hope to avoid the one man who seems to always be walking back and forth down the aisle yelling Chaud! (Hot!).  The walls are made of wood, but graffitti commemorating the people who have been there before covers the walls to the point where it no longer appears to be made of anything other than scribbled letters.  It's so loud you can barely hear yourself think.  As I go to the back of the restaurant, cleverly avoiding being burnt by the Chaud man, I meet the cross eyed bartender, who begins to mumble to me in what I believe is French.  I respond with the affirmative "ouais" and begin to understand him a bit more clearly.  Although I am still not quite sure I believe he has told me that I was A)pretty B)this was my first time there and C)I should be careful not to drink too much wine or he might have said I should drink a lot of wine...I'm still not quite sure.  Next thing I know, the Fondue Nazi winks at me and beckons me with a slightly creepy come hither look that only old French men have perfected.

So I shyly approach and all of a sudden I am climbing over the table, stepping on it and posing for a picture taken by the nice Texan man next to me.  Once I sit the table is quickly pushed towards me and Voila I am in my spot. 

Like all French waiters he comes to the table and asks us what we want.  But unlike most restaurants there is NO menu. I begin to panic thinking "Oh lord, we made it in, but can we stay, the Fondue Nazi will definitely kick us out for such impertinence"  but luckily John saves the day and orders the savoyarde (cheese fondue) as he had been here before and knew the expectations.  

As we sit there, we are given a lovely kir as a welcome (my first kir in Paris!) and some lovely hors d'oeuvres (sausages, cheese cubes,

 pickles, olives).  The kir fills my mouth with delicious merriment... although they did add an orange which I felt brought down it's usual impeccable flavor.

The Fondue Nazi asks if we would prefer le vin rouge ou blanc, and I order a rouge.  Next thing you know he brings us two baby's bottles

filled to the top with wine.  Possibly the best way to drink ever, I may have to start up a new fad in the USA.  After two sucks of my baby's bottle, the Chaud Man comes by and plops some delicious crusty french bread down on the table and the wonderful savoyarde.  The fondue pot steams  the general area and my stomach delights at the wonderful aroma of delicious french cheese (not the stinky variety).  Of course, my fondue fork and I puncture a piece of crusty bread and dip it in the soupy fondue. MMMM Parfait!  This is the perfect way to begin my time in Paris.  John and I stopped all conversation at this moment and focused on what's important, the fondue.  So as I am dipping my bread, John loses a piece in the fondue and I look over and he's kissing the girl next to him.  Apparently it is tradition that when you lose something in the fondue you must bestow a kiss on the person to your left or right.  Lucky for the girl next to me (or perhaps unlucky for her)

 I only lost my bread once.  

At some point, perhaps 30 mins into the fondue, I get that feeling in my stomach that says if you eat one more bite I will explode.  This is also the point where my whole entire face begins to leak.  Of course, at this moment, my body has chosen to express that it has a cold.  Luckily we are done, but I turn into gross disgusting monster who cannot control her leaky nose or her sneezing.  I not only use my napkin but I also use up John's napkin.  Then I attempt to escape to the bathroom without mounting the table, but Fondue Nazi gives me the evil eye and I awkwardly climb over the table with his help.  Once in the bathroom (relatively clean by Paris standards) I steal about 25 squares of toilet paper, in hopes that it will help me survive the rest of the night.  Boy was I wrong.  Not only have I used up all the toilet paper I have to go back to the bathroom twice and take at least 15 sheets of napkins as the toilet paper was just not strong enough to hold up to my blossoming cold.   At the end of the night it's just the American girls next to us, the Fondue Nazi, Chaud Man and John and me.  We leave the restaurant with rather full bellies and grab the metro to Odeon with the American girls to enjoy a drink at the 10 bar.

Rather uneventful at the 10 bar, other than the fact that I stayed out past the metro and had to walk home.  Lucky for me, the walk took me about 10 mins.  

I love my location.

That's about all for my adventures so far, I will try and put up some pictures from the experience with the trottinette or get Raphy to help me reenact.

Me and the Trottinette of Death

Today Raphy asked me to ride a scooter (trottinette) with her to school.  This is possibly the worst experience in my whole entire life.  Not only was I trying to protect Raphy from on going traffic I was also trying to maintain my precarious balance on the stupid scooter.  Several times I actually stumbled into pedestrians who thought I was clumsy and too old for a scooter.  The lesson learned from this is that sometimes you are in fact too old for some things, and those things are mainly trottinettes.

Baby Bird Flies the Coop...in First Class

This post was written for Feb 4, my first day in Paris, but I just got connected to the internet so it's a bit late!

My life is pretty wonderful.  What can I say?  For some reason I am lucky enough to have Dave Hulshouser in it.  A pilot with Delta, Dave reallly hooked me up.  Not only did I get a ridiculously cheap round trip ticket to Paris BUT I also managed to sit in first class and be treated like a princess.  It was absolutely incroyable!  I think the saddest part for me was watching my mom and dad walk away from the van that left with me in it.  I cried a bit but hten got myself back together so I didn't make the driver too uncomfortable.  I left Fort Washing ton at 12:30 and made it to JFK by 2:00, which is an hour and a half to get to NYC...that's just plain old ridiculous.  I guess t's because it was the Super Bowl, and all Americans were watching the TV and not flying, which was wonderful for me.  

I get to the check-in counter and discover that my baggageweighs 64 lbs and 72 lbs respectively (the limit is 50 lbs)  Thanks again to my luck, the very nice Deta check-in lady only charges me $50 (thanks to Mimi and JimJim's gift card,  you got my clothing to Paris, the greatest gift I could ask for).  Now, on to security.  Please note that even though I checked on 146 lbs of luggage I STILL have a carryon (a mini rolling bag) and my "personal item" which is probably bigger than my carry on and contains my laptop.  Stupidly I forget to remove my laptop from my one bag before going through security, and of course the angry latino TSA man responds with what I assume are a series of curses in Spanish.  He then yells at me and tells me that I should have told him and now he has to hand search my one bag and swipe every possible area for dangerous materials.  So I am delayed about 20 minutes while the angry mn searches my bag.  BUT this doesn't upset me I am over 4 hours early for my plane and really have nothing to do.  I think the fact that I wasn't bothered at all made teh angry TSA man angrier.  He wouldn't even respond when I appologized.

Now I am at JFK, and I spend the next 4 and a half hours talking on the phone or reading my book, "The Other Boelyn Girl".

Finally it's time for the standby passengers to be given their seat assignments.  I walk up to the  Delta lady with a huge smile, and since we are at JFK she responds back to me with a sneer.  I hand her my standby ticket and she hands me back my boarding pass.  I look down at it and I realize I am in seat 4F!  First class BABY!  I board the plane first, to my delight, and get to to set myself up in the deliciously comfortable seat, as I watch 12 little children head back to economy class.....ahhhhh WONDERFUL!.  By the time everyone is boarded, there is no one sitting next to me in first class.  So not only am I in first class but I am also completely by myself in my row.  First things first, I order myself a mimosa and proceed to have the glass refilled 3 times.

The rest of the flight was absolutely perfect.  By now the Xanax has kicked in, but I only slept for maybe 2 hours on the flight.  I did however get to watch Jane Austen Book Club, a clever comedy based around her romances.  Pretty easy to watch as long as you are familiar with her writing.  Food was delicious for a flight.  Macademia encrusted mahi mahi served with a pineapple coulis and jasmine rice.  Mediterranean crab salad with an apple slaw (my favorite) and then a dessert of French cheeses (parfait!)

After 8 hous, I finally arrived in CDG and I have to admit the worst part of the whole flight was getting off the plane with my carry ons.  Because between me and the ground there was apprximately 20 stair that I needed to walk down to then get on a bus.   Of course the carry on luggage was not in the mood to participate so instead of looking like a chic Parisian disembarking the plane, I look like a clumsy American struggling to remain control of her luggage.

Jean-Paul was waiting to pick me up at the gate once I got though customs (which is a breeze in comparison to America).  He's quite nice and a bit sarcastic, which is typical of the French.  His family is from Northern France but I am pretty sure he considers himself Parisian.  It's fun to hear the French speak of arrondisements (neighborhood/districts)...I am pretty sure in Paris your arrondisement makes who you are.  I mentioned that my school was in the 6ieme arrondisement and J-P basically did a comical sneer for me, and said well now you live in the 5ieme.  I discovered that both J-P and Suzanne work for Nestle Tollhouse at the Paris Headquarters.  He is a Director of Innovation, so he is paid to think of new things and Suzanne is a Marketing Director for Herta, a chilled foods subsidiary of Nestle.

Once we arrived at the maison, J-P did a quick walking tour of the area.  I seriously can walk to the front of the Pantheon in under 5 minutes and to the jardin du Luxembourg in maybe 7 minutes.  He showed me Raphy's school which is blocks away from teh house adn he showed me Jassy's school which is also also quite close.  I came back to the apartment (which is deliciously above a boulangerie (bakery) which happens to always smell delicious)  and waited until Jassy showed up for lunch and then she gave me the grand tour.  My room is quite small but the family is really quite kind and they have basically said that the downstairs is also to be like my home.  Therefore I have access to everything I could want.  I am really quite happy, even though my room is a boite (box).

Jassy and I had lunch and I really enjoy her.  She's sweet and innocent but still mature at the same time.  She's just entered a new school and is allowed quite a bit of independence by her parents, but she still is quite fun and not at all upset that she has an au pair, which I was worried about.  We had a lovely lunch together, we both helped to heat up some soup and we both helped to clean up...so it wasn't as if I was a maid of any sort.  After she went back to school I proceeded to unpack my luggage by crrying bits of it up and down the 4 flights of stairs.

At 4:30Raphy arrives, and boy, is she a whirlwind.  She was super excited to see me and the two of us had her goute together.  I have to admit even though she is high energy, she is cute and smart that you can't not be charmed by her.  Until about 6:3 the girls and I played together, I then tried to make Raphy do her homework by sitting with her and helping her.  In France they do subtraction in a ridiculous fashion compared to how I learned it....so I had a bit of trouble figuring out how to help her in the "correct" way because I didnt want to get her in trouble with her teacher for doing it incorrectly.  Apparently I am going to have to learn a couple of things about being 8 years old again.  After about an hour we finished and Raphy proceeded to do my hair and make-up for dinner...I surprisingly did NOT look like a clown but more like a fairy with silver glitter all over my cheeks, which Raphy told me was tres a la mode.

Dinner was delicious, J-P made a raclette, which is steamed potatoes which you pour melted hot cheese over (usually a comte or a gruyere).  As I am a fromageophile (cheese lover), dinner was absolutely incredible.

The girls went to bed, and Suzanne and I stayed up and chatted a bit.  I really like the family.  Although I am sure at times the girls will be a handful, they are generally very sweet and good natured.  Both Suzanne and Jean-Paul seem to want to make my stay here as easy and fun as possible.  I have my own separate where I can do what I wish and my schedule doesn't seem to be overwhelming at all.

I am super excited to be here and it seems to all be working out in my favor which is wonderful!  Thanks to everyone who showed up at my going away party, I really appreciate it.  I think that  will probably be the toughest thing, not seeing the people I love for 6 months.  Tomorrow hopefully will be just as exciting as my first day!....hopefully I will be able to up date you soon...by the way it's 6 am in Paris right now and I cannot sleep!

Psychic Cousins, NOT Psycho Broads

My cousin Angie and I just spent a whirlwind 24 hours driving down to DC and back. On the way we stopped and visited my other cousin (Angie's sister) who lives in Baltimore. We had some lovely cousin bonding time which consisted of huge Mexican platters, Jeopardy, American Idol and House.... apparently we are lame home bodies who only like watching TV.

After Angie and I left Stephy's house at 7 am, we made our way down to the Nation's capital to the French Embassy to get a visa. Luckily we found it in plenty of time (we were 3 hours early). With all the additional time we decided to wander a bit through Georgetown. Out of the 4 hours we were in Washington; 2 hours was spent walking to M Street, 1 hour was spent walking through shops like the Gap and J. Crew, 30 minutes was spent trying to take a picture on a HUGE Adirondack mint green chair in front of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and about 15 minutes was spent actually obtaining the visa from the very mean frenchies.

The last 15 minutes was dedicated to the extraordinary intellect of Angie and me. In the car driving through Washington, I noticed American's campus and I said to myself and later outloud, "I think Rachel (my cousin Danny's girlfriend) lives around here, we should call Danny and get him to call Rachel". About 10 minutes later Angie is screaming, "I just saw Rachel walking down the street! In a blue Coat! Walking down the street!" So I stop, incredulous in my disbelief that we could run into the ONE person we know who lives anywhere near Washington DC at quarter til 9 in the morning. So I turn the car around and there she is Rachel Wise! It was possibly the most incredible thing that's ever happened to me before. Notice the psychic power caused by the cousins right there.

So we depart Washington and get ready for the 3 hour ride back to good ole Lansdale, PA. As we are driving back I turn to my cousin and say, "I need to go to the outlets this week and get some stuff for my host mom from Osh Gosh" and Angie replies in about 20 seconds, "Did you say that because we are passing an outlet mall right now?" As you can tell there is some evidence of psychic power generated by us two cousins.

On a side note: despite what any comedian or crazy blond woman said in Atlantic City, Angie and I are not psycho broads, for the record. Our laugh is cute and does not sound like the last sound you here before being murdered by someone in the backseat of your car.