You're darn-tootin' I like fig-newtons

On the first sunny day of the year you plan a picnic, thinking that the next day will be a sunny one as well. On the second day, the sun hides behind a grey sky and the wind bites at every exposed place on your body and what do you do? You go on a damn picnic anyway because it's what you have to do. Did you buy all that bread and Champagne for nothing? NO.

Cody, Carrie and I walked the full distance to the citadelle and then wandered around in the cold for an hour to find a bench for our picnic. I've never made a sandwich with gloves on, I hope to never do it again, but I'll be damned if that wasn't a tasty sandwich for what it was worth.

On the bright side, we found the Lilloise zoo along the way. It's free to get in and they have a nocternal house with bats, snakes, and tiny, tiny, tiny monkeys. Tiny, tiny monkeys.

Saturday night we went to a rouge party where everyone in red supposedly got a present. For some, the present was a book of matches or some such bar accoutrement. For Carrie and I it was having beer spilled on us to the sound of 80's music. But the snow outside was really, really pretty. That was something.

VOUS ETES EN FRANCE, MADAME!!!!

So, about two months ago when Carrie and I got here we layed eyes on the dungeon-like place that is our "laundry room" and thought, could this be any worse?

Two weeks later we went to do laundry and found that the cycle can last for up to fourteen hours, the washers leak, and a vortex is created inside the washers that rivals anything Steven Hawkings could comprehend. And we thought, could this be any worse?

Two weeks ago (after discovering that we've been using softener, and not, in fact, detergent) I went to take my laundry from the washer and the door locked and would not let me have my laundry as it commenced spinning for 20 more minutes. When the washer is engaged, you cannot open the door. Even if your clothes have been done for a half of an hour. Four people were in line for the drier. And we thought, can it get any worse?

Today, I got downstairs to find that both the second washer and the drier read "hors service," leaving one washer (the leaky one) for 150 people. I can handle this, I think, I'm the only person signed up right now and I'll just hang my clothes up to dry in my room. An hour later I return to find that the vortex has been spinning, oh yes, for an hour, but there is NO WATER in the machine. Meaning that in the place where my jeans have been pressed against the glass, the friction has burned a hole in my brand new french jeans.

Where there was a crotch, there is now a pile of burnt lint.

Yes, apparently it can get worse. Much worse.

Welcome to France.

A Full-Color Play in One Act

The following is a reenaction of the events of 5:11 this morning.

Me: Laying in bed, probably snoring, definately dreaming about sealions.

[The cellphone rings, electronic chopin]

Tim: Hi Babe, are you awake?

Me: (I am clearly not awake) Mmmmumble mummmblle yes mmmmumble

Tim: (Barely concealing his boyish joy beneith a façade of self-pride in some grand, unknown achievement) Someone has a surprise for you, answer your phone in a second okay?

Me: Mumble. (Phone in hand, I return to sleep.)

My Inner Monologue: Clearly, the surprise is Kacie. Or else I've been selected to go on Jeopardy.

[I sleep for ten minutes, thinking about Jeopardy, except that Jared is the host and I'm playing against Sean Connery and Ben Stiller, there is no competition; cellphone rings]

Me: Hullo?

The Noise on the Other End: Noise.

Me: Hullo?

Kacie: Hi!!! What are you doing!?!

Me: Oh my word in heaven! (paraphrase) HI! It's five am. I'm sleeping like mad.

Kacie: That's too bad. You're awake now. I'm sorry I'm a bad friend and this is the first time I've called you since you've been in France but I'm busy not sending you mix CD's. Someone has something to say to you...

Sweet Refrain: Of all the girls that I have known, the dearest one to me, is the girl who wears above her heart the badge of TKE
No other girl could be so fair, so loyal and so true,
I pledge her my heart that I never shall part from my sweetheart in TKE
No other girl could be so fair, so loyal and so true,
I pledge her my heart that I never shall part from my sweetheart in TKE

ME: (Explatives deleted)

All players take a bow (ie: awesomely run around in the woods).

Fin
----------------------------------------------------------------
If there was ever a brilliant way to wake up in the morning, finding out you're the TKE sweetheart, even though you're in France and haven't seen any of their lovely faces in more than two months, is definately the most brilliant of them all. You guys absolutely rule and I wish I had been there to run around in the woods with you. Thank you.

Everyone donate to Alzheimer's Research.

Beat that, France.

On another note: I purchased a ticket yesterday to fly to Washington and see Tim in April. I'll be there for two weeks and if you want to come make out with us you can. Bring your museum hat.

What does this signify anyway (not the museum hat comment, the fact that I'm leaving Europe to go to D.C.)? How in the world can it be cheaper for me to fly to America than to stay in Europe? Regardless, it was either spend two weeks fighting other people's opposing iteneraries just to have to pay to see everything again in June, or see the Smithsonian museums (and Tim) (and Eftim, woot woot) for free.

Also, there are finally pictures of Rome and though many of them are the same I'm also including the link to Erin's pictures because there are more pictures of me and less pictures of grass and buildings. I read somewhere that the greatest photographers never take a picture without a human in it. This is most likely bullocks except in the case of the "vacation photographer," where managing not to take 90 pictures of a cottage definately separates the men from the boys.

Come to find out that I truly did miss getting to see the Pope wave out of his window by mere hours.

Essentially, getting to hear my friends' voices last night, for the first time in so long, was enough to get me high for weeks. And I love that the chapter now has an international calling card. We're opening doors, people. To those with whom I didn't get to speak, I wish I could have. To those who were cut off by horrid french satelites and their evil powers of devistation, I got the point at least.

Note on the text: Despite her beratement of herself, Kacie is not actually a bad friend. Instead, she a spritely and rather Sapho-like joy of a human being. Even if she still hasn't sent me a mix CD.

Sammy, are you listening?

I've decided to compose a poem in French in response to one of Sammy Williams' songs. Only not really in French because that's pretentious. Pile of bones, bucket of dirt, pile of bones, bucket of dirt...

In the true french style, I had two tests and one canceled class that everyone knew was canceled except the exchange students who shook the locked door like idiots and then wondered why we all got up from our extended naps and wandered through the snow to get there. Ahh yes... the snow. Yesterday, tiny, perfectly formed, six-sided snowflakes fell all day. Today, snow that looked exactly like tiny, white cake sprinkles (hence, it "sprinkled"). Tomorrow I'm hoping for snow that looks like tiny submarines.

Though my residence hall might be the French equivalent of living with Flava-Flav as your mother, the other residences on campus are quite nice. Like St; Thomas, for example, where a group of Finnish girls made dinner for the entire building (of eight people) and me. There is nothing like a Finnish meal when you are broke, hungry and... um, actually it was just salmon and mashed potatoes but it was free and I was starving and there was wine. This is love. They even made something called "Apples, it's Good," which was like apple crisp with eggnog on it. Not as impressive as the hand-drawn Finnish flags but still, impressive.

I love a building where they give you food for free instead of turning off your appliances and insulting your mother.

Lies, no one has ever insulted my mother.

Anyway... Once again I was told that I speak French well which is funny because I only have to do it every once in a while. I attribute this to two things.

1) People expect us to speak the worst, most deranged French humanly possible. (I'm still not convinced that the Spaniards are speaking anything.)

2) They don't let you speak french because everyone on earth is eager to speak English. A guy on the subway informed me that it is the Langue Universalle. It's actually a bit depressing. French television is nothing but dubbed episodes of Wayans Brothers shows. The clothes say things on them in English like "I drive for fish" (Not really but I wish they did). In Italy, in Spain... always the same.

Such is the way of the world. But they do wear crazy french boots and they guys have some of the ugliest hair cuts I've ever seen, which makes up for all of the girls being amazingly skinny.

Phrase du jour: Rebaja, Soldes, Saldes, SALE! (The only thing other than Kabab and smoking that you find in every country.)

Note: I miss Scrabble on TV and I'm so, so tired of Peter Gabriel. Genesis is the french equivalent of Germany's David Hasselhof.

Mon cousin, Kirk Cameron

So there I am, helping Trina plan her wedding in this enormous mansion on the beach with this big drag-queen looking lady when Kirk Cameron comes up to see what's going on. We hit it off immediately and I'm really, really attracted to him and I can tell he's into me which is awesome because I totally watched Growing Pains all the time as a kid. So we're joking a flirting and whatnot and then I remember that we're cousins. Am I hallucentating? I wonder. He's totally hot; we can't be cousins. And then my cousin Meryn shows up and explains to me, Shakespeare style, that they have the same father but different mothers (like bloddy mary and Elizabeth I) and that he never comes to Thanksgiving because he got all famous.

There are a number of reasons why this is the saddest dream I have ever had. If I wasn't in a medication-induced coma right now... but I can't even make excuses.

I'll admit it, I thought about checking out the cousin laws in France.

Note: The woman in charge of my building is psychotic. I think she broke the (only) drier (in the building) on purpose. She hasn't cleaned our sink in four weeks. She's turned into a nutella nazi and won't set it out at breakfast even though she clearly has boxes of it. And she turned off all the ovens and wrote "out of order" on them, even though they still work. I really think she's crazy. She sics her dog on Carrie and I think she's hording my mail.

Phrase du Jour: Hors Service (out of service)

I think there's still a half of a chicken salad sandwhich in my suitcase

So... imagine waking up at six-thirty in one country (Italy) and then traveling across two more countries (Belgium and France) by yourself only to end up at home with some sort of typhoid fever. I can't actually back that up, that I have Typhoid fever, but it definately feels that way. Maybe part of it is that I haven't slept in nine, count 'em, NINE days.

And if you're up for one of the most frusterating experiences of your life, try going to the doctor's office and explaining in French that when you cough it makes your teeth hurt. I'm not sure if I got my point across but I left with a grand total of FIVE PRESCRIPTIONS and 26 days worth of medicine. Hopefully tonight I will sleep the sleep of the dead (without actually feeling like death anymore).

I had fully intended to wander on down to the computer lab yesterday, despite my raking coughs and fill you in on the last days in Rome. It was a lovely sunny day (the first one since I've been here) and Carrie had gone to Bruge, "the Venice of Belgium" with Erin and her family so really had nothing to do but be too sick to do homework (Huzzah for Snood). Sadly, I looked out the window and lo and behold: HUGE WET SNOWFLAKES dropping from the sky like a plague of locusts. Bullocks. Needless to say, I stayed in and sent Cody out with money to buy a box of ice-cream. Here's to a long, crappy day fully and successfully wasted.

Anyway, the final verdict on the Eternal City is that, though eternally dirty, the city itself is something everyone on earth should see. There is a distinct reason why the Sistine Chapel is the greatest masterpiece of all time. And don't let anyone tell you that Michelangelo had help in painting it... it was halfway completed before anyone other than Pope Julius II (who was a bit of a dictator) was able to see it and even then the only people who saw the work in progress where Raphael and Giacomo della Porta (the architect of St. Peter's Basilica). Michelangelo had never painted a fresco in his life when he was "asked" (some say forced) to create his greatest masterpiece. The crazy thing about a fresco is that you can't change it once you put the paint down so everything you see is a first draft. The image of God separating light from darkness was created in one day. Suck on that new-age-artist-guy who makes statues out of hangers and string.

I say, if life is ever discovered in space, we send Rome as our ambassador but (no offense, Catholics) the Pope should probably stay home.

In other news, my Dad tells me that Hunter S. Thompson shot himself in his home in Aspen on the 20th. Rather than comment on that too much I suggest to you read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or, my favorite, The Curse of Lono (very topical reading for a trip to Hawai'i).

PS. there is no greater reward for a long, hard trip than to come home to find that your grandmother has sent you a strawberry marshmallow heart and your mom has sent you a package of knee-high socks. There has never been a greater family.

PSS. Erin McQ, as well as being the best travel companion ever born, is the official Rome-Trip MVP. Because she not only got her money and camera stolen (and miraculously returned) she also hiked five miles, barefoot, uphill, in the snow to get there. Also, she only eats half of everything and then lets you eat the rest. SNAPS!

PSSS. IF you find my "I (heart) TKE" pin the next time you go to the Vatican, let me know.

No more bleeding Jesi

Today we went to the Galleria Borghese and saw some beautiful art that didn't have any pictures of Jesus bleeding/weeping/bleeding some more. It was entirely based on beautiful mythological types who were in strife but were in sexy strife... a much needed break from all the beautiful but incredibly difficult to look at Catholic art of the past few days.

Now if own my resperatory infection would go away so I could stop coughing loudly in crowded museums where people just want to look at art and not get ebola. Hopefully I won't crash and bleed out (jesus-style) on the plane tomorrow... that is if I make it to the plane...

Note: if you send me your address I will send you a postcard. This means you Ashlie Daigle. Catch, I expect one in return. Bise, bise...

SISTINE CHAPEL

Today: swarmed by midget children and their teacher who asked a million questions, grabbed me inappropriatly and said lots of things in the only english they knew 8which of course were things you don't say in polite society) all in front of the vatican.

Saw the SISTINE CHAPEL and DIED.

Love this country, miss the internet. Hate the smog.

A Spaniard in the Works

I quite like a lot of Spaniards and Spain in general, I can't lie. But the Spanish, like some flock of exotic birds can be spotted at great distances and are hard to deal with in close proximity. They travel in large, loud, singing groups that never sleep, and never surrender. Last night I had the great pleasure of sharing a wall with what sounded like a wedding party but was, in fact, only six of them. I'm glad I picked France.

Traveling, I've realized, is the greatest indicator of any personality trait you could wish to reveal about yourself or anyother person. How one feels about money, time, sleep, cleanliness, money, sex, fidelity, food, schedules, history, entitlement, respect, language, sharing, violation, strength, humor or any other tiny aspect of life is exposed the minute one sets foot out the door. Even whether or not one chooses to travel, how one does so and how often is a remarkable indicator. I am in some ways not the person I thought I was. In other ways I rule the faces off of most people, dominating them like a mighty titan with a semitar in one hand and a glorious map of the world in the other.

Yesterday, you may have noticed, I didn't make much noise about the state of the Roman world. This is not because I didn't want to but because adventure runs heavy in tiny, tiny canals.

Yesterday we visited St. Peter's Fortress of the Box (also known as a Basillica). Yes, the lòargest and most splendid church on the face of the earth features at it's core a tiny gold box full of what may or may not be bits and pieces of Peter. Without a doubt, it was the most splendid and remarkable building I have ever seen. The statues alone are enough to literally knock you off your feet (though you will promptly be yelled at for sitting by the staff). Veronica's shroud was my favorite but the others were equally mighty. The marble is like reality dipped in candy. The gold is whipped into a froth. Popes had better appreciate this.

If you ever go, remember that someone plastered every single one of those little tiles into place and then was promptly forgotten by time.

Michaelango's Pieta is also a shining example of divine beauty. It's easy to see why his contemporaries didn't believe that someone so young could carve something so almost translucent with beauty. Fortunately, I didn't cry this time.

Now... this is about the point where my travel companion's disappeared in search of the Vatican Museums (planned for tomorrow). We shall only say that in the time between now and then Erin McQ turned 21, Carrie went back to France on the five am train, Erin's wallet and camera were stolen (camera returned, wallet not) and the general hysteria of the day meant that Erin and I relaxed and hit the roman Zoo (read: Biopark).

It wasn't like I woke up expecting to meet my reservations at the Borghese Gallery with friends and then stay in an apartment for free insteading of paying for three more nights only to miss our reservations and have my friends LEAVE THE COUNTRY WITHOUT ME....

The Finnish have a saying for this I'm sure, but I don't know what it is...

Today, sleeping in a park, exploring the zoo, and accidently finding the museum that houses my favorite Caravagio of all time. And, oddly, one of Hans Holbein's famous portraits of Henry VIII in what used to be the palace of an important Italian family and is now the national art gallery. Go figure.

Essentially, Rome get's weirder but also better and better.

Tonight I will sleep the sleep of a million starry nights. Unless the Spaniards are in.

Celene Dion is Following Me

Raise a glass to Tim for his birthday. I raised at least a litre. But I also walked many a mini-mile (kilometre) today... find an appropriate medium according to the country in which you currently reside. Joyeuse Anniversaire!

Roman Holiday

Slowly the money has been dripping away, seeming into those famous Roman canals themselves... a euro here and a euro there... on buses... on Gelati... on this live journal post....

Is it the history all around me or does time really seem to flow differently here?

Yesterday, the first full day in Rome and I saw more than one person could beg to see in a lifetime. We saw the prison where Peter was held and the chains that bound him. Bit's of Jesus's manger, the tomb of Raphael, the colluseum, the pantheon, the church were Carravagio's Peter and Paul are on the walls, the trevi fountain and a million years of nearly untouchable, nearly unimaginable history at our feet.

Within a split second of laying my eyes on Michaelangelo's Moses I was crying inconsolably. My whole life I've ignored that statue is Moses and instead seen him as some sort of mighty and tempermental sea god, thinking about the fates of the world and wringing his beard in his powerful hands. The temptation to risk being arrested and traverse the ten short--but roped off-- feet between me and the statue, just to touch his beautiful smooth face was nearly too much. In every picture my nose is red from crying.

At the Trevi fountain we made our wishes; I can't tell you what they were, but I can tell you the first was for Trina, the second for Tim and, following tradition, the last was for a return to Rome.

Everywhere the master works are peering at you from corners, unexpected. History which stands still while the bustling millions (nearly all speaking English) press and pass their way around them. A fuller Valentine's day has never been.

Let's not forget the food.

Today was Villa Adriana in the outskirts of a Roman suburb called Tivoli. The town itself is Italy at it's quaintest and most loveably picturesque... Villa Adriana is something else entirely.

What used to be the "Villa" of Hadrain, the complex, larger than my home town, was built around 70 A.D. The red brick ruins are larger, farther and more completely complex than even the Roman forum. The forum in Rome proper, a veritable pillar graveyard, is like everything else, fenced off from the people but not the smog. It is beautiful but not nearly as touching to the imagination as Villa Adraina, where the mosaics still exist on the floors and one can easily see where hundreds of people decadently lived, fought and played out their days.

Rome, after two days is tiring but ever awe-inspiring.

Five more days to go and a million stories to tell already... how, if only I could stop the money hemorage and just breath.

Phrase du jour: Parle Inglese?

Caio bella!

I voted for you for homecoming court.

Little ship of dreams...

The building I live in was a morgue. And then in WWII it was a hospital. Nuns used to live in my room. Carrie and I think the laundry room used to be an incinerator. Living with this information is half cool and half really, really creepy.

That being said: Gisel did my hair last night (and as part of the package, put more makeup on me than I've worn in the past three years combined). By "did my hair" I mean she totally Nancy-Wilson-Circa-1977-"Little Queen"-by-Heart-ified me. Rockstar Hot. It's slightly funny because no one in College has even seen my hair died or even, um, cut... but no one in Highschool ever saw my natural hair color. Ah, how I missed the thrill of the "holy crap!" when someone sees you for the first time after you've changed your hair, and realizes they've been looking at you for ten minutes and didn't know who you were.

Note: The French may take excellent notes but they talk in class more than anyone on earth. And the teachers ignore this fact completely.

I'm trying to figure out why it is that once a semester I must get a) bronchitis or b) strep throat. In an effort to not cough all over Rome I'm staying in Bed (new photos) and drinking soup tonight while reading Jack Gilbert poems. I can't believe how close I am to seeing things that I've looked at in books my whole life. Wednesday, if all goes well, we will be in Florence and I'll finally get to see Michaelangelo's David, which is rivaled in my esteem only by his Moses, which is in Rome.

Also, Sara H. wins a croissant for being the first to send me a postcard. Mmmmmm.... Herbie K's......

My. Best. Friend. Is. Getting. Married. This is somehow harder for me to grasp than the idea that I might see the Pope. For four years I've been "secretly" laughing behind the backs of all my highschool friends who got married and now live in vans down by the river. Not really because it's funny, but because I think it's ironic that they all seemed like relatively smart, decent people and then they took upon themselves to squash their own dreams like large, crisp, hissing cockroaches. It's such a relief to me to see that the person I had the most faith in at HHS is getting married and it is, for once, something to be celebrated.

Fairy tales are so much better when the illusion can be lifted and they can be presented with more than just a modicum of truth.

Honestly, congratulations to the Bean and her family. And congrats on actually picking a bridesmaid's dress that can be worn by normal humans.

As a final note, this website will let you sign up to work on archaeological digs in awesome places like Turkey, Pompeii and Belize. I'm changing my major so I can do this instead of... whatever is I'm doing. I recommend the Civil-war Prison for Tim and Mr. and Mrs. Owen's second honeymoon.

Phrase du jour: Il en a un. (Entirely comprised of vowel sounds, is losely pronounced eeyonah-uh. Means "He has one." Took me twenty minuted to figure out the pronunciation yesterday, practiced in bed.)

Sounds the French Make to Impersonate Americans

Last night was a pitiful Mardi Gras but an excellent Tuesday, by any normal Tuesday standards.

Yestarday also marked the last day of our first official month in France. I think much has been accomplished in that one month. Especially considering that France's special goal is often to make sure that nothing gets accomplished.

(note: someone in the computer is snoring very, very loudly. This is by no means a joke. No one is waking him up, either. This is a great country.)

I am so amazed at the students here. In my two-hundred level translation class the students speak english often as well as I do or better, albeit very slowly. I think this a testiment to the Eurpean school system because there are 19 year olds who speak better English than our president. Mamadou is an excellent example. I have no idea how old he is, but his first language is something african, he speaks fluent french, a small amount of English and enough Spanish to be very funny when he's drinking. This is a person who's mother tongue isn't even remotely in the same language family as French.

Perhaps this has something to do with their note taking skills. I have never seen anything like this. Nearly everyone has a bag full of differently colored pens, as well as a ruler. It's somewhat like the way Carly Duhon takes notes: very meticulous, very neat. But they highlight, change colors, use erasable pens, don't doodle, underline with rulers and make corrections in red. IT IS COMPLETE INSANITY. I remember going through a phase where I took notes like that in seventh grade, but that was because Crayola came out with the bold marker shades, which included such colors as merrigold and midnight blue and because my teacher was remarkably boring.

Woot

Today: as one of only two non-french speakers in translation class, I get called on to read what can only pass as the worst french translation in history.

Tonight: Mardi Gras, France style. I am so seriously ready for bread and cheese and Belgian beer. I plan on getting flashed.

Phrase du jour: Vous parlez Française comme un vache espagnol. (You speak french horribly.)

PS: CONGRATS TO TRINA ON HER NEW STATUS AS THE ONLY ENGAGED PERSON FROM MY GRADUATING CLASS WHO ISN'T CRAZY!

Brace Yourself

Not for the faint of heart.

At each corner I think I might find a cure for my heart sickness and then I check my email and find another reason why there is no word for home in French.

My great-Grandmother, who is, in some ways, like that tin box of secrets, acorns and pennies that you never tell anyone you have because it's too precious, is slipping away as time passes. The news from home is that she has forgotten my great-grandfather, her husband of seventy years, and that she is having... dreams.

I've known for a long time that our desire to keep others alive is mainly selfish; we want them to survive not because their lives here on this mortal coil are particularly grand anymore, but because they represent for us the past of black hills, and dusty bare feet that slips further and further away from us which each breath, and their presence keeps us from feeling that we're slipping violently off the face of the earth. It is for partially selfish reasons that I regret not taking Tim to meet her at Christmas; I want him to know the family we were before we became the family we are and, inevitably, become the family we will be. But partially I juat want him to be able to see through a tiny curtained window the way her hands still know things about life and children and checkered fabrics, even though she hasn't sewn a stitch in years.

Though she cannot remember my name, she once told me the story of the day she knew she was going to marry my grandfather, as he helped her from her horse. She told me about putting a penny under the skin of a wounded horse to heal the muscle and I wonder where her penny tricks will go when she is gone.

I should have learned when my great-grandfather died that the regret you feel for not sitting at their feet and learning their stories never goes away and cannot be resolved.

She's not gone yet.

We go away so that we can know where our homes are, only praying that our homes are still there when we return.

The score is inconsequential

What is the last day in a series of bad days? Usually it is the day that beats all others with the sheer scale of it's horridness. It is the one that blows all other bad days out of the water, and also it is typically the day before things start to get better. I prefer one truly horrid, greek tragedy sort of day to this anti-channakah-like eight days of small, ruinous distasters.

What does it mean when all your adventures of late are only bad adventures? Unlike pirates, cowboys or even shipwreck survivors these adventures don't end with burried treasure, the badguy behind bars or even getting the boy-- because the boy lives in Washington DC and a plane ticket costs nearly five-hundred American dollars.

Friday night was borderline good, just crazy kids hanging out and talking over the music until the wee hours. The high point was Alexis and Mamadou rapping followed by Cody and Josh beating Wisconsin-Erin and me at a club-building contest. If you've never built what our frightening brittish hostel-mates in Barcalona called "a club," you just stack beer bottles one on top of the other and hope they don't fall over and splatter you with residue (residue= beer and cigarette ashes in France, ALWAYS). Cody beat his own personal record of seven bottles and I beat my own personal record for time spent staring at a map of Europe. The entire world has an opinion about where you should go, but I find lately that the entire world is drunk and should not be trusted.

Saturday also had a strong start, as we tracked down my bank card at H&M and happily retreved it before heading to Dunkerque for the Mardi Gras/Carnaval fesitivities. Once there we traced the line of colorful and slightly-smudged cross dressers to it's source at the ciy hall where the band played, the people danced and sang with their umbrellas and feather dusters and many a pickled herring was tossed. Beads? Who needs beads when you can have a pickled herring sealed in plastic? Directly after this colorful display of the french roots of some good ol' Louisiana culture, a nearby ATM proceeded to sequester my newly found bankcard, leaving me hungry, cashless, cardless and in a strange, strange land full of cross dressers.

Saturday night we narrowly caught the last train home where we met a man with Algerian parents who explained that if he had been born in America, he would be considered an American but because he was born in France, racism prevents him from being considered French. The common trend seems to be that in the north of France, where people are comparatively warm and friendly, anyone who strikes up a conversation will mention two things: how much they hate the current American government but how, despite that, they believe in American ideals and wish that they had been born there. Everyone's been there somewhere. Everyone wants to be from California. Nodody doesn't want to be a Californian.

Sunday, nothing is done all day accept the reading of "House of Leaves" and the eating of marvelous European Kabab, which is not shish-kabob and should never, ever be confused as such.

At midnight, a group of Americans+Amélie (french)+some remarkably football-savy Quebecois go in search of a superbowl. As Matthew put it "It's shown in 189 countries around the world, what the hell is wrong with this one?" We considered renting a hotel room to watch the game on the cable but figured that the receptionist wouldn't respond well to 12 people who just want a room between the hours of midnight and four am. The extensive search leads to Gino's (home of the best coffee on earth) where the bartender agrees to let us watch until half time (3 am) as long as we buy drinks.

The Superbowl, in France, is watched sans-commercials, sans commentary and amidst the cat calls of drunk australians who believe that Soccer is clearly the manlier sport because no soccer played in history could ever take a football player in a fist fight. Regardless, the halftime show with the great Sir Paul (which I like the call America's-Last-Ditch-Effort-at-Respectability) was entirely over the heads of everyone there, who just wanted to see Janet's other one (except Michigan-Geoff, who, like me, was waiting for Ringo to jump out in his Mr. Conductor suit). All I really wanted was just one chicken wing.

Phrase du jour: Vive la Vélo! (Long live the bicycle! Chanted by car protestors, ching-ching-ching!)

American Werewolves in Paris

Military-time makes it feel like you're just counting down 'til the end of the day.

Slay, Lady, Slay

Perhaps it was the migrain headache, or the days spent without talking to Tim, or the fact that my bankcard is lost... or maybe it was just the rain and the day's ceaselessly gray sky... but yesterday was something else entirely.

But scratch all that. I finally got to talk to my Dad and I spoke more french yesterday than I've ever spoken in my life. Such is the benefit of the french kitchen, where people kiss you and then tell you who they are.

Luckily, Mamadou is a very patient and clear french-speaker whose first language is something African that I could only hope to understand in my wildest dreams. Although the fact that he told some french guy whom I've only seen a couple of times that I speak french well might have had better results had the following not happened:

Phrase du jour: Est-ce qu'il un problème quand un homme français vous dit que vous parlez bien la francaise, mais vous ne comprennez pas ce qu'il vous a dit? (Is it a problem when a french guy tells you speak french well but you don't understand what he said?)

Speaking of speaking in your wildest dreams, I've discovered that the reason I can't sleep at night (beside the bizarre feeling that I'm dizzily falling off the face of the earth), is because I've been translating all my night-time thoughts into french. Every night, without failure, I keep myself awake translating things in my head, like some sort of wine-and-cheese induced trace that carries on from midnight until I "wake up" from never having really been asleep.

I'm honestly looking forward to a weekend settled in with my piles of translation homework. I hope everyone enjoys sufficient debauchery for Mardi Gras. If you're the one who stole my bank card, please give it back.

Pictures I Didn't Take

In the year that I spent gardening and breaking up with my high school boyfriend, between high school graduation and college, my best friend, Trina, moved to San Diego to attend PLNU. After about a month there I noticed something about her when we talked on the phone: the same bursting laugh that I had listened to for more than five years had changed. I've noticed this phenomenon in a number of my friends who move away or are otherwise displaced.

In the process of leaving yet another home behind, and finding another part of an already remarkably small world, people infected with something called "Wanderlust" are losing their laughs every day.

It's not about laughing less; it's about laughing differently. I notice this in myself most recently. I'm well aware of the fact that I pick up other people's ticks like picking a ten-dollar bill up off of the sidewalk. But the lost-laugh is something that happens to a lot of people who must fully adapt to a place in order to live there happily. I'm not too concerned about losing it though... it's a relief that at least there are a lot of things to laugh at. And I'm relatively certain that, like Tim's rediculously loud yawn, which I emulate unintentionally only when I'm around him, it will pass with another change of scene. (Which is not to imply that I don't miss the Tim-Yawn. I miss the Tim-Yawn.)

In further French News yesterday was apparently some sort of National Crèpe Day because the Résponsables of our residence made and distributed a stack of crèpes that rivaled le grand Tour Eiffel itself. My recipe back home never called for beer in the mix but now I see why crèpes are a french national treasure. Never have I seen so many college students cook at one time. Every one of twelve burners was being used and every table was full. The french are indeed on to something with the importance they place on cooking and eating together. It might actually be my favorite thing about them.

Daily, the Americans roll into the kitchen around seven, along with Lee, the singlular Chinese student in the building (who prepairs four-course meals for one that look like something out of a book of beautiful foods). Lee has unfailingly already turned on the radio which plays mostly Beyoncé. We begin to cook and about the time we're ready to eat the french kids start to flow like banquet caterers, with loaves of bread, potatos, eggs, stacks of meat, pizzas, cheeses and all sorts of beautiful envy-breeding foods. From then until ten (when the spanish swarm in a hot rain of tapas, which they share) the kitchen is filled with food and sweaters that are cooler than any sweater ever owned by an American in the history of sweaters.

Speaking of which, I hate shopping. But comparing shopping in France to American shopping is a little like comparing a wine tasting to the trying out of slurpy flavors using the "layer method." Wherein you mix the flavors in the same cup and the melted bit at the end is all brown and syrupy.

The fabrics are the same everywhere in the world but it's how they cut and arrange them that makes all the difference. Not to mention that the "Soldes" here are actaully quite amazing as far as "soldes" go. If you know me you know I wouldn't be bringing this up if it wasn't phenomenal.

Also: see "Garden State" if you like movies that are near perfection in every way except when the baby deer gets eaten by the crocodile.
Don't see "Garden State" if you liked "The Wedding Planner" or some other equally horrible movie with a bad soundtrack.

Phrase du jour: "Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place." -Largeman

l'amour et l'argent

It took fifteen minutes to move Carrie into my room. It's taken me a month to move myself in. Discuss.

After spending three weeks at near-arctic tempertures I punched my radiator a few times and now it kicks out the heat of an atomic blast. The fact that the photographs in my room are melting should indicate something, but even though I've since turned the heater off and opened the window it's like one of those Finnish saunas will all the fat, naked men, only it's just me. In my undercrackers. Listening to the Beatles.

I have experienced not a single interesting thing in the past 24 hours.

Phrase du Jour: En tragedie, le roi ne peut pas partir pour un autre monde. (In tragedy, the king cannot leave for another world.) USE IT TODAY!