Swear I was born right in the doorway.

I moved out of my apartment today. Took one last look at the place that housed my life in Paris before I lugged my baggage down the windy stairs into the oppressive Paris heat. Took one last look at Rue St Jacques, the epicerie that I went to, the place that gave me food poisoning, Val de Grace's stone which under the warmth of different suns shines a myriad of different colors. I am no longer living here, I am a visitor staying with friends, a tourist in the city that I feel is more like my home than where I grew up. I do not have an address in the city anymore, I do not have a cafe where the baristas know who I am (and that I am always late) or a boulanger who prepares the baguette and croissant that he knows I will want when I walk through the door. In all those ridiculous questions, you have a day, a week, a month left to live what would you do you are forced to live you are forced to evaluate what is the most important in your life. Is the good time and the experience what you live for, will you party out your last days on earth, will you spend it quietly with the person you love? That, in a way, is what I am going through now. My days are so short that I can taste the end, I can already feel the tears welling up that I will cry when I leave. Moving out of my apartment marked the end for me, and now I am forced to decided how I will leave a city and the people that I love so desperately. I have 21 days left to live in Paris, what will I do? 

Ross Ross Ross.

Wanna see what true greatness looks like. I will give you a glimpse

Eloge de ma fainéantise

Changement de narrateur pour aujourd'hui messieurs-dames, et dans la langue de Molière s'il vous plait. Mais l'inspiration est une chose compliquée, mais un écrivain rate n'est pas vraiment rate s'il ne passe pas des heures a regarder sa cigarette se consumer, et son café refroidir (moi un connard d'élitiste? ouais et je vous emmerde.) Non je plaisante, je suis même pas écrivain, ou alors un très mauvais, et très pauvre, et très mauvais. A part ca je vais me présenter bêtement, comme la petite blonde mignonne a coté de moi me l’a demandé. Baptiste, 17, 18, 19 ou 25 ans, ca dépend de mon interlocuteur, et de ma copine, parfois. Je crois qu’on me connaît sous le nom du « Cobbler » , mais je fais autre chose dans la vie, de plus ou moins utile j’entends. Pour commencer je pense qu’il y a deux choses drôles dans la vie : Les chaussures de clown trop grandes, et les échelles de pompier trop petites. J’étudie la littérature française a la Sorbonne, et je pars l’an prochain faire le tour du monde, car c’est maintenant ou jamais. Je voulais devenir journaliste dans la musique, mais l’idée de me retrouver sur mon lit de mort sans avoir tout vu me répugne, tout connement. La vie, on ne veut pas la grignoter, on veut la violer sauvagement, comme quand vous voyez une fille dans le métro - je suis pas matchiste, c’est un exemple, merde- prendre un morceau de son sandwich, d’une façon tellement prude…tellement gentille…mais bordel, fous-y ta tête entièrement ma grande, avale le comme si c’etait le dernier repas du condamné que tu es (that’s what she said.) , la vie est trop courte pour pas manger un sandwich comme ta raison l’entend. Bref, je pars entre 1 mois et 20 ans. J’aimerais être pêcheur en Afrique du sud pendant un moment, on verra après.

Bref, tout ça pour dire, enchanté. Prenez soin d’Hannah quand elle rentrera. S’il vous plait.

B.

If the Aristocats Went to School...

And so my brief affair with Sciences Po comes to an end. It was a torrid affair, with much passion and even more angry hate sex (figuratively speaking, of course). I did not like Sciences Po, the international and french students are hilariously segregated (it is everyone's fault, I will not point fingers) the method of teaching is dull and forces one to re-examine their love of school and their professors for the most part are disinterested and boring. However, the fear that struck me when I first arrived has evaporated, I can now walk around the buildings with confidence, I can take part in classes despite the fact that they are terribly boring. I would have liked to stay a year, I am sure the second semester would have been easier. Several months here and, of course, there have been some things that I have noticed:

* If you want to look like a giant pretentious douche bag that takes himself too seriously wear a cravat to class. You know there is nothing that screams, I am making up for something than standing in front of the class with an 19th century cravat pluming out of your jacket like a baboons ass. Good for you, I hate you already and I didn't even have to exchange one word with you. 

* A school with a reputation like Sciences Po should be able to provide several printers that work to their students, or at least someone that is easy to get a hold of to fix broken ones. A school that has the lazy indifference to their student's like Sciences Po however, should only provide printers that work for specific hours in the day and sometimes just reject people for shits and giggles. 

* I have a brilliant way to reduce procrastination problems! Unlike American universities where the libraries are open after dark and on holidays and weekends we should do things like the French who actively dissuade students by studying and close libraries on Sundays and never have them open past fucking 9. Really. 

30 Nights of Day: Late Night Sunset Rocks Harder than Ted Nugent

The best part of summer is always the fact that the days are longer. When the sunsets at 8pm back home it means that you are still drinking on the porch around 10pm, your night doesn't start until midnight. In Paris the sun doesn't set until nearly 10:30. Amazing. What does this mean for a student who doesn't really study? This means that the time in which you feel obligated your homework comes on Monday at midnight and the time that the pre-gaming stops and the partying begins at 2am. But don't be worried mother and mother's friends, it is not all about constant partying (yet it is) there are also the aesthetic aspects of the late night sunset that makes Paris in the summer time the Audrey Hepburn like romantic experience you would expect. At 9:30ish the light dims and starts to play on the buildings, the river begins to look less disgusting and starts to become beautiful and mysterious. It gets slightly cooler, but not cold enough for a jacket, the perfect time to sit out for whatever drinks or dinner that you can afford. Suddenly drinking on bridges, in parks, on the Champs de Mars waiting for the tour to light up, are practically a friday/saturday/monday night ritual. I have a feeling that one of the aspects of the city I will miss most is waiting on the grass with 2 Euro wine for the 10:30 sunset.

The Pains of Being Addicted to Human Contact

I have friends in Paris. I would like to think that I even have good friends whose relationships will last even when we have gone back to our respective areas of the world. Alas, I am still the girl I always was and cannot really stand being left alone for more than a few consecutive hours. At home I get around this by having a group of people that I am always around, being in the MUN office when they are busy, working and going to school. My life is very packed. Here, I have the school, but it is hard to motivated yourself to do anything when it doesn't count, but that is all. I have no MUN office and no job (except for babysitting and that contact doesn't count). I am trying very hard to learn how to be alone while here. I am trying to be able to enjoy the times of the day when there is no one around and I am forced to writing, reading or watching old West Wing episodes I have seen before. It is getting no easier than when I first arrived. I feel as though I am pestering my few friends and being way too clingy to my boyfriend, which is another problem all in itself. My prized self control goes out the window when there is no one around to make me remember the person that I am supposed to be. The funny thing is I am by no means neglected and for the most part I am more surrounded by people here than I am at home... Still, I feel like there is something about my situation being so temporary that forces me to always want to do something, to never just want that quiet day in. 

I hope that wasn't rambling, or overly personal. It's just that I am sitting alone right now. 

Hannah is the Queen of the Scene.

Here is a video from the Kitsune Maison show from late February. It is for all of those who ever doubted the awesomeness of my d.a.n.c.e.ing skills. For all of you blind people, I am the one in white with brown hair going crazy during We Have Band. 

Xavier de Rosnay: A Cock Tease

Continuing in the trend of describing wicked awesome shows that I have seen in Paris and could never see at home, I shall now pass on to the Thursday night I spent with the Justice’s better, hotter, more brilliant half- Xavier de Rosnay (sorry Gaspard, but we all know it is true).  My man played with Dj Pone of Birdy Nam Nam most of the night, with guest appearances by So-Me, Busy P and others who I don’t know well enough to comment on. Out of all the DJs I have seen here, from the big names like Feadz and Errol Alkan to the smaller ones whose names I don’t even know, Rosnay is far and away the best. He has the audience eating out of his hands the moment he puts on his gigantic headphones and places his fingers on the soundboard. No one is more of a master of the build up and breaks than Rosnay, he is, you see, a giant cock tease.  The perfect example of this would be the splicing in of “We Are Your Friends” with “D.A.N.C.E” I have attached below. 

Minutes before he plays the damn song, and believe me it feels like an eternity if you are on the floor, he spliced it in, getting the crowed all sorts of crazy. Then he brings the music down to a few pulsings, dropping the beat almost entirely—with a screaming audience begging for him to just give it up already, he just let’s us wait. If you are lucky enough to catch his face while all this is happening you will see him twisted with giddiness, eating up all the energy that he is creating. He builds and builds, giving us all time to get more excited, allowing the energy and pressure to build until we are almost going to explode, till we cannot handle it anymore, then, the music breaks and the crowd releases in an orgy of screaming and movement. I have a feeling that Xavier de Rosnay is very good in bed. 

The Thin LIne Between Flirting and Sexual Harassment: or French Men v. The Rest of Humanity

In the United States, for the most part, all you have to do is be relatively cold to someone trying to pick you up and they will leave you alone. If they don’t get the message from your eye rolls, they will leave when you say “no.” For my part I think it is because of our awesome legal system, American boys can smell a law suite cooking from a mile away. Chalk it up to the lack of a legal culture that smiles upon law suites for anything and everything, but this is not at all so in France. It doesn’t stop at the “salut les filles, on peut venir avec vous” and the hungry, leering faces that follow you down the street as the sun sets, but follows you into bars and clubs and tries to anonymously touch your ass and expects impromptu make out sessions as you walk up the stairs. At first it surprises you. Sure the catcalls are creepy, but they still make you feel hot.  You realize quickly that the normal habits do not work here at all, that more is required, that you have to say no, flat out and you have to be mean and cold wherever you go. There are, of course, some people who are either too drunk or too small of pricks to take no for an answer. There are some that simply cannot imagine why you would not want to fuck them right on the dance floor, even if you say you have a boyfriend, or you flash them the ring you wear and say you are married. 

They lunge at you on stairways and look confused why you slap them away, they try and talk you up when you are on the bus and call you a slut when you don't respond, they never bother you if you are with a man. I find it incredibly sad that a woman cannot travel alone in the city, even in the nice parts, without a man and feel vulnerable. You want a girls night? Well, be prepared to have you ass touched as you wait for the metro and random horny boys see if tonight they can get lucky. You would think it was a town of fucking sailors. 

Dear French Men, you are not special, women are not all whores,  and no means no.

Things I’ve Noticed Part 3: The Half Way Point—That Stalking Little Bitch

As the relentless little bitch known as “being halfway done” gets closer and closer, threatening to beat me down with a blunt instrument (like emotion?) I have been forced to think about what I have learned and more importantly, what I have noticed.

If you smile and speak with an accent you can get almost anything you want.

If you want to perfect the look of death, spend a few months in Paris. You cannot go outside of your apartment without using the death glare at least once.

Bangs are the hot new now. Get thick blunt bangs immediately.

My mother knows me very well, she seems have to predicted almost everything that has come to pass in my brief time here. This means my mom is clairvoyant or I am extremely predictable.

French classrooms, or at least classrooms at Grandes Ecoles are deliberately uncomfortable. They force you in a plain room for two hours, with very few windows, insufferable heat, no Internet and hard wooden chairs that make your ass fall asleep after about ten minutes.

Do not say anything bad about Descartes, ever. If you do, prepare to be hated, stoned to death, or met with shock.

 I have discovered the secret to a Parisian accent:

-           One must use the word “mec” as often as possible. Sometimes just saying it for no reason.

-           One must end practically every sentence with “quoi” and use it in the most accusatory manner as possible.

-            One must mumble the vast majority of their words (except, of course, “mec” and “quoi”).

-           “Je m’en fou” is perhaps the most common phrase among the Parisian youth. When you have nothing to say, just say, “je m’en fou” and you will fit in just fine.

-           Bah must be said in an exasperated manner, even if there is nothing that is exasperating or annoying about the situation you are in.

 

I do not know if I can say enough how much I love Paris, but I am getting homesick. Studying at Science Po has made me even more fiercely American—no matter how much my International Relations professor likes saying what an awful country we are. I miss being funny and sarcastic and being thought of as intelligent when I speak, not as cute. I have worked very hard to create a life for myself in Paris, and as the finish of my trip starts becoming a little bit more of a reality I have to wonder to myself if that was a good idea. Though I know I will be leaving with a phenomenal experience under my belt, I also will be wrecked. My goal coming here was to make the sort of relationships that my parents made when they were in school, the kind of friends that will last me a lifetime and that I will always be able to come back to. I think I am in the process of doing this, but my knee jerk instinct to protect myself from pain is telling me that this is a bad idea. Is it better to have a whimsical trip and live with surface and fleeting relationships—but not feel any pain when I leave or to create deeper, meaningful relationships and be a giant blubbering wreck when I leave? Then again, I can take the timeless wisdom of the classic film Risky Business and just say, “what the fuck.”

 

It's an Ed Banger Life

During my extended break I would sit in my pajamas listening to records and concocting the dream life that I would have in Paris. For those of you who were never shown—I decided the trailer for the Justice tour documentary A Cross the Universe was actually about my life in Paris. 

Friday night I went with some others to see Mr. Flash and Vicarious Bliss (two Ed Rec DJs) play at La Fleche D’Or. They played everything I want DJs at home to play, Joy Division “Love Will Tear Us Apart” into Justice “Phantom II (Soulwax Re-Edit)” and SebatstiAn, The Strokes. I danced like the mad woman that I am.

At one point in time I noticed that people back behind the gate separating me from the DJ booth were speaking English and started talking with them. They asked where I was from to which I responded “Colorado” and, wouldn’t you know it, they were too. Turns out that in a tiny venue in Paris I happened to find the four CU students in the room. First, let me say that it is surprisingly nice to run into people who are from your home when you are away; you have the immediate bond of home.  Second, there is no denying it now, the people that are having the most fun, partying the hardest, chances are they are a CU student. A turn out one of them is working for Ed Rec (what?!) and told me to grab one other person and come behind the stage. He pointed to a room across the stage and told us to go over there. Walking over there was a familiar looking guy with short curly hair, I smiled at him and he smiled back, yeah I got smiled at by Gaspard Auge. Walking into the backstage room I was confronted by the sight of So-Me and SebastiAn. I always thought about what I would do in this situation, which mainly involved me jumping Gaspard or Sebastian’s bones. Let me tell you how hard that is to do when you are face to face with them, as exemplified by the fact that I could only smile at Gaspard. The fantasies go out the window when you are actually in the position (even a little bit) to realize them… Alas, maybe next time I will be drunk enough and not with my boy. Yes, I do expect there to be a next time. 

I hope to find photos online soon...

The Occupation

When I tell people that I currently am enrolled at Sciences Po Paris they respond by saying something along the lines of, "Wow, you must be smart/an asshole." Seriously, that is the almost uniform response-- when people find out I am cool (which, of course, I am) I tend to hear, "wow, I can't believe you go to Sciences Po." Does this bother me? No, I fucking love it. Being infamous is fantastic. Turns out that the hatred of Sciences Po doesn't only stop at, "everyone who goes to this school is an asshole," but, "we should totally shut this piece of shit down." That's right, my school got "occupied" by the invading forces of about 200 students from other Paris Universities who apparently think we are a symbol of the economic segregation (or something like that) in society. 

So far the greve peoples has not affected classes, and the moment it does I might have to turn all Richard Nixon on these kids asses. It just reminds me of the days of the pointless protests at Boulder High-- if you are protesting or striking something that can be fixed, that is a legitimate problem in your society, more power to you. If you are being petulant about how some schools are better than others than please back up and let me go to class. Yes, there is social and economic inequality in every society, and I am not sure how the French are doing but in most places the government needs to do more. But is it really necessary to protest a school being a symbol? Or are you just jealous that we still have classes and are going to graduate on time. 

For those interested people who can read in french the link to an article is here.

Settling in or Living Without and Oven is Easy

Mark it down folks, I have an apartment that I have lived in for a week! It is on Rue Saint Jacques right above a jazz bar called Café Universal. Maggie noted when were signing the lease that there is a Colorado license plate in the window of the café, I take this to be a good omen. The pictures are on facebook in case you want to be a creepy voyeur and see where I sleep. (this is where I eat...)

I live maybe five minutes away from Jardin du Luxembourg and five away from Rue Moufftard. I had a flash back to the summer that I spent here with my mom and sister when I was walking on Moufftard today and shopping for some pommes (des fruits are now only known by their French names, I forgot all fruits names in English) and avocats. I can’t wait for the cerises to be in season, eating cerises and walking down Rue le Bon remains one of my favorite memories.

Though I cannot necessarily say that my French is getting better, my English seems to be slowly disappearing. It happens very frequently that I can’t find the work I am looking for or can only think of what I want in French. For someone who takes great pride in her vocabulary, this is a very disturbing phenomenon. I am getting more of a sense of humor in French, I still do not have the ability to crack jokes, but I can understand at least some of them…. I have taken to watching MTV dubbed in French (yes, I do have a tv with basic cable) the voices are very clear and my Super Sweet Sixteen is entertainingly disgusting in every language! 

Thoughts of Hari Kari: The First Week At Sciences Po

Monday- Hooray, an 8 am history course! I was interested to find out that there were no French students in my L’Europe en Guerre class that begins before the sun rises, but I can’t say I was all that surprised. The class, as such, is not that frightening, but walking out of the class and sitting in the front of the school watching the students, I got this awful fear in the pit of my stomach. Shit, I don’t belong here, what have I gotten myself into? The lecture course I normally have after was cancelled this week.

Tuesday: A 5:00pm law course in a little lecture hall about the European Constitution in English—2/3 French students 1/3 international students. The girl sitting next to me looked off my notes so she could see the spelling of the legal words (too bad she is depending on me…) yet I was still too much of a coward to talk to her. Also, two straight hours of English Common Law history is really frighteningly boring.

Wednesday: No classes bitch.

Thursday: 12:30 Con Law class. Australians surround me and thanking the Supreme Being that one of my classes will be easy. We went to a skeezy club that night and when a Brazilian guy was trying to grind up on me during “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and I was ashamed and sorry that Kurt Cobain was rolling in his grave.

Friday: I woke up in pain and the mood continued. The first class is Hacking Culture, which is going to be great and which is the only class where there is someone who I talked to in my class. Afterwards I went to my second French class, Restitants. I walked out of the two hours of that class with no idea what the professor was saying. Two hours later I have my conference (like a recitation). Though I understood the professor and I got the expose I wanted, on the Security Council. Still, I was shocked at the caliber of the many of the international students French. I am scared shitless of this class.

In sum: 

this place places a wild fear in me, not just because of the language but because I feel like such a fake within the halls of the school. I feel like they can see that I do not belong there… I know this is something that I will get over, and I know that I will be fine in the long run. But Sciences Po is something like I have never experienced before. I am trying to be optimistic, and at least I know that it will be a really good growing experience?

 

Things I’ve Noticed Part 2: Adventures in French TV Edition

* Shows like Friends and Grey’s Anatomy are super famous, and thus their actors have become a part of popular culture. The voices of Monica and Chandlor, Merdith and Derek are consequently as recognizable as their faces. So when you come across the dubbed version on French TV and the voices are suddenly completely different, you are in for a jarring and entertaining experience.

 * They do a great job at preserving the voices of the different Simpsons characters, but the voice of Marge is really especially grating in French.

* The beginning monologue with Law and Order is translated directly into French.

* There are significantly less commercial breaks in France, but when they do have one of the two through out the whole show, they last forever. So I guess it is almost the same…

* Talk shows here are staggeringly stupid. There is nothing on late night like Conan O’Brien, at least nothing that I could see.  The two late night shows I saw there was a large table and 3 different people were promoting different things and they had breaks for some America’s Funniest Home Video’s things… It was very odd and very silly.

* The ads here are way more sexual, but we all knew that.

* They have marathons or something, seriously, The Simpsons (Les Simpsoms) was on all freaking night!

* Where are all the reality shows? Are you telling me there are no late night America’s Next Top Model (or France’s Next Top Model) no Rock of Love? What am I supposed to do when the kids I am babysitting go to bed without trashy reality tv?

*Battlestar Galactica in French is hilarious. I have a hard time believing a super posh Giaus when he speaks French, maybe it is just the voice actor though because Caprica Six is a little more sensual when she speaks French. 

EN VRAI!

On one of my latter shifts at Bart's before I left Jon put on one of the new singles from the Kitsune Maison label. It was an incredibly catchy, very 80s sounding electro pop song called Quicksand by La Roux which I was quick to call my new favorite song. I played the song almost everyday that I worked before I finally bought it and told everyone who asked if they could have it that I had already purchased it. Yesterday evening, after drinking Vodka Ginger Ales at my apartment and navigating the train, I saw La Roux and three other Kitsune artists play in a tiny basement venue about 1/2 the size of the Fox called La Maroquinerie. Needless to say it was spectacular.

 Martha and I got to the show late, we were unsure if the 19h30 meant doors or start, so we assumed doors and showed up 45 minutes after the time we were told. We had apparently missed the first act, but were still able to go right up to the front. When looking around before the second act went on I noticed something bothersome, these people were just like the people at home, for all I knew I could have been at a show in Denver. Hipsters everywhere dress the same (I guess only American's and New Zealanders do ironic animals though) and go to the same places. I am not yet sure whether it is nice to know that subcultures are the same everywhere or if it is disturbing and sad. I guess I will figure that out. 

Back to the point though, the first act was three maybe 20 year old Irish guys called Two Door Cinema club. Go out and buy their singles now! They were fantastic, sounding like a Cut Copy that had suddenly lost their nostalgia. The next act was the one that I payed 22 Euro for, La Roux. She came on in all her Flock of Seagulls glory and I went completely crazy, dancing up and down in front of the stage like a mad person. For those of you who don't know La Roux do yourself a favor and go to her myspace to hear Quicksand. After she left the girl who was next to me grabbed the set list and handed it over to me saying, "I think you want this." This is where I realized that I was not in Denver, but some place much better. At home, someone would not just give you a set list if you were obviously having a great time and loved the artist, they would keep it for their greedy selves. IE the Cut Copy show where Jenny and I were the only ones near us dancing and some Vampire fucking Weekend fans got the set list. I was truly shocked by the kindness. But it doesn't stop there, we then proceeded to talk to the people around us (in an odd franglish hybrid) and make friends with them. Again, when is the last time you made small talk that resulted in a, wow we have to hang out sometime here is my number, with anyone at a show? The last group to come on was We Have Band, who can be summed up by the fact that they did a Pet Shop Boys cover. 

We went up to the bar long enough to have a bottle of water, for me to gather up the courage to tell La Roux that I am a big fan and that her set rocked hardcore (!) and for the first few songs of We Have Band's DJ set in the bar upstairs from the club. Yes, I enjoyed every minute of it, yes I am living like I wanted to here, and yes, the next stop is an Ed Banger party...

French Hipsters

I went to Collette today, which is an increda-expensive store that is so hipstery that it was a little too much for me. That curly haired devil Gaspard Auge sells his tee shirts there under the entirely too clever name Gasparator. So yeah, you can see what I mean. Anyway, I found out something very important, at home, I am a hipster. I admit it, it is true, whatever I live with it. Here I am just a straight up dork, which I think is what I always wanted to be anyway. There were people in that store that were so beyond me in terms of hipness that I was shamed at my humble skinny jeans and white high tops. Seriously, there was a group of guys that looked like they were in Kanye West's posse. Interestingly enough they were all wearing Phillies hats, and were talking in french. Turns out the Phillies are the hot new now, to borrow a phrase from Jens (at least I was ahead on that one). Also, they had no vinyl there. Seriously, I was all ready to go in an drop a shit-ton on electro vinyl, like SebastiAn for example, or finally finding that long lost Soulwax that I have been dying for, but there were only CDs. And they were things like A Cross the Universe and Part of the Weekend Never Dies, and Modeselektor-- things we have at home. They were also selling a tee shirt for 70 Euro of the cover of the Sonic Youth album Goo with out the words Sonic or Youth. I want to meet the creative genius that came up with that one. 

On a different note, irony doesn't translate. Don't get me wrong, the french are about as sarcastic and cynical as they come, but they don't do irony the way we do. No ironic animal wear, no ironic band tee shirts, no ironic dancing to YMCA. The dancing to YMCA is sincere. So, good thing I didn't buy that Bret inspired squirrel sweater... 

And that 's all I have to say about that. 

A Note on Demonstrations

Yes, protests and strikes are a well known part of French culture. We always make fun of the French for the fact that they shut down society over the smallest of grievances, but I have to admit that there is something very admirable about this. I ran into my first large protest two days ago while at a cafe near Montparnasse, a giant affair involving students and professors. It has been decades in the United States since students have banded together to oppose something, and here it apparently happens every other week. From what I could gather this was a protest against the proposed cutting of public research funding, though I am not completely sure (if there is someone reading this who could correct me I would be much obliged). There is no way that we students in the United States would band together and march if something like this happened, at it does nearly every year. The First Amendment gives us the right to peacefully assemble, it was so important that the founders put it along with the right to speak freely and practice any desired religion, yet more and more it is not being used. It makes me wonder when we lost the zeal for the political process that the French seems to have held on to. Where in our histories, especially in modern history, did we deviate so much that the US is full of apathy-- so much that until recently only old people voted-- while France embraces the political process? I am sure that the protests will become and pain-in-the-ass after a while, but as of yet I am still enraptured that the french have the spirit, not to mention the organizational ability, to protest and strike the way that they do.

Things I Noticed: Part 1

* Everyone and their brother’s mother in law has a fucking American Apparel sweatshirt. Do the have AA tee shirts? No. AA bag dresses or AA leggings? No. But they all have the zip up hoodies. And only solid colors. I have drawn several conclusions from this: A) that the French must really like immigrant Mexican workers and giving them fair pay and yummy lunches and massages. B) That there is no such thing as intense AA hipsters in France. B) That there are really trying hard to give up the stripe thing because I have not seen one striped AA hoodie on anyone yet, and how French are stripes, right!

* The French like candies that they cannot have, like SweetTarts (you all will be having to send me some SweetTarts and some Sour Patch Kids.

* French cinemas are better than American ones. Example: I can go to the giant Cineplex here and see Frozen River, Waltz with Bashir, and Che. None of these even play at the independent movie theaters at home, many of you will remember how much this ground my gears. On an interesting side note, a large number of the giant Cineplex’s are only playing Che Part 2- Guerrilla, which I think is the better film, but which makes little sense without the context of the Part 1.

* Umm, holy shit I don’t understand French.

* French men dress much better than American men. They wear very nice fitted jackets with those little lapel-y things on their shoulders and dark jeans and, here is the best part, they wear NICE SHOES! Either Chucks or black / brown shoes. No sneakers, unless they are especially cool kicks, no hiking boots. It is fantastic.

* I love bread. Love, love, love bread. 

An Introduction

Like most jet setters, which is obviously what I am, I have created a blog. Mostly I made it to tell stories about my 6-month affair with Paris, but knowing me much more will end up being involved.

 For those of you who don’t know, which would be stupid because you are reading this because you want to know what I am doing, I am living and studying for nearly 6 months in Paris— something I have wanted to do for quite some time. It suits me well, really, the coffee and the smug pretention that we simple American associate with the city.  Not to mention the fact that it is a city, and lets be honest, I was not meant to live in a mid-sized mountain town, with hikers and campers and a suffocating love of the outdoors.  So here is the place where I will write my stories, provided that I have any, so all my friends can keep updated and hopefully have a good laugh or two at my expense.  I hope you all enjoy it! If nothing else I am sure that I will.

Also—there are those of you who may be inclined to make fun of my blog title. To you I say suck it. It’s funny and it roles off the tongue. Plus, I always kinda guilty liked that werewolf movie.