banane

hello my babies!

so, keeping with my tradition of writing often and profoundly, i will update this blog-shiz-nit. two very important developments to talk about first: 1) I will soon be the very proud owner of my very own brand-spankin new CARTE DE SEJOUR!. 2) I learned out how say "fanny pack" in french.

Lets start with the latter, as that has impacted my life on an intellectual and somewhat spiritual level, I was at work and this french lady came up to me... circa 40 years old. she was sitting at a table earlier in the night with a bunch of other middle aged frenchies. they already looked out of place cuz the bar i work at usually caters to the younger corwd. cuz its hip u know? i mean would I work at an unhip place? i mean does anyone remember my summer affair with ruby tuesdays on route one south?? anyways... the mature french women were obviously not parisiens, as they were asking ME questions about where to go buck wild on their night out in the city of lights. anytime french people ask me advice about paris, well, i mean. i dunno. anyways. they asked if the bar (its a canadian bar) had any live music events or dancing or "traditional" canadian entertainment. i was like... ummm laddddiessss this is a bar, it aint no moulin rouge. and moreover, i didnt know what they meant as "traditional" canadian entiertainment. i dont think anything comes out of canada. i was gonna say they could watch a hockey game or maybe i can bust out some avril levine on the speakers but instead i said i wasnt sure and that was that. a couple hours later one of the women came back in and asked if she found her "banane". i was confused and didnt understand y she would leave her banana or why she brought it into the canadian bar in the first place. then she kept making this motion with her hands outlining a thing around her lower-abdoman area and i was still confused. then i went to the back to see if anyone left anything resembling bananas and then, there it was, in all its glory, rays of heaven's light shining upin it: a black leather fannypack with four gold stars embroidered on the front. i gave her her banane and she was very happy and left. prob went to one of the peep shows at pigalle. for those readers unfamiliar with the parisian nightlife, pigalle is the shady part of town with all the sex shops, peep shows, caberets, and KFCs. i am frequent flyer of the pigalle area

okay number 2, slightly less important than the banane: tomorrow i will go get my carte de sejour, the one document i should have procured in october that makes me legal in france. ive been living without it and im not supposed to leave france (actually, EU shengan region) without having it or they might not let u back in the country... but i went london and egypt and slovakia without it and i was fine. usually u hand over that USA passport with a coy im-an-american-citizen smile and they just let u do whatever u want. im going to morocco in about 2 weeks and so i am glad to have it for that. but anywys, mardi, 5 fevrier i have my "visite medicale" which u need before they give u ur carte. from what i have heard, this entails old french ladies making u sit topless in a room while they x-ray ur body to make sure ur not a terrorist and hiding bombs or chemical weapons in ur chest cavity or something. in anycase, i am very excited becuase i think they let u keep the x-ray of ur chest and that will be a nice souvenir. the only good thing to come out of french bureacracy.


sooo.... yeah thats some of whats been going on for the past 2 months since ive written. also i went to egypt and israel to visit this girl i know from georgetown. she kinda sucks but i wanted to go to the middle east and shes my in.... anywyas both were very cool nad eye-openning and blah blah and now i have a new fascination with middle eastern culture and people and blah blah. i started a blog post about it a couple weeks ago but i havent finsihed it. maybe if i ever do ill post it and then u can read it.

also, i just returned from lyon yesterday. me and patricka nd roberto when to visit some gtown peepz studying there for 2 days. lyon is a relaly cool city. i was expecting to be disappointed, the way i was with dijon (dijon=lame-oooo) but this was actually really cool. not as cool as paris but u know, it tries. it was quaint and charming but not small and boring, as quaint and charming places tend to become after the first 2 hours of being there. its the gastronomical (i think i spelled that word wrong) capital of france. in practice, this means they eat pigs feet and baby cow heads and call it a meal. the traditional lyonnais food is served at the "bouchon" and we went to one of these and it was a very interewsting experience to say the least. lets just say, the chilled pig's feet salad doused in mayonaise was my favorite. we also went to this "minature museme" where some french guy (or maybe he was swiss... tamAYto, tomAHto) spends his life making little diarama type models of random rooms and buildings. theyre so LIFE-like though. i almost wished i could become smaller like in honey i shrank the kids and live in all his little models. o man i miss that movie.

anyways, lyon was good and i stuffed my face about every two hours and now am probably as big as a house but, u cant go to the gastronomical capital of france and NOT be a glutton. its like... against the rules.

lets seee what else is going on in my o-so-exciting like... o. i went ot the movies last ngiht. saw "charlie wilson;s war"... i think thats what it is in english. here they call it "la guerre selon Charlie Wilson". i really liked. i recommend all to see it. that and Juno. i watched that on the computer and i really like that too. the girl in it is so good i wish i could hang out with her and she could be my friend but i think she might be too cool for me.

anyways, classes ended last week. that means everything is over except for 2 finals, both of which i will not stress out about too much because... i dunno im lazy and i just need to pass so i think with enough praying to allah i will be fine. on the 14th im leacing for morocco(hellllzzzzzzyeeeee!!) for a week and then we are taking the ferry over to southern spain and then making our way over to portugal and flying back to paris 1st of mars. then CLASSES.. wait omg a pigeon just ran into the window in my housre. omg that was so scary. omg now its sitting ont he ledge looking at me. ... ok it just flew away. phew! that was close.

assssssss i was saying before rudely interrupted by frenchie pigeon... classes start teh 3rd of march. kind of funny our semesters are so weird ehre... 2nd semester starts as most americans are having their spring breaks. in general i dont mind it but it does make the first semester feel like it last FOREVER... i just want it to be done and over with so i can be in morocco and chill with the muslums.

also, new apartment (well... not so new anymore) is nice. i love having my own space its really great. i wish i got to see my roomate more but seeing as january was hell month (i actually had SCHOOLWORK TO DO??? what is this crappp... the study in the "study abroad" decided to peeps its little head into my life) and i was working a lot and i went to lyon to be a fat-ass sooo we havent crossed paths. one night though we were eatring dinner and i was trying to explain to her different accents in america and then i showed her the mike myers skit on snl with the jewish ladies and thier brroklyn accent and she got a kick out of that. she really likes hearing about american culture and stuff. i showerd her some jerry seinfeld stand upt too although he was speaking too quickly so i dont think she understood a lot of it. she knows some english but not too much. also i like her because shes not super clean and either am i so i dont feel nervous about doing th dishes right away and stuff. over the summer i lived with cleano-nazis karima and alysa and they always blamed me when i didnt follow the "cleaning schedule" they so cornily posted on the fridge that no one else followed either but somehow i was the butt of the house-cleaning jokes. here me and camille can live in our own filth and be happy as clams. just kidding it really isnt dirty at all and i make sure i keep all the common areas nice and tidy (my room is a different story) but shes laid back and u know, im chill wit dat.

ow my head hurts. i dont know why.

ok i will finish by one thing i like about france and one thing i dont like so much:

like about france: les 'soldes". in france they dont have sales throughout the year like they do in the US but instead these this 6 week period or so when all stores are mandated by law to have sales. it started in january and i think its ending very soon. the first weekend of the sales are supposed to have the best discounts but this is also when the entire french population does its shopping so its really crowded. i didt go those days but i went last week pour faire du shopping and uhh,,, i dont wanna brag but i got me some of dem bargains.

don't like about france: old buildings dont have elevators. my apartment is on the 5th floor (which in france means the 6th) and its all stairs and it sucks walking up there. it makes leaving the house such a chore cuz once u leave the house u LEAVE the house... u cant jsut come back in like half an hour if u forget something because then u have to climb the stairs. i guess u could but i mean i prefer to stay on flat land. ascending into the heavens just aint my cup o' tea.