Paris Plage

So I went to the beach last night. I biked there after work. Nope, I didn't do a long distance ride to an ocean or a lake -- the picture above is at the Seine! Paris does a great job all year round entertaining it's citizens culturally (whether it be through exhibits, free museum days, theater in the park, etc), but during the summer it goes the extra mile by creating a beach! There is a high way along the Seine which is closed ALL august long (BTW another Paris tip -- alll year long the same highway closes on Sunday btw for pedestrians and bikers). Paris then ships in tons and tons of sand and creates a beach along the river. It is equipped with bars, petanque courts, a pirate ship play ground, showers, music, etc. Super fun for those who are stuck in the city during August and a unique activity for the hoards of tourists as well. Other great activities - Outdoor movies throughout the city and the Olympics streaming 12 hours a day at hotel de ville!

 I've always heard that Paris in August is 'dead' due to vacation time. This may be true (it's only August 1st after all so I can't judge), but I must say July is also 'vacation time'. (and remember when I said May was dead? This country is crazy about their vacation). During the month of July I was literally one of 3 people in my section at the office (normally 20 or so). It was insane and really awful to be honest because it just reinforces the fact that you AREN"T on vacation.

Anyways, my time has come! Less than 9 hours left of work, 24 hours til I'm on my way to the airport, and then I'm off on the great North American Tour 2012! Which means I probably won't be blogging that much  (although Playing Parisian in August normally does include a trip to NY...I swear there are a ton of French people in NY in August). Anyways, bon vacances everyone!

Andrew being romantique along the Seine.

You know you're Playing Parisian when....

On Friday, I went to a lovely dinner with some friends. We drank a (few) bottles of wine and I was keeper of said wine. At one point, a friend of mine leaned over and said "Please sir may I have some more?" Someone asked "what movie is that from" and I immediately blurted out "Olivier...." clearly meaning "Oliver."

WOW. Really?

It took almost a year, but I think I'm playing parisian very well :)

Le tour de France!

and they're off!

Yesterday was the first beautiful day we've had in a while and I would call it the offical start of summer in Paris (only a month late! The parisian mother nature has a sick sense of humor). It also marked the final day of the Le Tour De France. I've never been a huge tour fan (except during the 'roids debacles...who could honestly ignore that train wreck?), but man oh man for the 5 seconds those cyclers go by I was hooked! In all honesty it was quite exhilerating at the time and with all the people around it's worth it -- but really, Le Tour is probably the worst Live spectator sport event in history and I wouldn't make a special trip to see it unless there was a wicked party attached. (Okay, hear me out, it's like watching a marathon, but worse...I mean they zoom by and then that's it. Luckily for us, they did 8 laps, but I can't imagine being in a small town in France and you see them for 2.4 seconds and then go on your merry way. Talk about anti-climatic! I think watching on TV would probably have more sports appeal...or if you're on a nice balcony somewhere with a Mimosa.)

Anywho, I especially like my pic of the winner (or as I like to call him "not Lance Armstrong"). Well done Wiggins! (I really do think that's his name)

That day in which I spend an hour within 10 feet at Gare Du Nord...

So, this weekend I lost the 4 most important cards in a person's wallet: ID, Subway Card, Credit Card and Debit Card. (UGH...no idea, long story, surprisingly, this happened sober AND in broad daylight. And I'm pretty sure it's my fault). Anywho, as you can imagine this has been and continues to be a french bureaucratic nightmare to get them all replaced. And in some cases I'm ignoring them completely, like the subway card (known hereafter as a navigo card), in the hopes that it just shows up (I can't help it, I'm an eternal optimist. Just like my mother ...right Andrew?).

Anywho, I'm on my way from Gare Du Nord to work this morning and I had two choices -- argue with a cab driver to use my AmEx or take the subway by procuring a ticket through the ridiculous amount of change I have in my wallet (no bank card = no cash. For at least 8 days. YAY FRANCE!). I opted for situation two, as I saw it had the advantage of not having to blabber in incomprehensible french and it would rid me of some weight in my wallet..WIN WIN! Clearly, I wouldn't be writing about this if it was a WIN WIN! type of situation.

I go to the machine to buy my ticket (of course there is a line, OF COURSE!) and I wait patiently. Luckily for me I'm reading Tina Fey's newish book Bossypants and the time flies by and has the added bonus of looking like a psycho laughing out loud whilst reading a kindle. It's Gare Du Nord, gotta fit in with all the crazies. Anywho, I start unloading the change to buy the ticket (RAMAN if you're reading this, I DID IT AGAIN!) and it all of sudden breaks down and says that I've put in too many coins in the machine and it sends them all flying back to me. UGH. Apparently you can't put in more than 20 coins into the slot (I thought I had counted it perfectly, but sadly that McGill math degree doesn't include a class on counting coins. It was a pre-req course I missed from 2nd grade. I blame it on moving to california). ANYWHO, I finally figure out the change, grab the ticket, run to put it through the  machine and BAM ticket not accepted. And I have no idea why. So I go to the ticket window to try to ask (another line OF COURSE) and BAM ticket window closed (it's 11h30. totally normal!). And I'm out of money and none of my cards work at the machine (damn America and no pin cards!). At this point, I am not a happy camper, and I see no other options than to go replace my Navigo card.


Prepared to be asked to give blood, promise my first-born child, or both, I reluctantly head to the Navigo desk. I immediately think they are closed as there is no line. A nice lady (with a smile!) says, no, in fact, they are open, and have a seat. She may have even said the words "how may I help you?", but I also remember her with a halo aound her head so this may just be a fantasy. I say in perfect French (hey! this is my fantasy!) that I lost my card and I would like to replace it. She asks for my passport and I swear no more than 5 seconds later I have the card in hand. I'm also pretty sure choir bells started ringing and a handsome man escorted me out of the office.


Skipping along and pretty pleased with myself I head back to enter the subway and the card doesn't work. UGH. Holding back tears and about to give up and just set up camp in Gare Du Nord (there is a lovely cafe on the 2nd floor, or so I hear), the man behind me says all the machines aren't working and I can walk right through. OIDFJPOIADJVKOV;ZLJKPOIA Turns out the ticket was fine from the start and the last hour of pain (sans the choir bells in the Navigo office) were for naught. Oh France, you win again! 


(But in truth, I wouldn't have it any other way - - If life was in France was easy, what would I have to write about? :)

I knew I liked a good curry...

Why, thank you!

Andrew has lately become an amazing Asian chef. I have bemoaned on the blog before about the lack of good Asian food in Paris (see here or here), and unfortunately, the situation has not gotten a whole lot better. Thus, we've had to take matters into our own hands. (The exception being Vietnamese food, not surprisingly, since they are a former colony of France. In fact, we've found so good of a place we saw a celebrity there -- William DeFoe!).


UPDATE: When I look at this post on November 21st I had 4 things that I was missing from NYC.

• Mexican Food: CHECK, Yay chipotle. Also, I found a great taco stand called candelaria.
• Sushi: still an issue.
• Indian Food: thanks to andrew!
• Thai Food: I'm going to give this a half cross out because we can make curries, but are still struggling with pad thai.
• Hamburger: we have recently found at least 2 places where we like the burger. And there are more to come!

Anywho, Andrew can now successfully cook an amazing Indian Tikka Masala and Thai Yellow Curry. And not just, good, but REALLY GOOD. Like I have no desire to ever eat those two dishes out again good. I call this 'ruining' dishes for me and it happens a lot (this is not a real complaint). In addition to the two curries, I no longer like to eat ribs, salmon, or scallops out because his are DELICIOUS and far better than any I've had in a restaurant.


I digress -- the real point of this post was that I took a BBC quiz to answer 'where are you on the global fat scale' and the answer was as above - you are most like someone from thailand. I thought the answer was funny and considering I eat a lot of Asian food, very appropriate. The other thing that is funny is that it gives you local results depending on which country you are from. When I did it as I was from the US, I was 30 percentage points above than when I was from France (meaning Americans are fatter at my age than Frenchies). This is not at all surprising, but funny none-the-less. Way to be stereotypical USA!

Ou est l'été?

I don't know if you've heard....but in Paris, summer hasn't arrived yet. Which is SO no fair as we also barely had spring...We had a week of spring in March, 1 week in May, and the rest has been moderately clarm ( a mix of cold and warm depending on the clouds) and gray.

I have mixed feelings about this lack of summer. If I were in NY right now, it would be over 100 degrees. NO THANKS (especially as we don't have AC in Paris). I know that I'm definitely more of a cold person than a hot one (hellooo I voluntarily went to the coldest place on earth for university. I don't have the canadian passport as an excuse ha). However, the really strange externality associated with this weird weather is I have absolutely no clue as to what month it is. I really, honestly, think it's May about half of the time. And the other half of the time where I think it's July I'm freezing because I forget to wear a jacket (who wears jackets in july?). So ultimately I am in complete denial that I go on vacation in 3 weeks and am getting married in 5. WAHOOOO! I feel so ready, but so unprepared at the same time.

(Similar to not knowing what month it is, I rarely know what time it is because the sun comes at a different angle [particulary in fringe seasons]. For instance, since when is it completely bright outside at 10:30 pm or dark in the winter at 9 am? WEIRD...probably the 2nd hardest thing to get used to after this bad weather oh and not being able to speak the language. NBD)

This one's for kimmie....

So one of my favorite blogger friends (err I guess we're real friends, right kimmie? pretty please?) has a thing for ginger boys. (For a good read, find out why here or to learn about her amazing ginger see here) Why am I telling you this? Stick with me...

I was riding my bike home (yep! I did!) and I almost crashed trying to stop and take a picture of this bill board (all in the name of cultural research...for kimmie of course):

After being honked at twice, I had the bright idea to continue riding and just look for it on the internets later. So it turns out 'carrotte' is the French translation of ginger and this billboard, which is purposefully vague, is an ad for a dating website called AdopteUnMec.com (or Adoptadude.com). Oh those Frenchies and their senses of humors. Here is what happens when you google the campaign:

"The red is a rare species endangered, too often stigmatized, the site helps them AdopteUnMec and offers girls to put their prejudices sides and do a good deed by adopting a "strawberry blonde"....

Turns out making fun of gingers transcends cultural boundaries and is even a thing in France! :)

Thank goodness

Thank you to the "The Paris Blog" for posting this european union venn diagram.



It will be a handy reference in the future...too many times when I'm travelling I ask myself if I need to go through customs or if they use euros. Now if only someone could explain to me the difference between the european economic vs customs union that would be handy. And the WTF is the council of europe?

Food trucks in Paris

Food Trucks -- a California & NYC phenomenon -- have taken Paris by storm and the NY Times told the tale on Monday.

To be honest, the NY Times is a little behind the 'times'. Food trucks were like "so last january's news" haha...I don't have much to say about these food trucks because the one time I went to the burger one the line was over an hour and a half long. There is only one burger I would wait 1.5 hours for and that burger is in NY, in a beautiful park (I MISS YOU SHAKE SHACK!!). Anyways, apparently it was a big pain in the ass to bring food trucks to Paris and the 'naysayers' said over and over again how it woudln't work in paris for so many reasons, but now it's doing really well. I think the food trucks are more proof that the food scene in NY and Paris are converging...so basically, my theory is that anything that works in NY is going to work in paris and vice-versa (Update: chipotle is getting rave reviews). So let's just stop saying 'things won't work in Paris', shall we?

Anywho, two other comments about this article. 1) Apparently all the kids these days are using the term 'Tres Brooklyn.' I don't know what it means, but I love it. (the article says it means creative food or something...I'll take it to mean cool. This term is totally going into my vocabulary and I'm sure Andrew is going to want to kill me by the end of the week yipeee). And 2) My friend is mentioned in the article!  He's Tres Brooklyn and the hip NY transplant chef, now working at one of my favorite restaurants L'office.

(As a tangent that is totally unrelated to Food trucks in Paris -- another one of my friends was in the NY Times this week, but in the wedding section. Congrats Debbie and Seth! As my dad said... "For all the years I've been reading the NY Times wedding announcements I've never known someone in them. I'm very impressed." Me too! Well done Debbie & Seth!)

Une Autre Lesson de Francais

Pret a voyager has another awesome french lesson on the blog today...Il m'a posé un lapin -- literally meaning he put down a rabit, but translated to "he stood me up." Quite random if you ask me and very hard to comprehend for us english speakers. So I went to google to find an explanation, and as per always, google did not disappoint. Rabbit's back in the day used to signify the refusal to pay, particularly whilst traveling. So to travel like a rabbit, was to travel without paying (why are rabbits so cheap in france? maybe because they are fast and sneak away? hmm) Apparently, the phrase started when a man wouldn't pay for a prostitute (he gave her a rabbit) and then eventually evolved to standing her up.

And now you know. (side note: the first explanation I found translated to this in google translate - Long, the term 'rabbit' is associated with free riding, to transactions made in soft or improper gratuity, by default...okay, maybe google isn't always reliable ha)

courtesy of pretavoyager.com

Freaky French Foods

One of the (many) paris blogs I read had this post today...top 5 Freaky French Foods we're afraid to try. Sounds right up my alley! Let's dig in.

I'm happy to report, I've tried all of them!

1. Boudin Noir. aka blood sausage. This isn't just in France, right? I think the first time I had this was in Ireland. No matter, I've had it..and I see it often. It's an option for lunch in our cafeteria often as part of a 'tagine' plate with couscous. The first time I didn't know what it was so I dug right in. Not for the faint of heart, I now have learned my lesson and pick around it.
2. Andouilette: aka. course sausage with intestine. My father ordered this bravely when he was in town and I tried a bite. I'm going to go ahead and say that french sausage as such are not my thing. GROSS. next.
3. Steak Tartare: raw steak. Basically a hamburger, but not cooked. YUM. It comes with onion, capers, mustard, worcestsire sauce and fries on the side. I like it a lot, although, I do agree the thought sort of creeps me out. Also, the amount tends to be more than I can handle so it's best left as an appetizer somewhere :)
4. Fromage De Tete: Head cheese. NOT - CULTURED ALERT: I ordered this once thinking it was cheese. It's not cheese, not even a little bit-- it's a terrine made out of parts of the pigs head. No matter, it's still good, salty, meaty, deliciousness. Just try not to think about the parts...(sort of like an oscar Mayer hot dog. BURN!)
5. Oursin: sea urchin. I've had sea urchiin before and really liked it, but only in France have I had served to me on ice still inside it's spiky shell. Risking puncture, it's quite the adventure in eating, but OH SO WORTH it. Get to the middle and you are rewarded with a salty, yet sweet goodness with a delicate and uniqure texture (ignore the almost neon orange color).

If you're in France, I highly recommend 3 of the 5 of these delicacies. It's worth it and you'll feel like a real bad ass...as you should aspire to after any good meal ha.

Homeless People's Food in Paris

There are many, many, many homeless people in paris, but that's not what this post is about. This post is about what they eat.

On my way to work this morning, a homeless guys I see quite often was sitting on the subway steps. I didn't think much of him munching on what looked like a sandwich or something, until my nose was accosted by the smell of stinky cheese. The homeless guy was eating a round of Camembert as if it were a sandwich. Hilarious. And good for him! I totally respect anyone who can down camberbert like a champ at 9 am. (reminds me of Anchorman..."You ate a whole block of cheese? I'm not even mad! I'm impressed!)

And as my 'Cheese teacher' would say (yes I took a cheese class) ....Cheese is almost the perfect food...so he's only missing Fiber and Vitamin C. Good bang for the buck I say. I shoud bring him some vitamin C metamucil on the way home and he'll be all set. Oh Paris, you never cease to amaze me.

Oh Chipotle is here at last day!

The blessed day has arrived....Chipotle in Paris! I know, I know, I should be blogging about baguettes, cheese, coq au vin, etc etc but you know what? Sometimes you just want a bowl full of mexican flavor and as you can see here and here and here it's a growing trend in paris, albeit slowly and sometimes hit or miss. So imagine my glee when I walked past the 'ameri-corner' (andrew's name for a corner with McDo, Starbucks, subway, hardrock...) and saw the beauty that is the chipotle logo with an 'opening soon' sign. Opening soon, like most things time-wise in Paris, was a relative term. I believe I saw the sign in January. NO MATTER, the day has arrived and it was glorious.

In short: It was very, very good. Not an exact replica, but close enough.  Differences:

• They use a brown rice here, which is fine, but I really, really like the chipotle/lime/cilantro white rice in the US. I think the brown rice overpowers the lime.
• No fountain soda. This may not seem like a big deal, but fountain soda is hard to come by in the Paris and I was looking forward to a huge diet coke with lots of ice and a straw. Le. Sigh.

A few french-isms:

• They are a bit stingy with the serving probably to tone down the fatty american fast food stereotype. This is fine for me, but when I was talking to the guy about the rice (gently mentioning that I liked the white in the US better) he asked me if i wanted a bigger portion. I think he knew I was a regular and it wasn't up to snuff. I declined, as to not seem like a fatty :)
• They have 4 salsas instead of the normal 3...Normally the 'medium' is the corn salsa...but the 'regular' salsa here is medium and they've added a mild. My theory is that they know the french palate is sensitive and not used to spice so they needed a toned down option. Can't fool me chipotle! I went for the medium and it was perfection.
• The Price is high...but as I was watching people check out I realized why. The price here for a burrito is 9 euro, which admittedly is high in the US too-- I think it's a little over 8 with tax in the NYC (okay, yes, my name is Lindsay and I"m a chipotle-a-holic). Anywho, I think they've done some keen market research here....Basically, because of the previous socialist gov't and (and new gov't) employers are required to subsidize lunch (see previous post here). You can supply a cafeteria like Danone does, OR, they give you these meal tickets that are accepted pretty much everywhere. They are normally around 9 euro. DING DING DING. Most restaurants do not give change back, so pricing at 9 euro parisians can use their ticket up fully. So smart!
• There was a huge amount of seating in the restaurant and no place for the line. Remember when I blogged about McDo having lots of seating because French people sit and eat for like 2 hours a day? Chipotle (previously franchised by MacDo which is right next door) has seating in spades. HOWEVER, the line was out the door because they didn't plan the space properly. They need to get that figured out.

ANYWHO, to summarize I am very happy. And I will be return again and again and again yipeee.

France's First Lady: No Nancy or Michelle in the house!

So I know I mentioned the new first lady's age appropriateness and chic attire in my previous post, but oh la la I had no idea what interesting fodder she actually is! The New York time's had a great article on miss Valérie Trierweiler this morning. Here are my comments.

1. Firstly, notice her last name. It's not Hollande and it's not because she decided to not take his name...it's because they aren't married! And on top of that, Mr. President was married (with 4 kids) and she was the mistress. They didn't come out publicly until 2010. SCANDAL. Except not, seems to be sort of blaseé in France. Whatever, it's a SCANDAL to me.
2. Secondly, she's a journalist. And still covered politics until recently. That whole conflict of interest thing is a lot more lax in France. In fact, I've heard that a lot -- journalists are more opinionated here (Not having the ability to read the French media, I can't comment ha).  And I quote, " All journalists have opinions, they all vote, they all have sympathy, friendships. But they’re not asked to justify them. We believe in their integrity, we trust them and we’re right to do so." Although, I guess there is always FOX News in the US -- an unparalelled example of journalistic integrity ha.
3. Thirdly, she's struggling with her role of First Lady in France because there is no role of First lady in France. The first lady's are not supposed to do anything. I find this quite strange, as I've always known first lady's to have an agenda...or at least the memory of my recent first ladies (hillary with health care and michelle with childhood obesity...I wonder when this first lady agenda thing started? hmm). Plus, US First ladies help with the campaign, give speeches, kiss cute children, save Africa, etc. They are definitely well known and in the spot light, but apparently that doesn't happen here. They  have babies...Carla did that quite well although it didn't help boost Sarkozy's popularity. I can understand why Valerie is struggling with this...surely you aren't allowed to be a journalist if you're first lady! They also aren't married, so she doesn't want Hollande to support her family (she has 3 teenage boys). 
• As a tangent, I wonder if this has something to do with the misogynistic culture which is latent in French society. This is a whole 'nother post, but you have to wonder.
4. She had no clue that when she 'fell' for him that he would be president. It was over 6 years ago, he was an odd, leftist politician who wasn't really on the radar. She says she's almost laughing about it now, because the thought 6 years ago would be too ridiculous. 
5. INTERESTINGLY, Mr. Hollande's EX-WIFE  Ségolène Royal , ran for president in 2007 (from possible first husband to president, bizarre!). She obviously lost to Mr. Sarkozy, whom Mr. Hollande defeated. Talk about getting back at your ex-wife!

Sorry that was a long one, but wow, French politics are so different here! No pesky republicans picking apart everyone's personal lives (okay, I'm sure democrats do it too, but that whole 'family values' platform really wouldn't fly here). Imagine when all that really matters in a campaign are the politics? That's crazy speak.

oh la la, two posts in 1 day!

This has been an exceptional day - an exceptional day in that all the bosses are out of the office and I have no impending deadlines! Therefore, it was a long lunch kind of day (taken with my Andrew on the rooftop of Galleries lafayettes in the sun yay!) and a two kind of blog post day. I've been neglecting the blog too much lately so it's time I catch up!.

This one is inspired by Prét à Voyager and I thought it was super cute. For those of you that don't know, Anne writes  a great ex-pat blog and she does an illustrated French Lesson once a week or so (see picture). This week's is: Avoir un oeil au beurre noir. I always try to figure out what they are before she translates...and I have to admit this one stumped me, which is quite silly.

With a literal translation of: To have an eye of black butter, or less literally as it means to have a black eye...but I kept focusing on the beurre part and thought it was about cooking. Apparently, it may have come from cooking, something about the butter changing color when the egg is ready. Anywho, now you know!

ALLO ALLO, Je T'aime, Je T'aime

The weather is finally getting better in Paris (sun!) and it's honestly a different city. I'm finally starting to understand why Paris in the spring is so famous...From March and April I thought those people were masochistic.

Anywho, today I'm sharing this fun little video that shows a different side of Paris. But it's a side that I see living here, but which you wouldn't necessarily see if you visited as a tourist. It's what I call 'hipstamatic' Paris, (or Bobo, hispter, too cool for school, whatever you want to call it). The video is shot by 2 americans visiting Paris, but I think the look and feel capture perfectly the sense of modern Paris. You'll see it through the sites like the grafitti everywhere and the small details like the glove hanging off a wire. You'll see it in the way people are dressed (normally like they are out of the 80s) or guys walking while holding baguettes. You'll see it in the way they crowd into their tiny kitchens to chat or piling bottles of wine at the end of the night. You'll even see it in the way they've chosen the music and picked the lighting for the video. Bienvenue à Paris :-)

http://vimeo.com/41450032

Cultural Observations from the French Presidential Election: 2012

So in case you didn't know, France has entered a new era (again) and has elected the socialist president Francois Hollande (pronounced Orland it seems to me. Not sure where the R comes from...it's like the double L magically turns to an R.) ANYWAYS, as an outsider who was in the 'thick of it' it was quite interesting to me. My uncle would not be proud -- I was a mere 5 minute walk away from the Bastille where thousands of socialists were gathering to celebrate this historical event, but I decided to watch it safely from my couch. The Collins gene certainly outshined the Scott gene last night.

Anywho, here are 5 rather frivolous observations.

1. The new first lady is much more age appropriate than Carla Bruni, but still a looker! I look forward to critiquing her wardrobe on the front page of newspapers in the future. 
2. Did you know that the French colonies can vote? I saw results for Guadaloupe, Martinique, etc while they were posting results for other regions of France. I guess the 'no taxation without representation' really works here. Poor D.C & Peurto Rico.
3. The car of choice for both presidential candidates was a TEENY TINY 4 door renaut (or peugot? i dunno, a French car). Compared to the limos and huge bullet proof vehicles I'm used to my politicians riding in, I was horrified for their safety. Also, the journalists were allowed to ride along side in Motos. There were no bodygaurds to be found.
4. I watched both speeches (watched being the correct word here, as I probably understood less than half). I can see why Sarkozy was president for 10 years -- he's an excellent speaker. And the crowd responds loudly and appropriately. Hollande just yelled and seemed like he might have a heart attack. I worry about this.
5. When they were showing clips they played random accordion music in the background. It was odd and so stereotypical.

Et Voila! I'm sure this transition period will have tons of blog worthy hilarity. Until then!

May.Is.Awesome.

Before coming to France, I was really looking forward to August in Europe. August was what I thought was the quintessential vacation month -- an entire month to frolic through the south of France, visit beaches, mountains, etc. And this is not incorrect. However, as it turns out there is ANOTHER month of amazing-ness, and this month has arrived.

Whereas in August you must use your vacation days, in May there is a plethora of public holidays. And because most of these public holidays fall on a tuesday, we are 'forced' to take off the day in between to bridge the holiday to the weekend. Twist my arm...

Since April 29th here are my vacation days:

April 30th and May 1st (May day/Fete De Travail/Labor day)
May 7th and May 8th (Victories of Europe day...end of war in 1945)
May 17th and May 18th (ascension day? I'm a christian and I don't even know what that is, but I appreciate the days off)
May 28th (day of Solidarity. This one I still dont' really understand, but basically it's a day off for charity? And apparently companies give the equivalent of our salaries to charities or something).

So, to sum that all up I only work 1 full week in May. It's quite incredible.

Last post on April 11th...could that be???

So, you know that rhyme April showers bring May flowers? France (and europe in general really) is taking it QUITE literally.

Here is what I have to say to that.

I'm.sick.of.rain.and.clouds. We had 2 awesome days over the last 30 and the forecast just makes me want to pull my hair out. There better be some damn good flowers soon OR ELSE. (empty threats also make me feel better apparently).

Parisians Heart New York

As I was walking to work this morning, I saw a sticker that said "I heart NY" and I thought "Me too!"....what a nice way to start a wednesday!

No matter what my differences are compared to Parisians, I always know we have 1 thing in common -- we both heart NY. This commonality is something I can always fall back on as a spark of conversation, as seriously, I have yet to meet a Parisian that doesn't swoon when I say I'm from NY. They may 'hate' Americans (I don't really think they do), but they love New Yorkers.

I've thought a lot about the 'why' for this and I have a few theories. On the surface, the two cities are like night and day. One is fast paced and modern, the other slow and traditional. One has sky scrapers galore and taxis as far as the eye can see, whereas the other barely has a building over 5 stories and taxi can never be found. One has work-a-holic tendencies, the other prefers to vacation half the year. In short, they're different. But when people ask me how I'm 'adjusting' to Paris, I say it's quite easy and I think one of the reasons is why all the Parisian love NY -- because what makes the cities tick is essentially the same.

Hear me out -- What did I love to do in NY? Eat, drink, walk, admire buildings, visit some museums (I swear I did!), picnic in central park (okay, just twice), check out the newest restaurant, go shopping, etc. What do Parisians Love to do? Eat, drink, stroll, visit museusms, picnic, shopping...yes the eating and drinking are contain more cheese and wine, the walking may be a different pace and the shopping is at a different price point, but really, it all the same. And they both have the energy that accompanies big cities in which people are living, working, and playing all in close proximity. I think there is comfort in going somewhere that is seemingly different, but overall familiar, which can lead quite easily to a 'I HEART NY' from any Parisian. Of course you do -- it's the Paris of North America :-)

(I have yet to hear a Parisian say "I love LA". I have plenty of theories on that, but that will have to wait for another post)