I saw Catherine Deneuve!

I swear! And no, I wasn't watching-- well, pretty much any French movie made in the past thirty years. I saw her for realsies! And like a big creep, I took a picture.


Of course, I didn't want to be too creepy, and as a result, you can't really tell it's her at all. Damn my 3x zoom! It's just not enough in these kinds of situations. But anyway, that woman with all the blond hair blowing into her eyes, that's her.

Thanks to Sofia for taking me to Trocadéro; also, for noticing it was Catherine Deneuve being filmed on location. Highlight of this trip to Paris.

A belated note on Obama

Don't worry, guys, just because I'm in France doesn't mean I've totally lost touch. I know that Obama is the new president, and I even watched the inauguration on youtube after the fact. I tried watching it on TV, but the French dubbing was bad and annoying; I mean, one of the many refreshing things about Obama is the fact that he has a nice voice and that he's an eloquent speaker. I got tired pretty quickly of straining to hear him beyond the voiceover. But like I said, I watched the speech, and he was awesome.

And can I just say that Michelle and Barack are the cutest thing ever? They were totally making eyes at each other the whole time he was being sworn in.

Okay, so, maybe not in this picture, but doesn't she look so proud!

Thank you to Jezebel for this video clip of their first dance at the Inaugural Ball. Are they not just so in love?

And Beyoncé is the shit. She totally brought it, and I totally teared up.

Some Classic Moments

baiser /be'ze/ (n. masc. French)
1. a kiss

baisser /be'se/ (v. French)
1. to lower
2. to turn down

baiser /be'ze/ (v. French)
1. to screw
2. to fuck*

I probably don't need to explain any further, but I will.

A few nights back, I was drinking with the other language assistants, and we started recounting all of the stupid/embarrassing things we've said by accident in French. One of the German assistants, A, we'll call her, suggested we start a list, for posterity. I thought, Why not? It's always good to look back and laugh at yourself.

So, let me just start by saying, pretty much everything in French seems to have some kind of sexual connotation. You know, the kind of second meaning they don't teach you about in school. One time H, the other German assistant said, 'Oh, ça me fait envie!' which should just mean, 'That makes me want to do it/try it!' (whatever 'it' might be in the context). But apparently, in France, they say this when they really want to do it. You know? Do It? A co-worker of hers kindly explained this after she had already said it to someone else.

My favorite stories, however, have to do with the misuse of the above-described, very delicate word: baiser. Both A and I have fallen victim to this trap. But her story is funnier, so I'm going to tell it first.

So A is a competative badminton player (I know, could she get any more German?) and she practices at a club here in Flers, although apparently nobody is as good as her what with her being a competative player (German)† and them just being silly French people who are out to have a good time. They probably drink wine instead of water during the practice, I don't know.

Anyhow, she was complaining to us one night about the French tradition of kissing people on the cheek, whether you know them or not, both upon arrival and departure. She was like (in French), 'Yeah, I was at practice, and I only know one person there, and I was already sweaty and tired, but before I left j'ai baisé tout le monde!' 'I screwed everybody!' she said. Priceless. The best part was that she didn't realize her mistake until the rest of us were falling out of our chairs laughing. But at least she just said it to us. It could have been worse. She could have asked them all if she had to screw them all before leaving.

My story is milder, but slightly more embarrassing, because I did say it to a stranger. I had to go to the dermatologist a few weeks ago because my skin was getting super dry and making my eczema unbearable. So, anyhow, he told me some interesting stuff about humidity‡, gave me some creams, and told me to take colder showers. What he actually said was, 'Il faut baisser la température de vos douches,' or, 'You need to lower the temperature of your showers.' So, there I was, trying to be all confident and conversational, so I responded, 'Oui, je sais, mais c'est difficile à baiser la température pendant l'hiver.' 'Yes, I know, but it's difficult to fuck the temperature during the winter.' The man didn't bat an eyelash. I suppose it's a good thing I told him I was foreign. And of course I didn't even realize what I had said until it was too late to go back and correct it.

So there you have it, a lesson you (or I) will never forget in French; don't say fuck when you really mean lower, and especially when you really mean kiss. Especially then.



*Okay, so technically, in real, written, dictionary French, it also means 'to kiss,' but no one ever, ever uses the verb in this way.

†A is an awesome, hilarious person, and if she ever reads this, she should know that all of the racists generalizations I'm making are, in fact, entirely in jest.

‡So, people in Normandy are always complaining that it's so humid because it's raining all the time, but the humidity here is actually like 20% lower than it is both in Washington and Minnesota. So that's why my skin was freaking out. Silly Frenchies.

Mondotek-Alive vs. Teletubbies

Omg this is so weird but I love it and it totally cracked me up. First go back and watch the video in the tektonik post, if you haven't already.


I swear I've been traveling and stuff, not just watching youtube all the time.

Not all the time.

I can (maybe) make a difference!

Franken Scores: More Ballots Found In Democratic Stronghold

Thanks to The Huffington Post (and like the closest Senate race/most elaborate recount in Minnesota history), I now know that my absentee vote might actually count! Oh, I really hope mine was one of those in the newly discovered stack of 133 missing absentee ballots. Although, would that mean my Obama vote didn't count? I guess it's fine if it means that slimy Norm Coleman is off the scene. Also (for a laugh), check out the video in question in the Norm Coleman ad contraversy. His wife lives in LA and it's so clear that there's some serious green screen action going on here.

Always A Lady

As a direct response to my post entitled The sleezy, sleezy Frenchman, and in no small way inspired by reading the WIG's blog and her link to this post on pandagon.net*, I have created this short (and hopefully terribly useful) guide on how to not get hit on in public.

1. Dress appropriately. You know, like a nun or whatever. You shouldn't want to look good for you if you don't want someone to leer at you and tell you how good you look. Don't think about what clothes you're putting on unless you want a man to try to talk you out of them.

2. Don't smile. At anyone. At any time. Having fun with your friends, laughing, smiling, these are all signs that you want strange men to approach you. Your smile, no matter whom it may be intended for, is an open invitation, nay an order, sent out to all surrounding men. You are asking for it.

3. Um, be a lesbian? But not the sexy kind. The really mean kind. The feminist kind. Cut your hair short but don't take care to shave anything else.‡ But, if you are a lesbian, and you are in public with your partner, whatever you do do not engage in any PDA. If you want to express your love out in the open like that, you have to accept that's it's totally cool and normal for a man to get in the middle of it. Like, that's his god-given right. So be a mean, ugly, feminist, single lesbian.

Me disguised as a nerdy man. Disguises can be very important when trying the ward off the advances of the opposite sex.

4. Say something smart. It doesn't matter what, it doesn't even matter if it makes sense. If a strange man approaches you, try to launch immediately into a discussion of the gender binary or just use the words "dichotomy" and "facism" in the same sentence and watch how far they run. Intelligent women are the opposite of sexually appealing. And they hate sex. Like you.

5. Stay home and read your scriptures, you prude. If you detest the "uninvited attention" of men so much, you must hate sex and men and fun. (Didn't you read number 4?) You can't possibly be both an intelligent woman who does not want to be accosted by strangers and someone who likes flirting and feeling attractive.

So there you have it, five simple rules to live by, ladies. If you break them, it's your own damn fault.




*Dear god, I wish I could force my sexist host brother to read this, but I am WAY too lazy to translate it into French.

‡Having short hair on your head and long hair in your armpits does not a lesbian make. However, you should expect to be taken for one, if this is your style.

So, I'm pretty much famous now.

That's right, if you don't hear from me for a while, it'll be because I'm enjoying my new celebrity status. I was interviewed about the elections, photographed, and published in the local newspaper.

Don't worry, you wouldn't be able to read it anyway. Plus she made me sound way better in French than I really am.

Yeah, I scanned that. Why, you might ask? Because this local newspaper is so exclusive that it's not even available online. I assure you that at least 20 people will read this article and ask for my autograph on the street.

OBAMA!

So I totally slept through the election results, but I loved the emails I received this morning re: election results. I voted a month ago, and I couldn't really follow the closing of the polls with the weak wireless signal in my room, so the whole thing was a bit anti-climactic for me.

Minnesota went Blue (woohoo! and thanks Mom for the email in the middle of the night informing me). My friend WIGgy* friend Lauren wrote this simple, but beautiful account of the progress in Ohio, where she lives.

Needless to say, I'm excited. More to come on the fact that I was interviewed by a local newspaper today on my views on the election.

*Were I Gay, as in Were I Gay (and were she), we would totally be involved. Credit to E. Purcell for the term.

How do you get from CDG to Paris Mont 3 Vaug?

I clicked on the title box, and that is what came up. It's the question I asked google before leaving the country. The answer ended up being, an airport shuttle, a train and the métro, oh, and then have fun killing 5 hours until your train to Flers actually departs!

And that's just what I did. Or rather, I wandered bleary-eyed through the empty streets of Paris (apparently no one leaves their house before 10am on a Sunday) and discovered things like, a rack of bikes for public use:


I also stumbled upon (or, you know, purposefully sought out) Serge Gainsbourg's grave/shrine in the Montparnasse graveyard. I love me some Serge, and I thought, what better way to start my Frenchy adventure than with him, the old (ahem, deceased) Frenchy pop icon? I couldn't stay long, for fear of falling alseep in the cemetary, so I headed back to train station to eat a sandwich, and fall asleep (a little bit) on top of my luggage.