c'est pour les enfants, pas pour les adultes.

So, today is Halloween and I'm fairly certain that everyone over the age of 10 in France probably couldn't give a merde. But I feel sort of sad, missing out on the awesome holiday where I get a sweet excuse to load up on pumpkin spice lattes and, on occasion, experience the only month where Tucson is actually quite enjoyable and pleasant.

the night of candy? pfft, pathetic.

At this moment, I sincerely miss having the opportunity to stroll through the five or so aisles in Target devoted to Halloween. You know all those overpriced gadgets they have for you to decorate a haunted house with? I LOVE that. It's so fun to go through and individually see what each one does... Yes, I am admitting that I miss the commercialized American version of this holiday. Last weekend, we went to the hypermarche just outside the city and in this incredibly enormous store where you can literally buy anything you could possibly want, they had one measly quarter aisle devoted to Halloween. Erugh.

This week I decided to do a small Halloween activity in my classes, despite my teacher insisting that Halloween is just for children in France. I insisted that I was aware but would make it fun -- these people like English and American culture, I thought I would indulge them. Anyways, I decided to do a "finish the story" activity where I started three different stories on three sheets of paper and then in pairs, they each had a few minutes to add a couple sentences to the story before passing them on to the next pair and we spent a few minutes before brainstorming some Halloween related vocabulary to use. It. was. HILARIOUS. I'm obviously not a very mature teacher because I found myself laughing not because the story was funny but because of their cute and silly grammatical errors. I love it. I'm going to share one...

"It was midnight on a dark and stormy night at 32 rue Leon Soulie when an old woman wearing a black cloak appeared through the doors and began to hurry down the road. At the end, she saw... many vampeers at the house of Richard. And she was horrified. A wicked zombie. He cried and spitted blood in her face. 'You're so dirty!' she thought. 'Why you do that?' The vampire opened his arms, and through on her a snake, an horrible snake. After, the wicked zombie became the old woman. The old woman saw her death."

BTW, Richard is my boss and the address is where the class is held. But, how cute and awesome is that? I think they enjoyed doing it too, I even brought along these little electric tea candles and pumpkins my mom sent me in a care package for the atmosphere.

adorable.

Anyways, that is probably going to be the extent to which I'll celebrate Halloween this year. Kind of a bummer, but hey, I'm in France and that's pretty cool too. PLUS, check these out:  

my mom sent these as well. hehe.

Happy Nuit des Bonbons everyone.

j'ai une trouille bleue

Last time I was in France, I had this same experience... Except now, it's proven to be much more unfortunate.

As a result of being across an ocean from my home country, I tend to miss out on things that become hyped up in the media -- things like celebrity gossip (who the eff is "Balloon Boy" and why do I continue to hear about his family?), lots of news that flies under the radar of significance when I read it online, and most importantly, new movies. A few months after I came back from Aix, I went into Blockbuster and didn't recognize a thing on the shelves because everything had come out while I was gone. It was a bummer but also sort of cool watching a movie that I didn't know had been hyped up and not being disappointed because I had no expectations.

This time, however, I seemed to completely miss out. Tonight, Kat, Kyle and I decided to watch a scary movie in the spirit of Halloween -- we didn't know what to choose but I had heard something about this crazy scary movie, perhaps through facebook, perhaps through the grapevine. So when we had to decide on which film to, a-hem, download, I recognized "Paranormal Activity" and thought that if I had somehow heard about it all the way over here, it might be worth a watch.

To put this story into context, I'll let you know that it's currently 3:22 am and I'm sitting in my tiny apartment alone, listening to christmas music and drinking tea with biscuits because that movie frightened me to the point where I was close to tears because I just wanted it to end so badly. Kat told me that if I was too frightened, I could sleep at her place, but after an hour watching a British stand-up comedian to raise our spirits, I felt I could handle being by myself.

And now here I am.

I understand now (from having spoken to Andrew right after I got home) that this film has become so incredibly overly publicized in the states, so you're all probably sitting there, thinking "silly girl, that movie isn't even scary" because when you went to see it, you went in thinking your stomach was going to fall out of your butt with fear and was therefore disappointed or thought it was stupid. But I heard nothing -- and oh my god I was not prepared.

So, dear readers, I thought I would share this lovely story with you as I continue to listen to Michael Buble and Louis Armstrong sing me Christmas carols in the hope that eventually I pass out from fatigue. Better luck next time, I suppose.

"elle croit que tout change, et seule elle a changé."

"She thinks everything changes, and only she has changed."

               - Bernard Joseph Saurin, Épitre sur la vieillesse.

 le sigh.

"l'enfer, c'est les autres"

For this entry, I decided to compile a list of things that I have observed while being here over the past few weeks, most of it was written when I was still without internet. Enjoy.


1. French people and their goddamn need to always be affectionate with their S.O. – Great, I’m so happy that you managed to find someone that you really love, but really? Must you share it with the entire world in the middle of the metro? That floor to ceiling support-pole that you two are hugging between you, the one meant for communal use by everyone on the train, is not only a selfish use of said pole, but your use of it also causes me to uncomfortably knock into the other couple sucking face behind me. Actually, I take it back – I’m no longer happy that you found the love of your life, assholes.

2. That look in their eyes when French people slowly lose patience with you – How many times now have I had to speak to a French person, asking them for help when their eyes start to glaze over, their chin begins to fall and their mouth droops a little bit, as if to say, “am I gonna be stuck listening to you allllll daaaaay?” More than once, this has ended with the person I was trying to communicate with giving up on my behalf and grabbing an English speaking co-worker, to which I’ll generally respond to their questions posed in English back in French. Once, even, the woman I had been talking to originally even had the nerve to tell her colleague right in front of me, in French, “I don’t understand a word she says.” Guess what? I understand you, salope.


3. I just think that this is funny – In my classes last week, I decided to use the same theme in each in order to make it easier, which I decided would be education. In every single class, every single student pronounced the word “study” as “stew-die.” Hilarious.

4. People who pass out flyers /want you to sign their petition: When I first got here, I timidly walked around the streets, trying to figure out my way around, and I noticed that although I was walking amongst a fairly large group, I was always singled out by these people who essentially just want your money. They would come up to me, saying “Madamoiselle, xpenudsa ssrg djspdf siuwpoiu?” and I would stupidly ask, “um, pardon?” And then get myself suckered into 10 minute lecture wherein I would barely understand a word the person has said. And then, the best part is at the end when they realize that I haven’t understood them in the slightest, the priceless look on their faces which often say, “…you’re friggin English, aren’t you?” To which I slink off, saying “desole, desole.” To combat these people, I have taken up the advice of Stephen Clarke, author of the Merde series—which is that if you walk around France acting like you don’t give a shit, people are less inclined to bother you. Seems to be working well for me so far.


5. Slimy greasy men – There are certain activities I don’t like doing by myself; like eating in restaurants or being in a café or going to a movie. (Drinking in a bar alone is up there too, but I haven’t the courage yet to do that despite there being a very interesting looking Irish pub downstairs called, you guessed it, “The Dubliners”.) The worst, by far, is eating alone. Having worked in restaurants for enough time, I see it as an open capitulation to the fact that the person has nobody to eat with. And that is depressing. Therefore, when I’m standing outside a restaurant, looking at the menu or looking at movie times, I don’t want some slimeball jerk asking me why I am by myself. “La plus belle! Qu’est-ce tu fais toute seule ! Prends un café avec moi?” Can’t a girl enjoy a solo movie in peace? Yeah, I’m not happy about being alone either but now I have to go somewhere else to avoid you. Jerk.


As another sidenote, all of this is just meant to be taken lightly; I love France, obviously. Why else would I be here? They sometimes have these little quirks that drive me up the wazoo and it's fun and easy to make mock them sometimes :)