adieu, dix-douze.

As most of you know, I'm moving out. Yes yes, I know. After nearly two and half years living in my tiny little studio (a.k.a, the deeze-douze), it's time for a change.

Despite my studio's steadily increasing quirkiness (the legitimately crazy lady next door, the gremlin cat outside, the fact that the outlet in the kitchen hasn't worked in a year and sometimes the bathroom ceiling leaks water and ruins all my toilet paper), I'll miss little things about this apartment...

Well, ok, it's really the one thing which has kept me from going completely batty -- the balcony. The good times spent spying on Mr. Duchamps (a man whose name I made up, if you recall), the summer evenings when I took the air mattress outside to sleep under the stars and, of course, the view...

What's a French apartment without a fantastic view? Well, I've thoroughly enjoyed entertaining my various guests on that balcony with all of the wine bottles we seemed to destroy...

I only kept the ones I liked

I liked that it's tucked away in a little corner, the fact that I can actually sit at any given spot in my apartment and see everything and that for the most part, it served as my little hideaway when I was too scared to buy a baguette from the monster baker-woman down the street (now she smiles at me when I give her exact change -- hey, I know what the woman likes). 

But instead of listing all the things to be sad about, let's take a look at everything I'm getting out of my new apartment:

1. Ten minute walk to work
2. Three minute walk to a sweet market.
3. In between two metro stations
4. It's in the hyper center, meaning I can go out at night and walk back and not have to worry about getting groped by a racaille. 
5. Did I mention the kitchen? It's newly renovated and it's enorme. 
6. Two words: washing machine. 
7. An actual bed. Not a sofa bed -- a bed. 

At least one thing I won't be sacrificing is the view -- though there's no balcony, I can't deny that this view is anything less than kick ass. 

spectacular views

Adieu, Crampel. You've served me well.

je te dirai en anglais

I want to preface something straight away: I don't consider myself a particularly funny person. I think I have my moments of hilarity like most people, but I also know that it's not quite everyone's cup of tea. Either I make noises, I wiggle around or I say something crass and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. What I'm trying to say is, my sense of humor isn't something that I pride myself on.

However, one of my biggest obstacles in learning French has been to figure out how to be funny. It's a simple fact that French speakers and English speakers don't have the same sense of humor, which makes trying to crack a joke in a roomful of strangers that you met six minutes ago that much more challenging. A good indication of this would be going to the cinema to see an American movie in original version (with French subtitles) and being the only person in a crowded theatre enjoying a good hearty laugh at the jokes. Most of the time, my sarcasm doesn't translate or I've made a careless grammar mistake which often leads to the squinty-eyed head tilt followed by the all too familiar "....heu?" But I'll be damned if I don't at least try now and again.

Exasperated, I tell the other person, "I'm actually funny in English, you know. I swear." To which they nod and smile awkwardly before turning to the person next to them for human interaction above the level of basic miming.

On those rare occasions that I do cause an entire room to lol, it's been on account of a language faux-pas that I wasn't even aware of making. Case in point: the time I told everyone to correct me when I make mistakes, which translated to "spank me when I've been a naughty girl." I'm pretty sure that one actually caused tears to fall, people. Though they might've been my own...

It's something that, when I go back to being around English speakers, I'm so grateful for. Even if they're people I don't know very well, I find myself much more relaxed and willing to contribute to the conversation. At a soirée full of French people, I have enough trouble trying to say something at all, let alone something funny. It sounds like something you've seen in every high school plot-based movie that ever existed, but honestly, I get incredibly nervous and stressed before going to a soirée where I know I'm the only foreigner in a group of people who have known each other for years. Something I'm not proud of: I actually had a near anxiety attack last summer when a friend invited me to a gathering at his place -- I paced around outside his apartment building for fifteen minutes with my heart-racing before giving up and going home. I told you I wasn't proud.

As result of all of this, I have the distinct feeling that I'm actually a different person to French people -- I'm the sweaty, quiet, foreign girl in the corner who blames her bad grammar on alcohol and who will shock the pants off you now and again by saying something extraordinarily vulgar. I think my French friends see me in a very different way than my American ones, and this is something that has never sat well with me.

In conclusion (e.g., how most of my my blog posts end): I really need to improve my French. Merde.

xx

banoffee new year

Alas, I'm back in France and due to jet lag which currently has me in it's death grip of being constantly tired yet unable to fall asleep, I'm awake at 4 in the morning and writing you lovely nerdblergers a blog.

Home was awesome. Sleeping, eating, sleeping, playing video games, eating, reading and more sleeping. Here's a photo summary...

lots of eating of curry 

the pervasive franglais has finally made it to AZ. Behold a note my father made for my mom to remind of her of all the alcohol we needed, titled, "Bevs pour Noel."

(my favorite part is still #4: "Champers") 

what Luna did when Clara wasn't there. which was wait for Clara to come back.

in-n-out, obviously 

eegee's for my last meal. that's "yummiest frozen fruit drink/sandwiches/fries restaurant" for all you non-Tucsonans.

Oh, and as I said in my previous blogs, I made a banoffee pie. Despite the fact that the preparation took most of the afternoon, it was relatively easy to make actually. And being that I'm eternally lazy, I invented my own recipe and cut lots of corners but it still somehow came out tasting so delicious.

So, as requested, here's my foolproof recipe for 100% nomnom-ness ensured banoffee pie.

So You're A Lazy Buttmunch Who Wants to Make a Dessert, Well Here's a Recipe for You, Stupid.

Stuff you need:

• Graham cracker crust (the kind from the box obviously) *note, if you can't get graham crackers, you can also use digestive biscuits, but that requires you to look up how to make a pie crust out of digestive biscuits since I'm not gonna do it for you.
• Condensed sweetened milk
• Three green-ish bananas (they're not as sweet as yellow bananas, apparently?)
• Lemon juice
• Cool whip, or something similar
• A few pieces of chocolate (optional)

1. First, make the crust following the directions on the box, which will require you to melt butter and mix it together. Oh, you need butter too.

Other stuff you need

• Butter

Right. So, once you've made the mixture, take a 9 inch pie dish and lay the crust down evenly along the bottom and the edges. I used the bottom of a small glass to compress the crust as much as possible, which is more effective than using a spoon. Stick that bad boy in the freezer for an hour.

2. While your crust is doing it's thing, you can make the toffee. First preheat the oven to 425°F or about 220°C. Now, on the interwebs, you'll notice there are many ways of making toffee from condensed milk and I decided to go for the least dangerous yet simplest way. So, you'll take a small pyrex dish (let's say about 10 inches or so), pour the condensed milk inside, and cover it with tin foil. Then take a baking pan (the sort to make cookies) and put the dish with the condensed milk on top. Then fill the pan with a few centimeters of hot water so that the dish is sitting in a pool. Pop into the oven for about an hour, or until it's brown and caramel-y looking. You'll need to top up the water every so often since it's as hot as a mofo in there.

*Note, toffee fresh from the oven doesn't smell good. But don't worry, it'll taste nice later*

3. Once the toffee is done, let it cool enough so that you can easily handle the dish without a glove then pour the toffee on top of your frozen pie crust. Stick it back into the freezer.

4. While it's cooling, you can chop up the bananas into thin slices. Once chopped, I put some lemon juice in a bowl and swirled around the pieces of banana to coat them. I also set aside a few slices for decorative purposes. 

5. Take your lemon-y banana slices and cover the toffee layer. Mine looked like this at this stage:

6. Then take the bowl where you were mixing the bananas, and mix the cool whip in to soften it a little. You can add more lemon juice if you're feeling adventurous. Smooth it over the bananas. 

7. Optional part: I crushed up a few pieces of my leftover cadbury's chocolate bars and put it on top for the decoration, along with the other decorative slices I had saved for later. 

8. DEVOUR!!!!!!!


Well, that's it. You should lemme know if you attempt it and how that goes for you. Even if you're a random stranger on the internet. Random strangers read my blog, right? ...Guys?

c'est la dernière minute. bof.

Well, I have a to-do list that's about two miles long which I have to complete before leaving the country in about 14 hours... Yet I'm sitting here because between sending invoices, making phone calls and staring blankly at my empty suitcase, I became suddenly and inexplicably consumed with the idea of blogging something so magical, it might make your heart explode with Christmas joy.

Ok, I'm probably exaggerating a little. But, I made the video below at the Christmas market -- which is, hands-down, my favorite thing about this city. Of course, it would be so much better for you to experience this in person: the smells of spiced mulled wine, cinnamon churros, raclette, crêpes, waffles and the buzz of Christmas songs playing softly. I'm actually sad to leave it so early in December, despite having gone nearly every evening since it opened.

I know, the quality isn't so great and there are no fancy effects or even any funny cats, but well, you've read this much of my pointless blog, so why not waste another minute and a half?

Le siiiiiiigh. Amirite or amirite?