La Rentrée

Not surprisingly, I seem to forget to blog when I’m happy. Life has also settled down and there isn’t much to write about. However, as relatively bored (and boring?) as I am right now I’ve decided to post something, if only out of boredom. Since my last blog (and my move back

to Blogger.com) I’ve:

-moved with friends and lovers (ok, only one lover) to a largish apartment near the train station
-acquired a dog (and her master...)
-started a M2 in linguistics and teaching ESL
-taken ballet and modern jazz back up
-travelled to Perros Guirec, KY and London

I also have some interesting projects for the future:

-start an indie dance night at a local bar with a friend
-learn to make veggie Pho
-attend my first bar-mitzvah in London in April (bf’s sis’s bf’s son)
-write my mémoire for my masters (let’s hope it will be interesting)


However, I’m not working very much at the moment and I miss writing and working on creative projects. I’m afraid if I don’t do something soon there might be an episode of cabin fever coming on...

The language school where I work is on a contractual basis and most of the contracts don’t start before February or March. I’ve recently managed to get some hours teaching at the local business school but that doesn’t start until February either. Sigh. To make this even more frustrating, I got a bill from my dance school last night for nearly 600 euros. This sucks in of itself, but it’s even more frustrating because I like to think free time = dance time, but I may not have the money to sign up for 4 days a week of classes. It’s ironic, when I have enough spare change I don’t have the time and when I have the free time I don’t have enough moo-la. I need a real job.

Otherwise there’s not much to complain about. Gone are the days of last spring when I was drinking away my sorrows caused my an unworthy male and working for a dick-tator at a lycée. Life has definitely taken a turn for the better, but unfortunately that is not the stuff an interesting blog is made of.

Keeping your Goals to Yourself...

Already thinking about New Year's resolutions? Wanna tell everyone about your goals? Here's a guy who thinks you shouldn't...

Keep Your Goals to Yourself

Moving back...

So, I'm moving back to Blogger.com! A little over a year ago I switched over to Wordpress.com...I don't remember why. I'm coming back because I find Blogger to be more user-friendly and I have more friends who use this site. Here's a link to my previous Wordpress blog:

http://toastdujour.wordpress.com/

But from now on I'll be updating on here. Sorry for the trouble and thanks for following me!

Spring has Sprung!

When I descended into Rennes’ giant open air market this morning* I was flooded with flashbacks from the Renaissance Festival in Florida that I attended every spring with my aunt and cousins until I was about 20 years old. Okay, there was no joisting, camel rides, face painting stands, or giant turkey legs for sale this morning, but there was live Celtic music, a festive ambiance, an eclectic mixture of locals and even some weird carni-type folk.

Nearly everyone was in good spirits : I shared a laugh with the people walking beside of me when a toddler ran toward a small dog with her arms opened wide while making an adorable squealing noise. Families and friends were out and about sharing organic apple juice, wine, fresh fruit, bread and cheese from their favorite vendors and galettes, crepes and cider from a local eateries.

But some people have unique ways of conveying their enthusiasm for springtime and their renewed appreciation for their fellow man. Example: the man who's organic sheep yogurt I dream about. He greeted me with a "Bonjour. I responded the same and asked for 4 pots of this unbelievable product. His response: "Oh, you have a very strong British accent!" (he said this in French.) I clarified saying that I was American and I asked him if he really though my accent was that strong. (I would like to think and have been told that it's pretty subtle.) He affirmed his opinion and went on to say that I sounded like two previous customers that morning from Jersey Island. Obviously one of us was drunk. Then he said, "I bet you don't have markets like this in America, do you?" I conceded and added that you can't find yogurt as good as his in America either. (I don’t know if this is quite true, but I wanted to play his game.) Score! Apparently my accent isn’t too thick - he gave me 2 free yogurts « for the road! » I think this vieux monsieur is actually a really nice guy who likes to provoke conversation in anyway possible. This doesn’t mean that I’m convinced of his sobriety.

After I had bought everything on my list: the yogurt, a black radish, avocadoes, potatoes, carrots, clementines, apples and bananas, I came home and made a delectable salade composée with a tahini dressing. All and all a pretty good start to an early spring day. Tonight might be a different story, however. I‘m going on pointe during ballet class for the first time in 7 years. At least I'll have some good, healthy food to look forward to when I come home famished and exhausted (best case) or when I‘m released from the hospital after having fallen and broken my hip (worst case). I’m thinking homemade soup and yogurt or carrot, potato, roasted garlic purée and yogurt, or a veggie omelet and….

*written on Saturday afternoon and accidentally saved instead of published

La Règle du jour....

Since no one reads my blog (Seriously, I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one that's been to this page - correct me if you're actually reading this and your're not me) I don't have to worry abouot scaring people away by taking about my period. Well, I'm not actually going to get descriptive about my menstral flow, but I would like to rant, rave and compare my favorite high calorie, high sugar, high fat, low fiber, low protein once-a-month splurges.

When aunt Rose comes to visit me in Kentucky you can usually find my curled up in my bed watching the L-Word or Nip-Tuck with a bottle of wine, Terracotta exotic chips, dagoba dark chocolate and my cat all sprawled out around me. This may sound too cliché, but I assure you, Polly, that I lose all energy and crave nothing but salt, fat, sugar and cacao solids when I'm bleeding profusely once a month.

In France the bottle of wine (or belgiun beer) is still there, but the Terracotta's have been replaced by Vico's mustard flavored chips à l'ancienne, and pain au chocolat crubs can be found on the floor, in all the crevices of my keypad and, if it's a really bad cycle, between my sheets. And this is not a replacement for plain old chocolate, I'm eating a few squares (ok, a bar) of Lindt's dark chocolate with roasted almonds as I type. Miam-miam!

As for the chips, the dijon mustard flavor is heaven in my mouth, while the texture leaves much to be desired. With a connotation like "a l'ancienne" made the old-fashioned way, you would expect something more than greasy, crumbly, minimumly crunchy crisps. Still, these are the best I've found - France is sooo behind in chips. Baked Lays are a new concept and obviously the Kettle Chip has yet to be perfected. On days like today I might sell my soul for a bag of Miss Vicky's Jalepeno Kettle Chips or even for some decent tortillas.

On the other hand, French pastries are the perfect period cure and there's nothing that even comes close in Americaland. Buttery pastery crust filled with chocolate, almond paste, or a custardy raisin mixture - impeccable.

If only I could find them both at the same store (in the same country)...

...plus...









On second thought, these two items would surely make my head explode...or at least make me vomit due to the massive quantity of both that I would inevitably consume.

We were the young Americans...

A favorite topic of conversation between myself and one of my flatmates is our mutual disdain for people who look down upon cultures different than their own, especially when they don’t have any personal experience with the culture. She is French and lived in the States for a number of years, and we’ve both had to reassure others that, yes, French people do actually take showers, and that ,no, not all Americans live off of fast food. In fact, the French are probably just as hygienically inclined as Americans and only slightly less enthusiastic about McDonalds.

However, due to three recent anti-American (or anti-tourist/anti-Anglophone?) encounters I’ve had over the last 2 weeks, I started to question if there wasn’t something to the stereotype that French waiters are rude, specifically to Americans. Experience number one: My American friend and I went to a local wine bar that we had both previously been to and enjoyed. We found a table and sat around for 40 minutes while the waiter served every table around us, except us. When I finally caught him staring into our general direction as though he had nothing else to do, I raised my hand to catch his attention. His response: to flash me a faux smile and to wave at me as a school boy would excitedly wave to his friend, then exit the room. We left angry and confused - we had both been to the same bar before with different groups of French friends and the guy was perfectly normal.

Scene 2: Paris, last weekend with two English-speaking friends at a restaurant so chick I never could have never afforded without some help from my friend’s (dad’s) credit card. The three of us girls were having a great evening out thanks to some great sushi, an interesting ambience and exotic cocktails. Our waiter was not especially friendly but his service was decent and he did replace my friend’s cocktail after he had cleared it away too soon. However, he went from average waiter to slime ball con artist when at the end of the meal he leaned in to my friend and said in English, « Oh, I don’t know if you want to put away your wallet. I don’t know how it is in America, but in France the tip is 20 percent. » My friend who has lived in France for four years responded, « Yeah, it’s already included. » His response: « That’s only taxes, ma chère. » He was lying through his teeth thinking he would trick some American tourists in to leaving a 40 percent tip!

The third chapter of the story takes us back to the wine bar. Last night we decided to give it a second chance. We ordered our wine and everything was fine until the waiter noticed that we were speaking English. From then on he took new customers’ drink orders and went around to every table but ours offering free snacks. I attempted to wave him over again, and this time he looked at me, rolled eyes and said sarcastically to a random female customer as though we would not understand « I love it when people get my attention that way. » We gritted our teeth and ordered the second drink which was served without a snack - not even peanuts! I finally went to the counter and ask him for something to much on and he reluctantly handed me a small bowl without even looking me in the eye.

When I told my roommate about my experiences, she exclaimed, « It’s jerks like him that make the French look bad! » Just like it’s the Americans who come to France and expect everything to be just like it is at home but more French, make Americans look clueless. But why is it so easy for some of us to stereotype, categorize, judge and/or dislike other individuals without even giving them a chance? My only consolation is knowing that these unwitting people will never know what it is like to really discover and experience a new culture, or to have friends from all over the world. They say ignorance is bliss but for those of us who have to put up with such closed-minded self-flatterers, sometimes l’enfer c’est les autres.

à la télé....

(originally posted 13 Feb. 2009)

There’s a wonderful Internet site in France where you can purchase almost anything you desire at a discount price over the course of three payments: http://www.cdiscount.om/ When I first happened upon it I figured it must be too good to be true, that I would have to sign up for some sort of credit card with outrageous finance charges. But the site actually does what it claims with no hidden stipulations. It’s where I found my latest coup de coeur : an off-brand flat -screen TV with a built in DVD player!This may seem like an impulse buy, but I like to think of it more as a study aid. Watching French television allows me to learn vocabulary that I normally wouldn’t come in contact with. Last week I thought a barrette is simply s French is not only something you put in your hair, but it’s also a sachet that holds instant coffee and a synonym for pipe. And who would have thought that Survivor actually translates to Koh-Lanta?

The best part about French TV, however, is comparing it to it‘s American counterpart. The most obvious difference (besides the language thing) is the way television shows and commercials are presented . In France you can watch a 30-minute sitcom in 20 minutes since there are no commercial interruptions! Here commercials come at the beginning and the end of a program (what an idea!) and cars, private insurance, and food (mostly cheese) are advertised most frequently. Interesting fact : Maybelline Cosmetics uses the same music for their jingle in France and in the States, but instead of ”Maybe it’s Maybelline”, they sing, “Gemey Maybelline. ” Trippy, huh?

In fact, French commercials and television shows tend to be very similar to their American cousins. There is the previously mentioned Koh-Lana, obviously inspired by Survivor, A Prendre ou à Laisser, which is a lot like Deal or No Deal and Nouvelle Star and Star Academy that closely resemble American Idol (though one could that Eurovision, which first aired in the 1950, was the true original.) Otherwise I would estimate that at least fifty percent of shows that air on TV1, France’s equivalent to ABC or NBC, are American. On any given night you can see Grey, CSI, Monk, Desperate Housewives, or 7th Heaven, all dubbed into French. Dubbing is my least favrite part about TV here. It is impossible to get both the translation and the lip synchronization right so one or the other is always compromised. My roommate even swears’s that the audience response if often cut out of the dubbed version of Friends because the humor or irony doesn’t translate. Oh, l’horreur!

As for the DVD player built in to my study aid , I won’t lie - I could be renting classic Film Noir or Nouvelle Vague cinema for free from my local library, but so far I‘ve opted for The Shining, Brokeback Mountian and season 3 of Six Feet Under. I guess sometimes I just need a fix of old favorites. That’s something that not even Days of Our Lives, which airs here as Les Jours de Nos Vies, can do if it’s dubbed into French.