Survivor.

I love it. I love everything about it. Getting out into 'the nature.' Having an adventure (adventure, I've figured out, is what I'm all about). Matching yourself up against complete strangers and seeing where the chips fall. Seeing if you've got what it takes to outwit the other players, outlast the elements, and be strong enough in yourself and who you are to not give up even when you're starving, even if it's monsoon-ing, even if you miss your friends, pillows, and other comforts from home SO MUCH! Also, it's always so interesting and controversial and usually full of hotties! Hopefully it will be still be going strong the day I've got an awesome-enough resume behind me to make it on the cast. Sigh. I mean, 'Hells yes! It's going to happen!'

It's interesting to see how alike and unlike Survivor is to 'real life' (whatever that is...the more I live it, the more I wonder what people exactly mean by that...it seems pretty boring sometimes)...for instance, did I 'like' Russell? Hell no! At first. But then I just HAD to respect his mad skillz (with a z), and was really rooting for him in the end. Should people like that really 'win' in real life? Hmm. I'm starting to think I have questionable morals...

I absolutely hate drama in my life...I try to avoid it, and I get all weird and pissy and bottled up when it comes my way. I'm a pretty relaxed and chill person, but I think drama is absolutely delicious on Survivor! I love watching complete strangers claw it out in some exotic locale, and I still think I could step up to that challenge and rock it. But it's not a true microcosm of society. It's all about the ratings, baby! Survivor is not real life. (Reality TV was never real) And real life is all about the Benjamins, I mean, sleeping at night. Right? I can't say. I'm young yet, I've got time to figure it out. That's another thing: there are many realities, many philosophies that people bring to the table, and to see them all clash and intermingle and coexist and eat or be eaten is awesome to watch, but how much does it really teach us about this 'real life' thing? I can't say. It'll be interesting to watch next season (the 20th...God I'm old), and see if a Villian or a Hero wins the whole thing. Based on how the last season went, I have no idea where to put my money.

In other news...well, I'm writing about Survivor here because 'real life' is too boring and complicated and aggravating and stressful and monotonous and blah to remark upon. So there. Orlando, here I come!

PDX means Portland, duh!

(That was for Jay from Kansas. ATL, LAX, PDX, I mean, come ON! We're kind of a big deal...aren't we?)

So I've been gallivanting about town having a lot of firsts lately, here's the report card:

Clyde Common - One of Andrew's faves, Thursday night a bunch of my workmates and I headed here for a goodbye happy hour for Dennis and Emily. TEAR! We ordered stiff drinks to stave off the sadness. I sampled a sour bourbon&cassis number, (cassis=blackcurrant liquor from France) a Christmas-y gin&tonic&then some, and something called Breakfast of Champions, with calvados (apple liquor from Normandy, where I lived last summer). All these familiar French liquors got me feeling nostalgic and thirsty...guess they're living up to their rep as a 'European-style tavern.' Yum!

Embers - After happy hour came happier hour! Some of us headed to the oldest gay bar in Portland...I can't believe I'd never been before! Cheap drinks, free drinks (!), dancing and oversharing with coworkers=a win!

Christmas Ships - OK, not a first, but a Portland Christmas classic! Friday night we hosted the first of 2 parties chez moi to watch the Christmas ships parade. If you've lived in Portland for awhile, you should know about these (even if you don't)! Lots of great drink and good food and a random smattering of my mom's, my stepdad's and my friends and coworkers made for a nice night. This Friday (December 18th) promises to be an even wilder and crazier time, with at least double the guests and double the awesome! Swing on by if you'll be in Portland!

Portland Christmas Revels - Saturday night Hannah and her fam invited me along to the Christmas revels, a very unique, really cool, and totally Portland celebration of the winter solstice! Singing, a famous fiddler, Irish dancing, stag's horns, sing-a-longs, mummers, oh boy! I saw a guy with a wizard's cloak.

Hotel DeLuxe - After the revels, Hannah, Mike, Tone, Tone's friends and I headed half a block up to this snazzy little hotel for after-revel drinks. The doorman was falling down on his job, so the door kept getting stuck open, which, on a freezing night, is kind of a big deal. I couldn't resist ordering a cocktail called the Tennessee Williams, with bourbon and sweet tea-flavoured vodka, among other things. Hello! It was amazing, even though, as Hannah pointed out, it tasted of bitterness and disappointment. [ :) Theater jokes.]

Virginia Cafe - One of the oldest bars in Portland, even though they recently had to change locations (93 years in one place, just moved to across the street from the library in 2008), this was one of John Sugie's first suggestions when I asked him about 'must-hits' around town. Doug and I went to lunch there today and I had delicious chili, salad and cheesy bread, and a $3 Bloody Mary because it was before 2:00pm! Spicy, tasty and strong...everything a BM should be! :) Now that's what I call a good deal!

Is this real life?

My life is too boring to blog about. Yes I've been to the Teardrop (stiff drinks!), and gotten my life in order (consolidating my debt from 3 credit cards with high interest rates to 1 loan with a lower interest rate)...wait, I think that last point just made my point that my life is absolutely not noteworthy of late. I go to work, I come home. I sleep, I repeat. Even the book I'm reading is dry (granted, it's about US Foreign Policy...I can't say I didn't know what I was getting myself into).

Getting a library card was the high point of my week. Well, so was watching Glee with Hannah and talking about it with coworker Andrew. And I'm beginning to think I need an upgrade...my 'phone that's just a phone' is just not cutting it...I want to know when the next Max is coming, or orient myself in a way only google maps can do for me, or listen to music whenever and wherever I am. What's going on with me? There's more to life than the latest techy gadgets...isn't there? TV is taking its toll...

The passionate bones in my body are thinking more long term and not so on fire currently. Day-to-day survival (a weekly martini ritual soo counts as 'survival') is my focus. Gleaning knowledge from cool coworkers also keeps me sane. I just got a list of non-fiction books to read, and veganism, the Big Mac Index, Portland hot spots, and Lady Gaga's real name are topics that have all been broached recently. Also in the works: signing up for an online Econ course through PCC...seriously, can I see myself right now?? If my aim is mediocrity I'm definitely on track. 'Mediocrity,' 'settling into a routine and a semi-permanent location' ...necessarily one and the same? I guess having a job that's decent enough to pay the bills and allow you to sleep at night while not being overly stimulating is the reason people get hobbies. Make meaning in your life outside of work. So far mine's drinking. On my list of things to do: take yoga classes or join a gym. We'll see if that dream becomes reality or remains a fantasy...odds are 50/50 at this point.

Thanksgiving

Well, at least the spiced persimmon chutney was a hit! Nick and Barb inherited the persimmons (think: bastard child of a tomato and an apple) from a neighbor and passed them on to Aunt Beth because they didn't want to mess with them (who subsequently passed them on to me for the same reason). Always one to rise to a challenge, I found the recipe online, and with Alisha's help, a new Thanksgiving tradition was born? Perhaps.

That's about the only good news to report on the weekend, aside from the fact that I invited an out-of-towner coworker to partake in the festivities with my crazy family, and he, like the naive good sport that he was, humored me and came over. So that's the moral of the story: alcohol always makes things better!

Peace Corps

I'm going to French-speaking Africa to teach English and ride a bike in July. Assuming I can get medically cleared. I began the medical adventure today...trying to land as many cheap or free doctor's appointments as I can (you hear that Keith Olbermann? you bringing your free clinics to Portland anytime soon?). So far, I've got a free dentist appointment out of this Peace Corps business. Wahoo! One down, a few more to go. I'm not giving up hope because I can't, being the Obama-loving yet un-insured cheap American bastard that I currently am.

Leaving for the Peace Corps so soon will be just the fire under my butt I need to get out there and discover Portland, pay off the bills, and have a good time with friends between now and then. Like last Thursday night, I went out with my cousin, some coworkers, and some old college friends. We hit up Scandals and CC Slaughter's (gay Portland, I love you so!), where I had a brush with celebrity: I was shimmying next to Beau Breedlove, the former lover of Sam Adams, mayor of Portland! Some (crazy?) lady on the Max tonight was asking if there were any Oregon voters afoot who wanted to recall Sam Adams. I didn't even look up from my Obama book. Politicians have been sleazing and sleeping around for hundreds of years, this is no reason to call for a resignation. In fact, we should be commending Sam Adams: Beau Breedlove's hot!

Happy Thanksgiving one and all. This weekend promises to be full of emotion and alcohol, hopefully mixing together into a balanced elixir of good and crazy times!

La Nouvelle Generation Perdue

"...all generations were lost by something and always had been and always would be..." -Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

You can say that again! Hey, looks like someone already did (looks like Dan Schmitz is running with an awesome crowd: he can identify with the likes of Princeton the puppet and me!). I can name at least 6 friends who are A. college graduates, B. back living with 'the folks' (or 'grand-folks'), and C. currently looking for a job or are presently underemployed. We can spend our time getting angry at the economy for screwing us over (hello! we have degrees! shouldn't we be squeaking by the uneducated folk? or are our degrees our enemies right now: potential employers know we'll bolt as soon as things pick up and we can move on up?), or maybe we need to just grin and bear it and do the best we can. Perhaps that won't be in the US: this economy is driving a lot of people to look for gigs overseas. This in itself is a good thing; hey, is the crappy economy actually encouraging globalization? (Some economist somewhere should look into that...) I'm definitely a part of that exodus: I'm doing a phone interview for the Peace Corps next week!

Maybe I sound a little too sunny, but I've always been an optimist. And fortunately (read: miraculously), just when things were beginning to look really bleak, I got a job (and my first day of training was on Veteran's Day, no less...tying back into that lost generation thing...everything's connected...). Let me repeat that incredible news: I got a joerghb!! After only about a month of looking, and it's a great job too: I'm not flipping burgers, folding shirts, or dressed like an elf and to top it all off, it's actually a resume-builder--something that ties into my future career goals! Many have said that I'm lucky. I'm becoming more and more aware of that.

Meanwhile, I'm eating my way through the world, in a very Portland way: food carts!! I read about them last year in the New York Times article (here, if you insist, but I'm sure anyone who's anyone has already seen it, and I already linked to it on facebook), but had never eaten at them, until now! Yesterday it was a chicken schnitzelwich at a Czech cart, and today it was an old favorite: a lamb gyros at a Greek cart. I'm also 'eating' A Moveable Feast right now, and even though I'm slightly less than halfway done, it has already skyrocketed to '2nd-favorite-book-of-all-time' status. The title is perfect: it's chewy. Each chapter is a delicious morsel; a combination of romantic Parisian reminiscences and frank 'here's how I did it' advice on being a writer. Anyone who's been to Paris, is planning a trip there, or just loves the city of love needs to read this book! (I've especially been remembering lazy sunny days spent lounging next to the Rhone last year in good company with delicious wine and insanely incredible food...Steve, Zandra, Lauren, Zandra, Ruth, Becky, Cotes du Rhone, big fat cherries, goat cheese: you know who you are!)

Hemingway's famous admonition to "write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know" is contained therein, among others. That, in concert with the professions of Project Runway contestants, encourages me. Writing isn't my profession, but it's my passion, and I know I'll always be doing this, even after long days at work (couldn't resist mentioning my fabulous job! yet again!), in the middle of the night, and with no loftier goals than personal satisfaction.

I read on the bus and Max to work and home again. Talk about a typical Portland experience! Riding Trimet you see a true cross-section of society: poor people, environmentally-conscious people, (not mutually exclusive categories, btw), knitting people, reading people, people grooving to their iPods, smelly people, drunk people, commuters, high school kids, thugs, hipsters, bicyclists, their bikes, families. Working downtown, commuting on public transportation: I love feeling like a Portlander in a realer way than I ever have before!

On turning 24

Happy Guy Fawkes Day everybody in England. Happy Birthday, me!

Am I where I thought I would be at 24? When I graduated from high school 6 1/2 years ago, did I imagine I would be living with my mom, in a house on the Columbia in Portland, scrambling for a job (as opposed to starting a career), at this age? In a word, HELL NO!!! Honestly, I can't remember what I was thinking then...I was vaguely planning on going the Dolphin Trainer route, but I must have known that wasn't going to last because I don't remember having any real concrete forecasts of my early-mid 20's.

I remember figuring out years in advance how old I would be when 2000 hit...(14, woohoo!)..., but I haven't been so preoccupied about 2010 (apparently, I'll be 24). My biggest timeline-related goal has been to fill up my passport with visas and stamps before it expires in 2013 (assuming we all make it past 2012-were those loco Mayans right?). I've also spent much of the last 6 1/2 years obsessing about 'being successful' by my 10 year high school reunion, which I realize now is a pretty arbitrary benchmark. 10 years out from high school I have a feeling I'll just be getting started. 'Pretty arbitrary benchmark' and also: 'aiming low.' Compared to my high school peers, I'm already kicking ass. :) Time to aim higher...

I'm 24 years old and I've been to 16 countries (not including the US) on 5 continents (N. America included). I certainly hadn't foreseen that. President Barack Obama has been to 15 countries in his first year in office. Compared to the POTUS, I've got a long way to go. Australia and Antarctica, here I come! It's all about perspective. Hmm, new life goal: join this.

I'm not the only one of my friends who's back living with the 'rents post-college. We're redefining success. Successful in your 20-somethings is no longer working a crap entry-level job at your dream company with aims of clawing your way to the top. Success is bumming off your parents, working a crap entry-level job that has nothing to do with your degree or future aspirations, and enjoying every day for what is it. Rock, rock on.

I'm not Oliver Wilde, John Keats, Chris McCandless (thank goodness!), Rihanna, Mark Zuckerberg, or any other freakishly talented, freakishly awesome young person. But I AM Annette McAwesome: traveler extraordinaire, student of life, cool-ass bitch. I'm 1 in a million, er, 6 1/2 billion, if you will. :)

SO, to sum up? Jobless and looking, carless and (trying to be) content (the western US is not Western Europe, public transportation- or other-wise), planning my next adventure (possibly Vietnam for 5-7+ weeks next June-July-August, and then *hopefully* the Peace Corps sometime next fall). I'm giving myself a 12-month limit back in the states-by no later than September 22, 2010, I'm outta here. There's just too much to see and no babies, terminal diseases, or significant others to tie me down (knock on wood). :)

I don't want to be one of those people who says: "I always wish I had done X, Y and Z." I want to be one of those people who says: "Yeah, I did X, Y, and Z. No big deal. I also did A-W too! Tell you about it? I haven't the time. Read my book!"

Off to celebrate. Tonight was good: 2 new McMenamin's locations (Ringlers and the St. John's theater, if you insist) and Henry's, which I hadn't realized I had already been to with Megan and her hs friend. I hope at some point this weekend I have (another) occasion to say: "Another pitcher of Puby, Snakes! And make it snappy, it's my motherfuckin' birthday!"

As Courtney has predicted, 24 is going to be my action year! Bring. it. ON!

Yeah, fuck that!

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future." -Chris McCandless, in Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild (emphasis mine)

Word. THAT'S why I don't have a job right now. I'm nurturing my adventurous spirit, thank you very much. (...This year is going to be very trying, I can tell...) Adventure here I come! Relatedly, working on the next step of the Peace Corps application at the moment. Work it out! In unrelated news: I went to yet another McMenamin's today - Oregon City, check!

Apples!

I'm getting Oregon shit done! On Thursday cuzzie Alisha and I drove up to Hood River. We picked out lots of interesting types of apples (the 'hidden rose' is red inside!) with which to make apple sauce! Then we tasted some wine at Wy'East Vineyards...delicious, locally owned and operated, and I got to pretend like I know a thing or two about wine (and I learned a thing or two too...so that makes, a thing or four?). I love the NW! The next morning we made some awesome applesauce...only 10 quarts (my mom and aunt said their record from when they were kids is 120-odd quarts in one day), but we didn't have any cheap child labor handy.

Last night I went out downtown for Halloween with Alison and Hannah. We hit up some old favorite haunts (Portland City Grill, where I felt uncomfortable...a classy joint like that wasn't quite the place for this skanky pirate wench, and Kell's, a great but expensive place, where I got my Irish on to Amadan), and discovered a new place: Kelly's, right next to the giant purple octopus. Cheapish (in all senses of the word, so I felt right at home), with lots of 'interesting' characters. I liked the IT geek, which, as it turned out, wasn't a costume but his actual clothes! Oops! My bad!

In other news:

~I still haven't found a job. Not for lack of trying. But I've got a lead I'm going to check out tomorrow... Also, I've decided not to place my perceptions of self-worth on whether or not I have a job. I'm awesome, employed or otherwise!
~This is my 42nd blog post this year. In 2008 I only wrote 21 posts. So I've doubled my output. It seems vaguely important. Maybe next year I'll double it again. 84 posts! Here's hoping 84 interesting things happen to me in 2010. ...
~My birthday's coming up this week. I think I'm officially old...I don't care about birthdays anymore! Maybe it's just because it snuck up on me this year, and I don't feel like I deserve a good birthday. Maybe I'm just being ridiculous. Meh. C'est la vie.

McMenamin's, a NW institution

Continuing to check off typical Portland experiences on my list (inherited tickets for August: Osage County, a play at Keller Auditorium, for which Alisha and I got all dolled up...thanks Nancy!), McMenamin's must be mentioned! This last week I went to 3 different Mac locations, none of which I'd been to before, all of which were in downtown! I started with the Ram's Head on 23rd with cuzzie Alisha on Wednesday, checked out the Market St. Pub with Hannah and Megan on Thursday night after we went to a grad school fair at PSU (it's SO happening for me...someday...), where we shamelessly flirted with 'Snakes' the server, and rounded off the week at the Mission Theater last night with my mom, part of the OSU marching band, and other Beaver fans and alum watching the dismal game v. USC on the big screen, and using the pounding as an excuse to drink more! I even gave my number to a girl who was acting on behalf of her really shy friend, who looked old enough to be my dad, but whatevs. My mom thinks she heard me gave the wrong number...well, I was drunk. So much the better. Sorry universe, I didn't purposely deceive!

Each time I went with 'buena gente' as Hannah says, or good people. Because that's what McMenamin's are all about. With Hannah and Megan, we even got a list of all locations and started checking them off...between the 3 of us, we want to hit them all up! We'll have to go as far north as Seattle, as far east as Bend, and as far south as Roseburg to do it, but we got this!

In other news, the job search continues. I've filled out more applications, and lost more self respect, with the end result of being employed hopefully coming soon! Next app: McMenamin's! :)

Portland!

Ok, I just had a great weekend of typical Portland experiences: Powell's City of Books, where my mom and I sold some books back ($42 credit, woohoo!), and I applied for a seasonal job. We used the $ to buy 2 new releases/best sellers (I picked out Jon Krakauer's new book about Pat Tillman, and my mom bought Dan Brown's new rag). I also hung out in St. John's with Alison...a part of town I don't really know at all. Yesterday my friend Hannah and I went to a Portland Trailblazers (pre-season) game. There were some cute little kids about (I saw a 1' tall Greg Oden!) and, oh yeah, we won! Woohoo! The best part was we were smart enough to park on the street, where we serendipitously ran into Megan, (is Portland really that small?), and we weren't out $15, and we got out pretty quickly.

So, according to this, Portland is the 11th best city in the US to find the single guys (so jealous of Patrick in the ATL!). Awesome! Too bad I don't have a job or any money or success. How am I supposed to hook a catch? Maybe dressing up like a pirate for Halloween will be my ticket, though I fear they've been overdone. If the song by Norah Jones and freecreditreport.com commercials featuring pirates are any indication...

Portland's also one of the smartest cities around (9th most brilliant! Suck it Baltimore! Baltimore?). Hmm, is it wrong that I wish I were in a dumber city right now? Maybe I'd have a better time of finding a job! :)

Back

Being back has been...interesting. Is there anything more deflating than being on the job market? I'm having trouble with the whole "I'm-looking-for-a-job-which-means-I-don't-currently-have-one-which-(in America at least)-means-I'm-a-sub-par-human-being" thing. I read the current copy of the Willamette Week in the MAX today and it told me that Oregon's unemployment (11.5%ish) is one of the highest around. But I still feel inadequate.

Also I'm living with my mom. The best part about that is drinking wine periodically, baking cookies, and watching Survivor together again (amazing how easily I can fall back into that, but it's a passion. Producers...you missed out!). The very best part is sleeping with Kucha. She's the cutest dog in the world, and I swear that being away from her for a whole year has exponentially increased my love for her. I've always been cautiously in love with her, but now it's all out-I hug her and kiss her (even though she licks my toes and various sundries off the ground), and don't even mind the dog smell anymore (much). The worst part is...I'm living 'at home' (even though I've never 'lived' here before, in this house, just visited), with all the nagging ('get a job!') and feelings of inadequacies that entails.

So even though I'm a complete pathetic loser, worthy of the 'pathetic loser' pants I almost didn't change out of at all yesterday, I'm still finding reasons to be optimistic, namely, the divine friends I've been reconnecting with, all across Portland. "I'm in Portland! Wow! I can't believe I'm in Portland!" I hear myself keep saying. A play at the Newmark Theater with Hannah (ok, ok, so The Laramie Project 10 years later isn't the happiest of pieces, but it was mindblowing, and amazing to be a part of something so big and cool and right), Rogue Brewery with Megan and Layna, and the Hawthorne district with Alisha, where I had very reactionary reactions against all the hipsters afoot. ENOUGH already with the vintage, the tight pants, the funky hair, the admittedly bitchin' tattoos, the macchiatos and the local pride! After thinking about why these harmless trendies were pissing me off so much, (-'really Annette, what's so wrong with local pride, when your local is Portland, OR??' -'true fact, inner reasonable self') I think it had something to do with all the Hindu- and Buddhism-inspired objets d'arts I kept seeing in the kooky little trinket stores, after just having been in the real deal in Cambodia. Over there, Buddhism is more than just a chintzy statue to stash on your sideboard, it's life, in a way I can't even speak to because I only really got a taste of it.

Enough already with the reverse culture shock! And can somebody tell me why Law & Order SVU is one of my current favorite pastimes, even with the preposterous plots of late?

Sweet Home Alabama

So what did we do the first full day we were in Alabama? We proper hicked it up, heading out to a huge swath of land dedicated to ATVing. Acres of mud and trails through the woods, just for ATVs and dirtbikes. Miles was in Heaven, trying out his new purchase. I was sad because we didn't bring enough beer (9 beers for 5 people = bad math). The Boggdaddy (the place is called Boggs and Boulders) gave Phil, Cherie and I a personal tour on his mammoth ATV, because he felt bad that we were just sitting around waiting for our turn. He pointed out the new RV hook-ups, the swimming hole with rope swing (of course we hadn't thought to ask about this, so hadn't brought our swimsuits), the muddy hill a few dump trucks were keeping muddy. A veritable redneck's paradise. Well, Miles took me out on the big bear and I have to say it was a lot of fun. I don't think I'll ever buy one for myself, but I don't think he's completely crazy anymore. We saw 4 deer run by, and almost got stuck in the mud once. With a higher beer to person ratio, a tent for camping out in the back of the property, and a weekend of good weather, Boggs and Boulders wouldn't be half bad. I think Miles is camping there this weekend.

The next day, we woke up ridiculously early and raced Phil and Cherie to the Atlanta airport (code: ATL...I couldn't stop humming/singing Fergie). They missed their flight but caught another one that left 10 minutes later. Then Miles and I went to Marietta to visit Patrick Stromer, future chiropractor extraordinaire! We ate Chick-fil-A (I flipped out to try the sweet tea, and all the people working there thought I was crazy. They also thought it was crazy that I come from a land devoid of sweet tea, because, what would life be without it?), bought 6 6-packs (one for each hand) of microbrew beer from all over the country (GA, OR, CO), and then headed to the Braves game. The $1 tickets were sold out, and we were not about to pay $8 to get into a half-over game, (and the military discount tickets were $9...go figure), so we went to the bar across the street, where we could watch it on TV if we cared. We drank beer (and a Bloody Mary for me) and then ended up playing spades with some of the people who worked the game (concessions? ticket taking?). So fun! Then we hooked up with Miles' friend Treiz and his girlfriend Kristin and went to some bar and played pool. Then we ate at Steak and Shake. Yum.

Before driving home to Alabama the next day, Patrick told us we could check out the Coca-Cola museum or the Aquarium. Ho hum. OR, the CNN Center! Miles and I got to tour where the news is made, er, reported! It was pretty exciting.

The next couple of days are kind of a blur...we drank a lot of beer, (and a little wine, and a few mixed drinks), ate all sorts of wings, burgers and things, saw a mediocre movie, went to the aviation museum (we started at an aviation museum in Oregon and ended at one at Ft. Rucker, AL), and then the last day Miles took me shooting! (When in the South, right?) He's bought a lot of guns on his last few leaves (including a shotgun that was an impulse buy...that just seems wrong), so I got to test them out. I'd never shot a pistol before, and it was intense, especially since we weren't shooting bullseye targets, but vaguely human-shaped ones. I got a few head and chest shots at 25'. Hooray! (?) It was fun. Then he drove me to Montgomery, where we went out for an amazing steak dinner before he dropped me off at my hotel and drove home. I flew out the next day.

Now I'm back in Portland, half-heartedly looking for a job (I need money but who wants to work?), trying not to be too depressed about living back at home. Life is a journey, even if you're just at home. Miles loaned me a few books I probably never would have read otherwise (Greek war epics and alternative histories), and I'm resolved to re-discover Portland (there are tons of bars and restaurants I've heard about but never been to), all while deciding where I'm going next. I'm outta here by September 22, 2010. Here we go!

Recapping the road trip! Part 1 - Getting There

Less than 24 hours after arriving back in the US for the first time in a year, I set out on an amazing crazy road trip. What better way to acclimatize back to the US than drive across it into the heartland? So my brother Miles, his friend Phil, Phil's wife Cherie, and I set out from Jantzen Beach, OR; as north as you can get on I-5 and still be in Oregon (though since we had dinner in Vancouver, WA the night I got back, I think we're counting that as one of the states in our trip).

Day 1 - We drove by the Spruce Goose (the largest airplane ever built...out of wood no less) on our way to the coast and ran into our cousin Kirk! He volunteers at the Evergreen Aviation Museum on Thursdays, a fact I was completely ignorant of. It was SO COOL and random to see him and get some sweet VIP tours through a B-17 and the Spruce Goose's cockpit!

Night 1 - Camping just south of Crescent City, CA. Beer, beginning-of-the-trip-excitement, slideshow from Iraq. Good times.

Day 2 - We leisurely check out some redwoods, including driving through one of them. Gorgeous, gentle giants. Lunch with my friend Hillary in Arcata (mmm Divine Swine! In the plaza, near the middle of town...some of the most delicious pork and tea I've ever tasted).

Night 2 - Sleepover at Aunt Robin's! We got there at around 11pm but Aunt Robin was game to stay up and drink with us until 3am!

Day 3 - Brunch with Aunt Robin, Uncle Jeff, Reid, Madeleine, Howard and Michele (Howard and Miles were 'sampling' Red Breast whiskey even though it was morning...5pm somewhere, right?), and then we set off through the desert. We ate at In-N-Out, amazing good food, simple menu, and Cherie had never been.

Night 3, Day 4, Night 4 - Who needs a hotel room in Vegas? We didn't! We rolled in around 10pm, met up with our cousin Stephanie (who drove down from Cedar City, UT, her current hometown), and did Vegas right! (Or did it do us?) That night Steph and I rocked the slots (I won $20 which I promptly spent on overpriced alcohol in the Irish bar), the free drinks, and all. The next morning we were all a little worse for wear, but managed to get food into our bellies and wander around until the mid-afternoon when we could finally (like chumps) check into some hotel rooms...hey, YOU go 48 hrs in Vegas sans bed and shower! After a deep afternoon nap, we all woke up and did it again. Hooray for slots-I won more money! Boo for 3-card poker...I lost more money than I won in slots! But dang that Lucio, the dealer, was cute! Hooray for $19 foot-long rum drinks! And I finally got to dance...at some bar right on the strip that closed around 5 or 6am. With foreigners. I swear I met more Europeans in Vegas than other Americans. It's like I never left (Europe). Solid.

Day 5 - Stephanie and I parted ways somewhere early that morning (she woke me up to say goodbye), and the road-trippers and I finally hit the road around noon.

Night 5 - We made it to the Grand Canyon right around sunset (we bought the $25 entrance pass from the hottest park ranger any of us had ever seen...truth. Just ask my brother...), and then found a campsite in the park. I passed out at 9pm after 2 1/2 beers...let's just say I had a lot of fun in Vegas (note: not Las Vegas, just Vegas. Those of us in the know...know). So I missed the part where Miles, Phil and Cherie met Steve and Wendi, the just-married couple camping next door to us doing the reverse road trip as us (Texas - Grand Canyon - Vegas - the Redwoods). Whatever. I was refreshed to help drive the next morning.

Day 6, Night 6 - 22 straight hours of driving, 3 states (AZ, NM, and TX), and about 1,300 miles from the Grand Canyon to Kilgore, East TX. We arrived around 7am. Mmm breakfast burritos with the coppers. Which meant we went through most of Texas in the dark. Good riddance.

Day 7 - Kilgore and Longview TX. Miles bought an ATV. And a trailer to put it on. It was an all-day ordeal. Phil, Cherie and I were quite surly by the end of it. But he got a good deal from his buddy's father-in-law!

Night 7 - Hotel in Shreveport, Louisiana. A pool, a lukewarm hot tub, lots of beers, IHOP, and comfy beds. Surliness subsided.

Day 8 - After all that, knocking out the rest of Lousiana, all of Mississippi, and lots of Alabama (along seemingly uninhabited country roads) was no sweat. We ate at some Mexican restaurant whose menu misleadingly featured enticing photographs of delicious mixed drinks and beers, but which in actuality had no alcohol on the premises. Counties going dry? In this day and age? Guess that's the south for ya. We arrived at Ft. Rucker after dark, where Miles signed in before midnight and dropped off a few things before the whole crew made our way to a hotel in Daleville.

Notes:

-the Grand Canyon is truly as awesome as everything you've heard. And then some. The next time I get there, I want to actually get down inside the thing, really spend some time there. More than just a few quick pics, anyways.
-after peeing where I have (namely, Cambodia), I find toilet seat covers absolutely ridiculous. If it's really that bad, I'll just hover.

Adventure continued next post

Sunny Scenicville

Cambodia is a complete mindf*ck. Everything, from how poor the people are, to the beautiful countryside, to the crazy barangs (foreigners) you meet, (seriously, why and how do people find themselves in Cambodia, of all places? The stories are usually fairly interesting), to the extremely f*cked up history of the country, to my dad and his 'girlfriend' and I sharing a hotel here in Scenicville (that's how Shianoukville is pronounced)...collective shudder. 'He really loves you' My told me, in reference to my dad. What would she know, anyways? He seems a little lonely, although he's got a pretty sweet life out here in Cambodia, as far as fixed-income lifes can be. He does seem to want me to come live here, but a 2-bedroom apartment sounds a bit...crazy. I like Cambodia, and for as hard as it would be for a single barang lady to live here (as 2 English-speaking dudes at the Freebird were discussing the other night), I could totally rock it. I think. It's the most different place I've ever been in my traveling, and the people are so nice, and the countryside is so beautiful, and my dad's here (which I'm trying to convince myself is a point in it's favor...support network?), and it would be an adventure, and a challenge. It's already been very challenging, and I've been numb most of the time as a self-defence mechanism, but most of that was related to my dad and his dirty ol' lifestyle (but to be fair, he is a dirty ol' man, so it's not like it's anything out of character or unexpected or anything).

We got a flyer last night for a bar on the beach with sweet drink deals and a dancefloor (we didn't check it out...maybe tonight?), and on the back it said they're looking to hire Western staff...hey hey! And today I met a German guy and a French girl who are living the sweet life of Emma: divemastering it up in amazingly beautiful, tropical locales. The bitches. Note to self: get divemaster certification. First get SCUBA certified. But the point is, it's possible. It's possible to live the dream and lead a most amazing and adventurous life, out and about in the world.

So the body of water I was floating in earlier today is the Gulf of Thailand. Yesterday we took a bus from Phnom Penh to Shianoukville, a beach town in the SW of the country. I ate some BBQ squid today and it was good! I've been eating lots of good weird fruit ('greens' which are oranges but completely lime green on the outside, and my favorite so far has got to be the dragonfruit, pink on the outside and white with black spots on the inside), but trying to stay away from the street food (at one bus stop they had trays of cooked tarantulas, and buckets of live ones...no thanks). We've eaten a lot of Mexican food, but whatevs, it's good! Khmer food is pretty good...lots of rice, veggies, meat, coconut...once my meal even came in a coconut! Last night I drank beer, (sometimes as cheap as 25 cents!), a banana daquiri, a mango daquiri, a shot of tequila, a margarita...the good life. I got a ride on the back of a Khmai's scooter to a sweet club where they actually played good dance music (even if they weren't actually dancing to it as they should), but shortly after we arrived a live band started playing Cambodian music. Ugh. It's not that good. In fact, it's awful. 5 songs. 5 songs later, just as I was getting ready to dance some more, the dude had to take me home because he had had a total of TWO Heinekens and was drunk. Sigh, little Asians...

...And that isn't even the HALF of it!...

The day after I fly into Portland, I hit the road to California, Arizona, Texas, Alabama, Florida, and the places inbetween for what promises to be a truly awesome roadtrip with my brother and 2 of his good friends. Actually, I couldn't have planned a better way to come back to the US after a year abroad, the last few weeks of which were in Cambodia. Might as well hit the ground running into the Heartland...if I've learned anything it's that I am capable of anything. Bring. It. ON!

Water buffalo, landmines, massages-the highlights!

OMG! The temples have been great (the last 2 days I've been jetting around on the back of Long Seng's motorbike)...I can't believe how old and amazing they are. So intricate, so advanced, and some of them were made in the 900s! Riding through the rice paddied countryside is an amazing experience...I can TOTALLY see why my dad has been coming here to motorcycle around for the past 10 or so years. It's hot, beautiful, with cheap food, friendly people, and water buffalo! At one point yesterday, driving back from one of the temples, some water buffalo ran full speed across the road! Cars and motorbikes (including us) had to screech to a halt and I was just thankful we weren't a few seconds ahead and in their way! I have no idea if they were running to or from something...crazy!

Yesterday was September 11th. I noticed this fact while I was at a landmine museum. I got to see all sorts of landmines and anti-personnel devices. There are still millions out there, and thousands of people are maimed and killed every year. I learned that the US hasn't signed the landmine treaty (sing me a new song! The Kyoto Protocols, the Equal Rights Amendment...we suck at being cool), because we want to reserve the right to use these effective tools at the DMZ (de-militarized zone) between N. and S. Korea. We are ridiculous. So on a day when I should have been (and was) thinking about a terrible atrocity inflicted on the US, I was learning about the horrible things we have a hand in.

I also got to witness some good ol' Cambodian corruption: the police pulled us over and I just stood there by the bike while I watched Long Seng slip a few dollars into the guy's hand. 'What was that all about?' I hadn't noticed before, but his motorbike didn't have lights like it was supposed to. Cool.

After I got back to Siem Reap yesterday, I found a massage parlor I had read about in Lonely Planet (I am such a yuppy). Seeing Hands trains blind people to be masseurs and masseuses. I got a great massage (I was 75% asleep throughout), and got to feel good about helping out blind people. I felt like Mira Sorvino in At First Sight with Val Kilmer, except I'm not about to fall in love with my blind Cambodian masseur! I only dealt with blind people there, and it was funny...it was $5 and I gave her a $10 and asked for change...I could have given her a $1 bill and told her it was a tenner, but I'm not so evil as to rip off blind people! C'mon!

Last night I went out drinking and dancing with my dad. We went to Pub Street, and the drinks must have been watered down, because I had 2 margaritas with dinner, a tequila sunrise, an 'Oh my Buddha!', 2 Long Island Iced Teas, and at least 3-5 beers after that. We went to a Mexican place for dinner, hopped over to a Khmer place for 2 drinks (happy hour special), back to Temple Bar for drinking and dancing (where we met some cool Americans I'm hoping to see again in a few days in Phnom Penh...she's doing the Peace Corps in Thailand, and her boyfriend is visiting her...they thankfully rescued me when they were the only white non-prostitutes dancing and my dad was getting talked up by...well, you know). My dad left, they left, and then I crossed the street to Angkor What? which was playing some great music and was full of 'barong' ('white' people, or at least tourists), and a few Khmer drinking mixed drinks out of buckets (they shared!). Then I caught a touk-touk home at 1-something.

Tomorrow we're busing back to Phnom Penh. And the adventure continues!

Angkor What?

(Okay, totally stole that title from a restaurant somewhere here in Siem Reap...it's in the guidebooks. We have two, one of which was written by my dad's friend. I feel in the know)

Scrambling around really ancient ruins today, (pretty much the inspiration for Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, etc.), I was thinking of all the fantastic things I've seen this past year. Amazing mozaics and a whole Roman city's worth of ruins in Tunisia, cool carvings in English churches, the Bayeux tapestry, er, embroidery, the Stonehenge-all this really neat, really old stuff. It's amazing it's all survived, to some extent, at least enough to tell the tales of ancient awesomeness today. I love it! It's inspiring, amazing, and reminds me of how much of a history nerd I really am. But I wouldn't want to be an archaeologist for a living, no way! One of the temples I saw today had been taken apart piece by piece, to be put back together again perfectly. Unfortunately, the Khmer Rouge took over and the meticulously catalogued plans went missing! Now some Frenchies and Cambodians are putting all the stones back without a guide...in really intense moist jungle heat! Not for me. (BTW Erin, you'd love this place! It's like the Amazon, with temples! I feel like a half-assed Indiana Jones in my Cambodia hat!)

Monkeys, though. They're amazing! I did the tourist thing and bought bananas on the side of the road just to feed to the cute little things. One of them took one bite and dropped it on the ground. Well exCUSE me! As we were leaving, I saw the kids who were hawking bananas and cactus to the tourists scaring the monkeys back up into the trees before they had finished...so more tourists would come along and buy more bananas...oh well, the monkeys were fat and looked happy!

Angkor Wat was stellar, and Steve, I can totally see what you're talking about...I saw the part of the bas-reliefs with the army of monkeys, and I'd support anyone getting a tattoo of something so cool.

The plan is to go to some 'nice' joints for dinner and drinks tonight...and by 'nice' I don't mean fancy, I just mean anything that's not a strip club. Not that that's all we've been doing-last night we saw traditional dancing and had a sweet buffet; felt like I was in Hawaii! SE Asia: so far, so good!

Hanging with Hookers

Disassociation. When you can’t even believe what is going on around you, and to cope you pretend to remove yourself from your body as you go along for the ride. That was last night for me.

Ladies, let me ask you this: while getting all dolled up to go out drinking and dancing of an evening, have you ever had to think, “Maybe I shouldn’t whore it up too much, as I’ll be hanging with actual whores later on this evening?” Yep, my dad and I headed out on the wackiest ‘double date’ scenario I hope I ever go on in my life…his friend ‘My’ (the one who’s a few days younger than me) and her brother ‘Tongue’ (apparently spelled Tom, but pronounced like the body part) joined us to go to Martini, notorious Phnom Penh bar at which to pick up hookers, and where my dad and his friends have many times before, he overshared with me. If only that had been the only (and mildest!) overshare of the evening. Naturally, I had already drank 2 beers beforehand, and got another at the club. After downing it pretty quickly, I got a Singapore Sling for myself and offered to buy a drink for My. Although she demurred at first, she ended up ordering a B52 and drank it through a straw while it was on fire. Rock on. The dance floor was pretty quiet-the first thing out there was a cockroach, and then some hookers (still so weird to say seriously about women in this very real profession) checking themselves out in the mirror. We were in the disco part of the bar, and I had to periodically leave to breathe and convince myself that I could and would live through this strangest of experiences, under the auspices of buying more drinks, going to the bathroom, or rounding up a hair tie. As it turns out, hookers are really nice, showing me where to pee and even finding hair ties (I paid her 200 reil, or 1/22 of a dollar for the favor). Finally, the dance floor was hopping enough, (and I was drunk enough) to hit it. Hookers are also really fun to dance with, at least for the only ‘barong’ (white) woman in the building. They’re not the best dancers, but they’re friendly, and make me look better by comparison. One was almost as tall as me in my heels, and looked kind of like a man. A tranny! Later my dad told me that he was going to warn me to watch out for the ‘kitoy’ (tranny), but he didn’t get around to it. But I love trannies, and after all, cutting it up to the Black Eyed Peas with ‘whores’ and trannies isn’t really that different from my usual nights out!

And here’s where it gets really interesting (you thought you’d heard it all)! I’m the only one dancing at this point, (my dad’s old, My was hanging with him, and her brother was shy, could speak as much English as I can speak Khmer, and is half my size, so I forgive him for being intimidated), and I’m informed that the group is splitting up and peacing out shortly, My and her brother to the airport, and my dad and I to a traditional Cambodian club. A customer of My’s was flying in from Korea. What?!? This was a development I hadn’t expected. Am I a bad person if I was a tad bit relieved to find out that she’s just a hooker too, and not a potential future stepmom (which the Cambodian concierge of our hotel jokingly called her every time she and I walked by yesterday)? So my dad has no settling down plans after all (his vague reference to possible future children in an email turns out to have been an allusion to a condom breaking…classy…). A year or two ago, I thought I was being pretty forward-thinking and crazy when I went to a strip club with my brother and his friends. Little did I know I’d be hanging with hookers in Cambodia with my DAD! Good thing I didn’t have much of a relationship with him when I was younger…it’d be 100 times more awkward if this whole adventure was killing any admiration or respect I had had for him since childhood. Learning that the childhood hero who raised you was a womanizing dirty old bastard I’m sure would be quite traumatic. Learning that some dude I’ve barely known my whole life prefers Vietnamese to Khmer girls isn’t all that bad, relatively. I’m doing my best to laugh along with this (who but David Sedaris has as fucked up stories as these?), but even so, I think I’m going to get back to the states and have to curl up in a ball watching Disney movies in a semi-conscious stupor for a week.

As if learning that a ‘mamasan’ (or Madame) once offered my dad a 9 year old (which he was…gentleman enough? not to accept) wasn’t enough, we went to Touol Sleng today, the prison where the Khmer Rouge tortured and killed thousands of men, women and children in the ‘70’s. Cheery and uplifting it wasn’t. It was shocking and numbing, but I don’t think it really hit me as much as it would have if I hadn’t already been so shocked and numbed by the events of the previous evening.

Tomorrow we’re headed to the fantastic Angkor Wat. I’m hoping and planning on seeing some incredible temples and riding an elephant or two, immersing myself in old old culture and not thinking about hookers or genocide for at least a few days (though we didn’t get to the Killing Fields today and will be hitting those up once we get back to Phnom Penh in 5 days). Breathe, relax, think about home in a few short days…Lord give me strength!

Cambodia!

I was sad to say good-bye to Normandy and the family where I was au pairing, but excited to see friends, Paris, and London! Damir (in Paris) is a great cook with an awesome apartment-it's in the 2nd arrondisement (a pretty snazzy address) and it came stocked with books, lots of classic French literature. I was drooling. Then I saw my godmother, my godfather, my cousins, one of their boyfriends (from Brazil) in Hampshire...one day we decided to hop over to Stonehenge, you know, as you do. Incredible. London was everything it always has been: gray, expensive, intelligent, classy. Simon, Ruth, Stacy and I flitted through museums, and met up with Lauren at the Ritz Club. Honest! A 12 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, a hop up to Phnom Penh, and here I am, in a completely different world! I'm eating and seeing and doing amazing things. Hopefully I will meet some cool people and get a read on the English teaching scene here. Gotta go, but a quick sampling of what I've done in just a day here: rode in some tuk tuks, ate some Mexican food, drank Thai and Cambodian beer, hung out with hookers at a bar, saw geckos, had a $7 hour-long Thai massage, slept! More later, but I'm off to the market and more adventures now!

Stimulating Conversation

Aunt Robin and Reid came to France, and I was lucky enough to spend about 3 days with them, tourist-ing it up in Normandy. Besides the WWII beaches and museums and history, the Bayeux tapestry (depicting William the Conqueror's conquest of England in 1066), the delicious cuisine (I ate duck, pork, cod, a camembert pie, Ile Flottante, creme brulée, a few apple tarts, not to mention what I drank! rosé & red wine, cider, kir, Normandy kir, which is cider plus calvados...), I was blessed with stimulating conversation! My aunt is one of the most amazing people I know, and Reid is the most well-read 15 yr old I've ever met (better-read than I was at that age, and probably even better-read than I am now), so we were able to talk about history, politics, current affairs, and of course, family gossip! I love those conversations, because the only conclusion I ever reach is that I come from crazies, all of whom I love the more for it, for keeping things interesting (and making me look good)!

I've been starved for thought-provoking discourse of late, which I attribute to 3 main reasons; 1. I've been spending a lot of time lately with a 20-month-old. As you can imagine, topics of conversation range from horses to cows to eating and bathing, and back again. Exciting. 2. I've been surrounded by francophones. I focus on being understood, and trying to understand. Correct grammar and simpler ideas are the goal of this short and sweet interactions. And 3. I haven't been around inspiring people anyways. I'm sure these Frenchies have convictions about some important things, but I'm 'the help' right now, doing my job, trying to do it well, and beyond that, who cares? It's fine, but being with Aunt Robin and Reid made me miss people who read The New Yorker...(and drink wine...I was a thirsty girl when they found me, and thankfully a little reliving last summer helped)!

This month I've become proficient and confident in changing diapers, feeding a kid, entertaining him, and making sure he doesn't die or kill himself (well, I still have a week to go, better not speak too soon...) I don't want a screaming crying eating pooping irrational little beast of my own. I don't want to be a nanny for any extended period of time, but babysitting here and there is definitely something I can handle. Go me, living up (or down?) to gender stereotypes. It is what it is. I can be nurturing and caring, if I must.

This time next Friday I'm going to be on a train to Paris! I'm stoked to get on with it, and get to the next thing! Paris, London, Phnom Penh...bring it on! I'm in a good traveling place right now...I'm super excited about where I'm going and what I'm doing the next few weeks, but I'm also really excited to be headed home shortly. I'm already making a list of things to do once home. So far, it's:

• eat Mexican! lots of it!
• drink spiced rum! Sailor Jerry, I've missed you! (real-life Jerry, not so much)
• see Miles!
• see family!
• see friends! (I miss you, Mr. Quinn, Hannah, Megan, Alison, Alisha, Danny, Yuliya, et al!)
• get drunk with you all!
• be on a boat!
• go to some idealist.org sponsored career & college fairs in October!
• bike!
• run!
• swim!
• triathlon?
• take micro and macro! (youpie!)
• take the GRE! (things just keep getting more exciting!)
• visit Corvallis
• visit Santa Cruz
• visit Seattle
• visit Utah
• discover Portland (hipster hangouts, watering holes, free fun stuff, local businesses, and what have you-a 'rediscovering-my-roots-reunion-tour/bonanza!)
• apply to...the next big thing (whatever that ends up being)
• have a kick-ass Christmas...somewhere! ;)
• get out by...September 22, 2010 at the latest! I'm not moving home or anything, just visiting for a calendar year MAX!

Bonheur

Have steady (and free!) internet access, will blog! Following, my thoughts on the good life-

"...il n'y a de bonheur que dans le ciel" -Madame Grandet, in Balzac's Eugénie Grandet
There is no happiness except in Heaven.

"la vie c'est du bonheur" -a bracelet I paid too much for and lost a few days later
Life is happiness/pleasure/good.

Glass half-empty or half-full? Is your glass Christian or not? Madame Grandet is a very religious character, who's had a rough family life, and my bracelet was awesome. When life is getting you down, circumstances suck and things aren't going your way, it's Christian (and easy) to say 'life sucks, whatever, things will be wicked cool in Heaven. I gotta get thru this!' But I say, make and be your own happiness. Embrace what comes along, learn from everything, good and bad, and create your own destiny. Don't blame other things or people for what happens, and don't take it lying down. Happiness is here, happiness is now, it's yours if you want it.

"Beaucoup du bonheur"

Lots of happiness -a traditional blessing you'd give to a newly married couple, especially if they're American and can appreciate the double entendre of 'bonheur,' as it sounds like something else you'd like to have a lot of in a marriage! ;)

The following passage has been lifted from my journal, originally written July 31st:

I know I will look back on this year as an incredible time, and also significant. I have some FABULOUS memories (Tunisia, Salou/Barcelona, Avignon, Geneva, meeting Robyn, teaching, meeting Kathleen Riley, Christmas in Hampshire, Ruth and her mom, Simon, Steve, Sarah, Zandra, trains, Alicia in Lyon, the Tour de France, hanging by the Sorgue, when my mom came to visit, hitchhiking, the Avignon theater festival, Whitney in Pertuis, Marseille, Paris with Daniel, &c.), and have read some good books, learned a few lessons (I hope! Though I still stupidly gave my phone number to a Chezch I never planned on seeing again in Geneva), made a few decisions, changed them, ammended them, changed them back, realized a few things (like I like France, I LOVE Europe, I won't know if the Foreign Service is the right thing for me until I do it but for right now it feels like a right and good and exciting direction), can cook a *little better, can travel a lot better, have weathered a few things, and am addicted to travel, wine, cheese, patatas bravas, Tabasco sauce, bastogne cookies, plain croissants (as opposed to pain au chocolats, which are nice, but not the same), trains, coffee, writing. I'm working on being more spontaneous and open to what the universe has to offer. I'm learning how to be an au-pair/nanny right now. At first I felt Seignosse (first nanny gig of the summer) was a failure. Now I see it was how it had to be.

***

Today I took a sailing class for 3 hours! I was sailing around on La Manche, learning hardly anything but I didn't mind because I had fun and perfect weather! Enough wind and lots of sun! Now that's what I call bonheur!

And I thought 20 months was young! Try 6 weeks! I'm currently babysitting a 6 week old, who I met 2 weeks ago, so I guess I've 'known' her for 1/3 of her life. Sort of. Anyways, WTF? Honestly, how do people do this parenting thing? And more importantly, why? Trying to get them both taken care of tonight was a handful...good thing the grandparents are next door to lend a hand! I have an even huger respect for anyone who dares have kids...especially when they're close together, or multiples.

Geographic Literacy is Special

Check out this article (which I just noticed is 3 years old...why haven't I heard about this yet? Maybe because I don't work in public schools in the US?):

http://www.redorbit.com/news/oddities/489062/poll_shows_many_cant_find_la_on_map/

Some of what this article talks about I found in my research for the thesis I wrote last year (nobody can find Iraq on a map yet we've all been hearing/seeing/arguing about it and America's policies there for years now).

"...just 14 percent believe speaking another language is a necessary skill."

As an American abroad, who has interested herself in learning a foreign language (or two, sort of), I am the anomoly. I explain this to Frenchies all the time: a lot of Americans think we're the best country ever and don't want to travel or even learn about what's beyond our borders. This isn't all their fault, however: America is A. massively huge, and B. extremely (self)-important on the international scene. For those who don't plan on traveling/living/working abroad or at an international level, speaking another language wouldn't necessarily be necessary. But Americans should start learning second and third languages to higher levels of proficiency, and everyone should at least be able to read a map! These are fast-paced, interconnected times we're living in these days, so I totally support this move by National Geographic (but really, when wasn't the NG the epitome of cool?).

Living as I do right now in a real French family (I don't get out much), French is becoming commonplace...in a group of 13 or so, children and adults, I realized that I was the only anglophone in the group...and the shocking part was that it isn't so shocking anymore. Yes I've been in France for many moons now, but usually always with my 'safe' American posse just a text away. Being the 'American' (a.k.a. the odd one out) has become my accepted, kooky role (one of the many appealing things about the grad school in Geneva I want to go to is that only 6% of the student body are from North America. That's including Canada and Mexico too, presumedly). I don't know what I'll do with myself in September when I'm back in the homeland, and being American isn't necessarily special anymore...perhaps I'll be the snooty Francophile, baguette-toting, French literature-reading, fancy cheese-eating, high fashion wino in the crowd. Wait a minute, minus the high fashion, that's what I've always been, (and I did just pick up a nautical-themed pashmina afghan at a vide-grenier last weekend)!

Things I'm looking forward to:

1. There's this character in the French book I'm reading right now named Annette...we haven't exactly met her yet, but she's the fancy Parisian current-love-interest of Charles and is currently abroad in Scotland...I'm sure that when she enters the scene she'll stir things up and wake up the so far pretty ho-hum tale! I mean, she is an Annette after all!

2. Sailing on Wednesday (weather permitting)! It occured to me today that I'll learn French sailing terminology. Interesting.

3. Aunt Robin and Reid next weekend! I can't believe they're going to be here in a matter of days! Aunt Robin will be coming at the perfect time...mid-month, midway through this au-pair gig, and my summer wine consumption so far has not nearly been what it was last summer in Santa Cruz (yet I still managed to outdrink two recent high school graduates from Memphis while in Sète, like that says anything).

Dear Cos,

As I find myself just across the Channel, ("That's not the ocean, that's 'la Manche'," was the response upon my gushing over the Atlantic when at the beach the other day) from many of the cities Jane Austen writes about, voila a letter to my cousin, Ms. Erin Heinz, in the spirit of that greatest of novelistes:

the 4th of August, year of our Lord 2009

Dear Cos,

I write to inform you that I've been getting on exceptionally well here in Normandy. I was able to procure a post as au pair to a most agreeable child of 20 months (Matyas) for the month of August. I arrived on the 29th of July to find a family and environs most suitable to my tastes. Eleonore, his mother, is employed at the sailing club here in Villers sur mer, (she has promised to take me sailing one day!), which is situated only about a dozen or so kilometers from Deauville. We live in a small lodge on the farm of Eleonore's parents, Jacques and Danielle. The great house is absolutely divine, the grounds and rooms exhibiting exceedingly good taste. I am fortunate to visit there nearly every day, as Matyas and I call there to see his grandparents.

I am told that in his day, Jacques was one of the premier horse trainers in the whole of France, and indeed, there are many horses on the grounds. It is all excitement here, as various gentlemen are always coming and going, either bringing new horses or taking charge of one or another. Just the other day I watched a horse arrive whom Jacques informed me had injured his ankle in a race that day. You can imagine how animated Matyas can become, with the animals about! He is particularly attached to the foals, (of which there are four!), and the cows, or "meus" who live just down the lane. I am often taking him on walks to see if we cannot spy the calf (or "bébé meu") amongst them.

The environs are perfectly pastoral...today I took my exercise in the neighborhood and saw horses, cows, dogs, butterflies, flowers, cottages, fields, gardens, corn, &c. Indeed, my only little pleasures (outside of the wonders that come of being in the company of one so young and new to life) I find in the fauna and flora of the neighborhood. The pastures, orchards, wooded bits, and farmhouses are so charming and lovely, I am ever calm and content, and never cease to wonder at my good fortune in finding myself in my present situation. Please do not take this to mean that my life here is all leisure and ease--nothing could be further from the truth!

My duties with Matyas are trying, but as I apply myself to them with vigor, are rewarding in the end. He is becoming more accustomed to me every day, and I am growing more proficient at performing the necessary daily tasks of having a baby in one's charge, (changing diapers, bathing, feeding, playing, &c.). Indeed, as I am learning how to care for a small child, I find myself in awe of those among my acquaintance whom I know to have begun their own broods. I find it is the most exhausting work I have ever undertaken! While I am firmly decided upon not marrying or having a child of mine own at present, still I think I might not be entirely adverse to the idea, after another decade or two has passed.

Indeed, I find myself so occupied with Matyas that I hardly find time to read or maintain communications! His naps each afternoon fly by much too quickly, and I find I have half as much time for reflexion as I would like. As this is a temporary post, however, and I am busy and well-fed, I find I have no reasonable grounds for complaint.

I expect our mutual relations, Mrs. Robin McFarland and her son Mr. Barbier, soon. Projects are not entirely in place, but they are expected in the neighborhood in mid-August. I am eager to see familiar faces from the old (new) country, and especially my dear aunt, who has always been a treasured confidante to me. I confess that except for little Matyas, who is all energy and keeps me entertained and exhausted all the day, this interim would be passing ever so solemnly and slowly, in such anxious anticipation I am, to see these dearest of connexions!

I do hope everyone in your branch of the family is well, and that you are most excellently satisfied with the diversions you have engaged in for the summer season. I have heard reports that your work has been most daring and quite dangerous...please do take care, for all of our sakes! I don't know what I would do with myself if I lost such a witty and companionable fine friend such as yourself! Please write when you have anything of report to report, and know that I will never be satisfied until the day I can see and touch you for myself, and we can pass a great many half hours engaged in the most amiable and entertaining conversation imaginable.

Until then,

Ever Affectionately,

Your dear cos,

Annette

Dispatch: from Normandy

I've arrived in the family where I will be an au pair for the month of August. They live in Villers sur mer, a little beach town right next to Deauville and Trouville, where apparently there's an American film festival coming up in September. I've been here less than 24 hours, but I can already tell that things are going to go well. They are relaxed and fun and the little boy, Matyas, is an adventurous handful! They live on a farm in the country, (the grandparents live right next door), and there are horses and chickens! The mom works for a sailing club, so it looks like I'm going to get to go sailing after all (being on Lake Geneva I was sooo tempted to look up sailing lessons; now I'm glad I didn't)! I'm excited to discover this region, which is already completely different from the south (the cute houses, the weather, the accent). France is incredibly diverse (there's more to it than Paris, you know), but there are some universal truths: wine, cheese, baguettes, dressing well and talking softly (I'm always getting shushed, but maybe that would happen no matter what country I'm in).

Everything happens for a reason. At first I was bummed when I was 'let go' from that first family I au pair-ed for, but now I'm so glad. I got to go to Geneva, where I found the grad school I'm going to go to! The Graduate Institute of International Studies...I just have to live some more fabulous life first! I got to re-connect with old friends (Whitney, Steve, Sarah, Xuan), and make new ones. Life is an adventure, I'm learning, and I'm working hard on going with whatever's thrown at me! I've been impressing myself lately: I am a competent traveler! Yesterday I had slightly less than an hour to get through the Paris metro system from the Gare de Lyon to the Gare St. Lazare and I did it, with time to spare to grab a sandwich. I can stay at a hostel by myself and make friends, or spend days alone in unfamiliar cities and have an amazing time! The second to last night I was in Geneva I found live music by the lake, where I drank some delicious caipirinhas, kept creepy guys at bay by approaching Model UN kids and asking them to pretend to be my friend (a Russian, a Lebanese, and an Uzbekistani!), rocked out to the DJ in the rain, and got home safe and sound. I'm amazing! Never cease to be amazed by the world and oneself.

Switzerland!

After my rambling tour of the south of France (I should call it 'There and Back Again,' as I went to Biarritz/Bayonne/Seignosse and promptly came back to Provence), I find myself in Geneva, and I'm in love! Absolutely no night life to speak of, (though my Malaysian-via-London friend and I tried to go out on a Sunday night, granted), but it's gorgeous and soooo international! I went to the UN today and jizzed my pants over the assembly rooms, the art, and the totally cute Uruguayan tour guide/Ph.D student in int'l law (he led the English tour, of all crazy things). I can see myself there, on at least an internship, rocking the international scene and brainsolving the solutions to all the world's problems, or something along those lines. As these things go...

I hiked around a 'hill' (we'll call it that, since the Alps were in the background and 1000-something meters just doesn't quite compare) yesterday with Fwi Mee, the Malaysian woman I met at breakfast. She's amazing! Works 9 months in London and then travels 3 months every year, everywhere, a.k.a. living the dream! The hill was technically in France, so we crossed the border, rode the cable car/funicular thing up the side, and at the top saw parasailers taking off and hiked around. We even saw a 4 and a half year old Heidi!

Last night at the dead Irish pub we went to, we met a Thai girl who married a Swiss man. They both said to go to Thailand, so I think SE Asia is my 'next big thing.' I hope I run into Fwi Mee again someday, somewhere...she was too fun not to!

Today I also went to the Red Cross Museum, which they should seriously warn you about. Shit! Did you know that since it was started in 1850-something, not a year has gone by without at least a couple armed conflicts somewhere in the world that resulted in at least 10,000 deaths?!?!?!? Either wars, civil wars, takeovers, genocides, or my favorite, "internal troubles," as it said in French, and that's not to mention any disease outbreaks or natural disasters...there should have been a sign outside saying: "Expect to cry. This is holocaust museum-level shit here."

In brief...

Biarritz: wandered around this 'Nice-of-the-west' as I've christened it, for 8 hours. Beautiful (but too small and crowded) beaches, nice shopping, &c, &c, &c. Saw a sweet Lipschitz exhibit, (he was a sculptor, friend of Picasso, and if you can find pictures of 'The couple' also known as 'The Cry,' look it up and prepare to be blown away!), the best part of which was that I saved a bunch of money saying I was a student and getting the discounted ticket price. I'm continuing with that theme, as I'm A. young enough to be a student, and B. planning on being a student again, someday, C. poorish at the moment, and D. and most importantly, I am and always will be a 'student of life,' as it were.

Sète: little known on-the-Med French town that was breathtakingly gorgeous and boring. The hostel was full of old people or un-fun youngins, and was miles away from the train station...thanks to a nice French woman on the way there and a Belgian guy on the way back, both with cars, I was spared the worst part of the hill with all of my crap.

Pertuis: small typical French town whose best claim to fame is that my good friends Whitney and Jen live there. It's also cool that it's just a half hour bus ride out of Aix-en-Provence, a shishy wanna-be Paris near Marseille.

Avignon: since I was in the neighborhood, I had to make a stop. In less than 24 hours, I saw some of my best friends in France, Sarah and Steve, and another play (festival's still on, you know; this one was Tim Burton-esque). Perfection.

The Whole Story. The Month of Crazy

I knew this month was going to be exciting, but I didn't quite realize how exciting. It began with moving out of the apartment I had lived in for the past 9 months, throwing stuff, giving some away, and hanging on to more than I should. The family in Seignosse who I would be au pairing for contacted me via email and said they didn't need me until the 11^th of July. No problem. I stuck around Avignon until then and caught the beginning of the world-famous Avignon theater festival, of which I'd been hearing since the day I arrived on the scene, late last September.

I saw 6 plays and only paid for one of them (now that's the way to see a theater festival)! Two of them were final dress rehearsals at the Theatre Etincelle, the theater where Sarah has an internship this month. One of them wasn't all that good (a period piece about convincing a beautiful country girl to fall out of love with the foolish nobody who had won her heart and into love with the local prince...uninspired, dreary, and all the actors were too old...one of the love interests was balding!), and one of them was pretty decent (three guys, talking about and doing random shit). In one line, they gushed about what a fate it would be to spend an eternity in a theater seat! In another, they urged one to be the creaky floorboard on the stage. It resonates, it dares, you can dance and sing... The director of the theater asked us to stay afterwards and congratulate the actors, as some audience members had left halfway through the performance (and being that the audience was only a handful of people, it was noticeable).

Zandra, Sarah and I paid to see a play called Ronald, the clown of McDonald's & I bought a shovel at Ikea to dig my grave, or something along those lines. Three actors, kooky commentary on consumer culture. It was dark and delicious and yeah, we've heard it all before. Then Sarah snuck us into two shows at her theater on the opening day (by now Zandra and I were familiar faces around there). We saw an adaptation of Romeo & Juliet that would try to be funny, but never quite got there, and would always pull back to being serious. They stuck too close to the original, in my opinion, and the final scene was them lying there, dead. No wrap-up speeches or nothing. AND, I'm sorry, but practically every man in the play was tolerably cute except Romeo! He was sweaty and goofy and looked about 12 years old. I was careful not to be too critical, though, as the writer of the thing was there in the audience! The best part was when a gel fell from a light onto an audience member...classic!

My favorite show at Sarah's theater was called The Operation of the Holy Spirit. Set in Heaven, Mary full of grace was played by a man in drag, Jesus was SOOO gay, and Gabriel ran around singing and squeaking in a very high-pitched voice. At one point God gives the angels penises to lower their voices, and Gabriel starts chasing Mary, so he takes them back. It was kooky and awesome, in a very good way.

One of the best parts of the festival is walking around the streets during the day. You see all sorts of troupes of actors singing and demonstrating and handing out fliers to come see their show. One of the fliers I got was actually a free invitation for two people. So Jeff and I went and saw Rockstar, an amazing one man show about...everything and nothing, as these things go. For part of the time the dude was in his own brain, meeting different people on the different levels. It was awesome, and totally worth the price!

On Monday, July 6^th Jeff convinced Zandra and I to ride our bikes to Les Beaux de Provence to catch Stage 3 of the Tour de France! He estimates we rode about 60-75 km round trip, all told. Which is really nothing compared to the almost 200km Lance et al rode that day, when you think that it's still going on and they're still riding up mountains and crazy shit! We met some American army dudes who are stationed in Germany right now, and I got lured into being interviewed by some dudes with a camera and microphone who asked leading questions about whether I thought Lance dopes or not. I ended up comparing him to Batman, training himself to physical perfection and all that. We got some free shit in the parade that comes around before the racers (sausages, crackers, candy, beer opener, stupid hats, glasses wipe) and we looked ridiculously awesome with Jeff's 6-foot American flag. I know I saw Lance, (he was in the peleton), but I couldn't pick him out as I tried to take a picture and it was all over in a matter of seconds. Overall, a pretty good day (even though my butt was really sore afterwards).

Continuing my typical French experiences, on July 10^th I headed to Carcassonne, one of the coolest castle/fortresses in Europe. Very touristy, very awesome. I was going to take myself out to a nice dinner to celebrate my getting paid finally by the commie French government to help out with my rent for the past 6 months, but instead I ended up staying at the hostel and drinking my dinner with a rag-tag bunch of 'Europeans' late into the night. There was John from England, the hostel barkeep, Mathias from Germany, Cairan from Ireland, (pronounced Kir-on), Vincente from Spain (who was going to do part of the Santiago de Compostollo pilgrimage and was trying to convince me to join him...in hindsight I should have said yes), two Belgians who were also pilgrims (although they were more serious about it), two other Belgians who looked like twins, matching blue shirts and shiny bald heads, and later on a Danish guy and Nick from Canada joined us for awhile. It was one of the best hostel times I've ever had, and made me fall in love with 'the Europe' even more (they made fun of me, referring to Europe as we Americans tend to do, as one entity). I need to get one of them to marry me, if only for the treasured EU citizenship!

The next day I headed to Seignosse, outside of Bayonne, which is outside of Biarritz, to be an au pair. Marnie is 2 and adorable, Stephanie (the mom) is gorgeous and pregnant, and Stu (the dad) is English/South African and owns a hip little surfer joint called the Cream Cafe, right off the beach. Well, there was a miscommunication about September (I changed my departure from the 14^th to the 4^th without telling them until I got here), which was apparently a deal breaker for Stephanie, so she found another au pair and told me two days ago that the new au pair was coming yesterday. Yeah, she gave me 24 hours notice that I was jobless and homeless for the next two months. I freaked out and started desperately looking around (I even called John from Carcassonne about any leads in the hostel biz, and called the hostel in Sete and said my friend John told me they might need someone...unfortunately the dude wasn't looking for anymore foreigners...damn I need that EU citizenship)! Within hours I had many welcoming friends with many couches and one au pair gig for the month of August. I've decided to take it, so I'm going to be an au pair in Normandy for a 20 month old boy...ah! A little young, but I (hopefully!) can handle it. I was hurt and mad at first, but actually I think it's for the best. Stephanie was kind of a bitch and very particular (I had to iron Stu's t-shirts so he 'wouldn't look like a gypsy' according to her), and I think I'm going to be happier with my new plans. Which are?

I'm in a hotel in Bayonne for two more nights (the weather is gray and gross and windy and rainy right now...I think I'm going to go to a movie by myself tonight...sad!), then off to Sete for two nights, and that hostel I tried to get a job at (hopefully they forgot that an 'Annette' called them a few days ago...). I've heard Sete is nice, and it looks pretty...then to see Whitney in Pertuis, (which is good...it would have been sad to go back to the states without seeing her again), back to Avignon for probably half a day (where my deposit check for my apartment will hopefully be waiting for me with Sarah), then to Geneva to visit my old roommate Xuan from China, who's currently doing an internship with the World Health Organization! I've never been to Switzerland, and it's about darn time! As the saying goes...when life gives you lemons, find someone whose life gave them vodka. I'm making martinis out of these lemons! July 2009 will forever be known as 'The Month of Crazy' by me and my close associates.

Then I'll head to Normandy (I don't even know exactly where yet...I'll talk to the woman on the phone later today) for a month of hanging with a baby. Somewhere in there Aunt Robin and my cousin Reid will swing through. After that, around my mom's birthday (the 25^th of August), I'm planning on heading up to the UK, to hang with my pals Ruth and Simon and party our asses off until my flight on September 4^th to Cambodia to visit my dad! So you see, as my godmother Irene always says: it all works out when you let it!

Rushing Around, Keeping Busy, Doing Things

As I'll be changing locales soon, I've been packing as many adventures and good times into my schedule as possible!

Last Wednesday: Sarah, Steve, Zandra and I headed to Armand's parent's house in Tavel, home of France's #1 rosé. Apero (pastis for me, as usual), great BBQ, great local wine grateful Frenchies (Armand's dad thanked us for our ancestors' kick-ass bang-up job in Normandy, on a June 6th way back when...we said, "Uh, you're welcome?"), the sun, a pool...idyllic. The day ended with Steve scootin' me home...did I live that day or did I dream it?

Thursday: Party chez Julie, the Arizonan mom-of-a-5-year-old-1/2-Frenchy who lives here in L'Isle. The party guests were 3 English truck drivers (one of them Charlie, my 2-doors-down neighbor), 2 North Carolinian girls from Peace University (no joke) who were "studying abroad" in L'Isle sur la Sorgue (what?!?!? In a 20,000 person tourist trap in rural France? Yeah, that's what I thought...), and a partridge in a pear tree! We sat on Julie's sweet terrace drinking wine, laughing, getting drunk, and eating good eats late into the eve. Then I had to wake up and teach the next day. Suck!

Friday was my last day of teaching little kids! I checked out weeks ago, so this was a VERY welcome turn of events! I got some presents from some of my students (a cell phone sock and some sweet black and red feather earrings), and it's true I'll miss the little buggers, but I'm stoked to be officially en vacances!

This last weekend was Avignon's first pride festival (I think), and I was there! I saw part of the parade (yeah tourist trains finally being put to good use!), and got bubbled (it was basically a foam party in the street), but other than that, it was pretty underwhelming. San Francisco it ain't! We went to L'Esclave Saturday night (translation: The Slave), but there were too many people (among them too many straight American girls...didn't my friends and I have a monopoly on that??), and I wasn't rockin' the Sardine scene. [Though I was rockin' my new H&M dress with parrots on it...my mom sends me 6 fab dresses in the mail and what do I go and do? Buy another one...I'm a mess...a hot mess!] Plus we ran into a confused French friend, (cruising solo but has a girlfriend...uh huh, that'll last), and as Steve says: "It's annoying when people don't accept themselves." So we went home and I promptly fell asleep.
Like I said, underwhelmed. Maybe the gayest part of the whole day was all the Michael Jackson music videos we watched. And that's not a comment on MJ's sexuality or alleged pedophilia, but rather on his fashion sense...that man can dress himself! Rest in peace Michael, and thanks for Ben, my new favorite song...oh those homicidal rats!

Today, Sunday, was another spectacular day, beginning around noon. Zandra and I woke up and promptly ordered all our friends over to Zandra's house for coffee...and to bring food. So in short order we had baguettes, pain au chocolats, and croissants at our fingertips, and we hadn't lifted a finger (unless you count texting)! I bought Carly's bike for 15 euro because the bike I'd borrowed from one of my teachers was stolen...and I felt bad. [Plus I have to even out my karma: I broke a pinkey swear I made to a couple kids on Friday promising them to come to their end of the year spectacle and raffle...sleep was just way more important.] So Jeff and I had bikes, Steve and Zandra had a scooter, and Sarah had a train (well, she could catch one). We all headed to L'Isle sur la Sorgue. That's right, I rode a bike from Avignon to L'Isle sur la Sorgue! That's like 22 kilometers (or about 13 1/2 miles)! WOOT WOOT! I'm so proud! I had thought about doing that before I came here, but then I saw how far it is, and how big that hill by Chateauneuf de Gadagne is...which today I made my bitch!

Once here, we got ice cream and walked to Partage des Eaux. On the way we saw water jousting! Jousting, on boats, in the river! None of us had seen anything quite so simultaneously ridiculous, amazing, bizarre, and stupid before. Oh these L'Islois! It was kind of like this, only minus the music, and the boats we saw were motorized.

What's next? Two days of cleaning, packing, recycling, distributing of things to their old or new owners, mailing my modem back to my internet provider, checking out of my apartment, and by Tuesday night I'll be in Avignon again! Last week I got an email from my summer family (the family for which I'll be au pair-ing this summer) that something came up and they don't need me until July 11th. So I'll be living with Patrick (South African/Irish Settlers aficionado, among other things...therefore, cool as shit) for about a week and hopefully catching the beginning of the Avignon theater festival I've been hearing about for 9 months. Sarah, Zandra, Patrick, Jeff and I will be crying into our beers, missing Steve like crazy by that point. Then I'm hoping to head to Carcassonne (really old French fort action, ho hum) on my way to Biarritz (well technically Seignosse, a beach town a bit north of Biarritz). Phew! This adventure continues...

Me vs. Ugly Animals

In the last 7 days I have (unwillingly) hosted a dung beetle (read: HUGE! As big as a doubly-large walnut!), a dragonfly, and most recently, a big, meaty, green grasshopper chez moi (at my house). They are too big for comfort, especially in my tiny INDOOR space that is meant for ME (and any humans I choose to invite). Bugs = outside, I = inside. End of story.

This has ended in 1) sustained detention (I held the dung beetle, read: rhinocerous horn, for 4-5 days straight, inside a glass glass, and it didn't die. Finally, Guyanian 'Alex-le-noir,' (he's black, you know), came to the rescue and set the little bugger free...much to the chagrin of Steve, who was planning on making a brooch out of him...), 2) Death by candlelight? (I don't know...I kept some candles lit to attract the dragonfly to his waxy, hot doom, which woke me up in the middle of the night, but Steve says he say him fly away today...alive...), and 3) fairly-harmless freedom (I used a folder to shove the grasshopper out of doors before slamming my window shut FOR GOOD!, for once and for all).

Hmm...I wonder who will visit me tomorrow? ...

Logical Thinking FAIL

I was walking around town and saw an oldish man (let's say 60's) with a young woman about my age pushing a stroller with a little kid in it (somewhere between 2-5 years old...that's as specific as I can get). While probably some sort of father-figure in the girl's life (cue Prince), I was wondering if the old dude could actually be her lover (shudder) and the father of the kid. So I decided to look at the kid and see if he had any of the man's traits. The first thing I looked for? Grey hair. I FAIL.

A Slow Ride to Lyon, Part 1

A joint entry! A few weekends back, my friend Steve and I took the slow regional train to Lyon to visit our friend Alicia. Because we're cheap. Being the adventurers we are, interesting people gravitate to our awesomeness. So we decided to write a blog entry together to google docs-ument our encounters, (haha). Et voila! Steve's black, I'm red. This could be the start of something very, very scary...scary awesome!

It all started with a great deal, the five o'clock train to Lyon at the unbelievably low price of 19 euros. Then Europe had to come and trip up some perfect trip planning with its functional efficiency, ironic in the same country where banks and public offices spend more time lunching than working. We all know that they've gotten rid of inches and feet, replacing clunky units of twelve in favor of the easily-plugged-into-any-math-equation metric system. In the same spirit, "The Europeans" have semi-abolished the 12 hour a.m./p.m. in favor of its military reincarnation, the 24 hour clock. Of the many things I've learned in this new language, it's one of the hardest things to get along by telling people that it's fifteen twenty o'clock when it's really 3:20 p.m. Therein lies the secret of a cheap trip to Lyon: try to go anywhere before the sun comes up and you'll pay in yawns not euros. What I had assumed was a 5 o'clock post-meridiem train was actually a brisk 0500 and there we stood in the Avignon Central station, sweating from our power-walk through the sun, wondering why our train had not been posted. Perhaps it was posted somewhere, perhaps in Paris by then, perhaps I felt unworthy of all those stamps in my passport for having booked a train that left twelve hours ago.

Annette filled me in that perhaps I should have acquired some 17 o'clock tickets, but since there were some more trains she wouldn't kill me for my novice traveler mistake. We took our newly issued tickets and sat down in the bar in the station. I ordered a coffee. Annette ordered hers with whiskey. Unfortunately, the barman didn't have any whiskey on hand (I suspect that he really did, but was in his late afternoon slump, or was not going to do anything outside of 'on-the-rocks' with whiskey, or was just not going to serve a flitty young American hard-A, or 'spirits' as the English say, or, what is most probable, just hadn't understood my request in the stilted French I speak).

What started as a mistake (Steve's total amateur move with the tickets) turned into possibly the coolest part of the whole weekend. Let's call it a gift. Luck favors the procrastinators in the world and good company comes to meet those who don't really seem to know where they are yet. Also: compartments! The trains we're usually taking around the PACA (Provence Alpes Cote d'Azur) region have boring, uninspiring seat configurations. All they inspire me to do is...talk really loudly in English and avoid looking other passengers in the eyes. Geez, all they inspire me to do is talk to old ladies about their sons and how they speak fabulous Anglais. But compartments! They're so old-school, so Hitchcock, so Anastasia (the animated Fox film, an old mild obsession of mine). I say it looked like the orient express. Exactly! If we were going to take the slow train to Lyon (3 hours versus 1 hour...consider it 'taking the scenic route'), we were going to sit in compartments!

Before we got to take in the scenery from our old school 8-seat compartment, the train rolled in like Chinese New Year, all fire-crackers and hell... louder than my American friends. I have never heard such an unnecessarily loud and obnoxious racket in my life (well, apart from me and Zandra chatting...anywhere...we are helplessly loud, and American, two points against us)! Apparently we were celebrating the final trip of our trusty conductor, we thank him for getting us here and there safely on those iron rails, and for bursting our eardrums while coming into the station. Getting to blow the horn for as loud and long as he liked, like a final 'fuck you!' to the man (and us). He was on a personal grève, maybe, but soon the racket died down and we climbed in, searching for a place to talk loud 'Merican and see the sights. The only unoccupied compartment had a single bag sitting on the bench. As the 'orange alert' airport lady played in my head to report the unattended baggage, I thought to myself, je m'en fou and we took up residence in our very own cabin. Yeah, and what's a bomb exploding in return for our very own corner sans Frenchies? If the owner ever did come back, I was pretty sure they wouldn't be able to stand being in such a cramped space with two loud (and awesome!) étrangers.

Soon enough the mysterious bag's owner came back to claim his spot, one of those guys that wears his 'does-everything' phone on a band around his neck. We clammed up and committed faux pas number one in France. That is, to not greet every single person in the room you enter is just so uncultivated. He stared in return at us aliens. Actually, more at Annette than me. I wonder if his "This is so much better than an iPhone" phone slung round his neck got a few good pictures of my traveling companion... it sure looked like he wanted one. It was a little disconcerting, but 9 months in L'Isle sur la Sorgue has gotten me used to pervy guys staring and making unwelcome comments...just practice for when I'm famous someday! Finally the staring became too obvious not to ignore, so one of us (probably Steve) opened the floodgates.

It went something like, "Bonjour, vous-etes d'Avignon?"

"No, I'm from the town where they bottle Vittel water." I wondered, is it like being from a town where they bottle a famous wine? I guess I'll never know. Well, you do live just a few kilometers away from Chateuneuf de Pape... Oh heavens, bring me my tire-bouchon, toot sweet! But back to our story. . .

"But I know where all the cool clubs are in Montpellier and I'll take you there!
"And you can meet my friends, they're famous footbal players!
"Look at my phone!"

If I know anything about pro soccer players and cool nightclubs in Montpellier (which I don't), I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be as eager to entertain us as this guy was. The last time we tried to get into a club with a dresscode they gave us the once over scan and decided the club was full. They had opened 15 minutes prior. Maybe it was the felt flowers I had attached to my lapels. Or my $7 Goodwill dress from the '70's! Which should have been an instant 'get in free' card if you ask me! No. Somebody in the group was wearing. . . des baskets! Rubber soles are death to cool.

As it turns out, this Sylvain (I'm only guessing from the email address he gave us) was a very chatty fellow. I'm currently using his email address as a bookmark...forecast for ever getting around to actually emailing him? Unlikely. We talked our way down the tracks as I worried we were on the wrong train (some inexplicable signs proclaimed loudly that our destination was Marseille, the opposite direction).

"I'm going to Miami!" For what he was (obviously cool and important enough to wear his social life around his neck like an Olympic gold), Sylvan was an easy going fellow. He loves his clubs, he loves playing dress up to go visit said clubs, and he loves Miami (which he's going to go visit this summer with his ex-girlfriend, he made sure to point out). IMHO, Miami is an imaginary town, whose population is 1/2 Cuban, 1/2 French, from what I've heard. I will believe it when I see it.

Fortunately Sylvain's stop came up about a half hour into the journey.

Tune in some other time for part deux: The Foreign Legionnaire OR Where The Hell Did You Pick Up an Accent Like That?