And it was good. Bon? Bien?

Bon? Bien? I don't know how to properly say 'and it was good' in french yet. It's like the well vs good thing in english, and I'm one of those people that does not get it right. I get the feeling that there are not many of "those people" in france, so i'd better learn quick!
Anyway,-
So I’ve only been here like, 4 days, but I’ve been hanging out with French people! Its been pretty neat, and they’ve all been extremely charming, and I feel quite lucky, especially since all any well intentioned American wants to do when they travel is : MEET FOREIGN PEOPLE, and chill with them. Trade off: living in the arab/algerian ghetto, and its not even cute like Casablanca, or Lawrence of Arabia or like “Algiers” where all the people partied in the 20s and wore interesting and colorful hats…though it is not like Not Without My Daughter, thank heaven. Rent the French movie “la Chutte” and you’ll have some clue as to where I live, though to an extreme. I don’t hang out with those guys, they’re on the other side of the gate. I sortof wish I had never seen “La Chutte.” Its cool though, I’m locked in my (2 stories tall awesome 60’s concrete block architecture with awesome lung-colored radiator) “tower”.

I hung out with a lot of French English teachers, or candidates for English teachers on Saturday night. I tried not to sit and look blithely overwhelmed the WHOLE time, and managed to squeeze in a few conversations. There was one English girl there who had her French wedding ring on her English finger that she got from her French husband. She said, Oh, I’m just like you! I came to be an assistant when I was 23! Um, ahhhhhhgghh! We agreed that I did not come over to find a French husband, but she did, so hey. I didn’t go to Penn to find a husband, and like, I didn’t. So we’re good. Enough foreign husband paranoia, I don’t want to develop a complex and end up with a xenophobia reserved only for foreign boys. Because that would really happen.

All these people I partied with the other night are friends of Solene’s – she’s a student teacher at Duchere. She’s 24! It’s very cool, and she is very cool. One of her friends Melanie (I think) – did the sister cities exchange probably right around the time I did, and she lived in Webster Groves, can you believe it! When I see her again I will ask her what family, though I am sure I don’t know them b/c I don’t know anyone from Webster,I really don’t. Another gal there, Tini, she said her sisters – who live in new york, queens to be exact, with her family, told her she had a Canadian accent. I told her no, but she did not have a London accent like she wanted. It’s hard to describe Canadian accents, though I did ask her if she said, “..,eh?” at the end of sentences a lot. But French people do that a lot, too…putting something like a nasal/guttural “eh” that’s spelled, “hein?” Either way around it, I was not good at asking if she said eh at the end of sentences b/c she was way confused. So I just said, not to worry, Canadians were very polite.

I get the vibe that everyone’s a little bit racist in France, but they don’t talk about it as much as we do in USA (can you imagine?). I’ve only been here for 4 days, but I really don’t think an equivalent of Chris Rock could exist here, and definitely no David Chapelle…or even Blue Collar Comedy for that matter. Solene told me that her jewish friend didn’t tell many people about it b/c people get judged for being jewish here. I guess its sorta like that in the US, but people are proud of their ethnicity to the point of making things annoying, so maybe its just being polite? And we’ve got the racism in the US. It just feels different for me as a foreigner. Speaking of which, Its really exciting for me to be here b/c I keep on getting to go around saying, “I am an American!” all the time, and I feel like I am totally repping my country by default. I sortof want to do a little arm motion you see Jimmy Durante do when he goes, “atcha chachacha” when I say it, and sometimes I do.

Here is also one of the rare times when all I have to really be is American, and not like, oh, but are you irish? business…since I never can do that anyway b/c I have no ethnicity, and I think “American” is foreign enough for most Joe’s on the street. And - since I’m more apt to feel connected to where I was brought up, its nice to be seen through that lens, only w/o the “aren’t southerners stupid, and Midwesterners overly enthusiastic” or whatever. I can deal with the American stereotypes of like, food re-namers – which I’m not running into, actually.
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I feel sortof “Look at how wise I am. I am so wise.” --- about saying all this crap about class/racism/whatever but hey, I’m not trying to be that girl. Walk in my shoes, these are occasional deep things things I think – when I’m not trying to think of how to form the correct tense = impossible -- about over all the tartes I’ve been eating. (I think the tart count is something like 6 now…tartes of all kinds! Lots of plums.) Can I mention now that French people eat a lot, and for a long time, and they take really BIG bites? Yeah, I think I can mention that now. Its sortof crazy dudes. I’m always the last one finishing my tarte. Aaaand apparently you’re not to cut your salad ahead of time, but rather as you eat it. And, at agnes and Philippe’s, we’re always eating like, little deli slices of ham with dinner. It all works for me, its just different. Vive la difference, hein?! I am really loving the having 2 drinks like an hour before dinner with peanut flavored cheetos and vinegar flavored chips…l’aperatif. Though I’m sure no one ever does homework after dinner, b/c you’re all full and like, not drunk but all ready to chill…so that would not work, unless you do all your work before dinner. Which would not only be genius, but possible, since they eat here (expectedly) around 9.

Was I speaking of stereotypes before? I have an analogy:
Arkansas is to everyone marries their cousin as france is to no one showers ever.
The frenches I’ve been staying with shower all the time, and they all of course smell like Jean Paul Gaultier (the scent I think that is contributing to the spicy apricot smell I remember). Speaking of showers, the other night I had a lost in translation moment when I washed my hair with bodywash b/c I thought “peau” meant hair, which is really dumb. I KNOW deep down in my soul that the word for hair is “cheveux” but in my state of jetlag or SOMETHING I thought I was a cat – b/c the word for cat hair/fur is “peau” so I was like, hey. And then I was like, “this lather is suspicious.”
But alas, it was too late.

I know my French friends are going to read this and throw cheese at my head. It’s just observations, guys! Isn’t it enough that I washed my hair with bodywash?