The week I didn't sleep a lot

So it all began last tuesday, when I decided to go out until basically Monday.

So bullet points, as its getting late...promise to fill in the blanks ASAP/post vacay:
- friday, emilie arrives, we have a crazy night of Beer pong and flip cup, at one point I decide to wear my St. Louis flag (that I brought, b/c I represent). I also wore blue shoes that gave me blisters as we went to the gay, but not gay club with my french BFF Caro.
- Emilie and I slept on a half inflated airmattress in the cold, and it was so bad it was funny. We were v. hungover and angry the next day and didn't want to move, but we had to get bagels, and then there was more on our calendar....
-Saturday we met with Emilie's friend Meme (Aurelien, but I call him Meme, as do his country friends) and his super super sexy friend Alban (who has a super cute girlfriend, so hey). I was not expecting such cuteness. We ate dinner, talked about toys, it was cute. Not as cute as Alban (nothing is really), but it was a cute evening with french dudes fussing over the quality of the wine and taking charge as boys out to dinner with girls (even as friends) should. Did I mention that Alban was cute?
- We then went to the Voxx, a cool loungy place where they'll actually play soul music from time to time. Excellent! We hung out with Beck and her bf, and some other french couple.
- Then we go to the 42 which is a very very preppy night club/ski lodge moment where they played the FRENCHEST music ever. It was a cliche, and it was awesome.
- Catch the bus at 5:30am to home.
- Sunday we were not as hungover, so we watched Harold and Kumar, and then went to Phillipe and Agnes' to sing, have some tea, and eat a "green dinner" (it was all made of green stuff) and just talk about life, politics, life and america/france. Good times! The caldero's are awesome. Philippe introduced us to some lovely french classics, and Emilie sang pink floyd, and we all sang us some David Bowie Ground Control to Major Tom goodness.
- Then it was Superbowl time. Lots of screamy Chicago types, and we colts supporters kept our cool. It was fun! Football culture rules. I will be frequenting bars for suuperbowls of the future to be sure.
- We stayed up in Jen's apt for a bit, and caught the bus at 5am to home. Monday morning was hard, and it sortof gave me a cold for the whole week.

But it was worth it!
Peace out. See you in a couple weeks.

Steak Dinners at 3am and annoying 18 year old british punks

Last tuesday I was lucky enough to get to hang out with my awesome buddy Caroline, her friend Julie, and some rakish bartender dudes (who also somehow knew about some diner-meets-french-bistro thing (!) that has steak dinners with au gratin potatoes (or fries, naturally) served with a background of Phill Collins easy-listening at 3-4am.)

Awesome.

Jen, one of my favorite indianans came along, and we just had a time of it.

The evening started off with a lively concert by what seemed to be a rather skilled, but not too skilled college orchestra. They played some violin pieces for some virtuoso dude, and I was like, um I know a virtuoso, too, though I think we are in a fight. (Are we, J?) Anyway, I was adequately impressed, politely even. They played "an american in paris" by the one and only tin pan alley gangsta George Gershwin- and you just gotta love you some American in Paris.

My buddy Zak decided that they played it in a way that emphasized that Americans are vulgar and only want a hamburger in Paris, and though I agree somewhat on his musical commentary, I disagree that the lovely French musicians were striking a low blow to our giant American egos throught he medium of mid-century orchestral music. Also, the jazzy countermelodies that -- one would speculate -- emphasize the burger-lust are really Gershwin's thing, I bet the orchestra just played'em loud b/c they are Awesome, capital A. They are. They are also very Aerican (re: jazz) and that makes them very special, and something we can all share. And share we did! Oh I love the bluesy part, its just life-giving. I loved it! Live music.

Oh! That reminds me that I simply must tell you about my night o' jazz and laughter with the ever-awesome Caldero family. Wow, it was awesome. I would like to teach the world to sing, and it'd be ok even if the harmony wasn't perfect. Snaps to Anges' daugher Solene for being an awesome 12 year old Saggitarian (December 15th homegirl, to be exact!). I am bringing you Emilie, and we shall sing Grease!

Was I digressing just then? Anyway, mid-chilling at Caro's favorite english pub, we were (un)lucky enough to encounter cocky british 18-year-old "i hate american mannerisms" boy, who for the sake of brevity I shall now refer to as "Baby Spice." Seriously, kid? Mannerisms? Am I back at Penn where people mock me just b/c of where I'm from? Is that where we are again? Clearly it is.

Take me back to the show me state where everyone's from everywhere and at least the semi-illuminati I hang around are willing to sit back and soak up your mannerisms before they decide they hate you and your kind. Luckily (?) I've been par for this predjudicial course before (before France, even) -- labeled as God knows what (actually He does know) and well, though the power of my individuality couldn't withstand say, a presidential election, I was able to shrug of Baby Spice's gutless jabs with out giving a much of a damn. I rolled my eyes just to rub my hateful american mannerisms in his face.

This a kid whose grandfather may have found beside mine in World War frickin' TWO. And he hates me for my mannerisms?

Sometimes I wonder if people are actually for real.

Anyway, he got crazy yelled at by Caro's legit friend from chzechoslovakia or however you spell it, or divide it up into a bunch of "little republics of..." -- Martin the dissenting but convivial eastern european expat basically told Baby Spice to chill. Needless to say, it was frustrating (a girl doesn't like being hated...at least not before I tell you that I thought Napoleon Dynamite was LAME and that Dave Matthews just doesn't move me), but I'm brave enough to be a french fry - take that as you may.

Why always with the "why does everyone hate me, I'm just a nice Missouri girl?" drama? It must be very tiring, being a hater. Anyway, Miss Emilie is coming to town TONIGHT for a weekend of french beer pong, potatoes au gratin, maybe some absurdist french existentialist theatre (how many -isms can YOU fit into YOUR play?), and some superbowl, and probably a baguette here or there. Its exciting!

The saints did none of that marching in stuff

Gotta bullet point this one, I'm too busy making my own Jackson Pollock paintings and watching old SNL clips to really give this one any literary flava.
- Spent an evening of fun and football with some Chicagoans visiting Lyon for a food convention. Lots of talking about bbq, and I some/most of my drinks are now on someone named Bob's expense account.
- Little danish/french dude fell hard core in love with me, but I told him to go away, b/c he lives in Chicago (where his girlfriend also lives)- he was cute, though. Boys in europe so far are too slutty for me.
- Jen and Karl were excellent football-watching buddies, and Jen is good at keeping me out of trouble
- Met a girl from Penn! She's studying abroad at Lyon II and she's into urban studies! Excellent.

Friday night I went out with some english ladies to see a couple english bands...they were really into cowbell. That joke never made it across the atlantic (the one about more cowbell) and needless to say, the cowbell player spazzing out all over the place and eventually breaking his drumstick on the cowbell was AMAZING. Blue oyster cult, I've gotta fever, and the only prescription is -- you know.

prescription filled.

We went to a party with a bunch of completely wasted americans chugging jager (classy) and the one guy from SLU was like, yo, and I was like, STL!?! but he was off to be bad at beer pong or something, and wear a weird/dumb baseball hat. My buddy Hols totally ignored this Idaho pretty boy b/c he was annoying and pretentious and pretty much dumb, and her efforts to ignore him were in vain, as ther ignoring him and rolling her eyes at him only made him want to talk to her/us more. That's the way it works!
Saturday we went to another party with a bunch of assistants - nothing too amazing, though I did meet a French guy who's just crazy for america, so it was nice hearing about the US from the perspective of someone else who hearts it, but not blindly. He was also living in Connecticut during 9-11 --- whoa. It was fun to hear how he joined in with everyone -- going shopping the week after, getting back into the city and life, that sort of thing that was really cool to experience if you were there, and I bet he's one of the better informed French people as far as the "when and when not to play the WTC card." Anyway, he was awesome, and I really think his name was Camel...maybe spelled differently, and pronounced Ca-mellllle, but that's an awesome name. Speaking of awesome names, I have a student named Swan. I asked him if it was like, Swan Lake, swan prince sortof thing and he was like, "yes." This french teenager is mad proud of being named Swan, and for that I salute him.

I'm bummed about the saints, but I think it will be ok. Salutes to Jen, who inspired me to watch football until 5 in the morning when I had to get up at 8, and also salutes to Jen for generously offering me a place to lay my head for those lovely 3 hours.

24 = best year ever!

My 24th birthday was glorious. I got great present from my buddies (guitar strap from Doris, excellent peach soap/lotion basket and moose stuffed animal from emma, and The Blues Brothers DVD from Holly and Silvia), I bought a cool ice-cream Buche de Noel for my birthday cake, Emilie came to town, I got happy birthday sung to me in like, 5 languages (Austrian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, English, French…ok 6) while drinkin’ wine and eating olive oil flavored potato chips at Silvia’s, 4 of the Duchere girls managed to pass a logically sequenced night together and not get separated (here’s to pre-planning!) ....and I also got to hang with Caro and Hensley, and sing fun songs to the awesome GuitarMan who likes to play at English Pubs around Lyon. It was a great weekend of really getting to go out freely (knowing Emilie was always game for a drink – as long as it wasn’t Carlsburg – and feeling like a real Lyon gangsta, drinkin’ beers and takin’ names.

I also loved that Caro’s boyfriend’s name was Gaultier, and that when some weirdo tried to touch my AWESOME new snowboots and I had to yell at him, Gaultier said not to worry, he would protect me and my boots. Gaultier was tall, too, dude. Like scary giant Frenchman tall = excellent!

Air Force water polo california dude and other Austrians for dinner

I came home from wherever I was on Friday evening to find doris’ 2 friends and their cool water polo player friend, who was from California! How exciting!

He’s some air force academy drop-out, who plays water polo but really wants to be a writer or something…I can dig it. I remember saying specifically that when I was talking to him, “I dig” I think is what I said – and Doris was like, what’s that mean? And I felt sortof lame/awesome for unconsciously using the verb “dig” in everyday conversation with another American. I use weird words. Anyway, we had some lovely noodles, and some lovely pink wine drinks, and we were off to see the light show.

I personally was like, wow to the lights, but I wasn't super impressed. Agnes, my awesome teacher friend (that's her official title), says 4,000 or something people come (maybe it was million, but thats crazay) to see the lights and that this year she wasn't so impressed. I just thought I wasn't european enough to appreciate them, but apparently they were just not that appreciable this year. This is good, b/c I felt bad not being impressed!

Bus to Barcelona

Spain. The Extended Version.

We arrived there by bus… all 11 hours of it. It was a lovely ride, with a fair share of creepy people, and cute kids making rhymes in French. Emilie and I caught up, drew pictures, played blind pig, and I tried not to laugh too loudly so as not to draw attention from the creepers whose presences you can just FEEL when you’re in Spain. Which is a shame, b/c it’s a pretty cool country, and in retrospect I think I had my creeper radar on too high a setting, being such a savvy lady as I am. But you can never be too careful.

Anyway.
We got into Barcelona at the bus station, Emilie used her mad Spanish skillz to hail a cab, and we hopped in. Our cabbie proceeded to – out of goodwill, I’m certain – scare the living daylights out of us with is tales of delinquents who loiter near our hostel, located just off of Las Ramblas, one I would later not hesitate to call one of the more seedy streets I’ve EVER visited. But it ended up we were scared for nothing, as it was just like, party people and probably the occasional creeper, but Emilie and I had bought hats at H&M in order to give us a true don’t-mess-with-me edge.
We get into our 20-person room, I pass out on a mattress on the floor and Emilie is kept awake by sounds of drunken revelry within the room, as well as by a young gent outside who took it upon himself apparently to serenade the entire square with an acappella version of “(ooo wooo woo) I Wanna be Like You” from the classic Disney Cartoon musical (one that I could never watch too much b/c I thought the end was too sad) THE JUNGLE BOOK.

Maybe I do wanna walk like you, talk like you do.

In brief, we woke up the next day, got an ice cream (top notch in the Barca) and proceeded to get lost in the winding labyrinthine streets of Barcelona’s Barrio Gotika trying to find the Picasso museum. It was very Auberge Espagnole (that movie did a good job of capturing the Barca vibe…walking around I was like, yes – I feel it. Not the same for like, when I visited Boston and tried to be in my own version of Good Will Hunting…though don’t get me wrong, good will hunting is an excellent movie). We eventually met some baby art students outside the Picasso Museum, and we proceeded to spend about an hour or two longer than them inside this Picasso museum. We are art students of life!

I only sortof understand how Picasso went from Point A to Point B, but I get cubism now for the most part, and it’s cool! Emilie and I liked his bajillion versions of some painting from the Prado (one that we SAW in person later….we also saw an old slutty frat boy from our U of P days in the same museum – on a weekend sojurn from some fancy NY-See-how-important-I-am finance job to visit his lady on her semester abroad in Madrid … how ‘bout them apples!?).

Emilie opened my eyes to one particular red dude that Pablo had painted, and we thought we were pretty funny the rest of the trip when we were trying to recreate live in person how Picasso painted him. Live Cubism! Example 1:


Example 2:




So yeah, Picasso was a little bit of a slut (his prostitute pictures were like, who Master P, you are a perv), but he was a funny guy. Some of his sketches – particularly of dogs – were just funny. Him an his friends had a real fun thing going at the 3 Cats Café, where they’d all hang outs and think of new and pervy ways to be funny and talented. V. excusable, even encouragable! Girls didn’t seem to be invited though to his fun cafe time – ‘cept as girlfriends – so like, no fun.

Enough about Senor P.