Year 2, Week 15, 16 & 17 in Paris, South Africa and Berlin: lions and bikers and beers, oh my!

Hmmmm..... 

For those of you wondering where I’ve been, let me introduce you to the month of May in France.  There is literally a holiday every week.  And if you’re lucky enough for that year’s holidays to fall in the middle of the week, then people “do the pont” – which you may think is some sort of fun 70s dance move with a lot of dramatic back arches to turn your body into a bridge, but it actually means that they bridge the holiday to the weekend and take an extra long weekend.  So basically it’s Thanksgiving week, every week, for the entire month of May.  Just please don’t ask me what the holidays are.  All I know is that one involves labor, another involves ascension, and another is called VE Day but I prefer to call it VD day because Venereal Diseases don’t get enough positive PR.  I attempted to "pont" the time between two "ponts" and meet my friends Heloise and Sophie in Tel Aviv this week, but alas, I had to do some work.  

So it’s been a whirlwind of a month.  Some highlights:

Larissa and her man at Le Meurice

• I learned that if I were to ever be in a lesbian couple, I would be considered “the man.”  (At least that’s what went down at lunch at the tres fancy Le Meurice with my friend Larissa, where they gave me the “man” menu that included the prices.)

•  I was chased by lions.  Literally.  (OK, they were lion cubs. But still)
• I ate my very first Burger King Whopper (at the Berlin airport of all places)
• I learned the power of high heels.  (The debut of my YSL Tributes literally stopped people in the halls and even picked me up a cute socialist.  Wait, is that an oxymoron?)
• And speaking of socialists, we have a new president in France! 

Bonjour Francois

The most fascinating part of the whole election was the announcement…   There is no tallying of the votes throughout the day like there is in the US, so no one knows how it’s going… and then at 7:59pm they start this ridiculous countdown that culminates in a picture of the new president animating onto the screen with one of those horrible animations that you can only find in Microsoft Powerpoint.  It was like watching the ball drop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve the year that Dick Clark hosted after his stroke (too soon?  RIP, Dicky)…  Awkward.  But I’m very much looking forward to more French holidays and less French work hours and potentially being able to retire at age 37. 

My ability to pick up more new girl friends than boyfriends again proved true these past few weeks.   I woke up to a text from a newfound friend named Floriane that I met in line for the bathroom at a cocktail bar one night.  It read: “Jill, I’m gonna organise a party for you.  You gonna have a lot of French frriens very soon!  See you ! "  Yet I was rejected by a waiter, who offered me his digits but didn’t return my email.   Had the romance panned out, and I was currently strolling the Seine with the mec, hanging love locks on the Ponts des Arts and tongue-kissing in public with our faces in each other’s hands, I would be telling you how I’ve met this fabulous sommelier from a 3 star famous Michelin restaurant.  But since I’m sitting at home noshing on Special K with chocolat noir alone (which, by the way, has a FAR FAR FAR higher chocolate to flake ratio than in the US.  God love the French), the sommelier has been reduced to a lowly waiter.  

A few words on my travels of late… 

Drinks at the Polo Bar overlooking Joburg

I arrived in Johannesburg braced for gun fights and kidnappings and maybe a good ol’ knifing for good measure.  But what I found was a very cool, and seemingly safe city.  My host (merci, Andrew) took me to an up and coming area filled with ad hoc galleries, a very fashionable and very integrated group of folks in their 20s/30s, and the coolest street market ever – called the Neighbourgoods Market – that takes place every Saturday in a parking garage right in downtown Johannesburg. 

Entrance to the Neighbourgoods Market in Joburg

In between the workshop and visiting the coffee aisles of several grocery stores (exciting!),  I went to a totally fake Lions Park that was plopped down 30 minutes outside of Joburg for the benefit of tourists.  Fake aside, this place has a lion cub den where they actually let groups of tourists in to play with the cubs.  Unbelievable.  And yet another thing that would never in a thousand million jillion years be legal in the US.  These little buggers aren’t so little --- and they have teeth and claws and they thought my sweater was the most fun toy on earth and I pretty much had that look on my face that you see in babies all the time, where you can’t tell if the baby is superbly happy or on the verge of tears. 

Berlin on the other hand had no lions but lots of tattoos.  It was raw and edgy and artsy – and made Paris feel antiseptic and perfectly manicured in comparison.  We rode bikes, visited Checkpoint Charlie, ate curry wurst (they really like their curry powder there), drank radlers in a biergarten, and even made it to a few museums.  The most bizarre moment was being queued up like cattle for the grocery store, and then being let in to the store all at the same time.  It was like a German version of Supermarket Sweep.  And I lost.  

Checkpoint Charlie

No words.  

Brandenburg Gate

And last but not least, my theory was confirmed that Charles De Gaulle Airport is not an airport, but a bus port.  I swear to god if they shove me on to one more bus in order to get me to my plane I’m going to go all German on them. 

All from Paris folks.  Tschüss.  

Year 2, Week 13 and 14 in Paris: sick feet and sharing underwear

Paris from the tip of Ile de la Cite

Things started off well these past couple weeks, despite the nasty weather, with an invite to my first ever Moroccan Shabbat.  In between mouthfuls of fall-off-the-bone amazing lemon and olive chicken (bravo, Fred), I entertained the table with my continued evolution towards Parisian-ness.  It went something like this:

Moroccan Shabbat

Jill:  “Ugh, I only get 5 weeks vacation.”

Boris:  “Is it me or did an American just complain about only 5 weeks vacation?”

Jill:  “But really, it sucks that I’m not eligible for the RTT days” (another 12 days of vacation for French people who work more than 35 hours per week)

Boris:  “Oh mon dieu, you’re so French.”

Sadly my French language skills aren’t quite caught up with the rest of my French makeover.  Upon leaving a party after a long night in high heels, and my tongue well lubricated with wine, I boldly yelled out “Mon pied est malade!!!” resulting in squeals of laughter at my expense, because apparently I had just informed my friends along with the sleeping residents of the 2^nd arrondisement that my foot was sick.  Just one foot.   

Heloise et moi

Claire's in Paris

It was a theme party – where you had to come with some sort of signature accessory.  But where does one go for cheap & tacky in the city of cher & chic?  Claire’s Boutique, obvi!  Chez Claire’s has made it across the pond, ear-piercing gun and all.

For the past 15 months, I’ve been cheating at French.  Since I never know if a word is masculine or feminine, and because I find the word “un” impossible to pronounce, I’ve developed a very soft-spoken combination of “un” and “une” which I apply to all words.  But now I have a new French teacher who won’t let it fly.  Apparently for “une” you make an “o” with your mouth but for “un” you sorta smile.  So I’m now walking around Paris making this awkward Joker-like face every 10 seconds and looking absolutely ridiculous. 

My teacher taught me the term “pleine á craquer”, which more or less means “filled to the gills” – as in a cabinet or drawer.  So then I was describing a meal that I’d eaten recently and I said that I was “pleine a craquer” and she guffawed and explained that in French you would never say that.  Pas elegante.  I guess you can’t take the American out of me after all. 

Chocolate chip pancakes for dessert

Speaking of American.  Let’s talk about brunch.   Brunch is a relatively new phenomenon in Paris.  Which is sad for a girl who is from the best breakfast city on earth (yes, Chicago, that’s you).  No chilaquiles, no decent bagels, no pumpkin pancakes or crunchy French toast or egg scrambles or biscuits and gravy.  But you know the best part about a Parisian brunch?   Everyone gets dessert!    Say au revoir to the age-old sweet vs. salty brunch debate.  And bring me that plate of chocolate chip pancakes to wash down my scrambled eggs.  Merci beaucoup.

It’s amazing how living in a new place gets you to do things that you would NEVER EVER EVER IN A MILLION YEARS do back in your hometown.  Like, for example, go to a gathering of Ivy League alumni.  Apparently at some point, the Paris “All-Ivy” club took a vote and decided they would slum it with the likes of Stanford, Duke, and Cambridge alum.  So voila.  A fellow American colleague and Cornell grad invited me after work, and since I’m on the Oui plan, I disregarded my gut repulsion and showed up with my best smile.  Here’s what the conversations were like:

“oh hi, what alumni club are you from?”  “isn’t it so nice that this time the event is mixed?  I was getting a little tired of just the Yale people”  “oh, you went to the Kennedy School…  fantastic.  I just heard that Professor so and so has moved to Fuqua, can you believe it?”  “Oh you must be a Columbia alum, with your suit colors and all….” 

Next time I’ll trust my gut. 

Larissa et moi at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon

And boy is my gut happy right now.  Just finished dinner at the fabulous L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon, joined by the fabulous Larissa, where we: dined on the likes of foie gras with cherries and soft-boiled egg with morels in a cream soup, stole caramels, got served free champagne, and walked away with the sommelier’s phone number and email address.  Poor Larissa arrived to Paris sans her baggage, so we had an emergency afternoon of shopping where we bought two outfits in two hours; shoes, tights and all.  And she’s currently wearing my underwear.  Which is a little weird but I’m trying not to think about it.  I’m mostly just focused on getting her bag here, since it contains my requested Charmin. 


Here’s to Paris in the springtime.  And a special shout out to Cousin Josh.  Come back soon.  Bisous. 

Cousin Josh et moi on the Seine

PS.  The first of the French elections happened.  It was uneventful.  Apparently there really is a party of well-liked people called "Socialists," and it's not just anti-Communism rhetoric.  

Year 2, Week 12 in Paris: thoughts on globalization and 5 signs you may be too old for clubbing

Near place des Victoires

Things are feeling especially like home these days in gay paree. “Putain” is rolling much more naturally off my tongue, and mustard (one of the few foods that I arrived to Paris despising) is now rolling much more enjoyably on my tongue (thanks to Edmond Fallot’s moutarde basilic). Patrick #2 from the restaurant downstairs invited me in for a coffee before work, and I finally had a come-to-jesus with my produce guy that my name isn’t Christine.  Best of all, I’ve stopped having mini-panic attacks every time the lights automatically turn off on me while sitting in public bathrooms.   

Post-gallery drinks in the Tuileries

But I’m still trying to figure things out, too.  Like learning the hard way that a sure way to stop a French dinner party dead in its tracks is to announce, “I’m not that into politics” [insert a look that says you have two, possibly three heads].  Welcome to a place where there is no social taboo on talking politics.  A shame I didn’t inherit the same passion for presidential election years as my dad. 

I’m also trying to figure out how it’s possible to be in a western country in the 21^st century where male managers (a) tell women that they need to buy something sexier to wear to a client meeting or (b) comment that certain women aren’t attractive enough to ever make it further in a company.  Awesome. 

Most of all, I’m really struggling to figure out why I keep coming home with new numbers in my phone attached to names like “Sophie” and “Amelie” – who I’m pretty sure don’t have penises.  Which says a lot for France’s non-rudeness, as (straight) French girls keep taking me under their wing with offers to introduce me to their friends.  But I suppose it doesn’t say a whole lot about my male flirting skills.  So noted. 

Also to be noted:  I’m implementing a strict one-square toilet paper mandate, effective immediately, as my lifetime Costco supply of toilet paper that I decided was necessary to ship from Chicago to Paris a year ago has dwindled down to just 3 remaining rolls.  And while it turns out that France does indeed sell toilet paper, none of it is nearly as soft as Charmin. [note to future visitors:  there’s a two-roll minimum Charmin fee due upon arrival, also effective immediately]  

Which brings me to my love-hate relationship with globalization.   Love that the Chipotle sign has gone up a mere 1.4km from my flat.  Hate that I just received this text from a friend in Chicago:  “Maje is at Bloomies!  I’m sorry, but your new orange pants are here.”  (Thank you for that, Larissa).  Is there nothing sacred?  First La Duree hits Manhattan, and now Maje on Michigan Avenue?  Why can’t everything that I miss from the US be readily available in France, but everything fabulous about France be limited to Americans in Paris like moi?  Putain. 

Le Cirque

I’ll leave you with 5 Signs That You May Be Too Old To Go Clubbing:

• you’re only let in by the bouncers because they can tell that you, unlike the other broke kids in line, actually have money to spend at their establishment
•  the item of clothing that you excitedly picked from the “sexy” section of your wardrobe averages 20-30x more surface area than your fellow female club-goers
• you’re disappointed with the available wine list
•   you genuinely worry that the flaming bottles of vodka filing past you may accidentally light someone on fire
•  you find yourself daydreaming about ways they could potentially improve traffic flow within the club

I'll also leave you with some commentary from Jon Stewart on Passover.  Just because.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-april-9-2012/faith-off---adapting-passover

Until next week. 

An apero at Kong

(drinking) at an Indian cooking class

Year 2, Week 11 in Paris and Normandy: pole dancing, champagne shopping and the Hamptons of Paris

A Finnish girl, an American girl, two gay South African guys, and a Spanish couple walk into a Parisian bar. 

With the lovely Carita, Rosa Bonheur-ing it up

That’s the making of a terrible joke but a very good time.    Mostly because we were at Rosa Bonheur, my new favorite bar in Paris.  It’s a free-spirited, come-as-you-are kind of place in the middle of Butt Park (aka Parc des Buttes Chaumont).  Amidst a sea of quirky fish décor, they sell bottles of twist-top wine with plastic cups (sacre bleu!), and when you’re hungry, you mosey on over to the tapas counter where you pick up iberico ham and dunk hunks of bread in duck rilletes and tarama.  Most of all, it’s a rare place where Parisian strangers actually mingle. 

Other than some very attractive men, my biggest distraction of the night was the strip pole in the middle of the bar.  I expected to see things get real vulgar real quick as the dance party heated up (á la a certain someone’s 28^th birthday shindig at Plan B in Chicago, where it was proven that no amount of vodka turns a girl and a pole into Demi Moore in Striptease).  Yet all these Parisians were either ignoring the pole altogether or merely using it as a point of competition to see who could successfully climb it all the way to the ceiling.  :: Sigh ::  I suppose that’s what you get when you remove tequila shots and an all-American “must-get-wasted” mentality from the picture:  The tragic death of amateur pole dancing.  (on a separate but related note, check out the best (g-rated) pole-dancing routine of all time, courtesy of a certain Venezuelan ami who shall remain unnamed)

So did you know that there are stores in the world that offer champagne while you shop?  C’est vrai.  Upon discovering that I owe less in taxes than I had been bracing myself for, I decided to invest in a designer classic or two.  So obviously I called my friend Delphine, who not only knows every designer’s collections (by year), she also has salespeople from each one programmed by name into her phone.  True to form, I spilled coffee on a couch at Yves Saint Laurent, subsequently failed at an attempted cover-up with a shoe box, and then came within a millimeter of ripping a pair of pants at Prada.  Hopefully I’ll prove to be more graceful while wearing THESE:

Yves Saint Laurent, tribute collection, and no doubt the cause of a future embarrassing fall.

Varengeville, from the church

Monet: Falaise at Varengeville

After another wonderful Passover with Delphine’s family (minus of course my portions reading aloud from the Haggadah, a mortifyingly public display of my French pronounciation skills), I joined my friends Louis-Benoit and Flore in the quaint and ridiculously beautiful Normandy village of Varengeville (and if you don’t believe me, just ask Monet).  Normandy is supposedly the Hamptons of Paris, but the only thing resembling PDiddy was Flore belting out the French version of Aladdin’s “A Whole New World” into a baby bottle, and the only thing resembling the boutique-lined Montauk Highway was one lone road that boasted Raby’s boucherie, the Maison Boivin boulangerie, and a post office. 

View of the sea from my room 

Mansions of Varengeville

The best part of Varengeville hands down though was hanging out with 15-month-old Marcel, who has been alive the same number of months that I’ve lived in Paris and I’m totally kicking his ass.  I’ve made far more progress in speaking French, learning to use French toilets, and using my fork and knife the French way.  Sorry, Marcel…  you win some, you lose some. 

Me and the boys along the cliffs of Varengeville on a rainy day

Here’s to a week of more wins (like yesterday’s discovery of my new favorite cheese, Neufchatel), and less losses (like mistakenly and quite persistently trying to pay for pizza in Switzerland with Singaporean dollars).

Until next time.  

Year 2, Week 10: French concert etiquette, married men, and dating. Ooh la la la.

First Bateaux Mouche ride

So I could spend this entire entry poetically telling you how truly spectacular Paris is in the springtime…  how I spent the last week sipping rosé at corner cafes, eating artisanal charcuterie made with cepes and aged bleu cheese, taking my first Bateaux Mouche ride down the Seine (thanks Mike & Juliet!), and planning upcoming trips to Normandy, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Morocco, and Corsica….  But that would be about as interesting as hearing about people’s aDORable kids and aMAZing spouses on Facebook.

So let’s try this instead. 

French people have no soul. 

Florence + the Machine at Le Casino de Paris

OK OK that’s not true at all, but come on people --- what kind of people go to a Florence + the Machine concert and DON’T DANCE…  I mean, not even a little bit of stationary bopping around…  and not even when the magnificent Florence is all out begging the audience to dance.  NO! The people of the balcony WILL NOT be told what to do!  They.will.sit!  And you will too, or else you will be the giant asshole blocking everyone’s view (guilty).  Upon explaining this phenomenon to my French friends they said “bah oui, you chose to sit in the balcony.”  Balcony schmalcony.  A little soul.  S’il vous plait. 

Here’s another one:  Married Frenchmen are cochons (pigs). 

OK also violently untrue.  But I got your attention.  I’m a bit bitter about a guy who seemed to be mutually engaged in some good ol’ fashioned flirting, only to eventually discover that he’s definitely married, and definitely in pursuit of some extracurricular activities.    French men certainly don’t have the lock on cheating, but man oh man it’s tougher to spot ‘em over here.  Men here just plain and simple LOVE women, which makes it tough to discern between a single guy who's flirting and a married guy who just appreciates a woman's company.  Plus, it’s far less common to talk about your kids/homelife (for men and for women).  And a lot of couples often aren't technically married, despite living together for umpteen years, with kids, etc.   Even a lot of the ones who ARE married don’t wear wedding rings.  Tricky business, gentlemen.  Very tricky business.  But I’m on to you. 

Also tricky business?  Mastering the Velib, Paris’ public bikes.  I left my office one night in a hurry, late to meet my brother and his family for soufflé in the 7^th, and spotted one lone velib left at the station near my office.  My heart swelled and I thought to myself, my god, this city is absolutely MADE for me.    I hopped aboard, and proceeded to make it no more than 30 feet before realizing that the tires were completely flat.  Apparently, true Parisians know to assess a bike before taking it for a ride.     

Only.  In.  Paris. 

But Paris is a fair and generous city, and I was rewarded yesterday with this only-in-Paris gift left for me in a Velib basket:  an empty pack of cigarettes and a half-eaten Nutella crepe.  And yes, my first thought was whether or not the crepe was still fresh (enough), and yes, my second thought was whether or not anyone was watching.  Bonus!

[one of] my new office(s)

Another bonus was realizing that finally being kicked out of my office and being left office-less for “three weeks” (which in French time, means at least 4 months if we use last year’s women’s bathroom repair as a basis for estimation), means that PARIS is now my office.  Working from a café is even better than being in college when your professor would say, “let’s have class out on the quad.”  Because (a) you're being paid.  And (b) nothing goes better with a powerpoint presentation than a glass of rosé and a waiter with attitude. 

Speaking of attitude…  I conducted an informal poll this weekend about dating.  The first night, a German girlfriend said that the ONLY way to get a guy’s interest is to be utterly unavailable.  He says hello?  Look away.  He texts you?  Don’t text back until at least the 2^nd or 3^rd attempt.  And then an Italian friend countered with her fabulously animated hands and wearing her heart on her sleeve, saying “That’s reedeeculos” – if you’re interested, respond.  It shouldn’t be so complicated.  And I wondered for a moment if I’m living in the wrong country (plus I really love pasta).  But then the next night, I polled four French girlfriends and one Spaniard, and they were split down the middle.  So perhaps the debate on the chase is personal and not cultural after all.  What’s certain is that if I were to attempt the unavailable game, I’d probably look constipated. 

The lovely Canal Saint Martin

Unfortunate pingpong flashback

Which is exactly how I looked when I saw these two men innocently playing pingpong along the Canal Saint Martin this week.  Clearly I'm still massively scarred from the Bangkok Ping Pong Show. 

The only thing that could get me past it was some merveilleux from Aux Merveilleux de Fred (merci Chloe!), which look like boobs but taste like CandyLand.  Meringue stuffed with creme and more meringue.  Who thinks of this stuff?

Meringue Boobs from Aux Merveilliux de Fred 

That’s all from Paris. 

PS.  Dear woman (or man?) who arrived at my blog entry about French people's affinity for anal suppositories by searching with the terms "pre-teen suppository" ---  I'm very sorry.  How disappointing for you.  I've sent a note to Google requesting that they please improve their algorithm.  And Bon Courage with whatever is ailing your pre-teen.