Luckily I missed all of the snowstorms in both Europe and the United States, so I had no troubles at all in catching all of my planes (6 in total, whew). My seat-neighbor on the overseas flight to France was, erm, interesting to say the least. I think she was probably a very nice woman, but she did not speak a word of English and she spoke French with such a heavy accent that I couldn't understand that either. I guess now I know how French people feel when they listen to me try to speak French. :) Anyway, this is probably rude and tactless to write about this in my blog...but whatever, I found the situation rather funny. To be frank, this woman was huge--I'm talking anywhere from 375 lbs --425 lbs. The tray in front of her could only come down to a 45 degree angle. And, I feel like a horrible person writing this, but she smelled like 2 week old Chinese food. So, there is me in the window seat and her in the aisle seat. Except this is inaccurate, because technically speaking she had about 1 2/5 of a seat, while I had about 3/5 of a seat. I knew sleep was NOT happening, so I decided to just watch movies the whole time. About that same time, she decided to open up her Bible for the remainder of the flight, which was fine except she held it in a way that covered up about 1/4 of my television screen. Can it get any worse than this?! Why yes, actually it can and it indeed did get worse. About a half an hour later, a baby started screaming about two rows behind me and did not stop for about 45 minutes. (Btw, my sister always accuses me of not liking babies, but on 11 out of 14 overnight flights I have had a screaming baby within a 4 seat radius of me. I will not say if this accusation is true or not, but let's just say you won't see me with a baby anytime soon). Anyway, at this point I wasn't even mad or upset, honestly I just thought it was funny. I was sort of searching for the hidden cameras that would reveal that this was all a setup for a weird new European reality show.
So after crossing Hell somewhere over the Atlantic, I arrived at Charles De Gaulle airport...or in another dimension, the suburbs of Hell (I was ALMOST out, but not quite). I arrived at passport control about the same time as 1,200 other people. There was a tiny little gate (it reminded me those gates that cattle/pigs have to walk through to get on the trucks to the slaughterhouse after the 4-H fairs), that about 800 people were "lining up" at. "Lining up" is used really, really, REALLY loosely here, because in reality it was a donnybrook (GRE vocab word that means "clusterfuck") of people trying to cut off the 500 people behind them who actually were trying to create order out of chaos by forming a sort of line. I had to catch a train in 2 hours, and just as I was about ready to call to switch to a later time, an official yelled out "foreign passports follow me," so I moved faster than I have ever moved in my life to follow him to a new line that had just opened up, and within half an hour I left Hell and its suburbs and found myself back in France! Whew! Quite an adventure!
It is so nice to be back in France! My first weekend back I manage to drag myself out of my jetlag stupor to go to another assistant's apartment for a "galette des rois." This is a French cake that you share with friends or family, for l'Épiphanie, a Christian holiday on January 6th. Inside the cake there is a tiny figurine of a king, and whoever finds the figurine gets to be king for a day! The cutting of the cake is done with a lot secrecy, either under the table, or in another room to prevent people from cheating. While I was not the king that day, I did find a tiny figurine of a lamb in my cake...
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| A "Galette des Rois" |
Last Friday I went out with a friend and met some of his friends at an Irish pub in Douai, and he pointed out that this was my first time being out with only French people! Haha this was quite a milestone for me, as I am used to having at least one other native English speaker for support in social situations. Anyway, it was a really fun night, and everyone was very nice.
Finally, last Wednesday "les soldes" (the sales) started. If I am understanding correctly, sales in Europe are regulated by the government. So every winter, in the middle of January all of the stores have massive sales (think Black Friday in the U.S.). They continue for about 5-6 weeks. Today I couldn't resist having a look, so I went to my favorite shop to have a look around. My favorite shop is "Couleur Framboise," and it has sort of eclectic jewelry, accessories, and some clothing. Unfortunately, it is on the route that I take to the grocery store each week, so the woman who owns the store knows me well :) She asked me how my sister liked her earrings, and then she even complimented me on my French, and people this is HUGE!! My first compliment EVER on my French! Yay!! Anyway, to my surprise everything in the store was 30% off, so I got a few Christmas presents for next year, as well as a very beautiful turquoise and silver necklace and earring set for myself. :)
Anyway, love you all and miss you lots! Have a great weekend! Go Bears!! :)
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