Feelin' French for Bastille Day (+ video)

My wife and I both have a mantra that we often have to repeat not only to ourselves, but to others: "I'm not an expat, I'm an immigrant."

While technically speaking there may not be much of a difference, we often find a mentality gap between those who consider themselves "expats" and those who'll admit (so to speak) they're an "immigrant." Socially, the term "expat" often implies white collar work or wealth, that someone has moved to another country other than theirs at their own volition and stays on their leisure. "Immigrant" is often perceived to mean someone who moved out of necessity or to forge a more livable life.

Though we're most definitely white collar and came to France purely of our own volition, we definitely put ourselves in the latter category. We're actively trying to integrate into the culture while fiercely holding on to what we like about our own, as all immigrants should. We're most definitely not living some fabulous life of luxury. In fact, almost every day is a struggle.

A month doesn't go by where we don't worry about making enough money, visa statuses, sending enough money home, better mastering the language, figuring out new ways to make ends meet... Anyone back in the US who thinks immigrants come in (anywhere) to live a fat, lazy life is an asshole.

Yes, we do travel, and yes, we do some fabulous or frivolous things, and you see those things on the internet because those are the memories we're trying to forge. I don't bother photographing or writing about the weeks we have to spend stretching one sack of beans, four vegetables, and 200 grams of meat into five meals for two people. (I'm saving that for the book, which will help pay 2% of our rent next year, of course...)

All that aside, after about two and a half years here, things are gelling. We've already felt Paris has been our "home" for quite some time now, but things are really kicking in. I complain as much as any natural-born Parisian (of which there are maybe 6). I curse the government and pray for revolution as much as any 68'er. I will declare something "merde" or an "arnaque" immediately upon hearing about it. I coo at the first sight of babies or puppies.

Ok, so I was always like that.

But there are little everyday things that make us feel more in our skin now than ever before. Nary a day goes by when we don't see someone we know in the street, at a shop, getting coffee, etc. Alannah now feels more comfortable speaking French with strangers. And just the other morning at 5 a.m. I called the cops (!?) to complain about noise from a huge fight down the street, and not only did I not have to repeat or awkwardly re-explain anything in broken French, but... They actually showed up and took care of it!

Furthermore, our local know-how is getting better and better. On the eve of the Fête Nationale, we turned up at the Bal des Pompiers (the fireman's ball to celebrate Bastille Day) at the Rousseau fire station in the 1st arrondissement just early enough to spend two minutes (as opposed to two hours) in line, but just late enough for it to be lively inside – where, of course we ran into some familiar faces from around town.  For the 14th of July itself, we dispensed with the picnic amongst 1,000,000 people on the Champ de Mars (mostly because it pissed early on in the day) and instead watched the fireworks from a more serene locale on the river. For probably the 90th time since the weather got nice this year, we very economically popped open a bottle of wine and watched the Seine flow underneath us...

It's a long process, but we're figuring out the system and almost fitting in. We don't shun the anglophone community entirely: You gotta stay true to your roots, you can't discriminate who your friends are, and there are some cool expats who aren't on the same immigrant wavelength that we love nonetheless. And we know we'll never really be French (maybe on paper, someday...). But as much as we miss American work ethic (no, really), California cuisine, and Mexican drunk food, we feel very lucky – and dare I say proud – to be here.

Now enjoy the fireworks.



(Sorry 'bout the video quality. It was taken with a mobile phone from a distance.)

#americaFyeah

That's the Twitter hashtag the wife used the morning of July 4 as we were getting our asses up way too early, all in order to go to Disneyland and see some fireworks or something.

It's just a model.

Yeah, that Disneyland, the one near Paris.

We don't do inane touristy things like go up the Eiffel Tower or the top of the Arc de Triomphe, even when we have visitors in town. But there we were, just the two of us, going to freakin' Disneyland. Because it's the only damn fully American thing you can do in Paris. Not that we often want to, but sometimes – especially on the national holiday – we want a taste of the nation formerly called home.

Sure, you can go to some American-run coffee shop/juice bar and pay €6.50 for a lackluster bagel sandwich that would be panned by any New Yorker with half a palate. You can go to an "American" restaurant and spend €65 on a more than regrettable meal of questionable provenance and even more questionable culinary merit. Or (providing you can hook up a discount pass) you can spend practically nothing to while away a full day of 100% genuine USA! USA! USA! Americana at Parc Disneyland Paris. Or whatever they're calling it now.

Yes, the food is crap. And yes, once you're inside – pass or not – they're going to milk you for every crisp Euro note in your pocket. But isn't that what it's all about? For one day, you can take in the crass commercialism, mass merchandising, and continuous hard sell that is America's gift to the world. And hot damn if it isn't FUN.

Very old San Francisco

For something like 14 hours straight we did seriously American stuff like have our spines realigned by Thunder Mountain, queue forever for Indiana Jones, watch janky video that hasn't been updated since 1987 on Star Tours, and sample all the marvels of hallucinogenic-inspired psychedelia in any attraction having to do with Alice in Wonderland. Pirates of the Caribbean brought back a flood of adolescent memories from Southern California, with the plastic artifice of SoCal (minus all the fake boobs) quickly replaced by the genuine faux San Francisco veneer of the Victorian Arcade alongside Main Street USA. It was disturbing how comfortable it all felt, especially the little vignette of San Francisco.

While others were rushing to their favorite part of the park or lining up for one of the umpteen parades down Main Street, I found it perfectly acceptable to park our asses in a booth in the Cable Car Bake Shop and futz around with my camera. Surprisingly, the cheesecake and carrot cake we had were much more authentic than almost all others we've had in Paris and – y'all ready for this? – cheaper.

Alannah about to take her first – and last – bite
of a candy apple. Thank goodness we have
an awesome dentist.

This set up the order of the day. As others ran berserk trying to get on to every ride and see every show, we took it easy and soaked up the America all around us. Cartoonishly giant hot dog? Check. Disgusting, tooth-rotting candy apple? Check. Rolls of fat pouring out over elastic-waisted shorts? Double, triple, quadruple check.

To be fair on that last point, we weren't surrounded by stereotypical fat Americans. Not the whole time.

(Which begs the question: Why do so many Americans come all the way to France to see a carbon copy of what's in California or Florida?)

Because when you leave the rarified air of Paris for even more touristy locales, you will inevitably run into our European cousins, who seem to have equal love for huge waistlines, racing team baseball caps, and talking loud. Really loud. In fact, over the course of the day, I started to suspect that the reason they stopped calling it "EuroDisney" and simply changed it to "Disneyland Paris" is because the former made it too easy to lampoon the park as "EuroTrashDisney." It was like People of Wal-Mart, only we're in Europe. Yet it was all so middle America.

Despite a few chuckles here and there, though, we didn't really mock that much. Yes, I sent out a few snide missives with the #americaFyeah tag throughout the day, but really, we did just have a lot of fun setting aside all the Parisian bullshit pretense and being as American as we could be.

Steampunky Discoveryland

One exception to all the USAiness of Disneyland is Discoveryland, the French version of the woefully outdated Tomorrowland from the original theme park. In a very smart move, Discoveryland is almost completely themed after French sci-fi master Jules Verne's aesthetic – call it Victorian space-age or Steampunk or Art Deco Futuristic. Rather than a stark 1960's-1970's vision of the future, Discoveryland is an almost romantic, dreamy vision of copper and brass and swooping lines and shiny rivets and... Well, it's just pretty. And the adapted version of Space Mountain to go with it is possibly the most awesomely insane roller coaster I've ever been on in my life. Without a single loop or suspended car or stand-up gimmickery, it kicked my ass every which way and then back several times again, combining the classic charm of the original ride with the how-many-Gs-can-you-stand brute force of modern amusements.

Space Mountain – like so many of the things we did – made me giddy all over. And I needed it. We spend so much time in Paris finding the best foods, visiting the coolest galleries, queuing up for sold-out shows, or simply trying to make ends meet. It was liberating to get barely 40 minutes away and suddenly not give a shit. Alannah made fun of me that evening for how I jumped up and down like an excited little kid upon seeing Remy from Ratatouille (or rather, some pimply kid in a furry suit) on one of the parade floats.

I can't remember the last time an exclusive run at an art exhibit or an amuse-gueule at a fancy restaurant made me feel that way. But this is to be expected. Cuz you can take the boy out of America, but you can't take the America out of the boy.

And for one day, all this boy wanted was an ice cold Coke, ballpark quality food, thrill rides and some big fuckin' fireworks. Check.

__
You can see the whole set of Disneyland Paris photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tavallai/sets/72157624305757587/

Everybody's Jumping Everybody Else's Train

Legroom (on the Thalys
from Köln to Paris)

Several years ago, I was interviewed for a USA Today article about why I prefer flying over taking trains within Europe. Young, single, impatient me expounded the virtues of speed and price. Less time in transit meant more time to drink the local libations, after all.

Fast forward to 2010. I'm older. Married. And wiser, though that's debatable. What's not debatable is that flying sucks, almost without exception. If it's not the airlines nickel and diming you, it's the security establishment mocking your sensibilities by putting you through its theatrics.

The 45-minute flight from the aforementioned article now takes at least 4.5 hours door to door, will cost you at least triple in hidden fees and surcharges, and will generally be an unpleasant experience. The 5-hour train ride it was compared to may still be slow despite the greater number of high-speed services, but nowadays, it will likely cost less, make it on time, and allow you to get on board with all of your luggage, your own lunch, and your dignity.

Furthermore, with most rail services being nationally owned (or at least government subsidized), there's little chance you'll be left high and dry by a bankruptcy. You know, like when a group of you book tickets to a bachelor party on a discount Slovak airline, and due to said airline's bankruptcy, leave the bachelor and the best man high and dry in Bratislava. (True story. Ask the assholes at SkyEurope.)

Beyond all that, as I mentioned in last week's post on Hungry Amateurs about eating in London, trains are bringing glamour back to travel. Maybe even a little romance.

A first-class ticket on a high-speed train is certainly nice... Our Eurostar trip to London in late 2008 was an absolute pleasure, however brief, with champagne, lunch served with proper silverware, and chatting with a few dozen of our newest Welsh geezer friends.

Being on a Belgian train network
means big Belgian beers.

But you don't need all that to have a relaxed, comfortable, and leisurely ride through Europe. If you're looking to move about freely, chit chat with other passengers, and even get a little boozy with your honey bunny, I've got two words for you: Bar car.

Not that anyone doesn't know about the bar/snack train that's available on just about every main line in Europe... But on this past weekend's trip from France to Germany and back, we found serious bliss in the bar car.

First, there are often (as is the case on Thalys trains) four sets of quad seats on the bar car. If you can get these seats (and don't mind a bit of noise and passers-by around you), take them. Being with a maximum of 15 other people in the car – and likely no snotty kids – you're better off than even the 60 people per car in first class.

Even if you can't land these seats, don't worry. Hang out in the bar car anyway. If you're paranoid, you can bring your luggage with you, and if you're somewhere in between, you can leave your luggage in the rack at the end of the car, looking up from your Duvel or Leffe or champagne once in a while to make sure it's not gone.

The clusterfuck at Cologne (Köln) Hauptbahnhof after
most regional trains were canceled due to Atlantic
storm Xynthia on 28 February.

Of course, train travel isn't without its share of headaches. While they don't get up in the air, they're also subject to delays and cancellations during storms, what with trees falling on tracks, building materials flying through windows, and snow shorting out entire trains.

Yesterday, for example, our scheduled 4-hour trip from Düsseldorf, Germany to Paris, France (via Cologne, Germany and Brussels, Belgium) took somewhere in the neighborhood of seven hours.  This was due to the massive storm raging all over western Europe, as well as unrelated delays caused by the previous week's head-on commuter train collision in Belgium.

On a plane, this sort of delay would've been a nightmare, an irritation, and a royal bitch all rolled up into one.  But thanks in no small part to the bar car, it was still a pleasure – more time to spend with my squeeze, and with some good beer.

Of course, it was exhausting, so you'll have to wait 'til I recover a bit if you want to know any more about the trip itself.

(My) Metropolis Has Nothing on This

As we hurtled toward our destination, you could hear the thick, icy rain pelting the TGV. This didn't bode well. And although the rain had stopped by the time we hit the terminus, the weather was still bitingly cold and wet when we disembarked at the station.

"I don't understand how it can be so cold and icy here," I said to my wife.

"Paris is south of London, for crying out loud. It should be warmer."

No, really, this is Hyde Park in mid-February

We'd just gotten back from the UK, where it was dryer, sunnier, and – dare I say – the food and drink were better.

Of course, this is all a matter of perspective. Today marks two years that we've been in France, and I've already said many times that it feels like home. As such, you start taking many things for granted, start whining about the things that bother you, and start pining for things that are markedly different. I started noticing this just over a year ago, when I wrote the unimaginable – postulating that beer is cheap in London. Good beer, at that.

My previous trip to the UK was also part of a trip to France, all while still living in San Francisco. Afterward, I wrote a post trying to quantitatively compare the two rivals. It all seems so naïve now, but at the time, I didn't know I'd be living in Paris, just a hop skip and 180km/h jump away.

So I know that I say the following with no authority or consistency whatsoever, and that my perspective will likely change again in less than a year: Food and drink are now better in England.

Warning: Foodie Talk. Skip down to the following heading if you don't care.

The Countless Feasts Laid At My Feet
Now before you get out the torches and pitchforks, I don't buy into the current Michelin brouhaha fueled by Chef Alain Ducasse's statements that London is now the world's fine dining capital. Ducasse is no longer a chef but a businessman, and he likely makes far better margins promoting his UK joints. And Michelin sells more books whenever it stirs the pot. Besides, I can't afford to eat at places like that, so these gastronomic titles are moot.

I furthermore don't believe Michael Steinberger's doomsaying in Au Revoir to All That, a book claiming that French gastronomy is all but dead. There are plenty of innovators on this side of the Channel. It's just that, again, their stuff falls in the budget of Sarkozy-voting suits who don't even live in Paris proper: The suburban nouveau-riche whose kids, ironically, eat at McDonald's and make American-style consumerism appear chic.

So I'll repeat, from the perspective of someone who loves to eat, travel, go out and fully enjoy life, yet also has to deal with a severely limited household income: Eating and drinking is better in London.

Part of this has to do with the near-parity of the Euro and the Pound Sterling. When Alannah and I first came to France on vacation (and wound up really liking it, so much that it was a no-brainer to move here) it was because we knew we could stretch our dollar farther than in the UK. But beyond exchange rates, my newfound appreciation for London has to do with the quality of what's accessible to the common traveler. Or resident.

Two towers of afternoon tea

For less than the price of a barely passable, likely-made-of-frozen-ingredients two-course "meal" at a typical Parisian shithole of a brasserie (a misnomer if ever there was one, as I don't see any beer being brewed locally), we were able to have a fairly regal afternoon tea at the swanky St. Pancras Grand.

Even if we'd thrown in a couple of flutes of champagne, it would've cost less than what passes for a decent lunch at a typical Parisian resto. And St. Pancras Grand is on the high end.

In Paris, if I want to have lunch for less than 8€ ($11), my choices are fast food, pathetic "wok" fare, cockroach-infested Chinese take-out that's been sitting under a sneezeguard for three days, hygenically questionable kebabs, or some inauthentic crêpe made with industrial ham and cheese. Granted, there are some tastier options like boulangerie sandwiches or falafels, but I'm talking about a hot meal that fills you up.

For £7 in London, while you won't eat like a king, you can pick up a best-in-class Fish & Chips or enormously satisfying Pie & Mash, all made freshly with proper ingredients. Maybe even a drink or two. (For a full run-down of what we ate in London, see our food blog Hungry Amateurs: Eating London Out.)

While you can't beat Paris' multitude of outdoor markets – many featuring excellent products – the supermarket is starting to rule the roost, filled with industrial, processed garbage from across the world. London, on the other hand, seems to be having a food renaissance not only in its gastronomic scenes, but even its supermarkets are now replete with a dazzling variety of organic fruit and veg, locally sourced convenience foods (!) and information on responsible consumption. My local Picard, on the other hand, recently patted itself on the back for carrying frozen sushi.

Chugging ale at St. John. The hulking
figure in blue partially behind me is chef
Fergus Henderson.

The real coup de grace, though, was having lunch at St. John. While the maitre d' apologetically informed us that there were no tables available in the dining room for lunch, we were more than happy to order a few pints from the cavernous bar, where the menu overlaps that of the restaurant and comes from the same cooks in the same kitchen. For the same price as mediocre tapas in Paris, Alannah and I shared a few plates of fantastic, beautifully interpreted, and – yes – Michelin-starred renditions of classic British food. (Again, I don't hang out in that strata, but why not grab it when you can?)

I oohed and ahhed and licked my fingers and sucked the marrow out of bones and savored slices of ox heart and enjoyed the housemade whole wheat bread, vowing that we'd come back each time we're back in London.

All that and we were able to wash down our lunch with multiple pints of hand-pumped real ale, with no silly fancypants markup or that-doesn't-pair-with-your-meal scowling from the waitstaff.

And as much as I love a good wine (I'm polishing off a bottle of Gaillac as I write this), it's refreshing to go somewhere it's not frowned upon to have beer with your sit-down meal.

This is More Than a Party
While the English may be known for binge-drinking, it's also obvious that the wide availability of good drink makes for a more convivial atmosphere in general. Even if you're not a drinker, there's a happy vibe to a warm pub, a cozy booth, or a concert where they're not gouging you at the door or jostling you on the floor.

Happy just to be here!

When it was announced that Depeche Mode would be headlining this year's Teenage Cancer Trust charity show at the Royal Albert Hall, I told Alannah I'd sacrifice going to their Paris shows to come to this one – if I could score tickets. I did, it coincided with our wedding anniversary, and we agreed that a smaller, more historical venue like the RAH would be more romantic than a giant box like the Palais Omnisports de Bercy anyway. Score another for London.

Needless to say, the show was Depeche Mode's best in decades, notably due to the brief but triumphant return of Alan Wilder. (HD video of the best moment of the show here.) Throw in a string section, an intimate venue, and all of it being done for a very good cause, and it made for a special night indeed.

There's no point to comparing this to any night out in our homebase, but overall, I haven't been incredibly happy with the live music scene in Paris. Poor ticketing services/alerts, overpriced tickets, overpriced drinks, overcrowded venues, and an over-coked-up crowd (probably because drinks cost so much) make for lousy nights out, which is painful for a music junkie. While London concerts aren't immune to these problems, I simply find it easier to have a big night out over there.

Another Hole to Feed
Besides eating and drinking, one of the things I've learned to love in London is shopping. Despite my anti-consumerist leanings, I still like... stuff. And thanks to France's boutique culture of highly curated items, shopping can be a bit frustrating here.

Alannah made the Martin Gore style hat.
I made the giant scarf. All in my fave color.

For example, I recently got into knitting. This is actually good for my anti-consumerism, because it means I've started on the path to creating my own clothes. To some extent. It's bad, though, in that I now obsess over finding the right yarn for a project. (I can thank Alannah for turning me on to this neurosis... Thanks, honey.) Unfortunately, yarn stores in Paris – even the highly-touted Droguerie right in our neighborhood – carry a limited selection of what they find appealing or is trendy enough to sell. And because no one likes taking risks in this culture, every damn mercerie carries the same limited yarns. What's the fucking point? Who's dick do I have to suck to get a skein of Debbie Bliss "Como" cashmere-merino yarn?

So yeah, thanks to being turned on to knitting, I'm now one of those assholes who goes to London to shop. I couldn't believe I was telling the lady at the fantastic and charming Loop (Islington) that we were going to come back from Paris more often to shop there. She even gave me a loyalty card.

Again, I'm not loaded. But when I do choose to shop, I'm going to go where there's good pricing and variety and quality of product. (And before you get on my case about buying locally, most of the textiles at the grands magasins are Made in China synthetic blends.)

We even did a huge duffel bag's worth of grocery shopping in London, since not even the hippy organic stores here carry certain vegetables like kale. (Which grows like a weed in continental Europe... WTF, man?)

Feels Like Home – I Should Have Known From the First Breath
With that cold blast of the icy Paris air filling my nostrils on the Eurostar platform at Gare du Nord, I smelled that I was home. Paris has a particular scent to it – a moistness mingling with the faint scent of baking bread and stale cigarette smoke. It's "the Paris scent" as far as I'm concerned, and I find I long for it whenever I've been away for too long.

As much as I complain and always see the grass being greener on the other side, it's magnificent living somewhere that not only everyone wants to visit (for very good reason), but that I actually do love on a daily basis. Whose smells I love. Whose sounds I love. Whose irritating idiosyncracies I love, much like the quirks of any loved one.

Even being away for only four days, I missed baguettes. I missed being able to blindly pick a wine and pretty much never go wrong. I missed our local market people (even if they don't have kale). I even missed, believe it or not, the Métro. (Though not the craptacular Ligne 13. Nique la motherfucking Ligne 13!)

We've become so Parisian, in fact, that everywhere we went in London, we were surrounded by French speakers. At our B&B, at nearly every pub, at half the restaurants. Then Alannah had an epiphany: "We now are French tourists!"

Now that both of us have our residency cards, root for the French rugby team, and feign indifference with the best of them, we've become pretty integrated. But as I went to yet another mediocre lunch during work today, walking past the skinny undersized cans of fizzy yellow Kronenbourg in the beverage section, I really missed the chippie and the pub. And the gigantic serving of Welsh rarebit at St. John. *sigh*


Side note: Yes, all the headings in this post are Depeche Mode lyrics, as I still can't get over how awesome that show was. And yes, I did take my wife to see my favorite band during our anniversary holiday. And she sang along to every song. Except for the kinda boring ones where we went and chugged Old Speckled Hen. For less than the price of a soda in Paris, naturally.

SantaConneries

While for me I don't feel that writing about France is so much writing about being in a foreign country anymore as it is about writing about what I now consider my home, there are times that I feel like I'm in an alien land.

Take this last weekend's SantaCon, for example.  Santa Sparkle and I prefer to Frenchify it and call it "SantaConnerie." Not because we're calling for the sainthood of Sean Connery. He's already a knight, for crying out loud... but the French word derived from con, meaning "idiot," and its inherited form connerie, meaning "shit only a goddamn idiot would do." Because, to us, SantaCon is about going out en masse and getting stupid. While fueled on liquor. And, well, there was plenty of that. But there were also plenty of those alienating things that you'd think I'd be used to by now.

Let's rewind to last year, SantaCon Paris 2008. Here are some pictures. Really tame, right? It was mellow, and we Yanks were the only ones to show up with flasks, but it was pleasant – we really did roam around Paris spreading holiday cheer. It was almost naïve and innocent, and while not at all what we expected, we liked this nicety-nice version of SantaCon. Even if it wasn't the booze-fueled anarchic mayhem we're accustomed to.

So it was nice to see earlier promotion this year, and more people showing interest, with the Facebook page gathering more "Will Attends" in the first month than we had in total last year.  And suddenly it really grew. With a new flyer design and a few promotional videos (ummm, okay) there were hundreds interested in joining the fun. Was this going to be the Naughty version we'd left in our beloved San Francisco? Or was it going to be like last year's Nice version we'd come to like, only on a larger scale?

So once you get past the cheesy ending (sorry, sometimes I can't help myself, but I wanted an excuse to use some slappin' bass), did you see anything else wrong with the picture?

Let's start with the Santa pageant. Or whatever the fuck that was. While Santas participating in SantaCon are encouraged to come up with a Santa "persona," and there were certainly some admirably creative ones, it's meant to be a group movement. In no past SantaCon have we highlighted individuals, but celebrated our coming together en masse to delight, surprise, and sometimes disgust passersby. The eventual winner of "Miss SantaCon" had invited Sparkle to come out and participate, but she refused on principle. As she kept asking me during the whole timefuck, "When are we going to start drinking?"

Luckily that was a rhetorical question. Santa Black and Santa Sparkle, like all good bad Santas, came equipped with flasks. Again, we were the only ones, but I'll chalk that up to something Paris does better: There's no open container law here, so you don't have to hide your hooch... Still, a flask (or two or three) is SantaCon tradition, god dammit.

What was wrong in the beverage department was the Red Bull. While I'm not opposed to the taurine-powered mixer (it is a MIXER, not a drink on its own), I was appalled to see two women in Red Bull jackets carrying a portable Red Bull-branded cooler, handing out the little silver cylinders of energy drink. Last I remember, Santarchy began as a cheeky rebellion against commercialization. Here, people were glad to suck the corporate dick 60ml can.

The over-organized march was fine. While extremely lacking in drink stops, it brought a distinctly French flavor to SantaCon: That of the grève, or strike, if you will. Striking is ingrained into French culture, and it was actually a ton of fun turning typical strike chants into Santa-related mockery. Liberez les sapins !  Liberez les lutins !  Liberez [whatever we happened to be passing by]!  Taking over a Left Bank boulevard was pretty awesome, too. But would anyone have had the cojones to do it if we didn't have a police escort?

When we finally did stop at a bar – one of many same-ol' same-ol' Anglo-Saxon themed pubs throughout Paris – at least there was a drink special on hand, helping the lightweights around us get wasted.

We got moving again, on to the crescendo that was Notre Dame, and in all spent a couple of hours dicking around before the second and (what... the... fuck...) last bar stop. Worse off, at another English pub (ok, the first was Scottish) in our very own neighborhood that Sparkle and I don't particularly like.  We'd been there before for the Couchsurfing pub quiz on Monday nights and decided that we hate The Lions. The bartenders are slow, don't know how to manage a crowd, and spend more time chatting with their buddies than doing their job.

"Wait," you might say if you're familiar with SantaCon. "Why did you go there? Why didn't you just storm another bar?"

Well, Sparkle and I did (the much more locals-oriented Le Tambour down the street), and didn't look back. The real trouble with the Lions wasn't the Lions itself: It's shitty, but it's roomy. No, it became clear that we were led to a Couchsurfing spot, by Couchsurfing people, catering to a Couchsurfing crowd.

Let me iterate, I like Couchsurfing. It's a good organization (despite some dickheads trying to turn it into a for-profit venture a while back) and makes for fantastic networking. But to be led at the end of the evening to their shit hangout to get shit service at shit prices... What. The. Fuck.

You may as well have hung up a Couchsurfing banner over Place Monge where we met up. Oh, what? Someone was wearing one as a cape? You don't say...

The trouble here is that SantaCon isn't supposed to be owned, sponsored, or cater particularly to anyone. It was born of an anarchic spirit of self-expression and anti-commercialization, to bring joie de vivre back to the now long fucked-over holidays. How that's expressed is entirely up to the city and the crowd participating in it, but for the love of Saint Nick, do it as differently as you want, but remember what it's all about.

Now I'm not claiming San Francisco's superiority. While I'll stand by the statement that we are the world champions of drinking, SantaCon SF started to lose its way a few years ago, starting with its advertising of the event (again, WTF!?) on a douchebag nightlife web site. I won't mention any names, but it rhymes with ViteNibe. There are now three official routes, and many official bars. Can I say "WTF!?" again?

Back in my day, there was a starting point, a rough ending point, and every bar along the (not particularly rigid) route was ripe for an unannounced invasion. Some bartenders didn't like it. Some welcomed the opportunity to do a week's worth of business in less than an hour.

But don't take this as a curmudgeonly gripe. My crankiness comes from nothing more than misplaced hope. I was hoping that with SantaCon Paris being a relative toddler on the global scene, it could bring back some of the anarchic, free-for-all spirit of the old days. Channeling the soixante-huitards and Théatre de l'Absurde into one glorious day. A haven for the slightly surly but loving Santa in all of us, who's both a mean drunk and a genuinely fun person to be around.

In the process of editing the video above, I received a friendly note from one of the organizers, who's got no problem with my gripes. This rundown is a bit more developed than my Tweets and status updates to which he was responding, and potentially more inflammatory.  (Just in case it isn't inflammatory enough: FUCK YOUR LIONS PUB.)

BUT... We'll be back again, flasks in hand, regardless of how over-organized or over-commercialized it may get. No one can crush these two Santas' spirits. After all, we'll full of 'em.

Foreigners Who Don't Drive Me Batty

Anyone familiar with me (or this blog) knows that I don't have a great love for most of my fellow American expats in Paris.

If meeting at an Irish pub and speaking exclusively in English about how much you hate overpaying for Oreos while sipping overpriced, past-its-date Guinness is your thing, fine. Go do it. Just don't do it in my company. And preferably nowhere near my charming little neighborhood. I didn't move here to hang out with the Marina choads who work in the Fi-Di, thankyouverymuch. (That'd be a San Francisco reference to the vile popped-collar scum who undeservedly get the most overseas working opportunities.)

So it was with a little apprehension that I finally gave in and went to my first Polyglot event. The wife and I have both been meaning to hit up one of these language exchange meet-ups held at a local bar, but having been turned off by the douchebaggery at most other conglomerations of étrangers à Paris, we balked. Self-hatred? A desire to break free of our former lives? No. As Alannah pointed out over lunch today, we consider ourselves - rather unlike the type we keep away from - immigrants. Not expats. Not foreign workers. Not a couple on extended vacation. But a couple of people who have moved to another country - most probably for good - who would like to integrate a bit and make local friends.

That's a tough gig in a socially insular place like Paris, but I think we've found a gathering that's just our style. For the people who sign up for a group like Polyglot seem to have a genuine interest in learning other languages and cultures. Sure, there are plenty of other 'Murrikans who show up – but they've come to improve their French. Or Spanish. Or Japanese. And it's not just Americans and French. There are Chinese, Iranian, Australian... to name a few.

Over the course of a few hours I had conversations in many of the languages I know (or would like to know), taught and learned various turns of phrase, and - OMGWTF - met actual Parisians who were as interested in what others had to say as they were with grabbing their next verre. In fact, more so.

If anything, I felt like the town drunk having two big steins of beer. But as I said, I was a bit timid about this whole affair at first.

While there's definitely some emphasis on socializing and having a little glass of something as social lubricant, it was refreshing to be around people interested in sharing. Not business networking. Not getting laid. Not whining about how no one at the market speaks English. (Although I'm certain a little bit of all that takes place as well...)

Although neither of us were social butterflies making the rounds, we met a fistful of cool, interesting people... And even made new friends. In fact, when a couple of guys found out we're really into food and cooking, they insisted on having a dinner party to introduce us to their "real home cooking."

The revelation isn't from previously thinking that such people didn't exist... Through the friends that we've already made we know damn well that there are friendly, welcoming Parisians who are as happy to lend you a hand as they are to go party with you. It's just that - even as locals will tell you - the social life here can be a very tough nut to crack. And thanks to a community of the linguistically curious, we've just started to tap a few more fissures into the shell. Tap tap tap...

Des Américains à Paris

Looking through the New York Times web site before the weekend, I found an article about an American festival in Paris. Figuring Sunday was set to be a gorgeous day, I proposed the idea of hitting up the festival to Alannah, who then told another American friend about it, who then brought a couple of her visiting American friends. What better place for a bunch of Americans in Paris to gravitate that, well, a festival called "Americans in Paris?"

Upon arriving at the Jardin d'Acclimatation - the part of the massive Bois de Boulogne where the festival was held - we were greeted by a gigantic poster of Uncle Sam, complete with a stars-n-stripes mushroom cloud behind him. And on his lapel, a button with the same mushroom cloud figure. "WE [NUKE] YOU" ???


All joking aside, it's actually the Jardin d'Acclimatation's oak tree logo, and their slogan is "WE [OAK TREE] YOU." Alannah had noticed this in the event program before we even went. But one has to admit, the whole mushroom cloud seems much more appropriate for the finger-wagging Uncle Sam.

We entered the park grounds, passing a small jazz quartet along the way (jazz is heavily acquainted with America here, and why not?), went through the ticket booths (a whopping 2€70 admission), and came upon what I could only call Main Street U.S.A. Only without the Main Street Electrical Parade. And instead, a shit-ton of non-sensical highway signs. In French eyes, this is what the great American open road looks like: A clusterfuck of signage, yellow cabs, and yellow school buses. And surprisingly, no other Americans.

Despite the fact that the Jardin borders Neuilly-sur-Seine, the America-lovin', expat-filled suburb nicknamed Sarkoville after President Nicolas "Sarko the Américain" Sarkozy - I didn't hear any other brassy-accented, flat-voweled English other than our little group's.


Alannah and I looked around in awe at what Parisians consider typical American. For the most part, they're dead on. Stands selling stuff you can't typically get here, like bagels, pancakes, brownies, and dirty-water hot dogs. (Most hot dogs here are baked into a bun, kind of like a baguettey bagel dog.)

There were tee-pees, because even though we've swept the indigenous population under the rug with a bottle of firewater and a trinket industry for company, American Indian imagery still weighs heavily on this side of the ocean as part of what America "is." Although they often misapply it in that National Geographic speculative anthropology kind of way that is respectfully interested but horribly off-base. The popular Indiana Café chain, for example, boasts a Cherokee headdress logo, serves Tex-Mex food, and - well - is freakin' called Indiana. Three things that have nothing to do with each other. Then there's the Buffalo Grill chain, which romanticizes the Wild West and Buffalo Bill, who happily sits side-by-side with figures of the very people he was out to terminate. But I digress...

Our first stop was to get a souvenir photo of Alannah inside a cutout of the signature American cultural export: Coca-Cola. This act epitomized exactly why we came: Seriously cheese-dick fun. Despite the fact that we're both food freaks who abhor high fructose corn syrup, we've become enamored with Coke since moving here. Not for nostalgia's sake, but because like Mexican Coke, it's made with real sugar here. It's sad when the American stuff abroad is more authentic than the American stuff in America, n'est-ce pas? (We've also come to appreciate *shiver* McDonald's, but perhaps because it's the only place you can get a burger for less than 10€.)

Looking around further, there wasn't much American stuff that I've been longing for. The pecan pie on display at one booth looked terrible. There were no chili dogs, fried chicken, or funnel cakes to be found. In fact, if you're an American in Paris missing food from back home, this festival had to be about the lamest place.

Despite the disappointed tummy, however, there was plenty to amuse.

We spent a good amount of time watching a local acrobatic basketball team called Crazy Dunkers. Because nothing says America like getting above the rim and dunking over some little kid. I mean, literally...


There were all the rides and zoo animals that make the Jardin d'Acclimatation a fun place for the family even when it hasn't been invaded by an American festival. ESPN America (which is the European version of ESPN... whaaa?) had set up batting cages. Little French kids donned American football helmets and did their best to knock down a tackling dummy.

And, of course, there was something to remind me that even I bleed a little bit of Red, White, and Blue: Cheerleaders. Or as they're called here in France, "Pom-Pom Girls." (Which, sadly, doesn't acknowledge the growing number of male cheerleaders, whom I don't personally find as aesthetically pleasing, but equally important in the college sports scene.) At any rate, instead of hearing me muse about gender equality in sports and spirit activities, I'm sure there's more interest in a picture, huh?


Overall, it was great fun, seriously aided by the gorgeous spring weather. I would've liked there to have been more stuff representing the America I know. I mean, besides a Marines recruiter preying on GED candidates or Toby fuckin' Keith. I mean things like California wines. Texas BBQ. Pacific Northwest beer. Humboldt county blue-haired bud. Ok, maybe that's pushing it. But instead of the stereotypes and booths from mediocre local expat businesses who are nothing but the colloquial "epic fail," I'd love to see bits of "real" American goods and culture. I'm sure most Parisians know that the USA is more than hot dogs, bagels, and Barack Obama posters by street artists. (Although all of those are A-OK by me.) Just as France isn't all baguettes, wine, cheese and nudie flicks (although there's plenty of that to go around), America is more than junk food and compensatory projection of military power.

Then again, witnessing the massive (in both ways) American family in front of us on the Métro Ligne 1 between the Bois du Boulogne and our neighborhood, dressed like they just ransacked a Super Wal-Mart, barely able to talk without spitting bits of unchewed food, and unable to stand on the train without knocking people over with their kielbasa-fingered fists... Perhaps many French rightly have a lousy impression of us.

50 more photos available in this Flickr set... yes, including more cheerleader photos.

Back in the Saddle

I haven't written in months.

At first I thought it was from the old theory that there's no better way to rob the joy out of what you love doing than... doing it for a living. After all, I'm primarily a writer now, and I spend all day looking at words. Either my own half-formed ones, or those of others - trying to find inspiration. If I'm focused on spinning words into digestible (or, rather, marketable) fluff for the tech masses, I probably don't want to come home and stare at my notebook or blinking cursor.

But then I realized, no, that's not the case. I still spend plenty of time writing invective against right-wing blowhards and musing about music and food on various social media sites. And more and more often in French!

In fact, come to think of it, I've been writing plenty. Just not here. Because back in 2005, I set this up to write about my travels. And since moving to Paris a year ago, I haven't really been traveling. One year in a continent where different languages, cultures, and food and drink are within a couple of hours by train or plane... and I've only been to Italy and England. Oh, and Montpellier, which might as well be another country.

To be honest, it's been a bit frustrating. One of the draws of moving here was this ability to go in any direction and wind up practicing my Spanish or German or Dutch or... you get the picture. But the reality is, despite having a lot of expenses covered and some cash saved up, moving overseas has hit the pocketbook hard. We moved a good amount of stuff, but once we finally found an apartment, had to buy even more. Also, things are just generally more expensive here. Books. Clothes. Dinners out. Drinks. A show at a small club. Then there's the pesky fact that we're now a couple on a single income.

The quality of life is high in Paris. Unfortunately, so is the cost.

I have, however, found a way around it all. And it's not in any Europe-On-a-Shoestring or Paris-pas-Cher guidebook. Nope. It's about something you can't find on a bookshelf or any web site. It's called... mojo.

That's right, baby, I've got my mojo back. Those who've known me for a long time know that I'm a fucking winner. As in, I have this uncanny knack for winning contests. It's not skill. It's not timing. I just win stuff. And there is a lot of shit to win in Paris.

A few weeks ago, I got a call on my mobile while I was at work. "Is this Omid?" asked the woman's voice on the other end. "If you're free on the 17th of March, you've won two tickets for the Tina Turner concert at Bercy."

Now, I wouldn't be picked out of the crowd as a big Tina Turner fan. I know her catalogue, I respect her as an artist, and no self-respecting Child of the 80's would deny having bopped his/her feathered head to her music as a youngin'. And hell, I actually was interested when I saw the poster advertising the show... Until I saw the €136 pricetag on the tickets. That's PER ticket. Convert that to dollars, and we're talking Madonna or Barbra Streisand-like extortion.

But for free? Hell yes!

So there we were, a poor-ass, single-income couple of unsophisticated 'Merkins, sitting amongst Parisian celebrities in what must've been the VIP area, with the hoi polloi occasionally coming up to snap pictures of the stars I couldn't even begin to recognize. Ok, I think one guy hosts a TV show, and another one was a French rock star, but honestly, I simply haven't assimilated enough to know. Then Tina came out, shimmying around the stage and belting out hit after hit. Call me an old bastard, but I fully enjoyed it. The old songs; the costume changes; the Mad Max set; the ridiculous Goldeneye set; explosions; the intermission where, out by the bar and toilets, I saw the largest gathering of middle-aged gay men since my old co-worker's Tony Awards party. All just three metro stops away... and after the quick ride home, Alannah and I said to each other, "We've got to win more contests."

And so we did. Last week, Alannah got an email from the folks at the recently opened Forum des Images saying that she'd won an invitation to the "Toi & Moi" party. Come as a pair, dressed as your favorite movie couple, be photographed red carpet-style, blah, blah, win prizes, blah, blah, chocolates to snack on, blah, blah, open bar. Open bar? Why didn't they say that earlier?

And thus we went, dressed up as Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction. Not super creative, but I have long hair and John Travolta's paunch, and getting the necessary hair dye, fake pistol, and bola tie fit our miniscule budget.


Yes, I know they weren't a couple, but there was plenty of sexual tension, OK? Besides, a lot of other couples came as completely incongruent stuff - like Darth Vader and Catwoman. Or Wayne and Garth. (Last I checked, neither of those pairs were havin' relations...)

Through the course of the night, we consumed well over a bottle's worth of whiskey each. Which broke down Alannah's language barrier a bit, since she pretty much wound up talking to everyone, despite her minimal French. And making out with the hot bartender. (Girl bartender, that is.)

And she's not one to do that type of thing. [Mental note: Buy more whiskey.]

Alannah claims that the bartender was the aggressor, but the pics tell me otherwise. (Sorry, she hasn't posted them to Flickr yet.) While I wasn't up to quite the same shenanigans, my Vincent did find his Jules. And no, we did not play tonsil hockey.


We were well beyond crusty the day after. But I survived my day at work. And Alannah survived her evening of training for the organization she's volunteering with. I work. She volunteers, works on her French, and makes friends with all the local merchants so we're always in fresh produce and fish and meat. And together, we win.

This evening, after work, I swung by the Lazy Dog Gallery to pick up a new special-edition Swatch designed by rapper/artist Grems. Along with it, a nice print of his work for this project, as well as a couple of wristbands for the launch party/concert at La Scène Bastille. It'd be a bit gauche to discuss the retail value of this package, but let's just say I can not afford it. But that's ok, because I won it in a contest yesterday.

To celebrate our great luck (as if that's necessary), we stopped by our favorite wine bar for un verre ou deux... then brought home 10 litres of the stuff so we can have some with the fantastically fresh food Alannah had picked up at the local open-air markets earlier in the day.

We have no need to buy bottles of wine regularly anymore. We do it old school, filling up two 5L jugs of small-producer wine straight from the cask at the beginning of the month.

We've made friends with our next-door neighbor, everyone at the bar downstairs, and the guy who owns the boutique next door.

I've traded in taking the metro for riding the bus to/from work. It's a bit slower, but it's less crowded, more reliable, and I can get more reading done without the interruption of changing stations.

And I've just booked a pair of train tickets for a short break in Luxembourg.

I think it's safe to say I've found my groove.

In Defense of Arby's

In the past, I've slammed Arby's. Despite my friend Ed's insistence that their roast beef is worthy of sleeping with (or in, as he often says), I find their food to be nothing short of disgusting. While there was a time when I liked their 5-for-$5 special out of fiscal necessity, I would never say that I loved their food. I have, however, been able to tolerate their Chicken Cordon Bleu sandwich, if only because it's one of the few items not made from their iridescent green sheets of "roast beef."

Alas, today I had a revelatory dining experience that proved that Arby's Chicken Cordon Bleu is - believe it or not - the real deal.

At the company cafeteria, I lined up at the first hot plat (not entrée) station and ordered myself the aforementioned poulet Cordon Bleu, along with a side of mashed potatoes and ratatouille. Not because I was particular craving any of those, but because it was the cheap option (2€50) that I've come to appreciate, what with France's rapidly rising food prices.

I've probably written about it before: The cafeteria food is actually not bad at all. I'll actually eat the andouillete (tripe sausage) and ultra-rare meats on offer just as easily I would at a decent restaurant. While my ethnic palate demands regular doctoring with Tabasco, chili pepper flakes, or garlic powder, the quality is at least pretty good.

Taking that into consideration, I was a bit shocked that my Chicken Cordon Bleu tasted exactly as it has at countless banquet dinners in American hotel ballrooms, dinners at friends' houses in Middle America, and... you guessed it... Arby's.

So while my company cafeteria isn't the paragon of fine dining, they at least get the French dishes right (and the Mexican and Asian dishes sooooo wrong), so if the Cordon Bleu here tastes the way it does, then - by golly - there's one dish out there that my star-spangled countrymen are actually enjoying as it was meant to be.

Now maybe I should run over to a cafeteria in the Ukraine to see if "Chicken Kiev" is all it's cracked up to be.

(Note: I'm well aware that Chicken Kieve is not actually Ukrainian.)

We Gonna Rock Down To... Electric Avenue

I was on the Métro on the way to work this morning when the lighting blinked out and with that movie-like "powering down" hum, the electrically-powered train came to a grinding halt. This is sadly quite normal on the infamous Ligne 13 (reputedly the worst line in an otherwise great transit system), but I couldn't help but think, "Hmm, maybe somebody accidentally drilled into a power cable!"

Because that's what I did yesterday.

As if hitting myself with a nice jolt of lightning-juice while installing a medicine cabinet last week wasn't lesson enough, I went back for another taste of 240V goodness. Luckily, this time, I was saved from any pain by the sturdy construction of the trusty Ryobi cordless drill. In fact, the drill transmitted no shock and just kept on going, despite the shower of sparks produced by piercing through the plaster wall and striking gold copper wire.

The metallic-smelling electrical smoke wafted through the now-darkened air (after all, I'd knocked out the power by, you know, drilling right into it) and I heard a commotion down on the street below us. I feared for the worst: That I'd knocked out power for our whole block (which is populated by a gazillion popular restaurants), or at least our whole building, which is home to a popular bar downstairs. Soon the crowds would be rallying, wielding pitchforks and torches and readying the National Razor for my arrival. Does the mandatory renter's insurance cover decapitation by reason of power outage?

By the time I made it down to the ground floor, though, I heard music from below and discovered I'd just tripped the circuit breaker. All was still well in Bricolage-land, aside from me being a little rattled, and Alannah being very rattled on my behalf. (Thank you, honey, for having the useful, self-preserving sense of danger that I apparently lack.)

I immediately made my 9th trip to Leroy-Merlin in 3 days to pick up something I should've bought much sooner: A stud/wiring detector. Unfortunately, the only one they carry is some cheap made-in-China piece of shit that has to be held at a precise angle in proper alignment with the sun while the Atlantic coast is at low tide, but it worked, and we were able to finish putting up our kitchen cabinet.

Yes, all this drama was for a kitchen cabinet. But dammit, it looks gooooooood.

Besides, I needed a little excitement in my day. In lieu of work, my Monday was spent with my ass planted in a back-breaking classroom chair in the craptacular suburb of Nanterre for eight hours, learning all about my rights and responsibilities as a resident of France. It was mildly entertaining at best, and wouldn't have been tolerable if the instructor wasn't so damn pretty.

And with that, I now have a certificate saying I've completed my formation civique, meaning I have completed the last step of French residency paperwork.

Now if only I can get certified in not getting myself electrocuted.

Our House, In the Middle of the Street

It's been over two weeks since the last update: That's about how long I've been in our new place, and about how long I've been without my own internet connection... apologies for the delay.

It's with absolutely no sadness that we moved out from our last (and final) temporary apartment. Sure, we'll miss how utterly colorful it is, how friendly the shopkeepers around us always were, and the easy access to cheap ethnic food. But we won't miss the five flights of stairs, the utter lack of space, and what we've decided should be called The Worst Sofa Bed in the World. As in a proper noun. Because it won that title handily.

If we do feel like taking a stroll down Memory Lane, however, the old 'hood is only about five minutes away... This made moving in very simple. So did the fact that we had very little to bring with us. Which meant that our poor little new apartment was very, very empty.

On the upside, we live in what should be is known as The Coolest Neighborhood in Paris. Just north of the dead center of town is the 2nd arrondissement - the city's smallest - much of it cris-crossed by pedestrianized streets made of cobblestone. The neighborhood oozes the kind of charm you'd typically only see in movies, but thankfully isn't infested by tourists and loud-talking expats like the nearby Marais, where trendy, overpaid Americans are gentrifying a formerly charming, traditionally Jewish/gay neighborhood.  In fact, the relocation guides and expat survival manuals don't even mention our neighborhood, unless it's to mention that it's dead and nothing goes on here, instead directing them straight to the Marais.  Either they're trying to keep things cool, or the expat community here is as unhip as I've always suspected...

No matter. I avoid hanging out with fellow Yanks as much as possible. Except for the one I'm married to, of course. After seven months of marriage, we finally have what we can consider our own home. We're renters, mind you, but we co-habitated maybe a grand total of 12 days before tying the knot, then started the cycle of moving from temporary to temporary like a pair of well-heeled vagabonds. Actually having our own place and making it ours is a new adventure.

The apartment is a triplex, which means it's a three-story unit. Of course, it's a very tiny three-story place (officially only 30 sq.m or 320 sq.ft), with each floor being almost half the typical height (just over six feet), sets of stairs on either side of the place, and tall windows running up along the front of it.  We decided immediately to name it... The Antfarm!

After sleeping on The Worst Sofa Bed in the World for 3.5 weeks, the prospect of sleeping on the wooden floor of the bedroom didn't sound very appealing. We'd already ordered a bed weeks before, but delivery wouldn't happen for a couple more days.  Fortunately, I'd budgeted a huge amount of money for furnishing the place (we sold most of ours in the US), so I was ready to throw down a good chunk for a sofa bed for the living room. We could sleep on that for a few days, no problem...  Even more fortunately, before we were internet-challenged, Alannah had found the sofa I fell in love with at Habitat for over 1000€ less on Craigslist...  

And most fortunate of all, I had a buddy in town on business who was so bored, he helped us move it!  Six flights of stairs (four down, two up), a few crushed appendages, six blocks of pushing an upright couch on a furniture dolly through Parisian traffic, and about five hundred confused-onlooker stares later, we were the proud owners of a couch The Heaviest Sofa Bed in the World. Josh and his wife are now permanently invited to come stay with us anytime they want to come to Paris.

With no idea when our furnitureless shipment of belongings will finally be delivered, an empty apartment, and a lot of time on her hands, Alannah has gotten really good at something: Shopping.

I kid. And I want to make it crystal clear that Alannah's not some shopping-machine housewife, joining some "Ladies Who Lunch" club and spending our single income into oblivion. If anything, she's much more sensible than I am when it comes to the household finances, and she's only been buying what we've agreed is necessary. Or awesome.

I've joked around that she's following the footsteps of Julia Child - marrying, moving to France because of her husband's job, getting to know the same places - and sometimes it really does seem to be the case. As Ms. Child did many years ago, Alannah has now befriended the staff at nearby E. Dehillerin, Paris' ultimate restaurant/cooking store. Every time we walk by there, I ask her, "Do you want to go see your dealer?" referring to the stacks and stacks of culinary goodness within. But as much as she loves kitchen implements (as do I) she has been remarkably restrained, and only purchased a few things. Luckily, I'm at the office all day when these magical cooking places of the old Les Halles area are open, for I'd probably be bankrupting us on copper-core pots and whiz-bang gadgets. 

Besides high-quality kitchen goodies, she's (we've) found another addiction: Power tools.  

The French term bricolage refers to do-it-yourself, and a DIY junkie is called a bricoleur. Paris is chock-full of bricoleurs. In a city with sky-high rents, you'd think apartments would come equipped... but they don't. They're typically just a shell waiting to be filled, improved, renovated, and - by the end of your three year lease - made livable. 

Knowing that we'd be doing a lot of bricolage, Alannah started bringing home power tools as though adopting puppies to save them from being put to sleep. And I love her all the more for it.  A Dremel, a cordless drill, a cordless sander, a cordless jigsaw... She's indulging my fantasy of being a younger, better-looking Bob Villa, and our place is rapidly becoming a home because of it.

We've now spent a small fortune at Leroy-Merlin (the European equivalent of Home Depot) and BHV (the glitzy Right Bank department store that happens to have the most amazing hardware selection in the world), rationalizing that with a shit-ton of tools and hardware, we can build anything. Instead of buying everything, we'll do much better in the long run being able to make things ourselves. "Teach a man to fish..." You get the picture.

And thus began our first weekend of bricolage. Project I: Mounting the TV.

Huh? What TV? Considering the insane amount of money we saved by buying our sofa via Craigslist, I determined there was room enough in our budget to buy a big TV. And big TVs need to be mounted on walls.

So, as opposed to partying the night away, Saturday evening was spent firing up the drill, marking up the wall above the mantle, and putting up a TV wall mount. I hope the TV outlives its extended warranty, because this sucker ain't moving. I was wondering, when I bought my box full of drill bits, why each set comes with more masonry bits than anything else. That's because Parisian walls are generally either stone or plaster, with the occasional petrified beam of wood that's older than the United States. For example, our building dates back to at least the 18th Century, and is on a street named after a baker... in the 14th Century. This pretty much guarantees that I will almost never be dealing with drywall or 2x4s ever again. Anyway, a building so old and beautiful deserves a TV as elegant and timeless in design. Needless to say, we'll be eating macaroni and cheese for dinner for the rest of the month. Or really cheap noodles in Japantown, which is how we rewarded ourselves for a job well done that night.

Sunday morning called for an early rise, so we could run over to Galeries Lafayette's "Maison" store to beat the crowds and get a jump on the rare sale prices on designer household goods there. The object of my desire: A Miele vacuum cleaner, marked down to less than the price of a sucktacular (pun intended) Hoover.

The lady and I have joked about it many times - that like Will Ferrell in Old School, marriage has emasculated me. To quote the film "Well, um, actually a pretty nice little Saturday, we're going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed Bath and Beyond... I don't know if we'll have enough time." Habitual readers of this blog will probably agree. "Where's all the fun stuff about being abroad?" you may ask. "What happened to partying all night with Latinas and a liquid breakfast with Scandinavian blondes?"

To which I say... things are still hotter abroad. Especially the electricity.

Unlike the pussy-ass US and Japan and much of the "New World," electricity runs at 240V here, double the voltage in the aforementioned nations of wussdom. It's enough to stop your heart with a single, well-placed jolt, so it's extremely important to be extra judicious with any electrical projects.

Take, for example, the installation of a lighted medicine cabinet (which itself has an auxiliary power outlet for plugging in appliances like hair dryers or curling irons - if you're into that sort of thing). This is the next task we undertook on Sunday, hoping to fill the ugly, empty area that was heretofore occupied by our travel toiletries bags. At first, this was not unlike mounting the TV the night before. Some measuring, drilling of supports... In fact, this was much easier, because instead of drilling into solid rock, it was only several centimeters of plaster. After all, there's a bunch of electrical wiring running behind there. Needless to say, we shut off the circuit breaker while doing this work. The tricky part was the wiring itself. Stripping and stretching ancient wiring is no fun to begin with. And trying to screw it into a small junction box is still a bit stressful, even knowing full well that the power is shut off. Overall, though, it wasn't too difficult, and everything was hooked up and on the up-and-up for the final mounting. We proved this by turning the circuit breaker back on and lighting the puppy up. I started preparing to lift and mount the medicine cabinet by checking the wall mounts, the mounts on the cabinet itself, and the positioning of the electrical junc---BZZZZZZZZT! Fuck! God dammit! Ahh! Alannah dropped what she was doing to see if I was still alive. Somehow, despite pressing down on one of the metal contacts of the still very much open junction box, I wasn't dead, nor even knocked out.

"Actually, it's a cleaner burn than 110V," I told Alannah, assuring her that I'm ok. "It's a hell of a lot stronger, but it's... cleaner. My finger's not even burned." I theorized that it's like cutting yourself with a super sharp knife as opposed to an average knife - the cut is so powerful, it's cleaner and less painful.

Luckily, the circuit breaker did its job and popped, saving me from electrocution, and making the rest of the mounting process shock free. Undeterred by electric shock - and more encouraged by success - we moved on to the next project of this home improvement weekend.

Alannah and I both love to cook. The trouble with a French apartment kitchen, however, is that there's barely ever room for two people to cook together. Alannah had hatched up this grand dream - probably the day we first looked at the apartment back in July - for us to build a second countertop on the railing around our second-floor kitchen, hanging over the living room.

The logistics are a bit insane. The railing only provides two sides upon which we could rest a four-sided counter, one heavy enough to withstand rapid-fire chopping of vegetables, the pounding of cutlets, and the kneading of dough. We went through almost every little fastener and bracket in the hardware store, trying to figure out how to best mount this thing. Eventually, we figured out an elaborate rigging system that would require a bit of engineering and physics and steel cable suspension (no, really), and the purchase of a big, heavy piece of solid wood.

But sometimes things are just serendipitous. The other night, while taking one of our late walks, Alannah noticed a huge abandoned piece of butcher block, about the same size as her dream countertop. This is the benefit of living on a street with no less than 22 restaurants. Occasionally, one gets rid of its stuff. When activity died down on the street, we went into scavenger mode and procured this wondrous piece of wood. It had a few stains here and there, but nothing that couldn't be removed with a bit of refinishing.

Having had enough of me monopolizing the new power tools, Alannah went at it with the orbital sander, making the surface almost smooth and shiny as new. I used a jigsaw and the Dremel to create the notch that would tightly fit around the corner finial of the railing the counter would be resting upon. I planned on drilling holes to create eyelets for the suspension cable (which would then be fastened to the petrified wood beams of the ceiling) to keep the floating corner... floating. But once we did a test fitting, everything rested so perfectly - and the wood is so solid - that the suspension would amount to unnecessary gimmickry. It would look cool and post-modern, but it would really serve no purpose. So the only work left to be done would be to put lips around the edges (so things don't roll off into the living room below) and screw the countertop into the custom supports we devised from beneath... Et voila! An extra 11 square feet of counter space.

I woke up this morning in pain. My shoulders aching, my back wrenched, and my hands feeling as though I'd actually done an honest day's work. It was rewarding. Oddly enough, we woke up late Saturday morning feeling much the same way, before any of this work had actually begun. Then I remembered that on Friday night, we loaded up on many caipirinhas at the bar downstairs (who host a hoppin' transvestite night, by the way) polished off a couple of bottles of red back at ours upstairs, and while getting ready to go see Miss Kittin, I realized there's no way I'd be able to stay vertical the entire four block walk to the club.

See, kids, I've still got it. I may be a bit more focused on procuring power tools and building tables than chasing thrills in far-off lands, but I can still get smashed in a tranny bar and live to tell about it.