Erinn Go Bragh! Vive l'Irlande!

Before we get into what the title refers to, I have some news:

-For you Michigan people who like to ask me about the weather every time I call home ((cough, Dad, cough))--today we had the most amazingly beautiful weather that I have ever experienced. Just cool enough to be pleasant but not too cold. It was sunny and with the slightest breeze. I left home a few minutes early after lunch just to walk to school.

-I have a better trimester score in my French class than over half of my class. Haha! Take THAT, French school system!

-I'm changing host families for the last time on Friday! This gives me mixed feelings. See, I LOVE living with Guite and I don't want to leave ... but I LOVE my next host family! See my dilemma?

So. St. Patrick's Day. Some of you may have heard rumors ... these may or may not be true. Read on to find out ...

As you may or may not know, I spent St. Patrick's Day weekend at my Canadian friend, Taylor's, house. He lives in Compiègne, which is about a forty-minute train ride north of Paris. Maybe a bit more.

I left school Saturday morning at 11:05 with every intention of getting to the train station in Paris in time to take the 12:07 train to Compiègne. I was pretty sure I could get there in time.

Wanna take a guess? Wrong! I got there in time--about ten minutes before the train was to leave ... oh, but wait ... I had to buy a ticket ... and the line was about a mile long. At about 12:15 I had my ticket ... but my ideal 12:07 train had left without me.

I ended up getting on the 12:37 one, and to my credit I did try to call Taylor I would be late, but he hadn't been home all week, so I wasn't all that surprised when no one picked up. But try telling him of my valiant efforts. He just bitched all weekend. No, I will not excuse my language. I'm wearing a cool hat and that makes me badass and allowed to swear in front of my family.

When the train pulled into Compiègne and I walked up the stairs to the main platform, I saw Taylor waiting, staring at me with a sort of tired exasperation. Sort of saying "Oh, you Parisians ..." Later he told me that he was almost run over by a car on the way to the train station, trying to get there before the train came. I retorted that he was alive and well, so I had nothing to feel guilty about.

Well, I got the grand tour of Compiègne. Taylor knows ... pretty much everything in the world, so he knew (obviously) tons of historical stories about the town. Somehow, they all seemed to end with "before/and then the/when the ... nazis burned it down." Apparently, Compiègne played a very important part in WWII. It was also where Joan of Arc was captured by the English because (according to Taylor) they didn't reopen the gate for her. Interesting ...

The tour ended in a very nice park where several notable things happened: (a) I got a massage on a bird-crappy bench, but it was worth it, and (b) Taylor stole my passport when I wouldn't show him my picture. We were looking up how to renounce American citizenship--for curiosity's sake. Don't worry. I got it back. Not before screaming bloody murder and scaling hedges to get to him, though. Canadians ...

We eventually headed back to his house, though, and I got a private accordion concert, although Taylor said he did really badly.

"Why?" I asked. "It's better than I could do."

He held up his hand and it was shaking. Bizarre, huh? *I* think I made him nervous. I'm pretty damn intimidating. ((wink))

I stopped feeling sorry for him, though, when he made me try at the accordion. I played Mary had a Little Lamb on the keyboard (very grudgingly) and then he let me stop, but it was the most torturous thirty seconds of my life.

Eventually, we ate dinner with Taylor's host brother, Quentin, and left to go to one of the three Irish Pubs that Compiègne boasted of.

I did say that this St. Patrick's Day was unforgettable, didn't I? Or implied so anyway ...

Well. I have to say, a lot of it was due to some very unique conversation Taylor and I had with Christophe, who is one of Quentin's friends.

During one such conversation, I was dubbed "Proncess" because (after consuming one Guinness--which was discusting like all beer), I ordered drinks that ((gasp)) came in an actual glass! The word in French is the same as in English--"Princess"--but Taylor and I had a holy war over how to pronounce it because of a difference in regional accents. In the Picardie (the region where Compiègne is) they say it similar to the way you might say "Proncess", but in Paris we say it with a more nasally sound. I declared that my way was "right", but that didn't stop me from being the Proncess.

Sometime after midnight ... most of the people in the bar were ... rather trashed, if I may put it bluntly. I will always be glad that I had my wits about me because something hilarious happened. It's probably a "you had to be there" thing ... but ...

Some random guy who'd had at that point about ten drinks too many got up on a table and started dancing ... and then ... his shirt disappeared ... and then ... his pants almost disappeared as well. But someone slightly less sloshed stopped him.

He went on for a while this Anonymous Dancer (seriously, he is anonymous--I'm not trying to cover up for anyone), but then a bartender came and got him down from the table.

Damn. Party over.

... or not. For insead of kicking this guy out of the bar or whatever, the bartender instead placed him on the bar and the show continued. Yes, my friends, we were flashed. Many a time. Ahh, only in France ...

Taylor and I nearly fell off out stools laughing.

Don't you worry, though. I learned something that night, so the experience was educational. "Sláinte" is the Irish word for "cheers".

We left the bar at about quarter after one, but the party didn't end until 5:30 in the morning. For, as when Taylor had been at my house during winter break, we spent a good part of the night talking and the like--long after everyone else's party was over. Haha. We outdid them. At 5:30, though, we did grudgingly admit that a bit of sleep was needed and we dragged ourselves up the stairs (or, more accurately, Taylor pushed me up the stairs because I was unable to support my own weight--BECAUSE I WAS TIRED!!!!!!!!!! Don't make assumptions just because it was St. Patrick's Day. Yes, yes, I drank, but I wasn't trashed! You will remember the phrase "had my wits about me". I've had more to drink with the Rotary Club. Psh.

The party recommenced at 7:30 the next morning because there were some birds outside that wouldn't SHUT THEIR BLOODY BEAKS ... so I woke up.

When I got home that night at about 9:15, Odile (Guite's daughter, you'll remember, who was pregnant) hadn't had her baby. When I woke up on Monday morning she had. Another girl--her fourth--named Roxanne.

Please drop a comment or email me. It encourages more frequent updates.

Sorry for the

Later, all!

Love,
Leah

My Super-Exciting Vacation Whatever

I was up really late last night abusing myself with a much-needed overdose of sugar when it occurred to me that I hadn't let you American people know about my vacation. SO. Briefly, I can tell you that nothing remarkable happened the first week, so we won't even bother talking about that.

We shall start with Monday the 26th. That particular Monday we had a Rotary conference that sounded as though it was going to be interesting. Guite said it was going to be about cooking and why we need certain ingredients in food: flour, baking soda/powder, etc.

Possibly ... no, no ... not quite the most boring thing I'd ever been to, but it's up there. It was nothing the way Guite described it.

Some lady who used to teach at my lycée came in and spoke for forty minutes about the chemistry of eggs. She did say a lot about cooking but it was nothing interesting. When her lecture was over, though, she decided to torture us further. We had to apply, yes, apply her lecture in practical work. We had to make some weird thing with egg whites and stir and add veryveryvery slowly olive oil. I had no idea what I was doing because I'm really cool like that. So I worked with Sayaka, who did everything perfectly of course. Whenever I picked up the bowl and the beater to mix, about ten people jumped on me:"Nonononnononononn!!!! That's wrong!"

Basically, it was pretty stupid, is what I'm trying to get across here. Understood? Cool.

Anyhow, the fun started when we finished with the stupid work and commenced with the usual Rotary festivities, ie: eating, drinking, and having a merry old time! Lalala! Monday happened to be Sayaka's birthday, so we sang to her after dinner and she had me help her cut the cake like we were getting married. It was quite fun/ny.

Tuesday (the 27th), though, I got a glimpse of what it is like to ... ((gasp)) have a life! At 11:40 my super-fun Canadian friend Taylor arrived on a train from Compiègne, which is farfarfar north of Paris. That, my friends, is when the real party started.

We started out by walking around for about an hour, wondering where to eat. We finally found a place that happened to be right in front of the train station where we'd started an hour before. It was a kebab place--no, I'm not talking shish kebabs. Kebab as in the big stick of lamb meat they have rotating and cooking and when someone wants some for their sandwich they scrape it off. You know, like, for gyros.

This wsa a mistake. Not only did I get hit on my the guy making our sandwiches (j'em ai marre, my friends), but it opened up a horrible debate between Taylor and myself: where did kebabs originate? He says Turkey. I say Greece. He's probably right because he knows stuff ... but I'm standing my ground nevertheless.

Quite frankly, apart from eating, we had nothing else to do that day except wait for Anna, our friend from Washington (the state), to arrive because due to a long and boring story, she was staying at my house that evening. So we hopped on the métro and did our famous "spontaneous" thing, but with improvements. Usually we just get on the métro train and get off on a whim. This time we picked at random a person to follow, so when they got off so would we. Eventually this disintegrated because I had to stop and buy a water (my kebab had been quite spicy) and we lost the person we'd been following.

At that point we went to Bercy, which is, in my opinion, the ugliest area of Paris. That was my sole reason for going. To demonstrate how ugly it was. And it is. Very ugly.

We got bored then and went home. Anna wasn't arriving until 8:40 anyway, so we had several hours before we needed to worry about her.

Time passed ... oooh ...

Anna's train got in at 8:40, as scheduled. Which was lovely. After a small adventure, which I recall being an adventure, although I do not remember the details, we found her and headed home.

During the day, Taylor and I had had a lot of time to talk. And inevitably, when one talks, one comes to certain points in conversation (or debate) when one simply does not know what one is talking about. Luckily, for any questions we'd had about our conversations that day, we had Anna. Anna, who lives on Wikipedia and has memorized the entire site. Thus, she knows everything. One very important question we had to ask her, you'll recall, was about the origin of kebabs.

We were on the bus to Guite's house when Taylor decided to open the conversation.

"Anna," he said, "we have something to tell you." Of course, he meant "ask you", but everyone makes mistakes. He paused to collect his thoughts, for although the kebabs were of utmost importance, we had other things to ask as well.

The pause went on for about two seconds before I (being the silly American girl I am) grabbed his hand and filled in the blank: "We're getting married."

It only seemed appropriate.

"Wow." Anna didn't even flinch. "When did this happen? Wait. You can't get married in France. It's illegal; you're to young."

"We're getting married in Turkey," Taylor supplied. "We hear the kebabs are good--"

"We're getting married in Turkey," I interrupted, "then honeymooning in Greece because we hear the kebabs are great there."

Since I got to finish the sentence, I declared myself the winner. Even though he's probably right.

But the marriage joke lasted throughout the three days he was at my house. Good times, my friends.

That night, we did not sleep. Well, Anna did. Party pooper. But she held out til three in the morning. Taylor and I continued to talk and once five in the morning rolled around, we figured there was really no point in sleeping. So at 7:30 I got up (from the couch) and made eggs because Taylor (poor deprived thing) hadn't eaten eggs for breakfast since his arrival in France. The French rarely (with the exception of one person I know) take salt with breakfast.

Really. You won't want to hear about Wednesday. I mean, I had a lovely time, but we were so tired it was pretty pathetic. We spent most of the time in this tiny tiny bedroom reading childrens books in French and occasionally dozing off. Babar, the king of elephants, apparently had some interesting adventures. We did go to Paris to meet some friends but that was pretty pathetic as well because (a) we had a coffee and then they left, and (worst of all) (b) ME COFFEE WAS DECAF!!!!!!!!!!! The nerve.

In other news, after dinner we played Scrabble. Once in French, but that was lame so we switched to English. The best French word we (I) came up with was "phoque"--seal. Woohoo.

I slept reallyreallyreally well that night, needless to say.

The next day at 10:30 in the morning we got an email from Anna (who'd gone home the afternoon before) saying a bunch of people were meeting in Paris ... at 11:40. So we got there late. Turned out, so did everyone, so hakuna matata. The first thing we did, of course, was ... eat. Wanna know where we went? The kebab place.

We decided (Taylor and I decided, that is) that we should put the kebabs debate to rest. For it had not been solved. I asked the man making sandwiches where he was from.

Tunisia. Problem NOT solved, thus out wedding/honeymoon question not answered. Will we be eating kebabs in Turkey or Greece, people????

This is very important, you understand.

And all other events thereafter I am either not telling you about, or are just not exciting.

Turkey or Greece? First person to answer gets a prize. Oh, and leave your sources. I don't trust you ...

Right. Now it's a week later and nothing else exciting has happened.

Til next time, Americans!

Love,
Leah