Days of My Life

Yup. I've pretty much abandoned you. I've been writing my sponsoring Rotary Club every week ... but with you, I just can't be bothered!

Ok, fine. I apologize. Let me recount my stories and we'll get on with life.

May 19-20 made about the millionth weekend in a row where I got to skip school on Saturday, which was just amazing.

Saturday the 19th, there was a picnicky-type thing with the Rotary students of the district--District 1770, in case you were wonder--both inbounds and outbounds. Almost all of the outbounds were headed to the States with six exceptions--four were going to Canada (three to Ontario and one to Manitoba), one was going to Ecuador and one to Argentina. After all the boring Rotary speeches (which Krystin--Tennessee friend, remember?--translated to English in my ear, even though I understood ... we were just that bored), all the students went outside and allowed the outbounds to interrogate us.

Alice, my first host sister, was there--she's going to California, just like she wanted.

In France, one says "America" to a French person and they picture California. It has been sais to me several times in casual conversation, "It's a lot warmer in the United States, isn't it?" and I say "Hah! Are you kidding me? In Michigan it's WAY colder!"

Because The Picture of the States in France, is pretty much California ... not much else.

Annnnnyhow.

After the picnic was over (me and Alice said our final goodbyes), I went to Krystin's house to stay the night. Compared to where I live, she lives in the country ... even though it isn't really. It's about a half-hour train ride from Paris--Chantilly. But then there's a drive of about twenty minutes to Baron, which is where her host family lives.

Her host mom seemed like the sweetest thing in the world. Her host dad was bald and rather large--when he came to pick us up, he was wearing a suit and sunglasses and had a little earpiece (one for a cell phone) in his ear, giving him a very FBI-ish air.

Krystin and I probably slept about four hours that night. We spent a good part of the evening discussing Grey's Anatomy, plus we had to get up reallyreally early to catch a proper train to Compiègne the next morning.

Compiègne, you'll remember, is where Taylor lives.

Taylor, you'll remember, is our Canadian friend.

Canada, you'll remember, extends farther west than Ontario--Taylor is (originally) from Alberta.

So. We had originally planned on taking a 9:35 train so that we'd arrive at 10:24, but we got an email from Taylor saying that crêpe making (which was our purpose for going to Compiègne) began at 10:00. The next earliest train to Compiègne was at 7:04, getting to Compiègne at 7:53. So it was to be an early morning.

At about 6:30, we awoke and groggily set about leaving. All was well. We got on the proper train and got to Compiègne at the proper time and everything was all ... proper. Except Taylor wasn't there. No, no. You don't understand. He's ALWAYS there. Waiting on the platform most of the time as well.

So we gave him fifteen minutes to show up. Nothing.

So we started to walk to his house. Or we tried to remember exactly how to do it ...

About ten minutes into our walk we saw a distant red coat, which, naturally, indicated an approaching Taylor.

Here's his excuse:

He went out with his host brother the night before (keep in mind he'd said he would check his mail before he went to sleep). Krystin and I had called his house when he'd been out and spoken with his host sister, telling her that we'd be there at 7:53. So. Yes.

Anyhow, he got in late with his host brother and he headed for bed. Without checking his mail. BUT, his host brother, Jean-Gab(riel--but we leave out that part) came SPRINTING up the stairs.

"Taylor! My sister says that your friends are getting here at 7:53 tomorrow morning!"

Okay.

So, he reheaded for bed. BUT Jean-Gab (okay--these people were drunk, there's no way tiptoe-ing around that ... Taylor and Jean-Gab were drunk) came SPRINTING back up the stairs.

"Taylor! Your friends are getting here at 8:15 tomorrow morning!"

Idiot Taylor decided to believe his drunk host brother instead of his sober host sister. And he didn't check his mail ... where there was a message from me and Krystin telling him 7:53.

That is why he was late. Pretty lame excuse.

But I had to forgive him because he said he wouldn't let me into his house until I did, and I really had to pee. So, I forgave him ... or did I?

Anyhow, we mosied around the house and around Compiègne until it was time to search out the Rotarians and start making crêpes.

Why were we making crêpes, you may wonder?

Why, it was the Joan of Arc festival!

Funnily enough we were waaaaaaaaay outside of where the festivities were taking place. It was cold. It was rainy. There were next to no customers. There was a crude man who came up and said crude things to me and Krystin, so we left for twenty minutes and screamed out our hatred for French men. It was cold. It was rainy.

Not the most exciting of days.

But we did eat kebabs when we went to the trainstation! That was cool! And tasty!

Monday I went to school. Unfortunately, my train did not break like it had the weekend of SSSS (you'll recall my last post ...).

In whole, however, it was a pretty lame excuse of a day, especially since I didn't get to call my sister for her birthday ... I did send her an email, though.

Tuesday night, however, I went out with my host family. We went to the 20th birthday party of the son of a friend of Myriam's.

The fête took place at a restaurant and there were a lot of family members and friends of the family who were keen to interrogate me on the States, which prevented awkward silences.

The food was good. The people were good. The everything was good. On a whole, it was a very enjoyable evening.

But. Here's something that my family is really going to appreciate--my family and those who know me well.

See, as usual, there were courses to the meal and after the main dish there was, as usual, a cheese course.

I was like "Oh, what the hell? I won't be fussy--I'll just try the stupid cheese."

So, I cut off pieces of goat cheese and brie cheese and ate them with bread.

And you know what?

... I liked it!

Leah. Liked. Cheese. Swallow it. Believe it. It's true.

THEN. The weekend following was a long weekend--no school Monday!! So, Taylor came and spent the weekend at my house.

We spent much of Sunday watching movies--"Good Will Hunting" (Boo! Bad Dialogue! Written by actors!), "Stalingrad" (good), and "Me, Myself, and Irene" (stupid, but funny). Monday, we were in Paris for the better part of the day, going to areas of Paris we'd never been, people watching, etc.

Tuesday I went to scool. Two whole hours. Woe. Is. Me.

Wednesday I met Taylor in Paris because he had some shopping errands to run and he needed second opinions or something.

You don't understand, obviously. Do you know what he bought?

A kilt. 160€ (rather inexpensive--very inexpensive, even, for a kilt). He had to leave it with a tailor to fix it to the right size. But the fact remains ... he bought a kilt. And a sporran. It. Was. Amazing.

We also, you know, walked and talked and went to a park and hated pidgeons and all that. Comme d'hab.

Friday I met Krystin in Creil (one train stop outside of Chantilly--three outside of Paris) and we headed for Beauvais to meet up with an exchange student friend of ours--a Canadian (from London, Ontario) named Kyle. He has red hair. Which makes him amazing.

Uhh ... yeah. So we spent Friday in Beauvais. Doing ... stuff. Not a whole lot, honestly. But ... stuff. You know?

Saturday morning I met up AGAIN with Krystin. We were supposed to go sari shopping again (a girl needs more than one, you know!), but I had to run some errands for Taylor (because I am wonderful and I do stuff like that), ie: pick up his kilt from the tailor and buy him some (ahem) "hose," which are, of course, necessary for a kilt. "Hose" ... whatever. They're just tall wool socks.

So, with me and Krystin in sari and with Taylor in a kilt ... we pretty much conquered Paris.

We also headed over to Maisons-Alfort to eat kebabs--because the kebab place in M-A has decidedly the BEST kebabs in all of France ... nae ... in all the WORLD!!!!

Krystin went home that night and I threw some stuff together and headed to Taylor's house.

When we got to Compiègne, we began walking to Taylor's house, but when we got to the marketplace, he stopped. And changed directions. Why?

Because, of course, he'd heard music. And when one hears music, one must follow it.

We found ourselves (and the music) in a little park. We also found a few of Taylor's friends, and after it was established that the music was being performed by mediocre Parisians, we decided instead to head to an Irish bar and have a drink. Or several. Whatever.

We headed home a bit after 11:00. We went into the basement, so as not to wake up the family with our bavardage (figure it out--look it up), but we were soon joined by Jean-Gab. He stayed and watched a movie with us--a really bad French one called "Taxi" that got so stupid within the first 15 minutes that I fell asleep on Taylor's really uncomfortable shoulder. I woke up as the credits were rolling.

I was told I didn't miss anything.

Further sleep did not happen until 6 in the morning, when we slept for four hours. We pretty much talked all night about pretty much anything, most of it having to do with religion, philosophy, and children. Heehee.

Sunday was a lazy lazy day. It was also Mother's Day in France, so the family ate together with Mme Chambon's mother as well. The Chambon family doesn't talk when they eat, so I was very surprised at the amount of conversation that was happening at the table ... which still wasn't a lot ... but it was more than usual.

Taylor kicked me out around 6:00 that evening, though I went back to Compiègne on Monday ...

Nothing happened yesterday and so far, nothing has happened today.

All my exchange student friends are on the bus trip, so I have quite a lot of nothing happening until the 16th, when I'm going to Gare du Nord to meet them.

Happy?

I love you all!

Leah!!!!

Story Time, Kids!

So, it's been a little while. Some may even argue that it's been a long while. Very busy few weeks, you see ... and most of you know why ...

My father and Rozanne came to Paris on April 27th. This day for me actually began the 26th at 9:00 in the morning when I woke up, because that night a friend spent the night and we didn't sleep at all.

That isn't important, though.

Before I go further into this, I would like to say that I don't remember exactly what we did each day, so you may be better off to ask Dad or Rozanne for the whole story. This is just an overview.

On the 27th, I got to the airport waywayway too early. It's way far outside of Paris, see, and I had to take the RER--which is like a métro but it goes far outside of Paris--but it went directly to the airport, when usually it would have made a million and a half stops in between.

So I got there early and took a nap on my luggage.

Eventually, however, I went to search for their arrivals gate and I waited THERE for about an hour ... but they arrived and I was smiling and crying simultaneously and crazily.

Thus it began.

We were staying in Paris for a few days first before embarking on other adventures, so we took a taxi back to the city and located the hotel, checked in, and all that.

All three of us were tired, but we still ventured out to check out the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysées and to search for a place to change my father's dollars into euros (we were unsuccessful). We also had lunch at a Parisian café, which served us lemonade drinks called Pshitt or something, which Dad really got a kick out of.

Dinner was found that evening only after a long search with many changings of the mind ... when we did find a place to eat, though, the food was good, although Rozanne fell asleep when Dad went to pay.

We got a good night's sleep that evening, and Saturday was spent out and about, seeing more of Paris.

Sunday morning, though, we packed up, caught a quick breakfast at the café we dubbed the "Angry Frenchman Café" because of the unpleasant waiter who served us, and headed for the airport.

The café was really called "Le pain quotidien"--the daily bread--but the former name stuck more permanently.

But, yes. Airport.

Yes, my friends, we were going to Ireland!

The plane was freezing, but it didn't even matter! I looked out the window of the plane as we were decending and it was so beautiful I wanted to scream for happiness.

Though most of Sunday was simply spent settling in (we did go to a pub, though, and a very good restaurant where a whole bunch of people who worked there got in a group and gave us a list of placed they suggested for eating in Dublin--cool!), Monday we spent the whole day in Dublin.

First thing in the morning, we headed over to University College of Dublin because that is somewhere that I want to apply to next year, and we picked up some information. My dad tried to get some guy to marry me so that I could become a citizen of Ireland and thus have European Union fees. It was extraordinarily embarrassing.

We took a self-guided walking tour of Dublin. At the end of the day, my feet were none too pleased. We saw, though, Trinity College (beautiful--made UCD look horrible), Dublin Castle, and ... the shop of the Guinness store. My dad wanted to take a tour, but we got there ten minutes too late. I wasn't going to do it anyway. I took a tour of the Miller brewery in Wisconsin a few years ago ... not my cup of tea.

The following day was our last in Ireland (short stay, eh?). We spent the entire day driving. We got in the little rental car and drove south along the coast towards Cork until dinner, then turned around and drove back to Dublin through the hills. Very narrow roads. Very curvy roads. Driving on the passanger side (my Dad, that is) on the left-hand side of the road. I thought I wasn't going to survive.

But it was amazing. I got a little less than 100 pictures that day. You always hear about the French countryside ... but the Irish countryside puts it to shame.

Needless to say, I was very sad to leave the next morning ... the next very early morning.

That was Wednesday. When the plane landed in Paris, I turned on my cell phone and almost immediately got a phone call from my host mother asking if we wanted to meet for dinner.

And that was how my real family and my temporary came to know each other. And it turned out very well. Pierre--host father--speaks very good English (even though he'd tell you that he doesn't), and everyone had a common topic to discuss--me. Oy vey.

I went home with my host family that night because we were at a new hotel and we only had a room for two.

Thursday, Rozanne was sick of the métro, so we stayed in the area of the hotel. She was also not hungry at lunch, so my father and I went to a Thai restaurant nearby. In the middle of the meal, he pulled out something from his fanny pack (which, yes, he brought even though I told him they were illegal in France in a desperate attempt to dissuade him). This thing was wrapped tightlytightly in tissue paper and had a safety pin holding it.

After a moment of struggle, my dad extracted the object within the paper. Do you know what it was?

A ring. A diamond engagement ring.

"What do you think?" he asked.

I think I cried. Happy tears.

I left again that evening and when I came back in the morning, Rozanne--my dad's girlfriend--had become Rozanne--my dad's fiancée.

He had asked her to marry him under the Eiffel Tower. How cute!

So now ... I have something really big to look forward to when I get home.

Well, Dad and Rozanne decided that liked the new hotel and didn't want to go back to the old one, which was the original plan after their two-day period of the two-person room. So, we asked the hotel about getting a new room and called the old one to cancel reservations--48 hours in advance. BUT the lady I spoke with at the old hotel said it needed to be 72 hours in advance. So I argued with her until I just decided to give Dad the phone and he said he simply would not pay for it.

Problem solved or something?

Aside from More Touristy Things that day, we went to a wine tasting where I learned how to distinguish a good wine and I also tasted the best champagne I'd ever had in my life. Our "teacher," I suppose, was a sommelier named Olivier, described in his (we assume, self-writted) brochure as being young, smart (I think), and cool. Haha ...

Saturday we went to Normandy. That was my dad's thing. He wanted to see the beaches of Normandy. It didn't particularly interest me, but ... whatever. We took a train to Normandy and had a five-hour tour of a bunch of WWII stuff. Omaha Beach, etc.

It ended at 6 in the evening and our train was at 7:30. We went into town to eat dinner ... but ...

Let me cut to the chase, because it pains me to relive this frustrating evening.

We. Missed. The. Last. Train. To. Paris.

We. Had. To. Stay. The. Night. In. Normandy.

I. Was. Not. Happy.

And I shall go into no further detail ... because it still irks me. I haven't gotten yet to the stage where I can laugh about it. Probably because I haven't thougth about it enough. Whatever.

But, yes. We did catch the morning train to Paris.

Frankly, though ... I was all funned out, as I told my dad. Although I consider it a sin for people to stay in hotel rooms all day while on vacation, I did that (I can, afterall, see Paris any time I want to). I watched BBC. Super-fun relaxing Sunday.

I did go out with Dad and Rozanne in the evening. I don't remember exactly what for ...

I do remember this, though ... it was Sunday. Election night in France. We were on the métro, on the way back to the hotel neighborhood at 8:00 when the polls closed. At about 8:02, the conductor of the métro came over the PA thing and announced that Nicolas Sarkozy had won the elections.

I. Was. Not. Happy.

I swore loudly and glared at the wall. I had to endure happy cars honking and one group of people parading down the street chanting "On a gagné! On a gagné!" ("We won!") during dinner.

I. Was. Not. Happy.

Luckily, dinner was good.

Monday morning, my dad and Rozanne left. I showed them to the airport and said goodbye. It wasn't too sad because I would be seeing them in nine weeks (and a day) anyway (yesterday makes eight weeks).

See? Very brief overview. Ask those two for details. And pictures of Paris. I took pictures, but not of Paris. Versailles, Ireland, and Normandy, yes.

We move on now to this weekend.

This past weekend I spent with my Tennessee friend Krystin and my Canada (Alberta, even though he lives in Ontario, you better not say he's from there or he'll hurt you) friend Taylor.

The weekend even had a title: SSSS

No, no. You don't need to know what that stands for. It's just really stupid and lame and Taylor guessed it in one try.

8:30 Saturday morning I met Krystin at the train station to commence our plan. We were on a mission.

We were going to buy saris.

What? You can buy a sari in France?

Yes, yes. You can.

At first we panicked because all the stores were closed, but we waited for about and hour and came back to this particular street (on which there were about 10 sari shops) and they were open.

With the help of the salesman whom we eloquently named Indian Guy, we became the owners of two lovely, if not slightly cheap, saris.

But ... Taylor didn't know.

We caught the 12:07 train to Compiègne and excitedly discussed many-a-thing as we waited impatiently for the train to reach its destination.

"You two are the coolest people ever to come to Compiègne," Taylor told us as he saw us struggling our way up the stairs at the train station.

Probably very true.

We ate lunch at the Taj Mahal, some Indian retaurant with very yummy food. We sat there for about two hours and spent most of the time laughing.

We took the 80 million-mile walk back to Taylor's house and spent most of the time in between then and dinner (a) practicing songs for the following day, which you will read about shortly (this does not apply to Krystin), (b) practicing the accordion (this does not apply to me) and (c) trying to squeeze all three of us onto the couch because we were tired.

We had pizza for dinner, separate from the family (probably because they like to eat in silence and Taylor, Krystin and I had been laughing loudly for most of the day). Then we went back to the basement and watched "The Island", which was fairly good and with lots of symbology and philosophy in it. THEN we watched "Top Gun" which was horrible and had nothing worth mentioning in it. And then we squeezed all three of us onto the couch and actually fell asleep. We were really tired, see.

We woke up in the middle of the night and went to our proper beds.

The next day we had to catch a train at 12:30-ish to go to a place called Etrées St. Denis, where there was a cute little event called "Dimance à la ferme"--Sunday on the farm.

Wouldn't you know it, we left late and had to run as fast as possible to the train station--Taylor with his accordion, poor guy--and we just made the train.

It wasn't a long ride ... but as we pulled into the train station, Taylor said, "Oh my God ... I forgot their phone number."

We had no way to call them for them to come and get us.

We were exhausted from running. We were hungry ("I just want a kebab!" said Taylor when we managed to find the only kebab place in town ... closed--I have video footage of this).

We found a payphone.

Actually, first we went through a very confusing series of attempts to try to call someone to give us someone's phone number so we could call them for this other person's phone number, etc ... but we found a payphone.

Do you know what was on this mocking, mocking payphone? A flyer.

Do you know what for?

Dimanche à la ferme.

After a little bit more bad luck, we FINALLY got ahold of someone and soon we were on the way to the Ouashée family's farm out in the styx.

Where did we head? Over to the barn where a bunch of little kids' crafts were set up. What did we do?

Taylor whipped out his accordion (as best as one can whip out an accordion), and played a bunch of weird traditional western songs as I sang the weird traditional western lyrics.

In between singing/playing the accordion/watching Taylor and I perform, we ate crêpes and took a look around the farm. This was Taylor in his element. Not the crêpes ... the farm. He wouldn't stop rambling about one thing or another ... the sheering of the sheep, the canola crop, etcetcetc. He seemed at home.

This was, oddly enough, me and Krystin out of our element. But I liked it anyway. I'm being converted.

A bit after five, we headed back to Compiègne. Krystin and I weren't going to leave until 8:47, so we had dinner--kebabs--and hung out at Taylor's house (all squished onto the couch again--go figure).

We headed back to the train station just in time to get onto our train ... or so we thought.

We verified our tickets and all that and got on the train, all in a rush because we'd thought we were going to be late.

But the train ... did not ... move.

What happened?

The train was broken.

The last train to Paris ... was broken.

SSSS was not over, afterall.

After playing phone tag with our host parents, we sheepishly headed back to Taylor's house with no other choice but to stay another night. My host father had a particularly good humour about it--he sent me a text message reading "Those who have not known love can not understand what it can do. I as well have missed trains and classes so that I can live more." Ha ha ha. Oh, Pierre.

I missed school the next day, but I did get back to Paris. Besides Sunday night--we had all been rather frustrated, not to mention tired--it had been a weekend well spent. Taylor and I decided it better than St. Patrick's Day and equal to Fasting Week (although with the benefit of us not having fasted).

And this coming weekend, more adventures to come. Krystin and I are returning to Compiègne to make crêpes with Taylor during the Joan of Arc festival.

Small conclusion.

Yesterday marked that in eight weeks I will be back home. It's funny, because I always thought I'd be crying my eyes out over such a short time! But ... I'm about ready to come home, actually. I'm not homesick, nor am I tired of France. I suppose it's sort of a resignation. It is what it is what it is and I accept that. I'll miss France, yes ... but I won't pine for it nor cry on the plane ride home.

I'll be back home on July 10th at 5:00 pm. I'll be sad to have left France. But I'll be happy to be home.

I guess you lucked out! I won't cause an international incident after all.

Leah!!

La Deuxième Semaine des Vacances

Looks like I survived. Barely, I'll admit, but I survived nevertheless. I get to keep all my stuff.

So now you get to hear the stories of this week. We begin the tale thusly:

Monday morning I awoke ten minutes before I'd set my alarm, which wasn't surprising. Whenever I'm excited for something I end up waking up early and being unable to go back to sleep.

I was not allowed to eat that morning because it was the first day of the fast, so I helped myself to a nice and nutritious breakfast of water and I left the house ahead of schedule.

The commute to Gare du Nord is always frustrating because I am never on time. Always I'm either late or early. Always. And without fail, I arrived a half hour early. Taylor's train wasn't scheduled to arrive until 9:50.

So I found the platform where it would arrive and I sat down and listened to my music.

When 9:50 came and the train pulled in I just sat there. I was right by the train, so I was sure Taylor would see me.

I waited.

After it seemed like everyone was off the train and Taylor was nowhere to be seen, I stood. I figured he'd missed the train and I was going to go buy a bottle of water and kill some time before the 11:00 train came in.

But I stood and there was Taylor. Leaning against the same pillar I had been, staring at me. Apparently he'd been there for five minutes.

And then. The adventures began.

With him, Taylor had brought his accordion because he wanted to get it fixed, but we decided to do that Tuesday because many shops are closed Mondays and this one was almost definitely because it's opened Saturday mornings. So we headed home.

But what to do all day? We couldn't eat, obviously, but we couldn't do much else either because we didn't want to use too much energy.

We ended up watching "Blair Witch Project". I'd heard it was scary ... who from? I don't remember. But anyhow, it sucked. It was only an hour and a half, but after the first half hour it got really old. It was not scary at ALL. And not in a "Nightmare on Elm Street" kind of not scary--where there's lots of blood and gross stuff but at the same time it's sort of laughable. Nono. "Blair Witch Project" was actually not scary at all. It was just a bunch of college kids lost in the woods screaming at each other. If they'd just stayed in their tents everything would have turned out.

We were both thoroughly relieved when it was finally over.

And when it was over, we had no need to search for something else to do because Loïck informed us that some of his friends were coming over and they were going to watch "Sin City". So we watched it with them.

It was two hours long. We hours of blood, naked women, and ... well, that's pretty much it. It got incredibly predictable after the first half hour, once you figured out that even after being shot a thousand times, a character could survive.

Taylor and I kept laughing at really inappropriate times. Like when someone killed a dog. Hehe.

Again, we were relieved when it was over and I practically sprinted upstairs as the credits started rolling.

The next several hours were passed reading a French farm book, which Taylor had brought because he finds it very important to educate the city girl on the ways of the country. I don't remember anything that was taught to me. Guess I'll never be a farmer, eh?

Throughtout the day, I hadn't been very hungry. It came and went sort of. But it never got really bad. But once we got bored with the farm book, I just felt compelled to lay there. Eventually, I realized that I couldn't get up. I actually did not have the energy to lift my own body off of the bed. But I was too exhausted to be frightened.

Instead I sort of just mumbled with my eyes half-closed, "Taylor ... I can't get up."

He said I didn't need to. We weren't in a rush to get anywhere.

"No ... I mean ... I actually cannot get up."

He took my hands and pulled me to my feet and I got all dizzy, but I was able to walk after a few seconds. He asked if I wanted to stop the fast, but I said no.

We went downstairs and spent the remainder of the evening on the couch in the living room with a big pitcher of water and with stimulating conversation.

We went to bed at midnight. I was so tired but I slept horribly. I was really hot and I kept waking up.

Tuesday.

Tuesday was spent in lazy movements from the living room to Taylor's room (we had a farm book to finish--it was sort of an encyclopedia but for children) and back again. We actually spent a fair amount of time in the kitchen.

We watched three movies on Tuesday. "Ocean's Eleven", "Minority Report", and "Requiem for a Dream". Altogether, they were better than the movies of the day before but "Minority Report" was kind of drawn out. There was a chase scene that was about ten minutes long. "Ocean's Eleven", though, we quoted for the rest of the week.

We decided that it would probably be a bad idea to try and take the accordion to the shop that day, seeing as it required a commute to Paris and from there Montrueil. The point is that the accordion is really heavy, so we decided to put it off for a day, even if it meant that he would have to come back to Paris the next week to pick it up.

But, what was most of the day spent doing? What topic kept us entertained in conversation for hours at a time until we became too tortured by ourselves to continue?

Food.

You name it, we covered it. Quiche, pizza, cereal, fruit, salads, chocolate, beef (we spent a lot of time talking about beef because Taylor grew up on a cow farm in Alberta), potatos, Thai food, Greek food, kebabs, Indian food, French food ... everything but water. He told me about food he used to cook. There was a fun story about a pizza with hot peppers and other vegetables piled on inches thick.

It was pretty pathetic.

But we planned what we would eat for breakfast the next morning. Cereal. Yogurt. Fruit. The first day after a fast you're supposed to eat light, but we decided to ignore that rule. Although we did decide against eggs that morning. But we decided on kebabs at a nearby restaurant for lunch.

Tragedy struck. In raiding the kitchen and looking lustfullly at the food that was forbidden us, we discovered that there was a lack of cereal and yogurt.

A grocery trip was in order, I decided.

"Are you crazy?" Taylor exclaimed. "Not only do you want to take a walk, but you want to walk to a grocery store?"

We went anyway. It turned out to be a bad idea. No. Not a bad idea. Simply a tiring one. Walking wasn't so bad, actually. The problem was standing still. At one point, Taylor had to stop to tie his shoe and so I naturally stopped as well to wait for him. It's only polite. If my legs could talk they would have cried out in protest. My muscles tensed and got sore. In order not to fall, I had to shift my weight from one leg to the other.

We got our yogurt and cereal (Taylor was thrilled because the cereal only cost 2€ ... even though I paid) as well as soap because I was almost out. It smells like almonds and vanilla ... mmm ...

We also stopped at the bakery and bought a baguette.

I have to put in a sidebar here. How many of you sort of think "Oh, that's so cute! You can stop at a bakery just to buy a baguette!" or something. It's weird, isn't it? Right now, it's such a normal thing to me. What'll be weird is going back to the States and NOT going to the bakery whenever I please just to buy a baguette. What'll be weird is only buying bread at the grocery store. What'll be weird is buying EVERYTHING at the grocery store. I don't even think twice about going to the market to get some fruit or something. It's normal.

End of sidebar.

When we got home we put everything away and collapsed on the couch, exhausted.

And talked about food some more.

For most of the evening, we listened to Taylor's CDs. We did try to hang out in the kitchen for a while, staring at the pictures of food at the wall and salivating obscenely ... but the smell of dinner got too much for me so we left. Taylor has a screwed up sense of smell, so he didn't smell anything ... but I did. And it was delicious.

It was during this time that we decided what sort of fast we were doing. We could either (a) do a 48-hour fast, meaning we could start eating at about ten or so, (b) start eating at midnight because then the two days would be technically over, or, (c) eat in the morning after sleeping.

In a great show of masochism, we chose option C, but decided to wake up as early as possible the next morning. We would be allowed to start eating as the sun rose.

As the last song of a bluegrass CD ended, we went upstairs and slept.

Again, I slept horribly, but this time was very cold. And I only woke up once during the night.

6:07 in the morning. I was already awake, and I had been for about ten minutes, but I heard Taylor get up, so I joined him. I was actually feeling rather nauseous, but I had been the morning before as well, so I figured it would go away.

We made our way to the kitchen to wait for the sun to firmly establish its presence in the sky and engaged ourself in conversation which was neither relevant nor lively at all. In fact, it was mostly Taylor talking and me mumbling something in acknowledgement every now and then. I felt really really miserable.

Then my stomach decided to be a jerk and make me throw up. Only thing was that there was no food in my stomach (obviously) to I ended up spitting stomach acid into the sink ... which was not pleasant. Like. At all.

"Yeah," Taylor said, "we definitely won't do a third day." Then he made me eat a yogurt.

Food had never been so delicious in my life. Half a grapefruit, a cherry yogurt, and bread will always hold a place in my mind as the First Meal After the Fast. He had been right in making me eat the yogurt. I felt much better afterwards.

But we had an errand to run. We no longer had an excuse to put off taking the accordion to the repairman. Even though we had food in us, the commute nearly killed Taylor, who was lugging the case and instrument. He nearly passed out on the way there, but as soon as we left the shop with a 90€ estimate and instructions to come back for the accordion on Saturday, he felt much better.

We went back to Maisons-Alfort and ate kebabs at a restaurant near Réné Coty ... though that doesn't mean anything to most of you. But it's right by there anyhow. They were the most wonderful kebabs a person could ask for.

Since we were still pretty worn out, we didn't do a whole lot that day. We went back to the house to get some music and my portable CD player and went on a walk across the Marne (a river), where we sat on a bench for a few hours, listening to music.

When that got old we returned home and amused ourselves otherwise. Taylor tried to teach me how to do Celtic dancing because he'd learned when he was at a Scottish party the weekend before ... which reminds me that I hate him and I'm jealous. Anyhow, his brave attempts were not entirely fruitless, but I am an awkward dancer, so we didn't get far. He also taught me the difference between dipping someone back/being dipped back in a salsa and in a tango. And a bit of polka.

Clearly, we were trying to exhaust ourselves.

When we succeeded in doing so, we settled in the kitchen, shared an apple (because we could EAT!!!!!) and started playing poker, complete with a fair amount of "Ocean's Eleven" quoting.

He taught me Texas hold 'em, and when we got bored of that we started on five-card draw. He kept winning, though! How does a person magically keep getting two pairs and full houses and all that? He showed me what to do, and I got a bit better and eventually won a "$250 pot" ... cause the money was just verbal ... with a royal straight. Though that was just luck because it was dealt to me that way.

But even that got boring and eventually I said "Last hand, ok?" and he agreed.

For the last hand I had a pair of sixes, but Taylor made this huge huge bet--$400 or something. Since I'd been playing really timidly for the past few hands I said "Whatever, I call."

"Do you bet your house? And your car?"

"Yeah, whatever," I laughed.

"You're going to lose," he told me. "You're going to lose humiliatingly."

"I know. I call."

"Do you bet everything you own? Do you bet your son?"

We'd had a discussion about my hypothetical son earlier (we live in Ireland, his father's Portuguese and he's causing trouble in school by spreading a counterculture as a fad or something like that), and he, my other son, and my daughter were ghost players during Texas hold 'em.

"Yes, yes, I bet my son and my husband and both my other children!"

With a smug grin he showed me his hand: "Four aces, three kings, a queen, and a pair of nines."

I threw my cards at him, yelled obscenities and started cracking up.

What a little shit ... haha ...

He said he was going to start collecting the whole deck and see how long it took me to notice but then I called last hand so he had to content himself with showing me his "Super Hand".

Thursday morning, Taylor slept in for an obscene amount of time. Well ... obscene by his standards ... and mine ... just not by the average 17-year-old's. He got up at about 10:00, but I'd been up since 8:00. I suppose it's understandable since we'd stayed up til 2 in the morning watching Amélie ... but whatever.

Anyhow, as we planned, we made eggs for breakfast. But there were no eggs! It was horrible! So I made an emergency run to the grocery store, also picking up mushrooms and onions so that we could make omelets. Oh. And orange mango juice. Yumm ....

Taylor did a fair amount of bitching about the omelet pan, which apparently stuck up in the middle, giving the omelets a donut-like hole in the center. But it didn't affect the taste. Omelets with mushrooms and tomatos and onions at quarter to twelve for breakfast. A-mazing ...

He also did a fair amount of bitching about the fact that the only cleaning utensil (if that's the correct word) was a sponge. Sponges, he told me, are disgusting and trap bacteria under the green part. He scalded his hand in the process of sanitizing the sponge, but whatever.

We thought maybe we'd see a movie that day, so we went to the mall in Créteil and stood outside, trying to decide what to see. It turned out that nothing looked particularly good, so we went shopping instead. Gross.

We wandered around the mall for a while, in search of safety pins, which we didn't know how to say in French. Oops. We didn't find any. We did end up buying candy so that when we played poker later we'd have something to bet with.

Not soon enough, we left the mall. We decided, however, to go to Paris. Unsure of where to go, Taylor suggested stopping at the métro stop of Bastille because there are some cool musicians who hang out there. And indeed, as predicted, we spotted some. There was one man playing a digereedo, who, according to Taylor looked like he would eat someone if they got too close. And nevertheless, the brave Canadian approached the digereedoer and gave him money. And did not get consumed.

On wandering through this métro station, Taylor was pulled once again off track by distant strains of music. This time, we stumbled upon an orchestra of Ukranians, which he loved especially because they were complete with an accordionist and other "weird instruments."

In the end, we decided to head to the Place that Taylor Can Never Remember the Name Of, otherwise known as Centre George Pompidou because he wanted to check out other performers.

So we took the métro to the Les Halles district, which is packed full of tourists so much so that if you go to a random person in the street and start speaking to them, there's a better chance that they'll speak English than French ... like at the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysées, Sacré Coeur, etc.

Well, we got off at a rather inconvenient métro stop and so we had to do a bit of searching before we located the Place that Taylor Can Never Remember the Name Of, otherwise known as Centre George Pompidou. On the way we found a church that we both fell in love with because it had an anti-pidgeon net over the door. Tourists in ... pidgeons out! Haha! Stupid birds!

Anyhow, when we got to Place that Taylor Can Never Remember the Name Of, otherwise known as Centre George Pompidou, and after walking around it once, rather pointlessly, we settled down out front ... in front of some digereedo players. Taylor theorized that the digereedo is the new guitar (because, as he says, EVERYONE plays the guitar), and I got some of the performance on video.

When we got bored, we wandered over to a group of random tourists and tried to integrate ourselves into their group just to see if anyone would notice. No one did. But we did see some kid get touristed by a street merchant. The kid walked up to the guy and took money out of his pocket and without a word, the merchant snatched the kid's money and gave him some piece of crap that he was selling. Poor kid ((snicker))

We ate lunch at quarter to five that evening, because of our late breakfast. Kebabs again, but this time from the place in front of Gare du Nord. Yes. We went to Gare du Nord JUST to get kebabs.

Then we decided to head home, but Taylor wanted to go via Bastille because he wanted to see the Ukranians again. So we took the métro to Bastille and the Ukranians were there ... they just weren't playing. We really had nothing better to do, so we just waited around to see if they'd start playing.

After a few minutes, Taylor said, "Do you want to ask them to play a polka?"

I sort of looked at him and asked, "Why?"

"We could dance."

"In the métro?"

"Yeah, why not?"

I shrugged.

He walked over to the woman of the group who did the money collecting and such and asked her about polkas. She pulled out a CD and said "All of these are polkas. Very beautiful music."

Naturally, Taylor bought the CD because he wouldn't turn down the opportunity for Ukranian polka if he was paid to.

We walked back to where we'd been standing before and he said, "We can go home and polka there."

But then.

The Ukranian group struck up playing.

You know what they were playing?

A polka.

"Do you wanna polka in the métro?"

I hesitated for a half second. "Yeah."

So. We polkad. Poorly.

I correct myself.

He polkad.

I polkad. Poorly.

But it was so much fun. People were coming from all directions and some guy took a picture of us and I was all dizzy and out of breath and slipping all over the place, not to mention, killing the polka.

But I bet you've never done that.

However, feeling motivated by my poor dancing and the exhileration of the experience, we headed home and immediately proceeded to practice. We went through about three pitchers of water and it was the best exercise I've had in a while. The polka is fast and difficult and exhausting. But it was fun!

It takes a foreigner to get me to like dancing. Leah the xenophile.

Only after we got too tired did we stop and begin our poker tournament. By dinner time, Taylor was killing me ... yet he was not cheating. It turned out that I just needed some nourishment because after dinner we started Black Jack and I started kicking his ass. Haha! I got him to the point where he had about seven M&Ms left. Leah is the champion.

Friday morning we had a late breakfast again (yessss!!!! 2€ cereal!!!!!!!), but we finished at eleven instead of noon, and we set off for another day's adventure.

We didn't know what to do, but ended up deciding to go to Montmartre, which, you may remember, I was before--the day we went to the Catacombs a few months ago. That day all we did was walk up to Sacré Coeur, which lots of people think is something really really amazing ... but I don't agree.

Montmartre is more notable for it's markety neighborhood and ambiance, I find. Yeah, it's pretty touristy ... but you know how I feel about markets. I love markets. Not to mention that it's the location of the film "Amélie" which Taylor and I had watched either the nigth before or the one before that, and it's got a nice view of "disgusting polluted Paris" (Taylor's words--a country boy at heart, eh?).

We wandered aimlessly around the area. We got touristed by some Africans who apprehended our wrists and made bracelets onto them ... ones that don't come off ... or aren't supposed to, anyway. Taylor paid 10€ for them, even though he could have (a) let me pay for my own and (b) bargained down the price easily. They're made out of about 10 cents of material, if that. Oh well. It's pretty.

We continued our aimless wandering. Extraorinarily aimless. Aimless like we'd come to an intersection and he'd say "Left, right, or straight?" and I'd pick one randomly. Well ... we alternated picking, but that's not important.

Coincidentally, this aimless wandering soon led us to a fruit market that looked suspiciously familiar ... with a bunch of stuff for "Amélie" displayed around it.

"Do you think ..."

"I think it is."

Indeed. We had randomly found ourselves in the presence of the fruit market of "Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain" ... better known to Americans as "Amélie".

We thought to search for the café where she worked in the movie, but ... meh. We moved on.

In fact, we ended up visiting a cemetary. Taylor likes visiting cemetaries, he told me later that night, explaining a deep and philosophical reason for it, which was very interesting but I don't feel like explaining here. Sorry.

It was a huge cemetary. Taylor had my camera and he took lots of pictures of it.

Our only problem ... we couldn't find a way out. We had to wander the perimeter of the place before stumbling out, having barely avoided joining the ranks of those who already occupied the place.

Then we wandered some more. We ended up wandering our way out of Montmartre to a métro station. We thought to go to the museum of natural history or something like that, but in the end, decided to go home because Taylor was exhausted and wanted to sleep.

But first we had to eat. A late lunch again, but ... nonetheless. As we discovered, sleeping on an empty stomach is not very easy.

Guess what we ate?

Kebabs. Third day in a row. We went to the place by Réné Coty again and Taylor declared the kebabs the best in the world.

"It's my favorite French food," he said.

"But it isn't French, it's Greek--"

"Turkish--"

"Tunisian." Tunisia is a sort of a compromise. "Whatever," I said, "it isn't French."

He shrugged. "Still me favorite French food. So, would that be the destruction or creation of culture?" he asked, alluding to our conversation about my troublemaking counterculture son.

"Both," I said. "No wait, that's ridiculous. It's not destroying anything. It's the creation of culture."

"Exaclty. And it's good food."

Our conversation ended thusly.

Taylor took a nap when we got home and I killed time because (a) I wasn't tired and (b) even if I was, I can't sleep during the day.

We had plans that evening to go to a bar called Bar Belge and listen to some music that Myriam told us about. We didn't worry about dinner because of our late lunch. But anyhow, about 9:00 we left for the bar.

Once there, our waiter guy greeted us at the door, asked if we were going to be eating or drinking ("drinking," we replied) and showed us to our table. Waaaaaayy off in the corner.

The band that was playing was singing some Irish song ... but ... they were singing it in a country-wester song. What the hell? You can only interpret music to a point! But, whatever. We ordered our drinks--porto, because Taylor had been saying how good it is--and I went to the bathroom.

The band then started slaughtering another Irish song--one I have on a CD, even. Then another one. It was so sad.

When I got back to our remote table, our drinks weren't there yet and the waiter came back with a menu, looking all confused.

"What is it you wanted?"

"Porto," Taylor repeated.

"Where is it?" he waiter placed the menu on the table and Taylor pointed to "porto". "Ah! Porto! I didn't understand. Your accent, you know," he said.

I smirked and when the waiter was out of earshot, I said, "Ouch. He's knocking your fabulous Canadian accent."

"I know, man. What the hell?"

Our porto arrived and the band started on a John Denver song.

The music didn't improve much, and our waiter was decidedly ignoring us. We did finally manage to get another round out of him, but it took some effort.

We engaged ourselves in lively conversation until our mixed in attempts to get the waiter's attention got annoying and we changed tables--we went to one with a better view of the mediocre band and a while new waiter, who brought us drinks with a smile. What a nice chap.

Eventually, the music began to get old, so we made our way home, which took about an hour. Or at least longer than normal. It may have had something to do with stopping every few feet, but ... whatever.

Because we are very considerate people, Taylor and I woke up Myriam. I felt so incredibly guilty, but she said it was okay and had forgotten about it by morning.

The Amazing Adventures of Taylor and Leah ended with philosophical conversation at ungodly hours of the morning and sleep ... er something.

For indeed, Saturday was not an adventure. It was a slow winding down to the end. We got up early (I thought we were waking up at 11 or something really late because we'd gone to sleep so late the night before, but I looked at the clock and it was actually not even 8 yet), went to get Taylor's accordion, went to Gare du Nord, bought a return ticket for Taylor to Compiègne (got assaulted by a Bosnian woman begging for money on the way out), and had one last kebab lunch, during which another Bosnian woman got shooed away from the restaurant by the owner

"The way I would shoo a cat," Taylor said.

"Or worse: a dog," I added.

And then, it ended. Taylor got on the 12:37 train to Compiègne and I went home and got cracking on my homework ... or not. I actually did no homework at all.

Voilà les vacances.