Heat Wave!

Usually our blog tends to reflect on fun, happier moments and memories that I want to remember 10 years from now. My intention is to do a big 'wget' on our url when we go back to the US, and have it to read over fondly when we want to go down Memory Lane. But today I'm writing about the heat, because someday I hope to look back on this and be amused.

#ifdef SOAPBOX

It is bloody hot here! Hello!? Would a ceiling fan kill you?

It got up to 96 here today. I know you Texans are scoffing, it's over 100 in Austin today. But guess what, bucko? We don't have air conditioning in the apartment (no one here does). After several days of over 90, the thick plaster walls are nicely warmed up. Last night at 11pm it was still 87 *inside* the apartement. Ugh. At 7pm, Parisiens are awefully fragrant on an unairconditioned, overcrowded bus. Sweat just pours off me wedged into the metro, and I peel off wet clothes when I get home. Oh, did I also mention that no one here *ever* wears shorts? That's just weird to me (and makes my workday even warmer). I won't mention my warm office because I don't talk about work on the blog, it's just not civilized.

#endif

On a lighter note, tonight our nicely formal neighbor brought over instructions for getting to their country house. They've invited us out for a weekend in August. The topic of the gay Paris mayor came up, and our neighbor said, " You know what we call the Mayor of Paris, don't you? Notre Dame de Paris." (translation: our lady of Paris). It was cute coming from our very polite neighbors.

Bon Quartorze Juillet !!!

Yesterday was the French equivalent of our July 4th. I must say, they really get it right here. By the end of the day, I was ready to trade in my passport for a French one.

I began the day waking up to the sound of the national guard's horse division practising their trumpet and drum routine that they would be playing in the parade. I stumbled out of bed and we had coffee and went to the park. Sarah and our friend Beth went running, and I sat on a park bench and tried to see just how low I could get my pulse. On the walk back along the river, we watched all the different French air force planes fly directly over us, including the jets that were rigged to disperse tricolore (red, white, blue) out their exhaust. A while later I was hanging out on our balcony, camera at the ready, to see if the planes were doing a second pass. They didn't, but several clusters of helicopters flew over, and monster tanks went hauling butt down rue Saint Antione. After a while I heard strains of the same music I heard waking up. I bolted down to the street in front of the Republican Guarde, and watched 250 horses with riders in full Frenchie dress gear. They were amazing. Because we weren't on the official parade route, there weren't many people around, and I was able to get 5-10 feet away. When I arrived, I had no idea how many of them were in the parade. I watched them file by 3 horses across, and they just kept going forever. Horses kept turning the corner, and streaming past. Everyone looked extremely gallant in their full dress uniform, shiny plumed metal helmet, and sword.

In the evening we were lucky enough to be invited over to our friends' (Jim and Stephanie) apartement in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. We did the appropriate toast to Bastille Day, and hung out in air conditioned comfort. We headed over to Champs de Mars with the masses. Jim went scouting for good places on his bike, now we know where to head next year. We ended up squished against the Ecole Militaire at the back of Champs de Mars. Since they moved the fireworks this year to this side of the Eiffel tower, lots of space was blocked off.

The 3 tons of fireworks were choreographed to Mozart, that was pumped out across the crowd by speakers. They were the most amazing fireworks I've ever seen, with a special French creative flare. The French are fairly quiet watching fireworks, in the US we are much less reserved. The lighting on Ecole Militare, and being squished in the crowds meant Suzy didn't get much in the way of pictures, so her memory will have to suffice. After the show we broke out another bottle of the bubbly while waiting for the crowd to thin out. We walked home, which took quite a while, we dragged into the apartment, happy and exhausted at 2am.

Note to prospective invaders of France: 10:30am on 14 Juillet 2007 would be a great time to sneak in and take over this place. All things military and all high ranking officials are consumed fussing with the big parade.

Woe is me, for I live in France

No, don't worry, I'm not homesick.

But I am upset that France lost the World Cup finals, it was a high stress game. Paris had a lot of long faces the next morning, the nation was definitely in mourning. Things are slowly easing back to normal, and I imagine everyone will let loose on Friday (Bastille Day).

Aunt Jemima, Lempicka, Pho, Dorian, and the Eiffel Tower

This morning we were craving a big Kerbey Lane breakfast. I guess after 11 months here, I'm allowed to crave a pancake. We actually found a place run by a guy from the US that serves typical diner food, including something roughly equivalent to Kerbey Lane breakfast. We tried it out for the first time this morning and had a nice big breakfast, including the first pancakes we've had in a year. It was pretty dang decent.

We also went to the Lempicka exhibit, it is closing in a week, so this was our last chance. It was at a museum out in the burbs, so we treked out to see it. Lempicka did sleek art deco style paintings, mainly of people, but also some still life. The exhibit was really good, it's always interesting to see something in person that you've only seen in art books. Her paintings really came alive in person.

After that we decided to do a run to Chinatown. We have a few things we like that we can only find there (wasabi peas, candied ginger, reasonably priced japonaise beer). We had lunch at a great Vietnamese dive. Really good Chicken Pho. In the asian grocery store they had a weird fruit I've never seen before. It's roughly the size of a football (american football), and very spikey on the outside. One of our friends had warned us about these, saying they have an overpowering stench. I was still curious, but didn't want to lug a football sized fruit back with us. We happened upon some cookies flavored with the fruit, so we got those. When we opened the cookies, a bad smell filled the air, but we were determined to try them. They were *hideous*. I had one bite and had to go brush my teeth, and rinse with listerine. The fruit is called dorian, if you ever see one, run the other direction...fast!

Tonight we went to the Eiffel Tower to try out Suzy's new tripod, and also scope out the turf for next Friday night, when they shoot fireworks off the Eiffel Tower for Bastille Day. It looks like we'll be celebrating Bastille Day with some friends that have an apartement a few blocks away, and wandering over to watch fireworks with the masses. 

Suzy's Football Fetish continues...

Apparently nothing else is happening on the face of the earth except WorldCup football. That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it. I guess I've got it pretty bad, I'm even joining the worldcup channel on my company's IRC server and hanging out with the real football junkies.

Wednesday's France-Portugal match was a lot of fun. We had our crazy riotous Aussie friends, Vivianne and Beth, over to watch the game. What is it with Australians and stressing their vocal chords? We had a great time watching the game. We didn't fit every sports fan stereotype though, we were sipping cosmopolitians, popped a bottle of champagne, and had fresh french strawberries dipped in dark chocolate. We also had a very nice chocolate mousse cake to celebrate Sarah's birthday.

After France won, we headed out to Bastille a few blocks away. The streets were erupting with happy French football fans, French flags were waving everywhere, fireworks were being set off in the street. It was great!

For you non football fans, don't worry, Sunday night is the final between France and Italy. Suzy will be giving up her football fetish after that.

Fend for yourselves! July sales hit France!

So, France is very organized about their sales at shops and department stores. They have them twice a year, January and July. The masses pour out and mob the stores. I went into BHV to shop for a Skype headset Saturday, and almost lost an arm. It seems that certain classes of things are on sale, and geeky stuff isn't on the list. Sarah and I are not big shoppers, and the mobs at the sales aren't really all that fun for us. Think of the day after Thanksgiving in the US, it's kind of like that.


We've been having some heat lately. It only gets up to 90 degrees, but nowhere (including our apartement) has air conditioning. I never realized how much heat a computer or a TV pumps out until we lived somewhere without AC. And you really can spend quite a lot of time pouring over the fine print on frozen foods standing around in the frozen section at the grocery store. Some people get little portable AC units, but they are $$, and add a chunk to the electric bill. 

Not so ugly duckling

So we have another batch of ducklings in Suresnes at Parc du Chateau. I've gotten into the habit of walking thru the park on the way to work (adds 5 minutes to the walk). This morning I was watching them, and a group of kindergarten aged kids came running up. They got really excited by the furry fuzzy little fellows.

We also have had quite a lot of World Cup fever here, and Suzy has finally gotten bitten by the bug. France played Brazil Saturday night. Brazil won the last World Cup 4 years ago, and they were the favorites to win this time. "The Blues" put a stop to that. The French played an amazing game, it was a really good game to watch. ....And the French won. We watched the game live. I hit *mute* when they got to the end of the game, and listened to Paris erupt around me. I've never heard several million people go completely bonkers in a close radius like that, it was quite a ruckus. Our apartement is a few blocks from Bastille, and the crowds swarmed into the streets after the game. Everywhere we heard fireworks going off and the modern equivalent of shooting your gun in the air ( laying down on the car horn ). We don't really have a unifying thing like this in the US, the closest thing we have is the Olympics. But it is different from the Olympics, even more intense from a national pride standpoint.