Halloweenish

I don't really like Halloween. It stresses me out because I always want to be something witty or funny but am neither witty nor funny enough to come up with a good costume and I end up stressed for days trying to come up with something and I always just end up saying, 'forget it' and going as something totally lame. French Halloween was no different.

When the kids lived in Singapore they celebrated Halloween so they are extremely familiar with the concept, but it isn't very popular in France. There were no decorations, big bags of candy, costumes or anything, but the kids wanted them. I'm sure if I had really looked into it, I could have found some sort of Halloween celebration somewhere in Paris for kids with candy but like I said, I'm not super into Halloween (read: I got lazy).

This year, Halloween fell during the kids 2 week fall break. (Recall that French schools run for 6 weeks and then give kids a 2 week break throughout the school year.) The boys ended up going to a camp type thing that is set up by the Mayor of Paris in each school and it ran the entire day, so my schedule wasn't really changed, I just took them to the school and picked them up each night but didn't have school myself, which was nice. H went to a friends house for a week and L always does her own thing so I didn't have much to do. This whole set up was really convenient for me to just skip over celebrating with the kids. No one seemed to mind. We played dress up in their costumes and ran around for a bit. A was allowed to dress up to go to the school but he couldn't decide what costume to wear. We're kindred spirits, I guess. He packed a backpack with both a Spiderman costume and a knight costume so he could decide once we got there.

We walked into the school and he pulled on my hand and told me that he had decided he wanted to be Spiderman and asked if I could help him put it on before he saw his friends. That little Spiderman was so cute I couldn't stand it. He ran inside and I heard all of his friends tell him how cool he looked, it was adorable.

For grown up Halloween, WOS had a Zombie themed Halloween Party and my darling friend Pierre let me borrow a costume to wear, but I couldn't find anything that was witty or clever so I picked a prisoner and planned on putting on some zombie makeup but we couldn't find it, so... oh well. Katherine went as Laura Croft, Jen went as Catwoman/Zoro and Jo just wore a skirt?

There were some of the scariest and most disgusting looking zombies at this party. Francois was dressed so scary, people were covered in fake blood, there was a guy with an eyeball falling out, and all of the bartenders wore contacts that made their eyes so scary and like 8 different colors. I quickly realized that in France, Halloween is not the excuse girls use to wear skimpy (or occasionally witty) costumes. Halloween is supposed to be scary and let me tell you, it was.

Sorry that this blog post read like it was written by an 8 year old. I'm so exhausted.
More to come!

The zombie burlesque show that wasn't

I have a million things to write about and I keep forgetting to write them all down and then more things happen and I get so bogged down that now I'm desperately playing catch up! So...sorry about that!

The thing I love about Paris is that on any given day/night you can find a thousand and one things to do. Movies, plays, museums, weird themed parties, bars that are open until all hours of the night etc.

This story takes place on a random Saturday night. I went to Siobhan's house and she informed me of a Zombie Burlesque Show happening near where she lived. Obviously we decide to go. We were not really sure what all it entails,and we were slightly terrified but interested none the less. We catch a bus and head to the area.

We go down the street to the address and come to two huge doors with people standing outside and posters everywhere. We assume this is the place of the show and go inside. You know what they say about assuming things... We pay a small cover and walk inside. It's an old theatre that has been converted into a club, the theatre geek in me is totally tweaking out. It's suuuuper crowded but no one is dressed up like zombies so we are a little confused. There was a band of at least 10 people on stage, wearing horrifying outfits that I am positive came from a French version of hot topic. There were 3 women singers and they kept rotating, each one wearing a terrifying outfit. Siobhan and I were the youngest people there by a solid 10 years.

After about 10 minutes, we realized that we were not in the right location. This band was apparently in the middle of an intense set of weird pop-punk French music and the crowd of middle aged french people was breaking it down like I have never seen before. We headed to an upper balcony to observe.

We let it ride for a little bit and eventually leave, sad that we didn't see any burlesque zombies and confused about why we didn't. We then realize that we walked the wrong way down the street and the zombie burlesque show was towards the other way. (A fact we realize when we see skulls painted on the ground heading in the opposite direction.) we decide to head that way just to check it out.

We immediately realize we have found the right place when a woman in a corset, petticoats and full on zombie make up is taking tickets at the door. We would have gone in but we already paid cover at the other place and poverty is a serious issue for Au pairs.

We meet up with Siobhan's friend and head out to oberkampf and just hang out for a bit until the place we went to closed. The metro is also closed but Julia and I take the night bus, a terrifying experience that I will never do alone, but convenient and free to get home instead of paying for a cab.

We had so much awkward and strange fun that night but I genuinely hope someday Siobhan and I find and attend a zombie burlesque show. It's now on the top of my 'must do while in Paris' list.

The cutest thing I've ever heard

The other night as I was tucking A and B into bed and they started asking about my family. I told them about my mom and my dad and my house and my life in the US.

They were absolutely awestruck when I explained that I don't have brothers of sisters. They did not think this was a possibility. B asked me several times about brothers or sisters, why I didn't have any, where they were, if I wanted them and mostly questions about how on earth I spent all of that alone time.

After I answered all of their questions, B said to me, Amanda, you have brothers? And I said, no sweetheart I don't. And he vehemently nodded and said, but yes, you do!

We can be your brothers if you want.

The first French person to make me cry

French public servants are the worst.

To ride the metro, you need tickets. Tickets are expensive, so you get a Navigo pass. Navigo passes are expensive so you apply for a student Navigo at a reduced rate.

You fill out all of your paperwork and send them money and then you wait 21 days and they send you a metro pass that is way cheaper than recharging your pass each month.

So, I did all of that. And then I waited. And I waited. And I waited.

Today I got an email basically saying that they sent my pass to the address on file but it was sent back because "I don't live at the address given."

Since I do not have my own letter box, I have to put my name then underneath it: chez (name of my family). I did that. Apparently the mail man still can't figure it out. Annoyed.

So this email gave me a number to call. I called it. Please remember my dislike for the phone in general plus then my general difficulties with spoken French. After telling the man on the other line why I was calling, he asked me a few questions such as; what is your account number (I don't have one because I've not gotten my paperwork back) what is your last name? (VanOsdol) and your first name? (Amanda) how do you spell your last name (V-A-N-O-S-D-O-L)
Okay, ZANOFDOL. (no, V as in Victor, S as in Sam)

After this frustrating exchange the man on the phone interrupts me and says,
Mademoiselle, do you know anyone who speaks better French? Call me back when you find someone who speaks French.




....the rudest.

Back to school

So my classes in French officially began on October 1st. I have a visitation class Mondays from 12-1:30ish where we meet at different locations around Paris and learn about them/ discuss them. Then I have another class that meets Tuesday/Friday from 1-3:15. This is my language/grammar/vocabulary class and it's the longest of my life.

I took a written test in French and then had to go take a quick little oral test. My written French is apparently at a much higher level than my speaking French which is apparently troubling for all involved.

I was placed in a class a little below my level to hopefully help me improve my speaking. Here is what I believe to be the problem: when I speak, even in English, I speak really fast. In order to try to keep up with the French, I just go. I could talk non stop for 10 minutes but none of the verbs would be conjugated correctly and my pronouns would be misplaced. When I write, I have time to write out verbs, spell them correctly, make them agree where they are supposed to and all the things you're supposed to do, however I still make faults. This is typical. French is tricky.

So the woman giving me the test told me that after the first 10 weeks I can switch to a higher level. Cool. I go to my own class.

It's a great review. Tons of things that I need to remember and it's really great going over the rules that I have forgotten. However; it is review for me. Some of the people in my class are just learning this stuff so it takes a few times to explain everything.
This makes the class go extremely slow. I am glad for the review but when it takes 45 minutes to learn how to conjugate the imperfect tense, I want to cry from boredom.

So the first or second day, my teacher explains that we are going to do exposés every Friday. The first one is going to be about our home countries. We get to explain our geographical location, culture, traditions etc.

Um... I'm from the united states. Everyone knows where we are. We don't have a culture. We take things from other cultures and make then worse by making them 'amurican' that is our culture. Ps. I'm the only American.

So I come to the realization that I'm eventually going to stand in this room in front of all these foreigners and tell them where the united states is. And about our culture. I hate everything about this idea but eventually I accept the terms.

My teacher asks for volunteers. I normally always volunteer to go near the beginning of things so that I can just be done with them and not have to worry. Not a single person offers to go first, not even the loud mouthed Russian girl. Great.

I realize the implications of the American volunteering to go first to talk about her home country. I'm annoyed with myself as I raise my hand. The teacher says ok, Amanda, what country will you be discussing. As I said "des etats-unis" I couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculous image.

The entire class giggles along with me. Apparently it's a 'thing' to have an American friend though, because after that everyone wanted to chat about where they had been in the US, and where I was from, and how much they loooooved x type of horrible American food.

I went to go give my exposé on Friday. (written entirely about Indiana instead of all the united states. There's even a blurb about IU basketball...of course.)

My teacher was sick. This Friday it is.

Don't hate on Spotify.

This is just a quick little blurb on how I made a few new friends!

When you move to a foreign country, expats tend to clump together in awkward ways. For example, there are 3-4 bars in Paris that play American football games. So on a Sunday, you go to them, see who is watching the same game as you, eventually realize that you are cheering for the same team or against each other, and proceed to start discussing your whereabouts. I have not met a single person from Indiana this way. I have, however, met lots of people from Wisconsin and New York. Katherine seems to constantly find Saints fans and even found a kid who went to her same high school and was a year below her.

The other thing about being abroad is that either you find out that someone you know is traveling through your city so you try to set up coffee/dinner/drinks or someone knows you live in a place so they put it on their itinerary and shoot you an email. Both of these things are fine by me and I welcome them; however, as the last two people to meander through the city to try to meet up with me have determined, I have the worlds most awkward schedule, so it's easier said than done.

All that said, Katherine found out that a guy she knew in high school is studying French here at the Sorbonne so we decided to meet up with him to watch football one Sunday. He says he is bringing along friends from his class. I assume other Americans. Incorrect.

He brings Swedish people! Now I'm not going to give you all the impression that I have made best friends with a bajillion Swedes because that is just simply not the case. Plus as anyone can tell you, you're not really friends with someone until you're friends on Facebook, and I'm only Facebook friends with one of them so far.

But, I have played kings with them,
I've been to their apartment and learned that you do not wear shoes in someone else's house, not even if you're a stranger,
you don't discuss Madonna because of the extremely heated debate that ensues about her merits as a singer vs. her terrifying personality,
Swedish girls like big necklaces,
and you don't hate on Spotify, no matter how badly it confuses or frustrates you, because it was invented in Sweden and they are extremely proud of that fact.

I've also been taught several Swedish words that I promptly forgot. C'est la vie.

Aileen comes to visit

So I had my first long term guest two weeks ago when Aileen came to stay for a week! (I don't count Marianthi spending the night and missing her train the next morning, although I probably should since she was my first guest and her missing the train was partly my fault)

She flew in on a Saturday morning, I gave her explicit instructions on how to get to the train stop where I would be waiting.
I found her right where I told her to be (she's such a good listener...unlike Allie and I who were great up to a certain point and then we were clueless)

We then dropped off her stuff and went for a little stroll around my neighborhood, got some food and had a teensy little picnic in the park near my house.

From there we hung out some more, met Francois at the l'arc de triomphe and walked to the Eiffel tower, got ready and went out with Katherine to Concoran's which is in Irish pub/bar. I am so proud of Aileen she stayed out the entire first night combatting jet lag.

Sunday we went to WOS for Sunday funday and football and hung around.

Monday we walked around; went to the Sacre coeur and then I had to babysit Monday night so she went with Katherine, Siobhan and their friends to trivia night...again at WOS.

Poor Aileen, she was here for a week and I think we must have gone to WOS like 4 times.

Here is a list of things we did because it's growing increasingly harder to remember what day/order we did them in:
-Trivia at WOS
-Out in mouffetarde
-Sacre coeur
-Eiffel tower
-Louvre
-L'orangerie
-Lunch in Tuileries
-Out with a group of rowdy scotts
-Hung out with Katherine and Blair in their cool hotel room
-Skipped down the street dancing to call me maybe
-Notre Dame
-Shopped
-Drank wine
-Drank coffee
-Ate so much cheese
-Versailles for like 20 minutes
-Tried to teach swedes (my 'i made more friends' story) to play the game 'presidents' without success
-Tried to play 'baseball' with swedes without success
-Tried to learn Swedish...without success
-Beat swedes in flip cup, despite my apparent anxiety
-Learned a Swedish drinking game that was unreal fun although complicated at first
-l'arc de triomphe
-ate at le depart st Michel (which is always/never a good idea) at 5am

She brought me the best 'hey girl' book of my lifetime, American gum and reese's peanut butter cups. I was the happiest clam. By the end of the week I was so exhausted from all the cool and fun things we did that I thought I may die.

But I didn't die. In fact, I started school.