Lobster races on the porch, lobster claws at the Louvre, and Dame Judi Dench in a lobster suit

February 17th marked the beginning of a vacation season here in Paris. I'm not sure why a vacation was necessary at this point, we just had Christmas and Easter isn't for another two months. Mardi Gras came and went with little more than a hand-written "Mardi Gras- beignets=1€ " sign in the local boulangerie. But the point is that there was a vacation during which everyone's family went skiing. Except mine. They went to the family chateau in the south. That's gotta be rough. Also please note the mannequin that lives on the balcony across the street.

And really, not having the de Scorrailles here was not all that different from the times when they are here. I watched more TV (Six Feet Under and Next, and Friends, of course), and I ate dinner closer to 7h30. The bathroom stank a little less and there were no screaming children. But beyond that, everything continued in its usual way. Except for Friday night, when I hosted what we'd been referring to as "JewFest". JewFest observes no one holiday in particular, but rather serves as an agglomeration of any and all Jewish holidays. I made latkes (the first time I'd ever done so by myself), Liz brought coconut ice cream (which promptly melted), and Lauren and Christina brought challah and a plum tart.

The truth is is that my life here is not all that different from my life in California or Vermont or wherever the hell I'm from these days. I am still very much a homebody and prefer the dinner party among friends to eating out. Which is not to say that dining out in Paris does not have its good points. It does. Many, in fact. Maybe it was the novelty of having the apartment to myself and being able to cook for others and play at being a grown-up that was so appealing.

So if I could pinpoint two major themes of the week they would be:

1. Large dinners that last till midnight replete with candles, girl-talk, singing (J. Tims seems to be a favorite), and cat-shaped focaccia bread .

and

2. Boy Woes. I will not go too far into detail here because I am not in the business of airing the dirty-laundry of others. But I will say that this week French Boy(s) have inspired a record number of "Abuh?"s. Last month, by dating one such français I found that there is a sort of universality among 20-year-old boys. At first it was comforting in a sort of "aw, they're just like boys from home" way, but that has since grown into a more irritating "aw, fuck, they're just likeboys from home".

A few other things:

We enjoyed approximately one week of sunshine. Then that ended. I am of the belief that rainy days and sunny days necessitate their own, mutually exclusive, activities. Braving the lines and forking over the 6.50€ for some badass hot chocolate at Angelina's falls into the former category. So on Thursday, after grabbing a gyro with Liz, the ladies and I took a nice stroll along the river from St. Michel to rue de Rivoli. I would just like to say to everyone right here, right now, that though the idea of white hot chocolate may be appealing, in reality it is kindof a let down. But that is my only complaint.

A large part of my life here is taken up by sitting. Thursday, for example, went something like this: woke up, sat at the table and had breakfast, got ready, sat on the metro on the way to school, sat in class for 1.5 hours, walked from St. Michel to Angelina's, sat at Angelina's for a long time, rode the metro home, went to Lauren's, sat in Lauren's kitchen. So there are scenery changes, but on a day-to-day basis there is little deviation from this structure.

On Saturday I decided I might like to have bangs. On Monday I decided I trust Lauren enough to cut my bangs. On Thursday she cut my bangs. This is now what our Parisian friends see when I am walking down the street:

And that officially fulfills my picture-of-myself-taken-in-bathroom-mirror quota for the year. It won't happen again, I promise.

A natural aversion to blogs is no match for a (somewhat unnatural) compulsion to sign up for things

In a perfect world, I would have created this in August when I first arrived in France. As it stands now, I have three months left in this fine country. So why bother creating a travel-blog when one's travels are more than half over? My motives were three-fold:

• I have sent out approximately 3 mass-e-mails and am subsequently in constant search of a better medium for reaching my kin and fellows


• Said medium needed to be accessible to a larger demographic (facebook: out, livejournal: I do not admit to having one, therefore: out)


• Peer pressure

To attempt to summarize the past 6 months for this introductary entry, which by the way is being written at 3am, would be silly, and so I am not going to do it. Sorry. Instead, people, places, and things will be introduced au fur et a mesure. My best friend in California, one Miss Megan J. Wolf has a way of looking at the world as though it were a comic book: everyone is a character and the places where you reside are romanticised versions of what they really are. This outlook is not half-bad. I have used it from time to time since arriving here.