Sticking it to The Man?

I don't pretend to be an expert on French politics by any means, but during my 11 years in France, I have had the chance to see a few elections come and go.  And what I've noticed is that most times is that each election, there is just a flip flop between the winning and losing parties.  ie the voters get disenchanted with the current president and fall for all the promises of the opposing party.  And then they are disappointed with the new president's performance, so the next time around, they vote the other party back in. 

This time however, it seems the general population has had enough of the two main parties, and the few people who did turn out to vote voted for the Front National as a measure of protest, to show their unhappiness with the current state of French politics. 

My FIL was here a few days this week to deliver our office & balcony furniture that he had lovingly handmade, so I don't want to slag him off too much, but a discussion we had about how their town (and whole department) voted overwhelmingly for the FN has really gotten my goat.  Given where they live, it's not really a surprise, but it's more-so his justification for it that has gotten my riled up.

In his mind (and the mind of many of my customers with whom I've also had this discussion), voting for the FN was the only way to manifest his unhappiness with the current situation.  I counter-argued that this wasn't the first round of elections, this was an actual election and they just voted a whole bunch of FN politicians into power.  Of course this was for the EU parliament representation and not a pure France election, but it is exceedingly frustrating for me that they cannot seem to understand how their actions can potentially affect France long-term.   The FN is for protectionism, anti-EU, anti-Euro, etc, and history has shown that isolating oneself from the world generally does not improve the economic situation of one's country.  Just take a look at Marine LePen's victory speech:  "The sovereign people have proclaimed that they want to take back the reigns of their destiny into their hands. Our people demand one type of politics: politics of the French, for the French, with the French. They no longer want to be directed from outside."

Granted, as I mentioned the other day in my movie post, there is a growing anti-foreigner sentiment in France and across Europe, but I do think the general French population is just so tired of political parties not doing much of anything that they don't really believe any changes will come about even if the FN was in power.  But that way of thinking still makes me angry.  If you're not happy with the powers-to-be, get out and do something about it or at least vote for one of the other parties that are out there (of which there are many). If anything, now's the time for those parties to really make a push for popularity.  But don't vote for the radical right-wing party just to "stick it to the government", because in the end, you're just sticking it to yourself.

The Big Reveal, part 1

Around this time last year, C took an exam in the hopes of entering into a program that would lead to a year of additional study.  C is a man with a master plan, and he had planned on taking that test, at that time, every since entering into his chosen domain. And he aced it - he got the best score in the Paris region, so he should have been a shoe-in for the available spot right?  Except no.  Because the unions stepped in and said that the number 1 person last year got that spot, so this year it should be based on seniority.  And because the French administration does anything they can to avoid reasons for striking, they agreed and poor C was told to try again next year.

C just sort of took it in stride - after all, in his line of work, getting things based upon seniority is extremely common. But I'm telling you, it made me ANGRY.  The man memorized the entire French penal code. Do you have any idea how long and complicated that is?  I watched him study for this test on a daily basis for 9 frickin' months. NINE MONTHS. He had stacks and stacks of flash cards that he studied during his daily commute, and it got to the point where you could say "What's law 422-25?" and he'd tell you in a heartbeat. He studied so much that he ended up writing a 1000+ page study guide for this test in order to help future candidates because one didn't exist. But yet some dude who didn't study at all and barely got a passing score got the spot.

Now C's original plan was to get accepted, do the course, get another year of experience and then move on into the private sector.  But then the unions put a kink in that plan, and we had to decide what to do. Sit around in a job that didn't really interest him anymore for another year and then wait and try again and hope the unions don't intervene?  Or change tactics?

C went for the second option, and decided to ask for a leave of absence.  As you may or may not know, French fonctionnaires can take an up to ten year leave of absence and still come back to their same job at the same pay.  So instead of waiting another two years to do that, he decided to do it now and put in his request. For a multitude of reasons, but mainly because there was a hiring freeze in his department = no new employees coming in, his request was denied.

So we were back to the drawing board again.  At this point, I was feeling pretty darn frustrated with The Man.  I was just so tired of seeing people who came to their job with excitement basically ended up as worker drones because showing any kind of initiative or progress was discouraged by the masses. There are so many inefficiencies in the French government, yet any attempt to change that is seen as disobedience, not progress.  "We have always done it this way, so we will always do it this way." And the fact that they usually promote based on seniority and not capability was my last straw.  So under my influence (something I still feel guilty about to this day), C decided to.......

Since a lot of you out there are expats in mixed-nationality relationships, I thought I would post something I found out about recently that was extremely shocking - yet it has received surprisingly little publicity:

As of yesterday, August 15, 2011, the US Embassies in France can no longer issue immigrant visas for US employment, fiancé visas or family visas. Everything must now be processed through the US Citizen and Immigration Services in Chicago! Meaning one office is going to process immigrant visas for most of the countries in the world. How insane is that?!

Here are the new instructions according to the American Embassy website:

Filing Instructions beginning August 15, 2011:

Beginning August 15, 2011, petitioners residing overseas who wish to file a Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, may do so as follows:

• If the petitioner resides in a country in which USCIS has a public counter presence, the Form I-130 may be filed directly with the USCIS field office (see instructions below) or through the USCIS Chicago Lockbox at one of the below addresses.
• If the petitioner resides in a country where USCIS does not have a public counter presence, the Form I-130 must be filed with the USCIS Chicago Lockbox at one of the addresses below, unless the petitioner requests and is granted an exception based on one of the criteria described below:
  

USCIS Chicago Lockbox addresses for regular mail deliveries:

USCIS
P.O. Box 804625
Chicago, IL 60680-4107

USCIS Chicago Lockbox address for express mail and courier deliveries:

USCIS
Attn: I-130
131 South Dearborn-3rd Floor
Chicago, IL 60603-5517

For additional information about how to file a Form I-130 with the USCIS Chicago lockbox, please see the USCIS website at www.uscis.gov or contact USCIS by phone at 1-800-375-5283.

First of all, lockbox?? WTF? Couldn't they have come up with a more professional sounding word than that?

Secondly, I looked at the USCIS website, and apparently there are still some embassies in Europe who are allowed to issue these types of visas: Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy and the UK. So if you're in one of those countries, you're fine - but everyone else has to go through the US, unless you have a situation that "merits exception", in which case you can request one of the above countries to review your application (in France's case, it'd be Italy).

As a side note, I also came across this on the website regarding student visas: According to the US immigration law, foreign students are not allowed to attend public secondary school in F-1 student status unless they reimburse the school authority for an amount equal to the school's per capita cost of education.

If I'm reading that right, does that mean foreign students now have to pay full tuition? There are so many great exchange programs out there where schools just "swap" students and each pays their normal home country tuition, but the above makes it seems like this would be no longer possible?

I don't know...It just makes me angry that 1) our consular services have to suffer because of the budget crisis and 2) that we are making it harder & harder for qualified students & workers to come to our country. All of that talent is going elsewhere in the world, where it's easier to get in and receive funding. A lot of those people are researchers and scientists, and now all that knowledge is being shared with other countries. It's like people don't realize the long-term impact this insular thinking will have on the US and our prosperity...Not to mention that if C & I ever decide to go back to the US, it is going to be one big pain in the heinie!

My attempt at the "Rant of the Week"

I took the puddle jumper from Paris to Bordeaux today. As it was a late morning flight, it was fairly empty, and with no one around me, I was looking forward to 50 minutes of peace and quiet. Until a mom carrying a small child plopped right down behind me just before they closed the plane doors.

Let me preface this by saying that I know a lot of you readers have children, so this isn't against kids in general. I know flying solo with one or more children is not an easy task by any means. But I still take issue with what happened on this flight. I was sitting in the window seat, and the mom was sitting in the seat directly behind me, with her child on her lap. Now you all know that there isn't much leg room for a normal adult on a national flight. Add a child in there and there's really no space left.

The kid started kicking my seat and causing a general ruckus as we were heading down the runway. After five straight minutes of kicking, and the mom doing absolutely nothing to stop it, I turned around and said "Excuse me, but your child is kicking my seat". She replied "So what?", to which I said "I'd like it to stop, it's really bothering me".

The kicking and pushing continued. None of this is the kid's fault - confined to such a tight space, he didn't really have anywhere else to go. And his mom had brought nothing with to occupy him, so he was finding his own amusement. Seeing as she had no one in the two seats next to her, I turned around again and asked if she could move one seat over. She said "No, you're the one that's bothered, you move". I said "I'm not the one causing the problem, so I shouldn't have to move. If you were sitting in the middle, you wouldn't be bothering anyone". That apparently didn't please her, because she called me a b*tch and said there was no way she was moving.

At that point, a flight attendant was walking by, so I stopped him and said "Excuse me sir, but I have a small problem. I keep getting kicked by the child behind me. " He looked at the woman, and then looked at me, and said "Why don't you just move to the middle seat?" I said again "Because 1) I paid for a window seat and 2) I'm not the one bothering someone". He said "Madame, surely you understand that we can't ask a mother and a child to move?" I replied "I'm not asking them to move rows, I'm just asking her to put her child in the seat next to her, and then he can kick all he wants". The flight attendant replied that he couldn't do that and told me I could either move myself or put up with it.

And you know what? That just really ticked me off. I'm just trying to be tranquil on my flight, and I'm the one that has to move? I understand that you can't control what small children do, or how they react - but you can control your own actions, and I thought that mom was being pretty b*tchy herself. If she had just apologized for her child, or made even the slightest attempt at stopping him from doing it again, I would have understood. But none of that happened. Instead she just told him to ignore the mean lady and keep on doing what he was doing.

The flight attendant eventually came back and told me there was another window seat up front, so I finally decided to move seats. Good thing I did too, because right after, the kid started crying and basically screamed for the remainder of the flight.

(And yes, I do realize that writing this has probably increased the likelihood of me being the lady with the screaming kid on the plane one day. But still. Other people's kids, right?)

No boîte auto for you

So I just got off the phone with a rental car customer service rep. I should preface this by saying that I rent cars through this company for at least 2 weeks per month for work - so I've got a lot of fidelité points built up. I was thinking about rescheduling our trip to Reims for February, when Miss Leyla will be here, and thought I'd use my points to rent a car (to spare her from C's driving).

But everytime I would connect to their website, it said I didn't have enough points. People, after two years of regular rentals with them, I have about a gazillion points, so I'm thinking - how is this possible? I finally decided to suck it up and call their "customer service" line, at the low, low price of 32 cents per minute.

So I start explaining my story, saying that I want to use my points to reserve an automatic car for a few days in February. She cuts me off and says "Oh la la, that is SOOOO not possible. You can't use your points to rent an automatic car".

Me: What? Why not? You guys are certainly happy to rent them to me and to take several hundred euros a month from The Company, and I don't get any benefit from that?
CS: Sure you do Madame, you can rent any of our manual cars.
Me: Do you think I'm just renting automatic cars for fun?*
CS: Who on Earth doesn't know how to drive a manual car?
Me (thinking: "Um, practically my entire country, but whatever): That's really none of your onions, is it?

We go back and forth for several more minutes, with me insisting that surely there must be some way for me to use my points for an automatic car. She finally admits there is, but that it would require me to call her back each time. (Oh joy!)

Me: So every time I want to use my points, I'm going to have to pay 32 cents per minute to do so.
CS: Well, yes, but it's normal, we're a business, we have to make money.
Me: I'd like to remind you you make plenty of money off of your rentals....
CS: But every company IN THE WORLD charges, how could we not?
Me: I'm sorry to break it to you, but it's not actually payant in a lot of other countries.
CS: I don't believe you - companies could not survive without doing that.
Me: It's true - customer service numbers are free in the US. And in Canada too. (And then I throw in a whole bunch of other random countries, without really knowing if they have free numbers, but I figured she'd never know that).
CS: Hurrumph. Well whatever, in France, c'est comme ça.

Me: Okay, well anyways - can we get on with my rental?
CS: But I told you it wasn't possible to use your points with an automatic car.
Me: Sigh. (Do we really have to go through this all over again??) Okay then, well let's use the extremely convoluted, roundabout way you suggested earlier.
*tappity tap tap tap*
CS: Oh la la. We have another problem - you are wanting to rent during les vacances scolaires. This means it is going to TRIPLE the points needed. There is no point in proceeding.
Me: Well, can we just try it and see?
*tappity tap tap tap*
CS: Oh la la, there is a third problem. The reservations for February are not open yet.
Me: What do you mean they're not open yet? I just reserved a car this morning for work.
CS: Yes, but we're talking about the fidelité reservations. Those only open up a few weeks beforehand. Try calling back 10 days before you want to leave.
Me: Ten days before I want to leave? You want me to plan my vacation only 10 days before I go? Book the hotel and everything at the last minute, etc? Your fidelity program kind of sucks.
CS: Well it's not me that makes the rules - it's been like that forever. (The standard French excuse - even though something is dumb, we can't change it because it's always been that way).
Me: So basically what you're saying is that I have no chance of ever using any of the points that I've accumulated in the past two years?
CS: Sure you can....for a manual car.
Me: (Mental argghh!!!!) Really then, there's no point in me renewing my card and staying chez vous? I might as well go with another company who will let me do that.
CS: Whatever. (Can't you practically hear the shoulder shrug??)

So 30 minutes later, I was out almost ten euros and I still did not have a reservation. The funniest bit of all was at the end, when I said "Thank you for your help (grrr)" and she replied "No problem" and then we're both like "Bonne journée, au revoir". It always cracks me up that people can spend all this time arguing with each other, but you still almost never see someone storm out without saying good day and goodbye. It might be an angry goodbye, but they will still say it.

The French - polite, even in the face of rudeness.


*And yes, I realize I could just suck it up and finally learn to drive a manual car, but 1)I'm gone so much for work that I don't really want to spend the little free time I have learning to drive a stick shift in Paris, 2) it would cost a fortune and 3) at this point, I plain just don't feel like it.

Monday night, I came home to find this on the door:Let me preface this by saying that I know this is a French tradition that dates back a long time. But it still gets my goat. Why should I have to give a tip to someone for doing what they are paid to do? The firemen I get - a lot of them are volunteers, and besides, you don't really want to piss the firemen off.

But the mailman? Come on. I remember back in Bretagne, we knew a couple working for La Poste in Paris. Between the two of them, they got at least an extra 8,000€ every year. EIGHT GRAND PEOPLE. I bust my butt for my job, and no one gives me a tip at the end of the year, let alone an eight thousand euro one. Our postman doesn't even do a good job - he's really lazy and often times just leaves mail on top of the mailboxes - which is not cool since they're outside where any Tom, Dick or Harry walking by can grab them. (Or maybe that should be "Thomas, Richard or 'arry").

To be fair, they are technically "selling" you a calendar, and you are free to give however much you want to purchase it, but the calendars are super lame now. Who wants to stick this up on their wall?
I've adopted a lot of the French ways over the years, but this one just isn't one of them. How about you guys though? Will you be giving out a little extra somethin' somethin' to your mailman this year? How about to the Firemen? Or to your building's concierge?

Not on a train, not on a plane, not in a car, not in a bar.

Let me just say that I cannot stand the sound of people clipping their fingernails. Or biting their fingernails. It drives me absolutely insane. Up the wall. Batty. Bonkers. Fab came from an entire family of nail-biters. To this day, I still am not sure how I survived a 22 hour roadtrip with them.

Luckily C is not a nail biter. But he is obsessive about keeping his nails trimmed short. Knowing how much I can't stand the sound of it, he usually does it when I'm not around. But the other night he was playing the guitar and they were getting in the way. He was like "Come on, can't I just do it in front of you just this once?"

And I'm all - Um, no. Not gonna happen buddy.

So he said "Okay, fine, I'll just borrow your nail clipper and do it in the métro on my way to work tomorrow. " And my eyeballs nearly popped out of my head. I was like "Aw no, don't tell me you are one of those people!!" I could see him thinking "Woman, what on Earth are you talking about?" So I explained that everyone hates that person - the one who's cutting their nails (or God forbid their toenails -Ew!) in a public place. C said "Um, I think you are the only one who hates that person." His theory is that it's just my problem and that in France it's perfectly normal to do this. And I was all "But no! Even Twitter agrees with me - we just had a big discussion about this the other day!"

So come on blogosphere - back me up. Nail clipping should be done in the privacy of your own home, non???

Yesterday, my boss asked me to take a day trip to Grenoble to visit a new client. I was pretty excited since it's a new region for us - most of my clients are in "le grand ouest", and I've seen pretty much everything there is to see in their areas. I unfortunately didn't get to see as much as I'd hoped due to the train strike - I basically just had time to get there, see my client and get back - but it is definitely a region I would like to explore more someday.

My train wasn't due to get in until after 9pm and I was starting to feel peckish, so I decided to head over to the bar car. I obviously wasn't the only person with this idea, since there were a good 10 other people in line in front of me. Which meant I spent the next 20 minutes preciously guarding my place in line and fighting off all the wannabe line jumpers. When it finally came to be my turn, I ordered their "menu saveur" - it had a cold entree, a sandwich and a drink.

The waitress grabbed the entree and turned back to me and said: "What sandwich?" I was like "Pardon?" And she repeated "What sandwich?" again. Now y'all know it's a major pet peeve of mine when people start speaking to me in English. Especially in bad English. So I replied back in French, saying I wanted to roasted chicken one w/veggies. I give her my (American) bank card and we proceeded to have the following conversation.

W: I no take
Me (in French): Why not? I use this card a couple times a month on the TGV with no problems.
W: Machine no take
Me (in French): Um, yes it does. See, it goes right there - you just have to slide it through.
W: I try. (runs it through at the speed of a turtle). It no work.

The other people in line have noticed the delay and are starting to get shifty. Everyone else in the near proximity is also staring because of the English speaking. I am starting to get majorly irritated because all those years in Bretagne have made me really testy about people staring at me.

Me (in French): You have to do it faster.
W: No work (who is she, Tarzan??)
Me (in French): Now you need to press that button. (She tries and it works). But why are you speaking to me in English anyways?
W (in French): Because you can't speak French Mademoiselle! (Not only is she telling me my French sucks, but she calls me Mademoiselle on top of it? When I'm all gussied up in professional attire, carrying a work valise and sitting in first class? Nobody puts baby in a corner).

W (continues on): I am doing this for you, to make things easier. You should be happy.
Me (in French - and getting on my high horse): Listen lady, did I ask you to speak English with me?
W: Ah bon? You don't like speaking English? It's the first time a foreigner has ever told me that.

Me (*possibly* stretching the truth just a little bit here to make my point....): You do realize that not all foreigners are anglophones right? That there are other languages out there? I'm telling you, if I'd wanted to speak English, I would've moved to England!

I was ready to expect a round of triumphant applause, but then I was brought back down to Earth and remembered I was the only foreigner there. And that everyone else was still staring. Including the dude in front of me who'd for whatever reason had thought it was humorous to order his "parmentier de canard" with in an American accent. (Who buys parmentier de canard on a train anyways??) So I took my food and quickly walked back to my seat, all the while hearing the waitress muttering to the next customer "Ca alors. This has never happened before. Those foreigners are normally happy when someone speaks English to them".

I don't know why this rubbed me the wrong way so much, but I am glad I got the mini-bottle of wine with the meal to help calm me down. I guess I just felt like I've made so much progress. And for whatever reason, my French is normally a million times better when I'm talking to a customer or to a stranger than it is with someone I know. Hell, in Egypt, the people at our table didn't even realize I was a foreigner until half-way through the trip - and only because of my misuse of 'avant' when speaking about a food item. As in "Ah, tiens, il y avait pas ça avant" instead of "il n'y avait pas ça tout à l'heure".

Same goes for our châteaux weekend - neither the owners of the castle we stayed in nor those of the manor realized I wasn't French - and the owner of the manor even has an English husband! So I was thinking I'd really come a long way, only to get put back in my place by some lowly SNCF chick. Boo on that.

Those of you who have been to my place before know that in order to enter, you need to give me a call and then I need to come down 8 floors and let you in. (None of those fancy digicode panels for the servants' entrance lol). But with my new "man friend", whom I'll call C, spending more and more time chez moi (and me being quite lazy), it's getting to be a regular inconvenience. So I decided it's about time I made a spare set of keys. Except my particular key costs a fortune in Paris, so C suggested I get a double made while out in the countryside this week.

This has proved to be much more difficult than originally thought.

I've spent the past three days stopping at any place that even looks like it might possibly make copies of keys - hardware stores, shopping centers, supermarkets, etc. You name it, I've tried (unsuccessfully) to get a key made there. Which begs the question - where do all of these people go when they need a key??

I finally decided to ask my client, who suggested I try a few places in a town 20km away. Rather than drive all the way there only to find out none of them had the proper machinery, I decided to make a few calls during my lunch break. And lo and behold, one of them tells me they actually make keys! So after work, I hop in the car and head all the way over there. Only to have the following conversation:

Me: Hi, I'd like to have doubles of these two keys made.
Clerk: Sorry, that's not possible.
Me: ????
Clerk: We don't make keys on Wednesday
Me: But I called earlier and you told me that you made keys.
Clerk: We do.
Me: But just not on Wednesdays.....
Clerk: Nope.
Me: And that would be because???
Clerk: *shrugs*
Me: I just drove 20km to get here. You couldn't have told me this on the phone when I called earlier?
Clerk: You didn't ask.

Seriously.

But she's right. I'm now a French citizen* - shouldn't I know these things? And it's not like I'm fresh off the boat or anything. So how on Earth could I have made such a rookie mistake?


*As a side note, Fab has not found the letter yet, so I still have yet to actually see it with my own two eyes. Le sigh.

Le Jardin d'Acclimatation

Again, more blackberry pics, because I prefer thinking about pretty pictures rather than about how the dude in the shower stall next to me this morning actually PEED in the shower while we were all showering in for work. I kid you not, the man peed in a shower that shared the floor with all the other showers. And the drain was between my shower and his shower, so the yellow stream kept coming my way. For like five minutes. Talk about disgusting. Especially when there are actual toilets just around the corner.

I dare you not to laugh

Dear Mr Branson,

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit. Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at the hands of your corporation.

Look at this Richard. Just look at it:

I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

You don't get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it's next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That's got to be the clue hasn't it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in:

I know it looks like a baaji but it's in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you'll be fascinated to hear that it wasn't custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It's only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what's on offer.

I'll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it's Christmas morning and you're sat their with your final present to open. It's a big one, and you know what it is. It's that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about. Only you open the present and it's not in there. It's your hamster Richard. It's your hamster in the box and it's not breathing. That's how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this:

Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking it's more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It's mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird. Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.

By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it's baffling presentation:

It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn't want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above. I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.

Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on:

I apologise for the quality of the photo, it's just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson's face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel:


Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I'd had enough. I was the hungriest I'd been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.

My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations:

Yes! It's another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff. Richard.... What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I'd done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.

So that was that Richard. I didn't eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can't imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.

As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It's just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it's knees and begging for sustenance.

Yours Sincererly...

Re-bienvenue en Bretagne

Scene: Ksam is checking into a hotel somewhere in Bretagne

Ksam (thinks "Oh man, it's the same b*tch we had last time", but simply says in French): Hi, we reserved two rooms for tonight under the name ****.
Receptionist: (Looks back and forth between me and my male colleague) Two rooms?
Ks: Yes, two rooms.
R: (Looks back & forth again and decides to repeat "two rooms" in a really bad English accent, just in case I didn't get it the first five times)
Ks: Yep.
R: Okay then.....here are your keys.........For your two rooms.
Ks: Thanks, have a good night.

I go up and open the door of my room and am automatically hit with a cloud of smoke. Coming from my supposedly non-smoking room. In the supposedly non-smoking hotel. I go next door and check out my co-worker's room, which also reeks of smoke, though somewhat less. After a little bit of mental debate about whether or not I can stand it for the next four nights, I decide to go back downstairs and see if I can change rooms. Considering there are only four other cars in the parking lot (ours included) and 60+ rooms, I figure this will not be much of a problem.

Ks: Hi, I'm wondering if it would be possible to change rooms? Mine smells like smoke.
R: That is not possible, it's a non-smoking hotel.
Ks: I know, but the previous person must have smoked in there. My co-worker's room also smells like smoke.
R: Like I said, it's no-smoking here.
Ks: Like I said, it smells like smoke.

*And thus begins the stare down between Ksam & the receptionist.*

Ks: (finally breaking the silence) Listen here, there's an ashtray in my room AND in my co-worker's room. You can't tell me people don't smoke in there. (TOC, take that biyatch)
R: (realizing I've got her there) Well, what do you want me to do? People smoke in the rooms no matter what we do, so we have to put ashtrays in so they don't leave ashes everywhere.
Ks: (thinks "And this is my problem how??" but says nothing)
R: *sighs* Fine, let me look around and see what is available. *Tappity tap tap tap* You can take room number 36.
Ks: Gee, thank you ever so much for your help.

Remind me again why people say Parisians are the snotty ones?

Sometimes I wonder why I even try...

Or, "No milk for you!"

When we last saw our heroine, she was heading to the supermarket to buy some milk for her morning tea. I would like to remind you that this requires an extraordinary amount of effort on her part, because it means she must get up, get dressed and go out before having her morning tea.

Ksam: *arrives at the local Franprix and enters the store*
Cranky Employee: We're closed.
Ks: But you open at 8:30!
CE: No we don't.
Ks: Yes you do, I've been here before at that time.
CE: Are you trying to tell me you know when MY store opens?
Ks: It frickin' says 8:30 right on your window!!
CE: I've worked here for (insert ridiculous amount of years here) number of years and I can assure you we've never opened at 8:30.
Ks: Then why the hell is your door wide open?
CE: Leave! Can't you see we're busy stocking shelves?
Ks: *walks out shaking her head and wondering why she ever tries to reason with these people*

And all of this happened the morning after our dear Ksam got felt up in the movie theater by a 50 year old Frenchie:

Erica and Ksam sit down to watch the 5:40pm showing of "Two Lovers". An older gentleman walks past and then turns back and sits down right next to Ksam, even though there are plenty of other seats available.

Ksam: See what I mean? People are always sitting right next to me!
Erica: You should've put your bag down on that chair.
Ksam: I know, but I'm always worried about someone trying to steal it.
*The movie starts*
Ksam (What's going on here? Is that man stroking my leg? Or is that just his coat?) *moves leg*

The movie continues on, and a little while later Ksam feels something again. (What do I do? I don't want to just start yelling at him in the theater if it really is his coat...) *Moves leg again*

The third time....(okay, this cannot be a coincidence. Slams down hard on his foot and turns to glare him). Ksam prepares herself to say something along the lines of "Tu me touches encore une fois connard et je te coupe les couilles" (touch me again bastard, and I'll cut your balls off) in case it happens again, but the dude gets up and runs out of the theater like a little girl, leaving Ksam to feel dirty and slightly traumatized.

End scene.

Why I will never date a Monop livreur

The scene: A bourgeois apartment in the 5th. The two young children are sleeping soundly in their beds and their super-nounou is reading Le Figaro and waiting (im)patiently for the parents to come home. All of the sudden, she hears a knock at the door and thinks "Now who can that be?"

Monoprix Delivery Dude: Hi, I have a delivery for Mme X
Super-nounou: Okay, I'll take it
MDD: Do you have money for the payment?
SNN: Oh, it's not paid for? Nope, sorry, they didn't leave me anything.
MDD: Will they be back soon?
SNN: Hopefully in a half an hour.
MDD: )àç&"é'! It's my last delivery of the night and I just want to get home. I've been working since 10am.
SNN: Silence (Why is he racont-ing me his vie??)
MDD: Fine, I'll just wait for them to come back.
SNN: (waits for him to go back down to his truck so she can close the door)
MDD: (waits for SNN to invite him in)
SNN: (no way in hell is this guy coming in here, Mme X would kill me. or hell, maybe he might kill me)

*akward stand off ensues for a few minutes*

MDD: So....are you a student?
SNN: Nope.
MDD: So you watch the kids full-time then?
SNN: No, I also have another job.
(mindless small talk for about ten minutes and then comes THE question SNN had been desperately trying to avoid)
MDD: So...are you single?
SNN: (makes the fatal error of saying Yes)
MDD: What are you doing later on tonight?
SNN: Sorry, I've got plans.
MDD: And after?
SNN: Nah, I'm not interested.
MDD: Why not?
SNN: Cuz I just got out of a long term relationship and I'm not looking for anything serious right now.
MDD: But you do go out with guys?
SNN: I go on dates every once in a while, yeah.
MDD: But nothing serious?
SNN: No.
MDD: Why?
SNN: I told you, I'm happy with my life and I don't really feel the need to have a man right now. I'm taking care of myself, I don't have to cook or clean for anyone but me....(why I am even justifying myself to this guy?)
MDD: But what about your sex life?
SNN: ??????
MDD: You do sleep with the guys you go out with, right?
SNN: Umm.....no
MDD: What? When was the last time you had sex??
SNN: (Why do I keep answering his questions?? Why am I not telling him to fuck off and then slamming the door in his face?)
MDD: Non, you can't be serious? That's not healthy!!
SNN: I don't know, I'm feeling pretty fine.
MDD: No, I'm telling you, it's not good for your body. I could never do that. You should really remedy this (*leaning in*)
SNN: Uh.....thanks but no thanks.
MDD: Are you free tomorrow night? Maybe we could go out?
SNN: Um, nope, gotta watch the small childrens tomorrow night too. (picks up the phone and tries to call the mom for the millionth time - where on Earth is that woman??)
MDD: What about this weekend? It doesn't have to be a serious relationship, just sexual.
SNN: (DUDE - just give up!) Nope, busy this weekend too.

Enter Mme X, who comes running up the stairs and looks back and forth from MDD and SNN. "SNN, can you wait a sec while I run and get my checkbook?"

But SNN was already long gone.....

*ring ring*
Me: Hello?
Phone dude: Est-ce que je peux parler à Patricia ? (Can I speak to Patricia?)
Me: Huh?
Pd: Patricia. Est-ce que je peux parler à Patricia ?
Me: Désolée, vous vous êtes trompé de numéro (Sorry, you've got the wrong number)
*I get ready to hang up*
Pd: Uh, est-ce que je peux te poster une question ? (Um, can I ask you a question?)
*As a side note, if there's one thing that riles me up, it's strangers tu-ing me*
Me: Sigh. Fine.
Pd: Comment tu t'appelles ? (What's your name?)
Me: Il est quelle heure là ? (What time is it?)
Pd: Hein ?
Me: Il est quelle heure ?
Pd: Pourquoi ? (Why?)
Me: Parce que vous m'avez réveillée. (Because you woke me up).
Pd: Non, mais c'est quoi ton prénom ? (No, but what's your name?)
Me: Non, mais franchement, draguer une fille à 7h du mat ?? (Seriously, you're trying to pick up a chick at 7am??)
Pd: Dis-moi juste ton prénom !! (Just tell me your name)
Me: Désolée mais là je vais me recoucher. (Sorry dude, but I'm going back to bed)


I put the phone down and go back to bed. The damn thing rings again. I ignore it. But decide I can't turn it off since my cousin's plane is supposed to be landing in two hours and she may need help. Which is why I frickin' find myself up WAY too early on a Saturday morning, cursing the first-born child of the Phone Dude.