15. Hair

I don't have a lot to talk about this week. Things seem to be holding their breath for the coming week. There's Christmas, which seems to be a much more understated deal here than in the US. Can I say much more understated? Should I just say less stated? Hmm. Nope. That must be one of those words where we've lost the positive. Nobody's plussed anymore, and maybe it's because we use sequiturs all the time that we don't talk about them.

Oh wait. The opposite of understate is overstate. Which are extremes of simply stating something. Hmm again. See, if I was going to be really, like, high-quality about this post, I would delete all this since I'm not drawing attention to something interesting. You know, stuff like pointing out that scientists do in fact know how bumblebees fly. See, Antoine Magnan, a French entemologist in the 1930s, after doing research and calculations and stuff, said that bumblebees shouldn't be able to fly and put it in a book. Then he checked his math, realized that he'd goofed, reworked the...things, and figured out that it made perfect sense for bumblebees to be able to fly.

Wrong Bumblebee. And he couldn't fly.

But...Christmas is coming. A friend of ours is leaving town for a week or so and we'll be keeping his place just south of Paris, out in the woods somewhere, safe and warm. That should be fun. Then Megan's parents are coming for about a week over New Year's, during which time we're going to freaking Marrakesh. Yeah. In Morocco. That'll keep me in blog material for a while. But for now...nothing. So let's talk about my hair.

14. Berlin: After the Fall of the Turkey

The day after Thanksgiving in Berlin (link to last week's post here), we woke to the banging and pounding of hammers, punctuated by the occasional scream of a power saw. At first, my muzzy head thought we were back in Le Petit Bateau where these sounds were, if not welcome, at least familiar. When we finally bestirred ourselves from our bed about 11 and headed into the rest of the apartment, Brunella told us that the building's owners had been planning to do some major renovations, modernizing the wiring and plumbing throughout the building. But she'd thought they weren't doing it until next week. Apparently they were running ahead of schedule.

Ah well. I was at least used to these things. There's been construction and remodeling in the building that houses Petit Bateau almost since we moved in, and directly below us for more than a month. At the very least this percussive wake up call would ensure that we didn't sleep our time in Berlin away.

However, there was an added element of excitement: while they were modernizing the plumbing, the water on our side of the building would be turned off. Today and for the rest of the week we would be unable to use the faucets, take a shower, or use the toilets from 8 am to 4pm.

Pic unrelated. But funny.

13. Thanksgiving in Berlin

We went to Berlin, y'all! We've got a friend- whom I shall refer to as Brunella- living there for a while doing academic stuff of various flavors. Some of you know her and might recognize her in some of the pictures, but I'm going to use Jean Grey to represent her because they're both hot and have sexy auburn hair.

So Brunella was planning on having a Thanksgiving dinner to show her friends in Berlin how we roll when we decide to glut out. Now, Germany is no stranger to lots of food, but it needed to be shown how, way back in the day, the Pilgrims and the Indians, er...Protestant buckle-fetishists and indigenous peoples, urm...crazy crackers and guileless Native Americans, like, ate some stuff in idyllic harmony before going back to playing the colonial repression game the way it's played everywhere else. 

Brunella invited us to this bash, and we were all like, “Hells yeah!” It turned out that an American lady we had met previously, who was living in Paris with her family for academic reasons, was throwing a dinner for others of an American persuasion in the City of Lights. She invited us to come and we did, so we got to have two turkstravaganzas this year. But that diverges from the tale at hand. Come read with me.

12. The War with Monsieur LeClub, Part II

When last we looked in on this naval engagement, things were heating up. After some initial cautionary fire, Monsieur LeClub had shown his complete disregard for our well-being by having a party that kept us up till all hours. Meanwhile, Polecat was chattering with her friends at annoying volume on the other side of our wall. If you haven't read Part I of this tale, well, you really should. We had just spoken with our building manager, La Guardienne, and she said that she would speak with LeClub. We have our own attacks planned, as well.

11. The Things We Carried With Us...

I'm standing in the baggage claim at Berlin-Schoenefeld airport in, like, Berlin and stuff. Snatches of conversation in different languages blow by like wind-driven sheets of rain. I had 30 euros in my pocket this morning, but had to spend more than half of that on train tickets from Petit Bateau to Orly airport (most of that being the tickets from the RER to the airport itself. 16 euros for a 5-minute train ride.) in Paris. Then I spent too much of the rest of that on a bottle of water.

As we waited to board in Orly a quartet of soldiers meandered through the crowd.

This, but in an airport.

10. The War with Monsieur LeClub: Part I

Monsieur LeClub is a scurvy dog, swabbies. I've mentioned before that he likes the bad techno, and he likes it loud and late. 

Remember me?

What you may not know is that my partner in crime, the Skipper to my Gilligan, the Geena Davis to my Matthew Modine in Cutthroat Island, does not suffer such things lightly. I would recommend you click that link and watch that trailer, for not only is it a sterling example of the "no idea what the plot is about just explosions and kissing" school of thought regarding trailers, but it's also how I want you to envision the coming tale. 

First off, she's got difficulties sleeping, and not only is the bass-thump coming through Monsieur's walls impossible for her to tune out, but the mental cringing that accompanies waiting, wondering if the thump will start will keep her awake.

Two, she don't take shit. Monsieur LeClub, however, has quite the sense of entitlement and a lack of...something involving empathy and decency. With both of our vessels plying the close-quartered waters of our floor, rigging-scraping is inevitable and full-out broadside cannonades are possible.

Come with me after the break(ers) to watch the hot naval action unfold.

9. Scarves, beer, and other essentials

Dudes and dudettes. The most awesome thing just happened. Let me tell you about it. But first, let's talk about laundry and the weather.

It's getting cold in France. It's not freezing, there's no rain or snow or sleet. It's not even very windy. But it's cold, and this is- according to all signs, tales, and portents- merely a harbinger of the winter to come.

When we first got here it was hot. Only around 80 degrees (Farenheit, of course; I still haven't gotten the mental switch to understanding what, for instance, 20 degrees Celsius is supposed to feel like), but the humidity, the lack of air conditioning (except in grocery stores which is more the refrigerated section leaking out) and the overall citiness of it made it feel like more.

But even so, people wore jackets. They wore a sweater or a scarf wrapped around their neck. It's like a racial trait or geographical adaptation; Nordic people have pale skin and hair, African folks have dark skin and hair, French people have a tail that sprouts from their neck and only appears to be made of patterned wool or silk. It's that common.

8. Metro update: now with more Brute Squad!

Metro Update: Oh. My. God. If you ever go on the Metro, HOLD ON TO YOUR TICKET. They do not tell you this. Only in a couple of stations do you need your ticket after the initial entry; in most cases, once you pass through the little entry machine it is just a worthless slip of paper. But keep it, O My Dear Ones. Listen to this cautionary tale.

7. A Tale of More Castles (Tours, part II)

If you haven't read the first part of our trip to Tours, I would recommend doing so here: http://111stepstoparis.blogspot.com/2011/10/soim-currently-working-on-tale-ofour.html

It explains where we are, who we're staying with, and why we're riding around in a stranger's minivan.  I should also mention that this one runs a little long. Last week I had implied that I would try not to do this (by asking you if you thought they were too long), but there were pictures and stories and such, and I didn't want to make this thing a three part tale. So it's long. But, I hope, enjoyable. 


When last we left...um, us, we had just quit Le Chateau Chenonceau on the river Cher, a place where Catherine de Medici worked part of her much-gentler-than-you-might-expect revenge upon her dead husband's mistress.

The five of us- me, Megan and the three Japanese ladies- were waiting in the parking lot when Pascal returned. He said he had needed to get gas, but does it take an hour and half to get gas? It might, come to think of it. Gas stations are not the bright shining oases of pumps and lights and hot dog rollers and soda coolers that they are in the US. Usually a parking garage will have pumps, but the only indication is a little icon that means gas. And there're no minimarts or convenience stores added on. My guess is that the selling of gas is a nationalized deal here, so there's no need to advertise. People need gas, so they'll find it.

We pile into the van and head off to the Clos Luce. There's supposed to be an accent aigu ( / like that but small and over the e, makes it say -ay) on the end of Luce (Klo Loosay), but I'm not going to start trying to fit them all in. French is peppered with all sorts of accents, and the US keyboards are not set up to make them with any ease. I am lazy, so I am not going to do it. Forgiveness, please.

6. Castles galore! Real beds!

So I'm currently working on the tale of our war with Monsieur le Club, our neighbor who likes to play bad

techno long and loud, without any reason or right. But just earlier this week Megan and I went to Tours. Tours is a city about 240 kilometers or so south and a bit west of Paris (should I say kilometres? Klicks? How native should I go here?), chock full of history and overflowing with castles.

Megan has a dear wonderful friend whose mother is French. She maintains a small apartment in Tours and

spends a couple months a year there. There just happened to be a bit of overlap between her stay and ours, and her friend's mother invited us down for a couple days. Naturally, we accepted; aside from the chance to see a familiar face and a new town, any home whose owner felt could accept overnight guests was bound to be lavish luxury compared to Le Petit Bateau. We put a few days' worth of clothes and necessaries into one of our big backpacks and set out for the train station. Come along and let me tell you about it.

5. I Remember a Soldier Sleeping Next to Me...

Hey all. So, (I think) I have started putting ads on here. Because that way I will become rich. At this point I have no idea what kinds of ads will appear or how which ads are picked or by whom. Hopefully there's some algorithm thing where what shows up will have something to do with what I'm writing about or will be interesting to people. I think, if you click on them, I get money? Is that right? Whatever. Let me know if you're getting ads for wang-embiggeners or ads selling Sarah Palin anything. Blech.

        Also, folks who prefer to do their internetting with a mobile device can now read my blog that way. It was super hard to set up, too: I went to a page and clicked a button. They should have that enabled as a default.  Hmph.   Aaanyway, read on. Today I tackle the Metro:

 I am sure that nowhere in all the tales of people moving from small towns to big cities, be it on paper, online, or verbally, has anyone said anything about learning to use the train-based public transport system. I can't speak to the Subway or the Underground, but I can tell you about the Paris Metro. And since no one else has ever talked about it, I shall. But first I need to tell you about my parents' driveway.

4. Things We Might Have Been: Regulars at a Kids' Cafe

Here's something I wrote barely a week after we got here. We still weren't online in our apartment yet, so we roamed the neighborhood, looking for places with free wifi.

9/7/11 (in France they do the dates day/month/year, so if I wanted to go all native I'd write 7/9/11, but then you guys in the States'd be confused): 

There's this tiny little cafe near our place called la Dinette des Fils a Maman, or Mama's Boys' Little Diner. Or something like that. It has four tables and would be crowded with ten people in it. It's got free wifi (as long as you buy at least a 1 euro cup of coffee) so that's been super helpful. The places with free wifi (with purchase) around here are few, and we've been using this other cafe where a cup of coffee is 2.40. When I say a cup of coffee, I mean a shot of espresso. That's how they roll here. A cup of coffee with cream and stuff is 4.20. Anyway, La Dinette is a super cheap alternative. Also it's crazy awesome.

3. Kidney Stones II: Nat and Megan's Bogus Journey

In Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle (I think it's in Quicksilver, the first one), there's a character named Daniel Waterhouse. He has a kidney stone, which is a much bigger deal in the 17^th century; in fact, he's pretty sure it's going to kill him.

Now, this book (and by book I mean all three of them) is about so much more than kidney stones. It manages to make the rise of modern banking and scientific thought in the 17^th and 18^th centuries read like cyberpunk. It is one of the most awesome books I have ever read. And it came into my mind while we waited in the ER.

Come with me after the jump to find out why.

2. Kidney Stones- a bladderful of fun

I've had kidney stones once, maybe twice before. My first kidney stone was in 1998 and was fairly mundane, as episodes of horrible pain in your abdomen go. I thought I was dying and went to the ER (with one heroical Father Christmas acting as my wheelman, gods bless 'im) where they told me they could shoot it with ultrasonic waves for a lot of money or they could give me a prescription for pain meds and I could hole up at home with those for a couple days. I chose the latter and tried to grind a Percoset up into a joint. Blah blah college.

The second time was maybe a year ago, and may have been a kidney stone or may have just been some mild food poisoning (my doctor, back when I had one, thought the latter), but at any rate, after puking like Veronica Cartwright did in The Witches of Eastwick right before she died while the guy who later played Nathaniel Fisher just read his book, I felt fine.

That's not even from the right movie, but that's what it looked like.

Come along after the break (this seems to be the thing to say in this format) and I'll tell you about my latest experience with mineral buildup in your innards.

1. Le Petit Bateau

My wife and I are spending a year in France, give or take a few months and depending on how long she can get the University to keep paying her to do it. If we had done this a decade ago I'm sure it would have been easier: we wouldn't have nearly the same amount of stuff that we actually cared about and therefore needed to find a safe place to stash for a year; we wouldn't have a cat that we love with the kind of love you usually only see in crazy cat ladies and who needed a loving home while we were gone; and I think our level of expectation of comfort would be different. But regardless, this opportunity came along and what kind of fools would we be if we passed it up because things might not be as comfy, or we might not have as much stuff, or we'd miss our cat more than I'd miss a foot, or I can't speak French? Big damn fools, that's what.

 When Megan finally got the go-ahead for her year in France, I left most of the arrangements to her, especially where we would live in Paris. Any of the apartment-for-rent sites would all be in French and, not trusting Google Translate's ability to grasp nuance, I would need to keep asking Megan what this or that meant anyway. It fell out, though, that one of her French students, a woman that had had her wild student days in Paris in the '70's, kept in touch with a friend there who had a room to rent. Though she (soone to be known as Landlady) said it was quite small and the pictures she sent seemed to corroborate what she said, the price was excellent and the location (location, location, as they say) was superb: right in the middle of Paris, Metro stops just a short block or so away. What did we need with a big apartment? We'd never be in it; we'd be out in Paris! Who cares if our toilet's down the hall? Megan gave the nod to the landlady, we managed to pack a year's worth of stuff (mostly clothes) into ginormous backpacks and we made the Crossing.

Stick along after the break for more details.