Cali-Parisien

Chicken-butt

2007-11-07T08:13:00.000+01:00

Since we'll be expecting you guys in the very near future, here are are a couple of important lessons to help you brush up on your Street-French.

You never know when you might need to tell someone "my arse is chicken".

Back to the Future (GMT +1)

2007-10-04T21:00:00.000+02:00

Vacation is Over (for now)

I started writing this post the moment we got back from our trip to the US, but as usual, I slacked off and never finished writing it.

We had a lot of mixed feelings being back home again. With the exception of a very brief business trip, we hadn't been back in town since our wedding almost two years ago. We've been feeling quite homesick, so it was nice to get a fix of some good Mexican food and to be back home with friends and family.

Naturally, this brought up the question about when to come back again-- which we've been struggling to figure out since we decided to up and move to Paris "for a year or so". If we could transplant everyone we love over here with us, there wouldn't be anything to consider at all.

So how about it guys, wouldn't you all like 7 weeks of paid leave for vacations a year? We can always put out the air-mattress...

Home sweet home.

2007-09-09T06:12:00.000+02:00

Nice to be home again (for a bit)

Yep, we're back for a bit of R&R, enjoying the warm California sun for a couple weeks.

Hope to catch up with everyone soon!

The Land of Ice and Fire (and some other stuff)

2007-07-23T20:31:00.000+02:00

Incredible...

Those of you that already watch our Flickr feed probably caught on to the update last week, but for the rest, just wanted to add a few words and a link.

Back in May we took advantage of our generous French vacation leave and took a little trip to Iceland. It was an adventure to say the least: hiking, climbing, off-road driving and river fording, and some relaxing too. It was incredibly unique and beautiful that we found ourselves with almost 900 photos at the end of our trip. The photos really don't do these majestic landscapes justice, but we had to try and capture them nevertheless!

"Some" photos here with their relevant captions/explanations.

"France just had an election, and people over there approach an election differently. They vote."

2007-05-07T15:29:00.000+02:00

In light of last night's élection présidentielle. Here's a little YouTube video
from last Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher:

There's also a similar editorial that he wrote for Salon.

"For example, France just had an election, and people over there approach an election differently. They vote. Eighty-five percent turned out. The only thing 85 percent of Americans ever voted on was Sanjaya.

Maybe the high turnout has something to do with the fact that the French candidates are never asked where they stand on evolution, prayer in school, abortion, stem cell research or gay marriage. And if the candidate knows about a character in a book other than Jesus, it's not a drawback. There is no Pierre Six-pack who can be fooled by childish wedge issues. And the electorate doesn't vote for the guy they want to have a croissant with. Nor do they care about the candidate's private lives: In the current race, Ségolène Royal has four kids but never bothered to get married. And she's a socialist. In America, if a Democrat even thinks you're calling him a liberal he immediately grabs an orange vest and a rifle and heads into the woods to kill something.

The conservative candidate is married, but he and his wife live apart and lead separate lives. They aren't asked about it in the media, and the people are OK with it, for the same reason the people are OK with nude beaches: because they're not a nation of 6-year-olds who scream and giggle if they see pee-pee parts. They have weird ideas about privacy. They think it should be private. In France, everyone has a mistress. Even mistresses have mistresses. To not have a lady on the side says to the voters, "I'm no good at multitasking."

Élection Présidentielle

2007-04-30T20:11:00.000+02:00

Carte Électorale

We had the first round of the presidential elections here last week. In order to win the presidential election one candidate has to win an absolute majority (more than 50%) of the votes. Since this is pretty unlikely from happening, it's pretty much guaranteed that the election will be split into a first and second round (the second round is between the top two winners). There are a few exceptions (like the previous 2002 election), but it's almost always between the two major parties: Socialist Party (PS, aka "the left") and Union for a Popular Movement (UMP, aka "the right"). Counting the minority parties, there were actually 12 candidates, but like the US the media really only gives coverage to the two major parties.

Similar to the US, every channel and possible form of media has been brainwashing and ramming political crap down our throats for the last few months. Although it feels like it has been forever, they actually started about three or four months ago instead of two years before like the US. The angle is quite different as well, there's virtually no mud-slinging and the media doesn't dig at all into the private lives of the political candidates (at all). The lack of dirt and scandal doesn't seem right at all from the American politics that we are used to.

As for the actual voting process, it's a bit simpler than what I was used to in the US. You're basically given a blue envelope and a bunch of little scraps of paper printed with the various candidate names. Once you've cleared the registration list, you stuff the candidate of choice into the envelope and drop it in the polling box. That's it. No "hanging chads" or confused seniors, it's a pretty idiot proof process.

Well, I guess all of the talk from work, television, radio, and papers have brain-washed me a bit too. I didn't expect to end up writing as much as I did about all of the election stuff, but I guess that's basically was has been on our minds lately.

Hiatus

2007-04-29T20:24:00.000+02:00

Dinner in Tours

Not a single post since August of last year, and I don't even have a good excuse.

Lethargic. Lazy. Slacker. Go ahead, you can throw some more my way...

We've had some adventures in the last few months, some which have already been told by Maya. She was fortunate to spend a few months here in Paris to play and explore. So we were excited to take a few trips with her whenever we were able.

Then in December, Shanta's family came to visit and spend a few weeks with us during Christmas through the new year. It was nice to spend the holidays with family, as it is the time of year that we really feel the distance.

In March, Amy came to visit. We spent another weekend in the Loire Valley visiting the châteaux with her. Unfortunately we weren't able to take much time off while she was here, but we tried to make the most of it!

I guess that about sums up things since August. I'm going to try and throw myself back into this blogging thing. Promise.

Notre 3ème Fête du Muget

2007-01-05T12:49:00.000+01:00

Fête du Muget

The third year around, and we were experts on exactly what to expect for the Fête du Muget. But instead of roaming the neighborhoods searching for the sweet smelling flowers we decided to go hunting in its natural habitat. So we did like the Parisiens do on a beautiful sunny day: get the hell out of the city and go to where it is green with fresh air.

So we took the train outside the city to one of our favorite hiking spots, the Forêt de Fontainebleau. It was actually our third time exploring, although the last two times were during the winter. It's a reminder for us ex-Californians that the rest of the world truly does have four seasons. Going in the spring time was a completely different experience. The forest was alive with birds and insects, and colorful with blooming trees and wildflowers and lush green foliage.

You can try to bug the bookworm into posting a handful of her few hundred photos on Flickr...

Des Serpents dans l'Avion

2006-08-31T11:20:00.000+02:00

Snakes on a Plane!

After hearing all of the buzz about this movie from TV, internet sites everywhere, and even more credible places like Wired Magazine for the last year and a half I had thought for sure that we would miss out on the phenonoman here in Paris. Well, on my way to work last week I passed a couple dozen posters in the metro station. I guess I was wrong-- it's gone international!

"No movie shall triumph over Snakes on a Plane. Unless I happen to feel like making a movie called Mo' Muthafuckin' Snakes on Mo' Muthafuckin' Planes."

- Samuel L. Jackson, while presenting the award for best movie at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards

Fête de la Musique

2006-06-21T23:59:00.000+02:00

musique

An annual tradition here in France to celebrate the summer solstice and take advantage of the longest day of the year is the music festival Fête de la Musique.

Basically a day (and all night) where free concerts and bands can be found playing on just about every street corner and open space in the streets of Paris, and the rest of France. The city of Paris provides the equipment and generators, and encourages musicians of all types of genres, experience, and ages. Much fun to just walk around the city and explore all of the sounds!

For those of you that don't speak French, the name of the event is a clever play on words meaning either "Celebration of the Music", or "Make Some Music". :)

Memorial Pentecost Day Weekend

2006-05-29T19:07:00.000+02:00

TGV Bullet-Train

Memorial Day, and we are one of the few back at work instead of at the beach. Not just because there's no beach here in Paris (except in August), but because, well, it's not a holiday.

But nevertheless despite these slight technicalities, we were fortunate to have three holiday weekends in May and so we were eager to take advantage of the extra time off to travel to some parts of France that we hadn't explored.

The first weekend, we decided to visit the South-West corner of France and go hiking in the Pyrénées mountains. So we took the TGV train and bus to the small town of Cauterets in the base of the Pyrénées. Basically from there, we set out on foot into the various hiking trails to start our adventure (photos).

And as is custom here in France, any mention of the Pyrénées is usually followed by a story about the brown bears resident there (I can't think of a single person that didn't bring up the bears after mention of our plans to go there). The reason is that they were nearly killed and hunted to extinction in 1990, but the European governments, despite protests from very active locals and farmers, have been steadily trying to increase their numbers. So we are constantly hearing in the news about another bear released or another bear found poisoned. Unfortunately though (or perhaps fortunately) despite how hard we searched, we didn't see any bears, just lots and lots of these guys.

Then again later in the month, for what might have been Memorial Day weekend back in the US, we decided to go in the opposite direction to the North-West tip of France, Bretagne (Brittany). Like our last adventure, we took the train North-West to Rennes and from there rented a car to drive along the beautiful coast, stopping at various sights (and taking photos) along the way.

Fête du Muget

2006-05-01T21:20:00.000+02:00

Fête du Muget

Plein de bonheur et prospérité
Full with happiness and prosperity

We were caught by surprise with this last year when we went for a walk and saw the numerous muget (Lilly-of-the-valley) dealers on every corner of the city. This year we knew exactly what to expect on this first of may and went straight to get one of our own sweet smelling plants.

All the leaves are brown

2006-04-30T15:05:00.000+02:00

Californias sleep in hamburger beds?

It's a bit surprising that it's already been
one year since we arrived, yet at the same time when I think back at everything that has happened and everything we've done in the last year it really has been a lot.

The City of Lights-City of Angels film festival
was going on at the beginning of the month back in LA, and so to celebrate places all over the city have been organizing a number of Los Angeles related events.

The Galleries Lafayette (you really should visit this bizarre website), a trend-setter for fashion and which is the city's largest department store, has been
celebrating LA fashion this month. They even had an all-American parade down the Boulevard Haussmann with cheerleaders, hip-hop dancers, (american) football players, and motorcycle gangs. You can take a look at the videos if you think I am making this up: L.A. Parade, Californian tatoos and Krumping. Even the modern art museum, Centre Pompidou, has dedicated one of their major expositions to Los Angeles.

And then there's the "American Sandwich" that I get from the local sandwich chain next to my work. I have yet to figure out what part of the sandwhich is American: the hard-boiled egg slices, cornichon pickles, parisian ham, or the baguette bread that its in. But nevertheless, it's named that way.

It's a strange feeling to have all of these reminders around us, yet still being so far. But I guess we'd still be homesick in either case. We miss you guys!

Joyeux Pâques

2006-04-16T22:00:00.000+02:00

Easter Bunny?

As dictated by tradition, we are always happy to celebrate Easter with lots of candy and chocolate. Our first year celebrating it here in France was no exception, especially since there are so many Chocolatiers everwhere we go. Though one major difference: there was no Easter Bunny. After being mocked by coworkers after explaining about the furry bunny with the basket of eggs, they had to set me straight and enlighten me with the real story.

Apparently here in France, it's not a bunny that brings the Easter Eggs but it's "les cloches de Pâques" (the Bells of Easter). Hardly as silly of a story as the bunny, or so they seemed to think unanimously. According to the story, the Bells of Easter are silent since the day of Holy Thursday because they are gone to Rome for the three days until Easter Sunday. And on their return on Easter, they drop the Easter Eggs and chocolates as they make their way back. They even drop them in hidden places in the gardens for Easter Egg hunts and also drop them in baskets for children.

So go figure, no bunny-- unless maybe if you find yourself eating out at a fancy restaurant on Easter Sunday...

Poisson d'Avril

2006-04-01T11:45:00.000+02:00

Fishie-fishie

Another French tradition, although this one is more widely known and for once (possibly the only?) holiday with no religious significance. April Fools Day, or Poisson d'Avril (April's Fish) as it's known here in France.

Surprisingly, the origin is commonly believed to have begun here in France. In 1564, King Charles IX ordered the change of the old Julian calendar, with the Gregorian calendar. This resulted in changing the lengths and ordering of the months and also moving the new year from the spring equinox (March 25-April 1) to January 1.

Apparently there was some resistance, striking, and burning of cars because some French continued to celebrate the New Year during the week of April 1. Those who refused acknowledge the new date were ridiculed with pranks and foolish new years gifts. They were called poisson d'avril, because the date marked the end of the zodiacal sign of Pisces.

Though it's mostly for children, the modern day traditional prank is to sneakily attach a paper fish onto the victim's back without being noticed. Once they catch on to being a victim, the prankster has bragging rights to call out "Poisson d'Avril". For the older kids, there are fish shaped treats made by the boulangeries (bakery), pâtisseries (pastry shop), and chocolatries (candy/chocolate shop).

La Galette des Rois

2006-01-15T14:24:00.000+01:00

Royalty

As usual, I'm about a month late in actually finishing this post but that shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.

Since the Middle Ages, January 6^th, the day of l'Epiphanie (epiphany) has been celebrated with a special Twelfth Night cake: La Galette des Rois (the King's cake). Historically it was believed to be on this day that the Magi (Three Wise Men) are said to have arrived from the east to worship the Infant Jesus. Although today it's lost it's religious meaning to most, having a celebration with a Galette des Rois is still a popular tradition among friends and family here in France. Starting around early-december, they can be found in the windows of just about every boulangerie (bakery) and pâtisserie (pastry shop).

The modern Parisian Galette des Rois (as it differs between regions) is a cake made of a flaky puff-pastry filled with a frangipane, a rich buttery almond-paste. Somewhere hidden inside the cake is la fève (lucky charm), traditionally a dried fava bean, but today is usually a tiny porcelain figure or object. Needless to day, with the hidden prize inside everyone knows to bite carefully.

The youngest person in the room (which happened to be me when we had the celebration at work) hides under the table and shouts out which guest each slice of cake should be given to. The person who finds the fève in their slice becomes the Roi or Reine (King or Queen) and is given exclusive bragging rites and a luxurious golden paper crown (the crown is actually given along with the cake purchase). The King or Queen then has to choose his Queen or her King, by dropping the fève in their glass.

Just around the time that we were finishing our own little Galette des Rois celebration at home, our land-lord came by with a few of his nephews to help me carry our broken refrigerator out of our apartment and down the stairs. About a half hour later just before he left he turned to me chuckling and asked me who I had picked to be my queen (he thought it was funny that as there are only two of us, choice is limited). I had forgotten that the whole time I had been wearing my golden paper victory crown and no one had said anything (or even given me a strange look for that matter).

What Santa brought...

2006-01-10T14:00:00.000+01:00

3kg (3000g) = ~7lbs (100oz)

Why? ...you might be asking.

Because that "big" 13oz jar of nutella
available in the US just isn't enough.

baby it's cold outside

2005-12-31T01:40:00.000+01:00

I saw this little smoothie trying to warm up in la grande épicerie. Just how I feel in Paris with my scarf, convertible mitten-to-gloves, boots, and hat.

'O Christmas Tree

2005-12-25T19:20:00.000+01:00

Le sapin de Noël

For those of you that have been to our place, you know that it's pretty small.

So we decided to make like Charlie Brown this year for Christmas....

Thanksgiving in Vallée de la Loire

2005-12-04T22:47:00.000+01:00

At Chenonceau (and freezing)

As mentioned earlier, we had other plans for Thanksgiving weekend...

While Shanta was searching the job-listings, she noticed an enticing announcement. An American was starting a gîte (bed-and-breakfast) in the Loire Valley and decided to hold a special Thanksgiving weekend.

As we were feeling homesick and haven't explored much of France, we decided to be adventurous. We took the train out to Orléans (the old one) and then rented a car to get to the little hunting village town Ligny le Ribault where the gîte was. As this was the first time driving in France, it took us about an hour of aimlessly circling the one-way streets and highways in the vicinity of Orléans before we figured out the international (aka non-US) signage and how to use the map properly. But eventually, with Shanta's navigational skills, we found our way in the right direction. The trick was using the signs pointing toward the next towns to discern our location and direction rather than trying to find the often unlabeled roads by name.

So with a map and our newly acquired skills of how to use the map, we set out to visit as many of the famous châteaux in the region that we could get to. Thankfully we had a warm fireplace at the cozy gîte to warm up at the end of the day, because we were freezing each time we had to step out of the heated rental car. We even saw some big snow-flakes (though not enough of them stuck for us to play in).

Thanksgiving

2005-11-24T23:50:00.000+01:00

thanksgiving feast

Unlike all of the other holidays to date (even the American ones like Halloween) Thanksgiving this year felt like it didn't really arrive. One look around and this all makes sense of course, but for us it made us feel even farther from home.

So naturally, just the two of us decided to have our own Thanksgiving meal together. We ordered sushi!

(Actually, we had other plans to celebrate later that weekend, but that will be for another post.)

Ferrari 275 GTB: Porte Dauphine à Sacre Cœur en 10 min

2005-11-22T14:49:00.000+01:00

holy crap

Completely insane...

I came across this incredibly terrifying short-film a few days ago. It's amazing that he was able to drive a course through the heart of Paris at 140 MPH running red-lights and dodging obstacles without killing himself or anyone else. Only in August when the whole country is on vacation would he be able to do it. It's like watching a video game.

On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris. The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine, through the Louvre, to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur.

No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit.

The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 MPH in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights, nearly hitting real pedestrians, and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets.

Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was arrested. He has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground until a DVD release a few years ago.

It's recently resurfaced on the internet (it's 35mb): find it here, bit torrent, or our good friend Google.

meet my new love:

2005-11-17T21:39:00.000+01:00

Boulette d'Avesnes

See his pic here (what a hottie)

Read about him here

book-vending machine

2005-11-07T10:50:00.000+01:00

a book at all hours

Some of you might have read that Boing-Boing article back a few months ago.

Well, these little 24-hour book machines have been popping up all over the place, even inside the métro stations.

Fête de Halloween

2005-11-01T10:00:00.000+01:00

sculpter la citrouille

We were missing home so we got together some of our friends for a Halloween party. I've heard that Halloween was very popular here a few years ago, but since then it's becoming less and less widespread. The kids though still haven't given up on it, and we even saw a few running around in costumes during the week looking for candy. I guess candy is a good motivator in any country.

The biggest challenge was finding the pumpkins. As you know, most people here that live in the city of Paris don't have cars so the few pumpkins that we saw in the markets were pretty small or cut in slices. Not really suitable for carving, even if they knew of doing such implausible things. They really just make soup and cook with them here.

So after searching for a few weeks, we finally got a tip from a friend back home that found a farm just outside of Paris that was selling pumpkins (big ones even)! So Shanta went one day to go investigate and bring back the pumpkins. We wanted to get enough that everyone at our Halloween party could have some fun carving, so we decided to buy seven.

You can imagine the next challenge was getting seven pumpkins home from a farm pretty much in the middle of no-where to our apartment back in Paris proper. We had called a taxi company ahead of time and planned for her to return by taxi, but that proved to be difficult. After driving (like a crazy taxi driver) for a few blocks the driver got fed-up (the pumpkins were knocking around too much in the trunk), refusing to go any farther and turned around, tossing her and the pumpkins out at the farm again where she started.

Luckily one of the nice farm-workers offered to give Shanta and the pumpkins a ride back to my work, which was on the way as it is in a suburb just outside of Paris. And then the two of us struggled on the train and metro (during rush hour) carrying them back. You can imagine the strange stares we got everywhere we went.

It's funny that we do these crazy things to hold on to a piece of comfort that we know from back home. I don't think we are ready to try this with seven turkeys for Thanksgiving, though.