Dinde-Day in Paris

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year with a pretty international crowd. One of the American's from my language class (a rare occurrence, you're getting Jessica today) invited us and a few others over for a FEAST! We were stuffed just like any other Thanksgiving with turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pie, and all. Ashely, the American who hosted, insisted that we bring nearly ALL the leftovers home. When she offered the first time, I was polite and declined, at which point JR quickly interrupted "HELL YES WE'LL TAKE THE TURKEY." So, sitting at home now are the remnants of 7 kilo bird! She also forced us to take some Dijon mustard she got during her trip to Dijon last weekend. JR is tres happy and I am tres full.

Three Cheese Break

Going back to work has been startling in that I forgot how much Monday - Friday gets compressed into the work-eat-sleep routine. Add to this that I've started taking a French class Mondays and Wednesdays from 7-9PM and by the time I get to Saturday I'm often wondering where all the time went. This isn't actually a bad thing right now. Work is challenging, largely in good ways, and the language, at least for me is just one constant learning experience. School never lets out. I learn French riding the metro. There's a lesson to be had in going to the store for groceries. Lunchtime is a lesson (a huge one actually. Most days I want to nap after going to lunch with all my coworkers as I'm just wiped out from speaking French the whole time). It is non-stop.

So the one reprieve is dinner. Just about every night these days Jess and I cook up a little something, whip out the cheeses and the lox and the prosciutto crack open some wine and just for like and hour, think in English. I can feel my brain exhaling.

Le Tres Cool Jazz

Our friend Bridget visited this past weekend from Boston. Nice to have someone from home drop in. And to sweeten the deal she brought along her French friend Mirriam who was uber cool. We went out for Crepes down by the Fontaine Saint Michel, and then they took us along to a Jazz bar they knew about over in the 5th arrondisement over on the Left Bank. It was one of those tiny little pubs you never find unless someone takes you there, and the band was tres cool which is my favorite new bastardized French term I'm claiming credit for (I create a lot of bastardized French terms, but largely by accident).

The drinks were tres chere (expensive) however, but pretty much there is no escaping that in Paris. Usually I just block it out of my mind, but when you stop for a second to consider that the tiny beer your drinking just cost you $15 bucks, it can give you a moment of pause. Actually, this has been less of a problem lately, as I recently had a mysterious blood test during my routine work physical (a requirement for joining the French health care system... Sorry America, but I prefer being covered to our "excellent" system which covers you know... only healthy people, and for about ten times as much) which showed I have some high enzyme levels that should be low. So until they figure out just exactly what I'm dying of this has been my excuse to tamp down my drinking habits just a tad.

Weekend Update

OK, this is only a little teaser, but since everyone has been clamoring for pictures, I thought I'd put a few up from our weekend walk around Le Marais (the Castro district of Paris) and down by the La Galleries Lafayette/Printemps shopping malls where Paris does it's best imitation of Macy's Christmas windows. The Parisiens eat it up. It was mostly families and I think we were a tad old for the crowd, but still, it fun.

On a side note, there is a picture of me in front of the Tour Saint Jacques. The church formely associated with the tower was long ago torn down, but the tower was kept around for making buckshot. They would haul molten hot iron (maybe lead??) to the top of the tower and then srpinkle it off the side in little drops down into buckets of water where it would cool, harden and viola! buckshot. How cool is that?! I tried to find a picture of said operation, but all I could get is this artist's rendering of what the tower might have looked like back in the day. Sorry.

Football Fanatics

We live in an extremely ethnic part of Paris with tons of Northern Africans, and apparently Egypt is playing Algeria tonight to decide who goes to the World Cup. As a result, our neighborhood has been nutso since last night. Thousands of people are out in the streets draped in Algerian flags, honking horns, dancing, yelling, singing.... and this is all in ANTICIPATION of the match. It's wild. I can't even imagine what's going to happen if they win.

The match is in Cairo, and apparently the Algerian team bus was attacked by a mob when they left the airport the night before the game. Literally half the team had bleeding head wounds from bricks being hurled through the bus windows. I guess you would call this homefield advantage for Egypt. The last time these teams met in a World Cup qualifier was 1989 in what has since been dubbed the "Match of Hate." A fan lost an eye in the fighting that broke out and an Interpol arrest warrant was issued for an Algerian player after the game. Yikes!

I think I'm rooting for Algeria so that my neighborhood doesn't get burnt to the ground.

Update: Algeria lost 2-0 and while my neighborhood remained relatively quiet thanks to the hoards of riot police (some of which you can see in the pic below) apparently things were a little more chaotic in Marseilles.

You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Party

I have had an interesting start at work. Or more correctly, a false start. I'm finishing up my third week and I haven't done a thing... because I'm not allowed to. Apparently they don't want me handling bacteria, pipettes or anything of that nature until I complete a safety course. Which wasn't available for three weeks. So I come to work everyday and sit around surfing the web on the computer (at least until I managed to burn out a capacitor on the motherboard yesterday, probably caused when I started typing a tad too hard out of frustration with the confusing French keyboard). Ahh, welcome to France, I guess.

Speaking of the welcome though, each morning when I've showed up the past week I've had to wade through a throng of strikers to get to the lab. Seriously I thought the stories about French greves! we're a joke, but apparently they do love to strike. And French strikes seem like a party. Everyone is dressed up in matching orange vests, banging pots and pans, and dancing around like it's a grand ol time. I haven't been able to figure out what exactly they're striking about, but I'm not sure you need much of a raison here. In fact, two of my coworkers spent the better half of this morning moaning about their troubles getting to work due to the fact that the drivers of the train line they come to work on are also out on greve this week. Anyways, as I have nothing to do in the lab, I've been strongly considering joining in. After all, when in France...

Note: We should apologize for being a little slow on getting the camera up and running. So the first post or two is going to be a tad light on photos, but they're coming soon!

The First Experiment

Bonjour from Paris! Figured, we'd use this space to send out the haps from across the pond. Hope everyone enjoys our little blips. And without further ado... onto "le blogging!"

Oh the differences!!! As most know, I came to France to work at Le Institut Pasteur, an institution whose name gives tribute to the famous Frenchman responsible for unearthing the secret lives of microbes. So it was with a just a little bit of irony that I found myself the other day, shuttling between the two milk sections of our local Carrefour supermarket fretting about pasteurized milk. There was the pasteurized stuff, all two bottles of it, and then there was everything else. Fermented milk. Goats milk. Ewe’s milk. (All unrefrigerated I might add). Frankly, I had never realized there were options before.

What exactly is lost in the pasteurization of milk anyways? Maybe this is one of those vital natural ingredients the French diet is heralded for, and would I be losing out on it by sticking to my American guns and playing it safe, I wondered? Judging from the amount of shelf space afforded by Carrefour however, Le Francais seem to hold Louis Pasteur, or at least his contribution to milk sterilization, in slightly lower esteem than Le Americains.

Update: I took the plunge, and while I haven't died, I say stick with old faithfaul. The other stuff tastes funny.