This is America

well hello there, massive cow herd

The Interstate 5 freeway in all its glory

hmmm - Frenchies, want to weigh in here on this one?

Leave it to America to put motivational quotes on Halls wrappers.

Who wants some beef jerky? I think they may have some.

If not we'll just get you corn nuts or sunflower seeds.  Please narrow it down to five flavors.

Yogurtland, how I love thee.

Man Den in full effect.

Would you like some coke with your ice?

Ok maybe this is just my brother....

Perhaps they should go into marketing n'est pas?

Yes. I ate at a country cafe. My arteries may clog at any moment.

Americana in Santa Barbara

I always wondered...

The part of America I can actually get behind...

Ah, the good ol' newspaper stand - that no one uses anymore.

Because cleanliness is close to godliness - at least in America it is.

When you can't have the real thing, at least you have the gummy version.

We wouldn't expect anything less.

Still had a dial tone - we checked.

Only in America people.

I am horrified to say that my brother ordered this - biscuits and gravy. For breakfast. And I tasted it. oh god.

Gotta love a Santa Barbara hippie at the Farmer's market.

Americans in Paris

My childhood next door neighbor, past travel buddy and friend is here in Paris this weekend using what little American vacation he gets yearly to revel in the amaze-balls that is Europe.  I don't know how he does it, but the man gets to Europe more than I get to the states - and I have family there...he just has pints and good wine to appreciate here. I'm baffled/jealous all at the same time.

In any case, last time he visited I was living in Cannes and flew up to (snowy, freezing my bootay off) Paris to hang with his group of travel friends - but this year I am a (freezing my bootay off) Parisian! So much better - so many more possibilities because I'm not a total tourist anymore, falling for the restaurant menus translated into fifty languages including pig latin. I can actually suggest places to go that are off the beaten path / not yet discovered by Rick Steves! (I know, I know, I'm kind of amazing).

Last night Neighb texted me asking for a wine/cheese bar extravaganza idea and I sent him the address of a place on rue de la Roquette called Resto Zinc - maybe you've heard of it? I was a little stressed to make a suggestion - what if it sucked? what if they wanted hip, modern Paris when I had sent them to hole-in-the-wall-authentic Paris? ahhhhh. crap. Copain and I had no Friday plans and ended up meeting them there as well - so I could torture myself with hoping things went well in person instead of from afar. awesome.

Our waiter was what I can only describe as a giant awkward nerd who I just felt bad for. yeah, poor dude. I asked if we could sit for a drink and a fromage plate and he looked at me confused and asked - pour diner? Well no, I clarified - just for wine and a fromage plate. Yeah, so pour diner then? he repeated. Umm, okay...if you say so...and so we followed him to one of the five tables that were so clearly hard for him to choose from. 

After perusing the wine and cheese menu we decided on a Côte du Rhone red and the assiette dégustation (tasting plate) of fromage...basically happiness for about 35 Euros.  When we signaled that we were ready to order Monsieur Bizarre decided it was a good time to tell us that the kitchen wouldn't be open for another "petite demie-heure" - little half an hour (as opposed to a big half an hour?). Okay, then we'll just take the wine and then in the little half an hour we'll take the cheese - merci. 

He arrived with our glasses and our bottle and jauntily set it all down on the table. But I glimpsed the bottle before he could start pouring - and Côte du Rhone it was NOT. When I kindly pointed this out to him, his awkward level went up about five notches - and then six more when I looked at the menu and mentioned that it was about 8 Euros more expensive than our original order. Not ones to cause a scene, we agreed to try the Côtaux du Loire that he had brought instead and he took this as an opportunity to explain the amaze-balls quality of grapes in the Loire Valley and the leeetle keeek that the wine had due to the richness of the grape mélange...ohh la la, this one knows how to sell it!

A petite forty-five minutes later and after a firm word from Copain to Monsieur Bizarre, our cheese platter made its grand entrance into the world and onto our table....and all was forgotten.  Two more bottles of Côte du Rhone followed, the restaurant filled with chattering Parisiens, and even though we were clearly the loud obnoxious American table, they seemed to accept our imposing presence in this little corner of France.  

America the Air-Conditioned, America the Great

I wasn't going to blog today - I vowed I'd be in bed by 11pm.  But after reading my friend Sunny Life's post I had to blog!

Today I was speaking to an anglophone who was new to France - this person has been a little errr...challenging.  At any rate, she was jet lagged and tired and I was trying to be understanding:

"Um, so like, what kind of accommodations do they offer in the South of France? I might want to go there instead next month."

"Well, I'm not sure," I answered. "All cities have different kinds of accommodation options. Why do you ask?"

"Because it's so HOT in Paris! In the South of France it will be less hot and more bearable because the ocean is there!"

hmmmm....how to explain....

First of all, it's a sea, not an ocean, but let's not get into technicalities. Second of all, uh NO it's not less hot in the South of France!  I told her I lived there, I knew.  And then she threw this one at me:

"So do they just like, not have air conditioning here?"

"Well, as you've noticed by the way I have swamp ass, there isn't even air conditioning in our offices...no one really has air conditioning, you know, like San Francisco or Santa Barbara."  (I tried to bring it closer to home for her)

It was a ROUGH conversation.  One that I had to quickly relay to my Anglo friend as we chuckled over her uber-Americaness.  But after a five minute pause I had to bite my tongue. I was a big ol' hypocrite:

At 15, during my first trip to Europe, all I could do was complain about the lack of air conditioning and how stupid all of these Europeans were. What the eff were they thinking suffering through summer like they did? And why the eff were they making me suffer too??!!  I spent most of my vacation in Berlin at the large mall in the center of town, not because I cared to buy anything but because it was friggin air-conditioned.  Call me a spoiled Southern California girl but I just couldn't take it!  To this day, that is pretty much all I remember of Berlin.  And cold showers.

Over the course of 6 years I, like Sunny Life have gotten used to the sweaty, smelly mess that is France during the summer.  I live with swamp ass, I sweat a bead of sweaty mustache, I feel the sweat drip down the back of my legs in a store that is hotter than hell and I save money - why? Because I leave before I can pick anything out.  The heat makes me angry and I have to GO.

I give up trying to look suitable and I just deal with it - cotton and linen are de rigeur, the hair goes up in a bun, rings are totally off limits due to heat inflated sausage fingers, and makeup? makeup is a total joke! But I don't stink - I will never go that far into the French realm of summer.  C'mon people! Antiperspirant it up! Fill your pores with alluminium! For the love of déo! For the love of my nasal passages and gag reflexes on the metro!

And to continue my rant just a bit further, what really gets me are the people who stink already at 9am.  How for effs sake does that thappen?! I'm at a loss.

So where I had a little chuckle about the naive newbie who just didn't get it - I take it back. I take it allllllll back. Girlfriend is right. Get it together Frenchies.  Install the AC. And if you "get sick," as you always claim you will,  pas de stress! The government will pay for your lovely doctor bill anyways!