French Tourists

I just got home from a day spent gallivanting about Paris (started at a sweet bakery on the Rue des Abbesses, went through the Tuileries, kept up a French conversation with a man by the mini Arc de Triomphe in front of the Louvre, got a free ticket from said man, waltzed in the Louvre for a bit, got Chinese food--super cheap in Paris, a little gelato, a metro ride, now I'm back).

An insane amount of time is spent simply trying to find where the eff you are going. Here's the deal about Paris, it's confusing as FUDGE. [Note: Fudge, for some reason, is a confusing concept to me, thus the metaphor works]. Unlike NYC, which is basically a gridlock and super easy to find your way around if you have a map, or even LA, which has major streets that sort of run parallel, Paris does not do this. No, no. Paris, decided to outdo every international city in what-the-fuckery and designed it after a snail. NO JOKE, PEOPLE: A SNAIL (ESCARGOT, if you will).

Here's a rudimentary image of the snail- Paris map comparison, found on the internet:

You see all those numbers? Those are the neighborhoods, known as arrondisements. So rather than have some sort of normal thing going on, they've got the 5th arrondisement sharing borders with the 4th and 6th (normal), as well as the 14th, 13th, 12th. WHAT? So, you'll be walking along, thinking you're super close to the 3rd, but then you stumble into the 12th and before you know it you're in the ban-lieue (which basically translates as the "boondocks").

And just so you get a little taste of how the streets run (not parallel or perpendicular), just a clusterfuck of streets, here's a picture:


It's as if they had some sort of sadistic spider (wearing a beret) design this absurd street layout.

But, I digress. This post is really supposed to be about an outlandish couple I saw on the metro on the way home. I don't even know where to begin. Unfortunately, my camera is broken/ I'm too lazy to figure out its problem, so I don't have direct evidence of this. It's a cherished memory.

Basically, a man and a woman, probably in their early 20s, come onto the metro. They, essentially, grope each other throughout the ride. The female has the following going on:

Female mullet, check! (Hers was a bit curlier). Socks with Birkenstocks, check! Unshaven legs, check! [As a feminist, I know it shouldn't bother me, BUT IT DOES].

Here's what the guy's bringing to the table:


A colossal unibrow, check! Fanny pack, check! An air of general creepiness that makes everyone within 20 feet suddenly get a shiver of uncomfortableness, check!

Here's the surprising part: THEY SPOKE FRENCH. ONLY FRENCH. So, they weren't American tourists, or even Dutch tourists, they were FRANCAIS. Now, their appearance was really just the cherry on top of the gross sundae. They were all over each other, which, in Paris, is normal bidness [I often see couples giving sweet little kisses over and over again, not making out, just kisses, caressing each other's faces and stuff--makes my heart swell with envy]. However, instead of giving each other sweet little kisses, they decided to saddle somewhere between how-13-year-olds-makeout and a wet-peck-on-the-lips. I kid you not when I say that every time they kissed, the girl was SURE to stick her tongue out BEFORE their lips met. Just straight tongue out. It was like a slobber pistol, ready for action. And the kiss wasn't prolonged or anything. It was just un petit bisou, except it made me want to simultaneously burst out laughing and spit up.

I couldn't help but stare. I know, it's wrong. But, I was just so fascinated that someone could seriously walk around thinking: "Oh yeah! This is totally how you kiss. You gotta make sure that your tongue grazes your lover's uvula before the lips actually meet. It's just the basic formula to a great kiss." And just as fascinating was the fact that the guy/ receiver of this tongue was TOTALLY INTO IT. Furthermore, their absurd outfits and the fact that they were clearly Francophone just added to the whole affair.

I like to think that they were performance artists because the whole thing was just too good to be true. They are just playing a joke on all the metro riders, upending all stereotypes of the French people as good and adept lovers.

Special Connex

So I am heading to Croatia this evening. This past week has been a daily insanity of wrapping things up before I leave for nearly three weeks. Hours and hours of errands. Finally, today, I'm doing my packing. My cat has been watching me, swiping at things, smelling things, and stepping on my computer periodically throughout this process. I decided to double check my packing list I had on my computer when I finished:

Yeah, that about sums up how I feel inside.

I Can't

What is even happening here?

I feel so violated.

xoxo

zuzu

Song of the Week

I received the following message yesterday from Kleine (who I can only assume sent it between bites of her baguette avec fromage):

"i'm obsessed with this song"

...and with that, I present our Song of the Week.

xoxo

kleine (via zuzu).

There's Finger Popping, 24-Hour Shopping in Rapture

You guys, the world didn't end! I'll be honest, I didn't post about this last week on the off chance that things went south on Saturday as predicted. I figured that I should just wait and see how things played out, because the line to apologize to Jesus for snarky blog posts about how the apocalypse wasn't going to happen would probably be pretty long.

Man, I'm gonna be here all day, guys!
How about I just send you all to Hell and we call it even? 

Look, religion is a tricky topic. I am not going to pretend that I have any answers, because I don't. Just so you know where my slanted view of all that follows is coming from: I was raised in what I think was a typical Protestant household with church on Sundays, and Bible study on Wednesdays. While one of my parents could easily have been classified as a Bible thumper, the other took a fairly humanist approach to the whole thing. At a bare minimum, I believe in something to the extent that there appears to be a limited order to the chaos of life. And honestly, years of dogmatic teaching by various religious instructors make it really hard for me to outright say that there's no possibility that some stuff in the Bible might be right.

 

Except for that whole leaving out evolution thing. Swing and a miss, Bible.

I also get that there is a long history of trying to impose individual beliefs/religions on the masses. But here's what I don't get: Harold Camping. Camping is not the only guy who has ever predicted the end of the world. Various religions have told the world that the end is coming, and so far no one has quite hit the nail on the head. But I am totally fascinated by this guy. In some ways he is probably just your average bear of a cult leader who uses his position of religious authority to rile people up. My guess is he does it because it makes him feel important, and because there's likely some money in it. But he has also predicted the exact date of the apocalypse TWICE, and has been wrong TWICE.



Although logically, you can probably only be right about the date of the apocalypse once.
It's kind of a one time only production, from what I can tell.



The weird part isn't that other people believed in him. I mean, people love to believe in weird things. (I, for example, totally believe that Richard Gere/gerbil rumor despite all evidence to the contrary). And on top of that, the United States has a very long history of religious outliers finding or making themselves at home on its soil.



Let's just say those Mayflower dudes weren't exactly "mainstream."



But what fascinates me is that even though Camping got it wrong the first time, he had the balls to do it again! It can't be a fun experience to name the exact date the world is ending, and then be wrong. I can't imagine that it feels good, or makes you a lot of friends. But Camping just dusted himself off and said, "Oh, I just forgot to carry the one in my complicated apocalypse equation. We're all good now." And even though he got it wrong again, it seems like he doesn't plan on taking a break from predicting the End Times.



At least take a nap or something, Harry. You are looking grim.



I guess I am mystified because I don’t understand his end game here. Why didn’t he just escape to a private island the last time he got it wrong? Can any one person truly believe in themself, and their abilities that much? If so, is his therapist taking new clients?

If you remember, I could use the help.

As far as the frenzy this created, I expected the religious fanatics to get on board, but what I didn’t expect is that so many people would pay attention to it. Granted most people were making fun of it. But if they were anything like me, it got them thinking about how many extreme natural and cultural events have occurred in the world lately. It seems like most of those events have been really scary.

Although now that Trump isn't running for President, my nightmares have been fewer.

So there is one guy out there who has predicted that the world was going to end incorrectly a couple of times, and that is pretty ridiculous. But religious douchenozzle or not, I think the reason we were paying attention is because of how off kilter everything seems out there right now. It definitely got me thinking about changes I can/should be making in the world.

All this said, I’m glad that the world didn’t end before I got to see Bridesmaids, because I’m seriously excited about that shit.

xoxo
zuzu

Song of the Week: Repost Because I Don't Understand the Delete Button

I accidentally deleted this post...so it is old, and I am reposting it. Please ignore unless you didn't see it the first time...

If you like Bon Iver, you will like S. Carey. He is pretty awesome, although he will definitely make you feel depressed if you listen a bunch of his songs in a row. Anyway, I am posting two songs by him, because while I was doing my research for this post, I saw that the song that I originally wanted to post, In the Dirt, had just been used in an episode of a television show that a lot of people in the country watch.

So just to keep things fresh, I am posting another great song by S. Carey, too. It's called All We Grow. I don't like All We Grow as much as I like In the Dirt, but I still like it a lot. 

xoxo

zuzu

Pain Pour Tout le Monde!

Sorry about the super lame title. I am in Paris right now, taking a poetry class no less. I'm also actively wearing berets and skinny mustaches with a baguette in each pocket. Kind of like this:

[according to this image, I also smell really bad]. Anywho, I have been eating copious amounts of bread. At least a baguette a day, so far. I literally had an entire baguette for lunch and I bought the closest thing to cheddar cheese and ate the two together. And you guys cannot give me shit for eating a cheddar-y type cheese because I happen to fucking love cheddar cheese. It is awesome. Furthermore, I'm not a huge fan of brie *gasp.* I'm more of an Italian cheese kinda girl, ya know with the mozzarellas, the burratas, the buffalo mozzarellas, the parmigiana, romano, more mozzarella, etc . SO WHATEVER. STOP JUDGING.

I'm slightly concerned about this new diet of only delicious bread. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome. Best thing ever. Especially when a baguette costs less than 1 euro, which in American dollars is slightly less than 20 bucks. [Note: I'm only exaggerating slightly]. But, at a certain point I will be in danger of returning to the Colonies looking like this:


But, I will probably be wearing black as a sad attempt at a slimming effect. Now while this is a fear for me, it's not a big enough one for me to stop eating fresh baguettes every day. It's worth the risk. I may be eating it with Fromage De Hollande:


rather than Camembert, but that is my prerogative, people! I do Paris my way, you do it yours.

I also will be eating PAIN CHOCOLAT all day as well. It literally means chocolate bread. So, I'm just adding chocolate to my diet of bread. Expanding my horizons and palette.