Last night, Gui invited a friend from work to celebrate America's triumph with us. His friend, Louis, is an intern from Senegal who's studying business at a school in France. We exchanged enchantés and sat down for a coupe of champagne to discuss the new president and our respective countries. Louis's never been to the States and he was as curious as a six-year-old about my home country and life there. When I first arrived in France, I was a little naive to the idea that many Parisians hadn't ever visited the US, and it struck me as absurd when an 18-year-old girl in my French class told me she'd never seen a black person until she came to France. I think that's when I realized how sheltered of a life I'd really been living. Sure, I'm far more cultured than my grandparents ever were, but I've never learned so much about the world as I have since arriving here.

After explaining to Louis that subways don't exist in every major US city, that nearly everyone drives a car and that people can actually pick up an entire meal from a drive-thru for less than 5 bucks like you see on TV, we got on the topic of what being American is all about. He wanted to know about this patriotism idea that he so frequently hears about when Americans speak of their country. What Louis found so fascinating about being American is that regardless of heritage, religion, or skin color, American citizens (generally speaking) identify themselves as Americans first and foremost. It's the kind of pride that France tends to shun, and Gui gave an example of waving the French flag at a demonstration to be something that many in his country would see as divisive. France has a history of problems concerning the treatment of immigrants and the acceptance of other cultures and religions. I find many of the government's answers to a divided country to be absurdly backwards. I understand that as a secular country, provisions must be taken to ensure religion does not play a role in policymaking, but most of these provisions simply ignore that religion exists altogether. Take the headdress and cross-wearing laws, for example. Disallowing someone to express themselves freely for fear of how others might discriminate is tolerating discrimination. Let's not waive our country's flag because we might be flaunting our national pride too much and don't want to offend any immigrants. Let's just tell everyone with dark hair to dye it blond because, let's be honest, people will discriminate. I know there's a ton of French history that needs to be considered when taking great steps to unite this country, but it seems to me that the politicos running the country today aren't moving fast enough in the right direction.

I don't want to turn this into a political blog - at all - so, take this as a simple culmination of my thoughts about a very interesting conversation I had last night. After polishing off the last drop of champagne, we headed out for an authentic American dinner which required waiting in the cold for an hour first. We all ordered the bacon cheeseburger and fries, I had a vanilla milkshake (can't believe they didn't have strawberry - What-A-Burger, here I come!) and a side of apparently, what French people are fooled into believing is good ranch dressing (it's on my list of things to bring back). Even though I was the only one at the table who ate my entire meal with my fingers, my nostalgic pangs were more than satisfied, and I felt a little closer to home.

Tomorrow, we're off to Caen to visit our dear friends once again. Tuesday's a holiday, so in typical French fashion, Gui's off from work on Monday, too, and that means a long weekend in Normandy for us! We expect to eat and drink incredibly well while we're there and I anticipate much more champagne in my very near future - all of France is celebrating American democracy, and hey, who am I to argue?

I decided to do the the NaBloPoMo challenge a day late, but I'm going to give it a practice-go this month anyway. That means that I have to think of something interesting to blog about everyday, which might seem like an easy task for someone who's starting a life in a foreign country, but I don't want to be overly confident. This is bound to be an interesting month, though; it's November, there's a little presidential election going on this month, traveling's on the agenda for next weekend, and Thanksgiving plans must be made, which means that I've got a lot to do and I need to get started soon!

Tomorrow, Jour-J, so to speak, couldn't come any sooner. I'm planning on coming home from school, switching on CNN and gluing myself to the TV until Gui gets home and peels me away. The plan is to pull an all-nighter with Emily until we get a clear idea of the election results, or until we can't stay awake any longer. Maybe it's a bit overkill, but I'm seriously interested in the outcome of this election and I think I and my family have much at stake to gain or lose from the end result. Everyone knows who I've been supporting since what seems like forever, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that change is on the way, and Obama will be sworn into office less than three months from now.