La Rochelle was great! The forecast called for rain and clouds for the wedding day, so we were all genuinely surprised that the weather was picture perfect all day. It wasn't until evening that we finally got rain, but by that time we were all too schnockered and full of lovey-doveyness to even care. Plus, we were indoors - dancing like 8th-graders at a homecoming dance (or maybe that was just me and Gui).

Being the first full-on French wedding for me, the classy guests didn't let me down and everyone showed up looking glamorous as ever. Hats were in full-force and it was chignon galore for the rest of the ladies. Thanks to my lovelies back home, I fit right in with the chic femmes as I donned the head-turning feather hat they made me for my bachelorette party. The bride's mom even gave me a compliment on my hair accessory! Gui and I also got a little more wear out of our pricey wedding shoes, which I can't believe I managed to wear again for nearly 12 hours without pain! It felt empowering to strut around in a pair of 4-inchers again - something I miss doing, but will likely never be brave enough to do in Paris.

The food, champagne, cake, wedding gown, views, beach, guests, entertainment and FOOD were just superb. I ate every bite of my five-course meal and drank every glass of wine and champagne I was given - except for that one that the waiter took away while I was in the bathroom. Grrrrr. And we gorged on moules-frites, nutella crepes and Schtroumpf (Smurf) ice cream as our hangover food the next day, after a long day of lounging in the garden and at the beach. I wish we could've stayed longer, but the weather turned gloomy just as we left on Saturday, so we figured it was a sign.

I took pictures of everything - it was all so beautiful!! But, I'll spare you the 25o-picture slide show and just show you a few highlights of our trip. Enjoy!

There are almost an infinite number of places to eat in Paris. It's definitely my kind of city. I love trying new restaurants, new cuisines, new dishes, and even the same oldies but goodies (funny how that phrase now reminds me of the SATC movie I finally got to see this past week). But, sometimes, I get a craving for something that I can't find here. I know all transplants like me are familiar with the longing for peanut butter and Hershey Kisses and a chili-dog - sometimes it's the only thing that can satisfy a nostalgic pang, even if it's something we'd never regularly crave back in the States.

For me, when I'm missing home, like I was today, I crave Tex-Mex. In my book, there is absolutely nothing better than a "Combo plate" with rice and beans. It really is a cuisine I've never grown tired of. Unfortunately, it's not common fare here, and when I do stumble upon a self-proclaimed Tex-Mex joint, I usually find it to be serving more interior Mexican or Baja-Californian food than what I grew up calling Tex-Mex. Still, after paying 20 euros for a couple of tacos and a margarita, it usually does the trick and my craving is cured for the moment.

Thinking that I'd be able to reproduce my own nostalgic meals for a fraction of the price eating out, Gui and I stopped in at one of the local American shops in town a couple of weekends ago to scope out the place. Sure enough, they had what I was hoping to find (even if it wasn't in a familiar brand)! Presuming I'd found the answer to my occasional craving, I enthusiastically scooped up a can of refried beans, checked out the price and let out a sigh of disbelief. Nearly 4-euros for a freakin' can of beans - processed and all?! Knowing that I'd probably not find a bag of pinto beans anytime soon to do my own, I kept the can, carefully chose a few other over-priced items that I knew I wouldn't regret taking for later cravings, and we left the store before the 5-euro box of Jiffy mix or the 8-euro bottle of no-name pancake syrup could entice me any further.


Since then, I've decided I'll treat myself to an overpriced can of beans only for dire situations in the future, but it made me happy today that I was able to somewhat satisfy my obnoxious appetite for nachos. I still can't find decent tortilla chips here, so I opted to make a semi-7-layer dip using the beans, the jalapenos (from that same trip), some mimolette cheese (which tasted so much better than the weird "cheddar" they were selling at Monoprix), crème frâiche and fresh tomatoes and avocados. Gui couldn't get enough of the dip (that's my true Texa-frenchie) and I'd say that the 4-euros were well-spent. I haven't tried the "Original Texas beans" that I also bought at Thanksgiving, but I'm saving them for my next craving - maybe when it's for barbecue.



On a side-note, Gui and I are off to La Rochelle Thursday morning for a wedding. It's going to be a long drive, but I'm looking forward to this mini-vacation which I'm sure will include tons of eating (we're told there will be regional fare served, which means seafood - yeah, my fave!), and lots of trying to speak French. Luckily for me, there will also be beaucoup of champagne flowing.

I've been going to the same couple of grocery stores since we moved into our apartment. There are two of the same chain stores within a two minute walk from our place - one that's open every single day until 8pm - and another much larger store about a 10 minutes walk away. So, when I need something in a hurry or something I forgot to grab at the marché, I hop in the elevator and make my way down the street to the neighborhood grocer. Before I discovered the wonders of marché shopping, I was going to the grocery store nearly everyday, sometimes more than once a day. Actually, my abilities to grocery shop could be added to my CV under Hobbies and Interests if they were considered on par with, say, wind surfing. (And why shouldn't they be?)

Shopping at the same small retailers over and over again, one will begin to run into the same people over time. There are usually only one or two cashiers at any given time (even though there are four checkout lanes at one store), and I've only seen about four different cashiers during my separate trips. What I've come to expect from my cashier is simple: a monotonous bonjour, a rare glance in my direction, and an occasional complaint about another customer from some of the more social cashiers. The odd socializer tends to be in a noticeably happier mood than the others, and offers a genuine smile from time to time. I appreciate that, but I don't usually change my routine when checking out, regardless of the cashier - I say bonjour, try to make eye contact, shine a closed-mouth smile and bid farewell with a merci, bonne journée, au revoir!

It's odd because I feel like I know these people, like we're almost acquaintances, but not quite friendly. Once, while walking through the metro station at Pont de Sèvres, I saw one of my regular cashiers walk past me. We glanced at each other and I think we both realized we knew the other and from where, but weren't quite sure what to do, so we simultaneously flashed a "hey, I think I know you" smile and went on our merry ways. Today, I had to pick up a few things I needed for dinner, including a bottle of cassis which is always "locked" behind a glass case. I rarely buy things behind the glass case (although I'm thinking of changing my habits after I noticed a pretty bottle of tawny porto at a crazy good price), so I forgot that there's a little bell you have to ring to get some assistance. I went up to a cashier who regularly checks me out. She's not a socializer; she doesn't even give me a glance most times, and whenever I realize I don't have enough cash to pay with she grunts and huffs when I ask if I can pay by card. So, I asked her if I could get some assistance with the bottles in the case, and she reminded me to ring the bell first. That was the most I'd ever spoken to her. I went through her line when I was ready to check out and as other American transplants will know, you bag your own groceries here and sometimes the guy in front of you is really, really slow with bagging his stuff, but the clerks just go ahead and ring up your items which get mixed up with his and then you have to wait until the guy's done to start bagging your stuff, and the cycle continues. Well, I was waiting, my cashier was blankly staring at her screen, while the guy in front of me bagged his shiz, and as I was leaning to check the total I owed, she busted out with a loud "FIVE SEVENTY-TWO" - in English. At first, I didn't realize she was trying to make a joke, so I just kind of smirked and dug for my change. Then, I told her in French that I must have a really strong accent, and that's when the tides turned and she started doing what she's never done before - being friendly. We chatted about my accent while finishing up the transaction, and for the first time, I walked away from that grocery store with a smile. It's amazing what a little friendliness can do for your day - and I'm hoping it continues.

Our weekends are usually reserved for trips to the marché, occasional visits with family and evenings spent with friends, which is pretty much what we did this weekend. A friend of Gui's who lives south of Paris, stopped by on Friday evening for a no-nonsense pizza and beer dinner with us. Gui and I rarely go out in Paris at night - I think it's some kind of Parisian thing that keeps locals at home with friends, drinking, smoking and conversing in the comfort of a cozy Parisian apartment. But, we decided to be adventurous on this night, and after quickly skimming the internet for bars with cheap beer in Paris (I think the usually outrageous cost of drinks here contributes to the house-party phenomenon), we landed at a bar called The Wall in the 5eme, near the Pantheon and just off the beaten path of the lively Rue Mouffetard. There were several other bars in this little niche, but we wanted to test out our internet find to see if it really was a good place for cheap beer. It was. I had a couple of demi-pints for 3 euros a piece and Gui and his friend had a couple of 5-euro pints. We were really surprised to find beer - good beer even - at less than 7 euros a pint in a very busy night spot in Paris. Even their cocktails were reasonably priced between 5 and 6 euros. And, although we ran into a few strange folks (welcome to Paris by night), for the most part it was a mid/late-twenties crowd. On our metro ride home, we kept ourselves from falling asleep with entertainment like this:



Yeah, some creative guy is taking advantage of drunk late-nighters with a Mexican-inspired puppet show (it was Speedy Gonzalez). It was pretty hilarious actually.

I finally got to see the Luxembourg Garden on Saturday, which was really lovely. I also admired and took some pictures of the Pantheon, which I've sadly never visited. We set up a mini-picnic (well, hardly a picnic, just sauccisson) on a small patch of grass in the jardin and whiled the day away with some reading, music, crossword puzzles and obligatory people watching.














We got invited to dinner afterwards by our friend, Baptiste who wanted some company to watch some football games with. Football and food? So French. What's also so French is Baptisite. He still lives at home with his mom (but to be fair, he's also four years younger than Gui), and when he invited us to dinner, what he meant was that we would all hang out in the salon while his mom prepared the most amazing TV dinner ever. Who watches the game while eating a four-course meal? The French, that's who. And I'm not complaining.

My hands-down, all-time favorite dessert is, as a matter of fact, peach cobbler. I rarely eat an entire serving, but the sugary, doughy, crunchy-crusted peachy loveliness is what makes me most happy after a meal. And, I like it straight up - I've never been an à la mode kind of girl, and I tend to like things in their simplest form because all that extra nonsense is just cause for distraction. And I don't like to be distracted when I'm eating.

So, all these ripe peaches have been seducing me as I walk past them sitting on the counters of the lively market stalls - just begging me to take them with me to savor their juicy goodness. How could I to deny them their fair shot at making it into one of my might-be-disastrous cooking endeavors? Lucky peaches.

I can't remember where I got the idea for peach cobbler - maybe I was reminiscing about eating one of many Lenten catfish buffets at the Manchaca Fire Hall that I almost always followed up with a peach cobbler; or maybe it was the famous Hill's Cafe that I remember regularly going to when I was growing up. I don't even know if they serve peach cobbler there, but I must have been thinking about one of those comfort-food havens to remind me of my undying affection for a homemade peach cobbler.

Despite the soaring temps, I fired up the oven after scooping up a kilo (or something) of ripe yellow peaches, and challenged my craving with one simple recipe. It all seemed to be going well...until I got to the part where you have to pour the "batter" into the pool of melted butter. Easy enough, non? Well, yeah, it was easy to do, but the way it looked was not easy to stomach.
Blech! I thought I'd surely ruined a recipe this time - dude, why can't I bake with confidence? So, I reluctantly tossed it in the oven, set the timer and didn't even peak until I heard the "ding."

And that's when my frown turned upside-down, friends, and I saw and smelled the most delectable thing I've ever attempted to make in my life. It took everything I had to let it cool a bit before serving myself a heaping scoop of heaven. I even waited until after dinner to try it out, and boy, was it worth the wait! Gui decided he wanted some vanilla ice cream distraction, so I served him two scoops and he was a happy (stuffed) husband.

I ate this cobbler for an entire week - with coffee for breakfast, as dessert at lunch and dinner, with tea after dinner, for gouter, and as a meal replacement in and of itself. This will be on the table at the next Thanksgiving dinner, and I will be calling dibs on being served first.

As for my baking abilities, I learned a valuable lesson that I will remember for all future baking experiments ventures: the oven is a magical contraption that turns oozing piles of goo into yummy piles of perfection - never doubt its powers.

I snapped this picture of Gui last weekend at a friend's house. His face is not suitable for glasses, but these gave him an adorable nerdy look that makes me smile.

Sorry for not posting this week; I'm sure everyone's wondering what I've been up to...or not.
Actually, I haven't had anything of much interest to write about. After finishing my French classes and a week of preparing for and worrying about my carte de sejour, I've been stuck in a rut over what I should do with my free time. The obvious answer is to get with the job-hunting, but August is by far the worst month to try to contact businesses in Paris. There's even an advertisement all around Paris that's asking where all the Parisians have gone. I saw someone else put up a photo of the advert on their blog, but I can't remember who (I think it's official that I stalk entirely too many blogs). According to Gui it's a play on a football chant that gets shouted when the Paris team is sucking - kind of like "Where are y'all at now, Paris?" I think it's a really clever advertisement (although I can't remember the website it's promoting at the moment), and I still find it so amusing that people just up and leave this city for nearly an entire thirty days for a little respite from the norm. Our apartment is surrounded by lots of businesses and a few office buildings, so lately the neighborhood's been eerily quiet and parking spaces have been unusually superfluous.

So, expecting to find a job this month is really an absurd fantasy that I'm quickly finding myself getting over. Now that I have all this extra time on my hands, I'm trying to think of ways to discover Paris without feeling like a tourist. Monday was a completely wasted day spent indoors, cleaning, blog-stalking, cleaning and cleaning. But, on Tuesday, I took myself to Muji, which I'd heard is like a Japanese Ikea or something like that. I wanted to see what they had and maybe pick up some things that I still need in the kitchen - mainly cooking utensils. Well, I wasn't exactly blown away when I found my way to the little shop tucked behind the marché Saint Germain, but I scooped up a couple of low-priced items and decided to take a trip to my tried and true utensil shop down at Les Halles. There I found exactly what I needed and headed back home feeling successful after a quick frapuccino pit-stop at Stealmybucks. It's an indulgence I don't have often, so I don't feel guilty about throwing down 5 euros for a grande fruit-tea smoothie.

I came home rather early and hung around with Gui after work before I headed out for my first evening in Paris sans Gui. Emily is as lovely as a Georgia peach who, as we discovered over a couple of overpriced cocktails in the 16eme, has a lot in common with this misplaced Texan, including being married to a fabulous, grade A, slightly paranoid, americanized Frenchie. Girl talk in English is so much fun - we spent over three hours dishing about our lives, our history, our woes, our often unreasonable expectations of the fabled Paris life, and our rather happy existences. Our rendez-vous was loads of fun and a much appreciated breath of fresh air from my looming boredom. Thank God she appreciates alcohol-inspired French sign language.

And wouldn't you know that after making my trip to the marché this afternoon for some produce and such, I got an email from a girlfriend of Gui's friend inviting me to the piscine? So, this afternoon she swung by and picked me up in her car (quelle chance) and we headed in search of my neighborhood pool. Man, I never in my life knew there were so many rules for going to a freakin' swimming pool! And, man I never knew how popular pools were in Paris [banlieue] during the summer - geesh, don't people work? We got cut off in the line by a big, yellow tape barrier because apparently they were approaching their maximum occupancy of 700 people - yes SEVEN. HUNDRED. Luckily, we got in only minutes later and set off to go through the regular routine of taking off the shoes, finding and paying for a locker and showering before spotting a patch of grass for some seriously appreciated sunbathing. A ton of sun, a few dips in the pool, a few topless women, speedoed men, and another episode of showering (this time with soap and shampoo - yeah, that's weird to me) ensued before we called it a (great) day.

I'm still working on my CV and trying to keep up my French by talking with Gui and watching French TV, but I figure if everyone else can take August off, there's no reason I shouldn't also. I'm learning that boredom isn't so bad after all, so long as you've got a lot to do.

Now (besides my lower than generally acceptable French skill level), I have no excuse for being jobless anymore. After a patience-testing wait at the prefecture late this afternoon, I was handed a half-sheet of paper that's proof of my application for residency, and that I will use as evidence of my right to work in France until my actual card arrives - hopefully within the next three months (we'll see how that goes). It's funny because we actually had an appointment with the same woman who set the appointment in the first place, whose awful people skills and overwhelming rudeness we both were blown away with last time. She seemed fifty times happier this time and even made a few jokes and got us in and out within 30 minutes of our appointment time. We think it had something to do with her imminent three-plus weeks of vacation.

We asked a few questions, most of which were answered with "we don't do that here," but the most important question was the one about my eligibility to work. At first, we were told that I couldn't work with just a récépissé (which is just a receipt that shows I've applied for the residency permit), but after inquiring a bit, she told us that, in fact, I could work with it and that my eligibility would be printed on the document. Man, I wonder if I'd have the same eligibility if we hadn't been brave enough to ask?

All in all, it went pretty smoothly. We only had to wait a couple of minutes after our appointment to be seen, and would you believe it if I told you (speaking to those of you who've gone through this before) that we actually had everything they required for the application EXCEPT a copy of the stamp indicating my entry into France with my visa? Would you also believe that that was the only thing not mentioned on the list of required documents to bring? Luckily, we caught our guichetiere on a good day and she was kind enough to make copies for us without much hassle.

Now, I'm just waiting to get the information for the infamous medical exam. If I'm lucky, I might just get my actual cds a few months before I have to reapply for the next one. Ah, the French.