We've been having an absolute blast on our trip so far (not that anything less is expected from such amazing hosts). Today, we went into Granville, had a galette lunch, enjoyed the two hours of sun, visited Christian Dior's house and spent the evening at home with drinks and games and drinking games. I love vacation! Needless to say, I'm not giving up anymore of my vacay time to write a post, so my go at NaBloPoMo will have to be satisfied with a picture post. Enjoy!

It's hardly a secret that Gui and I speak English at home. We met and began dating in Texas for nearly half a year, and we lived in California for more than half a year, too. Besides the fact that I didn't know a lick of French when we met (well, that community college class that I got a D in and that provoked me to switch to the much lovelier Italian language doesn't count, does it?), we were both living and working in an English-speaking country. During the time when we were in a long-distance relationship, we communicated by phone, IM and email exclusively in English. It was just never even a question that we'd speak English. I don't imagine that our relationship would have been able to progress as it did if Gui didn't speak English so well when we first met.

When I came to France nearly a year ago, I began down the long and turbulent road to learning French - a road that I still currently see no end to. Although my initial efforts were admittedly half-hearted, some progress has nonetheless been made. We've taken the advice of others to each speak in our mother tongues, to each speak the other's language, to pick a day or two when all we speak is French, but nothing's quite caught on. On random occasions, Gui will bust out with speaking French out of seemingly no where and I'll of course respond in English, but it never lasts very long.

There are times when I feel guilty for making him speak a language that he can't fully express himself in, but when I ask him how he feels about it, he makes the point that, in fact, he can't express himself correctly to me when we speak French. How is that possible? I think it has a lot to do with how closely he followed American pop culture when he was growing up. I'm often shocked to find that he knows more words to English songs, more American colloquial sayings and more American movie quotes than I do.

Now, though, I wonder if using the excuse that it's awkward to speak in French to each other has just become, well, an excuse. Just last night someone asked us why we don't speak French at home - a question that I get asked nearly everytime we're out with people. And, after responding with the habitual, "well, it's just kind of weird for us since, you know, we always spoke English to begin with," I started wondering if I still believed what I was saying. And, frankly, it's not much of a good excuse now that my French is improving and it's obvious I need to practice it. People are usually nice and respond with, "yeah I guess it would be quite difficult to change the language in which you speak with your husband after a few years." But, not really. We live in France, and lord knows if we were living in Texas, there's no way Gui would be able to get away with speaking only French. Stepping out of my comfort zone is really what I need to make myself do. I know I often whine and cry about how much I hate the French language, but I really am eager to learn it. I wish so dearly that I could express myself to Gui's friends and family as precisely as I can in English - that I can have full-on conversations with Gui in his native tongue. I'm hoping that someday we'll be able to switch our common language to French, like so many other Franglo couples do. For now, I'll continue down this bumpy road and see where it takes us.

Check out the originating post for this group blog.

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?

Living in Paris has given me many opportunities to try so many new foods to both eat and cook with. But, I tend to stay true to my roots which means that a craving for nachos will have me searching Paris high and low for refried beans and cheddar cheese. And, I always keep my kitchen well-stocked with all the foods and spices that I find easy and familiar to cook with, like tortillas, rice, chili powder (I make chili or taco soup nearly once a week), pasta and barbecue sauce. Sometimes I wish I was more experimental in the kitchen, and I often wonder what's being served up on the tables of other families in Paris.

...(yep, a bit of absinthe after a few rounds of drinks before), we still made it to the Salon du Chocolat for our own little gourmet version of a chocolate "brunch". It didn't take much more than the lure of fancy chocolate samples to convince me to wake up before noon on a Sunday morning, and I didn't regret my choice after spending a few moments in the exposition hall.

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.

I'm discovering during this first year of living abroad, that the holidays and how they are or aren't celebrated here will contribute to the most difficult part of my transition. Halloween has never been my favorite holiday, and it's not one that I think I'll miss celebrating, yet it feels somewhat odd for a year to pass without carving a pumpkin and handing out candy to eager trick-or-treaters. It's cool to see all the costumes that my friends and family back home donned for the holiday, but I can't say that I was overly nostalgic over missing out on the typical festivities. Maybe it's because costume parties are a little more of the norm here (well, in our circle of friends, anyway), or perhaps I simply don't appreciate the fun in dressing up in costume as much as I did when I was younger.

As a kid, I can't recall if I loved dressing up for Halloween, but I do remember that I loved to pretend I was a witch - specifically, the wicked witch of the West. Blame it on my mom's (and consequently, my) obsession with the Wizard of Oz, which I can still recite verbatim from beginning to end. I think I always felt like I resembled the green-faced, black-haired villain, who many of us now endearingly call Elphaba. I've never felt so comfortable in pretending to be someone else as I did when I was a witch. Reflecting on this now makes me wonder if there's an underlying psychological reason for that. Hmmm.

This Halloween, there wasn't a witch in sight. In fact, besides a few random youngsters dressed as zombies and dead clowns, hardly anyone seemed to notice it was Halloween night. (Did I just use the word youngsters?!) I didn't even see one packet of fun-size M&Ms, Skittles or Tootsie-pops. Instead of handing out candy to ghosts and ballerinas, Emily and I caught an early evening showing of Mamma Mia, which I happened to score free tickets to from Gui's dad. It was such a great movie. Normally, I cringe during musicals; everything's so happy and smiley and terribly contrived. Call me uncultured, but there's something that makes me feel awkward when I'm watching a movie and the cast bursts out in song and dance mid-sentence. But, this movie really changed my mind about all that. After the first episode of random song and dance, an overwhelming feeling of happiness came over me and I started singing along. I knew about half of the songs they sang and after the movie ended, Emily and I were talking about downloading the soundtrack (or digging up mom's old Abba albums). It's one of those movies that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and I highly recommend seeing it if you haven't.

We ended the night discussing the next un-celebrated holiday (Thanksgiving) over frozen margaritas and a delicious platter of fried, Tex-Mex finger-foods. Unlike Halloween, Thanksgiving is a holiday that, for me, I expect will be difficult to replicate or forget. The one year I spent Thanksgiving away from home, I found some comfort in familiar foods at the Texas Embassy, but the rest of the year still felt slightly askew. That November holiday is the one day when I can expect to see cousins, aunts, uncles and friends that I otherwise rarely see during the course of the year. My dad has nine siblings and my mom, eight, so seeing all of my extended family is nearly an impossible task. Thanksgiving is usually the day when my relatives near and far get together to reminisce over one crazy big meal. Not everyone shows up, but I find that each year I see someone I haven't seen in ages, and catching up on the time in between is what Thanksgiving is all about for me.

This year, although I don't expect to see any long-lost family members, I'm looking forward to celebrating the holiday like I never have before, and that makes me super excited. I feel like it's time for me to start new traditions with my family and friends here, all of who I'm grateful to know and spend time with. This year, Gui and I decided to host Thanksgiving dinner chez nous, so I'm a little worried about how everything will turn out (man, I hope I don't burn the turkey). But I guess new traditions have to start somewhere...

Anyone living in Paris will tell you that the métro is not just a mode of transportation, but an important destination in its own right, especially if you're into watching strange events unfold, listening to lovers suck face two inches from your ear and observing an area full of fifty-plus people staring into space in complete and utter silence. It's funny how small the world becomes when you find yourself riding the same line on a regular basis.

On the way back from seeing a mind-reader perform the other night, Gui and I found ourselves on the metro with a group of drunk and stupid teenagers who thought that writing on the doors and walls of the metro car with a bright green marker would make their parents proud. Too bad for them, they picked the first car to showcase their penmanship and found themselves the embarrassed recipients of a stern, public lecture by the observant driver. Today, while heading back home from school, I happened to jump on the exact same metro car to find that none of their graffiti had been removed. I was thinking that had the same incident played itself out in Texas, those kids would have been crying to their parents that evening while explaining why they got questioned and held by the local police. Then, they'd be spending their next Saturday scrubbing all the metro cars clean as punishment.

One of the worst things for me about taking the metro is dealing with daily solicitation of money from beggars, homeless people and buskers. I don't mind handing over a few centimes to someone when I have it, but what irks me the most are the people who repeatedly work the metros with perfectly polished nails, wearing shoes in better condition than mine. My mom taught me long ago that what a person does with their money is of no concern to you once you've made the decision to give it to them. Which I totally agree with and I guess explains why I avoid giving those people money in the first place.

Today, I found myself witness to the most amazing conversation I've ever heard between a serial-beggar and a woman riding the metro. The woman begging for money is obviously a pro. She's definitely one of those with nice jewelry and fancy shoes, and I see her on my line every. single. day. What I hate the most about her begging is how she asks for money - she carries a stack of at at least fifty small, yellow cards that have a perfectly-typed message on them, asking for money to feed her homeless family. Occasionally, she brings a small child with her, but I haven't seen her with him since the summer. She goes around and hands these cards to unsuspecting passengers, leaving them on empty seats next to people who've refused them. I've fallen victim to her sneaky, little card trick once, but never again after that.

When I first saw her little plan unfold, I thought she must be crazy to think people would give someone so young, capable and literate some of their hard-earned money in such a place that makes it rather difficult for one to truly starve. And, it's true, most everyone felt like they'd been had when she came around to take the cards back and ask for the money they'd promised her by default. But, there were still a few who dug into their pockets, not sure if they were now obliged to do so, and handed her a few coins along with her little yellow card.

Today, though, was funny. After she'd made her rounds and just as the train was entering a station, a boisterous, straight-talking woman (who'd perhaps felt like she'd been had) asked the begging woman if she was capable of speaking. The beggar bashfully answered her (in a very audible voice) in French - "Pas bien...euh..uh...je parle..." The woman (my new hero) replied by telling her that (and I have to paraphrase some of this because although I could completely understand the conversation [thank God], there's no way I could rewrite all the words in French) "bon, si tu peux ecrire et passer les petits papiers comme ça, tu peux travailler! [well, if you can write and pass these little papers around, then you can work!]" The beggar smiled like the woman was telling her a joke, and a guy standing up to get off at his stop let out a loud laugh which only provoked my hero more and made everyone else chuckle. The metro came to a stop, but the woman continued by telling her, "Don't go around asking these people for money on a piece of paper if you can talk. If you want money, go work like everyone else." The great thing about how she told her all of this is that it wasn't in a condescending sort of way, but like one of your friends telling you to stop being lazy, get off your arse and get a job. I love that. I could hear her still trying to convince her to stop her begging ways as she walked off the metro and the doors closed. It's rare to find someone who'll speak their mind so openly here (especially on the metro), so I'm just glad it happened on my line.