#ANYWAYS I know we’re in January and it’s still winter and we’re freezing our butts off

[kyurochurro]

and now i bring to you my concept art for my imaginary tos episode: the crew go to the beach planet (the beach episode) 🏝️

[lavieenjones]

January 18th, 2017

It’s been 103 days since I’ve issued an installment of This Parisienne Life and as I officially started my job in France six months ago today the timing felt… apt. I was going to say celebratory like it was an important anniversary, but I don’t know if this is true. I will say it’s been the most challenging six months of my professional, and maybe personal, life. So it is a triumph that I returned after Christmas I suppose.

Since my last post I have been back to Chicago to get my visa (can we say offish?! Eek!) for which I packed way too many sweaters and not enough Xanax, traveled to Scotland and met up with Rachel and David to do amazing things, strolled around the streets of freezing Paris with Denise and my sweet niece, grieved for our country with my mom while aimlessly wandering the bowels of the Louvre, said I was going off cheese and wine 42 times, enjoyed cheese and wine 43 times, got a new piercing in London, fled to Lisbon for a weekend and had a Portuguese pigeon poop on my face, got the “Euro-croup”, brought it with me home for Christmas and after spreading it to my grateful family, I enjoyed the sun and sand before heading up to Chicago to toast Hillary and Mike. Then it was back to Paris for a week before Jack joined me for some Eiffel towering and more Louvre-ing, and I am even now writing this from a hotel off Plaza de Santa Ana in Madrid. And now I can say that I learned how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit in Spain.. and if you’re going to test me, it’s: *2+30 (wait, is that right? It only took me six months to ask someone..). I could not have planned a more eventful, tiring, incredible time.

As for Scotland, what can I say about that slice of adventure? Late October in the Highlands equates to trekking bright orange foothill terrain, warm nights in the pub with traditional music blaring and American politics the only topic of conversation, tart, wild blackberries we foraged for ourselves, gypsy creams, medieval and Monty Python castle touring, long-haired highland cows (two dozen strong), and mortal combat battles on a still-functioning Nintendo in the hotel bar. It is also here that we realized that each roundabout is unique and shitty in its own way, all Highland hotels are haunted (for sure), I realized that Scotch tastes like band-aids, and the mystery of where my internal compass went was finally solved after a night out in Perth when a repressed memory apparently surfaced and I proclaimed that it fell out of my butt. All in all, Scotland was pure, awe-inspiring, alien bliss.

Now, before I divulge all the secrets to French living (jk, I haven't figured out a single one yet), I'll walk you through my daily life as its evolved: my main objective every day is to find the largest coffee I can on my block, in my arrondisment, at my office, on my office’s block, in the office’s arrondisment.. you get the idea. This has actually not changed since I arrived. Unfortunately the answer to this quandary is either buy three 30 cent café crèmes (espresso and I think like dried milk that they add water to?) and pour them all into a Ryan Gosling “hey girl” mug to give the illusion of enjoying a perfectly proportioned “American” coffee OR you can get straight up Starbucks diesel drip coffee. I usually go for the former and then sit twitching and ticking for the next 2.5 hours. Somedays I don’t know what I wouldn’t give for a Dunkin Donuts. After coffee- because before or even during coffee I am just sitting at my computer staring at emails that are out of focus while my team ticks off the list of current issues we’re to deal with… which sounds a lot like the teacher in Charlie Brown- I attend a couple of meetings in which always/mostly begin in English for my benefit and then 10 to 15 minutes in switch over into a lot of sidebars in French, to which I never receive the CliffsNotes. Then everyone that works on my floor clears out for lunch. I usually don’t notice until I realize I am not trying to block out anything—that’s when it hits me, the trifecta emotional onslaught of: what am I doing here, doesn’t anybody love me, and then the defiant, I don’t want French food for lunch anyway.. Then I sneak down to one of the various cafes/small food providers on “campus” and bring a sad assortment of fruit and non-descript meat products up to my desk. Then around 4pm (or 16h as I am trying desperately to transition to little avail) I see if one or both of my two friends here want to get dinner or drinks and when is the soonest we can go. And I usually wrap up the day with stopping by a market of some various offering (cheese, wine, fruit, bread, all of the above) and watching an episode of the Mentalist or if Denise is reading this, doing a French lesson on Pimsleur.

I had written down some tales from the last three months on my phone but can't find them to include here, instead I found this gem: Day 108- The streets of Paris are drenched. It's been raining for a week. I drank too much wine at dinner, woke up late and bleary eyed. Forgot mascara so I'm condemned to look like a newborn mouse all day. Then split my pants as I hopped into an uber and went to work anyway. Basically sat at my desk for 8 hours straight and kept my head down. Maybe this is the key to looking productive all day. So, perhaps it’s no wonder I eat lunch alone. Mostly kidding. Anyway, I read in a book at the airport that it is very French to say everything is “terrible” (pronounced: terr-ee-bluh). How was your day? Terrible. How is your coffee? Terrible. How do you like this bar? Terrible. So perhaps I am just more fully assimilated at this point. And as frustrated as I get with the Frenchness of my situation, make no mistake, I am awash with gratitude when I think about where I am tonight, and where I’ll be going home tomorrow.

And before I go, I’ll leave you with a few observations on life in France: It is so hard. As we’ve established, my French is crap and I continue to sit in isolation all day, every day at work. It is wet. So much winter rain. It just can't bring itself to be 20 degrees lower and snow like any other self-respecting northern city. How is the weather? Terrible.. The man bun is alive and well and I am so happy about it. In fact, it’s man bun + beard + casual suit. Comment dites “swoon” en Français? People will tell you the wrong directions just to get rid of you. C’est vrai! Terrible. French women don’t dye their hair. And actually the grey that shines through is quite pretty. And lastly, it is very far away from my family and friends. It was really hard to come back after two blissful weeks in Florida. It's not as if I'd be surrounded by loved ones at all times if I didn’t live in France, but I'd see them a whole bunch more than I anticipate I will in 2017. And it’s daunting knowing that I actually don’t have a clue what this year will hold. But, in a surprising twist, I was given a French menu last week—and you might recall (or likely not) this was my one-year goal after arriving. And even though my boss says my French "eese terreeblah” and “elementearee reebeca" and I scored 17 out of 100 on my French exam, I must pass muster in some respect. Or maybe they just don’t care and want to make me suffer by ordering cold meat mush and vinegar-soaked veggies (not saying this has happened..).