paris

Oh Paris. With your endless cafes and superior baguettes and love of ham on everything. Your military berets and chain smoking and restaurant maitre d’s whose ears are offended by my broken French. I couldn’t tire of your snaking Seine through the city crisscrossed by no less than a million bridges, your calorie-laden quiches and punk rock hotties carrying “man purses.” I am a slave to the Mediterranean je ne sais quoi of your people- even your stray dogs shoot arrogant glances around as they drop la maird ten paces from mes oeufs simples. I am smitten with your dirty, smelly chaotic streets of charm and sex appeal. If loving you is mal, I don’t want to be juste.

Eurostar: St. Pancras to Gare du Nord

A perfect lunch

Is he the groom, or just a pervy photog?

Solo pic attempts at the Louvre

Boule is taken so seriously, there are outdoor closets for the players

Statue of Liberty?

Tour d’Eiffel from Jardin de Luxembourg

Sorbonne

Chez Paul in the Bastille neighborhood

Cafe de Flore en St. Germain

Sacré-Cœur and the views from Montmartre

en Montmartre

Seine boat cruise

No such thing as too many Eiffel Tower pictures

je suis très excité

In a few minutes, I will leave my flat, take the bus to St. Pancras train station, where I will take the Eurostar to Paris. I didn’t think I would get to go this soon, considering the prospect of returning has grown to mythic proportions inside my head. But our friend Greg is in Europe on business, and wisely suggested the three of us meet there. The boys are both working today and I am actually looking forward to a day in Paris alone- maybe I will live in my own little Amélie movie.

I don’t know if it’s cliché to love France as much as do. I actually think that for Americans in my age group, you are supposed to be obsessed with Thailand, or backpacking in Peru, or dying in a bus in Alaska from a poisonous flower. Which means my lifelong love of France is now officially old-school retro. VIVE LA FRANCE!

The first time I set foot in France was in 1990 with my 8th grade French class. I remember we all wore fanny packs and Joey Turner told me I dance like a white girl. The last time I set foot in France was 1993, the summer before my senior year of high school. My dad wisely pushed me to do AFS, and I worked as a camp counselor in a small town in the Loire Valley for three weeks, and spent one week in Paris. I played boule, yelled English obscenities at the young campers, “french” kissed the older son in my host family (TMI I know), ate frog’s legs, bought my first Vanessa Paradis casette tape, went to the discotheque (duh) and just blissed out. I have always been, and always will be, a francophile. I studied the language for nine years, minored in it in college (mais je parle comme une vache espagnol), and still have friends j’adore because we shared a bond in French class- in the days when I insisted on being called Juliette, or had to translate French films as homework. Just thinking about walking along the Seine, eating a baguette and dark chocolate… it’s too much.

I hope the digital camera survives.

radiohead

Since I met my man, I have known his holy trinity of bliss:

1. Music
2. The Jets and The Mets
3. Sushi

His family and friends immediately follow on the list.

I am not a proper music lover like Bryan. I don’t read Brooklyn Vegan, or Rolling Stone or try and go to see live music once a week. If I had my way, my Ipod would only be filled with Cyndi Lauper, Edie Brickell, Sean Kingston and R Kelly. But Bryan has exposed me to a lot of new stuff, and I am better for it. And there is no band he loves more than Radiohead. My entire experience with Radiohead before meeting Bryan was during the summer of ‘93. I was leaving for France for one month (more on that tomorrow), and my boyfriend at the time and I decided to exchange small gifts the night before I left. He gave me the Pablo Honey tape with Radiohead’s “Creep” on it. I gave him a Beavis and Butt-head poster. Both were awesome gifts at the time, I swear. Rob and I only lasted a month, but I still like Radiohead.

Last night we saw their show in Victoria Park on the outskirts of London. We had brought along some friends and it was a beautiful, perfect weather night. Also fun to see what Europeans at a concert are like: not as many words on t-shirts, but definitely as many Converse low-tops. And Bryan could not contain his total euphoria. He actually became That Guy. The guy we usually hate because he is singing all the words at the top of his lungs. Bryan not only did that, he often did it directly into my eardrum. But if he’s happy, my stereocilia are happy.

Bad concert photos before fun lights show

Tallest Man In England stands in front of us

Photos from our honeymoon

san marino: fact or fiction?

We have this perfect coffee table book. It’s called “The Travel Book” and it’s Lonely Planet’s alphabetical listing of each country with a devoted 2-page photographic spread and summary- not just vital stats like population, but also quirky facts and flavors of the country. It’s fun(ny) to see as much space devoted to a place like the U.S. as Azerbaijan. I have never seen someone be able to resist picking it up, and it’s the perfect book for those who dream about going all over the world, somehow, some way. Even better, I got it at London’s biggest travel bookstore, Stanfords in Covent Garden, a bookstore I will not get tired of, ever, because its two levels of maps, guidebooks, and love letters to countries and cities make me feel like it’s possible for me to go everywhere, even though I know I won’t.

But about this book. Its terrible downside is that it has forced me to deal with countries I have never heard of. How dare they? Like finding out that Pluto is really only a “dwarf planet,” this just sort of disturbs the tenuous equilibrium we all exist on day-to-day. And the true object of this now not-so-latent rage of mine is San Marino.

San Marino. What. The. F. Did you know there is AN ENTIRE COUNTRY CARVED OUT OF THE MIDDLE OF ITALY? If you are thinking “yes” you are lying. No one has heard of it. No one knew there was a land-locked country in the middle of Italy besides Vatican City. No one has heard of San Marino. No one. And now I am just angry it gets to be a country. Why do Russia, China and India comprise 8,000 ethnicities, 832 primary languages, and 79 gazillion people, but a few thousand Italians decided they get to have their own country. Total and utter bollocks. Yeah, I said bollocks. I am that mad.

Some facts about San Marino, along with my very important comments:

*It is actually called the Most Serene Republic of San Marino.

Uh, I’ve got nothing here.

*Not much bigger than two or three suburbs strung together.

You are incensing me.

*Best time to visit is July to September.

Guess what? No one is going to visit, unless they happen to be in Italy and take a wrong turn in their rental car.

*The Prince of Foxes was filmed in San Marino after the director rented out the entire country.

If your entire country is able to be rented, you aren’t allowed to be one.

*The Sammarinese (I did not make that up) are supported by Italy’s police force, military and postal system and are allowed to use the Euro as their currency (but get to design their own coins???) but are not part of the European Union.

Convenient.

*3rd highest GDP per capita in the world.

Xenophobia will help a nation’s GDP. Not saying that’s you San Marino…just sayin’.

*The capital is called San Marino.

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.

I don’t live far from San Marino’s Embassy / Consulate here in London, so I considered taking a stroll over there to, I don’t know, heckle them take photographs. But it turns out it’s located in a flat. I know, I know. I need to get a life.

best thriller ever made?

I guess I should be blogging about the EuroCup or the start of Wimbledon. But that would be torture for all of us, right?

Last week our friend Mike was in town with his sister, visiting us and other friends he met while serving in the Peace Corps in Cameroon. He and Bryan became friends when they both studied abroad in Prague in 1993 and it has been love ever since.

And as I am a good host with my long days of verylittletodoness, we were able to do a short bar crawl in my neighborhood, take some walks and have other assorted adventures like the amazing discovery that Bryan & Mike both like Oban scotch. On Friday night when Mike and I were waiting for Bryan to get out of work to meet us in Soho, we decided to go have pints at the first bumping pub we came across, which happened to be gay. As we sipped our extra-cold Kronenbourgs, I declared that it would be fun to give Bryan our coordinates, but not tell him it was a gay bar. This kept me amused, along with the two adorable guys that, when my umbrella was lying on the floor, said “Excuse me, you dropped your brolly.” HELLO, THE WORD BROLLY IS CUTE.

One of the more important things to come out of Mike’s visit, is my confession to him that since a dream last week, I have not been able to rid the film “Sleeping With The Enemy” from my mind. It should be noted that this film came out in 1991 and I haven’t seen it in at least ten years. So what possessed me to dream/ nightmare about it, I have no idea. Now I am obsessed with the question: Is Sleeping With The Enemy the best thriller ever made? Evidence in the affirmative: when Julia Roberts is in her new home in Iowa and notices the hand towels and cans in the cupboard perfectly lined up. I die a little just thinking about it.

a happy day

Today our friends Abbie & Mira are getting married in Vancouver.

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Same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide in Canada in 2005.

I’ve known Mira since I was 3 years-old, and in the state where we grew up, Virginia, and where she now lives with Abbie, it is not legal for them to marry.

In fact, Virginia has an amendment to its constitution banning marriage equality for all gays and lesbians in the state, and denying legal relationship recognition to all unmarried couples.

Same-sex couples in Virginia cannot have civil unions and therefore have no legal protections or contract rights as to status.

It is permissible in Virginia to discriminate against someone in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation.

Sexual orientation is not included in the state’s hate crime laws.

Virginia courts have routinely discriminated against gay and lesbian parents in Virginia in second-parent adoptions, finding them “not in the best interests of the child,” as well as finding against other forms of adoption and custody/visitation rights.

Which means my two friends have a lot more to consider as they start a family than most.

‘Virginia is for Lovers’ is the state slogan, but it should have a footnote.

Mira & Abbie still have faith in Virginia, and so do I.

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But today, I am only happy. Mazel Tov my beautiful friends.