With Me It's All 'Er Nothin'.... is it All 'Er Nothin With You?

This has been a week of movies. Movies and normalcy. As in the glitz and glam of "ooooo I'm living in Paris now" is starting to wear off and everyday life is, well, everyday life. People breathe here. For the most part, they dress like Americans do. They eat food (especially bread). They love and hate. They have feelings and ideas of their own. They walk and talk, dance and sing. The Eiffel Tower looks the same every time you look at it. And time moves on, just as it does in the US...

Anyway, like I said we watched lots of movies. Friday night we watched Casablanca in French; we've also watched Chisum (an old John Wayne Western loveeeeee itttttttttttt), He's Just Not That Into You, and yesterday JC had on Men in Black. I also watched Madea's Family Reunion online and really hope i can find a french copy of it or anything else Tyler Perry here. Woot woot life. I'm itching for a purpose. A reason to be here. Ok, the whole resting thing was nice for about a week or so. I need to move. It's like, torture for my body.

Last Thursday night Yadira and I went to Zumba class here in Paris. We ended up getting there about 10 minutes late because we missed the bus we wanted to get onto, and the woman at the front desk of the dance studio it was held in seemed quite annoyed at this. Oops. She also lectured us that we aren't allowed to wear street shoes in the dance studios and that even if we are wearing sneakers we have to bring them in a separate bag and put them on there. It's not like it was raining or anything- our shoes weren't dirty but this lady was not happy about us wearing them in the dance studio.

The class was lot of fun. We did salsa, samba, hip hop, reggaeton, african dancing (that I remembered doing in Charles' class at Muhlenberg), middle eastern dancing, and a few other types of dance. It was a great workout. The only thing was that we don't have water bottles in our house, so Yadira and I didn't have water. BIG NO NO. After about 15 minutes I started to feel sick and my head began to hurt. But I made it through the whole class and Yadira and I both loved it. The teacher, Mary Ellen, was really nice and energetic. After the class, we asked the lady at the front desk if there was any water in the place. She sent us to a room that ended up being the bathroom and showers. It wasn't like we asked the wrong question because Yadira asked her and Yadira speaks French (obviously). So then we asked one of the girls we had seen in the class and she said we could buy water for a euro at the front desk. The water bottle was like, half the size of a water bottle in the US but it was water at least. Next time I'll be better prepared. I really hope I can keep going to the classes- it was loads of fun!

Friday I did absolutely nothing except when we watched Casablanca right before bed. Saturday during the day I didn't do anything but at night, Yadira and I met Gilles and our friends Yada and Florence at a gospel choir concert in Paris. It's part of this 10 day long thing called "Paris Go-Spell". Yeah, I know they spelled 'gospel' wrong. The french apparently all think this is hilariously clever because they made an english phrase by adding another letter to the word. They couldn't understand why I didn't laugh at this. I told them it didn't make sense in english- go spell is like, a command like, "Johnny, go spell CAT on the blackboard". It has absolutely nothing to do with gospel music or the gospel message. But, they get a kick out of it. There's fliers EVERYWHERE advertising it and all who participated got t-shirts with "Paris Go-Spell" on it. Gilles told me that english speakers have come up to them on the streets and said, "You know you spelled that wrong, right?" Now that made me laugh. I find it interesting that the French take such pride in their language to the extent where they even have L'Académie Française, one of the oldest institutions still around and functioning in France, which functions as France's official authority on the usages, vocabulary, and grammar of the French language. Basically it's 40 people who sit around and debate the proper usages of the French language and whether or not they will allow certain english words to be used in everyday conversation. The French take their language SERIOUSLY. Even my family has discussions at the dinner table about the usage of words and their genders etc... and it functions as part of normal everyday conversation. So you don't mess with their language or it's practically a criminal offense, but they can feel free to change whatever they want about our language to try and be cleverly funny. Whatever works for your country, France. I'm on your territory, I'll keep my mouth shut.

The concert was nice. It was a little strange to hear all the songs I am so familiar with from growing up in a black church being sung by French people. They like to lay down their burdens "doUNE bahEEEEEEEEE zeeeee RRRRRRRRReeeeveRRRRRRRRsahEeeeeeD." At the same time, I couldn't help but start to feel like I did about the gospel choir at Muhlenberg... that it's just a concert to showcase a certain type of music and certain singer's talents about how they can improvise or just how high that man's voice can get, and somewhere within the spectacle of "oooo ahhhhh this is cool because its different and look at how joyful everyone is and how the director can get the crowd pumped up and how well the soloist can sing" the very essence of why these songs were written, to bring praise and glory to God, gets lost. I left feeling a little frustrated, but then again, who am I to judge. I dont know what's in people's hearts, and its none of my business either. I guess maybe it was just that I felt a little prohibited from actually worshipping the Lord because of the distractions. I don't know. As a concert, though, it was good.

It was after midnight when we got in, and I felt exhausted, so I decided to sleep in and only go to the english service at calvary chapel paris instead of the french and english service. Of course when I got there, there were a ton of people (well, not a ton, considering there's only about 20 people in each service but you get the picture) wanting to know why I didn't come to the French service. Whatever. We started studying Revelation though. AWESOME. Now this is more like the Calvary Chapel I'm used to! We went through the first 8 verses of just the first chapter and tried to unpack all that's loaded into the Scripture. Yes, it was awesome. I guess this kinda seals the deal... I'll be attending Calvary Chapel Paris while I'm living here in France. Although 9 hours of church is a bit much for one day, even for a Calvary Chapel, when you're with only 20 people. It's okay I guess. When I was there I met 2 people from Calvary Chapel Old Bridge, NJ.... Rosalie and Seth. Seth is here for the summer working and Rosalie was just visiting him, but I loved meeting them. First of all, they went to Calvary Chapel Old Bridge, and I know a handful of people who have went there which is awesome, but second of all, they were puerto-rican. Seth was born there and Rosalie is first generation. They were like, hard-core New Jerseyians at their finest. It was SO comforting. As strange as it may seem, I felt so relieved to be around people who acted like the ones I grew up with. Their attitude, their body language, their way of thinking/reasoning, their accent, their intonation/manner of speaking... it was all so FAMILIAR. I loved it.

Monday we had a going away party for our friend Clément, who's going to study abroad in Montréal. Actually, Clément hosted his own going away party because his parents and little brother were away, so he had the house to himself. It was really nice. Silvia and I walked to the spot where our friend Daniel was going to pick us up. He ended up being an hour late but that was okay- I definitely didn't mind because it gave me the chance to talk to Silvia and we got to sit out and soak up some sun too. Daniel finally came and picked us up, but he didn't quite remember all the directions to get there. We found the street fine but it was a one way and couldn't quite figure out how to get to the other end of the street where Clément's house was. So he ended up just driving in reverse all the way down the street. And then I got to thinking, Do people do that in the US? I can't remember. I mean, I would do it if it was like, 2 or 3 houses but go the entire length of a street backwards? I can't remember. Well I guess I've been here long enough when I can't even remember how things run in my own country.

When we came in, I sat down next to Fannie, a girl I met the first day i was here. She started speaking to me in english, and I responded to her in french, and continued to speak french. I was on no english mode and was determined to see if I could make it being semi-talkative with people and more social than I have been without speaking a word of english. Fannie looked a little disappointed because I think she might have wanted to practice her english with me, but oh well. Another time she can speak english with me. We talked about me getting a job and she gave me a few more websites with opportunities for english speakers that she could think of. Then Clément, Daniel and Clément's friend who is also named Clément watched a few gospel music videos from various gospel choirs across the US. But it wasn't until around 8pm that the people who were working Paris Go-Spell (including Gilles and Yadira) got there. I was a little bored. I spent more time talking to Silvia but I wanted to go home. When dinner came out, I did get excited though. It was pizza! I had been craving pizza for literally about 8 days and I finally got it! The only problem was that there were too many people and not enough pizza to go around, and they were small, like the size of a Dominos medium pizza. I got a half a slice, and that was it. Oh well. It was pizza. There was bread too (of course). There was more of a selection for dessert though, chocolate cake and an apple torte and cupcakes. And of course, at the end of the day we went in the backyard and braved the bloodthirsty mosquitos to dance salsa and do the cha-cha slide and tchiriri. I got to dance with Clément again and it was very fun. Then when we went inside, before we left everyone asked me and Daniel to dance together in front of everyone. We tried to ham it up with dramatic head turns and attitude. It was funny and I liked being the center of attention again. I even saw a few people doing video on their cell phones of us dancing. Clément also had a journal type book and he asked us all to sign it so he'd remember us when he left. I was thinking all day about how I was going to word what I wanted to say, but at the end of the day I was too tired and decided to write in english. What the heck, I thought I'd be different and add a little variety. If he doesn't understand me, well, oh well. He can ask someone in Montréal lol they're all bi-lingual there.

Tuesday was actually a lot of fun. JC and I made homemade pizza. We started by making the crust around lunchtime, and then finished the rest for dinner- Margharita,Hawaiian, and Veggie pizza. It was funny because we pretended that we were doing a TV show like Emeril or Rachel Ray. He decided to speak almost all in english but with a very, very VERY heavy (fake/overdramatic) french accent. It was hilarious. As we say here, j'étais mort de rire (I was dying of laughter). He kept saying things like "wet floor" instead of "white flour" and every ingredient that I said I didn't understand because of his too heavy french accent, he was like, "izzz ok, ju can juzzzzzzt buhhhEE it in zeeeee Frenshhhhh stOre, Yezzz Yezzz, my Frenssshhhhh stOre zat I Ave in zeeee UnitEEEEEEd Statezzzzz". I seriously was almost peeing my pants. It was so funny. I'm actually seriously laughing out loud remembering it all. It was so hilariously funny, in fact, that brought up Imovie on my Mac and recorded 2 hours of us, and his mom randomly chiming in "I don't understand I don't understand" in the background (she doesn't speak english, but that's one of the few things she knows how to say. It made it even more hilarious). I don't think JC is aware that I did this because I turned the light off so my screen was black and it looked like my computer was off/sleeping. Nor is he aware of the fact that I'm going to edit it and send it as a pilot to Food Network so we can have our own TV show. It would be a HUGE hit.... seriously with his french accent and my good looks and his heaven sent gift at cooking and my good looks and his sense of humor and my good looks and his mad skills at being a clown and my good looks (hahahahaha) americans would be OBSESSED. Like, it would top LOST and Grey's Anatomy and all those other shows that I dont watch but hear everyone else raving about. And you'll all be pea green with envy when we're so famous. Bwahahahahahahahahaha.

The only thing was that he put corn on all the Hawaiian and veggie pizzas. I kept telling him he was weird. I've never seen corn put on pizza before. They all liked it, I didn't get to try it because I went to one of the Paris Go-Spell concerts with my friend Pascale. She was born in France but moved to California when she was younger and went to college at Hofstra, now is living in Paris again. This time it was a trio, 2 men and a woman, who came from somewhere in Africa because their accents were more african than french. Oh and a white British guy on the piano. And this time it was held in a theater rather than a church but it was nice. The only thing was that it was tooooooooo hot. We were dying. After the concert was over, Pascale and I went further into Paris to try and find a cafe to sit in, but it was too late at night and we got there, like, literally 3 minutes after it stopped taking customers. Oh well. But we were both so thirsty so I suggested, "Ok, I really hate to sound terribly american here but maybe we can find a McDonald's that would be open?" so we walked to a MacDos (as it's called here) and even that was closed! But the person at the "drive in window" (which was next to the sidewalk which defeats the purpose because no cars would ever be able to go up to it) said we could still get water if we wanted, so we did. It costs us 2 euros and 40 centimes for a bottle of water smaller than your typical Aquafina or Poland Spring, but we didn't care. On the métro ride home Pascale and I got to talk and she really put my mind at ease about some things. One of those times where God just brings the right person into your life at the right time. Isn't He so awesome like that?

Wednesday JC was supposed to get his stitches out. He had to go to a hospital that was kinda far and since he can't really walk, our friends Yada and Yaki from the chinese church came and had lunch with us and then drove him and Gilles to the hospital and back. We had leftover pizza for lunch and then Yada brought "raspberry cheesecake" and cinnamon rolls. Of course, it didn't taste like the stuff in the US but it was really nice anyway. We even put the cinnamon rolls into the microwave to heat them a little. Not cinnabon, but still yummy nonetheless. Yada, Yaki, Gilles, and JC left for the hospital and Yadira and I went to Intermarché to "faire le course" for dinner. I had invited 5 Americans that I met at Calvary Chapel Paris for dinner, and I also was planning on making dinner. I wanted to make something "french" and Gilles suggested I make "crêpes au sarrasin" which is a kind of crêpe made from a black flour which is native to northern France, like, Normandy and the Bretagne region. The cool thing with crêpes is that they can serve as the main dish and the dessert. I decided I'd make half a batch of salmon crêpes, half beef filled, and then whatever was leftover would be for dessert. Yadira and I went shopping and let me say the whole process took about less than half the amount of time it usually takes me to buy the same amount of ingredients. Maybe because I had her to just tell me that the things I want don't exist here instead of me running up and down each aisle for every single thing I want hoping maybe it's just filed in another place or maybe I missed it. The only thing we couldn't find was cider, which goes better with crêpes than wine does, but Gilles went out and bought it later for us. We got home and honestly all I wanted to do was lie down, because my head was starting to hurt. Yadira and I watched Criminal Minds together and I really hoped that by the time it was over I'd feel better, but no such luck. I only felt worse and a lot more tired. But I had to start making the crêpes. JC and Gilles also came home and unfortunately JC needs to wait another week to get his stitches out.

Now because my head hurt, and I was tired, I was really cranky. I didn't want to make these crêpes because anytime I'd made them in the US, it was with crêpe mix and a crêpemaker machine. Now I was making them the old fashioned way, with french directions, in front of a bunch of people who make crêpes all the time. I was really scared of messing something up and having them judge me and then ruining dinner (even though I knew that wouldn't be true... but I was feeling yucky and therefore extra overdramatic). All three of them had offered to help me, saying, "If you want help, just ask." Anyone who knows me will be able to know that yes, I did really want help but no, I did not want to ask for it. The words, "Can you help me?" no matter in what language are almost impossible to come out of my mouth in that order. It's bad, I know. But one by one, they started coming in the kitchen to help me. Gilles started helping me fry the crêpes in the frying pan, and JC helped me assemble them with the salmon and the beef. There also ended up not being enough crêpes for dessert, so JC offered to make waffles for me. Yadira set the table and then went to the bus station to pick up my friends (although they came about an hour late and then it was close to another hour before we started eating (around 9pm at night) and only 2 of them ended up coming out of the five that I invited). I was very happy and relieved that my family helped me, but my pride was hurting almost as bad as my head was. I was bothered by the fact that I couldn't do it all myself and that my head hurt and that my family had to see me with a cranky attitude. Mais quand même, we all had a very nice time. Lindsay and Hannah (my two friends that I invited) were part of the missionary group that came here from Calvary Chapel Seattle and were doing the swing dancing/evangelizing. We all had lots of fun and good food and cider and good conversation and good company. But at the end of it all I hoped that a good night's sleep would make my headache go away.

It didn't, sadly, and Thursday basically all I did that was productive was watch "He's Just Not That Into You". It was a really funny movie, but on a whole, thursday was just a boring day. It's okay... that happens sometimes, even in France. I wanted to go to Zumba again but money is getting kind of tight so I decided I'd just wait til next week. Friday wasn't much more exciting. Our friend Samuel was having a surprise birthday party thrown by his sister Irénée and then they all went to play LaserTag afterwards. I was going to go but I got a terrible headache and ended up sleeping for over 12 hours. I guess both of those days I could have used to update my blog... oops..... and then Saturday I still had a headache but felt better. In the evening, Yadira and I went to the last Paris Go-Spell concert... this time it was a 5 man acapella group and they had no accents when they sang. It was SO cool and I'm really glad I went despite the headache. We ended up sitting in almost the last row but it was okay because the sound is what's important anyway. French people are OBSESSED with the song Oh Happy Day. It's basically synonymous with the word gospel. They can't get enough of the song. It's kind of funny. One notable thing that did happen though was that I needed to go to the bathroom so I went up to one of the men who was working the event to ask where the bathrooms were.... wow. See, a group of the people who organized Paris Go-Spell were Québécois from Canada. And WOW did this man have a Canadian accent like I'd never heard before! Gilles had been joking earlier in the week that when the Québécois were evangelizing, they needed to have translators because none of the french people could understand Canadian French. I understood that the man said, "Sorry Miss, there aren't any bathrooms open to the public" but wow! I could definitely understand how french people would indeed need translators.... their accent is so different! I didn't even notice it in the last french class I took where we spent a decent amount of time studying Canada and watching French Canadian films.... but wow. Talk about weird accents! Well, I guess it's normal for them, but it was very interesting for me to hear.

In other news, I'm watching a flip flop throwing competition on TV right now. Yup, these men literally have a competition where they run in flip flops and kick them off their feet, and then their partner has to catch them like a football. Some people have wayyyyyy to much time on their hands.

I guess for a whole lot of "nothing" I sure did have a lot to say about it. Yup, I'm pretty good at that.