didn't fall in love though

I thought I should start this out by letting you all know that I watched 17 glorious hours of Mad Men this weekend.  Since Saturday morning I’ve learned that women are the lesser sex, scotch and business go hand in hand, and affairs are fine in moderation.  Also, Christina Hendricks is actually just Jessica Rabbit with more dimensions.  Dad, google Christina Hendricks.  

In my defense, I'm trying to save money.  Last weekend I spent every dollar I had on a trip to Paris, because I’m fancy, and I wanted to visit my buddy Andrew (better known as “Roo”) who’s studying abroad at Sciences Po. 

Because I’m 19 and I’d rather make faces in the mirror than plan, I checked the time of my flight only four hours before boarding.  Obviously I was running a bit late, so you can understand my frustration when the wicked Ryanair check-in clerk told me that because I had failed to print out my boarding pass before my arrival (my family doesn’t own a printer), she would have to charge me 70 euro, 70 EURO, that’s $90.81, to print out my ticket.  At the very least I expected my ticket to be a weighty gold bar dipped in unicorn blood, with some sort of key to heaven hooked on the corner.  Instead, it was just a sheet of 8x11 computer paper with a barcode.  I made sure to tell the blue collar devil incarnate that she was robbing me as she swiped my credit card and cackled with a mouth full of shadows.

I made my flight because I'm a wizard, but when I landed I realized that I had no idea where Andrew lived.  I never even bothered to ask.  I just assumed that when I stepped off the plane he would be waiting across the runway, lounging in a bed of baguettes making out with the ghost of Joan of Arc.   I was able to get a hold of Andrew via Facebook a couple of hours later in a Starbucks, after I had accidentally wandered into a fancy mall with chandeliers and suede trash cans.

I didn’t know (and still don’t, really) anything about French culture, so I wasn’t sure of what to expect other than glossy haired snoots in Chanel.   I was warned by stereotypes and well-traveled friends about Parisians’ attitudes toward Americans, and had decided upon using pretend sign language and smiles to get through the weekend without having any baristas roll their eyes at me.  I figured I could just memorize and execute the hand movements to Napolean Dynamite’s classroom performance of “The Rose” every time somebody looked me in the eye.

But communication was actually a non-issue, because I only spoke with three or four French people over the course of the entire weekend: two ponytailed cashiers, a broad-smiled metro ticket checker, and Franck.   Handsome Franck from Grands Boulevards caught me laughing to myself in the metro, and made sure to tell me in loud, slow English that I was giving myself away as a tourist because “the French do not smile here”.   He didn’t even mention the camera around my neck, map in my pocket, or the fear in my eyes.  He told me to “look bored and avoid eye contact”.  Flirty Franck went on to ask me if I was enjoying my trip, and if I wanted to give him any suggestions for his upcoming summer vacation to Los Angeles.  Nice guy.  Andrew later told me that smiling at another person on the subway is interpreted as a sort of “suggestion”, so considering the extent of my grinning ignorance I’m disappointed with the lack of Gastons and Jeans (and Francks, let's be honest) in my phonebook.

Franck-less, I was able to walk all around the city and shamelessly do some of the traditional tourist things like mispronounce “Notre Dame” and take pictures of Spanish couples in front of the Louvre.  Also, the Eiffel tower is BROWN.  Did you know that?  Am I the only one who didn’t know that?  

I had heard that the Not-So-Iron Lady did a cool sparkle trick every hour after sunset, so I took a seat on the lawn down below and started judging all the couples around me.  After witnessing a bearded 40-something tongue a woman’s ear, I switched my attention to my PDA-free camera.  While I flipped through old pictures to kill time, I was approached by 10-20 individual bangladeshi men selling wine and champagne.  I knew that swigging from the bottle solo could only lead to me improvising songs about my bitter opinions on love and marriage, so I refused.  I also quickly learned to deny their drinks in Italian, for English encouraged conversation and very personal questions regarding whether or not my boyfriend was coming any time soon. My go-to hair toss and response, “My boyfriendS should be here any minute, yes” was simply not as effective as italian spaghetti babble.

As wonderful as Paris was, my favorite part of each day was coming home to Roo, changing into my “comfy clothes”, gossiping about high school, ordering delivery sushi and watching Sex and the City it doesn’t get much better than that nope wow I adore him can you tell i just really need to wrap this up? bye.

I said bye,

Kay