Home Time

It feels weird, like the last day of school, except that it's not hot, I haven't done any exams and my school tie isn't wrapped around my head like a bandana. The fact is that I have done my last day of work until 17th January! Tomorrow G and I are heading off to England for Christmas. I'm staying a week and he's back in Paris for Christmas Eve to be with his family.

Reading the news I'm hoping that we'll manage to actually get back to England, and not find ourselves in some scene of tragedy waiting in an airport for hours on end. I think if our flight is cancelled we'll go on the Eurostar, those guys must be rubbing their hands together in joy that so many flights have been grounded by the fog.

What I find rather bizarre is that flights from Heathrow have been cancelled, yet flights to Gatwick are supposedly unaffected. Surely the two airports are not that far from each other? I've been looking at various sites and it seems that if we'd booked a flight from Paris to Heathrow we'd definitely have been cancelled. As it is, the low budget www.thomson-fly.co.uk is alarmingly news-free, so I honestly can't say if tomorrow will be smooth or choppy runnings.

At least I'm pretty sure that one way or another we'll get to the UK before Christmas. I really can't wait, it's been nearly 5 months since I've been home. I'm starting to crave Lemsips, Johnson's baby powder and yorkshire pudding, although clearly not on the same plate...

One Of Those Days

7pm

Today was one of those days. Over the course of the day I:

1. Woke up 50 minutes late
2. Hauled a guitar on buses,and métros across Paris no less than four times
3. Arrived at work only to find my 9am appointment had been cancelled
4. Schlepped (can a British girl say that?) over to Asnières sur Seine to sing Christmas Carols
5. ... in a company meeting room with 10 French people and 2 other English-speaking people
6. Consumed only 1 banana and 2 slices of Christmas cake
7. Thought about how much I'd like to be in Hong Kong having aromatic crispy duck with pancakes and Tsingtao beer with L

I know it could be much, much worse, but right now it feels like I've been to the front line and back.

10pm
I've just made and put away a delicious spaghetti bolognaise, or al ragù as my Italian friend S says. I've rested and watched some very exciting series on tv and now, with a chapter or so of my book ahead of me, I'm feeling a lot more human again.

Time to set my alarm clock properly now...

Fly Me to the Moon!

There are only a few weeks to go before our trip to Cuba and I'm getting very excited! I've been hearing lots of different opinions about the place and extremely conflicting advice. Some people say not to hire a car, others say it's the best thing. Some say people don't ask for money in the street and others say that it's constant. Strange. I've never set off for a country that I know so little about really. Reading wikipedia's Cuba article and doing other bits and pieces of research on the net has helped, but I still feel remarkably unready. I've never been inside a communist country. My visit to Poland in 1997 is probably as close as it gets, but the iron curtain had been officially lifted well before that.

With L gone now, I need something to look forward to, and of course I do appreciate how great it is to be able to go on holiday in January when most people in the western world are trudging through snow or rain on their way to work after the festivities have calmed and the turkey has been digested.

G and I are secretly hoping that during our holiday in Cuba there will be some kind of historical event. It is unclear for the moment if Fidel Castro is alive or dead and if he chooses the first two weeks of January to 'pass on' then we're sure to experience a very important political event.

In my scrupulous research I've discovered that there are no McDonald's on the island of Cuba except on the US-owned military base of Guantanamo Bay. Apparently detainees of Guantanamo are allowed treats of happy meals, filet-o-fish and other delights as a reward for good behaviour. I'm not even going to go into the sickness that must live in the mind of man who eats that stuff as a reward. For more cheesy, greasy facts take a look here.

In Cuba there are also no Starbuck's, no Disney and no Gap. It's going to be a surreal but fantastic experience, I can't wait. As long as there are mojitos.

Goodbye

My fabulous friend L (one of us in the picture from June 21st - fête de la musique) is leaving for Hong Kong in just over a week and we had her leaving party last night. We took the métro over to her neighbourhood in the 17th arrondissement past the Place de Clichy, where I used to live with her in the first months of my Paris life. The neon lights, queues of people and the big Wepler brasserie, even though I've been there since living with her, brought back memories of late Friday nights at Corcoran's Irish pub, and karaoke extravaganzas at l'Epoque. All her friends were there and the party was a great chance to have a fun and laughter-filled evening. The atmosphere was not sad or gloomy, people danced, chatted and L's new beginning was truly baptised with endless bottles of champagne. I wrote a song for her, changing the words from Jolene to her name, and she enjoyed it. My guitar playing is rusty to say the least, but let's hope that the people listening were thinking that 'it's the thought that counts'!

So her French adventure has come to an end now, adult life really is about accepting that people move on. She has a fantastic career opportunity and is taking it with all her might. I know that I'll be able to visit in the future and she'll come back for trips to Europe from time to time, but for the best part of 11 years we have lived either in the same apartment or in the same town, be it at university or in Paris, and there is going to be a clear, L-shaped hole in my life now.

Blue

Pierre Gemayel, the Lebanese Industry Minister was shot yesterday in broad daylight, at 34 years old. Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB colonel and defector was poisoned in early November, he has been in a critical condition since Sunday and doctors at one of London's top hospitals still don't know for sure what poison was used on him. Robert Altman is dead.

On a personal note, my very best friend L is moving to Hong Kong in a few weeks. We've lived in the same city since we were 18 (give or take a year) and I'm going to miss her enormously. She is one of those people who you end up laughing with, even if you're the foulest of moods to start with. She's been wildly successful in her career, which is now taking her to Asia, and of course I wish her the best of luck, but I can't help feeling a bit sorry for myself that she's leaving Paris and me behind.

Now, I'm not one to paint a gloomy picture of the world, but doesn't that make rather a lot of bad news for one week? Plus it has been raining everyday. I'm sure I'd be forgiven for not being as chipper as I manage to be most of the time.

Then this evening on my way home I saw a man cycling in the pouring rain with a bunch of roses in his backpack. I have to say it warmed my soul a little.

Boondoggle in the boondocks

The reason for my prolonged absence from here is not, I'm afraid to say, due to the glittering party-life of a Parisian, visiting Lacroix or eating at George V. I've been working very hard and translating very hard.

The piece I'm working on at the moment was written by someone who clearly hates translators. I'm not going to write the whole thing, but suffice to say it includes the words 'boondoggle' and 'boondocks'. Sounds like some kind of Australian slang to me. In fact boondoggle is a word to describe doing useless work for the sake of it, and boondocks is a name for a little village. No idea what I'm going to do with that information, but at least my English vocabulary has been expanded.

I went to Bercy last night to see the Eric Bompard ice-skating competition. It was the first time I'd seen a competition up close and the tension was truly icy. Every time someone fell (and they did frequently), I cringed and really felt for them. It was really quite magical to see the sparkling costumes and glamour of the skaters, let alone their talent throwing themselves and each other around on the ice. They're constructing the ice rink outside the Hôtel de Ville at the moment, maybe I'll pull on some leg warmers and a mini-skirt and have a go.

Well I'd better get back to my boondocks. It is pretty ridiculous to translate such a difficult text, but I keep thinking that when it's done I'll be able to tackle anything. In the mean time I'm gearing myself up for a 6/30 grade and dreaming of triple twists in glittery tights.

Dans le Noir

On Saturday, as now seems usual, I did another wine tasting. This time it was more fun than pedagogical and also in aid of raising awareness for the blind. If you think really hard. Yes, I did drink the best part of 5 glasses of delicious wine (noting the aromas, tastes... of course) but I also learned something. I learned that being blind would be extremely difficult indeed.

The experience G and I did on Saturday was called wine tasting Dans le Noir. The idea is to take away all the preconceived ideas about seeing wine and thinking how it should taste, to just concentrate on how it does taste. Plus, you start to understand how incredibly difficult it is to be blind.

After that we went over to Gare de Lyon and ate at the Européen, which was nice enough. They had some great oysters and a delicious dessert of pears with ice cream and chocolate sauce.

I'm still battling on with my translation course, this week is one into English about José Bové, and one into French about half-crowns, the old English coin. Rivetting.

A nice Chianti

Yesterday I ran around Paris like a mad thing, I'd done what I do best, which is organise too many things to do in one day. They were all really fun things, but a Saturday start at 6.40am is enough to put anyone in a difficult mood.

My day started with my first interpretation seminar; part of my translation course at the University of London in Paris. It started at 8.30 so quite a lot of bleary-eyed ex-pats just like me, along with Parisians and people from other parts of France all met in a plush blue reception area with the BBC world service blaring out from the high-tech plasma screen perched on a wall. No-one said a word. It wasn't because anyone was shy, I discovered, it was because no-one knew what language to use. In a room full of people in that kind of context, it really isn't clear, and despite living in a mixed-language environment for six years, I still can't address an English person in French without embarrassment.

So, we sat and watched poppy-wearing presenters talk about the dangers of Halloween, all of us wishing we could just get on with the seminar. Finally our tutor came to pick us up and the rest of the morning was difficult but extremely interesting and my co-students turned out to be a lovely bunch of people.

Later that day I had planned to do a wine tasting lesson with my friend L who sings in the band with me. I rushed up just in time to write my (unpronouncable in French) name on a card in front of me and hear about cépage (varietals of grape), fermentation and what makes a wine tannic.

We tasted some delicious wines, a Sancerre (Côte des monts dannés), a basic Burgundy Chardonnay, some other reds from Languedoc and Bordeaux and one in particular from the Margaux appellation which was really delicious. As I was eating at a friend's that evening I tried to use the spitoon as much as I could, but the last Bordeaux was just too good. We took a bottle of G's family's wine which is really scrumptious and our friends made a fantastic dinner.

I finally got to bed at one, with the joyous words, "the clocks go back this evening..." in my head.

Cuba Libra

After spending a rather relaxing summer in England with friends and family I'm yearning for a few rays of sunshine. August was lots of fun, visiting people who'd been out to Paris to visit us, and catching up on real English life with curry and everything. Recently though, I've been thinking I'd like to try out a little dépaysement (lovely French word meaning getting out of your own country and soaking yourself in new cultures). So, last week, with two friends, G and I decided to book a trip to Cuba. I've never been to the Carribean, despite studying its literature at university, and always had a desire to go to Martinique, Guadeloupe or this fascinating communist country with Chevrolets from the sixties, ornate crumbling buildings from before Castro's time and soft, sandy beaches with coloured fish darting about in the transparent water below.

I've been doing my homework and reading about Castro and Guevara; it seems like the Cubans have had their fair share of oppression, rationing and authority. Now it seems it's time for them to be overrun by tourists. Several sites state that the absence of Americans on the island is a real saving grace; it isn't overcrowded like other islands can be, and tourists are actually welcomed by many of the inhabitants, who regularly put them up in their houses (for a price of course). The fact that Americans are banned from the island is not necessarily a good thing though, the trade embargo has crippled the population in the last decade and with the fall of the Soviet Union they are looking to tourism now as a major income source for the coming years.

Well, I'm happy to oblige. I'm very much looking forward to jetting off on New Year's day from freezing France and touching down in hazy Havana, sipping mojitos and certainly engaging in a spot of salsa every now and again. Salsa isn't forbidden by Castro, right?

Single White Female

Well the girl was very sweet. With a surprising number of coincidences chewed over (same first and last name, one day difference in birth date - but not year - from the same part of England..) we got on well. It's often the case that I meet other ex-pats in Paris, but it's not because we're from the same place that we'll get on. This girl was nice, young and spritely with an innocent enthusiasm for everything French or Parisian (food, wine, museums), co-existing with a rolly-eyed derision for everything else French (dogs, their street deposits, customer service).

I found her attitude similar to my own when I first arrived. It's a kind of love-hate tempestuous relationship with the city which for me has now turned into a marriage of stability and acceptance. I really no longer see Paris as an exotic city with romantic cafés and countless museums, nor do I see Paris as a place where you can't get on a subway without being shoved or order a coffee without some derisive comment from your waiter. I see the city of lights as my home, good and bad, with its flaws and assets, much like a cherished and loving husband who comes home each evening without flowers.

Will I see her again? Probably. She's young, new to the city and keen to go out, and it's always good to have English-speaking friends. I'm not sure it'll turn into a Monica and Rachel, Kate and Allie or Edina and Patsy friendship, but there's always the chance.

Now I have to go and pick up some delicious chocolate pastries from my local pâtisserie, maybe Paris isn't so bad....