Escape of the Snail

I was walking in the market the other day and I passed by a man selling loads and loads of live crabs, lobsters, and snails. I was mesmerized (simple mind, simple pleasures I suppose) by the little snails all moving around, not going anywhere. Finally, one of them managed to climb up over the lip of the bowl and I watched it maintain poise for a moment then fall to the table. It kind of gave me a sense of admiration for it's tenacity, but I honestly don't think it's chances were that much better outside the bowl.

Anyway, back to my latest adventures. The metros, buses, and trains were all on strike last Thursday and Friday. They do these every once in a while to prove to everyone (the government) that they are crucial to the city and should not be treated unfairly. "Unfairly" in this case, was not wanting the retirement age to be increased to what everyone else's retirement age is. Appearantly, the government is trying to save a bit of money with pensions, but the workers think that they still should be able to retire early (though they don't really work much now). Regardless, this meant more aggravation for all the rest of us. Because no one can use public transportation, everyone drives in from the burbs, so there is absolutely no way to take a taxi or drive without being stuck in traffic for hours. The best way is bike, walk, or roller blade. We opted for roller blades to take the kids to school, but that meant that I had to run along side them and carry the rollers back. They ended up just keeping the rollers at school and all worked out, but still a pain in the ass.

On Friday, the strike was still in effect though some metros were working. I was supposed to go to Amsterdam to meet up with my friends Andy and Katie, but obviously no trains, so I took the bus instead. I ended up not being able to leave until about 11:30 due to delays and what not, so 8 hours later, I finally got to Amsterdam. Oh what a crazy city! It felt like the Las Vegas of Europe, but with cooler buildings and nicer people. I say that because everyone goes there to get drunk, high, or have sex. Amsterdam is famous for it's red light district, but we did not hang out there very much at all because we couldn't handle the vibes. I was there for just a short time, but managed to check out the Van Gogh Museum the Oude Kerk (church in the red light with a huge organ), and biked all around the canals and what not. I would be lying if I said I didn't check out a coffee shop or two though :)

I ended up couchsurfing with an American guy who owns a specialty beer store and his girlfriend. They live above the store and let me crash on their couch for the couple nights that I was there. I dug those guys so much! They were really friendly and nice and Jeff gave me all kinds of beer suggestions which I preceded to accept until about 5am at the bar across the street. Amsterdam was a great town, but I think a couple of days was just enough for me. Below are some pictures from Amsterdam and from the strike. The sandwitch is a local specialty: raw herring with pickles and onions. Mmmm, apart from crepes, I think it is my second favorite street food. There is also a picture of the bike parking situation in Amsterdam and one of the public toilets for the guys that I thought was kinda a funny/dirty, yet an efficient way of urinating on the street.

Plans

Oh man just went to the Ani Difranco concert last night. It was AMAZING! She is so fricken talented it makes me want to cry. Concerts in France are a bit interesting. They start on time, go for a designated amount of time then have only one encore and it's over. Strange, but kinda nice too. I am posting some picts from it and also a couple picts from Normandy last weekend. The strange looking lamp is a piece that Marco (Anne's boyfriend) made himself out of wood and honey combs. Pretty sweet in my opinion. The two of them are standing in front of their dart board because we had a dart tournament (of sorts) Marco kicked both of our asses, but we all had fun trying to compete. Oh, and there is a picture of Pablo with my ipod for good measure just cause I thought he looked cute.

Ok, so today the kids are gone at their dad's place. I got to sleep late, have a leisurely breakfast and play on the internet all morning without being bothered. The internet can be a dangerous thing sometimes and right now my head feels like it's going to explode from all the information/travel planning I've been doing. I have a week in between leaving Paris and going to the farm in November, so I have to figure out where I will go. The plan right now is to go to Croatia. Why Croatia? Well, I've heard from several people that it is warm, friendly, cheap, and I need to go to a non European Union country if I want to renew my travel visa. Therefore, I am now looking at places for that as well. So the plan right now is: Farm outside Boardeaux in November, Greece in December, Corsica (maybe) in January or Spain, or the other way around, and then I don't know yet. Ah, so much planning, but it's a good problem to have I think.

Je suis d'accord

Fluff: to some it invokes a vision of pillows and marshmallows. But according to Pablo, it's actually dental floss. I've recently introduced floss to Pablo mostly because he likes pretending that the container (when empty) is a cell phone. It is so hard for me to contain my laughter when he comes up to me proudly and says that he just fluffed. I keep correcting him, but it doesn't seem to make any difference to him. Speaking of teeth, I can always tell when Elliot doesn’t brush his for some reason. Like last night for example, I heard the electric toothbrush going, but knew intuitively that he didn’t when he came back to his room. I knew it the other night too when he told me he did, but actually didn’t. I must have a sixth sense about clean teeth. Thanks pop, it must be passed on from you.

Kids can be so manipulative. For example, Pablo wanting me to stay in his room last night when I put him to bed because he couldn’t get to sleep. There was no way I was going to, but it just pulls at you and he did get a couple of stories out of me. Then again, I can be pretty manipulative too and to my benefit, I don’t take everything literally and also have the benefit of experience to see their traps. They don’t know that I don’t always mean what I say. Example: "Pablo go brush your teeth. No. Oh man there is something cool in this box. What is it? If I show you, will you go brush your teeth? Ok… And the other day, I said to be nice to me otherwise I wouldn’t bring their rollers to school. Man, you should have seen Pablo. He got into his pyjamas right away and said please and thank you and everything all evening. It was great.

Yesterday AM left for work and isn't coming back till tonight (Thursday). In the morning I woke up to the table all set because Pablo and Elliot wanted to be helpful. I love when they are helpful. I've now started babysitting another little 4 year old on Wednesdays because his parents work and they want him to speak English during the day. His dad is Australian, but Ethan doesn't really like speaking English, so he ends up saying yes, no, right, and okay a lot. Oh well, maybe he will get into the more we hang out. But man, Chloe was being a little jerk yesterday when we were going to watch a video. I don’t really want to get into it, but I think she wanted to watch a particular movie, but I said no movies in French. Then she said that all the movies were in French and that we couldn’t change it cause we lost the remote. True the remote was lost, but I argued that the movies started out in English. She was adamant that I didn’t know what I was talking about. Eventually we ended up watching Saddle Club in English. Whatever, I really didn’t care, but was damn sure we weren’t watching a movie in French. She can be pretty stubborn, but I can be even more. It must be really frustrating to argue with me sometimes.

Welp, I had a great time in Normandy last weekend. I went to visit my friend Ian's cousin and her French boyfriend. Oh, I can't tell you what a great time I had! I forget how quiet things can be when not in the city and I saw stars! And the moon! (which was big and orange, but not quite full) We went for walks in the woods, ate some tasty vegi meals, and had some really great heart to heart talks. I also saw the WWII war memorial in Caen, but was so overwhelmed that I was happy to be on my way to their place in Flers (south of Caen). The clouds parted just as I got there and came back just as I was on my way back to Paris. Perfect. My last day in Paris is the 26th or 27th and have made plans for after, but will talk more about that on my next post.