happy parisian thanksgiving

woke up firday "morning" fully clothed next to sara in jess' apartment sans jess.
how on earth did i get here?

well it all started when wet jess comes in from her trek home in the rain. bitchin n moanin i give her somethin strooong and tell her to chug. what was it? you ask. why it was a carmel vodka and coca light! drinks all around! a third of one bottle gone. another whole bottle gone.

time to eat thanksgiving dinner. we're in effing paris, turkey? nope. but two roasted chickens bought from the hot meat man in the moufftard marchet. dinner was served on three plates with three drinks and three girls. normal so far. but then there was one large paper towel, no utensils, no chairs, and no table. we ate on the floor barberic style ripping at the chicken from one plate, dipping it into the homemade gravy on another plate, pulling at peppers on the third plate, etc. resulting in three bare plates-a-bones and three greasy drunk americans. image to follow.

let the dancing begin. gosh you ate and went to a club already? nope monsiur, there are three ipods in this apartment. we found the jamiroquai and started bustin moves. jean arrives. poor kid. thanks for coming, we're goin out! off to the "golden arrow" (yeah it's in french but i'm not about to butcher the spelling). our new favorite place for indie rock music and pink beers. eff you! it's invites only...

ok, take two. pile back into the tiny euro car. off to bastille! jean needs smokes so we wonder the streets looking for bars and tobacco shops. no shops are open. greeaat. finally we're on this tiny meandering ancient street lined with bars, pick one. and we did. one with a nice big couch and seats in the window... but it's not exactly crowded... there's a table full of family in the back and um, maybe one or two other random people.

we'll have the window seat. the sisters brams-miller had amazones and amazonias to celebrate our height, but dre spotted her drink on the menu. un ddiiaabblloo! cointreau, rhum, and two other strangely pronounced french liquors made up the smooth concoction on the rocks. niiice. so people (and by people, i mean men) start gathering in front of our window on the street... and coming in? "we make amazing advertisements! they should buy us drinks!" diablos all around.

sara and i are latin dancing up a storm with cameos from the disco diva herself. jean, who promised us men, (two of his friends) was finally deliveing. bisus and introductions. they sit and we run into, americans? well a texan and a greek who went to stanford and like in new york. discussing the parisian experience the lovely green fairy of subjects comes up. have you ever had absinth? no but it's on my list (yes, there is an actual list of things i wanted to do while here and i'm slowly but surely checking things off as we go along). let's buy you some! well they didn't do the sugar thing, but it's lime green that turns cloudy within minutes. have you ever had sambuca? well this kicks sambuca's ass for strong licorice tasting alcoholic beverages.

thanks for the drink, we give them jess' cell and move on to the frenchies we were here to mingle with. blur blur blur. we're leaving the bar with gaytor and alex to find a club. um, jess and jean, well, had other plans. (a little aside, she juuust walked through the door, bubbly and giddy and describing her night with many "oh. my. god."s!!!)

they loooved us! and we loved them right back.

more to follow if i feel like it.

winey pants

i'm the only one whose pants don't smell like vino. go me.

attention! chien bizarre!!!

interpretation of 11.19 recap or 11.18

the night started out after a fun day of arch du triumph and eiffel tower. dinner was an amazing combination of sun-dried tomato and basil fresh ravioli with a bolognaise sauce. drinks were carmel vodka mixed with coca light is close to heaven. i highly recommend with a warning; i drunk emailed my parents. oh i'm good.

next stop: olivier & alice's apartment for some birthday fun. bonsoir! architect friends of jess having a very architect party in a very architect apartment. so fun for two huge architecture nerds. wine, cider, joint. "um, that toilet seat is a little... off," said jess after using the john. and by off, she meant falling off, which is what i almost did after sitting down. good.

after this the silliness begins. begins? you ask. what the hell were the last two paragraphs?! nothing compared to what you're about to read.

image to be uploaded at a later undisclosed date. but jess felt the need to turn to the wall and hug it! not snuggle, not wink at, but arms out face smushed up against it smiling loving hug of the wall between the dormers. the photo has been named, "embrace the dormers." nice job. oh no, now what's she doing?! ah yes, she found the pet cactus. what?! pet cactus? pet the cactus? then there's me yelling and pulling her away, "no jess, don't pet the cactus!!!" also image to follow.

so you may be wondering, gosh what a dork. she brings her huge bitch ass of a digital slr camera to parties and bars? nope kids, i got a new member of the camera family. a little sony cybershot t7! it's so cute and it totally fits in my bra! oh, i mean pocket.

moving on. bertrand calls. the party's, well, i don't want to say lame... but the girls were on a mission! they needed pure debauchery.

scene change. costumes stay the same. girls enter stage left off the metro at bastille.

met bertrand. we were all traveling by car. european car. tiny european car. wait, how many of us are there? 6?! so where does shmandrea end up? laying on my back across three poor souls in the back of this teeensy ass car. "nice to meet you, let me lay across your laps!" i saw what seemed like all of paris go by, very quickly and upside down. no, that didn't make me want to throw up.

we finally pull over and i almost kill myself among others while trying to exit. i could never be a clown. with the car parked next to the muse d'orsay we down whiskey and cocas for nearly two hours. jess needs to go... again! (um, when did you break the seal?) ahh! a cafe! jess "order a coffee or we can't go to the bathroom." shmandrea, "but i don't waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaana coffee!" jess, "just order a coffee. i'll drink it." shmandrea, "but i don't waaaaant it." poor man at the bar, "just go."

"merci beaucoup!!!!!"

back at the car with the whiskey on it.... yes kids, picture to follow. no more coca, i think that's why we were outside in the freezing cold streets of paris just standin around... with justin timberlake. was someone supposed to be bringing more coca? "is he here? is it your imaginary friend!?"

sick of waiting we bust it up the hill to the club. and by bust it, i mean jess, in all her graceful glory, catches her shoe on something... a car? (i really don't know how this happened) and it flies under the car. nor just under the car, in the middle of the undercarriage of the car. and florent (did i introduce him yet? it's bertrand's lil buddy. think ryan reynolds. google image it.), while standing right next to the girls dressed to the nines, absolutely refuses to help. jess lies down in the middle of the street mechanic style, to reach for the black shoe in the dark. (sorry, there are no images of this, i was busy lecturing florent on chivalry and his lack of it. don't worry, i'll make up for this with video later.)

after this florent somehow manages to convince us to wait just two more minutes so we could all go together. and by two minutes, he means 20 or so. ok, finally back in the car. this time it's florent's turn to sit on laps. so we're driving. it's four blocks to the club. one measly block away, while at a traffic light, who's in the car next to us? you guessed it! the police. asked us to pull over. and the boys told us to get out of the car asap! oh shit. are we getting arrested? deported? and the worst part is, i'm sober at this point!! without the shield of drunkenness this situation was far scarier at the time than funny. but in retrospect, as i write this from my french prison cell....

no one was arrested. well, no one who wasn't driving... poor driver (whoever he was) didn't quite pass the sobriety check... while we wait outside the french police station in the cold, with an officer with a machine gun!? for almost another hour. jess, "i'm cooooooooold. i'm gonna get pneumonia! i'm cooold and we're gonna go somewhere warm and there are gonna be people with germs!" so the two of us huddle with the anaconda scarf wrapped around our necks. we finally make it to the club by 3ish...

-at the club-

wasted from one drink (a. cuz they're strong, b. cuz we'd been drinking for seven hours, and c. because the pasta for dinner had long since been digested.) again with the retro american music blasting. we boogied down to songs not limited to but including the grease medley. i'm an embarrassment to my country. i know. moving on. i don't think there could have been any more broken glass on the floor, or annoying men trying to dance with us! but while we were taking a plethora of drunk photos a random chick with a british accent comes over to us, "please don't go home with those boys. there's something a little... oooooffffffffff with them." who was she?! and why didn't we listen!? post-drunk photos, but still relatively upright, yethica: why are they closing down already? it's eeeaaaaarly!!" shmandrea: "umm... it's like 4:30am." yethica: "oh."

taxi to jess's place... "wait.. are they coming with us? how is this gonna.... i thought we weren't bringing boys back...?" disaster. 'nuff said.

next morning... no wait, i mean afternoon, since we didn't get to sleep till 8 AM, we are not functional until 3pm, at which point we venture to lez arts (guess what that store carries... give up? too bad, cuz you outta be able to figure it out yourself) post cardboard-buying and perusing the merchandise (read: cute artsy man in black blazer), we stop off for the biggest and best meat-filled dumplings ev-er. "meal" number one of the day -- that's if you don't include the 7am leftover ravioli delivered bedside by yethica. what service in this hotel!!

art supplies dumped at apartment, we head to "la fleche d'or" for some artsy music, coffee (several), wine, (several... glasses. what do you people think this is??!!), and gruuuuuuuuuub. jess decides to venture into raw meat territory (steak tartare) shmandrea is impressed at her bravery, but opts for the cooked chicken breast with cream sauce. recapping the previous "evening's" activities and ridiculousness in the sketchbook, "what's that burning smell?!" just a little character added to my moleskin thanks to a tea light. niice. original plans to park asses on yonder pink couch thwarted by phone call from armani marc, who invites us out for drinks with friends. jess attempts to dissuade him with reasoning of our non-fashionable-ness and general scrublike appearance. armani marc is not having it. he calls back twice (yes.... twice) to convince us to come out. at this point, people have installed themselves on aforementioned fluffy pink couch. gosh... idiots. i guess we have to go out with hot armani marc. darn.

descent from the metro achieved at odeon, jess is drawing lots of attention with her antics. the three cups of coffee have finally kicked in and she is hyyyyyyyyper. two handsome, well-dressed guys are standing nearby and staring. jess continues to speak in a variety of stupid accents. what else is new. one of said handsome men approaches and stops jess mid-sentence to ask "are you jessica?" jess stares at him agape for a split second before responding in the affirmative. alexandre: "oh great... i'm marco's friend" jess: "ooooooooh..."

trek to the most faaaaaaabulous apartment complex ev-er. there is a huge courtyard paved in cobblestone, and the treads on the stairs leading up to the apartment are made of old wood and are glossy from hundreds of years of wear. the apartment itself has rough wood beams criss-crossing the ceiling, replete with axe marks from the original construction. enough of the geeking.... moving on. jess attempts to remove her boots, in following the habits of alexandre and his gorgeous serbian friend samy. she realizes fairly quickly that something in one of the shoes is not quite right, and that her foot is stuck on something in it. alexandre offers to help by pulling off said shoe and telling her to kick him in the ass for more leverage. a loud rip, and the shoe comes halfway off. a bit of wiggling. and the shoe comes the rest of the way off. alexandre: "want some wine?" jess: "um... yeah." video to follow to emphasize pure ridiculousness and stupid faces.

general discussion and shooting-the-shit ensues. eventually, as i sit there smiling and nodding, armani marc arrives dressed in what jess considers his armani gorgeousness. jess: "for a man who's as small as he is, daaaaamn he's hot!" back on with the shoes and back in the cold and off to the cafe in the muse d'orsay neighborhood. j-"oh no, this is gonna be where we peed last night!" thankfully no. it was a rather upscale cozy talk about fashion, art, literature, and life kinda joint complete with "impressionist" paintings and a tin ceiling 12' up. two tables becomes three. current company is added to by more frenchies in vintage chanel and gaultier pretending to be mildly amused by our vino induced antics. three tables become four. alexandre's friends are genuinely amused by the americans and their new language of communication -- fritalspaniolish. "ja m'appelle isa. j'adore vino and hombres!" a lovely bastardization of the more common svetlana remark. (if you've never heard it, you really need to drink with me more.)

sexica?
messica?
mexica?

the nicknames just kept a-comin and we just kept a jottin 'em down in ye-olde sketchbook complete with candle light burn marks. wine in the lap? not mine.... messica's. "i swear that's dan's dad..." re: handsome older gentleman making eyes at me while sitting with girlfriend/wife. ohh the french. yoz, alexandre's motorcycle riding friend, "amazed" us with a little disappearing clove trick while alexandre told me about his own disappearing act with a woman's undergarments. ohh the french. they must teach boys at a very young age how to snap their fingers and a woman's clothing falls to the floor. ohh the french. sexica and marc are continually making eyes at eachother from across the table, and all of the sudden we are heading out the door. no warning, it's just "we're leaving... let's go". i find out later that this is due to a silent interchange between armani marc and jess, closing the deal that he will drive us home in the car that jess has been assuming for 2 days is something extremely hott. and believe it or not, she's right (shocking, i know). it's a mercedes kompressor s class. a speedy drive home (parisian drivers make me fear for my life. i love the metro! at least this time i'm sitting upright) and marc is up in the apartment for "a quick drink before he goes home". yeah... a drink of a tall drink of water named jess. um, i'm still heeere!

tbc?

i just woke up in paris!

paris- day 1

good "morning" from paris! ok really i have nooooooooo idea what time it is. but the sun is up and jess is in a meeting for class and i'm pretty sure it's friday. got into paris yesterday morning with no trouble. ate, subwayed it to the opera house and just walked around for hours and hours window shopping for jewelry and taking it all in before falafel time.

d'as de falafel? in the meret (fench spelling and i don't get along...) paris' gay/jewish neighborhood, too delicious for words. go. well, if you can. so it's falafel and coffee, then more window shopping as we wondered the narrow medieval streets staring at boys and jewelry and clothes. then more coffee because there were hooooot boys in this other coffee shop. but seriously kids, i don't think i can have too much yummy french, well, anything!

ok back home for a nap. can barely keep myself vertical. then out! woo hoo night clubs in paris. ok, so i'm not petite. and i decided to wear heels. so when we walk in to meet one of jess' friends... all eyes turn. whoa. drink in hand and coat checked, dance floor? oui, por favor :) flashback to last weekend's 80s party at the dbar (side note: one of the most random nights ever! meeting christine scarfuto in the bathroom? what? not to mention someone from across the country i hadn't seen since last summer, no, two summers ago, ok fine, a year and a half ago...)! french fashion may be foward thinking but their music, not so much!

with a clear view from one end of the dance floor to the other jess and i busted out moves for hours until we called it a night (because the the metro was gonna close). i love paris!

today, being the tourist that i am, we're bustin out big cameras and comfy shoes to explore this gorgeous city!