After the comfort of my Spanglish skills, France seemed a bit well, intimidating. Not that I don’t think pointing and smiling can get you pretty far but if I were to run into someone who didn’t speak an ounce of English, well then I would just be shit out of luck. Case in point, as glamorous as it sounds, Jenny and I spent our first night in Paris at….the laundrymat. You never want to have to give up a night exploring a fantastic foreign city in exchange for practicing your domesticity but that’s precisely what had to happen. After turning my underwear inside out for the third day in a row we figured it was time. Though, I love how we picked the country where I couldn’t decipher one written word of it even if there was a gun to my head to set out for a place where you are forced to read all of the instructions because the entire place is unmanned. Standing around staring at the literal writing on the wall and feeling like complete dumbasses for a good 5 minutes, some American girls finally came to our aid. Thank God for that or it would have been another week of unwashed clothes before we finally got to an English speaking country and I’m afraid I would have arrived smelling exactly like my frizzy-haired, sparkly- purple-clog-wearing friend, and well, that’s just not the kind of impression I like to make.
Sidenote: For some reason I crave Snickers when I’m in foreign countries. When I lived in Australia I wanted them all the time. So much so that my darling roommate, Brad, got me a ton of them for Christmas. It’s just odd because I rarely eat them in the States. Anyhow, during the laundry adventure I set out to find one and ended up buying one from a man who was camped out in his tiny market smoking a hookah. I’m sorry, I thought I had left Morocco. But there he was, smoking away. Sir, do you think you could please put down the hookah and hook a girl up with a Snickers. Merci. He finally smelled what I was stepping in and moved some boxes and other crap around to reveal a box of what I’d been searching for. The lesson here is that whether your Snickers comes from a CVS in the good old US of A, your cute roommate in Australia, or a hookah-wielding and highly disorganized market owner in Paris, a Snickers is a Snickers is a Snickers and wow, are they good!
One day while exploring the city and really making use of a 3 day Metro pass, Jenny and I were apparently and unknowingly cast as the new judges of PARISIAN IDOL: Metro Addition. While sitting on the train minding our own business, suddenly there was a ruckus and this girl started shouting. I assumed she was talking to a friend further down on the train and didn’t think much of it, that was until 50 Cent’s Magic Stick
kicked on. One minute I’m riding the Metro, the next minute I’m listening to a girl rap in French to 50 Cent. What the shit? Apparently, she carted around this deafening speaker and assumed everyone wanted to listen to her mad rap skills and then pay her for it. What was a pleasant ride turned into a, “Is this really happening to me? moment” in the blink of an eye. Poor girl didn’t make much cash on our train so she quickly jumped off and was on to annoy the next round of passengers on a different line. I wish them luck. Truth be told, at least she was doing that and not working the corner somewhere, though I’m bound to think it would have been much more profitable for her. As if one wasn’t enough, our next train was accompanied by…wait for it….no really, it’s good….wait….a polka band! Seriously, accordion, trombone, clarinet. These men were having a grand old time and I have to say, so was I! I never knew I liked polka so much until I literally couldn’t stop bouncing to it and finally Jenny said, “Oh My God, stop.” It’s true, everyone was looking at me but that music was just so catchy and after the French female Fitty (dig that alliteration?) this was a Godsend. Now, you’re obviously thinking at this point my run in with Parisian Idol has certainly ended. Well my friends, you would be wrong. Last train of the night, we hop on….La La Bamba! La La Bamba! Oh yes, you visualized correctly, a slicked back-haired Latin man karaokeing to La Bamba, and why not right? Let’s really end this night off with a bang. Every city has street performers, but not every city can hit you with this kind of musical awakening all in one day via the metro no less. Paris, I thank you for it.
Here’s what else happened in France. I became impregnated with a crepe baby. There I am feeling so Parisian, wandering along the Seine between Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre to my right, chowing down (in a very posh way of course, this is Paris after all) on a selection of pastries and it hit me, this crepe baby is expanding at far too rapid of a rate to keep under control. That was my cue. Paris, I loved you but in the hopes of not appearing as a woman in my third trimester I’m afraid it’s time to Hit the Road Jack!, or Jacques I suppose if I’m being regionally correct (which I always try to be.) Au Revior! Me and my new large ass will miss you. 
And NowEuropeToDate…
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