When in Paris/Brussels/Amesterdam

From December 14, 2008

I recently returned home from my week-long trip to Europe with my friend K. We had a great time and saw many interesting things, including many, many hookers, a church in the attic, a crazy flea/antiques market (puces!), chestnuts roasting over an open shopping cart, "coffee" shops, Post-Impressionist paintings, a statue of a little boy peeing that is supposedly world-renowned (um, I hadn't heard of it before), a huge atom sculpture with a restaurant inside, etc.

Plus, I now have a potential husband in every port that we visited, it appears. In Paris at the flea market, I was grabbed by the hand, kissed on it, and kissed on the cheek by a pseudo-French dude (I doubt that he had legal resident status there) who wanted me to take him home to America with me. He also kissed K's hand, too, so she didn't feel left out (he probably wanted to cover all of his bases). I declined to pack him in my suitcase and bring him home with me, but I did buy a pretty freakin' cool hooded sweatshirt there so I could fondly remember my "husband" (actually, I had planned to buy it anyway).

In Brussels, we were walking through an obnoxious restaurant quarter where the servers try to sweet talk people into the restaurants. We were just passing through to get to the other side of the road (just like the chicken jokes go) and a waiter opened his mouth to start his spiel. I didn't want him to waste his breath and I didn't want to hear it anyway, so I told him, "no thanks, we're not hungry." He cried out, "No, that's not what I want; I'm single!" K and I laughed really hard at that one.

Finally, in Amsterdam, K and I were walking around the Red Light District, which also conveniently hosts Chinatown. We were in search of rangoons for her because she had a mighty fierce craving for them. There were two really loud, rambunctious dudes walking in front of us. They were ebullient, exclaiming something and singing. One of the guys leaped into the air, grabbed my arm, and said something very happy. I hypothesized that he either had just experienced some very good luck (if you know what I mean) or was pleasantly surprised by the amount and variety of ladies of the night in that quarter. Either way, I really wanted no part of it as I am not part of the selection, but whatever.

In other words, it was an odd, but interesting trip.

It pays to read first...

Especially when traveling in foreign lands, it is advisable to read packaging on products thoroughly before using them. I experienced this firsthand when I popped into a convenience store to buy some gum in Amsterdam. I grabbed what I thought was Winterfresh gum, my favorite flavor. I popped a piece in my mouth and just about choked. It tasted like Vick's, certainly not spearmint. I read the label and it said Menthol / Eucalyptus. Who thought THAT would be a good idea?!* Seriously! I thought it was so gross that I made K try some. She concurred.

I will say, however, that the taste grew on me and I try to find this flavor whenever I travel in Europe.

*=a menthol cigarette smoking koala bear, I bet you

You might want to x-ray that

From Mar 31, 2010

I found this lovely book today: Arrested: What to do When Your Loved One is In Jail. If I were to write the book, it would only be one sentence.

This is what I'd write: Bake a cake with a file or a shank in it. The End.

Men with mehndi

From Sep 12, 2010

This weekend, I camped at a totally awesome music festival, Wheatland, up north with my family, friends, and various combinations of our/their friends/family. It's a pretty crazy, fun event with folk music and debauchery, but is still mostly family-friendly despite this. As long as you're not hurting/bothering someone else, it seems as if almost anything goes.

I worked a volunteer shift and afterward my brother asked me what I was up to. Since my friends I hadn't seen in ages in were there and I was still feeling way under the weather, I decided to have a more mellow night with them at their camp. He decided to strike out with his friend N and meet new people. He cracks me up; he just wanders around, carries his fiddle with him, and will pull up a chair wherever people seem interested in hanging out or playing music, whether or not he knows them. By the end of the night they'll be like old friends anyway.

We parted ways and I sat with my friends and their family and of course we ended up laughing like fiends. I determined that at Wheatland, the seal breaks you and other such things, and that I did not have a collapsed lung, thanks to my friend's brother, who's a nurse and took the place of Google for me that night.

Around 4 a.m. I returned to my family's camp and ran into my brother, freshly returned from his adventures. He had me in stitches because he found an old friend and he had the inside line on some henna tattoos. He was very, very excited about getting the tattoos, which may or may not have been influenced by the adult beverages he had consumed. In between fits of giggles and coughing fits, I told him that normally when guys get drunk they get real tattoos, not finding excitement in the possibility of henna tattoos.

The next morning he elaborated and I laughed even more. This festival is run primarily through volunteer labor, so this friend was asked to help with the henna tattoos. He has no tattoo, art, or henna experience, but a good attitude, so he said sure, I can draw swirls on people. Well, in a sad turn of events, people were disappointed with his tattoos. They were expecting the beautiful mehndi designs associated with henna tattoos; instead they were given scraggly swirls or happy faces. However, sobriety and this fact still did not dampen my brother's enthusiasm.

Too many ----- on the dance floor

From Sep 13, 2010

This weekend, I volunteered at the dance floor at the music festival. My job, I was told, was to keep people from drinking and smoking on the dance floor and to keep the rowdiness to a manageable level. One gentleman likes to dance on his head and at first I was told to not let him do that, but then I was told it was okay.
What they didn't tell me was how to deal with a giant gorilla who ran out on the dance floor, as well as a dude with a giant character head (and it was truly huge but I couldn't tell if it was Elvis or someone else because he went through so fast), or the woman wearing a life jacket. I guessed that the correct response was to laugh, which is what I did.

Take that, in whatever language

From Sep 28, 2010

Tonight marked the beginning of French class for me. Our instructor is absolutely adorable, and of course, very French. She was telling us a story about when she was living and working abroad in an expat community. Her boss was American and used the F-word all the time. She had an inkling that it wasn't a nice word, but didn't realize that it was the granddaddy of bad words. Her boss asked her to work on the f-ing report and give it back to him the following week.

She willingly completed the report, handed it to him and said "there's your f-ing report." Her boss's supervisor heard her say that, took her aside, and asked her if she knew what the word meant. She thought it was something along the lines of "stupid." She was absolutely mortified when she learned the actual meaning of it.

That's always a fear when learning another language and trying to operate in that language's world; will you commit a faux pas? [Will there be fox paws?] At worst, will you say something horribly offensive and get yourself in trouble, or at best, will you call yourself a doughnut? Such are the joys of different languages.
--
And I apologize to the French language; I did things to it tonight that no language ever deserves. It was bad (but the instructor was so sweet and supportive, even though my pronunciation was probably like nails on a chalkboard to her).

Say what?

From Oct 1, 2010

I'm visiting my family and am working on the computer while my mom's watching Hoarders in the other room. I heard someone on the show speaking and commented that the woman sounded like the mom from Big Love.*

My mom asked, "What? The mom from Big Lots?"
Me: "No, from Big...never mind."

*Bill Paxton's character's mother