French Customs and French customs

So, French customs. And I don't mean the cultural kind. I got a phone call the other day from a woman speaking very rapid French (which is so difficult to understand, especially over the phone) telling me that I have to pay import taxes on a box of old ski clothes my parents shipped to me from the U.S. I'm sorry, you want me to what? I realize this is a basically socialist country that tries to charge taxes on everything, literally everything, but these are just some old clothes, here. You want me to pay 33% taxes to ship clothes to myself that I have owned for over five years? This just seems downright silly. So I emailed a man in the customs office and explained my predicament. He was really nice at first, until I started asking why I have to pay such high taxes. That's when he stopped responding. But what have we already learned about French bureaucracy, boys and girls? That's right. When you don't get what you want, bombard them with emails and phone calls and make yourself so irritating they do what you want just to get rid of you. So here's hoping this works again.

On another note, I need you to know that in the winter, in Paris, erroneous denim is replaced by erroneous fur. Instead of jurses and j-jackets and jarfs and jhats and joots, we are now seeing furses, fackets, farfs, fhats and foots. I think the fur boots might be my faves. These aren't the "boots with the fur," as popularized by Flo Rida, of the type that you might see on a jersey girl or in the apres-ski form. No no. These are something much more sinister:

I really hope you enjoy these foots as much as I do. I think they're truly a beautiful thing.

Last but certainly not least, today Taryn and I ventured into the unknown: Chinatown Paris (Chinatown actually encompasses Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai communities, but I guess people everywhere have a tendency to lump a bunch of entirely different cultures together for the sake of simplicity)! You see, I have this problem in French grocery stores where I can't ever find what I'm looking for. They don't carry very basic things that are available in every American grocery. Whenever I ask Victoria about these things, she says, "you can find that in Chinatown." Even if it's not Chinese or Southeast Asian at all (this has included everything from soymilk to Greek yoghurt to oregano and basil). I've been planning on cooking a delicious feast for tomorrow night, and I couldn't find half of my ingredients in the supermarkets in my neighborhood! Simple things like celery, snap peas and fresh herbs. I was also looking for saffron that didn't cost 12 euros. (At Monoprix, this is what they charge for a TINY amount of saffron. Piracy, people, piracy). So, in lieu of our bi-weekly powerwalk, Taryn and I went to Chinatown. It was awesome. It's one of the only places in this whole city where I've found food that I actually consider inexpensive. Pad Thai in Chinatown = 6 euros. Pad Thai anywhere else = 12 euros. The only thing is that it's in the 13th arrondissement, which is kind of far from me. But the fact that I returned home laden with shopping bags and fresh flowers and didn't even spend 20 euros totally makes the trek worth it.

Upcoming events: Matt comes in town tomorrow, I leave for London December 22, and I head down to Val d'Isere for some Alpine skiing December 26. Hooray for the holidays!

French people: love them or hate them? Sources say, love (mostly).

There is something you all should know. I have an arch-enemy here in France. She's a very small middle-aged who I have seen wear animal prints and florals. Together. In public. On purpose. But this isn't my (only) problem with her. I don't know her name, but I would recognize her piercing voice anywhere. Every time I see her, she smiles, but there is evil in her eyes. She is my neighbor and she NEVER. STOPS. COMPLAINING. The other women on the floor hate her. I personally have been known to cross the street when I see her coming so she can't talk to (complain at) me. When was having my Thanksgiving feast, she banged on the wall to tell us to be quiet. At around 10 pm. She was not trying to sleep. I know this because I had literally just heard her walk in the door. Rude. The next day, she cornered me in the hallway, shook her finger in my face, and yelled at me (in French, so I don't know if I caught all the mean names she was calling me) that I didn't have the right to throw huge loud parties till 1:30 am. For the record, I had 5 people over and everyone left well before midnight. I'm not exactly a difficult person to live next door to. I told Victoria and Najet about it, and they both said everyone in the building knows she's crazy and not to pay attention to her. Victoria laughed at me and told me to try not to get too far on her bad side, though, because she might beat me up. I told Victoria it's fine, I can take her.

In the defense of French people everywhere, though, I have to say that I've encountered a great number of very nice ones. They say that the French are very cold and rude and that their national pastime is complaining, and that can be true to a certain extent. But they can also be unexpectedly and unnecessarily kind and helpful. The other night, it was raining and freezing and I was standing at the bus stop at around 10:30 pm where I had been waiting for forever, and out of nowhere this lovely old French lady stops, pulls out her iphone, looks up the bus schedule on ratp.com, tells me my bus will arrive in 8 minutes, and goes on her way. Love her. And the other day I was talking to a nice old French man about his recent visit to New York, and he spread his arms wide and said "I love your country!" It was so cute. That's not really a sentiment you get a whole lot around here, so I spread my arms wide and said, "I love your country, too!"

An American Thanksgiving in Paris

I feel that everyone should know the success of this American girl's Thanksgiving in Paris. We had to do it a day early because Taryn and I both babysat on Thursday night, but it was actually nice because I literally have nothing to do during the day on Wednesday, so Victoria and I cooked a bunch of stuff. I made probably 6 batches of chocolate chip cookies for the kids, then a few American classics for my Thanksgiving feast. These included green beans baked with bacon, butter and brown sugar and a sweet potato casserole that also contained a lot of butter and brown sugar and also had marshmallows on top. The mom and Victoria thought this was very bizarre. One of them said something along the lines of, "you Americans, you put such weird things in your food." Like the French can talk about weird things in food. I once had a soup here that contained both foie gras and frog legs. Not that it wasn't delicious, but don't give me a hard time about putting weird stuff in MY food. Anyway, because turkey is surprisingly hard to come by around here, I bought a roast chicken and I also roasted some potatoes. Taryn told me she knows I'm a Southern girl because I overprepare food when I have company. Taryn, Nicola and Kate came over brought wine, stuffing, cranberry bread pudding and pumpkin pie. It was a pretty epic feast, and I even got to have leftovers the next day. Nicola is an Aussie and she had never experienced the wonder that is Thanksgiving. We had to explain to her how important it is to wear expandable clothing because it is the one day a year when it is entirely acceptable to overeat. Indeed, it is expected of you.

Big news of the week: I now have both the INTERNET and a TELEPHONE in my room. That's right, kids, this girl right here is the lucky owner of modern technology. Thank goodness. Now I can do important things like work on job applications. And, you know, blog. Also, my room is basically a winter wonderland. I bought Christmas lights and an apple and cinnamon candle and I'm currently listening to Handel's Messiah, no joke. I'm pretty much a Christmas elf. I considered buying this headband that I saw that had a Santa hat perched on top, but I chose not to for several reasons:

1. My mother has been known on occaison to don a headband with antlers and bells, and I'm just not ready to be that much like her... yet.

2. Who would I wear it in front of? The family? My friends? In public? Or, pathetically, by myself as I dance / frolic around my room to such Christmas classics as Pink Martini's rendition of Little Drummer Boy.

3. It was something absurd like 12 euros, which would buy me a very small (VERY small) Christmas tree or a nice potted plant. I think the latter choices would be a nicer waste of the little bit of money that I have.

Here's something weird those of you in the U.S. might not know. You know how we're totally horrified if people start playing Christmas music / decorating for Christmas / thinking about Christmas AT ALL before Thanksgiving? And how if it happens before Halloween we go into anaphalactic shock and possibly hold the offender at gunpoint until they put their decorations away until the proper time, dammit? Well, here in France they don't celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving, so I saw decorations going up as early as late October. I mean, clearly the major stuff didn't start to appear until late November, but it was all still very premature by American standards. Now everything is up, though, and tourist-heavy places like the Champs Elysees look lovely. It's nice. Also, over on this side of the Atlantic, they have major pre-Christmas sales. I find this strange, as in the U.S. we usually have the huge Black Friday sale and then not much till after Christmas. It is, however, convenient given all the people I am shopping for this year.

That's all I have for you this evening. I haven't had any good erroneous denim sightings recently, but I am going shopping tomorrow so here's hoping. Joyeux Noel!