Gains in Toulouse

Made it to Toulouse for SEVERAL days, many of which were rainy. Toulouse is a neat city, the 4th largest in France. Additionally, it is the home of my friend Florence's sister - the one whose room I lived in while she was away at college during my exchange. I met her while I was here and now I am known by the whole family.

Speaking of which, I'm going back to Lyon for 2 days during one of our Paris breaks and staying at the house where I stayed with the parents and Florence and her daughter. That should be fabulously reminiscent.

I met Mark's cousin (and now mine, as well) Sarah and her boyfriend Jean-Paul. They came to my Friday night concert and we hung out and ate afterwards. It's amazing, but after about 10 minutes I forgot that I didn't know her before now. I think we're sort of similarly artsy and she's easy to gravitate towards. She's got this fabu London accent that is, as she calls it, posh. Posh indeed! Uptown girl, she's been living in her uptown world... Just joking, she's been living in France for awhile. Mark's grandmother and aunt also have nice accents. I guess it's like in the US with everyone and their different regional accents, but as with our family, everybody sort has a standard accent without any hideous regional deformations. Even my cousins in Arkansas don't sound particularly accented, just a little country.

So back to Sarah. She speaks excellent french, her English is adorable, she's earthy and glamorous in a very feline way at the same time - most likely handed down from the bombshell mom that I've seen photos of. Anyhow, we had a great time eating and her boyfriend loved the bassist specifically, who is one of my two best friends on tour. Anybody who's a fan of Weather Report either knows of Bunny or likes his sound.



Here's a picture of me and Sarah and JP. I really wish that Mark could come over (AGAIN!) and visit with Sarah and JP in their little town. If not, I'm most likely going to go visit them before I leave on the very last leg of this tour, and we can take a trip to Barcelona since it's very close and JP knows it like the back of his hand.


So Nathalie, Florence's sister came to our concert on Saturday night with her 2 sons and her husband. I saw them afterwards and it felt a little awkward, so I felt a little hesitant about spending the next day with them. Luckily I was wrong, after the first 7 minutes, it was really comfortable. Mostly because the youngest son, who looks like Dewey from Malcolm in the Middle, asked me about a milllion questions as soon as I entered the car. And they were all appropriate low-ball, so I was able to answer with ease. Phew! Or, ouf, as the french say.


First question he asked was, "why does Michel say that you're the most talkative when he introduces you?" And I explained that, other than the french guy, I'm the only one fluent in french, so I tend to say more. And being the last one introduced, all the cute cliche phrases are taken. After "bisoux" "je t'aime" and "ca va," I've got to come up with something a little more creative. SO I started off saying something specific to the city we were in. Now, he introduces me that way so I am obligated to keep it up! City research each new town.

On Sunday I went to Nathalie's house, which is where I took the picture from the top of the page of the cute Cooper car in front of this church. We went to the canal and walked along the water. There was a moving world musical festival that was docked in Toulouse this day and traveling the length of the canal all the way to the ocean. Very nice. Then a neighbor came along and they very discretly bragged about me (I heard nothing) and he later started asking me about the concert tour.

Me reading a bedtime story (in French) to Maelann at her request!


I had a great time with them, I'm very happy to have this extended international family. I feel very comfortable in France and am gaining little people whom I love along the way, bit by bit. That said, I miss my husband and can't wait to go home, even though I know I'm totally going to shake that up when I get back. We've got to get a new apartment! Even with this tour, there's no way to afford a 20% downpayment for a condo in LA, especially knowing that we're going to get pregnant sometime before next year and I don't want to have a baby and immediately have to shove it into daycare in order to buy property. We almost bought last year until we realized that our $1200 rent, would turn into $2500 mortgage because of the 2nd loan for the 20%. It's not even helpful to put down 10%. It's pretty much 20 or don't bother because the rate of the 2ndary loans are hideous. So no house or condo in LA, and I don't really care, but I DO want to have at least an apartment that I know we can have 1 kid in and live in for 3 or 4 years without being squeezed out with baby stuff. So I'd rather move now, way before we conceive, get that together so it's one less thing to worry about. If we buy property, maybe we should buy something to rent out in Columbia, MO near the college or someplace else where we have relati

In other random, non-related news, I've met more of my 'people' again. Below is a picture of me and Malik, who looks like a jet-black version of Will Smith, except with a pleasantly shorter head. Will's head is so long, he looks like a chicken McNugget. Malik is originally from Senegal (ding, ding, ding, ding!) and confirms what everyone always says about me looking like I'm from Senegal and from one of the following tribes: Toucouleur/Tukulor (there are about 4 different spellings of it,) Peul or Fulani. When I get home, I'm going to do the blood test thing to trace probably country of origin like my friend Kenya just did. We've all been hot to do it after the Henry Louis Gates/Oprah Winfrey/Whoopi Goldberg documentary thing. Kenya was the first, and I'll probably do it to. It's very interesting, and it's about the best that an African-American can do to find out anything genealogical.

Bordeaux, sort of

Here's a pic of my friend Florence and her family at my last night gig in Paris. Her son was sleepy and not as impressed, but little Cosma on the right, was hyped and screamed the whole show through!
Here's me in Bordeaux proper (I only saw actual Bordeaux for about 45 minutes on the last day, directly before sound check at the venue.) What I saw, was quite nice, but I have no real opinion.

Lacanau Ocean - horses at the hotel/resort

We stayed 2 hours away from Bordeaux this time, only 29 kilometers, but with traffic and a bus with a trailer attached, it took 2 hours. Our hotel was more like a summer camp than resort to me. There were horses, a ping pong table (never got to take advantage of this one), a spa, a pool and bicycle rentals. Since we left so early each day for the gig, we didn't really have much time. But what we all did do several times was to rent a bike for a half day at 6euros, a bargain compared to cabbing it. With the bike, we could ride from the middle of nowhere to the beach which was about a 10-15 minute ride away.

My best tour buds Judith and Bunny at the resto

The first night, upon arriving at 7pm, we went to dinner in town at the beach and rode, 8 deep, to the main strip. We had dinner at this beautiful restaurant with tons of African, Asian, Cuban and Polynesian decoration: basically anything exotic and carved of dark wood. The food took forever, a la France, plus an extra hour, so 3 hours later when dinner was finished a little before midnight, we see lightening through the glass ceiling (we moved from a hut table outdoors to an indoor table once the trees started to sway a la Gilligan's Island.) We wait to try and leave at a strategic time, but the waitress takes another 30 minutes to bring the bill and one coffee for someone (they can't imagine how you wouldn't want a coffee at the end of the meal.)

So now, you've got more than 7 adults trying furiously to unlock our bikes from each other (made a big chain of bikes since there were no posts) and beat the rain. It's barely sprinkling when we start. It's pitch black, and all you can see are these teeny headlights and a bunch of red bicycle brakelights in front of you. We ride in the street, trying to backtrack our way to the city. I remembered very well, having been dubbed by the hotel woman giving us directions as "a serious person" as she thrust a map into my hands which I then crumpled into my backpack purse.

There's a serious electrical storm happening somewhere - lightning lights up the black sky about once every 10-30 seconds, but no thunder noises or much rain. Somewhere about three quarters or halfway through the trip, it starts to pour. We all start to sqeal as everybody pedals faster and you try your best to make sure nobody's being left behind without falling over on your bicycle, looking backwards into the dark. The last couple of yards is seriously steep uphill, so everybody is alternately squealing and/or grunting loudly as we make it back to the gravel driveway of the hotel.

This was one of the most ridiculous things I've done as an adult, and one of the most memorable and fun. Everyone's inner 11 year old was thrilled. Now we're hooked on the bicycles, so for the rest of the stay, everyone uses a bicycle for lunching in the city (the hotel restaurant sort of sucks, and isn't open continually) or going to the beach in the morning before we have to leave for the 8:30 show at 3pm.

Here's more pics of the beach at Lacanau:

A lady who owns a gelato stand with her husband near the beach saw us all separately eating and hanging out and started collecting Sharpie tattoos. Here's my contribution, for which I got a free scoop of mango sorbet:

I am arisen...

I wrote this great long blog entry on my pda, hoping to sync it later and it's gone. Poof! So demoralizing that I didn't bother rewriting for 4 days! Anyhow, things are nicer here this time around, despite all of our worsened attitudes. It's raining constantly, so no pictures of anything because we're not really going anywhere in our free time. However, the temperature is better, so it's a mixed bag.

The weather reports are now saying that the rain is headed out, so hopefully I'll get to see some more of these cities. Also, I really think that I'm borderline over the picture-taking thing. I might have cumulative touristitis. I've seen so much of France and was so amazingly zealous with my discoveries that maybe I've used it all up! I say that, but I don't really believe it. It's a phase. I went through it last tour and there were a couple of cities that I just didn't feel motivated enough to tramp around and scour for photo opps. I think I'll get my zest back when I 1)go to a city where it's not raining 2)go to a city where we are close to the actual city and not in a suburb that's a 30euro cab ride away 3)in a city I've never seen before (so far we've done Paris and I've already seen and photographed a lot of it, Orleans which was a 33euro cab ride away and Nantes where it's been raining violently and intermittently).

Also, I cheaped out and didn't upgrade to a digital SLR camera before I left, and now I'm regretting it, especially seeing that I can't buy one here because it's about a $300 to $400 price difference. So I think I might be pouting/on strike a bit about having to point and shoot when I'm ready to do something a little more challenging. But if I really am tired of picture taking, maybe it's good that I didn't buy it just yet. I've been wanting one for years. I sold my 35mm SLR when when we downsized to move to LA, and I promised myself then I'd replace the camera, but I've yet to get around to it.

Our social climate has changed immensely. Everyone is so bored that we're mixing it up more, except for the one guy who got branded as social pariah last trip. Very unfortunate, very political, not that fair or Christian either. I am one of the only people who'll hang out with him ever. Most are afraid they'll catch the cooties so it's turned into junior high school for real here. I'm a seasoned tour person now. I'm really more comfortable and know what to expect, but somehow I think that's actually making me more bored! It wasn't fun to be off-balance every second before, but there was an element of surprise and excitement in that. Right now, it's turning into Groundhog Day, the movie, where there are really only 2 days in my week: the one where we work, and the one where we don't. Okay, I'm not being accurate. There are three days in my week, the third being the day where we travel for 3-6 hours in a bus and then land in an unknown city late in the day, near dark with no working brains and no concept of what's open and where we are!

I can't wait until Bordeaux, our next city, even though we are once again going to be a good 30 miles outside of Bordeaux. Thus, I might not get pics of Bordeaux proper, but I will be staying in a really posh-looking resort on the actual coast! There's some kind of convention that has all the rooms booked. And unlike Geneva, where the same thing happened and we got put in the woods of nowhere across the border, this convention seems to have worked to our advantage where this resort hotel is an upgrade to the desired original.

I'm still alive, wanted to let y'all know since I sort of dropped off the face of the earth. As we speak, I'm writing you from a smoke-filled lobby of a Holiday Inn where the internet is 22uro for 24 consecutive hours, or free in the lobby - a rarity in France. I guess since it's Holiday Inn and Americans expect some free internet somewhere, they've made a compromise here. The interne is so expensive in these hotels that I spend more of my per diem on internet than food. I'm trying not to do that this leg, so I've been updating less frequently, but maybe we'll get a string of really good hotels that offer something free or not astranomical.

My french is progressing at an exponential pace. I learned the phrases for number 1 and number 2 this week, after someone's guest aboard our tour bus didn't know you couldn't do number 2 in the bus and broke the potty, stunk up the bus and horrified herself with the shame of being trapped on a bus full of groaning, snickering, giggling people for another 10-15 minutes on the way to the venue. I didn't know you couldn't do number 2 on the bus until then either, but it's not something you'd want to try with our group anyhow. The bathroom was broken for a little bit afterwards, so when I questioned the bus driver, who only speaks french, as to whether it was working, I then asked him what it was equipped to handle, number 1, 2 or both. He had no idea of what I was speaking of, so I told him that in the States, number 1 is 'faire pipi' and he caught on and said in french that you couldn't do number 2 (caca). Later I thought it useful to teach our dressmaker since he learned our words and she told me the french slang equivalents which are petite commission and gros commission, roughly translated as small deposit and large deposit.

We are all amazingly juvenile and greatly enjoy teaching each other the most base elements and vocabulary of each our corresponding cultures. But it's a good sign that my french is on the rise now that the teaching is going both ways. Last tour, it was everyone giving me phrases and now I'm sharing french for kindergarten with the crew. Last night in the lobby after the gig, we impressed each other with our knowledge of foreign GROS-MOTS or bad words. I can apparently curse like a sailor in french which is a fun parlor trick, but not that useful because it's such a polite culture, there's not any need to actually use them, other than showing your french friends what you've learned out in the world lately. I could've used some of my curse words in England however, on the trains with the soccer blokes. But then again, would that really have been a good idea? :)

Hey - a pic of my hair for this leg of the tour

Hi,

We're in Paris today. We're doing shows at Bercy tomorrow. I got an invitation to a picnic tomorrow in the park next to the stadium from a lady whose dog I met, but I'm going to dinner at my french exchange student Florence's house. Her kids are too smart and they love me. Her little daughter thought I wasn't that bright initially because I'd ask about certain vocabulary words if it were the first time I heard them, but her mommy got her straight when she explained that I was American, that my french is fabulous and asked her how many words she knew in English, and had the little one sing me "Happy Birthday" in English.

The boy and I speak effortlessly, which leads me to believe that my french age is 8. It's much harder to talk to tinier kids because they aren't as flexible with synonyms and tend to use really slangy words that I don't know. My french is so schoolteacher/snobby/stiff, as in, "I beg your pardon, might I have a spot of tea? Very well, good day." I'm learning to get a little more down and dirty and authentic sounding and to use more contractions and abbreviated forms of words. Frigo instead of refrigerator, yadda yadda.

I'm going to try and visit the Musee D'orsay and the Dali museum this week. Notice how I don't bother to put the french accent marks in, or to check a style guide to see if I should put quotes around a song title, or not? I don't care. It costs too much to use the internet and I'm so jetlagged right now, I'm doing good to just speak conversationally with you guys. So, know that I'm not unaware, I just need to remove all barriers to updating this blog at least every other day. Perfectoinsm be damned. Perfectionism. Okay, now it can be damned!

Smooches.

Back in France again!

I'm here again! My sense of time is still skewed. I called Mark at 4am here this morning and he asked why I was awake. My plan was to sleep until noon, but my alarm failed to go off and I overslept SO much that I'm back in LA time again!

I was about to be mad at my one friend until I called her and found that she was still asleep too! The last thing I remember is the maid service calling at 9am to see if I wanted my room done. Fast forward several hours later, and no one has called and my alarm has failed me.

I'm in Orleans, but they've put us in a hotel out several miles away from civilization, so getting to town costs 33 euro! We went to dinner together in town, a bunch of us, splitting the taxi, but it's not looking good that I'll do so much exploring and picture taking here.

Dinner took us 3 hours last night! It took an hour to get there, 3 hours to be served and eat (they are so slow here, and they never serve any course on top of another, you must finish your salad before the main course will even consider getting to your table) and another hour to call a taxi and get home. So, poof, 5 hours to eat.

I'm considering becoming a fruitatarian a couple of days of week where I just eat fruit in my hotel room so that I can avoid the food chase. This is like being a caveman, going out and scavening for meals! The hotel food is fine, but we've stayed in this chain for 3 months before, so the two or three dishes that are good have been eaten SEVERAL time before! And it's not cheap, so to eat the same thing over and over for premium price is not so appealing. The grape and apple plan sounds better.

I lost SERIOUS inches last trip, despite the fact that I did eat a lot when I ate. All the walking around really reset my metabolism to about twelth grade! I was a size 6 at the beginning of the trip last time and now I'm a 4 and even a 2 in somebody's crazy sizes. It's okay, I don't mind it because I'd rather get too thin now since we plan on working on babies next summer. It's about that time. We've been in LA long enough to have a grip and the time is right to have some kids. It's also become obviously clear that we're not going to buy anything here in LA. It's too expensive. The downpayment part is killer. Even after selling the old house in DC, we didn't have enough of a downpayment to make a dent here. Without the 20%, it doesn't even make sense to put down anything, that's what we were told and it appears to be true. The first mortgage for 80% is okay, but the mortgage for whatever remaining percentage is SO ghastly that it's just not worth it. We'd more than double our rent, and with the plan to have kids, it's counter-intuitive to buy a condo for a kid, then have a kid and be forced to both work corporate jobs in order to afford the more than doubled rent/mortgage. So, renting is fine with me for now. And with the way things work in LA, you never know when your plight will change. Things happen where random chunks of money fall from the sky, and what's difficult today is easy tomorrow. Believe me, it's true, I'm living part of that reality right now in France.

That's why I love LA. It's the land of opportunity. And while it's far from the glamorous stuff you see on tv, it's still marvelous to be someplace that's ever changing.

Smooches, y'all.

More pictures you haven't seen yet of us and family members...

LONDON

London's pubs are so good-looking! I took so many photos of them that would bore you, so there's only one here.


Everything must charge. Trafalgar Square no longer has pigeons...

There is a state regulated taxi cab manufacturer for English cabs, although the engines are made by Chrysler.
Can't get that close at Buckingham Palace anymore. Worth it in the trade off with the pigeon reduction at Trafalgar Sq. Did I ever tell you how much I hate birds? Hitchcock scarred me for life.
the London Eye is cute and all, but WAY overpriced. You could go to Disneyland for what they charge for this super slow ferris wheel.

Scarborough and Beyond

As you can see, I've fallen behind in my posts. I'm enjoying my husband and a semblance of a personal life! As promised, here are more pictures from our trip to see the fam in Scarborough.


Here's Mark's grandmother, who is more than 90 years old, and his aunt Margaret.



We were on the way to eating fish and chips at Mark's 2nd cousin Elaine's restaurant. By the way, I like haddock more than cod! Fish and chips are great, and especially good with lemon malt vinegar. They are also possible the best thing about English cuisine, with Yorkshire pudding as a close runner up.

In 6 days, I learned more about the food terminology differences between England and the States. I thought I was safe, having left France, in knowing what I was eating since everything is written in English, but alas no. Chips are what we call fries. Not a big deal. However pudding isn't pudding at all. Pudding is a generic term for dessert, like how we say Kleenex even when it's Puffs. So pudding just means some sort of dessert. You find it on menus everywhere, however the exception to the rule is Yorkshire pudding, which is actually just a type of bread roll that you eat, slathered in gravy. So, trying to explain what we call pudding to Aunt Margaret was pretty funny. Mousse as close as we got to describing American pudding. Bacon is actually our ham, which isn't upsetting at all until you see the term bacon cheeseburger. I can't imagine eating a cheeseburger with a slab of ham on top of it! Sounds like a Carl's Jr. hamburger creation here to me. Meat on meat crime. Also, lemonade everywhere else in the world is generally Sprite. Lemonade is called Citron Presse in France, and it's just straight fresh lemon juice and not nearly enough space to put enough water or sugar to make it taste like what we call lemonade. Me and my friend found it once in France and then had to get a 2nd set of glasses and water and sugar to make properly sweet lemonade. The waiter thought it was funny.

English food, on the whole, is not as bad as people have described it to be. It isn't actually bad at all, but pretty basic and unsophisticated. It's all stuff we eat here in the States when we are in elementary school in the cafeteria. Orange Squash is like Tang, and adults voluntarily drink it in restaurants. Lots of dishes are mashed potatoes and ground beef and cut up carrots and peas. I'm not doing a very good job of describing it, but believe me, all the food we feed little kids in America (or anyone in jail or any type of institution) is similar to what you find at most pubs! After France, it was a welcome break, though. How much steak can one person eat. France is the highest of high and not much middle. I couldn't find chicken in a restaurant there to save my life. It's considered to low and basic to serve at a restaurant, at least in the regions I visited and everything was beef, seafood and ham. England is the exact opposite of the culinary scale.

After months of cold breakfast (with NO meat) consisting of yogurt, cereal, croissants, baguettes w/jelly and butter and a cup of something hot, I was SO looking forward to the English breakfast. That is, until I got to see what English breakfast actually is. They take it to the other extreme. France is so fussy sophisticated and it's all this cold spread, whereas England is all about meat and fried items. At our bed and breakfast, we had fried bacon (which was really our ham), fried eggs, a cooked tomato, fried mushrooms, pork and beans, a hot dog and fried bread (don't even ask me about that - I told you little kid food, or more accurately US Southern comfort food for kids).

On that note, I LOVED the desserts best. The puddings were always like some dessert from the South, from whence my parents hail, and way more varied than France. In France, you could go to a pastry shop and get a bazillion types of desserts, but in a restaurants, you'll see the same 10 hanging around. Timamisu, poire helene, dame blanche, ice creams, creme brulee, yaddah yaddah. In England, there was much more variety, and more leaning towards warm desserts. I got bread pudding once and then steamed lemon cake with lemon sauce on top AND ice cream (or a choice of custard). I can't remember the last thing I got, but it was never the same thing twice.

Did I mention how disgusting lemon meringue pie is in France? We got it twice and it's the most vile version I've ever tasted. I, the lemon queen on the world who can and will suck on a raw lemon, couldn't stomach the lemon meringue which seemed to have actual lemon peel grated into it. So it was the tartest, most bitter, green tasting concoction. Also, it wasn't all silky and gelatin. It was lumpy (at 2 different restaurants). And the meringue on top wasn't the same, although it wasn't particular gross, just different.

I didn't get the best impression of English culture, now that I mention it. We in the States think that everything English is classy and prissy and definitely above America. But I was shocked and horrified to find a couple things to refute that generalization that we are the trashy Beverly Hillbilly cousins we thought we were. Example #1: public drinking. Allowing people to drink on public transportation isn't the best of ideas. Whereas in France, people drink wine all the time, but are rarely drunk or disorderly, the English respond to alcohol the same way we do: badly. So on two of our train trips, unfortunately on a holiday weekend as well, we encountered two separate groups of drunken blokes who were loud and disorderly. The first group consisted of 20 yr old, blue collar thickheads who thought the whole train belonged to them, talked at top volume, traveled in herds - there were at least 7 of them and sexually harassed the ticket lady repeatedly.

The second group was a bunch of about 10 30-40 year olds. They weren't any better. Their conversation was just as profanity-laced, slightly less idiotic, still at top volume. And they played some games where they'd all scream and ooh and aah as if they were at a cricket match. Not a good representation. We even saw some misbehaving toddlers. It didn't look good. I think England has a big, big gap between the haves and the have nots. And we only meet the haves and they are clean and neat and mannerly. But their have nots give our average people a run for their money any day. Just my opinion after a week - not rocket science, but it sure seemed that way.


Back to France and french food again - we met a couple from Texas who were the stereotypical idea of what you'd think American Texans were. And they'd just come from the horror of being laughed at and toyed with by a mean French waiter. They somehow ordered steak tartare, which is raw hamburger shaped like a donut and a quail egg is placed in the indentation on the top. When they didn't know what it was and asked the waiter why they were being given raw beef, he laughed his head off. They paid and got out of there and were frightened and stressed out by the time we encountered them on the train to the airport. Eating in France can be dangerous to one's sanity if you don't know the vocab, and it's REALLY specific vocabulary. Whereas in English, we use a noun and just add adjectives to change it, in France they like to use TOTALLY DIFFERENT WORDS. So when I told a front desk lady that I wanted to get to the city to take pictures while it was still light outside, I didn't realize that what I actually said was that I wanted to get to the city to take pictures while there was still lamplight, or electric light. Sunlight is totally not related to indoor light. They have 2 totally different words and she didn't get it for a second and then informed me that lumiere is strictly used to indicate artificial light and soleil is sunlight. Period. So apply that type of logic to food and you'll see why having a really big GENERAL vocabulary doesn't help you a smidge in a french restaurant where you'd have to know that a poire helene is an ice-cream dish with a pear, or what a dame blanche is. All their dessert names are proprietary, proper-noun-having names, nothing generic or descriptive at all. So after blowing your 3 questions with the waiter, if you haven't gotten around to dessert, it's plain old ice cream or creme brulee.

More pics:

Me, freezing my butt of happily, in a park on the cliff above the beach and a place called the Spa.


Mark and his grandmother

Me and his Great-Aunt Ivy

Scarborough

We're in Scarborough, where Mark's mom's family lives. Although she grew up in the Caribbean, they are originally from England, Scarborough in particular. While here, we got to see a couple of great cousins, Mark's Aunt Margaret and his grandma. Pictures of the relatives coming soon...

Scarborough by the sea

Here's Mark's cousin Christine's newly purchased bed and breakfast. REALLY NICE inside, too bad we didn't hear about it before we left...

Scarborough Castle

View from the castle of the church and graveyard where the Bronte sister, Anne-I think, is buried.


Peasholm Park

Sealife Aquarium