Monday, Happy Monday

Well hello hello....

Yes, it's Monday, and yes I am totally exhausted. I guess my weekend wasn't THAT exciting but it was good. Let's see, quick overview:

Friday

• Spent the morning dealing with paperwork issues - this could be a section in and of itself. Paper issues in France are AWFUL. I feel like an awful awful illegal alien who they are constantly trying to kick out of the country! Anyhow, I burst into tears at the Mayor's office on Friday afternoon - it was quite exhausting
• Friday afternoon, I waited around the hotel for the Italians to pop by to take us to the fashion show. Turns out that they called me at home and no one gave my phone number so they ended up going to the fashion show WITHOUT us!
• Friday evening - party #1 at our place - bunch of people, bunch of liquor, bunch of smokable stuff (yeah dude...) and bunch of fun.
• Friday evening - party #2 at La Jungle. This is a great little African Bar that has great music, great drinks and great people - usually. This night, however, was a major downer to begin with. We had a crazy guy telling my friend Alice and I that we were not unique and that there were hundreds of other women like us in the world. (He said a lot of other things, but I was so focused in trying to stay out of range of his alcohol-ridden breath that I sort of blocked the rest.) Finally, after a little "smoke" on the street (to ease the stress of the day), the Italians showed up and smoked with us. We had drinks, shot the shit, etc... At about 1h30 in the morning, we walked home and I enjoyed the rest of the party at my place.

Saturday

• Well, i dragged my ass to work around noon-time and stayed until about 5. I then watched a few Angels (I am a pretty huge fan - and yes he is pretty hot).
• I then waited for Nico to get home from breakfast with his mom, played the i-toy a bit, watched T.V. and movies until the wee hours of the morning and went to bed! Yeahoooo!

Sunday

• Woke up around noon-time, had breakfast with Nico's Mom (we do this little ritual every weekend - he is the cutest momma's boy on the planet!)
• Played video games
• Watched a new T.V. show called Arrested Development. At least for us it is new, it could be years old in the U.S. and I wouldn't know.
• Went and saw Guerre des Mondes which I believe is War of the Worlds in English. I was a little scared but it was cool.

Okay, so there is the low-down of the weekend. So you ask, what is planned this week? Well, basically there are a few notable events.

1. I am getting pseudo-married on Wednesday.
2. Bastille Day is Thursday
3. Friday is a holiday because of Thursday
4. ...and yeah weekend.

Perhaps I should explain #1? Well there is something in France called a PACS. There are tons of websites, but very few have any information in English. Basically the PACS was made for the gay couples that could not legally get married - so they could get PACs'd. It is a contract that you sign that attests to your common life together, etc... Well, Nick and I are doing that on Wednesday. I have to admit, it helps relieve some of the paper issues as it puts me under a new status with the French government - private and family life instead of just student. It helps me to get full working papers, residence card, etc... It does get pretty badly abused by those who wish to stay in France so theoretically, they CAN refuse to do it, but I really can't imagine that happening. So it's not really a marriage or an engagement, its a...well its a contract ;) Maybe we will have a little dinner celebration or something. We will see... The fact is that I love Nick and I would do just about anything to stay here with him...VOILA!

Other than that, we are beginning to plan our vacations in La Baule. As my man is French, it is completely natural to spend a month lazing around a beach day in and day out. When we aren't doing that, we eat eat eat, sleep, play video games, watch T.V., play badminton, then at night, we eat a HUGE dinner, we talk, then we take a huge walk on the Cote Sauvage and "smoke" while watching the stars and usually to finish it off, we play games (scrabble, Uno, etc...).

Now this sounds absolutely amazing, but you take any born and bred American and put them in this situation, after 3 days, they have run out of things to read and do and are starting to wonder what the hell they are doing there. Vacation is almost an art in Europe. You have to LEARN to vacation properly and let me tell ya, it AIN'T easy! Last year on the 3rd day, I burst into tears and wanted to go home. No one talks on the beach! They tan, they read, the listen to their ipod, they eat paninis but everyone is in their own world. This isn't a problem except when the world you are in just simply ISN'T your own at all!!! I adapted. I was actually going back and forth from Paris to keep my sanity. I just couldn't lounge around that much! I know,"Poor Jen, rough life sitting on the beaches of the west of France for a month, how can she tolerate it?" Well, TRY IT ONCE!! It ain't easy!

Alright, I am longwinded, so I guess I will go about my work now. I wish all 1 of my readers (Nora) and fantastic day, and I'm going to go do some reservations, WOOOHOOO!!!

Jen