St. Patrick’s Day Re-cap

Who knew there were so many Irish in Toulouse. We arrived at The Killarney Bar right around 9:00 pm as instructed by Maggie. We drove past it once, down the one way/one lane road and then circled for parking. By the time we parked and walked back to the bar, we arrived to find a crowd of about 15 or 20 people standing outside on the sidewalk. The bar was packed; luckily there was a window where you could get your pints without having to go inside.

We purchased our 40cl ‘pints’ and settled in against a car that was parked right in front of the bar. I worried at first that we shouldn’t lean on someone’s car but as the night wore on and others leaned on, climbed over, stacked drinks and empties (and peed on) this car, I relaxed a bit. I began to think that maybe if you park in front of an Irish pub on St. Patrick’s Day you’re just asking for trouble.

Mags came out, between serving drinks, to become the social director for the evening. She first introduced us to Claire and her husband José. I’d met Claire before at an ImpaQt lunch. She is great and I can understand her French perfectly. José speaks English though and so we were able to converse easily with him. He works in marketing for an aeronautics company. They have traveled to the US several times and they really like the Miami area.

People just kept on coming the whole time and before long, the road in front of the bar was jam- packed with people. There was lots of English being spoken around us; British, Irish, South African and American accents. When a car came down the street, it had quite the time, as first it had to get the attention of the ‘street people’ and then everyone had to squish up against the walls and cars and each other to make room for said car.

Around 10:00, pretty early in the festivities, Mags, who was helping out in the bar, came out and announced loudly “We’re out of glasses lads” so everyone banded together to scrounge for all the empties so they could be washed and redistributed. Actually we were all hoping they’d be washed before being redistributed, but what the heck after a couple of beers who cares.

One oddity for the evening was that there seemed to be something intriguing down the street; I observed many men going down in small groups or alone. They seemed to be quite interested in the corner of two buildings and seemed to be closely examining the brick work there; I mean really closely examining the brick work. It was hard to see from where I was what they were looking at because it was a pretty shadowy corner but there also seemed to be quite a bit of water draining from that corner into the street. Hmm.

There was an Irish sounding band playing inside the pub, not that I ever actually saw them. We could hear it quite well at first but after some time their music was drowned out. The funniest thing was watching the door to the pub. 3 people would come out and 5 people would go in, 5 people would go out 9 people would go in. At that rate don’t you reach a point of maximum saturation pretty quickly? Could there possibly be any breathing room in there? It was a bit chilly outside but all you had to do was stand near the door to the bar, that was being propped open by a barstool, to benefit from the waves of heat pouring out of there. Maggie didn’t seem to have a problem coming and going from inside though; she kept the group outside well supplied with beer and sandwiches. S tried to reach the interior bar at one point but had to turn back after only a few meters. Too many sweaty bodies (or was that beer soaked) and too little oxygen. It was truly impressive watching Mags negotiate that bar with a tray full of drinks; with those skills she doesn’t need a day job.

We were then introduced to some ImpaQt ‘graduates’ Sylvie and her husband Wilfried. Sylvie works for Pierre Farbe (?) which is a large company in Toulouse that does, I don’t know what, but I’ve met a lot of people who work there through ImpaQt. I don’t think I caught were Wilfried worked; only that he had had the presence of mind to take Thursday morning off. Smart man.

We also met Marie, who along with her husband Roger, own The Killarney Bar. She also spoke perfect English and was telling us about how cheap it really is to fly to Dublin. It’s one of those must do type of things for this adventure, S being Irish and all. We were informed Aer Lingus now has 4 direct flights a week from Toulouse to Dublin.

We also got to meet Mags other half, Vincent. He’s a tall, broad shouldered gent that would be right at home on a rugby field, oh wait, he is right at home on a rugby field. Quite good looking too in that big, manly, rugged sort of way (if you like that sort of thing I mean ;) )

It was suggested by Sylvie, just before we left, to try and make Maggie have a dinner party or something for all of us. So we could have a bit more conversation time in a more conversation conducive environment.

We knew it was time to leave when a very drunk, very young Irish lad stood on the barstool that was propping the door open, sloshing stout on everyone within 3 feet of said stool from the two glasses he was holding, and shouted with deepest and most heart felt conviction “I fucking love you!” It would have been very sweet if he had been aiming the comment at a girlfriend or something but he seemed to be adressing no one and everyone and got the rowdiest response from a group of guys across the street. It was 11:00 pm and the night was young, I hope he found a girl to go home with.

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I post below the two best pictures of the evening. Rule number one of celebratory picture taking is – Don’t ask drunken strangers to take pictures of the group for you. Hence out of the 7 pictures taken only these two are good.

Friends of Mags, José and Claire and a happy Sean

Claire, Mags and Missy

Is It Just Me?

Stop me if I've said this before, I’m having a weird 'de ja’blog' feeling.

I'm not a terribly spontaneous person, you know us control freaks can't afford to be. We plan and make lists and organize the shit out of everything before jumping into our perfectly created spontaneity. It's how we work.

This afternoon though, I decided to just hop into the car and run over to the mall and see if I could find a map of Europe.

Sad and shameful as it is to admit this, I'm geographically challenged. I live in France so that one is easy to point to on a map. I also know where my closest neighbor is, Spain is south. Then Britain's that island thing over there, Ireland is the other island thing over there, Italy is shaped like a boot, Portugal is attached to Spain and Greece is all those little islands. Honestly though, could not pick Germany, Holland, Sweden or Switzerland out of a line up if they were wearing name tags. Facing this inadequacy head on as we anal types are apt to do, I thought I’d buy one of those big wall maps of the world and one of Europe and put them up on my office wall and brush up on my geography a little bit each day. Heaven forbid I should wind up in Algeria and not know where I am on the globe. Or worse when S travels, I know where he is, but not where he actually IS.

So anyway, hop into the car, and get about 4 or 5 miles, oops sorry, kilometers down the road and suddenly realize that I left my cell phone plugged in at home. And furthermore I left my pocket PC in its cradle too. IF something should happen I have no phone nor do I know S’s cell phone number or anyone else’s for that matter to call for assistance or just amusement. All of my info is in that damned palm top PC. I was electronically NAKED! I cannot tell you how close I came to just pulling a U-turn at the next circle and heading home. It was damned near a panic attack because I was unplugged!

Well, I mean I got a hold of myself and went on to the mall, but for a moment there it was pretty touch and go. Then when I thought about it, feeling a little ashamed, I realized that though all of this electronic gadgetry is relatively new, I don’t honestly recall what I did before I had all of my friends and family with me at the touch of a button. I don’t remember how it felt not to have a cell phone safety net, or to have to actually REMEMBER pertinent information.

I’m cured of spontaneity. I’ll never do that again, it’s too dangerous!

We don’t have to wait for ‘skynet’ to become self aware and kill us all (Terminator) we’re already screwed by the machines.

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I know that you are all waiting to hear about the St. Patrick’s Day party and I promise to post that tomorrow. I have a couple of pictures to share but they’re on S’s camera and it’s with him at work today. Suffice it to say that we had a BLAST!

Apologies

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Alright then, I know, I know, St. Patrick’s Day is not about the beer. Ok, I apologize for that. Here is what I was able to unearth about the much maligned and misunderstood St. Patrick. The History Channel has a bit of info about the man behind the myth. It appears that through some convoluted happenings St. Patrick came to Ireland around 430 AD as the second bishop to Ireland. Of course there weren’t really many Christians in Ireland at the time, but he saw to that straight away. He spent 30 years converting people and adapting the Catholic religion so that it would be more user friendly to the Celts who had a nature based religion. He used the shamrock as a way of explaining the trinity and celebrated Easter with bonfires, he is also credited with the Celtic cross, adding the sun symbol to it since the Celts worshipped the sun. Among other things he is credited with raising the dead and the ever famous sermon on a hilltop that drove the snakes from Ireland. There you have it folks, almost everything you ever wanted to know about St. Patrick.

For your further amusement I include a link to the schedule of festival events occurring in Dublin from March 11th thru 17th. The link is to a PDF file so be patient it takes a little while to download and you have to have Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Alright since I’m in apology mode here is a good one from the past. On September 19th I gave you all a link to La Poste and challenged anyone who cared to, to figure out the site. I recently had need to mail something ‘return receipt requested’ and being the anal control freak that I am, I was not going down to the post office without knowing exactly what I needed to say. So I went to the web site and READ it, and you won’t believe what I found, buried deep in the website there is actually a French/English dictionary of terms. I know I was blown away. So here it is my formal apology for disparaging the site without truly checking it out. Oh, you want the link to the dictionary? Now, what kind of friend would I be if I just handed you the answers?

Sally: I'm a journalist. I work at the News. Harry: Great. And you're with Joe. That's great -- You guys have been together - what? - three weeks? Sally: A month. How do you know? Harry: You take someone to the airport, it's clearly the beginning of the relationship. That's why I have never taken anyone to the airport at the beginning of a relationship. Sally: Why? Harry: Because eventually things move on and you don't take someone to the airport, and I never wanted anyone to be able to say to me, 'how come you never take me to the airport anymore?'

So, yeah, S does a lot of international travel. And when he has flown to Hungary or Turkey or Romania or South Africa or even locally to Lyon, I've always driven him to the airport. It's no big deal I’m not really doing anything and it saves him about 20 minutes on each end of his trip and also it saves him parking fees. On Tuesday, however, when S was flying to Lyon just for the day, I begged off and didn’t drive him.

Well, the thing about S’s flights is that they always seem to leave at 6:45 in the morning, which means he has to be there by 5:45, which means we have to leave the house by 5:30, which means that I have to be up at 5:00. So yeah I’m lazy and I just figured that for one quick day I could opt out. I know what S was thinking though “After only 12+/- years the ‘beginning’ is over”. Sorry babe.

The Point of No Return

Ok, well the thing is that I think that Chris may have been channeling S today. I think I mentioned Chris before, from Impaqt? Yeah, let’s say that first impressions can be deceiving. See back on December 22nd I think I described Chris as appearing to be straight laced to the extreme (compared to Maggie). But getting to know Chris you find that this is just not true, don’t let those snazzy suits fool you. He looks all professional and serious, but in reality he is quite the cut up and he’s a fountain of great information.

Today, Chris was my coach for French and he had an assignment for me (this is where he was channeling S) ; my mission should I decide to accept it was to go to a ‘shop’ and return an item. The item was a ‘windscreen’ wiper for his car. We did the usual; prepare the vocab, role play etc. until I felt I was ready. I say he was channeling S because S hates to return anything. To the point that if the item didn’t cost that much he’ll keep it and go purchase the correct item. Otherwise the item and receipt get handed to Missy and she is required to return or exchange it. What is the big deal go in and return the damned thing, people do it every day. I’m sure, however, that this was not the case with Chris, he just needed to return something and thought it would be the perfect opportunity for me to do something a bit different that required different phrases than what I’d been using. Right.

Mag, has invited us to join her and some friends at an Irish pub on Wednesday night for St. Patrick’s Day. I’m sure that Darby O’Gill and The Little People won’t be playing but there’ll be plenty of beer…I wonder if it will be green beer?

Green beer reminds me of how I’ll miss the Chicago River in all its green splendor (wait isn’t it always green?) this year and I’ll miss that great parade. Will have to drink enough beer to make me forget.

Chris was trying to explain to Mag today that there is an evolutionary reason why there are no snakes or moles in Ireland. The theory is that Ireland broke of from the British Isle, and that when this happened the snakes and moles were on the wrong side of the break. Contrary to the belief that St. Patrick rid Ireland of all the snakes. Is that why the Irish celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? There’s history involved? Who knew, and I thought it was just an excuse to drink beer!

Vindication? Proof?

Business Week and others have cottoned on to what I’ve suspected for some time. GWB has a learning disorder. I think he has a personality disorder too, but that has yet to be ‘concretely’ proven. Spread the word folks we have only 235+/- days till we can rid ourselves of the mental midget.

I'm not opposed to all of GW’s policies per say (just almost all of them), what I object to is the way he is perceived abroad and how he weakens the way our country is perceived every time he opens his damn mouth. He's an embarrassment!

This is my opinion, I know, it's rather like buying a car by what it looks like and not what's under the hood. But is it too much to ask to have a president who is amazingly brilliant AND charismatic AND who doesn't stick his foot in his mouth every time he opens it. I'm not saying that Kerry is a dream come true, but I'm willing to gamble on him, rather than repeat the republican nightmare we are currently living with. I also live in fear of how much more economic damage the idiot can do if given four more years of free reign over this country's delicate finances. Sometimes I’m truly frightened by where the economy is headed.

There I’ve said my peace.

Wait one more thing; I’m not prejudiced against people with learning disabilities. But if that is truly the case then own up to it. At least we could admire how difficult it has been to achieve what he has achieved and be relieved that he’s not as stupid as he sounds.

Ok, now I’m done.

Books and Observations

So, picked S up at the airport at noonish on Friday. Poor guy, he’s exhausted so here we are at home on a Saturday, no Paris or Madrid for us. Did I mention that Madrid was the original plan for this weekend. Yikes. But S is swamped with work. Between time off for language and all the travel, the rest of the job is piling up. So, I’m sitting in bed blogging and watching Harry Potter on DVD and S is working. I’m not too terribly disappointed though. It’s the perfect day to sit in bed, watch movies, blog and have tea and biscuits.

(S read my blog about the Walkers shortbread and he picked some up for me at the airport in Amsterdam on his way home. Isn’t he grand!)

It is the perfect day for laziness, because after a few very warm and very sunny days, it is once again cold and raining. God you gotta love spring.

So after a breakfast of French toast and coffee in bed (S procrastinating) he is now fixing me some tea and biscuits. (S procrastinating) What more could a girl want. I could get used to this life.

All I’ve got for you today is more book reviews.

My brother recommended The Partly Cloudy Patriot By Sarah Vowell and I loved it. Mind you not a book for any of our Republican friends. There are some great family anecdotes about her parents and her twin sister. The twin part was hilarious. Sarah Vowell is actually a political/historical buff. The book contains a ‘letter’ to President Clinton with recommendations on the best contents for his presidential library and advise on how to handle the scandel. There is also a ‘letter’ to Al Gore telling him what the focus of his campaign should have been. The book was written just after GWB stole the election in 2000 and she and a group of friends find themselves at the inauguration. She also has a great love for President Lincoln and there are several great stories about his life and writings. The book is filled with great political commentary and humor I highly recommend it. Even better though is the Audio Book version because she performs it herself and she has a memorable voice.

Once again indulging my love for children’s books and feeling a void in that department after the three Artemis Fowl books, I read the Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy. The series starts with The Golden Compass which is absolutely fabulous, full of courage and good vs. evil conflicts and magic. The next two books however The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass did not, in my opinion, live up to the first book. By the end of the third book you’re left feeling cheated. There is enough going on the story to really cover 5 books and some of it is left unexplained and skeletal. Snippets of story, characters introduced but left un-built. I was a little disappointed with the last book especially. There appears to be too much action and not enough detail. I read all three books however so I could get to the final conclusion which also leaves you a bit flat but at least it is plausible and real.

Between that and French I’ve fallen behind on my Newsweek reading and will attempt to read three weeks worth this weekend. Not that I’m terribly behind on news since I do get to watch ABC nightly news (albeit a day behind) on the computer. I would prefer NBC news but they don’t offer the full nightly program on-line like ABC does. But I like to read the financial perspectives and in depth articles about the world and its leaders.

Meanwhile, here the almond tree blossoms are constantly blowing through the air creating a fragrant ‘snow’ storm. The cherry trees are heavier than ever with buds but seem to be waiting for the opportune moment to show off. Maybe they’re waiting for the almonds to be done with their grandstanding completely so that they can make a far more beautiful and undistracted display of their own. Whatever the case I am impatiently waiting for the cherry tree that is right in front of my bedroom window to get on with it already. The tree itself is large and beautiful in its winter austerity so I know that its spring time display will be breath taking. I’ll snap a photo as soon as it decides the time is right.

G

Right then, I suppose some of you would be demanding an apology for yesterdays post. I’d delete the entire thing but that would be untrue so it stays. Really, I’ll apologize for the profanity but not the sentiment, though even the profanity carries a certain truth of the situation. So ok then, where does that leave us? At not apologizing?

Fine, fine, apologies all around then, whatever.

I’m feeling the tiniest bit better today, and no I’m not drunk. But honestly my mates at Impaqt have said that it’s a familiar experience for many transplants to this inhospitable land. I even had one lovely French woman say that it’s the same for the non-transplants. Short of saying it’s a typical French experience, we’ll say it’s a common French experience. Dealing with bureaucratic nit wits that is.

I’m meant to be taking French at Impaqt but I’m having a smashing time learning ‘British’ also.

(Am considering taking up smoking just so I can say “Hey Maggie, can I bum a fag?”)

Oh and sorry, don’t want to leave Maggie out; I’m also acquiring a fair Irish accent. The trouble is that I’ve always picked up peoples accents quite readily and I find that by the end of the day with these ladies I’m talking much like them. I think it’s hilarious and fun and just hope that they don’t think I’m being cheeky.

Currently sitting here drinking some lovely hot English afternoon tea and dipping my shortbread biscuit into said tea until it’s just barely soft, just as Maggie told me to do. It’s a brilliant way to spend the early evening. The tea and biscuits were a ‘prezy’ from Maggie, who brought them back for me from her London weekend.

(I’ve not actually discovered exactly what Maggie did in London on her weekend [she says it was a vacation] but I’m sure it involved watching the Irish rugby team on tv in a pub and consuming no small amount of beer.)

But anyway, the biscuits are my absolute favorites, Walkers shortbread. Walkers shortbread that I would have called cookies, but which I’m assured by Maggie are in fact biscuits. Unfortunately I am currently struggling with trying to not eat every single one of them in one sitting. I’ll try to ration them a bit over the next few days. However, those of you who know me know that I don’t do ‘rationing’ very well and that I’ll likely eat them all within the next hour.

Well, I’m meant to be working on a listening activity and I should probably get on with it. Will have tea and shortbread for dinner while I listen. S sends greeting from Romania and apologizes for his lack of fresh posts, but between language lessons and the never ending work there isn’t enough time in the week. We are trying to get to Paris this weekend but much depends on how knackered he is after this trip.

Just wanted to put up a quick post to assure all that I am not drunk (very anyway), I’m not leaving France in a huff (yet anyway) and that I’m no quitter.

NC-17 - No Kidding - You were warned!

Seriously, do not read any further if you will be offended by swearing. This Blog is meant to be informative but it is also my own personal outlet. This post is considered a RANT and I strongly urge you to not read it if you'll be offended by swearing and to cover the children's eyes or ask them to leave the room while you read. So there it is the disclaimer. You've been warned.

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As of today I officially hate the fucking French. I hate their fucking bureaucratic hoops, I hate their fucking questioning faces, I hate pretty damned much everything about them.

I have had it up to here with their you-have-to-do-'A'-to-get-'B'-but-you-can't-get-'B'-until-you've-got-'A'-let's-screw-with-the-stupid-Americans CRAP. So much so that I'm ready to admit fucking defeat and pack my bags and go home. They have made me cry in frustration for the last time.

One more 'What-the-fuck-are-you-saying' stare, one more 'That's-not-what-you-need' comment, just one more 'I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about' rolling eyed look and I swear to friggin god I'm going to initiate the fucking assholes into something we 'stupid Americans' like calling GOING POSTAL!!

I spent an hour with Chris at Impaqt this morning preparing phrases for the Mairie. I need to send the translator a certified copy of my drivers license (since I don't want to send him the actual drivers license for fear of the fucking French post losing it.) He will work off of the copy to make the official translation which is just one small piece of what I need to fucking EXCHANGE my drivers license for the venerated-better-be-made-of-fucking-gold-for-all-the-trouble-it's-costing god damn French drivers license.

Chris says all you have to do is go to the Mairie with your license and ask for a 'copie conforme' and they'll copy it and stamp it with an official seal saying that it's an actual copy of the original.

Sounds easy enough, I go to the Mairie show her my IL drivers license ask for the 'copie conforme' and first get the 'What-the-fuck-are-you-saying' stare, I repeat my request and then get the 'I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about' rolling eyed look. I explain that I need the copy to send to the translator for my drivers license and the cow behind the counter gives me her best down-the-nose-disdainful look and says that they don't do that and she doesn't know anyone who does.

I'm not crazy here, several people have told me that A) This is what I need and B) The Mairie is the place to get it done.

I’m at my wits end, I quit, and there I’ve said it. I fucking give up. It’s not worth it. I don’t like these assholes near enough to make all this crap worth staying in their friggin country.

I’m going to have some wine now. Don’t call me for the next few days because S is leaving the country again tomorrow and I intend to stay drunk until Friday when I pick him back up.

Be Supportive

Trying to continue with the "Table experiment" so I'm posting some photos that J took on the trip to Bilbao. You all will just have to bear with me while I play with tables and what can be done with them. I figure it's your job as supportive readers.

Beach of San Sebastian, Spain	Entrance to Guggenheim
Inside Guggenheim looking up at Missy.	Looking up from front.
Looking up from the back deck.	Rich walking between the walls.

See, now that wasn't so terrible was it. It didn't hardly hurt at all did it?

What Gives?

Opened windows on Saturday morning to find the world was white. Yes, it had snowed over night. About an inch of snow that melted fast in the early morning sunlight. The weather is typically spring like I suppose. Completely unpredictable.

Three weeks ago:

Monday	59°/42°	Scattered Clouds
Tuesday	62°/44°	Scattered Clouds
Wednesday	62°/44°	Clear
Thursday	68°/51°	Clear
Friday	68°/50°	Scattered Clouds

This week:

Monday	41°/24°	Partly Cloudy
Tuesday	48°/28°	Partly Cloudy
Wednesday	51°/39°	Scattered Clouds
Thursday	48°/42°	Clear
Friday	53°/42°	Overcast