This time of year in Paris is when Parisians decidedly make an excuse to meet the neighbors. It’s called the Fête de Voisins, and it’s the equivalent to a block party in the States, only instead of closing down neighborhood streets, folks take it to the common area of their buildings (although I learned that when the weather is particularly great, buildings on small streets will put up barricades and have a combined Fête de Voisins). I’d been looking forward to this for over a week now. We had to sign up for what we planned to bring, and after waiting to see what others had put on the list, I decided to bring a pasta dish, hummus with warm pita, and a liter of Coke.

Even though I’d been the one to convince Gui to go to the Fête in the first place, I was a little nervous about the whole thing once the day arrived. All those questions start rolling through my mind...will they hate the fact that I’m American?...will they be offended that I can’t properly speak French, yet I’m living in their country?...will anyone speak English to me?...will they like my pasta or think its weird?

The poster said everything would begin at 8pm, so right at 8, I hollered at Gui to help me take everything down. I knew we’d be one of the first to arrive, and we were, with the exception of one tenant and the host of the party (who we later came to know as the “president” of our building, even though he didn’t live there). We chatted for a bit – Gui let them know I didn’t speak French very well, and the first female we met, who happened to be young and very Austin-y I thought, spoke perfect English to me the entire night.

It all turned out pretty well, but there were some noticeable differences in how things are done around these parts compared to what I’m used to. No one served themselves from someone else’s dish until the person who brought the dish started serving it. So, that meant that no one touched my pasta until I finally got up, served myself and Gui some and asked if anyone would like some pasta. Same for the hummus. It was pretty bizarre, and it kind of bothered me that I had to ask if anyone was interested in eating the food I’d prepared – talk about being put on the spot.

We met the lady who lives next door to us, and found out she’s been living in her place for the past 50 years - we learned a lot about our building from her. Apparently, before she lived there, during the war, a bomb blew out the fourth floor of the building and when the got around to rebuilding it, they added another (5^th) floor – which is the floor we live on now. It’s pretty neato, actually. The rest of the folks who live on other floors are a great mix of young and middle-aged peeps, all who were incredibly nice and completely welcoming to us newcomers. There’s only one proper family that lives in our building, and I’m not complaining about that. The two kids, though, were rather well-behaved and their parents seemed to have them in check, which is always a good thing.

I was definitely nervous for no reason, since everyone seemed to be interested in my story – how I got here, how I’m adjusting, what I’ll be doing. It was comforting to have my worries laid to rest, and to now know a few familiar faces around my new ‘hood.

So, we're on the right path to being organized and settled in our new apartment. We're still missing some of the essentials, like curtains, rugs, lamps and space for our dishes, but we've got the really big stuff out of the way. Gui and I had fun constructing our bed, which we're both really happy with (you've done it again, Ikea). We had it built and ready for use just in time to stay in our new place from Sunday night. On Monday, while Gui was at work, I managed to finish constructing the rest of our Ikea buys - our table and four chairs (nearly rubbed the skin off of my thumb doing that) and the dessert cart that we're using in our kitchen. It's been fun putting it all together, but I'm really anxious to finish it up now. Hopefully, after one more shopping trip, the place will be in good enough shape to share pics with everyone before we go on vacation.

By the way, the only thing that I keep thinking about is what and where I'm going to eat while I'm in Texas...I think I'm a little homesick.

This was my first birthday spent in Paris, and although I didn’t set my expectations high, it was a total bomb. We planned to be moving into our new place all weekend. We I had a schedule planned out and we figured we’d be finished with all the big stuff well before the camionette (rental truck) was due back at 6pm.

Our first task was to pick up the sofa-bed from some peeps in north Paris who were selling it on Craigslist. Man, it’s a big sofa. It was a great deal for the kind of sofa it was, but after seeing the guys take it from the 3^rd-floor apartment to put in the truck, I was having second thoughts about how it was going to get into our 6^th-floor apartment. We have an elevator, but if you’ve ever seen an elevator in Paris, it’s not usually big enough to fit more than three people (or two Americans…hehe). Well, my thoughts were right on because it was the biggest b!*ch trying to get the stupid thing up the winding steps of our building. Talk about a nightmare. After nearly an hour of heaving-and-hoeing, we finally made it to our apartment. Now, you’d think it’d be easy-peasey at this point, but no way. Our apartment is positioned in such a way that it’s nearly impossible to fit the couch in easily without first calculating the Pythagorean Theorem and angular degrees of how to property position the thing to fit through our living room door.

When we finally managed to get the couch into the right spot, it was off to the next task of sifting through the aisles of Ikea – the nearest one being outside of Paris. At this point, it’s a little after noon and we’re pretty hungry and tired, but we trek on, knowing that we have lots to get done at Ikea, including picking up our bed, our table and chairs, and nearly everything else for the kitchen. After spending about two hours scouring the place for everything on our list, we made it to the checkout counter with two full baskets. Thinking everything is all hunky-dory, we swipe our bank card, punch in the code and get declined. We try again. Declined. And again – but for half the amount. Declined. What. The. Hell? Gui left the checkbook at home, and neither one of us is sure if we have enough on our American accounts to pay for everything in dollars (knowing that charging it in dollars would be really stupid). Gui makes a call to the bank who tell him that there shouldn’t be a problem, so to try again. But, it’s Saturday, and only stupid people work for the bank on Saturday because what he fails to tell us is that we’ve spent more than our limit for the month and there’s no way they can do anything about upping our limit for this month until Monday. So, we think we’ll try to get the money from an ATM – it worked earlier in the day when we paid for the sofa, so it must work now. Only this time, the nearest (and only, apparently) ATM in this poor excuse for a city is about a kilometer away in city center. No, there is not one single ATM in this massive “American-style” shopping center or anywhere near it. So, off we go uphill, downhill, through the town. About 20 minutes later, we’re at the ATM and what do you know, we get declined! I’m totally done at this point, and we decide to forget it at this point.

Because the truck rental was just for one day, we had to return it that day, and we ended up getting our stuff the next day using two small cars. It somehow all fit, but we still aren’t sure how. After the chaos at Ikea, I was so burnt out from the day and wanted nothing but food and sleep. Gui, being the good husband that he is, stopped at the Italian food shop in town and cooked me a wonderful pasta al’arrabiata for my birthday dinner which I thoroughly enjoyed with the nice Lambrusco he’d also picked out. The day was horrendous, and it’s certainly the worst way I could have spent my first birthday in Paris (which fell on a Saturday this year!!). But, I’ll never forget it and I’m at least grateful for the happy ending.

I know I'm not a typical Parisian, but do I stand out like a sore thumb? I'm sitting in the park by our place, in one of Paris' "Paris WiFi" (pronounced "pa-ree wee-fee") spots, as advertised on the front of the park's gate, while mothers play with their kids on the playground, old folks take a rest, guys play ping-pong and pigeons search for some grub. Normally, just sitting in the park wouldn't merit blatant stares of curiosity, but I've got this big, dinosaur-like laptop with me that I'm typing away on while sitting on this park bench. They're probably wondering what I'm doing in a park, outside, on my laptop. Those things just don't go together, I suspect, in their eyes. I wish I could ask them if I look strange, but I don't think I need to. I'm totally an outcast.

It could just be me, being paranoid like usual, but I'm not so sure this time. Even when I'm just walking to the grocery store to do some shopping or sitting on the metro alone, I feel like an outcast. It's like maybe they know I'm different, that I can't really hold a conversation with them the way I'd like to. Or, maybe it's not appropriate to give a small smile when I pass someone on the street or not turn my head when some dude yells, excusez-moi, mademoiselle in what sounds like a catcalling voice. I know I know I'm weird, but do they know, too? Back home I can get away with being weird and not letting anyone know...here, I think it'll take time for me to figure out a way to mask my weirdness. For now, I'll just carry on as the paranoid non-Parisian and go about my business looking for a place to fit in.

That's right, Gui and I are taking a train to Austin. No, it's not the Polar Express, but we booked tickets on the Amtrak Texas Eagle to get to Austin after spending a weekend in San Antonio. It's a real, live, breathing passenger train that serves the central Texas area! We thought we'd save ourselves the hassle of renting a car one-way and spare our friends or family a boring drive from Austin to pick us up, as well as be conscious of our ecological footprint by sticking to public transportation. Plus, it's so much nicer to have someone else in charge of the driving.

When Gui first asked me if we could take a train to Austin from San Antonio, my cynical American response was, "yeah right." But, lo and behold, there actually is a train in Texas that transports more than cattle and horses! With the rising cost of gas (I heard it's something like $3.78/gallon on average today), it's worth taking a look to see if Amtrak serves the places you're traveling to around the States - our tickets were only 15 bucks a piece (less than gas would have been). The only downside to our ride is that we'll have to leave super early in the morning (luckily, the best tacos in San Antonio are available 24-hours, so we'll be stopping by at 5 a.m to scoop some up), and there's only one departure per day. Maybe with all the demand for public transport in the States, they'll finally put into place the so-called Texas T-Bone Corridor that would connect some Texas cities by rail and make taking the train more convenient for travelers. Or, maybe I've just become a silly, optimistic European already.

So, I've started a list. A list of things I must bring back from Texas. They mostly consist of sauce or other bottled and jarred goods that I can't easily (or cheaply) get here and that I'm already starting to miss or know it's only a matter of time. Besides the few bottles of yellow mustard (a la French's), peanut butter (especially with honey) and BBQ sauce, Guillaume and I are hoping to pick up a few household items we can't find here (or can't find cheaply). Most important, and perhaps most interesting on that list is the Roomba, which is sold in France, but for the not-so-bargain price of 300Euros (that's like $450!!). I've seen them as cheap as $200 at Target, and I hear Costco has 'em even cheaper. We'll have to find a plug converter, but I think it'll be worth saving a couple hundred bucks to get it in the States. I think every single friend we have owns a Roomba or two, so we know it's tried and tested. I just hope we don't get stopped at customs!

This weekend has been a crazy one. We managed to get a lot done, but at the cost of sleeping in late. Saturday was Ikea day, and after a bbq lunch with the family, we headed out to Thiais for what we hoped would be a new kitchen set-up, a bed and a couch. Ikea is insane. Much more so here than back in Texas. Everyone who works there is too busy to help you, and when you finally flag someone down to ask for help, they explain that the color you want is actually $300 more than than the beige one and whatever's on display or pictured in the catalog is actually not what you get, but instead some smaller version. I was super frustrated by the time we left and felt like we hadn't accomplished anything we had set out to, only returning with a bag of delicious Swedish cookies (which somehow eased my frustration a bit). That evening, we made a list of what we needed to get, from where and what our budget would be for everything.

Sunday was a much more productive day, and we managed to come away with a washing machine (we actually found it on Craigslist for a really awesome price), a stove and oven, and a refrigerator. We checked out a few couches, too, but didn't have much luck with finding one we liked, so we'll have to wait for next weekend to get that. The coolest part about our purchases is that the two biggest things (the stove and fridge) are going to be delivered to our 5th-floor apartment and installed by the delivery peeps. Score!

The best part of Sunday was hanging out in Montparnasse with Bertrand and Benjamin. We had a really great lunch on a tree-shaded terrace that lasted a few hours into the afternoon. The weather was ridiculously perfect, and we had a really lovely time catching up on each other's lives. It's pretty crazy that soon we'll all be back in France at the same time, talking about the visits we make to our counterparts in Austin. We should all have some sort of an agreement to visit each other once a year - trading off who visits who each year. Gui and I will start off with visiting Texas this year so next year it's up to you Texas folk to cross the pond (well, actually we have a plan to visit next year, too so maybe we'll start in 2010).

There are still a few things on our list of things to do before we officially move in on Thursday (it's strange that we have the keys to the place, but don't officially take over until the 15th), but we're hoping to have most everything taken care of by the weekend. This weekend is actually my birthday, but we'll be spending it doing what I hate doing the most - moving. It'll be a nice gift, though, to be able to sleep in our new place and start turning it into a home. I'll take some pics and upload them this week!

I've added more pictures from the wedding to the google album I started. Check out the second half of the album if you've already viewed the first half.