its a full moon....

so today, one of my high school gal pals announced that she was now officially engaged....and honestly, i couldnt be happier for her and though, i have yet to meet her husband-to-be, i know he's wonderful and that they will make each other very happy. however, this engagement is literally the 5th engagement announcement i have heard in the last 3 weeks or so and i'm starting to wonder if there is a full moon out there...a full moon that has lasted over 3 weeks...yes i know full moons are an old wives' tale usually reserved for predicting a date of a baby's birth...but seriously, but i like my theory. and it doesnt hurt that my cousin actually did give birth last week to her second child....(beautiful baby boy...named Brandon!!)...

and man i was starting to get all sad that i didnt attend any weddings this year...i have three marked for next summer already! though, if i was still living in NJ, i probably would have gotten to attend more weddings if i really wanted to...my parents went to a ton this year. thats because Taiwanese weddings are crazy and tradition calls for the parents of the bride or groom to invite all of their own friends and their families (which often means that there are a lot of people at these weddings that the bride and groom dont even know). so that means, my parents go to a ridiculous number of weddings of their friends' children...crazy, huh? i cant even imagine how my own wedding would be like..and since its impossible to fit everyone in one reception hall...there are usually 2 or 3 wedding receptions to follow in order to cover everyone and be respectful. the boy cannot wait...and he hates being the center of attention. i wont even go into what he wants for a wedding..

anyway, i'm off for the week..spending the week in Nantes with the boy's family. lots of relaxing...eating...and studying for the GMATs! though apparently the resort we are staying at has a spa and a casino...i cant tell if its going to be like a cruise ship resort or not...

why i'll never be 100% french...part II

i just spent 65 euros on 6 bandes dessinees...and in american, that means i spent nearly $100 on 6 comic books/adult picture books. they had better be good....and at least they're hardcover books (one of them is like practically 150 pages long...like a real book)....and not flimsy paperbacks (like marvel comics)..and can be re-sold later on ebay if needed. and this time i went to fnac (a big borders-like bookstore) and luckily they have more sales assistants than auchan, but i still had to ask someone where to find the ones i needed....again, its all categorized in a system i dont understand. i went to the non-fiction history section to find another book...again, completely lost and when i finally found the book i was looking for, there was only one copy left...and of course it was in poor condition (the cover was ripped) and they wouldn't sell it to me for a reduced price....oh the irony!

this can so go under "why i dont shop for fun in france"...and its so true...good for my wallet, but then i go on binges when i'm back in the U.S.! though i have to give fnac credit...they have revamped their stores and tried to make it more inviting and cozy with couches and more sales assistants....like borders and barnes and noble....

One of my quirks.....oh the list is too long

i'm fascinated by our washer/dryer combo...yes i am, thank you very much! i never had a front-loading machine at my house when i was growing up, so every since we got our own washer/dryer a few months ago, i sometimes find myself staring into the little window...because now i get to see how the inside of a washing machine operates!
i'm strange...i know...and i have waayy too much time on my hands sometimes...

on another note, can someone explain to me why all european washing machine cycles take an hour or more?? well, most of them that is...our machine has flash! 30 minute cycle...but our old one, took at least an hour and a half. do french people really think that a washing machine needs an hour to wash a small load of clothes (no jumbo XL loads here)...

that and why are dryers still super rare? well, i know the answer to that question...electricity is super expensive and most houses and apartments aren't equipped with proper vents and pumps...so most of the dryers here sort of "cook" the clothes...but at least its a dryer right? europeans prefer to line-dry all of their laundry (yes, its very eco-friendly), and then iron everything...which means that all the towels that the boy's family has are as rough as a porcupine (but my dad claims that at such rough towels can serve as an exfoliator as well....gotta love that!)...

but i've seen so many french families and couples hire housekeepers and cleaning ladies who spend most of their time ironing the laundry and linen....wouldn't all the money that these people spend on housekeepers who do all the ironing, be better spent on a dryer? and seriously, who has all this time to iron these days?? the boy's mom spent her entire life ironing everything until the boy and his brother bought her a dryer this year for christmas....needless to say, it changed her life and she loves having soft towels now... again, its one of those a-ha moments that i love categorizing under "french people entering the 21st century"..

why i'll never be 100% french

i went out today to the mall near my apartment to start my christmas shopping. well, actually just to finish it as we had bought all of our presents for family and friends during our last trip the U.S. and all i had left to do was the boy. so this year, we decided to keep things simple as we had moved to a bigger apartment this year (and consequently had to buy all of the furniture and appliances) and did a big trip to the U.S. in October....so the boy made a small list of some things he wanted: DVDs, books, computer games, and the ultimate Frenchy reading material...les bandes desinees...or the literal translation is : comic books. now we're not talking about the comic books we think such as marvel comics..but more so like japanese manga.

now i love French comics...especially Asterix and Tintin (which are supposed to be for kids, but have lots of inside jokes and stories for adults too), but the French definitely take their bandes desinees to another level where the adults follow very serious crime or sitcom-type story series and there are whole sections in bookstores dedicated to the bandes desinees and some of the earlier editions of longer series can fetch a pretty nice price (considering they are only about 8-10 euros each to begin with)...something i will never get and apparently, you had to be born French or had a French parent growing up in order to get it or even be into it...

so anyway..i went into auchan (a big super walmart type store) today to try to find a few of the bandes desinees that were on my honey's list...and needless to say, it was one of the few times in my life that i felt that i was completely 100% lost and on another planet....everything was categorized in a system that i, of course, didn't understand and of course, i felt like a complete idiot asking any salesperson (and lack thereof) for any help as i was sure that the series i was looking for are totally popular and common (sort of asking someone in a store where the bestsellers are located)...i spent about a half an hour reading all the price tickets on the shelves before i gave up....i think the boy will be getting underwear this year....blahhh

Its official!

I am a now an official full-fledged member of the AAWE (Association of American Wives of Europeans). never thought that i would be part of a wives' club...but legally, i am considered a spouse of a Frenchman....we even had our annual Christmas bazaar last week and i baked cupcakes! tell me that i am so 27 going on 45....

why my honey deserves to win a Nobel Prize

1) he didn't get all angry and huffy when i broke his expensive external hard-drive that had all of his music, our photos, and all of the movies and tv shows that he downloads for me (luckily his music and our photos were backed-up on DVDs) and all of his historical documentaries that he likes

2) he actually downloads all of my favorite tv shows that i miss while we are in France (especially since all of the websites to NBC and ABC are blocked)

3) unlike other guys, i can peel him away from a football match (and real football, not American football) if i really need his attention. this is especially impressive since he can't even peel me away from a dubbed episode of Friends

4) when i am working, he does a lot of the grocery shopping since he works different shifts each week and he knows how much i hate going to the supermarket on saturdays (everything is closed on sundays which means the stores are super crowded on saturdays)

5) he takes care of all american guests who stay with us...including driving them around (without the directions that i forgot to print out) far away to see famous chateaus

6) he comes with me to the doctor's office since he knows i have problems communicating what is actually wrong with me (this is so true even though i speak French pretty fluently...its start hard to describe certain ailments)

7) he actually eats everything i cook for him...which is bad because i can never tell if something i made could be tweaked. but basically he eats practically everything that is put in front of him (within reason...he is French after all!) and is not picky at all (totally unlike me) and i know thats gonna fly real well with my family

8) he reads my mind pretty well...i dont know if thats cause we've been living together for so long or b/c he's just sensitive and knows me too well

9) strangely enough, he is a lot neater than i am and tries his best to ignore the fact that my crap is everywhere...and it is everywhere, my cousins and i have confirmed that its a genetic disorder...that and having the sudden urge to clean at 1am in the morning..

10) he's a self-taught computer geek and reads non-fiction history for fun...both of which make him a super interesting guy and has totally expanded my horizons.

The art of gift-giving

i dont know about you, but for me (and maybe its cause i was raised asian...with very highly japanese-influenced parents), but i love giving presents. its an art...it really is. its much more of a joy for me to go out and pick out the perfect present for someone and wrap it all up in pretty paper with a big ribbon on it and present it to them than it is to really receive presents for myself.

that being said...i miss gift wrapping here...most shops in France will gift wrap your purchase for free....which is nice and they do a pretty good job of making it look pretty nice (sephora does a phenomenal job). and plus it avoids any male attempts at wrapping a present....but i myself loooove to wrap presents and my sister loves it too. it was one of our favorite things to do when we were little....every time my mom would announce that she needed to wrap either bottle of wine or box of chocolates for so-and-so, we would clamor over who got to wrap it. and i remember our mom teaching us how to perfectly wrap a present and how to cut and fold the paper just so....it brought such wonderful childhood memories for us. and we loved it so much that being a professional gift-wrapper is one of my sister's alternate career choices in case med school doesnt work out (though she is in the middle of her fourth year of med school, so i guess we wont be seeing her in her dream job after all!).

anyway, since gift-wrapping is free here, you dont see many people going out to buy multi-packs of wrapping paper rolls and yards and yards of ribbon. its just not the culture and as a result, you can tell where the giver got the present when you receive it (usually the name of the store is stamped all over the paper) and for me, you just dont see the love that the person put into making the package look pretty. i remember giving sweaters and shirts to both the boy and his brother last christmas and i put all of it in nice shirt boxes (again, they dont give out shirt boxes here....even for a present..unless its a really really fancy shmancy store) with cute christmasy tissue paper before wrapping it all up. and the wrapping and the tissue paper surprised them more than the presents themselves....its just not the culture...even the boy's mom herself doesnt see the point in buying nice wrapping paper for the holidays...she prefers to use the free paper they give out from the supermarket (and yes, i've received presents the said free supermarket gift wrap). yes, its free and yes, buying wrapping paper isnt very ecological...but its the holidays!!!!