Time Flies

It's been a busy couple of weeks, and I have to apologize for not posting recently. Our lives have gotten back into our regular routine, which I have to admit I quite enjoy. Work, gym, eat, tends to be the daily plan, although we do mix it up occasionally with the odd evening out.

Last weekend we went for drinks with Alex and Anja at the Quebec bar, l'Envol, that we had tried to visit while Steve was here. Erik and I enjoyed their hamburgers for dinner, and Erik was so hungry that he ordered the bucheron (lumberjack) sized burger, which was a whole 250g (cooked, we thought) of premium ground beef. Just the kind of sustenance that you need to fuel a good game of Scrabble en francais, and a rousing game of pick up sticks before running out to catch the last metro.

On Saturday, Alex and I hit the soldes. They started last Wednesday, so there was quite a large selection of goods still on hand. I picked up two new sweaters, a pair of shorts (tres francais) and a cute dress. We rounded out the day with hot chocolate, and a trip to the books department at the FNAC to pick up some French reading material (which of course I haven't cracked yet because I'm still working on French or Foe, then I have two weeks of Economists' to catch up on).

Erik and I both feel like our French is plateau-ing, and we really need to start making more of an effort to speak French regularly. I've almost completely stopped speaking French at the nursery school, which is good for the kids, but bad for my French. Erik at least has the benefit of the French post-docs in his lab to keep him up to speed on French slang. Perhaps more French movies are in order? We're also getting to the stage where we find ourselves speaking French English. There are lots of words that the French use, that don't really translate exactly to English, but tend to get used anyway by non-native speakers. Or sometimes there are just words that we think are funny. Like 'charging' the bar at the gym (to put weights on a bar). I guess the most common irritatingly overused word is to 'propose'. The French love to use this word in French, and although its English translation has the same meaning, it's not really used ever in the sense that it is used in French. We've now gotten into the habit of 'proposing' to go somewhere, instead of making a 'suggestion'.

This weekend took us back to the 11th arrondissement, to two favorite bars that we've been to before. One is a Martinique rum bar, Le Carbet, that serves delicious drinks, my favorite being the cilantro mojito. The other bar is one that we call the 'scary bathroom' bar, because, well, it has a scary bathroom. The bar is kind of like the owner's living room. A couple of tables squeezed into a tiny room. So tiny, that there isn't actually a bathroom in the place. You have to ask for the key, which used to include a flashlight, because the light used to be broken (we were impressed to discover that it has since been fixed). The bathroom is in the garbage room of the building next door, and the owner accompanies you to enter the door code. Now that I've written this all out, I'm not sure exactly why we find this so funny, but the drinks are cheap, and the atmosphere is warm and friendly. It will be weird to go back to North America where all public bathrooms are clean, have multiple stalls and sinks. What a novelty!

The only downside to trekking out to the 11th on a Friday night, is that if you miss the last metro around 12:30, you know the evening is only going to go downhill. It is almost impossible to get a cab in this city, taxi stands usually have queues at least 10 deep of people looking for a ride. We ended up walking for about 45 minutes all the way to Chatelet to catch the night bus. Luckily it isn't really cold right now, and Paris is so beautiful especially at night, that it's never too painful.

And today we are headed to Chinatown to check out their markets and enjoy a Vietnamese lunch with Alex. Paris has been enjoying some unseasonably warm temperatures lately, and apparently the mercury will drop 15 degrees in the next couple of days. Which I guess doesn't mean too much to all you Canadians since that will only take us to a chilly 0 degrees. I keep wondering why I'm so hot all the time, and it's because I'm dressing for the cold that hasn't arrived yet. And I love it. I'm encouraging Erik to apply for jobs in cities that have warm winters. We both admit that it's hard to remember exactly how cold the cold feels when it's 30 below, and to be honest, I'm not too keen to be reminded. Unfortunately for us, limiting his search to cities that don't get cold in Canada pretty much eliminates the entire country, short of the west coast. So, we're keeping our options (and our minds) open, and hopefully something will come up. I have to say that this city is growing on us though, and we wouldn't be disappointed at all to have to stay another year or two....