Category Archive: C’est comme ça: That’s Just How It Is in France

Team USA: Missing the Mother Country

I love the Olympics: the tradition, the fanfare, the camaraderie, the patriotism, the competition, and the spectacle of it all. I also love that for a couple of weeks, a good chunk of… Continue reading

Adventures in Expatting: Terror at the Franprix

Take a good look at this picture, my friends, because this is the face of torture. For the uninitiated, it’s just a stack of plastic bags at the end of the register at… Continue reading

Toplessness, Communal Toilets, and Neighbors: All Glamour Over Here in Paris

{scene: my Paris flat this morning at 3:43 am} Doorbell rings. I sit up in bed, confused. Was that my downstairs front door? Or is someone ringing my actual door doorbell about four… Continue reading

Dear Coffee,

“Your eyes have been opened and now you cannot close them.” – Charles Dickens from Great Expectations It’s Sunday. The day I miss you most. I love my new life, but it’s on… Continue reading

Why French Women Don’t Get Fat: Mystery Solved

If you haven’t read Mireille Guiliano’s French Women Don’t Get Fat, good news: you don’t have to! I’ve painstakingly cracked the super-secret code that will save you from reading through 272 pages to… Continue reading

The Having of Le Sex

Somewhere along the way, I dismissed the notion (which I learned from Pepé Le Pew) that French people are more amorous than others because, hey, we all like a good kiss and a… Continue reading

Me: 2, France: 1.5

As anyone who’s ever tried to get anything done in France knows, you can’t really count on anything getting done until your third time through. I know that. I knew that yesterday. And… Continue reading

Me:1, France: 0

Today was a big day: I opened a French bank account. Oh, I know it doesn’t sound like much to you – you with your iPhone, and your monthly MUNI/Metro card, and your… Continue reading