Conversation of the week, as had by another expat and me at Bistro Romain, Paris Iere:

Laura: "...So then Jared got mad, I guess, because Bilbo Baggins had insulted him in Jane--"

Me: :Why in the world would anyone get mad because Elijah Wood had insulted you in a magazine? I mean, he doesn't even date anyone famous."

Laura: "I don't know, you'll have to ask Jared Leto. So anyway, he got mad when he saw the Hobbit at some after-party, and that's when he tried to strangle him."

Me: "It's too bad that didn't work out for him."

Laura, horrified: "DIDN'T WORK?! But... But... if it had, there would be no more hairy-footed Hobbits! Plus, I hope you realize you are now on the side of a gout-infected strangler."

~**~
Last night (Thursday) my friends and I went out. Going out in when it is freezing cold is difficult, and being in a huge city makes it even worse. I’ve been out a few times since coming to Paris, but last night... might have been the craziest. We went to this club on the Champs-Elysees... Well, actually it was a party for international students at Planet Hollywood.
During a Justin Timberlake song, I danced with this guy who asked me where I was from in French. I told him in French, and then asked where he was from. His answer?
"I am from dee United States of America as well, but I leeve een Paris now." And all I could think was, "My foot you are from the USA." Not only does no one there say "United States Of America," but the guy had an accent like Jacques Cousteau.
At one point, the DJ played this American rap song by... I forget, I think one of Eminem’s posse, but the song begins with someone saying, "Everybody put your hands in the air for Detroit," or something, and the song is all about the wonder that is Detroit. The song never really took off that much in America, but they love it here. Perhaps because they have no idea where in the world Detroit is, or that it is basically the grossest place ever in the world. I’ve never even been there and I know that. At one point my friend Rachel and I were trying to get rid of these two awkward french guys that kept trying to dance with us– I was trying to tell mine that we both had boyfriends (obviously a lie) and she was trying to tell hers that she had promised she wouldn’t abandon me, her friend, that night. But instead of saying friend, I am pretty sure she used the slang-y "petite amie," which would insinuate that not only are we friends, but also lovers. Because all of a sudden, one of the guys says, "well, do you want to kiss her then?"
"Ahh... I think I need some air," she said, pulling me, mouth agape, off the dance floor. I mean, how do you respond to a question like that?
Despite the slight sketchiness of moments like that, it was fun times, the kind that you come home from with ringing ears, smelling of smoke and sweat and dance floor, exhausted but too wide awake to sleep. Somehow I missed the Noctilien bus, and the Metro was closed by the time we left the club around 3am, so I shared a cab home with Rachel, which was only 5Euros from the Champs. I probably could walk there and just never knew it.
But the highlight of the night came just before we left, when The Weather Girls’ "It’s Rainin’ Men" came on. This is one of the songs I remember most clearly from high school dances– they always played it, and whenever they did, Rachel, Emma, and I would search each other out on the dance floor, no matter where we were, push our way to the middle, and dance it up like wild girls. So when it came on last night, I found myself dancing the exact same way, singing at the top of my lungs with them, and for a second I forgot I was 21 years old and in Paris, at a club, full of people I don’t know, instead of at a 17-year-old high school senior at a dance at a country club somewhere in Wake County.
Learned at the Erasmus party:
*My hair, when properly sprayed, straightened, and pomaded to within an inch of its dyed little life will stay put and not go flat after a night of dancing and wearing a hat to and from the club.
*My eyeliner will not.
*If you open your mouth and say, "Heyyyy," they won’t even ask for ID proving you aren’t French.
*Just because it looks like juice, if it is being served for 100Euro a bottle, there is probably something else in there too.
*The French may have a Planet Hollywood, but it’s full of stuff they would never understand– a blue Power Ranger falling from the sky, the Flintstone car over the DJ platform, giant ant models from "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids," and this crazy mirror shaped like a pair of sunglasses that made me think I had walked directly out of 2007 Paris and into 1985 Ridgefield.
Takin’ it to the bridge,
B