"Jacob... is that a Jewish name?"
"No, but the way you’re eating that ham could make anybody go Kosher."
~The Good German

Interactivity!
A Quiz for you:
Which of the following has NOT happened to Blair in one or another of the jobs she has worked in the past seven years:
A) A 30-year-old murder weapon falls into the linoleum at her feet as she is trying to open a jammed file cabinet.
B) She gets to go home from work early because Clay Aiken has made it to the American Idol finals.
C) She gets to go home from work early at a library because the police are called in.
D) She spends all afternoon playing football in waist-deep mud.
E) David Crowder opens a trunk that should have contained a lighting truss to find Blair holed up inside waiting to surprise her boss.
F) She ends up at a Waffle House somewhere in Wisconsin at 3am, drinking hot chocolate and eating apple pie at a table with four professional musicians.
G) She works for... 30 Seconds To Mars’ record label. ‘Nough said.

Tricked you again... ALL TRUE. (The first one I was only witness to– someone else was actually trying to open the cabinet, but I watched the whole thing happen, so that is cool.) The last one is still to come, but if I have the job secured, I can still brag about it, right?

Saturday night I went to a Canadian bar here to watch a rugby game. There are many factors about that sentence that I never would have done in the US. The first match was England/Ireland... so I am an American getting hit on by a German in this standing-room-only Canadian bar full of Brits on the banks of the Seine in the heart of Paris, with my group of French friends, who were the only natives in the place. And the game is roaring on the tv screens, and the Irish are roaring louder, because the beer has been flowing since 17h00, and they are beating England for the first time in forever.
And then Ireland wins, and the German turns to me (now he has time for me since he doesn’t have to pay attention to the game) and says "So what are you doing in Paris?" and I tell him and return the question, and he says "I work for thurpeenynyun." And, thinking this must be some weird German thing, or perhaps that I just heard him incorrectly, I respond with "WHAT?" and he says "The European Union! You know, the one with the blue flag and the little yellow stars?!" I may be an American and we may be by nature ignorant, but come on, give me some credit, man. Haha.
Just then my Swedish friend appears starving, and wants to share something to eat. But the only thing on the menu is burgers. And beer. But we aren’t thirsty, and I think they must have run out of beer by then because it was flowing like milk and honey in Canaan. Anyway, she wants to share a burger. But I was a vegetarian for four years. And I quit eating ground beef even before that. And I have not missed it or wanted it since I went back to eating meat this year. I haven’t had a burger in probably six years. BUT... what else am I supposed to do?
But if you’re going to go, go all out, I say.
So she orders us a bacon cheeseburger with onions.
Do I need to even say that it was divine? I sat and looked at my half for a long time before I took a bite because the thought of ground beef also really freaks me out, but then I ate it, and it was like... I don’t even know. Good. I don’t plan on eating any more burgers any time soon, because it feels too not glamourous to do it on a regular basis. But when you are in a freaking PUB with one-third of the population of Ireland watching RUGBY?
When in Rome...

After the England/Ireland game, we left the pub to go to a friend’s apartment in the suburbs to hang out. So four French girls, me, and a French guy pile into the guy’s car and he drives us to Levallois, a suburb just Northwest of Paris. I hate the suburbs, remember? But we’re going to a friend’s house– this crazy guy raised in South Africa and fluent in French, English, and whatever they speak in South Africa and (I have heard rumored) Dutch. Basically he’s like my idol. And since we are with Kelvin, a french guy who looks Cuban and speaks nothing but French BUT has a car (this is unheard of with 20somethings in France), we get to DRIVE to Levallois instead of take the Metro. But there are way too many of us in the car, and suddenly it feels like being at Emory and driving from one end of campus to the other when it is winter and too cold to walk. We’re listening to rap music from America, and I am the only one that can understand it, but they are all trying to keep up with the words, and we’re laughing hysterically and suddenly someone realizes we can’t show up at Jaco’s apartment (the South African) without some kind of gift. But where are you going to get anything edible at 1130 at night in freaking Levallois-Perret? We found an alimentation– basically a Parisian convenience store– and bought a 12-pack of Kronenburg, a bag of bacon-flavored chips and a bag of paprika-flavored chips. When we get to the apartment, there is 6 or 7 French guys, the South African, my Swedish friend, the French girls that came in the car with me, and moi (the token American). We offer the Kronenburg to Jaco, who can’t find a bottle opener, and so we crack open the case and everyone starts drinking warm beer because that is what you do when you are watching rugby in France in the middle of winter. (Oh, yeah, there is another game on now: France/Wales, and this is big, because it’s France playing.)
So we sit down on the floor to watch the game (this maybe a French bachelor pad, but it’s still a bachelor pad), and I, of course, can’t keep up. But I’m the only one there that doesn’t know the rules... I didn’t even know rugby was played with a ball– I think I had it confused with, like, Cricket or something, which is probably also played with a ball because what else could you play a sport with, unless you were like the Mayans and used human heads?
Anyway, soon France scores or something, and suddenly everyone is waving their bottles in the air and shouting something in French. I can’t follow at all, but I raise my bottle dutifully and try to figure out what is happening... they finish chanting, everyone clinks bottles, and I whisper to the girl next to me "what just happened?" and she says, "Oh, honey! You don’t know that song?! It’s the Marseillaise!"
Which is the French national anthem.

Only she said it loud enough that everyone else heard that I didn’t know the Marseillaise. No one can believe it. ("AND YOU’VE LIVED HERE HOW LONG?") I respond with "But I know the Canadian national anthem!" And the Canadian among us says, "Sing it to me!" So I start to sing, "Oh Canada, Oh Canada... thy leaves are so--" here he cuts me off.
"That's 'O TANNENBAUM,' you American!"
So I ask one of the girls to teach me the Marseillaise... I got a quick lesson, but mostly what I got was the translation, which goes something like "Raise the bloody flag, take down the German foe... the time has come to restore what is ours from the Frankish enemy..."
People talk about OURS being graphic? Theirs has explicit references to their Northern neighbor AND includes the adjective "bloody."
The French are so hardcore.
Wishing I was as cool as them,
B