Plane ticket refund?

It started with the tragic Asiana crash in San Francisco, continued with the Southwest Airlines crash from Texas to LGA, the Spanish train derailment, and now the Italian bus crash that just killed 39 people yesterday.

Summer Travel 2013 is looking positively dreadful and mysterious/bloody accidents keep piling up as my departure date looms ever closer. (this Friday) For this reason I have compiled a list of To Stay's and To Go's:

Reasons to Stay:
1. Visa madness. The prefecture has me by the knickers and twists violently every time I even suggest leaving.

2. French wine changes with altitude and increases in price over distance.

3. Mon français est déjà en train de s'emmerder. -- That's not even good French. It's already begun.

4. I don't wanna go down in flames over the Atlantic.

Reasons to Go:
1. It's been a year. I'd like to know if my little brothers have extra toes or tattoos yet.

2. The Sorbonne offers online classes.

3. I'm coming back sometime next year for the end of my masters anyway. -- Not au revoir yet, France!

4. I just found out Camembert cheese is legal to bring to the U.S.

And its subcategory: Reasons to Go and Then Stay Forever:
1. I don't wanna go down in flames in Nebraska. Thems a lot of flammable corn fields.

T-minus 5 days.

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The Sorbonne

I GOT ACCEPTED TO THE SORBONNE!!!!

It actually happened a few weeks ago but I was still doing paperwork for enrollment, solidifying my acceptance, up until two days ago. I got accepted to one of the most prestigious French universities, and the most internationally well known French university, in the second year of the Masters program. BOOM!

Technically, I have the level of an M1 (first year of Masters) but I argued my way into M2 of the International Studies, English Studies program for pretty obvious reasons - American, 4 year college degree, awesome French skillzz. I couldn't be more excited!

And to boot, the entire scholastic year costs 514 euros. Take that $60 K price tag of American masters programs!!

I don't know what I'm going to do afterward, or even how the year is going to go, writing an 80 paged thesis in French while in California half the time, but I'm optimistic. Already getting this far is an achievement in itself, and I'm choosing to celebrate before letting doomsday thoughts win over.

With any luck, I'll have a masters AND be published (to self-pub or to agent, that is the question) by this time next year.

VIVE LA FRANCE!!!

Hearts in Rouen, a love letter

to Rouen! My little city. I've spent the last ten months writing and perfecting my first novel, Hearts in Rouen.

Essentially a love letter to Rouen, Hearts in Rouen mixes elements that I love reading about in my favorite literature. Romance. Suspense. Mystery. Foreign culture. History. All with (to paraphrase the wish lists of so many agents) an engaging, unique voice that draws in the reader from page one. I love France and despite certain obnoxious parts of it (the préfecture, everything closing on Sundays/Mondays, HUGE taxes to support the amazing social welfare system here), when I sat down to write last November, the only subject that felt right was this country, this culture, this city.

Now that I've got my baby polished within an inch of its life, trying to find a home for it is my next objective. You know, along with moving back to California indefinitely, trying to smuggle as much Camembert in my luggage as physically possible, and finding a group of French friends with whom to keep up my language skills and/or drive me around since I won't have a car.

#todolist

Until then, stay tuned for publishing updates and maybe some excerpts from the book exclusively here on my blog.

Bisous!

Singing

#ThingsI'llMiss

"Why are we singing?!?" asked a friend, a newbie to the usual weekend ritual of drinking, discussing, burning wood pallets swiped from behind the local supermarket, then passing out legit 30 paged books of raucous drinking songs.

"I don't sing!" she protested. Oh, but you will.

The French are widely known for their jovial love of gathering in public or private to sing. Rugby matches. Football (soccer) matches. Weddings. Birthdays. Parties and kickbacks. Ain't no thang. Someone will know a seriously inappropriate song with eight layers of double entendres and teach the rest of the crowd. Or type them all up, then disperse them among friends and family for generations to come, like my circle of friends.

I once was watching a rugby match online with P-baby and the English commentator (English vs. France - WATCH OUT, another 100 years' war is bout to go down) remarked there was nothing more wonderful "than a jubilant, French crowd," who can always be expected to burst into communal song at some point. And it's true.

And it's never the national anthem, the Marseillaise, because after the fall of the Bastille, nationalism has been equated with the crazy, xenophobic right wing political party. It's always songs about a "baguette" and the fireman's "hose."

Some people aren't brought up to sing willy nilly, as evidenced by the newbie to the weekend pow wow, but if you come across a group of jubilant French people, get excited and warm up your vocal cords. You're about to witness a spontaneous cultural expression of joy.

Des choses à faire

A little under three weeks and I'll be boarding a plane to New York where I'll spend a few days with my fabulous married friends, then fly on home to California. To sun and surf and English.

In the mean time I'm stocking up on Camembert cheese. And trying to accomplish various dreams and long standing wishes.

Acceptance to the masters program at the celebrated Sorbonne university: Check!

Completion of my first novel based in France and utilizing my knowledge of the language and culture: Double check! (Gotta get it while the getting's good)

Getting published: Ummm... well about that. I'm working on self-publishing but putting my infant expression of love out there for the wolves to devour is terrifying and not exactly an easy undertaking to boot. There are ebook covers involved and wiley ebook cover designers to sift through. I have a few recommendations from friends and the almighty internet is helpful but who really knows where to start? Then there's the issue of choosing a market to publish in, Amazon the Monopolizer or smaller sites that still provide access to world markets, but less strategically good odds for authors.

If anyone knows of good ebook cover designers, feel free to leave a comment here :) Otherwise, I hope to have made a decision (ie: published) before I leave here the beginning of August.

Let the countdown begin! (again)

The countdown (again)

I leave France in a month and five days.

I'm already categorizing the items in my apartment into mental piles: To go, Toss, Store in P-baby's house.

I'm going home to celebrate my family and friends, renew some of my English/American, and make some serious life decisions. Like, where am I going to live for the next five years? Not only, what city is the best for bikes? Car travel? Stress? But, what CONTINENT.

I regret nothing about the last three years but there's been a fair amount of emotional tug and pull scattered among camembert packaging.

Maybe I'll come back after a few months. I did only live in LA for 2 years and I've lived in Rouen for 2 and Vernon for 1.

Nervy Coco.

Ibizaaaaa

Was insane. If you know where to go and you enjoy staying up until 6am, Ibiza, a small Spanish island, is the place for you.

We crashed a private party the first night, accidentally of course, but were told deliberately we weren't welcome there by the female attendees. Whoops! It was in a hotel bar, and a party was being held for the employees, with an open bar. We thought we would just be friendly to everyone and not be noticed so far in the back of the room, but pretty soon there was, "Quiénes son!" WHO ARE THEY?? from the girls. Le sigh. We left and got some early beauty rest for the all day pool party Friday, complete with cirque du soleil acrobats. (No matter how I try, I can't escape you France....) Seriously random entertainment (CDS acrobats suspended from A CRANE over the pool, an undercover singer bar-mitzveh style, a saxophonist, go-go dancers, more CDS spectacle) but excellent fun in the sun.

We missed David Guetta's show at Pacha the night before but went anyway for a different DJ and had a great time, meet great people. It was like any other club in Vegas and just as expensive if not more so with currency conversion (17 euros for a shot. A SHOT. And 15 euros for a drink. Los bastardos!) but we had a blast. We also meet a group of Welshmen whom I literally could not understand. Not like the music was blaring or I was drunk (I wasn't...until later) but I had no idea what they were saying unless they enunciated and repeated themselves at least five times. I've heard the Welsh accent is different and had met one or two Welsh girls but this was like Deep-South-Redneck-Games-difficult-to-understand-English. They were incredibly nice but me and Alma just kept looking at each other with plastered smiles, like, You...no? You don't, either? KAYGOOD.

Kehakuma Club Opening Party was Saturday night and true to Spanish form we left our hotel at midnight, waited in line for an HOUR (in heels) then paid 40 euros to get in at 1:30 AM. We stayed until 5, went to bed at 5:30, napped for an hour then got up at 6:30 to catch our 8am flight. Perf. ROCKSTARS.

Notes for Next Time or anyone seeking info on Ibiza clubs:
1.) Ibiza is not Vegas. People were flip flips, sneakers, and jeans to clubs. Like, really.

2.) Still not Vegas. We wore really cute, short, tight, sequin-y Vegas dresses (how often do I dress up to pound the cobblestones in Rouen?) and waited in line FOR AN HOUR. Sorry, I'm still upset, apparently. But in Vegas that would never in a million years happen. Not only that, I think I saw a handle out of the literally thousands of people in that club dressed up like we were.

3.) Bars give out glass drinks. And then people idiotically leave them on the floor of the dance hall where they get smashed by flip flops - don't ask - for people to DANCE ON. (there's a lot of caps in this post today) People don't accidentally dance on them and then freak out and ask someone to clean up the glass shards, they just literally just dance, totally unaware or unbothered. I'm actually glad I wore my three inch hells, if anything because they lifted me above the drink carnage and saved my feet. On the other hand I didn't realize how bad it was to DANCE ON GLASS SHARDS until I walked out limping unevenly. Uneven, rocky surfaces and house music really do a number on your knees.

27.

I also got carded for beer at a supermarket. *Pats self on shoulder* That's not bad for a 27 year old right? Especially given we slept for five hours and the drinking age in Spain is 18!! I gave the 20 year old cashier clerk a good once over, but she seemed totally awake and sane.

We also went to a picturesque pristine white sand beach on an island 20 minutes away by ferry and returned in time for the sun to come out in Normandie for the beginning of June. Beautiful. As that very well might be my last European travel until I go back to California in August, it was a lovely trip and I have zero complaints.

Hasta luego IBIZZAAAAAAA!