I'm back!

Well, vacay is over...alas. I've only been back a week but already it feels like light years ago! And what a rough vacation it was, too: 

But these things must reach an end and the task of being an adult coming back to reality inevitably occurs. And boy does it occur. I hadn't been off the plane for 24 hours before we were already repacking and hopping (really it was more like a slow dragging of the feet while Matt yanked on my arm as we were late, again) onto a train bound for the north of France. 

Why the north of France you ask? Well when you're married to a pastor, weddings become just about as second nature and frequent as taking out the compost. Okay so I don't really ever take out the compost (my fellow apartment dwellers might not appreciate it if I did) but you get the idea. Friends of ours were getting married up in ch'ti country and I was about as psyched as you could be in my jet lagged state to see what a wedding up north was all about. It turned out to be a rather memorable affair for several reasons. The first was that it was a protestant, evangelical wedding taking place in the local catholic church (pictured above--very different from other churches I've seen in France...must be a northern thing). 

Here she be in all her inner glory. The priest gave a very nice welcome and then opened it up to the evangelicals to get the party started. And they definitely did--it was the most relaxed and informal ceremony that I've ever seen in France--just about every time the groom got the microphone we all cracked up. But here's the kicker--this formal catholic church is huge and echoey. Which is probably why liturgy and the like is so slow and always the same thing...because otherwise no one would be able to make out anything they said at all! I'd like to say that only about half the jokes were lost on me but lets be real--even with the mic I only caught about 4 % of what was said a midst bouncing echoes and the chatter of everyone after about row 5 asking "What was that? What did he just say?" 

But lets continue on to the reception. If you're not familiar with a French reception, here's the breakdown: everything starts with a vin d'honneur, usually either near the church or on the same site as the formal meal. This is the part of a French wedding that Talia just loves. I've got all whole strategy: get Matt talking with our common (or his, let's be honest) acquaintances, while I make a break for the towers of delicious appetizers and a glass of champagne. (I also like to rotate buffet tables so the waitstaff doesn't make me out for the true oinker that I am) The plan went all wrong when I realized that the one thing being served at this vin d'honneur was mini hot dog buns with a slab of ham. Apparently, it's a northern thing (sensing a theme?). But not to worry, I wasn't bored for very long before the flash mob came out of the closet. I kind of realized a bit late that we were all supposed to be practicing for the group dance and jumped in somewhere near the back...which worked fine for most of it until we switched directions. Oh well, I blamed it on the jet lag. 

Now (at last!) comes the meal. This is the moment in the festivities where the real friends are separated from the wedding crashers. Here is the order or courses in a typical French wedding meal: starter course (usually soup or salad), possibly one more starter, what we would call the "entree", cheese and lettuce with a vinaigrette dressing/fresh fruit, dessert (aka cake and whatnot), sometimes the "mounted piece" aka a French wedding cake, and then coffee. You'd think that people would already have sore butts by the end of all that but in order to prolong the soreness there are animations in between each course. Yes, these can range between your awesomely funny skits or tear jerking slide shows and what you picture as the lamest party game you could ever play. 

Usually it's a combo but occasionally you get all one of the other. Thankfully, this one leaned on the awesome side or else I'm not sure I would have made it through the night (after all you only start the first course around 8 or 8:30pm). Among the animations were video clips that could have actually been professional they were so good, a 40 person family choir, and the bride and groom's first dance replicating a tap dancing scene from the movie The Artist. But hands down, the best animation came from a friend of the groom who has an unusual gift for getting into events he really shouldn't be at. I'm not talking like a fundraiser for vegan awareness but rather, VIP red carpet events. 

So he starts out by announcing that even though it's hard deciding who to invite when you're making a wedding guest list, there were a few people who weren't invited that would have liked to have been there. We're all kinda wondering where exactly he's going with this when he starts the video and a minor celebrity's name appears on the screen. Pretty cool when it turns out to be them personally wishing all the best to our just married friends. But cooler yet when another name and then another  appears, each time a bit higher on the celebrity ladder. Not being French and knowing who all these people are I'm having the most fun just watching everyone's reactions get bigger and bigger and the VIP list going higher and higher. Until he gets to people I actually know... like the actor from The Actor (oh what a punner I am..). And then comes a name that everyone really freaks out at...yes, the president of France personally wished his best for our friends. Good thing the next course arrived soon after that, because what a hard act to follow.

The courses finished up somewhere around 1:30 to 2 am (no, I'm not kidding you--the main course probably wasn't even served til midnight). Of course, never mind the fact that I had just stepped off an airplane the day before and there's 9 hours difference between France and Oregon. Like the good little sports we are, Matt and I stumbled out to the dance floor and worked off some dessert. Yeah, that lasted for about 45 minutes before we set our pooped little behinds back in our chairs for some chatting time, secretly hoping our ride would be ready to head back to the gite that we had all rented for the night. But judging by the way our driver was dancing he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. I'll be honest--it gave me much longed for time to consider what exactly a gite was anyways, decide I really needed to shave my legs, mentally write my shopping list, and read the gite sleep arrangement breakdown, in the process discovering that Matt and I were sleeping in different rooms (you know, boys in one room girls in the other). One of our friends gave up and decided to take a nap in a nearby closet that he'd found. At about 3:30am I gave up all attempts at appearing like the cool night owl I'm not and tried to sleep with my head on the dinner table.  Our hosts told us later that with one friend asleep in the closet, one asleep on the table, and Matt with a very interesting glazed over crazy eye look going on, they decided that heading back might be a good idea. 

That was at 4 am. In the end I discovered that gite is just a fancy French way of saying a normal house with twenty million twin beds stuck in it and that Matt and I were going to sleep together after all (you know what I mean) in side by side twin beds (pictured above). Seeing as the closet was looking like a desirable sleeping locale at the end of the festivities there, the room to our self looked like heaven, so  no complaints. And thus ended our first weekend back. 

Welcome to Chile

Alright, a bunch of you are mad at me because I've been so delinquent on my entries again. Let's just say that I just about fell off the blogwagon (disregard corny pun please) but my amazing husband has re-inspired me to get back in there and start typing again. So here goes nothing...

Chile: If you can remember that far back (if not just scroll down to my last entry) the last time I blogged was about finding a bridesmaid dress in Paris for my sister's upcoming wedding in Chile. It took awhile but at last it was time to hop on a plane and spend the next 14 hours straight staring ahead at my mini tv screen, dreaming of Chilean avocados and trying to look unruffled every time we hit turbulence above that gianormous Atlantic Ocean (I normally don't scare so easily on planes but this one was an AirFrance with almost the same exact flight trajectory as the one that crashed in the ocean a year or two ago).

Just as I was beginning to worry that my butt was going to be permanently deformed, we touched down and the airport festivities began. Going through customs, security, picking up baggage, and buying a nice little entry visa made for quite a few lines. While Matt fretted (his French side coming out for that one--the dislike of long lines and whatnot) I attempted to perfect my already near perfect Spanish. "Hablo espaniol tan mal?" means "Is my Spanish that bad?" (The 'making friends' part of a travel book is always the most interesting) Of course I had to run it by Matt just to double check that my pronunciation was passable which only served to fluster the guy even more around so many native speakers. But at last we were through customs, bilingual and with stamped passports in hand.

As we approached the security check, I could see my sister looking down on us from the glass skyway. This led then to all kinds of lipreading, funny faces, and other shinanagans that seemed to get the people next to her (esp. the male ones) all worked up so she had to continually move around as to not receive too many odd looks.

I was pretty confident going through security...after all I had done this how many times before? Alas, however, confidence isn't everything because as soon as my purse came through that machine, the nice looking Chilean woman was magically pulling an apple out of there and yelling at a customs agent what I can only imagine was something like fruit delinquent in Spanish. To this day I think it must have been a conspiracy...after all I swear I had eaten that apple! The agent motioned for me to follow her so I left Matt with the bags and grumpily walked towards what I thought was going to be the agricultural line.

I'm not sure the concept of an agricultural line has occurred to the Chileans because instead I ended up sitting in a row of chairs (the word timeout comes the mind...) in an open office while the agent lady shuffled through a pile full of papers with the word 'citation' stamped at the top. Here's about how our conversation started off:

Agent lady: spanish gibberish

Me: 'hablas ingles?'

Agent lady: no

Me: 'hablas frances?"

Agent lady: no

Me: silence

We did attempt to plow through it anyway, I was hoping that with my knowledge of French I could maybe understand a few questions but apparently that only served to jumble us up even more. Poor Matt had been left hanging out to dry during this time while standing in the middle of the security section still waiting for me to return. Realizing this might not be the immediate case, he started looking for me. Finding me in my timeout corner, he proceeded to linguistically save the day. (Apparently I had told them that the apple was from the states and all kinds of other untrue things)

Once everything got all sorted out, agent lady disappeared, leaving us both in timeout corner wondering if we might be fast enough to make a break for it (after all my sister had been waiting this whole time for us and had a car parked out front...). Chickening out, we instead got ushered into a closed office nearby. Now it was time to take our statement.

Conversation (in Spanish):

Agent man: Why did your wife have an apple in her purse?

Matt: She forgot to eat it.

Agent man: Why did she forget to eat it?

Matt: Excuse me?

Agent man: Why did she forget?

Matt: uhh....it was a long flight? She was tired? It was supposed to be part of her dinner but she didn't remember it was there?

Agent man: [talking to himself as he types into keyboard] ...it was a long flight; she was very tired; she forgot to eat it...

To which he then proceeded to show us in the "statement" exactly everything that Matt had just said. Next came the "Authorization of Destruction" documents that I had to sign. Hoping it was the apple and not us that I was authorizing to destroy, I plunged on ahead through the 5 copies that he gave me. At last came the part we had been dreading: the fine.

Agent man: Okay, this is your first time in Chile?

Us: si.

Agent man: Normally there is a $200 fine for bringing a prohibited fruit into Chile. However, since it is your first time, we will let you go with a warning. But don't do it again because we have you passport info.

Us: Thank you! Gracias!

Agent man: So, where are you visiting while in Chile? Are you going to the beach? I know some great places to visit!

Us: Umm....si. [thinking to selves: what the heck??]

Agent man: you should really visit Vina del Mar. Have a great time!

Us: Gracias?

Thus began our Chilean adventure. Here's a few of the highlights:

Seeing the sites with my sis and the family...

Yes, that is a picture of my butt... Long story short me and Matt decided to have a romantic moment next to a fountain. Unbeknown to me, however, I had sat down near the edge on a dry nozzle--was I in for a shock when suddenly it turned on! My dad, being the kind soul that he is, just had to document the experience...

Saw the world's biggest potato hoarder...

Some things just don't really have words to describe...

Tried these amazing and disgusting drinks with peach juice on top and wheat germ on bottom.

Loved the bathroom door markers...no need to know 'Mens room' in Spanish with this handsome fella. (yes, there is a female version! lol)

Learned how to make homemade pasta with the girls...

Here's Matt at the oceanside cliffs reading what at first glance looked like a Juan + Conchita = Amor Forever but turns out it was a memorial for a guy who had committed suicide by jumping off these rocks! (Maybe it was cuz Conchita dumped him)

Random staircase apartments all over on the Chilean coast...

On a boat ride touring Vina del Mar's harbor... Safety first!

Making friends... here's Salazar the Sea Lion.

Eating tons of ice cream since it was the end of summer there :)

Nat teaching us how to bound with the local wildlife...

And the best for last, my personal fav. I'll let you do your homework by finding a Frenchman to ask the meaning 'con' and then you'll get why this restaurant is pretty funny and why no Frenchy would want to eat any of this food.

There you have it! Wedding update next time!

I've found it..

If you're expecting me to say something profound after that title post then you probably don't know me very well by now...unless you're a girl and then you know that finding a bridesmaid dress can actually be a profound experience. Specifically when living in France.

I say that because while Paris happens to be the fashion capital of the world, there is apparently a color ban on clothing in the city of love (this is where I say something corny like that's because love is blind... [insert canned laughter]). Parisians have an almost obsessive relationship with the color black. What's worse is that you live here long enough and you start to become one of them. What color am I wearing right now? And seriously the minute you mix more than one color into your wardrobe, warning bells start going off and heaven forbid you look too flashy. I mean, someone just might notice you out of that sea of brown and black.

All this to say that really when my sis asked me to get a blue dress for her upcoming nuptials what I really should have done was start hunting then and there. Because, you see, Americans like color. Ask any European, it's the easiest way to spot them out of the crowd (okay, that and speaking loud English that is). But alas, I didn't actually end up looking for my dress in the states...

Stupidly, I came back to Europe thinking that four months was plenty of time to find a blue evening dress in Paris. After all, they have dresses and evenings over here right? And sometimes they combine the two? The first couple months of casual looking there wasn't much panicking (okay, lets face it, it was more like the first 3 and then some...). When the country-wide sales hit, I thought it would provide the perfect opportunity to find it.

No such luck. My next move was to look online. The World Wide Web has everything right? Wrong-o. That's when I started suspecting internet conspiracy. Having not the least idea of where else to look I finally turned to my boss, who actually happened to be dress shopping for a wedding herself. That's when I learned that it helps when you ask frenchies. Apparently the color ban rebels were all hanging out on this exclusively evening dress street.

So I decided to follow her advice and check out the street for myself. My first stop was a place called Sunshine and lit up with multiple neon lights. Forgetting the neon lights, I was on cloud nine just to discover a whole rainbow of color. After some very interesting dresses, one ripped shoulder strap, and a couple of sequin strips no longer around, I attempted not to let discouragement get to me.

Sunshine's neighbor turned out to be another evening dress shop, this one a little more promising that the last. As I was scouring over the tea length options the owner approached me. Seeing the look on my face he actually apologized for offering to help and said he'd let me look in peace! (now if only that would happen all the time, I'd be perfectly content!) Of course, Sparky just couldn't hold back for long because soon he was pointing out where all the tea length dresses were located, yada yada yada... I considered flashing him my ring and mentioning how happily married I am but decided that talking back to him would just encourage the guy.

The first of many surprises was that I discovered my dressing room curtain didn't fully shut and was about the size of a straight-jacket. Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little here...not much though because a pail of dirty water was directly behind me making it difficult to move, let alone change one's clothes. Not to mention what would happen if one of those frilly unmentionables dropped in the bucket? But the worst thing was the lack of a mirror in the dressing "room". Peaking my head out of the straight-jacket I looked for clear opportunity to make a dash for the mirror while my new boyfriend was occupied. This wasn't the easiest feat in the world because there was a whole posse of teenage girls checking out their ridiculously skinny butts in the mirror. Finally a moment came where both parties were occupied and I did a quick run and look over out at the mirror.

To my great delight I liked the dress and it was a mere 40 bucks...and since there was no way I was going through that ordeal again with dress number two I quickly redressed (steering clear of the pail of course!), paid for that baby, and hopped on my bike to go back home.

So now Talia is reaadaay for this happenin' wedding... And not a moment too soon because the wedding is less than three weeks away. Did I mention that it'll be in Chile? Which means more fun adventures and cultural misunderstandings to write about soon! Let the Spanglish fun begin...