"Shame you had to get Minnie Mouse ears, did they not have any regular sized ones left?"

Whoa, busy last couple of weeks. And despite developing a sense of Cabin Fever in Paris, I have found myself zilch time to write. Instead I have been frolicking at the seaside and getting chased round dark, dingy caves by a surprisingly scary Captain Jack Sparrow...at Disneyland obviously, this is not a regular occurrence around Paris, despite what my last entry might suggest.

So in condensed and, perhaps a little lazy, bullet point style, here's what I have to share/criticize/laugh at the french for this week:

• Disneyland Paris is the best place I have ever been in my entire life. No doubt about it.
  And I got to go with my favourite (don't tell her) big sister when she came to visit me and the Frenchies. The park was also filled with the largest amount of English folk I have encountered in one place since I arrived and I was loving it. Well, initially. The small children who were being thrust through my legs by incredibly pushy parents in the queues for meeting Disney characters, we queued for every one don't you know, became a massive annoyance. On the bright side they did provide an excellent opportunity for my sister to practise her 'ERR NON!', a phrase one comes to depend on in Paris, and for me to rant about how bloody lucky they should feel with me having my first Disneyland experience at the age of 20. Other exciting sister activities included finding 50 euros on the floor in a Metro station; opening a bottle of red wine with no corkscrew and causing a purple explosion onto many white t-shirts, white bed sheets and white walls; and finally, walking 2km in the scary dark 20 metres underground alongside infinite skeletons of French men past.

 

The brief amount of time for which we were not desperately clung onto each other.. 

•  Grown and very suave French men will stroll around Paris walking the teeniest, tiniest, girliest little doggys without shame or a care in the world.
• The French sell and play playing cards in packs of 32. Just weird.
• The French tourist industry is incredibly lazy! Despite the gorgeous weather during my seaside weekend with a very sea and surf hungry Australian, not a single place along the beach was open. Why? Because it is still winter. The beach was busy, the sun was shining but not even the little, old lady who takes your 30c in the public toilets could be bothered to come out, open up and play.
• Spooning in French is en cuillère, literally 'to spoon into'.
• After driving through a village/town in England one is waved off by a pleasant sign informing us we are now leaving the said place, one is wished a safe drive to wherever it may be they are travelling and one is urged to return again soon. In France? In France, you are given a small sign with the name of the village/town written across it, the same as the small sign you drive by when entering, but this one, the exit sign, has a somewhat aggressive, thick, red cross scoring through the name. One is not wished a safe journey or longed for to return. One is simply out of the village/town and no longer its responsibility and left uneasily driving through no mans land until the next sign.
• I can speak more French than Quentin Tarantino. Watching him receive a Caesar in honour of his career and painstakingly make his acceptance speech in English made me feel a small bit happy inside.
• Every other, if not every, French man has a man bag and a pony tail. I quite like it.
• People are definitely beginning to get weirded out by the intensity with which I stare at their mouths when speaking in French. Particularly my teachers.

On a final note, I would like to address a subject I struggle with daily, a constant battle between myself and the French society and an issue that is getting me down...being funny. I'm going to say that 60% of what I say in everyday life is an attempt to be funny, whether it be to wriggle out of an awkward situation or a random but completely appropriate film quote. Making these jokes in French? Impossible. Leaving me with a very lame 40% of my daily thoughts to share, with such riveting subjects as the weather, the time and my plans for the week. It pains me.

But sarcasm, I hear you ask, sarcasm doesn't require a punch line, doesn't rely on timing and can often be formed from everyday speech. Surely sarcasm is a great way to let ones infamous British wit shine, sarcasm that was born in England, sarcasm that surely the French are in tune with being a mere 34km away along the Strait of Dover..

Just No.