Birthday in Paris

These next few posts are going to be a bit out of order. First, I'd like to talk about my birthday in Paris! This was my first time having a birthday outside of the US, and I have to say, it wasn't any different at all! All I did was spend my day being told absolutely nothing about what we were doing that night (it was a surprise organized by Jess and Mélanie) and then had a lovely evening surrounded by good friends (some old, some new) eating fondue and raclette.

The language of the evening was English, since Mélanie was the only French person. It might as well have been French, though, since Macs, Jess, and Jena all speak French fluently. For dessert, Andréa joined us as well, and so she, Mélanie and I started a French side of the conversation. It was too weird speaking to Andréa in English! Her English (like her French, Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish) is wonderful, of course. I just realized I had never spoken to her in English!

I even got presents! Mélanie got me northern French cookies which all have part of a sentence written on them and you can mix and match to write full sentences! Very Oulipian, and very appropriate, as was the accompanying book about the literary scene in Paris. And Jess got me traditional African jewelry, which is lovely and matches one of my new sweaters and the turquoise shoes I bought in Berlin perfectly!

After the fondue party (which, by the way, was at an amazing place Jess and I found a few weeks ago when the Beninese place was unfortunately closed. The waitress there is Italian and she gave us free wine when I spoke to her in Italian the last time. This time she just wished me happy birthday), Jess and I went to The Moose (the Canadian bar) where I proudly announced to the bartender that it was my birthday! At that point, the two people next to us announced that they were buying us drinks! Then, we all continued to celebrate my birthday well into the night because, after all, it was still my birthday in the US! Anyway, the next morning, Jess and I had a long talk about constrained literature and the mathematical aspects of Georges Perec's La vie mode d'emploi (Life a User's Manual, translated by David Bellos, of course!). So, clearly we didn't have too much to drink!

I didn't take too many pictures, but here is the "scandalous" chocolate fondue I had for dessert!