C’est l’heure de prendre mes cliques et mes claques

Il s’est enfin arrivé que quand je sors, les inconnus hurlent mon nom, du coup il suffit de dire que mon œuvre s’est bien accompli ici et il est temps que je pars. Sans doute je pisse d’impatience de ne devoir plus faire bouiller de l’eau à la plaque pour me servir du thé ou de bruler du pain au poêle pour le toast, mais j’avoue qu’il y a plusieurs choses de l’endroit qui m’a pris en otage pendant 9 mois que vont me manquer (t’inquiète pas enfin je n’ai pas eu un bébé expat clandestin).

Ces points comprennent la prévalence du commerce indépendant et l’entreprise familiale (Starbucks est interdit et la seule Macdo se trouve à l’étendue sauvage de l’autoroute). Cela s’adjoint aux foutus marchés prétentieux toutefois séduisants et au charme désuet, qui ne cessent pas de me faire cavaler avec un panier d’osier inexistant achetant de la chèvre bio et du nougat lavande. De plus, la galanterie quotidienne est encore bien vivante, une combine exécutée avec une aptitude si délicate que même Germaine Greer fondrait. En fait, c’est possible que les citoyens les plus aimables que j’ai connu soient les videurs, ce qui n’a rien à voir avec les pègres de Reading ou Southampton. Aussi voir Spielberg et Del Toro à Cannes n’était pas mal !

Mais il faut dire que ce que me manquera surtout c’est n’en avoir rien à foutre et vivre à l’existentiel pour le simple fait que c’est le sud de la France. Elle le fait de soi. Cela sera nuisible pour mon rajustement à la vie normale en Angleterre ou l’urgence est un concept réel en fait, quand la plupart de temps elle ne faut pas l’être. Et mon dieu les croissants.

Non attends en vérité ce que me manquera le plus, sont tous les gens géniaux que j’ai connu et qui m’ont rendu plus supportable la vie en tel qu’étrangère. Je les kiffe beaucoup.

Donc cela indique le fin de ce blog, je voudrais bien remercier et m’excuser auprès de vous mes chers lecteurs (pourtant vous avez choisi vous-mêmes de lire mes fadaises, je retire mes excuses) et je termine en citant M. Felix Baumgartner : « I’m going home now. Weeeeeeeeeeeeee. »

Time to scarper!

It’s reached the point where strangers have begun yelling my name when I’m out so I think that it is sufficient to say that my work here is done and it is time for me to leave. Obviously I am screaming with excitement about no longer having to boil water on the stove for a cup of tea or burning bread in the frying pan for toast, but there are admittedly a number of things I’ll miss about the place that has held me hostage for 9 months (I didn’t have a secret expat baby in the end).

These include items such as the prevalence of independent business and family-run enterprise (Starbucks is banned and the only McDonalds is located in the wilderness next to the motorway). This goes along with the bloody conceited yet so irresistibly quaint marchés that make me cavort around with a non-existent wicker basket buying organic goat’s cheese and lavender flavoured nougat. What is more, everyday gallantry is still very much alive, a stunt pulled off with such delicate proficiency that even Germaine Greer would melt – in fact, arguably some of the nicest citizens I have met have been bouncers, a far cry from the pits of Reading or Southampton. Seeing Spielberg and Del Toro at Cannes was also not too shabby.

But I have to say what I’ll miss most of all is not giving a flying shit about anything and living existentially just because it’s southern France. It does that to you. This is going to be detrimental to my readjustment to ordinary British life where urgency is actually a concept, when a lot of the time it needn’t be. And my god the croissants.

Actually wait what I’ll REALLY miss mostly is all the genial people I met that made life as a foreigner just that much more bearable; I kiffe them very much.

So that marks the end of this blog. I’d like to thank and apologise to my readership (although you chose to read, I retract my apology) and in the words of Felix Bumgardner, “I’m going home now. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.”

Still losing my face

COUCOU

So what whimsical Erasmus shit have I been embarking on since the last time I typed at you? Well, predominantly dissertation seizures and then gentle abatement by watching people internationally humiliate themselves thanks to youtube: a pussy’s typical strategy of self-redemptive procrass. I also went to a “night out” at the local art museum (dafuq, I know), and the place was riddled with hipsters. I even saw one guy sporting a hijab, the obscure chic was in full force. THEN my cohort came down to look at me and we went to the calanques which is like the rocky coves next to the sea, it was so pretty and I felt like a tin of John West. One time I also tried to get famous by talking on the student radio about “mes experiences” where in some delirium I ended up slagging off my own country, obviously clawing desperately for franco-acceptance (you can listen here, even if you don’t understand). I am an oozy slug, I’M SORRY.

To counterbalance, I pioneered Marmite at a picnic, a move that was destined to go tits up given the historic French revulsion for English gourmet, something I naively overlooked. I tried to defend myself by saying it just wasn’t the same on croutons and without butter, but my words fell on deaf ears and besides, there was saucisson sec to be ate. Now I’m just salty brown slime girl.

I will now leave you sweet potatoes wondering what other unbelievable tomfoolery I have been spraying around. Trust me it ain’t as electrifying or sexy as you’d anticipate. Wot in bejesus does one wear to a “harlem shake” party though?? This is really not in my realm. Tonight matthew, I’m going to be… a prick sans frontières.

Beezoo (it means kisses in French :)) XXXXXXX

P.S. Watch this it is IMPORTANT.

Previously on AMC’s The Walking Dead.

Is probably my most overheard phrase of the week. I just can’t get enough, but also I am bursting with ennui like a goose pumped with lard and entrails ready for the pâté mincer. How’s that for a cute simile. Went to see a spectacle the other day, was these two magical nomadic witchy type ladies singing provincial songs, was pretty sensually assaulting if I’m being some sort of honest emo. Also got a job for the week flyering for classical music concerts at the Grand Théâtre that I’ll never be able to legitimately attend, but there’s something satisfying about hustling bits of paper under condescending noses with a grubby peasant smile. Prematurely contemplating what I want to bring home comme souvenir, one thing I have fallen moronically in love with is wasabi crisps. They’d be too fragile and important for the suitcase so I can see myself going through customs with them strapped to my torso and saying “c’est explosif!”  like a hilarious publicity stunt.

Why do I never write about anything relevant? You’d think that reading a year abroad blog about France would be at least partly informative or enlightening. Pardonnez-moi.

Eternal.

Unfranced

Sacre bleu it has been quite a long time (well it hasn’t really has it I’m being a drama queen) as time seems to drag here. Besides going back to saafampton for a week to ambush the housemates with a full-head pig mask and getting clobbered startledly like an unexpected piñata, I haven’t really been up to much on this side of the channel. I bought a ‘cocktail de legumes’ the other day at the supermarket instead of the old multifruits mélange; a rampant amalgamation of tomatoes, carrots, yellow pepper, beetroot, cucumber and ONION. Curiosity destroyed the cat, I don’t think my tastebuds have forgiven me yet, although in hindsight if I’d just heated it up it probably would just have been soup. Will I ever learn to stop trying new things? It remains to be seen.

I honestly can’t remember anything noteworthy about France since the last post (except LOSING THE RUGBY) so I won’t try. When I got to London at 1am though I planned to mull around at the 24h McDonalds in Victoria Station (which I had wisely presearched) until my 5.30am train from Waterloo – only to discover that stations close between 1 and 3am. Shivering and oozing mucus and tears in a pussylike manner round Westminster with only the unsympathetic bundles of homelessness for company, I contemplated inhabiting a night bus to Tooting Bec for a few hours or trying my luck being the little spoon of one of the destitute bundles. I wandered lonely as a clood until I saw a sign that almost made me religious: 24h Accident and Emergency.  And that is how I spent the night for free in central London at St Thomas’ Hospital, damn did I feel like a smug bitch.

Oh also in France I went to Nice which was agreeable and saw a non-existent carnival and ate a chickpea pancake. It’s sunny here too nerrnerrnerrr. Time for Chinese revision, my noodle is feeling dim sum.

(… sorry)

Welcome to round 2

So I’ve just moved out of the world’s anus that is Le California into half-the-price-twice-the-conviviality uni halls, AND IT IS GREAT. Still got bare bureaucracy to deal with but as I have come to learn half-wittedly these past few months, the general southern-French consensus is that vital affairs can wait. Oh yes and I had a bit of a moment at Gatwick when curiosity got the better of me and I sauntered into the South Terminal Chapel & Prayer room to be confronted with various bemused-looking worshippers lying prostrate on the floor; had to take a U-turn back out making that the last time I get all dangerously open-minded again. GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TODAY THOUGH. I got taken on an exclusive excursion (muchas gracias to my amazing friend Sophie) around the ports of Mars which was peng enough but the director-general of MP2013 culture capital of Europe was there and I primary researched his arse with an interview, zing. The euphoric feeling of academic success can only be compared if you can imagine writing your dissertation on buff oily male lifeguards and then bumping into David Hasselhoff. AND THEN the camera loved me and Ima be in the local paper tomorrow looking like a gimp. Everything’s coming up Milhouse!

Jean-Francois Chougnet, my Mr Baywatch. The glasses,  unnngh.

P.S. I just saw a gypsy wearing birkenstocks and legwarmers. Haute-couture enough for ya?

Whinge

I miss supermarket chains. I miss self-service checkouts. I miss pelican crossings, human-size coffee, untempting bakeries, after dusk transportation and presentable universities (with waterproof ceilings). I miss muesli; granola is not muesli. I miss the reduced food section, jesticles, lined paper. Night floozies vomiting and weeing and shouting, urban drainage systems and the BBC news music. I miss goddamn proppa tea. I miss Lincolnshire sausage. I miss the NHS.

On a less sulky note, I think I have found my guardian angel in the form of the halls cleaning lady who looks like a scarab beetle. You know when you feel like you’ve seen the same person at various moments throughout your existence, in various places in the universe, this is she.  And whenever I see her she always looks deep into my soul like she knows what I’m about and what’s going to happen. That or she’s just staring at me discerningly because she knows I write memos on my bananas and she’s seen my novelty boob mug.

I’m back in 5 days; I have already packed. Apocalypse me now