How was YOUR weekend?!?!

So when I was invited to the "country house", I really didn't know what to expect, except that Madame promised me that there would be animals there. I mean, give me animals and I will travel.

We set out on a Thursday night, 5 of us (Monsieur, Madame, Priscilla, Camille - Lara's best friend - and me) in the back of the car. Lara and Grandma were going to join us later that evening at the house.

En route, Madame turns around with a wicked grin and says: "Oh, I forgot to tell you Michelle, the drive takes 6 hours."

Priscilla then chimes in, "Well, we are at the Bois du Boulogne...you can just jump out now and make some money on the side." (The bois is where all the hookers hang out.)

If there was any re-affirmation that I was placed in the right homestay, this would be further proof.

But I digress.

2.5 hours later...we pulled up here:

I kid you not. This is the "country house".

Even more proof I was put in the right family. I love me some taxidermy!

Does your country house have a name? Oh wait, you don't have a chateau as a 2nd property!

So actually, the point of the trip was to go to the church where Lara is getting married in the summer. Camille and Olivier (another one of Lara's friends who will be playing the organ at the wedding) were there as well, in order to do a dry run through.

Church!

Priscilla (front) and Camille start singing!

Me and Manon

We took the care-taker's daughter to the Church, too. (All chateau's need year-round, live-in help, as I was told.) It became evident to all that she was going to glue herself on to me (why are kids like cats?! Cats ALWAYS attach themselves to me because they know I am NOT a cat person. Kids apparently are the same deal too...) and I played baby-sitter for a very, very long 3 hours.

Once back at the ranch, we had engaged in other fun activities such as:

Cluedo!

(That's "Clue" in French. DUHHH) I did better in Cluedo than in Trival Pursuit, in which I was dead-weight.

And then we got to do the one thing I set out to do:
Ride horses!!!!

Hey Eros. Sorry you were such a spaz-face.

So Lara and I decided to ride, which would have been good, minus that the horses hadn't been ridden in months, Lara hadn't ridden in 10 years, and I was wearing a hunt cap. ("Wait...this isn't a real helmet?! - Lara)

After it became clear that Eros was not having this "Michelle gets on and rides game", I decided to ride Jason, instead:

Ignore the crappy leg, forward position.

Why yes, we DO ride in front of the chateau, thanks for asking. Don't YOU?! It was nice to finally get back on a horse, even if it was for a short time. (I also rode Eros in the end, because I couldn't let him get away with being a jerk. Good thing I had my hunt cap to protect me...)

We also took a long walk in nature, ate leg of baby deer, and celebrated Grandma's 80th birthday. I have great video of that, but it's not going up here...

A succesful week-end was had by all...

And then we loaded up the car (complete with Cookie), Monsieur put Madame's hat on his head, and we drove off back to Paris.

Yet the question remains...What did YOU do this weekend?!?!

LOOK! LOOK!

So I will admit it, I'm a pretty blase person. Except when I'm not. So this morning, I was en route to one of my favorite places in Paris (St. Ouen flea market) with Sharon when the following conversation took place:

Sharon (randomly, to some English guy): Excuse me, do you know you look a lot like Jim Broadbent.
Random Guy: Uhmm.
Sharon: Wait, ARE you Jim Broadbent?!?!
Random Guy: Uhh....(1/2 nods and gives Sharon a "Please go away look")
Sharon: COOL! HIIIIIIIIIIIII! I'm Sharon.
Me: (head in hands) I can't take you anywhere....and who the hell is this guy?
Sharon: He was in Bridget Jones's Diary and Moulin Rouge AND he's Professor Slughorn in the new Harry Potter.
Me: OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!

On further research, he is also an Oscar winner. I was so excited for one of my first celebrity spotting in ages ('cause Anne Hathaway doesn't count when it's just around town).

5 hours later:

Lara and I were en route to the bus, when we walk in the path of some people getting filmed on Velibs (the free public bikes in Paris). I decided to do a double glance to see who exactly where on the bikes when...

Me: OH MY GOD!! IT'S DITA VON TEESE
Lara: Qui!?! (Who?)
Me: OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG. OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG.
Lara: Ummm....
Me: I need to call Sarah. OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

I know that now all of you are going to Google Dita von Teese. But I was sooo excited esp. 'cause I wanted to see her at Crazy Horse but the tickets were too expensive. But I was totally like, bugging out 'cause I saw 2 celebrities in 1 day. AHHH!!

(Real update tomorrow, I promise.)

RIP "fIphone" 2008-2009

Today marks the 6th month anniversary of my iPhone, belovedly called, "fiphone" (pronounced, fie (rhymes with pie) phone).

He had a good life; he traveled from China to America, and had many voyages throughout Europe as well. He even got to work in Morocco, too. He withstood multiple injuries: falling out of my purse, falling downstairs, being accidentally stepped on. He was a super-trooper.

His favorite things were being confused with the "real" iPhones and his pink carrying case (which sadly broke 3 weeks ago). He also liked it when I wiped him down with sanitizer.

He was to be passed on to Priscilla at the end of my stay here, but that was not to be.

Today, at about 1.20 pm Paris time, I sat down on my fIphone, and the screen cracked. (Before you start the fat jokes...it was at a weird angle AND I've lost 5 pounds while being here, thank's very much!!)

Luckily, to my foresight that the fIphone might crap out, I brought mr. Motorola (my first phone in China, pictured to the left in the photo) along for the ride as well. He is willing to accept the call of duty in a new country, and has already been employed several times in the last hour.

Good-bye, Mr. fIphone, I will miss you.

Morocco, Part I

Too lazy to write a new entry...sorry...but here are some photos! You can make your own captions if you want and leave them in the comment section...more in detail entry to come...

What I do every Wednesday night

I promise that I will do my Morocco update soon...but until then I will leave you with (another) video. It's a really short clip of what I do in my phonetics lab every Wednesday night, and the reason why I am so self-conscious speaking French...thanks Denise...

ps - yes, I got my haircut...more on that later

Cooking with Monsieur & Michelle!

So I am back from Morocco, but legit dying with some type of cold/allergy/whatever...and don't feel like doing a real post about Morocco. Therefore, I am leaving you with a video of Monsieur and me "Cooking", aka, Madame (and Lara and Priscilla - everyone who can cook) left us to go to the country house for 2 weeks, leaving him and me to fend for ourselves...

"At least her passport was full"

Romanian Flag!

So the Night before I left to go to Romania, I had dinner with Ann, Alain and Eva. During dinner, Ann turns to me and asks:

A: Michelle, what possessed you to want to go to Romania?
Me: ...'cause it's cheap...
A: Have you ever thought there might be a reason for it being so cheap?!?

Well, the moral of the story is, yes it's cheap in Romania and I never have to go back...ever, ever again.

The blog title is what I told Joe I wanted as my epitaph, if I died during the trip. (Joe stated that there was a 50/50 chance of one of us dying during the trip...I told him that it sure as hell wasn't going to be me, but just to be sure, I wanted my epitaph to be good...)

Joe and I started in Bucharest (sad, depressing) and went to Braslov (not as sad and depressing) to see Dracula's castle...and that was it. For real. We ate tons of Italian food (I don't know, all the restaurants were Italian/Romanian?!?) and managed to navigate the language barriers.Fake Hollywood-esque signHey! I'm standing in front of Dracula's castle! There is nothing else to do in this city!

From Brasov, we went to Rasnov (see a pattern with the names here?), where we hiked up to that fortress pictured above.The view from the top of the fortress

So it was a fine trip, nice to get out of the city for a couple of days, and nice to be in a REALLY REALLY cheap area. We leave for Morocco on Thursday....