Is it obvious that I wrote yesterday's Fun France "Fact" as a backdated after-thought when I stumbled in from Mardi Gras celebrations at 2:00 am? Because it should be; there was no way I was going to be in at 11:59 last night because I have an inappropriately strong (and well documented) love of Mardi Gras. It was nothing legendary, but a very ( Read more... )

This is a Wednesday night in late September. It is the night that we discover "ERASMUS" (i.e.: cheap booze) night at what is now my favourite Montpellier bar, Bar Huit. I like it because it's shiny, it has cute bartenders, and it plays just the brand of English music which makes me smile, and when I'm drunk enough, sing along ( Read more... )

I went to Uni at 9:00 this morning to go to my first class in three weeks, only to find that all the buildings were blockaded and that the strike was not so over as the university website still insists. A very nice militant French student explained to us that they were not on "official strike" but that they were, nonetheless, barring entry to all ( Read more... )

I went for a haircut yesterday. And, like many other things in France, it was overly complicated and lasted over three hours. Like too few things in France, it was executed by a man who looked like Heath Ledger if Heath Ledger were a werewolf ( Read more... )

Yesterday morning, when I arrived at Uni, the students had barricaded the gates with tables so that they could force everyone walking in and out to take a flyer about their grievances. Then, at four, several bulky, skin headed men (one of whom, I'm told, had an impressive ponytail) walked into my friends' tutorial with a big ring of keys and ( Read more... )

Just past 7:00 tonight, as I was leaving work, there was a guy with a guitar standing in the alleyway behind the shop under a huge picnic table umbrella branded with Magners logos, singing Outkast's Hey Ya!, as it rained and rained away. My manager said to me, "THAT, Mel, is the very picture of the Edinburgh Festival." Then, I set off running ( Read more... )

Up until fifteen minutes ago, the most exciting thing that happened in my day was frantically trying to remember what I learned in third grade math so that I could calculate percentages in order to make sale tags at work. Then, fifteen minutes ago I was on my way home, obliviously jaywalking down the street, listening to my ipod when SPLAT! Ow. ( Read more... )

At any given moment, I always have a song whose genius I find so captivating that I cannot get enough of it, a song that I find so wonderful that I want to explode and dance and sing and scream all at once because I physically can't cope with the beauty of it. I listen to it every day, and when it ends, I have to listen to it again at least once ( Read more... )

When I speak of how weird I was in high school, when I cringe about the crazy things I used to do, or even when I recall high school events with fondness, I usually end up speaking about the strange things I used to do in the name of "fashion". I'll readily admit that there was a time in which I used to carry a roll of duct tape around in my ( Read more... )

Playing dress up? Check.
Board games? Check.
Dirty Dancing 1 & 2 movie marathon? Check.
Consumption of too much junk food? Check.
Hot chocolate (sans alcohol)? Check.
Gossip about boys ending in a nostalgic round of Mash? Check ( Read more... )