The French Flunch

by Rasmenia Comment Closed
During the past year & a half that I have been living in Paris, I've naturally eaten at several French restaurants. The French love food & are (rightfully so) very proud of the food here.It often seems that there is a restaurant on every street. There are places with names such as: Taillevent, Le Dôme, L'Epi Dupin, La Charcuterie & La Tour d'Argent.All of those fancy-sounding French names are typical…but what wasn't so typical & the name that came as the biggest surprise to me was: Flunch.Fucking FLUNCH?How does this sound at all appetizing? Obviously, whomever the mental giant was that came up with this one needs to be punched in the brain. It seems quite apparent to me that there are much more suitable uses for a word such as "flunch"."Damn…I just stepped in flunch." "Stop flunching my leg." "Some sick bastard just flunched all over the bathroom floor."I've decided to work this word into my vernacular. While words such as...
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The Monkeys Go West

The Monkeys Go West

by Rasmenia Comment Closed
So, this past weekend, Olivier and I went to see Monkey, Journey to the West. If you have the opportunity to catch this show, I highly recommend it.The music by Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz) was excellent. The animation by Jamie Hewlett (Gorillaz) was just as cool as one would expect, but the performers from China were incredible. Sword fighting, dancing and acrobats... of course, there was even a contortionist. Olivier and I were in awe throughout the entire show.Who knew that a night at the opera could be so cool?There was one small matter, though -- the entire show was in Chinese. Okay, no big deal. There were French subtitles illuminated above the stage.French?! Yeah, I got to practice my French, too. What a full night.Oh... and there are two other monkeys that will be making a trip to the west. That's right. Olivier and I will be spending Christmas in Colorado.Not only will we get to spend some time...
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Hedwig & The Banshee Must Be Destroyed

by Rasmenia Comment Closed
I once had a neighbor who was from Arkansas. I lived in the apartment directly below hers. When her kitchen sink had a leak, she piled a bunch of towels & dirty clothes under the leak. Of course, after a few weeks of this, the result was a smelly pond that appeared in my apartment within a matter of minutes in the middle of the night.Another neighbor I had held his girlfriend's family hostage, which resulted in a standoff with the police for over 12 hours before he finally released all of the hostages & blew his brains out.One neighbor painted a deer turd with gold spray paint, hung it on a chain & gave it to me as a gift when I moved into the neighborhood.Of course, I can't forget the neighbor who raped & beat a girl to death. He was found in Guatemala 2 months later by America's Most Wanted & I watched the whole thing on...
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The Giant Spoon and Skinny Streets of Spain

by Rasmenia Comment Closed
So, what did you do today?I went to SPAIN!Yep, after a day of lounging around on the beach, Olivier and I got up bright and early, left the cat in the apartment at La Grande Motte and hit the road to spend the day in Spain. After a few hours on the highway, we reached the French/Spanish border.We went to Figueres and our first priority was of course, to find food. We found a tiny place that served tiny, microwaved frozen burritos and other frozen crap. Oh, well... we ate it... and yes, I would pay for it later. There is a Salvador Dali museum in Figueres and we headed back to the car so that we could make an attempt at finding it. On the way back to the parking garage, we happened upon a the biggest absinthe spoon ever.However, there wasn't a glass or bottle of the green stuff to go along with it. We happened upon the museum on our...
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Free Alphabet Lessons in the Basement

by Rasmenia Comment Closed
One of the most important things about moving to a new country is learning the language. Before I moved from Colorado to France, I had very little knowledge of the French language. The semester of French class I took in my sophomore year had almost vanished completely from my memory by the time I moved here when I was thirty-two.Sure…I had a few useless phrases & words. But I could only go so far on “Hello. I don’t have any diseases. Where is the bathroom thank you very much.”The good part is, the French government wants us to learn French. So much so that they’re willing to foot the bill for some French classes.The letter that they sent me provided the date & time of the class along with the address. The class was scheduled to start at 9am.I found the address – it was a church. It didn’t seem right, but...
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