.fr

this year we got to witness the fascinating phenomenon of the importation of holloween.

all saints' day or toussaints is the holiday on november 1st. i know that it exists in the usa on wall calendars, but since i'm not a catholic, i have no idea how it is celebrated back home. here it is celebrated much like memorial day, by bringing flowers to dearly departed in cemeteries. there may even be a parade or procession of sorts through the graveyard.

the halloween that we know didn't exist here until very recently, and it still has a long way to go before it reaches the frenzy that exists in the us. according to the french who i spoke with about it, it's been around for less then ten years. the french have mixed opinions about halloween. they recognize it as being an american holiday and hence some view it as yet another example of the encroachment of american culture on france. hand in hand with this is halloween's strong commercial aspect: halloween came here in large part because of advertising and store merchandising. but of course it appeals to kids for obvious reasons, and so most parents are likely to go along.

in the stores there were small sections peddling pumpkins and pre-packaged witch and devil costumes. when i asked my classes what they were going as they all answered, "witch... witch... devil... witch... ghost... witch... devil."

from october 29th to 31st i stayed with a middle aged couple in béziers. the woman had bought a big bag of hard candy for the trick or treaters but when one showed up on october 30th she shushed him away, telling him to come back the next day. on halloween afternoon, about 4pm, the next-door neighbor shows up in costume, which is basically an orange trashbag with a picture of m&m's trick or treating. above the picture in black magic marker he wrote, "happy halloween," and across the bottom, "bonne halloween". it was a self-referential halloween costume.

the neighbor then invited us over to show off the halloween decorations that they had put up: a paper skeleton on the living room wall, a plastic spider clutching a bunch of stretched cotton over a corner, and "caution! risque!" yellow tape rolled out across the front of the house. the family was proud of their halloween display in a way that suggested it's novelty, in a way we might feel about having a dia de los muertos display in the usa. look! sugar skulls!

trick or treaters are not called trick or treaters. i have no idea what they are called, but i don't think they pluralize their halloween command: bonbons ou bâton, literally "candy or stick".

this morning we got into our place, but for only an hour while the electric man came to turn on the power and the realtor did the inspection. i see for the first time, under light, that the bathroom is a pretty beat. years of grime have found their way deep into the grout work of the little pink tiles, in fact, it's seems that under light there is dirt cakes on all the tiles in the house. and in the toilet room (the bathroom and wc are often in separate rooms here; this is a good thing for us), well, there is a rusty patina etched so strongly in the bowl as if someone dropped a bunch of pennies in there decades ago and they decayed in there. this dampened my enthusiasm for the place somewhat, i must admit. were we too hasty? are we paying too much?

tonight we saw a debussy & shostakovitch quartet at the chapelle des pénitents blancs (church of guilty white people?). though everyone but us was decked up and over 60, it was only 6 euros (we claimed the student rate) to get in. seth enjoyed himself immensely, but while i found the musicians to be amazing, and the chapel a perfect venue for the quartet, the music's dichromatic tones gave me anxiety and i left needing therapy.

so the weather starting to turn cool and the wind blows fall, dried leaves are starting to swirl in the street. we bought our first baguette today, still warm and so very delicious.

our bank appointment was at 9am. the monsieur that scheduled the appointment and another mademoiselle help us set up our account. between our limited french and their limited english we manage to finish an hour and a half later with a joint checking account, and a carte bleu/visa/debit cart. there are lots of fees associated with french bank accounts. (as i'm learning, there are a lot of fees associated with everything here.) there were fees for my bank card and a different type of fee for seth's bank card, a fee for opening the account, a fee for automatic payments, a fee for checks, a fee for internet connection. oh, but there are no fees for using other banks atm machines. so to spite them i will never use theirs. ever!

we come back to the etap hotel to take a nap. the etap is where we've been staying for the past few days since our first hotel was booked. it's close and the same price, but the room is barely big enough for the uncomfortable bed. and it has a 1985 mauve and green trimmed decor. it's incredibly ugly. and everything in it is the lowest quality they could find. the shower curtain looks like a trash bag with loops, and how is 9 square feet of plastic supposed to keep water in the tub anyway? i wake up with brush burns from the sandpaper sheets. my face hurts. seth's back hurts. the worst thing is that it's nearly completely automated. you check in with a kiosk outside and slip of paper shoots out with your room number and 6 digit code. there's one guy that works a short shift in the mornings and evenings, but otherwise you're at the mercy of a sleep machine. "open the pod bay doors, HAL."

at least we have bbc on the telly.

we wake up and head for la poste/western union to pick up the money that seth's parent's have hopefully sent. that was our best idea. the next best idea involved maxing our daily atm withdrawls for about a week and hoarding the money at the etap. have i mentioned how much we need up front to get a place? in france, you typically get an apartment through an agency and they take a hefty finders fee, usually less then a months rent, but our chi chi agency charges more. then there's first months rent, and a security deposit of two months rent. also taxes, renters insurance, paper fees. so we have a huge stack of money we're carrying and i'm nervous. but we make it unmugged, and we sign all the paperwork and viola, the place is nearly ours. but not yet. we are informed that we will have to wait until the first of the month. afterwards, i realize that i have been bitten alive the night before by mousquitos.