I GOT MAH FLIPPY FLOPPIES. In France.

Yesterday our group had its last excursion, only a day trip this time, to Deauville. Deauville (and Troueville, the town it's basically connected to) are in Normandie and have lovely beaches where the water is more or less the same ice-cream-headache-in-your-whole-body inducing temperature as it is in Cape Cod. The only difference is that in Cape Cod in the summer it's hot and gorgeous, whereas in haute-Normandie it's raining one minute and there's weak, watery sunshine the next, and it's never really warm enough to take off your jacket, let alone swim. At least not in May. So despite my promises to go swimming no matter how freezing it was (mostly because I have the most adorable new bathing suit you will ever see), I didn't. Things I did do include wandering through a farmers' market, eating a duck and apple salad, hunting down the perfect pastry (failed attempt this time, must do better in future), coveting expensive chocolates, having skipping contests on the beach, and talking about Harry Potter while watching French people (who may or may not have been mostly naked) run around on the beach.

All in all it was a good day, especially given the weirdo convention that seemed to be going on in Deauville this weekend. The first sign was when we were accosted by a bridal party (complete with a woman wearing, among other strange things, a veil. They asked us for our opinions on what to include in "The Recipe for Eternal Love," but I don't think we were much help. We suggested oysters, chocolate, honesty and some song lyrics. I'm a little dubious on both the effectiveness and the edibleness of that recipe, but whatever. After that we continued to see people in bizarre costumes, prominently angel wings and devil horn headbands, as well as some nuts on odd low bicycles I really hope they had rented and didn't actually own. So basically Deauville is a cute seaside town with plenty of seafood, and evidently plenty of weirdos to boot.

Last week we had our end-of-the-year reception where people dress up, bring their host families, and eat macaroons while showing off their talents. If they have any, that is. Apparently in past years the program has been filled up with people playing instruments, dancing, performing skits, or doing whatever other talenty things they could. This year though, we're a rather talentless group. Hannah played something lovely on the clarinet and Kit brought his dance posse to give us a breakdancing spectacle, and Courtney wrote a hilarious poem (in French; possibly the reason it was hilarious). Xinger also brought a bunch of her artwork to display, and ended up selling a few paintings. But aside from that, I think the host families were probably disappointed in the lack of skills from the rest of us. It was a good fete though, especially meeting all the host families you've heard gossip about all year long--checking to see if this one really is the ideal of Paris-chic or if that one is in fact insane.

I've also been having some fun adventures around Paris. One especially adventurous day was when Hannah and I, for lack of anything better to do, did absolutely nothing but eat all day long. That's not true; we also got lost and saw some prostitutes and pottery, but mostly there was the eating. We walked to St. Michel, stopping on the way at a macaroon place whose name I cannot spell, where I ate the most wonderful pistachio-chocolate croissant in the world. Then we got on a bus to the Passage Brady, a narrow walk lined with Indian restaurants in a cartier full of exotic grocery stores. We bought mangoes for one euro each, had the world's best samosa and ordered mango lassis to go. When we received them, they were in water bottles. Like, water bottles and had been (hopefully) washed out and reused. But the lassis were so good that even I didn't care, and we drank them while wandering down a random street. The street itself was lined with incredibly chic stores full of obscenely expensive things. High class, right? WRONG. After gazing into a window full of painfully beautiful hats, Hannah and I turned around to see, loitering on the other side of the street, some very obvious (and very unattractive) prostitutes. In broad daylight, on a sunday, on an expensive street. There were also some groups of men lingering around and we weren't sure if they were pimps, potential customers, or just the audience. It was bizarre, so we scurried off in a less scary direction with our mango lassis, our innocence only slightly damaged.

We ended up wandering past the bakery with a page from the Figaro in their window which stated that they had the best chocolate eclair in Paris. Obviously, we had to try it. I'm not an eclair person by nature, which is maybe why I thought it was only "pretty good" and not "mindblowingly amazing." After that we found a store with fairly inexpensive ceramics made in the south of France--gorgeous cups and saucers and pitchers in very eatable colors. It was a good, food-filled day, minus the prostitutes.

A few days ago we also attended the bread fair that happens in the big square in front of Notre Dame. It consisted of a huge tent where you could watch all kinds of mouth-watering things being prepared, and smaller tents with free samples that made you want to buy everything. I was a huge fan of the raspberry butter, but I know if I bought it, it would've been consumed way too quickly (and possibly with a spoon). After that there followed an afternoon of gratuitous shopping--I think my problem is that, because most everyone else will be leaving in under a week and a half and they all have the urge to buy buy buy because of that, I have it too. Even though I'm not leaving until July. I guess I can justify it by saying that I'll be losing my shopping buddies (Valerie's not one for watching me try things on for two hours like they are), so I need to take advantage of them while they're still here. Yeah, that makes sense. Right?

The one downside to life right now is the weather, which is doing a disgusting, grey, rainy and way-too-cold-for-May type of thing. It's unpleasant and slightly depressing, and from the way even the French people complain about it, it's not normal either. We're supposed to have a garden party in the jardin du Luxembourg today, but I don't know if this perpetual drizzle is going to let it happen. It's unnerving to think that this garden party, if it happens, is one of our last chances to see everyone, all together, in Paris. And if I think about it for too long, it has the potential to be incredibly upsetting.