Partaay!

It’s surprising how much mess can be made when eight people put their minds to it. The party clean up operation took for ever. I decided after the Toussaint smash fest, in which I lost four wine glasses, three tumblers, a cup and saucer, and the will to live (almost), to supply people with plastic plates and glasses at my birthday gathering. Every time I hear ‘Oops’ as something falls and shatters I feel my 500 euro deposit slipping ever further away from me. So I decided not to take any risks this time. I imagine I’ll be buying a new set of plates and glasses before I leave anyway but I thought it seemed sensible to try and preserve what I have left for at least the next couple of months. I might have a smashing Greek style party with what remains of the originals in June. That’s if there are any left of course.

The plan on Friday night was to order pizza, but as usual I panicked at the last minute and cooked up a feast anyway. I hate inviting people to my house and having no food to offer them. I thought I was just making something to accompany the pizza but in the end I’d made so much food we didn’t even bother ordering anything in. We had two barbecued chickens (bought from the supermarket), rice with stir fried vegetables, tuna pasta salad, green salad, bowls of crisps, biscuits, all sorts of stuff. Nelta came round which was good - It was lovely that she turned up but also it forced us to speak French for most of the evening which, though hard work after a few beers and chocolate liqueurs, was very rewarding!

I’ve decided to try and foster a new cinema-going habit to force me to listen to more French. Courtney got me a gift voucher of five cinema trips for my birthday which is already helping my habit form nicely.

A few of us went to the cinema yesterday to see a film called ‘La Femme de ses Rêves’. This is a film I would normally have avoided but it turned out to be quite funny in French. I think I’m more easily amused here as far as films go. If I can understand what’s going on then it seems like money well spent to me. I think it helped that there was a man behind us guffawing madly every few minutes – not only did it cue me as to when to laugh (I'm joking! Je blaguais!), the raucous laughter also kept me entertained through the portions of the film that were too slapstick for my usual high brow tastes (ahem). I saw ‘I am Legend’ last week (I thought since it was about the last man on earth the dialogue wouldn’t be too challenging. I was right - there were more gunshots than words in the movie I think.) I saw a documentary called ‘Le Premier Cri’ too which was good, about childbirth in various different countries of the world. I wasn’t sure about the weird Mexican woman who had people pay her to give birth in her pool of dolphins ...but each to their own I suppose...