Sister Cities

August in Paris is what the natives like to call "la morte-saison" - the one month a year when the heat grinds all life in the city to a sudden and sweaty halt. Apparently, the humidity of August turns the City of Lights into a temporary City of a Living Hell, the heat being so intense that the locals leave Paris to sun themselves on the Mediterranean coast - or simply melt to the stool of their favorite bar and drink themselves into a cooler mental state.

Well, wouldn't you know it, but San Francisco and Paris have been Sister Cities since 1996, and this past Friday San Francisco decided to emulate Paris' sultry summer romantic appeal by becoming unbearably, undeniably, unmistakably hot, humid, and eerily still for one night and one night only. And I was in town to witness it.

Andrew took me into San Francisco for the weekend so that he and I could enjoy some time together in my newly discovered, newly favorite "French District" of San Francisco (really a city block with some French restaurants and an embassy). Cuddling with Andrew in the window seat of Le Central tabac and café, I was having trouble remembering if I was on Bush Street or le boulevard Montmartre. I actually had a river of sweat running down my spine at midnight on the Embarcadero. I couldn't believe my good luck!

Andrew and I spent an entire weekend eating French food (sitting in the same seat as Arnold Schwarzenegger had the day before), catching up with Aubrey in North Beach, discovering bean curd pastries and hangover remedies in Chinatown, and admiring the high rises of the Financial District from the 24th floor room we shared at the Westin, leaving me just enough energy to climb into my own modest Boulder Creek twin sized bed and type this up before what I hope will be a long, deep, uninterrupted twelve hours of sleep (why not?!).

Alright, so I'm all too aware that the au revoirs to friends, family, and my beautiful home city are going to be bittersweet in the weeks ahead, but I couldn't help but pause on that perfectly balmy weekend and remind myself that, as a matter of fact, la vie est très belle, especially in this heat.

A Ticket to la vie Française

For the past six years or so, I've dedicated myself to my complete obsession of everything French. I'm not quite sure why or how it started, but I suddenly found myself interested in wine with dinner and creamy cheeses. I actually dedicated time everyday to my philosophy homework because, hey, isn't that all the French talk about: great philosophers and revolution while they sip espresso sweetened with sugar in rundown corner cafés in Paris near the Sorbonne? Hell, I even started learning the language! It quickly occurred to me that my greatest goal in life had become to try and become a native Française.

So, when my arrêté de nomination arrived in the mail in June, announcing that I would be teaching English to snot-nosed junior high kids and their know-it-all, hormonal older siblings in high school (kidding! I love kids really...) in some small, no-name town in the French Alps, I couldn't have been more thrilled! I finally had real, honest-to-God legitimate access to my dream of living and working in France. And here I thought I might never see France again…

Last Friday I went to the French Embassy in San Francisco to pick up my temporary worker's visa: a year-long passport to legal, legitimate living in France. My airline ticket is purchased, my depressing cubical job is quit, and a brand-new laptop has been bought to record the experience. I'm keeping this blog so that I have a way of recording my trials, pitfalls, pictures, and hopefully some happy memories in a form accessible from every corner internet café I might visit; I can update blog posts in between discussing Descartes and Camus... yeah, right. Please leave your comments so that I don't get lonely!