look for the girl shaking her fist in your direction

Tonight I was eating cheese and kinder in the hostel common room when the guy from the front desk came up to me and asked if my name was Brooke.

"Your friend just called the front desk looking for you," he explained. "She said I should look for the really skinny girl with her hair in a bun."

"Well," I said, "she's lucky I wore my hair in a bun today."

He said it hadn't been much of a gamble.

Curse you, friends and hostel employees, for thinking I'm so predictable. And a double curse on you, hostel employee, for memorizing my hairstyle preferences because I've been here so long. Tomorrow I'm spiking my hair, so best of luck to you.



I PROMISE this will be my last post labeled "Angry Threats." It's been a stressful week.

oh it's going to be such a good day

my country tis of thee

When I was eating lunch with a group of French people the other day I couldn't stop thinking about how different every little thing is. We were just having a spontaneous lunch, but someone had brought nice china and there were four courses. And every time someone heard I was living abroad for a year they said it sounded stupid, they didn't try and couch it in anything or lie to make me feel better.

I think it's funny that thousands of people who like being blunt and having really formal "informal" lunches all happen to live in the same place. It's like one guy named Francis loved long, fancy dinners and hated telling white lies, and he started his own country for people who felt the same way.

I know that isn't how it really happened. But if I could start my own country, here are some of the customs we would have:

The main food group in my culture is candy.

It's normal to hang out with your family all the time, and only your family.

When you fall on the ground everyone laughs to show it's ok and not embarrassing.

Mailmen have the celebrity status that actors have in America.

No one says "How's it going?" unless they really, really want to know.

If people have any free time in their day, even just 15 minutes, they go to the zoo.

We would obviously have a really sweet flag and our traditional meal would be a ham sandwich with cream cheese and barbeque sauce and when you ate one no one would say "That's disgusting Brooke, what's wrong with you?" Instead it they would be really excited and brag "Oh, this is a really traditional meal in this culture, how fun!"

Cheese Review 3

I'm 9% done with my goal to try 33 new cheeses. I think that's ahead of schedule.

3. SAINT AGUR GOAT CHEESE
Recommended by Emily, who I met because she was traveling all over Europe. This cheese is freaking strong, but Emily can handle large amounts of it.
Rating: 5/10




0. BRIE
This cheese doesn't count because I've had it before. But it was recommended by Celeste, who randomly brought it to church for everyone to eat.
Rating: 9/10

things I want today

that I can't have

I want to live in this cool apartment building in downtown Salt Lake.
It has gold standard energy efficiency and is ssso cute on the inside.


I want this one-eyed overweight chihuahua named Bernie
He must be cute on the inside at least.


And I want Chex cereal in any form.

curse you

This is how I feel about whoever ate all my tomatoes from the community fridge.
They were just tomatoes, but they were such good tomatoes.

the lemon ones are the best

My French adventures continue. Today my friend and I decided to trek out to some museums, which were all apparently closed because of the public transportation strike.

It's always fun to learn something new: that French museums apparently consider themselves part of the public transportation system, and it's fun to console yourself with...



macaroons! Thank you pastry-shop owners, for not going on strike today.

my life is so hard

I'm going to have a pretty grueling year in France. Evidence is the arduous goal I've made for myself: to try 33 new kinds of cheese while I'm here. Almost any kind of cheese is fair game, because so far in my life I think I've had less than 10 different kinds.

I had planned to keep track of my progress by getting a tattoo of each cheese on my arm after I ate it, but halfway through the first tattoo this morning I realized it would be more convenient and less painful to write about each of them. So, voila I guess.

1. GOAT CHEESE
Recommended by Sarah, my English roommate my first night in Marseille. Don't make fun of me for never eating goat cheese before now. I think it tastes like cream cheese, and it's good with space lettuce or peaches.
Rating: 8/10



-----------------------------------------------------------------

2. COMTÉ
Recommended by Ashley and Ruthie, friends in Marseille. They talked this cheese up all day but it is impossible to exaggerate how good it is. It tastes like swiss cheese a little? And it's probably good with anything.
Rating: 12/10



I'm probably going to have to adjust my rating scale. Because any cheese is at least a 7/10.

hide your wives, hide your kids, and hide your husbands.

I've terrified everyone one at the Marseille community center. In Advanced French today the teacher handed out an exercise where we made up answers to questions like this one:

Is Fatima a taxi driver?

He turned to Marina, a tiny woman in her 50s, to answer this one, but she wasn't having any of it.

"How should I know?" asked Marina. "I've never met Fatima, I don't know what her job is."

"Well of course you don't, it's just made up. So just make up an answer"

But Marina continued to object, insisting she had never met Fatima. She sounded more like a murder suspect than a French student. "Fatima? I never knew her, I swear! She could have been a taxi driver, she could have been a pastry chef, I have no idea. Ok, fine, FINE! We were neighbors. But that's all, and I never would have killed her! Ask Jean-Paul, she owed him money for taxi repairs!!!"

Next it was time for me to answer a question.

Jean-Paul, was your car expensive?

I wrote the French equivalent of "Nope, I got the five-finger discount."

The teacher stared at me with concern. "You what?"

"Not me, Jean-Paul. Weren't we we just supposed to make something up?"

It was uncomfortably quiet for a while.

"Well class," he said, watching me from the corner of his eye. "It looks like the American has... an imagination." As though it were some sort of horrible rash.

Good thing he never asked me where Jean-Paul hid Fatima's body.

Shut up and listen to me.

I try really hard to remember every cool French idiom or word someone says, but usually I forget two seconds later. So I was glad yesterday when my roommate repeated one hilarious thing at least a hundred times. Before almost every sentence, she said the French word for "Listen."

Like when I saw a castle in the distance, and asked her if she knew what it was called. "Listen," she said. "I have no idea what that building is."

Keep your friends close, and strange French people closer

I've only been in France a few days and I've already made a ton of friends.

The bus driver who laughs at my misfortunes
On Saturday, I decided to take a bus to get to a building by a huge park. When I got on the bus, I asked the driver if it went to the park, and he said yes. I sat down and started watching all the buildings we passed, until we passed the park and I realized I had missed my stop. The driver smirked when I got off at the next stop, but I acted like this was the stop I had wanted all along.

Curses. So I got off the bus, crossed the street, and waited for the bus coming the other way. The buildings were not cute in this area. When the bus finally pulled up, it was the same driver, he had gone to the end of the route and turned around. And when I got back on, he laughed at me.

My own personal cheering section
While I was waiting at the wrong stop for the bus to come back, I showed a woman my map and explained where I wanted to go. She said I needed to get off at the park and walk through it, but said it was easy.

Back on the bus, I was pulled from my building-watching-induced trance when she yelled "Mademoiselle, this is your stop! There's the park!" A man behind her stood up and pointed, "It's on the left, on the other side of the street." and a little old lady with a poodle reminded me to be careful when I crossed. The woman said "Just go straight through the park and you'll be there." The little old lady was yelling "Go to the crosswalk and cross! The cars are coming fast and they won't see you!" and her poodle stood up straight and gave me a determined stare and slow nod that seemed to say "You can do this, Brooke. I know you can." Soon the whole bus was cheering me on from the windows as I walked toward the park. Thanks guys. I promise I won't let you down.

The ice cream vendor who knows best
I went to buy some ice cream today, and told the vendor I wanted strawberry. "Really? Strawberry?" I had never had someone selling me something question my choice, and didn't know what to say. So he continued "You know you could get strawberry-vanilla or strawberry-banana? That's twice as many flavors for the same price." I told him I was fine with just one flavor. And why is he selling flavors he can't stand behind? Giving people bad deals like that, one flavor for the same price as two. How does he sleep at night?

Anyway, after I tasted it I wished I'd gotten strawberry-vanilla. But now if I go back, I know he'll laugh at me. He and the bus driver should get together sometime.

zero out of four dentists recommend it

eat your eyes out

or something, on some of my photos of Marseille. It's the best city in the world, so I've been taking a lot of pictures. Click here to see them!






Feast your eyes, that's the expression I was looking for.

5 things I love about old people in France

They are tiny. At least a head shorter than I am.
They dress really, really nicely, all the time.
They love smoking.

Conversation between an old french couple at the airport
Her: Give me my cigarettes.
Him: You can't smoke on the plane.
Her: I know that.
Him: I wish you could though.
Her: So do I.
Him: It's ridiculous that you can't, it's a stupid rule.
Her: Give me my cigarettes.

They love cheese. The cheese section of the supermarket is swarming with them.
They are everywhere.

I'll just pretend I've lost my voice for a year

I've only been in France a couple hours but visually I'm already really good at fitting it. On the plane from Paris there were six of us in the row, and the flight attendant asked all of the others in English what they wanted to drink. But when he got to me (window seat!) he switched to Et pour vous Madame? 

Of course, as soon as I start talking the jig is up. Yikes.

I'm in Marseille... pictures coming soon maybe? I'm too tired and confused to take any.

scene: miles over the Atlantic Ocean

Brooke: Are you from France?

French guy: Yes I am.

Brooke: Do they have M&Ms in France?

French guy: Yes.

Brooke: Oh thank goodness.

I no longer own a cell phone

Greetings from a 5-hour layover in Atlanta!

This morning I packed my whole life into a checked bag and a carry-on, and when I got to my gate they asked if I wanted to check my carry-on for free as well. Yes.

So now all I have is my laptop, my camera, and a magazine I saw that I had never heard of before, which is really terrifying. Because everything I own is floating somewhere between the Pacific Northwest and the Mediterranean, and because wouldn't you think by now I would have heard of every magazine that existed? This probably doesn't bode well for its quality. Or it could be my favorite magazine ever.

I'm soaking up these 5 hours because it's my first time ever being in the South. I don't know if I'm really getting a feel for it from inside the airport, but it looks normal. No mountains, no lakes, and everyone says it's warm out. They have crazy "recycling trash cans" here. They say "you trash, it sorts, we recycle" which I do not understand but sounds like a load of garbage, literally.  I gave the machine half a smoothie, good luck recycling that.

Thrilling. My next blog post will be about how I got lost and ended up in Bulgaria and was stranded there for 3 months, so stay tuned.

curse you Minesooootan accent

*ring* *ring*

Bank Robot: Thank you for choosing Wells Fargo!
To speak to a banker, say "Banker."

Me: Banker.

Bank Robot: Sorry, I didn't catch that. Please tell me where I can direct your call.
To speak to a banker, say "Banker."

Me: BANKER

Bank Robot: Sorry, I didn't catch that. Please tell me where I can direct your call.
To speak to a banker, say "Banker."

Me: Banker?

Bank Robot: Sorry, I didn't catch that. Please tell me where I can direct your call.
To speak to a banker, say "Banker."

Me: Banker!

Bank Robot: Try speaking more clearly. Please tell me where I can direct your call.
To speak to a banker, say "Banker."

Me: Baaaaaanker

Bank Robot: You said "Account History." Please wait while I transfer you.

Me: No, I said "Banker."

Bank Robot: You said "Donate Savings to Endagered Birds." Please wait while I transfer you.

Me: Curse you Bank Robot why can't you understand me!?

Bank Robot: You said "Banker." Please wait while I transfer you.

Now I can get mugged

Only 20 hours awake before I leave for France. Usually I like counting "hours awake" because it makes things seem a lot sooner, even more so if I tell myself I'll sleep 12 hours a night, but right now it's really scaring me. And this is with a regular amount of sleep planned.

I went to the bank and got Euros today. Not sure if I'm supposed to say "some Euro" or "euro dollars" or "Euro" or "some euro money" and all the teller did to clarify was give me five new options for how to say it.

This week feels like skydiving. Like you always wanted to go skydiving, and you found a good weekend to do it and bought tickets, and went up in the plane, but this week is like the seconds before you jump, when you're sick to your stomach and thinking "I was insane to ever think this was a good idea."

In a few days I'll be soaring happily over the city, or I'll be crashing into a tree because all I can say in French is "I like baguettes" and someone steals my brand-new "Euros currency" from me at gunpoint.

Animal Fact of the Week: Cheetahs hate tween girls who wear pink cheetah-print

This week's Animal Fact of the Week is in honor of Connor, the best nephew ever, who loves cheetahs. I don't blame him. Cheetahs can run up to seventy miles per hour, and they can go from zero to sixty in three seconds. I don't think there are any cars that can do that. There are fish that can though, don't tell Connor.

schools are closed and pools are open

Not much to say except CHECK OUT THIS SWEET JACKET I got at the military surplus store today.



I'm probably the coolest person you know now.

If you want me and my jacket to come to any events you're throwing, just to class things up a bit - I'm there. I can hold a guitar or play the tambourine. I can make interesting conversation if your idea of interesting conversation is quizzing people on deep-sea fish and explaining why baseball is the best sport.

If it's cold out I can pretend to smoke a cigarette and my breath will look like smoke. Invisible cigarette combined with the jacket = Wow. Very, very cool.

Animal Fact of the Week: new idea for a super-power

Hopefully in a couple years this will be a reality.

Grasshoppers can jump a distance of 20 inches, 27 times their length. If I had that power I could jump 150 feet. Outrageous. On this map I would be able to jump from my apartment in the top right, to the red car in the bottom left. That would really be overshooting my bike in the center of the map, but if I could jump that well I might jump to campus instead of bike.



If you're getting as excited as I am about the prospect of jumping to campus, sit down before I tell you this next part : I would also have a vertical leap of 37 feet. With some practice, I could probably hop up to the balcony of my third-story apartment, instead of taking the stairs.

I'd have to see. I don't know if I would be naturally good at jumping without seriously injuring myself.

the game plan

5 days from today : fly to Portland, best city ever (it's a three-way tie with Minneapolis and Marseille)

6 days from today : see the Decemberists in their hometown



Then hang out in this forest for a week, jamming with them.

11 days from today : fly to France and be terrified, lost, and homeless.

Cross your fingers that I don't lose my passport, miss my flight, or tell an off-color joke at a fancy party.

it is finally the future

French word of the day: robot de cuisine

Literal translation: kitchen robot



Actual meaning: mixer or food processor



Really unfortunate.

Reasons it's time to leave

Today three people told me they thought I had left already.
I'm out of cereal.
An saxophone player just moved into the apartment next door.