nawl

So we're stuck in a horrible traffic jam. Some huge accident has sprayed debris across the autoroute in both directions, so it's closed just outside of Paris and traffic is moving at approximately .5 mph.

I get bored and start asking Renaud which departments the license plates are from. The last two digits of a French license plate is the two-digit number of the department (region) the car was registered in. In front of us is a 93.

"Ca vient d'ou, 93?"
"C'est la banlieue parisienne, tu connais Saint-Denis? C'est d'ou viennent tous les rappeurs francais. Mais ils disent pas quatre-vingt-treize, ils disent le neuf-trois." He adopts a fake rapper-style: "Moi, je viens du neuf-trois, quoi." For some reason this sends me into fits of giggles. "Moi, neuf-trois, quoi."

Translation:
"Where's 93 from?"
"It's the Paris suburbs [equivalent of the inner city]. Have you heard of Saint-Denis? That's where all the French rappers come from. But they don't say four-twenty-thirteen [ninety-three], they say the nine-three." "Me, I come from the nine-three, ya know?"

"Let's talk about sex" comes up on the iPod. Renaud is singing along. And he pretended to be offended when I told him that if an American guy dressed like a French one, he would immediately be classified as metrosexual if not gay. It's the cut of the jeans, quoi. Also perhaps the tight t-shirts that say "Je ne suis pas d'accord avec ce qui se passe sur cette planete." (I'm not ok with what's happening on this planet.)

We're almost to Euro-Disney. It's going to be a long trip.

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We spent three hours in the backup before they finally re-opened the highway. People were getting out of their cars to smoke, pee, etc.

It turns out the accident involved un camion a frites, a french fry truck. This resulted in several jokes about Belgians, because anything that mentions fries in France requires jokes about Belgians. When we passed the site of the accident, we saw a lot of what seemed to be smashed up potatoes and who-knows-what-else by the side of the road.

Right now I'm at Renaud's house in Vouziers, sitting in his super-hooked-up brother's room trying to get the laptops set up to watch Super Size Me in French. This room is insane. Modded Xbox. (After he saw that I wrote this, he says "With LCD!" In a French accent. Renaud: "Il est fier, quand meme.") Collection of posters for bad American movies in French ("The Faculty: Sechez les cours! C'est une question de vie ou de mort.") Four shelves of DVDs, many of them ordered from Canada and dubbed in quebecois. A home-made lamp from a Pringles can.

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Last night we had dinner at a snooty Italian restaurant on the other side of l'Arc de Triomphe, right near an awesome rondpoint where you could look down one street and see a fabulous view of la Tour Eiffel all lit up for the evening in the fog. Renaud explains that the Italians are to the French as the French are to the Americans: they drive like maniacs, sleep with your women, and waiters drop by your table in a restaurant when it's convient for them. The service in this restaurant was definitely like that. Across from our table was a family of four. We couldn't hear them talking amongst themselves, but the waiters were trying to explain the menu to them in English. I guessed upper-class east coast family, definitely not British. Then we realized they weren't speaking English among themselves. Revised guess: something Scandinavian. I should have known by the older daughter's hair style, a single barrette on top of the head pulling the bangs back.

After we went to Cafe de Flore, which was apparently the hangout of Sartre, and also the location of the best hot chocolate in Paris. It was, indeed, the richest cup of chocolate I've ever had, a thick chocolate syrup. I was instructed to savor it like a fine wine. The cafe itself was full enough of random people, including a fair number of tourists who all take the napkins home as souvenirs. From our hide-out in the "non-smoking" section upstairs, I watched a woman as she smoked a cigarette alone, then tried to start a conversation with a guy a few tables away about his iBook, then her shock: "Ah, mais vous n'etes pas ecrivain?"

Renaud and his brother are discussing all the horrid dance music they have. In French. Blogging in English is making me schizophrenic. "Clement! Das Modul! Ils ont das modul! Mais c'est genial! Ah ca marche pas! Vas-y, essaie-le sur windows, il me faut ca." eurodancehits.com "Ah, Voyage-Voyage, c'est du kitch francais des annees 80. Regard le look, la."