Why, yes, I will have some cheese with my w[h]ine.

Friday night was a blast, because two other assistants came over for wine and cheese and detox time. After surviving the last of our training sessions, and making it all the way to our first break (this coming week is off for Toussaint, or All Saints' Day), I think it was well-deserved.

After we'd chattered away at my place for a few hours, Julien invited us to join in a poker night he was having with his friends. We hung out with them until the wee hours, and it was a great night all around.

The next day I had orchestra in the morning, and spend the remainder of the afternoon avoiding laundry, before finally coming to grips with it and heading to a laundromat.

Having never gone to a laundromat in the US, I'm a bit unqualified to make a comparative study of the experience. The instructions are printed on the wall ... you pick empty machines, load them up, and head to the machine to pay. 4€ per load of 6kg. What was most annoying, in terms of cost, was that to dry things, it's 1€ per 10 minutes of dryer time.

Uh, what? No.

So I gave the important things like towels and jeans and pyjamas a ten minute spin in the dryer (I'll give them credit though, the dryers are pretty forceful) and came back to my apartment to hang my clothes from every available space in the apartment. It looked like my laundry threw up on my apartment, but hey, it worked.

I've begun to reflect, at great length, on costumes I would wear if I were home. I've set the bar pretty high in previous years, as Carmen Sandiego and then Sarah Palin, most recently. So far my ideas include:

1. Une francaise -- This would necessitate a striped shirt, a beret, and carrying around a baguette. Additionally, I would need a designer hangbag to carry my candy (Longchamp?) and I would consider taking up smoking for the evening.

2. The [traditional] American in Paris -- I would drape myself in an American flag and don Uggs, and carry a large city map. I would also speak in high volumes and mispronounce everything with a deliciously non-continental accent (PAR-lezze vouses le fr-anne-say?). Oh, and I'd be carrying a hamburger.

Neither of these has resonated in that critical way though, so alas, I'm still pondering the matter. Suggestions are welcome.