I now have holes in my body.

(Day 27, Grenoble)

Alright, so I have no big social commentary for today or crazy thought that has been eating at my insides for months on end. I'm sure I can pull one out if you'd prefer! The big thing that happened this week...

... I finally got my ears pierced! I know this may not be exciting for some of you, but it should be known that I'm rather terrified of needles and I have an unacceptably low threshold for pain (like, I see something drop on the floor and cry out in pain). This has been a multi-year process but very worth it. How many people do you know who can say they got their ears pierced in France? It was quite the experience, let me tell you. I went with a couple of my friends to a Claire's on la Grande Rue in Grenoble. I figured tons of small children get their ears pierced at Claire's stores in the US, it must be acceptable to get them pierced at one in France. (And it was either that or a rather sketchy Body Piercing place on some side street. Seemed safer.) 

So I'm sitting in the chair with my friends next to me trying to describe that it's fine and what will happen. NO. I need to never know what is going to happen to me. If it's a shot, surgery, or anything DON'T TELL ME. I'll just over think it, blow it up to unrealistically terrifying proportions, and die on the spot. While they're trying to 'calm me down', the very nice young woman is speaking to me in French while simultaneously training someone on how to do the ear piercing. I've pierced enough doll ears at work to know that trainees aren't always comfortable piercing. Now I'm adding the possibility that some unexperienced French woman is going to pierce my ears on to the pile of other things freaking me out. I sign my life away (in French) and then sit silently, simultaneously clutching the arm of the chair I'm sitting in and the Euro coins in my pocket. Honestly, the whole piercing thing wasn't so bad. It mostly just felt someone was stapling me. A beautiful wave of nausea kicked in immediately after however and didn't wear off until we were on the tram towards campus. Over all, everyone that knows how long this has taken is giving me nasty 'I told you so' looks through the computer, and everyone else should feel no regret skipping that whole paragraph. It was fine; it all happened in French; I'm still not 100% sure what I signed away to; and my ears are very sparkly.

I also haven't spoken much about the food here recently. From what I gather from my experiences, France loves food and gastronomy so much that they have a different food for each month. Januarys are for Galettes de Rois, these magical, beautiful pastries with this almond thing inside. I don't know, but it's great. There is a prize hidden inside and who ever gets the little token is the King and gets a precious gold crown. I won the one time we had one with my host family, which was wicked exciting!!

February, or at least February 6th is the month of crêpes, which is fine by me! Both of these foods are connected to assorted religious holidays: the galettes go with the Epiphany and the crêpes go with la Chandeleur/the presentation of Jesus at the temple. Therefore, I'm eating these foods for the rest of my life on religious grounds and so should everyone else. Even if it's not your religion, just eat the foods anyway. They are absolutely delicious!