existentialist.

i live with an existentialist seven year old named vivien. this morning as i ate my croissant, he very dramatically with many hand gestures told me 'cette vie est horrible! on est obligé de mourir! je ne peut pas trouver harry potter 3! je le voudrais regarder mais je ne sais pas ou se le trouve! je le cherchait partout! c’est horrible! et mes parents ont discuté souvent!' rough translation: 'this life is horrible! one is obliged to die! i can't find the dvd of the third harry potter! i want to watch it but i don't know where it is! i've looked everywhere! {he's been bugging me for weeks to watch it and then when we finally could last saturday, we couldn't find it} it's horrible! and my parents are always arguing!' what's one to do when you have to die some day, you can't find harry potter and your parents fight?
in other news, continuing on my journey of gastronomy {because is there really any better way to discover a culture other than through its food?}, i've been dying for something spicy. the food in france is wonderful and fresh but spicy doesn't really exist. last week i bought some salsa {sauce mexicaine} and i was surprised by the strong flavor of cumin which made it more like an indian sauce or curry than the spicy salsa i was hoping for. luckily, yesterday i found this tiny wok place. i had noodles with beef, veggies, and a sweet soy-based sauce. and to my delight, they had sriracha sauce. after i ordered, the guy behind the counter told me i had une belle accente {a beautiful accent, he must have been lying through his teeth because i don't have a very good accent} and then asked where i was from. when i said the U.S. he responded in english, 'cool in the states!' then i learned he has an uncle who lives near new york city. it's funny because people can usually tell i'm foreign and then when they find out i'm from the states, they get really excited. the typical response is 'oh i love americans.' so i ask if they've ever been to the U.S. or met any other americans, and the response is invariable no but they still love americans. granted this has happened mostly with guys my age or older, french women are much more standoffish. more on that later. so after warming myself from the inside out with my sriracha soaked noodles, i bought some madeleines {soft, sponge-like cookies, usually almond flavored, made famous by proust} and ate them on a bench in place stanislas which is, at least for the month of october, decorated with plants and topiaries to form a labyrinth. it was a beautiful and pleasant afternoon.