can't get utf8 / unicode strings from embedded python

[random832 at fastmail.us]

On Sat, Aug 24, 2013, at 2:45, David M. Cotter wrote:
> > you need to use u" ... " delimiters for Unicode, otherwise the results you get are completely arbitrary and depend on the encoding of your terminal. 
> okay, well, i'm on a mac, and not using "terminal" at all.  but if i
> were, it would be utf8
> but it's still not flying :(

> so, it seems that i AM getting my utf8 bytes, but i'm getting them
> converted to macRoman.  huh?  where is macRoman specified, and how to i
> change that to utf8?  i think that's the missing golden ticket

You say you're not using terminal. What _are_ you using?