Brr

I am very cold and sick. I will write about last night later.

Sans domicile fixe means "homeless" in French, but it translates literally to "Without fixed domicile"

What a joyous weekend. Hmph.

Friday night I was supposed to meet Chris at eight for dinner, so I went back to the apartment to take a shower. Of course, there was no hot water and no electricity, so I took a shower in ice water in the dark. Needless to say, there was water all over the floor of the bathroom because there was also no shower curtain. I am hoping it will evaporate by tomorrow.

I met Chris for dinner and we went to the Falstaff. I had a backpack full of stuff (pajamas, clothes, etc) because Scott had said I could stay in his dorm room if I didn’t want to sleep on the floor of a freezing cold apartment, which I didn’t. It was an interesting night - Chris and Katie got into a fight about things that Chris said to other people about Katie’s boyfriend, and I got trapped, unable to leave the table while they had said fight. Eventually they went for a walk and I was released.

I was sitting around with some friends. I had asked Scott to make sure not to leave without me. I was going to walk Vaune back to the apartment so she could get her stuff to go stay at Luis’s, and then when I came back Scott and I would leave. I came back and didn’t see him, so I sat down. Deborah went to get a drink and I asked her, if she saw Scott, to tell him we would be leaving in about half an hour. She came back and told me Scott was making out with some girl. Twenty minutes later I checked and he still was. Then he went outside, giving me the “one minute” sign with his hand. Ten minutes later I went outside and he was still making out with/talking to this girl. I was pretty mad, because he was leaving me in the lurch here, but he was drunk and I just didn’t want to deal with him so I went home with Kris and stayed in her room for the night. She lives with a host family, though, so I couldn’t take a shower there. So Saturday morning I walked back to the apartment and took another freezing shower.

Chris and I met up at 1:30 and went to lunch with his friend Siobhan (pronounced like “Chevonne”) and her friend Willa (who I found out later was actually the girl making out with Scott). We had pizza, and it was really lovely. Then Chris and I wandered around trying to find a sweater, a long sleeve shirt, a hat, mittens and a scarf, and shoes for me. We only succeeded in finding a sweater and a shirt, but at least we got those. Then Chris took my laptop home to charge it and I went back to the apartment and put on two pairs of pajama pants, jeans, a tank top, a shirt, a sweatshirt, my winter coat and my hat and took a nap.

At 7 I met Chris, Vaune, Christine and Katie at the Chinese restaurant and we had dinner. We were walking to the Falstaff and I stopped to call Alexis and told them I would meet them there. When I showed up a few minutes later, none of them were to be found, and they didn’t show up for another hour. A wonderful way to start the evening. I decided not to drink that night, so I just had water and cranberry juice as everyone around me got slowly drunker. Scott promised me (again) that I could stay in his dorm room. I would’ve said no out of spite if it weren’t for the prospect of a hot shower. We saw Justin and Emerson and generally had a good time, except for some people being jerks, but that is another story and also not mine. I was tired and coughing and wanted to go to bed, but of course I had to wait for Scott unless I wanted to freeze. He went to walk Katie home, which should have taken twenty minutes, so when it had been 45 minutes I started to get angry. If he ditched me again, he was not getting off so easy. But he got back, having gotten lost. He said he wanted to sit for two minutes before he left, which made me wary, and it should have - he was immediately appropriated by some drunken girls. Ten minutes later we finally left. We went back to the apartment to get some of my stuff and then walked to his dorm. Scott did definitely redeem himself by sleeping on the floor of his own room and giving me the bed, and making me toast this morning. And I finally got to take a hot shower this morning, with lights! What a novel idea.

Tonight is the Halloween party at the Falstaff (i.e. the whole reason we came back). There will be pumpkin carving and Rocky Horror and The Exorcist and candy. Yay! Tonight I may also actually sleep in The Apartment of Ice.

I don’t have my camera cord with me right now - I will post pictures from the weekend later.

Angers, again.

Back in Angers for the weekend - to see folks, to go to Kat's pumpkin carving party, and, apparently, to do laundry.

Vaune and I left at 7 this morning for the train station after a breakfast of Fluffernutter (me) and brioche and jam (her). At 7:45, as we sat waiting for our 9:00 train, I realized that we didn't have our cartes 12-25, which we were going to have to show when the conductor came to check our tickets, in order to prove that we were, in fact, allowed to have a %50 discount on our tickets. We had an hour before we would even know which track our was going to be on, so I volunteered to go home and get them. I ran the ten minutes through Montparnasse train station to get to where the line 4 Métro stops, took the fifteen minute trip home, ran upstairs, and got our passes. Then I backtracked. All in a t-shirt and jeans in 35 degree weather. Some guy in the Métro actually said to me, "J'ai froid pour vous," meaning, "I am cold for you." Since I absolutely cannot get past the French habit of talking to complete strangers (especially in the subway) I ignored him, assuming that it was some kind of weird pickup line. It wasn't - he was just concerned. But I was sweaty and could barely breathe (chest cold developing - again. Yay) and unhappy so I just gruffly told him that I was in a hurry and I was fine. He kept talking but I disappeared onto the #4 train.

I got back just in time, and we got on the train. Thankfully the conductor did, in fact, ask us for our discount passes. If he hadn't, if that trip had been in vain, I would have been deeply unhappy. Now we are in Angers, and it is damn cold. This is where we are staying:



It is Kat's (the bartender/bar owner who is having the pumpkin carving party) boyfriend's former apartment. It has no furniture (read: mattresses), heat, or electricity. It does have water, walls, a roof, and a floor, so I'm good (Sorry Mom - I know you hate that phrase). Which is what matters, as I will probably be sleeping there alone while Casanova whisks Vaune away to Loveland. Fine with me - I'll run around naked and sing ancient chants while smearing the walls with bodily fluids. Vaune, you're missing out.

I ended up bringing all of my laundry to Angers, because it was all in my suitcase because it needed to be done, and it seemed more convenient to just bring the suitcase of dirty clothes and wash them at the nicer, easier to use laundromat here than wash them at the crappy, tiny, stressful one near the Cité, take them out, and repack the suitcase. So I did all of my laundry today (how satisfying!), and now I am at La Catho charging my computer and downloading episodes of House to keep myself company later (I left my book in my room when I ran home to get the discount passes). Later, I will probably enjoy a doner kebap and pass the evening at the Falstaff, drinking and being merry.

GO SOX!

Don't get me wrong, I love France, but...

I have been corresponding with a girl in Sweden. Recently we have been talking about languages – of course. She mentioned that she thought that most French people were happy to speak with you as long as you make the effort to speak French. My experiences to the contrary prompted me to write this response, which got a little out of hand, and then I figured I would post it here and expand upon it.

“I don't know, I have found that as soon as a French person finds out I speak English, they automatically assume that my French is horrible and that their English is much better and they begin speaking to me in embarrassingly bad English. It's very frustrating, as we would understand each other a lot better if they would just speak French with me. I love France, but I am quickly getting tired of French people. I don't mean to put you off - but they are the most racist, elitist, self-entitled, ignorant, and completely closed-minded group of people I have ever met. There are some great ones, but they don't make up for the great majority of rude, egotistical people who care about no one but themselves. I know a girl who was hit in the face by a stranger because she is black and she was walking down the street with a white guy. I know a guy who got pushed into the side of a subway train, fell down, hit his head on shards of glass - and people walked on him. The guy who pushed him made eye contact and said nothing. No one tried to help him. I come from a big city, but that would never happen there. No one would stand for that. These people are so self-involved. Their attitude toward immigration is, "You can immigrate to our country if you speak perfect French, listen to Vanessa Paradis, eat baguette, and keep quiet about your religion." Their idea of "successful" immigrants are people who you can't tell are immigrants. It's very hard for me to come to terms with because in the US, at least where I am from (and it is the "ideal") individuality is appreciated and encouraged. You are supposed to embrace people's differences, not try to make everyone exactly like you. Here, they don't even understand that. I try to explain that to a French person, and they can't wrap their head around it. It drives me crazy.”

Now I would like to write about French middle-aged/old women. They are screwed up. My theory is that they were starved as children and teenagers by their screwed up French middle-aged mothers, they became anemic-looking young women, were attractive for a brief period of time, and now they are past their prime and have nothing to show for their miserable lifetime except premature wrinkles, bad dye jobs, and fat husbands. And then the rest of them, the non-stick-thin ones, are miserable because they have spent their entire lives being held up the ideal set by the stick-thins. These women are almost all insane. They need to control everything you do. They complain about everything, loudly. They do not trust me, ever. They blame me for bizarre unreasonable things. This latter trait seems to be especially prevalent. Examples:

-Madame Gilot blaming me for things her husband did
-the cleaning woman here blaming me for the kitchen being dirty

Her: “The other woman came in here this morning and said it was clean. Now it is disgusting. What happened?” sighs loudly and exasperatedly
Me:: “I don’t know, I just got here. I didn’t do this.”
Her:: “I don’t know that. I didn’t see it this morning. It’s disgusting. Why are you cooking in here?”
Me:: “…It’s the kitchen.”
Her:: “Well finish up. I need to clean.”
Me:: “I need to cook for ten people. It’s going to be a while.”
Her:: Exasperated sigh

* an hour later, she comes back, with a man *

Her, to man: “Why is she still here? She hasn’t finished yet?!?”
Me, in my brain: "I can hear you!!! This is a kitchen! People cook in them! Leave me alone"

-the woman at the bank blaming me because they spelled my name wrong on my bank card

It never ends. I would write more but writing this made me too pissed off at French people. Also - old French men, stop trying to help me use machines at the grocery store. I know how a scale works, as well as automatic checkout. Learn about personal space, and get the hell away from me. French people in general: STOP TOUCHING ME AND LEARN ABOUT PERSONAL SPACE. AND HYGIENE. YOU ALL SMELL LIKE ONIONS AND ARMPIT.

Whew.

Métro book of the moment:

J'ai des arbres dans mes poumons!

Our wifi is out. Somehow it’s a lot easier to concentrate on writing a blog post in Word while the internet is not available. No wonder I got so much more written in Angers. Of course, whenever I post this, the internet will be back up. Alas, alack.

The veggie burgers last night were pretty good. Some people had seconds, including a French guy who had never even heard of a veggie burger. I don’t know if I will make them again though – it was a lot of stress and work for something that was only “pretty good.” Unlike the fajitas, which were delicious, and not as much work. But I think people were sick of chicken, so I was glad to offer something else.

Today was my “visite médicale” – the last step in obtaining my “titre de séjour” which is what legally allows me to live in France. I have a visa, but unlike people who are only staying for a semester, mine expires in November and stipulates that I get a titre de séjour. So I went to my medical visit today. The day, of course, began ominously with what sounded like a fire drill at 8 AM. It only lasted five minutes, so I went back to sleep, but this morning the internet wasn’t working and all the fire doors were closed. Hmm.

I got there at 10:30 – half an hour early. In French bureaucracy, early is usually bad, but I figured early is never bad for a doctor’s appointment. But I brought a book anyway.

They called me almost as soon as I sat down. I went in and they measured me and weighed me – even with all my clothes on as well as my shoes and a sweatshirt, I appear to have lost 5 or 10 pounds. Interesting. Must be the poverty. Then I had to go wait in line for my chest x-ray. This was very awkward and uncomfortable, as I was standing with about five other people who were also waiting to be told when they should go in and strip down in front of a stranger. Eventually it was my turn and a very kind woman showed me into a little room where I changed into a gown. The technician pushed me up against the apparatus and gave me one of those giant heavy smocks to wear around my waist, so as not to radiate my ovaries, I suppose. She grabbed my elbows and my chin and smushed me up against the machine and yelled, “Inspirez!” My brain froze for a second but my lungs remembered that that means “inhale,” so I did. Thank you, lungs. Bien joué. Then it was over and I sat in the waiting room for half an hour.

Finally the doctor called me in and we looked at my x-ray. She asked me for immunization records. I knew I was supposed to have them, but I didn’t, so I just said that my director had told us we didn’t need them, because our immunization records in the U.S. are not the same as the French “carnet de vaccination.” This is true, but both the doctor and I knew it was not an excuse. I just told her what I could remember of my vaccines. She nodded after all of my answers – I guess they were what she was expecting. Luckily I stepped on a nail in New Orleans in May (Alexis tried valiantly to carry me home that night) and got a tetanus shot, so at least one of my answers was somewhat definite. The other responses were, “A long time ago,” or, “One time…” I told her about my endoscopy and she asked some questions about family history. She did ask me if I had any serious illnesses – I just said no. They just want to make sure that I am not going to infect other French people with illnesses from South America – they don’t need to know about my anaphylaxis. It would only freak them out. If I have an actual doctor’s appointment with a doctor who is concerned with my health and not with that of the patrimoine, then I’ll bring it up.

A highlight of this meeting with Dr. Bosque was that I got to keep my chest x-ray. “Un petit souvenir!” she exclaimed to me. Whoohoo! It is now hanging on my window. There are trees in my lungs.



It's an interesting decorating choice.


As soon as that was done I could walk right down the hall to the “délivrances des titres de sejours” room. The woman looked through the same two piles of papers ten times before she found mine, which had been there all along. I would have been pissed off but she looked genuinely terrified that she had lost someone’s titre de séjour and that she was in big trouble. But she found it eventually, I signed for it, and I was off! I am now a legal resident of France! Until… September 26th 2008.



And now I am off to the computer lab downstairs to obsessively check my e-mail.

P.S. -

I am now back after Grammar and History of Language. We met up with Irish Alan and a couple of his friends before the class and all suffered together. We were the bench of sharp-shooting English speakers. Afterwards, Alan, Vaune, Donal (sp?) and I sat and had 50¢ hot coffees in the Malesherbes café. It was very nice. I do enjoy the company of the Irish, I have learned.

Also, the Fondation is in anarchy because nobody applied to be part of the Student Committee. Should I apply for president?

And as a final note: Tulane, I miss you. Specifically, I miss monsoon season:

I'll get inside your face

I live in a pigsty.

Yesterday morning, Vaune came over and helped me clean up my room. I feel much better now. Mom, you can thank her later.

My incentive for cleaning my room was that afterwards, we were going to go to “Thanksgiving,” a Cajun restaurant/American grocery store that I had accidentally found online. It’s in Le Marais, which is a very interesting and beautiful area of Paris, so I knew that even if the store were lame, the trip would be worth it.

We set out, I with my new Carte Imagine R in hand (my new Métro pass that I just slide over the little reader and it magically lets me through, lighting up green arrows pointing the way) and took the Métro straight to St. Paul St. We found the store very quickly, and gleefully went inside.

Vaune was unimpressed, but I merrily catalogued every item in my brain for later use. I pored over each shelf, making sure not to miss anything that I would want later. I ended up buying several necessities that are not widely available in France: Kraft Mac n Cheese dinner, Bush’s baked bean, and B&M barbecue baked beans. And a root beer for Vaune.



After that, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and beautiful neighborhood and wandered around the Marais.



Bob Design!


We walked down to the Seine. I found a piece of a Camembert wrapper on the ground.



For a while, we just sat there and listened to our music. You have to choose just the right song to listen to while sitting by the Seine. I chose Ashes in Your Eyes by Deb Talan.









After a while, we decided to walk down the Seine, iPods in hand. It was a lovely walk.



Perhaps the highlight of the walk was the tent. People were camping out on the Seine. I have no idea if this was allowed, but it was funny. They had jokes about Belgians written on their tent, and they had a kitty. And they were sleeping outside in their sleeping bags as we took pictures of them. At 1 in the afternoon.





Kitty!


After that we went home, and I made my Kraft dinner. It was the best Kraft mac and cheese I have ever had. Then I lazed around and read Philip Pullman novels until dinner. Dinner was a little chaotic, but delicious as usual, grâce à Emily. I am, in fact, at the moment steaming 10 cups of cubed eggplant for veggie burgers tonight. In a wok. With no cover. Cooking for ten is always interesting.

After dinner Vaune and I watched Blades of Glory. Always hilarious. My favorite line: "I was on Qualuudes. I don't even remember Oslo. But I remember Boston. And that victory was as sweet as the cream pie for which the town was named."

All in all it was a good day. Today, on the other hand, has been crazy stressful as I navigate malls and eggplant and immunization forms. Whew!

Ann Coulter is speaking at Tulane tonight. Someone MUST tell me how that goes.

"Ann Coulter will be at Tulane today, October 22! Come see what all the controversy is about. Ms. Coulter will speak on "Why Liberals Are Wrong About Everything." She will be at McAlister Auditorium and will speak at 7 p.m. Doors open at 6:15 p.m. and bags will be checked.

Please, no video or audio recorders. Food, drink and weaponry are also prohibited in the auditorium."

Seriously? Cause I was going to bring my bow and arrow.

Strike day = fajita night

There is a lot to write about. It is daunting, which is why I haven’t written anything in a few days. For now, let’s talk about the railroad strike occurring across France today.

The national railroad system (SNCF) and the Paris subway system (RATP) are both on strike starting today. The RATP strike is especially hard because all transportation in Paris has literally come to a halt. The RATP includes the Métro, the RER (rapid line that goes to the suburbs), the bus, and the tram. No one I know even tried to go to classes today.

Basically, Sarkozy wants to change some of the pension privileges of the railroad workers. Right now, they can retire before they are 55. Sarkozy wants to bring them up the same pension privileges as other French workers. The last time the government tried to do this, in 1995, the workers went on strike for three weeks.

What it means for me is that there is no way for me to get anywhere, and also that many things are closed because workers can’t get there. So since I had the time… I decided that I would make fajitas tonight! This is also because tonight is “Vaune’s night to cook” which means that Vaune buys food and chops it up and is my go-fer, and I cook. On my night to cook, it’s the same except I buy the food. Also, Katie is staying with us because her boyfriend is flying in tomorrow and she realized on Wednesday that she was not going to be able to take the trains after yesterday because of the strike, so she came in last night and crashed on Vaune’s floor. So today the three of us walked to Franprix and started collecting ingredients for dinner.

Let me just say that searching for fajita ingredients in a French grocery store is not an easy task. First of all, I was looking for ingredients for the marinade, and Worcestershire sauce just did not want to be found. I grabbed a Chinese barbecue sauce (Hoi Sin) instead. Crème fraîche took the place of sour cream. Emmental cheese instead of… whatever other cheese you would use for fajitas. Anyway, we rounded up many of the ingredients at Franprix and then trekked to Monoprix to get the chicken. At Monoprix, we found the international section, which is where I found the Hoisin sauce, as well as peanut butter, maple syrup, Old El Paso taco kits, and marshmallow fluff, which was very exciting. I also found the first cheddar cheese that I have seen in France. It was 5€ for a tiny wedge of it, but I bought it and hoarded it away in my fridge. I am very excited.

So in a bit I will start making guacamole and when I am done I will cook up the fajita ingredients and once again the Tulane JYA in Paris Cooking Co-op will eat well.

Later I must write about what a small world it is once you get 3000 miles away from home to a completely foreign city.

iMétro Tune of the Day: Taco's cover of "Puttin on the Ritz." I think this is a very interesting music video, though controversial due to the appearance of performers in blackface. There is a version where they have been removed but this is the original.

iMétro Tune of the Day

Queen - "Living on My Own"

Dia duit!

Last night started out boring. We went to a "Parismus" party at some bar, which is supposed to be for French students to meet Erasmus (European international exchange program) students, and then American students can come, too. We all had to write our names in and put them in a box and then pick a name and find that person. Vaune picked Jesùs, which brought us endless amusement. Eventually Vaune saw a guy with her name stuck to his chest, so we made a fun British friend named Jack. I met a girl who had the same name as the name I drew from the box, but it wasn't her handwriting. But I gave her my email address anyway because she wanted to practice her English.

It was lame so we headed home. We got on the Métro and took it to Châtelet-Les Halles, but then got a text message from Alan. Alan is an Irish guy we met the first day we were here. We keep trying to make plans with him and then flaking out b/c we are poor and exhausted. But last night he was at a pub with his friend Eamon, and Vaune and Jen (who is hereby known as Jenny when she is drunk) and I just hopped the Métro back to Bastille (Jen and Vaune and I all got stuck in turnstiles at least once throughout the evening). We didn't have much time until the last train, but Jen got a beer and Vaune and I split a drink and we had a really good time hanging out with our new Irish friend and his Irish friend (who is staying in Brussels and was visiting. We learned some Gaelic (which he called "speaking Irish"): "Dia duit." It means "God be with you" and does not sound like it looks.

The moral of this story is that hanging out with Irish friends in a pub is relaxing and fun.

I leave you with this stolen except from Vaune's blog, because it's funny and there is no point in my re-writing it if she already did:

"On the way home, Bobbie and I were trying to explain to Jen our annoyance at the French habit of STARING. I swear, you can't wear a bleedin' tank top here without eliciting undisguised gaping from, well, everyone. (According to Scott, nothing larger than a B cup exists in France, which should explain that. Also, French women dress very discreetly, and I'm of the opinion that this combination of layered clothing and no deodorant explains a lot about the bodily odors here). Also, speaking loud, rapidfire English draws some attention. But good God! Even when you're sitting there, having iMetro time, keeping your mouth shut and your jacket closed, the natives just. Stare. You. Down.

In a perfect display of this behavior, the creepazoid man next to Bobbie turned to ogle her, almost on cue to our discussion. It was made even better because he had a hairline receded about to where most women would wear a ponytail, and he had gelled up the remaining hair--which consisted of BLOND RINGLETS--into a Queen Amidala-esque balloon around his skull.

Once he got off at his stop, the three of us turned and stared dramatically out the window at the guy, just to give him a taste of his own skeeviness. Lo and behold, he was staring right back, rapt at attention. Jesus. We nearly died laughing."

Locked out... again.

Yesterday morning was… interesting.

I woke up (after nightmares about Hurricane Katrina – not fun) and wanted to take a shower, because I hate the way I feel when I wake up, all sleepy and gross. A morning shower is to me what a morning cup of coffee is to many people. So I wrap my towel around myself, grab my shower caddy, and step out into the hall. The instant I close my door, I realize I have left my key inside. Our keys are VingCards, so the door locks automatically when you close it (which I hate anyway). So I was stuck. In the hallway. In my towel.

I knocked on all of my friends’ doors, but no one was home. I saw a guy walking toward the showers, so I followed him (you need your VingCard to get into the showers and bathrooms as well). I figured I might as well pass the time while taking my shower. This turned out to be a bad decision, because then I was stuck wandering the halls in my towel while also being cold and wet. But at least I was clean.

I found a bathroom with a door that was propped open, and thus not locked. I went in, deadbolted it and sat on the floor for a little bit. That got old, so I stepped out. I saw a random girl and asked her to go down to the reception to ask for a key to 306, cause I didn’t want to go down there in my towel. She was very nice, and she went downstairs. I was very relieved.

I was waiting by my door. Several people I didn’t know walked by and said Bonjour. I couldn’t believe that I was meeting people in my towel while locked out of my room. Finally the girl (Morgan) came back – and told me that the reception was closed for lunch. For another hour. I went back to the bathroom.

Eventually that got old again. I wandered around and finally ran into Tessa, a Tulane student. She let me sit in her room, wear her pajamas, and read her book. While she was in the kitchen, Sergio (a visiting friend of hers, who was at CIDEF) knocked on the door. I answered. He was terrified and thought he had knocked on the wrong door and tried to start apologizing. I explained the situation to him – but I really freaked him out. An hour later, I went down and got my key, wearing Vaune’s jacket as well. I got back into my room and put on clothes. Whew.

Today was less eventful – I lazed around, went grocery shopping, and cooked for eight people. I made garlic mashed potatoes with the skins in, and garlic parmesan breaded baked chicken. It was delicious. Everyone liked it. Yay!

Chance is a funny thing

Yesterday and today have been filled with excitement. Also, it is Thursday, which for me is like Friday, so that is also exciting.

Yesterday morning we had Grammar at Reid Hall at 11 (never fear – soon enough I will write a post describing all of my courses). The professor was calling roll, and when she got to Jessie she asked her if she was the girl who knew Aaron from the other class. Jessie said, “Yeah, I went to high school with him.” At first, I thought that she meant that she hadn’t known he would be there, and had just randomly run into a friend from high school in Paris. It turns out that she did know him – in fact, she’s the one who convinced him to come to France. But I was thinking about it, and I said to Vaune, “Damn, how weird would it be if, while in Paris, you randomly ran into someone you knew from high school?” Then we went back to playing hangman in the back of the classroom.

After class was over, it was time to make a mad (nearly impossible) dash across Paris to Clignancourt, where our Translation course was meeting – we didn’t even know if there would be room for us or not so we wanted to at least get there on time (the way for Tulane students to get into classes at the Sorbonne is to just sort of show up, grab a seat, and protect it with your life - if a registered student tries to claim their right for a seat, clam up and pretend you belong). I also had to pee, so I was running like a madwoman. I ran into the hallway in Reid Hall, saw Aurora Kurland, kept running. Stopped. Did a double take. What is Aurora Kurland doing in the hallway of Reid Hall, many miles from Bowdoin and Lexington?

So, for the record, yes - It is VERY WEIRD to randomly run into someone from high school when you are in Paris and not expecting to see them. Especially if, only one hour before, you were talking about just such a situation. I’m still trying to come to terms with the complete coincidence.

For reference (Aurora is on the left):



So then we went to our translation class. The first hour is French to English translation. We translated an excerpt of Camus. It was wildly easy, and entertaining. The professor kept checking with us to make sure that ça se dit. Once it appeared that we were in fact below the legal number of students allowed in the classroom, she was absolutely delighted to have les native speakers in her class, although she kept getting embarrassed when she used Briticisms and we just shrugged and used American phrases. Relax, lady! You’re the professor – you are smarter than we are. We just happen to have grown up in the States, by no fault of our own.

The second hour was slightly less easy, but still riveting. Of course, we switched from translating four sentences of very simply structured Camus to translating two paragraphs of John Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga, which is slightly more difficult. How exactly does one translate, “Life took on a subtle, purposeless meaning, became a bunch of flavours tasted, a darkness shot with shifting gleams of light,” into French? But she was very patient and encouraging with us and never once tried to speak to us in English. She seemed strict, and proper, but a good teacher. And we already have homework.

We hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so we got sandwiches. I came home and had yet another bowl of muesli and yogurt, my current staple food. It is delicious. It was early bedtime, because we were leaving at 6:30 this morning.

So this morning I got up at 5:30 and showered and got dressed and met Vaune downstairs. We were prepared for the insane sardine-like Métro ride that we had encountered at 8 AM on Tuesday morning. We vowed that next time we would leave an hour and a half before our desired arrival time, because we barely made it to Swedish on Tuesday. So, since our TD (travail dirigé – we have a giant lecture and then a “smaller” discussion group type thing, similar to recitations at Tufts) for Grammar and History of Language was at 8 AM, we left, logically, at 6:30 AM. However, there was no one on the Métro. We got there at 7 AM. So we sat in the subway for an hour, writing in our journals.

The class was great. The title of Grammar (synchronic section of the course) is, to me, somewhat misleading, although I guess it makes sense. It seems to me more like descriptive linguistics, but it is true that it deals (for now) mostly with syntax, morphology, and semantics. There is also phonetics. And then the History of Language (diachronic section of the course) part seems like it’s going to be really exciting, too. It’s just what I am interested in.

The rest of today has been pretty normal. We had Swedish, and now we are home. Jessie is making chili tonight. I have volunteered to cook on Saturday – I hope to make garlic mashed potatoes and garlic/parmesan baked chicken breasts. I hope that’s not too ambitious. And I hope I can substitute potato types. I have so much to learn!

To finish off, I am going to borrow a term coined by Erin and an idea borrowed from Vaune, and begin sharing with you my iMétro Tunes of the Day. This morning, I was mostly concerned with listening to music that would wake me up, and I found the perfect caffeinated melody in the Scissor Sisters' "Ooh." Enjoy. And I am being completely honest when I tell you that I did not even know that that music video was based around kids listening to iPods on a train before I went to Youtube to find a link to it so you all could listen. It's karmic. Click play - it's a catchy song.

Anchored down in Anchorage

Yesterday was our last day with Chris. We lazed around for a bit and then went to the Champs-Elysées. Chris was under the mistaken impression that we were actually going to a field. I don’t know how you could not know that the Champs-Elysées is an avenue, but apparently he didn’t. So we took the Métro and walked down the street. We passed a Haagen-Dasz, and also the McDonald’s where we saw employees on strike the first time I ever walked down the Champs-Elysées, five years ago.

Eventually we got to the Etoile, and the Arc de Triomphe.







The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier


It was only 5€ to go up if you are between the ages of 18 and 25, so we walked up the Arc de Triomphe. It was beautiful. I took a picture for Dad, a copy of the same one he took of me the last time I went up the Arc de Triomphe.

Delightful photo from 2004


Photo from yesterday




Yikes, look at that smog line


With the Eiffel Tower in the background


The stairs down


After getting back down


After that we took the Métro over to Montmartre, although we were too tired to go up to the Sacré Cœur. Instead, we got pizza and Haagen-Dasz. Mmm. Then we went back, and took Chris to the train station. We were dead tired and Vaune and I parted for the evening.

This morning was administrative-stuff-morning. We first went over to BNP Paribas and opened bank accounts. It was very easy, and free. We should have our cards next week. Next we went to the post office and got money orders for a painfully large amount of money in order to send away for our Cartes Imagine R – year long Métro/RER/tram/bus passes. They are worth the money, but it’s hard to remember that now as I eat muesli for the rest of the month. Then we went grocery shopping and came home yet again, and I am currently basking in the glory of my iTunes gift certificate from one Margaret Beyer.

Tour Eiffel

Well we did go to the Eiffel Tower, but we didn’t go up. The line was too long. Instead we took a lot of pictures, and were accosted by several Bosnian women with postcards written in English saying they had leukemia. After the first one we pretended to be German, but one of them walked up while we were taking a picture and just stood next to us and stared at the camera. It’s a very strange photograph.



Close-up




Chris and Vaune saluting the Eiffel Tower


Vaune and I - sans creepy woman


Handstand number one


Giving birth to the Tour Eiffel





Vaune taught me how to do a handstand, and I actually did it! The only pictures I have are of when I was coming down, because Chris is not as accustomed to taking handstand pictures as I am, but one of them is pretty awesome, as my legs are at a perfect perpendicular angle. It was pretty cool.



After that we walked over to “Rugby Town,” a big tent set up with lots of rugby stuff. Eh. But we walked out of it right onto Trocadéro, with fountains and artistics roosters and all.





Oops


We lazed about there for quite some time.







Finally we came home. I had some red spots on my arms and wasn’t feeling very well, so I took some Benadryl. Chris and I went out and got some onions and some dessert, and then I made vegetable soup w/ the onion and the leftover veggies from last night. It was great. Unfortunately, afterwards I felt very sick, and still do, which is why I am here blogging instead of out w/ Chris and Vaune doing Nuits Blanches – an all night art event all over Paris. I am sad to miss it but I feel very sick and would have been miserable and would have made them miserable by complaining.

Well, that’s all. Hopefully I will fall asleep soon.

Long weekend

Yesterday morning was excruciatingly boring, and frustrating.

Our fridge was scheduled to arrive between 8 AM and 1 PM. Chris was also supposed to wake up at some point, buy a train ticket, and tell me what time he was getting in so that Vaune and I could go pick him up at la Gare Montparnasse. This was fine for a while… I lounged around, watched The Office, etc. Eventually Vaune went out to buy groceries for dinner. I kept waiting. Around 11, the fridge guy called and said he’d be there in 20 minutes. An hour later, I called him. He said they’d been held up but they were on their way. Another hour and a half later (keep in mind this is after 1 PM now) they finally got there. They were nice, but I was unsure of French tipping practices in this situation, out of cash, and unhappy with this particular wait, so I didn’t tip them. Especially because I was making corn chowder for dinner – so Vaune had dropped off, among other things : milk, heavy cream, and cream cheese, which had been waiting in my room for about an hour and had to sit in the fridge for another hour before it got cold, which made me nervous, though all was fine.

Stocked fridge


I went out to get some more groceries, and ran into Erin, which was fun. I went back and dropped off my groceries in the new fridge, and then took the RER and Métro to Montparnasse, where I navigated the station to find Chris and Vaune, and then we swam back through crowds of people to get back on the Métro. Once we got back, we sat around for a bit and then I started making dinner. We were all very excited for this – it’s been a long time since any of us has had any good food that wasn’t prepared in a restaurant. Well, except for Chris. But Vaune and I were excited. And I enjoy cooking and was looking forward to creating something. So I chopped up a carrot and a stalk of celery, minced some parsley, and sautéed them in butter while I chopped a potato and measured out the milk, cream, cream cheese, corn, and other minor ingredients. Then I put them all in the pot and stirred them around and cooked it til the potatoes were soft… and it was delicious. It could have been a little thicker – we couldn’t find sour cream so I had to put in more milk and cream. Next time I may buy crème fraiche – it’s almost the same thing.

Stirring my corny, chowdery corn chowder


Corn chowder enthusiasm


Anyway, Vaune and Chris really liked it, which made me happy. I actually think they liked it more than I did – it was so heavy! I couldn’t handle more than one bowl. They had two. I still have some in a tupperware container. I think next time I will add onions – or maybe chives. Maybe some peppers or something to make it a little more interesting.

Afterwards we went to the Eiffel Tower, to see it at night. It was pretty, all lit up and sparkly. We sat on the grass and after the same man tried to sell us champagne three times, we left and went back to the Fondation, where we watched three episodes of Strangers With Candy and then crashed. Now Vaune and I are blogging, and soon we are going back to the Eiffel Tower to actually go up it. This will be my third time up the Eiffel Tower – hopefully it will finally be the first time I actually go all the way up, as I have always wanted to.

Chris and I outside the Eiffel Tower


In all its sparkling glory


Me pretending to catch the giant rugby ball suspended in the middle of the Eiffel Tower


Another note – I have my webcam set up now. I talked to Dan, although it was choppy and not great, but I also talked to my brother and the connection was much better. I have had trouble with iChat but Skype seems to be working pretty well. So if you have a webcam, let me know!