Tu me manques, Paris

Hey all,

I'm a bit en retard due to a lack of Internet chez moi, but voici the last entry of Paris, que je t'aime. I'm writing this from Detroit, and while I'm very happy to be home and able to spend time with my family and friends, I miss the city of lights, all of the adventures I had there, and all of the wonderful new and not-as-new friends with whom I shared them.

For our final week, class was moved from 11h to 13h. This resulted in staying up (and out) two hours later. After Monday's class, with the half hour we had before our rendezvous with the class, Beza and I rushed to St. Michel for sandwichs grecs: by far the best lunch choice available. We made the round trip in about 35 minutes, and after waiting for the folks that were later than we were, the class headed off to la Grande Mosquée de Paris.

Upon arriving, the “less modest” women among us were given coverings for their legs, and we began our tour. The mosque was ornately decorated with middle eastern designs, and there was a beautiful garden in the center. We weren't allowed to enter the men's prayer room, but we entered the women's, as well as the library. Afterward, we went to the adjacent cafe for traditional thé au menthe and middle eastern pastries. Hot tea on a scorching day isn't usually the best of ideas, but it was good.

After leaving the cafe, I headed home, wasted time, called my family, and ate dinner. I might have also done some homework, but I doubt it; I did very little homework this last week. In any case, at some point that night, I found myself on pont des arts with mes amis. After hanging out there for a while, we made our way to the bar that is home to “Où est l'artiste” each Monday. Though I didn't get any of the artistes, it was a night full of singing, dancing, and annoying people with balloons (annoying is not used as an adjective).

After the bar closed, I tried to find a friend's lost phone and indirectly (but sincerely) threatened a guy in his thirties before arriving at the bus stop to await the night bus to take us in the direction of home. There we found a guy playing guitar, surrounded by a group of Francais. The next hour was spent singing along to American hits played on the guitar. We missed three consecutive buses, each time because someone decided to block everyone from getting on because we weren't done singing. It was one of the most fun hours I spent in Paris.

The next day, after class, David, Min, and I went to la Défense, which is the financial district of Paris. Technically outside the city, one finds there huge buildings, lots of people, a big statue of a thumb, and la Grande Arche, the purpose of which, as far as I could tell, is to be a landmark and a hangout spot for young Francais. After wandering a bit, taking some pictures, talking to some rude Francais, and exploring the mall, we headed home.

Later that soir, we rendezvous'd near Palais Royal to see les Oiseaux at la Comedie Francaise. Les Oiseaux (The Birds) is an ancient Greek play, and the version we saw had been updated to satirize modern French politics. I don't know if it was because I was tired, or because of the microphones, or for some other reason, but the show was utterly incomprehensible. It was a painful hundred or so minutes.

Afterward, I attempted to gather a bunch of people to go see a movie. I wanted to profiter de la fete du cinema at least once. People weren't very interested, so Esete and I went by ourselves. We rushed to les Halles for the 22h30 showing of Fatal. Fatal is an over-the-top French comedy about a white guy in his thirties or forties, Fatal Bazooka, who is a superstar “rappeur gangsta et bling-bling”. His world comes crumbling down when the newest electronica-pop musician takes over his number-one spot, and his biggest fan, who he mistreats, reveals the secrets of his past. It was a bit too long, but entertaining, mostly because it was funny to see such a story in French.

Wednesday, after class, Beza, Esete, and I went to Disneyland! The copain of the daughter of ma mere d'acceuil works at a restaurant in Disney Village, and he got the three of us into one of the two parks for free! Because of timing issues, we were only there for two hours, but it was a perfect amount of time. There are four big rides in each of the two parks, and one of the four in the park we chose was closed for renovations. Two hours turned out to be the perfect amount of time to ride the Rock'n'Roller Coaster, the hotel tower from la 4eme dimension, and Crush's Coaster from le Monde de Nemo. It was especially exciting because it was Esete's first time at an amusement park.

Later that soir, Beza came chez moi for dinner, because ma mere d'acceuil had been complaining that she'd never accepted her invitation. During the course of the dinner, Beza mentioned to her that I tell le monde that she's the best mere d'acceuil, and it totally went to her head. At least three times in the next few days she started a sentence with something like “Since I'm the best mere d'acceuil...”.

Thursday was 1 juillet, and sadly, our Navigo pass for the month of juin stopped working. This meant that each metro ride was 1,70, which can add up after a while. To save a bit d'argent, most people bought a ten-pack for 12 euros, but still, one had to think carefully before deciding to take a ride. That afternoon, we went to the mall at les Halles to check out les soldes (sales). In France there are designated times when stores are allowed to have sales, and July is one of those times. So the mall was pretty wild. Afterward, David and I stopped chez moi to get some water, and I introduced him to ma mere d'acceuil. She found him “très rigolo”.

I didn't have much of an appetite at dinner because of the heat, but my mere d'acceuil swore it was either because I was sad or in love. As a result, she demanded that I “m'éclater”, or “amuse myself well” as she explained the verb, with my last days in Paris. Anyway, we met up for our final soirée on pont des arts, and from there headed to an international student party at la tour Montparnasse. Despite some unfortunate crime, everyone had a fantastic time. We stayed until about 4h45, and hung out at the bus stop until the metro started running again at 5h30ish.

Having gotten home at about 6h Friday morning, I slept until 15hish. I spent the afternoon packing my bags, and rendezvous'd at Palais Royal for the dinner d'adieux with the class. After a glass of champagne, for my entrée, I ordered six huitres (oysters) and ate one of them. For my plat, I had canard (duck) avec des pommes de terre, avec du vin blanc. For my dessert, avec du vin rouge because I didn't want to miss out on the vin, I had a tart tatin, which was some sort of apple tart served with a stick of cinnamon.

I departed with Esete before the café was served, and we went chez elle so I could help her pack and carry her bags to gare du nord for her midnight train to Charles de Gaulle. All was well and she stopped at an ATM to withdraw some cash for the trip home. After inserting her card, entering her PIN, and requesting her cash, the ATM said “Don't forget your ATM card.” Waiting for the bills to come out, after about thirty seconds the machine ate the card, telling her that the card had been taken for security purposes. Apparently, by “don't forget your card” the machine meant “take your card now, and then take your cash.” In French, that's exactly what it said. Thanks a lot, guy who translated zat into English.

So what was originally planned to be a night spent partying until the sun rose, became a night spent helping Esete get to the airport. We called Beza for moral (and later, practical) support and set off to get Esete some cash, tell Bank of America to cancel the card, and get her on a taxi to CDG for her flight at 7h. It was an adventure-filled, sleepless night quand meme, and just after 3h we found a taxi driver willing to take her to the airport for 55ish euros.

I wasted the rest of that night facebook chatting and uploading pictures, since no one wanted to go walking the streets of Paris with me (I had no phone credit after calling Banque Nationale de Paris, so I didn't actually ask many people). The next morning, ma mere d'accueil served me hot chocolate with croissants and pains au chocolate, we said our goodbyes, and I made my way to CDG for my ten-hour flight to Dallas.

What an incredible experience. Au revoir, Paris.

la Pénultième

Salut.

There rests less than a week until I'm back in the states (see my previous discussion of Frenchisms). Sucks. I passed through the Chatelet metro station the other day and realized that after a week I wouldn't be seeing it again for a very long time. But that just means I have to make this last week count!

This past Monday was la fête de la musique. This means two things. First, that there were people playing all sorts of music virtually everywhere, all through the night. Second, that the streets were FILLED with drunk Francais. We hung out on Pont des Arts (bridge of the arts) for a while, and met a couple of cool Francais. From there we tried to go to the bar where "Ou est l'artiste" (Using French quotes requires me to use html escape chars. I don't wanna.) is played le lundi. But due to overcrowding, a lot of us didn't get in. No loss, they didn't even play the game. A bunch of us hung out with our new French friends for a while. 'Twas a good night.

Tuesday, we went to Trocadero to watch the France-Afrique du Sud match. Trocadero is a huge outdoor area en face de la tour Eiffel, with a big outdoor screen and du monde to watch it. France got knocked out of the tournament, but the petit peu of sadness that brought me was completely erased by the concert that followed the match. K'naan, who I had not previously heard of, played a short five or six song concert, and it was absolutely phenomenal. I'm really happy I was there; I've been youtubing him fairly nonstop ever since.

Can't remember what I did Tuesday night. Hope it wasn't too awesome. Anyway, Wednesday, I went wandering around the 16th arrondissement avec David. We didn't find much d'interessant, but it was fun anyway. Later that night we went to see La tete en friche, a very good French film about a guy who's a bit slow, his really attractive girlfriend, and his old-woman friend that he watches pigeons and reads Camus with.

Thursday morning David and I went to Musee d'Orsay, home to some Van Goghs and some Monets, among much more. However, the most memorable painting that I came across was l'Origine du Monde, by Courbet. Look it up, I dare you.

I spent the rest of my Thursday prepping for my two exams on Friday. Friday, I hung out with Beza 'til le monde had finished the oral exams. We met up with Elsie and Chantal, and we ended up at Les Halles to watch the fin of the match (forgot which one). I spent the rest of the soir chillin with les mecs. We bought du pain, du frommage, du jambon, de la nutella, de la biere, et du vin, and had a pique-nique au bord de la Seine. After a couple hours, we found a bar and watched the first half of the Spain-Chile game. Because (1) the service was crappy (2) beer at bars costs 29 times as much as beer at Monoprix (3) we're cheap (4) Spain was up 2-0 and (5) Chile was short a player, we decided to leave at half-time when il fallait que we buy a drink.

We went back to pont des arts and hung out for a while. Then I went to a Salsa club with a buncha mes amis. I just remembered today that after a guy working at the club was disappointed to learn I was American, I tried to make up for my Americanness by showing him that I could Salsa and Cha-Cha.

Saturday, the class went to Normandie. Though our bus was missing a large section of chairs, and it rained from the ceiling in the back, the 3 hour trip was still bearable. We just pretended we are riding Splash Mountain. We stopped in the village of Honfleur, where we promener'd a bit, finally stopping at a restaurant for gallettes and crepes. My gallette had veux (maybe I'm screwing up those vowels) and dinde in it, but I haven't bothered to figure out what kind of meat that is yet.

After Honfleur, we went to the beach! I swam in the English Channel. 'Twas my first time swimming in the ocean! Besides swimming, I played a bit of foot, and I bronzer'd on the sand, which was awesome. I even made a sand-pillow!

When we arrived back in Paris, we went to le Cafe du Metro to watch the USA-Ghana game, which lasted far too long. Afterward, I went home, posted some fb pics, and went to bed. Today, I went to la Bastille with Melissa and Hyungmi to watch a ballet. It was based on a Japanese legend in which a princess comes down from the moon, but is so beautiful that everyone fights to "possess" her. Eventually she decides to return to the moon to stop the fighting. Anyway, we bought standing room tickets for 5E, but because there were open spaces, we were able to move up to the 11eme row. Some friends bought front row seats for 15E, but, given our upgrade, I'm fairly certain we got the better deal.

After the ballet, Hyungmi and I grabbed some Chinese very quickly, and then headed to the cinema to start our fête du cinema (well, she'd started earlier that morning). For this fête, after buying one normally-priced ticket (7E for students), one can see as many movies as one wants, at cinemas across the city, for 3E each, from today until Friday. We arrived right à l'heure, and as a result, couldn't even sit together. Les Francais take their fêtes far too seriously. The movie was Dans les yeux, which turned out to be an Argentine film (in Spanish) with French subtitles. It was possibly the most relentlessly depressing fictional film I've ever seen. But good quand meme.

Afterward, we got some gelato, and bought some fruit to spite her mère d'accueil (long story). I rentrer'd, wasted time, did my reading, and now I'm going to either do hw or go to bed.

Thanks for reading. One more week in Paris means one more entry for Paris que je t'aime.

A la semaine prochaine,

Steven

Une ambiance du tonnerre

Bonsoir, tout le monde.

This week's entry will be less like a novel and more like a short story. Or maybe just less like a Harry Potter book and more like a normal one. Being super tired plus having an essay due Friday made for a less eventful week than the previous two. But less eventful is far from both uneventful and !awesome.

Monday afternoon, the class rendezvous'd for a tour of l'Opera, which is the really beautiful theatre where one can go to see ballets. Turns out if you want to see an opera in Paris, you should go not to l'Opera, but to la Bastille (where they used to imprison and torture people... hmmm... continuing tradition?). The tour was great, even though I'm pretty sure I was too tired to put any energy into comprehending the guide.

That soir I went to Sacre-Coeur with Beza and Esete. Sacre-Coeur (translation: Sacred Heart), for those of you who aren't familiar, is a big church on a hill that looks kinda like the Taj Mahal. It's also a popular tourist/youth hangout spot during the evenings because of the beautiful view of the city. Anyway, as anyone who's been in Paris for more than a couple of days ought to know, where there are tourists, there are people of varying degrees of talent who want money. At Sacre-Coeur, we were dazzled by the performance of the Superboys, two English-speaking, young Francais who danced with fire. The grand finale was a magic trick that all of the audience was asked to work on together. Each person was to raise both of ses (possessive words that take the gender of the object are much more convenient) hands, then lower sa left hand, then put it into sa pocket, and then (drumroll) make money appear in the hat.

Bleh. I just looked through my pictures and opened a notepad doc with notes on what I did each day. But then my computer died. So instead of talking about what I did on Tuesday, I think I'll rant about my computer for a few sentences. Currently, my battery is dead and refuses to charge. This means that my laptop has essentially become a desktop, except that the power supply cord is fairly prone to becoming unplugged, at which point the computer immediately turns off. It's quite annoying. And this started a week into the trip. Bleh.

But back to Paris! Tuesday night I went to Montparnasse with David and Melissa. At Montparnasse there's a huge (the tallest in Paris?) tower that can be monter'd for 8 euros. Despite being super windy, 'twas awesome. And pictures actually showed up!

Twice this week I heard my mere d'acceuil shout "Rock and Roll!" while listening to music. I also entendre'd her singing (to herself, while cooking) the "la la oh la la" part of Bad Romance. Moving from one random subject to another, as we begin to perfect our written French, one of the biggest concerns after using correct grammar is avoiding anglicisms, ie constructions that make sense in English but aren't used in French. For example, "Your face is stuck in my mind." Anyway, I've noticed that I've been unintentionally (and later, intentionally) incorporating Frenchisms into my English. I'll say things like "the whole world is over there" instead of using the word everybody, and "you have reason" instead of "you're right". I've also been using regard instead of look, and recount instead of tell.

Wednesday we returned to the Louvre (after just talking about frenchisms, i accidentally spelled the word "retourned"). We saw some French sculptures and paintings from Holland and its neighbors. Thursday, I took a tour of the Latin Quarter with Melissa, David, and Esete. It was led by a Parisian student, in English, and it was awesome to hear a French person screw up English the way I've been screwing up French. My favorite sentence was "The gargoyles were put there to afraid you."

Friday, after class, we watched the film "Paris, je t'aime" (name sounds familiar, eh?). I really want to find a copy with English subtitles to watch with my parents (or friends, if you're interested) because, since it consists of 16 independent stories that take place in various districts of the city, it's great for pointing out landmarks. That, and it's a really good film.

Afterward, we went on another guided tour that began at Palais Royal, and covered the major points of interest in the (first and?) second arrondissement(s). Later that night, a bunch of us met up at the apartment of Chantal's brother's friend. From what I understand, he, who is seventeen years old, and his friends are hardcore footballers who, immediately after finishing high school, will be making tons of money. Enough to impress me. Later that night we went back to the club from last weekend. Good times. Some had better times than others. But I won't drop any names.

I left with Sarah and Beza around 3:15 and we had our first experience using the night buses, since the metro stops running just before 2. As we are all alive today, this experience has established us as legit parisiens. Anyway, it was fairly successful. We made it to the big station in our arrondissement and walked for about 15 minutes from there.

I got home just before 5 and I woke up at 8. By 9:30 I was on a train to Versailles with Beza and Esete. For those of you who aren't familiar, Versailles is the city to which Louis XIV moved during his reign. Its main attraction is the enormous chateau he had built there.

We started by exploring the ville, and then the chateau (think palace if you want a translation) where we met up with Elsie. See facebook for details (whenever I decide to upload the pics). Afterward, we wanted to visit the gardens, and possibly take a quick nap, but because of a water show, we had to pay six euros to enter. Thinking the water show was at 3:30, we decided to pay, only to realize that the spectacle was actually at 9. This was probably the best mistake I've made in quite a while. We decided to stay for the show anyway, and it turned out to be one of the best days so far in France.

After leaving the gardens, Elsie decided to ditch us to go back to Paris for the Ghana v. Australia match. We checked out a couple of restaurants, but, unimpressed, settled on some MacDo. From there we hit a bar to watch the match. Immediately after we left, it began pouring, so we chilled briefly at the info place, chatting with the guy who was working there. After the rain, we wandered for a few hours, and our discussion somehow transitioned from high school in Ethiopia to... philosophy!

Our musings continued for the rest of the night, even as we were walking through the incredible jardin during the water/light show. At first I was unimpressed by the show, which consisted of all of the fountains in the labyrinth spewing lighted water. But once the sun went down, the garden was absolutely breathtaking. I've seen some amazing things in Paris so far, but it's difficult to think of something more beautiful than that jardin so brilliantly illuminated. Afraid we'd miss our train, we left (walking/running backwards) as the fireworks were finishing and we caught our train with plenty of time to spare.

Sunday found me again up much earlier than is acceptable. The class had an excursion to Chantilly, about 45 minutes outside of Paris, to visit its chateau. It was quite impressive, but having seen le chateau de Versailles the previous day, things were in a pretty demanding perspective. We had lunch in the chateau, with red wine that I liked by the end of the meal. Afterward, we watched a horse spectacle, in which I witnessed a man juggle three lit torches while standing on the back of a horse running in circles. Among other amazing feats.

Now it's 2:30. This entry is done. My homework is not. And I'm going to sleep. Also, I'm too tired to look over this. So deal with the mistakes. :)

Until next time,

Steven

l'Art, le vin, et le foot

Hello again.

So once again, I tried to write this on Friday, to get ahead of the game and shorten it a bit. But alas, football took precedence. But anyway, voici a (surprisingly well-structured) review of my second week in the city of lights:

Monday, after a bit of reading in a park, I went to the Centre Pompidou, along with my class, to explore their galleries of contemporary and modern art (there's a difference!). I'm no art connisseur, and walking through the galleries solidified the fact that I never will be. Some of the works were captivating, interesting, beautiful, etc, but some were utterly incomprehensible. Others were hideous. And others were very plain. For example, there was a solid blue painting, one that was solid white with a horizontal band of ridges across the center, and another that was solid black, but divided into four squares, each a different shade of black.

One section I really liked consisted of works of a style called l'art cinématique. These were pieces that changed based on the perspective, or perhaps over short intervals of time. For example, there was a painting with three-dimensional ridges with different colors on each side, which produced the effect of gradual color changes as one walked by. 'Twas cool.

That night, we returned to la Tour Eiffel to climb it. Or, more accurately, to ride an elevator up it. The top was closed, so we could only go to la deuxieme etage, which is two floors above the ground (not just one as it would be in the states). The view was incredible, but pictures didn't show up well. Dommage. Good times anyway. Also of note, the tiny 18-year-old Esete managed to save two Euros by claiming to be eleven.

Tuesday, we decided to go searching a less touristy part of Paris for some cheaper food, but gave up and got pizza at a small restaurant. The food was decent, and from there we went to a park, discussing (malheureusement, en anglais) along the way, philosophical questions including the moral differences between picking up and keeping a lost passport, a lost camera, or lost money; the possibility of the existence of morality without God; and the usefulness of philosophy. Needless to say, I enjoyed the afternoon.

That night, I went to an Ethiopean concert with my two favorite Ethiopiennes, Beza and Esete. Despite being unable to comprehend anything that was being sung, I really enjoyed it, much moreso than I expected to. Though played on western instruments (tenor sax, bass guitar, drums, and keys) I was told that the music, singing, and dancing was authentically Ethiopean. Afterward, since it was a gorgeous night, we went to see Notre Dame (which is only slightly more beautiful at night: a bit of a disappointment) and took a promenade along the Seine.

Wednesday afternoon marked my second visit to the Louvre, this time exploring the paintings of the Italian Renaissance, among other things. The day culminated with the [insert 700 million dollar adjective] Mon(n)a Lisa, locally known as La Joconde. She was recessed in her own huge stone wall in the middle of the room, encased in glass, and given a 8-ish foot radius that no one could enter. Of course she was [insert that adjective again], but, as I expected, it was hard to understand why this painting was any more incredible than those around it.

Later that night, we went to Les Halles, a somewhat unimpressive shopping mall, to see Tous Les Mains en L'air, a French film starring la belle-sœur of Sarkozy. It was about adorable little kids hiding away from the police so they wouldn't be deported. You know the thing you used to say and think was so funny when you were little? "What's your name? How do you spell it? NOPE, I-T!" I was very happy to catch a French version: "Banana starts with B, but normally, it starts with N." That is, "normally" starts with N. And this works in French because you're allowed to introduce a subject and then refer to it with a pronoun immediately (something you can't do in English): "Jane, she went to the store." Anyway, despite missing a lot of the dialogue, I really enjoyed the movie.

The lendemain, we watched a film after class, and, Yale students that we are, spent the day studying for Friday's interro / procrastinating. So nothing interesting there. Friday afternoon, I visited the catacombs with Beza, Melissa, and David. It was pretty incredible. We walked underneath the streets of Paris for forty-five minutes, and for about a third of that time were surrounded by the neatly arranged skulls and bones of millions of dead Francais. Afterward, to continue our bright day, we headed to Montparnasse Cemetery, home to the likes of French car-maker André Citröen, playwright Eugène Ionesco, author Charles Baudelaire, and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartres.

That soir, I experienced my first match of foot: France vs Uruguay. I was supporting les bleus, bien sur, even though the Uruguyans were the ones wearing blue, a fact that left me quite lost for at least 10 minutes. It was an exciting 95 minutes of, count them, zero goals! In any case, I spent the time with mes amis at a(n overpriced,) nice cabaret, and had a great time. After the game we wondered a bit, chilled in a random neighborhood, stopped at a bar, looked for a club, and ended up going home.

The next morning, with about 3,5 hours of sleep under my belt, I awoke at 6h30 and headed to the autocar in front of the ecole to head off to Bourgogne. I profiter'd de the 5,5 hours on the bus there and back to fill in that missing sleep and enjoyed a beautiful journee en province. Our first stop was in the village of Vézelay to visit la basilique Sainte-Mary-Madeleine. The church was belle, but it didn't strike me as worth the drive had that been our only stop, given the number of incredible churches in Paris elle-meme. I found the village itself much more interesting. It was located on a ridiculously steep hill that led up to the basilique; getting up there was less than fun. But afterward we had some free time, so we grabbed some food in a legit restaurant. I had chicken, fries, and some sort of green vegetable, and we all split an entrée of six escargots. There was nothing particularly good or bad about them; kinda tasted like shrimp.

Next, we headed to the vignoble of Chablis. We took a promenade outside, and then a tour through the facility where the wine is made. We ended with a tasting of 5 different vins blancs, complemented by cherries, pain, jambon, and fromage to snack on. Tasting the wine was interesting. I could taste the differences, and had preferences, but I probably wouldn't be able to distinguish them very well on my own.

We got back to Paris just in time to have missed the first but of the Angleterre v Etats-Unis game. We descended en mass on a cafe to watch the rest. This game was much more interesting, but, grace à a beautful fumble by Angleterre's goalkeeper, it ended in a 1-1 tie, which leaves me still having never seen someone win a match of foot. Again, dommage.

Later that night, to fêter the birthdays of mon ami Brian and mon amie Esete, we caught the last-ish metro of the night to a club. When we tried to enter, however, the bouncer asked me how many of us there were. I said three, and he replied "C'est pas possible." I kinda stared at him and tried to ask him why, but started getting aggressive, saying "Allez-y, Monsieur" and asking me if I comprend le francais. That left Beza, Esete, and me stranded far from home at 2h00, with no running metros. After calling some folks, we realized we'd tried to enter the wrong club, so we tried the right one, and besides a skeptical look about Esete's age, got in fine. Unfortunately, there was a 20E cover that we didn't know about. But since our options were to pay 20E and fêter with our amis, or be stranded until 5h30, we decided to go for it. Entrance came with a free drink, not that that was much of a consolation, but we had a great time quand meme.

I'm not sure what today has in store for me, but I'll be very !content if I end up staying in the house all day. I'm also pretty clueless about what's up for next week; we may have to become more imaginative with our adventures, since we've knocked out most of the touristy stuff already.

But anyway,

A la semaine prochaine,

Steven (ou Etienne si vous voulez)

Beaucoup, beaucoup, beaucoup !

Hey there. It's been a while, so I have a bit of a book for you. If you're intimidated by large blocks of text, perhaps you can pace yourself over a few days.

I've reached the end of my first week in Paris, a notion that is à la fois exciting, depressing, and unbelievable. When last we spoke, I was preparing myself for my first day of classes and, of course, the dinner cruise.

'Twas a typical first day of class. Lots of business-ey stuff. Honestly I don't remember it very well. Except for the fact that my prof refuses to accept my name. She tried to call me Etienne, which is the French equivalent of Steven, but I kinda gave her a wtf look. So she said she'd call me Stefan instead, which is many times worse. I signed an email I sent her as "Steven (ou Etienne si vous voulez)" and she's been calling me Steven ever since. Again, go figure.

My days are kinda blurring together, so I'm not really sure what I did until the cruise. Based on my pictures, I think I went chez moi, tried to do some homework, and ended up napping. Peu importe. The cruise was awesome. I'm not gonna describe the boat, because there are/will be pictures to do that, but we left from near the Eiffel Tower, traveling down the Seine and back. They served us salad avec du pain et du vin blanc, salmon covered in some type of sauce with a stuffed tomato, with vin rouge, and for dessert, strawberries with ice cream. There was a photographer who took a picture of each of us, and of various groups of us. I thought at first that it was for a the website or something, but later he came back with super high-quality, 8x10 prints, and gave them to us. Then he told us they were 15 euros. As far as I know, he sold one of the 50 or so he took. That should cover the printing cost.

Conversations with my host mother continue to be fun. One of my assignments this week was to interview her about her perception of the cultural identity of France, and some other hot issues like the 35 hour workweek, and the prohibition of Muslim headgear at schools. This gave me a chance to see where she lies politically. Immigration is beginning to become an issue in France, and one hears the same debates going on here as in the US. My host is a big fan of immigrants though. She believes they're necessary for the country and that they should be paid as native citizens are. She's against the 35 hour workweek, because its "un nonsens", and supports the complete secularization of schools. It's illegal in France to wear burkas as well, and she supports that law, saying that its disrespectful to talk to someone if that person can't see your face.

But more fun comes from the other random topics we discuss. We were watching some music show on tv the other night, and Eminem was the guest. They were listing his hits, which include "Lose Yourself" and "Just Lose It". So she asked me what "lose" means. Easy enough question, but I wanted to explain the idea of "losing it", and that was a little more difficult. I had to figure out that "it" is one's sanity. On top of this, she was confused by the pronunciation of "lose" since, generally speaking, it should have two o's. Watching Eminem, I saw that there's no censorship of English on French TV, so I asked her if there is at all, thinking that they probably only censor les gros mots en francais. But no. There's no censorship, and she was really surprised by the question. She was even more surprised when I told her that (with the exception of premium channels) all of TV and radio in the US is censored. "In all of the states?" she asked, dumbfounded, "Even New York??" She couldn't comprehend that there was censorship "in a country so free."

Her conception of New York seems to be the big city that is home to everything bad. In the interview, we were talking about stereotypes of the French. She said le Francais is stereotyped as the man wearing a baret and carrying a baguette, and la Francaise is stereotyped as the beautiful, elegant model. I asked her if she'd heard the stereotype that all of the French smoke (it's true!!) and she said no. She was very skeptical when I told her that there are drastically fewer smokers on American streets, and particularly unable to believe it with regard to New York. But anyway, on to more interesting things.

Another day, which may or may not have been Tuesday, I went with some friends au Musée Rodin, home to some incredible sculptures. In the garden stands le Penseur. For the Detroiters among you, this sculpture should be very familiar, as there's a mammothified version of it welcoming all to our wonderful Downtown. Another day we went au Louvre. We made it through about half of the ground floor, the Venus de Milo being the most famous œuvre we saw. As there are three other floors, we estimate that with seven more visits we should be able to finish up the museum.

After leaving the Louvre, we chilled in the garden just outside. We said some nonsense about doing homework, but it was clear from the start that we weren't gonna be doing anything but laying on the beautiful grass, in the beautiful weather, before the beautiful museum. I have actually succeeded at getting work done in the incredible gardens and parks of Paris on two occasions, but this particular area seems to be hazardously breathtaking, since upon returning to it another day we were again unable to do anything but lay on the grass.

Another night, we returned to the Eiffel Tower, excited to see it lit up. It was as incredible as I expected it to be, but for about five minutes it got even more incredible. In addition to the brilliant yellowish lights already alluminated, dazzling dots of white were suddenly flashing all over the tower. I was with what has become my regular crew of three other people, the wonderful David, Beza, and Esete, and we suddenly lowered our standards as we quickly sought someone to take a picture of the four of us. Before, we were looking for a lone pregnant woman to whom we could entrust our cameras, but motivated by the dazzling spectacle before us, we settled for a woman we thought we could outrun. A gamble, yes, but my profile pic serves as evidence that it was a gamble well worth taking.

Hopefully none of you dear readers are OCD enough to expect this blog to be structured in any kind of way, chronologically or otherwise, 'cause I'm just talking about stuff as it comes to mind at this point. An interesting part of living in a city so focused on the arts is the number of musicians that one encounters. I take the Metro everywhere I go, and I encounter a musician on just under half of my rides. The standard formula is the person or persons sing or play, and then, just before his/her/their stop, they walk around the train with a little change purse, asking for money. Some are really good; others are not. The most amusing so far was a female rapper in her twenties. I had no hope of understanding her paroles, so I couldn't tell you if she was any good, but at least she was confident. She also didn't hesitate to use the poles in the train to enhance her act. Another favorite was an old Asian man with strange Asian instruments and a voice that was impressive in its capacity both for volume and annoyingness.

But anyway, on to my first Parisian weekend (the actual first one didn't count; it was more of a pre-week). After class on Friday, we bought some mediocre Chinese food, and illegally sat on some grass in another awesome park. Luckily the police waited 'til we'd finished our food to kick everybody off. We made it to our guided tour of the oldest areas of Paris only about 18 or so minutes late, and learned all about people building, destroying, and rebuilding statues. We also learned about the tiny statue of Napolean on the left arm of Louis IV(?) left by the Bonapartiste sculptor, as well as the critique of the king written galbedeblah. The galbededah represents my lack of knowledge which has equal chance of stemming from a bad memory or from bad aural comprehension skills. In any case, it's still a cool story.

I ate dinner chez David, and presque tout le monde went to UFO Bar that soir. I legally purchased a litre of beer and a shot of tequila, and wasn't even carded. I guess it's fairly evident that I'm at least fourteen years old. But lest I forget, I must tell you all of the old drunk woman we met upon arriving. A dame of her sixties, she drank and danced like she was in her thirties. I asked her what her name was, and she told me Madonna. I told her I was Elvis.

After the bar got tiresome, we headed to the Latin Quarter to check out some clubs, but everyone wanted us to buy overpriced drinks before being allowed to enter. Most of those who opted out headed back to the Metro station. Just outside, we encountered a group of (quite good) breakdancers. Watching them was twenty or so minutes well spent, and when the dust cleared, Beza and I were the only ones left that weren't either in the overpriced clubs or headed home. Being the adventurous folks we are, we decided to look for a club that would let us in, and came upon a decent one at the end of la rue. After a quick cha-cha lesson that consisted of bumping into lots of people, we called it a night.

Saturday night, most of the class went to a party chez the friend of the co-habitant of Adele, another of my classmates. 'Twas a legitimate party thrown by the youth of France. Besides knocking over a bottle of wine, I had a lot of fun, learned that the French (international, nonAmerican, whatever you want to call it) greeting does not involve actually kissing the person's cheeks, and fit in a rumba with Chantal, former and future member of the ballroom team.

Bringing a wonderful week to a breathtaking close, Sunday was spent at Cathédrale Notre Dame. We took a tour of the church, guided by an adorable old man. Though I understood no more than half of what was said, it was an awesome opportunity to get some context about all of the art inside and outside the cathedral. After the tour, we took a quick repose in a park, bought not-so-good Sprites (not because it's Euro-Sprite, but because their fountain was less than ideal) from Subway for two and a half euros a piece, and headed back to l'église for my first mass in I'm not sure how many years. I'd forgotten both how awesome incense smells and how creepy Catholic processions are. But the mass was cool. 'Twas an awesome experience, and I'm happy to be able to tell the world that I attended mass at Notre Dame.

Alas, that's all for now. The rest of my night was spent writing my composition or being unproductive. I started writing this Friday and spent the last half hour or so finishing it instead of doing my homework. Yay for getting to bed late!

As much as I'd like to update more than once a week, that probably won't be possible, as I'll be doing the things to be written about. But expect an update no later than early next Monday morning. Which, for my sake, will hopefully still be Sunday night chez y'all. The week ahead of me holds another demi-floor of the Louvre, les Catacombes de Paris, and a trip to Chablis.

Also, the title, in addition to accurately describing the contents of the update, is an inside joke. For awesome people only.

A n'importe quand,

Steven

l'Arriveé et d'autres choses

Yo.

So I arrived in NYC Friday morning, took a bus to JFK to check my luggage, and set off to explore the city during my layover of ten hours. Ended up in lower Manhattan, wandered a bit, and made my way to the Staten Island Ferry. A ride from Manhattan to Staten Island gratis? With a great view of the Statue of Liberty on the way? Sounded good to me.

I did all the picture-taking and stuff on the way there and sat inside on the way back. I was still tired from my preemptive strike against jetlag, which consisted of staying up all of Wednesday night with Keeler and sleeping Thursday afternoon. When I got back to Manhattan I wandered, ate some sicilian pizza in a park, and wandered some more through lower Manhattan and SoHo.

As quitting time approached, I finally found a subway station. I'd managed to avoid them quite skillfully for quite a while. I headed back to JFK and boarded my plane. 'Twas nothing spectacular, but it was the biggest I'd been on. Three rows. I took my seat next to a cute girl from Ohio who was headed to the fashion capital du monde to study its design. The flight was good, the food was decent, and I slept a bit. 7.5 hours later, I was at l'Aéroport Charles de Gaulle in suburban Paris.

The first thing I noticed in the airport was all of the English. Every sign. But everyone around me was speaking French, so that was a good sign. I stood in the passport line, not sure exactly what it was for, this being my first real experience abroad (no, Canadia, countries within a 20 minute drive from my house don't count). After that, I got my bag, and walked endlessly through the airport to the RER station to catch train B to Paris.

Once in Paris, I caught the Metro for a worthwhile ride of 6ish blocks, and finally arrived at 13 Rue du Plâtre. I met my host, a single 63-year-old woman, and she showed me around the apartment. It's comfortable. Nothing too fancy, but nice. Lots of art on the walls, des originals, she told me. My only complaint is the salle de bains. I have to take showers while sitting/lying in the tub, using a handheld shower thingy (which was later described to me as like a cell phone... go figure). Mme Lancelle offered me a meal, which I of course accepted, and in no time I was sitting in the living room, eating a biftek, green beans, carrots, bread, and apple pie (frenchified), watching the "only hits" music video channel with my 63-year-old host, listening as she hummed along to "Rude Boy", despite being unable to comprehend it. But I think the video's suggestive enough to get the point across.

Are you still reading? Really? D'accord, I'll continue then. I spent the rest of my day wandering Paris, taking pictures, and generally taking in the awesomeness. I took a 4 hour nap break to bury the jetlag that survived my preparations and went back out. I ate at a small cafe. A sandwich Italien served on a baguette. I ordered de l'eau, and got a quarter liter glass bottle of Evian instead of tap water. The waiter used his bottle opener to remove the top before I could protest, so I decided I wouldn't complain. Didn't realize it was 4 euros. Oh well, five-dollar water's my favorite kind. At least I didn't have to tip.

Today was the rendezvous with my classmates and professor. The school's a short ride on the Metro away, but I decided to take the half-hour walk, semi-intentionally getting lost along the way. I had lots of time, so I saw lots of sights, including a beautiful park in memory of Jewish children killed by the Nazis during the Occupation. I came upon a demonstration demanding the application of some law to benefit the homeless. There was a young woman in a van leading the crowd in chants of "Qu'est-ce qu'on veut ? LOGEMENT ! Pour qui ? POUR TOUS !"

I met the awesome people I'll be Frenchin' it up with, grabbed some food in the very classy (really, I swear!) McDo, stopped chez une camarade de class who lives in my arrondissement to search the net in vain for fireworks we'd heard about, and headed home to finally set up my internet with the aid of Mme Lancelle's son on the other end of a phone. But the price of your reading this is a young girl's tears. The granddaughter of la Mme was forcibly removed from the computer so her father could change whatever setting was blocking my access to the WiFi.

Anyway, class starts tomorrow, and with it comes a DINNER CRUISE!! Des aventures m'attendent.

Au revoir,

Steven