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