la vie d'un pèlerin linguistique continue

You Know You're Back in America When

2009-05-10T13:54:00.004+02:00

1) There's a giant American flag greeting you.
2) The 'other language' is no longer English or French but rather Chinese or Spanish.
3) The money doesn't look as pretty.
4) Most men keep their walets in their back pockets rather than in a bag.
5) Shoes are no longer as pointy at the toes.
6) When doing your mental math while shopping, you get up to the register and are surprised that you forgot to include tax.
7) The tip is not included in the total price of the meal.

[A continuing work in progress]

Back in the States: A Few Firsts

2009-05-10T13:51:00.003+02:00

First purchase with American money: Wendy's Homestyle Chicken Wrap
First drink/food: Starbuck's tall Mocha Frappucino
First candy: Twizzlers Rainbow Twist
First thoughts:
1) Why's it so bloody hot?
2) What terminal should I be in?
3) I'm not 21.
4) When did they start putting caloric intake on the menu?
5) XXL-size soft drink cups? No wonder...

8 hours of sleep in the past two days, and I'm writing instead of sleeping...

2009-05-10T13:16:00.003+02:00

Well, hello there to you all. I seemingly cannot say 'Bonjour' comfortably in a land where English is now the dominant language. Yes, dear friends, I'm back in Michigan.

The last few days have been rather hectic, trying to say à bientôt (I refused to say au revoir) to everyone, pack, clean, visit museums and tourist sites, etc. There were defs a lot of awkward partings; I'm taking it as a sign that we were never ready to part.

THURSDAY
Thursday was the last day for my internship. I pretty much had nothing to do, as my rapport de stage was finished and all of the files of the documents I had been working on were filed away. Yet, I didn't quite have the go-ahead to leave. I had my last lunch with my colleagues and just as I was about to leave, one of them brings out a cake and some cidre, while another one gives me a toast as well as a bag of gifts. Inside the bag, and among other things, I had been given raclette and a CD containing one of my most disliked songs since being in France. It was a rather nice way to end my internship experience there (and the wonderful weather definitely helped).

I then left early after saying my so long's to everyone in the building and continued to pack and clean back in my room. I then went to BU where we had our end-of-term party. It was rather hot with everyone there, but we eventually went downstairs to gather together for one last time; a few of us sang karaoke and then a group of us headed back to my room. Upon leaving the Métro, we decided to get pizza (great way for an American to end his/her experience, eh?) and then went back to my room to a wicked hot room. It was rather stuffy because of all of the packing but we got through it, and in the end it was all worth it. We followed up our pizza with the last round of 'markanthonyworldfamoussignaturechocolatchaud' + pains aux chocolat. It would soon be that time for us to part again and we went downstairs and split off; Jill and Sam had to catch the RER before it closed. The rest of us (Camille and her brother, Pat, Trevor and myself) walked around Paris and eventually found ourselves somewhere between Trocadéro and the Eiffel Tower. It was a great night and just recounting this day makes me want to go back right now.

FRIDAY
So, I caved in/found some time and finally went to go up the Eiffel Tower. The wait wasn't incredibly terrible; by the time I got up though and find myself not entirely impressed. The views are rather good, but I kinda like seeing the Eiffel Tower in the Parisian skyline. I started to get pseudo-emotional, though, as I walked around and saw many of the places I had visited either by myself or with my friends, recounting different memories. The Eiffel Tower certainly was the best place to do that, as this was one of few touristy experiences that I did on my own. I then quickly rushed off back to Roland Garros and then caught the RER to head back home. There, I met up with Jill, Sam and Trevor and we had a rather filling lunch of potatoes, raclette (the one from my colleagues), and meat. After the fact, I realised that that was the last meal I would ever prepare in that room.

Sam had to leave to meet up with some of her colleagues and Trevor had to run an errand for his internship, so Jill and I headed over to Montmartre, where Trevor joined us after running the errand. We did some final shopping and walked around, chatting and drinking (though in my case, guzzling) the water or juice we bought. Soon, Jill had to leave to meet up with her colleagues and Sam and Gerald, so Trevor and I made our way to the Métro and walked back home for part of the way. I came back to my room and talked to Lauren for a bit then went back to my packing and cleaning.

Before our final host dinner, Trevor and I did I final count of our bottle collection (88) and took numerous photos with the ones that had been stored in my room for the entirety of our semester. We then got to recycling them (and continued doing so after dinner), and then headed back to the apartment. For dinner, we were served coquille Saint Jacques, duck with a mustard-type sauce, potatoes served in a way I've never seen them prepared before, cheese, and a passion fruit cake. Following dinner and the rest of the bottle recycling, I commenced my grand evening of final packing and cleaning. Taking only a 3-hour nap, I eventually got through all of it by the time I had to leave.

SATURDAY
Hyuu, traveling is hectic, eh? I finished my last bit of cleaning a few minutes before I had to bring my bags down. Grâce à ("Thanks to") Trevor, I got through this last stretch on time and said my so long's to Christine and the kids. Antoine and Trevor continued to help me by walking with me to the bus stop with all of my bags; after a bit of confusion, I eventually got on the bus (once again thanks to Antoine and Trevor) and found myself heading away from them and off to the airport.

All of the French people I saw and spoke with en route to the group flight back were incredibly nice, and I got through my baggage check-in, security and customs with very little difficulty. Jill and I ended up sitting next to each other and talked throughout the 8-hour flight until we would either fall asleep (which was rare) or become engrossed in a new movie or tv show. I saw HSM3, an episode of "Desperate Housewives", an episode of "FRIENDS", Milk and the first part of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The flight was also marked by my last bit of French food, as well as French, before arriving on American soil.

Rushing, hot, and rather uncomfortably, we made our way to baggage claim and a few of us then split off to make our connecting flights back home. The ride to Detroit wasn't too bad; I was just really excited to be back home.

1-6 May 2009

2009-05-07T10:22:00.003+02:00

Le premier mai is known for at least five different reasons, most of which (surprisingly) do not seem to be associated with each other. First and foremost, the 1st of May is France's Labor Day. Perhaps because many people do not have work, the French find this to be a time to organise themselves; if so, they do it very well, as it is also one of the biggest rally days, covering all sorts of social, economic, and political issues. Third, one can see multiple vendors on nearly every street selling muguets, which are white, bell-shaped flowers that have an amazing aroma. Fourth, at Notre Dame, the 1st is also seen as a day to honour la Vièrge (Mary); a tree is often planted to symbolise this day. Finally, France shall know this day as the day that the Taylor family came to visit Paris (and Trevor, too).

1 May 2009
Trevor and I left around 7 to head over to the airport to pick up his family. After a bit of transport delays and line crossings, we finally made it there. I soon heard a loud Salut ! and turned to find Trevor's family excited to be in Paris and seeing Trevor after quite a bit of time away from home. We figured out transport and made our way via taxi to their hotel and then made our way to our apartment, where Trevor's brothers dropped off their stuff. We went to the brasserie right next door (Le Touring) and ate lunch outside. Afterwards, we bought three traditions and went to the Champs de Mars, where we meet up with Jill and Sam. We had a great picnic and enjoyed the sun, as we took a brief nap in front of the Eiffel Tower. Jill, Sam and I then later went to Häagen-Dazs on the Champs-Élysées and after waiting in line for what seemed like forever, found ourselves enjoying great ice cream.

2 May 2009
I had planned on leaving at 9 to complete some touristing I had been aiming to get to all semester. I eventually left, however, at around 12.30. I headed over to the Centre Georges Pompidou and before getting in the long line (about a 30-minute wait), bought Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, a great art shirt and a green bandana scarf. Finally in, I was fortunate to check out the Kandinsky exhibit, as was quite a bit of Paris that day. The wait to get into the actual exhibit would take another 20-30 minutes, and based on the electronic counter, there were about 650 people at one time. To prevent overcrowding, the wait somehow became an hour long, by the time I left. I then had a food experience at Flunch, and then went to Sainte Chapelle, which is known especially for the Throne of Solomon and the relics of the Passion which are contained a level above the altar. (I had studied the Sainte Chapelle as part of my Art and the Medieval Cult of Saints course last spring.) To round all of that off, I rushed over to Sacré Coeur to see the relics of Ste Thérèse of Lisieux, which were visiting the basilica for the weekend. After a bit of confusion, I eventually made my way to L'Hippocampus, where I joined the Taylors, and Sam, Jill and their friends from BU. After dinner, Trevor, his brothers and I went to Duc des Lombards, and took the night bus (for our first time; wish we had made use of it earlier and more often) back home.

3 May 2009
After another short night of sleep, Trevor, his brothers and I stopped by a boulangerie on our way to meeting up with the rest of their family. Finishing off almond croissants and pains au chocolat, we met up at the Métro station and headed over to Notre Dame. We got there a bit early and found ourselves midway through a Laudes service. At 10, the Gregorian Mass (which by nature included Latin) began, and Trevor's grandparents really got into it. After the service, they made the oval tour around the church, after which we then headed off to lunch (ending with delicious Berthillion ice cream and/or sorbet). Recharged by the food, we then made our way to the Louvre, where we split off for a bit. The Taylors went to check out La Jaconde, while I ventured off to check out the African art pieces. I found out that it's rather separated from the rest of the museum and quickly found out that most (if not all) of the pieces came from the Musée de Quai Branly. As such, the collection looked like a mini-Musée de Quai Branly museum. We met up afterwards and then split up again, this time Trevor and I heading back home and shortly thereafter helping Christine and Antoine prepare a rather big apératif course. Around 19, Trevor's parents and brothers met up with all of us and met our host family. Following the apératif, we went back downstairs and had dinner with Christine and Antoine at the brasserie.

4 May 2009
Just as it has been customary for the past week and a half or so at my internship, I continued working on my rapport du stage, and finally got the thing printed off and ready to go. In the evening, I met up with Trevor and walked to a restaurant to meet up with his family. Following dinner, we went to check out the Eiffel Tower, lit up at night, and made use of the bus transport.

5 May 2009
The big day finally came and it was time for me to do my oral presentation and hand in my rapport de stage (which I unfortunately found out afterward is not rapport du stage, which were in bold letters on the front cover). After the presentation, Camille, her brother, Jordan, Pat and I went to Le Week-end for lunch, where we all had croque monsieurs avec frites and where Pat nearly finished all of the ketchup single-handedly. I eventually made my way back to work and after 1,5 hours, went back home. I joined the Taylors for a final dinner in Paris and then went back home to think about packing.

6 May 2009
With my rapport de stage finished, I finished my final corrections to the three big projects I had been working on throughout the latter 2/3 of my internship. With those finished and copies organised and filed away in the computer system, I was good to go and leave early. I bought another suitcase (I should preface that I did a quick pre-packing to see if everything could fit in the suitcase I brought... pfft) and went back home to pack. Around 17.30, I left my room and headed for the Métro, which I then took to go to Noisy-le-Roi to see Marie-Léone and France for the last time this semester. We stopped by the commercial centre that was completed last year and then Marie-Léone and I went for a short walking tour of Noisy-le-Roi, throughout which she pointed out different plantlife. At the end of the tour, we stopped by her neighbour's house and found myself telling Véro--after saying bonjour and au revoir within a matter of 15 or 20 minutes--"Donc, à bientôt !"). Back at the house, France joined us and we walked right back out to Chez Momo (the local name for a Morrocan restaurant headed by a really sweet couple, Mohammed and Fati). Throughout the evening, we had joked that it has now become tradition to end my stay in France with a visit to Chez Momo for one of my last meals. If ever you're in the area, I highly suggest you check it out.

Intermission: A Revision to the Verb 'To Bof'

2009-05-07T10:14:00.002+02:00

Trevor and I recently revised the verb 'to bof'; it now follows more of a mettre pattern.

BOFFRE
pp. bof
je bofs
tu bofs
il/elle/on bof
nous boffons
vous boffez
ils/elles boffent

I shall be submitting this to the Académie Française for inclusion in their constantly-updated dictionary... :-P

I Leave for the Airport in less than 48 hours... WHAT?!

2009-05-07T09:44:00.002+02:00

Bonjour à tous ! Je suis content que vous continuez de lire mon blog. Pour éviter plus de fautes qui sont nécessaires dans la vie, j'ai beaucoup d'écrire en anglais.

The last few days (which seem like months) have gone by rather fast and it's all been quite hectic as my semester comes to an end. Here's a rather short summary to round off my month of April.

Tuesday, 28 April
*Dinner with Trevor and Marie-Léone, Paul and France at an Italian restaurant in Neuilly (it's right on the border of Paris and is in many respects a bit more upper-class-looking)

Wednesday, 29 April
*Jane and I tried to go see Le Roi Lion for the second time this semester, but the woman at the ticket counter couldn't sell us any under-26 tickets. So, we instead went exploring and made our way to Galleries Lafayette; after quickly noticing a green display, finding a pair of green jeans became my number one priority. We never found it, but saw the sticker price next to the manequin: 190€. Needless to say, we were successful in not buying anything. We continued walking and after making what surprisingly became a huge circle, we happened to come across a movie theatre. Due to the odd time that we thought of seeing a movie (about 10 minutes into the film, but over 1,5 hours until the next showing), we made our way to the Champs-Elysée and after much debating, bought tickets. Upon waiting for the showing, we stopped in at Glup's, briefly at Celio, and then had an unbalanced meal at Quick's. Afterwards, we went to the movie theatre and saw 17 Again. It was rather hilarious and the dialogue was masterfully awkward, though it did take a while for it to gain some momentum.

Thursday, 30 April
After work, I rushed home to babysit Elisabeth and Stanislas and, after that, rushed even quicker to join Trevor, Sam and Jill by the Bir Hakeim bridge for a dinner cruis along the Seine. It was a beautiful night and the three of them were really great company. We had a five-part entrée, Jill and I (definitely the power team against Trevor and Sam :-P) got veal for our plat, while the other two got a seafood dish which included gilt head (someone tell me what that is, please), and then a three-part dessert. La vie est belle à Paris !

Trevor and I walked back home after dinner and at 2.30 in the morning, I decided to join him in picking up his family at the airport...scheduled to arrive at 7.48. And with that, let's continue on with the month of May.

Post n° 57 and 11 Days to Go

2009-04-28T01:55:00.002+02:00

Frankly, I don't know where time decided to go, but I've had about enough of it passing me by so quickly.

This evening, Trevor and I had dinner with our host family. As always, it was a wonderful meal prepared by Christine (a salad quiche combo to start, followed by a wonderfully-stuffed rôti of some good kind of meat with green beans and mushrooms for sides, and an awesome glass citron for dessert). Speaking of meals, Christine asked me tonight if I happen to make note of the dinners that she prepares because for the first time she's been keeping track of what she makes. Brilliant idea in my opinion. I couldn't remember if I did or not, but thankfully I can recall certain pictures I take and was able to think about it while listening to a discussion she was having with Trevor and Antoine (I think about plans for this upcoming week... pfft, short-term memory isn't that great, apparently). In any case, the Friday before they left for their two-week vacation, Christine had prepared an avocado filled with a wonderful shrimp mixture (and I'm not even a huge fan of shrimp), a cod-like fish (the name of which I still can't remember) as the main course, and a smooth chocolate dessert with strawberries and crème anglaise. I then immediately recounted the following dinner, which happened to be the one that Trevor and I had prepared for them. Tonight, our dinner lasted somewhere between 3,5 and 4 hours; our level of French-only endurance was definitely on tonight. We talked about things we did over the past few weeks, the situation in Kosovo, the financial crisis, and of course, food, among other random topics. We also soon realised how little time we have left here.

Random Notes:
*In evaluating my level of French, I'd say that my level of receiving comprehension has increased, as well as my level of coherency (though, I still tend to struggle when I'm feeling under pressure to speak perfectly). My French lexicon has definitely increased, and the speed in which I can jabber in French has quickened.
*While on my way to seeking out what seems like the only public, clay tennis courts in Paris (which I noticed happens to be located in a heavily-populated Jewish and Chinese area, though I'm fairly certain I wasn't in the Marais), I started to characterise the different Métro and RER lines. If I can find some time, I'd like to ride the ones I haven't ridden that often this semester.
*There are still a few things I'd like to see, such as the African Jazz exhibit at the Musée de Quai Branly, Sainte Chapelle, the African art section of the Louvre, the relics of Ste Thérèse of Lisieux at Sacré Coeur, and the Tenniseum at Roland Garros. I hope I have enough time (and money) to get to it all!
*I finished another big project at my internship today, a practical guide for host families (reformatted, French text), and will be working on finalising corrections on this text, as well as the "Bienvenue en France!" guide that I edited and reformatted. I'm also begining the formatting process for my rapport du stage and am finding it a bit difficult to perfect.
*I completed my second read-through of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows and can't wait for HP6 and HP7 to come out.
*I'm currently beginning the clean-out and packing process. Hyuu!

The Verb "To Bof"

2009-04-27T00:59:00.005+02:00

After seeing the Eiffel Tower almost every day for two months, the magic that makes you go "Whoa! That's the Eiffel Tower" disappears a bit (at least, it did for me). Or perhaps, after seeing the Arc de Triomphe on your way to school or to work every day, as it just sits there in the middle of all of the hullabaloo (sp?), you don't pay much attention to it, until you hear someone's excited reaction to it and you want to just say "Whatevs" (to one of many of Paris's famous landmarks). But, you also don't want to just sound like a tourist; this is France. Well, did you know that there's a word that actually exists in this language to more or less say "Whatevs" or "Pfft... it's all good"? That wonderful word is "Bof".

At Roland Garros yesterday, we (Camille, Pat, and I) were talking about the word "Bof" as a single phrase. Then, they realised I was using it as a verb. Since that moment, I have been thinking about the 'proper' conjugation of this "verb" that I'm pretty sure a few of us have made up this semester. [N.B. The word 'Bof' is real; it's conjugatable form is not (as is the case with the word 'conjugatable', haha.] Based on similar conjugation patterns, I propose that the verb form of the exclamation "Bof" is:

BOFFER
je boffe
tu boffes
il/elle/on boffe
nous boffons
vous boffez
ils/elles boffent

I wonder if boffer could ever make it into the French dictionary. :-P

Ils ne sont pas sportifs, hein ?

2009-04-27T00:26:00.003+02:00

Friday, the day after "the dinner," Camille, Pat, and I went to Tennis Courcelles after work, where I FINALLY got to play tennis on Parisian ground. Granted, we didn't play on a clay court (though, I still have a wee bit of time to try and find one), but nevertheless being able to play was quite fun. Following our hour of reserved time (which, ps/ I'm definitely going to be playing more at home where the courts are free and easily accessible), Camille and I went back to my place and cooked up an impromptu dinner of baked tortellini (filled with jambon sec) and bolognaise sauce topped with cheese, and vanilla ice cream with none other than the chocolate Nutella sauce.

Yesterday, the day was full of lounging around in Paris, with the big event being a tour of Roland Garros (now that I finally know where it is, I can go back hopefully at least one more time with less difficulty). I don't know if it was because we (Camille, Pat and I) are Americans, but we more or less stayed towards the front of the group (though less me as the tour continued on for some reason). The first time we stopped, the tour guide noticed that everyone else was taking their dear old time, to which his response was "Ils ne sont pas sportifs, hein ?" (They're not very sportive/athletic, eh?); our reaction was priceless, though rather indescribable. The stadiums were still nearing preparations for the French Open, so the terre batue wasn't completely installed (for 15 € I found I could bring some of it home... hmmm....). I guess this just means I'll have to come back soon so I can witness Roland Garros in its full glory, eh? Among the many facts and stories shared with us on the tour, perhaps this left us with the greatest impression:

During the 15-day tournament, the players in total consume 4 tonnes of pasta 3 tonnes of rice. Individually, each player consumes 1 kilo of bananas (8)/[either per day or in total... either way, that's a lot of bananas!]

Following the tour, we walked through the Bois de Bologne until such a point when Camille had to go to the supermarket and make dinner. Then, it seems, we did a bit of a swap and it was now Pat's turn to come over dinner. I made a spicy chicken stir-fry, as Pat mashed some potatoes, to which we added raclette. It was surprisingly rather simple to make, and extremely filling.

Finally, today (Sunday), I spent the late morning/early afternoon with Trevor and Maya at the Bastille markets (if you ever want a way to spend your money quickly, I'd advise you to go there). After checking out the different vendors' stands, we got different things for lunch and ate in a small park at the end of the stretch of market. I had a very simple meal of comté (my favourite cheese here) and pain aux lardons which, I had assumed meant there was bacon in the bread. At the time, we decided it was actually onion, but after a bit of translation research, it turns out that my initial thought holds somewhat true. I also had a great orange, and a chocolate chip muffin for dessert. After the markets, I went back home for a bit of a nap and then headed for Mass with Pat. We went to St Germain-des-Près for the 19h-service, organised by the young adults and young professionals of the parish. I don't know why I hadn't heard of it earlier, and even if I had heard about it earlier, why I never went there more often. Being a rather distinctly younger congregation at this service, there was more music and definitely more life, and I'd say we both enjoyed it. After Mass, we went back to my place, and joined by Trevor, had dinner: rice and beans, and leftovers, with the cheese I bought at the market (the comté and gouda(!!!)... I still have yet to find smoked gouda (my absolute favourite cheese in life so far) in this country).

And with that, my friends, is my life in Paris so far. It's off to a night of sleep, while the prospects of packing hang in the air.

The Dinner

2009-04-27T00:09:00.002+02:00

Well... Greetings from Paris! As you know, I finally caught up a bit by talking about my past, past weekend in Paris, only to find myself talking about the past few days. Not much has really happened, outside of my rapport du stage and a bunch of filing I've had to do (seriously, you'd think the intern does the filing in the beginning and then all of the cool projects towards the end, eh?), though in reality, I suppose this downtime sort of activity goes well with the intensity of the rds. Alrighty well enough about that. I just quickly wanted to mention, in brief, that "The Dinner" finally happened. I (along with the help of Trevor, of course) cooked dinner for two of our professors, as well as Pat. I don't know if there's really any way for me to properly capture the awesomeness of that night without actually talking to you about it in person (yeah, I said that as "aboot"), so the dinner menu will have to suffice:

-Apératifs
-Plat : Baked potatoes with raclette and prosciutto (definitely trying to make the most use of my raclette machine before I bring it back to the States with me... in [WHAT?!] less than two weeks)
-Salade : Mixed greens with avocado and strawberries, and a raspberry vinaigrette
-Fromages : Comté, Emmental, Camembert, Chèvre, Forme d'Ambert
-Dessert : Home-made banana bread with chocolate chunks and walnuts, served with ice cream and my chocolate Nutella sauce
-Pains aux chocolat and chocolat chaud

The Touring Test

2009-04-25T12:08:00.003+02:00

If someone offered me the opportunity to give a personalised tour of Paris for a living, I’d take it in a heartbeat.

Last weekend was one of my favourite weekends of the semester (though, in retrospect, it’s quite difficult to rank them all, since they’ve been so amazingly different). Nevertheless, I will at least remember this one as one of my busiest and undoubtedly most touristy weekends.

FRIDAY
After planning for weeks through back and forth Facebook messages (and only recently via Skype), it seemed like a visit from Alex, one of my high school classmates (who happens to be studying in Florence this term), was just not in the cards. Following much confusion with the train schedule and a couple visits to his supposed train location, I was rather surprised with how easy it was to find him once the right platform was located (apparently, there was a mechanical problem on the initial train that caused the switchover and further delay). Fresh off the train, we figured out his Métro ticket situation and headed back to my room to drop off his stuff. I then finalised some tourist options for him, as I had to get back to work; while at work, he made it successfully to the Louvre and then afterwards to the Arc de Triomphe where I met him after work. Following the overview of Paris, we made our way to check out the exterior of the Moulin Rouge and then headed back home for dinner. After (I believe) not eating three consecutive meals, I could only assume that food was just what Alex needed.

The menu for the evening:

*Apératifs
*Plat: Pan-fried Chicken Cordon Bleu baked in Tagiatella, and a side of sweetened carrots
*Salade
*Bread round including cheese, cheesy sauce and Nutella
*Dessert: Chocolate chip chocolate bread with vanilla ice cream and a chocolate Nutella sauce

We then went back out to check out Paris at night, visiting the pyramids of the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower and Trocadéro. Finally back at home for the night, we finished with pains aux chocolat and chocolat chaud.

SATURDAY
I prepared a fairly big breakfast (at least more than I usually do), knowing that we'd need as much food in us as possible before heading out to Versailles. Breakfast included: French toast, regular toast, ham, scrambled eggs, yoghurt, and tea and chocolate milk.

We arrived in Versailles on a light, drizzly afternoon, and after waiting for what seemed like forever, made it into the château and quickly checked out the exterior edges of the gardens. We then headed back home after the visit and after a bit of a snack, headed back out for Mass at Notre Dame, followed by dinner at Pomme Rouge (or is it Rouge Pomme... always get that name mixed up). After dinner, we went to the Latin Quarter before taking a walk down the Champs-Elysées and stopping by Glup's, one of the best candy stores in the area.

SUNDAY
Sunday was perhaps one of my biggest days in Paris, as I had volunteered to lead an orientation event for some Canadian students who would be leaving to go back to Toronto, after having spent the past two months here. It was amazing to meet all of them and find out that they had lived in different parts of France, though the group dynamic was rather close and productive. Alex and I had talked about multiple, specific plans to make sure that we could rendez-vous at the right time and so that he wouldn't get lost in Paris.

I met my group of kids (kids who spoke amazing French but were entirely Anglophone and wanting to speak in English; there were 9 in total) at the airport. We made our way to the orientation (which I had found out the day before would actually be a debriefing session) centre, where we had lunch and waited for the others to arrive; Stéphanie, the other orientation leader, the kids' two chaperones, and the kids who had been living in Paris met us by 2:30. We then headed over to Montmartre and the Sacré Coeur, the rendez-vous point where I would be meeting up with Alex. Thankfully we found each other (he had made it successfully to the Musée d'Orsay) and with everyone else, we all made our way into the Sacré Coeur, and I led a bit of an explanation tour. There was a Mass service going on, too (which may have been to celebrate Pope Benedict XVI's fourth year as Pope, or to celebrate the Easter octave, or maybe both). Afterwards, we made our way to the Artists' Square and then the touristy shopping street; it was then that Alex and I parted ways, as his train back to Florence was drawing near.

Following our Montmartre visit, all of us went back to the orientation centre where I led the debriefing session (including "[Brittney's?] Box" activity). The experiences and responses that the kids shared with us was quite mature for their age and reminded me so much of past debriefing sessions I've had. After the debriefing activities, we all had dinner and then headed back out to my neck of the woods, i.e. the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Elysées.

MONDAY
After getting back from the Champs-Elysées, we were all pretty tired and needed our sleep, as we woke up around 6am to get ready and bring the kids to the airport. If I recall correctly, by 10am, they made it through check-in and security (as well as the over 130 other Canadian students going back home). After a rather intensive weekend, I capped it off with a full day of work back at AFS.

Oh, life in Paris. Tough one, eh?

Yet Another Meal

2009-04-16T23:27:00.004+02:00

If I'm not mistaken, I like to cook, though I usually just cook either in my room or in my host family's kitchen. Never have I been invited to cook at someone else's place. Alas, I had such an opportunity last night, and it was quite fun.I met up with Pat at Blanche and we got the ingredients we would need for the evening. In the end, I made a beef- and veg-filled cannelloni dish served with rice for our plat, a strawberry-banana split with vanilla ice cream and a Nutella chocolate sauce for dessert, and topped off the evening with my chocolat chaud and pains aux chocolat from Pat's area. (Camille and Dorothy were both there as well.) Here's a link to my other Paris blog, for recipes from the evening's meal: click here.

Some Observations

2009-04-16T23:18:00.002+02:00

Perhaps I've been reading too much Harry Potter lately, but following are my first thoughts upon waking up about one hour outside of Paris, on my way back home from a weekend in southern France:

It looks like the train tracks run behind Privet Drive and its surrounding communities. It's freezing in here and I feel a bit anxious, perhaps to return to Paris, away from the warmth and fun experienced in the south. I don't feel as if all happiness is gone, but it's definitely so misty and foggy out that I wouldn't be surprised if dementors were moving about. Indeed, I feel like I've just woken up from a dementor attack. I wish Lupin was around to hand me some chocolate, because surely "it helps."

I have been sitting on a train, in a car much like that which takes students to Hogwarts every term. Some weird magic must be amongst us; when the elderly man across from me woke up, the head padding somehow unlocked itself and separated from its wall hooks. He could be a professor: we didn't really talk much. He did say something to the effect of 'thank you' when I caught the padding and put it back in place. It wasn't in English and with my music confounding my actual ability to hear what was going on around me, I wasn't quite sure what I had heard. I wonder what his story is.

There Are Other Regions of France

2009-04-16T23:17:00.000+02:00

Alas, I find myself once again in my room, nearly a week after my trip to southern France. And, I finally get a chance to write about it now... nearly a week after I left Paris. This'll be fun. Really, it will be, because I had a wonderful time down south... and to think, I've been northward bound for these past few months.

Despite the uncertainty of rain and the rather contradictory méteo websites, my weekend was full of beautiful weather (apparently Paris was undergoing a springtime renovation, too). The trip to the south, however, was even better because I finally got to see Lauren living out her French experience.

After waking up from my usual who-knows-how-long-I-actually-sleep nighttime repose, I made my way over to Gare de Lyon to board my train to Grenoble, the southern city where Lauren is spending her spring term. After a bit of confusion on the train, I finally found my seat and quickly found myself at the Grenoble train station. The voyage was quite comfortable and acclamating to the change in temperature, I saw that Lauren was already there waiting for me. We took her rather long journey (though I eventually got accustomed to it) from the city centre to her homestay in Montbonnot. I soon met her host siblings, Margaux and William (whom I mistakenly took to be at least five years older than they actually are), as well as her host mom, Evelyne, before heading out to lunch with Lauren back in Grenoble. We ate at Tonneau Diogène and then did a bit of tourist site-seeing at the Bastille and the Jardin de Ville. In actuality, I didn't notice too many touristy things to do, and I think that's one of the main reasons why I liked that city. It definitely has its own character, is rather charming and laid-back, but also a lot bigger than I imagined it to be, offering people something to do whenever they're not simply relaxing and living. (It didn't hurt that the weather was extremely gorgeous, though borderline hot for my liking.) The view from the Bastille was amazing. To get there, Lauren and I took Le Téléphérique, a system of boule-shaped capsules big enough for six that transport people to the top and back of the Bastille. I found that I'm still rather cautious and fearful of heights, but luckily Lauren was there to distract me. After walking around a bit, we went back to her hostfamily's house. There, I briefly met Margaux's boyfriend and then finally Richard, Lauren's host dad. He's absolutely hilarious and despite an apparent Grenoble accent (which I still can't separate), he was the easiest member of the family to talk to and understand (though I did find comparatively little difference with understanding everyone else than if I spoke to someone from the north). Evelyne prepared a healthy, wonderful dinner (there was definitely a lot more than I anticipated). After a long day of activity and such a great meal, I found very little difficulty falling asleep.

The next morning, Lauren and I got ready to leave Grenoble and head five hours by train to Nice. When we finally got there, the weather was nice (no pun intended, of course), as well as the hotel and city centre itself. After checking out the Mediterranean Sea (which was just sitting there waving about and which Lauren kept insisting was not that cold and definitely swimable), we seeked some dinner and settled on a cozy Italian restaurant.

On Sunday--Easter Sunday--we ate lunch (at Subway... I missed it sooo much) and then we went to the beach (which was grounded by stones, as opposed to sand) and Lauren shocked at least half of the tourists and passers-by when she went into the water (which was a bit colder than the previous night). After drying off, we continued with the water theme as we aimed to find out where a waterfall--visible from the beach--was hiding. Eventually, we found ourselves climbing the steps to the grounds of the ancient château of Nice. Once up there, we walked around taking photos and checking out the beautiful views of Nice (we did find the waterfall, as well). After a quick stop at the hotel (on the way I then realised that we had been walking along the Promenade des Anglais), we headed back out for Easter Sunday Mass at Eglise Notre Dame. Following Mass, we searched for a restaurant for dinner and chose another Italian restaurant and ended with gelato from a gelateria called Pinocchio.

Quicker than we wanted it to come, Monday came. We checked out of the hotel and then headed over to Monte Carlo, Monaco. It only cost 6,60€/round trip (Nice-Monte Carlo)/person to go, so pourquoi pas? When we got there, the city was just sitting there, looking all decked out and upper class. I still stand by my initial thought that in smaller pieces I would appreciate the grandeur of each piece, but all at one time was a bit much. After a better experience at the Italian restaurant in Monte Carlo (than the ones in Nice), which included Lauren attacking an intensely spicy pasta dish in a way that I'm sure select people can, we did go to the casino but weren't allowed to take photos; it also costs money to go to the tables. With those two things in mind, we checked our bags and cameras in and hung around the slot machines, which I will categorically say I am not good at whatsoever. I suppose there's some strategy and luck involved, but oh well. At least I can say I gambled in Monte Carlo, right? There's a sign posted outside of the casino that (in French) says that someone hits the jackpot every seven minutes. Hmmm... we were in there for only five. With Lauren's train back to Grenoble soon approaching, we went back to the station to head back to Nice. Along the way, we quickly stopped at a little town called Eze sur Mer, where I finally got my feet in the Mediterranean (it was very warm and comfortable).

After Lauren and I said good-bye for the last time in Europe for the semester (aïe !), I had a choice of what to do with the next three or four-ish hours before I had to get on a train back to Paris. My first big option was to go to the flower market back in Nice, as it's one of the most famous things that Nice is known for. However, since it was already nearing the evening hours, I chose the second choice: return to Monte Carlo. Earlier in the day, one of the local newspapers caught my eye and I realised that the Masters Tournament was in progress. After seeing a timetable at the station heading back to Nice, I took it as a sign that I should go; I definitely don't regret making that decision. Unfortunately, it was only day two or three of the tournament, so I didn't see any huge names playing (I was, of course, looking for Rafa). However, for only 20€, I was able to enter the facilities which amazed me like no other, especially as it seemed to be a bit hidden from the train stop. Though I have yet to play on it, there's something about clay courts that I like; I'll definitely have to stop by Roland Garros now that I've experienced Monte Carlo. In any event, I briefly saw a doubles match between Lopez/Verdasco and Andreev/Safin on Centre Court, before heading to the Princes Court to watch Lapentti take the first set against Stepanek (Lapentti would go on to win the match). I then walked around the area a bit more, taking a gander at the different company booths. As I was beginning to cut it close to the final train that left the MC Country Club, that's when I saw a few people trying to take a look past some gates. I went up to them and asked what was going on; I then heard the mention of Federer. Lo, and behold... Roger Federer was practicing. I took quite a fair number of pictures (some of which turned out) and asked a girl if she could take my photo. Initially, I had asked her in English; after a look of confusion, I asked if she spoke French... that doesn't happen too often.

I finally then got back to Nice and onto the train scheduled to leave for Paris a few minutes later. There were two options, to purchase a bed for the night, or to sleep on an inclined chair. I thought the inclined chair would mean a reclinable chair; hyuu, I was mistaken. Think of the Hogwarts Express and that's pretty much what the sitting situation was like. The ride would end up taking about 10 hours and was more or less comfortable (luckily there ended up being only three of us our specific compartment).

At 8:15am Tuesday morning, the train pulled into the station and was inconveniently located in such a way that I would have to make a few changeovers to get to work (I ended up being five minutes early). And alas, my wonderful weekend started off what now seems like a very short week.

A Broken Cold

2009-04-10T00:15:00.003+02:00

Why do people "catch colds"? It doesn't seem like something anyone would like to catch. Indeed, you'd think one would want to throw it back. In any case, today, my cold finally started to show signs of throwing itself back in the water. Since then, it's been a lot easier to get through the day. I'm feeling like I'll be even better tomorrow, which is very good news. Which reminds me... After this post, don't expect any updates over the next few days. No, I'm not planning my procrastination. Rather, I'll be in Grenoble tomorrow and in Nice on Saturday, returning on Tuesday morning. I'm wicked excited for this trip!

In the meantime, I don't have much to report other than: 1) part two of my Rapport du Stage was turned in yesterday; and 2) we believe that all of the incoming dossiers that are to have made their way to our department have come in. As a result, this means that I didn't have much to do today at work, other than help Angélique read some more of the remaining dossiers. Today, I got through five and because of the way I've been handling some of the files, many of the photos were already archived, and many of the dossiers were already prepped for being placed on-line. With that said, there are just a few to get through tomorrow.

For dinner tonight, Trevor and I met up with Sam, Jill, Gerald and Jill's hometown friend, Dan, at Rouge Pomme, a créperie all the way at the end of line 4.

Prior to dinner, I went to St. Gervais for Holy Thursday Mass. As part of the service, they did a washing of the hands (washing everyone's feet probably wouldn't have been all that efficient). After I got my hands washed, they felt so soft and clean. ...and then I had to get on the Métro to get to dinner. As Marlin says to Dory in Finding Nemo: "Good feeling's gone." (Thanks, TJ!) :-P

A mardi !

La Vie Continue à Paris et à Fontenay-Sous-Bois

2009-04-09T01:20:00.004+02:00

...even though I've been sick for the past 3+ days.

WORK
In any case, I went to work on Monday and, after stopping by the pharmacy, found out that one of my colleagues was sick and at home resting. In retrospect, I probably should have gone home but, beuf, I was already there. Why not? With the sickness slowing me down, I was actually in just the right state of being to sit down and work on an individualised project. Outside of the two trombinoscopes that I put together, I had been pretty much going through the normal rotation of dossier work as student files kept coming in. However, the acceptance deadline has either passed or will pass soon enough; with that said, it was pretty important to find me something else to do. As always, my office group pulled through and asked me if I wanted to revise the "Welcome to Paris" guide book. Hmm... An English project that is basically like creating a yearbook? POURQUOI PAS ?! (Indeed, that's what it's turned out to be.) In the end, I pulled together and organised a lot of what was already written and updated the format, layout and grammar; I finished the project in less than a work day and a half's time. Now, I'm back to dossier readings, etc., but I'm looking forward to the remaining weeks there.

On Monday evening, Trevor and I finally got around to trying pasta take out from Mazzo di Pasta. Later that evening, I also finally got around to watching the Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and may I (very randomly) say here that I am one of the biggest fans of Ben Barnes's hair.

On Tuesday evening, the food concourse began yet again, only this time around we forgot to warn our host parents about the amount of food we would be serving. I also didn't do the best job with portion control... In the end, though, we definitely played a bit of "role reversal" with them, preparing completely for six full rounds. Utilising my new raclette machine, the first round (entrée) went to the first dinner I ever had in France, namely a combo of raclette, boiled potatoes and prosciutto. The second round (plat, but perhaps more like plat n° 2) went to the only huge meal I ever made in the Fiske Christian House: ratatouille. Then, for the first and ONLY time we will ever let this happen: we had to skip our salad and cheese courses, because there was too much food. For dessert, I somehow became very lucky (too much, nê ?) in creating the best chocolate chip zucchini bread that I have ever made from scratch. To round off the evening, our host parents were great sports and tasted our pains au chocolat and chocolat chaud ending. We still talked about the dinner for a bit the next day.

Last night, Trevor and I babysat Stanislas and Elisabeth. I can't quite recall if I've really ever mentioned them much on my blog, but in sum, they are simply adorable. By the time we started babysitting, they were actually getting ready for bed. In due time, they would eventually fall asleep, but not before a bed time story, or five... all in French. I enjoyed reading to them and in retrospect I think I did a pretty decent job. I had to slow down and annunciate so that they wouldn't be confused as to what I was saying; it probably also helps that I've babysat back home so I was all set with asking them questions and getting them involved with the story. Haha, only once did Elisabeth correct my French.

So, with the kids asleep so early in the night and our host parents not expected until a few hours later, Trevor and I thought it would be a brilliant idea to cook something. In the end, it was indeed a brilliant idea. I hesitate to say what we made because I can already hear the sounds, and see the faces, of uncertainty on all those who read this. I promise, though, it all turned out quite well. After a bit of sifting through recipes and the ingredients we already had, we settled on making olive oil cookies, the batter of which includes black pepper and red wine. The end product came out in a bit of a biscuit form but with a slight cake texture. I would like to enforce the fact that someone else has created this and so we're not the only ones who enjoy them. As the cookies were baking (ps/ one batch yielded 65 cookies of medium to large sizes), I thought it would be fun to experiment and make a strawberry tart. Although there was some doubt as to the extent I could get away with using margarine instead of butter, I ended up making a crust with a recipe gleaned from memory (i.e., the cooking class I attended quite a few weeks ago). I'll have both recipes on my food blog soon enough, but here's a bit of a taste as to how I measured the ingredients: "One and a half of Christine's round glasses of flour, 1/3 a tub of the margarine, one and a half pinches of salt." To make the filling, I completely used (as was discussed during dinner last night) my "feeling," i.e., intuition, as to how to make it. Once again: "Cut 9 strawberries from the 17th arrondissement Franprix into little pieces and boil them in a mixture of 1 of Christine's hexagonal glasses of water and 1 hexagonal glass of sugar, for 15 minutes." The end result was a perfect amount of sugar but a really tough bottom crust. Next time, I'm definitely using butter and definitely not kneading the dough too much!

No "Noise" in Noisy and Versailles (Rather, Much Music)

2009-04-09T00:57:00.004+02:00

This past weekend, I finally got the chance to return to Noisy-le-Roi, the first international destination I took since I started at Albion [what seems like] a looong time ago. This time around, my host siblings weren't there, but Marie-Léone (my first host mom) was entirely hospitable as always and happy to have us over. By "us," I'm referring to Trevor and myself. Noisy-le-Roi is the second city outside of Paris (the first being Sceaux) but within France that Trevor's been to since we first started the semester, and if I'm not mistaken, he enjoyed the town as much as I did (if possible, if not even more so). In retrospect, this was probably the second time since I first got here that I sat in a car (the first being the first time I went to Noisy-le-Roi) that wasn't a taxi. Stepping out of the RER station and looking out over the hill at the nearby park, it was definitely clear that we were in another world, with houses and bicycles, rather than tall office buildings and Métro systems.

In any case, Marie-Léone picked us up from the RER station and brought us directly to Noisy-le-Roi where Trevor would soon be briefly introduced to some Noisiens. It was then up to me to show Trevor around the house and help him get settled in, as Marie-Léone prepared dinner. As expected, Trevor pretty much fell in love with Paul's room, a room that belongs to a 16-year-old multilinguist who plays multiple instruments and basically converted his entire family to the Mac range of products. After getting settled in (it was strange at first getting used to staying in the room I stayed in when I first came to France), which included hearing Trevor's great guitar-playing abilities, we were all à table and enjoyed a delicious dinner. After a bit of throat clearing, , it began: the sickness that would take over my body for the upcoming days. Towards the end of the evening, I tried a rather enjoyable drink made with griotte (a type of cherry); let's just say it soothed my throat automatically.

After a fairly sleepful night, I got up and ready to head out to Versailles. When I went downstairs, I was greeted by quite a big spread for breakfast, which I'm sure was partly to prepare us for all of our walking in Versailles and partly to help build up my immune system. As part of the meal, I had a revised Noisy-style/Paris-infused chocolat chaud with the best pain au chocolat of Paris, AS WELL AS the best pain au chocolat of Noisy-le-Roi. I'm a fan.

Marie-Léone then dropped us off at Versailles, and after waiting in three different lines only to find out we could've gone in within the first 15-30min, we began our tour through the château and eventually made our way to the musical fountains set throughout the gardens. For some reason, the fountains weren't turned on until an hour or so into our garden walk, but the overall effect was magnificent. Though, hyuu! we were pretty much exhausted in the end. We decided to go straight back to Paris and through the further extreme gesture of generosity of Marie-Léone, Trevor and I had some great pizza from Pizza Hut (of all places).

Football, Friends and Fun... in France!

2009-04-02T19:07:00.003+02:00

For some reason or another, I was wicked excited yesterday for the football match that myself and a group of fifteen went to last night, statistically contributing slightly to the over 78 000-person crowd in attendance at the Stade de France. With this said, I've already uploaded the photos from the match (yes, I do still know that I have the second half of my Rome photos to upload). To see the photos, cliquez ici.

The experience was quite overwhelming and I must say that it was one of few games in any sport that got me as involved as I was (with perhaps tennis being the only acception). We all pretty much noted that the game goes by much quicker live than if being watched on television, but nevertheless we enjoyed our time there. Dare I say, I also enjoyed the ride back home. However, funnelling that many people out of a stadium and into one of few means of transport was rather hectic.

Even still, there was something special about being amongst the crowd, as those of us that knew the French national anthem chanted parts or even all of it. If ever you want to learn any gros mots, the French sporting arena is quite an effective place to learn some. It was amazing to see everyone's reactions to the only point that was scored on the field (for the French), as well as to witness the dedication that fans of the opposition had for their beloved country and team (Lithuania).

What struck me even more today, however, was not the sea of red, white and blue that is often associated with America but rather the fact that our group of 16 were a part of the beginning of something even bigger than that single stadium. Cited as the second biggest sporting event following the Olympic Games, I'm referring to the World Cup which next summer in 2010, will take place in South Africa. Before the football match last night, we were given a magazine compiled specifically for the France-Lithuania match, but I was only able to read it this morning on my way to work. Lo, and behold, a story had been written about South Africa and the World Cup and seeing the photo of the Cape Town stadium under construction gave me some goosebumps. (For those in my Safrica class last semester, I'm referring to the one in Green Point just a few minutes away from A Sunflower Stop.) Even though I'm far away from home and perhaps even further away from South Africa, life has not yet stopped associating the two together. Certainly seeing a photo of Kruger National Park brought me back to South Africa, as well as a photo of President Mbeki with the President of the 2010 World Cup. I remember watching the news in English and isiXhosa (and probably Zulu, too) about the different stories surrounding the end to Mbeki's presidency, the splitting of the ANC into two different parties, and the uncertainty of the World Cup being held in South Africa (and if it would be held, if SA would be ready).

This certainly continues to be a school year that I will never forget!

Hyuu! It's Really April Fool's Day?

2009-04-01T01:23:00.006+02:00

Well, I guess today is really tomorrow for all y'all that are reading this in lands to the west of France. In any event, it is neverthless the 1st of April in my neck of the woods. This week has been moving rather slowly, but I have somehow already reached mid-ish week and am getting wicked excited for tonight's football match. It's the first qualifying match for the World Cup in South Africa, slated this evening to be between France and Lithuania. Apparently there was a match on Saturday, as well, but I have no idea as to what that's necessarily for. In any event, tomorrow night is the football match and I'm wicked excited for it. I've already said that; I think it's worth repeating.

What's perhaps equally worth repeating is that after a bit of a hiatus, Trevor and I hosted some of our classmates for a full-on meal. Consisting naturally of six rounds (including six pains au chocolat), our meal ended up being for six people in total, the most we've ever tried to have at one point in my room. With this said, everything worked out quite well and with Trevor's help peeling and cutting vegetables the night prior (as we watched Watchmen; which reminds me, on Sunday, we saw Dragonball Evolution while eating French toast for lunch, followed by Bienvenue chez Les Chtites), the ratatouille I made was a bit better than I expected.
With all of this said, tonight's menu was as follows:
Apératifs
Entrée: toasted bread rounds with chèvre and tomato sauce
Plat: ratatouille (my version of which included onion, garlic, carrots, eggplant, zucchini, red pepper, green pepper, tomatoes, emmental and tomato sauce, cooked together with sausage) with pain de campagne (this kind of bread has more mis, or 'meat', i.e., greater inside to outside (crust) ratio, which is good for eating with soup)
Salade: mâche with red and yellow cherry tomatoes
Fromages: emmental, comté and chèvre
Dessert: mousse au chocolat with strawberries and nutella, topped with chantilly
Pains au chocolat + chocolat chaud

Finally, for all of those FRIENDS fans out there, I finally found the video I've been looking for for a while: clique ici.

Paris and the three P's: Puppets, Pétanque and Pastis

2009-03-29T01:37:00.011+01:00

Yesterday (Friday) marked the end of my second week of my stage (internship). After work, I got to the train station and bought the remaining tickets I'd need for the rest of my semester (at rather wicked low prices, I must add) and then headed back home. After I got back, Trevor and I made some simple quesadillas and watched Gladiator, then went downstairs to our weekly meal with our host family. Christine cooked a wonderful meal, comme toujours, which included a salmon with a citrus sauce and a home-made strawberry tart.

Today (Saturday), those with last names A-F spent quite a bit of the afternoon together, with Elisabeth (our French language professor), Renée (the programme director) and her daugter. We first went to see Guignol, a French puppet/marionette-type show (kind of like a Punch and Judy type of thing) by the Eiffel Tower. It was rather entertaining, but perhaps more so because it was so apparently made for toddlers; their parents sat on the side aisles, while the obviously American group (or at least it was apparent that there was a definite age gap between us and the main audience) sat in the back row (as the children's benches were rather small for us). Before the play even started, one of the mothers and I got to talking; she mentioned that it was rather funny to see us in the theatre, and asked if we were there for a course or group activity. :-P

After the show, we were greeted by pouring rain and made our way to a café, where we had pastis cocktails (i.e., with a flavouring added to the pastis). Pastis, in general, smells and tastes very much like licorice. While we had our pastis, we also broke into little groups and played card games. Elisabeth taught a few of us a game called Kilos de Merde (yup, just as it translates); in turn, I taught her spooons, which is pretty much the American version to the French game.

Rain finally subsiding, we made our way out to the Champs de Mars to play pétanque, the French version of bocce ball. I must say that since day 1, I was looking forward to this one particular activity. And lo and behold, the weather changed (yet again; something that seemed possible only in Michigan) and we suddenly found ourselves playing while hail fell (rather quickly). I'm wondering if I'll be able to carry a small set home with me...

It was now nearing dinner time and somehow Sam, Jill and I got onto a discussion on foods from Grenoble. After talking about it enough, we eventually made our way to a local grocery store and then back to the Fondation, where they cooked a layered dish of raviole, heavy cream, salmon, emmental, I cooked sweetened carrots and Trevor prepped the strawberries. Pat made sure that the ravioles were good... which they definitely were. To my stomach's content, I found the dish to be very tasty and filling; it's also something that I feel would be pseudo-difficult to replicate.

What was for sure difficult to replicate was our jazz experience that followed. The five of us went to Hippocampus, my favourite jazz club (which is securely tied with Duc des Lombards which, I now recall, Trevor and I went to with Pat yesterday). Eating my mousse au chocolat (which quickly jumped to my favourite mousse au chocolat on the European continent so far) and relaxing to the jazz music, I felt extremely content with Paris and all thoughts outside of it drifted away temporarily.

It's a bit hard to believe that we're more than halfway over with this programme and with everything I have planned for the rest of my time here, I feel like it'll be ending sooner than I expect it to. However, I think I'm soon quite ready to go home. Perhaps unless I revisit jazz clubs more often... :)

"Dude, we're in Paris!"

My Current Carnet de Bord

2009-03-26T00:31:00.005+01:00

A carnet de bord is a kind of journal that individuals may use to keep track of their work progress, etc. These are rather "encouraged" for each student, especially for our internship reports; so, we pretty much use it. I love being guided through this process and with my carnet de bord updated, I can now share (because I'm sure I would have otherwise forgotten) what I've been working on for the past 8 days. In total, I've:

TASKS
*Translated 4 requests of a welcome family dossier from French into English.
*Translated 11 foreign student dossiers from English into French (using a dossier guide).
*Prepared 38 foreign students' dossiers for on-line posting.
*Translated a student letter from not-the-greatest-English to pseudo-perfect English.
*Prepared 11 foreign student dossiers for the Internet via scanner (scan-to-pdf).
*Noted and saved the information of 33 foreign students onto the website/database, and printed copies of these new dossiers, recovering them either directly from e-mails or the global database
*Entered the information of 12 foreign students' files into English directly onto tho database (9 of which were done without using the dossier guide)
*Pulled out 38 mugshots, in total, from the students' electronic dossiers

LEARNED
*How to fill out a dossier guide
*How to use "Lotus Notes,' the interdepartmental e-mailing system*How to prepare files for the Internet
*How to use "Global Link," the main website for every electronic form
*How to get missing dossiers from the GL website
*How to scan to a PDF form
*How to use a stapler :)
*How to fill in directly student info into the database

OBSERVED
*The structure of AVS: VSF, learning how each department works with one another
*The French workplace

I've also received my own desk and computer to work on, and have also attended three staff meetings, the first of which was my first [non-extracurricular, etc.] staff meeting.

Whew! And with that, I am now all caught up! :)

FINALLY

2009-03-25T23:11:00.005+01:00

And now, officially, I can start writing about the second half of my semester: the internship period.

The first week (which I would imagine is usually an orientation week) felt like my first month in the work world. Indeed, I had a meeting with my maître de stage this past Monday and she said it definitely like it seems like I’ve been in AFS: Vivre sans Frontière for more than a week. As I am writing this entry more than a week after I first started, I shall describe my internship briefly and then simply list various points, in essence hopefully providing a brief synopsis of the past work days.

Well, as briefly mentioned above, I’m working with AFS: Vivre sans Frontière, the French branch of the New-York based study abroad programme (AFS = American Field Service). Basically, I’m working on the administrative side of study abroad. Indeed, the aforementioned is my initial reaction to the question of what my internship is about. In actuality, it’s not that far off.

As the American intern, I seem to be particularly responsible for all things that have to do with the English language, primarily working on translations of dossiers (I'm fairly certain we use the word "dossier" in regular English; in this case, I'm talking about the file of a candidate, of whom are 15-18). I should also add that there are, among the different ‘departments’ (and I use that term directly as there are only 14 professionals, and 3 interns, myself included), two main groups: a group to help prepare the French students studying abroad, and a group to welcome the foreign students to France. I’m working with the group welcoming the foreign students, so my main duty is to help read the applications written in various forms of the English language and translate certain parts into French and save that information into the main database. Alongside this translation work, I’ve translated some French host family forms into English, and one not-so-great English letter into a letter with better English. I’ve also been charged with helping to prepare dossiers to be posted onto the AFS database and retrieving and filing dossiers directly from the global site.

Our department consists of myself and the three people with official titles. Anaïs oversees the functioning of the group and coordinates the welcoming programmes; Angélique is responsible for the recruitment of foreign students (I’m mainly helping her to read and translate those students’ files); and Claire is responsible for following up with the foreign students, helping them to figure out the visa process, etc. Sébastien, Simon, and Natalie (who work in the office across from our’s) basically do the same thing, but for the departing French students. Elsa, my maître de stage, oversees the overall functioning of both programmes. There are about 50 member nations worldwide (with 400 professionals in total), including (of course) the United States of America, as well as the Philippines, South Africa, and the Dominican Republic. Here are some other numbers you can find on the website (http://www.afs-fr.org/index.asp):

OVERALL
10 000 participants each year (3-month, 6-month and one-year programmes)
100 000 un-paid volunteers (including host families)

IN FRANCE
29 local associations
300 French students leaving each year
400 foreign students welcomed each year
400 volunteers (including host families)

Also, here’s the U.S. website: http://www.usa.afs.org/usa_en/home

An interesting concept of AFS is the fact that none of the families receive any money from AFS to host students. As a result, it’s clear that these families truly want to host students and are doing so out of the kindness of their hearts (and wallets!), further encouraging cross-cultural learning and dialogue (not that I know a thing or two about that, haha).

Well so much for being brief… As such, let me continue a bit more. J

For the first week, at least, I was introduced to a new restaurant or place to purchase food for lunch. My brief food journal for my first week was as follows:

Monday- Italian; Italian ham, pizza, and chocolate mousse (10 €); lunch outdoors, restaurant backyard/patio
Tuesday- the boulangerie by the RER; ham crudité, chocolate cake slice, and drink (6,50 €); lunch on the dock, watching the geese, swan, and other flying creatures
Wednesday- served by weight (sort of like in South Africa); carrot salad (not like in South Africa), gratin (vegetable) with chicken or pork kabob, and yoghurt (7 €); lunch in the backyard of our office building (which is really a house)
Thursday- the boulangerie en route to the office; ham crudité, viennoise au chocolate, and drink (5,90 €); lunch in the backyard
Friday- pizza from a local pizzeria; five-cheese: mozzarella, chèvre, feta, camembert, and some other French cheese (7,50 €); lunch in the backyard

I’d also like to add that, this past Monday, we went to a Pakistani restaurant (11,50 €) and naan au fromage is wicked tasty!

Back in Paris: Visitors, Round 2

2009-03-25T15:53:00.004+01:00

Already I'm finding myself catching up to the present and I'm wicked excited for that.

This past weekend, along with the departure of Sarah, Mark Andrew, Pat and Quinton to the States, came with the arrival of Irene et al., Lauren and Karen (one of Lauren's classmates from Oxford).

On Friday evening, I cooked dinner for Lauren and Karen, the course-list of which included:
Apératifs
Salmon carpaccio
Baked pasta with a pseudo-cheesy red sauce
Sweetened carrots
Salad (mâche, comme toujours !)
Cheese: emmental, comté, chèvre
Chocolat pudding with liégeois
Pain au chocolat and chocolat chaud

With the above menu, I think it becomes obvious why we did not feel like moving after that.

Saturday was my big tourist day with them. I met Lauren and Karen at the Sacré Coeur, after which we sat at a brasserie by the artist's square. We then headed off for some gelato and returned to the square to take a look at the different works on display for selling. Next, we attempted to go to Ste. Chapelle; with confusion as to whether or not we were supposed to pay to get in, we chose to walk along the Seine before ultimately deciding to take a river tour of the "Stars (i.e., monuments and notable sites) of Paris". With the sun slowly setting over Paris, we headed over to the Louvre where Karen got her photos taken with Lauren and the Pyramids. Close by, we headed over to the first English bookstore established on the European continent (got my English copy of HP7, as the French version was too expensive) and then later stumbled upon a street that included an Italian restaurant, two Japanese restaurants (one of them which had sushi), a piano bar, a jazz bar, and a movie theatre nearby. Naturally, we ate at the sushi restaurant and ended the evening with an American movie, Last Chance for Love.

On Sunday, I went to Church and made a quick stop at the grocery store, before meeting up with Lauren for lunch before she had to leave to go back to Grenoble. After a weekend full of activity, it was great to just sit down at a café with her and talk. Yet, the activity resumed as, after she left and I return to my apartment, I got a message to see a movie with Trevor, Tanya, and Camille (and when we got there, Pamela, too). When we got to the theatre, we were greeted with the exciting news that the price would be only 3,50 €/ticket/movie (instead of 10+ €) until the 25th. After watching La Fille du RER, Trevor and I headed back to the apartment, where we then met up with Irene. The three of us then climbed the stairs of the Arc de Triomphe and surveyed Paris at night, before returning back home. For dinner, Trevor cooked rice and beans, definitely feeding us more than was absolutely necessary.

On Monday, Irene left Paris to go back to Madrid, and I met up with Trevor after work. Unexpectedly, we watched a French movie (LOL) and I watched a quickly-spoken but rather hilarious French movie (Coco), while Trevor's second movie was in English.

Yesterday (Tuesday), Debra (my off-campus advisor from Albion) came to visit Paris, my programme and, by extension, me. I met up with Debra and Trevor back at BU and, together, made our way back to Argentine, where we had dinner at the brasserie right next door to our apartment. Following dinner, we met with our host family and impressively kept up an English-dominant conversation for over an hour. We capped off the night with, of course, pains au chocolat and chocolat chaud. Get ready Albion... I'm bringing this back with me!

Back in Paris: Visitors, Round 1

2009-03-25T14:03:00.006+01:00

Once again, my continued apologies for not getting all of my photos up by this point, as well as still writing about what seems like ages ago.

After having pseudo-settled back into Paris from my spring break, I woke up on Sunday morning and got over to Mass and the grocery store. Following this, I went with Trevor to attempt to find his sister, who had come to visit Paris (and Trevor, of course), as this was now her spring break week. Out of what seemed like sheer luck, we found them (or they found us?), and by 'them/they' I'm referring to Sarah and her boyfriend, Mark Andrew. Yeah, that didn't get confusing in the least. :-P

Entouk, we walked around Paris showing them around and trying to figure something out to do. (I think we are all just relieved that they finally made it into Paris.) However, with the sun still shining brightly over Paris (though to them our weather still warranted a layer or two more than us), we definitely still had to profiter du soleil, and aimed to go to the Catacombs. Unfortunately, we got there five or ten minutes later; fortunately, after three tries, they were finally able to see the Catacombs. I should also mention that Pat (Sarah's teaching mentor) and Quinton (Pat's son) were in Paris, as well. With the Catacombs not to be visited on Sunday, we made our way to the Jardin du Luxembourg, before heading back to their hostel. After a quick brasserie stop, we met up with them again to go to Argentine and have dinner with our host family, followed, of course, by pains au chocolat with chocolat chaud.

Monday, the first day of our internships (for which I will focus on in a different blog entry) finally arrived. After the end of our internships, we met up with Sarah, Mark Andrew, Pat, Quinton and Jill and eventually found ourselves in the Studio de l’Ermitage (thanks, Trevor, for having blogged about this already). Tuesday was St. Patrick's Day and naturally I wore an unnatural amount of green. May I also say that I knew I wore to much when I realised that I had exceeded what I believe to be the legal limit of green. In any case, no one said anything about it, but the looks were priceless enough. Wednesday came around and Trevor and I were lucky once again to find Sarah and Mark Andrew. We went looking for Pat and Quinton at the Louvre and had dinner near Châtelet. I would like to mention that the mousse au chocolat at the restaurant was by far my least favourite of all that I've tried in Paris. Indeed, it may have been the cause of some bizarre sentiments towards it, as both Mark Andrew and I both seemed to have gotten sick. Unfortunately, this carried over to Thursday and for the first time, I did not help myself to more chocolate when it came time to dessert that evening (my body also seemed to react negatively to the cheese, as well). [To clarify, Sarah, Mark Andrew, Trevor and I had our weekly meal with our host family on Thursday.] For all who may be reading this right now and may be worried for some reason or another, don't worry! I've been back to my old chocolate and cheese eating ways. :) Thursday also marked Irene (art history major from BU)'s visit to Paris.

And Now, the Roman Adventure (Abridged)

2009-03-25T01:09:00.007+01:00

Still Catching Up…
I had second thoughts as to whether or not it was a good idea to buy my train ticket at 16 €, as it would take about 4 hours (as opposed to the usual 1,5), due to there having to be more stops along the way. It turns out that it was a good deal after all, especially as Trevor, Joe and Kumar (Trevor’s BU roommate) didn’t arrive until my train came in (and even still they’d have about a 1,5-ish commute to get to the hostel. However, as I had not heard back from them since we had first split off in the beginning of the break, I thought it would be nearly impossible to find each other. I also couldn’t check us in until I had all of the necessary info. I went to two internet centres nearby (soon finding out that great internet service is hard to find in Rome) and as I was about to leave a message at the front desk for TJ&K, who would’ve thunk it… they arrived. After checking everything in, we went out without any hesitation in search of food. We ended up finding a great pizzeria, Pizzeria del Secolo, where we found out that pizza is actually sold by weight (instead of by slice), an idea that was immediately deemed as brilliant. We then went to an Irish pub, followed by an evening stroll and the start of our Roman tour with Joe as our leader. One of the best experiences on the trip was definitely seeing the remains of Roman history lit up at night or at some points slightly shadowed by a nearby lamp.

Thursday was our big Vatican City Day and I can say for sure before I write anymore that I will not do this particular day any justice, primarily because there were too many Italian and Latin names for everything that I decided to take everything in through pictures, rather than writing all of the names down. In any case, we began our day with brunch outside of the Vatican City walls, followed by some amazing gelato; the best flavour combination I tried in all of Italy was from this particular gelateria: mixed berry, lemon and nutella. We took our massive tour through the Vatican Museums, transitioning rather effortlessly from the amazingly chiselled Roman statues and figures to the Christian tapestries, all of which adorned the walls and rooms in what (in retrospect) seems to have been a historical progression. It was amazing to see how wonderfully preserved all of these pieces of artwork and artefacts continue to be, as well as to see the existing result of past pope’s saving these pieces throughout the centuries. One of the most memorable stops was in the Sistine Chapel; I didn’t quite know what to expect and eventually found Michelangelo’s ‘The Creation of Adam’. Leaving the museums, we stepped foot onto the Piazza San Pietro (St. Peter’s Square) and, shortly following the security line, made our way first to the site of many past popes’ tombstones (the most moving of which was John Paul II’s) before spending some time in St. Peter’s Basilica. With evening soon approaching, we headed out and, after a stop in a museum to see the Ara Pacis Augustae, eventually made our way to meet up with Joe’s friend from another study abroad programme, Alexandra. After we finally found her, she took us around to some of her favourite areas of Rome (she’s been studying there for nearly a year, I believe), including a cosy restaurant and capped off with a night tour through the city.

On Friday, we met up with Alexandra and headed over to the Colosseum. First, though, we went across the street to have some breakfast, where we met up with Christine, a French House resident, and her friend, Kate (currently studying in Florence). After breakfast and with Joe as our tour guide (symbolised by the use of Alexandra’s umbrella), we visited such monuments as the Arch of Constantine, as well as the archaeological sites of Paletine and Foro (i.e., the Forum). We then had a bit of a lunch break (at which time Rome, for some reason or another, began to keep serving me meat), and then moved on to check out the Colosseum. After this visit, we headed to a local grocery store in which we purchased food and drink for our rather anticipated siesta. Passing through the Piazza del Popole we soon made it to the gardens of the Villa Borgese, where those of us present relaxed to beautiful weather, and wine, cheese, bread, and olives. We were so relaxed that we even tried to take our long-awaited siesta but the weather soon turned too cold that it warranted us having to find a different place. Alexandra certainly found that right place and, after finishing off the best hot chocolate I've had in Europe thus far, we fell asleep in the rather comfortable and cosy Libreria-Caffé Bohemian. Shortly awoken to re-meet our friends that didn't come with us to Villa Borgese, we had dinner at Trevi Restaurant which, in all honesty, reminded some of us of an Italian version of a very stereotypical Chinese restaurant. Afterwards, we went to the Peroni restaurant, and then eventually re-met up with Alexandra (who had left after the LCB to take a proper nap) to go to the Oppio caffé, experience bus riding at night, follow up with a concourse on the Spanish steps, and end the evening at Scholar's.

Finally, Saturday--our last day in Italy--arrived. In sum, it was a very relaxing day. Kumar had left early in the morning (props for staying up all night, btw's) and, so, Trevor, Joe and I met up with Alexandra at her local breakfast nook. Together, we then went to a nearby restaurant and ate outdoors, soaking in the wonderful Italian sun that had been so warming throughout spring break. Following our lunch (which included the best corn that any of us had had in our lives), we got gelato for the last time and headed over to the train station. After saying our good-byes, Trevor and I made the trek back home (including walking, metro-ing, and bussing) to Paris.

Photo Links

2009-03-25T00:45:00.002+01:00

Here (finally) are the links to the first two parts of my spring break:

Pisa, Italy

Florence, Italy: Day 1
Florence, Italy: Day 2
Florence, Italy: Day 3

The Rest of Florence

2009-03-19T14:23:00.001+01:00

Alright, so I feel that perhaps I’ve procrastinated long enough with this blog post. And especially with it already being my fourth day of my internship today, I must forewarn you that this entry will not do the rest of my Italian voyage justice.

Before I continue, I would like you to know that I finally do have pictures slowly being uploaded to the Internet, and will soon provide links.

In the meantime, I believe I was still in Florence when I last left you. Indeed, last Wednesday was the day I would be leaving to meet up with Trevor and company in Rome. However, as I was not scheduled to leave until mid-afternoon, I ended up deciding to do a pre-Vatican City pilgrimage, by visiting different Florentine churches. My first stop was at Parrocchia Nostra Signora del Sacro Cuore, the church that was but a few minutes’ walk from the hostel. I followed that up with a brief stop at the Basilica Santuario della SS. Annunziata, where I participated in the second half of an all-Italian Mass service. In the basilica, I started to get the sense that my art history days at Albion were slowly coming back, particularly when I saw the relics preserved of Saint Giuliana Falconneri. After passing the Centro Linguistico di Ateneo, I ended up at the Parocchia del S. Ambrogio. After that stop, I finally made it to my way to the Church of Santa Croche (as per Alex’s suggestion). There, among the many memorials and various tombstones, I saw the tombstones or memorials of such ‘famous people’ as Michelangelo, da Vinci, Niccolini, Bartolini, Rossini, Marconi, Degli Albertin, Dante (in actuality, his remains really don’t exist there), and Enrico Fermi (yes, I’m the product of Science-O). On the same complex, I made a quick stop at the Scuoto del Cuoio (Leather School of Florence), before moving onto the Studio Teologico per Laici di Santa Croce, a printing exposition of original (1/15) prints by Pietro Parici. I then continued my voyage with stops at the Cappella de’ Pazzi and the Museo dell’Opera, before finally heading out. On my way to my last big tourist stop, I got some gelato at Antica Galateria del Corso (flavours: Signola? And Caco (Amsterdam)). I then had the choice of going to a horror museum that would be closing in a week and an exhibit focused on da Vinci’s work. I chose the latter and got to see replicas of da Vinci’s inventions, etc., based on his original journals and codices. It was a wonderfully interactive exhibit and for 7 €, I was able to get my ticket and end with a pizza and pop snack at Caffé Michelangiolo. It’s interesting that the two are associated with one another as, historically, the two were intense rivals. Finally, after my walk through Mercato Centrale, I boarded my train to Rome.

Good Thing I Wore My Tackies!

2009-03-10T22:37:00.005+01:00

After another cardio session and a quick breakfast, I got ready to meet up with Alex, a classmate of mine from high school. I realised two things on my way to the train station, where we were planned to meet up: I am severely locked on French timing mode, as well as Parisian walking mode. (Coincidientally, Alex would later tell me that Italians are more or less very laid back.) In any case, I made it to the train station my expected 10 minutes late (though perhaps this may attributed to Albion time) and realised a third thing: trying to find Alex at a busy train & bus station (Santa Maria Novella, S.M.N.) without cell phones would be a pretty hectic task. However, Alex found me (as his bus is apparently the only one that arrives on other side of the bus drop-offs) and we were on our way.

Alex is currently studying about 20 minutes outside of Florence, taking classes in the villa and his classmates are staying at, and travelling in and out of Italy almost every weekend. Tough life for us off-campus students, yebo? With this said, he was an amazing tour guide and even though we found ourselves not where he quite expected, I wasn't any the wiser. Today, I think, was my first "wow, I'm a tourist" day.

Our first stop was to see David (the statue) and so we headed off to the Galleria dell'Academia. No photos allowed, so all I can really say (without even trying to do every piece of artwork justice) is that this Florentine art is some pretty amazing stuff. Wow, did I really relegate centuries of artwork to 'stuff'? In all sincerity, it was truly mind-boggling that people took all this time to paint or chisel, and their masterpieces were right there, right in front of me. For all my Parisian classmates and those who know about the term, beuf, I would also like to say that I have never seen more beuf poses and expressions in one museum at one time (and this was a pretty small one!). And, then, there he was: David. What many call the most perfect statue, I was in awe with how anyone could sculpt like that, let alone be the ones who were responsible for bringing this massive piece of artwork into the building. Of another interesting (though, random) note, I saw a lady cleaning one of the paintings. Her cleaning tool of choice?: a Swifter brush.

Since I couldn't take any photos of David, we headed off to find one of the replicas located elsewhere in Florence. We passed through either Piazzalo Degli Uffiso or Palazzo Vecchio, I think (thanks to me not having anything to write on, once again), then stopped for a wonderful view of from the Ponte Vecchio (including the interesting shade of green of the river). We continued on to the site of a church, where supposedly one of the best views of Florence can be found. Lo, and behold, Alex demonstrated his vast (and dare I say random?) wealth of Florentine knowledge, pointing out Aspen trees and sharing some of his study abroad stories as we climbed up (and down) the wrong hill, and finally up the right one. The second hill consisted of a stepped path (as opposed to the slightly steep one, reminiscent of my Québec voyage two winters ago), and we finally made it to the top (I told Alex I probably shouldn't have done that cardio earlier in the morning). It wasn't the church, but the lookout point nevertheless offerred a great look over Florence. Then, after taking photos of David (oh yeah, that's where an iron(?) replica of David was located), Alex had the brilliant idea of walking up the stairs to the church he had been thinking about, the Church of San Miniato al Monte; did I mention this idea was brilliant? I got an even better shot of Florence, and also happened to notice that a large group to my right were all French. We went inside the church, I took more photos (many of which will be on-line soon enough), and then we headed back down.

Hungry by this point, I suggested we have lunch and so we stopped in a little bistro and per Alex's suggestion, tried a panini sandwich which consisted of lettuce, fresh mozzarella and prosciutto. And it was amazing! (Though, I still think the French win in the bread category.)

At this point now filled a bit, Florence decided to make us burn some of that off by giving us wonderful weather (I'm quite surprised with how much I'm enjoying the weather here) and many a mini-hill to climb in the Boboli Gardens, the background of the Pitit Palace. (ps/ I'd compare the Church of San Miniato al Monte closest to Montmartre, and these gardens as closest to those of Versailles.) If I'm not mistaken, all of the statues were Pompei-inspired or, at the very least, old. The most interesting pieces, however, were two modern statues that seemed to have been randomly dropped there. One of them reminded me of the face one can find in Tuilleries, and the other reminded us of a (white) blood cell. On our way out of the gardens, I saw a giant obelisk supported on the shells of four turtle (figures) and perhaps the world’s largest ‘bathtub’ (at least, that’s what it looked like).

As we were now nearing the time that Alex had to leave (since he has his Italian language course in the evenings), I asked him where the best gelato in Florence is. Like the great Florentine student he is, he knew of a place to go, and en route also stumbled upon the leather market he had mentioned hours beforehand (the name of which is the Piazza del Mercato Nuovo). We ended up going to Grom, where I got limone and cioccolata extranoir gelato in a grande (though, in American terms was a small or, just barely, a medium) cup.

We finally split off at S.M.N. Alex went to the right, and still having some tourist left in me, went left. I decided to take the underground system in place under the intersection (which can get extremely hectic) by S.M.N. and found many a shop (didn’t buy anything!) and the exit to the other side of the street. Once on the other side, I went into the Church of Santa Maria Novella. I first prayed for a bit in one of the chapels then went to the main church (i.e., the tourist part) and once again unable to take photos, toured the open space and the Florentine artwork adorning the walls, as well as the main altar.

At the end of my tour, I made my way to S.M.N. to check if a price difference existed between using a Fast Ticket machine and buying a ticket directly from those at the ticket window. I didn’t get a direct answer, but I definitely bought my ticket to Rome for a lot less than I had expected to pay! Great luck in hand, I headed back to the hostel and took a very long nap. I eventually woke up and had dinner (Ravioli al pomadoro—spinach and ricotta filled—and pineapple juice, 4,80 €) in the hostel restaurant. The pasta was a bit too al dente for my liking, so perhaps I’ll have my best pasta ever, in Rome. Following dinner, I watched Lucky Number Slevin, then returned to my room to look through photos and eventually fall asleep.

Speaking of photos, I would like to offer the day's "True Life" statement. True life: I have taken 430 photos and 1 little video since I arrived in Italy, took 157 during my Florentine tour with Alex, including 4 different panoramic sets, have 447 files on my card in total, and have only 245 left. True life, part 2: I still have 4 days in Italy.

Resting Up

2009-03-09T23:50:00.002+01:00

Okay, so I really didn't expect to write this much while in Italy, but I'm going to blame this tendency on the fact that [the smart traveller I am...] I forgot to bring a notebook with me.
In any case...

I went out with the aim of only getting food to eat for dinner and perhaps happening upon a random Italian landmark. It turns out that Florence really isn't that big so there were Italian landmarks everywhere! I found myself being pulled at by some mystic force... and whaddayaknow... I found myself in a fairly big (for a Monday anyway) marketplace that was right outside of the Medici Chapels. Walking past and taking photos, I was drawn in by another mystic force... food. I eventually caved in and bought a waffle sandwich (chocolate filling with whipped cream on top) and somehow had to figure out a way to eat it all as I was walking. I didn't do too well of a job with it and all I can say is that I'm up for another go at it. I was under particular pressure as, after about 45 seconds of eating and walking, I saw a huge church right in front of me. I soon found out that, just like in Pisa, each site has its own entry fee. I eventually chose the bell tower (frankly, because my map guide said it was only 3€; turns out it's actually 6€). Surely I've mentioned this before but I'll say it again: I am plagued with doing much more work than I ever expect to do.

Cue 17.55. I begin my climb and make my way up to steady ground. It's only 17.57. Wow, I climbed that pretty quickly. Oh wait, there's another flight of stairs. I stopped to take pictures at the current level and made my way up in about a minute or two. Finished? Yeah, right. I took photos at every level and began to see the moon clearer with every small window in the wall or level I came across. EVENTUALLY, at 18.16, I made it to the very top of the bell tower and, thankfully, I was just in time to see the sun set over Florence. It was such a beautiful sight. I wish I had my card reader here so I could show you the photos from the journey. I'll soon get to that back in Paris. Oh, did I forget to mention that the climb is about 400+ stairs, each way?
Out of the bell tower, I continued my journey, camera still in hand and snapping away, listening to my mp3 player as I focused on getting from place to place and simply observing what was going on around me. It was getting dark, so I decided to head back home, but after winding around through Firenze all day, I wasn't quite sure which way was which. Along the way, I spotted what seemed like a Mass service and indeed it was. Definitely not understanding Italian, I left for a bit, but returned to the church for a few songs of a free organ concert the church put on to raise money for what I can only assume to be its bell tower.

I ended up back at the hostel and thought it would be a brilliant idea to check out their cardio machines. Pffft. No details necessary... if I wasn't tired after going up and down all those stairs in the bell tower, I was definitely tired after the cardio stuff. Unsurprisingly hungry, I went to the hostel restaurant and bought a ham pizza. May I say... Italians undoubtedly know their pizza! Their pasta is up on the docket tomorrow.

Pisa-Florence

2009-03-09T16:15:00.005+01:00

After a long day of travelling, I slept extremely well last night. I woke up to a dim room that immediately brightened as I drew back the shutters. I eventually got up and ready to get my bearings in Pisa, which wasn't really too difficult, as the city itself seems to be rather small. The owner of the hostel had given me a map printed on a business card, and I left the hostel in search of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the cathedral, and any other monuments the city is known for. Orienting myself to this tiny map, I eventually made my way down the correct street and happened to glance over to my right, at which point my first thought was: 'Oh, there's the Leaning Tower and... OH! That's the Leaning Tower!' My second thought was immediately: 'Beuf.' This isn't to say that it wasn't spectacular or anything, but more that this famous landmark just happened to be sitting (and leaning) just a few metres away from me. In any event, I made my way over to the rectangle o' monuments (the Piazza dei Miracoli (the Miracle Square) and soon found out that every site had an entry fee. (Going up the Leaning Tower was 15 €.) Deciding that I'll eventually get my exercise elsewhere, I settled for photos of the tower (which, just like Eiffel's, are free). I did go inside the Cathedral and amidst the paintings and statues, I also saw some relics (yeah Art History 318!) of two saints (one of which I believe is the patron saint of Pisa, though I'll have to check again when I look through my photos).

I made my way back to the hostel (+ also stopping by Pisa Point, the football stadium), got my bag, and waited for the bus, the stop of which was just outside. I apparently failed at getting the first bus's attention, so I had to wait for the next one and when I got on it, I was utterly confused as to wheter or not I had to pay, or what I had to do, as some people had tickets and others didn't. In any case, I made it to the train station, got my ticket to Florence, and had some Italian Mc-food (ps/ Europe wins when it comes to fast food, at least for now it does.) The train was scheduled to leave at 13.01, and at 12.58, someone thought it must've been hilarious to switch train tracks; all of a sudden, the Firenze (Florence) group headed en masse to the new track, and after playing one round of musical tracks, we got on board. I briefly spoke to the guy across from me. I had noticed he had an Italian lesson book, written in French. For all of you who know me well enough will know that I am ready to test out my French and every opportunity, though I end up failing and regret not doing so after the fact. So, courage in hand, I asked him if it's easy to learn Italian, at which point he shot right back with not at all. After a few weeks in France, this French exchange would be easy to do. However, we have never practiced speaking to native French speakers from outside of France (or Canada). The guy was from Senegal and his French was very quick (quicker than anyone I had ever heard before) and almost slurred, a combination of which usually results in head nods. The conversation ended before I could get to that point.

I arrived at the train station after an hour or so of sleep, though I kept waking up for fear that I kept missing the stop. After navigating out of the station, I made the easy walk directly to my current hostel which happens to be amazing (2 for 2, so far! My Safrican luck must still be carrying over from last semester.). In any case, I'm here now, once again safe and sound.

It's only a bit past 16.00 over here and I'm hungry once again. I think I'm going to profiter du soleil (not quite sure how to easily translate that to English) and read the French-English guidebook I bought at the train station. I also saw multiple pizzerias so maybe I'll stop in for dinner. In any case, tonight'll be a night to rest up. Tomorrow, I'm planning on meeting up with one of my high school classmates and I'm hoping to get in a full day of tourism, before my train ride to Rome on Wednesday.

So, This Is It, Yeah?

2009-03-09T01:42:00.004+01:00

Alrighty, so the journey has begun!

I left from Porte Maillot (after several bus line changes, as busses to the Beauvais airport were getting full) on time and fell asleep as I listened to my random collection of music. Upon arrival, I witnessed what seemed like a mass exodus; though in reality, the airport was just really small and multiple flights would be leaving within the next two hours. Alongside French folk, people from all over the EU, as well as clearly heard Americans, I slowly made my way to the check-in point, before finding out that I had to wait in an even longer line to get my boarding passed checked.

About an hour and a baguette later, I noticed that my flight was coming up... although, it was supposed to leave in 5 minutes and I wasn't on the plane. Apparently, everyone outbound to Pisa wasn't on the plane, either. With planes to other destinations leaving about 5 to 10 minutes apart, it was a huge guessing game as to which gate the one I needed to go through was the right one. With this said, the Pisa line en masse played a giant game of pseudo-musical doors. Eventually, we got on the plane but left about 20 minutes (if not more) later than anticipated.

A J2O, a Mars Muffin, and an hour of Italian podcasts later (total flight about 1h25), I arrived in Pisa unsurprisingly late. Under other circumstances, that would've been fine, but the owner of the villa I'm staying at for the night was supposed to pick me up. With no one holding up my name or seeming to look for an American new to Italy, I took a taxi (really nice interior, btw) straight to the villa. The owner, who had just missed me at the airport, followed us to the villa and was ready to welcome me in.

So with all of this said, I'm now in Italy, safe and sound, and unexpectedly in my own room, with basically my own bathroom (I booked to stay in a dorm, but no one else is in this room). The view, from what I can see through the darkness, looks great, and I can't wait to take a walk through Pisa in the morning. Afterwards, I'm heading to Florence.

N.B./ Italian keyboards are very difficult to use! And so, I apologise ahead of time if my accent marks are off, or if I spell something incorrectly... I have also found that my English has been more off than usual. Hopefully I can master this keyboard, hold onto my English, and learn some Italian, by the end of this voyage.

A Mini Hiatus

2009-03-08T14:19:00.002+01:00

Yesterday, I was on a mission in the morning to print and fax two pieces of paper to BU. Though successful, I would soon find out how wicked expensive it is to do those two tasks. In any event, Trevor's friend, Joe, arrived from BU yesterday. He's already been to Paris, so we pretty much just spent the day walking around Paris and stopping at random boulangeries or cafés. We eventually came home to a wonderful dinner prepared by our host parents. We spoke in Franglais (though perhaps a bit more French than English), but we nevertheless had perhaps the best conversation evening with them to date.

Today, I battled with myself to wake up and eventually got up to go to Mass. Since then, I've been catching up on some much-needed blogging time and have finally reached the end. With this said, today marks the beginning of my actual spring break travel plans. I leave for Pisa this evening, will be in Florence on Monday afternoon, and am meeting with Trevor, Joe and one of their friends in Rome on Wednesday. I can't quite promise when my next entry'll be, as I don't quite know the Internet situation.

So, until my next post, cheers!

AAAAAmagwenya, IIIII(||)esha!

2009-03-08T13:27:00.010+01:00

So, for all of you non-Xhosa speakers out there, I've found that "||" phonetically represents the 'x' click. (In other words, ixesha, which means 'time,' includes the x-click.) With this said, 'Amagwenya Ixesha' is the two-word song that one of my classmates, Yana, made up in South Africa some time around our safari in Isinkwe National Park. If you're still trying to figure out the tune, think Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba! That's the first line to the opening chant in 'Circle of Life,' from 'The Lion King'. I recently found out that this part of the song is the part that is clearly sung in isiXhosa (as opposed to other songs from the musical version which include a mix of isiXhosa, isiZulu, etc.). You can find the lyrics here. (ps/ the Q in nqoba is a click, !; for future reference, the 'c' click is often phonetically represented as '|'.)

In any case, I bring this up because this is the first line of 'The Lion King,' or rather, 'Le Roi Lion,' the French version that I saw this past Tuesday. I had seen the musical in English before but I felt particularly attached this time for two reasons: the fact that I finally got to see it, and my study abroad experience in South Africa last fall. Given what I wrote in my last blog entry, watching this musical brought the emotions to the forefront and I was so moved by the entire performance. The clicks, the South African languages, the clear notions of African spirituality and the circle of life, as well as the clear notions of faith and belief, the bright colours, the djimbes and other African instruments, the fact that this musical was in entirely foreign languages (minus one line in the entracte: 'One by One'), the majority of which was in French... and I understood it, and the exuding spirit of these performers was just too much to handle. This musical currently stands as the epitome of the mélange of everything I have studied and experienced this past year.

In the end, it didn't seem like everyone was giving the performers a standing ovation, but I also didn't bother to really look around. All I know is that my row definitely, did and never have I clapped so hard for a play or musical.

The End of Part I of My Parisian Semester

2009-03-08T13:26:00.001+01:00

Friday afternoon marked the end of the first part of my spring semester in Paris, and I must say there isn’t really much to say about this past week. Each day followed the rhythm of the past weeks since I’ve been here, slowly mounting to the fact that the academic aspect of our programme has come to an end.

All of my exams were completely fair, but nevertheless covered seven intensive weeks of coursework. My Travaux Pratiques (writing, speaking, etc.) final was on Thursday, while my economics and immigration & citizenship finals were on Friday. I think I did fairly well, considering the amount of information that could have possibly been tested. One could also tell that this past week has been on the more or less boring and repetitive side of life because our dinners became less and less complex, and more rushed to try and give us the maximum amount of time to study.

Ah, before I forget, we had two big food accomplishment for the week. First, in my attempt to step things up a notch, I made a pseudo-spicy beef and veg cannoli [ed.'s note: just realised today it was cannelloni] filling, the recipe of which I will include in my supplementary blog soon. Second, Trevor and I winged it and created a slightly better white sauce than our last attempt, eating that with gnocchi (ps/ it was extremely filling).

But aside from all of that, there were three great things about this week, and I’ll save the best for last.

1) About a week or two ago, I found out that France and Lithuania would be playing the first round qualifying match for a spot in the World Cup (ps/ in SOUTH AFRICA) while we would be here in Paris. And guess who’s going… Trevor, myself and 14 other BU folk, although I’m sure many more will join in on the fun. Especially given where we’ll be sitting, I’m wicked excited for this match. I knew it was a good thing I brought my French jerseys with me!

2) For some reason or another, this week was an über-nostalgic one for not only me, but for the majority, if not all, of my SIT: Cape Town classmates from last semester. I noticed pretty evident signs, such as the fact that many of them still have FB profile photos of them in South Africa, and that the conversation back and forth on our walls and photo comments refer to South Africa and our ISPs. Upon reflection, I forgot how tough and overwhelming mid-terms can generally get, let alone the fact that I was stressing over my finals. In any case, the great news is that I’ve been able to call a majority of them and catch up (there are still a few I need to get to). Everyone I spoke with sounded generally happy, but nevertheless nostalgic for SA.

3) Speaking of Safrica (which I don’t really intend to do, but just happen to anyway…), I finally saw ‘Le Roi Lion’!!! …although it was quite an adventure. I went to Théâtre Mogador right after school last Tuesday, getting there rather early. I went up to the ticket counter and asked if there were any student tickets left. The lady said no. I asked her if she knows when the next not-so-booked-night would be and she replied with ‘We are really booked for the next week.’ [N.B. This conversation was in French.] There was also a sign up saying they had no student (under 26 years old) tickets available. I had planned to meet up with Jane at the theatre and as she hadn’t arrived yet, I sent her a text giving her the unfortunate news that there were no tickets available (granted we could have paid the 49 € + / ticket fee, but the student cost was 10 €). However, she was more than halfway to the theatre so I decided to wait for her at the theatre and we’d try and figure where to go from there. It was approaching 19.00 and before Jane got there, I noticed a student line sort of begin to form AND THE SIGN WAS TAKEN DOWN. I was utterly confounded and when Jane arrived we ultimately decided to join the line and figure out if there was still a way to get in. A group of students (nine, I believe) were in front of us. After they PURCHASED THEIR TICKETS (even though the lady had told me earlier there were none available), we asked them if they did get student tickets and they responded with ‘oui,’ but they weren’t sure if they snagged the last ones or not. So, cue a frustrated M.A. Jane and I go up to the window and ask if there are tickets available, to which the lady responded with ‘oui,’ but the seats wouldn’t be next to each other. Fine by us! LOOONG story short… we got in and were about to see ‘Le Roi Lion’!

I have another blog!

2009-03-02T17:17:00.002+01:00

Maybe it's because I'm just hungry right now, or because I'm really excited to cook, but, in any event, I've just created a new blog and have entered my first food post. Check it out! (ps/ Do be sure to take a look at the URL if you decide to type it out manually to check up on the blog!)

http://polyglotte2609c.blogspot.com

Catch-up…Again, Part II: « You Can’t Stop the Beat » (The Cooking Momentum Really Picks Up)

2009-03-02T15:24:00.017+01:00

(N.B. In a similar style as my previous post...)

Thursday (26): After a late night with my paper, I was totally ready for the weekend and the excitement vis-à-vis cooking that we had in store for our dinner guests. Thursday evening, Gerald, Jill and Sam came over for dinner. Ménu: apératifs, pâte de penne avec une sauce de tomates et des boulettes de poulet et en plus du brocoli, la salade, des fromages et pour le dessert, les poires au four avec une sauce de vin blanc (sucré), de la canelle, et du citron. Of course, we also ended with pains au chocolat et chocolat chaud. (If you couldn't pick up what any of that was, make a note and I'll translate it into English, though I think you should be able to understand all of that.) We also played 1 000 Bourne.

Friday (27): I went to a cooking class taught by Elisabeth, at the Fondation. We made tartlettes, a salad with warmed chèvre, endives wrapped in ham and topped with a béchamel sauce that I made, and mousse au chocolat (there was an extra one that Camille and I shared, at Elisabeth's encouragement to finish it). Our end of the table (including Elisabeth) talked about travelling and food for much of the time, eventually leading me to the kind of cooking I've been doing since I've been in Paris. (Keep that bit in mind...) It was Jane's turn to come over for dinner, and so she and another one of her classmates, Elise, did just that. (Whoa, weird English sentence going on right there...) For dinner, we had: apératifs, salmon (me) with wild rice and asparagus (Trevor), salad, cheese, and had a duo-dessert (halved mango with brown sugar and cooked in rum and lemon juice, and strawberries that had been soaked in a mixture of orange juice, lemon and sugar; the mangoes were served with a reduced sauce of the leftover liquids from both desserts). As always, pains au chocolat and chocolat chaud ended the meal. After Jane and Elise left, Trevor and I continued talking and we got onto the subject of our favourites about our experience so far. Eventually, we got to thinking about who some of our favourite professors are and after recounting my cooking story from earlier in the day, we began thinking about the possibility of us cooking for them before we leave Paris. To make the night even more perfect, we figured out how to open the windows to the balcony. Paris is such a beautiful city.

Saturday (28): Trevor and I met up with Gerald and Jill at the Jardin de Luxembourg; quite exciting was the fact that the day was absolutely perfect (especially in terms of weather). Afterwards, we stopped by St. Sulpice and Tuileries (another garden in Paris). Our final destination for the afternoon was the Arc de Triomphe, which we found out students get in for free! About 50+ pictures and 500 steps later, we made our way back down and decided to do an impromptu dinner (as we were still up in the air as to whether or not we wanted to go to a jazz club). We ended up just staying inside and having dinner: apératifs, baked pasta, cheese and for dessert, dark mousse au chocolat accompanied by strawberries in various forms (including a nutella-filled strawberry with chantilly crème). As we finished up our pains au chocolat and chocolat chaud, we heard a key and were surprised to find our host family having returned from their vacation. Before and throughout their departure, Trevor and I had thought they would be back on Sunday. We (including Gerald and Jill; thanks for all of your help!) cleaned up the kitchen and dining room in the fastest time I had ever seen those two rooms cleaned after one of our dinners. Our host family was extremely nice about the confusion and told us that we could have just carried on, as if they had never arrived. In any event, the day still remained as perfect as it could be in Paris.

Sunday (1 March... when did that happen?!): After the adventure of finding hostels and what-not for my upcoming trip to Italy, I heard a small knock on my door. It was Elisabeth, our host sister, coming to get me for lunch. Our host parents made a wonderful lunch for us, incorporating ingredients from the mountain region where they had vacationed. (Un)fortunately, the food was definitely regional (including the names of each thing) and was not committed to my memory at the time. I wrapped up my hostel searches, booking everything that could be booked, took a bit of a nap, and then went to Sacré-Coeur to meet Patrick for Mass (finally after my fourth or fifth time being in Montmartre, I was able to get to Mass there). Afterwards, we stopped by a crêperie and ate some crêpes en route to the Comédie Française, where the BU crowd watched Cyrano de Bergerac. I'm sure I'd think it'd be as great a play as everyone else thinks it is, if I had been able to understand what was going on. In any event, it was quite the fortunate experience to be at the Comédie Française. For the first time in quite some time, Trevor and I went back to my room to have our first meal outside of our host family's kitchen.

Catch-up…Again, Part I: « We’re Just Getting Started »

2009-03-02T15:03:00.005+01:00

Well, in what seems to be customary form, I must now go ahead and finally catch you all up on the happenings that make up my life in Paris. Last week was wicked hectic and my life practically consisted of school, eating, homework and, with some luck, sleep. As a result, I’ve had very little time to actual blog and, when I did have time, I found myself too tired to type. In any event, now that I’m all energised, I’ll do a very quick run-down of specific events that have stood out during my blogging hiatus.

Friday (20): Jane, one of my Model UN friends from my high school days, is currently studying in Paris and Trevor and I finally just got to meet her last Friday. After the dodgy (can’t believe it took me more than 10 seconds to think of that word) phone tag, Trevor and I finally got to meet up with her. We saw Banlieue 13 Ultimatum, had dinner at L'Hippocampus and went to the weekly jam session at Duc des Lombards.

Saturday (21): Trevor and I, for the first time this trip, spent the day at different places. I went to a wonderful aquarium/"movieum"called Cinéaqua. If you're in Paris, I highly recommend going, though it's rather expensive on a student budget. (Avenue des Nations Unis is along the way.) As I took pictures, I gave different sea creatures awards (some of them may be seen here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037053&id=36203035&l=d0347). Afterwards, I went to Cité de l'Architecture & du Patrimoine. Unsuccessful at finding a theatre playing Slumdog Millionaire, I met up with Jane and some of her new classmates.

Sunday (22): I went to Mass at 9am at the church nearby my apartment-whatchamacallit and did some grocery shopping. After lunch, Trevor and I met up with Jane and two of her classmates and we all went to Le Marais in search of la Maison de Victor Hugo. We found it and did not take pictures (thankfully, we were allowed to breathe). After that, we all met up with another one of Jane's classmates and headed off to the base of Sacré-Coeur, where Trevor and I split off from them in search of pains au chocolat, which we were able to find.

Monday (23): A speaker came to talk to our econ class about the state of energy and resources in Europe. In retrospect, it wasn't really all that exciting of a lecture. For dinner, I cooked torti pasta with sausage, tomato sauce and cheese, and a side of potatoes, peas and carrots.

Tuesday (24): After our regular course load, Trevor and I had an unexpected cooking night. Trevor made rice and beans, while I made cheesy potatoes and added to our leftover pasta. We ended up not eating the pasta, which turned out to be a bit of a mistake, because I added bolognase sauce (with beef) and...

Wednesay (25): Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, the first day of no meat during Le Carême (Lent). I gave my Revue de Presse presentation on the topic of development in Africa. Based on various press articles, the EU as a whole seems to have made too much of a commitment, whereas individual member states seem to be contributing the most. Interestingly (and unexpectedly), my research brought me to that topic, within the context of South Africa, the Millennium Development Goals, and HIV/AIDS. After our econ class, Patrick, Pamela and I went to Notre Dame for Ash Wednesday Mass. We spoke in English and French throughout the day, including our discussions in the Métro about various aspects of religion and our random topics during lunch. I worked on my paper for Odile (on the representation of youth and immigration in the movie Salut cousin !) back at school, until we had an internship meeting at 6pm. Following the meeting, Trevor and I ate uncustomarily quick and early, as a result of the amount of writing we had to do for the next day. (ps/ I ate slower than usual though, as I picked out all the meat from the pasta.)

Wicked

2009-02-20T12:46:00.009+01:00

If you haven't been able to tell already, 'wicked' is now one of my favourite words to use. For the sake of not over-using it, as well as to begin this entry with awesome news, I shall like to begin by saying that Trevor and I cooked the best dinner we've ever cooked. To date. Ever. And we've cooked. A lot. Of food. Did I mention yet that it was wicked good? Because it was.

After the rather disappointing news that no tickets were available (at least for the student rate) to see Le Roi Lion, we decided to change course and cook dinner, yet we didn't realise how intense it was going to be. We went to Franprix (I had to go to a second one, too) to buy the ingredients, as well as to our boulangerie. Cue the jazz music. Trevor and I kept switching roles between head chef, sous-chef, and saucier. And like professionals, we pulled together a fabulous meal that we both couldn't seem to get over. At one point, we had all four pots going and probably took about 1,5 hours to prepare the meal, but it all felt like a rather calm process. We cooked bow-tie pasta and made our own white sauce to go along with it, with a side of broccoli and topped off with freshly cut parsley. We also had our cheese course, as well as dessert in the form of a raspberry-filled brownie and cherry sorbet with a side of macarons, and ended with chocolat chaud. Apparently, we've broken out of the cycle of non-complicated dinners; we ate all of this while watching Gran Torino.

But before all of this wonderful-ness, I went to school and didn't do so great on my quiz and by the end of my Travaux Pratiques class, was a bit overwhelmed with French for the first time this trip. Following this, I had my immigration and citizenship class, which turned out to be even better than all of us imagined it'd be; Odile is so cool. I also got my mid-term exam grade from her. I didn't do too bad and am excited for the rest of this half of the semester!

Clicking in Paris (Written on Wednesday, Posted on Friday)

2009-02-20T12:37:00.005+01:00

In isiXhosa, ndiqala means « I start ». And with that, I shall start writing this blog entry by saying that I’m really looking forward to tomorrow evening. In the meantime, let me begin by recounting my cycle of life in Paris.

On Monday, I woke and went to my econ class, hoping to receive my mid-term grade. However, I would not be so lucky and would have to wait a bit before receiving it. On the other hand, I went on a mini quest for « Euro shoes », the term I [and I’m pretty sure others] use to describe the shoes worn by many of the Parisians here. On very basic terms, the shoes have a bit of a point to them. Thankfully Trevor had previously dissuaded me from purchasing them near our area; for less than the price of one pair there, I was able to find two pairs in St Dennis. I’m wondering how I’ll be able to bring all of my stuff home… in any event, that purchase officially ends my list of have-to-buy purchases. As we were unable to interview anyone for our third dossier assignment over the weekend, Trevor and I decided to be brave and try interviewing the women at our favourite boulangerie. In anticipation for the prospects of interviewing them and needing the extra energy to do so, I made a chicken, ham and gouda on baguette sandwich for the two of us. Unfortunately, they were busy (as usual) and we weren’t able to interview them. So, we went over to Franprix to do a bit of grocery shopping, as Trevor would be cooking dinner that night. Shopping completed, we went back upstairs and ate dinner in Trevor’s apartment (now that we know how to use the stove). He cooked rice and beans, with eggs over-easy. It sounds simple, but he cooked our meal successfully, despite the obstacles standing in his way, such as the lack of black beans and the lack of Mexican spices. It was wicked good (that would be the Boston lexicon fusing with my own) and very filling. Despite that fact, we still went through dessert (cherry sorbet with chocolate crêpe biscuits) and chocolat chaud. I then began to write my econ paper (no worries, I had done the research beforehand) and eventually quit as I was beginning to fall asleep writing it. (N.B. I didn’t work on my econ paper earlier, as I was aiming to finish my FURSCA proposal on time. Even though I finished writing it, I was unable to turn it in in the end. *Sigh.*)

I woke up early on Tuesday to finish writing my econ paper and did so sans problème. We then went back to our boulangerie to try and interview the women there, but they were once again busy. As a result we reverted to having to call our host dad. Without a response, I soon went to my Travaux Pratiques class and the five of us who are also in the immigration class together headed over to our class trip to the Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration (I’m going to assume you know what that translates to). I particularly enjoyed the modern, yet not-to-modern, and rather interactive-feel of the museum. However, the journey over to the museum was a bit of a challenge. We had all gotten onto the Métro together and I suddenly realised that it may be possible to take the RER (the one faster than the Métro), but it would mean having to deal with a few line changes. Convinced that I could beat the others to the museum with my alternate route, I separated from them at Opéra and made the trek. However, I hadn’t taken into account the change-over time (walking to each line spot, as well as the time to actually wait for the car to arrive). As a result, I got there a bit late, but everyone waited for me anyway (thanks y’all!).

Cue 18h30-ish. Trevor and I meet up in his apartment and we call Antoine (our host dad) for our interview project. We talked about his job, the economic crisis in Europe, and the like. I’m quite ready to write this paper and turn it in.

Following our interview, I got a move on dinner (baked pasta shells with cheese, with extra cheesy pasta sauce, as well as carrots julienne and cubed zucchini). We ate the meal while watching part I of Aladdin (quite different watching it after a few years). At the pause, I went back upstairs as Trevor worked on some of his homework. Instead of napping, as I had planned to do, I looked up stuff for Le Roi Lion, which apparently is only 10 € for a student ticket on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. As part of the 10th anniversary celebrations, the French version opened in Paris in the fall and should be playing until the end of spring. Trevor and I are planning on going tomorrow and I’m wicked excited to see it. Through my Internet surfing, I found out/realised that the movie was inspired by South Africa and that the clicks in the stage version come from Xhosa! Did I mention I’m excited to see it? A few hours later, I went back downstairs and finished watching Aladdin while enjoying a round of chocolat chaud.

Today, I got to my econ class and received my econ grade at the end of it. I don’t understand the French grading system, but I’m not complaining. Let’s just say I did better than I thought I would-ish. I then went to the outdoor Dupleix market and bought stuff for dinner and then finally made my way to McDonalds (for lunch). Christine’s brother had suggested we try it at least once while we’re here because it’s apparently better here than in the States or anywhere else in the world for that matter). In all actuality, I am a fan of McDonald here than back home.

The plan for the evening was to go see a newly-released film, Le Code A Changé, so after dropping off the groceries in my apartment, I went back out to the school to meet up with my classmates and one of our professors. We then made our way to Passy and the second-biggest movie theatre that I’ve come across so far in Paris. We were watching a French comedy and the hilarity began to start when a big box of popcorn kept passing back and forth along the aisle; Hanadi, the professor who was with us, bought us this giant box of popcorn that somehow sufficiently satisfied the American cinematic experience for about 20 students. Before the movie even began (and while we were passing the box of popcorn), music started to play and it felt like there was going to be a live, opening tango number, on the floor in front of the screen. Alas, that wasn’t the case, but the movie did start with a tango scene. The movie was quite funny and I somehow understood most of it, despite the lack of subtitles. It also seemed to follow a traditional Franco-European feel, including a very open-ended ending. When we got back to the apartment, we had dinner (beef Bourgogne with white rice and broccoli), followed by giant strawberries with Nutella, and finally chocolat chaud. I should also mentioned that we watched a couple episodes of FRIENDS during dinner, before a long night of paper writing for the both of us.

13-5 February: One-Month Anniversary and Valentine’s Day Weekend

2009-02-16T08:31:00.006+01:00

Yeah, for the past few days, Trevor and I have been joking about the fact that a month has now passed between the moment we arrived on French territory and the moment that I write this blog entry. As you may have already read, yesterday was our one-month anniversary as roommates… housemates… actually, probably more like friends who happen to live in the same building and share the same homestay family. Definitely expanding that a couple circles, yesterday also marked my one-month anniversary with a city that’s been my home for quite some time now: Paris. In reality, and better yet in the grand scheme of life, a month is nothing. It’s merely a moment, and one of many. Entouk, it’s a moment that I’ve enjoyed every step of the way so far. With that said, please carry on and read the rest of this entry.

Saturday was Valentine’s Day. It also happened to be the second one in a row that Lauren and I have not been in the same place for. She’s currently travelling the rest of the European continent while I’m battling through my homework; okay, really, she’s on her winter break right now. In any case, with it being Valentine’s Day and all, the jokes continued on between Trevor and I, as we went through our itinerary. Actually, we had spent quite some time planning out stuff to do during the day but, as Paris and (especially) South Africa have taught me, there is never such a thing as concrete plans, and you definitely have to go with it.

All of that planning aside, our Valentine’s Day travels eventually brought us to the MK2 movie theatre near Quai de la Gare. In fact, it was actually an MK2 bibliothèque, a film major’s kind of playground I can only imagine (Trevor, of course, was « not » all that interested in that…). We ate what was more like our lunch and got in line to watch a movie. Upon entering the screening room, I was amazed at the black and red motif, as well as all of the comfortable seats. Arm rests between pairs of chairs could be lifted up to create a love seat. Almost forgetting that it was indeed Valentine’s Day, we quickly began to notice that nearly everyone in the theatre were couples. Perhaps even more hilarious was the fact that we saw Ce Que Pensent Les Hommes (English title: He’s Not Into You). I quite enjoyed it and laughed to myself in the beginning when every new shot was of a big-name star. Following the cinematic experience, we went to Rennes to go to Hippocampus. However, once again, we forgot that it was Valentine’s Day and were taken aback when we saw that couples filled the jazz club. The waiter decided to be particularly funny and asked if we were a couple (we had the « right » to be, according to the waiter), but quickly followed up saying that they didn’t have any room. With that, we left and walked around, trying to look for a jazz club and eventually gave up, once again because it was Valentine’s Day.

Bearing in mind that the movie was at 7pm (we left, I think, around 4:30pm or so and it took us a while to even get there), by the time we gave up looking for a jazz club it was nearly midnight and we were getting hungry. So, we made our way back home and stopped off at Charles de Gaulle Étoile to try and find the dark chocolate-covered marshmallow bears that we’ve been looking for for what seemed like forever. Entouk, the candy store was still open (I wonder how late the Champs-Elysée stays open) and we found the bears! ALSO, I FOUND THE CLOSEST THINGS TO TANGY TOPS IN THE SAME STORE!!! That’s a problem, haha. Afterwards, in our quest to find the best pain au chocolat which, I think, is more like our quest to validate the fact that our boulangerie is the best in all of Paris, we picked up some pain au chocolat on the way back home. I made some baked penne with soft baguette and tons of cheese; that late at night, anything’s pretty much amazing. Though I don’t like to brag about my cooking, I must say that that was probably the best pasta I’ve cooked since I’ve been here. And of course, we ended with chocolat chaud brilliantly coupled with our pains au chocolat.

Cue Sunday, 7:27am. I woke up and decided to go back to sleep, as the Mass service I planned on going to was at 9am. However, when I woke up again, it was 10 to 10am and knowing there’s supposed to be a 10am family service, I decided to finally get up and go to the church. Bearing the flow of this anecdote in mind, there was apparently no family service this weekend. I went to the main part of the church and prayed for a bit and then, not wanting to waste time (as I had told Trevor I’d be back at noon), I decided to go grocery shopping. I bought quite a bit of stuff and heard the church bells going. I wasn’t about to go to church with bags of groceries (or wine and such), so I went back to my room and went right back out again. When I got to the church, I found myself in a traditional, Gregorian service (i.e., there was a bunch of Latin thrown in that threw me off my linguistic game just a bit). After Mass, I went to the boulangerie that’s in that area but that we never go to, as well as to the fromagerie that we never go to (ps/ cheese and fish are cheaper in their respective speciality shops than in the supermarkets!) to pick up some fresh bread and cheese from the original cheese wheel (so cool!). Okay, enough excitement for food (for the moment).

After eating lunch (considered, really, breakfast at this point), Trevor and I finally made it outdoors (ps/ the weather here has indeed been perfect this weekend, given the fact that we’re still in the winter season) and headed over to Père Lachaise cemetery, using our recently-utilised transport system, the RER (which has fewer stops, but as a result is a lot quicker than the Métro). There isn’t really much to say other than the fact that there are a ton of graves (I believe the estimate is 70 000); a grave is a grave. Outside of existing foliage, there’s very little colour. As a result, the colours that do exist there catch your eye very quickly. Colours come from plants left by visitors, stained-glass windows, and even doors on some of the graves. Père Lachaise is also a gravesite for the many thousands of people who have influenced French culture and society. With this said, there’s a lot of history buried there and culture that has grown from those great minds. There was a rather peculiar site, that of Jim Morrison’s, that I wasn’t a huge fan of. First of all, his grave seemed to be the only one in the whole cemetery that was barricaded, sort of like with the kinds of gates used to separate paparazzi from celebrities during a movie premier. Also, his site is « so popular » among visitors that said visitors have taken the liberty of scratching « Jim » (along with an accompanying arrow leading to his site) into the tombstones of other people. Not a huge fan. In any case, I shall leave the rest of our adventures in Père Lachaise to speak for themselves via the photos below.

Following our 2,5-3-hour excursion in the cemetery, we decided to come back to the apartment, and once there, we tried the stove once again. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this story (which, if I did, you have every right to skip over this bit), but our host family has an electric, fancy-schmancy stove top. We had spent a while yesterday trying to figure it out, to no avail. In the evening, Christine called us and we eventually asked her how to use the stove (even though she had at first shown it to us twice). Entouk, she told us that their stove top is thermo-conductive or something like that and as a result, there are specialised pots for use specifically for our host family’s stove top. Moreover, she said that my pots wouldn’t work in their kitchen (because it’s not specifically designed for it).

Before being told this information, we decided to bypass the stove-top for a while (just in case it was pulling a JK/LOL or taking a day off) and cook dinner upstairs. For dinner, we started off with apératifs (anyone else try « MA » (not referring to myself) yet?) and boiled potatoes with raclette (cheese) and ham. The next course was baked pasta shells with a bolognase sauce, topped (of course) with cheese. We also had some other colours with our meal, in the form of carrots and zucchini. I had a bit more of the comté I had purchased earlier in the day, followed by dessert and, after cleaning up, we went downstairs to work on homework and I did some laundry in the process. Oh yes, and we watched Top Gun (in English) during dinner. We both spoke to our respective families around midnight-ish and ended our weekend with chocolat chaud and pains au chocolat from the boulangerie we never go to.

I'm Eating Fruit Cocktail

2009-02-14T12:37:00.010+01:00

Okay, so the title would've worked better if I wrote this a few hours ago and was, well, still eating fruit cocktail. In any case, I like the title, so just humour me and let me run with it.

After studying for my partiels (mid-terms) into the wee hours of the morning, I found myself surprisingly awake a few hours later and ready to take my exams. They went well; I think I overstudied for one and understudied for the other (which usually tends to be the case). After the exams (around 12h00), Trevor and I went back home and had lunch (unsurprisingly, more eggs and croque-monsieurs), and watched my (and apparent only one of his) favourite French movie(s), Les Choristes. Following the movie, Trevor went back downstairs to take a nap and I found myself somewhat inspired to work on my FURSCA proposal, depite the uncertainties surrounding it. I worked on the paper a little too long and eventually missed watching Slumdog Millionaire, but was at least able to meet up with Trevor and Camille at Odéon. Together, we walked to a crêperie (which happened to be the one right across from the theatre where we saw "La Cantatrice Chauve", and ended up buying paninis for dinner. Following our meal, we went to the Caveau de la Huchette, where we were eventually met up by Jill, Sam, and two of their friends from BU and who are currently studying in Grenoble. We had originally gone there for the jazz, but were soon surprised to see an open dance floor. However, there was only room for us in a little alcove in the back, so we ended up "dancing" (theoretically) back there.

After the Caveau de la Huchette, we trekked our way across the river to Duc des Lombards. Once again, after midnight, there's a great jam session (that's also free to watch), where people just randomly (or not) come up on stage to join whomever else is there. Somehow (and to my amazement) they always sound very good. One of my favourite bits was a solo by a guy playing one of those duo-djimbe-type-drums. I have no clue what that's called, but perhaps you know what I'm talking about anyway? Oh, of note, we all sat in the balcony looking down on the musicians. It was so great; I've confirmed Duc des Lombards to be my favourite jazz club so far in Paris.

Following our jazz evening, Trevor and I went back to my room and made some chocolat chaud (which is pretty much a common occurrence every night, if you haven't caught on to that one yet). I also figured out that each box of milk is 1L, and each serving is 0,25L. With this said, we finished a litre of milk in one day (we had some with lunch, as well). I must say I'm quite a fan of this hot chocolate. To end the night, I attempted to catch up on all of my blogging but obviously didn't finish as I'm wrapping up just now.

I would also like to note that yesterday marked our one-month anniversary here in Paris. I can't believe how quickly time has flown by here!

Snapshots of My Week (Mon-Thurs)

2009-02-14T04:36:00.026+01:00

Rain, snow, wind, sunlight, thunder. We've got it all here in Paris. This past week has gone by so quickly, though I'm quite happy that the following photo is akin to the scene I see every morning upon leaving the apartment building:With this photo-taking in mind, I have chosen to express this entry more in photo form, along with particular events of the week.

LUNDI
-I had my practice exposée with Emily and Hanadi today for my economics class.
-We watched a live performance of "La Cantatrice Chauve". (below)
-For dinner, I cooked pasta filled with bolognase, and steamed zucchini.

MARDI
-Trevor and I had dinner with Christine (sausage with lentiles)
-Prior to dinner, we went out to a men's department store in order to profiter de (not sure what the appropriate English verb is) the final sale prices. Entouk, I finally found my jeans! (below, I'm wearing two of the pants that I got)

MERCREDI
-Emily and I presented our research for our economics class. Our topic was focused on the reasons why the United Kingdom did not adopt the euro, what stipulations must be met in order for the UK to adopt the euro, and whether or not we think the UK will eventually adopt the euro. The presentation was, of course, completely in French.
-After class, I went to the open market at Dupleix, with the intent on buying a watch, as mine is close to falling apart. However, there was only one watch vendor, and the prices were quite high. Entouk, I bought groceries instead.
-I decided to pass by the Eiffel Tower to check and see if there is still indeed a skating rink on the second floor (a huge reason why I chose to come here in the spring, versus in the fall). Apparently, there has been no skating rink for three years.
-On my way home, I passed by three sushi restaurants, and eventually bought some sushi (pictured below).
-For dinner, I made pasta with 4-cheese sauce, and fried zucchini.

JEUDI
-In Odile's class, we watched video clips from three different movies, focusing on notions of race in each of them and from varying points of view.
-For dinner, Trevor cooked omelettes and I cooked croque-monsieurs. Trevor's omelette, pictured below contained 5 egg yolks and 7 egg whites, along with ham, mushrooms and cheese as the filling. Needless to say (though I'll say it anyway), it's probably the biggest omelette we've ever seen.

Hungry much? I mean, I'm not mean, but...

2009-02-09T03:32:00.007+01:00

This past weekend has been one of my favourites so far. On Saturday, I got up early to continue my search for a single pair of jeans. I had no success in this endeavour, and realised that an annoying paradox currently exists here in Paris. I'm not the only short guy in this city; indeed, there are many who are shorter than me, and that also happen to be wearing jeans. If they're wearing shorter jeans, that must mean that said jeans should be available for purchase, right? Aïe ! In any case, outside of this, the weekend was really fun.

I completed my early weekend purchasing with the purchase of my Euro bag (some would call it a "murse"). Entouk, it does the job. It was also beginning to snow (which I love over here), and I remember being rather surprised with the increasing number of shoppers in spite of the weather. I got back home around 2pm, and around which time Trevor and I had lunch (even more eggs; I must also say that I think Trevor has perfected his egg cooking). We then decided to go to the Musée du Quai Branly; cultural museum? (Of course!). The museum, architecturally, was quite huge and modern. The artifacts and such were not quite as modern (though we did see a yellow pointalist painting from '96 (i.e., 1996). I did see many interesting things, as all museums have their fair share, though I, of course, was interested in a few areas in particular:

OCEANIA: Australian, aboriginal artifacts
Philippines: It looks like they didn't put the Philippines in Asia or necessarily in Oceania. In any event, I kind of got the chills taking a look at potentially one of my ancestors' belongings.
AFRICA: Cameroon, South Africa (there was nothing from the Xhosa ethnic group, ps).
AMERICAS: Great Lakes regional artifacts (coolest thing was a grizzly bear claw necklace)

After receiving a text from Erin confirming dinner plans, Trevor and I left the museum and completed some much needed grocery shopping. Erin, Liz, and Meredith (though, the professors seem to be convinced her name's Meredyth), arrived and we presented them with our usual five-course hooplah (though I think they were originally supposed to come over for just the hot chocolate in the end. Nevertheless, we started out with apératifs (including pistachios and peanuts), moved on to a main course of baked pasta and cheesy bread, followed through with salad, included cheese and more baguette, and finishing up with mousse au chocolat noir with raspberries arranged differently for each person. Finally, we moved on to the ultimate test and the reason why they came over in the first place (chocolat chaud). I must say I was rather impressed because, after finishing all of that food, pretty much all of the hot chocolate was finished. We couldn't find any regular sized pains au chocolat, but Trevor did manage to find some mini ones for Erin, Liz, and Meredith to try. (ps, the title of this blog entry comes from the regular use of the phrase "I mean, I'm not mean, but..." during dinner)

As we were heading into early morning territory, we had to call an end to the night and we all walked to the respective Métro stations. However, Erin's Métro line was closed, so Trevor and I walked her to the Noctillien, the bus line that's in operation while the Métro is closed. However, as we would have had to wait (weird construction there) about an hour just for the bus to arrive, we thought (at the time) that it'd be a smart idea to just walk home. Eventually, we got to Erin's house and then realised we had to walk all the way back (I think it was about an hour/hour and a half-ish walk across Paris). Suffice it to say, Trevor and I got back to our apartment without much difficulty, and we have this story to tell.

The next day, i.e., Sunday, everyone woke up pretty late, but we eventually met up at Montmartre (second time in the past few weeks for me) and walked around the area for a few hours, making sure to stop at the Sacré-Coeur and the look-out point at the base of the basilica. After our afternoon journey (with beautiful weather, I must add) we stopped at a crêperie for a quick crêpe nearby, and then headed our separate ways. I aimed for St. Clotilde parish for an evening Mass service and got to the church with little difficulty. Although we were in [what I would call] a chapel, it was beautiful inside and felt as though I was in the main parish church. Upon my arrival back home, Trevor and I became stereotypical French (eating baguette and cheese alongside some wine). We worked on some homework and eventually the hours quickly strolled by; of note, Trevor and I also attempted to make post-mid-term travel plans, but luck was not on our side.

N.B. At the time of me writing this, I'm enjoying my weekend so far, even though we aren't doing much travelling.

Catching Up

2009-02-09T03:11:00.007+01:00

In a nutshell, life's been a bit hectic here in good ol' Paris. Okay, not quite hectic, but just too fun and serene to really have the time to write blog entries all day. (It's either that, or we just also really have a ton of homework for our classes.) In any case, here are some brief highlights:

WEDNESDAY
*My econ class went to the Assembly of the Western European Union, where we heard/spoke only in English. In retrospect, it was a really cool outing.
*From the AWEU, Camille walked with me to Passy, where I happily found myself lost amidst all of the stores that are ending their sales more quickly than I'd like.
*I took the wrong direction and decided to get lost in Pasteur, and then walked to Montparnasse Bienvenüe and back.
*I continued my search for an elusive pair of jeans at La Motte Picquet Grenelle. Seriously, jeans are too long (i.e., I'm just really getting tired of being short in this country) and too expensive.
*Dinner consisted of baked pasta with cheesy bread.
*Trevor and I spent the rest of the night going through our notes and outils workbook in preparation for our first French quiz. Of course, we ended with chocolat chaud.

THURSDAY
*We had our first quiz in French class, followed by an AMAZING phonetics lesson afterwards - it's equally great when everyone continues to speak in French after just having had learned how to speak it.
*My immigration and citizenship class continued to watch a movie on Algerian immigrants now living in France. We also discussed Caché which, naturally, meant that I understood the movie by the time I left.
*Trevor and I walked along the Champs-Elysée on the way home - Trevor finally found his bag.
*Antoine cooked wonderful galettes for dinner, with Christine cooking the dessert crêpes. We also had cidre from Brittany (i.e., Bretagne). Galette round: ham, egg, cheese; salted ham? (prosciutto), and cheese; salmon; Sucre round: Nutella and banana flambé; Nutella and dark chocolate
*We ended our night once again with choc chaud.
*I also bought my tickets for spring break for less than 150$ !

FRIDAY
*My immigration and citizenship class watched Salut Cousin which was hilarious and refreshingly easy to follow.
*For the most part, Renée and Odile met up with us A-J-last-name-students at the Musée du Vin. We were thoroughly taught (in French) many of the ins and outs of wine. We also tasted two reds, two whites, and a champagne.
*Trevor cooked eggs as the base for our dinner.
*We went out for some jazz following dinner. We met up with Gerald, Jill, and Sam, at Hippocampus. It was especially cool because we were pretty much the only ones there. The theme for the evening was Oldies; they played older music from France and the States, as well as a few that made me want to be back in Louisiana. Trevor and I then went to what I think is tied as my favourite jazz club, Duc du Lombard.

My Ears Are a Bit Colder Now

2009-02-04T02:06:00.004+01:00

Chocolate. Cheese. Wine. Chocolate. The French know what they're doing, and also outside of the culinary realm it seems. Today (well, really I suppose yesterday at this point), I decided to check out the coiffure (hairstyling place) once more. If there was no one there, I confirmed to myself that I would not be getting my hair cut at all (at least during this semester). However, as everyone else in the world seemed to know, it turns out that hairstyling places are typically closed on Mondays (apparently in France, as well as in the States). In any case, I set out the conditions beforehand and had little alternative but to have my hair cut, except for the possibility that they couldn't cut my hair at that time (at which point I also would have decided not to have my hair cut). As it turned out, I was able to indeed have a haircut. Somehow, the haircutter understood my hair situation, through a combination of my French and her ability to actually understand my hand motions, and gave me a pretty good haircut. I told her (more or less) that I wanted it relatively shorter than the long hair I possessed, that she needed to pay particular attention to the top of my head, and that my hair gets curly when my hair is dry. Towards the end of my explanation, she asked me if I wanted my hair somewhat like the guy's in the window display poster. I nodded and threw in a oui, and with professional precision, cut my hair within about half an hour's time. Glasses off, I felt the pangs of the past couple of years and a few months of work to keep my hair long and saw the rather dramatic difference in terms of my hair length getting shorter as she worked. In the end, my haircut ended up being 25 €; I'm thinking it's because she cut a substantial amount of hair off and re-styled my look.

After a quick stop at the pharmacie to attempt to try and find some hair gel, I headed off to school. My Travaux Pratiques class was focused primarily on grammar corrections, followed by a reminder of the quiz we have to study for, as well as the multiple dossier projects we have to work on, by Thursday. My immigration class was great, as usual. We're beginning to get into immigration and citizenship theory within the French context. Fun stuff. I know, right? :)

I got my first set of grades back from both classes. I need to learn more French grammar quickly and concretely. Trevor and I have decided to take it upon ourselves to speak even more French and will soon try to proofread each other's papers.

After my five hours of class, we had our weekly conférence. This time around, the subject was the French media. Somehow, the hour-long meeting felt like only 20 minutes. There were two speakers, at least one (if not both) from RFI (Radio France International).

Following the conférence, I joined Gerald, Jill, and Sam, on the métro to tram ride to the Fondation for dinner, where we met up with Claire, Nicole, and Trevor. Trevor and I then went back to my room to work on some homework. In between my corrections and such, I happened to make some three-cheese bread as a snack, even though we both agreed that we didn't need to eat anymore. Comme toujours, we ended the night with my hot chocolate and some pains aux chocolat.

Getting Our Hot Chocolate On

2009-02-03T00:18:00.004+01:00

MDR (Mort de rire, i.e., "dying of laughter", a.k.a., LOL). That's the only possible way to start this blog entry.

Today, I woke up to some wonderful Parisian snow, which would eventually turn into wet mush by the end of the day. In any case, the Métro was pretty packed today, especially in the morning, as people were recharging their Métro cards and heading off to work. I eventually got to class, and met with half the class, as everyone else was held back quite a bit because of the snowy conditions. I had my only class (economics) and then had the rest of the day to myself until the early evening when I had to return back to school to watch a movie for my immigration and citizenship class.

To pass the time, I walked along the Champs-Elysées, doing some window shopping for part of the time and taking part in the final markdowns for the winter season for the rest of the time. I then made my way over to the haircutting place I came across yesterday and, after going back and forth on whether or not I should get a haircut, found the place to be closed for the day, even though I was very much there before their posted closing time. I could technically call whomever at the place to set an appointment, but I didn't even see a contact number on the store front. So, I headed over to Franprix, only a few more stores down, and completed my grocery shopping for (hopefully) the next week. Following the end to my shopping excursion, I made my way back to school. On the way over, I found a really great crêperie/bar place just outside of the Dupleix stop; I had my cheapest and honestly best-tasting crêpe there. Were it not for the rain, I probably would've finished all of it by the time I got back. In any event, I eventually got there and met up with a few of my classmates from my immigration and citizenship class. Together, we watched Caché, which for some reason or another, has been added to my list of could-be-kinda-good-if-only-I-understood-what-just-happened kind of movies. After a quick stop at a pharmacy after the movie, I returned back to my room.

Yesterday, Trevor and I had planned to eat the rest of our salmon and green beans leftovers (which we did), but somehow ended up having yet another five-course meal in the process. I'm beginning to think that "leftovers" is an actual course title. In any case, we had:

*Leftover salmon with green beans (plus the choice of including leftover rice)
*Three-cheese (comté, emmental, and gouda) two-pasta casserole
*Salad
*Cheese (five cheeses this time around; the above, plus chèvre and rocquefort)
*Galette de la marmotte (to celebrate Groundhog's Day, we added a chocolate-covered marshmallow bear and a broken up mini macaroon (for the "ground") to our galette de bonne année), as well as liégeois au chocolat

Gotta go and finish up the rest of my homework... To end the night, Trevor and I plan on finishing up with our traditional hot chocolate (i.e., chocolat chaud) course.

The Rest of My Weekend and Les Restes

2009-02-02T02:26:00.008+01:00

Well, so much for the touristy bit of my planned weekend with Lauren. Instead, we decided to just go ahead and go with the flow. We didn't actually get moving around Paris until about noon; before that, we took our time eating breakfast and getting ready for the day. Eventually, we made our way to Montmartre--reminiscent of my brief visit there freshman year of college--and somehow seemed to stumble upon the Sacred Heart of Montmartre (i.e., Sacré-Coeur). We made our way through the pilgrim's path within the basilica. About a quarter of the way in, I stopped in the bookshop area and purchased a text which included the order of the Mass, in French. Before even getting to Sacré-Coeur, I was able to purchase a new beret (I still think it was taken out of my suitcase during the baggage check, but I'm not quite sure...), and we tried vin chaud in a little courtyard outside of an adjoining parish. Following our visit to the basilica, we headed further down, just before t he tourist trap area, and after doing a bit of window shopping/shop exploration, had a mid-afternoon lunch at a pizzeria. Since it was cold and I wasn't thinking about the evening weather in terms of dress, we headed back to my room to warm up and fetch a proper jacket. I introduced Lauren to the chocolat chaud that Trevor and I usually end our day with (not the best idea when the day isn't yet over); afterwards, we didn't quite want to move. Even still, though, we found the energy to go back out and walked (and re-walked) the Champs-Elysées. At one point, we stopped in at Sephora. I had been to one in Michigan, and the one there had nothing on this one in Paris; there were so many choices of everything, and that along with the mélange of smells was quite a bit overpowering. After a quick stop at the Disney store (they played the French version of "He Lives in You"; SO great!), we decided to get some dinner which, had been decided a long time ago, ended up being sushi, to celebrate Lauren's 21st birthday. We quickly found the Japanese restaurant that's only a few blocks away from the apartment building. I had salmon sashimi with rice (I think that's what it's called), and a variety of dumplings that reminded me of Filipino cooking. I must admit I rather like Japanese food here. To wrap up the night, we stopped in at the brasserie that's right next door to the apartment building, and toasted one last time to Lauren's b-day.

Today (Sunday), Lauren and I went to Notre Dame for a Gregorian Mass service. I have a bit of trouble following Mass in French; it was quite a bit difficult to follow it in Latin, especially without the guide sheet. After Mass, we came back to the apartment building and after Lauren finished packing, we went downstairs to join Trevor, Christine and Antoine, and eventually the kids, for our weekly lunch. It was relatively shorter, in comparison to our past meals, in large part because Lauren's train would be leaving soon. Comme toujours, Christine made a wonderful lunch. We began with an apératif, this time including quite a bit of Spanish influence. Following that, for our first course, we had salad, along with a flaky crust dish with somewhat of a salmon filling. I don't quite understand what's going on with my fish consumption, but I don't seem to be complaing much about it. For our second course, we had wonderfully-cooked chicken alongside rice. Our third course consisted of some cheese, and homemade bread. We then tackled the dessert which (at first, I got extremely worried at the mere possibility that it was made of mango) Chiristine quickly checked and confirmed it was made of passion fruit.

After lunch, Lauren and I lounged a bit to gather more energy, and then headed for Gare de Lyon, where I dropped her off a few minutes before she had to leave. After our good-bye exchanges, I rushed off to the grocery store to soon find out (again) that they were closed, but not as late as other stores are on a given Sunday. Failed by my attempt to purchase the items on my grocery list, I went back to my room to clean up a bit and began to continue my studying. Thankfully, I have only one class tomorrow and was able to get through the article (i.e., my only assignment for Monday).

Now, I could get ahead in my work... at least, that was the thought that Trevor and I had. We soon realised, however, that our study habits needed to relax for the time being, and thus began eating dinner. If you look it up in the translating dictionary, les restes is the French term for "leftovers," which Trevor and I had this evening. As we went through the night, we eventually (and accidentally) formed a five-course meal, and finished quite a bit of food in the refrigerator. I definitely need more room after tomorrow's shopping extravaganza. Tonight, we had:

*Boiled potatoes with raclette (a cheese which is melted for this dish) and prosciutto
*Leftover cream of mushroom chicken (Trevor had some of the leftover rice, as well)
*Salad with tomatoes
*A hodepodge array of desserts, including a berry-mousse dessert I artistically concocted and focused my attention on for quite some time. Eventually, I'll get photos uploaded so you can see my creations.
*Chocolat chaud with pain au chocolat

Tomorrow, Trevor and I have also decided to finish the rest of our leftovers, that time around including the salmon I cooked last Friday.

Bienvenue à Paris

2009-01-31T00:12:00.003+01:00

So, I would like to first apologise to Lauren for pretending to be a Parisian today and apparently catching her a bit off-guard after just having gotten off the train. In any case, she has safely arrived and Trevor and I have begun to show her life in Paris.

Today, I woke up rather late, I suppose because I could, but also because I wanted to. (Hope that makes sense.) In any case, I got up a few hours before Lauren arrived and made my way to the poissonerie, i.e., the place that specialises in fish. I got three cuts of salmon and though I don't really like fish, they looked pretty tasty, even uncooked! After completing my round of groceries, I headed over to the train station to get Lauren and got there right on time. Heading back to the Argentine stop, we had a bit of lunch (not sure if that was the best idea, bearing in mind the elaborate dinner I was planning) at the brasserie next door to the apartment building. Once back, I commenced the cooking preparations. After Trevor's cooking class day (which also may not have been a good idea, though very tasty, I'm most definitely sure), he joined us for what would be the planned end to our "Tour de Food" run.

For dinner, we had:

*First course: an apératif, with baked red-skin potatoes, topped with raclette (which Lauren told us is made in Grenoble) and prosciutto. I had first had this recipe as a main course in Noisy-le-Roi way back when. What was I thinking serving this as only an hors d'œuvre?
*Second course: pan-seared salmon, with rice and green beans. I must say I was incredibly proud of the salmon for having cooked it for the first time... ever.
*Third course: salad with tomatoes and the two types of salad dressing we have to offer.
*Fourth course: cheese plate of emmental, comté (which we found out Lauren likes, as well), rocquefort, and chèvre, paired off with grapes.
*Fifth course: galette de bonne année from our local (and favourite) boulanger. Lauren got the fève.

Christine dropped by during dinner to drop off another storage unit for food, as well as extra linens (merci mille fois !).

Following dinner, we headed over to the jazz club that Trevor had chosen. There was a really great atmosphere that brought me back to my visit to New Orleans. Perhaps the fact that it was rather zydeco and included a washboard made a bit of a difference, nê?

For tomorrow, I've got some rather touristy things planned for Lauren's visit. Hopefully the weather'll be as great as it was today!

Grève? What grève ?

2009-01-29T23:58:00.006+01:00

Well, today was grève day in apparently all of France, not just Paris. However, it didn't seem to have affected Trevor and I all that much, perhaps because we happen to live about a minute or two's walk from a station along one of the lines that remained completely functional today. In any event, it seemed that life just simply went on, despite what was apparently supposed to be pretty bad. With that all said, Trevor and I were finally able to get our laundry done by the early afternoon (though I think some of his clothes are still drying...). By mid-afternoon, we decided to check out the grève situation in the Métro, which was not grave (sorry for the pun) at all. On our scavenger's hunt list were a pair of pseudo-formal European shoes, a "murse," a beret, and Euro jeans; 1 out of 4 isn't too bad. When we were in the Centre Georges Pompidou area, we happend to find an MK2 theatre and, after a light snack beforehand, watched Les Trois Singes. All I can say about that experience for the time being is that 1) the seats were extremely comfortable, 2) though amazing, the colours throughout the film weren't the best for holding onto one's attention, and 3) it took me a while to figure it out but by the time the film credits rolled, we had been listening to a movie in Turkish, with French subtitles.

Then, after a quick stop at our local Franprix stores, came back to my room for dinner. This time around, Trevor and I switched roles, as he cooked tonight. To keep things in context, we had been planning on slowly reducing the number of courses, but we dropped quickly to one. However, by the end of the meal, we felt as though we had gone through all six. Before we could even get to dinner, Christine had invited us to join her and Antoine, as well as Christine's brother and his wife, for an apératif. We accepted, and spoke to all of them about a variety of subjects, including the affect of American politics on the French, and the fifth book that Christine's brother published. After our mini-rendez-vous with them, Trevor cooked some really great French toast and I cooked a side dish of bacon. It was quite a simple, yet extremely filling meal. I can't wait to see what tomorrow has in store!

The Tour de Food

2009-01-29T00:30:00.006+01:00

Hyuu! If you've been following my blog at all, you may have noted that we eat quite a bit here in Paris, and tonight was no exception. But first... I began my day by getting to my last class for the week: economics. The class definitely has the potential for some great discussion but, in the meantime, we're still trapped in learning about economic theory and the history of the European Union (mind you, all in French). At the end of class, I found out that not only do I have a different presentation partner, but I also have a different topic to work on. This'll be an interesting couple of weeks. Outside of that class, I had nothing else to do really, except think about the exciting meal that would soon ensue. (Really, I work on more than just food on any given day. :-P) On a repetitive note, tomorrow is grève day, but I found out that line 1, which is the main line that Trevor and I take since it's the closest one to us, will be operational. We're quite excited to see what Paris will be like.

So, in any case, I left the classroom building with grandious optimism and perhaps cautious enthusiasm with the meal plan Trevor and I had cooked up last night. We had divided up the grocery list, had gone through them at least 10 times to confirm what we needed to purchase, and I somehow still ended up buying salad and dressing (at least we bought different kinds of each). A few important notes about the shopping adventure:

1) I found another supermarché chain called Ed's, which seemed like it was cheaper than Franprix. Also, they had mangoes for 0,99 € each! So excited
2) Ever since French I (freshman year of high school), I have been looking for the French card game 1 000 Borne (pronounced "meel born"). I had lowering hopes as the day went by and I happened to come across a toy store by one of my stops and asked one of the workers if they happened to have the game. She looked and me and said Oui ! My eyes opened wide and I must've been too überly excited to realise that I would be paying 28 € for this game. Oh well, in my opinion, it was worth it.
3) I love the boulangerie patisserie that's like a half-minute walk from the entrance to our apartment building. Have I ever mentioned that?

So, with everything purchased and ready to go, I was about to start making dinner and then realised that Trevor and our dinner guest, Camille, wouldn't be back for another 5-6 hours, as they still had class and a movie to see for their film class. After waiting a bit, I commenced dinner preparations and got everything finished right on time. I think I've got this dinner serving thing down to a science. Voilà :

1st course: apératif + hors d'oeuvres (grilled/crisped pain de campagne rounds with tomato sauce topped off with chèvre)
2nd course: rice with cream of mushroom chicken, with a side of brocolli
3rd course: salad, with a choice of (we ended up trying both) salad dressing
4th course: cheese plate of rocquefort, chèvre, emmental, and comté, with a serving of sweet mango and a serving of sour mango, and a fresh baguette from our favourite bakery
5th course: three-part dessert -- mousse au chocolat noir with fresh berries (raspberries and blackberries... apparently really expensive here!) and a slice of galette de rois, followed by my improved chocolat chaud, along with pain au chocolat from our favourite bakery, a marshmallow bear, and a small piece of candied orange dipped in dark chocolate

Geeze, I'm getting hungry just typing the menu out. We've finally decided to slow down on the grandiose dinners, and are slowly bringing the eating to some level of cuisinary decency. However, Lauren is coming to Paris this weekend to celebrate her birthday (Joyeux anniversaire !) and the end of our "Tour de Food" will end Friday evening. Until then, bon appetit !

ps / Congratulations goes out to Camille for getting the fève, which definitely was called "Psycho Duck."

We Officially Have a Sixth Course

2009-01-28T00:37:00.000+01:00

Today was, more or less, perfect. I’m kind of tired, though, and want to jump ahead to the dinner portion of the day, so I’m really going to make every effort to make this a short post.

After deciding to go to the laundry place some other day (because we were still tired after working on our homework for about 5,5 hours last night), I got ready for my day and got to school on time. I had the best class with Elisabeth (Travaux Pratique) to date, as well as a great class with Odile (the immigration and citizenship in Francophone cinéma course). Throughout Odile’s class, she was able to help us all make sense of the movie we viewed last Friday, Touki-Bouki. I’m really enjoying the classes so far. Then, we had to stay for a group conférénce, this time focusing on French politics. Olivier, the political science professor gave the talk and was quite entertaining and informative, and the fact that I could understand everything he said was surely a positive sign. During the day, I was able to find a nice boulangerie near the school, and we were also told that we would be experiencing our first grève in Paris. A grève is, generally speaking, a strike; in Paris, this means an almost complete halt of all transport systems in Paris. The situation is anticipated to be bad enough that they’ve cancelled our classes for Thursday. It should be quite interesting to see how the city operates without such means of transport as the Métro not being in service.

Straight from class, Trevor and I walked to the Dupleix Métro stop, only to find it wasn’t working. So, we headed for the La Motte Picquet Grenelle stop and, en route to the stop, did some supermarché shopping. Finally back at home, I began preparing our dinner, which was yet another five-course meal. I’ve titled this entry as us having a sixth course, but we did only have five courses, with one of those courses being a possible sixth one in the future (hope that makes sense). EntouK (texting shortcut for En tout cas, i.e., In any case), our first course (i.e., the new one) was an apératif, followed by our first plat being a rather unconventional round for us: eggs. Trevor had a bunch of them, some scrambled, a few sunny-side; while I had cooked whites with sugared ham. We then finished off the leftover baked pasta, to which I melted Leerdammer and Gouda into an additional portion of pasta sauce, for round 3. Round 4 came in two parts: our cheese plate, alongside fresh mango slices. Finally, we had our dessert round, which included a special (and may I say, favoured) form of chocolat chaud: the 86% cocoa form. :)

In the Real World, People Speak ‘French’ French

2009-01-28T00:27:00.001+01:00

I know this may be perhaps rather cliché to say, but ‘real’ French can’t be taught in the classroom. Rather, it must be learned by talking and interacting with people; certainly, picking up mannerisms of a particular culture will soon self-translate themselves into understanding the language and sociolinguistic cues of the community one is trying to be a part of. Alright, enough of such talk.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I still have a lot to learn, particularly in terms of language and cultural nuances. Ever since I left for my entretien yesterday, I have been constantly being witness to ‘that which is French.’ My ride to Fontenay-sous-Bois was quite easy from Etoile, only taking half an hour. Julie, our internship placement advisor, was nice enough to come along with me to the internship site, as this is the first time that my internship site has worked with BU. After a quick stop at a vrai café (Julie told me that, in France, we’re not supposed to show up too early; one should arrive just on time, and a little after works just as well), we walked to the internship site, which is probably only about a two minute max walk from the RER station. We approached what looked like a house and were soon greeted by staff members of AFS Vivre sans Frontières.

Julie left me to (as I would soon find out) speak with the director of the programme, while I had my interview with Elsa and Simon. They were really nice and personable, and talked to me about the different responsibilities, the application process, and so forth. By application process, I mean that I’d potentially be on the administrative side of a study abroad programme, helping to match students with host countries and families, etc., as well as to orient students leaving France for one of AFS’s 50 destinations. In essence, I get to put my study abroad experience to good use! I’d say that’s quite up my alley, yebo?

After what I thought was my actual interview, Elsa showed me around the Vivre sans Frontières building and introduced me to the staff members; there are currently 14 people working with 400 incoming and 400 outgoing students. Hyuu! Following the tour, she showed me into the same room I had spoken to her in earlier and left to continue some work. After about five minutes, Julie came down with another staff member who told me I would now be going for my interview. I didn’t quite understand, as I thought I had just spent about 30-45 minutes talking to two people. In any case, Julie said she would wait for me, and so I followed this staff member upstairs and went into a small office in the corner of the top floor. It was about 17h00 by this time, and only one lamp atop the Director’s desk. I sat down and within about a four-minute interview session in French, the Director welcomed me (in English) to the group. So long story short, I’m 99 per cent sure I have the internship. I’m just not entirely sure, as I haven’t yet signed the formal contract. But, oh well, we’ll see what happens soon enough. In any event, the experience was rather interesting, and definitely opened my eyes to the fact that in the real French world (as opposed to the one in the BU building where people are more than happy to correct our French, slow down for us, etc.), people speak ‘French,’ not American French, or collegiate French, but actual French.

I suppose to continue the French experience, I unexpectedly cooked a five-course dinner for Trevor and I. Round 1 was a simple toasted baguette with Leerdammer and Gouda, as well as ham, followed by tomato sauce to which I added Gouda on slices of pain de campagne with baked pasta crusted with Emmental. For round 3, we visited South Africa for a bit and had carrot salad (2:1:1 ratio of carrots, apples and orange juice) paired with the white wine produced from Stellenbosch. After working on some homework in order to take a breather from the food we had just eaten (plus-que-parfait anyone?), we then had our cheese plate of chèvre, emmental and comté. We finished off our meal with a two-part dessert of mousse au chocolat noir and my favourite, chocolat chaud.

Mental Exercises: French-Style

2009-01-26T13:44:00.000+01:00

Yesterday (Sunday), after a pseudo-confusing scheduled time for lunch, I made my way downstairs to have lunch with Trevor, our host family, and two of their friends. There were three extra kids in the house, but it still somewhat felt like there weren’t any kids around. In any event, I got to the apartment around 12h30, and didn’t leave until about 17h10. The entire time, they were speaking to each other in what seemed like sped-up Parisian French, a speed that I rather enjoy, but it was quite difficult to keep track of the quick subject changes and oftentimes dual conversations (if not somehow more) going on at one time. Towards the end, Trevor and I somehow got slipped into the conversation but fell back out again. One of my favourite exercises, however, was trying to explain South Africa’s « Coloured » identity in French. I hope they understood me. Aside from the speaking exercises, the food somehow became a mental exercise for me, as well. By far, this was perhaps the French-iest of food experiences I’ve had while in Paris.

We started with ponche as an apéritif (which, by the way, felt like it was attacking the sick germs in my throat). We then moved on to foie gras (i.e., duck liver), with toasted bread and salad. As the main course, we had what I can closely describe as fettucine bolognaise. We carried on with a cheese plate which included comté (my favourite of the four), rocquefort, camembert, and a cheese that I can’t still seem to remember the name of (though it does have a signature line of blue within any given triangular slice). For dessert, we ended with a blackberry tart. Whew, I’m kind of hungry again.

After a small break from our nearly entire afternoon lunch, Trevor and I left to go to 18h30 Mass at Notre Dame. The cathedral is beautiful, big, and rather overwhelming. The service was rather traditional (including some responses sung in Latin), included a children’s choir, and was televised live on a Catholic television station. If something wasn’t said in Latin, it definitely was said in French. Outside of a few responses here and there, as well as the Our Father, I still found myself a bit lost (though the bulletin did have an English translation of the readings); I’ll definitely have to go back there.

All week, Trevor had been planning to go back to Sunset Sunside but before going there, we had dinner at a small café (even though we were both still rather full from lunch). After dinner, I concluded that I still wasn’t feeling all too well and made my way back home, ending my night with homework and a call from home.

Ooh, gotta get going to my interview!

I Will Now Forever Think « Sceaux What ? »

2009-01-26T12:59:00.001+01:00

I must first excuse myself for writing what feels like extremely long blog entries, even though I sort of vowed to write shorter ones more frequently. Unfortunately?, Saturday was yet another full day in France for Trevor and I. I’ll try and keep this one short.

As I mentioned in my pre-departure to Sceaux a post ago, Trevor and I chose to go to Sceaux (pronounced « so »… get ready for the jokes). We basically chose a random city and found out that a reggae concert was scheduled to take place in the evening. Of course, I was über-excited for the concert, not necessarily because it was reggae, but because I finally had a reason to wear the Bob Marley shirt I bought before arriving in France.

Before our departure to Sceaux, which ended up being rather « Sceaux-Sceaux » (get it?)—but I’ll get to that bit later—I prepared breakfast (which was why I couldn’t write more in the pre-departure post) [wow, I love strange sentence constructions] Noisy-le-Roi style, M.A. form. Recipe: heat up the milk until it starts to volumise (don’t let it burn or spill over) and pour into a drinking bowl; add an ounce of dark chocolate and as much chocolate milk powder comme tu veux (as you want). It’s great for dipping your daily bread (Wow. Didn’t even try there; let me know if you get it.), and that’s exactly what we did. Despite our natural desire to not move after consuming that much food at one time, we headed for the Métro.

The ride to Sceaux took us about half an hour by RER, and when we got out, I immediately saw it as Noisy-le-Roi, only a bit bigger. The city’s quite charmante but because we’re still in the winter season, it was rather cold and dreary. En route to who-knows-where-we-were-going-or-what-we-were-looking-for, we found the pétanque court (I was really hoping some people would be playing that day), a church (the Church of St. Jean the Baptist), and the Sceaux château. Apparently, we entered the château grounds from the back (ps/ this backyard is amazing!); however, the château was quite small and was actually converted into a museum in the 1930’s-ish era. We walked through the château in perhaps half an hour and particularly after having visited in the Louvre the day prior, we weren’t exactly impressed. We did find perhaps the coolest thing in the whole museum: a toy tree house encased in a glass box. What’s more, Trevor was extremely fascinated by a hanging model lamp hung by a piece of string. It really could have been a rod for all we knew. But seriously, a piece of string that potentially hasn’t moved in perhaps more than half a century? Kinda cool, nê?

Right outside of the museum was an exhibit titled Images et Magies d’Architecture (pretty sure you can figure that one out on your own). This was perhaps my favourite part of Sceaux and it wasn’t even a permanent exhibit. In any case, it killed the most time for us so that was great as well. There were quite a few interesting photos, and I’ll have to upload them to facebook soon so that I can link them to this blog. Here’s an interesting one, though, taken by Trevor: http://trevorkt.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/whatevs/img_0378/. I asked him what the first thing he thought of was when he saw this. He immediately replied to volume meters (music playing); I immediately responded with genetics (DNA results and such). On our way off the château grounds, we came across a cat that Trevor wrote as follows in his blog: « Also, there was a cat at the chateau. Just chillin. A bof cat. »

We were getting hungry at this point and settled for a café called Félibres. I’m pretty sure we only wanted something warm to drink, but as soon as we entered, the waiter spoke in a quick, almost guttural form French that blended all of the words together. Within less than a minute, he showed us to our seats and somehow ordered lunch for us. I was rather surprised with the quality of the meal (for only 10 €), followed by another great, voluminous (is that the word?) chocolate mousse.

So, while we were at the château, I thought that in Paris we usually say « Dude, we’re in Paris ! » or « Pourquoi pas ?! ». Well, we thought we had some wonderful revelation when we came up with saying « Sceaux what ? » in Sceaux, to be said when something doesn’t make sense or seems to go awry. However, it seems that Sceaux got to that long before we ever did and when we visited the Animathèque (a sort of headquarters) for the MJC (Maison des Jeunes Culturelles... or something like that), found a poster that listed Sceaux What as the site for the evening’s reggae concert.

At about 17h10, we thought of seeing a movie in the only movie theatre in Sceaux (Le Trianon), but they only had one screening room and were playing American films for the rest of the night. It seems like there are at least 250 seats in the theatre, so perhaps all of Sceaux shows up for these showings. With that option crossed off, we went back into the centre of the city and did quite a bit of window shopping. Throughout the day, we bought quite a bit of food from the boulangerie-patisserie, and I finally found mangoes (3 for 5 €… YES!). We went into a toy store and would have finally bought 1 000 Borne, but they were out of stock. Thankfully, I was able to buy my French notebooks, as well as some pocket guide French books at a bookstore, and found more chocolate stores than I could have imagined would ever been in Sceaux. The pièce de la résistance of the chocolate excursion was definitely a giant bear made completely of chocolate.

Due to us still needing to wait for about 1,5-hours for the reggae concert, the fact that it was getting quite cold and we were running out of places to visit at night, and the thought that perhaps the entrance fee wouldn’t quite fulfil our expectations of a reggae concert, we decided to head back to Paris. We went home and cooked croque-monsieurs for dinner which definitely got better each round we cooked them, enjoyed our first cheese plate (4 out of the recommended 5, but beuf!), and ended with even more chocolat chaud (i.e., the NLR-MA form hot chocolate).

So much for keeping this one short, too!

I Will Now Forever Think « Beuf ! »

2009-01-26T12:31:00.000+01:00

Friday was an awesome day to be a part of BU’s Paris programme. The school divided us in half, alphabetically and took us on a French dégustation, i.e., a tasting of French foods. Elisabeth was our culinary guide and told us to try different foods and then make a decision on whether we liked it or not. Our first course was focused on meat: a trânche (slice) of dry sausage, and rillettes and boudin-noir pâtés on baguette slices. From the fromagerie, we tried chèvre (goat cheese), fourme d’Ambert (a kind of bleu cheese), comté (which kind of tastes like Trevor’s favourite, emmental), and tried two types of camembert, an artisan and an industrielle form. This sort of tasting allowed us to know what to look for when going to the grocery store, when price and quality are usually in the forefront of American students’ minds. Artisan forms reveal that someone actually took the time to make the food, as opposed to the industrial form that could definitely be seen as uniform and more generic looking. This is quite apparent when it comes to go to the boulangerie and comparing baguettes. Speaking of the boulangerie and other inventive bread and sweet creations from the patisserie, we tried a bread that I had never had before (and still am not sure of the name), croissant au beurre, baguette vennoise, palimier, pain au chocolat, profiterol, baguette vennoise du chocolat, and for dessert, a chocolate mocha cake, (I think) mille feuille, and chocolate éclaires. They also taught us how to choose between two bottles of unopened wine and how to serve the different foods to guests.

After the conclusion of our French tasting experience, I joined most of my classmates from my 469 class and somehow made it through a movie from the 70s called Touki-Bouki. It didn’t seem like any of us were fans, nor did we completely understand what was going on. From the sound of the voices (and there didn’t seem to be much dialogue at all), people were speaking in French and either in Arabic or Wolof (the movie takes place in Senegal). What made it even more difficult was that the subtitles were in English but also in white, which made it quite a challenge to understand how the translation worked.

The night before, Trevor and I basically planned out our weekend and we met up with Erin, Liz, and Meredith, and headed for the Louvre. After navigating through the Métro, we made our way to Les Pyramides, the entrance into the Louvre itself. We were told that since we were registered through BU as Art History students, we could get into the museum for free; we didn’t quite understand, however, how to go about getting the student card. After many redirections and instructions by various staff members, we finally made our way to the card centre and received our student passes. [This, along with the Carte Navigo passes made some of us feel like we had tons of power, haha.] We then spent the next two hours going through the museum, including our visits to the « beuf » (pronounced bof) pieces, pieces which in their own right are amazing, but left us asking why everyone makes a big deal out of them, the clearest one being La Jaconde. After our trek through the museum, we headed for the Fondation, and once there, we all ate dinner with Gerald, Jill (hope you’re feeling better!), and Sam. I finally got the formula right and only spent 2,85 €!).

The Louvre group then left the Fondation and headed for Centre Tchèque which, as you may have guessed it, translates to the Czech Centre. Permission to preface (that’s for all the wonderful Model UNers who have somehow wandered onto this blog): Trevor loves jazz music and we’ve been looking for the best jazz group in France. Anyhow, he stumbled onto a website that lists every jazz concert and somehow happened upon the Czech Centre. We were a bit skeptical about going to the Czech Centre, primarily because the photo on-line made it seem like too modern of a place. And really, because it was a French-Czech establishment. (Haha, I don’t know why, but I kinda « czecheled » at that one. Okay, I’m done.) En tout cas, we decided (more like I started moving and there was no turning back) to go in and I asked a guy outside of the door if there was a jazz club performance inside. Through the window, we could only see a few folks chatting away. Still a bit anxious and unsure of what to expect, we were greeted by an über-enthusiastic guy who told us that the entrance was only 3 € and that the bar downstairs didn’t accept cash, but we could buy a set of tickets equivalent to 2 glasses of wine for 4 €. Now, you may be thinking « downstairs, why do you have to go down? » or something to that effect, right? In any case, we go down the stairs and the room begins to appear; the place definitely looked like a converted dungeon. At any rate, it would’ve been a cool dungeon if that’s what it’s purpose actually was; otherwise, it’d be a great wine cellar. EntouK, it was the site of the jazz concert. The music and company were great, but we couldn’t see the band from where we were sitting. We all got quite hungry after the concert and made our way to the crêpe kiosk that was conveniently right next to our Métro stop. I got a crêpe mixte (ham and cheese). I love Paris.

So, We're Going to Sceaux: Pre-Departure Thoughts

2009-01-24T10:17:00.000+01:00

So, for one of our cultural assignments for school, we each have to go to a city outside of Paris. In true housemate form, Trevor and I have chosen to go together and have picked what seems like a rather random place: Sceaux (pronounced, "So," ergo, my bad attempt at a joke in the title of this entry). We're not quite sure what to expect, though I suppose that's the point of this activity/assignment, right? I have still have much to talk about in terms of what we did yesterday, but I'll definitely fill everyone in on our journey in Sceaux. Gotta go... I'm preparing breakfast and I don't want our milk to burn! Cheers!

Mercredi et Jeudi, 2/5 a Bag of Pasta Goes a Long Way!

2009-01-24T03:04:00.000+01:00

The next two days were (more or less) repeats of the first two days. I can't believe it, but I was doing the math one day and with 15 hours of class every week, we really will be completing a whole semester's worth of work in half a semester. A mon avis, that is both exciting and very scary.

My follow-up econ class on Wednesday was great, though it seems like we've dug deeper into basic economics for now, but entirely in French. We also completed a similar activity to Monday's, but had more time to go through it. My follow-up Travaux Pratique course brought both level-2 French students together and I eventually was surprised by having to go up in front of the class and do a practice entretien (interview). I can't remember if I mentioned this already, but my internship interview is this upcoming Monday. Things are beginning to get rather hectic here quite fast! For Odile's course, we had to read an article and a short story. I got through the article just fine (though, it was in English), but the short story was a bit of a challenge. However, we ended up watching the movie (which was based on the short story), so things fell into place quite nicely. The film was in French, but had English subtitles in white which, as Odile mentioned, was probably not the best idea. In any case, I think I knew enough French to understand what was going on. I quite liked it and if you get the chance, you should look it up. In English, it's called Black Girl. As a bit of a preface, following up Wednesday's courses was a meeting with Julie about our internships.

Wednesday was our planned dinner night and I aimed to go rather all out for this one. After my econ class, I went to an open air market, where I bought two much-needed scarves (only 10 €!!!) and some not-so-great cherries (I was a bit baffled as I had aimed to buy mangoes that apparently were imported from Peru). I had wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower to check and see if these old guys Trevor and I had seen the week before were playing pétanque. However, I decided I needed to get a move on prepping for dinner, if I had any chance of finishing on time to get to our meeting with Julie. I still didn't quite get around to explain what bread crumbs are to someone at the supermarché and so I decided to make the bread crumbs myself. I checked the method again on-line and realised what I had done wrong when I tried grating the bread with a grater... it was both stale and not dry enough to be broken up into pieces. So, I decided to toast the bread in the toaster oven, as I began to cook some pasta. Then, I butterflied the chicken breasts and folded ham and Leerdammer cheese into it, coating the folded chicken with the freshly toasted and crumbed breadcrumbs. I didn't quite know at the time whether the toaster oven was in Centigrade or Farenheit, so I chose to set it to 260 degrees. As it was cooking, I realised the toaster oven was in Centigrade (donc, I cooked the chicken at about 500 degrees Farenheit!). It was all good, as I had cooked it in a heavy, ceramic dish. In the end, I cooked the chicken for about 40 minutes, and the pasta for about 30 minutes, if not more. Surprisingly, it wasn't completely non-aldente, but it was definitely melt-in-your-mouth pasta. With the chicken and pasta all done, I had to rush off to the internship meeting. However, when I was on the second Métro stop, I wasn't too confident that I had shut off the stove and so had to therefore rush back upstairs to check up on it. Luckily, it hadn't been left on, but I was definitely going to run late to the meeting. Thankfully, I didn't miss much nor was I quite late; I was honestly quite relieved that others, including one of the professors, got in after I did. The meeting was yet another orientation session to the internship, particularly in preparation for our interviews. At one point, Julie kind of announced to everyone that my internship company will be paying for my lunch. (How cool is that deal?!) Speaking of food, I was getting rather hungry, so Trevor and I split from the group and made our way back home.

I had to complete some finishing touches to the dinner. After heating up the sauce and mixing it with the pasta, I poured the lot over the chicken, sprinkled quite a bit of mozarella on top and melted it all together, baking it until the cheese melted. While that was going, I had sweetened carrots boiling away. I was able to time everything together and eventually got the courses out on time. Now, I think I'm ready for my turn on "Hell's Kitchen" or something. In any case, I also made a first course of toasted bread, slices with a different cheese on it, and following that, we dug into the pasta and chicken... twice. Following that course, we had our cheese and cherries, and then somehow made room for cookies and dark chocolate covered marshmallows for dessert. OMG, was it délicieux! Perhaps unsurprisingly, we had quite a bit of pasta left over, and decided to save it for our next meal.

Thursday evening after classes, Trevor and Camille were off on take two of their movie theatre hunting adventure. They invited me to come along and we eventually found the theatre they were looking for. We briefly stopped in at a boulangerie patisserie that was nearby the theatre and then made our way back for the film. We thought it was going to be only in French, but it turned out to be in both Ukranian and German, with French subtitles. That aspect in it of itself was an academic and mindblowing challenge to get through. After the movie (which Camille had to leave early in order to make it to her host family dinner in time), Trevor and I made our way back to the house and realised that everything was pretty much closed. As we had gotten there straight from school, we hadn't eaten any dinner and thus took the opportunity to go on a food hunt. We chose to check out the Champs-Elysées, figuring it'd probably be the area that was still up around 22h00. Thankfully, we figured correctly and happened upon a great boulangerie shop place, and which was quite cheap (given the otherwise expensive nature of the CE). I bought a Caesar baguette with Orangina and a pain au chocolat for less than 7€. We then hopped back on the Métro and got back to Argentine. When we got back, I got a rather brilliant idea of eating the leftovers from Wednesday night and (I think) outdid myself again. I took the leftover pasta, and topped it off with the rest of the mozarella (that's most likely what made it taste great) and baked the lot while we ate our meal from the boulangerie shop place. When the pasta came out, the cheese had melted perfectly and had a bit of a baked crust to it. We surprised ourselves and finished the pasta; can you believe it...? The pasta, in total, was only 2/5 of the bag of pasta I bought. I have the feeling pasta in various forms will be quite the staple for us. To end off the meal, we had our usual cheese course and then got to our dessert (the pain au chocolat). Fortunately, Trevor hadn't yet tried chocolat chaud the way I had it in Noisy-le-Roi (which perhaps one reason why he responded with Pourquoi pas? to trying it), so I heated up some milk, added an ounce of dark chocolate and mixed the lot together with chocolate milk powder. Combined with the pain au chocolat, it was a great way to end yet another four-course meal.

Mardi, My Second Day of Classes

2009-01-24T02:42:00.001+01:00

Alors, Tuesday came as quickly as Monday left, and I was very much anticipating the day's courseload. As my courses didn't start until noon, I enjoyed the extra hour or so of sleep and then rushed off to the Métro to get to the classroom in time (which I did without problem!). My first course (12h00-14h30) is Travaux Pratique, the upper-level course. As a result of it being so large, they actually divided the group into two parts; everyone shares the same Thursday class (grammar-intensive, while Tuesday is oral-intensive) together. We discussed seem introductory material and began going through common mistakes that appeared on the placement exams. Grammar alone would be the primary reason why I wanted to take this course (instead of having two separate courses focusing individually on oral French and grammar); the secondary reason would be of my second course of the day: French 469- New French Identitites: Immigration and Citizenship in Francophone Cinema (Tu/Th 15h00-17h30). I don't know about you, but this sort of stuff is up my alley. It's the highest listed course, however, which means it's not going to be one of the easiest. To date, as I'm writing this post (Saturday, very early morning), I had to watch a movie (translated: Black Girl) in French (this time around also partly in Arabic) and provide a reaction to the movie, as well as to read two articles for Monday (I'm sure I'll mention this again later). In any case, I am nevertheless excited to continue my discourses on ethnicity and race as applied to immigration and questions of citizenship (as the title, of course, suggests).

If I haven't made it clear in this, or my past entry, do permit me to stress that all of the courses I'm taking are en français. I'm estimating that my speaking time is about 60/40 French/English, with English being less and less spoken. Already, it's my favoured language to use here.

After my second class, we had a scheduled conférénce. We were all a bit worried, however, because the meeting was scheduled for 18h00, the time when our now new President Obama would be sworn into office. Thankfully, our professors knew what was going on and we watched the inauguration ceremony take place from a classroom across the ocean. Great what technology allows us to do these day, yeah? Though the inauguration came to a close, our meeting still continued (and still in French). Odile talked about the educational system in France and why it's important for us to understand this (as the cultural/educational nuances would undoubtedly be translated to the workplace). In retrospect, this was quite important for us to grasp, as we would unbelievably be soon working with French people through our internships.

As it was inauguration Tuesday, many people (of course) wanted to go out and celebrate the fact that we have a new president and all that fun jazz. So pourquoi pas?, right? I joined a small troupe and we attempted to find some place open, but soon came to realise that those parties were more or less long gone. By the time we got out of our meeting, I don't think the French really cared all too much with our politics back home. So, Trevor and I split off from the group, and quickly ran to a Métro station, in the hopes that we could catch Franprix and/or our boulangerie before either of them closed, so that we could get some food, because we were defintiely starving after a long day. Unfortunately, we missed Franprix by about a minute, and the boulangerie--we would soon find out--closes around 20h00.

Well, we still had to eat, so we went to the more expensive boulangerie that is open until 22h00 and got a not-as-good and not-as-cheap baguette and went back to my room to figure out a meal. I whipped up a pseudo-American dinner which Trevor finds to be somewhat embarassing. But whatevs... you make the decision, I suppose. I cooked rice (which somehow picked up the consistancy of pap), sweet carrots and (naturally) bacon (apparently, that's the embarassing part). In any case, it was all very good, especially (surprisingly) the carrots. I also took the opportunity for us to try the chocolate milk and pineapple juice I bought, as well as to let Trevor know that I take ketchup with my bacon.

Lundi, My First Day of Classes

2009-01-23T03:37:00.000+01:00

Finally, Monday rolled around out of bed. Speaking of rolling out of bed, I literally had to do that as I woke up noticing that I was running fairly late to class. Thanks to an understanding professor and all of the practice I had had beforehand, I got to class quicker and more easily than expected. My only class on Mondays and Wednesdays is my economics class, from 9h00-11h30. I'm quite excited for the course, and the professor definitely knows what she's teaching us. However, I feel like she wants to pack in as much as possible into any given class period. We only had 15 minutes to complete an activity. Usually, we'd begin to wrap up and get dismissed early, but not here in France! We each read an article in a contemporary journal, discussed it with our neighbour(s), provided a reaction and received a response from our professor (with only 5 minutes to go)! She definitely picked up speed and brought it into overdrive in the end. Especially after having been overloaded on so much French the day and night before, it was quite an overwhelming experience.

After class, Pamela joined me in a mini-voyage around Paris. We went to a diner for lunch and I (once again) had a croque monsieur (I wonder why I don't label my posts with this... I'll definitely have to start now) alongside Orangina (I should probably start labeling with this, too). I then bought my carte navigo decouverte which allows me to travel in zones 1 and 2 of Paris using public transport without having to use individual tickets. [It's SOOO cool, and I definitely feel like I'm too cool for anything, or at least like I celebrity or cop (wow.) when all I have to do is take my wallet out (with my c.n.d. inside) and tap the entrance mechanism's c.n.d. sensor.] We then went looking for a place to buy scarves (to no avail) but did find a great place that sells cheap, good-quality baggage. I bought a really great laptop bag for 7,50 €. Since we couldn't find the scarves anywhere, we parted ways and I went back to my room to wait for Trevor to go eat dinner. We went to the Fondation and joined some of the BU folk over there. The food's like usual cafeteria food, though I must say it makes me want to eat at Baldy.

To end the night, we thought we'd finish off our leftover baguette; however, the baguette was stale. So, thinking ahead for our first planned dinner (I'll keep you in suspense), I thought I'd use it to make breadcrumbs. I tried grating the hardened bread, but failed semi-miserably. :-P

Let's Play Catch-Up! (Part III)

2009-01-23T01:35:00.000+01:00

To continue with the brief points of the day, our first weekend flew by and was definitely action-packed:

SATURDAY
Only two things were listed on our schedule: a voyage to an assigned part of Paris and a comedy show. My group was assigned Le Marais. It’s a pretty eclectic part of this wonderful city, marked in general terms as the home to gay, Chinese, and Jewish communities. We finished our self-guided tour of the area and, having finished early, we took a break from the cold and found a café in close proximity to the comedy site. En route to the meeting site, we came across two demonstrations in the streets. At the Comédie République, we saw a comédie française about the cross-cultural clash and rent between a French Catholic woman and a French Muslim man. It was completely in French and after a long time walking around Paris in the cold, it was a bit difficult to pay attention or to just even understand the play completely. Afterwards, Trevor and I had our first prepared meal that ended up only being a pseudo-dinner (which consisted of a baguette, some cheese (of which Trevor found emmental to be his new favourite), and red wine), as a result of a rendez-vous with Gerald, Jill, and Sam. With little difficulty, Trevor and I made it to our meeting place with them; Jill spoke with a woman at a jazz club (Chez Papa), who told us to come back later that evening, as they were still serving dinner. Having about 2,5 hours to get through before we could get back to Chez Papa, the five of us were basically lassoed into a restaurant. After eating another croque monsieur, alongside my carafe of water, I ended the dinner with a very rich and dark chocolate mousse. As I ate it, I had to keep pushing myself to finish it and eventually triumphed. It was that chocolate-y. Following dinner, we returned to Chez Papa, with Trevor being extremely giddy, particularly through the first part of our stay there. Gerald, Jill, and Sam got a bottle of rosé, while Trevor and I had a 2005 red of some kind, alongside a cheese plate and baguette. The music was amazing and Trevor and I especially were enthralled by "the guy with the dreads." During the break, our waiter moved us closer to the jazz trio and we ended our stay there perfectly satisfied with the evening. As I type, Trevor is still looking for his perfect jazz trio of stand-up bass, drums, and clarinet.

SUNDAY
I joined Christine and Elisabeth in their walk over to the church for Mass. The church pamphlets list the names of two saints, but I think the chapel we had the service in was devoted to Saint Thérèse of the Infant Jesus. Christine dropped of Elisabeth with the other Sunday school children in another part of the church, and soon joined me. I couldn’t quite understand all of the scripture readings, but was able to get through most of the priest’s homily with little difficulty. I was able to pray the Notre Père with everyone, but soon realised that I haven’t committed the Creed to memory just yet. Afterwards, Trevor and I ate dinner with Antoine, Christine, Elisabeth and Stanislas. Christine told us that she was up until about 3 or 4am preparing our lunch. She made pintade, a cooked guinea fowl in an amazing sauce, as well as a galette de rois. Literally, a galette de rois would be translated as a kings’ cake. On the Epiphany (La Fête des Rois which, this year, was on the 7th of January), a little bean (la fève, usually in the shape of a shepherd) is cooked within the cake. The cooked version is then cut into slices and (usually) the youngest child goes under the table and randomly calls out people’s names to whom a slice of the cake is delivered. Whomever has the fève is crowned king or queen. As Christine made the cake, she said that she put two fèves inside. Stanislas got the first one, while I got the second. Stanislas chose Elisabeth as his queen and, as I couldn’t possibly let Trevor escape from the experience, made him court jester (though, I don’t know if I ever told him that) and said he had to wear a crown, too. At the end of the meal, Elisabeth gave me a drawing for her skiing in the mountains.

Then, I FINALLY got to see my host family from Noisy-le-Roi! Just on time, Marie-Léone and Paul drove up in front of the building; for some reason or another, I didn’t quite seem to recognise them at first, but as soon as I got in the car with them, it was as if I had never really left (one difference being that Paul’s voice has definitely gotten deeper). At the house, I gave them some gifts from the States (Marie-Léone loved the Target bags), and soon found out that Paul received a Mac and basically converted the rest of the family to it. (Errghh…) It’s quite brilliant, though, for the work he does with music. After I pretty much had enough of Paul’s showing off of what his computer can do, we went downstairs and had some wonderful hot chocolate. I took mine with some baguette, just as I had done about two and a half years ago in that very kitchen. Wow, time certainly has flown by! Following this wonderful return to memory lane, Marie-Léone brought me to a few of the host families that hosted students when my seminar class stayed in Noisy-le-Roi. To my pleasant surprise, they all remembered me, especially my faux hawk. For some reason or another, they speak much quicker French there than in Paris; yet, I understood them a bit more easily and was quite able to carry on a conversation with them. Following a couple exchanges (of which Marie-Léone pointed out that telling the same stories, particularly of my time in South Africa, was giving me good practice), we returned back to the house where I had dinner with Marie-Léone, Paul and France (who has also grown up since I last saw her). It was then time to leave and after being reminded and encouraged to come back to visit for a longer period of time, made my way back to Paris. En route to the building, I got a text from Trevor saying that he was at yet another jazz club. I soon made my way to a jazz club called Sunrise Sunside. It was a bit more cramped than Chez Papa, but it definitely felt more like a jazz club. Apparently, Trevor, Jill, and Sam had been there all day, and were back for the jam session. People from the audience joined in and people swapped places every now and again. It was rather hectic but great to see how everyone gelled together once they started playing.

Let's Play Catch-Up! (Part II)

2009-01-22T00:40:00.000+01:00

Well, I suppose I'm far enough into the programme to realise that I don't have a lot of time to spend recounting stories that occurred a week ago, as well as keep up with what's going on now. A résultat, I'll simply list some brief snippets of the days leading up to the start of this current week. If something catches your eye, let me know, and I'll explain it in a more in-depth entry!

Supposedly well-rested after an exhaustingly long day, Wednesday rolled around, marked by the following:
1) An introduction to the BU staff: Renée, Odile, Isabelle, Dorothy and Karell
2) The realisation that our classrooms and the BU space in general is pretty much AWESOME!
3) Catered sandwiches tied up with ribbon, with ham, chicken and egg as the variants. Guess which one was barely eaten.
4) A bus ride, after a group photo on the Champ de Mars that superseded a day of orientation formalities, that lasted 2,5 hours! Sans doubte, it was at least a comfortable bus.
5) The purchase of identical cell phones… I still need to make a Facebook group for that.
6) Our first dinner by ourselves in Paris, i.e., not prepared by our host families, brought us to a Mediterranean/Middle Eastern restaurant. Perhaps there’s something wrong with this choice; not only has the choice been made, I tried schwarma for the first time. (Is that proper English?) At least I’m trying new things here, yebo?
7) Nearly a 2,5 hour conversation (en français) with our homestay dad, Antoine.
8) Stanislas joining the guys and proving that he’s one of the big kids, too.

Thursday started off and ended great, especially because:
1) Trevor and I began our day at the boulangerie that’s about a one-minute walk away from our homestay location.
2) The boulangerie, the food and the people are great. Trevor and I have since called it « our boulangerie » and intend on making it one of our staple spots.
3) We felt like Americans eating/drinking our breakfast en route to the classrooms. This is only a great thing because we came up with an even bigger question: How do the French eat their breakfast?
4) Mastered the Métro the night prior and were able to get to school on our own.
5) Le Week End, a bar-ish type place, was the location for my first croque monsieur in France, as well as the site of my first lunch not sponsored by BU in any way.
6) I may be able switch from niveau 1 to niveau 2 for my French courses, which means I could also possibly take the highest-listed course.
7) I got to see Lauren and Emily again (thanks for being so patient with me!).
8) The three of us were able to spend some time at the Arc de Triomphe.
9) I bought my first round of mini-macarons.
10) I completed my second round of groceries, where I saw even more Filipinos, and also had a difficult time (eventually failing) in attempting to explain bread crumbs.
11) I visited Nicolas across the street from Franprix, the supermarché. At Nicolas, I bought to my surprise, amazement and complete joy, a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc that was made in SOUTH AFRICA!!! So that I wouldn’t be a complete backstabber, I also bought a bottle of cabernet sauvignon, made in Bordeaux.
12) Trevor and I had our first meal at the Fondation with some of the other BU students.
13) We found the non-clubbing group, randomly got off at a Métro stop, and walked around Paris, taking pictures of buildings late at night. Eventually, we realised that it was nearly midnight and tried to rush back, until we further realised that, at the rate we were walking, it was still quite a ways away. Nevertheless, we made the trek back, and walked along the Champs-Elysées, one of the few streets that made me think of New York. I remember talking to Trevor after the long bus ride on Wednesday and saying that, if anything, the bus ride made me anxious to see them all in person and not just in a bus. I definitely did not plan on doing the same thing, but on foot.

Friday began to round out our week of orientation in Paris and included:
1) Meeting Julie, my internship placement coordinator who has found me an awesome potential internship.
2) Meeting past BU students and BU Paris interns.
3) Eating again at Le Week End, thinking beforehand that we were actually eating there for the first time.
4) Going to a French open air market under the bridge between Dupleix and La Motte Picquet Grenelle.
3) Watching "Paris, je t’aime" with my classmates and professors at Studio Galande.
4) Eating a wonderful galette (« chicky ») and crêpe (chocolate). At the restaurant, there was a giant American flag that was hung and, at one point, the American national anthem was played.
5) Discovering that mixing Coca-Cola with various beverages can actually make them taste better [at the crêperie].
6) A what-should-have-been-cool-disco-light-bathroom-but-is-actually-kinda-creeper-ish.
7) Finding another non-clubby group and eventually happening upon a piano bar. The music was great, and the pianist and singer (sitting atop the piano cover) had great personalities and characters.
8) Splitting off into smaller groups and finding a rather empty diner/café. We spent some time taking photos in the diner and enjoying our time together.

Let's Play Catch-Up! (Part I)

2009-01-20T02:34:00.000+01:00

Well, I suppose the best place to backtrack to is the day of my flight to France. After much anticipation, anxiety, frustration, packing, preparing, and all of that, it was finally time for me to head to the airport, where I faced potential overweight baggage fees, close-calls and so forth. However, I ran into many good bits of luck throughout the whole process (including a direct transport of my luggage to CDG and running quick enough to arrive before boarding even began) and eventually made it on the plane to JFK. The plane was extremely cramped and even though it was fairly chilly, it was very hot on the plane. I arrived in New York about seven hours before the plane to France would depart and, as a result, I had much time to kill on my own. I was able to sift through all of my music, etc. Surprisingly, I didn't really meet any of my classmates (except for one, but even at that time I still wasn't entirely sure what was going on), nor did I meet up with any staff of the programme. Thankfully, I got onto the Air France plane and found a group of students who were indeed going to France on the same programme as me; I sat next to Misha on the plane ride. I don't know what I was really thinking, but I got a mini-bottle of red wine to go with my dinner and combined with the hectic heat inside the plane, let's just say the ride wasn't entirely comfortable. I was able, however, to get some sleep, albeit not too much of it.

And then, it happened... Tuesday morning, at about 08h00, we landed on French territory. We were then picked up by Dorothy, an alumna from BU who completed the Paris Internship Programme (PIP) a few semesters beforehand. The 25 of us who were apparently on the plane at the same time met each other for the first time. Perhaps as a result of the fatigue and shyness, no one barely spoke a word. Instead, we got onto a group bus and were sent to the headquarters of our programme in Paris, i.e., the BU building in Paris. En route to the classroom, I'm fairly certain that many of us fell asleep, as the bus made its way through quite a bit of traffic. Finally, we arrived to the classroom, where we were greeted by Renée (the programme director) and Odile (the academic director). After filling in our initial round of paperwork, we were sent off directly to our homestays.

I soon found out that I would be having what I thought was a roommate, Trevor. We got into a taxi cab and, while talking to the driver about various subjects, including the French take on American politics, I noticed three things. First, Paris has barely changed since I last remembered it; second, my French has not completely disappeared as I had thought; third, as I passed familiarity, I felt Paris beginning to steal a bit of my heart.

We arrived at our house on l'avenue de la Grande Armée and realised that we're in a rather rich area. From the door, one can see the Arc de Triomphe, and a short walk away is the Champs-Elysées. We were greeted by the mother of our host mom and I felt totally at ease in Paris. She reached out to shake my hand and for a moment became completely American and motioned that I only give hugs. As my 'roommate' once described, she's like a grandmother, only 'Frenchified.' I say 'roommate' in loose quotes, as we soon found out that we would be living in not only separate rooms, but also in separate parts of the building. Before we get to that point, however, I must mention that our pseudo-hostgrandmother (as she doesn't live in the apartment), spent a great a deal of time talking to us in French about the Paris map, the métro, our interests, etc., and prepared a wonderful first French meal for lunch. She then took us downstairs and showed us around the immediate area, before finally showing us to our rooms. Trevor's room is across from the kids' room, while my room (known as a 'chambre de bonne') is two floors up (i.e., on the top floor). It's a completely independent room, with its own kitchen and bath. In actuality, if I didn't want to see my host family at all, I would be able to do so (outside of our weekly meal together). However, that certainly won't be the case, as they are a great family to be around.

After a bit of unpacking, Trevor and I, after a bit of trouble in the beggining, met up with girlfriend, Lauren, and Emily (both also from Albion), at La Défense. They were in Noisy-le-Roi/Bailly for the week, until Saturday, before moving to Grenoble for the semester, and were able to come that day to Paris. We walked around for a bit and eventually made our way to a restaurant where we ate and chatted, catching up and beginning to talk about our upcoming semesters. After departing, Trevor and I made our way back to the apartment where we met Christine, our host mom, and the two kids, Elisabeth (6) and Stanislas (3). Antoine, our host dad, was still at work at the time. If you read my previous blog, I believe I mentioned André (2,5), who spoke toddler Afrikaans; Stanislas speaks toddler French. I am such a fan of younger kids who speak languages outside of English. While Christine was preparing dinner, Trevor and I went to our respective rooms to continue the unpacking process and rest for a bit.

Eventually, dinner time rolled around and I went downstairs to meet up with Trevor and Christine. For an apératif, Trevor and I tried pastis for the first time; it smelled heavily like licorice and had a not-so-bad after taste. Soon joined by Antoine, we each had an avocado half that was filled with pasta where the seed would normally be, salad, chicken curry with wild grain rice, a round of cheese, and a homemade tarte aux pommes (apple pie). All of our conversations were and have been in French since the moment we got here, and soon dinner time became bed time. Before going to bed, we presented our homestay gifts (Christine loved the Target bags, just as my host moms in South Africa did). I made the short trek (did you know that's an Afrikaans word?) back to my room and settled in for the night. I was extremely happy with the current situation, and as I shall soon write (after getting a bit of sleep just now), Trevor and I continue to realise how much we each love it here.

I was settled in a bed, as I shall do so now... in Paris.

Enfin, je commence mon blog !

2009-01-20T02:01:00.000+01:00

I must begin by first thanking everyone who followed up on my travels in South Africa through my prior blog (http://polyglotte2609.blogspot.com). I've learned quite a bit (blog-wise) and am hoping to keep up-to-date with my posts. In so doing, I'm hoping that writing more often will mean smaller entries (which should be easier for everyone to read!).

With this said, and noticing that I didn't really end my last blog, I shall continue by mentioning that my journey from South Africa back to the States and now to France has challenged me to continue my exploration of my "linguistic identity." It seems to be a phrase that not many know or understand, yet I think it's plain to see that one's identity is wrapped up in large part by one's ability to communicate and interact with others. Though many signals may be non-verbal, much of the relationship is indeed verbal. Ergo, one's culture--i.e., one's "shared" identities with others--is demonstrated by one's ability to express and understand those similarities. Concurrently, verbal communication, I find, is perhaps the best way of sharing, or at least confirming, aspects that differentiate individuals. In short, then, language is undoubtedly intimately tied with culture; to best understand another's culture, one can (and should) do so through the other's language. I like to end such monologues with the following quotation by Nelson Mandela that goes something like this: "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to a man in his language, that goes his heart."

Donc, I am now in France and find myself trying to integrate the French language into my own identity. I'm not sure at what point the integration of French makes French become 'mine' per se, but I can say that there has been little resistance to the language to date. As I believe I may have forewarned readers of my past blog, there are times when it's easier for me to think in French rather than English. This is certainly the case while I'm here within a Francophone environment; as such, I expect even more so this time around to include more French (I'll try to remember to translate). Moreover, I think it's fair to say that some of my English may sound rather awkward or may just be completely grammatically incorrect. I'm not quite sure how to explain that, but it's most likely a result of the mélange (mix) of South African English, American English, British spelling, and French language and construction, as well as phraseology from isiXhosa and Afrikaans thrown in.

Finally, some common French terms I will most likely be using include: 'donc' (as used in the previous paragraph: so) and 'cad / c'est-à-dire' (that's to say; I tend to use it relative to 'i.e.'). I also still use 'hectic,' 'nê' (no? / you agree? / right?), and 'yebo' (yeah / you understand/follow?) quite often in everyday speech.

And now... Finally, I'm starting my blog!