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

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.

Snapshots of My Week (Mon-Thurs)

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.

We Officially Have a Sixth Course

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. :)

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

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.