Catching Up

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.

Getting Our Hot Chocolate On

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

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.

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

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.

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.