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

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 I)

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.