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

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

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!

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.

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. :)

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.