Paris, je t'Emma

Pastry attack on a bench by Val-du-Grace

EMMA!

         Emma came to town! Her visa is up in London, so she’s going to have a little look around Europe before heading back to the United States. I’m conveniently placed and can give her free lodging/storage, so she’s starting and ending this euro-tour by hanging out with me in Paris! We had a good ol’ time for her first stay and I’m looking forward to Round 2.

         Emma’s already been to Paris a number of times (I believe this was #5), so the trip was laid back and she wasn’t too concerned about seeing the sites. Her first night in town we just got a bottle of wine, made some dinner and got each other caught up on the last few months of life. The next night, a fellow American expat was hosting a Mexican Food party (this cuisine is seriously lacking in Paris). We went over there and enjoyed good company, tasty enchiladas, margaritas, guacamole, and whatnot.

         Sunday we went up to Sacré Coeur and it was practically abandoned. There was a film crew up to something and an asian tour group, but that was about it. This made it a very leisurely visit. We sat on the steps, had a snack and spent some time trying to locate landmarks.

My raclette set-up

SAY CHEESE

         That evening we went and got raclette with Marina at the restaurant by my place. If you aren’t familiar, raclette is a swiss specialty where you melt swiss cheese onto EVERYTHING. Namely meat and potatoes and things. It’s as awesome as it sounds. I don’t know how they do it at other places, but at this restaurant there are stoves installed at each booth They give you a cutting board covered in assorted meats and potatoes and pickles and condiments and it's all accompanied by a pile of cheese slices that you melt as you go.

Fountain I love in Jardin de Luxembourg

IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

         Monday was lovely outside so we walked around my neighborhood and over to Notre Dame and the Seine and stuff. Tuesday I had to work, but we went out to a bistrot in my neighborhood that Marina had discovered. It’s called Les Papilles (tastebuds). The chef offers one 4 course meal a night based on whatever is in season and that’s what everyone gets. This time he served a pumpkin soup with crème fraiche and crutons, a super tender slow cooked veal with veggies, a cheese course and a caramel apple panacotta. Delectable. We walked home and immediately put on pants with elastic waist bands.

I'VE A FEELING WE'RE NOT IN TWILIGHT ANYMORE        

         Marina found a website with weird things to do in Paris and suggested that we go to a vampire museum that she’d read about. Apparently it cost 7€ and you got a guided tour. I wasn’t really sure what a “Vampire museum” would be, but I figured -what the heck?

         Wednesday afternoon we headed out into the suburbs to find it. A man exiting the metro station with us heard us speaking English and offered to help us find this museum. It was lucky that he did, because the entrance was in some back alley that I’m not sure we would have found on our own. It turns out that the museum was a converted garage attached to the back of a guy’s house. It wasn’t a museum by conventional standards. It was one room filled with with piles upon piles of books and peculiar vampire related objects and plastered up to the ceiling with posters of Dracula films and icons. If you’re curious, this will give you a better idea: http://www.myspace.com/musee_des_vampires

         Outside of being crazy, why would you build such a vampire shrine?

Bela Lugosi doing the same gesture I make when I feel awkward. 

Well, crazy probably has something to do with it, but there’s also an interesting history. As a child, Jacques accidentally watched Bela Lugosi’s Dracula and it gave him terrible nightmares for months. A lot of people probably share a similar childhood experience, but Jacques’ reaction to his was to investigate the fear. He became fascinated with anything and everything related to vampires and dedicated most of his life to studying why people from cultures all over the world create these stories and why people believe them. He said he does not believe in them himself, but then later on he said some things that seemed to contradict that so whoooo knows. Our “guided tour” was more of an intellectual tour. We spent the entire two hours hanging out on his couches and listening to him unload all sorts of things (some related to vampires, some not so related to vampires) and drinking "vampire kirs". All and all it was pretty interesting and definitely a once in a lifetime experience.

LE CINEMA

         Thursday we went and saw Sophia Coppola’s new film “Somewhere.” I thought it was awesome and definitely worth a watch. Be aware that it’s not an action sort of movie though, most of what’s happening is under the surface. I found that beautifully subtle, but my coworkers thought it was boring.

         Friday we went to Belgium. I forgot my passport. More on that next time.

à+

Some Janvier

Sorry folks, I’m way behind. Here’s some stuff that’s been happening:

WE BE TRAFFIC JAMMIN’

         I went out with Clare and her temporarily disabled boyfriend (ski accident) to meet some other American ex-pats at a bar by Bastille. We took the bus there. The trip should have taken 20 minutes, but it ended up taking 50 because of an enormous back-up of taxis. They went as far as the eye could see. I've never seen anything like it. All the other passengers on the bus eventually got off and walked wherever they were going, but we were stuck because Silvan couldn’t go very far sporting his sizeable leg brace.

         We passed the time speculating about possible explanations for this tremendous jam. I offered that maybe it was a result of a major event we weren’t aware of, like a Lady Gaga concert or a presidential address or something. Clare supposed that it was a taxi driver strike. We concluded that this was the most likely reason.

         After a while we started chatting with the driver and he told us what was really going on. This is a regular occurrence. There's no real rhyme or reason to it, but all of the taxis in town just hang out at Gare de Lyon. When we finally got up to the station it was clear that he was right. There were cabs wrapped all the way around, parked 3 deep in a lot of places. Most of them were empty because there were only a handful of people exiting the station and, of those, many were trying to work their way around the cabs to get to their rides.

          The driver occasionally laid on the horn and spewed hate at the cabbies in earshot, but this had little effect. As we slowly inched along, he filled us in on how the city claims to have a shortage of taxis and how they’ve decided to create 30,000 more. All this time there may have been enough, but they’re hanging out at Gare de Lyon. Ahh Paris.

RAIN RIDE

         A couple Saturdays ago, Antoine invited me to go out dancing with him and his people. I’m not big on nightclubs, but Antoine’s scene is more like pubs where they blast catchy music that eventually inspires dancing. 
        His crowd is full of night owls, so they weren’t planning on meeting up until 10pm. This is past my bedtime. Despite a difficult battle with my inner grandma, I got myself dressed and out. My plan was to make it back home by the time that the metro stopped running (2am), so that I wouldn’t be stuck taking a night bus alone or paying 12€ for a taxi.

         Antoine was disappointed to hear this because he was hoping we could split cab fare. With the both of us it wouldn’t be too expensive. But he stays out until 4am. We compromised and agreed to leave together at 3am.

Café OZ at night

         They chose an Austrailian themed place called Café Oz and we got in a lot of beer and ridiculous dancing. Antoine is the type of kid that waits about 5 minutes after entering a place before finding himself a table top to dance on. It was a good time. We were exhausted and sweaty when we finally went out to find a cab at 3am. 
        Unfortunately, everyone else had already had the same idea and beat us to it. All the taxis were occupied. We walked around for 45 minutes and called 3 cab companies without any luck. I explained to Antoine that they were probably all hanging out at Gare de Lyon and we should just walk there, but he pointed out that it would take longer to walk there than to just walk home. Oh yeah, and it was raining. And neither of us had an umbrella.

         After an hour of walking up and down Grands Boulevards getting damp and frustrated, we decided to take Velib (rent-a-bikes) and hope we didn’t die. 

        We crossed Paris on rent-a-bikes at 4am on Saturday night (or Sunday morning), without helmets, in the rain, in our winter coats. And I was in a skirt. My annoyance at the situation faded quickly because it was all just too ridiculous. Plus, the streets smelled like bread from the boulangeries that were already starting up. And we got to pass the Pyramid at the Louvre when there was absolutely no one there. By the time I got home, I wasn’t even upset about being soaked and not being in bed until 4:30am.

IN FURTHER NEWS: Emma was here last week, we took a trip to Belgium, and I had my lungs x-rayed by the immigration people (not for going to Belgium, unrelated). I will write all about it in my next entry…

à tout à l’heure y’all!

PERDUE IN TIME AND SPACE AND LANGUE

HOW WAS IT?

         It was refreshing to be home for Christmas and surrounded by family and friends and familiar things. I was excited to come back to Paris, but it was hard to say goodbye to people. I’m looking forward to moving back to the Twin Cities this summer.

ALLER

         My trip back to the United States went less than smoothly. The gist:

         I arrived at CDG airport on time but the crew was late for work (frenchest thing I ever did hear). We departed 1 ½ hours late and I missed my connecting flight in DC. Then Customs. Then I ran in circles, jumped through flaming hoops, trying to get home same day -meanwhile assisting elderly French woman who spoke NO English and was also seeking a flight to Minneapolis.

4 hours, 5 long lines and 6 failed attempts later, Serendipity/Fate/Chance/WhatHaveYou lead me to a gate governed by the very same Delta rep I first talked to hours before on the opposite side of airport. She took pity on me, did computer magic tricks with a coworker and somehow gave me a seat on the only direct flight to Minneapolis (one I’d been repeatedly told was full). I got home at 9pm to hugs and drinks and snacks with my parents. THE END.

RETOUR

         Compared to the first trip, my return flight to Paris was relatively painless. The only real annoyance was an American lady who kept coming to make bland conversation with the woman seated behind me. She would lean down real hard on the top of my seat as if I wasn’t there, resting her elbow on my head and occasionally pulling my hair as she readjusted. While I was trying to sleep, of course. Mean-mugging was ineffective, but she went away eventually. Still, there were no screaming babies, no crazy turbulence and I actually liked the in-flight movie. 

GOOD EATS AT 30,000 FEET

         I know that “gourmet airline food” is an oxymoron, but that’s what AirFrance serves. There was champagne as an aperitif, free beer and wine, multiple courses, all the French bread you want and espresso after. At the end of our flight they gave us a cheese sandwich and a yogurt drink that aids digestion. Leave it to AirFrance to care about digestion on an airplane!

Not my meal, but not far from it. 

         Even flying to Paris, Delta raised the food standards up a notch. They had free beer and wine and served multiple courses. However, there was no champagne or baguette and the snack at the end of the flight was peanuts and an egg-mcmuffin (for the record, this did not help digestion).

GOLD, FRANKINCENSE AND ALMOND PASTE

         Fellow Americans, did you know that we are half-assing the winter holidays? Because I did not. I always thought that we were the x-mas champions. But, it turns out that the 12 days of Christmas start on the 25^th and this whole time we’ve been skipping the finale.  In France, not only do they have all of the consumerism and the carols and the santa stuff, but after the 25^th, they have a whole other celebration coming (and no, I don’t mean New Years).

         It’s called the Epiphany. Epic name AND it includes cake! One of the perks that comes with being a previously super Catholic country. The wisemen in our Christmas story get a song and cameo in the Nativity plays, but that’s about it. Here they get their own day (January 6^th) and a whole set of traditions including champagne and, most importantly, a cake filled with almond paste.

         They hide a little figurine in this “galette des rois” and whoever finds it in their slice gets to be the “King of the Day.” To the best of my understanding, this means you get to wear a paper crown and be a total dictator. Why have we not been doing this?

ANOTHER DIFFERENCE I'VE NOTICED BETWEEN MINNEAPOLIS AND PARIS

It’s been 50 degrees here in Paris this week. If this happens in Minneapolis, it means slushy snow. In Paris, there is no slushy snow because it disappears so fast, but there is an awful lot of slushy poop. I like to think it’s dog poop, but I’m really not sure.

FRENCH CELEBRITY QUIZ: 2010

Name this guy

Yesterday, I was talking with one of my classes about the Time Magazine “Person of the Year” and I asked them if they had anything similar in France. They said no, not exactly, but each year a newspaper does a vote and makes a list of the top 50 most popular celebrities. Every year the “Person of the Year” is the same guy.

Who’s that?

“Yannick Noah.” They said, as if it was obvious.

uhh…who?

They said the name slower for me and even spelled it out.

…nope

“He’s a tennis player turned pop singer.”

….

“His son is Joakim Noah.”

…Who?

Now they were REALLY disgusted with me.

“Joakim plays for the Chicago Bulls!”

Mr. Scottie Pippen

Still no. I had a huge crush on Scottie Pippin when I was 8, but my interest in the Chicago Bulls ended circa 1997.

They found this unbelievable, and I was a little shocked myself.

The most popular celebrity in France for years and I had no idea who he was!

         They named off some others who frequent the Top Ten list, including Zinedine Zidane. I didn’t know his name before, but I did know that a French player had headbutted an Italian player in the 2006 World Cup and that was him, so maybe that gets me half credit.

         When I got home I searched the 2010 list and researched them all. It’s not news to me that the French know more about our celebrities than we do about theirs, but I hadn’t realized quite how bad it was until this. Fellow Americans, how many people on this list do you know without google searching? I only knew one.

1. Yannick Noah

2. Zinedine Zidane

3. Mimie Mathy

4. Dany Boon

5. Michel Sardou

6. Gad Elmaleh

7. Jean Dujardin

8. Charles Aznavour

9. Florence Foresti

10. Jean Reno

OUTSIDE OF ALL THAT

         I’m slowly getting back in the groove here. Before I left, I didn’t realize that the sun doesn’t rise here until 8:40am. I had gradually become accustomed to it before, but now I can’t help but notice and find the dark mornings oppressive. It’s like being part-time nocturnal. On Thursday, I’m ¾ of the way done with leading my first class before the sun is up. Gross.

On the otherhand, it’s 50 degrees and I can run outside without getting my socks wet or wiping out on ice, so it’s a trade off. Yadda yadda yadda weather weather weather

I finally got my letter from French Immigration calling me in for my medical exam. They wait 3 months to contact me and choose, literally, the ONE day I have a conflict in the rest of the 4 months I’m here. It’s for the Monday morning I’m supposed to be in Brussels. I just bought my tickets a couple days ago. And the return trip is non-refundable. Pas de chance. More on this later when I figure out what to do.

later y’all!