The Rest of the All Saints Holiday and All Hallow's Eve

STRIKING OUT À LA PARISIENNE

         The one tourist attraction that Katherine really wanted to see while she was in Paris was the Conciergerie, the prison where Marie Antoinette was held before they chopped off her head. Wednesday morning, we started out with some pain au chocolat and then went directly to the Conciergerie. It turns out that the Conciergerie entrance is combined with Sainte-Chapelle (a chapel in the heart of Paris that claims to house Christ’s crown of thorns).

         For some reason, there’s an intense security inspection before you can go into either. It’s not too different from the airport except for that you get to keep your shoes on. But they put your stuff through the x-ray dealie and confiscate your sharp things and all that jazz.  This process takes a bit, so there was a long line of people waiting. Then there was a shorter, VIP line. As a teacher in France, I have an education pass that gets me in to any national monument free (pretty sweet, I know). I had been told that this means I don’t have to wait in line at art museums. I wasn’t sure if this was the case here, so I went up to the guard monitoring the line to ask him. Before I could even open my mouth he barked in French, “GET IN LINE!” Ooooookay. Not worth the battle.

         When we finally got through the line and the security dance, we went to the box office and found a sign announcing that the Conciergerie would be closed until Friday. Katherine was leaving early Friday morning. Since we were already there and had gone through the security hassle, we decided we might as well check out Sainte Chapelle. I’d been there for an Art History class two years ago and liked it a lot.

         We went to the box office and, even though we’re in the same program, Katherine’s pass was not official looking enough to count for free entry (she teaches in a rural area, so her school had just given her a piece of paper with her picture and info on it). She said that was okay, she’d pay the 5€ to get in. Inside, the front of the  chapel was entirely blocked for restoration. They had conveniently forgotten to mention this outside. In front of the huge screen blocking the restoration project, there was a little poster showing you what you would have seen had they not been blocking it. Tourists were in line to take a photo of the poster, cropping it so that it would appear like the real thing. So silly. The whole experience was generally disappointing, but Katherine was a good sport about it.

SWEET AND SOUR PORK = PLASTIC VAMPIRE FANGS

         Marina spotted a costume shop down from my studio, so Katherine and I tagged along while she shopped for a Halloween outfit. Having worked in a seasonal Halloween store for all of 4 months, I consider myself kind of a Halloween retail expert. In the USA, this expertise counts anywhere because Halloween stores are like Chinese restaurants, they offer the exact same thing no matter where you go. Face paint, cat-ear headbands, fairy wings, sexy nurse outfits, sexy witch outfits, sexy Little Bo Peep outfits, and so on. I was curious about what France would have to offer and…it’s the exact same stuff! It’s remarkable some of the things that can transcend cultural boundaries. It makes me happy that Groucho Marx glasses can be among them.

R.I.PARIS

         On Thursday, we got more pain au chocolat and walked to Cimitière Montparnasse. This is a cemetery a stone’s throw from my place. There are so many famous dead people in Paris that the ones at this particular cemetery barely make the cut. Among them are Baudelaire, Samuel Beckett and Serge Gainsbourg. You don’t see many tourists there. It’s mostly older people on walks or 30 somethings pushing their kids around in strollers. When we got in, the guard at the front was busy scolding a 10 year old kid about his skateboard. We didn’t want to interrupt to ask for a map, so we decided to wander and see who we stumbled upon.  Well, Sartre and de Beauvoir are buried together right inside the front gate. So, that was an easy one. A little ways down we ran into Porfirio Diaz, the longtime dictator of Mexico who got overthrown during the Mexican Revolution. But, that was it for celebrities. The place was too big to just randomly find things. We were okay with that because there were interesting graves all over. It must be expensive to get a spot there. Makes sense, real estate in Paris is pricey for everyone, no exceptions for the deceased. People have huge, ornate graves, and most of them are for entire families. We wandered and examined whatever caught our eye. After a while we got tired, we found a bench and ended up sitting and talking for hours. 

DIVINE PIZZA

         Katherine had been craving pizza. We decided to hit-up Del Papa, a place that Rochelle had recommended by St-Germain-des-Près. The menu is similar to the menu at Rustico, the restaurant I worked at two summers ago in Milwaukee. This means that the food is awesome. Marina came too and the two of us decided that Del Papa has to be a regular spot. It’s delicious and inexpensive. Rustico might be better though, no offense to Paris. I got the Del Papa pizza because I figured it has to be good as the namesake of the restaurant. It was. It came with a fried egg in the middle. I’m getting hungry thinking about this, so I have to move on. We went home with our bellies full and fell asleep to Amélie.

GOING LA DISTANCE

         Running in Paris is tricky. For the last month I’ve been going over to the Jardin du Luxembourg and running around there a couple times. It’s not far and after a couple loops I get bored. After a month of that, I’m more than ready to find some new routes. I’ve been launching little expeditions, but it’s not easy here.The sidewalks are like obstacle courses. They’re generally narrow and packed with people who are not watching at all. Or have no interest in making room for a runner. Or have never learned to keep right.

         On Friday, I made it to the Seine and got going along the quai. It's nice that there isn’t much traffic and there aren’t any streetlights, but it’s no River Road, that’s for sure. The pedestrian quais aren’t paved. They’re set with old stones that have settled in a million different directions over the years. It takes intense focus not to twist an ankle. It’s decidedly better than trying to run through crowds though. Or on the street while the oncoming traffic is stopped at a light, which I have found myself doing a number of times. Not safe, I know, I know. I should probably be running with a helmet. Anyways, Friday I was able to make it all the way down to the Eiffel Tower despite these obstacles. So I got to dodge tourists and weave through displays of miniature tower key chains down there. It was kind of fun. And surreal doing such a routine thing in such a big deal place.

SPACE VS DANSE SPECTACLE

         Saturday I went to the marché by my house and realized that it is the cheapest that I’ve seen by far. 1€ per kilo of onions! and tomatoes! Wowza! It’s like the Aldi of outdoor markets, but not processed with a bunch of ingredients that sound like science fiction.

         It was a beautiful day, so in the afternoon Chris Welsch and I went out to Bois de Vincennes. It’s a wooded area right outside of Paris with a Chateau and a really beautiful cathedral that’s like Sainte-Chapelle’s brighter cousin. The woods just go and go. It’s gorgeous. All the trees were changing colors and the sun was casting that glowy golden light it saves for automn. It was really refreshing to have so much space. And air.

         After we had thoroughly reminded ourselves how green grass can be, we leapt back into the fray that is Paris and grabbed a drink and some grub in the dead center of the city. It was a stark contrast. Big city beauty is a different deal. While we were sitting out on this patio, a group of break dancers showed up to do a Danse Spectacle. I was prepared to be underwhelmed based on the other performances I’d seen here so far, but they were awesome. These guys were doing backflips and round offs all over the place and bouncing to the beat in one-handed handstands. It was bonkers. They had a crowd gathering in no time and they had to stop occasionally and clear a path to allow cars to pass through, always working it into their dance moves. If I find them again, I will become their groupie.

LE 31 OCTOBRE

         I love Halloween. I don’t get real enthousiastic about the horror and gore stuff, but the candy and dressing-up really excites my inner child. French people can get pretty snotty about Halloween and how it's not their holiday and they don't want anything to do with it. I think they're just jealous. In Paris, Halloween is celebrated at bars, nightclubs and Disneyland Paris. I’m too pauvre to go to Disneyland, so my options were to A) dress up and go clubbing or to B) find an Irish pub hosting a party (Irish pubs tend to celebrate Anglophone holidays from any country, I am learning). I wasn’t really up for the club because the only thing creepier than dudes at a night club, are dudes at a nightclub in masks. This one I know from experience. As for the bar, I didn’t have anyone to go with and I’m still a little scared of pubs since my diabolical night with Rochelle. So, I decided to celebrate solo in my own fashion. Outside of dressing-up, which is a little too weird to do alone (not that I haven’t done it before), I determined that the major points of the Halloween holiday are: gluttony and death. So I went to the 20e arrondissement. The 20e is what most Parisians would call “le Paris mort” (dead Paris) and that’s because there is barely anything to do there. This was especially true being there on a Sunday because Paris sleeps on Sunday. However, I was still able to find an open patisserie and buy a religieuse, a super awesome and over-the-top pastry filled with chocolate cream. This pastry kind of looks like it’s wearing a costume, so it doubly fit my Halloween theme.

         The other reason that the 20e was fitting as a Halloween destination was because it’s home to the Cimitière Père Lachaise, the major cemetery in Paris. There’s a ridiculous number of famous people buried there. Yet again, I only made it to one major gravesite before I got caught up wandering.

         The famous grave that I saw was Oscar Wilde’s. His headstone is a pretty cool statue, though it doesn’t seem to have much to do with him. It’s an egyption looking guy that appears to be flying. These days it’s plastered in lipstick kisses and less than profound 'words of wisdom'. There was a swarm of people around it the entire time I was in the cemetery. I’m guessing it’s like that all the time. I couldn’t help but smile thinking about all the bitter whit Oscar must be spewing from the afterlife on account of the spectacle his grave has become.

IN FURTHER NEWS:

-One of my private English students, asked me if I had ever heard of Prince. BAHAHAHAHA. Then we listened to Little Red Corvette and I got to explain what it meant.

-During my lesson with Mikail (my other English student) we talked about work and how Americans work crazy hours. He told me that here the average is a maximum of 35 hours a week, which I didn’t know. Also, they get about 6 weeks for vacation. When I told him most people in the US get 2 weeks, he looked like he was going to puke. Another fun part of that lesson was when I said “people take to the streets in protest” and he was like “street?” and I was like “Yeah, street.” I couldn’t believe he didn’t know this word, but it was just because he wasn’t sure he had heard me right. To clarify, he said “like Blackstreet?” As in, the 90’s R&B/hip hop band. The one that sang “No Diggity, No Doubt.” Yeah. I don’t even know how to describe how happy this made me.

- Also, I got my first paycheck from teaching! I bought a towel and a new pillow. These two things have already greatly improved my quality of life here.

- As much as I love my place, I’m starting to look for other spots that are more affordable. I think I’d rather live in a less perfect place and be able to go out for steak au poivre more often. I’m applying to Cité Universitaire (where Clare lives), but I don’t technically meet their criteria because I’m not a student or an artist. I suppose I could send them pictures of that snail I sculpted out of chewed gum.

Very exciting times.

I've been better about taking photos lately, check it out

until next time!

A Friend in Town

“SALUT” IS ABOUT EVERYONE

In French, the word “salut” is like “hey!” It’s a casual hello and also a casual goodbye. Convenient. It can also mean a salute, like in the military. Up until recently, these were the only definitions of this word that I was aware of. I was walking home from Monoprix (like French Target) and there were a couple clean looking, middle-aged guys with a big sign that said "pénitence = salut." People walking past them were keeping a big wake, but didn’t steer as clear because I was puzzled by what their sign meant. They caught me staring and reeled me in. They asked me what I thought about "salut." Something about the way they asked made me think this was some sort of survey, so I said "I don't know if my opinion counts, I'm a foreigner." They said "salut" is about EVERYONE. Oops, they were evangelists. Turns out it also means "salvation." It was too late to turn and run, so I talked with them a little about the different meanings of the words "pénitence" and "penance" in French and English. They claimed that in French it's not so much about "punishment," i.e. whipping yourself or wearing a barbed wire garter like the dude from the Da Vinci Code. They said that in French it was a very good thing. Hmmm. Then they pulled out pamphlets for their church and I decided not to stick around to hear all the details. I told them I had my own faith and wished them a good day. Now I’m kind of regretting not grabbing a handout though, you don’t see a lot of evangelists in Paris (I’m told it’s illegal) and I want to know what it said.

Pick a key, any key, for a fee

         Chris Welsch needed a new mailbox key after a stroke of bad luck on Pont des Arts. His landlord was making it almost entirely impossible to find a replacement, so Chris said he’d throw a little cash my way if I could help him figure out a solution. It turns out that the mailboxes/mail keys for apartment buildings in France are privately owned by outside companies. Anyone can go to a mailbox headquarters and give an address and a mailbox number and get a pair of keys by paying 11,30€. No questions asked. It’s probably bad for me to be putting this information out into the world, but there you go.

YOU COULD SAY OUR PATHS HAVE CROSSED BEFORE

         Katherine Jacob and I have coincidentally ended up in France together through the same programs twice now. The last time I was in France, studying in Avignon, it turned out that I was not the only Marquette student at my school, despite it not being a Marquette program. Katherine had found the same school in the same town independently. We also knew each other because we had been in the same French classes every semester since I started taking French at Marquette. That’s less shocking because Marquette has a small French program, but ending up in the same town for study abroad was pretty remarkable. This time we both found the TAPIF teaching program independently. Katherine’s in a high school in a small town outside of Rennes, up north. This week is the Toussaint (All Saints) vacation all across the country. We don’t have classes, so she decided to come hang out with me in Paris for a few days. She got in on Monday afternoon (despite her original train being cancelled) and stuck around until this morning (Friday). We managed to get in a lot of picnicking, pain au chocolat (so good it hurts), a ballet, and some sight-seeing. It was a good ol’ time.

A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

Katherine is a ballet fan, so she wanted to see one while she was here. Tuesday she went over to the Opera house to see what the options were and found that there was one happening that night and that she could get us tickets with “restricted visibility” for 8€ a piece. We’re both working with the same sorry budget, so we decided to give the 8€ seats a try.

         I had never been to the Palais Garnier before. You normally have to pay 12€ just to go inside. It’s beyond ornate. You could spend an hour staring at the ceiling and only be able to take in a fraction of the detail. I was silly and didn’t bring my camera, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. Or google image search. Or go there. 
The auditorium has a chandelier that’s as big as my house. There are huge faces sculpted at the border of the ceiling that watch over the stage and the audience. I wonder how many shows they’ve seen.

         The one downer is that the whole place smells exactly like homeless Parisian people. It’s weird. Being in Paris for a month, I’ve only recently learned to recognize that scent. I’ve never smelled it anywhere else. It’s distinctive and if it is a bodily smell, then it is not one that I’m familiar with. I’m not sure what it is, but I can assure you, it’s not pleasant. I don’t understand why a luxurious Opera house would share the same smell as the people who sleep in the subways here, but it is undeniably the same scent.

         Our restricted visibility allowed us to see half of the stage. It was kind of a bummer when they danced stage right. We could tell from the crescendoing music and applause that they had just done something really sweet. But half the stage was still enough for us to catch some impressive dancing and to piece together the majority of the plot. Paquita is a gypsy woman who’s running with a rough crowd. She’s the hot gypsy of this particular clan and has a gypsy pimp who isn’t being very good to her. A prince charming shows up and they fall in love, of course. The Gypsy Pimp is not down with this and decides to kill Prince Charming, but Paquita warns him and they run away together. Then they go to a ball and they find out that she’s actually his long lost cousin and so she’s of noble birth and they can get married and be happy forever. In the ballet, this last part was demonstrated with dramatic gesturing towards a painting of a man, followed by a lot of celebratory dancing. We had to look on Wikipedia afterwards to figure out what the heck was going on with the finale.

PARISIAN DINING

After the Ballet, we went to dinner and I decided to try Steak Tartare for the first time. For those of you who don’t know, that’s raw beef served with a raw egg on top. Protein central. It’s a really typical Parisian meal, you see people eating all the time. The waiter, noticing that I am a foreigner and a girl, responded to my order with a french “You know that comes raw, right?”

I assured him that I did, but I think he still assumed I was making a mistake. When he brought out my plate, he gave me every kind of condiment they had. I liked it. I probably won’t order it again because I like other things better, but it’s definitely worth giving a try.

         When they cleared our plates, the guy heard us speaking English and asked us, in English, if we wanted anything else to eat. I responded in French and I think that pissed him off because he mocked us when we asked for the check and then didn’t come back to our table for about 30 minutes. We stared and followed his every move and he actively ignored us while he smoked a cigarette, stocked the bar and flirted with a table of annoying American girls sitting a little ways from us. We finally had to ask a second time. The waiters here are either awesome or the stereotype of a rude Parisian, there doesn’t appear to be much in between.

That’s all I’ve got energy for at the moment. I’ll write some more later. Probably tomorrow. later y’all 

Joie de...ne pas travailler

WE could all use a little change

         I decided to make Wednesday a super productive day because I didn’t have to work. The plan was to start by busting my bum to finish all my French administrative business. Then I was going to come home and go to the Laundromat across the street from my place and kick it with a book while my stuff got clean. I had to go to the bank and get them to send me a checkbook (I didn’t get one before, my bad. You NEED a checkbook in France, it’s weird). And I had to go to the social security headquarters and get signed up for healthcare, despite not having some of the needed documents. I figured this was an optimistic plan. In my past France experiences, going to either the bank or the Social Security office can take the better part of a day on its own. But biting off more than I can chew is kind of my thing, and I don’t see why being in foreign country has to change that.

         The bank visit took a total of 2 ½ minutes. I said I needed a checkbook, gave the clerk my name and she was like “okay, it’ll be one week, have a nice day!” I was half expecting them to ask for a blood sample or something, but it was easy as pie. I walked out feeling super awesome and efficient at France.

         The Social Security visit took a little longer because no one felt like helping me. That's about right for French customer service. The office had an awkward set up. Their cubicles are out in the open, so the whole staff is visible from the waiting area. This means that I could see and hear them chatting and choosing not to help me while I waited. After about fifteen minutes, the front desk woman walked over to them and was like “hey, guys….eh, can someone help her?” She even had to persuade them a little by telling them I had all my papers and it’d probably be super easy. When the woman who reluctantly accepted this assignment called me up to her desk, it took about A minute. I handed her my stack of papers and she was like “okay, it’ll be 2 weeks, have a nice day.”

         I’m a little scared to type this because I might jinx myself, but, here goes: it appears that I am done with all the paperwork stuff for getting established here. Whew.

         The first part of my day was quick and easy, but laundry ended up being a royal pain. Figures. I got all my stuff together and lugged it over to the laundromat by my place, only to find that they won’t accept anything but coins. And they have no change machine. This is exceptionally ridiculous because all of their services are over 5€ (laundry is pricey here!), so you have to pay with a fat stack of coins. What a bunch of boobs. I decided to go home and wash by hand instead. Not quite the leisurely experience I had been hoping for. I only had enough hanging space for half my dirty clothes, so I only washed half and I’m saving the rest for when I find more motivation or loose change.

STEREOTYPES

         On Thursday, I got up at 5:45am again to get to work for my first class at 8am. I arrived on time, but the students were doing another strike “demonstration” out front. For the high schoolers at Villaroy, strike demonstration means dragging trash cans in front of the main doors and then yelling or singing for an hour or so until they get bored and catch a bus elsewhere (probably to a movie or something). So none of my kids came to class.

         For my second class, all of three girls showed up. We had a really good time talking about American/French stereotypes. We also talked about the differences between body images for the two countries. I’d say that in America there’s definite appreciation for the petite girls, but we tend to celebrate a busty hourglass shape when paired with a rock-hard abdomen. Women are supposed to be curvy with as little body fat as possible. This is achieved by diet and spending endless hours at the gym, probably doing sit-ups and butt exercises. I’ve found that French girls don’t really do the gym, because that’s not the body that they want.

          They expect different, but, of course, equally ridiculous female dimensions. The French female ideal isn’t too far from a high fashion model. Maybe not as tall, but definitely as skinny. Women want to be thin, long, and relatively curveless. For example, the mannequins here have A/B-cups with barely any butt. This body type is achieved by dieting and smoking. My students thought this was probably because the high fashion industry is such a big deal in Paris. It was an interesting conversation.

         When the bell rang they actually stayed through their passing time to get some extra chatting in. No students showed up for my next class either. I started heading back to the teacher’s lounge and the same girls from my last class saw me and asked if I could spend a little more time in English with them. They had an open hour so I didn’t see why not. We played Celebrity. It’s the game where everyone gets a slip of paper with a celebrity name on it. You put the paper on your forehead so that everyone but you can see it and then you have to ask Yes/No questions to determine who you are. I was surprised by some of the celebrities didn’t know. For example, they didn’t know Le Petit Prince or Lance Armstrong.

         I only had one other class where students showed up that day. We also did an exercise with American/French stereotypes. They were calling stuff out and I was making a list on the board. We had all the basics: fat, war-mongering, loud. This kid in the back goes "They party."

me: “like… what sort of party?” (I was expecting him to say fraternity or something)

kid: “like 'In the USA.’"

me: “Like, do we have parties in America?”(I was still a little confused)

and he goes: "no, like Miley. Like, I put my hands up, they're playing my song..."

For those of you who don’t know what that is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M11SvDtPBhA

I couldn’t help but laugh. I told him that we do sometimes. That whole situation made me smile so hard my face hurt.

        

         When we got to French stereotypes they were shocked and hurt that people think they smell bad and that the women don’t shave. They wanted to know where this idea had come from and I had to admit that I really had no idea. I guessed that it’s because we think of France as really liberal and so we make the leap from liberal to hippy, and hippies are known for not showering or shaving their armpits. They were like, “Hippy?? That’s your thing!”

          They also didn’t know that we consider the beret a typical French thing. Because no one actually wears them, you only ever see them in tourist shops. And sometimes on an old man. Marina spotted a guy in a shop that appeared to be wearing one in all seriousness and we got excited, but then we realized he worked there and that was part of his uniform.

         Another thing they were surprised to learn was that we don’t casually kiss in the streets. I told them that making out on a public park bench leads to stares and maybe even someone saying “GET A ROOM!” Here, people makeout in public all the time and nobody even notices. Except, today there was a couple in their late 60’s/early 70’s making out in the middle of a metro station. That seemed to surprise people, so there was some blatant staring.

         Anyways, it was a relatively quiet school day. I ended up with a total of 10 students for the whole day. So far, the administration has no plan for punishing kids who don't come. Technically students have the right to skip for a political demonstration. The faculty seems pretty divided on that issue. The high school has a new Proviseur (principal), who's in her first year and she's been getting intense criticism in the last couple days. It’s just such a different way to look at rights and freedom for students. The students do not have the right to wear a hijab, a cross or any other religious icon to school. They do have the right to skip class for weeks on end in the name of political protest. In the United States, we wouldn’t dream of telling students they couldn’t wear anything remotely related to their faith in the classroom. That would seem oppressive to us. But if someone was upset about a political decision they could MAYBE strike for a day without consequences, but then they had best find a way to demonstrate outside of school hours or they will be getting marked absent.

          On Thursday evening I went to a Japanese restaurant to do a language exchange with a couple of French girls that I met a bit ago. It was cheap and awesome. Way more food than I could eat in one sitting. I had my first real bowl of ramen. Who knew that it could be so much more than what comes in those instant packets? I will definitely be going back there.

TGI FAT

         On Friday morning, when I got to my bus stop it said the next one wasn’t coming for 10 minutes because of bus “perturbations” (perturbation = they’re making us late on purpose because of the strike). If I didn’t make my train, the next one wouldn’t come for an hour so I wouldn’t make my first class. I would be cutting it close, but I didn’t really have any other options. We pulled up to the train station 2 minutes before my train was due to depart. I RAN and just made it to my seat before the doors closed. 

         I got to school on time! But there was yet another “demonstration,” and none of my students came. So, I went and got some coffee and read a little Calvin et Hobbes. I was hoping no one would come to my next class and I could just go home early, but they came and they were jerks. We did some of the stereotypes and talked about American eating habits. I explained that there is an obesity problem, but that not everyone is super overweight and eats McDonalds for every meal, that that’s a stereotype. There was a girl who was convinced that I didn’t know what I was talking about and just kept challenging me and repeating what she’d heard. Whatever. Now it’s vacation, so I get a little bit of time to build up a stronger sense of humor about the less loveable high schoolers.

         On the way home there was trash all over the streets, I’m guessing because the trash collectors were either on strike or having trouble getting around due to the strike. It lasted for a day or so, but things appear to be picked up at this point.

         

         After work I met with another man who is interested in private English lessons. He’s less charming than the other two. I’m definitely only meeting him in a public place. We’ll see how it goes.

KABOOM!

         Then I went to see this movie Kaboom with Marina. They have posters all over the metro for it so we decided to check it out. SO weird. Just looking at the IMDB page should give you an idea of how weird it is. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1523483/

It’s described as a sci-fi story centered on the sexual awakening of a group of college students. That is accurate. Here’s a handful of character names to give you a better idea: The Messiah, Drug Fairy Nymph, Cult Victim.

         We thought it was going to be a weird French movie, but it turns out it’s a weird American movie. I really can’t imagine this having much success in the US. Maybe ironically. Irony is really its only hope.

FRENCH AND COUSCOUS AND BEARS, OH MY!

         On Saturday, I went to lunch at one of my coworkers house. She lives not too far from our highschool in Guyancourt with her husband and super cute little girl. We ate and talked for around 5 hours. It felt good to be solidly immersed in French conversation for such a long time. Her friend Claire was there too and she had just been in a national park in the US this summer. We talked a lot about grizzly bears and how you can’t really do anything good to avoid being eaten. Other topics of conversation included motorcycle permits and crazy neighbors/landlords (everyone had a good story to contribute).

         When I left their house it was sunny, but sometime during the train ride the sky darkened. By the time I exited the metro stop on my street, there was a downpour and thunder and lightening. It was cool.

LOCKS OF LOVE

         Today I went to the same organic market as last week and got some foods and then I went to the Pont des Arts over the Seine. It’s a pedestrian bridge that has a longstanding tradition of couples attaching locks to it as a symbol of their love. It was busy with tourists and couples and tourist couples. I was standing and watching the sunset and this dude came over and asked me if I was Leonardo Da Vinci’s daughter… Because I look so contemplative. That’s a new one. Barf. I let him go for a while because it was an opportunity to speak some French and because I wasn’t ready to walk away form the sunset. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to pick me up or pick my pocket, maybe both. Who knows? Either way, it didn’t work out for him.

         In other news, I got 4th student lined up for private English lessons. On Wednesday, I got a phone call from a woman who saw my ad and wants to learn English to help her switch careers and start renting apartments to foreigners. We’re meeting next week after the vacation ends.

         Also, one of the students at my high school gave me his sister’s information so that I could go running with her (I had mentioned in my introduction that I’m a runner). I called her last week and we set up a running date for this Tuesday at a park south of the city. So, I’m looking forward to that.

that’s all I’ve got for now. à+

La Grève et La Gourmandise: A Super-French Week

It’s real hard to be mobile during a “mobilisation”

         On Friday, I showed up at the train station at 7:45am to catch my train from Paris Montparnasse to St. Quentin-en-Yvelines (not far from my high school). The metro transit strike was still on, but it was not as bad as last Tuesday. Technically the schedule was “quasi-normal.” “Quasi-normal” means that they’ll run most of the trains and buses, but they will intentionally make you late. My train was late enough that people who normally take the next train were already there. This meant we all got on the same train, which meant a lot of people (including myself) got to stand the whole way down.

         My bus from the train station to the school arrived with only a minute or so to spare, so I was speedwalking around the block to get to my students on time. When I got to the front of the building, there was a huge crowd of students outside. Some were playing around or chatting on benches, but the majority was crowded on or around makeshift bleachers, yelling into megaphones and waving signs about the retirement reform. It reminded me of the student section at a Marquette Basketball game. They had blockaded all but one of the front doors. I made my way around them and got up to my room. Inside the school was almost empty. Only one of my kids had decided to come to class, so she and I got to have a one-on-one conversation about the French education system. It was really fun actually, I think we both learned a lot.

         By the end of that hour, there was nothing left of the demonstration out front except for a yard littered with fliers and abandoned noisemakers. However, the building was still empty. Most students had opted not to come back to class. Not a single student showed up for my next class. Instead, another teacher who had no students showed me the school library. I really like their collection and am excited to explore it more during the rest of my stay. To start, I borrowed Calvin et Hobbes: “Complètement surbookés!” (aka “The Days are Just Packed”).

         For my next class, I was supposed to take out 6 students from a normal class and lead them in a discussion. Only six students showed up to that teacher’s class, so I just took them all. We talked about movies and music. That reminds me, Dad: if you’re reading this, one of my students said that since you love Saving Private Ryan, you should watch Tom Hanks’ miniseries “The Pacific”.

         I had plans in the evening to go do a dinner/language exchange with 3 girls I met my first week here at an event at Cité Universitaire (where Clare Longendyke lives). Both of the French girls live south of Paris right off the RER B line. The RER B is probably the worst to try to use during a metro strike. We ended up canceling because of the ridiculously limited schedule. If they even made it up to Paris, their chances of making it back home were slim to nil. So, my friend Marina and I decided to go out to dinner just the two of us.

BAR HUNT AND “POT CÉLÈBRE DE NUTELLA”

         She did some research and suggested that we go to Chez Germaine, which is known for good traditional French food at a decent price. It’s a hole in the wall that fits maybe 10 tables. The food was pretty good. Not quite as mind-numblingly good as that Steak au Poivre was at La Bourse ou La Vie, but definitely good. I had fish with leeks in an awesome cream sauce. They had the best bread I’ve had in a restaurant here. Sopping up that sauce with that bread made the whole meal worth 17,50€. Afterwards, we decided to go grab a drink somewhere, but we weren’t sure exactly where. Marina knew some neighborhoods where younger people hang out, so we went over there and tried to follow large groups of young people in hopes that they’d lead us to a hotspot. It was too early though, things don’t get started in Paris until 10:30 or so (I guess it's the same in the US, but I'm kind of a grandma).

         While we were trying to find a good bar, we walked past a crêperie that had the biggest jar of Nutella either of us had ever seen. It was enormous. Marina started taking a picture and the guy behind the counter invited me back there, so I could be in the photo with him and the jar. It was so ridiculous. We made such a scene that tourists noticed and started taking pictures too. By the time we left, a little crowd had formed and the guy was talking about his “famous jar of nutella.”

         Anyways, we finally decided to just ask someone where a good bar was and they recommended we go to Rue des Canettes, over by Saint-Germain-dès-pres. This is right by the Temple, the bar that I had been to earlier that week on my diabolical night with Rochelle. We decided to go over to that area, but to avoid The Temple because neither of us wanted to risk getting shwasted. We found another Irish bar nearby that had a huge crowd of young people and a bunch of beers on tap. We had a good time even though we didn’t get to mingle with any frenchies.

        

GOURMANDE

         Saturday, Marina invited me to go to an annual farmer’s market event called Pari Fermier. Once a year, a bunch of farmers from all over France come up to the city for a weekend to sell their goods. It appears to only be the best of the best. Normally, you have to pay 8€ to get in, but Marina had found a coupon for free entry online. Just about every stand was giving out samples of some sort and we made the most of it. We had so many awesome cheeses, olive oils, dried figs, numerous varieties of honey and a couple different kinds of incredible foie gras. Foie gras like I’d never imagined. There was also champagne and alcoholic cidre. We ate and drank until we simply couldn’t consume anymore. I never thought the day would come when I would turn down free foie gras. It was awesome.

         After that, Marina had to babysit so we went our separate ways, each very content with our purchases. I went for a night run around the Jardin du Luxembourg and then I didn’t have any plans for Saturday night. Clare was at a wedding and Marina was babysitting, I’m still building my social network here so I don’t really have anyone else that I would contact last minute to go do something. I was thinking about going for a solo expedition to a concert or something, so I went online too look up options and saw that both my parents and Mike were on. I got to skype a little with my parents and then with Mike for hours, so I didn’t end up spending Saturday evening alone after all.

         On Sunday morning, I met up with Chris Welsch and his friend Joanna to go check out the Raspail organic market. I got a bunch of good fruit, veggies, cheese and butter for the week. We also got galettes de pomme de terre et oignon. The galettes I was familiar with before that were just savory crêpes made out of potato. This was so much more than that. It was a thick pancake made out of shredded potato with sharp cheese and grilled onion. They came hot off the grill, so the cheese was still melty inside. It was really incredible. The quality of food that I consumed at those markets on Saturday and Sunday may have ruined me. I can honestly say that nothing I have eaten since has really been the same.

         It was chilly outside so we went to a café and got some hot chocolate. Joanna got onion soup and Chris and I ordered Croque Monsieurs (which is something like a French grilled cheese sandwich with ham). The sandwich was mediocre and it tasted especially mediocre in comparison to the heavenly galettes we had just eaten. I also had my first experience with a rude Parisian waiter there. He straight up rolled his eyes at one point. Towards the end he warmed up to us though, I don’t know what his deal was.

         Chris invited me over to have dinner with them that evening. They made a tasty stew from their market findings. That really hit the spot for a cool fall night. Joanna lives in Athens and was just in Paris for a couple days. We discussed conflicts in Greece and in journalism and in life in general. It was a good time and I ended up staying pretty late.

COURS PARTICULIERS

         Monday was my first private English lesson and today was my second. I wasn’t sure what to expect because both students were guys I’d never met that had responded to ads I’d posted around town. You never know who you’ll draw with that sort of thing. But, so far, my students do not appear to be sketchy at all.

         On Monday, I met Mikail at Cité Universitaire (where Clare Longendyke lives). He’s 24 and a produce manager at a grocery store. His dad lives in the US and he has friends there, so he’s trying to be more comfortable speaking in English.

         Today I met with Antoine. He’s 21 and currently unemployed, but he's worked for years as a chef at a bunch of prestigious fine dining restaurants. Including one in London, where he worked and lived for a while. Since being back in France, he's been losing his English so he wants to work on it. He lives not far from me in an apartment with his parents and a cat. There is a serious shortage of animals in my life, so I may have overreacted a little bit when I saw the cat.

         Both lessons seemed to go pretty well and I’m feeling hopeful about the future ones.

A STRIKE A DAY KEEPS THE CAPITALISTS AWAY

         In the last couple days the protests and political demonstrations have continued. The big news yesterday was a riot at a high school in a northern suburb. The newspapers here showed pictures of streets full of torched cars. Another big one was an “escargot” demonstration on the highways, where groups of truckers drove super slow and caused huge traffic jams.

         Today, apparently there was another demonstration in front of my high school. The high schoolers had blockaded the doors again. I didn’t see it because by the time I got there (10am), they had all lost interest and moved on. But not to class. No one showed up for my first class, so I had to hang out in the teachers’ lounge and wait until my next class at 1pm. Normally the teachers’ lounge is pretty boring, but today a lot of other teachers were hanging out there because they were in the same position with no students. People were pretty upset and the day was full of passionate conversation and argument about how the school and teachers should be reacting to this. The general sentiment among teachers is that students were just demonstrating to skip class. The teachers were frustrated with the students for their lack of commitment to their education and frustrated with the administration for allowing them to skip in the name of protest. They also voiced a lot of concern about this generation of high schoolers and the effects of computer technology on them. People were all in agreement, but there was a lot of debate and they talked about many of the same problems that we’ve been talking about in the US in recent years.  
         There were also more demonstrations on the major streets in Paris today, including right by my place on Boulevard Montparnasse. At one point, I heard a protester's proclamations so clearly that I thought he was inside my building. After a little investigation, I realized he was just on Boulevard Montparnasse with a high quality megaphone.

         As far as the protests go, the American news makes it sound like there’s rioting all around Paris. I know there was that high school riot up in the northern suburb, but all the demonstrations I’ve seen in the city in the last week are parades (like the one in the video I posted).

         A lot of the momentum is due to the young people getting involved. The New York Times quoted a man explaining that the youth are excited to participate in the protests because in France it’s “a kind of generational rite of passage.” From the conversations I’ve had with my high schoolers and with the other teachers, this definitely appears to be the case. In the streets, the overwhelming energy isn’t anger, it’s excitement about banding together for a common cause. There’s a lot of disagreement about whether or not the protests are going to have any effect on the retirement reform. Half the people here are up in arms and the other half is trying to continue like nothing is happening, hoping that it’ll end soon.

We’ll see how things turn out, I’ll try to keep you guys in the loop.

à la prochaine!

Some first hand grève footage

Protesters marching down Boulevard Montparnasse

I have a lot of catching up to do

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

            On Wednesday, I opted out of going down to the English Assistant training session because it was going to be time consuming and unpleasant with all of the strike stuff. Instead, Marina and I decided to go do some Parisian exploration. She suggested Parc Monceau and I was all for it because Rochelle had just been telling me about how much I needed to go check it out. We headed out after noon so our first stop was a boulangerie to get some lunch. I love how easy it is to find a good sandwich in Paris. Even the simple ones end up being a treat because of the high quality ingredients.

It was a beautiful day. The chill of fall is starting to show up, but the days have mostly been sunny since I got here. Paris is pretty but, as is the case with just about any metropolis, it is made up of mostly of buildings and cement. It gets away with that because of the fantastic architecture, the river in the middle and because they have managed to maintain some gorgeous green spaces, despite the dense population. Parc Monceau is one of them.

            Parc Monceau reminds me of something you would find at the down Alice’s rabbit hole. There’s not a lot of rhyme or reason to it. The park has a patchwork feel because there are tons of different varieties of trees and flowers and not much transition between them. Within a couple meters, you see palm trees (I kid you not) and trees that you’d probably find in the Northwoods. Keeps you on your toes. They also have random monuments scattered all over that appear to be from all different time periods. Some of the statues look like they’re from the last couple centuries while there are columns and a big stone pyramid that appear to be ancient. We kept searching for plaques but there are no explanations of what they are. In the United States these would certainly have plaques and would probably be roped off. Then again, we celebrate enormous balls of twine.

The only sign that we saw was tucked away by an unremarkable bush. It said “First Parachutist 1797.” That was it. I guess the place has wireless too because we saw a british girl skyping with someone on her laptop at a bench.

            After Parc Monceau, we went all over town to universities and bookshops putting up ads for English lessons, because I am in need of more income, pronto. On our way to one of the bookstores this strangle little postcard store caught my eye. It had a carefully arranged display in window, but the rest of the store looked like it could have been someone's basement storage space. The sign on the door listed the hours for the month. It was only open on 3 different Wednesdays from 2pm-7pm. It turned out that we had stumbled across it during one of those small windows of availability. So we went in. An older guy came out from behind the stacks and explained that he collects postcards from different times and places and sells them for one euro a piece. That’s what was filling up all the boxes. There were so many cool ones. I bought a card from 1911 that someone had sent on April Fool's day. It has a picture of a woman on the front riding a giant fish (in France, instead of "April Fool" they say "April Fish," dunno why). On the back it says in french: "guess who sent this to you..."

A LOVELY DINNER

            After I had managed to get signs up in a number of opportune spots, it was time to meet Rochelle and Chris Welsch (the old travel writer for the Star Tribune) for aperitifs and dinner. It was a short train ride from where I was, but the metro workers were making sure people knew the strike was still on, so they held my train at Chatelet for like 5-10 minutes while they “regulated traffic” or some other BS. So, I arrived at the brasserie late, but I couldn’t spot Rochelle anywhere. I asked the waiters inside and they kindly offered to be my dates for the night instead, but I decided to do another quick walk around the patio. This time Chris recognized me as Maureen’s daughter and called me over. Yet another reason it’s handy to have my mom’s face. Rochelle showed up a little later, she’d been held up in some of the same metro BS. On top of that, she’d gotten a lot a late start because she had assembled an enormous bag of goodies for me! She was leaving for Rome the next morning, so she had cleaned out her fridge for me and filled a bag with sausage and Roquefort and yogurt. She also donated her copy of  Rick Steves’ 2010 Paris guide as well as a bunch of French magazines. Super generous! I am actually eating one of the yogurts she gave me as I write this. She sat down and we drank some wine and all talked about our collective French experiences. My favorite was Chris’s story about accidentally dropping his keys through a bridge and having to climb out of his neighbor’s 7th story window and walk the roof to get back into his place. After that we headed over to La Bourse ou La Vie, the restaurant that Rochelle had been telling us about.

            La Bourse ou La Vie is a narrow place with only a handful of tables. I think that set up is typical in Paris. The inside is decorated with vibrant colors and  but the food and the staff at this restaurant made it memorable. The inside is decorated with vibrant colors, they play Edith Piaf and Patrice, the owner, walks around making conversation with the diners. When we showed up, there was no one else there yet. It was a Wednesday and we were probably a little on the early side for Europe. Rochelle had already been there once so Patrice remembered her and allowed us to sit at a table in the back, behind the regular dining room. Rochelle called this the “seat of honor” because you have to be in the know to ask for that table. She had seen some regulars sneak off to it the last time she was there. They let people sign the walls and ceiling back there, so there are all sorts of greetings and words of wisdom to read while you eat. We ordered the foie gras as an appetizer. It was awesome. We studied the menu a little bit, but Rochelle had been talking up the Steak au Poivre (steak with black pepper sauce) and we each ended up ordering that. It was completely worth all the hype. Thinking of that steak will keep me warm at night. We ate until we were in a wonderful food coma and then we said goodbye and went our separate ways. I had to be up early to catch my buses & trains for work, so I set my alarm for 5:45am, put my earplugs in and went to bed very content.

DISTURBANCE

            I woke up at 3am to YELLING. I could hear a guy’s voice yelling angrily through my earplugs. I have some young neighbors, so my first thought was that the guys had drank too much and had gotten into an argument. I waited for it to stop, but it didn’t. So, I sleepily took out my earplugs and tried to figure out where it was coming from. There were no signs of life from the next door neighbors and I realized that it was coming from above. I couldn’t make out all of the words because it was muffled by the walls and because it was in French, but there was a lot of cussing and “SHUT UP, SHUT THE F*** UP!” and those sorts of pleasantries. There was no yelling in response, just a woman sobbing and pleading. This was alarming and I wondered if someone had broken in and my upstairs neighbor was being attacked. I listened for a long while and determined that this was a domestic dispute of some sort. It went on and on and on. I wasn’t sure what the protocol was in this situation. In the US, you call the cops, in France… I just don’t know. I couldn’t imagine that none of the other neighbors were hearing this, so I waited hoping that someone else would know how to deal with it. Nobody ever intervened. After an hour or so of him yelling violently and her sobbing pathetically, the argument died out, but the whole thing was so upsetting that I couldn’t get back to sleep. So, I was already awake when my alarm went off at 5:45am.

SOMETIMES, DESPITE THE ODDS, THINGS JUST WORK OUT

            On Thursdays I have to catch a train that leaves at 6:55am, so that I can make it to work by 8am, so that I can teach 6 back to back classes. With such a weird night and only 3 hours of sleep, I was worried about how well I would last. I made myself some tea and listened to upbeat music to psyche myself up and it worked. I stayed in a good mood for the whole day. It was magic.

            My first class is my youngest group. They are Florence’s group of students (she’s the young first year teacher that’s been helping me out), and she had warned me that they talk and misbehave. They definitely did some chatting, but in general they were really engaged. At one point, I asked them if they had any questions and a kid asked if I would explain the title of a song for him. It was “We be steady mobbin’” by Lil’ Wayne ft. Gucci Mane. They love love love Lil’ Wayne. I had to work at it to find words they knew, but after explaining that “We be” = “We are” and that “Mob = Mafia,” we arrived at “We are regularly doing crime.” Since so much of the American culture that comes over is hip hop music, I ended up talking about gangs with some of my classes and was really surprised to learn that gangs don’t exist in France really. They were equally shocked to learn how prevalent gangs are all over the United States.

            Over all, it ended up being a pretty good day. My last class got cancelled, so I got to go home early. I went for a run around Jardins du Luxembourg and then grabbed a half baguette from a boulangerie near my place. I’ve been on the hunt for a neighborhood boulangerie to frequent and so far the ones I had tried were mediocre. This one is definitely the winner. I’m probably going to go get some bread from them today.

            I called my landlord about the 3am disturbance and she said to wait it out and see if anything else happened. She’s been renting this place out for years and has never heard of anything like it. She thought it was probably a fluke, but recommended that I go talk to the guardienne about it the next time I see her. If it happens again, we can consider more serious action. I haven’t seen the guardienne because our schedules are opposite, but I haven’t heard anything remotely like it since. So, for the time being, all is well on that front.

            I’m actually going to go for a run now. If I have time later today, I’ll write about the weekend. I have my first English lesson this evening with a guy named Nikail. He found my posting at Cité Universitaire (where Clare Longendyke lives). Hopefully this goes well and 1) he is not a creeper and 2) he wants to keep taking lessons, because I need the monies.

In further news, I saw two men with incredible handlebar mustaches yesterday. Some of the best I have ever seen ever. One was playing ping pong in a park, the other was standing on a metro platform and wearing... a beret. I need to start carrying my camera at all times.  

Click here to see my pictures so far.

My next installment will include a high school strike, lots of eating in excess and drinking moderately.

à la prochaine!

Christmas!

I will be coming home for Christmas! I get in Saturday, December 18th and I have to leave midday on New Year's Day. The departure will blow, but I'm just glad I get to come home at all. Can't wait to see you all!