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.
My next installment will include a high school strike, lots of eating in excess and drinking moderately.
à la prochaine!
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire