mercredi 20 octobre 2010

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!

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