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.
until next time!
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