rue des rosiers

unfair

2007-11-19T12:09:00.000+01:00

All I want to do is

post pictures
eat some carrots
watch Evangelion
write emails
knit
wander around outside
read yesterday's New York Times Magazine
tell you about London

but instead I have to pack.

henry van dyke

2007-11-13T20:57:00.000+01:00

Tis fine to see the Old World, and travel up and down
Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,
To admire the crumbly castles and the statues of the kings, --
But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things.

So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be,
In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.

Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air;
And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair;
And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study Rome;
But when it comes to living there is no place like home.

I like the German fir-woods, in green battalions drilled;
I like the gardens of Versailles with flashing fountains filled;
But, oh, to take your hand, my dear, and ramble for a day
In the friendly western woodland where Nature has her way!

I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to lack:
The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.
But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free, --
We love our land for what she is and what she is to be.

So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea,
To the blessed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.

--Henry Van Dyke

les misérables

2007-11-03T12:01:00.000+01:00

Here is an excerpt from an email Fischer sent me:

"In the same way that a 2-hour lunch could get absurdly tedious, so can an 8-hour or 10-hour or 16-hour workday. But on the other hand, they could be done very right. What do French people do with the extra leisure time that they choose to take? Do they seem as if they are better at using their free time? I hope there is more public merry-making, if there is a whole country of people that put a high value leisure: I hope they don't just spend it alone."

Which reminded me of an article that appeared in Le Monde last week, the opening of which I have translated below:

"The Frenchman is worried. He is more anxious than his European neighbors about the future of his children, he dreads becoming poor, homeless, or losing his job, he is distrustful of the police and the justice system, of globalization and the unions and Parliament; he is even more suicidal [than other Europeans]. And this, in a country rather less poor and less unequal than the average European country.

'French people are the ones who are worrying the most, who are complaining the most, even though the country is not doing so badly,' says a surprised Julien Damon, the head of the department of social questions at the Center for Strategic Analysis. 'France is doing well,' he says again, 'better than certain 'déclinologues' [made-up buzzword to describe naysayers and pessimists who say France is on the decline] want to let you believe, those who talk about bankruptcy-- but even if there was a decline, French people are more anxious than their neighbors.' ...The French are the most worried about the risk of downward mobility, and 86% think that 'anyone could fall into poverty over the course of their lives,' versus 62% on average in Europe. 13% think that they could 'become homeless one day,' just behind the Latvians and the Lithuanians. An explosive score, compared to the Danes and the Dutch (1%), the Germans, (2%) or the British (8%).

How do we explain this anxious side of the French?"

The article goes on to suggest that French people are more actively conscious of social ills, that poverty is more visible to them and because poverty is a recurring, long-running issue that has been on the table in elections and public discourse persistently for decades (unlike in the U.S., where attention [in my opinion] paid to poverty waxes and wanes). It also says that their glorious social model is not so glorious, designed under the assumption of a father working full-time and a mother who stays home and cares for the kids, and that the erosion of this model in a country with a 10% unemployment rate is causing "anguish."

Of course, none of this directly answers Fischer's question. Well, if you ask me, I think that the French feel less guilty about spending time doing things they enjoy, and they don't compartmentalize "enjoyment" or "leisure" as just another task the way Americans often do. And, it just so happens that one thing they enjoy is complaining a lot.

I know what you're saying-- "eve, stop talking and show us a picture." Fine. Here it is, the softer (and weirder) side of cultural intersection.

"So soft." Because what child wants to take a snooze on a crusty ol' baguette? No no, I need Harry's American Sandwich for all my bread-bed needs.

And of course, at the bottom, the requisite reminder to "for your health, practice a regular physical activity." Cause if not, American bread will turn you into a comatose little girl.

back from london

2007-10-28T11:00:00.000+01:00

Well, the GRE was good, but London was great! I'll be going back with my mom when she comes--

Oh man, I just realized that last night I dreamed I was making pancakes. Mmm, pancakes.... Usually I remember my dreams in the context of thinking they're real and then realizing they're dreams. Like, "Hey, where the heck are my pancakes? Aw man, they were pretend!" Last night I had a pretty weird assortment of dreams. I dreamed I was swimming in a dolphin tank, and when I got out my friend Jonathan came up to ask me if I could give him zombie makeup for Halloween.

Halloween... I sure am sad about that. I think I will find something to do Wednesday night, but it just won't be the same. The French do not get it, and my friends aren't hear to get together and dress up with. Well, next year I will have to make up for it by having a Halloween party of tremendous proportions.

Anyway! London. So, the person who had agreed graciously to host me for the night was a woman named Candace. I didn't know anything at all about her except that my mom had met her at some point last year, so when I showed up on her doorstep Wednesday morning I had no idea what to expect. She turned out to be a rather august creature: a Radcliffe-educated filmmaker-turned-novelist, the first black woman admitted into the Directors Guild of America, an expat of some dozen years or more, living alone in a tremendous house just north of London's center. She was encouragingly talkative and pleasantly blunt, informing me in short order that she was in the middle of a divorce, that she was raised in Connecticut and while her neighbors thought it odd for her to have the whole enormous house to herself, where she was from it was perfectly common for single women to live in houses much bigger than this one, that she had expected to end up in Paris but found London friendlier, although she went to Provence every year, that she had hosted Michelle Obama at a fundraiser the previous week, and would I like honey with my tea? For my part, I was not raised in Connecticut, but I was raised to be able to talk to lots of different people about lots of different things, and I know my fair share about books, the Obama family, and what I want in my tea. After an hour of excellent conversation, I headed out to lunch and the British Museum, with an invitation and a promise to return home for Candace's excellent dinner and more conversation.

The British Museum is so cool! Very well-curated, with lots of interesting information provided on all the collections (unlike the Louvre which more or less leaves you to fend for yourself). I will try to trick you into thinking it's a generic natural/human history museum, but don't be fooled! I think the thing I appreciated best were the Viking things and the collection from the Roman era in Britain, because you don't get to see that stuff in museums that often. I mean of course they have tons of Egyptian things, but I've seen lots of Egyptian things. But, they were cool too! It was all cool. Would you like to see a few pictures...?

Ramses had a giant head:

Oh my!

Perhaps my single favorite thing in the museum: this collection of the Lewis Chessmen, carved somewhere in Scandinavia during the 12th century.

...Well... I guess the human skull inlaid with turquoise was pretty cool too.... Okay, I had many favorites.

Viking silver! Being less artsy and more, you know into pillaging, the Vikings tended to just chop their silver up into ingots for easy molding and remolding and trade.

When I got home, I had a delicious dinner, more good conversation, and a hot bath. Did someone mention something about a test?

bizarre happenings

2007-10-22T22:10:00.001+02:00

File this under "Is this really happening?" Tonight I checked out a place in the Latin Quarter called Le Who's Bar (yay mangled English). Three American men, 1) from Detroit, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, or somewhere similar, 2) over 300 pounds, 3) smoking cigars, 4) and all bearing an uncanny resemblance to John Goodman, were harassing the bartender, who was Bilbo-sized. Seriously these guys were so un-Parisian I feel like aliens must have transported them here as some kind of a joke. They entertained themselves by picking up the bartender, carrying him around, and taking pictures of it. He seemed to enjoy it, so hey. I was also tempted to take pictures but didn't want to call attention to myself. Meanwhile an elderly Middle Eastern man was singing pop songs over pre-recorded reggae beat versions of the backing tracks. His setlist (which I dutifully recorded on a receipt from Monoprix) included "Wild World" by Cat Stevens (which I am listening to as I write this post, for proper inspiration), "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding, "Imagine" by John Lennon (it was really awesome hearing the American guys sing along to that one), and "La Bamba"by Ritchie Valens. A megamix if I've ever heard one. The bathroom also had a picture of Bart Simpson on it and inside there was a mysterious thing over the sink that I thought was a soap dispenser but it kind of looked like an avocado? And no soap came from it. France = full of mysteries.

Anyway it was good to do something fun since I have been studying and working a lot recently. It's gotten colder here recently, which in some ways is very unpleasant but also feels natural; I have spent much of my adolescence walking home in the cold and semi-dark with a big scarf up to my mouth and my shoulders all hunched up, listening to music, so it sort of makes me feel in my element. On the way home tonight I also stopped at Pozzetto, my neighborhood gelato place that gets WAY too much of my money, and where I had an outstanding debt because the other night when I went there I didn't have small change and the tall, surly, perpetually unshaven Italian man who works there told me to just pay next time, which was an act of faith because it's gotten colder and there very well could have not been a next time. But, I am a woman of my word and I was happy to stop and pay him the three euros on my way back tonight.

Psyched for London! I bought a nice big new memory card for my camera so I can take lots of pictures. But you're not bored of Paris yet, are you?

I sure hope not.....

Here is the hallway to the Bibliothèque Baudoyer:

Vive la république française! Even though its strikes annoy me majorly.

bizarre happenings

2007-10-22T22:10:00.000+02:00

london

2007-10-10T21:48:00.000+02:00

Bonsoir. I'm sorry I've been crummy about updating recently; it's mostly because I'm taking the GRE in two weeks (!!!) and have been spending a lot of time studying. Oh, and get this-- there was no space left to take it in Paris before November (when they change the test, undermining the fruits of my studying, so I need to take it before then) so I have to take it in London. So on the morning of Wednesday, October 24, I will fly into London at 9 a.m., and tool around for a day. Then on Thursday morning I'll take the test at 8:30 (ouch), finish at 12:30, do a celebratory sprint around Big Ben, and fly back to Paris at 7:30.

I've never been to London before, and I find myself rather intimidated at the prospect, which is strange because it can't really be that much scarier than Paris, and, well, people speak English there. If I can navigate this foreign city on my own, why not that one? ...And yet, this thinking does not calm me. Ah well. Maybe I'm just frightened before the spectre of the mighty pound, which at the time of this writing is equal to a painful $2.03. Owwww.

I have Wednesday to do whatever I want, so hopefully I can see some sights and chill out before my test so I can take it with a clear head. If you've been and would like to shoot me a suggestion or two, I'd be much obliged. Especially for things that are cheap. And by cheap I mean really cheap. And by really cheap I mean free.

In other news, I got my hair colored (I just posted about it tonight, but I actually wrote the post several days ago so it's down in its chronological place).

And here's a smattering of random photos from the last week:

montmarte, and a sunset

2007-10-01T13:37:00.000+02:00

Lest you think I spend all my time in the library, here are some pictures from my trip to Montmarte yesterday. And I swear I am working on a decent collection of photos of my neighborhood, which will go up soon.

On the way there I saw this in the métro:

EDF is an energy company and Bleu Ciel is their new sub-brand which is supposed to be more ecologically sound. The ad says "EDF is creating Bleu Ciel so that everyone can have a corner of blue sky [to call their own]." Bleu Ciel means blue sky, except normally it would be written the other way around, so it's more akin to the brand being called Skyblue. Anyway, the graffiti says "let's create, rather than consume" and "the planet is not a nuclear trashcan." I don't know what to say about EDF, but I'm kind of intrigued at the prospect of a nuclear trashcan. Like, a trashcan that got exposed to radiation and turned into a giant monster and attacked the city. Or a bad, bad name for a bad, bad high school garage band. "Hi, we're Nuclear Trashcan, and this is our latest song, 'You Puked on My Heart.'"

This was the first street I saw when I got off in Montmartre. This is definitely the first time I've said this about anything in Paris, but this reminded me of Guatemala.

I guess just looking up at that narrow street crammed with people reminded me of Chichicastenango, except, you know, without the pools of garbage-water, Mayan priests, and esurient 3-year-old children trying to sell me belts. Definitely the same stock of gullible foreigners, though-- I was a little surprised at how many three-card monte games were going on, and even more surprised at how many people--in particular Americans and Italians-- were crowded around them in fascination. Three-card monte may literally be the oldest trick in the book, not to mention the general rule of thumb that a guy doing business on a cardboard box almost always sees taking your money as his prime directive in life.

Continuing uphill... la butte Montmartre, the tallest point in Paris, and the Sacré-Cœur basilica, where they don't allow you to take photos inside because they are mean, mean people.

After I left the basilica I went into the courtyard of the church behind the basilica, which was actually on Montmartre way beforehand. Voilà, Saint Pierre de Montmarte, consecrated in 1147 but built about 50 years before:

On my way back down....

She was on her way up...

This graffiti was at my left...

And this dog was at the bottom.

The day before, I was feeling kind of bleh and went out to take some pictures around sunset:

The back of Notre Dame:

Quoi?

teinture

2007-10-01T13:14:00.000+02:00

For the last four years or so, I've had the habit of coloring my hair a little darker during the fall and winter months and lightening it during the summer. I don't know exactly why I feel the desire to do this; I think it has something to do with wanting it to be in synch with my surroundings. I feel odd having highlights when it starts to get gray and barren outside, and I feel odd having black hair when it starts to get sunny and lovely. Last week when the weather was so miserable I started thinking it was about time to darken it again, except I've sort of tired of this whole routine and don't want to dye it again any time soon after this, so instead of just dying it black I wanted to just have it all be my natural color, so as it grows out I can just leave it alone.

The trouble with this decision is it requires me paying someone else to do it instead of doing it myself, something I try to avoid when it comes to haircare. I concede that it's worth it to get a professional to color your hair sometimes, except when I've dyed it black I felt like it wasn't too complicated. And after three years of successful self-haircuts, I got it professionally cut for my birthday last year, a move that ended in tears and me sending a text message to a few people (because that's how you deal with this kind of tragic event) lamenting that "I just got the worst haircut of my entire life."* To which my brother helpfully responded, "haha u should have cut it urself." Gee, thanks.

Anyway. Now it's now, and here I am needing a professional colorist to do the job so he or she can match my natural color. Complicating this is the fact that I am in an unfamiliar city, which also has to be incredibly expensive, and I am philosophically opposed to paying a lot of money for this in addition to being, you know, a poor college student making her way in the cold cruel world. Good thing the internet has never let me down! I learned that the Jean Louis David salon would give me a haircut or a dye job for 5 euros, with the caveat that it would be a trainee doing the work under the watchful eye of his superiors. Color me cheap. I went to the salon and made an appointment, and was suitably impressed by how silly-expensive it looked that I was pretty sure my hair wouldn't end up blue. The lobby was all white-- white floors, white walls, white counter-- and at the counter were two tall women dressed entirely in black. One was busy talking into a headset, but the other politely told me that I would have to meet the colorist before I could make an appointment, and directed me up a staircase behind her, which was nearly invisible, being also entirely white, and was adorned with mirrors of a quantity and size that rather perturbed me. A very attractive gentleman and his very attractive companion appeared, and the woman pointed them in my direction. I told him that I wanted my hair dyed, NOT cut, and that I just wanted my natural color. He nodded vaguely as I spoke. "Tournez." I dutifully did a small turn. He looked over my hair, touched it, lifted it. I tried not to laugh. "C'est bon," he said approvingly, then nodded at the woman and walked away. So, I was allowed to make an appointment.

Fast forward a few days, and I got a very good (and very cheap) shampoo and dye job, to which I added some scissor-work of my own, and I'm happy with the results. So, the adage that you get what you pay for is not always (although, often) true.

Here's an inside look at Jean Louis David, starting with this intimidating staircase:

Flurry of activity!

The redhead is my colorist, having a pow-wow with her instructor:

*This is really saying something because when I was 7 my mom totally botched cutting my bangs, and they stood straight up for a couple of weeks.

bibliothèques

2007-10-01T12:35:00.000+02:00

What have I been up to this week? Sometimes going to the library, sometimes hiding from the rain, sometimes wandering about.

When I got my library card it gave me access to all of the specialized libraries in Paris, as well as a little list of where they all are. I resolved to check out as many as I can, as a means of visiting different areas and ensuring that I don't melt of boredom. Results have been mixed. Of the four I've tried so far, it turns out that the first one I found, the nearby Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris, is my favorite. To be fair, one of them, the Bibliothèque administrative de la Ville de Paris, is closed until next year (being randomly closed is a favorite pastime of sites all over Paris) which is sort of an automatic disqualification. The Bibliothèque Forney (named after a wealthy industrialist and housing texts on fine arts and architecture) was okay but forbids me from taking pictures, which annoys me. The Bibliothèque Marguerite-Durand (named after a feminist journalist and housing texts on feminism and women's history) was in a big shiny new building, always a shocking sight in Paris and sort of an unwelcome surprise. It reminded me of my high school library, which is... certainly not horrible but not a good thing either.

I wanted to check out the Bibliothèque des Littératures Policières (the library of detective books!) today but it's closed on Mondays. Curse them. I think I will go to the Centre Pompidou, which is close (good because it's going to rain) and has free wireless and is a cool work environment. In the meantime, here is the Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris, just down the block and around the corner:

Here's the view when you first enter the courtyard from the street-- and I swear this looks ten times better on a sunny day!

And then if you do an about-face and look at the door from which you just entered:

Books:

On this particular day I decided to try a smaller reading room than I did o my first visit. Maybe I'll get a picture of the other one next time, but this one will do:

comical foreign things 3

2007-09-27T18:00:00.000+02:00

la cimetière du père-lachaise

2007-09-24T18:46:00.000+02:00

Sunday was a beautiful day for a cemetery tour, I reckoned, being sunny and lovely in addition to being Sunday. In the late afternoon, after some tea and some chores, I went east to the 20th arrondissement to visit la Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, the famous final resting place of Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Marcel Proust, Gertrude Stein, Edith Piaf, Balzac, Chopin, and many other people who are less famous but whose lives, I'm sure, were no less significant. I originally intended to try to see all these folks, but immediately upon entering the cemetery strayed, for no real reason, from the route marked out in the tour map I had and from then on was... not irretrievably lost, but pleasantly wandering. It turns out that just seeing the cemetery was enough without seeing these famous folks, as it was such a gorgeous day and the scenery was so striking that it was easily one of the best things I've done here so far. My only regret is that I didn't see the grave of Richard Wright, who is not marked on any map! Despite being very important and very dead, which in my opinion should be the criteria for getting on the map. A guard told me I could come back during a weekday and ask someone in the office, which I do think I will do because although plenty of resources list Richard Wright as being in Père-Lachaise, that's just no good if you can't find him on any map, so I would make it my business to disseminate that information if I could get it.

But for now, what I saw was pretty great:

This was my first real view of autumn since coming here... Paris's public parks are nice but rather insubstantial. Isn't it kind of funny when the place where you find the most life is in the cemetery? This wasn't the first time I've had that experience, of the place being uncharacteristically vibrant....

My strategy in navigating the cemetery was basically to keep going up, and that worked pretty well:

"To be born, to die, to be reborn again,
and to continually progress--
such is the law."

Afterwards, I stumbled into the 20th arrondissement's annual sidewalk antiques market, which made me sorry that Mieka and I hadn't gotten a chance to make it up to the St. Ouen fleamarket as we'd intended, because, well, this thing was pretty great.

And only happens once a year! I resisted many temptations (wooden pigs minor among them, I assure you), but resolved to head up to the fleamarket one of these days. In a couple weeks they're having their own antique festival, so maybe I'll go then.

I've been trying to take some pictures of my neighborhood a little at a time. Yesterday was pretty bad for that because it was rainy and cloudy all day, but it's sunny today so maybe I'll have some luck. I'll have to relish it, because there's a lot of rain coming up. Blech.

charles de gaulle airport

2007-09-21T10:41:00.000+02:00

Well, despite the best efforts of the malevolent fates, I managed to get Mieka to the airport on time-- with two minutes to spare before she wouldn't have been able to check in. But despite a combination of sundry misfortunes including the unexpected slowness and confusion of navigating her baggage through Châtelet-Les Halles (which happens to be the world's largest subway station-- no, really), a wrong train, then a missed train, then a delayed train, and the fact that we were two grumpy girls who got up at a quarter to six... despite all that, we still got there in time (although the Continental employee tried very hard to make sure Mieka know she was a Bad Bad Person for being late), and after a quick hug I was... well, back on the train again.

And, oh man. Europeans are not good at airports. Fat slobs though we may be, America is still by and large the land of sanitation, organization, and coordination. To compare:

American airport: everyone marches around in an orderly fashion from line to line
French airport: everyone congregates like pigeons in front of where they want to go, then squeezes through one by one

American airport: smells like the Gap
French airport: smells like glue

American airport: everyone has rolling luggage
French airport: everyone has babies oh man so many babies

Also people like to stop and form a little mass of slow-moving bodies in the middle of the walkway as though there was an ice cream man or a money tree right there in that very very special spot except oh wait it's for no reason. All of this is very bad when your best friend is about to miss her flight and if she does she will probably punch you in the nose because, well, hey you're the closest person nearby, and who can blame her?

But you know, to be honest, after my long (extra long-- delayed again) train ride back into the city, when I emerged from the subway and saw light! And people and dogs and cars and another beautiful beautiful day in the Marais! I felt like I was home. And that's always a good feeling.

And now, it's naptime like whoa.

the longest summer of all time

2007-09-20T23:41:00.000+02:00

"Is it just me," I asked, "or has this been the longest summer of all time?"

"You've gone everywhere and done everything. I think it might just be you."

Nonsense! I still have so much going and doing to do. As my friends plan to take leave from wherever they are and re-congregate back at school on Monday, here I am contemplating: getting up early to take Mieka to the airport tomorrow, the gelato I ate tonight (fourth this week? I'm awful), and to a large degree the work I will be cracking down on when Monday comes and I, too, will do the whole back-to-school (en français, la rentrée) thing, albeit under self-enforcement. My summer vacation is about to be over in a big way, and it's time to read read read and write write write so I can return to school with a respectable amount of stuff done. I would also like to take the GRE before I leave Paris. I know that sounds like a downer, but like most students at the end of summer, I'm feeling that familiar sense of readiness, something that would seem so inconceivable at the beginning of the summer but come so naturally in September. Except this time I won't be waiting in long lines at the Seminary Co-op or playing Super Smash Bros. in the last few hours of glory before classes start or kicking rocks down the path past the Botany Pond. I'll be doing that stuff again in January, but for now it's just me, the city of Paris which is just as wonderful as I could ever want... and the library.

And did I mention I got a library card? Not a regular library card-- see, the closest library to me is the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, which is a "bibliothèque specialisée" with lots of oooooold archives pertaining to the city's history. So you have to be 18 to use it and get a reader card and everything, which I did once before when I did research at Berkeley's archival library last winter so I more or less knew how it worked. Which is good because getting a card turned out to be my first experience navigating a semi-bureaucratic system in a foreign language in a foreign country. Fun! And of course I needed a photo, and of course I don't carry ID photos of myself, so of course I had to walk to the métro and take some photos Amélie-style, and of course I didn't have change, so of course I had to go to the store and buy myself a chocolate bar. Poor me.

Anyway, the machine tells you not to smile and to make a "neutral face" so I mostly look frightened, disoriented, or like a pod person, or like a frightened disoriented pod person (with very reflective glasses):

After all that, though, the library is awesome! I will tell you more about it later. For now talking about this is kind of boring me and therefore probably you, so to make up for it here are some pictures of crabs in a neighborhood we ate in yesterday, with a lot of Greek restaurants in it. The one with the bubbles is bubbling because IT'S STILL ALIVE OH MAN

...and wednesday, and thursday

2007-09-14T14:52:00.000+02:00

So, here is evidence of our jours touristiques... first, Notre Dame, with my intrepid traveling companion getting it on record:

The entire cathedral is amazing, but the Western façade is where all the action is. Here's a tableau of Judgement Day. To the right of Satan you can see all a demon leading people away to eternal torment. And on such a nice day!

The main altar:

One of the three rose windows:

One of my favorite things was the cathedral's guestbook. I took a couple of pictures of places where children had signed it; I think I would like to go back and take some more one of these days.

Then, Thursday, and the Arc de Triomphe!

I told Mieka that I would think more carefully the next time I accused someone of having a Napoleonic complex. The guy really, really loved himself (that's Paris kneeling at his left, with a crown made of the city walls):

The arch is a monument to all the French armies of history, so it has a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and is carved with (among other things) the names of battles in which the army fought. I'm at the bottom, in red and looking a bit bewildered, for scale:

There was a sort of Veteran's League gathering, probably for the changing of the guard?

Rugby!

We walked the three miles of the Champs-Elysées, which is still very nice and impressive despite having a Gap and a McDonald's. We got to the end and saw the Obelisk, stolen ungraciously (like so many things) from Egypt. Mieka is lucky-- she saw the other one, still outside of the Temple of Luxor, when she visited Egypt in spring, so she has a full set.

And finally, the thing you all came to see... la Tour Eiffel herself.

It was my second time, and it was still amazing. We arrived with perfect timing, at sunset, so we got to see the marvelous engineering and graceful metalwork, then got to see it lit up, then when we went up it was dark and we could see all of Paris at night. And that never gets old.

It turns out the Louvre has a "young people night" on Fridays, with free admission to anyone under 26 from 6 to 9:45. But we want to see the Tuileries first. So, off we go! And tomorrow, the Medieval Fair of the Marais....

last sunday...

2007-09-14T12:06:00.000+02:00

Another beautiful morning (noon) here! Few things can bring me down, despite myself, like a gray day, and few things can buoy my spirit so naturally as sunshines, so I'm glad that I've had plenty of the latter and not so much of the former. Paris likes variety in some matters, but in the realm of weather it's content to be nice and boring-- 75 and mostly sunny every day since I've arrived. Next week it'll be in the 60s, but I don't need to tell you how consistency/gradual change in the weather is not something I'm terribly used to. Chicago weather has all the subtlety of an AK-47.

Another thing that makes me happy is taking pictures, and now that I have a USB cord I can finally share some proper results.

Last Sunday I returned to the marché aux fleurs, because on Sundays it becomes a marché aux oiseaux, and I thought a bird (+ guinea pig/fish/ferret/mouse/rat/animal feed/animal cages/Sno-Cones/okay I lied about the Sno-Cones but I wish it was truth) market would be an excellent subject for a Sunday stroll. And it was, for sure.

Bonjour!

On the way to the market, I stopped at the Hôtel de Ville, the Parisian city hall, a picture of which is featured at the top of this page. Anyone who's in Paris for more than 20 minutes and not blindfolded will notice that France is hosting the Rugby World Cup this year, and Paris (the city government and organizers, if not all the citizens themselves) is really. Really. Excited. There are all kinds of rugby cross-promotions and activities and events going on all the time, unfortunately rather unappreciated and even maligned by the Parisians themselves, who are not so much into watching people pound each other and also not so much into the giant inflatable rugby ball hung under the Eiffel Tower. I understand where they're coming from, and seeing huge advertisements featuring men of hulking proportions, with faces usually resembling something between an onion and the Berlin Wall, covered in dirt and sweat, wearing terribly unfashionable clashing colors... well, it's just not very wine-and-cheese. But I (not being French) think rugby is really cool, and have been trying to learn more about it because I want to go see a game before I leave and I want to be able to follow everything. So, I stopped and hung out at the Hôtel de Ville for a while because they were broadcasting a game between Samoa and South Africa on a huuuuuge screen. The Samoans got royally owned by the South African team, the Springboks, 59-7. Ouch.

Scotland is also hosting some of the games this year, and rather paradoxically that means that a horde of Scots has descended upon Paris to watch some of the games here... I guess for a sense of completion? Let me tell you, "culture clash" does not begin to describe it.

Anyway, in a non-rugby-related continuation of what I was talking about before I distracted myself.... After the marché aux oiseaux I wanted to go see a certain statue of Voltaire. The statue was supposed to be on one side of the Institut de France, which looks like this:

This building (and a couple others around it, I think) houses the five academies that make up this learned society (read: old-world European smart people private club with lots of money to use for good or evil). There's the most famous one, the Académie française (the forty members of which are known as les immortels, which I find a bit silly, but what do I know?), and there's also the Académie des sciences, Académie des beaux-arts (fine arts), Académie des sciences morales a politiques, and the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (humanities). The building was gorgeous, which was a good thing because I had to walk all the way around it twice before I found Voltaire, and I wasn't even 100% sure it was him until I came home and looked up a picture of the statue, because there are some lovely flowers covering his name. Sneaky!

To get to the Institut, I crossed Pont Neuf, the oldest of the bridges crossing the Seine (which is funny because the name means "new bridge"), completed in 1607. I took a totally lame picture of the bridge which I will spare you and make an effort to replace at some later time; in the meantime here's the view from the bridge.

And before I go on and tell you about what I've done since Mieka arrived, I need a cup of tea....

mieka is way, way asleep

2007-09-12T11:26:00.001+02:00

Man. I don't know how long that girl stayed up watching Pride and Prejudice, but she is out like a light.

Well, I suppose it could also be the jetlag.

demi-pêche

2007-09-10T23:33:00.000+02:00

There was a thing that looked sorta kinda like a can opener, but I had no idea how to use it, and thought there must be another somewhere. So I emailed Sandrine, the normal inhabitant of my studio and she replied that yes, that red thing that looked like a paraplegic robot butterfly was, indeed, some kind of crazy Euro can opener. Yesterday I tried to use it to open a can of tuna, which didn't go so well... I ended up breaking off part of a wooden spoon and also part of the can into the tuna, so I had to pick out little wood and metal bits from my tuna but I didn't slice my hand open as I initially feared when I began the undertaking of prying the lid off haphazardly. Not slicing your hand open is my definition of success.

Today I was pleased to discover that the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, which is a 2 minute walk from me, is not only open to the public but also free to those over 18 who register with a photo ID (it's an archival library so they have to be picky about who they let go probing about in their old old old papers with their oily hands) and it is also available to people like me who have no intention of using the archives but just want a nice place to work. So, I look forward to spending many contented hours there in the familiar occupation of reading and writing in semi-darkness. However, I am giving myself a reprieve from work until Mieka leaves, with the rationale that it is still summer vacation, of course. Tomorrow morning I will pick her up and the touristy part of my stay in Paris will commence, as she has never been here before and we will hit all the museums and stuff.

Tonight I saw an excellent jazz quartet featuring Noam's cousin on piano, as well as a xylophonist, a bassist and a drummer. They were really awesome! And I got to meet several very nice friends. Most were just introduced, but I got to speak a little more at length with Xavier-Paul, Kenza, and Sarah, and they were all very friendly. I also met Noam's father and his little sister, Mona. I want to give my kids anagram names!

The club was entrée gratuite--consommation obligatoire, meaning you can get in the door, but you'd better head straight for the bar if you intend on staying. I was going to have a glass of wine, but then had second thoughts about the quality of the wine at a jazz club, and asked Noam what he was having. He said that he was going to order a "demi-pêche."

"Demi-pêche et demi-quoi?" I asked.

"Demi-pêche et demi-bière."

Half peach liqueur and half beer?! That sounded truly repulsive. But, apparently it's a French classic, beside the fact that many of the world's most delicious things sound disgusting if you've never tried them (see: peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches, fries dipped in a milkshake, and the Dutch treat of chocolate sprinkles on bread spread with butter, which Mieka finally convinced me to try a couple weeks ago). So, I gave it a go.

And, well, it was disgusting. Never try it. In fact, never try new things at all!

That low point of the evening notwithstanding, I had a great time. All of Noam's friends are writers and at one point they passed around a notebook and wrote a collective poem about the concert, which sounds slightly lame but I assure you it was quite good, and I'm not just saying that because I contributed to it.

made of its own meat

2007-09-07T22:43:00.000+02:00

Yesterday, quel jour! After getting embroiled in what I may concede was one long phone conversation too many (but is there any such thing?) I only got a pitiful hour and a half of sleep, and I woke up with an hour to go before I had to meet Noam at the Fontaine Saint-Michel. That may seem like plenty of time, but I spent most of it stumbling around aimless and disoriented, as I'd been roused by my alarm out of some pretty deep sleep and a really bizarre dream... something involving a huge waterslide shaped like a dragon. I tried to write down some of the details, but I was fuzzy and my scribbling is pretty much illegible. I do think I remember something about an Orthodox Jew reciting to me an old proverb that "a hot dog is made out of its own meat" (what?) and I think Rob Huff was there too. And maybe Mieka?

Anyway.

Somehow I managed to get myself out the door and to the Quartier Latin, except Noam had told me to get off at Odéon, which is not actually the closest stop to the fountain, so I had to find it, and for the first time the Parisians were living up to the stereotype about their attitude. After two unsavory responses to my inquiries about where it was, I gave up and just found it on my own.

There are a lot of saints hanging around in Paris, mostly attached to buildings. To be honest, after a while it can be hard to appreciate them as individuals, there are so many of them. But the Fontaine Saint-Michel is one of the more interesting things of its kind I've seen so far, mostly because the dragons are cool and the colored marble columns mix it up a little, and Saint Michael is standing on a piece of more natural-looking rock.

"Voilà, St. Michel," said Noam.

"Et qu'est-ce qu'il a fait?" I asked. What did he do? My knowledge of saints is scanty.

"Euuuhhh... il a tué le dragon," said Noam.

"Je pensais que c'était George qui a tué le dragon." I thought it was George who killed the dragon.

Noam shrugged. "Ils ont tous tué des choses." They all killed things. Good answer. "Tu as faim?"

I was indeed hungry, so I didn't bother pointing out that Saint Michael was clearly trampling Satan while the dragons watched placidly. Instead, we went to a good Lebanese restaurant.

Noam is essentially a random person whom I happened to meet three years ago and keep in contact with, so it's a nice coincidence that our interests are very parallel. We had a series of excellent conversations about literature (it's great), love (it's hard), learning (it's great, and hard) and many other more trivial things. He is very, very interested in American culture and wanted to know all about my Gwendolyn Brooks project, and was eager to make connections between my work and the things he knows about the sociology of the 60s. He took an American history class last year and I was pretty impressed with how much he knew; he'd also listened to a bunch of Malcolm X speeches and was very interested in the racial and social paradoxes of American history. It was compelling and jarring at the same time to hear someone with an outsider's perspective talk about our violent history and the beautiful futility of the American dream, with the combination of reverence and confusion with we approach subjects that seem simple but are terribly complex-- like children asking about death. Naiveté can lead equally and alternately to astuteness or falsehood, I guess.

Anyway, these conversations took us through lunch, then all around the Latin Quarter, where there is no shortage of stimuli if you like books or films... which I do! By the barrel. We went through the beautiful Marché aux Fleurs, and I saw some really cool plants. Like a dunce, I left the USB cord for my camera and its charger at home, so until Mieka brings them on Monday, you'll have to make do with my phone's camera.

In the back, you can spot Noam, on the phone with an ailing Clementine:

Agitated sea cucumber:

This one has pigtails:

This one is a dinosaur:

Then, delicious crêpes, more conversation, a little more walking around, and Noam left to go visit his girlfriend and bring her some stuff in her sickbed. She's starting school in Lyon soon so this is a sad time for them-- but! I couldn't let that get me down, because after he left I found this street where every store was comic-, anime-, or manga-related. Naturally, I let out a cry of joy, then fell to my knees, giving thanks to the heavens for this glorious bounty. Actually I only did one of those things but I'll let you guess which. Anyway, one of the stores had tons of awesome Death Note stuff, except like all nerd merchandise (nerdchandise? slap me) it was way overpriced. The coolest thing was probably a replica Death Note they had for sale, which had all of the names printed in it that Kira actually writes in the series, plus a bunch of blank pages for, um, your own use? But it was 28 euros, which is highway robbery! But I'll definitely be going back there, probably during the end of my trip when all the stuff-buying will take place. The people there were really friendly, and as always, I always got the special "wow, a girl just walked in!" nerd store reception.

Then I had the bright idea that I would walk home, but realized after I passed the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes (well hello, ostrich) that I was going horribly the wrong way, and as I had already gone quite far, I made myself feel better with a train ride back to Odéon, where I made a capital investment in a pair of boots (it was decided by my packing team that boots took up too much space to be worth packing) and a really awesome knit dress, then I headed home after a long day full of lots of exercise.

Then Colleen and Ryan showed up! And I didn't get to sleep until 2! Oh my.

Today was mostly unremarkable except that I helped them buy a map, and took a really nice shower, had a nice walk, enjoyed a very very sunny day, and looked at a great Andy Warhol book at my nearby Mona Lisait (it's a pun!) which sells discount art (and other) books which is GREAT because art books are mad expensive. My feelings on Andy Warhol have changed a lot over the years as my ideas of what art is have changed. I still enjoy him more as an endearing character than as an artist, but I really liked some of his drawings that were in this book, including a bunch of postcards he had drawn and sent to his mother from various places. Maybe I should draw my own postcards. If you saw Warhol's, you wouldn't doubt that I'd be able to do it.

small victories

2007-09-07T02:00:00.001+02:00

Today's major accomplishments included not feeling homesick even in the slightest, finding a bakery that will probably be my regular everyday one, visiting Monoprix (France's answer to Target) for the first time, making myself two proper meals. This is a short list because I slept way way late, because I stayed up way way late. But that's okay; I did a lot of stuff yesterday. And tomorrow I have my first social plans since arriving in Paris-- I'm meeting my friend Noam for lunch.

Noam has the distinction of being my only Parisian friend, and of being a peculiar French mirror of many of my friends back home. He has an endearing combination of being really nerdy and really literary, and loves American and British literature. He and his friends have a lit circle/zine/website/thing called the Nebuleuse Gilgamesh (don't ask) and he asked me to bring him a used copy of On the Road, a request I was happy to fulfill. Despite not seeing me since my high school trip to Paris in 2004, he has been very enthusiastic and helpful about welcoming me to Paris and making sure I have a good time. He loves the city, and also loves Chicago and really really wants to come back some day, so I think he sees befriending me as a good investment in future crash potential as much as a chance to hang out with a kindred spirit-- and practice English.

Anyway, he asked me to meet him tomorrow at the Fontaine St. Michel in the Latin Quarter, and as much as I've enjoyed checking out the Marais I'm definitely ready to venture elsewhere. Afterwards I may get a chance to meet his girlfriend Clementine, although apparently she has a cold so maybe not. Tomorrow evening Colleen and Ryan Dietzman are also supposed to show up and stay with me for a few days, but I haven't heard from them, so we shall see. Before that, I want to examine the very cheap bike rentals available through the Vélib' program; it seems so cool and there are several pickup/dropoff locations near me.

Tomorrow I also want to find a good fromagerie. All of the artisanal stores kind of intimidate me because all the neighborhood people know them already and go to the same ones every day, so they know exactly what they want and how much it costs, whereas I am slow and ponderous and need to look at everything and figure it out. I'm glad I found this bakery today, and I know I'll only get used to it more and more, but bread is not as challenging as cheese. Cheese will require some practice.

comical foreign things 2

2007-09-07T01:41:00.001+02:00

I found a couple of these packets in the cabinet:

For those of you sick of robo-flan.

Also, observe this tube.

What might be in it?

MAYONNAISE! It's full of mayonnaise!

comical foreign things 1

2007-09-06T01:56:00.001+02:00

This is what my key looks like:

Why? I don't know.

press.start.

2007-09-06T00:01:00.000+02:00

Oh, new places and the new feelings they bring. First among them was the devastating homesickness I experienced yesterday. I was all business as I got my luggage, found a shuttle to Gare de Lyon, bought a Carte Orange for a month of unfettered Mėtro use, got off at the right stop, navigated my 80 pounds of luggage to 26 rue des Rosiers without consulting a map, remembered by heart the digicode password to enter, and made my way to the 6th floor without a single error.

After I rested at the top of the stairs and stared blankly at nothing in a remarkable imitation of a girl who didn't manage to sleep even one minute on the pan-Atlantic flight, after I got my key, after I opened the door and gasped with joy at the touching cozy loveliness of the place that will be my home for the next three months, after about a minute and a half of sheer delight-- only then did I crash headlong into despair at the realization that I was 4000 miles (conservative estimate) from home and totally, totally alone. Even then, I unpacked all of my stuff and handled all my practical affairs before allowing myself the luxury of a sobbing phone call, then a few hours of fitful sleep, a small dinner, more weepy phone calls, and finally a long night of rest made easier by Benadryl, jetlag, and The Lost Princess of Oz read aloud from Librivox and ended after 20 minutes with the automatic shutdown timer I have installed on my computer (the resourceful girl's combination for the perfect bedtime story-- try it sometime).

But! I'm happy to say that I'm feeling much, much better today after taking a walk around my neighborhood, and then to the Centre Pompidou, then to the Seine, then to the site of the Bastille and finally to Place de Vosges, a park nearby which is adjacent to the home of Victor Hugo, and which has free wireless. My last few days in Chicago were amazing, and when I arrived at O'Hare Monday afternoon I didn't want to get out of the car. But I'm finally feeling like I'm ready to take on this whole Paris thing.

Which is good, because I'm kinda stuck here now.

bee limerick 1

2007-09-05T22:37:00.000+02:00

does it hurt to be stung by a bee
the day before going to Paris?
if it strikes near your eye,
I cannot not tell a lie,
and in truth, I would have to say oui!