mmm springtime is delicious

I gave up on fixing all the names of my uploaded photos.  I think it doesn’t really much matter.

the quintessential parisian life

When it boils down to it, for me as the romantic sap that I am, la quintessence de la vie parisienne is as follows:

• Wake up sans alarme
• Have un café sur le balcon, overlooking the city
• Take an unnecessarily long shower
• Take a long walk down tree-lined streets, blooming in the early spring
• Sit in a park and watch lots of young families and their children on pony rides
• Write in a moleskine!
• Go home, and pick up a salmon filet at the local poissonnerie on the way
• Cook up dinner, with a nice cool glass of white wine
• Stroll out to a jazz club in the Latin Quarter, sit and absorb for a few hours
• Walk home in a light, refreshing drizzle of rain
• End the night with another glass of wine on the balcony, and my moleskine

All of which I did this weekend.  Rather superb.

blog fail

Un blog raté?  This past weekend I went to Noisy-le-Roi and stayed with one of the nicest women on the planet: Mark Anthony’s host mom from two years ago.  Oh my word she was amazing.  And what’s more, I got to play her son’s guitar.  It had been way too long.  And already it’s been too long again, just four days later.

Sunday was my first trip to Versailles.  I was terribly apathetic and relatively unimpressed.  It was great, yeah, but the whole time I just wanted to be playing guitar instead.  I could never imagine waking up, dressing, eating, signing things, meeting people, accepting others’ oaths of allegiance, all in different rooms.  But importantly, the only difference between all those separate rooms is the color of the velvet-plastered walls.

The fountains were very cool though, once they were actually turned on 40 minutes before we left.  Other points of interest include people running across pelouses interdites, and waiting behind an absurdly loud mob of middle-school age children all pushing for their frites at the tiny little we-ran-out-of-everything-but-paninis snack stand.

All in all, it wasn’t what it’s hyped up to be – but I can think of worse ways to spend my Sunday afternoon.

Monday I went on a shoot with my internship for a clip of a BBC show that plays on BBC 1, Sunday evenings at 7pm or so.  I don’t remember the name of the show, but the shoot was very much fun.  And for lunch I got the best salad I’ve ever eaten in my life: une salade océane.

Tuesday Mark Anthony (with the eensiest tiniest bit of my help) made our host parents dinner, as a sort of role reversal.  It was a great dinner, except there was way too much food and we had to literally skip two courses so that our host parents could make it through.  Even then they were wicked slowed down by the end.  But they appreciated the meal, and I think it got us all feeling much closer.  All in all, a great success.

Tonight Mark Anthony and I babysat the kids.  They were adorable.  But of course, Stanislas refused to go to sleep, so he sat up with us for a little while, listening to Norah Jones, watching the iTunes visualizer, and calling out all the different colors as they came on screen.  Adorable.

All that said.  No time to upload photos because I have work tomorrow morning AGAIN and it’s already way too late.

football

…is soccer.  Yes you all know that, but what you probably don’t know is that two nights ago I went to a soccer match with a group of my friends from the BU program, completely organized and coordinated by the one and only Mark Anthony himself.  And it was incredible.

The game started at 9pm, so I had just enough time to go home after work, change, and run off to Stade de France, a bit north of Paris.  I took the RER, essentially a commuter rail, since it’s faster and one of only three ways of getting there.  At my transfer, I ran into a HUGE CROWD of people, among them a group of 15ish guys in their late 20’s, all very drunk and very loud, singing and chanting praises to the French soccer team.

The trains for some reason were all SKIPPING the Stade de France stop, which seemed weird, until one showed up that was going ONLY to Stade de France.  Needless to say the entire crowd piled onto the train – slowly at first, but when the door-close buzzer sounded, everyone sort of lunged on and crushed those of us that had already made it on.  It was easily the tightliest-packed public transportation ride I’ve ever been a part of.

The loud group stayed loud for the entire ride, appropriately, and the people that got on at the next stop joined in to make the singing and chanting even louder.  When we finally got off, EVERYONE got off, which resulted in a sea of people all heading towards Stade de France, literally glowing ahead of us down the street a ways.  I have a picture, if I remember I’ll put it up later after I download it from my camera.

The game was überfun, we had great seats offset behindish one of the goals, and France was playing really well for a good majority of the game.  Lithuania started coming back after halftime, but France ended up scoring somewhere around the 75th minute, and they held the one – nothing lead the rest of the game.

The most impressive part of the whole experience was the crowd’s sense of French nationality – so much so that it had ME feeling French by the end of the game.  The first few thousand (or seemingly so) people that arrived received French flags and balloons, red white & blue, to wave at specific times throughout the match (and/or whenever they so chose) – and the ENTIRE stadium sang the national anthem.  It was so uplifting, even for me as an outsider, to see that sort of unity.  That said, it’s now dinner time here with my host family: update on the internship to follow.

angel

I hate bloggers that go “so I haven’t blogged in a while, but…” so I typically try to avoid doing so.  …  Fail.  [Edit: note how often I used “so” in that sentence.  Unacceptable.]

Today at 3pm I had another interview because (drum roll): I left my old internship and EUSA has found me a new one.  (Aimee vous êtes ange!)  The interview went very well, and I’m starting tomorrow morning at 10am!  I’m very excited about this one, and the people seem like a blast.

In other news, I grabbed a spoon just now from the kitchen drawer to eat my yogurt.  The spoon had green and black stuff caked on it.  I didn’t realize this until after I ate the first spoonful of yogurt.  I promptly returned to the kitchen and replaced my spoon.  Since then, my yogurt has tasted much better.

One final note: my baseball cap is making a comeback (casquette, in French).  I avoided wearing it in Paris for over two months because it was terribly American.  Yes, it’s still terribly American, but I’ve worn it four or five days now in the past week.  And I lovit.  And I’m going to continue to wear it.  Take that, France.

thoughts

Quelques pensées:

• I just found that I had a Rome summary written and saved as a draft on WordPress.  Oops.
• Blogs and blog networks are scary things to get sucked into.  Relatedly, I want to use Tumblr on a regular basis but I just don’t have the means in Paris.
• Room-temperature cider is not bad; room-temperature beer is very bad.
• I should work on my posture.

Internship news in the works, stay tuned.

cheap

Bon marché, or pas cher.  As it were, the French don’t have a solitary word for cheap.  How… appropriate?

There’s an event all over Paris, possibly all over France but I haven’t the foggiest, to hail the beginning of spring.  And they do so by making all movie theater ticket prices 3.50€, for everyone, at any time.  It seems a little backwards to me – they celebrate a season of good weather and sunshine by sitting around inside in the dark.  Ok maybe it’s assuming that it will rain CONTINUOUSLY for the entire season, right from the beginning.

This is all to say that today, although I got out of work at 7:40pm, I went to two movies.  LOL (Laughing Out Loud) is a French drama/comedy, and a very happy and entertaining one at that.  The Burning Plain on the other hand was a drama/not comedy and very intense.  It was written by the same guy that wrote Babel – and it was very obviously his kind of film.  But it was very good, I thought, and I suggest it to anyone who gets the opportunity… especially everyone in Paris that can see it in the theater for 3.50€!

So now I have a bunch of stuff to do tonight and tomorrow morning, so I’ll be exhausted come my second bout of moviegoing tomorrow evening.  Whew, but it’s so worth it!

irene

Irène came to Paris on Thursday night and has since been sleeping on my floor.  My host parents are the best.

But let me jump back.  Monday evening, Sarah + Mark Andrew + Pat + Quentin + Jill + Mark Anthony + myself all went to a jazz club called Studio de l’Ermitage.  The Sketches septet was playing: 2 saxes, keys, drums, (electric) bass, guitar, & vocals.  They were very eclectic – Jill and Mark Anthony hated it, and were obvious about it.  I didn’t hate it, but they were definitely not one of the better bands I’ve heard so far… they just didn’t mesh well.  But it was cool, and nice to see Sarah and her friends!

Tuesday was St. Patty’s day – I again tried to meet Sarah and failed.  It was a terrible day.  Wednesday was better: Mark Anthony and I went down to their hostel and luckily caught Sarah & Mark Andrew before they went out, so we joined them at dinner and helped translate for them.  It was fun. : )

Now then, Thursday was good and Irene came.  My host family had made us dinner, and gave Irene dessert when she showed up later that evening.  Later after we’d gone to bed and turned the lights out, apparently Irene was telling me a story… I responded for a while, then suddenly I had passed out.  This was to become a recurring theme of our late night conversations this weekend.

Friday was a good day, in comparison, at my internship.  I had plenty to do throughout the day, and then one of the guys that works in the same office – but a different company – found out he had more money than he thought he had… somehow.  He bought a bottle of champagne and we ended a little early to toast his success.  Tchin!

Friday night, Sarah + Mark Andrew + Jill + Emily + Irene + myself went to Hippocampus for dinner.  It was a HUGE bill, but it was well worth it – the atmosphere there is always incredibly jovial and overwhelmingly friendly.  I’ll be back next week.

Saturday we got up and I for the first time ever went up the Eiffel Tower with Irene and her friends Sofia, Amy and Anna.  It was neat, but I think you get a better view from the second floor rather than all the way at the top.  I’m glad I did it, but I might not ever go so high up again – plus the second floor is free if you walk!  ; )

We picnicked on the Champ de Mars under the sun, and it was quite relaxing.  That’s what weekends are for; I’m convinced.  I then met Jill & Emily at the Jardin du Luxembourg, and wandered down to a café nearby where we sat and talked over a limonade for a couple of hours.  By the end of the two hours, Jill and I were both getting chills – and it turns out we both got sick?  I missed meeting Irene & friends, and Jill & Emily, and Mark Anthony & friends last night because I wasn’t feeling well.

But after 15 hours of sleep, I’m feeling considerably better.  None the less I bought myself a carton of both orange and grapefruit juice.  In the mean time feel better, Jill!  If you want some oj/gj you know where to find them.

lark

Alouette!  Like that song.  Or like the cheese spread: Mik Wat, here’s your shout out.  No, I didn’t find Alouette, but yes I did find garlic & herb cheese spread.  And I bought it.  And I’m eating it.  And it’s almost as good as Alouette.

Today was the first day I wore my baseball cap in Paris.  I didn’t wash my hair yesterday and didn’t have time for a shower this morning before the supermarket closed, so I ran out in my baseball cap and my popped leather jacket collar.  It felt good : ) I hadn’t done that in a while, and I miss that about Boston.

So a quick Roma summary for you: we arrived Wednesday night to a wet, coldish, very crabby Rome.  Well, I was crabby anyway – but thankfully that was the end of my disliking Rome.  We got pizza (and paid by the kilogram, wonderful idea on the Romans’ part), then a quick drink, and then we meandered the streets of Rome until 1 or 2am.  Luckily, we stumbled upon the Forum and the Colosseum, all moonlit and eery and amazing – it was so so so much cooler that night under the moon than during the day.

The next day we went to the Vatican, and it was neat.  Grandiose and ancient and almost overwhelming… we thought we’d see the Pope give mass, but it turns out there was some misunderstanding and it wasn’t going to be the Pope after all so we left.  After all, gelato was a pretty satisfying (and typical) backup if plans ever fell through.

That night we meet Alexandra, who immediately became our guide through the ancient city.  She showed us restaurant after cafe after bar, and they were all amazing and homey.  THANK YOU ALESSANDRA!  *cue friending her on Facebook*

Friday we revisited the Forum and Colosseum, this time with CHRISTINE from the French House at BU, and her friend Kate.  Like I said, less impressive in the sunlight, but at least now we had the company of others!  Friday night we had a terrible debacle in trying to find a restaurant.  When we finally did find one, they served poor Mark Anthony nothing but meat (on a Friday during Lent, thanks Romans).  In any case afterward we went to a bar with Christine & Kate, then met Alessandra again and she took us to an American bar – filled with Brits and Irishmen.  It was a good time.

Saturday we sat in a cafe all morning/afternoon until Mark Anthony and I had to go catch our flight back to Paris.  The rest of the day was relatively uneventful – until I tried to find my sister that night and failed.  Turns out she didn’t get in until the next day anyway, but I did meet her then and we got to spend a lot of time last week together.  It was a good thing she (and Mark Andrew her boyfriend) came too, or I don’t know how I would’ve made it through my first internship week.

iphone

I left my computer at work so I wouldn’t have to lug it around. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go cry myself to sleep.