Lesson # 243: The French could care less about US sports-- especially about baseball.
At 2:24 am Paris time, the Rockies launched their first attack on the Red Sox in their quest for the World Series title. I’m not enough of a baseball fan to sacrifice a few hours of necessary sleep but did make the effort to find out what time I would have had to wake up in order to get the feeds live online. After my 8am class this morning, I rushed to the nearest newspaper stand to grab the daily free “Matin Plus”—and flipped to the front page only to find—tennis. Tennis?! Really? Andy Roddick made the paper before the World Series? This is France.
As the internet was not working yet this morning, I am going to have to wait until 2 this afternoon (a full 12 hours after the game) to learn the fate of my team. I must acknowledge, however, that the California fires have made the cover for the past two days. It looks horrible and must be a sad situation for all of the people involved.
Winter has officially arrived. No snow, no rain, not even wind really…just that deep chill in your bones when you step outside-- the kind that makes gloves necessary. Parisians are out in their full uniform—overcoats, boots, huge blanket-like scarves, and even—though I thought it was a myth—berets! (I don’t understand berets: they don’t cover your ears, but I guess frozen ears are a side effect of fashion…right?!) The Versailles gardens close next Wednesday, so Carly and I are making our last supreme effort on Saturday to go and visit. (I can come back in the Spring—but Carly leaves for Montreal in February). We’ll just have to bundle up!
Curious how the strike ended? Well, it hadn’t as of Friday night when C and I needed to go home from class. We caught a tram and a bus for part of the way—but it still took us about 2 hours to drag our tired feet in our front door. The minute we arrived I received a call from some friends in Paris who were going out downtown near the only metro line that was running. Stranded and sore…we decided to rent a movie and saddle up with some Nutella. This is when we discovered how “dead” Sévres is. It is residential area…and though we found one little grocery store and were able to get the movie from a machine on the sidewalk—it was just another reminder that we were not in Paris. I love our running park and waking up on Sunday morning to a window looking out over gardens and families on their weekend walks but have decided to move back into Paris once C leaves. I couldn’t imagine a 2 hour walk by myself—though I’m sure I’d be fine. Saturday morning most lines were back to normal as the unions are now in negotiation. They are threatening another for mid-November—I’ll be at Lyndsey’s again!
The other news of the past week was “le rupture” and divorce of President Sarkozy and his wife, Cecilia. It was entertaining to see how it was presented in the media. Indeed, I had to scroll to the bottom of the webpage in the bottom right hand corner to see the headline in 10 pt. font and the only people that I actually discussed it with were Americans. This is not to say that it will go completely unnoticed (The cover of Elle magazine had a very distressed photo of Cecilia.) The French—especially Parisians—have a very different ideal of what is right or wrong in marriage. Many of them are still confused about the blowup over Monica Lewinsky. “What was the big deal?” Sarkozy was elected AFTER presiding over Cecilia’s marriage to her first husband, having an affair with her, marrying her, and then having a few other affairs while married. It is really funny to think of the way this event would have been portrayed in the US—I can just imagine Hilary (not that she will be elected) having an affair this next term---the SNL skits would be endless!
After a long week of exposés (I had another this week but it wasn’t as demanding), this last weekend was an attempt to reorganize everything. Determined to succeed— I hustled to the Montparnasse train station 2 separate times to finally emerge with tickets to Epernay---in the Champagne REGION! We also managed to book our hotel and Steph and I are VERY ready for a weekend in the vineyards-- only 8 days away! We are going to be spoiled—the hotel has a pool and a SHOWER!! I couldn’t be more ready for it. It will be over the weekend of our week-long reading break and I have (I counted yesterday) 7 required novels (not including the daily 30 pages of reading) to do before the end of the semester…time to get started.
My other major accomplishment: Supposedly (I refuse to believe it until it is in my hands) my metro pass (Carte ImagineR) is in the mail and will arrive within 7 days! After 4 e-mails, a poorly translated/very frustrated phone call, and a landlady intervention (she was unbelievable and must have spent about 20 minutes on the phone with them)—they acknowledged their mistake—they said it was delivered on September 28th!!—and are sending me my pass and said I can write a letter to be reimbursed for the month of October. Yes! I will finally not look like a tourist using paper stubs to get on the metro. Hold on…it’s not here yet…
I’m typing this from my little park near school (yes, the carousel is still running--) and my fingers have finally decided to stop bending—so on to some coffee and French lessons! Topic of the day: “Le Rupture de Sarkozy”!
**I just had a chance to check the news before posting this…poor Rockies! I have faith—it was just a bad day!!**
25 October 2007
19 October 2007
Yes, I AM sitting in a Starbucks right now…*Gasp*…I know, pathetic. J But with the events of the last 48 hours, I am not ashamed one bit. Plus, it is nice to order a “tall” and receive a coffee larger then my thumb AND they have an outlet where I can charge my laptop.
All week long we have been warned of the metro strike that was to take place on “Black Thursday,” yesterday. Classes resumed, work continued and people found their way into Paris one way or another. Transportation unions from all over the country marched in the streets near the Bastille claiming that retirement at 55 and full pension benefits weren’t quite enough. I spent the night at Lyndsey’s house in the 9th District. (It was still a 45 minute walk to class, but it was better then the 2-hours I would have had to walk from Sevres.) Lyndsey is in the same 8am class as me so we had an early start. Even though we had to walk the entire way in the dark (The sun doesn’t rise on Paris until just before 8), the overall atmosphere was almost festive. We joined hundreds of other Parisians on their way to class and work, crossing the Seine together with the first break of dawn. My French professor wasn’t able to make it in for my 12:45 class because she lived in the suburbs (near me) but my 5pm presentation on Queen Elizabeth I went on without interruption.
Other then a few hundred extra people and bicycles in the streets, the day went on pretty normally. It wasn’t until after I emerged at 7pm from my Great British History course that I realized what living in the suburbs REALLY means. When the strike didn’t end at 4pm as originally indicated and when the man at the window of the metro station told me that there was no telling when the strike would end now, it finally started to make me a bit annoyed. I had two options: 1) to lug my laptop, backpack (with 2 textbooks), and bag of clothes from the night before, 2 hours across Paris and into the suburbs in the dark OR 2) to call Lyndsey and wander the 45 minutes back up to Montmartre. Seeing as I still had no idea when the strike would end and I had class the next day, I imposed myself on Lyndsey’s seemingly unending hospitality yet again. On Wednesday night, we planned it all out and had whipped up the closest thing to a homemade American pizza we could come up with and watched an Audrey Hepburn film-- but last night we settled for cereal and Gilmore Girls reruns. As I hadn’t expected to spend two nights in Paris, I hadn’t brought the text I needed to prepare for my class today at 2:45 so I was perfectly content to spend a night relaxing and chatting about American sports (Lyndsey is from Florida—and is justified in her UF-pride). I’m hoping that my professor will understand and NOT give a pop quiz today. As of now, only a few metros are running (and on very limited schedules...none of which, however, in the direction of Sevres). Poor Carly was trapped in Sevres all day yesterday (luckily her class WAS cancelled) and will have to make the 2 hour walk this morning to our class this afternoon. I’m counting on the lines opening up again after class but if not, we can wander home together tonight.
This week has been full of obstacles—but most of them my own making. So instead of complaining, I just get to laugh. Right now the laughs are the frustrated kind, the ones you feel in the pit of your stomach, but in a few months or weeks even, I’m sure I’ll think they really are funny. I signed up to present in two classes this last week. This explains my absence. From Sunday morning until Monday at 5pm (when I had to leave for Climbing), Carly and I were hermits in Sevres, working and researching, running and sleeping. For my presentation on Queen Elizabeth I, my teacher had recommended a novel to be one of the 20 sources I was to reference. After searching for the book in 2 English bookstores and the Sciences Po library, and coming up fruitless, I was thrilled to find the 250 page book on an online library and spent much of the weekend staring at my computer screen. On Tuesday afternoon, I finished and decided to find the citation for my bibliography. You can only imagine my frustration when I found that the book I had been reading had been mislabeled and that I had spent a beautiful weekend INSIDE reading the WRONG book! I spent 4 hours that afternoon scrambling from bookstore to library to bookstore all over Paris completely unsuccessful, and returned home at 10pm to write a long letter to my professor and then to complete my other presentation to be given the next morning at 8am.
24 hours later, I was sitting on Lyndsey’s bed watching Audrey Hepburn finally able to relax. My presentation that morning went well, my professor had e-mailed back completely supportive of the research I had done and told me to go ahead and present on what I had already read, and I had spent 6 hours in the library typing up the dreaded mess of thing. Funny enough, I am now more then ever, interested in Queen Elizabeth and even ordered the correct book online to read later this semester. So that was obstacle number 1.
Obstacle number 2 is perhaps the biggest head-banger—most likely because it has yet to be solved. The week of October 31st, we have a “reading break” from school and Steph (who has the same break) and I thought we would use a bit of it to see another part of France and take a break from the city. We decided on a trip to the Champagne region because it is close and tickets are pretty cheap. Yesterday afternoon I went to book the train tickets online. I unknowingly typed the destination as “Champagne” in reference to the region, booked the tickets, paid for them, and checked the confirmation e-mail only to find that I had indeed booked tickets to Champagne, Champagne the city---in Normandy (it is an itsy bitsy town near the west coast, no where near the vineyards and rolling hills just outside of Paris)!! The website says that I should be able to exchange or cancel them for reimbursement but is not working properly—so, this afternoon, I get to WALK—no metro—to the nearest train station…all because I don’t know my geography.
This week hasn’t been ALL stress though: On Saturday, C, L, and I went to the annual wine harvest festival in Montmartre. The streets were lined with wine vendors, cheese vendors, escargot vendors, roasted chestnut vendors, musicians, costumed actors, etc…all surrounding Sacre Coeur. The festival lasted the entire weekend and I think that at one point or another every Parisian probably wandered over. Normally I would say that crowds and full glasses of red wine don’t mix, but as always, Parisians have a natural grace and we left a few hours later, completely stainless. If you are ever in Paris during the 3rd week of October, you can’t miss this. It was Paris in all of its glory.
To add to this already patriotic day, we rushed over to the Champs de Mars (the park under the Eiffel Tower) at 6pm—still 3 hours before the kick off of the France-England semi-finals rugby match—only to squish onto a blanket with a few friends who had set up an hour earlier. The field was packed, another complement to the Parisians—they can always fit 1 more in to a metro, building, field…no matter how squished you may think it is. Thousands and thousands of rugby fans decked out in blue and red (though some of the red were British), carrying, berets and cardboard swords, and armed with baguettes, cheese, wine--and more McDonald carry-out bags then I want to recognize—all SAT down to watch the game. I have never seen this anywhere else. If you stood up, you were immediately berated by dozens of angry fans—if you know better, you stay put—no bathroom breaks, no stretching…this is serious stuff. Even though France lost, it was still one of my favorite experiences so far. When we left, we had to walk in zigzags all the way to the metro as the ground was absolutely covered in trash, bottles, empty McDonald bags, etc…Somebody else would clean it up before the morning---they love their parks too much.
Carly and I with at our wine-tastings!
All week long we have been warned of the metro strike that was to take place on “Black Thursday,” yesterday. Classes resumed, work continued and people found their way into Paris one way or another. Transportation unions from all over the country marched in the streets near the Bastille claiming that retirement at 55 and full pension benefits weren’t quite enough. I spent the night at Lyndsey’s house in the 9th District. (It was still a 45 minute walk to class, but it was better then the 2-hours I would have had to walk from Sevres.) Lyndsey is in the same 8am class as me so we had an early start. Even though we had to walk the entire way in the dark (The sun doesn’t rise on Paris until just before 8), the overall atmosphere was almost festive. We joined hundreds of other Parisians on their way to class and work, crossing the Seine together with the first break of dawn. My French professor wasn’t able to make it in for my 12:45 class because she lived in the suburbs (near me) but my 5pm presentation on Queen Elizabeth I went on without interruption.
Other then a few hundred extra people and bicycles in the streets, the day went on pretty normally. It wasn’t until after I emerged at 7pm from my Great British History course that I realized what living in the suburbs REALLY means. When the strike didn’t end at 4pm as originally indicated and when the man at the window of the metro station told me that there was no telling when the strike would end now, it finally started to make me a bit annoyed. I had two options: 1) to lug my laptop, backpack (with 2 textbooks), and bag of clothes from the night before, 2 hours across Paris and into the suburbs in the dark OR 2) to call Lyndsey and wander the 45 minutes back up to Montmartre. Seeing as I still had no idea when the strike would end and I had class the next day, I imposed myself on Lyndsey’s seemingly unending hospitality yet again. On Wednesday night, we planned it all out and had whipped up the closest thing to a homemade American pizza we could come up with and watched an Audrey Hepburn film-- but last night we settled for cereal and Gilmore Girls reruns. As I hadn’t expected to spend two nights in Paris, I hadn’t brought the text I needed to prepare for my class today at 2:45 so I was perfectly content to spend a night relaxing and chatting about American sports (Lyndsey is from Florida—and is justified in her UF-pride). I’m hoping that my professor will understand and NOT give a pop quiz today. As of now, only a few metros are running (and on very limited schedules...none of which, however, in the direction of Sevres). Poor Carly was trapped in Sevres all day yesterday (luckily her class WAS cancelled) and will have to make the 2 hour walk this morning to our class this afternoon. I’m counting on the lines opening up again after class but if not, we can wander home together tonight.
This week has been full of obstacles—but most of them my own making. So instead of complaining, I just get to laugh. Right now the laughs are the frustrated kind, the ones you feel in the pit of your stomach, but in a few months or weeks even, I’m sure I’ll think they really are funny. I signed up to present in two classes this last week. This explains my absence. From Sunday morning until Monday at 5pm (when I had to leave for Climbing), Carly and I were hermits in Sevres, working and researching, running and sleeping. For my presentation on Queen Elizabeth I, my teacher had recommended a novel to be one of the 20 sources I was to reference. After searching for the book in 2 English bookstores and the Sciences Po library, and coming up fruitless, I was thrilled to find the 250 page book on an online library and spent much of the weekend staring at my computer screen. On Tuesday afternoon, I finished and decided to find the citation for my bibliography. You can only imagine my frustration when I found that the book I had been reading had been mislabeled and that I had spent a beautiful weekend INSIDE reading the WRONG book! I spent 4 hours that afternoon scrambling from bookstore to library to bookstore all over Paris completely unsuccessful, and returned home at 10pm to write a long letter to my professor and then to complete my other presentation to be given the next morning at 8am.
24 hours later, I was sitting on Lyndsey’s bed watching Audrey Hepburn finally able to relax. My presentation that morning went well, my professor had e-mailed back completely supportive of the research I had done and told me to go ahead and present on what I had already read, and I had spent 6 hours in the library typing up the dreaded mess of thing. Funny enough, I am now more then ever, interested in Queen Elizabeth and even ordered the correct book online to read later this semester. So that was obstacle number 1.
Obstacle number 2 is perhaps the biggest head-banger—most likely because it has yet to be solved. The week of October 31st, we have a “reading break” from school and Steph (who has the same break) and I thought we would use a bit of it to see another part of France and take a break from the city. We decided on a trip to the Champagne region because it is close and tickets are pretty cheap. Yesterday afternoon I went to book the train tickets online. I unknowingly typed the destination as “Champagne” in reference to the region, booked the tickets, paid for them, and checked the confirmation e-mail only to find that I had indeed booked tickets to Champagne, Champagne the city---in Normandy (it is an itsy bitsy town near the west coast, no where near the vineyards and rolling hills just outside of Paris)!! The website says that I should be able to exchange or cancel them for reimbursement but is not working properly—so, this afternoon, I get to WALK—no metro—to the nearest train station…all because I don’t know my geography.
This week hasn’t been ALL stress though: On Saturday, C, L, and I went to the annual wine harvest festival in Montmartre. The streets were lined with wine vendors, cheese vendors, escargot vendors, roasted chestnut vendors, musicians, costumed actors, etc…all surrounding Sacre Coeur. The festival lasted the entire weekend and I think that at one point or another every Parisian probably wandered over. Normally I would say that crowds and full glasses of red wine don’t mix, but as always, Parisians have a natural grace and we left a few hours later, completely stainless. If you are ever in Paris during the 3rd week of October, you can’t miss this. It was Paris in all of its glory.
To add to this already patriotic day, we rushed over to the Champs de Mars (the park under the Eiffel Tower) at 6pm—still 3 hours before the kick off of the France-England semi-finals rugby match—only to squish onto a blanket with a few friends who had set up an hour earlier. The field was packed, another complement to the Parisians—they can always fit 1 more in to a metro, building, field…no matter how squished you may think it is. Thousands and thousands of rugby fans decked out in blue and red (though some of the red were British), carrying, berets and cardboard swords, and armed with baguettes, cheese, wine--and more McDonald carry-out bags then I want to recognize—all SAT down to watch the game. I have never seen this anywhere else. If you stood up, you were immediately berated by dozens of angry fans—if you know better, you stay put—no bathroom breaks, no stretching…this is serious stuff. Even though France lost, it was still one of my favorite experiences so far. When we left, we had to walk in zigzags all the way to the metro as the ground was absolutely covered in trash, bottles, empty McDonald bags, etc…Somebody else would clean it up before the morning---they love their parks too much.
Ready for the big match hours ahead of time...seriously thousands of people.
Lyndsey and Carly REALLY got into...I'm proud to say I didn't quite look like that. Ha!
I also got a chance to show some Colorado spirit this week when I received an e-mail from my family---ROCKIES WON!! WE ARE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES!! When I finally made it to school on Tuesday morning and had a chance to share my excitement, I was met by blank stares and “what’s the World Series?!”—Okay, I guess this is something I have to save for the Americans. So, this is a shout out to back home for our wild card of a team. Go Rockies!
Carly and I with at our wine-tastings!
11 October 2007
The park next to the Metro Sévres-Babylone is not the prettiest one that I have visited, but it the closest to my class and so it has become the perfect place to come to relax on my crazy Thursdays. I have 4 classes today and each runs 2 hours so I am trying to soak in as much of Paris as possible between lectures. Fall has officially arrived here and the ground is covered with crunchy brown leaves—in contrast, the leaves on the trees are still green, I think they must die and fall off overnight because I do not see much “fall color”.
This park is next to the Bon Marché—the “designer” shopping center that I wandered into my first week amidst glares at my blue jeans—so the clientele of the park are very fashionable and mainly use it as a shortcut from one street to the next. There is a carrousel, as there are in most parks here, but on a gray weekday afternoon there are no children to keep it going. It is still staffed though and I wonder what one would be paid to sit in an empty park all day waiting for someone to slide into on to the back of Minnie or Mickey Mouse. It wouldn’t be a very exciting job, but I don’t think I would mind it.
Today is my long day my 2nd week of classes. Yes—this blog is going to describe my courses (since that is how I spending the majority of my time) so if it doesn’t interest you, you want to skip this one. J I am taking seven—all in English except for the French Language course. I absolutely love them all. I’m one of only a few international students taking all of my courses in English and have received criticism from some of the other students for this: my justification—I need these courses for graduation and am certain that any class I would take in French would not present me with a passing final grade. I am hoping that next semester I will feel more confident and be able to take one or two. The great thing about taking them in English though is that half of my class is comprised of French students and they are much more open to talk international students who speak the language. Also, the courses in English are widely considered to be much better/more interesting. Seeing as I am happy with them all, I agree!
I had my first exposé yesterday morning and presented with a French girl. When I arrived to meet with her on Monday morning, the first thing she said was “Ah, you brought your computer! Everyone told me that Americans always work on computers!” It turns out that I was the sole exception though as I had brought my computer for another class and had prepared on paper. It turns out that our methods of preparation (mine with a more historical and analytical perspective and hers with a more detailed, structured and rhetoric oriented one) combined perfectly and I think went really well. We’ll have to wait to find out. It was pretty cool to see what the differences in our educational backgrounds brought out. Even though I was the native English speaker, her vocabulary was much better then mine!
Each of my classes meets once a week for two hours and since I am taking 7 courses plus a sport, I have 16 hours of class time a week. This isn’t any more then back home but I’ve found that I have much less free time—the difference being that we are required to do much more background research on our own. We have obligatory readings for each course and then at least one presentation and essay during the semester. The real focus, however, is on the final which can range anywhere from an in-class dissertation to a 10 page research paper and usually accounts for at least 50% of your final grade in the course. In 2 of my courses, it accounts for 70%! To prepare for these, you are given a long list of recommended books and assumed to read a few of them, taking notes and developing theories. I think it is a good way to learn because in the end you are being tested on what you really understand, but it is also very time consuming—and for a girl who is in Europe for only one year, it is hard to say “no” to the Museé d’Orsay and instead go home to read about French Foreign Policy from 1870-Present.
BUT it must be done and so my adventures will have to wait for the weekends and 2-hour breaks between class….
The carousel just started for the first time in the hour that I have been here and I’m starting to really consider the profession of “carousel operator”—I think I would trade “the rise of Cardinal Richelieu” for Mickey Mouse—but just for one day.
This park is next to the Bon Marché—the “designer” shopping center that I wandered into my first week amidst glares at my blue jeans—so the clientele of the park are very fashionable and mainly use it as a shortcut from one street to the next. There is a carrousel, as there are in most parks here, but on a gray weekday afternoon there are no children to keep it going. It is still staffed though and I wonder what one would be paid to sit in an empty park all day waiting for someone to slide into on to the back of Minnie or Mickey Mouse. It wouldn’t be a very exciting job, but I don’t think I would mind it.
Today is my long day my 2nd week of classes. Yes—this blog is going to describe my courses (since that is how I spending the majority of my time) so if it doesn’t interest you, you want to skip this one. J I am taking seven—all in English except for the French Language course. I absolutely love them all. I’m one of only a few international students taking all of my courses in English and have received criticism from some of the other students for this: my justification—I need these courses for graduation and am certain that any class I would take in French would not present me with a passing final grade. I am hoping that next semester I will feel more confident and be able to take one or two. The great thing about taking them in English though is that half of my class is comprised of French students and they are much more open to talk international students who speak the language. Also, the courses in English are widely considered to be much better/more interesting. Seeing as I am happy with them all, I agree!
I had my first exposé yesterday morning and presented with a French girl. When I arrived to meet with her on Monday morning, the first thing she said was “Ah, you brought your computer! Everyone told me that Americans always work on computers!” It turns out that I was the sole exception though as I had brought my computer for another class and had prepared on paper. It turns out that our methods of preparation (mine with a more historical and analytical perspective and hers with a more detailed, structured and rhetoric oriented one) combined perfectly and I think went really well. We’ll have to wait to find out. It was pretty cool to see what the differences in our educational backgrounds brought out. Even though I was the native English speaker, her vocabulary was much better then mine!
Each of my classes meets once a week for two hours and since I am taking 7 courses plus a sport, I have 16 hours of class time a week. This isn’t any more then back home but I’ve found that I have much less free time—the difference being that we are required to do much more background research on our own. We have obligatory readings for each course and then at least one presentation and essay during the semester. The real focus, however, is on the final which can range anywhere from an in-class dissertation to a 10 page research paper and usually accounts for at least 50% of your final grade in the course. In 2 of my courses, it accounts for 70%! To prepare for these, you are given a long list of recommended books and assumed to read a few of them, taking notes and developing theories. I think it is a good way to learn because in the end you are being tested on what you really understand, but it is also very time consuming—and for a girl who is in Europe for only one year, it is hard to say “no” to the Museé d’Orsay and instead go home to read about French Foreign Policy from 1870-Present.
BUT it must be done and so my adventures will have to wait for the weekends and 2-hour breaks between class….
The carousel just started for the first time in the hour that I have been here and I’m starting to really consider the profession of “carousel operator”—I think I would trade “the rise of Cardinal Richelieu” for Mickey Mouse—but just for one day.
These are pictures from the park I run in:
The French are serious about their gardens: this means no dogs, no bikes, no picnics, no... :)
03 October 2007
I’m sitting in the Jardin de Tuileries right now typing away. There is no wireless but I can post this later. Dozens of men keep walking by me carrying clipboards and blackberries. If their overcoats don’t give them away, then their velvet shoes do… They are headed straight for the tents behind me, as did the super thin perfectly dressed girl model who sat next to me on the metro and got off at the same stop.
This week is Paris Fashion week and I decided to get out to get some fresh Paris air (which includes being strangled by the smoke of the cigarette of the man who just sat down on my bench) and see if I could spot any celebrities. Supposedly Kirsten Dunst is here. Right now is the Christian LaCroix show and I saw about 6 horses prancing around backstage with models on them… Saturday is the real day however and I plan to return at 3:30 to stake out my spot for the Chloe show...if only to steal one of the bags.
I’ll be here for Saturday night for sure. It is “Nuit Blanche” in Paris. A holiday that I am not sure I quite understand yet but tried to explain to the Australian tourists asking me about all of the temporary steel lanterns in various sculpted shapes lining the whole park. From what I’ve heard, on October 6th Paris does not go to sleep…meaning that a bunch of museums, concerts, pubs restaurants, parks, etc will be open to the public all night long. It is a new holiday started by the government only a few years ago after seeing the success of a similar event in Toronto. Here’s the wikipedia explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuit_Blanche
This week is Paris Fashion week and I decided to get out to get some fresh Paris air (which includes being strangled by the smoke of the cigarette of the man who just sat down on my bench) and see if I could spot any celebrities. Supposedly Kirsten Dunst is here. Right now is the Christian LaCroix show and I saw about 6 horses prancing around backstage with models on them… Saturday is the real day however and I plan to return at 3:30 to stake out my spot for the Chloe show...if only to steal one of the bags.
I’ll be here for Saturday night for sure. It is “Nuit Blanche” in Paris. A holiday that I am not sure I quite understand yet but tried to explain to the Australian tourists asking me about all of the temporary steel lanterns in various sculpted shapes lining the whole park. From what I’ve heard, on October 6th Paris does not go to sleep…meaning that a bunch of museums, concerts, pubs restaurants, parks, etc will be open to the public all night long. It is a new holiday started by the government only a few years ago after seeing the success of a similar event in Toronto. Here’s the wikipedia explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuit_Blanche
Pics From my Nuit Blanche Adventure:
Lanterns in the shape of a giant ball in the Jardin de Tuileries.
The fountain outside Versailles.
Nuit Blanche focuses on "artsy" elements: Still not sure whether white tank tops with lights inside qualify as art--but it was pretty!
Pictures and Disney story to come. For now...I've posted the link to a video Carly and I made of our new appartment to the right.
02 October 2007
I’m writing this while sitting in MY place for the next year. After a weekend inevitably filled with surprises and the usual red tape, I now have my own little window (actually 4) in France.
I finally decided it was a good time finish the looong September 9th post so that you can see the story behind the whole thing. For those of you who are interested I have changed the color of the new paragraphs to blue so that you can go back and find it. If you don’t really feel like reading an epic tale right now, you can just keep reading from here.
So Friday was moving day. In Paris, this means one of two things—Either you call a cab, load it up, and pay a month’s worth of groceries to shuttle you directly to your new place (an option that I am considering very much now for the next move) OR you call of all of your friends, each grab one or two bags and hop on the metro. In our case, option number 2 was the winner and included 4 girls, 2 BIG suitcases, a very heavy duffel, a backpacking backpack, 4 shopping bags and taking the tram to a bus to the metro to another bus. Or so we thought--- but of course France ALWAYS throws in surprises and last bus trip turned into a 20 minute trek across the Seine, uphill, and up 60 stairs IN THE RAIN. We arrived at our front gate, with wet hair and feet, to the sound of my duffel (that had decided it had finally had enough) separating from its wheeled frame and flopping onto the drenched ground.
It is so good to finally be here though. My pictures are up, everything is unpacked and I no longer have to shuttle across the hall to use the bathroom. Finally…home?!
Our internet is still not set up but hopefully tonight?! For now, I will write and post when I get to school... just wait until you hear about EURODISNEY...yes---I'm leaving you to hang in anticipation.
I finally decided it was a good time finish the looong September 9th post so that you can see the story behind the whole thing. For those of you who are interested I have changed the color of the new paragraphs to blue so that you can go back and find it. If you don’t really feel like reading an epic tale right now, you can just keep reading from here.
So Friday was moving day. In Paris, this means one of two things—Either you call a cab, load it up, and pay a month’s worth of groceries to shuttle you directly to your new place (an option that I am considering very much now for the next move) OR you call of all of your friends, each grab one or two bags and hop on the metro. In our case, option number 2 was the winner and included 4 girls, 2 BIG suitcases, a very heavy duffel, a backpacking backpack, 4 shopping bags and taking the tram to a bus to the metro to another bus. Or so we thought--- but of course France ALWAYS throws in surprises and last bus trip turned into a 20 minute trek across the Seine, uphill, and up 60 stairs IN THE RAIN. We arrived at our front gate, with wet hair and feet, to the sound of my duffel (that had decided it had finally had enough) separating from its wheeled frame and flopping onto the drenched ground.
It is so good to finally be here though. My pictures are up, everything is unpacked and I no longer have to shuttle across the hall to use the bathroom. Finally…home?!
Our internet is still not set up but hopefully tonight?! For now, I will write and post when I get to school... just wait until you hear about EURODISNEY...yes---I'm leaving you to hang in anticipation.
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