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!!**