Strasbourg: Capitale de Noël

On Saturday I joined le Chef, Pomegrenade, and another friend in Strasbourg, Alsace. Christmas markets are a big event here in France, and while Paris has its own on the Champs Élysées, Strasbourg is known for going all out when 'tis the season.

First stop after my train pulled in was a patisserie where we plotted our very stealthy entrance into the hotel. A word to the wise: the Strasbourg Best Western takes its policy of not letting 4 people stay in a double very seriously. While we discussed, I chowed down on a bûchette de noël and some combination of fondue and pastry shell called a frillon (sp?) After a nap we were ready for some shopping! I made few super secret purchases and soon we were all freezing. After searching high and low for salad (veggies were very much in order after the frillon - French for heart attack wrapped in deliciousness), we found some vin chaud which was tangy and spiced and most importantly warm. We took turns holding it in our little mittened hands.



The next day we did more serious Christmas Shopping and made the requisite visit to the cathedral. It was very nice, very large, very medieval. When we got there, a children's concert was just ending. French children singing Feliz Navidad was pretty adorable. For dinner we had couscous, which came in enormous cauldrons that could have fed a family of six. We messed up and ordered 3. After that we wandered around looking for nightlife and admiring the lights. Great lights, no nightlife. The next day it started snowing buckets in Paris.

Monet in the Morning

Those of you who know me know that, in my world, there are few things worth getting up early for. One of them is Monet.

The Grand Palais is hosting an absolutely epic exhibit of Monet's work from 1840 to 1926 between now and January 24. The excellently curated exposition is great not only because it follows almost his entire career, but also because so much of his work plays with subtle variations of light. Thus Haystacks (Midday) is much more interesting when you can compare it with Haystacks at the End of Summer, Morning Effect. Since the former hangs in Australia while the other is in the Musée d'Orsay most of the time, this is a rare opportunity!

Now I just have to get over to l'Orangerie and the Musée Marmottan!

Cultureshock

Okay, one more week and then it's Christmas Break and this blog will get more exciting. For now though, I'm not doing much besides studying, Facebook, and the occasional pastry with friends (which I will post about later).

In honor of exam week, here is a list of a few of the things I have learned this semester:

1. How to navigate les piscines municipales

For 1,70 students can swim as long as they like and take a warm (though not private) shower in a warm building. A proper swimsuit and swim cap is all that's required. Hop under the requisite shower, walk through the foot-cleaning pond, then just pick a lane in the pool. If you bump into someone, just say excusez-moi and swim away.

Warning: Ladies, everyone who works there is male, and they won't knock before entering the locker room (not that there's a door anyway) There are a few private changing rooms, though.

Click here for more info about public pools in Paris

2. Poireaux, fromage de chèvre, St. Honorés, courgette, café espresso - these are a few of my favorite things

Leeks, goat cheese, the most amazing pastry you've ever seen, zucchini/strange pumpkin-looking squash, espresso.

There are books, blogs, paintings, and movies dedicated to french food, so I won't try to sum up my experience with it in this list, but these are some of the things I had never tried before coming here, and now I don't know if I could make it a week without them.

There are some pretty hilarious and wise food bloggers in Paris right now, two that le Chef turned me on to are David Lebovitz and Clotilde.

3. It is never that simple.

It's all about the logic, baby. All of the assignments I've received in my parisian classes have intimidating names - the compte rendu, dissertation, synthese de texte, résumé, explication du texte. What do they all have in common? They all mean, more or less, "read & summarize." No one in France is interested in your interpretation. It's all about the author's logic, and how well you can keep up.

That being said, not all summaries are created equal. The résumé involves summarizing while keeping the tone and point of view of the narrator. The explication du texte hinges on choosing the right 3 examples to demonstrate the thématique of the text. In the compte rendu you do actually get to state what you did or did not like about the text, but you better have a damn good reason why you found it touchant.

Other things that aren't so simple:

• Crossing the street - Why why why would you have the two walk/don't walk signs on either side of the very tiny median on different rhythms??
• Showering - The claw foot tub is beautiful, but I don't have time to run a bath and there's no shower curtain.
• Staying in the country - Searching every tabac in Paris frantically for official stamp - 3 hours; required stamp for immigration documents - 55 euros; printing costs for a housing attestation signed by my host mom to be attached to an electricity bill from the last 6 months- 10 centimes, stress pimples; being ordered to undress before getting pushed against a wall and zapped with radiation by a public health official in the required TB exam - priceless.

4. Franchement, mon chéri, je m'en fous.

This roughly translates as "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," and sometimes, in a crowded, overly complicated city like Paris, it's a necessary sentiment. The French are generally extremely polite, so sometimes it seems to take a willful oblivion to make it through the forced intimacy of the sardine-can metro, past the hoards of beggars (often with strategically cute animals), through the never-ending queues and home safe without having a nervous breakdown. Also handy for when people make fun of your accent, or you've just done something gauche like swimming into that lady at the piscine - What was she doing in my lane, anyway?

5. Parisians are very, very nice.

Sure, they don't smile at random people like we do in some parts of the States, and they don't particularly appreciate it when tourists assume they speak English, but if you brush up your best "Excusez-moi, Monsieur/Madame. Vous parlez anglais?" you'll almost always get what you need. Ask someone for directions and they may very well lead you where you need to be. Look worried/scared or flirtatious/conspiratorial and the world is your oyster. Just be polite.

6. Romance ≠ Love

One of the things many visitors note on arrival in the City of Love is the rampant PDA. That couple making out between the vending machines and the homeless man in the métro station? The ones that look like they'll elope any second? They could be on their third date. The French are in love with Love, and they are more than willing to fake it 'til they make it (and if all those couples in the métro are going home together, they sure make it a lot).

7. The 35-hour work week is a myth.

True, it is hard to fire a French employee, and they do take longer lunch breaks, but most white collar workers don't get home until 8 p.m. these days. They do take vacations and keep their weekends private, but during the work week, it's a little scary.

8. They aren't all that skinny

My first week here I read an article that cited a statistic about France's growing obesity problem. Le snacking as well as le Macdo (McDonald's) have caught on, and by 2020 French obesity rates will probably equal America's. While it's clear that French women do get fat, there are still plenty of Audrey Hepburn lookalikes running around.

Mireille Guiliano is a wealth of advice on how to avoid becoming grosse

9. "Good advice" is highly subjective.

A sample of questions and responses from recent issues of Femina magazine:

Q: My adolescent son's girlfriend showed up at our breakfast table wearing one of his shirts as pajamas! I don't want share my tartines with her! What do I do?

A: Lay down the law, but you and your spouse should consider clearing out once a month to give the young lovers their space. If your son complains, remind him that if the nest is too comfortable, one never leaves it.

Q: My ex, the father of my 6 year old child, refuses to pay any attention to his little girl. This saddens and confuses my daughter, who doesn't understand why her daddy doesn't love her. How do I get him to take an interest?

A: I sense that you aren't really over your ex. The real question here is: Why haven't you found someone else yet? Find a man who can love and take care of both of you, that's the best way to provide a father figure for your daughter.

I love Paris (even) when it drizzles...

The rain in Paris inspires a wide range of emotions in people. In creative types, this leads to very diverse outputs. Voilà some of my favorite crappy weather pieces:



I love Ella.

Black Stone Lying on a White Stone

I will die in Paris, on a rainy day,
on some day I can already remember.
I will die in Paris--and I don't step aside--
perhaps on a Thursday, as today is Thursday, in autumn.

It will be a Thursday, because today, Thursday, setting down
these lines, I have put my upper arm bones on
wrong, and never so much as today have I found myself
with all the road ahead of me, alone.

César Vallejo is dead. Everyone beat him
although he never does anything to them;
they beat him hard with a stick and hard also

with a rope. These are the witnesses:
the Thursdays, and the bones of my arms,
the solitude, and the rain, and the roads. . .

-César Vallejo

Barcelone

The day I arrived in Paris the weather was perfect. Then, fall came a bit late, but come it did and we are in what can only be described as hiver. That is to say yucky weather, and lots of it.

The sun comes up at 7h45 and sets at 17h30. (Oh yes, military time, just to make things exciting, the French like to switch back and forth.) In between it is mostly gray, cold, and pitifully damp. It's like the sky is so depressed it can't even be bothered to rain properly -- either that or it has a cold. It's OK, I keep telling myself, I was prepared for this, but honestly, I've been spending a lot more time on Facebook than I like to admit.

Anyway, my friend Pomegrenade (OK, the pseudonyms are getting a bit tiresome, but switching now would probably get confusing) and I were granted a reprieve from all that last weekend. We originally tried to go to Barcelona Halloween weekend, but with all the grèves, flights were cancelled. So, take two, we hoped on separate Ryanair flights de Paris à Barcelone and landed in the land of sunlight, strange architecture, and tapas.


First Impression of Spain

I arrived first, and found the hotel without trouble, pleasantly surprised to discover that Pomegrenade had wrangled a double room at the 3-star Hotel Gran Ducat for 3 nights for about 100 euro each. Nice. At first I was excited to get to speak the 10 words of Spanish I learned in my year at the Mexican restaurant, but once the concierge had established that he did not want queso with his quesadilla, we were kind of at an impasse. Eventually he just gave me a room key so I would leave him alone. The first thing I did was take a long nap. Then I found some dinner/lunch (it was only 7 p.m., after all) and walked around the square a bit.


First meal: egg and potato "tortilla," grilled veggies, and beef stuffed squid with a tomato sauce.

Our hotel had an awesome location, right next to the Plaça Catalunya, a square with a bunch of lovely statues and fountains, some great restaurants (which I'll get to in a bit) and a lot of young people, since it's near the Plaça Universitat. The square is also a block away from Las Ramblas, which seems to be the heart of Barcelona tourism with street performers, open-air pet shops, little restaurants, boutiques, etc.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Pomegrenade got in around 10:30 p.m. and we went down to the beach to check out Barcelona's famous nightlife, which did not disappoint. We asked some very friendly policemen where to go and they directed us down to the harbor, which turned out to be a gauntlet of doormen literally trying to pull you into their clubs/restaurants/bars. We made it to the end where we sat down for a coffee to recompose before heading back through it (the only way out). Clearly, this was not where we wanted to be. So we tucked our heads and limbs where they were not easily grab-able and dashed out. At the exit, a nice Algerian guy was handing out fliers and when he heard us speaking french, befriended us and escorted us (politely, not forcefully) to a real club, Carpe Diem, which played awesome music and had a cool South Asian vibe. Almost everyone we met that night was French. Strange.

The next day, we woke up early and hightailed it to La Sagrada Familia, Gaudí's chef-d'oeuvre. Started in 1882, the massive cathedral is still under construction. (This is probably why it costs 12/10 euro for students just to get in.) The outside struck me as a little goofy, kind of like a real world construction of Whoville.


The inside, however, is mind-blowing. Walking into the clean, spacious, light-filled sanctuary, all I could think was, "Wow, how great that God outlived the Gothic period!" I don't have anything against the Gothic period, I've just seen A LOT of cathedrals in the last two months. But not like this one. It's beautiful. It is so beautiful. The stained glass, the columns, everything is so clean and un-oppressive. It has been my experience that there are two types of churches: traditional, dark-wood-marble-gold-cross churches and modern, white-walled, if-this-is-God's-house-then-he-moved-to-the-suburbs churches (more commonly "Houses of Worship"). The interior of Sagrada Familia managed to escape the stodgy, suffocating atmosphere of the first without falling into the soulless, painfully simplified style of the later.


















After that we headed over to a cute medieval Spanish town where there were a lot of artisans and awesome hot chocolate. I bought a scarf and some Christmas presents.

That night we got TAPAS!! Deep fried Camembert with red berry sauce. Mini-pan of paella. Stuffed mussels. Sangria. Catalan crème brulée and "Three textures of chocolate with extra virgin olive oil and sea salt" for dessert. We considered never leaving.


Friday, our last day in the city, we walked down Las Ramblas and scouted out Gaudí's Casa Milà, which is very famous for its wavy silhouette and crazy balconies. Leaving that, we stumbled upon his other private residence, Casa Batllo, which might be less famous, but is definitely more awesome.
Casa Batllo. Some people call it "The Dragon House" because the mosaics look kind of scaly and the balconies look like bones.

That night there was more tapas, some more dancing, and a lot of Spanish MTV before our 4 a.m. wake-up call and back to Paris.

One of the best things about Barcelona was all the random wacky art. Examples:

My American Boy

So, a certain someone came to Paris for three days last week and reminded just how wonderful he is.

Because he likes contemporary art, and my knowledge stops short at 1900, I was scrambling to find the right museums to show off, but we made it to the Centre Pompidou (Parisians call it Beaubourg) and the less well-known but equally awesome Jeu de Paume.

The Centre Pompidou is having a very extensive, very intense feminist art exhibit. This stuff is no joke. There's a lot of blood, a lot of nudity, and a couple signs warning that the content of one room in particular "might hurt some viewers' feelings." The Boy didn't even roll his eyes once. What a great guy :)

Even better was that going to see the permanent collection at 5:30 on a Friday, it was free for under 26 year-olds. The museum also houses a library and a very swank restaurant, George, which a friend who went on a date there tells me is delicious and extremely expensive.

Jeu de paume is the old way of saying "tennis" in French. The museum is located in the Tuileries, the gardens of the Louvre, where the royal tennis courts used to be. After wandering through some painfully avant-garde exhibits ("Walking into this small white room affects the dimensions of another white room in Prague" and a 15 minute video of a shack surrounded by trees) and a three story retrospective of one photographer who must have lived to be at least 100, we came to the "Vidéothèque éphémère". It's an exhibit of short videos featuring everything from a made-up conspiracy theory about the Spice Girls, ALF and Princess Diana living in Chile to a silent montage of birds swarming at dawn to Willie Nelson. Definitely one of the most entertaining exhibits I've been to here. Again, under 25's get a reduced tarif of 5.50 euros here.

The Boy is nothing if not a man who knows what he likes, and one of the things he likes is fondue. So after our museum ventures, we warmed up with a big steamy pot of cheese on rue Mouffetard, a low-key little street chock full of bars and little bistros in the 5e arrondissement. A very successful weekend.

L'Avare à la Comedie Française

(I started this post a few weeks ago but never put it up. Sorry, Momma.)

Last weekend Educo took a group of us to La Comedie Française, which is housed in the Palais Royal, a smaller complex across the street from the Louvre. It's where Louis XIV grew up and later where Molière put on most of his plays. For that reason, the house troupe continues to specialize in Molière.

L'Avare tells a story about a miser who manages to ruin the love lives of his two children in the space of about five minutes. The lovers then spend the rest of the play scheming to get their father to change his mind. They fail, but, like most (all?) Molière plays, there's a happy ending anyway -- call it Louis ex machina.

Educo gave us all copies of the play to read our first week in France but not many people got through it. It wasn't a problem though because swooning translates pretty well.

Spooky Paris

Last week, Le Chef and our new friend, Pomegrenade, and I had picnic, and since it was a beautiful day and we had nowhere to be, (Class was cancelled due to the grèves, it's getting to be a Thursday routine.) we decided to head over to the Catacombs. Apparently, in peak tourist season and on the weekends, the line to get in is epouvantable (horrific), but we got there right before it closed and I guess everyone else was at the manifestation. We paid our student price of 4euro and waltzed right in. We were just about the only ones down there, and it might have been the first time I missed the tourist hoard.

After paying, you are directed to a staircase. Imagine how spacious it would be if someone decided to put a spiral staircase in a manhole. Now imagine that said manhole goes at least five stories down. Now imagine that you and your two friends are the only ones down there. Once you reach the bottom of the staircase and recover from the vertigo, there are a couple kilometers (yeah, I just went metric) of chalky, strangely lit, unmarked corridors. My friends took this opportunity to make up tag lines for the horror movie that would be made of our story: "In October 2010, three exchange students in Paris went sightseeing...their bodies will remain in the tunnels forever," etc.

Finally, we arrived at the entrance:

(STOP! THIS IS THE EMPIRE OF DEATH)

The French government has always had a flair for the dramatic, no? The Catacombs were created in the 1750's (I believe) to ameliorate the public health problems caused by overcrowded cemeteries in Paris. Ew. Thousands of disgusting old corpses were dug up as part of what has to be the worst temp job ever. The last bodies were moved in around 1820. The bones are stacked in extremely compact, orderly rows that give the distinct impression that when French people die, they disintegrate until nothing remains but skulls and femurs.



The most interesting part of the visit to me was the signage. Apart from lots of Latin and crosses and signs indicating where particular femurs had first been laid to rest, there was a lot of poetry:


(Come people of the world, come into these silent dwellings and you soul, now tranquil, will be struck by the voice that rises from their interior. "It is here that the greatest of teachers, the tomb, holds his school of truth.")

Happy Halloween!

Le Pique-nique :)

One of the best ways to save some money and generate some extra melatonin before the sun goes on vacation for the winter is picnics. We had a perfect one, and discovered a beautiful park right by my house last month!



Here we have Pont-l'Eveque cheese (similar to brie) and another soft cow's milk cheese, figs, Louis Bouillot rosé champagne (4,60euros at Monoprix) and bread made from organic flour and a selection of patisseries by celebrated baker Dominique Saibron!

The best part? All of it came from shops on my block! The park where we sat down with our spread, Parc Montsouris, is also no more than a 5 minute walk. It has great walking paths, a lake, and pony rides complete with adorable French toddlers. And of course, it was only fun because I was there with some lovely people. C'est belle la vie. :)


(Photos stolen from Le Chef's facebook page)

Allons enfants de la Patrie...

So, Sarkozy, who is about as popular as Bush was at the end of his second term, is pushing to move the national retirement age back (from 60 to 62) and the Frenchies are freaking out. To be fair, everyone understands that people are living longer and something's gotta give, but the proposed reform is very biased. Since people with cushy desk jobs stay in school longer, they might work (if they finish grad school at 28) 32 years while an ouvrier, a laborer, who starts working at 16 has 44 years of hard labor. The proposed reform does not account for this. It also gives less to women who take time off to raise their children, but I am unclear on the details there. Young people are also up in arms because it's already extremely difficult to get hired in France. They're counting on the geezers to move into maisons de retrait (retirement homes)and clear a space.

Anyway, this all means ongoing grèves(strikes)and lots of lots of manifestations (demonstrations). Le Chef and I headed over to one last week.



If only New Orleanians had turned out in such force for the oil spill protests!

The way the manif works is basically just a big marching parade with lots of red balloons (Glenn Beck would have a field day with that!), stickers, and bullhorns. Of course, the parade starts at - where else? - Place de la Bastille, the granddaddy of all sights of civil disobedience. When we were there, it was chalked up with slogans and anarchy symbols.Each syndicat, or labor union, has a truck, usually with a woman sitting on top shouting slogans and then going "Tous ensemble! Tous ensemble!" (Basically, "All together now!") The union members marching behind the truck, being French and very dignified, do not holla back.





The grèves only really effect study-abroaders when the workers at national monuments and the transit workers go on strike. When this happens, put on your walking shoes...

Winey Weekend

Last weekend, I was invited on a day trip to the Champagne region! We started the day in Epernay at the Moet and Chandon caves where we learned about the three kinds of grapes that are harvested for champagne (Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier, and Pinot Noir) the Grands vintages (really good years) and Dom Perignon (really good grapes from really good years). We also got to do a tasting!

In the afternoon, we headed to Reims, where we saw the cathedral where Joan of Arc lead Charles VII to be coronated. It was stunning. Of all the cathedrals I've seen in the last month, this one has the most exciting history and the prettiest chapels.




After that we headed to the Martel champagne caves. This one was way less corporate than the Moet & Chandon tour - They keep a lot of bottles for smaller producers, most of which never get exported from France. Our guide at this one looked like he spent a lot of time underground. He was very knowledgeable and showed off the ancient equipment dating back to when women weren't allowed in the caves. This tour was cheaper and came with a tasting of 3 different champagnes! a brut (not too sweet), a rosé, and a demi sec (sweet champagne)




Last week also happened to be the Fete des vendanges a wine and food festival held annually to celebrate the bottling of the Clos du Montmartre, wine that comes from a vineyard within Paris. There are foods from every region of France, traditional performers (clowns, chanteurs, etc) and free wine tastings and cooking demonstrations! Some friends and I spent Sunday afternoon wandering around tasting and enjoying the weather :)

Mont Saint Michel

Our second day in Normandy started off with a beautiful sunrise over our questionable hotel:

The it was back in the bus for another hour. We stopped to take pictures once the church came into view, and while we were off the bus we ran into some hunters who had bought some ducks to train their new spaniels and a shepherd:




Finally, we arrived at the immense fortress/monastery and our tour guide, Gilles, took pains to describe every last type of arch and differentiate the various centuries' architecture.


Back in the day, Louis IX called it a merveille, but I think that had more to do with getting the building to stay put on top of the rock. The edifice is immense and pretty austere (as is befitting a monastery, I guess) but there were some very nice touches in the garden and windows of the refectory.


The view was beautiful, but I couldn't capture it through the fog. Besides being very Wuthering Heights, the vast panorama and shifting tides definitely give the rock strategic value, which is why everyone from William the Conqueror and to Patton has used to defend their hold on the mainland.