Ballooning in Bazouges

Sorry blogosphere, the last six weeks have been a whirlwind. I started work and spent a lot of free time (fruitlessly) house-hunting.  But let's focus on the fabulous!

Through my old university, I met one amazing woman in September! NT is a pilot, race car driver/navigator, helps the blind, and not least of all owns a hot air balloon! At the end of what seemed to be a rough week for everyone in Paris, she casually mentioned that she and some friends were heading down to the chateau where she keeps her montgolfière and invited the Irishman and I along.

The next day we found ourselves racing through the Gare de Montparnasse as fast as my chubby and high-heeled little legs could carry me.  Safely aboard the train to Le Mans (with a full 2 minutes to spare!), we settled into our separate seats and I got to do the NYTimes crossword puzzle on the Irishman's iPad for a while until he found me and took it away to read BBC Sport.

Arriving in Le Mans, we were met by NT's dashing French husband and her American-naturalized-French friend who happens to look EXACTLY like Joan Cusack circa 1993. She must get a lot of people staring at her trying to figure out where they've seen that face before because she's got a great, aren't-you-cute-now-stop-staring wink. I've got to get on developing one.

The chateau was indeed a little French castle of a design comparable to Bagatelle, and when we arrived it's lovely owners, an American former supermodel and her aristocratic hubby, were serving up the red and a delicious lentil soup while a splendid fire roared away under a bust of one of the rois Henri.

Le Retour

Here it goes!

The city's still a dream in sandy stone and wrought iron.  This time there's a charming Irishman around to make everything more fun. In the evenings we cook and walk around the 16eme; on the weekends we vow we'll stay in and rest and then don't. Work doesn't start until October 1st so I have loads of time to roam around and search for an apartment of my own as well as play the femme au foyer in the teeny kitchen of the Irishman's flatshare.

One of the best parts of returning to the sprawl of sandcastles on the Seine has been revisiting a few old favorites. Now-Former Host Mom greeted me with a big hug and tizane in the same chic apartment, having just returned from my old nemesis, la piscine. Another highlight was finally bringing the Irishman and a friend to Le Temps des Cerises (31, rue de la Cerisaie, 4e) my favorite little bistro tucked away in the Marais. They've raised their prices (about 19 euros for a main, 8 for appetizers or dessert) and added a vegetarian option to the menu (yay!), with the same cozy ambiance and friendly staff.

The settling in process is a bit of a drag as I search for cheap, furnished accommodation. One problem I keep running into is the necessity of a French bank account to do just about anything.  HSBC already rejected my request saying my salary as a teaching assistant will be trop juste to make me worth their while. Quels snobs! Trying again with Société Générale on Thursday. Any bank recommendations out there?

Apart from my continued mission to improve my French, I've now added 3 more goals:

• Not deform any of the young minds that will be in my charge for 12 hours each week,
• Get my cardiovascular fitness up to par with the Irishman so I don't have to stand and pant on the sidewalk while he jogs on all Rocky-like up the Champs Elysées.
• Find gainful employment over here-- gainful meaning something that gets me above the French equivalent of the poverty line.  

Bises, y'all

Real Teal

Behold the marble mantelpiece that serves as my vanity. Among the accessories, ticket stubs and assorted beauty products is a little bottle of Sephora's vernis à ongles in L15 Vintage Sweater. Joëlle gave me the little bottle for Christmas, after I had complimented her own blue-green nails earlier in the fall. Yesterday my toes were looking a little sad, but after a good scrub and some fresh paint, I'm feeling bien dans mes sandales. Here's to bold colors and exchanging small gestures!

Ready, Sète, Go!

Fishing boats in the canal

I was terrible about posting in February - no excuse - but good things happened! One of which was heading down to Montpellier to see le Jumeau for the weekend. We went out and got crazy because that's what we do best in life, besides writing. We also hung out with crazy British kids. On Thursday, after a quick kebab and a disco nap, we headed to a rather dull gay bar and then Cargo, one of his favorite clubs in downtown Montpellier. Good music, decent drinks, enough space. We ended the night at a private bar run by a very pretty transvestite. A good time was had by all.

Crazy Brits (and a Moroccan) on the bus to the beach.

Us swarthy Americans

After getting in at an absurd hour we woke up at 11 a.m. on Friday and got on a train headed to Sète, a little town with a beautiful beach (I almost typed beautiful little beach town, but no.) just a few minutes away from Monty-P. From the train station we got on a bus (the 2, I believe) and headed for the beach! I put on a swimsuit under my jeans and shirt, and brought a light jacket along, just because, and boy, was I lucky! It was a beautiful day but the wind was relentless and arctic. Maybe because it was February, you say? Hey, I don't know about the Brits and le Jumeau, but after winter here in Paris, I was ready to sunbathe on top of a glacier so long as the sky above was clear blue.

And blue it was!

After a quick Baywatch-parody run to the water, permanently damaging the nerves in my toes, I sprinted back up the beach and hopped into my jeans faster than you can say "trop froid". Cold cold cold, but proof that spring is at hand!

Danke Schoen, Darling

Earlier this month I left chère Paris for Berlin to visit Hélène, my step-sister. Coincidentally there is no good way to say step-sister in Parisian French; I was taught belle-sœur but that usually refers to a sister-in-law, soeur d'alliance is perhaps the most literal translation, but is awkward to say in conversation. I call her my demi-sœur even though it means half-sister because it's the least likely to require an explanation. Anyway, my something-sister was staying with her authentic German boyfriend, Johannes, and his roommate over the holidays and they were kind enough to welcome me into their very authentic German apartment for a few days.


Voilà the happy couple

The first thing we did after I got in on Friday night was ride the very clean and prompt German metro for a long time (Easyjet only flies to Berlin-Schoenfeld from Paris) then we sat around eating delicious potato soup made by the authentic German boyfriend and talking about the Cold War and Seinfeld. Hélène and I exchanged gifts - macarons from Dominique Saibron (who will get his own post in the near future) for her and chocolate dipped gingerbread for me. Before I tear apart Germanic cooking, I have to say that these people do an amazing job dipping things in chocolate. The green beer isn't bad either.

Hélène took me out for a Berliner Weisse, basically the product of a torrid affair between Heineken and gummy bears. I am a fan.
Day two brought us to Museumsinsel. The Germans, ever the masters of practicality, have concentrated five of the country's top museums on one little island near the center of town. We bought student day passes with a time slot for the Neues Museum, which are actually a pretty good deal.

We stopped by three of the five. The Pergamonmuseum, which houses Ancient Greek artifacts, was the most impressive. When the Germans pillaged, they didn't just make off with statues and vases, they took the whole temple! Really. Walking throught this museum, with ancient building façades towering over you (visibly held together by bungy cords, no less) and beautifully preserved mosaics on the ground will give you a new appreciation for the technical prowess of Socrates' buddies. The Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) was a pretty standard art museum with a heavy emphasis on German and French painters from the 19th century. The Neues Museum, which is super popular, was like the best elementary school field trip ever. Its main draw is a bust of Nefertiti (again with the pillaging thing) but there are tons of sarcophagi (opened so you can see the mummy!) and ancient weapons and armor and jewelry and...yeah, Egypt's cool.

After a long day of museum walking me and my snail-like metabolism would have been happy with a glass of water and nap. Not so for my companions, who actually digest whole meals in one day, so we stopped for currywurst. Apparently, this is basically the Berlin version of crêpes. That is to say cheap, filling, and ubiquitous. Unfortunately, currywurst is actually a hotdog covered in special ketchup. Scrumptious.

That night we went out to a very chic Austrian restaurant which had great wine, great ambiance, and, by all accounts, great food. My appetizer was great, but I ordered Weiner Schnitzel for my main. Afterall, it's one of Maria's "Favorite Things" in The Sound of Music...Well, suffice it to say it is not one of mine. It is a piece of meat hammered thin and then deep-fried. I had an apple juice detox when we got back to the apartment.

The next day we hit up some major tourist sights including the Brandenburger Tor, Checkpoint Charlie and the Holocaust Memorial.

All were very impressive. I didn't quite know how to interpret the Holocaust Memorial, which struck me as very blank, empty even, but also kind of reminded me of cemeteries back in New Orleans. The graffiti'd pieces of the Berlin Wall on display were great, and the Brandenburg Gate is certainly a marvel. One thing I really got a kick out of was seeing the Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts in what was once East Berlin -- right in front of the Russian embassy.

The best part of the day was when Johannes took us to Another Country, an English language bookstore run by a Scottish transvestite. The setup is shelves of books in what seems to be someone's (the transvestite's?) home. There are drinks in the fridge, and you have to navigate around furniture in the dining room, living room, and study to get to some of the books. The place was chalereux, as we say back here in the land of impractical shoes and more varied diets.

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.

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)

Montpellier and Reconnecting with My Roots

Last week I started feeling kind of down. Fall is officially here, and since I'm not one for the cold, this is not my favorite time of year. The weather was getting dreary, and I was feeling tired - tired of spending money, of being a tourist, of the metro, of getting "Englished" (when French people respond to you in English even though you speak to them in French. They can do this to be nice, because they're enthusiastic about speaking English, to show their scorn for your language skills, or some combination of all of the above.)

After our weekday ritual of watching Plus belle la vie at 20h10 (8:10 PM) My Mère d'accueil, who is wonderful and wise, asked me how things were going. I told her how I was frustrated with my speaking skills - I was really starting to feel like I was regressing instead of improving - and she told me about her time studying Chinese in Peking, and how it's normal to improve, then plateau, then improve more, which was very encouraging. She also used a phrase, "Coupé des racines," which means "cut from the roots" to describe the kind of unsteady feeling that comes from leaving home in such a big way. It was comforting, but I was still spending too much time on Facebook, and I was scared my funk would turn into a depression.

Le Jumeau was in a similar funk. He hadn't been feeling well, and was getting homesick. So I took the 150 euros that were meant to get me through the next three weeks (yes, it hurt) and hopped the next high speed train to Montpellier. It was so worth it.

Not only was Le Jumeau a sight for sore eyes (and life in France is agreeing with him, he looks better than he has in years!) but Montpellier also turned out to bear some striking resemblances to New Orleans! There was a streetcar (le Tram) and an old-school carousel, lots of street musicians and young hippy/artist types, and there was even a brass band in one of the squares!

Besides feeling a little like home, the city offered beautiful views of the mountains, an ancient aquaduct, statues and an Arc de Triomphe commissioned by Louis XIV:





Last but not least, the TGV (train de grande vitesse, literally "high-speed train" back to Paris offered some beautiful views of the french countryside. Things are good again.

Salut! On y va!

I created this blog on a whim last September, but now I've decided to put it to good use. With my junior year abroad fast approaching, I've decided to chronicle my experiences preparing for the trip and in Paris. Hopefully, this will serve three purposes: updating those of you back home who are curious, keeping a sort of mixed media journal for me, and maybe providing some insight for future exchange students.

The title of this blog, Artifices de Feu, means "fireworks" (also called "feu d'artifice") in French. It's a term I learned on my last trip to Paris. Shortly after Bastille Day (like Independence Day here, fireworks are big) I was trying to make small talk with the girl cutting my hair at a salon. I tried to ask her if she had watched the fireworks display over the Eiffel Tower, but without knowing the word, all I could do was repeat "lumiere dans le ciel...nuit..." (light in the sky...night...) and do jazz hands, attempting to mimic the twinkling lights. I didn't realize how spastic I was acting until she looked up and raised her eyebrows and gave a barely perceptible Parisian sniff. Je suis gauche. Anyway, eventually I got through and learned a new word. The story reminds me that I'm going to look goofy sometimes, and to try to maintain some dignity, but even if the stylist gives me a funny look, things will probably turn out all right in the end. I came out of that salon looking better and knowing more French. (Small victories).

Fireworks disappear so quickly. One ignites, explodes and then fades so quickly. This year will be over too soon. I need to remember that and make every day wonderful.

Last time I studied away from home, I forgot to do that. I was lazy and let myself get miserable once the weather turned cold. This time, I'll be prepared. I am dedicating my trip to finding beautiful things - people, food, artwork, ideas, writing, places, history. I will record my findings here, as well as my run-ins with French bureaucracy, awkward moments, etc. I'm lucky enough to be setting off on this trip with some beautiful people already in my life. Since they will almost certainly feature in this blog, here is the cast of characters as it stands before departure:

NoodleTzar - Me :)

Le Chef - a friend from university who's also going to Paris. A master of vegetarian cooking. Check out his blog here http://spicesavant.blogspot.com/

Le Jumeau - one of my oldest and dearest friends; a sensitive Southern boy who'll be in Montpellier while I'm in Paris.

Le Corps - A great bunch of kids from university are going to be in Paris. Can't wait to get to know them better!

Momma - Cheerleader & nagger extraordinaire. Number 1 in the speed dial of my heart.

The Professor - Momma's husband, wise and thrifty.

Hélène - stepsister, wild child, unflinchingly authentic.

Grandmère - My role model. A lady in every sense of the word, with an adventurous heart.

Ze'ev - The one I am going to miss the most.

Mademoiselle Em - My scholarly saint. My authority on all things Medieval, Subjunctive, French Literature, and Christian.

L'Exploratrice - The world traveler, my inspiration to kick my insecurities to the curb, put on some awesome shoes, and just go.

Le Frère - Le Jumeau's twin, also one of my nearest and dearest, an authority on the history of New Orleans and always knows how to boost my spirits.

La Libellule - My roommate. Perhaps the truest citizen of the world I know. (Et le Copain de la Libellule m'aide avec mon français)