Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Madrid, Spain
I don't have a ton of pictures from Madrid because most of the sights we saw were in Art Museums that you can't take pictures of... but I met up with my friend from DPU Beth Beulher and we hung out and drank Sangria together! It was a great time!
Lisbon, Portugal
Our first stop on our whirl wind two week tour of southern Europe was Lisbon Portugal. I would recommend this place in a heart beat, and I would love to go back and explore Portugal more in the future if I get the chance. The food was cheap and delicious and we got to ride bikes along the coast. We enjoyed local pastries and coffee and the sun and the sea Breeze! Here are some of the pics from our three days spent in Lisbon...
Down town Lisbon
From above
more pictures of the city
The beach! even though it was a little cold and cloudy...
Matt and I on the beach
On our bike ride
the castle in lisbon
the castle view
Down town Lisbon
From above
more pictures of the city
The beach! even though it was a little cold and cloudy...
Matt and I on the beach
On our bike ride
the castle in lisbon
the castle view
Final touches
So... here I am sitting on Kelley's Island with Matt, Mirandy and Tati... who flew in from NY to come on vacation with us! Senior year is going to start in just a few days... and I am going to finish my blog now, as promised. Here is what I am going to do... I am going to post pics from each city I visited on my travels at the end, and then I will write a final reflection post. So sit back, enjoy the pics and this will really conclude my semester abroad during the late winter and spring of 2010.
Peace
Peace
Friday, May 21, 2010
Inshallah
Wow. Its done. My memoire is done, my internship will be over in 30 minutes and tomorrow at this time I will be basking in the sun in Lisbon. Where did the time go? Have I really gotten up and gone to the IMA every day for the past 12 weeks? It doesnt feel like it. It all kind of feels surreal.
I am relatively happy with my memoire, but I am not letting myself look at it any more because I will keep finding things to fix, and I just cant fix any more things. I cant do it. I just have to turn it in and hope for the best. I got my grade back from my last class, and I got an 18 on the test and an 18.5 overall for the class. If you know anything about the french grading scale, you will understand what that means, but for me that is pretty freaking good. It is the equivalent of an A which is awesome. I am really pleased with this! I also asked Thomas yesterday what grade I got on my soutenance and he didnt know specifically, but he said it was good, which makes me think it was probably a 16... also an A. The scale is a 20 point scale... but dont multiply by five to get a percent, it doesnt work like that. Anything above a 10 is really good... and poor Tati didnt realize this and just didnt understand her grades... when actually she has been doing great! But regardless, I am pleased with my grades so far.
Tomorrow I am heading out to travel for two weeks. I will be in Lisbon Saturday-Monday, Madrid Tuesday- Thursday, Barcelona Thursday - Saturday then in Montpellier, the south of France for until the next Thursday when I am going to come back to Paris. Then from Paris to Iceland for 5 days, and I will be back home the 12 of June. I am so excited for this vacation... and dont worry mom, I have lots of sunscreen.
I decided not to take my computer, but just a journal so that I can update this with my entries and my pics when I get home. I will update it dont worry! I am sorry you will just have to paitent, but it will all be worth it when I get it done. This blog has been a great project for me, and I cant wait to finish it up.
This entire semester has flown by, and I cant imagine my life right now, not in Paris. But soon I will be home, with my mom and grandma and friends, and I am looking forward to that too. So peace out for now. The title of the post is a very common phrase in arabic... Inshallah. It means God willing. All of this has been a wonderful expeirence thanks to God, and the rest of it will be wonderful too, and I will be home safe and sound to update my blog before everyone knows it. Inshallah.
Peace.
I am relatively happy with my memoire, but I am not letting myself look at it any more because I will keep finding things to fix, and I just cant fix any more things. I cant do it. I just have to turn it in and hope for the best. I got my grade back from my last class, and I got an 18 on the test and an 18.5 overall for the class. If you know anything about the french grading scale, you will understand what that means, but for me that is pretty freaking good. It is the equivalent of an A which is awesome. I am really pleased with this! I also asked Thomas yesterday what grade I got on my soutenance and he didnt know specifically, but he said it was good, which makes me think it was probably a 16... also an A. The scale is a 20 point scale... but dont multiply by five to get a percent, it doesnt work like that. Anything above a 10 is really good... and poor Tati didnt realize this and just didnt understand her grades... when actually she has been doing great! But regardless, I am pleased with my grades so far.
Tomorrow I am heading out to travel for two weeks. I will be in Lisbon Saturday-Monday, Madrid Tuesday- Thursday, Barcelona Thursday - Saturday then in Montpellier, the south of France for until the next Thursday when I am going to come back to Paris. Then from Paris to Iceland for 5 days, and I will be back home the 12 of June. I am so excited for this vacation... and dont worry mom, I have lots of sunscreen.
I decided not to take my computer, but just a journal so that I can update this with my entries and my pics when I get home. I will update it dont worry! I am sorry you will just have to paitent, but it will all be worth it when I get it done. This blog has been a great project for me, and I cant wait to finish it up.
This entire semester has flown by, and I cant imagine my life right now, not in Paris. But soon I will be home, with my mom and grandma and friends, and I am looking forward to that too. So peace out for now. The title of the post is a very common phrase in arabic... Inshallah. It means God willing. All of this has been a wonderful expeirence thanks to God, and the rest of it will be wonderful too, and I will be home safe and sound to update my blog before everyone knows it. Inshallah.
Peace.
Friday, May 14, 2010
rant
So I have hit rather a road block in writing my memoire… it is very hard, actually harder than I thought it would be, but I don’t know why I was expecting it to be anything less. But ok, since I am not being productive in that realm I thought I would write a quick rant of a blog post that I have been thinking of writing for the past few days since I have a really long weekend this weekend, thanks to the holiday of Ascension. You know, when Jesus got sucked back up into heaven forty short days after he was resurrected on Easter.
First I am not complaining about having a long weekend. I really need the time to work on my paper and to just focus (although I am moving in and out of focus rather sporadically and I think I am driving Matt crazy. Sorry Matt). It is raining and cold, a perfect weekend to spend inside writing papers. Right? Something like that.
But back to my rant at hand.
So France. This lovely country where I have spent the last several months of my life… the country that wrote the first declaration of rights of man (wait where were the women? Oh yeah not getting the right to vote until 1945 after WWII, but I am just getting side tracked here.) This country that purports to have all of the qualities of a democratic republic, and the welfare state, offering universal health care and all that good jazz that the USA is about 50 years behind on getting. All that stuff. This country who has its very own word to describe the secular state which keeps religion and state separate. That word being “Laïcité.” A word Mac and Anne and Matt and I spent several hours discussing… what it means and if it can really be achieved.
Since then, that weekend in Bretagne, after spending almost a total of 12 weeks at the Institut du Monde Arabe, I have learned a lot about what it means to be a practicing Muslim in France today (several of the other young female interns there are Muslim, and none of them wear the veil integral, or even cover their hair) mostly they are just careful to check at restaurants for a certificate of Halal (the Muslim equivalent of keeping Kosher and not eating certain meat products) and trying to be good people. That is about it.
But as the debate in this country rages on about the Burka, and why there should be a law in this country banning it, and banning head scarves too in public places, it is already banned in public schools (based on the concept of Laïcité), I can’t help but notice, and get mad about what a crock of crap this argument is. France is a secular country? Really? Because last time I checked they have about five national holidays… Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Christmas, and the day that celebrates the end of WWI. Yeah, those are definitely state holidays… having nothing to do with the Christian and Catholic roots of this country. Nothing at all, my ass. You better not cover your hair because it is in keeping with your religion, but the only days you get off work (besides your 8 weeks paid vacation) will be those that celebrate the comings and goings of our lord and savior Jesus Christ. Got it? It makes me sick.
It is fine for a country to be a Catholic country in my opinion, especially a catholic country that passes out condoms to all high schools for free… those are my kind of Catholics. But don’t try to cover up your racist, discriminatory, flagrant anti-islam, anti-arab politics by using the word “Laïtcité.” Because it is a lie. You can be catholic, and celebrate every catholic holiday ever, that is fine, but don’t pretend not to be. And don’t use your meaningless words to try to cover up you hatred of the immigrants and citizens and families who have been living in your country for generations because you told them they were French citizens like everyone else during colonialism. It is just bull shit. And everyone knows Sarkozy is using this debate over the burka to distract citizens from what he is really doing in government, which is taking the country back a couple decades… but don’t get me started on a Sarkozy rant…
Point of this post—thanks France for the long weekend. But don’t pretend to be something you aren’t. It just proves that you are not the secular country you purport to be. You are actually a hypocrite. So just admit it. Or admit you are still a catholic country. Or change your holidays. Which would you prefer? Personally, I would just change the holidays. But that is just me, and it seems like France prefers hateful racist hypocrite…
If this post makes no sense just ignore it. I am going nutso over here and just being kinda wacko.
First I am not complaining about having a long weekend. I really need the time to work on my paper and to just focus (although I am moving in and out of focus rather sporadically and I think I am driving Matt crazy. Sorry Matt). It is raining and cold, a perfect weekend to spend inside writing papers. Right? Something like that.
But back to my rant at hand.
So France. This lovely country where I have spent the last several months of my life… the country that wrote the first declaration of rights of man (wait where were the women? Oh yeah not getting the right to vote until 1945 after WWII, but I am just getting side tracked here.) This country that purports to have all of the qualities of a democratic republic, and the welfare state, offering universal health care and all that good jazz that the USA is about 50 years behind on getting. All that stuff. This country who has its very own word to describe the secular state which keeps religion and state separate. That word being “Laïcité.” A word Mac and Anne and Matt and I spent several hours discussing… what it means and if it can really be achieved.
Since then, that weekend in Bretagne, after spending almost a total of 12 weeks at the Institut du Monde Arabe, I have learned a lot about what it means to be a practicing Muslim in France today (several of the other young female interns there are Muslim, and none of them wear the veil integral, or even cover their hair) mostly they are just careful to check at restaurants for a certificate of Halal (the Muslim equivalent of keeping Kosher and not eating certain meat products) and trying to be good people. That is about it.
But as the debate in this country rages on about the Burka, and why there should be a law in this country banning it, and banning head scarves too in public places, it is already banned in public schools (based on the concept of Laïcité), I can’t help but notice, and get mad about what a crock of crap this argument is. France is a secular country? Really? Because last time I checked they have about five national holidays… Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Christmas, and the day that celebrates the end of WWI. Yeah, those are definitely state holidays… having nothing to do with the Christian and Catholic roots of this country. Nothing at all, my ass. You better not cover your hair because it is in keeping with your religion, but the only days you get off work (besides your 8 weeks paid vacation) will be those that celebrate the comings and goings of our lord and savior Jesus Christ. Got it? It makes me sick.
It is fine for a country to be a Catholic country in my opinion, especially a catholic country that passes out condoms to all high schools for free… those are my kind of Catholics. But don’t try to cover up your racist, discriminatory, flagrant anti-islam, anti-arab politics by using the word “Laïtcité.” Because it is a lie. You can be catholic, and celebrate every catholic holiday ever, that is fine, but don’t pretend not to be. And don’t use your meaningless words to try to cover up you hatred of the immigrants and citizens and families who have been living in your country for generations because you told them they were French citizens like everyone else during colonialism. It is just bull shit. And everyone knows Sarkozy is using this debate over the burka to distract citizens from what he is really doing in government, which is taking the country back a couple decades… but don’t get me started on a Sarkozy rant…
Point of this post—thanks France for the long weekend. But don’t pretend to be something you aren’t. It just proves that you are not the secular country you purport to be. You are actually a hypocrite. So just admit it. Or admit you are still a catholic country. Or change your holidays. Which would you prefer? Personally, I would just change the holidays. But that is just me, and it seems like France prefers hateful racist hypocrite…
If this post makes no sense just ignore it. I am going nutso over here and just being kinda wacko.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Caen
So as I keep mentioning here, my time here is constantly growing shorter and shorter, but I don’t think that that fact has really hit me yet, I don’t know. But all the big things that were going to happen have passed now, Matt’s parents have made it back to the states, and I survived my last test at IFE, although I am sure that it could have gone better… oh well.
But this past weekend was really fun, and I wanted to put up a post about it before my life gets too consumed by writing this paper and I only have time to post little “god save me” posts… and before I leave on my adventures. Several people have asked if I am going to continue blogging during my adventures… and the answer is yes, but I am not exactly sure how. We will be travelling all over, and staying in several different hostels, and I am sure I will be able to find internet sporadically to keep things updated… but the question is whether or not I want to take my computer with me. I am only going to take my backpack and no other bags, and my computer will be heavy… but more than that I am just not sure how many secure it would be to leave it in all the different hostels we will be staying in, if they all have secure lockers or not… I would be really annoyed if I brought my computer to blog and it got stolen, although the chances of that seem kind of small… what does anyone think? I might take so many pics that I need a place to upload them to clear my memory card on my camera too… or I could just take my journal and write my entries there and type it all up and put up the pics and everything when I get back… I haven’t decided yet and I would appreciate any advice on this anyone has…
But back to this past weekend. On Saturday morning I got up bright and early and I met the Brauer family at Gare St. Lazare to go on a little day trip to the city of Caen…
but little did I know how nice it was going to be. Part of the reason Mr. Brauer wanted to come to France this spring was because it is the 40th anniversary of the start of the study abroad program he did when he was in college… and the 30th anniversary of his year spent in France. So they spent some time during the week going back to visit all of his old haunts, and meeting up with friends who had come back as well… and he just happened to meet up with the son of the family he lived with 30 years ago, who called his sister Isabelle, who insisted that Mr. Brauer come visit her and her family in Caen on Saturday. She was 16 when Mr. Brauer was here before and they had seen each other a few times since but not in about 10 years, so it was high time for a visit… and for Matt and I to take a day trip outside of Paris, and a little trip down memory lane for the day.
So the train was delayed, but we finally made it out to Caen, where Isabelle and her husband were waiting for us…
and they immediately welcomed us into their home, and fed us a wonderful lunch and took us on a tour of their town… It was really a great afternoon. And Matt and I had a great time befriending her French children, Julien age 9 and Tiphaine age 7. They were really fun, and really excited to hang out with us because we could speak French to them and the other grown ups couldn’t… and they are working on learning English but it is a process. But they have already had years of it at school, and it made me think about how much the US needs to get on the language train and start teaching languages much much earlier, long before seventh grade
.
But as you can see from the pictures here we spent a lovely afternoon talking and playing soccer with the kids, and Mr. Brauer got to spend time with old friends which was really nice for him.
The afternoon flew by, and before we knew it, it was time to get back on the train to come back to Paris for the evening. But the entire afternoon just made me think about where I want to be 30 years from now, the type of person I want to be, and where I want to be and what I want to be doing. I don’t know for sure, but I am sure right now that Paris, and all of France has made an imprint on my life that will not go away, and I only hope that in 30 years I will be back in Paris, visiting my friends from IFE and catching up with the wonderful people I have met here and all the places I have seen and love to go. 
More on this a little later, as I need to get working on my paper for the day, but here you can see the lovely house and cute kids we met, and I can continue to muse about where I want to be in 30 years, and marvel at how it may not all turn out how I plan it, but I am sure it will be good… and I look forward to seeing how the story unfolds.
But this past weekend was really fun, and I wanted to put up a post about it before my life gets too consumed by writing this paper and I only have time to post little “god save me” posts… and before I leave on my adventures. Several people have asked if I am going to continue blogging during my adventures… and the answer is yes, but I am not exactly sure how. We will be travelling all over, and staying in several different hostels, and I am sure I will be able to find internet sporadically to keep things updated… but the question is whether or not I want to take my computer with me. I am only going to take my backpack and no other bags, and my computer will be heavy… but more than that I am just not sure how many secure it would be to leave it in all the different hostels we will be staying in, if they all have secure lockers or not… I would be really annoyed if I brought my computer to blog and it got stolen, although the chances of that seem kind of small… what does anyone think? I might take so many pics that I need a place to upload them to clear my memory card on my camera too… or I could just take my journal and write my entries there and type it all up and put up the pics and everything when I get back… I haven’t decided yet and I would appreciate any advice on this anyone has…
But back to this past weekend. On Saturday morning I got up bright and early and I met the Brauer family at Gare St. Lazare to go on a little day trip to the city of Caen…
but little did I know how nice it was going to be. Part of the reason Mr. Brauer wanted to come to France this spring was because it is the 40th anniversary of the start of the study abroad program he did when he was in college… and the 30th anniversary of his year spent in France. So they spent some time during the week going back to visit all of his old haunts, and meeting up with friends who had come back as well… and he just happened to meet up with the son of the family he lived with 30 years ago, who called his sister Isabelle, who insisted that Mr. Brauer come visit her and her family in Caen on Saturday. She was 16 when Mr. Brauer was here before and they had seen each other a few times since but not in about 10 years, so it was high time for a visit… and for Matt and I to take a day trip outside of Paris, and a little trip down memory lane for the day. So the train was delayed, but we finally made it out to Caen, where Isabelle and her husband were waiting for us…
and they immediately welcomed us into their home, and fed us a wonderful lunch and took us on a tour of their town… It was really a great afternoon. And Matt and I had a great time befriending her French children, Julien age 9 and Tiphaine age 7. They were really fun, and really excited to hang out with us because we could speak French to them and the other grown ups couldn’t… and they are working on learning English but it is a process. But they have already had years of it at school, and it made me think about how much the US needs to get on the language train and start teaching languages much much earlier, long before seventh grade
.But as you can see from the pictures here we spent a lovely afternoon talking and playing soccer with the kids, and Mr. Brauer got to spend time with old friends which was really nice for him.
The afternoon flew by, and before we knew it, it was time to get back on the train to come back to Paris for the evening. But the entire afternoon just made me think about where I want to be 30 years from now, the type of person I want to be, and where I want to be and what I want to be doing. I don’t know for sure, but I am sure right now that Paris, and all of France has made an imprint on my life that will not go away, and I only hope that in 30 years I will be back in Paris, visiting my friends from IFE and catching up with the wonderful people I have met here and all the places I have seen and love to go. 
More on this a little later, as I need to get working on my paper for the day, but here you can see the lovely house and cute kids we met, and I can continue to muse about where I want to be in 30 years, and marvel at how it may not all turn out how I plan it, but I am sure it will be good… and I look forward to seeing how the story unfolds.
Friday, May 7, 2010
more musings
So, I think the fact that I am writing this proves that I survived my soutenance yesterday… it didn’t go half bad I don’t think, even though my grumpy tutor was quick to point out everything I didn’t do… I think the others who were there probably thought I did a good job. We shall see what grade I get, I am actually really curious to see. But now that is over and done, and all I have left to do is study for the test I have on Tuesday and write my paper out… oh lovely. I can do it I think.
I am not exactly sure what this weekend holds, but we might be going to go out to Caen this weekend and the up to St. Michel which would be really nice since I didn’t think I was going to get a chance to go up there. But we shall see. And at some point this weekend I am going to study for my test and get coffee with a French girl who is moving to Dayton in the fall to go to UD for a year and she wants to hear what I have to say about the place, which is kinda cool. Sunday evening we are having a study group to talk about the upcoming test this week and then Sunday night I get to skype with my mom and grandma for mothers day and I will hopefully get to talk to Alana as well since she is only going to be on the continent for a few more days… which is so weird! There are only two weeks left until I leave for my travels around Europe and then go to Iceland. How is all of that even possible I don’t know. Where has the time gone, seriously? There are so many things I am going to miss about being here… express coffees in the morning and glasses of red wine with dinner. I know we have those things in the states too, but here it is just different seeming. Although there are so many things that I miss about home, and my summer plans are starting to come together nicely! I have two weddings to go to this summer and some of my friends at home are having babies and I need to meet them! But now I am about to go meet Tati for lunch (we think we found a place with cheap tacos… but their quality remains to be seen.) I am really going to miss her when I am back home… although I guess cell phones and skype will make the distance between DePauw and Weslyan much smaller… But now for today I have some song lyrics for you, which were written by men named Harburg and Duke, and it has been sung by lots of big names including Frank Sinatra… and you have to trust me that there is a lot of truth in it… (And even though it is may now, it still holds true.)
APRIL IN PARIS
(Harburg / Duke)
I never knew the charm of spring
I never met it face to face
I never knew my heart could sing
I never missed a warm embrace
Till April in Paris, chestnuts in blossom
Holiday tables under the trees
April in Paris, this is a feeling
That no one can ever reprise
I never knew the charm of spring
I never met it face to face
I never knew my heart could sing
I never missed a warm embrace
Till April in Paris
Whom can I run to
What have you done to my heart
I am not exactly sure what this weekend holds, but we might be going to go out to Caen this weekend and the up to St. Michel which would be really nice since I didn’t think I was going to get a chance to go up there. But we shall see. And at some point this weekend I am going to study for my test and get coffee with a French girl who is moving to Dayton in the fall to go to UD for a year and she wants to hear what I have to say about the place, which is kinda cool. Sunday evening we are having a study group to talk about the upcoming test this week and then Sunday night I get to skype with my mom and grandma for mothers day and I will hopefully get to talk to Alana as well since she is only going to be on the continent for a few more days… which is so weird! There are only two weeks left until I leave for my travels around Europe and then go to Iceland. How is all of that even possible I don’t know. Where has the time gone, seriously? There are so many things I am going to miss about being here… express coffees in the morning and glasses of red wine with dinner. I know we have those things in the states too, but here it is just different seeming. Although there are so many things that I miss about home, and my summer plans are starting to come together nicely! I have two weddings to go to this summer and some of my friends at home are having babies and I need to meet them! But now I am about to go meet Tati for lunch (we think we found a place with cheap tacos… but their quality remains to be seen.) I am really going to miss her when I am back home… although I guess cell phones and skype will make the distance between DePauw and Weslyan much smaller… But now for today I have some song lyrics for you, which were written by men named Harburg and Duke, and it has been sung by lots of big names including Frank Sinatra… and you have to trust me that there is a lot of truth in it… (And even though it is may now, it still holds true.)
APRIL IN PARIS
(Harburg / Duke)
I never knew the charm of spring
I never met it face to face
I never knew my heart could sing
I never missed a warm embrace
Till April in Paris, chestnuts in blossom
Holiday tables under the trees
April in Paris, this is a feeling
That no one can ever reprise
I never knew the charm of spring
I never met it face to face
I never knew my heart could sing
I never missed a warm embrace
Till April in Paris
Whom can I run to
What have you done to my heart
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Ma Soutenance
So my Soutenance is this afternoon, and I am feeling rather nervous… That is the ten minute presentation that I have to give about my 30 page paper that I am writing… the presentation part has been done since yesterday and Mme Findakly has looked at it twice and Matt has looked over it too, so there should be like no errors in it… I just hope that when I get up there to give the presentation I don’t get all nervous and make silly grammatical errors and look silly in front of Tim, and Séverine, and Thomas, and Mme Findakly and maybe Audrey and all the other kids and Steve my tutor and everything. Oh dear I am nervous! But a few deep breaths and a few run throughs and I can do it. I just have to. Then for dinner I get to go to my favourite crêpe place and have a nice dinner with good friends… and tomorrow I am going to eat tacos for lunch with Tati… and the package my mom sent me finally came in the mail and she sent me Peeps because I missed them at Easter, Thanks Mom, you know me so well! I just need to not be nervous! So in an effort to find things to help calm me down (in addition to the stress relieving tea that Mme gave me this morning) I found this little quote on the internet to help me calm down, and I decided to write this little entry to take my mind off of the presentation, even though I have done nothing but obsess about it here… so while I am busy not stressing, I hope everyone is having a good day! I hope I can remember these quotes this afternoon…
Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death.
--Harold Wilson
I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence, but it comes from within. It is there all the time.
--Anna Freud
Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death.
--Harold Wilson
I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence, but it comes from within. It is there all the time.
--Anna Freud
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Londres (London)
So after a long and exhausting week of learning the basics of a third language, which I wrote about before, I practically tore out of the IMA on Friday afternoon with 1 hour and 13 minutes to make it up to Gare du Nord, and I needed to be there at least half an hour early so as to be able to go through customs, so that I could go to London! Annie was waiting for me on the other side of the Chunnel along with the Brauer family, and all I had to do was get to the train station, go through customs and sit on the train for 2 hours 15 minutes…
If only it had been that easy. I needed to leave the IMA a little early, but my Arabic prof insisted that I stay and fill out a questionnaire that I could have turned in any day since I work here… and I got to the metro to line 4 at Saint-Michel to go up to Gare du Nord… but I was on the extremely crowded train, and should have been up to the station in about 20 minutes… but there was an “accident grave” farther down on line four. I am not exactly sure what that means… did a train break down? Did someone jump in front of the train (that happens actually) needless to say the one time I needed everything to run smoothly to make it to my 6:13 train… they didn’t. There are only two lines that go to Gare du Nord, 4 and 5 so after sitting in a tunnel for almost 20 minutes and freaking out about missing my train, they let us off and I had to run to line three to get to line five… and I had 10 minutes till I needed to be there for check-in… and I was running, with all my stuff and sweating and breathing really hard and looking ridiculous… and I made it to Gare du Nord with 25 minutes until the train left… which even I couldn’t believe, after sitting under ground for like 20 minutes I was sure I could never make it… but hope had returned!
I got my ticket checked and the French man barely glanced at my passport, I thought I was home free… until I met the grumpiest British customs lady ever… and I lost it. I needed to fill out a form (which I didn’t realize) and she barked in my face to do that… so I did quick as I could… and I handed it to her. She looked at it, and asked me for my address where I was staying in London. I had 11 minutes at this point, and of course I didn’t know Annie’s address, it didn’t occur to me to ever even ask her for it. I have travelled all over Europe without once being asked for an address, but the UK is different I guess. But when I told her I didn’t know it she barked again “well that isn’t very clever now is it? Just why don’t you have it?” And like I said, the stress of the past hour and disappointment of the past ten days caught up to me, and I lost it. I proceed to recount how I was supposed to stay with my mom but there was an ash cloud then the metro broke down, all through a stream of stressed out, disappointed tears of frustration… and after a lecture of how if it ever happened again I couldn’t go to London… she let me through (I couldn’t believe it), I ran through security… and sat down in the farthest car possible with approximately 2 minutes 30 seconds to spare before the train pulled out of the station. And the weekend only got better from there. But that was definitely the most stressful travel experience I have had yet in my séjour en France. Good lord.
The chunnel itself was rather anticlimactic. I guess I was randomly expecting for the tunnel to be transparent, so I could see all the little fishies swimming around in the channel… but even if the tunnel had been transparent, it would be too dark down there to see anything right? I don’t know, but it is funny how we imagine things are going to be, even if our imaginings are not very rational… but I did have time to get myself back together before I got off the train and met Annie and Matt at the station in London. We proceeded to leave the station, and go out into the rain (London was being very cliché for us, because what story or movie that happens in London does not take place in the rain?) and we walked in the rain to the closest street full of wonderful Indian restaurants… and we feasted on curry and Naan and had a wonderful dinner with the Brauer family and Annie there. I was so happy to see some familiar faces from the states… but I couldn’t help but miss my mom and my grandma who should have been there too, even if they wouldn’t have wanted to go to an Indian restaurant. But after dinner on the rainy Friday night, Matt, Annie and I delivered the ever-so jetlagged Brauers to their hotel, and the three of us went to have a pint in a pub. It was very fun, very British and very chill, until I was tired myself and Annie and I bid farewell to Matt and trekked to her apartment, which I still don’t know the address of. And I don’t want to know it either, so there customs lady.
Saturday morning dawned, still wet but not raining and a little chilly, but comfortable with a pullover, so I left Annie at home for the morning and headed back down to downtown London (Annie lives in a nice little neighbourhood in north London about 20 minutes on the Tube north of central London.) I met up wit the Brauer family at the British museum and we explored all of the wonderful things that the British empire stole from cultures from all over the world, and in many cases today, they still refuse to give the items back because they believe them to be safer in London…if you ever want to have a conversation about this debateable topic I would be more than willing to talk about it, we studied it in my anthropology class last semester and it is actually a very compelling debate… but the museum was cool with the Rosetta stone and many other outstanding objects from all over the world.
After the museum we stopped at a little place to have some delicious fish and chips… and another random British speciality… mushy peas. How did this get to be so popular? I don’t know, but if you like peas, which I do, then you will like mushy peas.
It was random, but wonderful at the same time, and we then headed over for a stroll in Hyde Park since the sun was actually out and the flowers were in full bloom. I must of taken a gajillion pictures in the gardens of all of the flowers, near the entrance and by the pond and in Kensington garden which we walked down to, but here I will put up only my favourite flower pictures… they were gorgeous, but can you see the ominous sky in the background? It was threatening to rain at any minute by that point… and as we made our way over to Liecester square to buy theatre tickets for that evening (we bought tickets to see Sister Act) and then we went over to Trafalgar square to meet Annie… and the sky made good on its threat to pour, and pour it did. So we jumped inside the National Gallery, and actually got to see all kinds of really cool paintings that I studied in my Modern Art and Modernity class, and we tried to stay out of the rain as long as possible. The nice thing about museums in London is that they are all free… so it is not a big deal to jump in one for an hour and another for another hour. I like that.
But we left the gallery to grab a bite to eat at a pub restaurant before the show. The show was at 7:30 at a theatre over by Oxford circus. So we headed over there to take our seats right before the show started. We had great seats, and we were seeing, like I said, Sister Act the Musical.
If you have seen the movie from the 90’s (I think) with Whoppie Goldberg then you know basically the plot of the musical, but the music was fun and up beat and there were lots of glittery costumes to admire, and dynamic characters (including an old nun and the actress had to have been like 80, but I guess I don’t know exactly how old she was…) But the show was great and we were all thoroughly entertained! We left the theatre in the rain of course, and walked over to Picadilly to see the lights, 
and then jumped on the tube to take a walk along the river at night… which could have been more pleasant if it hadn’t been pouring and the trucks hadn’t kept driving by and splashing us… but we were there and nothing was stopping us, and I did get some pics of the London eye and Big Ben at night in the rain.
We shortly thereafter bid good night to the Brauers (who returned to their hotel to a surprise of their own, a lovely leak on the bed, but you will have to ask them about it if you want to hear about it in more detail…) and Annie and I headed back to her room, tired and happy and a little bit wet.
Sunday morning was spent relaxing, something both of us needed, and then at around 1:30 pm we met Matt at the metro stop and went and had a lovely afternoon tea at a very quaint little place in Annie’s neighbourhood.
Tea and scones and chocolate cake…. So yummy! And then we headed back down to central London to drop Matt at the train station since his train left earlier than mine, and the Brauers were flying. So we bid him farewell, and Annie and I got on the Tube and went over to see the Tower Bridge which was really cool! 
Here are the pictures I took, or at least some of them! It was really a fun (if not a little bit cold afternoon, and it went by much too quickly before I had to go to the train station myself to come back to Paris. It was an easy time of it going back… not a single hitch or grumpy custom lady.
And somehow coming back to Paris always feel like coming home again, where everything is familiar, even if the language isn’t English (I am just as comfortable with French most of the time) and I made my way to bed, after a fun but quick weekend in London. London is the last trip I have planned before the big trip at the end, now it is really time to focus on my Memoire du Stage… so wish me luck on that in the next week!
À bientot!
If only it had been that easy. I needed to leave the IMA a little early, but my Arabic prof insisted that I stay and fill out a questionnaire that I could have turned in any day since I work here… and I got to the metro to line 4 at Saint-Michel to go up to Gare du Nord… but I was on the extremely crowded train, and should have been up to the station in about 20 minutes… but there was an “accident grave” farther down on line four. I am not exactly sure what that means… did a train break down? Did someone jump in front of the train (that happens actually) needless to say the one time I needed everything to run smoothly to make it to my 6:13 train… they didn’t. There are only two lines that go to Gare du Nord, 4 and 5 so after sitting in a tunnel for almost 20 minutes and freaking out about missing my train, they let us off and I had to run to line three to get to line five… and I had 10 minutes till I needed to be there for check-in… and I was running, with all my stuff and sweating and breathing really hard and looking ridiculous… and I made it to Gare du Nord with 25 minutes until the train left… which even I couldn’t believe, after sitting under ground for like 20 minutes I was sure I could never make it… but hope had returned!
I got my ticket checked and the French man barely glanced at my passport, I thought I was home free… until I met the grumpiest British customs lady ever… and I lost it. I needed to fill out a form (which I didn’t realize) and she barked in my face to do that… so I did quick as I could… and I handed it to her. She looked at it, and asked me for my address where I was staying in London. I had 11 minutes at this point, and of course I didn’t know Annie’s address, it didn’t occur to me to ever even ask her for it. I have travelled all over Europe without once being asked for an address, but the UK is different I guess. But when I told her I didn’t know it she barked again “well that isn’t very clever now is it? Just why don’t you have it?” And like I said, the stress of the past hour and disappointment of the past ten days caught up to me, and I lost it. I proceed to recount how I was supposed to stay with my mom but there was an ash cloud then the metro broke down, all through a stream of stressed out, disappointed tears of frustration… and after a lecture of how if it ever happened again I couldn’t go to London… she let me through (I couldn’t believe it), I ran through security… and sat down in the farthest car possible with approximately 2 minutes 30 seconds to spare before the train pulled out of the station. And the weekend only got better from there. But that was definitely the most stressful travel experience I have had yet in my séjour en France. Good lord.
The chunnel itself was rather anticlimactic. I guess I was randomly expecting for the tunnel to be transparent, so I could see all the little fishies swimming around in the channel… but even if the tunnel had been transparent, it would be too dark down there to see anything right? I don’t know, but it is funny how we imagine things are going to be, even if our imaginings are not very rational… but I did have time to get myself back together before I got off the train and met Annie and Matt at the station in London. We proceeded to leave the station, and go out into the rain (London was being very cliché for us, because what story or movie that happens in London does not take place in the rain?) and we walked in the rain to the closest street full of wonderful Indian restaurants… and we feasted on curry and Naan and had a wonderful dinner with the Brauer family and Annie there. I was so happy to see some familiar faces from the states… but I couldn’t help but miss my mom and my grandma who should have been there too, even if they wouldn’t have wanted to go to an Indian restaurant. But after dinner on the rainy Friday night, Matt, Annie and I delivered the ever-so jetlagged Brauers to their hotel, and the three of us went to have a pint in a pub. It was very fun, very British and very chill, until I was tired myself and Annie and I bid farewell to Matt and trekked to her apartment, which I still don’t know the address of. And I don’t want to know it either, so there customs lady.
Saturday morning dawned, still wet but not raining and a little chilly, but comfortable with a pullover, so I left Annie at home for the morning and headed back down to downtown London (Annie lives in a nice little neighbourhood in north London about 20 minutes on the Tube north of central London.) I met up wit the Brauer family at the British museum and we explored all of the wonderful things that the British empire stole from cultures from all over the world, and in many cases today, they still refuse to give the items back because they believe them to be safer in London…if you ever want to have a conversation about this debateable topic I would be more than willing to talk about it, we studied it in my anthropology class last semester and it is actually a very compelling debate… but the museum was cool with the Rosetta stone and many other outstanding objects from all over the world.
After the museum we stopped at a little place to have some delicious fish and chips… and another random British speciality… mushy peas. How did this get to be so popular? I don’t know, but if you like peas, which I do, then you will like mushy peas.
It was random, but wonderful at the same time, and we then headed over for a stroll in Hyde Park since the sun was actually out and the flowers were in full bloom. I must of taken a gajillion pictures in the gardens of all of the flowers, near the entrance and by the pond and in Kensington garden which we walked down to, but here I will put up only my favourite flower pictures… they were gorgeous, but can you see the ominous sky in the background? It was threatening to rain at any minute by that point… and as we made our way over to Liecester square to buy theatre tickets for that evening (we bought tickets to see Sister Act) and then we went over to Trafalgar square to meet Annie… and the sky made good on its threat to pour, and pour it did. So we jumped inside the National Gallery, and actually got to see all kinds of really cool paintings that I studied in my Modern Art and Modernity class, and we tried to stay out of the rain as long as possible. The nice thing about museums in London is that they are all free… so it is not a big deal to jump in one for an hour and another for another hour. I like that.
But we left the gallery to grab a bite to eat at a pub restaurant before the show. The show was at 7:30 at a theatre over by Oxford circus. So we headed over there to take our seats right before the show started. We had great seats, and we were seeing, like I said, Sister Act the Musical.
If you have seen the movie from the 90’s (I think) with Whoppie Goldberg then you know basically the plot of the musical, but the music was fun and up beat and there were lots of glittery costumes to admire, and dynamic characters (including an old nun and the actress had to have been like 80, but I guess I don’t know exactly how old she was…) But the show was great and we were all thoroughly entertained! We left the theatre in the rain of course, and walked over to Picadilly to see the lights, 
and then jumped on the tube to take a walk along the river at night… which could have been more pleasant if it hadn’t been pouring and the trucks hadn’t kept driving by and splashing us… but we were there and nothing was stopping us, and I did get some pics of the London eye and Big Ben at night in the rain.
We shortly thereafter bid good night to the Brauers (who returned to their hotel to a surprise of their own, a lovely leak on the bed, but you will have to ask them about it if you want to hear about it in more detail…) and Annie and I headed back to her room, tired and happy and a little bit wet.
Sunday morning was spent relaxing, something both of us needed, and then at around 1:30 pm we met Matt at the metro stop and went and had a lovely afternoon tea at a very quaint little place in Annie’s neighbourhood.
Tea and scones and chocolate cake…. So yummy! And then we headed back down to central London to drop Matt at the train station since his train left earlier than mine, and the Brauers were flying. So we bid him farewell, and Annie and I got on the Tube and went over to see the Tower Bridge which was really cool! 
Here are the pictures I took, or at least some of them! It was really a fun (if not a little bit cold afternoon, and it went by much too quickly before I had to go to the train station myself to come back to Paris. It was an easy time of it going back… not a single hitch or grumpy custom lady. And somehow coming back to Paris always feel like coming home again, where everything is familiar, even if the language isn’t English (I am just as comfortable with French most of the time) and I made my way to bed, after a fun but quick weekend in London. London is the last trip I have planned before the big trip at the end, now it is really time to focus on my Memoire du Stage… so wish me luck on that in the next week!
À bientot!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Three Languages
So this week has been really… I can’t pick just one word, it is really impossible to pick just one. It has been really good, and stressful and intense and exhausting and really all around rewarding. So now that I have thrown out every adjective in the book, I will have to elaborate on why this week has been all of those things for me, and then to get some stuff off my mind I will talk about what is coming up (and to help myself organize my own thoughts about what I need to do, and how I am going to go about accomplishing all of these things.
But first of all, this week. This week is the week of my week long intensive Arabic class that I am taking. It is six hours of Arabic for five days in a row to equal 30 hours of Arabic. I have finished day four, which means I have put in 24 hours of my thirty… and let’s just say my brain is reeling. I have been working on my second language (French) since I was about seven years old I would say… and I have really come as close to perfecting it this semester as I ever have, although as always I have a long way to go. But throwing this third language into the mix has been really interesting and challenging as well. First of all there is a completely new alphabet to learn, with 29 letters, 26 of which are consonants and which is read from right to left instead of left to right. Ok, by day two I had that down (ok sorta, at least I can write recognize and verbalize all of the letters. It is the pronunciation that I really need to work on, but I don’t know when that might happen.
There are so many new sounds, and learning a new language involves learning new grammar rules etc… I have really been fascinated this week by language itself and how there are so many different responses to the same problem that all humans face: the need to communicate. There have been thousands of languages, thousands of answers to the same problem, and learning about language I think I have to say that it is really a testament to human creativity and ingenuity that people have come up with so many and so complicated responses to the same problem. Wow. I could never learn them all, but I am certainly awed by the very existence of so many different languages!
It has also been very different for me to learn a new language in foreign language. Learning Arabic in French has been challenging at times too, when we are trying to sound things out phonetically and they are French words or French names, or when the prof discusses points of grammar and I have to ask, wait what? There is a guy in my class who is Australian, so I have a fellow Anglophone to help me if I need it, but it is really crazy to learn a very foreign language in a foreign language. I am definitely on my toes all the time… which is good, but part of the reason why this week has been so absolutely exhausting…
But there are other reasons too. As promised Marie and I moved this weekend. To an apartment with one room. And one bed. Oh dear. It is actually a great apartment for one person (or two people if those two people don’t mind sharing a bed) in a great location with a really nice sized bathroom and enough space for one person. But for two people? Oh dear. At first I was really stressed about the whole thing because I get up earlier than her, and in the next month I will be going to bed later I am sure etc etc. But moving to a foyer would be a really big hassle too, although that was an option. But Marie I guess was planning on going and visiting some people etc and she has other things to do so she wont be there all that much, so I will have the place to myself mostly I guess. The only down side is that there is no internet there… and the situation is still kinda strange to me, but I am going to London this weekend, and then I only have three weeks left to live there (holy crap where did the time go!) so I think for only three weeks we can def make it work. It might be a little stressful, but I am trying to roll with the punches…
But yeah! I am going to London this weekend! Even though my mom and grandma won’t be there I am going to see Annie and visit this awesome city! So look forward to some cool pictures coming up next week! And then after my little trip to London it is going to be time to buckle down and focus. Next Tuesday my débat is due, Wednesday we have a conference at IFE and Thursday I have to present my paper and my research thus far… then I have 15 days to finish my 30 page paper in French 1.5 spacing 11 point font. Oh dear. So I will really have to focus and get to work. I have done a lot of work in two weeks before and I can do it again for sure, but I just need to get my life together and do it. So there. But after that there is going to be three weeks of travelling which I am super excited about… but I have to get through all the hard stuff first! And tonight I am going to do laundry and have clean clothes again which will be nice… So look for London pictures soon!
A bientôt!
But first of all, this week. This week is the week of my week long intensive Arabic class that I am taking. It is six hours of Arabic for five days in a row to equal 30 hours of Arabic. I have finished day four, which means I have put in 24 hours of my thirty… and let’s just say my brain is reeling. I have been working on my second language (French) since I was about seven years old I would say… and I have really come as close to perfecting it this semester as I ever have, although as always I have a long way to go. But throwing this third language into the mix has been really interesting and challenging as well. First of all there is a completely new alphabet to learn, with 29 letters, 26 of which are consonants and which is read from right to left instead of left to right. Ok, by day two I had that down (ok sorta, at least I can write recognize and verbalize all of the letters. It is the pronunciation that I really need to work on, but I don’t know when that might happen.
There are so many new sounds, and learning a new language involves learning new grammar rules etc… I have really been fascinated this week by language itself and how there are so many different responses to the same problem that all humans face: the need to communicate. There have been thousands of languages, thousands of answers to the same problem, and learning about language I think I have to say that it is really a testament to human creativity and ingenuity that people have come up with so many and so complicated responses to the same problem. Wow. I could never learn them all, but I am certainly awed by the very existence of so many different languages!
It has also been very different for me to learn a new language in foreign language. Learning Arabic in French has been challenging at times too, when we are trying to sound things out phonetically and they are French words or French names, or when the prof discusses points of grammar and I have to ask, wait what? There is a guy in my class who is Australian, so I have a fellow Anglophone to help me if I need it, but it is really crazy to learn a very foreign language in a foreign language. I am definitely on my toes all the time… which is good, but part of the reason why this week has been so absolutely exhausting…
But there are other reasons too. As promised Marie and I moved this weekend. To an apartment with one room. And one bed. Oh dear. It is actually a great apartment for one person (or two people if those two people don’t mind sharing a bed) in a great location with a really nice sized bathroom and enough space for one person. But for two people? Oh dear. At first I was really stressed about the whole thing because I get up earlier than her, and in the next month I will be going to bed later I am sure etc etc. But moving to a foyer would be a really big hassle too, although that was an option. But Marie I guess was planning on going and visiting some people etc and she has other things to do so she wont be there all that much, so I will have the place to myself mostly I guess. The only down side is that there is no internet there… and the situation is still kinda strange to me, but I am going to London this weekend, and then I only have three weeks left to live there (holy crap where did the time go!) so I think for only three weeks we can def make it work. It might be a little stressful, but I am trying to roll with the punches…
But yeah! I am going to London this weekend! Even though my mom and grandma won’t be there I am going to see Annie and visit this awesome city! So look forward to some cool pictures coming up next week! And then after my little trip to London it is going to be time to buckle down and focus. Next Tuesday my débat is due, Wednesday we have a conference at IFE and Thursday I have to present my paper and my research thus far… then I have 15 days to finish my 30 page paper in French 1.5 spacing 11 point font. Oh dear. So I will really have to focus and get to work. I have done a lot of work in two weeks before and I can do it again for sure, but I just need to get my life together and do it. So there. But after that there is going to be three weeks of travelling which I am super excited about… but I have to get through all the hard stuff first! And tonight I am going to do laundry and have clean clothes again which will be nice… So look for London pictures soon!
A bientôt!
Sunday, April 25, 2010
The upcoming week
So I just wanted to write a quick paragraph to update what is going on in my life currently that does not involve me sitting outside loving the sun… but rather involves my life at the IMA and with IFE. This week at the IMA is my stage intensif where I will be spending 6 hours a day for the next five days learning the basics of the Arabic language, which I am very excited for, but also a bit nervous for as well. I will let everyone know how that goes… Inshallah. (God willing in Arabic, at least I know one word.) I am also in the throes of doing research for my Memoire du stage which is about representations of a man called Saladin in the 12th century up to the present. I will write a much more detailed post about what it is about and what it entails in about a week, but for now just know it is underway… and this weekend I will be in London with Annie and I just can’t wait! I also wanted to write this post… so that I could put a few more pics from this weekend, of Paris in the Spring! So enjoy the pics and I will update this again soon talking about how everything is going! A bientot!
Rediscovering Paris
So I suddenly found myself with a lot more time this week and this weekend than I was planning on having…mostly because I was not running around Paris with my family and doing all of the things we had planned to do together. How somehow, as it always is in this city, I am never ever at a loss of things to do, and the free time actually found me slowing down a bit, and as one can when they open their eyes and take a bit of a slower pace, I found myself seeing Paris with slightly different eyes.
Or perhaps it is not my eyes that have changed, but the city itself. Paris has quite literally transformed itself into a new place I think.
It is not cold and dreary and rainy (although I loved it just as much then) but warm and the sunlight seems endless and the trees and flowers are blooming and turning green everywhere. People are outside and tourists are around, and this city that I fell in love with in the months of February and March, when I couldn’t stand to go outside without eight layers and a POS umbrella, has asked me to fall in love with it again, this time in a whole new way. I can appreciate it for its wonderfulness now, for its parks and greenspaces so carefully planned by Haussman in the late 19th century. I can appreciate walks along the Seine, and picnics by the water and afternoons exploring new quartiers that I have not had the time or the will to explore in the depths of winter. I feel like I really got to experience Paris in the Spring this weekend, which is not the experience I was hoping to have this weekend (since I really wanted my mom and grandma to be here) but I will cherish this weekend for a long time to come I think.
Friday afternoon for my lunch break I sat on the grass on the bank of the Seine and had a picnic and read my book for a while and wrote postcards to people at home. You can see here my views of the Seine and the Institute and me looking insanely happy to be right where I was, in the sun by the water and enjoying every minute of it!
Saturday afternoon Matt and I set out to picnic and read and work on our memoires in the park at the end of the Promenade plantee that we discovered last weekend with Annie, and we spent the afternoon doing work, and reading (ok Matt did a lot more work that I did) enjoying the sun because it was 75 degrees outside for the first time this year, and people watching. I love people watching. It seemed like people from all woks of life were out in the park for the afternoon. Families with small children (who I am completely obsessed with watching and ooohing and awwwing over, and lovers with bottles of wine (we might have been those people too!) and girls in bathing suits trying to look less pasty, and old couples sitting in the shade, watching the young people.
Everyone was there, but not really tourists which was nice. Real genuine Parisians spending the first genuinely warm day outside, doing exactly what we were doing. We had a picnic of sandwhiches and cheese and oranges and chips, with a bottle of wine (and some water to keep hydrated) and we literally basked in the sun, and in our afternoon. It was really really wonderful. I could have been more productive, but it was a wonderful afternoon. We then went to find an afternoon treat (gelato from our favorite place at Bastille!) and explore an art market that is out at Bastille every weekend.
We continued our romantic evening and went to a really cool wine store that we found, where you can go down into the huge wine store, pick your bottle of wine, ranging in price from 9euro to 665 euro in price, and then you can take the bottle to the café upstairs and for only the price of the bottle they will open it and serve it to you, and you can be as fancy or not as you like. Needless to say we chose one of the less expensive bottles, but sitting in the café it is easy to pretend you are high French society drinking fancy French wine… even if the bottle only cost 10euro. It was really fun! We then ventured over to a place near the IMA in the quartier latin and had a cheap Panini for dinner (so yummy!) and went to one of our favorite hangout spots to watch a soccer game. It was a lovely day, and I really felt like Paris was new, the same but new, fresher and prettier, and more exciting than ever.
Sunday was just another day of exploring. Matt and I made our way to the Musee D’Orsay to see the paintings I studied in my modern art and modernity class freshman year. From there we walked all the way down along the Seine, admiring the wears the bouquinistes have to sell in their little carts and breathing in the warm Spring air. It was lovely!
We sat outside and ate dinner at our favorite Breton Crepe restaurant near Centre Pompidou, and talked about how Paris has become home, how it has really become our city, and how much fun it is to rediscover it in this way as the seasons have changed and I find myself changing with it, and turning my eyes to the future, knowing that I will be back, I will have to be back in this country and in this city again, and nothing could stand in my way.
Or perhaps it is not my eyes that have changed, but the city itself. Paris has quite literally transformed itself into a new place I think.
It is not cold and dreary and rainy (although I loved it just as much then) but warm and the sunlight seems endless and the trees and flowers are blooming and turning green everywhere. People are outside and tourists are around, and this city that I fell in love with in the months of February and March, when I couldn’t stand to go outside without eight layers and a POS umbrella, has asked me to fall in love with it again, this time in a whole new way. I can appreciate it for its wonderfulness now, for its parks and greenspaces so carefully planned by Haussman in the late 19th century. I can appreciate walks along the Seine, and picnics by the water and afternoons exploring new quartiers that I have not had the time or the will to explore in the depths of winter. I feel like I really got to experience Paris in the Spring this weekend, which is not the experience I was hoping to have this weekend (since I really wanted my mom and grandma to be here) but I will cherish this weekend for a long time to come I think.
Friday afternoon for my lunch break I sat on the grass on the bank of the Seine and had a picnic and read my book for a while and wrote postcards to people at home. You can see here my views of the Seine and the Institute and me looking insanely happy to be right where I was, in the sun by the water and enjoying every minute of it!
Saturday afternoon Matt and I set out to picnic and read and work on our memoires in the park at the end of the Promenade plantee that we discovered last weekend with Annie, and we spent the afternoon doing work, and reading (ok Matt did a lot more work that I did) enjoying the sun because it was 75 degrees outside for the first time this year, and people watching. I love people watching. It seemed like people from all woks of life were out in the park for the afternoon. Families with small children (who I am completely obsessed with watching and ooohing and awwwing over, and lovers with bottles of wine (we might have been those people too!) and girls in bathing suits trying to look less pasty, and old couples sitting in the shade, watching the young people.
Everyone was there, but not really tourists which was nice. Real genuine Parisians spending the first genuinely warm day outside, doing exactly what we were doing. We had a picnic of sandwhiches and cheese and oranges and chips, with a bottle of wine (and some water to keep hydrated) and we literally basked in the sun, and in our afternoon. It was really really wonderful. I could have been more productive, but it was a wonderful afternoon. We then went to find an afternoon treat (gelato from our favorite place at Bastille!) and explore an art market that is out at Bastille every weekend.
We continued our romantic evening and went to a really cool wine store that we found, where you can go down into the huge wine store, pick your bottle of wine, ranging in price from 9euro to 665 euro in price, and then you can take the bottle to the café upstairs and for only the price of the bottle they will open it and serve it to you, and you can be as fancy or not as you like. Needless to say we chose one of the less expensive bottles, but sitting in the café it is easy to pretend you are high French society drinking fancy French wine… even if the bottle only cost 10euro. It was really fun! We then ventured over to a place near the IMA in the quartier latin and had a cheap Panini for dinner (so yummy!) and went to one of our favorite hangout spots to watch a soccer game. It was a lovely day, and I really felt like Paris was new, the same but new, fresher and prettier, and more exciting than ever.
Sunday was just another day of exploring. Matt and I made our way to the Musee D’Orsay to see the paintings I studied in my modern art and modernity class freshman year. From there we walked all the way down along the Seine, admiring the wears the bouquinistes have to sell in their little carts and breathing in the warm Spring air. It was lovely!
We sat outside and ate dinner at our favorite Breton Crepe restaurant near Centre Pompidou, and talked about how Paris has become home, how it has really become our city, and how much fun it is to rediscover it in this way as the seasons have changed and I find myself changing with it, and turning my eyes to the future, knowing that I will be back, I will have to be back in this country and in this city again, and nothing could stand in my way.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
I'll just have to come back again
So if anyone has been following me on twitter or is friends with me on facebook then you probably know that because of the stupid volcanic eruption in Iceland my mom and grandma’s eagerly awaited visit had to be canceled. At the very least you could say that everyone was very disappointed since planning this visit has been in the works for months and I really wanted to show my mom and my grandma all of my favorite places and things here in Paris. Although I have come to the conclusion already that I simply have not had enough time here in France during this sejour. I have not had enough time to travel and not had enough time to perfect my French the way I want to, thus there is only one solution to this problem. I will have to come back and spend another significant amount of time here… in the near future, and then my mom and grandma will have to come visit me then!
My grandma says she is getting a bit old to travel that far, but I think any 79 year old woman who makes it her goal to ride at least 100 miles a week on her bike in the summer is in perfect condition to come and visit me in France sometime within the next five years, and my mom is just in her prime of retirement, and everyone here is very intrigued by our story and really wants to meet her. (By our story I mean the story of the donor insemination and raising twins and working two jobs on her own, all the things that make my mom the wonderful strong and fantastic woman she is… why wouldn’t everyone want to meet her?) But after several days of stressfully watching the news and compulsively reading the New York Times and BBC articles it became very clear that their trip was going to be cancelled, since the earliest flight they could get after that would be on the 27th of April, and my mom and Susan had to go back to work, and really just couldn’t work around the volcanic eruption. I would be lying if I didn’t say that tears were shed… tears of frustration and disappointment, and downright missing my mom. I may be 21 years old, but I still miss my mom, and I don’t think that is really all that strange.
But after the tears were shed, I realized that maybe it just wasn’t supposed to work out this time around, and the future is wide open for more opportunities for my family to be here together, and maybe Mirandy will be able to come too, and all of the Moberg women will be in France together, enjoying the city that I have come to know as my second home away from home (DePauw being my first) and travelling around this country that is so different in so many ways… and yet not all that different at all. So yes, trying to keep everything in perspective can be very trying at times, especially when I think of all the fun we were going to have, but it has not been cancelled, just postponed I am just sure of it! Plus I think my mom is spending next week on Seabrook Island with her friends, which might be second only to visiting me in Europe, so that will be great for her!
I am still planning on going to London next weekend, I will just have to stay with Annie (which I am of course looking forward to!) and find things for my family to do when they come to visit me in the future. And Matt's parents are coming to visit as well, and Mrs. Brauer promised me a really good mom hug... so that will be fun as well! Look forward to posts about London (and a few others before that) coming soon!
My grandma says she is getting a bit old to travel that far, but I think any 79 year old woman who makes it her goal to ride at least 100 miles a week on her bike in the summer is in perfect condition to come and visit me in France sometime within the next five years, and my mom is just in her prime of retirement, and everyone here is very intrigued by our story and really wants to meet her. (By our story I mean the story of the donor insemination and raising twins and working two jobs on her own, all the things that make my mom the wonderful strong and fantastic woman she is… why wouldn’t everyone want to meet her?) But after several days of stressfully watching the news and compulsively reading the New York Times and BBC articles it became very clear that their trip was going to be cancelled, since the earliest flight they could get after that would be on the 27th of April, and my mom and Susan had to go back to work, and really just couldn’t work around the volcanic eruption. I would be lying if I didn’t say that tears were shed… tears of frustration and disappointment, and downright missing my mom. I may be 21 years old, but I still miss my mom, and I don’t think that is really all that strange.
But after the tears were shed, I realized that maybe it just wasn’t supposed to work out this time around, and the future is wide open for more opportunities for my family to be here together, and maybe Mirandy will be able to come too, and all of the Moberg women will be in France together, enjoying the city that I have come to know as my second home away from home (DePauw being my first) and travelling around this country that is so different in so many ways… and yet not all that different at all. So yes, trying to keep everything in perspective can be very trying at times, especially when I think of all the fun we were going to have, but it has not been cancelled, just postponed I am just sure of it! Plus I think my mom is spending next week on Seabrook Island with her friends, which might be second only to visiting me in Europe, so that will be great for her!
I am still planning on going to London next weekend, I will just have to stay with Annie (which I am of course looking forward to!) and find things for my family to do when they come to visit me in the future. And Matt's parents are coming to visit as well, and Mrs. Brauer promised me a really good mom hug... so that will be fun as well! Look forward to posts about London (and a few others before that) coming soon!
The first nice weekend!
Do not be misled by the title of this post... I have had many nice dare I say wonderful weekends here in Paris, but this past weekend was really the first weekend that the weather was really beautiful, and it was probably 75 degrees and sunny without a doubt! I was also lucky enough to be graced by the presence of my wonderful friend Annie Greene who is getting her masters degree in London currently, and she jumped across the channel (ok she took the Eurostar across the channel) and spent the weekend with me in Paris! There were lots of museums we could have gone to, lots of places we could have checked out (my list continues to get longer as my time gets shorter!) but we just couldnt bring ourselves to go inside! So on Saturday we went out to the Promenade Plantée which is a set of old train tracks that has been turned into a beautiful walk way with a garden on the end of it... and then we went from there to have a picnic on the bank of the river. Even then we could not go inside so we went to the Jardin des Plantes where we saw more wonderful things in bloom! I wanted to go to the menagerie too... but I think everyone in Paris under the age of 5 wanted to do the same thing (shows you a little bit about my mental state!) and the line was too long so we just enjoyed the garden.
Then we went off to find some gelato, and coffee in le quartier latin... and we explored all over. On Sunday once again not being able to stay indoors we went to the cemetary in Montparnasse and paid a little visit to people like Jean-Paul Sartre and his lover Simone de Beauvoir as well as to Emile Durkheim and Serge Gainsbourg. From there we went up to Montmartre, which was gorgeous, and enjoyed a late lunch before heading back to Saint-Mandé to cook dinner with Tati and enjoy good food and good wine! So here are the pictures from the weekend, at least my favorite pics... and you can have your mind be as boggled as mine about how it is almost impossible to believe that there is a cloud of ash floating 10km above the city preventing all planes from flying, and preventing my mom and grandma from coming to visit me. But more on that later...
It was a truly wonderful weekend!
Then we went off to find some gelato, and coffee in le quartier latin... and we explored all over. On Sunday once again not being able to stay indoors we went to the cemetary in Montparnasse and paid a little visit to people like Jean-Paul Sartre and his lover Simone de Beauvoir as well as to Emile Durkheim and Serge Gainsbourg. From there we went up to Montmartre, which was gorgeous, and enjoyed a late lunch before heading back to Saint-Mandé to cook dinner with Tati and enjoy good food and good wine! So here are the pictures from the weekend, at least my favorite pics... and you can have your mind be as boggled as mine about how it is almost impossible to believe that there is a cloud of ash floating 10km above the city preventing all planes from flying, and preventing my mom and grandma from coming to visit me. But more on that later...
It was a truly wonderful weekend!
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