I told Tiffany I would meet her in Paris by the Trocadero. I don't care, I don't show up. I go to Berlin. That's where I stashed the chandelier.

Sometimes things happen that suck hardcore at the time but afterward make for amazing stories.

So Thursday, the night before Nick and Allison left Paris, we decide to meet up at the carousel next to the Eiffel Tower before going out for a fancy schmancy dinner, right?

Meeting at the carousel was my idea of course. I proclaimed that I had all this knowledge about the area, that I knew where everything was. Then, of course, fate decided to kick me in the balls yet again.

Did anyone else know that the Trocadero metro stop is currently under construction? I didn't. And I didn't realize it until the metro told me so... about 10 seconds after we had breezed through what was supposed to be my stop.

So here I am, already late. I get off at the next stop, and where it had been 60 degrees and sunny the last time I saw Nick, this time it is 40 degrees and raining. And I am wearing a skirt. A short skirt. When I come up above ground I realize that I am deep in the heart of the 16eme arrondisement... the richest neighborhood in all of Paris. Gigantic stone townhouses peer down at me, a speck on the dark and empty boulevard. Certainly no taxis are close by. Instead, the wind is whipping all around me as I whip out my Paris Practique... but it's 2 blocks and 10 minutes later when I realize I read it wrong (again) and am heading in the wrong direction.

How did I realize this? I looked behind me and saw the Eiffel Tower at my back.

So cut to me running as fast as I can through the 16e arrondisement of Paris towards the Eiffel Tower. My hair, which had been up and nice and all that, was now damp and falling all over the place. My flats were clacking on the pavement, and my dress was probably up around my shoulders. Then finally I make it to the back of the Trocadero, slide past the mini Eiffel Tower sellers, and around the corner, where I am met with this:



Again, I didn't take this picture myself. And again, a picture in no way does the experience justice. But even so.

So where was I? Oh yes, running though the Trocadero. Across the top, past the restaurant we were going to in the first place (pause for loud groan), down the stairs, past the fountains (okay, I did stop to catch my breath a few times, yes), across the roundabout (whoops), and over to the carousel to meet my friends for some bisous, only 20 minutes late.

Of course, we had to hike back up the stairs to make it to the restaurant. BIG stairs. I was feeling silly and strong at the same time, not to mention hideous after my workout, so I was making silly demands like "we can't go here unless we get all 3 courses because this restaurant is too nice". It was in the freaking Trocadero for crying out loud. But then I recognized myself as the whining Rachael who followed Casey around all those years telling him not to do things, and I said fuck it, and in we went.

Of course, with Nick being fluent in German and Allison possessing only a basic classroom French, I became the translator of the evening. And I pretty much rocked it. The ask-them-their-own-questions method is working better than I thought it would. And as for the English conversation, it mostly revolved around love-lives and juicy gossips, which is nice every once in a while. Also, we spent an absolute fortune, but it was fabulous. Wine, shrimp soup, duck, creme brule... and a wonderful story to tell afterward.

Of course, when we got out of the place it was raining, absolutely freezing, and the metro was already closed. Thus, we had our bisous in the street as the cab pulled out of the roundabout to pick me up. The cab was cozy, too, and I wanted the ride to be longer (I do love me a good car ride). Oh, and yeah, for the record it felt good, as it always does, to have my little French conversations with strangers: Bon soir. Le metro Pereire, s'il vous plait. Non, je ne me souviens pas l'address. Mais, si vous connaissez la rue Laugier? Bon. Merci.

Sometimes Paris is my city.

...

Also, if you don't understand how funny meeting someone at the Trocadero is, watch this. Watch this and then feel ashamed that you haven't seen it before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjp3MAcfmps

Can you say Zahners?

How strange it is that immediately after Natalie came and visited me in my city, another American friend showed up not long after. I'm hoping this is a general trend and by the end of next week you will all be chilling with me in the new park I discovered the other day, completely by accident:

Leave it to me to find an immense English garden
in the middle of France.

So as I was saying, Nick Zahn came to Paris this week. Much like Natalie, he was here for other reasons--des petites vacances avant qu'il went to Vienna to visit the host family he lived with when he studied there in High School. Must admit, I was a little nervous about the whole hanging out with people I haven't really talked to in years thing, but I don't know, maybe it's the Montmartre air, but the minute I stepped off that metro last Monday we were chummy again.

I met first of all his roommate Allison, who is quite lovely, and then I demanded a sandwich. We got them from a corner shop just down the block from the Moulin Rouge, and when the young guy behind the counter found out I was a student and not a tourist he not only started up a little conversation, he did not get angry when I had no idea what he was saying and just stumbled along making a fool of myself. See, as my french comprehension skills improve, I've gone from just saying "eh?" and "je ne comprends pas" to understanding most of what they're saying. So, in fits of courage I usually refuse to admit I don't know what's going on, and instead I now just repeat their questions back to them.

Example:

French Person: Est-ce que vous... blah blah French... ce matin? (Do you ..... this morning?)

Me: Pardon? Est-ce je veux quelque chose ce matin? (Excuse me? Do I want something this morning?)

French Person: Est-ce-que-vous-voulez-UN-BOISSON-avec-le-croissant-ce-matin??? (Do you want a beverage with your croissant this morning?)

Me: Non, merci.

Now compare this to the conversations I had before...

French Person: Est-ce que vous... blah blah French... ce matin?

Me: EH? Quoi? Desolee. Je ne comprends p....

French Person: ... *sigh* *eye rolle* You Want DRINK??

Me: Non... merci...

See, if you give up and just say je ne comprends pas to these people, they'll not only stop speaking French to you and switch to English, they'll usually be kind of rude. But if you just say most of what they just said back in their faces without actually answering the question, they'll be not only more inclined to repeat themselves again more slowly and in French, they'll also probably be too confused to do anything else. Meh, it's an improvement.

Of course, I should add that this nice french man behind the counter was not only not rude, he was definitely hitting on me, even after I spat his questions back in his face. Something about wanting to talk to me parce que le jour est joli et vous etes jolie. Ah, France.

So, sandwiches in hand, we walked the only way one walks in Montmartre, that is, up. It looked like I knew where I was going, but really I was just following the elevation. We passed Le Moulin de la Galette en route, and I think Renoir did some false advertising or something because it did not look at all like the way he painted it:

Still, 'twas cute.

We eventually we made it to the stairs at the foot of the Sacre Coeur... I don't think I need to tell you all again just how much I love this place. It was better this time though, warmer.. more chilled out. I was with 2 people this time, and smokers too so we just fit right in, plopped ourselves down in the middle of the crowd and let the sun warm our faces as we looked out over the city. And sure enough, cute musician who doesn't know the words to the English songs he sings was there too. Life was good.


Eventually we let the momentum take us down the hill and back to the metro. We got off at Chatalet (it's fun to play tour guide), and walked along the river for a while alternating between those book-and-map-and-trinket vendors all along the bank and the pet shops. Seriously, there is a two block stretch on the right bank just west of Point Neuf where almost all the stores are garden stores spilling flowers all over the street... and in between those are the pet stores. Not unhealthy, poorly treated piles of sad animals you can't save pet stores, healthy, happy, Parisian pet stores. Some of them even had chickens. One of them had bunny rabbits, and I really really wanted one. Can you say happy place?

The goal, of course, was to get to Notre Dame. I had to show my baby off. We sat outside in the square for a while--smoking, waiting for people to finish going to the bathroom, and staring at cute French boys (actually, this had been the activity of choice all morning). At one point Nick was telling me some story but then his words were drowned out by the sound of the bells. When they calmed a bit I said to him what became the quote of the day: remember that time our conversation was interrupted by the bells of Notre Dame?

Well Do You?

We walked through the church, and I enjoyed seeing the look on Zahn's face as he made his way... he agrees with me that there is something special about this church, other than the obvious it being the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. Not too much happened after that. I took them over to Shakespeare's and we toured it briefly listening for attractive non-American English accents instead of books, and then walked down the Blvd. St. Michel to Cluny-La Sorbonne where I boarded the metro. Overall, a surprisingly amazing afternoon.

When I got back to the 17eme I was just in time for my own dinner party. Madame was out of town for the evening, and so I invited (with her permission!) Jen and Jenn over to the apartment to make food and sit around in an apartment not infested with Madames. Living in someone else's house wears on you, obviously, especially when you've been living on your own in your own tiny apartment for years and years. My Madame may cook for me and bring me candy and ask me how my day was, but she also peels my avacadoes for me in front of company. She takes the spoon out of my hand and stirs my hot chocolate for me when she thinks I'm doing it wrong. She makes me postpone my walk for 15 minutes so she can sit me down at my desk and make sure I buy a ticket to the opera that afternoon. She's sweet, but a little tough to bear, and Jen and Jen's Madames aren't much better. Suffice it to say that it was a very chill evening with music, kitchen messes, and a bottle of 5 euro wine (the good stuff) that was gone in an hour.

If only all Mondays were such a success!

Weekend Update (actually posted March 29th, for which I am both sorry and totally lame)

LAST weekend (not to be confused with the time currently passing me by as I sit around watching Dr. Horrible for the 3rd time and pretending to write my art history paper so Madame will leave me the he-eck alone) Natalie came to visit me. Okay, so she was on a choir tour and just so happened to stop in Paris, but I'd like to think I held at least some geographical sway.

Jen and I went to her concert on Friday morning. As in... 9 days ago. Again, so sorry I haven't been keeping up with this, but homework is currently kicking me in the balls. Or at least it would be kicking me in the balls, if I had any balls in which to be kicked.

So Natalie. Her concert was at this really cool church, you might have heard of it, it's called Notre Dame. Jen and I being regulars, we headed pretty much straight for the altar and got third row seats early. It was hard to walk in a straight line though, as there was some amazingly beautiful high and resounding choral music playing eerily in the background. Me, weak in the knees, etc etc, found it to be a big distraction. The funny thing though was there was no choir to be seen, at least not yet as the concert didn't start for another 20 minutes.

Then I realized that they must play eerie medieval music for the tourists sometimes. Ugh, gross. Good bye classy Paris, hello Disney.

At first that made me sad and kind of ill, but as I can pretty much see the bright side in everything no matter how much bullshit it takes, I suddenly remembered this one article Casey sent me from the New York Times a million bazillion years ago. The article was about the caretaker of the bells at Notre Dame. As you can see, he's this funny looking fellow with a totally pimp outfit, and when I remembered his funny visage I couldn't help but picture him up in the arcade with a gigantic 1980s boom box hoisted on one shoulder blasting the holy music. Then it became alright.

New York Times

God Rachael, at this rate you'll be finished with this blog, um.. NEVER.

Anyway, Natalie's concert was so good to try and describe it would be taking the sacred and making it profane. I--and I know this is no longer news to you all--but I cried through like the entire freaking thing. I just can't help it. There were times when my eyes were a little bit damp, and there were times when my chin was quivering like a California quake, and then there were times like the last song, which wasn't even cool and medieval, it was a freaking American spiritual. Still, it got me. It got me good. I noticed the tears pouring down the face of a certain girl in the front row of the choir, and I basically lost it and had to wipe my nose on my scarf in front of FRENCH PEOPLE.

I have legitimate reasons though. Do y'all have ANY IDEA what the acoustics in a cathedral sound like? Can you even imagine? I couldn't. A hundred four year olds could bang on pots and pans for 30 minutes and I would still call it a wonderful concert. The sound, before it alights on your humble eardrums, strikes first the expanse of stone ceiling. Then, it bounces around the valuts a bit, which shakes out the unpleasant notes. It tosses itself un petit peu through the arcade until it's crisp and clear, and runs like a shiver down the piers until finally, finally it makes it into your skull. All this trouncing makes the notes sound like...

...like...

...well like stained glass. Actually, that is a surprisingly accurate description. I think if you have ever heard what I was hearing then you would agree.

After the concert Jen and I ran around the cathedral like poulets sans tetes looking for Natalie. A word of advice: never, ever tell anyone you'll meet them "at the cathedral". That's like telling someone you'll meet them at Camp Randall. Or the Sears Tower. Or the bowels of Hell: it's bound to be crowded. Jen and I eventually put our heads together and realized the best place to wait would probably be the exit, and fortunately, after many minutes of fending off beggars asking if we spoke English and many more minutes of me whining and being terrified that I wasn't actually going to get to see Natalie (the horror!), we found her.

Unleash Phase I: operation GINORMOUS hug.

Um, it was a little anti-climactic after said hug though. Before Natalie and I began our Parisian adventures she had to go eat lunch with her group, so Jenn met Jen and I for lunch (are you getting the hang of this Jen(n) thing yet? I'm not.) and we walked down to the Latin Quarter and got Grecs. Erm, yes.. again. Then we raced back to the cathedral (like you do) and I traded my fab Paris friends temporarily for the one, the only, the drumroll deserving King Natalie the Great, esq.

Le Musee Jacquemart-André

The first thing, and really the only thing, on Natalie's surprisingly anti-climactic list of things to see and do on her triumphant return to Paris was the Musée Jacquemart-André. At first I was a little outraged because I actually had to pay money to get into a museum, and frankly I don't know how cool I would have found the place without the help of Natalie and her counterpart, trusty British Audioguide Man, but the three of us together made it a wonderful experience.

Tasty, tasty ballroom. Goodbye walls.

So first of all, this house was built in the 19th century by a fashionable couple who loved collecting art more than producing offspring, so hense the museum. Lack of spawn plus an outrageous fortune allowed them to build this tasteful monstrosity off the Blvd. Haussmann, with rooms such as the one above, which according to Monsieur le Audioguide actually opened up into a gigantic ballroom with the push of a button. Gotta get me one of those.

Okay, so let me talk about some of the top notch art I saw there. Indulge me.

Above is the portrait by the tres celebre Vigée Lebrun which they had at the museum. The subject is a Russian countess that she painted while in exile after the revolution (You say you're a good friend of the queen? I'll be taking your head now.). Amazing Audioguide Man told me that Vigée wrote in her journal that this countess was completely uneducated and couldn't even hold a conversation, but her air was so sweet and her face so pretty she charmed every person she met. Natalie and I both decided we liked Vigée after all (can I call you Vigée?), even moreso after we heard that she acknowledged that this woman was an idiot but still recognized both her charm and the reason for her stupidity--a lack of education. Vigée sounds like the kind of woman with whom I would like to form an... aquaintance.

Not that sort of aquaintence. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Okay, let's do a 180 here and talk about the one painting that I think I want to take home from Paris in a duffel bag: Uccello's Saint Georges terrassant le dragon:

This painting is tastier than a pop up book. You really can't tell in this picture, but there is a quality to the actual painting that is absolutely three dimensional and so pleasing to the eye I soon began to impede traffic in the gallery. The astounding appeal, of course, is because it combines both the stylized Medieval look with all it's symbolism and deliciousness with the hip-to-perspective and friggin' gorgeous Renaissance skill. Add to that some beautiful color choices and a back story that is not only fascinating but an inside joke as well (baa, no! sad sheep!). Oh, and just so you know, the dragon in the St. George story represents paganism, so Saint George is stabbing it in the mouth for a reason. Blasphemous bastards.

Just kidding, I love pagans. Tasty, tasty pagans.



Another tremendous, and I mean tremendous work we discovered were these choir stalls, which I'm going to talk about for my own sake as I don't want to forget them. They were made in Italy sometime during the renaissance... specific I know... but the amazing thing about them--and this was worth the price of admission alone I shit you not--is that each tiny little detail, from various flowing locks of chestnuty Jesus hair to radiant jewels on a bishop's crozier, were not painted but pieced to-ge-ther out of different colored bits of wood. How did they do it?! Magic. Too bad you can't really tell how cool it is here, nor can you really imagine.


Okay, so the last thing I'm going to nerd-out about here is this one by Rembrandt called, depending on what language you are talking about, The Pilgrims at Emmaus. *Ahem* unless I'm mistaken, the story of Jesus appearing to to disciples on the road to Emmaus after he was crucified is normally portrayed with them all walking down the road together in the sparkly late-afternoon sunshine. It was a 40 foot stained glass window in the church I grew up in, actually. Oh, the sermons spent staring at this story...

But Rambrandt, being a genius, has moved the story off the street and out of St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church and School, and so instead we have the same story... after many glasses of absinthe. Jesus doesn't just apparate in as they walk along the road, they are just chilling out and feeling sorry for themselves in a darkened room one night, when suddenly.... he is there. But there and not there, all at once. He has... a glow about him. Something spectral. Is it even really him? Do we know? Is this blasphemy? Anyway, it's like moving an Aesop fable into one of Poe's creepiest, most raven-infested short stories. Jesus appears out of nowhere and, I mean, just look at the surprise on their faces. But he doesn't just appear *pooft* in front of them, glittering in the sunshine like the vampires in Twlight. Instead, he... I don't know... drifts... no, he wafts into coropreal Being (again, like you do). He comes from the shadows slowly.. not only surrounded by that light you see behind him, but probably emmanating from it. I am the way and the truth... and the light. Bitches.

But guys, that isn't even the best part.

So when we were at the museum I was looking around in the painting for the other disciple as there are traditionally two, but I only saw one (if you see two right away shut the hell up and don't ruin it for the rest of us). There's the servant in the background, yes, and then the one guy pooping his pants at the table. But where is the other disciple? Natalie was talking about how she hadn't seen him at first and it took a while before he just appeared, and of course I was smiling and nodding because I didn't know what she was talking about. I didn't see him.

Cut to me working half-assedly on this blog at about 2am last week Tuesday and I'm like... do do do, scrolley scrolley, type something, look half-way at painting... HOLY CRAP THERE HE IS!

I'm telling you guys, he wasn't there. I looked at it every day for half a week--I even bought the postcard. I'm telling you, he wasn't effing there. It really scared me for a while, until I concluded he must have radiated into existence like his savior did. Of course, when I told Natalie she took the rational POV and concluded that Rembrandt must have been a wizard. Whatever Natalie, always spoiling my fun.

After the museum we trounced around a bit. Normally trouncing is a fun activity, as well you know, but I was stupid and bought shoes that were too small for mes pieds, so of course I had many blisters. Eventually though, after strolling through les invalides we made it to her bridge:

We're so cute.

I should probably add that this is Natalie's own bridge as she lived right by it for almost an entire year, which gives her due ownership. Foolish tourists still call it the Alexander III bridge, but what do they know.

The story continues with Natalie leading and me limping after her for half an hour until we found a smelly, smelly metro to take us to the Bastille, where Natalie wanted to go to dinner. We got some chocolat chaud at a little tabac/cafe first, but when the sun went down we went hunting for her favorite moroccan restaurant, just east of the Bastille. The food was great, the mint tea greater, and the conversation divine. The waiter even told her that he couldn't believe she was American as her accent was perfect. She was all like, non mais merci, but I called her bluff and sure enough she did a pointy finger dance just about as soon as we hit the pavement.

By the way, one day I hope my French is good enough to merrit a pointy finger dance.

Sadly we had to leave dinner early as I had made plans to go to this Jazz club with peoples in the Latin Quarter. It wasn't sad in that I didn't want to meet them, it's just that I hate rushing through a meal. But 10 points to us as we were only about 10 minutes late to the rendez-vous, and some of the party had bailed on us anyway. So we rescued Jenn from the jeunes crowds of St. Michel and headed south where the roads are dark and winding.

And then we... and by we I mean I... decided it was too early to go to a jazz club, so we turned around and found a brasserie instead. Sounds totally lame in hindsight, but the time spent at the brasserie was so much fun I don't feel too guilty. The three of us just sat around and drank cheap wine and watched the fashion show on the television and told old stories. Jenn and Natalie clicked instantly, which was infinitely chouette. There were a few times when we were laughing so hard no one in EUROPE would have considered us Parisian, like when I told the story about Chris beating the crap out of some schnitzel with Tony's bookend and me trying to make a ham sandwich at the same same table. Or the story of how we aquired 300 2-liter bottles of soda sophomore year, or that time at the Halloween party when Chris discovered he'd been flaunting his ass all these years. Just like the last time I was traveling away from my friends, sometimes I forget just how absolutely awesome we really are.

At about midnight we parted ways with Jenn, and Natalie and I headed north to her hotel, right by the kind of sketch neighborhood between Gare du nord and Gare de l'est. There isn't much to tell other than we went to Le Cafe... the most pretentious cafe in France... and sat around with some people in her choir group and drank vin chaud. Vin chaud, I must add, is my favorite beverage in the world I think, much like that wassail we made last Christmas. France is a wonderful place.

After a while of just chilling and playing wingman (muahhah) we had an awkward moment on the street where I tried to stuff Natalie in my purse and force her to stay in France for ever and ever and ever. Not really, we just said goodbye and parted ways, and I walked.. er, limped... to the metro to catch the last train of the night.

Again, I could make some eloquent and awful closing remarks about friendship or life in general right about now, but I think I'll just skip it.

...

This blog is dedicated to Natalie, who complained that she was tired of reading about my angry pants.

Rachael Puts on Her Angry Pants!

All of Paris got up early today to celebrate one if the city's most time-honored traditions: "le greve", or in other words, a strike. The reason we all got up early however was not to join in some grand protest, but to make sure we caught our trains on time as most city workers were greve-ing. The entire city anticipated a total meltdown, but in fact the trains were running almost exactly the same as usual, and I think the whole city was crabby because we all got up early for nothing. Hm.

Even so, most school children didn't have class today, which leads me to a most serious question: are "greve-days" in Paris like "snow-days" in Wisconsin? I mean, you hear a few days beforehand that it's going to greve, and then the morning of you check the news to see how bad it greved, and then if school gets canceled, it's a greve day! Hooray!

I, however, did have class. It was another beautiful morning at L'Institut Catholique, and what is more I wore my pretty dress today because after my next class I had a ticket to the ballet! I found it kind of amusing that what I consider my fanciest dress was barely considered more than casual here, though. Ah, Paris. Anyway, even though my nylons ripped hardcore and I had to buy another pair at monoprix between classes, I was in a fabulous mood. Then, when I got to ACCENT there were a number of friendly faces there, and I ate my coconut and chevre (separately), only slightly irked because the man put mayonaise on my sandwich.

Class, too, wasn't bad, other than it being 3 friggin hours long of course. We talked about how Manon Lescaut, this book we're reading which was written in the early 18th century, is really the first "roman noir", as in "film noir" in book form. I thought that was pretty cool, I was on kind of a film noir kick before I came to Paris. It's got the crime, the intrigue, the makings of a femme fatale, and of course the good-boy-gone-bad narrator. This realization is going to seriously increase my ability to pay attention while reading this book. Now the narrator isn't some distant entity in a white wig and powder, he's Joseph Cotten, who plays hero in my personal favorite noir: Orson Welles' The Third Man. Sometimes he's even the great Bogey in the most holy and quotable Casablanca, which I do understand isn't really a noir. Best of all, instead of repetitive rambling narration in French, Manon était passionnée pour le plaisir ; je l'étais pour elle is starting to sound a bit more to me like The Germans wore grey, you wore blue.

It's a stretch, but I'm trying.

After class I went with Jen one and Jenn two to Zara, Jen one's fav. store in Paris. En route the single best thing I've seen yet in every day Parisian life occurred: a guy dove onto the metro at the last second, had to pry the doors open to get inside, and then they shut... leaving his attache case stuck outside the doors! Voila, I have discovered the ONE thing that will make Parisians laugh out loud in public!

The shopping in the area around l'Opera is pretty fab. At Zara they had a lot of good, cheap, stuff, and so I bought my first official pair of skinny jeans! They are so comfortable I don't care that I'm being a little hypocritical in wearing them. It's not like one kind of emo thing leads to another, guys. This week skinny jeans, next week... Edward Cullen?

Never. Never, ever, ever.

After Zara, Jen one departed and Jenn two and I decided to get dinner. I didn't have much time before the ballet and we were both feeling kind of sick of the Great Restaurant Hunt, so we did something we've been talking about for weeks now: we ate at MacDonalds!! Of course, here it's Called MacDo, and a quarter pounder with cheese is called a royal cheese. Also, their macflurries are far inferior: you have to pick whether you want chocolate or caramel oozed onto the bottom, then they put in the ice cream, and the candy goes on top. What did I tell you? They don't like mixing things in France!

When I got to the Paris Opera for the ballet I discovered that even though all the trains were running on schedule and all day there had been very few signs of le greve, the performance that night had been cancelled. I was really disappointed. I made Jen and Jenn tell me all about the show and the theatre, how the ceiling was painted by Chagall, all that, as they had seen it the night before.. and then I couldn't go. Blast!!

When I got home I put on my skinny jeans, which are henceforth called my "angry pants". I also listened to the Pumpkins for a while to get all the ballet-less angst out of my system. Then Jenn and I planned some more of our UK extravaganza: we how have train passes and hostels in Bath, Edinburgh, and Northumberland! Unfortunatly, I'm realizing that this trip is going to take up 3/4 of my Paris budget and I'm freaking out, but... well, I got nothin.

Tomorrow I'm going to see Natalie!!! Her choir is singing at Notre Dame in the am, and then we're going to tool around all day. I'm going to be so happy I'll fall in the Seine. Also, I'm hoping to convince not only her but some others to go to this swank jazz club I found in the 5eme tomorrow night. It's always kind of been a lame and old-fashioned dream of mine to be one of those hep cats at jazz clubs in the city. Ha, I've also always wanted to say hep cats.

Also, I have to say that we got our journals back in Lit class today, and even though my French is awful, beneath all the grammar corrections Prof. Langer wrote some really neat stuff, and it makes me want to be a good student. Apparently my using my Lit journal as an outlet for all my pent up love of medieval history wasn't a bad thing after all. That kind of made my day. You know, after the ballet ruined it.

*shakes fist* Greve!!

I Fall in Love at the Sacre Coeur

It's Spring in Paris! The sun is shining, a warm wind blows, and I've heard tell that the trees are budding in the Jardin du Luxembourg. I myself spent the warm afternoon on the steps of the Sacre Coeur, my favorite place yet in all of Paris.

Jenn and I went up to Montmartre today to get our hostel international membership cards. Standing in the metro we dug through my pocket dictionary looking for words we might need, so the word of the day is officially adhesion as in carte d'adhesion as in membership card. After walking a bit through some shady neighborhoods, I had to get up the courage to ring the bell and speak in the intercom, which was the only way to get in. But we did get in, and we got our cards, and I felt good for succeeding at something, no matter how small.

After getting our cards we headed toward the Sacre Coeur. Finding it is quite simple, of course. A number of metros go in that direction, and once you get off the train you just walk UP. I seriously underestimated the size and grandeur of this monument. Jenn and I walked around looking for a restaurant for a bit first though, and I got pretty cranky en route. I'm just so tired of going around to restaurant after restaurant after restaurant, all of them with the same menu! I even threw a little temper tantrum, refusing to climb up the famous escaliers de la butte, as in the famous stairs of Montmartre, which are kick-you-in-the-arse steep, without drinking some coffee first, but I had to relent eventually as none of the restaurants around fit our taste. Funny though how those stairs, which have been presented as so Romantic in books and songs and whatever, are upon practical aplication, kind of actually a drag :)

We got to the top, took a few pics of the gargantuan Neo-Byzantine basilica made entirely of white marble, and then we walked through the hippies and tourists back down part of the other side to find food. We soon settled on a little cafe with crepes and sandwiches and all the windows wide open, and then went and got some of the most beautiful and tasty gellato of my life. We took it back to the steps of the Sacre Coeur, and it was there that I became happy.

These Pics are actually from another trip to the Sacre Coeur,

but you get the idea...

From the steps one can see all of the city spread below, which is sprawling and immense. There were many buildings I recognized and much was the familiar Paris in which I live every day, but I felt much more connected up above it all. The steps are wide and open and filled with young people, all of them wearing bright colors and smiles. It made me feel like these were the true Parisians, laughing from above at the city below. In fact, for the first time in Paris I felt out of place not because I wasn't fashionable or entirely put together, but because I wearing too much black. Insert sigh of relief.

What's even better is there was a group of handsome guitar playing young French guys there, and for about an hour and a half I was perfectly content to just sit there smiling and singing along. The funniest part, which I'm still laughing about, is you could really, really tell they learned the English songs phonetically, and I couldn't help but be reminded of my friend Allie, who just makes the words up as she goes along. The music was still good though. Great, even. And the sun was warm, and everyone sat close and were legitimately chill. Honestly, most of them were probably tourists as the musicians spoke in English more than half the time, but I didn't care. It was a perfect melange. It was also a lot like hanging out on the Union Terrace back home, or any other place where young people come to hang out and listen to music. I wanted so freaking much to be part of that group, which made me kind of sad. But it was wonderful all the same. In addition, I fell in love with one of the musicians. Jenn and I decided the reason is we are starved for smiles, and that is what he did all the time.

So, yeah, for an hour and a half or so I hung out on the steps of the Sacre Coeur, falling in love with guitar man and listening to Radiohead, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Oasis, Bob Marley... some great stuff. Then they played "All You Need is Love", and I just about lost it. It was too perfect, and I was torn between being absolutely happy and kind of sad all at once. I wanted my friends to be there, certain ones in particular. I wanted things to be the way I remember they once were, in my idealized imagination, only this time in Montmartre. I wanted to be part of a group. But I also wanted to magically fit in with a new group of friends... something I can't do unless I speak French. Now there's an incentive.

Of course, I didn't mope about. I let myself be happy and sad at the same time, and I told myself to knock it off and enjoy it while it lasted, which pretty much worked. It was too beautiful not to, what with wonderful guitar man doing his best at Thom Yorke's long high notes and an adorable Italian toddler who came and danced next to us, and blew bubbles, and took a bunch of pictures of the musicians all sticking their tounges out. Ah, Paris.

On the way down the hill I was feeling chill and strong, which I love, which is what probably gave me the courage to basically lay the smackdown when one of the infamous bracelet sellers of Montmartre cornered Jenn and tried to get a bracelet on her wrist. I have been warned by fabulous sources that once they get it on you basically have to buy it, so I reached out, grabbed Jenn's arm (I don't think she had heard of their reputation), and said Non, Merci with some serious force. The guy turned around to get me to let go, but I was totally hardcore, clenched jaw, non about it, and so he let us go. It was only an overreaction in my head, and boy it felt good! I am a superhero.

Back on the metro heading home I took out "The Picture of Dorian Grey", I was just to that point at the end when it was too grotesque and fast-paced to put down, and at one point on the train I actually gasped aloud at something ghastly Dorian had done, raising my hand abruptly to my mouth. When I realized what I had done, I looked around for a sec, and there were a couple of people who were almost half-way smiling at me in that "I know how you feel" sort of way. I've said it before and I'll say it again, maybe Paris isn't so tough after all??

Senlis, or I become Chouette

It's been another profitable weekend here in Paris. Yesterday, I have to admit, was one of the best--if not the best--day yet, en fait. Now, I am going to tell y'alls about it, so hold on to your butts.

I woke up before dawn, as I often do here, and I tiptoed out of the apartment so as not to wake Madame, whose presence sometimes reminds me of the giant in the Jack and the Beanstalk story. It was about 7:15 by then. Not many people were out yet--no newspaper vendors hawking their wears in your face, no brasserie patrons crowding your sidewalk, no accordion men with portable amplifiers taking up your elbow room on the train--so overall it was a very peaceful morning in the 17eme, and my spirits were high. Pourquoi? I was headed to the country!

It was surprisingly easy to find Jen at the Gare du Nord train staion, considering the sheer size of the place, and after a brief yet necessary cup of cafe we boarded a train for Chantilly. Still don't know how to pronounce that one. Our true destination was the little town of Senlis, located in the Picardy region north of Paris, and famed for its WWI battles, red brick buildings, and sugar beets. We were going to Senlis for its cute old village vibe, the low price of train fare, and of course for the cathedral, but most of all we were going to, as my father would say, "get the heck out of dodge". Paris is kind of overbearing sometimes, if you couldn't already gather that from previous blog entries. And I is a country gal.

I have a special fondness for train stations now, by the way, as there is something so intimate about the way the locomotives pull right into the station, and you just hop on and off at will. Of course, that also means there is no one to awkwardly ask questions if you find yourself lost and confused, as we did. After 10 minutes on the train we realized no where did anything say that the train was going to Senlis! Nevertheless we prevailed. We were so proud of ourselves--or, rather, Jen was proud as it was she who actually figured it out--when we realized that our tickets took us to Chantilly, and then we had to board a bus--henceforth called the Badger Bus for you Madisonians out there--to get to Senlis. This was great because the bus took us through some genuine countryside, complete with winding roads, little cottages, the occasional chateau, meandering brooks, farm fields with scarecrows, and fields with many horses. Who knew how much I missed the livestock?

We got off the bus at the tres adorable Gare Senlis, a building I believe in the traditional style of the region and bearing a plaque that said it had been built in 1922 to replace the one the Germans destroyed in 1914. I think the war hit them particularly bad here.



The first thing we did was to try and find some foods, which, and I want you all to appreciate this, is a tremendous task in France. The French focus so hard on wining and dining that they pretty much forget about the true "most important meal of the day". It's relatively easy to grab a croissant in Paris, but in Senlis.. well.. after a good 45 min. of searching, we finally found a cute little place with pink chairs (perhaps Madam Puddifoot's? Anyone?) which served a 7 Euro "petit dejeuner", which turned out to be nothing but oj, toast, and chocolat chaud. Nevertheless, it seemed the gods were on our side, and it turned out to be not just any toast, but life-changing toast. It came with fig jam and the best butter we had ever tasted--no exaggeration, and we come from the Dairy State--so despite the exorbant cost, we were content.

We wandered the streets of Senlis for most of the morning, which were dark and grey and gloomy, though in that Romantic 19th century novel sort of way. I probably missed half of it anyway, as I had to stare at my feet most of the time to prevent myself from tripping over the most hazardous rue pavee in existence (cobblestones). We did see some guy jogging through them though. Insanity! There was also a nice little square with a fountain that would be lovely in the Spring:



The cathedral at Senlis blew my mind, as all cathedrals do, though this one was a bite-sized cathedral in comparison to Notre Dame and Chartres. There's a general consensus that I must have been a monk in another life, or at least a pious canon. Cathedrals are beautiful on the outside, so powerful and so obviously trying to send you a message, which I appreciate because it is the same message on repeat for up to 1,000 years now. But the minute you step inside a cathedral, it's an entirely different experience. Cathedrals are always cold. They cool your blood and leave you in the perfect mood for meditation. I feel flooded with respect. Your feet automatically fall in even steps, and your eyes... well, they start on the wide expanse of floor, and then, then the elegant masonry lifts them up UP... straight to the heavens, just as was intended. And way up there is the glass sparkling like jewels, and you feel like John of Patmos, trippin' on something holy:

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.... It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal." Revelation 21: 1-2, 11

Of course, this cathedral also came with a cranky, slightly crazy caretaker who followed us around organizing chairs, muttering to himself, and telling us not to take pictures in the chapels. But that was cool. Notre Dame is a major tourist attraction, and Chartres a huge m-effing deal, but Senlis was just an overgrown town church, and I dug that.

After the cathedral, we tooled around some more. Goal numero uno was to find the bits of original Roman walls, which we did eventually:


We also went to this little museum complex that was kind of trippy and only cost a euro, which was way worth it. I think parts of it were once a royal retreat for various medieval kings, and amongst the ruined buildings of all shapes and sizes were two completely ridiculous little museums. The first was a 3 room bit about the Spahis, or North African soldiers who fought in French wars and wore amazing clothing.


The other museum was way in the back of the complex. The door was locked, and when we tried to get in a greying lady with a crazy glint in her eye opened the door for us and gave us a 10 minute speech on the museum's contents. I don't think people came there very often, especially in early March. The museum was about hunting, but not just any hunting, the Fox and the Hound sort, with dogs on horses in fancy outfits and the like. There were stuffed animals everywhere. I managed to get just one photo of the place before the crazy femme caught me on her security camera and told me to arrete:

Personally, I think it's the best photo I've taken thus far. Too bad I didn't get one of the other cool thing we found: sword pistols!! They are just what they sound like, though the sheer coolness of having a sword that is also a gun may be photographically uncapturable. I did, however, snap a few fuzzy shots of the waiting room outside the bathroom that I chilled in for a few minutes. I was all like, look at the funny room, it's like a dungeon! Then we got outside and read the plaque. Oh. It was a dungeon.


After stopping for a ham sandwich (read: french bread with a single slice of ham in the middle), we got back on the bus for Chantilly. I was in no mood to head back to Paris. In fact, all I could do all day was sigh aloud, first because I was in Senlis and I was content, and later because I was leaving and I was sad, much like these trees:


But like I said, the gods were on my side all day, and so even when we got back to Paris, plus de fun ensued. First, we headed down to L'ile and got Grecs, which are basically Gyros that I think would be just mediocre in the states, but here in the land of fancy schmancy are occasionally fabulous. Then we walked down into the Latin Quarter and found the single. best. store. in. all. of. France. Backstory: in French class back in the States we were always learning the vocab word "bande dessine", which means comic book, and for years I was always storing the info in the very back of my brain, thinking that comic books, though amazing, are not really considered that important in most countries, and therefore the recognition of such a phrase would probably be unnecessary. I was wrong, they are MAD about their bande dessines here. The shop, which is just across the street from the Musee du Moyen Age, is room after room of comic books of all shapes and sizes, though of course all in French. I bought a couple of cool Sherlock Holmes-y ones for 6 euro. Score.

We were thinking about going to a movie and then out for a drink then, but Jen got a phone call from her friends that were staying in Paris and so we took the metro stop one over to Odeon to meet up with them at their hotel. Poor dears, staying in a hotel in St. Germain: apparently they didn't get a wink of sleep with all the partying hooligans outside. Instead, we took them up to the Bastille, which is the neighborhood we know best because ACCENT is right there, and apparently it's also kind of "up and coming" as far as places to go out. First we went to Sanz Sans, which is this club we pass all the time en route to class, and it was really classy. We were kind of pissed when they almost kicked us out because we didn't have reservations, though, even after already making us wait for food for an hour when the kitchen opened, but it ended up being alright and they kept us satiated with cheap and high quality wine as well. Jen and I both got the cheesecake instead of dinner as we had already gotten the Grecs, but I tell you this was not cheesecake. Imagine cheesecake flavored whipped cream. Oh, France.

We left Sanz Sans once it started getting too fashionable for us and headed instead about a block over to a nice little brasserie with its doors and windows open, full of patrons but with just enough room, and blasting American oldies music. They got beer, I got wine, and I found out that I was drinking with a local (as in Madison) celebrity! Turns out one of my new aquaintances was none other than Bryon Eagon, former head of Students for Obama in all of Wisconsin, and future alderman for our district 8! I thought it was pretty cool, I mean, I had waited in line for 4.5 hours to hear him speak before (okay, I waited to hear Obama, and Bryon was the one who introduced him), so 10 points for that one.

We drank ourselves into joviality quickly. The place was nice, small, familiar, where everybody knows your name... or at least, they all seemed to know each other's names, they didn't even know my language. It was a cool place in that it was in Paris and I was having a good time, but there was none of that Parisian fashionable pressure, so I was beyond happy. But what was up with the music? It varied between some chouette tunes from the high points of American culture... to Abba. Nothing like sipping wine in Paris on a Saturday night listening to "Dancing Queen".

The night ended around midnight and I almost frolicked back to the metro. I guess I didn't really realize just how starved I was not only for a day outside of Paris, but for that chilled out, group vibe one can have anywhere, with just a few laid back people going out for dinner and drinks and having a good time. I'm not gonna end with some profound statement or anything, don't worry. But damn, man, that was a good day.

A Day in the Life

As yesterday was a pretty average yet surprisingly pleasant day, I thought I would share it with the world to show you all just what I do here on a daily basis when I'm not bopping about in medieval churches or going on death marches through the Louvre, which I also do on a daily basis.

Yesterday was jeudi: Thursday, or official suck day. The night before is always spent doing half a week's homework haphazardly and long into the night. In the morning, I get up at 6:30 because I have to put an extra 20 minutes into my schedule for breakfast, which they take very seriously here, and an extra 20 just in case Madame feels the need to ramble life's secrets at me in French and in her bathrobe, which she often does.

Usually breakfast is a roll or a croissant with confiture (jam, they love their jam) and some strange instant coffee I've learned to like. I sit at the breakfast table in the tiny kitchen that doesn't seem so tiny anymore (though it does still include a tiny washing machine, which is the usual in Paris), and I listen to the birds going about their birdy business in the courtyard. There are some exotic sounding birds in France, let me tell you. The first morning they woke me up here I thought I was under raptor attack. As I listen, usually Madame flits in and out of the kitchen, and I smile and nod at everything she says because it is way too early to think in French. Sometimes she plays classical music instead, which is nice.

The metro in the morning is usually packed with people wearing black and staring at the floor. This is also what the people on the metro look like at 2pm, 4pm, 6:47pm, and midnight. I'm always too tired to really care about their ennui in the morning, and thus I blend in. Unless, of course, a man with an accordion gets on (about a 10% chance), in which case I have to staple the sides of my mouth in a horizontal line to prevent a shit eating--and thus, American--grin from spreading across my face.

The Paris metro, while I'm at it, is both a beautiful and a depressing thing, and a security blanket for all of us. As long as you know which direction you are going--which is super easy to figure out once you know the trick--it's virtually impossible to get lost. Just remember not to make eye contact, don't talk too loud, and make sure you open the door yourself because only line 1 is automatic. And of course: Fait attention a la marche en descendant le train, which is the French version of "mind the gap".

The only problem with the Metro is after a few weeks of convenient travel, you start to feel this funny sensation. Your eyes become sensitive to the light above the surface, your skin gets paler and your hair falls out, and you no longer recall the taste of food, nor the feel of grass, etc. You begin to crawl on all fours through the tunnels, eating raw fish you catch with your hands and mumbling to yourself "my precious, my precious" until some hobbits come along and insist you accompany them to Mordor. Take my advice, if you're going to spend a significant period of time in Paris, take the bus.

The metro whizzes me under the river, and I make it to l'Institut Catholique by 8:50, which leaves me 10 minutes to climb the 6 flights of stairs to our classroom. The classroom, however, has a lovely view, and you can see the enormous Sacre Coeur off in the distance.

The Institut Catholique

Did you know that classes in France are 3 hours long once a week? They are. And on Thursdays I have 2 of them. Yesterday I was surprisingly awake, so I almost had fun in the first one, reviewing French adverbial pronouns. The teacher is a young French woman named Cecile who doesn't speak any English, and who kind of gives off the tough yet awesome camp counselor vibe. We do all these worksheets in class, and since I'm not way behind like I used to be in the States, I actually enjoy it, when I'm awake. Me, enjoy grammar? Nawww..

After class I have 2 hours to take the train up to the Bastille for my other class at the ACCENT center as well as to get some lunch. There's a sandwich shop near the Gare de Lyon (train station) that I go to about twice a week because it's quick and easy (read: American) but also tasty tasty (read: French). I've discovered there my favorite Parisian delicacy: salmon. It's kind of like super thin lox, smoked and salty and pretty much raw, which I loved even before I turned into Gollum. Every once and a while I also get a coke, which never fails to disappoint me since the coca here tastes different. I guess they've foolishly taken out all the things that will give you cancer.

My second class on Thursdays is a Parisian Lit class. There are times when I am really interested in that Beowulfian-hooray-for-translation sort of way, and there are other times when I am so bored I could die. We read this one poet, Villon, the first week, and I was the only one who seemed to think it was cool. It was so cool. Villon was a 15th century Parisian student... and later also a thief and general scoundrel who at one point even killed a priest. His poems are about the Parisian underworld in the 15th century, and the few we read shocked me with their stubbornly anguished vibe. For example, in "La Ballade de la Grosse Margot" (The Ballad of Fat Margot), after 3 stanzas about a pimp and a prostitue doing foul things, beating each other up, and laughing about it, he says suddenly:

Vente, grêle, gèle, j'ai mon pain cuit.
Ie suis paillard, la paillarde me suit.
Lequel vaut mieux ? Chacun bien s'entresuit.
L'un l'autre vaut ; c'est à mau rat mau chat.
Ordure aimons, ordure nous assuit ;
Nous défuyons honneur, il nous défuit,
En ce bordeau où tenons notre état.

or:

Wind, hail, frost--I take my bread cooked.
I am bawdy, and bawdiness follow me.
Which one of us is better? Each one is good together.
The one brings the other; it's bad rat-bad cat.
We love garbage, and garbage follows us;
We flee from honor, and it flees from us,
In this brothel where we make our state.

It's so.. real in a way I can normally only conjecture about the middle ages by staring longingly at cloister capitals. The narrator, the pimp, just reaches out and dares you to judge him, with the fury of a small wild thing. I love it.

After class on Thursdays I usually go with a friend or two to get a celebratory "we made it through another Thursday, hooray for the weekend" crepe. Crepes in Paris, believe it or not, are really only eaten by children and tourists, or at least the street-vendor crepes, but we don't care. Nothing soothes a tired and frustrated soul like warm nutella and bananas folded delicately inside a thick and delicious crepe. Yesterday, however, I wasn't really that tired and no one was interested in crepe-ing, so I walked with some friends to the metro and went home to do something productive instead. I took line 1 from the Bastille to Charles de Gaulle-Etoile, which is the station directly under l'Arc de Triomphe, and since it was kind of warm out, I decided to walk the 20 minutes home. En route, however, I was distracted by one of the many patisseries (bakeries) and decided to get an eclair and eat it in the park instead.

There's a boulevard near my apartment with a tiny strip of park that runs forever in a straight line, and I sat there on a bench trying not to stare at the adorable French children with their nannies (it's a wealthy neighborhood) as I nibbled my eclair and read a chunk of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Eventually, the light dimmed--as opposed to "the sun set", you wouldn't know if it had with all the clouds-- and I went home. Madame and I enjoyed a pleasant evening without any drama. In addition to being absolutely insane she is also a fabulous cook, so I think that about evens out. My French was at the top of its game during dinner, and we chatted a fair amount. I told her after Paris I was planning to walk the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, or the Rue de Saint-Jaques in French, and I think her respect for me multiplied by about a thousand.

After dinner I disappeared into my room, and Jennifer (my friend and travel buddy) and I made some headway on our spring break travel plans. In April for 15 days we want to go to London, Bath, Stonehenge, Northumberland, Edinburgh, and maybe even Belfast and Dublin. At the end of it I'm going to be broke and broken, if I come back at all. Honestly, the idea of me coming back from any of those places above just blows my mind, especially when it means coming back to Paris, which is lovely but too fashionable and uptight (and French!) to ever be called home. In addition to spring break, I'm planning a weekend in Copenhagen with Sofie, and probably some weekend somewhere in Germany. Then, there are the little day trips to Versailles and the Loire valley with "the group", as well as the various day trips I intend to take with a few friends or alone. Turns out there are about 10 little towns with big histories near Paris, and for about 10 euro you can get out to any of them for the day. Beauvais, Laon, Rouen, Reims... the list goes on.

Tomorrow, actually, another new amiga and I are going to Senlis, which is apparently an old and beautiful town with a wicked cathedral. Paris is nice, but I'm so excited to go to the country again. I'm not really uncomfortable or unhappy in the city, I'm just out of place. I could never, not even if I were fluent in French, live in a place that takes itself so seriously. At the same time, I get to see and do amazing things every day that in retrospect will be even more amazing. I wish I were going out and having the time of my life the way Chris did in Germany sometimes, but that's just not how it is here. Plus, I don't want to end up hallucinating my way through Heathrow airport any time soon. Instead, I have day-time adventures, which are almost as wonderful. I'm constantly making a fool of myself with my excessive enthusiasm, and sometimes I see something so beautiful I want to cry. On the other hand, in between all those times I'm tired and bored and feel out of place, which makes me really disappointed in myself. But whatevs, I'm good. There are things about France--things like appreciating beauty, good food, and taking one's time--that I depend on now. Maybe I'll get something out of this trip other than archival photos and a gross amount of debt after all. :)

Here are some of those so-beautiful-I-could-cry things I was telling you about:

Notre Dame

Chopin's Tomb: Pere Lachaise

Carved Tree: Pere Lachaise

Ancient Mesopotamian Lion's Head

Heartbreaking Romanesque Sculpture

Chartres Cathedral

Royal Portal: Chartres

Stained Glass at Chartres

Candles at Chartres

Ghosts and Ghouls, or how I am going to regret this blog in the morning.

The problem with France is I don't seem to realize that it isn't an extended vacation or, what I prefer to call "An Adventure of Incalculable Magnitude", it is actually "School With Benefits" meaning I should really be doing my homework right now, but alas, I am not. And since I have class at 9am in the Latin quarter, which means I have to get my 17eme arrondisement butt out of bed at 6:30am, I am really going to regret writing this in the morning.

In addition to not doing my homework (some worksheet on the plus-que-parfait and a bawdy excerpt of Rabelais, if you're interested), I'm also not going to go back and tell you about all the amazing and not-so-amazing-but-still-french things I have done in the past few weeks. Not tonight anyway. Tonight I am going to tell you about how I am currently being haunted by the ghost of Oscar Wilde.

Monday I went to the famous Pere Lachaise cemetery with some peeps. It was way cooler than I anticipated, too. The trees were appropriately bare, but the wind was warm--and the light, well, I've never seen such light. The kind of light that makes you go, ohhh, I see it now.

So we went to the grave of Abelard and Heloise first. Those two were pimps. Abelard, in the very beginning of the 12th century--early, as far as these things were concerned--was such a snarky bastard he outwitted the best minds at the U of P, turned the tables with his theories against universals, and even got the girl... until her uncle found out, sent her to a convent, and cut his balls off. True story.

But even without his manly bits, he was still the only one who could make St. Bernard nervous in a battle of wits--which I love. Gotta keep an old monk on his toes.



Heloise, by the way, was a master in the classics as well as Hebrew, equally badass, and became the abbess the convent before long. I'm summarizing of course, but it's a fabulous story, and completely tragic. Also tragic was the amount of scaffolding hanging on the monument, but what can you do?



So we walked, and I lagged behind (like you do), and we saw Chopin, who has the statue of a serious babe perched atop his grave, which doesn't surprise me. We also saw Moliere and Balzac and some other French people I don't know because the 15th-17th centuries are kind of a void for me. Then at last, way up on the top of the hill, we came to the tomb of Oscar Wilde. It's a strange concoction... modern in a certain Howard Roarkian sort of way, and not what I expected it to look like. Still, sure enough, it was covered in the multi-colored lipsick stains of many an admirerer, which was precious (I have to hope that at least some of them were left by men, as he would have preferred) . So, I took out my digital camera, sighed again at its incompitence, and started clicking away.


And then I heard it. The voice.

I can't describe what it said to me per se because in no way could I do such vapourous wit true justice, but it was crisp and melodious with the hint of an Irish trill, though it appeared to be coming at me from a great distance. Summarized with equal potence in the words of the great Chris Schubert, it seemed to say, Bitch, whatever. You don't know me.

I paused, scratched my earlobe, and listened again, thinking I had imagined it. It seemed I had, so I walked around to the other side of the ediface to get a better shot.

But as soon as I crouched back down to improve the angle, I heard it again, and again it seemed to say Rachael, come one, you have no right to take pictures of the grave of a man about whom you know absolutely nothing save his reputation for wit and strapping young boys.

The voice never left me, and with time with it appeared a form. A tall, lean figure of man with a peculiar nose and a penchant for making faces at the obnoxious people in the street who can't see him. What I'm trying to confess to you is this--ever since that day, that moment, I have been haunted by the ghost of Oscar Wilde. He's a snarky SOB, but we've grown rather close. He strolls with me through the streets of Paris, pausing between sentences to brush the dark hair out of his eyes with long, ghostly fingers and, occasionally, to point discretely at the sidewalk to prevent me from stepping in something nasty.

What is more, my friend Oscar keeps me from taking this city too seriously. He shrugs patiently from beyond the gate (ghosts ride the metro for free) when my pass doesn't work the first time and the people behind me stand about rolling their eyes. He tells me to wear the purple sweater instead of the black one and to hell with 'em for it. He even leads me to the best patisseries and points out the best pastries with the most callories--a true gesture as he can no longer digest--and he doesn't even mind when I eat my sandwiches in the street because there are no parks nearby and I'm too hungry to wait.

In return, today, before class and for a mere 3,80 euro, I bought his book The Picture of Dorian Gray at the bookstore under the Louvre. And this evening, during the 15 minutes between the stops reaumur-sebastopol and pereire, and with Oscar beside me giving commentary all the while (his ghostly fingers articulating in the air though no one else could see), I became one of those people on the metro who almost miss their stop because they're too busy reading a good book to remember where they are. I stopped thinking about whether I was wearing enough black to look like a native, whether I was going to fall over and land on some dozing grand-mere, whether I was leaning too hard against the door handle of the opposite side of the car and was inevitably going to open it accidentally and fall backwards to my death. Instead, I laughed--outloud, too, which is absolutely unheard of--and when I got off, well hell, I definitely did not mind the gap.

I carried the book ahead of me as Oscar and I headed home from the station, occasionally reading a sentence or two as I walked, and not really paying attention to him or to anything else. But, when I got to the gate and went to type in the code, I turned around to ask him some trifling question, and I discovered he wasn't there. I wasn't surprised, not at all, I knew he had other forelorn and lame-ass americans to aid, so I didn't look for him, didn't call out or do something uncouth. I just tucked my book into my bag, typed in the gate code, crossed the courtyard to the elevator, turned the key in the lock and took a deep breath, ready to face the Madame.



If you're out there Oscar, many thanks. I took your advice, and said to hell with it. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise: you are a hero, and a ghost among men.