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.

Beware the Gypsy Children!

Hello friends! Yes yes, I'm doing it, I'm officially sitting down and writing my first blog from France. Le blog, as we say. Just kidding, we don't say that. Sorry it's taken so long but well, moving to France has been a little more difficult than I anticipated. True story, as follows.

The first thing I discovered about France is that it is exhausting in every way. My friend Jen, who studies neuroscience and is therefore smart, says that we're tired all the time not only because of jet lag, which I think I'm over, but because we spend all day thinking of what we want to say in English, translating it into French, saying it in French, getting a response in French, translating that into English, realizing it doesn't make sense, saying "quoi??!" really loudly, hearing the same thing repeated again, etc etc. Apparently all these translations form connections in our brain... connections that are made while we sleep. Therefore, we have need of more sleep. Seriously, this is textbook stuff. In sum, I have been here for over two weeks already and have done something certifiably cool nearly every day, but I never took the time to write until now because always by the time I get around to it, all I want to do is sleep. Sleep, sleep, sleep. And right now is no different. Nevertheless I am gonna try really hard to take one for the team and get some of the past two weeks up here. Pardon me if I don't cover every detail of the trip so far, though, or if what comes out ends up being some france-anglo-finnish conglomoration. I'm really freaking tired. Also, I am apparently an enormous whiner.

Okay. so... like.. I'm in France. I got here and the first thing you should know is that while still in the airport I saw 5 nuns in like the first 15 minutes. And I thought to myself: jackpot.

Actually, before the nuns I wasn't even wholly convinced that I was actually in Europe. You see, I took a night flight and I didn't have a window seat, so I didn't actually see the ocean, though I've heard tell of its greatness. I had no proof, you see, no closure: I watched the whole thing on a little screen on the seat in front of me, too tired to really care, though I tried, I swear. It said we were somewhere over Ireland at about 9am, but that somehow didn't seem possible considering when I think of Irish travel I think St. Brendan, little boat, hand of God, etc. So, for all I knew the whole voyage could have been an elaborate hoax.

But then, well, I was standing there in the airport and there was a nun... and then another nun, and then another, and another, and then I saw one of the nuns try to run back inside the arrivals gate after she had already exited through the high-speed one-way automatic doors (if you've lived in France, you know how daring this maneuver really is), and then I watched her get whacked really hard by said doors, sending the awful THWACK resounding through the atrium. And then it hit me, like a nun by a door: I really am in France, I said to myself, and I just saw a nun get the crap smacked out of her. This must be real.

Everything has been a series of adventures after that, but you expected that, of course. Actually, there have been so many adventures my brain appears to be functional only between the hours of 11am and 4pm anymore. Fortunately, one thing I learned is that the people here can be really effing NICE, despite what the rumors say. For example, as I was lugging my 1,000lb ghetto old man wheelless ass of a suitcase from the Gare de Lyon to the Bastille to get to the program center day 1, (and then back the same way immediately after in order to get to the hotel, I seriously could have killed someone), every time we didn't know where to go (by this point I was travelling with a girl named Ali, who goes to UWM and who's all together great), some nice French woman with a stroller or a poodle would stop and ask us if we needed help. All you have to do to get the people of Paris to like you, I guess, is to carry your body weight through the streets of their city like Sisyphus--ie. you have to earn it.

Seriously though, you do have to do your part. The French in general have a particular love of all people who care about their culture, so if you start your sentences in apologetic French instead of English and use the formal "vous" whenever possible, you'll rarely have any problems. They will probably even go to twice the effort to help you out. You may even get tracked down across the street by your adorable waiter when you leave your scarf in the restaurant after lunch like we did today.. "Attendez! Atttendez! laydeez! laydeez!" Everyone knows I left that scarf there on purpose, right?

I live, by the way, with an infamous "Madame" in the 17eme arrondisement, so basically the northwestern corner of the city. It's kind of way the hell out there, but the metro makes travel easy enough. I'm still kind of up in the air about my dear Madame Gervais... as my friends here know, I've been keeping a relatively long pro/con list since the beginning. Pro: she is a FABULOUS cook, and I am more than okay with gaining 30 lbs while I'm here, seriously. Con: she is insane. Once she forced me to eat the runny yoke of an egg, and kept tapping me in the center of the forehead throughout. She also doesn't really speak French to me anymore because she is convinced I don't understand a word she says, which is true. I understand my professors when they talk about Charles le Brun and the walls of Medieval Paris, but I can't force myself to realize that she is asking if I took my laundry out of the bathroom. It's a mystery.

The first week of France was largely filled with varied orientations as well as copious amounts of free time with which to explore, though all we really wanted to do was sleep. Sleep anywhere: on the couch, on the floor, in a desk, in the metro, on the sidewalk, in the Louvre, you name it. There were a number of things I barely heard through my exhausted haze that week that came in quite handy, however, mostly about the metro. Things like, you have to open the door to the metro, it doesn't open by itself. Or, there are people who walk around and check your tickets randomly in the metro, and if you don't have yours they will fine you the price of your firstborn with interest. My favorite piece of advice thus far, however, was BEWARE THE GYPSY CHILDREN! Apparently, and I shit you not, there are gangs of scruffy "gypsy children" who live in the metro and are not, though they may appear to be, wholesome yet improvershed vagabonds escaped from a Dickens novel but instead professional theives who will rob you blind in a second (wait, no, that is a Dickens novel...). Anyway, I have yet to see these infamous gypsy children, but I scan the platforms for them eagerly though subtly, and when I do spot them no doubt the state of my purse will not be the issue, as by then I will have probably fallen onto the track with excitement.

Okay, I know I haven't said a word about anything I've actually DONE in France yet, but I think this blog is finally off to some sort of maybe an okay start. Tune in next time for more of the daring and dangerous story of Rachael Parker, the rugged and hansome foreign exchange student, swashbuckling her way across Europe!

Still in Wisconsin, and Yes, Thank You, I Am Aware My Eyeballs ARE ON FIRE.

Hey Guys, it's me, Rachael, and NO I have not yet left for France. I'll be gone in a week exactly, gaily and daily doing blog-worthy activities, but in the meantime, nope I'm still in dear old Wisconsin. I've been doing mainly Sconnie things, things like eating cheese and tipping cows and NOT learning French and walking slowly and ominously around the Capitol at night because it's finally above freezing and I am bored not to mention naturally kind of a creeper (which reminds me: why, WHY is the capitol lit up red right now? Anyone know? Is it because of Valentines day? If so that is the lamest thing I have ever heard in my life...). I've also been thoroughly enjoying speaking my gloriously low dialect of American English to anyone and everyone willing to converse with me. The more twAng in those "A"s the better these dAys, Eh?

(Picture Courtesy of Karen)

What is more, I am once again bumming my pathetic existence off of a couple of unsettlingly kind friends, who, though I went home to the 'burbs last week to do utterly brain-bursting activities such as get my visa, sleep too much, and make nice with my Green Bay relatives, took me back in unexpectedly and without question the other day for another near-week of malodorous girly soaps and lotions in their usually manful bathroom. (Seriously, who are these people and why are they so kind to me? And what's with all the scrumptious baked goods? Could they possibly have ulterior motives, like fattening me up and selling me at market? Really must look into that but in the mean time this piece of apple cake looks particularly yummy...)

As you can see (she says through her baked good), it is all very lame and anti-climactic here, though in a comfortable, don't-want-to-leave-because-it-will-be-like-getting-out-of-
bed-on-a-cold-morning sort of way, and I fear that despite my choice to write this evening, tonight bodes hardly a convivial writing occasion. Honestly, in addition to tonight's general lack of ado, I have very little to show for myself storytelling-wise in general these days, due to my having been doing nothing but showing up on people's snowy doorsteps for some TWO MONTHS now. Revolting. In fact, currently as I sit on the boys' couch, writing run-on sentences and trying my darnedest to think about Life with a capital "L", all I can think is that I've wasted two months of the "best years of my life" listening to Cat Power and re-re-reading my Dearest, Most Beloved Shoebox Project until 4am. What's worse, I must say this couch is getting comfier by the second. Seriously guys, I could fall asleep right here right now and easily miss my flight next week, leaving me with nothing to do until September except write meaningless blogs like this one in-between long naps.

...... And THAT'S when they would sell me at market! I get it now! I'll be both fattened AND tranquilized! Brilliant!

Okayokayokay. So the purpose of this incomprehensiblog WAS going to be to describe to you in literary detail my many illuminating pre-France break experiences, but I suppose I have rather admitted already that instead of hunting ghosts, plumbing, cooking Italian food, writing songs on the piano, penning fantasy novels, and being calm and reassuring in a dead-sexy fashion (I love you Grant Wilson, I really do), I have been doing absolutely nothing at all, nothing but eating things Chris bakes and staring at my laptop screen for 14-hours at a time, which is why my eyeballs ARE ON FIRE. (If I can't see a single painting in the Louvre, it'll be no one's fault but my father's for having charitably bought me this laptop.)

Still, I feel it is my duty to share briefly with you, Citizens of The World, at least a one thing which has come to my mind over these past two months while you were all out there busy being productive members of society instead of bored, Capitol-orbiting creepers.

It has come to my attention that Wisconsin is a ridiculous place, but I rather love it. This entire statement can be easily explicated with two points, one a fact, and one an anecdote. Fact: soon I will be in France, and so naturally in my state of fear and enormous dread I am these days inclined to have Romantic rumblings for my native land. Makes sense. Now, anecdote. My family always gets lunch at this one particular ancient and greasy restaurant in Green Bay whenever we go up there on family business, like we did last weekend. My parents both grew up in the City on The Web Between The Thumb and The Forefinger and we've all visited loads of times, so this restaurant wields a particular nostalgic gravitation for the 3 generations. Also, it is a stone's throw from Lambeau Field and they have delicious pineappley malts. Now, I have a certain picky nephew named Shamus who is cursed at this moment with being a 15 year-old and is thus way too cool to keep even his own company, much less the company of various hamburger condiments. So when the waitress comes up to take our order (you have to push a button to get someone to come to your table, it's all very exciting) Shamus says, in his charming monotone, "I want a hamburger, but I don't like all those things they put on it, so I want it plain. Absolutely nothing on it." The waitress, a young gal with her hair in a bun, doesn't skip a beat and responds blithely, "So just butter?"

Hopefully you see the humor and understand my point, unless, of course, you are like the rest of my family and do not think this buttery tale the least bit unusual even after I spell it out for you slowly, clearly, and mid-malt. Seriously people, Wisconsin natives and non-Wisconsin natives alike, how could you not have a soft spot for a state that elevates butter beyond the level of condiment to the realm of meat, and perhaps beyond?

In all seriousness though, I have traveled a bit before and have learned just by spending a summer in Philadelphia that not only is the butter burger far superior to the cheese steak, but there is something else pleasantly different about the Midwest. There is a distinctive culture buried under all those layers of modern American suburbia, and like it or not, I am a born and bred Midwesterner. We are laid back, but we are stubborn. We work hard (or if we don't we feel damn guilty about it, see above), and so yes, occasionally we like our arteries full of buttery goodness or State Fair cream puff or deep fried pickled chocolate candy bar on a stick. In other words, we appreciate life's simple pleasures and are not afraid to show our enthusiasm for them whether or not our eagerness be couth. All in all, it makes for an open, down to earth quality in the people who live in the Midwest. Unfortunately, more and more as wealth and selfishness spread and places like my hometown become the norm, this open forwardness often translates into an in-your-face refusal to look beyond the shiny upper-middle class SUV-driving conservative suburban scene. But in rural or middle-class places like Green Bay and my imagination, it seems to still mean at its root an honest, hard-working ethic full of community and tradition and simple pleasures like beer and football and cheese, lots and lots of cheese.

Now, I have to attach the obvious disclaimer that of all people in the world to appreciate the supposed "working-class pleasures" like beer and football, I may appear the least likely. I cling perhaps too-ardently to the pleasures of a more privileged class, one with copious amounts of education and an appreciation for "the finer things". Still, being a true Sconnie native, I am convinced that one can be a dedicated intellectual and citizen of the world and a warm, open, and hard-working lover of the simple life at the same time, making a strange love of men rolling over each other wearing glossy spandex entirely optional. What is more, this combination educated open-mindedness and Midwestern warmth could be a serious force to be reckoned with if more of my countrymen tried it on for size, I think. No longer would the Midwest be the fourth armpit of America, I would think, but a colossus of cultural incorruptibility!

It is also this perceptive warmth which I felt called as an American to demonstrate to my Danish floor-mates this past semester. My friends and I may not be the picture of American normalcy, but our amalgamated lifestyle of serious perspective and silliness is something I am extremely proud of and was excited to share. And sure enough, within a couple of months Sofie was one of the gang, loud and happy, throwing random theme parties for no reason, cooking large meals with the group, and trudging through the snow to the Essen Haus to drink beer and polka with the best of them. In the end the Danes had fun and so did we, we had some damn interesting conversations and all learned a lot, and I think us Americans did our part to help clear the bad name of not only our country, but our region as well. We may not live in the most interesting and culturally forward place in the world, but I think we proved that the in the Midwest we know how to keep warm and have a good time, a quality that lasts and sticks with you. A quality one wants to come back to.

When I switch sides shortly, I am going to devour everything I see or hear or smell and appreciate every cathedral, every painting, every non-American that I see. But I am also going to remember where I came from and feel at least a tiny bit proud to be, well.. an American! Not in a "we are the best" sort of way, but in a "I kind of dig us" sort of way. Because under piles and oodles and 50 ton bushels of stupidity, America does have a few things right. Our country may be steeped in hypocrisy, but under it all is a damned good intention and a laid-back jolliness I know I am going to miss while I am gone. And maybe, dare I say it, learning to appreciate another culture may very well teach me once and for all the value of my own. Hell, I may want to stop roving eventually and maybe even live the majority of my life back where I started, in my home culture, perhaps on a little farm somewhere where I can bake bread and grow things and do other unrealistically idealistic things a number of us old-school Midwesterners crave that will probably never happen. We'll see.


So send me your Midwestern stories and jovial tales of laid-back silliness when I am in France guys, nervously nibbling a different sort of Cheese and missing you all across the pond.