I have not been good about this here blog. A few updates:
I whacked my crotchal region really, really hard on one of the stupidstupidstupid (I HATE THEM) stupid poles that Paris decided to put on the edges of sidewalks. I regularly forget they are there. I do not regularly bruise my no-fly zone. It hurt so bad I almost passed out and had to drink some water before I walked it off.
I am going to Bonnaroo in June. This is awesome.
I'm going to see Cyrano de Bergerac at the Comedie Francaise tomorrow. It should be awesome and tons o' fun, especially because, other than me adoring theatre, I get to dress up--something else you all know I adore.
Today was my favorite day in Paris thusfar. I slept in and then joined les filles for what turned into a 6-hour walkabout in a very large multi-arrondissal circle. We met up at 2 near Saint-Sulpice, where we began our extravaganza. It was over 50 today (it felt like 60), and at a few points I even took off my jacket and went sleeveless. The sun was finally shining and everyone was out and about enjoying it before it turns rainy again, as it inevitably shall (either tomorrow or Wednesday depending on which meteo you believe). We walked through le Jardin de Luxembourg, found a GLORIOUS fountain at which many beautiful pictures were taken, then walked around until we found a Monoprix. We bought fresh chevre, wonderfully ripe strawberries, and some chorizo, then hit up a boulangerie for delicious baguettes. We took our repas to one of the many ponts, really close to Ile-de-la-Cite, and ate an AMAZING meal. We then decided it was Berthillon time. Berthillon is a legendary Paris gelato/ice cream place on the Ile-St.-Louis. Their glaces are served all around Paris, but there's nothing like the real thing from the real maison. After the most delicious combo of dark chocolate and honey nougat delight in my mouth, we just sat by the seine, notre dame in front and some other awesome Seine-adjacent building at our back, taking secret pictures of cute French couples and admiring our incredible lives. After that, we went our separate ways, but Lindsey and I met up w/ Kate, who was wandering le Marais, for our favorite gyros in the Latin Quarter, where we stayed for about 3 hours just talking and taking up table space. It was the most wonderful day.
Okay I promise I'll try and back-update. I have been reading through my old livejournal over the last few days, and while it still instills me with the same "god i embarrass myself" feeling that reading over old journals does, it has a more literary, essaic quality that I really hope to recapture in future bloggage. I think I've gotten less intelligent since that time (perhaps just less pretentious), and I'm going to try to do more to fix that, like better blogging, more conscientious french pursuits, and less random internet-surfing. Baby steps.
28 February 2009
10 February 2009
I Used the Phrase "Pen-Blogging" Today
I gotta get better at this thing. I spend a lot of time procrastinating on the computer, and not enough of it procrastinating through the holy portal of Blogger.
But first, breaking news from the Travel Corner: Buying train tickets on four separate computers from four separate locations at four (well three, but let's rock this parallel syntax all the way through) separate prices four days before you leave for Amsterdam is an adventure in computering worthy of a Michael Crichton (or Steve Jobs) novel.
It began simply enough- a Skype conference re: trains to Amsterdam. I'd done my research like the good little globe-trotter I am, and had two trains in mind for the high-but-that's-Europe-for-you price of E130. Unfortunately, I hadn't banked on others of my generation being less computer savvy than I (or hadn't realized the level of my savv), and we hit roadblock 1.
ROADBLOCK 1: Some people can't even get on the SNCF website.
It wasn't long before, after some computorial cajoling, we merrily rolled along to roadblock 2.
ROADBLOCK 2: Train tickets are more expensive when you buy them in groups of 4. Not wanting to pay E190 for less than 48h in the 'Dam, we decided to hit it up single-style. Which brings us to...
ROADBLOCK 3: Getting single tickets makes OtherLindsey run into trouble. While we found tickets at the same times, Lindsey's were more expensive, then nonexistent, then redirected her to another website entirely. By the time I helped her out, my tickets had then gone all sorts of awry as well. In the meantime...
ROADBLOCK 4: K & L^3 had already bought their tickets for a train that was now sold out, sans We Two Linds(e/a)ys. LindsEy now could only find extra expensive tickets that matched mine (somehow, the exact same itinerary cost her E34 more), so decided to head out an hour later than our non-similarly-named counterparts.
Amidst all the ROADBLOCKS, our frantic Skype conferencing, our wading through SNCF websites, our bemoaning the state of the economy, me calling LindsEy to walk her through the process, and wondering why the 4 wasn't running today, IT WAS BEDLAM.
Seriously. If I could capture the essence of that harried 45 minutes of hostel-searching, hostel-booking, train-searching, freak-outing, train-booking, computer-crashing in a scent, it would probably be called "IYHSNC(wt)F? eau de quoilette", because even the name is confusing.
Beyond that long histoire that was actually a rather short chunk of time, I am happy to report that Paris is really starting to feel like home, to the point where I am already not wanting to go back and wanting to go on another study abroad program. If only my school were free and I could just go there for like 6 more semesters, I would do all of the study abroad programs, graduate when I'm 24, and be the coolest person ever.
Sometimes I just get this feeling where it's like all of my internal emotions and external surrounding coalesce into this wonderful sense of well-being. Today, it was going up the Metro escalator, carrying bags from Monoprix that were blistering my hands and threatening to bust open, listening to Jeff Buckley singing Dream Brother, staring up at the dusky, starry blue sky backing L'Eglise Trinite d'Estienne d'Orves, and knowing that I was going to walk back to my apartment, throw my stuff in my room, put away my groceries, and have dinner with my famille d'acceuil that just made me feel completely content.
Even though it's easy to slip back into English here, spending the evenings with my French family really does give me a better idea of how I'm progressing French-wise. Even though my conjugation still is patchy at best, and I'm still working off those "top 20" sorts of verbs for the most part, and I still am always looking for le mot juste, we actually have conversations at dinner. The first week or so, it was mostly the Leonards talking, with me interjecting the occasional "Ben, ouais," or "Ah bon?", but tonight we actually talked about stuff. Usually the night ends up in some sort of debatery, whether it is abortion and the death penalty (yeah, that's dinner conversation here), or the Nazis and really good movies about them (tonight's topic of discussion).
I have also discovered that French people (or at least the entire Leonard clan) do not like not knowing things. At an average American dinner, if somebody forgot what Woody Allen movie they were watching last Wednesday, the forgetter and the guests would say "laisse tomber", and then the forgetter would eventually remember or find out, possibly days later. If you forgot who directed the Pianist, you would just forget about it and move on to other topics. Here? No sir. Here, if you forget, you go to your computer and look it up (Manhattan Murder Mystery), thereby sparking a debate about the Internet v. The Quark or The Quail or The Qu-something-I-Forget-The-Name-of-That-is-Essentially-a-Fancy-French-IMDB-cum-Almanac (see? If I were truly French I would look it up right now, but I'm going to finish writing). Or, in our case tonight, you go on your laptop and IMDB The Pianist while your QP calls his brother in Normandy to check and see if he knows (he did, QP was right, it was Roman Polanski). Also, I looked it up and it's the Quid (le kweed).
So there's a lot more to say, but this is already quite a long and intimidating read full of hyphenation, so I will leave you with these two Things France Has That the US Doesn't or The Joys of Monoprix: Blood Orange Diet Coke (delectable), and vaguely-marshmallowy-substance-filled sourpatchesque candies called Fili-Tubs that are totally my new Twerpz substitute.
PS- In the category of Things France Doesn't Have That the US Shouldn't is lots of irritating Valentine's Day paraphernalia. In fact, there is NOTHING here that is pink or red or hearty or flowery for any reason other than that is it's natural color, or it is a heart or flower. There are not even any bare-bottomed babies holding medieval weaponry. Frankly, it is refreshing and delightful. Kind of like Blood Orange Diet Coke.
But first, breaking news from the Travel Corner: Buying train tickets on four separate computers from four separate locations at four (well three, but let's rock this parallel syntax all the way through) separate prices four days before you leave for Amsterdam is an adventure in computering worthy of a Michael Crichton (or Steve Jobs) novel.
It began simply enough- a Skype conference re: trains to Amsterdam. I'd done my research like the good little globe-trotter I am, and had two trains in mind for the high-but-that's-Europe-for-you price of E130. Unfortunately, I hadn't banked on others of my generation being less computer savvy than I (or hadn't realized the level of my savv), and we hit roadblock 1.
ROADBLOCK 1: Some people can't even get on the SNCF website.
It wasn't long before, after some computorial cajoling, we merrily rolled along to roadblock 2.
ROADBLOCK 2: Train tickets are more expensive when you buy them in groups of 4. Not wanting to pay E190 for less than 48h in the 'Dam, we decided to hit it up single-style. Which brings us to...
ROADBLOCK 3: Getting single tickets makes OtherLindsey run into trouble. While we found tickets at the same times, Lindsey's were more expensive, then nonexistent, then redirected her to another website entirely. By the time I helped her out, my tickets had then gone all sorts of awry as well. In the meantime...
ROADBLOCK 4: K & L^3 had already bought their tickets for a train that was now sold out, sans We Two Linds(e/a)ys. LindsEy now could only find extra expensive tickets that matched mine (somehow, the exact same itinerary cost her E34 more), so decided to head out an hour later than our non-similarly-named counterparts.
Amidst all the ROADBLOCKS, our frantic Skype conferencing, our wading through SNCF websites, our bemoaning the state of the economy, me calling LindsEy to walk her through the process, and wondering why the 4 wasn't running today, IT WAS BEDLAM.
Seriously. If I could capture the essence of that harried 45 minutes of hostel-searching, hostel-booking, train-searching, freak-outing, train-booking, computer-crashing in a scent, it would probably be called "IYHSNC(wt)F? eau de quoilette", because even the name is confusing.
Beyond that long histoire that was actually a rather short chunk of time, I am happy to report that Paris is really starting to feel like home, to the point where I am already not wanting to go back and wanting to go on another study abroad program. If only my school were free and I could just go there for like 6 more semesters, I would do all of the study abroad programs, graduate when I'm 24, and be the coolest person ever.
Sometimes I just get this feeling where it's like all of my internal emotions and external surrounding coalesce into this wonderful sense of well-being. Today, it was going up the Metro escalator, carrying bags from Monoprix that were blistering my hands and threatening to bust open, listening to Jeff Buckley singing Dream Brother, staring up at the dusky, starry blue sky backing L'Eglise Trinite d'Estienne d'Orves, and knowing that I was going to walk back to my apartment, throw my stuff in my room, put away my groceries, and have dinner with my famille d'acceuil that just made me feel completely content.
Even though it's easy to slip back into English here, spending the evenings with my French family really does give me a better idea of how I'm progressing French-wise. Even though my conjugation still is patchy at best, and I'm still working off those "top 20" sorts of verbs for the most part, and I still am always looking for le mot juste, we actually have conversations at dinner. The first week or so, it was mostly the Leonards talking, with me interjecting the occasional "Ben, ouais," or "Ah bon?", but tonight we actually talked about stuff. Usually the night ends up in some sort of debatery, whether it is abortion and the death penalty (yeah, that's dinner conversation here), or the Nazis and really good movies about them (tonight's topic of discussion).
I have also discovered that French people (or at least the entire Leonard clan) do not like not knowing things. At an average American dinner, if somebody forgot what Woody Allen movie they were watching last Wednesday, the forgetter and the guests would say "laisse tomber", and then the forgetter would eventually remember or find out, possibly days later. If you forgot who directed the Pianist, you would just forget about it and move on to other topics. Here? No sir. Here, if you forget, you go to your computer and look it up (Manhattan Murder Mystery), thereby sparking a debate about the Internet v. The Quark or The Quail or The Qu-something-I-Forget-The-Name-of-That-is-Essentially-a-Fancy-French-IMDB-cum-Almanac (see? If I were truly French I would look it up right now, but I'm going to finish writing). Or, in our case tonight, you go on your laptop and IMDB The Pianist while your QP calls his brother in Normandy to check and see if he knows (he did, QP was right, it was Roman Polanski). Also, I looked it up and it's the Quid (le kweed).
So there's a lot more to say, but this is already quite a long and intimidating read full of hyphenation, so I will leave you with these two Things France Has That the US Doesn't or The Joys of Monoprix: Blood Orange Diet Coke (delectable), and vaguely-marshmallowy-substance-filled sourpatchesque candies called Fili-Tubs that are totally my new Twerpz substitute.
PS- In the category of Things France Doesn't Have That the US Shouldn't is lots of irritating Valentine's Day paraphernalia. In fact, there is NOTHING here that is pink or red or hearty or flowery for any reason other than that is it's natural color, or it is a heart or flower. There are not even any bare-bottomed babies holding medieval weaponry. Frankly, it is refreshing and delightful. Kind of like Blood Orange Diet Coke.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
