Love that dirty water

Back from Italy with one day to spare before I hop a plane back home. Like capital H Home--America!

Italy was a mix of things. Venice was a sticky, hot, tourist trap with dirty canals. It stole our money and fed us overpriced, mediocre food. I'm convinced that no Italians live there. They just float on over everyday to work for the tourists. We stayed at a really nice hotel in a great location (thanks Mom!), about five minutes' walk from St. Mark's Square, but we were on the top floor in a room with broken a/c, and, à cause de the super high temperatures, we had to sleep with the windows open to catch the tiniest breeze. Because said breeze was so tiny, I slept on top of the covers for most of the first night, and thus woke up to find twenty or thirty itchy bites on my arms, legs, and face. (What bug bites a F A C E ?! I mean really, how much blood can there possibly be in my forehead?)

We discovered the next night that the room was infested with mosquitoes who were coming in from the opened window (better those than bedbugs, right?). Between the two of us, Jordan and I probably got about two hours of sleep on account of what he described as Kamikaze mosquitoes. Just as we were about to fall asleep, they would dive bomb onto our bed and attack. It is nearly impossible to dormir when a thousand mosquitoes are buzzing half a centimeter from your ear. Or maybe it was only one. Regardless, by the end of it all, it (or they) inflicted at least sixty mosquito bites on every exposed part of my body (I counted). Even my toes. So that was Venice.

Rome, on the other hand, was ah-mazing! Yay for the Waldorf Hotel and the hop-on hop-off bus! We did a lot of walking, ate delicious food (Santopadre restaurant is a must if you're in Rome), saw tons of ruins and other historic things that after a while were hard to keep track of because they all started to look the same after the third or fourth pass. The only drawback was that because of time restrictions, we were pretty much forced to do Rome in a day and a half. Definitely not enough time to tour 2000+ years of history, but we made it work.

ALSO, we went to the Vatican, which means we saw the Sistine Chapel! Once we finally found our way through the maze of the Vatican museum, we arrived at the chapel, which had a no photos sign prominently displayed at its entrance. However, as soon as we stepped inside, complete pandemonium ensued. The room was literally packed wall to wall with tourists, and everyone, E V E R Y O N E was taking pictures left and right. Some were even bold enough to use flash! A tourist to security guard ratio of about 200 to 1 = anarchy and snap shots at will.

In any case, the weather was beautiful for our whole trip. Will definitely have to go back to Italia some time [soon? i hope.].

As for my last day in Paris (this post has been written over the course of about ten hours or so....please forgive its lack of cohesion, fluidity, style, etc.), after I dropped Jordan off at the airport, I had lunch in my favorite café, Bo Zinc (I have kind of a huge crush on one of the waiters there....another reason to return to Europe? Haha), then returned to Françoise's house just in time to evade a torrential downpour that lasted for about an hour and a half, and prevented me from properly enjoying my last day here. Womp womp. So instead I watched Ugly Betty online, tidied up, and when the sunshine finally poked through, went shopping! After dinner (a baguette au tradition with comté cheese and an apple--how Parisienne of me), I walked to Trocodero just as the Eiffel Tower was doing its sparkly light up thing at the top of the hour. I sat there for about half an hour enjoying the view for one last time before strolling back home. Small h home.

Tomorrow, Home. Yeah.

Curtain

"Paris, c'est fini? Ça va te manquer?"

You're done with Paris. Will you miss it?

Question of the day. Answer: hell yes. I spent my final Thursday evening in Paris sitting at Trocadero in front of a lit-up Eiffel Tower at about midnight shooting the breeze with Mark Anthony, Trevor, Patrick. (This after one last round of Mark Anthony signature chocolat chaud.) MA had a few bottles to finish off before he goes back to the States in a couple days, so we installed ourselves on a bench and passed about two hours taking in la Tour Eiffel one last time.

Will I miss it? Yes and no. The Eiffel Tower is pas grand chose, in my opinion. That is to say, it's not really all that spectacular. However, I must admit that though impress me it may not, whenever I pass it and it's all lit up by the evening sun, I get this sort of giddy feeling, like I can't believe I actually live here.

Lived. here. Not to get all sappy and poetic over that big iron K'Nex structure, but Paris is pretty freaking sweet, and passing four months here has been a surreal pleasure. And now it's over. Things I will miss? Boulangeries, wine, café au lait, coca cola with real sugar, the sun setting over the seine, the friends that I have made. Things I'm excited to go back to? Familiarity, my family (though they have all been to Europe this semester to visit me!), my bed, television, lack of sketchy African men asking my hand in marriage, peanut butter.

Everything is pretty much all wrapped up. Internship is finished, all my reports are written, we've begun the goodbyes (which suck). But hey, time to move on. I'd like to apologize in advance for the franglais that will ensue when I return home. After four months of speaking French, there are just some words that escape me in English. So bare with me.

Not to end on a sad, sappy note, Italy in two days! Here's to pizza, spaghetti, and gelato everyday for one week! Oh yeah, and lots and lots of house wine. :)

:: yea for 5 second shutter-speed! ::

Brain fart

I am so excited that Jordan is coming to visit me in Paris. So excited that I woke up this morning at 7am, showered, got dressed, checked the flight schedules, walked to the train station, bought tickets for the hour-long train ride to the airport, rushed through the corridors of Charles de Gaulle to the arrival terminal, searched and searched to no avail, finally took out my cell phone, and called my brother. (There is a 7 hour time difference between Paris and the midwest. A 9am phone call made from Paris reaches St. Louis at 2 in the morning...) It went something like this:

"Hey, where are you?"

"In my room sleeping...."

"Huh? You're not at the airport?"

"No."

"When is your flight?"

"Tomorrow morning."

Womp womp womp. What a major fail. 16,80 euros wasted on the metro tickets to the airport. Two hours of sleep lost. I had even gone to such lengths as to get the day off of work. I still have no clue how, after all of my double-checking, I missed that he was arriving on TUESDAY.

BUT, there is a bright side. I went to work after the airport, and after two and a half hours of doing absolutely nothing, I asked if there was any work for me to do, and if not if I could leave. So now I'm at home, with the better part of a beautiful sunshiney afternoon at my disposal. I'm going to go for a run, eat lunch, work on my presentation, and enjoy the fact that I am not going to work again until Wednesday afternoon.

I now have tomorrow off, because Jordan is coming!

Giverny in [16 of 216] photos

Click to make them bigger.

1. spider web in Monet's famous water lily garden, 2. a fence!, 3a-b. the line to get into the garden, 4. an impressionist boutique nearby--lots of artists set up stores in the area to sell their art, 5-6. flowers!, 7. a reflecting pond, 8. Vernon is the town near Giverny where the train arrives from Paris, 9. Monet's house blurred in the background, 10-12. more flowers, 13. the famous japanese bridge from Monet's paintings! it looks JUST like the pictures!, 14. bridge up close, 15. an artist painting on the street, 16. the little café where I had local cidre. On the wall is a painting from a local artist on sale for the modest price of 880 euros.

You're American? We should get married!

That's what the a-little-bit-too-helpful man on the side of the road said when I pulled over on my bike to look at my map on the way to Giverny. I took a day trip there [toute seule] today to see Monet's gardens. The train ride from Paris was only about 40 minutes. Once at the station in Vernon, I rented a bicycle for the day to see some countryside, enjoy the fresh air, and spare myself a stuffy shuttle ride with a bunch of old American tourists. I wasn't lost--I hadn't gotten far enough from the train station to get lost. But this guy insisted that he could help me find my way. So I cautiously followed him to the corner of the street, and he pointed me in the right direction. Thirty minutes later, after several honking car horns, lots of roundabouts, a half dozen pastures with grazing cows and horses, and terrible thoughts that the man had told me bad directions in order to follow me and trap me and force me to be his wife, I arrived safely (and unwed) in Giverny.

It was STUNNING! Monet's gardens look just like his paintings--a beautiful, blurry mesh of color. I bought a guide book from the information office, then proceeded to wander around Giverny. When I finally made my way to the famous water lilly garden, the line extended about a hundred meters from the entrance. "It's like the Vatican," said the French woman behind me in line. I started eating the sandwich I packed for lunch, and just as I was taking my last bite, one of the guards came through the line and told anyone who wanted to to follow him to another entrance. And just like that, I went from being the bazillionth person in line to being the fourth! Sweet.

I entered the garden, and proceeded to take just over 200 photographs (216 to be exact). Everything was so vibrant that it was impossible to take a bad picture. It's the kind of place where everyone and their mother can take a postcard quality photo just by haphazardly pointing their camera and shooting. After the garden, I ambled around Monet's house for a bit, but it was cramped and crowded with tourists, and thus not very enjoyable.

With about three hours to spare before my train back to Paris, I retrieved my bicycle and searched for someplace to pass some time. I found a cute little café with paintings from local artists on display and for sale on the walls, and had a glass of cidre that was made just down the road from the café! Apparently Giverny produces cidre! I took over a table, did a little reading, wrote a few things down, and reveled in the satisfaction of a successful solo excursion.

Lest you worry that it is unsafe to travel alone, allow me to share a few tips I've picked up along the way: To combat ridiculously persistent French people [surtout les hommes], a.) try to ignore them by reading a book. If that doesn't work, then b.) pretend like you don't speak or understand French. And if that fails, then resort to c.) straight up lie. "Yes, in fact, I AM engaged, I just left my fiancé back in America," or "Well you know, I just remembered that I DO have someone waiting for me back home, sorry." It works every time.

[pictures tomorrow]

Soft and low when the evening comes

To be honest, there's really nothing much to report. Evenings these days have been sweet and calm. Spring has sprung, and everything is all bloomed and pink and pretty. My nose has been running non stop, and I can't go ten minutes without being racked with sneezes, but you know what? I'll take pollen over cold driving rain any day. (French people, by the way, don't say "bless you"! What the heck?) Paris seems to get a bit more friendly when the weather gets nicer. More folks outside, more tourists crowding the metros. It's nice to see some more life in the city.

I met up with Mark Anthony and Patrick today after work to play some tennis. Well, I suck at tennis. Hand-eye coordination didn't seem to click today. I'm more of a runner, you see. (Been clocking miles for two weeks now and no more knee pain!) It was fun though. I finally got the hang of it after a few misdirected serves into the court next to ours. (And by a few I mean like a dozen...) I don't give up easily though (read: I'm stubborn, not necessarily determined), so maybe I'll dust off the racket in our basement at home and try to find a court and a partner when I get back to Amhurrica.

Afterwards, MA and I threw together an improv dinner of baked tortellini with bolognaise sauce and cheese, along with cidre, and some ice cream-chocolate-nutella sauce that MA concocted that tasted like a warm, melted piece of heaven. We chatted it up for a couple hours, then I headed home, full and satisfied. The evening was so cool and inviting that I returned chez moi à pied. The walk was about 40 or 45 minutes, and lovely the whole way.

In other news, Jordan is coming! And we're going to Italy! And it's going to be awesome! One final frontier before my bank account suffers its fatal wound. (It's pretty severely injured right now.) But whatever. I didn't spend all summer walking around looking like Smokey the Bear in my silly park ranger hat and ugly, hip-enlarging brown pants for nothing! It's time to put my hard-earned savings to good use! I'll be frugal when I get back to the States. But for now, here's to learning Italian in just two weeks. :-)

Yussef

I didn't know whether to be offended or amused when Yussef jumped off the couch, beckoned me to him with open arms, engulfed me in the first hug I've received from a French person since arriving in this country four months ago, kissed me on both cheeks, and proclaimed loudly with joy, "J'ai fait le bise avec un noir!!!!" (The French "faire le bise"--give a kiss on each cheek--instead of shaking hands.)

I, apparently, am the first black person that Yussef has ever met. He was ecstatic to have me in his home for two days during my trip to Grenoble to visit my friend Laura. She had warned me before I arrived that Yussef, her host-father, could not wait to host un noir, so I was ready. But still. I can't be the first one he's met in his 60-something years of life. Impossible.

"I have to tell all my friends un noir is staying with me! I'm cultured now, I'm cultured! Do you connais les Blues? J'adore les Blues! Tiens, put down your things!"

He proceeded to ask me about Mississippi.

"Je viens de MisSOURi," I corrected, careful to emphasize the last syllable so that he would not pronounce it "Misery" like most French people do.

"Ahhh, donc tu aimes les Blues!"

At this point, I just went with the flow.

Yussef was born in Lebanon, but he has been in France since practically the beginning of time. He's the kind of person whose wife (a white French woman named Monique) always reprimands him for saying exactly what's on his mind in front of the guests, the kind of guy whose wife has to watch his diet because he eats too much sugar and now has "heart tension." He never stops talking, and since he's hard of hearing, his voice roars through the house because he talks so loudly. Though he speaks perfect French (minus Monique's corrections to his occasionally misplaced adverbs), he purposely rolls his Rs, because, "Mon accent, c'est mon identité, tu voie."

Yussef loves films, reading, jazz, and, as I learned last weekend, black people. He asked me about everything from my cotton-picking ancestors, to the Civil Rights Movement and the integration of southern schools, to my family's origins (I told him that in Trinidad, they play Calypso, not blues), to how often I wash my hair. (He insisted that the 1957 Little Rock integration happened at a university, but I assured him that it took place at a high school. This and the slavery question were dinner conversation, by the way.)

There was really no point in being offended, because he meant no harm. I think he was genuinely curious about how us noirs live, and especially how we wash our hair. (Who'da thought we use shampoo just like everyone else?) And since I'm the official spokesperson for every single noir in the world ever, I [gladly] indulged him.

All that being said, I'd go visit Yussef (I mean Laura...hehe) again in a heartbeat. He's freaking hilarious, if sometimes candid and inappropriate, and after a while, you learn to ignore him. Besides, I hear he makes some mean falafel.

Je vais prendre le foie gras, s'il vous plaît...

...and a bottle of the house wine, too. At this particular restaurant, Le Nouilles, located in the center of town, the house wine was a Bordeaux Calvet Reserve, red, of course. It was a combination of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. I'm a huge fan of Merlot, and I like Sauvignon, too. Together, they made for a smooth, sweet but not too sweet red.

Which went well with my duck liver. Eager to immerse myself in all things French, I took the plunge this past weekend during my trip to Bordeaux and tried foie gras for the first time. I am completely smitten with confit de canard, another French duck dish, and was tempted to stick with the tried and true. But instead I pointed to the unfamiliar option, and the waiter smiled and nodded his approval.

So I munched on some bread, tasted the wine, all the while wondering if I was going to go back to my hotel hungry because I couldn't stomach the plat I had ordered.

Good news, friends. There was absolutely no reason to worry! It was delicious. Didn't taste like a duck's liver at all! Instead, it had a smooth, buttery flavor that vaguely reminded me of the runny part of the yolk of a sunny side up egg (over-easy style--that's really the only way to go, à mon avis). I later read that foie gras is obtained by gavage, the French word for force feeding. By pumping gross amounts of food into the duck or goose, one overloads its liver with fat, which is what gives the foie gras the buttery taste gourmands desire.

The Bordeaux style differs from the rest of France, in that the dish is served fresh and hot, instead of cold or at room temperature. Traditionally, the liver is served with grilled fruits, in my case apples and grapes, and toast. The cooked fruits together with the liver make a delicious sauce. When eaten all together with the bread, it is splendid.

That being said, I've had my share of liver for the time being. I'm glad I had the chance to taste something so uniquely French, and so excellently prepared, but really, how much liver can one eat? The French typically have foie gras only once a year, around Christmas time. Interestingly, in many countries, the dish is banned entirely to protest animal cruelty (force-feeding geese and ducks is considered cruel?? Can't be true). I would like to try the Parisian version of it--the chilled, sliced kind, just for comparison's sake. But until then, I'll stick to my confit.

A word about wines: Bordeaux's were good, but I still prefer the Napa Valley/Sonoma region. I told this to Françoise, and she thinks it's because I'm American, and not acclimated to how fort French wines are. I responded, no, I just don't like some of them that much. But perhaps my tastes will change.

:: foie gras, Bordeaux style ::

:: dessert - a raspberry tart ::

We'll take a bottle of the house wine, please

Bordeaux se trouves itself in the southwest of France. (You Frenchies out there will know that that phrase is redundant, but in order to use franglais here, I have to say it like that.) Last weekend, Tanya, Pamela and I spent the weekend eating, drinking, and exploring in France's wine capital. Françoise was very encouraging of our trip. The night before we left, she asked, "Why are you going to Bordeaux? It's not that pretty compared to other cities in France." Thanks, F. Really positive of you.

Thankfully, her kind words were easily dismissed when we arrived in the center of town. Bordeaux is beautiful, with stunning architecture, narrow streets, and a beautiful boardwalk lining the river that runs through the city. We found our hotel--a simple but clean little place about a 15 minute's walk from the center of things--then headed out to explore.

One of our main goals was, of course, to drink lots of wine. We did pretty well over the course of the weekend, going through a bottle at each meal. We usually just ordered the house wine, on the assumption that in a place known for its vin, whatever's on the house must be good. Aside from walking and sight seeing, we mostly just relaxed and enjoyed the sunshine. We also visited a wine chateaux near the medieval village of St Emilion. The chateaux was a huge womp womp moment, as it was simply a little old house where they processed and bottled wine. Definitely not a castle by any means, but it was still enjoyable.

And so was Bordeaux. A weekend well spent. Take that, F.

So much things to say

But little time to say them. Whose idea was it to give us homework AFTER classes finished? I'll be writing my rapport du stage for the rest of the evening. You can find me glued to my computer instead of out enjoying the beautiful, summer-like night we have been blessed with this evening.

I think your oranges are s'abim-ing

S'abimer: to spoil.

Françoise came into the living room this evening and said (in French), "I think your fruit is going bad. It smells." Turns out ALL my fruit went bad at EXACTLY the same time. Oranges. Lemons. My artichoke. Qu'est-ce qui se passe? This has never happened before. This wouldn't be such a huge deal if I weren't deathly afraid of mold. I can handle spiders. I can handle snakes. I can handle heights and the dark. But not mold. Good thing Tanya lives with me, and it's a good thing she's willing to throw out my rotten food. The article below sums up perfectly my feelings about the disgusting growth that steals our once sweet and lovely fruits and vegetables from us. You'll have to pardon the language, but I promise, it is good. And so true.

http://nomorewastedpaper.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/dear-intense-fear-of-mold/

Here's to not buying more fruit than I can consume in one week.

Merde (things could be worse)

1. Françoise doesn't let Tanya and me turn the hall light on after she goes to bed because the tiny sliver of light that peaks under her door when the light is on supposedly wakes her up at night. Never mind how much money we are paying to live here. I think I've paid for that hall light. The pitch black hallway took its toll this evening, when I smashed head first into the wall on my way to the living room, breaking my glasses and causing a few untypeable words to slip from my mouth. Merde.

2. Françoise has also forbid us from flushing the toilet after 11pm because it supposedly wakes up the entire apartment building. For a while, I heeded this rule, but I after the light incident, I'm kind of fed up with this ridiculousness. Leaving merde in the toilet overnight is just disgusting, and I refuse to do it any more. Sorry for the graphic reference, but it's the truth. Here's to flushing the john.

3. I sat across from a man on the metro on the way home. After about a minute, he moved to the seat directly next to me, because he thought there was merde on the seat next to him. I must admit, it did look like someone had left a nasty little present on the chair. Or it could have just been a melted Crunch bar. But I should have been suspicious of this dude. About three metro stops later, he was asking me if French was my native language, and before I knew it, he had handed me his business card and asked for my number so that we could "practice French" with each other some time. Naw, brotha. I politely declined to give him my digits and rushed off the train. Another interesting tidbit: his profession read "hypnotiseur." Huh?

4. I also managed to leave my work papers on a chair in the mediocre crêpe restaurant where I had dinner.

I suppose there are worse things that could arrive, as the French say. At least I haven't yet stepped in merde.

Le banlieue

In addition to being nearly impossible to spell, the banlieue is also an extremely underrated part of Paris. It can have a negative connotation as sort of the outcast part of the city, but the literal translation of the word is simply "suburbs." My friend Henry studied abroad in Paris this time last year, and most of the friends he made during his time here live just outside of Paris in the banlieue. He visited last week on his spring break, and introduced my family and me (my mom and brother came for a week) to the real Paris, that is, the region outside of the 20 arrondissements, where normal people live. It is a part of Paris that I can actually relate to because it looks more like my own home.

The banlieue was refreshing for so many reasons. One, it was nice to get out of what can be a suffocating Parisian bubble. Paris is great, but it isn't the center of the world. It's nice to be reminded of that. Two, it was nice to finally see some BLACK PEOPLE! With a few exceptions, the only time I ever see people who look like me is when I see black nannies taking care of white children. Other than that, the center of Paris, especially the bourgeois 16th where I live, is pretty white. However, if you ride the train any distance away from the center of Paris, the further away you get from the city proper, the more colorful your métro car will become. This is no different from any other city. Boston is the exact same way. The further you ride from Kenmore square, the more racially and economically diverse the trolley becomes.

Race relations in Paris is something that I've had a hard time figuring out. With the exception of a drunken Arab young man who called Henry the n-word, there haven't been any blatant indicators of how things work in this city. From what I can tell, there is definitely a recognition of the different attitudes of French people towards the different parts of Paris. For example, when I told my new friends who live in Villiers, about 40 minutes outside of the city, that I am staying in the 16th, they gave me a kind of, mmmmm sort of look. Like, oh, the 16th, huh? I guess it has a reputation. I immediately rushed to assure them that this was just a temporary set up, that it was not something that I chose, and that I'm not stuck up or snobbish, just in case that's what they were thinking.

The people I've met from the banlieue have also been the most welcoming group of friends I have met during my time here. One couple that Henry introduced me to, a man and woman who moved to France from the Côte d'Ivoire, invited not only me to their home for dinner, but also welcomed my mother and brother without ever having met any of us. (Fried tilapia and plantains, and a made-from-scratch cake with brandy ice cream for dessert....so good!)

All of the people I met during Henry's visit were from some part of Africa, mostly Gabon and the Ivory Coast. I have been mistaken a few times for African, usually for Ghanian. My family is West Indian, though. Sorry, y'all.

The day after dinner, Henry took us to church in St. Denis, an area that a lot of Parisians dismiss as not part of the real Paris, though it is only a métro ride away. (Check this out if you have an extra three minutes and forty seconds [and understand French....] Whole new perspective on St. Denis.) Again, my family and I were welcomed like old friends. (The church experience warrants its own entry.) Later that same evening, we met up with some of the folks from the church for dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Paris. And again, though I had never met the people with whom I had dinner, by the end of the evening, I felt completely comfortable with them, and was ordered by them not to leave Paris without going over to their houses for dinner at least once. (Incidentally, one of the women with whom we ate dinner stars as Nala in the "Lion King" here in Paris. Definitely have to see that show, now.)

My mom asked me where I would want to live if I stayed in Paris. Initially, I would have said Montmartre or the Marais, but after this week, maybe the suburbs wouldn't be so bad. If nothing else, it'd be a heck of a lot cheaper.

Vive le banlieue!

You make everything glorious

So many things have happened in the past two weeks or so that I don't even know where to begin. I'm afraid I'll have to cop out of recounting it all by using bullet points and photographs, both to save myself some time, and to save you the pain of reading lots of run-on sentences and long paragraphs.

Here goes:

1. Took my finals one day early, then flew to Cleveland to attend my grandmother's funeral. It has been a difficult couple of weeks, but I'm thankful that I was able to be with my family for a little bit. Thanks to everyone for all the thoughts, prayers, and support.

2. Spent the weekend in Cleveland, then flew back to France and hung out in Paris for a day before taking the train down to Nice for three days of Spring Break.

3. Nice is beautiful! Sunny and warm and bright and colorful. Visited Cannes and Monaco on the second day of the trip, then spent the last day in Nice. Monaco, like Nice, is beautiful and very colorful. Cannes was just okay. As a film major, I of course wanted to see the location of one of the biggest events in the film industry, but the city itself wasn't really all that.

4. Train back to Paris on Thursday, Mom and Robert came on Friday morning. Henry was also here for his spring break with his friend, so we all just kind of hung out at various points during the weekend. It was so great to have my favorite people from St. Louis all here in Paris at the same time. And Henry introduced me to a ton of his friends, so now I finally have some contacts in France.

5. I started my internship on Monday. There isn't too much for me to do just yet, but we'll be filming a commercial next Monday and Tuesday, so things should pick up.

I'm sure there are other things to report, but I can't remember them all right now. To quote a friend, I've been too busy living my life to document it. :-) So there you have it.

Photos!

1. Monaco. 2-3. Flowers from the Jardin Exotique in Monaco. 4. The view from atop the Jardin Exotique in Monaco.



5. the beach in Nice. 6. Nice is so colorful! 7. Socca, a specialty of Nice. It's like a crêpe, but made with chickpeas. It was delicious. There is a Facebook group in celebration of it. NB: the French wikipedia article went much more in depth about the dish, but I'm assuming most of y'all don't know français. 8. Sunset along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.



9. l'Arc de Triomphe with Henry and Cora. 10. The moon over the Champs Elysee, from the top of l'Arc de Triomphe. 11. Oh, hey! The moon! 12. I risked my life for this picture, looking down the Champs Elysee.



13. Happy Birthday, Robert! Françoise made him a cake for his 14th birthday.

Thousands of calories and infinite delight

One word can summarize my experience in Paris: Delicious.

A brief highlight of my gastronomic adventures in Paris and the rest of Europe can be found here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010871&id=1307820301&l=3e7e7

Try not to slobber on your keyboard.

Chicago sucks in winter

My dad and I have taken over a section of the Admiral's Club in O'Hare International Airport. We've been here since about 6:35am. It is now 5:45pm local time. Our flights aren't until 7:15pm. (Both have been pushed back due to torrential downpours.) I love Chicago and all, but my advice about this city: flee it like the plague between October and March, especially if you're relying on air transport to get you home. I can't remember a single positive experience involving me and an airplane in Chicago in the winter. Not a single one.

Get me back to France, please.

I don't speak English good no more

The more French I learn, the more English I seem to forget. That's actually not entirely true. But I do find myself thinking in terms of French grammar. Instead of Lucie's father, I think, the father of Lucie. Or instead of, "I need that nutella and banana crêpe," I think, "the nutella and banana crêpe of which I have need..." etc. I hope I don't return home saying, "My shoe black on my foot left hurts much my toes."
..............................................................................................................................................................
We cooked for five hours yesterday. BU hosted a French food class. The courses:

- Appetizer and Apéritif: tomato and dijon tartes with salt and Herbes de Provence. (I ate about twelve of them. They were so delicious.) Ate it with some cider.
- Salad: mixed greens with warm goat cheese and homemade dijon vinaigrette and walnuts, along with red wine. (Elisabeth, the instructor, bought Bergerac wine, in honor of "Cyrano de Bergerac," the play we are all going to see tomorrow as a group. Cute.)
- Plat principal: endives au jambon....sautéed endives wrapped in ham and topped with a sauce that used half a block of butter to make. I'm glad I tasted the dish, but I won't be making it any time soon. With this, we had another red wine, Buzet. I prefered this to the Bergerac. It was a bit stronger, but still smooth. Hmm. I actually sound like I know what I'm talking about. Haha.
- Dessert: mousse au chocolat! It is seriously one of the simplest desserts you could possibly make. All you need is chocolate and eggs, and a little elbow grease. We finished off the wines with this last course.

And of course, along with it all, lots of good, lazy afternoon conversation.

Left there full and satisfied. Or should I say, the lunch delicious me gave a coma of food and I had need of a train rapid to me take to the house of me to me put to sleep....

In English: All that food made me sleepy, so I went home and took a nap. Fin. (The end.)

Photos!

My mom's is better

Dinner tonight was delicious. Françoise made French onion soup for our first course, followed by gnocchi with crème fraîche and what was essentially a cross between bacon and ham (I forget the French name for it), and for dessert, tarte aux pommes (apple tart). We had delicious white wine with the gnocchi and dessert, and lots of good conversation. (I think any conversation is good if I am able to communicate clearly in French. Even the most menial of subjects somehow becomes more interesting to me if I can talk about them fluently in another language.)

Another thing that made today one of the best days I've had so far: Tanya's and my favorite boulangerie reopened this morning after a ten-day vacation. I went there for a chausson aux pommes for breakfast. The smell of freshly baked bread and warm pastries was divine. The baguettes from this place are the best I've tasted. On several lucky occasions, I have timed my visit to coincide with a fresh batch of bread, toasty and crunchy on the outside, warm, soft, fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth on the inside. The aroma is almost as good as the taste of the bread itself. And I've just written an entire paragraph about bread. Welcome back, boulangerie, welcome back.

Ingrina is in town for a couple days, so I hung out with her for most of the afternoon and showed her around a bit. It was fun playing host for a few hours. The weather was pretty gloomy this morning, but as is custom in this old city, it cleared up into a beautiful afternoon. The sunset today was one of the best yet. We visited the Museé d'Orsay, the Louvre (just the outside to take a picture of the pyramid), and Notre Dame. The Musée d'Orsay used to be a train station, a fact that is obvious upon entrance. It looked a bit like Grand Central Station in NYC, but much prettier (not that Grand Central isn't cool). I absolutely loved it. More than the Louvre. We got a fleeting glimpse of the inside of Notre Dame before the security guard rudely kicked us out. You'd think they'd show a little more grace in a church. No worries, though.

We relaxed from a full day of walking (I walked all day, from my house to BU, then from BU to the Musée d'Orsay (and all of its exhibits), to the Louvre, to Notre Dame, which is probably 4 or 5 miles total) with some café au lait and pain au chocolate from a nearby café. The pain au choc was grossly overpriced, but it was Ingrina's first, and I approved of its taste, so c'est pas gràve. I dropped her off with Jorge in the Latin Quarter before heading home to dinner with the host family. (--> a really huge, really cool clock inside Musée d'Orsay overlooking Paris and Sacré Coeur)

I did not do a lick of homework today. And it was splendid. I'm going to bed now, and I've done nothing productive in the way of academia. But I think today's activities were infinitely more valuable than teaching myself the conjugations of the conditional passé or the passé intérieur (which no one uses anyway), so no worries.

The delicious dinner was the crowning point to my wonderful day.

A final word about the French onion soup: Françoise's was good, but my mom's is better.

Paella, sangria, churros...must be ¡Madrid!

These are all sorts of outta order, but they're all in Madrid...Plaza de Mayor, Palais Royal, churros and chocolate, bus tour, Spanish architecture, sangria, sunset on the plane ride to Madrid, etc. Enjoy! (Click to enlarge.)

(The post about the trip is below the photos.)