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.