Oct 15th: Housewarming!
Now that school is fully underway, people are settled into their accomodations and it is too chilly for outdoor nighttime picnics at Pont des Arts, the season of housewarming parties is in full swing. A couple of Fridays ago I hosted my own Pendaison de Cremaillere (a rather tricky name to pronounce, much to the delight of Etienne). I spent most of the day busy in preparation, cleaning the apartment top to bottom before Annie came over in the afternoon to help with groceries, food prep, nail painting and the creation of the oh so important playlist (final version 5.7hrs of fabulous tunes if I say so myself). I love hosting. The evening unrolled splendidly with friends trickling in between 9:30 and 11. Everyone loved the food, which included spicy deviled eggs, baguette with salmon and cream cheese, crackers, sausage, bread, veggies and dips and fruit, with hot stuffed mushrooms with tuna and pesto, and melted camembert with jam coming out of the oven at 11 to top things off. Not gonna lie, I was pretty pleased with myself. Night completed with a living room dance party and the last friends headed home around 3. The other great thing about hosting is that you are already at home. Phew. Fortunately (?) no pictures survived the night as my camera died in the opening 5min.
One reason for my great mood on Friday evening was my liberal enjoyment of Bloody Mary's. At one point I decided to introduce my friends to the "Bloody Mary Reloaded" - a drink passed down to me from my friend Niall from UBC Ski and Board. Essentially, you reduce the quantity of tomato juice by about 1/2 and substitute the remaining with beer, giving the beverage a nice carbonated, bubbly taste. Its actually quite tasty, even though there weren't too many takers. My enthusiasm for the beverage led to an absolutely joyous Saturday, which featured KFC (which is somewhat popular here), lots lying on the couch afraid to walk across the living room floor, which was degolasse, and watching bad Youtube clips, notably Justin Beiber. Annie and I also recalled our new favorite French vocabulary and moments of the evening including the left side of the bed - the right is unslept on! tope la (high five), pantoufle (slipper) franchement (frankly) and putain ca m'enerve. I finally felt I could function at 3 so Annie and I headed out to get some bus tickets for our upcoming trip to London. It was a gorgeous fall day, and we walked by the Seine and Notre Dame on our way to a costume shop in the 3rd. We were in search of headdresses for a Halloween party during the aforementioned London adventure. I'll leave you suspense as to my costume. This great day concluded with a return to mine to spend quality time introducing Etienne to one of the great American cinematic classics, Dirty Dancing. "No one puts Baby in the corner." Oh Patrick Swayze.
Sunday Oct 17th: I was faced with the harsh realization that summer is over, fall is here and its cold! Like really cold. Like good thing I didn't pack my winter jacket where's my parka cold. Apparently it has been an unseasonably cold autumn. Just my luck. I am not used to these frigid temperatures after the temperate winters of lovely Vancouver. Good thing Etienne and I decided this was a fine day to go grocery shopping at the market along Rue Convention. The market runs every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday all year long. Blocks and blocks of stalls lining both sides of the street selling fresh produce, pasta, MEAT, seafood and cheese. We picked up so much delicious meat, I was and still am so excited. I love how Parisian culture is centered around eating fresh, delicious, savoury food.
Monday Oct 18th: Successfully handed in my first paper of 3rd year! It was a book report for French Politics and Society. For the assignment I read Lucie Aubrac's memoir, a woman in the French Resistance. It was a good read and very interesting, and I had to evaluate the book and the period in terms of associations, both political and social. Thanks to impeccable time management and some procrastination, I printed off the final version, to my full satisfaction a whole 8min before the start of class. A good start to the year I think.
Tuesday Oct 19th: Tonight I fully appreciated the joys of being a young student, student life and roommates. Tuesdays are my big day of classes of the week so at night I am normally pretty beat and just want to stay in. This time however, my night ended with an impromptu mojito night with Etienne and Annie. Etienne had to practice making mojitos for bartending at a concert through his internship the next night so Annie and I gladly provided our assistance in critiquing his mixes. Spurr of the moment evenings like this are always wonderful.
Wed Oct 20th: After yet another week of slipping into inactivity, I needed a new motivator. I've been missing the variety of multisport after primarily running so I decided to head back to the pool. Dry spell broken after 2months and 3 days! A little rusty, but it went better than expected. There is a 50min pool a 10min walk from home. I love how relaxing slipping through the water is, how exquisite a smoothly executed flip turn feels. Plus you come out feeling incredibly invigorated and find a perfectly crips autumn day awaiting you. I will definitely be hitting the pool more in the future. Days like wednesday reminded me why fall is my favorite season.
Wednesday continued being wonderful when I got to see the President of Chile, Sebastian Pinera, come and speak at Sciences Po. Its not everyday that a President comes to talk to your uni, and this visit was of particular interest as I am currently studying Chilean history. The speech itself was very standard politics - moving Chile into the 21st century, looking to the future, opening up to the world and creating a Chile for all its people. I was also very impressed with his command of French. Even better though was the question period. I was in awe of the boldness of the questions asked by students about the constitution and military dictatorship and liberty for the Mapuche people. Students even interrupted the debate to hold up a huge banner. The president was calm and diplomatic, but it was funny how uncomfortable the moderator was by the outspokeness. I am continually impressed by the weekly line up of guest speakers who visit Sciences Po. They have included the President of the EU and the CEO of google. The school truly stives to be globally aware of cutting issues. I am resolving to be bettwe informed on future speakers and take advantage of the unique opportunities I have while I'm here.
Thursday Oct 21st: I decided that school work was overrated and that it was practically criminal that I hadn't been shopping since arriving in the fashion capital of the world. Fear not, I have rectified this horror. Annie, Maia and I hit the town and I successfully got some very sweet brown riding boots for winter, along with a new skirt for school, a blazer and beret. I fear though that now that I have broken the fast, my appetite for the boutiques has been whet...
Thursday night, Etienne was able to get Annie and I into a concert of a well known french jazz guitarist, Sylvain Luc, in concert with Bireli Lagrene. Go to a French concert with French people: Check. It was really cool, in a small theatre by Gare de Lyon, and the whole show felt like a very very impressive jam session between friends. They were fabulous. The evening concluded with drinks at a virtually empty bar bar close by where it was decided that our trio will hence be referred to as the Three Muskateers (even though there were four - Athos, Portos, Aramis and d'Artagnan). There may have even been some dancing on a table with a old man who I mistakenly thought was a co-worker of Etienne's. Nope. Just a random. How comforting.
All for now! Next up - Trip to Bretagne to visit my adopted French Family!
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