Recount Chapter 2

Having returned home from a shopping expedition to get my snuggly winter coat, I was inspired by the fine sunny yet brisk weather to hit the pavement and go for a run. As I navigated my way through the narrow streets down to Blvd Lefebvre, I really hit my stride for the first time in weeks. Those kinds of runs make all the shitty ones where your legs wage war against your mind worth it. They're what get you out the door in the morning, at night, in the cold and in the rain, for that hope that today's run might have that spark, that rush. Its an endorphin addiction that I know all my fellow running readers will understand. Anyways, so I was headed out, feeling pretty pumped about my run, listening to some Dixie Chicks. I turned around at the 25min mark to head back home and was waiting at an intersection. The light turns green, I waited a few seconds for the crosswalk to clear and get rolling than BAM! I got smoked by a car speeding out of the middle of the intersection and didn't see me starting out. I got hit by the bumper around the calf area and was thrown back a few meters, falling on my stomach and having the wind knocked out of me and my glasses shaken off. Fortunately, I quickly realized that though in shock of the situation, I wasn't seriously hurt. I quickly scrambled out of the middle of the road as the driver got out to see if I was alright. I mumbled something in French and started walking a bit away, where I evaluated my physical state amidst a few tears (more from the shock than the accident). I was fortunate to get away with an inconveniently places cut/scrape on my wrist, and later some tenderness in my abdoman and brusing on my leg. But thank goodness no hospital visit necessary. Even though I have insurance, filling out all the forms would be a nightmare I am hoping to avoid. After a few minutes to recover, I started the trudge home (being that I was a 25min run away from home - how convenient). And that is my story of being hit by a car in Paris.

Arriving home was very strange. I didn't want to call Mom and alarm her, as she was at work, or just call a friend and drop the ball on them, so I texted Tamara. I needed to retell the story to get over it. Thankfully Vince soon happened to come on skype and I got my need to vent out in the open and felt much better. After a nice hot shower and a good dinner, I was more or less right as rain except with an imperceptible limp, so I headed off to Boudewijn's (pronounced Bow-de-wine) birthday at Leo's by Goncourt Metro. Birthday punch really makes everything better, and I enjoyed a few glasses in honour of his 22nd. It was a fun night despite our failure to go out, and dancing in the living room instead, and an abrupt end at 3am.

Boudewijn and I rocking out. Apparently this dance move is "sooo Lauren"...

My late night was thankfully followed by a slow morning before I headed to Sciences Po to meet up with Timon and partake in a touristy afternoon. We biked (in what is becoming our common style) up to the Pantheon. I had been by it earlier in September but this time we ventured inside and spent over an hour marvelling at the architecture of the main building and the crypt underneath that houses the great men of France including Jean Jacques Rousseau, Zola, Hugo, Jean Jaures, the Curies, among many others. A certain reflective silence trancends the massive space and you can feel the history. I loved it, however, it is moments like these that make me refrain from taking pictures for some reason. I really need to get over it. However, I did take a picture of the crypt of Hugo and Dumas (one of my favorite authors).

We emerged from the Pantheon to the first official snowfall of Paris! It was lovely, and walking through the Latin quarter was rather magical if I say so myself as we headed to this somewhat tucked away courtyard that has ruins from the Roman period. No big deal. We stopped for a while to watch some old men play Petanque, a French national game similar to Botchi Ball (basically you throw a coloured ball and then everyone tries to throw their ball as close to the coloured one as possible). Its pretty funny to watch, and the men get very into it. I have a feeling that meeting in this ancient courtyard to play Petanque has been a weekly ritual for these men for a long time. We wandered on back to fetch our bike (I think he really should have a name) and headed closer to St Michel and ducked into a cute cafe for hot chocolate and tea (mmmm). It was once again lovely chatting with Timon, and I'm really sad that he's only for one semester.

After coffee I got dropped off by Sciences Po and headed home for dinner before strolling (ok it was brisk walking as it had gotten damn cold - but strolling is such a more whimsical word appropriate for the Parisian setting) up to Corina's for Romanian night! I was pretty tired, but it was fun to chat with friendss and partake in some traditional Romanian dances that Corina taught the crowd. I headed home early though since the next day was going to be a big one.

I was up in good time on Saturday to head off to annual Salon de Vin at Porte de Versailles, a few minutes down the road from home, with Etienne. Etienne is a bit of a wine conoisseur, and has been attending the November and March fairs for the last few years sampling wine and building up his own wine cellar. As the lucky roommate, I got to tag along from stand to stand for over 3 hours sampling wine after wine, primarily red Bordeauxs. The massive exhibit hall was packed with humdreds of stall of winemakers from all over France. Not only did I feel incredibly French in my red beret at the wine fair, I also learned quite a bit about my own wine preferences, particularly that I find a lot of red wines more acidic, while I prefer a softer wine. In the end, I ended up purchasing 2 cases of wine, 6 2004 reds and 6 roses, both from Chateau Le Terte de Leyle. Not very expensive, but good bottles to take en soiree with me, rather than buying random bad wine in the supermarket. I was very pleased with the outting and it was fun to hang with Etienne and a few of his friends who joined along the way, Loic, Max et Thibault. Really, I'm just mostly proud of developping the wine tasting style which is as follows: Wine in poured into your glass. Swirl lightly while examining the colour, sniff, reflect on scent, and lightly raise glass to lips and take a small sip. Hold the wine in mouth for a second to reflect on taste, then swallow. Discuss with friends your opinion on the wine, comparing with other tasted etc. If unsure of your preference, a second small sip can be taken to confirm or dissuade your initial reactions. Dump the remaining portion in the wine bucket. Repeat with 3-4 wines of increasing age at each stand. Its quite the process, but it was a lot of fun and a unique French experience that I'm pretty stoked I got to take part in. I am going to miss good wine next year thanks to the student budget.


I headed back home for a brief while to get ready and then I headed over to Goncourt for Josh's 21st birthday party. An enjoyable pre-party at his place complete with amazing guacamole and tiramisu birthday cake before most of the group headed over to a reknown Parisan hip-hop club a few minutes away called Gibus. It was a fun night of dancing despite some purse malfunctions and losing the belt of my new coat in the vestiare, and as per usual ended all too late at 4:30. Nevertheless I love going out dancing and Josh had a great birthday so that is what counts.

I headed to Annie's at 10 the next morning for brunch with a few friends of hers who were visiting from Grenoble. We went to this tucked away hole in the wall coop diner that was really cool. No idea how she found it, but it had a great atmosphere, with huge round tables reminiscent of kindergarden, good food and lots of chatter. I think it is a French family secret. I didn't stay all too long as I was pretty tired from my night out and was home by 1. I spent the rest of the day on and off skype catching up with friends in Vancouver, notably Vince who was having a bit of a crisis, and taking a much needed nap at 5. So much for Sunday being my productive day...

Thanks to my restfulness however, I was up and at it Monday morning, finishing some reading, and attending class, including my last French Politics and Society lecture! (good riddance!). I went for a celebratory drink at Le Basile, our campus watering hole, for happy hour drinks with Daniel and Emmanuelle before walking over the 6th and crashing Boudewijn, Simon and Timon's boys night of watching the Real Madrid v. Barcelona football match at a packed Irish Pub, the Hideout. It was a lot of the fun watching the game, which Barcelona killed Madrid (go Messi!). My life here in Paris is rather void of sports culture and talk, and I hadn't realized how much I missed the simple act of watching "the game" over a beer. It was fun to be back in that context.

Tuesday dawned early with everyone's favorite 8am French language class, however the morning improved significantly when my Roman class, which is just painful, went on a field trip to Gallimard, one of the largest publishing/editing houses in France. Located a few doors down from Sciences Po, the house will be celebrating 100yrs in 2011. I was looking forward to the tour as an escape from the classroom, but it surprised me by how interesting it was, seeing all the work that goes inside, and the architecture of the building that houses Gallimard. The garden is spectacular, and my friend Damien and I regretted that neither of us had the foresight to bring a camera. The rooms inside were a mix of elegant meeting rooms, small offices with books stacked floor to ceiling and cozy lounges with perfect reading chairs. All the decisions along the process of reading the manuscripts initially, the second review, the line that the book will be printed in, the fonts, cover and artwork surprised me, so many steps have to be realized to get the written word to the consumer. A very pleasant visit and look into the world of modern French literature.

After the visit to Gallimard, I met Daniel for our usual Tuesday lunch before Ballroom. Normally we always head to this sandwicherie, Lina's just down the street, but today we decided as it was the last class, we should mix it up, and headed to Rue des Canettes and went to a creperie for lunch. Mmmm. I love going for galettes (the salty version of the crepe), they are both savoury and filling. I enjoyed a spinach, egg and cheese galette, followed by a splurge of dessert caramel crepe. So delicious and a lovely way to end our semester of dance. I have organized my schedule next semester to keep Tuesday afternoons clear once again for Ballroom, it really has been a highlight of the year. The final class itself was great, learning a few new moves in my favorite styles, the Cha Cha and Tango. In two weeks team our class is having a reunion dinner and dance evening, which I am already looking forward to. The class has really bonded and its great that most of the students are actual Sciences Po first years. Ahhh, so young.

I got to head straight home after dance since Fashion was cancelled due to the teacher being sick, so cleaned up the house in advance of Etienne's mom's visit this week to Paris before heading over to Timon's for dinner. Ahh, the delight's of a 19year old boys efforts in the kitchen for the first time in his life. Canned spinach, canned mushrooms and schnitzel anyone? Haha not it was actually ok, just funny to watch him struggle. Afterwards, we headed up to Montmartre and took in an evening of jazz, first an official set and then a jam session with a bunch of others from the Dutch group. The bar, Autour de Midi in Minuit, has jazz nights a few times a week, held in an old cave, which gives the place a really sweet, chill atmosphere. I definitely approved. Most people rolled out with the last metro at 12:30, but a few of us adventurous ones with no real class obligations (myself, Sophie, Timon and Lisbeth), headed to a hip hop club, the Social Club, in the second for a bit of dancing. It wasn't an overly lively place that night, but I liked the beats and there were some cool people breaking it down if you will.

Another late night resulted in a bit of a lazy morning, but I got up and around before heading off to salsa. It was a particularly great class, probably so because there were more boys than usual, as a couple of Sciences Po vets showed up and helped us girls along. Good times. I headed home briefly for some dinner before grabbing coffee with Corina and then going over to Montparnasse to watch the new Harry Potter! I hadn't even seen the 6th movie, since I had found the movies to be kindof brutal, but the 7th, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt.1, had had great reviews by my friends so I decided it was worth going to see. Most definitely. So Good! I hadn't had a good dose of Potter in all too long, so it was nice to reaquaint ourselves, and I will probably have to reread the 7th book, which I have largely forgotten, over Christmas. Can't wait for part 2 in the summer!

Thursday was back to the classroom, this time with 4 hours of Ethics of War. Thank goodness I find it to be one of my most interesting classes, otherwise it would have been deathly. I also had a nice little pause in the middle to have lunch with Annie at Resto U (love the 3euro lunches there that are so legit - we lucked out with butternut squash soup and pizza). I was home briefly and then bundled up for the -5 weather and hit the streets for my usual Thursday night run. I decided to choose a new route and head north towards the river. On the plus side, I wound my way up to Seine, by the Eiffel Tower, all lit up (Amazing!), down past Ecole Militaire and Invalides. On the not so plus side(?) I got rather lost and my 30-40min run became 57min. So worth it though. I ate showered and dashed up to Corinas for some drinks with she and Eva before our Cite trio went out to Mix for old times sake, where I haven't been in ages. It didn't disappoint, with a packed dancefloor and good beats, sadly missing good boys though. Oh well, we had a good time breaking hearts for a couple of hours before heading home around 230, a relatively tame night which was necessary considering I had an action packed weekend planned.

But we'll save that for part 3. Bisous xx
PS I really need to start bringing my camera out more. My bad.

Recount Chapter 1

Damn. It happened again. My bad. Well enough apologies for my tardy update on the happenings of everyone's favorite Parisienne and better get cracking on the recount. I'm sure you have all been checking religiously, begging for news. Well wait no further.

Last time we spoke, I had just returned from a splendid weekend in the capital of the Netherlands. I was warmly greeted back to La Belle Ville with a crushing load of assessment. I don't think it would have been possible to choose a more ill advised weekend to go away for 4 days and accomplish no work. But work hard play hard has always been a favorite saying of mine, so now that I had accomplished the play hard portion of the motto, the working factor hit home - and then some. Monday was spent in a frenzy of expose research, writing, and meeting with my partner to complete our expose due Tuesday morning. Worth 100% of our mark, 30min presentation in French. No sweat. Whipped off a little etude de texte for French language and in bed before 2. Not too shabby. The presentation, after a brush with disaster when all the school printers were down that morning and I couldn't print off my oral portion of the expose, went off quite nicely if I say so myself. The huge feeling of relief put me in the most splendid mood for the rest of the day as I glided through ballroom dancing and History of Fashion and then a nice long dinner with Corina.

Wednesday, unfortunately, dawned just as dark as Monday had. I rose and started to deal with the issue of no cell phone. My service had been inexplicably cut off on Sunday morning, so after a visit to the SFR store and a call to head office, it was revealed that the head office had never received any of my documents from the boutique when I had first set up my contract, and despite my first bill being successfully paid, they decided to just cut me off. How kind. Once that problem was dealt with though I moved back to the academic realm. Due Thursday morning was my term paper for Ethics of War, which I had somewhat started the research, but still had a long way to go. Of particular frustration was the failure of my T.A. (teaching assistant) to respond to my 3 emails asking her to post the correct reading on my topic in the documents folder for our class. In the end she never did, so by 1pm I faced facts and started looking for a new document and angle. Fortunately, being the champ that I am, I found an even better document that was fairly short and finished up all my research before I shimied off to salsa.

Paper writing is a love-hate relationship. When you're on a roll, it is such a high, and you feel like an intellectual giant. But nothing is more painful than having to force yourself to write when you have absolutely zero inspiration or desire. This was happening after I got home from salsa. It took me 2 hours of dinner and watching Scrubs to deal with my apathy and finally lock myself into my room and start writing at 8pm. Thank goodness once I got going I hit the best rhythm and pumped out 1500 words of genius (or at least acceptable critical thinking) and was done, including footnoting and editing by 1:30. And the feeling from finishing a paper is among the most satisfying and the reason I am an arts student.

As I handed in my paper Thursday, I was practically skipping home from class, being in such a good mood. With that paper handed in, I had no major assesment for 3 weeks! I love Sciences Po sometimes. (In my defense, my assessment calendar was the product of particularly good planning). This would be the first time in two years where the end of November did not equal death. A celebratory swim and some more Scrubs kept the good vibes rolling right along. Annie and Peta also came over to sample my stirfry for dinner and then all my Madeleines came over for a lovely reunion evening of drinking and chatting. It had been quite awhile since we had all seen each other together, so it was great to have everyone gathered and catch up on the semester, which has indeed been busy.

Josh and I overjoiced at the Madeleine reunion.

Friday during the day was pretty useless and blissfully unproductive, a needed respite after the week's work. I pulled it together in time to go to my friend Tia from UBC's birthday at an Irish bar in the 5th before heading up to Marina for a cocktail party. A relatively tame night, but altogether enjoyable.

Peta, myself, and Annie at Marina's Madmen, Mojitos and Mischief cocktail party.

Saturday I was up in good time and headed to Ile St Louis in the center of city to check out Rachel's new apartment and catch up over coffee. It was a lovely visit, her apartment is so cute and quaint and the neighbourhood is stunning, surrounded by the river and Notre Dame. I am so jealous of her walk to school. I hadn't seen a lot of Rachel since September when we moved out of Cite, so it was great to hear about her trips to Amsterdam, the south of France and Puerto Rico and New York, and just how her life was getting on in general. We then embarked on a shopping expedition for a winter coat for me, which was highly unsuccessful. Will have to reapply myself next week and find something with the temperatures projected to plunge below zero! I returned home later to have some dinner and rest (yes, I need rests during my day in my old age) before making my way over to Timon's to visit before heading out with he, Boudewijn, Kerem, Leo, Simon and a few others I didn't know back to Le Financier, the bar we had been to a few weeks previously in Montparnasse. Just as successful a night as the previous visit, with a packed dancefloor, solid music, and great dance moves. I also had the enjoyment of introducing Leo, Timon and Kerem to Jagerbombs. Note to self: don't do jagerbombs after 3am, it makes falling asleep even at 5:30 am very challenging. Nevertheless it was another great night out with what I call my "Dutch crowd" that I have been so happy to have been included in quite a bit the last little while because of the Amsterdam trip.

Sunday = my productive day (if at all possible). I got up and updated the blog a bit before heading out for a run in the rain (it was soft rain so all good) and cleaned the apartment with Etienne all afternoon before heading to the Pompidou to meet Timon for coffee. We had a very nice chat over hot chocolates (a necessity on cold wet evenings as all Vancouverites know) before heading back to his place (riding on the rear rack yet again) for dinner and Indiana Jones. Though we've hung out in group situations now a bunch, it was lovely to get to know him a bit better one on one. I find there are so many periphery friends, but closer ones don't come around quite as often, despite best intentions.

Monday and another school week began, and I was inspired by my completely lack of work weekend to go to class and get a bunch of readings done. After a surprisingly interesting French Politics Lecture (porbably because our TA gave the lecture for half the class on Cameroon), Daniel and Boudewijn came back home and I hosted an impromptu dinner. I have decided that they are the best thing ever. It is so much more pleasant to arrive home with friends and share a beer and a meal than doing so by yourself. I also put way more effort into my meals, and the boys were both thoroughly impressed and satisfied with my fajitas dinner (a real culinary challenge I know). After they left I proceeded to completely ignore studying for my quiz the next day over hanging out and catching up on skype with Vince. Fortunately the quiz (Fashion) went off without a hitch the next day at the end of another busy Tuesday with 6hrs of class and ballroom. I enjoyed another evening at home, this time with Nadir and Etienne. It was nice to have some French back in my life, which had been really missing the last little while. Since Etienne got back together with his girlfriend, we haven't seen each other as much, so it was fun to hang with my French boys once again.

And this is when the start of a 5 day weekend with no homework or forseeable future starts! That's right, a two day week of class, followed by 5 days of no responsibility (well hardly any). After a delicious sleep in, a blog writing session and salsa ensued for the rest of the day before I headed out to the Banlieu (suburbs) for an empanadas dinner chez Lucas, a boy in my History of Chile class. So many delicious empanadas of various flavours were consumed, followed by the heavenly dulce de leche. Not only was I really happy at the chance to practice French with my classmates, it was also cool to see how our class has bonded over the term, all thanks to having our Diner de Conference at the start of the year. Our class delegate Noemie, has been amazing organizing movie outings and dinners. Many of my classes haven't even had their dinner, and its really too bad because friendships have developed in the Chile class because of it. I am resolving to be a class delegate next semester and organizing a dinner.

Thursday I was up early and after finally finishing the Amsterdam post, went out on a mission for a winter coat. It had started the previous Saturday with Rachel on Rue de Rivoli with no luck. I had a very specific vision in mind: dark grey wool with a big collar, and came down just past the hips, but not much lower. How hard could it be? Well after 4 hours of going in and out of stores on Rue de Rennes, St Michel and Champs Elysees I finally settled on something! It is not remotely like my vision (dark brown, not wool, and mid thigh) but it has a sweet collar and I am really happy with it. (It could not have come a moment too soon either because starting that night the temperatures plummeted and its was freezing in Paris for the next week and a half.) Thoroughly pleased with my success, I extended my walk along the Seine, having yet another "I love being in Paris" moment. Which is all the time, and it never gets old.