Back from holidays in Spain, I had a few days of life organization before the first official week of term two at Sciences Po began.
David and I arrived safe and sound back at Beauvais airport, and then hopped on the overpriced shuttle back to Paris. By the time I metroed all the way home, it was already 7! A long day spent in travel. I also had a very sad misfortune exiting the metro. The zipper pull of my favorite brown purse, which has served me very faithfully since Mom got it for me for my birthday last April, came right off the zipper track! When it was closed (the zipper had come unsewn at the end so the pull was able to pull right off the end). This meant that I had arrived home, but my keys were trapped in the closed purse. I had to head to Monop to find scissors to cut my beloved bag open and retrieve them. It was a sad moment. First my camera, then my purse. I was having a little bout of bad luck indeed!
I picked up some groceries while at Monop and then went home and had a quick dinner before heading up to Tom's place. He was having a little soiree in honour of Shaun, aka Jean Mercredi's, last night in Paris. I had only come to know Shaun better recently, but he was a definitely a member of the group and would be missed. Despite my initial dislike for his very loud American voice and being, he was a actually a nice guy and was always up for a good time, and I'm sad we didn't get to hang out more. He was also one of the people whom I've met who really lived Paris to the fullest possible and grew as a person over the course of exchange. He was a museum and bar champion, as well as a picture/camera fiend. I am going to try and emulate those qualities more this coming term. As so many other parties of Tom's, it descended into a youtube rally, listening to the likes of Will Smith, US Boy (Shaun's favorite), and the new Lonely Island. A good night that ended with the last metros.
Jean Mercredi (Shaun) being a movie start at the Marche aux PucesSaturday, was professedly a quiet day. A restful, long sleep in my own bed, unpacking, grocery shopping with Etienne, and then just enjoying a boring night at home alone. After constantly being with people for a week, it was nice to have some alone time and just hang out on my oh so comfortable living room couch. I felt very rejuvenated.
My lazy days and nights are normally followed closely and offset by intense productivity. Sunday morning I got up and got right down to running my weekend Seine/Eiffel tower route. I had lunch and updated the blog until the exam period before heading to Annie's for wine and cheese. I finally got to meet her boy Andy, and visit with her Australian friends who were visiting Mary, Steph and Sophie. I blame wine and cheese nights and baguette for my weight gain this year. These French just know how to make irresistable cheese, and there is never such a thing as too much cheese right?
After I had filled up the tank and chatted for a bit, I then embarked on one of the crazier things I have done in Paris: I headed to a museum at 10pm. From September until January 24th, there was an incredible Monet Exhibition on at the Grand Palais. I had tried to pre-reserve tickets back at the beginning of November, but they had been all sold out already! For one reason or another, I hadn't just gone earlier and waited in line for a bit. For the final three days, the exhibit was open 24hours. So here I was about to finally go see it on January 23rd, late at night. I had heard it was exceptional, and I knew that if I didn't go, I would regret it, so I decided to just go it alone, brave the night and the cold and wait in line however long it took to see it. I arrived at 10:45, and only a mere two hours and thirty minutes later I was in! Just to help you with the math, it was 1:15am. It got pretty cold in line, but I had bundled, and my resolve never wavered. I chatted with a 68 year old doctor, and a 63 year old female pharmacist. I was struck by the number of Parisians, young and old, who all stood in line patiently to see this once in a lifetime presentation of France's most beloved painter.
It was worth the wait, and the 8 euros. Paintings from all over the world were reunited for the first time in history, and along the walls you could find works from Philedelphia, New York, Paris, Sydney and Amsterdam all in a row. It was cool to see all the iconic works presented in chronologic order, but the beauty of it was seeing multiple paintings of the same scene painted in different lights. You could see the changes, and it was so cool. My favorites were of course the waterlilies, and those of Venice and the Tower of London and the Thames. They was breathtaking, and I am so thankful I ended up going. It was a huge exhibit, and it took over 90 minutes to go through. I ended up purchasing a pamphlet and magnet to commemorate the trip. I got out at 3, energized, and once again the convenience and money saving aspect of the late night velib ride home, which was in itself great as I crossed over the Pont Alexandre and over the Seine, and rode by Invalides. Paris is an incredible place.
Despite the fact I had been out so late the previous night, I didn't get to really sleep in on Monday since it was sports registration online at 10am. Afterwards, I headed out for a run in a very light rain on a new route along Avenue de Breteuil and up by Invalides. In the afternoon, I was feeling inspired by my previous night's museum-ing, so I decided to keep the flow going and visit L'Orangerie. It is in the Tuileries, and Maia had declared it was her favorite museum in Paris. It is also the home of Monet's famous panoramic waterlily paintings, and so I knew seeing these canvases would compliment my exhibition visit nicely, and indeed it did. I went by myself, running into Annie and co on my way in. I have to say back in the fall I was tentative to go to museum's by myself, but now I quite like it. I can go at my own pace, skip things I'm not so fond of and reflect longer on those things that catch my eye. Plus I can fit it into my own schedule at will. While I knew the waterlilies were the stars of L'Orangerie, I didn't realize how great their collection downstairs is, having Renoir, Cezanne, Picasso, Utrillo, and many many more. I have decided that to date, my favorite painters are Degas, Monet, Utrillo, Derain, and Renoir. I'm not much for abstract. There was also a really good exhibition of German photographer Heinrich Kuhn being featured. He was taking pictures at the end of the 19th century, and beginning of the 20th. Both his subject matter, style and the colours of pictures were really cool to appreciate how far photography has come. It also provided an educational background on various techniques for developing to photos with various effects.
All in all definitely coming back to L'Orangerie in the future. Afterwards, I strolled through the Tuileries and past the Louvre on my way to Rivoli to begin my hunt for a new purse to replace my trusty old one (tear). The matter needed to be addressed promptly as I had taken my only other purse of a reasonable size home for Christmas since I was never using it, and now only had my school satchel to carry my wallet and Paris Pratique etc. My search yielded no results, except making me wish I had some disposable cash for the ongoing sales, which had now gone through second reductions. Just before 5, I walked up into the 2nd to rendezvous with Eva, who had asked me to come watch the German vs. Hungary handball game. Apparently European championships are on right now, and so Eva gave me the lowdown, as I knew virtually nothing about this popular sport. We gabbed and watched the game, which Germany narrowly lost in the final minutes, virtually eliminating them from the tournament. France would go on to win the following weekend! Eva and I resolved to become museum buddies and also to begin diets (my first one ever!) to try and deal with the cheese bellies. (So far I've been kindof failing). I went home to make my low-carb high veggie dinner and then lay low as I had my very first class at 10:15 the next day!
I dragged my sorry self out of bed at the early hour of 9am for my first day of class, and donned my only collared shirt to make a good impression. The previous day I had discovered that I had been under the false impression that my only French class was Histoire Internationale au XXeme siecle (International History). Wrong. Apparently I had actually registered for Histoire Politique de L'Europe (A political history of Europe). Good thing to straighten out, especially since they were not even on the same day. I didn't know anyone who was in this class, so when I walked into the amphi (hundred + person lecture hall) and didn't really see any familiar faces I was feeling a little shy. I took my spot and began to spot a bunch of familiar faces, but no close friends. Then, Ayumi pops up and sits next to me! Going to be a good class. Our professor, a lively Belgian man, has a very clear French accent, which is great since its easy to understand. No problems there. He is a really enthusiatic lecturer, who walks around with no notes etc. He does tend to get a bit sidetracked, and for the first 30 min I had no idea what point he was trying to make but it all came together in the end, and I think the class will work out alright. It was also the first two hours of class I've had since December 14th, and thankfully it is the only class on tap this week. After such a hiatus, its good not to rush back into things too quickly. I think you now understand what I mean by wading back into academic work slowly.
Afterwards, I met up with Daniel and we registered for term 2 ballroom (!) before heading to our usual lunch spot down the street, Lina's. Their sandwiches are just so nice. We had a great chat catching up on all things life, and then afterwards went and payed for sports. As part of my new lets not me fat attitude, I signed up for three activities: ballroom dancing on Tuesdays, Hatha yoga on Wednesdays and swimming on Thursdays. Add in once to twice a week runs, a healthy dose of walking a my low carb dieting efforts, hopefully I keep any additional pounds at bay and maybe take off one or two. I payed for those, bumped into Louis and Eva and then headed home where I got to have awesome skype chats with Chrissy and Rosalind. Ros is now studying in Copenhagen so I am planning on taking a weekend to go visit her at home point, and she is going to come party it up in Paris at some point during the semester. Fun things in store! I prepared a delicious dinner or fajitas for Etienne and I (low carbs, loaded with veggies) while I got introduced to a new tv series, Its Always Sunny in Philidelphia. Exactly what I needed, more tv.
Wednesday started off with my classic run route up Suffren and around Champs de Mars/Eiffel Tower. Always puts me in a good mood. In the afternoon, I met Eva to go to the Musee Picasso, only to discover that it was closed for renovations until 2012. After a quick consultation of our Paris Pratiques, we decided to go to the Musee Carnavalet, which was only a few blocks away (fun fact: there is no equivalent word for blocks in French, which I find kindof annoying). I had briefly stumbled into the Carnavalet in September when on a tour of le Marais with David, but we had spent maybe 15min walking around the lower level before heading back to the sunshine. Boy am I glad I came back! It is the biggest, most confusing building ever, but awesome! It is the museum of the History of the city of Paris, dating back to the Roman settlement, and chronicaling the developments ever since. Complete with models of the city as it evolved, thousands of paintings, sketches and furniture, you really get a sense of the changing size and population of Paris. We spent over two hours going through the place, imagining what it would have been like to be on the first modern settlement on Ile de la Cite, where houses lined the wooden bridges, through the tumulous revolution, the highlife of the bourgeoisie in the 19th century to the even the war years. It was so exciting to see places I myself have been to depicted such a long time ago. The weirdest thing is seeing pictures that predate the Eiffel Tower, and realizing just how iconic it is to us nowadays. This visit made me feel even more incredulous that I am calling this mecca of history my home for a year.
We left around 5 and I took off to continue my bag search at a handbag store by Madeleine that Etienne had suggested. As I got off by Place de la Concorde, the weight of the history was so profound after my previous visit to the Carnavalet. Why this very place was once called Place de la Revolution, where Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI were decapitated. Incredible. I headed up the street to La Maroquinerie Parisienne, a tine bag store on the second floor of a shop that has designer bags such as Longchamps, for significantlt reduced prices. Even then, I couldn't justify the prices, and thankfully I didn't see anything that particularly caught my eye, so I went home empty handed.
After preparing dinner, I went up to Abbesses in Montmartre to meet up with Eva, David, Ayumi, Lauren Bailey and Sophie for an evening at this bistro that has board games at it. It had been on Sophie's to do list all term and time was slipping away fast as she was leaving Sunday. We opened it off with Scrabble - In French! We decided that since Sophie and Eva aren't native English speakers, they would be at a disadvantage playing against us others. By playing in French, we would all struggle! It was actually really hard, but a good exercise in language. Eva and I teamed up, and sadly, we lost. After we played this really obscure game that involved the telling of stoy based on a prompt scenario, while inserting specific words into the story to be guessed by the others. After a rocky start in which I was negative 10 points (for not using a word) I rebounded and finished mid pack. Not too shabby.
Playing Scrabble en francais!Thursday was very low key in the morning, consisting of Laundry, Entourage watching, cleaning and doing some research on cameras. I headed out mid afternoon to go to Fnac, the French Best Buy equivalent, to check out the cameras they had in store. I was torn on the Powershot 3000 and the IXUS 130. I decided to hold off and made my way across the river to check out some Vintage stores for bags. No luck before I met up with Annie as we searched together. I saw my dream black boots that had been further priced reduced at Hero, and a perfect blue and while striped "French" shirt for pennies before I moved on to look at some more stores for bags. In the end I found a good one, dark tan in colour, for only 25euros, and so far it has done to trick splendidly.
Greatly cheered, I went home for dinner and at 9:30, velibed over to Pedro's in the 16th for Sophie's final going out night. Ayumi, Pedro, Lauren and I were finally joined by Sophie at around 11 and we had a great time at Pedros before we decided we must continue the night out somewhere. We decided on Corcorans, the Irish pub by Grand Boulevards in the 2nd. It was a hilarious night, with great photo documentation by Ayumi. When the bar closed at three, I went across the street for a short while with some French people to continue dancing, but quickly realized I was so tired and wanted to head home. I searched for a velib, found one, and headed off in the direction I thought was the Seine aka home. Wrong. I actually headed North-East instead of South West and only realized this when I was up by Oberkampf. Oops. I parked my bike, and decided I would just wait for first metros to open at 5:30, which was only in 40min, while I decided to start walking back the correct way, on the look out for an atm, I met the nicest taxi driver in the world. He took me all the way across town back to my house for free! His name was Jean, and he was in his late 50s and has lived in Paris for over 20 years. He asked me about my studies and everything, a real dear. When I left, he gave me his cab number and said if I ever needed a ride at night and couldn't find one, I should call him. He was so nice, and I was so lucky! I immediately crashed the second I got inside and in bed.
Predrinks at Pedros, and then dancing at Corcorans!Friday was a bit of a dud. Thanks to my very late bed time, I slept late and then was very unspired by the bleak, windy cold outside world. Solution: hibernate on the couch watching a lot of Entourage. Thankfully, Annie texted me and proposed coming over with Andy and making a pie for a wine and cheese at Fran's later that night. I roused, showered, tidied and met them at the metro at 4. We headed to Monoprix and picked up the necessary supplies for an apple plum crumble, as well as nachos. Back at home, we set to work preparing our Mexican snack while slicing and dicing for the pie. It was just like the good ol' days with Annabelle and I back in the kitchen together. The nachos were possibly the best thing I have ever had - a layer of thick tortilla chips, cheese, salsa, guac, diced tomatoes and yellow pepper, and then more cheese. Topped off with some sour cream, it was too good to be true. But it was true. We mowed it down in no time flat.
Crumble cooked, we headed over to Fran's, arriving at about 9. It was a smaller gathering than the Christmas affair, but still very nice. It was honour of Julia, a gorgeous German girl's departure on Sunday. Fran, Juliette, Nick, Louis, Julia, Annie, Andy and I all sampled a fine variety of cheeses, the most interesting of which was Fran's fondue of brie and gin. It was an interesting consistancy... but surprisingly tasty.
Tasty queso. Mmmm!I was pretty quiet for the first part of the night, thinking I would just head home at 11 or 12 and go to bed. Somehow though, probably due to the cold and the distasteful thought of going outside, I stayed on. I perked up considerably, and had a great time chatting and drinking tea with Nick, Fran, Juliette and particularly Louis, whom I did not know that well beforehand. Among my favorite topics was top 5 foods ever. (Potatoes in any form, but at the top of that list Mom's christmas mashed potatoes), cereal (Post select Cranberry almond), White Mountain Raspberry peach frozen yogurt, pizza and I can't recall the fifth. All of a sudden it was 3 am, and Louis and I headed back to mine (he lived in the farthest corner from Fran's so I offered my couch for the night). An unforseen late night, but definitely worth it.
You would have thought two late nights would have made me sleep soundly, but it was a fitful night. I couldn't bear the thought of leaving bed though and stayed until about 11. Again, fail Friday meant champ Saturday. I tossed some laundry in and cleaned my room before going for a run on my usual weekend Seine route. I met up with Eva at 3 to try and go to the Modern Art Museum, but apparently there was a good exhibition on that was about to wrap up, and hence the museum had a massive line. Being that we had no idea what the exhibition was, we weren't feeling the wait, especially since it was really chilly, and headed instead up to the Musee Guimet up in the 8th, which is on Ancient China. I have to say it was pretty boring actually, but not all museums can be winners so I guess its par for the course. After, I finally got to walk through the Parc Monceau, which I bet is really nice in the spring and summer. We split off after walking to Charles de Gaulle metro. I was only home briefly to change before I headed back out, having received a text from Lauren Bailey about a dinner for Leo, who was visiting from Helsinki for a few days. We ended up grabbing some nice curry at a Tibetan restaurant, had terrible bubble gum pink cocktail du jours, went to a really random Mexican bar that had a wrestling ring in the basement, and grabbed a beer at Mouffetard all before midnight. It was very busy. I cited tiredness from the previous two nights and caught the metro home, expecting an early bedtime.
But then...
Etienne had casually mentioned having some friends over for a soiree at ours earlier that evening, and I of course said that was cool. I came home and expected to chat briefly then head off to bed by 2. No such thing. The boys, and one girl who left shortly after I arrived, were very rowdy, and the music was bumping. I had a great time at first chatting with Max and Loic. Loic and I talked extensively about Stuart McLean, who Loic loves, and has even written to about his observations as to why Canadians are so awesome. It was pretty cool. I ended up getting super tired and annoyed at another mec (sweet French word for guy) and decided just to go to bed at 3. However, no sooner than I get in my room and am about to change for sleepy times than Annie and Andy roll up! They had said they were going to come, but when they didn't arrive with the last metro, I thought they were no shows. Error. Instead they trooped it by night bus. I was forced to rally, and held on until about 5, when the party was starting to die down as the last stragglers were holding out for the first metro. Not the night I had envisioned, but it was cool to be at a French soiree, and apparently my language skills have greatly improved, so I was pretty stoked.
I got awoken by the doorbell at 9:30, but went back to bed after answering it and got up at 1. Looks like the sleep finally caught up with me. I got up and got dressed before heading straight to Corina's, who had just returned from a two and half week stint in Vancouver. Hearing her talk about her trip made me miss Vancouver so much. It really is an icnredible city in its own right, and even though I will be sad to leave Paris at the end of this year, at least I have the fantasticness of Vancouver to look forward to for fourth year. We talked for about 2 hours until I headed out to la Defense with Leo and Lauren. It is just outside of Paris, and is the financial heart of Paris. It is so weird, because it is all tall class buildings, wide pavillions and late 80s architecture. Such a contrast to the rest of the city, and I think definitely worth checking out to realize where so many Parisians actually work. I have often wondered where in Paris people work if they are not in government, retail or the food industry. Only downside of our walk around and tea was that it was bitterly cold outside. Winter should probably just go away. At least it was a beautiful sunny day.
I headed home in time to change into a very fine outfit (which sadly didn't get documented) of black ruffled skirt and strapless tank that gave the illusion of a dress. Hair pinned back, hairband, sweet earrings, necklace and my new French heels and I felt pretty spiffy. Sadly I realized I must have lost one of my gloves the previous day while out with Eva, though I don't know how. Hopefully with winter on its was out I can tough it out til spring without having to get new ones. My old gloves were brown and awesome, a gift from Paul the previous Christmas. I was really annoyed with myself. Back to my fine attire. I was heading out to another La Fourchette dinner with Maia and Annie, in honour of Maia leaving Paris. La Fourchette is the awesome website that gives you 50% off your bill with a reservation in advance. We headed to one of Maia's favorite restaurants on the Champs Elysees, Mood. We all looked very nice if I say so myself, and enjoyed the most delicious meal in recent history. I had the most tender duck with a raspberry coulis, and gratin dauphinois (amazing potatoes). We also shared a great appetizer and such an amazing cheesecake for dessert. It was too good to be true indeed. We also learned that Maia has been accepted to a summer study abroad in Prague in July, so she will be back in Paris at the end of June, so it looks like we will see her again! There is something really special with us of having all met on the very first day at Sciences Po. She is also the other person along with Shaun who really enjoyed Paris to the fullest, and had the hardest time leaving. Maia belongs in Paris. She is a vivacious, brilliant, enthusiastic, happy, classy litte lady and I am so glad we got to be friends. She also gave some good advice to do travelling day trips around France, since they are good to see the country, which I want to do, and easy on the pocket book. Noted.
Maia savoured every bite of French gastronomieBisous!
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