Charles De Gaulle.

I'm in the airport. My flight delayed. MAYBE IM SUPPOSED TO STAY IN PARIS FOREVER. 

Post classes travels remain a whirlwind in my mind. Somehow Katie and I (joined by Joanie in Rome) traveled through Amsterdam, Rome, (a night in milan), Venice, and Nice. 

When I walked out of Gare de Lyon last night I felt so bummed that I was going to have to leave, and not be back, for a long while I'm sure. 

I know the city. The metro system, the pace of the streets, and (in contrast), the pace of the cafes. It's miinnneee. 

Not much to say right now. A bit gloomy. Can't wait to see everyone, but sad that that has to mean leaving Paris. 

Au Revoir. 

Paris + Dijon (Third/fourth week...i dont really know)

Coming back to Paris from Prague reinforced my love for the former. This city nourishes me.

Monday was VERSAILLES. The scariest place in Paris. An army of tourists laughing loudly in their own languages and moving in every direction makes the Palace sort of unbearable. Beautiful, but unbearable. The best part this time around were the gardens. Colors so saturated the whole thing looks like a painting. 

A rendez-vous Monday night with everyone after their travels. Megan and I got sushi on Rue Saint Anne! Once on the subway I asked a (cute) french man what his favorite restaurants were and he pointed me to this street for sushi. There are probably 50 Japanese restaurants up and down the rue. Sushi + Kirin + good conversation.

Apres, we met up with some of the other kids at this dive bar near the Bastille area. One of the guys there was trying to pull a Fonzy and, after buying me a drink with berries in the bottom, told me he was "going for the happy days look. Did he look like FONZY?!?"

 

Class on Tuesday was sort of a joke. Lots of nodding heads. That afternoon Megan and I went to Galerie Lafayette Gourmet to analyze the yogurt section for an assignment. The second floor of the department store is entirely dedicated to its massive and brilliant gourmet, this word doesn't fit, grocery store. Makes Whole Foods look like a convenience store. The food is presented as a treasure. Anthropologically speaking, this would be considered a spiritual or religious setting were an alien to explore its aisles. 

 

AND THEN THERE WAS POMPIDOU. Le Centre Pompidou est tres tres magnifique. The building is wild and the Modern art museum within--awesome. But. on the top floor, was a temporary Kandinsky exhibition where I stayed the majority of the afternoon. KANDINSKY was a creative FIEND. I couldn't take in quickly enough, or deeply enough, the expression and creativity and cognition that shot off his work. Reading about the progression of his life/career as an artist, just the raw amount of thought, creation, and teaching the man did makes all my neurons fire at the same time and turn me into a vegetable. Dedicated to Joix de Vivre through wildly expressive paintings. COLOR, line, shape. Images that produce an effect possibly unreachable through writing...and maybe this claim is asserted with a lot of visual work, but normally I would disagree and argue that writing achieves something images cannot. Facing some of his paintings, the meaning--or rather, the meaning as it formed in me--etched itself clearly but undefined. humph. All I'm left with is a paradox. 

 

Post head explosion at the Pompidou we met one of our professors, Dutch born Frenkel Ter Hofstede, at L'as Du Falafel. Best falafel I've ever eaten...granted I think I've had falafel maybe one other time. 

 

A walk through the Montparnasse area took me to the restaurant Hemingway spent time at/wrote to get away from 'foreigners posing as writers.' Also an area famous for Creperies breton, a specific type of crepe influenced by cuisine of Brittany. This area had all night cafes back in the day and some of the restaurants accepted paintings for food, thus, artists gathered. 

 

Thursday after class we went the canal that runs through the Bastille area. Picnic and lying out on the grass by the canal. SUN. I also went on a walk through a little neighborhood in the 6th arrondisment and had one hundred existential crises and was blind sighted by how cool the art nouveau movement was/the architecture that came out of this period in Paris. Forced with the reality that we all live incredibly stale and underdeveloped lives. The two main artistic forces behind this neighborhood were in a constant state of creativity. CONSTANT. Get off this damned machine and go MAKE SOMETHING. OF VALUE. THAT'S SMART, but well communicated so that it can actually RESONATE. gaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. life, wring me of anything worth putting in glass and serving on a tray for breakfast in bed. 

JUST IN: I just ordered a pizza via skype for my friend Michelle. Called dominoes, asked parlez-vous l'anglais? and was transferred to another lady. She asked my name and phone number. The name we came up with before giving up was spelled miceol. Close enough. I then proceeded to order two pizzas, the grand total of 37 euros, about 50 US dollars. Michelle was shocked and amused at how much her desperation for American-ness cost her.

Friday Dustin and I ventured to Dijon, France. Perfect mid-size city, perfect food, perfect wine, as I have now come to expect from France. It's sick, really. We ventured into a collection of holy shit in a convent. Very very interesting and strange. Also went into a crypt in the Dijon Notre Dame. A little bit creepy. But not REMOTELY as creepy as the CATACOMBS.

On Sat. I did a bit of shopping on my own. Explored some gardens. Decided I would have to start collecting ugly things in order to balance out the pain-inducing beauty. Also went to L'auderee and indulged in two macaroons...chocolate and framboise. DIVINE. I also explored the Les Halles area. Markets, food vendors, wholesalers all had their stands here for centuries and were open 24 hours a day so chefs/caterers/etc could get whatever they needed. Major center of the city until the markets were moved out side of Ile de France Paris. Beautiful area though. Most amazing kitchen supply store. Pretty gardens. Giant head. 

Sunday I went to the Catacombs and it was half cool half really really really creepy. Alone, I basically sprinted through the .6 mile long Fritzl dungeon filled with bones staring at me. Inhaled fresh air at the exit and walked a ways, sat down at a cafe, and had an amazing slice of quiche. Strolled to see the observatory where neptune's existence was proven mathematically. 

Also. Musee Rodin. Glorious gardens. Beautiful sculpture. I love Paris.

Frenchism.

The longer I am here the more aware I become of characteristics of mine that align with French culture versus those entirely American. 

Frenchisms:

- Naturally unkempt hair

- Inability to keep time

- Lifelong love affair with butter

- Preferred mode of transportation: mosey.

- Napping at any point throughout the day (outside) 

- Interest in food, beauty/aesthetics, intellect 

Americanisms:

- Fear of government.

- Tendency to make to-do lists.

- Scorn for those who don't work hard.

- Appreciation of egalitarianism 

- Potentially fatal loyalty to Diet Coke.

- itch to be productive

- Restraint from complete hedonism 

- Sense of humor.

... additions to come. 

Praha

Fairy tale land. 

The streets are cobblestone and the buildings are colorful. The effect is charm. I will use beauty to describe the hills and the forests and the views in each direction from the bridges, but lovely or charming fit the city itself. The order and detail and grandeur of Parisian architecture is gone, replaced by wider facades, scattered heights, and red-orange roofs. Charming. At the higher points of the city, the view is nuts. There are so many spires and dome roofs colored with a greeny version of robins egg blue. Most buildings, other than the really really old ones (as opposed to just the really old ones), are light. Medieval influence comes through much more here than in France. 

Prague has good cheap beer.  The food is fairly funky and the people, awkward. The city is both beautiful and ugly. But ugly in the kind of way that makes you stare.

The people! Oh the people. Most definitely the awkward club, to quote marge, of Europe. The fashion is hodge-podge outfits. Silly combinations of clothing: a shirt that is both too short and too tight, jeans or pants with strange and loud decoration, and shoes that are trying hard (a kitten heel, maybe something on the top, a chunky buckle wrapping around the heel) to be something other than plain. Hair is worn frizzy. Watching heads, the color is either a non-color--mousy brown/grey--or blue, purple, pink, etc. The bodies are middle centered. Plenty of tall people. Movement seems to not come naturally. One mother and daughter hugged the way I imagine ogres hug. Friendly, frizzy ogres. 

The food is painfully not French. The mustard, sausage, and pizza are good. Everything else is marked by culinary confusion. The transition from simple/rural czech cuisine to czech food influenced by other European cuisines went disastrously. I had a gnocci dish that was literally a paste. City, cool. Food, bizarre but not interesting. 

PICTURES.

A calling perhaps.

My city Paris. 

 

Parc Daumensil.

Near my dorm. 

Beautiful. 

FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM.

Gina and me in front of Sacre Coeur. 

Sacre Coeur. 

Walks, Naps, Museums :)

Touring the L'oreal factory was sort of cool, but, it was still touring a factory. Our tour guide was a cute little French lady who was overly proud of the place. It was a little pocket factory. Cool/absurd architecture: each wing of the building the petal of a flower, and referred to as such by those who work there. Silly silly french industry. But, apparently, L'Oreal owns a substantial part of the world. Paloma Picasso?!?!! 

I went on a walk through the Bastille area Thurs. afternoon. I love this part of Paris. So many people were sitting/drinking/romancing on the grass next to the canal. Everyone sits in intimate clusters that make any activity seem a bit more personal or important. Walking along the canal in the afternoon was lovely; water, people, trees, flowers, sun, and then Place de la Bastille past the bridge. The energy of a big city, quiet garden, and laughing conversation whisked together. 

Then I wrote a paper about social security in Hungary. An obviously very pertinent subject in my life. 

No class on Friday yay yay yay. Gina and I went to lunch (croque monsieur, mmmm) and then to Musee D'orsay. The old train station (turned museum) is fantastic. Degas' ballerinas are perfect. 

Post Museum, a walk through the 17th arrondisment--"Where the Other Half Live," according to Frommer's. Beautiful area. This neighborhood was done entirely by Haussmann, and expensively so. And then there were the mansions. AH, roll me up in the bourgeois. Lavish everything, money older than something really old. I mean, go America, screw hierarchical societies, but walking through the stomping ground of Edouard Andre and the like is pretty irresistible. 

ANOTHER great walk Saturday afternoon through the Southern Marais. Hotel De Ville has pretty installation gardens right now so that was fun. The Church of St-Paul is gorgeous and the village behind it, Village...St-Paul is cobblestone and speckled with shops and cafes. So exaggeratedly French it could be a parody. Buuuuuuut it's 700 years old. We sat and had a glass of wine at one of the cafes.  

Saturday night brought the Peace&Love Hostel Bar--fun and strange. Back to Le Marais to check out the gay bars upon Dustin's request. The district was bumpin. We went up to one bar with purple neon-y windows. Approaching the door, the bouncer looked at Dustin and the nine of us girls behind him and said, "pas femmes!" WE GOT REJECTED. from a bar. for being girls.  

Oh and before going out, people wanted Mexican food so we tried this place nearby. Silly and bizzarro! The chicken in the quesadilla's was like a stew or roasted chicken. I skipped the food and got a mojito!   

Sunday was studying and rolling around in parks in the sun all day. 

Shopped around a bit after the test on Monday. But I got shopping ADD and left the group and went to Notre Dame. Epic, as expected. HOARDS of tourists, as expected. But across the street, there was a parade of men on horseback wearing classic french uniforms of some sort and tooting trumpets! Everyone got so excited! Though I don't think anyone, including myself, knew what we were celebrating. 

Wandered through the latin quarter in the evening. It has a much more young and lively spirit than in some of the other districts. Lots of galleries, lots of shops, lots of restaurants. There are random buildings with pink facades too! I love them. 

On my way home I saw a kid with a feather in his afro.  And about twenty steps behind him was a man who looked EXACTLY like Rudy Giuliani. 

Also,  a woman on the metro was looking down at my feet and said in French, "Such little shoes. Very cute." She said my feet were mignon. A compliment from a Parisian!

Last night, a bunch of us got wine and chocolate and went to Montmartre to sit on the hill in front of Sacre Coeur and watch the sky turn starry. Great weather and fun company. We were sitting on one of the steep grassy areas and there was a group of young folk in front of us. A few of the guys came and chatted. They all had the same haircut: long, swooped to the side in front of their faces and then up. They said they were 16-17. One brit, one Italian, one Parisian. They asked us what we were doing after and when we asked them back they casually mentioned going "painting." Little graffiti artists with stylish haircuts. 

Today I went to the Musee des Arts et Metiers. IT IS SO COOL. History plus science. Chronological exhibits showing the developments in the various sciences. I saw old tools, materials, machines, lithographs, models of bridges/buildings built in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Robots, the second super computer, the evolution of the telephone, some old cars. And FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM. 

After my mind exploded at the museum, Gina and I slept in the park for awhile. The sun is getting glorious. On the metro to the park, all 12 fat people in Paris were riding with us.

A walk in the Latin quarter this evening. I had the best crepe I've had yet...mmmm....dark chocolate. Delicious. Also, I found my favorite church in Paris thus far. It is a small church made from the leftover masonry from Notre Dame. There is a well in the courtyard and a giant piece of rock from a Roman road. It's called St-Julien le Pauvre I think, or at least that is the street it's on. It has pretty gardens all around it. 

Walking to the metro to head home, a crazy black guy missing a tooth in front asked me, en francais, if I wanted to grab a drink. My response, en francais aussi: i am alone. its dangerous. 

TOMORROW I AM GOING TO PRAGUE!

...

I saw a man punt a pigeon.