So I finally went up Notre-Dame today. I’ve seen it probably a hundred times, at all hours of the day and night, but never have I actually gone inside. Well, this morning we woke up early (for us! Though not by everyone else’s standards, apparently, because the line was epic) and went to have the classic Notre-Dame experience of climbing the hundreds of steps to the top of the bell tower to enjoy the views of Paris.

Well, it was spectacular. The weather has been kind of dreadful all week – rain and wind, clouds all the time – but during the time we spent at the cathedral it was bright and sunny. From the tower, we could see everything… all of Paris; all the sights that have become important to us over the course of the past quarter. I think Notre-Dame probably is the best view in the city. It was designed to be the heart of Paris, and still is, even after all these years and tourist visits, so it gives a central perspective on everything. And it’s just the right height… every normal building in Paris is about eight stories high, and Notre-Dame is just a touch higher, so you can peer out over the roofs, and all the monuments which stand out – the Eiffel Tour, the Centre Pompidou, the Dome Church, the Pantheon, etc. – are in perfect perspective. It’s a great vantage point to look out over the city.

I’m so glad I did it now, instead of at the beginning. It’s funny, because Notre-Dame was the first thing I went to my first full day in Paris, just to see it, to take pictures of the outside, to look at it from the plaza, from the bridges, from the banks of the Seine. But now I was able to appreciate not only the way it looks but the view it offers. From horizon to horizon, we could pick out dozens of places which have some memory attached to them. Some, like the Jardin Luxembourg, were the places we’ve gone almost every day. Others were the places we’ve been to once. But the point is that we weren’t just seeing buildings. We were looking out over the life we’ve led these past few months, over the paths and journeys we’ve taken, over the Parisian tableau upon which we’ve lived our days.

It’s over, folks. Yes, I’m here for one more day; yes, I’m still having fun, and I’m going to enjoy tomorrow, I can promise you that! But it really is over. My time in Paris has passed, and this city will never be the same to me again. It’s a little bit heartbreaking.

I still have more to tell you: adventures from this week, of course, and thoughts on this wonderful city that has interwoven itself through our lives, more thoughts than you could probably ever find interesting, but which nevertheless you will find sometime soon on this blog! But the next time you hear from me, faithful reader, I will not be writing from Paris. It really is over. I hate to say it, and I’m not ready, but that doesn’t matter. It’s over.

Au revoir, dear people who read this. I look forward to seeing you soon. And au revoir, Paris. You will be missed.

I am feeling extremely content right now; it's been a good weekend. Let me tell you about it. This might be long, be warned! I'm in a chatty / typey mood.

:: Comme d'habitude, my weekend began in earnest on Thursday. It always does, but it especially did this week because we decided to skip our class (we were having a double session of the really boring one and just couldn't handle the thought of going). I was exhausted anyhow; I had had a legitimate amount of work (a long paper in French and a final in the Louvre class) during the beginning of the week and was a little burned out. So I took some time on Thursday to see some stuff. I decided to visit the part of Paris called "Les Grands Boulevards," the epitome of Paris's distinctive style of wide (perhaps even grand) boulevards and homogeneous bourgeois architecture.
The main attractions of the area are a church called La Madeleine (built in a neo-classical style and quite pretty), the famous opera house, and "Les Grands Magasins." Magasin is the French word for department store; it was here that the department store was born in the 1800s, catering to Paris's booming middle class. I was especially excited to visit them, expecting huge temples to consumerism, at least as splendid as churches. Alas, they didn't quite turn out that way; the one I explored, Au Printemps, looked an awful lot like Bloomingdale's on the inside. The top floor did have a famous tea room called La Coupole with this gorgeous outsized stained glass dome taking up the entire ceiling, and it was suitably impressive, but overall I wasn't amazed.
Not really that swept away by Les Grands Boulevards, I went to Montmartre. I thought I'd have a lot of time to see stuff, but by the time I got there, it was getting late; I only had the chance to see one thing on my list, a church called Saint-Jean-L'Evangeliste. The church combines Islamic arches, art nouveau brickwork, and a classic church design. It was pretty cool. The funniest part was that it was at the métro stop we always use when we go to Montmartre. But we're always there at night, so I'd never even noticed this lovely building! I felt kind of lame and unobservant.
After that, I went to meet the others on Île-Saint-Louis for some gustatory pleasures. We went first to Berthillon, a famous ice cream shop (not a gelaterie) and supposedly the best glace in Paris. Well, it was delicious, but not otherworldly or anything. I enjoy our local gelato chain (Amorino) much more. Then, after some chill-out time on the banks of the Seine, we went to Angelina's, a Paris institution famous for its hot chocolate. Well, this is not a phrase I use lightly, since I love all things sweet and chocolatey, but this hot chocolate was honestly too rich. It just sat in my stomach and was a chore to finish. Eek.
So, Thursday was a day of disappointments. But that's okay -- they were all things I had to see or try, and were worth experiencing. :) Better to find out they aren't as good as the hype would have us believe!

:: I spent most of the day on Friday finishing up a paper, sadly. But I did have time for the most traumatic experience of my time in Paris, and a fabulous all-night revel after that. It was a busy, wonderful day! Hold on; this one might be long in the telling.
First the trauma: it was just another language disaster, but by far the worst one I've ever had. After I finished my paper, I decided to do my week's grocery shopping. It was getting late and I wanted to go out Friday night, of course, so I didn't go to my usual, preferred grocery store and instead went to one nearer my dorm. Well. I gathered my desired purchased, including some tomatoes, and made my way to the check-out. The tomatoes were the last to go through, but when they got to the lady she picked them up and said:
"Mumble mumble mumble."
Me: "Comment?"
Her: "Mumble mumble mumble!"
Me: not understanding.
She rolled her eyes and did this exasperated gesture with the tomatoes, putting them into the palm of her hand. And I couldn't understand for the life of me what she was trying to say. Finally the woman behind me in line turned and said, "Weight. Weight!" in English. So I guess I was supposed to weigh them myself somewhere. Looking madder, the cashier pointed in the direction of the produce aisle and gestured for me to go there. And I hurried over, cheeks burning, seeing the whole line of French people either looking amused or angry.
The worst part was that I couldn't find the scale or whatever. I saw nothing, not a sign or a scale or anything. Flustered, embarrassed, I just ditched the tomatoes where I'd picked them up and raced back. On the way the security guard stopped me. "You have to weight the tomatoes! You have to weight the tomatoes!" he told me, in English. I just ignored him, threw some bills in the cashier's hand, grabbed my other groceries, speeding out of there and feeling like crying. Oh my god, it was horrible. It may not sound like much, but it was so embarrassing. Not only did I fail at French, but I couldn't even find the stupid scale! I can never go back there again. Anyhow, it put me into a really bad mood. I went home and ate half a jar of Nutella with a fork to console myself.
I'm afraid my bad mood followed me for a few hours. After getting back, I went to meet Silvia and Vicky and La Rhumerie, a Brazilian bar, where we'd been dying to get some fried plantains. They were good, but I was a little upset. These things can be traumatic.
Then, however, everything started to go well. We split ways because we all had different plans for the evening. I, for one, was going to a free concert I saw advertised. To be held in a church very near the Stanford center, it was a Mozart concert featuring the choir and orchestra of the 6eme arrondissement, our neighborhood. I'd been kind of wanting to go to a concert in a church so it seemed like a good idea.
Well, it was a lot of fun. For one thing, it felt like a community affair; these were the community ensembles, and everyone seemed to know each other. People were waving and talking across the pews. It also felt very intimate and familial. The orchestra was not that great, and there were some obvious mistakes... and when they happened, the French people all gasped and cackled and murmured, even though it was in the middle of a concert! I was amused and a little horrified. But I don't think they were just being mean... at the end, they clapped ridiculously hard and summoned the groups for an encore. I guess they just felt comfortable being honest. Anyhow, it was a great evening. I felt very... absorbed by a random French cultural event, and it redeemed the French in my eyes. I just think it's really cool that the government of Paris (the Mairie) puts on stuff like this. Good for Paris.
Anyhow, feeling much better about Paris and the world, I headed out for the distant 20eme arrondissement to meet up with Nafis, Vicky, and Silvia for dinner. They had been to a different concert in La Maroquinerie, a "Fortress of Culture" in the youth-oriented bohemian area we visited last weekend, and we ended up eating in the restaurant part of the complex. Actually, it was very good, edgy cuisine of the kind you don't see in Paris that much. I got "spaghetti," which was actually an organic vegetable salad with all the veggies cut (or naturally) in spaghetti-like strands. I also had a crème unbrûlée for dessert, which was better than it sounds. :)
After dinner, we picked our way through the slightly seedy and emptying streets of the area towards Oberkampf, a currently-trendy nightlife area. There was a bar there called Café Charbon we've been meaning to visit, and although it took a while to get there, we settled in there for a great evening. Oh, was it ever a wonderful place! Probably my favorite bar I've ever been to. This is supposedly a converted 1920's dance club; it has beautiful carved ceilings above but a gritty bar below, with a DJ mounted on the wall, playing familiar rock / dance hits. We were lucky to score a booth in a prime location and settled in for like 3 hours.
We had two interactions with French people at this bar. A sketchy old dude sat next to us and creepily tried to engage us in conversation. Lamest line ever: "Where are you from?" -- We don't respond -- "Ask me a question, any question, and I'll tell you where you're from!" As though that's a game we want to play. Vicky rocked this situation, though; she turned to him and said, "I'm sorry. We just don't want to talk to you." And turned away. Way to fucking go, Vicky!
Anyhow, feeling anti-French, we were less than eager when the dude next to us tried to engage us in conversation. But somehow we all realized, in unspoken agreement, that he wasn't scary, and started talking with him in French. He was suitably delighted that we spoke his language, and we had a long and scattered conversation about France, California, and other things. When he found out I lived on RER B (my métro line), he embraced me and said something along the lines of, "I'm so sorry for you! It's the smelliest one!" (Which validated my own personal belief that RER B is hell on wheels, incidentally.) Anyhow, we all drifted back into our own conversations again eventually, but when he and his friends left, he shook my hand and gave Vicky and Silvia bises. I know that, realistically, he was probably just talking to us to gauge his chances of taking one of those two home, but it was nice anyhow. It's fun to talk to non-frightening people!
Have I mentioned our plan of staying out all night again? We were doing well at this point. We left the bar when it closed, a little after four, and set out into the night. Miraculously, there was an open pâtisserie, so we bought some pastries and savored them. Then we picked our way over to the Bastille area for a café. By the time we finished there the sun was rising, so we headed over to the Seine. We had some champagne in Silvia's purse, and wanted to drink it in this one park at the head of Île de la Cité. Well, we walked over, and on the way saw people having sex on a bench. Real sex -- I'm not exaggerating. We saw them take off their pants! Quite exciting. Anyhow, we did drink our champagne, feet dangling over the Seine, enjoying ourselves, even though once again there was no sunrise -- just a gradual lightening. Oh well.
Part of our reason for staying out all night was because we wanted French breakfast from a café once more during our stay, but knew we'd rather stay up until restaurants opened than wake up before they stopped serving breakfast. We definitely were the first customers in the restaurant we chose, a café near Place Saint-Michel. And it was delicious.
By then it was really time for bed, so we went home. I fell asleep around 9:30, loving Paris once again. At first I was afraid it would be a waste to stay up all night again, thinking I had more to do in the daylight. But honestly, I am so glad we did it! It's so interesting seeing the city wake up. Sure, there are people having sex on benches, but there are also quiet, lovely streets empty of their daytime bustle. We saw, for instance, the plaza in front of Notre-Dame completely empty of people. If you've ever been to Paris you know how impossible that is! The plaza was a little barren and filled with litter. But it was ours, and it was wonderful to see.
So big thumbs up to all-night Paris.

:: I don't know how this happened, but I woke up ready to go at 12:30 on Saturday, and decided to take advantage of it and do some sightseeing. I spent the afternoon a little north of where I had been on Thursday, in a clean bourgeois area of Paris. It was not without its faults. I was really thirsty when I got there, but couldn't find anywhere to get something to drink! No restaurants, hardly any cafés, everything closed... very bizarre. Most of Paris is madly bustling on a Saturday, so seeing these rich, empty streets was strange. But I had things to see. I visited a church called Saint-Augustine, a Neo-Gothic pile with steel supports in the inside, actually pretty cool -- though there was some weird ceremony going on in the church in which hundreds of children were wearing white robes, so I felt bad looking too long, or at all, really. I also went to see the Russian church of Aleksandr Nevsky, finding it a little smaller than I expected. And then I headed to lovely Parc Monceau. I had good intentions of finally seeing the sights of the park, but when I got there tiredness hit me and I just perched on a bench and people-watched. It was nice... so this was where all the rich families came on Saturday. Lots of young families were hanging out, as were teenagers and joggers and old people and everyone else. It was lots of fun. Singing Man was there, a man who apparently listens to opera on his iPod and jogs around belting out songs (he was there last time I came to this park). I enjoyed the chance to relax, and tried to figure out (from my observations) whether I want kids or not.
After that, I met up with the others and we had what I think was one of the nicest adventures of our time in Paris. The Bois de Vincennes is the crosstown cousin of the Bois de Boulogne (the home of the prostitutes); it's supposed to be the cultured English one, but in reality looked the same to me. Anyhow. We went for the purpose of renting a rowboat and going for a promenade (as the French quaintly call it) on the water. For some reason I was filled with this (possibly tiredness-fueled) sense of dread, expecting something terrible to happen. The boat rental place would be closed, or we wouldn't find it, or we would drown, or something. But none of that happened. Amazingly, the sun came out for our visit to the Bois, and we found the rental place when there was still plenty of time to get a boat, and had a great hour on the water. There really is something romantic and relaxing about a boat. This Bois has a large ornamental lake set up in a figure-8 shape, so we meandered among its curves and channels, chilling out with the swans and bridges and main island's fake Roman ruins, soaking in the sun, feeling the breeze, chatting and relaxing. It was unspeakably pleasant. We returned to land just as the sun began to set.
We worked up an appetite during our promenade, and went for an unspectacular dinner near Place Saint-Michel, and then headed home. I was still tired from before so I was not sad to call it an early night. I feel like the boat was enough happiness to last me a while. God, that was nice.

:: Today, Sunday, we had our last day trip, an adventure into the countryside to visit Monet's house and garden in Giverny. We made our way there without incident, although the walk from the train station to Monet country was much longer than we expected! Anyhow, Giverny is a cute little town with bountiful flowers and charming houses and lush hills. Monet's name is everywhere. This is where he set up camp after he was successful and when he had the privilege of creating a giant garden for inspiration and painting, like, ten thousand water lilies. We saw both his house and his garden. The house was one of the lamest tourist attractions I've ever visited. There weren't any plaques or exhibits or explanations, just empty rooms and some reproductions of paintings! It must be said, though, that man had good taste in color schemes.
The gardens, however, were worth the trip. We've all seen Monet's paintings of water lilies and bridges and ponds and all that. Well, he actually built a Japanese-inspired garden in Giverny. It's quite an elaborate set-up... pretty nice. I would be inspired by it if I were artistic.
Although this might sound somewhat silly, we ended up spending the most time at a long, lingering lunch. We all got grandes salades and a Normandy cheese platter afterwards. It was really good! Amusingly, it was at the terrace of Givenchy's other big attraction, the Museum of American Art; there were so many Americans around, and the bathrooms felt like they'd been airlifted right from Omaha or something. But I've found that museum-affiliated cafés are always good, so I felt no guilt for being there among my countrymen. It was such a good lunch that we completely lost track of time and ending up missing several trains home! It was worth it, though.
Now, we always have Sunday dinner out; since this is our last one, we wanted to go somewhere nice once we got back to Paris. But we didn't really plan adequately and so ended up eating at a very normal restaurant of the type we've always chosen, especially back at the beginning -- a reliable French bistro with a menu (prix fixe). At first I think we were all a little disappointed by the ordinariness of our meal. In the end, however, it was very good -- genuinely. I guess we don't really need that nice of a meal, after all. We do indulge a little every weekend! Seriously, I'm actually glad we just paid homage to the kind of restaurant that's served us so well during our séjour.

I think that's the end of the narrative. Sorry that was so long -- I'n cramming a lot into these last days! Um, I'm actually feeling complicated feelings about Paris and the prospect of leaving it, but I think I'll save them for another day. It's time for bed. Thank you so much, however, for reading. Comme d'habitude. Ciao!

I've been noticing something lately. The elderly people who live in Paris – and trust me, there are a lot; this could be renamed Retirement Community-Sur-Seine, I swear – are pretty smashingly dressed, it must be said. They deck themselves out in heels, suits, ties, dresses, jewels – the works. And the funny thing is, it isn't just the more formal clothing that the American old might wear, which might look fancier, but also looks 50 years old, and often is. No, although dignified and tasteful, I feel like the clothes the aging Parisians wear are not that far removed from what young, stylish Parisians wear. It's nice to see.

Forgive me for talking about the way the old dress themselves, but I've been thinking a lot lately about how new and old intermingle in Paris. This is probably something I've talked about before, but for some reason lately it's really been standing out to me. Of course most of Paris is old, madly old, but it doesn't oppress me the way certain other places have with their cloying sense of history. In fact, I've noticed a sense of novelty in Paris that I didn't necessarily see at first. Yes, the city itself is ancient, but there's always something new and innovative happening. And so many public places have a touch of whimsy that keeps them fresh and interesting. I think it's a good way of dealing with the city's age.

The flux of Paris's sense of long-term time makes a strange contrast to the reality of our stay in Paris, which is drawing quickly to a close. It is hard to imagine the end. So, I won't! Let's do things the Parisian way and celebrate the past, as I relive the glories of the past week and a half.

:: Oh, gentle reader, are you getting sick of me recounting parks and museums? I hope not, because you're in for a long entry if that's the case! The first attraction I visited last week, after a few days in which I had to do schoolwork, was the Musée Picasso in the Marais. This is the gallery in which France's national collection of Picasso works is exhibited. None of the works on display are that famous, but together the collection is amazing -- a complete journey through his many styles and eras, incorporating sculptures and sketches he made and art curios he bought, like his famous masks from Gabon. Anyhow, we all know that Picasso was a genius, so I don't mean to belabor the obvious, but really -- seeing everything he's done is amazing. I read somewhere that he's the most important art figure of the entire twentieth century, and after strolling through this museum I really buy it. He's pretty spectacular.

:: I have really gotten into doing walking tours from my guidebook, or rather, what I hope are more discrete versions of the walking tours from my guidebook. (It's an Eyewitness guide, and whenever I go on one of them I see old rich American couples with the same book, walking my same route. I have no problem with American tourists but I'd rather blend in!) Anyhow, with the book's recommendation I walked around the Canal St-Martin, an old industrial canal that connects northeastern Paris to the Seine. Now it's just a calm green river in miniature, crossed by iron bridges and with tent cities of homeless people lining its banks. I'm a fan of anywhere with water, so I found it beguiling. Also, I didn't know this going in, but it's totally the place where Amélie goes to skip rocks and be sad in the movie! I had a happy little quiver of recognition. I also got to see the locks in action when a river cruise boat came through, and it made me feel like an old man to find it interesting, but it was, watching the lock-keeper open and close the gates and watching the boat rise, like an elevator.
I took one of the tour's side-trips, which involved visiting the Hôspital Saint-Louis. I didn't expect it to be an actual hospital, since words like that often don't mean what you'd think they would, but a hospital it was. I had some ethical qualms snapping pictures of its courtyards as people with IVs shuffled past, but oh well – it was beautiful and calm. Also, the hospital is celebrating its 400th anniversary this year. I can't even conceive of that much history....

:: We had an accidental adventure on Friday night, staying out until after sunrise! It felt very exciting and Lost Generation-y. The evening started because there was this bar we had heard about (and wanted to visit) near Place de la Bastille which was supposed to have Barbie dolls and religious icons stuck on the wall. Well, it certainly had colorful walls, but no Barbies -- the place turned out to be an enormous homage to porn, with various graphic collages hanging everywhere! It was a convivial place to have a drink, though. They closed around one, surprisingly, so we headed out to find something new. There was this bar down the street which looked lively and seductive, full of small tables and dancing candles and beautiful people, but as we walked past we saw the bouncer turning people away at the door. Well, we thought, that's probably a lost cause. And then we thought, well, why not try to get in? And somehow, we just breezed right through! I have rarely felt more like a celebrity. And the bouncer was definitely blocking other people behind us. We did get a surprise when we got the bill -- our drinks were 21.50 apiece! Zut alors! But that is the price one pays to mingle with the beautiful. Also, the drinks were enormous. We left happy.
By the time we left, it was pushing on three o'clock. Getting home on the bus would have probably taken two hours, so it dawned on us, well, why stop now? Let's stay out all night! (The Métro opens again at 5:30.) And so that became the new goal of the evening. It was surprisingly easy. Paris is usually fairly sleepy by two or three, but we managed to find stuff to do, and even found a crepe stand -- food after nine or ten is almost unheard of here. Let me tell you, those crepes were delicious, though. After that we got café at a bar, standing and feeling very suave that we were refueling for more fun at 4 in the morning, and then headed for the Marais, where our favorite bar was closed but thankfully another was open. We ended the night with a bottle of white wine (which seemed to horrify our waiter – "blanc?" he asked; apparently white wine is not the thing to drink at dawn) and then went to watch the sun rise over the Seine. Well, it didn't really rise, the sky just got less gray (it was kind of a grim weekend). But it was still fun to be out. And despite the fact that we were once called "petites salopes" -- little sluts -- on the streets it was a successful night.

:: I had a fun Saturday of sight-seeing. I took another walking tour, in fact the last, of an area which is actually quite near my dorm, a neighborhood called Le Butte aux Cailles. I've seen it called a village within Paris, or something like that; it's just a very un-Parisian neighborhood. The houses are short, the colors are pastel, the architecture provincial, and the streets narrow. I also stopped in the neighborhood church. Usually I'm not in the mood to visit places of worship, but it looked inviting, and was cool and quiet. All in all, a pleasant neighborhood to visit.
I also went to Parc Bercy, another one of Paris's modern parks. Because of its newness and riverside location it invites comparison with Parc André Citroën, the terrible park I visited (and wrote about) earlier. But it's a much more pleasant place. It's set up like a traditional French formal garden, with a grid of paths, but the paths are all slightly askew; nothing meets at right angles. And each little quadrant has amusing surprises -- duck ponds, fountains, rose gardens, earthen mounds, paths, etc. It's a fun place for a walk. I give it thumbs up.
Perhaps the most exciting part of the day was finding the Piscine Flotante, the floating swimming pool on the Seine! Unfortunately it was closed for repairs, but I was excited to stumble across it by accident -- I had read about it a long time ago.

:: On Sunday Vicky and I journeyed just outside of Paris to the Marché aux Puces, the world's original flea market. (Puce means flea, and it refers to the flea-ridden blankets that were sold there back in the 1700s.) It's a Paris institution, and I hoped it might be a good place to do some shopping for souvenirs. In essence, I was hoping to find an endless yard sale, booth after booth filled with buttons and tchotchkes and books and other junk. Well, it was quite different from what I was expecting. Endless it was, but it turns out this is a "classy" flea market. The stalls are all permanent, and they all deal in antiques and real collectibles -- not your average Goodwill junk! It's like a village of antiques, really. Anyhow, even though it wasn't at all what I wanted, it was still fun to poke around there. The highlights were a stall selling vintage Chanel jewelry, which was pretty cool to see (and surprisingly appealing, even by today's aesthetic standards), and a store selling old postcards with messages on them! Total voyeurism into the tourists of a century ago.... Anyhow, it was fun. We also had delicious pizza afterwards, which colors things happily in my book.

:: On Sunday night we finally had a dinner we've been hotly anticipating for months -- fondue! I think fondue might be the origin of the expression "cheesy" because it's such a delightfully tacky way to dine. Apparently real Parisians would never set foot in a fondue restaurant; we were surrounded by other tourists. But it sure was delicious. The fondue was just a big bubbling vat of cheese and wine and oil; the bread was good and crusty; the chocolate fondue for dessert was delicious. I'm really glad we did it! There's just something pleasing about such active food... eating and entertainment.

I think those were the main adventures since I last wrote. It might not seem like much; unfortunately, I've had to spend a lot of last week and this week with schoolwork. But as I write this, I'm almost done with academic obligations for the quarter -- just one research paper to finish. So things are good on that front. It must be said, though, I've had some stress over recent days. And it's ten thousand times worse to be stressed out about school here than it is to be stressed on home campus. I just... don't have any interest in schoolwork here. Why should I? There's Paris to see! So now I can start seeing it again.

I must also apologize for the long delay in between the last entry and this one. I know there are at least a few eager readers of my blog :) and I thank you all for reading it when you do. Updates had to stop for two reasons: the aforementioned schoolwork and the fact that my computer crashed earlier this week. Needless to say, I am not pleased about that, and it brings a number of new inconveniences to my life. Anyhow, that is neither here nor there. The point is... well, I guess the point is just, pity me and my technological problems. :)

With that I think I will sign off. This should be an exciting week -- there's a lot still to see, and a week and a half to do it all! Tomorrow my last burst of tourism begins in earnest, and I look forward to telling you all about it in some future entry. Until then, bisous! Au revoir!

God, the weather is strange in Paris right now. Last week it was so hot and steamy, and now it's like February at Stanford... rainy and in the forties. Not too pleasant. It's not a big deal for me, though, because I have to stay in and do some work these next few days. And since I have work to do, I'm obviously going to procrastinate, so it's blog-updating time! And there's a lot to say... oh goodness, we've got to cover the rest of England, last week in Paris, and this weekend in Barcelona. Hold on, because this is going to be a long one! I've divided it into three sections to make it less daunting, so take your time. :)

Oh, and a quick apology-- I noticed tons of typos in the entry I wrote last week when I revisited it. J'ai si honte.

Anyhow, England, continued...

:: I don't think I mentioned yet how xenophobic England felt, and how paranoid about its security. Okay, I know these are "dangerous times" or whatever, but seriously. Not a single garbage can in the entire Underground? Vacuum-sealing my eyedrops at Heathrow? A ten minute interrogation about my business in England on arrival? That's a little excessive. Silvia told me that England has the highest number of security cameras per square kilometer in the entire world, and I would totally believe it.

:: Everyone says it, but it's so true: Oxford is so Harry Potter-esque. You should see the capes they wear! Like, I'm not kidding... students wear long flowing black capes, as do professors. It's hard not to laugh when you're in a convenience store and someone is walking around in a billowing thing that looks like a Halloween costume. And all the ancient common spaces and stuff... the same deal. We went to Formal Dinner at Francie's college, and it was in this echoing hall with gothic windows and long tables, with the professors sitting at the Head Table in front of everyone else. Crazy.

:: Francie took me to London on Saturday, because I have always wanted to go. We were only there for the afternoon and evening, which is hardly any time to do it justice, but I've always wanted to visit, so we did our best. It would have been foolish and stressful to try to "do" London and see all the famous sights and monuments, so we just did a few things, which was fine with me.
I've always wanted to visit the British Museum, so we went there. It was fantastic, I must say. It's free, and I marvel at the fact that you can just stroll in off the street and find yourself before the Rosetta Stone and other treasures like that. Wow, the Rosetta Stone is small! But it remains one of my favorite artifacts I've ever seen. It's so odd to think of all the human passions and efforts that have unfolded around that hunk of rock... its original creation, its capture and transport to England, and the controversy of whether it belongs to England, France, or Egypt. It's odd to be able to stand before something that provokes so many international complications. Same goes for the Elgin Marbles, which I think are more interesting for the political stew in which they are broiling than for their actual historical context. Anyhow, those things, the famous mummies, and everything else made me a big fan of the British Museum. I will have to go back, because a couple hours was barely enough to see those few exhibits.
On Francie's recommendation, we also went to an exhibit at the British Library called "Treasures of England" or something like that. Actually, it was pretty splendid. I had forgotten how much history that little island country actually has, but what a glorious past. Perhaps the British can be forgiven for their backward-looking country; there's a lot to look back on. The Library had a lot of general treasures from the rest of Europe and the world, as well; I particularly enjoyed seeing original manuscripts from composers like Chopin. And they had original copies of the Magna Carta and stuff like that, pages and pages of manuscripts from various authors, other stuff... and I think a lot of the Library for putting it all on display instead of hiding it in some warehouse somewhere! Kudos.
We also went for a walk along the Thames, from the Tower of London to the Tate Modern, passing various landmarks: the Tower Bridge, the new London Bridge (which is tremendously ugly; London should be ashamed); St. Paul's, and the new Millennium Bridge. The river walk was nice, but it must be said, I think the Seine is a better place for a walk. The Thames is a grander river, but the banks are crowded with ugly modern office towers and the path is not always pedestrian-friendly. We were heading for the Tate Modern, but wanted to grab some dinner first. Unfortunately, the area around the Tate Modern, Southwark (charmingly pronounced "Sutherk") is an industrial nowheresville of broad, empty streets, warehouses, and blank windows. We had to walk for almost half an hour before we found anything open, a gritty tandoori restaurant. Fortunately, I really wanted Indian food in London, so it was fine with me. We ate and felt much better after we did.
I think the Tate Modern is my new favorite museum. Wow! It's the city of London's modern art museum, and is housed in a former factory or power station or something similarly industrial. They've left a lot of the original fixtures in place, so it's an innovative setting for a museum. And the collection is just astonishing. They have it set up thematically instead of chronologically, kind of like Centre Pompidou, but even better; the fact that so many masterpieces show up in such an eclectic collection is amazing. Wandering around there was a great experience. It's also open late for a museum (especially in comparison with Paris), and is free. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
In general, London gets massive thumbs up for the museums, and I had a great time there. That being said, what I saw of it was kind of cold and characterless, and it felt huge and sprawling... a dour version of how I imagine Southern California. It felt impossibly big. I will certainly have to return, though, with more time.

I think that's everything I wanted to share from my visit to England. But oh, lucky reader, our adventures together are just beginning! Come now and relive last week in Paris with me.

:: I finally visited the Musée d'Orsay. At first, I did not like it as much as I hoped I would. I was quite tired when Vicky and I got there, and the collection begins in a pre-Impressionistic period (I think) that I find pretty dull. But before seeing more, we went to the café on the top floor of the museum, which gets mention as the nicest museum café I've ever visited. Coffee was fairly reasonable, and the setting was cool, with the old station's gigantic clock (the museum occupies a former railroad terminal) looming over the tables. The collections after the café were much more interesting to me, then, as well. I saw Dejeuner sur l'Herbe, which lives up to its reputation as a masterpiece, I think -- it's so strange! And speaking of that, Manet was a far more versatile painter than I realized; the Musée exhibited works of his in many different styles. I didn't know much about him before this, so that was cool. I also saw a good chunk of Gaugin, whom I like, and of course some Matisse... he just shows up in every Musée I visit! And thank goodness for it, because I become a bigger and bigger fan with everything I see. I also had a moment of Midwestern pride, because Seurat's studies for Sunday on La Grande Jatte were in the collection, but not the original, because it's in Chicago! Ha.
There wasn't time to see all of the Musée, so I will have to return. I left really liking it, though.

:: We went to this great park called Buttes Chaumont in a distant corner of Paris. It's a strange place, with a huge artificial mountain in the middle, but lots of fun -- there are waterfalls and bridges and fake classical temples, all of that nonsense people liked to scatter in their parks in the nineteenth century. It also has a lot of large and gracious old trees. The top of the artificial mountain offers a lovely view of Sacre Coeur and the more urban areas of Paris, so Silvia and Vicky and I just sat on some rocks and chatted for a while, the city spread out at our feet. The only sad thing was that the long bridge which is one of the park's hallmarks was closed for repairs. Perhaps we can return...

:: We got to enjoy another Bing outing, this time to the opera to see Carmen. Sadly, I did not like Carmen as much as I thought I would. I do like music of that era a lot, and I like musicals, but something about opera drives me a little crazy. It's so dramatic... my favorite (meaning, the part I find most ludicrous) moment is when Carmen flips over a tarot card revealing her impending death, stands up, and sings, "DDEEEEEAAATTTTHHHH!!!!" Stuff like that just makes me want to laugh out loud. I mean, I like melodrama as much as the next person, but seriously? The ballet was definitely better suited to my tastes. At least Carmen is sung in French, though, so it offered the chance to practice the old language skills.

:: Thursday was one of the more ridiculous days I've had in Paris. Vicky and Silvia and I decided to have a picnic on the Champs de Mars, the long park that runs up against the Eiffel Tower. It's a great place to hang out, with lovely views of the Tower, of course. Well, I don't know exactly how this happened, but somehow we each ended up drinking a bottle of wine apiece, even though it was two in the afternoon! It was a hot, hot day, and the wine hit us pretty hard... we were a silly bunch by the end of our picnic. Please don't judge me; I know a lot of my Paris fun involves drinking at various landmarks. Oh well! Judge if you wish. I'm kind of judging myself, it must be said.
Anyhow, the best-slash-worst thing was that we had a long-anticipated program to attend right after our picnic-slash-happy-hour. It was a presentation on chocolate tasting in which we were to learn how to sample and enjoy fine chocolate like fine wine (smarmy, I know, but don't pretend you wouldn't have fun doing it too!). When we rolled in ten minutes late I know I was still semi-smashed, but oh well. The chocolate was delicious even if I couldn't really tell you what the chocolate man had to say about it.
You'd think we'd end there, but not really. We went to a café to reenergize for the rest of the day, and then headed out to the distant twentieth arrondissement, a working-class area far from our usual haunts. We had read that this area was full of interesting bars, cafes, and galleries, a youthful and innovative district for staid and matronly Paris, so it sounded like a fun place to hang out. And indeed, we found a number of promising bars without looking too hard. We settled at a place called Le Chien Stupide, a bright and colorful bar with five-euro mojitos and a friendly bartender, who just sat there smoking and drinking champagne with his friends the whole time. It had a friendly, youthful, convivial atmosphere which I hope we didn't ruin by dragging our American selves in. I don't think so, though. It was probably my favorite bar that we've visited in this fine city.
We wanted to move to a more central location before the metro stopped running and we were doomed to the night buses, so we left the 20th and headed to the more familiar Latin Quarter, looking for a bar called La Rhumerie, famous for its tropical flavors and fried bananas. Well, the kitchen was closed, sadly, but the drinks were good... I had this ridiculous chocolate-rum confection which tasted like a milkshake. The bar had a good atmosphere, so we had a great time.
This day was actually one of my favorites we've had in Paris, because it was just an endless succession of low-key fun.

That was our week, pretty much. But, oh no, the fun's not over yet. It never ends on study abroad.... This weekend I went to Barcelona, probably one of the most hotly-anticipated trips of my life. For various reasons, I have wanted to come to Barcelona since high school, and now I've finally had the chance! Join me as I relive the trip....

So, Barcelona. I definitely liked it, but it's funny... I didn't bond with it in quite the way I'd hoped. Everything I knew about -- the strange and wonderful Gaudî architecture, the beaches, the chaos of La Rambla, the Spanish squares and such -- pleased me as much as I'd expected. But in my opinion, Barcelona didn't have that much real atmosphere. Certain areas did -- the lovely Gothic quarter, for instance, with its tall brooding buildings and colorful graffiti -- but a lot of it was just pleasant and bland. I suppose Paris has spoiled me... for all of its personality defects, or perhaps because of them, Paris is bursting with its very particular Parisian character. Parts of Barcelona seemed to have very little personality, and in fact reminded me of Monaco, which readers of this blog will know to be a huge insult. :)

I also expected to be dazzled by Barcelona's nightlife, and thought there would just be young people and liveliness and bars and cafes spilling into every street, which there were, but not to the extent that I hoped. We didn't go to any clubs or anything, and I'm sure those are the really fun part of a night in Barcelona, and I did like the places we went (especially this one place with four-fifty mojitos -- yes, that's the drink of the week, I guess). But it was less of an endless party than I expected, or if it was, the party wasn't quite to my tastes.

I do want to go back there, because I'm sure there's more to see and do, and there are certainly more neighborhoods I didn't even set foot into, but for now, it was enough time there.

Anyhow...

:: The people in Barcelona were generally very nice. The people who ran our hostel were extremely friendly and helpful, although one would hope they would be, so maybe that's not so remarkable. But random people on the street kept offering us directions, especially the first day, when we were searching for the hostel. Although I still prefer finding things on my own I really appreciate the niceness that drives a gesture like that. The people of Barcelona seem to have a better relationship with tourism than the Parisians do. I think Paris is embarrassed that it's so widely-visited and tries to pretend otherwise, while Barcelona embraces it. Barcelona's is probably a healthier attitude.
And yet I had a few bad run-ins with people in Barcelona. Or, not really bad... but let me explain. People were not shy about honking, for instance; I've never been honked at so much! And this one old man once stopped to scold us for blocking an escalator. Strangest of all, I bumped into this one dude at a metro station, and he started screaming at me and doing all this macho you-wanna-fight bullshit, which was disgusting. I found myself missing the Parisian way of pretending everyone else just doesn't exist. It makes things easier.

:: We tried to go the the beach, but accidentally got there quite late, around eight! And just as we arrived (literally just) a huge bank of clouds rolled right over the sun. We still hung out there, as it was a nice evening (though windy), and I took a quick swim as the sun set (and how many times will I be able to say I swam in the Mediterranean at sunset? Even if the sun itself was behind the clouds, but whatever), but it was not the hot barbeque-of-our-bodies we were hoping for.

:: I know I mentioned this already, but Gaudí's Modernisme really is phenomenal. All the buildings in this style look like they've just risen from the ocean, shiny and dripping and draped in colorful seaweed. It's strange and I wouldn't think it would work, but it does. The most famous building, Sagrada Familia cathedral, is huge and preposterous, and the smaller buildings are lovely to stumble across. So that was fun. Parc Güell is the most famous public space in the style, and it has that same character, just with lots of trees and funny things to clamber over, along with fantastic views of the city... so thumbs up there, of course.

:: I was pleased, because I remembered more Spanish than I thought I would, and I got to be the group translator (kind of, with Silvia), which was fun. It was also strange, though, because whenever I tried to speak Spanish it came out with lots of French words and grammar! Little things like connectors and colloquialisms... I felt bad but I couldn't help it. I guess Spanish and French share the same compartment of my brain now.

:: The food in Barcelona was really good. I mean, really. This is probably in part because we indulged on fairly nice restaurants, but I think Barcelona is known for a pretty innovative scene. It's been so long since we've eaten in young, brightly-painted restaurants with creative, well-presented dishes! Paris just doesn't go for that. Here were my menus: a mille-feuille (layered pastry) made up of mozzarella, tomato, and pesto for an appetizer and honey-olive-oil grilled vegetable plate for the main course one night, and gazpacho with a poppy-and-vegetable risotto the next night. It was really, really delicious. And street food (cafés and falafel and ice cream) was definitely cheaper than Paris, and just as good, so hooray for that.

Last night after we finished dinner, we felt like we should go out for a night on the town -- this was Barcelona, after all, a famously fun city. But we decided to come home. We were all tired, not just from this weekend, but tired in general, I think, from traveling. I don't expect you to pity my jet-set lifestyle of the past month, and I'm glad I did all the traveling I did, but last night, the thought of coming back to Paris sounded just wonderful. Every time I've gone somewhere else, coming back to Paris has been the greatest ending to a trip I could hope for. It's always such a pleasure to see people trading bisous at the baggage claim, to hear French again, to taste French bread, to settle back into this city that, whatever its imperfections, I'm beginning to understand and beginning to like an awful lot. It feels surprisingly like home.
And so here I am again, home. And now the end is close; it almost makes me want to cry sometimes. A little less than three weeks and that's it -- back to my real home, the home country I can't deny, however much I might wish I could. But right now, today, is still a beginning, the beginning of my longest stretch of time in Paris since April, and let me tell you, I'm excited. There's so much still to see and do!
So on that note, I should go do my homework so I have time to enjoy Paris in these last weeks. I will bid you adieu. And even more than usual, thank you -- this has been a long entry. And if you've read this far you make me smile. :)

My room is in full-swing tenement mode right now. For one thing, I've let my life descend into abject squalor... I won't even describe the horror I'm looking at right now in this tiny dorm room. I'll just say it's worse than you're imagining. Also, I did laundry today, and now clothes are hanging from every surface in my room, slums-of-Naples style. To top it all off, my glasses are broken and hanging crookedly from my nose. I really do feel like some poverty case. Well, except for the whole extravagant-life-in-Europe thing. But you know.

The eager reader may have noticed that I haven't posted in a while. Things have been a little stressful here. Not the fault of Paris; I've just had some real work to accomplish, and I've also been facing the mounting frustration of my summer job search. Yes, you heard me, search; I still don't have a summer job. Oh, but I have a lovely collection of rejections. Fuck the working world, I swear. So yeah, things have been a little less than idyllic here.

Of course, I'm leaving something important out that has nothing to do with any of this. I spent this past weekend on the road again, and have the chronicles of traveling to share with you! This weekend it was off to that soft and crumbling land drifting off the coast of Europe, the attic of the Anglophone world, the home of English... England! I finally made the pilgrimage to that country that gave us our language, and our country itself, in a way, not to mention my sometimes-hated, sometimes-liked major.

Anyhow. England. Where to begin? So I was staying with Francie in Oxford, of course, at the Stanford center. Wow -- what a different life those kids lead compared to us. The Stanford in Oxford program really seems like normal Stanford, just filtered through a different country. They all live in a dorm, they all have intense academic work to do, they live an hour away from a thriving metropolis but obligations keep them at Stanford... crazy. And then it seems like they have all the good stuff of Stanford -- the random conversations and the study breaks and all that kind of stuff that college creates. Not us! We Paris kids live in a non-stop, beautiful vacation and I love it. :) So it was strange for me to be in that kind of environment again -- not just the dorm, but the whole "college city" feel. I guess Oxford is the original college place; that's where university was born, I would assume. And today, the inner core of the city is nothing but colleges and the pubs and businesses that support them, surrounded by parkland. It's picturesque, and pleasant; the fifteenth century version of Palo Alto. Sub Gothic for Mission Romanesque in the architectural recipe.

England is beautiful in a soft, melodious way. On the bus from Heathrow to Oxford I was struck by the huge amount of livestock. In France it seemed like there were mostly plants, grains and mustard and whatever else is growing in those rolling fields, but not that many animals. But England had them everywhere -- clusters of sheep, and statuesque cows, and big majestic horses with their manes blowing Lisa Frank style in the wind. And everywhere there were hills, and clusters of plump trees, and streams. It's a homey kind of beauty, a little different from the straight-trunked beauty of nature in France.

One of the biggest shocks of visiting England was the language. It was so odd to step off the plane and be able to understand everything! That might sound obvious, but seriously, it took me off guard. I think my brain is so used to devoting most of its capacities to decoding French that it didn't even know what to do with itself. It was certainly disorienting. Because the English are paranoid I faced a long inquisition at Her Majesty's Customs or whatever and could barely remember how to engage in official business in English. And yet... as the weekend went on it became more and more clear that I wasn't really understanding English. There were so many times when I had to be like, "What?" Those accents can be hard! And in general, it is a very foreign place, English-speaking or not. I feel it's deceptive because you feel like it will be easy, or I did, at least. How hard can it be without the language barrier? Well, there were still tons of cultural cues I didn't understand.

On another note, I think the English are even more obsessed with tradition than the French. In France, the past is always there, especially in Paris, which lives in the nineteenth century. But there are modern things in France, too. I don't mean like telephones and cotton candy -- I mean modern architecture, modern re-interpretations of things, modern thought. England felt completely obsessed with its own past, though. All the modern architecture was thoughtless and ugly -- not ugly in a Tour Montparnasse way, but in an anonymous no-one-cared kind of way.

Let's see... let me stop this rambling and get specific. Here's some stuff we did:

:: Punting. This is perhaps the dumbest mode of transport ever invented in the world. It is also an Oxford tradition. It's boating on the winding streams that drift past the colleges and pastures of old Oxford. But it's not a normal boat. It's a long, flat vessel, like a ladder with plywood nailed on one side and stubby walls jutting out, so that it's like a long shallow tray. One person rides in the front and the other stands on the back, and that person propels the boat forward with -- yes -- a twenty foot metal pole, by pushing said pole against the muddy bottom of the river. Now, this is ridiculously difficult. The biggest problem is steering; how do you fight the current and wind with that thing? We ended up backwards several times. It's also hard because once you get a good push, you have to haul the stupid pole up, out of the water (and it's twenty feet long!) and put it back it. It's so clumsy and odd. Oh, when you go on this, they also give you a two-foot paddle, which I think is a joke, because it's uses are somewhat limited.
Screw that, it must be said. I'm rowing next time!

:: We went to English Tea right after I got there, which was a lot of fun. I tried clotted cream for the first time, which is much better than it sounds. The Tea came with the works -- scones, jams, creams, cucumber sandwiches, and chocolate cake, all of it on a three-tiered silver platter. And tea, duh. It was really satusfying.

:: Francie introduced me to the English habit of eating cheese with chutney, which sounds awful but is jaw-droppingly delicious.

:: We went for a long pub crawl through Oxford! So different from the Parisian night scene... it was fun to just stop, grab a pint, and then go on and do the same thing elsewhere. We got quite drunk off pints, it must be said. And they all had phenomenal pub names, like Eagle and Child (the one Tolkien and CS Lewis used to frequent! Too bad I don't like fantasy or I would have been more moved, perhaps....)

Oh goodness, I'm afraid I'm quite tired and should stop here. But don't fear, gentle readers-- next installment will describe our magnificent day in London (including the Magna Carta, the Rosette Stone, and new favorite musée, the Tate Modern), and the Parisian adventures of the past week! (Including Peruvian food, beautiful parks, liqueured café in the company of an enormous clock, Edouard Manet, and the presidential palace of France)

Bon soirée, mes cheris....

Since when is Nutella health food? I mean, seriously. I'm sitting here staring at the jar, which offers this as a balanced breakfast: Nutella on two pieces of bread, a bowl (yes!) of milk, and a glass of orange juice. I mean, I love Nutella and all, but that doesn't scream "Pete Déjeuner Idéal" to me. More like fatty snack. Never mind that as I'm sitting here my face is probably smeared with Nutella... in embarrassing quantities... oh yes.

Anyhow, today is a Laundry and Homework Day. I actually have homework... mais non! Honestly, it's been so long since I did any work that it's almost a welcome change of pace. But I am procrastinating, obvi, so I thought I'd write a quick entry about life since getting back from my Grand Trip.

:: Actually, I have to go back to the night before we left for our Grand Trip for one anecdote. Silvia and I went to buy books to amuse us on the train (I got Guns, Germs, and Steel, which is sadly more boring than I thought it would be, and As I Lay Dying). Anyhow, we went to The Village Voice, which is Paris's premier English language bookstore, and a Left Bank institution. While we were browsing I heard the clerk say something about Amy Tan coming. Huh? I thought. And sure enough, a few minutes later, who should come breezing in the door with crazy shoes and a little dog in her arms but Amy Tan! Now, I didn't even like The Joy Luck Club, and in fact never finished it, and we didn't even talk to her, but still -- this was the biggest celebrity encounter of my life. I was in the same room as Amy Tan. It actually felt very Lost Generation, with the American author in Paris and all... very exciting.

:: Realizing how quickly time is going I have vowed to be better about getting out of my room and seeing the sights of Paris. I actually did see a number of things last week. I went to this thing called the Promenade Plantée, an elevated park in the eastern part of Paris, which was actually very cool... a long elevated walkway lined in flowers and shrubs. I don't know how it got there but it was pleasant and a little magical, walking at the level of the roofs and all that.

:: I also visited the Parc André Citroën, a new park on the banks of the Seine in the southeast corner of Paris. Supposedly it marries nature and technology; I was pretty excited to check it out. Actually, the place is strange and a little unpleasant. It looks like the overgrown ruins of a shopping mall... featureless walls of dirty gray stone blocks, pockmarked lawns, glass pavilions with nothing inside or outside. The northern segment is prettily planted but the rest is just strange. The big draw is supposed to be a huge network of fountains, but they were all off -- there were just shallow pools of mud and litter with a couple ducks standing around. Worst of all, no one was there using it. And while I was there, it started to rain. I was not sad to leave. Incidentally, I just googled the place, and found it ranked as the second worst park in the world by the Project for Public Spaces. (They have a really cool website profiling urban spaces-- I find that kind of stuff really interesting. Check it out: http://www.pps.org/great_public_spaces/)

:: I finally visited Père Lachaise, the most celebrated cemetery in Paris. I don't care if I'm morbid, I actually really like visiting cemeteries. They're always so green and restful. Père Lachaise was almost too big for a casual stroll, though; vendors outside the gates sell maps and guides -- it's that big. Tons of famous people are buried there, but I wasn't in that much of a pilgrimage mood, so I only saw a couple -- I went to see Heloise and Abelard, and remembered how much I hated studying them in my Medieval Women class, and I stumbled across Chopin's grave, which was actually quite nice. His monument was covered in flowers, and an old man was spritzing all of them with a spray bottle as a flock of Poles paying homage looked on. Also, Chopin died on my birthday, which is kind of cool. (In a morbid way, of course.)

:: We've been to several movies in the last couple of days. On Friday we saw Le Prix à Payer, which was dreadful. We had expected a stupid romantic comedy, which it was, but it was rock bottom. Supposedly it is the worst French movie of the year. Last night, though, we went to see a movie called Paris, je t'aime (Paris, I love you). It's a collection of eighteen short films, each one directed by a famous director and each in a different neighborhood of Paris, all exploring some theme of love. Well, it was spectacular. I feel like we were the perfect audience for this movie... we were able to laugh with the Parisians in the theater at all the idiosyncrasies of life in Paris (how native I felt!). At the same time, a lot of the films explored being an expatriate, or some another kind of outsider, in Paris, and I could totally feel for those, as well. The last one (and the one set in my neighborhood!) involved a middle-aged American woman's dream vacation in Paris, and the happy-sad way it feels to be here sometimes, especially when you are alone... I almost cried. I feel like she was talking for me. I won't try to summarize that part of the movie because it will just sound silly but seriously... it meant a lot to me. I don't think I would have thought as highly of the movie if I saw it at home, but the context of watching it here left me completely moved. I left the theater wanting to see it again, right away! I will certainly have to buy it.

:: Remember Le Queen, the famous Paris club that had shunned us when we tried to go last time? Well, I found another batch of free passes, so Vicky, Silvia and I got ourselves beautiful and decided to give it another go. Seriously, we looked good... I felt very glam walking down the Champs-Elysees. Anyhow, we got there, and praise the lord, they let us in. Imagine our surprise when we found that nobody in the damn place was remotely dressed up! It was all jeans and t-shirts... so I guess we didn't need to impress them after all. Well, whatever. It was really fun... my first trashy Euroclub experience! It was nineties night, so because of the pop culture void that was my childhood I didn't recognize that many songs, but it was still a good time. We danced ourselves silly.

Well, I guess I should go do my homework and cleaning. Thanks for reading yet another entry, and au revoir!

Oh man, grab a snack and put up your feet, because this entry is going to be a long one! I haven't posted in a while because I just got back from a week-long trip through the south of France. Yes, a week; is this for real? Do I actually live a life now where I can take a week-long vacation in the middle of school? Yes. The answer is yes. I am so lucky.

Here, in convenient city-by-city form, is what we did.

BORDEAUX was the first stop on our glorious trip, though it must be said, our arrival in the city was kind of an anti-climax. We had come, of course, for the wine; the city is the center of the Bordeaux-producing region. But the city itself doesn't have much to offer. Supposedly it has a lovely old town, but all we saw were sleepy, tattered neighborhoods, and a fairly dull downtown. It looked like the training-wheels version of Paris -- similar nineteenth century feel, but much smaller and much less interesting. Whatever, no big deal, except that when we got to the city's Office de Tourisme we discovered that we had missed the day's wine tour... by ten minutes. All wine activity is far away from the city itself, scattered over the surrounding countryside, so it's not like we could just hop over to a vineyard or something. The people there were not too helpful, but told us to come back at 2:30, when the "wine expert" would be around. We sat outside, staring at the dull city around us, thinking this was a pretty unfortunate start to our trip.

But then our luck changed. The wine expert turned out to be extremely nice and unbelievably helpful. In five minutes on the phone, she arranged a personal (yes!) tour and tasting for us, at some château reachable by bus. It cost barely a fraction of what the official tour would have been and sounded amazing. We couldn't thank her enough. And indeed, the tour was amazing. The owner of the château (a beautiful mansion on a rolling pastoral estate, although she called it a "small" château -- ha!) took us around the cave and wine cellars, and at the end let us pick a bottle to try. It was very informal, and was just the four of us -- this really was looking into some family's home and business! So cool. The owner let us wander around the grounds afterward and it was exactly my image of rural France: vineyards, green fields, an abandoned barn covered in overgrowth, little outbuildings, lush and verdant. We had a great time.

So Bordeaux, in the end, was pretty cool. We had a hurried dinner in town and then got on our overnight train to...

MARSEILLE. I loved Marseille. But I don't get to talk about that yet, because after arriving in Marseille at 5:30 in the morning we left immediately for...

AVIGNON. What a lovely little city! I have compulsively read Peter Mayle's travel books about Provence, and Avignon brought them to life for me. It had everything I was expecting... colorful little houses, crumbling medieval walls, rolling countryside, lush vegetation, canals, generally overwhelming picturesqueness. It was lovely to look at, but that's really all you can do in a place like that, so we left after a few hours for...

ARLES. Somehow I found Arles less charming than Avignon. It had the same Provençal character, plus a handful of Roman ruins thrown in, but it seemed kind of dusty and forgotten to me. The big draw here is Van Gogh's legacy; it was in this town that he painted "Night Café" and "Starry Night," among many other works. It's also where the famous and unfortunate ear incident happened; lucky visitors go to see the insane asylum where he was subdued. Alas, time was short for us, so we contented ourselves with the original Night Café and a garden mimicking another painting of his (although this garden's fountain was clogged, digustingly, with dozens of dead snails).

We returned to MARSEILLE and immediately got a hotel. Remember, we had been on the go by this point for a long time (two days, with a night on the train), so having a hotel room seemed impossibly luxurious. We had a delicious dinner that night, but slept a lot, too... we had earned it after the train! The next day was our chance to explore Marseille. It's kind of a grimy city, with graffiti and litter everywhere, plus messy construction sites on every corner, but it's completely beguiling anyhow. The whole place is a bright Mediterranean port city, with narrow little streets, pastel houses, white shutters, the works. It's also cosmopolitan and cheap compared to Paris -- finding a place to eat was never a problem.

Our big adventure in Marseille was supposed to be a visit to the island Château d'Îf, a grim fortress drifting offshore from the port, and the prison in Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo, but the Island was somehow closed, so we were denied that pleasure. I wasn't sad about that, though, because it gave us plenty of time to poke around Marseille's charismatic streets. We also climbed to Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, a zebra-striped church on top of Marseille's tallest hill... we almost died on our climb, especially because it was quite windy, but the views were worth it.

No matter where we were, the city felt so alive... the pretty little towns we'd been to previously (and the Riviera we'd visit in the next couple of days) sometimes seemed like living, overpriced postcards... flat and substanceless. Marseille had heft. It felt real and alive, which I appreciated. It was definitely my favorite stop on our trip.

The next morning, we said farewell to Marseille and hopped on a train to CANNES, of film festival fame. By the time we got there it was sunny and warm -- perfect weather for the French Riviera! Because, everything else aside, Cannes is still a seaside town, and it's quite nice on a summery day. We actually didn't spend much time in Cannes, leaving the city itself for a nearby island which my guidebook recommended, the Isle St.-Marguerite, ten minutes away by ferry. We bought sandwiches on the island and had a picnic on the beach, overlooking the Mediterranean. Beach is not quite the right word... we actually ate on a rocky promontory, overlooking the sea, with forests behind us (the Island is miraculously undeveloped). It was fine for picnicking, but when we tried to go swimming we found out this wasn't the best place. Below the water were algae-covered rocks, sharp and slippery; Silvia, Vicky and I foolishly tried to press in, and Vicky and I actually made it out to the deep water. Swimming was fun, and lovely; I couldn't believe I was in the Mediterranean! But then when we got out we began to feel... not quite right. It turns out we'd all gotten various wounds from the rocks, and painful ones at that! It was almost comical. Silvia was leaving footprints of blood on the rocks, Vicky had what looked like black seedpods in her foot, and I had a cut on my big toe which was giving me -- I kid you not -- the most excruciating pain of my entire life. It was almost unbearable. Mostly because of my complaining, we bundled ourselves together and got the hell off the Island... I honestly thought I might need an emergency room or something! But the pain subsided by the time we got to the mainland. Turns out Cannes itself has a normal beach, sandy and soft, where we collapsed for some rest after that ordeal. I'm still glad we went to the Island, though... after all, how often will I be able to say I picnicked on an island in the Mediterranean?

After rehabilitating on the beach in Cannes we hopped on a train to NICE. Based on my guidebook's recommendation, we had called a hotel and booked a room for four, and so we set out from the train station expecting a nice little place like our lovely one in Marseille. Well. Let me tell you, this is why guidebooks can't be trusted. Our "hotel" was actually a hostel, and a dingy one at that; we had a room, yes, but with iron bunk beds and barren pink mattresses, and a shower and a sink behind a curtain (not a door!) but no toilet. We looked at each other and knew we had to get the hell out. The owner was not pleased, but thankfully our credit card hadn't gone through (not that the owner should have rung it up before we got there anyhow!), so it didn't matter, and we just kind of left. There were tons of hotels around that area, so we found a four-person room in a two-star hotel with real beds, a real bathroom, towels, and everything else for the SAME PRICE as the hostel. I was so relieved we got to change! What a nightmare that would have been....

Anyhow, we didn't actually spend much time in Nice. The next day, Monday, was a big exploration day for us... our first stop was MONACO, famed mini-country and playground of the rich. It was honestly the most horrible place I have ever been in my life. Hot, crowded, and unpleasant, I can think of nothing I liked about it. Sure, it has a nice setting, but it's built-up like a shopping mall... ugly and characterless. Sure, it's on the Riviera. But there's no beach! Just vacant streets and yachts. The main feature of public life is apparently parking garages; one has to pass through them to get anywhere. And getting anywhere, incidentally, is challenging; crossing the Porsche-clogged streets is a chore, especially for us, because we were there as they were setting up for the Monaco Grand Prix. And the rich... my God, the rich... let me summarize my irritation by pointing out that all day I was looking for an ATM, and couldn't find my bank, and finally did toward the end of the day... but instead of a normal branch it was a "private banking" site for the rich with nothing to offer me! I was disgusted. Monaco has no charming streets, no restaurant districts, no beautiful architecture; everything seems artificial and tacky, despite the vast embarrassment of wealth that underpins it all. I have never been happier to leave a place.

The Italian town of VENTIMIGLIA would be lovely anywhere, but arriving there after a day in terrible Monaco made it even better. Yes, I said Italy; it's the first town over the border, and French trains go there, so we thought, why not go to Italy for dinner? The town is small and charming, everything I hoped the French riviera would be... a quiet (though rocky) beach, a dense clutter of honey-colored buildings, palm trees, a promenade, etc. The quiet was the best part... although it was obviously a tourist town, there weren't many tourists. It was also a novelty because the tourist parts of town all catered to French-speakers instead of English-speakers (it's an exotic little day trip for people from the South of France), so we felt more French than American, at least in the eyes of the Italians. Anyhow, all we wanted to do was eat, though we did spend some happy time staring at the beach; but we had gelato (delicious!) and a long, lingering dinner right on the beach, overlooking the sunset. It was one of the most magical meals of my life. It totally erased the dirty feeling of Monaco from my mind.

After dinner, we made our way to the train station to catch our train back to Nice. When we got there there was an Italian word none of us recognized on the train schedule, something like "soppresso," which didn't sound good. We approached the guard and had a conversation in French with him in which he explained that the word meant the train wasn't running. "Comment?" we gasped, and he explained that the French trains were having a strike. Well, as you can imagine, this was slightly stressful to us, as we weren't even in the same country as our hotel. In the end we had to take a 100-euro cab ride back to Nice. Although crossing the border in a taxi was a novel experience, and made me feel rich and famous for some reason, paying was not so fun. But, what can you do? We assumed the strikes were because of the elections that had happened the night before (we saw burning dumpsters on our way to our hotel, so apparently not everyone was excited by Sarkozy's election!), so chalked it up to experience and left it at that.

And finally, NICE, and the end of our trip. I didn't really have high hopes for Nice. In fact, I expected it to be a sightly poorer version of Monaco -- a shopping mall by the sea. But in the end, Nice had a lot to offer. The town is charming, and we had delicious ice cream and sandwiches in the course of the day, all among the colorful buildings and narrow streets. The big draw is, of course, the beach. It is neither sand nor slabs of rocks, but pebbles, which are actually more comfortable than they sound. We spent almost the whole day at the beach, swimming and sun-bathing. This was the first time I've ever had a really nice day at the beach, and I loved it! The water was an impossible turquoise color, and warmer than I expected, and the rocks were better for lying than I could have hoped. It was a great way to end our trip, and the appropriate mental preparation for the sometimes-trying experience of the overnight train back to Paris.

Yes; the end. Have you made it this far? I have a couple more comments before signing off.

:: One of the biggest treats of the trip was having a TV in Marseille and watching European music videos at night before we went to sleep! We found some treasures, including the remix of "Beautiful Liar" and a French R&B song called "Ma Soeur." The TV also planted that one Gwen Stefani song and the Nelly Furtado / Timbaland / Justin Timberlake star vehicle "Give It to Me" in our heads for the rest of the trip.

:: Four is so the perfect number for traveling. From train seats facing each other to hotel rooms to more subtle group dynamics, I highly recommend.

:: I can't decide whether the trains of France are wonderful or awful. The service is frequent and relatively cheap, and got us where we wanted to go (expect for the notable exception of the strike!). But there were some exceptions, especially with the overnight trains. For instance, the bathrooms were somewhat primitive... we were lucky if they even had running water, and soap? Don't even think about it! We also had a crazy man on the train with us for the eleven grueling hours from Nice to Paris. He kept lurching through the aisle, an awful trail of BO drifting behind him, and approached us at least twice to mumble something about gâteau -- cake. That was kind of a long night, I must admit, especially because I had a full day of class starting an hour after our early morning arrival back in Paris!

:: Speaking of Paris, being away made us realize two things: how expensive Paris is, and how unfriendly its people really are. I say that with love, of course. But it's true... everywhere else, people would be nice to us in a way that they aren't in Paris, waiters and tourist office people and our hotel clerks and stuff like that, but others as well. People on the street would offer to help us find things, for instance, or the people next to us in the restaurant would laugh at our gaffes in a nice way, asking where we were from. None of us even remembered how to be nice, so we just stalked past the people who tried to be friendly, realizing later that they were probably actually nice and not creepy. Oh dear... Paris has worked its mean little self into our veins....

:: Also along those lines, people were willing to speak French to us, which was a refreshing change from the impatient Parisians, who switch to English often (just to spite us, we feel)....

:: We had vowed to try local delicacies in every place we visited (cheese or wine or pastries or whatever), but kept being thwarted by closed shops or other obstacles so that we only did so (beside the Bordeaux in Bordeaux) in Marseille, and hated the candy we tried (it's lavender flavored chocolate, which is as ghastly as it sounds).

:: I do have to indulge in some verbal food pornography for the better meals we had. Among its many charms, Marseille was great for eating. The meal we had our first night there was one of the best I've had in France, and the waitress was very nice, explaining what dishes were (in French!). That whole region has a strong Italian influence on its food, so there was delicious pasta, creamy sauce with mushrooms in my case. I also had an onion tart with that meal which was definitely the best appetizer I've had here. Oh, we also tried pear liqueur, which was unbelievably strong! Order aperitifs with caution.... Oh, we also had Lebanese cuisine in Marseille, also delicious. And I must single out the ice cream from Nice that I already mentioned, which was so great because of the odd variety of flavors... I had spice cake, chocolate gingerbread, and honey pine nut. The first two were wonderful, though the third was a little weird. Still. Parisian ice cream would never come in whimsical flavors like that, so it was a big treat.

I guess that's it. If you read this far, you are my hero, and I thank you for being patient and interested. Already adventures in Paris are piling up, so look forward to another entry soon! And before I close, I do have to say thanks to Nafis, Vicky, and Silvia, who were absolutely wonderful traveling companions. I can't believe how compatible we were, and how much fun I had, and how we managed to laugh and enjoy ourselves, even after, for instance, cumulative days of train travel. En fait, you guys are splendid.

With that, I will say au revoir and à bientôt!

Today I finally saw one of the sights of Paris I've always wanted to see: the famous prostitutes of the Bois de Boulogne!

Today, May 1, is a national holiday in France... this is, after all, a proudly socialist nation (or at least, in theory), so the worker's holiday is a big deal. No one works, and most businesses (except for a fair number of restaurants) are closed. People buy flowers (I smelled my favorite, lily of the valley, for the first time since I came to Stanford!), and everyone fills the streets to enjoy pleasantly pastoral activities like walks and picnics. Actually, there was also a huge rally today for Segolene Royal which must have drawn thousands... I know this because it was held at a stadium right next to my dorm. There were vast throngs of people in the street heading to the rally when I finally got out of my dorm room today. The election is coming up fast... I'm excited. I do love a good election.

But not being French, and being self-centered in any case, I did not do the educational thing and go to the rally. Instead, we went for a picnic in the Bois de Boulogne. This is an enormous park on the trim western border of Paris. Actually, it's more a woodland than a park... lots of untamed nature, very Romantic, in that nineteenth-century-British-landscape-painter way. We only saw the tiniest corner of it (it's enormous... almost three times bigger than Central Park) but had a great time tramping over the little woodland paths, among streams and brambly patches and stuff like that. We did visit a particularly lovely part of the Bois, the Parc des Bagatelles, a walled-in "Anglochinois" garden with swans and peacocks roaming around. But, in typical French fashion, at the stroke of eight police came through with whistles and shooed us out of the park before we could see everything we wanted. Oh well... a good reason to return.

Anyhow, the prostitutes. Maybe because it's located in a rich and prosperous part of Paris, the Bois is known for becoming somewhat... entrepreneurial at night. I seem to remember a part of The DaVinci Code involving prostitutes in this park (though God only knows what that had to do with the mysteries of Jesus), and my guidebook mentions the particularly celebrated Brazilian transvestites who work the park at night. For such a reputation, the place seemed tame by daylight -- children, miniature trains, the whole family-friendly deal. But then -- we left right as the sun was setting, picking our way down one of the park's principal roads, chatting about this and that... and our conversation stopped dead when we saw our first prostitute! She was standing in a little wooded glade beside the road, all legs and short pink dress, running a comb through her long hair. And then we saw more. Maybe they sleep in the forest by day and emerge like lemurs in the night. But they were definitely prostitutes. I don't know if they were man or woman, Brazilian or not... but prostitutes, yes. The funniest part was being there right at sunset, as the two worlds of the Bois collided, families with children walking right past seductive, vacant-eyed "ladies of the night."

Enough of that. I have been doing much more than prostitute-watching in Paris. Last week I realized with some alarm that I haven't been taking advantage of the pass I have from Stanford for entry into all Parisian museums, so I've been to several in the past few days. First of all, I went to the Louvre and finally saw some of the more famous works, including the Mona Lisa. God, everyone says it, but I have to as well... what a disappointment. Or, maybe not a disappointment, but a mystery, at least. Why so famous? Why does it merit a slew of guards and an enormous wall all to itself? It certainly isn't much to look at, comparatively. The whole Louvre makes me feel that way... I just have trouble relating to a lot of the art on display there.

But I went to the Musée de l'Orangerie, a place I've wanted to go this whole time, and found it to be fantastic -- small and manageable and full of interesting works. The museum specializes in the era bridging Impressionism and Modern art, and that includes some of my favorite painter, Matisse. Turns out it includes a lot more, as well... I discovered an artist I'd never heard of but whose work I found especially compelling, Chaim Soutine. The Museum's most celebrated installation is a 360-degree panoramic presentation of some Monet water lily paintings, which are pretty dazzling if you like that kind of thing. Anyhow, this musée totally lived up to my expectations. Hooray.

Yesterday I went to the modern art museum at the Centre Pompidou, probably Paris's most controversial building. This is the one that's turned inside out, with all the pipes and other infrastructure painted in primary colors and put on the outside. I personally like it, and enjoyed the chance to see the building from the inside. And what an art museum! Seriously, this is what I relate to -- Matisse, my favorite, but all the others, too. And what a setting. The museum is on the fourth and fifth floors of the building, so the large windows and terraces offer sweeping views of Paris. Another great museum. Hooray again! And all this for free... "oui, je suis étudiant en histoire de l'art" ... that little line, coupled with my letter from Stanford is pretty much my mantra these days.

On Sunday I finally did something I've wanted to do since arriving: taking a good long walk. I set out from my dorm without a clear destination and just made my way around the city. Paris is a great place to do something like that, so I had a good time. It surprised me how well I could navigate the Left Bank, my part of the city -- familiar sights (or at least names) kept popping up. That makes me pretty happy if I'm getting to know Paris. There were also some dramatic sights. The afternoon was threatening rain, and I saw some trees dropping pink flowers like raindrops as thunder boomed in the distance... quite a sight. Later, though, I got caught in the rain, which was less poetic and more annoying. It poured like it hasn't since I've been here, though I didn't mind that much -- I've gotten so used to seeing Paris in bright sunshine that seeing its moodier side was kind of a treat.

One last story to tell -- don't judge! So we went to this hookah bar we've been to a couple of times. It's a really nice environment, friendly and calm, reasonable, a good place to hang out for a few hours. Of course we got hookah. We decided, however, to try a new flavor -- the one that sounded exotic and (to me) delicious, "miel" -- honey. When we ordered it, however, the waiter kind of looked at us. He told us that it was "trop fort" -- very strong. We thought nothing of it and ordered it anyhow. He brought it and it looked nothing like any hookah we'd seen before. And when we tasted it, we could hardly stand how strong it was and how unexpectedly difficult it was to get the smoke down. We didn't taste any honey. And after a few hits we looked at each other and said, "Something feels different about this...." I will spare you all the details, but let me tell you -- this was no ordinary hookah. We all felt... well, almost high. Can you guess where this is leading? So, being nerdy students, we of course went online later that night and looked it up. Sure enough, "honey" and "miel" aren't only what they really are, but also refer to hash... so we accidentally had hashish in our hookah! Oh man... it was, I think, one of the funnier surprises that Paris has brought me.

Those were the big adventures of the last few days. Now I have my "long" day of class tomorrow, and then we leave for our fabulous tour of France the next day! I am dying of excitement. So no updates for a little bit... but thank you for reading this one. Bisoux!

If only "Hung Up" rang true in Paris. Alas, time does not go by so slowly, and I find myself feeling mournful that it's almost week five, almost May, especially because I'll be traveling three weekends next month. Even though I'm excited to see more of Europe it means time in Paris is growing precious. Quel dommage! To console myself I have gotten a delicious (though 5-euro! Oh, the price of happiness...) double-café and, as the French would say, "installed myself" at a lovely café with wireless. We discovered it a few nights ago. Anyhow, to console myself further, and to make Paris seem less wonderful in my head, let me indulge in a list of Things The French Simply Don't Understand.

:: Scarves are no longer appropriate attire when the weather's in the eighties. I don't care how eurotrashy you want to be. No.

:: I thought the Age of Rollerblades was happily behind us, but not in France; everyone's always rolling down the rues on skates. I've even seen people wearing them on the métro and rolling between trains, as ludicrous as that sounds.

:: Cold coffee drinks can be delicious. But no, coffee is always hot in France (well, never quite hot; closer to lukewarm). I can't even tell you how much I'm craving a Frappuccino as the temperatures climb higher and higher! But I've sworn I won't go to Starbuck's more than once, and that the one time will be sometime after week six, and only if I really need it. Considering how unbearably hot it already is I probably will, though.

:: If I want to do my laundry at three in the morning I should be able to, dammit! What's the point of having laundry machines sit idle and useless for ten hours a day? What's the point, indeed, of pretending that France goes to sleep at 12:30 when the amount of people around each night clearly shows otherwise?

:: I am capable of buying eyedrops. I do not need to have a long, involved conversation (broken French on my end and broken English on his) with the Pharmacien about the dryness of my eyes. Seriously, France. Similarly, I don't need help picking out medicine. Maybe if I'm really sick. But I should be able to breeze into the store and get some Day-Quil if I want it.

:: Littering is not cool. Seriously. What a strange contrast! Here the lights and showers are on timers and the people supposedly care about the environment, but French people leave litter behind like Hansel and Gretl leave bread crumbs. They also seem to think that the space between the subway platform and the subway is an appropriate place for their garbage.

That's just the beginning. They can be a puzzling people! I am still shocked by how different France feels. I just assumed rich Western cultures were fairly homogeneous, but being here feels much more foreign than I ever thought it would.

All that aside, I'm obviously still having a wonderful time. Paris has many good qualities, and I still think its physical beauty is enough to make me forgive all its sins. The French, too, are more good than bad. There are many things I think they do better than any other country, and I've had enough nice interactions with French people. For example, my friends and I went on Wednesday to the train station to buy tickets for our upcoming trip through France (more on that later! Get excited for that blog entry :D) and the man at the ticket counter sat with us for literally forty minutes helping us plan. He was incredibly nice, even though it was obvious we were complete fools; he played with the tickets and stops to make it much cheaper for us (doing things like booking one segment as a long trip with a layover instead of two separate trips) and spoke French, even though his name tag said he spoke English, too. I think he found us amusing, and a little ridiculous. But better than finding us annoying! We all laughed a lot. It was more fun than buying train tickets should be.

Dammit, now look at me, making the French look good again! I need to console myself more. Time for some gelato.

À bientôt, beloved readers!

I stayed in a castle this weekend!

Yes, somewhat ridiculous to throw that out there right away, but I have to. When else in my life am I going to be able to say that? Probably never. So there it is. And let me tell you, I damn well deserved a castle this weekend. Last week kind of sucked. I won't bore you with the details. I just had real work to do, serious work, and it totally was not fun. I'm not in Paris to work!

We did actually have one fantastic adventure last week. Madame Bing sent us all to the ballet, which was lots of fun -- Prokofiev's Cendrillon (Cinderella) in the Opéra Garnier, the famously ornate opera house that inspired The Phantom of the Opera (the real version of that notorious crashing chandelier was right over our heads!). I've never seen a ballet before (besides The Nutcracker) and I enjoyed it more than I thought I might... the music was elegant and evocative, and the story, though confusing (why is the fairy godmother a movie director / pilot? why are there 12 men in red thongs running around?), was surprisingly entertaining. Also, the Opéra Garnier is an extremely satisfying place to see and be seen. Just sweeping down the grand staircase in our evening finery was fun.

Beyond that, though, it was just a matter of waiting for the interminable week to finish and our fun adventures to begin. This weekend was our Bing trip (if anyone doesn't know, Madame Bing pays for every overseas program to take some crazy trip each quarter) and we went to the Loire Valley region of France, a flat and garden-like region filled with calm rivers and yellow flowers, as well as the kind of villages you expect France to have (I felt like Belle in Beauty and the Beast! Little town... it's a quiet village....). The region is also the heart of France's château country, where the nobles all built their elaborate palaces as the Italian Renaissance drifted northward.

We stayed in one of these châteaux, and it was by far the coolest place I have ever stayed. It really was a castle, perched up on top of a hill, with wisteria draped all over its gray walls. Being a castle, each room was unique -- one was in the former stables; one was a former outbuilding; one was literally in a cave where the chateau's wine must have been aged at one point; and ours was pretty much the penthouse suite, a grand antechamber looking out over the entire Loire Valley and the beds in a round turret room. I can't even believe I slept in a turret. And somehow this is school....

Anyhow, that was the first of several châteaux we visited. Each one was absolutely ridiculous in its ornateness; I feel like I understand why the French Revolution happened when the wealthy were rich like this. Each one has some outrageous gimmick. Chenonceau straddles a river; Amboise contains, for some reason, the grave of Leonardo da Vinci; Chambord is the largest of all and yet was only inhabited for five weeks before the king grew bored with it. They are lovely, but somewhat exhausting; they are such a strange blend of opulence and discomfort that I find them hard to take. But I am glad I got to see them. My favorite part of the châteaux visits, however, came with our free afternoon at Chambord. That château occupies a huge estate with lots of rivers and forests and other natural wonders. For a treat, we got to go rowing on the river. It was so patrician, but so wonderful! Imagine a warm afternoon, sitting on a rowboat, lazily rowing, with one of France's largest castles there in the background, slipping in for a quick swim and then drying in the comfortable sun... I can't even tell you how lovely it was.

Bing trips are supposed to have delicious meals, but only one of ours was really great, a Saturday night dinner we had at our château. (Vegetarian menu: asparagus almond soup, pasta with fresh vegetables, and an astonishing dessert including wine sorbet and white chocolate mousse, all accompanied by fresh bread and local wines). But we got to go to a cave for wine and cheese tasting on Saturday afternoon, which was amazing. The Loire Valley is known for its wine, and Madame Bing chose a pretty classy place for us... the cheese was prize-winning and the wines were too, I think. At any rate, I felt like I became a better smarmy person because this visit actually did increase my appreciation for wine. We had three glasses each, but they were all the "same" wine, just from different years (one was forty years old!). I couldn't believe how different they were! I also discovered that Comte cheese is unutterably delicious. We were encouraged to take this seriously and try all three kinds of cheese with all three kinds of wine to discover the best combinations, which was as fun as it sounds.

As classy as that was, we had a totally unclassy experience to balance it out on Saturday night. During the day some people had walked to the river by our château for a swim and said it was nice; for some reason, Vicky, Nafis, Silvia, and I convinced ourselves that going to the river in the middle of the night would be even better. Imagine the scene... the totally dark countryside, more stars overhead than I've ever seen, and us picking our way through paths, gravel, roads, and railroad tracks, pretty much in total darkness, and scaring ourselves senseless when some dog started barking at us. It was kind of a dumb decision. But we did make it, and hacked open the bottle of wine we'd brought with a hotel key (don't judge, I forgot my beloved corkscrew) and enjoyed it. We also tried to go swimming. Now imagine that scene... total darkness, a steep bank, slippery rocks underfoot, uncertainly-dirty mud squishing between our toes as we try to pick our way into this river. And because we were near a bridge the water was only ankle-deep! So no swimming for us. But we waded, at least, and all got stabbed by some ferocious stinging plant on the way out of the water. It was a good adventure.

But now I am back in Paris. It's been a weird day... I will spare everyone the details, but let's just say it involved a crazy man accosting us in the garden, being robbed by the school for deaf-mutes, a stressful project involving interviewing the French about the election (which has actually been really interesting to observe! But not to ask people about), our host school somehow transforming into a 1920's Chicago speakeasy in décor (this doesn't make any sense even with the whole story), and me getting the start of a cold. But I did go the Louvre and stumble around a little with my pass, which was nice -- I only saw a teeny corner of it, French Neoclassical sculpture, but enjoyed it a lot. As strange as this may sound it gave me a new appreciation of feet. I hate feet and think they're awful, but the marble feet on every statue, with their veins and supple cruves, were surprisingly elegant.

And now I'm here, having just gone grocery shopping, and ready for some dinner. So, with that, I will bid you adieu! I feel like this was an excessively long entry as always, so thanks if you trudged through to the end.