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!