The best laid plans.

One quick and easy way to mess up touristing plans is to come down with a really bad cold. Mine hit with full force around 2:30 in the afternoon on Sunday, making the trip to the Mont St. Michel a little less cool than hoped for, and forcing me to cancel my trip to Strasbourg this week. (I did, however, reschedule it for November -- something you can only do over the phone -- and had a pretty good time trying to make myself understood to the customer service representative.) So, I'll be spending my week off recuperating, resting, visiting museums, and trying to keep up with the stream of distressing news coming from the US.

Before I got really sick, though, I had a great time on our trip to Brittany. We took a very cool high-speed train (TGV) out to the northwest, and then a bus to the village of Saint-Malo. It's an old city, more like a fortress, surrounded entirely by thick stone walls and, beyond the walls, the sea. Apparently pirates used to be a big deal at Saint-Malo, but having skipped the trip to the pirate museum, I can't say much more than that. There are several small islands and structures close to Saint-Malo, which are accessible depending on whether or not the tide is in. Here's a view of the city from one of its docks:



After arriving, we all went to a crêperie and had an extravagant lunch. (Crêpe paysanne: proscuitto, tomato, mushroom, cheese, lettuce in a brown-wheat crêpe; crêpe au chocolat: sweet crêpe, chocolate sauce, vanilla ice cream.) When we emerged hours later, my friend Allison and I decided to go explore the beaches and rocks:



Dinner -- also delicious -- was followed by some more wandering. I ended up back on the beach again, enjoying the clear view of the night sky and the stars.

That was probably a bad move, as I realized when I woke up the next morning with a sore throat and stuffy nose. But hey, the trip must go on. We were off to the Mont St. Michel, our double-decker bus swaying perilously in the coastal winds and swerving crazily along France's thinnest, twistiest road. (For many, carsickness ensued.) Worth it, however, for this view:



I spent a few hours walking around the Mont, up and down staircases and narrow paths, coming along unexpected gardens and awesome views. During our group's guided tour of the abbey at the top of the Mont, I got really sick and feverish, so those two hours were particularly torturous. I have no pictures because I was so out of it. But here are two from before then:




On the bus and train rides home, I just tried to keep it together. In France, hardly anything is open on Sundays, partly because of the country's Catholic heritage, and partly because of their stringent employment regulations. While it's inconvenient to, say, have to wait until Monday to stock up on coffee, it's a lot more inconvenient to have to wait to buy medicine. Lesson of French life: Don't get sick on Sunday. Luckily, my host mother, Madame Dupetit, is a wonderful woman who immediately made me tea, gave me medicine, and put me to bed. I spent all of yesterday in my room here, sleeping and periodically attempting to read the Economist. Today I felt well enough to go out into town myself, so I am now reprovisioned with Sudafed, asprin, oranges, and cereal.

So, although things didn't quite work out like I had hoped, on the bright side, I now have an extra two days of relaxation and exploration in Paris!

I hope everything is well with everyone reading at home. I miss you all!

Inscriptions.

They're doing some construction work on the road that I take to get to the subway stop from the apartment, and this morning when I walked by a man was standing up to his knees in concrete, setting it. There's so much to see here, and living in Paris is much less hurried than spending time in New York; people walk slower (sometimes frustratingly slowly), they pause and watch the street around them, groups of friends take up the whole sidewalk while air-kissing goodbye.

As of today, I am finished with Orientation! Tomorrow I, and most of the kids from my program, am heading off for a two-day visit to Bretagne and the Mont St. Michel. I'm pretty excited -- I love train travel and I really love the Mont St. Michel. (When I visited Paris in 2005 with MV, we did a day-trip there.) It's really the last time the whole program will be together, since starting on Monday most people's courses begin, and then we start the business of actually living and studying here.

My courses won't start until October 6, though. I've decided to take a full slate at the Université de Paris 8-Saint Dénis, although given the peculiarities of the French university system, I might be attending up to 27 hours of class the first week. Once I have my schedule all set, I'll post it. Looks like I'll be taking one film course and three literature classes, if all goes as planned! But in my week off, I'll be visiting a high-school friend staying in Strasbourg for a few days, which I'm really looking forward to.

So far, every day has brought an interesting experience of cultural difference. Last night I went out for dinner with a French friend, who had never before eaten schwarma and had never heard of a bagel. (Once I managed to explain the shape, she thought I meant a doughnut. Drawing the distinction between a bagel and a doughnut is surprisingly difficult if you can't remember the word "fried.") And I recently went to a Paris city library branch, at Vaugirard, to try and get a card ("m'inscrire"). This was a frustrating process. First, I couldn't figure out how to open the door -- there was a secret push-button thing! -- and then, once inside, I didn't see a "Inscriptions" sign, so I went and stood in an official-looking line. The librarian was quite perplexed when I asked if I could m'inscrire. "Would you not prefer an inscription for the adult collection?" he asked politely. Why yes, I would prefer an adult library card! He directed me to the right desk, with emphatic hand gestures. I approached this other librarian, an older man with wipsy white hair, and asked if it would be possible to m'inscrire.

"Do you have your passport?" he asked.

Why no, I did not have my passport! He shook his head sadly. He was afraid a passport would be required to obtain a card. Perhaps I could come back another time.

I have a second try penciled in my datebook for Monday.

Until then, I'll be busy exploring the northwest of France. Unless it rains, I should be able to take lots of pictures, so I'll definitely be doing an update next week!

Journées du patrimoine.

Yesterday and Saturday were unbelievably beautiful days in Paris. The weather was beautiful, cool but sunny, with a cloudlessly blue sky. Good weather is in and of itself something to be happy about, but when you are walking around getting to know a city, it's glorious. And this weekend, cities all over France celebrated the "Journées du patrimoine" (something like Cultural Heritage Days): museums were free, monuments open late, fees waved, tours given, and, best of all, special access to buildings normally closed to the public, like the presidential mansion.

So, in the last two days, I've been all over Paris. I've visited eight of the city's twenty districts and memorized a few good chunks of the metro map. Here are some photos from my travels!


This is Père Lachaise cemetery, a huge space on a hill in the 20th Arrondissement. Lots and lots of famous people are buried here -- politicians, artists, writers -- but their graves are suprisingly difficult to find, even with the aid of a map. I think I expected there to be big, flashing red lights and signs saying "Famous Person Here!" But since Père Lachaise still functions as a cemetery today and not a museum, I guess that would not be so great for the non-tourist crowd.

I was also really pleased to be here because it is the site of a very famous scene from a Balzac novel: "À nous deux maintenant!"


We went on a walking tour of the Marais, one of Paris's oldest neighborhoods, and saw a progression of architecture from the medieval to renaissance, ancien regime to 19th century. I have a lot of pictures of this, but here's the coolest one, of a 13th-century building still in use today.


The Eiffel Tower! I went with friends under the assumption that it would be free, on the Journées du patrimoine, to go up to the top. Alas, this was not the case, and there were also about five million tourists there. We took many, many pictures and decided to come back another time.


Across the river from the Eiffel Tower. Hi, it's me!


This is the central debating room of the French Senate. I decided to stop by here at sort of the last minute on Saturday (my feet were pretty tired from walking from the Marais to the Latin Quarter to the Eiffel Tower to the Arc de Triomphe to the Champs-Elysées to the Latin Quarter again) but it was the coolest place I went to. The French Senate is usually closed to the public, which is a shame, because the inside is just incredible. Every room was like this: over-the-top with gilding, molding, sculptures, and painting. The inside of the building glows.

My camera ran out of memory at this point, so I don't have pictures of the other cool stuff in the Senate -- Victor Hugo's outline for the 2nd Republic, Napoleon's throne, the unbelievably amazing Senate library that looks like the library in Beauty and the Beast. I went with a friend, Allison, who did get some pictures, though, so if I might be able to put up at least Napoleon's throne in the next few days. This is probably an obvious thing to say about a piece of furniture designed for Napoleon, but it was small!

I have more pictures and definitely more things to write about, but I must unfortunately head out and get to class. Today my program, CUPA, is taking interested students on a visit this morning to Université de Paris 8-Saint Dénis, and since I am planning on taking all of my classes there, I'm very interested. This week is my last of Orientation (and this weekend we are taking a group trip to Brittany to see the Mont St. Michel!), and despite all of my assignments being due in the next day or two, I'm hoping to have some time to write some longer entries and post some more pictures soon.

Week One.

A week after I arrived in Paris, things are beginning to make sense. I am no longer surprised when my apologetic "Sorry!" doesn't draw a response; maybe next week I'll progress to actually saying "sorry" in French! I'm beginning to get a better feel for the layout of the city, too, occasioned by explorations in several new neighborhoods. And orientation classes at CUPA have proved to be fairly interesting. I have three required classes -- Methodology, Conversation, and Language -- and each lasts two hours with no breaks, conducted entirely in French. If that seems really long, well... it is. But classes at Université de Paris 8, the school I'll most likely take most of my courses at, are three hours long each. So it's good practice!

Outside of orientation, I've had time to do lots of walking around. Some pictures:


The view from my window.


Outside the Tuileries garden on a grey day. The Eiffel Tower is in the background, the Obelisk in the middle, and a Place de Concord statue in the foreground.


This is the Arc gateway to the Louvre. You can sort of see the famous glass pyramid entrance behind the Arc.


Taken from the Left Bank, a view across the Seine. The tower of Notre Dame is just visible above the line of buildings.


The Arène de Lutèce, a Roman circus, one of the oldest structures in Paris.


The view from the top terrace of the Arab Cultural Institute.


This is the side of the Arab Cultural Institute. It's really cool -- there are hundreds of little aluminum shutters that can be open and closed to let in varying amounts of sunlight.


The gardens at the main mosque in Paris, where we had a delicious tea.


Another view of Paris, and the Eiffel Tower, from way up high -- here, from the 20th Arrondissement.

Le quotidien.

Nearing the end of my second full day in Paris, I am still dealing with some terrible jetlag -- too tired to go out but too jetlagged to fall asleep. So far, the trip has been interesting and stressful in about equal parts. I had hardly any problems during my 24 hours of travel, except a shortish delay of my second flight, but since the minute I arrived I've been, as my program's leaders keep saying, "playing the game": packing and unpacking the puzzles of everyday existence here, rearranging the pieces and trying to make some kind of coherent picture.

It's more difficult than I thought it would be. I both under- and overestimated my French language abilities. Two years of writing papers about French literature have left me with a quite sophisticated vocabulary. That vocabulary, however, has been completely useless so far. Constructing a lovely sentence about teleology and transvaluations and the disenchantment of metaphor is all well and good, but at this point it would be better to be able to ask store clerks where the alarm clocks are.

Or, as it turns out, cell phones. Today I went with another girl from my program to buy phones, and I think I bought one too early. I didn't shop around, as the system and rates are really confusing, and now I have a phone plan (which I may be stuck with) utterly unsuited to my needs. Even if I do manage to get a better plan, making phone calls will still be extremely expensive, so I would suggest looking into a Skype account (www.skype.com) if anyone reading wants to contact me.

Orientation classes begin tomorrow and include grammar review, methodology, and visits to the various Parisian universities. Hopefully I'll know what I'm taking and where at the beginning of next week!

My neighborhood and host family are very nice. This evening I went and explored the quartier a little, and it's full of restaurants, brasseries, little shops, bigger shops, and what seems to be a mall/movie theater/elaborate swimming pool. Tomorrow I hope to begin looking around Paris more, and maybe I'll be able to put up some pictures of my travels in a few days.

Small update

I made it to France in one piece! After a few false starts and Franglais attempts to explain "access your WiFi internet connection so that I may check my email," I think I have the internet up and running for my computer at my host family's. Too tired for a long update now, but I wanted to let everyone reading know I am safe and sound and in Paris.