Uhm, what's school?

Someone once told me when I was young and impressionable that your life is as complicated as your keychain. I don’t remember who it was, but I really agree with that. I have three keys on my keychain here in France – one for my green bag-locks, one for my blue bag-locks, and one for the apartment I’m staying in; so I really only ever use one. I go to class, I get assignments, and that’s my only obligation. I’ve never had so much freedom in my life. I hope I use it wisely!

Classes started this week, and they’re going to be challenging I think. My translation course in particular is going to wring me dry, but I think it’ll be a good thing. I have nothing else to do really but study, for my keychain is barren.

My fashion class will also be challenging. I’ve always been floundering when it came to fashion, and my vocabulary in French (let alone English) in regards to the latest Louis Vuitton line just doesn’t cut it compared to the others. Watch out errbody, I’m gonna be oh-so-stylish when I return!

My African Lit. course has a lot of reading (which is also a good thing), and I’m supplementing it well with the Autobiography of Malcom X.

I’m in another class called “Les Lieux de Memoire” which means “places of memory”, which really means “field trips to the coolest monuments in Paris”. We saw Victor Hugo’s tomb in the bowels of the Pantheon this past Thursday. No biggie.

I’m also in a Nouvelle Vague class, French New Wave cinema, which will be focusing on two producers who were husband and wife. Their names escape me at the moment, but I’m sure by the end of the semester I’ll know them all too well.

In addition to this rigorous school schedule, I’ve offered my services to a local co-op, and I couldn’t be more excited. I gave my telephone number to the owner of this little place called Le Moulin a Café (under the advice of my host mom Renee), and I will hopefully be getting a call soon so I can start preparing food, organizing activities, and washing dishes at the darling cultural establishment. It’s a type of restaurant-thing with daily activities for adults and kids. The food is ridiculously low priced, and everyone seems really nice (Renee took me there yesterday to check it out, she wanted to try to get me a show there). Little did she know I spent my afternoon looking for a place to volunteer… it worked out perfectly! I feel like I just gave my number to some boy and I’m eagerly awaiting the first call (don’t worry Carl, the owner was a woman).

On a side note, I still haven’t been to the Eiffel Tower. I’ve seen it from afar, but I haven’t gotten close. I think I’m the only one in our group who didn’t rush to it the first change they got. I just figure I’m going to be here for a while, and I’ll probably see a lot of it in the next four months.

chez moi, chez moi!

Too much happens in a city too quickly. Unless one has a notebook at hand 24/7, it’s easy to forget that one is forgetting by not writing things down. I’ve been in Paris for a little over a week and it feels like it’s gone by in two days – but then again it seems like I’ve done three weeks worth of sight-seeing and navigating the cite as well (pictures of said places are scattered throughout this post).

I’m finally out of the FIAP, the Foyer International d’Accueil de Paris (a.k.a. international-dorm/hostel-thing-with-loud-old-people-and-louder-young-people). As much as I enjoyed the dorm-like cafeteria meals and the wine that came out of an orange-juice dispenser, I’m pretty ecstatic about eating drinkable yogurt on the way to class and having my host-mom cook traditional French meals for me twice a week. I never did experience the full-on dorm life in college, but I’m pretty sure a week at the FIAP gave me a good idea of how a freshman dorm would have been, and I’m confident now more than I’ve ever been in my choice of living with a crazy person in Chicago my freshman year (for those of you who don’t know that story, she really needed that padded room, for serious).

I taxied my way to my host family’s apartment on Sunday with butterflies in my stomach and sweaty little palms. I called my host mom before the taxi came (her name is Madame Renée Filatre), and she said she was working, so her son was going to meet me at her apartment instead. She sounded absolutely delightful.

I climbed out of the taxi with a line of little euro-cars behind me, honking for my yellow cab to get out of the way. I felt bad for a split second that I was making them wait as I helped the driver yank my oversized suitcase and guitar out of the trunk, but then I remembered it was their own fault for living in a place with such tight roads. They should be used to it. Patience is a virtue, is it not?

I pressed 33 AP on the intercom and a man’s voice said, “oui oui, je descends” (I’m coming down), and that was the moment that Paris really began.

I was taken by a twenty-something young man (maybe early thirty-something actually) named Jean-Francois to his mother’s apartment on the 6th floor of a very tall building. The halls smelled of musty France(a fine mix of cologne and B.O.), but it was inviting enough. I was steered to the very end of the hallway, to a forest green door with a thatched mat in front. Jean-Francois wiggled a key around in the lock, and immediately upon opening, a tiny little curly-haired grey dog came leaping at my hands with his tongue searching for a taste. His name is Norbert.

The apartment is a cute little 4 piece with a balcony that looks over a peaceful courtyard in the center of the mass of buildings on this block. It’s absolutely covered with pots and flowerboxes full of soil and almost-living plants. I can’t wait to see what the little terrace looks like when the ground thaws completely and the flowers start to bloom! How romantic in Paris, being surrounded by flowers.

The kitchen is modern with appliances and heavy cook-ware tucked into the cleverest of places. People really know how to make good use of their space here in Europe. The living room has wooden floors, two couches and a rocking chair, lots of books and CD’s to match, and a 4-place table for dinning at. Just a few steps around the corner down the hall is where my darling space is situated. My room has a double or maybe full sized bed (I can never tell the difference, I just know it’s big and comfy and I can pretend to make snow angels on it without hanging my limbs off the sides). There is a nightstand to each side of the bed, one is used to hold some of my belongings while the other is a mini desk where I sit and write blog entries. There’s a computer console in the right side of the closet, and space on the left for me to put whatever I can shove in there. Out my window I can see other tall buildings, and almost half of the Eiffel Tower! The lights on it at night are ever-so-glamorous ;)

I had lunch with Jean-Francois, and spent the afternoon reading and writing a bit. When I finally met Mme Filatre, I couldn’t have been more pleased. She is an absolutely adorable lady. She’s très chic (I think she works in retail, fashion perhaps), she’s got the cutest sea-foam green glasses with square frames, and the bubbliest of bubbly personalities. She seems genuinely happy that I’m here to stay for a while, which is so wonderful to be on the receiving end of. She's made this apartment a wonderful home for vagabond students such as myself, and for that I’m sure all of those who have came here before me and all those who come after are more than grateful.

glass pyramids and pickpockets

Yesterday we started off with a nice little meeting on safety and health here in Paris. We were lectured for about an hour on the dangers of being inebriated in public since we're loud and obnoxious by nature just from being Americans. The next hour was dedicated to warnings of the interworkings of the pickpocketing world, how they work exactly, who they target, how YOU can be a victim ever-so-easily.

We were then taken to the area most trafficked by pickpoketers, to test what we learned that morning: The Louvre. Tourist central. Pickpocket heaven. They threw us to the sharks, but this is a happy story I tell from France, and I can attest to the fact that we all came out alive.

We were sheparded around the Louvre by one of the professors we will be taking classes from. He was very informative, and took us to all the "hidden treasures" of the museum. We didn't see the Monna Lisa (it has two n's, I never knew that until I saw the for it sign yesterday), and we didn't see any of the other main pieces, but I think we're all planning on returning to the Louvre at some point so it wasn't an issue. The professor told us about the history of the museum, how it was built, destroyed, rebuilt, how most of the pieces came to it (lots came from when France seized the Church's works of art and gave them to the people through the museum, and he picked a few rooms and sculptures and gave detailed descriptions of the symbolism in the piece and how it changed or was a result of a change in France. I'm taking his class this semester, Romantisme, which I predict from that tour will be very interesting, but a lot of information to sort through in a short amount of time. It'll be good though.

We were free to wander around Paris after our little tour of the Louvre, so a little group of us decided to walk down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. It was a long, commercial walk. It looked like Michigan Avenue. I saw the Louis Vuitton store (but dared not step in until after my Style and Fashion class this semester). Regardless of the overwhelmingly commercial atmosphere, there was this overlying charm and novelty of actually walking from the Louvre through the Jardin des Tuileries to the Arc. I feel like a tourist.

Paris, je t'aime.

We've made it to Paris safe and sound! We're staying at a fine little place called the FIAP. It's most enticing attributes are: shady internet, a bar that closes whenever the guy behind it needs to use the restroom, a plethora of noisy young travellers, pink hallways, bunkbeds, and showers with no curtains. It's a nice little intro to the city, but I'm ready for classes and my host lady and her little dog (hopefully it looks like a cat).

I slept for 18 hours last night at a darling little hotel called L'Hotel Monte Carlo (which had statues of cats everywhere), and I taxied my way to the group at this dorm thing around noon. We checked in our rooms and headed out on the town for some exploring. From our temporary home here in the 14th we walked all the way to the 5th, thinking anything towards the Champs Elysees would be interesting. Oh how we were right. We stumbled upon the cutest side streets with even cuter shops and restaurants. A MacDo was found on a corner with free WiFi (yay!) and we even ran into a Starbucks. Luckily the little french bakeries and cafe's outnumbered anything American, so we can all breathe easy. The coolest sights to be seen so far have been the graffiti. I have many-a-pictures, so don't you worry dear reader, they will be posted in... 5 months :) I'm running out of internet time here, but tomorrow the plans are: THE LOUVRE! Whoooohooo!