Bookworm

I've been enjoying the last few days of laziness that I can afford this semester. Classes start this upcoming Monday and I'll have class at 9 and 10am until summertime. I am looking forward to bringing this winter break to a close and getting back on a normal schedule. Here's what the next semester is bringing me, tentatively:

-Internship (continuing to work with Bike Friday)
-Women and French Literature (French women authors)
-History of French Cinema
-Translation (English-French/French-English)
-History of Photography
-Painting




Aside from obsessively hashing and rehashing my schedule for the semester, I've been getting a lot of reading done. I finished a wonderful book that I received as a gift in Minneapolis about a woman's journey by bicycle from Ireland to India in 1963. It is called Full Tilt and is written by Dervla Murphy. Most of it is in diary form but it is quite impeccable writing and was very enjoyable to read. Next I started reading the comic strip / graphic novel Persepolis written by Marjane Satrapi and have torn through 2 volumes in the past 24 hours. I can hardly wait to get my hands on the next volume but will have to pause for sleep until I can go to the library to find it tomorrow.

I registered for a library card with Paris' extensive library system and there is a very nice library just a few blocks from my house. They have a large selection of CDs and a fair amount of comic books, so hopefully they will have Persepolis waiting for me.

I went to the national library today with friend John and we visited the "enfer de la bibliotheque" (hell of the library) exhibit, featuring the national library's entire collection of pornographic and otherwise obscene literature and material that have never been on display for the public. Called the hell exhibit because when workers of the library had to go to this section, they told their fellow workers they were "going to hell." It was a fairly comprehensive exhibit of French pornography/erotic art since the 1400s (I don't remember much of anything earlier than that) but it was not really my type of exhibition. The show was only open to people over the age of 16 which was somewhat of a thrill since I am fresh from the days when most everything of interest was banned from my eyes, but now I wish I were spending my time reading comic books and going to see animated films. (I intend on going to see the movie Persepolis soon after I finish reading it!)

In other news, I darned two pair of socks today. One had a small hole in the toe that was easily mendable but the other had a gaping wound to the heel, so I franken-stitched another heel of a sock into the sock to be saved and it feels (and looks) quite lovely. I am only half done with this larger sock mending project as my room got too dark for me to finish.

Tomorrow: Finish Persepolis! (Did I mention that it is written in French?)

Welcome Back

Paris has offered me a very warm welcome upon my return from the States. Compared to the subzero temperatures of Minneapolis, 50 degrees is downright balmy.

I arrived back in Paris yesterday morning and made it back to my apartment by bus around noon. I encountered only one travel-related difficulty which was an angry man on my bus into Paris who demanded that I remove myself and my baggage from the two seats that I was using, insisting that another section of the bus was designated for persons with baggage. Despite the fact that I had long since reserved my place on the bus and felt that I deserved to be seated safely next to my suitcase that was tucked away from the bustling of other bus passengers, I decided that I was lucky to have gotten to sit for over half of my bus ride so I reluctantly gave up my place(s).

Instead of going straight to bed after getting back to Mme C's apartment, I decided to try to defy jetlag and stay up all day, hoping to be tired once a more normal bed-time rolled around. I unpacked my things for a while, ate some fruit salad with Mme C, drank a bit of tea, then decided to head out and enjoy the lovely weather. Being a Sunday, many tobacco shops which sold my cell phone credits were closed so I couldn't go about doing anything productive with my day. Instead, I walked toward the park near Bercy near my house and watched children playing soccer, people walking dogs, a boy on a unicycle. I found the garden / park to be much more beautiful and interesting than I had remembered and can't wait to see it in the springtime.

I crossed the Seine on the Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir- a new pedestrian bridge that was built last year- and walked toward the National Library. I sat in the sun on the verge of the four-story forest that the library's towers surround and read for about an hour and half, waiting for sunset and all of Paris' starlings and sparrows to come roost for the night. I had witnessed a breathtaking display of thousands of birds roosting here before I left for the U.S. and wanted to experience this again. Instead, the sun went down and I got cold, so I went inside the library, warmed up a bit, saw no birds, and went home.

When I got home I ate dinner with Mme C (pumpkin soup!) and happily went to bed around 8 o clock pm, Paris Time. I fell asleep without a problem and thought myself to be sleeping quite soundly, but I woke up in the middle of the night, around midnight, and couldn't get back to sleep. I laid in bed for over an hour trying to convince myself to go back to sleep but my mind just wasn't turning off. I gave up and turned on the lights and stayed awake until about 4am, when I decided that I was finally sleepy again. I slept mostly without interruption until nearly noon.

Today was another day of walking. I recharged my cell phone, visited the IES center to check for mail (None! How sad!), then walked up to Beaubourg and read for a while, walked back to Chatelet, around the Marais with John, back to Rue Daguerre, then decided to come home and call it a night. After another bowl of soup, my feet are happy to be in bed.

I am looking forward to this semester's prospects. My classes should be interesting: Painting, Women's French Literature, Cinema and Society, Translation, and an internship (basically the work that I have been doing for Bike Friday, only now I will get school credit for it). I also look forward to continuing life in such an amazing and beautiful city and can't wait to see spring come to Paris. The grass is still green at this time of year, but to see the leaves come back to the trees will be quite a sight, I am certain.

In search of lost time...

There is no possible way for me to make up for missing out on posts for the past month, but if I don't resume now, it is unlikely that I ever will. The demand for these posts is more than I had expected and I apologize for trailing off as I did- there is no real explanation other than the more time passed between posts, the less I wanted to go back to posting, not knowing where to start. Here are some bits about my past month, in reverse chronoloogical order, just to make things interesting.

-Saw "La Visite de la Fanfare" at a movie theater, less music than I expected, but at least my curiousity has ben settled after seeing the movie posters in the Metros for the past month.
-Christopher Vernon Stegeman (boyfriend) departed Paris after a wonderful 6 day stay.
-Saw "Les Trois Soeurs" (a play by Chekhov) with Mme C and Christopher, very enjoyable, but performed in French and I will probably read it in English to pick up what I missed the first time.
-Christopher arrived in Paris.
-New Years Eve on the Champs Elysées, along with several million other people. First time to a Parsian nightclub on New Years Eve too.
*New Years Resolution- read the first volume of Proust's "A La Recherche des Temps Perdus"
-Hung around with friends from the US, Shane and Dave. Ate several crepes.
-Celebrated Christmas with friemds from Paris, John and Ruthie, and ate lasagna.
-Finished classes at IES!
-Hellish finals and wrote many pages of papers in French. Harder than I expected, but not unmanageable.

Most of December was spent waiting for finals and the break to come and I can't really remember the details, except for going to see a Moliere play (Les Precieuses Ridicules) at La Comedie Francaise. Very very funny.

I look forward to coming back to the states very shortly- tomorrow will be my last day in Paris and I fly out on Friday afternoon. I anticipate a very happy reunion of family and friends.

This is all for now and I will try my hardest to keep this blog more up to date to satisfy my readers/mother.

Music! With Anya, and from Peru

Today has been absolutely fantastic.
Last night I got together with my bandmate from Minneapolis, Anya, who had her violin with her. We played some tunes and it was just wonderful to reminesce about Old Man Orville days and hear those songs again and to play with her. She's been in Paris for a few days (she's on break from studying in Italy for the year) and has been playing her violin on the street, earning between 12 and 19 euros an hour! I don't know if she plays longer than an hour at a time, but that's darn good money!

We were supposed to meet up today near the Louvre and play together so between two of my classes I went to the Louvre to try to find her but couldn't... we played text-message tag and agreed to meet tomorrow instead. It seemed pointless to go back to school without even trying to play and make some money, especially after hauling my guitar all around Paris, so I set up in a archway to the Louvre where the acoustics are quite wonderful for amplifying sound. I had seen/heard a flute player in there a few weeks ago. I played the 7 or 8 Old Man Orville and self-written songs that I knew and managed to have a large enough repitoire to not have to repeat them too often- I'm pretty sure no one heard the same song twice since they were just passing through.

At first no one was interested in stopping and sparing me some change- after about 4 songs a man stopped and emptied his coin purse- 70 centimes. That's a whole US dollar! After a few more songs someone gave me a euro. I played in the archway for about 35 minutes and then had to go back to class but in 35 minutes I collected 7.75 euros! Amazing! I was absolutely blissful when I packed up and headed home on the Metro.

When I got to Chatelet, the station where I had to transfer trains, I was walking through the tunnels and I heard an amazing flute band playing somewhere... I kept walking in my predetermined direction and came across a 5 piece flute and string band from Peru!!! What's more, one of the musicians I had seen playing at Gare du Nord just yesterday and had stopped to talk with his friend who was selling his CDs!

A sidenote: I've been dying to hear Peruvian music since I've arrived in France. It's not that I heard much when I was in Minneapolis either, but at least I had a real stereo that I could turn it up on and dance around my bedroom. Here, I only have my headphones.

I stopped and listened to this 5 piece band and almost cried with happiness. I was running late for class but figured that this moment was much more important than whatever my sociology teacher was presenting that day. (Turns out there was a very interesting guest speaker, but I only missed 15 minutes of class.) I talked with the band's CD seller for a while and he told me a CD cost 15 euros, but he would give me a deal if I bought two... I talked with him a little about the music they were playing and asked him if he knew a certain song that's been my favorite for a long time; he didn't know it but recognized it when I played it for him on my iPod. (Bless technology!) He asked the band to play it next and althought it wasn't my song exactly, El Comerciante, it was pretty close and I was in floored. I yipped and clapped and rolled my tongue and the musicians laughed but everyone else in the crowded Metro looked kind of alarmed.

I decided to buy a CD and gave the man a 20 euro bill and he gave me both of the CDs! No complaints there! I suppose I got each CD for 15 dollars instead of 15 euros! He asked me if I liked music (it was kind of obvious, as I was so ridiculously excited AND carrying around my guitar) and gave me a flier for a concert that's happening tonight. A somewhat well-known band from Venezuela is playing at a Cultural Center just nearby and I have decided to go to that instead of going to drawing tonight. Hands down. No question.

I am feeling quite overwhelmed by music at the moment; I hope I can retain my interest in my IES classes for the rest of the semester! It's been a good one so far.

That's all for now!
-Rebecca

Brittany and Normandy

Here's an outline of my excellent voyage to the west coast of France this past weekend:

Thursday:
-skipped Literature and Drawing class to meet Charlotte and Parents
-took Orlybus to Orly airport to pick up rental car
-drove to St. Malo, stopped at a very clean rest area and bought chocolate milk
-arrived in St. Malo, found centre-ville
-St. Malo = walled city right on the coast of the Atlantic
-found a one star (*) hotel with a room for four people for only 52 euros a night (bunk beds!)
-walked around deserted tourist trap, window shopping
-went to a bar decorated with dolls, puppets, and an albatross (Photos to come)

Friday:
-breakfast in the pub area of the hotel we stayed at- croissants and coffee
-walked around the wall of St. Malo, walked out to some islands off shore during low tide
-drove to Le Mont St. Michel, stopped at a cider gift shop on the way
-Le Mont St. Michel = an island with a town / cathedral / fortress built on it, acceseble at low tide, surrounded by water at high tide (Photo to come)
-walked around Mont St. Michel, only had 2 hours to walk around before the parking lot would be under water
-grocery store lunch of clementines, bread, and cheese
-drove to Cherbourg, followed signs to centre-ville but didn't really find it
-fount a two star (**) hotel with a room for four people for only 55 euros a night (two double beds, one in a separate room!)
-ate at a wonderful creperie for dinner, Charlotte and I shared 2 crepes
-le Popeye = crepe with cheese, spinach, garlic, tomatoes, and an egg = my favorite
-found several bars serving Stella Artois (a favorite beer of Charlotte's mom) which were too busy to visit

Saturday:
-breakfast in the breakfast room of the hotel- croissants and coffee again, but better jam than the day before
-drove to find Normandy beaches, visited Utah Beach, Omaha Beach, the American Cemetary
-(video of the American Cemetary)
-warm weather, not too windy
-drove to Le Havre, found it to be a lot busier than we had expected
-got lost in Le Havre driving up and down the bluffs, centre-ville, ville-haut, ville-basse, eventually had to stop to buy a map
-found a two star (**) hotel with a room for four people for only 55 euros a night (double bed, pullout couch for Charlotte and me)
-walked around a restaurant quarter and decided to eat pizza instead of seafood. Excellent choice.
-Charlotte and I found a youthful bar and had a very intense moment with some cross dressers, but a relief to be away from her parents for a while

Sunday:
-breakfast on the go, croissants from a bakery and some more clementines
-visited le Musée Malraux, which contained an impressive amount of paintings that were made in the Normandy region
-on the road again, driving back to Paris
-I think I took a nap for a while
-arrived at Orly at 3pm, in time to return the rental car
-took the Orlybus back to Paris

It's good to be home!

To Normandy!

Hello all friends and family (and whoever else might happen to read this blog),

I apologize for the long delay, and I don't actually have that much time to write, but I would like to relay the message that I am leaving for Normandy for the weekend in a matter of minutes. I promise I will give a detailed account of the trip upon my return on Sunday night.

All of my love,
Rebecca