After the overwhelming frustration that characterized yesterday's brutal charade of a french class, I actually had a fairly enjoyable day today. I woke up nice and late (around noon), and took a lovely walk down the market street. I bought a baguette, some croissants (chocolate and non), a demi de reblochon (which is one of my favorite cheeses) and a handful of litchis, which I happily carried back to my apartment in my adorable, sky-blue envirosac. There, I had the pleasure of a truly leisurely breakfast; the first I've had since I got here - although I really have got to figure out how to get coffee in the mornings.

Post-p'tit dej, I went with Bryndis to meet some of her friends (a Russian girl and a Mexican girl) at the Parc Monceau, and from there we walked over to the Museum Nissim de Camondo. Everyone raves about this place, but I'm going to tell you the truth: It is boring as shit. It is a large house, in which there is a lot of stuff. Like, furniture. And a large oven. As far as mansions go, I'm sure it was the bell of the ball in its heyday, but I positively loathe the "decorative arts." However, there were plenty of (old) Parisian couples wandering around with beatific smiles on their faces, so the problem must be on my end. And I'm sure that, as far as places to live are concerned, having the kind of operation that requires fifteen manservants probably wouldn't be so bad. Flaubert would have ravaged it with irony.
This is the kind of thing that my mother adores.

After such a mentally stimulating exercise, we decided to walk towards the Champs-Elysees, where we did a little bit of shopping. I bought a shirt. It was on sale. I was trying it on, when a kind young woman came over and told me that I was changing in the infant's changing room, and that I would have to go somewhere upstairs if I wanted to try any more shirts on. Mercifully, as I was struggling mightily with the buttons, she didn't throw me out onto the shopping floor. I don't know why there wasn't a sign, or something. God damn, I didn't even know infants needed changing rooms. I thought they just ran around naked and everyone dealt with it, but apparently french infants are held to higher standards.

Bryndis and I dined with Madame and her friend, Bernadette, who is an artist. We had a beet salad. I hate beets. It's the only food that I cannot eat. I had three bite-sized cubes, so as not to be rude, but each bite was akin to dying a thousand deaths. Thankfully, we also had a quiche that Madame had made out of yesterday's ratatouille. And a slice of ham.

I'm afraid I may have offended Madame a bit, because when she pulled out the cheese and saw the reblochon, she asked me quite sharply "What, you were afraid that there wouldn't be enough cheese?" I hastily assured her that no, it was merely because I love reblochon, and that everyone was welcome to it.

I have already dutifully completed my grammar exercises and written out my nightly journal entry; hopefully after Teacher Teacher reads them this weekend I'll be spared the agony of the indicative tense. But I fear that tomorrow is lost, alas.

Argh

So, the way that the IES language levels were organized was via a score on a multiple choice test. Now, I am no star at fill-in-the-blank or anything involving multiple choices of any kind (See: the rest of my life). I can write a twelve-page essay or give a thirty-minute speech, but my brain does not work in pieces. I do things because they "sound right." I cannot visualize miniature gaps in sentences and fill them with petty little verb conjugations or obscure articles ("Dont" - what the hell part of speech even is that? I can use it, and do so with frequency, but I couldn't tell you why. Hence my problems). Well, according to the test, I suck miserably at French. And so, I was placed at what I can only assume was the bottom of the bottom. For some, it's a perfect fit - and I certainly don't mean to knock them; we're all here to get better, no shame in that - but seeing as I, well, speak French, it was a little frustrating to study definite and indefinite articles and...hold your breath...the present tense. I thought I was going to die. Or worse, that I wasn't going to die and I would be trapped in a 12x12 cell learning Le, La and Les and reciting the phrase "Trois Gros Rats Gris" over and over until the end of time. I swear to god, someone might die because of this. I practically had to play teacher's assistant for our little "meet and greet," during which, as per our worksheet, we dutifully asked each other such fascinating questions as "Do you like to sing?", "Do you drink wine with dinner?" and "Do you drown your sorrows in liquor?" (I am not kidding) Well, chère prof, I may start. I'm not saying I'm a real connosieur of french grammar - obviously, since I was masterfully outmaneuvered by a multiple-choice test - but it was essentially me forcing conversation on a terrified classroom. And then correcting their mistakes.

When presented with a grammar worksheet I have no idea what to do, so I made all the little grammar mistakes that I normally make, which makes everything even worse. The teacher, who is very nice (maybe), did tell me that she thought I should perhaps be in a higher-level class, but that she had to wait to see if I could write in French as well as speak it before she changed me. I offered to send one of the many critical essays I have written in the bloody language over the past three years, but no - I am to be judged on the quality of my Nightly Journals. Of course, even if she deems me worthy of advancement, it will likely be to an even deeper circle of hell, like "The Language of Business" or something. I may have to staple a piece of paper entitled "F426 TRADUCTION" (perhaps with an attached copy of my translation of Rimbaud's "l'Aube") to someone's head before I see any real results.
Of course, after the class, on our little tour of the quartier, mademoiselle notre guide was positively thrilled with my spoken French. Quelle ironie.
Ah, Paris. Je t'aime.

Too Much

I've been sleeping too much. Maybe 9-10 hours a night, which is far more than I ever sleep. But for some reason, I am constantly drained. By body is not used to walking or commuting, and my brain is not used to French - although that's coming along pretty easily.

Thinking of things to do in Paris is pretty tough when you don't know anybody and don't know the city that well. So I sit around a lot, and do a lot of nothing. Which is kind of pathetic. I'm actually looking forward to the start of classes so that I'll have some sort of schedule to deal with and complain about.

Classes at the University (Sorbonne) seem like they might also be interesting. I think I'll probably end up just taking more medieval lit courses, since I know the subject already and maybe will not fail miserably as a result.

Woke up late today - maybe 11:30 - and took my time getting ready, showering, eating; all that jazz. Then we had a brief meeting at IES so they could tell us how to make friends in France. Apparently, it is pretty hard. So they had a couple of people present their youth clubs and volunteer opportunities or whatever. If you want to go to a "conversation" with other young, clueless people in Paris, it costs 5 Euros. No thanks. Volunteering could be really amusing, though. We'll see.

After that, I went with Katie, Monica, and Monica's french "sister" to go shoe shopping. Monica wanted boots, and she found some. I won't lie and say that I loved them, but whatever. She didn't ask me. Katie found no heels. They're some point-toed thing going on here that I find slightly discomfiting - maybe it's a primary means of defense for the modern, chic Parisienne.

Charlotte, Monica's host sister, was super nice. She also didn't know I was from the states at first, and then complimented me profusely on my French, so that may be why I liked her. At any rate, it was nice to walk around with someone who knew the system a little bit. Because let me tell you, shopping in Paris is hard. Anyway, I've decided I want some pimpin' hi-tops - not flashy, but just noticeable enough that people will look and say, "damn, that kid has some pimpin' kicks." That's the goal. Also my sneakers are getting disgusting, and I think I need to retire them. I also need to recharge my camera batter - you'll notice I have no photos.

Thursday there's a transportation strike, because people are mad about the economy. I guess throwing the city into chaos is going to do a lot of good, and probably fix said economy. so I suppose I'll have to walk halfway across Paris to get to school. Awesome.

That's Katie. She was jetlagged, and therefore grumpy.

After the IES orientation today, which was largely uninteresting, Katie, Monica (a girl who lives near Katie) and I went out to the Eiffel tower and did very touristy things. We also ate sandwiches, which was very satisfying.

Thinking of things to do in Paris is fairly difficult. Because, well, no one knows what to do. So usually someone ends up thinking of a place, and then we take the metro there, and then we look at it, and then we stand around not knowing what to do again.

It's amazing how little has happened - considering, you know, the whole being in France thing. I did buy more litchis today, to snack on. Hot damn those are tasty. I also looked for a mini quiche, but alas.

Moving In?

I got up at around one in the afternoon - slightly embarrassing, but tant pis. Katie finally called, and after much talking and a shower, I found her at the metro stop nearest her apartment. I managed to drag her around for three hours (A tour of the Mouffetard, Les Arenes de Lutece, et Notre Dame) and show her how to sit in a cafe.

I got home around six, ironed my shirts, and then Olivier drove me into town around seven-seven thirty. Mme Godefroy is very nice, if a little quirky, and the aparment is kind of a funny little rambling thing. On the lower level it's me, Ann (who I didn't really meet, as she almost immediately had to retire to her room with a terrible stomach ache, and then had to call a doctor and go to the hospital for what I hope isn't appendicitis - I hear that's totally contagious), and Brandeiss (which I may not be spelling correctly), and Icelandic student who's here doing economics. She seems very nice. She speaks perfect English, and understands - but doesn't speak wonderfully well - French.

We dined avec madame and one of her friends - madame is no great chef, but dinner was cheerful and it was fun to converse in French. Apparently we're allowed to use the stove, so maybe i'll do a little experimentation with french cuisining.

So, so far, things seem good. Tomorrow it's off to IES to do god knows what kind of hellish orientation. Thankfully, that's not until the afternoon, so I have time to do...things...in the morning. I don't know what sort of things, but there you go.

Fears

The following are photographs of the first three pages of my journal, obviously entitled “Things to Worry About.” This was an idea of my mother's, who believes that on some spiritual level identifying your fears mitigates them. I, however, only realized that there are depths of my own insanity that I haven't begun to explore, which will likely require years of therapy to remedy. I would like to stress that, despite the misleading title of this post, these are not fears – they are worries. For example, I am afraid of Nuclear Winter, or of the bowels of the earth tearing open and spewing forth hordes of Satan’s minions. However, those are not worries – and certainly not worries pertinent to studying abroad in France. In writing the list – which only took a matter of minutes, despite the magnitude of the thing – I discovered several important things about myself. Namely, that I have some pathological fear of knives and stabbing, and that I am, on some deep, secret level, a sissy. I suggest that you view these photos at full zoom, to experience the true grandeur of my neuroses. *EDIT* It appears that the images are un-zoomable. As I am far too stupid to solve the problem, I will sum up the fifty-seven item list for you, the Concerned Reader: I am afraid of physical violence and all human interaction.

My father offered several Useful Tips:
1) To protect against getting stabbed, it is wise to wear a long coat. 2) If a person approaches and expresses a desire to communicate and I have no idea what they are saying, I can pretend to be a lunatic.
2) I am six inches taller and forty pounds heavier than 99.7% of the population. ( I also am a non-smoking athlete, which makes me faster than 99.% of the population.
3) Like snakes and spiders, they are probably more afraid of me than I am of them.

4)Their English sounds stupid.

That last one only seems helpful. The way I see it, I’m on their turf, and it’s really only helpful in the way that going to one of Al-Qaeda’s caves in Afghanistan and pointing out that they worship the wrong god would be helpful.

Today we met up with my French "Uncle" Olivier after we had graced the Cluny (museum of the middle ages) with our adoring presence. He went with us to Gobelins, which despite its name is dedicated to large, bizarre tapestries and not fairy-tale creatures. From there, we declared that we would like some coffee. Olivier, in turn, told us that we would meet some of his friends for a snack, which actually meant (after he called them) that we were to go to their home in the 13th. This required a twenty minute walk, a stop at a baker for various tartes, several phone calls to establish where, exactly, they lived, and an extensive discussion of how nice the surrounding neighborhood had become. Georges and Olivier (a different Olivier) – a couple who I had never met before - were of course wonderful people who entertained us with a tour of their beautifully modern house, coffee, cakes, and conversation.

Tonight, for the first time, I had “Un Sandwich Grecque,” a mystical delight which I have somehow managed not to experience until now. For four euros, you get a thick, grilled pita sandwich stuffed full of tomato, onion, tzatziki, french (freedom) fries, and juicy, delicious roasted meats. Heaven.

Lots of exploring today. The neighborhood in the 17th where I'm staying is fantastic. I'm living right next to a great little open-air market, positively bursting with cafes and other things you might typically find in France. It's also close to the Parc Monceau, which is nice. I took lots of pictures, including a gratuitous shot of the AdT for my homies, just to prove I'm here, and not actually in Budapest or something.

From there, it's about an hour via metro to the IES, which is in an ugly little building. Decent neighborhood, but hopefully I'll be spending more time at the Sorbonne. It's just beginning to hit me that I'll be living here until June, which seems like a very long time, but also like no time at all. Four months is not all that many months.

Dinner tonight with Olivier, who knows every restaurant in Paris. When I was about thirteen he took me to a restaurant that serves only pig. It was a veritable pig-disneyland, with hundreds of different kinds of pig-meats and giant pig-statues smiling cheshire-like over the happy diners, privately sharing a laugh at some ironic meta-narrative commenting on human dining habits. I distinctly remember that Olivier ordered the cheeks of the pig, which I can still only imagine in a cartoonish "Three Little Pigs" rosy-cheeked sort of way.

I have never recovered.

Paris is as Paris always is. Right now it’s cold but not raining, and walking about at night reminded me why I like it here.

The flight in from Lisbon on Tap was an experience. An uncomfortable one. Their planes are from approximately the 1930’s and don’t fit anyone larger than a 5’3” Portuguese. Nothing about the flight was particularly confidence-inspiring, from the shuddering noises that the wings were making at takeoff and landing (made even more nerve-wracking after seeing images of the downed US Airways plane in the Hudson yesterday) to the random clunking noises (coming from boggarts in the overhead bins) during flight. Thankfully, we – and our baggage – arrived in one piece.

The hotel is Parisian – my mother was mortified by the smallness of the room, but it’s pretty standard fare – and we’re in a nice part of the 7th, so all in all, everything seems good. Dinner was normal, a tasty little four-cheese pizza and a glass of wine. Tomorrow it’s off to the races, figuring out where important things (like houses and schools) are, and trying to coax my French our of hibernation.

Oh, and a side note: When preparing the octopus, you mustn’t forget to bang it on a rock as soon as you pull it out of the water for ten minutes or so. Then, according to who you talk to, you must either a) never, or b) always add a little bit of water to the pressure cooker after freezing it, in which you must also put a) nothing, b) potatoes and onion, c) wine, or d) some combination of the above, and cook it from five to twenty minutes, apparently depending on the mood of the octopus when it expired from the banging. After which, of course, you may cook it in oil and garlic.

how to cook an octopus

So now I'm in Lisbon. After twenty-four hours on planes and in airports, we arrived at our room in the Sheraton. Nice hotel; dark, floorlit hallways and a weird zen gym. All glass and heavy brown things - very calming. It's currently day four, so I'll have to cram all the incredibly wonderful things that have happened into this one post, which is sad, because every day in this amazing city deserves its own special post. It's actually not that amazing. I've been to Porto before, which was actually more interesting than Lisbon. Not that Lisbon's a terrible place or anything, but Porto was definitely a scene: hundreds of stumbling Portuguese drunk on port. A people after my own heart. No wonder everyone was so friendly there.

Lisbon's nice enough - it's got some wide, pretty boulevards and it's neat layout-wise. Lots of hills, and cool cobblestone roads and sidewalks. Go wiki the history, and it turns out that Lisbon's actually pretty cool. There's an interesting mix between a sort of run-down, very urban feeling that seems to dominate the city, and pretty little spots that pop up randomly. You'll walk down some alley, and at the end will be an apartment building that's covered in bright, painted tiles. Or you'll stumble into some cute little park where you can sit and do nothing for a while.


One thing of note is that everyone honks their car horns constantly. I'm not sure why. I surmise, as Dave Barry once did, that the drivers merely wish to convey the important message that their cars are equipped with horns. I can hear them from my room on the 18th floor, like outsized, indignant geese.

The restaurant where we ate dinner last night was, in a word, cool. It's inside this old water distribution tower-type-thing that's left over from Roman times. It was part of the largest aqueduct in the empire, I guess. Anyway, it's maybe twelve tables suspended (on two levels) inside and at the top of this fifty-foot whatever-it-is. It's very modern, wood and steel and all that, except you're surrounded on all sides by this ancient stone. I want a room like that in my house.

Their specialty is in wine pairings. For example, the 48 Euro menu that I ordered came with four small dishes: First, a salad of oranges and Bacalau (which I will not be ordering again. Google it. It's a sorry story) paired with champagne; second, a simple salad with duck foie gras and dressed with oil paired with Sauternes - this might be one of the most delicious dishes I've ever had; third, a sort of lemon/black pepper quail with a red whose name I can't remember; and finally a dish of poached pears in port wine reduction, figs, apple crumble and some delicious, mild sheep's cheese with an apricot sauce, matched with a tawny port. None of the food - with the exception of the foie gras and the dessert - was particularly wonderful, but each dish really does shine as a complement to its matched wine. Quite a unique experience, and made all the better by a complete lack of pompousness. A restaurant like that in the states would have been such a production, with sommeliers breathing down your neck and thirty-dollar tapas. That's not to say it was the cheapest dinner, but really, we were just paying for the wine. Which might make it ok.

Today it's gray and rainy. Winter in Portugal means 50's, but everyone here is miserable. All we did today was go to the Museo Calouste Gulbenkian. Some Oil Magnate amassed this amazing art collection and donated it all when he died, so they gave him a museum. If you're ever in Lisbon, go there. For me, the paintings were'nt as impressive as the other objets, like this tiny little bowl from 2700 BC, and an entire Rene Lalique collection that had some of the most amazing things that I've...ever seen. I didn't have my camera, so all I can do is direct you to Google.

Paris tomorrow.


Oh, yeah: To cook an octopus, you have to freeze it for two days, then boil it in a pressure cooker, and then put it in the oven and cover it in mashed garlic and oil. And here I thought all you had to do was fry it or something.

Tailgate!

I've been putting off the creation of something like this for as long as possible, but seeing Lizzie's (http://lizzieingreece.blogspot.com/) blog emerge in all its glory forced my hand. Now I, like every other Young Person Abroad, have a blog. It will contain the usual artsy photos, meaningful quotes, and intelligent introspection. May my peers forgive me.