October 4th

October 4th 2010 – Metz is a small village outside of Paris that, for whatever reason, has been plagued with the second Centre Pompidou, a museum of modern art. (AN I have no idea when we actually but my computer says that I started this entry on October 4th so I’m going to try and finish it up before I do anything else.) Bri and I hauled ourselves out of bed at seven something to meet the rest of the students at Gare de l’Est for our train to Metz at 8:35; just one of many early-morning struggles. We actually made it there early and had time to grab some snacks for the train ride while we waited for our track number announcement. We had assigned seats on the train, a fact that everyone in the PIP program felt the need to comment on with the (debatable) complaint that we aren’t children and don’t need assigned seats (this should give you some idea of the intellectual level of that group. Maybe they just sit wherever they want to on planes, too). The train ride to Metz took about an hour and a half and most of the PCS kids brought the book we have to read for class, hoping to get something done…wrong. The students directly across from me, well one of them brought a beer for the ride and the others were just talking too loudly about things no one else wanted to hear. As a result, I spent nearly two hours listening to how a Russian shaman living high in the mountains cured someone’s grandmother of liver cancer. I think there might have been some talking of selling your soul to the devil because Faust and Goethe were definitely brought up at some point, but I digress. I neither slept nor read nor really accomplished anything. I didn’t know it then but this was to be a prevalent theme that day. I remember getting off the train because some girls were talking about clotted cream and the inside of the train station looked like Penn Station in New York so I thought about how Mom completely failed getting off the escalator that day I let for Paris. I don’t really remember the walk to the museum but I remember my first impression.

The museum still hadn’t opened by the time we arrived so we had to stand outside in the early morning drizzle until finally we were allowed to stand in the foyer for another ten minutes. Pleasant memories of past school field trips; this one was no exception. We were taken through the museum (three floors and countless exhibits of modern art) and listened to a guide explain each and every work. All the professors pretended not to know what time we were breaking for lunch and they avoided the words ‘last’ and ‘after,’ anything to give us any indication of when they would free us from this fresh hell. I imagine the poor guide could feel the hostility leaking out of our pores by the third floor. Unsurprisingly, the very last thing we saw ended up being the most interesting. The third floor gallery ended in a giant wall of window from which you could see The Cathedral (I call it this it because it played a large part in the latter part of our day and we still don’t know what it’s called or anything about it really) but the closer you got to the window, the farther away and smaller The Cathedral became. That kept the PIP kids busy for a while (god I hope none of them ever read this, some of them are really quite brilliant and lovely). Finally the professors broke the news to us that we had an hour to find food and also find The Cathedral because someone would be showing us around the inside. As I’m sure you can imagine, we were off, everyone in different directions trying to judge each restaurant on speed, amount of food and price. A few of us had to go to the bathroom so we got stuck walking with the teachers like the sick, frail kid in the class on a field trip because the teacher’s holding onto the inhaler.

Someone needed to get money from the ATM, our chance to escape! They were walking so slowly that we quickly overtook them later on while looking for a place to eat. At one point we ran into a much larger group of students who asked us if we had found somewhere to eat yet, acting like they planned on coming with us. Having already assessed this possibility long ago, we decided anonymously that it would be better to keep our group small to minimize the amount of people to serve and thereby maximize our chances of getting served quickly. Eating is serious business when you don't know when the next meal will be. We were able to slip into a small pub without them noticing and quickly moved all the way to the back. It was a sort of pub/bar and being 2pm, it was empty. Honestly, lunch was the best part of that day; it was intimate (only three of us), relaxed enough that we didn’t really have to wolf down our food (at that point eating was far more important than making it to the cathedral anyway), and the bar was really cool. We talked about class and about different Paris bars while we ate. When we finished, we had about fifteen minutes to get to The Cathedral; plenty of time, we thought, because it seemed quite close-by. After a hill that made me feel like I was back in Monte Carlo, we began asking people for directions. I’m going to be honest, it’s not the first time I’ve felt like a contestant on The Amazing Race: Paris. The best/worst part was when we got there, we walked around the inside for a little bit and then suddenly we were off to another (modern art) museum. Paris has taught me to stop asking what the point is.

The second museum, called the F.R.A.C. (the French LOVE their acronyms), actually wasn’t lame and had lots of multimedia exhibits, like videos and sculptures but they were all strangely meaningful. I say strangely because modern art has a way of pretending to be meaningful without actually meaning anything. My favorite exhibition was a series of short interviews where the subject talked about the one definitive moment when they stopped fearing/believing in god. For example, one boy talked about how he ate pork or something when he was 9 and he expected to die on the spot or for SOMETHING to happen but nothing did. We didn't have enough time in that museum as I would have liked but all the same, I was glad when we started walking back to the train station. I planned on sleeping all the way back because I had a different seat far faaaaar away from those who would disturb my slumber, but instead I sat next to one of the girls with whom I had had lunch and we ending up talking all the way home. 

When I got home from Metz, I rushed home knowing that the Italian was having a dinner party with his friends (to which I was invited to) that night. I forgot however that 9pm is a perfectly respectable time for dinner here, meaning that a) I was early and b) things didn’t start winding down until nearly 1 am. Don’t get me wrong though, it was a fantastic night. He made pasta with salmon and pesto and the six of us sat in his room ate talked and ate and watched YouTube videos (in Italian, something to which I’ve become quite accustomed). Even though I had to get up early the next morning to pick up mom from the airport, I didn't really want the night to end. Sometimes in this apartment away from the family I miss the amounts of people I’m used to being with; my huge group of friends and eating all together and just the amount of time I spend with large, loud, vibrant groups of friends. The dinner party also began my two days of not sleeping: the next morning I got up at 6, nowhere near awake enough to pick mom up from the airport. I’m not going to lie to you, that trip was a major struggle. I don’t even remember how I made it to Châtelet to take the train to the airport. Just my luck, they’re doing construction on the line to the airport the day mom arrives and leaves: it took me over an hour to get to the airport. At Châtelet, I met a woman from New York who comes to Paris, whether for business or pleasure, at least once a year. She told me she graduated from BU with a degree in Public Health but loved dabbling in different languages. It wasn’t until much later that I realized what a coincidence it was that she graduated BU and loved studying languages. At that time it was still 6:30 am and she was asking me how to get to the airport. For the next hour, she told me about her previous trips to Paris, how and when she started traveling (she was thirty and had just broken things off with her fiancé). Her name is Monica and she speaks Hungarian and goes to Hungary every five years to visit her cousins and keep the links strong between the families.

 

Triple E

Dear god in heaven I know it's still in here. A few minutes ago I heard that tapping I've come to associate with a fly in the light fixture only this time it was a GIANT MOSQUITO that just had to be carrying some kind of virus. I have no idea how it got in because everyone's window is closed but I don't even care. Due to it's extreme size and possibly violent nature, I didn't dare get too close so I battled with it from the safety of my bath towel...which is completely ineffective as everyone knows. There is no point in trying to 'shoo' any sort of sentient being out from where you do not want it; it's kill or be killed (in this case by West Nile Virus). After some vigorous coralling (the damn thing had the sam flight pattern EVERY TIME: lamp, window, veer to the right, mirror, dive towards my head, lamp. Finally I shut off my light and opened the windows to see if it would go out on it's own and that's the last I've heard of it...for now.

Metz

Metz is a small village outside of Paris that, for whatever reason, has been plagued with the second Centre Pompidou, a museum of modern art. On Friday, the PCS (Paris Contemporary Studies, my group of nine students) program was invited to join the art history students for a day trip to Metz to see the museum. We all met at the train station for our 8:39 train and settled in for the hour and a half ride. I tried to sleep but the conversations going around me were both loud and interesting so at most, I rested. It was cold and windy when we go there and since the museum hadn’t actually opened yet, we had to wait outside. Three hours and three floors later, I would look upon these moments fondly. Three HOURS of someone EXPLAINING modern art. By the time we finally reached the last gallery, I’m fairly sure the guide could FEEL our hostility. There were some interesting pieces but honestly, my feet hurt and I just wanted to be anywhere else. It didn’t help that we knew lunch was after, whatever ‘after’ meant, and rumor had it that BU would be treating us. Fortunately, they let us go around 1, unfortunately with only an hour to get to ‘the cathedral’ (that we could see from the museum windows) and find our own lunch on the way. Two PCS girls and I lagged behind so we ended up walking with the teachers for part of the way (because we had no idea where we were going) but broke off when it seemed like we were close. We tried not to stay with everyone else because we didn’t have much time to get food and it always takes longer to serve a huge group, so we found a quiet pub and got some delicious food quickly. After asking about a zillion people how to get to the cathedral and practically running there, we were some of the first to arrive. While we waited for the others, we walked through this covered market that reminded me a lot of Faneuil Hall, except there were fruit and fish stands along with restaurants. We came back out just in time to see the group walking away and into the cathedral, which apparently wasn’t a bug deal because even after we had gone inside and looked around and came back out, students were still arriving. The last stop was another modern art museum but this one was much more tolerable and I only wish that we had spent our three hours there instead of at the Centre Pompidou. One of the ‘exhibits’ going on was entitled ‘Discover the World’ and the artist had painted a world map in different places all over the inside and outside of the building in places that you really wouldn’t notice unless you were shown. There were video clips and really interesting installations and I honestly wish we had more time there. We were so early back to the train station that our track hadn’t been posted yet so we walked around and I got a pain au chocolat (per usual). I had planned to sleep on the way home because I was exhausted and the Italian had invited me to a little dinner party he was hosting at our place that night so I figured I would nap a little to recharge before the dinner; however, I sat next to one of the girls I had eaten lunch with and we talked the entire hour and a half ride home. She’s here living with her boyfriend so she told me all about him and what they do on the weekends. She invited me to go out with them some time and I said I’d love to.

The dinner party was just amazingly fun. Most of his friends are Italian but they try to speak French if I’m around. I had met everyone there previously and we just talked and watched Youtube videos and ate the best food I’ve ever eaten. I am so unbelievably lucky to have this life. 

The Piano Vache

Bonjour tous et toutes! I have just returned from my usual Tuesday morning routine: open market on the street behind my apartment for fruit/vegetables and usually a pair of shoes. Today I bought pears, peppers, broccoli and a pair of high heels that are honestly super duper and I feel like the prettiest princess. Now I just need to work on getting some decent clothes for clubbing since solid color long sleeves don’t really cut it…

Last night I went out to a bar called The Piano Vache near the Pantheon (which is absolutely stunning at night by the way) with the Italian and his friends. Every Monday night at this bar they have small bands playing and last night it was two guitars and a cello just playing jazz riffs and it was honestly fantastic. There were posters all over the walls for old rock and jazz concerts and the wooden columns in the main room were covered with engravings of names, initials, dates etc. It was cozy and I could imagine coming there often, even during the day or evening to work on homework as weird as that sounds. It didn’t feel like a bar; it felt like a tavern, the benches were covered in old Persian rugs and the chairs were mismatching. The atmosphere was really relaxed and we stayed for nearly two hours just listening to the music and talking during the pauses. Unlike most places, they didn’t force anyone to buy a drink to stay and listen to the music. I still need to figure out what I’m going to ask for in that case; like a coke or an orange juice or whatever. I feel like the French never really have to decide what they’re going to order. They never have to try anything on, there’s never any indecisiveness; they just know. I am obviously in the wrong country but hey that’s how you learn. I thought I had bought the wrong shoe size (and I did the first week we were here but I just use them for shoes around the house now) but I’ve been wearing the heels I bought this morning and they seem to fit fine. It’s incredible how pretty much everyone here wears heels or some sort. I feel like style here is definitely different from the US: everyone follows it here. There are no tried moms wearing sweats; they’re all chasing their toddlers around in kitten heels.

           

I did my laundry here for the first time on Saturday morning, which was definitely an adventure. I was terrified of – worst-case scenario – breaking one of the laundry machines or like getting a broken one and having my clothes come out soaking wet (in which case it would have felt just like being back at Towers). Fortunately there were directions all over the place and it will probably cost 10 euro every time I want to do laundry which isn’t terrible I guess since it’s not any cheaper anywhere else and I HAVE to do it. I was too nervous to leave my laundry there because of all the horror stories I’ve heard about homeless people just wandering in and stealing clothes out of the dryer, so I brought my magazine and stayed and read while I waited for my clothes. The number of people who said hello and goodbye to me as they entered and exited the Laundromat astonished me. I know it’s impolite to enter a store without saying bonjour to the proprietor but I didn’t know that rule extended to fellow citizens in a Laundromat.

I think today I’m going walking around the Marais (6^th arrondissement? 9^th?) with some friends who are searching for vintage shops. There is also talk of falafel so hopefully this falafel experience will be better than the last one…it’s been pretty cloudy and generally gross these past couple of days and the weather says it’s supposed to rain for the next week. Good. That makes me feel like a little less of a loser when I stay home at night. It’s also getting a little chilly out and I woke up 3 times during the night because I was FREEZING. I have a little heater thing in my room but it’s really far away from my bed and I feel sort of weird turning it on before anyone else does. Maybe I just need to keep walking around to keep the blood circulating. I asked the Italian last night if it snows here and he said it does sometimes. I hope I it snows while I’m still here. 

Rings

I need coasters that aren't books or my homework. The furniture here is all wood and it stains very easily from wet things. I am just going to pray that all the rings on this desk aren't entirely from me. The rings on almost every single one of my homework assignments however, are all me.

Last night the girl that lived here last semester came back to visit the Italian and she and her friend stayed here. I didn't know but she always spoke English with him, whereas I always speak French. I guess I just assumed that I should be speaking French but I guess he wants to practice his English. So now I don't really know what we're going to do. It was strange meeting her, like being connected in a very specific way. Like the kitchen and the bathroom and the shower and the Italian was all that connected us. She staed in Bri's room when she was here and I am staying in what used to be the middle daughter's room. We had the same stories about everything here and about the Italian, he wasn't here when she moved in either and we talked about that air of mystery and the first week or so when it was really awkward.

She's coming back to teach biology in the south of France; she said it was a Fullbright thing but it's really easy to get into. It's only for education majors but there are other programs to help students come back. I think I want to come back.

Limbo

Sorry it's been so long since my last real post; I've been super busy here with homework and school and just life in general. I promise I am still alive and will resume posting about my adventures here shortly. As soon as a I memorize this poem, lead a debate, give a news report on French culture, take a final and read 50 pages about contemporary philosophy. I can't even imagine what life is going to be like once we start REAL school.

Window Shopping

I love looking out the window because there’s always something to see. Today for example, I watched a boy jump off the curb and onto his knees cheering at something and a girl come running out of her apartment to meet him. A little later, I saw a man walking by some rubbish outside the building across from me. He poked at a few planks of wood and finally picked one up and walked away with it. It was smallish and I’m not really sure what he’s going to do with it. I watched two unconcerned mothers walking behind their daughters who sped by on little pink scooters. No one ever looks up so I never wonder what they’re going to say.