Day 4

Last night walking around our neighborhood, Bri and I spotted a Phone House and market (where I had taken the photos for my student ID) and this morning I returned to both, driven by the need for a phone and aesthetic satisfaction in the way of better photos. It was a 50% success. Well actually like 40%. The Phone House was closed, something I really should have expected since things are really only ever open here from 10 to 8. I did however take smaller and better photos that I can really only use for the metro pass. However, in order to break my 10€ I had to buy something so I quickly went down the drink aisle thinking I’d buy like chocolate milk or something, when suddenly I saw this coco milk energy drink for 0,85€ and decided on that. The pictures came out fine and I was very satisfied with myself. I took my new energy breakfast out of my bag and absentmindedly examined it as I walked back home. To my horror, printed on the top of the cap was 07/09. Bri tried it later so if it’s the date, then the French have unknowingly revolutionized dairy preservation. There’s a reason I had her try it; I'm not sadistic, it’s just that when I went to drink it later on, I noticed it was basically a yogurt drink and I don’t really love yogurt so I couldn’t tell if it was expired or if I just didn’t like it. On the back it says that drinking this yogurt red bull is the equivalent of one square of chocolate, a glass of milk and a glass of orange juice; or it could mean that those are the ingredients, which would explain why it tastes so bad. I went light on the breakfast because our schedule for the day included a presentation on the gastronomie francais, which would almost certainly include food. We had to be at the school by 11am and I didn’t get back to the house until 10. As I fixed myself some breakfast (and put the nasty drink firmly at the back of the fridge), I wondered if Bri were getting dressed…or still sleeping. I gave it a few more minutes and then when I didn’t hear any noises from her room I knocked on the door. When she finally opened it, she had obviously just woken up. She showered faster than I ever could have in that shower (think of the removable showerheads except once you remove it, there’s nowhere to put it back – the cradle is broken so when you aren’t using the showerhead you have to awkwardly hold it between your legs or gently lay it on the ground and pray that it doesn’t spray all over the place). And we were actually only like 5 minutes late getting to the center. Orientation hadn’t started yet and I took the time to post the last two blog entries and check my email and Facebook. I just had time to close out of Facebook when the program director poked her head in and told us it was time to start.

You could fairly easily see everyone fidgeting and looking around anxiously during the U.S. Embassy talk that preceded the food. Even though I was just as hungry as everyone else, I became increasingly nervous as the speech wound on. Someone in our group had actually been robbed the day before and she warned us again about the dangers of Parisian streets  and how we should never walk around alone at night or during the day and how we should close our windows at night and when we leave the house. Bri never used to but she started. I guess I haven’t really been here long enough to feel like it’s MY city and to feel completely safe here but maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’ll cause me to be more cautious and aware of my surroundings, not like I’m not already. I always keep my purse close to me and make sure it’s closed when I’m in crowded areas or on the metro. In that sense, I don’t think I could ever really live here in Paris; in France, yes, but not in Paris. I feel like it would be impossible for me to not be afraid. I guess that’s another reason why I’m so glad The Italian (as we call him) will be arriving soon. The more people that are around, the safer I’ll feel. In any case, I’m not doing anything stupid like walking around alone at night or getting into taxis with people I don’t know or handing out my phone number or talking to strangers or drinking large quantities or alcohol and then trying to sit on a low wall and falling backwards into a coma (that was one of the stories the woman from the embassy told us). As long as I’m careful not to make myself an obvious victim, I should be ok.

On a happier note, the culinary presentation was DELICIOUS. We were all given a plastic wine glass with a colored napkin inside (mine was brown) when we walked through the door and then Elisabeth (the cultural director) passed around plates of very dry bread that apparently awakens the taste buds (or is that the wine or the aperitif?) Elisabeth had set up on a table two sets of cheese, baguette, and red wine and asked us if we could tell the difference. After looking at the label on the cheese, we realized that the difference was in the price; the cheese in one setting had been bought from Carrefour, a large supermarket chain, whereas the other had been bought from a specialty cheese shop. Elisabeth then went on to explain the quality over quantity argument for which I giver her credit because I can’t imagine a harder audience to sell this to than students who essentially have no money. I mean of course I understand that what she’s saying is completely true and if I were hosting a part or if I were wealthy enough to do so, I would probably buy the more expensive, and therefore better, cheese. As it is, I would rather feed myself for the whole semester and also be able to buy some souvenirs, rather than eat out every night or buy ‘the good stuff.’ Maybe it’s because I’m not a real Parisienne but to me, food is food. In any case, there followed a PowerPoint naming all of the specialty stores and how the Real Parisians go to each place for specific goods, instead of going to a super market and getting everything done in one fell swoop, absolutely untrue because the supermarkets are always busy when I go inside them. It’s true that there are many more specialty stores here than in the US. There is a cheese shop, patisserie, boulangerie, butcher, fish market etc everywhere you look. It’s absolutely possible, given the time, to buy everything at it’s own place. The convenience stores here are very different, too; it’s true that chocolate bars abound but it’s very difficult to find real junk food: greasy chips or M&Ms are actually quite expensive. I could probably buy two bars of lindt chocolate for the same amount of money as a medium bag of M&Ms. The only downside is that I paid 1€35 for a pack of five bars of chocolate. I’m staying strong though: I bought them on Sunday and I’ve only eaten one bar and a half J

After the PowerPoint, we were separated according to napkin color and sent to one of four rooms where we would sample one of the four regions of French cuisine. My group went first to Aquitaine in the south of France. The major city in this part of France is Bourdeax, where both red and white wines are made. For each region, we sampled the wine, an entrée (or two), a cheese and a dessert. In Aquitaine, I tried the wine (red), the pate (tasted like gourmet meatloaf), brebis cheese (sheep cheese), and some sort of Rum cake that had a really weird texture on the inside. The next stop was somewhere in the east of France, I forget exactly where but it was actually my favorite place food-wise. The wine was red (which I could have done without), the entrée was something that tasted exactly like tuna fish, like from the can mixed with mayonnaise but when someone mentioned they could taste mayonnaise, Elisabeth said there was none. The cheese was goat cheese which I would just eat every day for the rest of my life, given the chance and the certainty that I would never gain any weight, and the dessert was something called opera cake. Its like tiramisu with the layers but just with more layers of different kinds of cream. There were actually two desserts at this station and the other was a kind of cookie that I’ve seen in all the patisseries and the name escapes me but they’re very, very sweet and airy inside and topped with balls of sugar. The third station was another name I’ve forgotten and it was my least favorite anyway: just a lot of cold cuts and some cheese I didn’t like and elephant ears for dessert. The last place, I remember, was Normandie and instead of wine we had cider (delicious). The entrée was blood sausage or something and it tasted ok but was pretty gross smelling and feeling and it got under my fingernails. We tried two types of Camembert for the cheese, one from the supermarket and one from the specialty shop. To be honest, and maybe it’s just because I’m so used to the supermarket kind, I thought the better quality one was too strong and I actually preferred the supermarket brand. For dessert, we had mini chausse aux pommes, which are basically semi-circle shaped apple tarts that are usually as big as my hand.

When everyone had finished, the presenter of that meal instructed us to return to room A, where we had started. Once there, Elisabeth informed us that our next task would be a treasure hunt in the immediate area surrounding the BU facility. She split us into two groups, A and B, which she then divided further into 4 groups. Group A would start at the Champs de Mars and learn how to play Petanque, then begin their hunt, whereas group B would start at the end of the hunt and work their way backwards to play Petanque if they had time. Each group had to be back at the Champs de Mars by 4 because the next item on the list was a one-man marionette show for kids. Scavenger hunt was fun but a little tedious; the marionette show, on the other hand, was terrifying. One man did all the voices and he kept making the puppets scream really loudly and then all the kids would scream and all the babies would start crying and he did this like THREE TIMES. I’m not really entirely sure what the point of seeing the puppet show was supposed to be, but it ended up showing us how different French audiences are from American audiences. For example, there was one baby that got so scared the first time the guy screamed that it wouldn't stop crying the entire time and the mother just kept hushing it and rubbing it’s back! Correct me if I’m wrong but that would NOT fly in American theaters. That mom would be getting death stares from the other children and mothers alike. I enjoy French humor when I understand it and unfortunately, I wasn’t able to understand as much as I would have liked to today but the narrator spoke very quickly and also the children in the audience never stopped talking. This puppeteer had NO trouble engaging his audience. He had riled them up so much that they were screaming almost non-stop. By the end of the show I was frustrated and deaf. Oh and by the way the show was named Madame Biscotine and the Devil and featured Madame Biscotine, her obviously Asian neighbor sporting a stereotypical cap, a robe, and a long thin braid down his back, and the devil who wanted to take Madame Biscotine to hell for reasons I was unable to ascertain. Towards the end, this really started getting good. The devil slammed the Asian in the back of the head with a baseball bat but I guess he has a really hard head (?) because he got back up and head butted the devil in the stomach, knocking him out long enough for the Asian to throw him off-stage.

The next item on the list was the cinema in the Latin Quarter for a French movie (long and depressing but featuring Juliette Binoche and my other favorite French actor, Romain Duris) and then crepes after that. I got a cheese and chicken something; it wasn't called a crepe, but I did get a crepe for dessert: nutella crepe. DELICIOUS. I actually usually get a crepe if I’m going to be eating out because they’re fairly cheap. The bathroom in the crepe place was just out of this world. I took a video because it was just so crazy that I wanted to remember it forever. One of the guys (well, the only guy) in our group brought a few of us with him inside because he wanted to show us. The first room was a sort of antechamber with just a sink and a flashing neon light and tons of stickers on the bathroom door that changed color depending on the light. The toilet stall though, was absolutely divine: there was a disco ball sort of thing that shot little spotlights all over the room. I took a video of that too. Some woman came in while I was taking a video of the anteroom and gave me a really confused look and then walked back out.

Everyone sort of trickled out of the crepe places in twos and threes. Two others and myself took our time walking back along the Seine passing Notre Dame, The Louvre and various other landmarks on our way to the Eiffel Tower, just in time to see it sparkle which it does each night, every hour on the hour. Pictures don’t do it justice so I took a video instead and I really want to make it the background on my phone.

We return so late each night and I hate going right to sleep so I always blog or read a little and then before I know it, it’s 2am. We don’t have to be anywhere tomorrow until 2pm when we’re meeting at Paris8 but a friend and I made plans to meet in the city at 11 to find a Carrefour (big supermarket). Arranging plans with people here is SO difficult without a phone OR internet so I have to wait until someone is online and then just constantly email them. Hopefully all will be fixed soon. Miss and love you all.