pancakes, Velib, Louvre and the Red Sox

In reverse listed order- I just watched the Red Sox game. By watched i mean stared at my computer screen which had the "Red Sox game day" on it- an application that tells you what's happening in the game with a play by play- this, i understand, is not really the same thing as actually watching the game- but it was my only option- and they were about to win the world series- and some natural instinct derived from far too many years of watching red sox games at home with pa and grammy made this strange pseudo- ritual necessary. Thanks to aim commentary from Katie who was actually watching the game it was actually entertaining- and of course they won (4-3 against colorado in the 9th) making it only the second time they've won since 1918- the first being my senior year of high school- so now i can easily remember all the dates since one will be my graduating year, and the next the year i was in Paris. Of course it is now almost 6am and i have been "watching" the game since 1 am.. so i have not got much sleep- but this does not currenlty bother me because I have no classes on Mondays.

The Louvre was my sporadic choice of activity today- I finally received my year pass- so it's now free and quick to go whenever i so choose. So today was to be the first day- I checked out large scale french paintings first- I'm always so impressed by these- and I really like them because it doesn't take any sort of artistic taste to appreciate them- They're just so huge and the subjects are either very dramatic or very majestic- even if you don't understand the subject one can easily just look at them and drool.
Afterwards I moved on to the Italian School- not as big.. but of course no one ever walks up to a De Vinci and says.."well, it's not as big as that painting by delacroix". The thought definitly passed through my mind when i was peeping a look at Mona Lisa - but then I always really liked the character of Leonardo in Ever After- and I did this fairly cool term paper on him my senior year of high school- so I get it.
On my way out I wandered through Roman statues- mostly of emporers- and i couldn't help but giggle at the fact that all of the faces I recognized were due to the fact that we watched I, Cladius as a main activity in our Latin 4 class. I honestly can't remember the family tree- but the names were all familiar.

So yesterday I made pancakes for the first time- a few people came over to revel in the amazingness that is american baking powder- now something i will never take for granted again. And i managed to feed one to my host brother who happened to be spending the night here- he liked it, though he's been to the U.S. before.

and the pancakes were followed by Velib riding through the Bois de Bologne- Velib's are the new parisian public bike system. They're stationed all around the city and with a credit card you can take one for for about 2 euros per hour. The bois de bologne is just south of my house- it's a huge park on the periphery of the city, and there's this water fall that i found once called the "grand cascade", though it is not particularly large and seems to have been perhaps man-made. so the round trip included the waterfall, a pond, some off roading and passing the old men who play petanque and hassle all females who pass. I always think "oh, it'd be so fun to play petanque with these sweet old men- just like we used to in french class" and then i run into these men and i see why that's a bad idea.

The strike

I realized that I never wrote about one of the most amazing things about france that happened last week- The metro strike. The French in general are well known for their fondness of striking- but never is it so entertaining as when they basically mangage to half shut down a major metropolitan city. The metro strike was declared for last thursday: what this meant theoretically was that all workers (basically drivers) for the metro, buses and trains would not go to work and the city would be left to suffer until Sarkozy decided to give in. What this actually meant was that they shut down all but two metro lines (one was electronic anyways, built in response to previos strikes and the other was basically kept open because it's the tourist line) and all buses and most trains- the ones that remained came so infrequently that they were just packed with people and getting to and from the airport was a disastor. Thursday is also the day that I have an 8am class on the other side of the city- it takes me about an 45 minutes on the metro- and would take about 3 hours to walk there. The general consensus was that one was not obligated to show up for classes on this day- but many classes would still be going on- so it was a good idea to go anyways.

Thankfully the tourist line i was talking about is actually my metro line- also ironically the line that goes to Sarkozy's neighborhood (not that he takes the metro)- so i decided i would take this to a place as close as possible to the university and then walk and just hope i got there before the class ended. This was actually pretty brilliant- i set out a little before sunrise- 7am- and got out at this metro stop in the Marais- the old art district- and then walked across the seine, the ile de st denis, and another bridge over the seine where i could see Notre dame glowing in the early morning sun. I meandered through small streets where children ran past after the sounding of a bell- and down this staircase that just appeared out of nowhere. I walked past Marie Curie research labs and by butchers and bread makers putting out the morning's offerings. I finally arrived at the school only 40 minutes late (2.5 hour class) and the professor congradulated me on making it and I sat down with the 5 other kids who had showed up.

Friday the metros were just sporatic- most were back up - but the loudspeaker in each station kept insisting that the lines were "very, very, very perturbed" or I guess "disrupted" but i liked the sound of pertubed better. By saturday things were basically back to normal- someone yesterday told me they're thinking about trying it again since none of the demands were met.

And the answer to the viking quote is that I was researching where to go for my Toussaints (All Saints) break and a norweigan tour by train was described as such- i guess it was probably funnier in context- but it made me really want to be a viking explorer. I just bought my plane ticket to Sweden yesterday so i'm going to visit my uncle and his family via a flight by Ryan Air- I've heard scarry things about this airline - a wikipedia article states the following under "incidents and accidents at Stockholm-Skavsta Airport"- "21 July 2005 - A Ryanair crew carried out an "irrational and inexplicable" steep approach at Stockholm-Skavsta Airport according to the Irish Air Accident Investigation Unit"

yeah, irrational and inexplicable are basically amazing adjectives for describing a landing.

...as though you were a Viking explorer a thousand years ago.

Procrastination

I'm supposed to be working on this "Rapport" for my art history class right now- I'm going do describe one of Monet's paintings in two pages.. this seems like a lot of pages to describe a piece of art work.. especially when we're not really supposed to research the painting or anything- just talk about the image. But i already gave up on that idea and am definilty researching the painting. At least i'm not attempting to do some sort of modern art piece- I went to the Museum of modern art again on Friday and was given a tour by this Middlebury professor and we ended up looking at this piece - i don't remember the name- but it was three large canvases painted white- not multiple shades of white or anything- but white. I understand the whole modern movement, and i get the whole process behind these paintings. But i think i'm a bigger fan of Monet.

I went to the eiffel tower to watch the rugby world cup on both friday and saturday nights- i feel like i've had a very english weekend- Basically the entire island came down to watch themselves play in the world cup- so everywhere i went there was english- and then i went to the american church which was in english- and now i'm trying to research monet- and suprise- all the web sites are in english. It will be good to go back to class on tuesday and remember that indeed I am in France. Actually i did speak french like once today- i went to the market near my house and bought three large pears - 'poires' had to definitly say the words pear, 3 and maybe something like - thank you sir and good day to you as well! Oh and i had a brief conversation with my host mom while eating my cereal this morning about the weather and then about the dessert she was making. but seriously overall has not been a weekend of great advances.

ok, back to the paper. more to come i'm sure- oh and i'm hoping to remember to take my camera to school this week after purchasing new batteries so look forward to pictures of the hideous building that is the "nouvelle sorbonne" = New Sorbonne- new is not a good adjective in france.. you definilty want to go for anything described as old or classic - but not new. The Sorbonne= beautiful building set in the heart of the latin quarter, Nouvelle Sorbonne= hideous monstrosity in bland neighborhood- this law also applies for potatoe chips and bread specifically, but i'm making it an overall rule.

I Fell into the Seine today

So in a long list of jokes that France seems to be playing on me- today was by far the funniest.. at least in retrospect. Going back a few days - Sunday i actually got to row (insert hallelujah chorus) - It was in this extremely heavy but beautiful and fairly functional wooden boat with 3 other girls- one who was sort of a mini coach, and two girls who were a little younger than me (15, 16) - no Coxswain- so sort of bizarre, but in general it was just kind of amazing to be back in a boat, first time since last october- just like riding a bike though.

Today, however, was my day to go out in a scull (or skiff as they call it here) - A single person, two oared dealy. I've never done such a thing before- have seen it done - but unlike apparently every other rower in france I had absolutly no coordination with more than one oar in my hand. First came the exciting bit- getting in the boat. THe coach who had been rollarblading about the dock, i might add- this seemed extremely hazardous- basically plopped a boat in the water and was like - ok, get on in. So i did- pushed off from the dock- got hit by a wall of wind followed by several large waves from a barge passing by and then began a very slow, helpless roll into the water- once fully submerged- dutifully still holding onto my oar handles- i finally realized the whole thing was a bit helpless- got out of my shoes and pulled myself and boat to the dock

After a change of clothes I got in a slightly wider boat and got out on the water -2 hours of vast improvement later I can't say i'm a huge fan of sculling- but it seems advantageous as i can then train on my own so i'll keep trying.

In other news the RATP strike starts tomorrow- RATP operates all of the public transportation in france basically- or at least in paris- so most of the metro and busses and trains will all be shut down. I'm supposed to make it to an 8am class across the city that usually takes almost an hour on the metro- I'll let you know how that goes.

I accidenlty put my cell phone through the laundry sunday after returning from rowing- It appears to be semi functional now- it will turn on and pretend to charge the battery when plugged in- but the main screen doesn't work- if someone feels like trying to call it go ahead, but i can't currenlty read text messages and i'm not sure if i'll be able to figure out how to answer it : )

The Day That Almost Was

I almost rowed on the Seine today, almost. I didn't want to say anything too soon because the way things go here it's best not anticipate anything. Basically my goal each day is to have the lowest expectation possible so that i can be pleasantly suprised when things actaully work. Basically if I had a basket with 20 eggs- I'm assuming great plague will kill every chick before it hatches and then the eggs will begin to rot and smell something like line 10 of the metro.

going back in time to wednesday- I had managed to get in touch with a rowing club through the director of student life in Paris and she told me to go to this rowing club at 2 o'clock with a medical certificate, 2 pictures (everything in france requires 2 pictures) and the fee for the club- which was not actually decided on- so i was just supposed to show up with large wads of cash. I was not really given any indication of what this would actually mean: when i would be able to row, with whom, where, etc- so i just showed up at the building hoping things would become apparent once i arrived. Instead i found myself surrounded by 12 year olds wearing various rowing clothing. There were two guys who seemed to be in charge so I tried to explain that i wanted to sign up to row- they told me that the Secretary would do that they arrived, but they were running late- so i just stood about, trying to stay out of the way of the 12 year old rowers (apparently training for some big deal french rowing cup). Another man showed up and wandered into the secretary office- I thought the secretary (named Claudine I knew) was a women- but decided perhaps my cultural blindness had misinterperted the gender of this name- so i went over and asked if he was Claudine- at which point he laughed, said no, and that she should arrive soon- apparently Claudine is definitly a woman's name. I essentially walked up to a man and asked if he was Issabelle- awesome work.

When the secretary did show up I was handed a form to fill out - and when I kept attempting to ask questions about what i would be able to do if i signed up and gave here large sums of money- she just said we could discuss "all that" after i filled out the form... If it hadn't already taken me 4 weeks to just reach this point and i didn't understand that this was just a general french thing to make you sign up for things before you really know what you're signing up for I probably would have been more turned off- instead i merely sat down and filled in the usual.

She gave me a brochure that listed hours for the practices - and having explained to her that i was not a beginner she pointed me to the hours for experienced rowers- the first being today from 2 to 5.

So today i arrived- in full rowing gear- eager to discover what exactly i had signed up for- When i went back in the club I found one of the coaches i had seen the other day- he informed me that the adult "leisure" rowing had gone out half an hour before and that the group going out then was actually the beginners. He offered to let me row in a skull (single person boat) but i tried to explain that i'd never done that before - a point at which i realized my rowing vocabulary in french was non-existant. I was then directed towards an english speaking coach who asked how much experience i'd had. This man has told me to return tomorrow at 9am to row with people who actually know what they're doing. So I've dared to elevate my hopes to actually getting to get in a boat tomorrow.. hopefully all will go well. I'm thinking of showing up an hour earlier just in case.

Normandy

I'm sorry i didn't write this like a week ago because i feel like the distance of time will leave me with musings that do not do justice to Normandy.

On the one hand it was just like any touristy expidition- a coach bus, hotel, breakfast with croissants and audio guided tours of old places. On the other hand it was so simple, easy and peaceful that it was somehow than just a mere shuffling in and out of museums and monuments. As I wrote somewhere already to someone.. can't remember when or where- I hadn't realised how much i missed the country until I found myself one more surrounded by green, cows, and little villages. I sit in my room on the sixth floor of my house in Paris - out my window stretch scattered rooftops, and it doesn't intrinsically bother me- I like it even. It looks like a european city: the kind that people in movies always see. But there's an affect that you don't even sense from the everyday pavement beneath your feet, the gusts of stale wind that rush past in the subway, The stiff and silent stares of business men with shiny shoes and ironed shirts and the artifice after artifice that though aesthetically pleasing and impressive - at the same time can not equal nature's creation. I never though that much about it but when you live in the city you're constantly surrounded by human life- you don't see all of it, because it's hidden in the buildings you walk past - it's under your feet as you walk over streets that hide beneath them stretching metro lines. It was nice to just be back with grass and stretching views of ocean or fields.

The itinerary began with a visit to the disembarkment museum and one of the beaches of Normandy turned into an artificial port during WWII. Afterwards we rode onto the American Cemetary at Omaha Beach, which is technically American ground- so i guess i went back to the U.S. for a few hours last week. The weather was amazing- sunny and clear - so i just strolled through all of the gravestones looking at the different states the soldiers had come from. Saturday night we stayed in a small hotel and watched the rugby game in the hotel bar. Sunday we headed onto Mount Saint Micheal, another day of beautiful weather and clay beaches to stroll. Then onto the Tapestry of Bayeau and then The trip concluded with a visit to a chateau and a viewing of The Gladiator dubbed into french on the bus- I really don't think any french person should ever try to dub for Russell Crow- but so it was.

Disastor Planning

I just filled out my Banner web evacuation plan - and it reminded me that my Mother had extended an invitation to my middlebury friends to list our house as a possible evacuation destination. So just in case anyone feels like listing the wickberg family as one of their hide outs should the pandemic flu ever reach Midd our home phone number is (802)8692050 and my home address is on facebook.

Last week

It has been exactly a week since the last post so i will start with last thursday and see how far i get.

Thursday: 8 am course "Technical Analysis of Film" -It sounds better in french "L'analyse technique du Film". the first thing to note is the time that this course was at- 8 am is one thing at middlebury where i can usually make it to bihall in 3 minutes- I had to leave the apartment at 7am which due to it being France or maybe just the time of year means it's still dark outside. Parisians seem to go to work at around 10 am- so 8 is really just pushing things in my opinion. This all would have been bad enough but i also managed to not correctly set my alarm- so after a fairly confusing dream wherein i ultimatley was convinced that i was back in my bed in good old Westminster, VT I awoke, after 7, in Paris- very distinctly not in my bed at home- and with a quick realisation that i was going to be late.

I literally ran to the subway- I've never done this before- mainly because running is not something often done by Parisians- mainly because there shoes are quite uncomfortable, but also just because it would mess up their make up and hair and generally contrast with their pulled together appearance. But run I did- and managed to impressively make it to Paris III in 45 minutes, only 10 minutes late. And thanks to the incompetance of first year french students i was by far not the latest in the course.

French first year university students are an interesting breed. I can't remember the exact number but we were told in our course at Middlebury that about half of the students in their first semester will fail out. But I suppose one has to look at this in the context of the fact that university is practically free for all students who have passed their "Bac" and the university is probably fairly underfunded. This basically means that almost everyone who finishes their Bac in France enters into the university and it just so happens that half of them become disenchanted with the education system and discover that their true passion is writing tormented poems or watching the registers at the local Monoprix- this would explain the plethera of tormented writers and "Monop's".

So the second thing to note in the tale of this course is the subject- I think someone asked me why i was taking film courses- actually many people have asked me this. And just to succinctly answer the question : I have no idea. The longer version starts back when an optomistic wide-eyed freshman decided to take French at a very internationally minded liberal-arts college in the middle of nowhere, VT. This somehow unexplicably led to the same person signing up for a semester abroad and then, ultimatly finding herself in Paris with the option of taking either Literature or Cinema courses- and having already taken French literature courses she decided to go with the later.

That being said I don't really view the cinema courses as just "film classes" - one of them is basically a philosophical art history type course (L'esthetique de l'image)- I like this course very much. The Woody allen one i generally see as an interesting view on America. And the Technical Analysis of film- ok.. that's very film-esque- But you also learn a lot about how there are different ways to view everything. Every shot, every sound has been placed there intentionally- And you start to see how movement and color and pace and light can all affect the way something is expressed... That being said i have no intention of ever studying film further after this semester- nor have i ever held more than a passing interest in Films.

So after arriving, post cross- city sprinting - we watched a scene from Edward Scissorhands and talked about each shot and the girl sitting next to me proceded to fall asleep.

Friday: midd course in the morning followed by Woody allen in the afternoon- I had my first encounter with other middlebury students at Paris III - After a week of meekly smiling at all the french students about me, it was very nice to run into familiar faces. After the course i attempted to find an open book store, but instead ended up just taking the subway to various places and eventually giving up and going home to pack for the trip.

to be continued...

Bibliotheque Pompidou

I'm currently at the centre pompidou- there's a free library here and it let's you use it's wifi for and hour and a half a day- I sort of get wireless at my house anyways but i was going a little nutty hanging out there so i decided i wanted to check this out. I'm very glad i did- not just because of the coolness of the library but also because across the street is a grocery store called "Ed" where i found chocolate chip cookies- COOKIES!! - the french don't understand cookies- and consequently their grocery stores don't sell them. But this place sells two types and the one I purchesed had a very american themed box. I also discovered something that resembled fig newtons- i looove fig newtons.

I'm half way through my first week of classes and things are going well. I can understand the proffessors at Paris III as long as i listen and watch them talk- I've discovered that this is actually very important for my level of comprehension- seeing the lips moving. Wehn some students in the class were asking questions and i couldn't see them it was strangly difficult to follow what they were saying. At Paris III all my courses are for first year students so they all look so young- they also all seem to be brunettes and short- I sort of like getting to introduce myself to the professor and explain that i'm an American student and observing the reaction of other students in the class. One guy definitly sized me up after I had announced this as if to say- american? really? niiice.. But in general the other students seem to be pretty nice. They're cinema people so you can sort of pick out the ones that think one day they're going to direct the next great film or at least spend the rest of their lives consorting with deep thoughts in smoky bars. Some of these people are extremely annoying and enjoy professing their "unique"opinions which are so highly not original. But really I still find this sort of entertaining. I'm a little confused about what work i'm actually supposed to be doing- most of the classes have one exam and one paper and then a list of books that we could read if we feel inclined- I would love to read the books , but which ones? should i buy them or just go to a library and read them there?

I'm in the midst of attempting to enroll in a rowing club- but like all things in France this is going to take an absurd amount of time and an absurd amount of documents and photocopying.

Aunt Jemima

I saw an american food store today near the Hotel de Ville. Unlike most american food stores abroad that i've seen- this one did not seem to just specialize in large boxes of american cereal and various junkfood items such as cheetos- instead it had a very classy air to it. The store was called "Thanksgiving" and was situated on a very quiet lane with cobblestone paths. What it did have was an 8 euro box of Aunt Jemima pancake mix. Now I will say I do think Aunt Jemima can probably make some fine pancakes- and i understand that this had to be imported so therefore is more expensive- but honestly pancakes eight euros?? that's like fourteen dollars for one box of pancake mix. Pancakes consist of flour, salt, baking powder, eggs and milk. Last i checked cavier was not included in Aunt Jemima- therefore a box of pancake mix should for no reason cost 14 dollars- arg.

In revenge i know plan to search out the above ingredients next week and make myself some thouroughly non expensive pancakes- though probably with jam on top- i don't even want to know what a bottle of aunt jemima syrup would cost.