Les Actualites

So the big news this week is that I finally met up with the directors of the school where I'll be teaching English. Since I never received my documents from the ministry of education, I had no idea where I was I was teaching or how to get in contact with anyone. After prodding the people at MICEFA for a few weeks, they contacted the school and the director emailed me. We set up a meeting for Tuesday at 2:30. I rushed home from class that day, shoveled in some food, and off I went on the train. I took the RER there, which is essentially the BART to the metro's muni. Anyway, it's about an hour away, but that is sort of preferable here because it is past the suburbs and into a rich little town with a pretty castle. In France, the center of the city is the richest, and the farther away you get from there, the more ghetto things are. So in France, a suburb is basically the projects. Anyway, I met with two directors who picked me up at the train station and drove me to the school. One was wearing bright purple mascara with matching eyeshadow and the other bright blue. Silly townspeople. So they jabbered for forever, but we ended up picking my work schedule (8:30 to 4 Monday and Thursday --- good christ) and they printed out all of the train and bus schedules and showed me the fastest ways to get there. Very accommodating, which is rare among the French or so I've been told.

The rest of the week has been business as usual. Class in the morning, then some food shopping. We have a group trip to Fontainebleu tomorrow, so a few of us decided to have a picnic. I bought myself some turkey and a baguette to make a sandwich (sidebar: here in France, I am not considered a freak if I slap some butter and turkey on a baguette and call it a sandwich. That is what a French sandwich consists of). I also picked up two huge boxes of tiny strawberries for 5 euro as my contribution to the picnic. Few things make me feel more French than walking back to my apartment with a baguette under my arm. Later I'm heading to MICEFA to figure out my residency card crap and start my enrollment in Paris 10. Let me regale you with what I have to present for my residency card:

• passport
  
• six ID photos
  
• copy of my lease
  
• copy of my landlord's residency card
  
• copy of my most recent electricity bill (which has to be faxed to me from New York because I don't pay it)
  
• proof of my French health insurance
  
• a copy of my financial aid statement
  

Needless to say I will be pro skills at French printing and xeroxing at the imprimerie.

Certains L'Aiment Chaud

This weekend proved to be infinitely better and less stressful than the last. I woke up on Saturday morning and it was a glorious day, so I decided to take my camera out and photograph the neighborhood so I can put the pictures up here. After spending most of this summer photographing strangers, I still feel like a total asshole. Except now I'm even more of an asshole because I look like a tourist. I'm sure they can picture me back on my plaid couch in Arkansas showing the pictures to my toothless, inbred parents. That evening I went with three friends from MICEFA to Arene de Lutece to watch Some Like it Hot. Arene de Lutece is a Roman arena and one of the few Roman traces left in Paris. Apparently Rue Mouffetard used to be the Roman highway to Italy. Hmm cool. Anyway, it was totally bizarre to be watching this movie in a gladiator pit, cuz my brain can't really wrap around anything being that old.
On Sunday I got up and went to the Place Monge farmer's market, which was an interesting experience. It was basically like the farmer's markets in America, except the fishmongers and butchers were there. I swear if I have to see one more skinless rabbit with its bowels sliced open, I'm going to have a psychotic break. And I was actually considering buying some salmon from a fishmonger, but the evil meat bees were crawling all over the fish. That's right -- evil meat bees. I have no idea what they're actually called, but they're black and yellow, kind of shiny, and they bite. One year at Girl Scout camp these meat bees attacked us ruthlessly in hoards. It was so bad that Lauren Hays's mom was bitten by one in a paper towel she was holding underwater and using to scrub a dutch oven. We had to cook our meals outside and run into our cabins to eat. This was also the trip that Karin Alyon went on, and if she's reading this, she should consider herself lucky to be alive because we almost attacked her and buried her in that forest. I warned everyone when she joined the troup that she was a big weirdo, but no one listens to me.
ANYWAY. No fish. But I needed garlic. But how to ask for it? I'm not even sure what one unit of garlic is called in English (a head? I think it's a head of garlic), much less in French. So I thought, okay, I'll just ask for two garlics. "J'aimerai deux ails, s'il vous plait." It worked well enough, but he was disappointed at only making a 0,59 sale and I'm pretty sure he knew I was American. No matter. Oh and I made a HUGE ass of myself with the homeless-newspaper vendor (the newspaper is for the homeless, I'm pretty sure the guy wasn't homeless). Anyway, it's basically the Parisian Street Sheet. And I walked by this guy and he sort of shoved it in my hand, so I thought it was free. Not so. I could hear his voice a little and him poking me as I hurried away, but he caught up to me and apparently it wasn't free. Haha. So I gave it back, told home "desolee," and peaced it. I definitely made an idiot of myself, but maybe this guy shouldn't shove newspapers into people's hands.
That afternoon I braved the laundromat for the first time. I packed my clothes, sheets, and towels into duffel bags and headed to the nearest one, about two blocks away. The previous tenant here left me a note to warn me that you pay for each machine at a central station, so I kept that in mind. I managed to fit everything into one machine, paid my 3,40 (AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH) at the station, and sat down with Anna Wintour's biography. I usually leave my laundry in the machines and leave when I do it, but this was my first time using public machines, so I wasn't sure of the protocol.
A strange Frenchman with heinous BO came in and put about three loads of wet clothes into two dryers. He came back with three more loads of clothes and put them in the washing machines. Then he left. But he never turned the dryers on. I was perplexed, but also secretly laughing because he was smelly and about to come back to a ton of wet clothing. He did come back about half an hour later, emptied the three washing machines and added them to his loads already in the dryers. This asshole wasn't stupid -- he had just hogged those dryers for half an hour without actually drying anyway.
This next story is bittersweet. Haha. This guy came in and moved his stuff into a dryer. He left and came back with a baguette and Cadbury chocolate-dipped biscuits. He set them down on a washing machine, took his stuff out of the dryer, and left. I thought maybe he was coming back for them, but who would leave their food in the laundromat while they wait at home for their clothes to wash? About half an hour later, he was still gone. So I did what any poor student does -- I jacked them. Sorry, dude.
So after you pay 3,40 to do your tiny load of laundry in one of maybe 12 machines, you put it in a giant dryer, one of five. I guess the idea is to wash separately and dry together. Whatever. But it costs one euro for every ten minutes in the dryer. Luckily they are industrial dryers you probably don't need more than twenty minutes to dry, but I was over it after one cycle so I just shlepped my slightly moist stuff home.

Ughkj;lkjs;dlkjf;skljdf

Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Today is a sad day, for I have let Bank of America make me cry. That's right.

So the deal is this, basically. My landlord lives in New York City, but she pays for the apartment to have a year-round property manager to take care of stuff, like when I need a plumber or a handyman or something. I need to pay her 400 euro for the year (deducted from my rent) for her fee. Well I went to pay her on Monday and of course had to withdraw that amount from my bank account. Well fuckin' Bank of America put a hold on my account. I understand, they thought someone had stolen my ATM card and run off to France or something. So I emailed them and asked how to resolve the situation. 6 emails later, I'm using capital letters to denote yelling at some idiot in a cubicle who keeps giving me the wrong phone info. Apparently there is some procedure for calling customer service internationally but they don't actually know what it is. Plus they use stupid little email templates that say how they're so sorry they've inconvenienced me and they value me as a customer. I really like Bank of America, but this email situation is ridonculous.
Anyway, after the tears, I signed up for Skype as a last resort. I wasn't planning on getting it because my landlord offered to pay if I could find an internationally calling service for my landline, but this is just easier and probably better quality. So I got Skype and used my free intro minutes to call Bank of America and fix the situation. Now I'm off to buy groceries and use the ATM like there's no tomorrow.
I really just need my carte de sejour. In France you need to get a residency card after you have arrived in order to work and get a bank account. So that is Monday morning's mission -- I will go to MICEFA so they can start the paper work. I also need to get going on that cuz I can't leave France and re-enter without it -- which would mean no Spice Girls!

Le bon, le mauvais, et le laid

Voila the first of, I'm sure, many posts where I list all of the fanastic/bizarre/ridiculous things I am discovering about Paris. Enjoy.

• Yogurt. Full fat yogurt is very rich and almost disgusting. I learned this accidentally after I bought some lemon yogurt during my first grocery trip with Kerstin. I don't think it even exists in your average Safeway. I was afraid when I got here that the terms "low fat" or "non fat" didn't exist. They sort of do, in so many words. Dannon has a line of products called "Taillefine," which loosely translated means something like "nice size." Voila the low-fat products. They make yogurt with flavors like ruby red grapefruit and passion fruit. I'm sold. They also make some packaged baked goods (but I'm pretty sure they're just like Snack Wells, i.e. gross and full of sugar) and some yummy fizzy soda that I also bought.
  
• There is a lot of bread and cheese in France. Two things of which I eat very little of at home, unless it's string cheese or whole wheat toast with my turkey burgers. Luckily I'm too broke to even be tempted to eat at restaurants or even crepes and paninis.
• Which brings me to something else. The French panini. I discovered it the last night Kerstin was here, when we went back to the nice crepe man. She got a cheese and mushroom crepe, but I wanted some protein. A French panini is essentially a stuffed baguette -- a foot long loaf of bread with a slit, filled with stuff, then toasted in the panini press. I had the bolognese and cheese. It's fucking awesome. All for 3,50. It really doesn't get better.
• Coffee. It is very hard to find a travel coffee mug. I found one at the Bodum store but it was expensive. Perhaps I'll have to buy one at -- gasp -- Starbucks. I understand that French people make time in their morning to have their tiny cup of coffee and a warm croissant while they read the paper. Me, I like to make the coffee while I'm getting ready and drink it in transit. So I must find a travel coffee mug.
• There is also no coffee creamer. Sad day for me, because I love Coffee Mate. I wait for the winter so I can get my Pumpkin Spice or Peppermint Mocha creamer. So now, instead, I use a dash of whole milk and a spoonful of Nesquik powder. It gets the job done, but chocolate will probably be tiring after a while.
  
• The mini croissant. All the deliciousness, half the price and half the guilt. For 0,45, I will probably make a habit of it.
• Everything is smaller here. Apartments, cars, stores, even toilet paper. I kid you not, the toilet paper is noticeably shorter, as are the paper towels. Unfortunately, so are the frozen chicken breasts, and that is sad.
  
• Ice cream. The ice cream is awesome. I'm addicted to the low fat variety back home, so I was afraid that eating ice cream here would add to the significant amount of arterial blockage I'll have from all the fucking cheese and butter. But no. The ice cream is essentially low fat on its own. And the packing is great. You get a little plastic tub (I have been cleaning mine out and using them for store. It's great tupperware) and the ice cream has a cool design on top like it was piped in with a pastry bag, and little chocolate chips sprinkled on top. It it totally ridiculous, but it delights me.
• Gyms. This part is killing me. The gyms here suck. I understand that indoor exercise is a new concept to the French. What I don't understand is why these shitty little gyms cost so much money. I mean Club Quartier Latin This ties into what I already said about things being small, except these gyms are deceptive. They make these fancy websites with great pictures of the facility that cleverly mask their size. LAME.
• BIG flies. I leave one of my windows open when I'm home to ventilate the place, and these gigantic flies buzz on in. At first it freaked me out and I wanted to keep my windows shut, but the flies are great exercise for Puck. My studio is very small and he is used to big hallways for sprinting. But when the flies come in, he goes nuts trying to catch them. So far he has trapped and eaten two of them. So now the flies are welcome.

I should really make lists of everything I see that strikes me, cuz it happens constantly.

Le week-end

This weekend I set out to get shit done. That's right. Productivity. Unfortunately, this was not as pleasant and easy as hopping in the car and driving a few minutes to Target, where life is perfect. My apartment is fully furnished, but I decided to buy a few little personal things of my own. So I got out my star-shaped Post-its and made a list. Can opener, measuring cup, laundry bag, travel coffee mug, regular coffee mugs, a cute can for coffee storage. I also wanted to look at toaster ovens and hot pots, which I get to pick out and deduct the cost from my rent. I found these online at Darty, somewhat of a French Best Buy, and the closest store is in Forum des Halles. Forum des Halles is a gigantic underground mall that used to be a garden or a museum or something (isn't everything in Paris?) Also, I wanted to get a gym membership going because I am slowly becoming insane without structured exercise. I had researched a few places online with elaborate websites (more on this later), in walking distance, so I was going to hit those first.

Saturday

Well, drawn by the promise of home stores, I set out for Forum des Halles. But first, I went to W.H. Smith, an English bookstore near the Louvre. I've been plotting my return to the gym and when it comes to fruition, I will need some American magazines. Eventually I plan to read French ones, but ya know, baby steps. The store was great, except that Us Weekly costs 6,50 euro (about 9 dollars -- not worth it for only enough reading material for one day at the gym). So I settled on the similarly priced but much heftie Allure, Glamour, and Cosmo, which will get me 2-3 sessions each. So what if I spent 20 bucks on them.

Off to des Halles. The metro stop for this mall (Chatelet, Les Halles, and Chatelet-Les Halles. . .yes, that's right. Three stations in one. It takes maybe 10 minutes to get from one end to the other) is bad enough, and took me about 10 minutes to just pick an exit. Once I was out, I wandered around for a little while. Luckily, big tourist attractions in Paris have some signage near them. I found my way there, and down into the depths I went.
While on an epic hunt for the Darty store, I ran into Maisons du Monde. It can best be described as a French Pier 1. And it was great. But of course, I always need to compare prices everywhere before I buy something, so I left empty-handed. I did eventually find Darty. After all of this, I still had no housewares. My landlord told me about a department store nearby (this should have been my first deterrent -- French department stores are crowded and expensive and generally miserable places to be) called BHV, so I searched it out using my excellent sense of direction. By this time, I was tired, hungry, and dehydrated. Not the best conditions for going into a 7 story department store with about 7,000 people. I found the housewares department, it was way too expensive. I was OVER IT. So I went home. The end.

Sunday

After the disappointing housewares search of Saturday, I decided to hit up my neighborhood open market. Sunday morning is apparently the biggest time on Rue Mouffetard (Google it), so I got up early (10 am?) to check it out. I walk down it pretty much every day to go to class but I'm usually tired and in a hurry, so today I just stroooolled. The first block or so isn't very market-ish, just lots of restaurants and boutiques (CUTE ones that I fully intend on patronizing once my job starts). But about half way down, the pedestrian-only gate was up and the food shops started. Almost immediately I found a housewares store. GLORY HALLELUJAH. I got a can opener for 3,10, a meauring cup for 1,50, and a great coffee storage can for like 5 something. Success. Next I decided to look at food and see if I was up to the French grocery shopping challenge. Protein is so expensive. Chicken is hard to find in the boucherie, and fish is just outrageously expensive. So is fruit. I've been really craving blackberries recently, but these people wanted like 3,25 (the commas mean euros, in case you hadn't caught on) for a box with maybe 20 blackberries in it. No thanks. I didn't end up getting anything (there were some chicken breasts on sale, but I didn't feel like freezing them myself), but I did stop into Picard, which I imagine is where we'll all be shopping in 2050. It is a store of all frozen food. Croissants, veggies, ice cream. I paid 9,30 for a kilo of chicken. Ugh I miss Safeway. Who wants to send me a giant bag of frozen chicken breasts?

After I got home, put away my purchases, and ate some lunch, I set out for Club Quartier Latin. If you look at the website, it looks perfect, and about a 10-15 minute walk away. The price is steep (about 60 bucks a month), but apparently one of the cheapest options in Paris. Well, I guess that's proportional here, because it was sad. The cardio area was about 200 square feet, with two sad and crappy elliptical machines. Dammit. So I went home, got the address of another place I'd be eyeing. It's much more expensive but hey, I'll pay for a nice gym. Club Jean de Beauvais is super nice, but like everywhere else, very small. I was almost charmed by the medieval architecture and nice-smelling spa, but 780 euros upfront is just ridiculous. Maybe I'll go back if I can't find anything else, but not until the rest of my financial aid comes in. So I went home, severely disappointed, and spent about 2 hours looking for every possible Parisian gym on the internet. There are a few promising places outside of my neighborhood, but I just don't want to take the metro to work out.

After all of this research and nearly deciding to take up jogging (yeah, I must've been delirious), I decided to check if Paris 7, the University of Paris nearest to me, had a sports complex. It does, and if I read the information right, it's possible to get a membership if you're not a student there. I sent an email to the sports director explaining that I attend the University of Paris, just not 7, and if it would be possible for me to use their facilities. Pray, everyone.

And so now

After last weekend's trauma, this week has been very. . .educational? I dunno. Monday and Tuesday were MICEFA orientation. Luckily, the immersion classes are held at Paris 3, a 15 minutes walk down Rue Mouffetard from my apartment. And what happens to be just at the juncture where I turn left down the street to campus? Well, beside an amazing little bakery where I've been buying mini croissants for 0,45 everyday. . .a Starbucks. I know I'm an ugly American and I should get over it and drink my coffee from a tiny ceramic cup on the terrace of a cafe, but I gave in. There's something about a big cup of drip coffee -- I'll never give it up. So on Tuesday morning, I stopped in and bought a moyen (tall) cup of coffee of the week for 2,40 euro. Luckily, this price will keep me from making a habit of it. But the familiar decor, the case full of crappy pastries, and the little shakers of vanilla, chocolate, cinnamon, and nutmeg -- it was all the same, and I was comfortable. However, coffee kept sloshing out of the cup as I hoofed it to class. I don't think I've ever had to drink coffee on the move like that.
On Tuesday afternoon I met Kerstin on the Champs-Elysees. There are all kinds of practical things I needed/need to get done, so that day I got an Orange F SIM card for my phone. Mohamad paid to have it unlocked, which is fortunate because everyone else I know has cheap little LG phones that come with the phone cards. There's no charge for receiving calls or text messages in France, it's pretty cool. Anyway, we just wandered. All the way down the Champs-Elysees, through Place de la Concorde, and to Tuileries gardens (which are in front of the Louvre). We just walked, sat on benches, walked more. It was very uneventful, but perfect. At the time, I was so overwhelmed with everything that all I wanted to do was wander. I've been to Paris twice before, I was broke, there was no need to sightsee. That evening we went back to my neighborhood and bought our first legal drinks. I could taste the Smirnoff in my 5 euro happy hour cocktail, but I gave it a few good stirs and it was tasty.
I took the placement test for my immersion classes on Wednesday, then began classes on Thursday.
The rest of the week is a blur of naps and online research (some day soon I will accept that not everything can be found on the internet, if only in France), but I did manage to get to the grocery store a few times. It's almost bizarre to buy small amounts of food a few times a week (in fact, I need to run into Franprix tomorrow for more ice cream), but it doesn't hurt that I live on a giant outdoor market, with a couple modern grocery stores thrown in for when I'm too overwhelmed by the boulangeries, cremeries, boucheries, and marches.

Thus far, part 3

Saturday

I was woken up around 8 am by a text message from Lauren, and as soon as my eyes were open, the adrenaline was flowing and I was awake. So I texted Kerstin and told her to come over and go to a cafe with me. She didn't end up arriving until around 11, and was in bad shape when she got here. We went to La Contrescarpe and I had a cafe creme (soooooooo good but also 2,50) and a tartine grille (toasted baguette with butter, more delicious than you would think). Afterward we just kind of walked around the neighborhood, had a crepe (the crepe man is so nice and offered to give me a free banana -- I didn't realize at the time that he was going to put it in my nutella crepe, I hate bananas. I sucked it up), found the 24 hour supermarket and got a few staples. Her hotel was out in the ghetto so she needed to get back before dark. This day is rather fuzzy but also comforting because we were both miserable.

Sunday

According to the info MICEFA mailed me over the summer (MICEFA is the program overseeing my University of Paris studies), I was to meet with our director at 2 pm, walk to the MICEFA office and the campus where we're doing immersion classes, and then have a 6 pm boat ride on the Seine. This time I had the foresight to write down her cell number, and good thing too, cuz when I called her from the meeting place, she informed me that the meeting had been moved to the day before. Oh well. So I texted Kerstin and met her at Les Invalides. Luckily I know this neighborhood pretty well, so we walked to Rue Cler (where I stayed during both my previous trips to Paris), but Sunday isn't really a good idea to see anything in Paris. It's all closed. We also walked to the Eiffel Tower, got some ice cream, and laid in the shade at Champs de Mars.
Apparently this guy had been looking at us for a while and Kerstin was wondering what the hell he was doing (I didn't notice), but he did approach us and asked if we would speak English with him. He was Russian but had been living in Paris for years and spoke English with a heavy French accent. He was nice enough, very geeky (he was obsessed with American movies and music), and told us that Million Dollar Baby was playing that night for free and outdoors. He gave us his number and took us to the metro station to go back to my place. We decided to go to the movie but we didn't want to lead him on (he was very interested in being BFF and showing us everything and helping us get cell phones), so we didn't call. We got some shawarmas from the Lebanese take out place on my street (there are like four Lebanese food places in a block radius. Fun fact: there is a place where you can also get take-out pasta in Chinese food containers), then head off to the park. It was a long way away and I definitely fell asleep on the metro. We were both exhausted but we toughed it through the movie, then back to my place to crash. Kerstin slept on my guest floor mat cuz the metro stops at like 12:30.