Le Parc de Seaux and une soirée de salsa

The morning began with a jaunt about the neighborhood. I had read that the marché des enfants rouges was having a little fête today and tomorrow, so I walked over and sure enough, there were dégustations galore. There was a boulangère, a fromagère, a boucherie and a caviste. Pretty much everything you'd expect from France but all right outside my favorite market and all handing out free samples.

After helping myself to some Tomme that couldn't have been more delicious or expensive (38 EUR the kilogram! yikes!), some gormet saucisson sec and a bit of wine, I bought a chocolate covered palmier from an adorable man who assured me that I wouldn't get fat from the monstrosity of a pastry he handed me for a mere 1,50 EUR. I don't know what this man was thinking; the thing does not have any indication of being good for you. Picture warm, buttery pastry dough, covered in sugar, and covered in chocolate. It was pure deliciousness and the perfect petit dejeuner.

I walked through the quartier a little bit before grabbing a hot baguette for the road on my way to the Parc de Seaux. Seaux is a sub-urb of Paris (a banlieue) that is built around a very gorgeous chateau and even more gorgeous gardens. This was the chateau built immediately before Versailles, and the gardens do not dissapoint. The Chateau is in "zone 3," so the regular metro pass doesn't cover the trip - luckily SLC payed for our aller-retours.


After arriving at the chateau, we walked around inside the gorgeous 18th century building. I felt like a real princess -- everything was lined in gold. The view from the chateau was even more impressive. The french doors on the first floor opened up to a view of an enormous series of gardens "à la française."


The nice thing about the chateau is that it is not only a museum and historical monument, it is a public parc. Ironically, many things that were originally built for the aristocrats are now public establishments for the rich and poor alike. Anyway, the residents of Seaux were out and about on the grounds playing sports, having picnics and walking their dogs.


After a jaunt about the gardens, Natalie, Tanya and I stopped at a café for some chocolat chaud and a nice view of the gardens. It's been beautiful out lately and today was no different.

I returned home and got ready for a night at Pachanga, the salsa club I had heard about. I was kind of sceptacle, but the entry fees were not very expensive (only 8 EUR) and came with a drink, so I figured I could just enjoy a beverage if worst came to worst.

I did not just enjoy my beverage.

When I got there, they were having a lesson and I jumped right in. I was really excited to see so many people out and about. It was kind of hard to understand everything the teacher was saying since the steps are obviously called different things in French, but I just did my best watching and following the guys.

Everything was going great until the lesson finished and someone asked me to dance. He started dancing and it was completely different than anything I'd ever seen before. I tried to ask in my best French, "What is that you're doing?"

Apparently, most people in Paris dance a type of salsa that is rarely danced in LA. They call it "cuban salsa" here (go figure that speaking the language was not going to be my only problem for the evening). I asked the man next to me what they call the type of salsa that the teacher was just teaching, and he told me that they call it "puerto rican salsa" here. Apparently, they only teach the kind of salsa that I do on Friday nights. I got in the habbit of introducing myself as, "Hi! I'm Emily and I only dance puerto rican salsa."

Luckily there were some guys there who also danced puerto rican and were happy to dance with me. I did try cuban a couple of times, and it was ok -- I'm just stubborn I guess. I like to know what I'm doing before I do it.

All in all, I'm very satisfied with my evening at Pachanga. It's a real nice place even if you don't like dancing. There are lots of tables and the food looked really good (one of the few places that serves mexican food in Paris). You can get a full meal for 22 EUR and the meals that include drinks start at 27 EUR. The drinks are a bit pricey on their own (8-10 EUR) but you get one (or two) included with an entry fee of 8 (or 14) EUR.

The music was good, the people were nice (espeically the staff), and I am really starting to feel like I've found my crowd in Paris.

Total Damages:
1 palmier dipped in chocolate: 1,50 EUR
1 baguette: ,90 EUR
bottle of faux-rangina: ,81 EUR
entry, dance lesson, and drink (the first place I've seen that serves margaritas) to Pachanga: 8 EUR

L'orientation: 2eme jour

As I sit here and write my entry for the day, I realize there are 2 great things about being a étudiante pauvre à Paris.

1. We are forced to live similarly to Parisiens; we cannot go out every night and are thus forced to find the little gems in the city that offer free leisure or inexpensive delicacies. In other words, we are forced to stay away from the tourist traps (say goodbye to virtually every corner bistro as they are at least 10 EUR more expensive than the places most parisiens frequent).

2. Since we cannot afford to stuff our faces silly with extravagant French meals, that glass of wine goes a long way.

For example, for lunch today I had a 1/2 baguette from a boulangerie around my school (52 centimes) and had the other half for dinner tonight with some meat and tomatoes from my fridge. I covered the meat with some tomato sauce and basil (99 centimes for the jar) that I bought at the ED around the corner. My verre de vin blanc hit me like a ton of bricks.

Around 15 h (aka 3pm), the Université treated us to some coffee, tea, and chocolat chaud at "Select" in the 6e (boulevard du montparnasse). The café was absolutely adorable and even had a cat who occupied one of the booths below his portrait that was inscribed, "chat d'or: Micky." I chose a chocolat chaud (made the French way) which was absolutely delicious.

Le Select is a great little place to go and visit as it, like many other cafés on boulevard du montparnasse, played a crucial role in the everyday lives of parisian painters back in the days when painters could still afford to live in Paris (even though they still could not eat in Paris). When the painters couldn't afford a meal, they would often paint the restaurant something in exchange. Le Select still has many paintings on the wall to refelct this history. One can find many other cafés and restaurants on the block that still maintain this policy for some painters.

<--- Micky










In other less fabulous news, I took my first examen today. There was a section on dictation that made me very glad to have taken Christelle's phonetics class at Pomona (FR105). I think I'll leave it at that.

Damages today:

Baguette: 0,52 EUR
Tomato sauce: 0,99 EUR
Cola Light: 0,37 EUR