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

The Sketch Factor: La Drague

I am, for the most part, completely tolerant of cat-calls and things of that sort -- Especially in Paris where the catcalls consist of "t'es belle!" instead of "hey baby, nice ass." However, I draw the line when they don't stop, and get increasingly invasive. In America, I know how to deal with these wont-take-no-for-an-answer guys pretty well, but in France I have no idea what to say to them. I don't want to be rude, but at the same time, I do want them to leave me alone like all the other men who say their 2 or 3 words and continue walking. I've been pretending that I don't speak French, smile, shake my head, and walk away, but I would prefer a nice one-liner like we have in the states. "I'm sorry, I'm engaged," "I have AIDS," or even a simple, "Not interested."

So today when I left for Montmartre in an outfit that I thought was pretty cute, I didn't know what to say to the man who thought that I was pretty cute. I looked around me and noticed that I didn't look much different than the other girls on the metro, except that I was wearing very very tall shoes. So tall that when I was walking to the metro a little boy asked his mother if he could wear shoes like mine so he could be tall, too. Still, I remember seeing tons of girls in my neighborhood wearing even taller shoes, shoes that were brightly colored and would attract much more attention than my black suede closed toe heels. Maybe there is some unwritten "no heels in Montmartre" rule that I haven't figured out yet, or maybe I just got unlucky and happened to cross the path of the one sketchy guy in Montmartre.



After a gorgeous trip up and down the stairs of Sacre Coeur, I went one metro stop down to the local TATI where, as Samantha and Christelle had informed me, the prices were much more reasonable. I saw things I could actually afford! I bought 2 wine glasses (we only had 1 in the apt.) and a little hanging thing for the shower (we're girls, and we have a lot of shower products). At Monoprix, the shower stuff started at 9 EUR, but I got a large container for only 3 EUR at TATI. The pair of wine glasses was less than 5 EUR.

I finished up the afternoon with a walking trip to Monoprix and ED (in jeans and my most mundane looking shoes, of course). I picked up a quick pain au chocolat at Monoprix where they cost only ,60 EUR but are not quite as yummy as the ones at my local boulangerie. When I stopped by ED, I just intended to look around as I had at Monoprix, but then I saw that I could buy a whole kilogram of pasta for ,91 EUR and then there was the bordeaux for only 3,09 and the tomatoes... well lets just say I caved but honestly not the worst place give into temptation (did I mention the bordeaux? That wine sells for 13 EUR/ glass in many cafés around here, not that I've been looking...). My total damages at ED came to 5,53.

When Taylor came back from her weekend trip, I decided to take her for a walk along the Seine so that she could scream like a little girl the way I did yesterday. We celebrated her homecoming with dinner at a cute café right along the Seine. A prix fixe meal (I chose frites, steak and salad, and a fruit tart) with an orangina, a view of the seine, and a place to rest our tired feet came at 14,00 EUR a piece, and we even got a compliment from the chef about our French. :)

Might go out dancing later :)

Total damages thus far:

Wine glasses: 4,99 EUR
Shower container: 2,99 EUR
Pain au chocolat: ,60 EUR
1 kg spaghetti: ,91 EUR
3 vine ripened tomatoes: ,60 EUR
1 package of chunks of meat (I swear it looks delicious): ,90 EUR
bordeaux: 3,09 EUR