Karate at the hôtel de ville and swans on the Seine

Just when you think you've figured her out, Paris throws you a curve ball.

After waking up early this morning to a mad homework and cookie snacking session, I decided it was time to get out of the apt. I am in Paris after all. Good thing I live in the heart of the city -- dragging my little lazy butt downstairs and the 2 blocks it takes to get to hôtel de ville was about all I thought I could handle. However, as the story usually goes with my walks into the city, I was seduced by everything that was happening around me, and decided to spend the afternoon as a flâneur.

I brought along my camera, and boy was I glad I did. There's clearly always something happening in Paris. Today a festival to stop some disease I had never heard of brought out a full group of brazilian musicians and dancers as well as a karate demonstration. The brazilian drums were beating so wildly as the karate demonstration went on, it almost felt like taiko.

Karate demo.
Brazilian band on stage.

I stayed and listened to the music long enough to decide that I was going to see what else was happening near by. I crossed the bridge to île st. louis where I saw a great crowd of street performers. I almost squeezed my way past the spectators to see what the fuss was about until I saw an even more amazing sight -- swans! On the Seine! I had to go over and take pictures. It was pure magic.
I enjoyed many other sights along the way, too. The smells, colors, and sounds here are amazing. The art of spectating is well rewarded with interesting people, shops, and skylines everywhere.

Some chocolates I found in a window on île st. louis.
They reminded me of Sarah's chocolates.

City of wine.

The light purple + green combo is one of my favorites here.
There's something so Marie Antoinette about it.

My mom sometimes asks me if I go see films. To this I reply, "Why would I ever need to see a movie when I have the whole city to watch for free? Paris is my cinema!"

Interesting people watching by the Seine.

Large scale poster art on the river.

The only bad thing about city watching is that, between the long walks and windows full of chocolates and pastries, you tend to work up an appetite. I satisfied mine with a baguette from biatrix accompanied by the last of my first wheel of brie and some blackberry jam. Yum.


Some budget tips for the day: some of the more expensive supermarkets can surprise you with randomly inexpensive items!
Today I found out that there is an even cheaper brand of fake nutella than the one I've been buying at Franprix! Surprisingly, they only sell it at a store that is usually more expensive (G20). However, they don't sell it at all of the G20s, so I didn't know this was available until I went into the G20 at St. Paul. G20 also has this brand of products called 'ep' that is as cheap as, if not cheaper than dia (ED's brand) but they don't always have 'ep' products at every store. From now on, I'm going to check out this G20 in the St. Paul area for nutella and some other cheap-er items.

Total Damages today:
baguette from biatrix: 85 centimes

Le Parc aux Cerfs and the walk back

So I'll preface this post by informing all of you that Blogger is being evil and not letting me post pictures right now, so I can't show you all the gorgeous photos that I took yesterday and today until their system gets unclogged or I find a better way to upload photos.

That being said....

It was a beautiful day in Paris. So beautiful that I wore a sundress. Word on the street is that this will be the kindest winter in Paris yet -- they expect the sun to stay out until December. Wishful thinking or not, this brief optimism turned Paris into a sea of smiling sunbathing hopefuls stocking up on what could be the last few summer rays.

I, too, wanted my share of sun exposure, so I went over to the jardin de luxembourg to hang out with Balzac for 30 minutes before my lunch at the Parc aux Cerfs on rue Vavin. The jardin was gorgeous -- they were having a "honey festival" and it was like the sweetness rubbed off on all the parisians around me. Everyone was so happy -- it's funny how the sun can do that to you.

When it was time to go to the Parc aux Cerfs, I gathered up my appetite and met my group at the door. The Parc aux Cerfs is a great little place on rue Vavin that, like La Closerie de Lilas and Le Selet, was frequented by artists and writers when Montparnasse was where you went to be an artist or writer. The Parc aux Cerfs remembers it's custom of letting its talented customers pay via painting or drawing by letting its current customers draw on the paper tablecloths (except, we don't get exempt from paying). Luckily SLC was paying for our food today (a 35 EUR meal was a nice way to end orientation), so we were able to indulge like the artists of another age.

The first course was a choice between a cucumber soup with goat cheese, a tomme (a type of cheese) and candied cranberry salad, or a poached salmon. I chose the Tomme salad and was very happy. I think this was actualy my favorite course, though I didn't get a picture of how beautiful the cheese was displayed before I gobbled the whole thing up.

Next came the plat: a choice of chicken, salmon or duck. I chose le canard and was very pleased. The sauce was a lavendar sauce, but had a sweet citris like tang to it that enriched both the duck and the mound of snap peas it was sitting on. I must say, the French really know how to cook a duck. Maybe they put it in butter -- who knows -- but it melts in your mouth.

For dessert, we could have a berry dish, a orange crême brulée or a chocolate molten cake with salted caramel ice cream. Being torn between the chocolate cake and the crême brulée, I remembered that I didn't have an oven and should probably eat cake at every opportunity I get. Plus, it sounded to perfect with the glass of red wine I was having. I was not dissapointed.


I must say that the crême brulée looked very good, too, though. It was not a little dinky thing like I've found at most restaurants. It was pretty sizable. I would try it should I ever go back to le Parc aux cerfs.

The meal finished, like any good French meal, with a café. I took mine décaf, not wanting to be wired for the rest of the beautiful afternoon.

Taking advantage of the clear skies, I walked home via a slightly different route today. I wanted to go to the île st. louis, which is the island on the Seine next to the île de la cité (the one with Notre Dame and all the fancy stuff). My new route took me along the Seine and gave me an incredible view -- all the parisians were out on the seine like it was a beach. What a great idea for a cheap lunch, I thought, noticing a couple sharing a picnic on the left bank.

Being as hot as it was, I wasn't surpised to find that many parisians were out looking for ice cream, but I had no idea how many of them would wait in ridiculously long lines for what seemed to be the most popular ice cream label on the île. Many cafés and stores boasted this label on the canapies and I noticed that the ones who did not serve this type of ice cream had literally no customers.

The ice cream seemed kind of pricey to me at 2 EUR a boule (scoop), but for the ice cream connoisseur, this could be the best deal of a lifetime. I think that's about the same price as a coldstones in the US, right? The prices also get cheaper if you buy larger quantities, so if you really like the stuff, it might fit well into a student's budget.

My trip to the cute little island was a great, but I found an even more exciting pitstop on the other side of the river -- a flea market! It was like all of the 4th was having a yard sale right along the Seine. I looked around for a while and talked to some French people before asking someone how often this happens. Apparently, for one sunday a month, you can pick up someone else's parisan treasures on the cheap! A great idea for souveniers. They also have cheap clothes and anything else you might expect at a yard sale. I highly reccomend it.

I finally got my full belly and tired feet home at about 5pm, and began to work on my homework. Classes start tomorrow!

Total Damages today:
0,00 EUR!

Visit to Vermès!

Today after French class, I went to a photography atelier called Vermès with 3 other girls to meet Phillip Vermès himself and discuss studying photography at his studio. He checked out Jay's camera, gave me a thumbs up, and gave us our first "theme" to start thinking about: our neighborhoods. I already have so many good ideas of where to find things that would make good pictures in my neighborhood and I'm glad that this gives me a reason to explore a little bit more.

Vermès is also much closer to my place than Reid Hall (Vermès is right by Opéra Bastille while Reid hall is on blvd. du montparnasse), and since class is on Thursday mornings with flexible lab times (I get to choose whenever I want to go in), it may turn out to be the superior studio to Spéos, the other photo atelier that we're visiting tomorrow.

M. Vermès was an interesting character himself. He took pictures of all of our ears with his super-mega-awesome-high-powered digital camera and his clothing made him look like someone who just walked out of Venice beach. Come to think of it, the whole studio looks like it could comfortably fit on the boardwalk.

On my way home, I picked up some "groceries" (just some pasta sause with meat to add to my spaghetti, some tiramisu gelato for one of these nights, and a soft drink) and made myself a delicious meal. As I sat by the window, I finished my French homework for the evening and decided to walk down to Reid Hall to print it out.

The walk down St. Michel is amazing, and the detour I took through les jardins de luxembourg was incredible. What a place for a picnic! The place itself is gorgeous and the people watching can't be beat. They even have lounge-style chairs -- it's like they know I want to get comfortable. I've decided that I will come back down here with a baguette and fixings one of these days, maybe I can convice Sam and her French friends to go with me.

In the middle of my super leisurely dinner at the Resto U (pasta, steak, green beans, salad, bread, raspberry tart), a man who appeared to be in his late 30s came and sat across from me. I think he could tell I was American because I was reading some information in a guidebook when he sat down. He was really cordial and explained a lot of things about Paris that he thought were amusing. It wasn't until 1/2 way through the conversation that I realized he didn't have any fingers on his left hand. I was absolutely impressed that he was cutting his steak, eating his apple, and explaining things with his fingerless hand so naturally that I had not even noticed there was anything different about it. More shocking was that when went our separate ways, I had learned nothing about the man's life, what he does for a living, how he lost his fingers, or even his name, but I felt I still had had a great conversation. I think that's the amazing thing about parisians -- they don't talk about themselves that much but still manage to be interesting in a world that is built on "profile pages."

I walked home, enjoying the hot parisian air (I have no idea why it is still this hot here -- I can't even wear pants at noon without breaking a sweat) and found that I didn't even want to dip into that gelato yet. A walk home in Paris was enough of a dessert.

Total Damages:

Pain au chocolat for breakfast from the boulangerie by my school: 1 EUR
"groceries": 3,45 EUR
dinner at CROUS: 3,45 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

Why do I even have a Metro navigo?

Kind of peeved about my whole bank account situation, I decided to head down to the Seine for some sure to be gorgeous sites. I headed out at about 5pm and just returned now at at beautiful 8:42 pm because, as you might have guessed, you can't just walk down to the seine, say "ok, that was nice" and then just walk back. I walked from my apt. in the 3rd, down rue de beaubourg until I hit the Seine, at which point I let out a girlish scream because I could see Notre Dame de Paris like 2ft away from me. I could literally feel the anger of all the commuting parisians breathing down my neck as I stopped dead in my tracks after crossing the river. It was so big I had to step back 50 feet to see it all at once. If I had a crash mat behind me, or one of those cute fainting couches from back in the days of corsets, I would have sighed and fell backwards smiling.

Well now I couldn't just stop there. I kept going. I saw the church of st. julien le pauvre and almost kissed the bald head of the man who I assumed was the abbot waiting next to the door because everything about the church was just so cute. It was like a lost puppy situated so close to the grandeur of Notre Dame yet so deserted and plain looking. I was completely in love with it's charm.

I walked slightly past the cathedral only to find that there were nearly 4 Manga stores all around me -- and not only was I in the center of Manga-town, Paris, but this was a Manga-town unlike any other. They had Soul Eater posters in the windows. Yes, folks, I have found the store to which I will lose my boyfriend, who is a big Manga adict. And best of all, there were several others just like it right next door. Across the street were American comic book stores boasting some action figures that must date back to the '60s. I snapped some photos of all of this since I am supposed to be keeping up with my Japanese while I'm here and decided I would return one of these days to see if I couldn't practice my conversational Japanese with some of the proprietors.

Then I strolled around the latin quarter and and past the Musée d'Orsay before returning to a walk along the seine. I have now decided where I need to go if I want to go bar hopping in Paris. They are EVERYWHERE in the latin quarter and come in all shapes and sizes. Also, happy hour mojitos for 3EUR? Don't mind if I do!

After a nice walk, I stoped in my tracks yet again because yes, there it was, the louvre. As I walked over the bridge toward the entrance I stopped in my tracks yet again (see a pattern here?) because the sun had peaked just over the Tour Eiffel and created this perfect silhouette that made even this iron beast of a monument look like a little key chain the tourists were buying for way too much money about 20ft away from me. Picture me, in my red jacket, literally twirling around in circles beaming like a little girl in the middle of a crowded bridge in Paris. Yes. People stared. No, I didn't care that I looked like a matador's cape gone mad. I was standing in between two of the most iconic monuments in Paris -- like them or not, you would have been excited too.

So I trotted over the cobblestones that lead to the Jardin de Tuileries and began snapping some photos when off to my left I hear a woman scream. I look to find a small older woman bent over an enormous puddle. I walked over and asked in my very best French if I could help her with something, and she told me that she dropped her metro ticket in the puddle. I used my umbrella to help her pick it up and she thanked me profusely. She reminded me so much of one of my French professors, Mme. Saigal, in that once she started talking to me, she just didn't want to stop. Wasn't this lovely and isn't that fantastic and oh don't you love Paris? Well it is a bit cold but still isn't it lovely and do you know about this little museum called "musée de cluny" yes well it's actually an old monastery and it has art from the middle ages and it's spelled c-l-u-n-y, you can't miss it take this metro and while you're there...

I loved her. Instantly. I half expected her to break out into an Edith Piaf song like Mme Saigal used to but before we could get to that point she went into the louvre and we exchanged "bonne soirée!"s.

As I made my way back toward my apartment I took in all the sights and smells I could. The river air was crisp, the trees smelled like fall, and the cobblestones under my feet felt like a little mouse under the streets was trying to press morse code into my feet as I walked. Every brasserie and patisserie I passed looked gorgeous. I thought of my friend, Sarah, the "lady chocolatier," every time I passed another gorgeous chocolatier's creation.

I picked up a pain au chocolat at the local boulangerie where I purchased my baguette yesterday. I'm really enjoying the convenience of being surrounded by fresh baked everything.

I raise my glass to a day well spent, and a lot of money saved in a bank account that still perplexes me.

Total damages:

Pain au chocolat: ,95 EUR