join the triumph of the skies

My last day in Paris until the new year.

The Fondue dinner on Wednesday night was excellent, even if the waiter/owner was a jerk to us for being American. It was a traditional French style restaurant, wherein there are two long tables, and everyone squeezes around them. Food is served in large portions at the center of the table that everyone shares. I ate the meat fondue; we were given a bowl of chunks of raw steak to dip into hot oil. The cheese fondue I only sampled, but it was delicious too. Then as part of the included menu, we got a fruit cocktail, and a baby-bottle of wine. By baby-bottle, I literally mean the type of bottle you give a baby (only hopefully filled with milk). It even had the rubber nipple. Drinking wine from that? A little bizarre.

Everyone has all these plans for their last day: hanging out with friends to say goodbye at the Eiffel Tower or the Champs Elysee . . . Me? I get to sit in my room, pack, eat dinner, and then I plan to go to bed early. The shuttle taking me to the airport is going to pick me up at 7:15 in the morning. I guess I'm not special enough to warrant someone to want to say goodbye to me? Ah, well. I could be going out to get some drinks later, but, um, hello? What part of waking up early and spending all day on a plane makes them think adding a hangover to the mix is a good idea? Learned my lesson on that one, thanks.

Besides, I've got some writing I need to do. I've been putting it off all week. It just sucks how the big social thing is drinking.

I'm looking forward to making cupcakes. I have some holiday-themed decorations in mind which will be fun and easy to make.

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maybe forgiveness is right where you fell

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• Dec 16, 2008
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For lunch today I'm having a chili-and-rice microwaveable meal, with emmental cheese that I sprinkled on top. Mmm om nom nom. Very delicious.

Tomorrow I have the first half of a huge test in my cours practique. Tonight will involve studying. But tomorrow night, a few of us have a sort-of goodbye dinner planned at a fondue restaurant in Montmartre. It seems so surreal that I'll be home in a few days, but then again, it seemed so surreal that I'd be spending the semester in Paris, and now I have.

Speaking of surreal, apparently today a bomb was found in the Primetemps store in central Paris?

And while we're on the subject of surreal, how about the fact that I spent the weekend in Budapest, Hungary? As in, Eastern Europe? As in, a city where NO ONE speaks English, and the language is so different from any other language that it's impossible to even attempt to understand. The exchange rate was lovely, though, at 1 dollar equalling about 200 Forint (abbreviated Ft—so we took to calling them feet, seeing as we had no idea how to pronounce "Forint"). When I paid for pizza, the bill was 2,690 Ft. Sounds like a lot, right? That's around 10 euro. It was cool to hold a bill that read "20,000".

Ever seen the movie Eurotrip? Absolutely horrible film, but their depiction of Eastern Europe is accurate: bleak and depressing. The stone buildings are usually a darker stone, looking damaged or tarnished, and being an incredibly impoverished country, well, it's just bleak. The public transportation is shady, it's filthy, and basically the word I uttered most in response to the city was "sketchy." The first night, we got a cab from the airport to our hostel, and when the driver stopped, it was on a dark, deserted street across from the train tracks, with broken chain link fences and scary dogs barking on the other side. He said "This is it" and I just sat there in the back seat going "Uuuuh. This? Way sketchy." It turned out most of the city is like that. The hostel itself, however, was a house owned by a couple of hippies that has been painted brightly and decorated with the usual tie-dye/Bob Marley/peace/OM pictures and incense burning on a table by the front desk. The guys who worked there were the pot-smoking, don't-shave, typical modern-day hippies.

We slept in a dormitory style room with around 10 beds, storing our backpacks in lockers, and getting about 7 hours of sleep the whole weekend. Although I think I averaged less than that given unforseen (unpleasant) circumstances Sunday night . . . which I really will be able to laugh about once I'm far enough removed. That hasn't happened yet.

Long story short: Budapest is pretty in a sort-of second-world way. Not third-world, or completely Westernized. A mix. Lots of castles and cool old stuff, very different from France in the architecture. I wish I'd gotten to go to the Turkish baths they have there (and are famous for—natural hotsprings under the city), but one member of our group didn't want to go, and two more didn't have bathing suits, so that plan got nixed. I got lovely photos of one of the outdoor hotsprings though, which I shall be handing over to my dad when I get home (in four days—holy cow). Also, you can buy 4 4-packs of 55cl Heineken for, like, 5 euro. Not that I know this from personal experience, or anything. I'm just saying, hypothetically, that you can.

Monday morning, bright and early, I got to the Budapest airport to fly home and spent the entire flight hoping I wasn't going to puke. The flight was about an hour late, so needless to say I didn't get to class. Thankfully, I'd already informed my teacher I might not be there, and it's all good.

Yikes. I need to start packing.

PS. The Danube makes the Seine look like a creek in someone's backyard.

and i was as wild, even wilder than they

Tomorrow I leave for Budapest!

But today, I had class at noon, as per usual, and found it extremely difficult to drag myself out of bed at almost 11. My roommate left around then for her own flight to Budapest, which was today along with her boyfriend. We're going to meet up when I get there tomorrow. I get to class and we spend most of it going over how to say "this/that/those/these", in French. There are too many variations. On peut dire "ceux", "celles", "celui", "celle", "ce" "ce à quoi", "ce pour quoi", "ce quoi", "ça" (but that one only works when speaking, never for writing), "cela", "celle-ci", "celui-ci", "ceux-ci", "celles-ci" and the list goes on. After cours practique was my final class of phonetiques before Christams vacation, and I got my second test back. My two test scores for phonetiques are both the best grade in the class: 20/20 and 19/20. Bascially, that means I know how to pronounce things correctly.

And can I just add how frustrating it is to be learning a language in which the spelling and the prononciation depends entirely upon which century the word itself was created in? And it's not something that's obvious, or that has a pattern to follow, it's completely random and a matter of life-long memorization. Fun.

(I also find myself melanging (<--case in point) French and English unintentionally in my head or when I write. My spelling ability has gone completely out the window, too. And I used to be a damn good spell-er.)

Aphrodisiac, anyone? I went out early in the evening (as the French are wont to do) for a brief pre-meal. One of the girls ordered a platter of oysters (38,60 euro! oy!) so I was inspired to try them. To sum up: they're slimy, and don't taste horribly of anything other than whatever you decide to put on them (lemon juice and some vinagrette), but they look, frankly, like something you'd find up a troll's nose. I ate one before I decided that was brave enough and hey, at least I tried it, right?

It's bitterly cold here. And by bitterly, I mean the highs are in the mid-thirties. The sun is rarely seen, and there's a nice wind that makes your entire face hurt and is the reason earmuffs were invented, contrary to what my parents probably think. Budapest is only marginally warmer, from the forecast.

I finally got around to giving my host family the card my mom sent me (to give to them), along with a few Little Debbie Christmas Tree cakes, which she also sent me a box of. Those conversations are always awkward. I hope they don't think us Americans are gross after eating those. I adore them, but who knows? When I ate the first one after being here for 3 months, I almost spat out the first bite, it was so sweet. I didn't realise how much sugar we put in everything until I got unused to it.

and we wonder how it will feel

10 days from today I'll be on my way home. Have I really been here for 3 months? Apparently.

Yesterday morning I got up early with a few other students to go to the catacombs of Paris. Something like 160 kilometers of tunnels beneath the city that were created when mining the stone used to build half the area. It's been both a substitute graveyard and a headquarters for military operations. Back in Napoleonic times, the cemeteries of Paris were overflowing (literally, one got so full that bodies burst out of the ground in a sort of landslide, spilling into a nearby apartment building—gross! Imagine coming home to that?) and even more bodies were just being buried in local parks (because the Edict of Nantes had been revoked and Protestants weren't allowed to be buried in cemeteries). So it was decreed that around 6 million bodies would be buried in the catacombs. I'm glad I didn't have the job of moving the bones and then arranging them inside these tunnels. Back then, candles were used to light the way, and sometimes the flame would go out. People got lost in the tunnels and died there.

Of course I loved the place. Historic and morbid. I did, however, find myself squeamish about touching any bones (no one else in the group was willing to touch them either, which is probably a good sign). Taking pictures for your viewing pleasure (or horror) was another story:

Paris - 36

Paris - 35

Paris - 34

Paris - 33

Classes are winding down, in other news, and I'm having exams interspersed with exposées. I feel like I'm in real school for the first time all semester. This weekend I head to Budapest for a few days, where I might be going caving. It depends on whether or not the hostel will arrange a special weekend tour for our group, because usually they only do caving during the week.

I know I'm not getting enough sleep, which is why tonight I've designated as going-to-bed-early night. In the morning I want to go by the Richard le Noir market that I missed Sunday for being too tired and in order to do that I have to get up at 8:30.

My list of Christmas presents-to-get is about halfway checked off. Some people are harder to shop for than others, but the market should have some cool things. If not, there's Budapest and a whole week left.

I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, but I'll miss the sight of the Eiffel Tower on my walk to school everyday. The ease of the metro, where I don't have to get in a car and drive (if I even remember how). I must start figuring out how to pack the things I'm bringing home into my suitcase. This semester has gone by so fast. If I weren't coming back this would be a lot harder

it's a trick to make you buy stuff to go with your kitchen sink

"Alone" Edgar Allen Poe

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

Saw this poem today and I remembered why I liked it so much.

Anyway, this weekend has mostly been spent sleeping and preparing a 15 oral presentation on the portrait of Louis XIV by Hyacinthe Rigaud that I have to give tomorrow in my painting class, at the Louvre, standing in front of the actual painting. The idea is cool but the reality is more work than I really want to do.

In addition to school work, I spent the evening going back and forth to the laundromat. Walking down the street on my way there, I saw a man leading a string of donkeys dressed up as reindeer. Completely random group of donkeys under holiday lights, next to cars and trucks and parking meters, and no one pays them any mind. Next there was a couple in the laundromat making out while waiting for their clothes to dry. Public place, brightly lit and not at all empty, and this girl just climbs on her boyfriend's lap and—you get the point. These are the images that stuck with me throughout the day, for some reason.

Food from home that I found myself missing today: chicken pot pie and popcorn. In addition to burritos, which I've been missing since I got here.

la terre entière, en parfaite harmonie, vit sa plus belle histoire

The Sorbonne has in each classroom a coat rack with wooden hangers. Chalk boards are used instead of dry-erase. And they have a light to specifically illuminate the board. I think that's a nice indication of where the French rank education in their priorities. Although the chalk board might seem random, they never have markers die out halfway through class and because the classroom comes equipped with boxes of chalk, they don't run out of that either.

"We could've been killed. Or worse: expelled." -(Pop quiz: place that quote.)

This update comes to you from a day of classes (9:00 to 18:00) and a boredom hits whenever I'm in a classroom and lack any creative writing inspiration. It's sad that though I listen with one ear and never take notes, I still get the best grade on my Societé Française test. 18/20. Maybe a tad unfair that half the questions were about French history, history buff (not to mention major) that I am.

Yesterday in the late evening I went out to dinner at Breakfast in America, the American diner I've talked about before. I had eggs, pancakes, and bacon. Real bacon. We'd planned to go to the movies (the Duchess) but it got to be late and we did have class today. Instead we walked along the Champs Elysee lit up for Noël. Up and down the street they've set up these little white houses that during the day are shops and cafes. Some sell scarves, hats, ties, others sell Christmas decorations and trinkets, and at the cafe stands, they serve what's called vin chaud. Hot wine. It was incredibly cold last night, with spitting rain, so we got cups of said vin chaud, sipping it as we walked beneath white-lit trees. Smelling strongly of wine but tasting a mix of wine and cider, it made the perfect finish to the evening. I'm bringing home a bottle for Christmas (along with a Beaujolais-Nouveau and a wine from the Pays d'Oc).

This morning I have my early class so getting up wasn't fun before the sunrise.It gets light around 8:30 and starts getting dark at 16:00. Class is booooooring hence I get the chance to write all this. Then I have French class from 12 to 14 (cours practique) and a make-up painting class this afternoon at the Louvre. Time flies fo a history major in a city where churchs a hundred years old are new. Which means it's already December and tonight is the Lion King.

In French Society today, we're discussing food. In the Middle Ages, they didn't have tomatoes, potatoes, corn, chocolate, or coffee; meat was reserved for the nobility and the wine was undrinkable by today's standards. Cabbage and turnips were staples fo the diet, along with a grey-ish or yellow-ish colored wine. Forks didn't exist until the 16th century. They'd keep bread for years, making it not just moldy but hard as brick. In order to eat it, they had to put it in their soup. And here I think a baguette is inedible after two days.

Which is a thought that reminded me of a comment I made last week regarding a certain fad of the moment. "I think if I hear anymore fangirl squeeing over Twilight, I'm going to beat someone with a two-day old baguette." Needless to say, a months old baguette would be much more effective. The point being, of course, that I am sick of this Twilight obsession. In order for my venting to make sense, it requires some exposition:

Twilight is a book series by Stephanie Meyer about an ohsospecial girl named Bella and a vampire named Edward. Classic vamp love story: he thinks he can't be with her because (gasp!) he's dead and he'd have to make her dead too. Oh, wah. Then there's a bad vampire (versus Edward, who only drinks animal blood) who wants to kil Bella. Edward (::enter swooning fangirls::) saves her; end of first book; enter guilt about putting her in danger; cue Edward taking off for the unknown. Meanwhile, Bella spends the second book whining, pining, and trying to get herself killed because (oh noes!) Edward left her. Her werewolf neighbor tries to win her over because he loves her and they make out. Edward returns, there's a whole other book of will-we-won't-we angst between the couple, and then the fourth, most recent book. Edward and Bella get married, go on a honeymoon (but no sex), Bella gets pregnant with a half-vampire baby that kills her from the inside and fully develops in only a month. In a truly grotesque and over the top scene, the baby (unfortunately named Renesme—Rene and Esme being the names of Bella and Edward's respective mothers) bursts out of Bella's stomach, killing her quite dead. Edward decides now's a good time to vampifiy her, and the new mommy awakes, reborn, with superpowers and better at being a vampire than those who have been the undead for hundreds of years. Ohsospecial Bella, remember? It's a happy little family, including werewolf Jacob, who fins out when he first looks at baby Renesme that she is his True Love and Soulmate. ("Hey, babe, there was this one time I made out with your mom . . .")

But it's romantic. Or so say all the preteen, teen, and young adult women who adore these books. Okay, fine, to each their own, right? And if the purple prose does it for 'em, well, it's just more proof that few appreciate good writing. (An example of purple prose would be: Sue was beautiful, with long waves of chocolatey brown hair and sparkling emerald eyes.") Except in these books, Edward has "topaz" eyes and "sparkling" skin (literally—he sparkles in the sunlight. Dazzles.) Can these books get anymore ridiculous?

Oh, wait. Yeah they can. Because I haven't even gotten to the reason I cannot condone the reading of these books. They're a joke, bien sûr, poorly written, but mostly harmless, right?

Except they're not. The relationship between Edward and Bella is the definition of unhealthy. Around 70% of what ol' Eddie tells his lady-love is in the imperative—a demand. An order. And she "obey[s] silently". In one particular scene, she tries to leave but Edward grabs the back of her shirt and tells her, "You're not going anywhere" and not in a playful way. Edward—the guy hundreds of thousands of young girls think is oh-so-romantic and oh-so-sweet and oh-so-perfect and gosh! I just want my own Edward—breaks into Bella's room back in the first book and sits in the corner to watch her sleep. She has no idea he is there.

That? Not romantic. That? Is creepy. It's out-and-out stalking. How these books got to be so popular and how these girls can think such misogynistic behavior is romantic is beyond me.

Whoa. Once I get on a tangent . . . .

One of the other AIFS students has started packing. We go home in two and a half weeks. I can't believe I've been here for going on three months.

À demain.