pamplemousse!

end transmission

2006-06-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

it's amazing to me, still, how quickly we get from one place to another. yesterday i woke up in paris, took a taxi past the eiffel tower and the arc de triomphe, and then suddenly i was in dulles.

even more amazing is how quickly i was home home. and by home home i mean in the same routines. how quickly i adapted to my bed, my shower, my car. somehow i thought something should have changed.

and i also finally felt grown up, in a funny way. when i went into my room, i felt so different from it. my clothes were odd. the pictures of me and friends seemed so long ago. having your own place (albeit financed by the parents) really does make a difference. so strange.

also, need to get back to paris, and stat. must start brainstorming ideas of jobs that will force me to go there and stay there.

over and out, comrades. thanks for your time.

PHANTOM MANOR'D!!!

2006-06-16T07:49:00.000-07:00

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh DISNEYLAND PARIS! woo!

the phantom manor still scared my pants off. i sat uncomfortably close to tara. she liked it. also i suck at the buzz lightyear shootout game and space mountain is way cooler than i thought. i also enjoyed the snow white ride, which last time i went i didn't do because it was too scary (my mom and i rode the dumbo ride like 5 times instead). the dragon underneath sleeping beauty's castle is so freaky and it's a small world is still pretty "ethnic". all in all a stellar day, esp. the princess parade. ooh, and the cruise through fairytales! still a classic.

take my hand
just like alice in wonderland
it's magic!
at the disney parade

i agree, i agree ever so much, princess parade one song on repeat.

then yesterday we shopshopshopped til we dropdropdropped. just got back from the catacombs...eery. but not as eerie (y? who knows?) as phantom manor. im shivering.

tonight: HIPPOPOTAMUS on the champs. SCORE.

leaving? me? HELL NO!

well, hell yes i guess. sigh.

hot dog summer in the city pt 2

2006-06-12T03:07:00.000-07:00

it is SO HOT right now

like, in the nineties of degrees. i am running low on sufficiently airy clothing. i GUESS i have to go shopping. with KATE because she's HERE!!! but unfortunately she and her friend rawaan switched cards and so she has no money, making me her sugar mama (sucre maman). makes me feel rich, but not quite so rich as to purchase an apartment in paris and stay here forever and ever. or at the very least an airconditioning unit.

just finished my last paper late last night but was too hot and tired to do much rejoicing. kierjaja leaves tomorrow so we can all celebrate together. kj already left. boo. hannah and i had a picnic in our park on saturday and it was so cute - except when the park ranger man (not really a ranger, but you get the idea) told us we were on forbidden grass so we had to move TEN WHOLE FEET. or some meters (still don't know conversions, oops). we also saw a man in just his tighty whities. it was not pretty. then we went back to the crazy fondue place and once again stumbled up drunkenly to sacre coeur and once again forayed to pop in, the best place ever. when the night ended with "santa baby," i knew i could sleep satisfied. except it was TOO HOT. ahem.

on todays agenda: give an expose in french in approx. 1 hour. eep. it's about augustine, who is one of my more favorite people, so that shouldn't be too bad. just have to remember the whole "just need a passing grade" thing. you know.

and um, we're going to EURODISNEY on wedensday. thinking about it makes me want to cry with joy. oops, there goes a little tear.

can anybody hear me?

2006-06-06T01:51:00.000-07:00

well hello tigers

i sort of doubt that anyone still reads this thing, but tant pis, i'm gonna write in it anyway.

so paris is finally pretty and sunny after being mostly grey. i'm trying to think of what i've done since last post...lots of stuff, including finally work. ha. also we went to the best bar ever called pop in: the first time after whiskey and cokes we ended up in some lesbian bar called pulp where i think we scared them, and the second time we ate an entire pizza (again after whiskey and coke) and then went back to tara and angie's and had a madcrazy photoshoot until about 4:30 in the morning. then i woke up and had an academic crisis, but that's beside the point.

and in other more exciting news, kate and charlotte are coming! this week! like tomorrow...wild. which means i should def be writing an expose on augustine right now...or my paper on arm reliquaries...but no matter. i'm sure you, my non-existent readers, are ever so delighted to have a new post.

la la la...totally procrastinating. bah AND humbug. yesterday i spent 7 hours in the library. that was fun. today i should also spend 7 hours in the library: we'll see if this happens. i'm putting my money on no (maybe 5 hours, max).

also, i don't want to leave paris on june 19. at all.

le sigh.

i can never think of titles

2006-05-18T02:25:00.000-07:00

some things:

there is nothing quite like going to a bar with your 55 year old program directors and seeing them take shots. there is nothing quite like drinking unlimited wine provided by brown. there is nothing quite like: LA ROCHELLE. (for everything else there's mastercard?)

anyway, clearly la rochelle and ile de re were hits. many embarassing facebook pictures of me losing inhibitions, but hey, it happens. of course, we got back all tan and happy and huggy only to realize that now it was time to do work. lots of work. lots of confusing, unclear work, which is why i'm sitting in the brown office writing this instead of going to the library. i'm clever like that. but i AM working; i'm using the off-campus version of brown library to look up articles about relics and reliquaries, specifically those that take the shape of what they contain (ie, got a saint's arm bone? put it in an arm-shaped reliquary!) next on the long list is an in-depth look into the world of commerce in fourth-century rome and the problem of the christian merchant.

speaking of which, i saw da vinci code on opening day: complete waste of time. cheesy flashbacks to the inquisition and misinformation about the emperor constantine? not my cup of tea. although i must say i didn't really expect much more. when we left the theatre people were handing out flyers that said "WARNINGS AGAINST A LYING FILM" - as tara said, however, "when was the last time i went to the movies to see truth?" i will say though that they made the movie less one-sided than the book, that is, the movie at least didn't villanize the entire christian faith (only large parts of it, but hey, that's something). and i still have a crush on paul bettany and jean reno, and a dislike for tom hanks, especially when he has a hilarious balding mullet.

oh, and also, my first child's name is going to be eufronius or zenobius.

2006-05-11T06:59:00.000-07:00

wolverine!

2006-05-11T06:39:00.000-07:00

stockholm: a photo diary.

ryan air snack pack: perfect for sharing!

preganancy, right down to the umbilical cord.

tara and kevin on the arranged-marriage honeymoon to skansen.

GRONA LUND: the happiest place on earth.

the promised WOLVERINE!

and that's not even all! but you get the idea. plus i'm tired of uploading pictures.

this weekend: the (pretend) riviera - la rochelle and ile de re. vogue magazine said it was the next big thing. BAM!

the love boat?

2006-05-04T05:53:00.000-07:00

ah no time! florence was wonderful, saw like every piece of art i ever studied EVER, then i got back and classes started again with a vengeance and suddenly surprisingly sillily i have work to do. shoshana from middle school visited paris and we had a grand old time despite the fact we haven't really hung out since i was 12, then i checked out a bunch of books at the library today, and tonight, tara and i are going to sweden.

yes, sweden. not quite sure what to expect. except our hostel is on a boat - SCORE. and they have an ecological breakfast buffet. DOUBLE score.

forgot to tell my parents i was going until last night. oops!

so um yes i promise to write about the sweden-ness. "is it raining in sweden?", as the words to a popular song by thurston-oing-ahmedinejad go; i suppose i will find out.

primavera in italia part 1

2006-04-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

oh, hostels. my fellow travellers have returned to paris but i remain in firenze to save a little money, which means that i am REALLY enjoying the ostello archi rossi's unlimited internet. i just caught up on all the celeb gossip - lindsay lohan and jessica simpson got in another fight and kate holmes has a baby whose name means pickpocket in japanese (and rose in persian, but that's not nearly as funny).

ok this is a long post so skip around if you must, but don't miss the starred paragraph - ADORABLE 40 YEAR OLD GERMAN FRIENDS!!!

meanwhile, back in the life that is actually my own, things are lovely. for week 2 of spring break i packed up for italy which is fast cementing its place as essential to my happiness. but things did get off to a rocky start - my "geography trouble" meant that i flew into pisa and took a train to florence because for some unknown reason i thought that was closer to cinque terre. WRONG. a bit of panic and talking to lauren later, i went to a hostel and all was ok. the next morning i got the early train to cinque terre and MAN was it worth the wait. so gorgeous - sun, tuscan hills, green, irises, tulips, buttercups - AH. we stayed in a pretty adorable campsite in a TRAILER (yesssss) that looked straight out of the 70s. oh, and tara showed up! she REALLY liked the 70s trailer but every time she voiced this opinion, something broke. like our stove which she had to hold down th gas on for about 30 minutes for water to boil for pasta. or the blown fuse when jess tried to blowdry her hair.

so yes basically what one does in cinque terre is hike through these 5 beautiful towns. it's absolutely breathtaking - cliffs dropping into the ocean with green and lemon trees everywhere, sun glinting off waves, my pale skin seeing the light of day! gelato! baked fresh fish! oranges in a cove of snapdragons! mmm so delightful.

*****but the BEST things were our new friends mike, ranu, lisa, and gerhard. so our campsite had many people in mobile trailers who just drive around europe, like these fabulous germans. apparently before i got there kiersten borrowed a wine opener for them, and then they asked us over for a glass of wine one evening. their english was spotty and my german is nonexistent and yet is was SO FUN. highlights include mike saying he hadn't been to england - "because the english are our old enemies" - we laughed uncomfortably and then he said - "in football!!" oh, the germans. then, jess was speaking really quickly so no one could understand. she apologized and then mike said, "it's ok. we break you!" classic. then gerhard told us that in english his name translated to james bond, lisa talked about hummel figurines, and ranu told us she bought her husband mike for "two cows" (pause) "five horses!" (pause) "and three camels!"

we took pictures when we left. those are forthcoming. (as is the account of the florence part of my trip). i leave you with these wise words: "get down girl, go head get down."

2006-04-20T06:17:00.000-07:00

in florence STOP weather is beautiful STOP just got in from cinque terre STOP i am rather obsessed STOP had a bit of difficulty with geography STOP all is well now however STOP will kiss donatello for you STOP cheers, michelle STOP

helen of troyes

2006-04-14T13:42:00.000-07:00

there are so many churches in troyes. and the town is shaped like a champagne cork. and i just had a kir, a kir royal, and several glasses of wine. my family gets along swimmingly when we have a bit of the bubbly, i've noticed.

mmm i definitely haven't been doing my reading. tara angie and i have a gisp called "atelier d'ecriture: qu'est-ce que c'est que la langue maternelle?" and for week one we're supposed to read foucault and barthes. HA. let's just say i haven't gotten that far even though i think foucault is way sexy. mm, foucault. michel et michelle...we would have been a cute couple.

also, owen sheers, author and poet? all i'm gonna say is, he takes a mean picture on a book jacket.

aaaaand i think that's enough intellectual fantasizing. champagne an aphrodisiac? nooooooo.

love letters

2006-04-13T14:39:00.000-07:00

so, turns out my parents' apartment did NOT have internet, thus the lack of "blogging" as it were.

highlights:

we went to the picasso museum (which i got into FREE thanks to my student id which says i'm an art history student and also got me in free to sainte chapelle, musee d'orsay, AND musee rodin!!!) and saw an exhibit about the work he did in the ten year period of his relationship with the photographer dora maar. it was fabulous, not least because of all the little personal insights you got, like the following:

an envelope addressed to dora maar from pablo picasso. inside, a piece of blue paper on which is written in blue pencil simply,

dora dora dora dora
dora dora dora dora
dora dora dora dora

i am hopelessly in love with this letter (maybe that's why they call them love letters).

meanwhile, back in the rest of the world,

we are currently in champagne country (we being me and the fam) and today we went to the mercier fatory to deguster un peu AFTER an amazing michelin guide mentioned lunch (although i did feel mildly nauseous, not from eating so much but rather from seeing the prices...whoa there). we are staying in the lovely city of troyes with two v. famous cathedrals i was studying in my classes at the sorbonne which incidentally will probably START AGAIN!! hurrah! class! credits! graduating on time!

oh, and next week, italy. just got a text from kiersten saying venice is wonderful. florence and i are totally gonna be like, best friends.

a contemporary history lesson

2006-04-07T10:09:00.000-07:00

well i'm sitting in hannah's room waiting for elliot to get on skype and so i thought i'd update with some pictures of a "manif," or protest, that i went to in march (before they got all dangerous). it's always pretty funny to realize that communism is in fact alive and well in france.

there were AT LEAST 99 red balloons, and this one says "the worker's struggle!"

free anti-cpe stickers! yay!

hey look! the police are ACTUALLY clowns! f*** the popo, yall!

and then things got ugly, and less like a carnival (balloons, stickers, and clowns? turned violent?? alas). ugly to the point of cancelling all my classes. bah!

hot dog, summer in the city

2006-04-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

i got my utra! hurray! that means i will be in the lovely city of providence this summer, working by day to digitize the art slide library and find images of christian art, and by night to save the city from corruption! or maybe just at banana republic. it remains to be seen.

oh, and here are some long overdue photos of my apartment:

the thing in its totality.

the view out my window to the left (yes that IS the eiffel tower).

the view straight out - the mairie du 15eme, ain't it pretty?

the view to the right - a delightful little park that will have roses soon!

yay! i figured out how to include pictures in my posts! expect more....

long time comin'

2006-04-03T04:20:00.000-07:00

ooh it has been so long since i posted! oh me oh my. can't even REMEMBER all the CRAZY SHIT that went down. WHEW. so, i'll just skip to the parts fresh in my mind: BROWN DESCENDS ON PARIS.

yessir, it was brown spring break last week so bunches of 'em came to paris to visit. (an added and unexpected bonus of studying abroad: you make new friends from brown who are the friends of your new friends in paris! very nice.) in my bed were sarah and sam, and let me tell you it was great. then danny and james were ALSO visiting me and taylor so it was a HIGH SCHOOL reunion too. much fun was had, especially when i took sarah james and danny to queen (the gay bar, see earlier post) and i think we all heartily enjoyed it. except for the part where a sprite was TEN EUROS.

one of the best things that happened was that it became APRIL SUNNY SPRING! april 1st was a glorious day and we frolicked in the palce des vosges with our falafel and then went to the mosque for delicious mint tea (and a hellion child next to us) and then frolicked in the jardin des plantes. we hopped with the wallabees, leaped with the mountain goats, and lounged with the red pandas (there was a menagerie, duh). then i squeezed 7 people into my apartment for artichokes with butter and then some taylor-made guacamole and wine. we had an epic quest to find crepes that involved sneaking into the metro many times and running for it.

then yesterday was ALSO spring and i read in the jardin de luxembourg and ate a delicious bleu and apple sandwich and got a crepe and then met the lovely andrea for coffee at a cafe. basically, this week has so far been amazing.

the 'rents are getting in on friday which means no money to be spent by me for the next 10 days! yesssss. then it's off to florence and cinque terre. oh, and my parents have internet in their ADORABLE apartment so i'll probs update the blog like, every day. watch out, cub scouts.

it's spring again and birds on the wing again start to sing again the old melody....

bullet points

2006-03-22T06:48:00.000-08:00

so many lovely things have happened since my last post that i shall have to resort to bullet points a la abroad emails from john mccutcheon last spring:

1. saw bell orchestre at nouveau casino and they were excellent (side project of arcade fire's bassist and violinist). we spoke to the band after (ee!) and i apparently have a thing for dark haired horn players because i was totally crushing on the trumpet guy AND the french horn guy.

2. had a wonderful french dinner with hannah's music friends guillaume, jeremy, and julia and we discussed life and music.

3. all my classes got cancelled because of the greve against the cpe. (ill explain later)

4. read in the jardin de luxembourg in the lovely sun and then went ot the sorbonne where people were breaking the windows of gap.

5. went to an 8 am exercise class which made me ache for days and saw the hotel de ville photo exhibit about "paris au cinema" - so good.

6. saw a ballet from the most expensive seats in the house that was sort of hilariously exotified.

7. saw "l'espace furieux" by valere novarina with angie at la comedie francaise that was a bit too long and pretentious.

8. introduced everyone to irish carbombs on st patty's day and wore a shamrock bowler hat given to me by someone name "jordain"

9. went to the famous favela chic with angie, tara, and tina (tara's sister) - best mojitos ever

10. went to a HUGE protest against the cpe that was reallly more like a fair or carnival but whatever, lots of pics forthcoming

10. had ANOTHER french dinner with the group from 2 where we discussed the realtive vices of marijuana and alcohol and then moved into a political discussion of pacifism. we decided next week's topic would be abortion. just for kicks.

11. celebrated persian new year because of the persianess of tara and camela at a DELICIOUS restaurant and then smoked shisha next door/wowed everyone with my ability ot blow smoke rings (thank you rawaan)

12. saw de battre mon coeur s'est arrete and viaggio in italia (rossellini) for only 3.50 euros because of the printemps du cinema

13. found out my musical was passed by brownbrokers!!! EEE! so crazy, angie and tara woke me up to tell me and then we went to late night pizza/dessert

14. just went to a brilliant creperie and met ben arfman who i liked immedately bc he is taking old english and LIKES it!

whew. leaving things out but i am having a good time. except i want to have class again, ironically. feelign a bit aimless. le sigh. ok off to go to the library to think about my thesis! (see this is how aimless i feel...i'm MOTIVATED!)

kiss kiss etc!

march 11, 2006

2006-03-11T08:58:00.000-08:00

dear diary,

i'm in love! it's finally happened, it's true, oh so true! his name is lucas, and he is french, and he plays the saxophone (by which i mean sexyphone!) in a band called mister cheap table dance and the first time we met it was true love, he even kissed me twice! maybe kissing someone you meet twice on the cheeks is the "custom" in france, but for us, it meant so much more! he sang songs in english, just for me! well, he played them. someone else sang. but whatever! it's love! i stared at him the whole time and he was probably staring at me in the dark, faceless crowd! i have hannah's number, and hannah has yannick's number, who probably has lucas' number, so he's totally gonna call. totally.

your cloud-9-residing friend,
michelle

but seriously. i met french people! woo! and they play music! weird music! they had one song called "bunny rabbit" where i think the lyrics were, "bunny rabbit. he's a bunny rabbit, bunny rabbit" and for some love action they sang "what will i do with the love that i didn't use for you?" and my personal favorite, "i'm digging what's it for: you!" with that exact, adorable grammar. i went with hannah's friend from her music class yannick, who is super nice and apparently awesome if she has awesome friends like this. we thought it was going to be a jazz concert...but obviously we were wrong. still, FRENCH PEOPLE! and then we went back to yannick's apartment (without lucas, unfortunately) and talked about slang and ate nutella. it was rockin.

i leave you with this brilliant lyric from mister cheap table dance: "what's it called? survival! only the strong survive!"

reflections

2006-03-06T08:27:00.000-08:00

london is mad cher. the pound is such a killer. camden market and i reached a new level in our consumeric relationship and i have the best new hat ever. food is my favorite, but lebanese food still carries the torch of gastronomic delight especially when jess' flirting gets us free mint tea. there appear to be no laws against public drunkenness, at least not on the tube around 5 pm on a sunday. the ice bar closes at 10:15 pm on sunday nights. the tate modern never ceases to be awesome and the london eye is so beautiful at night.

but most of all, my sister and her friends are far too generous when it comes to buying me and tara drinks. and i love them for it, despite ending up drunker than i think i've ever been in my entire life. in paris you wake up and think, shit man, i only got 4 hours of sleep, but in london with my sister and lse kids you wake up and think, shit man, how do i feel this hungover after 10 hours of sleep? and then you go eat wagamama and the sun shines and you're really happy all weekend, and even into monday when you get on the eurostar to go back to paris and make a sandwich with bread from the boulangerie and go to class about saint gregory of tours.

yay.

true royalty

2006-02-27T04:24:00.000-08:00

last wedensday, we finally went to queen, the hottest gay bar in paris. wednesday is ladies' night which means FREE, except for the outrageous 6 euro coat check. but it was totally worth it.

the dance floor was teeming with people, and surrounding it were flat screen tvs playing an alexander mcQUEEN fashion show that was quite possibly the most fascinating thing i have ever seen (note to self: look into career as fashion show planner - it's crazier than theater). up where the dj was, a girl was getting a totally mod haircut. they played bohemian rhapsody by QUEEN and i enjoyed watching the french people trying to sing along - it was a rare moment where i was proud to be an american. then, the male strippers (yes, male strippers) were dressed as bullfighters/scotsman, that is, in a bolero and a kilt. then confetti fell from the ceiling. then they played robbie williams (praise be!) and madonna's hung up, which is my current obsession. everyone was having such a good time, it was so contagious. totally going back this week, and when you, dear reader, visit paris, we should also go.

so i had class at 12 on thursday which was pretty difficult since i went to bed around 5:30, but you do what you can. thursday we had a VIN ET FROMAGE, which is this wonderful creation of the brown program where we go to our program director's house and eat all kinds of marvelous cheeses and tartes and salads, drink all the red wine we can, and general have a merry old time. we followed that by watching "figure skating ladies!" as the french call it, and the french commentators also say the word "flying camel", already a hilarious word, in an even more hilarious accent. then we made our way to oberkampf for free nouveau casino times, which were also awesome except that tara got a drink called "charbon ti punch" that tasted like the fires of hell. but somehow it got finished. funny thing is, i had class at 10 on friday morning, which was even MORE of a joke, but somehow i managed to pay attention to the stained glass of ste chapelle. or, at least i think i did. hmmm...

next wkend: london! hurrah! fun times will be had by all, if i have anything to do about it. and believe me, i do.

the politics of the marketplace

2006-02-26T04:42:00.001-08:00

A dramatic illustration.

a cold saturday morning in joinville-le-pont. our protagonist, maryse wiart, is shopping for perch to make a pot au feu with her 5 american cooking class charges.

poissonier 1: (in reference to the american girls) but of course, you could just leave them here with us! that wouldn't bother us at all! (he laughs winningly)

maryse: (laughing) maybe next time!

then, the poissonier across from him in the marche butts in.

poissonier 2: americans?

maryse: (coldly) yes.

poissonier 2: always the same.

maryse: never the same! (whispered, to michelle) that one, he's an ass. my poissonier, he is always so nice, but that one, he is just downright disagreeable.

and scene.

oh, to be part of the interpersonal workings of the marche!

the evidence

2006-02-21T02:44:00.000-08:00

why i love my historiography and hagiography class:
1. a billy connelly look alike is a student
2. my professor wears tweed
3. rachel golub the french version sat across from me
4. there is a girl who looks like the blond redfeather from troop beverly hills
(secret 5. a cute boy sat next to me)

and you all laugh at my pursuit of medieval history, but it's where all the cool kids are, punks! don't disrespect.

to fill you in, last week involved thalia fields performance art, a scottish bar, bagpipes, sluts defined as people who get paid to have sex for money, crappy service of drinks but attention to peanuts, the louvre, writing my musical, taylor's birthday, a french play i understood(!), "mark roberts", buying a whole rabbit at the marche (complete with head and eyes), and dinner with hannah's parents. phew! and other things i'm forgetting.

today: off to my first art history in paris...the tension mounts....

la visite de lauren

2006-02-15T11:41:00.000-08:00

soooo my darlingest sister popped over to paris on the eurostar from london on friday mornin. it was a lovely time. we perused the shoppes like printemps, galeries lafayette, and h&m, but got overwhelmed by the massive quantities and went home empty handed - and high spirited! then there was another potluck, for which lauren and i prepared caramelized onion and goat cheese on little bite-sized toasts with a sprig of parsley on top (it was such an ordeal. as we began, we realized two things: a) we had no idea how to caramelize onions and b) my mother was not home from work. then when we finally worked our way through it, we realized that the cilantro pesto we had bought to but along with the onions tasted SHITTY together, which led to an amusing array of alternatives including capers, rosemary, and GRAPES before i finally panicked and went to buy some kind of herb, which turned out to be parsley, which turned out to be yummy. phew). and then after the potluck we went to le 10 bar (best bar ever) because it was so perfectly french and i had to show it to her. we discussed live, love, and the pursuit of happiness over sangria, so all in all, good times.

saturday we slept uberlate, rolling out of bed to eat at our nostalgic favorite restaurant, hippo, where the medium-cooked steak is brown on the outside and bright red on the inside. oh the french. then we went shoe shopping and i bought some that my sister covets, so i have to keep my eye out for another pair for her so she doesn't covet them anymore. coveting is bad. then i went to dinner with taylor tara and angie and lauren did some reading about american foreign policy. BORING, SHE IS SO LAME. (j/k i love you) eventually tara angie and i made it out to oberkampf, ostensibly to meet up with people, but since we didn't get there til 2 am we went to a "world music" club and danced with hilarious senegalese men.

sunday, lauren and i went to the american church which she said smelled exactly the same, but seemed smaller some how...oh how we grow up so fast. alas. THEN i went to my first ever OPERA! madame butterfly by puccini which was great for only 9 euros but we couldn't read the subtitles so we had little to no clue what was going on since my italian only allowed me to hear certain words esp. because of the operatic singing like "husband" and "son" and things like that. but to this day there at least 2 characters in that opera who i have NO IDEA WHAT THEY WERE FOR. they came on, sang, and left amidst wild applause. hmm.

whew. hope you guys didn't mind reading all that. but see the fun things that happen when someone visits me? SEE??? just a lesson to bear in mind.

hey look, my blog title is in french. WOOT.

my vow

2006-02-13T05:31:00.000-08:00

my vow is to not work hard. YAY.

i went to an italian class week, for third year students, which i am, just not in italian. so i find out that the oral exposition as well as the final in-class essay would require me to speak/write entirely in italian, and while i can order pasta with panache, i'm not sure my ability to discuss the implications of the writings of vasari on the establishment of the study of art history...in italian...is really up to par. considering, i realized that i COULD do the work, it would just kick my ass. shortly thereafter, i realized i didn't want my ass kicked in france, especially not by ITALIAN. i like italian too much to make it physically abuse me thus irrevocably souring my relationship with it.

in other class news, french theatre kids SUCK. they talk all the time during class, which may be related to the fact that tuition at paris III is something ludicrous like 150 euros...so it's not such a big deal. but also, i think it's theatre kids in particular. but i did find an awesome class about contemporary artists adapting their art for set design, so i guess i'll just sit in the front row like a tool and try my best to block out people like the girl i sat next to. UGH so annoying.

otherwise french kids seem nice and i've even TALKED to some of them, saints alive! i also want to take my italian opera class but that may or may not happen, so today i'm going to opera and litterature just in case. also, this week both classes that i like are not meeting for various reasons (ah, the flighty school system) so i have literally nothing to do. and i LOVE it. lauren visited this weekend (more on that later) and she suggested that this be my louvre week, and i find that an excellent suggestion. i got a free year's pass when i opened up my bank account, so art is entirely at my disposal mwahahaha.

a bientot.

school?

2006-02-06T02:38:00.000-08:00

i am procrastinating.

we have to write a paper for orientation, about either some art thing, ionesco's rhinoceros, or the crisis in the banlieues of earlier this school year.

a paper?

they keep telling us that the french style of writing an essay is different and they even gave us a huge packet about it. after we all tried to decipher it, i've concluded that there is in fact no major difference in structure. but i still have to write a paper. lameSAUCE.

at least it was a fun weekend, and we finally bucked up and went to oberkampf, that place of wonder that we had built up quite significantly in our minds (due mainly to tara). but then it turned out to be amazing! i ate andouillette for dinner which i thought was a type of sausage but i think was actually innards of some sort. i'm glad i didn't know beforehand because it was really good but if i'd known it was intestines or something, i probably wouldn't have gotten it. good food adventures are the best.

apart from writing an essay, CLASSES are starting. wtf, i mean seriously. today i'm going to italian opera...so...we'll see. and is it weird that i'm counting down the days to feb 20 when my other classes like hagiography in the high middle ages and catalonian art start?

as promised

2006-01-31T10:49:00.000-08:00

my friday night.

so angie has this french friend named manu whom she met on an organic farm in spain last summer. he then invited her to "la nuit anormale," a big university party in the 'burbs (or the 'lieues? i don't know) thrown by "l'ecole normale superieure" which is a name that kiersten and i find very amusing. angie in turn invited the rest of us and twenty euros later we were on our way. of course, i went shopping the day of so that i would be appropriately dressed for this "gala" as the website said. some very european clothes later, i was actually ready.

we hopped onto the rer and walked for a bit following the promising sign of crowds of students and about 6 spotlights. et voila! the place was huge...and actually the school itself. i mean, imagine a raging party in all of keeney and then some, but with less doors. there was a dance floor playing house and a concert place where the apparently famous band cali was playing when we got there. we faked the words and laughed at the people around us. this place also had a wine cave, a medieval beer bar (i dont know what that was, we didn't get there), a sushi and ddr room (oh the french), and a shisha room. too much!

i danced my little tootsies off and then we made friends with youssef, franck, laur, and jacob (all pronounced with a french accent) while dancing to remixes of hey ya. and believe me, i have never been so happy to sing along to hey ya as i did that night after hours of indecipherable heavy beats and techno sirens.

around 5 am (I AM SO BADASS) we took the night bus and then got on the metro when it opened at 6 am. such an interesting crowd on the metro then, and i tried halfheartedly to look like i had just gotten up but then i realized it was a totally lost cause and closed my raccoon eyes to the stares of the newly washed business people. yup.

tonight: sangria bar. gotta get my fun in before classes start the 6th....

dimanche

2006-01-30T07:58:00.000-08:00

i have a new favorite day and its name is dimanche.

sundays at brown: sleeping too late, rehearsal of some sort, crappy food day at the ratty, all the work i didn't do when i had time.

sundays in paris: waking up to go to the 1857 church where i was baptized situated along the banks of the seine, buying a baguette and eating un sandzich saucisson, walking to the eiffel tower with hannah, going to a free concert by a world famous soprano in the sanctuary of the aforementioned church, cooking ravioli with olive oil for dinner, going over to the marais to drink cinnamon and honey tea, falling asleep with one last look out my window where, again, i see the eiffel tower.

AH. you all must visit. and stay for a sunday. because i don't know if i'm gonna be coming back anytime soon.

(also, saturday night, we went to a crazy french university party and stayed up all night but more on that later since it doesn't fit in with my ideal dimanche).

muscle into brussels

2006-01-25T06:57:00.000-08:00

so we went to brussels ce week-end. it was good fun, but tara and i had quite the fiasco trying to track down the supposedly "famous belgian specialty" of moules and frites. finally we thought we found a lovely restaurant, but then the waiter told us they were OUT of mussels and we stormed out. to next door, where they DID have mussels. AND i drank beer and ate frites, and all together it was a really nice combination. surprisingly so. and in case you were wondering, i'm more of a dark ale girl, not one of those yellow ale pansies. we then barhopped and even went to the place where rene magritte used to hang out.

other than that, i've been doing a lot of laundry and grocery shopping. i have an itty bitty washing machine that can fit my 5 pairs of jeans and that's it, and then it takes approximately 37 hours for them to dry as well as taking up the entirety of my kitchen. grocery shopping is much more enjoyable. i get to buy all the fresh fruit, cheese, and pate i want! and believe me, that's a lot.

yesterday i had my most french experience yet when i went to go buy a lemon at the produce market and the woman said "you have a rabbit in your pocket!", referring to my fluffy floofy white earmuffs from sarah several christmases ago. we then proceeded to CONVERSE about the weather and the value of protective clothing against the elements. it was great. i walked home, lemon and baguette in hand, feeling like a mademoiselle indeed.

tonight we're seeing ionesco's rhinoceros. it's gonna be hot.

bruxelles

2006-01-20T00:55:00.000-08:00

i no longer hate monet. aren't you glad? my period of impressionism-hating might just be coming to an end. for class we went to the musee marmottan for a camille claudel exhibit but they also have a bunch of monets so people wanted to go look at them and i was like, yeah, whatever. but i did, and i found out that little kid michelle who loved monet wasn't so far off. i esp. like the ones from when he was sort of going blind, they get all crazy. i still would rather not stare at waterlilies for several hours, but i've softened up. heck, i'd even go to giverny.

so everyone who is moving in to their places is having soirees and they are so lovely. at alex and ceylan's house we even played mafia and i thought happily of the mousetrap. then we played sexual fantasy and that was awesome. but a lot tamer than you might think. then we tried to go to la scala which was near the louvre and we were all winedrunk so the walk was wonderful but we stumbled upon the place du louvre and i was just like WHOA. it was so much paris all at once.

going to brussels this weekend. plan to eat a lot of moules frites and drink a lot of beer. i don't like beer, but i think for belgium i'll make an exception.

i couldn't agree more, ernest

2006-01-16T06:27:00.000-08:00

my my my.

course selecting is no piece of cake. although the classes here sound so freaking cool - angie just said there's a class called "theatre of urgency", whatever that is. but it still sounds awesome. and there's so much medieval art! it makes me so geekily happy! and i can take a set design class, or a class about italian opera, or a class about medieval linguistics. i mean, dude.

taylor (from high school) got in on saturday so we went out to dinner at la marine, which, incidentally, was in the background of a movie angie, tara, and i went to see (which was crap. it was called angel-a and was in black and white and started out ok but then descended into MEDIOCRE SENTIMENTAL NONSENSE. and we all know how i feel about that). it was a delicious meal and we decided to keep tabs on each other to make sure that we keep writing. angie and i also are gonig to have mini-wkshops so hopefully i won't be able to cop out of my plans of grandeur for this semester (ie, actually finishing a play that i begin).

AND i started to re-read a moveable feast since after all im in paris, and dear old ernest got me excited about writing in france. forgive the following literary quotation if it annoys you, but i HAVE to put it in:

"When we came back to Paris it was clear and cold and lovely. The city had accomodated itself to winter....Our own apartment was warm and cheerful....Now you were accustomed to see the bare trees against the sky and you walked on fresh-washed gravel paths through the Luxembourg gardens in the clear sharp wind. The trees were sculpture without their leaves when you were reconciled to them, and the winter winds blew across the surfaces of the ponds and the fountains blew in the bright light."

yup. it's like that.

fastouche

2006-01-11T02:30:00.000-08:00

fastouche is what little french children say about something that is very easy. so, i think i can safely say that falling in love with my parisian apartment is fastouche. after (a little bit of) agonizing, hannah and i stepped out of the metro vaugirard and were greeted by a delightful little place to picnic in in the spring, a plethora of pharmacies and cafés, and - get this - THE FREAKING EIFFEL TOWER IN VIEW DOWN THE STREET. now, i would like to think that i am immune to the evocative power of that hunking piece of nineteenth century metal, but it just ain't so. hannah and i literally squealed. but we hadn't seen the apartment yet, so we tried our best to calm down. the two studios on the same floor would probably be crap, so no use flipping out yet.

crap? try AMAZING. so adorable, so perfect, with delightful little kitchens so i can practice my culinary flair and hannah can stay vegetarian. you all MUST visit, and then we can have dinner cooked by me and then go to montmartre for (relatively) cheap kirs and cocktails and it will be fabulous. AND LOOK AT THE EIFFEL TOWER. again, i apologize for my blatant tourist reaction to that, but man oh man.

also i navigated my way thru the cellphone buying process. email me for the number, or email me just for fun.

much love from the 15th arrondissement 'hood.

allo?

2006-01-09T06:14:00.000-08:00

hello! i am in france but this keyboard is impossible. silly french. anyhoo, we are all here, today we went to the pompidou to see the dada exhibit. there is a lot of cheese and bread here and that is excellent. soon i will get a cellphone and calls from the us are free so yay! i am so excited to get an apartment - the FIAP is less than luxe. ok people are waiting for this computer, so ciao for now; OH also, there is an italian couple in the room next to mine and there are thin walls so i can work on 2 languages! tadaaaaaa! much love, kids.

test drive

2005-12-09T14:37:00.000-08:00

following the example of mlles piller and hotchkiss, this is for abroad-ing. saves long email lists, n'est-ce pas?