Allez Géants!

I went to the opera last night. We saw The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart but the behind-the-scenes opera workers were on strike so there weren't really any sets or lighting or stuff. I have no idea why the opera workers are on strike too, but the performers and the orchestra and stuff was all good so it was overall a very enjoyable experience.

Not too much else is going on in Paris. However, aux Etats-Unis, the Giants have now won the first two games of the World Series. I bought myself an MLB.tv postseason account so I can listen to the games at night (my internet is too bad to actually watch them), so the last two nights have been nights of not a whole lot of sleep. (First pitch is at 2am here.) So I'm happy about that, and it always makes it just a little bit easier to wake up in the morning. I'm also wearing my Giants cap around Paris. Gotta represent.

So anyway the grève continues and it is eternally not ideal commuting conditions, but it works out. We had a cathedral class lecture at the Basilique St. Denis on Wednesday and it was really pretty even though it was out in the banlieue and really cold. So yeah. Not too much going on.

It just seems kind of necessary

I have no reason in particular to be writing this post but it seems like everyone else who's written anything about Paris has written it up, so I feel like I probably should too.

I went to L'As du Fallafel ("the ace of falafel," rue des Rosiers, 75004) on Sunday with a bunch of other people. That was probably like the fifth time I'd been there since coming here. Anyway, it's by far and away the best falafel I've ever had, so I've been going back at least once a week. I don't really have anything particularly interesting to say about it except that it's damn good and I want it in my belly right now.

Also it's way better if you get to sit down inside. So wait for a table.

In other news, I've spent all the money I was allotted for food this month, so now I'm spending my own money and I'm finally realizing how badly I'm getting screwed over by the exchange rate. Prices aren't so bad when you look at them in euros but once you do the conversion--WOW. I feel like eating canned soup and baguettes. Except I'm not going to. I am in France, I will continue to eat delicious French food while I can. Like L'As du Fallafel.

Wandering

I went wandering around near Les Halles looking for lunch today and, while I eventually found lunch, I also found lots of other crazy stuff. I'm going to number the things because I can't creatively organize them right now.

1) There was a PETA protest. I think they were protesting torturing dogs or something, because they had pictures of dogs in little cages and stuff, and a bunch of the protesters were walking dogs. It turns out that PETA is equally annoying wherever you go. Maybe even more so in France because people like protesting so much.

2) A mad stylish shopping arcade. I don't really know where it was, but I walked into this beautiful arcade somewhere in the 2nd arrondisment and it was full of fancy boutiques and tea shops and bookstores and such. The Jean-Paul Gaultier boutique was there, too. Then I left and I realized that I was right next to the place we went for our welcome dinner last time I was here (le Grand Colbert), but I didn't get lunch there because it was too expensive. Anyway le Grand Colbert is now my reference for finding my way back there if I need to.

3) I happened upon the Palais Royal, with all of its designer boutiques and stylish people, as well. I took a stroll through there, admiring the clothes in the windows and the clothes on the nearly-as-well-dressed people wandering through the galleries. There were also lots of beautiful young families with babies in designer clothes in the park and I decided that it would be really nice to be excessively rich.

4) I found what appeared to be some sort of Japan Town right next to the Palais Royal, and I got myself a bowl of ramen for lunch there. It was pretty good. There were a couple restaurants that had lines out the door that also made ramen, but I didn't really want to wait so I went to another restaurant just down the street and it was still of an acceptable quality and I didn't have to wait. Anyway I was impressed by the number of Japanese restaurants over there.

5) I found another beautiful shopping arcade (not as beautiful as the first one but still pretty). This one had the Christian Louboutin boutique in it. I just happened to find a really, really, really expensive area, I guess. Anyway there were lots of cool little shops in there too. One of them was a stringed-instrument shop, so I went in and the Lady was death-staring me the whole time so I left pretty fast because I felt awkward.

6) I had no idea how big Les Halles is. It's like any other mall in the US except it's full of French people and French stores. Really full. Like at Christmas or Boxing Day or something (it is Saturday, but still a surprising number of people). Anyway I thought about looking for a scarf or something but I decided against it because I'm cheap and didn't want to bother going shopping.

On an unrelated note, I went ice skating last night with a few people from ISEP and a few people from Stanford. Turns out that there's a significant number of French boys that really like to show off their skating skills, so we had to deal with a bunch of people speeding around the rink and cutting us off and doing stupid stuff. It was still fun though, except my feet really hurt.

And thaaaaaaaat's about it.

It's not High School Musical 3, but...

They're filming some kind of TV show in one of the other buildings here. I noticed it because I saw a bunch of cop cars and red tape by one of the buildings and I thought that someone got killed or something, but then I realized the giant lights and cameras and I was somewhat less excited (though still intrigued). So anyway I kind of want to figure out what TV show it is, but (just like aux Etats-Unis) there're a ton of cop shows here.

In terms of the rest of the week, there was just a lot of school-doing and such. Nothing too exciting that I can think of, except that I went to get sushi on Wednesday because I was craving Asian food. Not that exciting, I know, but it was pretty good quality stuff so I'm happy with it.

It's also been getting progressively colder, which is somewhat nice because that's what I prepared for clothes-wise, but also not that awesome because it's cold.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Bing,

You guys are awesome. Here's a rundown of the extended weekend you funded for us.

First of all, to no fault of your own, the strikes continue. Because of this, we had to take an earlier train than originally planned, which resulted in two wonderful things: first, classes in the afternoon were cancelled, and second, we got an extra dinner in Annecy. Awesome. The strikes are still going, but it's cool not as bad as it was before, so I'm not tooooooo upset about it.

Anyway, the train ride was entirely pleasant and it was quite wonderful to go in first-class fashion. On our arrival we were pleased to find that we had free wifi in the hotel, despite our beds being placed awkwardly close together. Hotel breakfast was also quite good, but I feel like that must just be the French way. I like that aspect of the French way.

Instead of doing things in order I'm going to first describe my meals and then go on to the rest of the stuff because the meals were really good as well. I know you had nothing to do with this except the funding (for which I am very grateful), but I'm including this anyway because this is not actually intended for you but for me.

Dinner 1 (Les Chineurs de la Cuisine. Annecy. Thursday night): Big group of people goes to a place recommended in the packet that Roberto gives us. Place is out of people's price range (more than we're given to spend). People split up into two groups to choose a place to eat. People choose a crappy-looking place to eat. I choose my own place to eat.  Dinner is delicious. Fried-whole little fish, roasted filet of big fish from the local lake. Yum.

Breakfast 1 (Hotel. Annecy. Friday morning): One croissant with jam. One chocolate croissant. Café au lait. One more chocolate croissant. Café au lait. Croissant. Water. Yum.

Lunch 1 (Chez Ingall's. Annecy. Friday noon): Small group of people goes to a place recommended in the packet that Roberto gives us. Place is within people's price range (still more than we're given to spend). Popular lunch spot, hip, wealthy-looking crowd. Scallops wrapped in bacon. Pumpkin soufflé. Ratatouille. Rice pilaf. Tart Tatin. Yum.

Dinner 2 (Le Freti. Annecy. Friday night): The whole group goes to a place chosen by Roberto. Wine. Cheese in the form of fondue. Cheese in the form of raclette. Cheese for two hours. Sorbet. Thank god for no cheese course. Yum. Also, ugh.

Breakfast 2 (Hotel. Annecy. Saturday morning): See Breakfast 1. Minus the last croissant.

Lunch 2 (Chalet La Pricaz. Col de la Forclaz. Saturday noon.) The whole group gets off a bus and goes into a restaurant with a nice view. There's lots of fog. There's no view. Kir. Wine. Squash soup with nutmeg whipped cream. Filet o' fish on top of vegetables. Blueberry tart with rum-raisin ice cream. Meh.

Snacktime 1 (Reblochon farm. Le Bouchet Nord. Saturday afternoon): Whole group gets off a bus and goes to Denis Bastard Rosset's cheese farm. Hahaha. See newborn cow. See adult cows. See cheese. Taste cheese. Wow, cheese. Yum.

Dinner 3 (Le Bistro de Rhône. Annecy. Saturday night): Big group goes to a place recommended in the packet. Restaurant is in the Michelin Guide. Restaurant is out of some people's price range; they leave. Remainder of group tries to get a table. Just kidding you need a reservation. Remainder of group looks for another place recommended in the packet, finds other part of group there. Wine. Beef tail terrine. Veal with mushrooms and mashed squash. Poached pears. Yum.

Breakfast 3 (Hotel. Annecy. Sunday morning): See Breakfast 2. Substitute hot chocolate for café au lait.

Lunch 3 (Chez Colli? Aix-les-Bains. Sunday afternoon): Whole group goes to a sandwich place. Sandwiches look crappy. Group minus JW goes on a boat ride. JW gets lunch. Spaghetti bolognese. Café gourmand. Yum.

Dinner 3 (Pizza truck. Paris 14e. Sunday night.): There's a pizza truck outside the RER station. Pizza with anchovies, capers, olives. Yum. This does not count as Bing trip.

We also went on an interesting tour of Annecy, a bike ride along a lake to an interesting tour of an old, famous bell museum/factory, listened to a lady sing while accompanied by bells, rode bikes back to the hotel, did a bus tour, saw some pretty scenery, did a not-bus tour of Aix-les-Bains, and went (or in my case did not go) on a boat ride. Then we rushed away on a train for which we did not have reservations and came back to Paris.

Good weekend.

Quick update

I'm working on a presentation so this is really just me procrastinating a little bit, but I'm going to try to keep it short so I'm not REALLY procrastinating too much.

The program took us to see Molière's "L'Avare" on Monday night, courtesy of the wonderful Mr. and Mrs. Bing.  It was at the Comédie Française, which is big and famous and old. I'd already been to a show there (because I'm special/already did a quarter here), but it was cool nonetheless. The play is about this old guy who's a miser and his kids who want to get married and the miser (l'avare means "greed" as well as "miser") meddles in their business because that's what patriarchs did back in Molière's day. It was confusing, as plays tend to be when you don't understand what people are saying, but still enjoyable.

Last night was the info session for the Bing trip this weekend, for which I am pretty psyched now. (The Bing's also fund a trip for us to another part of France so everyone gets to experience more than just Paris while they're here. We're going to Savoie (Savoy to all you), in the eastern part of France right next to Switzerland at the base of the Alps, so we're gonna see some lakes and cities and mountains and dairies and bell factories, apparently. Anyway it seems like it'll be fun but I'll write about that more when it happens.

In other news, there's a transportation strike going on right now and it's making everyone's life more difficult. Hopefully it doesn't continue and affect our trip this weekend, because we're taking the train and there's a chance that they might cancel our train, which would be really irritating.

That's about it, so now I'm going to try to work more.

Merde

I stepped in it. It must be inevitable. I've spent more than a hundred days in Paris, counting last time, and probably walked more than two hundred miles, and finally, at long last, I have stepped in a pile of dog poop.

Anyway, I've done some legitimately touristy things here in the last few days. Yesterday morning I went to the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, which is this privately owned museum attached to the Louvre. They had this show about 1970s-1980s couture so a bunch of us Stanford folk did a tour of that. Our tourguide had a glass eye, which was moderately creepy, but she seemed to know her stuff and she was wearing an all-denim skirt suit. And she was giving a tour about fashion. What? Yes that really happened.

I also went to Versailles this afternoon with a group of students and Stanford alumni who now live Paris. They have a club and a debate team that competes with other American university alumni groups in Paris. (cool?) So, being a fancy-shmancy Stanford group and all, we got a private tour of some parts of Versailles that other people don't get to see, like the opera that Louis XVI built and this private chapel and this room exclusively for the King's hunting dogs that also happens to be bigger than my bedroom at home.

There was also this modern art exhibition at Versailles that reminded me a lot of this. But really it was this. It also happens to be the same artist that did these. Oh, French people, you like such weird artwork. (I recommend clicking on all of those links.)

So a couple other things also happened. They are not particularly exciting, but I'm going to write about them anyway because I'm trying to keep track of what I've been up to.

First, I started my internship yesterday. Turns out that Point du Jour is considerably larger than I though (like 40 people instead of 5), and that I probably will have to do a good deal more work than I expected before. That's cool though, because it seems like it's going to be pretty cool and I'm essentially working on a travel show, which is not a bad thing to be working on as far as I can tell. I also might get to go on a shoot with them somewhere in France.

The other thing that happened is that I went to this French guy's apartment last night because he was having a party for a bunch of the ISEP kids and Stanford kids. It was pretty sweet. The apartment was balling, and in a baller neighborhood as well (on rue de la Roquette, right near Bastille and all these sweet bars and restaurants). Anyway it was not actually that special because it was pretty similar to an American house party except there was hella cigarette smoke inside, and it was in an apartment. Go figure, it's France. Also I stepped in dog poop on the way back from that. Lame.

Another really not important thing that happened is that I actually tried the third-best baguette in Paris. It was good. Maybe the best baguette will be spectacular.

So now it is Saturday evening and I'm going to go find food. It will not be a baguette.

Bell pepper ice cream

Métro Ledu-Rollin. Bistro des Peintres. Tarte Tatin d'aubergine, glace de poivron rouge. Quality.


I am now officially doing an internship with a small production company called Point du Jour (http://www.pointdujour.fr/index.php?page=101) working on this show called Amis d'en France. It's more or less a travel show hosted by this American expat and a French guy. Pretty cool, I think. The name of the show is a play on words, which the French are apparently super enthusiastic about (amis d'en France ~ ami's d'enfance, meaning "childhood friends").


Anyway, I went to Notre Dame today for class and learned about it. It was interesting. There's a lot more that goes into a church than you realize just by looking at it. Maybe not so much more than if you looked at it really carefully and you thought about all the details, but more than I had previously realized at the very least. So now I'm considerably more impressed by that. Also medieval construction in general.


I feel like my blog is lacking pictures, so here's a picture that someone else took of Notre Dame on a much prettier day than today:

It's all so French...

I went on a walk yesterday after lunch with this other guy who lives in the Fondation. We walked from our metro stop to the Stanford center, which figures to be about two or three miles according to Google Earth. We went a not-totally-ideal way, but we saw some pretty cool stuff, including this park right next to the Luxembourg gardens with a big fountain and a nice view of the Senate building. The trees in the park were all trimmed into the shape of T's, which was pretty funny. There were also ping pong tables there. I don't know why, but it just seemed super French. I liked it.

We also found another market street just one stop away on the RER and there were tons of people selling all kinds of vegetables and fish and cheese and cookwares and stuff. This one seemed way more legit. There were also a few brasseries and bistros along the street, so we went back there for dinner and I got a really good duck confit with mushrooms and potatoes. I'm not normally a fan of mushrooms but these were pretty good.

Also, I went to an ISEP party in the basement of some bar near Odéon. It was, quite surprisingly, a lot like an awkward frat party. Lots of drunk people, all the girls grinding up on each other, half guys trying to get with the girls and the other half of the guys being loud or just being awkward, then a couple people making out in the corner. And the song the everybody was the most into was Empire State of Mind. Super funny. The only different thing is that at any given time, half the people would be outside smoking cigarettes. Typical French.

Anyway I met a random guy from the Sorbonne when I was there and I think my French was semi-passable. That's the good thing that came out of the night. The other not so good things that came out of the night were finding out about Stanford football and the Giants losing. Lame.

I love naps

Naps are wonderful.

That is all I really need to say.