Over the Hump +1

I'm officially done with six weeks of school, and am thusly a week past being over the hump. I guess I should do some reflection of what I've done so far or something. Anyway, I think that's more for myself to do than for me to do on this blog, at least when I need to catch y'all up on the last week.

Once again, I don't remember everything that happened, just because things start to blend together when you're doing similar things all the time. We had Practicum presentations again on Thursday morning, so those were fun again. A couple girls recreated some Ingres paintings, another guy made some drawings of pigeons, someone brought us some cake and someone else made this crazy broken-wine-bottle-Jesus-on-a-crucifix. Good stuff. I wrote poems that I you can read below this.

Thursday night we went to a jazz club--Caveau de la Huchette in the Fifth. Not a particularly great band, but enjoyable nonetheless. The cool thing was that it was in this underground stone lair. It was seriously like a dungeon. (I think it was actually a courtroom, then a prison, then an execution chamber, but it seemed like a dungeon.) The other cool thing was that there was a big dance floor in the middle of the dungeon, and people were dancing pretty much the entire night. There was this old guy in overalls who was particularly awesome, though only because he was wearing overalls rather than for being a good dancer. I'm gonna get a pair of overalls when I get back. I feel like overalls need to make a comeback.

Friday, I met up with Michael and Natalia for dinner at a RestoU (Univeristy-associated cafeteria) for a really cheap dinner. It was crappy, but really cheap. Since they closed early, we went to get drinks at a bar before we met up with Heimunn. Turns out since we finished dinner so early, it was still happy hour! Hooray, happy hour! The bar was called La Bodega de la Soif, or something like that, on rue Guisarde. Nice place, and good drinks. Natalia ordered a ginger cosmo, which was really good. Jen joined us right after happy hour ended, so she had to pay full price, but then a girl started to put on nail polish (while sitting in a little, classy bar, nonetheless) and it started to smell bad so we left to go find a bottle of wine at a supermarché and hang out on the Pont des Arts.

We walked to the nearest Franprix and were looking at wine when we realized we didn't have a corkscrew (French lesson of the day: corkscrew = tire-bouchon), so we tried to find a twist-off, of which there were none. Then we figured we could just push in the cork, but we couldn't tell if they were synthetic or real, and synthetic ones are really hard to push in (as we discovered on another occasion when we had a bottle of wine that needed to be opened without a corkscrew). Anyway, it didn't end up mattering because you can't buy alcohol in supermarkets after nine or something stupid like that, so I bought a can of Pringles and a package of gummies and we went to find a convenience store that sold booze. I don't know if they don't care or if they don't have the same rules, but we bought a bottle of white wine (which the shop proprietor kindly opened for us) and we headed to the Pont (which means bridge, if you didn't know that). Anyway, we hung out at the Pont being generally jovial until we got too cold, then headed off to catch the last Metro home. I actually missed the last Metro and had to take the Noctilien.

Saturday early afternoon, I went to rue Cler in the Seventh, where there's supposed to be a pretty decent market. However, by the time I got there, it was pretty much just the shops along the street that had stands outside, so I don't know if it was because it's the off-season or if because it was too late that there weren't more vendors. We walked down the street to see what was around and ended up getting lunch in a café which was pretty good. I also bought a tire-bouchon at the Franprix at the end of the street, just to be prepared. Anyway, over lunch we discussed plans for some other time that dictate buying bread, meat, cheese and wine, then walking over to the Eiffel Tower to have a picnic. Then I went home to do some laundry and get some work done before going out that night.

Our night started in the Eleventh at Blue Elephant, a Thai restaurant with multiple locations in multiple countries. It was kind of expensive, but very good. I have to say, I miss Asian food. (We were discussing getting dim sum this weekend but plans fell through. We might go in the next couple of weeks, though.) We followed dinner with another failed attempt to buy alcohol at a supermarket, followed by a successful attempt to buy other alcoholic products at another convenience store. (I call them convenience stores but they really just sell food and drinks.) We proceeded to the Metro to go to the Grand Palais to try to see the Yves St Laurent collection, but it turns out the line was a couple miles long and we didn't feel like waiting for a decade, so we sat outside the Petit Palais (across the street from the Grand Palais) and drank our purchases, putting my earlier purchase to good use. After that, we headed to Showcase, a nightclub, which we failed at going to previously, and failed again that night but in a different way. Turns out it was really lame, at least while we were there.

Sunday was work-tastic, as well as Monday and not really Tuesday, but that's where I am now. I'm headed to Barcelona this weekend and I'm going back to Amsterdam the weekend after that, so I really only have one weekend left in Paris then I'm heading home. Crazy. See you soon, I guess.

Some Poetry (written for the Practicum)

Plentiful Poems Pondering Paris
or
Twenty-one Tidbits Tallying This Thinkers Thoughts

like a draining sink,
paris spins into the first,
sucking in tourists

yet undiscovered,
the deuxième is unknown--
at least to this guy

no longer a swamp,
arrondisment number three
pleine des gays and jews

Our stay in the fourth ended quite well,
As MIJE was a wonderful hostel.
As we got on our way
I told myself, "Hey,
I should come back sometime for falafel!"

aliens from space
landed in the cinquième,
built oppressive squares

My favorite arrondisment, six
Is a great place to go just for kicks.
But if you're going to school,
You might look like a fool,
Because French turns your brain into bricks.

the eiffel tower
overshadows the seventh
it's really quite big

a song told me,
"il y a tous que vous voulez
aux champs elysées"

les grands magasins
are all i've seen of the ninth
quelle dommage, i guess

the weekend starts here
at gare du nord in the tenth
there are lots of trains

i have hardly seen
the one called the eleventh,
but i ate there once

an hour away
the twelfth is too far from me
inconvenient

fire and thermophones
rue des frigos, treizième
and i'm still confused

those kids at the fond
know where it's at--the fourteenth
not that i've been there

the metro tunnels
of the fifteenth, i know well
sadly, that is all

The sixteenth is really quite pretty,
A most beautiful part of the city.
I'd just like to say
That I'll live there some day,
And that I don't live there now is a pity.

the north side of town,
that is, the dix-septième,
just isn't my hood

prostitutes abound
in arrondisment eighteenth
'round the moulin rouge

there is nothing there
by there i mean the nineteenth
that i know about

jim morrison's corpse
lies under the twentieth
now, a tourist site

Boulogne-Billancourt's home to me.
Four miles from ISEP, or three.
If I had my druthers,
I'd change my host mothers
And move to l'Île St. Louis

Back in the Saddle

So I haven't posted in over a week. Not a whole lot happened last weekend, nor last week up until these last few days. I guess I'll pick up where I left off, and tell what I remember.

I don't really think much happened last weekend, from what I remember. Saturday, I went to visit Les Égouts de Paris (the sewer museum) for Mark's class. It was crappy, both literally and figuratively. Sunday, Michael's sister was here so we went out for lunch in the Marais, then wandered over to l'Ile St Louis to get ice cream at this famous place, which ended up being really, really good. I got a fudgy brownie with chocolate-orange ice cream. Super fudgy and amazing. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Nothing particularly interesting happened during the week. My host family went to Israel, so I had the house to myself, but we're not allowed to have other people over so I didn't throw a raging party or anything like that. Pretty much the same thing as always except I could get up and not put on clothes before I went to the bathroom in the morning.

Thursday night, a group of us went to the Lido cabaret on the Champs Elysées. It was pretty whelming, which is somewhere in between over- and underwhelming. Anyway, I paid fifty euro to watch an hour and a half of showgirls prancing about on stage to pre-recorded music. Also, they lip-synched (very poorly) instead of actually singing, which was disappointing. And the champagne they served was pretty bad.

Friday morning, I got up at the crack of dawn (or maybe even before) to catch my 9:25 train to Amsterdam. The crew for the weekend was me, Jen, Michael and Midori, but Jen booked her ticket an hour earlier (because some stupid booking issues on the website) and Midori was still in class, so Michael and I spent four hours napping/talking/eating/etc in first class. Yes, first class. Not second class. It was awesome.

So we arrived in Amsterdam and immediately went to a coffee shop where Jen had been hanging out for the last hour or so. I had a brownie and Michael and I each had a three euro spliff. Surprisingly cheap, but also probably not the best decision, because the tobacco hit me pretty hard and I was mildly nauseous for a little while. After motivating ourselves to stand up and continue our day, the three of us went to buy tram tickets and find our hostel in a purple haze, which took a considerable effort and an inordinately long time.

Upon our arrival, we decided it would be best to take a nap, so we slept until Midori got in an hour or so later, then we wandered around for a bit until dinner, which was pretty mediocre and rather overpriced, but I didn't care at the time. We were all pretty worn out after a long day of travel, so we went to bed immediately after dinner. Lame, I know, but at least I got a full night's rest.

Saturday was pretty awesome. We woke up to nice weather and everyone else went running while I slept more and eventually took a shower. Then we all went to get breakfast at a place called Bagels & Beans, and I ordered a goat cheese, bacon and pinenut bagel, but they brought me a goat cheese, walnut and honey bagel instead, which was still good but not what I wanted. We continued the day at a coffee shop, then walked through the red light district, grabbed a snack, went to Rembrandt's house, did a little shopping in an open-air market, took a boat tour, went to the Van Gogh museum, and finally made it to dinner.

Dinner was pretty great. Mark referred us to a restaurant that his friend had recommended to him called Tempoe Doeloe, which specialized in rijstafel (rice-table) which is pretty much Indonesian-style tapas. Apparently it's unique to Amsterdam, which seems kind of strange, but I haven't seen it anywhere else or heard of it before Mark told me about it, so I guess you really can't hear it anywhere else. Anyway, the food was great. They served multiple levels of spiciness, notated from - to +++. +++ was pretty outrageous. Mark warned us that the spiciest food was not for the faint of heart, but Jen was convinced she could handle it. When we got to the restaurant, she ordered some kind of kebabs+++ and the waiter kindly suggested that she get the sauce on the side and add it herself if she could take it. Turns out he knows his stuff because I tasted a pinhead sized drop of the sauce and it was pretty much like someone poured a volcano into my mouth.

The rest of the meal was also great. Fantastic desserts. I had this mango concoction of fresh mango and mango sorbet in a mango sauce (with mint and fresh passionfruit), Jen had fried bananas flambéed in Grand Marnier (at the table) with ice cream and coconut sauce, Midori had some very pretty fruity drink thing and Michael had an Irish coffee and a cake thing. Also, the service was excellent and friendly and the restaurant had great atmosphere and all that. Overall, a great meal. They even gave Jen and Midori red roses because it was Valentine's day.

Sunday was also good, though slightly more dreary and rainy than Saturday. We went to Bagels & Beans again for breakfast, where they messed up my order again (same thing) and there was generally poorer service. However, there was a cat that was unreasonably friendly and sat in Jen's lap for a good 10 minutes after we had finished eating. Then we went off to the Rijksmuseum or something like that where there was lots of Dutch artwork. We spent the rest of the day in coffee shops and wandering around and eating. Generally a good time. After dinner we went to see Revolutionary Road (with Dutch subtitles). Not my cup of tea, but still a pretty good movie.

Monday's train ride was uneventful, again in first class, but this time with all of us on the same train. Lots of catching up with email, schoolwork, etc. Anyway, I made it back in time for class, but I was too tired so I just went home and slept for another couple hours. Today I had class and stuff, generally uneventful. Mark asked us about rijstafel and i had more class, then I came back here and didn't do work.

And now you're up to date.

Rien de Spécial

Nothing's really happened in the past week. I had some class on Tuesday, more class on Wednesday, more class on Thursday, and even class today, Friday, which is atypical and annoying. I guess yesterday was somewhat interesting so I'll write about that. However, it requires a little bit of context so I'll put that in too.

Mark Applebaum is teaching two classes here this quarter; we call them the Survey and the Practicum, but they have longer names that I don't actually know. The survey is the class where we go see artistic things around Paris and write about them (like the Picasso exhibit I went to on Sunday night/Monday morning). The Practicum class is where we create works of art (literature, painting, music, sculpture, etc) inspired by Paris and our experiences/impressions/etc. I'm in both of the classes.

Our first Practicum projects were due yesterday, so I created something I call the Bagarette. It's pretty much a baguette that I painted and burned to look like a cigarette butt.

I made up some crap about how it represents the misplaced values of French culture and such, but I really came up with the idea for the object itself before I came up with an idea for the object to represent. Some other projects were pretty cool, and some were pretty lame, but I think Mark liked mine. It turned out pretty well, I feel.

Yesterday evening Mark took his classes to IRCAM, which is a progressive musical research institution near the Pompidou Center. I couldn't go on the tour because I was in my African Lit class, but I made it to the concert after the tour, which was well attended, despite the aesthetically displeasing music that was performed. Apparently the music was really hard to play, but that doesn't make it any better to listen to. Sorry to rain on the experimental musicians' parade, but what you're doing isn't going to be popular.

I've been playing a ton of scrabble (Lexulous) on Facebook, so if you feel like challenging me, I'm down for more games.

I guess that's all. Hopefully I'll have something more worthwhile to post after this weekend.