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.