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.