Un Mois À Paris

I've been in Paris over a month.  Wow.  One down, three to go.  I don't want this to end.  

This past week definitely had its ups and downs, and there were times that I missed home a lot.  Isabelle (our program director) has an interesting take on homesickness: that it's the manifestation of your heart and mind getting closer and more adapted to another culture, and therefore your heart and mind start missing being as close as they were to your previous home culture.  It's a good way of looking at things, I think.

I was sick this week.  Not the whole time, and feeling shitty came and went, so I was still functional.  At first sign of sniffles/sore throat, I headed to the pharmacy and got some good stuff that really helped, along with Vitamin C and (finally!) hand sanitizer.  Wednesday was not a good day - I woke up feverish and feeling TERRIBLE, then realized that the company I had purchased a plane ticket to Copenhagen (I'm visiting Jessica later this month!) from had charged me twice on accident (or not).  I had to deal with that situation immediately and it was really stressful, seeing as my bank is in America and the travel company is in Spain.  Note: Bank of America has an amazing 24-hour online service where you can IM with a bank representative who can help you with everything, just like over the phone.  Later that day, after forcing myself to go to my evening French class (it's my hardest class and only once a week, so I can't afford to miss any days due to illness), I got home and realized I had forgotten my keys inside the apartment, and my host family was at the opera.  I sat outside in the dark for almost three hours waiting on them to get back.  It was miserable.  To top everything off, I had a paper due the next day that was hanging over my head, and after getting inside the apartment and eating dinner with the fam, it was close to midnight before I ever sat down at the computer to start work.  BLAH.  A few hours later and not so much as an introduction to my paper written, I texted my best friend Amy and asked her to get online if she could.  Amazing lady that she is, she was immediately on and we had a great talk wherein I got to vent and let everything out, and go to bed feeling not so preoccupied and burdened by everything.  I woke up in the morning and wrote my paper easily before class.

The rest of the week was great, and last night was awesomesauce.  It was Nuit Blanche (White Night), a city-wide event where lots of museums, parks, cafes, etc. stay open all night.  We went to the Buttes Chaumont park, which had a bunch of cool abstract art stuff like a thousand red umbrellas all over the grass (whatever that means/represents) and stuff.  Here is me and Chelsea (fellow curlyhead) at the park:

After walking around a bit, seeing some street performers and artists, we got on the metro and headed to Rex Club, the most famous techno club in Paris.  Mathieu, my host family's son (remember? writing his doctoral thesis on techno music), had invited me and got me in for free, which was nice considering that getting into clubs here usually costs 15-20 euros.  It was a really cool place, and a techno group (band? DJ? partnership of two guys wearing masks at the front of the club?) called Dopplereffekt (really famous apparently and from Detroit) was playing.  Erika, Shelley, Carolyn, Alexia and I sorta got a feel for the music, which was a more mellow (not a techno expert here, don't kill me for using normal dumb people language) sound than what you think of if you're thinking techno rave house music stuff.  Here's what they sound like:

After about an hour, Alexia, Shelley, and Erika decided to head out to another club, while Carolyn and I stayed.  Here's Carolyn and I in the club, me sweating like crazy:

About ten minutes after the other girls left Rex, Dopplereffekt finished their set and a Parisian guy came on.  It was exactly the type of music we were looking for, and it was a shame that the other girls had missed it.  It was awesome, and Carolyn and I danced for awhile and enjoyed the different vibe since the crowd loved it and everyone was dancing and basically going crazy.  Here's some shaky video I took of that:

So cool, right?  It was an awesome experience, and I can't wait to go back.  Around 2:30 or 3 in the morning, Carolyn and I had had just about all we could take of the bass booming in our ears, and we headed out of the club.  Originally we were gonna split a cab home, but then after a little communicating with Chelsea, decided we would meet up with her, the other Chelsea, and Maddie at the Champs-Elysées.  So, we walked.  Yup.  We walked from Rex Club to the Champs-Elysées.  Carolyn has a map of Paris, and we figured the stroll was about 3-4 miles maybe.  It was so surreal walking across the city of PARIS, in the middle of the night.  You see some pretty cool things walking around this town.  Like this:

That's the Ministry of Justice building.  And this:

That's a large spire that I don't know the name or significance of.  But the moon's in the pic!  Oh, and then this:

That's the Madeleine, a really big Greek temple-style church.  Pretty sweet huh?  Especially at three in the morning, you just come around a corner from some random street in the middle of Paris, and it's like, oh, hey, huge world-famous building.  How you doin?

We met up with the other girls on the Champs and walked all the way down hoping the McDo would be open.  It wasn't.  We settled for QuickBurger, and by the time we had ordered and eaten, it was 5 am.  Which is about the time the metro lines open, so we headed to the nearest station and caught our respective lines shortly thereafter.  I got home a little past six this morning, and immediately crashed.  I woke up at 3 this afternoon.  My host family thinks I'm crazy.

The graffiti keeps changing on my street!  Recently this was put up:

Then it was changed to this a couple days later (sorry for the metal gate that's in the way):

Check out this cool dog someone painted:

And then last night during Blanche Nuit someone put this up:

I absolutely love my hood.  I can't imagine living anywhere else during my semester here.  

It's bedtime in Paris!  I hope everyone reading is doing well and having a happy October so far.  Keep it real, yo.

Peace, love, and Paris,

Rhiannon