Time for my annual embarrassing public breakdown!

I don't know how many people can say they've had an emotional breakdown in the Louvre, but after this week, I can.  Actually I can't imagine WHY anyone would have a breakdown in the Louvre, unless they were super moved by a piece of art there, but I've been to the Louvre a few times now and have never been emotionally moved to breakdown by any pieces there - and BELIEVE ME, I would be the FIRST person you know to totally break down because some painting from three hundred years ago touched me.  Remember when I talked about the Louvre?  Big museum with the glass pyramid in front, home of the Mona Lisa and eleventy billion other works.

My drawing class met there on Thursday, and we were in a section of the museum filled with 18th century sculptures (of people), with a glass ceiling so it's flooded with natural light.  We've been working on the human figure and faces specifically for the past week or so, and we were told to choose a sculpture and draw the head.  Before I get any further, I would like to go ahead and mention, to get it out of the way, that there is basically NO REASON for me to have an emotional episode at the end of this story.  So just know that.  This is going to be anti-climactic.  Carrying on: I chose a statue of some woman, and I started to draw.  Of course mine looks terrible, because this is the third week I've ever drawn anything with the intention of it looking good and gaining the approval of others at any point in my entire life.  So it looking terrible doesn't really surprise me at all, or really even bother me that much.  Ivo comes around, gives me some pointers and direction, then moves on.  I continue drawing, if by drawing we mean making squiggle lines for hair and shading haphazardly because I have no comprehension whatsoever of light and shadow.  Fast forward twenty minutes, Ivo comes around again and asks to see my drawing.  I say no.  He asks why.  I shrug.  He asks what's wrong.  I take a deep breath.  He asks what's wrong again (hopefully you're thinking of this in an Italian accent).  Annnnd that's when I start to cry.  A lot.

See?  There's my emotional breakdown in public for the semester; glad to get it out of the way, ya know?  I consider myself lucky that I had it in the Louvre, I mean really how many people have had to ask security for tissues in broken French with snot and makeup running down their face in like the most famous museum on earth?  Epic.  Anyways, Ivo was really flustered and I told him I needed two minutes and I went to the bathroom and got my shit together (sort of).  Ivo explained that I was stuck between a sketch and a real representation - a drawing.  I agreed.  He told me to go sketch whatever the hell I wanted "for pleasurrre - thas importante, yes? Ze PLEASURRRE," for the remainder of the class period.  I went to the other side of the gallery (or whatever a specific room in a huge museum is called) and ate a peach.  The end. (Yes, Mom, I'm taking my medicine.)

ANYWAYS.  Other than that, the week's been going great, if kind of tiring.  Meals at home have been absolutely top-notch, it makes me think of being a little kid when my family would sit down to an awesomely satisfying hot meal every night together.  Tonight JC made (Anne is out of town till this weekend) codfish and rice, lots of great spices and flavors.  And we had goat cheese after! OMGGOATCHEESE.  I literally have to stop myself from eating all of it, because I don't want people to think I'm a maniac (lies).  And we had canteloupe (I don't care to check how to spell that correctly if that's wrong) for dessert.  JC had his melon with liqueur...I just drank my apple juice.  They think I'm basically a six year old.  

OMG hilarious video to share with you!  We (Alexia, Chelsea and I DUHH) were on the metro last night on the way to meet the group at the Eiffel Tower, where we were gathering to celebrate a fellow student's birthday with a couple bottles of wine.  There were some very fun violinists playing for the metro crowd, and I was trying to get some vid of it - until Alexia and Chelsea directed my attention to two sleeping Asian girls!  Listen to me crack up:

They're sleeping!  With their heads just bowed down like that, rocking along with the ride.  How do they know when to wake up and get off the metro?  It is a wonderful mystery that I couldn't stop laughing about.

So we got to the Eiffel Tower just in time to see the hourly light show.  In this video, we joke about being on the "left" of the Eiffel because when we called to meet up with the group they told us they were sitting on the "left side"...too bad the Eiffel Tower has four sides.  Where is left?

We took a few pictures while we were there too but all of them are absolutely terrible.  I spent about 40 minutes doing my makeup that evening only for my face to be utterly DRENCHED in sweat after going down the apartment building's stairs, walking down the cobblestone street, and going down into the metro IN HEELS.  My hair was a hot mess too.

Oh, hey, this is "Blue Lips" performed by Regina Spektor, my soul sister and alter-ego should I have been born an artistic person with any sort of creative talent:

Isn't she wonderful?  She's a Russian-born Jew who grew up in Brooklyn; her music is not only unique and innovative, she also make allusions to so many great references: the Bible, classic literature, current events, etc.  She sings in Russian and French sometimes too.  Because she's a badass.

Okay and now I'm leaving you with literally the best video ever taken of anything ever.  I cannot stop watching it, it is hilarious, I watch it over and over and laugh every. single. time.  I give you, "Sneezing Panda":

IT'S SO FUNNY.  The mama is so spooked!  She's like, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU AND HOW DID YOU GET HERE??!  Look at her face!  Look how her whole body jumps! BAHAHAHAHA.

Okay I hope you guys actually liked that, even if not quite as much as I did.  Tell me what you thought!  That's what comments are for!

Peace, love and Paris

Rhiannon

Ay! Ay, Shakira!

I have been called Shakira twice so far during my stay in Paris.  Once on the Champs Elysées a guy came up to me and called me Shakira as he touched my hair (gross), another time on the metro to get my attention a guy said "hey hey hey Shakira" a bunch of times, which resulted in me giving the deadliest look I've ever given before.  I mean, not to deny that being called Shakira isn't a huge compliment, but honestly I don't look like her save for very large curly hair, and these guys weren't exactly who I want attention from here.

This weekend we took a class trip to Normandy, where we visited lots of museums and memorials and cathedrals.  Our first day we spent in Caen, where I ate this pasta:

That's right.  It definitely says "SALMON" on the side of the plate, in some delicious sauce or another.  I eat so much salmon in this country it's ridiculous.  I can't get enough of the stuff.  Wanna bet me?  Here's a picture of a pizza I ate the next day:

Double right.  That's salmon pizza, with crème fraiche and mushroom and OH MY GOD DELICIOUS all over it.  We stayed in a Best Western Hotel that had rooms painted in different pastel colors.  Chelsea and I decided the proper reaction for entering our hotel room was screaming and running around:

We visited the Memorial to Peace, which is a museum/memorial of World War II.  The saying on the front of the building reads, "La douleur m'a brisée, la fraternité m'a relevée...De ma blessure a jailli une fleuve de liberté"...which means, "The pain broke me, brotherhood relieved me...From my wound sprang forth a river of freedom."  And outside are various stone blocks engraved with quotes about the struggle for freedom.

"I was born to know thee, to name thee, Liberty."  The museum is amazing, one of the best I've been to.  We watched a video documenting the D-Day landing of American troops at Normandy, which only underscored the emotional weight of visiting the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial and Omaha Beach the next day.

The memorial contains over 9,000 graves of fallen American soldiers, most of whom lost their lives on D-Day.  It was an emotional experience for me, basically because everything of this kind is an emotional experience for me.  Walking along Omaha Beach was crazy, trying to envision how intense the landing was.  Here is a picture of our whole group on the beach:

And a video of us (by us I mean me) running around telling everyone to say hello in the

camera: 

We tried to take cool pictures of us jumping in the sand, but most attempts were epic failures, as most attempts at jumping are for me:

The last day of the trip was spent in Le Havre, a city in northern France that is gray, boring, smelly, and ugly.  It was Sunday so nothing was open.  We walked around in smelly rain and talked about the architecture of the reconstruction of the city after World War II BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH over it.  The best part was that I ate a gallette (crispy crepe thing) with salmon and spinach and it was DELICIOUS.  I am the most predictable person ever.

Classes are going really well, if a tad on the EXTREMELY DEMANDING side.  Luckily I'm only taking twelve hours.  My poli sci class has a ridiculous work load, but the teacher is great and the material interesting so...it could be worse.  My French class that I was so intimidated to go to is actually shaping up to be my favorite class.  We went to a play last week on Tuesday and had our first class session Wednesday night.  I was even more afraid about going to class after seeing the play because it was a contemporary surrealist opera...in German...subtitled in French.  My head literally hurt afterwards.  So I was terrified that everyone was totally on the ball and ready to discuss this most confusing thing I've ever watched ever, but it turns out our professor is basically the coolest man on earth.  His name is Bruno, he's super funny and passionate.  We spent that class introducing ourselves, talking about our previous experience with theatre and French literature, and all is well.  I'm excited for this week's class session, in which we will actually be getting into some material.  My drawing class is going well, though it's getting more frustrating.  I feel pretty inadequate as an artist and have less than zero experience drawing, whereas I feel like most of the people in the class have had art lessons before, though it's an introductory course.  Anyways, so I had a mini-breakdown the other day involving a leaf and shading, but I think the trauma is past.  Come spring, I'm gonna be a regular DaVinci.  Don't even worry about it.

So there is video on someone's camera of me and Chelsea rapping on the train back to Paris, but I'm going to have to hunt that down for you people.  Extremely valuable footage.  I'll leave you instead with a couple of songs in my regular iPod rotation this week.  First up is "Let It Be Me" by Ray LaMontagne (again), and I dare you to listen to this and not cry.  Or maybe I don't, because if you listen to it and don't cry it's just going to be revealed what a sensitive emotional idiot I am and how I cry at every other instance of artistic ability and profound human expression.  

Did you cry?  Don't lie.  Ok so then there's Shakira, my idol slash hair twin, and her new song "She Wolf".  I couldn't find a good version of the video to embed, which is a shame because homegirl basically goes psycho and does the weirdest dance moves ever.  It's okay though, because it's Shakira, and she has license to do whatever the hell she wants 24/7.  I sometimes (all the time) listen to this song on repeat and have to stop myself from dancing on the metro.

It is now naptime in Paris.  I hope everyone is doing well.  If you're reading, I would love comments to know who all is keeping up with my lame adventures!  You can comment by scrolling down to "Anonymous" and then just sign it with your name once you comment (like my mom does every time.) 

Peace, love, and Paris,

Rhiannon

Swines.

This city is not sanitary.

With people all over the worlll freaked out about the H1N1 virus ("the swines" as Chelsea and I like to call it), we are basically reminded nonstop to wash our hands.  The director of our program told us it is necessary to wash your hands nine times a day.  Which is pretty sound policy, seeing as the germz are EVERYWHERE.

I get on the metro and hold on to a metal pole for balance that has been held by millions upon millions of hands before mine.  I stand really close to people, often being breathed on.  The Paris metro transports over 7 million people every single day.  I exchange money with multiple street vendors/cashiers/vending machines/taxi drivers several times a day.  I eat my meals with groups of people, and share food and drink with my host family.  I sneeze.  I cough.  They sneeze.  They cough.

Anyways so all this talk about the swines has me (and a lot of other people I'm sure) hyper-aware of potential germ exchange and it just hits me SO many times a day how I really, really need to wash my hands nownownownownow.  I need to get hand sanitizer and carry it in my purse.

In other news, classes have been really cool so far.  Ivo Bonacorsi is teaching us about drawing and being super Italian while he's at it.  We went to the Rodin Museum this week, which was a holy crap level of awesome.  I drew one of Rodin's sculptures while I sat under a tree next to Alexia.  The drawing looked like a neanderthal with an African mask on, but Ivo helped me get some perspective on some things like, you know, basic proportion and elementary shading.  I was proud of my improvement.  Here is a picture of the garden outside the museum, which is where a lot of the works are located.

I was sitting on the right side of this pic, behind those trees.  There's more stuff over there, and it's shaded, which is important for a person who sweats enough to make an olympic sport out of it.  Yes sweating.  I win at the sport of sweating.

Chelsea and I went to the Musée d'Orsay today.  Let's talk about how jaw-droppingly amazing the Orsay is.  First of all, it's in an old train station, so it looks like this:

The Orsay houses works from soooo many artists, including Degas, Monet, Manet, Matisse, Renoir, Van Gogh, etc. etc. etc. (I'm not sure why the only painters I can think of right now are impressionists.  Oh, maybe because I know nothing about art.  Art history majors, you can put your two cents in if you care.)  It's kind of overwhelming to stand in front of these original pieces.  Like, Van Gogh's Starry Night for instance - everyone knows what that looks like, everyone has seen a picture of it.  But seeing THE Starry Night.  The one Van Gogh stood in front of and worked on.  His actual paint and shit.  In addition to paintings, there are also sculptures at the Orsay, including THE LOVE OF MY LIFE RODIN.  Here is some Rodin for your personal viewing pleasure:

This is La Porte de l'Infer (The Door of Hell).  So. Intense.

And this is le Penseur (The Thinker).  Iconic.

You know who's better than Rodin?  Camille Claudele.  More on her later.

Weird, awkward, funny-if-you-were-there anecdote for today:  Chelsea and I spent a lot of time on the metro today, it was extremely crowded and tiring and you should see how dirty my feet are.  Needless to say my flip flops have been retired.  Okay so my host family is out of town this weekend spending some time at their country home, so Chelsea was coming over to spend the night here.  We got to the Belleville station and stepped up onto the street looking for a crepe vendor to end our long tiring day...you know, with some Nutella.  Unfortunately, I live in China.  I mean...you get what I'm saying.  All that was open was Asian restaurants with whole duck roasting in the windows.  Not sweet and savory like a crepe.  SOOO it occurs to us that there are vending machines with Kinder Bueno (best chocolate bar on earth, bar none) back down in the metro station.  We go back down the stairs, swipe our NavigoPasses again, go through the corrals, and head down some more stairs toward the platform where the trains arrive which is where the vending machines are located.  Barely off the steps though, we spot a homeless man laying DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THE VENDING MACHINES LITERALLY WITH HIS PANTS OFF.  He was laying on his back, head pointed away from us, with his legs IN THE AIR.  WE SAW HOMELESS MAN BUTT TODAY ON THE METRO.  It was a really strange urgent moment filled with confusion, and we immediately turned around and went back up the stairs.  Not to be distracted from our mission, we figured we'd go to the opposite platform to get to THAT vending machine for some Kinder Bueno.  We go down THOSE stairs and head towards the chocolate, only to realize that Homeless Man has rolled over, still with pants off, so that his bum bum is facing us from across the rail tracks.  We got our candy and left.  Mission Accomplished.

I bought a book at the Musée d'Orsay today called Je Vous Écris de Paris (I Write to You of Paris), with a bunch of famous people's letters to friends and loved ones about eating, sleeping, breathing, walking, LIVING, in Paris.  I am so excited to read it!  

I leave you with a couple songs/videos.  I've been listening to my iPod on the metro and definitely have a few choice tunes I've been switching to everyday.  First up is "You Are the Best Thing," performed by Ray LaMontagne live on the David Letterman Show:

And lastly is "Heads Will Roll" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  The lead singer reminds me of a Space Age Olive Oyl.  Just look at her spindly long legs and little black booties.  The video is weird, FYI if you are easily disturbed.  Just listen to the song:

Hope you enjoyed.

Peace, love, and Paris,

Rhiannon

"America is my country and Paris is my hometown."

-Gertrude Stein.

Not much to report today either.  Yesterday I ended up NOT having class, since the professor couldn't make it (unknown reason).  The course is rescheduled for this Thursday.  This is what my weekly class schedule looks like:

Monday

11:30 Political Science (Comparative Politics of Western Europe)

Tuesday

4:00 Drawing 

Wednesday

11:30 Political Science (Comparative Politics of Western Europe)

5:00 French (Contemporary French Theatre)

Thursday

12:30 Drawing

4:00 Cultural Formations (France in the Interwar Period)

Drawing today was SO great.  Our professor is Italian, his name is Ivo Bonacorsi (say it loud right now in an Italian accent - extremely amusing).  He has two Masters degrees, one in art history and one in studio art.  Today was just a run down of how the class will operate and such; we were released early and went to the art supply store and bought cool things!  Like big sketch books and little sketch books and different pencils (who knew they made ones that weren't just freakin' #2?) and erasers and it was grand.  One day a week we will be drawing in class, learning about technique, a little art history, etc.  The other day of class we will be at one of Paris' AWESOME museums and drawing pieces that are actually there!  How intense is it that I will be drawing shit hanging in the Louvre?  Or the Musée d'Orsay?  Or the Musée Rodin?!?!?!  I'm dying.

My French class is intimidating.  I haven't been there yet, and actually it doesn't start until next week.  It's a 5000 level class, and there is only me and another girl (Lauren, who was with me in the South of France last summer) taking that level while we are here, so we've been added to a class with Sarah Lawrence and Wesleyan students.  We will be reading French plays and attending theatre productions here in the city!  I'm super pumped about the class material, about getting out and watching French plays, and about meeting other students who are studying abroad, but I just hope the language level is not beyond my understanding.  SL and Wes are obviously formidable universities with strong academic reputations...I just don't want to be the dumbass in the class with the Texan accent in French.  Not ideal.

This morning I woke up and went to the market.  The Belleville market opens every Tuesday and Friday morning; Anne suggested I go shopping there for fruits and veggies instead of going to the grocery store because it would be cheaper.  She was beyond correct.  I bought six perfect peaches, ten kiwis and ten clementine oranges for less than two dollars.  At a grocery store like Monoprix this could have easily been ten bucks.  Here's a quick shaky vid of the market:

The market is set up in the middle of the boulevard on the large median, with tents on each side to provide shade for the vendors and their products.  A veritable cornucopia (dang, nice) of fruits and vegetables are sold, as well as fresh meat and fish, cheese and yogurt, and even accessories like bags, sunglasses, and shoes.  You can hear them yelling out prices and such in the vid.  Most of the vendors are of Arab descent, and it was cool to hear everyone wishing each other a Happy Ramadan.  Reminded me of my roots and made me think of the fam.  THE ETHNICS.

Which reminds me - funny story from Alexia and her host family.  Alexia is Mexican and her host family is supes sweet and adorable.  They have been trying to provide her with food that is "mexican" so as to make her feel more at home.  These products have included a powder they insisted was guacamole and buying mangos for her at the market.  Because she is from the tropical rainforest. Obviously.

Which brings me to another ethnically influenced anecdote.  My fam made pig feet last night for dinner - it was really unexpected for me, but later they told me it isn't a traditional French meal, they just like it.  At any rate, they made me another small dish of noodles and shrimp because they took into account my ethnic heritage and assumed I wouldn't be eating pork.  It spurred a conversation about religion over dinner.  Can we talk about how amazing and perfect for me my host family is?  They're old simple intellectuals, with open minds and open hearts.  They respect, even appreciate, the differences of other cultures.  Annnnd it helps that they are super liberal, possess an aversion to organized religion, and have an egalitarian view of gender roles.  When I mentioned that I got a few pointed questions about why I was coming into the country at French customs (not this time, the time before), Jean-Charles joked "WELL OBVIOUSLY WE HAVE TOO MANY TERRORISTS WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO GET IN TO OUR PERFECT COUNTRY?!"  They're like an old, French Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. 

I need to shower tonight but am embarrassed to ask JC&A how to turn on the water heater AGAIN.  They live in a super old building, so there's this thing in the kitchen with a dial that you turn to "Gas" and then hold down the button for like five seconds and then you light a match and LIGHT THIS WICK THING ON FIRE.  And it's BIG FLAMES.  And then you wait a few minutes and you can take a hot shower.  I am basically 99% sure I'm going to burn the building down.  Or at least singe my eyebrows off.  No way I'm walking away from something like this unscathed.  

Anne makes homemade yogurt and we put blackberry jam (also homemade) in it and I basically die right there at the dining room table every. time. we have it.

I will leave you people with that thought for tonight, of delectable fresh food and tastes of wonderment.

Peace, love, and Paris,

Rhiannon

Lazy Paris Sunday...

Not much to report today, except I am providing a quick video tour of my host family's apartment!  For readers who are not my mom and dad, I apologize for constantly addressing my parents in the videos.  I appreciate everyone reading and commenting!  So here's the apartment, and quick looks at my granddad and grandmom, Jean-Charles et Anne.

I have a few other pictures to share as well, nothing of great importance.  Here is a picture of one side of the Centre-Pompidou, a huge library and modern art museum that is built with external escalators and plumbing on the outside.

This is a picture of some graffiti on my alley, which I posted video of in the previous post - but I really wanted to highlight this amazing piece of art on the wall.

And finally, this is a picture of a pie my grandpa made for me.  He made that shit from scratch.  So it's like lovely amazing flaky dough and then NUTELLA AND BANANAS.  I'm dying.  

I do not even know how he made it.  And this was supposedly part of a "quick" meal he whipped up for me because he and Anne were headed to a movie that night so we weren't going to eat dinner together.  He made me this awesome grilled cheese with little salami slices, gave me a couple choices of cheeses to eat with a fresh baguette, some leafy greens, and this pie.  I've never had a more satisfactory gustatory experience until I hit this freakin continent.

Classes start tomorrow! Will update on them soon. 

Peace, love, and Paris,

Rhiannon

Round my hometown...

Round my hometown, memories are fresh

Round my hometown, oh, the people I've met

Are the wonders of my world, are the wonders of my world,

Are the wonders of this world, are the wonders of my...

Adele-Hometown Glory

Yesterday was awesome! We had a quick French class and went to lunch at a fast-food asian restaurant called WokBar.  We returned for a general overview of "things to do" in Paris and were introduced to the Pariscope, a magazine that comes out every Wednesday with all of the coming week's events listed (concerts, movies, theatre, clubs, bars, etc).  I was feeling a little queasy and drowsy, so I ducked out of the group activities early and went home to take some PeptoBismol and nap (basically like hanging out with my two best friends).  My metro station is literally less than 100 meters from where I live.  I took video of me coming out of the metro station and walking home, so you can visualize my daily little stroll:

Please excuse the heavy breathing, I am not used to all this stair climbing and walking everywhere and raininess!  Oh, and I have more video of the metro.  I think that this was at the Belleville station, but I got a quick vid of some metro performers...these guys were intense:

There are bands like this or just individual musicians who stand around in the metro like that and perform.  People drop coins into their baskets as they walk by, but you don't have to.  Since I took video of them I gave them some change.  Alexia told me that most of the metro performers are part of a union and are paid by the French government, so you shouldn't feel terrible for not giving all of them some money for their art.

We celebrated my birthday at an awesome place last night.  The restaurant is called Le Refuge des Fondues, and it's totally quirky.  It's super tiny, just one room (prob 10'x20'), with two long benches going up either side.  If you are sitting between the bench and the wall, you have to climb over the table, because the benches don't move and have no space on the ends.  It's super crowded and loud, because the room is so small.  The restaurant is known for serving wine in baby bottles - we assumed this little quirk came about because wine was getting spilled constantly in regular tall glasses because the tables are so small and crowded, and the management was looking for a solution to this problem.  Well, voilà.  Baby bottles.  I had one baby bottle of white wine; I'm still getting used to the taste.  I have a short LOUD video of us in the restaurant, wherein I am screaming for everyone to say hi to my mom:

If you couldn't tell from the name of the restaurant, it's a fondue place.  SO DELISH.  We got both meat and cheese and everyone shared and enjoyed and drank from baby bottles.  The walls are covered in graffiti and we even saw a signature from an SMU student from awhile ago!  My friends started singing Happy Birthday (or, rather, Joyeuse Anniversaire) to me and suddenly the ENTIRE restaurant was singing!  The Frenchies sitting at the other benches were all standing and clapping and screaming for me.  It was SO cool.  If I would've known that was going to happen I would've gotten video of THAT.

Oh, and I dyed my hair.  I dyed it right before leaving for Paris and I liked the color but wanted it to be more multi-dimensional.  I liked the red that it was, but thought that it was a good color to be in my hair WITH something else.  So I bought a box of hair dye from Monoprix and did it in my room.  So I did look like this (at the castle at Compiègne):

annnd now I look like this (with Chelsea, then Chelsea and Alexia in the elevator at the Abbesses metro station):

The last picture doesn't really show me or my hair that much, but I wanted to give you a visualization of Alexia and Chels, who I've been spending most of my time with.  As I mentioned in the last post, Chelsea is the daughter of a professor at SMU and was born and raised in Dallas.  Alexia was born and raised in Mexico City until coming to high school in Dallas and attending SMU.  She is super well-travelled and knows SO much about the city and getting around (her father is obsessed with Paris and she's visited more than ten times).  Alexia has been in a bunch of my French classes with me and was in the South of France with me last summer.

I guess this post is long enough for now.  I'll post again as soon as stuff happens!  For the rest of the day I'm planning on running some errands with Chels and meeting up with the bigger group later on.  Classes start Monday!

Peace, love, and Paris

Rhiannon

Snatched!

Snatched is a slang adjective used to describe people, usually female, who are working an outfit that is totally trendy and super attractive.  Paris is chock FULL of people who are freaking SNATCHED, head to toe.  It's so great to walk down the street and see so many styles, so many different ways of making a statement with clothes, and SO many ways of being beautiful.

My new friend Chelsea and I were discussing all of the snatched Parisian women today.  Chelsea is a fellow student, a sophomore, and she just got done studying in the South of France this summer like I did last summer.  Her father is a popular professor at our university.  We've grown close really quickly, and it's pretty obvious she and I will be really great friends by the end of this semester.  We have similar styles of speech and common political and social views.  It's been great hanging out with her everyday.

In other news, here is the view I woke up to this morning.

The sun comes in really beautifully through the window, and the air is so crisp and fresh that I slept with the window open all night.  Notice the map of Europe that is hanging on the wall.  I'm not sure if this was done by a previous inhabitant of the room or if my host family posted it as a decoration/reference.  At any rate I think it's hilariously random and it will be staying there for the duration of my stay.  The view from the window is a typical French view I guess - it looks down on a small courtyard in between apartment buildings, and lots of satellites and clotheslines are visible on and around the neighboring windows.

For breakfast this morning, Jean-Charles had bread, butter, and jam set out for me as well as cereal and tea.  He asked me if I wanted coffee, tea, juice or something else, and I told him I'd take tea.  Here's what my breakfast set-up looked like:

If you'll notice, the tea was served not in a teacup or even a large mug, but in a legitimate BOWL.  The bowl right there in front, that is a BOWL OF EARL GREY.  A few of the other students in the program had mentioned that they had been served a bowl of coffee or tea in cafés or in French homes, but I had yet to experience it.  This photo was taken after I'd drank more than a quarter of the tea.  I was unsure how to drink it, but Jean-Charles didn't look at me strange when I straight up gulped it from the bowl holding it with both hands, so I guess I was doing it right.

My first metro ride to school went great.  I'll be an obvious American and take pictures on the metro station tomorrow hopefully.  My morning commute via metro is about 30 minutes, with one stop to change lines.  I felt like I blended in very well this morning, since I made sure to take my iPod and listen to it the whole way and not look anyone in the eye and generally give off the air that I was in a crabby mood.  This is what the French seem to do on the metro in the morning.  I figure I did pretty good.  Except sweat was pouring off my face.  Sweating is SO American.

We had a final orientation meeting where we discussed practical matters of where to buy school supplies, how to purchase our textbooks, and public transportation.  We also had a quick overview of current events and politics today in France, so that we would generally be up to date on issues in order to participate in discussions with our host families if they ever came up - which they inevitably will.  The French love talking about politics.

After our meeting, we jumped on the metro again and headed to the Louvre.  The Louvre is the famous French museum that is located in an old palace.  It houses over 50,000 square meters of exhibition space, and contains enough art to keep you there for months if you wanted to see it all.  The Louvre is the site of the large glass pyramid that may come to mind when some of you think of Paris; the pyramid was designed and installed at the museum during the administration of President Mitterand in the 1980's, and serves as a contemporary contrast to the historic location and symbolism.  The Louvre's most famous piece of art is the Mona Lisa (la Jaconde in French):

Isabelle, the director of our study abroad program, told us the story of the Mona Lisa and gave her interpretation as to why she is so famous.  Isabelle's take is that the colors and background of the Mona Lisa provide a certain haze between the end of nature and the beginning of man.  A sort of equilibrium is created between nature and man with DaVinci's painting, and Isabelle believes that satisfaction with this balance is what the artist was trying to express.  In French, the painting is called "La Jaconde" after the Italian merchant Jacondo, who was Mona Lisa's husband.  The word means happiness and satisfaction.

After le Louvre I headed to Monoprix, the French version of Super Target (groceries and pharmaceuticals and clothes in one store), with Alexia and Chelsea.  We went to the Monoprix on the Champs-Élysées, the famous avenue of elite French shopping and tourism that ends at the Arc de Triomphe.

We got our shopping done and headed to a bakery on the Champs that Alexia was familiar with.  We had  yet to indulge in any of the parisian delicacies, so we each bought a small pain-au-chocolat (croissant with dark chocolate in it - beyond delicious) and enjoyed our treats as we watched tourists bustle by.  The three of us had a hilarious conversation, though I don't even remember what we talked about now.  I recall that the pigeons went crazy at one point and were seemingly bombarding us to demand more crumbs off our croissants...this was super scary and Alexia basically had a heart attack while Chelsea poked her fork at the birds trying to scare them off.  It didn't work.  

We were all beat by the end of all this Parisian nonsense, and headed toward the metro station to go home.  Alexia and I helped Chelsea navigate the stations to her place and then settled in for our long ride home.  We live only one stop away from each other, a five minute walk.  It's nice to have someone so close.  

I got home sweaty (as per usual) and panting after climbing five flights of stairs with shopping bags.  My hair had suffered wind and rain that day, and resembled a dead animal on the side of my head as I walked in the door to my apartment.  To my surprise, my host family's son was sitting at the kitchen table.  He got up to greet me, and I tried to pull myself together as I reached out my hand to shake.  But in the general trend of everything in my life turning out super awkward, he went in for the traditional French greeting, a kiss on each cheek.  Again, I was panting and sweating, and my hair was half-plastered to my forehead half-leaning out eight inches from the side of my head.  Not ideal for a first impression.

At any rate, we enjoyed a great dinner of roasted chicken and salad, and discussed politics, movies, and music.  For dessert Anne had made this amazing cake that was made out of ZUCCHINI FROM HER GARDEN.  What the heck?  Like, it was sweet and cakey and delicious.  I have no clue how she made it.  I'm pretty sure she straight up lied to my face when I asked her what it was.  Probs.

Def time for bed now.  It's been a long day and tomorrow is sure to be another one.  I am having such an amazing time in Paris and am so excited for the long semester ahead of me!  Classes start Monday and I couldn't be more content.  Tomorrow night everyone suggested that we go out to celebrate my birthday which was on Monday and got passed up in the hubbub of traveling.  I'm really excited and flattered that my classmates would insist that my birthday didn't go forgotten.

I will post again as soon as I can! À bientôt!

Peace, love, and Paris,

Rhiannon

FINALEMENT À PARIS

I'M IN PARIS I'M IN PARIS I'M IN PARIS I'M IN PARIS

More on that later.  First off, this is what I ate for lunch today.

It was ridiculously nommable.  It is a gyro-style sandwich and fries. There is mayonnaise and mustard on the side.  This so far has been the most calorie-ridden meal I've had.  

After lunch in Compiègne, we loaded our luggage onto the bus and headed to the Château de Compiègne, the Compiègne Castle.  The castle was built by one of the King Louis's but I don't remember which.  Marie Antoinette and her hubs used it as a vacation home, as well as Napoléan through Napoléan III.  It was definitely legit.  I took a few pictures, but none of them were very good. 

We finally headed toward Paris by bus.  I was anxious to meet my family, and everyone got super excited when we took the scenic route as we entered the city; the driver made sure to pass by the Eiffel Tower and through the busiest quartiers.  We unloaded at Reid Hall, the campus where we will be attending class, and walked into a big room with chips and drinks set up on a table.  Some anxious looking people of various ages were standing around, and slowly people started making connections and finding their host families.  A man who looked to be in his seventies, with grey hair and a grey beard, dark bushy eyebrows, came up to me and said my name cautiously: "Ranohn?"  I didn't really understand that he was trying to say my name, but luckily my new friend Chelsea (more on her later, she is the BEST) realized what was happening and corrected him.  "Her name is Rhiannon."  And so that was my introduction to my host dad (or grandpa in this case), Jean-Charles.  He was dressed in a black t-shirt tucked into some old khakis, and he was wearing flip flops.  My kinda guy.  He loaded my luggage into his OLD car (SERIOUSLY REALLY OLD CAR I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT KIND IT IS) and we inched into busy Parisian traffic.

We had a nice chat, if a bit awkward, on the way to their apartment.  We talked about our families, my school, just basic info.  The best quote from the ride was this: "Nous habitons à Belleville; nous avons tous les couleurs, tous les réligions, mais nous sommes toujours confortables.  Nous n'avons jamais peur."  He said, "We live here in Belleville, with all the colors and religions of people of the world, but it is never dangerous or scary."  It was cool to hear that everyone lives in harmony and that all the ethnicities in the community co-existed vibrantly and prosperously.  

He helped me take my luggage up to the fourth floor (NO ELEVATOR UP IN HERE) and we entered the little apartment.  His wife greeted me warmly, and I noticed that she was wearing swim shoes.  I have no idea why.  I think she uses them as house shoes.  This particular observation is really indicative of their general quirkiness.  They have cassette tapes filling the shelves of their bathroom.  They listen to opera on the radio and own no TV.  Their apartment is not air conditioned.  They just got back from spending three weeks in their country home outside Paris, and spent time in the Czech Republic and Slovakia during vacation time as well.  Their son (26 years old, lives on his own) is working on his doctorate and is writing his thesis on techno music.  He is a pianist and composer.  My host grandpa is a retired economics and sociology professor, and my host grandma is a retired state employee.  

I got settled in my room and Anne had me come in the kitchen to teach me how to make a crepe.  She said it'd be useful for me to know so I wouldn't have to buy the expensive ones from street vendors.  She showed me how to mix everything together then told me I'd learn how to cook them later.  We sat down to dinner and ate tomatoes from their garden for our first course, then shared a huge gratin with cheeses and zucchini for the entree.  They brought out eleventy billion types of cheeses that we nibbled on with bread as we talked about the upcoming semester, and then Anne told me she'd teach me how to make the crepes.  She showed me how to light their gas stove, and made the most perfect crepe I have ever seen come into existence.  And then.  Oh. My. Gosh.  She melted chocolate candy bars in a pot, and added a bunch of cream so it wouldn't get hard when it cooled.  She poured that on the crepe. THEN.  She got out vanilla ice cream!  I almost fainted.  I sat down to my crèpe parfait and savored every last bite.  It was SO GOOD.

The lighting wasn't good enough when I got here to take good pictures of the apartment, so I'm hoping to get some good snapshots of my crib tomorrow morning, as well as a few shots of the neighborhood and of Jean-Charles and Anne.  After a quick French class tomorrow morning, we're headed to the Louvre museum! I'm so pumped!

Thanks everyone for reading.  I'll probably post again tomorrow.  A tout à l'heure!

Peace, love, and Paris,

Rhiannon

IN FRANCE

I arrived yesterday at Charles de Gualle airport in Paris!!

My flight from Dallas to London was fine, though I sat next to a guy who was pretty strange.  He stole a bunch of chocolates from the back cabinets at the flight attendant station on the plane, and asked me to go steal more for him and insisted later that I give him a plastic bag to put all the candy in.  I denied his weird requests.  He said he was going to give the chocolates as a gift when he got home.  Whatever.

I slept during the two hour flight from London to Paris, but did wake up in time to have a quick chat with the elderly Parisian woman next to me.  She complimented me on my French and was tickled that an American student was so serious about learning her native language and living in Paris.  She asked if I was studying at the Sorbonne--EVERYONE KEEPS ASKING ME IF I'M STUDYING AT THE FREAKING SORBONNE.  I wish.

Arriving in Paris was a bit overwhelming.  The airport was jam packed, and there was some sort of a bomb scare or something on one side so the metro/train station attached to the airport was closed.  Hundreds of people surrounded the area, sitting on their luggage or leaning against walls, trying to keep their restless children behaving in the non-air conditioned terminal.  Finally the station was re-opened and people started filing through.  I bought a metro ticket to Gare du Nord and a train ticket from Gare du Nord to the city of Compiègne, where we're having a week of orientation.

I was exhausted by this point and not looking forward to navigating Gare du Nord.  The "North Station" is like Grand Central Station in New York City - except ridiculously difficult to navigate, full of stairs, non air-conditioned, and in a different language.  I had been traveling for close to twenty hours at this point, and lugging around two luggage and a HUGE carry-on backpack.  I was sweating and close to tears.  A few good samaritans helped me with questions about where I was and where I needed to go, and an Asian man who spoke no English (and little French for that matter) actually bought me another metro ticket when mine quit working.  Sweating and physically beat, I totally passed out on the train to Compiègne.  

I arrived at the station and, to my dismay, stared up at over fifty stairs that I had to climb.  Again, two luggage (one at fifty pounds, one at thirty) and a carry-on (forty pounds).  I locked eyes with an African teenager who was also traveling with luggage.  Without saying anything, I helped her carry her luggage steps, we set it down, and both turned around to get mine up.  We made two trips to bring mine up, and at the end we both uttered quiet "mercis" with little smiles and parted ways.  I wouldn't have been able to get my luggage up without her.

I dragged my bags out into the hot sun and found a taxi.  I told the driver the name of my hotel, L'Hôtel des Beaux-Arts, and he laughed - the hotel I needed was just across the street and down a couple blocks.  I told him I understood that it was very close, but that I would still appreciate a ride as I had been traveling for a long time and doubted I had the strength needed after everything to even walk MYSELF across the street, much less carry my bags.  It took less than two minutes to get there, and I paid my fare and tipped the driver.  

I checked in to the hotel but didn't see anyone in my group, so I figured that they had all gone out together for a meal.  I showered and headed out to find food.  Oh god, the food.  I spent less than 3 euros on the most satisfying sandwich I've ever eaten.  When I got back to the hotel, my university group had returned, and I introduced myself to the director of the program who was relieved to see that I had arrived in one piece traveling through Paris on my own like I had.

This morning we had an orientation meeting and received lots of exciting information about our semester, plus our class schedules.  More on that later - I have to go to a French class now.  We're having French class during orientation, which at our level is more just a tool for the students to get to know each other rather than an actual course.  

Things are great!  I will write more on the city of Compiègne and hopefully post some pictures next time.

Peace, love, and Paris,

Rhiannon