You Can't Go Home

I woke up this morning to a grey Paris sky and weak droplets tapping intermittently against the window panes- an apropos beginning to my last day in Paris. I wish that I could stay in bed for a while and relish the melancholy just a bit, but my to-do list is long and time is short and so I can only take a moment to reflect on the past 8 months. My last days have been good, savoring the pleasures of french life: eating ice cream on the banks of the Seine, sitting at a sidewalk café with a friend and chatting for a couple of hours, fruit tartes, nutella crepes in the Latin quarter, shopping, wandering, the rumble of the metro, warm sunshine and chilled rain, poodles, street musicians, delicious food, and of course, good friends. I have been terribly remis in not keeping up with my blog the last couple of months, but in my defense I haven’t been sitting still for long enough to write one. So to sum up briefly what’s been going on since I wrote at the end of February: Portugal with Bethany and Andrea, then on to Spain with Andrea, back to Paris for a few days of cleaning and life before my mom flew in at which point we planned a two week journey through Austria, Czech Republic, Germany , and Switzerland, came back to Paris for a few hectic days and then went to Ireland for the better part of a week, back to Paris for a couple more, and then she flew home and I started packing yet again, this time for the week-long Habitat for Humanity trip to Romania. We got back late Saturday night, leaving me just 3 full days in Paris before my flight home.

In some ways it seems so long ago, the day I arrived alone here and spent the first evening eating peanut butter crackers and picking out words on the french news in a tiny hotel room in the 13th. But really the months have flown by. To try to capture the essence of 8 months in Paris, to sum it up in a few sentences, aside from being nearly impossible, really wouldn’t be fair to this place. But in preparation for the dreaded question I know I will be asked 8 thousand times in the next month, I will attempt to formulate a concise answer to “How was Paris?” and “What was the best part?”.

Paris is, was....well, Paris. Which is what I’ve told Parisians this past week when they’ve asked if I’ve enjoyed my stay. “But of course, it’s Paris.” Because that’s all the explanation you really need to give when someone knows this place. I am sitting here trying to put into words what I want to say about Paris, about this experience, but I keep deleting everything I write because it doesn’t convey what I want it to. It may take time and a bit of distance before I can write concisely, before I can find the words. I understand now why the term je ne sais quoi came into usage. Paris is, quite simply, life done well. It’s monuments, history, architecture, food, culture, music, shopping, and of course, love, mixed in with the trappings of everyday life, with the grocery store and laundromat and post office and infurriating french ministries of bureaucracy. It is continuously changing and always the same. It’s a place where you have to leave an hour early for your 8am class because there is a transit strike and you have to walk across the entire city through the frigid drizzle in the dark, but where, on said journey you get a view of every major monument in Paris glowing golden in the darkness, and smell the fresh bread and pastries on every corner, and when you walk through the courtyard of the Louvre, it is silent and empty (the tourists are still in their beds) and you hear the tapping of your boots against the stones until you emerge on the otherside, and while crossing a bridge over the Seine, the sun begins to dye the eastern sky pink and orange behind the towers of Notre Dame. It’s where cat’s ride the metro wide-eyed in carriers, and dogs are pushed through the grocery store in a shopping cart, and a man walks his ferret on the grass by the Eiffel Tower, and each bum has an animal of some sort: rolly-polly puppies or a cat with a more extensive wardrobe than my own (and where the pets are treated better and recieve more sympathy than the indigent person). Where the woman cleaning the apartment building smiles and apologizes for being in your way and rescues your keys when you leave them in the lock of your mailbox, and the man from the fourth floor always says a formally polite “Bonsoir Mademoiselle” when he passes you on the staircase, and people invite everyone in the building to stop by for a drink when they throw a party even if they don’t know you. I’ve certainly seen the legendary Parisian rudeness for which the people are notorious, but for me, having lived there, beyond the tourist sites, the number of times I’ve seen people help a stranger carry a stroller or suitcase down a flight of stairs without being asked, or stop and pull out their Paris Practique map (everyone carries one even if you’ve lived in the city for years) in order to help someone who is lost, or place a lost glove on a ledge for the owner to find, well to me, those random acts of kindness at least balance, if not counteract the occassional snootiness of some. In any case, I could go on and on about Paris for ages, but the last day is waiting to be enjoyed, authentic Paris drizzle and all.

Tomorrow I will no longer live in Paris. It is a weird feeling, but I guess moving, if that’s what you can call this, is always strange, one day you live in a certain place with a certain life and a certain routine, and the next you don’t. At least in this case I’m not moving off to something unfamiliar. I’m going back home. In a sense anyway. Because even as I write that, I am reminded of the saying which I think I will probably find quite true- you can’t go home again. You can return to the place, to the family and friends, but it will not be the same as when you left. I’ve tried to prepare myself for the changes that I know have occurred- friends have gotten married, have moved away, people have changed jobs, and life has generally continued in my absence. But even beyond those changes I can prepare myself for there will be a thousand little ones: new buildings, old stores closing, roads under construction, and things you think could never change will have done just that. I remember coming home the last time and getting in my car only to discover that 2 of my 6 preset radio stations had gone off the air. I don’t love change, but I guess it stands to reason that home cannot be the same as when you left because you are not the same as when you left. Even if time has stood still, you would find the place different. Because going away, travelling, learning a different way of life, it changes your perspective if ever so slightly. It’s like Audrey Hepburn says in Sabrina, “Paris isn’t for changing planes, it’s for changing your outlook! It’s for throwing open a window and letting in la vie en rose.” And so I am going home, maybe not to the same home I left, but home none-the-less. A concept that, fittingly enough, cannot be accurately explained in French because they don’t have a word for it. But that is tomorrow, and for today at least, I am still a Parisian, so bring on la vie en rose...one last time.

Leaps and Bounds

Happy Leap Day! Don’t ask me how to say that in french cause I’m not sure what they call it. Today marks a bit of an anniversary because I was originally supposed to be on a plane headed back to sunny Daytona on this very day. I was going to make the “leap” back to the US, so to speak. :-) But I have to say, although I love all my friends and family at home, I’m quite glad that the Delta flight is somewhere over the Atlantic without me aboard. If I had to leave today I wouldn’t be ready. So I am thankful for this reprieve, and for the traveling it allows me to do. Tomorrow I head for a couple days in Portugal and then on to Spain for a brief visit. I’m quite excited and ready for the near 70 temps this weekend!

After being sprung from the centuries-old stone buildings of ScPo two weeks ago I’m sure you’d all like to hear how I’ve been running around Europe and spending all day sitting in cafes. Instead I’ve spent a lot of time in my apartment trying to plan trips and researching jobs and and other much less glamorous daily activities, cooking, dishes, laundry, cleaning, etc. Living in an exciting destination for an extended period of time means that life goes on as normal, despite the gilded monuments and the troves of artistic treasures in your backyard. Back in the fall I was chatting with someone online and he asked me what I was doing that night, if I was going to go eat some wine and cheese under the Eiffel Tower. I told him the truth which was that I was going to be putting on my PJs, cooking some dinner, and reading several chapters about France’s diplomatic relations with Germany. He acted shocked that I wasn’t out living it up in the city every night. I reminded him that I wasn’t here on vacation. I had homework and classes to go to and the mundane aspects of life to tend to. I don’t think I ever discussed this so here’s a look at what my days were like.

My normal day during the semester went something like this:
6:30- wake up in the pitch black cold, stumble over to turn the lights and heater on, put water on stove to boil, check e-mail and facebook
6:45- put on the news via FoxNews.com or CNN.com and listen to the top stories while putting on my layers of winter clothing and fixing myself up, make occasional disgruntled comments to the computer when something particularly ridiculous is being reported, or argue with an “expert” who doesn’t seem to understand basic logic, prepare hot beverage (tea, coffee, or hot chocolate depending on time of my first class, the amount of sleep had, and the temperature outside) in my extremely American travel mug that keeps things hot (or cold) for 3 hours. It’s amazing, I don’t care how un-French it is.
7:25- Put on external layers, ie. scarf, heavy coat, and on particularly bitter days- gloves and a hat, shove travel mug into school bag, grab keys, iPod, and metro pass.
7:30- descend 6 flights of narrow winding stairs quickly without losing my footing and skiing down the carpet runner, exit into still pitch-black and freezing-cold Paris morning, walk 3 blocks to the line 12 metro, descend into the underbelly of the city and wait 0-4 minutes for a train, find seat, flop down and zone out while listening to something on the iPod, frequently country, or try to write legibly while finishing French homework and avoiding the temptation to ask the native French speaker next to me to do it for me.
7:50- exit at Sevres-Babylon and walk 5 blocks to ScPo (still in pitch-black cold), arrive at 27 and enter with the other bleary-eyed students with 8am classes, grab a copy of Le Figaro, Le Monde, or the European Wall Street Journal off the table of free press in the entryway and ascend the stairs to an overheated classroom.
8:00- take out caffeinated beverage and read the front page while trying to make my brain switch to another language and waiting for the teacher to arrive, wonder at the ScPo students who show up for an 8am class in very chic outfits and slightly yearn for UF where you can roll out of bed and go to class in your pajamas without causing a single raised eyebrow, try to focus on someone lecturing in French for two hours who has a tendency to tell vaguely related stories with no point, and/or listen to one or several student oral presentations given by A) a french student speaking rapidly and mumbling their words or B) an international student with an incomprehensible accent reading from their paper
10:00- Class is over and it’s finally light outside, proceed to next class, or hang around ScPo or go to the library if there is an assignment or reading to work on, otherwise head back home.
Sometime in the afternoon- return home and then a varying combination of- cook lunch, run errands, read for class, watch some TV while cleaning, write a blog, upload pictures, go to climbing class, or Bible study, or meet a friend for coffee, cook dinner, etc. etc. you get the picture

This was the basic schedule but it varied from day to day depending on what time my classes started and which class it was, etc. I will say I had it easier than my other ScPo friends because I did not have to take a full course load since I only needed 8 credits to graduate. And of course, while I say that life in Paris is just everyday life, that’s not entirely true. There were plenty of days when I would get done with class and then decide to walk over to the Latin Quarter to get some lunch, or to go stroll along the Seine and sit in a park for a bit, or head over to rue de Rennes and do a little shopping.

I’ve heard some friends say that Paris is no longer a romantic city for them because they’ve lived here. They’ve said they’ll have to find a new city to be their exciting romantic city. Maybe I would feel the same way if I had lived here for years and years, but at this point, having spent almost a year of my life living here, I can say that Paris has not lost its charm. Yes it’s not exactly new to me, and certain aspects of it have become commonplace, but living here has not dimmed the City of Light’s glow. It amazes me how places I have been a hundred times can still be thrilling. I guess to me it is like the beach. I’ve lived in Daytona for about 17 years and the beach is a familiar friend, and yet, there is still a feeling of excitement and a moment of wonder when I stand there watching the waves of the Atlantic race up on the sand. It’s maybe because with the ocean you feel like it can never be fully known. As much time as you spend there and as much as you learn about it, it retains its mystery. That’s what Paris is like for me. As much as I study about French history, as many guidebooks as I read, and as much wandering as I do, I don’t think I can ever uncover all of her secrets. There is an excitement in discovery and a soft, but persistent call to continue searching. I understand now why men like a mysterious woman. I normally don’t subscribe to the practice of all inanimate objects- cars, boats, planes, cities- being referred to as “she” (which is why my Ford Focus is named Gerald), but if any city is a woman, it’s Paris.

So since I’ve been free I have been enjoying the relatively stress-freeness of my life. It’s been a tad boring because most of my friends are gone on their semester break trips, have gone home, or have to work during the week. I got to make some new friends recently though. My housing agent/friend Mr. Dressner gave my contact info to a girl from Missouri who had just arrived for the second semester at ScPo, and she emailed me and asked if I wanted to get together sometime. We met for coffee at Les Deux Magots and I had a lot of fun passing on my acquired wisdom regarding life at ScPo and living in Paris. Celeste had only been in town a few days and hadn’t met anyone yet so was still a little lost and isolated, but I’m sure once she does the integration program she’ll have plenty of friends and really enjoy being here. I’m always impressed by people who are willing to come here not knowing a soul and without a command of the language. We met again several days later for dinner at my favorite greek sandwich place near St. Michel. I also had fun hanging out a few times with Zach who had been staying with my pastor and his wife for two months. Denise, the pastor’s wife, used to babysit Zach when he was little and so their families have been friends for years. It was nice to have another southerner around for a while, even if he was a Tennessee fan.

Oh! And one of the best “snobby Parisian” stories comes from having coffee with Zach. We were at Les Deux Magots (it sounds like I go there a lot but really it was only like the third time in 6 months), sitting on the enclosed terrace watching evening fall on the St. Germain-des-Pres church, and at the table next to us was this older proper Parisian woman. Now the background is that Les Deux Magots is one of, if not the, most famous cafés in Paris (Hemingway, Sartre, and others used to frequent it back in the day) and it’s in an upscale part of town. Well we’re sitting there and you can tell by the way they greet others and the wait staff that many of the people there are regulars and come by everyday. We had been there for a while and Zach is pretty tall and he had his leg crossed and because, like all Parisian establishments, tables are crammed together and there is very little space, his foot is touching an empty chair at the next table. Mind you it wasn’t like he had his feet propped up on the chair, or that he was jiggling his leg, or really doing anything that could possibly bother someone, his foot was just barely touching the seat of the chair. Apparently, and this was news to me, that is some horrible behavior by French standards. The little lady at the table turned to him and gestured towards his foot and starts off in a reprimanding tone and poor Zach, who doesn’t speak French, was just staring at her trying to figure out what she wanted until I explained what she was saying. “Sir, you should take your foot off the chair! People sit there and it is not proper to put your foot there. It is very bad manners!” etc. etc. I was chuckling slightly because I had never seen a Parisian openly chastise someone for their “bad manners” although I had heard stories. Zach moved his foot and we sat for a while longer and all was well, until....Zach stretched out his legs. Oh the horror! Long-legged Zach’s feet didn’t extend past the table and chairs but apparently they were too close to the aisle according to the self-appointed safety and propriety police. The tiny woman reached over and touched his leg and in a tone of utter distaste informed him that “You musn’t put your feet in the walkway! You will trip someone, that is dangerous and very impolite!” Zach looked at me and said he thought it was time to go and I quickly agreed because I was having a hard time controlling my laughter. So a word of caution if you find yourself at les Deux Magots- better be on your best behavior or a stern Parisian woman will give you a good talking-to, even if you don’t speak French.

My other “new” friend, isn’t really new at all. I had several French penpals a few years ago, and the one I got to know best was François from Toulon. This was back in 2004 sometime, and we wrote pretty consistently for a while. We kept in touch when I came to Paris last time but since he lived in the south we never met. After that we didn’t keep in contact very much, just a couple emails over the last years. Well back in December François joined facebook and found me on there. It just so happened that I was in Paris and now François is here for school at Paris X in Nanterre. We caught up a bit and discussed meeting up for coffee but it was during the holidays and Della was arriving for a visit and then I was swamped with school work and exams as was he, so it kept getting postponed. Well this week, after about 4 years, we finally met.

We got coffee at Starbucks (yes, my suggestion, I know I am ridiculously American). It was strange, the slight awkwardness of the first conversation with someone you already know fairly well. My French is slightly better than his English so the conversation was mostly French until I told him he should practice, and from then on it was back and forth without any rhyme or reason. I was impressed with how easily, for the most part, we could communicate since often with young people I have a hard time with their slang and mumbled words. I have to say “for the most part” because there were definitely a few times where one of us was trying to explain something in both languages and the other one would just be sitting there with a perplexed look on their face. Certain words with an unfamiliar accent are just impossible to understand, like me trying to say Mitterand the way the French do, and François trying to say Ronald Reagan, but he was very sympathetic and didn’t make fun of my French mistakes, for which I am grateful. All in all it was really pleasant to finally meet him face-to-face and we made tentative plans to get together again sometime before I leave.

Well I need to get to sleep so I can be coherent when I try to pretend like I speak Portuguese tomorrow. A bientôt mes amis!

Free at last, free at last...

Greetings one and all. On Wednesday 13th February 2008, just before 11am, I exited a Sciences Po classroom and made my way down several flights of stairs. I sat on the bench in the peniche and waited for Cassie, who I knew would be following me shortly. I had just finished my exam for “Grande Nation: Modern and Contemporary French Foreign Policy”. It was a two hour essay exam with a choice of 2 topics. I chose the topic about the importance of rupture and continuity in french foreign policy since 1870. I don’t honestly know how I did because I’m never entirely confident that I understand what the ScPo professors want, but I thought I did fairly well. I wrote about how France’s perception of itself as a “Grande Nation” has underlied it’s foreign policy for the last 140 years, despite the fact that France’s glory-days are largely behind them. I won’t bore you with the details, but I didn’t think I did half bad. I was feeling relieved to have it over with, as I saw Cassie coming down the stairs. She grinned and walked over to me and before I could ask how it went said, “You just finished college!” It caught me off-guard and I paused a moment and said that strange sentence again- I just finished college? The reality of it washed over me and I stood there in the middle of the peniche smiling like a crazy person. Over the previous few weeks people at home and here had often asked me if I was excited about being almost done with school. I said “sure”, but I hadn’t really thought about it. I had been trying to focus on passing my exams and not on reveling in excitement of finishing college. I honestly didn’t think that it would be anything very thrilling. I really think at first Cassie was more excited about it than I was, but Cassie’s boundless enthusiasm (one of my favorite aspects of her personality) was contagious. The combination of sleep deprivation, caffeine, and the jittery relief of being finished with exams led to an animated conversation and goofy goodbyes as various friends passed through the atrium on their way to and from other exams. Each time Cassie informed someone that “Lyndsey just took her last exam EVER,” my smile got a little bigger.

I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing that I’m probably the only person at Sciences Po that just finished college. People don’t typical pick their last semester of college as the time to go abroad. Because of that I’ve spent this semester in limbo with basically nobody else my age around. In the undergrad program at school my friends are all a year or two younger, while my friends at church are mostly finished with college and thus a year or two (or more) older. It’s alright, I’ve never been very good at “normal”, why start now?

Anyway, the group in the peniche dispersed towards more exams or to begin their semester break travels and I walked out onto rue Saint Guillaume and into the cool February sunshine. I was exhausted and giddy all at once. Three back-to-back nights of cramming for finals meant I needed rest, but I was too pumped to be able to sleep. I walked the long way to the metro, enjoying the fresh air and my first sip of freedom. I put an energetic song on my iPod and fought a losing battle with the corners of my mouth that jerked involuntarily upwards every few minutes when the thought “no more school!” crossed my mind again. When I made it to the apartment I was going to do the Rocky run up to my door, but I live up 6 flights of narrow winding stairs and I had a collective 8 hours of sleep over the previous 3 nights, so I only made it up about 2 flights in that manner, and then resigned myself to a more leisurely climb to the top. After I recovered though, i did dance around my apartment for a while.

That evening was a going-away dinner for my friend Abe who has been here working for 6 months. Several of us met at a cramped chinese restaurant over by Espace St. Martin and passed a pleasant evening eating weird food and conversing. It, like all oriental food in Paris, made me miss American-chinese food. I know it bears no resemblance to authentic chinese food, but I don’t care. Some of the real stuff is good but I’d trade it for some food-court Chinese. Oddly enough “chinese” food was my last American meal. During my layover in the Atlanta airport I sat at a counter eating Panda Express’s orange chicken and some beef and broccoli with steamed rice while discussing Macs and the ridiculousness of Charles-de-Gaulle airport with a pilot. Hard to believe that was about 6 months ago. It was late by the time we finished and parted company in the street and my tired was finally catching up with me. I said goodbye to Abe as he got off the metro with a hug and a semiserious “have a nice life.” Hopefully someday down the road our paths will randomly cross again, but unfortunately that may not be the case with Abe or most of the friends I’ve made these months.

Paris is superb because because it attracts individuals from every horizon and forges an inordinate bond between people who in other circumstances would likely never have become friends. No matter our backgrounds, we are united in the common experience of separation and our status as outsiders. The unifying factor of “foreignness” is enough to override a myriad of differences. But for most of us our time in Paris is a fleeting period, and in the end we return to whence we came or move on to other adventures. If we are lucky there will be moments in the future where we find ourselves in the same city at the same time as an old Paris pal, and we may keep in contact with our closest expat friends over the years, but in large we will move on with only memories of “our “ Paris and a soft spot in our hearts for those who stood beside us in the cobblestone trenches fighting the battle to make sense out of a beautifully bizarre world.

Duck and cover

Today is the first Wednesday of the month. And so, as I sit in my arm chair at noon watching the clouds being swept swiftly across the sunny Paris skyline, a siren reverberates across the centuries-old rooftops of the city. For a minute the quotidian sounds of traffic and voices that drift up from the street are drowned out by the eerie tones of the air raid siren. The haunting cry echoes across the city unheeded by people sipping coffee in sidewalk cafés. It is an old thread in the tapestry of Parisian sound. As historical as the countless monuments and plaques plastered on every building, and as such Parisians pay little attention to it, except to maybe set their watches. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that people here don’t notice. Parisians live with history the way Floridians live with mosquitoes- to them it’s just a given.

Nevertheless, there was a time when the siren’s wail commanded notice. It sent hearts racing and people into the basements of buildings (or up to the rooftops in the case of the crowds watching air raids during the Great War). I have to wonder if there are any people left in Paris today who remember when the sirens used to pierce the night to warn of German attack. I wonder if the monthly testing of the civil alert system that happens the first Wednesday at noon sends them back nearly 70 years. It’s strange the effect that sound can have on a person, even one who has no firsthand experience with it. I’ve seen enough movies and old newsreels to recognize the moan of an air raid siren when I hear it (although in my mind it is equally connected with Nazi bombers and an approaching tornado-neither of which are extremely prevalent in Paris these days). I remember the first time I heard the sirens in Paris, before I knew it was a test. My pulse quickened and I turned to the window in confusion, almost expecting to see bombers in V formation descending through the thick grey clouds of Parisian winter. It’s an unnerving sound.

Why do they continue to test the civil defense system? Beats me. Other than the siren, I don’t know what the civil defense plan is, and I doubt most Parisians do either. I imagine if the siren was ever actually used it would A) be ignored- people would look at their watches and furrow their brows and wonder why they are being annoyed with that noise when it is clearly not noon on Wednesday. Obviously there’s a short in the wiring. Or B) cause mass chaos- people might realize it wasn’t a test, but they wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to do. The problem being that nowadays we lack the commonly known threats that defined past generations. If you know your enemy is a Luftwaffe squadron or a Russian nuke, at least you have some idea of how to react (although in the later you may rather climb up to the roof and get a front row view since crawling under your desk and covering your head obviously isn’t going to help). But in today’s world, where the danger comes primarily from non-state actors in untraditional methods of warfare (i.e. terrorism), the civil defense system loses its effectiveness. If Paris is attacked it will likely be in a way that allows no time to warn people, as we have seen elsewhere over the past years. At this point I could launch into a nice rant here about the ridiculousness of the French tendency to cling to the obsolete, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt in this case. I don’t think the French are blind to the changing nature of the threats they face. I doubt they really believe that their siren will even again save Parisian lives. In my mind, the siren’s ominous call is a memorial. An auditory monument to the events that unfolded when the sound was first heard all those years ago. A baleful tone recalling the dark days of Paris’ past. And maybe it’s a reminder that the peaceful city we live in is never really as secure as it seems. Paris has fallen before, don’t let it happen again. Remember the past, prepare for the future.

Perhaps I’ve over-romanticized what is simply the result of a culture that likes change about as much as a cat likes a bath. Whatever the reality of the situation may be, the noon test on the first Wednesday of the month in Paris will continue to make me pause long enough to remember.


I read this in a travel guide online and thought I'd share it since I got a chuckle out of it:
Nota Bene - every first Wednesday of each month at midday you will hear the air raid siren.  For some obscure reason the Parisians keep this thing going month in, month out.  So if you're an enemy of France, they ask please don't invade during the lunch hour, on a jour férié, or on the first Wednesday of the month.  Thank you, and bon appétit.

Sometimes you have to laugh...

to keep from crying. It is a thin line that divides the two, and I have been walking it this week. I have my faults, but one thing I am usually good at, if I do say so myself, is finding the humor in life, even when it kind of sucks. I am writing this moments after having bid adieu to my landlord, but to really understand the stress his visit brought, I’ll have to give a bit of background of the week.

We are down to single digits of how many days of class remain in my tenure at ScPo (and of college, hopefully!), and so as you can imagine things are getting hectic. All the work is piled up for the end of the semester which would be stressful if it was in my native language, but in French it is just downright overwhelming. I have 2 oral presentations, 2 ten page papers, and one 4 page paper due within a week and a half’s time. This past week has been spent trying to force myself to work on oral presentation number one “L’imaginaire des jeunes saoudiens”- the imagination of the young saudis, or more or less, how the current generation of saudi youth see the world and why it matters. So I was talking abut reislamization v. reform. You have to talk for 10 minutes- no more, no less, and you can’t read the presentation. However, while the French students get nailed for breaking those rules, the professor made sure to say that that international students are allowed to read if language is an issue. So I was not real worried about the presenting part, since I was planning on reading mine, but it did have to make sense, and you also have to prepare an outline handout for everyone in the class. Anyway, so the week had been consecrated primarily to that task.

Thursday was the big day. Not only did I have my presentation, but it was also the longest day ever. It started out with my French foreign policy class at 8am, followed quickly by 2 hours of Arab World, and then a 2 hour “break” during which I practiced my presentation and tried to read for one of my other papers (but was too nervous to really pay much attention), then came 2 more hours of Arab World and my presentation. It went alright, he said I talked too fast because I read it but he wasn’t overly harsh as he is often with the French students. However, while he let most of the international students sit down directly after their presentation unless anyone had questions, he decided to ask me questions about Saudi Arabia, as did some other students. It didn’t help that the questions were vague and not really pertinent to my presentation, and me being nervous certainly did not improve my french speaking abilities. When I get nervous in French I basically lose all command of the language and find myself tuttoyer-ing (using the informal “you” form) older people and having the vocabulary of a first year french student. I stammered some grammatically incorrect and less than insightful responses, and stood to the side while he scribbled and rambled on about the Saudi line of succession for 10 mins and then finally was allowed to sit down. I got a 13, which doesn’t sound all that impressive, but it’s above the passing mark and probably a lot higher than he would have given me if I was French. The other international students in the class and I am pretty sure that he just gives all the international kids the same marks regardless of how well they do. We also got back our essay midterms. I thought I had done pretty well. I got an 11. Also pretty dismal unless you take into account that the grades ranged from 9-13 for the class, so then it’s not so bad at all. And once again, it’s above the passing mark. Annnyway, so I survived that exposé and then went on for another hour of planning for my next oral presentation- a news review for my french class with a partner. By the time I got home Thursday night I was ready to collapse having been at school for a solid 11 hours and having not gotten a ton of sleep the night before.

Friday I spent a good portion of the day at Reid Hall, where UF’s study abroad program is and where I studied last time, because it is quieter and less crowded than ScPo so I can work better.

Today I consecrated the entire day to getting my 4 page paper done. It’s 7pm and I haven’t written the first word. It was slow going on the research anyway, but it took a serious turn for the worse at 5:30 when someone started banging on my door. Now since I was going to stay in and work all day I was still in my PJs. Let me paint you the picture. Sweatpants, a rugby T-shirt, warm socks and my Gator Crocs, a fuzzy pink bathrobe, hair sloppily pulled up in a knot with a headband, and...no makeup. I was looking stunning, let me tell you. Anyway, so I was just sitting her peacefully trying to read the world’s most boring article about whether researchers influence the creation of political islam, when...BAM BAM BAM BAM! I sat quietly for a minute kind of hoping whoever it was would go away, but also really confused because other than a delivery or a visitor, the only reason someone would be at my door would be PROBLEM, and I was not looking forward to dealing with that if it was. BAM BAM BAM again. I opened the door cautiously. A short middle-aged guy was standing there, “Hello, I’m your neighbor downstairs and there’s a leak coming from your apartment.” Oh crap.
“Really?! Oh no! I had no idea!” said I.
“Yes, it’s coming from the area of your kitchen I think. Do you think you can turn the water off? Make it stop?”
“Uh, oh, um..yeah, I’m soo sorry! I don’t know what happened.” That’s when I realized, I DID know what happened. “Is there anything I can do? Is it really bad in your apartment?”
“Well it’s dripping into our bedroom, so if you could stop the water, that would be good, and we’ll call the landlord.”
“Oh yeah, of course, um, I think earlier, I was...it was...the...oh shoot I forget the word in French, the thing where you wash stuff...it was, at the bottom, it was blocked, and I tried to remove what was blocking it...and...”
“Ok, well can you turn the water off?”

I should probably back up and say that this afternoon I was going to wash some dishes and I noticed that the sink was not draining hardly at all, and I wasn’t about to get dressed and go to the store and spend an hour trying to figure out what Liquid Plumber is called in French and try to figure out those directions, so I decided I would try to clean out the drain if there was any junk in there. I don’t have a disposal which is a strange concept, and I try very hard to keep solid particles from going down the drain, but I’m sure it happens from time to time. So I unscrew the screw holding the drain cover in and take it off and wipe out the part I can reach and run a little water down in there and it seems to be working better. So I put it back on, and wash my dishes. Evidently, since I don’t have a screwdriver here and was using a knife to do the unscrewing and rescrewing...I didn’t get it tight enough. This was like 4 hours earlier though.

Well anyway, I promise the kind but annoyed neighbor that I will do everything possible to fix it and immediately go to look under the sink and see if there is a problem and there’s all sorts of water under there that had leaked out. So I mop it all up and check and take everything out from under the sink and as I’m doing this the phone rings. And it’s my landlord cause apparently he’s the people below’s landlord as well. So anyway he says he hears there’s a leak and he’s coming over to take a look and see if he can fix it, but in the mean time I should turn the water off on the main line. He’s on his way. Oh crap. Not only was I in a state of disarray, but so was the apartment. Anyone who has lived with me knows that when I am tired or stressed my housekeeping skills drop off dramatically. So after a stressful and hectic week the place was a wreck. Panic time! It was the fastest clean job anyone has ever seen. Granted it wasn’t a good cleaning job. I have no idea where I shoved things. I may never find them again. But I threw on some jeans and brushed my hair and tried to keep from giving the landlord a heart attack when he walked in.

He arrived a few minutes later with a tool kit and I explained what I thought had happened and he poked around and took things apart- showed me how to empty the trap that was clogged- and came to the same conclusion. I was apologizing profusely and he kept saying it wasn’t a big deal. He was extremely nice considering that I caused him and his other tenants a whole heap of trouble because I didn’t know that removing the drain cover also caused the sink to separate from the pipe underneath it. He tightened everything and double checked stuff and told me to watch it for a day or so and encouraged me to CALL HIM if I have any more trouble with a slow sink instead of trying to fix it myself. Oh my.

While I was waiting for the landlord to show up I was sitting in the kitchen trying to figure out what was the worst that could happen, when it occurred to me that I had been here before, metaphorically speaking. The last time I was here, when Lori and I were living on rue Vieille du Temple, the faucet in the kitchen was leaking around where it came out from the sink. One night while I was washing dishes I tried to tighten it, but it was really old and apparently rusted and when I twisted it, it broke off in my hand! I turned off the water until the landlord or plumber could come and look at it, but didn’t realize that you also had to turn the hot water heater off. So the hot water heater was still running without water and started flashing some warning code and wouldn’t work after we turned the water back on. We followed the directions and rebooted the water heater eventually, but the landlord’s plumber was in Israel having a baby so he was out of town for a month and we carried water in a pot from the bathroom to the kitchen for several weeks which was imminently annoying. So I guess it is par for the course that I should have some self-inflicted plumbing issue while I am here. At least my French abilities are better this time around, even if I couldn’t remember the word for sink or drain when I needed. I had to laugh because it’s always words that I remember being taught in French 1 and 2 in high school that I can’t remember. I remember thinking when we did the unit on tools when I was about 15- why in the world would I ever need to say screwdriver or nails in French!? I now know why. Because maybe someday you will be living in France and you will be talking to your landlord after you’ve flooded the apartment below you and you will need to tell him you removed a screw from the drain of the sink but didn’t have a screwdriver. It’s those vocab words that you never foresee needing to know that catch you off guard. Now if my landlord had wanted to discuss the political risks of foreign policy in the mideast, now THAT I can discuss in French. Sinks and gaskets and leaks? Not so much.

And so tonight I choose to laugh. With the stress of the assignments that I am vastly underqualified to complete and the lack of time to do them in, I was already dangerously close to a freak-out, and standing in my kitchen sopping up water while my Italian landlord talked on about gaskets and valves was enough to push me over the edge. And don’t get me wrong, a nervous breakdown can do wonders as far as clearing your head and helping you focus. But tonight instead of crying, I will choose to enjoy the humor of the disasters that add flavor to my life, and hopefully to yours as well.
Goodnight and Good Luck.

Back to school

So I must apologize for being so bad at this blogging thing. As it turns out, blogging about your semester abroad is great in theory, but not so much in practice. At least not when you are at a school like Sciences Po and struggling to keep up with the coursework in a foreign language while still enjoying life in Europe. So I’m afraid I’ll have to give up on trying to blog in the past tense, and just skip to current time, and hopefully once the semester is over, go back and fill in some blanks. I am back in classes after the holiday break. We had 2 weeks off which was nice, but kind of mean because it has made it very hard to get back into school mode. I survived my first Christmas away from family, and had a great time ringing in the New Year Paris-style while showing my visiting friend Della around my favorite city. It was fun to do some of the tourist things that I hadn’t taken time to do yet this trip, although being a tourist is exhausting.

Wednesday I was sitting in my big french lecture class on the “Arab World”, when this alarm starts going off. Now in America, when a fire alarm goes off there is rarely any doubt about what it is. It’s exceedingly loud and there is usually some sort of flashing red light for the hearing impaired so that there is no way to mistake it for a cell phone, car alarm, or egg timer. Anyway, France, being such a historic (read “old”) country, hasn’t gotten around to embracing the latest in fire alarm technology. As far as I know my apartment doesn’t even have one. All this to say that when this alarm starts going off no one, including the professor, knows for sure if it is a fire alarm. He paused midsentence and said “What is that?” And someone in the class hollered that it was a fire alarm. “Oh,” said the professor, who then promptly returned to his lecture by finishing the previous thought. A few chuckles and murmurs sounded around the auditorium. He paused again, “What? What is it? Do you want to evacuate?” We all looked at each other and shrugged. “I don’t think it’s important,” he continued and then added with a slight smile, “Besides, if it was a real fire, those little sprinklers in the ceiling would come on. Now what was I saying...” The buzzing was still going on in the background, but it sounded more like a microwave than the deafening alarms we have in most public buildings in the US. The professor continued with his lecture while all 100 or so students remained seated in the basement auditorium taking notes. A few minutes later the door to the room bursts open and in run two of the little guys who sit at the front desk in each of ScPo’s buildings but whose exact job duties are unknown even by them, I suspect. Anyway, they run in all flustered and the first one sees us all sitting there and his eyes get big and he goes, “What are you doing?! Don’t you hear the alarm?! You have to leave when you hear the alarm, everyone get out! Quickly!” So everyone starts gathering up their stuff and putting on their coats, but not fast enough to satisfy the little men, who are standing there flailing their arms and shouting “Quickly! Get out!” So we all file up the stairs and out of the building into the courtyard, and because the narrow street beyond is already clogged with the other students whose teachers did decide to heed the alarm, we stop in the courtyard, but the little men herding us start yelling “No! You must go to the street!” So we all spill out into the street and there is no where to go. So now there are 150 students and and professors standing on this one-way street in the cold with cars honking to be let through. We just barely all get out there when one of the little men comes running out and says “The exercise is over! Everyone back in.” Well by this point there is 30 minutes left in class and so our professor, without announcing anything, looks at his watch, looks around, shrugs, and just starts walking away down the street. My friends and I look at each other, shrug, and follow. And that was the end of class. This place is crazy.

All Saints Day in Milan

November 1 in Milan
Thursday morning we woke up significantly refreshed, despite the hard beds and stiff pillows. Because we had reservations to stay in Como on Friday night, we thought we should go check and see how we were going to get there. So the first thing we did was head to the train station where the trains to Como leave from. We checked on their schedule and determined that a train leaves about every half hour and it didn’t appear like you needed a reservation or ticket in advance. Outside the station was a tent of books and me, being the bibliophile that I am, of course I had to check it out. They were all in Italian of course, but I managed to find a copy of “I Promessi Sposi” by Manzoni which the guide book kept mentioning was the most famous book written about Milan. It was a cheap version, but i thought it a fun souvenir, so I grabbed that (and paid at the register without the guy catching on that I wasn’t Italian and switching to English!).

From there we headed to the castle. Castello Sforzesco is not as majestic and beautiful as the ones I’ve seen in other parts of Europe, but it was old (built in the 1400s) and important and one of the things on the Milan’s Top 10 list. The fog hadn’t burned off yet so it was chilly wandering around the compound. There were about 8 different museums housed in the castle. We opted for the archeological one and the decorative arts. Since I’m not on a study abroad program this time I haven’t been dragged around to 87 museums all showing “significant”, if only slightly varied, works of Renaissance artists and unknown medieval sculptors. That made me able to appreciate this museum more. It was really quite interesting with pieces of stonework from the 8th century and sculptures from the 12th, etc. (Old stuff makes me excited.) But the coolest thing in the museum was a room painted by Leonardo DaVinci. The walls are covered but you can see the ceiling which is just plain neat. The room was painted like a forest so the ceiling is covered in tree branches that are all intertwined with celtic gold braid patterns. It is of course faded with the years and had been painted over at one point, but the detail is really amazing. Little birds and flowers and vines everywhere. If you looked at it you would never guess that it was done by daVinci. Anyway, we sat in there staring at the ceiling for a good 15 mins, and then enjoyed goofing off in the rest of the museum, mimicking statues and posing with suits of armor. The museum also houses Michelangelo’s last sculpture “Rodanini Pieta” and Leonardo da Vinici’s “Codex Trivulzianus” manuscript. From there we walked out the back of the castle and through the autumn tinted park behind it to the Arche de Pace. It was....under renovation of course! Only half of it was covered with scaffolding. We stood there for a few seconds and Andrea said- that looks like the Arc de Triomphe, like they copied it. It looked in the guide book: The Arco della Pace was commissioned by Napoleon to celebrate his triumphant victory and entry into the city, but it wasn’t even finished when Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo so it was instead dedicated to the European Peace reached in 1815. It’s smaller and not nearly as impressive as the Arc de Triumph but remarkably similar.

We strolled back to the main center of town and stopped at a sidewalk café for lunch where we both had pizza. Italian pizza is good, but it bears no resemblance to anything served in the US. Fast food has ruined my ability to appreciate fine cuisine I am afraid. I would have taken a nice hand-tossed Dominoes pepperoni pizza in exchange for my thin hard Italian one. What can I say? I’m a simple girl. After our repast, we went to the La Scala opera house to go through the museum of opera. Neither of us really cared that much about the museum, but it offered a view of the opera house interior from a balcony and we both really wanted to see that. I’m sure the museum would have been very interesting to someone who knew anything about opera, but the parts we liked the best were a display of fancy costume dresses. The interior of the opera house is basically the stereotype of what you imagine the inside of a grand theater to look like. Plush red velvet, gold accents, cream walls. It was huge and highly impressive. I can understand why seeing a performance there is such a big deal.

From there we went to St. Ambrose’s Basilica. Basilica Sant’Ambrogio is one of the most ancient churches in Italy, and was originally built by Bishop Abrose in 379-386 and took on it’s current facade in 1099. It was built over the site of the palace where Emperor Constantine issued his famous Edict in 313 granting early Christians the right to freely practice their religion. The church was interesting because of it’s long history, but the best part of the whole thing was that back behind the alter in an basement/anteroom type thing, they have the remains of Saint Ambrogio, as well as his disciples Gervase and Protase. And not only do they have them, they are on display. That’s right, being concealed in a stone tomb isn’t enough. So they have their skeletons in full pontifical attire laid out in glass cases. They have shoes and crowns and robes. It’s really strange. Normally you can just see it looking down from a window, but I happened to arrive back there right as the priest was giving a tour to some schoolboys and their dads, so he unlocked the gate so that they could walk around and get a better look, and he let the rest of us down there go through as well. It was just plain strange. For the record, if you ever decide to put my skeleton on display, jeans and a t-shirt is fine by me. I’d rather be comfortable if I’m gonna have to lay there with people staring at me. I think casual clothes would put people more at ease. But anything is fine as long as it doesn’t make me look fat.

We walked to the church where DaVinci’s The Lord’s Supper is housed. Sainta-Maria delle Grazie which was built in the 1400s.

Andrea and I both wanted to see the square where Mussolini’s body was hung. It was mentioned briefly in her guidebook but we couldn’t find it on any maps and the guidebook didn’t tell you where it was or how to get there. I thought I found it on the map. Piazzale Lorenzo. So we go traipsing across the city out to this square in a rundown part of town. And we’re looking and looking but don’t see any monument or plaque. And we start thinking maybe it’s not the right square. So we look in the guide book. Guess who memorized the wrong italian word? We were supposed to be in Piazzale Loreto, not Lorenzo. Goood job Lyndsey. I had to laugh though because this kind of thing runs in my family. My mom and my grandparents and I once took a road trip from Northwest Arkansas to Niagara falls and along the way we stopped at a lot of famous landmarks and somehow kept ended up in the wrong place. We couldn’t figure out why no one at the Eerie Canal visitor center knew the Eerie Canal song. About 10 miles down the road we got around to singing the rest of the song “from Albany to Buffallo-o” and realized that we had just stopped at the Eerie-Ohio Canal and not the real Eerie Canal in NY. And then we drove down a long dirt road to the “Lincoln family farm” only to find out, it wasn’t the log cabin where Lincoln grew up, but in fact, the farm that he bought for his parents once he was a grown man. It’s claim to fame? He visited them there at least once. Oh my. When we got to Niagara we double checked to make sure we were seeing the actual Niagara Falls and not something closely related.

Anyway, we finally found the correct Mussolini square. On the exact opposite side of the city from where I had taken us earlier. :-) As soon as we stepped off the metro it became obvious why the guidebooks and maps failed to tell you where it was. There’s nothing to see. We emerged at dusk into a busy modern city square surrounded by glass high-rises and financial buildings. Surely there must be a plaque or a monument or something to mark the historic moment?! Nope. There’s nothing on the square that remains from the days of the war. I assume the city was heavily damaged and so they found it easier to tear down and build new than to try to preserve the remnants of the past. I guess it makes sense. I can see how the Italian people would not want any reminders of that horrible period of their history. But still, I would think a plaque or something would be in order. After Mussolini was caught trying to sneak out of Italy disguised as a Nazi foot soldier up by Lake Como, he and his girlfriend were shot and their bodies were brought back to Milan with several other high-ranking government officials’ and were hung upside down from the awning of an Esso gas station in front of a mob of people who proceeded to basically treat their bodies like piñatas. I had never thought about it but Mussolini had a wife and kids and grandkids and they still live in Italy. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have a family member that is so hated by so many people. What shocked me is that his granddaughter is actually in politics now. Ironically, she founded some neo-fascist party and managed to get elected to the European Parliament. I have to think that if Mussolini was your grandpa, you might not want to go around promoting modern day fascism. Just a thought. I can’t believe that modern day Italians would tolerate fascism. Talk about not learning from history. Yeah, anyway Alessandra Mussolini (whose Aunt is Sophia Loren) is evidently quite proud of her heritage and fought a legal battle to add her maiden name to her kids last names. Go figure.

It was dark when we left Mussolini’s square, but it was still early evening, and as we had gone to bed so early the night before, we decided we didn’t want to do that again. Most of the tourist attractions were closing so we decided to do a bit of shopping for “Milanish” fashions as Andrea decided all things from Milan should be called. Milanese just doesn’t sound right. It was kind of funny because we didn’t really go in any stores we couldn’t have gone to in Paris, but buying stuff in Italy gives you the chance to say “Oh yes, I picked this up in Milan” which is basically the whole reason to buy anything overseas. We shopped til we were ready to drop. Neither of us were starving and we were both pretty tired (can you blame us? Look at all the stuff we did in one day!) so we opted for our daily gelato in place of dinner (I had mango and coconut. It got 2 thumbs up.) and headed back to the hostel. We got ready for bed and turned on some MTV since it was the only channel we could understand, and watched some of the MTV’s European Music awards hosted by Snoop Dog in Munich. About 10 minutes into the show, Snoop does a costume change and comes out in.... lederhosen. Seriously. Unless you’ve seen it, it’s really hard to wrap your mind around Snoop Dog wearing full-on German folk attire. Wow. He added an urban jacket, but he sported the lederhosen for the rest of the show (at least as long as we watched which wasn’t all that long). And that, my friends, was day 2 in Italy.

A European Halloween

Tuesday I had to get up early to finish my french assignment that wasn’t due until Saturday, but I knew that was my only time to get it finished. I went to class, come home, finished my french assignment, cleaned the apartment well, decorated a bit more, ran to the store to get ood for the party, and came home to start getting things ready. Cassie came over early after she got done with class to help me prepare foods. I decided to go with the most American foods I could find. We had cocktail wieners, veggies with ranch dip, chips, and our homemade pizza cut into bites, and “Western” potato wedges with “bacon flavor”, and of course Halloween candy. Cassie and Carly were awesome and got a wonderfully delicious chocolate-mousse cake. I blew out a votive stuck on top- lol. Had about 16 people all together at the party and I’m very thankful to all my great friends who helped me celebrate. It was a good time just hanging out with friends, and of course, what’s more festive than a good debate about international relations theory and nuclear proliferation? That’s what happens when you get too many ScPo students in a room together. I hope my neighbors didn’t mind the added noise for one night. Andrea was spending the night because we needed to leave at about 5 to get to CDG to catch our flight the next morning. And since we had an early day, everyone left before it got too late.

I, of course, hadn’t had time to pack yet. So after everyone left, I did a hasty cleaning of the apartment and threw a bunch of stuff in a suitcase. It was about 1:30 before we got to bed. I set the alarm for 4:15. That was NOT fun. We got up and dressed in the dark and cold and headed for the metros at 5. Now, I thought the metros opened at 5. I’ve always thought that, but never had an opportunity to test that fact. So we walk up to the metro strop closest to me, and the gate is still locked over the entrance. Wa??? We groaned and looked at each other. That’s when this dark skinned, thuggish looking kid who had been leaning against the metro entrance sign (and who I’d been watching surreptitiously as we approached) surprised us by asking in an American accent. “Do you speak English?” We were both so shocked that neither of us answered and the kid must have thought we didn’t understand. “Are you French?” Um... no, we’re American, Andrea told him hesitantly. “Do you know what time the metro opens?” Well it should be open now, I said looking at my watch that read 5:15. I guess we can wait? Any of you who have ever traveled with me know that I am a worrier. I am always worried about missing a flight, getting lost, getting stuff stolen, etc. etc. etc. so I want to be safe and not sorry, so feel like I need to be there crazy early for everything. We weren’t going to be late, but since neither of us had ever flown from terminal 3 at CDG, we didn’t know what to expect or how long it might take. I was worried about time and not really wanting to stand on the street at 5 am in north Paris, so I was all about finding an open metro. It occurred to me that maybe the next stop up the line might be open since it was a more major stop. “I’m on my way to meet a friend at the airport” our strange American said. “Where are you headed?” Same. “Oh good! I don’t really know how to get there. I just know it’s on the RER- B. I’m really glad I ran into you guys. I’ll just follow you.” Oh goody. He was about our age, not real big, but he was dressed very, uh...urban? I don’t know how to describe it, but baggy jeans, a leather jacket and a shirt unbuttoned most of the way. Not really your first choice of random people to hang out with, but to be honest, while I was still wary of him, I was glad to have him with us. We decided to walk to the next metro station in hopes that it would be open. That part of town isn’t dangerous, but it is a little sleazy, and at 5am there is no one out but people with early travel plans, and people who haven’t been home at all yet. In all probability that short walk with the 2 of us likely wouldn’t have been a problem, but I was quite thankful to have our male companion tagging along. When we got to the next station (open!) and got down to the platform, I was really thanking the Lord for sending a guy to stand with us while we waited 20 minutes with some “unsavories” for the first metro of the day. And when we had to go catch the RER at Gare du Nord which is a rough part of town. I got the impression that our friend probably couldn’t have done much to protect us if anyone tried anything, but I figured the deterrent would be more than sufficient.

I never learned his name, and he never asked ours but we chatted the entire way to CDG (much to Andrea’s annoyance- lol. “He just wouldn’t be quiet!”) He was Hawaiian, living in Paris for a month while visiting a friend and checking out art schools, and doing something that had to do with his family’s Bed-n-Breakfast back in Hawaii. He was certainly an interesting character. He was checking the internet to look up his friend’s flight info on his iPhone and telling about his hunt for American food. He was going to terminal 2 and we were at terminal 3, so we left him on the RER and said our goodbyes. Maybe it was just my inherited “weird person magnet” working overtime, or maybe it was some divine protection for two girls on their early morning trek to the airport, but as weird as he was, I’m thankful that he accompanied us.

It was cold in Paris, but it was even colder out of the city. We got off the RER and had to walk outside for 5 minutes to get to terminal 3 because, of course, the French can’t connect their terminals in a logical way! So we walk through the cold and arrive at a big building that was almost like a warehouse. So THIS is the other side of CDG. It’s a night and day difference. None of the frills of the international terminals, terminal 3 is for budget airlines. Check-in was surprisingly simple, and then we went and got some pastries from the snack bar and a french fashion magazine for the flight and went and hung out by the gate until time for boarding. We were flying EasyJet which, has non-numbered tickets, so it’s strictly first-come-first-serve as far as seats. And, you can’t just line up at the door and go get on the plane. You line up at the door and then get on a bus and then that takes you to the plane and then you go get on it. We get wedged into our seats and it isn’t long before Andrea is dozing against the window. The flight wasn’t a long one and I figured going to sleep would probably just make me more tired, so I decided to stay up and read the guide book and my magazine. Flying to Milan from Paris may be the only direct flight I’ve ever had in my life. It’s crazy to me that you can get from Paris to Italy as easily as flying from Daytona to Atlanta. And the flight attendants were trilingual. We arrived in Milan and got off the plane, took another bus to the terminal, and claimed our baggage and located the office to buy a ticket for the shuttle bus that takes you into the city. Milan-Malpensa is located almost an hour from the city center, but they have buses running every 20 mins, so it’s not real inconvenient.

The bus took us to the central train station in Milan, and then we were on our own. I had the directions to our hostel that I copied down from the website. After some wandering around we found a metro station, managed to buy a 48 hour transit pass, and find the right line. There are only 3 metro lines in Milan and not nearly as convenient as those in Paris. We take the metro to the designated stop and then we get off to find the tram we are to take. We find the right number but it seems to be headed in the opposite direction the best we can tell. Some general confusion and wandering around later, we find a stop to go the correct direction. The only problem is that the stop that my directions said to get off at, well there were 8 stops with that name. Seriously, they were all hyphenated and the first word was the same, and all mine said was the first word. My directions did say to go 6 stops. So I’m counting, and we get to the 6th one and get off. I was unsure because “go 6 stops” could mean, go get off at the 6th stop, or go past 6 stops and get off at the 7th. So we get off and can tell by the numbers on the buildings that we were not real close to where we wanted to be. So we walk a good 5-10 mins down this street hauling our bags and finally find the little building where our hostel is located...and 50 yards down from it, another tram stop. Clearly we were supposed to pass 6 stops. Oh well, we made it. Only one problem. There is a gate and it is locked. Not really sure what to do so I press the intercom button and hope for the best.
“Bongiorno”
“Bongiorno. Inglese, per favore?”
“Que? Do you speak English?”
“Yes!”
“Do you have a reservation?”
“Yes!”
“Okay, the gate is unlocked.”
So I was thinking that I had successfully communicated in Italian.
A young girl met us at the door.
“Hello.”
“Hi.”
“Can I ask you, what language were you speaking before?”
haahahah yes, that’s right. Apparently my Italian is not understandable. I apologized and explained that it was probably a cross between French, English, and Spanish. The hostel was nice and clean. We had a private room, only the bathrooms were shared. And there was a computer with free internet in the lobby area which was quite nice. We were tired but knew if we sat down we’d probably never get up again. So we dropped our stuff and headed back to the city center.

My first view of the Duomo was pretty impressive. It had scaffolding on the lower portion (like everything in Europe!) but the impressive spires were on full display. But more about that in a minute. It was lunch time so we decided to find a place to eat.
Me: What are you in the mood for?
Andrea: Italian food!
Me: We’re in Italy....it’s ALL Italian food.
Andrea: I know, I want Italian Italian food!

We found a cafe in the famous covered galleria shopping area and had our first Italian meal. After our repast, we headed to the big tourist attraction- the Duomo. Impressive from the inside, but stunning from the outside. If you know me, you know I am a sucker for ornate architecture and old buildings. I absolutely love the Duomo. Soooo cool. You can probably tell I’m a fan if you look at my pictures cause there are like 400 pics of it from various angles. Up on the roof of the Duomo the sun was so nice and warm. We stretched out on the slanted roof tiles and enjoyed the warmth. There were quite a few people just sitting up there and enjoying the day. It was pretty awesome, and a nice change from the Paris cold. We spent a good amount of time up top climbing around and taking pictures until the sun started to get low making it feel like it was much later in the day than it was. We decided it was time for some gelato. (Chocolate hazelnut and frutti di bosco for me). And after we finished our ice cream and walked around a bit more we decided we were both exhausted and should head back to the hostel. It was only about 5 or 6 when we arrived but fatigue overcame us and we fell asleep fully clothed on top of the sheets. Three hours later we woke up from our little “nap”. We were both too tired to really care about dinner, so we checked our email, ate some Prince cookies, and watched MTV because it was the only English channel on the TV. We went to sleep about 10. It was an anticlimactic end to my birthday, but I can’t complain since I got to be in Paris and Milan on my day. And that, my friends, is how I spent my twenty-second birthday!

Now it begins...

Friday I did laundry at the laundromat. I went to the closest one to me, and since it was a weekday, I had the place to myself. I lugged my overflowing laundry bag down the 6 flights of stairs and down the block while also carrying a bag with my laptop and other stuff i needed to study. Now I’m not a fan of laundromats in the US, but they are even worse in Paris. Like everything else in Europe, they are small. We’re talking like fisher-price sized little washing machines. This particular laundromat advertised one “giant capacity” washer. Size is relative because their “giant” sized one is basically the same size as the average American one. I opt for that one. I sat down there in the tiny laundromat using the folding table as a desk and drinking tea out of my travel mug. Laundry at home is the chore I mind the least, but here it is painful when you have to pay so much.

Saturday I spent most of the day working on my presentation “NGOs and the EU”. I took a break in the evening though, for some time with friends. Glenn, my Singaporean friend, lives with the Brian Kirby, my pastor here, and his wife Denise and little girl Annalise. The Kirby’s were stateside for the week, so Glenn wanted to organize a hangout evening in honor of our friend Sarah whose time in Paris was coming to an end. Andrea volunteered to make an attempt at mexican food and it was pretty good despite the improvisation. It was a fun night to just relax with friends and play a little Taboo, which is always entertaining, especially when not everyone is a native english speaker.

Sunday my partner Loren was to come over at 5 to practice our presentation, so I spent the afternoon working really hard on my half, and cleaning up. I even turned the heat on for the first time because I didn’t want to freeze my guest to death. (I had been putting off turning on the heat as long as possible since it hadn’t been reeeeally cold yet, and when you wear a fleece bathrobe and wrap up in a blanket it’s plenty warm-lol) Working with Loren actually wasn’t bad. It was basically the same kind of conversation you’d have with an American student you don’t know very well.
“Wow that’s a lot of steps up to your apartment. No elevator?”
“Nope. You should have seen me trying to get my huge suitcases up those stairs by myself.”
“By yourself?! And the first flight is completely crooked.”
“I know, I have a near-death experience weekly. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Just some water, thanks. This is a great apartment. So much nicer than most students. If you don’t mind, how much do you pay?”
You know, typical stuff, but with less smiling and laughing than most American interactions.
We decided to run through our presentation. Loren had the benefit of it being her native language so she could just use notes and freely talk about the topic. I, on the other hand, was stuck reading mine word for word from the paper. We ran through it once and I asked if she understood me or had some things to correct. She volunteered to go through my entire (about 10 minute) presentation and fix the French mistakes. How awesome is that?! She sat there for 20 minutes going “see this sentence doesn’t make sense in French, what are you trying to say?” When you try to do a presentation on something academic, it’s when you realize the limitations of translating sometimes. Certain words just do not have an equivalent in another language. I was trying to use the word “constituency” and I had looked it up and used what the dictionary listed as the translation.
Loren looked at me, “I don’t think this is the word you meant to use.”
Yes, I said, I want to talk about the people who are represented by each representative. The people who vote for them.
“Oh, then you say ‘citizens’. Is that what you mean?”
No, that doesn’t mean exactly the same thing. In english ‘constituent’ is more specific than ‘citizen’. Is there no word like that?
“I don’t think so...”
And so I wrote about European representatives being more removed from their “citizens” than national representatives. Close enough.

We ran through the presentation again, and halfway through, Andrea called. She was supposed to come over that evening as well to make plans for our trip to Italy for the end of the week, and I had told her I’d probably be done by 6 since I thought we’d only just run through it a couple times. I didn't’ foresee the editing and the discussion or Loren wanting to practice 4 times. I didn’t mind the extra work on it of course, because I need all the help I can get. But Andrea didn’t have anything to do in the city since it was Sunday night and everything was closed, so I told her to come on over and she could just hang out til we finished.
Andrea got there as we were finishing our last run-through. Loren and I finished up. She had prepared the outline that we have to pass out to all the students in the class to follow along with, all I had to do was add my notes. And print it. The problem being, I don’t have a printer at home and with our class starting at 8, we weren’t sure what time the computer rooms open at school to print it off. I suggested that I could run by a friend’s apartment to get at least one copy printed and then just run-off copies before class the next day. The problem being that the only friend I know in the city with a printer, lives on the other side of town.

Anyway, Loren left and Andrea and I got down to planning our trip. She had booked the plane tickets to Milan the day before, and now we had to find places to stay and figure out where all we wanted to go. We spent an hour or so looking at hostels online and when we had finally made the decision on which nights we wanted to spend where, Andrea had to run to catch the RER and get back out to Rueil, so I was left to book the hotels. Once that was taken care of, then I had to add in my notes to the outline. That took a while, and then I needed to print. I sent a text to my friend with a printer, hoping she would take pity on me. Not a problem. So at 10:30 at night I hopped on the metro and traversed the city to show up and print out 5 pieces of paper. We chatted a bit before I traipsed home. I had wanted to practice my part some more and maybe get to where I could do parts without the paper, but by the time I got home I was just so tired that I couldn’t make my brain function anymore.

The next morning came way too soon. It was still dark and cold and I could hear the rain drumming against the roof. Not a situation very conducive for getting up out of a soft, warm bed. I got dressed, put on my waterproof winter boots, and headed to school a good 30 mins earlier than I normally do, because I need to make the copies for the class and I didn’t know how crowded it might be or how long it might take. I arrived at ScPo at 7:20 and....it was locked. Seriously? I’m standing there in the cold rain and it’s barely light out, and I can see the little concierge guys running around in there, but they won’t open the door! And then I noticed two other international students from my class huddled in a doorway. They also had their presentation that morning and need to make copies. We stood looking forlornly at the barred doors and the warm light spilling out on the wet sidewalk. The computer room was supposed to be open at 7:25 I had learned so why were we still standing outside getting soaked? Finally one of the concierges noticed us and took pity and let us in even though they weren’t “ready” yet. Ready? Who cares! Open the door!
So I head for the copy room and...both copiers out of order. Great. Got to go to the computer room, pull up copies of the presentation that I emailed to myself and print out 25 copies. At least that worked out alright. I made it to class at 7:50 with papers in hand and as ready as I could have been for the presentation.

I was nervous, but knowing I could read it made it less nerve-wracking. I’d like to say that I’m just so good at French that once I got up there and started talking I realized I didn’t need my paper and did it just as fluidly as I would have done in English. I’d like to say that, but I can’t. I read every word from the paper. But, in my experience, better read and understandable, than incoherent free-speaking. All I was hoping was that people wouldn’t ask too many questions, or at least none that Loren couldn’t answer. I don’t know how I did, he didn’t give us our grades, but I was soo relieved to have it over, and a couple of the international students said I did a really good job, although they might have just been being polite. Loren and I sat back down and looked at each other and both made our phew!-glad that’s-over-with faces and smiled.

I headed home right afterwards in the rain. I arrived home tired, cold, and wet. I decided that after a week of stress about that presentation I deserved a break. So I got back into my PJs, made some hot chocolate, climbed into my nice warm bed, and watched a recently downloaded episode of Grey’s Anatomy while the rain tapped against the windows.

I had invited a bunch of people over for a Halloween/birthday soirée on Tuesday night, since Andrea and I were leaving for Italy early in the morning of the 31st. I took Monday afternoon to decorate for the gathering. I had Halloweeny decorations thanks to my mom who sent some fabric and odds and ends, and birthday decorations thanks to Carolyn who mailed me a “birthday in a bag”. And to that I added some festive fall colors and homemade decorations.

That evening I journeyed back out into the damp city to go to climbing class. It was a pretty exciting evening because I got to lead climb for the first time ever. There is definitely different schools of thought about climbing and of course, everyone thinks their own is the best. I may not agree with the lack of crash pads and mats under the climbing walls (just concrete floors!) and I may find it weird that they don’t make you do the whole “On belay? Belay on. Climbing? Climb on.” thing or that my way of belaying isn’t “safe” according to them, but I do like our teacher’s mindset that it is important for people to learn to lead climb as soon as possible, even if they aren’t great technical climbers. I have always wanted to lead climb but in most of the gyms back home you have to climb a certain higher-rated route perfectly and then take a class to learn how. Our instructor just picked an easy wall, showed us the basics and the safety precautions and said “go for it”. I thought it would be scarier than it was. I think it’s because I’ve been climbing so much and I’ve just gotten comfortable trusting the ropes and such and am more confident in my own abilities as a climber. Anyway, my first time up I followed a route and made it all the way to the top. I got down and my climbing instructor came over to me and asked if that was my first time climbing lead. “Really? I was watching you and you did really well.” I’m a sucker for a compliment so that totally made my day.

I wish that I could say that after a stressful week I was able to go home and relax. It was, unfortunately, just the beginning of what turned out to be an even more hectic week.

ScPo Woes

Wednesday found me sitting at a long table in the Petit Salon at ScPo. It’s an open hall off the main entryway where they hold functions or exhibits, but usually have space set up for students to work or hangout or whatever. I was sitting right under a bronzed plaque set in marble of Emile Boutmy “Fondateur et directeur de l’école 1871-1906” (Founder and director of the school). The rest of the walls have similar memorials hanging on them to commemorate the men who were responsible for the school back when it was originally created as the “Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques” in the 1870s. Ironically, since I’m in a country that prides itself for its long glorious history and considers the U.S. a “young” nation, the University of Florida is older.

I was sitting in there because I had arranged to meet with my partner for the oral presentation required by my NGOs in International Relations class. I was both relieved and worried about having a partner who is French. On one hand, having a native speaker is a great advantage, but we had been warned about the coldness of the French students and there is always the possibility for it being awkward and stressful. As it turned out though, my partner seems very nice, which is god because we made plans for her to come over on Sunday night to practice our presentation before we did it for the class Monday morning. I’m excited about having my first french student visitor to my apartment! Her name is Loren and she’s from just outside of Paris and it’s her first semester at Sciences Po, so this is her first oral as well as mine. She had already made an outline for the presentation and done all the organizational stuff herself which was wonderful because it would have taken me hours to figure out on my own.

One of my classes, Intro to the Arab World, is a “major” french class which means it has a lecture section and the discussion section, much like the system for big lecture classes in the US. I had been going to the lecture section these past 3 weeks, but my discussion section had been canceled 3 weeks running. So finally we get an email from the secretariat saying that we will be having class this Thursday. I’m a little frustrated because everyone else is already doing presentations and book reports and essays and our class doesn’t even know what is going on. So I go to class and we’re all sitting there when the head of the secretariate comes in. She tells us that the professor who was supposed to teach our class has been having some serious health issues. He thought he would be well enough to teach this semester and so they just cancelled class the first few weeks, but his doctor now says he can’t work right now. So long story short, he’s not our teacher anymore, and instead, they got a professor who was already teaching another discussion section for this class to take ours on as well and he will be here shortly and not to worry because the people at ScPo know the situation and understand. Ooookay. A few minutes later, in walks M. El Oifi. He took one look around the room, said it was too small and went to get one of the concierges to find us a new room. We relocated next door and M. Oifi started speaking.

Oh brother.

Not only does he talk 90 miles a minute, but he his pronunciation is very thick and mumbled, tinged with an arabic accent. My French business professor at UF talked ridiculously fast about stuff I wouldn’t have understood in English, which greatly helped to prepare me for this semester of lectures and people speaking fast. However, my ability to understand drops off quickly when it’s not spoken in a crisp Parisian accent. He just started talking and I had no idea what he was saying for the first 5 mins of the class. I was just getting to where I could decipher his words when this loud noise starts beeping. Everyone looks at each other. “Is that the fire alarm?” the professor asks. We all sit there, unsure of whether we are supposed to leave or not, when one of the little concierge guys runs into the room. “What are you doing?! It’s a fire alarm! Get out! Don’t take your stuff, GO!” Well call me foolhardy, but it’s 40 degrees outside, I’m not about to go stand out in the cold for who-knows-how-long without a jacket. So we all grab our stuff and follow a couple other classes out the emergency exits to stand on the street. It’s 10:30 in the morning and there are about 60 ScPo students and 3 professors standing out on the swanky boulevard Saint Germain in the cold. We don’t know if it is an electrical problem, or a drill, or if the building we are standing next to is actually on fire. All I know, is a fire alarm 10 mins into the class that has been cancelled for 3 weeks, well, that’s gotta be a sign that this class should not take place.

We stood outside for about 10 mins and then they told us to go back inside. I dunno what the deal was, but anyway, our class finally got underway. By the end of the class I was ready to cry. I had been thinking I didn’t have a lot of work this semester, but this one class has more work for it than for all my other classes put together. A 7 page paper, a 10 minute oral, a book report, a midterm, and a 4 hour essay final. All in French, and all about a subject I have virtually no background in and can barely understand the teacher. AND, because it was cancelled for 3 weeks and we have to make up the time, we are going to have three 2-hour makeup classes later in the semester. It was NOT a good day.

Paris Casts Its Spell

(written mid-October)

Right now is one of those picture perfect Paris moments (minus my running nose). I was burnt out after being up late/early to finish my french paper and being sick, so after class I decided I should do something to make my day better, and so I headed to one of my favorite places in Paris- Ile St. Louis. At the moment, I am sitting down on the quay at the base of the island. My bare feet are dangling down the slanted stone wall, against which, several feet below, the Seine laps lazily. Tiny waves from passing tour boats and barges splash against the moss-slick wall. The trees on the quay have the first touch of fall and the faint breeze sends yellow leaves swirling down around me to land gently in the dark waters of the river. It’s late afternoon but the autumn sun has made it unseasonably warm and bright.

I have a superb view of Ile de la Cité and the buttresses of Notre Dame. A few guys just down the wall from me are having an impromptu chill session with their guitars. They’re playing Jack Johnson and old American stuff that is interrupted every so-often by the bells of the cathedral. My lips are a lovely shade of purple because I just finished some cassis gelato. For the life of me I can’t remember what the English translation of “cassis” is, but it’s a berry, and I don’t think it’s one I encounter often at home or I would know the word. *

There is an old man in suspenders with no shirt and his pants rolled up sunning himself while nearby seagulls dive for their dinner. Nelson, a once-white puffball of a dog, came to sit with me and watch the sun slip lower in the sky until his owner called him further down the quay. The sun marks a path of quicksilver across the water to my feet that is so bright it hurts my eyes and makes everything else seem dim. And that reminds me of a song so I start to hum, “and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His mercy and grace...”

Anyway, I know my descriptions can’t do justice to this moment, and even if I had my camera in my purse, it wouldn’t suffice to capture the feel of this place. It’s a moment that seems to suspend itself in time. It almost makes you sad because you know it will never be just like this again. The sun will set, the leaves will fall, and another day it will wonderful, but it will not be the same. But in this seemingly eternal moment, it is here. Life and time. Passing under your feet in the swirling waters of the Seine.

I hope someday you get a chance to see this city. And I hope that when you do, there is a moment like this where you want to do nothing but sit and exist in this place and feel the city whisper around you. It is in experiences like this that Paris concocts its magic. Eventually the moment will pass, even the memory will fade, but the spell is never really broken.

*FYI: I looked it up. Cassis translates to blackcurrant.
**And you should know that I wrote this whole thing spelling “quay” as “quai” and almost got mad at spell-check when it told me it was wrong, and then I said- oh wait, that’s French. Never mind. Thanks spell-check!

weekend o' sports

Amadeo, my french friend from Emmanuel is a tennis instructor and can take anyone who wants to to go play tennis at the courts where he teaches. I hadn’t been able to go the times before because it takes so long to get out to Rueil, but my Saturday (Oct. 20) was fairly open and it sounded like a nice way to pass the afternoon. I met up with Sarah A and we took the bus out to Rueil to meet Andrea and Amadeo for some tennis. Now the last time I was in Paris I did no sports. No physical activity. Nothing. So I did not pack for it this time around. And of course now I am in a rock climbing class and going to play tennis with friends and don’t have appropriate clothes. So I was wearing my lounge pants, a long-sleeve T, and my non-athletic sneakers. Amadeo took one look at me and said, “That’s what you wear to play tennis?” Yes, that is what I wear to play tennis in France when I packed nothing athletic!
Anyway, poor Amadeo. He’s a great tennis player stuck with 3 girls who, let’s say, are less than pros. But he was a good sport about it, and taught us how to do things properly.

That was the day I discovered that I have never played tennis with a full serve in my life. I also discovered there is a reason for that: I stink at serving. Seriously. I’m moderately athletic, but this is something that falls outside of my skill range. Once the serve was over I wasn’t too bad, but on games when it was my serve, other people didn’t get to touch the ball much...and the games were over reeeal fast. We played in one of those white tent domey things where if you leave the door open it’ll collapse. And it was chilly in there, but we had fun and it was good exercise. We played for two hours and then Amadeo made us have a play-off between the three of us at the end (drop serves not real ones!) and I’m proud to say I won, although I don’t think it was a result of talent.

That night was the Rugby World Cup Finals: England v. South Africa. I wanted South Africa just because English rugby fans are jerks. Basically the same reason I don’t like LSU. Some of the girls were going to get together to watch it. English rugby fans were everywhere that day in strange outfits. On the metro on the way down to meet the girls I was standing next to a group of young guys and a girl and they were already well into their bottles of wine and being really obnoxious. One of them wanted to ask me a question and have me weigh in on their inappropriate conversation but he didn’t know what language I spoke, so he proceeded to attempt to ask me in about 4 languages if I spoke English. I emphasize the word “attempted”. I stared back blankly and shrugged my shoulders. Pretending not to speak English is pretty entertaining because then people think they can say whatever they want because you don’t understand. Anyway, the rugby match was at least more exciting than the semi-finals, and South Africa won, and I only felt bad for Johnny Wilkinson (leader of the English team) because he’s just so pretty.

Sunday was a lovely day. The fall sun took the chill out of the air. After church we wanted to get something to eat, but instead of going out, a guy from church volunteered to cook if someone would run to the market. So the young adults all stayed and cooked lunch in the church kitchen. And since it was so nice, we set up tables out in the courtyard and had a very tasty lunch out in the bright autumn sun. It was really a pleasant afternoon. I thought that an afternoon couldn’t be any nicer, but I would be proved wrong later in the week.
Ciao!

When life hands you transit strikes...make pizza!

Back in October, while everyone at home was enjoying America’s National Pastime and watching the Red Sox win the World Series, the French were enjoying their own National Pastime...striking. Yes that’s right. America has baseball, France has social protest. And like all good sports, there are rules. (As much as I supported the concept, I think the stunningly rapid failure of the XFL proved conclusively that you lose something when there are no rules to the game...) The unions have to give a heads-up to the government that they are going to strike, so at least you know about it in advance and can somewhat prepare for it. I enjoyed listening to some of the first-timers at school talk in anxious/excited tones about the impending strike and the rumors and what would happen to the city without the metro. To Parisians, and anyone who has ever been a temporary Parisian, strikes are just a fact of life. They illicit exasperated sighs, rolled eyes, and a multitude of other gestures that are so French they are hard to describe to someone who has never seen them, but they don’t cause surprise or confusion. As I told some of the students during the methodology course in September when everyone was new to Paris: if you spend any significant amount of time in Paris you will experience a strike. It isn’t a question of “if”, only a question of “when” and “for how long”. I think the last time I was here there were at least 3 transit strikes and 1 postal strike, though none were major. This one, however, was supposed to be a big one: the first social test of Sarkozy’s presidency.

This particular strike started with the rail workers of the SNCF and spread to include the public transit workers of the RATP, as well as the major gas and electric companies. The problem was that Sarkozy is reforming the pension plans of the rail workers and they were none too happy about it. Since the French will strike over every little thing (getting their dry cleaning paid for, wanting to work 34 and not 35 hours a week, not enough free pastry in the break room...okay so I made that last one up, but you get the idea) I will give them credit for at least picking a more important issue as a reason to bring mass transportation to a halt this time around. See, back in the day when working on the rails was a very dangerous and demanding job, the French government, in all it’s socialist brilliance, decided to set up a “special regime” for the workers in these demanding jobs where they could retire by 50 and live on full pension the rest of their lives. This was all well-and-good back when the jobs were very dangerous and the men retiring at 50 usually didn’t live much past 60. However, since then, thanks to technology and health care, the jobs aren’t as demanding and the workers are living to 80+ years on a full government salary. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to realize that a state, even one with insanely high taxes, can’t possibly support that kind of financial commitment for long. So Sarkozy announced plans to reform these “special regimes” because it was costing the government billions of dollars. And honestly, the reforms aren’t even that drastic. (I’m simplifying since I’m sure there is more to it, but this is just the basic gist) It’s a step-by-step process and right now it was just a matter of requiring an extra 2.5 years before retirement on full pension.
The HORROR! Having to wait til you are 52 to retire?! It’s like slave labor!
At least that’s how the unions reacted. I was reading some of their rhetoric in the papers and the way their leaders talked, wow. One basically said that if these reforms go through, Sarkozy will have destroyed everything the “people” have been fighting for since the French Revolution. Seriously. He said that.
The problem with this strike is that it was an unpopular strike. Sometimes the strikes are effective because the citizens agree with or pity the workers and want the government to cave. This is not one such case. The French all want the reforms. They elected Sarkozy on a reformist platform. They recognize that it is a necessary step, and they don’t want Sarko giving in. He has very high approval ratings right now, and polls of people about their support of the strike showed an overwhelming percentage in support of the government. So that tells you right off the bat that it’s not going to be an easy battle since there won’t be any pressure on the government coming from the rest of the populace. And everyone knew that going in. Sarko wasn’t going to give in. He couldn’t. This was his first major strike as president. It was an obvious test of his mettle, and if he conceded anything to the unions he might as well pack his bags and head to Tunisia on a 4 year vacation because he wouldn’t be doing much more presidenting for the rest of his term.

I kept hoping that they would cancel class for the day of the strike. I mean, you have students who live outside the city with almost no way of getting there. But alas, t’was not the case. The strike started Wednesday night at 8. I only had one class Thursday morning and attendance is not taken so I could have just not gone, but we all know I am too much of a goody-goody to do that. Cassie is in that same class with me, and since she lives down in Sevres which is just outside the city limits, she was going to have a real hard time making it in. I don’t live real close to school, but it’s a lot easier to get there from my place than Cassie’s so we decided Cassie should spend the night at my place to make getting to school more convenient since we could walk if necessary. (When transit strikes happen public transit doesn’t shut down 100%, but it is severely reduced. Different lines have metros running at different frequencies. For example anywhere from 1/2 trains - 1/10 trains will be running. Which means that if you are going to try to take the metro, instead of waiting 4-5 mins, you could end up waiting 12-45 mins for a train and then it’s a crap-shoot whether or not you will be able to fit on it. Metro trains look like clown cars on strike days. More people than you ever thought possible in such a small space. So technically you can still try your luck with public transportation on those days, but it is better to avoid it if at all possible.)

So we decided since Cassie was coming over, we’d have a good ol’ fashioned sleepover. Cook dinner, watch a movie, have some fun... and then wake up real early to walk across the city of Paris in the dark and cold to get to our thrilling foreign policy class. My motto is: when life hands you transit strikes...make pizza. At least that’s what we decided to do this time around. We went to the Monoprix and Cassie discovered pre-rolled pizza dough. the only problem was that they didn’t have any of what we Americans consider “normal” pizza fixings so we had to improvise. No pizza sauce? A jar of Barilla Napoletana pasta sauce will do. No shredded mozzarella? Awkwardly sliced Tomme Noir des Pyrennes will suffice. No pepperoni? Smoked garlic sausage chopped into hunks. And some bell peppers for good measure. We weren’t sure our creation would turn out because 1) we were improvising with stuff we weren’t sure worked for pizza and 2) I had never used my oven before. But we figured at least it would be fun trying, and it was. That was some pretty tasty pizza if I do say so myself. I was glad to finally be able to put one check mark under the column of “Successful Paris food experiments” since I filled up the “Disasters” column then Lori and I tried to cook here in ‘05 with the “Mint-chocolate Mousse Fiasco” and the “Cambodian Rice Mush Incident.”
After our delicious homemade pizza, we settled down to watch “Funny Face” because Cassie likes Audrey Hepburn and I was horrified that she hadn’t seen it yet considering that it is set in Paris. (I highly recommend it for anyone who likes Paris/Audrey Hepburn/ old movies/musicals.) And then we crashed because class started at 8 and we had to leave by 7 since we didn’t know how long it would take to get there.

Thursday morning came and we rose and bundled up to head out onto the dark Paris streets to join hundreds of other Parisians trekking to work and school. We mapped out our route online the night before and determined that it shouldn’t take more than 45 mins to walk. I was glad for the company because the walk seemed to pass much more quickly with companionship and good conversation. It was really quite a lovely walk because of the landmarks we passed. We walked through the empty courtyard of the Louvre with it’s illuminated facade glowing gold against the still-dark sky, and emerged onto the bridge across the Seine just as the east began to lighten. I had to stop for a moment on the bridge. Standing there in the predawn chill, the view down the Seine was remarkable. The city still shrouded in shadows, the glow of street lamps and illuminated monuments, the spires of Notre Dame silhouetted against the first colors of morning creeping up from the horizon while the dark Seine swirled silently beneath the bridge. One of the most beautiful views of Paris I’ve experienced. It made walking halfway across the city at 7 in the morning worth it.

We arrived to Sciences Po at about 7:45, went and got our newspapers, and read until class started. Numbers were quite small, about 15 out of a class of 50. Afterwards I went and sat down in the cafe with some other intrepid students and hung out, ate a sandwich, fortified myself for the walk home, and told Cassie that if the strike wasn’t lifted that evening she was always welcome to crash at my place again.

I went home and decided that it might be cool to go check out the big rally that all the unions were having that afternoon. Of course I had to walk to get there, and it was a long walk, but it gave me a chance to see parts of the city that I probably wouldn’t have taken time to explore otherwise. I went down to the march route. They were going from Place de la republique to Place de Nation. I don’t know what i expected, but it was more like a street festival than a riot it seemed to me. The various syndicates were amassing around the statue in the square and street vendors were setting up, music was playing, big balloons and colorful signs everywhere. I walked down the route a bit with people handing me fliers and stickers explaining their grievances and reading the various organizations represented. It is so weird for me, coming from America where communism is still seen as the great evil, to adjust to a country where the communist party is open and active. When I see the communists in their red shirts and “pure left” signs, I have to resist my instinctive urge to start blacklisting movie stars and carpet-bomb Hanoi.

Anyhoot, I set up along the route and pretty soon here came the parade. They march with their syndicate and carry banners and chant things, and the rowdier ones light flares and yell while they carry half empty bottles of scotch. It is a smokey and loud affair, but rather entertaining because when you look at some of the people in the march you have to think that they don’t have any idea why they are protesting. I had my fill of social unrest and commies so I made the long haul home and tried to wash the smell of flare-smoke out of my hair.

The strike was held over and Cassie couldn’t get home easily, so she came to spend another night which was fine by me since I don’t have class on Fridays. The strike was supposed to be gradually lifting, meaning that traffic should be returning to normal throughout the day, but there is no guarantee.
Unfortunately, Friday was the Fall Family festival at Emmanuel and I had volunteered to help and I was in a quandary about how to get out to Rueil without consistent buses or RERs running. I asked around but no one who lived in the city with a car was going to try to make it out. I was getting disappointed because I had really been looking forward to such a typically American festival. Luckily, a friend called to say that another friend of ours who lives in Rueil and has a car was going to drive in to pick up the few of us who needed a ride. So that evening, dressed as Halloweeny as I could and still be warm, I went out to meet them on the edge of town. All the girls were there waiting, but our ride hadn’t turned up and he was pretty late. We called and found out that he was stuck in the traffic around the 4 lane round-a-bout that we were standing by and had been for about half an hour. Traffic was horrendous because everyone who doesn’t normally drive was driving because of the lack of public transportation, plus it was a Friday evening. Eventually Amadeo made it and we all piled into his car and held on as he exhibited a true big-city driver’s finesse while managing to cross about 5 ill-defined lanes of stop-and-go traffic at once without getting rear-ended or being hit by a motorcyclist. That was just the beginning though because traffic was horrible all the way out to Rueil and we were quite late, but not too late to help.

The festival was a lot of fun. Dozens of families, many who were French and aren’t members of Emmanuel, showed up with kids in a variety of costumes. They had trick-or-treating set up in the neighborhood and then games set up inside which is what we were in charge of running. I somehow ended up running the cakewalk, sometimes in 2 languages. That was interesting. And all I had was a radio and somehow managed to find a country-music station. So all the European kids not only got to learn about Halloween and American food (we were serving nachos, chili-chese dogs, sugar cookies, brownies, etc. and DR. PEPPER!), but they were also introduced to the wonders of Alan Jackson and George Strait. When we weren’t running the games, we got to snag some of the American junk food and candy and goof-off a bit ourselves. I tucked a Dr. Pepper in my purse to save for a rainy day. Actually, to save for a day when I am reeeeally missing the U.S. of A. Once all the little ghouls and goblins had taken their loot and headed home, those of us needing a ride back into the city all piled into Amadeo’s car again. We had more people than seats so it’s a good thing Miwa is from Singapore and small. We got back into Paris and it wasn’t real late yet so Amadeo suggested going to hang out. We were close to the Arc de triumph so he parked and we all walked down the Champs Elysee, stopped to watch some breakdancing on the street, and then found an all-night café where we got hot chocolate and sat upstairs and talked and joked around for a while. At one point we were talking about mascots and rugby and countries and such. This is how the conversation went:
Me: “Why is France represented by a rooster?!”
Sarah A.: “I don’t know. What does a rooster even do?”
Me:” They run around frantically and squawk at you.”
Sarah A.: “........yeah, that sounds pretty French to me”

Sarkozy didn’t give in. Traffic returned to normal. And that is how I spent the most “serious strike since 1995.”

A bientot!