The Penthouse

Photo collage -
top row from the left - winding staircase, the key!, our door, our loft bed
second row - um a ladder to get to the roof?, our balcony view, part of our living room, the foyer doors entering the building
third row - bathroom, water heater in bathroom (it leaks!), door to balcony, the other half of the living room
fourth row - asian trendy light fixture in the bathroom?, view, balcony!!!!, kitchen

Now for the rest of the story -
We are moving up in the world! The day after our Bastille Day adventure weekend we had to rise and shine and move our treasured few belongings across town to move into our new Paris penthouse. We will miss Cite U. I will especially miss being in walking distance of my favorite park Montsouris, the cleaning service every Wednesday and the view from the top of the building as it overlooked the entire city of Paris from Montmartre to the Eiffel Tower to the Defense. It was a great place to start our Paris adventures and adapt to Paris. Now it's time to move on and experience life in Parisian studio penthouse!

We have been here now for about two weeks and it really feels like a home as opposed to a dorm. The neighbors only speak French and they are very friendly. You can't help but be reminded that you are in Paris when you enter the building - the large wooden doors, winding wooden staircase, the door knob in the middle of the door and the key looks like something stolen from a museum. It's been retrofitted with modern conveniences like TV! an oven and a WASHING MACHINE. Our building is fairly new for Paris having only been built in the early 1900's. Mind you the penthouse is on the 6th floor with no elevator and keep in mind that Europeans start counting floors with the number zero so it's really a seventh floor penthouse. We are really moving up! On days where I have strolled the city streets until I could collapse the penthouse may feel more like I am climbing Rapunzel's tower . This feeling quickly fades though after I lounge on our gorgeous balcony with a cool drink of white wine or flavored water overlooking the rooftops of Paris. Sometimes when I walk along the tourist shops you see photos of the rooftops of Paris in the glimmer of a full moon and a cat or two. We have this view minus the cats.

The apartment decor is Asian trendy and we have even had a our friends over for a brunch because it really does feel like a place to entertain and be entertained. It's a great place to read your books and savor life here. The layout is very thoughtful. You enter with 15 foot ceilings into the great room of the kitchen with bar and living room with couch and coffee table. There is a bookcase that scales up to the top of the ceiling. One section of the room there is a loft which functions as the bedroom. The loft area is quite spacious with a dresser, TV and a futon bed on an Asian grass platform. There is even storage for our unused suitcases. We can scoot around quite comfortably on our knees. One section of the stairs to the loft area has a platform I call my dressing room because I can stand there and get dressed quite comfortably. Yes, more stairs! Can we call this the 7 1/2 floor? There are several plants scattered throughout and I am trying not to kill them and their are beautiful paintings on the wall with an
Asian theme. The fellow renting the studio to us mentioned his love for sushi. This is represented by the fact that he has 20 cookbooks on sushi and the kitchen is stocked with twelve sets of chopsticks and sushi knives. The plates and glasses are so nice we considered buying paper products because we didn't want to damage anything. The studio's book collection contains a book called the Frenchman. It's quite famous and just published after WWII with an introduction by Art Buchwald. It's a rather funny collection of photos of a famous French actor making expressions and then after each photo a caption that says something like, "What do you think of American baseball?" It's published by Taschen so I imagine it's on eBay someplace.

As with any place there are few interesting quirks. Certain light fixtures looked unfinished, the water heater is hung above the toilet and leaks and the washing machine takes two hours for each load. To dry the clothes we hang them on a drying rack on the balcony. It took me two hours to figure out how the washing machine worked and I even sat and watched it a bit. It fills with water, spins and then sits there and then repeats itself. The first time I used it I thought I would wait until the clothes were finished. I waited and waited and two hours later I think it was done. I am not exactly sure what it's doing but there are points where it just sits there and does nothing. Our friends who came from England to visit us also mentioned they had the same type of washing machine in England. They said the dryers their may take all day to dry clothes and sometimes the washing machine and dryer are the same machine. One couple mentioned that you can buy dryers like those in the States but there is no space for the ventilation in the old buildings and electricity is expensive. Well I think it's time for tea on the balcony! A bientot!

Amsterdam in Paris - Windmills and bikes! (oh and of course the Tour de France!)

This past weekend we had friends from England come to Paris and hang out with us. We found ourselves eating in cafes and drinking at places like the la Moulin Vert (The Green Mill) near our home and then traveling over to Montmatre in search of the Twin Windmill Bar featured in Amelie and stroll by the homes of the artists that started 20th century modern art such as Renoir, Seurat, Van Gogh, and Picasso. There is still a vineyard here and there were even grapes on the vine. We took a break at The Old Windmill sports bar to sit, have a drink and watch the Tour de France on the tele. The Spanish team was posing for the cameras with their arms on each other. The tele showed us other events around town celebrating the Tour de France - such as the Vendigos zoomming around Paris! This a bike service you can subscribe to and then rent a bike in one place, ride around for 25 minutes and then return it at another location. J. and I tried our best to figure out how to subscribe to the Vendigo Paris bikes but our credit card is missing a very important component - a chip. Without this chip we unable to use our credit card for many things like buying train tickets and sadly subscribing to the bikes :( Our friends showed us their cards with the chips in it and I am still not sure exactly how it works. It's some silver diamond shape thing on the front of the card and in one of them it's splitting. Since they were only in Paris for two days it would not work for them to subscribe to the Paris bikes with their chipped credit cards. After catching up with the Tour de France and finishing our cool drinks, we ended our own tour of Montmatre at the La Moulin Rouge. Where we watched all the tourist take funny pictures of themselves. It's wee bit expensive to see a show here so we hopped the metro over to the Arc de Triomphe and popped out just in time to see the Tour de France bike racers do a few spins around the Champs Elysee. The race announcer was very excited as the French biker was winning this stage. I think this is mostly likely the best place to see the race because anywhere else along the route they just whiz by in a few seconds and that's that. On the Champs Elysee you can snuggle your way into the crowd and get a peak of the racers and their entourage of cars whiz by a few times. Some of those double decker tourist buses stopped in the circle by the Arc de Triomphe to let the folks watch the race from up high and they had a great spot to see all the action. Other folks climbed light posts and quite a few people brought step ladders. I would think some enterprising youngster could charge a few euros and let people take turns from these viewing points. It was a great ride!

And the Winner of the Name that Designer contest is (drum roll please) . . .

My lovely husband.
Who just happened to be reading Le Point, a French magazine, and noticed his photo. The designer is Karl Lagerfeld. Um, should have asked to have my photo taken with him maybe?

This site shows a picture with him and gloves.

And he is in Wikipedia

Project Runway – Name that designer contest!

See this man in the photo? Do you recognize him?

25 minutes before this photo was taken –
I was standing right next to him in a bookstore. As I was looking at a Valentino book in a bookstore on the Rue de Rivoli near the Louvre, I took notice of him because he was wearing gloves and it was 85 degrees outside. This lead me to examine how well put together he was and that his clothes really truly looked made to fit him. And he smelled nice. If he had not been so animated while talking to the bookshop owners I might have mistaken him for a misplaced manikin in the windows of the Haute Couture shops. I hazard to guess he was excited about the air conditioning in the bookshop considering he was wearing those gloves, tight leather pants and long sleeved jacket. He also had a small posse accompanying him of which I had to negotiate while I exited the store. I realized he must have been someone of importance when I stepped outside the bookshop and about 10 different haute couture cameras snapped my photo. So if you see my photo in the tabloids let me know as I did not sign any disclaimer!

25 minutes later I came across this seen. -

One very gothic looking skinny model with a very strange necklace, stretching across the stone steps of a hotel and the man I was just shoulder to shoulder with waving his arms about like a conductor and then greeting people. Later as I watched them I noticed the model pick up some brown boots and carry them into her pimped out truck with living room and kitchen. They seemed to know a few in the crowd and I heard her speaking English. It was fun to watch all of this but I have absolutely no idea who they are. Do you? If you do please clue me in because I would really like to know.

This was not the first time I came across a photo shoot – Here’s another model standing in the highest heels I have ever seen and she does not seem very happy to me.


It’s not that I don’t have an appreciation for fashion or modeling I do, I just don’t keep up with the latest trends or even know the names of the designers. I have been known to be addicted to the show Project Runway as I really enjoy watching the process of putting fashion together. I also really enjoyed the PBS show on Haute Couture. It really gives you the sense that this is really like buying or collecting art and the work that goes into designing and making these dresses is truly an art form. These days the clientele is beginning to dwindle to around 200. In the mid 50’s the clientele was around 100,000 according to the program. The shows were not as elaborate in the 50’s either. You entered into what looked like a living room and some models came out. Today the big show with music and fancy makeup is part of the art. I do wonder if Haute Couture is a dying out as a practice. There seem to be a recent trend to display these garments in museums. I went to an exhibit in the San Francisco mueseum and J. and I also went to see the retrospective exhibit on Valentino here in Paris. This exhibit was very interesting because they put like colors and patterns and materials together and you could see how the lines, lengths, the drape of the dresses changed over the years. It was very beautiful to see all of this. This year’s Valentino collection featured this dress. The shoulder stuff looks like a bunch of circles cut out and maybe strung together but I am going to guess that it’s just painstakingly pressed to perfection. The photos really don't do the dress justice but we can't take pictures at the museum.



Later in the day I viewed a photography exhibit near Jardin Luxembourg and came across this photo -


No, this is not Valentino’s Spring 2008 dress. It’s an artic deep sea octopus! Maybe Valentino got his inspiration from this creature for this year's dress!

Vive la France! Bastille Day in Paris

Military Parade of Hats.
Background photo - hats of the fireman. Do those really fit the head?

The traditional festivities of Bastille Day are very similar to the 4th of July – parades, picnics and fireworks.

We awoke to the sounds of helicopters buzzing around the place. The helicopters buzzed around all day long like a pesty fly. On our way to the parade our street had many large military vehicles posted around including tanks. The locals had told us they close the streets for the parade and all I thought was well – of course it’s a parade. They were not kidding. Having left 2 hours before the start of the parade you would think this would be enough time to scope out a good spot. However, the streets we had planned to use to get to the parade were all closed! There was only one spot where they left open to funnel everybody into the parade area though you could leave anyway you wanted. It took us almost two hours to get there. This is a military parade and I might best describe it as the parade of blue and hats as there is very little entertainment except for a few military bands. You really get a sense of what it might be like to have troops marching through the streets. The parade started with Nicolas Sarkozy being whisked down the street. The crowd among us had been joking and comparing his size to the past president’s as he is very petite man they joked they might miss him. He is very petite. Shortly thereafter was the air show! I think this was the best part. The first planes had streamers of red, white and blue smoke as they whizzed down the parade path. I don’t know much about the planes but I do enjoy watching them always. Some were HUGE and some were itty bitty. I had seen them a few days before whizzing around Paris practicing. The parade was led by the Ecole Polytechnique which is a very prestigious school in Paris. They school has military uniforms and swords to match. I would think it would be so much fun to march down the Champs-Elysee and through the Arc de Triompe! After this the crowd joked, “Is this still the Polytechnique?” as the other military uniforms were various shades of blue and funny hats. It was kind of game of who had the best hat! It was very crowded and everyone was a great time. Some folks brought step stools. In some ways our journey to the parade was more interesting than the parade itself. We observed 100 diplomatic cars all over the place and if you had a special badge you could cross the bridge we had originally planned to cross. At one point they stopped traffic so buses of military people could get to the parade. We walked right pass the guys with horses and listened to the warm up band.

In afternoon we picnicked in our local park – Parc Montsouris which had tanks. Everybody was out picnicking and playing games. At the end of the day we went to see the fireworks. Unfortunately the spot we chose on a bridge had trees that masked some of the fireworks but we did see quite a bit, heard the opera music and was able to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle! I really really liked that as I have never seen it sparkle. I do wonder why classical music is often chosen for fireworks. The firework shows was as good as Chicago’s in my opinion. Our spot did happen to be close to the metro so we were able to hop on very quickly and even get a seat! This was truly a blessing as it had been long day! You Tube has some great videos of it.
Photo college - Military car on our street near our house, The Tour de Eiffel sparkling and lit up, and a guy in suit to view the fireworks. I think this is normal attire for some....

Cow Photo as promised

We have also seen a poster about the cows of France!

Everybody Dance Now! The Bals les quartiers de Paris!

It doesn’t take long for the French to get moving out on the dance floor. On the eve of Bastille Day, the local fireman(Sapeur-pompier), who I have learned are sex symbols in France, host a dance at the station in each quarter. Once we were tuned into the traditional event we did research and learned people will dress up in costume and one fire station advertised a strip tease at the end of the night. And a long night it is – the event starts at 9 and lasts until 4AM. There are about 30+ Balls so we choose one close to our house. We did not dress up in costume but we did attend the ball at the Port Royal . Within 30 minutes of the start of the Ball the place was hopping!!! I think the firemen kicked off the dancing by dancing with each other out on the dance floor and they were fired up for a GOOD time – screaming, hooting, howling and wiggling those behinds. Gals were flirting too. I have to say their behinds did look good – blush blush. Unfortunately the woman’s uniforms are not as flattering as the men’s. I would describe the event as a mix of wedding reception, rock concert and night club.

Wedding reception - because entire families come including the kids and the grandparents. It had an intimate feel like everyone knew each other. The firemen lead us in what looked like the electric slide at one point but not quite and then on frequent occasions a mambo line would form and the kids joined in at the end of the line. They played the oldies like Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

Rock Concert - because when certain songs played would play there were wild screams and excitement like Madonna just entered the room. I did not recognize a single one of these songs.

Night club – because there were at least 7 different bars with the firemen as bartenders. The ball we attended had a beach theme going. One bar had a surf board, another with Pirates of the Caribbean theme, a love boat them and my favorite bar was the champagne bar(top left photo). The place was pretty wild at times with the firemen dancing on the bars and soon the ladies were encouraged to take their place. Once the 3 and 4 stripe firemen caught wind of this though they were quick to put an end to the bar dancing. They must have been the chaperones.

For me there seemed to be some subtle differences between this and American dance parties. For starters everybody was dancing before even the first drink. Men young and old would dance in groups with each other like the girls. Some would smoke while dancing! Many were dressed in I dream of genie pants.

We left around midnight along with only a few others. You could tell the place was going to get crazier and the cops right outside the place seemed ready to tame it. There were a ton of police right outside the door. Later in the week someone told us about a Ball they attended where 5,000 people came. I can hardly believe it and wish I could come back next year!
This event was one of the best surprises about Paris yet.

Sorry no pics it was too dark and I was feeling shy to catch some of the firemen dancing. I am guessing there are photos out their on the net that capture the scene just fine.

The End of the Line

Kung Fu Master and Kung Fu Panda! (art sized ads in the Metros)

Gotta get the bread!
At the end of the line 4 at Port D’Orleans, we started our journey to the Parc Floral for the Paris Jazz Festival on Saturday afternoon July 12th. As J. is hobbyist boulanger, we made a brief detour to a local bread shop, Max Poline, that is quite famous for their traditional round loaves of bread. It was featured in his master bread book. The bread was intended for our Jazz picnic. Across the street was the Saturday morning book market and a group of American high school band students playing Gershwin. We enjoyed our treats as we promenaded and listened to the music.

YUMMO!




We then boarded the metro and burned some rubber to the end of ligne 1 at a stop called Chateau De Vincennes. I mean we literally burned some rubber. The wheels of the metro are Michelin tires with almost no tread. Inquiring minds want to know if these tires ever get a flat? The underground metro stops often smell like burning rubber on a hot day. The tires make it much quieter than the normal metal ones on the train. Whoosh!
See the tires in the photo.


The riders also tend to be very quiet and polite on the trains. The metros are only loud when the contemporary troubadours make their rounds with singing and merry making.




The Main Event
Voila! We emerged from the underground at the end of the line to see that the Chateau is still standing. I was very surprised by this as I had not expected it. Um, may this explain why we were accompanied on the metro by an army troop with very large guns! The Chateau was once surrounded by a moat and you cross a drawbridge to enter the grounds which has a church and round tower used as a dungeon. The location of the Chateau was the original location of the fort and home of King Louis IX. It was base camp for his crusades into the Egypt. The fort was torn down to build this Chateau and it now is the home of the military museum. I just happen to be reading a book about King Louis IX. He went to church everyday. They have planted a tree to remember King Louis IX’s home. The jazz concert in Parc Floral was very relaxing and featured Ousman Danedjo and Zap Mama. We sat next to the fountain and watched everyone dance and cheer. The park had a variety of gardens from water lilies, to bonsai, to forest, to bees and butterflies exhibits.

Parc Floral - water lily pond and the Close Encounter at the Parc...




Homeward Bound
For a brief moment we contemplated taking the bus home b/c we had done this once before and the bus rides are quite enjoyable for city viewing. I highly recommend them as a way to see Paris. J has this handy palm program that actually will tell you the fastest route home from a particular stop. It can also tell you how to only use the buses or metro or RER to get someplace which is very handy when there is a strike. There have a been a few since we have been here. We opted to take the metro instead of a bus b/c we would only need one ticket and the bus would require two tickets. When not on a strike the metro, buses and RER are very reliable. The metro stops even tell you when the next train is coming. Here is the journey home.

1) We walked back to the end of the line 1 at Chateau de Vincennes to start our journey.
2) Then a long long walk so we could transfer to ligne 6’s end of the line stop called Nation. There are often long walks at transfer points. At Montparnasse there is such a long transfer they have built a moving path that goes 9KM hour!
3) Unexpectedly we found ourselves at the other end of line 6 at a stop called Bercy.
The palm does not know about construction work I guess. Ligne 6 is not supposed to end at Bercy but due to construction work it had a new end of the line. Voila! J. noticed that instead of rushing to the transfer bus we could take a boat to another stop that might get us home. Yeah boat! It’s a public boat that just opened up to ferry folks along parts of the Seine. After a walk through Bercy Park taking note of the concert venue with walls made of grass, a wooden carousal and fountain running down the stairs we finally found boat stop. Waiting for the Navette Fluvial (the boat) we enjoyed our apples and discussed if the new library buildings really looked like books. I am not convinced- maybe if I squint?
4) Then after a 10 minute ride on the Seine we reached the end of the line for the boat at Gare D’Austerlizt. At this point there was a choice to ride either the RER line or continue on with the metro. The RER is the suburban line and very interconnected with the Metro. It’s great! Chicago does not have this. We went back to our crystal ball metro palm program and it told us the metro would be faster. So….
5) We board Ligne 10 and ride to where? The end of the line at Place D’ Italie. Still we are not home but we are in the homestretch.
6) We transfer to ligne 6 so we can transfer to where we started the day on ligne 4 and ride to the end of the line at Port D’Orleans and HOME!

Adhoc Metro Musings –
I find the little bunny telling us to watch our hands and feet in the door very amusing. The only complaint I have about this metro is the arrangement of the seats. They face each other and the space between is quite small. You often find your legs in the lap of the other person. Other than this it’s reliable and normally fast and I have not found a place I can't get to yet via public transportation.

POP QUIZ - How many end of the lines were there?

Other Metro Photos

little bunny fufu.....and what? a surfer in Paris on the metro?

Supercow! The Cow of Steel!

The Charolais
When I was 16 there was a tradition to get your driving license, drive out the countryside and play this game called Hey Cow. It's rather silly and simple. As you drive by the field of cows you scream at the top of your lungs and I mean don't hold anything back and scream, "Heeeeeeeeey Cooooooooooooooooow". He who turned the most cow heads wins. It is so silly is sure to make you laugh. I am not sure this is a game we should play with French beef cows. We have recently moved and the butcher in our new hood has a stained glass window of a cow in the window and on the door a poster of cow that must be the superman of cows. The cow in the poster is so large it is sure to catch your attention in disbelief. (Unfortunately, at this moment I don't have the right technology to connect the camera to the computer to submit the photos of this supercow but will do this in the next week or so. Or at least I hope so. ) The poster informs us that the name of the cow is the Charolais.

As we had never heard of such a cow, J. called upon the US leading expert in cow nutrition and digestion. J. went to school with him at Iowa State University. He has his PHd in ruminant (cow) digestion, has worked in Utah for awhile as a professor but is now a consultant to farmers and the USDA currently residing in Kansas or maybe it's Nebraska. He writes the following about these French cows -

J,
1. Charolais are larger-framed therefore having a higher maintenance requirement (i.e., overhead costs are higher)
2. Our meat grading system rewards greater intramuscular fat (a.k.a. marbling) for added flavor. This is the paramount feature of an Angus which Charolais lack.

We do have some of these in the U.S., but fewer than 5% of the herd nationally. The best combination is a crossbreed of Angus and Charolais (see the gray steer in the attached photo. Good eatin'!!

I could also add that they're French and that makes them snobbish, but there is no scientific proof that this matters.

A similar breed that is even more muscular (but even more lean) is another one called Limousin (as in the region of France). These are notoriously surly and bad mothers (see attached).



This beef is on our list of things to try while in France.
Bon Appetit!

The Cat’s got my Tongue

kitty in cafe near the Eiffel Tour, June 2008

In the phonetics lab, this extremely kind lady attempted to teach me the French R. We must have been sight as we held our tongues with our fingers and pinched our noses and then tried to gurgle the letter R. I had a bit of a cold, so I probably did not need to pinch my nose to get the nasal sound and when I coughed I apparently pronounced the French R properly. Now that my cold is gone I continue to pretend I have a cold in hopes that one day a French person will understand me when I speak French. Many times I do try to speak and I get blank stares and they then break into English. I return the favor and speak slowly and in short sentences in English. I am finding that I even start speaking to native English speakers this way and in class I often cannot remember the proper English word and feel like the cat’s got my tongue! Argh!!!!!
The number four is one of my favorite numbers in French as it sounds like cat with a little purr at the end as "tra". Yes, I am one of those crazy cat persons. Another one of my favorite French questions is pronounced - "Oo a(long a) low?" Sounds like I am just about to break out in song doesn't it or maybe cooing a little bit? Where are the consonants? Written down this question would look as follows in French "Ou est l'eau?" It's looks like a song on paper as well. Translated this means "Where is the water?" There are probably not that many occasions to use this question it's just fun. I can't at this time think of an English question with vowels like this. Can you? I have some hard work ahead of me before I can fully understand and converse with someone. This was last week of the French language lessons and it makes me sad as I truly enjoyed meeting all the students from all over the world – Brazil, Spain, Japan, Korea, Germany, Mexico, Italy, Denmark and Russia. I feel like we just started to get to know each other and then we all had to leave each other. A bientot! See you later!

Purry Pairee Kitty!

We Survived!

Photo Essay
1) Big Blue Eyes
2) Law Cones - birth of writing
3) view of pyramid from a palace window.
4) Napoleon III formal dining table
5) a contemporary art installation with the Baroque paintings. (TV)
6) Red hair visitor
7) More contemporary art...a bed?
8) Another view from the palace
9) The stairway out or into from the pyramid.
10) Medieval model of the Louvre
11) looong hallway or the Gallery
12) aka Supermonk
13) Top of Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in front of Louvre
14) B&W of Louvre courtyard
15) Pyramids touching
16) Starbucks - girl with rabbit ears and girl with head scarf.


Photo Essay
1) Big Blue Eyes
2) Law Cones - birth of writing
3) view of pyramid from a palace window.
4) Napoleon III formal dining table
5) a contemporary art installation with the Baroque paintings. (TV)
6) Red hair visitor
7) More contemporary art...a bed?
8) Another view from the palace
9) The stairway out or into from the pyramid.
10) Medieval model of the Louvre
11) looong hallway or the Gallery
12) aka Supermonk
13) Top of Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in front of Louvre
14) B&W of Louvre courtyard
15) Pyramids touching
16) Starbucks - girl with rabbit ears and girl with head scarf.



Yes, we hit the world’s biggest museum Sunday - the Louvre! It was free on Sunday being the first Sunday of the month. We were very prepared to have to wait in a long line but the Metro stop we arrived at had an entrance separate from the main entrance so we practically fell into the Lourve and within minutes we were walking with the masses of people, masses of art and staring at some really old stones. I mean really old stuff --- 2200BC. It is always interesting to see what survives 1000’s of years. I really enjoyed the birth of writing stone collection. (photo 2) The really important stuff like laws and what was built were written on stone cones. Other interesting items were stone sculptures. Check out the guy with the big blue eyes. (photo 1) Is he shocked to see us after all these years or shocked to be living in such a beautiful palace? Old stones that can be turned into beautiful sculpture can be turned into home as well. The Louvre started as a medieval castle. (photo 10) The remains are on view in the basement. It’s now 800 years old! Over the years it served as home for the kings, queens and emperors of France. I can’t wait to be invited over for dinner to eat in Napoleon III’s dining room which seats 40+ people. (photo 4) Then for a concert in the music room with all that gold gold gold!!! If you need to walk off dinner, you can stroll down the loooooong hallway made to connect two sections of the Louvre called the gallery. (photo 11) Of course I need to stop off and visit with my friend de Hooch or stare at the Medieval Supermonk. (photo 12) I can’t wait to move in and start re-decorating! Wait a minute! Someone already has started re-decorating. I would not put the T.V. in the Baroque galleries. (photo 5) I would not put my bed there either! (photo 7) Also that green only goes with Starbucks…yes Starbucks has a home at the Louvre! (photo 16) For more photos visit here.

Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle or My first week at school!

I have signed up for Intensive French classes for two weeks. The class runs from Tuesday – Friday from 8:20-12:25. It’s an excellent opportunity to learn French. On my way to school I pass right by the Eiffel Tower every morning on the metro. I feel like Madeline!

On Monday I went to complete the registration and they gave me a written test. I have never studied French so I just sat there staring blankly at the paper. Every once in awhile someone would come and fetch us one at a time. When it was my turn, the fella turned to me to and said, “You do not speak any French?”. He seemed kind of concerned but I was placed into a class.
My class has about eight students from all over the place. There are students from Japan, Spain, Italy and Brazil and I am the only one from America (Etas Unis). The teacher of course is from Paris. I was wondering how you teach a class full of students that do not know French and have no other language in common? It turns out that most of the students speak English better than French. The teacher however does not speak English very well. At times the Italian and Spanish students ask for her to translate into English and then they translate into their language and then vice versa. It is fascinating to watch all this transpire. The teacher at times does not know English so well and will ask me how to say something in English like the word for scratch paper or notebook or to show. I have trouble sometimes thinking of what the word might and feel very silly. I am very glad that the teacher at times will translate into English otherwise I may be completely lost! One day after class I started noticing the Metro signs and that I could read some of them or sort of read them! I got so excited. I only know the present tense and three verbs at the moment.

I still cannot understand when people speak unless it is slow and they say words I know. The problem is that there are so many vowel sounds in French. I feel like it’s all just like oo, oh, a, and uhs. Most of the time you do not pronounce the last letter and then all of sudden something changes and you do pronounce it! Then there is learning when to blend the sounds of words when speaking. If the word has a vowel then sometimes the word before it will be blended with the next word to form a liaison. A lot of verbs are pronounced the same way but spelled completely different. Then there are words that are only vowels like the word “ou”. Is this in the scrabble dictionary? I have a long way to go before I will feel comfortable speaking French. I spend about 1 hour in the speech lab and the evening hours with J., aka Henry Higgins, constantly correcting me, aka Eliza. Today in class they were asking me about special things from the US and I said Madonna. They all laughed at my English pronunciation of the word.

One day Maho, a Japanese student, and I went to lunch at a Parisian style café. I tried out some French and the lady says, “What??” and then spoke English to us. She was so kind and patient. I am in need of a conversation and pronunciation practice but when you only know a few words the conversation does not go very far.

The numbers are very interesting. When you reach 80 you say 40-20(quatre-vingts) in French. The number for 90 is 40-20-11(quatre-vingts-onze). In addition to pronouncing this I must now add! Now for some French -

Salut! Je m'appelle Stephanie. Je suis americaine. J'ai habite a Cite' U. a Paris en France avec mon mari. Il est sympa. J' aime le cours de francais.

a demain! See you tomorrow!

Au revior!

Hunter Gatherers

Pictured above is local grocery store - Franprix
This may be the city of love but after awhile you find that love does not fill the belly.

Though J. is bringing home the bacon, it’s not the kind you can eat. So with my belly growling it was time go forth and do some huntin and gathin. It was time to figure out how to fill up that mini-fridge. So with Google maps as my weapon and the French word for supermarket at my fingertips, supermarche, I was able to quickly find at least four different supermarkets within walking distance. Sure beats the bow and arrow approach and saved some wear and tear on my shoes and feet. I headed out and hit the super marches Ed, Champion, Rungis and Fran Prix. All within a few blocks of our home but in different directions.

These supermarches are pretty much what you might expect from a supermarket. First it’s air conditioned which our apartment is not and it’s hot. So I lingered in each aisle and enjoyed the cool air. There are some different things from the American counterpart such as the eggs and milk are not refrigerated. I also could not find things like granola bars or Ziploc baggies. It could be that I just don’t know the language well enough to recognize what it might be without illustrative pictures on the packaging. I did see some mustard packaged in a wine glass for fancy serving. There were also fresh vegetables packaged to make ratatouille. This package included garlic, green & red peppers, egg plant, tomatoes and onions. The other fun item is the poor man’s version of pan chocolate. It’s a pastry with chocolate inside and eaten at breakfast. You can also buy croissants bagged up like rolls. There were many items that proudly displayed produite du France. The one big difference is that all the grocery stores have you bag your own groceries. If you are not fast enough the cashier gives you stern looks. Everyone seems to carry these brightly colored reusable bags as well and I bought one. I think we can also use it for our laundry. For dinner I settled on what I thought was salmon only to find it was pink trout, a $6 bottle of white wine and some chocolate. I have yet to try a bad wine here. The French really know how to make wines for everyone. The nice thing about the supermarches is that it’s a respite from the hot air and you only have to go to one shop to find anything except aspirin and sunscreen. This is found only at the pharmacy but more on this later.

I have found that it’s better to buy your bread or baguette from the local boulangerie. The ones at the grocery store definitely can’t compete in taste. In the early morning you can see everyone going to the boulangerie to buy their baguette for the day and taking them back home. They are very inexpensive less than one Euro. It’s on the weekends that when we go to pick up our baguette for the day we treat ourselves to the homemade pastries as well and the real deal for the pan chocolate. And yes the pastries do live up to their repetition. If it’s not already included in the 1001 things you must do before you die list, tasting the bread and pastries from a Parisian boulangerie should be 1002. There are no preservatives so you must eat it that day or it turns into something you could use as a weapon. Top the baguette up off with that the delicious butter (buerre) from the supermarche and you have you one lovely meal, snack or appetizer.

On the way to supermarche you can’t help but walk past the little stores that specialize in the basic grocery store items. Special little shops that only sell the meat, cheese, bread, fruits and vegetables and CHOCOLATE! I did stop here to buy some treats during my first hunting expedition.

Later this summer we move to a flat around the corner from a farmer’s market. My initial walk through left me with the opinion that these markets are for the gourmands. The display of the fruits and vegetables seemed like something right out of a magazine. If you are looking for a special type of olive or a different kind of cheese than the farmer’s market will offer more upscale varieties than I found in my neighborhood grocery store. On Sunday we found a market full of rainbow colored tweetie birds near Notre Dame.