Some Running and Some Gorging

Yesterday I finished another book about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary.

I also showed Liisa how to run outside. We jogged around the Louvre and she did an excllent job! 3 miles for a beginner is amazing! I sang the whole jog to keep her motivated. Afterwards, I coached her in abs and stretching.
Afterwards, we celebrated by gorging on oodles and oodles of sushi and bento at SushiWest near school. Think a plate meants for 6 people, eaten by three. And then the bento. We were starving at first, then not at all afterwards. The best sushi I've had in many a months. Laura joined us, and it was good. We talked about men and we talked about how we will make good wives someday. I knocked over a flowepot, and Liisa startled a man by losing her balance and grabbing his Coke.
Before we ate the Sushi, we feasted on delicious grapefruit juice at Café des Flores.
We went for a walk over to our favorite gelato place. Laura, being from Milan, actually explained to us what the italian names meant.

Liisa and I felt romantic late at night, so we hobbled (after we ate enough food to sustain Rwanda for a week) our ways to Opéra. In doing so without a map, we found ourselves completely lost and in dead streets. Don't worry, it only took us an hour to find ourselves.

It was very bizarre, but during our day, Liisa and I were completely haggled left and right. We got catcalled from men in cars, yelled at by women in cars, approached by men on the streets, and so on.....It was truly unusual! We both have never been so sought out after in our lives, and we were starting to get paranoid and wondering what it WAS that was making us easy targets that day.

Right now I'm working on a project about Second Life with my group. It's taken us 6 hours to get the skeleton of our presentation, not even the data......OH, sweet lord....

Château de La Loire

This weekend, 8 of us rented 2 cars and drove a few hours out of Paris to La Loire for some châteeau visits. It was a really, really great (and apreciated) weekend.
At 8h30 Saturday, we met up at Montparnasse to get the cars so we could be on our merry way. Peter was an hour late, and the cars took a while. We ended up leaving Paris by 10h. Brandon was leading his car, and Liisa was nervously tagging behind him. Paz was in Liisa (our) car to calm her down the entire time, and essentially drive for her without actually doing the driving. It was an entertaining experience.
But before any great European roadtrip, we stopped at a Carrefour and picked up carfood and some repas for the trip to save time and cash. We indulged a bit, too.
Our driving directions sucked. Our maps were too general. Instead of taking 2 hours on one road to our first stop, our cars ended up splitting up (which became common and frequent the whole weekend) and getting lost in the middle of France. Liisa commented that most of smalltown France is strangely resemblant of post-war Croatia. I found that many of the smaller, more intimate villages, reminded me a whole lot of the little towns in western Germany and Switzerland. Regardless, we all did several turn arounds, got lost in the "city" Orléans for a long time, and got to the first place about 4 hours later.

~Château de Chambord was like a resort town when you first enter the grounds. It's actually quite pleasant, and we meandered to the ticket counter for the château. The castle itself, made by Francois the 1st around 1518, was massive, dripping with roof ornamentaion, and beautiful. It looked like a cathedral slammed into Versailles and blended the different architectures together. 4 stories high. The inside was vast, clean, but relatively empty. Lots of open space, and little amounts of furniture. I liked it a lot, though; really airy, and I like that in a castle. The main stairwell in the middle was excellent. It was designed probably by someone (if not) like da Vinci, since it was 2 stairwells spiralling around each other. We split up and took our time in the castle, and finally met up on the ground floor to quickly get back to the cars, split up the lunch food, and speed over to the next château an hour away, before they closed.
~Château de Chenonceau was probably our favorite castle for the entire trip. It started with this heavily forested pathway with gardens and mazes on the sides, and a petite village. And the weather was lovely. Then 2 small sphinx statues welcome you to the opening where the castle was settled in between 2 gardens and literally ON the river! There were even openings for boats to pass under the château, like on a bridge. The inside was cozy and well furnished, and the ballroom was absolutely breathtaking, yet simple. True elegance. I'd totally live there. We took our time at this castle, and relaxed in the gardens before they closed up, and it was wonderful.

We split up and found our ways to the town with our hotel, Tours. We thought it'd be a small little village, like the petite towns we drove through. Oh no...Tours is this biggish city in the middle of these castle forts. It was like stepping into Wiesbaden or something. How we ended up finding our hotel in a big city whose map we didn't have, nor knew nothing about, I haven't a clue. But we did, and it was great. Our hotel was a Best Western, and it turned out that our two rooms were massive enough so that only 2 of us in the entire group had to share a bed. It was really nice! We toasted with some red wine for our good fortune.
We went for a latenight stroll around the city and found this little restaurant to eat dinner at. You forget how nice people really are until you get out of the big, dense cities. The people were so wonderful! A bunch of men even moved their own meals to another table so our group of 8 could eat together! The meal was alright, and cheap! I had a fresh salmon.
Honestly, these last two days I have eaten terribly. Junk food in the cars. Rich French food out of the cars. Constantly snacking. I cannot believe the 3 main things in my body were cheese, wine, chocolate, and bread. Welcome to my life as a Frenchwoman. Agh. I am craving a good salad like it's my job.
The old restaurant owner decided to get a bit drunk, and fall in love with our very own Rimi (because she's Japanese). He gave us a free bottle of Champagne, talked with us for over an hour, and hit on Rimi like there was no tomorrow! It was hilarious at first, then it was awkward, then it just got bad. He made Rimi pour the Champagne for everyone (she even called herself a geisha)! We did our best to drink the Champagne quickly so we could get out and relieve Rimi of the awkward, but we still didn't end up leaving until 1am. Crazy old French men...
Peter felt a bit macho, so he tried to carry Alex back to the hotel. He didn't get very far, and we ended up having to console him in his sickness in a park. And we slept fast. Like rocks.
For about 5 or 6 hours. Early rise to get more done.

Don't try driving through Tours very much without a real plan. Just drive out as fast as possible. That is all I have to say about that.
~Azay le Rideau was a pretty palace. Much smaller than the other two we saw. But this one was just a cubed castle completely immersed in the middle of the river. Lovely forest surrounded it, and the water on all four sides made it quite romantic, but it was not our favorite. The rooms were well furnished, though. And the stairwells were completely open, which was very nice. It was a very pretty mansion, but it was small compared to the other castles from the day before. We enjoyed the park around the castle for a while, until it started to look like it might storm.
We took refuge in our cars and drove to a nearby vineyard cave to do some wine tasting.
The woman at the cave was very pleasant, though slightly awkward. We didn't really know what we wanted to do, and the cave owner didn't quite know what to do with us, either. We talked and listened to everything in French. She taught us a lot about tasting and understanding the wine, what and when to drink it, how they make the wine. A very interesting hour with this woman. And the wine was quite good. We bought 2 cases for ourselves. And we left when the sun came back out an hour later.
Lunch in the town by the château was simple, but good. Liisa didn't like it, but I did, so I'm happy with it.
I fell asleep in the car and woke up to us stopping on the side of the road to take pictures of Amboise and its beach town. The other car went on the beach, while our car stayed inside and decided our last destination point.
~Château de Chaumont was very pretty on the outside; a fairytale-like castle on the cliffs of some large hill, and stables on the side. But the insides were being gutted and redone, so the exhibit itself was disappointing. The stables were fun to look at, and the grounds in front of the castle were lovely. But, alas, we got back to the cars and drove.
The trip was nice because Paz had planned most of the logistial stuff perfectly, and we had enough room for interpretation to not stress ourselves out too much. Our conversations were always, if not most of the time. I really enjoyed everyone's company all weekend, and felt like I had found myself a good set of people to be with while in Europe this time around. I dare say I love them all.
The drive back to Paris was a lot faster because we took the toll roads. And we got back to the city around 20h, which meant there was time to get home and do homework after a practically perfect weekend with friends. Too bad I didn't do any work and wrote this instead, huh?

Why I Love The BBC

They have an article about the font Helvetica.
My favorite lines are in the comments:
"Helvetica and Verdana walk into a bar. The bartender says, 'Sorry, we don't serve your type here.'"
AND
"This discussion is almost as important as whether cucumber sandwiches should be cut on the diagonal or the square."

They have obituaries.
Even about things that don't need obituaries.

And yet they still give you important information!
As unbiased as the modern western world seems to be capable of...

Sarkozy?! Really?!

Yesterday I stumbled upon a Brocante (flea market-type fair) on a street by my flat. It was great! All antiques! The best part was when I stumbled upon a stack of (organized) antique post cards from around the world! Used postcards (written and posted) with pictures of Paris and London from 1850s-1900s. In a moment of pure genius, I found about 14 postcards to buy (22 euros ain't bad...) so I can make a framed memorial to my loved European cities. What gems!
Joris and I meet up and went out for a Greek dinner. We talked in French (as usual with my select few French friends), and I thanked him for his incredible patience.
We met up later on with Liisa (plus her Italian friends, her African coloc and his African buddies) and went out to dance at a salsa club, Latina Café. We had so much fun ALL NIGHT! I forgot how fun that kind of music and dancing was! Joris was a complete blast and danced with us like there was no tomorrow. He'll be in Barcelona next year, so I told him we were just trying to prepare him.
Liisa and I ended up missing the last metro, so I walked her home (in heels) and took a cab home.

Today was beautiful! I meandered to school to watch some Free Jazz at this week's festival. I forgot how much I missed music. After a while, though, it turned into smooth jazz, so I scooted out. And I walked.
Since it was the first Sunday of the month, all museums in France are free admission. So, I went to Musée Rodin for a while, walked around the grounds. Grabbed a nice salad dish in the garden there, and was surrounded completely by birds. Nearby French people laughed as I battled birds for property rights.
Afterwards, I walked through the Esplanade over to the Grand + Petit Palais for more museum joy. Something I love about Sundays in the spring/summer in Paris: everyone gets out and goes to the grassy areas. Soccer here, spooning couple there. It's wonderful. I think I could stay here longer.....
Much to my dismay, I got to the museums too late, and they closed as soon as I walked in. No matters, I got what I paid for.
And a nice, long walk home. Discovered some delightful areas I have never ventured to before, which I hopefully will investigate further.
Attempted to make fried tomatoes, and failed miserably. Even lit my frying pan on fire.
And then the French elections happened.....................WHAT HAPPENED?!?!?! Ségolène Royale was such a good candidate; Sarkozy is soo not the right person to run this country! And the votes in all of France were completely divided: Sarkozy won with 53%, while 47% of France was completely left in the dust. What kind of system was that?!!?!?! I'm very, very disappointed in society right now. And a bit upset with the French. My hopes of being a French citizen are forever (or at least 5 years minimum) shot. Unless I marry one.

Foire de Paris

Got my hair cut yesterday. After MUCH anxiety, I stumbled across a frugle and decent review of this French chain, called Tchip. Name sounded sketch, and it looked like something out of an 80's teen movie, but I stepped through the doors anyways. At first, I was scared because I see just two workers with 5 women in a salon enough for at least 10 employees. And they clearly didn't know what they were doing with the old women's hair colorings. I started glowing with sweat.
Thank goodness a woman comes out of the back room confidently and puts me in her own hands. Granted, she didn't speak an ounce of English. And I don't know any terms like "layers" and "angled", but we managed to understand each other. After she hacked more than I wanted off (we were deep in conversation about American working hours compared to France's), I am satisfied with my cut. Short, yes, but it is the right idea of coiffure. And everything (including tip, shampoo, cut, conditioner) was only 24 Euros!
That's essentially all I did worth talking about yesterday. Chorus was uneventful, and a bit lonely, so I won't get into that.

Marketing class today was dull as usual. My group had a presentation to do, but Joris had SMSed me to say that he fainted in the shower and wasn't coming to class. Luckily I researched and created the entire bloody project anyways, so I just picked up the slack. I think we did the project well, but I guess it doesn't matter as long as we get a good grade.
Then, yes, the Foire de Paris. Essentially, Paris made roughly 10 massive warehouses (an expo area, I presume) into these specified expositions. From house siding to wine tasting, from medieval dance to make-overs. In a nutshell, it was awesome. Every food/drink table had free samples. I got in for 9,50 Euros on a discount, and it was worth every penny.
I first made way to the "Tropical France" area (think Martinique, some African places, South American, Caribbean places that are/were part of French territories). This was my favorite part already. It was booming with culture music, bright colors everywhere. People bustling to and fro. Colorful accents. The smell of marvelous things. And I was one of the only white people in that warehouse! I bought some coconut sorbet, and let me tell you: ORGASMIC! That stuff was utterly ambrosial. And there was some amazing PURE cocoa drinks. I got hit on by a few of the venders, who ended up getting only my email, and in the process managed to give me a free plate of soulfood that normally costs 5 euros. I wish I could go back and eat more food there...
Mind you, my accent is thick, and my French shotty, so EVERYONE I encountered asked me where I was from in America. Not so nice.
Then I made way to the "Europe" area. Not nearly as fun, but still a good time. There were so many artists swinging around, I managed to stay mostly by the free samples. Cheese, saucissons, chocolates, sweets, biscuits, and wine. Now, my main intention the entire time I was being shoved foods left and right was to find this Corsican wine that Liisa raved to me about when she had gone to the fair. I got to the Champagne first (which was excellent, and I think I made friends with the man who was making me taste his Champagne), and literally skimmed by all of the wine booths before finding Corsica (the only booth). The guy didn't appreciate my lacking French, and though I fell absolutely in love with his bottle of white wine (it was the best wine I've ever tasted in my life), he refused to sell it to me on the spot. He kept saying "Think about it. It's really expensive, you're a student. Don't buy it right now." I can't believe I got turned down on buying something!!!!! And WHEN THE HELL am I going to ever go to Corsica so I can find this wine ever again? I don't even think the link for this Corsican wine is the right place!
Afterwards, I watched a subpar dance group, meandered through the other warehouses (which is wearing, no pun intended). And I came home to run and sit here.

Cops and Grills

Why don't the French Barbeque? I ask you.
I hadn't thought about it until the cops came yesterday.
It was May 1st. National holiday. No one is at work. And it's Labor Day, right? So you'd THINK that (as an American thinking of course) people would be grilling it up all over the place. Oh, nay, nay.
For those who don't know, in America many public spaces are made specifically for Barbeques, and grilling. They even have little grills on the sides of some parks.
Brandon decided to through a little barbeque on the park behind Les Invalides (yup, of all places). I am not thinking anything of it. I know people picnic there. I have invited my French buddy Joris to join us so we could discuss our project. He sees the grill and such, and starts chain smoking. I ask him what's up, and he simply replies, "Oh, this is all very illegal." We even found a regulations poster, and Joris says we were breaking probably about 4 laws.
Nevertheless, Brandon ventures on with his newly bought camp grill. And one of his friends I don't know well, John, has invited the entire school of American University in Paris to join. Now, don't get me wrong: I'm sure some of them are nice. But most of them were acting dumb and just drinking wreckless amounts. In the daytime.
Some non-cops-but-still-officers-of-some-sort came over and warned us that, though they'd love us to have a BBQ, it was illegal in every public place in Paris, and that we better put it away before the police come and deal with us.
Off we go. To Brandon's apartment complex's courtyard?
In the US, it's alright to use the amenities of your apartment complex. Public use for the private space kind of thing. So, we think we're fine now. Though, they didn't by any Petroleum, so the grill was failing magnificently at igniting. And John and his 20 friends start drinking copiously again, and start kicking a ball around in the stupidest way imaginable. And Joris still chain smokes.
Why were there people in the apartment complex taking pictures of us?
John sees this, and (slightly inebriated) starts flipping the bird and swearing in French to Brandon's neighbors. Lots. Big commotion. People come out, and threaten to call the police. John's posse bails ASAP at the sound of "police", leaving all of their stuff behind them. For us to clean up. My friends and I are trying to stop the coals from burning and cleaning up toute de suite, because we didn't want any havic. If we can't have the BBQ, we'll stop. We're good kids. But John keeps trucking away in not-so-nice French.
We start bringing everything into Brandon's apartment when the security guard and president of the complex come over, and John has started to swear at them. They're all up in arms about it. So, the police have been wrung, and warranting John's arrest. John scrams to the park and hide for a while.
Which leaves Brandon, Peter, Liisa, and I to fix everything (Paz Rimi and Joris have been sent upstairs, since Paz and Joris are both French and Rimi was helping them out). Brandon, being the excellent diplomat he is, managed to calm down the two men, explain to them why John got upset, and how in the US it isn't OK to take pictures of people, and how in the US it's completely acceptable to have BBQs on your own property. It was all a misunderstanding. One of John's oh-so-special friends has come back and started swearing again in French about how they're exploiting us because we're foreign. Liisa manages to shut him up. The two men tell us that we need to make better choices with our friends.
The cops come. They look like they're giggling. They ask, "What's that?" We reply, "It's.....a grill." The respond, "Oh, you should probably get rid of that." We respond, "We know that now. Thanks." And it's basically over.
It ended up being my friends and I (and a calmed down John.....) in Brandon's flat eating stove-grilled burgers. It was a pleasant afternoon.

After a while, I agreed to meet up with Pierre and talk. We decided to, after talking out our differences, to remain friends. It is the end of one chapter in our frienship and the start of a new one. Everything is perfectly fine. Yeah, it all sucks, but I think in the end it'll be for the best. He's such a great guy, and I'd hate to lose such a gem. Again.

Today was not very exciting. Signed up to go to Budapest (that's in Hungary, folks) with Sciences Po. Did some banking. Cooked for Liisa, José, that Bulgarian guy, and me. We watched the Presidential Debate, and I'm never eating again.

Drag

It was excellent.
I am walking to the Bon Marché to pick up something for dinner between classes, when I see him.
A light pink tank top, shades, a cute mauve pencil skirt, a small shoulder purse, pink fishnets, highlighted hair and pink strappy kitten heels.
At first glance (and only seeing his back), I was thinking, "Holy Amazon! That is one hefty chick!"
Then I look at the walk, and think that's one mannish walk that Amazon woman has...
Ahhh.....she is a he!
And he didn't hide it, either. I am surprised I thought it was a woman at all!
I couldn't tell whether he was a transgender or just put up to a really funny joke/bet.
I walked behind him for a few blocks, and the walk was delightful! People's reactions to him were utterly priceless. Confused old women. Smiling younger guys. The whole lot.
I wanted really badly to take a picture of him, but his stride was too long, and I ended up getting it out just as soon as I got caught behind some tourists.

I got a really good wok at the grocer's. Unfortunately, the men making my wok were hitting on me, telling me how "belle" I was (which, of course, I have to say thank you, but always with a hint of cynicism), and why would such a pretty girl like me be eating alone when they can join me? I utter "rentrerai chez Sciences Po" and they shut up about that. They quickly caught onto my American accent, and started asking me about the American Presidential Elections. I tried to explain that it was too early in the race for me to decide who to vote for, but they continue insisting I have a candidate to vote for already.
It's funny how people here are behaving lately, with this whole election being days away. People are talking about politics nonstop, and even projecting thoughts about OTHER elections they have no control over.
That wok was really, really good, though. I relished in it for a whole 45 minutes.

In French class, the highlight of the class (aside from my phone ringing 3 times in a row while I tried to silence it) was definitely about "Pimp My Ride." Someone made a comment about old cars getting fixed up pretty. Someone else (American, of course) made a funny remark about "Pimp My Ride," at which my French teacher looks at her with complete horror and disgust.
In English, he says, "You PROSTITUTE your CAR?!?!?!"
Oh, the fun got only better after that. YOU try explaining to a French person in FRENCH who's native tongue isn't English what "pimp" means in slang. By the end of the discussion, I was crying of laughter, only to find out furthermore that in the UK it's called "Chav My Motor". Which, to those who aren't familiar with English slang, basically means "White-Trash My Car".