"On va boire un coup..."

So, in the preceding couple of days, I had managed to get into contact with Mélanie, an old friend from the days when I came to France as an exchange student. She sent me an email, suggesting that we should get together on thursday (tonight) to "aller boire un coup." Roughly translated, this means "go out for a drink." Not at all surprisingly, this was not just "a drink."

After sleeping in more than I had intended and feeling a bit confused about how I might've slept through my alarm clock (more on this the next day), I got myself together and headed out. In an attempt to make up for my late arrival, I decided to overdress. Mind you, I'm not capable of overdressing in the way French businessmen might; I don't have the budget for Armani suits and none of my shoes are all that nice. Instead, I wore a pair of navy corduroy pants, a powder blue penguin shirt with contrast cuffs, a pair of cheap but nice black leather ALDO boots, my black Anemone moulded vinyl messenger bag, and a cute tie that was navy blue with diagonal rows of multicoloured boxes. All of this layered onto a stocky latino with 6-guage piercings, chin-strap facial hair and a buzz haircut made for a lot of interested stares from the businessmen who shared the subway with me. Interestingly enough, the businesswomen were mostly uninterested.

The day at the Centre was busy but unexceptional, including the usual fixing of things gone wrong. I also started putting together an horaire de permanence (office hours), which will hopefully keep me from being overworked. As it is, I'm only supposed to be working 15 hours a week. I nonetheless managed to stay rather late today, mostly because I had a date with Mélanie @ 7.30 downtown, anyway. After killing time in my office trying to take care of various small tasks, I decided I might as well arrive early to our meeting place, since it was right on rue Rivoli, in the middle of a nice shopping district. I can just wander around for a bit.

As I was heading out to do just that, I passed by the break room and heard a few voices. I popped in to say goodbye and one of them said, "You're not going to leave without drinking a cup of wine with us, are you?" Well, there was no denying them at that point. Although I was just about to go out and have drinks anyway, I didn't want to be antisocial...and I was pretty sure refusing the wine would be an antisocial gesture. So, on an empty stomach that hadn't seen more than a croissant that day, I had two substantial glasses of wine while we chatted and bitched and dished and so on. At some point, I asked what the time was and realized I only had about 30 mins to get to where I was going. I still don't know how to judge travel times in Paris, so I'm always predicting it will take more than half an hour. Of course, I arrived in 15 minutes and Mélanie called me to say she was going to be late.

On my way to the station, I noticed this street sign. What's up with that? How did I not notice a street named after a major 20th-Century French composer two paces from my workplace? Well, I made up for it by taking this nice photo.

But as I emerged from the Saint-Paul métro station (ligne 1) on rue Rivoli, what should I see, but...SPACE INVADERS!!This totally made my day. I'm more and more fond of these little mosaics, and I keep asking myself: how does one lay graffitti-mosaic? See linked article for further discussion...

Drinks with Mélanie were great. We met at a small Dutch bar right near the subway stop called Klein Holland. After a bit of catching up, this "aller boire un coup" turned into heading off at 9.30pm for dinner in the nearby rue des Rosiers, which is the oldest Jewish area in Paris. We had a plate of falafels and other Middle Eastern delights at a neat (but very busy) café called Chez Marianne.

Afterwards, I tired Luis dragged himself back home. Before I could get to bed, however, I had to deal with my earrings. I needed to give Arnaud 3 passport-style photos for my application for the carte de séjour; by French law, these sorts of photos must follow strict guidelines that include the removal of all earrings. But here's the problem, I have those stainless steel captive-bead earrings, which don't come out easily. Essentially, these sorts of earrings should only be affixed and removed with a pair of smooth-nosed pliers. Do you think I have that sitting around in my apartment? Hell no. Do you think that I'm going to trek around Paris tomorrow morning and find a reputable piercing shop before 10am for the photos? Also, hell no. Can I just jam a pair of scissors into the earring and pull outwards? Hell yes. It didn't hurt, since all I was doing was applying outward force on the ring itself. However, it totally bruised up my fingers in the process. Ugh. Now I have my super lame retaining rings (i.e. metal tunnels) in my ears, and they'll just have to stay there until I can visit a piercing shop.

And Finally, the Tour

Finally, after a week of delaying, I got my place in decent enough order to post some pictures without (too much) embarassment. But before we get to the peep show (and there is a money shot, so to speak), here's a quick summary of the day:

Since I no longer had any fixed meetings to attend, I let myself sleep in a little bit wednesday morning, and then dragged my ass over to the Centre to be productive. I caught up a bit on some blogging, did a non-insignificant amount of dépannage (trans. "un-breaking" or "repair"), and helped a professor with some rather involved A/V work for her language class. It was one of the more uneventful days I've had, but certainly not light. I think I got out of there around 6.00pm.

I took advantage of the remaining sunlight to make a quick run to the nearest supermarket (named without irony Champion) and got some more basic stuff (e.g., milk and water) as well as some housekeeping and toiletry items I needed. For the small handful of things I needed, it seems like hardly worth the trouble to wait in line when I saw the mess and the cashiers. Apparently, EVERYONE does their shopping on Wednesday, or some such. Thankfully, there was a guy in front of me in line with a fantastic butt, and that gave me the courage to wait in line to buy my stuff.

After all of that, I pretty much got home and started working on blog stuff and took care of some email housekeeping that I had neglected while Val was in town with me. I also made some spaghettoni aglio e olio with shallots, but it wasn't my best effort. After all of that uneventfulness, here's the photos I finally took of my place. The first (left) is a shot from the entrance to my apartment. Roomy, no? Well, I didn't have any illusions going into this. Any place described as a "studio" by European standards is going to be small. On the upside, I do have my own bathroom and kitchenette, which is a step higher than a lot of residences.

Here's one side of my closet......and here's the other! I'm actually pretty happy with the closet space. After buying the necessary clothes hangers (cintres in French), I managed to get all my stuff in there with a fair bit of extra room. Note that there's a big empty space up top. I'm thinking of getting some cheap IKEA storage boxes to make better use of that area.

Voilà my desk / table. It's not very easy to see, but about 2/3 of that is a desk area, and 1/3 is a little detachable table, that you can pull away for some attempt at proper dinner seating. It's actually a rather well-designed table, with a small shelf that runs the entire underside of both tables for little things like unused computer cables, sunglasses, and even my laptop, if I needed the table space.

Ah, the kitchenette. This is probably the least pleasing aspect of it all, although I'm just relieved that I didn't have to share my foodspace with anyone else. There's a small fridge underneath the counter, as well as a cupboard. I suppose that the cupboard should be for storing dry goods and the shelf above the kitchen would be for plates, but I need my foodstuffs close at hand when cooking. Besides, all I have for table/cookware is a melamine plate, a melamine bowl, a glass, several forks, one spoon, no knives, one chef's knife, a wooden spoon, a saucepan, and a couple of small frying pans. Also, please note that the stove is ELECTRIC. I did not come all the way out here to cook on an electric !@#$ing stove. OK, enough venting. I feel strongly about food preparation.

Here's the bathroom. It's small, but it's mine and I have no complaints.

And, finally, my bed! The mattress is some cheap kind of foam, but it works. Mind you, it's a far sight from the sweet queen-size box-spring mattress I left with Shayna back in Chicago. Shayna, don't forget that I get that back when I return!!

So, after all of that, I sit down to start typing this up, and what do I see? Ta Daaa! A praying mantis! I won't sleep alone tonight, after all! I decided to grant the little guy clemency from my "you trespass, you die" rule for bugs, and let him conduct his Dance of Bug Death with the lightbulb. This was probably because by then I had already opened a bottle of wine and had two large glasses, so I was feeling pretty good about the world.

More dépannage and more food

The evening before, Val secured permission for me to be absent for most of the morning today, which gave us time to go on a quest for the best croissant / pain au chocolat in Paris. My only limitation was that I had to be back by 13:30 to give a presentation to the incoming students on the Rive Gauche site, which was put together a couple of years ago as a compilation of orientation materials for visiting students.

So, after a fair bit of research the night before, Val located a number of articles and reviews dubbing the Pâtisserie Jean Millet as the best viennoiserie (specializing in croissant-type pastries) in town (7ème arr., between Invalides and Eiffel). And let me tell you: they indeed make the best freaking croissant I've ever had. Val took a few pictures of the whole adventure, so I might post them here as an update later if Val sends 'em to me. I got a croissant and coffee, and Val got a pain au chocolat and tea. Both of our pastries were very, very dry and flaky, with the outside layers flaking off at a finger's touch and the inside full of huge air bubbles. The whole thing tasted like it had been made with a whole stick of butter, it was neither too sweet nor too salty, and the top had a brown singe to it that showed it to have been aggressively baked at high heat. Hah. Agressively baked. I like that.

After all of that fun, Val bought a few of their attractive-looking chocolates and headed off. Of course, we weren't done. Val had also read about a boulangerie only two blocks down called Poujauran, so we headed there for another round of pastries. Val got her pain au chocolat and I tried their apricot-filled croissant. Then, we headed north towards the Seine. Right where some random street met the quai near the Seine, we found these (see images). There was this corner portal on an otherwise unexceptional office building, with beautiful glass doors and statues/reliefs flanking the doors on each side. To the left was a strange mix of iconography that suggested a biblical Eve character (serpent), stereotyped native american (grass skirt, hair), and african (the shape of the face and the body). It's a bit hard to tell from these photos, but click on them for a closeup. To the right was a figure helpfully labelled as la seine, using the trope of wavy hair and rippling robes to suggest the river. Ah, for the days when the seine looked as clean as that! Mind you, I haven't caught a wiff of the seine since I got here, so maybe they've cleaned it up a bit. In addition to these two, check out the detail on the door handles:

Now that is some sexy metalwork. Val immediately recognized the mermaid figures as a character from a legend, but I totally forget the name, so Val: if you're reading this, could you post a recounting of the tale in the comments?

So, after that moment of decorative loveliness, we headed over to the gravel path along the seine, sat down a few paces away from a dozing homeless man, and ate our Poujauran pastries. They were delicious, and knocked the socks off of anything you could find in N. America, but it didn't create the sort of gastronimic orgy in my mouth that the Millet croissants did. But of course, that's like saying that a Lexus is somewhat lackluster in comparison to a Porsche or Ferrari.

Afterwards, we headed off in the direction of the Eiffel Tower, thinking we might look around, dash up to the top, get a few pictures, and then make it back to the Centre in time for my presentation. This seemed like a fine idea, although I noticed that it was already 11am and I should be on the RER by 12:30pm if I'm to reach the Centre on time. So we headed over, then got in a huge, sprawling line. It took a good long while before we hit the ticket booth, and then we got on the elevator to the second floor, where we were supposed to transfer to another elevator for the final ascent. What we should've expected (but didn't) was that there was another huge line running all the way around the second level of the tower just to get on the final elevator to the top. Clearly there was no way we'd get up there on time. In fact, just getting the the second floor had taken quite a while, and it was already almost 12:30. So, we cut our losses, took some pictures from the observation deck, then got on the elevator and headed back down. We dashed off to the RER stop and I made it back to the Centre—beaded in sweat—with just minutes to spare.

The presentation itself went fine. I just walked them through the whole Rive Gauche site, while constantly making it clear that the design was not my own. Don't get me wrong; the content of this site is profoundly useful (although requiring a bit of updating here and there), but the site's layout and organization was, to put it lightly, atrocious. It's like an explosion of mismatched animated gifs. Nonetheless, all went well and one of the students even volunteered to help with the re-design. Not bad, all around.

On a more amusing note, one of my co-workers came in after my presentation to speak briefly to the class, and he asked me "Is this your VGA adapter?" In fact, I had taken the adapter from his office in a panic while I had been trying to get my laptop hooked up to the projector. So I say to him "Oh, I stole it from your office." However, I mixed up one slang word for "to steal" (piquer) with a rather different word (niquer), which resulted in me saying "I f*cked you with it in your office," or something like that. Thankfully, he had a sense of humour and the students didn't quite pick up on it (well, I think some had an idea).

I spent the rest of the afternoon doing a bit of IT support while Val started re-imaging the computers in the salle informatique with a new build. Unfortunately, there was some issue with permissions on the master disk image that forced us to update the computers one by one instead of en masse. Nonetheless, all was eventually taken care of. Since we were staying late, we decided to go straight to dinner and I checked in with Sebastien for a few suggestions. He gave us a short list of four, from which we eventually chose a spot in the 13eme, called L'Ourcine.

We made our reservations and headed over to the restaurant; we had managed to sneak in to an early first-seating (7pm, which is unthinkably early by European standards), so we only had two hours to eat our meal (also unthinkably short by European standards). Nonetheless the meal was amazing and we got out just in time for the next seating. I had a fantastic Sauternes apéritif (sweet white wine from the Bordeaux region), and then a poêlée de cèpes, avec echalottes et ciboulette (a sort of French stir-fry of a particularly meaty mushroom variety with shallots and chives); the shallots were browned to a candy-like flavour and the mushrooms had that perfect balance between high-heat sear and meaty firmness. I should have taken a picture, alas, but it seemed like this place was not the sort where photo-taking tourists were common or welcome. Maybe when my french is better, I can pose as a restaurant reviewer. I'll also need to upgrade my wardrobe substantially....

Anyway, my main dish was a noix de veau prepared with a milk marinade and a fair bit of garlic and butter (and parsley). At first, the shape and size of the noix, as well as the texture and complete lack of fat, made me think that noix was a french culinary euphemism for testicles. I've eaten bull testes before (thanks, mom) and I have to grudgingly admit that they are delicious. So this ball of meat was also fantastic, and I spent the night thinking I had eaten a massive and very well prepared veal testicle. Afterwards, I looked it up online and discovered that the name refers to a bundle of three muscles near the hip of the veal that are usually very tender and free of fat or cartilage. Sorry Val! If I hadn't told her that I was eating testicles, she might have tried them. It was delicious. Dessert was a molten chocolate cake (mi-cuit) with a sorbet of milk and mint. Again, fantastic. The whole thing together was a lovely night, and we also had the pleasant experience of arriving early to an empty restaurant, and then watch it slowly fill throughout the meal. By the time we left, the place was jumping.

So on the way out, I come across this:Amusing, n'est-ce pas? What some of you might not already know is that part of my project here in paris is to work on Electronic Dance Music (EDM), and that one of the more active sub-genres is minimal techno. Minimal techno, in turn, is often associated with a genre of lifestyle and personality that can be pretentious, faddish or ostentatiously austere. So there there's this Minimal Shop which you would expect to provide lifestyle products for techno geeks. Upon first glance, not so much.

Food and Frenzy

Since today was a bracing mix of highs, lows and intensity, I'm going to front-load the delightful surprise that made my evening. As Val and I were exiting the métro station Madeleine, we came across this awesome display of Lego™ bunnies and neon pink Post-It™ notes. Those of you who know me well probably don't need any explanation for why this sort of thing creams my proverbial Twinkie™, but here it is for the rest of you. This sort of thing rings my bell on several levels:

1. bright colours,
2. pixel-like graphics / technology-nostalgia,
3. cuteness (i.e. OMG bunnies!!),
4. everyday/urbanscape art (see yesterday's post),
5. and did I mention bright colours?

Thanks to all of this as well as the rest of my night following this, the earlier part of my day was just a prelude to awesomeness.

My day started early and already a bit hectic. At 8.15am, I was to meet with the students I was responsible for and take them by métro to the UCParis Center. After being sidetracked by a request for help from the student whose baggage was lost last saturday, I headed downstairs in a rush—only to find merely one of five students waiting for me in the lobby. After a bit of waiting, another one showed up. Finally, I went back upstairs and found the rest of them catching up. With a bit of hustle (and a stop at the boulangerie), we made it into the métro and to the Center relatively problem-free.

Once I got there, however, it was non-stop. All the students needed to be enrolled into the virtual clasroom for their courses right away. One of the old (virtual) courses from the summer should've been copied into a new version for the fall. An unexpected student has arrived and she needs to be added to everything.

As I began to deal with that, I was called away to speak to the students about how to get onto the WiFi at the Center. As I finished with my little presentation (which I stumbled through in french then english), I returned to my office, only to be followed by five students as class broke for lunch. All of them couldn't get onto the network, and it took almost half an hour before I figured out that there was a capitalization error beteween the actual password and the paperwork I had found in my office when I arrived. Thank goodness for Keychain Assistant on MacOSX! I was able to hack into my own keychain and figure out what my WiFi WEP key was and compare it against the one on paper. I like simple solutions. In the midst of all of this, Val and I were trying to find a way to update the builds on all of the laboratory computers without interfering with classes—despite some odd complications and a conflict with labor day in the US (i.e., nobody in Chicago was answering their email).

The rest of the day was full of similar problems, tasks and occasional solutions; good moments, bad moments, but all of them intense. For the sake of professionalism (and ethics) I won't go into details about the inner workings of the Centre. The end of that story was that I wrapped up the day exhausted, but moderately pleased with my performance on rapidly shifting ground.

From here, the story pics up after my encounter with the pink Lego™ bunnies. After thinking ahead and actually making a reservation, we finally ate at Brasserie Bofinger—the same brasserie we had tried to get into yesterday. As you might gather from yesterday's post, this place served awesome seafood and I was really eager to go. Val started with the soupe à l'ognion, which she professed to be the best she's ever had, and I ate the millefeuille de crabe et pomme Granny as an appetizer. With a name like millefeuille, I was expecting some sort of layered confection of crab meat and crisp, thin-cut apple slices; the contrast of crunchy acidulated apple slices and soft, wet crab meat would've been perfect. Alas, the plate I got consisted of three blobs of crab meat interspersed with three dessicated (and thus chewy) slices of apple. The flavour was still mind-blowing, but the texture wasn't what I expected.

The main dish, on the other hand, totally surpassed all expectations. Val got some sort of beef preparation that I totally forgot as I was swept away by my main dish. I got the choucroute de la mer, which included a mound of Alsatian sauerkraut (stay with me, here), a langoustine, several pieces of delicately prepared fresh fish and a pool of the most amazing butter sauce. It tasted like a salty caramel, scented with a combination of spices that were too subtle for me to detect.

Finally, the dessert. Val got a chocolate cake, which I also completely forgot about, because I had le trou normand. So, I realize that this translates into "The Norman Hole," but bear with me. This is a sundae-sized glass cup, filled with 3 scoops of green apple sorbet (essentially, green apples crushed and frozen), decorated with a lattice of hardened caramel and fruit, with a side of calvados (apple-based) liqueur. You take the calvados, dump it on the sorbet, and eat. Holy !@#$ it was delicious.

All in all, it was good to be Luis by the end of the night. The evening was only marred briefly by the waiter at the end of the meal. We pulled out a coupon that gave us a %20 reduction for the meal and he didn't like it one bit. He eventually took it, but not without a fair bit of hostility. Ah well, at least the food was good!

Space Invaders!

Is that a Freudian slip or a Jungian synchrony? Whether id or collective unconscious, this was what caught my eye as I was sauntering over to the Télégraphe métro station on some errands this morning. Apparently, this guy takes the pixellated image of space aliens from early ATARI games, turns the pixels into glass tiles, and makes mosaics. More fascinating, is how he lays them up on these crazy locations around the city. I mean, this one was about 3 metres above the ground, on the wall of an ancient cemetary. How does one lay tile stealthily?

Anyway, the day that led up to this discovery started rather early. I got up, with the intention to head out early with Val to l'Orangerie. The night before, I had told Val "Oh, you really have to go. It's this lovely converted train station and there's tons of great late 19th and early 20th century art—and we must have lunch in the beautiful salon!" (Now, those of you who are familiar with l'Orangerie and another certain museum will detect a forthcoming irony in all of this.) I had to be back to the residences by 3pm to give a tour of the neighborhood to the incoming students, so the plan was that Val and I would hit the museum in the morning, then lunch, then I'd head back to the residences while Val continued to look around. I got up early, but checked the hours for l'Orangerie and discovered that they only opened for individual guests (in contrast to groups) after 12:30pm.

Not wanting to wake Val up unnecessarily, I left her an email about this, then I headed out into the quartier. With my extra time, I thought, I could walk to the nearest métro station and prepare for the afternoon tour, which would culminate in a visit to the métro to buy cartes oranges. These are weekly or monthly metropasses that require a permanent ID card and a corresponding coupon that works like a perpetual subway ticket for its duration. The ID card was important (to be caught without it brings down a heavy fine), and this card required a particular form and an ID photo from a photo cabin—both of which were available at most métro stations. To make things go more smoothly, I decided to get these forms in advance and secure the location of the nearest cabine foto.

The nearest photo booth wasn't in the Porte des Lilas station, but the next one over: Télégraphe. I walked over, picked up the carte orange forms, checked out the photo booth, and then walked out of the station and into the SPACE INVADERS! mosaic. After getting a few shots of it, I continued on my way back home. At some point along the way, I passed a boulangerie that had strategically directed the exhaust fans from their kitchens to the street. As I passed through that miasma of baking bread, I couldn't help but duck in and buy a baguette and a pain au chocolat (something like a pastry roll full of chocolate). Just to be completely french about it, I ate my pain au chocolat on foot, then hit a café looking over the place and had a coffee with my still-warm baguette keeping me company.

As I enjoyed my coffee, I called Val to catch up with her. She had some amusing news for me: after doing a bit of web research, it became clear that the museum I had been hyping hadn't been l'Orangerie, but the Musée d'Orsay. Dammit. Thankfully, Val hadn't been to Orsay either, so we still made plans to go.

After a quick stop at home, I zipped over to the Musée d'Orsay to meet Val—that walk from the Invalides stop was a lot longer than I remembered! We discovered that this museum has free entry on the first sunday of every month (today!) which made me feel a bit better about eating lunch and then dashing without re-visiting the contents of one of my favourite museums. The food in the museum's "fancy" restaurant was delicious, and Val caught up with me in the embarassment department (see last night) by spraying sugar all over herself. I had opened a sugar packet for my coffee, then realized that it was delicious without it, so I offered it to Val for her tea. Not realizing it was already open at one end, she grabbed the other end and flicked it to gather the sugar on the other end. Instead, she sprayed herself and part of the table. Thankfully, Val dealt with the situation with grace (unlike I, who laughed like the uncultured jerk I am) and didn't hit diners on either side of her.

With lunch taken care of, I bid farewell to Val and the musée d'Orsay, then zipped back home for the orientation tour. All in all, things went surprisingly smoothly: I made them fill out their carte orange cards; I gave them a tour of the residences; I walked them towards the métro station; we stopped on the way to take out cash; I helped them get their pictures taken and buy their carte orange coupons; we walked back as I pointed out useful stores and services; and at some point I gave them the safety lecture (i.e. "Treat this neighborhood as you would Hyde Park in Chicago"). At some point, I also showed them the Space Invaders mosaic near métro Télégraphe, and one of the students immediately found another one a block down. I've made a mental note to post that one on here as well! After all of that, I spent another hour or so helping one of the students call Air France to look into her lost baggage, then I headed off to meet Val for dinner.

[side note: I saw a poster in Télégraphe that advertised an upcoming concert by Basiani in September. Yay! Basiani is a wonderful Georgian ensemble that would be the perfect counterpoint to the performance I heard the night before.]

At first, Val and I had plans to have a grand night out at Brasserie Bofinger. Despite the slighly amusing name (for anglophones), my sister and I ate there last summer and it was fantastic. The place is one of the first Brasseries in Paris (from 1864, I think), serving great food from Normandy and amazing seafood. In fact, they have a fishmongers' stand outside, filled with ice and displaying their various catches of the day. Everything is recently arrived from the coast and headed straight for your plate.

Alas, it was not to be—at least not tonight. Val had the bright idea to call ahead and we discovered that the place was full for the night. I suspect we could've shown up and waited for an opening (I think they only reserve for one seating), but instead we headed over to rue Mouffetard, famous bohemian restaurant row now mostly filled with tourist bait. Of course, I'm sure there are still great restaurants on this row—for example, Val would've taken me to her favourite Mediterranean restaurant, Savannah Café, if it were open that night—but the place we found was not so fantastic. Two paces south of the Savannah Cafe was a restaurant located in the house where Paul Verlaine died (as we learned from a prominently placed plaque) that lured us with its complex set of prix fixe menus and a "happy hour" offer that included free kir. Alas, my fish soup was adequate, my fisher's plate (a hunk of unidentified white fish with some sauce and rice) was unexciting and I've already forgotten what I ate for dessert. I'd like to say that I omitted the restaurant's name out of kindness, but the name was as forgettable as the food. Of course, the food was cheap, so that brings the tenor of my complaint town a couple notches. Ah well, you win some you lose some!

Epilogue:

On the way home, I had this moment on the subway (alot of these moments seem to happen on the subway, eh?) that has stuck with me. Shortly after I boarded, a man got on: young, tall, lanky, black (I'd guess from Côte d'Ivoire, but I'm no expert) and wearing the French version of hip-hop-associated clothing. Most notably, he had a little phone/mp3 player in his hand, blasting through it's tinny speakers what sounded like a cross between dancehall and 2-step with french lyrics. Although it was just a tiny thing, the device projected—especially the hi-hats, snares and vocals—across a large part of the subway car. Nobody else on in the car payed it any mind, except another young black man sitting across from him, who—seeming to know him—leaned over, shook his hand, and sat back in his seat for the rest of the ride.

This moment made me think about the more agressive side of music, sound and space—both good and bad. From its point of issue, sound tends to fill a space, surrounding people, resonating through bodies, invading orfices, and sometimes piercing thought. Notably, sound is rather hard to consribe in open, public spaces without expensive and cumbersome barriers or oppressive "noise" control. In this case, the efficacy of sound as a form of resistance or confrontation is ambiguous at best; perhaps some riders detested the imposition, perhaps some delighted in the impropmtu serenade, perhaps some of them stuck their iPods in their ears and turned up the volume. Nonetheless, this use of sound put the burden of intervention on the shoulders of his fellow travellers. If someone wished interfere with this sound field, she or he would have to put finger in ear, ask him to turn his device down or off, get off at the next stop, or turn up his/her own music. For a few minutes on the #11 line of the Paris métro, this man compelled a carload of strangers to a reactive stance. Whether they liked it or not, he put them all into a virtual, potential state of defensiveness.

And then, as if on a whim, he flipped as switch and the sound, his sound, dissipated. Although he may have been fulfilling the unsaid wishes of some of those around him, he made it all a moot point. By cutting his own music while the reactions of those around him were still in the virtual realm of the future, he turned the potential will of others into concrete actions of his own. His work done, he stood up and got off one stop before me. Not a word was said.

Hi Mom!

So, every photographic travel journal requires the "hi mom!" picture. It's almost a genre unto itself. This is the picture where you stand in front of something pretty, make yourself look like the respectable and responsible kid your mother thinks you are, and then wave for the camera. Here I am! This is to repay mom for all the vacations and backpacking tours I've taken where I've only taken pictures of landscapes and buildings.

Rosemary and Georgian Polyphony

Today was one of those mildly frustrating days where you start with one itinerary, and slowly watch it come apart and (hopefully) reassemble itself. So, to balance the tone of this post, let me start with a real surprising upturn to my day: ROSEMARY! That's right: I was walking past the garden in the entryway to my building and saw this patch of wildflowers:but when I looked (and smelled) closer, I saw this:ROSEMARY!! !@#$ YEAH!!! I realize my reaction was a bit over the top, but this was delicious, pungent, lemony rosemary, growing in bushes in front of my domicile. When I've finally washed the dishes that were left in my apartment, I'm going to buy me some chicken and have a rosemary-lemon hoedown.

So, the plan for the day was that I would wait for the 4 remaining students to arrive today, and then I would call Val and we would head out to spend the rest of the day wandering around Paris and eating. Although I was scheduled to be waiting at the residences from 10-4, I presumed that most of them would come in the morning, since the direct flights from Chicago usually arrive overnight around 9:30am. Of course, I didn't think about two things:

1. non-direct flights, and
2. lost luggage delays.

You can perhaps see where this is going...

I got the first call from security at the front desk at 11am, and I thought to myself, "Here they are! I'll just waltz down and give them a quick how-do-you-do-here's-your-room and then tell them where to buy toilet paper." Don't think I was trying to shirk my responsibilities; I was going to give them a group tour of the building and neighborhood the next day, so that was all they needed. Anyway, I get downstairs and there's just one guy. I nonetheless greet him and take him to his room, but on the way I discover that he didn't fly in—in fact, he had been in Paris for a few days already. So the tide of arriving kids hadn't happened yet.

I wrap up the welcome and head back to my place and work a bit on my blog, check a bit of email, and generally kill time while I wait. I manage to get onto iChat with Val at her hotel, so I tell her about that Georgian choral music concert tonight and convince her to make a night of it. The concert is located in a church on Île Saint-Louis that happens to be near France's best ice creamery (Berthillon) as well as an amazing specialty olive store (Oliviers & Co.). Oh, and another place I had up my sleeve, called The Beaver. Oh yes, you read that right. I can live in Paris and have poutine.

Anyway, my chat with Val was interrupted by some IT issues (i.e. someone was having trouble connecting to the wireless network at the residences). While fixing that, I finally met the person living in the room with the other DSL/wireless setup—which had been busted for a while, apparently—so I quickly wrapped up problem #1 and headed down to this other room to fix the DSL modem & router. After nearly an hour of running back and forth from my room to hers, getting locked out of my room, and searching the web for support on the Linksys ADSL2MUE modem, I made two discoveries:

1. Linksys' online support is USELESS; and
2. This particular modem is CRAP

Despite the fact that this was nowhere mentioned on Linksys' support site, a solid red power light (as opposed to green) mean total and irrevocable failure (i.e. I hope it's still under warranty). If the online discussion boards are any indication, this has happened a lot, and sometimes repeatedly to the same person. Hooray! The DSL/WiFi setup in my room uses the same model! I can't wait to see what fun this brings me.

All of this mess nearly made me forget that it was already 2pm and nobody else had arrived. Finally, suddenly, I get a phone call. It's not the front desk, it's a student, calling from the airport and telling me that her luggage has been lost and she gave my phone number as her contact number. Sigh. Rather than taking a speedy taxi, she was taking the RER from the airport, transferring through the mess that is Châtelet, and then the métro 11 all the way back out to Porte des Lilas. Sigh.

To make a long story less long (I'm not going to pretend this is short), it took more than an hour for her to get here and get settled in, by which time it was well past 4pm and there were still 2 more students due to arrive. At that point, I dropped off their welcome envelopes with the security guard at the front desk (who took care of assigning them their rooms, anyway), and headed out to see Val. I had a dinner and a concert, dammit.

In my absence, Val had busied herself by wandering up to BHV near Hôtel de Ville (a department store much like Target for the French) to buy herself a hair-dryer, and in the process she also got herself a crêpe. So she wasn't really famished for a full dinner. So, we ditched the restaurant plans, but still headed for Île Saint-Louis. After all, there was still "Le Beaver" and poutine. We hit Berthillon for some earth-shakingly good ice cream (and no lineup!!) and then over to the olive store, where I bought a few containers of Lucques and Cailletier olives (who knew there were so many kinds?) and Val bought nearly half the store as gifts for everyone she knew. The salesperson was kind enough to ask me with a straight face if I was French, which would've totally earned her a tip if she was my waitress.

As we stepped out, I realized that my phone had rung a few times and I hadn't heard it. As it turned out, the phone's ringtone wasn't working; it would only vibrate, which I couldn't feel when the phone was in my bag. So I checked my voice messages to find a very confusing message from the security guard at the residences. I called back and clarified things, although not by much: one of the expected students arrived; another one didn't; and another un-expected student arrived. As far as any of us knew, she wasn't due to arrive until October. With reassurances from the security guard that all was fine, we set off to The Beaver for a pint of Strongbow cider and some poutine. Mmmm. Poutine. It made the whole day a lot brighter...and greasier.

I followed my cider with a beer (Québécois Fin du Monde, to be specific) without thinking that I hadn't eaten anything that day except for 1/2-bowl of poutine... ...so I arrive at the concert a bit tipsy (notice a trend in these last few posts?) and try to purchase our tickets. Here's where the comedy begins. Making an effort not to slur my words, I ask how much admission is. The gentleman is kind enough to give me a student rate (even though I'm over 26), and then he says, "Hmm...10, 20, 30." What I hear is: "10...30." Which I interpret as €10.30. So I hand him a €20 bill and then ask him to wait while I fetch the 30. He thought I was going for a €10 bill, when in fact I whipped out my change purse, partially spilling its contents across his table, and fished out 30 cents. He looked at this and said "C'est quoi, ça?" which translates roughly to "What's this?" but with a disapproving tone that doesn't translate well. After a moment of confusion, he finally realizes what I was too dizzy to formulate: "Oh, it's €30." With the faith in my French skills in tatters, I sheepishly ponied up my money and took a seat with Val.

But it's not finished yet. Just before the concert begins, this same man comes to my seat holding a bag that looks suspiciously similar to the rather expensive olives I just bought. Aware that I am clearly too stupid to speak French he asks in English, "Euh...Is this yours?" Val was kind enough not to laugh outright at me; she only chuckled.

The concert itself was nice, although €30 for 2 people in the non-reserved seats seemed like a bit much for what sounded like an amateur ensemble. Mind you, I don't know that they were amateur, but that would explain a lot of things. The main tenor singer was very tentative in most of his solos, and tended to be drowned out when he did k'rimanchuli parts (i.e. yodeling). How can you yodel and be drowned out by a handful of voices? Also, tuning was an issue; it was clear that they were trying to emulate the particular tuning systems of particular areas in Georgia, but they didn't sound like they meant it. When an ensemble like Trio Kavkasia or Anchiskhati sing "in tuning," it was always clear to my ear that they weren't making a mistake. That flat interval was supposed to be flat, and that sharper one couldn't be anything else. With this ensemble, it was less clear. They had good moments and bad moments. Ultimately, it was a good but expensive amateur concert, or a loose and underexperienced professional concert. Am I being a bitch about this? Of course I am.

At the end of all of this, there was a minimal techno night that I had discovered online while checking the listings for this Georgian concert. It was at a neat-looking place called Glaz'Art a few minutes away from my place. It started at 11pm. I could've gone. But I ate poutine. All I could do was run home, take out my contact lenses, and write this post.

The Not-So-Calm Before the Storm

Fabienne had been sure that several students were arriving today, so I got up early, got dressed, and sat in my room with my cell phone by my side. I waited until 1pm, when it became clear that nothing was happening. The morning flight from Chicago arrives at 9:00am, so most of those arriving should have already been here. At that point, I left my cell # with Fabienne and headed off towards the UCParis Centre. On the way, I stopped at the boulangerie near the métro station and got an amazing tomato-chêvre sandwich. It was nearly half a baguette and tons of filling.

Now, I would normally have taken the métro to get to the Centre, but Sebastien recommended that I try the surface bus that runs along the periphery of the city, since that brought you from Porte des Lilas (near my place) to Masséna SNCF (near the Centre) without the mess of transferring beetween the #11 and the #14 métro lines at the Châtelet station. Although the bus was simpler and pretty convenient, it was also rather slow in traffic and didn't necessarily take less time. However, there were two upsides to this trip. The first is that I found this awesome bit of graffitti while walking towards the Center: and I got to witness French people being French in a way that occurs less often on the métro. A large family got on and asked a man near the front of the bus to relinquish his seat for one of the two old ladies in their group. The man refused flatly, accusing them of racism because they asked him before the white people on the bus, and the family burst into various expressions of disapproval and shame: "It's shameful, the way you comport yourself." Also, the bus driver nearly collided with a car full of plumbers, and the subsequent series of snide comments and snooty insults was worth the price of admission.

I arrived to the Centre to see Val already at work. She had managed to give Isabelle her CNetID and was in the process of trying to request a Chalk site on her behalf. Part of the problem was that we didn't have a course number, since the registrar @ UofC doesn't provide the Centre with course numbers for their courses. Since this was only for the Chalk system (and doesn't need to work with the registrar), we just made it up. Nonetheless, we had to wait until our Chalk expert in Chicago, Jamie, woke up and got to work. A few moments of iChat later, we had things figured out. I spent another hour or two getting orientation information from Arnaud and Stéphane, which explained an earlier mystery: no students arrived this morning because they were supposed to arrive tomorrow. Also, I eventually figured out that the phones at the residences didn't work because U of C wasn't paying to have them "open," so to speak. In other words, the phones are now a pay-as-you-go system similar to payphones, where you buy a carte téléphonique to make calls.

As I was preparing to leave, Sebastien surprised me with a nice bottle of white Alsatian wine (which I love). Since I didn't have a large bag with me that day, Val took it to the hotel and I've been trying to get it from her since. =]

I left the Centre and headed back to my place for a bit to drop off the orientation materials, do a bit of internet work (i.e. check email), and then head off to the nearest supermarket for some supplies. On my way, it became clear that I was in a Jewish neighborhood, because the café near the entrance to the shopping centre had signs that said "All your shabat needs served!" At the supermarket (which was surprisingly large and complete) I picked up a few more food basics—garlic, oil, butter, chocolate, cheese—and some home-care stuff, such as: laundry detergents, dishsoap, clothes hangers, etc. Apparently, Lindt has a new chocolate bar that incorporates passionfruit filling into dark chocolate squares. Delightful! The best part about the shopping trip was watching a couple shop with their mother, who seemed to be recently moved into the area. She complained consistently about the price of everything, and actually started cursing when she saw the price of laundry detergent.

Eventually I returned to my place and dropped of my stuff (and ate a bit of chocolate), then headed off to the Latin Quarter for dinner with Val. (On a totally unrelated note, Val can write off any dinner she has with me as a travel expense.) We tried that Georgian restaurant again, and they were open. The first thing I did was order a big serving of ხაჭაპური (khach'ap'uri: cheese bread), which is essentially bread filled to the brim with melted cheese. It's as good as it sounds. I had the ლობიო (lobio: red kidney beans & walnuts) as an appetizer, while Val had a salad with bits of Gesier confit (gizzard confit). For the main dish, we both had the the chicken ხარჩო (kharcho: usually a thick beef stew, but chicken here), which was delicious and reminded me of my mom's Peruvian ajì de gallina with cardamom added. For dessert, we both had a cream custard covered in chocolate sauce. It was !@#$ amazing, although I can't remember the name for it. My only complaint was that the 4 people next to us seemed to be taking turns lighting their cigarettes so that we would not have to suffer clean air during the entirety of our meal. I suppose I better get used to it.

After having imbibed several glasses of red wine, we stumbled our separate ways home. On my way back, I noticed a poster for a concert tomorrow night of Georgian choral music, at the same church (Saint Louis-sur-l'île) where Carla and I happened upon a concert of the Georgian choral music last summer ('05). Fancy that! Now I also have an excuse to go to Berthillon (an amazing ice cream shop on the same island).

Sleepless in paris

So, just becuase this post is dated to a different day, don't presume that it wasn't anything more than a hellacious extension of Aug 30th. I know that the best way for my body to re-set its clocks is to just stay awake until next nightfall, so I stayed up for the entire flight, taking coffee at every opportunity and reading Richard Leppert's introduction to Adorno : Essays on Music. That's right. Until the rest of my books get here, I have Adorno and Erik Larson's Devil in the White City to read. Of course, my plan is to hit the bookstores in the Latin Quarter later this week to bulk up on French-language books.

After a long but uneventful flight, we (me and my Chicago-based boss for this job, Val) arrive in Paris near 10:00am local time (about 3am CST). We stagger through the terminal at Charles De Gaulle and get to the contrôle passeport, which consisted in glancing at my passport and then waving me through. Seriously. I don't think they even realized I was here on a student visa. Not a word was uttered. After the flaming hoops of fire that I must jump through every time I enter the US, this totally threw me—even though I've travelled to Europe many times before. How times/politics change, eh?

We made our way through what Val called the "habitrail" part of the terminal (escalators and glass tunnels) to baggage claim, where we waited for what seemed like hours. I suppose it seemed like hours because we were standing next to a pile of abandoned luggage that was leaking some yellow-coloured fluid and smelled like fish that was just beginning to rot. Welcome to Paris!

As soon as we claimed our luggage and walked into the main part of the terminal, we were accosted by a long line of unlicensed taxi drivers, trying to convince us to use their services. I've heard enough horror stories about what they do to unsuspecting tourists, so I gave them a "Non, merci. Ça va. Non. NON. Laisse tomber." We eventually found the taxi/limo stand; I asked an attendant whether the taxis took credit cards, and he pointed me to another attendant, who pulled us out of line and put us into a new line that I think she spontaneously created in front of everyone else. Ignoring the glares, she called over a taxi. When I asked the taxi cab driver if he took credit, he said "Oh, my machine isn't working." So I just shrugged and got back in line. At that moment, the attendant got really animated and asked me what's wrong. When I said that the cabbie didn't take credit, she looked very stern and told the driver, "That's a refusal of service." Whatever that meant, the two stepped away for a moment and exchanged some heated words. When they came back, the cabbie told me "Well, if my machine doesn't work, we'll have to stop at an ATM to get cash." And then the attendant told me, "If he doesn't take your card, you send an email to this address, with the cab's license number."

After that experience, I spent the entire drive to my place watching the road carefully, trying to make it clear to the cabbie that he can't drive in circles to make a profit from me. My experience in Europe (and most travel destinations, really) is that as soon as you're marked as a tourist/traveler, you're subject to a different code of ethics, called "It's not exploitation if they don't understand." It goes both ways, I suspect.

Anyway, I finally arrived at Residence Lila, and Val continued off to her hotel. Here's a picture of the view from my apartment! Notice the lovely construction. I haven't posted the promised pictures of my apartment yet, since I want a moment to unpack and put my stuff away. Suffice it to say that the colour scheme of my room is orange and maroon. Figure-toi. After a kind stranger helped me drag my stuff into the building, I waited around for a bit until one of the receptionists, Fabienne, arrived. After filling out a bit of paperwork, I dragged my ass upstairs and dropped off my luggage. I took a moment to explore the apartment, and discovered that it was missing a few key elements, such as toilet paper. I made a mental note to pick some up. I had told Val I would call her at her hotel once I got settled, so I changed my shirt and headed outside to find a Tabac so I could buy a phone card. When I asked Fabienne where to find a Tabac, she gave me directions, but also told me that there were telephones in Arnaud's room. So instead, Fabienne gave me a tour of the building, then opened Arnaud's apartment to pick up a phone as well as the DSL modem and wireless router that I was to set up in my room (the U of C kids demanded a wireless network in the residences, of course).

I returned to my room, installed the phone, and tried to call Val, but the phone line didn't work. It was clear that I'd need the cell phone that the UCParis centre was going to lend me. Fabienne certainly didn't have the cell phone on her, so my only hope was that Arnaud (another Arnaud) or Sebastien had it at the centre. Fabienne was kind enough to let me use the phone at the reception for the time being, then I hit a Tabac to get a phone card. (Tabacs in France not only sell tobacco, but also transit tickets, phone cards, lottery, etc.)

I eventually found my way to the Métro station, where I bought my Carte Orange (monthly metropass) for the month of September and a few extra tickets for the last day of Aug. Some time later, I finally made it to the UCParis centre, which is near the Bibliothèque Nationale on the Eastern end of the city just south of the Seine. As soon as I got there and spoke to the receptionist, Sebastien appeared to greet me. He gave me a warm welcome and showed me around the place, which is quite lovely. Very new and full of pale wood and white—check out the UCParis centre link above for a photo tour.

A few moments after that, I met the rest of the crew, including Isabelle, Hélène, Arnaud, Sylvie, Stéphane, as well as the outgoing director of the centre, Robert. (The guy who will be in charge during my time here is Philippe Desan.) Everyone was really nice and I was delighted with how excited Isabelle (a French language instructor) was to use Chalk (U of C's on-line classroom software). While I was there, Sebastien dug up the cell phone that I would be using (it's a monochrome NOKIA from the 90s!) and I was set to go. The battery was nearly dead on the phone, but I borrowed Arnaud's phone to call Val and we headed off for dinner. Keep in mind that I still haven't slept at this point.

I met Val at her hotel, near the Luxembourg gardens in the Latin Quarter, and we headed off to get some food. It was still pretty early for dinner in France (maybe 5pm), so some restaurants weren't open. Val knew a really amazing place for cassoulet, but unfortunately it was no longer there. I knew of a Georgian place called Pirosmani (a famous Georgian artist, I think), but they weren't open yet. We hit a café on the Place Saint-Michel for a bit of coffee and people-watching, then hit the road again. The Georgian place still wasn't open, so we headed towards another place that Val knew about, called Brasserie Balzar. It just so happened that the special of the day was cassoulet, so we ordered some. Before the cassoulet, we each had a Kir Royal (champagne + cassis) and then a 1/2-bottle of wine with the meal. As the alcohol and beans and meat began to kick in, what was then more than 24-hours of non-stop wakefullness began to crash in on me (and Val). Considering all I had was a kir and a couple glasses of wine, I felt surprisingly drunk and profoundly tired.

We quickly got the bill and headed our separate ways. I was so tired I nearly fell asleep on the métro. The métro!! That's how tired I was. But I also realized that my apartment was still missing a few rather crucial things, so I dragged my ass to the Franprix near my métro stop and got some toilet paper, water, paper towels and milk. Why milk? Because milk in Europe is always better. And I felt like I deserved a bottle of organic whole milk. I certainly did after waiting in line at the cashier, half-drunk and mostly asleep, while the woman in front of me conducted an argument with her spouse across the entirety of the store. It was a small miracle that I got home at all. Finally, after all of that mess, I got home, had a swig of milk, and got ready for bed.

Thankfully, I managed to get the DSL modem and wireless router working without too much trouble, so I finally started this blog post (although I finished it later) and then crashed into bed.

On my way out

So, I'm actually posting this a bit after the fact, since the WiFi connection at the O'Hare terminal that I PAID $$$ FOR didn't work.

Wednesday morning, I got up at 7am after a late and very alcohol-addled night at Big Chicks. After taking some ibuprofen and finishing the last dregs of milk in my fridge, I went about packing my last few things, taking a shower, and dropping off some final items with Erika. Finally, I compulsively weighed both of my checked luggage—as I did the previous two nights—flaunting United Airlines' baggage allowance limit by bringing them both to 49lbs. and no more.

Due to some staggering generosity, Greg took me to the airport in his new car. I insisted on leaving Hyde Park around noon, even though my flight wasn't till 6:00pm, because I've been screwed by Chicago traffic before—and never again!! While Greg was on his way, I picked up some dry cleaning (thank GOD they got it done on time) and some ghetto mexican food at Pepe's on 53rd (not as bad as it looks).

Of course, this time Chicago traffice gave me the reverse-screw and we were at the airport in 40mins. Greg magnaminously helped me take my luggage to the terminal, where I checked in very, very early. Then, we went up to the top of the parking garage and watched planes take off. We had coffee and pastries. In retrospect, we should've brought beer.

Around 3:00pm, I finally went through security and started waiting. After a quick meal at Woflgang Puck's Let's Pretend This Isn't Airport Food, I sat at my gate, with my laptop open, trying desperately to make the !@#$ing WiFi at the airport work.

Needless to say, it wasn't that easy. What I didn't realize was that upcoming flights requently change gates, and certain airports don't see fit to announce that (ahem). So, when I got in at 3:00pm, the gate for my flight was C1. By 5:30pm, when I finally started to wonder why no-one had announced a flight to Paris, the gate was C21. Based on the range of numbers, you can guess how far I had to run. So, out of breath and sweaty for an 8-hour flight, I finally started my voyage...