With the wind at my back, I don't ever even bat an eye

"Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule." -Samuel Butler

Plans will get you nowhere here. Loose plans or ideas are fine, but specific things will more than likely not happen, at least not when you want them to. You plan for your plans to be interrupted. But that's half the excitement of Paris, a wrong turn can take you down a street you never would have stumbled upon otherwise. These streets can take you pretty much anywhere.

And the metro can really take you anywhere. I love the metro here. It's so efficient and it has so much character. You never know what to expect. I have quite a long metro ride to class in the mornings because they are doing construction at the stop where I would normally change lines. I don't mind too much though, it gives me a chance to de-stress in the mornings. There's something incredibly peaceful about seeing the world zoom by all around you while you just sit and take it all in. There's no point in being rushed, you can't make the metro go faster. So you might as well enjoy the ride. I'm finding my metro rides to be equivalent to the time I would spend driving in Columbus. When I drive it's my time, just me and my music. The morning metro commute serves as the same sort of escape.

Thursday was a very low-key day. We decided to take it easy after the first day of class, plus we had a phonetics test the next day. For dinner on Thursday we had some wine in honor of Alexander McQueen courtesy of Mme Dugan. I love how integral wine is in French culture. AND we had the most amazing dessert. It was very simple, but very delicious. Mme Dugan made her own warm chocolate sauce (she repeatedly tells us that sauces are the most important component of any dish) and drizzled it over sliced bananas with a little bit of whipped cream on top. The simplicity of the food here amazes me. It doesn't sound like much but the combination of flavors and temperatures was to die for. I could not have been paired with a better host Mom.

Friday we had more class and the phonetics test, followed by another interesting Crous lunch. After Gabi finished class, we met at Monoprix to buy some groceries. A seemingly simple task like going to the grocery store can be an overwhelming adventure. It's always the little cultural differences that stick out to me the most. You have to pay to use carts here. ANd it doesn't come cheap. You have to feed a euro into the cart in order for it to unlock from the rest. Craziness. So far Pringles are the only common factors I've been able to find between American snacks and French snacks. Everything else is different. It's even an adventure picking out groceries!


Today Gabi and I wandered around our neighborhood and stumbled across some awesome stores and some interesting restaurants. Basically, we love where we live. It's an area that we probably would have never made the effort to see had we not lived here. But that's what's so great about it...it's very Parisian. It's relatively untouched by tourism, which makes for lower prices, friendlier service, and more overall charm. Tonight I believe we're going out in the Bastille area which we've never been to before, so hopefully it will be fun.

I can smell dinner right now. I don't know what she's cooking but it smells incredible.

Anywhere you go, Anyone you meet

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." -Marcel Proust

On Tuesday night we continued to make the most out of our last few nights before class started and go out in the Oberkampf area. Rumor has it that there are cheaper drinks to be found there, although I'm finding that cheaper is a very relative term. I'm starting to resign to the fact that an inexpensive night out is not be had until it gets warm enough to have cheese and wine picnics in the parks. Gabi and I left early so we could catch the metro home instead of paying for a cab. Plus we had to be up early because we decided to go to church in the morning!

We went to a 9am service at Notre Dame...there's just something about that place. I don't count myself as a particularly religious person but Notre Dame definitely gets to you--its a feeling that's very difficult to describe. The mass was short, around 45 minutes, and in French obviously, but very interesting to see. I would definitely be interested in going back to one. So after mass we wandered around the Ile St. Louis area for a bit in search of a creperie and a cafe that didn't cost us an arm and a leg.

Of course creperies are in abundance all over the city but it becomes inherently more difficult to find one when you're actually looking for it. We wandered for around for 45 minutes or so and finally decided the cold was too much. But I had my first crepe of the trip...nutella and banana, yummmmm. Then we hopped on the metro to go get our class schedule. We waited in a ridiculously long and confusing line before we found out that we didn't need to wait in line at all. Sometimes the language barrier causes all sorts of unnecessary waiting.



Dinner last night was delicious as per usual. I am in love with Mme Dugan's cooking--it's very, very French, it forces me to try new things, and it gives me ideas of meals I want to learn to cook when I come home :) We had ham wrapped endives with some sort of creme fraiche sauce with sauteed mushrooms and a flaky warm croissant type cheese thing. Either way it was awesome. And oftentimes dessert consists of bread and cheese, which I am more than okay with especially since Gabi and I have dark chocolate hidden away in our room.

Last night we had one last hurrah before classes started. We ventured to the girls' apartment for a wine, cheese, and bread get together. And can I just say...I'm in love with the bread here. We had an intense discussion at dinner about how Americans just don't make the same kind of bread and that if a French person were to open a REAL french bakery in the States, they would make a fortune. I couldn't agree more. Maybe that's what I'll do with my life ;)

Anyway so our wine/cheese/bread party was lots of fun. It's interesting when everyone gets together because we are all so very, very different. We come from all ends of the country and it's very curious to see the different sub-cultures that make up "American" culture in general. If anything I'm adjusting more to that than I am to French culture. But I have to say as different as everyone is, it's fun to find the common ground. Under normal circumstances, this group would probably never have all come together. But that's what so great about this, these aren't normal circumstances and you have the opportunity to meet people that you might never interact with otherwise.

This morning I started class. Navigating the metro by myself and actually being in class really gave me a jolt of realization--I'm really here. This thing that I've been planning for for years is actually playing itself out. It's actually happening. And I'm actually going to be here for an extended period of time. Up until today it's all sort of felt like an extended vacation.

I hope it gets warmer here. I have the sneaking suspicion that our heat is not working seeing as I'm under the covers in my bed with a sweater, hoodie, and wool socks on and I'm still chilled to the bone. I thought I left this all back in Ohio!

All we can do is keep breathing

"Remember what Bilbo used to say; it's a dangerous business Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept of to." JRR Tolkien

There's been a lot of wandering over the past few days. The thing I love about Paris is that each neighborhood has a very distinct atmosphere about it. The latin quarter is very intellectual, le Marais is very trendy, the Champs-Elysee is very glamorous, and our neighborhood (Le Canal St. Martin) is...if I had to choose a word...chill. It's not as fast-paced as some of the other districts, we've got the canal which makes everything more peaceful, but there are decent amount of boutiques and restaurant that have a lot of character. It's a blast to explore.

So over the past two days we've wandered throughout the Louvre, through a few food markets, in Le Marais, around our neighborhood, through some bookstores, and along the Seine. I love getting lost in this city. I'm so glad Gabi (my roommate) and I have that in common. And we're both food junkies. We can't wait until it gets warmer and we can have gourmet cheese and bread picnics in the parks.

But don't be fooled, there has been some trouble in Paradise as of late. First of all, not all of our meals are what one would describe as glamorous, or even Parisian. In an attempt to save some money, we've decided to take advantage of the subsidized lunches through the different Crous cafeterias throughout the city. It's sort of like a dining hall and we are very much out of place there. We're those weird foreign students that sit in the cafeteria speaking another language with no friends. And we don't exactly know how the system works yet; today the cashier made fun of us because we didn't know what to do. And we know he's making fun of us, but we don't know enough French to make a smart-ass comment back. BUT, it's a decent meal for 3 euro, which is unheard of in this city.

Also, the living situation is...interesting. I love living with Gabi, we have so many of the same ideas about what we want out of this experience and we get along great. Mme Dugan is...interesting. She's very accomodating, and she loves to talk with us. I feel bad because I think she gets lonely; her son is not a pleasant person and we get the sense that maybe her husband left her. So we have some interesting philosophical discussions every night at dinner. However, if there's one thing that I've learned so far, it's that the French are very stubborn (a trait I do recognize in myself so I have come to appreciate it in others to some extent). And the internet has been a bit dodgy since we've been here. Mme Dugan is under the impression that this is due to the fact that Gabi and I both have Macs. It's a belief that she is having a hard time letting go of. Her son, Damien, is under the impression that this problem is due to his mother. He likes to curse at her in french about it every time something goes wrong. And last night something went wrong. I won't get into details...all's well that ends well, but it was an experience.

But I suppose that's why I'm here. All about experiences. Good and bad and everything in between.

Save Tonight

"People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” – Dagobert D. Runes

Everyone and everything is interesting to me here. It makes me realize how unobservant I am at home. I am curious about the simplest things. I love watching people in the metro and imagining the kind of life they have or had; I especially find the homeless people interesting here. And those are people I definitely ignore at home. In general I'm more interested in people here. Whenever we go out, we're always looking to talk to different people and make new friends. It's a fun atmosphere to be in. I'm really just trying to take it all in.

So on Friday we had a very good dinner near the Louvre because Mme Dugan was having a party so we couldn't eat at the house. Then we met up with Bea and Keesean and got to wander around the Louvre at night! It had an incredibly different ambiance at night, very magical. I'm thinking that will turn into a Friday night ritual.

After the Louvre we went to the Latin Quarter to this Irish Pub to watch our German friend Jan perform. When we met Jan last Sunday, we all sort of thought he was a joke. He's an off the wall, crazy kind of person, so we didn't really have high hopes for his music. But we decided to go anyway. And thank God we did...he was AWESOME. Great music, great new friends, and we met all sorts of people, some Americans, some French, some girls from Holland. It was a great time. Gabi and I called it an early night though since we had to be meeting for Versailles at 10am.

Versailles was good to see again, I feel like I took it more in this time. It reminded me of the first time I was there with French Club and Eveline was our tour guide. Being here has this strange way of unlocking memories for me. It's somewhat refreshing to be out of my normal routine. Moral of the story about Versailles...those people never got the advice "Less is More."

Traveling around Paris all the time has this way of absolutely exhausting you. After Versailles, all I wanted to do is sleep. There's so much walking and waiting and thinking that I'm constantly doing but not even aware of it. Even just the effort it takes to constantly interact with people in French is exhausting. But it is becoming much more second nature which I'm so excited by!

So after a nap and a delicious dinner, Gabi and I shared a bottle of wine and met up with some friends from the group at Hotel De Ville. We had heard that Le Marais was a fun place to hang out and was a lot cheaper than a lot of the places we had been frequenting. While we were aware that this was technically the gay district we didn't realize they were so strict about it! They would take one look at all of us and tell the boys we were with "Desolee, pas de filles." No girls allowed. So we had to do some walking to find a place that would take all of us. But we finally did and we ended up having a great night.

Today we went to a Brocante, which is sort of like a flea market but on a little bit smaller of a scale. It was fun to wander around the stalls and look at all the old things. I got this awesome old cookbook in French...cookbooks are my weakness :) The people that owned the stands were so eager to tell you about all their things and the history behind them. That's the thing about French people...they seem cold and standoffish initially, but once you break through that exterior, they don't shut up. It's just a matter of making that first step.

Tomorrow is another visit to the Louvre. I'm so happy that I can take that museum bit by bit. When I was there the first time I felt so overwhelmed, but now that I know I have time to take it all in, I'm very excited about it. I'm eager to start class on Thursday. I'm so incredibly eager to be able to notice my French improving. I have a burning desire to really, really know this language. And I'd say right now I'm in a pretty good place to be able to do that.

I'll see you soon

"Do not anticipate the happiness of tomorrow, discover it today" Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Yesterday was definitely an adventure-flled day. In the morning Gabi and I met up with Addison so we could explore the largest covered market in Paris. The foodie in me was on overload--the cheese, and vegetables, and fruit, and meat, and wine!! Then we took the Metro to Montmartre in hopes of finding the vintage stores there. Well, we didn't find them...apparently we took the wrong way off the metro and should have descended down from Abessess instead of up (we would have much preferred to stay at the bottom, I think we climbed a million stairs). We ate a terrible and overpriced crepe in Montmartre and explored some of the artsy/touristy shops near Sacre-Couer.

We were looking at earrings in this jewelry store that had different jewelry based on what region/city of the world it would have come from. And I was particularly drawn to this one pair, and I kept coming back to it, and finally decided to pick them up and buy them. When I picked them up I noticed the particular rack I was looking at were earrings based off of cities in Spain, and the particular earrings I wanted were from Salamanca!! It's strange how sometimes you just gravitate toward something that comforts you. And while I definitely miss home, home a lot here...I find myself missing Spain significantly more here than back in the States. I think it might be because there are so many little things that are more similar but just a little off.

It's really the little things that remind me. It's drinking out of little cups that you constantly have to refill at dinner, it's the detachable shower head (that doesn't have the ability to attach to anything), it's the coffee, it's the more relaxed pace, it's eating dinner late. And I'm having so many of the same feelings as I had in Spain...I wander around in a constant state of awe of all the things around me, just trying to take it all in. As I meet all these new people here I find myself constantly thinking of Katie, Dana, and Alex. There's an old sign hanging in our kitchen that says "My Goodness, My Guinness!" and every morning it always makes me think of O'Harra's in Salamanca. It just makes me appreciate that much more how much of a unique experience Spain was, and how much potential Paris has as well.

Yesterday afternoon we went to Musee D'Orsay, which is an impressionist museum in an old train station in the heart of Paris. We took a guided tour (probably one of the best I've ever taken) and saw works from Van Gogh, Manet, Monet, and so many others. Well I definitely don't count myself as a particularly artistic person, I do love wandering around museums. I have the upmost respect for people who can think up these things and actually create something tangible like that out of their ideas.

Last night Mme Dugan definitely made up for the previous meal of tongues and nuts. We had crepes "typiquement de Brettagne" aka crepes with ham, eggs, and goat cheese. So simple, but so delicious. And we had an endive salad on the side...I'd never tried endives before but I was very pleased, I liked them a lot.

After dinner we met up with Addison again, we sipped on some belgian beer we had bought earlier that day while sitting in a park discussing literature, cinema, this experience, Paris, everything! Kelly would have been proud :) It was such stimulating conversation and so typically french drinking wine and beer in a park. Then we moved on to a cafe/bar called Hotel du Nord (THE cafe in Marcel Parne's Hotel du Nord). And we actually met french people! And we actually spoke french!! It was a great time. Then we moved out to a few more bars and finished the night with a nighttime stroll through the rain (parce que bien-sur nous sommes a Paris!).

Today we're doing some shopping Aux Grands Magasins (La Galerie Lafayette, Printemps, etc), I'm getting a french phone! And we're going to the Louvre at night, because we get FREE admission to the Louvre for a year!! Now we can take it exposition by exposition and not feel rushed. I'm so excited. So tonight should be another fabulous night...Paris je t'aime! ...But don't worry I still miss everyone a ton :)

Let It Be

"Live each season as it passes." -Thoreau

While last night I was definitely feeling a little homesick, tonight I feel completely energized and excited about everything that's to come. Of course I knew Paris was a city full of cultural and artistic opportunities, but today our directors gave us a TON of information on all the things we can do in this amazing city. My roommate, Gabi, and I have been anxiously planning our next few weeks since we got back from the meeting.

Last night we went out in the St. Germain-des-Pres area, and wow is Paris nightlife expensive!! We're going to have to start drinking the incredibly cheap but incredibly good bottles of wine in the parks before we go out, because 7 euros for a glass of wine just can't be justified. However, getting out of the house was a great cure for the homesickness.

So dinner was interesting tonight. We were absolutely starving after the meeting that lasted pretty much all afternoon and most of the evening. And we're being tortured with delicious smells creeping in from the kitchen. I am very pleased to see a giant heap of pesto covered pasta on my plate. I start to dig in and realize after a few minutes that my throat feels a little funny. I ask Mme Dugan what type of nuts she used to make the pesto. She replied that there were no nuts in the pesto (of course I know this is incorrect). After some insisting she checks the label on the pesto and finds out there are cashews in it. Awesome. So I had my first allergic reaction in Paris, but I suppose that was bound to happen eventually, best to just get it out of the way.

Also I'm pretty sure I ate tongue tonight. Like cow's tongue. It wasn't half bad. But I didn't dare confirm my suspicions for fear that my stomach would change it's mind.

So moral of the story so far--things are a little difficult, at times uncomfortable, and a bit overwhelming, BUT there is a lot to be gained from this experience and I've got to keep at it with an open mind. I'm just going to see where the wind takes me; it looks like it should be a pretty enjoyable ride :)

"Hello world, hope you're listening"

"Trust your intuition, the universe is guiding your life" --Fortune Cookie

So today I chose this quote because it was the one that gave me some sort of piece of mind when I was trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to in my life. I'm also hoping it can give me some comfort right now. After all it was my intuition that lead me here to Paris in some sense. So right now things seem difficult--I feel scattered and a little overwhelmed. The road ahead of me suddenly seems very long. But I've got to trust myself, I'm here for a reason and soon I'll look back on this and know that I had nothing to worry about. Hopefully.

Things will be much easier once classes start and I get into a routine. Then I'm sure the time will fly. Right now I'm getting acclimated to everything. Pretty soon I won't be late because I didn't think the induction stove would take so long to heat my INSTANT coffee (this is supposed to be Paris, what gives with the instant coffee?), and we'll know that the hot water heater only refills between 10pm and 6am--so don't use too much too early in the day. And I'll know that potatoes or beans are inevitable for dinner so I might as well get used to it. And soon I'll stop complaining, promise :)

I finally got to talk with my Mom today! And Amanda and Kelly and Madison :) People can grow separately without growing apart. They'll always be part of my life.

I found out today we'll be taking our classes pretty much in the heart of Paris--Notre Dame, Le Pantheon, and Les Jardins de Luxembourg are all just steps away. It's pretty amazing but also pretty intimidating to be in such an impressive setting. We still don't start class for more than a week but I'm very eager to get started. As for tomorrow...some Parisian shopping is in my near future. Hey, I have to take advantage of "les soldes" right?

Oh yes and I love the bread here. And the cheese. And I really might gain 20 pounds and I really might be 100% okay with that. Okay...trusting my intuition. Here goes nothing!