Alert the media!

An accordion player (sans a beret/striped shirt/neckerchief/baguette/cigarette/etc, much to my chagrin) jumped onto my metro car today!!! But then as soon as I got off at my transfer station I heard jazz saxophone playing what sounded like either "Blue Moon" or "Cruella DeVille", confirming my suspicion that for every one step forward the French music scene takes (to assert itself in my life as something quintessentially French), it takes two steps backward (into American songs. Merde. Is it too much to ask to hear something foreign???)

Une Parisienne?

J'ai beaucoup de fierté to say that I was asked for directions by 3 lost wanderers in Paris...apparently I look like I know my way around the metro and Montparnasse (hint: I do.)  I know (some of) the cheapest and most fulfilling places for lunch near school, the fastest metro ride, as well as the most scenic, and which stop to get off at in order to avoid the Penn Station of Paris, which leads to what one of my guidebooks said is the Times Square of Paris (and to that I ask: have you been to Times Square? Because Place du 18 Juin 1940 in nothing like it...shall I count the ways? For starters, I have yet to see anyone wearing a dirty Elmo costume or selling comedy show tickets). I am starting to figure out many other things as well, and I can feel the lag period of my adjustment starting to ease up a bit. 

*Funny things seen in metros: French people singing songs with English lyrics without (apparently) knowing how to actually pronounce any English words at all. Today, the musical selection was "Hotel California", which I never realized had such a high degree of English linguistic difficulty until I heard the sweet sounds of "ohhalll alllioooaaa  suuuh looolyyy pppaaay...seee uuummmaahhh ehhhh" echoing in the hallways

Un rhume

J’ai attrapé un petit rhume ce week-end. It wasn’t bad, just a time-out from my immune system. It’s easy to forget to recharge here, because there is just so much to do (and I keep having nightmares that I am back in the states and this all went too fast, for two weeks in Paris is simply not enough). The last couple of days turned into a chance for (obligatory) sleep, tea avec miel, and pajamas, as well as organizing my life, figuring out how I am going to make order out of the chaos of my schedule, planning more places to go and things to see, and just slowing down. 

The results:

Bakeries to taste test:

Rose bakery

Le Pain au Naturel

Bob’s Kitchen (for bagels...just to see if they are anything like home)

Bagels and Brownies (which, if it is as good as the internet makes it out to be, could be my new school lunch spot)

La Liberté

Angelique

Places near school that I’ve yet to check out:

Creperie Julien

Closerie des Lilas

Les Deux Magots/Café de Flore (just to say I’ve been there, I know they are probably nothing more than tourist traps at this point, sadly)

Coffee Parisien

Tea & Tattered Pages

The Catacombs 

Parnasse 138

Le Dôme Café

Rue Vaugirard

Le Select

And, what would a lazy weekend be without some youtubing?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrIJjB_dyP0 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZxDf-_l43g&feature=fvwrel - actually I saw part of this one on tv today, I didn't know they were using Audrey Tatou's biopic about my life as a Chanel perfume commercial!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRrysGj_mxc&feature=fvst ... actually not that far off from how I probably look while trying to use the French hose-style sit-down(?) shower-bath nonsense
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRvJylbSg7o ... the angry comments only make it all the more poignant.
even though Paris looks a tad bit closer to this right now,  
nobody does an opening sequence quite like Woody Allen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVoDASJ27CQ&feature=related

April2117's photostream

April2117's photostream on Flickr.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=edYHlnhxyOI

Une list

It's been quite the busy couple of weeks - I feel like I haven't even done that much yet. MAIS, I have most certainly made use of my time here so far, a mon avis:

Number of:
Weeks in Paris: 2
Visits to the Louvre: 2
Baguettes consumed: thousands..?
Crepes consumed: see above
croissants: I think you get the point
Number of accidental self-inflicted facial injuries: 3

• Number of aforementioned injuries inflicted at a world-renowned cultural institution: 1
• Number inflicted while trying to wake up in the morning: 2

French University classes attended: 3

• University classes in which I was so terribly confused, the professors may as well have been speaking about how much they like to eat babies: 3

Harry Potter books, en francais, successfully completed: 1

Times I have changed my mind about what I am going to do with this semester: 378023575938

Strolls along the Parisian boulevards: never quite enough

Cemeteries visited: 2

Shakespeare & Co perusals: 2

Bagels: 0 (whaaattt is happeninggg?)

rhumes: 1 (maintenant, bleh)

Times I've missed New York: ehh...0 (unless you count the bit of homesickness at the Jean-Jacques Sempe exhibit filled with New Yorker covers, or the times I've gotten lost in the metro (or when I realized there is no such thing as an express train),  during the classes that made no sense simply because they were in French, not because they were difficult, or when I miss mes amis americains)

Number of mimes, accordion players, men wearing berets and striped shirts and neckties while carrying a baguette and hating on America, obese people, poodles with the silly haircuts, [insert more classic French stereotypes here, etc]: 00000, zero, none. 

Bonjour, Gorgeous

 Zee Louvre...I finally made it here on Saturday, and it was just maaahhhrvelous. So much more meaningful than the last time I went to Paris as a young'un, since this time I actually knew what to look for and what I loved. Even if every other place in Paris was the ugliest thing you had ever seen in your entire life, you would still think it was the most beautiful city in the world after going to the Louvre

 Paolo & Francesca...la drama! L'amour! Les voyeurs (Dante et Virgil)! Si tragique!

 Death of Sardanapolous...gangstah

 Raft of the Medusa...after taking an art history class in which we spent an eternity on every painting David and Delacroix ever did, I felt like I could have given a tour on this painting alone. Also, it's gigantic, as are many of the other paintings I've only seen in a powerpoint. Much, much, much better in person.

 This is part of a painting of a Greek Massacre that I've seen many times in classes, but I never noticed the couple in the corner until I saw it up close and personal

 The Burial of Atala...je l'aime!!! C'est si belle! Et si tragique. I'll spare you the gushing, but this is one of my favorite paintings of all time, and I could have stared at it for hours

 La Grande Odalisque

 I've never seen this one before, I just noticed all the petit animals...turns out it is Noah's Ark, who would've thunk?

 Ah, Winged Victory

 Yeah I think this morning I'll drink my cafe out of my amethyst dragon goblet.

 No, make that my Lapis Lazuli seashell goblet

 No, no, my giant amethyst and jade goblet, that's the ticket. Ahhh, these make me wish I was a Byzantine king

 Cheval!

 oh hey, Venus de Milo, didn't see you there

 The ghosts of the Louvre past...

 Victory Stele of Naram-Sin

 Lamassu

 Hammurabi...Un oeil pour un oeil, une dent pour une dent

Ah, bonjour, Roi Soleil. The power.

Petit recap

Aujourd'hui I did a bit of shopping in the Marais(found a "Hippy Store", and a tiny bookstore with a lot of English-in-translation), had my first crepe and cafe since arriving (yum!), and found the graves of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre (which was covered in cherries, metro tickets, and cigarettes), and Marguerite Duras (decorated with flowers and seashells). I'm getting much more familiar with the area of Montparnasse, as well as the route on the metro to and from chez moi, but I am most certainly missing the grid of New York. However, I must say that I miss much less than I thought I would, at least so far. Paris might just be a city that has the power to successfully get me over my obsession with New York (gasp!), or at least my separation anxiety from it.
Ce week-end, I hope to go to the Louvre (I can't believe I have not gone yet! What?), do some neighborhood exploring in the 16eme, and perhaps go on more of a bookstore hunt. There is just so much! Also I will for sure be visiting more cemeteries, I find them to be fascinating and beautiful, especially with the types of graves found in Paris (un peu morbid peut-etre, but I don't care). How else could I get within inches of Edith Piaf or Oscar Wilde?

Cimetière Montparnasse