Je ne suis pas mort

As the day comes to a close, so marks the end of my first month in Paris.  A short month I'll admit, but a month gone by none-the-less.  This feels like a good a time as any to talk about general impressions or catch up on my overall mood while my fingers gain back some tingling sense of warmth.  Perhaps I should have worn gloves today.  C'est la vie (perhaps the most profound cliche I know in French other than "Je suis").  France as a whole - well I can't comment - but Paris I know something about.  I thought living in Chicago was a rather grand adventure, or at least I thought I knew what it was to say that I lived in a "big" city.  True, Chicago is large, massive compared to those two rivers I grew up along but nothing compared to Paris.  Paris makes Chicago look like downtown Milwaukee on a Sunday.  Anyone who as ever been downtown Milwaukee any day of the week will understand what I'm trying to say.  The streets here are packed throughout the day and into the night.  The cartography was invented along the rivers and the expansion of living and the only city planning was done around large monuments and round-abouts surrounding large monuments with very little attention being payed to the streets webbing from those points.  There will be at times grand boulevards fed into by countless minor streets and avenues some too small to fit a grocery cart and yet somehow big enough to merit their own name.  There are no alleys and yet arguably there are hundreds.
Montmartre is a ratted nest of uphills and downhills that ranges from sites of romantic era beauty to modern-day pornographic schmooze.  Which affords its own beauties I suppose, but something more appropriate for the walls of the Pompidou than the Louvre.  The downtown, the central arrondissements (1-4), are a never ending examination of grandeur and excess topped in a mansford roof.  There is hardly a turn that doesn't lead one to a picturesque living gallery: a quaint cafe along the quai, the impression of a palace, and La tour eiffel faint but always upon the horizon.  There is no question about the magic of the City of Lights.  Though as far as romance goes - I'd prefer the country.
The Latin Quarter is under frantic practical use by several universities and institutions, yet it is dressed up like a painted dancer for tourists.  Maybe that can be said of most of Paris but the Latin Quarter most of all.  I spend a lot of time there, the Sorbonne is located just south of the River Seine in the fifth arrondissement.  My practical course is just off Rue Dante with a view of Notre Dame out the window and only a block away.  I cross the courtyard of that famed cathedral at least once every day on my way to class coming from the metro stop at Chatelet - Les Halles.  After class it has become my habit to go with Eren to some cafe, a new one every day, and share a meal over some confused French conversation.  Confused mostly on my part I admit.  In the time it takes to shuffle down a street and find another I've already seen the entire color spectrum possible to the human eye (perhaps a bit limited in my eyes, but that's another matter).  Expensive, colorful, and frantic.  For all that is said of European leisure I've never in my life seen so many people running.  Running to what? for what?  I don't know.  My play-it-cool rule about never running unless it is life threatening seems a bit out of place here, and I'll admit I've dashed after a train or two when I know missing it would only mean waiting two minutes for the next one.
To the west in the 7th arrondissement there is not much to be said.  It is what you might expect of an area inhabited by that bridge to nowhere.  Expensive, chic, and even more expensive.  That's not to say that the rest of Paris isn't, but considering that the 7th is more strictly (high-class) residential than others in that middle band of the city makes you wonder if the price is exclusively warped for the sake of tourists or the chic homeowners of Paris.  Either way, it is what it is, and there's not much to see.  I would never go there again if I didn't intend to see the Musee d'Orsay a few more times and finally reach the top of the Eiffel Tour.  It does, though, lead one to suspect (as many forgettable neighborhoods do) what fine restaurant is hidden away in those trés chic streets.  Maybe none at all.
As for my own neighborhood (the 20th) I find it absolutely pleasing.  I wouldn't have liked to be anywhere else.  It's labeled as a "working class" area, but like all of Paris it doesn't look like work at all.  The attitude and the lack of flash on the other hand give it away, and the only tourist attraction happens to be in my backyard.  On the weekends when the supermarché Franprix is closed they hold a huge open air market in the middle of the street.  I've looked at several guide books and none of them say anything about the 20th other than Pere Lachaise, and honestly, that's a good sign for me.  If I was in Paris for a week I would get a hotel downtown (with God's money) and never leave the single digits.  But I'm here for four months, and this is the perfect place to be.
My only experience with the outer rings of Paris has been a brief and fruitless trip to the upper northwest in search of a package.  Several days ago I found a slip in my mailbox - how long it had been there I do not know but I only saw it that day - from UPS letting me know that they tried and failed to reach me and my package would be waiting at their main facility way out on the opposite side of the city.  If I didn't pick it up by May 1st it would be shipped back to the US.  What package?  Good question.  My mother had said Uncle Terry had sent me something, and I was suspecting this was that (though exactly I still don't know).  I had the good sense to leave behind my bag when I left, as I soon found out the trains were packed to the brim that evening.  Attendants at major transfer stations were forced to shoving people into the cars and manually closing the doors.  To watch each train leave was like seeing twenty people crammed into a speeding telephone booth with their eyes bulging up to the glass.
At the end of the line, I departed (or was released) out onto a rather ordinary looking street.  The multi-story apartment buildings were still though less ornamental, there interspersed with beleaguered cafes and empty lots.  I walked down Victor Hugo and kept my eyes to the ground.  On my right only factories.  It was dusk, and soon it would be night, and I had it in my mind to get out of there before it got too dark.  It took some luck to find the UPS station, it was settled back among the factories, mixed in with forty or so other loading docks in a less than pedestrian friendly zone.  After talking briefly to a worker smoking against the building I found the entrance and was buzzed in.  The man working spoke no english, but he spoke slowly enough for me to understand.  I showed him the slip I'd found and he asked why I hadn't come sooner.  I don't know.  I just didn't see the notice until today - I check my mailbox daily.  He took my slip and disappeared for almost an hour while I waited listening to another worker talking to her girlfriend on the phone.  There was an automatic coffee machine in the waiting room and workers filtered in and out to fill up a cup for fifty cents a pop.  When he returned he explained (or I gathered as much) that the package had already left to be sent back to the US, because it had been at the dock for the maximum five days.  He had called and placed a hold on it (it would be somewhere in Germany by that night), and asked for it to be sent back.  I gave him my email address and he said he would contact me when it arrived.  Okay.  Despite my best efforts I ended up walking back to the station in pitch black.  I would not recommend visiting northwestern Paris if you can help it.
For life, day to day, it doesn't amount to much.  I do very little.  I wake up, eat breakfast, and shower (on a good day) then head off for class in the early afternoon.  After, I have lunch with Eren and go home.  I sometimes pick up food from the Turkish restaurant down the block or (on a really good day) I stop by the grocery store to make myself dinner.  When I get back to my place I settle in, watch TV, read (I finally finished The Savage Detectives), write (so far only 14 pages), watch more TV, and sleep.  Rinse repeat.  The weekends I go for walks, take my reading and writing to the local cafe, and consider going to a museum.  When it rains or if I'm feeling cramped I take a lap around Pere Lachaise and then come home to shower.  Cold water, hot water.  I've been inside the cemetery four times now and still haven't found Gertrude Stein.  The streets of the cemetery are a confused labyrinth not unlike the rest of Paris, but more confined and more poorly labeled.  I don't know what will happen if I find her tomb, probably nothing, but I've been reading Tender Buttons online and feel the need to see her resting place as a sign of respect. Along that same vein I have stopped by the shared tomb of Eloisa and Abelard every time I've been in if only to recite the lines "How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!  The world forgetting, by the world forgot.  Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!" within my head unashamedly.  There's a dog carved onto the grave to represent fidelity, but considering that the guy was castrated you have to wonder if that lessons the gravity of the commitment (at least on his part).  I mean what else was he going to do?  Not to cheapen the story, it is one of the greatest loves of all time.  If you haven't read Alexander Pope's poem I'd recommend it.
Poorly masked transition.
Classes are in three parts.  I have a practical course every week day for two hours with Madame Chamblas.  She's in her early forties, but looks much younger.  She has orange hair and heavily emphasizes her nazzle R's.  I'm really happy she's my teacher actually, and I enjoy going to class.  She's fun and she makes jokes that sometimes I don't understand, but she's always so animated and lively that it usually makes me laugh anyway.  I sit near the back of the class next to some Americans and Eren.  Nothing much to say.  We're working on articles of speech.
Every Tuesday I have two conference courses that are not even worth speaking about.  In my cinema class last week we watched two films by Cedric Klapisch, the second of which I'd already seen so I skipped out early.  The first one was very good, it was called L'Auberge espangole, a comedy about a French guy moving to Barcelona to study economics ends up sharing an apartment with like five other people who all speak different languages so there was thankfully enough English for me to gather the plot.  Anna, you'd like it a lot.  As far as my French Art History class goes I'll have to let you know once I actually attend.
Lastly, every other week (today was my first class) I have phonetics.  It's surprisingly short, the woman is kind but clearly frustrated, and I sit in the back.  Today I was about the only person who spoke for the first ten minutes while she asked us what a syllable was (fun) and then had us list as many words as we could of each increasing syllable count in French.  I was forced to use ridiculous verbs like nous fleurissons (we flower) because I couldn't think of anything, and she kept looking at me like I was nuts.  Little did I know that after we made that list we had to go into the next room and put on headphones and repeat all the words we'd come up with into a microphone to listen to our pronunciation.  So, thanks largely to me and my random word choices, the whole class ended up having to repeat over and over again the most slapdash assortment of French words ever compiled.  If you've never taken a class like this (and I'm assuming most haven't) the idea is that the teacher speaks into a microphone the word you're supposed to say, then you speak into your microphone, and then she repeats the word for clarity, then you move on to the next word.  Once you go through the whole list you press a little button on the board in front of you and you listen to the two recordings that have been made.  One is the teacher talking and then overtop of that you hear your voice.  Very eery.  So once it reaches the end you can hear how your individual pronunciations either match up or don't match up with the teacher's.  Even weirder is that while you're reviewing your recording the teacher can listen with her headphones at the front of class and turn on and off her microphone to speak to you individually about the word you're on.  So, as you're listening to a thoughtless recording, fading in and out of half consciousness, suddenly the voice in the headphones comes alive! and speaks to you and demands that you try that word again.  It's very unsettling.  You feel like you're in an oral bubble of sorts and you don't know who's listening to you or what anyone else is saying.  And you're in a cubicle.  I wasn't a huge fan.  On the upside I'm sure it will help with my pronunciation.
Right now?  Drinking wine and eating chocolate.  I know, I'd be jealous too.  It's great being able to order alcohol whenever I want.  It's like my birthday already came and went.  I don't even get carded, which is good, because I'm not sure I'd even understand the question if some one asked me.  I know this is a very cliche coming of age sentiment: Ooo, I can drink legally now!  But it's the little things, you know.  It really is.
One last thing quickly - Some one commented today that I looked really dressed up.  It would have been a compliment if I hadn't been dressing this way because I literally have no other clean clothes to wear.  I'm not fancy, in fact I'm a slob, it's just that my laziness has taken on a new level of class for the time being.  I'm unnaturally unnerved by the laundromats here.

For my next trick I'm going to go take every classic cheesy tourist picture I can around the city with a big smile on my face.  Okay, that's all for now.

-John

Turkish Endeavors

So, I guess my "radio silence" has got my mother fearing for my life.  Radio silence being the term used when I do not put up a post for a couple of days I suppose.  But, in an effort to be a good son, I've decided to sit down and solve the problem.  A new post.

Since last we spoke I went to the Musee d'Orsay, and the Eiffel Tower, walked up and down the Seine at night, went back to that library to find it overrun and uninhabitable, taken my phonetics exam, and gone to class repeatedly (and on time).
The Musee d'Orsay was everything I could have hoped it to be.  Beautiful paintings all around, hitting hard my love of Impressionism with works from Renoir, Manet, Monet, Degas, and countless others.  Or I suppose they're countable, but that fact flattens the effect I suppose.  After that, a cafe allonge, and after a brisk walk I found a nice cafe near the base of the Eiffel Tower and had dinner.  Then, as the sun was setting, I walked around and took some pictures.  I decided not to go up in the tower, because it was getting cold and I had already been to the museum that day and am trying to conserve my money for important things like: food.

Quickly on the subject of food: I was apprehensive to buy a baguette.  Hear me out.  See, I had been eating plenty of sandwiches, trying different kinds, paninis, etc.  All of them are made with baguettes, so it wasn't so much an issue of the bread.  Instead it was a question of what on god's green earth are these French people doing with all this bread?  Every day and night I would see people walking home with two, three, four baguettes slung under their arms like they were going to feed the homeless masses.  But even one baguette is a lot of bread.  Those suckers are really long, and to be honest I didn't grow up in a house where bread accompanied every meal.  I just don't know what to do with it.  Eat it obviously, but in my mind I thought that would mean making a meal, cutting up the bread, pouring some wine, lighting candles, etc.  A hassle in plain english.  But, as I was considering the prices of Parisian cafes the other day I decided it was time I just pick up a baguette (I had butter) and for that night I would have bread and wine for dinner.  My literal bread and butter.  So, that night (along with the rest of Paris) I went home with a baguette under my arms.  Cost?  One euro.  Okay, that seems reasonable.  What did I find out when I got home?  Baguettes are to kill and die for, especially when they're fresh from the local bakery.  Absolutely wonderful.  That night I ate standing up, slathering butter onto slices of bread and pouring hubris amounts of wine down my gullet to wash the whole feast down.  Fantastic.  Enough about food.
So like I was saying, I didn't go up in the Eiffel Tower.  Last time I'd been to Paris we only made it to the second tier so one of these days I will need to go all the way up just to say I did it.  But not that night.  No, instead I headed down to the banks of the Seine and walked all the way back to the opposite side of the city as the sun finally settled behind the horizon and the City of Lights finally earned its name.  Every building was lit up, some of the government buildings were set aglow with blue and red across their facade.  Each bridge had a string of lights and tour boats with spotlights and flash cameras glided along the black water passing the shadows of trees along the buildings and people strolling by.  A repeat experience is most definitely required.
By the way, the reason I'm being so ambiguous about which days these things were happening on is because I have a terrible memory and no idea.  So let's just pretend it's only been a day since my last post and it was a very busy day.  That way I can keep saying "yesterday" when I really mean one of the five days since I last posted anything.  Okay.
So yesterday...went to class, a lot.  I feel like that's all I did yesterday.  Though after class I did finally take my phonetics test.  As I walked into the room where it was taking place, a one on one conversation with a french language teacher, I knew this wasn't going to take very long.  In fact I cut it short with my response to her second question.  Je ne parle pas francais.  She looked up from her checklist of questions with a sort of pleased shock on her face.  I guess after a whole day (possibly more) of interrogating people's unpleasant French skills she was happy to see someone who knew the most important phrase of all.  I don't speak French.  With that I was assigned into a beginner course for the afternoons after my practical course.  The phonetics tests are every day Mon-Fri every other week.  They start next week.  After this I was able to sign up for my conferences, which I guess are basically just large lectures.  Being a debutant I was only able to pick from a couple of options, so I chose History of French Art and French Cinema.  Obviously.  It was either that or a lecture about food that took place at 8 am, and there was no way I was going to sit through a two hour lecture listening to my stomach grumble knowing that I would have to run to make it to my practical course with no time for breakfast once it let out.  No thanks.  I'll stick to what I know.
Only problem is that my Art History course is at the same time as my phonetics course, so once a week I'm going to skip my lecture.  As it was described to me (finally) it's a big room, lots of kids, the teacher talks, you take notes, and at the end there is a test you can take if you want.  I'm picturing back of the room blank stares and doodles a plenty.  Yes, what was this whole trip needing?  A man speaking to me in droll elongated French with complex sentence structures and multiple tenses while I sink into the oblivion of hundreds of strangers.  So excited.  Maybe I'll get to watch some Godard.  At least that way if there are no subtitles I may already know what they're saying and it won't matter so much.

What else...oh yeah I just remembered "yesterday" I went back to that library.  No dice.  Full to the brim with students. I couldn't even think in there.  Instead yesterday (a different yesterday I think) I went to the local cafe by my place where I once spent those three hours on those two verbs and read Bolano for about four hours.  I left in a trance kind of stumbling about like a somnambulist trying to find the kitchen.  I guess I'm not used to reading so much.  Honest I only drank one coffee.
You'll be happy to know I've been doing my homework.  And today I finally hoped a turnstile.  Now, in my defense, I did intend to pay.  It was just an act of passion.  My pass has been acting up this past couple of yesterdays and sometimes it won't let me through and I have to use another turnstile and rub the thing around the sensor for awhile before it lets me through.  Well today I was in a hurry (okay not really) going to class and I tried swiping my card on the sensor but it didn't work.  A business guy passed through the turnstile to my left so I followed after him and tried swiping my card at that turnstile.  He was polite enough to hold the little gate back at the end for me, and it just felt like an invitation to jump.  Besides my card didn't work immediately and the guy was holding the thing for me.  So I jumped it.  The guy looked a little shocked.  I seem to be doing that to people.  Je ne parle pas francais; oh, thank you mister, now watch as I break French transit law as you aid and abet.  Au revoir!
As you might have guessed I'm doing just peachy on my own (except for the law breaking).  I'm quite liking it, but that's nothing new. J'aime la solitaire.  But, knowing that my mother would simply die and then turn over in her grave if she knew I wasn't trying to actively seek out friends I decided to make one today.  A Turk from Istanbul.  He and I have sat next to each other every day since the beginning of class so I decided to ask him to lunch after class today.  What did I learn.  He speaks no English and I speak no Turkish, so we would have to speak French.  Ha ha.  Oh cruel fate.  Whatever, we made it work.  Our French is at an equally bad level and so we're understanding.  We even managed to communicate that tomorrow after class we are going to go to Sacre Coeur together because I hadn't been yet.  He's nice and we talked about books and authors and French and waiters and where we lived and how old we were and anything else that can be expressed with a limited vocabulary and a basic mastery of the present tense.  Okay, one friend down.  Now maybe I'll find me an English speaking one and really be in business.  So there you go mom.  I had my first meal with another human being, and possibly my first unobligatory conversation.  Voila.  Looking at the positives I think it will be good to keep hanging out with Eren (his name).  It will really force me to speak French and will probably bring up my conversation skills to a new level, level one.

What else did I do yesterday?  I watched an unhealthy amount of TV.  I wrote a little.  I've got a test tomorrow.  Maybe I'll make myself dinner tonight.  Really spoil myself with a nice bowl of cereal.  Who knows.

Okay, I'm pretty sure I've run out of things to say for now.  Hope all is well state side.  Make sure to leave some comments, or send some emails.  This radio silence thing does work both ways.  I'm not just a source of unending joy, I'm also a human being who likes to hear about your lives.  Send some updates people.  Or just talk about how much you miss me (Emily).  I'll take anything.  That's all for now!

-John

Rimbaud and The Flowers of Evil

Friday I slept in, packed up some things, and was off.  My apartment was ice cold so I made sure to layer, but when I got outside the sun was shining and I was sweating.  I got off the metro at Chatelet-Les Halles and made my way over the bridge to Notre Dame.  Over the Seine and I was in the Latin Quarter, took a turn east and popped out on Rue Dante (a literal inferno that particular afternoon) and made my way into the building where my classes were to be held.  Up to the third floor, a little nervous, with class about to start (an ever increasing habit of mine) I reached for the handle on the door and pulled.  It came off in my hands.  I looked around to see if anyone had seen me (this wasn't a good start) and then proceeded to try and screw it back on.  After a couple of turns I thought I'd gotten it, but after giving it a tug there I was with a broken handle and a stripped screw sticking out of this impenetrable door.  Was this a trick?  Perhaps the first of many tests meant to weed out the less intelligent students?  Probably.  Either way I wasn't having it, so I slide the handle back on and pulled at an angle this time and got the door to prop open wide enough for me to slip my hand in get it the rest of the way.  In the hallway (which was rather small) were a whole group of students standing around holding those little white cards they'd distributed the other day marking where our class was to be held and who our teacher would be.  I found an empty slice of wall and leaned against it.  Empty probably because it was right next to the bathroom door where people kept squeezing in and out of with regularity.  An American came in through the door I had just entered holding a door handle in her hand and looking a quite worried.  She went up to the classroom door and peaked in to see it was full of students from the previous class and she panicked, checking her card to be sure this was the right room, and then trying to get into the bathroom only to realize that wasn't the door she'd come from and maybe it was best if she stood where she was and wait like the rest of us.  After a few minutes had passed and the students of the previous class filled out we were ushered in by a very cheerful 38-year-old French woman.  I found a seat near the back.
The rest of class went smoothly, speaking only in French, we were stressed with the importance of etre and avoir (those two verbs I'd spent three hours on a couple of nights ago) and made introductions - Je m'appelle John.  Je suis americain.  J'ai vight ans.  And that's all I got.  Even in France I wasn't the only John in the room, but I was one of only a handful of Americans.  We had people from Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Sweden, Norway, Korea, Japan, Turkey, Iran, Armenia, Guatemala, and England of course.  From what I could tell we all spoke some English and no French, and then a mix of everything else.  Most people were in their late twenties, some in their thirties, a couple of eighteen and nineteen year olds and then some lady in her forties who looked more like she was in her fifties either through the heavy intake of cigarettes or sunlight or both.  Class ran for two hours from noon until two and then we were out.
It was nice, easy going, we were told to buy some books from Gilbert Joseph on Saint Michel for next week and that was it.  Simple.  I can do this.  I walked around the block and took off my jacket and sweatshirt and rolled up my sleeves and then checked out the bookstore.  It wasn't hard to find the language section as it was overrun with foreigners buying up all the textbooks in sight.  The one I was looking for was labeled for my level "Niveau Debutant".  I never thought I would be considered a debutant ever in my life, and I mean ever.  But I guess that's what I get for not learning more French.  On the way down (after elbowing my way to get a copy of my textbooks, which were incredibly cheap) I decided to stop on the literature floor.
Online I'd been reading and painfully translating some of Rimbaud's work (A season in hell) and I thought I'd get myself a copy in French.  Here's something I don't get about French bookstores: Why are all the bindings white?  The entire floor for literature was shelved in white bound books, I literally felt the life draining from me when I got off the escalator.  And it wasn't just that bookstore, this is something that I've noticed of bookstores around the city as well.  The covers aren't white but the bindings are, and when you line them all up like that it's not only unpleasant, it's unsettling.  If the French ever find that their literacy rate has started to plummet I think one cause could be attributed to the hospital-like atmosphere produced by the bindings of their books all shining their bald monk heads from the shelves like boring little death rays.  This also suggests that there is some kind of law or standard set where all books of literature must have this white binding, which to me is even more puzzling, because who wants a bookshelf with all white books?  Racists do, but not many other people, not me.
I kept my head down and wandered over to the poesy and shivered as I glanced around for names I recognized.  The complete works of Rimbaud (not very big, he died young and didn't think much of his work) and Les fleurs du mal by Baudelaire.  Okay, all done, time to leave.  The line was immense - or so it appeared, but as it turns out everyone had formed a line around one register which was causing the other registers (nearly empty) to be blocked off.  Don't worry, the French didn't stand for this very long and they started pushing each other and things got figured out.
I was feeling a bit hungry so I wandered around and found a nice off the beaten path Creperie and stopped in.  I ordered some baked "thing" (I don't know, they said it was the house special) with pork and chicken and potatoes and a thick layer of cheese overtop and an egg.  A glass of Chardonnay and I was feeling pretty full.  But, being that I was at my first of what will be many Creperies, I decided to eat a Nutella crepe for desert to top off that already way-too-heavy lunch, and then hemorrhage internally and collapse beneath the table where the EMTs would find me in a food coma, smiling, and muttering incoherently about cheese (not brie this time) and Nutella.
Back on my feet I waddled off to the train station at Chatelet and went home.  Lying on my bed I decided to (moving only my arms) reach for my bag and pull out that little yellow card I was given about a week ago telling me when I was supposed to go in for my phonetics exam.  Oh, look at that.  My test was scheduled for that very morning.  And look at that.  The school's offices closed ten minutes ago and wouldn't open until Monday.  Bravo, me!  Just when you thought you were doing so well you managed to screw up.  A recent memory popped into my head of my teacher holding some one's yellow card up for the class and saying something about it being tres tres important.
I tried looking on the bright side, which was that I wouldn't have to eat for at least another six hours and that phonetics classes don't start until the 21st so I had a week to get this figured out.  I still didn't and don't completely understand how these whole lectures are supposed to work, but I know they have something to do with the phonetics exam I just missed.  All I really know is I haven't signed up for any lectures yet, and I don't know when they start or how they work or where they're held.  Basically I know very little about it, and everyone I've posed the question to hasn't given a straight answer either.  "Just take the phonetics test," one lady said.  "Sure no problem, or I'll maybe just sleep right through it" (you see at the time of that conversation I hadn't decided whether I was going to be a good student or just my regular old self - guess I went with the latter).

Okay, so today's Saturday...what did I do today?  Slept till one o'clock. Check.  Ate another chicken curry sandwich from that place around the corner that knows my order so well the guy has stopped bothering to ask me what I want (and I've only been here for two weeks).  Check.  Watched an episode of Fringe.  Check.  Written half a page.  Check.  Showered!  Check....
Guess that's it really.  But if it makes anyone feel better (I know it does wonders for my self esteem) I was planning on going to the Musee d'Orsay today.  I really was.  Even thought of stopping by the Eiffel Tower just cause.  And both are open tomorrow, so screw you Thomas Jefferson, I don't need your fancy phrases and sage-like wisdom.  I'll just do it tomorrow.  And if not tomorrow than maybe Monday or Tuesday or if it's raining or something there's nothing wrong with Wednesday or Thursday that Friday can't fix or Saturday for that matter.  Besides I have at least a year and ten months before the world ends, so really there's time.

Okie Dokie (like the cheese powdered popcorn).  That's all I got.

-John

Où est la bibliotheque?

 So, I slept through most if not all (pretty much all) of Tuesday, so in an effort to stop spotlighting my ever increasing laziness I decided to head to the school's library across the street from the Luxembourg gardens. I hung around for about four hours and so as not to bore you with the play-by-play and just to allow you to see the beauty of this small intimate space that I have decided will be my home away from home (it's open every weekday from 8 am till 11 pm) I've uploaded some pictures that I hope you enjoy.  You can't see it, but just so you know, out the window there is a perfect image of the Eiffel Tower beyond the rows of French rooftops and miniature chimney spouts that I didn't even notice until I was about to leave.  I'll have to snap a picture of it next time, but oh well.  For your viewing pleasure (jealousy)!

Paris, je t'aime

I heard a lot of English today.  I was overhearing conversations and understanding them, I was seeing my own confusion played out in others, I was even momentarily considering having a conversation that didn't consist of long awkward silences where I try to understand what is going on - though I decided to sit and read instead.
Today was the day of my practical exam to see where I ranked in my understanding of French, and therefore what class I would be most appropriately placed in.  Like a good student before any big test that will determine the course of their entire semester, I stayed up all night watching the latest season of Chuck. There's something about the relationship between the two main characters that, regardless of all the plot holes and contrived conflict, keeps me coming back for more.  It's almost as if overcoming the often poor writing of the show is a quiet personal conflict for the viewers that they themselves must overcome if they ever want to see how Chuck and Sarah's relationship will play out.  I think I'm justifying here, but I'm okay with that because I made it sound good.
After about 13 episodes of prime time NBC comedy it was time to turn off my alarm, put on yesterday's clothes, and go buy some pastries - then immediately return with said pastries, down a glass of milk, and finish out the season finale.  Once that was over and two pain au chocolates were nesting softly in my belly I decided it was time to give in to the beating drum that was the inside of my scull and take a nap.  A couple hours later I got up, took a shower, got dressed (new clothes), and headed out.
It's beautiful here.  Had I not been passed out with an iron curtain over my windows I may have noticed earlier that it was over 50 degrees with sunny blue skies.  I was headed to a place called the student house where all my phonetics classes are supposed to be held once those classes start mid-month.  The building was rather interesting, a renovated structure with exposed wood beams and lots of large glass windows that added depth and layers to the space.  When I got there (a half hour early) I noticed that a line had already formed with students all holding little white cards identical to the one I'd been given to show that they were here for the test.  Instead of waiting around I noticed a post office near by and so I headed over and asked about stamps.  I didn't have enough cash to buy any stamps for the US, but I picked up a euro stamp so I could send my documents off to the immigrations office here, which I was supposed to do within a week of my arrival.  Well, tomorrow would be a week so I figured it was time.  Luckily for me the post office also had a copy machine that only cost 10 cents and so I made a copy of my passport pages, which I needed to send off to immigrations as well.  Success.  Sort of.  Why didn't I think to buy envelopes?  Hmm....  Guess it just slipped my mind.  I'll have to do that tomorrow.  Either way I got stamps and that's half the battle, right?  Anyone?  Okay.
Got back in line, sat down, stared around at the hipster generation around me not knowing their nationality for sure, because it seems as though everyone in this country was deported from Wicker Park for being too much of a hipster and somehow all landed here, as if in Paris there existed a magnet for tight jeans, torn leggings, excessive scarves, and tilted fedoras; these people all mixed in with women and men dressed to the fringes and strutting around like they don't realize that spit, piss, and cigarette littered sidewalk isn't a runway flanked by eager cameras and impossibly bored cliches of the fashion scene.  No.  Indeed, it's just a sidewalk.  And by the way, you're embarrassing the rest of us, so knock it off.
Sorry about that - needed to get it off my chest.  Everywhere I go, its the same fashion trends, only here it seems like everyone is trying harder.

After some careful listening I discovered that most of the people in line were either from England or the US, and everyone looked rather concerned.  A look I myself was probably sporting, that complimented by deep serial-killer circles under my eyes from all the late night TV.  But if I did look concerned it was only because my face has been frozen in that position since I landed and not because I was the least bit nervous.  I mean, how hard could it be?  I don't give myself a lot of credit, but I can read and understand French okay - I can read it decent at least, and if it's a test to measure our ability then there will be at least some questions that will be no brainers to help weed out the completely hopeless.  Wrong.
It was hell.  Silly, over the top, incoherent hell.
There wasn't one thing on that test that I answered with confidence.  I mean when I left, and I left early on, I never felt more sure about anything in my life.  I bombed that test.  I had a laughing fit in the hallway it was so unbelievable.  People were staring at me, and I didn't care, because to be honest it was funny.  I'd like to give you some examples, but I can't remember anything about the test, and even if I did write something down for you I wouldn't have a who-flung-poo clue about what I was saying.  It was brutal and hilarious.  I even had trouble filling out the front page info sheet.  At least I lasted longer than some.  One girl after being handed the test wrote her name on the front, flipped through the pages, and then walked right back up to the teacher declaring "I don't speak any French".  How much do you want to bet that she's in my class?  Ah, well.  At least we got that out of the way, and oddly enough I left feeling more at ease than I have in days.  It was almost as if sucking on that test was just what I needed to sit back and say "C'est la vie".
I took a stroll through the Luxembourg gardens afterwards and watched the sun set over Paris, the Eiffel Tower slowly darkening into a pitch silhouette against a sky full of oranges and reds with flecks of purple. It really was fantastic.  Paris is an expansive palace, constantly working to out-do itself in extravagance, a palace inhabited by the people (because they cut off everyone else's head), and bustling with more life and speed than almost any other city I've been in.
I picked up some provisions from the grocery store when I got back.  Last night I made myself some salmon with lemon and rice and green olives, polished off an entire bottle of wine (I'm not sure how, honest), ate an entire box of cereal, drank a half liter of milk, and entire bag of chips.  Yes, wow.  I guess Chuck brings out my mean appetite.  Either way, tonight I picked up two bottles of triple-brewed beer (already polished off one, a Delirium Tremens (great stuff)), ate two pork chops, two servings of rice, a little salt a little pepper, I bought another box of cereal (they but dark chocolate shavings in their special K!), another half liter of milk, some butter, some bread (I figured I could fill up on this and save myself some trips to the store), a huge wedge of brie for only 1, that's right, 1 euro, and that's it.  Why does brie cost so much in the US?  It's like six bucks for less than what I got tonight.  And I don't want to hear anything about products being shipped over, we don't make brie, sort of business, because they have so many American products for equal or competitive prices that I no longer believe that whole "shipped in from Europe so it'll cost you an extra six dollars crap".  They seem to be getting shiploads of Marlboros and are only paying 5 euro a pack for them - which I think is closely equivalent to US prices if you consider all the tax there is on tobacco products now-a-days.  So, yeah!  I want cheap brie! (For those of you wondering why brie, it's because I had no idea what all the other nine hundred cheeses taking up the entire center section of their shopping center were and come on - one euro brie!)
I'm not sure what I'll do tonight - if I should go to bed early or see if I can train my body to survive off of only 3 hours of sleep a day.  It's a toss up.
Forgot to mention that the other day I went to the Musee de l'Orangerie (breathtaking and impressive) and have been frequenting Pere Lachaise (because it's possibly the most beautiful places I've ever been to and it's in my backyard).  I bought a book at the gift shop at the Orangerie, which I don't normally do, but I liked the artist who I'd seen before and his book was 50% off, so why not.  I need, yes need, to go to the Orsay ASAP and the Pompidou, but the Musee d'Orsay first.  I think I'll probably never leave.  They'll find me years later curled up in a janitor's closet reciting lines from Rimbaud and terminally constipated from too much brie.  I'm not sure if I'm going to be hitting up the Louvre this trip or not.  I've walked on the grounds surrounding it several times now, but I feel like it's more expensive than anything and I've already seen it.  Who knows, maybe I'll run into some nice (cute) classmates and they'll want to go.  We'll see.

Okay, so here's the thing, real quick, I've now watched every episode of Fringe, Chuck, Community, Fairly Legal, Royal Pains, Psych, and 30 Rock.  Is there anything I'm missing?  Are these my shows?  Does anyone know what kind of TV I watch?  If so please let me know, because Anna and Emily opened up a whole new world with this fastpasstv thing and it's made me a sleepier man, a better man, and my gut is leaning towards the whole teach-myself-to-survive-off-of-no-sleep thing.  Just a question, throwing it out there.  Hope all is well state side.

Salut!

L'examen

Today - the examination.

Feeling a little uneasy, and in need of a relaxing way to wind down the evening after that three hour, two word bender I had last night I decided to watch some TV.  Netflix doesn't work, hulu doesn't work, so (coming to a solution) I decided to see what iTunes had in store.  Luckily for me after a quick search I found just the kind of thing I was looking for - and it was free.  The pilot episode of Fairly Legal.  Sigh.  Oh, USA Network, how your shows are all the same and yet so easy to indulge upon.  What would I do with all my free time without you?  Read?  Ha!  As if.  Thoughts on the show: Who wears outfits like that to work?  The only place a skirt like that is even fairly legal is on a street corner.  Now, I know that's not fair, and women have all the right in the world to dress as they want, and I'm not saying she didn't look good, but that's hardly a suitable outfit for the workplace.  The male equivalent of that skirt would be a man showing up to work in nothing more than biker shorts and a fishnet tank top (who's not a bike messenger or a stay at home pervert).  Plus, for all the running around she seems to do you'd think she would invest in some more realistic footwear.  But I digress.  I found the show absolutely pleasing and more than a little enjoyable.  Mom, you should start watching this show, and Anna and Emily so should you if you already haven't (Anna).  Strong, smart woman with a heart of gold, dresses to kill (or should I say suffocate her own thighs) and an ex-husband that is easy on the eyes.  Plus, there's personal drama and a sassy assistant named Leo who Anna will love (his hair and his sass).
After that, still thinking about this test, I did some research online to try and figure out what it was going to be like.  I found several placement tests and tried them out myself.  I did so so on the Oxford one (that is to say I got it half right) and there was one by some other English school that I scored lower intermediate on, which felt about right if not a little generous.  I mean how far can you get only just barely understanding one tense?
Went to bed and slept in till 10, thinking I didn't have to be at the Sorbonne till 11:45 (according to my little green ticket I got yesterday).  My first (almost full) nights rest.

By the way, that whole thing I said about the French having managed to stop people from hoping turnstiles (hard plastic justice and all that) was apparently a load of crap as I learned today.  As I was going through the turnstiles a man next to me kindly demonstrated that if you just climb up on top of the whole turnstile you can get over the gate on the other side fairly easily.  The more you know....

Got off at the Luxembourg stop.  My school is right by the parthenon, so I picked up a sandwich from a street vender (ham and cheese (or should I say best ham and cheese I've ever had)) and sat in a park nearby for a bit to eat, checking out the parthenon from where I sat.  A quick check of my watch told me it was already 11:30, and I figured it couldn't hurt to show up a little early, so I went in to the Sorbonne.  Bit of luck.
As I strolled in with a cool aloof air that is reserved only for people who have no idea what is going on I did not realize that I had completely imagined that whole 11:45 business and in fact I was supposed to arrive between 11 and 11:30 (aloof indeed), and had just made the cut-off.
I walked up to a man, handed him my ticket, and he handed me a card to fill out my information on asking if I was something something something or nouveau.  I knew nouveau meant new so I said "nouveau", but I'm still not sure what I was blindly admitting to or even if I said the right thing.  My guess was he was asking me if I was a new student or a returning student, which is why I said new.  But who knows.  He pointed to a set of chairs that were all but filled up (one seat left) and I sat down.  I filled out my card (name, place of birth, etc) and waited.
The thing is I wasn't sure what I was waiting for.  I knew the test wasn't in that building, and as far as I knew I had already paid for and was enrolled in classes, not real, physical classes mind you but hypothetical ones.  Still, like I said, I was confused.  I waited for thirty minutes as the line slowly moved forward.  Every once in a while someone would come out and usher in a couple of people at a time and I was getting ever closer to the front.  I noticed that every one spoke either French or Spanish fluently or as their native language, which was giving me the impression that I may have entered into the most advanced French class in the world or I was in the wrong line.  This isn't exactly true.  There was one other person near the front of the line that I overheard speaking American English, but all she did was mutter the F word to herself the entire time, and when it got to be her turn to go in she tried to pawn her turn off to the French girl next to her.  This was oddly comforting.  Until that point I had felt a knot growing in my stomach that can only be explained as fear (I remember thinking "The last time I felt this nervous was before going into court"), but after seeing some one who seemed worse off than me I calmed down.  Calmed down enough in fact that once I progressed around the corner I noticed a sign that read something like this (in English):

If you have already payed your fees in full you can proceed directly to room E1.

I looked around and there was E1, a nearly empty room except for a couple of genial looking secretary types sitting behind desks and sipping espresso.  I looked around a corner and flagged down the man who had been directing the line forward and asked him about the sign.  I explained that I had already paid all my fees, and so (with doubt written all over his face) he took me to room E1.
What did I find out?  No test.  Nope, gotta come back Monday.  All of that and no dice.  I did however get my picture taken by the nice lady behind the desk and she gave me my student ID (trés cool) and gave me a bunch of papers all in French that I have decided to set about translating tonight.  She didn't speak English super well so we spoke (as seems to be the proceeder now-a-days) in a little bit of both languages.
After that I headed north up to Notre Dame and followed some steps down to the Seine.  The weather wasn't too bad so I sat down and took out The Savage Detectives and read for about forty, fifty minutes, or however long it takes for your butt to go numb with cold.  Got up, found my way back to Chȃtelet and took the métro home.

The sun goes down in two hours and Père Lachaise will close.  I haven't been in yet, so I think I'll take the opportunity to do so now.  Seems like a good idea, go visit some dead people and whatnot.  I mean they are in my backyard.

Sorry, to leave you with all of this suspense.  I know how you're all dying to know how I do on this test. Well, I guess you'll just have to wait.  Until then, start taking bets - Advanced is a long-shot it's 1-100, but I wouldn't put money on it, Intermediate Advanced is a little better 1-50 (if it's a standardized test then there's the option of a fluke), Intermediate 1-20, Beginner 1-5, and Absolute Beginner 1-2.  I know some of you are thinking hey that kid's an Absolute Beginner I'm going to make some sweet cash, but don't count me out of being just a plain ol' Beginner.  Remember I did score a Lower Intermediate on that online test.  For those dreamers out there you better not even play, cause let's be real.  It's going to be one of those two.  We should all just be pushing for mediocre embarrassment as opposed to absolute.

(Oh, and if are you looking to cash in your winnings should your answer be right, just send an invoice out to Columbia College of Chicago, because they have all my money)



Bonne Journée

L'arrivant

I've decided that the reason I keep making all of these posts is because I'm unable to express myself to anyone here just yet.  I can see that this is going to be a struggle.  Hopefully though, after a while these posts will become few and far between and that's when you'll know that I'm finally settled in.  Or I've died.  But let's not focus on that.
I just returned from a café where I sat conjugating verbs for about three hours.  Before that I had taken a nap as that whole "lack of sleep thing" got me seeing double.  Somewhere in my learning of the english language I managed to completely glaze over every tense except for the three major ones - present past and future - and somewhere in my learning of french I managed to completely ignore the fact that there are fifteen possible tenses for any one verb.  Hence the three hours.  In that time I managed to conjugate two (yes two) verbs, avoir et être.  I figured these were the most important (to have and to be).  I should note that I did this with the help of a book that is dauntingly titled 2,000 French verbs.  So, with a little bit of math and a whole lot of apprehension I figured out it will take me about 125 days (that's non-stop conjugation) to get through the whole book.  Now, that figure isn't exactly accurate, because the reason it took me so long was because I had to constantly check the front of the book for the definitions of each tense and mood.  I mean constantly.  Every time I got to a new conjugation I was flipping back to the front to see what the hell I was conjugating.  That may seem extreme, but with definitions like this one: Le plus-que-parfait (pluperfect/past perfect) The past tense used to describe an event that occurred prior to another past event without an implication of immediate relationship between two events.  Also used to make a simple statement about past action -- it is easy to see why.
As I remember things, grammar was never my strong suit and now it is coming back to haunt me.  That and I was a terrible (am a terrible) speller.  I sometimes even have trouble spelling disaster, which is a little ironic at the moment.
Regardless of all of this I think I'll be okay.  I don't think I will be returning to the US a brilliant French speaker, but I will be returning as a brand new me.  But what does that really mean?  I think the terms "new me" or "new you" are overused without anyone having arrived at an exact definition of such a statement.  To say a "new me" doesn't necessarily imply that it is a "better" me, though I think the word "new" carries that kind of connotation.  A new car is better than an old one, a new house, a new girlfriend (in some cases).  We assume that if it is new it is improved, but that is not always the case, so let me attempt to clarify what I mean when I say "new me".
Very little has changed about me as would be expected (I've only been here three days, we're not talking miracles).  Currently the only thing I can say for sure is that I have a renewed appreciation for the English language, or should I say my limited mastery of it.  For whatever reason I seemed to take for granted the simple ability to communicate with those around me in an effective way.  When I say "new me" what I think I am really trying to say is that I will have gained perspective.  I think I'm already well on my way to doing that.  More than that I will finally be able to say with confidence that I am independent (regardless of what my mother's tax statements say).  I suppose it is odd for me to be coming to these conclusions now that I'm here.  These are the kinds of things that people peg as reasons for travel, why we go places.  Gain perspective, earn independence, etc etc.  But as usual I jumped feet first into a concept I only half understood.  Saying "I'm going to Paris to gain perspective" means very little until you're there and the world looks completely different.  Suddenly you're lost, equipped with what faculties you poses, and a vocabulary of a newborn child and things don't "begin" to look different, things don't "start" looking different.  No.  They just are.  Everything has changed.  Past tense.  If there was a transition it was imperceptible, I simply awoke in a new world and what I consider success has become such things as "I found a power adaptor!" "I found my way home!" "I conjugated two verbs!".  In this sense I mean to say that gaining perspective is not what it implies - we think of perspective as viewing a larger picture, the whole picture if possible - but instead the perspective that is gained is microscopic.  The world shrinks to a point just in front of the face, to what is tangible and what is immediately possible.
I often have been criticized for thinking too big, creating some grand image of perfection and then holding that fantasy above my own head until it shadows me - until I become the shadow of my own ambitions.  When everything is easy then everything seems possible, and when those possibilities do not bear fruit so easily then it seems as though the world has failed - or that you have failed - or that (perhaps worst of all) your perception of yourself has failed.
When I observed that "this was going to be a struggle" I did not mean that learning French would be a struggle (though I know it will be), but instead the struggle would be allowing myself to struggle.  Allowing myself to make mistakes, be foolish, fail.  If I take away anything from this trip it will be this, the brand new me: success is difficult, success is small, and sometimes it is enough just to be able to say "I am here".  And that is all.

Le soleil se lève aussi

I awoke this morning, or should I say I never slept, to the dark.  I tossed and turned for several hours, my body unable to adjust to its new location seven hours away from normality, before giving up and pouring myself a glass of water and opening up The Savage Detectives by Bolaño.  I read through the whole first book, about a hundred and forty pages before one of the two alarms I set for myself went off to let me know it was 6 am.  Tin fingers rang against my window and I looked out to see that rain had begun to fall, glazing the cobbled street.  I climbed back into bed thinking I would wait until sunrise, but after another hour of reading passed there was still no sign of light.  Little did I know that what I was waiting for would not arrive until after 8 o'clock, so, determined to move, I got up got dressed in yesterday's clothes, which were lying somewhat folded next to the bed and zipped up my jacket.  I was determined to do two things: commander un café et trouver du pain au chocolat.
The air was sweet and nearly silent.  It seemed as though either I had mistaken the time or the world was sleeping in.  Either way, I was awake and began to walk south along the Boulvard de Menilmontant, south then north again along the west shore of the street, turning about once I reached Rue de Montreuil for no reason.  I was killing time waiting for the café near my apartment to open, which I had marked as the spot for my morning coffee.  The city was still asleep, a drip.  The sky was black and though the sun was set to rise in a half hour it showed no signs of lacking.
With wing a building slid motionless some inches to the right - a flight of pigeons unsettled.
A trick of the eyes.  It seemed for a moment as though an apartment behind some birds was shifting in their flight, the lines of the stones blurring through wing beats suggested as much.  Perhaps my eyes were tired.  As I said, I had not slept.
Still I wobbled on, passing a boulangerie smelling so richly of freshly baked dough that I nearly fainted in the street, but it was early yet and I yearned for coffee.  Something strong and black to steam in a ceramic cup.  Arriving back at my apartment I noticed that the café Le Soleil Levant had opened, and with a moments hesitation I walked inside.  The owner was quietly sitting at a table peeling potatoes for the afternoon's plat du jour but smiled when she saw me.  Bonjour.  Bonjour.  Je voudrais un café s'il vous plait.  Merci.  The place was completely empty and I settled in at a table with a view.  The sun was just beginning to rise over gray skies and the streets were starting to fill.  Coffee was served, a small shot of espresso and a cube of sucre to wash it down.  I sat for over an hour and wrote in my journal as people filtered in and out, ordering beer and coffee, chatting away with the owner.  After some time I stood and walked up to the counter, Combien?  Un cinquante.  D'accord, merci.  Bonne journée!  Salut.

I left and wandered down back down Boulvard de Menilmontant in search of that bakery I had smelled earlier, and within a moment I found it.  I walked in with confidence, Bonjour!  A woman appeared form around the corner and I pointed to a pile of delicious looking pasteries. Deux pain au chocolat s'il vous plait.  Trois?  Non, deux.  Deux, d'accord.  She told me the price and I pulled out some change, and after a moments hesitation (I honestly didn't hear what she said) she took my hand and helped me count out the total.  3,50.  She asked me where I was from and I said Etats Unis.  She smiled and said something I didn't understand.  I asked if she spoke English and she said no, Spanish.  She asked me if I knew any Spanish (even a little?) and I had to laugh.  Not a word.  Another customer came in and we said our goodbyes and I was off, back to my apartment with gold in my hand, pure gold.
I wasn't counting exactly, but if there had been an official with a stopwatch next to me I may have set a new world record for fastest time eating two pastry items.  Absolute bliss.  No wonder people live here.
I swiped up the crumbs from the table and cleaned up a bit.  The next thing on my list was to go to the Sorbonne and after that find myself a power adaptor.  I checked the map to see where I was going and packed all the proper documents I would need to register for classes.  After that I was off.
I took the Ligne 2 to Nation then transfered to the RER A train headed toward Chatelet.  There I transfered over to the RER B and got off at the Luxembourg stop.  I had gotten lost before in the Latin Quartier so this time I was prepared.  The night before (in between reading and failing to sleep) I had downloaded a map of Paris that didn't require wifi and was mapping out my route to the Sorbonne office.  Once I was back above ground I quickly looked around and got my bearings.  In no time I had walked to the building I was supposed to be at and entered.  There were students everywhere and a man at the door jabbering away in French pointing in all directions.  I tried my best to use context clues, but there were just too many possibilities.  I surrendered and asked the man at the door for instructions on what to do.  He asked if it was my first time there and I said it was.  He handed me a card (Number 23) and pointed down the hall giving me directions in French that somehow I understood.

I entered room 3F and walked up to a man seated at a table.  I asked if he spoke English and he replied "a little", and so it began.  For the next few minutes we chatted back and forth, him in broken English, me in very broken French, and in the end I was told to come back tomorrow and to present this card to the front desk and they would make me take a test that I would have to pass.  Pass.  His word, not mine. At the time, and now looking back, I really hope he meant "take".  To say "pass" suggests that I have to do well, and considering the subject matter is the French language and I only this morning managed to order my first food items without blunder I figured I wasn't really ready to do any "passing".  Just skating by would do me fine.  Or flunking as long as it meant I would be put in some rudimentary course and not kicked out on the street and ridiculed as being the stupidest American they had seen yet.  I suppose we shall find out tomorrow.  My mind says everything will be fine, but my gut says hide under a bridge and don't ever come out.
With that thought tucked away I stepped back out onto the street and looked around.  What to do?  That took all of ten minutes and yielded nothing.  My only other goal for the day was to find a power adaptor, and I had a guess as to where one might be.
Because I was feeling bold, or silly (things like that walk a tight line) I decided to walk back to my apartment, stopping by Nation along the way where there was supposed to be a Darty (a kind of superstore for electronics).  I had not yet walked anywhere except to get on the Metro and then maybe a few blocks away from a station, so I figured it was time to learn the city the best way I know how.  By walking randomly that-a-way.  Okay, it wasn't so random.  I had that map I downloaded and I had a rough idea of my desired direction of travel, so I was off.  If anyone is curious (and I know you all are) you should go on to google maps and take a look at my little journey.  Paris is bigger than I expected and that walk was farther than I wanted it to be.  Go, on, don't be shy.  Walk with me.
Enter in as a starting point: 16 bis rue de l’Estrapade - 75005 Paris
Ending: 8 rue du Repos - 75020 Paris
If google tries to take you some fancy short-cutty way don't forget that you need to cut through Nation, it's that big round-a-bout where Voltaire meets with Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Diderot, and several others.
A couple things I learned.  Paris is big and it makes you sleepy if you have to walk across it and haven't eaten much and didn't sleep the night before and are named John.  Actually, that was all I learned.  Oh, but the power adaptor!  Found one.  Granted the only three prong adaptor I could find was a multi-adaptor that was good for every country on the globe and cost me 30 euro.  Why did I buy it?  Because I was desperate and I was holding the thing in my hands, and the last time I turned on my computer it begged me for power and you know I can't resist a good begging.  Just ask any bum in Chicago who has gotten food or change from me over the past couple of years.
All in all, this has been my most successful day yet.  My computer lives once again, I'm super tired so I know I'm going to sleep tonight, I got told to come back tomorrow at the Sorbonne (always a pleasure), and I had a near perfect French morning.  In fact if I knew a little more French I would honestly consider never moving back after a morning like that (sorry mom - good news though, I don't know any more French).  Well, I think it's time I polish off that bottle of wine I bought and start looking for dinner options.  I've been operating on two meals a day so far, so let's see if I can turn it around.





Au revoir

8 rue du repos

And now as I settle in to my desk, my apartment at a reliable, refrigerator-cold temperature, I type as quickly as humanly possible to update you on the past two days in the city of Paris before my battery dies and I go up that preverbal creek for perhaps the four or fifth time in my short stay here without a paddle (or a three prong adaptor).
My flight over from Copenhagen was forgettable, literally so, as after I finished reading what I could of the Herald Tribune I finally fell asleep and awoke to the muffled announcement of our soon to be textbook landing at Charles de Gaulle.  I easily found my way through the airport using my mastery of the French language (sortie -->) and gathered up my bag in no time (mine was the one with the bright orange "HEAVY" sticker on it).  After that I blazed through to the other side of customs and realized that no one had stamped my passport.  I wouldn't have been concerned only except that I was kind of hoping that after how many months of work somebody official would have noticed that I had acquired a visa, but, no, that wasn't the case. Actually, my real fear was that I was supposed to show a copy of my "stamped" passport to the immigrations office within a week of my arrival and I really wasn't looking to start of my journey with some bureaucratic oopsy.  As I devised a plan to get some one - anyone - to stamp my passport I switched over the last of my loose USDs over to euros at the currency exchange counter.  Then I meandered my way to the informations desk to inquire about my little stamp issue.  After some discussion in a speed of French that I had never realized was possible the three little ladies behind the counter assured me that the stamp I received entering in Copenhagen would be enough to prove I had arrived and that I should shuffle along.  Okay, fine.
I headed off towards the signs labeled "M et RER" and took a shuttle to the Metro station.  There I went up to the first counter I saw and purchased a carte d'orange, handing over one of my many dashing passport photos.  Total? 70E.  Dear god.  That's fine, that's perfectly fine - it's transportation, and I knew Paris would be expensive.  With this card I can get around all of central Paris with unlimited access for a whole month and then renew the same card later for cheaper.  D'accord.
A couple of quick observations.  One: If the French can help it they will always sit in the direction of travel.  Maybe not a huge observation, but something that I did notice immediately as almost all the opposite facing seats were unoccupied.  Two: The Parisians have discovered how to stop people from hopping turnstiles.  On the other side of the turnstile is a gate-like door that will not release unless the turnstile moves, so should you not pay and decide to hop, it would be a sad ending for you as your face met the hard plastic reality of French justice.  Though I should point out here that I "noticed" this, not "experienced" this.   Just in case Emily was confused when reading.
Getting to my place was easy enough, I rocked at figuring out the Metro (thanks mainly to an app I downloaded before I left), but once I got out onto the street I - how shall I say this - got lost.  Who designed this city?!  A half-blind parkinson's patient scribbling away at a piece of paper that had been placed carelessly on a potters table?  That is the picture that I'm getting.  But I digress.  The point is I asked some Parisians where rue du repos was and they had no idea, but they took a guess and they weren't far off.
When I got there I stood outside not knowing quite what to do next.  This was as far as my directions went and I was there at 6:45 on the dot (like I was told) with my overweight bag and bewildered gaze looking up and down the street for a woman that was supposed to meet me there.  After about four minutes the door opens and two teenage girls poke their head out.  I looked at them, they looked at me, a small black boy appeared from the bottom of the doorway sucking on a piece of crumpled paper, then finally one of them asks me something I do not understand.  What?  Blah, blah, blah, apartement?  Oui, apartement.  They smile and open the door, and I come into the entryway.  They ask me something else and I smile and say Je ne parle pas francaise.  This gets a smile from all three of them.  Parlez-vous anglais?  Non.  They shake their heads.  Good.  As we get up to another door one of the girls stops and puts her hands to her mouth and turns to the other.  The only word I can make out is "key".  Both girls look at me, I look at them, the little boy chews on the piece of paper, the hallway light turns off.  Now what?  The girl goes up to the com board and starts pressing buttons, but no one answers.  Me?  Oh, I just stand there smiling away, because why not?  Of course we're locked out.  Inside the apartment the keys are sitting all forlorn and left-out.  And out here?  Well, we're standing, feeling much the same way.
One of the girls goes and switches the light back on and then they begin talking, devising some way to get us back in.  One girl goes to a back door leading out into the central courtyard, the other keeps turning to me shyly saying "desole", and me I keep trying to remember how to properly say "It's fine" - if I say "c'est bon" will that mean it's good?  Because frankly it's not good.  It's not fine either, but at least I would be reassuring somebody.  I start thinking about that hostel information that I had looked up while at the airport and figure that maybe I should start heading that way to get a room for the night when finally, like the voice of god (if god spoke French very quietly), a man came through the speaker (figuratively).  The girl in front of me jumped and she ran to the com board "Allo?"  After a minute of confused conversation that I had the bliss of not understanding a man came down the stairs and let us in.
My place was nice, cold, but nice and I figured the cold would go away once I turned the heater on.  Poor silly me.
Here's the thing: as one of the girls was going over everything in the apartment, me not understanding a word, that little boy finally throwing that piece of paper away, she mentioned something about the heater and pointed to a button on the side.  I said "Oui", like I had a clue, and that was it.  She gave me the keys (which by the way consist of three locks (separate keys) on the front door, a swipey thing for the front and inside door, and two big bolt keys for the massive grate that comes down over my front windows and door) and she was off.  Said she would be back on Sunday to check in - hopefully with her father who speaks English.  Later that night as I decided it was getting too cold for words I went over to that radiator thing and pressed the button.  After a minute or so went by I could feel it heating up, but not much.  Ten minutes go by - still about the same.  After a half hour I'm like "Okay, what the hell" , cause nothing's happened, in fact I think it might have even gotten colder.  No worries - I'll check the web.  I've got an ipod and a computer (though no three prong adaptor - another story that I don't have the battery life for, ironic) and luckily there is internet (though the password to it is longer than the paper it was written on). But after hours of searching I couldn't find anything that explained how to make it work, though I did discover that there was supposed to be some kind of remote device to set the temperature.  That made sense, but I couldn't find one.  I started opening drawers and sure enough - a thermostat.  But it won't turn on?  I look at the manual, which comes in two convenient languages, French and Spanish.  Good.  A language I barely understand accompanied by one that I've never understood.  What I gathered from the pictures was that it needed batteries, so I whipped out my trusty multi-tool and went to work.  I even found batteries in the drawer next to it.  What did I find when I got the back open?  They were the wrong size batteries.  Okay...  So where can I get batteries?  By this time it was too late for most stores to be open so I decided to let the whole thing rest till morning.  I crawled into bed (fully dressed - scarf and all), set an alarm, and lay there like a stunned rabbit for a few hours before I realized there was nothing to it.  I wasn't tired.  I had bought some choice items from the grocery store hours earlier (chips, petite au chocolat bread things, a bottle of their cheapest wine - why not, and some microwavable mac-n-cheese - why? because I had a microwave and this was the only thing they had and no I didn't feel like cooking at that particular point in time) and so I turned on my light and went about nibbling on the remains and watching some Walking Dead on my iPod.  No netflix in this part of the world.  Sad, but I'm sure in the end healthy.  I did this for about 30 minutes or so and then turned off the light and tried everything I could to sleep.  My alarm was destined to go off at 6:45 and I wanted sleep.  And I got some.  When I finally did wake up, though, my clock said 2:00.  Okay, I guess I didn't get that much sleep.  But a quick peak at my window revealed daylight peaking in.  Two PM??  Damn.  How did this happen?  I'm going to need a new internal clock and a new external alarm.
With the dawn (I use this term lightly) came my renewed search for batteries.  I figured I'd blown my chance of having a really productive day so at least I could get my radiator working.
The short version is this (my battery screams for rest): I had looked up this electronic superstore the night before so that I could possibly find an adaptor for my computer - I was hoping that there I would also get batteries.  Lucky for me the store was in the Latin Quarter, right where my school is supposed to be so I figured I could kill two birds, learn the neighborhood and solve my electricity problems.  New problem: no store.  It wasn't where it said it was, which was in a place that was harder to find than the square root of pi without a calculator (bare in mind here I still hadn't picked up a map and my ipod's tireless searches for password-free wifi were fruitless).  The only thing I did manage to find was a grocery store which sold batteries (I tried the one by my place when I woke up - no dice), oh, and the river.  Which was nice.  Granted it was viewed through the lens of a very weary, confused, and awkward fish out of water who was tired of zigzagging through the poor city planning of Parisian backstreets.
Okay, seriously wrapping this up, and I'm sorry about writing about batteries - I swear other things have happened, but this has been my only goal for the past day and my mind is about as capable of multiplicity as my tongue - I didn't find an adaptor, found batteries, had a coffee though I really wanted food, but the guy didn't understand me or they weren't serving food or something (no one else was eating), but I had a coffee none-the-less, and turned on my thermostat, didn't do crap, no surprise, I can't work the one at home and it's in English, bought a sandwich, finally ate, still cold, unpacked, scanned through Rick Steves' travel phrases, cursed quietly, loudly, triple-locked my door (because I can!), drank a half bottle of wine (not bad for 2E), took a shower (it's just big enough to get cramped in), and now I'm done.  Phew.  Time to plan out tomorrow and figure out how to learn French ASAP.  Whoever said the French know a lot of English is lying or the French are lying to me about knowing English.  Either way somebody isn't telling the truth.  Nobody speaks it except at the tourist shop that I went into today to find a map and the first English I heard in awhile was "Sorry, we don't have maps".  Yes, I'm sorry, too. And a little shocked.  But my spirits are still somewhat high, and I'm sure I'll figure this out.  Don't want to leave this whole downward slope of a story on a bass note, so here's the kicker: I'm alive, I'm in Paris, and I'm going to check into the Sorbonne tomorrow.  Pretty cool (literally and figuratively).

God rejser!

This one will be quick.  Flight went well except my nose decided to continue running the entire time and I made a small fool of myself trying to open the salad dressing (peppercorn and ranch splattering the window).  I'm waiting now at the Copenhagen airport for my transfer flight over to Charles de Gaulle, but still haven't heard word back from my landlord as to whether or not he will be meeting me at my apartment later tonight.  I sent him an email yesterday letting him know that my flight had been switched, but no word yet.  I'm picturing satin sheets and an Eiffel Tower view might be in order - room service anyone?  I was always told lemon makes lemonade, so if some one is willing to wire me 300 euro we can make that sentiment a reality.  More realistically I might be crashing at a hostel tonight.  Need to figure that out quick.

By the way, why is this airport 98% shopping mall?  I would be half-tempted to splurge on some Burberry and tax-free cognac if I had any of that currency they claim to be using.  45 DKK for a latte?  I'm not sure if that's a deal or not.  I'm imagining not.  On the plus, everything is clean and updated (paid for in no small part by those lattes no doubt) and the employees are very accommodating and blonde.  I think I'd like to come back here.  I've got to imagine the exchange rate is at least a bit more favorable than the euro.  Maybe, I should save the satin sheets for a night in Denmark.

Okay, I promised quick, so here's quick.  Tootles.