Paris au printemps

Salut!
I must apologize for not updating for so long, but I promise the only things worth updating about have happened in the past two weeks. But what a busy two weeks! Just so you know, I'm in Italy right now, in Florence to be exact, but I'd rather just write about my mom and my aunt Missy's trip to France for now.

Two Saturdays ago I was really excited to wake up, get ready, grab my things and head to Paris on the TGV to see my mom and aunt...and then I promptly missed my bus to the Aix TGV station. But I took a taxi and made the train and the connection in Lyon. I really didn't know how I was going to find the two Shepherd sisters, but by some freak coincidence they were consulting a guide book, huddled under a cafe awning right beyond the stairs out of the Metro station! I don't think they even realized it was me at first, I was so happy to see them I kind of just pounced. We found the apartment we had rented, just a two minute walk from a Metro station and the Boulevard de Rennes, a perfect location in the Left Bank. And the apartment was very nice.

Missy and my mom were exhausted, having barely slept on the flight. I felt bad enforcing the number one rule of fighting jet lag in France: you MUST stay up til 8pm the first night. So we got some lunch-y food at a cafe and then walked around the 6th arrondissement a little bit, stopping at the Cafe Les Deux Magots, where Simone de Beauvoire, Jean Paul Sartre, and others used to sip out of tiny cups and eat tiny chocolates. It was a cool experience, and one that made me appreciate the customary 1,70€ I begrudgingly pay for a coffee in Aix. We saw the Seine, though it was dreary and drizzling, before heading back to the apartment.

My mom and Missy stayed up even a little past 9, so they were ready to go the next morning...in their own time. Apparently I'm not really capable of sleeping in anymore, at least not before these two weeks of vacation. The 'grownups' enjoyed what the French would call a grasse matinée, or a fat/lazy morning. We had some fresh croissants and jam from the market I found down the street. At any rate, we packed a lot in our first full day in Paris, including a nice walk through Saint Michel, my favorite part of Paris, and a tour of Notre Dame and Sainte Chappelle. We grabbed lunch in a very funky creperie in Saint Michel. I was very excited because it had galettes! Galettes are just like crepes but are made from a different batter using buckwheat flour (I think), and they're popular in Bretagne, including Nantes, where I studied last summer. Though I couldn't convince my dining companions that cider really was the way to go, they seemed to enjoy their galettes.

After lunch, we walked over to the Louvre to look at the exterior, then walking through the Jardin des Tuileries. Missy and Mom got a little catnap in the surprisingly comfortable chairs around one of the fountains. Then we headed off up the Champs Elysées towards the Arc de Triomphe. We were looking for a place to rest our feet and get a cup of coffee when we spotted an interesting pale green exterior on the less frequented side of the Champs. It just so happened it was a cafe called Ladurée (sorry, not sure if it's two words) known for it's incredible pastry desserts. I dove in for the chocolate, Missy chose a kind of religieuse (puff pastry with icing and filled with cream) with raspberries and rose-flavored cream, and my mom chose an awesome strawberry dessert. We finally made it to the Arc de Triomphe, and the sun had set below the treeline, leaving a pale orange backdrop.

Then it was off to the races again! We had reserved a table at a Corsican restaurant all the way back by the Louvre, near the Palais Royal. So we booked it. When I called the restaurant to explain that we might be a little bit late, the guy who answered the phone just said thank you and kind of laughed. I had a feeling the French aren't ones to go giving away tables when something as important as a pre-arranged, fine dining experience is at stake. The restaurant was great, live music, interesting decor, and excellent food. Not to mention the two sisters' running commentary on our two waiters, trying to get me to admit I liked one of them.

We walked back to the apartment, over the Seine, and fell into bed after our huge day. The next morning, not too early of course, we headed to the Louvre. We saw the must-sees, the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, Michelangelo's sculptures, and some things I either hadn't seen or hadn't noticed the last time I went. Our last goal for the Louvre was to see the Napoleon III apartments, which definitely lived up to my expectations. Ceilings dripping with chandeliers, furniture covered in gold and velvet, and a dining room table that might actually have been able to sit the entire Shepherd family.

In the afternoon, we went to the Jardin du Luxembourg, stopping to enjoy some French pastries (well I had to show them the best France has to offer, right?). I had been before and I like it better than the Jardin des Tuileries, but this time we found something I didn't see the last time. We found a boules league! Boules is the French game that is kind of like bowling on the greens or bocci ball, however you spell that. Except boules is on a sandy dirt surface. It's often called pétanque in the south of France, where it was invented. I've only ever seen really old men playing it, never women, let alone a 20 year old one.

For our last night in Paris, we went to a very nice restaurant in the 5th or 7th arrondissement, I forget which exactly, just whichever one has the Eiffel Tower. This outing led to by far the most memorable moment of the trip. When the waiter came to take our order I asked for the rognons de veau with tagliatelles, a kind of pasta. I figured rognon was some kind of round cut or something. Except...it wasn't. As soon as it was placed in front of me I knew I should have just clarified with the waiter what it was since now I had a plate full of what appeared to be either brains, intestines, or, as my mother tried to say reassuringly, sweetbreads. Now I may get some flack for not trying it, but I'm sorry, I don't do weird textures, and I knew all I needed to know when my mom tried it and all she said was "It's an interesting taste". I just ate the pasta and waited it out for tiramisu (it turned out to be excellent).

Before going back to the apartment we walked over to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night, but really I just wanted to know what rognons were. I ran up the six flights of stairs to our apartment and breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn't eaten any cow kidneys that night!

I'll leave it at that for now, next time I'll write about Missy and my mom's stay in Aix and hopefully at some point I'll get pictures up on Facebook from that trip and the one I'm on right now.
A bientot!
Maggie B.

Ce wifi de merde

Yes, I used a 'gros mot.' Sometime Monday morning the Wifi I had been mooching from a neighbor's unsecured Wifi network suddenly became secured, realizing one of my fears about living with a woman who doesn't even own a computer, let alone have her own wireless network. All is well, the institute has plenty of computers and, I'll be honest, I mostly use the internet for nonessential things (movies, TV, YouTube, I would go on but it would get rather embarassing).

My host mom seems to take delight in asking me what I'm doing without internet, to which I reply, very calmly, that I am typing up a book report for a class or am reading a new book. It seems even Marie-Do can't argue with the merit of reading a book in her native language.

Yesterday I learned how to make an apple crumble, which is kind of like apple crisp but less substantial and less complicated. It's just cut-up apples covered in a mixture of softened butter, flour, sugar, and cinnamon. I was glad to find out that the appeal of cooked apples with vanilla ice cream is transAtlantic, even if we didn't have any ice cream around this time.

I think it's so funny when Marie-Do says that things should be balanced, moderated, and light, and I think how much I crave certain American meals she would definitely not put in those categories. For example, she put what I would have characterized as the bare minimum amount of cinnamon into the crumble, because she didn't want the taste to be too strong. And apparently vanilla ice cream is perfectly suitable to go with apple crumble, and crême fraiche is a good substitute. Whipped cream, however, is simply "too sweet", absolutely out of the question. Marie-Do said the same thing when I described my mother's key-lime pie with whipped-cream topping, which I am reluctant to bring up again for fear that her judgment of what is widely considered to be a masterpiece (if you've had it, you can attest to that) will bring out my defensive side. Don't mess with family cooking, let alone desserts. However much I appreciate French food, I sometimes wish the French would loosen up. Sometimes in the winter a heavy alfredo sauce with parmesan on pasta is just the trick, and I don't think your tastebuds will scream from the overwhelming combination of apple crumble and a dollop of whipped cream. Call me crazy...

Classes are going well. We've had a steady stream of tests the past two weeks since we're passing the midpoint. And spring break is coming up! I can't wait. My mom and my aunt Missy are flying into Paris, where I'll meet them and we'll stay for 3 nights, and then we're coming back down to Aix for the rest of the week before they leave on Saturday. The second week of vacation I'm planning a Rome-Florence-Bologna trip. A Swedish girl from my class, Sofie, who's lived in Italy for 12 years is planning on coming with me, which will be perfect. She seems rather nonchalant about the planning ahead aspect, probably since it's no big deal to her to go from France to Italy. I'm looking forward to the break though, and afterward there are only two weeks of class! I can't believe it.
That's it for now, à bientôt!
Maggie B.

"Une cousine, grosse mais gentille..."

It is officially spring in Aix. It's sunny and warm and the Aixois who were reluctant to come out in the harsh, bitter cold of February (=40 degrees), fill the streets, cafés, and parks. And so do tourists, which is both amusing and painful to see. I'm at least an extended-stay tourist, which I tell myself is more respectable. It's interesting to see American tourists at their most stereotypical--comfy clothes, sneakers, et cetera--and, after being here for two months, understand why the French sometimes just don't get us crazy Americans.

I've already enjoyed complaining about tourists like a true Aixoise. Now, I've never needed an excuse to be bitter about minor inconveniences in everyday life. But my hostmom is the champion. Marie-Do has done some top-notch complaining, guilt-tripping, and nagging that would be hard, even for me, to replicate. Marie-Do is a good host mom. She's very interested in my experience here, she doesn't make foods I don't like, and she does my laundry. So it's important to know, I wouldn't write about her if I didn't find humor in her antics and if I didn't think my observations could give a little insight into the French mentality.

Marie-Do can talk forever about her health. The first time I met her she told me her glands were swollen. Recently it's her right eye (it's 'pulling,' she says, which I don't quite understand). She's a hypochondriac, as my program director says many French people are. The French are also more pessimistic than Americans. I didn't really think of Americans as being optimistic, but Marie-Do has made an optimist out of me. When I came back from Nice and Monaco and was describing the Bataille des Fleurs, she said "Oh! It's too bad you didn't go to Venice for their carnival." Same thing with Spain "Oh! It's too bad you didn't stay until Sunday." The number of times I've heard Oh! C'est dommage que....

I've gotten used to having the same conversations over and over with Marie-Do, because it's a courtesy, from what I've learned, to avoid silence or gaps in conversation. I think that goes for things like car rides, watching the news, and other times when Americans wouldn't necessarily be uneasy with an extended silence. Marie-Do is constantly asking--a more positive characterization than 'nagging' that I use for my own sanity--about my class schedule, my social life, what I'm doing this weekend, even though I told her yesterday, or often earlier that day.

When I say Marie-Do guilt-trips, I know it sounds bad. But maybe it's considered more polite to be passive-aggressive here. Okay, that doesn't sound any better. It's just something I've noticed, with Marie-Do and, to an extent, my host mom in Nantes, Roselyne. Maybe it's a French mom thing. Anyway, our upstairs neighbor, when he's home, constantly wears his shoes, which we can hear clicking on the floor. Marie-Do always says she's going to bring it up with him but that he's really very nice and she'll just 'mention it' or 'slip it in' by kindly suggesting that he wear slippers around the house. I won't recount the exact circumstances that led her to use this sneaky tactic to me, but it was artfully done, I must say. And, again, it wasn't as affronting as it sounds; I just laughed it off after.

I'll leave you with one amusing Marie-Do moment that happened just last night. Her ex-boyfriend took her out to dinner, but he came up to the apartment first to sit and talk a bit. This was the first I'd heard of him. This is not the ex-husband and father of her son, this guy was later. All I know is he is "very, very rich". So Marie-Do is babbling at him about everything going on in her life, her health problems, her efforts at home decorating, and her recent trip to Corsica. She's showing pictures of her extended family in Corsica, I couldn't see them but I was in the room. She gets to one of her and someone else and says "C'est ma cousine, grosse mais gentille." Translation: That's my cousin, fat but nice. I couldn't help but laughing, and neither could the very, very rich man.

That's it for now. I have an idea, though. If anyone is curious about some part of French culture or language I haven't written about, leave a comment. I'm no expert, but being in France means I can find an expert (okay, so maybe just Marie-Do) on whatever you might be interested in. So, comment!
A plus,
Maggie B.

Chez Van Gogh

Salut,
Yesterday was our Abroadco excursion to Arles, a small town about an hour northwest of Aix. We all took the bus to meet our program director, Pam, in Arles, where she first treated us to a much-needed coffee/tea/hot chocolate to wake us up at a café on the main drag.

Since it was a Saturday, we got to see Arles' very impressive morning market. I love the markets in Aix, but Arles' market is more concentrated and I think even more extensive than Aix's. It has everything: secondhand home furnishings and knickknacks (junk), clothing, art, pottery, and of course all manner of fruits, veggies, deli foods, baked goods, and prepared dishes. Pam took us on a quick walk through the market, warning us to keep our bags close in light of Arles' infamous gypsy population. But we would come back to the market on our own later, we were really headed to the Arles cemetery, called the Alyscamps.

The Alyscamps was one of the most important burial grounds in the Roman Empire. In it were buried over 80 generations. When a ship was sent down the Rhone River with a coffin, it was assumed it's destination was Arles. And when the man in charge of burials unloaded the coffin, he would find his payment of coins in the departed's mouth. Over time, the cemetery deteriorated. When Vincent Van Gogh came to Arles and invited Paul Gauguin to paint the cemetery in 1888, it was a meeting place for young local girls and soldiers.

Les Alyscamps, Paul Gauguin; this is the canal, now dried up, that runs alongside the Alyscamps and three women dressed in traditional costume. The dome in the background is the church that was added to the site in the Middle Ages.

Les Alyscamps, Vincent Van Gogh; this pathway towards the medieval church is still there, lined with ancient, deteriorating sarcophagi. Here a woman in traditional dress meets a soldier friend.

Following the tour of the cemetery, we had some free time to explore the market. My friend Annie and I took a stroll up the food aisle and soon hit the regional sauces and spreads section. We suddenly had tiny pieces of bread bearing pesto, tapenade, caviar of eggplant, anchovy spread, and who knows what else pushed into our soon greasy fingers. Before this experience, I was still hoping that I might somehow appreciate the integral provençal spread that is tapenade despite my hatred for olives. Alas, not so, but I wasn't about to refuse it from the eager-to-please and incredibly friendly vendors. I did like the 'caviar of eggplant' (surprised? me too). Moving on from the canned goods section, I bought half a kilo of strawberries that Annie and I shared in the park on the other side of the market.

After more wandering, we met Pam to go to our complimentary lunch. It was a nice restaurant with a generous 10€ formule for lunch. A lot of French restaurants have 'formules' for lunch and/or dinner that offer an entrée (remember, an appetizer not a main dish), a plat principal, wine, and coffee at a lower cost than they would all be 'à la carte' or separately. I got a copious green salad with a decent vinaigrette and an open face sandwich, called a tartine, with a decent tuna salad, or the French interpretation anyway. Think less mayonnaise, more celery.

Pam whisked us off to see more Roman and Van Gogh sites after lunch. We walked along the Rhone River and past the building that used to be a brothel. One of its prostitutes created a vicious rivalry between Van Gogh and Gauguin. As everyone knows, Van Gogh cut off his own ear for this woman, delivering it to the brothel in what I'm sure was a very tasteful box. Then we saw the Roman amphitheatre, which could seat 20,000, be evacuated in minutes, and during the Middle Ages was converted into housing for 200 households. Today it is the site of Arles' bullfights. Each year there is one bullfight in the Spanish style to open the season, but there are still provençal-style bullfights too, which sound very cool. The bull isn't killed, just tormented by a team of pests, basically, who work together to distract the bull so team members can grab one of the ribbons pinned in between the bulls' horns. I don't think I'll have the time to see one of these bullfights this trip, but maybe in the future. Pam said it's almost like a ballet.

Right next to the amphitheatre is the Roman theatre, the remains of which aren't that impressive but, like the other Roman sites in Arles, are still older than anything manmade I'd ever seen. Then we went to a Roman church. Also, an underground storage facility, or so anthropologists think, that might have been used to store wheat to feed Roman soldiers. Altogether, it's the size of a football field and used to follow the course of the Roman forum above ground, of which only two columns remain. Also in Arles is the café that inspired the Van Gogh piece Café terrace at night (it's the most expensive café in that particular square and also has the worst food..oh well). Finally, we visited the asylum where the painter was committed after the ear incident and once again after the town of Arles petitioned for him to be recommitted. Van Gogh wasn't the most popular guy in Arles, apparently.

It was a busy day, but I'm glad we had Pam to show us around and, especially, tell us interesting stories about the sights. I don't think I would necessarily recommend Arles as a must-see in Provence, though. I enjoyed it, but I also didn't have to pay for lunch or entrance to the monuments, which generally seemed a little overpriced. Also, the Roman sites are interesting but, understandably, are a little rundown, so if the Roman Empire doesn't interest you, it might be a bit of a letdown. I loved the market, though, and the town of Arles has done a great job of documenting Van Gogh's points of inspiration there, posting reproductions of his paintings in their corresponding locations.

I want to write a little bit about Aix in spring, since it's getting warmer and tourists are starting to come out. But this entry is already long enough, so check back soon. And here's the link for my Facebook album of Arles for more photos of the amphitheatre, the Alyscamps, and the Rhone River. Also you can click on the pictures in this entry to see larger versions.

Ciao, happy spring!
Maggie B.