December

20 American Things I'm Excited For

I love Paris, but since I'm going home for a month starting December 21st, I've been daydreaming about a number of American things during this end-of-the-semester-from-hell. As a sequel to my "Things I Will Miss About America" post, here are a few things that I'm looking forward to during my month home over the holidays.

1. The ability to buy shoes in my size
2. Taking elevators all day, every day
3. Driving all day, every day (Unless it's snowing)
4. Being able to use my credit card for small purchases
5. Huge grocery stores with everything you'd ever want in them
6. Snow (The excitement will be brief)
7. Chicken wings
8. Root beer
9. Cold beer
10. A major haircut
11. Free laundry- in the house! No carrying my laundry up and down my seven flights of stairs to Raspail          and paying 15 euros a load!
12. Not cooking
13. Curly fries
14. Central heating
15. The U.S. dollar
16. Space. I'm pretty sure my parents' house is bigger than my chambre de bonne!
17. Outdoor activities, like skiing, ice skating and sledding
18. Cookies
19. Playing the piano
20. One-stop shopping (Watch out, Target!)

November

Hands down, November was the quickest month to go by so far. I can't believe it's December. Here's my monthly video and another video update of life in Paris.

The Lucky Ones

   

     It's cloudy and crisp, the streets are a blur of black coats, near-white buildings and strings of blue lights. People kiss cheeks and duck out of cafes and kids are happily screaming in their school courtyards. Delivery trucks are unloading on the sidewalk. Parisians are dressed like it's colder than the five degrees Celsius that it is and rubbing their hands for warmth as they walk. Shoppers browse their way through high-end boutiques in this part of the sleepy seventh.

     It's Thanksgiving, but you'd never know it.

     Despite its American status, my school is open like any other day. I have class all day and papers to write. Instead of eating turkey and mashed potatoes all afternoon, I'm eating a sandwich and croissant. It's not weird to be skipping a traditional Thanksgiving, because don't forget: it doesn't exist here. It's just Thursday. It'd be much stranger to be away from home on Christmas since Paris has been in the holiday spirit for a month already and you can't avoid it (the Christmas lights here really are spectacular).

     Every year on Thanksgiving, my family and I sit down to our Thanksgiving meal--which is either enthusiastically home-cooked or ordered from a restaurant--and we start eating and talking around the table. I smile and everybody knows what I'm about to say: everyone go around and list what you're thankful for. Since I can't be at home, this is what I'd say this year:

I'm grateful, thankful, appreciative and glad to be living in my favorite city again, 
More and more everyday I'm realizing that it's always better to follow your heart than to do what you think people expect from you. Grad school isn't fun, but living abroad, meeting new people, staying out later than you should because you're too happy to just call it a night and feeling the accomplishment that you can make it not only on your own, but on your own on a whole different continent, in a different language and in a different culture is definitely fun. I've learned more by living in Paris than I ever have in a classroom. I'm thankful for all the help I've received along the way here because I know I'm one of a lucky few.

I'm thankful for the last seventeen years with my cat,
Here comes the cat shout-out. But honestly, most people don't get that many years with their favorite pet and I'll always be grateful that I was home in the summer with her when it was her time.

I'm thankful for airplanes,
I have four friends and family members coming to see me over the year, starting with my friend from high school, Ashley, next week. Plus, I get to go home for a month in mid-December. No matter how far away I am, I always think it's only a grossly overpriced ticket away. I'm so glad I'm able to spend the holidays at home, despite how much the cold is going to suck. I can't wait for bonfires, Minnesotan accents, real grocery stores and to party it up with everyone at home before another semester of doom (Okay, school's not that bad ).

and I'm thankful for you.
If you're reading this, I probably know you and therefore care about you. So thanks for existing. And reading.

Love,
Rachel

Jusqu'ici, tout va bien

 

     I don't really know how, but it's easy to forget how lucky I am to be living in Paris. Maybe it's because life here has become so routine that I forget that it's really the Eiffel Tower that I'm looking at from my desk when I'm typing out my papers and blog posts or that I forget if the conversation I just had was in French or English. When I'm falling asleep at night, the Eiffel Tower's search light lights up my room as it passes. Everything is just so normal, so quotidien, that I forget how far I am from home and that this, however comfortable it is, will never truly be my hometown. I cross the Seine like it's the Mississippi, but it's not. It takes looking at a map to really have it register in my brain that I'm over four thousand miles away from where I grew up. It's really humbling to constantly receive blank stares when you tell someone where you're from and they have no idea what it even is. I usually just agree with people when they think it's Indianapolis or that it's "the city with that car race." Basically my entire existence is lost on people here. Unless I tell them I was born in Texas.
     I haven't really blogged in a while because I'm such a perfectionist; if I can't write something perfectly, I lose interest. I just can't do it. This really applies to school. I feel like my brain is so muddled all the time and that I'm being pulled in so many directions that I can't be as productive as I need to be. My directed study adviser, after I was obviously struggling to stay awake during our one-on-one meeting, told me to eat more fruits and vegetables because "Il faut nourrir le cerveau comme les muscles." She's right. I can't realistically keep eating a baguette, a croissant and a ham-and-cheese sandwich for every meal (Yes, I ate all of those as one meal on Friday).
    This brings me to school. I have four or five weeks left until the semester is over and I have to write a twenty-page research paper, write a 5,000 word travel essay, write a travel feature article, prepare and teach a translation workshop, read two books and finish translating the article "La force des cultures" by Philippe d'Iribarne. Most of the time I feel like I'm treading water and my head keeps bobbing below the surface. And that is a horribly stressful simile because I'm terrible at treading water. I never passed all six levels at swimming lessons and had to retake level four three or four times. So this is how I feel about school, essentially--like I'm drowning.
     No matter how much I love Paris, I constantly think about how easy it would be if I didn't throw myself into this situation. What if I had just graduated from college, gotten a job and found an apartment? That definitely would've been easier than shelling out all the money to live in one of the most expensive arrondissements in one of the world's most expensive cities and less mentally taxing than having to say everything, however minor, in another language. I miss coming downstairs in the morning and people are happy to see me. But I was meant to be a drifter. I mean, the signs that I'd one day live abroad were already there when I was eight and writing travel journals.
     On Monday last week, I received an email that I would be having my OFII (Office Français de l'Immigration et de l'Intégration) medical appointment. This appointment is required for anyone staying in France longer than six months (correct me if I'm wrong) and is necessary for attaining your titre de séjour, which validates your visa. So if the whole CampusFrance and visa appointment process wasn't enough, I still had work to do. AUP's immigration services office continually reassured me that I had done everything correctly and that the OFII was swamped with an abnormal amount of applicants, so we all had to have patience. With one day's notice, I had to track down all the necessary documents (birth certificate, passport, take pictures in a Photomaton booth, buy 58 euros worth of timbres fiscaux, find my housing certification and pick up my convention from the immigration director), take off work and head to their office on the rue de la Roquette near Bastille for my medical appointment, which is just bullshit bureaucracy so the French government knows that I'm healthy and can stay in France and not infect their people. We were warned that if we missed this appointment, we would become "illegal citizens on the French territory" and thus be deported or fined or imprisoned if we were caught. Maybe all of the above. Unfortunately, with racial profiling as prevalent as it is in the U.S., the likelihood of me being asked for an ID by a police officer is relatively low, but nevertheless I didn't want to get my ass banned from France, so I made sure I was on time.

The required Photomaton photos for OFII

     The day was sunny and warm and I got to Bastille early. When I left the sortie, I started smiling--I really missed the place! My internship at French Travel Partners on the rue Amelot and the nightlife back in 2012 made Bastille a hub of memories for me. I don't spend a lot of time in the onzième anymore, so it's probably one of the few places in Paris that remains part of my study abroad experience and hasn't been changed by my current life here. I like that.
     The obvious thing for me to do with the awkward hour I had before my appointment was to head to my beloved Place des Vosges. I can't tell you how weird it is to realize that the last time I smelled the seafood coming from the Bar à Huitres on the boulevard Beaumarchais and turned the corner to see all the pigeons and kids and elderly people filling out the square--Paris's oldest--was more than a year and a half ago. It's some serious déjà vu and still a little sad for me that I'm the only one of my friends that came back. But again, I know I'm ridiculously lucky. The first time I ever came to the Place des Vosges, I was borderline map illiterate and constantly in fear of screwing up at my internship. I'd eat my croissant and ham-and-cheese sandwich, dropping about half my croissant on the ground accidentally for the pigeons and thinking I might not make it until the end of the semester. Sitting there now, on "my" bench (the third one in in the northeast corner) I was remembering how much I loved Paris then (despite my worries) and how I promised myself that I'd come back and do it all over again. I guess I'm pretty good at keeping promises.

Last lunch break in 2012 in Place des Vosges

I was such a professional at FTP

     The actual OFII appointment went just fine. It was my first experience with French doctors and overall they're really the same as American doctors; they're just a bit more nonchalant about privacy and tend to sit really close to you. I walked out less than an hour later with the sticker in my passport that basically says "Dude, it's alright. Rachel's with me." for anyone questioning why I'm here. I'm a resident of France now, kids!
     Other than work, school and residency appointments, I'm continuing to meet new people almost everyday, which is a beautiful part about living in a huge city. Thankfully, everyone we meet has been really enthusiastic about speaking both English and French with us and there's no shortage of good times. I miss everyone from home, but I'm doing my best to not let it be a crutch that prevents me from living out my dream of being here and meeting new people and learning about the world. I really wouldn't trade any of this for any other situation and someday I know I'll love helping people do what I've been fortunate enough to have done myself.

I miss you, you who's reading this, and if you're from Minnesota, see you in a month!

Love,
Rachel

Scroll down for my favorite pictures from the last few weeks. All my pictures are up on my Flickr.

Jardin du Luxembourg

Jardin du Luxembourg

Raspail station

Promenade Plantée, one of the spots Céline takes Jesse in Before Sunset

Bois de Vincennes

Café de Flore

Jardin du Luxembourg

Pont Louis Philippe

Christmas decorations on the Ile St-Louis

Fun times with friends

Paris in the Rain

Paris is the world's most amazing city. It's full of world-class architecture, art, food, parks, monuments and shopping. There are constantly new people to be meeting and new things to be doing and new cafés in which to be watching new people doing new things. Every day is a like an adventure, right? It's almost enough to put a dance in your step every time you step outside.

Almost. 

If only Paris had consistently beautiful weather to match. I'm hard-pressed to remember a day in the last month where it hasn't rained. And the rain is all fine and dandy when it's summer and you have nowhere to be and the water serves as air-conditioning (Because there sure is none of that in this town), but when it's all day, every day, blowing, cold, your shoes are sopping and your umbrella is flipping inside out, it's really not so beautiful.

It's just not, Woody Allen, however right you are about most other things about Paris.

Rachel

We'll Never Be Royals

"But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right or wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight." 

-A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

-------

     It's officially fall break and now I'm too tired to do anything. I was too tired to plan any sort of travel, so I'm left here in Paris (Horrible, right?). I'm so tired that lately I've been turning on light switches that are already on, getting on the wrong métro line twice and not noticing for a few stops and nodding off in class (that's nothing new). This tiredness is doing nothing for my French skills, either. Today in the St-Michel-Notre-Dame station, a French mother and daughter were asking me how to get to the Eiffel Tower. I knew exactly how to get there--take the RER C southwest and it doesn't matter which branch you take--but I had the biggest struggle explaining it to them. "Euhh...on prend le RER C et c'est pas important...euhhh..." I mumbled and gestured to nothing in particular. Whenever this happens-- I'm tired a lot, so often-- people start that dreaded smirk of Oh, you're cute, kid. You must not know any French. I'm going to go ask a real French person as soon as you walk away. And then I walk away, muttering Dammit, Rachel! out loud to myself and I'm sure if I'd look back, they probably always do stop a French person.
     Most of the time, I think I'm getting the hang of being a Parisian again. I'm doing a good job of wearing 98 percent black, keeping my slightly-pissed-off and disengaged composure in public (and avoiding laughing at all costs), paying in exact change whenever possible, letting my hair do what it wants to and remembering to have an umbrella on me at all times. I must look convincing because I get stopped constantly for directions (see above). The only time I break is when Americans stop me and nervously try to ask me where something is and I smile and respond in English. The look on their face of relief is really heartwarming. I'm always glad to help out a compatriot or two. I also break when musicians hop on my train and play cliché French songs because I can't resist cheesy accordion music. I usually start smiling and pretend I was just reading a funny text on my phone.

I did a great job today. The only color I wore was gray. If I wore a scarf, I'd be golden, but it is too effing hot for that.

     My phone. Hmm. My iPhone was stolen out of my hands in the middle of the night during a fog installation at Paris' annual arts and music festival, Nuit Blanche, at Place de la République (Here's my long-winded complaint about it). I was convinced that I would never, ever be pick-pocketed because I'm always extremely aware of my belongings. Even in my hometown in Minnesota where I'm sure there are no pickpockets, I always carry my bag in front of me and and glance around with shifty eyes. Having my phone stolen out of my hands was a huge blow to my street smarts confidence and kind of put me in shock. Paris is being harder on me than last time. If there is a silver lining, it's that I'm not so caught up in all that garbage--albeit fun garbage-- that you're convinced you need at your fingertips at all times: Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, email, etc. Now that I'm relegated to having the technological marvel that is the Blackberry Curve, I look at my phone only when I get a text. It's actually a little refreshing.
     Instead of playing on my phone on the métro, I've been doing a lot of reading. Right now I'm working on A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. I read it sometime in college before I did my Paris semester and it didn't really mean much to me, but I knew it should've. At that point, I'd only spent four days in Paris in my entire life, so references to the rue Mouffetard and the Brasserie Lipp meant nothing at all to me. Yesterday I was reading on line 12 and happened to be reading about Hemingway and his wife Hadley's apartment. I then got off at my stop, Notre-Dame-des-Champs, walked down the street of the same name to find their apartment at number 113, which to my disappointment, looks like has been replaced by a new building. I had been reading about how he'd walk down the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs to have a drink at La Closerie des Lilas, so I followed his path, hitting the boulevard Montparnasse. He also wrote about walking through "the little Luxembourg," which is the park below my apartment. It's weird how much time he spent in my neighborhood. I wonder who was living in my apartment at that time and if they ever saw him outside my window walking to Gertrude Stein's at 27 rue de Fleurus. His writing is so modern and relatable that sometimes I forget how long ago he was in Paris. But then he mentions cattle in the streets and Paris being affordable and it's obviously quite a while ago.
     Sometimes I pass tourists and I miss being one of them. They get to live in a wonderful dream, that fantasy that everyone has of Paris. They're immune to reality--I'm definitely guilty of this in other cities--and spend their time contenting themselves with overpaying for water at restaurants, blocking locals on the sidewalks by walking five people across and eating on the street without feeling the shame of eating on the go that you feel if you actually live here. I would love to spend a week in a hotel here just for the maid service and elevator and the possibility of a complimentary breakfast and I would love to stare unjaded at every building. I know there are far, far worse things in life than living in a chambre de bonne, but sometimes I get really tired of ants invading my Nutella jar, stubbing my toes on everything, carrying groceries up seven flights of stairs, being hungry all the time and dealing with water issues (My second water-related issue thus far is that right now I have no hot water so I've been taking ice-cold showers). But I live in Paris, so I can't complain. I've sacrificed a lot to be here, over 4,000 miles from home, because this is my dream. My surprisingly mosquito-infested dream (Yes, the Minnesota state bird thrives in my apartment via the Jardin du Luxembourg).

     Below is my October video that I prefer on Vimeo for no particular reason and pictures from the past few weeks.

Love,
Rachel

Place de l'Odéon

Dangling my feet over my terrace. Balcony. Whatever you want to call it. 

Reading some Balzac

The Canal St-Martin

Jardin du Luxembourg

Jardin du Luxembourg (Fall is admittedly prettier in Minnesota. The trees just sort of die here.)

View from my apartment

Walking in the 10th near the Canal St-Martin

Building in the 9th

Printemps department store

Raining on the Ile St-Louis

The Chemin de Fer de Petite Ceinture (abandoned train tracks in the 15th). I love the contrast of architecture styles.

The Chemin de Fer de Petite Ceinture

Ile St-Louis

Colorful posts on the rue Charlemagne in the 4th

I have a great view of the sunset each day

Enjoying some American time thanks to Skype and the Thanksgiving store

Champagne Supernova

I, admittedly, haven't seen much of France outside of Paris. It's a little strange that I've seen much, much more of Italy, for example, than France. Last year, I spent a weekend in Marseille and Arles and went on a day trip to Giverny with Central, as well as an awesome hiking trip to Fontainebleau on my own with friends, but other than that, I know nothing about France outside of Paris firsthand. Quel dommage! I see this as a real problem, because it's like only visiting New York in the States (I hate when people say 'the States', but I just did it.). When Parisians realize I'm American (Which takes all of two seconds), they immediately start confessing their love for New York (And sometimes California) even if they've never been there. When I say that I'm actually from Minnesota, I think I burst their bubble. It really peeves me that New York is somehow a microcosm of the U.S. for foreigners in the same way that Paris is for France. In reality, most Americans are NOT from New York and don't live that lifestyle and I think the same goes for the French in regard to Paris. It seems like I'm constantly defending and promoting Minnesota, but I think it usually falls on deaf ears (I think Parisians are just not interested in our lakes or freezing your ass off in the nearly year-round snow).

I sometimes find myself wishing I had just gone the TAPIF route and been placed in a small town in the middle of nowhere just so I can have that alternate experience of France. But I love Paris too much, so I couldn't let that happen. Yet. Maybe another time, since the program allows you to do it until you're 29. But by 29, I should maybe try to have my life a little more put together (Or not. We'll see where I'm at when the time comes. A wise philosopher once said, "YOLO." and I've taken that to heart).

Anyway, my point is that this past weekend, the graduate students went on a day trip to Reims, at the heart of the Champagne region and I loved seeing more of France. There was so little time to see or do anything, so after our two-hour bus ride in, we immediately went to Notre-Dame de Reims, a beautiful thirteenth-century Gothic cathedral whose structure resembles Notre-Dame de Paris, but whose façade is much more ornate. We also saw the Basilique Saint-Remi de Reims, which I actually enjoyed more due to the lack of tourists and a choir practicing in the back. I am such a sucker for European churches. I'm starting to get a little jaded when it comes to their aesthetic beauty, but it just floors me how old they are and to think of how many generations have spent their time- very personal time- in them. I also love them because they're free.

The rest of the day, we spent at the French Champagne house, Pommery. Again, clearly knowing nothing about France at large, I was expecting a Champagne house to be in the countryside and to be able to see the actual fields where the grapes are produced, but Pommery is well within the bounds of the town. I'm learning.

We had a tour of the cellar, where an astounding 28 million bottles are currently stored. Shit! Think about that. Like really think about it. If I did my Googling  math right, that's more than five bottles of Champagne for every Minnesotan. I've done winery tours before (In Italy and Greece), but nowhere near as massive as Pommery.

So here are the photos I took while in Reims that don't really do it justice.

Love,
Rachel

Notre-Dame de Reims

Notre-Dame de Reims

Notre-Dame de Reims

Notre-Dame de Reims- the windows were done by Marc Chagall in the 1970s

Notre-Dame de Reims

Notre-Dame de Reims

Notre-Dame de Reims

Reims

Basilique Saint-Remi de Reims

Reims

Pommery

Pommery

Pommery

Pommery

Pommery

Pommery- this wall engraving was done under candlelight and took a year to complete.

The oldest Pommery Champagnes

Pommery

Pommery